The Queen Underneath
Stacey Filak
To Don and Esther Martin,
who were the first to believe;
and for Clay, who taught me to believe.
To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in the sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
—William Shakespeare, Hamlet
PART ONE
THIS
MORTAL COIL
CHAPTER ONE
THE BLACK CHAMBER
Gemma hurried through the tunnels of Under, avoiding piles that might be rubbish and could be worse. She patted the satchel that hung at her side, grateful for the heft of the clean pair of boots within. It would not do to meet the King of Above for the first time with some urchin’s shit on her feet. These tunnels led to the Golden Door. And though Melnora had brought her there countless times, the queen had never taken her through.
Tonight would be different. Melnora, Queen of Under, lay dying in Guildhouse. Just half an hour ago, her good eye had stared vacantly at Gemma, one side of her face sagging and paralyzed, her tongue stilled. It was the way of things—a master was supposed to pass on her apron to her apprentice, even if the apprentice was to be queen—but Gemma realized, only now, that she might not be ready. Perhaps, she never would be.
When the summons had come, little more than an hour after the palsy that had shaken Melnora, Gemma had felt the worst sort of cowardice. She had been nearly overwhelmed by the desire to run—to flee Yigris and leave the Guild without a leader. Temptation had made her limbs quake with adrenaline as she’d dressed in lightweight pants and a silken tunic for the clandestine meeting. But despite her raging desire to disappear, Gemma now found herself in the tunnels, known only to the Guild and to a few of the King of Above’s most trusted advisors. The flush of her exertions painted her cheeks pink as she rushed toward the Golden Door. But her legs were steadfast despite the drumming of anxiety in her heart. The torch in her hand illuminated the rough-hewn walls, and she saw that she was nearing the Black Corridor, where the walls changed in the last stretch before the Golden Door that attached the tunnels Under to the palace Above. The first King of Above had required that the neutral meeting spot be up to the standards he was used to in his palace, but the Queen of Under was used to the dank tunnels and a less luxurious life. They could have met in a whorehouse, a tavern, or on the docks for all the Under cared.
She stopped and drew a breath to calm herself. She was the head of the Shadow Guild now. This was the first of many meetings that she would take with the King of Above. Though she’d not been born the heir of Under, she’d spent half a decade training for this moment. Melnora had put more than a few strong men and women to the knife for questioning Gemma’s ability to lead, and now, Gemma would find out if Melnora’s trust had been well placed. Everything—her entire life—had led her here. If Abram, King of Above, refused her, then Yigris would face a civil war that could prove as dangerous and devastating as the Mage War that had led to the creation of Above and Under in the first place.
She drew herself to her full height, taller than many men, and wiped her sweat-dampened palms on her breeches before smoothing her tunic and patting at her short, spiky hair. She inspected her boots, which were blessedly clean, then took off her pack and placed it at her feet. It bore the mark of the Queen of Under. She smiled down at the black crest embossed into the red leather, a stylized seabird with a rat in its beak. In the dark of Yigris, it was good to be queen.
The Black Corridor was different from the rest of the tunnels she had left behind. Here, the shining stone was cleanly hewn and polished, a work of art that only emphasized the hodgepodge of debris and rubble she’d just passed through in the abandoned gold mines beneath the city. Lanterns, kept alight by the King of Above’s mage women, illuminated the hallway. A hundred paces beyond, she could see the glimmer of the Golden Door. Its knocker was made of onyx and ruby, and its knob was a diamond the size of her palm. The thief in her saw both sides of the tempting treasure—the gnawing desire for such glorious wealth, and the obvious trap.
She sidled toward the door and mentally retraced the steps that Melnora had drilled into her. Dozens and dozens of times, her queen had shown her the intricate workings that separated Under from Above. At least ten times Gemma had disarmed the devices, but the door was ever changing. This was the final test. The gateway to her new life.
As she neared the door, her senses—so keenly honed to this very work—reached out, observing it in every way she could. She smelled the dank of Under behind her, but it was mostly masked by the scented oily haze of the lanterns, which seemed to drift unnaturally upward.
Placing her hands on the barren space to the left of the knob and the right of the hinges, she felt the tingle of magery. The door should have been cool to the touch, but instead it hummed with warmth.
She could feel the vibrations of the mages’ tests. One ripple. Two. Three. She smiled as if she’d been given a gift. Once, when she’d accompanied Melnora, there had been eleven traps set.
She scanned the glimmering door, searching out the nastiness that lay in wait for her if she were to be too hasty. Two wide-set hinges showed that the door opened toward her. Glancing downward, she ran her gaze along the floor.
“Ahhhh,” she clicked her tongue. A slender line of light ran from one side of the wall to the other just six inches behind her feet. If she were to step back to allow the door to open, she’d interrupt the beam, and Aegos only knew what horrors would await her. Minding each step, she moved to the wall and bent low. A tiny, perfectly square niche held a brilliantly glowing gem. A mage mark scrawled upon it beamed brightly across to the other side of the corridor. She couldn’t read the mark—it was written in the secret language of the Vagan mage women—but she recognized it by its swirls and flourishes.
Opposite, she found a tiny mirror that bounced the reflection back. She eyed it warily, knowing that her only option was to disarm it from this end. To touch magic without permission could mean death—or worse. She inhaled, gathering the cool, damp air into her lungs. Then she squatted and slid a finger into the groove that began just below the mirror. She clasped the fragile piece of glass between her pointer finger and thumb, then worked it free of its grooves, holding it in line with the gem. Taking painstaking low-to-the-ground steps, she moved the mirror toward the gem, shortening, but intensifying the beam as she went. A rivulet of sweat ran down her back, and she silently cursed the silk of her tunic, which would be ruined now. Step after slow, muscle-grinding step, she moved the mirror closer to the gem until the beam was glowing with such intensity that she had to close her eyes.
The door was designed so that, in theory, only the Queen of Under, leader of thieves and assassins, would be deft enough to disarm its traps. Gemma slid the mirror into its niche without looking. In that moment, she was calm. Melnora believed that she was capable of this. She would survive to meet the king. She felt the mirror click into place, opened her eyes and was amazed at the blank, featureless wall before her. She drew a trembling breath then stood up, a wide grin spreading across her face.