The Dark Remains (37 page)

As far as Aryn could tell, the sewers ran for leagues beneath Tarras. Many of the tunnels were obviously ancient and unused, and those were not so terrible to tread, aside from being musty and littered with broken tiles that were treacherous underfoot. A few times she reached out with the Touch, and she sensed the threads of many lives not far down tunnels that branched to either side. And she sensed eyes watching them out of the dark as well. After a while she stopped reaching out to the Weirding.

It was when they were forced to traverse a newer—and still actively used—section of the sewers that their trek turned more nightmarish. They waded through dark water that came up to their knees, so that Aryn’s gown floated out around her. It was not the only thing floating in the water. And things swam in it as well. More than once she saw sleek, wriggling forms fleeing the circle of light cast by Durge’s torch. The stench was fierce and relentless, so that breathing was torture.

When Aryn dared to cast a thread out to the Weirding, she sensed no human lives nearby, only the rats in the water. She supposed those who dwelled beneath Tarras and knew its ways had no need of symbols to find the temple of Geb. The signs were for visitors only, and no doubt by intention led through the most unpleasant ways. Aryn was certain none of the followers of Geb frequented this tunnel themselves.

At last the passage ended, and they had trod dryer ways, soon coming upon a cavernous, echoing space that
could only be the temple of Geb. Tiled columns rose to a vaulted ceiling that was lost in shadow despite the flickering light of hundreds of candles. Weathered boards and crates were arranged into makeshift benches before a rude altar atop which stood a wooden likeness of Geb: a thin man with the head of a rat.

Unfortunately, their journey to the temple proved to be far from worth the smell and trouble. Few of Geb’s followers were in the temple. Most had fled deep into the sewers, fearing hunts and reprisals now that their god was no more; that was why Aryn had sensed so many lives hidden in the tunnels. Without a god to protect them, there was nothing to stop others from doing what they wished with the city’s outcasts. Sympathy blossomed in her heart. These people had little enough to begin with; now even that had been taken from them.

My lady
, Durge had said in a hoarse whisper,
I think it is best if we leave now. I do not believe we are … wanted here
.

Sympathy had drained from Aryn, replaced by dread. Quickly she reached out with the Touch. Yes, there were eyes upon them again. Angry, suspicious eyes. She grabbed Durge’s hand, and together they hurried back the way they had come.

By the time they reached the streets of Tarras, they were so filthy and reeking that people scrambled to get out of their way. Aryn knew her gown was ruined, and the only other garment she had was far too heavy for the warm climate of Tarras. What was she going to do?

Despair turned to elation when they stepped into their room at the hostel and discovered that Melia had bought new clothes for all of them.

I had a feeling you might be needing these
, she had said, her small nose wrinkling.

Aryn had soaked for at least an hour in the marble tub in the bathing chamber, sprinkling flower petals and
scented oils in the deliciously warm water. Now she felt fresh and light in the dress Melia had bought for her: a gauzy confection of sky-blue fabric that, for all the manner in which it flowed about her, was surprisingly modest and simple to move in. Lirith wore a similar dress of bright yellow, a striking contrast to her dark skin.

Aryn’s spinning did not go unnoticed.

“I believe that gown suits you, sister,” Lirith said.

Aryn curtsied low. “Why, thank you, sister. And may I say that you look lovely in yours.”

Lirith smiled, but the expression was fleeting, and she turned her head to gaze out the window. Was something wrong?

Before Aryn could ask, the door to the bathing chamber opened, and Durge stepped out. At least she
thought
it was Durge.

The knight had shed his customary heavy gray tunic and instead wore the new attire Melia had bought for him: a pair of billowing, sea-green pants that were gathered at the waist and ankles, and an open vest of dark purple. He tucked a dagger into a black-leather belt slanted across his hips. However, it was not really his clothes that made Aryn stare.

She had never seen quite so much of Durge before. His bare arms were chiseled like those of a statue, and the thick, dark hair of his chest swirled in circular patterns. She could count the muscles of his stomach as if they were precisely lined paving stones in a Tarrasian road.

Durge frowned, apparently noticing Aryn’s attention. “Is something amiss, my lady? I suppose I’ve managed to get these trousers all wrong and look the fool for it. I fear I couldn’t tell which was meant to be the front and which the back.”

He had trimmed his mustaches and shaved his cheeks, and his wet, brown hair was slicked back from his brow. The soft glow of late afternoon through the curtains softened the crags and valleys of his face.

“Durge,” Aryn breathed, “you’re so … that is, I mean, you look …”

Melia drifted forward. The lady still wore a white kirtle, but it seemed lighter than before, almost translucent, and trimmed with fine silver thread.

“I believe Aryn means to say that you look very manly, Durge.”

He glowered as he plucked at his gauzy pants. “That is passing strange, my lady, for I do not feel particularly manly at the moment.”

“Just trust me on this one, dear.” She squeezed his arm, and her eyebrows rose. “Falken, perhaps you should grow muscles like this.”

The bard snorted and strummed a sour note on his lute. “Only if I can get them drinking ale.”

Falken also wore new clothes courtesy of Melia: pants like those Durge wore, only soft gray in color, and a loose-fitting shirt of azure cloth belted at the waist. While more slender than Durge, Falken was in fact lean and wiry. He had shaved as well, and he looked striking in his new clothes, if still a bit wolfish and wild around the edges. However, the bard only held Aryn’s attention for a moment.

What is it, sister?
spoke a voice in her mind.

Aryn realized she was staring at Durge again.

It’s nothing
, she spun the words back across the Weirding.

She started to feel a question return to her, but she hastily snatched back her thread and turned toward a sideboard to pour herself a glass of wine. However, as she sipped the cool liquid, she wondered. Why had she been gawking so rudely at Durge?

Or course—she was simply surprised to see a man of Durge’s advanced years looking so hale. After all, he was past his fifth-and-fortieth winter now. Yet she knew his greatsword weighed half as much as she did; no doubt swinging it kept him in good form. And she was glad for
the fact, for Durge was her friend, and she wished him to remain well and hearty for many years to come. Satisfied with her explanation, Aryn downed the rest of her wine.

“So were you granted an audience with the emperor?” Lirith asked. Melia’s kitten had sprung up into her lap and was playing with a corner of cloth from her gown.

Melia let out a sound that might have been any number of different words, none of them particularly pleasant.

“You can take that as a
no
,” Falken said. “How about some of that wine, Aryn?”

She hastily poured two cups for the bard and lady.

Durge started to sit, seemed to get momentarily tangled in his pants, then hastily stood again. “I find it puzzling that Emperor Ephesian would turn you away, Melia, given your … er, your stature here in Tarras.”

“Ephesian would never turn me away,” the lady said. “He wouldn’t dare! He knows what I did to his greatgrandfather, Ephesian Sixteen.”

Aryn gulped. “And what was that?”

Melia’s lips coiled in a smug smile. “Let’s just say he never sat on his throne again without using an extra cushion.”

“I don’t understand,” Lirith said. “If Ephesian respects you, Melia, why weren’t you granted an audience?”

Falken answered. “Because that little wart in expensive clothes—excuse me, I mean the Minister of Gates—wouldn’t even let us into the First Circle. Nor would he relay our message to the emperor.”

“But Melia,” Aryn said, “couldn’t you have just, you know,
tampered
with the minister?”

“I’m afraid that’s frowned upon here in Tarras, dear. A god tends to get touchy when you meddle with one of his followers. There’s such competition for disciples in the city that everyone gets a bit possessive. And the Minister of the Gates wore the emblem of Misar.”

“Misar?” Durge rumbled. “Who is that?”

Melia let out a pained sigh. “The god of bureaucrats.
So believe me when I tell you Misar is a stickler for rules. Much as I would have liked doing so, I couldn’t try anything to influence that horrid little man.”

“So now what?” Lirith asked.

“Now I must see if I can find other means of getting a message to Ephesian. If I can, then …”

Melia’s words faltered, and she lifted a hand to her brow.

Falken moved to her side. “The headache again?”

She gave a shallow nod. “Do not fear. I am certain it will pass as quickly as the others.”

Aryn gave Lirith a concerned glance. Since when had Melia been getting headaches?

Falken helped Melia into a chair, then looked up at the others. “I would be pleased to hear that the rest of you had better luck than we did.”

Unfortunately, they had not. Together, Aryn and Durge related their foul and fruitless trek into the sewers beneath the Fifth Circle.

“All of the followers of Geb are in hiding,” Aryn said in finish to their tale. “They’re afraid they’ll be killed now that they’re without a god. I suppose I can’t blame them. But we didn’t find anything at all helpful.”

“I did find this,” Durge said. He tossed a gold coin into the air and caught it again. “I saw it as we made our way through one of the more malodorous passages. Although I confess, it seems odd to find money in a sewer. Nor does it do us any good.”

“Odd indeed,” Falken said. “May I see that, Durge?”

The knight handed him the coin. Falken turned it over in his hand. “It’s blank—there’s no imprint on either side.”

Durge nodded. “I imagine it has been worn smooth by time. Most likely it has lain there for centuries.”

“Maybe.” Falken handed the coin back to Durge.

“What about you, Lirith?” Aryn said. “What did you learn from the goldsmiths?”

Lirith pushed the kitten from her lap and stood. “That if Ondo is anything like his followers, then nearly everyone in the city would have motivation for murder.”

They listened as Lirith recounted her numerous unpleasant conversations on the Street of Flames. When her words trailed off, she looked once more out the window. She gripped her gown, knotting the fabric in clenched hands.

Aryn moved to the witch. “What is it, Lirith? Something’s wrong, something you haven’t told us.”

At last Lirith turned back, her dark eyes grim. “I was attacked on my way back here.”

They all listened with growing horror as Lirith told how a man in a black robe—a man she had glimpsed as they disembarked from the
Fate Runner
—had thrown a knife at her before fleeing.

“I don’t know why he ran,” Lirith said, gazing at her hands. “Surely he meant to kill me, but for some reason he fled before he could throw his second knife.”

Aryn knelt beside her and placed her good hand atop Lirith’s.

Melia moved toward them, her expression grave. “Did you not … sense anything, dear?”

Lirith sighed. “I believe I did sense another presence, but I couldn’t be sure. You see, there was … something else I saw in the Weirding just before I was attacked.”

Aryn felt Lirith’s flesh go cold beneath her hand.

“What is it, sister?” she gasped.

Lirith looked up, her eyes haunted, and Melia nodded.

“You’ve seen it again, haven’t you?” Melia said.

Aryn gripped tighter. “What does she mean, Lirith? What did you see?”

Lirith licked her lips, then spoke words that made Aryn’s breath cease in her lungs.

“I have seen a tangle. A tangle in the threads of the Weirding.”

Two days later, Durge awoke to cool silver light.

At first he could not tell whether it was late or early. Darkness never seemed to fall in this city, not completely; even in the deep of night, the white buildings reflected the light of the moon, the stars, and numberless torches, imparting a paleness to the air so unlike the inky, impenetrable nights that fell upon the Dominions. Durge did not like the eerie citylight; it made him think of ghosts.

But they are not here, Durge of Stonebreak. Nor are they anywhere save beneath the hard soil of Embarr, and well over a score of years buried at that
.

However, if that was so, why had he seen them so clearly in Ar-tolor? Maere and little Durnem, looking just as he remembered, except blanched of all color, all life. And so sad; he had never remembered her looking so sorrowful, even when he told her the king had ordered him on patrol of the northern borders, that he would be gone all the summer and the autumn—but no more—and that he would return to her with the first snow.

Promise me one thing
, she had said, pressing her hands to his cheeks.
All the king’s knights are so somber, as if the price to win their swords was their smiles. Promise me that you won’t come back grim like them
.

It had seemed such an odd request, but never had he refused her anything.

I swear it by my heart, Maere
.

However, he did not return with the first snow. A large band of wildmen had moved south with the coming of winter. It was Falken Blackhand who had warned Embarr’s king, and that was how Durge first met the ancient bard. Durge’s patrol was given the task of sending the wildmen fleeing back north. It wasn’t until Midwinter’s Day that he finally returned to his manor at Stonebreak. And he found two fresh graves waiting for him, one large, one small.