The Archon's Assassin

by D. P. Prior

  Nameless was making hard work of it, boots scraping and thudding, breaths echoing from the great helm in rasping heaves.

  On instinct, Shadrak offered him the waterskin, then realized his mistake and withdrew it.

  Nameless snorted, and then chuckled, as if he wanted to give the impression he wasn’t suffering, but he must have been sweltering in that helm; beneath his hauberk.

  Galen came up behind the dwarf, wringing the moisture from his mustache.

  Ekyls crouched at the lip of the gully before dropping lithely to the ground. Rivulets of sweat streamed down his torso, and his tongue lolled from his mouth like a dog’s.

  “Where now?” the savage asked.

  “Down,” Shadrak croaked, and tried to clear his throat. “Toward the magma chamber, Aristodeus said. Apparently, the giant likes it hot.”

  Nameless chuckled.

  Albert tutted and shook his head.

  Ludo tugged at Galen’s sleeve. “Do you know what this reminds me of?”

  “No, Eminence, I do not.”

  “Luminary Bertold, remember?” He looked around to make sure everyone was listening. “Bertold was a stout fellow, possessed of great strength and fortitude. Actually, not too dissimilar to you.” He wagged a finger at Nameless. “Yes, a strong man, and zealous with it. It is said he marched straight through the Abyss and out the other side. Right into the heart, he went, deep into caves of fire, where he glimpsed a gigantic figure entombed in ice.” He touched his forehead, and Galen followed suit.

  Ekyls sniffed. “Fool, then, to go there.”

  “He was serving the Lord Nous,” Galen said, as if he were reprimanding a small child.

  Ekyls leered. “Nous foolish, too, if he allow fools to serve him. Mamba Tribe throw idiots into snake pits.”

  Ludo smiled and shook his head. “One man’s foolishness is another man’s wisdom, eh Galen?”

  “Pah!” Ekyls pushed roughly past them and loped down the tunnel, which suited Shadrak just fine. If there were problems ahead, he’d sooner the savage found them first.

  Ludo tilted his spectacles so that he could peek over them. Even in the soft glow emanating from the rocks, he appeared gaunt, wasted. His head poked too far forward, like a chicken’s, and his back was stooped, as if he’d spent a lifetime hunched over a desk.

  Baggage. About as useful as that bug shit at the entrance.

  Ludo leaned conspiratorially toward Shadrak and beamed a crooked-toothed smile.

  “I think we made some progress.” His eyes followed Ekyls. “A few words, small gestures.”

  “What’s this, your civilizing the dumb savage routine?” Shadrak said. Try that on Kadee, and she’d have put you in your place. And right after, I’d have put you in the ground.

  He grunted and wasted no time moving away. Ludo’s breath stank worse than a cat’s arse.

  ***

  Ekyls was on his stomach, peering over the edge of a crevasse when they caught up with him.

  Scalding air wafted up from the depths in dirty plumes. Shadrak covered his nose and mouth and risked a look.

  Hundreds of feet below, a slick stream of magma sloughed through a gorge. Black pillows of crust scabbed the surface of the flow. On and around them, licks of flame wavered and danced. He withdrew quickly, face stinging with heat and sweat.

  “End of road.” Ekyls spat into the chasm.

  “You think?” Shadrak said. “Albert, chuck us some rope, and tie the other end to your ass—the one with the ears and a tail.”

  Quintus brayed and stamped, refusing to move any nearer to the edge. He caught Albert with a hoof, sent him hopping away clutching his knee and whimpering.

  Nameless raised a fist. “Stop being an ass, Quintus.” To Shadrak, he said, “I’m winking, laddie. Not as good as yours, but who’s keeping score?”

  Albert was, judging by the sour look he gave Shadrak.

  Bird glared at the threatened fist, but Quintus lowered his head and stopped struggling.

  The dwarf uncoiled a length of rope and passed one end to Shadrak, tying the other firmly to the mule.

  Shadrak looped his end around his waist and backed onto the edge of the precipice. “Pay it out each time I push off from the wall.”

  “Right you are, laddie.”

  “It’ll chafe,” Ludo said. “Perhaps some gloves?”

  “Nothing he ain’t used to,” Shadrak said, and Nameless guffawed.

  Ludo looked to Galen for an explanation, but it was lost on the dragoon, too. Wanker.

  Shadrak stepped back and began to rappel in steady, easy jumps.

  Sulfur filled his nostrils, made his eyes run. He held his breath as he descended a few feet, then took in a gasp of acrid air. Nameless let out a little more rope, and Shadrak dropped again. When he ran out of slack, he called up, “That all we got?”

  Nameless’s great helm appeared above him. “Hold on, laddie. I’ll drag the mule closer.”

  After a moment’s scuffing and braying, a bit more slack was paid out. Thankfully, it was enough.

  Shadrak lowered himself to a narrow shelf. Untying the rope, he dropped to his hands and knees so he could peer over the edge.

  Just below, there was an opening in the chasm wall that looked big enough to squeeze through.

  He rolled from the shelf and hung by his fingertips. He could feel the heat coming off the lava flow through the soles of his boots. It scorched the seat of his britches like he’d sat on a hotplate. Sweat poured down his face, made his grip slippery.

  He glimpsed what seemed a good handhold to his right, and started to pendulum-swing his legs. When he’d picked up enough momentum, he let go and flung his arm out. Rough rock cut into his fingers, and pain lanced through his bad shoulder, but he grimaced and held on. Once stable, he swung toward another knobby protrusion. From there, it was a case of shuffling hand over hand until he reached the opening.

  It was a soot-blackened lava vent.

  He squeezed in sideways, back scraping against one wall. The ceiling was an inch or so above head-height for him, so he was able to make quick progress all the way to a junction. There, things grew tighter, and he followed the left turn downward on his hands and knees. His legs were abraded raw through the rent fabric of his britches, and his palms were bleeding from scores of tiny cuts.

  He emerged into a cavern bristling with rocky fangs that twisted from the ceiling and floor. Every surface was painted with the same vivid deposits they had seen at the entrance. A yellowish haze, like fetid breath, left the air thick and cloying, heavy with brimstone.

  Shadrak walked among the stalagmites until he reached the banks of the lava lake. Its scabby ooze bubbled and seethed, coughed up gouts of dirty smoke.

  He heard the others hollering, and looked up to see them peering over the brink high above. Ludo tossed down a coin to phwat upon the crust, sizzle, and slowly liquefy.

  “Is there another way down?” Nameless hollered.

  Shadrak doubted the dwarf could squeeze his shoulders into the lava vent, assuming he could even negotiate the handholds to get there. And as for the rest of them… Quintus the mule had more chance of making it. Except maybe for Bird.

  Thought of the shapeshifter gave Shadrak pause. Scouting ahead would have been a cinch for him, if he turned back into a raven. Shog, the scut could probably become a cockroach. Odd that he hadn’t. Before his mind ran away with suspicion after suspicion, Shadrak put a lid on it. All he needed to do for now was register the fact and file it away for another time.

  He signed for them to wait, be quiet, before he realized only Albert would recognize the hand signals. For brevity’s sake, he put a finger to his lips, made sure they saw it. Last thing he wanted was to bring the giant down on them, but with the racket they were making, it was probably already too late.

  When he was sure he had Albert’s attention, he signed for them to stay put while he did a quick recce.

  He searched around the walls of the cathedral cavern, ducked in and ou
t of tunnels, and had climbed part way up a winding vent, when he heard cries from above.

  “Scutting arsewipes,” he muttered. “What the shog now?”

  Someone screamed—Albert?

  A sound like the roar of flames. In its wake, the rumbling wheeze of air echoing through the lava tunnels. Was there a surge coming? An eruption?

  Shadrak dropped back down into the cavern. He swirled his cloak around him and slipped behind a stalagmite. There was a shift in the play of light coming off the burning crust.

  Steeling himself, he chanced a look.

  A column of flame stood within the flow. It rose and fell. A second followed in its wake, wading through the magma, lifting, bending—

  They were legs. Giant legs, wreathed in lava.

  Slipping from one stalagmite to the next, Shadrak approached the bank.

  Thunderous breaths blasted across the cavern. Laughter boomed and rumbled.

  It was a man. A colossal man with charcoal skin and fiery veins. Heavy brows hung like outcrops of coal above blazing eyes. His hair was a raging conflagration, his beard a molten cascade. A tail of lightning skimmed the lake behind, and in his hands, held cupped before his face, were the bodies of Shadrak’s companions.

  THE SWORD IN THE GRASS

  Britannia, Earth

  Crimson sunlight bathed the summit of Mount Caburn on the far side of the valley as Shader crested the rise of Firle Beacon. The livid skies above the Weald were streaked with ribbons of pink and amber.

  A lone wolf-man loomed from the mist, its shaggy bulk shuddering with each muffled growl.

  Shader lowered Pete to the dew-damp grass, slid Sandau’s sword from his belt.

  Another figure materialized from the gray and placed a hand on the wolf-man’s head, stroking and patting it.

  “Two days, I says. Two days afore you come to the beacon.” He sounded pleased. The only thing missing from his delivery was an “I told you so.”

  The haze dispersed to reveal a piebald mask, the wisp of a cloak that swirled like cobwebs in the breeze.

  Heredwin leaned on a scythe. In the half-light of dawn, he looked like an angel of death come to reap.

  “You sent the wolves.” Shader pointed his sword at the mask.

  The wolf-man bared its fangs and snarled.

  “Not I, Pater.”

  The title stung. Shader’s anger showed it for what it was.

  He lowered his sword, found himself watching the sway of the long grass. “But you warned me.”

  Heredwin gave the wolf-man a final pat before placing both hands around the snaith of his scythe.

  “Be still,” he said in a voice like rushing water, and the beast settled on its haunches. “I told you they was coming, Pater, but I wished they wasn’t. Two of ’em gone back to the loam, and this one all alone.”

  Shader tensed, felt the blood pounding in his ears. “And what about the man they killed? What about this man?” He used the sword to indicate Pete. He couldn’t bring himself to mention Rhiannon and Saphra. That would be an admission they were lost. That he’d let them down.

  Heredwin stooped over the scythe. “Ain’t no blame here, least of all with the wolves. They don’t choose what they are. They don’t choose to play these games.”

  The wolf-man whimpered and rubbed its snout in the dirt.

  “Did you not see the sky, Pater Deacon? Did you not see it change?”

  Shader nodded. “I saw Aethir.”

  “You’re a man of the worlds, Pater. You’ve seen some measure of their secrets. Snares upon snares. Tricks and traps and deceptions. But you don’t have to go blundering into ’em. Least, not if you want to be your own man.”

  Shader was growing sick of the riddles. Sandau was dead—Rhiannon, Saphra—and someone was going to pay.

  “What the Abyss is going on here?”

  “You already know, Pater,” Heredwin said. “He wants you back on Aethir. He’s at war with the Deceiver. Your victory over Sektis Gandaw was a pyrrhic one. Picked off a scab, but there’s a deeper wound beneath.”

  Shader felt his chest constricting. A vein in his temple throbbed. “Aristodeus.”

  Heredwin looked into the sunrise, as if he were entirely innocent.

  “Maybe I’ll do what he wants.” Shader ran a finger along the chipped and bloodstained blade of Sandau’s sword. “Maybe it’s time I paid him a visit.”

  He was startled by a yelp of laughter from Heredwin, who doubled up over the scythe as if he were dying of mirth. “Now that I’d like ta see. But how’ll you get there?”

  Shader’s mind grabbed at the image of the cave in the phony Araboth; relived the bloated spider-thing sucking the life from Jarmin the Anchorite’s corpse; saw again the swirling of the air, and Sammy reaching out to him from a portal.

  “Ah, Huntsman’s apprentice.” Heredwin nodded, apparently aware of what Shader was thinking. “P’raps the boy could help you, if you could get to Sahul.”

  Shader frowned. That was a journey of many weeks, even if he could evade the Imperial ships scouring the oceans. Still, Aristodeus was bound to come to him again, and when he did…

  “Leave all the choices to him, would you? Seems ta me he’s running you ragged.”

  “Then what?”

  Heredwin drifted toward him, as if walking on the mist. “Your woman ain’t dead, is she boy? Only one killed was the big fellow.”

  “Sandau. Sandau was his name. So, Rhiannon, Saphra—”

  “He took ’em,” Heredwin said. “Reckons they belong ta him, I guess. Maybe they’re the bait that hooks the fish.” He emphasized the last word.

  Shader’s hand went to the pendant the dying man had given him in New Jerusalem. He rubbed the contours of the woman’s image, and the words of the inscription—Causa Salutis—ran round his mind like a silent petition. “Then you must help me.”

  Heredwin twisted his head like he was dangling from a hangman’s noose, took in the view of Caburn across the valley. “Me, or her?” he said whimsically. Before Shader could muster a reply, Heredwin continued. “Might need some help of my own first.” He swept his hand out over the long grass. “It’s a big job at my age.”

  The wolf-man crawled a little way down the slope, nostrils flaring, eyes bright. It rolled its head to look at Heredwin, growled, and padded past Shader toward Pete.

  Shader had all but forgotten the injured man, and reacted with a start.

  “Don’t you be worrying about that’n,” Heredwin said. “He’s fer the turning. We’ll see him through it, then he’ll go where he’s most drawn, like they all do. The Weald’ll nurse him, for the sake of Old Nous.”

  There was a taunt in those words, Shader felt certain. If not a taunt, then an invitation to probe deeper. Old Nous. What did that even mean?

  Nous is not Nous, Dave the Slave once said. Whatever he’d meant by that, one thing was clear: Dave was certainly no Nousian, at least, not in any sense Shader would recognize. The hunchback had shown his true colors when he’d passed through the archway leading into Arx Gravis. Had the hunchback meant that, whatever Shader took for Nous wasn’t the real Nous? Aristodeus had told him as a child that Nous was real, but other than he seemed. Did that mean he wasn’t all good? That he wasn’t the son of Ain?

  The inclination of Heredwin’s head implied he’d been following Shader’s internal monologue.

  “Old Nous—true Nous—is a thing created.” He looked out across the Weald. “Consciousness. Intellect. The All-Mind. What you call Nous once went by another name. He is of a different order altogether.” He thumped the butt of his scythe into the ground twice in quick succession.

  “He?” Shader asked. “What name?”

  Heredwin wagged a finger. “Not my place. Knowledge men mislay is for them to rediscover.”

  Pete moaned as the wolf-man lifted him from the grass. His face was pale and glistening with sweat. The beast nuzzled him, and then loped to the top of the beacon, cradling him in its arms.

  Shader
scratched at his scalp and frowned. Stiffness crept along his spine, knotted around his shoulder-blades. One hand slid into the pocket of his coat, fingers tracing the ridges of his Liber like a blind man identifying a corpse.

  “Here,” Heredwin said, planting the scythe in front of him and guiding Shader’s hands to the snaith. “You’ll get what you need, soon as yer done.” He nodded in the direction of the rising sun over Caburn. “Dawn’s the best time fer mowing, especially following rain. Now, upend it. Put the blade to the grass. Careful, mind. That’s a preened edge, honed thin as paper.”

  Shader gingerly took hold of a handle at the base of the shaft with his left hand, and the central handle with his right.

  “Keep the edge toward you, arms out straight.” Heredwin adopted the stance and twisted his body to the right, gesturing for Shader to do the same.

  Shader felt awkward, not quite sure where to put his feet; afraid he might slice them off.

  “Not too low now,” Heredwin said. “Don’t want you soiling the blade. That’ll blunt it sure as anything. That’s right, just skim above the ground. Easy does it. Nice steady rhythm, sweeping your swaths and keeping them narrow.”

  Shader forced the blade through its path, hacking a wide strip of grass and gouging up soil.

  “Too close to the ground. Keep it nice an’ even now.”

  He swung again, skimming and shaving the top of the grass to deposit it in a small pile at the end of the arc.

  “That’s better.” Heredwin clapped him on the shoulder. “From here to the top, before the sun’s fully golden. Then I’ll give you what I can in the way of help.”

  Heredwin tramped away toward the summit, leaving Shader frowning at the magnitude of his task. Shrugging, he stripped off his coat and rolled up his sleeves.

  “You’ll be needing this.” A long whetstone thudded into the grass at his feet. “Use it regular now,” Heredwin shot over his shoulder as he disappeared from sight.

  Shader paused to run his forearm over his brow, then picked up the whetstone. Standing the scythe upright, he took some grass to rub the blade dry. It’s what they used to do in the Seventh Horse whenever there was a shortage of rags. Next, he started to rub the stone along the edge toward the point in quick, hard strokes. With a curse, he snatched his hand away and sucked at a nick in his finger. It was more a scratch than a cut, but it served as a warning.