“You said it yourself. She has no silver cord, and I’m the embodiment of a nexus.”
Nakvin fell back onto one of two sofas flanking a low table of mahogany polished to mirror smoothness. Her silk robe splayed out across the satin cushions.
“Ydahl’s not the only one you’re making nervous. You were out to lunch at the end of the audience.”
Elena pondered how much to tell her mother. Shaiel’s designs on her kingdom gave Nakvin troubles enough. Learning that her daughter had made a pact with him to save one of her old friends would only compound her worries.
“And why not?” Elena replied, stationing herself near one end of the couch. “I’ve explained how tedious it is hearing your subjects’ petitions.”
Nakvin’s head, which she’d craned back onto the couch’s backrest, lolled to face her daughter. “It’s no more fun for me, but it comes with the job.”
Good. The conversation was already veering onto a side issue. Elena had a response prepared to ensure that the discussion stayed lost in the weeds.
“Your job; not mine. I didn’t intend to take up residence here.”
“I’m glad you did, though.” Nakvin’s smile turned up a corner of her mouth, exposing the point of one fang. “More importantly, so are my people. They’d have fallen apart by now if we had to face Shaiel alone.”
Now to sever the thread, Thought Elena. “You realize that’s not my concern.”
Nakvin shrugged. “I’m sure a goddess has bigger things on her mind. Speaking of which, what were you daydreaming about earlier?”
The queen must have inherited a double share of her grandfather’s cunning. It was the only explanation.
Elena weighed her options. She could try more misdirection, but another attempt was less likely to succeed than the first. She could simply lie, and she had no moral qualms against doing so, but Shaiel—and Teg, if he survived—could eventually expose what she sought to hide. Then again, baring her thoughts to her mother now would cause equally irritating complications in their relationship.
It occurred to Elena that she could make the queen forget the whole line of inquiry, but such a mental violation did elicit pangs of discomfort.
The sound of someone shuffling down the hallway toward the chamber relieved Elena’s burden. The latch clicked, and one door gently creaked open, admitting a cone of soft golden light that spilled across the floor with the shadow of a slim figure at its heart.
“Are there any sweet rolls left?” asked a groggy masculine voice.
Nakvin’s silver eyes gleamed as they looked to the door. “Hi, Tefler. Breakfast was six hours ago.”
Elena turned. Her son leaned in the doorway, clad in a short-sleeved shirt of white cotton with a crimson device merging serpent, bird, and fish that she still found unnerving. He rubbed his head with one hand, further mussing his light brown hair, and ambled into the room.
“So…no, then?” Tefler said as he puttered about the table. The silver tea service chimed as he lifted the empty kettle’s lid. His varicolored eyes had no difficulty in the dim light.
“You slept through today’s audience,” Nakvin said flatly.
Tefler’s voice brightened. “That almost makes up for missing breakfast.”
“The doorman said you left early yesterday and came in late. Where were you?”
“Anris took me to see some local points of interest,” Tefler said. “If I’d known about the spooky stone rings down here, I’d have come sooner. Did you know there’s one on this hill? The townsfolk turned it into a pavilion. I’m glad you kept that stuff around.”
Nakvin exchanged a wary look with Elena. The queen hadn’t merely invaded the other Circles. She’d expanded her domain into those she’d conquered. Now hell was almost entirely Avalon, but even the queen of Seele and heir of Zebel couldn’t remake every infernal acre to her liking. Tefler’s ruins, predating the reign of any baal, resisted her influence—as did the lowest Circle, and what lay beneath it.
“I need to have a talk with Anris,” Nakvin said.
Tefler spread his hands. “For not letting me go alone? He’s a malakh. Guarding’s not what he does. It’s what he is.”
“And you’re not a member of the Khemet pantheon or Almeth Elocine. He’s my army’s captain; not your personal bodyguard.”
“So? If your army ever has to fight Shaiel, the grape warrior won’t do you much good. Trust me on that one.”
Nakvin gave Elena another knowing look. “We’ll just have to count on your mother.”
“Yeah,” said Tefler. “Thank God for…I mean…”
Grateful for the distraction, Elena sent forth the smallest exertion of her power.
“There are more rolls in your chamber,” she said.
Tefler turned to her, beaming, for just a moment before he sprinted from the room. “Thanks, Mom,” He called back from the hallway.
“You really spoil him,” Nakvin said. “You know that?”
“Compensation for letting the greycloaks raise him. Besides, he’s a grown man. His personality and dispositions are set by now.”
Nakvin’s face fell. “It’s hard to express how much I hope you’re wrong.
5
There was fire above and fire below.
But Teg already knew that.
He walked the half mile from the Theophilus’ landing site at the center of the Guild house’s roof to the southern edge. A hundred yards to his right, a massive fissure belched gouts of flame into the sweltering—but miraculously not ignited—air between the surface and the burning stratosphere. The fiery chasm traversed a quarter of the black plateau’s diameter and continued down the south wall as far as Teg could see.
Who knew? The breach might span the whole mile to the ground.
Teg’s eyes wandered over the panorama below. Rolling prairie stretched away under the burning sky, the dead grass tinted red-gold by lofty flames. Farther south a web of rivers broke the plains into flat-topped hills.
Teg turned slightly eastward, to where the sea shimmered like molten gold in Midras’ forge. He could make out the delta where the Rove, of which every lesser river below was a tributary, reached its end.
Fifty miles or so inland, filling a wide river valley between two high bluffs, lay Salorien, the greatest city of the Second Sphere.
Teg squinted. The city’s tallest buildings stood in the river basin and didn’t rise above the surrounding hills. On a clear day the dreary housing blocks of Northridge would be visible, but a haze that smelled of distant forest fires hid the top of the bluffs. No lights shone through the murk, and neither ship nor drifter glinted in the once busy sky lanes between the city and the cube.
“Yato.” The pervasive traces of smoke coarsened Teg’s voice as he spoke into his ear stud. He stood at the edge of the ship’s meager range, but incredibly, the broken and burning Guild house was still boosting the signal.
“Do not fear,” the steersman replied. “I haven’t decided to strand you in this smoking ruin—yet.”
He’d long since grown used to Yato’s grim humor, but the harsh—and accurate—description of Keth stung Teg more deeply than expected. After all he’d suffered and sacrificed to get home, what if there was no home to go to?
“Did you see any signs of life in the city on our way down?”
“All I remember seeing was fire,” Yato said, “and lots of it.”
“We came here hoping to find some remnant of civilization, and you didn’t even look?”
“I was fighting to hold the ship together. There is evidence that the Guild erected a global field to protect Keth from the Cataclysm. Instead of repelling the fire, the ward absorbed it, and the feedback destroyed the Guild house. I doubt anyone on the sphere survived.”
Teg rubbed his irritated, watering eyes. Even if Yato was right, the Guild wasn’t responsible for Keth’s demise. Deim had lit the fire, but Vaun had given him the match. “Like they say on Temil, don’t bet against Kethans. Are we good to fly?”
“Then I owe him a drink,” said Teg. “Warm up the drifters. We’re heading into town.”
Yato clicked his tongue. “We need not have wasted a trip had your people been more sensible. Why build Salorien’s Guild hall so far from the city?”
Teg smiled to himself. “The Steersmen had a stretch of riverfront all picked out, but the city fathers doubled the land tax. Building way out past the safety of the valley sent a message—the Guild stood above local politics and history. They got the second part wrong.”
Teg crept through a shabby park that was the sole clear landing site in Northridge. The yellow light cast down from the burning sky froze the world in an eternal morning before a storm. Every step within the square block of greenery bounded by run-down buildings brought back long lost memories.
There was the drinking fountain that served as the neighborhood social hub and trading post. The graffiti scrawled across its square brick pedestal had grown thicker since Teg had seen it last, but he still recalled the day of his tenth summer when an older, fatter boy had thrown him against one of the fountain’s hard edges during a fight.
An even more vivid memory followed, helped by the sweet scent of dead leaves. Teg’s father had returned from another long absence to find his son curled up on the attic floor, bloody and crying. Teg’s fear of another beating succumbed to even worse shame when his father had just stood over him silently before turning and descending the stairs.
Teg had risen early the next morning and waited at the door to the basement workshop—the door that he and his mother both knew better than to open—for his father to emerge. Though weary from a long night’s work, the elder Cross had taken his son out and begun his instruction in certain skills that Teg still found useful from time to time.
The daily lessons continued until summer departed along with his father. Yet the knowledge remained. Teg had spent the first week of fall planning and executing a pair of petty burglaries. Then he’d hidden in the bushes beside the walk leading to the fountain.
When the bully who’d beaten him approached, Teg had cut his arm with the fat boy’s favorite pocket knife—stolen from the edge of the park’s wading pool while its owner swam—before tossing the knife down at its bewildered owner’s feet.
The dead cat whose throat had been slit with the same blade came next. Its limp carcass slapped wetly against the older boy’s round belly before tumbling to the ground. Teg followed it, throwing himself to the concrete hard enough to skin his elbows. He never raised a hand against his foe but just lay there, screaming.
After all this time, he still smiled to remember how the inevitable crowd of witnesses—including an even larger, notoriously short-tempered boy who’d been the cat’s owner—had given Teg his revenge.
“Some weather we’re having!”
The greeting pulled Teg out of the past and back to the present-day park, where an old woman was ambling along the shrub-lined path toward him.
Teg looked up at the raging vault of fire. “Yeah. Let’s hope it clears up in time for the fireworks show. Any idea what happened?”
“It’s not the cold.” The old woman’s voice was surprisingly close. “It’s the damp.”
Several things occurred to Teg, not the least of which being that it was warm as high summer and so dry that his mouth seemed to be lined with cotton.
Teg stifled a curse. His longing to speak with someone he hadn’t been stuffed inside a rickety tub with for five years had made him sloppy. Only now did it dawn on him that she wore a purple winter coat.
A bony hand grasped Teg’s shoulder from behind. His gun was in his hand before he’d fully rounded on his assailant. When he did, he found himself pointing the bulky revolver at Yato’s lean, wide-eyed face.
“Why did you leave the ship!?” demanded Teg.
Indignation replaced Yato’s shock. “I’ve been trapped aboard that ship as long as you have. Am I not allowed to stretch my legs?”
Teg lowered the gun but didn’t holster it. “This hasn’t come up before, so I’ll let it slide. But for your own sake, never sneak up on me in a potentially hostile situation—which pretty much means from now on.”
Yato looked as if someone had told a ribald joke about his mother. “I was concerned for you. Something was odd about that woman, and you didn’t seem to notice.”
Nearly shooting the man who may have been the last living steersman had distracted Teg from the woman in winter clothes. Now he spun back around and saw to his dismay, but not to his surprise, that she was gone.
“Please tell me you saw where she went.”
“I did not.” Yato sounded as flustered as Teg felt. “Perhaps she wandered behind the hedge.”
Teg doubted that even he could vanish behind a row of dead bushes in a coat like that, yet no sign of garish purple showed through the withered leaves. Grubby toys poked out of the brown grass here and there, eerie monuments to owners who’d never returned from their supper or their beds.
Teg raised his gun again. “Get back to the ship. Seal the hatch, raise the aura, and don’t let anyone on board unless I say so.”
“What is it?’ Yato asked. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” said Teg. “But when somebody pops up and disappears like that, it’s never good.”
The fiery firmament seemed to press down closer. Not a leaf stirred.
“No,” Yato said in his best tone of defiance. “We go back together.”
The offer was tempting, but Teg’s burning need to know what had wrecked his world overcame his good sense.
“This isn’t my first time around the block. That’s not a metaphor. I used to live here. There are some places nearby where I think I can scrounge up supplies.”
“Very well,” said Yato. “We press on together.”
Teg faced his steersman again. “No good. If I cash in, it’s one less mouth to feed. If we lose you, we lose our only way off this rock.”
Yato’s smile softened the resignation in his voice. He clapped a hand on Teg’s arm.
“Friend, you belittle your worth. Only I can fly our poor ship, but I cannot fly her through the flames again. Even if I could, and even with one less hungry mouth, there is nothing left to feed us.
“It has been a grand voyage, but this is the last stop. Our survival now depends on yours, and I shall do all in my power to ensure it.”
Without another word, both men strode through the park gates and into the silent city.
There was no sign of the old woman—or anyone else—in the street, but the wide tract of pavement was far from empty. Drifters sat on their skids by the roadside, caked in years’ worth of dust. To all appearances, their owners had simply parked and walked away for good.
Teg continued forward, stepping carefully around piles of desiccated trash that the wind had gathered here and there. The crunch of pebbles under his boots shattered the stillness like gunshots.
“Look there,” Yato said, stabbing a finger up the street.
Of course, Teg had already seen what the steersman was pointing at. A line of cars cordoning off the intersection was hard to miss, but he preferred to tackle puzzles in their turn.
Drifter drives explained how the cars had been stacked, three high in places. The prominent presence of police vehicles—and even one drifter bearing Guild Enforcer markings—explained who’d erected the barricade. What Teg remained gallingly ignorant of was why.
The same question clearly galled Yato. “Perhaps there was civil unrest. The Guild’s hand in the Cataclysm spurred the townsfolk to riot.”
“Possible, if they found out what hit them.”
Teg cleared his mind of presumptions and scanned the nearby buildings. Most were concrete boxes four or five stories tall abutted by older brick structures. The firestorm overhead gave everything a nicotine stain tint, and Teg
felt like he’d walked into an antique photograph.
Broken windows and traces of fire damage did suggest some kind of disturbance. Teg was starting to side with Yato when he noticed that most of the damage was confined to the low rent housing on the upper floors; not the small businesses at ground level.
Even less consistent with a riot, the prevalence of broken glass on the sidewalk ruled out hooligans throwing bricks from the street. Dust-stained sheets still hung limply from more than one shattered window.
They were broken out from the inside.
What really decided Teg against the riot theory, and chilled him despite the stifling heat, was the total absence of dead bodies.
A second look confirmed his initial shocking observation. There were no dust-covered lumps balled up in the gutters, no mummified forms slumped over the wheels of inert drifters; no human ragdolls hanging halfway out of dark windows.
Teg asked the obvious. “Where are all the dead people?”
Yato, looking as if he’d startled a scorpion in his shoe, darted glances in every direction. “The authorities must have removed them.”
“Okay,” said Teg. “Why did they leave the rest of this mess?”
“Perhaps they can answer,” Yato said, tugging on Teg’s sleeve.
Teg looked in the direction his steersman was facing. A small knot of people stood in the middle of the road between him and the barricade. Their posture and expressions were neutral.
“Hey,” Teg greeted them. “Where are all the dead people?”
The small band didn’t answer. Instead they moved toward the newcomers as if out for a casual stroll.
More unnerved than the situation should’ve warranted, Teg pointed his gun at the unarmed civilians.
“That’s close enough. We’re not here to make trouble, but we will if we have to.”
The approaching townsfolk, whose ranks of both sexes and all ages seemed larger than at first glance, continued forward as if Teg’s gun were no more threat than a balloon.
Only then did Teg realize what had set his nerves on edge. Most of the oncoming band—scratch that; crowd, wore winter clothes despite the oppressive heat.
The Secret Kings Page 5