Octoberland (The Dominions of Irth Book 3)

by A. A. Attanasio

Nette tucked away the gems but did not move to retreat. "You did not need to slay my brother," she muttered bitterly as if she had not heard a word the large woman had uttered.

  Overy Scarn forced herself not to withdraw her Sig Sauer from where her hand gripped it under her robe, for she knew if she did, her fear would make her use it and she did not want to lose this assassin just yet. "Would the dear ones have been as inclined to understand the extent of my control over them if I had not killed N'drato? I think not."

  "It was murder for cruelty's sake," Nette said and stepped out the side door, fluid as a shadow, her voice lingering behind, "I will not forget."

  Mothers of Magic

  Overy Scarn took Nette’s threat seriously. The assassin would have to die—but not until Overy no longer needed her. Nette’s destructive skills could yet prove useful, because Dig Dog had not secured the source of imports from the Dark Shore. A great deal of the trade company’s funds had been invested in Gabagalus to purchase the goods in hand from an agent who once worked for Duppy Hob.

  That agent will surely want more money now that I have sampled his wares and found them enticing, she reasoned as she made her way down the service passages into the basement of the manor. The threat of a visit from an assassin may well keep prices in line.

  She found her way by globe lanterns adjusted to their dimmest illumination so that the empty stone corridor shone like thick dusk. Ever cautious, she kept one hand on her Sig Sauer 9mm, in the event that the assassin decided to make good on her threat.

  Soon, she stood in the large chamber that housed the Charm-driven air cyclers—bulky metal cylinders, caged exhaust fans, and elbows of pipes jammed along the ceiling and walls. The last of her video cameras nested in the crook of an unlit corner, and she smiled up at the black lens invisible to all but herself. Eventually, she would have sufficient cameras to watch over this entire route to the charmway. For now the narrow stairwell that descended by switchbacks into the darkness remained beyond the range of her surveillance—and she proceeded with her gun drawn.

  Her belt of levity-pearls eased the strain of the long climb down, and when she finally emerged in the black cavern, she was not even breathing hard. Though the stifling air thickened with rank fumes of sewage, her amulets laved her in cool sweetness, and she did not break a sweat. A disc of lux-diamonds revealed leather shrouds of bats on hanging spires. By this light, she made her way past stone scallopings to a skewed tunnel of drafty blackness.

  Once she entered the charmway, she holstered her gun beneath the green panels of her brown robes and proceeded confidently. She knew well the mazy turns of the raw rock tunnels that would lead her to Gabagalus and the office of the trade agent who had worked for the deceased devil worshipper, Duppy Hob.

  Only briefly did she pause at a forked passage to peer into a corridor that angled toward some mysterious destination. Green beyond the limits of green, strange shadows fluttered down there, and she moved on hurriedly, not liking the look of that quivering light.

  The charmway delivered Overy Scarn to a small portal that she herself had paid to construct. It connected to the charmway corridors so that she would not have to travel by airship halfway around the world.

  The portal opened upon a spacious sea-view chamber, a bubble dome attached to a cliff ledge on the underside of Gabagalus. Streamers of kelp on the rock walls wriggled in the sea current, and yellow and blue clouds of fish darted through them.

  She stepped onto a blue-carpeted deck before an oval swimming pool that webbed the spare interior with trembling green shadows. The transparent bottom of the pool lensed more kelp tangles and spurts of bright fish.

  In a wire chair sat a wisp of a witch garbed entirely in black veils.

  "Who are you?" Overy Scarn inquired, baffled to find a witch where always before she had been greeted by grinning clerks and boisterous trade agents who had used this pool room to lounge. "Where are the brokers?"

  "They are gone," the witch answered quietly. "Come in, Overy Scarn. Sit down."

  Overy reached beneath the panels of her robes for her gun and sat opposite the witch in a wire chair barely large enough to contain her girth. Anxiety and anger competed in her, and she urgently wanted to know what had become of the festive men and women who had once frolicked here, so eager to sell products from the Dark Shore, so eager to take her payments of hex-gems. "Who are you?"

  The diminutive witch parted black veils from a youthful, almost perfectly round visage, the unsmiling face of a person compelled to take unhappy action. "I am Lady Von..."

  The witch queen! Overy Scarn nearly toppled backward with her jolt of recognition. The presence of this great personage boded ill for her, she knew. The queen represented the entire world of witches, and there would be no defying them whose history extended deeper in time than talismans.

  Her hand released the gun, and she sagged with resignation, wondering how the witch queen had known to find her here. Quite hopeless to question anything about these mothers of magic.

  "You have reason to look glum, Overy Scarn." Lady Von's large eyes watched her coldly. "You have usurped the rightful ruler of New Arwar, and you have used weapons of the Dark Shore to murder agents from the Brood of Assassins."

  The tight muscles around Overy Scarn's worried eyes relaxed when the witch queen said nothing of the goblins. She does not know of my alliance with the dear ones! She frowned to hide her elation before the large, watchful eyes. "I saw my opportunity for advancement, and I took it." Her coldly controlled voice made her feel proud. “Thus have dominions been won throughout the history of Irth."

  "There will be no more weapons from the Dark Shore," the witch queen declared sternly. "There will be no more of anything from the Dark Shore."

  I must show defiance now to keep her from looking deeper. "What has become of Duppy Hob's brokers? Where are the agents that I deal with?"

  "Duppy Hob is dead." Lady Von pressed her fingertips together before her round, staring face, pale as a soul. "For the good of the dominions, the Sisterhood has laid claim to all his possessions in Gabagalus. His minions have been taken into our service. The women now wear the veil and tend to the gutter children and the charmless poor of the sprawling cities. The men work for the wizards in the mines, digging for conjure-metals and hex-gems. If these benighted men and women serve with their hearts, time will redeem them. As for you—"

  "I am no minion of the devil worshipper!" Overy sat bolt upright. "You have no claim on me!"

  "If you take the veil now, Overy Scarn, the Sisterhood will intervene on your behalf with the Brood of Assassins."

  "I do not fear assassins!" She jumped to her feet, and the wire chair clattered backward. "I have slain only those who were sent to slay me. And I have weapons enough to protect me from all others."

  "Sooner or later, your weapons will be exhausted."

  "Never!" Overy Scarn backed away. "What I possess will act as prototypes. I will manufacture all that I need. I will not succumb. And eventually I will find my way back to the Dark Shore."

  "I think not." The witch queen lowered the black veils over her face. "The charmways are burning. Surely, you saw the green fire on your way here. Soon enough, all the charmways to the Dark Shore and all the charmways on Irth will be destroyed."

  Overy Scarn waited to hear no more and fled in a rush of anger and fear. Stupefied by her unexpected encounter, she dared not look back as she passed through the portal to the charmways.

  And Stillness, Our Dancing

  “None of the emissaries survived their return journeys to their dominions," Shai Malia read the report from the sheaf of printed messages that the manor heralds had deposited atop the onyx wood table of their suite. She had removed her wraparound shades, and her eye makeup had smeared from the band of opals she had pressed to them, to clear her swarming chills and pulsing headache.

  Poch, with mirror sunglasses and ear-buds, lay stretched on the divan, watching a music video, and he did not hear her. The glass pipe,
black from use, lay on the rattan table among crushed cans of cola.

  Shai Malia walked over to him and dropped the sheaf of reports on his face. He sat up with an irate look, and she pulled away the ear-buds. "The trolls are attacking again. More fiercely than ever. The emissaries never got back to their dominions. Only their aviso reports got through. There won't be any more visits from the other Peers."

  "So?" Poch passed her an annoyed look, apparent even from behind his reflecting glasses, and pulled a cigarette from the pack in the pocket of his red pajama top.

  "So I think it's time we speak with the dear ones again." She took the cigarette from his lips. 'They won't like this smell on you."

  "Why do we have to talk with them?" He reached for the glass pipe and the plastic bag of white crumbs. "They have Nette to fetch for them now."

  Shai Malia put her hand on the glass pipe, but he held it firmly. "Don't smoke any more. Clear your head with the theriacal opals, and let's go sit with the dear ones. I want to hear what they have to say."

  "About what? Overy Scarn?" He pulled the pipe free from her grip and placed a morsel of the smokable crystal in the small, black-glazed bowl. "She'll watch us, and then we'll have to answer to her. Let's just sit and smoke."

  "You're margrave." Shai put her hand over the butane lighter. "Maybe the dear ones will have some thoughts about how to defy Scarn and take back the power that is rightfully yours."

  "Don't hobble me with your fantasies." He pried the lighter from under her hand.

  "Fantasies?" She picked up the plastic bag of crumbs and waved it at him. "The truth is, you are margrave. And look at how we're living."

  “The truth is, I took the title illegally." He removed the plastic bag from her hand and tucked it into his shirt pocket. "And the truth is, the dear ones are goblins."

  "That's the coca smoke making you say that."

  “They're goblins, and you know it's true." He lit the lighter and held the flame to the glass bowl while he sucked on the stem. "They're destroying the dominions—and Overy Scarn will pick up the pieces."

  "I want to hear it from them." She sat next to him. "Please, Poch. If you love me, come with me. Let them tell us the truth."

  "We already know the truth." Smoke jetted from his nostrils. "Whether it's coca smoke or the goblins' mist, it's just trading one chemical for another. So what does it matter? Let's just sit here and float. It feels too good now for us to change anything."

  Shai Malia removed the pipe from his hand, and from the pocket of her black denims took out the band of theriacal opals. "Clear your head of this smoke first and tell me that again."

  Poch knocked the band of opals from her hand, and it clattered among the empty cola cans. "I don't care what the goblins have to say. Or Scarn. Or you."

  Shai Malia sat back, hurt.

  "Don't look at me like that." He kicked over the rattan table, and the crushed cans jumped across the parquet floor and bounced off the TV. "I've given you everything you wanted. I exiled my sister. I gave her to the damn goblins. And I'm margrave. So don't look at me like that."

  "When is the last time you wanted me?" She moped. "I haven't wanted you, either. Not since I've had the pipe. Don't you see? It's Scarn's way of controlling us."

  "And the goblins weren't controlling us before?" He reached over perfunctorily and pulled the pipe from her hand. "Why do you think you made us leave Blight Fen and come here? Why did you make me margrave?" His voice dropped to a pitch of flat weariness. "The goblins wanted it. You're not married to me. You're married to the goblins."

  She pushed to her feet, a look of disgust on her face. "You stay here and fog your brain. I'm going back to the dear ones."

  "Go ahead," he called after her as she strode toward the door. "Crawl with the goblins in their muck. Let Overy Scarn watch you pay obeisance to your masters."

  "At least my masters are living," she shot back from the door. "You worship dead things—the ghost you suck out of that pipe, the phantoms in the disks of that dreambox."

  "And the goblins make you feel real, Shai?" He pulled off the mask of his mirror glasses and stared hard at her with his red, hurt eyes. "Are they more real than you and me?"

  Her tense shoulders sagged. "Poch—they're the dear ones. Have you forgotten?"

  "Maybe I have forgotten them." He tapped the black glass pipe against his heart. "This smoke made it easy to forget them. But no matter how much I smoke, I could never forget you."

  She stepped toward him. "We can't go on like this."

  "Like what?" He shrugged at the disshelved room, littered with cans and strewn garments. "We're having fun. This whole city is having fun. Everyone is here to escape the war and make themselves rich. Even the goblins. They want to carve a place for themselves on Irth. What are we supposed to do? Kill the dear ones? They're pixies. They just want to be safe. Scarn is fixing it for them. Are we supposed to kill her? You saw what she did to the assassins. If they can't stop her, what are we supposed to do?"

  "What is all this talk of killing?"

  “That's the only alternative, Shai." He pulled a chrome-plated handgun from under the divan's cushion and clinked the glass pipe against it. "It's either the gun or the pipe."

  “I don't want to kill—I ... I want to live."

  Poch returned the gun to its place under the cushion. “Then smoke with me, Shai. The goblins have Nette. And Scarn has the goblins. At least we have each other."

  Shai Malia sat down again beside him. "We are together when we smoke," she asserted. "And it feels good—almost as good as when we used to..."

  "Forget all that groping and sweating. Just smoke." He loaded the pipe. "With the smoke, it's enough just to be together. Silence becomes our words and stillness our dancing."

  She nodded softly and took the pipe from him with both hands.

  Voices Calling from Empty Space

  Every sacred act is felt first in hell.

  —Gibbet Scrolls: 6

  Hunted by Thunder

  Jyoti and Reece stopped firing at the trolls climbing down the crusty ledges of the goblin's chalk house in the mere. The carnivorous creatures had begun to flee. They scrambled into the crevices of the salt dome. Their frantic silhouettes scurried against the lightning glare. And in moments, thunder swept away the last of their screeching cries.

  Jyoti turned her firelock on the goblins, and Reece held out a hand to restrain her. The entire chamber had gone dormant. The goblins in their hundreds lay curled on the quartz-studded ground, greasy, cherubic bodies twitching fitfully. "They're sleeping again," Reece surmised.

  "No—they're stunned." Jyoti quickly began to tear hex-gems from her amulet harnesses. "Maybe the pain of the trolls shocked them."

  Neither of them could guess that Overy Scarn had deprived the wakeful goblins in New Arwar of the concentrated Charm they needed to project their telepathy. With that contact lost, the horde of goblins had not the strength to resist the somniferous cold of Irth.

  Numbed by the night chill and the seeping rain, they sagged helpless, paralyzed, yet alert. The amulets that the two demons cast among them offered the feeble warmth of embers, enough to foster awareness of their horrifying plight.

  What are the demons doing? the swarm cried among themselves. Why do they strew Charm among us?

  "We must hurry," Jyoti urged her partner. "Our reprieve might end at any moment. We have to get out of here before the trolls return."

  Reece agreed, spurred on by the cobra darkness of the chamber. He ripped hex-gems from his amulet harness and flung them over the drowsy bodies. With each handful that he tossed, the Charm enclosing him diminished, and the fetid stink of the goblin flesh gouged his sinuses. He broke off the last of his power wands and flipped them end over end across the wide vault, then lurched gasping to the wall, face squeezed shut against the stench.

  Jyoti helped him sling his firelock on his shoulder and find purchase for his first halting steps up and out of the putrid depths. Slowly, without Charm to
steady them, they picked their way along the rock wall, using mineral knobs and stone ledges.

  Below, the goblins writhed, trying to gather Charm from the hex-gems in their midst, trying to utilize that warmth to focus awareness and summon again the trolls to help them against the demons. Too many pixies and too much cold in this frigid world, they lay paralyzed in the rainy night. Barely could they manage to hold five awake in New Arwar.

  Lightning flapped, and those lying on their backs with their eyes glazed open watched the demons climbing higher on the curved white wall. Sorrow choked them with the knowledge that these evil beings had somehow won. In their teeming solitude, they squirmed, losing their way inside their fear like children in the woods.

  "I'm going to jam the clip of my firelock," Jyoti said when they had reached the gap in the salt dome through which they would exit. She pulled the side clip to its maximum and slammed the cartridge hard into the housing so that the trigger jumped forward. Then, she hurled her firelock into the grotto.

  Reece followed her example, and when he rammed the bottom of the cartridge against the rock wall and felt the firelock begin to vibrate in his hand, he flung it wide of himself, into the dark house of the goblins.

  Jyoti grabbed his arm, and they slipped through the large crack in the dome. Lightning crossed enormous distances, illuminating storm towers and thunderheads, a huge gray metropolis afloat in the heavens. With the rain, they slid down the rough outer wall into the dark tumult of the swamp.

  The spongy ground shook underfoot. Through crevices in the dome, charmfire rayed like a new sun hatching. The explosive aftershock followed, a din of concussive force that shoved aside chunks of the cupola and released whirlwinds of spinning green flames.

  The goblins experienced momentary warmth within the conflagration. Their souls woke and perched on the world as if on a melon in a bright garden. They sat up together in the abrupt heat, sharing the attendant pain, yet grateful in their one moment of clarity for the looping blood in their veins that had felt life. Then, the flames ate more hotly. Their flesh, unskilled at suffering, cried out. And they disappeared in the fire.