Beneath Ceaseless Skies #47

by Lee, Yoon Ha

  “—but it limits, for instance, the effectiveness of some of my defenses. The soldiers you saw before will have dissolved into a motley mob of toys by now.” He sighed again. “More dramatically, I believe that the rogue territory is generating a nest about its center. If it is allowed to wall itself from conventional interference—”

  “We may have no choice but to quarantine it until we can get reinforcements,” Jeris said.

  “The paperwork alone could take months,” Wrack said. “Anything else?”

  “Last night, so far as I know, Kemurin was still standing watch at the wheel,” the Horologer said.

  Jeris nodded. His predecessor had dismissed this as local superstition. So long as the great waterwheel of Circle Circle Six lay still, the belief went, the territory would remain quiescent. The waterwheel was another enigma, having been built nowhere near any source of running water.

  “There have been reports of walking skeletons,” the Horologer said, “but if anyone has ventured close enough to confirm this, they haven’t returned or they’re staying quiet. On the other hand, no raids have taken place in Six Bells, so it’s hard to say.”

  Skeletons. Jeris winced. Wrack’s mouth tightened a fraction. He had read the compilation of ossuarists’ reports in the wake of Circle Circle Six’s formation. Even allowing for the scavengers, over half the corpses had gone unaccounted for. Somewhere were bones that had not been cremated to a near equivalent of powder, or reconfigured by ossuarists into less dangerous, more controllable combinations, or carted out of Spine entirely. Higher authorities sometimes insisted on exporting bones they considered susceptible to arcane influence, though their criteria were erratic. You could only do so much against the greedy market for that sort of power.

  “Yes,” the Horologer said. “I fear that there have only been minor excursions from Circle Circle Six, relatively speaking, because the rogue territorialist plans for the territory itself to walk.”

  They pondered that unhappily.

  “That’s all,” the Horologer added.

  “Thank you for the warning,” Jeris said. “If we may take our leave—?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” The Horologer slumped into a chair and did not look up as they let themselves out.

  * * *

  The guards were disinclined to question the Horologer’s motives too long. Such speculations were best shared over a fourth mug of beer on a lazy night.

  Jeris had no such luxury. “I wonder what he really wanted,” he said.

  “He might have been sincere,” Wrack said. “What bothers me is that we’re getting such vague warnings.”

  Jeris looked up at the Six Bridgers peering down at them from their neat balconies and polished windows. “We’re going to end up trying the latest breed of gargoyles as spies,” he said. “Again.” The creatures were far from appealing in habit or appearance, but almost everyone felt wretched when one crawled or limped back broken to expire on the roof of headquarters. That, or resented having to dispose of another unwanted corpse.

  They reached the Bridge of Lanterns. All seemed normal at first, but after several steps, Jeris spun to look behind him. Wrack and Armain were on the bridge with him, but the other end receded into a blur, and the rest of the squad was nowhere to be seen.

  “We’ve been swallowed by a trap,” Armain said in awe. It was not the awe of joy or wonder. She had already cocked her crossbow.

  The songbird lanterns and steel girders had been replaced by a newborn maze of flesh and metal and concrete, veins red-blue and embedded in the angled structural supports. Within it, ice-colored light illuminated nothing at all. The only shadows were those cast by the sun.

  Jeris had his gun cocked but only tenuously aimed. He blinked. When he opened his eyes, he could see that cold light outlining the bones in his hands, the knobby joints in his finger and wrists. Wrack and Armain were likewise rendered as skeletal forms clothed in a thin sheath of flesh.

  The ghosts, meanwhile, had gained in clarity. They stood out like splashes of paint on an otherwise white canvas. They moved along the nowhere walls, constrained by laws that Jeris dimly recognized from his nightmares.

  Jeris had a sudden vision of putting the maze to the sword, each arc bright and dark and precise, taking apart every damned branch and fork and the floor, too, if he had to. He knew how to destroy things. It was part of the job.

  He had a counterfantasy of the city schisming territory by territory, ward by ward, cracks in the foundations and fire from above. Nothing more to guard; nothing more to break.

  He wanted it so badly he could taste it against his teeth. But it wasn’t what he was.

  “That’s the fork in the maze,” Jeris said. “Our choice to destroy or not. We may carry weapons, but our mission is to preserve the city.”

  Wrack lowered her sword. “All right, sir. I haven’t gotten this far by refusing to trust your judgment.”

  “Sir,” Armain said, and waited with them.

  The maze rewarded their judgment with something else. Jeris was stunned by an explosion of smells. Flowers in springtime. The miasma of sewers clogged more by blood than shit. The back of a woman’s neck and coils of perfumed hair.

  Someone screamed raggedly. It didn’t sound like a voice. Metal scraping against rusted metal, maybe.

  The only reason it took Jeris so long to realize who had been attacked was that he had never expected such a sound to come from his lieutenant. Her face was locked rigid by shock or horror. Incredibly, her voice was now a chorus.

  Armain lunged toward Wrack and shook her with her free hand. “Sir!” she shouted into the other woman’s face. She looked desperately at Jeris.

  “Hold her,” he said back.

  The maze was cracking under the assault of that scream. In the cracks, Jeris saw faces: the ghosts in pale, shredded fragments, and the rest of the squad; kaleidoscope glimpses, or a butcher’s. It was impossible to think when your skull was vibrating off-pitch.

  While Armain restrained Wrack, Jeris watched the fissure. One of these had to be the way out; mazes always had a way to escape. He would have given anything to leap toward the familiar faces, the air and sullen light and streets that stayed streets.

  He looked for something that was the least like a crack, a way straight ahead rather than another road branching off, or the uninviting jaws of a doorway septic with broken magic. He remembered an orchestral performance he had attended before joining the guard, the way all the musicians could be moving in different ways with their instruments yet emerge with music in one unified voice.

  Voice. Wrack was the key. “Sing in unison, dammit!” he yelled at her.

  Wrack was white, shaking, utterly unlike herself. But the scream abated for a second.

  “Close your ears if you can,” Jeris told Armain.

  Wrack’s voice changed, ground-thrumming bass and keening whistle all hitting the same note. Jeris and Armain staggered.

  It was not so bad as he had feared. Jeris, wiping water from his eyes, discovered he wasn’t bleeding from the nose or ears as he had expected. Armain was slower to come to a similar conclusion. It took both of them longer to realize that the maze had cleared around them. They were surrounded by a floating mist. But Jeris didn’t relax. The wind blowing the mist away smelled of sleepless nights and back-alley murders, which wouldn’t have been unusual had it not brought a literal darkness with it.

  “Lamps,” Jeris said before the darkness had any more opportunity to spread. Through a patch overhead, he could see the night sky with a slice of moon in the wrong phase.

  “Past or future?” Wrack asked hoarsely. She had already gotten out her lamp and strapped it to her wrist. It shone there like an eye, its shadows spidered by the movements of her hand.

  Armain understood immediately what Wrack was asking. “I thought future glimpses were impossible.”

  “It’s not an oracle,” Jeris said. “It’s a past glimpse. Look at the moon’s surface. It’s missing the crater from the Ae
therist’s last rocket. And what would a future moon show us? More craters?”

  “Might encourage more alchemists,” Armain said, fascinated.

  The thought of Armain tangled up with alchemists worried him. They were now fully enveloped by night. It made him wonder how long this had been going on in Circle Circle Six.

  What kind of influence did the rogue have over the territory?

  “Our maps of the territory are outdated,” Wrack said.

  “That’s no surprise,” Jeris said. He didn’t look at Armain. She was young enough to have some illusions left about the guards’ resources. “Besides,” he added, “the maze probably altered the local region.” He kicked at the street. It raised dust that formed hapless grimacing faces, then settled on his feet. He resisted the urge to wipe them.

  “Well,” Wrack said, “there’s probably an easy way to go where we need to go.”

  “Which is?”

  “Toward the most danger.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.” He shook his head. “There’s no telling what this rogue has set up as his nexus. Or citadel. Or how many allies he has, insofar as territorialists ever have allies. Let’s get moving. Anyone see a doorway?”

  Armain, with her guttersnipe’s eye for shelter, pointed.

  It wasn’t much of a doorway. Even the rune in charcoal on the lintel looked like it had been scribbled by someone who had had too much ale. Jeris thumped the door. “There had better be someone alive and talkative in there,” he said loudly.

  For a wonder, the door swung open. Two women answered the door. One wielded a sword, the other a crossbow. “Oh,” said the one with the sword, “you’re guards. No one else would carry around ghosts like that. I expect you’re not here for tea, then.” The other woman didn’t lower her weapon.

  “You had word?” Jeris said, distrusting their relative lack of hostility.

  The woman with the crossbow smiled sardonically. “Former guards. We served in the Sunken Squad.”

  Armain breathed a curse. Wrack raised an eyebrow. Captain Terco had assigned Circle Circle Six’s territorialist a permanent detail. What he hadn’t anticipated was that said territorialist would grow fond of them. It wasn’t clear what she had done, but at the end of it, the Sunken Squad was trapped. Jeris wasn’t convinced the pension was sufficient compensation.

  “And you haven’t shot us because...?” Jeris asked.

  The woman’s lips curled back in an all-too-amused grin. “You’re the captain now, aren’t you? Run too ragged to pay us a visit until now. You know how to survive. I like that.”

  “You’d better stop liking me real soon,” Jeris said. “Care to come along?”

  “Nerica can’t,” said the woman with the sword.

  Jeris and the others fell silent.

  “We’ll do what we can from here,” Nerica said. Her crossbow remained unwavering. “I have good aim and better range.”

  He believed her. So did his shoulderblades. “Any further report?”

  Nerica looked at the other woman, who shrugged. “Sort it out and do it fast, or your maps will be completely useless. Keep an eye out for the rest of the Sunken Squad. Three others are still alive: Igreth, Fanilon, and Kel.”

  “Kel?” Jeris said. “I had no idea. Thought she had figured out a suitably secretive way to off herself out of sheer spite.”

  “Maybe she had other plans,” said the woman with the sword.

  “We all had other plans,” Nerica said. She vanished for a moment, then reappeared with a handful of feathers. “Yes,” she said in response to Armain’s bright eyes, “messenger wings. In case you need to call for help. I think they ought to be able to leave Circle Circle Six if they come from someone else’s hand.”

  In response to Armain’s silent plea, Jeris gave her one of the messenger wings, reserving the others for himself. They were still keyed to guard headquarters. He was impressed with the artificer who had made them, if the homing compasses remained so true after Captain Terco’s death.

  “So I send this out if—?” Armain said.

  The others looked at her pityingly. “If you have to ask,” Wrack said, “you’d better have sent it off already. Especially if the captain and I are down.”

  “Point me in a direction,” Jeris said to Nerica and her partner.

  Nerica pointed with her crossbow.

  It was good enough. “Get the bastard and keep him alive for me!” the woman with the sword called after them.

  “Now those,” Jeris said appreciatively, “are guards.”

  “You didn’t approve of Captain Terco?” Wrack said.

  “Does it matter? He’s dead and I’m still cleaning up after him.”

  She got the point and smiled blandly at him. He gritted his teeth.

  * * *

  They continued forward, collecting an entourage of small whirring insects and swirling mist. Jeris had the discomfiting feeling that, if they stopped too long in any one place, the mist would turn the landscape into a swamp. At one point Armain said, “The sky’s full of stars,” and Wrack said, “Or eyes,” which shut everyone up for several blocks.

  It was disappointing how ordinary everything else was. No matter how many disasters he weathered, Jeris found pockets of normalcy a little shocking, as though everything was obliged to crash into ruin at once. Children and their dogs came running up to them from a tilted carousel, calling out good-luck rhymes that Jeris remembered from his own childhood. He lifted his sword in salute, and they gaped, as though they had imagined him to be a passing figment, insensate. The eyes of the carousel’s horses and swans flicked open to stare at him with a hot, fierce protectiveness. He approved.

  “Where are their families?” Armain asked, not without wistfulness. She wasn’t sure what had happened to her own.

  Wrack shrugged. “They’re no worse off than we are at the moment.”

  They reached the stairs leading to the great amphitheater at the heart of Circle Circle Six. “Every step’s a potential maze,” Jeris said. “Except the maze wants us, and we’re coming where it wants us.”

  “Our footsteps aren’t echoing,” Armain said. She whipped about and deflected a throwing knife with her sword. It spun end over end. She caught it and flung it back with her off hand. Its target made a low, scraping sound and fell back. The insects around Armain buzzed more loudly, then set off toward the fallen whatever-it-was.

  It became apparent that the small stinging attacks, from creatures that normally lived in furtive ecologies, were intended to herd them up the stairs. Jeris’s arm ached. In fact, every muscle ached, including his eyes, from having to be alert to every angle at once. Wrack’s face was gray, and Armain made little huffing sounds between every other swordstroke.

  “All right,” Jeris said, “run!”

  It seemed to him that the spiraling steps grew closer and closer, shorter and shorter, to accommodate their strides. He glanced over the edge and was rewarded by a dizzying sprawl of curves, not the neat spiral he had believed he was ascending. His feet kicked loose a stone with half the face of a squalling child. It fell, screaming.

  They stopped at the ruins of a gate, tall and eerily bright under the starry sky they had brought with them. Streaks of mist swirled around them. Now the mist smelled of perfume and starved decay. They looked up. All around them were the stairs, and all across the stairs were silhouetted figures with jewels for eyes and lanterns for mouths. Jeris blinked and they were gone, leaving a hot wind that tasted of cinders.

  “We came down,” Armain said.

  “That’s why it’s called a sinkhole,” Wrack said.

  “I didn’t think it was that literal.”

  The gate furled and unfurled like a banner of living iron. “I suppose this is our invitation,” Jeris said.

  The gates opened with a snap. The sky above them tore into shreds of night and day.

  “Forward,” Armain said. It wasn’t a question.

  Jeris nodded.

  The mists peeled aw
ay from them to cling to the sides of the gate like stiffened fingers. Jeris heard someone breathing too rapidly: himself. He forced himself to focus on the footing. If he stopped moving, he would never get up again.

  A guard regiment awaited them at the other side of the gate. The light in their eyes was like ice water, cold and perilous. Each was deformed: a woman with wings where her ears should have been, a man with scaly skin, others with boots slit to accommodate claws. But their stances and formation, their pristine uniforms, were unmistakably those of the guard. Next to them, Jeris felt like a grubby interloper.

  Wrack’s glance, concerned without being anxious, steadied him. “I don’t recognize you,” Jeris said, “as guards or otherwise. Stand back before you get in our way.”

  Armain’s eyes showed white, but her sword was steady. The ghosts drifted closer to her.

  In answer to Jeris’s words, the false guard split down the middle and pivoted in halves to face each other across the divide, beautifully precise. Jeris would have admired it if he had had any patience for parade maneuvers. Behind the false guard stood a mirror held up by a tangle of roses. At the mirror’s base was Karoc’s head, with incongruously bright satin ribbons in his hair. So Piaroc attacked us for nothing, Jeris thought.

  A woman stepped out of the mirror. It was Kel.

  “Where are Igreth and Fanilon?” Jeris demanded. He wished the ossuarist’s alarm had given him some notion that he’d be dealing so much with the Sunken Squad today.

  “How should I know, Captain? I thought you would have collected them by now,” she said.

  “‘Collected,’” Jeris repeated in disgust. “You think I’d go around interfering with you when you’ve served your duty? Was it you who killed off the previous territorialist?”

  Jeris was gratefully aware of Wrack and Armain with their guns out now, and less gratefully aware of being outnumbered again.

  Kel said, with absolute disdain, “I didn’t figure Terco would be succeeded by someone so slow-witted. What do you think the point of this is? Terco had the right idea. This place needs a permanent guard presence.”

  “Should I point out the obvious?” Jeris said.