Ashes of the Sun

by Django Wexler

  The cold stole in gradually, step-by-step, until Gyre found himself rubbing his hands together for warmth. There were fewer people on the street here, and they wore heavier clothes, thick coats and patchwork gloves.

  Kit shivered artfully. “I’ve never visited a city where it goes from spring to winter in a few hundred yards.”

  “This is nothing,” Gyre said. “If you want to come into the deep tunnels with us, I hope you have something warmer to wear.”

  “I imagine I’ll manage.” She nodded at a long, low building up ahead, fitted snug against the curving rock. “Is this it?”

  “Yeah.” Gyre pulled his hood forward a bit. “Keep quiet until we’re alone.”

  The shelter didn’t have a proper door, just a heavy curtain to keep the heat in. Gyre pushed through it, eye wrinkling against a burst of warm, humid, foul-smelling air. Several large hearths were glowing, banked to save on precious fuel. The interior was one large room, the walls lined with sleeping mats two deep, crowded with filthy, ragged figures. Most of the residents were asleep, huddled in piles for extra warmth, but here and there small groups sat by the fires in quiet conversation or playing cards.

  A young woman, standing out from the crowd in her clean gray robe, put down the bowl she was scrubbing in a basin of dirty water and hurried over to them. Gyre raised his head, enough to let the firelight gleam on his mask, and she gave him a quick nod of recognition. She gestured toward another curtained doorway, and he and Kit threaded their way through the press of sleeping bodies.

  Beyond the second curtain was a small storage area, backing up against the rock wall of the tunnel. There was a large, heavy-looking box, which shifted sideways with surprising ease when Gyre set his shoulder against it. Behind it was a crack in the stone, barely wide enough to squeeze through, with a glimmer of light visible through it.

  Kit raised an eyebrow. Gyre smiled and gestured her onward.

  “There are maps of the tunnels,” Gyre said as he pushed through after her, “but everyone knows they’re incomplete. This place was a maze before the Chosen blasted it into a crater. The one thing we never lack for is nooks and crannies.”

  “I can imagine.” Kit looked back at the cracked rock wall. They’d emerged into a long, narrow corridor, running at right angles to the street they’d left. “What was that place?”

  “The shelter? One of Yora’s projects.” Gyre took a deep breath—the air smelled better already—and started walking. “For people who can’t work in the manufactories anymore, or never could. The bosses just throw them down here to freeze or starve. Yora tries to help them as much as she can. Food and fire is about what we can manage.”

  “And you don’t find her charity admirable?” Kit said, catching up to him.

  “Who says I don’t?”

  Kit shrugged, and for a moment they walked in silence.

  “It’s just not enough.” Gyre shook his head. “Trying to save a few people at the edges. There’s always more.”

  “You want to do something bigger,” Kit said.

  Gyre gave her a sharp look, and she shot back a knowing grin.

  The light from the shelter had faded, so Gyre pulled a glowstone from his pocket and shook it to life, the eerie blue glow lighting up the rock. As they rounded a long curve, another tiny pinprick of blue became visible in the distance. Gyre halted, raised his light, and moved it slowly back and forth. One, two, three, pause, one, two.

  The other light wagged back. Gyre let out a breath and kept walking.

  “Impressively paranoid,” Kit said.

  “It keeps us alive,” Gyre muttered. “I hope you know what you’re getting into.”

  “Your concern is touching.”

  “I’d just hate to have to slit your throat, after all this effort,” Gyre said.

  “I must be growing on you.” Kit grinned up at him, her features hideous in the blue glow.

  The tunnel ended in a circular chamber about twenty meters across. Two other tunnels led off in different directions, but otherwise the junction was a featureless circle of ghoul-cut stone. They’d been meeting here long enough that they’d moved in a few sticks of furniture, a rough-cut table with biscuit crates and barrels for chairs, and a pair of lamps on tall iron stands. Not as comfortable as the Crystal Cavern, but for planning, it was better to have a little privacy.

  Harrow was the one standing in the entrance with the glowlight, wearing leather armor with iron studs, his two-handed axe slung across his back with the handle poking up over his shoulder. He gave Gyre a grumpy nod and stared openly at Kit, who returned a sunny smile. Harrow turned and waved his light, and a moment later the lamps were lit, casting a weak radiance across the table that cut the pale green of the alchemical lights.

  “About time,” said Ibb. “I was getting tired of sitting in the dark.” He wore his long leather coat and broad-brimmed hat, with a thin sword on one hip and a blaster pistol on the other. At the sight of Kit, he raised one delicate eyebrow. “Halfmask, you neglected to give us a full description of your guest. Most prospective clients aren’t so… appetizing.”

  “Don’t take him too seriously,” Gyre said. “Ibb’s a family man. A husband in the merchant combines and two children.”

  “Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate beauty when I see it,” the mercenary said. He bowed. “Ibb of Gerentia, at your service.”

  “Kit,” said Kit. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

  “Halfmask,” Yora said, careful to use his title in front of a stranger. “Kit, welcome. I’m Yora. This is Harrow.” She gestured down at the pair sitting at the end of the table. “These two are Sarah and Nevin.”

  Sarah gave a smile and a wave, cheerful as always. Nevin sat beside her, hunched over, long-fingered hands moving nervously over the stone table.

  “Halfmask tells us you have a business proposition,” Yora said.

  “It must be a plaguing good one,” Ibb said, leaning back in his chair. “I thought we’d agreed to let the heat die down after last time.”

  Yora shot him a sour look. Gyre cleared his throat uncomfortably.

  “I think this might be worth our time,” he said. “Kit, say your piece.”

  “It’ll definitely be worth your time,” Kit said, grinning. “If you’re bold enough.”

  Gyre watched the rest of the crew while Kit explained what she needed. Ibb’s eyes widened at the mention of fifty thousand thalers, and Sarah perked up when she heard about the stasis web. Yora kept glancing between Kit and Gyre, and Nevin just stared at the table.

  “That… is quite an offer.” Ibb looked down at his hand and pretended to pick grit from under a fingernail. “If it’s true, of course.”

  “You don’t trust me,” Kit said, her voice pleasant.

  “Of course not,” Ibb said.

  “Halfmask vouches for you,” Yora said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. But we need more.”

  “Then you’re not interested?” Kit said. “Fifty thousand would buy a lot of food and firewood, wouldn’t it?” Yora’s face twitched, indicating a hit.

  “Assuming the money really exists,” Ibb said. “I admit that I’m tempted, but I would need ten percent in advance, and the rest deposited in a Moorcat Bank escrow account.”

  “Done,” Kit said immediately. “That seems only fair.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Yora said. “We don’t do mercenary work.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Ibb drawled.

  Yora sighed and looked at Sarah and Nevin. The arcanist spread her hands.

  “It seems… plausible,” Sarah said. “Scavengers have dug up active stasis webs before, and they usually fetch a high price, since whatever’s inside is likely to be intact. You’d need a destabilizer to open one, at least if you haven’t got a centarch handy to cut the web off.”

  “What’s inside this one?” Yora said to Kit.

  “The device is called the Core Analytica,” Kit said. “It’s a cube about a half meter on a side, fragile, nonvolatile
. That’s all I can tell you. Raskos has the stasis web stashed in his private warehouse.”

  “And the destabilizer?” Ibb said. “You mentioned we’d need to acquire that first.”

  “Yes. I have a location for it, but I’ll need your help to get there. It’s in the deep tunnels.”

  Sarah frowned. “How did you get its location, then?”

  “That I can’t tell you,” Kit said, still smiling. “Sorry.”

  “Fifty thousand thalers buys an awful lot of ‘no questions,’” Ibb said contemplatively.

  “Nevin,” Yora said. “You know the defenses around Raskos’ warehouse. Can that part be done?”

  The green-haired youth looked down at the table, shifting uncomfortably under everyone’s scrutiny.

  “You’d need a lot of gear,” he said in a whisper-thin voice. “It’s not just the guards. Rottentooth has everything money can buy around that place—screamerwire, scare charms, you name it. A good alchemist could get us past most of it, but…” He shrugged and lowered his head farther. “It’d cost.”

  “My client is prepared to pay any reasonable expenses,” Kit said. “For quite a broad definition of reasonable.”

  That had Sarah sitting up and paying attention. The prospect of working with a large budget was always attractive. Gyre grinned to himself, imagining Lynnia’s reaction.

  “And you?” Yora said, looking back to Kit. “Would you be coming with us on this operation?”

  “Of course,” Kit said. “Whatever danger’s involved, I’m happy to share it. Halfmask can attest that I can take care of myself.”

  “She can certainly fight,” Gyre said. Even if she gets a little reckless.

  Yora looked around the table. Ibb shrugged.

  “You know my opinion,” he said. “Provided we get paid as promised.”

  “Halfmask.” Yora got to her feet. “Could I speak to you in private?”

  They stepped aside from the others, to the far end of the cavern. Yora toyed with her golden hair, curling it through her fingers. She glanced back at Kit, then turned to Gyre.

  “Do you trust her?” she said.

  “She’s not telling us everything, that’s obvious.” He hesitated. “She’s no friend of Raskos’, though. She and I fought our way through a couple dozen Auxies.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s not a trap.”

  “Raskos doesn’t have the imagination for this elaborate a trap.”

  Yora’s lip quirked. “Probably not.” She paused. “You know she can’t be Doomseeker.”

  “She might have some… connection.” His scar itched, and his finger tapped idly on his mask. “It’s more than I’ve found in three years.”

  “I don’t like it,” Yora said. “We don’t know what she’s after, who her client is…”

  “But we need the money.” Gyre was careful not to sound too eager, but he knew it was a trump card. “With fifty thousand…”

  “I know, plague it.” Yora shook her head. “You think we should do it.”

  “I think it’ll be dangerous,” Gyre said. “But the payoff is worth it.”

  “Be honest with me. Worth it for the crew and the tunnelborn? Or just to get you closer to a myth?”

  Gyre was silent for a while. Finally, he shrugged uncomfortably. “Why not both?”

  Yora stared at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. At last she nodded sharply.

  “Then we do it,” she said.

  Chapter 7

  I suppose he’d prefer to ride,” Varo said. “Everything’s easier from the back of a warbird.”

  “Should I help, do you think?” Maya said.

  “I doubt he’d appreciate it.”

  Tanax’s talent for stumbling into every patch of brambles and hanging vine in the forest bordered on the supernatural. At the moment, he’d managed both at once, flailing at the vine that had attached itself to his pack while stumbling deeper into the pricking bushes. His swearing was clearly audible above the rustle of branches.

  “If this were a comic opera,” Varo said, “about now a beehive would drop on his head.”

  Maya sniggered.

  “Mind you,” Varo went on, “a friend of mine died that way. Turned out he was allergic to beestings, and he swelled up like a balloon.”

  “That’s terrible,” Maya said.

  “Dunno. With his last words, he swore the honey was worth it.” Varo shrugged and started forward. “I’ll go and offer my services. Why don’t you check in with the rear of the column?”

  Maya trudged back through the woods, cresting a low ridge. She looked around for Beq and found her standing stock-still between two trees, frozen in an awkward position.

  “Um. Is something wrong?” Maya said.

  “Shhhh!” Beq hissed. “Stay there!”

  Maya’s hand dropped to her haken. “What’s going on?”

  Sweat dripped past Beq’s spectacles, pooling in a drop at the end of her nose. She was breathing in shallow gasps.

  “If I move,” she said, very quietly, “it’s going to bite me.”

  “What’s going to bite you?”

  “The snake!”

  “What—” Maya looked Beq up and down, spotted the bit of bright green, and let out a long breath. “Beq. That’s a well snake.”

  “I don’t care how good of a snake it is—”

  “As in the kind you find down wells,” Maya said patiently. She crossed the distance between them in a couple of strides and plucked the thing off Beq’s shoulder. She must have knocked it off a branch. The snake was about half a meter long, and its scales were the bright green of fresh leaves. Maya held it behind the head, and it coiled its length around her arm. “We found these all the time back on the farm. They’re harmless.”

  Beq, who’d flinched at Maya’s movement as though she expected imminent death, uncoiled slightly. “Really?”

  “Really.” Maya put the snake on the nearest tree branch. “I guarantee it was as terrified as you were.”

  “I doubt that,” Beq said. She heaved a sigh of relief, looking distrustfully at the snake as it wound rapidly away. “I thought it was going for my throat.”

  Maya grinned, and after a moment Beq grinned back at her, a broad, goofy smile that did strange things to Maya’s innards. Apparently oblivious to the effect she produced, Beq stretched and adjusted her heavy pack.

  “Well,” she said. “So much for my reputation as a bold hero.”

  “Heroes have to start somewhere,” Maya said as they started walking toward the others.

  “True.” Beq looked at her, a little shyly. “Thanks. Can you tell this is my first time out of the Forge?”

  “Um. A little.” Maya patted her shoulder. “You’re doing well, considering.”

  “You seem like you know your way around the woods.”

  “My mentor and I spent a lot of time traveling,” Maya said. “You get used to it.”

  “I hope so.” Beq shifted her pack again. “This thing is already killing me.”

  Maya had to admit that she was with Beq on that one. Jaedia had typically traveled with a cart for the heavy gear. Back at the quartermasters’, Maya had eyed the list Varo had come up with and thought it was a bit scanty; now every jounce of her pack made her wonder if she really needed spare underwear.

  They all had good cause to be grateful for the scout’s expertise. Maya might have more experience in the woods than Beq, but Jaedia had usually stuck to the roads, so she wasn’t much good at finding her way. Tanax was obviously no help, so they relied on Varo to lead, down the shallow-sided valley and over the occasional rocky outcrop. Like many Gates, the one they’d emerged from was in rough country, and the Order preferred not to call attention to their precise locations by constructing roads or trails. Sensible, but awkward.

  They lunched by a broad pool, aching legs and backs grateful for the rest, even if the hard-traveling food Varo had requisitioned was nothing much to look forward to. The water was delicious and tooth-achin
gly cold, at least, utterly refreshing after the heat of the morning. Beq ducked her whole head under and came up gasping, coiling her wet braid over one shoulder.

  “Had a friend who liked to do that,” Varo said. “One time there was a big river crocodile waiting for him. I swear that thing had followed us for kilometers.”

  Tanax snorted derisively, sitting in the shade of a boulder some distance from the rest of them.

  “He didn’t talk as much after losing his head,” Varo said, “but we all agreed it improved his temper.”

  “I think we’re a little far north for crocodiles,” Maya said, trying hard to ignore how the water that soaked Beq’s shirt made it cling in exciting ways. “But we should get moving.”

  They stood, with assorted curses and groans, and got back to walking. By the time the sun started to slide down toward the horizon, the land had flattened out some, the valley widening and the forest thinning out, which made for considerably easier going. Glacial boulders dotted the broadening plain, and Varo laid out their camp in the lee of one of them, constructing a fire pit from flat river stones. Maya stopped him as he started to gather twigs for kindling. She dragged a couple of larger dry branches over, laid a finger on her haken, and twisted out a fine thread of deiat until they ignited with a dull roar.

  “That’s handy,” he said, sitting down beside his pack. “I can think of a few times we could have used you. Once—”

  “If this story ends with someone freezing to death, I don’t need to hear it,” Beq said, dropping heavily to the packed earth.

  “Nobody freezes,” Varo said. Then, after a moment’s contemplation he added, “The polar bear got him first.”

  Beq caught Maya’s eye and heaved a sigh. Maya grinned at her.

  “We should keep a watch,” she said. “We’re not that far from the border, and I doubt the Legion sweeps here very often. There could be plaguespawn.”

  “No need.” Tanax dug a small unmetal-and-glass sphere out of his pack, about the size of a marble. Maya felt him thread a bit of deiat into it, and it started glowing.