by D. P. Prior
There wasn’t the time for this. Shader bit down on his lip to stop from shouting out his frustration. Who was going to stop the Unweaving if he was shut up down here? Didn’t the dwarves realize how close the end of all things was? Did they even care? He grimaced as he unraveled one of the knots and started on the next, steering his mind back to the litany: Nous, glory of Ain, save your servant. Nous, light of the world, have mercy on me. Nous, eternal word, comfort me. He was ripping at the threads on the prayer cord, whispering the words now against the back of his teeth. “Nous, scourge of demons, rescue me.” His face was on fire with pent-up rage and frustration; his shoulders bunched up around his ears. “Nous, lord of the living,”—and then the dam burst—“Hear my prayer!”
The cry reverberated around the cell until it lost itself in the cobwebs, only to be replaced by the silence of the grave.
But then there was a clink, and Shader spun round to face the figure on the bench.
The dwarf’s fingers splayed open and snapped shut into fists, and this time there was a fierce rattle as the chains clashed against the stone. A low growl echoed from within the great helm, and veins popped up along the swollen thews of his arms. He half-stood, chains pulled taut, his stocky frame shaking with effort. With a demented roar, he wrenched his arms together, and the bolts securing the chains to the bench sheared.
Shader gasped and edged away, but the black helm swiveled in his direction. Thrashing from side to side, chains whipping about him in a clashing fury, the dwarf bellowed a bloodcurdling battle cry and lumbered toward him.
NOT A GOD
Bloody amateurs, Shadrak thought, clinging like a sloth from one of the struts underpinning the walkway. How the Abyss were they planning to save the world by handing themselves over to a bunch of stunty, beardy… He stopped himself; felt the sting of old wounds. Bit close for comfort, that. How often had he been called the same, or worse?
Hooking his legs through one of the crossbeams, he let go with his hands and eased himself back until he was hanging upside down.
The city below was arranged in descending tiers, like badly stacked plates. Broad, spiraling avenues and corkscrewing steps spanned the spaces between levels all the way down to a glimmering lake in the bed of the chasm. Ant-like figures shuffled along roads and cobbled pavements, and here and there laden carts trundled behind beasts that may have been goats. An intricate system of canals carved up the lower city into perfect geometric shapes, while above, stone barges drifted along aqueducts that served the loading bays of squat warehouses. On the fringes, colonnaded arcades merged seamlessly with the ravine walls, linked to the central sprawl of buildings by granite viaducts and bridges suspended from cables of wound steel. Smoke puffed from chimneys, wafting toward the sides of the ravine, where it was sucked into vents hungry as a pituri smoker’s lungs. An immense tower rose through the center of the city’s layers like the hub of a wheel. It had countless archways, and windows of stained glass, and its patinated bronze cap rose to within a hundred feet of Shadrak’s upended head.
He hung lazily, lapping up the topsy-turvy view, enjoying the calm that washed over him. That was the way it was with heights for him; always had been. Prob’ly why he’d made such a good cat burglar in his youth. All good experience that had transferred well into the killing trade. Always made him laugh how the rich bastards, secure at the top of their impregnable towers, crapped their britches when they woke up to find him at the foot of their beds. Most of ’em blustered or denied what was happening, right up until their brains were splattered across the headboard. He almost smiled at the memories. There was a time when he’d loved the job. Except on the rare occasions the guild stuck its nose in, he worked alone, and that meant he could do things his way. The right way. There was something extremely satisfying about a murder well done. And then that whole thing with Bovis Rayn had happened, and Kadee had worked her way through the fault lines cracking open the husk of his conscience. He didn’t like it one bit. Didn’t like the confusion. Now, more than ever, he needed certainty. Everything else was just a distraction that would likely get him killed.
But what to do next, that was the issue. If he’d been his own man, like he’d been back in Sarum, he’d have lowered himself to the central tower and shuftied around for sellable pickings, coz you could bet your bottom copper people who could build a city like Arx Gravis had stuff worth nicking.
Problem was, he weren’t his own man no more, not since his pact with the Archon. Granted, he’d had no choice, not if he’d wanted to live, and not if Kadee had anything to do with it. Then there was the small matter of a lack of rope; what he’d brought with him was still staked to the hard earth above the ravine, and while he might’ve had a love of heights, he weren’t stupid enough to chance the jump.
No, best thing for it was to get going. He swung his torso up and took hold of the struts so he could crawl back to the central hub and the archway that had exposed Dave for what he was. It had been amusing at the time. Left to his own devices, Shadrak would’ve watched the fun and then buggered off and abandoned Shader and the bitch to their fates, but a nagging voice at the back of his mind kept warning him not to piss the Archon off again.
The whole thing was starting to grate. Hadn’t he done his part by bringing Shader to Aethir? He couldn’t be expected to babysit him as well. It weren’t like it was his fault the moron had gone and got himself caught. That was it, far as Shadrak was concerned. Quest over, and it weren’t him that’d screwed up. If the Archon didn’t like it, he could go shog himself.
He chinned up to the edge of the walkway, and when he was sure it was clear, clambered onto it.
The archway that had burned red when Dave enter it was dull and lifeless now, and Shadrak hunkered down beneath it, wrapping his cloak about him like a shadow in case there were still dwarves watching, concealed against the walls. He caught sight of Rhiannon’s black sword lying on the stone. Thing like that would fetch a shitload of denarii in certain parts of Sarum. He started toward it, but then light exploded inside his skull, and he reeled away. He bit his lip to keep from screaming. Felt like a crown of jagged glass had been forced down tight over his head.
“All right, all right,” Shadrak yelled, then clamped his jaw shut and whispered through gritted teeth. “Shog’s sake, what am I s’posed to do? Weren’t my bloody idea to come here. If you ask me, you’d be better off using your hocus-pocus to get me inside Gandaw’s mountain. Then we’ll see how almighty he really is.”
He could feel a presence before him, but the white fire behind his eyes made it impossible to see.
“You lack the purity of heart,” the Archon said.
“Yeah, right, and Shader has it?”
The light faded, and Shadrak blinked the Archon into focus. He was ghost-like, translucent, as if he were midway between worlds.
“I am beginning to wish I hadn’t agreed to this approach,” the Archon said. “But it is too late to find another way.”
“Your choice, your problem,” Shadrak said.
The Archon studied his face for a long while and then said, “Shader was not my choice.”
“Oh?”
Smoke plumed from beneath the Archon’s cowl, and when he raised his ivory hands, the heat of a furnace rolled off them. “I do not enjoy inflicting pain, Shadrak, but time is not with us.”
Shadrak’s hand went to his pistol grip, for all the good it would do. “What I don’t get is this purity shit. I don’t need to be shogging holy to put a bullet through Gandaw’s skull. Like I said, get me to the mountain, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
The Archon shook his head. “If it were just the Technocrat, then I might agree with you, but he has harnessed the power of…” He paused, as if what he was saying pained him.
Shadrak grew suddenly alert, watching for any sign of weakness.
“He has harnessed the power of my sister. You cannot stand against her.”
“Family, eh? And you’re leaving this to a loser like Shader?”
“Yeah, yeah, act through idiots like me who are stupid enough to do your dirty work for you. What the shog’s up with you god types?”
“I am a servant, not a god.”
Well that was good to hear. Gods couldn’t be killed. At least that’s the way Kadee’s people told it. Them and the bloody Nousians, who said their god was put to death only to come back to life again. Shadrak had an answer for that: steady supply of bullets, and he’d keep the shogger dying and resurrecting all day. Sooner or later, Nous’d grow tired of it and stay shogging dead.
“So, let me get this straight,” Shadrak said. “You’re the servant of Nous All Bleedin’ Mighty, the Lord of Shogging Love, and yet you’re gonna fry my brains if I don’t do what you say, right?”
Light flickered at the edges of the Archon’s hood. “Nous is not who you think. Indeed, even the name is a fabrication of the Liche Lord’s. He is as far above me as I am you.”
Shadrak scoffed. “You got a problem with my height?”
The sun burning within the Archon’s cowl flared red, and Shadrak backed away from its scorching heat.
“OK, I’m going,” he said. “Rescue Shader, then what? Ask the dwarves nicely to let us use their tunnels? Maybe they’ll spare a bite to eat, while they’re at it. And if I’m honest, I could use a trip to the crapper.”
“They will take no part in this,” the Archon said. “Bad advice brought you here.”
“And you didn’t think to say something?” Shadrak knew that pointy-eared elf couldn’t be trusted, nor the sodding hunchback.
“You must find a way, Shadrak. Either to persuade the dwarves, or to find some other means to take the mountain.”
“Give us a second and I’ll rustle up an army,” Shadrak said, half-expecting a backlash for the sarcasm.
“That might work. Keep it in mind. Now hurry.”
Dust motes circled the Archon’s feet, wound their way toward his cowled head, spiraling faster and faster until he was consumed by a sparkling tornado, which then puffed out of existence.
Shadrak sprinted along the walkway, almost wishing someone would spot him so he could do to them what he couldn’t to the Archon.
The door the dwarves had taken Shader and Rhiannon through was hermetically sealed, only a hairline crack revealing its existence. He ran his hands over the surface, looking for hidden panels, some sort of mechanism to open the thing. Nothing. Not even a chip or a crack.
“Great,” he muttered up at the twin suns. “What am I s’posed to do now, knock? Hello? A little divine intervention, if it ain’t too much to ask.” His only answer was the fleeting shadows of buzzards circling overhead.
He unrolled his tool pack, selected the thinnest pick he had, and ran it around the crack of the door. It struck something about halfway up on the left-hand side, but whatever it was had no give in it and felt far too large to be the sort of mechanism he could trip. He put his eye to the crack but couldn’t see a thing. Perhaps with a match or a lantern—but of course he had neither. He drummed his fingers against the door while he chewed the problem over. A hammer and chisel might’ve done the trick, if he’d had them, but then again, the noise would’ve brought every dwarf in the city running. Same with explosives. He fiddled with a globe in one of his belt pouches, considered it anyway, but then decided it wouldn’t do nothing ’cept char the stone. Rate he was going, it’d be quicker to wait for a thousand years of rainfall to whittle away the door one drop at a time. True to bloody form, though, there weren’t a single sodding cloud in the sky.
He rolled up the pack and put it away. They must’ve done something to open it: a signal, a password, a combination of knocks. If only he’d paid more attention. That had certainly been his intention, but then his focus had shifted onto Shader, expecting him to do something, put up some semblance of a fight, rather than being led meekly away.
“Shog it.” Shadrak snapped, thumping the door and wincing at the pain. “That’s it,” he told the heavens. “Hit me with your best shot, coz I’ve had it about up to—”
There was a loud clunk, followed by the grinding of stone upon stone as the crack at the bottom widened, and the door started to slide upward. Shadrak whirled out of the way just in time, flattening his back against the wall.
A dwarf stepped out—or rather, parts of a dwarf did. Shadrak blinked and looked again. He could see the profile of a nose and beard, forearms and hands, and hints of legs terminating in leather boots. What was it, some kind of wraith, like Callixus? And then he noticed the air around the bits of the dwarf he could see rippling ever so slightly, and he realized what it was. The dwarf was wearing a hooded cloak that merged perfectly with the surroundings—first the darkness of the interior, but as he emerged onto the walkway, his cloak blended with the ocher of the ravine wall.
Shadrak slipped a dagger free from his baldric and waited half a dozen heartbeats, but there was no sound from within. Chances were, this dwarf was alone, but what was he about? After standing with hands on hips, taking in the view—or perhaps he was scanning for more intruders—the dwarf turned back to face the doorway, at the same time holding up two rectangular pieces of stone the length of a finger and snapping them together. The door started to descend, and the dwarf gasped as Shadrak sprang and slit his throat from ear to ear. The dwarf’s hands flew to his neck, and his lips trembled. Blood ran through his fingers, pattered on the walkway, and then his knees buckled, and he fell over backwards, smacking his head on the stone.
Shadrak wiped the blade on the dwarf’s tunic and was about to unfasten the cloak when he remembered the door. Shog, it was six inches from closing. He cursed and gritted his teeth, but then his eyes fell on the length of stone the dwarf held in his white knuckled-hand. Snatching it up, he pulled the two segments apart, and the door started to rise again. He then quickly removed his cloak and swapped it for the dwarf’s. Pulling the camouflaging material around him and tugging down the hood.
He took a step toward the doorway, but a niggling thread tugged at his conscience, made him stoop to cover the corpse with his discarded cloak. He sighed and shook his head.
“Oh, Kadee,” he muttered under his breath. “Kadee, Kadee, what are you doing to me?” She was more trouble in death than in life, and yet, was she truly dead, if she could stand alongside the Archon and speak with him? He’d never been one to believe in the afterlife and all that, but facts was facts. He couldn’t deny her presence, unless, of course, he was losing it. Maybe if she was some other place, somewhere better, he could… He shut the thought down; cursed himself for a prat. No point living in false hope. That sort of thing’d get him killed sooner than he’d like. If there was any truth to it, he’d know when the time came, when they put him six feet under. Only thing he had to say on the matter was she’d better be all right, coz if she weren’t, he might just have to make a premature visit, set things straight.
He slipped inside the entrance then snapped the stones together and waited for the door to grind shut.
There was a corridor bearing left and right, and an open doorway straight ahead. It was mostly dark, but the walls were splashed with wan light that seemed to come from the stone itself.
Old habits die hard, and so even with the protection of the cloak, Shadrak stuck to the shadows and moved silently on the balls of his feet through the open doorway. He flattened himself against a wall as he heard muffled footfalls and the low rumble of voices approaching. Four red-cloaked dwarves passed him by without a glance, deep in conversation about demons, the Demiurgos, and the sins of the Fallen.
“Bringing ’em into the city’ll curse us, I tell you,” one in a bronze helm and scaled armor said. “Should’ve killed ’em when we had the chance, like we should’ve done with you know who.”
A scrawny ginger-beard with an awkward gait made a show of mock horror. “Oh, you mean the Nameless Dwarf.”
“Not funny, Gline. Not shogging funny at all,” said an older dwarf, whose face was cri
sscrossed with scars.
“Yeah, show some respect, Gline,” Bronze Helm said. “Lot of people died to that bastard.”
“Stupid shogging name, anyway,” Gline said.
“Ain’t a name, if you ask me,” Scar-Face said. “But that’s about what he deserves.”
“Way I heard it, Thumil gave it to him,” Bronze Helm said.
“S’right, Kal,” the fourth said between wheezes and puffs. He was as wide as he was tall, purple-faced, and with a nose so bulbous it looked set to burst like an overripe melon. “Way them two was up each other’s arses, wouldn’t surprise me if he was in on it.”
“Nah,” said Scar-Face. “Not Thumil, he’s too bloody holy.”
“Ah, shog it all.” Fatso gave a long drawn-out sigh. “Shog it all to hell. No point fretting when there ain’t a thing to be done ’cept wait on the council to work things out, and we all know how long that’ll take. C’mon, let’s pay it no more heed. A beer and a bun’ll see us right, lads.”
Gline clapped him on the back. “Couldn’t agree more, Trogweed. Couldn’t agree more.”
Shadrak tensed, expecting them to exit through the door to the walkway and discover the body he’d left under his cloak. Much to his relief, the door never opened, and the dwarves’ footfalls grew steadily more distant, their voices more muffled, until all he could hear was the sound of his own breathing.
This was not how he liked to work. Not at all. Too much left to chance, and it was only due to the luck of finding the camouflage cloak he’d gone undetected. The Shadrak the Unseen who was so feared in Sarum employed a raft of tricks in order to pass unnoticed—distraction, misdirection, hunkering down in places too small for a regular assassin; but now he truly was unseen, even when he was right under the noses of his enemies. He almost wished he had someone to thank for that—providence or whatever the Nousians credited their coincidences to. He scoffed at the idea and then shrugged. Why not? Maybe someone was watching over him. Maybe Kadee. After all, this is what she would have wanted: to see him doing the will of the Archon, for no doubt it aided the Archon’s beleaguered sister, Eingana, the supreme goddess of the Dreamers.