The Copper Promise Read online

  Sebastian did so, pressing his hand to the wall. It was cool, just as though the Citadel did not crouch under the punishing sun every hour of the day, but there was something else too … a vibration? Sebastian frowned, trying to place it, but Frith stepped up next to them and whacked the wall with his stick.

  ‘We are not here to caress the Citadel, we are here to crack it. Where is the nearest entrance?’

  Sebastian took his hands away, trying to ignore how the stones had unsettled him. He took the unfinished map from his belt and unfolded it to the light.

  ‘There is a door,’ he said, tracing the lines with a finger. ‘There is a door to the right of us. We must keep walking.’

  They circled the inner keep until they found the entrance. It was difficult to miss; debris from it was strewn across their path, and pieces of the door stuck out jaggedly like a row of broken teeth.

  ‘This is made of ebony,’ said Frith, looking closely at the remains of the entrance. Sebastian thought to mention that they were not there to caress the doors, but knew that would only encourage Wydrin to say something worse. ‘It only grows in Litvania.’

  ‘Expensive door, then,’ said Wydrin. ‘Someone made short work of it, though.’

  ‘That would have been Gallo,’ said Sebastian.

  Once the door had stood a good ten feet tall, the wood a foot thick and banded with iron. Now it was a pile of pricey timber and twisted slag. Sebastian was glad to see such a sign of his friend’s passage, but it also made him uneasy. There was no doubt now that Gallo had been there, and no doubt he’d entered the Citadel. So where was he?

  Beyond the shattered door there was a dusty floor surrounded by deep shadows.

  ‘How?’ asked Frith. He ran his gloved hand over a sprouting of splinters.

  ‘There is a certain black powder you can buy in Crosshaven,’ said Sebastian. ‘Mixed with a number of other chemicals, it becomes—’

  ‘Explosive, yes.’ Frith nodded. ‘I have some knowledge of this. Still, to bring such a quantity of it across the desert … that would be a dangerous task indeed.’

  Sebastian nodded.

  ‘Gallo liked to take the occasional risk. Likes, I mean.’

  ‘Well,’ Wydrin slapped Frith on the shoulder, nearly sending him face first through the entrance, ‘shall we get in there? I’m all for standing around discussing the whys and wherefores, but I’d rather save that until we’ve some idea of what we’re dealing with.’

  Inside, the desert sun became a distant dream. Sebastian wore several layers of clothing; smallclothes, tunic, leather armour, chainmail, and on top of it all a heavy black cloak, but even he felt a cold chill creep down the back of his neck as they stepped over the threshold. Wydrin, who habitually wore a long shirt under her boiled leather bodice, frowned and hugged herself. The room they entered was wide and spacious, and there were three doorways on the far side, each with steps leading down. On the walls there were rough carvings, partly hidden by dust and shadows, but Sebastian could just about make out shapes suggesting animals and people, and an alphabet he couldn’t decipher. Motes of dust and sand swirled in the daylight streaming through the door.

  ‘We take the door to the right,’ he said, trying to sound more certain than he felt. ‘That should take us into the lowest chamber we can access at this point. These others lead only to the floor beneath this, and if we are going by the stories, the mages kept all their greatest artefacts at the very bottom of the Citadel.’

  Frith pulled a small glass oil lamp from the bag at his belt and carefully lit it. Warm orange light spilled onto the stone floor.

  ‘The haunted Citadel awaits.’

  6

  They walked. And walked. And walked some more. The steps were wide enough for the three of them to walk abreast, but Frith tended to move in front, setting the pace and lighting the way. Wydrin would pause now and then to scratch a great cross on the wall with the point of her dagger, marking their progress in case they should need to head back that way in a hurry. Sometimes the steps would turn, left then right again, and sometimes they would level out for a while, but always they were heading gradually downwards.

  ‘So, what is it you hope to find at the bottom of these steps, princeling?’ asked Wydrin, after they had been walking for around an hour. ‘I thought that princelings had treasure enough already.’

  Even in the inconstant light Frith’s scowl was impossible to miss.

  ‘Do not call me that. You only need concern yourself with reaching our goal. What I choose to do with what we discover is none of your business.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I think it could be my business. Everyone knows this place is haunted. Everyone knows that no one makes it out of here alive. We’re putting ourselves in considerable danger, for you. I think that sort of makes it my business.’ Wydrin patted the daggers on her belt. ‘What is so important that you would pay us to brave the ghosts of the Citadel?’

  Frith grunted.

  ‘Ghosts, indeed. It’s all nonsense. Stories made up by fools who don’t understand what they’re dealing with. The mages have left more than their treasures behind, and if there are voices in the walls, it is only evidence of their magic.’

  Wydrin sniffed.

  ‘That’s what you’re after, then, is it?’

  Frith fell silent.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know either way,’ said Sebastian. ‘But if anywhere were to be a home to ghosts, I think it would be this place.’

  At the bottom of the steps was, finally, a door. As they approached, Sebastian waved a hand at them to stop.

  ‘There is a light,’ he said, squinting to see. ‘Through the crack in the door.’

  Weak, shimmering light moved at its edge. Frith pulled his cloak over the lamp and they could see it even more clearly.

  ‘What is that?’ asked Wydrin.

  ‘I do not know,’ said Sebastian. After a moment’s pause, he drew the sword from its scabbard on his back. ‘But we may not be alone down here.’

  Let it be Gallo, he thought. Let it be him.

  They approached the door, Sebastian leading. Wydrin strained her ears, trying to gather any clues about what might be in the next room. Sebastian turned to her and nodded. She returned his nod, and rested one hand on a dagger. Sebastian would enter first. It was difficult to miss him, with his height and broad shoulders, and while any potential attackers were watching the broadsword in his hands, she would slip in behind; small, slim, unthreatening. People would often only notice the daggers she wore when one of them was buried to the hilt in their throats.

  Sebastian pushed the door open, stepped through, and uttered a low cry of surprise. Wydrin rushed in behind him, blades in hand, and then stopped dead, staring at what met them. She felt Frith step in close behind her.

  ‘By all the gods … what are they?’ said Frith in amazement.

  They stood in a room vastly different to any they’d seen before. The walls were of brown marble, and hanging from the high ceiling were yellow lamps, casting soft light over row upon row of strange glass capsules. They were partially sunk into an earthen floor, and each of them contained a small, pale figure, no bigger than a child. The room was long, and there must have been around fifty of the smooth glass tanks. There was a strong chemical smell, reminding Wydrin of the apothecary shop to which her father would sometimes send her on errands.

  ‘Are they dead?’ Whatever they were, she did not like it.

  Sebastian stepped up to the nearest capsule and knelt, peering closely at the occupant.

  ‘I don’t know what they are,’ he said eventually. ‘Look at their faces, they look … unfinished, somehow. They all look the same.’

  Wydrin joined him at the side of the glass. The figure within was so pale he seemed almost translucent, the skin on his smooth cheeks looking thin enough to break and reveal the dark flesh beneath. He had no hair, no eyebrows, no blemishes, and rather than clothing he was wrapped in what appeared to be soft white bandages, from his wr
ists down to his ankles. Wydrin peered closely. It looked as though there had once been writing on the bandages, but the ink had faded with time to a pale, unreadable yellow. The figure was very still.

  Frith tapped on the glass with his stick, and Wydrin winced, suddenly afraid that he would wake it.

  ‘A mystery,’ he said. ‘What are they? Some remnant of the mages?’

  ‘We are soldiers in an ongoing war.’

  The voice came from the far side of the room; a figure identical to the creatures in the capsules stood in the doorway. As they watched, he walked rapidly towards them, his soft feet making barely any sound on the dirt floor. Wydrin raised her blades.

  ‘Not so fast, little man.’

  The creature did not slow, but came on until he stood on the other side of the glass capsule. His eyes were like almond-shaped pools of black ink. Looking down at his brother in the tank, he nodded as though satisfied and looked up at the trio of surprised adventurers.

  ‘Leave now. Seals have been broken. We no longer hold the perimeter.’

  ‘What are you?’ demanded Frith. ‘Who are you to tell us to retreat?’

  Another of the pale child-men appeared in the far door, and another. They, too, entered the room, walking swiftly without noise.

  ‘I am known as Inkberrow. My brothers, Yarrowfoot and Peaseworth.’

  ‘Well, Peasefoot and Yellow-thing, I’d keep back.’ Wydrin glanced behind her, suddenly convinced there would be more of the pale men sneaking in behind them, but the doorway was dark. ‘We mean to go through this chamber and out the other side. We’ll just let the rest of your family here sleep.’

  ‘No, no place for you here,’ the creature called Yarrowfoot said. His voice was a touch higher than his brother’s, but it was the only difference between them. ‘There is danger, death.’

  Wydrin laughed.

  ‘I love it when people say things like that. You know that is only meat and bread to adventurers such as ourselves?’

  ‘Wydrin …’ said Sebastian, a note of warning in his voice.

  ‘Dust and death,’ said Inkberrow. ‘Darkness and evil. The power that waits below is truly awake again for the first time in centuries.’

  ‘Power?’ said Frith. ‘What power is this?’

  ‘The one that sleeps,’ Peaseworth said, shaking his head. ‘Her agents are moving through the Citadel. If they meet you, you will become hers too.’

  The three pale men moved forward as one then, as though to physically push them from the chamber. Sebastian raised his sword, resting its point a few inches from Yarrowfoot’s throat.

  ‘Tell us what you are, and we may leave.’

  The one called Inkberrow sighed, and Wydrin noticed a small cloud of dust emerge from his mouth.

  ‘We are Culoss. The mages made us to wait forever in the dark, guarding the seals and holding the perimeter. To watch over the gods they imprisoned.’

  ‘But the seals are broken, and the perimeter …’ The Culoss known as Yarrowfoot shook his head anxiously.

  ‘Are you saying there are gods are down there?’ Wydrin could not keep the scorn from her voice.

  ‘Only one,’ said Inkberrow. ‘She has eaten the others.’

  Wydrin laughed again.

  ‘They have gone mad, down here in the dark.’

  ‘It is the mages we are interested in,’ said Frith. There was a feverish light to his eyes now. ‘What is left of their power? Of their artefacts? Can you tell us?’

  ‘There is a lake—’ began Peaseworth, but the Culoss called Inkberrow silenced him with a look.

  ‘Enough,’ he said. ‘Her agents move. You will leave now.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Sebastian. ‘I had a friend, he came here before me. Blond hair, ridiculous little beard. There would have been a guide with him …’

  ‘No, no, no,’ said Yarrowfoot. ‘No more talk. Leave now. We must protect the Citadel.’

  ‘I mean to have the secrets of the mages,’ said Frith. ‘You will not turn us aside.’

  ‘Then we stand against you.’

  Inkberrow held his arms out to them, and for a bizarre moment Wydrin thought he wanted to be picked up, like a small child tired of walking, but a pair of vicious-looking blades pushed their way through the palms of his hands, each a full foot long. There was no blood at the separating of his flesh, only a thin stream of dark dust.

  ‘What are you?’ cried Wydrin, but then the other two stepped forward with identical weapons shooting from their own hands. And from behind them came the creaking of elderly hinges as the glass cases began to open.

  The next few minutes passed in a panicked blur for Wydrin. The Culoss were unnaturally fast, running and jumping at them with the speed of birds in flight. She narrowly avoided one strike from Yarrowfoot by stumbling backwards, but he was immediately replaced by Inkberrow, and then she lost track of which Culoss was which. She brought her claws up in time to stop her throat being opened and pushed back against the Culoss with all her strength. He skidded back across the floor, but it was then she noticed that more of the bandaged men were climbing out of their glass beds, every one of them sprouting long, shining spikes from the palms of their hands, even as they were blinking away their artificial sleep.

  ‘Stop this!’ yelled Sebastian as he cut his way through them, his sword a blur in front of him.

  Wydrin had time to see a Culoss cut in half by that blade, saw the dust and rags that made up its insides, and then they were on her again, three at once. A slash from a razor-sharp sword caught her across the forearm, but it only sliced open her shirt. Whatever they are, she thought, they attacked us. And I don’t even owe them money.

  Kicking one in the legs, she plunged Frostling down through the bandages at the base of his neck as he bent over, grunting with satisfaction as the strange flesh yielded. The Culoss fell to the ground in a boneless heap, but two of his brothers circled her, constantly moving.

  ‘Come on, children of worms,’ she said cheerfully. The next Culoss lunged at her, bringing his swords together in a double-point, but she stepped away from it so that it only scraped against her boiled leather armour. While he was within her reach she brought the pommel of her dagger down hard on the top of his skull which, to her surprise, caved in as though made of plaster. He went to his knees, and she took the opportunity to slit his papery throat.

  ‘What are you made of, spit and paste?’ she laughed, but the third Culoss wasn’t content to listen to her taunting. He ran at her, eyes like empty holes, and his first blade was only turned away by the thin mail over her leather vest. The second he threw up towards her face, and for a terrible moment Wydrin thought she’d lose her nose, but Sebastian was there, pulling the Culoss off her by the scruff of his neck.

  ‘Bastard thing nearly had my face off,’ she had time to say before they were rushed by five more. It was around this point that Wydrin thought to wonder how Frith was faring. She saw him some distance away, his white hair the brightest thing in the room. He was leaning awkwardly on the wall, but he had a rapier in his hands and was holding the Culoss at bay, the blade almost moving too quickly for her to follow.

  Where did that come from?

  There were dead Culoss by his feet, but even from where she stood she could see the exhaustion on his face.

  She hacked, and slashed, parried and stabbed, over and over, until her shoulders began to sing from the ache of it. She stole glances at Sebastian occasionally, shouted encouragement or mockery, but his face was closed and still, as it always was during a fight. The Culoss just kept coming, always pushing them back towards the door, stepping over the torn bodies of their brothers and producing their strange blades from within their bodies. Wydrin felt sweat begin to trickle down her back. They were trying to press them back, towards the exit, and they were succeeding. They might be short and strange-looking, but they are so many, and for every one, two blades. Wydrin took a breath, preparing to tell Sebastian it was time to run for it, when there was a shuddering crash and
the chamber was filled with bright, greenish light. She almost lost her footing, but when she looked up she saw around fifteen freshly dead Culoss, and Frith standing beyond a veil of smoke.

  ‘What the hell was that?’

  Wydrin saw hope in Sebastian’s eyes and knew he was thinking of Gallo, but as she watched, Frith reached into his cloak with his free hand and produced something small and round. He threw it on the ground nearest a group of the Culoss and there was another bang. This time, Wydrin saw the brief burst of green flame and the curling cloud it produced. Several of the Culoss were thrown back by the initial impact, but those who were caught in the cloud began to writhe and scream, their powdery white skins turning black. The Culoss who were attacking them paused in their efforts, looking back at their brothers in apparent horror.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she cried, but Frith, apparently seeing them both for the first time, motioned impatiently for them to take cover. Hurriedly she threw herself into the corner, before Frith hurled another of his grenades right into the midst of the stunned Culoss. This time the explosion was so close it made her ears ring, and she cringed away from the poisonous cloud.

  The Culoss that were left turned and fled then, back through the far door where Yarrowfoot and Inkberrow had first appeared. Wydrin slid down the wall, exhausted. Frith came over to them, his slim sword thick with black dust and tattered pieces of bandages. She watched him retrieve his stick from the floor, and slide the blade back into its hiding place. The Copper Cat of Crosshaven began to laugh.

  ‘So why did you employ us at all, princeling?’

  7

  They had left the chamber of the Culoss, moving slowly, wary of another attack. Now they walked through a series of low-ceilinged rooms, many of which contained empty glass tanks. Frith saw several that seemed to hold Culoss who had not lived long enough to protect their precious Citadel; they were mouldering piles of bandages, dust, and short, rusted blades. Why those ones had not survived he couldn’t say, but there had certainly been enough of them to cause trouble. He watched carefully, searching every shadow for a hidden assailant, until his head began to ache.