Fearless (Mirrorworld 2)

Jacob looked at Fox. It wasn’t easy to tell what she was feeling when she was wearing her fur, but through the years he’d learnt to read her. The despair he saw in her eyes was even worse than his own. The hope that he might yet save himself hadn’t lasted very long.

The pieces of the sarcophagus’s smashed lid were scattered among the kneeling knights. Between them lay the guard against whom Jacob had prepared his knife: Guismond’s shadow, faceless, and as tall as though it had been cast on to the flagstones by the evening sun. The pool of blood around it indicated that the shadow had been brought to life by a spell only Witches could perform – or those who drank their blood. A shadow like that would kill for his master as silently as he had followed him through life. Jacob leant over the black corpse. A knife stuck out of the shadow’s neck. It smelled of resin. The mistake of pulling it out would immediately bring the shadow back to life. Whoever had killed him knew that. Jacob stood up. For an instant he thought he could hear steps between the columns, but when he spun around, he saw only the vixen behind him.

‘Elven dust?’ She gave Valiant a scornful look.

Jacob leant down to her. ‘Is he still here?’

She lifted her nose to sniff, and shook her head.

Damn! Jacob tucked his knife back into his belt. Not many treasure hunters knew how to get past a Giantling, or what resin to use to defeat a dead man’s shadow. They usually avoided each other on the hunt, but Jacob knew them all, at least by name and reputation. Which one had done this?

‘Damned bastard!’ Valiant was standing on the debris of the lid, staring down into the open sarcophagus. ‘He even took the crown!’ he clamoured. ‘And who told him to cut out the heart? Are those greybeards in the council now trading with Dark Witches?’

The corpse in the sarcophagus had not decayed at all, but it was missing the right hand and the head, and there was a hole in the chest where the heart had once beaten. The wound, like the ones on the arm and neck, had been sealed with gold. This meant that the body had been buried like this. Valiant reached for the sceptre next to the body, but Jacob pulled him back. ‘You see those leaves he’s lying on? They’re hexed. Why else do you think he looks so fresh?’

He looked around. The tomb’s floor was laid with green marble, and strips of alabaster ran like the dial of a compass from each of the four columns to the sarcophagus. Jacob picked up the mine lamp Valiant had put down next to the sarcophagus, and walked along one of the alabaster strips. It was inlaid with letters cast in white gold. They were barely visible in the white stone.

HOUBIT WESTARHALP

Every treasure hunter knew that language. Fox watched Jacob as he paced off the second and third strip.

HANDU SUNDARHALP

HERZE OSTARHALP

The inscriptions were easy to translate.

THE HEAD IN THE WEST

THE HAND IN THE SOUTH

THE HEART IN THE EAST

Maybe the hunt wasn’t over yet.

Jacob went to fourth strip. Its inscription was much longer than the others:

NIUWAN ZISAMANE BESIZZANT HWAZ

THERO EINAR BIEGEROT.

FIBORGAN HWAR SI ALLIU BIGANNUN.

‘What’ve you got those gloves for? Take that sceptre off him!’ Valiant moaned. ‘And he’s still got his signet ring on the other hand.’

Jacob ignored the Dwarf. He was staring at the letters.

ONLY TOGETHER MAY THEY POSSESS

WHAT EACH DESIRES.

CONCEALED WHERE THEY ALL BEGAN.

No. The other one hadn’t found the crossbow. Not yet.

‘Jacob?’ Fox was still wearing her fur.

Steps . . .