by Steve Rzasa
“I’d do better if it weren’t your arse in the way.”
“Stow the quarrels, children.” There’s enough unsettling about this cavern without their bickering.
We reach the bottom of the steps. The twisting and turning of the descent was disorienting, but I’m fairly certain we’re facing south, back toward the edge of town and the rain pond. Years aboard ship will subtly bless one’s sense of direction. Before us a cave yawns, wide and bowl-shaped. It could easily accommodate Sleet’s hull, meaning it has to be eighty feet across.
At the center is what I can only describe as an altar made of misshapen, uncarved stone. It is the same white as the stones that make up the compass in the center of the village. The altar is encircled by a ring of carvings a foot wide. They are worn down and faded with the passing of the ages. My eye can make out a few shapes—three interlocking rings? A fish on the waves? Atop this altar is a mound of obsidian, gnarled as an old tree. The yellow glow from a dozen of the crystals drips off its glassy surface.
The obsidian cradles a metal object.
“The Bloodheart.” Luc gazes upon it, eyes wide. He touches the obsidian gently, as if it would shatter under his tiny fingertips. But I care not about the rock. My eye is fixed on the object of his intensity.
The Bloodheart is made of a silver metal, with a sheen so pure it could only have been forged among the stars. It is no larger than my fist, yet made of hundreds of intertwining strands that form dazzling patterns. A long slot pierces it from top to bottom.
“What…is it?” Niall’s question is awed. This from a man who’s never seen the inside of a church or sat in its pew.
“Platinum. Very rare.” Ariya’s tone is much more subdued. And yet there’s a reverence in her stance, care in the way she steps up to Luc’s side. “The Aevorn use it only for the chalices of community, the ceremonial drink that binds us. We have only six such relics.”
“Rare means valuable.” Niall’s toothy grin emerges. He takes three long strides forward until the shiny patterns of the Bloodheart, pale sunflower and silvery in the light of the crystals, bathe his face. He sheathes his sword. “You hit the nail on the head this time, Bowen. It’s ours for the taking.”
“No.” Luc frowns at him, an expression of puzzlement. “You can’t touch it.”
“What are you babbling of, boy?”
“Only the clean may touch the Bloodheart.”
Niall’s lips curl into a sneer. “So I am filthy, is that it?”
“I have attempted to tell you that many a time, Niall.” A smile plays on Ariya’s face.
He glowers at her and pushes Luc. “Move aside and let me claim our prize.”
“I don’t think you should touch it,” Luc says.
“And I wonder why it is we brought you along,” Niall snaps. He puts a hand on the Bloodheart.
There is a crack like a whip striking air. Something flashes brilliant in the dark cavern, a burst of light not dissimilar to the flash of a pistol firing. Niall yowls in pain. He staggers back from the altar, clutching the wrist of his right hand. The fingers are blackened.
The surface of the Bloodheart sizzles.
Ariya leans in close to Niall. “Let me see the wound.”
“It’s not a wound.” He cradles his hand, and turns away. “I don’t need your mothering.”
“Give your hand here, infant.” She wrenches his wrist and Niall doesn’t resist. He grimaces as her fingers probe the extent of the wound. “It is only a surface burn. Nothing serious, Captain.”
“Well, thank heaven for that.” I can’t help it. A chuckle escapes me. “Perhaps this will teach you to heed Luc’s warning, Niall.”
Niall mutters something under his breath about being hungry, but doesn’t make another move toward the altar. Ariya reaches into her belt and produces a small porcelain bottle. The smell that blossoms when she removes the cork is akin to the fields of clover near my farmhouse…our farmhouse. Ariya salves Niall’s burns.
My beloved did so for me, once, when I’d stuck my hand into some firebrush. I shake the memory off. “So, Luc. Only the clean may touch this relic. I don’t suppose you have someone in mind, do you?”
He bites his lip. I remind myself that despite his poise, his calm, his well-spoken words, this is merely a boy, albeit one who has been orphaned. I wait for an outpouring of grief but none comes. “Father always told me that those who believe have been cleansed. There is blood in the heart, and it has washed the wrongs away.”
I meet his eyes. “You can lay a hand upon it, then?”
He hesitates, and nods.
“You don’t have to, Luc, but please try.” Part of me wants to spare this child from any more pain. But a larger part reminds me of the money owed to creditors, the ones who can take my Sleet and leave me a beggar in worse shape than Luc when I first encountered him.
Luc stares at me. “Will you sell it?”
I glance at Niall. He nods a great exaggerated nod. Ariya jabs him in the ribs with her elbow.
“There’s been no decision made yet.” There. Not a lie. But perhaps not the truth either. My stomach churns. Hunger, and fear. Both powerful motivators to mislead. I desperately want to be the good man. But we don’t always get what we desire.
Ice tickles across my palms. Both of them again. I clench my teeth and will the magic under control. The picture of a leash tightening on a dog’s neck comes to mind.
Luc smiles. “I think I can trust you. But we have to be careful.”
“Of course.” I step back and snap my fingers. “Here, Gridley.”
He trots obediently to me, but gives Luc a worried look. We stand with Niall and Ariya, halfway between the entrance and the altar.
Luc steps closer to the altar. He raises both hands. Places them on the Bloodheart.
Niall flinches.
Nothing. No snap of spark, no flare of light, no cry of pain. Luc’s fingers close about the Bloodheart and lift.
Metal scrapes on rock. It comes loose.
For a moment I see a red glow at its center, tiny, a mere pinpoint like the eye of a cat glinting at you from the shadows by the side of the road. It is gone in a wink. Perhaps I imagined it.
The buzzing in my head diminishes. The whispers, long gone. I chide myself for my foolishness. Soulmages. Their rumors of power and wealth came crashing down in the view of one lonely boy clutching a platinum relic.
“Amazing. He is unharmed.” Ariya gestures. “You see, Niall?”
Niall rolls his eyes.
Ariya walks to Luc, who stands by the altar with the Bloodheart held near. “You have protection about you, child. I can sense it. We of the Aevorn recognize these things in the young.”
“You mean the young you abandon for your quests?” Niall snaps.
Ariya whips about. It’s a cruel and dangerous comment. “It is not safe in the skies outside the roost. You would know that if you were not a male.”
“I’d have your feathers for a belt, missy, if it weren’t—”
“Enough!” I step between them. “This is what happens when a body hasn’t been well-paid.”
“Or well-fed,” Niall grumbles.
“Do not trifle with the Aevorn, Niall. Ariya more than earns her keep. And you know full well why the womenfolk leave the nests.”
“Yes, fine, weaker males few and far between thanks to nasty fevers, tribal warfare, et cetera and so forth.” Niall’s shoulders slump. “This place reeks of death, Bowen. It has me—twitchy.”
“I’d noticed.” I beckon to Ariya. “Apologize to her.”
Niall stiffens. But he does what I ask. “I should not have insulted your people.”
“And you should be grateful I did not gut you,” Ariya says coolly.
Niall chuckles.
I sigh and shake my head. “You’re right, however, is not safe. We should go. Luc?”
He steps from the altar, but stops when his right shoe tip hits the engraved circle in the ground. “Wait. Something is wrong.”<
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Ariya frowns. “Do you sense something amiss?”
“I … I don’t know.” Luc shivers. “I have to put this back. It’s wrong. All wrong.”
“We take our leave now, boy, and that includes departing with that relic.” Niall shoves by me and grabs Luc’s arm. Before I can stop him he’s yanked the boy beyond the circle.
Luc gasps.
A tremor shakes the cavern. Dirt showers down on us, a fine mist.
Ariya spreads her wings and blocks rock fragments. “What is this?”
“You should have let me put it back!” Luc steps away from Niall. “We have to leave now!”
The altar moves. It shudders and shakes. The obsidian slowly sinks into the jumble of rocks. That jumble grinds against each other scraping, shrieking. A green glow builds from within. They’re moving and rearranging, growing taller.
“Get back to the ship! Go, go!” I shout.
Ariya scoops Luc up under the arms and whisks him to the entrance. They disappear up the stairs. Her feet echo like gunshots on the stone steps.
Gridley barks furiously, paws spread apart and ready to fight. Niall unslings the wheellock musket. I’m uncertain whom or what he plans to shoot. A deep rumble answers my question. It is a cacophony of falling rock, an avalanche, and yet… it sounds angry.
Very angry.
The altar builds itself up until it towers ten feet tall. A bulge forms at the top, and the rocks break into two columns halfway down. A long, bulging assembly of stones break from the left side, and from the right.
My throat goes dry. It is the form of a man. A large, hunchbacked and thick-necked man with huge, burly arms, but a man nonetheless. Knobbly stones for shoulders and knees, long jagged shards for muscles, thick slabs for the chest and abdomen, sharp spikes that close together as a crab’s pincers for hands.
Two slits open atop the body. They’re black as a starless night on a storm sea. A gaping maw filled with fangs yawns at us. Its roar of outrage shakes the cavern so much that my bones vibrate in unison.
Niall swears, and aims his musket. “It’s a wonderful outing you’ve brought us on, Bowen!”
“My thoughts precisely!” I raise my pistol.
We fire simultaneously. Smoke and flash obscure our vision.
When it all clears, the golem is still there, unmoved and unmolested. There’s not a mark to show any who might care where our blasts went.
It stomps toward us.
THE SIXTH CHAPTER
~
NIALL AND I RACE SIDE by side up the steps, taking two at a time. Gridley’s tail flashes ahead. The roars of the golem reverberate off the rock. The sound envelopes us. My heart refuses all entreaties for it to slow.
Light above. Almost there.
We burst out into the open, into the desolate center of town. I am frantic for a glimpse of Ariya and Luc. Gridley barks past us, hunched down and ready for the fight, tense and teeth bared.
Niall slaps my shoulder. “There!”
Ariya flies toward the docks, thirty feet above the village. Luc wriggles in her grasp.
“She can make it back in plenty of time to ready Sleet to cast off.” Niall rams home the powder and shot for the musket. “What say we hold this rock pile here until she can do so?”
I reload my pistol, praying for the time necessary to do so before the monster emerges. It bellows again, setting my bones a-rattling. “I say that’s a fine suggestion, and I hereby make it an order.”
Niall grins that savage grin of his. He levels his musket and sights on the hole in the ground from which we emerged. “Come one you great heap of rubble! Show your mug here so I can put one twixt your eyes!”
The ground explodes before us. Dirt and rubble shatter into the air. The immaculate circle of stone is rent asunder. Chunks of the stone stairs shower down as we leap for shelter.
The golem stands before us.
It takes a mighty swipe at Niall. He rolls aside quick as a wink. The rock arm whooshes by with gale force and slams into the ground. The fist buries itself in dirt.
“Ha! Is that your best, foul beast?” Niall plants a boot on its arm and aims the musket with one arm, an expression of extreme smugness on his face. He fires at such a range it’s impossible miss.
He doesn’t. The shot chips the rock between the golem’s eyes. But those dark pits glare back, unfazed and terribly vexed.
“Son of a troll’s hound,” Niall mutters.
The golem yanks its arm free, tossing Niall off his step with the ease of a man removing a gnat from his skin. He tucks and rolls, coming up in a crouch near the blackened ruins of an apothecary’s shop.
The golem pivots to me. I fire my pistol. This shot, too, is a clear hit, but does not more damage to the back of the golem’s head than shooting at the broad side of a mountain. Confound it.
My falchion whispers free of its scabbard. The golem roars and swings at me, but misses. He’s a huge beast but not terribly fast. “Niall! Niall, we may have to reexamine our plans!”
“I bow to your wisdom, Bowen!” He hacks at the golem’s side with his blade. Chips of stone explode but his blade might as well be one of wood rather than of steel. He ducks a blow by the creature.
Gridley runs in circles around the beast, barking, growling, and trying to nip at the golem’s heels. He doesn’t understand the danger—too loyal for his own good when it comes to fell creatures as these.
I put two fingers to my lips and whistle sharp enough it makes Niall grimace. “Gridley, boy! Get gone!”
He bolts for the path out of town. He’ll go right to the ship, at that signal. It’s a rarity I use it. Usually I have a plan of how to utilize him in a brawl.
The golem stomps toward us.
Not so much on the plan, just now.
Niall staggers backwards. He bleeds from a cut on his face. The golem storms after us and swings. They’re all near misses but the monstrosity throws up enough shrapnel from its blows that it’s a hailstorm of rocks with razor edges. A handful slice my forearms. I feint the golem, trying to draw its attention from Niall. It works well enough for the golem to throw another punch. This one comes near enough to shake the ground beneath my feet and send me to my knees.
Niall leaps in, his katana flashing. His angry cries and prodding swipes are enough to again distract the golem. Niall leaps nimbly aside as it takes three swings with stony arms.
“As much fun as this is,” he says, panting, “I daren’t say we can keep it up all morn.”
“Agreed.”
“What’s your game?”
“To drive the thing off the edge!”
Niall casts a weary glance over his shoulder. “Aye, but it’s a long slog back at this rate.”
“Come on!” I break into a run.
We beat feet down the path. I look behind us, expecting the golem to pound the ground at its normal plodding pace.
It doesn’t. It raises its head to the sky and lets out a thunderous bellow that shakes the huts hard enough for beams to fall from ruined walls and the windows remaining to shatter in their frames. Then it slams both fists into the ground with a speed I’d heretofore considered it incapable of achieving.
My grievous error.
A jagged tear opens in the ground and snakes its way to us faster than I’ve ever see Ariya fly or Gridley run. I shout an alarm to Niall. We make to evade but its splits us apart, tosses us aside like the leaves of autumn. Niall tumbles down the lip of a small hillock and slams back first into a low stone wall. His sword skids across the grass.
I go rolling into the rain pond.
Water is a cold shock. Everything is muted and blurred and dark. I flail about for purchase on the land. Fingers lock into the muck. I pull.
My head breaks the surface. Sound comes back as clear as a bell. I gasp, cough and sputter water. Must wipe it away and clear my vision. Massive footsteps shake the ground.
I rub my eyes and look up.
The golem strikes me.
Move!
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It’s a lightning reaction, but nearly too slow. His fist catches my cloak and bashes against my right side. Deadening pain rattles my body. The blow lifts me off my feet and for a moment I am flying, my cloak yanking me into the air, and all I can think in that stunningly quiet moment is, This is what it must be like for Ariya all the time. What a glorious feeling.
That reverie breaks when I slam back into the water. It provides as much cushion as the wooden deck of a cloudship. Dunked under, rolled about, churning and swirling in the water and muck. Someone shouts—Niall.
Up. Up!
Something grabs the back of my cloak and pulls. Soon I slide out of the water like a swan—very well, perhaps an injured, drowning, muck-slathered swan. A rough red tongue licks my face.
Gridley has saved me. Yet again. I wearily pat his cheek. “You cannot keep score of these, old boy, or we’ll never be even.”
He yips and slurps at my face again.
Niall snarls. He’s made the shift into his vulpex form. Before the golem can react he’s launched himself onto its back. I haven’t the faintest clue what Niall hopes to achieve with fangs against rock, but when eight feet of were-fox fur and muscle collide with ten feet of golem stone, it is a titanic struggle for dominance.
Alas, the struggle ends with Niall’s defeat when the golem twists long arms in an unnatural stretch and flings Niall far down the path along the pond. The golem stands up to its knees in the pond, water streaming down rivulets through the cracks and crevasses of rocky muscles.
A whistle from on high pierces the golem’s frustrated roars.
Ariya hovers nearby, crossbow at the ready. But that’s not what she aims to use as a weapon. No doubt she’s seen the pitiful damage Niall’s musket as inflicted on the golem. I’m rather more drawn to the black orb in her left hand, the one that’s smoking from a sputtering fuse.
A bomb.
I’d forgotten we’d traded the orc triplets on Adamton for those. Never quite saw the need unless we happened to get the drop on corsairs or other raiding scum. Leave it to Ariya to have the foresight.
She whistles again. The golem looks up at Ariya.
She smiles down and drops it.