by Nathan Long
“So what the hell is Durgallah, and why the fuck is this priest taking us there?”
Lhan answered right away, which told me he hadn’t been asleep either. “Durgallah is an ancient city to the south of here, known now as the City of Black Glass. It too lies on the shores of the Vanished Sea, but it is a ruin—destroyed by the Church of the Seven for heresy thousands of years ago.”
“Heresy?”
“Aye. The people of Durgallah turned from the Seven and worshiped false gods. The church rained the fire of heaven down upon them as punishment.” He shook his head. “It is strange that the church would bring us there. The priests fear it like no other place on Waar.”
“Why?”
“The ghosts of their victims. They are said to haunt the ruins still, held to this world by their hatred for the church. I have heard that no priest who has entered the ruins has left with his life or sanity intact.”
I normally don’t believe in ghosts, or any of that supernatural bullshit, but after everything I’d seen on this weird-ass planet it was a little harder to be all rational and modern.
“You—you think there are really ghosts there?”
He shrugged. “I think ghosts will be the least of our worries in Durgallah. Whatever the reason the Church wants us, I am certain it will not be pleasant. Indeed, it may be the death of us.”
He looked so miserable that I reached up to him and squeezed his hand.
“I’m sorry, Lhan. If I hadn’t dropped into your life, none of this evil shit would have happened.”
He squeezed back and looked down at me, and those purple eyes swallowed me whole. “And I would count that a tragedy, Mistress. Despite these troubles, I would choose any life that contained you over an easier one without.”
Man, that boy could talk. I almost pulled him down to the floor and started lovin’ on him again, but I was still too freaked out about how badly things had gone earlier, so I just stayed where I was.
***
After that, though, it gradually got better—even when it didn’t. Once we started to realize that having a bad night one night didn’t mean we were falling out of love, and that we were going to be there for each other every night, no matter how the sex went, we started to have more good nights.
It’s funny. Well, sad really. I’d known all this stuff back when I was with Big Don—taking it as it came, being easy when it didn’t. All that hard-won wisdom shoulda carried over, right? Not so much. I guess it’s something you have to relearn with every new person you get with.
Anyway, by the time we got to Durgallah, we were laughing when it was good, we were laughing when it was bad, and some nights we blew the fucking roof off the place. Captain Pit-Bull and his crew musta had to sleep with their fingers in their ears, and I bet we gave Brother Rollo ulcers.
Yeah, we were locked up in jail and heading into deep shit, but still, it mighta just been my happiest time on Waar.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SOLD!
“I don’t get it. Why is it called the City of Black Glass? It looks like a bunch of sandcastles after a wave hit ’em.”
Lhan and I were craning our necks to look out the tiny port-hole which was the only source of light in the sail closet, as the City of Black Glass appeared in the distance below us, silhouetted in the pink light of a desert dawn. There were towers and spires everywhere, but all half crumbled and rounded off and caved in. And I didn’t see any black glass anywhere. Everything looked red and dead and dusty to me.
“We are not at quite the right angle. It is the north half of the city that—”
Then the ship turned and all of a sudden we were at the right angle, and Lhan and I flinched back as the city stabbed us in the eyes.
“There. You see?”
“Can’t see a goddamned thing. Yikes.”
When the spots faded I shielded my eyes and looked again. The whole north side, which had been hidden behind the hull of the ship, was spread out below us, shining like a freshly polished Mercedes and reflecting the morning sun right into our faces. In the middle of the glare was a huge crater, half a mile wide, and all around it a circle of glittery rubble that spread out to a ring of lumpy, half-melted buildings all leaning away from the center like they’d been frozen halfway through falling down.
I’d never seen anything like it. What the fuck had happened? Did these sword-swinging savages have an atom bomb? They didn’t even have cannons yet! On the other hand, the priests had wands of blue fire and anti-gravity ski-doos, so I guessed anything was possible.
“The church did that?”
“Thousands of years ago, yes.”
“Sheesh. No wonder they don’t like to come back. That musta killed everybody within a hundred miles.”
The ship turned away from the glare again, and we watched as we dropped toward the sandy part of the city, angling to land in the middle of what looked like the main drag, a freeway-wide boulevard with fancy buildings on both sides, all slumped and shattered, and neighborhoods of smaller buildings and skinnier streets behind them, all completely dead, deserted and knee-deep in sand.
A few minutes later we heard the pounding of sledgehammers below us, then the back and forth tug of the crew threading the lines through the mooring rings and tying them off. We pulled on our red robes and hoods, and few minutes after that, there was a key in the lock and our door swung open. Captain Pit-Bull wasn’t taking any chances. He had two guys with crossbows covering us as another two guys came in and tied us up, then they all marched us up onto the deck where the prissy priest, Brother Rollo, was waiting and looking over the side like he was being stood up on his big date.
“Where are they?” he asked nobody in particular, then he turned to Captain Pit-Bull. “Lower the gangplank. We must descend.”
“Where is my reward?”
“Those we are here to meet will have it. Now let us go.”
Pit-Bull didn’t look very happy about that, but had his guys let down the long plank anyway, and Rollo tip-toed down it while the sailors prodded us along behind and carried our weapons and gear all wrapped up in bundles.
We ended up in the middle of the street, with the wind moaning through the empty ruins all around us and dust blowing in our faces. There wasn’t any other sound, or any other movement, just wind and sand and all those empty windows and doors looking at us like they were the eyes and mouths of giant skulls. The whole scene gave me the creeps.
I shot Rollo a look. “So, we here for a picnic?”
“Silence! We are waiting!”
So we waited—me and Lhan sagging against our ropes, our guards fidgeting, Rollo twitching and looking over his shoulder every five seconds, and Captain Pit-Bull with his arms crossed, grunting and glaring at the back of Rollo’s head.
Finally, just as the sand was starting to bury my feet, a voice on my seven made us all jump out of our pants.
“What do you want here?”
Everybody spun around, gasping, and we saw a guy in head-to-toe black robes standing in the street and aiming a crossbow at us. Then we saw the dozen or so other crossbows pointing out of the dark windows of the building behind him, and we all did the gasp and jump out of our pants thing a second time. We couldn’t see any men in there—just crossbows. And we couldn’t see any face under Mr. Black-Robes’ hood either—just black.
Rollo was shaking like someone’d shoved a jackhammer up his ass. “We—we seek a priest of Ormolu, who—”
“There are no priests here, fool. Who told you there were priests here?”
All the crossbows swung toward Rollo. He threw up his hands.
“It was in the edict! If we found the fugitives we were to bring them here to meet with a priest of the Temple!”
“Fugitives?”
Rollo motioned to us with a trembling hand. “The kidnappers! The outcast dhan and the outland giantess!”
At this, Black-Robes looked at us for the first time. “Pull back their hoods.”
Rollo motioned
to the sailors, and they yanked our hoods off.
Black-Robes stared, then lowered his crossbow and started to laugh. He pulled back his hood, grinning like a sideshow geek, and it was my turn to stare, ’cause it was the same Beak-Nosed asshole priest who’d threatened me with the wand of blue fire when I’d jumped on board the priest ship back at Toaga!
“Ormolu be praised! I had thought them lost!”
He started toward us and Rollo backed up, hands out. “Stay back! We are armed!”
This made Beak-Nose crack up even more. He pulled open his black robes to show orange and white beneath. “You squealing ruktug. I am the priest you are looking for.”
Rollo let out a breath and slumped like an inflatable snowman with a bad leak. “Oh, my brother. I am so glad to see you. I feared—”
“Never mind. Never mind. You must sail away again at once. There can be no ships here when our play begins. Give them to us and go.”
More guys in black robes stepped out of the nearby buildings and closed in on us, but Captain Pit-Bull stepped in front of us, chin out.
“There was a reward.”
Beak-Nose looked annoyed, but then pasted on a smile. “It was you who captured them?”
Pit-Bull nodded. “I did.”
Beak-Nose looked at Rollo.
He nodded. “He did.”
“Very good. Will water tokens be acceptable?”
Pit-Bull licked his lips. “Certainly, your reverence.”
I shot Lhan a questioning look. He nodded in agreement. We weren’t about to let that happen. I raised my voice.
“Hey, Beak-Nose. Yeah, you. You shouldn’t give the captain any more tokens. He already has plenty. He stole the ones we stole from you. They’re in his cabin.”
Beak-Nose turned on Pit-Bull, who was looking at me like he wanted to tear my lungs out with his bare hands.
“Is this true?”
Pit-Bull opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
Beak-Nose turned to his men. “Search the cabin.”
Three of ’em trotted up the gangplank, then came back down again about five minutes later with the satchel. They opened it and showed it to Beak-Nose.
He nodded, then turned to Pit-Bull, cold. “I would kill you for stealing temple property, but your ship must be gone as soon as possible, so you are free to go, but there will be no reward for you, and no mercy if you cross the church again, do you understand?”
“Yes, your reverence.”
“Good. Then go, and quickly.”
I gave Pit-Bull a big smile as he turned to the gangplank. “Now you know how it feels, dick.”
He gave me the death stare, but couldn’t say anything in front of the priests, so he just walked on, stiff as week-old roadkill, with his men following up behind him.
“I think that guy wants to kill me.”
Lhan chuckled. “I fear there are others who will beat him to it.”
I looked around and found Beak-Nose standing in front of me. He grinned again, which was too bad. He was ugly to begin with. Smiling he was hideous.
“Truly, Ormolu blesses us. I did not expect my master’s broadsheets to bear fruit in time for our little drama, and feared we would have to make do with bit players. But here you are. The cast is complete. The stage is set. We wait only for our audience to arrive.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Beak-Nose?”
His smile turned into a snarl, and he slapped me, hard.
“My name is Ru-Sul. Your reverence to filth like—”
“Your reverence! The skelshas are waking!”
Beak-Nose glanced at the priest who spoke, then scanned around the sky, suddenly tense. I followed his gaze and saw a few black-winged silhouettes wheeling over the rooftops off in the distance.
Beak-Nose turned back toward the ruins and waved a hand at us. “Paladins, bring them. We must retire.”
***
Ru-Sul’s paladins—which was apparently some kinda fancy name for temple guard—led us through a maze of broken-down buildings, climbing over mounds of rubble and slogging through knee-deep sand drifts as we walked under high, arched ceilings and by smashed statues whose heads and hands had been worn down to lumpy nubs by the blowing sand.
They tried to stay inside the buildings as much as possible, and took every covered passage and underground walkway they could find, but every now and then they had to cross a street or alley, and they’d all stop at the door and check the sky before hustling us across to the next building as quick as they could.
I gave Ru-Sul a look as they shoved us through a door into what looked like some kind of ancient lecture hall. “What’s the matter? I figured you pricks would be all about feeding us to the birds.”
He laughed. “We are not so wasteful. Your death will serve a far greater purpose than that of food for skelshas.”
Lhan got a cagey look in his eye at that. “It must be a great purpose indeed to risk the wrath of the Aldhanan. Surely even the church cannot kill those upon who he has bestowed his favor with impunity.”
Ru-Sul laughed again, louder this time, then stopped and looked at us. “You fools, the church won’t kill you. It is the Aldhanan himself who will kill you. Indeed, he sails here as we speak to do that very thing.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE PIT!
I stared at him, and couldn’t manage more than a stunned, “Uh, what?”
Lhan did better. “Do you tell me, then, that the Aldhanan has swallowed your pathetic lies and truly believes Mistress Jae-En and I have kidnapped his daughter and son-in-law?”
Ru-Sul looked smug. “How could he not, when you were seen taking them by a score of witnesses? One was even wounded trying to prevent your escape.”
“We were seen? We were nowhere near—” I choked as I got it. “Wait a minute. You put some poor bastard in pink paint and a red wig and had him storm the Aldhanan’s castle?”
Ru-Sul smirked. “The likeness was uncanny.”
Lhan shook his head. “I fail to understand why you have gone to such trouble to defame us. Do you truly fear Mistress Jae-En that much?”
“This is hardly about the demoness. Not anymore.” Ru-Sul turned and entered a dark hall at the back of the lecture hall, and our guards shoved us after him. “When she appeared, during the Kedac-Zir fiasco, we warned the Aldhanan in the strongest possible terms that she was a danger, and must be given over to us for the safety of Ora. Instead he gave her honors and rewards. He named her hero of the Empire.”
“Hey! Asshole! How long are you gonna keep talking about me like I’m not here?”
He kept talking to Lhan. “Nor was this the first time the Aldhanan ignored our counsel. Indeed, since he ascended to the throne, Kor-Har has sided with the dhanans and ‘the people,’ and against the Church, more than any Aldhanan since his great-great-grandfather, Kor-Karan, he who is known to the histories as The Apostate.”
Lhan curled his lip. “Aye, and the church had Kor-Karan… killed…” Lhan’s eyes went wide. He stared at Ru-Sul. “This… this has been no trap for us. This is a trap for the Aldhanan! You have lured him here, telling him we hold his daughter in the ruins, and you mean to fall upon him in your black robes, priests pretending to be heretics. This is an assassination!”
Ru-Sul gave him a flat smile. “A shame you haven’t the faith to match your mind. You would have made an excellent priest.” He motioned ahead to where the dark hall opened out again. “We are here. I will introduce you to your fellow players.”
We stepped out into a ginormous room, as big a cathedral, but with a creepy ocean theme going on. There were shell and seaweed designs studded into the marble floor like barnacles, and flaking gold leaf tentacles winding up the massive columns that held up what was left of the roof. A shaft of red sunlight angled through one of the holes up there and lit up a statue of some haughty-faced goddess with a shark-fin on her head at the far end. It made her look like she was covered in blood.
I leaned into Lhan. “I
s this one of them false gods you were talking about?”
“Aye, a goddess of the depths. She demanded human sacrifice.”
“She looks it.”
Shabby tents were set up all around the edges of the room, and an area off to one side had been roped off as a corral for kraes. Disguised priests and paladins cooked their breakfast over campfires and watched us as Ru-Sul led us in. There was also some kind of magic circle painted on the floor in the middle of the chamber, with weird symbols and unlit candles on head-high iron candlesticks all around it.
“What the hell is all that for?”
Ru-Sul smiled. “Set dressing.”
We tramped across the circle toward the shark lady, and I saw that the room had one more interesting feature—a big round hole in the floor right below the pedestal she was standing on. It was about twenty feet wide, and went down so far I couldn’t see the bottom in the murky light. Two paladins with spears in their hands and crossbows on their backs were guarding it.
Ru-Sul turned at the edge and waved a hand like he was a real estate agent showing off a jacuzzi. “Your new home. Also your last.” He motioned to the paladins. “Ready the hooks. Their friends await them.”
Off to one side there were some coils of rope with grapples attached, tied off to various tentacle decorations. The paladins grabbed two of ’em and hooked ’em to the ropes tied around me and Lhan, then kicked us into the hole—no warning, no buildup, just hook, kick, boom.
I yelped like a stepped-on cat as I went into free fall, but the rope pulled tight a second later and I slammed against the side of the pit instead of the bottom. Lhan thudded next to me a second later, gasping, and then I felt the wall rubbing against my face as the paladins started lowering us down into the darkness inch by inch.