Sword of the Gods - Bruce R. Cordell [76]
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AIRSPUR
THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)
THE RUINED MOTHERHOUSE NO LONGER POURED RIVULETS of smoke into the sky. The massive construction lay in shattered heaps. Barricades alive with darting witchlights screened curious citizens out of the site. Peacemakers and Cabal members conferred in groups of two and three. Reconstruction was set to begin in a tenday or two; until then, no one was allowed in or out except ranking Firestormers.
Which was why Chant was crawling on his belly through an alley that neighbored the ruin, keeping his head down. Mud slicked his fine clothing and face, and the unpleasant stink clinging to him suggested he’d accidentally crawled through dog droppings.
Riltana slid ahead of him as easily as breathing. Behind Chant labored Carmenere. The earthsoul looked at least as uncomfortable as he felt pulling herself forward on her elbows, which surprised him. As an earthsoul, he would have expected Carmenere to be most comfortable so close to the ground. Demascus brought up the rear, lost in his own thoughts, but making reasonable headway.
The deva had remained uncharacteristically silent since they’d left the palace. At first Chant thought Demascus was mooning over his meeting with the queen. But then he suspected something else bothered the man. Not fear, though. After what Chant had seen Demascus do in the alley, he had a hard time believing anything could frighten the deva. Which was frightening to consider. Someone who didn’t feel fear was a liability on a team composed mostly of people who did not, as a matter of course, return to life if killed.
And if Chant was killed under the Motherhouse, chasing after Demascus’s identity and the truth of the Elder Elemental Eye, what would become of Jaul? Raneger had much to answer—
Riltana stopped. One finger went to her lips, then she pointed at a crack in the masonry. Was she suggesting they go through it? A giant block rested on a ridge of broken pilings, forming a sort of long tunnel. No way was he was going to fit …
The thief slipped into the gap.
He exhaled a long-suffering sigh. Then he wriggled after. Usually his husky frame didn’t impede him in the least. Not this time, he thought, struggling forward. It was at times like this that he seriously considered restricting himself to just five meals a day.
The odor of smoke and ash permeated everything. Plus the whiff of something dead.
The cleft emptied into a rubble-filled space open to the sky behind the largest heap of tumbled masonry, which neatly blocked the view from the street. Chant concentrated on remaining quiet. The mumble of conversation from a group of Cabal members penetrated the obstructing detritus. The friends had Arathane’s permission to investigate the ruin, but they were sworn not to reveal the queen’s involvement. Which essentially meant they were, indeed, trespassing.
A collection of mauls, pickaxes, pry bars, and other tools were laid out on tarps. Smaller piles of stone, wood, and cloth lay in regular piles around the periphery, as if they’d been sorted. A wheelbarrow stacked with crumbled stone rested at the mouth of an opening that plunged underground.
“Where are the workers?” whispered Carmenere.
“Lunch break,” he guessed. He pointed to the opening. “Let’s try there.”
They descended, picking their way around debris that the workers hadn’t yet managed to clear. If they’d gotten there sooner, the sloping tunnel would probably still be blocked.
A door hung half off its hinges at the bottom of the descent. Demascus took hold of it and carefully swung it. It scraped and resisted, but he managed to open it all the way.
The chamber beyond was half-collapsed, making what had apparently served the Motherhouse as an expansive beer and root cellar into a cramped and wreckage-strewn cavern. A yeasty, damp odor competed with the stink of ash and smoke. It made him a little sad to think of so much ale soaking into the earth.
Demascus entered, his head scanning left, right, up, and down. Chant was pretty sure the man was automatically