Raiju managed to shove the two apart. “Wait wait wait. You killed your own tribe’s shaman?”
“No!” Gama’s voice became anguished. “Well…sorta.”
“Death Panther convinced Passing Night to stop stealing the lives of his relatives and move on to darker plains,” Yaki offered.
“He was a life-sucker?” Chimon’s mouth had fallen open.
But Raiju stepped back, hunching as if he might throw a punch. “Death Panther?”
Now Gama stepped between Raiju and Yaki, his hands up in a placating gesture. “It was a prophecy. For reasons only the kami Passing Night consulted know, I was supposed to die and then you and Chimon were to become bitter enemies. By being healed, I’m not under the stars of my tribe anymore. So, I follow hers now.”
“Wait, so you believed that fortune-teller?” Chimon asked, his tone incredulous.
“You didn’t?” Gama shot back. “Look, it works out. I go away, you don’t become bitter enemies. Everybody wins.”
“Can we go back to the Death Panther?” Raiju’s gaze shifted to the bushes.
Chimon peered around Gama. “And who is she?”
“She’s a Deathwalker.” Gama said.
“A Deathwalker?” Chimon took a step behind Raiju.
“Gama,” Yaki said in a warning tone. “You really shouldn’t tell them any more.”
“Tell us what?” Raiju growled.
“I owe her my life, Raiju, and I have to help her out. Even if that means I gotta leave.”
“This a Hyla Hute honor thing?” Chimon asked.
“No! It’s a me thing. And an I got nothing else thing!”
“And so, we’re nothing now?” Raiju stepped forward.
Gama went silent for a moment, casting his gaze up into the multihued sky. The Mad Eye traveled among a handful of the brightest stars. “Well”—he swallowed—“that depends.” Gama stepped up to Raiju, swaggering as if he was about to throw a punch. “You gotta make a choice. Are you in or are you out?”
The question seemed to stun Raiju momentarily. Chimon looked directly at Yaki and sucked in his cheeks, eyes traveling up and down her as if searching for something. “Who in the nine hells are you, Badger?”
Yaki smirked. “That depends on how you answer Gama’s question. If it’s no, then I’m Laughing Badger; if it’s yes, then I’m something else.” Although what, I’m not entirely sure anymore, she thought, thinking of how the heat in her chest had become strangely pleasant as she worked on the garden this afternoon.
“I’m in,” said Chimon.
“Chimon!” Raiju spun. “You can’t be serious! You’re a ninth-generation paper pusher! You can’t walk away.”
“And my sister will continue the tradition if whatever we’re doing gets us exiled. This is no time to get buried in the archives. We’re a misplaced sneeze away from war with Lyndon, and if I don’t find out who got Gama so lovestruck he can’t think straight, its going to bother me forever!”
“I’m not—” Gama started.
“Shut up, Gama!” Chimon roared.
Silence settled on the boys. Raiju looked between his friends and blew a hair that had escaped his ponytail out of his eyes with a huff. “Fine, I never wanted to be a scribe anyway.” He looked to Yaki. “Provided you’re not a Yozi or demon or totally evil, I’m in.”
Yaki felt her smirk break into a shining grin. “Yaki of Madria. Pleased to meet you,” she said with a small curtsy.
“Auuugh!” groaned Chimon. “Nine hells’ worth of iron tithes divided by endless void! Ooooh, I should have guessed that!”
“Wait, as in Admiral Madria? The one who worships Coyote?” Raiju went pale. Yaki wondered if he were about to invoke his escape clause.
“Worship isn’t the right word,” Yaki said with a diplomatic air. “But yes, she is or rather, was my mother.”
“She’s dead, then?” Raiju asked, his eyes wandering out from Yaki to stare into empty space.
“And you begin to understand my troubles,” Yaki said.
Chapter Fourteen
The favor of the Sun Emperor sets on everyone eventually; those with family to shield them from the judging eyes of the Sun Priests die above in the warmth of family. But those without family come or are brought to us. The sound of our claiming bells in the night is a fearful thing. Yet it is we who ensure no one in the Golden Hills dies alone.
The Wretch, Enshadowed poet
Daylight’s gaze had left them entirely by the time Gama had finished explaining both the situation and the plan. Chimon needled at Gama’s logic and cash flow, while Raiju discussed practical things like where they could get a hover sled and whether they could control one fully laden without a horse. Yaki went back to gardening, listening with one ear.
Chimon and Raiju shrieking in unison announced Simon’s appearance. To be fair, the ratman had made a showy entrance, vaulting the wall and landing directly behind Gama. Yaki had laughed along with the ratman when they scattered back and drew their rapiers. Once the Enshadowed had been introduced to them, they stood well away from him. Not that Yaki blamed them entirely; Simon had an unpleasant odor that wafted about his person. Not the funk of unwashed humanity but a heavy musk that pressed at the back of the throat and gave one the urge to cough. Yaki told herself to get used to it. She’d promised Simon a spot on her ship’s crew, and to the rat it didn’t matter if they managed to take the Dragonsworn’s ship or purloined a skiff the size of a bathtub. If it floated, he’d be coming with her. That was the deal. And it was one Yaki didn’t plan to renege on. Deals were much easier to make when you intended to keep them.
Of course, Simon’s scent was sweet perfume compared to Yaki’s own charm, which caused a wave of coughs and gagging when she pulled it from the sealed jar as they got ready to move.
As Simon led the five of them through the twisted back alleys, Yaki’s mind kept trying to guess at how Mitsuo would react if he learned that there was no pirate fleet to join forces with or run away from. A traitorous pang of hunger struck her when she thought about the silver substance. Her mind had started confusing food for metal in her dreams. She’d woken up the previous night with a bottomless pit in her stomach and the mental image of a golden bar, smothered in quicksilver and garnished with silver and copper coins.
There was nothing for it.
She had to get Ishe back, then they could figure out how to reverse Yaz’noth’s magic. Minus the still-livid scar on her chest, she appeared human but feared she’d wake up any day now and find her teeth had been replaced with serrated knives. Or maybe the quicksilver had merely numbed her to the pain and she’d drop dead any moment now. Perhaps she had died already, a walking corpse like Passing Night. That happened sometimes to the old without nefarious magics; their bodies passed from living to dead and they never realized it until their fingers fell off.
Simon rescued her from her thoughts as they reached the end of an alleyway, except instead of stopping at the back of a building or garden wall, it sloped steeply, ducking beneath the next building. “Simon is leading all you into the catacombs. It is not forbidden for uncloaked ones to pay call on the Enshadowed, but Simon never see it. Simon not really watch, though; Simon mostly dig and pave roads. No Enshadowed will talk to sundweller unless sundweller speak first. So don’t. We walk to big priest chamber. Ask him to talk to Lady Night.”
“There are priests down here?” Raiju asked, scandalized.
“Not sun priests. Night priests. The born Enshadowed. They never see the sun, not know what they miss.” Simon straightened himself and settled his robes, pulling his tail up into them. Then he tottered forward down the incline. The humans followed, Yaki right behind, followed closely by Gama. Raiju, Chimon, and Guro jockeyed for the rear position. Yaz’noth’s servant watched them all with wariness and disapproval. Yaki did not bother trying to explain her reasoning to him and he hadn’t asked. The less he knew, the better.
At first, they walked forward into utter darkness as they left t
he starry night behind. A shiver crept up her spine. If Simon had meant to betray her, now would be the time. Blindly she walked forward, following the scraping of claws on stone.
When the sound stopped, Yaki stopped. Gama ran into her with a soft oof.
“Simon opening door.” A blaze lit above them, and Yaki threw up a hand to shield herself from the light. Her body tensed to run, but it was as Simon had said: an oak gate with a red torii standing in front of it. Three blackened skulls looked down from its arch. The light, which was bright only when measured against nothing, shone from their empty eye sockets. Only the left skull appeared normal, the center one had a misshapen jaw, and the right appeared to be partially composed of smoke-white crystals instead of bone. Simon bounced back from the three and bowed hurriedly.
The skulls said nothing, but Yaki could feel a gaze crawl over her and linger on her chest. As if they could see right through her skin. As they moved on, she heard her companions shift uncomfortably.
“No... I won’t let it.” A whispered plea drifted through the murk. From Raiju.
The eyes winked out and darkness rushed back in.
“Simon, what was that?” Yaki whispered.
“The three heralds of the Lady. The Mutated, the Malformed and the Malignant. The Lady Night knows that we come. And”—the rattling of brittle wood echoed off the surrounding stone—“and bids us to enter her shrine.” Soft light flowed out from the opening gate; candles marked the continuation of the passage. They illuminated shelves and shelves of jars; the fronts were black and ringed with bone-white characters bearing a name. Cold sweat broke out along Yaki’s forehead as whispers of the dead flooded over her. Babbling and moaning. Her heart gave a mighty pulse, and heat pushed out from her chest and through her mind. It pushed the voices to the edge of her mind and held them there, drowning them out with its steady thrum-thrum.
“Gama!”
Yaki half-turned to see Chimon and Raiju supporting Gama from either side. His head lolled back, eyes wide with fear. “I’m fine,” he managed to a gasp.
“He hears them too well.” Simon squinted at Gama and gestured down the hallway. “No listen to these. They cannot see.” The ratman wrinkled his nose as if there was a bad smell.
They continued into the catacombs, Gama being propped up by Raiju. The catacombs’ hallway wasn’t precisely straight but curved and branched as if it had been dug out of the rock by someone eyeballing the construction. They passed branches that appeared to be identical. “Simon, does anyone visit these graves?” Yaki asked, more to stop listening to the alien beat of her heart than from actual curiosity.
“Keepers come and sweep the dust. But this is the halls of the forgotten. Any without a family shrine rest here,” Simon said.
“It doesn’t sound like they’re doing much resting at all.” Gama said.
“They...” Simon trailed off thoughtfully, tilting his head. “…are excited by something.”
“They tell me I should stay here.” Gama swallowed; he rubbed the spot where Chimon’s blade had pierced him.
“Jealous are the dead. But don’t speak ill of them in front of Lady Night.”
“Noted,” Yaki said. Another door loomed in front of them, plain and unadorned. Looking at it, Yaki got the feeling that she was viewing it from the wrong side, as if Simon had guided them up through the catacombs backward somehow.
The doors cracked open and swung inward, revealing a menagerie of hooded figures that swiveled toward the party. Yaki slammed up the Lady Cat mask and forced it into a serene expression before the instinctual grimace could arise. Time to see who would partner in this bout of dance. Yaki strode forward, head high, drinking in their gaping stares. The room she entered was circular, with the center closed off by heavy stone panels, creating a separate square chamber in the middle. Desks were against the far walls, and wooden boards had been attached to display schematics and maps of the city streets. While that wall seemed draped in practicality, the inner walls exuded mysticism. Carved into the stone were the three skulls that had guarded the door. And below them danced the willowy figure that could only be the Lady Night. She wore a stag’s skull as a mask, its antlers draped with smaller skulls. Her fingers were long and willow-like, and below her waist, she was supported on nearly a dozen root-like tentacles. In one mural Yaki could see, she led a mass of huddled infants, each sporting their own terrible deformity, down steep stairs and away from an angry sun.
The other face of the box was covered by a large pulpit that had been constructed in front of it. Standing behind the large book he had presumably been reading from stood a hunched figure. “What is this?” he called out from his place. Yaki figured that if the man had been able to straighten his back, his head would strike the ceiling. He jabbed a finger toward Simon. “You there, unveil yourself so I might see who led unwelcomed sun dwellers to our inner sanctum.”
“Simon I.” He threw back his hood.
The priest squinted in disdain, as if he were in any place to cast judgment on Simon’s appearance. His eyes were too widely set and his skull too round, decorated with sparse white hairs. His mouth was too small, as if it had stopped growing, but unlike the fellow seated below him, the priest appeared to at least have all his limbs. “You’ve skirted our laws many a time, brother Simon.”
Yaki walked forward. “I’m here to speak with Lady Night. Nothing more, nothing less.”
The priest’s gaze shifted, lips scrunched up if as unpleasant taste had touched his tongue. “And on whose behalf are you here?”
“Mine,” Yaki said, looking directly into his eyes.
“Are you ready to pay the Lady’s price, girl?” A smirk played at the corner of his lips.
Yaki bristled, her tongue tangled between taking umbrage as being called a mere child and asking what the cursed man meant by price. Yet he had already turned away to gesture to another cloaked figure at the foot of the priest’s platform. The figure lifted his foot and stomped on the stone floor.
CRACK! Yaki heard the sound not just with her ears but through her feet as one edge of the mural with Lady Night and the malformed orphans surged open. A dark, two-foot-wide crack in the box that made up the center gaped open.
“You are expected,” the priest said. “May shadows keep you safe.”
The crowd cleared a path into what Yaki suspected was a tomb. Her hands itched for a basin to wash them in, but the Enshadowed didn’t bring one.
Chapter Fifteen
Lady Night favors three,
The Malformed, who are her mouth
The Malignant, who are her heart
The Mutated, who are her hands
The Wretch, Enshadowed poet
The light of three skulls welcomed the five of them as they entered. A damp chill instantly bit at Yaki’s fingers and nose, as a light trickle of running water babbled through the murk. The three sets of eyes that glowed far above them only seemed to emit enough light to illuminate themselves, leaving the remainder of the room in darkness. “Hello again,” Yaki said as the entrance slid shut behind them.
They did not answer as more lights reluctantly flickered to life.
Yaki had expected a coffin, but instead, they stood on the edge of a perfectly round pool surrounded by five pillars, each topped with a large glowstone.
Everyone took a step back from the edge.
“Do you not wish to join me for a swim?” A feminine voice drifted from the pool; it had a slight creak of age to it.
“That is not what we’re here for, ma’am,” Yaki said, searching for the source of the voice.
Laughter rippled through the water as something white rose up from its depths. Huge antlers pierced the surface, wider than Yaki’s height. Adorned with twenty points, the magnificent skull that they were anchored in followed them up from the water, the skull’s surface bleached so white that it seemed to amplify the brightness of the glowstones. The eyes were a spiral of darkness and nothingness. Fingers curled up around the edges of the pool,
bending more in the manner of tentacles, digits that held only the faint memories of bones. Lady Night’s slim body seemed to be composed of nothing but shadows cast by something unseen but solid. The smell smashed into Yaki’s nose, wet decay that burned with every breath. Yaki knew it. Everyone in the Golden Hills did: the Grief. Now they were all trapped below the city with one of them. “Nine hells” escaped her lips, as Yaki believed she was about to find out which one she’d wind up in.
Everyone shrank back from it; they knew they could not fight the Grief without daylight or a sun crystal, but the trio’s swords slipped from their scabbards anyway. Yaki found her view blocked by Gama and then pinned in place by Chimon and Raiju at her sides Only Simon remained where he stood, although he no longer stood but had sunk onto his haunches, head bowed respectfully, ears plastered to his head.
The antler head tilted slightly, making the skulls that had been tied to them clack together like gruesome wooden chimes. Yaki peered around Gama’s torso to find those swirling eyes staring directly into hers. “So young and already collecting men to die for you,” the Lady said. “Would you give one to me? I have not joined with a sundweller in over a century. Perhaps the big one? You seem rather attached to the tall one.”
Yaki abruptly realized she had both arms around Gama’s waist. A flush ran up her skin as she jerked her hands away. It took a surprising amount of effort. Sandwiched among the trio, she felt them all stiffen. “They’re not mine,” Yaki managed to say.
“They certainly look like yours. All willing to die before I got to you.” White flashed in the dark within the skull’s jaw; a grin? “What is your wish, Yaki of Madria? Beneath your corpse charm you have the scent of desperation and larceny.”
Gently pushing Gama out of the way, Yaki stepped toward the pool. “Simon tells me you have a grievance against House Nishamura. I wish to be the instrument by which you make your displeasure known.”
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