Isaachad read stories of archaeologists stumbling across these machines during anexpedition into a necromancer tomb.The encounter often came without warning.There were reports of flaming lances, comets of raw entropy, fogs made ofcaustic acid, the sound of stone limbs grinding together as the statue returnedto life and hunted the intruders through darkened halls.There was even, in onecase, claims of banishment to alternate planes of reality.
Thenumber of bodies at the feet of this statue suggested it had stopped manyexplorers before.The glinting of its eyes suggested that it could still do sonow.
Theywould have to tread very carefully.
“Idon’t like that thing,” Zaria said.
“Good,”Isaac replied, keeping his voice calm.“You shouldn’t like it.You should,also, have told me what it was.”
“Howthe fuck am I to know what nightmare’s starin’ back at me?It’s a meat pie,looks like.Like a bucket of skulls sucked down a drain.”
The threehuman faces were arrayed in a triangle, with one at the apex and the two atbottom corners.Their eyes were made of glass.Their cheeks were riddledthrough with arcane symbols, like tattoos branded into skin.Each of themseemed desperate to scream.The stonework was so intimately detailed that hecould track the deforming of their jaws as it spiraled into a vortex of teeth,right in the center of the triangle.He studied the imitation sludge of theirmeat as it sloughed onto the body of a dog, like the dripping of a candle’swax.
Isaacshuddered.
Zariamade a grunt.“Reminds me of a cougar’s den, when they’ve chomped all the meatand left the bits in a pile.Like, why’s it got four legs?And the faces, forthat matter.Why’s it all twisted together?”
“Everysociety uses resources,” Isaac said.“Necromancies use both the dead and theliving.People are their resource, like clay.And what do you do with clay?”Hegestured.“You shape it with your hands.”
Therewas a pause.
“Whynot make it real, though?”
“It’sart,Zaria, for fuck’s sake.”
Hetried to take stock of the situation.All the bodies were clustered around theshibboleth, their positions suggesting they had been struck down where theystood.His eyes could now make out scorch marks on the skeletal remains, whichsuggested the statue used fire as its weapon.At the same time, the positionsof the dead also suggested that the sphinx had a limited range.It couldn’treach very far.
Isaacstared at the entrance to the tomb.It was right below the statue.Between theplates of the skull and the cracking granite walls, there was no other way toenter the body of the colossus.They would have to pass below the shibboleth.
He hada solution to this dilemma.His uncle had prepared him for just this sort ofobstacle.The letter he received was supposed to grant him passage.
At thesame time, something was catching his eye, in the open patch of ground justbefore the start of the corpses.It was smooth.It was far too flat to accountfor the natural accumulation of sand.There were faint traces of black ichorleaking from the bodies, and, when they reached this area of the skull, theremnants of liquid seemed to form—
Zariagripped his shoulder.“Isaac.What’s the plan?”
Heconcentrated.The trails of ichor ended at the smooth patch of ground.They allended in a perfectly straight line....
Atrapdoor.
Heblinked in surprise.
Theblood and rot from the ancient corpses had flown between the hinges,disappearing into the depths of an earthen shaft.It made perfect sense.Theenergy of the shibboleth was not infinite.It needed to conserve its magicwhenever possible.Because of this, the necromancers had supplemented theentrance with mechanical traps.It was very likely that the trapdoor led to asimple pit with metal bars wrapped around the bedrock.There was likely anetwork of these pits running below the ground, built between the mandiblebones of the jaw, where the last necromancers could wait and rob the dead oncethey had succumbed to thirst.He could imagine even more bodies littering thedusty holes.
“Isaac,”Zaria whispered, right above his ear.“Feel free to explain the corpses at yourleisure.”
He felta bevy of thoughts racing through his mind.
He wasnot willing to enter the tomb with his hands tied as they were.He couldn’treasonably face the sorceress as the prisoner of a pirate.He didn’t want thehyena accompanying him at all.She hadn’t listened to his pleas.She had provenstubbornly willing to get in his way.And he wouldn’t take this kind of chancewith her when his father’s life was held in the balance.
He hadto escape.At the same time, he had no hope of overpowering her.He couldn’trun away.She had proven his physical superior in every way that mattered.Tofree himself, he would have to rely on his cunning.
He madea split-second decision.
“Thestatue is an automaton,” Isaac said.“It—”
“A whatnow?”
“An,uh, automated device.”
