by D. P. Prior
“Give it to me,” she demanded. “Now.”
Aristodeus narrowed his eyes, an enigmatic smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Rhiannon’s fists clenched, and her body shook with restraint.
Shader tensed, readied himself to pull her back.
Aristodeus noticed and let out a chuckle. He reversed the sword and handed it to Rhiannon. As it passed beneath the arch, red flames flared along its blade.
Aristodeus worked his jaw and gave a slight shrug. “Not a pleasant weapon, but then are any?” He cocked a look at Nameless.
Rhiannon caressed the sword but started when she caught Shader watching her. With a sullen scowl, she maneuvered it into the scabbard on her back and folded her arms across her chest.
“Laddie,” Nameless said, tapping the side of his helm, “I understand the need for trickery, but it’s taking things too far when I can’t get the shogging thing off, even for a pint.”
“I’m sorry,” Aristodeus said, popping his pipe in his mouth and rummaging in his pocket for some tobacco. It was an action Shader had seen a thousand times. It meant the matter was closed. “Too dangerous.”
“But the black axe…” Nameless said.
“Safe place.” Aristodeus tamped down the pipe and patted his robe. “Anyone have a light? Mine’s out of gas. No, of course not.” He sighed and thrust the pipe away. “At least, safe while you wear the helm. The link must not be re-established.” He cast a look at the assembled dwarves. “They’d never allow it, in any case.”
“Then destroy it,” Nameless said. He didn’t sound convinced.
“Can’t be done,” Aristodeus said. “Least not yet. Give me time, and I’ll work it out.”
Nameless hefted his axe to his shoulder. The philosopher flinched and took a step back.
“What about grub?” Nameless said. “I’ve come up with a beer-drinking plan, but a dwarf needs meat and bread and great steaming bowls of salty broth. It’s not like I’ve got any spare.” He patted his belly. “If you don’t get a move on, I’ll be a bag of bones in no time.” He dropped his head to his chest. “Course, maybe that’s for the best.”
Aristodeus held up his hands. “I’ll come up with something. I hadn’t expected you to wake from stasi… sleep. I suppose I could…” He scratched his beard. “Yes, that would work.”
“What, laddie? What would work?”
Prickles of ire simmered beneath Shader’s skin. A thousand questions jostled for first place on his tongue, and finally one slipped the restraints of Nousian humility, made him impatient for his turn. “You knew about Dave, didn’t you?”
Aristodeus frowned, but it was more a frown of perplexion than of disapproval. “Dave?”
Nameless gave a double cough, but Shader ignored it.
“The hunchback. That demon. Was he part of your meddling as well?”
“I assure you,” Aristodeus said, “I do not meddle. I strategize, maneuver, prognosticate, even, but never meddle.”
“Could’ve bloody well fooled me,” Rhiannon said.
A blur of movement out of the corner of his eye told Shader Shadrak was circling behind Aristodeus. His first instinct was to warn the philosopher, but then he thought why should he? Maybe it was time for some answers.
“Needs must when the Demiurgos defecates on my doorstep,” Aristodeus said. “We all have to make sacrifices, my dear. Even you.”
“Tell me about it,” Nameless said. “Or rather, tell my rumbling tummy.”
Shader pressed forward, eyes refusing to let the philosopher go. One blink and the bastard would vanish again, like he always did. “Dave,” he said.
Aristodeus actually looked flummoxed.
Ordinarily, Shader would have paid to see that, but right now his humor had seeped away along with his tact. “Don’t play dumb, you—”
“The demon that triggered the arch,” Thumil said.
Shader spun to face him. He’d forgotten he was there. Forgotten the white-robes and the hundreds of soldiers still filing out onto the walkways all the way around the ravine. A quick glance below told him the dwarves had cut off every avenue of retreat. If things turned nasty now, it didn’t look good.
Thumil looked drawn and haggard, and in the stark light of the two suns glaring down at them, his patchy scalp was starting to rival Aristodeus’s for sparseness. The golden-bearded woman squeezed Thumil’s hand, and he immediately straightened up, as if drawing strength from her.
Shader turned with deliberate slowness back to the philosopher. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”
“All I know is that the alarm was triggered, and my presence here was required.” Aristodeus pursed his lips and shrugged at Thumil.
Thumil nodded. “Thought it was best, particularly with…” He nodded to Nameless.
“So, this weird hunchback just materializes out of thin air,” Rhiannon said, “leads us here, and you had nothing to do with it?”
Steel glinted behind Aristodeus. Shader caught a glimpse of pale skin, a pinkish eye. He gave the slightest shake of his head, raised his fingers. Hopefully, that would be enough to stay Shadrak’s hand.
“No idea who or what you are talking about,” Aristodeus said. He seemed to forget he had no light as he thrust his pipe back in his mouth, chewed the stem, muttered something, and put it away again. “I can’t be expected to be everywhere, know everything.”
“You hear that?” Rhiannon said, sidling up to Shader. “Was that an admission of fallibility?”
Shader ignored her. “He was a crazy, a zealot. I found him with the White Order, waiting on them hand and foot.”
“Bet Barek loved that,” Rhiannon said. “Elgin, too.”
Aristodeus seemed to be holding his breath. It was the first time Shader had commanded his full attention. Ever. If Shadrak had wanted to strike, Aristodeus would have had as much chance as… as Shader had in the Templum of the Knot, right when the Dweller surged over him.
“It was a demon, right enough,” Grago yelled, storming toward them.
Aristodeus hissed at him and held up a finger. Grago stopped dead in his tracks, his face flushed and ready to burst like an overripe tomato. The other councilors shuffled around him, straining to catch the conversation.
“He was there, waiting, when I got back from the Anglesh Isles,” Shader said, “and then he was here, in the Sour Marsh.”
Murmurs sounded from the white-robes, and Thumil made that gesture again, touching his forehead, chest, and both shoulders. The golden-bearded woman tutted, but whether at mention of the Sour Marsh or Thumil’s gesture, it was hard to say.
“I’ll admit it does smack of my style,” Aristodeus said, stroking his beard. His voice remained even, but the blood had drained from his face. His eyes seemed darker, somehow, and he was blinking furiously. “But I have…”
His jaw dropped, and for a second Shader thought Shadrak might have stabbed him, but then he realized he’d seen that look before—during one of their daily chess matches back in Britannia. Aristodeus had been wittering on flippantly, barely looking at the board, he was so used to winning. Shader had spent the night before reading everything he could on strategy, determined to find a way through his mentor’s impregnable defenses. Apparently, he’d found it, in a book on the innovations of the masters: a gambit written by none other than the philosopher himself. And there it was again, that same look: eyes aghast, mouth agape, a pulsing tic high on one cheek.
“… no knowledge of him,” Aristodeus finished in the hushed tone of a man just starting to realize he’d been had. Air rushed from his lungs like the last breath leaving a corpse. “I am such a fool. It won’t happen again. The enemy is cunning, more so than I could have imagined.” He smacked his lips and narrowed his eyes. “But I am better.”
“Boo!”
Aristodeus shrieked and then clutched his hands to his heart and cursed.
Shadrak threw off his hood and stepped from behind him, sauntering back through the arch. “Don’t g
et too cocky, now, mate.”
Nameless clapped the assassin on the back. “Laddie, you might be a runty, bloodthirsty little pipsqueak, but I think I’m warming up to you.”
“Wish I could say the same,” Rhiannon said.
Grago and the rest of the councilors edged nearer, flanked by a contingent of red-cloaks. All around the ravine, slate-armored troops formed up into disciplined phalanxes that left no exit uncovered.
Shader licked his lips and kept track of Aristodeus’s eyes. If they were going to get out of this, a lot would depend on what the philosopher said and did. Him and Thumil, who appeared to have the ears of most of his colleagues; and judging from the talk in the cell, he had a grasp of the looming peril, even if he was yet to be persuaded of the necessity of action.
Aristodeus, however, looked ghastly, in spite of his bravado. Motionless as he stood, his eyes were frenetic and still reflected the hellish fire of the archway, even though it had abated the moment Rhiannon sheathed her sword.
“Ah, lassie,” Nameless said. “I’ll grant you he’s a wee bit prickly, but I’ve a feeling in the bristles of my beard we’re all going to be great friends.”
Shadrak rolled his red eyes, and Rhiannon dug her fists into her hips, thrusting her chin out like an enraged bird of prey.
“Yes? Well, you thought that poor bastard with his throat slit was bad enough, but that was nothing compared to what your new buddy did in the cell.”
The great helm panned toward Shadrak. “Laddie?”
“How do you think we found you?” Shadrak said. “Bit of pragmatism, is all. The bitch should count herself lucky I had a distraction.”
“You killed someone else?” Nameless stiffened.
“More than killed,” Rhiannon said.
“No, no, no,” Nameless said. “No more killing. These are my—”
Shadrak circled him. “You mean to tell me you ain’t never killed?”
Grago took that as his cue and strode up. “Oh, he’s killed right enough. Butchered, more like. And you, sir—” He jabbed a finger at Aristodeus. “—have some answering to do.”
Aristodeus blinked, and his eyes came sharply back into focus. “Is that so, Councilor Grago?”
“It most certainly—”
“It was me that persuaded them.” Thumil released the woman’s hand and approached Aristodeus.
Grago ceded him ground and looked back at his fellow councilors, raising an eyebrow.
“You told me there was a way to end the terror,” Thumil said, “and I believed you.”
“And I was right,” Aristodeus said.
Thumil pressed his chin into his chest and lowered his eyes. When he raised his head, it was to Nameless he looked. “I lied to you. Betrayed you to save the people.”
Nameless was rigid.
“Do you remember what you did?” Thumil asked, cocking his head and taking in the black helm, moisture rimming his eyes.
“Some,” Nameless answered, voice a hundred miles away.
“But not all?” Thumil said. “That’s good. I wouldn’t wish that burden on you, old friend. But it wasn’t just you I betrayed. My god… you know, the scriptures, Maldark’s faith…”
“Oh please!” Grago said. “Haven’t you given up on that nonsense yet? Fat lot of good it did Maldark and his kin.”
The golden-haired woman glared and raised her fist, and Grago stepped back, muttering to himself.
“Cordana, please,” Thumil said, gently gripping her shoulder. “Cordy.”
She rested her hand atop his and gave the barest of nods.
“My point is,” Thumil said, “that I was desperate.” He turned back to Aristodeus. “Desperate enough to believe you.”
“The killing stopped,” Aristodeus said, steel in his voice. “If that involved a little white lie to your imaginary friend in the sky, then so what? It’s the lesser of two evils.”
“I don’t know,” Thumil said. “I don’t—”
“You were my friend, Thumil,” Nameless said. “Even with the madness upon me, some tiny part of me still recognized that, trusted you enough to let ol’ baldilocks here put the helm on me. I think I knew deep down. Knew that it wouldn’t increase my power, like you said, protect me from mortal blows. I even think…” He paused and looked down at his boots. “I think, somewhere in this daft nonce of mine, I didn’t want it to. I wanted to be stopped. Killed even.”
“And so you damned well should be,” Grago said.
All around the ravine, weapons clashed against shields in affirmation.
“Yeah, well whatever he’s done,” Rhiannon said, “it’s nothing compared to what I saw in the cell. You want Nameless dead? Fine. But fair’s fair; you’ll have to kill the poison gnome, too.”
Grago nodded at his fellow councilors. Moary conferred with the others, and they all looked flustered. Grago beckoned to a red-cloak, and within moments a knot of soldiers was advancing.
Shadrak raised his pistol in the air. There was a crack of thunder, and smoke plumed from the barrel. The soldiers stopped dead in their tracks.
Aristodeus rubbed his brow and sighed. “No one is going to be killed. At least not here. Not today. But,” he said to the councilors, “if you take no action, right here, right now, the worlds will be unmade, and if there is anyone left to tell the tale, which I sincerely doubt, your names will be cursed unto all eternity for doing nothing.”
“That, sir, is heresy, and you know it,” Moary said. “It was acting that nearly brought us to the brink of doom before. That is why we can do nothing. Every step we take into the affairs of the world may be a snare of the Demiurgos.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Aristodeus. “So you don’t even ask someone to pass the mustard in case it’s a trap. I knew dwarves were thick-skulled, but this is getting ridiculous. I’d tear my hair out, if I had any. I thought Lucius was getting through to you, but you went and had him killed.”
“It was his action that led to the finding of the black axe,” Grago said.
“Yes, well,” Aristodeus said. “I didn’t foresee that.”
“And what else haven’t you foreseen?” Shader said. “You claim you knew nothing about Dave, too, and yet you continue to interfere and manipulate. This is just a game to you, isn’t it? A game you’re not even certain of winning.”
Aristodeus’s eyes hardened. “It is no game, Shader. And if it were, the stakes are higher for me than for anyone else alive.”
“Because you’re so bloody important?” Rhiannon said. “Remind me to genuflect next time I see you.”
Nameless lurched into motion, and when he did, every dwarf in the ravine seemed to flinch. “Way I see it, Baldy here gave my brother the taste for action. Lucius found mention of the black axe in the Annals—”
“I had no idea about that,” Aristodeus said. “It shouldn’t have been there.”
“Which is why we have the code of non-action,” Moary said. “Even our histories cannot be trusted. I mean, well, what if the Demiurgos planted reference to the axe, hoping that someone would be foolish enough to go looking for it?”
“Lucius was no fool,” Nameless said. “His sin was to hope. To hope that the axe was a link to a glorious past, something we could take pride in. Surely it’s better to fall trying than never to try at all.”
“Tell that to the families of those you slaughtered, Butcher,” Grago said. “I think we can all see where this is leading.”
“I haven’t finished!” Nameless said.
Grago paled and stood rigid, mouth agape.
“Lucius only sought the black axe, but you—” Nameless took in the councilors. “—actually did something. You sent assassins and had him fed to the seethers. He didn’t get to act. You got there first. If you hadn’t killed my brother, I’d never have completed his work for him. There’s no telling how different things would have worked out then. For all his faults, Lucius was no warrior, so I doubt he’d have made much of a butcher. My point is, you were prepared to act then
, but what are you prepared to do now?”
Thumil’s face lit up, and he spread his hands. “He’s right. If we do nothing, then we are complicit in the end of all things.”
“How do you know?” an extremely fat councilor said.
Moary scratched his head. “Well, I don’t know. I mean, what if…”
“Oh, we need to start acting all right,” Grago said, “but in accord with our own reasoning. Our own agenda. I’ve been saying this for years, and yet it’s fallen on deaf ears. Certainty of purpose, a clear vision of who we are and what we want is—”
“Save it, Grago,” Cordana said. “We are not replacing the Demiurgos’s will with yours.”
“You have no right,” Grago said. “Just because you are the wife of a councilor—”
Aristodeus took his pipe back out and rapped the bowl against the stone of the archway until he had everyone’s attention. “None of us has the luxury to indulge your circular arguments. Whether you accept it or not, Sektis Gandaw has in his possession the Statue of Eingana. Even as we speak, he is commencing the Unweaving.”
All eyes looked to the sky. Besides a few soaring buzzards, there was nothing but an expanse of cobalt-blue and the glaring orbs of Aethir’s suns.
“Well, that’s all very well for you to say, but what if… What I mean is, what evidence do you have?” Moary asked.
“There was a brownish smog above the Perfect Peak,” Shader said. “That’s all we’ve seen.”
Hushed conversations echoed around the walls of the ravine.
“Then why are we still here?” Grago asked. “What’s taking so long?”
“It is not a fast process,” Aristodeus said, “unpicking every thread of Creation. And besides, I am reliably informed Gandaw’s plans have been set back.”
“Set back how?” Grago demanded.
Aristodeus held up a hand to silence him. “Be that as it may, we do not have unlimited time. A few days, a week at most, and then a great big nothing. When the lights come back on, assuming they do, Gandaw will be at the center of his own creation, and I doubt very much any of us will be perfect enough to feature in it.”