Adrian’s heart was thumping beneath his tree as he led Bex down the stone tunnel, which was so old and worn that it looked like it belonged beneath a pyramid. The blocks thatformed the walls were huge and covered in cuneiform markings, but not the clean, fancy kind found on Gilgamesh’s modern infrastructure. This was cuneiform like you saw in museums, true ancient writing.
“Do you know what it says?” he asked over his shoulder.
Bex shook her head. Fortunately, Nemini was old enough to read anything.
“It’s a poem,” she reported, her yellow eyes moving in circles as she read the writing carved into the walls, floor, and ceiling. “The first section recounts Gilgamesh’s life and heroic deeds. The second is a record of the war, though it’s mostly a recounting of the crimes of the gods that led to their defeat.”
“Gotta give him points for consistency,” Bex muttered. “How far do you think this tunnel goes?”
She moved closer to Adrian as she spoke, walking with her arms pulled in to keep them as far from the walls as possible, though she could also have been avoiding touching the new sword she wore on her hip. Adrian had seen her pick it up because he watched her more than he was comfortable admitting, but while scoring the Sword of Ishtar seemed like it should be the victory of a lifetime, Bex acted like she was carrying a cursed object.
Considering how strained her relationship with her mother was at the moment, Adrian supposed that made sense. He was dying to ask Bex about it, but he didn’t want to poke a sore spot, so he answered her question instead.
“There’s no way to know how long it is except to walk down it,” he said, picking up the pace. “We’re in the most Gilgamesh-y of all Gilgamesh’s private spaces now. Whatever’s in here, it was built for his purposes alone, so I guess we’ll arrive when he wants us to.”
“Or we’ll be trapped forever,” Bex muttered.
“He won’t do that,” Adrian told her confidently. “He’ll come down to gloat, if nothing else, and then you can hit him. I’m much more interested in why Gilgamesh chose a tunnel. He’s always been more of a grand-decorative-spaces sort of…”
His voice trailed off as the ancient hallway they’d been following suddenly ended in a large stone chamber exactly like the one he’djustsaid was Gilgamesh’s style. There was no gold, but the arched walls were covered in beautiful carvings of lions, trees, and fountains. It looked like a naturally occurring cathedral, if such a thing existed, and sitting at the far end was a beautiful waist-high stone basin filled with glowing blue water and lined with eight pairs of horns, plus an empty spot for one more.
“I don’t believe it,” Adrian breathed. “Is that—?”
He didn’t get to finish, because Bex had already run past him. She sprinted down the middle of the beautifully carved cavern and grabbed the closest set of horns, which also happened to be the most familiar.
“That bastard,” she snarled, clutching the pair of two-foot-long, spear-sharp, black-ridged horns to her chest. “These aremine!”
“They’re all here,” Nemini said, appearing next to her sister between one blink and the next. “Those are Sorrow’s. Those are Greed’s. Even War’s horns are here.”
“This must be where Gilgamesh has been hiding them,” Adrian said as he ran over. “But why did he leave them unguarded like this?”
“They weren’t unguarded,” Bex argued. “Did you not see the fight I was just in?”
“I know, I know,” Adrian said, looking around nervously. “But I still expected a trap of some sort. Gilgameshisfamous for being suspicious.”
“He’s also famous for discarding things he no longer needs,” Nemini said quietly, looking up at the pale light that shone down through the holes in the elegantly carved ceiling above them.
“I agree,” Bex said, handing Adrian her old horns so he could tuck them into his coat, since she had no pockets. “Gilgamesh didn’t leave our horns unguarded. He left them behind. He doesn’t need the queens’ crowns anymore now that he’s flushed his demon population.”
She looked up at the wall behind the basin where the crowns were displayed, which was covered in the smallest, most elegant-looking cuneiform yet. “What’s that? More god cursing?”
“No,” said Nemini, squinting at the tiny lines. “It’s still poetry, but it’s not about the gods or the war. It looks like the stuff sorcerers say when they cast spells.”
“What sorcerers say,” Adrian repeated, his eyes flying wide as he stared at the cuneiform-covered wall. “Of course!” he cried, running over to touch the carvings Nemini had been struggling to read. “These must be the original verses.”
“The original verses of what?” Bex asked.
“Sorcery,” Adrian replied excitedly, running his fingers over the ancient markings he still wasn’t good enough to read reliably. “Malik—that is to say, Gilgamesh—told me that he created sorcerous poetry so that normal people could use quintessence without getting cooked. All the verses are written down in books so that sorcerers on Earth can learn them, but those books are just copies of the originals, which are famously in Heaven. I thought they’d be carved on golden tablets and kept in a treasury, but now I see. It’s all here!”
“Should we destroy it?” Bex asked, walking up to the wall. “If this is the poetry all the sorcerers on Earth are pulling from,then wrecking this wall should mean they’re no longer able to use spells, right?”
“I don’t know,” Adrian said. “I’m not sure if simply knowing the verses is enough or…” His voice trailed off as he thought about it, and then he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Even if breaking that would destroy all modern sorcery, we don’t have time. If Gilgamesh has already abandoned the queens’ crowns, he must be very close to his goal. I’d love to wreck this place, but those verses are carved into stone. Breaking them will take too much effort for something we don’t even know will work, so let’s just leave it for now. Once Gilgamesh is dead, we can come back.”
“That’s the sort of optimism I count on you for,” Bex said, flashing Adrian a beaming smile before turning to Nemini. “I need to ask a favor.”
“Anything,” Nemini replied with the speed that proved she meant it. Bex must’ve picked up on that as well, because her smile softened, though her voice did not.
“I want you to grab our sisters’ crowns and take them downstairs,” she said, pointing at the ring of royal horns that still lined the edge of the water-filled basin. “Pick up Leander and Mara, too, while you’re at it. Take it all and carry them down through Adrian’s tree to the Blackwood.”
