Into the Desert Wilds Page 4

  Determined to just be done and get out of the house, Estin went back to the rear door and peeked through the small opening, finding a staircase down, as he had hoped. From it, he picked up that smell of old meat again.

  As Estin started to open the door, he noticed that unlike the others, this one had a lock. Tilting his head to look into the keyhole, he recognized the style and was impressed that someone had spent a considerable amount of money on such a difficult lock to break into. That meant something down those stairs was certainly worth the expenses that his employer was putting up, not that this overly surprised Estin. Had it been locked, he doubted he could have opened it.

  He stepped into the stairwell and closed the door behind him, being very careful to close it no more or less than it had been when he had arrived.

  With the door mostly closed, Estin had to wait a little while for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Slowly, he began to make out the stairs. As soon as he could, he hurried down them, eager to finish his work and be out of the place. The sooner he stopped working for thieves, the sooner Feanne would forgive him.

  Soon after entering the stairwell and then with each step Estin took, he became more aware of the stench coming from somewhere ahead. At first, he could not quite place it as anything more than old meat in the slightly fragrant air that marred every building he had passed in the city. The strange herbs they let sit in oils tended to muddle his sense of smell, but whatever he was picking up was strong enough to get through to his nose anyway.

  Soon, he set his feet down on the cooler stone floor of the basement, still trying to determine the specific source of the scents. He was starting to believe that it might be the odor of badly cooked beef when he rounded the corner at the bottom of the steps and nearly tripped over an elven corpse.

  The man was grey-haired and curled up on the floor, clutching at his stomach. Estin did not even need to move the man’s stiff hands to determine that he was dead and had been for some time. Deep gouges in the man’s stomach hinted at a mauling by an animal of some kind, though the lack of further feeding on the remains made Estin wonder at the type of creature that had attacked.

  Kneeling beside the body, Estin opened his mind, hearing and practically feeling the rush of voices come to him as he did so. The voices brought with them a slight shift in his sight that would allow him to see any spirits still lingering about the body, giving him some chance of saving the man’s life if it had not been too long.

  The hallway remained silent and empty, absent any sign of the man’s spirit. Not that it was a surprise, given that the body appeared to have been there for more than a day. Even if Estin had seen it, he doubted there was much he could have done to save the man.

  Estin shook his head and touched the man’s head reverently, inwardly wishing him well wherever he had passed on to.

  Still kneeling, Estin followed the direction the man had been moving when he fell, seeing that he had actually been heading farther into the basement, rather than toward the stairs. A few more sniffs and Estin determined that he had been struck near the bottom step and left to bleed out.

  Estin took to his feet again, making his way down the hallway the man had been walking, knowing that whatever his employer sought was likely also there.

  Less than five feet after the corpse, Estin came into a room that he considered roughly bedroom-sized, based on those he had seen in Altis. The unlit room contained little of note, aside from a desk and several books. Laid out on the desk was more paper than Estin had seen in one place in his life, with one stack covered in writing, while the other was still blank. Both stacks went into Estin’s bag, mostly out of awe that he could write all he wished without having to scavenge for materials for some time to come.

  Not that he knew what he would use it for, but just having that much paper meant more to him than money. Had he been less worried about getting the job done for his family’s sake, he would have gone through the books to find any with knowledge he craved, but for now the extra paper would have to be enough.

  As the last of the paper and a sealed ink well went into his bag, Estin moved to the center of the room, looking around in confusion. Whatever he was supposed to find was down there, but he saw no doors or exits beyond the one he had come through. That meant the maps must be in those books, which indicated the maps were smaller than he had anticipated.

  Estin began taking each book down from the shelf, paging through them quickly. Two appeared to contain something similar to what Estin’s notebook of magic held, though the text was foreign to him. Those went into his bag as well, soon filling it.

  Finally, he found a single book that was unlabeled and contained dozens of maps. He skimmed them, finding nothing familiar, then slid the book into his loose shirt to be sure that he knew where it was at all times.

  Looking about the room, Estin began to wonder if there was something more to the place. Why would someone keep a study in the basement, let alone run there to die. It kept nagging at Estin, making him wonder if he was missing something. Nothing in the books had been overly abnormal, so he went over the contents of the desk again.

  Estin picked up a handful of paper that lay near the back of the desk, under a pile of old quills and empty ink jars. These he had initially ignored, but upon second glance, he saw that they were folded maps of Corraith, with the building he was in well-marked near the center.

  Estin stuffed the first map into the already full bag at his hip. It would be handy to have a good map of the city, just in case he needed to find something later. Given that the maps he had been asked to take were of the region, rather than the city itself, he figured it could not hurt to have them.

  The second page he picked up made Estin hesitate. Though overall it was similar to the previous, this map showed in great detail the path that the mists had taken in their ravaging of the city. Though Estin had believed based on his wandering within Corraith that the mists had pushed through the town in a fairly random line, the map seemed to indicate that the mists had come in straight for the house he was standing in, carving a perfect line toward it. Once they passed the home, narrowly missing it, the mists had scattered, tearing up the southwest portion of the city more indiscriminately.

  Estin stood there for some time, wondering what he was to do with that bit of information. Everything he knew about the mists was that they were entirely random, gobbling up everything in their path. This seemed to say otherwise. What bothered him even more was not knowing why this house stood at such a pivotal location in the mists’ movements. Again, his mind went back to why a man—a man with books on magic, no less—would stumble into his study with fatal wounds.

  Estin turned slowly in place, trying to find anything that might not belong or that might add to his understanding. After his second revolution, he stopped facing the desk once again. Idly, he stared at the quills, their feathers drifting toward the hallway and the stairs beyond.

  His eyes narrowing as he watched the quills, Estin went back to the hallway. There, he pulled shut the door of the room, cutting off any breeze from the upstairs. Turning back to the desk, he found the quills still fluttering slightly.

  “Clever,” he whispered, trying to follow the path the air was taking to make the feathers move.

  Sliding the desk aside, Estin began tracing along the wall with the palm of his hand. He soon found a thin crack in the shape of a door, where small amounts of cool air breathed out from the gap between stones.

  Estin wiggled his claws into the edge of the stone doorframe and tugged, pulling open a well-fitted hidden door on oiled hinges. As he did, damp cool air flowed over him. Unlike the room he stood in, the passageway beyond was all uneven stone descending into darkness that even Estin’s eyes had trouble piercing.

  Grabbing a small lantern from the desk, Estin lit it as quickly as he could with flint and steel left on the edge of the table. Pocketing the flint and steel, he stared at the dark passage beyond the hidden door.

  Holding the lan
tern high, he moved into the new passageway, the floor growing more chill and damp as he went. He soon reached a tiny room, where moss lined the walls in stark contrast to the dry lands far above. Tiny droplets of water ran down the walls endlessly, pooling in the corners of the chamber. None of this really held Estin’s attention as he entered, though.

  The moment Estin passed into the chamber, the voices of the spirits came abruptly and strongly enough that he could hear nothing beyond them, aside from his own heartbeat. The reason for the spirits’ voices was not hard for him to guess.

  Arrayed before him on the floor, an ornate circle had been created out of beads and colored stones. He had seen such a creation several times in his life. In many lands, circles like this one had been markers for locations attuned to the resurrection of the very recently dead. They had been the focal point of most towns before the war, when all such magical points had failed across every land that travelers had reported back from. Since his own resurrection circle had faltered and failed during an undead attack, Estin had doubted he would ever see another working one. The Turessians had even told him as much, hinting that all resurrection circles were failing.

  This one was very much still working, waiting for a healer to use it and spirits to come to that healer. Such a find was priceless beyond measure, giving those who knew of it the power to save lives, or the armies of the dead the ability to create untold thousands of their kind in hours.

  “So you’re what he was hiding down here,” Estin whispered, tracing a hand across the damp stone in the middle of the circle. Like an old friend, the magic of the circle felt as though it spoke to him through the voices of lost spirits.

  Energy that only a healer would see or feel flowed across Estin’s fingers, letting him know that the power of the area was making itself ready to aid him if he attempted to use it. He would have expected to need to spend days or weeks attuning himself to such a place, but this one seemed so ready to aid the mortal world that it was reaching out to him. If it truly was among the last few in the world, he had no idea how much power might actually be available to him in this place.

  “What am I going to do with you?” he asked the empty room, sitting down hard. “And why is Feanne always right about my ideas?”

  Estin sat there a long time, staring at the simple chamber with its hidden value. For all he knew, it could be the last place in the world where resurrection of the dead was possible. More importantly, it was somewhere that the undead his family had escaped would seek out, hoping to pervert its powers for their own ends.

  He knew he could not report back to his employer with what he had found, but also had no desire to risk Feanne or the kits by failing to do so. He would have to lie.

  Finally, Estin got up off the floor, shivering slightly at the chill that he was no longer used to after even such a short time in the desert. Going back up the tunnel and into the basement, Estin went to the dead man.

  “I hope you understand why I have to do this,” he told the body, then hooked the cold man’s arms with his own. “I mean no disrespect. Quite the contrary, you are probably the greatest man to have ever lived in Corraith, for somehow managing to keep this safe.”

  Slowly, he dragged the corpse into the hidden tunnel, stopping just part way down. He searched around that area briefly, finding a section of the passage that was wider, with an uneven wall that gave plenty of room to one side.

  With another sad sidelong look at the body, Estin began digging a grave. It was not a plan he was happy with, but the longer it took for anyone to find out the house was vacant, the longer it would be before anyone found the hidden room.

  Chapter Two

  “A Search Completed”

  So many thoughts that I want to get down on paper, the way Estin always taught me to. I could babble about my childhood, the anger I felt at being tossed into the desert, or even rant about my brother’s immaturity. None of these seem to matter once the moment is passed though.

  I think I’ll start with the things that shaped who I am. That was what Estin always did with his writing, so I’ll do the same. It’s only right.

  I hope you understand. Forgive me if this is a bit random. I’m hardly used to letting anyone know what’s going on between these two fuzzy ears.

  Those early days, when father was working for the guild—much to mother’s annoyance—and mother was spending all of her time trying not to throw up, we didn’t have a lot to do. Nothing is more dangerous than letting nearly-adult fox kits run free, as I’m sure you can understand all too well.

  I never meant to hide where I was going. From the start, I assumed Atall was going to tell and so rather than tell on my own, I just worried about what excuse I would use when I was finally caught. When he didn’t tell mother, I just kind of assumed I was on borrowed time until he did. I had to make each day count, since I doubted mother would let me so much as bathe myself without approval and someone would monitor me from then on if and when I did get caught.

  When you’re a child—even one that’s convinced she’s all grown up—you think that everything is about discovery and that the worst that can happen is getting in trouble with your parents. Even watching your mother’s first life-mate be torn to shreds by zombies can be forgotten. We are resilient little monsters, aren’t we?

  Not all discoveries are good for you. Even the ones you cherish can change your life in terrible ways. Take that to heart, if anything I ever have said means anything to you.

  Mother told me when I was young that my grandfather once said, “Painful or not, all experiences shape not just your life, but they change the fate of everyone around you. You cannot predict these things, but must be ready for them.”

  His whole life, Estin revered that old fox. I wish I had known him better myself. Perhaps he could have taught me to be less of an idiot. Just maybe, that would have changed all of our fates. This is something I wonder about every day of my life and I hope you think through your own choices better than I have.

  Oria glanced back up the narrow passageway at a faint noise, thinking that Atall had caught up to her. Just like the last time she had checked, the entire length of the tunnel was empty and dark. Deep down, she hoped it stayed that way. Atall would likely spend all of his time telling her she was going to get them both in trouble.

  She breathed a sigh of relief, knowing she was close to where she had been the last two nights during her “hunt for food.” These old ruins were far more interesting than anywhere else she might go and since she usually found a few morsels of food on the way home there was no harm in coming back here whenever mother let her leave the den.

  From the tiny hole in the sands that served as the entrance to the tunnels, there was little of note for the first few hundred feet. Oria had been ready to leave when she and her brother had first found the place, but had pressed on just a little farther. She had been immediately glad she did, as the crumbling sandstone walls had soon given way to more solid stone that had been constructed into a proper hallway.

  That first night, Atall had convinced her to leave after they had reached the stone hallway. He had been worried that there could be almost anything down there and Oria had to agree with him that it was risky. It would be hard to explain getting mauled by some unknown monster, when they were supposed to be hunting small vermin out on the desert.

  On the second night, Oria had taken charge, insisting that they first scout the entrance, watching for anything coming and going. They had then moved farther into the tunnel, spending all their time looking for signs of anyone or anything that might have used it recently. The constant flow of sand along the floor made it easy to see recent tracks, but impossible to guess at whether anything had come through more than a few hours earlier.

  This night, Oria had managed to convince Atall to stay with their mother, as she had been feeling weaker and wanted to make sure someone was around in case she needed help. Oria had written it off as mostly worry over Estin, but that had made it easy to talk A
tall into staying, while she went out to “look for food.”

  Oria had just barely managed to stifle a laugh at her brother’s scowl when she had pranced out of the den to go exploring. Mischief always became more fun with each additional person who was not in on the game.

  Though she had come down into the tunnels almost an hour earlier, Oria was just reaching a section that she had not seen previously. She had taken her time, being extra careful without the watchful eye of her brother to ensure that nothing snuck up on her.

  Having gone past the first hundred feet of stone walls, she found herself in a slightly wider section, where deep-set alcoves lined the walls. The air gradually became damper, giving her some hope that she might find water that did not require sucking on a plant’s roots to get at, which she found to be demeaning on some level. Checking her shoulder, she made sure that her empty canteen was ready, just in case.

  She continued down the passage, noticing that the alcoves were actually ornately carved, with strange lettering and drawings faintly etched into the stone above each. The farther she went, the clearer they became, though the detail was still badly worn by age. Another twenty feet down the tunnel, Oria began noticing that the alcoves contained piles of dust and decaying rags. What felt like broken pottery under her feet crackled as she continued onward.

  Oria took several more steps, then froze, eyeing the strange alcoves. She looked down at her feet, where crumbled bits of something clung to the black fur between her toes. She checked around her, finding larger fragments, including some she recognized.

  “Bones,” she whispered, eyeing the telltale signs of scavenging animals having chewed on most of them. The bones closer to the entrance had likely weathered many years of sands, reducing them to dust. “It’s a crypt. Lovely.”