The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 14: Below Munazyr, Part 7

 The passage proved dreadfully uncomfortable. Unlike the cool atmosphere they had plumbed up to now, its air was close and hot, almost stifling. Sweat poured down Denisius's cheeks and gleamed on Barthim's bald head; Ammas was continually doffing his hat to knuckle sweat away from his eyes. Worse, the ceiling only continued to sink lower and lower. When they first entered, all six of them were able to walk fully upright. Within ten minutes, Barthim was crouching slightly. Within half an hour, all of them except Casimir and Carala were hunched over nearly double. Barthim, who had no love of tight, confined spaces, was muttering darkly to himself in Siraneshi. To Ammas it sounded like prayers.

"Stop," the cursewright barked after only a few minutes of this. Irritably he yanked his hat off his head and sank to his knees, if only to relieve the growing strain in his back and legs. 

Barthim, Vos, and Denisius all sat down, Barthim with an audible grunt of relief. 

"We keep going like this we're going to be crawling on all fours before long." Carefully he removed the caged spirit from the top of his walking stick and waved Casimir over to him. "Can you and Carala scout ahead a bit? Tell us how long it is before we can all walk upright again?"

Casimir nodded, though he was obviously relieved to be exchanging his lamp for the spirit. Carala looked at the two of them more than a little askance.

"Ammas," she murmured. "I appreciate that you trust me to do this, but I'm no warrior."

"You're the second most dangerous person here after me," Ammas whispered. "But it's not about that. Casimir wants to impress me, and Barthim, and you. Barthim and I can't follow, but you can. He'll listen to you." As she began to protest, he interrupted. "I see the way he listens to you speak, the way he looks at you. He wants to look out for you, and he likes you. I need you to use it. Don't let him go beyond the range of the spirit's light. The moment you look behind you and can't see us, come back. If this way is impassable, we'll find another."

Carala nodded, remembering the way the boy had curled against her the night before; how he had soothed when he cried out in his sleep at her touch. And now, the way he smiled at her as she took his hand and walked side by side with him down the increasingly constricted pathway.

Ammas watched them closely, listening to Denisius and Barthim speak in hushed tones behind them. "I've read about the Sultan's siege tunnels and how he breached the walls. They were engineering marvels, but they weren't meant to last forever. This one must be centuries old."

"I am not sure the men who were using them thought them to be such marvels," Barthim demurred. Ammas thought he sounded out of breath.

"What do you mean?"

"There is faded writing all over the walls. It is all prayers. They prayed to the Sultan, to the stars above Q'Sivaris, that the place would not be falling down on their heads."

"Marvelous," Vos growled.

"They might not have even used soldiers, though. Sometimes the janissaries rolled devices into the tunnels, things that sprayed poison into the air."

"Are you saying there is still poison in this place?"

"There's no poison here," Vos broke in. "We never would have made it this far."

"Be still," Ammas hissed over his shoulder. The floating ball of light that illuminated the two small silhouettes must have been a hundred feet ahead of them. They both seemed to be crouching. A terrible pit began to sink into Ammas's belly. The taller silhouette started waving the smaller one back toward their position. Ammas braced himself. The others waited, silent and watchful.