by D. P. Prior
“Laddies, laddies, laddies,” Nameless said. “Much as I’d love to listen to your theologizing all day, this peeling away the layers of the onion doesn’t solve our immediate problem, now, does it?”
Shadrak gave a slow handclap. “Thank shog for that. At least someone’s got his head out of his arse.”
“Yes,” Albert said. “I was rather wondering how analyzing Gandaw’s obvious megalomania is going to put an end to what he’s up to.”
As if to punctuate his point, another crash of thunder shook the windows, and in its wake, the diner was noticeably darker.
“So, what you’re saying,” Shadrak said, “is Shader’s the only one who can handle Gandaw.” He shook his head, as if at some private joke. “But to succeed, he needs the sword.”
“If it were a simple matter of fighting prowess,” Aristodeus said, “I’d have finished Gandaw when I had the chance.”
“Yeah, well maybe you ain’t as good as you think,” Shadrak said. “Maybe I should have a crack at him.”
Aristodeus slapped a palm to his forehead and pressed his lips tightly together. “Eingana is our problem. How many times do I have to—?”
“But only the righteous can wield the Sword of the Archon!” Rhiannon said, as if a light had suddenly gone on. “That’s why…” She looked Shader directly in the eye. “That’s why this creep sent Huntsman to warn me off you.”
“So I’d remain holy,” Shader said, shaking his head as memories bobbed to the surface of his mind like bloated carcasses: a father who lived to fight; a mother who was a virtual luminary; Nous and the sword—always Nous and the sword, the paradox that had ever defined him. “Ain’s teeth, Aristodeus, were they even my real parents?”
The philosopher waved away the question. “The important thing is—”
“And Rhiannon?” Shader asked. “You think you had the right?”
Aristodeus pushed himself to his feet and drew himself up to his full height. “This isn’t about you, Deacon,” he said in a voice full of weariness. “We are talking about the end of all things. Sacrifice. If there’s one thing I hoped you’d take from all that Nousian balderdash, it’s sacrifice. The needs of the other…”
He was quoting the Liber. Shader finished for him: “… outweigh the needs of the suffering servant.”
“Oh, please,” Rhiannon said. “That’s just about love; you know, self-giving love. Least that’s what Soror Agna said. Not quite the same as you shogging around with people’s lives and expecting them to take it.”
“You,” Aristodeus said, turning his finger on her and fixing her with a glare, “need to keep quiet.” He raised an eyebrow, and something was communicated between them. Whatever it was, Rhiannon sighed and backed away to the bar.
“The homunculus is right,” Aristodeus said, indicating Shadrak.
“Shog off,” Shadrak said, his fingers curling around a blade in his baldric.
“Forgive me. The assassin? The albino?”
“Darling,” Albert said, “you really are asking for it. I’d try Shadrak, if I were you.”
“Very well,” Aristodeus said. “Shadrak is right. We need to deal with the immediate crisis. What happens after that—if there is an after that—is a battle for another day. You are the only one remotely close to being able to wield the Archon’s sword,” he said to Shader. “I’ve already tried once.” He brushed his palms together. “And these two”—he took in Albert and Shadrak—“have a trade that’s hardly compatible with holiness. Rhiannon is… well, she’s Rhiannon.” Already, she was knocking back a glass of something at the bar. “And Nameless…”
“Why not just spit it out, laddie?” Nameless said. “A murderer? A maniac? What’s the word for someone who attempts to butcher his entire race?”
“I was going to say,” Aristodeus said, “that you might have been the perfect choice, had you not had your own brush with the Demiurgos. I’m sorry, Nameless, but the black axe wounded you far more deeply than it did your people.”
The sound of thumping footsteps passing the windows drew everyone’s attention. There was a collective intake of breath, but when the footfalls faded away, the tension left the room. Then the door burst open, and a grubby-looking man in clothes that looked a size too big came in, dripping puddles on the floor.
“It’s all right; wasn’t looking for you. They was on fire duty,” he said.
“Last place they’d look is a shithole like this,” Shadrak said.
“Do you mind?” Albert said. “If you’d seen what it was like under Chef Dougan, you’d be singing my praises.”
The grubby man took in everyone in the diner, puffed out his chest, and bobbed his head from side to side. His eyes alighted on Shader. “Buck Fargin,” he said, offering a grimy hand. “With the Night Haw—”
“They didn’t follow us for more than a few streets,” Nameless said. “When the lightning started up again, they fled.”
“Whatever,” Aristodeus said before turning to Shader. “Right now, what you need—and I never thought I’d hear myself saying this—is confession.”
“Buck,” Albert said, “aren’t you still keeping watch?”
“Nah, reckon you’re safe for the time be—”
Shadrak cocked a finger at him, and Buck rolled his eyes and went back out into the rain, slamming the door behind him.
“Can’t,” Rhiannon said. “There’s no priest.”
“Poppycock,” Aristodeus said. “A good outpouring of the heart to your beloved Nous is all it takes. Trust me, the rest is all smoke and mirrors.”
“Rhiannon’s right,” Shader said. “There needs to be a priest.”
“Well, what do you expect me to do?” Aristodeus said. “Rustle one up out of thin air?”
Rhiannon emptied her glass and nodded. “Isn’t that what you do? Seems to work well enough with champagne.”
“There simply is not the time.”
Another boom rocked the diner, this one much closer. Somewhere in the distance, glass shattered, and a gusting howl ripped through the street.
“That the Unweaving?” Shadrak said.
“Side effects, maybe,” Aristodeus said, “but when it really gets underway, expect to see distortions, and then pockets of nothingness. If I’m right—and I only have Gandaw’s early theories to go on—emptiness will coalesce above the Perfect Peak until it goes critical. Once it does, everything that exists will be snuffed out faster than you can blink.”
“What I don’t get,” Shadrak said, “is why the bleeding Archon don’t just sort Gandaw out. I mean, surely he can handle his sister. Way I heard it, the Demiurgos handled her good and proper.”
Aristodeus gritted his teeth. “The Archon is a law unto himself. I cannot answer for—”
“If Gandaw captured Eingana,” Rhiannon said into her drink, “couldn’t he do the same to her brother?” She looked round as if it were obvious. “Couldn’t Gandaw do the same to the Archon as he did to her?”
Aristodeus’s mouth dropped open, and his focus turned inward. He hadn’t even considered that, Shader realized. The great Aristodeus, master thinker, and he hadn’t even considered why the Archon took no direct action.
“Perhaps,” Aristodeus said after a moment. “But there’s more to it: a Supernal concept of justice. The Archon must tread carefully. Each action he takes grants a similar permission to his brother, the Demiurgos. The greater the action, the greater the chance the Demiurgos will be released from his trap.”
“Then we shouldn’t linger any longer,” Shader said. “Sword or no sword, it’s down to us to do something. Judging by the state of things out there, I doubt we have enough time to trek back to the mountain. Can you get us there?”
“You must confess first!”
“Can you, or can’t you?”
“My freedom is not as total as it might look,” Aristodeus said.
“You manage to get around right enough when it suits you,” Rhiannon said. “It’ll be a damned sight quicker if you
do that magic trick you did with me.”
“The Perfect Peak is made of scarolite, understand?” Aristodeus said. “It shields Gandaw from such ‘magic’, as you call it.” He sighed and turned to Shader. “If you won’t do as I ask, then you have failed, Deacon. Failed. You leave me no choice. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Come!” He held out a hand to Rhiannon.
She looked up blearily from the bar. “You’re joking.”
“And bring that with you.” Aristodeus pointed at Callixus’s sword, which was propped up in the corner.
“But—” Rhiannon started.
Aristodeus turned back to Shader. “Do what you can, but it’s wasted effort without the Sword of the Archon. Just remember, on your head be it!”
Rhiannon sauntered over with the black sword clutched in both hands. Aristodeus grabbed her in a rough embrace, green light swirled, and they vanished.
“What, now he’s gonna use her to save the world?” Shadrak said. “You gotta be having a laugh.”
Albert gave a dry chuckle, but then he picked up the stacked plates and headed to the kitchen. Shader heard him mutter as he passed, “So, our bald friend likes olives, does he?”
“I can get you there,” the drunken dwarf said from the bar.
All eyes turned to him.
“I can get you to the mountain, and I can get you there real quick.”
“How, Rugbeard?” Nameless said. “We’ve already tried Arx Gravis—”
“—And there’s no way in above ground,” Shadrak added.
“Old miner’s secret.” Rugbeard tapped the side of his nose and winked at Nameless. “Kept since afore you was a twinkle in your daddy’s eye.”
THE ANT-HILL
They left the city in a covered wagon. Shader rode in the back with Shadrak and Albert. He’d suggested they hid in empty crates, in case they were stopped at the gates, but Rugbeard said there’d be no need. It was a guild wagon on loan to Buck Fargin, and the guards didn’t question guild business; after all, Rugbeard said, it was the guilds that supplemented their wages and gave them gifts for their families on all the major feast days.
Once they left the shelter of the Cyclopean Walls, unnatural winds buffeted the wagon, and the air about them shrieked, as if it were a beast being torn asunder. Lightning flashed through the canvas, and every now and again, the horse pulling them would balk and whinny.
Shadrak seemed to take it all in his stride, and passed the time meticulously cleaning each and every one of the daggers and razor stars in his baldrics. When he’d finished that, he unholstered his pistol, took a rectangular segment out of the handle, shook it, and then replaced it with another from a belt pouch. He looked down the barrel, blew dust from its end, spun it on his finger, and re-holstered it. Even then, he didn’t stop checking his pockets and pouches.
Albert looked completely out of place in his suit. Sweat beaded on his bald pate, and at one point he reached into his breast pocket for something that was no longer there, rolled his eyes, and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. After that, he sat staring down at a cheese-cutter, the wire held taut between his hands, for all the world looking like a Nousian praying the prayer cord.
Nameless sat upfront with Rugbeard, who insisted on driving, despite being too drunk to walk in a straight line. When the canvas flapped, Shader caught glimpses of them: Nameless like some brooding metal statue in his great helm and mail, Rugbeard a mass of gray hair and beard tousled by the wind. The two of them kept up an amiable banter, and once or twice they broke into song.
Shader stumbled to the front, arms out to steady himself as the wagon rocked and juddered. He pushed through the canvas and gripped Nameless’ shoulder to steady himself.
“… name of yours,” Rugbeard was saying. “Ain’t none of my business, but whatever it was, must’ve been serious.”
Nameless nodded. “Aye, that it was.”
“And your pa was Droom, you say? I didn’t know him well, but I worked a few veins of scarolite with him way back. Same team as Targ, your pa. Bloody good explosives man, ol’ Targ.” Rugbeard swallowed thickly and rubbed his eye. “He was good to me, Targ, when I left the mines.”
Shader felt he was intruding and would have gone back inside, but up ahead a whirling vortex of black—he could only call it light—crossed the road and went spinning through a field, carving its own path and leaving bizarre patterns in the crops. A shadow passed across the face of one of the suns, and its twin started to strobe, making their progress appear stilted, staccato.
“I remember Droom’s lads, too,” Rugbeard said. “Lucius was the elder, but for the life of me, I can’t remember your real name, and you say you can’t, neither?”
“Gone,” Nameless said, staring straight ahead. “Like I never had it.”
The dwarves grew silent, but Rugbeard’s eyes kept flicking to Nameless, as if he couldn’t comprehend the magnitude of the suffering being unnamed caused him. Or perhaps he was wondering about the guilt, or the extent of the atrocities that warranted such a punishment.
Shader could relate to that. It was easy for Aristodeus to tell him he needed to confess, but it wasn’t that simple. Not only did it require a priest, but he also needed contrition, and right now, that’s the last thing he felt. Something had snapped when the old man in the cell had died. He was sure there was more to it than that—all the losses, the perpetual struggle to follow Nous, only to keep fighting and killing, fighting and killing. It was Rhiannon, Aristodeus and all his scheming; it was Sektis bloody Gandaw and his madness; but more than any of that, it was his own vileness; his continual failures. And then, of course, there was the rage, or rather his outraged sense of justice when he’d been imprisoned, beaten, and condemned to death, all for trying to avert the end of all things. Nous wouldn’t have reacted as he had, he was certain; and yet, the longer this went on—this impossible struggle against the odds—the more conspicuous Nous became by his absence. He did nothing, offered nothing. It was all pious words and platitudes, but at the end of the day, what proof was there that it was worth it? Yes, faith was a struggle. He could almost hear Adeptus Ludo telling him with a heartfelt sigh and a gentle nod of his head, but it was a struggle that had grown too heavy to bear. The corrosion had set in the minute the Gray Abbot had told him about the Liche Lord’s perversion of the Liber. All that was left was some tenuous golden thread that he no longer had the strength to look for.
Idly, he held the old man’s pendant between his thumb and forefinger, twiddled with the chain around his neck. There’d been a connection, he was certain of it. There’d been something communicated between him and the dying man in the prison. If only the old man could have talked. Ain’s teeth, if only Thumil had remembered those books back at Arx Gravis, or if Shader had had the time to speak with him at length. There was mystery here on Aethir. Deep mystery, and a part of him wanted to believe it contained truth, the sort of truth that had bled from his Nousian soul since this whole business with the Statue of Eingana had started.
Rugbeard broke him out of his ruminations.
“Heard things was bad at Arx Gravis last year.” He was talking to Nameless.
“Aye. Pretty bad.”
Rugbeard eyed him warily. “They says the streets was running with blood; that even the waters of Sanguis Terrae was tainted with it. They says it was a black axe that caused it. They says it was a deception of the Demiurgos.”
“Aye, that’s what they say.”
“Pity the poor bugger that did it, I say.”
“Pity those he murdered,” Nameless said. “Pity their families.”
“Them, too,” Rugbeard said, “but you gotta wonder after that poor bastard, eh?” He stared long and hard at the great helm, but Nameless would say no more.
“What’s this plan of yours?” Shader asked, thinking it best to break the awkwardness between the dwarves. “You said it was a miner’s secret.”
The wagon lurched as a tremor ran through the road. Off in the distance,
a greenish brume roiled above some hills, which were stretching, contorting, as if they were putty in invisible hands.
“Got to know the mines better’n most after I gave up teaching.” Rugbeard looked over his shoulder at Shader, watery eyes checking to see he was being heard. “Had my uses once, you know.”
“You were a teacher?”
“Taught the Annals, till no one cared a shog about the past. The council didn’t exactly encourage history. It was too dark in places, and there was things in them records most folk simply didn’t want to know.”
Nameless turned to watch him then.
“Aye, you know what I’m talking about, sonny. See,” Rugbeard said to Shader, “there was life on Aethir long afore the Technocrat came. Oh, it was all dreamed, they say; dreamed by the Cynocephalus; but they was powerful dreams, and they shaped all this.” He made an expansive gesture. “There was creatures, too, and races, just like us; just like you. But when Sektis Gandaw came and started his experiments, the indigenous life was either wiped out or altered.
“It’s said even the Cynocephalus was scared of Gandaw and what he was doing, and he was terrified enough already. With a father like his, you can hardly blame him. The Cynocephalus’s screams caused the earth to groan, and the Farfall Mountains was thrown up, a dividing line right down the middle of our world. Them races that Gandaw hadn’t already warped or killed fled over the mountains into Qlippoth.”
Rugbeard rummaged around under his bench and produced a costrel. He proffered it to Nameless, who merely shook the great helm, and then held it over his shoulder to Shader. It was tempting, but that would have been another step on the slippery slope to despair. Shader already felt he had one foot in the Abyss, the way he was going. No need to make it any easier for the Demiurgos. He waved the costrel away. Rugbeard shrugged, took the reins in one hand so he could work the stopper free, and then poured the contents down his throat. He growled, shuddered, and slung the costrel from the wagon. After he’d wiped his mouth on his sleeve, he took the reins in both hands again and cocked his head toward Nameless.