The Black Mausoleum (Memory of Flames 4) by Stephen Deas Read Free Book Online Page B

Pinnacles, where to be an alchemist, it had turned
out, was to be an avatar of evil. ‘There are—’
    ‘Your lot made them. Yes.’
    ‘Don’t you—’
    ‘Believe that everything touched by an alchemist is cursed?’ The Adamantine Man snorted. ‘I was in Outwatch when the terror started. Then Sand. Evenspire, or what was left of
it. Scarsdale. Got to the Purple Spur eventually. Spent more time there than I have here. I know what your kind are. You failed, that’s all. You’re no better and no worse than any of
the rest of us. Not that that’s saying very much.’
    Kataros picked up a lamp. She turned it upside down, shook it and waited until the glow started. Then she handed it to the Adamantine Man and got another. ‘Won’t someone see the
lights?’
    ‘No one comes here these days.’ He settled Siff over his shoulders and started on down the tunnel. The walls were different now. The light showed that they were rough, hacked out
with picks and shovels and never finished. Utterly unlike the exquisite carved archways, the murals and the mosaics she’d seen elsewhere.
    ‘Why?’
    He stopped. ‘This leads to the lowest girdle of the scorpion caverns. Used to be hundreds of them here. They’re all ruined now. The poison ran out and then the bolts. Not much point
sticking yourself somewhere you can be burned by a dragon when you haven’t got anything you can shoot back.’
    The tunnel went on, rough and uneven until it stopped at a fissure that ran up and down. Kataros couldn’t see how far it went either way, for the alchemical lamps produced little light.
She crouched, searching for a pebble to drop, but the ground was smooth and there weren’t any. The Adamantine Man shifted Rat into a more comfortable position across his shoulders and started
to climb. There were rungs bolted into the rock.
    ‘Why are we going up, not down?’
    ‘There’s tunnels down below. Guarded and watched well. There’s barricades and bolted doors and the speaker’s riders down there, watching out against the ferals. No way
out without a fight – not for one like you. This way’s better. Gets us to the surface. No one goes out this way and you can’t get back up again, so there’s no one
watching.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘You run into anyone up the top here, wave your arms at them and make ghost noises, that’ll probably work. Hyrkallan’s lot, they’re
like little girls. The ones who’ve been here even longer are no better. All spooked. Most likely they really do believe that you lot made all this happen like he says. Demons. So make like
one. Easier than having a fight. If they come back with any soldiers, we’ll be gone by then.’
    She didn’t know what to say to that, so she climbed after him in silence, up the slit in the rock, its sides worn smooth by water from another time. In places it was so narrow that Siff
scraped against the far wall; from side to side, it spread out further than her lamp could reach.
    ‘What is this place?’ She couldn’t help but wonder that. She’d been wondering that from the moment she’d come inside the Pinnacles and seen what it was really like.
Even in chains she’d stared, lost in awe.
    ‘There’s shafts up and down like this all over,’ he said. ‘It’s like one of them cheeses we used to get from up on the moors.’
    He reached an opening and levered himself out. Kataros felt his tension as he crouched, ready to drop Siff in an instant, but there was only darkness and silence to greet them.
    ‘Right. Quick now.’ He started to run, lumbering off. She followed, keeping close behind. Her heart beat faster, excitement and expectation bubbling together as if she was brewing
some potion.
Almost out. Almost out.
    He turned a corner and light – a patch of slightly lighter darkness anyway – loomed ahead. The scorpion caves. Vishmir and the first Valmeyan had fought here in the War of Thorns.
Afterwards, Prince Lai had built the scorpions. They