With so many riches to be had in the palaces the bare stone temples had so far attracted little attention from the mob save for some minor vandalism. She knew that would change in time, such a visible reminder of the Imperial pantomime would inevitably face destruction, but for now it provided a useful refuge.
The door to the tomb of Empress-cum-Emperor Azireh lay closed and locked on this occasion, but the lock was unable to resist a blast of Black. Lizanne kicked the part-ruined door aside and carried Sefka into the tomb, dumping her on the floor.
“Have you brought me a gift, love?”
He was much as she remembered him, standing stooped half in shadow, cane in hand and face veiled by slack grey hair.
“It’s more of a peace offering,” Lizanne replied. “A gesture of goodwill, you might say.”
“And what would you want with my goodwill?” Behind the grey veil she saw cracked lips sliding over yellow teeth in a hesitant parody of a smile. The tension in him was obvious in the way his bony hands rested on his cane, veins standing out and gnarled knuckles turning from red to pink. Unlike Sefka, he was far from accepting of his fate.
“Nothing,” Lizanne replied. “But you have information I require. Tell me what I want to know and you can have her”—she nudged Sefka’s limp form with her toe—“and I’ll allow you to escape through the passage-way concealed beneath this tomb.”
“What passage-way?”
Lizanne returned his smile with one of her own. “You wouldn’t have risked being seen coming here the night we met. Not with so many of Sefka’s people watching your movements. I expect Azireh had it built, somewhere to hide her treasure perhaps. She did hide something here besides that scroll didn’t she?”
Kalasin’s forced smile broadened, hair swaying as he gave a slight nod. “It transpired the Empress and I shared an interest in the Artisan, she being his contemporary. Upon achieving the throne she began to amass all the artifacts and documents she could, hiding them here in the hope that some worthy soul might discover them one day.”
Instead, it was you. Lizanne resisted the impulse to voice the thought. Let the old man talk. The more he talks the less potent the product in his veins.
“There was a vault where she kept it all,” the Blood Imperial went on. “I suppose that’s where my little hobby really started. Who knew it would lead to all this?”
“And the passage-way?”
“Built it meself, with a little help from my children. Took a long time but eventually I had a convenient means of getting about and beyond the Sanctum without being seen.”
“Which begs the question of why you linger here instead of making your escape.”
“Where the fuck d’you imagine I would go, love? Besides”—his hands twitched on the cane—“I was really hoping to see you again.”
He was quick but she was ready for him, unleashing her Black a fraction of a second after he lashed out with his. The competing waves of force met, birthing a thunder-clap that sent them both reeling. Kalasin proved the illusory nature of his infirmity by scrambling to his feet in an instant, whirling to face her with no sign of a stoop. But, spry as he was, he was still several decades Lizanne’s senior and it was clear to her he hadn’t faced combat with another Blood-blessed in years.
She injected a burst of Green and sprang aside as he summoned Red, casting out a stream of fire. Lizanne rolled across the dusty floor as the flames flashed overhead before sliding over the walls, then replied with a second burst of Black. He dodged, moving with speed that told of a heavy ingestion of Green, but was fractionally too slow. The force wave caught his shoulder, spinning him around to collide with the wall. Lizanne heard the dry crack of breaking bone as the old man rebounded, a shrill gasp escaping his lips.
Lizanne cast her remaining Black out like a whip, snaring Kalasin in an unseen vise, holding him in place as she got to her feet and moved towards him. “You’re out of practice,” she observed.
He snarled at her, all pretence of humanity vanished from a face now revealed in full. Seeing the deeply etched lines and liver-spotted skin of his hate-filled visage, Lizanne realised that he was far older than she first thought. “Excessive and prolonged use of Green,” she said, marvelling at the amount of product he must ingest on a daily basis, “is not a good idea, even for a Blood-blessed.”
Kalanis strained against his invisible bonds, spittle leaking over his age-cracked lips, an odour fouler than the Scorazin midden rising from his mouth.
“The countess said you intended to kill me on my return,” Lizanne went on. “And seize what I had worked so hard to retrieve. What were you going to do with him?”
The Blood Imperial said nothing, his ancient features hardening into a defiant mask. Lizanne summoned a small amount of Red, igniting the tip of one of his lank tendrils of hair, letting it curl up towards his face. “Unlike you I do not revel in cruelty,” she told him. “But do not imagine I will baulk at this. What were you going to do with the Tinkerer?”
Her Green-boosted hearing saved her, detecting the metallic scrape of the cross-bow’s lock just before the bolt was launched. She dropped, feeling the projectile flutter her hair before finding a target in the Blood Imperial’s forehead. He hung in the grip of her Black for a second, a small trickle of blood making its way from the embedded steel dart into his eyes, which blinked once before all light faded away.
Lizanne whirled, taking Kalasin’s body with her, swinging him around like a club as Anatol cast his cross-bow aside and charged from the tomb’s doorway, a large knife shining in his fist. The giant managed to cover only a yard before the Blood Imperial smashed him into Azireh’s sarcophagus with sufficient force to displace the lid, Lizanne hearing the multiple dry-wood crackle of shattered bones.
She loosed her hold on Kalasin’s corpse and drew her pistol, moving to stand over Anatol’s broken form. He glared up at her with a hate she knew to be far more justified than the Blood Imperial’s. This she had earned.
“I said I was sorry about Melina,” she told him.
“Sorry . . .” Anatol spat blood at her and tried vainly to stand, sinking back down with a shout of frustration. “What is . . . sorry to me? Or to . . . her?” he replied in a series of pain-filled grunts. “Sorry meant . . . shit in Scorazin. Means shit now.”
“Did the Electress send you or was this your idea?”
He angled his head at her, glowering and saying nothing.
“Promised you would get your chance when the Sanctum fell, I expect.” Lizanne bent and retrieved his knife from the floor. “Do you mind? I need to borrow this.”
Sefka came awake after a few hard slaps, blinking in grim realisation at the sight of Lizanne’s face. “Didn’t expect you to do this yourself,” she said, eyeing the knife in Lizanne’s hand. “I rather assumed you would hand me over to your rebel friends to play with.”