The Strength of the Few by James Islington - 4

THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT WAKING FOR the first time after everything you know has fallen apart. A few beats of blissful, dark ignorance, the amnesia of sleep still in effect. Then the creeping memory of there being something wrong, though the specifics escape you. Confusion and denial as your mind searches unwillingly, hoping to find nothing, but deep down, knowing. Knowing .

Then it all floods back. Shock as you lie there, trying to convince yourself that it was the conjuring of a restless night rather than memory. And finally, the demoralisation of acceptance. The gut-punch of reality.

The understanding that you rise to face a new and uncertain normal, today.

It is dark, wherever I am. Almost pitch-black. The last thing I remember is standing with Caeror just beyond the lip of that crater, triangular glass archway in front, light pulsing beneath us. It all feels like one long nightmare, everything from the Labyrinth up until that moment. But I know it wasn’t. I know . The air is still slightly too sharp in every breath. I can feel the cold stone of the Vitaerium against my arm.

“Vis.” The voice that woke me is closer, and suddenly there’s a hand on my shoulder.

“Caeror?”

“Sorry to wake you early, but I really need you to come with me.”

I lever myself up and scrub my eyes with my palms before squinting blearily around at the gloom. It’s a fairly small space; I can just make out the rough walls ten feet away to my left and right, illuminated by the slightest trace of light filtering through an entrance demarcated by two pillars. A shelf to one side, the vague outline of pottery and small figurines. I can perceive markings covering the walls, too. Pictures of some kind, though I can’t discern the details.

“Where are we?” My stomach growls. The air in here is warm; my tattered clothes from the Iudicium are gone, replaced by only a coarse, knee-length linen skirt. Otherwise, I’m barefoot and bare-chested, the scarab amulet strapped to my arm my only other adornment. “Gods. Early? How long have I been asleep?”

“Qabr, and long enough. Let’s call it a week.”

“A week ?” I stagger to my feet, and Caeror’s silhouette quickly braces me before I fall. Muscles stiff, which is unsurprising given what I’ve just been told.

“That device we used to get here is called a Channel. It’s safe and it’s fast, but it shuts down your mind for the journey. You need a… fairly long rest, after.”

“You didn’t think to mention that?”

“Oh, I definitely did.” His cheerfulness echoes through the dark. “Come on. We can talk more on the way.”

My eyes are adjusting a little now; I let Caeror guide me forward, toward the glimmer of light and past the two pillars—square columns, strange paintings of people and animals covering them—guarding the entrance.

I stumble to a stop.

“Qabr,” says Caeror, spreading his hands in an overly grand gesture at what lies before us.

The crevasse into which we’ve emerged is enormous. From where I stand it’s a hundred feet down to the ground and at least that distance again higher, the roof eventually narrowing into snaking fissures and cracks that barely allow for the feeble hints of day seeping inside. The opposite wall is less than fifty feet away, revealing a dozen levels of carved walkways and stairs and hundreds of shadowed, painted entrances. All of which, as far as I can tell, are roughly mirrored on this side.

The line of crypts stretches out to the left and right for as far as I can see, vanishing into the dim. There are no torches, no lanterns or lights to relieve the unrelenting gloom.

I turn. Peer back into the dark from which we’ve just emerged. “You put me in a tomb ?”

“It’s a very nice tomb. One of our nicest,” Caeror assures me, nudging me to a start along the walkway. He’s dressed similarly to me, though a thin black blade hangs at his waist. “I don’t think there was even a body in there.”

I stare at him, and he grins.

“You get used to it. Sleeping in there and… everything else, around here.” He leads me onward, and I hear faint snatches of what sounds like tense conversation somewhere ahead. “Qabr is what the locals call this stretch of crypts. But more generally, back home, we’d say we’re somewhere in eastern Nyripk.”

I trail him dazedly down a narrowly carved set of stairs until we reach the rocky chasm floor. Nyripk. As north as it gets. More than six thousand miles from Solivagus.

We draw closer to the voices ahead, some of which are clearly raised in argument. At first I think they’re speaking a language unknown to me, but eventually I start to pick out words. It’s Vetusian. A form of it, anyway. Thickly accented and filled with parts that don’t sound right at all, but I can grasp a little as I slow and try to focus on the conversation. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure yet. But if it’s what I suspect, I’m going to need to go outside. Which means that you should come with me because the Qabrans are…” He sighs. “Let’s just say they take a while to warm to outsiders.”

“Alright,” I say uneasily.

The murk ahead clears enough to reveal the shapes of at least a dozen men and women crowded around something. The debate between them is hushed, but no mistaking the strain of anxiety to it. They as one wear loincloth-like skirts similar to mine, scarab amulets attached firmly around their throats by thin collars, and nothing else.

I avert my gaze, flushing slightly. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Keep your hands by your side. It’s important they can see your chest. Do you know any Vetusian?”

“A little.”

“That’s good, but don’t try and communicate with them unless you think you have to. They won’t take kindly to it. Wait here.” He slows, just for a second, as he looks across at me. “And… just… don’t panic, alright?”

He bares his teeth in a rueful grimace and before I have a chance to respond to the worrying request, hurries forward.

My eyes are beginning to adapt; even in the dim I can see the stares of the crowd as they notice Caeror’s approach and then, one by one, me. The worried chattering stops. Stony, nervous faces are fixed in my direction. Several of the group hold edged weapons tightly at their sides.

On the ground in their midst is an entirely naked man, the only one unmoving. Sightless eyes are fixed on the distant cracks of light above. A massive dark smear stains his chest.

“Did you see it?” Caeror’s Vetusian snaps out, breaking the stillness and drawing the crowd’s attention back to him. He appears to be in charge, or at least an authority when it comes to whatever has happened here.

“He was running. Near side of Duat, in the valley. We don’t know where to, but he must have come from the city.” The reply is from a younger man. Thin, hard eyes and a wispy beard. Not more than a few years older than me. “The Gleaner chased him down, used its blades, and left him. That means he gave it something important.”

“Or that he’s infected. They know we watch that area.” Caeror’s statement is greeted with a mutter of agreement. “How long has he been dead?”

“Almost three hours.” The man holds up a scarab medallion, just like the ones we’re all wearing. “We found his khepri discarded nearby, but we didn’t want to risk putting it back on.”

Caeror’s grimace is barely visible. “It was the right choice. We don’t have enough time to move him again, though, and we don’t know anything about him. I think it’s too dangerous.”

A rumble of disagreement. “We need another purgatius .”

Caeror doesn’t like it, but seems to relent. “Have the Gleaners started a sweep?”

“Not that we saw.”

As the conversation has progressed, I’ve been intensely aware of people’s gazes darting at me. Faces sunburned and dirty, bodies uncomfortably thin. I remember Caeror’s warning, and though I don’t understand it, keep my hands by my sides.

Ulciscor’s brother acknowledges the young man’s statement, waving aside the nearest of the crowd and kneeling by the corpse. He draws a strip of cloth from his pocket and binds the body’s wrists together behind its back. Gently, but he checks the strength of the knot three times. Then he uses another strip to form a blindfold over its sightless eyes.

Once he’s done, Caeror breathes deep and places his hand on the corpse’s forehead. His face is a mask of concentration.

His eyes flood to black.

With a rasping gasp, the dead man sits up.