John III

  “So this is where the shrine was?”

  Acolyte Hildebrand nodded. “Yes, Viceroy John.”

  I looked around the cavern, lit up by a few UV lamps and being examined by half-a-dozen masked blades and forensics. Consul Edwin, with his unique, brilliantly white mask encrusted with a golden gem of the Abyss upon its forehead, sat on a ledge of black stone dangling an imp’s flayed corpse in front of him.

  The imp, found back in the Maintenance Tunnels, had only died a week ago, at most. And if the suspicions were true and the mask seen by the vigil was made out of the… children, then the existence of this imp had brought some uneasy thoughts to our minds. The consul, moreso. He’s tried all these years to forget his mistakes, his regrets, but such a thing was tricky—even to someone as auspicious as him.

  “And you’re getting nothing?” I asked the forensics.

  Their leader, a scientist called Wenzel, shook his head. “No candle wax, no footprints besides ours—and not even a drop of blood. The area’s completely clean.”

  My eyes wandered back to the black-robed acolyte. Was he lying? Could he have made up a story so revolting that we were forced to believe it? Our only clue, the only thing corroborating his story was the imp, and even that had nothing of note to extract beyond the fact it was dead for a day or two before Hildebrand and Blade Johan saw it.

  Consul Edwin threw the imp onto the floor and rose from the ledge. With one hand, he took hold of a portable lamp. “I’ve a mind to venture further into these caverns. Viceroy John, will you join me?”

  Nodding, I patted Hildebrand's shoulder and followed Consul Edwin through a small gap between the corner of the tunnels and the cave wall into the dark. Now, with the proper lights of the investigation in our rearview, only a frail, purple light illuminated the way. Droplets of condensation marked the slimy, dark blueish walls of the caverns, as various jagged spikes and stray rocks seemed determined to kill us.

  Basking in purple light, Consul Edwin’s aquatic eyes glanced at me as we advanced through another gap—this one smaller than the last. “You’ve got your pistol, correct?”

  “Aye. Do I need it?”

  “Maybe,” the consul replied, trailing his free, gloved hand across the stone. “When we found your ‘brother’ in the caverns of London District, the skin he wore to keep himself warm was not stitched together—as you’d require for imps so small—but big enough to cover him. To wear a torso alone as a shirt—such was his feral nature in those days. Naturally, Consul Gerald and myself feared there was a Great Imp tribe under our fair Eden, and so made great efforts to discover them. In London. We never deigned to check anywhere else.”

  Huh. “So you think these ‘masked killers’ were not the men who went missing, but Great Imps? Seems a bit far-fetched, no?”

  “Is it?” he mused. “They’re intelligent beings—in their own way. Who’s to say the ones who dwell beneath the earth aren’t, by some stroke of luck or evolution, near as intelligent as us?”

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  I glanced at the copper walls we stuck to as we circled the outer walls of Troy, and then at the cavern stone which cradled us like a deathtrap. “And you expect to find ‘great’ imps in so small a place?”

  “If you ever actually looked at the construction papers you sign as Gerald’s viceroy, you’d know that once the bridge between London and Laurentum is finished, we’ve plans to build a prison using the narrowish caverns between New Troy and Carthage—to house the latter’s prisoners so that Carthage can finally become the bastion of Eden it should be, rather than a glorified convict asylum.”

  Scoffing, I held the lamp as Edwin ascended a tall ledge. “Sounds promising. And you think we’ll find any evidence there? When there is none at the scene? Have you not had people mapping it out in preparation of such an undertaking?”

  He took the lamp and helped me up. “No. No point yet. And it was already mapped out somewhat when New Troy, and Carthage again, were built. But not fully. And to answer your first question: I don’t know. Hopefully. It’s worth a shot, and I trust my eyes over an underling’s. More than that,though, I’m heading there for something else.”

  “Any plans to expand on what that means?”

  “No,” Consul Edwin sighed. “I only brought you along for company—and to float a thought your way.”

  I threw my hands up. “I’m all ears.”

  “Do you recall when the damned one slew Consul Uriah? You, Gerald and him were fresh myrmidons then, and none more than Gerald called for his head.”

  “Of course I remember.” Although that’s twice this week I’ve been reminded of his existence. “Uriah was like a father to us, same as Gerald is… was.”

  The consul held an arm to my chest, stopping me in my place, as his head slightly shook. Sighing it away, he looked at me. “Don’t you find it odd how one day he suddenly argued for his life instead?”

  “If you have a point, get to it.”

  “I think the damned one had another reason for killing Uriah—beyond the Bilia affair. I think he told Gerald, and that is why Gerald spared his life.”

  Looking around the cave, I scoffed in dumbfoundment. “Do you have any evidence for thinking this beyond happenstance? Beyond wild connections of no merit?”

  “I do,” Consul Edwin replied, and I swear I could’ve heard fear through his voice. “But it doesn’t matter yet. First things first.”

  We pressed on through the unmapped caverns, making turn after ascent after descent—all the while seeing nothing of the sort pointing to ‘great imps’. But eventually, Consul Edwin spoke again, saying we were getting closer.

  After a few more minutes, we came across a small, circular cave. In the middle was an… eerily round, black pond, lit up by scores of pulsing, pink crystals. Something in me knew they carried the Rot in some form.

  And there was something in the pond. An odd-shaped triangle, shining so many different blues and purples and greens.

  Consul Edwin braved the water and went into the pond, picking up the colourful object. “So it’s real…”

  “What’s real?” I asked him.

  I’d never known this side to him. A secretive side. He was hiding something foul and rotten, so much so that ‘Valiant Edwin’, known above all else for his honest demeanor, was keeping something hidden.

  He looked up at me, the black waters of the disturbed pond staining his pants and reflecting across the goggles beholding his true-blue eyes. “We’re going to Carthage. I would have words with him.”