by Ben Galley
When the door had shut, and she heard the clank of armour escort Temsa away, she turned to Etane. He was already looking at her, lip starting to curl, a dry mirth in his eyes.
‘I do believe we have our man. The agent of chaos that we need.’
‘And you think you can control him?’ he asked.
Sisine lobbed the wineglass at him. It smashed against his robes, staining the turquoise a deep purple.
‘OUT!’
‘Pretty young thing, was she not, m’dear?’ Temsa asked of Ani, who had taken on a slouch.
‘What?’
‘Pretty young, I said. Those royals and their bright eyes.’
‘Pretty young is all. If I took an axe to her skull I reckon feathers would spill out instead of brains.’
Danib grunted, the closest he ever came to a chuckle.
Temsa wagged his cane. ‘You underestimate her. She is quite the player of games. You’d almost think it ran in the family.’
Temsa shaded his eyes to stare at the sky, and the beautiful evening it was turning out to be. Not that Araxes knew much else besides the occasional sandstorm and sea-squall, but the factory smoke was blowing out to sea for a change. The only thing that marred the dusty purple were the high-roads, spearing the base of the Piercer.
‘The air’s fresh. I think I’ll fetch a litter back to the Slab.’
Temsa clanged down the wide steps of the Cloudpiercer, making passersby look on with confusion, and in some cases, horror. He lifted his chin. It had been a good day, and he liked the attention.
A line of armoured carriages and litters waited at the edge of the street. Their carriers were shades, bent of back and a faint purple in the fire-glow of the sky. They lazed about, muttering, though as soon as Temsa came near, they began to perform.
Heels were clicked, hands waved, and glowing smiles beamed. Prices came rolling in; special offers, or promises of a sturdier ride than the next fellow. No doubt they were all comrades in servitude, but right now they were fierce competitors. Beggars squabbling over an apple.
Temsa chose two sturdy fellows with quiet voices and not much to say. Temsa sat in their chainmail- and velvet-lined litter, and they pulled the canopy over its frame to give him some privacy. Danib and Ani took up positions to walk either side. He stared out at them through his linen windows.
‘Danib always looks depressed, but your face is unusually downturned, Ani. Even for you.’
She worked her mouth, finding her words.
‘Think you made a mistake, Boss.’
Temsa waited for the explanation. She complained about nearly everything, but never his decisions. Not once. He realised he needed to listen.
‘You gave away too much. Moved too quickly. Spoke too plainly.’
‘I haven’t agreed to anything, m’dear. And as for our conversation, purely hypothetical. You heard the young empress-in-waiting.’
Ani kicked at a stone, catching a pedestrian on the ankle. There was a yelp of indignation, but the moment the man saw the size and meanness of the offender, he apologised and hobbled on.
‘Still,’ she mumbled. ‘You don’t know her. The richer they are, the more devious they’ve had to be to get there. She’s the richest of the lot apart from the emperor.’
‘We don’t know the Cult’s intentions either and yet we partnered with them.’
‘And now you’re working against them with her. Too many people in one bed.’
Temsa laughed. ‘The older I get, m’dear, the more I find you can never have too many people in your bed. You can always kick them out. What you’ve got to watch out for is being kicked out of beds that aren’t yours. I can handle the Cult.’
‘And the princess? You think you can manage her alongside the sisters? You’re stepping between the hammer and the anvil, Boss.’
‘And yet I am uniquely positioned to keep the two at arm’s length. They’ll have no clue until I want them to. All I need to know is their end games. It can’t just be power. Power isn’t enough for people like them.’
‘People who want titles? Like you suddenly seem to want?’
Temsa rubbed his beard. ‘Shit. Have I made another mistake, Ani?’
She growled. ‘We always worked from the shadows. Better that way.’
‘Well, you’d best polish your axeheads, because we’re moving into the light. Sanctioned. Supported. Official. I told you before: no more alleyways, no more small banks or stuffing half-coins into cellars. We’ll take what we want and get to smile at the ball after we do it.’
Ani just shook her head, clearly finding it all a bit too much. Temsa waved a hand at her. She’d come around eventually, when she was buried in coin, swimming in axes. That would grease her wheels. She was too short-sighted to see it now, but she would.
‘And you Danib? You think I’ve made a mistake as well?’
The mighty shade just shrugged. Temsa couldn’t make anything of it, but he knew it wasn’t excitement or pride. None of what he was feeling.
‘Let’s not all cheer at once, shall we? I think I’ll bask in the glow of tonight’s success alone.’
With a flick of his wrist, two linen strips descended to block them out. Danib’s glow still permeated the thin cloth, as did Ani’s smell of sweat and steel-oil, but at least he didn’t have to see their grumpy faces.
‘Carriers, onward!’ He poked his head out of the window as the litter lurched. ‘You two can take your time, see the city. Maybe get it into your thick skulls that things will be changing for the better. That way, you’ll be in better fucking moods when you return!’
Ani and Danib’s sullen looks followed him all the way to the next corner.
Chapter 22
Old Friends
By decree of the empress, Arctians are discouraged from the practices of deadbinding or strangebinding. The Tenets of the Bound Dead do not account for these practices, and as such they are an affront to indenturement itself. Souls are to be kept in the shade form rendered by the Nyx, and not placed within another object, alive or inanimate.
Royal Decree dated the month of Tawab, Arctian year 850
Nilith awoke with a start, unfamiliar with the trappings of sackcloth and blanket. She pressed her hands to the walls, feeling how cold they were, and flat. Nothing like the dark cave mouth she had been dreaming about.
Farazar was still holed up in the far corner, by the door, squinting at her in a beam of sunlight breaking through the shutters.
‘Time?’
‘An hour or two past dawn.’
‘Shit,’ Nilith cursed, throwing herself from the cot and towards her smock, freshly washed and repaired, and a spare cloak and trews from Old Fen. They had more new cloth in them than old, but she was grateful for it.
‘So ladylike,’ sighed Farazar.
Nilith strode into the bar, finding a few others scattered about the place, hunched over cups. Eber nodded to her, paler still in the daylight streaming through the open door. The old tinkerer had disappeared with the sunrise like a vampyre.
‘Will you be wanting breakfast?’ Eber asked.
Nilith shook her head. ‘Just supplies, is all. Something that’ll travel.’
‘I can spare a few bits of tack-bread, maybe an orange. There’s water in the well, and a fresh skin too, which I’ll throw in for not causing any trouble, and for keeping Old Fen occupied. One of these days he’ll blow himself straight to the afterlife. And this tavern along with it. Speaking of…’
Eber reached beneath the bar and produced a small leather pouch with a long loop of string choking its neck. It thumped on the wood. ‘He left this for you. Some of his powder. Said to show it around the city. That you seemed the sort to know what was right and wrong.’
Nilith found a smile tugging at her mouth. She hung the pouch around her neck and tucked it under her mended smock ‘I hope he’s right.’
‘Dead gods be with you, then.’
‘And with you, Eber.’ Nilith moved towards the door, but caught herself.
‘There might be one thing else.’
Eber narrowed her eyes, suspicious.
‘Could you spare a knife or other blade, hopefully copper?’
‘Mhm.’ The woman seemed to understand perfectly. ‘All I got is a fork.’
‘That’ll have to do.’
With the makeshift weapon tucked into her pocket, Nilith strode into the day. Wincing at the sunlight, she fetched Anoish from the stables, half of which had been torn away in the night. The horse didn’t seem bothered one bit, still chewing at some remnant of the bucket, staring at her, a look of calm boredom in those dark eyes. Dust clung to his eyelashes.
He dragged his hoof along the ground as she approached, making a mark. ‘That’s right,’ she replied. ‘We’re moving on.’
Strapping the body back onto the horse was a task neither of them enjoyed. It was almost enough to ruin her morning and last night’s bath in one fell swoop. Though the sandstorm had blasted a lot of the smell away, dark stains were seeping through the rags in patches, and the softness of the body turned her stomach.
Farazar had appeared around the corner, staring dolefully out into the desert between the buildings. Now in the daylight, Nilith saw they had found a small town, complete with a central meeting circle and well. The buildings were like adobe tortoise shells, half-swallowed by orange sand. She could smell the char of smiths’ fires on the morning breeze; the tails of the storm.
‘Onwards, then?’ she asked of him.
He grunted some manner of reply before taking up a cross-armed position. He wanted to be dragged today, it seemed. Another useless protest.
Casting a leg over Anoish, she settled down into what was by now a very familiar position. She swore she had made an arse-shaped mould in the horse’s back.
At first the sores complained, reminding her of the flight from Abatwe. As she left the town, Nilith threw a look south, where the desert rose up in one enormous yet incredibly gradual slope towards the Steps. They still dominated the horizon behind them. The Firespar looked ashen grey in the haze. There was an orange tinge to the air, of dust still yet to settle.
Once more, she and the horse fell into the rhythm of the journey, nodding heads together as hooves rose and fell. Dried salt and scrub plants, long dead and dried out, crackled beneath him. Nilith let herself fall into a daze as the heat rose. The hood sewn into her cloak did its job of keeping the sun at bay, but not its heat. She still cooked, same as ever, only now she had the white crust of the salt flats to reflect it. She closed her eyes and let Anoish do the navigating. The clever beast had realised it was north they were heading, and stayed true, wavering only at noon when the sun was at its hottest.
Farazar decided to talk just as the sun began to slip west. ‘You do realise you’ve given up your only defence by trading that sword?’
Nilith had, and said as much.
‘What will you do if we meet more bandits?’
‘We’ll have to run faster, won’t we?’ she replied, patting the horse. He whinnied in agreement. The stripes across his flanks were still healing.
‘Foolish bitch.’
‘Would you rather I planned and plotted like a true Arctian?’
‘If it means not being bound to some greasy-fingered bastard of a merchant, then yes.’
‘Always thinking of yourself.’
Farazar hissed again. He clearly had an axe to grind today, and was keen to see it razor sharp.
Some of his fire had returned, it seemed. ‘You’re one to speak. You seek to further your own gains by binding me,’ he snapped.
‘Do I?’
‘Don’t make me laugh. I know you do this for yourself. What else could be worth all this effort?’
‘There are many ways to be rich, husband. Something you never learned.’
He fell silent, but no less sullen. He stared at her, arms crossed, his feet carving slight furrows as he let the magic pull him. His glow was bright against the sun.
‘You will see, Farazar. You will see with your own eyes,’ Nilith told him.
She turned back around, and a spot of something caught her eye in the sky above. A wheeling dot, wings flared on thermals. She shaded her hand and decided it was too small and fast for a vulture. It was the same creature that had followed them for the last few days. There were still no shadows on the southern horizon, but it still put her hackles up.
‘Let’s keep going. In silence. It’s much better with your mouth closed, dear.’
Farazar obliged her for the time being, and she fell back into the monotony of trotting. Only this time, she kept one eye on the sky and its dubious inhabitants.
They had journeyed two miles when the rock struck her in the back of the head. The hood absorbed some of the blow, but the missile was sharp and she sprawled against Anoish’s neck with a cry. The second caught the horse on the back end, making him jolt into a gallop. Nilith was tossed from his back, coming down hard on her side. Her bruised ribs lit up anew.
‘You…’ she wheezed.
Farazar was standing over her. Her thrashing legs barely held him back, glancing off him or passing through his frozen outlines. She scrabbled backwards as he held up another rock with both hands. His eyes were practically aflame, they glowed so brightly. In that moment, Nilith saw why the ancestors had feared ghosts so much, before they had learned to tame them. The horror of his snarling image, even in daylight, was chilling.
It would have stalled her, powerless against the blow, if Anoish hadn’t barged Farazar aside. The ghost flew one way and Anoish trotted another, standing in front of Nilith like a guard dog. She pulled herself to her feet and patted him on the chest as he stamped and trumpeted.
Drawing the copper fork from her sleeves, she rushed to Farazar, who was gathering himself together in frantic movements. His rock had rolled away.
She dug the fork into his flailing foot, making him yelp. Again, into his thigh, as she worked her way up him. His frigid hands gripped her, angry enough to hold her but lacking the corporeal strength to do anything about stopping her.
Once more the fork found his vapours, and once more he cried out. He finally fell still at the sight of the fork protruding from his chest, with Nilith’s hand wrapped around it. Her sweating and grim face was just beyond.
She felt the blood trickling down her neck as she held the piece of cutlery there, making his vapours glow white. Bright cracks had appeared around the fork’s tines. He trembled with the pain.
Before she could drag it from him, something feathered and full of screeching appeared between them. Talons clutched her hand, making her release her hold. Both she and the ghost scrambled away from the furious thing, their fight forgotten in the confusion. It was a falcon of some sort, but it refused to stay still long enough to know more.
‘What the f—’
‘Run!’ it yelled at her, in a small voice but not without depth. It must have been strangebound, but it had been years since she had seen something of the like.
‘Run?’
‘As fast as you bloody well can! You have bandits closing in!’
She stared south, rigid with fear, but there was nothing on the horizon but a smudge of black smoke.
The tavern. It had to be. It made no sense for bandits to burn a town unless they were angry about something, like giving shelter to an enemy. Nilith thought of Eber’s kindness, and Old Fen. She bit her lip until her eyes began to water. She wondered if they had managed to run.
‘The Ghouls. They’re chasing us,’ she breathed.
The falcon was still screeching. ‘Sixteen outriders, with twenty-three more behind. Half a day and closing. Your choice.’
Nilith needed no further explanation. Snatching up the fork, she was atop Anoish in moments. She kicked her heels into his sides to spur him into a gallop.
The little falcon flew alongside, still flapping furiously.
‘Who in the Reaches are you?’ she yelled over the rush of air and hooves. Sand flew at her face.
‘Not tha
t way! There!’ The bird swung across her, heading slightly east.
‘But the city is that way.’
‘The city is fucking all of it, woman! There is a river this way. And a barge.’
Nilith shook her head. ‘I don’t do barges!’ She knew of the river, and yet she had chosen horseback for the shorter and more direct route. The river ran a wriggling path northwest until halfway through the Duneplains, then curved east and far too out of the way. Not to mention full of rapids and meandering curves. Besides, water was not a strong point for her. ‘I can outrun them.’
The falcon perched uncomfortably on the horse’s head, mottled wings wide. ‘Then you’re a fucking idiot.’
‘Who are you to speak to me like—’
‘Because I want to help and you’re not letting me.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Not important right now. You just ride. Follow me!’
With that, the falcon soared into the wide blue and became a distant speck above. Nilith guided Anoish in his direction. Both their hearts pumped hard, both trying to outdo one another. Farazar was half-running now, half being pulled along. His hands were clutched to his fresh wounds, head bowed, but he was still running. Their goals had aligned once more, it seemed.
Putting aside the madness of following a talking falcon she had just met, she pressed on. This time she kept both eyes on the bird.
The distant haze coalesced into a dark band with each thunderous stride. Another ravine perhaps, or a band of grass along a riverbank. Behind them, the column of smoke slanted at an angle, reaching further into the powdered blue, like a mighty finger pointing accusatorially at her.
It didn’t take long for their pursuers to appear. They were mere smudges in the wobble of heat, but they grew stronger quickly. The higher ground must have given them sight of her, and it had spurred them on.
It spurred her too, and she kicked Anoish into a frenzied gallop. It felt as though they raced between the teeth of a vice closing.
With time, the dark band became clearer: it was a narrow canyon with rocky edges. It looked like a colossal and jagged smile curving into the distance. The edge of it swung out towards them, like a rope trailing from a fleeing carriage.