supplies, and the rustling of the barbarian’s clothes was like summer thunder reverberating off rain-lashed hills.
Croy lit a lantern, a great flaring light that made Malden blink as his eyes watered. The candle inside the lantern flickered wildly in some unfelt breeze and then steadied, and light streamed out across the open space of stone.
The marble floor stretched ahead as far as the light showed. A pair of stout, twisted columns held up a roof that was high enough that the light couldn’t show it, leaving it shrouded in pitch-darkness. Something moved on one of the columns, inching through the lantern’s glow, and Malden nearly turned and dashed back out of the Vincularium, but then he saw it was only a millipede, no longer than his finger. Its glossy shell was translucent and he could see its clear blood surging through its body. Lifting feathery antennae into the dusty air, the insect turned and started crawling away from the light.
Mörget started forward, one fist raised as if he would smash the thing.
“Be careful,” Croy whispered. “We don’t know what we’re walking into.”
Mörget grumbled with impatience, but he stepped back again.
Cythera lit another lantern and pressed it into Malden’s hand. It had a looping handle on one side and he gripped it hard, like a man dying of thirst will grab onto a tankard of ale.
“So far so good,” Cythera said. She smiled at him. Obviously she meant to reassure him, but the light streaming upward across her face made dark pools of her eyes and made her look much more like a witch than Coruth ever had. He expected her to start cackling at any moment.
“There should be an exit from this room straight ahead,” Slag said, gesturing into the dark.
“All right,” Malden said. “I’ll make sure it’s safe.”
He was known in certain discreet circles as a master at evading traps. He’d bested the houses of sorcerers and the palaces of nobles because he could keep his wits about him and he knew when to step lightly. In all the Free City of Ness there was no one more qualified for it. And only a fool would think the way into the Vincularium would be free of pitfalls or snares. Dwarves were famous for their mistrust of interlopers and trespassers. The places they built underground were never meant for human intrusion, and over the centuries they’d become geniuses at constructing deadly surprises as a way of safeguarding their premises.
They also tended to have a lot of treasure, which attracted thieves. Over time those of Malden’s profession had learned ways to overcome or simply avoid dwarven traps. Of course, the traditional way to do that was to send one person forward ahead of the group, and if they didn’t die screaming in some horrible contraption, then you knew the way was safe. It looked to Malden like had been chosen for that honorable role.
He stepped out between the columns, careful to test the marble under his feet with each step. More columns loomed out of the darkness, perhaps a whole row of them. That was the obvious path, the way anyone coming inside would be expected to take. Safer to take the long way around. He turned to his left and raised his lantern high. There was a wall in that direction, so he moved slowly toward it and then reached out to touch it with one finger. The wall shone under his light, and he saw it was made of the same polished marble as the floor. A frieze ran along the wall just a little above Malden’s eye level, carved with dwarven runes he couldn’t read.
“Slag,” he called, and his voice boomed in the stone hall so much that he ducked his head and pressed his back against the stones. “Slag,” he said, in a much softer voice, “can you read this inscription?”
The dwarf came out of the dark toward him and peered upward at the frieze. His mouth moved silently for a while as he read. “Names, that’s all. It’s a standard formula,” Slag said, when he’d read enough. “It lists the dwarves who built this place, as well as the names of their fathers.”
“I was worried it might be warning us that only death awaited those who passed through this hall,” Malden said. That was the kind of thing he expected to find in a forbidden crypt.
“This was a city, before it was a tomb,” Slag told him. “When we lived here, there would have been fires