Read The Black Mausoleum (Memory of Flames 4) for Free Online

shattered and falling. Where the covered canal had fed into the wall, where Jex and Relk and the others had been only a moment ago, Skjorl saw a patch of
darkness that wasn’t quite black. Stars. He was seeing stars. He was seeing the sky.
    Then something blotted them out. Filled the hole. And as he looked away, the fire started.

 
     
     
     
5
Kataros
     
     
     
     
    Twenty-three days before the Black Mausoleum
    ‘He can’t walk.’ The Adamantine Man was looking down at Rat, his face saying loudly that he couldn’t care less.
    ‘Then you have to carry him.’
    ‘What’s the point? He’ll be dead in a few days.’ He did what he was told, though: he picked the outsider up and slung him over his shoulder. Rat groaned.
    ‘No. You’re going to keep him alive just like you’re going to keep me alive. We need him.’
    ‘To do what?’
    Kataros ignored him. He was obedient – that was all that mattered – and she’d never said anything about not asking questions. ‘How do we get out of here without being
caught?’ The Adamantine Man shrugged. ‘You don’t
know
?’
    ‘No.’
    She thought about that for a few seconds. While she thought, the Adamantine Man stood in the middle of the cell with Rat over his back. He didn’t do anything; he just stood there, waiting.
‘We’ll have to find someone who does, then,’ she snapped at him.
Think. Think!
The Pinnacles were surrounded by dragons. Back in the days of the speakers, when Queen Zafir
had lived here, people had landed them on the tops of the peaks, but there were other ways in. There were passages and tunnels down to the ruin of the Silver City – Kataros knew that because
that was how they’d brought her here in the first place.
    She’d have to find someone else, someone who knew the ways. She’d have to make another blood-bond. Some of the alchemists under the Purple Spur had quietly been getting a lot of
practice at that. There, like here, you survived as best you could. Every day you ate, someone else didn’t. But not her. If she bound someone else, she might have to let this one go.
There’d be consequences to that.
    The Adamantine Man sniffed. ‘Actually, I do know a way,’ he said. ‘As long as it’s dark. Up and out the side.’
    ‘Up?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You want me to climb down the side of the mountain? They’re sheer cliffs out there! And how are you going to carry
him
?’
    He was shaking his head. ‘No climbing. It’s easier than that.’ He frowned. ‘It’s like flying, I suppose. But not on the back of a dragon.’
    She reached through the blood-bond, looking for the trick, for the deception, for the twisting of her demand, but there was nothing. He believed what he was saying.
    ‘It’s supposed to be a way down to the Silver City.’
    ‘
Supposed
to be? You mean you don’t know?’
    He shrugged. ‘I know what I’ve heard, and what I’ve heard is there’s a way. You fly like a bird. I’ve not done it, but I’ve heard how.’
    She looked a second time. He still meant every word.
    ‘Once you leave, you can’t come back. So they don’t guard it,’ he said.
    ‘Show me.’ Like a bird? Was that possible? How did a man grow wings?
    ‘Do you know what it’s like in the Silver City?’
    ‘No.’ She shook her head and she didn’t care. They’d go where they had to, and that was that.
    ‘You’re an alchemist. Do you know how to make a potion so a dragon doesn’t know where you are?’
    ‘Yes. What of it?’
    ‘Got any on you?’
    She looked down at herself. A robe, torn and dirty, and that was it. ‘Don’t be stupid.’
    ‘Well, since there’s dragons down there, we’ll most likely die then.’

 
     
     
     
6
Skjorl
     
     
     
     
    Eight months before the Black Mausoleum
    After the darkness, the brilliance of the flames pouring from the mouth of the canal was blinding. Skjorl couldn’t look. Couldn’t think. Was just thankful he could
see again, could see where his feet were landing. Could