Page 47 of The Darkening (The Darkening)

Chapter 11

The night is half gone when Izamal and I slip out of the Ven. We walk a strange path through the third, doubling back every so often, until Izamal is satisfied we’re not being followed. I rub my eyes as I follow in his wake.

“Look sharp,” Izamal says.

“I’m sharp,” I mutter, standing up straighter.

He throws me a grin over his shoulder. “You sure don’t look it.”

I scowl at his back as we enter a neatly kept shrine—all smooth angles and bright color, no stone that’s been rubbed smooth by thousands of hands, no faded patches of paint—and Izamal beelines for the statue of the Great King.

He kneels before the plinth on which the statue rests. I glance around as he taps a handful of carvings. No secondary statue here; I guess in the third they have no need to beg mercy from the Great King’s wrathful face.

“Are you watching?”

“Absolutely.” I drag my attention to him and memorize which carvings he twists to complete the ikon. With a soft grinding sound, the base of the statue opens to darkness. Below is a tunnel.

I hesitate. “Isn’t this a bit blasphemous?”

“That’s why no one else uses it. Go on.”

I drop down into a tunnel that’s too short to stand up straight in. Izamal follows and stoops, reaching for something. As the door closes above, he ignites an ikonlantern. “It opens out a few steps ahead. I keep this lantern here, and a change of clothes there.”

As promised, the tunnel widens, and I straighten up. Izamal reaches into a bundle on the ground and hands me a cloak and my old mosscloth overdress. Moving quickly, I don both.

Izamal keeps up a steady stream of instruction as he leads the way. “This passage comes out in the fourth. There are two passages you can take to the fifth, depending on where you want to come out.”

“What if I get lost?”

“You won’t. Most tunnels have one entrance and one exit. Makes it hard to get lost. It also makes the tunnels hard to find: knowing one doesn’t mean you can find another.”

I nod at his back. “How long does this usually take?”

“As long as it takes.”

I say nothing, but he must sense that I’m not impressed.

“I’m sorry, am I pulling you away from skulking around the Ven all night, hoping to just bump into the very secret passage that’ll lead to your father?”

He makes it sound like I’m a simpleton, just because he found me staring at a wall. “Dalca and Casvian could go to Pa at any moment. I was looking for them.”

“Darling, even they sleep. In the meantime, this makes a difference to the fifth.” He gestures at the bag of weapons slung around his waist.

Iz hopes I’ll take over distributing weapons to those who want them. I suppose it’s a noble task, but... “It’s just. I don’t know how much time Pa has.”

Izamal is quiet. “We don’t know how much time anyone has. We don’t know how much time you’ve got or I’ve got. But I bet the folks down in the fifth—with no means to protect themselves—I bet they’ve got less.”

He’s right, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. “Sure.”

He sighs and stops, turning to face me. “I want to find Alcanar, too. If you think haunting the halls will do it, let’s go back.” The soft ikonlight illuminates the seriousness in his golden eyes.

“No,” I say. “You’re right. Watching Dalca sleep won’t help anyone.”

His eyes crinkle in sudden humor. “Well, when you put it like that...”

I roll my eyes, and his laugh echoes down the tunnel.

We pop out in the fourth in a nondescript alley near the Pearl Bazaar and take an unfamiliar passage that lets us out in the fifth. I glance back as the passage seals itself. The entrance seems too obvious—a once-ornate stone arch set in a brick wall. But I suppose I’ve seen ruins like this a hundred times, stone sculptures from a more prosperous past that’ve been assimilated into modern buildings by folks who’d rather build around them than demolish them. I would never have assumed secret tunnels to be behind any of them.