by Phil Tucker
As they emerged into the Way of Stone, Jarek sensed nothing. No brush of divinity upon his soul, no scent of the holy hanging in the air. As they had expected, Yesu’s death wagons were heading straight down the avenue, eschewing the narrow side streets.
Despite the many changes, the city’s interior remained the same: sandstone walls a story high, the windows narrow vertical slits, flat roofs, the buildings pressed so close together that people could travel between them only in single file.
He heard the cries of market vendors as they stalked the crowd, their boards of spitted vegetables and goat meat filling his mouth with water. A dozen different languages spiraled around him, and his eye was constantly drawn to different faces, each striking in its individuality, a conglomeration of the world’s people brought to Rekkidu for its trade, its wealth, its power.
“Hurry,” said Acharsis, elbowing him. “You’re gaping and dragging your feet.”
Jarek bit back an insult and moved more quickly, forging ahead, politely shouldering through the crowd. Those who resented his passage glanced but once at his bulk, then at his steed, and held their tongues.
Up ahead, he could see the mass of Alok’s ziggurat rising behind the temple walls. He tore his eyes away as if he’d been stung.
“He’ll be pulling into one of the temple compounds soon,” said Acharsis. “Close to the ziggurat complex, I’d wager. We’ll mark which one and then plan our strike.”
On the death wagons rolled, the crowd parting for them. Had the Way of Stone always been so long? The sun was dipping down behind the city walls, and the avenue was soon swallowed by shadow although the peaks of the eastern buildings remained bathed in crimson light.
The crowd thinned as they left the poor quarters behind, passed through the merchants’ area, and finally emerged onto the final stretch of avenue that led past the greatest of the estates.
Once again, Jarek fell back, not liking how exposed they were becoming. He watched the death wagons with hatred roiling his guts. Yesu was the reason he’d been forced to return to his old home. Yesu was the reason he was feeling such dismay and despair. For that, he would pay.
The wagons rolled past the temples of the nine dead gods, converted, he saw now, to Nekuul’s worship. Priests in black were everywhere, as were the death watch and the dead. Jarek finally came to a stop, not wanting to press their luck by pushing deeper into the center of the city.
On the wagons rolled, and Jarek’s heart sank when he saw them approach the massively reinforced Gates of Stone. Once, they had been painted crimson and yellow in Alok’s honor, but now they were black and gray, dismal and ponderous, as oppressive as the entrance to the netherworld itself.
“Shit,” said Acharsis as they watched Yesu emerge from his carriage, speak with the guards, and then walk alongside the wagons through the gates and into the ziggurat complex.
Jarek at last looked up and saw the serried levels of Alok’s ziggurat, eight massive stories tall, as great as a mountain and topped with the sanctum where Alok himself once had manifested. That crimson temple had also been profaned and painted in Nekuul’s colors. The shock of that sight brought tears to Jarek’s eyes.
“Back,” he whispered, turning his horse around before they could draw attention. “Back!”
The others followed. Annara caught up with him. “The central complex? He’s gone to Akkodaisis?”
Jarek grunted. “Looks like it.”
Annara turned to stare back at the ziggurat. “But, what does that mean?”
“It means,” said Acharsis, “that we have to find a tavern.”
“Why?”
“Because I need a drink, and a dark corner in which to think. This place is crawling with the dead and the death watch. It’s chilling my bones, just being in the streets.”
The crowds ahead parted, and Jarek saw a funereal apparition. Clad in robes of black, as if he had torn skeins of shadow from the darkest cracks of the world and wrapped them about his slender form, an ivory-masked man was striding towards them, followed by a regiment of the dead.
Jarek’s mouth went dry.
The man was wearing a hood that was raised to the crown of his head and did nothing to hide the mask’s naked, gleaming forehead, the harsh skeletal cheeks, the black slit of a mouth.
No, Jarek realized. Not ivory. Bone.
Bone molded like cast metal, shaped like a gaunt face but utterly inhuman, the mouth stapled over with gold bolts, the eye sockets surrounded by etched garlands of carved ivy, the eye sockets inlaid with black metal. Was he blind?
Jarek stiffened and marched rigidly past the robed man. The stranger made the faintest of hesitations, but Jarek kept walking. He stared at the twenty dead marching behind the stranger out of the corner of his eye; they were equally marvelous in their own way, for never before had he seen the dead armed. They were walking four abreast, wearing banded armor, bearing massive circular shields on one arm and clasping short spears in the other hand. Pointed helms topped their desiccated visages.
In moments, they were past, and Jarek marched on, feeling faint. He couldn’t see the street before him, and he felt the beginnings of one of his attacks: the tightening pressure in his head, the lack of breath.
No, he commanded himself. Not now. Please, Alok, not now!
He felt Annara’s hand curl around his arm as she walked beside him. “Can you smell that? The scent of the city. A thousand smells. Dust and sun-baked stone, sweat and urine, the sweetness of the palms and the rich depth of the river. Cooked meat. And… is that cloves? Perhaps illi peppers? And the sounds! Footsteps all around us. Rekkiduan. The clop of our horses’ hooves. The breath in your nose. There - the laughter of children. What else? The cry of the shatra birds swooping down to roost.”
Jarek focused on her words, sampling each sound and scent as she named them, and, slowly, the pressure was alleviated. On she spoke, her voice soft and constant like the flow of a calm river, leading him to a stall where she bought a new spear, and when he finally blinked and looked up, they were back at the Golden Walls.
“Somewhere around here,” said Acharsis. “Down there. I’m sure we’ll find a likely spot. Come.”
He led them along a narrow radial road for some distance, and then he turned off at a large building’s arch, into a small courtyard.
A young boy ran up, wiping his hands on his thigh-length tunic, bobbing his head and tripping at the last so that he fell to his knees. Laughter sounded through a second archway, high and feminine, and he blushed before rising to his feet.
“Can I help you, good masters?” he asked.
“Watch our horses for an hour,” said Acharsis. “See them taken care of and fed. We’ll be inside.”
“Yes,” said the boy, and then he scowled over his shoulder as more laughter sounded from that second courtyard. “Of course I will! You’ll see. I’ll take good care of them.”
“See that you do,” Acharsis replied, handing the boy a small silver coin.
The boy beamed, pocketed it, and then gathered their reins and led the three horses through the second arch even as Acharsis bent his head and led his companions into the tavern’s common room.
There, a few rushlights cast a flickering illumination over the low-ceilinged room, and Jarek saw as wide a variety of patrons gathered around the tables as he’d seen outside. To his left was a band of rough-looking men wearing black caps and caftans; they had bronze daggers thrust into their belts and silver symbols of Nekuul emblazoned over their chests. They looked rough, like nothing so much as brigands. At another table, Jarek saw a handful of nomads from the steppe. A mendicant was wandering from table to table asking for charity, and over there, he noted, were three Khartisians, their normally pale faces burned a deep red, dressed in sheepskins and long leggings despite the day’s heat.
Acharsis forged a path to the back of the room and claimed a lopsided table in the corner. He and Jarek sat on a bench with their backs to the wall, and Annara settled herself across fr
om them. Immediately, a youth who could have been the stable boy’s older brother appeared. He deposited three clay cups filled with small beer on their table and then handed each of them a filtering straw.
One of the lad’s eyes was swollen shut. Jarek could only imagine how that had happened.
“Siros’ blessings upon you,” the boy said. Acharsis gave him a coin, and he departed without saying another word.
“Ah, Siros,” Acharsis said, then took up his beer and drank deep through the straw. “Liberator of men and gods. After Ekillos, you know, he’s always been my favorite god.”
“The god of beer aside,” said Annara. “What do we do?”
“Do?” Jarek forced himself to snap out of his fugue. “Do you insist on thinking we can save Elu?”
“Of course I do,” she hissed. “You lived in that ziggurat for years. You must know every inch of the complex. How can we get in there and rescue him?”
“Oh, woman. You don’t give up, do you?” Jarek said, then lifted his cup and placed the straw in the corner of his mouth.
Acharsis sipped some of his beer direct from the cup and then leaned back contentedly, chewing the inside of his mouth. “Something’s going on,” he said. “Did you notice the energy in the street? Everywhere I looked, I saw banners in honor of Nekuul. Are we close to one of her festivals?”
“I don’t know,” said Jarek.
“I’ll find out,” said Annara.
She stood and walked over to the closest table, where a Rekkiduan man was sitting. The fellow was wearing dirty beige robes; his head was wrapped in a beautiful multicolored scarf. Annara spoke quietly with him, and after a few minutes bobbed her head gratefully and returned to their table.
“Not Nekuul,” she said. “Akkodaisis. Every third full moon, he celebrates Irella and honors Nekuul by opening the ziggurat grounds to the city and calling them to worship.”
“The full moon is two weeks away,” said Acharsis. “Perhaps we can use that to our advantage.”
Jarek leaned closer. In the gloom, it was hard to tell, but he thought Annara’s eyes were glimmering. Were those tears? “What’s wrong?”
“There’s more,” she said reluctantly. “The celebration. Its highlight is a series of blood sacrifices at dawn. Youths from across the land are brought here for the honor of being killed in Irella’s name.”
Jarek sat back. “Elu.”
“Two weeks?” Acharsis scrubbed at his head, then sucked up half of the remaining beer through his broad straw.
Jarek tapped his fingers on the crooked table and stared past Annara at the figures murmuring and drinking behind her. Blood sacrifice in Alok’s sanctum? He felt his stomach curdle with rage.
Rage was good. Rage kept his attacks at bay.
An image came to him unbidden: a bone mask polished to a high gleam.
“Acharsis.” His tone caught the other man’s attention immediately. “What was that? The masked man leading the armored dead?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” allowed the other man. “Never seen the like. The dead with spears? That’s new too. They must be almost comical to watch in a fight. Who are they going to fight? The elderly?”
“But there was more,” said Jarek. “That man. His eyes were completely covered up.”
“They were?” Acharsis blinked. “I didn’t notice. I had my eyes firmly on the ground.”
“Smart of you,” said Jarek. “He might have slowed as he passed me. Why is Irella arming the dead?”
“A mystery,” said Acharsis. “The price we pay for having been absent so long.”
They subsided into silence. After a minute, Acharsis signaled the boy and ordered food. Soon, platters of hummus, green pepper salad and braised goat were set before them, and, as one, they dug in.
When their meal was finished, Jarek rose to his feet. “Excuse me.”
“Not running out on us, are you?” asked Acharsis.
“Not yet.”
Jarek stepped around their table and made his way out to the courtyard, intent on finding a corner in which to relieve himself. It was past dusk now, and the sounds of Rekkidu were growing still; the shadows had become velvety and thick. The stables would have to suffice, he thought, and walked into the second courtyard, which was marginally larger. The back half was covered. Six horses were tied to a hitching rail.
After relieving himself, he checked on their horses, found their condition to his satisfaction, and walked back to the tavern.
A group of dead was filing into the first courtyard, four abreast, all of them armored and bearing spears. At their head stood a black-robed individual, and for a beat Jarek though it was the same masked creature he had passed on the Way of Stone.
He came to a sudden stop as the robed figure turned to stare at him. Not the same, he realized immediately. Worse, somehow.
The figure was wearing the same midnight robes as the other one, and they made him blend into the shadows. The same high cowl did nothing to obscure his face, but his mask was distinct. Although it clearly had been fashioned from bone, Jarek could see in the lantern light that its brow had been painted black, over which elegant arabesques had been carved in aching white. These swept down around its subdued cheekbones to curl around its cheeks and chin, leaving the nose and mouth area clear. The mouth was comprised of two short vertical slits.
And the eyes… They were ringed with arabesques like whirlpools and were completely covered over with black metal.
The creature quirked his head to the side, much like a bird of prey. “Who are you?”
His voice was like a cold wind blowing through dead leaves, and, again, Jarek felt his skin crawl.
Acharsis would have thought of a clever response, a quick lie. Jarek placed his hand on the haft of his hammer and smelled the sharp tang of inevitability in the air. “Nobody.”
The creature regarded him for a moment longer, then gave a curt wave, urging the dead forward.
And they came.
As one, without hesitation, they poured forward, spears leveled, sandaled feet drumming on the ground. They moved faster than any dead Jarek had ever seen, faster than most living people.
They broke around the robed figure and came at him.
Jarek stood in a combat crouch for but a moment, Sky Hammer raised high; then he cursed and ran back into the tavern.
“Acharsis! Up! Run! Run!”
His bellow cut through the low conversations. Strangers rose to their feet in concern, then cursed and ran for the walls as the dead surged in behind Jarek.
Never had Jarek been so glad for Acharsis’ quick wits. The man was up and hauling on Annara’s arm even as she went for her spear, and they ran together through the archway that led into the kitchens. The scent of soup, vinegar and blood was thick in the air, and Jarek saw a mess of cutting boards and pots simmering on low fires before he burst through into a narrow hall.
“Where’d they come from?” yelled Acharsis, but Jarek ignored him.
He raced down the hall, hesitated as he ran past a pair of doors, and bolted for the one at the very end. It was a wooden affair, very stout. He skidded to a stop and yanked it open. The room inside was pitch dark, but he saw a hint of shelving.
“Storeroom! Go back!”
But it was too late. The dead were in the hall, spears extended, racing right at them.
Jarek roared and shoved past Acharsis and Annara. His Sky Hammer was as light as a breeze in his hand.
The two dead in the front had both been men. Their skin was stretched taut over their bones, the fingers that clutched their spears little more than claws, their eyes milky and sunken, their hair thinning and mostly gone from their pates. Jarek had fought hundreds of opponents, and always his enemies had screamed, swore, spat, or cried. It was unnerving to fight such expressionless opponents.
Jarek swept the spear points aside with his hammer and slammed against the pair of them. They were as light as husks, and he lifted them both off their feet and thrust them at
the two behind them. He felt bones snap, then tasted the spicy dust of their innards.
But there were too many of them.
A spear stabbed at his thigh, the point skittering off the hard muscle and cracking into the wall. A clawed hand raked his face. Jarek reared back and brought his hammer down with both hands onto a woman’s leather shield, shattering it into shards and smashing her skull.
The dead were pushed back, but the hall behind them was choked with their number. More spears stabbed out at Jarek, their points scoring lines of fire across his body. He swung and swung again, but even those who had fallen lashed out at him, fighting despite their crippling wounds.
“Jarek! Up here!”
He staggered back, looked up, and saw Acharsis leaning down from a trapdoor overhead with a hand extended. Jarek grabbed his hand and leaped. Acharsis hauled, and just as the dead boiled into the space in which he’d been standing, he was yanked up into the night.
Jarek rolled onto his back, holding tight to his hammer, gasping for breath, and then forced himself up to one knee.
“By Nekuul’s withered tit, where the hell did they come from?” said Acharsis, staring down into the hall where the dead were thrusting futilely up at him.
“Courtyard,” said Jarek. “Led by one of those masked things. It was -”
“Watch out!” cried Annara.
A patch of night leaped up into view and landed on the roof a dozen paces from them, falling into a light crouch, one gloved hand balancing it. The low moon caused his pale mask to gleam, the black brow and whorled cheeks looking like the stuff of nightmares.
“He didn’t just leap up from the street,” said Acharsis. “Right?”