by D. P. Prior
“Aye, laddie, plane ship.”
“Now this I gotta see,” Weasel said.
Nameless already had hold of the husk girl by the hand and was leading the way outside, to where Pyler was sat waiting with the carriage.
THE PLANE SHIP
Pyler drove them through the streets of New Londdyr like he did it for a living. He’d been the same on the way from Brink. The journey should have taken almost two days, but he’d got them there in less than one. Got them through the toll gates, as well, no questions asked. Shadrak knew from his guild days how much the city’s infamous bureaucracy could slow you down. Knew how much it could cost you, too. And he didn’t just mean the taxes. There was hush money for the gate guards, and the scuts put it up every year.
Since leaving the Academy, Nameless had fallen into one of his black moods. He stared out the window as dumb and expressionless as the husk girl. Every now and then, he would stiffen, or he’d bunch his fists—signs he was still alive, still thinking, still worrying about the fate that had befallen his people. Either that, or he was feeling guilty for losing Shadrak a whole load of money. It was all well and good promising a reward from some long-dead king’s coffers, but until he had the coins in hand, Shadrak considered the debt outstanding.
The girl was wedged in between them, so slender, so fragile, Shadrak tried to avoid pressing against her in case she shattered. Course, he knew she was tougher than she looked. He’d seen the Maresman drag her through the ceiling of the carriage. Seen her emerge from the wreckage unscathed. He didn’t miss things like that; filed it all away for when it was needed. Because it would be needed, sooner or later. Always was. And even if he was wrong, it never paid to take chances. Know your enemy, know your victim, know your friends. It was a philosophy that had gotten him a long way.
Oh, fellah, Kadee’s voice sounded in his mind. It’s a philosophy that only sets you apart.
Shadrak clenched his teeth and shook his head, but at the same time he had to smile inside. Even in death, his foster mother couldn’t stop telling him how to lead his life. Not that she was ever controlling. Far from it: Kadee had loved him as perfectly as any real mother could, and what he felt in return was… Well, it was why it hurt like a knife in the guts, twisting and slicing, each time he became aware of her absence.
Shadrak let his eyelids droop shut, and Kadee’s wizened face formed in swirls of mist. Crystals glinted in her braided hair, and in the background, there were smudges of gray and black, and what might have been the peaks of jagged mountains.
You have friends now. At least, a friend. He’s a good one, this dwarf. Look after him.
“Had friends before,” Shadrak said. “Whole bunch of them.”
Not real friends. Name one.
Even as he did so to prove his point, Shadrak knew he was on a hiding to nothing. “Albert…”
The poisoner?
“Yep.”
So, why did you kill him?
Shadrak let out a sharp hiss of breath. Nameless glanced at him, then went back to looking out the window. The husk girl didn’t seem to notice.
“Look, Kadee,” he muttered under his breath, “I’ve got company.”
I know.
“You can see?”
A little. And not for long. A hint of urgency crept into her ghostly voice. I need to go. I just wanted to tell you, it was a good thing you did, not selling the girl.
Where the subtle warmth of Kadee’s presence had been—he felt it beneath his scalp—there was suddenly just absence. Like he always did after her “visits”, he immediately set to wondering if it was for real; if the Archon had told the truth about Kadee enduring somehow on a world called Thanatos. Because if it wasn’t, Shadrak knew he had serious issues, and no scutting head doctor was sticking leeches up his arse to get the bad humors out.
The streets were filling up, even as clear skies gave way to gray clouds and drizzle. It wasn’t enough to deter the traders, or the workers on their way to and from the foundries that dominated the arse-end of New Londdyr the carriage had entered.
The air was thick with acrid smoke and sulfur. They were almost deafened by the clangor of sledgehammers striking runners, risers, and heads from new castings. As the carriage clattered on and they got through the worst of it, the din was replaced by the sizzling rush of molten metal being poured from crucibles into molds.
Shadrak had once had lucrative contracts in the area, and the Night Hawks had carted away many a gold ingot formed from the melted-down wares they had stolen. It was a shogging injustice, the way he’d lost control of the guilds. Four years of hard graft, only to dissolve into nothing because he’d killed the wrong man at the wrong time, and not because he’d wanted to, either.
Time the carriage pulled up outside Queenie’s Fine Diner, Shadrak was as morose as Nameless. It wasn’t a luxury he could afford in his line of work, and the instant he caught himself brooding on what was dead and buried, he snapped back to the moment.
He kicked open the door and jumped out onto the street. Weasel clambered down from beside Pyler to join him. The girl was next, and Nameless came behind her, sullen and set in stone.
“I’ll take it from here,” Shadrak said to Pyler. “You can shog off now.”
“Shog off? What about my pay?”
Shadrak drew a flintlock and pointed it at him. “This do you?”
“That ain’t nice, Shadrak,” Pyler said. He touched the end of the arrow shaft protruding from his neck, as if that might draw him some sympathy.
“Want me to count to three?”
“Ah, shog it,” Pyler said. With a crack of the reins, the carriage lurched off down the street.
“Looks different to how I remember it,” Nameless said, squinting up at the sign.
Shadrak holstered the pistol.
Some scut had painted over “Queenie’s Fine Diner” and replaced it with “Roderick’s Ribs and Rawcuts”.
“Place has changed hands a dozen times since it was mine,” Shadrak said.
Technically, it had been Albert the poisoner’s restaurant, but when Shadrak took over the guilds, it had become his headquarters, until he’d had to flee New Londdyr and leave Buck Fargin in charge. From then on, it had only been a matter of time before the Night Hawks lost their supremacy, and Queenie’s had gone from one culinary disaster to the next. Albert would be turning in his grave, if he’d had a grave. Shadrak had watched him die from a dose of his own medicine, and his livid corpse had been the last thing the plane ship dissolved with its army of automated cleaners, before even they had stopped working. He couldn’t help wondering if Albert’s fat arse had clogged up the mechanism. It would be just like him to exact some sort of posthumous revenge.
The lunch crowd were just starting to tuck into their—well, he didn’t know what it was, save for brown sludge that stank like shit—when he barged through the entrance and strode toward the kitchen at the back. The others processed behind him, as diners gawped and shook their heads.
A twat in a black apron and white shirt intercepted him at the kitchen door.
“Excuse me, sir, you’re not allowed in there.”
“You the owner?” Shadrak said.
“That I am, sir. Roderick Royfeld of Roderick’s Ribs and—”
Shadrak whipped out a flintlock and shoved the barrel against Roderick’s forehead.
“You’ve turned this place into a dive,” Shadrak said. “It’s a shogging disgrace.”
“I concur,” Weasel said. “But I’m dying for the crapper, if you don’t mind.”
Shadrak aimed at the ceiling and let off a shot.
Screams rent the air, and Roderick threw himself to the floor with his hands over his ears.
“Follow me,” Shadrak said. And to Weasel, “Stick a cork in it till we get there.”
He led them through the kitchen, which looked like it had never been cleaned. Rotting vegetables were strewn over the floor, and cockroaches scuttled across work surfaces layered with stains
on top of stains.
The chef was a burly man in a puffy white hat. He lunged at Shadrak with a cleaver.
“Get the shog out of my kitch—”
Nameless punched him in the face, and he pitched over backward into a bin full of potato peelings. A black rat scampered up his apron, took a sniff at his face, thought better of it, and scurried off.
“Starting to become a habit,” Weasel said, holding up his fist.
“Practice makes perfect, laddie,” Nameless said.
Shadrak led them through the narrow door at the back, down a flight of stairs, and into the cellar. He swiftly crossed to the grille in the floor, eased it up with a knife under the edge, and lowered himself into the hole beneath. His feet found the top rungs of the rusty ladder that led to the sewers, and he started to descend.
“I ain’t going down there,” he heard Weasel say. Then the rogue squealed, and his legs dangled over the opening. Nameless had hold of him by the scruff of the neck.
“Yes, you are, laddie. Quickly as you can now.”
That was all the prompting Weasel needed, but he muttered and cursed every rung of the way.
The husk girl was next, with Nameless last, his bulk blocking out the dirty light at the top.
Shadrak dropped lightly onto a patch of rust that seemed to float in midair. Weasel cried out in shock, and then looked dumbfounded when Shadrak didn’t plummet to his death.
It would have been even more shocking for him had it not been for the rust. The plane ship was supposed to be invisible, seamlessly merging with whichever environment it found itself in. But it was growing old, and falling further and further into disrepair.
Shadrak felt around for the entry panel, tapped it so that it slid open.
Weasel gasped at the appearance of a rectangle of dark glass streaming shapes and symbols in lurid colors across its surface. One by one, numbers winked into existence across the screen, flashing, waiting to be pressed.
Shadrak tapped out the code, then stepped back as a circle of light blossomed out of thin air, and beyond it, a corridor of burnished silver led off into the distance.
Nameless had seen it all before, so he casually stepped over the threshold and held out a hand for the husk girl. Shadrak shoved Weasel in the back, and the rogue stumbled inside, where he turned a slow circle, gawping, mouth working in silent utterances of astonishment.
“Magic,” Shadrak said nonchalantly, as he strode past. It wasn’t, but the reality was far too complex to describe, and he didn’t know the half of it himself.
He led the way along corridor after corridor of uniform silver. Many were streaked with dirt, and dust had started to build up where the walls met the floor. It never used to be that way. When he’d first found the plane ship, it had cleaned itself, but with no one to maintain it, decay had set in. He only hoped it could hold together long enough to get them where they needed to go.
They crammed into one of the cubicles that traveled between levels, and he took them up to the control room. When they entered, it was like coming home to a burgled house.
Beads of silver were scattered all about the floor. Normally, they were fluid, and only appeared long enough to clean up whatever mess had been made; but now they were hard as ball bearings, and a shogging hazard to walk over without breaking your neck.
A panel had popped open on the main control plinth, exposing pulsing filaments and glowing crystals. The screens that were supposed to show what was outside were smeared over and dead. They’d not worked for years. The half-egg chairs that rose from the floor were all out, some of them leaning over on their pedestals, as if they’d wilted. The doors at the back opened onto what had once been a makeshift stable. The horses were long gone, but no scut had bothered to muck them out. The stench was akin to Roderick’s Ribs and Rawcuts.
“You want to speak to Dame Consilia’s girls, laddie,” Nameless said. “They often do a spot of cleaning for me at the gym.”
Shadrak drew in a long breath through his teeth before answering. “Reckon it’s beyond that. Plane ship’s on her last legs.”
“This is…” Weasel said, still wide-eyed and gawping. “This is…”
“Shut up and tell me how to get to Arnoch,” Shadrak said. “I’m taking it you have a map?”
“There are no maps of Qlippoth,” Nameless said. “Except the one Stupid made. I mean, Abednago. We thought he was called Stupid, but he was only pretending. He was a homunculus, you see, disguised as a dwarf.”
“So, where is it?” Shadrak said, holding out a hand. He needed something to tell the plane ship. Some way of plotting a course.
“Here,” Weasel said. “But it’s not much use.”
He held out a map that was essentially a few dotted lines between crosses.
“The crosses are what we call stepping stones,” Nameless said. “Fixed points in Qlippoth. The rest of the terrain is always shifting, so you never know where you are.”
“Great,” Shadrak said. “Now you tell me.”
“The good news is,” Nameless said, taking the map from Weasel, “that Arnoch is one of the fixed points.”
“Beneath the shogging ocean,” Shadrak said. “I don’t want to piss on your parade or nothing, but do you seriously think this ship is gonna be waterproof anymore?”
“It’s not the city itself that’s fixed,” Nameless said. “It’s the surrounding land, where she normally stands. If you could get us there…”
“What?” Shadrak said. “What then? You gonna swim to the bottom of the sea and hope some shogging great shark don’t get a taste for dwarf arse?”
“Uhm, no,” Nameless said. “I haven’t got that far in my thinking yet. And besides, I can’t swim.”
“This just gets better and better.”
The husk girl stretched out her arms and yawned.
“Lassie?” Nameless said.
She slumped for a moment, and then straightened up vertebra by vertebra. Shadrak could have sworn her hair shimmered, and that it had grown an inch. He could have sworn she’d grown taller, too, and filled out some.
Even Weasel was watching her expectantly, but as soon as it came, all activity fled the girl, and she resumed staring into space.
Shadrak shrugged and turned to the control plinth. He swiped symbols across the screen, and in response, images of landscapes appeared: places the plane ship had been before. If he found the right one—if it had ever been to Arnoch—he could simply select it, and the ship would take them there. Only, Weasel’s map didn’t exactly give him anything to go on. After a minute or so, he gave up.
“It’s no good,” he said. “I don’t even know what it looks like.”
“Well…” Nameless said, with a look at Weasel for support.
“Don’t ask me,” Weasel said. “I’m crap at describing things. I’m a numbers dwarf, through and through. I can calculate a profit or give you odds on a circle fight in next to no time, but ask me to describe a sunset…”
“I didn’t,” Shadrak said. “It’s a city. Or rather, the surrounds where the city should be. Surely there are landmarks you’d recognize? Something we could search for?”
Nameless started to shake his head, but then he hefted his axe and stared at the twin blades.
“Paxy says she can show you.”
“Oh, no,” Shadrak said, taking a step back. “I ain’t talking to no shogging axe.”
“She said show, not tell. Give it a try, laddie. It’s important to her. It’s important to me.”
“Fine,” Shadrak said. “What do I do?”
“Paxy?” Nameless inclined his head, listening. Then he set the axe down on the control plinth, and the blades began to shine golden.
Images ran across the screen, faster and faster, until they were just a blur, and then, abruptly, they stopped.
“That’s it?” Shadrak said.
The screen now showed a rocky shoreline, and in the distance, cliffs that seemed to be dissolving and re-forming.
“Yeah, th
at’s it,” Weasel said. “Home.”
“Then strap yourselves in.” Shadrak ran his gaze over the dilapidated chairs sticking out of the floor. “No, on second thoughts, don’t bother.” He swiped all the symbols to the bottom of the screen, and his guts lurched as the walls started to flicker in and out of reality.
THE DRAGON
The door slid open onto the end of the world.
At least, that was Nameless’s first impression as he near-choked on the mephitic stench, and blinked against the acidic smog that wafted into the plane ship.
Outside, clouds of ash and soot billowed overhead, smothering the glare of the twin suns, and plunging the surrounds into an unnatural gloaming.
Nameless stepped gingerly through the exit, heart hammering with anticipation at what he might find, and what he might not. Once before, Arnoch had sunk without a trace, not to be seen again for hundreds of years. What if it was worse this time? What if his people perished beneath the waves, and he was the last of his kind?
Weasel coughed and spluttered as his head poked through the doorway.
Well, not last, but as good as.
The hull of the plane ship, if that’s what you could call it, was completely visible for a change. Not just a smattering of rust or dirt; he could see the whole thing sprawling away from him in every direction, until it was obscured by the ash cloud. It was hard to tell in the half-light, but it looked to be made from some sort of alloy riveted together in panels the size of fields.
The husk girl came out next, with Shadrak prodding her in the back.
The assassin wrinkled his nose at the exposed body of his plane ship, then looked off into the gloom. “So, what now?”
Nameless had no idea. He couldn’t get his bearings from within the swirling smog.