by J. C. Staudt
“Anything else you like?” Daxin asked, laying his hands on the counter.
“In a hurry, are we? Yeah, gimme the coffing scissors. I’ll take the pelts—the biggest two, here—and the, uh… the roll of wire. How much wire on here?” He turned it around in his hands. “Okay, I’ll take the wire. And throw in the plastic thing, whatever this coffing thing is. Take all the water you need, some jerky, and I got a little rice too.”
Daxin scooped his unwanted wares into his sack along with the food. Gachenko handed him the rest of the items, then filled his skins from the basin of filtered water connected to the cistern on the roof.
“Oh, and when you get to Sai Calgoar—if that’s where you’re going—give this to the master-king for me.” Gachenko made an obscene gesture. “Coffing savages have pinched every train through here the last six months but one. You believe that? Come in here trying to sell me all the beat-up junk they take, like I don’t know it’s stolen. Coffers.”
“I’ll pass that along,” Daxin said, shouldering his waterskins and exiting the shop.
A series of narrow back alleys took him to a little flatlander saloon called the Scorpion’s Uncle. The swinging door squeaked on its hinges as he came through. A sea of dark faces turned to look at him. Through the smoke haze he could see a game of godechente going at the back, and two men were arm-wrestling for a crowd of onlookers and a pile of glinting hardware. The tables were high, beer-stained wooden squares with cast-iron stands that had once been bolted to the floor; the bar stools were padded aluminum, most so decrepit their footrest bands were being held up with string.
“Just a water,” Daxin told the barkeep, a blond-haired man about his age with a sharp mustache and a wart under his eye. He tossed a one-inch length of copper electrical wire onto the bar and took his seat to wait out the afternoon’s heat.
“I seen you before?” the barkeep said, sliding him a cloudy glass and shoving the wire into a pocket.
Daxin gave him a curt nod.
“Cause you ain’t from here, not with that chestnut outside and the skin you got. This place is hard to find. Most folks from out of town don’t know it.”
“Friend of mine told me about this place. I come here every time I visit now. I like that it’s out of the way.” Daxin put a hand through his hair, self-conscious. Running his fingers over the tiny bald patches only made the feeling worse. Tonight, he would make good use of the razor Gachenko had traded him.
“You’re one of those dways, eh? I read you. Okay. Don’t want to know about it.” The barkeep held up a hand.
Daxin liked to think he wasn’t one of those dways—not the kind the barkeep was referring to, anyway. But he wasn’t in the mood for small talk either, so he said nothing. He spun halfway around on his stool and looked the room over, studying the memorabilia on the walls. A taxidermied bushcat, a giant bottle-shaped replica of the Fizzy’s logo, property signs, figurines, photographs; what was left of the old junk had been there for decades, but there were clean outlines in the grime where objects had been taken down and appropriated to some other purpose over the years.
The arm-wrestling match was over, and the victor was collecting his winnings and calling for a new challenger. The stuff of hooligans. There was a time when Daxin might’ve taken interest in such things, but a week in the wastes had made him neither fifteen years younger nor one iota stronger.
A pair of patrons came into the saloon an hour or two after him. One was a tall man with a scraggly brown beard, his eyes dark beneath the brim of a gambler; the other, his companion, a willowy girl with straight black hair who wore a long duster, the leathers beneath it tighter than any clothing had a right to be. They approached the bar to order drinks, got one look at the shotgun on Daxin’s hip, and took their seats elsewhere.
“You know those two?” asked the barkeep, when the newcomers were out of earshot. “They sure don’t seem to be very fond of you.”
I know the look of troublemakers when I see it. Daxin gave a paltry shrug.
“Lokes and Weaver. One’s a Calsaire, the other’s just your average deadeye.”
That caught Daxin’s interest. “Which is which?”
“It’s the woman.”
Daxin had never expected to find a sandcipher in Belmond, of all places, but if what the barkeep said was true, he wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass him by—whether these two were fond of him or not. He found himself standing at their table, letting the wary pair look him over, the way folks of their type tend to do.
“I have some work that needs doing,” Daxin heard himself say.
“We’re interested,” the man said without hesitation.
That was too desperate. “I hear you’re a sandcipher,” Daxin said, shifting his eyes from one to the other.
The man’s greasy brown hair was mashed to his head in the shape of the hat he’d removed, his eyes dark, even without its brim to shade them. “Not just any ol’ sandcipher. She’s a Calsaire.”
The difference came down to semantics—someone schooled in the arts, versus someone with an untrained knack—but Daxin didn’t see the benefit of pointing that out. “All the better,” he said, and explained his offer to them. When he was done, they looked at each other with knowing stares, as if what he’d asked of them were the simplest task in the Aionach.
Daxin tossed a pouch onto the table. “Half now. We meet back here in two weeks’ time, you bring me the evidence of your success, and you get the other half.”
In the pouch was an assortment of ingots, tiny slabs of metal melted down and harvested from other objects of gold and silver. There were a few precious stones, and the two diamonds he’d bludgeoned from the rings in Gachenko’s shop.
“See you in a couple weeks,” said the man—Lokes or Weaver, Daxin wasn’t sure which.
For all he knew, they’d squander his payment and skip town before he returned. Sandciphers weren’t easy to find; reliable ones were rarer still. If they hold to their word, this will all go off as smooth as snakeskin. It would save Daxin some time too, to make up for his internment in Dryhollow Split.
As Belmond shrank behind his left shoulder, the light-star was setting across the westering sands. He came upon a pack of wild dogs fighting the buzzards over what remained of some grisly event that had taken place out here, half a horizon from the city. The scavengers fled when he came through, and he found himself amidst a field of gore that covered an area several hundred fathoms in width. The wind was whiling away the last remnants of thick-treaded tire tracks that came in off the wastes and led toward the city.
At first glance, it looked like the remains of a trade caravan, ambushed by the nomads, like Gachenko had mentioned. That couldn’t be; the flesh was riddled with gunshot wounds, and only the Scarred Comrades could boast that kind of weaponry. The Scarred would never attack a train bound for the city north, stocked with the types of provisions that were scarce in these parts. Also, the corpses of horses and corsils were mixed in among the human remains, and it was rare for a trade caravan to mount on corsils.
Then something else caught Daxin’s eye: a small rectangle, flat and worn and half-covered in sand. He got down and brushed the sand away, picking it up. It was some form of identification badge from the old world, coded with a black strip along the back edge. The front of it read:
NATIONAL MINISTRY OF THE INNER EAST
DECYLUM RESEARCH FACILITY
Harold T. Beige
Department of Health
Chief Scientific Officer, Cellular Research Division
Employee ID# 33-429-7
Daxin spent some time searching the bodies, but most anything of value had been stripped from the site already. From what he could tell by examining what was left of the dead men, they were pale of skin, and most bore severe lightburns. Decylum. He turned the word over in his mind. He knew it. The stories said that hundreds or thousands of Ministry employees had died there, cut off from civilization at the beginning of the Heat. This card he’d pick
ed up meant either that someone had found its location and plundered it… or that the stories weren’t true, and someone from Decylum had survived.
Neither scenario made much difference to Daxin. Whatever had occurred here appeared to have put an end to these people, whomever they were. He tucked the ID badge into his saddlebags and continued on his way. The ankle felt stronger tonight, and he rode alongside Infernal’s descent with renewed vigor for the path ahead.
Another two nights of riding brought him to the feet of the Brinescales, where he realized he’d misjudged his position and arrived a ways off from where he’d intended to. It took him half the third night to retrace his steps and find the mountain pass, a cleft between two bluffs that was wide enough and flat enough to ride through. The guardians of the pass were watchful at all hours, and traveling at night made it more likely that they’d mistake Daxin for an intruder.
He’d gotten no more than half a horizon through the winding pass when he rounded a bend to find them waiting for him, coffee-colored skin glowing with a warm sheen in the light of their torches. More light came from behind him, and another troupe appeared on the trail to block his retreat.
“Litruil cha trath,” Daxin said. You waste no time. His Calgoàric was so rusty he almost laughed aloud at himself.
“Far tisaoel titadael?” said one, black braids swaying over the scars on his chest.
It took Daxin a few seconds to translate. He wants to know where I’m going… or is it, ‘where do I think I’m going?’ “Sai Calgoar,” he said. “Lethari Prokin.”
“Lethari Prokin,” the nomad repeated. His laugh was haughty, and the others joined him. “Lethari Prokin cha oar Sai Calgoar. Oen oar sai staèl.”
Daxin sighed. “He’s not in Sai Calgoar,” he muttered, comprehending. “He’s in the steel city. He’s in Belmond. Coff it, I was just there.”
The nomad gave him a confident nod, as if he understood.
Daxin scratched his head. The hair had started to grow in again, but his scalp was itchy and flaky from lightburn and the last of the rain rash. He was tired, hungry, and in need of rest, and the thought of returning to the wastes did not appeal to him. “The master-king, then,” he said. “Tycho Montari.”
The nomad with the black braids laughed again. “Tycho Montari cha coes lathcui.”
Lathcui. Daxin knew the word all too well—it was slang for half-breed or mongrel. Lathcui was what the nomads called everyone who wasn’t a nomad. You may think your master-king is no friend of mongrels, but… “Oenaithen ain.” He knows me.
“Maetha,” said the nomad, shrugging. “Titadael.” He stepped aside and swept his arm out over the path ahead, then leaned back and whispered into the ear of the man behind him. “Tin fos.”
Two of the nomads fell in beside Daxin, looking less than pleased at having been chosen to escort him. Sai Calgoar was another day and night from here, at least, and the nomads were apt to pull him along at whatever pace they chose. That meant traveling during daylight hours—easier to do in the shade of the ravine than in the open wastes, but unpleasant nonetheless. They moved at a relentless clip, perhaps anxious to be done with him. Even on horseback, he had trouble keeping up.
Daxin decided it would be wise to befriend his escorts, but doing so proved difficult. They spoke the Aion-speech passing well, and he managed to get their names after some prying. Both were young men, the eldest of the two a wiry fellow with loose waves of black hair called Yual Elekassi; he wore horseshoes of bone through his nose and ears, and his arms were covered in swirls of decorative scarring. Tiobad Angeides was the younger, though just as slender, but with a shorter coif of razor-sharp hair that pointed toward the sky.
“What is your trade with master-king?” asked Tiobad in a loud voice, as the two nomads darted over a strand of loose rocks.
Daxin’s mare was picking her way over the terrain in careful strides. The pass had grown more treacherous, and he’d had to dismount several times already to lead her through the roughest patches. There was a smoother sandstone pass further south, better for riding through; he could’ve taken that instead, had he been willing to go further out of his way. For now, he’d have to make the best of it and hope his mare chose her steps wisely.
“My trade is information,” Daxin replied. “Information that will help you against the Scarred Comrades.”
Tiobad slowed and waited for the mare to catch up, then walked beside her. “All you pale-skins are same,” he said. “No trust. Blood is thin with your kind. You deceive kinsmen, not respect them. That is why lathcui are better as slaves than as free men. Lathcui must learn what honor is.”
“The Scarred Comrades aren’t my kinsmen,” Daxin said. “I have no loyalty to them.” And yet, the young nomad’s words had stung him, ineloquent though they might’ve been.
Yual had slowed to listen to their conversation. “Who is your loyalty to?” he asked.
Daxin started to speak, then realized he had no answer for the man. What can I say to that? Who does have my loyalty? Is it the daughter I’ve left on her own, the brother I’ve betrayed, the wife I drove away, the village I abandoned, or the parents I buried twenty years ago? Is this what I’ve come to call loyalty? “I’m loyal to me, and nobody else,” he heard himself say. He was proving the nomads’ point for them, but there was no other way to spin it.
“Oen toig cha cariad, oedaoraich oefein,” Yual said.
“Tha,” Tiobad replied, laughing.
Daxin processed. ‘He’s his own slave.’ That’s what they’re saying. ‘He who has no friend is a slave to himself.’
Their attitudes toward him changed after that. They weren’t unkind to him; they only regarded him with passive indifference instead of outright enmity. They allowed him a brief stop, during which they made camp at the edge of the pass and let him rest for half a night before moving on. The delay put them behind schedule, so rather than reach Sai Calgoar in the pre-dawn coolness, they arrived in the open vale with the heat of midday upon them.
The City of Sand was always a sight to behold, its cavelike hovels bordered by tiered walkways, with steep carven staircases providing access between them. The market was closed every odd day at the master-king’s decree. Dust devils drifted through the empty streets below, making idle wanderers of yesterday’s debris.
Daxin let Yual and Tiobad bring him to the edge of the valley before he stopped them. “I’ll go the rest of the way from here and let you start back.”
The nomads shared a suspicious look.
“I’m going to visit Lethari Prokin’s household to pay my respects before I see the master-king,” he assured them. “I can make it there on my own.”
It took only a minute of further convincing to thank the nomads and send them on their way. Now all he had to do was get to Lethari’s house and wait for him there. The warleader of Prokin may have been gone for the time being, but Frayla Prokin would be at home, Daxin knew.
CHAPTER 41
Gris-Mirahz
The rest of Lizneth’s journey through the vale was as miserable and bothersome as the first part had been. At least now they had full waterskins and a few bits of food to tide them over. Lizneth had recovered from the poison enough to walk on her own, but the daylight had made her feel weak and overheated. She could hear the chain gang following them, keeping pace even though they were still strung together. The sound of their chains reminded Lizneth how guilty she felt about leaving them behind.
The light-star passed overhead and began to slip over the mountaintops, covering them in a sliver of welcome shadow. They’d hardly spoken a word to one another since their encounter with the slaves from Gris-Mirahz, but they followed Zhigdain with the shattered conviction of lost souls whose other options had run out. The big-eared buck himself never wavered in determination. He’d spread the load of their plunder evenly among them, and he kept them moving with little digression apart from the occasional suspicious glance over his shoulder.
Lizneth and her companions
knew when they had reached the entrance to Gris-Mirahz even though they couldn’t see it; the scent alone was a sufficient harbinger. The calai slave must’ve known little of the ikzhehn if he’d thought they could miss the place. It was a return to bilge and seawater; a damp smell that punctured the dusty exterior world like clarity through a haze of confusion. It was unpleasant and familiar, dredging up the memories of the sea that Lizneth had been trying to forget.
With the stink of the Omnekh to guide them, they rounded a cutaway in the rock and slogged up the incline on the other side, half-climbing until they made it to the top of the ridge. Zhigdain gave them each a short look through the goggles so they could see out over the vale before they continued on.
When Lizneth slipped the lenses over her eyes, everything that had glowed white and blurry and overexposed in the daylight became crisp and fell into deep hues of grayish blue that looked almost normal again. With the mountains to her back, she gazed out over the stone-pocked grasslands of the vale and stood in awed silence, unable to comprehend the breadth and beauty of it all. It was so overwhelming it made her dizzy, and the wind tearing past them put her on her heels and made her plant her tail to keep from toppling over.
“You’re standing in the very heart of the world, cuzhe,” Bresh said. “Did you ever imagine there was a place like this?”
Lizneth couldn’t speak; not yet.
“To the far north are the Vors’ Rhachis, the largest and longest of all mountain ranges in the Aionach,” Bresh explained, “and beyond that lies Calgareth, the northern lands where the calaihn claim their heritage. The rest of those mountains, to the east and the south, are called the Brinescales. Straight ahead over the vale is the Slickwash, a zherath many millions of fathoms larger than the Omnekh. To the south are the lands called the Inner East, a dangerous place where the eh-calaihn live in great number.”