“Well,that’sa lie,” Elianna says, her voice hard.
“What happened to him?” I point to the skeleton.
Darnen shrugs. “He died trying. We just haven’t tossed him out yet. Zhagarn!”
Sixof them swarm up the staircase and into the room behind us.
“Remove that,” the druid says.
Two of the Zhagarn immediately cross the room, pick up the skeleton, carry it to the open wall, and toss it over the edge.
“How many?” I fight the lump of dread blocking my throat and force out the words. “How many have died trying to get it?”
“Who knows? We tried quite frequently at first, but it became hard to recruit … volunteers,” he says lightly, as if he’s not discussing murdering innocent people. “We’re almost out of scholars now, after five decades. So, maybe fifty or sixty that first week, then we slowed down for a while, and I’d guess one a week for the past forty years. Maybe, hmmm. Maybe three thousand in total, give or take?”
I feel my knees turn to water. “Three thousand? You killed three thousand people? You’re a monster!”
“I prefer ‘man on a mission,’” he says, and I realize the gleam in his eyes isn’t intelligence or magic. It’s fanaticism. “I didn’t kill them. The key killed them when they tried to touch it. Your goddess is to blame.”
I whirl to scowl at him. “Don’t—”
But he cuts me off with an upraised hand, and a slow, monstrous smile spreads across his face.
“Now it’s your turn.”
Onepositive note regarding the mental condition known as Gray Mind: Sufferers are rarely violent, as they possess neither the initiative nor the tools necessary to harm others.
They are, however, sometimes apt to harm themselves.
—Disorders of the Mind and Humours, Volume III, edited by High Inquisitor Stangbolt
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Asane person could never spend fifty years murdering three thousand people. Any faint hope I may have harbored that he really would let us go vanishes.
“Nobody else has to die,” Darnen continues with an oily and patently false sympathy. “You’ll retrieve it for me. We’ll figure out how its magic can help mine, and you’ll be on your way. So easy, right?”
“Nobody has to die,” I repeat woodenly. “Nobody doesn’twantto die, though.”
Darnen looks puzzled, so he doesn’t know quite everything. He doesn’t know I’m the Nobody behind this entire quest. Will Artemisen allow me to touch this key, like she did the amulet? The first key wasn’t dangerous in itself—Chitai retrieved it, and Trick and Kaelen both touched it safely.
I think of Kaelen, Chitai, and Andras and fight back tears. Will Sergeant Neville and Bern be able to fight their way into the temple to rescue them? What will happen to Elianna and Trick?
“I have a better offer. Let those two go,” Trick says as calmly as if he’s negotiating in the marketplace. “I’ll get the key for you. I’ll even give you something to sweeten the deal.”
The druid sneers at my friend. “Youhave nothing I want.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Trick reaches into a pocket and pulls out a ruby the size of his palm. “How about this? Whet your appetite? Ihave more in my saddlebags, and I can even show you where there’s an entire cave filled with treasures just like this, after I get the key for you.”
I gasp at the size of it. Trick must have stolen gems from the draugrs.
Darnen’s gaze swings to me, and Elianna, just behind him, takes advantage of the distraction to step closer to his back. If only she could conjure up those exploding balls of light now. Even if they didn’t kill anybody, they might scare them for long enough that we could retrieve the key and escape.
The Zhagarn see her, though, and one of them races forward and smashes the hilt of a dagger against the side of Elianna’s head. She collapses onto the ground like a marionette whose strings were cut. I cry out and run to her, shoving the Zhagarn out of the way, heedless of Trick’s warning shout.
She’s still breathing. For now. But Andras and Chitai may be dead, killed by the Zhagarn still in the rotunda.
And Kaelen.
