by D. P. Prior
Nameless stiffened. Like Rhiannon’s black sword, it reminded him too much of the axe he’d found in Gehenna. “You sure you know what that is, laddie?”
“Mostly.” Shader re-sheathed the sword. “It’s a gladius, an ancient weapon. It is known as the Sword of the Archon.”
“The shogger who wants me dead?”
“He does?”
“I heard. Least I think I did, after Aristodeus put this helm on my head. There was a voice, like the rustle of leaves. I could have been dreaming, I suppose.”
“No,” Shader said. “That sounds like the Archon. What did he say?”
“That I was a pawn of the Demiurgos. That if I lived, thousands would die.”
“Thousands?” Shader couldn’t keep the dread from his face. “That’s what he said? That you would kill thousands?”
“That they would die,” Nameless said. “So, how did you come by his sword? I don’t believe you stole it.”
“I won it in a tournament,” Shader said. “It came with certain responsibilities I didn’t want to take on.”
“So, you did steal it.”
Shader smiled. “In a manner of speaking. But the supreme ruler of the Templum, the Ipsissimus, forgave me. At least, I think he did.”
“And where does Aristodeus come into this?” Nameless said. “You said he mentored you, same as he mentored my brother. I find it hard to believe he didn’t engineer you getting hold of that sword.”
“He prepared me to win it,” Shader said. “Over many years.”
“And you know this Archon?” Nameless said. “Can he be trusted?”
Shader sighed and, without looking, untied the cord from his belt and began to pick at the knots on it. Nameless was beginning to think he’d chosen not to answer, but when one of the knots came undone, Shader said, “I don’t know. Same as I no longer know if Aristodeus can be.”
Nameless nodded. “I know what you mean there. That shogger knows more than he should about what’s been going on, and I’m undecided about which side of the fence he’s on.”
“He was my tutor,” Shader said. “From the age of seven onwards. It was Aristodeus who taught me to fight, prepared me for entering the Elect, the Order of knights I belonged to.”
“Belonged?”
Shader looked up at the eye-slit. “I left.” He held up the cord. “This is a Nousian prayer cord. It’s an aid to contemplation. I found it increasingly difficult to reconcile the way of prayer with the way of the sword.”
“And yet you still carry a blade, even as you pick away at those knots.”
Shader smiled and shook his head. “Don’t see I have much choice. Someone needs to stop Sektis Gandaw, and fate—or Aristodeus—seems to have decided that’s me.”
“So, you are not here out of choice?”
“Not really,” Shader said.
Nameless could certainly relate to that: being caught up in events he neither wished for or controlled. “So, we’re both pawns, then.”
Shader chewed that over before he answered. “There are choices open to us. There are always choices.”
“I used to believe that,” Nameless said. “But these days, I’m not so sure.”
“Believe it again,” Shader said. “No matter what they throw at us—fate, the Demiurgos, Aristodeus, even—we can still decide how to react. How to conduct ourselves. No matter the situation, there is always a right and a wrong way to be.”
“If you have the eyes to see it,” Nameless said. He certainly hadn’t when he’d emerged from Gehenna. He’d seen things, right enough—demons overrunning the ravine—but the reality had been another thing entirely.
“Urddynoor,” Nameless said. “To my people, it’s a dream world.”
“As is Aethir to mine,” Shader said.
“And yet, here you are,” Nameless said, “a man from Urddynoor sitting around a fire with a dwarf of Aethir. How can that be? How did you get here?”
“Shadrak,” Shader said. “He brought us here in a plane ship.”
“Beats a gaudy one, I suppose.”
Shader laughed. “The other sort of plane: a different order of existence; at least that’s how it was explained to me.”
“By Aristodeus?”
A thunderclap sounded from beyond the copse. They looked at each other. Shadrak must have found supper.
“What is that wand thing of his?” Nameless asked.
“Ancient tech. A gun. Sometimes he calls it his Thundershot. Things like that are rare on Urddynoor, but from time to time the secrets of the old world come to light.”
“So, Urddynoor has a mythical past, just like Aethir. Ours is full of Dwarf Lords, sinking cities, and all manner of beasts from the lands of nightmare beyond the Farfall Mountains.”
“Ours is…” Shader started, and then stopped to recollect himself. “Ours is divided into the times before and after a cataclysm known as the Reckoning. Our Ancients lived under the rule of Sektis Gandaw and his Global Technocracy. Everything that did not conform to his vision of order was gradually eradicated: every culture, religion, every freely chosen expression, until all that remained to oppose him was the continent of Sahul. Finally, he moved his metal monsters in to subjugate the Sahulians, but their Dreamers, their native people, fought back. Or rather, one of them did: a shaman called Huntsman. He had possession of the one thing Sektis Gandaw needed to unweave all the worlds.”
“This Statue of Eingana?” Nameless said.
Shader nodded. “Huntsman used its power to turn the tide. He opened doorways between your world and mine, and creatures of nightmare came streaming through to destroy the civilization of the Ancients. It’s said Eingana had a son, you know. A dog-headed ape.”
“The Cynocephalus?” Nameless said. The god who had dreamed the world of Aethir into existence, and now lay sleeping fitfully in the bowels of Gehenna, on the cusp of the Abyss.
Shader nodded. “The same. It was his dreams that bled through to Urddynoor, or rather, his nightmares. Sektis Gandaw fled to Aethir in a plane ship, like the one that brought me here, and Huntsman broke apart the statue into five pieces, and entrusted each to its own guardian, so that it would be next to impossible for Gandaw to find them in the future.”
“But he has found them,” Nameless said. “And the Unweaving has commenced.”
“Last time, a thousand years ago, Maldark the Fallen prevented it.”
“Aye, laddie,” Nameless said. “I was meaning to ask you about that. You say you met Maldark? But how can that—”
A tree trunk rippled and Shadrak emerged from it, the concealer cloak falling open as he walked. He held a dead armadillo by the tail.
“Now that beats a squirrel any day,” he said.
“Just make sure you cook it thoroughly,” Nameless said. “They were all the rage back in the ravine, until Thom Larny caught leprosy from eating one half-raw.”
“Brought this, too,” Shadrak said, tossing Nameless a waterskin. “Thought you might be able to pour some through the eye-slit, maybe get a drop or two in your mouth.”
“Obliged to you, laddie,” Nameless said. He unstoppered the costrel and tipped his head back. The cold water splashing his face felt good, and some of it trickled to his lips.
Shadrak slung another waterskin to Shader. “Drink as much as you like. We can refill before we set off in the morning.”
An hour later, Shadrak and Shader tore off strips of char-blackened armadillo and chewed morosely. Nameless dropped a piece of meat through the eye-slit, but it fell to the bottom of the helm, and try as he might, he couldn’t get it anywhere near his lips. He gave up then. Last thing he needed was a pile of moldering armadillo flesh stinking up the inside of his ma’s helm.
His rumbling tummy brought the black dog scampering from the recesses of his mind. If it had been a real dog, it might have wolfed down the meat he’d dropped through the eye-slit. But that would have been way too useful. Instead, it harried him with gloomy thoughts and a crushing sense of hopeles
sness.
Dimly, he became aware Shadrak was asking him a question, and was holding up a slender pick.
“Want me to get those manacles off you? You two go waltzing into a city with chains hanging from your wrists, they’ll lock you up in no time. And while I’m about it, you can tell us what you know about New Londdyr.”
Nameless held out his wrists, and Shadrak began to poke about with his pick.
What he knew? Nameless didn’t know much, save for what he’d heard from the Annals.
“Laddie, I’ve been stuck in a ravine all my life. All I can tell you is that it’s big. Very big. And it’s governed by a Senate.”
The first clasp clicked open and the manacle thudded to the floor trailed by a snaking length of chain.
“But my people have had no contact with the world above since the time of the Fallen. It’s as new to me as it is to you.”
“Great,” Shadrak said. “This just gets better and better.”
“Thing that’s been troubling me,” Nameless said, “is why we couldn’t go straight to the Perfect Peak. You said there were things outside, guarding it. What kind of things?”
“Some kind of tech,” Shader said. “Silver spheres that spit fire. We’d last no longer than a few seconds. We were lucky to make it back to the Sour Marsh.”
“But not lucky enough to find my scutting plane ship,” Shadrak said, wincing as he worked on the second manacle. “We landed in the marsh, but when we went back, the ship was gone.”
“Sure you went back to the right place?” Nameless asked.
Another click, and another thud and rattle of chain. “Course I’m sure.” Shadrak tapped his temple. “Perfect memory. Never forget a place, a name, or a face.”
“Wish I’d known you sooner, then,” Nameless said. “Because no other shogger can recall my name. So, tell me about the Sour Marsh.” Maybe hearing about such exotic places would drive the black dog back to its corner.
“Shog-hole, is what it is,” Shadrak said. He pointed with his pick at Shader’s manacles.
“The place is alive,” Shader said, holding out his wrists. “Sentient. It apparently oozes beneath these Farfall Mountains you mentioned, carries pestilence through from the land of nightmares.”
“Does it now?” Nameless said. “Now that is a worrying thought. I must go there.”
“Why?” Shadrak said, freeing Shader from one restraint, then setting to work on the other. “You got a thing for giant maggots and will-o-the-wisps that lead you into the mire to drown?”
“Well, it’s different,” Nameless said.
“And lizard-men,” Shader added, rubbing his wrists when Shadrak freed him of the other manacle. “Creatures melded by Sektis Gandaw. One of them, their leader, Skeyr Magnus, had a gauntlet of power he’d stolen from the Technocrat. He saw himself as usurping Gandaw, only…”
“Only he was a cowardly scut,” Shadrak said, “who’d rather skulk away the rest of his life in the swamp than do anything useful. Sound familiar?”
It did, but Nameless wasn’t sure he liked what was being implied. His own people were no different, though, he had to admit that. But hearing it said by an outsider was like putting out a haunch of mutton for the black dog to come gnaw on. It was only by an effort of will that he fought back the encroaching dark of depression.
“So, you decided to come to Arx Gravis instead.”
“Not by choice,” Shadrak said. “This scut that followed us from Urddynoor showed up in the Sour Marsh.”
“Dave the hunchback,” Shader said. “Though how he got to Aethir is a mystery.”
“Stowaway?” Nameless suggested.
“I don’t think so,” Shader said. “Not given what we saw when we entered Arx Gravis; when we passed beneath the archway.”
“A demon,” Nameless said, doing his best to steer his memories away from what the black axe had made him see during the massacre.
“No other explanation,” Shadrak said. “And a right shogger to kill, he was.”
“But you killed him?”
Shadrak looked at Shader. “He did.”
It was no wonder the dwarves had reacted like they did. Visitors to Arx Gravis were bad enough, but a demon…
“We should get some sleep,” Shader said, settling himself down on the ground by the fire.
Nameless couldn’t argue with that. He was bone weary. He lay down beneath his tree.
Shadrak muttered something under his breath, but then it fell quiet.
Last thing Nameless remembered was the gentle lapping of the waves from the inland sea, the chirping of cicadas, and the flutter of bats’ wings overhead.
MARESMAN BUSINESS
Nameless knew he was dreaming. He had to be. He’d fallen asleep beneath a tree, but here he was in an immense cavern formed from coal. Here he was circling a monolith of ice. There was a shape within the glistening block, much as the black axe had been encased in crystal. While it was no axe, it was formed from the same nebulous shadow: a giant as tall as the Aorta. He had to step away from it to see the head hundreds of feet above: it was featureless as the Void, save for eyes of coruscant violet. It did not move. It did not speak. All it did was laugh within his skull, a bubbling, malign mirth that burned him with shame, froze him with despair. He was a disappointment, a failure, but over and above all else, he was a butcher.
Something roared.
The cavern shook under the impact of thunderous hooves. A rasping slither. A tortured flutter. Clopping. Whuffs and whinnies. A pounding, galloping wind, crashing toward him like a rockfall.
He snapped awake and rolled aside.
Something huge shot past him in spurts of coiling undulation. He struck the trunk of the tree, pulled himself to his feet. Where was his axe? Where was his shogging—
Thunder boomed.
Shadrak.
Nameless panned the great helm, saw only the denser black of the copse.
A flare of aureate brilliance—Shader drawing his sword. It wove a golden thread through the night as he turned a circle.
The rockfall—the pounding crash of hooves rumbling toward them.
“Out of the way! Maresman business!”
Nameless pressed himself against the bark as a horse and rider thundered by.
Shader swung round behind them, watched them pass.
Something dark dropped from a low branch: Shadrak, landing in a crouch, his gun tracking the horseman.
“See that thing he was chasing?” Shadrak said. “I tell you, you don’t want to be sleeping on the ground no more.”
Nameless saw the glint of his axe in the glow coming off Shader’s sword. He snatched it up.
“What the shog was that?” Not just whatever had torn through their camp, but the giant encased in ice he’d circled in his dream.
Shader started across the copse in pursuit.
“Leave it,” Shadrak said. “Let’s get out of—”
A shrill scream split the night.
“The horse,” Shader said. He was already running toward the sound.
Nameless barreled after him, dimly aware of Shadrak slipping away to his flank.
They emerged from the other side of the copse into a chaos of limbs.
The horse was on its back, kicking and whinnying. Something thick and incredibly long was coiled about its body. Swaying above the horse’s head was the torso of a man, tapering away into a serpent’s body. It had the head of a bull, ruby eyes glinting in the moonlight. Feathered wings flapped furiously from its back. One of them was broken.
The rider must have been thrown. He was scrambling to his feet. Black coat, black hat, broad face, heavy with scars. He ran at the beast constricting his horse. He had no weapon, but his fist came up wreathed in flame.
The bull-head cannoned into him, butted him skyward. The man rolled as he fell; charged again.
Shader darted in, rammed his sword into the undulating body. A wing smacked him aside, leaving the gladius buried to the hilt in scales.
&n
bsp; As the bull-head veered toward Shader, blocking him from retrieving his blade, Nameless delivered a woodcutter’s chop to its mannish torso. It reared up so fast, he struck the scales beneath its thorax, and the axe flew from his grasp. It was like hitting rock.
Shadrak fired, and blood sprayed. The beast roared and launched itself at him, anchoring its tail on the weakening horse. Shadrak tumbled aside of an eviscerating gore, fired again, but the creature switched back with blistering speed. It caught him by the cloak in one monstrous hand. Shadrak backflipped and kicked it in the snout. His cloak came unclasped, and he dived out of the way of a head-butt that would have pulverized him.
The black-coated man leapt onto the beast’s back and slammed his flaming fist into its neck. It screeched and bucked, and flung him clear. This time, he hit the ground hard and struggled to rise.
The head came at him, but the man got his palm up in time. Flames burst from it, and the creature recoiled screaming. Its coils contracted with sudden force. There was an answering crack, and the horse shuddered and stilled.
Shadrak came on, blasting with his Thundershot. The first two shots ricocheted off scales. The third punched a hole in the beast’s torso. The tail whipped out from beneath the horse and lashed at him. He ducked beneath it, sprang atop a coil, and bounded off to one side, firing as he fell. The tip of a horn shattered. Shadrak hit the ground rolling, and kept on rolling till he was clear.
Shader darted in and yanked his sword out of the scales it was embedded in. The head arced down. He slashed at it, turned it aside, but the tail whipped around his chest. He gasped, and hacked at the coils crushing him, but there was no power to his blows.
Nameless bellowed and charged. The head swung toward him. His axe thudded into fur and sinew, but the impact jolted his arm. Slinging blood in its wake, the head slammed into the great helm with a resonant clang. The axe went flying, but Nameless stood his ground and fired off a right hook. The beast snorted, and hammered him with a punch of its own. His chainmail bore the brunt, but the force of the blow drove him to his knees.