by D. P. Prior
He turned the helm to look at Shadrak seated behind. The assassin was nervous. The creature that had attacked him in New Londdyr had put the fear of shog in him, and seeing it waiting for them as they entered the ant-hill only made it worse. Not only was it stalking them, but it now seemed one step ahead, as if it knew what they were attempting to do and was planning to stop them. It was too much of a coincidence to think it was just some random predator that had picked up their scent.
Albert was beside Shader on the next seat back. They were silent, Albert fiddling with his cheese-cutter, Shader looking straight ahead like he was staring at his own tomb. He’d not been right since they broke him out of jail. A pall of shame and defeat hung over him.
Without warning, the tunnel walls bulged and contracted.
“Ain’t right,” Rugbeard said.
The tunnel began to twist and turn, like they were passing through the insides of a writhing serpent.
Rugbeard raised his hands. “Ain’t right, I tell you. These here tracks run straight as the crow flies.”
It had to be the warping effects of the Unweaving. They were running out of time.
There was a muffled thud from the roof of the train, a frantic scrabbling and scratching.
Everyone looked up, but there was nothing to be seen. Shadrak’s pink eyes glanced Nameless’s way, and he drew his Thundershot.
The undulations stopped as quickly as they’d started, and the train picked up speed.
“Hold on!” Rugbeard called out. “Some shogger’s left a mine cart on the track!”
The undercarriage screeched, and the train juddered. A few more jolts, and the train came to a halt.
Rugbeard hit a switch, and the sides slid back, revealing a stone platform lit from above by flickering strips of crystal. Something dark streaked past the opening.
Shadrak was out like a shot, leading with his gun. Nameless climbed out after him, holding his axe in a death-grip. He scarcely dared to breathe as they waited and watched, but there was nothing.
In front of them was a mine cart filled to the brim with chunks of scarolite. They’d missed it by a hair’s breadth.
Rugbeard jumped down from the train. “Ain’t nothing short of dangerous, is what—”
There was a whoosh of air further along the platform. It was followed by a resonant clang.
“Thought this tunnel wasn’t in use,” Shadrak said.
“It ain’t,” Rugbeard said. “Dwarves ain’t come to the Perfect Peak in a very long time.”
Albert gingerly stepped onto the platform, as if it might sprout teeth and bite his legs off.
Shader emerged last and walked straight past them. Nameless exchanged a look with Shadrak, then they set off after the knight.
Shader waited for them before a huge circular portal that must have been thirty-feet in diameter. Its center was a swirl of steel petals surrounding a central aperture no bigger than a coin.
“Iris valve,” Rugbeard said. “Only, we don’t have the code.” He wandered over to it and slapped a panel on the wall.
“This is the way?” Shader asked.
“Right into the roots of the Perfect Peak,” Rugbeard said. “Far as I ever been. Even back in the day, the ore would’ve been dropped off here, and Gandaw’s creatures would take it into the mountain.”
Shadrak pushed past Rugbeard and glared at the panel.
“It’ll take more than lock picks for that,” Albert said. “Suppose you could blast it, if you had any more of those blasty things left.”
Nameless leaned over Shadrak’s shoulder and watched as the assassin placed his fingertips on the glass, each one touching a glowing shape. When he traced his fingers along the surface, the shapes moved with them. With a quick succession of swipes, he rearranged the patterns, and they started to flash green. There was a sharp rush of air—the same whoosh they had heard moments after leaving the train—and the petals of the iris valve retracted until the aperture filled its circular frame.
Shadrak stepped away from the panel, a befuddled look on his face.
“Laddie?” Nameless said.
Shadrak waved him away. He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked like he had no idea what he’d just done, or how. Not for the first time, Nameless saw him as a homunculus. It would explain a lot: the plane ship, his eagle-like vision, the way he’d just worked out the panel, but it left a lot unanswered, too: If Shadrak was a homunculus, how come he didn’t know it? Because one thing was for certain: he really believed it when he said he was human, albeit a midget, and sickly-looking as shog.
“Come on,” Shadrak said, his eyes re-focusing. “Let’s get this over and—”
Shader pushed past him and stepped through the iris valve. The instant he crossed the threshold, a red light started to wink on the panel. Before Nameless could say anything, Rugbeard had gone after the knight.
“So much for caution,” Albert said. “What’s the red light?”
Shadrak glared at the panel. “How the shog should I—?”
There was a fizzing crackle from beyond the iris valve, a burst of light, and a scream.
“Rugbeard!” Nameless cried as he ran through the aperture.
He heard Albert and Shadrak right behind him.
Nameless was met with the impression of a vast space and the stench of roasting meat. Something silver flashed above him. He roared and flung his axe. Metal struck metal, and sparks flew. The axe clanged to the floor, and the silver sphere it had struck whirred and gyred away. It spun in a wide arc, steadied itself, then dived toward him.
Shadrak’s Thundershot bucked in his hand. It boomed. There was a blinding flash, and silver rained down in a thousand pieces that clattered to the floor.
Shadrak threw himself into a roll and came up beside a pile of black ore. He held the Thundershot in both hands, and his eyes flitted all over the place.
Shader and Albert stood staring down at the charred and smoldering body of Rugbeard.
Nameless dropped to one knee and let out a long, keening moan. In his mind’s eye, he saw a stretcher laid out on the floor of the hearth-room back home. His pa was upon it, covered in rock-dust from where the mine gallery had collapsed on him.
He cradled Rugbeard, rocking back and forth. Rugbeard had been there when the miners brought Droom home. So had Thumil and Cordy. It felt like his heart passed through a mangler till all the blood was squeezed from it.
His focus was pulled back to the moment when he heard Shadrak’s boots crunching as he came round the ore stack. He lay Rugbeard down, gently closed his eyes, then stood, feeling like he was the last of his kind, no matter how stupid the thought. His people were as good as dead to him. There was no hope of ever going back to Arx Gravis.
The chamber was so massive, he could barely see the far wall. There were heaped piles of scarolite all over the floor. He’d never before seen so much of the precious ore in one place.
A metallic rasp turned his head, and he swore as the iris valve snapped shut. High above, red lights blinked like evil stars, and smoke began to rise through grilles set into the floor.
“What’s happening?” Albert said.
Shader was staring at the smoke coiling about his boots like a man consigned to the Abyss and despairing that anything could be done about it. Sweat was streaming down Albert’s face.
“We have to get out,” Shadrak said, sprinting for the iris valve. There was a panel on the inside. He ran his hand over it, but nothing happened. He stepped back and fired the Thundershot. Sparks flew, black smoke plumed from the panel, but the iris valve remained shut.
“Now what?” Albert said.
It was hot. Too hot, and the soles of Nameless’s feet were blistering through his boots. He shuffled from foot to foot and then started to run in a wide circle, just to break the contact with the floor. Albert followed suit, hopping and squawking like a deranged folk dancer.
Then Nameless had a flash of insight. Scarolite absorbed force. It was virtu
ally indestructible, and it was the perfect insulator.
“To the ore stack!” he bellowed. He lunged for its base, and the minute his feet touched scarolite, the sizzling stopped.
Albert made a beeline for the stack, but Shadrak veered toward Shader, grabbed his coat sleeve, and dragged him over to it. The knight offered no resistance, but neither did he seem to appreciate the danger he was in.
It was a brief respite. The heat continued to rise, and the air grew thinner. High above, another silver sphere swooped into view and began to circle the ore stack.
A nozzle emerged from the sphere, and searing light streamed from it.
Nameless swept his axe up. Light bounced from the blades, sent burning heat into his palms. He let go the haft and the axe clattered to the ore-stack, glowing red.
The sphere circled them and then soared toward Albert.
Shadrak let rip with three shots from his Thundershot. The first two ricocheted from the outer casing, but the third sent the sphere whirling and shrieking to the far side of the stack.
“Bugger,” Albert said, pointing at the far wall.
Brownish-yellow gas was cascading down from vents and rolling out across the floor.
“If that’s what I think it is—”
“What, Albert?” Shadrak demanded. “What is it?”
“If you get a whiff of horseradish, ask me again. Although, if the concentration’s high enough, you might not get the chance.”
Nameless pivoted to take in the rest of the room through the eye-slit. There was no way out he could see; no exit save for the iris valve, and that was a dead end.
A whining, droning sound reached his ears, and the silver sphere spun into view. It dropped a few feet, righted itself, and then started to rise in fits and starts.
A carpet of dirty gas was inching its way across the chamber, and more of the stuff was flooding out from the far wall.
Albert clambered up the ore stack toward its summit some twenty feet above the floor. “Once there’s enough volume, it’ll start to rise,” he said.
Shader curled his fingers around the hilt of his gladius. He winced and gritted his teeth. He tried to draw the sword but finally let go.
Nameless glanced at the gas roiling toward them, then at his axe. There was no way in shog he was leaving it behind. He closed his fingers around the haft and felt the skin of his palm bubble and blister.
With a curse, he started to climb up after Albert, but Shader was in a daze at the bottom, staring blankly at the gas now swirling about his boots. As Shadrak came up, Nameless went back down, grabbed the knight by the arm and made him follow.
At the top, he leaned back to look up. The ceiling was maybe fifty feet above, crisscrossed with girders, and there was a circular opening just shy of the ore stack, toward which the silver sphere was heading.
Shadrak saw it, too. He holstered his gun and leapt from the summit. He caught hold of the sphere, and it spat fire at him, singeing the hood of his cloak. Grabbing the nozzle, he ripped it from its socket amid a spray of sparks. The sphere emitted a shrill cry and shot upward. Shadrak clung on by the tips of his fingers.
As the assassin’s boots disappeared through the opening, they suddenly shot to one side, as if he’d thrown himself clear. A gunshot sounded, another close behind—too close. Two guns had fired almost at the same time. There was a rustle of movement, a dull thud.
“Laddie?” Nameless called up at the opening.
Nothing.
“Shadrak!” Albert cried. “The gas is rising!”
The murky cloud was up to Nameless’s knees, even at the top of the ore stack.
From above came a succession of wet stabbing sounds, a grunt of effort.
Something dark dropped through the opening. It made a pulpy splat as it struck the ore-stack, then bounced down till it vanished beneath the carpet of gas.
It had been a head. A featureless head, sleek and black as tar.
“Lovely!’ Albert called up. “Now get us out of here!”
The gas reached Nameless’s chest.
“Shadrak!” Albert’s voice was shrill.
“Laddie?”
The gas continued to inch upward. Shader still seemed unconcerned. He looked numb to what was going on, turned in on himself.
A silver disk floated down from the aperture in the ceiling. It was attached to nothing Nameless could see. And again, a flash of recollection: of him riding such a disk beneath the waters of the Sanguis Terrae. Of him stepping off of it in a cavern of scarolite in the underworld of Gehenna.
“Get on!” Shadrak yelled down through the opening as the disk alighted atop the ore-stack.
“It’s below the level of the gas,” Albert called back. “What do we—”
“Get the shog on!” Nameless barked, stepping to where the disk had sunk beneath the gas and taking Shader with him.
Albert jumped and then did as he was told.
“All right, laddie,” Nameless yelled. “Bring us up!”
The metal beneath their feet vibrated as the disk carried them upward, out of the mist. It came to a hover a few feet above the opening. Directly overhead was another circular aperture, through which the disk could presumably rise further.
To one side lay a glistening black creature, viscous fluid pumping from the stump of its neck. Its limbs were long and slender, its legs articulated backward like a bird’s. Silver glinted from its torso: dozens of daggers nestled in some kind of harness.
On the other side, Shadrak lay slumped in a heap, barely visible in his concealer cloak. Blood stained one shoulder, and his pallid face seemed a whole shade whiter.
Albert stooped over him and prodded him with a finger. “Shadrak?”
“Laddie?” Nameless said. “Laddie, are you all right?”
Shader knelt beside the assassin’s head. He pulled out his book and opened it to read.
Shadrak cracked an eye open. “Oh, no,” he rasped. “No you shogging don’t.”
He tried to move, but Albert leaned in close and restrained him. “I can stem the flow of blood. Just keep still.”
Albert unclasped the concealer cloak and took a knife from Shadrak’s baldric to cut up the fabric.
“That’s the creature that was watching me in the city, right enough,” Nameless said. “Looks a shog sight better with its head off. Where’s its gun?”
“Gone,” Shadrak grunted. “Turned to dust. Shot me first, though. Think I’m done for. You’re wasting your time.”
“Don’t be so silly,” Albert said. “You’re coming with us. No one else knows how to use these panels.” He nodded to a plinth beside where Shadrak lay. A red light winked atop it.
“Too weak, Albert. You need to find Gandaw, stop the Unweaving.”
Nameless walked over to the opening and peered down. “Gas has cleared,” he said. Then he got on his belly for a better look. “And the iris valve’s open. Was that you?”
Shadrak nodded. “Just don’t ask me how.”
Shader stood and put his book away. He seemed there all of a sudden, back from whatever inner torment possessed him. Nameless knew that feeling well, knew how the black dog could pounce when he least expected it, then retreat to the corners just when he thought it would never let him go.
“Can you send this disk down again?” the knight said.
“If someone holds me up long enough to work the panel. Why?”
“Albert,” Shader said. “Think you can drive the train?”
Nameless climbed back to his feet.
Albert scoffed. “If a drunken sot like…” He glanced at Nameless, and thought better of it. “I think so.”
“Take Shadrak back to the city. There’s nothing more he can do here.”
“And I’m a useless waste of space?” Albert said, finishing packing Shadrak’s wound and starting to wrap strips of concealer cloak about it. “Is that what you’re implying?”
Nameless stepped up close to him. “It’s for the best, laddie. You’ll see. Sav
ing the world is dwarf’s work.”
“And what about Shader?” Albert said. “What about the sword he can no longer use?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Nameless said.
Once Albert had finished tying off the improvised bandages, Nameless helped Shadrak to stand over the panel.
“When we’re on the disk,” Shadrak said to Shader, “slide these two symbols together; they should turn green, which means you’re good to go, then swipe them toward the bottom of the glass like this.” He demonstrated without actually moving the symbols.
Shader nodded that he understood, and then Albert helped Shadrak onto the disk.
“Just you and me now,” Nameless said, as the disk carried Albert and Shadrak below.
This was it, he knew with sublime certainty. The moment he’d been awakened for. His chance to atone for what he’d done. And if he couldn’t atone, if his crimes were simply too much, he could at least do what Aristodeus had asked of him, and keep Shader alive long enough to reach Sektis Gandaw.
Shader’s eyes met Nameless’s through the eye-slit. They were still riddled with uncertainty, more gray than blue, but he managed a stiff nod.
Albert called up from below that they had cleared the disk, and Shader’s fingers danced across the panel like Shadrak had shown him.
As the disk came back up, Nameless’s guts sunk to his boots. The brief snatch of purpose he’d found dispersed like clouds in the wind.
Shader clamped a hand on his shoulder and once more met his gaze. This time, the knight’s eyes were glittering sapphires, and his touch imparted strength. More than that, it imparted gratitude.
And then they stepped onto the disk.
ROOTS OF THE MOUNTAIN
The roots of Gandaw’s mountain were a warren, though it was a warren with design. The halls were the hubs, with the corridors the spokes, uniformly gray and flanked by an endless succession of sliding doors. Soft light bled from glowing panels, and strips of crystal glared starkly overhead. Ribbed tubing of some sleek material ran the length of the ceilings, and at every intersection, a silver globe hung down from a sinuous stalk, each with a winking red light.