Geas of the Black Axe (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf Book 2)

by D. P. Prior

  Sight of him chewing with such relish caused Nameless’s stomach to rumble.

  “It’s just a prototype,” Magwitch said, patting the floating sheet of scarolite. “But she’ll get you out of the city.”

  “Looks like a flying door to me,” Shadrak said.

  “It’s an air-raft,” Magwitch said. “If you bombusticate scarolite with… Oh, no. I’m not giving up my secrets so easily.”

  “Just tell us how it works,” Shadrak said.

  “Well, it doesn’t. For you, that is. Hop on.”

  Magwitch rolled himself onto the air-raft and seated himself with his legs dangling off the edge.

  Shadrak vaulted aboard and dropped into a squat.

  “Where to?” Magwitch asked.

  “The boreworm tunnels,” Shadrak said.

  At the same time, Nameless said, “The Perfect Peak.”

  Both Shadrak and Magwitch said, “What?”

  Nameless climbed up. He’d been wondering how they’d keep from falling off once the air-raft started moving, but now he had his answer. The surface of the scarolite seemed to gently suck at his boots. It was like standing on boggy ground.

  “I was heading there next,” he said. “For a feeding.” He hated admitting it. It was an embarrassment. But what choice did he have?

  “Oh, for shog’s sake,” Shadrak said. “How long’s that bald bastard gonna keep his hold over you?”

  Before Nameless could answer, he was distracted by the flapping of wings, and a raven alighted on the edge of the air-raft. The air about it shimmered, and there stood the homunculus, Bird, draped in his cloak of feathers.

  One of Shadrak’s pistols was halfway to being drawn.

  “This what you had in mind, laddie?” Nameless said.

  Bird nodded slowly, but his eyes were on Shadrak.

  “What’s your game, Bird?” Shadrak said. “Which one of us are you playing?”

  “He’s a homunculus,” Nameless said. “It’s likely both of us.”

  “Give me time,” Bird said to Shadrak, “and I will help you remember.”

  “Remember what?” Nameless said. He thought he was the one with problems. Shadrak was supposed to have a perfect memory.

  “What makes you think I give a shog?” Shadrak said.

  “You will,” Bird said. “I know you will.”

  “And this plan to remove my helm?” Nameless said. “You said it was time to destroy the black axe.”

  “We now know there is a way,” Bird said. “Aristodeus was going to speak with you about it.”

  Nameless turned the eye-slit on Shadrak. “Then, like I said, that’s where we should go: the Perfect Peak.”

  “How exciting,” Magwitch said, cramming another truffle in his mouth and chewing noisily.

  “You will need Shadrak’s help,” Bird said. “And you will need his plane ship.”

  “How’d you know about that?” Shadrak whipped out a pistol and took aim.

  “I know how you found it, Shadrak,” Bird said. “And I know where you come from. Where you really come from.”

  “Bollocks,” Shadrak said. His pistol started to shake.

  “You are compelled against your will, are you not?” Bird said. He switched his gaze back to Nameless. “And the same could be said of you. Be patient with me. Tolerate my presence, and see if I can’t help you both.”

  Shadrak held his gaze for a long moment, then dropped his chin and holstered his gun.

  Bird gripped his arm and said, “Your master is mistaken. Ask him for time, Shadrak. What he demands of you is too much.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Nameless said. “What master?”

  The feathers on Bird’s cloak shuddered, and he whirled away from Shadrak. “Psycher!” He pointed at a neighboring rooftop, where a dark figure crouched. Its face was devoid of features, and as they watched, it thrust out a long, taloned finger.

  Bird threw open his cloak, and hornets swarmed forth in a dark cloud. At the same time, Shadrak clutched his head and fell back against the scarolite of the air-raft.

  “Go!” he screamed. “Get us the shog out of here!” Blood was seeping from his nose and ears.

  The air-raft lifted straight into the air, and as its leash pulled taut, Nameless cut it free with his axe.

  The psycher let out a piercing howl, and almost immediately, three more appeared on neighboring rooftops. Down below, shouts went up from the soldiers, and a team of archers hurried into position.

  Bird waved his arms. The hornet cloud followed his directions and split into four snaking strands, each of which darted toward a psycher.

  Arrows pinged off the underside of the air-raft.

  As Magwitch took them higher above the city, the psychers were completely obscured by clouds of stinging insects, and the archers dropped out of range.

  Shadrak sat up and wiped the blood from his nose.

  “It’s stopped,” he said, tapping his temples.

  Nameless turned back to gauge Bird’s reaction, but there was no one there.

  A caw sounded from behind, and a raven beat its wings furiously for a moment, then spread them wide and soared in the wake of the air-raft.

  RENDEZVOUS

  “So where’s the plane ship?” Nameless said.

  There was nothing but rugged earth and craters in every direction.

  Shadrak felt about before him and tapped something solid. A bedizened panel appeared out of thin air. He ran his fingers over it, and a rectangle of blue light rose up from the ground with a swoosh.

  “So, this is how you got here from Urddynoor?”

  Shadrak nodded. “When it was under the city of Sarum, the plane ship went on for miles. Big as a town. Maybe bigger. Part in the world, part out. Hurts my head just thinking about it.”

  Nameless angled the great helm skyward and tracked the distant speck of Magwitch’s air-raft as it sped back toward New Londdyr. “Can’t say I care for it, myself, all this magic.”

  “Ancient tech,” Shadrak said. “Sektis Gandaw’s stuff.”

  “It’s all the same to me,” Nameless said. “Not natural. Like the Perfect Peak and all that junk Aristodeus keeps in working order. No good will come of it, if you ask me.”

  “Yet you’re alive because of it.”

  Nameless snorted and hung his head. With any luck, Aristodeus wasn’t stalling this time, and really had come up with a way to destroy the black axe. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could go on being fed via a tube, and in any case, what would happen to him if the philosopher died or simply vanished, as he was wont to do?

  “You coming?” Shadrak said.

  And the black dog chose that moment to pounce.

  “Think I’ll wait here.”

  “But the Perfect Peak…” Shadrak said. “You said you needed feeding.”

  Nameless let out a long, world-weary sigh. “What’s the point? I’m starting to wonder. Wonder if there’s any way back.”

  “Back where?” Shadrak asked, but then he seemed to realize and rolled his eyes.

  “Arx shogging Gravis again. You gotta face facts, Nameless…”

  Before he could say anything more, something caught his eye. Nameless followed his gaze.

  There was a cloud of dust on the New Londdyr road.

  “Albert,” Shadrak said, visoring his eyes.

  Nameless watched disinterestedly as a carriage came into view. It trundled toward them at a snail’s pace. The horse pulling it looked ready to drop.

  The driver gave Shadrak a two-fingered wave as he pulled up.

  A tattooed savage kicked open the carriage door and jumped down. He landed in a crouch, hands curled about a hatchet.

  Albert rolled out next. “How the devil did you get here before us?” the poisoner said. “And please tell me you’ve not drunk that cognac I gave you. I’m parched, and all the excitement’s gone to my nerves.”

  “Touch it, and I’ll cut your hands off,” Shadrak said.

  “Charming. Las
t time I give you anything. With you hogging the plane ship, chances of a trip back to Urddynoor to get some for myself are about as high as Joag’s intellect.”

  “Eh?” the driver said.

  “We’re taking the plane ship,” Shadrak said.

  Albert raised an eyebrow. “Anywhere nice?”

  “Not really, but it ain’t like we can go back to New Londdyr. Least not for some time.”

  “Queenie’s,” Albert said with a long drawn-out sigh. “All that work wasted.”

  “Tell me about it.” Shadrak gave a sharp look at Joag. “Well, go on. What you waiting for? Shog off.”

  “To the city?” Joag said.

  “Like I shogging care. Just go.”

  “But the horse…”

  “It dies, eat it. Then you’ll have the strength to walk.”

  Joag snapped the reins, and the carriage lurched back toward the road.

  Albert watched it go, as if caught between choices. Finally, he glanced at Nameless then back at Shadrak.

  “So, what’s he want?”

  “Money,” Shadrak said. “Well, he did, but it’s starting to get complicated.”

  Nameless felt himself succumbing more and more to the black dog’s malaise. His thoughts dispersed into a spiraling mist that was heavier than air. His muscles hardened, not from use, but from slowly turning to stone.

  “Last thing we need,” Albert said.

  Veins stood out on the savage’s neck. He was all bunched up and ready for a fight, as if he saw Nameless as a threat. Normally, Nameless would have relished the challenge, but right now, he couldn’t be done with it. He doubted he’d have flinched if the savage had come at him with the hatchet.

  “What is it with you, Ekyls?” Shadrak asked. “You have to have a pissing contest with every new person you meet? Would’ve thought Big Jake crushing you in an arm wrestle was enough to teach you a lesson.”

  Ekyls scowled, but he averted his eyes.

  “You two go inside,” Shadrak said. “I’ll deal with Nameless.”

  Albert held out a hand, and Ekyls took it. The savage’s eyes flicked about like a child’s who was afraid of the dark as they passed through the rent in the air.

  Nameless turned away to follow the wheeling descent of a raven. It alighted on an invisible ledge above the entrance. The black dog mood inured him to surprise when the air shimmered, and Bird stood there, shrouded in his cloak of feathers. The homunculus jumped down from his perch, and together, he and Shadrak led Nameless through the doorway.

  Cold blue lights lit a metallic corridor that stretched away into the distance. As they progressed along it, wall panels sometimes slid open of their own accord. Beyond, Nameless caught glimpses of oval chambers. Within some, he saw the skeletal remains of animals in cages. Others contained round tables and half-egg chairs, and one or two had sleek gray pallets that Shadrak said were beds.

  They reached a junction, where six corridors intersected at a hexagonal hub. Old Dwarvish numerals were engraved into the lintels above each entrance. Of course, it was more likely they were Ancient Urddynoorian.

  Shadrak glanced at the numbers, then continued straight ahead until they came to a recess. The instant they entered, the wall closed behind them, leaving them in a cubicle as claustrophobic as the cell Nameless had awakened in at Arx Gravis. A whining drone started up, and the cubicle shuddered. When the door opened onto the same corridor, Nameless wondered what the point was. He turned the eye-slit of the great helm on Shadrak.

  “We’ve gone up a level,” the assassin said. “And this is your cabin.”

  He pressed a button on the opposite wall, and a door-sized panel slid back. He stood aside and gestured for Nameless to enter.

  The room beyond was spartan at best: a gray pallet bed, a half-egg chair, and a single shelf.

  “I’ve got something to do,” Shadrak said. “Settle in, and Bird can bring you to the control room when we’re ready to leave.”

  The door slid shut with a whoosh behind him.

  When Nameless looked round, Shadrak had gone.

  “Thank you, Nameless Dwarf,” Bird said, “for aiding Shadrak back at the city. He means a lot to me.”

  Nameless stood mutely. He felt as if tar coated his body, seeped into his veins. His mind was a mass of congealing memories that melted one into another: the homunculus fleeing the Scriptorium in Arx Gravis. The same creature waiting for him in Gehenna, and then again in the chamber of the black axe. Bird approaching him at Brink, asking him to come to Shadrak’s aid. How had he known Shadrak would be in trouble by the time Nameless arrived? And why did he care?

  “We are not all alike,” Bird said, as if he could sense what Nameless was thinking. “It is possible to alter what our father bequeathed us.”

  Their father—the Demiurgos. The homunculi were the children of deception. It made them what they were.

  “I was there when Shadrak was begotten,” Bird said. “He was a sickly child with no place in homunculus society. You know what they do to our imperfect young?”

  Nameless couldn’t bring himself to ask, but the homunculus had aroused his interest, and the solidifying husk encasing Nameless’s mind began to crack.

  “He means a lot to you?”

  Bird nodded. He interlaced his fingers and seemed absorbed in studying them. When he looked up, he had a grim set to his face, and his eyes were glittering pools of blackness.

  “Do you trust Shadrak, Nameless?”

  “I did. At least I thought I did. But—”

  “He’s a homunculus, and homunculi are not to be trusted?”

  Nameless took a shuffling step into the room. Darkness fell away from his mind like flaking plaster.

  “Why doesn’t he accept what he is? Is it shame?”

  Bird shook his head. “He really believes he’s human. His foster mother raised him that way.”

  “Kadee?”

  “Kadee,” Bird confirmed. “A Dreamer of the Barraiya people, primitives from Urddynoor who possess the ability to glimpse the life of Aethir. A good woman, and wise. Shadrak still feels her passing like a gushing wound.”

  “And his real mother?”

  “There was none. We have no mothers. We are but scales fallen from the flesh of our father.”

  Nameless crossed to the bed and sat down heavily beside Bird. He had a recollection of hundreds of homunculi sitting in the branches of crystalline trees in Gehenna. He could have sworn some had been women.

  “If there are no mothers,” he said, “why do you have males and females?”

  Bird chuckled. “Gender has its uses in the ways of deception.”

  “But do you…” Nameless said. He didn’t know quite how to put it.

  “Our father cursed us with the same wants and needs as all beings, only, in our case, the mating is fruitless. But understand this about Shadrak: he might not have had a mother, but his foster mother meant everything to him. No other homunculus has ever had such an attachment to a human. Theirs was a bond stronger even than the love between a child and its natural mother.”

  “Aye, well I never knew my ma,” Nameless said. “I’m told she was a great woman.”

  “She was,” Bird said.

  “You knew her?”

  Bird shook his head. “Not I, but another of my group, the Sedition, knew her well. He has watched over the ravine city for a very long time.”

  “Then he must be well hidden.”

  “Yes,” Bird said. “He is.”

  Silence fell between them.

  Nameless sifted through his memories of Arx Gravis. They were coming together more and more, and the holes riddling the canvas of his life were getting smaller. But there was no recollection of a homunculus watching over the dwarves.

  “Come,” Bird said eventually. “We should go to the control room. Travel is less turbulent there.”

  Nameless shot him an enquiring frown, before he realized Bird wouldn’t be able to see it.

  And then he recalled just wh
ere they were going and why.

  If the Sedition and Aristodeus hadn’t really come up with a plan to destroy the black axe and remove the helm, he could see himself climbing to the top of the Perfect Peak and throwing himself off.

  SUPPLIES

  The thought occurred to Shadrak he was being a stupid shogger. What was his problem? If he moved now, did what the Archon wanted, he’d be free once more.

  But would it be that easy? Nameless might be out of it at the moment, but Bird… Shadrak had already seen what the homunculus could do against the psychers. He was an unknown, a random element. That’s why you had to be patient, know exactly what you were up against before you acted. If you acted. If you even wanted to.

  Coming to a T-junction, he consulted the numerals on the lintels and turned right along another uniform metal corridor. He paused outside a door that would have been invisible to most. With practice, he’d developed the knack of spotting the hairlines of rectangles throughout the plane ship. He ran his fingers lightly down the side of the door, and a panel popped open. A quick tap of numbers, and the door slid back with a hiss.

  Concealed amber lights flickered on and settled into a soft glow. A whirring started up, followed by the rush of air filling the circular chamber. One after another, clear glass plinths rose from the floor and settled at different heights. Well, it wasn’t glass. It was stronger and more pliant, with the texture of drowned flesh.

  The air was still thin as Shadrak entered and broke the surface tension of a plinth. His hand disappeared up to the elbow. He’d seen a farmer do something similar to a cow once. It was a memory he could have done without. The plinth itself remained transparent; the shimmering amber wall was clearly visible beyond, and yet Shadrak could no longer see his arm.

  He felt the coarseness of cloth, scrunched a section and pulled it free. There was a plopping sound as his hand came out clutching a black shoulder bag.

  That was new. New and useless. Bullets would have been better, or a new weapon. Besides the flintlocks, the plinths had given up the long-gun he’d used to take out so many targets from a distance. That’s how he should’ve killed Mal Vatès. Would have done, if he’d been given the chance.