“It never came up?” he asked skeptically.
I grimaced, because this was not the best moment for Taran to get curious about how I’d spent the rebellion.
“I’m coming to realize there were alotof things we never talked about, but should have.”
“I understand,” he agreed after a moment, and I relaxed when he gestured for me to proceed into the tunnel behind the door.
There was only one way to go, so we descended, pace quickening to what my limp would allow. The slope was still gently downward, but now precise and straight as it went farther into the Mountain.
After a few minutes, I began to worry about the distance. How was it possible someone had cut this far down?
“It must have taken ages to cut through this. Even for one of the Stoneborn,” I said.
Taran swiped his fingers across the wall, expression blanking when he saw the black soot it left on his fingertips.
“It wasn’t cut. Someone burned through the rock.”
My steps faltered. “Death?”
“This would take…an incredible amount of power,” Taran said slowly. “How many priests did he have left, when you came here?”
“No more than a handful,” I said, mind grappling for an explanation. “The mortal queen outlawed all sacrifice and worship. He couldn’t have managed this when he died.”
I resisted the urge to sayI told you so.If he could melt through bare rock now, he could have obliterated Taran in the banquet hall. But Taran’s face was paler than realizing how close he’d come to nonexistence would account for. He’d put something together, either from what Awi said or what I had.
There was a breeze from underground, sharp and gritty, and it stung my throat with every breath. We’d been walking steadily downward for almost half an hour before I spotted a red glow ahead of us. The rising heat was nearly intolerable, and when we reached the first open space since passing through the door, the source proved to be a pool of lava as big as a cistern, bubbling up from within the stone.
I’d heard stories of lava deep inside Mount Degom, the mortal twin to the Mountain, where the Allmother had formed the Stoneborn at the beginning of time. There used to be annual pilgrimages there, to light Death’s sacred flames for each temple. I would have gone after being ordained, and I still felt a little religious awe to see the pool of it, but the lava wasn’t what seized my attention.
Death’s temples all had a sameness to them beyond the chosen ornaments and idols of any other Stoneborn. I’d been in most of them to personally oversee their destruction during the rebellion. The angles were all born out of the same immortal mind and repeated from the western shore to the northeastern mountains. Iwould have known that this cavern was a temple of Death even without the bronze lion or wing ornaments capping the peak of the altar behind the lava pool. But that wasn’t what knocked out my breath.
Instead of stone, the entire thing was constructed of bone. Hundreds of bones.Thousands.Lashed together with leather and sinew, femurs and tibias and shoulder blades and a pebbled layer of skullcaps, all of it resting on a thick bed of tanned hides and thick furs. Some divine genius had been warped to the challenge of constructing an altar using only the parts of living things.
Some of the bones might have been those of cows and goats and sheep. Most were not.
“Smenos’s priests,” I whispered, throat closing up from horror. The surface of the altar was caked black from frequent and vicious use. This was what had happened to Smenos’s priests. This was the sacrifice that had fueled Death’s power so quick after his death. This was what had made even the heartless little bird goddess weep. “Why would he give Death his priests?”
“Because they weren’t his priests anymore, after he died,” Taran said, voice low and tight. “But that’s not why he made an altar of bone. It wasn’t made to sacrifice mortals.”
My entire being rejected any closer inspection of the grotesque structure, but I forced one squinting eye to focus on the cracks in the skulls that formed the base. And beyond the black of dried blood there were dried rivulets of gold in the crevices, places where the lifeblood of lesser immortals had gathered.
“What does he need this much power for?” I whispered.
Taran looked around the cavern, face drawn with disgust. There were a dozen branching passageways, both natural and constructed. Some of them were sealed with thick, crude doors of stone, while others led farther down.
“Wesha. It’s always about Wesha. Reaching her in her tower. Being stronger than her. And then going through the Gates, for Smenos. That must have been the bargain.”
“Can Deathdothat?”
“With the sacrifice of a thousand mortals and some of the Allmother’s lesser children? He could crack the Summerlands in two.”
Clenching my teeth against this nightmare, I drifted toward one of the stone doors. It was locked, but my numb lips managed the blessing to open it. Beyond it was a hallway, with dozens more stone doors set at regular intervals along the rock wall. All of it fit together as though the stone had just grown into the shape.
There were small holes at the top—not large enough to be windows, but perhaps big enough for air. When I put my eye against one I saw nothing but darkness, but it wasn’t quite silent within. The door had no lock or handle. I pushed to no avail, then tried to get a grip on the stone. It didn’t budge.
“Taran, help me. I think there are people in here.”
He came just to the start of the hall with his hands curling against the sides of his neck in horror.
