LITMIR.BIZ

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all the slaves out of the area till the recovery was complete.

      “Aye, but if’n any one man can do it, cap’n, Valdir can.”

      Folding the note then putting it in his pocket, Raithen nodded. “I’d rather have someone down there with the priests. Get a crew assembled. Cover it as a provisions resupply for the slaves.”

      “It’s hardly time for that again.”

      “Cholik won’t know. He works those slaves till they drop, then heaves them into that great, bloody abyss down there.”

      “Aye, cap’n. I’ll get to it then.”

      “What of our guest aboard Barracuda?”

      Pettit shrugged. “Oh, he’s in fine keepin’, cap’n. Fit as a fiddle, he is. Alive, he’s worth a lot, but now, dead, cap’n?” The first mate shook his scruffy head. “Why, he’s just a step removed from fertilizer, isn’t he?”

      With care, Raithen touched the wound on his neck beneath the kerchief. Pain rattled through his skull, and he winced at it. “That boy is the king’s nephew, Pettit. Westmarch’s king prides himself on his knowledge and that of his get. Priests train those children for the most part, and they concern themselves with history, things better left forgotten, I say.” Except for the occasional treasure map or account of where a ship laden with treasure went down in inhospitable seas.

      “Aye, cap’n. Worthless learnin’, most of it. If’n ye’re askin’ me own opinion.”

      Raithen wasn’t, but he didn’t belabor the point. “What do you think the chances are that the boy we took from that last Westmarch ship knows a considerable amount about history and things a priest might be interested in? Maybe even knows about this?” He patted the breast pocket where he’d stored the paper with the symbol.

      Understanding dawned in Pettit’s rheumy eyes. He scratched his bearded chin and grinned, revealing the few straggling teeth stained by beetle-juice. “Me, cap’n? Why, I’d say there was considerable chances, I would.”

      “I’m going to talk to the boy.” Raithen took up his plumed hat from the trunk at the foot of the bed and clapped it onto his head.

      “Ye might have to wake him,” Pettit said. “An’ he ain’t none too sociable. Little rapscallion liked to tore ol’ Bull’s ear off when he went in to feed him this e’ening.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Ol’ Bull, he up and walks into the hold where we’re a-keepin’ the boy like it was nothin’. That young’un, he come out of the rafters where’d he’d been a-hidin’ and dropped down on ol’ Bull. Walloped ol’ Bull a few good licks with a two-by-four he’d pried loose from the wall of the hold. If’n ol’ Bull’s head hadn’t been as thick as it was, why he’d have been damn near knocked to death, he would. As it was, that boy nearly got his arse offa Barracuda for certain.”

      “Is the boy hurt?” Raithen asked.

      Pettit waved the possibility away. “Nah. Mighta picked him up a couple of knots on his head fer his troubles, but nothin’ what’s gonna stay with him more’n a day or two.”

      “I don’t want that boy hurt, Pettit.” Raithen made his voice harsh.

      Pettit cringed a little and scratched at the back of his neck. “I ain’t gonna let any o’ the crew hurt him.”

      “If that boy gets hurt before I’m done with him,” Raithen said, stepping over the dead woman sprawled on the floor, “I’m going to hold you responsible. And I’ll take it out of your arse.”

      “I understand, cap’n. An’ trust me, ye got no worries there.”

      “Get that supply crew together, but no one moves until I say.”

      “It’ll be as ye say, cap’n.”

      “I’m going to speak with that boy. Maybe he knows something about this symbol.”

      “If I may suggest, cap’n, while ye’re there, just mind ye keep a sharp watch on yer ears. That boy’s a quick one, he is.”

      * * *

      Buyard Cholik stared at the huge door that fronted the wall. In all the years of knowing about Kabraxis and of knowing the fate of Ransim buried beneath Tauruk’s Port, he’d never known how he would feel once he stood before the door that hid the demon’s secret. Even months of planning and work, of coming down to the subterranean depths on occasion to check on the work and inspire fear or reprisal in the acolytes who labored under his design, had left him unprepared.

      Although he had expected to feel proud and exuberant about his discovery, Cholik had forgotten about the fear that now filled him. Quavers, like the tremor of an earthquake hidden deep within a land, ran through his body. He wanted to shriek and call on Archangel Yaerius, who first brought the tenets of Zakarum to men. But he did not. Cholik knew he had long passed the line of forgiveness that would be offered by any who followed the ways of Light.

      And what good would forgiveness do a dying old man? The priest taunted himself with that question as he had for the past few months and stiffened his resolve. Death was only another few years into the future for him, nothing worthwhile left during that distance.

      “Master,” Brother Altharin whispered, “are you all right?” He stood to Cholik’s right, two steps back as respect and the older priest’s tolerance dictated.

      Letting his irritation burn away the traces that were left from his own anger and resentment at his approaching mortality, Cholik said, “Of course, I am all right. Why would I not be?”

      “You were so quiet,” Altharin said.

      “Contemplation and meditation,” Cholik said, “are the two key abilities for any priest to possess in order that he may understand the great mysteries left to us by the Light. You would do well to remember that, Altharin.”

      “Of course, master.” Altharin’s willingness to accept rebuke and toil at a relentless pace had made him the natural candidate for being in charge of the excavation.

      Cholik studied the massive door. Or should I think of it as a gate? The secret texts he’d read had suggested that Kabraxis’s door guarded another place as well as the hidden things the demon lord had left behind.

      The slaves continued to labor, loading carts with broken rock with their bare hands by lantern light and torchlight. Their chains clinked and clanked against the hard stone ground. Other slaves worked with pickaxes, standing on the stone surrounding the door or atop frail scaffolding that quivered with every swing. The slaves spoke in fearful tones to one another, but they also hurried to finish uncovering the door. Cholik thought that was because they believed that they would be able to rest. If something behind the great door didn’t kill them, the old priest thought, perhaps for a time they would rest.

      “So much of the door is uncovered,” Cholik said. “Why was I not called earlier?”

      “Master,” Altharin said, “there was no indication that we were so close to finding the door. We came upon another hard section of the dig, the wall that you see before you, which hid the door. I only thought that it was another section of cavern wall. So many times the path that you chose for us has caused us to punch through walls of the existing catacombs.”

      The city’s builders had constructed Ransim to take advantage of the natural caverns in the area above the Dyre River, Cholik remembered from the texts. The caves had provided warehouse area for the goods they trafficked in, natural cisterns of groundwater they could use in event of a siege—which had happened several times during the city’s history—and as protection from the elements because harsh storms often raced down from the summits of the Hawk’s Beak Mountains. Tauruk’s Port, founded after the destruction of Ransim, hadn’t benefited from access to the caverns.

      “When we started to attack this wall,” Altharin continued,

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