'What is this place anyway?'Thalric murmured. 'It seems too grand for sewers. Cool enough to be a storeroom, but … the air's damp. I can smell mould, a little.'
'I think …' Her courage failed her for a moment and then she pressed on. 'I think it's a tomb.'
A pause while he digested that, and then said, 'Well, that's a cheery thought.'
'They never spoke of this place, or of the pyramid,' Che remarked. 'It was always right there, in front of the Scriptora, at the very heart of the city, and they just overlooked mentioning it as though it was invisible. Which means that it's important. I think the word the Khanaphir would use is "sacred". They avoid the subject out of respect.'
'Respect for what?' Even hushed, their voices resonated down the length of the hall.
'For the only thing that they reserve such a degree of respect for,' Che said. 'The Masters. Their lost Masters who still dominate everything they ever do. The Masters, who haven't been seen since before the revolution. Not that the revolution ever reached here.' And when I myself dreamt of the city's past, when I took the Fir, I saw the square before the Scriptora and the pyramid was not there. That was the city of the Masters, when they still lived. 'The Masters of Khanaphes are dead,' she said. 'They've been dead a very long time indeed, for all that the Ministers have kept their name alive. And this is the last testimony to their rule. This is their tomb.'
'Guarded with traps,' Thalric reflected. 'I have heard of such things. There are people who make a living out of cracking open tombs like this. The yolk inside is often golden, I understand. Do you think we'll find a king's treasury?'
'Would you like that?'
'I wouldn't object to filling my pockets, now it seems I'm freelancing again.'
A shiver went through Che, an innate reaction of innate revulsion. 'That's disrespectful,' she chided, unsure precisely where this thought came from.
'What have these Masters done to earn my respect?' he argued. 'Aside from cripple their own people until a rabble of Scorpions with a few siege engines can barge in and level their city.' Che had halted suddenly, so that he nearly ran into her. 'What is it? Don't tell me now you've become a convert?'
'I …' She had wanted to say 'look', but that would have been meaningless. Instead she said, 'I see …' For a moment she could find no further words for it. 'Garmoth Atennar,' she said. 'Lord of the Fourth House, whose Bounty Exceeds all Expectations, Greatest of Warriors.'
'Che?' Thalric demanded, but she pulled forward out of his grip and knelt down, smoothing slime away from the inscription.
'That's what it says here,' she whispered, 'on his tomb.'
'Che, tell me what you see.'
'There is a great stone slab here, a giant block cut into … a coffin, it must be. And on the side they have written those words. And on the top …'
It was an effigy of a man, carved as if sleeping: ten feet from head to toe and heavy-framed, cut in white stone with a skill and delicacy that Che marvelled at — and had seen before. Those statues atop the pyramid, the giants who fronted the Estuarine Gate, they were all of a kind with this man. His stone features were proud, handsome and heartless, and Che was glad they had been cut with closed eyes. Even a semblance of waking life might have seemed too much in that perfect, imperious face.
'Garmoth Atennar,' she repeated softly.
Thalric felt his way forward, touched the statue and recoiled, his fingers trailing strings of slime.
'You were right enough, then,' he said. 'So much for the Masters of Khanaphes. I suppose all those people above are probably now waiting for the dead bastards to come back and save them.'
'Yes. Yes, they are,' Che replied, standing up and stepping back. There was a feeling of loss, of tragedy, about this place, much more than could be lent to it by the simple word 'tomb'. It signified the death, unrealized and unacknowledged, of an entire era of history, leaving only an unnaturally extended shadow of itself, a mummer's show enacted by increasingly uncomprehending slaves. There was a chasm of time and place between herself and those aristocratic stone features, one that she could never bridge.
'Of no kinden I have ever known,' Che stated. 'If his body was laid here within the stone then the carving must be greater than life-size, but even so … Thalric, if this is a tomb … people don't usually build tombs with exits. We might still be in trouble.'
'The air moves,' he observed, and she was surprised she herself had not noticed it. His blindness had obviously made him aware of things that she overlooked. 'The air moves, and is cool and moist. There is a way out of here, and it is to the river — though why build a tomb with river access I do not know. Can you swim?'
'I don't know.'
She saw him smile at that reply. 'I can swim. I can swim with you, if I have to. Lead us to the river, and I will get us both out.'
She turned towards the far end of the hall, towards the throne that she had dimly noticed before.
Her heart froze.
The throne was occupied.
Sulvec landed on the roof beside the BeetleVastern, dropping immediately into a crouch. Around them the other Wasps — Marger and the handful of soldiers he still had left — were also setting down. Three of them were guiding a foundering Osgan through the air, twisting his injured arm whenever he faltered.
'It is a joy to be in a city where nobody ever looks up,' Marger remarked, and Sulvec shot him a venomous look.
'Well, if you feel that way, then perhaps I can arrange for you to be posted here permanently.' Since Sulvec had taken over the operation, he had felt a certain sense of friction with Marger. The Beetle, ranking Rekef among the agents who had accompanied Thalric here, was cooperative enough, but Marger had plainly grown too used to his fake authority. Also, Sulvec suspected that he was finding the business of turning on his former companion slightly straining. He was Rekef Outlander, after alclass="underline" he had not been properly hardened in the Inlander fires.
Marger just shrugged, in that irritating way of his, and went off to secure the gasping Osgan. The prisoner was a liability to them, Sulvec knew, but there was a chance that his suffering would cause Thalric sufficient concern to draw him in. The Rekef never disposed of a potential tool until it was well and truly broken. Indeed, sometimes the breaking of it was the point.
'Report,' Sulvec instructed.
'All quiet until maybe fifteen minutes ago,' Corolly Vastern told him. 'Then someone comes pelting up the steps from the direction of the embassies, and just drops straight inside, quick as you like. I marked him as Ant-kinden, which suggests one of the Vekken, although he went so fast that I couldn't be absolutely sure.'
'There's always the chance that he broke both his legs and is still lying at the bottom,' the Beetle suggested. 'Not known for their airborne, the Ant-kinden.'
'That shaft is easily scalable, if you have the Art,' Sulvec said, dismissing him. 'So the Vekken are allied with the Collegiates?'
'That's the way it looked, from the job on the embassy,' Corolly confirmed with a grimace. There had been few enough survivors to tell the tale.
Sulvec took a long breath, staring up at the pyramid in the gathering dusk. 'We will have to make our entrance, and ensure that Thalric is dead. Or make him dead, if he has the poor grace to be still alive.' He became aware that his hands were flexing nervously, so he clenched them into easy fists, trying to appear calm to his men. He still recalled the way he had felt the previous night, however he might try to explain it away. 'We have to go in,' he repeated, looking at them each in turn. The other Wasps shuffled unhappily. Only Vastern, who had not been there the night before, nodded readily.
'We've all seen the orders,' the Beetle agreed. 'Thalric must be dead at all costs. So let's kill him and get out of here while there's still a city to get out of.'