by A Van Wyck
Once the spider had disappeared up the shaft, the narrow wooded portal to one side of the filigreed gate beckoned. It proved no more of a barrier than any other door and he stepped through into the grinding guts of a massive machine. The reek of metal dust and black grease was thick here.
He’d once stolen an expensive Rasrini clock – commissioned by some prince for whom the turning of the sandglass was no fit measure of a day. Incased in its hard glass abdomen had been a miniature version of the hulking, toothed wheels and clawed arms that now confronted him. He watched the metal monstrosity labor as it reeled in coil after coil of cable. The tether was as thick as his wrist, disappearing up a dark shaft that went on forever. Far in the distance above, the ghostly silhouette of the spider climbed still.
He shrugged out of his robe, letting it crumple to the floor. The green satchel was re-draped over his thief’s wraps. The slightest coaxing coiled cloth about his face in a familiar embrace.
Foregoing the metal rungs of the ladder adorning the wall – that promised a marathon climb – he drew on his coarse outer gloves of thick leather. The machine stuttered to a stop. He stepped closer to the massive spool, wrapping hands and feet about the oily cable. When the apparatus grunted into life a moment later and the cable began to rise, he went with it.
Within moments, he was high enough a fall would break bones. A moment after that, a fall would be fatal. And what was the point, really, of measuring distance after that? He suppressed a laugh as he rose ever higher and higher. His hands ached with the strain of maintaining their purchase on the slippery cable. Just when it seemed the burning in his arms would set the rest of him alight, the cable halted with a jerk that almost cost him his precarious grip.
The carriage had reached the bottom of the shaft again and its counterweight cable could carry him no higher. With a quick swing, he launched himself from the cable and got both greasy gloves around a rung of the ladder. Tasting metal filings even through his mask, he drew the gloves off with his teeth one by one and stowed them in his satchel. Only then did he chance to look down. The rungs dwindled away down a bottomless pit. Its length was infrequently lit by the weak light spilling though filigree doors. If he had not just come from there, he’d wager it was the hole that fell out the bottom of the world. Looking back up, he saw very much the same thing. Sighing, he began his climb. With any luck the lift had brought him more than halfway up. Even so, he was winded before he came across the Heli squiggle that said he’d reached the right place.
This entire floor was a barracks and the worst possible place for him to be. Shifts of temple soldiers cooled their heels here throughout the day and night, close to the upper floors they guarded. Minor functionaries and support staff had offices here as well.
The gate release latch was easily tripped with his toe. He listened attentively to make sure no one was nearby before hauling his body across the threshold. He confirmed there was not a soul in sight as he rubbed some feeling back into his numb arms. Muted voices said that, somewhere, at least two guards were awake.
Like a cat across a hot roof, he sped his way to the narrow flight of service stairs, letting them carry him upward. Expensive glow globes lit the entire floor where the temple’s decision makers slept. The harsh, white light spilled down the steps like an accusing finger. By minute increments, he propped one-eyed around the corner and into their domain.
So this is a masha’na?
Formal robes, lamellar armor – lounging where both lift and stairs could be kept in view. The brilliant glow globes left not a shadow to hide in.
A hollow reed, as thick around as his thumb, volunteered itself from his satchel. He uncorked both ends and brought it to his mouth. It took him a moment to purse his lips, wrestling as he was with an indelible grin. The image of Neever, gallivanting about the temple lawns to procure this item, wouldn’t allow it. Finally victorious, he directed a gentle breath down the tube.
The ephemeral grass seed, its fluffy petals almost too insubstantial to see, emerged like a princess at a ball. The little wooly puff waltzed away down the hall at a leisurely drift. He watched with bated breath as it turned gentle spirals towards the masha’na. It had almost entered the guard’s field of vision when an unfelt downdraft seized it. It smacked into the ground, where it skimmed the carpet and went still.
He was reaching for his second reed cylinder when the seed began dancing about, driving in a sedate circle. Wobbling uncertainly, it rose on an updraft, which it rode almost to the ceiling. He bit his lip as the same downdraft gripped it but this time the little seed weathered the squall, breaking free to make a beeline for the guard. He tensed as the little puff crossed directly into the guard’s line of sight, turning a gentle loop before carrying the man’s attention away up the passage.
He was a blur, darting silently from the stairwell, up the opposite passage and out of sight.
A door with no light spilling from beneath was an open invitation and, after a moment, also an open door. He breezed through the smallest crack, closing it behind him. The darkness inside he wrapped around himself like a welcome cloak, waiting in a crouch while it and his eyes became reacquainted. Soft breathing from the next room put him at ease.
From the murk quickly emerged a richly furnished antechamber. His feet had not chosen these apartments at random and they steered him across the carpet toward the paneled wall. Dust caked his fingernails as they quested for the join atop the bookcase…
A little pressure, a muted click and the entire thing swung smoothly outward.
And then he was inside the gizzards of the tower.
“Secret passages?” he’d scoffed disbelievingly when Cyrus had begun adding them to the schematics with a piece of chalk.
“These are the most respected people in the Empire,” the old priest had explained. “How else are they supposed to have a little fun?” And the man had winked.
He would have to pay attention to which way he faced when entering these passages, he thought, slithering bonelessly around a turn that strained his joints. This point was succinctly made when, finally reaching the exit portal, he found it flush against his back. Shoulder muscles protesting fiercely, he fumbled behind him for the little trigger...
The wall tried to spit him out on his backside. But his feet had been paying attention and they leapt to stay under him as he threatened to keel over backwards. Seeing the danger, his one hand shot out to halt the swinging jaw of the panel a moment before it could slam its teeth shut and wake the whole world.
Smile tickling his ears, he eased it shut.
The taste of the room said its occupants still slept. He slipped towards the main door.
Sadly, the network of passages did not provide a straight route to his destination. Its crazed pattern changed with political alliances built and torn down – some forever bricked up and others simply lost. There was no guarantee the route they’d mapped out for him was even viable. If not, he’d have to risk the open hallways, as he was about to do now.
He crouched by the apartment door, ear pressed to its surface, letting the wood whisper to him of the passage beyond. A presence in boots passed outside and he slipped out behind the guard’s back, the bright light searing his nerves as he flowed across the hallway. The door opposite opened easily to his entreaty and he sighed in relief as the darkness reclaimed him.
This time, he would have to enter the bedroom. He spent a hundred heartbeats sifting the currents of the apartment before he ventured inside. Perhaps, he thought, he had discovered the source of Cyrus’s suspiciously precise knowledge of these secret passages. Even in sleep, the naked young woman clawed towards the edge of the bed with one hand, seeking to escape the clammy embrace of the fat priest at her back.
His teeth flashed beneath his wraps.
Ah, a lady o fortune, he decided, as preternatural survival senses prompted the lifting of that tousled head.
He allowed the shadows to take hold of his clothes and drag him backwards into the brick and mortar. The wom
an’s sleepy regard wandered right through him and her mass of curls sank back onto the crumpled sheets. When her breathing had deepened, he dragged himself free.
The brass rings that hung the curtain to the water closet ground their teeth at him but he kept them quiet with a consoling touch. Ignoring the musty smell, he dug his nails in on either side of the back panel and the thin plank came loose in his hands. He folded himself into the exposed gap, using the handholds on the back of the board to fit it snugly into its niche after him.
The dust had been recently disturbed and he could tell where his and the mistress’s paths diverged. Using a hand to stifle his laughter, he wondered what she would make of his footprints?
Shoulders still shaking, he came to a dead end. The peeping toes of rusty nails, curling from the wood on this side, said the occupant did not abide midnight visitors. He backtracked to a different panel, the chalk lines in his head diving and wheeling ahead of him like bats.
This detour would add two apartments and a fraught hall crossing to his journey.
It made no matter. The darkness sped him on to where the painful light could not touch him. In no time at all he was back in the hidden byways, adding new tracks to the dust.
The next panel would empty right into somebody’s bedroom. He placated the rusty hinges with his oil dropper, leaving rust-colored scum in the dust before he was satisfied. It swung silently open.
The elderly priestess sprawled across her bed with her mouth open, fast asleep. Her cat paused in the washing of its skyward leg, yellow-green orbs tracking him as he made his entrance.
Could have been a dog, he shrugged.
He felt emerald eyes on him as he allowed the shadows to tow him onward.
The apartment door quiescent beneath his hand, he eased it open for a peek. The door he sought now was the apex of a junction, visible from each of three very long passages. There was no help for it–
Something curled around his ankle!
The brush of fur announced the cat, winding between his shins. Heart hammering, he watched it pad indifferently up the hall, preceding him. He was left clutching his chest.
Somewhere beneath the wild laughter in his skull a litany of curses unraveled in a whisper.
Sand-spawned, flea ridden, wind worried, jackal bait, stillbirth of a cat…
“Hey, you.”
He froze. So did the cat, halting to stare up the passage at the hidden speaker. Armor plates rattled as the guard bent into view, reaching to scratch behind the cat’s ears.
Being a cat, it deftly ducked the crooked fingers to sweep regally down the passage.
“Be that way then,” the guard grunted after it. Chain rustled as the man moved away down the corridor.
Blessings on that cat…
He zoomed through the bright light like butter across a hot skillet, easing through the locked door in much the same way.
Almost there...
A swiveling cabinet allowed ingress into the cobwebbed space between the walls.
He knew he was on the right track when the panel he closed behind him proved to be encrusted with gilt carvings. He took a moment to soak up the splendor of the second largest dwelling in the tower – the apartments of the Imperial Advisor. The faint layer of disuse gave truth to Cyrus’s pronouncement that the advisor spent the majority of his days and nights away from the temple, at the imperial palace.
The man-high hearth was cold and dead. Which suited him fine… With a slippered toe and a muted clunk the ornamental dragon that guarded the grate gave way. He had to marvel at the exquisite workmanship as the entire fireplace – base, wall, grate and flu – rotated as one on a vertical axis. A spiral staircase bared its throat at him. Ash wafting in his wake, he left the advisor’s empty chambers behind.
The wall at the top of the stairs was the mirror of the one he’d left below. On this side the catch was a metal pedal and the thin sole of his slipper said he could expect a kindled hearth beyond. The solid wall turned sideways and he was staring through a lazy heat-haze at grand chairs ringing the fireplace – all mercifully vacant and forlorn in the gloom. The hush of sleep was thick here.
Good.
The head of the hierocracy had most of this floor of the tower to himself and the chambers were expansive, replete with shadows and nooks. He flitted from one to the next until he came to the impressive double doors of the bedchamber. They stood unlocked and open – which was just as well since he doubted he had picks long enough to reach those tumblers.
Inside, he spied a ship under full sail – the High Archon’s massive bed with its four masts. It was big enough to sleep a modest harem and bore enough cloth to clothe half a dozen. Uneven breathing came from somewhere near the center, where he could just make out a pair of wizened feet.
He drifted over to the robes of office, standing sentinel on their pedestal. He suppressed a snort of laughter as he found the bronze ‘helm’ to be paper thin – but found nothing else. Quick fingers rifled through boxes and drawers but came up empty…
There was only one other place it could be. He turned toward the four poster-monstrosity, feeling his deep grin cutting furrows in his face.
Permission to come aboard…
Swinging easily from the rigging, he soon found himself hanging by his feet. In this way, he came face to face with, arguably, the most powerful man in the world.
Asleep, the high priest looked like nothing so much as a shriveled old man. He looked like you could poke holes in his hide with a wet finger.
Thinking that he should probably get on with it before the old man woke up to take a piss, he looked for a glint of gold at the man’s collar. A very fine chain draped a loop around the thin neck before disappearing into the recesses of a voluminous nightshirt.
Reaching up, he took from his belt a small pouch. Holding his breath, he loosed the drawstring. With the utmost care, he extracted a thimble’s worth of powder, wrapped tightly in very fine cheesecloth. He held the pink parcel suspended over the High Archon, timing the man’s breathing.
‘Now be careful,’ he recalled Cyrus’s caution, ‘Haraveera is potent! Two taps only!’
‘Will more kill him?’ he’d asked.
‘No,’ Cyrus had grumbled. ‘But he’s an old man. He doesn’t need the nightmares.’
He gave the parcel a deliberate tap, watching the powdery cloud sift down… before being caught in the swirl of the High Archon’s indrawn breath. One more…
Tap.
He didn’t breathe again until he had the haraveera stuffed safely back in his belt pouch.
‘How long should I wait?’ he’d asked.
‘For haraveera this fine?’ Cyrus had scoffed. ‘Don’t wait.’
He reached down, working gently to ease the chain over the sleeping figure’s bald head. Although, if what Cyrus said was true, he could have hoisted the thin fossil by it and swung him around without fear. Resisting the temptation, he swung down from the bed and examined his prize.
The small, many rayed golden sun fit snugly in his palm. He left the decrepit priest to uninterrupted sleep.
The High Archon had a personal chapel and that’s where his feet carried him. The central shrine was impressively opulent, the cushion before it oft dimpled by skinny knees. But it was the crowded mural that ran the circumference of the round, white room that held his attention.
A collage of stylized images unfolded from a central motif. He craned his neck, scouring the jumble of color for what he sought. He couldn’t name any of the mythical (or historic – depending on whether you were a believer) figures depicted but Cyrus had assured him he would not have to.
There! Four heroic figures on horseback, side by side. He stretched out his hand. The sun above their heads... The golden disc gave slightly to the pressure and he marveled again at the workmanship of the borderless, near invisible switches.
He scanned a scene of a battle between writhing figures. Two armies, one human, one a collection of dark, faceless figures. Sur
mounting a hilltop was the human general and, blazing defiance in his hands…
The hero’s sword gave under his fingers.
Next. A carriage, driving through the night, its traces hitched to fiery winged birds.
Next. A smith’s hammer, swinging down on a piece of glowing metal.
And lastly, before a great portal standing ajar, a beautiful woman, offering to the viewer in her cupped hands…
The pearlescent orb retreated under his fingertip.
He stood back.
Nothing happened…
…and continued not happening.
He’d expected an audible click! Perhaps a hidden door popping open. He scratched his head, reviewing. Sun, sword, carriage, hammer, orb. No, he’d gotten them all. And in the right order, too. Perhaps he should try agai–
His knives were in his hands before he even knew he’d moved.
A suggestion of motion had snagged at the corner of his eye… but there was no one there. He whirled again. He was plainly alone.
Cold realization gripped him. In growing horror, he saw that the figures in the mural were moving. Like liquid ink beneath a glossy veneer, they moved as if alive. With his mouth lolling open, he watched as the horses stamped into life beneath their heroes, seemingly charging right at him.
He danced back several paces, knives ready, but horses and riders alike dissolved into the brilliant white foreground of the mural as if riding into a thick mist.
The figures of the armies now writhed in truth, the hilltop hero leading the humans in a rout – off the field and into white dissolution, their foes following.
All around, figures rioted and colors swirled in a brief frenzy before being swallowed by the white stone. The mural was disappearing.
He threw up an arm to shield himself from the cold blaze of the birds as they towed their charge beyond night and into nothingness.
Where the smith’s hammer struck, sparks of white spat angrily, devouring the scene until there was nothing left.
Retreating in panic now, unmindful of where he stepped, he saw sheer stone all around him.
With a thump, he backed into the wall and spun to find himself face to face with the beautiful woman – the only spot of color left on the mural. With languid slowness, her eyes drew open to echo the orb she held in her hands. And then she sank into the featureless white as if beneath the surface of a pond.