The Ruin of Angels--A Novel of the Craft Sequence

by Max Gladstone

  Strong, and tall, and calm, and sad, watching the goons drop into the open hatch, and unaware of—

  Tense and curled, tools in hand, and crushing, because it was superfluous to their purpose here, the ache that came when she glanced over at the tall strong calm woman by her side—

  Rough and scared, anchoring Isaak with the muscles of her shoulder and back as she stared down, in love, afraid, at—

  Pendant by a line through her belt, holding with slowly failing strength the girl who fell, utterly certain—

  Trapped, blind, mute, deaf, compressed, furious, writhing in this warm nothing like a tadpole in syrup—

  And was Izza herself again, and, scrambling, she pulled herself up and caught the line that held Ley’s belt, anchoring them against the train’s skin so the other woman could turn, kick off, and climb. Thin green tendrils coiled around their legs, but tore easily for now. Isaak strained, looking always and only down, never out at the Wastes; Zeddig held him with one arm and the open hatch with her other.

  And in that grinding, panting confusion, they reached the top of the train, and Izza collapsed in the brilliant frost, panting steam.

  Somewhere Zeddig shouted, not at Izza: “—of all the stupid selfish—” And Ley: “She’s just a kid—” And Zeddig: “Venting insulation in the middle of the Wastes—” And Isaak, kneeling over Izza, arm around her shoulders, pulling her up, “Are you all right?”

  She could use her voice again.

  Below, green tendrils climbed the slick steel, inching and swelling, stretching out roots that were also fingers and hair and teeth, and Gal flowed forward clad in golden light to cast them back: a whirlwind, a fury, impossibly strong. Isaak bent over Izza as Zeddig and Ley argued. Raymet knelt by the hatch. Izza knew their names now. In that shared moment, sliding from body to body she had felt—ah, fuck it. She tried to use her voice, and she wasn’t speaking tongues any more at least, but first she had to hack up a lungful of slush and phlegm and spit, hissing, onto the steel.

  A green lasso of viscera launched toward Zeddig, but Ley’s blade was faster; severed, the green slime froze and clattered to the surface of the train.

  “Friends,” Raymet said, “may I suggest we continue this inside?”

  Izza found her voice in time to shout: “Trap!”

  Ley turned to her first. “What?” Behind her, Gal and Zeddig fought the green.

  “I had—” Isaak looked at her, and for the first time she saw questions spread throughout his body. Childhood trust only went so far. Had she betrayed them? Yes and no, but there was no time to sum up the complicated situation atop a moving train with who the hells knew what waiting down below. “I had a vision.” Isaak’s face filled with a wonder that left her sick. “There was a blue light, and I heard a voice, and”—Lady, she prayed, give me just a little help here—“She said there was a trap in the train. Someone’s waiting for us.”

  A new light glinted off Isaak’s scales, and the stone around his neck shimmered, and the world looked strange, charged with warm blue, pregnant with a Goddess’s purpose. Izza realized her eyes were glowing. Unsubtle, but it would do.

  “The Blue Lady.” Isaak’s voice filled with dumb adoration, and Izza wanted to be anywhere but here, with him looking at her any way but this. “She sent a miracle.” Godsdammit. “The Lady spoke through her.”

  Ley raised an eyebrow. Zeddig, to Raymet: “What’s going on down there?”

  Raymet shook her head. “I can’t see. But that means our team hasn’t turned on the lights yet.”

  Gal: “I can’t hold the slime much longer, friends.” Her voice lacked stress. Something enormous roared, then screamed, then fell off the train.

  Ley glanced from Izza, to Zeddig, then over to the blooming wall of green slush stretching rubbery fingers toward them.

  Zeddig decided: “We go in. First sign of trouble, we run for the locomotive, pull the emergency hatch, head for the spire.”

  Raymet unfolded a warding circle and dropped it into the darkness. “That takes care of the landing zone, at least for a minute or two. You go first.”

  Izza rolled to her feet. Isaak scrambled to the hatch, breathed deep, and dropped straight down, landing in a crouch. Izza descended slower. Darkness wadded around them. Raymet followed, then, after a brief argument, Ley, then Zeddig, and finally Gal, clothes torn, pulling the hatch shut on a green pseudopod.

  Raymet’s hand torch cut the darkness, and Izza wished it hadn’t.

  The hall was full of tentacles.

  They moved when light raked across them: dripping ropes of flesh. Snared within, beneath them, lay the advance team.

  Twelve cloaked and hooded figures turned to face Zeddig’s group.

  Gal stepped forward, grim, Raymet by her side, and Zeddig. Ley, on the other hand, cleared her throat.

  “Friends. I like a desperate last stand as much as anyone. But I suggest we run.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  KAI DROPPED FROM THE air duct onto a metal grate above the locomotive’s heart.

  Machines surged under the floor and behind safety cage walls, and green insulating fluid rushed through translucent ducts. Recessed ghostlamps shed cold blue light that had nothing to do with the sun. Kai’s shoes clanged on metal, which, considering she wasn’t supposed to be here and didn’t know who was listening, was a problem. She tucked her shoes under one arm, and ran down a staircase on stockinged feet. Pistons pistoned and gears turned and teeth met teeth and everything was wrong.

  At least she’d made it this far. To cross the Wastes, the Iskari had built an Express like no other train: sealed and warded against the desert’s half-dead gods, with its own air and heat supply, ventilation ducts and power lines strung from car to car. She’d shivered as she crawled between the cars, a few feet’s insulation all that parted her from death.

  Terror cleared the mind. The plan should still work. If she caught Ley before the Wreckers did, if she got the knife, Ley could escape. Bescond wouldn’t chase her through the Wastes for spite. Probably.

  As Kai ran toward the hatch, she wondered what she would tell her sister. She’d constructed five scripts to choose between, for a range of circumstances.

  None of which included being thrust to one side when the hatch flung back to admit a clutch of desperate men and women—including Izza—the last of whom was red-haired, masked, and indubitably Ley.

  Ley held the hatch open while a tall, blond, shining woman cut a tentacle off her wrist, then shouldered the door shut and struggled with the wheel lock. She finally noticed Kai when she helped her drive it home.

  Their eyes met. The mask probably worked fine on people who didn’t know her.

  All Kai’s memorized scripts caught fire.

  An immense weight struck the other side of the hatch. The door dented, but did not break.

  Ley’s grin was a better mask than her mask. “Fancy meeting you here, dear sister. Thought you might travel south to see the damage our island’s clients wreak? Tour the wreck of Alt Gehez or the Pridelands? I hear the ruins are lovely this time of year, if you don’t mind ghouls. I know two vast and trunkless legs of stone you simply must visit while you’re in the area.”

  “Take off the mask, Ley. And give me the knife.”

  “I’ll meet you halfway.” She peeled off the mask, and in a twist of warped rainbows her hair was short and dark again, and her features her own, though no more legible. She tucked the mask in a pocket; Wreckers struck the door again, and the metal buckled around hinges and latch. “As for the knife—that’s mine.” Kai reached for her, but Ley drew back snakelike, hands raised. In a moment, Kai knew, they could close to fists. Zeddig, behind Ley, watched, and the rest of the crew—except Izza, who Kai made herself ignore, refusing to give her away—waited, wondering what to do or where to run.

  “If you give it to me, I can get them off your back.”

  “Earnest as an ingénue. You said you didn’t want to get involved in my business. I thought I could t
rust that, at least.”

  “I want to help you!”

  “You’ve handed us to our enemies.”

  “I did not.”

  “But somehow they found us.”

  “I’m sorry, Ley. For everything.”

  Ley grinned without humor. “We’re long past the time for group therapy.”

  The Wreckers hammered the door again. Kai stumbled, caught the railing, and reached for Ley. Her sister drew back. Kai couldn’t read her—not at this distance, not at any.

  Kai turned to Zeddig, hoping for sympathy, for understanding. “This wasn’t me. Whoever put this job together, he betrayed you. The train’s full of Wreckers. I’m your only way out. The Iskari don’t care about you. They just want that knife back. Give it to me, and I can make all this go away.”

  Booted feet marched toward the locked door. Kai heard a voice: Bescond. The Wreckers’ monstrous scrambling stilled, and the wheel lock began to cycle open; the Camlaander ran past Kai and jammed the wheel with a wrench. The wheel turned anyway, just slower. The wrench bent. Zeddig said: “We have to go.”

  “I’m sorry, Kai.”

  “What is that knife worth to you?”

  “A life,” Ley said. “A city. A mistake.”

  From a side passage between boiler tanks, the bald woman called: “If you’re as done with this as I am, our exit’s ready.”

  “Sorry, sister,” Ley said, and turned away.

  Kai lunged for her, but Ley ducked under Kai’s arms, caught the back of her jacket, and pushed her into the machine cage. By the time Kai recovered, the six of them were gone—down the side passage through a security door already sliding closed, with Ley and Zeddig and Zeddig’s accomplices, and Izza, on the other side.

  The hatch behind her gave: tentacles pierced the steel, corkscrewed through the air. One caught Kai’s arm. A razor of pleasure opened her from navel to sternum and she fell; her head hit metal and her teeth caught her lip. She tasted copper and fire and cursed, and screamed a scream that was a sigh—but before the Wrecker’s joy could catch her once again, she followed the pain in her mouth back to her body, and tore herself free. She tried to rise, but her limbs were weak.

  Bescond marched through the open door, in a tentacular halo, raising a small glass vial of blood. She met Zeddig’s eyes through the safety glass.

  Kai saw the world through a glorious afterglow. Outlines of Bescond and vial and surging engines melded into one another like cotton balls pulled thin.

  The vial shattered in Bescond’s hand.

  Then the explosive bolts burst, and Zeddig and Ley and Izza and the rest tumbled into the Wastes.

  Chapter Forty-four

  IZZA LANDED IN COLD bright sand, and, breathless, rolled, until she came to rest face down. At first air would not come, she needed it too much, her lungs tight. She forced them still. Made herself breathe sharp air through grit, deep enough for the breath to take. She did not look up. A chorus screamed, and a monster roared, and roared, and roared again, a bellow pulse in her bones.

  The roar faded.

  She could not stand or raise her head. They’d warned her not to let the landscape slip in through her eyes. She heard voices. She prayed in spasms, memories: of Kavekana, of her friends, of beaches and stories, of a small dead bird on a pile of twigs, of freedom and of flight.

  Those would not save her from the Wastes that folded people inside out and broke their minds and left them mad—the Lady could only do so much, even for her. You did not choose your death, but you could, sometimes, choose how to meet it. She’d heard people talk of promised afterlives, resurrection and the rest, she’d heard rescued drowners’ tales of lights and dead lovers waiting, but she knew too much of gods to hope for afterlife. She knew too much of life to think you’d wish anything like it to last forever. People lasted as stories, as gods did. And people and gods alike told themselves stories as they died, because dying hurt, and stories helped.

  This death, though, was taking longer than she expected. Then again, hells, she’d never died before. Maybe this was always how it felt.

  A rough hand touched the back of her neck, and a human voice whispered, “Hold still.”

  Zeddig.

  Thick goggles covered her closed eyes, and rubber slapped the back of her skull.

  “You can look now. Look at me first.”

  Izza saw the world, and Zeddig, through a layer of smoke and shadow. The woman wore goggles of her own. Breath steam whirled from her nose and mouth like dragon smoke. She seemed sure. Everything had gone to shit, they’d lost their crew, but looking at Zeddig made Izza calm. Okay: the worst just happened. Now what? Izza wondered how you did that. She wondered if Zeddig felt as scared as she did sometimes, ever.

  Izza stood, shaky, eyes on Zeddig.

  “Good.” Zeddig took her arm. “Look at the landscape now. I’ll be right here. Ley’s knife should keep you safe. What’s out there can only hurt you if you let it. So, don’t.”

  Izza nodded. Zeddig stood aside.

  The brightness opened.

  Bodies littered the Godwastes.

  No. They did not litter the Godwastes—bodies were the Wastes, the salt flats framed in broken flesh. The swell on which they rested was an enormous arm, muscle tumbling into a rippled stomach that became a shoulder blade that became a sprouting wing. That hill was a clenched fist. Teeth lined the ridge. Claws arched, half faces contorted in pain fused to backs and sides and legs, frozen sculptures of salt and sand, long dead.

  And yet they moved.

  New tiny hands sprouted from the skin, reaching. The wing beat. The claw flexed. The mouth spoke. The nostrils breathed. That tongue twitched and rolled. And when Izza focused on each outline she saw smaller bodies, smaller arms and legs and faces, trying to tear free of the landscape.

  She staggered. Zeddig caught her, held her. She heard Isaak retch.

  She made herself look.

  Her mind insisted the desert lay rolling and cold and brilliant white, reflecting noon sun in a colorless sky. But the land was made of bodies, and as she looked, they moved.

  “Gods,” she said.

  “Yes.” Zeddig glanced away: the others gathered on the hill. Isaak shook, and kept his eyes on his enormous feet. Gal held Raymet’s arm. And Ley stood, scarved and ready, as if the fall from a train and the horror of the Wastes were all part of a day’s work, and she didn’t understand why they weren’t yet moving. Behind her, miles away, atop a dune that was a skull, rose a structure not formed of god-flesh: a glass needle bridging pale heavens and deathly ground. “We have to go. But I’ll explain on the way.”

  Chapter Forty-five

  “INK AND CHALICE AND blood and beak.” Bescond was not done cursing yet. The train rolled on. If the Wreckers minded their Lieutenant’s language, they retained their usual rubbery candor. “You’ve ruined everything.”

  Kai found her voice with difficulty. A Wrecker’s touch did not fade so much as dry like paint, leaving a stain on the soul. “No,” she said. “I slowed them down for you to catch.”

  “Someone warned them. They were ready for our trap.”

  “I didn’t know there was a trap until you told me. How could I have warned them?”

  “You escaped my escort.” Bescond, pacing, strangled her hat. “You ran.”

  The engines thrummed, and so did Kai’s heart, and her rage. There was altogether too much thrumming going on. “I thought I could make her surrender.”

  “I could have used you as a hostage.”

  Kai snapped. The paint cracked, and flakes fell away as her edges cut through. “Do you think that would have made one damn bit of difference? Ley thinks I’m on your side. She has a goal, and we won’t turn her from it. I had everything under control, but your mission creep is not helping.”

  “You don’t know—”

  “You want her knife. But you want the delvers she’s with too, and you want her to suffer, and you want control. You want so many things they pull at one another, and
you’d love to blame me for that, even though I’m the only person here with her eyes on the godsdamn target.”

  Bescond had crushed her hat into an accordion of felt. She stared down into the crumpled fabric, and, with visible effort, relaxed. The creases remained. “Fine. But your plan didn’t work. Your sister is on foot in the Godwastes. Her only choice is to follow the train tracks back to the city. We’ll pick up her up when she tries to sneak back through the gates.”

  “You won’t,” Kai said. “They’ll get past you.”

  “Our borders are foolproof.”

  “You’re not dealing with fools. You don’t know my sister like I do. You won’t get a second chance at her.”

  “We almost had her.”

  “Because you caught her in someone else’s plan. She’s on her own now.”

  Bescond set her crumpled hat back on her head. If she had an answer, she didn’t say it. Silence expanded between them.

  Kai was so focused on Bescond she didn’t realize, at first, that silence meant the engines had stopped.

  Tara Abernathy descended from the conductor’s cabin, sliding her palms together as if brushing away dust. “I persuaded the conductor to stop the train.”

  Bescond swung to face her. “How?”

  Abernathy shrugged off the question. “What’s the plan?”

  “The plan,” Bescond said, “is for you to count yourselves fortunate I respect your pantheons’ sovereignty, and our working relationship, too much to arrest you for obstruction of justice. I’m half tempted to give you to the Wreckers now.”

  Kai shivered with the memory of the Wrecker’s touch. The paint hadn’t all flaked off yet, and that had been a glancing blow from a single Wrecker. Ten robed figures gathered in the engine car, watching her, and watching Tara Abernathy.