“The head of the King of Andred is a little further down my priority list,” Calliope admitted as she squirmed through the tight space after Neil. Even with the cantrip keeping the worst of the stink away, there was no way to avoid the slimy feel of the walls and floor. It stood to reason that these catacombs Neil spoke of ran under Magister Therman’s keep, though it was certain he had taken precautions against their use. Still this was probably the best chance she was going to have.

 

“I was all set to kill him you know, before you spoiled my fun at the bridge,” she pouted, ducking under a low hanging stone that seemed pinned in place only precariously.

“It would have been nice and easy, just wait for the auditors to confiscate his library and then hit them while they were on the move.” When a member of the council died, his library and collection of magical items was sequestered by the Hierophant. In theory this was so that magical learning could be centralized in the great library and not horded by individual mages. In practice when a great mage like Therman died there was an orgy of bribe taking and backstabbing as the choice works were all ‘damaged beyond repair’ with the Hierophant and his cronies suddenly appearing flush with money, arcane lore, and political favors. More than one Hierophant had been assassinated following the death of a high ranking council member for just such reasons.

 

“Well no one made you chase after me, I’d have been just as happy to remain unkilled,” Neil retorted, pressing himself flat against the ancient stones where corrosion had narrowed the ledge they walked on.

 

“A contract is a contract,” Calliope insisted stubbornly, “if you hadn’t actually died I would have been obliged to kill you.”

“This is why I am a thief and not a wizard,” Neil grumbled.

 

“Well you needn’t worry about it, in addition to being a mighty wizard and a notorious pervert, Therman is one of the wealthiest men in the city. There will be gold enough to compensate you,” she told him and then fell silent for a moment, her grin obvious even in the dark.

 

“Besides, you’ll be the man who robbed Tybolt Therman, and that will be a reputation worth having.”

 

The continued into the darkness for perhaps an hour. It seemed to Calliope that they were moving downwards, descending several foul smelling waterfalls by slick stairwells or rusted iron ladders. Gradually the crumbling stonework of the city’s sewers gave way to rough cut rock. Ancient symbols were daubed on the wall, though whether religious, magical or simply graffiti Calliope couldn’t say. Several times they passed small groups of men, patrolling around shafts or stairwells that led upwards. Each time Neil shook his head, apparently consulting some kind of internal compass to determine where they were compared to the surface world.

“I think we must be getting close,” Neil opined as they exited a tunnel into one of the periodic open chambers. The walls had been pockmarked with hundreds of holes, each one containing a skeleton broken down and packed carefully, the skull forming a grinning plug. Old burials from before the city had been built. Calliope had dropped her cantrip now and the smell of dust and old death was strong.

“So what do we…”

With a clatter of bones something massive charged out of an alcove. Calliope and Neil both dived away, narrowly avoiding the arching slice of a great bronze axe, pitted and trailing a spray of green verdigris dust. The thing threw back its head as though howling but without a larynx or lungs no sound emanated. It was ten feet tall, human shaped though the legs were reverse jointed and in place of a human skull was an elongated bovine thing with two great projecting horns. A skeletal minotaur. The beast hefted a vast double headed bronze axe, its haft six feet long and ending in a tapered two foot bronze spike. With a rattle of its horns, it lowered its head and charged. Calliope flicked her wrist and a blast of energy snapped from her palm to the things skull, only to dissipate in a fizzling green white shower of sparks. Runes of magical denial glowed on its bones, painstakingly carved and drawing power from the spirits of the ancient dead. She hurled herself aside just in time to avoid being gored, frantically snapping defensive magics around herself as she searched for some weak point in the things construction.