Spellslinger (Spellslinger #1)(81)

37


The Chamber


The space we entered was the largest we’d seen in the mines, over thirty feet across, the ceiling almost as high. The effort to carve it out, to lay the foundations and put in supports, must have been staggering, and yet it was the shape of the space that took my breath away.

What Abydos had called the ‘mausoleum’ was seven-sided, and each wall was covered with intricate sigils, some of which I recognised, most of which I was sure weren’t in any book or scroll or even in the mind of any Jan’Tep spellmaster in any of our cities. I stood facing one of the walls and held up my right forearm with its sparked breath band. There were nine sigils on my band, each one a different form of breath magic from which spells might be constructed, if I had the power. The wall opposite me had dozens.

‘It’s an arcanum,’ I said, but no one even noticed. Of the people there, only Shalla would have cared, and she was unconscious.

‘Put the girl down there,’ Abydos told his men. ‘On the altar.’

Towards the middle of the room, a set of stairs descended from each of the seven walls, leading to a recessed area at the very centre that reflected the shape of the room itself but was only large enough for a simple stone table.

‘Why are they putting Shalla on the altar?’ I asked.

‘Better than the floor,’ Abydos replied.

Reichis hopped off my shoulder and started sniffing around. ‘Lot of dead people in here.’

He was right. I’d been so focused on the inscriptions of spells that I hadn’t noticed the dozens of three-foot-square openings carved into the lower sections of the walls. Inside each one lay a body, wrapped over and over in thick strips of linen, the covered heads facing out towards us. This wasn’t part of the funerary practices of my people; nor were the black lacquer masks covering the faces of the dead.

‘Funeral masks,’ Abydos said, removing one and handing it to me. His casual treatment of the deceased felt wrong to me, but my uncle seemed untroubled. ‘It took me weeks of sitting here, staring at these things, to figure out that the Mahdek had never worshipped demons at all. They feared them.’

‘Then why the masks?’ I asked.

‘Superstition, or possibly just tradition. I suspect they believed the mask would frighten off any demons that came for them in the eternal darkness.’

‘And you desecrate the dead, without a second thought,’ Ferius said. ‘Wearing the masks to scare your own people. You sure are a brave bunch.’

‘They aren’t our people!’ Tusks shouted, tearing the mask off his face. He was younger than I expected, with sandy brown hair and soft features. I doubted he was more than a couple of years older than me. ‘My people are treated like servants. We can’t choose our own work, we can’t marry without permission. We can’t even …’ He stopped, looking as if all the air had gone out of him.

‘The Sha’Tep are forbidden from having children,’ Abydos said. He nodded to where Shalla lay on the table in the lower section of the room. ‘The great houses want only more mages like her.’ He reached out a hand to my cheek. ‘If the lords magi had their way, those like you and me would—’

‘I’m not Sha’Tep,’ I said, pushing his hand away.

‘That’s what we all tell ourselves,’ Abydos said. ‘“It’s just temporary … My magic will come back if I just wish it hard enough.”’

A man older than my uncle removed his mask. ‘It wasn’t always this way. Once we were soldiers as often as servants. Some of us trained as scholars and diplomats. We even had our own seats on the council. But year after year, generation after generation, people like your father take away more and more of our rights.’

‘Why didn’t you speak up?’ I asked, as ashamed as I was angered by their words. ‘Why not demand your rights?’

‘Our grandfathers and grandmothers tried,’ said a woman, her face hidden beneath a horrific fanged mask. ‘Just like their grandmothers and grandfathers before them. Each time they were punished. Pain spells. Mind chains. Magic.’ She said the word as if it were something filthy and disgusting.

I looked up at Abydos, my uncle, who I’d spent my whole life believing was the mild, contented fellow who happily brought us our food and took care of our home. ‘Father would have listened,’ I said. ‘He would never—’

‘Ke’heops is the worst of them all,’ he said, cutting me off even as he turned away from me. ‘When we were children … you could never have found two boys more alike. We were best friends. We did everything together: laughing, looking out for each other, finishing each other’s thoughts. Then one morning he began sparking his bands.’ Abydos held up his arms, the lines of the sigils so faint they just looked like old scars. ‘I didn’t, and from that day forth the brother that I’d loved, that I’d protected, treated me like little more than a useful pet.’

‘Sounds like a hard life,’ Ferius said. ‘A brave man might stand up and fight to change it. He just wouldn’t do it by hurting children.’

Abydos strode towards her, his face as much a mask of rage as any of the black lacquer ones worn by his followers. For a moment I thought he might strike her, but he calmed himself and his voice was almost pleading. ‘Don’t you understand? I’m doing this for Kellen!’