Szodrin ran for the gate.
Ruthven sprang after him. He ripped at his prey with wicked claws that burst from his mangled hands.
The commander turned with sword in hand. He struck several times, but his foe’s doughy flesh closed as soon as a wound was made. One claw batted the blade aside while the other lashed at Szodrin’s head. The commander ducked right, and a blow meant for his eyes clipped his ear. The next strike slid past Szodrin’s blade to tear his arm and puncture the soft flesh below his armpit.
Szodrin clutched his throbbing arm and lunged backward. He saw that fighting would only bring him death.
With Ruthven bearing down on him, Szodrin lowered his blade. “Enough! I submit!”
The twisted captain regained his blank expression, but his eyes kept their ravenous glare. His murderous advance did not slow.
“Let me join you,” Szodrin said.
Ruthven halted but kept his bloody claws raised.
“Ilmin abandoned me,” Szodrin continued. “Why take my life when you could have my loyalty?”
“You will help us?” Ruthven asked.
“As much as I can.”
Ruthven stood still, his waxen face betraying nothing of his thoughts. At last, he jabbed a hooked claw at Szodrin. “Go,” he ordered, gesturing toward the gate.
Fighting a wave of fear, Szodrin turned and marched down the corridor. His twisted foe followed close behind.
As they neared the end, the commander pondered the Kerioth’s fate. Her captain had clearly broken faith with the fleet, but why? Had there been a mutiny? Perhaps, but Ruthven’s sorry state suggested something worse. Shaiel’s minions weren’t above such depravity, but they favored methods more brutal and less creative.
The hallway opened onto a small chamber covered with industrial-looking equipment. Three white ceramic steps rose to a small platform at the room’s center.
Szodrin faced his captor. “What now?”
Ruthven approached a console at the foot of the steps. A slim card of clear crystal jutted from a slot amid the controls. The captain clutched the card in his talons, removed it, and slid it back into place. Szodrin squinted as a scintillating orb burst into being on the dais, expanding to fill the topmost tier.
Ruthven left the console and prodded Szodrin toward the sphere. The commander did as he was ordered, marveling at the gate’s resemblance to a nexic translator’s light. Any similarity was superficial. The Guild’s denial of nexism made the gate a product of Workings.
Szodrin stepped through the light and onto another, far larger platform. He hardly noticed his impossibly vast surroundings before he bolted back through the gate, passing Ruthven in a mad dash for the console. A shrill cry sounded from the platform as Szodrin tore the card from its slot. Ruthven’s claws sank into Szodrin’s chest, and both men fell.
Lying in a warm pool of blood, the commander pushed his foe away and found the effort surprisingly easy. He rose and stared at Ruthven’s upper torso—severed just below the shoulders when the gate closed. Tumors and cartilaginous growths riddled the body cavity.
Szodrin wasted no time savoring his victory. He didn’t know what had corrupted Ruthven, but it knew about the boy. He jammed the card back into its slot and plunged through the gate.
Damus slid down the bluff’s windward slope and found himself standing before ruins that resembled the charred bones of giants. Debris choked the wide streets, testifying that the towers had once stood even taller. Windows stared from crumbling walls like empty eye sockets.
The city’s dead, he thought. Rotting like an unmourned tomb.
It was hard to imagine that ten million people had once lived here. Each of the empty buildings had housed hundreds of them, till the day when fire fell from the sky.
Damus felt the approach of melancholy and its ugly sister despair. It might’ve been the trauma of Nahel’s death. Or the Tower Graves really were cursed. The pervasive smell of old cinders didn’t help.
“Where are you?” Damus asked his absent and sole surviving friend. It was a vain gesture. He might wander the city till he died without finding Xander. Nahel didn’t consider my vastly inferior tracking prowess before dying. That’s just like him.
Wind gusted from the northwest, concentrated by the artificial canyons. It carried a scent that Damus knew all too well from Avalon’s war with the baals—the stench of burned corpses.
Fitting ambience for this venue.
Fitting, but somehow wrong. The fire was decades gone, and the last of Ostrith’s residents with it. Yet the musky tang on the air seemed more indicative of a pyre only weeks; not years, old. Even curioser were the faint floral undertones. Like roses thrown on a blacksmith’s forge.
“Perhaps Ostrith’s not as dead as it seems,” Damus thought aloud. He recalled Nahel saying that Xander’s scent was obscured by a smell that seemed out of place. In that burned out husk of a city, a rose’s perfume fit the bill nicely.
A memory came to Damus’ mind. His fight with the Isnashi had blurred his memory of the place, but hadn’t a ghostly floral scent lingered within the cell in the cliff? Not only that; there’d been hints of metal and leather heated almost to the point of burning.
The Gen’s resolve wavered, but his own rebuke to Nahel echoed in his thoughts. What if it has him?
Damus climbed onto the rubble-filled street. I’ve got too many unanswered questions to quit now, he thought as he trudged into the wind.
15
Xander found Astlin’s claims of poverty baffling, but she was right about dinner. To him meal time meant baking bread over a campfire and slaughtering chickens—or a calf on festival days. By contrast, the substance she called “lamb and barley stew” only imitated real food’s taste and aroma, much as his father’s etchings were pale ghosts of living cities like Salorien.
Xander pushed his chair back from the small kitchen table. “I am honored to have broken bread with you.”
Nadia giggled when he patted his full belly. Astlin frowned at her, and the younger girl covered her mouth.
“Don’t mention it,” said Astlin. “Thanks for seeing us home.”
Xander stood. Habit almost made him reach for his spear before he recalled losing it.
In the pranaphage’s lair. An echo of the dread he’d felt under Teran Nazim returned to haunt him.
Astlin didn’t hide the concern in her voice. “Are you okay?”
“I am better,” he said—unconvincingly, to judge by Astlin’s expression. “It’s time for me to leave.”
Astlin rose and stood in his path. “Wait,” she said with something like fear. “I mean, it’s after dark.” She glanced over her shoulder at the living room window, which now resembled an obsidian sheet filtering the glow of bleary city lights.
Though her plea tempted him more strongly than he’d have thought, tradition pressed its claim on Xander’s heart. “It is improper for me to stay. I’ve faced worse than street crime.”
Astlin stepped aside, but she rested a hand on her little sister’s shoulder. “You can fend for yourself. I’m not so sure about us.”
The acute awareness dawned on Xander of two girls huddled against the night in their absent family’s dwelling. Unbearable loneliness washed over him, leaving shame in its wake. He almost recanted then, but for a single nagging doubt. We are hardly more than strangers. Why would she have me stay? His hands felt the firm swell of his stomach again. She can’t wish that I share her bed.
“I’ll sleep with Nadia tonight,” Astlin said, as if answering his silent objection.
Xander glanced at the couch. “As long as we have separate rooms…”
“You can have my bed.” The corners of Astlin’s lips hinted at her smile’s return. “But only after you wash all that dust and dried muck off.”
Lying snug in Astlin’s room; wearing her father’s cotton shirt and shorts, Xander had to admit that his misgivings had been unfounded. His belly was full despite his offended palate, and he lay in a warm bed in
stead of shivering on the hard ground.
To say nothing of the precious indulgence of a bath!
Meeting Astlin was a godsend. Her kindness cast doubt on his father’s judgment of city dwellers as heartless scavengers.
Xander thought of his friends. Were they braving the dark streets of Salorien, or had the gate sent them elsewhere? Wrapped in spicy-sweet scented blankets, he felt stirrings of guilt.
Something bright stabbed Xander’s eyes—two blue points glowing in the dark. He had the odd notion that they were eyes. But his vision cleared, and he saw a pair of stars shining through a break in the clouds outside the window.
Xander gazed at the sky and wondered which of the lights was his own sun. On Mithgar, all one could see of Keth was a bright red star; not a living sphere. But looks could deceive.
This place is strange, but not wholly wanting for hospitality. Perhaps Mithgar’s people could take refuge here.
The clouds hid the heavens again, leaving Xander with a partial view of Salorien’s skyline. He’d feared that the city’s noise would disturb his rest. Instead, the hum of distant voices and machinery joined in chorus, lulling him to sleep.
Szodrin descended the dais and closed the gate. A thin layer of dust coated the console, except for the main screen.
Someone was here recently.
The readout displayed a transit log. The last operator had probably learned little. Every field was blank, including the current location. Still, Szodrin had no doubt that the perversely grand space around him was a Guild house.
Szodrin seated himself on the steps and tended his wounds. His tan jacket’s right side was stained red-brown, and he winced as his black shirt peeled away from the gash under his arm. A field dressing would help, but infection could still avenge Ruthven.
Szodrin did what he could for the wound. Except for the gate, the Guild hall was sealed off from the ether, so he walked the half mile to the exit.
This was the Guild’s fortress. Now it’s their empty tomb.
The doors gave on a vast dark pavement reeking of ruin.
Ostrith.
The Night Gen stepped through the door and into a nexic rogue wave. At first he suspected a ship—the lost Kerioth or his own Ashlam. But a nexus-runner gave off a steady hum. This pulse was erratic. It seemed to crest somewhere amid the distant towers.
What could wield nexism like that? Szodrin guessed that a higher order being like a demon would be powerful enough. His stomach lurched at the thought of Hazeroth lurking nearby. He took comfort in knowing that if Shaiel had summoned his Blade to official business, Hazeroth was probably at the Irminsul.
Consolation became unease when Szodrin realized that if Shaiel’s Blade was miles away in the north, then something unknown yet possibly as dangerous was loose in Ostrith.
Szodrin knew where the mark would lead before he saw Xander’s cord cutting through the ethereal skyline. He willed himself across the square and sprinted into the ruins toward the source of the waves.
Xander rose at dawn to find the house empty. A note on the kitchen table preempted his questions.
Walked Nadia to school before work. Back by four.
Make yourself at home.
—Astlin
Though he’d woken intent on finding his friends, hunger delayed Xander’s search. Checking the cupboards turned up a box of cold cereal. The crunchy flakes proved far preferable to the previous night’s meal. Their sweetness exceeded anything he’d ever tasted, so he limited himself to one helping for fear of Kethan softness.
Xander set his bowl in the steel wash basin and strode toward the apartment’s front door. On his way through the living room, something struck him as odd. He scanned the row of portraits and saw that Neriad’s image was missing. He was debating whether to leave Astlin a note about it when another sight caught his eye. Pre-Cataclysm books commanded outrageous sums on Mithgar, yet dozens of volumes lined a nearby shelf.
Xander skimmed the titles. Several had lurid covers that made him feel flushed. These he quickly re-shelved in favor of a well-thumbed volume on Ebrim Arkwright. Astlin’s name, spelled with childish block letters, adorned the inside cover. Before he realized it, he’d reclined on the couch to read.
Ebrim Kirth is rightly hailed as Mithgar’s favorite son, but his last known descendants lived on Keth. The heated dispute between Kirth’s heirs and Mithgar’s merchant houses over rights to the Wheel led to the Guild’s founding.
The feeling of being watched made Xander drop the book. Nahel stood over him, his throat a bloody ruin. The malakh didn’t speak, but his amber eyes held sorrow beyond words.
Xander leapt to his feet. “What happened!? Who did this to you?”
“It’s alright. Calm down.”
Astlin knelt beside Xander, who still lay on the couch. Holding his clenched fist with one hand, she caressed his face with the other. Her expression held deep concern.
With an effort, Xander broke eye contact with Astlin. Looking past her to where Nahel had stood, he saw no one.
“Where did he go?”
“It’s just me,” she said. “I heard you cry out from the stairs. You were lying there thrashing when I came in.”
“I had a nightmare?” Xander relaxed his arm. “I am sorry I frightened you.”
“Don’t be.” Astlin folded his hand against his chest. “You’ve been through so much.”
Xander sat up and scrubbed a hand through the stubble on his scalp. “I meant to search for my friends. I must have dozed off.”
Astlin seated herself beside him. “Something’s troubling you. Tell me.”
Such improper nearness should have mortified Xander. Instead he felt comfort unknown since early childhood. “Why are you being so kind?”
“Are most people unkind to you?”
“I am shunned by my own clan. You don’t even know me.”
“I know you’re brave and loyal and gentle.” Moisture rimmed Astlin’s eyes, making them seem to glow.
A deep, nameless urge moved Xander to deny such praise. “I have killed before—betrayed those dear to me. Don’t delude yourself.”
A wounded look froze on Astlin’s face. She stood and hurried across the room.
Bolting to his feet, Xander called after her. “Please wait. I only wish to protect you.”
Astlin paused but didn’t look back. “I’m sorry.” She retreated to her room and slammed the door.
The boy’s silver cord had vanished among nexic waves that flashed like lightning. Szodrin wended through a maze of blackened spires, brooding over the pervasive charred stench. A fallen tower blocked the road ahead, diverting him down an alley that ended at a steep rubble mound. Szodrin ascended the loose slope. He reached the top, and something large tackled him.
Szodrin lay face down in the rubble, pinned under an oppressive weight. Hot, moist air beat down on his neck.
“Enough,” a harsh voice said in the Night Gen dialect. “You know our brother’s scent.”
The great hairy weight removed itself from Szodrin’s back, and he gulped a breath of air. A firm hand gripped his arm and hauled him to his feet.
“You’re not hurt,” the guttural voice said. “If we’d meant you harm, you would see Shaiel; not me.”
What Szodrin saw was a Gen in filthy leathers. His dark hair was a web of braids twined with iron; his studded face ashen but for the three red gashes across his right eye.
Savages, Szodrin thought. What are they doing here?
The Isnashi looked Szodrin over and frowned, tugging on the bloodstained uniform. “You return from battle.”
“Yes,” Szodrin said. “My foe did not.”
“We saw battle as well.” The savage pointed behind Szodrin, who turned to see a hulking grey shape with one taloned hand. The other arm ended in a raw stump.
“Why have you come here?” the Isnashi asked.
“I was about to ask the same question,” said Szodrin.
The Isnashi drew uncomfortably close. He r
eeked of sweat and sour milk. “We chase a mighty prey for Shaiel’s Blade. A ship was due to meet us.”
“That’s why I came,” Szodrin lied. “The Kerioth mutinied.”
Both Isnashi closed in. A third wolf that Szodrin hadn’t seen loped toward him.
“They turned apostate?” Their leader spat through pierced lips. “What madness took them?”
“Anything you can report may help me find answers.”
“We met a Light Gen and his dog.” The savage smiled, showing straight white teeth. “We killed the dog.”
“Good work,” Szodrin said. “Are there any others?”
“Only the rest of our pack, and the one we hunt. Its scent is sweetness and metal and fire.”
“Is it human?”
“Sometimes.”
“Show me.”
The savage pointed toward the beacon that he couldn’t have seen. “It’s good that you came. Where’s your ship?”
“I’ll send for it right now.” Szodrin couldn’t see the nearest tower’s top, but he deemed translation worth the risk. He willed himself onto the building’s roof and emerged about twelve feet too high. His shock abated in time for a hard landing absorbed by bent knees and a roll across ash-blanketed concrete.
Szodrin ignored the howling savages far below. He rose and looked north to where the nexic beacon was shedding its invisible light.
Is that you, Xander?
The boy was gifted, but to grow so strong in such a short time was unheard-of. Whatever the waves’ source, Szodrin would find it soon enough.
Xander sat on the couch in the silence of Astlin’s apartment. He wrestled with himself over how best to make amends, but when his host failed to emerge from her room after several minutes, he took her absence to mean that he should leave.
The hallway beyond the front door proved empty, as did the stairwell below. The somehow artificial aromas of bygone meals haunted Xander all the way to the exit.
Souldancer (Soul Cycle Book 2) Page 12