by Choi, Bryan
“Damn you, Mezeta! What the fuck do we do now?” He heard the sound of shuffling in the periphery, however, and the need for self-preservation outweighed his need to berate her. He peeked around the edge of the block and spied an approaching praetorian. He leveled his rifle and blew a hole in the man’s chest and then returned his ire to Hecaton. “Did you just bring us here to die?”
“Have the manners to let me finish my cig, you dogsbody,” Hecaton said with a roll of her eyes. She drew in a lungful of smoke and then tossed the butt aside. She exhaled through her nostrils, reminding Ringo of a surly dragon. “There. Now, give thanks to your deity, for you are about to witness the true power of a twice born!”
She closed her eyes and turned her palms upward. She seemed to shimmer, and the smell of ozone became unbearable. Air contorted in an expanding sphere around her.
Ringo grimaced and wanted nothing more than to scurry away with all haste. The field menaced him, threatening to suck his life away. Bullets whizzed at Hecaton and yet seemed to drop harmlessly to the ground in midflight, as if robbed of their will to press on. As the undulating edge of her influence reached him, Ringo could do naught but cower while clutching his rifle to his chest. He closed his eyes and prepared to die.
Golden Peach lay motionless in the fountain, congealed globs of blood snaking slowly toward the bottom.
“Why is she burned?” Celmeg demanded.
“I called its name,” Sirin said. “I called for the lightning, and it came. The g-great god answered me. And filled me with light, and I burned her.”
Ringo guffawed at the sight, even as he felt his consciousness fade. Why was there a fountain present in the Argead Sepulchre? Who was this murdered girl lying about? Why was Hecaton Mezeta so young? He wanted to approach them, but he was too weak to continue and impotently dropped to his knees.
Steel wailed in protest and played a horrific note as it drew against unyielding wood. Scaffolding shuddered and collapsed, adding to the hellish overture. The walls of the Sepulchre convulsed, sending stone and metal crashing from the roof to the ground and scattering the praetorians. Those who were not crushed by debris fled in panic. The reason why became obvious to all who stuck around to watch: the Ooss itself was moving.
Hecaton’s eyes were closed, and her expression was untroubled, but the muscles of her neck were drawn tight, and the lines of her face seemed as deep and ancient as arctic crevasses. She slowly swept her arms, and as she did so, the Ooss shifted reluctantly toward a massive pair of doors at the end of the Sepulchre. When the bow reached the end of the keelway, Hecaton raised her other hand and, with strain deeply graven in the lines around her mouth, pushed.
The enormous steel slabs whined as if the metal itself was in pain but started to swing open while the Ooss pushed through. Salt water lapped at the keel, which only plunged further into the waiting waves. In only a few meters, momentum took over, and the massive submarine slid completely into the sea channel.
“You emptied yourself?” Celmeg snarled in disbelief. He cupped Sirin’s jaw in his hand.
Ringo looked up from the mud and vainly reached out toward the pair. He would not join the corpses around them. He needed to live. To kill Hecaton Mezeta. To gain the reward that would secure his future. His fingers trembled, and the world before him started to fade.
Damn it all, not like this…
His eyes fluttered open, and his pupils immediately constricted as a ray of sunlight hit him in the face. He realized he was staring at the sky, through a gaping hole in the Sepulcher’s roof. Nausea washed over him, and he started to choke and gag. Samara glanced down at him and drew back her hand to strike him with her palm. Ringo cringed in anticipation of the impact, which never came. The bile retreated back down his throat.
“Can you walk?” Samara asked.
Ringo now saw that she crouched next to him, and that the hand she would have struck him with gently rested on his cheek. He nodded and shakily got to his knees. He felt drained, in the fashion that only a year of uninterrupted sleep would ever hope to redress.
“We need to get out of here,” she said, and pulled him to his feet. With her other arm, she hefted his Enfield and pressed it into his hands. He tottered, but she prevented him from falling back.
For what seemed like an agonizing eternity, Ringo plodded forward. For some reason, he felt as if he were learning to walk again. In the distance, faint cries and gunshots rang out. Able to bear no more, he buckled and fell to his knees. They were less than ten meters from the edge of the water. Through bleary eyes, he could see the Ooss bobbing in the channel. Janus’s head poked up from a hatch atop the large sail tower near the bow. The Teuton was firing his rifle over their heads to cover their escape, while Juan waved frantically from the top of its hull and tossed a length of rope their way.
“Leave me!” Ringo said. Tears welled in his eyes. “I can’t go on. Mezeta killed me.”
“No,” Samara said with sudden vehemence. “There’s another way.” She inhaled, tensed; her skin started to glow.
Ringo’s eyes widened as he saw it: prana coursing through her body. He had no time to marvel at the sight before she threw him over her shoulders and sprinted down the last bits of concrete toward the edge of the water. Stone shattered under her feet. They flew through the air, weightless for a brief moment.
As soon as he could comprehend the new sensation, it came to an abrupt end. Ringo slammed face down onto the cold steel of the hull and rolled into the sail tower. He felt his ribs crunch and the breath leave him.
The Ooss let out a deep, rumbling moan, and water at the stern bubbled and frothed.
Dazed and drooling from pain, Ringo raised his head and cast a glance around him. They were moving out of the channel. A body lay next to him: Samara. She groaned and whispered something that he could not hear. Ringo choked back an unseemly cry of relief, took her hand, and refused to let go.
Samara flashed a condescending leer at Juan and spat a crimson stream of spittle at his boots. Juan’s lips curled back, and he punched her again. Suspended by her wrists from rusting ductwork, she swayed gently in the still, sterile air of the Ooss.
“I’m warning you, Sir Knight, watch the teeth. I’m the only one in my company with a perfect set.”
“Indeed, señorita, you do have a very fine set of pearly whites,” Juan replied. He wiped a fleck of her blood away from his cheek. “May I ask how you preserved them for so long?”
“It’s simple, really. Scour them with a bristle brush dipped in a solution of natron after meals. But you must be consistent about it and never lapse. If you forget, the rot will set in.”
“Is that what they taught you to do in the Spetsnaz?”
“Aye, but regulations only demand it once a fortnight.”
“I do not like how your sort tries to deny the natural order of this world. Teeth are meant to rot and fall out. I should really remove yours. It would make everyone more comfortable, si?”
“But, Juan, my darling,” Samara said, “how would I tear out your throat, otherwise?”
He replied with a haymaker to her gut. “Try it, bitch.”
“I won’t tolerate name calling. You’ve been warned.”
“Sir Janus, have you in your tool set a pair of pliers?” Juan asked.
Janus nodded.
“Well, get them,” Juan said. “This Imperial wench thinks she is above us because of her fiendish dentition, and I as a proud chevalier of Ursala cannot abide this insult to our honor.”
From his corner, Ringo fought the urge to avert his gaze. That Juan was brutalizing Samara wasn’t the issue. Spies deserved much worse than mere death. The only reason she wasn’t being boiled in oil or gutted round a tree was because there were none of those things to be found in the cramped quarters of the Ooss. No, what bothered Ringo most was that he still felt obliged to her, though she was an enemy and an informer and had seen him cry.
He stared at Hecaton out of the corner of his eye. Stupidly, he ha
d expected her to voice some opposition to Samara’s execution by torment. Instead, Hecaton looked bored out of her mind. The woman’s nonchalance infuriated him. Would she have reacted the same had Samara gone and murdered the entire Ursalan contingent? Just as long as someone was around to keep the ship clean? Bloody hag-bitch. Does she see us as merely ants? Does she even need us for anything but amusement? He swallowed back a rush of bile. No, she doesn’t.
Hecaton was the reason the Ooss moved. Through devilry that none could explain, she had somehow breathed life into the dead reliquary. It hummed with energy where she touched it. Panels and buttons and switches lit up like little jewels surrounding tiny suns. Ancient motors dead for centuries hummed happily, as if they’d been made the day before. And most ominously, the resurrected vessel contained the legendary Argead God Hand, which had cowed the Liberation Army at Thermopylae. Hecaton Mezeta was now the most powerful being in the world, and Ringo hated her.
“Sir Juan.” Janus handed a set of small iron tongs over.
Juan took them with relish and grasped Samara’s jaw. “Where do you want me to start?” he asked.
“Up your behind, Sir Juan,” she said.
Juan squeezed with his fingers and forced her mouth open. He shoved the tongs in, and she started to hyperventilate and struggle.
Ringo looked away. Much as he hated to admit it, he had always disliked watching the sort of prolonged execution that his peers had in mind. He could watch miscreants being hanged, shot, immolated, and beheaded all day, but not this. Once, his master had ordered a deserter to die by cutting and cautery. Ringo had barely made it through the day and had later been unable to eat supper. But even more distasteful was the fact that Samara’s suffering affected him so. She had threatened him, humiliated him, and spied on him. She was one of the elite forces of the heathen Imperium. She had also saved his life. They had…
He found himself staring at Hecaton. She mouthed something at him. He focused and tried to comprehend.
You. Are. A. Pussy.
He gripped the edge of his seat, livid. Hecaton needed to die. She needed to die, but he wasn’t strong enough to do the deed himself. With Samara’s aid, though, there was a chance. There was a chance that, one day, he would hold the foul witch’s severed head in his hands and laugh at her. The Doge’s promised reward didn’t matter anymore. Hecaton’s death would cleanse all sins. The mere chance of bringing it about was more than enough to justify what he was about to do. He rose from his seat, suffused with absolute clarity.
“Sir Juan, cease your inquest,” Ringo said. “Immediately.”
Juan blinked. “Sir Ringo? What is the meaning of this?”
“I said, cease the inquest. I’m laying a claim to this woman as my betrothed. If thou touchest her, I shall seek satisfaction.”
The stunned silence was broken by Hecaton’s laughter.
Samara shivered under the blanket draped round her shoulders. She sipped haltingly at a mug of diluted grog and grimaced at Ringo. They were alone, in a small alcove at the bow that Ringo had chosen as his living space. The Ooss had clearly been meant to house more than a hundred men at a time, but with a crew of only five, everyone had enjoyed the ability to spread out.
“Bastard cracked it,” she said. She winced as she took another sip of the grog to be sure.
“Cracked what?” Ringo sighed.
“My tooth. Maybe I should’ve let him pull it entirely.”
“You’ve got a lot of gall to complain, you wretched spy.”
Samara laughed. “That’s not a nice thing to call your fiancée.”
“Shut up. It was all I could think of to save you. There is nothing romantic between us. You barely qualify as a woman as it is.”
“You thought I needed to be saved? How cute.”
Ringo wanted to slap her but refrained from doing so. Even injured, she could likely best him in physical combat.
“You sure looked like you were in control there, all panicky and struggling not to scream,” he said.
“Relax. I’m not saying I’m ungrateful,” Samara said. She smiled softly at him. “I confess, you did look quite dashing there.”
“I wasn’t trying to impress you, nor did I feel any sympathy. I only did that because I can’t kill Mezeta on my own. I need you. I mean, I need your help.”
She laughed. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“Enough impertinence. As my wife, you’re beholden to me. Your only purpose is to help me kill the bitch. I’ll present this relic to the Rex, and he’ll make me an earl. Then, the engagement’s off!”
“There’s a problem with that plan, Lord Husband Master Sir.”
“What problem?”
She rolled her eyes. “You continue to assume that killing Hecaton Mezeta is a matter of sticking a knife in her back while she slumbers.”
“She bleeds, does she not?”
“She doesn’t. I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s basically untouchable, at least to mortals like us. The surest way to kill her is to sink this boat in the middle of the ocean with her inside. Seal her forever beneath the waves.”
“What will happen to us, then?”
“We’ll die, of course.”
Ringo sighed, collapsed on a nearby bench, and rubbed at his eyes. “Fuck my life. Fuck everything!”
“There’s another way, though. At some point, she needs to get off the boat. I suspect she wanted the Ooss not for its power but solely as a means of transport. She has a destination to get to, and it’s on land. When she’s off the boat, we can use the God Hand to burn her off the surface of the earth.”
“That’ll never work.”
“No, it’s possible. We just need to bide our time. We’ll wait, and only when the moment is right will we strike. Now, where does she want Juan to pilot this thing, anyway?”
Ringo looked up, too sore to jape. “Due east, to some blasted heathen shithole I’ve never heard of. The coordinates are real, though, and we should be able to get there within a season.”
“What’s the name of this place?”
“The Blue Sky Land.”
21
Taki’s eyes weakly fluttered open under white light. His body ached, and he felt thirsty although he was pretty sure he’d drunk his fill earlier. He tried to lift his head from a down-stuffed pillow but found that he could not. Down? He could have sworn that he’d spent the last few days on a grimy piece of slate.
Enilna stared back at him. Taki opened his mouth to speak, only for her to shush him. Wait, he thought, fighting the haze brought on by her touch. Didn’t I send you into a blizzard? Aren’t you dead? It was becoming an effort to stay awake. Damn that Jibriil! I knew I shouldn’t have trusted him. He tried to rise up out of bed, and Enilna pushed his head back down onto the pillow.
“No, wait,” Taki said, rolling away. “We need to tell Lotte. Warn her about Jibriil, that we’ve been had.” With titanic effort, he managed to sit partway up.
“There’s no need, Natalis,” Lotte said. Taki looked up to see his captain’s face mere fingerbreadths away from his. She straddled his hips. Her fingertips gently pushed him supine, and the strength evaporated from his core.
“Captain, he’s a traitor!”
“My poor, loyal soldier. Rest now. Let me reward you.”
“Wait,” he moaned.
Lotte seemed not to heed him but instead, buried her face against his neck. He felt her breasts press against him and her flesh touching his loins. Teeth ripped into the meat of his chest, and he gasped in pain. Warmth covered his torso, and he sank into contented, glassy stupor. But he could not sleep, as something continued to nag at him.
“Rest,” Lotte said, and kissed him. Her breath tasted of iron.
But you smelt of cordite. Taki’s eyes widened as the floor rumbled. He could have sworn that at the edge of his fraying consciousness, he heard gunfire and shouts. “Captain, something’s wrong.”
Lotte looked up, and her ex
pression changed to annoyance. Her irises went from brown to red. Her features changed now, to elongate in certain areas and soften in others. The woman who stared back at him now had the perfect proportions for beauty and yet seemed incredibly cruel. She had the face of a princess.
Taki tried to push her away. “You’re not my captain.”
“And you are becoming troublesome,” the princess said. She drew back, and her jaw seemed to dislocate to accommodate an expanding maw full of spiked teeth.
Taki tried to scramble away but found his limbs too weak to move. The princess wrapped her spindly, clawed fingers around his throat. Her teeth started to close on his face. He screamed.
A sharp crack interrupted Taki’s death, and the princess’s body suddenly went limp and fell by the wayside. Her head flopped at an unnatural angle and sprayed crimson into Taki’s face. A booted foot crashed into the dead monster’s side and punted her off the bed. Taki wiped the blood away from his eyes and saw Jibriil standing over him.
“Uh…hey,” the archangel said.
Taki blinked. “You killed her.”
“Well, yeah. I’ve never liked Ursalan royalty, and she was about to bite your face off.” Jibriil knelt and pressed a hand to Taki’s chest.
Taki instinctively flinched but soon felt the familiar warmth of prana suffusing his core. Sensation returned to his limbs, and his fingers and toes tingled, almost painfully so. He hungered for more, so much that it embarrassed him to remember the source. But in the state he was in, Jibriil’s touch was pure succor. Before Taki was satisfied, Jibriil lifted his hand away.
“I can’t give more, sorry. Spent a lot getting here,” Jibriil said.
Taki slowly sat upright. He scanned his surroundings and grimaced to see the princess’s monstrous corpse laid out nearby. Though her face had possessed a chilling cruelty, it had been comely. Well, before the teeth and claws came out.
The room he’d woken up in was a far cry from the miserable, rat-infested cells on the rest of the block. It was cavernous and appointed with silks and goosedown pillows strewn over the marble-tiled floor. Taki sat in a four-poster bed with a gossamer canopy hung over a mattress of ermine and sealskin throws. It was the very picture of a princess’s inner chamber, and it reeked of lavender and dried blood.