Arrow on the String: Solomon Sorrows Book 1 by Dan Fish (no david read aloud TXT) 📕

passing of each generation. This meant Mishma would be resting far from the entrance, far from discovery, but far from escape.

Mig stood at the top of seventeen granite steps. She looked down at Sorrows, shaking her head.

“This won’t work,” she said. “I can’t go down there, Sol.”

Sorrows looked up, offered a smile, extended a hand. “Sure you can.”

She shook her head. She was lit by glowstone in the mausoleum. Her skin looked soft and gray in the light, like wool or river rock.

“I can’t.”

Sorrows felt the current of the gods-stream swirling around him. If he moved further away, he’d slip back in. Without Mig, the experience would be unpleasant. He’d be torn apart, scattered across Hammerfell. And it wouldn’t kill him, which would make it worse. He was immortal, not invincible. He preferred to avoid any unnecessary lingering pain. He walked up the steps.

“That’s fine,” he said, reaching the top.

“Really?” she asked, taking his hand.

He scooped her from the ground and tossed her over a shoulder.

“No, not really,” he said.

She kicked and screamed as he walked back down the stairs. When he reached the bottom, he sat on a step and set her down beside him, putting an arm around her shoulders. She hit him in the chest, forced his amulet into his sternum.

“Orchole,” she said.

He winced, rubbing his chest. “That’s Davrosh’s pet name for me. If you ladies keep calling me the same thing, how will I keep you all straight?”

She glared at him. He squeezed her and smiled. She glared some more, then sighed.

“Fine. Let’s go.”

He stood, took her hand to offer comfort. And to make sure she didn’t panic and run. They walked among the dead, who rested on shelves cut three-high into the walls. The top shelf was eye level with Sorrows, the middle shelf just below Mig’s chin. She kept her gaze forward, avoided looking at the bones to either side. Mishma was easy to find. She rested at the far end of the catacombs, where the stone was fresh cut and rough. She lay by herself at the start of a corridor which would have held her lineage. Her shelf was set apart, ornate, alone on the wall. She was a daughter. She was special. Revered. But she was alone and would remain that way. Her line was broken, a branch of House Valinor that had withered before it bloomed.

A dwarf was there, leaning against the lip of the shelf. Dressed in black, veil over her face. Mishma’s mother. Her own shelf was behind her, still empty. Her corridor would end with Mishma, unless she had another daughter. Unlikely. Mig stopped when she saw Mishma’s mother. Sorrows released his grip on Mig’s hand and moved forward, stepped through the mother and studied Mishma in the dim light of sparse glowstone.

“Get back, Sol,” Mig said.

Her voice was low, urgent. She gestured for him to step back.

Sorrows shrugged, didn’t turn around. “She can’t see me, can’t hear me. I’ll only be here for a minute of her time.”

Mig sighed. Sorrows ignored her. He looked hard at Mishma. A layer of fine dust coated her dress. The Maiden’s Dress. Blue, elegant. It covered her arms, covered her legs to her feet, which were wearing matching shoes. The braids had been brushed out of her hair. It lay coarse and black beneath her. Her hands were folded across her stomach. Sorrows shook his head. The rest of her was unrecognizable. Skin stretched over bone.

“I can’t see anything like this.” he said.

“Too dark?” Mig asked.

“Too late. There’s not enough left of her. Just a dress and shoes and hair and her Stone Mother’s Mask. No flesh. And I couldn’t spot a skin wound unless it was sizable. I’m guessing that even Davrosh would’ve noticed a cut from a blade.”

“What about the arrow?”

Sorrows shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, can’t see it. The paint restored itself once the arrow was removed.”

He stepped back, passed through Mishma’s mother, turned to Mig. She glanced at the mother, then looked up at him.

“So, nothing?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “Waste of time. Let’s head back.”

✽✽✽

THEY WALKED IN silence for a spell. Mig reached out, took his hand. A skin of clouds still hid the sun. Dwarves still crowded the streets. Snow still drifted in lazy swirls. Mig wasn’t as strong as Ga’Shel, but Sorrows estimated ten minutes in the gods-stream for the walk from Bex to Mishma, a minute not finding clues, and ten minutes back. If Bex kept up her side of it, Jace wouldn’t notice more than a flicker in the dim light of Bex’s shack.

“Why does he kill them?” Mig asked.

They were passing by a group of dwarf children, who chased each other through the streets with slow strides and silent laughter. Mig’s gaze fell on a smiling girl in a yellow hat, then drifted to the boy running after her.

Sorrows shrugged. “Don’t know. The Mage Guard don’t even know how he’s killing them.”

Mig squeezed his fingers, leaned against him.

“Could it be the Seph?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “They need a body that lost its soul, but one that’s still alive. The daughters all had an arrow in their head.”

“But you said the arrows were added after they were already dead.”

They stepped onto the gravel. Sorrows put his arm around Mig, shrugged.

“I’m as quick to cry 'Seph' as anyone, but this doesn’t feel like the Seph.”

“But there are Seph in Hammerfell?”

Sorrows tapped the amulet resting against his skin. “As far as I can tell.”

They passed the tavern, walked through crowds of half-born. Shoulders were hunched against the cold, faces turned from the blowing snow.

“I’m worried about Jace,” Mig said.

“Bex is harmless,” Sorrows said. “At least as far as the Mage Guard is concerned. Jace can take care of herself.”

“I’m not worried for Jace. She worries me.”

“She’s just a pretty face, Mig. A distraction.”

Mig stepped away, looked at Sorrows. “I’m serious, Sol. You dismiss her because she’s pretty. Maybe that’s exactly what the Archmage wants.” Someone who knows what you like.

Sorrows shrugged,