He exited the chapel through a rough-hewn tunnel opposite from where he'd entered. In his wake, the shadows danced obscenely across the forsaken altar and the deformed statues. Even after the magical fires dimmed and sputtered out, shapes darker than the chapel's lightless murk moved through the darkness and schemed in voices few sane men had ever heard.
Beyond the chapel, a narrow tunnel wound deeper and deeper into the earth. Something large had burrowed here, with claws that cut through salt and stone like garden soil. The work impressed even Azrael, and he was pleased to make use of the tunnel system and the network of chambers it connected.
The chambers made ideal storage for the seneschal's hoard. Boxes, chests, bags, even a few small coffins intended for child victims of the plague were lodged in the hollows, each crammed full of gold and silver. It had taken Azrael two decades to pilfer this loot from the peasants and skim it from the mine's profits. But he did not cast a loving eye over the gold as he strolled along the tunnel; the dwarf had long prided himself on a disinterest in precious metals atypical for his kind. No, he valued the currencies only for what they would buy-and these coins were earmarked for a purchase few could imagine.
Azrael knew the sight of all that money, more than enough for his purposes, should have made him happy. He knew, too, that the Vistani would soon be out of his way-the only one that mattered, anyway. He had made Ambrose squirm, Nabon suffer, and he was on his way to his favorite spot in all of Sithicus, a site that usually filled his heart with glee. All that wasn't enough to make him forget that Soth had risen from his throne.
"Damn him," the dwarf muttered. A scowl stole across his features as soon as he realized what he'd said. The grim expression quickly became a smile. "Heh. Too late."
A weird purple glow at the end of the tunnel let Azrael know that he had reached his final destination. The air grew thick with the smell of brine, more overpowering here than in the rest of the mine. A chill dampness suffused the air. It wrapped itself around the dwarf like wet cerements.
Azrael emerged from the tunnel on the shore of a vast underground lake. High overhead, stalactites glowed with a violet light. The radiance was born of a moss that clung to the rock. The sickly plant seemed to thrive nowhere else in the mine, making it useless as a light source. Azrael had found it brewed down to a serviceable poison, though, one that caused a hysteria in its victims that was quite amusing to watch.
The water was black and still, a dark sheet of glass stretching to the horizon. Azrael cupped a hand and dipped it into the lake. The water looked black even in his palm. It had a strange feel to it, too. The liquid was heavier and more solid than water should be. Still, he did not hesitate as he lowered his face and slurped up the awful stuff.
Each swallow made his teeth ache and his temples throb with pain. The water burned like molten tar as it coursed down his throat. That awful heat had barely filled his gut when he heard the first voices. He sat down before they overwhelmed him.
The fragments were unconnected, a swarm of words that filled Azrael's mind. Questions without answers, cries of joy, agonized screams, the keening of the banshees at Nedragaard Keep- from all across the domain these sounds came to him. He focused and began to filter out the dull stuff of everyday life. The dwarf didn't care about the drivel people spouted over the breakfast table or lovers' inane pillow talk. He wanted to hear fear-
"Quick, Tomas, hide! They've got swords!"
Or sorrow-
"I can't face another day like this."
Or, better still, words edged with madness-
"Dead, eh? No bother. We've still got a use for your corpse, my dear."
Azrael listened for a time, letting the grief and pain of Sithicus fill his mind. He'd stumbled across this place a decade ago, not long after the Great Rift opened on the surface. The tremors that accompanied that event collapsed the chapel's back wall and revealed the tunnel that led him here. He assumed that this Lake of Sounds, as he had come to call it, was somehow linked to the rift, that the gaping rent gathered up the cries and whispers and funneled them here.
The cacophony had threatened to overwhelm his mind that first day, but he mastered it. And from that chaos he had forged a clarity of mind that left him immune to the confusion plaguing the domain. He alone could remember his past with crystal clarity-and the pasts of anyone else he cared to remember, too. For when Soth and the rest of the land raised their voices in confession to close the domain's borders, Azrael could hear and recall later the sins they proclaimed.
Why the lake's voices were only audible after its fetid water had been sipped didn't concern him. Azrael only knew that the place was more useful than any network of spies. One gulp and he could listen in on anyone he wished-well, not quite anyone. For some reason the White Rose, the Bloody Cobbler, and the Whispering Beast all remained beyond the reach of this magic.
Like everything else concerning that trio, this was a matter for concern, but one he assumed would be rectified soon enough. The dark resided in the vast, black expanse of the Lake of Sounds, and Azrael always trusted the dark. It was a voice in the dark that had prompted him to taste the waters on the day he discovered this lifeless shore. Just as it had given him Soth, it had given him access to all those voices, all that information.
And the dark used that cacophony now to pass along a message to Azrael, a message he had been expecting. The voice of the dark did not cut through the babble. It rode upon the mundane utterances, touching individual words, juxtaposing phrases that had already been spoken.
"They're not going to like this at the mine."
"Pay attention when I'm talking to you, young man."
"Why does it always have to be about you, Ginnie?"
"We're supposed to meet them on the border at noon. You coming?"
"Are they now?" Azrael said. He focused his thoughts, winnowing away all but two familiar voices.
"He's a beast," Magda said. "Below your notice."
He could hear a slight breathlessness in her voice. It wasn't prompted by a fear of the meeting about to take place, but by the cold. The dwarf smiled. She really is getting old, he thought, when a chill as mild as today's makes her shiver.
Soth's response was a low rumble of impatience, but Magda pressed her point anyway. "Azrael should not be trusted, cannot be trusted."
The dwarf's smile broadened into a grin at the irony of the situation, and his coarse laughter filled the purple twilight hanging over the Lake of Sounds. In the reverberations the dark was laughing, too, but Azrael was too caught up in his own mirth to hear that laughter's mocking tone.
Five
The wind whispered around Magda's deceptively slight frame and tugged at strands of her graving hair. It was no more than a breeze, the chill breath of a dying day, but she shivered nonetheless. The cold reminded her body of old battles, skirmishes long since fought and wounds not quite healed. At home she would have cloaked herself in her favorite shawl, but she'd left the wrap back at her vardo. It wouldn't do to meet Lord Aderre swaddled like some feeble old grandmother-though Magda had to admit she felt at least twice her fifty-one years tonight.
Soth's presence did not help matters. He radiated the unrelenting cold of the grave. Magda kept a discreet distance from the death knight, but it helped little.
She glanced at her silent companion. How much worse for him? she wondered. The ache of five hundred years wracks his bones, and no hope of death to free him from it.
The Vistana shook her head. It was a trap to pity the dead man. He'd brought his fate upon himself, was even proud of that fact. That self-destructive urge ran strong in Soth. It colored every decision he made, right down to his choice of Azrael as seneschal to his domain.