The sound of metal striking stone reverberated in the dimly lit cavern. Overhead, oil lanterns cast long shadows, with the occasional glint off the pickaxes flashing in the eyes of the miners. Beads of sweat poured down Ravi's forehead, his eyes stinging from the salt in the droplets. He considered stopping, pausing for just a moment to wipe his brow, but he was painfully aware of the onlooker’s eyes focused on the back of his bloody tunic. Another lash of his overseer's whip would be worse; the dozen strikes in the last fifteen hours had taught him that. If not, then the dozen the day before or the day before that.

Either side of him, young men, probably in their late teens like him, worked the stone wall. Their backs were bloody from the whip too, as were their hands, the skin raw with broken blisters from the rough wooden handles. 'Ravi, help me, please. The man to his left breathed heavily, his voice hushed in the hope that none but Ravi would hear him.

Ravi's muscles locked for a split second as a crack broke through the sound of the workers. A scream of pain from his left and a clatter of the pickaxe falling from the man's hands. 'You're killing us; we need to rest or we'll be useless to you,' the man pleaded, choking on the last word as the whip cracked again, striking his back. He slumped forward to his knees, his head hanging.

Whether it was tears or sweat that mixed with the blood in the reddish sand, Ravi wasn't sure. He tried not to look, keeping his focus on the stone wall ahead of him and working on the crack he had managed to create. 'Get up!' a heavily accented voice growled, a black gloved hand reaching forward and grabbing the man by his long, ragged black hair. It wasn't an accent that Ravi recognised when he first overheard it in the markets of Oria. Now he wished he had never heard it.

It had been almost half a year since they had first begun to appear in Oria, the strange outsiders. At first, it had been one or two, immaculately groomed and clad in dark brown or black leather, a bizarre choice considering the sweltering conditions in the desert metropolis that was Oria. Now, they roamed the city everywhere in packs; even the guards in Oria were reluctant to approach them.

'I said, get up!' The leather-clad whip wielder hissed, pulling the man to his feet. 'What is your name?'

'Taalib,' he replied, allowing the man to pull his head back by his hair rather than resist.

'What do you think it matters if you die out here, Taalib?' he asked. 'You think there are no other desperate pieces of shit in that sandy gutter you crawled from?'

'You'll never find what you're looking for out here,' Taalib breathed.

Any response from the man was cut off as Ravi's pickaxe struck the groove he had created over the last fifteen hours, and the ground rumbled. Dropping his grip on Taalib's hair, the man took several quick steps backwards as the crack in front of Ravi streaked upwards, forking and branching several times before the stone before him came cascading down. Dust filled the air around them, the lantern light dimming dramatically as the visibility dropped to near nothing.

Around him, a dozen people coughed, Ravi's own joining them as the dust slowly settled. Ahead of him, the rock had splintered and collapsed, revealing only darkness beyond. 'Well, it looks like we found it,' the man sneered, shoving Taalib to the floor as he stepped up to the entrance. 'You give me that lantern,' he said, rounding on Ravi.

Nervously, Ravi unhooked the oil lantern from its hook, his hand shaking slightly as he handed it to the man. 'One that listens,' the man muttered, turning his attention to the space beyond the stone. Ravi tried to steal a peek inside as the man raised the lantern, his black leather squeaking slightly as it stretched. The light didn't help; whatever lay beyond must have been a vast space. The man looked to Ravi, and, for the first time, Ravi saw uncertainty, however brief, in his dark eyes. His gaze lasted for a moment before he lifted his chin and strutted through the gap in the stone.

A thunderous bang shook the cavern, and dust and small pieces of stone fell from overhead as a blinding purple flash came from the darkness. With a scream, the man was thrown back into the chamber with the miners, his body striking the opposite with a sickening crunch. The lantern he had been holding shattered on impact, the burning oil spilling onto the sand, content to continue burning. Ravi exchanged a glance with Taalib, who had backed away, his eyes darting from the darkness beyond the stone to the unmoving body of their slave master.

Ravi edged forward, peering through the opening, careful not to step too close out of fear of becoming another motionless body across the chamber. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness before he was able to pick out faint pinpricks of purple light in the distance, perhaps two or three hundred feet away from where he stood. 'You! Get away from there!' a man's voice snapped. His accent was different from all the slave masters, more familiar. Something in his voice told Ravi to do as he was told. As quickly as possible, he scrambled back.

The man entering the chamber down the somewhat precarious wooden staircase must be around his age, and yet he oozed an air of regality. In fine black robes, blacker than any darkness Ravi had ever seen, the man approached. His dark hair was trimmed short, not a hair out of place. The fire from the broken oil lantern danced across the man's robe. It took Ravi a moment to realise that the sparkle in the black robe was thousands upon thousands of tiny diamonds weaved in intricate patterns. 'Who are you?' Ravi asked before he could stop himself. Even in Oria, the wealthiest city in the world, he had never seen someone dressed in such a way.

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'Who I am is of no concern to you,' the man said dismissively. ‘On the other hand, what happened to my watchman? Are you the one who uncovered this entrance?'

'I don't know; he stepped into the darkness, and there was a flash of purple light,' Taalib said quickly, scrambling forward from where he had cowered before.

'My questions are not for you,' the man said. Without even turning to Taalib, he pinched his left forefinger and thumb together, drawing them through the air as a thin silver thread trailed behind them.

Taalib coughed, stumbling to the side, his hands shooting to his throat. Gouts of blood poured from his throat between his fingers as he gasped for breath. Ravi was sure the colour had drained from his face. He tried to focus on the man who had asked the questions, but his eyes couldn't leave Taalib as he collapsed on the sand. What had once been pale red grains became almost black and began to clump with the blood as Taalib's hands fell from his neck, his body limp and lifeless. The man raised an eyebrow at Ravi. 'I apologise, you were saying?'

Ravi felt the other miners sink into the shadows behind him, all of them trying to make themselves as small as possible for fear that the man would turn to them. 'He stepped into the darkness, and there was a flash of purple light before he was thrown back. It was me; I broke through to the chamber.'

'Your name?'

'Ravi.'

'Well, Ravi. I would say you have done very well for yourself today,' the man said as he reached into the inside of the cloak pocket, producing a pouch made of the same material that nestled in his palm. 'This pouch contains your reward. A thousand of the finest-cut diamonds, a small fortune capable of starting a new life for yourself and generations of your family to come.'

Ravi's eyes went wide as he stared at the pouch. They had lured people in with the promise of a handsome reward. Never for a moment since he had arrived at the mines had he considered that it may actually exist. He took a step forward, his eyes not leaving the diamonds in the man's hand. The man tutted. 'Not just yet, I'm afraid.'

In one smooth, swift motion, he took the pouch of diamonds, tossing it through the opening in the stone and into the darkness, where he heard them land in the sand, sliding away from him. Silence filled the chamber as Ravi stared into the darkness, the glint of a single diamond that had escaped the pouch catching the firelight.

There was a scramble of feet on the sand behind Ravi. The miner who had been working on his other side shoved Ravi aside, diving into the darkness after the diamonds to try and retrieve them. It was all it took for the other miners to pile past Ravi and into the darkness. A ground-shaking rumble grew from the darkness beyond before a blinding flash of purple lit up the enormous cavern before them. With a bang that reverberated around the space, it struck at the centre of the group of miners, exploding outward. There were no screams this time; there wasn't time as the dozen miners who had dived after the diamonds were blown to pieces, blood covering Ravi and the man beside him.

'Pathetic!’ the man spat, his eyes wandering across the bodies that now lay dismembered across the bloody sand. Amongst the carnage, the small bag of diamonds sat at the centre of a dark scorch mark, the sand glinting where it had turned to glass with the intense heat of the purple beams. He took a step forward, holding on to the edge of the chamber beyond as if caught by indecision.

'George! There you are,' a man called from the back of the room. The man at the entrance to the dark chamber turned. Ravi saw the frustration in the eyes of the one called George as they passed him. Standing on the wooden platform on the far side of the chamber they had been mining in was an older man, probably in his seventies, Ravi guessed. His robes weren't quite as regal as George's and were far more dishevelled. At his side, he held a hessian sack.

'You took your sweet time; I've been out here for weeks while you've been lazing around in that castle, no doubt,' George said.

'There were complications, as I'm sure you can imagine,' the new arrival said as he made his way towards the stairs.

'Have they been dealt with?' George asked. 'Edmund? Tell me you dealt with them,' he demanded.

'It doesn't matter; they're far enough away. We'll be long gone by the time anyone catches up to us,' Edmund said. 'Assuming you've found it?'

'Of course I found it,' George snapped. 'We just need to get past whatever traps have been set for us.' Ravi watched the two of them curiously while trying to stay away from the conversation in case they turned to him. He had been uneasy ever since he had been taken out to the dig site, but now that feeling had been multiplied a thousand times over. Perhaps if they continued arguing, he could slip away into the shadows and escape from the site before they did whatever they were planning to do.

'And do you have a plan for that?' Edmund asked, eying the strewn blood and body parts that remained of the other miners. George seemed to shrink under his gaze for the first time in the conversation. 'I thought not.'

'You say that like you knew what we would find.'

'I guess you could say I had some guidance.' Fumbling with the hessian sack, Edmund reached inside. In the dancing firelight, there was a glint of metal and jewels. Set in a golden crown were a series of black, teardrop-shaped jewels like nothing Ravi had ever seen. Straightening his cloak slightly, Edmund stepped up to the darkness as he placed the crown on his head. With a glance back and a smirk, he stepped forward into the darkness, each step slow and methodical.

In the distance, Ravi saw a tiny bead of purple light beginning to grow once more. The ground began to rumble once more as Edmund continued to walk, unfazed by the building energy. With a crack like a fork of lightning from a dry storm, it streaked towards Edmund. What happened next, Ravi had no explanation for. If the previous bolts were anything to go by, Edmund should have been obliterated.

The purple bolt struck Edmund in the chest, but, unlike the others before him, he continued to walk, stepping over the bag of diamonds. Slowly, he raised his hands on either side of him, a tiny fragment of the purple light glowing at the tips of each of his fingers. A flex of his fingers sent ten streaks of purple light outward, five to each side, illuminating the darkness. Ravi waited for the crash of them striking the stonework, but none came. Each bead of light spiralled through the air towards the side of the cavernous room before bursting into purple flames, each one settling atop an enormous stone brazier.

Ravi's mouth dropped open. Before them, bathed in purple light, was an enormous chamber gilded in green marble and gold. It wasn't that that made Ravi's jaw drop, though. At the centre of it all was an enormous, winged monument, a sickle grasped between two hands in front of its chest. 'The Gods,' Ravi whispered as he stared up at the statue of Ziulla, the goddess of the undying.

'Well, come on then, we have work to do,' George said, stooping to pick up the bag of diamonds and throwing them to Ravi.