Sa glyph [https://i.imgur.com/plK5EWM.png]

Strange stuff, blasting powder. A pinch thrown in a fire just went phht. A pinch in a paper tube, with some other chemicals, made a fire-spitting Alchemist’s Candle. The same amount sealed in a tin can would rip through the metal with an almighty bang and send it flying.

Sam had sometimes wondered what happened when a whole cask blew up. Now he knew.

Glass and stone fragments crunched under the boots of the advancing Anemari. The explosion had shattered the windows of the houses fronting the street. Pale curtains blew in the dusty air, framing furniture-filled rooms where lit lamps still shone. The houses looked shocked, somehow, by this flagrant invasion into their private, genteel worlds.

The common soldiers who had carried the powder casks had been torn apart. Bodies and parts of bodies carpeted the street and further on, the red cloaks of Phylaxes soldiers pooled like blood. A thick cloud of dust hung over everything, a pall to shroud the dead and muffle the groans of the injured.

A handful of Phylaxes staggered among the debris like drunken ghosts. One man alone advanced to meet the Anemari.

A few strides from Robar, he stopped. Blood trickled from a cut on his brow. His rank insignia was barely visible under a coat of grey dust. He raised his sword. ‘You bastards. You turned a bloody Fire Adept on us.’

Robar drew his own shortsword. ‘We have no Fire Adept.’

‘Light damn you.’ The Phylaxes officer swayed. ‘You lie. Do you think we did this to ourselves?’

‘It was Lorie,’ Sam said. They all looked at him. He swallowed. He knew, without knowing how; it was all mixed up with those confused memories which he didn’t want to examine too closely. ‘It was my sister, Lorie. She’s the Fire Adept.’

‘Are you sure?’ Grace said.

He nodded. ‘We have to find her. And my dad. He’ll know what to do.’

The Phylaxes officer waved his sword. ‘Whatever the hell’s going on, though you find me at some disadvantage, if you will meet me in single combat, Anemari, I believe I can still offer satisfaction.’

‘Sammael preserve us,’ Nana muttered. ‘Are these fools going to fight?’

Grace moved to Robar’s side. ‘Captain Nevin.’

The Phylaxes officer acknowledged her with a stiff nod. ‘Lady.’

‘None doubt the courage of the Phylaxes,’ she said. ‘To face death in defeat requires great bravery. To face life, perhaps, is even harder.’ She gestured to the street. ‘Many of your men are injured. Further bloodshed serves neither your House, nor the city we all swore to defend.’

Nevin stared. ‘The massacre at the Temple was not our doing. Still, Numisma have cause to seek vengeance. Can I trust your honour?’

‘Phylaxes have betrayed the city,’ Robar growled. ‘And you dare question our honour?’

Nevin’s shoulders sagged. ‘Conditional on your help for my wounded, I offer my surrender.’ He dropped his sword at Robar’s feet. ‘On your honour, Anemari.’

‘Accepted.’ Robar picked up Nevin’s blade. ‘We’ll do what we can.’

‘Captain Robar,’ Grace said. ‘A word?’ She drew him aside. ‘We must go on to House Oryche.’

Robar scowled. ‘My lady, if honour didn’t oblige me to assist the Phylaxes wounded, I’d be taking my men back to the docks immediately. There was an explosion in that direction. We may be needed there. The one place I’m certainly not going is House Oryche.’

‘But Captain—’

‘No. Absolutely not. If you want to go on alone, that’s your business. My orders don’t require me to risk my men to help you kill yourself.’ He glared at her. ‘With due respect.’

‘But we must,’ Sam said. ‘We have to find Lorie and Dad.’

Robar squinted at him. ‘Sorry, kid.’

‘My dear captain,’ Grace said. ‘When the situation changes, a commander must rely on his own judgement. This is one such situation. Clearly, a Fire Adept is acting against the Phylaxes and Oryche. They are in disarray. If we withdraw, they have time to regroup. If we press on, we may be able to end this conflict. Can you afford to throw that chance away?’

Robar gestured to his men. ‘My lady, I only have these few men, half of them dock workers. What do you expect me to do?’

‘A few brave men, moving quickly and surely, may win glory undreamt of by armies,’ Grace said. ‘Also, we do have one small advantage. Captain Nevin happens to be Lord Lavan’s son; we can hold him hostage.’

Robar sighed and shook his head. ‘Light. I know I’m going to regret this.’

‘I’m coming too,’ Sam said.

‘Sam—‘ Grace smiled sadly. ‘I know you want to help your father, but it may be better for you to stay here.’

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Sam squared his shoulders. ‘It may be dangerous. I know and I understand, but I must go.’

Si glyph [https://i.imgur.com/mHhTdaF.png]

The narrow stair ended in a corner of the cellars. Simon strode on, ignoring the insistent tug toward Eranon. He needed no guide. He knew exactly where Eranon had gone.

Down and further down.

He came to the entrance to the Labyrinth, flanked by its guardian stone-wyrms embedded in pillars of black basalt. The stone warmed at his touch and the wyrms stirred. He felt their distinct stone, their thread of awareness dormant, waiting for their master’s call.

Go.

Obediently the wyrms unwound their knotted limbs and flowed through the stone. Slow as they were, they would reach the Heart before him.

How simple it all was. Remarkable, really, how he’d relied for so long on the cumbersome scribing of sigils, on such painful limitations of what could be done, when all this was so easy. As easy as breathing, or thinking…

He reached into the pillar and pulled forth a sword, a blade of black stone. Of course, stone was too brittle for a sword blade. He would have to refine it further, but he could do that as he walked.

Sword in hand, he entered the Labyrinth.

The passage curved away from him, left and right, lined with the faces of the dead. Generations of House Oryche ancestors were entombed here, each tomb marked with the name of the deceased and their likeness. As a small child, the memorials had terrified him with their staring, empty eyes.

Why do you linger?

— One moment.

Simon turned back to the entrance. Stone answered his call and smoothed across the open doorway, shutting out all light. Darkness closed in. No matter — he still saw, somehow.

He pressed his hand to the new stone seal, still faintly warm from his shaping.

— There. All done. Let’s go.

In childhood, Simon had explored the Labyrinth as all Oryche children did, daring each other to defy authority, to risk the ghosts, monsters, and other rumoured horrors, perhaps to go all the way to the fabled Heart. Of course, the only real danger was getting lost, or being stranded without light. Then grumbling adults organised search parties, the strays were found, and all the children sternly ordered never to enter the Labyrinth again. And there the game ended, for a time.

While his own youthful explorations had lasted, he’d ventured as deep as the eighth circuit, so the outer passages had a certain familiarity. But he didn’t need to consult his memory. Every stone spoke to him; every passage and junction slotted into an underlying logic as obvious as a roadmap, and always there was the strong, urgent tug toward Eranon.

Toward the Heart, where only the Lord of the Oryche might enter.

Sa glyph [https://i.imgur.com/plK5EWM.png]

At the gates of House Oryche, there were bodies, so charred only fragments of red cloth identified them as Phylaxes. The Anemari marines cursed. Nevin turned away, looking shaken.

Sam averted his gaze and hurried past, but he couldn’t shut out the sickening smell of burnt flesh. The cast-iron gates hung twisted and slumped from their posts, and from the gates to the shattered doors of the House lay a broad swathe of path and lawn all burned to charcoal.

At home in Sark, when it was time for the annual pig killing, Lorie always hid herself away and cried. His soft-hearted sister, nurse to sick kittens and baby birds — she’d done this. She’d set off the blasting powder. She’d burned men to cinders.

And the dead men at the Chained Serpent — had that been her doing? Or his?

In the grand entrance hall, more death met them. Another Phylaxes, a woman, lay at the foot of the staircase. Her throat had been ripped out. Blood puddled around her and two sets of footprints trailed red across the pale marble floor.

Prints of bare feet, not shoes or boots — so Andra and her sister had followed Lorie after all. They’d been here, had fought and killed, and then left. Sam hoped they were all right.

Apart from the dead, the House stood empty, apparently, creaking around them as the marines spread out to search. Robar stayed to guard Grace, Nevin with them. Sam waited, fidgeting beside Nana. His father could be anywhere in this huge mansion — locked in a dungeon, or lying injured somewhere. And Lorie — where was she?

At the top of the part-burned stairs, one doorway gaped open, fragments of door still hanging from the hinges. Lorie.

Sam sprinted up the steps. The weakened timber shivered under him in time to his racing heart. He burst through the doorway.

Lorie lay on a rug in front of the desk.

He held her shoulders and shook her. ‘Lorie, wake up.’ She didn’t stir. He shook her hard and shouted, and she was so pale and still, like mother when she died.

Strong arms pulled him away and held him. Wrapped in Nana’s familiar smell of soap and herbs, he sobbed into her shoulder. ‘Lorie can’t be dead. She can’t be.’

Nana smoothed his hair. ‘No, boy. Look, she breathes. She’s not dead. She’s just sleeping a while.’

The adults talked over Sam’s head while he sat on the rug beside Lorie, watching her sleep. He wondered if she was dreaming. Her eyes didn’t twitch, so probably not.

Eventually, decisions were reached. Nana would remain with Lorie, guarded by most of the marines, while Grace with Robar and a few of his men descended the narrow stair in search of Eranon.

‘I’m going with you,’ Sam said. ‘Dad may be down there.’

Robar frowned. ‘We don’t know what we’ll find. I can’t guarantee your safety.’

‘I think we all understand that,’ Grace said. ‘Sam may come, if Nana has no objection.’

So he went with Grace, creeping in single file behind the marines. And at the bottom, when they spilled out into the cellars, there was no doubt as to where they should go.

Clear in the lamplight was a trail of footprints — or boot prints, rather — sunk an inch deep in the solid stone floor.

They came, finally, to the Labyrinth. The doorway was set into a wall of polished black stone and pale marble. But there was no door between the pillars, only a seamless stone wall, and in the middle of it, two faces stared out at them with blank stone eyes.

Sam pressed his hands to the wall, the cold unmovable mass of it. ‘Dad.’

Grace reached out to touch his father’s stony brow. Beneath the faces a simple sign was engraved, a circle with two bars across.

‘I don’t know that glyph,’ Robar said.

‘It’s not a glyph,’ Sam said. ‘It’s a sign miners use. Is this the only way in?’

‘Yes,’ Grace answered. ‘What does the sign mean?’

It meant he was too late. It meant his father had gone where he could not follow, beyond his help, or anyone’s.

He had never believed in his mother’s god, the god he took his name from: Sammael the blind god who brought order from chaos, who helped the righteous and punished the wicked. But he’d had faith, all the same, as solid as Sammael’s pillar — that however far he strayed, he would always return home. That there would always be a home to return to, that Dad, and Nana, and Lorie would always be there.

‘It’s the sign they use—’ Sam swallowed past the lump in his throat. ‘When a tunnel is too dangerous, when it’s closed off. Abandoned. For good.’