7.

 

Bueralan descended last, watching the unmoving silhouette of Dural as he was lowered slowly into the darkness.

Once his feet touched mud he released the rope, leaving it slack while his eyesight adjusted to the frail light at the bottom of the shaft. Constantly under threat from shadow, he could make out the shapes of those around him, but their details—their expressions—eluded him. Yet he could see that one of the priests had lifted the glass orb that had been used to light the path he’d swum earlier with Zaifyr and that either Handsome or Ugly was crouched before the crawlspace that led deeper into the mine.

“You are going to say into the smell, aren’t you?” said the latter. “That’s what you’re going to say to me, isn’t it?”

“Take a deep breath.”

It was hard going, more so for Bueralan whose hands were still handcuffed together, forcing him to move like a three-legged dog. Yet, it was better than when he had swum before: the sense of being crushed by stone had abated, though it still lingered on the edge of his consciousness. Halfway through the crawlspace he realized that enough mud had worked its way up between his wrists and chains that he could pull his hands out, if he twisted and turned enough. It would not be easy, but he could do it, given enough time; but with Ugly behind and Handsome in front, and priests both in front and behind, the saboteur did not have the time and plodded on slowly, smiling grimly as those in front of him gagged on the putrid air ahead.

Once in the bolt hole himself, he held his breath and quickly pushed through the fissure into the City of Ger.

Or what remained of it.

A part of the stone roof had fractured, resulting in a large part of the cavern collapsing. No doubt the same explosion that had cleared out the rancid water had left its mark here. Standing on the path to the temple, his gaze adjusting to the pale light, Bueralan located the break point: the newly drilled holes in the ceiling. Those around him would have difficulty recognizing that, and he was caught in two minds about it: firstly, he believed it better not to explain it, not to tip the extent of Heast’s plan; but he realized that it offered him an easy opportunity to thin out the numbers around him, an opportunity for either one of his guards to be sent back to the rope, to Dural, the general, the Faithful and their war.

“Tell me, Captain, how did this look before?” Mother Estalia stepped around him, the muddy priestess gazing up at the ruined ceiling. “Was it complete?”

“Mostly,” he replied. “The paths had eroded and houses crumbled. But there was destruction as well, evidence of fighting.”

“Yes, of course.” Slowly, she began walking down the street, the ruined buildings on either side shadowed crypts, their open doors dark depths that held bones and little else. “The people who lived in Ger’s tomb were eventually killed by the first of the Mireean people, most of who came in search of gold. What they panned from rivers and dug from the ground laid the foundation for the city that they built around the Spine, the original base of the city above us. But they first had to murder the people who lived beneath, who saw everything in it as sacred to Ger himself and the Spine of Ger as a holy artifact, a walk they took in birth and death, a journey across their god to celebrate and mourn. At their peak, those people numbered twenty thousand if I recall correctly.”

“They were eradicated.”

“They did not have a standing army,” she said. “They were a fractured community, divided by their cities and temples, with no centralized government. They fought a guerilla campaign with intermittent attempts at suing for peace for over three decades. Their enemy was similar in that it had no central government, but their wealth eventually demanded that they come together and form one, which resulted in the building of the first Mireea. It was there that the People of Ger destroyed their last chance for peace, when they burned the city to the ground. The Mireeans hired an army to clear out the caves, a campaign that took eight bloody years but which saw the end of a people and their holy work.”

“And that is why you’re marching on Mireea now?” Ahead of him, Bueralan could hear the rush of water, the start of the river. “Because of that work that was stopped?”

“Always the spy, I see.”

He shrugged. “It’s mostly curiosity.”

“The Mireeans are a faithless people, that much is true, and their deaths are a firm statement in this new world, but … no, that is not the reason.” Ahead, the river appeared, the violent red light of it brighter the second time, stronger, as if in response to the destruction around it. “Within this tomb there are twenty-three temples. That is what is recorded, at any rate, but I would not be surprised if there were more. Each of the buildings was built over a fissure directly over Ger’s body. It gave the priests access to the wounds that he had sustained against his brothers. For the centuries that they lived here the priests tended his wounds, attempting to heal him. It was their belief that he would rise again. Which way, Captain?”

Bueralan indicated to the left and, slowly, they began to follow the river.

“We do not wish to heal Ger.” Estalia raised her voice over the water. “His time is done, as is the case with all the old gods. Very few will argue with that. But there is power still in him, power that we have been sent to take and to return.”

“To return to who?”

“To the gods’ child.” The red light mixed with her smile, stained her teeth. “Why do you think the gods went to war, Captain?”