The Bone Palace - Amanda Downum [28]
Then she was gone, back on the far side of the room. “It’s better when we sleep. Sleep is soothing, dulls these appetites.” She glided toward the door. “It would be best if you returned to the upper world, necromancer. Investigate as you will. Perhaps Spider can help you—he is still young and curious, and doesn’t yet feel the pull of earth. He was fond of the last mage who braved the underground, too.” Her voice chilled. “If you find these rabble who threaten our peace, dispose of them as you see fit.”
With that, Isyllt was alone.
Biting back another frown, she called witchlight as she left the room, trailing it behind her so she wasn’t blind. Bones glimmered against grey stone, intricate swirls of phalanges and vertebrae bleached slick and pale as cream, ribs curving like buttresses along the ceiling. The death-sense of the place dizzied her; her ring was a band of ice.
She might have lost herself in the twisting ossuary corridors, but she heard the familiar sound of Ciaran’s voice. His smoky baritone led her back to the broad stairs and into the main hall. A smile tugged her lips as she recognized the ballad—of course Ciaran would sing love songs to vampires.
Her tiny light glittered on walls inlaid with gems and bone. A cathedral, all soaring columns and statued alcoves. She wanted to stop and gawk, but forced herself to keep walking, eyes on Ciaran.
He sat on a bench against the wall, surrounded by his deathly audience. A few of them fled at her light, melting into the shadows or skittering up the walls like insects, but most remained, giving her no more than a passing glance. She waited till he finished the last verse and silence filled the vaulted room once more. Eerie eyes glittered, reflecting opalescent flame. No tears, but the rapt expressions on bone-pale faces were just as eloquent.
Ciaran smiled as she approached, his face alight. He loved an audience, no matter how unusual. “Sound carries beautifully in here. It would make a marvelous concert hall.”
“You should discuss that with Lady Tenebris the next time we visit. But I’m afraid we need to leave now.” She glanced at the gathered crowd, but recognized none of the faces. “Where’s Spider?”
“Here,” the vampire said, appearing at her elbow. “I’ll escort you up.”
The vampires stared at Ciaran as he stood and straightened his coat, their eyes hungry. He bowed with a flourish as graceful as any he might offer a crowd at the Briar Patch, or an orpheum. A slender arm reached out of the shadows, almost shyly, and pressed something into his hand. Isyllt caught his sleeve and pulled him away before anyone demanded an encore.
When the tall stone doors shut behind, Isyllt finally let out a sigh. The back of her neck still prickled furiously and her muscles were strung tight as kithara strings.
Spider smiled crookedly. “How was your meeting?”
She kept walking. “Trying,” she said at last, voice low. “She doesn’t care about any of this. It’s not just our skins—” a vague upward gesture encompassed the city above them “—I’m trying to save, you know.”
“I know.” Spider took her arm with casual grace. “That’s what happens to the very old ones. They grow torpid, dull. All they want to do is sleep, the rest of the world be damned.”
“She said you might help me.”
He nodded, pale hair drifting like cobwebs around his face. “I will, little witch, I will.” The doors vanished into shadow behind them and soon the light lapped at the cliff wall they’d descended. “I’ll listen in the dark and see what I find.”
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “And how is it that you know what to listen for?”
He grinned. “I’m very good at listening in the dark.”
“Who was the other mage Tenebris mentioned, who you were so fond of?”
“Another sorceress, years ago. Decades, it must be. She wanted to learn our secrets, and even managed to charm one or two out of us. She’s dead now, I fear.”
He turned at the wall instead of hauling them back up the way they’d come as Isyllt expected.