The Infernal Lands (The Aionach Saga Book 1)

by J. C. Staudt

  Standing next to the cabinets, the smell was as bad as it had been downstairs. Bastille held a handful of woolen sleeve over her face as she opened each cabinet and checked each bookshelf. There were stacks of parchment paper, along with inkwells, quills, books, and half-completed illuminations, but she found nothing that would’ve caused such a smell.

  There’s an entrance to the labyrinth in here somewhere, she surmised. But after shifting each book and tapping on every shelf and wall, she hadn’t found the trigger. It would have to be something less obvious, like the counterweight in the walk-in freezer. Something that doesn’t immediately stand out. She ran her fingers along the sides of each piece of furniture, then knelt to feel along the bottoms. Beneath the second cabinet, she felt a faint draft of cooler air.

  Her heart raced. She closed the cabinet doors and slid her fingers beneath it, feeling around until she came across a wooden tab about the width of a clothespin. It clicked when she pressed it. She tried pushing, then pulling, and finally, lifting. The entire cabinet slid upward along the wall as though it weighed only a few pounds. It stopped at about waist height to reveal a tiny nook no larger than a closet. Out of the nook wafted half a dozen flies and the most overpowering concentration of stench Bastille had experienced yet.

  She stuck her head inside and found a narrow cavity between two walls running off to the left. At the edge of the darkness, two flour sacks were joined end-to-end, covering something big and lumpy. Flies swarmed over the stinking mass, alighting on floorboards stained with coagulant.

  Bastille withdrew her head and closed the portal with an unsteady hand. The cabinet eased to rest without a sound. Strong as her stomach was, she couldn’t seem to erase the vision of Brother Froderic’s body within those flour sacks, maggot-eaten and beginning to decay into the floorboards. But why would Soleil bring the corpse into the basilica instead of leaving it in a tunnel somewhere for the rats and scavengers? Bastille would retrieve the key from her room and come back for a closer look, she decided, massaging her throbbing temples.

  “Sister Bastille?”

  Bastille opened her eyes to find Brother Ephamar standing in the doorway, holding a book at his side and marking his page with a thumb. She pushed herself up and tried not to look as sickened as she felt. “Brother…” she managed to say.

  “Sister Helliot is taking over for me while I go for a stroll. Stretch the old legs, and all. Care to join me?”

  “I… I shouldn’t. I have a class to get to.”

  “Afternoon sessions don’t start for a three-quarter hour. You look unwell, Sister. The fresh air will do you some good.” The librarian’s eyes began to water as he spoke. He blinked until there were tears streaming down his face, but he gave her a cheerful grin nonetheless.

  The Mouth. He thinks the smell is coming from me, Bastille realized. “Of course I’ll join you, kind Brother.”

  The air outside was not fresh. It was never fresh, except sometimes in the cool of the night, if there was a breeze. Bastille and Ephamar circled the cloister’s covered walkways, discussing whatever came to mind. For Brother Ephamar, that was always the subject of his readings. He spoke of the incredible technologies developed before the Heat—the feats of architecture and science and medicine, many of which were still around today. There were empty husks of the past everywhere, if you knew where to find them, he said. Remnants of the Ministry were hidden across the Aionach, and the Inner East especially. The NewNexus and its accompanying organs, light-powered weaponry, and many other burgeoning technologies had been on the cusp of mass-acceptance when the Heat came.

  Bastille listened to Ephamar’s enthused digressions with polite courtesy. The Great Heat had begun before she was born, and small-town life had exposed her to none of the technological marvels of which Ephamar spoke. All she knew of the Heat was that it had been the cause of her mother’s death, and the reason her father had taken up with Carudith, her shrew of a stepmother. On an average day, Bastille would’ve preferred to discuss the scriptures, or to debate the character of the Mouth. But there was too much on her mind today to carry an easy conversation, and she couldn’t very well trust Brother Ephamar with her concerns.

  After their second lap around the cloister, Bastille excused herself, despite Ephamar’s insistence that she stay. She rushed off to her bedchamber, locked the door behind her, and found the key right where she’d left it. She put it around her neck and slid it beneath her robes. If Ephamar was still circling the cloister, he would be able to see into the scriptorium from the walkway. Once the afternoon sessions started, the scriptorium itself would be filled with priests and acolytes honing their literary and illustrative crafts. Bastille wouldn’t have another chance to examine the east tower until later.

  Walking the halls toward the cellars, she felt the distinct chill of fear creeping over her. Just by carrying the key, she was breaking the rules and risking everything. Every noise put her further on edge; every squealing hinge, every wooden thud and stony click, every echo of voice and footstep.

  In the cellars, she covered her nose and stopped to inspect the stain on the ceiling once more. Even if she’d come down this way earlier, she may not have noticed it in the gloom. Sister Adeleine’s eyes were very sharp in the dark, indeed.

  The sound of voices came from down the hall, interrupting Sister Bastille’s observations. She could see that the door to her examination room was cracked open, so she crept over to it and listened.

  “Tell me where she is,” said a man’s voice from within. The voice was familiar, but Bastille couldn’t put a finger on where she knew it from.

  “I won’t.” It was Sister Adeleine. “And I think you should go.”

  “We’re not going anywhere until we have her.”

  Bastille’s heart danced in her chest. Her head began to pound again. Someone had seen her in the scriptorium, no doubt. Who could want me? Another one of Soleil’s pets, coming to do his dirty work for him? She inched over and leaned around the door. Sister Adeleine was cornered. Three brawny men in boots and gray-patterned fatigues were surrounding the acolyte, pointing their big black guns at her. In their midst was a figure robed in prosaics, tall and thin, with medium-blond hair that grew long around his ears and neck. Though he was standing up straight, he leaned to the right.

  Brother Mortial, Bastille realized. She lost her balance and put an instinctive hand on the door.

  The hinges creaked.

  The door swung open.

  Brother Mortial and the soldiers turned around.

  CHAPTER 33

  Migration

  Biyo was giving Eivan a stare that seemed likely to bore a hole through him. “What exactly happened to you and Duffy today?”

  Daxin and Biyo had steered the crowd away to let Ellicia tend to Duffy. Then they’d pulled Eivan into a narrow alcove to question him.

  “Got a big lizard,” Eivan said, chuckling to himself. He flexed his lower lip to reveal a row of jagged bottom teeth.

  Daxin rushed at him, slamming him against the rock wall. “These folks might not lay a hand on you, but I’ll do more than that if you don’t focus in and start answering some questions. Where did you and Duffy go today? Where’d you find that sanddragon?”

  Eivan’s breath reeked of years-fermented cheese, and feeling the air on his neck made Daxin’s skin crawl. The man’s face screwed up at the sudden shock, but he only gurgled. In that moment, he looked a lot less sapient than Daxin had given him credit for. Aside from the wheezing breath passing in and out through Eivan’s open mouth, he made no sound.

  “Answer me. Or so help me, I will spill your guts and make you watch the dragons eat them.”

  Biyo looked as though he wanted to object, but he refrained.

  When Eivan spoke, there was a spattering of warm spittle across Daxin’s face. “I speared the lizard.”

  Daxin wanted to haul back and hit him, but he’d gotten the man talking, and that was worth more at the moment.

  “We got the
lizard before it got here,” Eivan said. “Bit Duffy, then I bit it with my spear. Got a big rock and smashed its head.” Eivan coughed, bathing Daxin’s face and neck.

  Daxin shoved him against the wall and let go, swabbing himself with his sleeve. “Where were you when this thing found you? Have you dways been going out to the desert on your own? Meeting with someone? Giving them information about us?” Daxin stopped himself short. It was the first time he had used the word ‘us’ to describe himself in relation to the village. A small detail, and one that Biyo likely hadn’t noticed in his flustered state.

  “Not meetin’ with nobody,” Eivan said with a crooked smile.

  Daxin was convinced Eivan was hiding something, and he was set on finding out what it was. “He’s lying.”

  “You think Eivan and Duffy are spying on us?” Biyo asked, skeptical.

  “Why is that so hard to believe? You don’t think Vantanible could’ve sprinkled in a few sympathizers so he could keep tabs on you? The man is cutthroat. He’s a complete control freak, and he’s capable of more—”

  “Ellicia has been telling you a lot about her old friend the mayor, has she?” Biyo interrupted.

  It was then that Daxin remembered the way Ellicia’s voice had moved, that tiny little bit of something he’d detected in her tone when she’d mentioned Nichel. “As a matter of fact, she has. Why do you ask?”

  “It just sounds like you’ve learned a few things about him,” Biyo said. “Enough to give you a very poor opinion.”

  “You’ve told me plenty about him yourself, if you recall,” Daxin said. “He ruined all your lives because of some paranoid delusion. Do you have a good opinion of him?”

  “Not at all… but see, I knew him,” Biyo said, giving him a look.

  Daxin gulped, hoping it wasn’t as loud as it sounded to him. It was his own fault for letting his temper get the best of him, for forgetting how important it was to keep certain things to himself. He was no informant for Nichel Vantanible—that was to be sure. But Eivan certainly seemed to be enjoying himself, brandishing his tangled yellows in that ghastly grin of his. Daxin wondered how Biyo would react when he found out he’d been duped into housing two of Vantanible’s spies.

  For now, Biyo didn’t seem to want to press the issue further. He turned back to Eivan. “Eivan, if you and Duffy have had contact with anyone else, you tell me so, right now. We have to know, because unless you can explain how you came across that thing, I’m gonna be forced to believe you and Duffy went out into the desert. And since none of us have any business being there—”

  “They’re migratin’,” Eivan blurted. “Scared of the rains. They’re comin’ in off the sands for shelter. Comin’ here.”

  “What rains?” Biyo asked. He and Daxin looked at each other, both realizing it at the same time. They left the alcove together.

  “Has anybody been up top today? Besides Eivan or Duffy?” Daxin asked.

  No one said they had.

  Biyo let Daxin go ahead of him as they climbed the slope to the surface. The temperature change was almost too abrupt to believe; the cave had been comfortable, but the surface was stifling.

  Clouds. There they were, drab and brooding over the mountains far to the north; a boiling mass of thunderheads swirling in upon itself as it raced southward. The leaden dusk threw iron shadows, flattening the colors of the landscape and blotting Infernal from view, like a faded orange stain on a dappled gray carpet.

  “Oh, coffing shit,” Biyo said when he’d taken in the skyline. “Shit. We’re in for it, Luther. If the sanddragons don’t get here before the storm, that thing’s gonna have its way with us.”

  “Has it rained yet since you’ve been here?” Daxin asked, feeling a twinge of worry.

  “This will be the first time.”

  Daxin sighed. “Okay, that’s terrible news.”

  “Don’t be so optimistic.”

  “Go inside and tell everyone to get everything off the floor. Hang it up, tie it over the ledges, lash it to the columns, whatever. The people who have the rooms highest off the ground will have to share. Get everybody prepared to move upward as high as they can go. If the top levels fill up, start filling the ones below that. Oh, remember to tell them they need to find a way to haul their ladders up too. That dead wood’s going to rot real quick if it floods in there.”

  Biyo was incredulous. “If it floods? What do you mean if it floods?”

  “Biyo, those walls have seen their fair share of moisture. I noticed how damp the air was the day I got here. I’m betting that pool down there is part of some underground river. You know what happens to rivers when it rains?”

  “High Infernal. Should we maybe try to plug the hole in the bottom of the pool?”

  Daxin shook his head. “Waste of time. There’s nothing we have that’s going to hold if the water rises. And before you suggest it, we can’t race the storm through the Bones looking for other shelter. We’ll never win that race, and there are too many people who’d slow us down. The cave is our best hope, so we’ll have to stay and face what comes.”

  “What about the sanddragons?”

  Daxin knew better than to tell Biyo the plain truth about the sanddragons. If he was going to be stuck in a cubbyhole above an underground lake for who knew how long, he didn’t want to be there with thirty hysterical villagers. “Thanks to the lizard Eivan and Duffy got, we should be eating well, even if the rains last for days. If there are more of them, and I hope to high Infernal there aren’t, then we’ll make sure we’re ready for them.”

  “But Duffy’s leg. He’s been bitten… he’ll lure them right to us.”

  “We can’t just toss him outside, Biyo.” Never mind that Daxin might’ve done just that if the decision were up to him. “But also remember that if the cave floods, and more sanddragons do show up, they’ll have a hard time reaching us.” Daxin couldn’t remember if he’d read about whether voranic tarragons could swim. He thought he remembered the book saying they could, but he decided to err on the side of calming Biyo’s nerves. “I don’t think they can swim.”

  “Ellicia wants to amputate,” Biyo said, ignoring Daxin’s attempts to pacify him. “I think we should.”

  “Whatever you say. You’re in charge.”

  The look on Eivan’s face sobered. “Keep him alive. Yeah, do it.”

  “And then someone should take the leg,” Biyo said. “They should carry it way out into the wastes and leave it somewhere.”

  Daxin stopped himself from pointing out that even after the amputation, there could be enough venom left in Duffy’s body for the tarragons to trace it. “Agreed,” he said instead. “We’ll figure that out when the time comes. Right now, we need to go below and tell everyone to get ready for the storm.”

  They descended into the cave to find that the villagers had moved Duffy to a more suitable spot for the operation. By the desolate look on Duffy’s face, Daxin ascertained that Ellicia had just finished explaining what they were about to do to him.

  Ellicia looked up when Daxin crouched beside her. “I think he’s ready.”

  Eivan looked more nervous than Duffy, the man who was about to be undergoing the actual torture. Eivan’s face was greasy with perspiration, and he was no longer wearing that vacant, stupid grin. His sober gaze was set on his friend, concern and worry written all over it. If either of them was tired or thirsty from their jaunt in the Bones, they didn’t seem to notice at the moment.

  “Can we count on you to help us with this, Eivan?” Daxin asked.

  Eivan nodded without averting his stare.

  “Good, then sit on his shoulder and hold his arm down.”

  Biyo looked about as pale and sick as the other two.

  Daxin clapped him on the shoulder, hoping it would snap him out of it. “You gonna be okay?”

  Biyo looked up, bewildered. “I dunno.”

  “Well, do this, then. Sit on Duffy’s other shoulder, grab his hand, and put your head between your knees. If you feel fai
nt, close your eyes and sit tight. This will all be over in a second.”

  “It might take longer than that, actually,” Ellicia said. She picked up the hacksaw that had been sitting on the ground behind her.

  Daxin realized his part in this affair was going to be bigger than he’d predicted. Then he noticed the crowd of villagers that had gathered around them. “What are you all doing here? Didn’t Biyo tell you to get ready for the storm? Everything needs to be up off the ground, unless you want to lose it. Make friends with your upstairs neighbor, then move in and get cozy.”

  Most of the villagers just stood there, staring at him.

  “Go. Do it now.” Daxin got up and drew the machete from his belt, waggling it at the crowd to disperse them.

  Biyo was grimfaced. “You’re about to hack off someone’s leg with a machete, and you expect people not to look?”

  Daxin glanced up to see Schum and a few of the others imitating the act of packing up their things, pretending not to watch. “Okay, Schum. You want to see this? Then make yourself useful and bring me that stump over there.”

  Schum obliged, helping them prop up Duffy’s leg.

  Daxin felt around below the knee until he found the place where the kneecap ended and the shinbone began.

  Ellicia frowned at the machete. “You’re not about to use that thing, are you? If so, you’re going to have to do it yourself, because I will not.”

  “I’m not using the machete,” Daxin said, putting it away. “We can’t cut the man down like a nest of brambles. I’m sure Duffy agrees with me, don’t you buddy?”

  Duffy gave him a pained nod, clenching his jaw so tight Daxin could see the muscles in his face even below the thick tangle of beard.

  “Fine,” Ellicia said. She took a deep breath, half apprehension and half preparation.

  Daxin wiped the sweat out of his eyes. “Do you have anything for him to bite down on?”

  “Here.” Ellicia produced a curl of hard leather and pressed it into Duffy’s mouth. He bit down, his head bobbing appreciatively.

  “We’re going to make this happen as quickly as we can for you,” Daxin told him.