The Dark Shore (The Dominions of Irth Book 1)

by A. A. Attanasio

  "Woman!" he called to the blood-soaked refugee crouched in the lava coulee. "Come with me!"

  For a moment, the woman hesitated at the summons of this bestial man with blue-furred shoulders and pug ears. She cowered until he pranced closer through the torn bodies, firelock trained on the trolls gnashing needle teeth in scorched snouts. Then once more he beckoned her with an outstretched hand—a human hand.

  She climbed out of the gully and ran to him. The trolls surged forward. And again Ripcat stalled them with a flourish of his weapon. They backed away, chittering and clawing at the air.

  Ripcat led the woman hurriedly up the stony slope to where Dogbrick and Whipcrow waited. When they looked back, the trolls, afraid of the firelock, had resumed their feasting and none bothered to follow.

  "Tywi!" Dogbrick shouted at the sight of her, but she only gaped back mutely, too shocked to recognize him in this bleak setting.

  "You know this pathetic creature?" Whipcrow asked, backing away from the blood-grimed woman.

  "Yes," Dogbrick replied pityingly, leading the stunned woman higher up the talus slide. "She's one of the urchins who stood watch while I worked. She's the best of the lot."

  They crossed among granite outcroppings until well away from the place of slaughter. Dogbrick sat Tywi on his treasure trunk, gave her a flagon from which to drink, and applied theriacal opals to her wounds. These superficial scrapes healed at once.

  Whipcrow affixed a braid of opals to his walking staff and applied sufficient Charm to the woman to purge her of the ichor that covered her. It fell off in trickling brown streams and fluffed away in the wind, revealing a young, hollow-cheeked woman with brown blunt cut hair and watery blue eyes shrill with fright.

  Garbed in gray factory smock and worn-out cloth sandals, she surprised no one when she announced, "I'm cold." A stricken look fixed her haunted features, and only the residue of Charm from Whipcrow's power wand kept her free of shock. "I bought protection from Hazar's troops—and they ... they tried to protect us. They tried. But the cacodemons found us! You saw!"

  To calm her, Dogbrick pressed into her hands a gold-plate amulet studded with hex-gems and theriacal opals. She gazed at it perplexed, gripped immediately by its soothing force, and handled it with awed fingers as one who had never before touched Charm. Her starved, crazed features relaxed.

  "Tywi," Dogbrick called to her gently, "do you remember me now?"

  She clutched the amulet to her chest. "Dogbrick! I thought I was dreaming! It's you, here—" She gazed at the shattered landscape.

  "Come, Tywi," Dogbrick summoned. "We must depart this terrible place at once. It is your past now. You do not belong here, for you are what lives after. Come. Come away quickly. By this time tomorrow, we shall be out of the Qaf."

  Calmed almost to the point of trance, Tywi regarded her saviors with dreamlike clarity, and her vision blurred with tears. The Eye of Protection set on her by the wizarduke had spared her the ravenous attention of the trolls, but she believed the blind gods had favored her.

  "Thanks," she whispered and pressed the amulet harder against the hurt in her chest, squeezing Charm to the psychic wound inside her. She sought out Ripcat's oblique features. "Thanks to you, friend—for saving me from the trolls."

  They moved on.

  All that day, as they descended stony spillways to the cracked clay floor and traversed the desert among stony stobs of weatherworn boulders, Dogbrick laved her with philosophic chatter, hoping to fill the gaping emptiness gouged in the waif by the horrors she had endured.

  Whipcrow fit together a vest of power wands from Dogbrick's trove and tailored it with conjure-wire to fit the skinny young woman.

  Made strong by Charm and the care of her rescuers, Tywi hiked vigorously through the day's staggering heat and twilight's crimson wool into the crystal night. She heard all that Dogbrick said, yet listened to none of it. Dogbrick's amulets filled her with vitality that defeated all the impoverished sorrows of her life.

  She had never before experienced such an abundance of Charm, and she wanted to know more about Dogbrick's companions who bore such bold beastmarks and yet cared for a waif in the wilderness. She dared not ask. She feared to disturb her salvation. She feared it would all be taken away, and she would revert to her pauper self, again prey to terror.

  So she walked silently among the beastmen through the night that smoked her breath and yet set no chill in her flesh.

  At dawn, the immensity of the terrain revealed snow mountains to the south, dim and blue. Ripcat parted from the others, announcing he would seek more water and would reconnoiter at a window rock of red stone just visible on the far side of a cracked bed of smoking slag.

  He disappeared among steaming kiln rocks and used his greater speed and agility to dash ahead to the window rock. There, he removed the neck brace of sharp-eye amulets and left it on the sill of the rock with the firelock, the cowl hat, and the utility belt where the others would find them.

  The silver rinds of Nemora and Hellsgate hung in the day sky as he made his solitary way toward the snow ranges.

  He had repaid the kindness of Dogbrick by risking his life for the trance wrap, and he had kept his word to his partner and Whipcrow and escorted them across the Qaf. He had taken nothing of theirs for himself.

  Now, he moved free of all ties through the shimmering heat toward blue mountains and a future that held his past in his dreams.

  The Cloths of Heaven

  In his niello eye charms, Dogbrick watched Ripcat wander away into the ruinous landscape. His narrow image inverted in the heat lens above the desert floor so that he seemed to walk on the sky, head brushing the dry rocks below. The large thief said nothing to the others until they reached the window rock, where they recovered the firelock, neck brace, and garment that Ripcat had left for them to find.

  "He's mad," Whipcrow determined. "He can't survive without Charm."

  "He is another order of man," Dogbrick said and strapped the firelock to the treasure trunk.

  "I do not think he is a man at all." Whipcrow spoke with annoyance. "What man would walk on into the wilderness without firecharms or amulets? He is a jungle cat imperfectly disguised as a man by some demented wizard."

  "He's a brave man," Tywi said softly.

  "For you he was," Whipcrow admitted. "But for us he is simply gone."

  "He left us so he could continue to dream." Dogbrick understood. "He knows he would only impede us on the path of our destinies by stopping each night to sleep."

  "Good." Whipcrow slipped the neck brace of sharp-eyes into his pack. "Now we are free of him. Ahead are the Malpais Highlands. Among its numerous dales and valleys we can hide from the cacodemons."

  They trudged across the sooty and rusted terrain, and by noon scrub grass and nettle weeds began to appear among wind-shaped boulders. The snow ranges that had floated like a mirage that morning anchored themselves to the horizon beyond visible tracts of forest.

  Nightfall, full of zealous colors and soaring cloud castles, found them on a grassy field under the dark talismans of tall trees. They stopped to recharge their amulets with Whipcrow's massive power wand, and they sat in swaying grass under pale stars looking back the way they had come.

  “The Qaf." Whipcrow spoke with thick pride from under the cowl of his dark cloak. "We crossed the Qaf. We can survive anything now."

  "Even cacodemons?" Dogbrick questioned, arching a blond eyebrow.

  "They have no Charm," Whipcrow said. "They cannot see us from afar. So all we must do is be where they are not."

  "And how is that to be done?" Dogbrick took from a pouch in his belt a packet of honey berries and served the two others.

  "Clearly, we must stay away from the cities," Whipcrow replied and munched desultorily on a handful of the berries. "We must make a life for ourselves in remote places. At least here, there will be food. We've lived on nothing but these damn berries and Charm for days. I hunger for some real food. Perhaps we will find a hamlet with an inn.
Though, more likely, we will have to make do with what we can forage."

  Dogbrick groaned. "My whole life, I've only known Saxar. I labored all my days to earn my way to some truth in that city. And now—now success means finding a tasty tuber! All my efforts in Saxar are worthless."

  "Not worthless, sturdy Dog." Whipcrow gave a stick of nutmeal to each of his companions and gnawed on one himself. "You have your treasure. Keep your power wands under the gaze of the Abiding Star often enough and they will stay well charged and run your amulets for a lifetime."

  "For years I was too poor to afford even one power wand more than I needed to charge my harness," Dogbrick remembered unhappily. "And so I had to keep working just to replenish my amulets. Now, when I finally have enough wands to keep my amulets running, when my days of thievery are at an end, I am exiled from Saxar—from all cities! What kind of life can there be for anyone out here?" He waved his stick of nutmeal at the radiant dust of nightfall settling among somber trees and the cobblestones of the desert.

  "You at least have Charm to sustain you." Whipcrow spoke through a mouthful of nutmeal. "But look at this poor child. You have nothing of Charm but what we've given you, isn't that right? And am I wrong to say you've never had Charm in your whole life?"

  "Never." She concentrated on eating her nutmeal and honey berries and did not regard the two men but kept her face lowered behind a veil of lank brown hair.

  "You worked in the factories for newt's-eyes and with them bought simple fare and a prism to ward off sleep." Whipcrow nodded with the certainty of his assessment.

  "I've slept," she admitted, not looking up. "I'm not ashamed to say it."

  "Yes," Whipcrow continued, nodding, measuring her with his tight dark eyes. "I wager there were many nights when you had to choose between bread and prism. Better to sleep sated than live wakeful of an empty stomach."

  "It was like that for me as a child," Dogbrick interjected. "I used to crawl under trash bins and lock myself in with bricks to stay grounded while I slept."

  "The nightcrawlers will get you there," Tywi said.

  "True enough." Dogbrick showed wan, silvery tracks on the inside of his arms. "I still bear the scars where they crawled into my veins trying to get inside me. Where did you sleep?"

  "In the factories where I worked," she answered, "until I got caught—and fired. Then, inside trash bins."

  "Ugh." Dogbrick wagged his beard in disgust. "I've too keen a nose for that. It stank bad enough under them."

  "Out here you will have to lash yourself into the tree canopy like the first people," Whipcrow said. He folded back his cowl and revealed his ax-thin face, swarthy as leather, lips and eyes lined in blue, and black locks coiled to spikes. "Unless you are inclined to stay with us."

  Tywi looked up fretfully, her famished face tight to her skull. "I don't know what to do. I don't know why I ran from Saxar. Where'd I think I was going? I never been anywhere else. I just wanted to get away from the cacodemons."

  "Now we are away," Whipcrow said in a quiet voice and placed a thin hand on the gray, worn fabric that covered her thigh. "You are an attractive woman, Tywi. I would be inclined to provide all the Charm you need if you were my consort."

  "Thanks, for sure. But I ain't worth it. I'm just a street orphan." She hung her head again, and her sallow hair hid her face. "I'm glad for all you done for me—saving me from the trolls, healing my fright with your Charm, cleaning me up, and getting me across the Qaf, sharing your water, and now this— You're giving me so much. But—I ain't nobody. I have nothing for you."

  Dogbrick spoke to her in a wry tone while looking hard at Whip-crow. "I believe the amorous Crow is interested in you for who you are."

  Tywi shook her head decisively. "I can't be yours, Whipcrow. You're a man of Charm and I'm charmless."

  "Is that it really?" Whipcrow removed his hand from her. "You are charmless. And I? I have Charm for you. But that's not it, is it? I am not just a man with Charm, am I? I am a man with beastmarks. That is it, isn't it?"

  "Beastmarks don't mean nothing to me," she repeated, softer. "It's you I don't much like."

  "Bah!" Whipcrow stood and put a hand on his amber walking stick, jangling the amulets that hung from it on coils of conjure-wire. "Then if I am not good enough for you, you can return to me my amulets."

  "Whipcrow," Dogbrick protested, standing and scowling. "She is in our care."

  "Yet she will not care for us." Whipcrow leered. "If she will but give what she has, I shall be generous with what I have."

  "That is crude, Whipcrow, and vulgar." Dogbrick admonished the informer with a hot stare. "You sound like a brute."

  "These are brutal times, Dogbrick. Brutal times."

  Tywi rose and removed the neck band of theriacal opals Whipcrow had given her to replace the brace he was recharging. She held it out to him, and he snatched it angrily.

  "You shall have Charm, Tywi," the thief promised. "I will give you the amulets you need."

  Tywi shook her head. "I can't take your amulets, Dogbrick. How am I going to repay you out here? What work is there to do?"

  "You've worked long enough for me. Now we have to work together to survive."

  Tywi gazed inquisitively at the bestial man with his flared mane coppery in the day's last rays. "Why you doing this for me, Dog?"

  "Yes, noble Dog," Whipcrow wondered, "are you going to grace with Charm every orphaned refugee we meet?"

  "All Irth is not in my care," Dogbrick said, "but this young woman is."

  "Why?" Whipcrow challenged. "Because Ripcat was fool enough to pluck her from the trolls?"

  Dogbrick squared his shoulders. "The truth is, we have a history, sketchy as it may be. She is in my care. That is the simple truth. And I serve the truth."

  "The truth! Ha!" Whipcrow removed the amulets from his staff and shook them. "The truth is we are alone in the wilds. This could well be our final day. Cacodemons could descend upon us at any moment. That is the truth! Why then should we not take our pleasure where we find it?"

  "Whipcrow, you are not a good man." Dogbrick turned away in disgust. He began unstrapping his trunk.

  "This is not a good world, Dogbrick." The informer again shook the amulets in his grasp. "I will give you a brace of rat-star gems and a brace of theriacal opals for the woman."

  Dogbrick faced about slowly from his open trunk. "I do not barter people."

  "Then consider it a very generous payment simply to walk away." Whipcrow's blue lips curled upward as his small eyes thinned. "I see no one else here who could stop me from taking her."

  "You are right, wicked Crow." He looked to Tywi and met the fright in her starved and helpless face. When he turned back to Whipcrow, his nostrils flared. "I will stop you dead if you touch her. Go now." He thrust an arm toward the dark lanes of the forest. "I don't want to see you again. Go—before I forget I am a philosopher and cut you down like a troll."

  Whipcrow thrummed with rage and shook his fist. "You cannot dismiss me, you mangy muttwit." He swiped a firelock from where it lay on the ground and aimed it at the thief.

  Dogbrick showed his fangs in a snarl of revulsion and leaped forward. He grabbed the muzzle of the weapon as it fired, and the blue pulse of Charm that seared past his head singed his mane and exploded in the branches, showering them with sawdust and leaf meal. Outrage roared from Dogbrick as he ripped the firelock from Whipcrow's grip and struck the informer in the brow with the shoulder stock.

  Whipcrow dropped to his back, eyes rolled up, mouth agape.

  Tywi rushed to Dogbrick and put a hand to where his scorched mane wisped thin smoke. "You hurt?"

  A blistering pain scalded the side of his head, and within him a mine shaft plunging the netherworld stood exposed. His war cry echoed dimly down that inner darkness, harking his near extinction. "I'm alive, Tywi. Amulets can heal what pain there is."

  Tywi looked at Whipcrow sprawled in heavy swales of grass, eyeballs agog. "Is he dead?"

  "No." Dogbrick
picked up the amber walking stick and the informer's pack. "He's only unconscious. But I will have to kill him if we are still here when he wakes. He is a dangerous man. He knows nothing of truth—and so he is capable of any atrocity in his mad pursuit of what is useful."

  She stepped back from the unconscious man. "He tried to kill you."

  "Yes." Dogbrick closed his trunk and began securing the straps. "The firelock was set to vaporize my head."

  "And you're not going to kill him?"

  He handed her the neck brace of sharp-eye amulets from Whipcrow's pack. "I'm a thief, Tywi, not a murderer. And so I will take from him everything of value—and should that lead to his demise, I will feel no remorse."

  "He could come after you," she said and accepted the amulets with both hands.

  "If he wants to learn more of pain, he's welcome to my school." Dogbrick tied the second firelock and the factory manager's pack to the travois. "I teach the truth—and for one such as Whipcrow, the truth is always painful."

  From Whipcrow's cloak, the thief removed all the amulets and left him nothing. Day's last purple wire stretched taut across the desert horizon behind them as Dogbrick fitted himself to the harness and, with Whipcrow's walking stick in hand, pulled the travois into the forest.

  A pendant of theriacal opals healed the thief's burned head, and by midnight he felt whole again. They traipsed under the dense brocade of hanging moss from giant bearded trees, collecting along the way edible mushrooms and asparagus shoots. Vapors of star fire sifted through languorous boughs and illuminated avenues of kelplike grass among the forest's dark architecture.

  "You are as noble out here in the wilds as you were in Saxar," Tywi said and stared up at him with large eyes in sunken sockets. "I thought—I mean, in the warrens we all think—well, you know, that those with beastmarks are dangerous."

  "We are," Dogbrick affirmed, his heavily browed eyes scanning the dark.

  "You ain't. I mean, in Saxar I thought you was dangerous. That's why I never messed up on the job with you. I was afraid to make a mistake. Afraid of you. We all are. Because you're so—fierce. But you're no way like Whipcrow."