“Very clever,” she complimented him as he shined the beam of his lantern into the revealed hole, illuminating a steep flight of rough-hewn stone steps. “I must confess I detected no sign of this.”
Tinkerer merely glanced at her, his pale, finely made features registering neither gratitude nor scorn for her praise. “You first,” he said, keeping the beam of his lantern on the steps.
She hesitated. Slight as Tinkerer was, she recalled Melina’s trepidation and found the prospect of turning her back on him for a second time decidedly unappealing. “You were right,” she said, moving closer and meeting his gaze. “About how dangerous I am.”
“If I wished harm to you it would already have happened,” he replied and she took some comfort from the fact that his voice was free of the discordant note of dishonesty she had detected a few moments before.
“Very well,” she said, inclining her head and proceeding down the steps. It proved a short climb, her feet finding a level surface after a dozen steps, Tinkerer’s lamp revealing a broad tunnel as he followed her down. He passed her and moved on in silence, Lizanne following for several long moments until they came to a wide circular chamber. She drew up sharply as the lamplight flickered over the unmistakable sight of a corpse. She had only a brief glimpse before the beam moved away, but it was long enough to make out the bare bones and rags of a soul long dead.
“What is this place?” she demanded, stopping at the chamber entrance, one hand clasping the knife at the small of her back.
“The Artisan’s Refuge,” he replied. “Or so it was named to me eighteen years ago.”
He stood in the centre of the chamber, turning slowly so the beam of the lantern tracked over the walls. Lizanne’s unease deepened as the light illuminated more bodies, each one more desiccated than its neighbour. She counted fourteen before Tinkerer’s light stopped on one particular corpse. It appeared older than the others, the clothing rotted away and the bones dark with age. Lizanne moved closer, still clutching the knife, and saw a rusted iron manacle on the skeleton’s ankle. A length of thick chain traced from the manacle to a heavy bracket set into the wall.
“You came here to rescue a man who died one hundred and forty years ago,” Tinkerer informed her, the beam flicking away from the corpse to illuminate her face. “What led you to the conclusion he could still be alive?”
“Take the light away from my eyes or I’ll kill you,” Lizanne commanded, gaze narrowed through the lamp’s glare.
He lowered the beam and stood in silent expectation as she looked again at the now-shadowed corpse. “I am to believe that this is the Artisan?” she enquired.
“Your beliefs are a matter for you,” he replied. “I state only facts.”
She stepped past him and crouched next to the skeleton, eyes roaming the bones and the skull. The teeth were certainly those of an old man, many having decayed to stumps in his lifetime, the front incisors featuring the dark stains that told of an over-fondness for coffee. So this was your fate? she asked it, peering into the black holes of the skull’s vacant eye sockets. Decades spent in adventure and invention only to die chained to a mine wall in the worst place in the empire.
“What proof do you have that this is truly him?” she asked.
“Memory,” Tinkerer replied.
“Of what?”
“Of his days in Arradsia. Of his many discoveries and the devices he crafted with the knowledge. Of the women he loved and the men he hated. Of what he saw beneath the mountain. Of the voice that called to him for most of his days and drove him to madness. Of the day he chained himself to this wall lest he succumb to the voice. The memories stop then.”
Lizanne rose slowly, her gaze fixed on Tinkerer’s placid mask of a face. “How?”
“Via the Blue-trance,” he answered.
“You are a Blood-blessed?”
“As are you.”
She ignored the statement and nodded at the corpse. “He died long before you were born. How could you have tranced with him?”
“I didn’t.” He trained the lamp’s beam on the least desiccated corpse, the one she had glimpsed on first entering the chamber. “I tranced with him. He”—the beam moved on to the next corpse—“tranced with her. She”—the beam moved on again—“tranced with . . .”
“I comprehend your meaning,” she broke in. “However, I have difficulty believing it.”
“There is no other credible explanation. Failure to accept a conclusion supported by evidence is a fundamentally irrational position and indicative of mental instability.”
“Has anyone, perchance, ever punched you very hard in the face?”
He blinked. “Only Melina. The day she left to join the Furies.”
“I trust it hurt a great deal.”
She moved back from him, wandering the chamber and searching for some clue that would either disprove or confirm his assertions. The idea that the Artisan might still be alive seemed outlandish to the point of embarrassment now. However, the notion that his memories could have been passed down through generations of Blood-blessed, all of whom had somehow fetched up in Scorazin, seemed scarcely more credible.
“You said you shared the memory of his inventions,” she said after a long moment of consideration. “He once designed a solargraph. Describe it.”
“A refinement of the sonic trigger he developed several years earlier, itself based on a design etched into a stone tablet he unearthed in a cave dwelling on the west Arradsian coast. The primary mechanism consisted of three cogs arranged so as to mirror the orbits of the three moons . . .”
“And the sketch I showed you?” Lizanne interrupted.
“A navigable aerostat. It was mostly his own invention but inspired by calculations he found in a tomb on the shore of the Upper Torquil Sea, which related to the lifting properties of hydrogen gas.”
“Did he pen that sketch?”
“No.” Tinkerer pointed to the most recently deceased occupant once more. “He did, among many others. He had developed an addiction to alcohol and would trade his drawings to the guards for wine. His memories are unpleasant to experience. I believe the sensation is referred to as bitterness.”
“And it was he who passed the memories to you?”
“Yes.”
“Meaning he must have had a supply of Blue.”
“He did, and expended it in his final trance with me. Subsequently, he embarked upon a prolonged period of indulgence that I believe to have been the principal cause of his death.”
Lizanne began to voice another question but it was Tinkerer’s turn to interrupt. “You stated you could effect an escape from this place,” he said. “How?”
“I need to know you’re worth the trouble first,” she replied. “And this”—she gestured at the surrounding bodies—“raises far too many questions for my liking. How did so many Blood-blessed come to be here?”