CHAPTER 39

Vidmo died with an arrow in his throat. His eyes are vacant and scared, his white face contrasts with the dark-stained sand around his head. I help Hilde drag his body inside to a depression in the sand and cross his arms over his chest. Baz wasn’t so lucky. She was still alive when Essa barged into the room, her life draining through a wound in her gut.

Metalface and his friends had had fun in the pool room. The water had been defiled, the weapons stolen, the drawing in the sand erased and replaced with the phrase, ‘YER AL GUNNA DI’. A taunt or a prophecy, I wondered as I dragged my foot over the words. Rev and Essa stayed with Baz. I’d seen the wound and knew there was nothing that could be done. The first level was filled with weapons and armor. If it wasn’t necessary for battle, for the spilling of blood and the breaking of bones, it wasn’t here. Everything that came after, healing the wounded included, was placed in the upper levels.

Baz expired among friends, and in the end, right before she breathed her last, she whispered a few words to Essa. No one else could make it out, but, whatever it was, it turned Essa’s grief to stony resolve.

With Baz’s body laid next to Vidmo’s. Hilde says a few words about how when the world dissolves into light, their souls will join it. Strange dwarven beliefs.

As soon as the speech is over and everyone begins to walk aimlessly, I move to the center of the room. Gods, was it always so warm in here? Sweat pools on my forehead and descends, stinging my eyes.

“Everyone. Please. We don’t have time for this,” I say. “I’m sorry about your friends. I truly am. But we need to finish our plan. The longer we dally the more we risk them coming back or coming up with a plan themselves.”

Rev observes me with a defeated expression. Essa just paces up and down through the sand, going into the side room and coming back again.

“The plan is off, Malco,” Rev says. “I don’t think they’re coming back. They got what they wanted.”

“What, weapons?” I ask. “They’re a dime a dozen. We each have as many weapons as we can wield. And if you mean our morale—”

“I mean,” Rev says. “That Baz had the ruby. We left it with her, we were coming back. We never thought it would… That they would…”

My hand flies to my pocket where the emerald clacks against the dice and I look at Hilde who nods back. Still there. I’d remembered to pack them before our expedition; it never occurred to me to keep them farther than hand’s reach. But Essa… Essa had left hers with the wounded as an assurance that she was coming back for them. I watched her walk out of the room and walk back in, gauntleted fingers squeezing against each other audibly.

I sit down on the bench and sink my head in my hands. That changes things. Changes everything. We don’t have the key, so facing the drake, trapped it or not, is useless.

“Why did they do it?” Hilde asks. “This group. Why did they leave in the first place?”

“There were always troublemakers. And after the thing in the fourth level, well…” Rev gives Essa a quick sideways look. “They gained a lot of supporters. Joro, the guy with the face, was the naysayer, and Lehsa kept drumming up support for him. I guess things finally came to a head.”

“They tried to take the ruby when they left,” Essa says quietly. “I challenged Joro for a duel for it, but he refused. Stupid of me to think that was the end of that. Stupid…”

She retreats into silence, which only makes us focus on our own thoughts and worries. Metalface, Joro, has the ruby. We’re screwed.

“I think,” I say. “That we need to face the dragon in the room. There aren’t enough keys for us all to make it out of here.”

“There were supposed to be four,” Hilde says. “There’s a white door on the fourth level. I saw it after everything fell down. If we could get to it…”

“No key,” I say. “It’s somewhere on the second level, but the cyclops was the clue. It’s lost now.”

“But we found two emeralds,” Rev says. “Maybe there are more of the other keys as well.”

I shake my head.

“The second emerald was a fluke. I found it on a skeleton behind a wall, dead for ages. I think they just plain forgot he was there.”

“Are you sure it even works?” Rev asks.

“It did work. That’s the key Wyl used to open the Silver Door.”

Rev opens her mouth to speak, but then shuts it again. Hilde is kicking mounds of sand despondently and won’t meet any of our gazes.

“I hoped,” Essa says slowly, sitting on a bench and staring fixatedly at a point none of us can spot. “That if we fought the drake maybe enough people would die that we wouldn’t have to choose, that one would make it through and that would be enough to justify our deaths.”

The admission fills the silence and demands more. Though divining emotions from the stillness of Essa’s face is normally a fool’s game, now doesn’t look minimally uncomfortable. Maybe even slightly relieved.

“Now it no longer matters. They have the ruby. It’s up to them to decide if and when to attack, who dies and who gets through.”

I rest my head on my crossed arm, feeling the warmth of my forehead even through the sleeve. But Essa isn’t done.

“Malco,” she says. “You found a key and managed to hold on to it. From what you told us, you won it fairly, according to all the rules and procedures the Godtouched imposed. You should take it and use it.”

I grunt, I think. My eyes are closed, and in that peaceful darkness the idea of just taking a key and abandoning everyone else to their luck actually feels like something I could do. It’s simple. Irresponsible and cowardly, yes, but so simple, so easy…

“Hildegarde and Rev,” Essa continues when I don’t respond. “You should decide which of you gets the emerald. I believe it would be fair for Rev to take it, since she’s the one who grabbed it from the drake’s hoard in the first place.”

“I agree,” says Hilde.

“I don’t,” Rev protests. “This is ridiculous, Essa, you know I’m not going to leave you.”

“I trust you’ll be able to sort it amongst yourselves.”

Essa stand, flexing the gauntleted hand. Then she turns and picks up the bench with a single hand, lifting it in the air like it’s nothing but a stick. Veins in the gauntlet shine red when she does so.

“I believe I’m going hunting,” Essa says thoughtfully, setting the bench down and hefting her sword instead. “I’m going to kill every and each one of those bastards before they can even attempt to mount a plan to reach the Golden Door. If I manage to do it and get the ruby, I’ll try my luck with the drake. Whoever relinquishes the emerald is free to come with me.”

“Wait,” I say.

In the silence, I raise my heavy head. “What did you say?”

“That I’m going to kill them,” Essa says, resolute. “Or die trying.”

“No,” I shake my head. “You said ‘before they reach the door’, or something.”

“Yes. Before they feed themselves one by one to the drake, I’m going to get them.”

I stand dumbly at her. There’s something there, something useful, but my brain won’t give it up so easily. It’s like treading through water trying to reach a fishing boat the river keeps dragging away.

“That doesn’t make sense,” I say finally.

I’m not sure why it doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t. I keep talking and hope my brain can eventually catch up.

“They’re crafty. They’ve proved able to go around us and strike at where we’re not. They’ll catch you unaware and alone.”

Keep going. It’s here somewhere, just keep drawing it out.

“They have the worst key, the one whose Door is behind a giant lizard. But we know where the Door is.”

Now I’m not making any sense. I blink hard, pushing the headache away.

“Going after them is stupid,” I say slowly, and suddenly it’s right there. I look up. “We need to attack the drake before they do.”

They’re all watching me with varying levels of worry and confusion.

“That’s suicide,” Rev says. “Even if we do kill the drake, which will be a miracle, we will lose people. We’ll be weaker.”

“No,” I say. “You’re wrong. We can trick it somehow, I know it. And as soon as we have the center, as soon as we reach the Door they’re desperate to get to…”

“We threaten to destroy it,” Essa says suddenly.

I nod.

“Can we even do that?” she whispers, looking to the entrance of the room.

Hilde understands and runs to the corridor, looking one way and the other before nodding back to us.

“I don’t know. Doubt it. But the drake is loud, and they’ll be watching the fight. If we surround the pedestal and give it a few good whacks, that might get their attention.”

“And bring them to us,” Essa adds.

“Rushing and unprepared,” I say, nodding. “Of course, we’ll still have to fight them. And that means being smart about the drake.”

Essa looks me straight in the eye and holds my gaze. Behind her eyes, there’s a mind hard at work weighing possibilities and outcomes, revenge against redemption. Everything hangs in the balance. If Essa decides to go her own way, we have no reasonable means of fighting the drake or Metalface’s gang. But finally, mercifully, she nods.

“What’s your plan?”

I fish in my pockets and bring out three items: two dice and one hard leather bottle.