Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 66
had been tilted to the side, and now leaned heavily on a
scaffold made from catapult parts. Rough soldiers sat on the
scaffold, passing bottles back and forth. They watched
impassively as he passed under them.
Another sky drew overhead, this one of yellow stone.
The ceiling was centimeters away. The deeply pitted sandstone
was painted in abstract clouds of grey and black by the passage
of many torches. The smoke from those burning now swirled
up and around him, settling into a layer of trembling heat.
Around a corner, and now he was being carried down a
steep flight of steps. His bearers spoke back and forth as they
lowered him carefully. Ten meters down, then twenty, into a
region of dead air and penetrating cold where squat pillared
halls led away to either side. His bearers moved more quickly
now, and the torchlight flickered off an uneven ceiling and
dark niches in the walls where objects, long or round, were
piled.
He was lowered to the floor in front of a black opening,
and unceremoniously slid in. The ceiling here was just above
his nose. Bricks thudded down just behind his head. What
little light there was disappeared, and of sound, only that of
stones being mortared into position. After a few minutes, even
that ceased.
There had been no name carved above the niche. So,
after a while, he raised one hand, slid it across his opened
chest, knuckles scraping the stone, and felt behind his head.
There, in a band of moist mortar, he wrote the letters:
ARMIGER.
Jordan sat up screaming. Calandria was at his side
instantly, holding his shoulders while he shuddered.
"What is it? A dream?"