by Morgan Rice
The residents of the city didn’t seem to mind it, or at least it didn’t slow them down. They just wore scarves against the dust while they were outside, shouting and singing and haggling just as loudly as they might have done in clear sunlight. Lucious saw slaves sweeping away dust from doorways, broad hats keeping the fresh dust-fall from their clothing.
Ahead, he saw two men arguing in the street over some dice, and Lucious stepped around them just as a blade flashed. People barely looked round as the two men fought. There were more arguments in other parts of the street, since business in the city seemed to take place at two volumes: either furtive silence or full-throated shouting.
At first, Lucious thought he was walking through a particularly rough area of the city, but a second glance told him that Port Leeward was more complex than that. The street he was in seemed to feature gambling houses and brothels set beside merchants and homes as if it was the most normal thing in the world. In line with the city’s determination to conduct all its business on the streets, Lucious could see prostitutes there trying to entice in business, and tavern workers were selling what seemed like rich spirits, carrying them through the crowd and smoothly dodging attempts to grab them.
Here and there, Lucious spotted signs of richer figures. Palanquins carried by glistening slaves hurried through the streets, curtains on the sides occasionally twitching so the wealthy could look out. They might have been nobles, although in Felldust, it was always more complicated than that. If you had money enough to bribe the right people and host the right parties, it didn’t matter what blood you had. Lucious wasn’t sure he liked that.
There was plenty to like about the rest of the city though, he decided, as he watched masked actors performing a bawdy drama in the street. It was only when Lucious felt a hand working at his purse that he realized there would be downsides to it as well.
“Come back here!” he yelled, setting off after the fleeing figure of a young woman. He’d caught the pickpocket early enough that he still had his purse, but that didn’t mean he was going to let anyone get away with trying to steal from him. No, he would teach the girl a lesson, and announce to the world that he was here!
This is a bad move.
“Shut up!” Lucious snapped as he ran.
He rounded a corner, jumping into a cobbled alley, to find himself staring at three large men. In that moment, Lucious found himself cursing Felldust, and remembering all he’d heard about its criminal gangs, its guilds of assassins and slavers. In Delos, the power of the kings had meant that such things were disorganized, even if they were there. In Felldust, the system of a ruling council meant that such things were just one more tool for the factions to employ.
One of the men snapped something at him in a language he didn’t understand. He repeated it, pointing angrily.
“Say it in a civilized tongue, you fool,” Lucious said, “or get out of my way.”
Another of the men answered. “He said to give us your money, Imperial, or die for it.”
Do not be foolish, his father’s voice warned.
That was enough to spur Lucious to action. He stepped forward, his blade clearing its sheath and stabbing out in one movement. It didn’t take the largest of them cleanly, but it was more than enough to make the man howl in pain.
Then he ran, sprinting back through the pressing crowds, shoving people out of the way. He sprinted for his life, hearing the sound of sandaled feet behind him. He leapt past a covered well, darted down a side street, and shoved a palanquin carrier so that the whole thing went tumbling in front of those following. He picked a direction at random, ducked into a shop selling statuary, and hid behind a sculpture of reclining nymphs until he was sure the pursuit was past.
What a city. Was there nothing that wouldn’t go on here? Lucious quickly had an answer as he kept going through the city. He saw shops where the scent of incense drifted out into the street, people staggering from them with eyes that didn’t seem to be able to fix on this world. He saw street vendors trying to keep the dust off meat that wasn’t from any animal he knew.
Lucious passed a marketplace, where the merchants seemed happy to sell wickedly sharp blades next to vegetables, slaves alongside silks. Lucious saw what looked like a nobleman touring the stalls, a woman who was clearly not his wife hanging off his arm while a couple of burly slaves followed behind.
“You there!” Lucious called out, moving close, because at last this was someone who might be able to assist him.
The merchant, or whatever he was, kept chattering to his courtesan, laughing as she tried on a selection of jewels. Paste and glass, to Lucious’s eye.
“I’m talking to you,” Lucious said, stepping forward to put a hand on the other man’s shoulder. It didn’t get there. One of the men with him closed a hand around his wrist, hard enough than Lucious winced in pain.
“Yes,” the merchant said, turning to him and answering in accented Imperial. “You are. Why would I want to listen to something that looks like you, though?” He nodded to his men and said something in the language of the city. Lucious didn’t understand it, but he could guess.
He’s going to have you beaten and thrown in the gutter. Where you belong.
“Don’t you dare,” Lucious said, with a flare of anger. “My name is Prince Lucious of the Empire. King Lucious. Lay a hand on me and it’s an act of war! I came to you to ask an escort to the castle. If you don’t have the courtesy to help me—”
“Oh, a madman, is it?” the merchant said. “Well, we have far more entertaining madmen than you in Felldust. We have holy fools and spinning men, men who’ll try to sell you the moons and men who’ll howl at them.”
He gestured to the men again, but the courtesan with him said something with a laugh. That got a smile from the merchant that didn’t reach his eyes.
“It seems my companion has a soft heart. You want directions?” He gestured with a sweep of his arm. “There is the tower of the five stones. I suggest you hurry to it.”
Are you going to stab him? Show the world exactly what you are?
Lucious bit back his anger, if only because he wouldn’t survive making any kind of move. More than that, somewhere behind him, he thought he saw a commotion that involved a face he’d seen before. It seemed that the men from the alley were still looking for him.
So he set off again, hoping that he would find his way. This city wasn’t everything he’d been hoping it would be when he’d first arrived. Maybe it would improve once Irrien had given him all that should be his.
Lucious made his way through the streets, trying to focus in on the tower again, although his eyes kept being drawn down to ground level. The merchant had been right about madmen. He could see them on the street corners, and hear them too, bellowing religious declarations, or political ones, or fragments of philosophy in languages they’d probably made up on the spot.
As he got closer, Lucious had to press himself to the side of the street in order to avoid a man who was simply standing and whirling in the middle of the road, a long blade in his hands. No one seemed to care.
“Mad, this place is mad,” Lucious said.
Well, you’re hardly in a position to comment.
It took the better part of another hour to reach the tower. The actual distance Lucious covered would have been tiny as the raven flew, but instead of straight lines, Lucious found the streets leading him in circles and zigzags, nothing ever seeming to go where he meant to. And wasn’t that just a metaphor for his entire blasted existence?
Finally, he found himself standing at the foot of the tower. It stretched up into the sunlight sky in a five-sided pillar of dark stone. Windows and balconies dotted it, but they all had shutters against the dust, making it seem even more forbidding and sealed off than it was. Lucious couldn’t guess how many levels there were in there. Certainly enough that he had to crane his neck to see the top of the thing.
Guards stood beside the great gates at the foot of the thing, wearing dark armor
the color of the dust, offset by strange patches that seemed more like crystal than metal, probably dug straight from the cliffs. Their masks made them seem inhuman somehow, bestial features replacing their own.
One demanded something in the local language. Lucious stood there, trying to look as impressive as he could in travel-stained clothes.
“My name is King Lucious of the Empire!” he declared, loud enough that they could probably hear him inside. “I have come here to seek the aid of our allies, the people of Felldust. I demand an audience with the First Stone.”
He stood there, and so did the guards, leaning on great axes as if they never planned to move again. They certainly didn’t move to open the door.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Lucious demanded. “Don’t you know who I am?”
Lucious contemplated attacking them with his short knife, but even he wasn’t suicidal enough for that. He stood there glaring at them instead. And somehow, impossibly, it worked.
The great stone door in front of him cracked open, and a figure in a dust-covered robe stepped out.
“Prince Lucious,” the figure pronounced slowly. “The First Stone will see you now.”
CHAPTER NINE
Ceres raced down the castle’s corridors, fueled by her need to get to Thanos before she lost him forever. Fear drove her on; she couldn’t win a city just to lose the man she cared about.
Ceres sprinted, and she didn’t stop sprinting when a pair of guards stepped into her path with spears leveled. Instead, she threw herself into a slide, cutting up as she passed one guard, leaping back to her feet and cutting at throat height as she kept running. She raised her sword for another slash as a figure rounded a corner in front of her, stopping herself barely in time as she realized that it was a servant in front of her, not a guard.
“Where are they executing Thanos?” Ceres asked.
“The s-south courtyard. That way. The third corridor. Please don’t hurt me.”
“I’m not going to hurt you. Go to the great hall. My father and my brother will keep you safe.”
At least, she hoped so. Ceres had seen too many die already today.
The servant might have started to thank her, but Ceres was already running again. She sprinted up a flight of stairs. Another guard stepped in front of her, a royal bodyguard this time. He thrust at her with a short sword. Ceres parried the stroke, and this time the power within her rose up in response, lashing out to throw him back from her path, stone already creeping over his skin.
Ceres skidded around the third turning, the speed she was moving making her slide on the worn mosaic of the floor. She caught herself in time and kept moving, knowing on instinct that she was in the right place. There were too many people gathered there for it to be anything else.
They stood at windows and in doorways. There were servants there and nobles, even a few guards, although they seemed to be more concerned with looking out than with trying to defend the castle.
One of them looked round as Ceres approached, then charged. Ceres stepped aside, tripping him and moving behind him.
“Thanos,” Ceres said. “Where is he?”
The guard pointed to the nearest window, and Ceres slammed his head against the floor, knocking him unconscious. She ran to the window, ignoring the rest of those there, and looked out.
She was above ground level now, looking down on the courtyard. What she saw there made her draw her breath in.
A gallows stood at the far end of the courtyard, surrounded by executioners and guards. On it, Thanos hung, his arms bound behind him, his legs kicking as they tried to find purchase on the air. His face was red with the need to get oxygen, although not as red as the coals that burned beside him, obviously waiting for some worse fate.
And the people there stood there watching, unable or unwilling to act. Ceres wouldn’t stand by. She couldn’t, so she did the only thing she was able to. She stepped out onto the window ledge and leapt.
The stone of the courtyard came up to meet her faster than Ceres had hoped, jarring against her knees as she hit it. She rolled, coming up to her feet with her weapons in her hands.
The executioners and guards there were already reacting, turning and drawing their weapons. Ceres stepped in to meet the first, parrying the swing of a hot iron and slamming her elbow into his face to knock him back.
Another came at her with a headsman’s axe. Ceres sidestepped the first downward sweep of the axe, then leapt as the man swung it across. Ceres jumped above him, thrusting down as she did so, her swords slamming down through his collar bone.
She turned as more opponents readied themselves to fight, yet there was no time for an extended battle. Thanos didn’t have that much time. She had to save him, but the executioners stood between her and the spot where he still hung suspended by the rope around his neck.
Ceres hesitated, trying to judge the weight of her sword; then she flung it like a discus, hard and true. She watched as it slashed through the rope that was hanging Thanos, letting him tumble to the gallows. She would have run to him then, but the executioners and the guards were on her.
A sword came for Ceres’s face and she barely parried it in time. A hot iron brushed her sword arm, and Ceres had to fight to keep from dropping the weapon she held. She lashed out with her blade, feeling it bite home, then struck out with the power that lived within her. An executioner turned to stone with a disemboweling spike poised to strike, and Ceres moved back.
They kept coming, and with only one blade, it was hard for even Ceres to keep that many at bay. She cut down one guard, spun away from a second, but a blow from a heavy hammer got through, knocking her off balance.
For a moment, Ceres reeled, and that instant was all one of the guards needed to attack. He lunged forward, forcing Ceres to defend, and as she blocked his blow the guard kicked out, knocking her from her feet. He stood over her…
…and then his head was flying as Thanos stepped into the gap he’d left. He held out his hand to Ceres, fragments of rope still tied around it, the noose still hanging around his neck. Ceres put her hand in his, just grateful to feel that he was really there as he helped her to her feet. That he was really alive, not gone, not dead.
They stood back to back then. If there had been more time, Ceres might have said something. Might have held tight to him just with her gratitude at seeing him alive, and with love and more. There was no time though. The guards were still coming, and they had to be ready to meet them.
Ceres parried and thrust, cut and deflected, trying to lead guards into one another, snatching up an axe with her left hand as one fell from the hands of a dying guard. Ordinarily, she would have leapt and spun, danced her way through the violence and never stayed in one spot.
Now, though, she stood there, taking on guards as they came to her. She parried the swing of a sword with crossed weapons, struck back with the axe she held, and thrust with her sword at the same time.
She didn’t turn to see what threats might be behind her. She had to trust that Thanos would be able to protect her, and she did. Even surrounded by combatlords in the Stade, she hadn’t felt this protected, and she was determined to ensure that no guard managed to get through to harm Thanos.
A spearman ran in and Ceres moved to put herself between the man and Thanos. She hooked the shaft of his weapon with her axe, pulling the spear from his hands while she cut him down.
“Try to get to the gallows,” Ceres called out to Thanos.
“I’m right behind you,” he assured her.
They moved together to the gallows, stepping up onto the platform there. Ceres cut down a guard who tried to attack Thanos as he climbed into place, then stood side by side with him while the guards milled about beneath them. Ceres kicked a guard back into the throng as he tried to clamber up after them, and saw Thanos slice open an executioner’s arm as he attacked.
They stood there side by side, and Ceres found herself waiting for the next wave of the attack. Ceres didn’t want to wait though. S
he leapt into the heart of the remaining men as they started to climb the steps to the gallows. She cut left and right, trusting that Thanos would follow her as she used the advantage of height to bolster her attack.
He did. Ceres saw him fighting with all the skill and passion she remembered, stopping blades, striking, cutting and moving. Thanos fought like a rock, as dependable and unmovable in the chaos as stone, stopping every assault that came to him. Ceres felt more like water, slipping into gaps and pushing through every defense that stood in her way.
Even so, there were more men there than she thought there might be. Plenty of guards had turned out to see Thanos die. Ceres had run as fast as she could to save him, but that meant that she’d run far ahead of Sartes, or her father, or any of the others who might have helped her in the fight.
There was only Thanos, but for Ceres, that was everything. She parried a blow aimed at his head, and stepped aside to allow his counter cut. He swept the legs out from one of the guards, and Ceres struck down with her heel as the man started to rise. In Ceres’s eyes they fought like two halves of one intricate whole, always seeming to know what each other’s next move would be. They stood together at the center of a ring of enemies, and Ceres waited for the next wave of attackers.
“Ceres,” Thanos said, “there are things I should say—”
“Then say them when we’ve won,” Ceres said.
“I need to say this. I—”
She didn’t get to find out what Thanos wanted to say though, because the rebels chose that moment to pour into the courtyard. They sprinted in, cutting down the guards while they were still looking the other way. Ceres saw her father wielding his blacksmith’s hammer, her brother stabbing with a blade that seemed made just for him.
They cut through the remaining guards as if they weren’t there. With surprise on their side, they cut them down to a man. Given what she’d seen the executioners do from her cell, for once Ceres had no regrets.