Read Online Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4) by James A. Hunter - Free Book Online Page B

often. Like, almost always.
    Surprisingly, though, the howling faded after only a few minutes of steady hiking, and before I knew it a rectangular structure of ancient brick and stone loomed up out of the fog. The place was completely windowless, with gray marble pillars marching across the front like soldiers standing in formation. If you didn’t know any better, you might think it was a family mausoleum, and you’d be partially right, since it had served that purpose a thousand years ago.
    This building, like most buildings in Moorchester, however, had been repurposed.
    Now the crypt, lurking at the base of the hill near the chapel, served as the Cubiculi ex Ostia . The Chamber of Doors. One of the Guild’s greatest secrets. Buried deep inside, heavily guarded and in a fortified pocket dimension, was the Guild Vault—the repository for all the dangerous weapons the Guild had accumulated over the years. But that wasn’t its only purpose. Nope. If you knew how to navigate the Chamber, you could effectively find a Way, an interdimensional portal, to just about any-damn-where you could possibly need to go.
    Even inside the Guild, the Chamber’s existence, and its abilities, weren’t widely known. Hell, even those in the know avoided the Cubiculi ex Ostia unless great need dictated otherwise. Navigating the Chamber was tricky. Dangerous. True, you could use the Chamber to travel anywhere—Inworld or Out—but if you didn’t know your shit, you could just as easily end up wandering aimlessly in the Ether, the void between the worlds.
    Well, you’d wander aimlessly until one of the eldritch beings lurking in the Ether turned you into meat-paste and used your remains as floss. And, even if you avoided that unfortunate fate, you still might find yourself in some backwater stretch of Outworld:
    An endless ocean filled with unseen horrors.
    Or a realm bursting with toxic gas that’d choke the life from your body.
    Or maybe one of the circles of Gehenna , where the air burned with sulphurous hellfire hot enough to boil the blood in your veins.
    Even worse, there were pathways that ran through the Mists of Fate: worlds where you could live a thousand lives. All the lives that could’ve been had you made different choices. Walk into a shadow like that by mistake and you’d end up a gibbering maniac, curled into the fetal position, drool dribbling from your mouth while you finger painted with your own shit.
    And the Cubiculi ex Ostia was our way out.
    Though, I suppose it was possible the Chamber could also deliver us to some shadow version of the Big Easy that was nothing but rib joints and free beer. A man can dream, right?
    As we picked our way closer, I saw the trio of guards, just as Drukiski had predicted. Black-cloaked figures: two women and a man. Beneath the archaic cloaks, each wore tactical body armor with a sidearm sitting on one hip and a silver sword poking up over a shoulder. Still, it was only three guards, which was a lucky break. As powerful as the Cubiculi ex Ostia was, it could only be used to leave the compound. Not to mention only those who knew how to use it—i.e. highly placed Guild initiates—would ever willingly dare to try.
    The Chamber itself was its own security. The guards were basically a glorified chain-link fence blocking off the equivalent of a supernatural minefield.
    I came to a halt and crouched, eyes scanning the murky fog as I pulled Drukiski in close. She squatted down and leaned into me, her ear inches from my mouth. “We need to get in there now,” I whispered, drawing in a flood of Vis, preparing to blast my way through the guards. I wouldn’t kill ’em—poor schmucks were just doing their job, after all—but each would have one helluva headache for the next few weeks. “You stay here and keep quiet, I’ll get us past those three.”
    “No,” she mouthed, then gave a short shake of her head. “I can’t let you do that,” she said, voice a quiet hum filled with urgency.