City of Ruin - Mark Charan Newton [105]
And into the rock caves.
‘The hell am I going in there,’ Munio muttered.
‘Fuck yourself then.’ Randur continued forward with Rika, leaving his old tutor outside in the dark. He didn’t care what was waiting for him – he would get Eir back, or else die trying.
A few moments later, a cry, ‘Wait!’
Eventually Munio caught up, but was breathless because of the additional sprint. He panted, ‘I can’t have you lot all killing yourselves.’
Rika led the way to the entrance, while Randur gripped his blade in anticipation, switching his mind into that lethal zone, ready to be as savage as was needed. Torchlight picked out stalagmites and stalactites, so it seemed that everywhere they looked they were staring into the jaws of some rock beast. Would they ever find Eir in this maze? The surfaces had been weathered so intensely they looked wrinkled with age. In places the stone sagged. They passed mirror pools and zones drenched with bat excrement. The path itself was smooth from years of use, and Randur reckoned that the white-skinned race might not be merely hiding down here, but actually lived here – which would explain the lack of pigmentation in their skins.
Eventually the same path narrowed, before expanding into a larger cavern. Despite the absence of light they noted several exits on the opposite side.
‘Down there, look.’ Rika was pointing to a pool of water.
A pile of metallic objects was barely visible, a motionless form lying alongside. Randur’s heart missed a few beats. They edged their way down cautiously, after detecting an ancient stairway smoothed out of the rock.
‘Eir!’ Randur called out, the echo of his voice strangely prolonged.
She lay flat on her back at the foot of the stairway, rubbing one hand over her face.
He sprinted to her side and skidded on to his knees. No blood, no wounds, nothing to denote she’d been suffering any pain. ‘How do you feel?’ he gasped.
‘I’m fine. My head’s a little sore, as is my neck, but I’m fine.’ He helped her sit up and she buried her head in his shoulder. She was shaking and he did his best to comfort her.
Munio nodded at the sight, and stepped this way and that to check for any sign of the white folk. Randur, too, wondered where they’d gone, then he glanced upwards. ‘Bohr . . .’ he breathed, and Eir squirmed away from him to follow his gaze.
The torchlight reflected off an array of surfaces, gold, silver, copper, brass – hundreds of coins and ornaments, bangles and rings and necklaces. The hoard was vast, extending like a money-beach. Sloping downwards, it descended into a deep pool which bore evidence of rust, the centuries of decay evident.
Randur lifted Eir up in his arms, and they slowly skirted the rim of the treasure, sifting through it with their feet, totally in awe.
Munio crouched, with a groan, to examine some of the coins in more detail, asking for Rika to lower the torch. ‘Some of these . . . they’re positively ancient. Long before Emperors Gulion and Haldun. Look, this even has Goltang’s image! Well I never . . . I’ve never seen such . . . such wealth,’ he muttered.
‘My necklace,’ Eir whispered, exploring her skin with one hand. ‘It’s gone. They must have stolen it.’
‘They might have even taken you just for your necklace,’ Randur suggested. ‘These people, it looks like they’ve been bringing all these trinkets down here for hundreds of years, and without anyone knowing about them.’
‘Millennia!’ Munio examined a piece under the light of Rika’s torch. ‘This here is from the Azimuth era.’
Randur noted how the old man was slyly filling his pockets with some of the trinkets, but thought better than to query it.
This seemed unreal, for an entire community to lead little more than a magpie existence, obsessed with anything that glittered. How long ago must they have fallen away from the surface world, evolving to become those ghosts who had butchered the horse?
‘Look at these markings on the walls.’ Rika brought the light nearer to an area of pale stone that