36
The Traitor
‘I should have known it would be you who figured it out,’ Abydos said. He removed his mask and handed it to one of his men. ‘You always were smarter than your parents or your teachers gave you credit for.’
I’m also good at bluffing, Uncle. I relaxed my hands and held them out in front of me, my fingers taking the shape of a particularly nasty ember spell. ‘I’d rather not set your intestines on fire, since we’re related, so you’d better stay back.’
All things considered, I sounded remarkably calm and confident. I think I might be getting better at this lying-all-the-time thing.
Several of the men in masks laughed. One of them pointed at me. ‘Look there, the little mage thinks he’s going to use spells on us! Here, in the mines!’
Abydos spoke more gently. ‘Jan’Tep magic is much harder to work down here, Kellen, that’s why your sister is faring so poorly.’
I whispered to Ferius. ‘Don’t suppose you have your razor-sharp steel cards?’
She shook her head. ‘They took my waistcoat when they captured me.’ She shouted down the tunnel at them. ‘Along with my damned smoking reeds!’
Tusks came barrelling towards us. ‘That’s not all we’ll take, you lousy Argosi—’
My uncle put a restraining hand on his shoulder. ‘Stop. I told you before, this woman saved my nephew’s life. Let’s have no more violence than is absolutely necessary.’
I felt the impulse to explain that he’d already done plenty of harm, but Ferius took a step forward, fists up as if she meant to challenge them all. ‘Well, I hate to disappoint you, but unless you and your little masked theatre group let us pass, I predict there’s going to be a whole lot of violence in the near future for you.’
Abydos ignored her, walking towards us, eyes on me. Reichis clambered up my back to sit on my shoulder. His growl sounded surprisingly loud in the cramped tunnel. ‘Just give me the word, kid, and I’ll rip this one’s face off and make my own mask with it.’
I decided to translate for my uncle. He didn’t seem nearly as scared as I would’ve hoped. He just stood right in front of me and said, ‘Don’t do this, Kellen. We’re not your enemies. We’re your people, your true family.’
‘You kidnapped my sister and attacked my friend. I’d say that makes us enemies.’
One of the other men drew his knife. ‘Stop wasting time. We can’t take a chance on—’
‘Be quiet,’ Abydos said, and for the first time in my life I heard my father’s commanding tone coming from my uncle’s lips. ‘Listen carefully, Kellen. You and the others are going to come with us now. You can carry Shalla if you like, or my men will carry her for you.’
‘You’re not touching my sister ever again.’
‘She’s not your sister, Kellen, not in any way that matters. She’s Jan’Tep. She’s one of them.’
The strength in his voice, the raw confidence that I’d never had in myself, made me feel so weak I could barely stand. ‘Why can’t you just let us go?’ I hadn’t meant it to sound like begging, but it did.
‘Because the world doesn’t work that way, Kellen, and this isn’t just about you and me. I’m taking you somewhere now, for your own good. If you try to run, or if any of you attack, I’ll kill the animal. Do you understand? I’ll kill the Argosi. I’ll even kill my niece if I have to.’ He locked eyes with me. ‘Do you believe me, Kellen?’
I tried to look away, but I couldn’t. I felt trapped in the unwavering certainty of his gaze. My entire life I’d ignored my uncle, always seeing him as a pale shadow of the man my father was. Now I understood that I’d had it wrong the whole time. ‘I believe you.’
‘Good,’ he said, and turned to walk back down the tunnel, not even bothering to make sure we followed. ‘You always were the smart one.’
Abydos led us on a winding journey further into the mine. Despite my earlier defiance that I wouldn’t let anyone touch Shalla, my arms finally gave out. When my uncle saw that I was lagging behind, he ordered his men to carry her. I didn’t have the strength to resist.
At first the tunnels we passed through were very much like the ones we’d been running through before – shabby, worn, the rotten timber supporting the ceiling looking as if it could give out at any moment. After a few minutes, though, we entered a different part of the mine. It was like leaving a Sha’Tep hovel and entering the marble and limestone sanctum of a lord magus. The tunnel walls were perfectly smooth, almost polished. Every few yards a pair of thick columns, almost like those that ringed the oasis, supported the ceiling above us. I looked up and saw symbols etched in metallic inks, which after a while I realised represented the stars we could see above the city at night.
‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ Abydos asked.
Reichis gave a little chitter on my shoulder. ‘What’s the point? If you want to see stars, just look outside.’
‘How long has all this been here?’ I asked.
My uncle shook his head. ‘Who can say? Centuries, certainly.’ He ran a hand along one of the smooth walls. ‘The Mahdek had a flair for architecture.’
I tried to hide my surprise. It didn’t work.
My uncle chuckled. ‘Yes, Kellen, we know the truth about the Mahdek, about the oasis, about all of it.’
How could they know? Mer’esan had been the only one who knew the secret, and she’d been bound in a mind chain for centuries to keep her from revealing it.
‘Ha, just look at him,’ one of the other men said from behind his black lacquer mask. ‘His little mind is breaking apart trying to imagine how the Sha’Tep could know something the mages don’t.’
‘It wasn’t through some elaborate deduction, if that makes you feel any better,’ Abydos said. He stopped and motioned down one of the side tunnels, where rockfall separated this section of the mine from the shabbier parts. ‘We didn’t know these tunnels existed until recently.’
One of Abydos’s men gave a loud cough, then said, ‘The Jan’Tep always want more and more ore, to make more ink, to tattoo their precious bands. They don’t give a damn about the men and women who have to get it for them. We have to keep digging deeper and deeper, but we don’t have the means to reinforce the tunnels properly. Every year, more cave-ins. Every year, more Sha’Tep killed. Wasted lives and wasted deaths!’ There was a terrible anger and grief beneath his words.
Abydos put a hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘One life wasn’t wasted though, Paetep. Her loss revealed the original mine, the one with the richest veins of ore. The one the Jan’Tep ancestors collapsed so no one would ever enter it again.’
The richer veins of ore explained why I was feeling weaker all the time. I could see Shalla in the hands of one of my uncle’s men. Her skin was a sickly pale grey. I had to figure out a way to get her out of here before it was too late. ‘Why would our ancestors have closed the mine? We need the ore.’
‘Most likely because they hadn’t known they’d need the banding until after they’d taken the oasis. The magics of this land don’t come as naturally to the Jan’Tep as they did to the Mahdek. So it was only after they’d brought down the mine that they realised they still needed the ore.’
Paetep stopped and stood in front of me, his big chest rising and falling, barely restrained rage showing in every twitch of his limbs. ‘Our whole lives they lie to us, making us believe they were the ones who created the city we live in and the oasis that protects us. It’s our role to serve them so they can serve the clan, that’s what we’re told.’ I could smell the heat of his breath. ‘Liars. Every one of them.’ He kept clenching and unclenching his fists.
‘Take a step back, friend,’ Ferius said. ‘I’m just starting to like the kid.’
Two of the other men started moving towards her. Even with masks covering their faces, I could sense how wound up they were.
Reichis hopped from my shoulder to Ferius’s. ‘Oh, please, tell me the talking is over and I can start with the eyeballs.’
Ferius, even if she didn’t understand his words, caught his meaning. She gave a little chuckle. ‘See, boys, that crap you shoved down my throat is starting to wear off now. Me and the squirrel cat are itching for a fight, so if you want to take a swing at me, go ahead.’
Even though her voice was calm, there was something reckless in her eyes. She looked angrier than I’d ever seen her. I actually felt relief when Abydos called his men off. ‘This gets us nowhere,’ he said, pushing them along the tunnel. ‘The Jan’Tep that rule now aren’t even to blame for what’s been done to us. They’ve been repeating a lie told to them for so long that they don’t even know it’s a lie any more.’
‘But you reckon you got it all figured out, Aby?’ Ferius asked.
‘Not at first,’ he admitted. Then he pointed to the end of the passageway where an arched marble entranceway led into darkness. ‘But then we found the mausoleum.’