by Adrian Cross
The fat man swirled the whip in his hand in a quick coil by his side and then snapped it forward. The dark length bit deeply into the back of the crawling creature. Clay realized the creature’s back was dark with blood, the long trail behind him stained with it.
The fat man giggled maniacally, saliva stringing down to his chest.
JP shuddered, as if the whip had carved his own body.
The creature flopped on its back. Its limbs flapped, as if begging for mercy. The fat man just laughed and used the opportunity to swing his whip into the creature’s stomach. Blood sprayed.
Clay’s hand moved, as if by itself.
A red splash marked the fat man’s face. He screamed.
The acid ball, Clay realized. He hadn’t even bothered to consider which chamber was lined up in the pistol. He would have to think about that more in future. He used his thumb to turn it and then shot again.
Fire ignited on the fat man’s chest, clinging to him. He staggered in a circle, his screams becoming more shrill.
Some things Clay just had to do.
The remainder of the Earth warriors spun. With a roar, the crocodile-thing charged. Clay stepped forward. His boots were close to the edge of the path.
“No,” Raol ordered. “Don’t cross. I will handle this.”
The dark-skinned vampire stepped over the skulls, drawing his sword. It felt almost like a vibration rolled through the air as he did, as if something in the sword spoke to flesh and bone.
“What the hell?” JP murmured.
The blade was disturbing. It was surprisingly simple in its fashioning, like a South American machete, flat and plain. Cord wrapped the grip, and it had no guard, just a blade that expanded to a wide body, like a flattened baseball bat. But the material of the blade was shot through with red and black, as if diseased. Patches of the blade seemed to have suffered from the veining, falling away and leaving the edge ragged and uneven. But the blade still looked sharp and deadly.
“That sword is infected,” JP said.
“Vampire-like infected?” Clay shot the teenager a look. “It can’t be. Vampirism is a disease of the blood.”
“It’s infected.”
The crocodile-cross had nearly reached the vampire. Raol glided forward to meet the rush, his blade licking along the creature’s shoulder. The crocodile bellowed and stumbled away. Blood gleamed on Raol’s blade, then disappeared, as if the pink-veined metal had soaked it up. A chill swept Clay.
Raol danced as the rest of the pack of Earth warriors surrounded him. His blade glided back and forth, deflecting attacks and following them home. Bodies fell with each touch of his blade. A rat leaped into the air and then flopped limply to the ground, a disturbingly dry cut gaping in his chest.
The crocodile charged again, swinging his massive hammer. Raol danced away, and the blow split only soil. Raol stepped back and drove his blade so deeply into the croc’s chest that its tip appeared behind, smeared red. With a sucking sound, the blood vanished from the blade’s tip. The croc’s face went white and sick. He sagged to his knees.
Clay pulled his trigger again. Fire licked around the hand of a rat who had been about to plunge a dagger into Raol’s back. The vampire’s blade swept backward, casually removing the rat’s head.
The rat thumped down, leaving only Raol standing. The vampire moved to stand over the single surviving warrior: the fat man. He’d managed to roll out the fire and looked up from the ground, his single remaining eye wide and frightened. He spread his pudgy hands, unarmed. “Please, I surrender.”
Raol’s jaw spasmed. He took a deep breath.
“He’s fighting the blood hunger,” JP said softly. “He wants to drink.”
Once JP pointed it out, it was obvious he was right. Raol’s face was tight with the struggle to stop from sinking his fangs into the fat man’s throat and draining him dry. Clay remembered how the vampire had boasted he’d never killed someone unless they started it. It must be some code of honor that he still clung to.
If he did want to kill the fat man, though, Clay wasn’t going to stop it. He holstered the pistol.
Raol wrestled his inner demons into submission. He shoved his sword back into its sheath, hiding the stained blade. “Run.” He growled.
The fat man smiled, abject relief flooding his face. “Thank you, oh thank you. You…” He staggered to his feet.
Clay heard a soft slapping sound.
“I don’t think so,” said a new voice.
The fat man’s features seemed to slump. He sank down to his knees. A figure stood behind him, fingers wrapped around the back of the fat man’s head. No, not wrapped around—pushed into. The tips of the fingers were sunk through bone and brain.
The stranger opened his hand, letting the corpse fall. He wiped his fingers against a dark robe. His outfit was so dark, his steps so silent, Clay hadn’t known the man was there until he spoke.
A slit of white teeth. “Those who tire of this world can always find a door in me, Raol Caresto.”
Clay couldn’t pull his gaze away from the stranger’s face. What looked to have once been near-angelic features were hideous and broken. The skin of his cheeks undulated like farm furrows, only a shadowed cavity marked where a nose had once protruded, and the left cheek sagged nearly down to the shoulder, as though the skin had melted and run. The worst injury was to the right temple, which curved in as if the bone had been broken by some tremendous blow, skin sagging over top.
No man with injuries like that should be alive. But life blazed in the man’s single ice-blue eye. Its gaze was intelligent, subtle, and tinged with madness.
“Prophet,” Raol said.
The shadows around them seemed to deepen, as if the fallen prophet trailed darkness in his wake. His scars tightened as he smiled.
“Clay.”
How did he know Clay’s name?
“JP.”
A chill ran down Clay’s spine. The Prophet couldn’t possibly know who JP was.
Raol frowned. “We have a truce.”
“Do you mean the one you broke stepping off the path?” Cloth rasped as the Prophet shrugged. “Not that I can hold it against you, I suppose. You were trying to save my creature. Although I assure you it was hardly necessary. He is hardier than he looks.”
Clay had almost forgotten what had spurred the battle. He looked out into the Wasteland. The lump of disfigured flesh was farther away but unmoving, as if he’d felt the Prophet’s gaze.
The Prophet’s eye shifted to Clay. Clay couldn’t look away from the man’s temple. He really shouldn’t be alive.
“Do you like your new life, gunfighter? Better than dying in the desert? It appears I owe you a favor for trying to help my creature. Would you like to know your future? Your past? You might think that’s not as impressive a trick, but you’d be surprised. Would you like to know what Sarah said before she died? Where she is now?” His voice was thick as blood-stained honey.
Revulsion and rage clogged Clay’s chest. He touched the black pistol. This creature was treading in dangerous places.
“Say her name one more time, creature, and I will put you in the earth for good.”
The Prophet shook his head slowly. “No. I know my end.” But he let his gaze drift away. With an effort, Clay forced his hand away from the pistol’s grip.
The Prophet looked at JP. “Have you found your Tower?”
JP looked sick. “What?”
“Ah, you thought my title was hubris? I suppose I’ll have to make a believer out of you.” Amusement crossed the Prophet’s face, followed by a wince of pain. But his voice deepened and grew more sonorous.
“Builder beware. You have seen the beginning and the end. To survive the now, you must climb your greatest accomplishment. To survive, you must plumb your darkest folly.” Humor danced in his ice-blue eye. “To survive, you must die.”
Clay walked across the line of skulls and settled the muzzle of his pistol against the Prophet’s forehead, on the undamaged
side.
“We’re crossing your land. Do you plan to stop us?”
This close, Clay could clearly see into the Prophet’s wound. It was dark and furred with rot. The single blue eye met his, as if expecting horror or fear. If so, he was disappointed. Cold anger filled Clay, letting him meet the Prophet’s gaze unflinching.
“The vampires and I have a bargain,” the Prophet said. “Use my path as you feel fit.”
He leaned his head back, and Clay let the pistol fall away. The Prophet looked around. Clay realized the limbless creature had disappeared.
“I have a task of my own to attend to. My Disciple and I have an old conversation to renew.”
With a whisper of cloth, the dark-robed Prophet set out into the Wasteland, following a clawed-up trail of dirt and blood and disappearing into the mist.
33
Spiders Way
Spiders Way had a dark reputation, earned many years before Clay arrived.
From what he had been told, it had started during one particular Shift, when a corner of StoneDragon received an influx of small brown men, who believed in silent wives, dutiful children, and slaps to the head to keep it that way. Their arrogance and cultural inflexibility would normally have made their story a short and humbling one, since StoneDragon liked to crack the inflexible, except for one thing—the bags slung over their shoulders. They were filled with fist-sized mud-like balls and handled with extreme care. Critics of the brown men quickly discovered the virtue of tolerance when they realized how fast and fiercely those balls would burn, even in StoneDragon.
But sooner or later, things change, especially in a time-shifting city.
A handful of years later, StoneDragon shifted into a particularly hot and humid jungle, so wild and deadly it might have been the beginning of time. Vines as thick as tree trunks wrapped around the Wall and squeezed, layered so aggressively the vegetative carpet turned StoneDragon’s air hot and stale. When concerned citizens tried to hack the vines away, they found out that creatures lived among the vines, unpleasant things that flowed through the gaps in the Wall as soon as they opened and enthusiastically tried to kill anything they met. The worst of these creatures were great spiders, bodies like beanbags, who not only injected victims with poison, but also their eggs. A lot of eggs.
A new hobby gained popularity in StoneDragon: finding and burning spider nests. The Bosses got good at it.
In fact, they only missed one. A cynical observer might even wonder if their omission weren’t deliberate, given its placement. The little brown men didn’t have many friends in the city, and the missed nest was in the center of their district.
Out of a dusky basement flowed baby spiders, their bodies small as fingernails but so numerous they flowed across the ground like oil. They swarmed the brown men. A baby spider’s bite might not be fatal, but thousands were. The spiders blanketed their victims, chewed skin and muscle, and grew fat, too fast for comfort, even for those outside the region. Even if the Bosses missed it on purpose, it became clear it was only a matter of time before the problem spread.
The closest residents to Spiders Way—other than a wounded and recuperating Prophet—were the Desert Riders. They were a cold and practical people who decided on a typically ruthless solution. They scorched a strip of land around the zone, creating a bare swath the spiders would need to cross to get out. Then they killed anything with more than two legs that tried to cross it, with flame and steel and poison. Women and children, they let pass, even offering to absorb them into the Riders’ white-walled world—but not many made it that far. Women and children were dragged down by blankets of spiders, their bodies heavy and swollen, or they were clubbed down by angry husbands, incensed at the perceived betrayal of flight. The Riders watched both dispassionately, never taking a single step past their line. Within it, Hell on Earth raged.
For all the brown men’s flaws, cowardice wasn’t one of them. Not a single man ran. They fought ferociously, with knives and clubs and bags of explosive brown balls. Swirls of fire lashed knots of spiders. Through the night men and insects fought until, at one point just before dawn, a gout of fire shot up into the sky, seeming to come from the center of the district, where most of the mud balls had been stored.
That was the last of the flame seen by the Riders. After that, the spiders appeared to rage unopposed, except when they tested the Riders’ line.
Like a fire which burns too hot, or a fever that kills its patient, eventually the spiders ran out of victims to eat and infect and turned on themselves. The largest ate the smallest, and their numbers declined. At the same time, StoneDragon shifted away from the jungle, no new spiders left the district, and the powerful of StoneDragon gradually lost interest.
What became known as Spiders Way cooled into a scorched tangle of blackened buildings and billowing empty webs. The Riders returned to their walled home. Life seemed to return to normal. But most people avoided the district.
“People live here?” Clay asked, looking around at the cocooned buildings. “Surely not.”
Pale webbing floated away from bare trees. The bones of a small animal seemed to hover in a doorway, suspended by nearly invisible threads. Its empty eye sockets watched them. The skin of Clay’s neck crawled. They were not alone.
“Not many and not long,” Raol said, “but yes, they do.” He looked around soberly. “The desperate come here, those with nowhere left to go. They come either here or the Tower. Either way, they aren’t often seen again.”
JP looked baffled. “Why not just leave StoneDragon? They can pick their destination and just walk through the Wall. Surely any other place would be better than this?”
Clay knew the answer to that. “They think it’s temporary. That the wheel will turn and their time come again. If they leave StoneDragon, they’ll never return.” And for all of its dark side, the city held mystery and magic they’d never find anywhere else. He just wasn’t always sure it was worth the price.
“This way.” Raol walked into the maze of web-spun buildings, showing no sign of fear. Maybe one creepy bloodsucker recognized another.
Clay followed more cautiously, JP at his heels. Clay tried to watch all directions at once. No wonder Mendonia was angry, if this was where he’d ended up.
They passed between two crumbling buildings, a pale web stretched overhead like a canopy. Tucked against the brick, nearly hidden, Clay saw a shape stir, a leg reach out, and a body shift. The spider’s chest must have been as thick around as Clay’s chest. He watched it carefully until it was out of sight, although it didn’t move again.
“The remaining spiders don’t leave the district?” JP asked.
“Not as far as we know.” Raol stopped at the edge of a clearing. In it squatted a heavy stone building. “This is it.”
The Spartan’s lair was completely free of web. Two stories tall and heavy, it was made of wooden beams and hardened clay, reinforced with mismatched steel. A grate armored the front door, and a scaffolding ringed the building’s roof, boasting iron-banded barrels every few feet. Clay saw no sign of movement, just the low rustle of wind through web.
Clay looked at the barrels on the roof. “How much do you bet those are full of mud balls?”
“It would discourage the spiders,” Raol said.
“I’d hate to see a spider that needed that much discouragement.” Clay looked at the door. “If I go in there, will you come?” he asked Raol.
A brilliant smile. “Why not?”
“Me too,” JP said.
“No. You stay here. Once we know it’s safe, you can come in, but I’m not risking your life if we don’t have to.”
JP looked around. “It’s not exactly idyllic out here.”
“All right, your judgment call. If you think it’s more dangerous out here, come in, but stay near the door and keep your eyes open.”
JP nodded, although the skin around his eyes was tight. Clay felt guilty, but he could do nothing. He had to make the best of some bad options.
“I am not Dante.” Raol growled. “Let’s go.” He gripped the grate on the front door. His biceps flexed and the door tore loose from its frame, grate and all. He tossed it aside.
“Subtle,” Clay said. He looked at JP. “I’ll be back.”
“Good luck.”
Clay stepped through the door. The walls and air of the lair closed around him like some half-buried tomb, a damp smell of earth assaulting his nose. Spears of red light pierced the timbered roof above, revealing stretches of warped and stained flooring, missing in places and buried in others with dirt and debris. Soil sucked at Clay’s boots as he moved gingerly deeper, wary of the shadows. Raol drifted out of sight, exploring a different section of the building.
What had once been rooms and hallways had disintegrated into a skeletal maze. Through the broken walls, Clay could make out a larger room ahead, bare except for a post and a slumped shape in its center.
Clay’s heart pounded.
He moved forward, straining to catch sound or sight of something out of place. This would be a perfect place for an ambush. But it was hard to hear anything over the slide of his boots and hammer of his pulse, and the shadows were deep and plentiful. His hand hovered over his pistol.
In front of him, the slumped shape resolved into the form of a woman, wrapped chains holding her in place against the pole. The Spartans had fed on her. Dried blood pooled around her and the floor, and great chunks were missing from her arms and one thigh. Clay’s stomach twisted in disgust.