Dellen turned and feigned mild surprise, “Can you help me with this door? Master Tiberius sent me for records on our initiates.”
Alben took let three heartbeats pass by before answering, “The records are a landing up. That is not a record room.” He was polite, but there was a clear indication of menace in his voice.
“I’m quite certain that this is a record room,” Dellen replied, pretending to fumble with a key, “Though the lock doesn’t seem to work.”
Alben closed the distance between them and pushed Dellen back, hard enough to shove him against the stone, “Get away from there. This room is for Lady Katherine’s personal use only.”
“Are you satisfied now? Can we leave?” Gilgamesh asked.
Dellen affected an angry tone and stance, “Who are you to stand in the way of an edict from Master Tiberius?”
“Who am I?” The man replied with a growl, Alben Tarfen, assistant to Lady Katherine. “You do not have the authority to open that door.”
“I just need to collect records for Master Tiberius,” Dellen said, “I was told to bring back records of the last three years of initiates. Master Tiberius wants a tally of how many Electrical Aether initiates we gather, and how many manage to break through to Third Trinity and beyond.”
“Pointless busy work, and you’re in the wrong place.” Alben looked at him, his head moving slightly forward, “And why are you looking for records after midnight?”
Dellen did his best to sound irritated, “Would you argue with Master Tiberius if he asked you to do something after midnight?”
Alben laughed, “No, but I’m not going to let you into Lady Katherine’s lab.”
“This is going to devolve into a fight, again,” Gilgamesh said.
Dellen sighed in agreement, he needed to get into that room, and while Alben had confirmed it was Lady Katherine’s lab, he was not going to learn anything else of use from the man. Lightning kindled in Dellen’s fingers and shot into Alben’s beard, setting it on fire.
“We know that doesn’t work!” Gilgamesh yelled.
Alben’s hands frantically hammered at the flames that engulfed his face. Dellen chose not to stop, and set fire to his robes. Alben’s screams shook the hallway.
“Someone will have heard that!”
The flames on Alben died down, leaving cracked and oozing skin, alternating black and red. Still standing, he lunged at Dellen. Dellen slipped around him, just avoiding contact. He had to finish the fight quickly, Gilgamesh was right, people would have heard that, and would be coming.
After his last experience, he could not afford to be caught again. Blackened, cracked and bleeding skin aside, Alben had survived immolation, leaving them with pugilism. In a one-on-one fistfight, there was no doubt in Dellen’s mind that a Third Trinity Aetherforged using Terra Aether was going to beat him into ground. Of course, he was not going to give Alben a fair fight. The first thing he needed to do was taunt him.
“How’s your face feeling? Crispy? I did you a favor though. That beard didn’t work for you at all. Of course, with a chin that weak maybe you didn’t have much of a choice.”
Alben roared and rushed him.
Dellen stepped past his punch, into the bull rush, shoving his left hand into Alben’s open mouth, and released lightning down his throat.
The man’s entire body convulsed.
Electrical Aether poured into Dellen’s hand, and lightning poured out of his fingers. Alben’s teeth dug into Dellen’s palm and metacarpals. Pain flared from his palm as teeth cut into his steelskin, bloody flowed and he screamed at the feeling of teeth grinding on bone. He kept up the torrent until Alben’s knees buckled and his body fell, pulling free from Dellen’s hand with a thump.
The finger’s of Dellen’s left hand wrapped around his right wrist, cradling his injured hand. “What do we do now?” He asked Gilgamesh.
“If you can get through that door, we go through the door.”
Dellen looked over at the door, “I meant with the body.”
“Bring it with us.”
Dellen rushed over to the door, and tried the handle with his left hand, leaving a trail of red droplets on the floor. The handle was still stuck. He used a concentrated magnetic field to pull out the pins, and repeated his trick with bolt. A satisfying click told him to try the door again. The handle turned, and Dellen pushed the door open.
“Don’t forget the body!” Gilgamesh said.
Dellen doubled back, put his hands under Alben’s armpits, and dragged him into the room before shutting the door. He then turned the bolt, locking it again.
“What good is that going to do?”
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“I don’t know,” Dellen said, “But I feel like even without a body, the blood and the ash on the floor might make that section of the hallway a little suspicious. First thing I’d do is check the nearby doors.”
“Good point,” Gilgamesh said, “Check the room and then let’s get a few doors down. We want to be far from that body.”
Lightning flared above Dellen’s uninjured left hand, casting shadows and light around the room. He took care to keep the sparks small and as quiet as he could.
“Oh,” Gilgamesh said.
Dellen turned and looked at the room, seeing it for the first time in the wavering lightning light. There were five stone slabs, each of which had a body laying on it. Around the bodies were channels in the stone to catch the blood and guide it to a bucket. Five tables, five buckets, five bodies.
Dellen threw up on Alben.
It was one thing to kill a man in a fight, but these people had been butchered. Their chest cavities and rib cages had been cut open, and the organs on the left sides of their chests had been removed. Two men and three women, all of whom he had seen before, but had not spoken to.
“I think Lady Katherine has already performed all of her experiments,” Gilgamesh said.
Dellen felt his gorge rise again, but there was nothing left to come up.
“Let’s go before you get caught.”
Someone tried to open the door. Dellen’s heart thundered in his chest. He looked around the room again, this time trying to see details apart from the bodies on the tables. The tables, his eyes locked onto the tables. The tables were huge stone slabs that looked like they had risen up from the ground and hewn into useful shapes by ancient craftsmen. He could hide behind one if necessary. Moving quickly, but quietly Dellen ducked down behind the furthest table.
“Bringing the body in might have been a mistake,” Gilgamesh said, “There are probably drag marks in the soot, leading straight to the door, like a mark on a treasure map.”
Dellen spared a moment to wonder whether he had mentioned the idea of treasure maps to Gilgamesh. The door shuddered again, and he looked for anywhere else that he could hide. The room was a rectangle just large enough to fit all of the slabs with space to walk around. Now that he was further away from Alben, the strong scent of charred hair was replaced by the smell of the blood in the buckets, the bodies on the table, the organs piled beside them, and the unwashed tools that had been used for the deed.
“This is behind locked doors deep underground,” Gilgamesh said hurriedly, “I’ll bet that most members of the Order did not know about it.”
A detached part of Dellen’s mind agreed with him. He had been an involuntary initiate of the Order at the same time this would have happened, and he had not known about it.
“Whoever breaks into this room is probably going to be shocked.”
Dellen pressed his back against the slab, grateful for the channels that guided the blood to the buckets, meaning his spine was pressed against clean stone.
“If you’re behind the slab to the right of the door, you might have a chance to slip out of the room while they’re distracted.”
The door creaked from a hard impact, and Dellen made his decision. He rose and dashed to the side of the slab on the right closest to the door, and ducked down again. Wood splintered, and the door burst open.
Brilliant light spilled into the room, bright even through Dellen’s closed eyes.
“What in the name of the Order is this?” Asked a horrified voice.
“Now, this is your chance. Run now!” Gilgamesh said.
Dellen stayed low, ducked around the slab, and dashed out the door.
“You’re still leaving a blood trail behind,” Gilgamesh pointed out.
Dellen swore under his breath. He had been thinking of breaking into another door further down the corridor, but there was little to no chance that a blood trail would go unnoticed, even in the face of Alben’s body and the unforged. It seemed all but impossible that Lady Katherine would not take a personal interest once she was alerted. He took his bloody hand and wrapped it in a part of his robe bunched near his waist.
“Better,” Gilgamesh said, “But you should still distance yourself from the drops. They look suspicious.”
That was hard to refute. Dellen’s steps took him around a corner, so at least he was not in a direct line of sight along the corridor to anyone who might investigate the charnel room. He put his left hand on a lock with the intention of pulling the pins out.
“What are you doing? We can’t stay here. This is your only chance to escape. This place is going to be like a stirred-up anthill soon. Your only chance to get off of the grounds is before everyone wakes up and someone decides to try and figure out who killed those people and Alben.”
Dellen ground his teeth, the only way out was up, he had to get to the stairs and hope that he was not stopped. He looked up and down the corridor, as before, it was dim and uninhabited. He had not even seen who had come in, “Did you recognize the person who came into the room?”
“I think it was one of the guards from the cells.”
He wasn’t sure if that was good, or bad, if he was that guard what would he be doing next? He might go back to his post and report to someone of higher rank, or he might be going up to find someone to report to immediately. Either way, he had to chance going up. Dellen ran down the corridor, away from the room where he had left the guard, Alben and the bodies. The corridor would get him back to the stairs, but more importantly, if he was seen, he would be approaching them from the side away from the disturbance.
The stairs came into sight, and Dellen felt his pulse quicken. Just a few landings and he would be free. He imagined himself walking out the main doors, and rejected the notion. His best path out of the building was likely to be the window he had come in.
Gilgamesh scouted ahead, “Stairwell is clear, run!”
Dellen broke into a run, keeping the fingers of his right hand wrapped around his robe to staunch the bleeding, to ensure that he did not leave a trail behind. His feet were loud on the stone, but he knew he needed to sacrifice stealth for speed. He ran up the stairs, with Gilgamesh a turn ahead of him on the steps up.
They came to the landing that led to the chapel-like room, and both slowed. “I don’t see anyone in the hallway here,” Gilgamesh said.
Dellen nodded to indicate that he heard him, and scurried ahead, he slowed enough to be quiet, but kept his pace as rapid as he could manage without looking suspicious. They reached the door and Dellen slid inside the still-empty room, and breathed out. He felt like he had threaded a needle in a windstorm.
“You’re not done yet, we need to get out the window, and over the wall. Now hurry, you did not do that so well last time your hand was wounded.”
Dellen arched an eye at him, “There is something of a difference in severity, but you’re right, lead on, scout ahead and tell me if anyone is outside, please.”
“It’s just after two in the morning, I don’t expect the grounds to be any busier than when we came in.” For a moment, Dellen wondered how Gilgamesh knew the time without a clock, then rolled his eyes at himself, even if Gilgamesh was more familiar with nonlinear time, Gilgamesh used Chronometric Aether, and unlike Dellen he had a lifetime of experience with it, knowing the time was probably interwoven with his being.
“Just check outside, please.”
Gilgamesh flew out the window, “There’s no one out here, now jump out the window so we leave!”
Dellen grabbed the buttons with his left hand and threw a few on the ground outside of the window. Then he jumped.