by D. P. Prior
“You keep telling yourself that, Fargin,” Dougan said. “But you don’t get them spuds ready for Rollingfield’s dinner, the only appearance you’ll be keeping up is that of a bloated water-corpse, got it?”
“Yeah, right.”
Chef grabbed a hefty iron pan, and Buck instinctively threw his hands up.
“All right, I got it. I got it. Shog’s sake, don’t get no respect in this dump. Just you wait an’ see,” he mumbled. “Buck Fargin’s going places; then you’ll learn to treat me right.” He picked up a potato and pressed the blade to it. “Shog!” he yelled, putting his finger to his mouth and sucking on it. “Bleedin’ cut myself!”
ARX GRAVIS
“Nous has shown us the way,” Dave said. He spread his arms to encompass the length and breadth of the ravine that split the earth like a jagged wound. “Faith has led us here, I tell you. Faith and the will of Ain.”
Shader came alongside Rhiannon at the edge of the drop. Her robe was soiled from two days’ hard trek across terrain as barren as any you’d find in Sahul. The skin of her face was raw from exposure to the twin suns, and her mood seemed rawer still. She acknowledged him with a roll of her eyes, which Shader took to be meant for Dave.
Shadrak slid up on his other side, cloaked and hooded against the heat, pinkish eyes calculating, scanning the depths.
The sheer walls of the crevasse dropped away into a bottomless abyss, which made Shader reel with vertigo. The albino steadied him with a pallid hand.
“Your faith’s so strong,” Shadrak said to Dave, “why don’t I just throw you in, see if you can fly?”
The hunchback scowled but then lifted his face to the heavens in rapture. “I have such faith. Should I step from the edge, Nous would send his angels to hold me aloft. What of you?” He glared at Shadrak and then swiveled his gaze to Shader. “Is your faith that strong, Keeper of the Sword of the Archon?”
Shader bristled at the implied accusation. It was starting to wear a bit thin, Dave’s relentless condemnation. For the Voice of Nous, he certainly didn’t seem to place much stock in forgiveness. Or the grace of silence, for that matter. He put a hand on Shadrak’s shoulder and stared into the ravine. Nothing. Just a yawning gash of blackness. He braved the edge as long as he dared and then stepped back.
“Just as I thought,” Dave said.
“Shut the shog up,” Rhiannon said. “Never thought I’d say it, but I’m starting to see eye to eye with the midget.”
Shader’s heart felt like it had filled with ballast as the hunchback stepped out over the brink and placed his foot on thin air. At least that’s what it looked like, until he blinked and refocused. Dave was standing upon a narrow ledge that sloped gently downward. It vanished with the slightest movement of the eyes, making it seem he was gliding as he started to descend without concern.
“After you,” Rhiannon said, licking her lips and swaying slightly—unless that was Shader’s vision.
“No, no. You go—”
“For shog’s sake,” Shadrak said. “Let’s just get on with it, shall we?”
Shader touched his forehead and then curled his fingers around the prayer cord hanging from his belt.
“You all right?” Rhiannon asked, shifting the black sword to a more comfortable position on her back.
“Fine.” Shader tested the ledge with the tip of his boot.
“Want me to go first?”
“Said I’m fine.” He stepped down onto the path, grimacing against the wave of dizziness that roiled up from his guts. He clutched a protruding knob of rock, first with one hand, then with both.
“What’s the hold up?” Shadrak said.
“Shut it, stumpy.” Rhiannon was right behind Shader, and she gripped his arm reassuringly.
Dave was twenty yards ahead, where the path ended abruptly. He jumped down to the level below.
Shader held on tight to the wall and craned his neck to see. The path made a zigzagging descent, each level a steep decline that ended in a drop to the top of the section below. His head started to swim, and the beckoning abyss ballooned up at him. He flung himself back against the rock face, heart thudding in his ears.
“Don’t look—” Rhiannon started.
“I know,” Shader said through a mouthful of bile. “Not planning on doing it again.”
A slender rope snaked down past Shader’s shoulder. He glanced up to see Shadrak lower himself over the edge, rope wrapped around his body and trailing beneath his feet. It was impossible to see what he’d anchored it to above, but it held good when he kicked himself away from the wall and paid out the rope through gloved hands. Within moments, he’d rappelled past Dave and dropped from the end of the rope to the next level. Shader wanted to call out to him, tell him to wait, but if he’d opened his mouth, he’d have vomited. With a swift glance up at them, Shadrak swirled his cloak about him and was swallowed by the darkness.
“Perhaps you should—” Rhiannon said, indicating the rope.
“No.” Shader sidestepped along the ledge, back flat against the wall. “Definitely not.”
Scarcely daring to breathe, he inched his way to the end of the first level and froze. It was only a drop of a few feet, but it may as well have been a hundred. He imagined himself missing the path below and plunging for an eternity before splattering on the floor of the ravine.
Dave was looking up at him, arms folded across his chest. “If you had faith the size of a grain of sand, you could do this.” He turned to face the chasm and leapt.
Shader gasped.
Dave hung in midair, twirling, as if suspended on a string. He threw his arms wide, raised his face to the sky, and lay back. “Do not turn from Nous, and he will give you great power. Great power.”
Shader’s fingers fell to the pommel of his gladius, drew warmth from it. He felt the ice of his fear melting away and leaned out over the edge just enough to watch Dave cartwheeling down a few more levels.
“Deacon?” Rhiannon pressed close to his side, the warmth of her body eclipsing that of the Archon’s sword. “Is that… is that the work of Nous? Soror Agna said—”
“If that’s what Nous can do for you, then I must be sorely lacking in faith.”
Steeling himself, he turned to the end of the ledge and jumped. He landed lightly in a crouch, straightened up and offered his arms to Rhiannon, but she waved him away and made the drop by herself. After that, it grew easier, and Shader picked up his pace, descending one slanting platform, jumping, and continuing down the opposing diagonal, deeper and deeper into the ravine. Dave nodded his approval and continued up ahead, but there was no sign of Shadrak.
Flecks of green sparkled from the deep like emerald stars. As they drew nearer, Shader saw there were veins of malachite in the walls, which had grown as black as coal. Even with his newfound confidence, he doubted he could have continued without the unearthly light. He looked back to see Rhiannon scraping her feet along the path with great care. Her robe picked up the phosphorescence, giving her the appearance of a sickly ghost. She forced a smile as she reached his side, but her eyes were searching the levels below.
“Where’s the creep?”
“Which one?” Shader said, eyeing Dave, who was once more waiting on a ledge, glaring up at them.
“You know, the little shogger with the pink eyes and the sunny complexion. The poison dwarf.”
Shader chuckled, in spite of himself. “Living up to his reputation. Doubt we’ll see him unless he wants us to.”
“Yeah, right after he sticks another knife in your back.”
Shader winced at the recollected pain. The thought had crossed his mind, too, but it made no sense. “Why come all this way, then? Why bring us here? Did you see what he did atop the Homestead? Almost took out Sektis Gandaw.” Which was a damned sight more than Shader had done.
“Self-preservation,” Rhiannon said. “If Gandaw wins, we all go.”
“I don’t know,” Shader said. “There’s something about him. Something—”
“Trea
cherous? It’s there, plain as day. Don’t trust him, Deacon. I’ll watch your back, but what if he stabs you in the front next time, as a mate?”
They continued downward in silence, Dave leading them as if the dark paces beneath the earth were his home. Enormous bearded faces began to line their way, carved out of the black rock. Chiseled crowns sat atop their heads, each engraved with flowing script.
“Is that Aeternam?” Rhiannon asked. “The Templum’s reach must be longer than I thought.” She gave a nervous laugh and clutched her elbows. Her eyes were wide, the pupils inky pits drinking in the scant light.
“Aeternam’s been around a lot longer than the Templum,” Shader said, recalling what Ludo had taught him. But that didn’t change the fact that it was odd seeing it here, all the way on distant Aethir, wherever that actually was.
A network of crisscrossing walkways loomed up from the depths, spanning the chasm like a spider’s web. Where each walkway touched the walls, it ended in a stone door. Beneath the web, a vast edifice of jutting spires, fluted columns, arches, and crenellated towers began to appear in the gloamy light given off by the malachite. It was a citadel, built upon untold levels that dropped away without end.
Dave was waiting for them on a broad avenue that led out above the city, where it met a dozen other walkways at a central hub comprised of granite arches, one for each path. He glared at them, eyes bright with frenzy. “Come. We must hurry. The dwarves are slow in discerning, and we have already wasted much time getting here.”
He turned and headed toward the junction, moving so fast, despite his lurching gait, that Shader had to jog to keep up with him. Rhiannon cursed, bringing up the rear. Dave approached the hub without slowing. It was unnerving how well he knew where he was going. If this were faith, it was like nothing Shader had experienced.
The instant the hunchback passed through their walkway’s arch, brilliant red light flooded the avenue. Shader blinked and shielded his eyes in time to see lumps of rock detaching themselves from the ravine walls beside each of the doors. Blurry gray shapes stomped out onto the crisscrossing avenues and swarmed toward the center. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw that they were not rocks, but people, short and thickset, just like Maldark. They carried weapons—axes, spears, swords, and crossbows, and they were armored in heavy scales that looked to be made of slate. Thick beards smothered gnomic faces, hanging to waist level or below, and close-set pebbly eyes glinted from beneath outcropping brows.
Shader glanced behind, where more dwarves flowed toward them, as if the stone of the walkway itself were morphing. There must have been a dozen approaching from the rear, armed to the teeth and grim as death. Hard eyes glared at him, eyes as merciless as the rock that spawned them, but when they were within arm’s reach, the dwarves stopped.
Shader turned a slow circle. Easily more than a hundred of the gray figures surrounded the central hub. Rhiannon’s hand went to the hilt of the sword on her back, but Shader took hold of her wrist.
“Wait,” he whispered.
She wrinkled her nose at that and snatched her arm away, but she made no further moves.
There was no give in those hard faces. Perhaps on normal ground, Shader could have taken a few of them, but on a walkway above a bottomless drop, he doubted he’d last more than a heartbeat.
The grinding of stone and the squeal of hinges drew his attention. One of the doors swung open, and through it processed a column of white-robed dwarves. An ancient graybeard led the way, hitching his robe as he walked. He wore tattered sandals and woolen socks with holes in them. Shader counted twelve in all, tight-lipped and solemn-looking, all very much focused on the light spilling from the arch, and on Dave, who was wreathed in crimson flames, but appeared not to have noticed.
The ancient dwarf worked his mouth thoughtfully and said, “Well, I don’t know… I mean, what do you suppose—?”
“Deception!” snapped a surly-looking dwarf behind him. “The alarm does not lie.”
A ripple passed through the white-robes as they conferred.
“But it’s never been tested,” someone said.
“How many Abyssal demons have you welcomed into Arx Gravis, Councilor Garnil?” Surly said. “And you, Councilor Moary?”
“Well, I’m not sure… I mean to say… What if…?” Graybeard said.
“The philosopher warned us,” Surly said. “Warned us the day would come. Kill them, I say. Let’s be done with it.”
Graybeard’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Now, Councilor Grago, that’s a bit hasty, don’t you think?”
Clearly, he didn’t, the way his gaze swept the surrounding soldiers, gauging their readiness.
Rhiannon leaned in close to Shader. “You might have turned into a pansy, but I’m not going down without a fight.”
Shader’s hand curled around the hilt of the gladius, accepted its calming warmth. His eyes roved about, looking for Shadrak.
“Don’t bother,” Rhiannon said. “Probably halfway back to the swamp by now.”
A white-robe made his way to the front of the group. Bald patches were spattered about his scalp and beard, as if someone had yanked out handfuls of hair. He pressed a finger to his lips, commanding the attention of the other white-robes effortlessly. He closed one eye, studying Dave with the other. “That one, I’ll grant you, does seem a tad malefic, Grago, but I’d say you’re doing the others a disservice.”
“Malefic,” Rhiannon said to Shader. “I like that. Shame old stumpy buggered off. I’d love to hear what they call him.”
Dave whirled on her, red flames licking at his skin. Shader felt a wave of nausea wash through his guts. The hunchback’s face was writhing, in a state of constant flux—lengthening, shortening, broadening, narrowing.
“See,” the one called Grago cried. “It works! The beast reveals itself.”
Hair sprouted from Dave’s chin then retracted. His nose went from hooked to straight, to bulbous, then stubby. His eyes were smoldering like burning coals, and when he opened his mouth, it was lined with jagged teeth, and a forked tongue flicked out.
“Save me.” Dave’s voice was a parched croak. He advanced on Shader in tortured, lumbering steps. “Pray to Nous for my deliverance. They have cursed me. Have you no faith?”
Shader reeled. He stared uncomprehendingly at the warping hunchback, but it was the words that paralyzed him. Not their content, but something more visceral. They were enfleshed, tangible, ripping into his mind with the force of barbed arrows.
Rhiannon backed into him as she drew the black sword, trying to get away from whatever Dave was becoming, but there was nowhere to go.
Dave’s arms cracked and lengthened; his feet burst free of his sandals, lengthening into talons, and his sackcloth tunic burnt away, the flesh beneath bubbling with tar that cooled into necrotic scales. “She has… killed your… faith!”
The words punctured Shader’s galloping heart, made him stagger, and then Dave sprang at Rhiannon, claws like sickles slashing at her throat.
The black sword came up to deflect them, but tentacles snaked from the demon’s back and wrapped around her arms and legs. Rhiannon gasped, the veins on her neck popping out as she fought for breath.
Killed… faith… Killed… faith. Sweat dripped from beneath Shader’s hat, trickled down his nose, seeped across his vision. In sudden shock, he wiped his eyes and stared at the red staining his fingers. Killed… faith. She had done it, yes. She was the one who’d kept him from Nous. He tried to pull the gladius free from its scabbard, but it was stuck—as if it refused him. He was about to give up, batter her with his fists, when there was a succession of hisses and thuds, and the demon’s body was peppered with quarrels.
The tentacles whipped clear of Rhiannon, and she stumbled back. Dave snarled and thrashed about, but the dwarves kept a safe distance, reloaded, and fired again. Dave recoiled this way and that, turned on the white-robes and prepared to spring.
“You don’t touch me, shogger!” Rhiannon
screamed. “No one does!” Before her words had settled, she stepped in and clove him in two with the black sword. Each half of the demon slid away to the side, still writhing, still gibbering. Both halves of the face cackled and drooled, and then fleshy tendrils lashed one to the other and drew them together. All the way down the demon’s body, the mortal wound was knitting itself closed. A gasp went up from the dwarves, and armored troops took up defensive positions in front of the white-robes.
Dave laughed and turned his hellish eyes on Rhiannon as he started to sit up. “Stupid whore,” he said. “You are damned, and you don’t even know it. You think to slay me with a brother of the Abyss?”
Rhiannon flung Callixus’s sword from her, hands shaking, lips trembling.
The scales fell from Shader’s eyes, and certainty flooded him as he gripped the gladius. This time, it leapt from the scabbard. “I abjure you, Father of Lies!” he yelled, and flung the sword with all his might.
Dave screamed and jerked backward, the pommel jutting from his gaping mouth, the blade exiting the back of his head in a spray of putrid gore. His demonic frame shook and shuddered then was consumed in a burst of golden radiance.
When Shader stooped to pick up the gladius, it was as if Dave had never been there.
A hushed silence had fallen over the dwarves. The only sound was the slap of Rhiannon’s sandals as she approached the black sword. She drew her foot back to kick it from the walkway but then went rigid. She craned her neck, as if listening to something, screwed her face up tight, and then sucked in a sharp breath between her teeth. She glanced at Shader like a frightened child, eyes moist and ringed with darkness. Finally, she picked up the sword and returned it to its scabbard on her back.
“What happened to you?” Rhiannon asked, narrowing her eyes, lips curling into a sneer.
Shader bowed his head in shame. “It was the words… What he said.”
“He was a shogging demon, for Ain’s sake. What do you expect?”
Shader sighed and shuddered. “The Demiurgos always traps us with truth.” They weren’t his words, they were Ludo’s. How many times had he heard them and not understood? He’d come so close. So close to doing the enemy’s work for him. If it hadn’t been for the gladius being jammed in its scabbard…