Juliet McKenna - The Assassin's Edge

We heard a determined thump as someone jumped that last deceptive step. A second thud and a third joined whoever had drawn the reversed rune and come down first. Emboldened by the fact they weren’t yet dead, the newcomers risked some light. A torch flame traced an orange thread around the stone protecting us. I couldn’t make out what the muffled voices said but their puzzlement was plain enough as was an encouraging undercurrent of consternation.

“Honoured dead, forgive this intrusion.” A stern voice made us all stiffen. Someone with authority had arrived. A chill gathered like cold sweat in the small of my back as this new voice began what could only be an aetheric chant. What had Sorgrad said about a second way out of this death trap?

“Where am I?” The cry froze the blood in my veins and the enchanter’s incantation died on a strangled gasp.

“What do you want?” This second voice was lower and resonant with the rhythms of the Sheltya that Sorgrad had mimicked.

“Where am I?” repeated the first frightened voice and, gathering my wits, I realised it spoke old Tormalin, the tongue of the original settlers. It was a solid gold certainty that these Elietimm in the charnel chamber had no notion what it was saying.

“Is that you?” It was another lost Tormalin voice and I felt Ryshad go rigid beside me. This was a bad enough place for him to find himself in without people from the shades that had so nearly claimed him joining us.

“What do you want with us?” That was the Elietimm bones again, this time several voices resonating through the stone. I screwed my eyes shut but it was no good. I couldn’t close my mind’s eye on a vision of dry skulls talking, jawbones flapping like some ghastly marionette.

“Where are the people we seek?” That was the enchanter leading our pursuers, his voice was strained with what I sincerely hoped was panic at what he’d started with his incautious Artifice. Gripping Ryshad’s hand, I wished fervently for a chance to strangle the bastard with his own gorget.

“Lost, so long lost.” The ancient Elietimm sighed, more voices joining in their lament and sinking the words beneath meaningless ululation.

“I cannot see!” A Tormalin wail rose above the murmur, prompting another despairing cry. “Are we dead?”

“The darkness, oh, the darkness. I cannot bear it!”

That voice was in the hollow with us. I swear my heart missed a beat and the hairs on my neck bristled like a startled cat. By the greatest good fortune or Misaen’s blessing, all five of us jerked so hard in our instinctive desire to flee, we effectively stopped each other from moving at all. Then fear of discovery overrode fear of the disembodied voice and we all froze, still as hiding hares again. Blood pounded in my chest so hard I was surprised not to hear the sound echo back from the stones. The artefacts hidden in my jerkin weighed down on my hollow stomach like lead and a bruise where someone had kicked my leg throbbed.

“The darkness is peace.” The Elietimm bones outside offered rebuke not comfort.

“The darkness is ours.”

“The darkness is knowledge.”

“The darkness is ours to hold and defend.” The menace grew as the voices came thick and fast. The only good thing to be said about that was the noise drowned out the incoherent voice trapped with us.

“Who challenges us?” The dusty rasp had a ring of ritual, something to be said before formal battle or a duel to the death.

“You are demons!”

“We are forsaken.”

“We are lost!”

“Is there no light? Where is the light?”

The Tormalin frenzy nearly, but not entirely, drowned out the sound of boots hammering on the stone steps as the Elietimm who’d pursued us into the chamber broke and fled. If I hadn’t had someone pinning my legs and Ryshad between me and the way out, I’d have followed them and be cursed to the consequences.

The Elietimm voices were shouting now, Tormalin shrieks cutting through the clamour.

“Sorgrad!” I hissed into the darkness. “You said there was another way out.”

“I said there might be,” he retorted. “If there is, I can’t find it.”

“Use some magelight and look harder,” I told him forcefully.

“I’m not going out through that lot,” ’Gren said with complete certainty.

“I’m not raising any elemental magic until I know how they’re going to feel about it,” stated Sorgrad tightly. “Sheltya ban anyone mageborn from even approaching a tyakar and I’ll bet they’ve good reason.”

“Can shades actually harm the living?” Shiv managed a wizardly tone of detached enquiry for the first half of his question then his voice cracked with concern.

“I’ve no intention of finding out.” Ryshad’s voice was harsh and I caught the scent of fresh sweat. Then I realised my own forehead and breast were damp with cold apprehension.

“Isn’t there any Artifice you can use, Livak?” Sorgrad asked with commendable calmness.

“How am I supposed to read it in the dark?” Besides, the parchment in my pocket might as well have been blank, for all I could remember of what was written on it. The chaotic sounds outside rose to a higher pitch and the voice in with us started a low keening like an injured cat.

I hadn’t been so terrified since I was a child. This was worse than waking to the impenetrable cold of a winter’s night with the candle stub guttered and me scared of the dark but more scared of what might be waiting if I got out of my truckle bed or what might be roused if I called out for someone. At least back then, my mother always had an ear for me stirring and would appear with a fresh light, putting the shadows to flight with no-nonsense reassurance mixed with rebuke. My father, on those rare occasions he stayed with us on his travels, would use a song, turning the darkness into a comforting blanket wrapping me round. That song was a Forest song, no jalquezan that I could recall but anything was worth a try.

“Let’s run quickly, quickly, quickly, let’s run quickly,

little lass,

Let’s run quickly, quickly, quickly, let’s run quickly,

little lass,”

Breath all ragged, I missed more notes than I hit in the old lullaby but I persevered doggedly.

“For the trees still cluster thickly and the shades of night

are gathering,

Let’s run quickly, quickly, quickly, let’s run quickly,

little lass.”

Shiv’s tuneless voice told me the song had a place in the remote Kevil fens. He matched me in slowing the pace of the jaunty tune to match the words.

“Not so fast now, fast now, fast now, not so fast now,

little lad,

Not so fast now, fast now, fast now, not so fast now,

little lad,

See the moons and stars above us and the shades of

night are stilling,

Not so fast now, fast now, fast now, not so fast now,

little lad.”

Ryshad’s murmured version had a few different words and turns to the tune but the gist was the same and I fervently hoped that was all that mattered.

<>Walk more slowly, slowly, slowly, walk more slowly, oh

my love,

Walk more slowly, slowly, slowly, walk more slowly, oh

my love,

See the lantern in the window as the shades of night are

settling,

Walk more slowly, slowly, slowly, walking slowly, oh my

love.”

I left the story to the others and concentrated on the soft harmony my father added as soon as I was old enough to carry the tune myself, just in case that’s where the Artifice lay. The brothers lent their voices; ’Gren picks up a tune as easily as he pockets anything else.