The Infernal Lands (The Aionach Saga Book 1)

by J. C. Staudt

  “I think I was the only one here who was awake for any of it,” said Frasier Dent, a young wiry man with ruddy skin and a tuft of dirty-blond hair. He wore a sleeveless synthtex tunic and shorts, and his ears were pierced with thick brass rings, a sign of the nomadic influence that many of Decylum’s hunters emulated. Frasier was the only man among the six of them whom Raith had seen still healthy the day he fell sick.

  “What did you see?”

  “Not near as much as I would’ve liked to. We were headed toward the outskirts when they started shooting at us. A bullet struck my horse, and I was thrown to the ground. I hit my head quite soundly, and I didn’t wake up until this morning.”

  Raith tried to think back to whether he’d been conscious at all since the day before. No memory came to him. “If you’ll let us search the outskirts, perhaps we can find others in our company who may have sheltered in the area. Perhaps they can better explain what took place. If there was some sort of attack, as you claim, I can assure you we played only the part of self-defense. We’ll retrieve our companions and go peacefully, if you’ll let us.”

  “Uh-uh. That’s not gonna happen, mister,” said Tym Juniper. “Y’all are in some serious poop. Corporal, tell ‘em what they’ve won.”

  Another soldier began to recite from a chewed-up clipboard. “You’re being tried on charges of… collusion to commit an act of war, use of prohibited weaponry inside city limits, disturbing the peace, threats to the health and safety of the Commissar, cruel and unusual assault and battery, multiple counts of aggravated murder, including that of Scarred personnel, and other various crimes against humanity. You’ll now be escorted to the Hull Tower, where you’ll go before Commissar Wax to answer for these crimes.”

  Raith rubbed his temples. “How do you propose we absolve ourselves of wrongdoing if no one here was awake to know what we did wrong?”

  Sergeant Tym gave him a disinterested look. “You’ll have to take that up with the Commissar, sir.”

  Raith pointed at Frasier Dent. “This man says we were attacked without provocation, yet you allege that the opposite is true.”

  Tym clasped his hands behind his back and sighed. “Listen, mister. Our dways took action ‘cause there was a threat. Oh-kay? Y’all can’t be comin’ round here, armed to the teeth, ridin’ at us with them glowy things like you fixin’ to do something violent. Understand? I don’t know how y’all do it where you’re from, but that don’t fly up here in Belmond. Not nohow.”

  Raith’s imagination took him through the motions of ripping the man’s head from his shoulders amid sheets of melting skin. There were at least thirty soldiers close by—far more than he and his five companions could handle in their condition. Derrow Leonard and Frasier Dent were both blackhands, but they were as lightsick as he was. Without knowing where the rest of their people were or what had transpired while they slept, it would be foolhardy to resist them now.

  “I understand,” Raith said. He kept his hands at his sides, feeling the hard skin crack as he stretched his fingers.

  “Anyone else got any more questions ‘fore we head out?” Tym asked, locking eyes on Raith. No one did. “Mm-kay, then. Let’s move.”

  The soldiers made a tight formation around them and leveled their guns. When they set off toward the outskirts, Raith stared up at the sky and didn’t look down until they’d passed through the field of gore. His companions weren’t as careful; he heard their cries, their shudders, and one or two episodes of suppressed gagging. He grieved with them for the lost Sons of Decylum. He wished he’d been there with them, awake. Maybe he could’ve helped them avoid whatever situation had led to all this bloodshed. His head swam with questions he might never know the answers to.

  Buildings drew up into their true scale. The sands gave way, first to scattered patches of rubble, then to the spiderweb mosaics of heat-fractured pavement. They passed beneath the wide arches of a bridge, where gnarled scaffolding held road signs in faded green and white. Dead advertisement screens lined the downtown buildings and littered the streets below, where entire corners had collapsed into piles of scree. The group passed through gilded lobbies and grand dust-caked hallways lost to time, and Raith saw his reflection in the mirror sheen of a waiting area ceiling. Good Things Happen When You Help the Ministry, said the torn sticker plastered to the side of a bolted-in garbage can. A bus station poster advised passersby to Surrender Your Firearms and Report Violations to Your Local Unity Official.

  Still weakened and dizzy from his fevered rest, Raith willed himself to press on. Soldiers surrounded them at all times, vigilant over the tangles of city on either side. Infernal was as harsh here as on the wastes, save for the brief periods of shade they enjoyed as they traveled under and through.

  After a trek of nearly three hours, they emerged from one of the buildings into a wide four-lane intersection. On the opposite corner stood a monumental cylinder of a building, a spiraling metal skeleton with a thousand shattered windowpanes. A crowd had formed a desultory line along the curved marble planter outside the main entrance, where waist-high cylindrical lightposts ran along the patterned stone walkway. They were all clamoring for the attention of the two soldiers guarding the doors. When a woman exited the building, the guards motioned toward the front of the line and permitted a tall, stooped man to enter in her place.

  “Get back in there and wait,” Sergeant Tym ordered. “Lemme go see what’s going on.” He crossed the street while the soldiers shuffled Raith and his companions back inside, where they stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows to watch.

  A flare of daylight staggered and broke across the spiral tower’s glass like a torn yellow rag. Half a dozen desiccated corpses were hanging from the top of the building. Carrion birds circled above them, pecking and squabbling over bits of dead flesh, just as ill-tempered as the crowd below. Sergeant Tym shoved his way to the front of the line, held a brief conversation with the guards, and returned in a huff.

  “No gettin’ in there now. All these people are here to see Commissar Wax. Most of ‘em are east-siders concerned about all the commotion last night. Once they get a load of these jokers and find out they’re the reason for the disturbance, they’ll tear us apart before we can cross the street. So I say we come back later. My shift ends in an hour, and I need a drink. Let’s drop ‘em off at the brig and put in an order for tomorrow.”

  The soldier with the clipboard jotted something down as the Sergeant spoke.

  Raith cleared his throat. “Please. There may be others in our company who are injured or lost in your city. Others may be dying on the sands. By all that is good, give us a chance look for them. Give us the chance to save their lives. Surely you can’t mean to imprison us before we’ve spoken with your Commissar.”

  “Oh I can’t, can’t I?” Tym brought his face within six inches of Raith’s, though he was nearly a head shorter. When the Sergeant sneered, Raith could see the tobacco stains around the roots of his teeth. “‘Til Wax says otherwise, I can do whatever the coff I like with you and your pals, here. I can take you up to the fortieth floor of this here building and string the six of you up by the toes, if’n I feel the urge. Y’all would make the Hull Tower a nice matching set for the dways that’s already up there. You wanna prove your absolve-ation or whatnot—you gonna have to wait. I reckon when the Commissar sees the pile of dead comrades you made, he gonna have me do the toe-stringin’ anyhow. So how ‘bout you keep givin’ me lip and see where it gets you?”

  Raith was silent. Tym’s fat bearded head was so close, Raith could’ve plucked it from his shoulders like a ripened fruit. But there were the rest of the soldiers to think about, and the safety of his companions to consider. Inciting further violence was not the way. Not yet.

  “S’what I reckoned,” the Sergeant said, puffing out his chest.

  Raith never let his eyes leave Tym’s until the Sergeant broke away.

  “Let’s take these fellas back over Malcroft Way.” Tym pointed into th
e depths of the building, and they started back the way they came.

  Several blocks later, they were standing outside a stark brick-front building with barred windows and a set of green double doors. If these bars are all that holds this prison shut, Raith thought, then it can’t hold me.

  The soldiers nudged them up the front steps and into the lobby, whose slate floor was worn and scratched, and whose drop ceiling was full of recessed fluorescent light fixtures missing countless panels and bulbs. Daylight formed block patterns through the window bars, leaving the room dismal with the smells of sweat and stale coffee. Most of the platoon stayed just inside the door to escape the heat, while Tym and a dozen of his men brought Raith and the others forward.

  Four guards sat behind a long security counter, dressed much the same as Sergeant Tym and his men except for the blue shields with silver rims stitched onto their sleeves. Each soldier in Tym’s unit had a golden lightning bolt embroidered within a crimson flame. It became clear to Raith that the two units were cut from different cloths; if the lightning bolts were as new and healthy as fresh-cooked food, the blue shields behind the desk were week-old leftovers. Escaping from this place will be no challenge, Raith concluded.

  “Howdy, Sergeant,” said one of the blue shields, a short, round man whose buttons were stretched tight across the bulge of his stomach. His medium-length white hair crawled down his sideburns and melded into a thin beard and mustache. He tapped his finger against the small white tablet that lay on the counter.

  “Lieutenant Algus,” Tym said. “How’s business?”

  Algus gave him a bored shrug. “Eh.”

  Tym handed the tablet to his aide, who laid it over his chewed-up clipboard and began to scribble.

  The aide placed the tablet on the counter when he was done. “Six prisoners for booking. Transfer to the Hull at the Commissar’s convenience. Charges are noted on the carbon.”

  Lieutenant Algus looked back and forth between the tablet and the prisoners. “This is a strange lot.” He looked up at Raith. “Where’d you find this bruiser?”

  Tym leaned over the counter. “If you can keep it to yourselves, them’s what’s left of the dways from last night.”

  “I heard they were nomads,” said one of the other blue shields, a taller man with stiff brown hair and a face stretched like a drum.

  The soldiers eyed Raith and his companions, murmuring amongst themselves.

  “Nah, they aren’t nomads—none like I’ve ever seen.”

  “I dunno who they are, but those clothes are something strange, huh?”

  “The skin, too. It’s like they ain’t never seen the light-star before. What’s with the soot stains all over their hands?”

  The tight-skinned blue shield glowered at them. “Who are you, huh? Thought you could get the best of us, did you?”

  Rostand Beige started to reply, but Raith lifted a hand.

  “Wax’ll get to the bottom of it,” said Tym. “There enough room in here to give ‘em each their own cell?”

  “Plenty,” said Lieutenant Algus.

  “Good. Don’t want ‘em scheming together or nothin’.”

  “We’ll take it from here, Sergeant.”

  “So long, comrades.”

  The shields clapped Raith and the others in steel handcuffs while Sergeant Tym and his men made their exit. After a few minutes, an armed escort arrived from down a side hallway—more men with the blue shield insignia. The escort took them through a series of steel gates that stretched down the long hallway behind the security counter. Lieutenant Algus locked each gate behind them until they reached the cell block, a two-story hallway with dozens of cells on either side.

  As they were bringing Raith to his cell, one of the guards stationed along the cell block caught his eye. Raith wouldn’t have noticed the young man, but he looked so familiar it was uncanny. He was slightly overweight, with a shaved head, a thick neck, and bitter gray eyes. More importantly, each of his fingertips was wrapped in a pink-stained bandage. The soldier was studying Raith with an intense curiosity, but when Raith opened his mouth to speak, the young man set his jaw and turned away.

  CHAPTER 28

  The Prisoner

  Merrick’s work assignments kept getting worse. If it weren’t bad enough that Captain Curran, his former commanding officer, had no power to rescue him from the Sentries, today he was confined to jailhouse duty.

  The cell block was a desolate slab of steel and concrete that gave off a sterile echo at the slightest sound. It was stuffy during the daytime and unwelcoming at night, pungent with the body odor of its inhabitants, and manned by the Sentry Division, which was full of comrades like Merrick who were scraping by at the bottom of the barrel.

  Merrick had gone to bed the night before without assurance that the Fourth platoon had quelled the insurrection at the eastern outskirts. That was cause for concern, but until he heard more about it he was determined not to let it worry him. Commissar Wax punished most crimes by threat of death, exile, dismemberment, or some combination of the three. Since he always followed through with his threats, there was little likelihood of the jailhouse becoming overcrowded. Thus, its only inhabitants were those Wax deemed too valuable to kill and too dangerous to set free.

  Merrick entered the jailhouse for only the second time in his life and reported for duty. The first time was when he’d been checked in as a prisoner to await his audience with Wax, after the incident in the cistern. He remembered asking the guard several times to let him empty his bladder; the toilets mounted in the cells were ancient and inoperable. The guard had ignored him. The way the cell block smelled, Merrick doubted most prisoners had the manners to ask. An escort had arrived to take him to the Commissar just as he was working up the nerve to piss on the wall. They’d tied his hands before he’d had a chance.

  The Sentries at the front desk stared at the bandages on Merrick’s fingers, but no one asked about them. He was relieved for that; he was getting tired of all the questions. I need to invest in a good pair of gloves, he decided.

  Lieutenant Algus led him through the last of the gates and pointed out the comrade he was replacing. “Good shift,” said the Lieutenant.

  Merrick crossed to mid-cell block and came to attention facing the soldier. Along with the smell of piss and sweat, there was the stale copper-iron scent of blood, which he didn’t remember being so strong the last time he was here. He and the guard switched places. When Lieutenant Algus slid the gate closed behind them and the auto-latch clicked, Merrick began to feel utterly alone, despite the other two guards posted at opposite ends of the cell block. He could hear the slam-click of each successive gate as the Lieutenant and the off-shift guard got further and further away. Soon they were gone, and the occasional inmate’s cough or another distant noise from outside were the only sounds that broke the silence. For the next ten hours, or until someone came to replace him, this was Merrick’s life.

  He settled in and began to observe his surroundings. Several of the cells were occupied, and many of the prisoners inside them looked close to death. One slouched motionless against the wall of his cell, draped in shadow. His boots were sticking out into the light, and Merrick could see red sand caked between the grooves in the soles.

  Another man lay on his belly, his face pressed into the thin pillow, one arm dangling to the floor. There was a puddle beneath his bed. These are the men who attacked the city last night, Merrick realized. The arm dangling from the bed was a mass of blistered pink flesh. It looked like a mutie’s arm, but Merrick didn’t think he was a mutant. His skin was a lighter shade than that of any above-worlder Merrick had ever seen. He isn’t used to the daylight. None of them are. Then Merrick noticed the hand at the end of that dangling arm. The skin on the fingertips was charcoal-black, and the fingernails were missing.

  Merrick looked down at his own bandaged hands. When he had rewrapped them the night before, those tiny black circles had still been there on the tips of his fingers, dry and charred like fir
ewood. He thought again about the glowing red orbs he’d seen these men make, and he wondered whether he might be capable of doing the same thing. Is this another one of Infernal’s tricks? he wondered. Some new kind of mutation, different from the ones we already know about? A phenomenon that’s just beginning?

  If Merrick was becoming a mutant, there was only one thing he knew for certain: he couldn’t tell anyone, or the consequences would be dire. I’ll have to wear gloves all the time, he decided. His mind raced. He refused to believe he was going mutie, but what other explanation was there?

  Hours passed while Merrick puzzled out the implications of his newfound dilemma. He studied the prisoners, longing to speak with them, but fearing the other guards would hear. Some of the prisoners wore clothing and hairstyles reminiscent of the savages, but others wore rare suits of nyleen and synthtex that no nomad in his right mind would ever wear in the desert. Their pale, damaged skin was the thing that made them stand out most of all.

  There was a clamor at the front of the building. Voices echoed down the hallway, as if a crowd had gathered in the lobby. Presently Merrick heard the gates begin to open, one after another. Lieutenant Algus appeared first, followed by a dozen Sentries surrounding another half dozen prisoners. There was one among them who towered above the rest, a giant of a man with tangled gray hair that wreathed his face like a bearded lizard’s spines.

  More of the same, Merrick thought. More prisoners from yesterday. The comrades brought the prisoners into the cell block and stood each one facing the door to his own empty cell. The big man and two of the others had hands that were cracked and stained the color of dark stone.

  When Merrick looked up at him, the colossal gray-haired man was staring back. His deep blue eyes were hard, his face grim beneath skeins of hair and beard. He was filthy, and his skin was as pink and blistered as that of his companions. The man was handcuffed, and the guards had made him stand only a few feet away from Merrick while they checked his cell and tested the door. Merrick’s pulse quickened as the man’s eyes bored into him, until he found he had to look away. When he’d found the nerve to look up again, the big man was staring at his bandages. He gestured with his chin.