Fenn laughed, letting her head fall back while she tucked in the blanket. ‘Mister Gabel, the Resting Place is a cemetery. It’s where all the victims of the Plains are taken, if they’re found. You’ll do no resting there unless you’re dead.’
‘I see.’ He found a small wooden chair and sat. ‘The Sinh-Ha Plains.’
‘That’s right. You’re not going over them, are you?’
‘We may have to. The only one in our party who knows this side of the Lual is my employer, the old man. He may order us to go through.’
‘You take orders off an old man?’ She sat in a similar chair beside him, and turned to look at Rowan who was as still as a wood-cutting in the sparse light from the windows.
‘He’s my employer,’ Gabel said. ‘I am a factotum.’
‘Oh.’ She sat up immediately, putting a hand through her hair, turning away toward the window-wall. The Sinh-Ha Plains were just visible at the horizon, past the forests outside of Goya, and beyond the dark patch that showed the town of Iilyani – the black town, Gabel couldn’t help thinking.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Does that make you uncomfortable?’
She continued to avoid his stare, but seemed a little more at ease now, her weight shifting from one leg to the other. Discovering Gabel’s true occupation appeared to have startled her, but he could tell that she was a woman with remarkable control over her exterior. If she was truly uncomfortable with this new information, she suppressed it almost immediately: the professional veneer of a doctor.
‘No,’ she said eventually. ‘No, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise.’
‘Perhaps I should have been clearer about what I do. I am a mercenary.’
‘Yes. We don’t get many factotums around here. Men for hire … It’s … Well, do you have any idea how most people in this town would react? The Goyans are an amiable enough race, but prejudiced, very prejudiced. Iilyani has had to close itself off from them.’
‘You call them Goyans as if you’re not one of them.’
‘I’m not. At least, I don’t think of myself as one.’ She turned now, and joined her gaze with his. The light wasn’t too bright in the solarium, the sun only just beginning to pass over the building, but Gabel could see enough of her rounded face to know she was still uncomfortable. ‘My father came from the north, you see. I always thought of myself as a Ponta Porean, like he was.’
‘I suppose you have the right to call yourself what you will. You said that Iilyani had shut itself off. Do you predict we’ll we have trouble entering?’
‘You might, with your skin.’ Unconsciously, Gabel’s fingers touched the flesh of his palm. ‘The town has had a lot of trouble recently, though, so don’t be surprised if they seem overly defensive.’
‘We only wish to pass through.’
‘Then you may be all right, if you tell them that. But I think I should warn you: it’s not just the Luxers that have been terrorising those poor people.’
‘Who else?’
‘The Caballeros de la Muerte,’ she said, and just as she said it, a southerly wind shook the windows of the solarium. As though to counteract the chill of the weather’s poor timing, the forest began to warm in the light of the rising sun, brown turning to russet. The sky to the west brightened minutely in the glow, and clouds pushed dark against the clear horizon.
Gabel felt himself straighten in his chair, and tried to let his muscles relax.
‘I see you’ve heard of them,’ Fenn said quietly. ‘They came to your town or city?’
‘Not once, or else I haven’t heard of it. The Caballeros,’ he said to himself, feeling the chill in his marrow. ‘This close to the Plains?’
‘One or two have even ventured into Goya, Mister Gabel.’
‘What do they want?’
‘You’ve heard the stories, I’m sure.’
‘Demons encased in armour, slaughtering innocents. I’ve heard they’re religious zealots, and also that they’re in the employ of the Hermiticeans – the Shiantis. They use them to keep the rainforests around the city clear of visitors.’
‘The name Hermeticia is well deserved. I’m taking to it, in fact. But the Caballeros, no-one knows where they are from.’
‘Spain, presumably.’
‘People are saying that’s just an assumption, although there’s likely some truth in it. But if you and your party were intending to go to Hermeticia, surely you were expecting to come across the Caballeros at some point?’
‘Yes,’ said Gabel, ‘I always thought we would. But I never dwelled on the thought.’
It troubled the hunter greatly how a weakened Rowan might fare against the threat of death or violence. And the old man, how would he survive an encounter once the villains saw the colour of his skin? They were thoughts to turn Gabel’s gut into a trench of acid, and he gritted his teeth against the discomfort.
‘A few visitors there have been killed,’ Fenn continued, ‘but the Iilyanis say they only want to keep the place clean of traitors.’
‘Traitors to whom?’
‘Who knows? The Hermiticeans? Maybe to Irenia, I don’t know. Apparently the Caballero scouts that do come past the Resting Place – and there aren’t many, I believe – are only to watch for approaching danger.’
‘Danger?’ he asked, surprised. ‘What would they have to fear, but Irenia alone?’
‘I’ve heard rumours from messengers to the west that there are some kind of strange creatures in the rainforests, but I never really paid attention, I’m afraid. I’m interested in animals, not monsters. Maybe Hadentes has risen at last.’
‘You sound like you believe that’s inevitable,’ he said.
She turned to face him. ‘I’m fairly certain it is, Mister Gabel.’
~
When Caeles awoke he found himself in the Goyan hotel room. It was small, and bare like the rest of the planet, and he was alone. His muscles shuddered, an involuntary muscle-memory. An inclement wind had set in with the morning.
He’d had dreams of starships and skeletons again, but in this latest he’d watched himself being turned into a cyborg, his skin peeled back, his muscles removed and stored, and his organs and brain transplanted into an indestructible body. And, in the dream, he had grown great steel wings, and produced a shining neon halo that glowed blue in the dark operating theatre. A figure had watched the entire procedure, sheathed in shadows like a hidden dagger. Once it had finished, and Caeles had stretched out his new pinions like an awakening bird, the man had revealed himself to be—
‘Tan Cleric,’ Caeles muttered.
Cleric was still around – Caeles knew it. And somehow, he knew that the man was projecting himself into his dreams. He couldn’t help but wonder if the magus’ undisclosed objectives included a psychotic like Cleric, or even the monster himself.
Caeles dressed and took to his feet, wandering by the piers. The Tractatus was long gone. The waters were as still as always, and mist hung just overhead. Caeles could see nothing past the first twenty metres.
He went back to the hotel, but found the rooms vacant and, guessing there was only one place they might be found, made his way to the doctor’s house. By the time he arrived it was almost noon.
There was a third storey to the mansion that contained a well-lit room not visible from the front of the building. Gabel and the old man were standing with Doctor Fenn, obscuring something of such obvious interest to them that they hadn’t noticed his arrival.
‘Something I should know about?’ he asked wearily.
They turned to face him, and in doing so revealed a very thin – but now unrestrainedly animated – Rowan.
~
The following two days were spent at the doctor’s house, speaking with Rowan and noting her marked increase in muscle tone. She was much less groggy and no longer under anaesthetic, though she still looked tired. Gabel was the only one to notice, but she also seemed to have regained the energy she had lost since setting out for Shianti, and he smiled as he watched her
relearning how to walk.
On the third night since Rowan’s reawakening she felt well enough to go to the hotel and stay with her friends, who gladly showed her the way. She marvelled at the glorious exterior of Fenn’s place, which of course she had never seen, and at the garden and topiary that couldn’t be glimpsed from the restricted view of the solarium. She even seemed to enjoy the phaeton ride to the hotel, which none of the others had anticipated.
They walked to Fenn’s mansion the next day, Rowan feeling almost ready to set off once more.
Her physiotherapy mostly consisted of her walking around the solarium in vague circles, strengthening her legs as the steroids worked on the rest of her body. It was a boring chore to Rowan, who filled the time by asking the others what had happened during her time in the coma.
The first thing she was told was about the bolt-hornet, which led to questions about who would send it and why. The answer to that was that they would probably never know, though not one of them could think of any reason why someone would wish to harm her.
Afterwards came questions on what happened on the Tractatus. The rusalki were mentioned and to their surprise she said she’d heard of them.
‘Father used to mention them in stories,’ she explained. ‘They get into your dreams.’
As the hunter watched Rowan’s progress, Caeles took the doctor aside.
‘Tell me the truth,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘Nothing, as far as I can tell,’ she replied. ‘Something, though. She’s all but recovered from the bolt-hornet. As for her original illness, I can’t say. All I can see are the symptoms, the gradual wearing down. I presume she was much stronger than this before.’
‘Not much stronger, but I only joined the group a few months ago.’
‘I cannot say how she is ill, nor what she is ill with,’ the doctor said, lowering her voice, looking up at Caeles and seeing concern on his face. ‘I wish that I could help further … Maybe the doctors in Shianti…?’
‘Yeah,’ he said quietly. ‘Maybe.’
*
Seventeen
“WHAT ARE YOU?”
The forests outside of Goya were dense and deep in their own shade. With winter only just preparing to leave, the wind came with a wild chill. Branches were bare all around them as they travelled, and under the sludge of the snow that had just fallen, the dead leaves were a pasty mush that made the going slippery and slow.
They had left the party city two weeks previously, moving laboriously onwards toward the town of Iilyani. It lay several weeks ahead. The magus said that they might even arrive along with an early spring.
Roland struggled through the forest, moving along a road that the Goyans had said existed but turned out to be nothing more than a slightly worn trail cut between the birch trees. There were curious vines that wound themselves around the cracked paper-like bark. The magus said that they were a climbing breed of poinsettia, a plant that had no flowers but grew bright and colourful leaves that were just as pleasant.
Once or twice they would stumble upon the corpse of a dead animal, some large mammal that had been stripped of its flesh. It reminded Gabel of the corpse he had seen when hunting William Teague so long ago, bony and bloody, but he now had a better idea of who the culprits were.
‘Goyles,’ he muttered, touching the dead animal and tasting a fingertip-sized spot of blood. It was stone cold. ‘Let’s keep moving.’
Occasionally, when coming to a high spot in the landscape, they could see through the trees and make out the black smudge that was their next destination. It was barely visible on the horizon. No matter how far they moved without seeing that smudge, whether days or weeks, it didn’t seem to get much closer.
They kept on walking.
The party survived on the sacks of food they had purchased in Goya: levened bread; bags of preserved vegetables that swung from the belts of Gabel and Caeles, including carrots, potatoes and pickled beetroot; a block of cheese that had been mostly devoured before it had the chance to go bad; and five large containers of filtered water that Caeles carried on his back with the rest of his things.
‘We need to stock up,’ he’d assured them, ‘and I don’t get back pains. Pile it on.’
A detour to the north had been necessary and approved by the magus, who seemed increasingly anxious to move whenever possible, yet even he thought that a small diversion was worthwhile if it meant getting horses.
They could be bought from an independent stable said to be about twenty days’ trek from town. A family survived there on the patronage of travellers moving from or between Goya and the eastern city of Ponta Pora, and they lived by a fork in the road that went north-west, toward Iilyani.. It would still be another few days, however, before they could rest their feet and let the animals do the work.
The forests were different to those between Pirene and São Jantuo. These was an abundance of life, which seemed off considering its relatively close proximity to the desolate Sinh-ha Plains. Deer occasionally hopped in front of them, seemingly oblivious, and then arrowed off through the trees. There were few birds but there was an abundance of hardy insects, some longer than a hand’s width, and they buzzed at them in the day and swarmed around them at night.
Gabel suffered from the bites from a particular species of bug. It seemed as though they consciously sought him in the night to chew on the raw skin around his almost-healed neck wound. Caeles and Rowan appeared somehow immune, and the magus was thoroughly unconcerned. Gabel stayed awake one night and captured a few large yellow-backed beetles that had been pinching him while he feigned sleep. He examined them, then crushed them by way of revenge. He didn’t much appreciate the jokes from the other men, nor the outrage from Rowan when he told them.
Time seemed to move a lot slower when out in the forest. The tightly knit branches withheld light from the ground vegetation, and the plants there were small and pale. The gloomy days weren’t much brighter than the nights; it began to get increasingly difficult to gauge what time of day it was.
~
Rowan’s muscles had atrophied during her sleeping state, and now she was paying for it. She ached terribly. After such a long stint without exercise her body had decided that it wasn’t needed anymore. It had let itself emaciate, leaving nothing but a bony, malnourished individual who’d had to be fed because she couldn’t do it herself. Doctor Fenn’s physiotherapy had renewed some of her strength, but it felt semi-permanent and she thought she could sense its effects evaporating. She became increasingly tired with each day that passed.
The sludgy snow-mud mush underfoot made the journey heavy going. She often stumbled. Gabel and Caeles argued about whether they should or shouldn’t have made her continue so soon, which eventually got on her nerves.
‘Please let’s not discuss this any longer,’ she said. ‘I’m out here now, and there’s nothing that can be done about it. Why can’t you both get along?’
The two men traded heavy-browed looks and walked further apart from each other.
Gabel saw distress in Rowan’s tired brown eyes and walked by her side, supporting her as he always did in case she fell. Once more he gave her his heavy leather jacket to protect against the chill; his own skin was became cold and hard under his shirt from the bitter winds that perpetuated themselves amongst the trees.
‘How much further until the stables?’ Rowan asked quietly.
‘Just a few more days,’ he replied after a pause. ‘Not much longer.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine, Rowan. Let’s keep moving, shall we?’
That night by the campfire Rowan watched Gabel waste fresh water by washing his hands before settling down to sleep. Before he had a chance to slip into unconsciousness, she moved closer and sat beside him until he opened his eyes and noticed.
He sat up, the reflections of fire flickering in his eyes and making his skin glow. Gabel slept bare-chested. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
‘The jou
rney is too hard for me.’
‘Are you tired?’
‘Very tired.’
‘Then sleep is what you need.’ He made to lie down again, but noticed she hadn’t budged. ‘You must persevere,’ he told her. ‘There’s nothing else you can do. This journey is for you.’
‘No, it’s not, Joseph. I am just a secondary objective.’
‘You mean more to me than that.’
‘I do? How much more?’
‘More than you might think.’
The firelight played over them. Rowan had pulled her sleeping bag closer to Gabel, close enough for her to lean against him. His hands played with the frayed edges of her sweater collar.
‘Enough to help me persevere?’ she asked, her eyes closed. She pressed her face against his chest. Gabel felt a stab of discomfort, holding her in his semi-nakedness. He played with her hair.
‘Joseph?’ she said.
‘Yes?’
‘Will you help me?’ she almost whispered.
‘Yes,’ he said, breathing sleepily. ‘Rowan, you’re the reason I’m here.’
~
Two dusky children sat in the dry dirt outside of the stable house’s rickety porch. They were playing with some chipped metal toys that probably had blinking LEDs once upon a time. The little boy and little girl didn’t pay any notice to the strangers, except for a preliminary glance. Rowan stopped to talk with them a while as the men approached the house’s ill-fitting door and knocked.
Gabel took charge of the conversation, relating how they were travelling from Goya to Iilyani, the mention of which sent a ripple of pleasure across the dark faces of the couple. They seemed to be pleased that visitors still went to Iilyani. It had an increasingly pejorative title of “ghetto town”, and apparently the couple assumed that any visitors must be friendly toward the dark-skinned.
It wasn’t difficult to buy horses, one each and one for the baggage. It came to a not-unreasonable cost in pre-Conflict currency, and the transaction was short and sweet. By Gabel’s terms, Caeles was incredibly rich. His stash of pre-war money weighed down a satchel he wore. Gabel no longer worried that the magus wouldn’t be able to pay his hefty fee at the end of their journey.
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