Chapter 57: The Grand Duke Goes Underground (2)

We moved forward.

The tunnel opened into a wider chamber.

Once, it must have been a water distribution room. Channels cut across the floor in curved paths. Most had dried out. Others carried sluggish streams of black water. Old pillars supported the ceiling, their bases carved with imperial lions now softened by age.

At the center of the chamber stood a stone basin.

Around it was candles.

Fresh candles.

Some had burned down to stubs. Others still flickered with pale blue flames.

And beside the basin, kneeling with both hands tied behind his back, was a man in maintenance worker clothing.

His head hung low.

Blood darkened the back of his collar.

The shadow nearest me moved first, checking the corners. Another circled the basin.

No immediate enemy.

How generous.

How obviously staged.

Did they really take me that lightly?

I approached the kneeling man.

He was breathing.

Barely.

"Wake him," I said.

One shadow took out a small vial and waved it beneath the man’s nose. The effect was immediate. His body jerked, and he sucked in a ragged breath. His eyes snapped open, wild and unfocused.

"No, no, no," he rasped. "I didn’t answer. I didn’t answer. I didn’t answer."

I crouched before him.

His gaze found my face and froze.

That was understandable.

Even under partial disguise, my presence was difficult to ignore. Such burdens came naturally to the exceptionally blessed.

"Who are you?" I asked.

His lips trembled. "Please. I only carried the ledger. I never touched the children. I swear by Saint Orwen, I never touched them."

The shadows around me grew colder.

I smiled gently.

That only made the man more afraid.

"You carried a ledger."

He nodded quickly. "Yes. Yes. Names. Dates. Transfers. I was told to copy them. That was all. I did not know what they were for at first."

"And later?"

His face crumpled.

Good.

Guilt made people honest when fear held the knife.

"Later I knew enough not to ask."

I reached out and lifted his chin slightly with two gloved fingers. His skin was clammy.

"What is your name?"

"P-Perrin."

"Perrin. Where is the ledger now?"

His eyes darted toward the basin.

I looked.

The water inside was dark. Not merely dirty. Dark in a way water had no right being.

A thin film of gray shimmered across the surface.

I stood.

"Do not touch the water," I said.

The shadows immediately stepped back.

Perrin began shaking. "They said if I betrayed them, the record would return to the mouth."

"The mouth?"

He swallowed.

The singing grew slightly louder.

From the far tunnel.

From below.

I turned my head.

There was another passage behind the basin, half-covered by a collapsed arch. Beyond it, darkness waited with patient manners.

"The mouth under the city," Perrin whispered. "The place that remembers names."

How theatrical.

I disliked it when enemies had better atmosphere than expected.

"Who are they?" I asked.

Perrin’s eyes filled with tears. "I don’t know."

I applied slight pressure to his jaw.

He whimpered.

"I dislike incomplete answers."

"I don’t know their faces," he rushed out. "They wore veils. Chapel veils. But not all were priests. Some wore noble rings. One smelled like roses and smoke. One had a hand with black veins. One spoke with Lord Marcellus."

There it was.

Marcellus again.

He definitely wasn’t innocent. That much is true.

But he wasn’t the root.

"Where are the children?"

"Moved."

"When?"

"Some last night. Some before dawn. I don’t know where. I swear I don’t know. I only heard them say the little vessels were too visible now. The eastern beast has started sniffing."

Eastern beast.

How rude.

Could they not at least call me something more majestic?

The Desert King, perhaps.

No, that would make me sound like my father’s adventure stories. Never mind.

"Your Excellency," one of the shadows called softly.

I turned.

He had found something carved behind the basin. The symbol again, but this time the three small marks beneath the descending line were connected by a curved slash.

Fresh blood had been rubbed into the grooves.

Perrin saw it and began sobbing. "Don’t read it. Don’t read it aloud."

I looked at him.

"Why?"

"Because it answers."

The chamber grew colder.

The candle flames bent toward the basin.

The singing stopped.

Ah.

How troublesome.

I slowly turned toward the dark water.

The gray film rippled though nothing touched it.

Then a voice came from the basin.

Soft.

Childlike.

Familiar in a way that made my bones reject it.

"Skandar."

The shadows froze.

My name echoed once through the chamber, tender and wrong.

"Skandar Aleksandr Konstantin."

Perrin screamed against his gagged breath, twisting so violently he nearly cracked his shoulder.

I stared at the basin.

The water rippled again.

A pale shape shifted beneath the surface, too blurred to be a reflection. For a moment, it looked like a face. Then three. Then none.

"Do not answer when called," I murmured.

The voice laughed softly.

It used my voice this time.

"Too late."

The ward beneath my feet lit up.

Gold. Gray. Blue.

Three rings.

The chamber sealed.

My shadows moved instantly, blades drawn, but the exits vanished behind curtains of dense light. The old stones groaned. The channels across the floor filled with black water rushing upward from nowhere.

Perrin fainted.

What a useless man.

I sighed.

Truly.

Could I not investigate one tunnel without someone trying to trap me in an ancient ritual chamber?

Was that too much to ask?

The basin trembled.

From the water, a hand emerged.

Thin.

Pale.

Too long in the fingers.

Not human.

Then another hand.

Then a head crowned with wet, dark hair rose slowly from the surface, though the basin was far too shallow to contain a body. Its face was covered by a child’s porcelain mask with no mouth, only three carved marks beneath where the lips should have been.

The thing tilted its head.

"Called."

Its voice was many voices at once.

Some old.

Some young.

Some weeping.

"Named."

The shadows tightened around me.

I lifted one hand to stop them from acting.

The creature’s head turned toward my raised fingers.

"Blood of the wish-bearer."

Oh?

That was new.

I smiled faintly.

Not because I was amused. Well, perhaps a little. But mostly because it was better to smile when one was deeply offended.

"You know," I said calmly, "I have had a long week."

The creature stilled.

"I picked up a Jinn. Acquired a son. Attended a ball. Failed to poison a prince because he became politically interesting. Discovered a suspicious chapel network. Read several badly organized reports. And now, I am standing in an underground chamber being addressed by an impolite basin creature."

The thing did not move.

I continued, "So I will ask nicely once."

My aura stirred.

The water around my boots recoiled.

"Who owns this mouth?"

The porcelain mask cracked slightly.

Behind it, something smiled.

Not with lips.

With hunger.

"Wish," it whispered.

The chamber trembled.

"Grant."

A pressure slammed downward.

The shadows staggered.

I did not.

My coat fluttered as my aura unfolded, golden and sharp, cutting through the damp air with the clean violence of desert sunlight. The black water hissed where it touched the edge of my aura field.

I drew my sword.

The blade left its sheath with a soft, elegant sound.

Finally.

Something straightforward.

"Wrong answer," I said.

The creature lunged.

It came fast enough to kill an ordinary knight before he could blink. Its limbs stretched, body unfolding from the basin like a nightmare pulled through a needle hole. The mask split open, revealing no face beneath, only darkness packed with whispers.

I stepped forward.

Not back.

Never back.

My sword moved once.

The chamber flashed gold.

The creature’s arm fell into the water and dissolved into smoke.

It shrieked.

The sound struck the walls and rebounded, filled with names.

Dozens of names.

Children’s names.

My expression did not change.

Inside, something cold and sharp settled into place.

Ah.

So that was how it was.

The mouth under the city remembered names because someone had fed them to it.

I lifted my blade again.

"Konstantin shadows."

"Yes, Your Excellency."

"Protect Perrin. Do not let the water touch him."

"As you command."

The creature dragged itself higher, its severed limb reforming slowly. The mask turned toward me, cracked and dripping.

"Wish-bearer," it crooned. "Open. Give. Feed."

I sighed.

"Everyone keeps asking things from me these days. It’s getting old really fast."

My aura gathered along the blade, bright and compressed. The old wards around the chamber shuddered as if recognizing something they had not expected.

Good.

Let them recognize it.

I was Skandar Aleksandr Konstantin.

Grand Duke of Sonomi.

Aspiring ultimate villain lord.

Reluctant father.

Unfortunate sworn brother of an absurd Jinn.

And apparently, the newest pest control service for ancient filth hiding beneath the Capital.

How humiliating.

How troublesome.

How very, very irritating.

I smiled as the creature lunged again.

"If you wanted to eat children," I said softly, "you should not have let me find your dining room."

Then I swung.