Chasm of Fire

by Michael Wallace

  Thiego let out a tight, strangled sound as he gave the second body a closer look. “It’s Maralisa.”

  “You see,” Carbón said. His voice shook with rage. “She’s a monster. She can’t be reasoned with, she can only be stopped.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Mercado said. “I don’t know. But she could still do an enormous amount of harm if we force a conflict.”

  “That’s why we have to stop her,” Iliana said.

  Mercado turned to her with a sharp look. “And how would you propose doing that? What if she has others inside with her? Do you want to call down the watch and send them in with muskets blazing? She’ll melt them, too.”

  Iliana threw up her hands. “I don’t know, then we surround the temple. Wait for her to come out, and have Thiego use his artifacts to stop her.”

  “I’m not sure I have that sort of artifact,” Thiego said. He still sounded shaken, and kept staring at the dead bodies even after Carbón moved away with the lamp. “In fact, I’m sure I don’t. No tool or artifice she hasn’t anticipated, anyway. Whatever I try, she’ll counter.”

  “We are in the right, and she is in the wrong,” Mercado said firmly, as if that had anything to do with it. “But right now, she’s inside unopposed, and the longer we wait, the more time she’ll have to prepare. To blaspheme, to pollute the temple. Come, let’s have a talk with this so-called Master of Whispers and see what she has to say for herself.”

  Iliana wanted to grab her companions and stop them. Let Mercado go up herself if she wanted, and her servant, too, if Mota wanted to die along with his mistress. The other three didn’t need to throw their lives away just to prove they were right.

  But Carbón was already following, and Thiego joined him, which left Iliana no choice but to climb the stairs after them. A hollow feeling settled into her gut.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Iliana was the last to enter the temple of the Luminoso. She stopped a few feet or so from the entrance, her eyes still adjusting to what light was provided by Carbón’s lamp and the single gaslight flickering on the far wall. Pools of black shadow remained between them and around the edges of the room. The heavy, iron-bound doors slammed shut behind her with a definitive boom, seemingly untouched. She turned about in alarm, heart pounding.

  “Iliana,” Carbón said sharply. “Keep the doors open.”

  “I didn’t shut them.”

  She tried the doors, half-expecting them to be locked, barred by Naila using some trick of the Elders to seal them inside. But the latch turned easily, and she pushed them open again. The small party remained where they were, with the doors at their back and the empty hollow of the temple foyer in front.

  Kara’s body lay a few feet in front of them, undisturbed, yet it didn’t smell as strong as before, probably because it had cooled with time.

  In fact, the whole foyer was chilly enough to see her breath fogging in the halo cast by the lamp. Whatever heat remained outside from daylight, it had long fled from inside.

  Carbón pulled in the lamp as if to borrow from its heat. “Is it always this cold and damp in here?”

  Thiego scowled. “It gets this cold in the winter, but not generally this time of year. Never damp, though—that must be Naila’s doing. I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

  He turned the ring on his finger and held out his hand.

  “Bring her here,” Mercado said. “Let’s have it out.”

  “I’m trying.” He waved his hand across the room, then stopped. “There she is. To the left, beneath the arcade leading to the acolyte quarters.”

  Iliana peered into the gloom, but saw nothing. The other time they’d entered, she’d been wearing Thiego’s ring, and in comparison, she felt nearly blind among such deep shadows.

  In a commanding voice that echoed across the stone floors and walls, Mercado said, “Come out, Naila.” A long beat of silence. “I know you’re there. I demand that you step out and speak to me.”

  “Hold on,” Thiego said. “She’s on the opposite side now, moving around the . . . oh. No, wait. There are two people.”

  “Be careful, all of you,” Carbón said. “Lady Mercado, let’s take it back outside, don’t you think?”

  “Naila Roja!” Mercado boomed. “I don’t come as your enemy. But if you don’t explain yourself at once, you will find that I have become one.”

  Something moved at the arcade, and a figure emerged from the gloom. At first it was hard to distinguish the person from the shadows surrounding them, but the movement shortly resolved into Naila. The woman approached with a swagger and the same smug expression as when she’d attacked Thiego and Iliana earlier in the day. And she carried the same strange weapon.

  Mercado drew in her cloak as if against the cold, but it made her look diminished, like she was trying to hide, rather than standing as the leading figure of the Quinta, with all of her authority.

  Naila stopped about twenty feet away. “Put down the gun,” she told Mota.

  Mota kept his pistol aimed at her. “Not likely.”

  “Go ahead, put it down,” Mercado told him. “We’re here to talk, not fight.”

  Maybe Mota’s heart was pounding like Iliana’s, but he gave no outward indication. Instead, after a moment of hesitation, he lowered the hammer of the flintlock pistol, which he’d drawn to half-cock at some point.

  “Good,” Naila said. “If you do anything funny, they’ll be carrying you out of here in a bucket of guts. That goes for all of you.”

  “Is it true?” Mercado said. “That you murdered Kara in the temple, that you killed two more cabalists in the temple plaza? That you attacked Iliana Diamante and your own Guardian of Secrets?”

  Naila gestured with the gun at Iliana and Thiego. “I’m sure these worms put their own angle to it, instead of admitting how they moved against me. Carbón is in on the conspiracy, too. The foreigners, the watch. The city is full of blasphemers and other enemies of Quintana, and they must be rooted out.”

  Mercado drew in her cloak tighter, as if Naila’s words had physically chilled her. “And is it true that you sent the weapons of the Elders to Lord de Armas?”

  Iliana expected Naila to deny this part, as it was such an egregious attack on the Quinta and the Luminoso and everything they stood for. Or at the very least, to come up with some sort of justification that would make it all sound necessary. Instead, her smug expression only broadened.

  “I am the Master of Whispers. I’ll do what I wish. I won’t justify it to you or to anyone else.”

  “Those men were stopped before they reached the Quintana Way,” Carbón said. “Your entire plan has collapsed.”

  “You’re probably lying, but it makes no matter.” Naila shrugged. “I can take this city by myself. I only require a few willing souls to help me command it.”

  “Step down at once,” Mercado said sharply. “You will surrender your artifacts and leave the temple this instant.”

  Naila’s eyebrows climbed. “And why should I do that?”

  “Mota will lead you back to my estate, where you will be watched by armed guards while Thiego gathers the Luminoso and we discuss how you will be punished for your crimes.”

  “That’s your proposal?” Naila said with a short, barking laugh. “It’s not an enticing one.”

  Mercado’s tone hardened. “It is your one chance to save yourself. I don’t want bloodshed in the temple, but we will deal with you if you resist.”

  “And here is my proposal,” Naila said. “The others will die—the cabalist, my cousin, the crippled coal lord, the foreigners in the city, my husband and his cousin—but you will retain your position if you relent. Under me. Take all the wealth you want from the mines, the markets, the port if Puerto turns against me too, but I will hold the true power in this city. I’ll run it as I see fit.”

  “They were right,” Mercado said. “You’ve gone mad.”

  “I’ve gone mad? I have? What’s madness is to overthrow the code and give the f
ire of the artifact to dumbre idiots and Basdeenians. Leave me be to punish my enemies, Mercado, and I’ll let you keep your wealth and your childish adoration of the plenties.”

  “Barking lunacy,” Mercado continued. “It’s the Festival of Fools every time you open your mouth.”

  Whatever doubt the Quinta lord had possessed upon leaving the Torre estate seemed long gone. Whether or not Mercado would agree to raise dynamic fire from the furnace in the Rift, Iliana knew she’d finally taken their side against Naila. But this was not the place for a confrontation. They had to get out of here and regroup.

  Iliana was aware of the second figure that Thiego had noted in the room—some other cabalist, no doubt—and with Thiego’s attention fixed on Naila, that other individual could be creeping up on them at this very moment.

  She took two deep breaths to keep the panic from her voice. “Your Grace, might we not withdraw to consider the situation?”

  Mercado glanced at her companions and at Mota, who gave an anxious nod. Even though Mercado was still clenching her cloak, she didn’t seem afraid, only wary.

  “Yes, perhaps that is wise.” Mercado turned back to Naila. “You’ve pushed me into this decision, Naila. In spite of my reputation, I really do not seek out conflict. Only to enforce correct behavior.”

  “Yes, I’m disappointed, too. It will be annoying to replace you, Mercado, but easy enough to find a volunteer, I should imagine. Oh, did you think you would be leaving?” Naila asked when the others began to back away. “So sorry, but you will all die here.”

  Thiego lifted his ring. Iliana turned to run, hoping only that he could absorb the first shot, and they could get outside before Naila or her hidden companion had time to shoot a second time and melt them. Then upon gaining the plaza, Mota could turn, fire his pistol, and drive them off long enough to allow an escape. It was their one chance.

  But there, at the open doors, stood two shadowy figures, their limbs twisting and entwining, bleeding in and out of the flagstones at the floor.

  Witherers.

  Iliana was in the lead, and drew up short with a cry. An appendage snaked toward her, pure shadow.

  “Your bracelet!” Thiego cried.

  Belatedly, Iliana realized she was still wearing the underworld bracelet that he’d give her when they’d descended into the Rift that morning. She lifted her arm and her sleeve fell back, exposing it. The attacking witherer hissed, and its grasping tendril withdrew as if burned. Its companion flailed its shadowy appendages as it, too, shrank back.

  For a moment it seemed as though the agitated creatures would bleed apart, or at least slink away in the direction from which they’d come. But there was a separate figure near them who hadn’t been visible earlier, face hooded behind Luminoso robes. The person’s hands moved, with bits of light shifting between fingers, and as Iliana stared, a gold cord appeared in her vision, wrapping itself several times around the witherers, whom she now saw were writhing under the cabalist’s control, unable to break free.

  “There’s a reservoir of witherers right under our feet,” Naila said coolly. “I’d have never guessed it. Not all of the creatures descend into the Rift, it would seem. All it took was the right artifacts to bring them up, to bind them to our bidding.”

  “Move the witherers and let us pass,” Mercado told the cabalist controlling them, “or you will join this blasphemer in her punishment.”

  “Camastrón answers to the strongest power in the city,” Naila said. “And that is me. Which I will now prove by melting your ugly, stubborn face into slag.”

  Naila pointed her gun at Lady Mercado, who barely had time to flinch before the woman pulled the trigger. The air shimmered, and Mercado cried out.

  Iliana didn’t have time to see Mercado sink to the floor, bones dissolving from her body, because at that moment Thiego made a move. Light burst from his fist and illuminated the second cabalist. He was a sallow-faced man, with thin lips and narrow eyes. He shrank back, and the gold cord dissolved in his hands. He cried out in alarm.

  Released from their bonds, the two witherers made an immediate move. One grabbed the figure who had been tormenting them and wrapped him in snakes of shadow. A tendril plunged into Camastrón’s mouth and nostrils, and the man’s scream died as the appendage writhed down his throat. The flesh on the man’s face shriveled, and his eyes bulged in a silent scream as black, eel-like shadows slithered over and through him.

  The second witherer stretched for Iliana, who thrust out her arm with the bracelet. Something like a long, shadowy finger reached for her wrist, then withdrew. More fingers and snake-like appendages approached and fell back, and the witherer made a hissing, frustrated sound and continued to press.

  Carbón tugged on her other arm, but something was rooting her in place, and she couldn’t seem to dislodge herself. “Get back from there!” he shouted.

  “I’m stuck! I can’t move.”

  Worse, her arm muscles were weakening. The witherer couldn’t touch her, but was sapping her strength all the same, and she’d soon be forced to drop her arm, and then it would have her. The other witherer emerged from the empty robes that had once been Camastrón, and folded itself into its companion until they were as one, doubling the number of grasping, reaching fingers of shadow.

  Thiego came up beside her and lifted his own underworld bracelet next to hers. He held out his other hand to Lord Carbón.

  “The ring on my finger! Turn it to the right. Two full rotations, then a half rotation back to the left.”

  Carbón did as he said. Something seemed to break in their shadowy enemies, and suddenly the witherers were withdrawing, pooling and slithering. They dissolved into the ground and appeared a few feet farther away, moving in this fashion across the foyer until they’d vanished entirely. But before the surviving members of the group could flee, the doors slammed shut a second time. Iliana grabbed the handle, but it was coated with a thick rime of ice, and the latch wouldn’t turn.

  “And now, my friends,” Naila said from behind them, “my weapon is recharged, and you will all die gruesomely. Shrivel like worms thrown in a fire.”

  Iliana whirled around, her face burning with anger. “Kill us if you want, you can’t run this city. You have no cabalists, no Quinta, no army. You are nothing.”

  “I am the Master of Whispers. That is enough.”

  “No,” said a cold voice from the darkness. “I am the Master of Whispers.”

  The words hung in the air, unanswered, like an omen of doom. Lady Mercado stepped out of the darkness, unharmed, with steam boiling off her cloak. Everyone turned toward her, mouths agape, as she swept it over her shoulder. A wave of warm air washed over Iliana’s face and blew away the chill.

  Mercado’s face seemed to be glowing, and then it seemed that the inner lining of her cloak was giving off light and heat. It must have absorbed the energy from Naila’s gun, and was now discharging it into the air.

  “You were never the master of anything,” Mercado said. “Only lies. Deceit. Treachery.”

  “But . . . but you can’t be,” Naila said. “You’re Quinta.”

  “Enough of your poison. Throw down your weapon and submit.”

  “How did you do that?” Naila demanded.

  Naila sounded more confident, but Iliana saw the woman glance at her gun. As if waiting. Meanwhile, Lady Mercado’s cloak continued to throw off heat.

  “Her gun is recharging!” Iliana said. “Somebody stop her.”

  Mercado snapped her fingers, and Mota sprang forward. He’d tossed his pistol aside, and now he held an object in his hand that looked like a coiled spring, which he threw toward Naila. It unspooled suddenly, unraveling from something small enough to clench in Mota’s fist into a long, snaking cord. It snatched the gun out of Naila’s hands and sent it flying back over their heads.

  Mercado’s servant was himself a cabalist, Iliana realized belatedly, in command of artifacts of his own, and the only one who didn’t seem surprised by his mistress’s r
evelation. Still closing the distance, Mota took a leap at Naila and swung his fist at her head.

  Naila ducked away from the blow, moving so swiftly that her motions were a blur. Mota missed entirely. She gave him a push with a gloved hand, and he went flying backward and struck Lady Mercado. Mistress and servant tumbled to the ground in a heap.

  Carbón had drawn a dagger and came in at Naila, slashing. Thiego fumbled with an object from his satchel. Iliana went for Naila’s gun, which had clattered to a halt a few feet away. When she came up with it, Naila had Carbón by the shirt and was throwing him clear.

  Iliana lifted the gun and tried to fire, but the trigger wouldn’t move. There was some other knob or button she needed to push, first. Where the devil was it?

  Once Naila had thrown Carbón aside, she drew a pistol from her robe, another artifact with lights blinking on the stock. She pointed it at Thiego, who was still trying to remove whatever object of his own he’d meant to fight her with.

  “The ring!” Iliana warned.

  Thiego got the ring up as Naila fired, and the air blurred around him, impenetrable as the surface of a pond after a stone had been tossed in. When it cleared, Thiego was unharmed.

  At last Iliana found a knob on the gunstock and flipped it, and suddenly the weapon felt warm and alive in her hand. She pointed it at Naila and fired. The air shimmered, and Iliana’s hands felt numb and tingly.

  But Naila was already moving, a blur again. She came past Mercado, who was only just freeing herself of Mota, and rushed for the temple doors. Iliana saw at once that if Naila escaped, she’d palm the illusion egg and vanish.

  Iliana threw out her leg as Naila tore past her. The woman struck hard and went sprawling. The pistol flew out of her hand, and a small, round object rolled away. The illusion egg. She was effectively disarmed.

  The others came after her, ready to grab and subdue her, but Naila had one final trick. She pulled something long and flat from her robe, stretched or unfolded it somehow, and threw it onto the flagstones. Then she wrapped her cloak around her body and hurled herself onto the object. Iliana watched, dumbfounded, as the woman sank into the floor as if the stone had suddenly become permeable.