Bone Palace, The - Amanda Downum Page 0,51
and stagnation instead of waste. Isyllt saw no rats; animals often had better sense than men. The only sound now was their footsteps and the rasp of her and Khelséa’s breath.
They stopped when the tunnel split into three equally dark and unappealing branches. Isyllt and Khelséa exchanged a glance, then turned to Spider. He gave them an articulated shrug in response.
“I thought they must be lairing somewhere near the old palace, but from here I have no more clue than you. But”—his voice lowered—“if they are here, they know we’re coming. I imagine we’ll find them waiting for us eventually.”
“So your plan is to keep going till we walk into an ambush?” Khelséa folded her arms across her chest in eloquent critique of the idea.
“It does have a certain brutal efficiency,” Isyllt said wryly. “Do you have a better idea?”
“You’re the sorcerer. Can’t you do something clever?”
She winced at the thought; even a witchlight’s worth of concentration was daunting right now. But she was the only one who could magic a solution. She leaned against the wall and slid slowly down, careful not to bump her head.
“Spider, Azarné, give me some of your hair.” She tugged her gloves off, shaking dry a film of sweat. It was hedge magic, the sort of craft children practiced and Arcanostoi disdained. But Isyllt had learned such charms from her mother, and they worked more often than not.
The vrykoloi each gave her three long strands, and she plaited dark and fair together into a slender cord nearly the length of her forearm. The hair was curiously slick against her skin, and she wondered what it would look like under magnifying lenses. “Now I need a weight.”
After a pause, Azarné untangled something from her hair and handed it over; a thick gold ring set with lapis. Isyllt nodded thanks and tied it to the end of the cord, where it swayed heavily. The trick was convincing the crude pendulum to seek out vampires other than the two closest.
The answer, as it so often was, was blood. She pulled her jacket away from her wounded shoulder, wincing as she did. Amid all her new discomforts, the bite had faded into the background. Working a corner of the dressing loose, she prodded the tender flesh until blood and lymph smeared her fingertip. The physical poison was long since cleansed, but its ghost remained and that was enough for her. She slicked the ring and tugged her jacket back into place, ignoring the way Spider and Azarné’s gazes had sharpened and trained on her.
She cleared her head as best she could, concentrating on the memory of the attack in the sewers, of the vampire’s teeth in her neck and his chill skin against hers. When she opened her eyes again her shoulder throbbed fiercely and the ring swung in a straight and steady arc, pointing toward the right-hand tunnel.
The tunnel had been a dead end once, but now a ragged hole opened in the wall. The pendulum tugged sharply toward the blackness. A faint draft breathed through, cold and stale and dry. Its touch conjured ghostlight in the depths of Isyllt’s diamond.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Spider murmured. His nearness made the pendulum twitch. “You’re in no condition for a fight.”
“Your concern is touching.”
“I need you alive if you’re to be of any use.” He squeezed her elbow as he said it. It would have reassured her, had his fingers not been cold and vising.
“You haven’t earned your use of me yet.”
She pulled her arm free, shoving the pendulum into her pocket and drawing her kukri. Opalescent light licked up the blade as she gave Khelséa a nod. Isyllt sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly, then stepped forward.
The echoes of their footsteps changed as they stepped from the narrow tunnel into a wider space. Lantern-and ghostlight brushed the curves of a high vaulted ceiling and the shadows of coffined alcoves in the walls—a great crypt. Doors led into darkness in all directions. Isyllt opened her mouth to question Spider when Azarné hissed, jerking her face upward.
She had an instant’s glimpse of pale shapes clinging to the stones like insects before the vampires fell on them. Spellfire cut the air in the wake of her blade, throwing shadows wild across the walls, but the vrykolos was already out of the way. Pain blazed in her shoulder, and she knew she faced the one who’d bitten her.
She swung again, too slow and clumsy.