by D. P. Prior
And it had been the right thing to do.
“I saw just what you did, laddie. Shog me for a shogging shogger, but if you’d listened to this stupid old dwarf, we’d have lost everything.”
“Listened to you?” Shader said.
“I told you to fight. Yelled at you to kill Gandaw.” It’s all he knew how to do, and the black sword had merely amplified what was already there. “But if you’d gone on fighting, there’d have been no one to break the deadlock, and the worlds would have ended. I see it now, but at the time, I thought you’d failed us. Failed everyone. How did you know?”
Shader looked away, down into the open chamber, where Rhiannon stood leaning on the black sword as Aristodeus and Mephesch came up through the floor on the floating disk.
“Truth is, I didn’t know. If anything, I gave up. I couldn’t see the point.”
Do nothing, and we all die, Gandaw had said.
Fight on, same conclusion.
“Thumil told me something before we left Arx Gravis,” Shader said.
Nameless snorted. “Only good advice I had from Thumil was to steer clear of Ironbelly’s ale.”
“He spoke about surrender.”
“What? Thumil’s no coward. He’d have never—”
“Not in battle.”
“Ah, well, that’s different, laddie.”
“He meant not always needing to be in control. Surrender to Nous, or whoever it is he prayed to. Giving yourself over to a higher power.”
Nameless scoffed and shook the great helm. “Sounds like a bad idea to me. That’s the kind of thing that led to my…” His voice choked off. After a moment’s silence, he said, “The black axe was like that. I don’t see myself surrendering to any higher power after what it made me do.”
“This is different,” Shader said. “A willing surrender, not a…”
“Aye, laddie. A possession. I’m starting to see what happened to me, but I’ll not use that as an excuse. What you did today was the right thing to do. It was the only way to stop the Unweaving. I see that, and that’s why Aristodeus was wrong to doubt you. He didn’t need a back-up plan. He didn’t need me or the lassie.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Shader said. “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have never gotten close enough. And Rhiannon gave it everything she had. With just one of us missing, the outcome could have been very different.”
Nameless had to admit he was right, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling Shader had triumphed in spite of his help.
It had always been a problem of his back at Arx Gravis, when he’d been a Ravine Guard: he met every conflict with a fist or an axe. He’d needed no other way, never even thought of one, because it always worked for him.
Until now.
Shader had found the solution, and it was something Nameless would never have even considered. Not only that, he knew he lacked the courage to see it through, to entrust his fate to a higher power and throw himself upon its mercy. That had never been his way, and it likely never would.
Which is why Shader was the savior of all the worlds, and he was just a butcher with too much blood on his hands.
THE PARTING OF WAYS
The wagon pulled up just shy of a crater-pocked plain that stretched away from the road.
“This it?” Shadrak said. “This where you left it?” He scratched inside the sling holding his injured arm tight to his chest. Shogging thing was infested with lice, he was sure of it. Either that, or Albert had cut it from Buck Fargin’s shite-encrusted loin cloth.
Buck looked over his shoulder from the driver’s seat. “It’s where I found him.”
Albert didn’t look so sure, sat in the back with Shadrak, a half-eaten pastry clutched in his pudgy hand. He stood and turned a slow circle, using his spare hand as a visor. “They all look the same to me,” he said.
“Yeah,” Buck said. “Once you’ve seen one boreworm hole, you’ve seen them all.”
Shadrak grunted as he rolled forward from the crate he’d been using as a seat. Pain lanced down his arm, all the way to the fingers. He bit his lip and grimaced. Shog, he hated being injured. Once, he’d stubbed his toe kicking in some shogger’s door. Blasted thing had swollen to the size of a sausage and made him hobble for weeks.
“Find it,” he said to Albert.
“You find it,” Albert said, taking a bite of pastry and making more noise than a cow chewing the cud.
Shadrak knew it was the pain, knew it was the annoyance of being hurt, but he was right out of patience. A couple of day’s practice, and he was as good with the left hand as the right. He drew his Thundershot, twirled it once on his finger, and took aim.
Albert got the message clear as mud. Shadrak gave a satisfied nod. He reckoned he was a dab hand at non-verbal communication.
Cramming the rest of the pastry in his gob, Albert shuffled to the end of the wagon bed and sat on his arse so he could get down. The wagon bucked when he dropped off the end, the horse nickered, and Fargin cursed. Then Albert was trudging off over the plain like a chastised kid, waving his arms and swinging his hips. He blundered first one way, then the next, without a shogging clue where to look. Suddenly, he stopped and waved excitedly, then squealed and ran off toward a hole. Shadrak could just about make out a brown-stained piece of cloth fluttering in the breeze that Albert dashed toward and snatched out of the air. Another one of Fargin’s?
“Yes!” Albert cried back at him. “Papa’s hanky! I dropped it here. Now I know we’re in the right place.”
He skipped ahead like the other sort of kid—the one who’d just got what he wanted for his birthday—and rebounded as if he’d hit a wall, landing flat on his back.
“What the shog?” Buck said, looking up from attaching a feedbag to the horse’s nose.
“Reckon he found it,” Shadrak said.
“Year but what? I don’t see nothing.”
“Make sure you keep it that way,” Shadrak said, pointing the gun at him before holstering it.
“I’m looking the other way,” Buck said, “even if there ain’t nothing to be seen.”
Shadrak leapt from the wagon and winced at the jolt of pain from his shoulder. He made his way over to Albert and started feeling in front of him with his fingers splayed out.
“Thanks for helping me up,” Albert mumbled as he stood and brushed himself down.
“Bad arm,” Shadrak said, without pausing in his search.
“Only one,” Albert said. “Nothing wrong with the other. Unless you’re telling me it’s numb from too much—”
“Got it!” Shadrak said, finding the invisible recess. A glowing panel appeared at his touch, and he tapped out the entry code.
The door slid open to reveal a rectangle of stark light hanging in midair. A burnished silver corridor led off beyond it.
Shadrak sighed with satisfaction and relief. There was a history between him and the plane ship that went all the way back to when he’d discovered it as a child.
“Well,” Albert said. “I guess that’s it. It’s been nice working with you, Shadrak. Give my love to the rest of the Sicarii.”
“Won’t change your mind, Albert? About coming back with me?”
Albert sighed and glanced at the wagon, where Buck Fargin was waiting impatiently. “This place is perfect, Shadrak, and I’ve already made connections. What would I go back to Urddynoor for, when the guilds of New Londdyr are just crying out for someone like me to show them how it’s done?”
“Suit yourself,” Shadrak said.
With a roll of his eyes, Albert started back toward the wagon.
Shadrak watched him go for a moment, wondering if the poisoner didn’t have a point. Since Kadee’s death, there had been no one for him back on Urddynoor. But still, it was what he knew.
Before he could step across the threshold into the plane ship, a voice spoke in his head—a voice like the rustle of dry leaves.
“Shadrak.”
He froze, and his hand went to his Thunders
hot.
“Shadrak,” the voice came again. “You must not leave.”
Shadrak looked around.
No one there. He shook his head.
The air before him shimmered, and a robed figure stood there. White fire suppurated from beneath an all-enveloping cowl.
“This Nameless Dwarf you have befriended,” the figure said. “I need you to watch over him.”
Shadrak answered through gritted teeth. “Why do you think I give a shog what you want?”
“I am the Archon.”
A tingle of dread crept beneath Shadrak’s skin. “Whatever it is you’re up to, I want no part of it.”
“You do not care about the dwarf?”
“Why would I?”
As the Archon chuckled, ribbons of white flame streamed from beneath his hood. “That is good. That is helpful. While he lives, there is danger. Thousands may yet die.”
“Not my problem,” Shadrak said.
“Then think of it as one part of a contract.”
“Contracts need agreement, and a shog-load of money,” Shadrak said. “You got that?”
“What I have is this.”
Another figure appeared beside the Archon.
Shadrak gasped as he recognized the creased dark skin, the beaded gray hair, and those eyes of sparkling green that could warm his soul, no matter how far he fell.
It was his foster mother.
It was Kadee.
Hot tears spilled down Shadrak’s cheeks.
“I will not stand idly by this time,” the Archon said. “This Nameless Dwarf has already killed before. Hundreds were slaughtered in the ravine city. Aristodeus persuaded me to stay my hand; him and the Voice of the Council. And now the philosopher is working on a plan to free the Nameless Dwarf from the scarolite helm that contains him. In his arrogance, Aristodeus thinks he can destroy the black axe that was the cause of the massacre. He thinks he can outwit my brother, the Demiurgos.”
Shadrak wasn’t listening. He couldn’t takes his eyes off of Kadee. “How?” he asked in a voice choked up with grief. “How are you here?”
“Fellah,” Kadee said.
He winced, as if she’d struck him. How long had it been since he’d heard her voice, save in his head?
Her people were savages, through and through, but Kadee hadn’t been like the rest. She’d lived among the city-folk of Sarum. Said she’d done that so she could raise him, and he wasn’t even her own child.
“Kadee.” Shadrak made no attempt to hide his tears. He could never keep anything from her. She’d known him better than anyone ever had or ever would. “I’ve missed you.”
“I know,” she said.
“I’ve grown rotten without you. I’ve turned into everything you hate.”
“But I will never hate you, my fellah.”
Shadrak shook his head. “You’re dead. How can you be here?”
“Death is not the end for everyone,” she said. “For some, it is worse.”
In her somber eyes, Shadrak caught a glimpse of skeletal trees and mountains of obsidian. A black sun hung in a granite sky.
“Enough!” the Archon said.
And with that, Kadee vanished.
“You aid me, and I will show you how to find your foster mother, Shadrak. Do we have an agreement? Whatever I ask of you, until such time as I say we are done, and in return, you get to end her suffering, maybe even get to hold her again.”
Shadrak drew his Thundershot and cocked the trigger.
“You know how to get me to Kadee, then do it now.”
The Archon threw back his hood, and white flames roared forth. Shadrak fell to his knees, blinded by the blaze.
“You think a gun will harm me?” The Archon’s voice rumbled like a gathering storm.
Shadrak’s hand began to tremble. Under the Archon’s glare, he felt as insignificant as an ant.
Like it always did with him, the fear turned to anger. He opened his mouth to let it out, but the part of his mind that kept watch on his thoughts, words, and actions stepped in.
“What exactly do you want me to do?”
The flames retreated within the Archon’s cowl. “Nothing you’re not used to. Wait. Observe. And when the time is right,”—the Archon twitched his index finger—“pull the trigger.”
And then he was gone.
The clatter of the wagon pulling away snapped Shadrak to full alertness. He cried out for Albert and Buck to stop, but when they didn’t hear, he let off a shot in the air.
The wagon lurched to a standstill, and Shadrak waved them over. Albert clambered down and came briskly toward him, but Buck remained in the driver’s seat, shaking his head.
“Give me a minute to get some supplies from inside the plane ship,” Shadrak said as Albert reached him.
“You’re staying?”
“Albert, someone better warn the guilds of New Londdyr, because if you and me partner up, they are going to be well and truly shogged.”
***
Nameless woke to the sound of the door swishing open. He was reclining on a padded black chair in the center of the room Aristodeus had taken for his study. It had apparently been Sektis Gandaw’s, but now there was a new lord of the Perfect Peak.
His hauberk was up around his waist, and a tube ran into his stomach from a silver bag on a metal stand. Liquid passed from the bag along the tube with a steady drip, drip, drip.
Rhiannon had her feet up on a low table and her arms crossed over her chest.
Aristodeus was seated at a desk on the other side of the room from her, rattling through some glass tubes in a case, occasionally taking one out to look at more closely. Directly above him, suspended in midair, was a long crystal case, from within which Nameless could just about make out the the shadowy form of the black axe.
Shader was standing in the open doorway. He paused there for a moment, taking everything in. When he crossed the threshold, the door slid shut behind him.
Aristodeus spun round on his chair. “Now, Shader,” he said, “I expect you’re wondering what I’ve been up to these past two days.”
Rhiannon snorted, causing Aristodeus to shoot her a glare.
“Not really,” Shader said. “I’m more interested in getting back to Urddynoor.”
Rhiannon stiffened slightly. She brushed her hair out of her face and looked at him casually, disinterestedly, almost.
“Figured as much,” Aristodeus said. “Which is why I’ve been working with the homunculi to find a way.”
“You’ve not had any trouble popping up here, there, and everywhere before,” Shader said. “Why now?”
“I travel from A to B,” Aristodeus said, “and the effort is prodigious. More so when there are passengers.” He cocked a thumb at Rhiannon. “Given that we are currently at B, it would be necessary to return to A prior to predicating a new B.”
Rhiannon dropped her boots from the tabletop and stood. The hilt of the black sword hung from a new scabbard at her hip. “What he’s saying is that he’d have to take you to his poxy white tower first, and give you the bull about not stepping outside.”
“Because A’s the Abyss?” Nameless said. “You travel back and forth from the Abyss?”
Aristodeus closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Don’t you worry about that. That is a problem for minds far older and wiser than yours. It’s an ages-long campaign, a battle of wills, but given our progress here, I’d say I have the upper hand.”
“Can I get up now?” Nameless asked.
Aristodeus came over to the stand and squeezed the bottom of the bag. “A few more dregs, and you’ll be good to go.”
“Well?” Rhiannon said. “Are you going to tell Shader why I can go with you and he can’t?”
Something was communicated between them.
Nameless had no idea what it was, but it made him edgy.
Shader glared at the philosopher with unbridled jealousy.
“Too risky,” Aristodeus said. “Which is why I’ve had to come up
with another way. What I mean, Shader, is it’s too risky you and I being in the same space within the Abyss at once. My point is, I cannot place all my eggs in one basket. I might have the advantage at the moment, but the slightest miscalculation, the smallest error—”
Rhiannon sneered.
“Right now,” Shader said, “I couldn’t give a damn if you win or lose. Just get me home, and then find yourself some new pawns.”
“Yeah,” Rhiannon said, “I’m sick of it, too. Maybe you can drop us both off at Oakendale.”
Aristodeus whirled on her but then instantly softened, speaking in a cloying tone. “All right,” he said. “I suppose I could countenance that.”
“What’s it to you?” Shader asked. “She’ll go wherever she wants, whether you like it or not.”
Red flooded Aristodeus’s face, and he clenched his fists. “This is not about megalomania, Shader! Can’t you see that? Did I waste all those years educating you, teaching you to think? Gandaw was the control freak, not me. Do you think I want to fight this battle? Do you? Have you any idea how long it’s gone on for, how many centuries? I am pivotal, Shader. Understand? Pivotal. And I am getting close.”
Shader narrowed his eyes and kept his voice low, full of threat. “Close to what?”
“Freedom, of course. And after that, turning the tables on the Demiurgos and sending him back where he came from.”
“I remember thinking I was ridding Arx Gravis of demons from the Abyss,” Nameless said. “And we all know how that turned out.”
“This is not the same!” Aristodeus said. He wrenched the tube out of the bag and rapidly coiled it up and lay it on Nameless’s belly. “Tape,” he muttered. “Tape, tape, bloody tape.” He located what he was looking for on a desk and began to tear off strips from a spool, which he used to stick the coiled tube to Nameless’s skin. “There, you can go now. Just remember, once a month—”
“Yes, yes, laddie, back here for dinner. How could I ever forget?”
Nameless jumped up from the chair and tugged down his hauberk. “But aren’t you forgetting something, laddie?” he said to Aristodeus.
“No, I don’t think so. What?”