5.

 

Beneath the shattered wooden covering was only darkness. There was water, though Bueralan could see but the faintest reflection of the morning’s light off it. The rankness of the hole was not so shy, and with his hands on the rotten wooden edge that led to a frail, broken ladder he stared into the inky black, trying to gauge its depth between breaths.

He did not want to go into the flooded mineshaft, which he considered a reasonable state of mind to be in. The two men Illaan had sent to bring sealed bladders and pitch globes, brothers who rescued trapped miners in flash floods, had agreed with him. They arrived in an old, crumbling wagon pulled by an older, gray-haired horse. After one look at the shaft, they had laughed. Both men were white, diminutive and scrawny with dark hair and deep-set, squinting eyes.

Without turning to the sergeant, the First said, “You don’t have enough booze in this city to convince us to go down there. It’s two decades—”

“Four,” interrupted the Second. “Maybe five.”

“Six to seven decades old, rotten in its core, and flooded,” continued the First. “In addition, there is a man down there who has not come up for air in a good hour.”

“We’re not doing it,” concluded the Second.

Around them, the Mireean Guard searched for the openings of other mineshafts. When one was found, a soldier would pull back the covering, releasing a foul odor that he or she would then stand guard over. So far they had found five, unsurprising in a mountain riddled with wounds left from centuries of digging.

“You’re not expected to go down there,” Illaan said evenly. “I just want you to help these two men get ready.”

“You should have that Keeper down here,” muttered the First.

Bueralan did not disagree. Bau had not left the funeral pyres. Lost in concentration, the saboteur had been told that he was knitting the soldier’s throat back together.

Rising, he met Zaifyr’s gaze from across the hole and the charm-laced man grimaced, liking the decision no more. Yet both would swim down the shaft until they hit the bottom. There, the silt would be disturbed, and in water turning darker and murkier, they would swim down a tunnel with nothing but trapped air in their grasp. In theory, the tunnel would end in a low pit that had been designed to avoid flooding by being cut in higher than the tunnel to it.

“You’re both just real unlucky,” the First said, he and his brother returning with shapeless, inflated animal bladders and two thick, glass orbs. “This whole area has been scheduled for filling for the last year, if I remember.”

“Last two,” the Second corrected.

“Three then, probably.”

“Why wasn’t it?” Bueralan asked.

“Why do a lot of civil projects not get done?” The First placed the glass orb he had been holding on the ground, the pitch inside it rolling sluggishly.

“Paperwork,” the Second answered.

“And a war,” Sergeant Illaan Alahn said, approaching the group. “Let us not forget that, either.”

The First shrugged. The Second, his back to the soldier, rolled his deep-set eyes. Holding up the large globe, he said, “These burn for half a candle in the water. Down there, these are your life. They’ll tell you which way is up, which is down. They’ll also stop you from being in the cold for too long—you go numb after a while, which is warning enough, really. You can move it if you need and you should. There’s only a little bit of pitch in these, and we do that ’cause we like to move them. Once the first one is done on its time, we’ll drop a second to guide you home in two hours. After that, one every hour until tonight. We’ll assume you’re not coming up, if you’re not back by then.”

“You’re filling me with confidence,” Bueralan said.

“At least it’s not doubt and fear. That’s a killer.” The small man grinned through his discolored, crooked teeth. “Once you’re ready, I’ll drop it down.”

With a nod the saboteur unstrapped his axes, pulled off his boots and his shirt. A long series of scars, a lash’s touch, ran across his back. They were old, but deep, and the ends of his tattoos entwined in them, his old life, his new. If any of those around him had any thought about it, the splash of the dropping orb was the only statement made. Following its descent, Bueralan watched the burning glow get swallowed quickly. “You sure we can’t send the midgets down?” he muttered dryly.

Zaifyr moved to the edge. “Just pray that whoever has possessed the Quor’lo hasn’t had time to pull themselves out yet.”

“Pray?”

The man dropped into the water.

“Time like this,” he said, rising from the black and cold water for but a moment, “even a dead god is important.”

Then he plunged downward.