Chapter 30 - Reap and Sow

“You’re telling me Severin Lich lives in a glorified shit pipe?” Ben said with disgust, taking in the surrounds.

“He doesn’t live here. I’m sure he has a gaudy, perfectly dry townhouse to call his own. This is just where he conducts his business affairs. Most people think there’s nothing in the sewers but rats and drain water.”

“And shit. Can’t forget the shit.”

In the darkness of the undercity, all other senses were amplified. It was impossible to ignore the cloying stench of wastewater. Eda wondered idly how she came to spend so much time skulking about down here. She squinted at the mazelike plans. Tenelle had pilfered from the City Waste & Sanitation Office.

Ben held the lantern close as Eda pointed out a large alcove on one side of a tunnel, marked with a small X. “Tenelle said she noted all likely areas where items could be stored.” There were many such marks. The parchment unfolded into a square so big she could wear it as a cloak, and the carefully drawn lines and curves making up the sewer system were minuscule. It would’ve been hard to make sense of even in broad daylight. “Here is Lich’s guildhall,” she said, pointing out the large, circular space at a crossroads of four bisecting water channels, “and this is Lich’s office. There’s a corridor behind it, see? I think one of the tapestries is covering a hidden door. That must be how he comes and goes.” And a good way to hide something valuable.

Ben traced a narrow path leading away from the room with his finger. The corridor ended at what looked like an exit point—another sewer grate?—and underneath it…“What does that different-colored box mean, around the exit?”

Eda consulted the legend. “Another level beneath. Another chamber.”

They looked at one another.

“Enough blabbering, humans!” Tripp’s eyes reflected like red coals in the dark. “Which way?”

With some difficulty, Eda gave Tripp a heading, hoping she hadn’t mistaken their location on the map. They’d come down via the sewer grate near the tannery, since she knew it was close enough to Lich’s guildhall. But the map would have to guide them the rest of the way.

Stopping and starting, they cut along channels and down side tunnels, checking off those areas marked on the parchment. But none of the tiny vestibules had been fashioned into secure rooms, and none housed anything but cobwebs and rat droppings. Struck with fear of being caught, Eda envisioned one of Lich’s vassals stumbling upon them, drawn by the echo of their footsteps. There was no mantle to shield her now. Their only real defense was Tripp’s superior senses. He made his way confidently through the dark, bat-like ears pricking at every little sound.

When he stopped dead, Eda nearly tripped over him. “What…” Then she saw.

They stood before a narrow set of ascending steps that disappeared into a yawning tunnel of shadow. Somewhere above, fire flickered. If lanterns are lit, people are nearby.

“Is this it?” Ben whispered.

The map showed a staircase leading to the middle of Lich’s private corridor. “I think so.”

Barely daring to breathe, they ascended. Every noise seemed terribly loud, but they heard no voices, saw no moving shadows.

Tripp reached the top first. “No one here.”

It smelled fresher in these parts, far removed from the fetid water channels. The walls were dry, if not cold. The corridor was barely big enough for two men to walk abreast. Torches had been lit at even intervals along its length. To the left was an iron door. Lich’s office. To the right, a foreboding gate. The exit to the surface. And whatever lies beneath.

“What’s the betting it’s locked?”

They hurried down the walkway and crowded about the gate. It was silver-plated iron, with a sizable double lock. Beyond lay a wide shaft tunneling down into the stone, a generous spiral staircase installed at its center. The stairs were clearly far newer than the shaft itself. She’d been right to think Severin Lich would not deign to traverse rickety wet ladders.

Ben shook the gate half-heartedly. “No getting in by force.”

Eda pressed against the bars and peered upward. A thin, square band of light shone overhead. “That’s the exit hatch, I suppose. The Gateway has to be below.”

“Won’t know without getting through.”

Tripp bounded back down the corridor.

“Tripp!” she hissed, following. “Tripp. Don’t get too close to that door—”

But he already had.

Eda stopped several feet away, not daring to approach.

Ben bumped into her. “What’s he doing? He’ll get us caught!”

Tripp waved his hand in a bid for quiet. He pressed his ear against the iron. After a moment, he grinned and held up a single knobbly finger. One. One person inside?

He urged them closer. Eda stepped as lightly as she could, clinging to Ben. What? she mouthed at the imp.

Be ready, he mouthed back, black eyes glittering with excitement.

Then he dragged his claws, screeching, against the metal.

Eda reeled. Ben huffed in shock and drew his sword. That little bastard! She pulled her knife from her boot. Nothing happened. Tripp did it again.

Muffled movement. What if it was Lich himself? Who else could it be?

The sound of a low voice, a key turning in a lock—

The door swung open. A dark figure leaned through.

Tripp leaped.

The man’s muffled shout was cut off as the imp plastered himself about his head, wings flapping, tail and arms squeezing with surprising strength. “Now, humans,” he growled, before burying his teeth in the man’s neck.

Ben reacted first. He grabbed the stranger’s flailing knife arm, narrowly stopping Tripp from being gutted. The man was broad, but so was Ben—he swept the stranger’s legs out from under him. He hit the floor. Ben pinned him there with a knee.

Eda plastered herself to the wall, clinging to the wildly swinging lantern. Shadows bounced as the struggle played out upon the walls: gruesome shadow puppets. The man’s bulging eyes briefly met hers, and icy recognition flooded through her.

Hillock.

His eyes roved in his head like a spooked horse, spittle flecking his chin. Tripp snarled like a rabid dog into the meat of Hillock’s throat. Blood ran freely. Eda stared.

Hillock had helped her once. In his master’s interest only, but he’d helped her nonetheless. He was the reason she’d found Kit in the first place. He’d seemed so strong, so much more worldly and dangerous than she.

Now he was reduced to a struggling animal in their trap.

The hallway was narrow, and Hillock’s vicious kicks made him difficult to keep still, but Ben didn’t hesitate. He dislodged Tripp to wrap his hands around the sides of Hillock’s neck, avoiding the windpipe. Hillock’s face turned purple. His thrashing grew sluggish. He wrangled one arm free and swung for Ben with a meaty fist; Eda ran to pin the offending arm down, feeling wretched.

“Cut him open, human!” Tripp said. Blood dripped from his maw. “Be done with it!”

“No,” Ben hissed. She understood—Ben did not want to kill him. Eda did not either.

Hillock soon stopped writhing. He fell silent, then still, and for a moment there was nothing but their own labored breathing to fill the dark corridor. Ben released his grip. His hands were wet and red.

Saints be good. “Is—is he dead?”

Ben held his ear to Hillock’s open mouth. “Still breathing. I think.”

Eda scrambled upright. She made for the office door and swept aside the tapestry.

Lich’s office was just as she remembered—opulent and clean and smelling like spiced tobacco. The tapestry covering the main entrance was closed. Beyond, the hum of people at work carried on uninterrupted. Lich was not here, but his guildhall was full. Someone could come at any moment.

She heard Ben dry heaving. At least he didn’t have to kill again.

Tripp crawled past her feet and spared a scarlet sneer. “See? Eda Shaw would be lost without Tripp.”

“You cannot do something like that without warning us,” she spat, clinging to the doorframe. She tried to concentrate on the cold iron’s bite rather than the coppery scent of blood.

“Tripp did warn you.” He rummaged through Lich’s desk. “You need a key, yes?”

“There’s no guarantee Lich keeps one here. It might be on his person.” She eyed the tapestry. “We can’t stay—”

With a small click, Tripp retracted a claw from one of the drawers. It slid open.

Eda blinked. “You can pick locks?”

“Lord Kit was always getting Tripp to break into things as a youngling.”

“Why didn’t you do that on the other lock, then?”

“Silver, mortal, silver! Tripp wishes to keep his fingers.” Carefully, he drew out a large, shining key by a loop of red satin. Sharp teeth flashed smugly. “Quickly, now. Before the one you should have killed wakes up.”

They put the desk to rights and closed the door behind them. There was some debate about moving Hillock’s body, perhaps hiding it on the stairwell the way they’d come, but there was too much blood on the floor to disguise what had happened. Someone would find Hillock—or notice the missing key—sooner or later. They left him there instead, hoping he’d remain unconscious just a little while longer.

Eda helped Ben get his feet under him, but she rather felt he was keeping her upright too.

Her hand shook as she unlocked the silver gate. They stepped gingerly onto the staircase, mindful of the gap yawning long and deep below. Together they descended into the dark. There were no torches lit at all down here. It wasn’t very far to walk, but the temperature dropped quickly enough to make them shiver. Without their lantern Eda wouldn’t have seen her own feet. She blinked away the dizziness of going around and around until they reached the bottom.

It was only a circle of hard-packed earth, with another gate set into the shaft wall, identical to the one above. It gleamed in the light. Eda unlocked that too. It swung open with a small shriek.

Tripp went in first. He was swallowed by the darkness until his eyes blinked back at them: two red dots hovering eerily. “Light the torches, mortals.”

A phantom tingle on the back of her neck told Eda that the Gateway was here, even before Ben took the candle out of its housing and lit the torches by the door. Cloth burned. Flickering light filled the chamber. The shadows retreated, and there it was.

Lich’s mirror was not nearly so grand as their own. It stood just as tall and almost as wide, but where the Shaws’ Gateway looked nearly untouched by time, this one bore the marks of its years. Black obsidian was scuffed and even chipped in various places. Rather than writhing masses of carved thorns and creatures, this mirror’s frame consisted of simple robed figures at each corner. Hooded and without faces, their arms stretched in each direction, as though holding the stone together.

“It isn’t how I imagined,” Ben said quietly. They put the lantern down by the mirror’s base, daring to look closer.

“It must have changed hands often to look so worn.” Eda knew what to expect of their own Gateway, but this one was a stranger. It made her uneasy. “Whatever you do, don’t touch it. Tripp, go back up the stairs and keep watch, if you please. I’d like a warning if anyone comes.”

He slunk off with a reluctant “My lady.”

Eda slung her borrowed bag off her shoulder and pulled out the tools within.

“They don’t look like much,” said Ben.

She raised the chisel and hammer to the light.

Bright as silver coins, they were inarguably plain, without engraving or ornament. Like the weapons used by the Blades, these tools were a fine silver alloy—pure enough to rend demonic flesh burned and bubbling. Silver is a demon’s weakness, but without enchantments, it is also ours, Tenelle had told her in the gardens. It’s too soft to make for good weapons or tools. The Alchemists’ Cloister imbue our blades with the strength they need. It’s the same for this hammer and chisel.

“Tenelle called them Breakers,” Eda said. With a deep breath, she pressed the tip of the chisel to the mirror’s surface. “Let’s find out how true that is.”

She struck hard.

A high, resonant tchting filled the room. White sparks flashed where silver met obsidian. But the mirror stood unchanged. Frowning, Eda tried again.

Tchting!

Sparks and nothing more. Had Tenelle given her duds? She set her jaw and struck a third time.

Whether she was more forceful or not, this time a distinct crack sounded beneath the singing metal. A fracture webbed from the tip of the chisel, a thin gray vein marring depthless black. Eda spared Ben a victorious look.

“Let me try,” he said.

Tchting!

Tchting!

Tchting!

Little by little, the crack grew—spearing outward like a flash of lightning with each hit. Eda stood at Ben’s elbow and watched in fearful fascination.

A Gateway might chip or scratch, but it could not be so easily broken. Before the destructive properties of silver were fully understood, the histories told of mirrors being smashed with great hammers, dropped from cliffsides, dragged behind cart horses for miles. Nothing worked. Eda herself had felt so small before the quiet, menacing power of Mr. Night’s mirror that she could hardly conceive of even trying to destroy it.

But the crack grew, and with it, a fierce sort of satisfaction. Gateways were a result of human magicks. Human magicks would unmake them too. Lucky that demons have yet to surpass the resourcefulness of we lowly mortals.

When Ben brought down the hammer again, something split, like a frozen lake in spring. Cracks forked to the very edges of the mirror. Ben raised his arm, emboldened by the nearness of success.

The impenetrable black seeped with new color.

“Wait—!” Eda grabbed him. Ben lowered his arm in shock.

The mirror’s inky surface was rapidly thinning out, as though someone were washing it away with water. Through the darkness, an image took shape. Eda stiffened.

Not an image. Not a reflection. A view to the other side.

Rippling like an uneasy stream, the details were hard to make out, but it was unmistakably some sort of temple. A single blood-red runner flowed from the mirror’s base and down wide, curved steps—all the way to a set of open doors. Everything else was austere and white as snow. Through the doors, a skyline of some indistinct city glowed beneath an orange, fiery light of three suns. It spilled into the temple, gilding everything in orange gold so alike Kit’s eyes that it took Eda’s breath away.

Then she saw a figure racing along the runner toward them. A humanoid shadow, backlit by the light.

No.

“Smash it,” Eda cried. “Smash it, quick!”

Ben hissed something beneath his breath and brought down the hammer with fresh urgency. The cracks webbed. The image splintered and whirled, a chaos of color like a living thing trying to break free.

Eda dove for Tenelle’s bag in a panic. She grabbed a vial of colloidal silver just as the mirror rippled in that familiar tar-like way.

A hand shot out.

Ben tore himself away even as the hand grazed his, razor-like claws scoring his knuckles. A figure stepped through. Ben fell on his backside with a grunt.

The demon bared white fangs. “And what impudent mortal trespass is this?”

* * *

The very air held its breath.

Beautiful was Eda’s first thought. Terrifying was her second.

The demon was female—the first Eda had ever seen. She stood at least as tall as Kit, but her skin was a darker basalt gray. Her black hair sat tightly curled and braided into an elaborate crown about her head, glimmering with tiny golden clasps. A long-sleeved gown of deepest sapphire hinted at generous curves beneath. Gold hung from pointed ears and a slender neck. Even the two spiraling horns poking through her hair were capped in it. Her lips were red in a way that felt threatening, but her eyes were worse—yellow, paler than either of the males Eda knew. They cut through the dark like drops of sunlight, painful in their intensity.

Shit was Eda’s third thought. Shit, shit, shit.

“I see,” said the demoness in a rich voice. “Two little rats, scurrying about Severin’s lair in secret. And lacking the courtesy to simply try to steal the Gateway. Destroying it? Oh, he will be vexed.” The demoness toed the chisel with a slippered foot. Her tone took a sharp dive. “But not so vexed as I.”

Ben tried to shift away. Her foot slammed down on his ankle, hard enough to make him cry out. He reached for his sword—the demoness only laughed and wagged her finger. “Now, now. What good will that do? I could rip out your heart before your blade touches me. Is that what you want, human? So eager to die?”

Eda stepped forward. Those bright eyes shifted her way.

“My name is Eda Shaw. This is my brother, Ben. We only wish to destroy this mirror in order to kill Baelion Ansellis.” It was a gamble, but Lich himself had told her about the discontent among the nobility of Infernus. They resented Mr. Night, and this female did not look like commonfolk.

The demon cocked her head in that same uncanny, stiff way Mr. Night did, an owl assessing its prey. “What?”

“Baelion Ansellis. He’s one of the archdukes, no? He keeps a Gateway for his own personal use, against your customs.”

She stared at Eda as though she’d grown another head. “You know much for a scrap of a mortal thing.”

“I do. And I know that his Gateway has been seized by the Order of the Blade. It’s going to be destroyed, and he’ll have no other mirror but this one.” She took another step, calculating the distance between them. “He means to take this Gateway for himself.”

The demoness’s eyes narrowed. “He would not dare.”

“He already took one. Why not another?”

“This is the Prime Gateway,” she hissed, spine bowing, claws curling. “A relic of travel to the mortal world kept safe for millennia, to be shared among all those who are worthy. The archdukes themselves appointed me and mine its sworn protectors. Baelion Ansellis will not have this mirror.” She smiled grimly. “Neither will you. I would give you to Severin to deal with as he sees fit, but the damage you have done calls for swifter judgment.”

Eda’s heart raced fast and hard. She palmed the vial beneath her cloak. “Destroying this mirror is the only way to trap Baelion here, to give us a chance to kill him. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Ha!” The demoness crouched, tensing. “If anyone can kill him, it isn’t you, you arrogant little wretch.” She leaped.

The demon was so fast that Eda barely finished her throw—she was knocked back into the wall. Ribs screamed. Breath fled. She should have stood gutted, but the demoness was shrieking, rearing back. The vial had hit her square in the chest. She clawed frantically at her smoking skin. “Vhesak!”

Ben rose with sword in hand. “Break it, Eda! Now!”

Eda dove for the chisel and hammer. Everything felt as though it were moving very slowly, her legs not fast enough, her vision not clear enough. In her peripheral vision, the demoness backhanded Ben so hard he nearly fell.

Don’t look, don’t look!

She brought the hammer down.

The mirror cracked ominously. Oily black swirled and writhed like a school of fish just beneath the surface. The magic was frantic, sensing its own freedom at hand.

Eda brought it down again.

Crack.

She raised the hammer a third time.

Her head was rammed into stone. The world exploded. Eda saw stars. Pain burst like fire through her skull and she sagged, gasping. For a moment she had no idea where she was. The demon hauled her around.

That beautiful face was melting—her ear, her jaw, the corner of her red mouth. Ben was on the ground, coughing. His sword lay discarded across the room.

Claws dug into Eda’s scalp. She flailed desperately, lashed out with the hammer. It was knocked aside with a hiss. Suddenly, everything was a great blur as she was thrown afar like a rag doll. She hit the ground hard and coughed. Tried to roll to her knees. The chisel. The hammer. Where…

A foot kicked her back down, pressed into her chest. Eda’s eyes swam with tears. The world wavered like a mirage, all shapes and colors. She grabbed at the demon’s ankle, nails digging in as she fought to keep the weight off her ribs, but the demoness only pressed harder.

She was trembling in visible pain above Eda, panting and wild-eyed. She looked spooked. As though it hadn’t occurred to her that two mortals might injure her so badly.

You’ll not be so arrogant next time, you bitch, Eda wanted to say, but she could not breathe.

“Enough,” the demoness hissed. In her hand, a small ball of flame burst to life. Eda stopped struggling. “You dare to think yourself my equal? You’ll die burning!”

Ben scrambled for his sword.

He won’t reach me, Eda thought with numb terror. She’ll burn me alive. She’s going to. I’m going to die. She’d thought herself so brave when talking about facing death to Kit. Now that hers was finally here, she was made stupid by the fear of it.

Crack.

Everyone froze. The demon’s head snapped around—Eda followed her gaze.

Tripp sat curled about the top of the mirror. He’d wrapped a small piece of his tunic around his fist like a glove, and within it…

He held the chisel high. “Go back through, your ladyship, or be trapped here for good.”

The demoness cried out and leaped for the mirror. Tripp almost looked ashamed of himself when he brought the chisel down.

With a great splintering noise, the stone exploded in a shower of black smoke. Eda covered her head. Fragments pelted her back, her arms, her legs. It was as though a great storm passed over them—a door thrown open in a gale. For a moment she couldn’t hear herself think for the howl of raw magic, overwhelming as it burst free from ancient bonds.

Just as quickly, it was over. Everything fell still.

Eda raised her head to look.

Less than half the mirror remained, jagged as a mountaintop. All around the room, tiny pieces of obsidian lay about like so much rubble. And among the mess a bloody, severed tail lay like a grotesque snake, the cut as clean as a surgeon’s. The demoness had gone back through. Barely.

Ben wheezed in shock. He was dusty, his lip split and mouth bruised. Eda surely looked no better. They stared at one another.

Something tapped her knee.

Tripp peered up at her with an expression approaching concern. “We cannot stay. The menfolk here—”

When she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her wet cheeks to his bony little shoulder, she expected another smack. To her surprise, Tripp only made a low sound of displeasure. He patted her head gingerly, as though she were a mangy dog. “Do not weep. It is unbecoming.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Again.”

He tugged on her hair. Eda drew back. “I hear the humans gathering, my lady. We must go.”

Stiff with pain, they pulled themselves to their feet. Eda snatched a chunk of obsidian before they fled up the staircase.

Proof.