Leda

Chapter Twenty: Catacombs

"Please tell me," Hal spoke out loud to no one in particular. "Please tell me that this will be the last time I ever have to go underground. Ever."

She caught the rise of panic in her own voice, swallowed hard and put her fingers to the wall. Not wet, slimy stone as she had expected, or earth and clay, but dry, hard rock ˗ solid. At least to the touch.

"Does she always moan this much?" Salvesté asked.

"She never used to," Jools replied. "Must be old age."

"I'm not that old." She gulped down another swell of fear. She could see nothing, had no idea how long they'd been walking ˗ whether they were still beneath the city or beyond its walls. Her imagination swung between the horrors of the surface ˗ the baying crowds, the blood lust ˗ and her nightmares and memories of living burial.

"Old enough to have forgotten who you are," Magda muttered in the darkness.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know what I mean."

Unable to tell where Magda was, Hal fumed alone, resentment compounding her anxiety. If they were ever free of this midden of a city she would make her own way home, free of Magda's scorn and Salvesté's sarcasm. She would seek Meracad, beg her forgiveness ˗ on her knees, if it were necessary. She would do anything to put the world back on its axis once again, to mend all that the night had broken.

With a rough scratch of flint, a spark punctured the darkness. A pinprick of light bloomed as a brand was raised: amber, crimson and then gold. Hal held her breath; Jools' light revealed a cavern, its walls sweeping up towards a distant void.

"Careful," Jools whispered in her ear, suddenly close. "Don't want to wake the dead."

"What?"

The thief leered at her, her dark eyes glittering against the torch light. "To think you nearly ended up one of them today."

"One of what?"

Jools jutted her chin upwards, indicating a cavity buried in the side of a wall at head height. It was about the size of a small chamber, its edges unnaturally even as if chiselled out by hand. And wedged inside it was row after row of human sculls ˗ vacant eye sockets set deep against pale, cracked bone. Many were missing jaws and teeth, fractured and broken, some set bizarrely on their side, others upside down as if part of a huge, grotesque puzzle.

Lauré shrieked, Roc swore and her own knees threatened to buckle as Jools spun her brand around to reveal more antechambers housing yet more sculls.

"What is this place?" Hal breathed.

"The temple's ancient secret: its catacombs," Jools said. "Once, the law forbade criminals from being buried in graveyards with other spirit fearing souls. So they just lobbed 'em all in here together. Thieves' paradise. For the living as well as the dead."

"What do you mean?" Hal threw her a queasy look.

"Well, no matter how hard he looked, Castor never found me. Did he?"

"You mean you were living down here?"

"Why not? Amongst our own, so to speak. I mean, at least they don't moan as much as the living." Jools thumped her hard on the shoulder. "Come on, let's move on."

"And Degaré?" Hal called after her.

Jools stopped and turned back, her expression pained. "Degaré was too trusting. When Castor came for us, he thought he could count on Josen's help."

"Why would he do that?" Hal thought back to the night of the Emperor's coronation ˗ to Josen with his sly, false smile: the way he'd charmed Leda out to dance, only to lure her into a trap she'd barely escaped from. Why would Degaré ˗ so astute, so level-headed, imagine that Josen was a man to be trusted?

"Use your brain for once, Hal," Magda said coldly. "You of all people ought to understand."

Still clutching Lauré by the hand, Magda veered off down another passage way to the left. The others followed, leaving Hal in descending darkness, surrounded by stone and sculls.

"C'mon, Hal." Jools' voice echoed back to her. "Unless you fancy being buried alive!"

Hal shuddered, her stomach lurching. "What do you mean?" She hurried towards the spluttering flame of Jools' brand.

"I mean once they put out that little fire in the temple, we'll have half of Colvé on our heels. Which is why me and Salvesté took precautions."

"What precautions?" Hal asked, her nerves now threatening to spill over into sheer panic. "Jools, what precautions?"

But the thief made no reply, fumbling instead around the rock for holds. "Here, grab this." She dropped the brand into Hal's hands and then clambered her way up towards the ceiling, disappearing through a hole above their heads. Hal waited, the breath caught in her throat. In the reddish glow of the brand, she observed the others. Magda's face was as stony as the walls themselves, while Lauré shivered with fear. Roc, exhausted, rested against the tunnel wall. Salvesté's eyes danced, glittering with bitter mirth in the darkness.

There was a sudden creak above them, followed by an almost human groan. Hal froze, rooted to the spot; Roc cursed. And then came an awful roar and clatter as if thousands of plates had been hurled to the ground. Jools' feet reappeared through the hole and she dropped down, breathless.

"What have you done?" Hal yelled above the noise.

"Better run!" Grabbing the brand, Jools fled down the passage, the others in tow. And as Hal turned to look back, hundreds of sculls slammed to the floor, gradually forming a mound so high that it blocked their way back to the catacombs. Too horrified even to scream, she turned around and raced down the tunnel into the unknown. There was no going back.