Stranger of Tempest: Book One of The God Fragments

by Tom Lloyd

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Get your hide moving, then.’

  Chapter 22

  ‘So do you trust her?’

  Lynx looked sideways at Kas, who’d dropped back to walk alongside him.

  ‘Toil?’ he asked, nodding towards the head of their small column. ‘I trust she wants to get through this place.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘You got a point to make?’ Lynx growled, slowing slightly to give them a little more space from the rest.

  Kas raised an eyebrow at his tone. ‘Think you’ve just made it for me.’

  ‘Balls I have. You think I trust Anatin either?’

  ‘Anatin’s loyal to his company. A prince-elect’s agent like her has a master and a mission, and that’s all that counts.’

  ‘Anatin’s loyal to you, mebbe,’ Lynx said with a shake of the head, ‘but not me. I’ve been around mercs enough to know loyalty to the new blood is thinner than water. You reckon he gives a shit about me? Experienced fighters he don’t call friend are useful enough at a pinch, but my use could be dying as well as living. I knew that back in Grasiel – “pin it on the bastard from So Han” is a game I’ve seen played a few times.’

  ‘We don’t work that way.’

  ‘You don’t, he does. Man’s got a cold heart – I ain’t condemning him for it. You’re a merc commander, that’s the only choice you get if you want to last long. As for Teshen and Reft, they’re a decent enough pair of sergeants, but the one who could be half Wisp is the more human of the two.’

  ‘Pretty harsh verdict on men I trust my life to.’

  ‘Pretty harsh world out there.’

  ‘You think I don’t know that?’ Kas snapped.

  Lynx opened his mouth to reply then checked himself. ‘Aye,’ he admitted, ‘I know. Didn’t mean it to sound otherwise.’

  There was a long moment of quiet as they both chewed over their words. Lynx felt the familiar knot of anxiety tighten at the back of his mind, the thinning of the air in his lungs even though the current tunnel was still larger than any he’d known at the prison mine.

  ‘Being down here really fucks with your head, eh?’ Kas said at last.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Well – my point was this. Look at all of us around you; ask yourself who’d think longest about leaving you down here.’

  Lynx didn’t reply, but his eyes lifted towards Toil, leading the way.

  ‘Aye, and that woman knows full well the effect she has on men. You can bet she’s taken note of all the looks she’s had in the last few days. I’m just saying watch yourself, in case she reckons she needs someone to do something stupid.’

  ‘Been a long time since I needed help on that front,’ Lynx reflected. He glanced over to where Sitain lay in the travois, clutching Reft’s pack and gun while the huge man dragged her down the tunnel. Lynx had taken a turn earlier for an hour or two and was feeling the effects in his biceps now, but he could see Reft had appreciated the relief for all his size and strength.

  ‘Good reminder right there,’ Kas said. ‘You did something stupid ’cos it was the right thing to do and they backed you up. Teshen was the first in line and much as I like the man, I’m willing to admit he’s got a heart some way chillier than average.’

  ‘Reckon he’s not the greatest fan o’ Militant Orders either, but point taken.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Still doesn’t mean I’ll do whatever a pretty girl tells me to.’

  Kas smiled. ‘Sure, you just keep thinking that.’

  They lapsed into silence again, a short burst of effort diminishing the ground between them and the rest. For the tenth time Lynx tried to work out what the hour was, but the best he could guess was daytime. After another hour or two, at the next rest, Sitain announced she felt well enough to try walking. While the others sat and ate a morsel of their dwindling supplies, she tottered back and forth to try and regain her balance.

  She was far from ready to run by the time Anatin decided it was time to leave, but the young woman managed to keep to the slower pace being set for an hour or so before being persuaded back into the travois again.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Sitain insisted as Lynx guided her back down.

  ‘But you’re weak still. No point exhausting yourself. Short bursts to start.’

  ‘You can’t drag me all the way across this city.’

  ‘We’re not far from the rift,’ Toil announced, coming to join them. ‘Save your strength for then, it’s an open stretch of ground. Might be we need to run there.’

  ‘She can’t run, not yet.’

  Toil shrugged. ‘If we get ambushed, the slowest target’s not going to have the best of days.’

  ‘You think they’re waiting for us?’

  ‘Would make sense. We’ll find somewhere to hole up and rest when we get there, assuming it’s safe.’

  ‘You don’t want to get straight across?’

  ‘Not in daylight. Besides, we’ve been underground a good while now. A few hours rest will do us good, a few hours of light too.’

  Lynx scowled. ‘Yeah, I could do with seeing the sun again. How is it this doesn’t bother you?’

  ‘I’m used to it,’ she said with a shrug. ‘But I can see you getting scratchier the more time we spend underground. Some folk go that way, the darkness gnaws at you and it’s bad to ignore. Isn’t a sign of weakness, just one the deep dark’s not the place for you.’

  ‘But you love it?’

  Toil shrugged. ‘Some of us learn to embrace the dark,’ she said. ‘Your friend Teshen’s born to it, I reckon, but I had to learn.’

  The all turned instinctively to look at where the long-haired Knight of Tempest lay, head propped up by his pack and eyes closed.

  ‘Born to it,’ Lynx said, nodding. ‘Well, that’s not worrying at all.’

  ‘Hey, there are only three types of relic hunter in this world,’ Toil said. ‘Those who’re born to the dark and those who learn to love it.’

  ‘And the third?’

  Her smile was cruel. ‘Those who get lost to it. Doesn’t matter how much you warn them, they’ll wander off and get lost.’

  ‘And which one am I?’ Lynx asked.

  ‘Only you can know that.’

  With that, Toil sat down and pulled her necklace out from under her tunic. Lynx frowned at it through the twilight for a while before realising it was some sort of tooth or claw. Again he remembered the man he’d met years ago, the one who’d claimed to have travelled this way and wore a maspid tooth around his neck. A man whose mind had cracked after what he’d seen in the dark. Toil turned it in her fingers for a while, frowning as she did so, then tucked it away again.

  ‘Souvenir from some past trip underground?’ he asked.

  She nodded. ‘A memento. Reminder of getting lost.’

  All too soon for Lynx’s weary body, they were off again. It turned out to be a short trip, but one he still felt his feet to start to drag on. Tunnels became more like oversized corridors, the stonework better preserved or more carefully done. The script of the Duegar appeared more often; images of animals and plants too, but never themselves, Lynx noticed. They ascended stairways and crossed great conical-roofed halls. Empty rooms and large chambers adjoined their path, while the sound of water and life began to echo from different directions, startling the mercenaries after a day or two of near-silence underground.

  And then it happened. A faint awareness of light that had Lynx squinting in muzzy confusion before they turned two corners and the world seemed to fill with the blaze of returning life. Shafts of crisp white light seared through mote-filled air while the brilliant green glow of leaves seemed to envelop them all. The rich, sharp smell of damp earth filled Lynx’s nose like the flavours of a feast, the bright pinpricks of red and yellow flowers as warm as a fire on his skin.

  For a moment he could only stop and stare as true colour returned to his world, rocking back on his heels as the light and scent filled his being. It was hard to l
ook at but impossible to turn away as the dragging weight of darkness lessened with every breath and he felt he could at last stand straight again.

  A punch to the shoulder drove him back to his senses, the beatific sense of wonder evaporating like morning mist as Teshen’s face appeared right up against his.

  ‘Stop fucking gawping and get your gun out.’

  Lynx blinked in confusion even as his body obeyed and pulled his mage-gun from his back. He looked around and saw the others do the same as the Wisps held back, keeping to the shadows.

  They don’t like the sun, he reminded himself. This part we’ll have to scout ourselves.

  He thumbed open the breech to check it was loaded then snapped it shut again. Ashis and Reft moved right towards an open doorway, Teshen and Kas ahead to the arc of pillars that had once denoted the edge of the chamber but was now swamped by foliage. Toil headed left so he followed her with Varain, leaving Anatin to watch over Sitain.

  A relatively low curved roof swept down to the pillars. Where chunks of rock had tumbled from a fissure lay a snaking mass of ivy trails. Toil picked her way past with professional caution, checking the open tear in the rock before moving on to the far end, obscured by sprays of yellowed leaves.

  Eventually they found themselves at the end and headed on through a deep archway into a similar open arcade. This one was larger in every way with a small tower of stone in the centre, entirely choked by foliage. There were tunnels and large double- and triple-storey chambers off this, all apparently empty and bearing no sign of monstrous inhabitants, so they returned to where they had left Anatin and Sitain. The others had found similar; Teshen and Kas had seen nothing larger than a rabbit, while Ashis and Reft had found a network of chambers all dimly lit by long diagonal shafts cut through at intervals.

  It seemed to be the best place for them to rest in safety so, with a pang of longing for the bright autumn sunshine, Lynx followed the others through a crescent corridor and into a broad room with a long pedestal and doorways leading off in three directions.

  ‘Oh ye gods and evil biting fishes!’ gasped Toil, trailing in last after thanking their Wisp guides. ‘No one move.’

  The mercenaries froze.

  ‘What is it?’ Anatin hissed, gently sliding his second pistol from its sheath.

  ‘Tomb,’ Toil said, by way of explanation. ‘Give me a moment. Did you go all the way in?’

  ‘Yes, the other rooms too.’

  ‘You step into the light?’ she said, pointing at the slanted column of sunlight that illuminated the centre of the tomb, directly in front of the empty pedestal.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right then.’

  She pulled a length of cloth from around her waist and balled it up before tossing it through the drifting shaft of sunlit motes. There was a bright flash as soon as it touched the light and a wash of flame swept down from the ceiling to catch the trailing end of cloth and set it alight. It fell to the floor, burning, while the mercenaries reeled back from the sudden, brief heat. Toil just nodded grimly to herself and reached out with her gun, reversed so the wooden stock touched the sunlight.

  Nothing happened. She gave a satisfied grunt and withdrew the gun. ‘A sunstore trap,’ she commented to the others. ‘Should be safe for at least half a day now.’

  She edged forward towards the centre of the room and stood just to one side of the light, looking up and all around as though searching for something. Toil paused when she faced a jutting door frame but kept looking until she’d scanned the rest of the room before she raised her mage-gun at it.

  ‘Ice anything that moves,’ she said softly before taking another step. Two more paces took her just shy of the pedestal where she hesitated and turned back to the mercenaries. ‘Reft, toss me an axe.’

  The big man did as she asked and Toil caught the weapon, hefted it to check the weight then hurled it at the wall on the far side of the door frame. Nothing happened though she immediately had her gun up and ready to shoot. After a long moment she breathed out and visibly relaxed.

  ‘Looks like we’re okay.’

  The mercenaries collectively gasped.

  ‘What the fuck was that about?’ Anatin demanded.

  ‘This is a burial chamber; they’re dotted all over Duegar ruins. I don’t know why. Folk reckon they were dying out so towards the end they had all this space going begging. The oldest tombs are in the deep dark where you don’t want to go, but since these are closer to the surface they got some nasty protections against folk like me.’

  ‘Like curses?’

  Toil snorted. ‘Sure, I almost shit myself over a five-thousand-year-old scribble, not the bloody sun’s rays stored and used to burn your face off.’

  Anatin let the scorn slide, aware he’d sounded stupid. ‘What else are we looking for, I mean?’

  ‘All sorts.’ She pointed to the jutting door frame. ‘That’s not a doorway there, more like a cupboard you really don’t want to open. Things that look like ghosts and turn your blood to ice, crystals that’ll blind you – I once saw a statue rip pieces off a man, just plucking away until someone hit it with an earther and almost buried us all. Don’t walk into a light shaft unless it’s been triggered recently, never stand on a slab of stone with a defined edge or it’ll tilt under you.’ She paused and laughed. ‘And since you’re mercs I should probably add – don’t put your fingers or anything else in any holes you see, okay?’

  ‘But no more here?’

  ‘Someone’s been here already, long ago most likely.’ She shook her head and forced a smile. ‘Should’ve guessed that really, this close to the open air there’s little chance of a tomb that hasn’t been raided. But a cautious explorer is one who’s still got their head attached.’

  ‘This has been raided?’

  Toil pointed to the oval-shaped hole above their heads from which the fire had come and light still shone. ‘Should be a sort of glass up there, sealing it tight – you can sell that to any princip in the world to use as a window strong enough to resist an icer. They’ve chipped the stone out around it.’ She moved towards the pedestal and nodded. ‘This has been opened too, seal’s broken.’

  ‘They put the stone back?’

  ‘Nah, broke the clasps and levered it up, it’ll hinge somewhere I guess. You let go of it and it’ll slowly slide back into place.’

  ‘So this is safe?’ Ashis asked, looking around the chamber, wide-eyed. ‘We ain’t gonna get ’et?’

  ‘Not by the tomb, anyway,’ Toil said. ‘Maspids I ain’t promising about, but we’ll rig up a grenade at the entrance in case anything comes our way. I’ll check out the rest of the tomb while you do that.’ She beamed suddenly. ‘After that, a good long sleep!’

  Teshen grunted. ‘Sounds good to me. Kas, let’s take a better look at the rift before we rig anything over the entrance.’

  He nodded back the way they’d come and Kas followed him out, unshipping her bow as she went. Lynx watched them go as Toil headed off through one of the open doorways. He looked at Anatin who shrugged and slipped his pack off his shoulders.

  ‘Toil’s the expert,’ Anatin commented, ‘she can clear the damn rooms. I want a smoke.’

  Lynx hesitated then settled down too, content to sit with a loaded mage-gun on his lap pointing towards the other doorway. The light filtering down through the rock was meagre, but after days in darkness he was happy to bathe in its welcome glow once he’d tested the safety for himself. Lynx sat in the centre of the room as Sitain got up and stretched her aching limbs, walking the perimeter while Reft and Ashis slumped with Lynx. Anatin struck a sulphur match and lit three tightly rolled cigarettes, passing one to Lynx and the other to Ashis.

  Before long Toil returned, confirming the rooms off to the side were empty and safe. Lynx felt his eyes sagging before she’d even crossed to clear the other set, but as soon as she was gone from sight he made his gun safe and stretched out on the dry dusty floor. With his head propped up by his pack so he was looking straight
at the shaft of light without actually being in the line of fire, he closed his eyes and felt the warm embrace of sleep settle over him.

  Lynx dreamed of Govenor Lorfen again, as he knew he would. The time underground had scraped at the scabs of his memory, but Lorfen embodied the bandages Lynx had laid over parts of his soul that would never fully heal. He knew the prison had broken him, however much he pretended and lived his life as though it hadn’t. The face he presented to the world was not just to protect himself from it, it was to contain the damage done. He had tried to return to a normal life, but had found he could not settle anywhere.

  Employment as a scribe or a rich man’s bodyguard, Lynx had tried both and more besides, and failed every time. Before long the walls started to look like a prison cell, those he saw each day became fellow inmates and at To Lort you trusted no man. The trusting died, only those who struck first survived and as much as he tried to be calm and joke his way through life, Lynx knew he would one day strike first.

  Drunkenness was usually his path out. Picking fights with locals, bitter unpleasantness to the widows who’d thought him a gentle man, it didn’t matter really. He couldn’t contain the bubble of anger for ever, one day it would force its way out and he’d leave or be driven out. You chose the man you wanted to be and tried to live up to that, but a person’s nature could never be denied fully.

  ‘Sleep here for the night,’ Lorfen had said one day as the sun dropped below the horizon and he was tidying his desk for the evening. ‘The office’s yours if you want it.’

  ‘You want to lock me in here?’

  Lorfen shook his head. ‘The door will only be locked if you lock yourself in and the windows aren’t barred.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You don’t return an animal to the wild in one day.’

  ‘Calling me an animal?’ Lynx said, hands tightening.

  ‘We all are,’ Lorfen replied calmly. ‘We’re all slaves to our nature, however much humans can strive to be more than that. You’ve made good progress these last few weeks.’ He gestured to the papers on the table where Lynx had been working. ‘I couldn’t have trusted the man I first met to do scribing work, you were too far gone.’