CHAPTER 21

Katarina examined the tunnel’s entrance with an irritated twist to her mouth. They’d been whisked from the church and escorted to the construction site by the taciturn acolyte with muttonchops.

"They want me to investigate, but they don’t secure it against anything entering or escaping? Stupid." She observed, noting the simple roped-off barrier.

Sasaki eyed the tunnel, and then the sun, which was setting.

"You sure you want to go in there now?" She asked, and Katarina nodded. "We’re as ready as we’ll ever be." she replied. She pulled out a brass marble, which flared to light at her touch, and tossed it into the tunnel, illuminating it.

"Well, daylight’s wasting." Sasaki replied bluntly and started into the tunnel.

"Wait." Katarina insisted. "Before we go in, I have to tell you something, mostly because it might impact how we fight in there." She offered.

"Shoot." Sasaki replied humorlessly.

"I’ll only fire twice in a fight before I switch to my sword." She replied. "I prefer to keep one shot in reserve, just in case." She advised, and Sasaki nodded. "Smart. I’ll watch for it." She acknowledged.

They eyed each other, and stepped into the tunnel.

They hadn’t gotten far when they smelled burnt fur and the hot, scratching smell of smoke.

"Ugh." Sasaki remarked, hand over her nose. "What do you think? Homeless wastrels hiding in the tunnels?" She offered, and Katarina shrugged. She tucked her brass marble into the pouch at her waist, extinguishing the light. A warm flickering glow was visible up ahead and to the left. She touched her fingers to her lips and drew her gun silently. They crouched against the wall and crept forward slowly.

There were muted scrapes and clicks ahead, some strange growling screeches, and the hiss and pop of burning things.

Katarina frowned. She couldn’t place the noises. Sounds she’d never heard before. She rounded a corner and drew back quickly after she spotted a pair of serpentine shadows writhing on the walls.

Sasaki glanced at Katarina, who shook her head, and peeked around the corner a second time.

In the guttering flames, two fire drakes struggled with some carcass, snapping off chunks of seared flesh and gulping them down. They occasionally tussled with each other over some choice morsel.

She examined them carefully; they appeared to be wingless, and if her instructor’s words rang true, they were male, as only the females had wings. They were each the size of a deer, and covered in rippling scales. Drakes would grow until they were roughly the size of horses, and they were attributed with a level of intelligence that was nearly human. Drake eggs were extremely prized and very valuable. She had no idea how valuable the drakes themselves were. Katarina took in a breath and drew back.

"Drakes." She breathed.

"What? Here?" Sasaki breathed back, face painted with shock. Katarina nodded wordlessly.

"They’re fighting over food. I want to see what it was they decided was ‘dinner’." She added.

Sasaki nodded as Katarina moved into the light.

Immediately, the two drakes stopped tussling and eyed her warily.

"Hello." Katarina greeted in a low voice, and was rewarded with a pair of gurgling hisses. They didn’t attack, however, so that was a good sign, Katarina judged.

"I don’t know if you can understand me." Katarina began. "My instructors taught me that drakes were smart, noble creatures, worthy of respect." She added, and the two drakes eyed her with inscrutable eyes as strange intelligences flickered in their depths.

"I’m hoping you understand what this means." She said, and holstered her gun. One screeched at her warningly, and she immediately brought both of her hands up and away, showing empty hands to the pair.

The two glanced at each other, and they took a step backward towards their kill.

Still keeping her hands open and obvious, Katarina lowered herself to a sitting position to appear less threatening.

"What’re you doing?" Sasaki hissed at her, and Katarina shook her head.

She took a breath, and began singing.

"I heard the voice of the Lady say;" She began in a husky soprano, and the two eyed her again.

""I am this dark world’s Light," She sang, and the two approached slowly, reluctantly.

"Look unto Me, thy morn shall rise, And all thy day be bright." she sang, and the two shied back, eyeing each other.

"I looked to Her, and I found in Her my Star, my Sun;" She continued, and they approached again, dipping their heads submissively.

"And in that Light of life I’ll walk till travelling days are done." She finished, and lightly touched their heads.

"My teachers were right." She marveled in low tones as she lightly stroked and patted the fire-breathing lizards. "You are intelligent, noble creatures." She praised.

"What were you eating?" She asked, and gestured at the carcass. The one to her left let out a warning hiss, but she gave him an affectionate scratch across the top of the head and he subsided.

After, they seemed to relax around her, and she was able to get up from her seat and move around the small room.

The carcass seemed to be some form of furry, bipedal humanoid with a doglike snout, which in some ways was a relief for her as it wasn’t a human, but at the same time, the thought of beastmen being so dangerously close to Aston filled her with dread.

Sasaki hadn’t moved from her hiding spot; Katarina gestured to the carcass. "Go on, it’s yours." She encouraged, and backed away from the room, and signaled Sasaki.

"It’s time for us to go." Katarina advised and took a quick glance at the smaller Yamato woman, who was staring at her with unrestrained awe.

"I can’t believe I just saw that. I can’t believe you did that!" Sasaki whispered as they moved down the corridor, deeper into the tunnel and away from the drakes.

"Me either." Katarina breathed. "I was so scared I nearly browned my trousers." She replied.

"Mine too." Sasaki admitted and Katarina chuckled.

"What were they eating?" Sasaki asked, and Katarina shook her head. "Nothing good. Beastman corpse." She replied.

"This close to Aston?" Sasaki replied, and Katarina nodded.

"Un-fucking-believable." Sasaki breathed. "We’d better keep an eye out or we might run into the rest of them." Sasaki added, and Katarina nodded.

Past the chamber with the drakes the corridor took a hard right, and immediately became a catacomb, with stacks of dessicated corpses laying in carved niches in the walls.

Katarina shivered involuntarily. The Golden Lady had decreed that the Anglish Empire was to burn their dead.

Sasaki eyed the bodies. "If I had to guess, I’d say elven." She observed in a quiet voice, and Katarina nodded. "Or Yamato." She replied, eyeing Sasaki’s slight figure.

"Cut the shit." Sasaki replied curtly, and Katarina sighed.

"I liked you better when you weren’t so pissy." She observed, and Sasaki glared at the taller woman.

"You have no idea what you did to me, do you?" She replied hotly.

"You gonna tell me?" Katarina asked, pulling out the marble and holding it aloft. A chill breeze drifted down the hall, and Katarina shuddered again.

They were interrupted by a metallic clatter that confused the both of them until Katarina looked down. Her Holy Symbol, a palm-sized shield with the fleur-de-lys of the Golden Lady was shaking on its chain. The heavy links chattered as the symbol thrummed.

Katarina grabbed the symbol and felt its vibration sink into her hand.

"Back!" Katarina yelled and then suited action to word, backpedalling down the hall, back towards the firedrakes.

Sasaki impressed Katarina by simply and immediately moving back without running her mouth.

A blast of cold suddenly raced down the hall, and Katarina put out her hand towards Sasaki as the frigid air blasted over them.

"W-what was that?" Sasaki asked through chattering teeth and numb lips.

"Spirits, I think." Katarina replied in a low voice, her breath frosting in the air. She took a step back, and Sasaki backed up with her.

A low mist formed at the level of the floor; it was cold and clammy and dank with the smell of the dead. Everywhere, the hall began lighting up as wispy apparitions began milling about in the hall.

Sasaki squealed something unintelligible and brandished her sword. The spirits slid across her blade, completely unaffected.

"Don’t..." Katarina began, and retreated backwards again, Sasaki moving with jerky, panicky movements. "Don’t look them in the eye." Katarina warned. "You can look at them, but don’t... don’t look them in the eye." She spoke all in a whispered rush.

"Do something, Katarina!" Sasaki blurted, and Katarina shook her head. "I don’t know the Rites. For spectral undead we need a Cleric." She whispered back, unable to keep her eyes off the milling figures that glowed with weak pale inner light the bluish-white color of alabaster, ivory, and bone. They shuffled amongst themselves for an interminable amount of time, and then as one, began shuffling down the hall, growing dimmer with each step.

"A procession of the dead." Katarina breathed, and passed a hand down her face, which was slick with icy sweat.

"A what?" Sasaki asked, and Katarina shook her head, unable to speak.

The dead marched with inexorable slowness away from Katarina and Sasaki. The unearthly cold froze the air in their lungs and chilled the marrow in their bones as they waited for the spirits of the dead to move on.

The spirits shuffled slowly down the hall, not stopping. They rounded a corner further down the hall and vanished.

After several long minutes the ache in their bones faded and it was easier to breathe.

"What was that, Katarina?" Sasaki whispered fiercely.

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"A procession of the dead." Katarina repeated, and flexed her hand, watching tiny ice crystals sifting from her gloves. "Itinerant spirits." She added. "They have no home to go to."

Sasaki glanced up at the taller woman. "No home?" She asked, and Katarina nodded.

"The priests that come after will know the rites and they’ll either be consecrated to the Golden Lady and given rest, or they’ll be consigned to the Void." Katarina explained and took a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm her furiously pounding heart.

"What do we do?" Sasaki asked. "I mean, do we follow them?" She asked while brushing ice from her sword blade with her sleeve. "I don’t know if I can deal with that again, Witch Hunter."

"If it was a procession of the dead, then we should be okay." Katarina replied simply. "A procession usually involves the dead marching and then vanishing."

"Why can’t you look them in the eye?" Sasaki asked, and Katarina rolled her eyes. "Why, do you want to?" She replied sarcastically.

Sasaki sneered at her. "No, I just want to know." She replied curtly.

"The eyes are the windows to the soul." Katarina replied simply. "You look them in the eye, they look you in the eye, and you fall down dead." She replied, counting on her fingers. "And then a new spirit joins the procession." She finished. Sasaki wrapped her arms around her thin chest to keep from shaking in horror.

Katarina held up her symbol, which swung on the chain, but didn’t vibrate anymore. "They’ve passed us by, and we’ve survived. Let’s move on." Katarina affirmed, and marched forward. After a brief moment, Sasaki followed after, her breath little white puffs in the frozen air.

Katarina glanced at Sasaki as they moved down the corridor, the moldering corpses to either side of them. She raised her hand. "Hang on." She replied simply, and peered down the corridor.

"What?" Sasaki whispered, hand on her sword. "More drakes? Ghosts?" She asked.

Katarina stared intently into the gloom, and concentrated in the way she was taught until her sight filled with the wavery shimmers that came with auravision.

"Magic." Katarina whispered, and retrieved several more brass balls from a pouch. She took a breath, and allowed her innate resistance of magic to flow out from her, forming a barrier against magic. She drew her gun and glanced at the smaller woman. "Remember, two shots." She whispered. "Flank right when we hit the end of this corridor." She added, and Sasaki nodded wordlessly. They moved slowly down the corridor, and Katarina glanced back at Sasaki, who had somehow drawn her sword in the narrow hall without a sound.

Katarina shook her head; she still hadn’t figured out how Sasaki managed to do it.

She adjusted her footing, and dashed forward, Sasaki hot on her heels.

They burst into a small chamber, Katarina tossing out the brass balls. As they cleared her antimagic field they flared to light, revealing a tall woman wrapped in rags at an altar. She whirled As Katarina pulled her gun.

"In the name of the Goddess of the Dawn, get you from the skin of this world, Witch!" She shouted and fired, the crack of the gun deafening in the enclosed space.

The woman screamed and dove to the right; Sasaki shocked Katarina by running up the wall and launching herself off of it at the woman, her sword flickering out and sending the woman’s right arm flying.

Blood arced in a glittering splash as Sasaki rolled to a stop; the woman’s rags fell back, revealing her hair was a writhing mass of snakes. She thrust her hand at Katarina and screamed out some word; a searing bolt of fire hit her antimagic barrier and exploded in a shower of fiery embers.

Katarina fired again, catching the woman in the midsection, just shy of her navel. The woman gave a gurgling cry and folded as Sasaki brought her sword up and in a smooth arc that took the top of the woman’s skull clean off.

Katarina let out a breath she didn’t remember holding, and reloaded.

"That was..." She started, and shook her head.

"Bold." Sasaki replied. "I thought you were going to be cautious, like with the Drakes."

Katarina shook her head. "With magic users you have to strike as quickly as you can to keep them from kicking off a spell."

"She tried." Sasaki observed, and Katarina nodded. "The barrier isn’t perfect. Sometimes- most times- it works. Others..." She shook her head. She held up her gun and waggled it. "I need to get this fixed. I was aiming for her face."

Sasaki shook her head in mute wonder that Katarina would come to this place with a malfunctioning gun.

"Going to dig them out?" Sasaki asked, and Katarina nodded, pulled out a knife, and went to work.

"The drakes, that beastman they were eating, this thing-" Sasaki nudged the woman’s corpse with her foot- "They’ve been here a while. Not likely that they just saw this open up today and decided to set up shop." She observed. "So there’s at least one other entrance."

Katarina nodded. "The ruins are at the top of the cliffs, which places us at the lower levels. I’m just guessing here, but I think there’s probably three more levels. We might find libraries, sewage drainage, cisterns, treasure vaults, armories or repositories."

"What do you think we’ll really find?" Sasaki asked, as Katarina dug the lead ball that had gone through the woman out of the wall.

"Trouble." Katarina replied simply.

"And the Drakes?" Sasaki asked, and Katarina gave her a puzzled look. "I don’t follow."

"You tamed them, right?" She asked, and Katarina shook her head. "I didn’t threaten their meal or them. I don’t know how smart they are, but that’s really the best i could hope for." She paused and then added, "They could also decide that I’m their next meal and try and sneak up on us from behind." she made a gesture. "They’re intelligent, but amoral. They haven’t been raised by humans. They don’t have our values."

"They seemed to like you, though." Sasaki insisted and Katarina smiled at that.

"I like them too. A shame I’ll never get one of my own, they’re only given to elite troops." Katarina replied airily.

"Any chance of reinforcements?" Sasaki asked, picking up the brass balls one at a time as Katarina stuffed the witches’ spellbook into her pack, along with one of the woman’s hands.

"What’re you talking about?" Katarina asked. "You’re my reinforcement." She replied simply. "The Yamato harbor guards refuse to help, the militia are just thief-catchers-" She cut off for a second, and reached up and touched the ceiling with her fingers.

"What? What is it?" Sasaki asked, but Katarina shook her head. "For a moment, I thought- well, it doesn’t matter." She replied dismissively. "As I was saying though, there’s nobody but us." She finished.

"Swell." Sasaki replied.

"Well, I’ve already made a nice haul." Katarina replied, patting her backpack. "The Witch will fetch a decent bounty." She glanced wistfully down the tunnel. "If those drakes could be captured and tamed, I would make enough coin to..." She shook her head. "Well, I already have more than enough coin than I know what to do with." She finished.

"I was about to say that you started to sound like a mercenary there, Katarina." Sasaki replied. The tone of her voice made Katarina wonder. Was that a warning of some sort?

Katarina nodded. "All I need is a hot meal and a bed from time to time." She agreed, and lifted her gun. "And a gun that shoots straight." She muttered.

"Want to take a moment and clean it again?" Sasaki asked, and Katarina nodded after a long minute of thought.

Sasaki scattered the light-marbles again, and Katarina broke down and cleaned her gun; this time a small clot of dirt slipped out of the mechanism. Katarina reassembled her gun and tried it, working the action trigger several times.

"It’ll do." She remarked with a twist to her mouth. "I suspect that I’ll need to take it all the way to Darnell to get it serviced properly, however."

"Why don’t you do that?" Sasaki asked curiously, retrieving the marbles.

"Have you been there?" Katarina asked, aggrieved. "It’s a beautiful, wonderful place... but it’s a seething nest of politics and powerful people jostling for authority." She shook her head. "Every time I’ve gone there, someone at some point tries to enmesh me in one of their schemes." She shook her head. "I’ll do absolutely whatever I can to avoid having to return there." she finished. "The last time I was there, I had to threaten to kill a Cardinal Priestess if she didn’t let me go."

"You can do that?" Sasaki asked curiously, pulling out a scrap of jerky and gnawing on it.

Katarina gave her a contemplative look, and shook her head. "Not really. You obviously can’t do that. I had to invoke authorities. When you complete the requisite courses, you’re granted the honorary title of ‘Inquisitor’, and if you’re ..." She trailed off and grinned at Sasaki, "If you’re generous with your interpretation of the law, nobody can restrain an Inquisitor from doing their job on pain of death."

Sasaki burst into laughter at this, but pointed at the doorway. "We’re not getting any younger."

Katarina nodded.

As they followed the corridor, Katarina remarked in a low voice, "My offer still stands, Sasaki."

Sasaki nodded, and then immediately shook her head. "Unless you can force me to become your apprentice I’m going back to Yamato, Katarina." She replied firmly.

Katarina’s mouth twisted. "If only I could." She replied and touched the ceiling as they walked, absently wiping her fingertips.

"What is it?" Sasaki asked. "That’s the second time you’ve done that. Something’s going on, isn’t there?" She asked.

Katarina shook her head.

"Bullshit." Sasaki replied, and Katarina shook her head again. "Well, if you don’t believe me when I tell you something, we’ve reached an impasse." She answered with a shrug. "Did you feel it?"

"Feel what?" Sasaki asked, and Katarina nodded. "Exactly." She remarked flippantly. "Twice now I have felt- or thought I felt- a vibration. I go to confirm it, and it’s gone." Sasaki gave her a look of utter dumbfounded amazement.

"I have to wonder. Have the construction mages started up again? Is their industry travelling through the rock and vibrating here?" Katarina asked curiously. She glanced up at the ceiling. "Or is there something, up there, a floor or so up, that is stomping around so hard that we can feel it down here?" She asked, and glanced down at Sasaki.

They eyed each other in silence for a few seconds.

"By the Rings." Sasaki breathed. "You and my mother would get along famously." She stated in undisguised awe. "She could always tell when I was running in the halls of the estate- even when I was on the complete other side." She replied. "Keep in mind that the clan estate is larger in size than Higgenfal was." She remarked pointedly. "So her sense of vibration must have been damn near miraculous."

Katarina burst into laughter at that.

"It’s not funny. You wouldn’t be laughing if you’d been on the receiving end of one of her thrashings." Sasaki complained sourly.

Katarina shook her head. "I’m jealous."

Sasaki gave her a look. "You can’t tell me that you never got a thrashing from your parents." Sasaki replied, and gestured at the corridor.

"I grew up in an orphanage, and then later, in a school." She replied comfortably.

"So your parents are-" Sasaki began, and Katarina waved her hand. "Oh, my parents are very much alive, I think. I was taken by the priests at the age of six to become a Witch Hunter." She replied. "However, the classes to be a Witch Hunter can only be enrolled in at the age of 11, so from six to eleven, I was raised in a Church-run orphanage." She smiled down at the smaller woman. "Truly, I’m jealous of your memories of your family."

"I don’t know what to say." Sasaki remarked, to which Katarina shrugged. "Then let’s drop it." She replied comfortably. "If I’m imagining things, then I’m imagining things. If I’m not, then we will need to decide what that vibration means and whether or not it’s a threat." She explained simply, and Sasaki nodded.

Sasaki herself wouldn’t have been able to tell if there were any vibrations. The tunnels themselves were dark, cramped, and filled with the rotting dead. Katarina talked and acted like it was nothing, and for that she had Sasaki’s endless admiration, but for her, these dusty corridors were an endless parade of horror. A warrior on the dueling grounds, a gaggle of drunken idiots in an alley, beastmen and mutants and monsters in the forest, all of these things she could handle. Dimly lit corridors filled with cobwebs and niches that cradled the ancient dead? Nope. No way.

There was also that way Katarina had won over the drakes, too. Sasaki would have simply killed them both and doused her burns with salves and ointments. Why did she do that? Sasaki couldn’t figure it out. While Sasaki was struggling with that, Katarina had bolted down the corridor at high speed to fight a mutating mage at point blank range.

As always, when Sasaki laid her hands on her sword, everything fell away and there was only the next target, the next thing to cut down, but Sasaki couldn’t do that as they creeped down the corridor carefully. Sasaki’s unique training required an enemy to point her blade at, and she could no more cut the dry, chilly air festooned with cobwebs than she could cut down the taller woman ahead of her.

That was another thing. Sasaki guarded her heart more diligently and faithfully than a miser his money pouch and yet without even trying, Katarina had somehow become something iconic in the Yamato woman’s breast. She was tall and proud and cut no shit. In the beginning, Sasaki would have comfortably and laughingly slept with the taller woman, but Katarina herself had somehow become something more, immaculate and untouchable, a majestic paragon of the ideals that Sasaki herself pursued: Someone who would do what was right, not because of the rules, not because of the restrictions, not because she was forced into an ever-increasingly complex maze of social or political prohibitions, but simply because it was the right thing to do.

Sasaki was satisfied. Her desire had been validated in Katarina. She was ready to go to her death with her head high, her eyes clear, and her heart unburdened.

But she’d been caught, imprisoned, and flogged, and the fragile, glimmering thread of hope that she’d built in her breast seemed more and more unrealistic. She’d turned inward, not caring of the depredations the guards visited on her flesh, and then Katarina had shown up again, casually brilliant and amused and seemingly ready to pick right up where they’d left off.

The thought infuriated her. How could she? She, who had unintentionally built a place in Sasaki’s heart as someone who was both good and noble without ever trying, how could she come down into the filth of the dungeons and simply expect Sasaki to follow her back into the light? Sasaki was filled with the churning acid of shame that burned her breast and the bright splinters of hate as the woman showed the steel fist under the velvet glove and ordered her against her will. The contemptuous arrogance. Katarina did everything perfectly, effortlessly, and with grace, what could she need Sasaki for, besides something to pity?

How did Katarina even feel about her? Sasaki wondered curiously. Katarina had been wholly oblivious to the passes she made in Higgenfal. It seemed as though their cultures were too far apart- Sasaki had no idea how women approached each other in Anglish culture, but in Yamato, propositions were subtle, indirect, and ambiguous enough that both parties could save face should feelings be un-reciprocated.

Sasaki had made it a point of pride in sleeping with people she considered exceptional. There was a perverse sort of thrill she felt when an artist displayed their works in a gallery and basked in the accolades and Sasaki thought, "I made love with them." She had lain with someone that was dynamic, fabulous, amazing, and she wore that as a badge of pride.

Things had changed between them, though. Sasaki wouldn’t be satisfied with sleeping with her. So sorry, Katarina, but you had your chance and you missed it, Sasaki thought, thinking of the woman’s buttocks that were unfortunately covered by the heavy leather duster she wore. Katarina had moved from the position of "someone exceptional" in her mind to something completely different in her heart. It was a curious feeling, she supposed. Wanting to be with someone but also wanting to punch them in their perfect face.