Ashes of the Sun

by Django Wexler

  Even here there were plaguespawn, though fortunately they were all small, mad little things, like a dozen bats rolled into an awkward ball the size of a melon. Kit split one in half with her saber, and Gyre pinned another with his long knife and crushed it with his boot. They glanced at one another and continued on in silence. They’d barely spoken for hours.

  Beyond the bats, another long, twisting corridor turned down, running in a descending spiral like a giant corkscrew. Gyre gave Kit a questioning look, and she only shrugged. They followed it anyway, walking for at least an hour, as the temperature rose and Gyre’s ears popped.

  It finally ended in another natural-looking cave. Directly across from where they came in, another tunnel entrance gaped, descending into darkness. The center of the cavern, though, was broken by a ragged-edged crevasse, like the Pit in miniature. Gyre and Kit stood by the edge of it in silence. Kit kicked a stone in, and they listened to it rattle and ping as it descended, long after it had passed out of sight.

  “I take it you don’t remember this?” Gyre asked.

  Kit shook her head, eying the gap speculatively. “We have to backtrack.”

  “All the way up that ramp?”

  “Unless you have a bridge handy.”

  Gyre considered for a moment. “I may have… something. Give me a minute.”

  He shrugged off his pack and rooted around in it, opening the leather case at the bottom where he kept Lynnia’s alchemicals. There was a bottle of thick black sludge, a tiny thing only the size of the end of Gyre’s pinky. With some effort, he undid the stopper, and recoiled at the acrid smell.

  “Yuck,” Kit said.

  “Pretty sure she makes this by boiling lizards.” Gyre tried not to breathe as he tipped a fat drop of the black stuff into the center of his palm. Working quickly, he restoppered the bottle, stowed it, then pressed his hands together, spreading the black goo around. After a few moments, he tried pulling them apart, and found them stuck fast. “Perfect.”

  “You glued your hands together?” Kit said. “I’m overcome by your brilliance, Halfmask.”

  “Just watch.” Gently, he opened his palms, applying force from the side, and the black goo separated reluctantly. Both hands were covered in the stuff. “Scuttlerskin, she calls it. After the little lizards. Sticks hard in one direction but not the other.”

  “That’s strange,” Kit said. “How does it know which is which?”

  “Don’t ask me.” Gyre shrugged. “Tie that rope around my waist.”

  Kit retrieved the coil of alchemical line, light and strong, and expertly knotted one end around Gyre. She looked at the rest of it dubiously. “If you fall, I’m not heavy enough to hold you up.”

  “Hopefully that won’t be a problem.” Gyre backed up to the bottom of the ramp, careful to keep his hands from touching his clothes. “Here goes.”

  He’d been half hoping Kit would try to talk him out of it, but she only stepped out of the way, with a look that seemed almost admiring. Gyre focused on the opposite side of the crevasse and started to run. Halfway across the room, the pit loomed wider with every step, and his plan suddenly looked very bad indeed. By then it was too late, though, and there was nothing he could do but keep running and try not to miss the jump. He planted his boot on the lip of the rock and put everything he had into a horizontal leap, arms stretching ahead of him, reaching for the other side.

  For a moment, he thought he would make it. Then gravity caught up to him, and he was falling into the darkness.

  A second later, he impacted the opposite wall of the crevice, hard enough to take his breath away. His boots scrabbled at the rock, desperate for purchase, but his scuttlerskin-coated hands stuck fast. The sudden weight nearly jerked his shoulders out of their sockets, but it kept him clinging to the wall long enough to find a foothold with one toe. He hung there, chest aching where it had struck the wall, sharp pains shooting out from his shoulders. Why did I think this was a good idea?

  “You still alive?” Kit called from out of sight.

  “Ow,” Gyre called back.

  “Oh good.”

  He started to climb, slowly and carefully. Fortunately, he’d practiced with scuttlerskin a few times back in Deepfire. The trick was to be very aware of the direction of the weight on your hands. Straight backward, or toward the ground, and it was strong enough that you could hang from your fingertips. Pull sideways, and it gave way, with unpleasant consequences if you weren’t expecting it. Move carefully, though, and you could climb anything.

  The edge of the cliff seemed a very long way above. Gyre resolved not to look at it, and pulled himself up, hand over hand. Peel one palm away, lift himself on the one that was still stuck, attach the other, repeat. Sweat dripped into his eyes, and he fought the urge to scratch his scar. Bad enough to fall to my death without also having my hand glued to my face.

  Eventually, his groping palm found empty air, and he had a moment of panic before he managed to slap it down on the floor, past the top of the crevice. Another heave got him over the edge, and he rolled over, hands held out and away from his body. From the other side of the gap, he could hear Kit’s polite applause.

  “That,” she called over to him, “might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen someone try. And believe me when I say you’re up against some strong competition in that category.”

  “My arms are inclined to agree with you,” Gyre said.

  “And they call me Doomseeker.”

  “Can you get across the rope?”

  “Oh, sure. Just keep that end set.”

  Gyre took the slack rope, a long loop of which now hung in the pit, and stuck it in place by jamming his hand against the floor. Kit pulled the line taut, used another alchemical to stick her end in place, and gathered up both packs. She trotted lightly across, as easily as if it were a city sidewalk.

  “I really hope this is the right way,” Kit said. “It’d be a shame to waste a performance like that.”

  “There’s more scuttlerskin,” Gyre said. “You can try it next time.” He peeled his hand up, carefully, then looked speculatively at the pack. “You’d better do this. Find the little white bottle, would you? It’s the solvent that takes this stuff off.”

  Kit found what he needed and looked at it speculatively. “Seems like I should ask for a ransom.”

  “Kit…”

  “I mean, if I dropped this over the cliff by accident, you’d be in a tight spot, wouldn’t you?”

  He waved his hands in her direction. “Hand it over or I’m going to stick myself to you somewhere very inconvenient.”

  “Promises,” Kit said, laughing.

  Beyond the crevice, the tunnels changed again, in a way that made Gyre’s heart race.

  The farther they got, the more they looked… alive. Like the tunnel where they’d found the destabilizer, it seemed as though the four hundred years of decay that had afflicted every other ghoul ruin had never touched this place. The smooth but natural rock was replaced by something dingy green and slightly soft to the touch, with a warmth that made Gyre suspect it was insulation. Markings appeared, incomprehensible glyphs that were still sharp-edged and clear, as though they’d been painted days before.

  Eventually, circles of light became visible on the ceiling as they approached, flickering gently to life with a soft blue-white glow. It wasn’t bright, but it was enough to see by. Each time one of them came on, Gyre felt like it was escorting him along the path.

  The Tomb. This had to be it, just as Kit had promised. Not a ruin. A living ghoul city.

  Kit, by contrast, seemed to get jumpier the deeper they went. Each flicker of light made her twitch, and her hand was never far from the blaster at her side.

  “Something wrong?” Gyre said, when they reached yet another junction.

  “Shhh,” Kit said. “This isn’t right.”

  Gyre lowered his voice to a whisper. “What?”

  “This.” She gestured at the walls, the lights. “We’re getting close to
the Tomb.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “It’s not just a place you wander into! If this is the way in, then there’ll be—”

  Something hit the floor nearby with a heavy stone-on-stone thud.

  “Guards,” Kit finished. Her blaster pistol was already in her hand.

  A massive shape loomed in one of the adjoining corridors. Gyre recognized the humanoid outline of a ghoul construct, like those he’d seen escorting Elariel, though this one was larger and covered in a layer of stone armor. Gaps at the joints showed the rippling muscle underneath, like the body of a plaguespawn but refined and perfected. It paused for a moment, looking them over—though it had no eyes that Gyre could see, no features on its blank stone faceplate—then lumbered forward. For all its weight, it was shockingly fast.

  “Get its attention!” Gyre hissed, tossing his pack on the floor and yanking it open.

  “I think we have it already,” Kit growled. But she dropped her own pack and started running across the floor of the tunnel. When the construct didn’t follow, she skidded to a halt, took careful aim with her blaster, and fired.

  The crack of the bolt echoed painfully in the tight space, and Gyre had to put a hand over his dark-adapted eye. Instead of a detonation, though, the blast splashed harmlessly just before impact, shimmering energy briefly surrounding the construct. The thing turned toward Kit, and she encouraged it with another shot, which was similarly deflected. The floor shook as the construct started to run toward her, huge stone-armored fists at its sides.

  “Gyre,” Kit shouted, backing away. “Maybe hurry it up?”

  “Working on it,” Gyre muttered. He extracted the largest clay sphere from his satchel and spread liquid from another bottle across it. The stuff foamed on exposure to air, expanding into a ball of sticky goo. Pushing the rest of the alchemicals aside, Gyre ran after the creature. “Try to get it to hold still!”

  “How—” Kit jumped aside as one huge fist pistoned down, hitting the floor hard enough to send chips of stone flying. “—the fuck—” She ducked as the thing’s other hand whistled overhead. “—am I supposed to get it to hold still?!”

  “Just like that,” Gyre said. The construct had stopped running, concentrating on trying to hit the elusive target at its feet.

  Gyre went into a sprint—his legs reminded him that he had not been kind to them recently—and caught up to it from behind, planting the alchemical against the small of the construct’s back. The foam stuck it in place, and Gyre dodged around the thing’s feet as it spun, groping for him. He got past it and grabbed Kit, bowling her over and sending both of them to the ground in a painful roll across the stone. As soon as they came to a stop, Gyre jammed his hands against his ears, and Kit did the same.

  An instant later, the bomb went off with a noise like the end of the world. Gyre’s teeth slammed together hard enough to hurt, with every bone in his body vibrating in sympathy. A wave of boiling heat washed over them, mercifully brief, followed by a rain of small stones and a smothering curtain of dust.

  Kit was saying something, her mouth opening and closing in apparent silence. Gyre dropped his hands, and his ears popped. “What?”

  “I said, you were carrying that in your pack all this time?” Kit’s voice was audible as if from a great distance.

  “It was the biggest Lynnia had,” Gyre said. His own words sounded weirdly muted. “I thought we might run into something like this.”

  “Remind me to take cover next time you trip,” Kit said.

  She pulled herself out from under him and clambered to her feet. The corridor still boiled with dust, but where the construct had been standing there was now nothing but a shallow crater. Pieces of its stone carapace and shreds of organic debris littered the edges.

  “Wasn’t sure that was going to work,” Gyre said, flexing his jaw. His ears popped again. “Your blaster didn’t bother it.”

  “That’s different,” Kit said. She examined the detritus admiringly. “The ghouls have a sort of shield that absorbs deiat until it burns out. But plain old explosives apparently work just fine.” She turned back to him and held out a hand. “You all right?”

  “More or less.” She pulled him to his feet, and he winced. “Sorry for using you as bait.”

  “Eh.” She waved a hand dismissively. “I’m used to it.”

  “So now what?”

  “Keep heading down.” Kit picked her way around the edge of the crater and scooped up her pack. “And hope that—”

  She stopped, and Gyre nearly cannoned into her.

  “Hope that what?” he said.

  “How many more of those bombs have you got?” Kit said. “Just for information’s sake.”

  “None,” Gyre said. “That was all Lynnia had on hand. I’ve got some smaller crackers, but—”

  “Then,” Kit interrupted, “I think it’s time to run.”

  Gyre looked down. His numbed ears couldn’t hear much, but he felt a buzz through the soles of his feet. On the floor, tiny pebbles rattled and jumped to the echoing tread of many oncoming footsteps.

  They ran, down into the dark.

  To this point, Gyre had been doing his best to keep track of the route in his mind, so that they could backtrack at least a little ways if they ran into a dead end. Now any hope of that was abandoned. He sprinted down one curving corridor after another, Kit just behind him. When he came to a branching, he chose whichever tunnel wasn’t already thick with the rumbling tread of constructs.

  “They’re herding us,” Kit gasped out between breaths.

  Gyre nodded, too winded to speak. Not that there’s anything we can do about it.

  A stitch stabbed in his side like a dagger, and his pack dragged at his shoulders. Light-patches blinked on ahead of them and went out once they’d passed, corridor after corridor, the endless web of tunnels stretching down and down. His knees screamed with every step.

  They came to a four-way junction, a pool of light with darkness all around. Ahead and to the right, distant shapes moved, and footsteps were still closing in from behind.

  Left it is, then. Gyre ran down another curving corridor and skidded to a halt in a small circular room. A light-patch on the ceiling flickered on, revealing no other exits. Except—

  There was an opening on the rear wall. Not a passageway, just a hole in the rock, barely big enough for Gyre to crawl through. It was lined, not with stone, but with something soft and wet that glistened in the faint light. It looked distressingly alive, and as he watched, the edges of the aperture contracted in a fit of peristaltic motion, the wave running down the narrow chute and out of sight.

  “Yuck,” Kit said.

  “No idea what that is?” Gyre said. They approached the strange opening, the pounding of footsteps behind getting louder.

  “Nothing I saw the last time I was here,” Kit said. “On the other hand, I was unconscious when they brought me into the city.”

  “You think this might be an entrance?” Gyre said. “It looks like…” Words failed him.

  “It looks like the inside of someone’s throat, after you cut their head off,” Kit said.

  “Thank you for that image,” Gyre muttered. “So what are the odds it leads to a stomach?”

  Two constructs appeared in the doorway. They looked more dangerous than the one Gyre had destroyed, their carapaces spiked and gleaming with sharp metal tines.

  “Does it really matter?” Kit said. She took a deep breath.

  “You’re not seriously—” Gyre began.

  But she was. She hurled herself forward, arms outstretched. In an instant she was gone, carried down the slimy passage on a wave of muscular contraction. Gyre could have sworn he heard her shouting excitedly, like a child on a slide.

  “So many bad ideas today,” Gyre muttered, and followed.

  Chapter 18

  They let Maya sleep in her own room, which she hadn’t expected.

  She wasn’t free, by any means. She didn’t have her haken back,
and two Legionaries waited just outside the door. But challenging the centarchate apparently afforded her a bit of formal status, at least until the challenge was resolved.

  Practically the moment she’d left the Council chamber, she’d felt the adrenaline draining out of her, replaced with wobbly-legged fatigue. By the time she got to her own chamber, it was all she could do to collapse into bed. But sleep eluded her for some time, as the day’s events replayed themselves in her mind. Eventually, she must have passed out, because when she sat bolt upright, heart pounding, the gradual dimming of the Forge’s sunlamps told her it was early evening.

  Maya put her hand on the Thing and made herself breathe, feeling the muscles in her chest work, the blood rushing through her veins. Jaedia had tried to teach her to clear her mind, to focus on the rhythms of her body as a way of maintaining her calm. It was not something Maya had ever been very good at.

  Jaedia. I’m coming. She felt better now that her feet were planted on a new path. It might be treacherous, but it was a way forward. All I have to do is keep moving.

  Here and now, that meant beating Tanax in the dueling ring.

  When her pulse no longer roared in her ears, she got up and went to the door. Two blank-masked Legionaries waited outside, and Maya asked if she could have some dinner. One of them nodded and went to summon a servant. The food, when it arrived, was plentiful, roast chicken and thick soup and some of the doughy dumplings Marn liked so much.

  Marn! A stab of guilt went through her. I never even asked what happened to Marn. As far as she knew, he’d gone with Jaedia on her mission. Which still doesn’t make sense. Had he made it home, or… Jaedia couldn’t have killed him. Not her own agathios. She shook her head, swallowing hard. Chosen defend, none of this makes any sense. I hope he’s all right.