When the Heavens Fall

by Marc Turner

  Romany sniffed. The goddess was jesting, surely. Was a spider troubled by the flies that became entangled in its web? And yet … “I must confess, the thought of assisting Mayot Mencada in his struggles is an unpalatable one.”

  “Tut-tut. Mayot is assisting us. The game is ours, not his.” The goddess’s look hardened. “And I intend to see it through.”

  “And if the mage profits from our endeavors?”

  “What if he does? You forget, the more powerful Mayot becomes, the harder it will be for Shroud to wrest the Book from him.” The Spider sipped her water. “For now the mage needs our help.”

  “For now?” Romany’s tone betrayed her disdain. The old man would always need a crutch. Power was nothing without the intelligence to wield it judiciously.

  “Don’t make the mistake of underestimating him. I have in fact been pleasantly surprised by the mage’s creativity. He’s made a number of imaginative moves while you’ve been away.”

  “Such as?”

  The goddess gave a self-satisfied grin. “What, and spoil the surprise? You will see for yourself soon enough.”

  Romany rolled her eyes. The Spider’s reticence was infuriating, if all too familiar. “And if he tries to betray us again?”

  “You’ll just have to keep one step ahead of him. Of course, if you don’t think you can handle him…”

  “Handling him is the very last thing I would wish.”

  “Oh, come now, where’s your sense of adventure? It might even be fun.”

  “Fun?” Clearly the goddess was suffering from the heat. “Will you be joining me, then, for the … entertainment?”

  The Spider shook her head. “I rrrather think it is your turn to be entertained. While you’ve had your feet up, I’ve been busy in Arandas running rings round an opponent who might otherwise have proved a thorn in Mayot’s side.” The goddess drained her glass. “I suspect Shroud will come to regret committing so much of his strength on this venture. In doing so he has stretched himself thin in other places, and I mean to take advantage, starting now.” A flutter of one hand and the Spider’s glass disappeared. “It’s time we were going.”

  Romany’s eyes widened. Now? “A few moments, please—”

  But the world was already blurring around her. She made a grab for the bottle beneath her chair and smiled as her hand closed about the neck. Her feeling of triumph faded, however, when she noticed how low the level of liquid was.

  I should never have offered the Spider that glass.

  * * *

  Luker’s spirit drifted through the sky. Far below on the Gollothir Plains the wind blew red dust across the lowlands, smothering in a fiery haze the rocky gullies and spires of wind-blasted stone. He looked round. Nothing to see but the gnarled branches of rodanda trees protruding from the murk like skeletal hands. All in all, this hadn’t been one of his better ideas. He could barely make out the Shroud-cursed ground, how was he supposed to locate whoever had spotted his party emerging from Cloud Pass?

  As he banked to the left, his spirit was buffeted by swirling energies rising from the land. Not the wind, of course, since it couldn’t touch him in his spirit-form, but rather the reverberations of some ancient cataclysm that had scarred the plains. The land’s checkered history was written on those dark currents for those who had the skill to read them. Centuries ago a god had fallen here—Luker could sense echoes of its death throes on the updrafts—and the earth still shuddered at the memory. The Guardian’s face twisted. Typical. Thousands of years dead, and the immortal still found a way to piss in his eye.

  Switching his attention south, he floated toward the foothills of the Shield from which he and his companions had ridden a few bells earlier. Ahead firedrifters swooped and dived into the haze before reappearing with wriggling black shapes in their talons, but when Luker approached for a better look he saw only the corpse of an alamandra beneath a heaving mass of wither snakes. He blew out a breath. The higher he drifted, the less he could make out through the dust, but if he stayed close to the ground it would take him the best part of a day to make a single sweep of the lowlands. I’m wasting my time here.

  A final glance at the Shield’s foothills, rising from the murk …

  Luker stiffened. There was movement along a ridge to the west.

  He covered the ground in a heartbeat. A group of riders was descending a rocky slope. Kalanese. They rode bareback on sand-colored mounts and wore gray robes and headscarves. Spears rested across their laps, and wicker shields hung from slings across their backs. The company was drawn up in an arrowhead formation, nineteen horsemen in all.

  Nineteen, not eighteen.

  That extra rider spelled trouble. Sure enough, at the head of the group rode a man with skin as dark as fellwood. His long blond hair was braided with gold thread, and across his thighs rested not a spear, but a staff of bone. Luker swore. A soulcaster. What in the Nine Hells was one of his kind doing this far east?

  As Goldenlocks reached the foot of the slope he raised a fist, and the riders behind him halted. The warriors at the rear of the group moved inward, changing the company’s formation from a “V” to a diamond. Spears were readied. The soulcaster didn’t look up, but there could be no question he’d sensed Luker. What to do about him, though? Best guess, the Kalanese were ten leagues behind the Guardian’s party, so more than half a day’s travel. But still too close for comfort. Half a day’s lead wouldn’t see Luker clear of the plains. Shroud’s own luck the bastard’s stumbled across our trail. He gave a half smile. His luck, not mine.

  This ends here.

  Luker battled down through the gusting updrafts until he was a score of paces above the riders. Goldenlocks barked a command, and all but one of his troops dug their heels into their mounts, scattering outward to form a circle with the soulcaster in the center. The remaining soldier, a woman, dropped her spear in the dust and moved up to flank him. The sacrificial lamb. Luker never ceased to be amazed at the lack of ceremony that accompanied what followed. The woman simply nodded to the soulcaster like she was acknowledging her name at a roll call, then slumped across her horse’s neck. Dead.

  One less Kalanese. And Luker hadn’t even needed to draw his sword.

  Raising a Will-barrier beneath him, he braced himself for Goldenlocks’s onslaught. This first round he would give to the Kalanese, for he wasn’t going to waste his energy on an attack until he’d had a chance to judge the temper of the other man’s steel.

  He didn’t have long to wait. A burst of energy from the soulcaster hammered into him, and he went spiraling upward, riding Goldenlocks’s power like the cataclysmic updrafts. Higher and higher he went until the riders had diminished to blurs in the murk. Moments later they disappeared from sight entirely. Luker’s Will-shield began to unravel, and he spun another layer of wards to reinforce it. Then that too started to come undone. A headache prickled behind his eyes. And still his enemy’s sorcery continued to batter him.

  Not bad, little man.

  Finally the waves of Goldenlocks’s power subsided, and Luker’s ascent slowed. He took a faltering breath. Just as well he didn’t mind heights, since he was now level with the lowest of the Shield’s peaks. Far below, another of the soulcaster’s kinsmen would doubtless be spurring his horse level with his leader’s in case the Guardian came back for more, but Luker had no intention of provoking another broadside. He’d learned enough to know Goldenlocks was strong. Too strong to be taken down while Luker was in spirit-form and so far from his body. Tempting, perhaps, to stay a while and let the soulcaster use up more of his followers in keeping Luker at bay, but at what cost to the Guardian himself? No, better to beat a tactical retreat and conserve his strength until such time as he met Goldenlocks in the flesh. For when they did, Luker vowed, the result would be different.

  Closing his spirit-eyes, he concentrated on his distant body. After a short while he felt the scorched ground beneath his fingertips, the wind’s hot breath against his skin. His spirit sped across the in
tervening leagues.

  When he opened his eyes he found Jenna staring down at him, her face framed by the powder-blue sky. To her left, Chamery watched with hooded eyes, a damp cloth pressed to his face.

  Jenna smiled a crooked smile. “Welcome back.”

  Raising himself on one elbow, Luker hawked and spat. “How long was I gone?”

  “Half a bell,” Jenna said, passing him a water bottle.

  Luker pulled out the stopper and took a swig.

  Merin spoke from behind. “Well?”

  “Kalanese are on our trail,” the Guardian said, looking round. “And they’ve got a soulcaster.”

  The tyrin had been rubbing his horse down with a blanket, but now he paused. “You’re certain they’re following us?”

  Luker nodded. If they weren’t before, they sure as hell would be now. He rose and brushed dirt from his clothes. Taking a final swig from the flask, he handed it back to Jenna.

  “What next, Guardian?” Chamery said.

  “We keep going. Can’t ambush a soulcaster. Too many in his party, anyhow.”

  “Can we outrun them?”

  Luker shrugged. “One way to find out.”

  The mage’s voice was dipped in acid. “Excellent. For a moment there I thought you had things under control.”

  The Guardian stared at him. Maybe I should cut the boy loose, see if he copes any better on his own. Chamery removed the damp cloth from his face, and a drop of water dripped from the end of his nose. For the past few days he’d been using twice as much water as anyone else in the group, but when Luker tried to put a stop to it, Chamery simply started taking from his horse’s ration instead. He swung his gaze to Merin. “We should move farther east, closer to the Waste. Less chance of us running into more unwanted company that way.”

  The tyrin turned toward the desert and frowned at the bruised skyline. “I don’t like the look of that dust storm.”

  “You’ll change your mind if we need it for cover.”

  “How much of a start have we got on the Kalanese?”

  “Maybe half a day.”

  Merin held his gaze.

  Aye, not enough. The Kalanese mounts were better suited to the rigors of the Gollothir Plains, and were most likely fresher too. Goldenlocks would catch up to them long before they reached the Sun Road.

  “There’s another option,” Luker said. “We split up. Me and Jenna, you and the boy. Soulcaster’s bound to come after me. I’ll lead him into that storm. Give me a day, I’ll have thrown him off our scent.”

  “How do we find each other afterwards?”

  “I’ll find you.”

  The tyrin’s look was appraising.

  He thinks I’ll hang him out to dry. Luker scratched his scar. It’s a thought.

  “No,” Merin said at last. “The Kalanese could just separate when we do. And there’s still the risk of running into tribesmen. Our chances are better if we stay together.”

  The Guardian grunted. Yours are, you mean.

  * * *

  Parolla kicked a stone as she followed the course of a dry riverbed. She hadn’t expected to make it so far through the demon world unopposed. She had been trudging through the Shades for nearly six bells, she reckoned, and she’d yet to see a single inhabitant of this barren wasteland. But that didn’t mean they hadn’t seen her. The valley slopes to either side were pockmarked with caves from which countless hidden eyes could be looking down, but if she had been spotted, why hadn’t the watchers come for her? Were they waiting in ambush somewhere ahead?

  The charcoal-gray sky hadn’t changed tone since Parolla entered the rent, and she was starting to wonder if a sun would ever rise on this cursed land. The Shades made the Ken’dah Steppes feel welcoming. Such light as there was came from two small moons, one behind and to her left, the other low in the sky to her right. The air felt stale and stagnant as if it had not moved in days, and Parolla’s breathing was becoming labored as she climbed higher into the hills. Flakes of rock crunched beneath her feet, and when she looked behind she saw clouds of dust marking the way she had come. She scowled. Like a big arrow pointing any nearby demons after her. It made her wonder why she bothered with her shadow-spell.

  Hers were not the only footprints in the dirt. She had encountered two other sets since entering the rent—fellow intruders in this realm, she suspected. The first tracks were small and punctuated by round imprints apparently made by the butt of a staff. The ground between the tracks was scuffed, suggesting their owner moved with a shuffling gait. An old woman, perhaps? The owner of the second prints had huge feet and a stride to match, one for every two of Parolla’s.

  For a time both sets of tracks had kept her company as she walked. Now, only the old woman’s prints continued into the gloom. The giant’s had halted half a league back beside a spire of rock. The ground in its shadow had been speckled with blood and scored by dozens of clawed feet. There was no sign of the giant’s body, just drag marks in the dust leading up one of the valley sides to a cluster of caves. As Parolla had hastened past, her gaze had been locked on those caves, and her nerves were still raw from twitching at every breath of wind. But nothing had stirred. The one benefit of this desolate landscape, she told herself, was that she’d at least be able to see trouble when it came calling.

  And yet, that hadn’t helped the giant, had it?

  She had come across the prints of both the giant and the old woman at the entrance to the valley she now traveled through. The convergence had puzzled her for a while. It seemed the other intruders were, like Parolla herself, heading for the rent near the Forest of Sighs, but how did they know which route to take? The answer came to her suddenly. The threads of death-magic. Even here in the Shades, they were discernible through the distant rent. It would be a simple matter for the giant and the old woman to follow the tendrils, knowing they would lead to a way out of the demon world. And how had they known to track the strands? Clearly I am not the only one with an interest in following them to their source …

  She stumbled to a halt.

  It took her a moment to realize what was wrong. The old woman’s tracks had disappeared. Parolla retraced her steps until she found them again. Then blinked. They just … stopped. There were no claw marks on the ground, no signs of a struggle. It was as if the old woman had simply vanished in midstep. Parolla’s hackles rose. Unless …

  She looked up into the yawning gray sky.

  It was empty.

  Suppressing a shiver, she glanced back at the footprints. There was something lying in the dust to her right—a staff, snapped into three pieces, the wood flame-blackened. Had the old woman been a fire-magus, then? A fire-magus in a land without a sun. Little wonder, if so, that she’d been no match for whatever took her.

  There was a noise to Parolla’s left, farther up the valley. Claws scratched on stone. A small shape flitted across the ground, moving so quickly Parolla could barely follow its course. Anticipating an attack, she gathered her power and waited, her heart thumping, her gaze raking the gloom. The shadow, though, was moving away from her, cutting upslope in front of a group of caves before disappearing over the lip of the incline. Parolla scanned the rest of the valley for movement, but all was still. Eventually the click-clack of settling stones faded, and silence returned.

  She released her breath. A coincidence the demon had taken flight just as she was passing through? Hardly. Odds were it had spotted her and judged her too powerful to tackle alone, but her stay of execution would prove short-lived if, as she suspected, it had gone to fetch help.

  Her time was running short.

  She set off at a run along the dry riverbed, but the Ken’dah Steppes had sapped the strength from her legs, and she soon slowed to a walk again. The gradient increased as the valley began to narrow. Ahead she caught sight of twin columns of stone. Had she seen them last time she was in the Shades? The rent was close now, she thought, but she’d been telling herself the same for the past bell. And while the threads of death-magic
told her she was heading in the right direction, they didn’t tell her how far she still had to go to reach her destination.

  The course of the dry river became choked with rocks, and Parolla abandoned it for a rough track that wound a tortuous path up the slope to her right. By the time she reached the summit her legs were trembling and her shirt was sodden down her back and beneath her arms. The ridge was deserted, and she paused to catch her breath, doubled over with her hands on her knees. The back of her throat felt like someone had stripped the flesh from it. In front of her, the ground fell away into a sea of black. Far in the distance she could make out a range of mountains silhouetted against the smaller of the two moons. She smiled in recognition, for this was the same view that had greeted her when she’d first entered the Shades eight years ago. Towers and turrets rose from among the rocky outcrops, and circling above them …

  Her smile faded. In the sky, winged demons soared and swooped in their hundreds. No, thousands. Most were the size of needleflies at this range; some were as large as spider jays.

  Then a cluster of them scattered.

  A rumble sounded as a shape rose from the darkness between the spires. Just one of its wings was enough to eclipse the moon entirely. There were horns atop its head, and it had a long, broad snout like a crocodile’s. As its ascent leveled out, it beat its wings to maintain its height. It was difficult to judge perspective at such a distance, but it appeared to be heading toward Parolla.

  She pushed herself into motion.

  On the opposite flank of the ridge to the one she had climbed was a track leading down to a row of caves, and she scrambled down it, her feet skidding on loose gravel. The threads of death-magic guided her to the cave she needed. As she recalled, the portal was just the other side. The entrance was narrower than she remembered, no more than a jagged fissure less than two paces across. Too big, certainly, for that demon to follow her through. As she plunged into the blackness, she held her hands out in front of her face. Her left hip jarred on stone, catching her right on the bone, and she swore. A strong wind blew into her face, reassuringly warm after the chill of the demon world.