The Saint's Rise (Ignifer Cycle Book 1)

by Michael John Grist

  He drank and ate as he walked, scooping green meat from a Dirondack can, stopping only to daub arrows in red paste on the rock. He trudged though the hot afternoon until darkness fell like a balm, and he settled to sleep in the lee of a half-buried statue.

  "Sharachus?" he called. There was no reply and no sense of the Spider. The Gutrock was totally silent, but for the dry rasp of his own breath.

  He slept until the sun rose over the statue and bit into his eyes. He jerked away from it, and his ungloved left palm hit the rock. The Gutrock bit into the soft flesh, and he yanked his hand back. His palm was scored with three deep tears, welling blood. The rock beneath it was stained red, but as he watched the color quickly soaked into the pumice, leaving only a faint crimson outline.

  "You should sleep gloved," came Sharachus' voice. The Spider was hanging crookedly under the statue's tip, hugging the shadows.

  "You found me then," said Sen.

  "As always," replied the Spider, "though your red marks were worthless. The rock drank it, as surely as it drank your blood."

  Sen dug in his pack for a naphtha salve and rubbed it over his bleeding palm. "Then I'll leave it. Can you find me without it?"

  "Of course," said the Spider. "I never lost sight of you."

  Sen frowned. "What? So you followed me through the day."

  The Spider nodded.

  "We agreed you wouldn't, for your eyes."

  "My eyes will adjust."

  Sen studied the Spider's face. His large compound eyes were heavily lidded against the glare, but already crusty with seeping yellow oil. "They look bad."

  "Don't worry for me. Put on your mask, there's something I have to show you."

  Sen pushed himself to his feet. His head thumped and he felt dizzy. He took a step but stumbled and almost fell, only righting himself when Sharachus caught him.

  "You're dehydrated," the Spider said. He pressed one of his water flasks into Sen's hand. "You can't walk like this. Drink some more."

  Sen took the flask and drank.

  "Keep sipping," cautioned the Spider, as he darted agilely away over the rocks. Sen followed, concentrating on his footing, taking regular sips of water.

  At the top of one steep-shouldered fold in the lava, Sen came upon the Spider looking out over the rock fields.

  "Is this it?" he asked, panting lightly.

  "It was," replied Sharachus, his voice strangely distant, pointing just left of the mountain's massive flank. "Over there."

  Sen studied the ruptured gray field. "I don't see anything. What was it?"

  "I saw King Seem's palace. If I can just…" The Spider scratched at his eyes.

  "The palace is this way?"

  "I saw it. I think I saw it. Perhaps the rock shifted in position."

  Sen peered, but saw nothing. He hadn't felt any shifts underground, but perhaps he wouldn't. They were the stuff of legend, reshaping the Gut noiselessly, separating fellow ghasts in seconds without their ever knowing it.

  He summoned the map in his head, and tried again to work the angles. It was hard to keep track of where he'd come from, but the mountain always remained the same. As long as they headed roughly toward, and tried to calibrate from statues seen along the way, they should be able to find the citadel.

  "I think that statue might have been on one of the lower courthalls," Sen said, pointing back to the pace where he'd slept. "Which would make this the east-west Cavalcade. If so, we want to head that way." Sen pointed past the mountain at an angle.

  The Spider grunted and darted off.

  They continued on in silence through the heat of the day, into deepening crevasses that promised shelter but only focused the sunlight more brightly. They were only a day's travel from the Andesite terminus, but already there were no more ghast-holes and scarcely any signs of the city beneath their feet.

  At one of the few sites, an odd roof-gable poking through the rock cover like a fin, Sen stopped in the shade and picked at the dust coating his suit with one of his misericorde spikes, levering chunks off like plaster casts of his body. As each piece fell he felt the leather suit breathe a little easier.

  "Can you see it yet?" he called to the Spider, rustling atop the gable.

  "Not yet," said the Spider at last, his voice high and strange. "A little further."

  Over the next rise were deeper crevasses. Sen's head thumped despite the water. He swayed as he walked. He soon lost sight of Sharachus. So the day wore on in a stream of wavering footsteps, heat, and mumbled conversations with himself that turned over the same few points, which when he'd finished saying he couldn't even remember.

  The sun sank down behind the darkening rock walls, and Sen slumped in a natural hollow in the rock, beginning to shiver. Was it cold now? He was almost too exhausted to be sure. A wind blew down the crevasse, and he shifted his pack to block it. He ate and drank, and called out hoarsely for the Spider, until sleep crept up for the second night on the Gutrock.

  He woke to Sharachus muttering.

  "Here somewhere, got to be here."

  A thin black Sectile limb lolled down from above, against a deep blue sky spotted with drifting clouds. "Sharachus?"

  "Here," came the reply. There was a scrabbling, then the Spider was beside him, pushing his outsized face close. Sen pulled away. The Spider's eyes were nearly scabbed shut with purple clots.

  "What happened?" Sen asked. "Your eyes look terrible."

  "Couldn't find it," grunted the Spider. His jaw clicked as he spoke. "It's too dark." He punched at the rock wall, leaving a purple stain which was hungrily swallowed in. He didn't even seem to notice. Sen scanned the Spider's body, and saw many dark purple marks from Gutrock grazes.

  "You're covered in blood," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. "And it's not dark, it's daylight. When did you last drink anything?" He reached out, but the Spider pulled sharply away.

  "Don't touch me!" he barked. "I don't do that anymore."

  "Do what?"

  "Blow bubbles. I don't dance."

  "What are you talking about? You don't need to dance. Look, We'll stop. Let's rest here."

  Sharachus stared at Sen through the cracks in his crusted eyes. "Dreychak?" he murmured.

  A chill ran down Sen's spine. "No, it's Sen. We're on the Gutrock."

  The Spider stood silently for a moment, and Sen could hear his eyes grating side to side within their lids. "Avia's Sen, the little baby?"

  "Yes, it's me. Come into the shade, it's all right, we don't need to find the citadel right now."

  Sharachus' body stiffened. "The citadel? Am I hunting the King, Aberainythy?"

  Sen's heart skipped a beat. "Not King Aberainythy. We're not in the sewers, Sharachus, we're on the Gutrock looking for King Seem, and the last of the Saint."

  Sharachus didn't respond, instead his head swayed from side to side, like he was scenting the air. "Don't you hear that," he asked quietly.

  "Hear what?"

  "Adjunc." He paused. "And screams. It's Dreychak, Sen. He's calling for me. I can't let him die again. I have to save him."

  Sen felt a chasm opening up between them. The Spider's body shivered with some kind of fever, poised to leap at any moment. "Dreychak's dead, Sharachus. He's been dead for years. I need you now."

  Sharachus didn't listen. He twisted his head, listening out for non-existent screams, then shouted abruptly, "I'm coming!" and bounded jerkily away.

  Sen started after him up the crevasse, shouting for him to wait. He kept pace for a few moments only, staggering half sun-blind over vales and rises, with the white contours underfoot blurring, until one of his feet dropped into empty space, and his body plunged after it. He flailed and fell, hitting the rim of a fissure hard on the hip and scraping down the sharp sides. At the bottom his head bounced off stone, and the chase came to a premature end.

  * * *

  There was a great park spreading before him, in the dream. He sat on the grass at the top of a hill, looking out on a beautiful vista of tree
s, rolling slopes, lakes, fountains, and pathways of crushed shell. It was bigger than any grass space he'd ever seen, dwarfing the Abbey grounds and even the Tiptanic Gardens.

  Beside him sat his mother. It did not seem strange to sit beside her in that place, though when he turned to see her face, all her features were indistinct save the piercing dark of her eyes.

  "This used to be a wonderful city," she said.

  Together they looked out over the park. There were figures walking the pathways, lounging on the grass, castes he'd only read about in stories: a Spider fussed over its child, stuck in its first web, while Giants walked the grass alongside metal Tinheads and faceless Caracts. Sloths rolled the hills lazily on their two bone-wheels, while Bats lapped in the sky like kites, Moths chasing them in games of catch. Things made of liquid sloshed and slapped in the ponds, while licks of flame seemed to move in unison with fire-skinned Men of Quartz, as though dancing. Far overhead zeppelins arced through the clouds, pulled by many-hued Butterflies.

  Aradabar. Beyond the park lay the heart of the city, woven through with silver bi-rails, studded with bookyards that shone like beaten tin, watched over by tall glass library-towers that captured the orange light of the sun. At the far center he glimpsed a grand sandstone castle, its gates standing open.

  "He loved me so well," said Avia, her voice mournful. "He gave it all, and this is all that remains."

  Sen turned again to face her, but no matter how hard he looked he could not resolve the features of her face.

  "Seem?"

  She nodded. "Yes. But I left him behind. I left everything behind, even you."

  She took Sen's hand in her own. This seemed normal, in his dream, and together they watched the park. By one of the ponds a Giant was teaching a Tinman to swim. Strange scaled things emerged from the water, wings beating. Wyverns.

  "It's so beautiful," he said. "And peaceful."

  "It was, before the Rot."

  Sen nodded. His fear of losing Sharachus in the maze of fissures did not touch him here. Here, looking over Aradabar at its peak, he felt safe.

  "That's what they thought, too," said Avia, reading the thought in his mind. "They thought the Heart watched over them, and kept them safe."

  "But they weren't safe," said Sen, and a sudden sadness struck him.

  Dark clouds filled the sky, and a drifting black rain began to fall. Sen held his hands out before him, then brought them back with a few scorched petals of black cupped inside.

  "Ash," he said quietly.

  "He'll kill you," said Avia. "Seem, if you let him. He's not the man he was."

  Sen turned to her, looking into her sharp dark eyes. "He can't still be alive. It's been too long."

  "He's no ordinary man."

  She blew on the flakes of ash in Sen's hands and they floated away.

  All across the park the gray rain fell. The Men of Quartz and Giants laughed as it fell upon them, clumping balls of it together to toss at each other in play. The Bats overhead swooped and dived, catching flakes in their talons and mouths.

  Then the first of the Butterflies fell from the sky, its wings seared away, screaming. It landed with a dry popping thud, and more followed, their muted cries sounding like alarm calls, suddenly silenced.

  The Bats followed. Then came the zeppelin, falling in a bright blossom of flame. The stink of burning revelatory gas carried on the wind, then noise rushed in, and the world rocked underfoot. Sen tumbled sideways, clutching a tree bole as wave after wave of a deep roar filled the air, so powerful he couldn't even breathe. The world roiled and he clung to the wood with both hands, only enduring.

  Then the roar ended, and the tremors subsided. Sen released his grip but his body shuddered still. There was warmth running down his neck, and he reached to touch it. Blood.

  He rose to stand beside his mother, looking out over the beautiful city. It was in flames. Beyond it the mountain was erupting, shooting a column of flame into the sky, petalled with gray-black smoke. At the column's apex where the sky turned dark, he saw the mouth of the Rot opening.

  And it saw him. It looked into his heart, and knew who he was.

  Then its great jaws widened and fell across the city, crushing buildings like hawkenberry seeds, mangling the monorail in twisted curls. Its thick black tongues split the citadel in two, lifted the battlements like wooden chips and dashed them down into dust and rubble. Its hot breath burst the glass towers in glinting explosions.

  The people of Aradabar fled, but a hot wave of lava bore down on them, one by one catching them up. They flamed briefly like sparks from a fire, then vanished in the tide. The wave pooled around the base of the hill and began to climb.

  "It will kill you if you let it," came his mother's voice, "and with you, everything."

  "How can I stop it?"

  She turned to him, and for an instant he glimpsed her whole face, as he'd always remembered, as it had been in the Hallows glass looking directly at him. "Raise the Saint," she said, "at whatever cost."

  Then the lava reached up and swallowed them both down.

  * * *

  The sky was pinkish-gray when he roused, with the sun rising behind thick clouds.

  Sen lay in a shallow ravine, in shadow. His head ached, and for long moments he could not remember where he was. Hints of the dream worked their way through him; the terrible heat of the lava, the look on his mother's face.

  Then he remembered Sharachus, and sat up. His knees and elbows throbbed. He touched the side of his head and felt it was hot and swollen, scabbing over. A large portion of the leather across his chest had been scraped away, and his ribs underneath it felt springy and sore.

  He could easily have died.

  His pack lay beside him with the belongings scattered, some tins burst, some flasks cracked. He scooped up what remained, eating and drinking half of what was left. The throbbing eased, and he started to climb out of the ravine.

  What he saw over the lip stunned him.

  A vast crater lay only yards before him. The Gutrock just ahead dropped away in a sheer wall, which arced around like the swerve of HellWest docks, so wide he could barely see the crater's farthest side, nestled close to the rise of the mountain. And within the crater, far below the level of the rock where he now knelt, lay the city from his dream, in ruins.

  The barren hills of the park ran down until they met a cross-hatched pattern of mounds that had to be the outlines of roads and fallen buildings. In places pillars and walls yet stood, along with the stubs of the monorail, with heaps of blackened tower glass. It was a ghost city, dead for millennia, and somehow he had found it.

  "Sharachus," he whispered.

  He scanned the crater-wall around. At every point it was equally steep and stark, a sudden drop exhumed straight down into the rock, as if some ancient Mjolnir power had simply vaporized millions of tons of Gutrock in a perfect circular shape.

  No record of this place existed in the city, though clearly someone had exhumed it. Perhaps a thousand ghasts working for a thousand years could have achieved a project of such enormity. His eyes drank it in, seeking patterns from the map in his mind. Squinting, he made out a collection of half-standing spires and turrets at the furthest edge, barely emergent from the far wall, arranged in what seemed the outline of a palace.

  King Seem's citadel. As he stared, he thought he caught a glimpse of something dark moving through the ruins toward it.

  "Sharachus!" he shouted.

  The little shape, no larger than a Gomorrah fly, perhaps turned and stopped for a second, before racing forward again.

  Sen started climbing over the edge and down.

  ARADABAR

  The city ruins spread before him, completely silent. Not a bird flew overhead, not an insect scuttled underfoot. Nowhere was there any green, no trees, no grass, no sign of life at all.

  He stood upon a street. He could make out the camber and the black tarry composite it was shaped from, crisscrossed here and there by raised stepping stones.
Ahead of him it ran down into the city. Behind him it ran into the Gutrock wall. Either side it was lined with walls and pillars that seemed to melt into the cliff itself, continuing beyond within the rock.

  It felt surreal to stand there, to be in Aradabar, if only this strange scooped out hollow at its heart. He let out a careless whoop, unable to contain his excitement. The sound echoed off the wall and back around the crater.

  He started running, down the hill and into the city. The footing was firm and reliable, unlike the Gutrock, and it felt good to be on level ground, finally moving toward a clear goal. The cool wind whipping across his face refreshed him. He ran down streets lined with the memory of buildings, leaping stepping stones and tumbled lamp posts in the street. He peered into the few structures that still had walls, and saw dusty mosaic floors, the furniture in places still half-embedded in solidified ash.

  He ran by heaps of blackened glass coiled about with tangles of iron as tall as the Abbey, through webs of bi-rail tracks interwoven like wind-blown loom-work, his heart racing. Within half an hour he'd crossed most of the open crater, recognizing the bookyards and academies as he raced by, taking delight in shouting out their names, until he stood before the façade of King Seem's citadel itself.

  It stood at the very far edge of the exhumed crater, its grand but pockmarked face barely emerging from the steeply rising wall of Gutrock. It towered nearly as tall as the crater-wall itself, its topmost spires jutting through the surface crust.

  Sen took a breath as he slowed to approach. This was truly a place from legend. Set back behind a ruptured battlement wall, its turrets and spires shot upward in graceful, organic lines, though each protruded only a few hand-breadths clear of the Gutrock cliff, making them seem like images graven on the revenant arch.

  Sen climbed over the broken battlements and into a broad inner courtyard, decorated underfoot with huge mosaic tiles that picked out a figure of some sort. In the middle he stopped and called out the Spider's name, but his voice echoed around that dead courtyard with no answer.

  He studied the palace, scanning the grand entrance gate and various windows in the turrets and towers, but every one was still filled with rock, un-exhumed. He ran the courtyard to the grand main arch and pried at the old lava with his spikes, but it was solidly packed. He imagined the burning rock flowing through the corridors and rooms of the castle three thousand years, then setting hard. There was no way in like this.