The Dark Defiles

by Richard K. Morgan

  The other three knives were at least approximately where they’d always been—Quarterless still in the small of her back, though now off to one side and paired with Laughing Girl, the final refugee from the empty frontal portion of her belt. Falling Girl, she’d insisted on keeping in her boot and the Warhelm, lacking an obvious harness point elsewhere, had grudgingly agreed.

  “Yeah, well, apart from blades, obviously.” The grin still there in the Dragonbane’s good-natured grumbling. He sniffed. “Goes without saying, doesn’t it. Kiriath steel and all that.”

  But beneath the bluff Majak nonchalance, Archeth thought she detected an enduring trace of unease. And his features were troubled as he watched Yilmar Kaptal come trudging up the slope, nowhere near as out of breath as you’d expect for a man his age and size.

  THE THING THAT CAME UP THROUGH THE LOADING HATCH THAT NIGHT, still streaming thin, high spouts of seawater from various openings and edges, looked like nothing so much as a colossal black spider-legged crab caught in some thick-roped metallic net.

  Shouldn’t really be a shock, Archidi, she’d been surprised to find herself thinking. Not like you haven’t seen them running around the place since we got here—replacing fruit, bringing you fresh clothes. Executing random humans. All the same basic breed. This is just a big one.

  It took about that long to realize that the thick, shiny cone of netting the crane hook held up was in fact part of the crab’s upper structure, presumably designed to allow exactly this kind of retrieval. And as the crane cranked in the final couple of yards of cable and stopped, she saw that the webbing on top was mirrored on the crab’s underside by a sagging belly of translucent material within which hung …

  At her side, the Dragonbane had climbed to his feet. She stood up to join him.

  “Is that a body in there?” he asked her quietly.

  The crane screeched and groaned its way back along its track until the crab’s monstrous span of legs hung clear of the hatch. Inside the swaying translucent bag, the blurred human outline flopped bonelessly back and forth. There looked to be quite a lot of liquid in there, too. The crane cable jolted downward and the crab settled to the floor on its huge restlessly twitching limbs. It faced them as if poised to spring—she felt Egar tense beside her, felt the same instinctive quailing in her own flesh. The cable ran down, the netting settled back flat to the crab’s upper carapace, and tiny upward reaching metal arms emerged to detach the hook. Thus freed, the crab took big, spidering steps toward them, still drizzling water onto the iron deck like an overflowing gutter.

  “Archidi …” The Dragonbane’s grip, firm on her upper arm. He was pulling her backward, putting himself in the way.

  “Eg, it’s fine.”

  As if it heard their voices, the crab locked to a halt. Its front legs were less than fifteen feet from where they stood, went up like shiny black palm trunks to the first hinge, then down again to the looming mass of the body where it hung over them at twice head height. The carapace tilted without warning, the translucent bag split open somewhere, and its contents gushed out over the deck in a sluicing of seawater and silt. Small, vaguely fang-shaped objects slid and skittered about. It would be awhile before she fixed on them and realized what they were. Too much of her immediate attention was grabbed by the body as it washed to a soggy halt at their feet.

  It took them a moment or two to recognize Yilmar Kaptal.

  He was a mess. Bleached, bloated, chewed on. Something had already made ragged holes in his cheeks and eaten out his eyes, and as they watched, it climbed on myriad filigree legs out of one of the raw hollows where an eye had been.

  “Oh, lovely.”

  “Eg, shut up.” Staring fascinated. “Look.”

  Because here across the bleached and ragged landscape of Kaptal’s torn-up face came some tiny, rapidly spidering silver thing. It grabbed the filigree-legged length of deep sea life at the midpoint, lifted it up out of the eye socket and held it aloft, then methodically ripped it apart. It discarded the pieces, passing them back delicately over its own body to the rear, then dipped itself into the eye socket and began dragging out other, less recognizably living stuff. Behind it, even tinier gleaming flecks of machinery had welled up out of Kaptal’s nose and mouth like silver foam and started to carry off the bits of butchered sea creature.

  “Cleansing is required,” said the Warhelm with melodious good cheer. “And substantial surface repair. But aside from this, I foresee no real difficulties. Your friend has not been in the water long.”

  The words washed over her, made no real sense at the time, and besides, she was still entranced by the realization that Yilmar Kaptal’s entire bloated body appeared to be a similar battleground between the creeping creatures trying to eat him and the tiny silver machines that fought to stop them. The sodden clothing twitched and moved, things emerged squabbling here and there from under a flap of cloth or torn flesh …

  “Hoy, Archidi. Look at the floor over there. Aren’t those your knives?”

  “WHAT ARE WE STOPPING FOR?”

  “What’s your rush, Kaptal?” Archeth, still staring down at An-Kirilnar, feigned an absence of tone she didn’t feel. Even now, she found it hard to look at the resurrected man directly. “We’re well provisioned, we’ve got a long way to go and maybe a fight when we get there. No point in overexerting ourselves this early on.”

  “So who’s overexerted?” The portly imperial put his hands on his hips, an uncharacteristic posture as far as she could recall. “These are fighting men, they’re used to keeping a pace. Not like we haven’t all had plenty of rest.”

  “Yeah, well we didn’t all get off as lightly as you,” Egar rumbled. “Some of these men took injuries in the wreck. Some of them didn’t have as much stored fat to manage on until my lady Archeth found us aid.”

  She glanced around. The Dragonbane had drifted into a vaguely protective bodyguard stance, blocking Kaptal from her. Ludicrous overreaction, if you hadn’t been there in the crane hall that night—she hoped the men would write it off to retainer outrage that Kaptal was questioning the will of kir-Archeth Indamaninarmal, proven mistress of ghost mansions and succoring demons in iron, apparent favorite of the Salt Lord, and bearer of haunted blades.

  Still …

  Better break this up, Archidi. In case it goes somewhere none of us are ready for.

  Because she still had no real idea what Kaptal had become since his resurrection, whether there was now some steely, silver-limbed thing bedded deep in the gore of his brain and steering him, or whether the Warhelm had simply summoned him back to life in a shower of sparks, like the cranes on their rusted overhead tracks in the hall. Above all, she had no idea why Tharalananagharst had found it necessary to bring the imperial merchant back in the first place. It wasn’t as if he had any skills that were worth anything where they were going.

  She met his eyes. Had they been that color before? She seemed to remember darker.

  “I’m glad you’re feeling so energetic, Kaptal,” she said. “Perhaps you’d like to help carry some of the gear.”

  Some sniggering among the men, quickly stifled as Kaptal looked around.

  “I am a noble of the imperial court,” he said loudly. “And a chief sponsor of this expedition. I am Yilmar Kaptal, worthy under charter by the hand of Akal Khimran the Great. I do not … carry gear.”

  But she thought that the outrage rang a little hollow, compared to the way the man had sounded before on the expedition north. She thought that behind it, she heard a scrabbling, as if Kaptal himself wasn’t quite convinced of anything he’d just said, was talking as much for his own benefit as anyone else’s, was trying to reassure himself, to remind himself, of his own identity.

  She’d heard something similar in the voices of a few other first-generation courtiers, men still settling into the privilege of their newfound positions, still not quite able to believe the life they now owned, and determined to drive it home to their lesser fellows until it could become confid
ent custom. But she’d never heard it as intense as this, as quietly desperate as it came through in Kaptal’s tightened tones.

  She didn’t want to push him.

  “Well, then,” she said colorlessly. “Enjoy your chartered privilege and let those not lucky enough to share it take some ease.”

  It got a couple of low cheers among the men, and Egar grinned in his now neatly trimmed beard. She gave him a faint smile back, but most of her was still haunted, still wondering.

  After the crane hall, she hadn’t seen Kaptal for days. A pack of dog-sized crab devices showed up while she and Egar were still marveling over her recovered knives, and they dragged the body away through a hole in the iron wainscoting. Nothing to worry about, Tharalanangharst assured them breezily. It would all be taken care of. By tacit agreement, neither she nor the Dragonbane had said anything to the other men. They were in any case all too busy by then, looking at maps and drawing up lists, talking to the Warhelm about weaponry and provisions and, in her case, practicing with her newly harnessed knives.

  Then one morning, she wandered into one of the common dining areas Tharalanangharst had made available—humans thrive on company, she’d explained patiently to the Warhelm; they don’t do well alone—and there was Yilmar Kaptal seated in the flood of early gray light from the windows, intact and apparently none the worse for his drowning, feeding himself hungrily from a broad breakfast spread. He had some story of his survival—clinging to wreckage all night amid the dark waves, washing finally ashore with the dawn, wandering along the shoreline until he found the city—and he told it with a slightly repetitive, slightly emphatic force. He seemed very pleased to see her for a man she remembered as having such solitary tendencies. He asked her to join him at the table and plied her with a constant stream of questions about how she’d survived the wreck and come to An-Kirilnar herself. He nodded constantly in response to the answers she gave, made rapid, repeated noises of assent and understanding at every juncture, and did not appear to be really listening at all.

  Archeth sat and picked at some food with him, hunger driven from her by memories of the creature that had climbed out of his eye socket. She chewed and swallowed mechanically, tried not to avoid his gaze too much. Was inordinately glad when Alwar Nash and another couple of Throne Eternal showed up to breakfast with them.

  Now she remembered that jerky, insistent energy again, and wondered if there was a good reason for Kaptal’s newfound dynamism—wondered if perhaps when he stayed still for too long, left himself without occupation or distraction and started to reflect, then black, icy doubt started welling up inside him like seawater, as the truth of what had really happened to him tried to break through into his consciousness and tell itself to him.

  The fire sprite darted past her, as if checking what she was looking at for a moment, then danced back and up along the ridgeline, wavering from its base like an agitated candle flame. Earlier in the day, she’d thought it had arms and was shaped somewhat like a child about eight or nine years of age. But as she followed the sprite’s beckoning flicker upward through the rocks, she saw this was just her mind, demanding a human form from something so outrageously animate and creating the illusion to fit. What she’d thought were appendages were just undulating frills along the edges of the flame, sometimes well-defined enough to seem like gestures, sometimes damped down to no more than a faint ripple. Now that full daylight was spilling down over the mountains, she was glad of that undulating motion and the sheepdog twitchiness—the sprite was noticeably paler and harder to see against the brightening morning air and she reckoned if it ever stood still there was a good chance you’d blink and lose track of it. It will never actually leave you, the Warhelm had told her, but it may range ahead or double back sometimes to check on conditions. Try to be patient when that happens, let it do its work and protect you as best it can. Once you cross into the uplands, it is the only support I can lend you.

  Once again, she had cause to curse her father’s lack of moderation.

  Couldn’t you have just burned out the big weapons, Dad? Left a little something for local use? Shown a little fucking restraint and foresight for once in your life?

  Your father is what he is, Nantara had consoled her once, when a nine-year-old Archeth fled sobbing into her arms after a particularly hardheaded run-in with Flaradnam. He is not balanced, there are no balanced Kiriath—their passage through the Veins of the Earth took that away from them, if they ever had it in the first place. But your father loves you with every last ember of his passion, which is why he is so angry now. The anger will pass, will be gone by tomorrow. But the love will not. Your father will love you for all eternity. Never forget that, Archidi, because it’s something no one else—a sad, wincing smile—not even I, will be able to do.

  No Scaled Folk in her mother’s tranquil hopes for the future, of course. No fear there might ever be another Great Evil to ride out and face.

  You were wrong, Mum. Even Dad couldn’t do it in the end.

  Always some fucking thing coming down the track that’ll kill you if it can.

  She shook off her thoughts. Glanced at the Dragonbane, who nodded.

  “All right, people.Got a long march ahead of us.” She gestured up at the rearing mountain landscape. “And it isn’t going to get any easier till we’re over that lot. Let’s get on with it, let’s get it done.”

  SLIGHTLY PESSIMISTIC, AS IT TURNED OUT—THE PATH THE SPRITE LED them on was actually an increasingly good one, starting to show signs as they climbed higher not just of prior traffic but of actual construction. Some ancient paving in a pale, grained stone she didn’t recognize, shelved into upward steps that had worn smooth with use, and were faintly luminous in the gloom where they passed beneath overhangs or through choke points in the rocky terrain.

  “This is an Aldrain road,” She heard one of the privateers mutter to his comrades while they were all bunched up at a split in the paved way, waiting for the sprite to make up its mind on which fork to take. “We are under dwenda protection as long as we walk it.”

  Ha.

  The sprite came back, opted for the lower of the two paths, which skirted the shadowed base of a broad, jutting bluff, then zigzagged briskly back upward on terraced hairpins built out of the same pale dwenda—or not—stone. And with Aldrain protection or not, they made it to the end of the first day without incident. They pitched camp at the foot of an ancient scree spill under the southern shoulder of the highest peak in the range, with the sea a distant gray gleam behind and below them, and An-Kirilnar long ago hidden from view by the intervening chains of rising ground they’d crossed.

  “Not bad going,” the Dragonbane allowed, nodding in that direction. “I thought we’d be lucky if we made half this distance today.”

  His face was tinged an odd blue by the glow from one of the radiant bowls Tharalanangharst had gifted them in place of campfire fuel. Nothing grows in the Wastes that will make a decent fire, the Warhelm told them soberly. Better you take these. The bowls would, it claimed, give more or less warmth according to the conditions around them, and could be made, with simple commands in High Kir, to brighten or darken without affecting the level of heat, though they would apparently dim anyway when they detected sleep in the bodies around them. Archeth and Egar decided not to pass on these latter details to the other men—they were going to have enough misgivings about something that gave out blue light and perfect campfire heat but looked like a headless turtle, without being told that you could also talk to it and that it would notice when you fell asleep.

  Archeth jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the loom of the mountain behind them. “How long you reckon to get over that ridgeline?”

  The Dragonbane shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I would have said the best part of a day, lucky to make it by nightfall. But the way we’ve been covering ground, could be a lot less. We might make it before noon.”

  “And then the real work starts.”

  “One way to look at i
t.”

  “Got to find this city Tharalanangharst was talking about, get across it, find these aerial conveyance pits on the other side, find a way down into them …”

  “Yeah.”

  They were hedging, hovering, rehashing things that were already evident. Pussyfooting around the real issue like some wincing courtier suing for extended credit.

  “You reckon it’s really him?” she said abruptly.

  They both looked over to where Kaptal sat alone in the glow of another bowl. Originally, he’d been sharing its warmth and light with three Throne Eternal, but one by one they’d apparently found good reasons to wander off into the rest of the encampment and leave him there. He didn’t appear to care, had not really been talking to them anyway. Then as now, he sat and stared into the blue light, murmured to himself under his breath, and appeared to be doing some kind of obsessive calculation on his fingers.

  Egar shook his head. “Anybody’s guess. He looked pretty fucking dead to me when your demon pal brought him up out of the water. And last I heard, you don’t get to come back from the dead without some pretty heavy penalties.”

  “Gil says he did. Or something like it.”

  “Yeah, well. Case in point. He’s not really been the same cuddly little faggot since he came out of Afa’marag, has he?”

  She couldn’t argue with that. She didn’t think Ringil had ever been what you’d call cuddly. But after the events of the previous summer there was a distance in him that even she found new and strange. He smiled, he sometimes even laughed aloud, and he had the same old rolled-eyes sophisticate-and-barbarian thing going on with the Dragonbane, veiling an intensity of feeling beneath that neither man would ever own up to. But beyond that, she could no longer guess where Gil went away to when his gaze drifted and his eyes emptied out and the mobility fell off his face like a thin paper mask.