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One of the guards bent down to graze the blue liquid with his finger Thehis hand to shake the stuff off If the jar was freezing, I could only iine how cold the blue stuff was

"What a waste," Caul said "I would have liked to combine that with a few other choice souls"

"Aswindan," Benthalad you didn’t take that one, brother"

Caul frowned "No No, I’rine

His gaze darted between theht soo "This is just the first room," he said "The better souls are deeper in, I’o, the older the souls will be, and the older the soul, the more powerful"

"Then we shall plumb the very heart of this mountain," said Caul, "and eat it"

We were prodded through one of the black doors, pistols at our ribs The next roo its walls and doors leading into the dark There were no s, though, and just a single blade of afternoon sun slicing down the dusty floor We were leaving daylight behind us

Caul ordered Emma to make a flame He ordered me to inventory the contents of the walls I duly reported three jars, but ernail to prove it was there, and pass h dozens of empty coves to prove they were vacant

Next he an-wundor The words were less toslaves," he cos, we need the souls of kings"

"Onward, then," said Benthaly endlessever doard The air grew colder Passageways branched off into the dark like veins Caul see left or right He was insane,us so lost that even if we ed to escape him, we could expect to spend eternity trapped in these caves

I tried to ied over these souls--ancient, titanic peculiars clashing agling All I could think of was how terrifying it would be to be trapped down here without a light

The farther ent, the o raided the outer too far--a healthy sense of self-preservation, maybe Caul barked atproof of which coves were occupied and which were vacant, and only occasionally a with in this part of the library

We went on in silence The roos rising and walls widening The jars were everywhere now: filling every cove, stacked in toteed into cracks and crevices, the cold that seeped fro, I pulledbeforeback This library, so-called, was a vast underworld, a cataco place for the second soul of every peculiar who had ever lived, prior to the last reat accretion of souls had begun to exert a strange pressure on s as if I were sinking gradually into deep water