A Thief in the Night by David Chandler

Author:David Chandler
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins US
Published: 2011-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Forty-seven

Croy and Mörget moved forward silently, taking light steps to avoid splashing in the water that covered the floor. They both had their swords drawn but held low so they wouldn’t glimmer in the light.

There was definitely light ahead of them, far down the tunnel. They had extinguished their candles. Croy could see very little. But his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him—a flickering radiance came down the aisle, glinting on the wet floor.

He was unable to dispel a nagging thought. Nothing they’d seen so far required fire. Nothing they’d seen suggested there was a desire for warmth or light in this forgotten place. The fire might have been natural. The fungus they’d seen lining the walls of the central shaft might be flammable, and some strange alchemy of forgotten places might have started a blaze on its own. But he thought not—the fire was glowing too steadily, as if it had been tended with care. And a natural fire down here would have spread quickly, given enough fuel, while this fire seemed to be carefully contained.

Which left only one possible conclusion: they were not alone in the Vincularium.

He already knew that the demon haunted the place. He’d also seen the countless revenants up on the top level. He understood that the ancient city was not completely abandoned. Yet this fire suggested that things were far more complicated than he’d previously believed. The demon didn’t seem intelligent enough to use fire. The revenants were creatures of the cold and the dark—they had shunned Dawnbringer’s light, so why would they make a fire of their own? No, there must be living creatures here. Living people, who needed to stay warm.

He should have known earlier, he thought. The flock of beetles and then the farm of mushrooms should have spelled it out clearly. Farms did not prosper on their own. Someone had to be cultivating the fungus. If someone didn’t come by periodically to harvest the yield, the crop of mushrooms would have died and rotted long since.

He looked back at Mörget and thought of how to proceed. There was no telling how many enemies might be waiting by that fire. Yet Croy knew he had to get through them. They’d found no other path toward the upper levels. If he wanted to go up, he had to go through whoever tended that fire. If he wanted to rescue Cythera and Slag, he needed to keep advancing.

The racks on either side provided excellent cover, but there was no way to move forward without heading up the center aisle. It was also their only path of retreat, should there be more resistance ahead than the two of them could handle.

“Do you see any other path but to charge forward?” he whispered to the barbarian.

“I’ve rarely needed any other,” the barbarian replied.

Croy nodded. He frowned and looked forward again. Shadows flowed along the ceiling, as if someone had moved around the fire. “Together we run up there, as fast as we can, and surprise them.

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