Энтони Райан - Queen of Fire

The master nodded, drinking from the bottle and passing it to the slave. The man cast a cautious eye at Twenty-Seven before taking a swift drink, returning to his work with determined haste. Alucius retrieved the bottle, removing the stopper and sniffing the contents. Just water.

“I hear tell of a hidden stock of wine,” he told Benril. “If you would care for some.”

“Wine dulls the senses and makes the mediocre artist imagine himself a great one.” Benril spared him a hard glance before returning to his work. “A truism with which you are intimately acquainted, I believe.”

“It has been, as ever, a great pleasure, Master.” Alucius gave an unheeded bow and returned to the ladder, pausing to cast an eye over Benrilʼs bony but still-strong back, his rope-thin, muscle-knotted arms moving in expert rhythm as they worked the stone. “There was one other thing,” he added. “It seems Master Grealin had taken up with a band of fighters in the forest. You recall Master Grealin? Great, fat fellow who minded the Sixth Orderʼs stores.”

“What of it?” Benril asked, continuing to chisel away.

Alucius kept his eyes on Benrilʼs hands. “He died.”

It was barely a slip, merely the slightest irregularity left in a carving of wondrous execution. But it was too deep to sand away, a timeless testament to a brief lapse of concentration.

“Many have died,” Benril said, not turning. “With many more to come when Lord Al Sorna gets here.”

The portly slave dropped his rasp, casting a fearful glance at Twenty-Seven before quickly retrieving it. Nearby, one of the overseers turned towards them, his hand going to the coiled whip at his side.

“Please have a care, Master Benril,” Alucius told him. “I take no pleasure in the prospect of describing your death to the woman I love.”

Benril still refused to turn, his hands once again moving with the same effortless precision. “Donʼt you have some wine to find?”

It took several attempts before he identified the correct ruin, unearthing a blackened wooden sign from beneath a pile of tumbled brick, the lettering burnt to nothing but the crudely rendered image of a boar visible through the scorching. “Yes,” he agreed with Twenty-Seven. “I am fully aware this is probably a foolʼs errand, thank you. Help me shift this stone.”

They worked for over an hour before he found it, clearing rubble away from the floorboards to reveal only a faint outline under the dust; a rectangle about a yard square. “A bottle or two of Wolfʼs Blood would indeed be very welcome,” he told Twenty-Seven, wiping the dust away to reveal the hidden entrance, his fingers probing the edges. “Too tight a fit. Use your sword to prize it open.”

Twenty-Seven went about the task with his usual unhesitant obedience, jamming his short sword into the edge of the door and levering it up, the strain of the effort plain in the bulge of muscle on his arms, though his face remained as impassive as ever. Alucius took hold of the edge of the door as it came free, hauling it open all the way, revealing a horizontal drop into blank darkness.

He had had the foresight to bring a lamp and lit it now, then lay flat to lower it into the opening, the yellow glow illuminating only a tunnel of rough stone, free of any telltale gleam of glass.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I donʼt fancy it much either, my friend. But a man must follow his passions, donʼt you think?” He moved back from the hole and waved at the slave. “You first.”

Twenty-Seven stared back and said nothing.

“Faith!” Alucius muttered, handing him the lamp. “If I die down there, theyʼll whip you to death. You know that, I trust.”

He took hold of the edge of the hole and lowered himself in, hanging from his fingertips then dropping into the blackness below, finding the air musty and stale. Twenty-Seven landed nimbly at his side a second later, the lamplight illuminating a tunnel of uninviting length.

“There best be some Cumbraelin red at the end of this,” Alucius said. “Otherwise I shall be forced to say some very harsh words to Aspect Elera. Some very harsh words indeed.”

They followed the tunnel for no more than the span of a few minutes, though the echoing footfalls and absolute dark beyond the limit of the lampʼs meagre glow made it seem considerably longer, as did Aluciusʼs growing conviction that there was no wine to be found here. “I donʼt care what you insist upon,” he hissed at Twenty-Seven. “I will not simply turn back now.”

Finally the tunnel opened out into a broad circular chamber, Alucius drawing up short at the fine brickwork contrasting with the rough stone walls of the tunnel. The chamber was ringed by seven stone pillars and shallow steps descending to a flat base in the centre of which stood a long table. Alucius went to the table, playing the lamp over the surface and finding it free of dust.

“On second thoughts,” he said. “Perhaps you have a p—”

A sudden whisper of disturbed air and the lamp shattered in his hand, flaming oil scattering onto the stone before blinking out, darkness descending with dreadful speed. Alucius heard Twenty-Sevenʼs sword scrape free of its scabbard then nothing, no clash of steel or grunt of pain. Just the darkness and the silence.

“I…” he began, swallowed and tried again. “I donʼt suppose you have any wine.”

Something cold and hard pressed against his neck, positioned precisely above the vein he knew would see him dead in a few heartbeats should it suffer even a small puncture. “Aspect Elera!” Alucius said in a rapid exhalation. “She sent me.”

A pause then the blade disappeared from his neck. “Sister,” a female voice said, smooth and cultured but also hard and clipped. “Light the torches. Brother, donʼt kill the other one just yet.”

“Alucius Al Hestian.” The young woman regarded him from across the table with a steady and not especially welcoming expression. “Iʼve read your poems. My master thought them the finest works of modern Asraelin verse.”

“Clearly a man of some taste and education,” Alucius replied, casting a furtive glance at Twenty-Seven, crouched into a fighting stance, his sword moving back and forth in a slow parody of combat. On either side of him stood a man and a woman, both young like the woman seated at the table. The woman was plump and short with a large rat perched on her shoulder. The man was taller, well-built and wearing a heavily besmirched City Guard uniform. The plump woman regarded Alucius with a faint smile whilst the guardsman ignored him, staring fixedly at Twenty-Seven and his slothful sword play.

“Actually,” the young woman at the table said, “I found them cloyingly sentimental and overly florid.”

“Must have been my early work,” Alucius said, turning back to her. Her face was finely featured, a narrow aquiline nose and a softly pointed chin, her hair a pleasing shade of honey blond, and her eyes set in a cold stare of hostile appraisal.

“Your fatherʼs a traitor, poet,” she stated.

“My father is forced to hateful duty by his love for me,” he returned. “Kill me if you would have him abandon it.”

“How noble.” The young woman spread her fingers on the table where a line of small steel darts were arranged in a neat arc. “And a wish easily granted, should I find you less than honest.”

The plump woman came forward, her rat running the length of her arm to jump onto the tabletop, scurrying over to Alucius, snout raised to sniff at his sleeve. “Donʼt smell a lie on his sweat,” she advised the young woman in coarse, street-born tones.

“My sweat?” Alucius asked, feeling a fresh trickle of it trace down his back.