Faerie Lord

Thirty

The door was cunningly concealed behind a sliding panel and the trigger was a piece of peeling wallpaper. Chalkhill would never have found it on his own, never in a thousand years. He stared suspiciously at the steep stone steps leading downwards. ‘After you,’ he said.

‘Oh, go on!’ Brimstone snapped impatiently. ‘What do you think – I’m going to push you? Break your neck?’ He gave a dry, cackling laugh. ‘You think I went to all this trouble to get you here just to murder you? I could have done that in the Lodge Room if I’d wanted to.’

‘Went to all what trouble?’ Chalkhill stepped back from the doorway. ‘What trouble? What?’

‘You don’t think you’d have found this place if I’d really wanted to keep it quiet?’ Brimstone snorted, ‘I left more clues than a paperchase. I knew you’d be following me.’

‘How did you know?’

Brimstone ignored him. ‘But with luck, anybody following you would miss them.’

‘Why should anybody be following me?’ Chalkhill asked. He’d known Brimstone for a million years, but the creature always made him paranoid. He smelt so dreadfully of sulphur.

‘There’s more at stake here than you could possibly suspect,’ Brimstone said mysteriously. ‘More people involved than Madame Cardui.’

‘How did you know about Madame Cardui?’ Chalkhill gasped, then bit his tongue. If Brimstone didn’t really know, Chalkhill had just confirmed it. Amateur mistake. Naughty, naughty Chalkhill.

‘Oh, all right, I’ll go first,’ Brimstone said impatiently. He gripped the handrail and began to negotiate the steps like an elderly crab. Light spells flared from the walls as he did so.

After a moment, Chalkhill followed, ‘Is this the cellar?’

‘Catacombs,’ Brimstone said over one bony shoulder. ‘Nearly two miles of them, packed together like a maze.’

‘Catacombs?’ Chalkhill echoed. ‘You built catacombs?’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Brimstone told him. He stopped abruptly and clung to the balustrade, hissing. After a moment he went on breathlessly. ‘They date back to the Great Persecution. Red priests of the Raddled Faction used to hide their corpses down here so they wouldn’t be eaten. Hid themselves as well, so they wouldn’t be turned into corpses. It’s crude engineering, but very well concealed. The owner of the house doesn’t even know the catacombs are here: I made sure of that when I rented. Not that I thought he would. I only found out about them myself through a rare old manuscript.’ He started down the steps again.

A thought occurred to Chalkhill and he asked, ‘Are you living down here, Silas?’

‘You bet your life I’m living down here,’ Brimstone said. ‘You think I’d let something this important out of my sight for longer than I had to?’

‘Something what important, Silas? What something?’

‘You’ll see.’

Brimstone reached the bottom of the steps and stopped again, breathing heavily. God alone knew how the old fool expected to get back up them again. ‘Are you all right, Silas?’ Chalkhill asked with feigned concern.

‘You must have pissed off Hairstreak,’ Brimstone said. ‘He wants me to murder you.’

The staircase ended in an arched corridor roughhewn out of bedrock. There were niches in the walls every few yards, housing bits of tibias and skulls. It was crude engineering, as Brimstone had said, but effective enough. Chalkhill reckoned they had to be under the river here, yet everything was bone dry. He wondered if he should run back up the steps – the chances of Silas ever catching up with him had to be close to zero. But instead, he asked curiously, ‘Are you going to?’

Brimstone sniffed. ‘Not likely. I can trust you more than I trust him for this little bit of business.’

‘What little bit of business?’ Chalkhill frowned.

‘That’s what I want to show you,’ Brimstone said. He caught his breath at last and started down the corridor. He must have set up light spells here as well, for it lit up as he went. ‘Stick close,’ he called back. ‘This place can be confusing if you’re not used to it.’

Chalkhill hesitated for a fraction of a second, then started after him.

It was, as Brimstone said, confusing. The arched corridor turned quickly into a maze of cramped tunnels, which bulged into smallish chambers from time to time and occasionally opened out into charnel galleries. There were bones and skulls everywhere. The whole place smelled of must.

Now he’d left the stairs behind, Brimstone had regained his old sprightly self and scuttled along without apparent discomfort. ‘Nearly there,’ he called over his shoulder.

They reached a chamber that clearly had been modified in recent years. There was a heavy metal-clad door set into the wall at one end.

Brimstone produced a massive key. ‘Put on your lenses,’ he instructed. He dragged a heavy pair of darkened goggles from his pocket and fitted them carefully around his ears.

Like Brimstone, Chalkhill was a Faerie of the Night. He produced his own dark glasses – rimmed with ormolu worked into an impressively baroque design but hesitated. ‘There’s not much light down here.’

‘Just do it,’ Brimstone said. He inserted the key in the lock and turned it with some difficulty. Then he grabbed the handle and pulled back the massive door.

Chalkhill’s jaw dropped as he stared inside the room.