‘Out here is fine. No one is going to be paying any attention to us with all this going on.’
He nodded toward the canal bank where lines of warriors were now filing past to the accompaniment of thundering drums and clashing cymbals. They were irregularly armed and armoured in a dark, curvaceous style that was barbed and bladed in a fashion that would put a scorpion to shame. Several of the warriors bore trophy poles hung with brightly coloured, almost spherical, helmets and a variety of shrunken heads like obscene gourds. The warriors kept to rigid files dictated by their kabals and woe betide any of them that should step into the path of their rivals. In contrast to the mercurial artisans a faithless warrior was worthless, a weapon that could not be trusted. It was better for warriors to die than betray their sworn masters (at least according to the masters). Kharbyr mused uneasily that there might be a lesson to be learned there somewhere.
Xagor’s forehead furrowed unhappily, but the wrack stayed obediently where he was and settled for expressing himself in a hoarse, ear-grabbing whisper in order to maintain his ham-fisted attempts at intrigue.
‘The master… sends greetings.’
‘That’s nice,’ Kharbyr sneered, without bothering to drop his voice. ‘Where is he?’
Xagor, if it was Xagor, hedged for a moment and Kharbyr grew even more suspicious. Even the trooping warriors seemed wary, their masked helms turning constantly as they scanned blindly for threats. Omnipresent suspicion and a simmering undercurrent of suppressed violence swept along with the warrior’s section of the processional like a glowering thunderhead.
‘Secret… the master has had much work to do.’
‘So I can see, although I can’t say I’m too impressed by the work he’s done so far on you.’
Xagor’s ordinarily dull eyes flashed with anger at the jibe. ‘Do not mock the master!’ he snarled, momentarily forgetting his ridiculous stage-whispers act. The slave over in his hutch paid absolutely no heed and Kharbyr laughed derisively in the wrack’s face.
‘He can’t protect us!’ Kharbyr hissed. ‘He can’t protect himself! We should just run–’
‘The master said Kharbyr would want to run,’ Xagor interrupted hotly. ‘The master said it was a good idea. Run far! Hide well.’ The wrack turned suddenly to leave. Kharbyr was astonished by the turn of events.
‘Wait, what? You can’t just leave!’ Kharbyr stepped in close and grabbed the front of Xagor’s robes, holding his naked blade to the wrack’s neck. ‘I’m told nothing and expected to perform like a pet on command! I’m being followed – you know that? I am, and they’ll be catching up pretty soon so tell me what’s going on or I’ll slit your throat here and now!’
The wrack grinned back at him triumphantly. ‘The master said that when Kharbyr wanted to run Xagor should leave and see what Kharbyr does next. If Kharbyr then follows and demands answers then the master asks Kharbyr to guard something while he runs. Bad times are coming very soon and Kharbyr must protect this.’
The wrack was suddenly holding an object in its normal hand, a flat, finger-thick metal pentagon with a spiralling groove in its surface.
‘What is it?’ Kharbyr eyed the thing suspiciously and didn’t touch it. It didn’t even look valuable to him, but he also knew that in Commorragh looks could be deceptive. An object that small could still hold the compressed form of something much, much bigger. Like a small starship, or a portal to another world, or a bomb large enough to ensure that no part of Kharbyr would ever be recovered.
‘It is a secret…that Xagor does not know.’ The wrack glanced at Kharbyr almost with embarrassment as he said this. The implication seemed to be that threatening or torturing Xagor, as much as Xagor might enjoy it, would not reveal anything more.
‘Then… how does it help anything?’ Kharbyr said as he lowered his blade with a sense of resignation.
‘The master says it will,’ Xagor said soothingly.
‘There had better be a reward in this.’
‘The master said to remind Kharbyr that the master’s patronage is worth Kharbyr’s life many times over.’
‘Much good it has done me so far,’ Kharbyr muttered bitterly.
‘The master also said he has already done more for you than you know.’
‘Apparently Bel–,’ in his anger Kharbyr barely stopped himself from mentioning the master haemonculus by name. ‘Apparently the master says a lot, only not to me.’ Kharbyr fumed, chewing at his lip uncertainly. As he looked up he saw the end of the Epicurean’s processional was coming into view. Last of all (saving for a rearguard of more warriors, even epicureans having some sense of self-preservation) came lower Metzuh’s petty archons and nobility of mixed blood. They came two and three abreast in an order of precedence that had probably been the source of much bickering and infighting. As it was Lord Naxipael of the Venom Brood led alongside Bezieth of the Hundred Scars, archon of the Soul Cutters. Both were lesser archons that Kharbyr recognised and had had some peripheral dealings with. Ornate palanquins and biers bore the Epicurean lords along elevated above a throng made up of their immediate cliques of bodyguards, confidants, lackeys and hangers-on.
For all his flippancy the patronage of the master haemonculus Bellathonis was worth more to Kharbyr than he cared to admit. It had already cowed enemies and opened doors for him that had never existed before. Recently Kharbyr had changed the cliques he moved in and begun to ascend no small distance up the slippery slopes of kabalite politics despite his lowly blood. If he ever hoped to ride on one of those palanquins himself he needed powerful allies like Bellathonis. The wrack was waiting with a smug grin on his face, holding the metal thing out as if he expected Kharbyr to take it, but Kharbyr still hesitated. He could never aspire to anything by endlessly serving others; somehow he had to take control of the situation himself.
The noise of the processional made it hard to think: horns blared and drums beat incessantly, the sound of skirling pipes carried back from the artisans, shrieks and screams filtered back from the pets. The warriors were silent now, their tramping steps their only accompaniment. Over all the background noise Kharbyr’s ears caught a distinctive high-pitched sound that grabbed his attention immediately. He turned back to Xagor and took the metal pentagon from his hand.
‘I think,’ Kharbyr said hurriedly, ‘we had better go inside after all.’
CHAPTER 3
DYSJUNCTION
‘Who is it that dares to impede an incubus in his work?’ intoned Morr slowly and dangerously. ‘Show yourself and I’ll judge your worth to give me commands.’
Mocking laughter came out of the darkness. ‘We’ll stay where we are, thanks, being not such great fools as to come within reach of your klaive nor the clown’s blade.’
‘Oh?’ said Motley as he stepped forward as lightly as a dancer. ‘Then how do you plan on doing any impeding at all, friends? We need but take two steps and we are gone from here. How do you intend to allow or disallow that?’
‘You aren’t the only one with grenades, fool.’
If the assailants hadn’t bragged they might have been more successful in their efforts. As it was Motley spotted the first tiny bulb of metal tumbling through the air, caught it and threw it back in one fluid motion. A blast of static lightning lit the tunnel where it landed that illuminated running figures in its crawling afterglow. Haywire, Motley opined to himself, they were using Haywire grenades to try to knock out the gate. Any moment now they would think to throw more than one at a time. Motley glanced backwards to find Morr and shout a warning.
There was no sign of the towering incubus and the gate was in the process of powering down.
Motley took in the whole scene within a frozen instant of panic. Time slowed, stretched while each intimate detail imposed itself. Angry red lines were spreading across the metal and stone of the gate’s structure. It was intended to be a permanent shutdown, one that would leave behind n
othing but a pile of useless slag. The veil of shimmering energy was still held within the gate for the present, swirling and opalescent now, but it was thinning by the moment. Motley darted for the dying portal just as a shower of small grenades came tinkling down in his wake.
A vicious pattern of detonations raged around the gateway, electro-magnetic discharges and gouts of plasma (some of the assailants having already escalated their intentions from capturing to killing) intermingling in a catastrophic storm of energised particles. In the aftermath the gate was gone, just a fused and twisted mass was left in its place. Of the incubus and the Harlequin there was no sign.
The agents poked, prodded and analysed the area in a desultory fashion but it was clear there was nothing more that could be done. They consoled themselves that their master was currently otherwise engaged and unreachable. The unpleasant task of informing him about their lost quarry could be safely deferred for another time.
Had the agents but known it their master was not far away at that moment. Archon Nyos Yllithian of the Kabal of the White Flames was staggering through the worming guts of the Commorragh’s vast foundational strata. He was now only minutes away from the Dysjunction he’d unwittingly had such a large hand in bringing about. Judgment, seemingly, had already caught up with him. He rebounded from moist stone walls in the near darkness as he desperately sought a way out, his numbing hands stretched out before him as he fumbled along dank, slimy tunnels. Kilometres above him there were silver towers taller than mountains, manses the size of cities, fortress-like continents and island-palaces of surpassing beauty and grandeur. His own fortress lay agonisingly close by, filled with retainers and warriors and slaves to do his bidding. But Archon Yllithian was alone, trapped in the foetid entrails of the world and he was dying.
By his nature Yllithian was not a creature given to regrets. All in all he shared the almost pathologically forward-facing attitude of his race. The past was the past and nothing more could be said; such was the healthy attitude of the average Commorrite – saving, perhaps, for the propensity to recall slights, vendettas and feuds with crystal clarity. Even so Yllithian felt the bitterest regret now. Not regret for unleashing otherworldly forces beyond his capacity to control by resurrecting the beast El’Uriaq. Not regret for the overweening hubris that had caused the deaths of his allies, nor for the mass murder in the accursed El’Uriaq’s banquet hall left now so ominously silent behind him. No, Yllithian’s only regret was that he had been unlucky enough to get caught up in El’Uriaq’s downfall.
Yllithian had to admit to himself that it had been a pretty scheme to destroy El’Uriaq. He had only recognised the true danger of it in the last moments, and even then he’d chosen to flee instead of trying to warn El’Uriaq or prevent it. Too slow, too slow by far and now his skin was vitrifying before his rapidly clouding eyes, turning to a lustrous jade colour that would soon darken to black. The master haemonculus, Bellathonis, had contrived to release the glass plague upon El’Uriaq and his guests. It was a viral helix created to turn living flesh in glass, meaning a true death for a Commorrite as their body was completely destroyed in the process. No regeneration, no resurrection was possible from the glass plague and so any Commorrite of any value was normally immunised against it. That had been the clever part – the haemonculus had persuaded the Exodite witch, the worldsinger, to turn the plague into something that could overcome any form of defence. Being able to communicate with lower forms of life seemed such a safely mundane ability until someone used it to bypass your immune system. Yllithian knew he was as good as dead.
The archon of the White Flames still drove his stiffening limbs forward, some animal instinct for self-preservation bright in his mind. A coolly logical part of it was telling him it was hopeless, that he should lie down and preserve his remaining energy. There was a distant siren whisper of She Who Thirsts in that call for surrender, she eagerly awaited his soul and all woes, all cares would be obliterated in her all-consuming embrace. Yllithian croaked defiance through stiffened lips and tottered onward.
Bellathonis and the crone, Angevere, they were the ones to blame. They had made El’Uriaq’s ill-starred return possible in the first place. Yllithian had seen himself as directing events, making the plans and gathering the resources. Now it was clear he was the one that had been directed all along… No, that wasn’t right – Bellathonis had been as surprised as anyone, and in fact almost fatally injured by the newly risen El’Uriaq. The crone and the Exodite, then, some scheme of theirs to bring ruin to Commorragh, poisoning all of Yllithian’s plans with their sorcery. That seemed closer to the mark, but even then it didn’t seem quite right. Some greater architect had been at work, he sensed now, a being unconstrained by time or space that apparently had nothing better to do with its energies than bring about Yllithian’s downfall.
The archon’s dying mind continued churning with recriminations and paranoia as it had done all his life. For perhaps the first time in his existence he was denied any means to exact vengeance or even level his accusations. He had already been caught and killed by his invisible slayer, he was just not quite dead yet.
His dimming senses alerted him to a trembling, as if the floor of the tunnel was vibrating like a taut wire. The crone had been right after all, may Lhilitu eat her stitched-shut eyes, a Dysjunction was really coming.
Sybris’s sinuous grace was faltering. She spun like a broken toy around the edges of the disc, worrying constantly at Aez’ashya’s guard but always finding it impenetrable without throwing her whole strength against it, which now she dare not do. The silver surface was crisscrossed with crimson rivulets and smears. Not much longer now. Aez’ashya was anticipating a final, despairing assault before Sybris endurance leaked away completely. She flexed her razor-edged hydra gauntlets in anticipation of the moment.
The end came with a violent lunge from Sybris. She flung herself forward to smash at Aez’ashya with full force, her half-moon blades seeming to blur into a solid ribbon of steel. Aez’ashya gave ground before the onslaught, ducking or redirecting strikes with both fists and forearms. In truth Aez’ashya had little choice, Sybris’s eyes were glassy and beads of foam flecked her mouth – sure signs that she’d used a dose of Splintermind to maintain her fury. Aez’ashya found herself being driven to the edge of the platform with a kilometres-deep drop yawning at her heels.
Aez’ashya delivered a sudden kick to Sybris’s hip that sent the hekatrix reeling. She quickly followed through pivoting and stepping inside Sybris’ superior reach. The hydra gauntlet’s fist blades crunched below Sybris’s sternum, parting her steely bodice and ripping open the smooth, white flesh beneath. Sybris eyes flew wide open, she staggered and coughed blood before lashing back viciously at Aez’ashya. This was the danger point, the time when an opponent knew they were already dying and would suffer anything to drag their killer down with them.
Aez’ashya caught Sybris’s descending wrist and used it to swing her out toward the edge of the disc-shaped platform. A desperate slash from Sybris’s other blade was contemptuously knocked aside as Aez’ashya relentlessly bore the hekatrix over the edge. Sybris screamed as her feet lost their grip and kicked helplessly over emptiness. Aez’ashya smiled and let Sybris flail desperately for a moment before reaching a quick decision, abruptly grabbing her by the throat and dragging her back from the brink.
‘You know what, Sybris?’ Aez’ashya panted. ‘I think I’m actually grateful to you. I’d had my own doubts about whether I could prevail as archon and now you’ve confirmed that I can. Now the question is – can you be clever enough to accept that?’
Sybris nodded numbly. There was little else she could do with Aez’ashya’s blades at her throat. There was no doubt that Sybris would go on to cause more trouble, that she would attract other malcontents and plotters into her sphere. Aez’ashya now realised there was value in that too. Sybris was a known quantity that Aez’ashya could defeat one to one if need be. If Sybris also
became a lightning rod for other schemers then so much the better, they would be that much easier to identify and deal with. Aez’ashya released Sybris’s throat and grabbed her by the braid instead.
‘You get to live this time, Sybris, for old time’s sake and because you’ve helped to prove me worthy,’ Aez’ashya said, ‘but I’ll be keeping this as a souvenir!’ She sliced off Sybris’s braid close to the scalp and held it aloft to show off to the distant spectators. To her annoyance Aez’ashya noticed that Sybris was no longer looking up at her. The hekatrix was gazing off into the upper air of High Commorragh, her attention focused somewhere above Aez’ashya’s shoulder with a look of horror growing upon her face. A small tremor ran through the platform beneath their feet. Wary of a trick, Aez’ashya glanced quickly in the direction Sybris was looking. What she saw almost froze her heart.
High above them the circling Ilmaea were changing. The black suns were outlined by crawling circles of white fire, whip-thin solar flares curled outward from them like slow lightning. The sun’s light glinted poisonously and washed everything with an oily, unclean look. Something was very, very wrong.
The black velvet surface of the Grand Canal bore a small armada of pleasure barges following the epicureans’ procession. The crafts’ occupants called out encouragements or mockery according to their mood, played music and danced. Most gained their sport from trying to lasciviously tempt those on the bank to plunge into the Grand Canal and swim out to them. It was cruel game considering that the curious mixture of narcotics, wastes and other chemicals that made up the ‘waters’ of the canal promised madness or oblivion to any that touched them. All in all, Bezieth, Naxipael and the other lords of the epicureans could reflect that things were going well.
Too well in the eyes of some of their watchers. The first herald of trouble came in the high-pitched snarl of multiple engines. A welter of wasp-like jetbikes with wild looking riders swiftly followed the sound, swooping down onto the processional from above. The bikes screamed low over the heads of the kabalites, wheeled, looped and returned in less time than it takes to tell it. This time their hooked bladevanes swept past within a hand’s breadth of the epicureans. Crests were parted, trophies were shredded and a handful of the unlucky tallest slaves decapitated by the reavers’ second pass.
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