by Gregory Ashe
Chapter 75
Abass landed on a patch of wet stone not ten paces from the ring of cages. The slap of his leather boots was almost inaudible; he had learned more than one thing from Fadhra. In the cages, some men and women heaved, bodies writhing in the lust of the harvest. Others fought, assaulting each other with bare hands. The tair plucked a dead man from the cage as Abass watched. In one, smooth blow it slit the dead man’s throat and let the still warm blood pour out onto the stone. Living or dead seemed to make no difference. The tair tossed the body into a brazier and continued its work.
With the speed and grace of the dew, Abass raced across packed soil toward the cages. He examined the door of the closest one. No lock; this close to the harvest, it would be a miracle if any of the sacrifices could think clearly, let alone maneuver through the crowd of mad men and women. A simple bar held the door shut, with clasps to keep the bar from sliding free under the constant jostling of the sacrifices. Abass flipped the clasps and slid the bar free. The gate sprung open, forced free by the press of bodies. A few people tumbled out of the cage, but most were too caught up in love-making or killing to notice. Those that did stagger out seemed oblivious to Abass and to their location.
He moved to the next cage, opened the door, and then on to the next. Abass had made it almost half way around the circle before a squeal of rage—like a pig, but deeper, and echoing oddly off the stone and dirt—stopped him. It rang in Abass’s bones; it was the voice of a god-made-flesh. Abass fell to his knees, the bars of the cage digging into shoulder and cheek as he leaned against them for support. The anger of that noise—the insistence of it—stopped him, and his heart pounded. Abass drew out another three cubes of dew and swallowed them. He did not know if fear or the withdrawal of dew made his heart pound, but he was past the point of caring about taking too much dew. He had made his decision. He would save whom he could before he died.
Another squeal tore through Abass like knives, but the new dew distanced it, and Abass pushed himself to his feet, one hand still on the bars. A woman grabbed his hand and drew one of his fingers into her mouth, her face twisted into a mask of lust. Abass pulled free, and she let out a shriek. The sound cut through everything else.
Abass leaped into the air, propelling himself toward the upper edge of the cavern. The air streamed past him. Something struck him halfway across the cavern, sending him spinning through the air. Pain shot through his hip and side where he had been hit. With a thud that shook him to the teeth, Abass hit one of the stone spears that pierced the ground. He slid to the floor.
Bone and flesh knitted quickly with so much dew in him, and Abass pushed himself to his feet, the dew-light shifting and settling around him as the dew compensated for the healing. The tair was almost upon him, a mountain of a hair and shiny black claws. Abass darted to one side as those massive claws swept through the air toward him. He hit the ground hard, driving the air from his lungs. Stone chips pelted his back as the Tair’s claws found the stone instead of Abass’s flesh.
Without pausing, the tair turned, its speed beyond that of a Renewed, and raced toward Abass. Abass launched himself behind another stone spear, but the tair just crashed through it, one of its clawed feet barely missing Abass as it trampled past him in a hail of broken rock. Abass shifted, pushing at a long, thin slab of stone that had fallen across his legs and held him fast. His arms burned with the effort, the dew blazed in his veins, but the stone was heavy, and he could not get a good grip. The stone slid a few inches, but Abass, muscles protesting, was forced to let it fall back down.
The tair slid to a stop and spun, its taloned feet tearing great holes in the ground and spraying the people in the cages with loose soil and rock. Shouts and cries of protest began to sound from the sacrifices; with the harvest disrupted, they were regaining their senses. Abass did not pay them any attention. His fingers scrabbled across the sharp edges of the stone slab seeking purchase. He lifted again, trying to shift it with his legs, but pain ran through his hip like lightning when he did. Abass pushed again, trying to pull his dew forward.
It was not going to be enough. The tair raced toward him, claws held low, feet and hands furrowing the soil and stone. It was almost on him. Abass grabbed one of the daggers. He would go out fighting, at least.
Something blurred in front of the tair, almost even with its face. The tair reared back and howled. The noise reverberated in odd patterns off the stone. Thrown off balance, the tair stumbled, one clawed hand pressed against its tusks. It fell and rolled to one side, down the sloped floor of the cavern.
The blurred shape settled a dozen paces away. Long, dark hair. A blue scarf with heavy silver embroidery over one eye. Mouth drawn down in a permanent scowl.
“Hurry up, Maq,” Serhan shouted. He held two massive swords, like the blades the su-eses carried, one in each hand. A dark, viscous substance clung to the edge of one. “It’s going to be mad.”
A soft breeze brushed Abass’s cheek. He twisted and looked behind him. Maq, wearing his tun-esis robes again, his white hair tinged with purple in the dew-light, stood beside Abass.
“You stupid bastard,” Maq said. “Fadhra told us you died with Qatal.”
“Fadhra’s not to be trusted,” Abass said. “In case you hadn’t realized.”
Maq leaned down and, with a strength that surprised Abass, lifted the stone easily. The old man must have been Renewed more times than Abass liked to think. All those lives poured into one aging vessel. It gave Abass a chill; responsibility for all those lives. Maybe that’s why Maq did what he did. Abass slid from under the slab and tucked his knife away.
“What in the blessed tair are you doing here?” Maq asked.
“I thought I was rescuing my sister,” Abass said. “Now . . .”
Maq nodded. “We need your help,” he said. “Serhan led his stone-wights here; the Renewed and the su-eses have their hands full staying alive. Now is our chance.”
“To kill a god,” Abass said, but his mind was elsewhere. Serhan’s stone-wights. Had he really killed all those people? All for Maq’s mad plan? The one-eyed man blurred again, moving faster than even Abass, with his additional dew, could move. Abass remembered Fadhra’s fear of Serhan. The man’s violent temper. Voramancy. Something else stirred, below the frenzied pulse of the dew and the pain, but before Abass could remember it, Maq spoke again.
“Run,” the tun-esis said.
Abass glanced over his shoulder. The tair, thick, black drops oozing from a gash across its muzzle, raced toward them. As it ran, its claws gouged stone and soil from the cavern floor and then launched itself toward Abass and Maq.
Maq vanished in a burst of speed, and Abass pulled his dew forward and ran. Stones the size of his head whistled through the air, shattering with great cracks against the rocky spears of the cavern, while pebbles sprayed the cavern like angry rain. With the dew in him, Abass avoided the largest chunks of rock, but the hail of smaller stones was unavoidable. He launched himself forward, jumping in an attempt to escape the tair’s attack, but not before the shower of rocks and soil had torn his shirt and pants and lacerated the flesh beneath. Abass landed on a distant pillar of stone with a grimace, pain shooting through the wounds that now covered both sides of his body.
Maq, nothing more than a blur of green and brown and white, even to Abass’s enhanced vision, darted behind the tair. Torchlight shone on metal, a red-orange haze, and the tair shrieked and arched its back. It thrashed, both massive claws flailing to reach Maq. For one long moment, Abass watched in horror as his god screamed. Black bile from the wound on its muzzle splattered the stones and earth, and where the liquid touched dirt, fungus began to grow, massive, phosphorescent caps appearing in heartbeats.
A blur of movement caught Abass’s eye. He turned his attention from the fungus to stare as Serhan raced forward, two massive swords held easily. The tair seemed oblivious to Serhan’s approach; it thrashed, twisting its head and snapping at the air with blood-spattered tusks. Serhan, movi
ng with a speed that took Abass’s breath away, came to a stop at the tair’s clawed feet. He brought the two swords up and, instead of stabbing them into the tair, began to carve. Sparks flew where the metal touched the dense hair that covered the tair, but great flaps of skin and flesh fell away, and the same black bile misted the air. Fungus blossomed in an arc around Serhan.
Serhan cut and sawed with surgical exactness, and the tair screamed. Abass barely heard its cry of pain. Serhan’s stone-wights. The bodies butchered with terrible precision. Serhan gone for so much time on work for Maq. Serhan leaving, sent by Maq to protect Segi and Naja. Segi and Scribe, dead in their own blood, their bodies carved and disfigured. It had all been Serhan.
He had killed Segi. He had killed Scribe.
Rage, pure rage, free of the dew, consumed Abass. He screamed, and it echoed in the air, in tension with the strange reverberations made by the tair’s own cries. Abass leaped from the stone spire, daggers forgotten, dew forgotten. Serhan had taken everything Abass loved away from him.
Half-way through his flight across the room, Abass watched as the tair gave a great shake. Maq, white hair streaming behind him, flew to strike a shattered stone spire. He lay there, unmoving. Serhan blurred and turned to run, but the tair was faster. It was a god-made-flesh, and it moved with a speed that sent air rippling out. One great hand grabbed Serhan, the talons sinking into his flesh with spurts of blood. Serhan gave a great jerk, and blood fountained from his mouth, but he still held the swords. The tair let out a bellow of rage and tossed Serhan toward the altar.
Serhan flew through the air like a rag-doll. Somehow he managed to hold onto one blade. At that moment, the invisible waves of air produced by the tair’s speed struck Abass mid-flight and sent him tumbling off course. He fell toward the cages and struck a patch of soil, rolling until he came up against the iron bars and rotted wood of the cage itself.
Pain and anger warred in Abass. He pushed himself to his feet and ran between the cages, toward the altar. Nothing mattered now except Serhan.
The one-eyed man lay half on the altar, his legs dangling off the side. Blood streamed from the puncture wounds that had almost torn him in half. One great sword still lay in his hand. Even as Abass watched, the blood slowed, the wounds started to close. It was impossible; even with three cubes of dew in him, Abass had been lucky to survive the arrow wound an esis had given him. To survive those massive holes from the tair’s claws . . . Abass shook his head; watching the voramancer sent chills through him.
It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was killing the bastard who had butchered Abass’s friends. Abass ran forward, letting the dew surge, giving him speed that a few weeks ago would have seemed a dream. Distantly, he heard the tair raging, moving closer. Maq might be dead already. Fadhra was gone. But Serhan . . . Serhan was within reach.
The disi lay at the edge of the altar, less than an arm’s length from Serhan’s greatsword. Abass hesitated; there would be something so sweet about seizing the disi and ending Serhan’s life with it. Although it looked like nothing more than a large knife in the tair’s hand, up close Abass realized how large it was—as long as a man was tall, a good hand’s breadth wide. It had nothing to mark the hilt except a slow smoothing out of the blade, to provide a safe grip. Dull, yellowed, like aged ivory, it sang to Abass. The dew surged toward it, as though Abass’s own blood would pull him toward the weapon.
He let out a gasp and yanked the dew back, focusing on memories. Segi laughing as Abass replaced Naja’s tea with stinkroot extract. Scribe, always wanting to be close to Abass, and always drawing away when Abass came too close. It was enough, although the disi still called to him. Abass took the greatsword from Serhan’s open hand.
The man’s good eye fluttered open, the wounds continuing to close. Abass spat on Serhan’s face and, with all the strength he could draw from the dew, brought the blade down on Serhan’s throat. Flesh and bone parted like silk. The blade struck the altar below and, with a crack that Abass thought might have broken his arms, the metal shattered. Shards flew through the air, grazing Abass’s cheek and ear. Serhan’s head rolled back as pieces of metal embedded themselves in the flesh, but then it settled back against the corpse, the broken blade still wedged between. Abass felt nothing except the pain of that blow through his arms. He huddled on the altar, dew surging in response to the pain, but nothing could temper the anguish inside of him. He wanted to slash and stab Serhan; wanted Serhan Renewed so that Abass could slowly bleed the life from him, again and again. The air tasted bitter with defeat.
Wrapped in pain, Abass could hear nothing except the single, insistent note of the disi, fresh as dew on snowdrop petals, clear and dry, merciless as stone. One hand, still throbbing with pain from breaking the sword, reached out. Abass did not want to fight the dew anymore. He did not want to feel pain, or regret. The animal inside him, the rage, felt none of that. Lust and anger and fiery life, but not pain, not sorrow, not betrayal. One hand closed over the disi.
Cool, hard darkness closed around him in turn. A single heartbeat drummed against the wall of shadow, but it was not his own. It was something else—monstrous, enormous, it filled the darkness with its need. Visions flitted in front of Abass’s eyes. Orchards of bright red apples that withered and fell to the ground, their trees drooping and crumbling into ash. Swathes of grass that yellowed and burned up in the too-hot sun. Miles of forest riddled with blight, the leaves speckled with disease as they fell into still, vast piles. Behind it all, an eternal hunger for life.
And then the vision broke, and the darkness behind it, and Abass knelt on the altar, arms still burning with pain, the disi cold and hard and too-smooth against his hand. He hefted it. It was heavy, but not as heavy as he had imagined, and with the dew in him he lifted it easily. It was well-balanced, and the curve of the blade gave it a grace that defied artifice and approached something drawn from nature itself.
A rumbling voice interrupted his thoughts. “Release the disi, child of the earth.” The voice washed over Abass. It smelled of cool, damp soil and summer sun.
Abass turned, disi still held easily in one hand. The tair stood a few paces away, its deep, dark brown eyes fixed on Abass. Maq dangled limply from one of its hands, the tair’s claws flexing in and out of the former tun-esis’s body. Blood, dark but vibrant to Abass’s eyes, ran along the tair’s claws and matted hair, mixing with the black bile that still ran from where Serhan had carved the tair’s flesh. A trail of luminous mushrooms ran back across the ground, between the cages, to where the tair had been wounded.
For a heartbeat, Abass stared at the tair in wonder. The god-made-flesh had spoken to him. The tair stared at him, claws still rhythmically puncturing Maq’s body. The tun-esis no longer flinched as the claws slid in and out; he might have lost too much blood. Even a Renewed could die. And still the tair stood and watched. Why doesn’t he attack?
And then Abass realized the tair was frightened. Not of Abass, but of the disi. The massive blade that, to a creature of the tair’s size, looked like a belt knife. Abass shifted and stood. The dew within him pounded in time with the smooth hilt of the disi, demanding blood—mortal or divine, it no longer mattered. It was easier to give into that desire than to face what he had become. Abass brought the disi up, ready to attack, when the dew fluttered, and he felt his heart begin to pound, a war-drum about to be ripped in two.
His knees buckled, and Abass realized, furious at himself, that he had let himself burn through his dew in his rage at Serhan. Revenge had blinded him to his own dwindling energy. He gasped, unable to draw a full breath as his heart shook so that Abass thought he would fall down the stairs. Against his will, Abass felt his fingers loosen their grip on the disi. He dropped to his knees.
The tair’s mouth opened, revealing those yellowed, blood-stained tusks. It let Maq fall to the ground, its cavernous eyes still locked on Abass. Abass could barely give it any attention. He was dying; too much dew, and his system was trying to compensate, but
his heart would beat itself to pieces in a frenzy. Darkness clouded the edges of his vision.
Grinning a god-like grin, the tair leaned in, one clawed hand casually moving to catch Abass. He no longer cared; he had failed everyone. Worst of all, he had failed himself.
The tair reared back suddenly, letting out a howl that, for a moment, pushed back the darkness around Abass. Maq’s white hair showed for a moment over the god’s shoulder. The tun-esis had found the strength to attack one last time, to bring down the god that had taken so much. Abass wanted to sink to the ground, to let his humming-bird heart carry him into the darkness that would end a string of letting down the people he loved. Of letting down himself. But Maq’s face, grim with resolve, hovered before Abass. The face of tired old man who even after all he had suffered, fought on.
Abass’s heart buzzed like a bee’s wings. The tair clawed at its back, and Maq howled in pain and fell from Abass’s sight. For a long moment, the tair wove back and forth, trying to keep its feet. Abass struggled to breathe. A great, invisible weight pressed down on his chest, as though the cavern had fallen on top of him. The trickle of air through Abass’s throat was like sweet wine at dusk. He sagged, barely able to keep himself from falling.
A sudden fury took him—an anger unconnected to the dew. Not this way, Abass thought. Beneath the darkness that clouded his vision, under the sound of the tair’s injured cries, Abass remembered Isola’s face as she stepped in the cart; he thought of the smiles that Qatal had told him about. He saw Scribe throw the knife from the window, and remembered his own weakness, his indecision. And in that heartbeat, Abass knew what he had to do.
He had to be responsible. For himself. For his decisions. For his life. Most importantly, for his death.
The tair leaned forward, one of its clawed hands flashing toward Abass. Abass gripped the disi. He no longer had the speed of the dew, but he pulled the last of that ocean of energy forward, giving himself light, consciousness for a few more heartbeats. He waited for the claws.
They struck with a pain he could not imagine. Foot-long knives drove through his body, piercing lungs and stomach, shattering bone. Blood bubbled to Abass’s lips. He held onto the last of the dew. Any other man would have passed out, or died, from the pain. The dew blunted the edge of those terrible knives, though, and even as life poured from his wounds, Abass clung to a sense of himself. To a sense of meaning, even in death.
With a speed that dizzied Abass, the tair swung him forward, until Abass’s broken body, still clutched in the tair’s claws, dangled an arm’s length from the tair’s deep, eternal eyes. The tair huffed, its breath—still laden with summer and shadow and moist earth—washed over Abass like the last kiss of life. Its dark eyes watched. Waiting, Abass realized, for the last spark to flee Abass.
Abass channeled the last of the dew away from his racing heart, away from the curtain the blocked the worst of his pain, and into the arm the held the disi. Pain washed over him. His heart stammered and skipped like a stone on smooth water. His breath froze in his lungs and dragged him down into darkness.
Even as the dew-light shimmered and faded, Abass struck with the disi. He swung the blade up and drove it forward, into the tair’s eye, plunging the massive weapon in one vast, soil-colored pool of shock. The disi flared, and Abass smelled burning flesh as it seared his hand.
A scream like plowed earth struck Abass. The tair’s claws flexed, driving deeper into Abass, tearing him apart. And then he was falling into a familiar darkness. The pits.
Abass smiled as he fell. The pits again. This time, he would find Isola.