How Black the Sky

by T J Marquis

  "Well if it's breadcrumbs, then it's breadcrumbs," said Sev. "I've forged with incomplete blueprints before."

  "We'll find it," said Pierce. "If I have to scour every inch of Over, Under and the Sublands to find clues, I'll do it."

  Ugrata favored him with a look. It said she thought him naive, but was grateful for his passion.

  "I'm serious," Pierce said, answering her unspoken doubts. "I will climb down the side of the Chasm wall myself to find what's under Subland."

  "So we get to name the place?" mused Agrathor. "I guess that's fair. What did Kash call it, Ugrata?"

  She shook her head. "He didn't name it. He just kept referring to the chasmic depths. He was going to teach me to fold into it without being eaten."

  Pierce bolted upright in his chair. "Did you say fold? Fold into the Chasm?"

  Ugrata nodded slowly.

  "Ess said you couldn't."

  "Well Kash could," Ugrata said.

  "Another lie," Agrathor growled. "So that's how she knew."

  "And now she knows whatever Kash did, too," said Scythia.

  "I was awaiting the appropriate moment to mention it," said Axebourne, clearing his throat. "This protected folding, it is an extension of the Tenth Skill."

  "Teach me," said Pierce.

  "But the banshees..." said Agrathor.

  "It's a double-fold," said Axebourne, "circumventing the edge of the spirit world the banshees are connected to. When you do it right, they can't touch you. From there, it's just an issue of practice - extending your range."

  "Could you cross?" asked Scythia.

  Axebourne was quiet a moment, and his skin gained a faint glow that soon faded.

  "I think so," he said. "But I would need a reason."

  "Like fleeing chasmic horrors?" Pierce said.

  Axebourne laughed. "Like that, or perhaps saving someone's life."

  "Teach me," Pierce repeated.

  "We will all learn," said Ugrata. "Now, what about the armies?"

  "Will you array them?" asked Axebourne. "We will need to speak with them, make them understand how important this shift in things really is. We may need to convene the regular citizens as well."

  "This will be difficult for the humans," said Scythia.

  "It will," said Ugrata. Then, "If I order my people to gather, they will obey me."

  "Well, what are we waiting for?" said Agrathor, smacking the table and standing. He muttered, "Kid must be rubbing off on me. Let's do it now!"

  The remaining forces of Testadel were arrayed just within the fortress gates, which stood open to the traffic coming and going from the ruins of Grondell.

  Ugrata had given the order for everyone to be presented for inspection, and no one had disobeyed. Even the painreapers came, and were hanging back near the stairways leading down to their dungeons, whispering amongst themselves. She did not have the energy to address the army properly, but she stood long enough to assure them that all was as well as could be.

  She spoke to them from a raised platform overlooking the parade grounds before the gate.

  "The peace that my husband dreamed of has come, in part, though not in the way he intended," she said, using an enchantment to amplify her voice. "Gorgonbane did not assassinate him."

  There was a murmur of voices from the crowd at this. Did they believe it?

  "The Second has become the First," Ugrata said. "She has betrayed her own comrades. It was she who murdered our beloved Underlord."

  The murmuring voices continued.

  "Things will continue to change," Ugrata said. Her stance began to falter, and Pierce was there to help hold her up. She glanced at him in thanks. "You have already begun the change. We will rebuild. We will explore for ourselves what caused my husband's great concern, why he feared the things he said were coming up from below the Underlands. And we will prepare. We will be ready to stand."

  Ugrata leaned more heavily on Pierce. He thought she must be exhausted. He wondered if he would fare much better after dying and being brought back.

  "Please, continue to work together," she said, voice rasping a little. "Please, hear and obey the new Lords of Testadel."

  Ugrata gestured tiredly to a chair that had been brought for her and thanked Pierce as he helped her settle into it.

  She looked much like her sister. They might even be twins, but Ess had been so youthful of appearance that it was impossible to tell just by looking. There was something more mature about Ugrata, however. Her face carried more cares than Ess's, and her eyes were as dark, but more full of emotions than they were of mysteries.

  Pierce was still mulling over Ess's betrayal in his mind, still trying to hear the words that Agrathor had spoken to him. He didn't want to notice the woman's loveliness, so like her sister's, but he couldn't help it. Even his own eyes were betraying him.

  Axebourne took Ugrata's place on the raised platform and bowed his head humbly.

  "We have considered ourselves enemies for a long time," he began. He gave the Underlord's army a silent moment to boo, or jeer, or scream. They did not. "There is much on which we'll disagree. None of it matters, now. One of our own has deceived us greatly and treated your former master shamefully. Some day, she will be brought to justice. Until then, other matters demand our attention. Kash knew of the threat from below, something of which Gorgonbane has only just become aware. He feared or at least was concerned by what it meant for our two realms. We must take his concerns seriously."

  The murmur became one of assent.

  "I, we, do not come to conquer you, to put you to work, to send you to fight and die in battles we ourselves would not brave," Axebourne said. "And we did not seek to be called the Lords of this great old citadel. But in the absence of your revered master -"

  This garnered some cheers.

  "- we will seek to do our best to live up to his fair and diligent nature."

  The cheers crescendoed.

  "I ask, we ask, that you work together as you have been doing since being raised up to Overland. Work with those who have survived. Work with us. I cannot say much more beyond what the Lady of Testadel has said. For now, all I can say is... thank you for not trying to kill me today."

  The army laughed at this, and Axebourne gave a little bow as he backed away from the platform.

  Gradually the crowd dispersed, officers handing down orders to get back to whatever was on the day's schedule.

  Pierce had been watching everyone. The only group who hadn't responded significantly to either Axebourne or Ugrata was the painreapers. Now they were filtering back down into their dungeons to resume the dark works they did down there. Gorgonbane would have to put a stop to the torture and experimentation immediately. Even then, Pierce would continue to keep an eye on them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Comrades and Family

  Pierce and Sev leaned on the railing of a balcony outside one of Kash's many apartments, watching the workers below. Pierce had just come from his last shift hauling debris out of the city to be sorted, and Sev was getting ready to report to his.

  "You know, Sev," Pierce said, "when I first saw you... Wow. That was right downstairs, wasn't it?"

  Sev gave his flat smile and said, "It was."

  "When I first saw you down there I was actually scared for a moment."

  "Not you," Sev said, disbelieving.

  "Oh yeah," Pierce said. "Don't you know what they say about forgemasters?"

  Sev shrugged.

  "That you can't be cut or stabbed because your skin is made of stone."

  Sev made an odd imitation of a raspberry sound. Pierce thought the idea must have amused him.

  "It's true," Pierce said. "They say you can tear a father dogran limb from limb with your bare hands."

  Sev waggled his head left to right as if this were more or less true.

  "I thought I was a dead man," said Pierce.

  "Is that the only reason you didn't attack?" Sev asked. "Because you thought you didn't have a chanc
e?"

  Pierce wrinkled his brow incredulously. "No," he said. "No not at all. I've done stupider things than attack an invincible forgemaster."

  Sev chuckled.

  "I didn't attack because you weren't armed."

  The forgemaster looked at his grey-skinned arms, corded with muscle, and wiggled his fingers. "You just said I could kill a dogran with these."

  "Well," Pierce stalled. "I guess I still didn't think of them as weapons." He shrugged.

  "Want to try it?" Sev said.

  "Try what?"

  "Cutting a forgemaster's skin."

  Pierce looked at him dubiously, and the man actually laughed. Pierce smiled.

  "You really are crazy, I knew it. You'd try it, wouldn't you, if I let you?" Sev said.

  "I mean, I'm a little curious, but I wouldn't do it if I thought it would hurt you."

  "And why is that, little man?" Sev said. Were Axebourne and Agrathor rubbing off on him? Pierce didn't mind.

  "Well," Pierce said, "We're comrades now."

  Sev clapped him on the back amiably and stepped away from the balcony railing.

  "It really has been something new," he said, "traveling with Gorgonbane. I was up in my workshop this morning, and for the first time, I could not concentrate on what I was doing. It was not anything big or difficult, just a shade of red, but I found that I had the urge to... be outside. I wanted to feel the sun and the air."

  "Well you've missed your share of the daytime," Pierce said. "Probably need to catch up."

  "Yes," Sev said. "I intend to do so. This work outside certainly helps fill the void."

  The forgemaster began to walk away.

  "Hey Sev," Pierce said. The forgemaster stopped and turned. "After your shift, wanna grab a drink?"

  Seve gave him a flat smile and thumbs up.

  "Alright," said Pierce. "Meet you at Sugar's."

  He said farewell and headed out to work his hauling shift, and Pierce looked back out at the land below.

  Even the Monstrosities were on the job. They were exceedingly useful for hauling away large bits of wreckage or setting long beams to frame out new buildings. They were not pretty things, but they were far less terrifying out in the light of day, and when they weren't trying to kill him. Pierce wondered if they mourned the loss of their brethren as the humans, gen and even werewolves did. Did they even have minds for anything beyond labor and battle?

  Pierce saw one set its load of fresh timber down and lock its hands together above its head. It bent backward, stretching out the front of its body like any other laborer might.

  Pierce caught its eye and waved. The giant looked back at him for a moment, its face impassive. Then it raised a hand slowly as if just learning the gesture, and waved it back and forth gently.

  Scythia and Axebourne stood together on the field that had been cleared outside Testadel's gate. They had their arms around each other's waists, and they were both studying the fortress complex that towered above them.

  "They're getting a lot done, quickly," Axebourne observed. "Kash really did run a tight operation."

  "Maybe there was more to him than we realized," Scythia said. "It's hard to admit, isn't it?"

  Axebourne nodded. "Easier for me now," he said. "The vice of pride has no hold on me anymore. But my thoughts still tend to run in the old patterns. I still think of him as a villain."

  "It will take time," said Scythia, "for all of us. It's not as if he were an angel."

  "No," Axebourne agreed. "His methods were often distasteful, if not outright evil."

  Scythia nodded. "But I was right too. We only ever did what we thought was right. How are we to learn when to war, and when to make peace, unless we pick a path and tread it?"

  "My wise wife," Axebourne said. Scythia frowned.

  "Don't tease," she said.

  "When have I ever?" Axebourne laughed.

  Scythia looked across the open field. This had once been a garden outside the walls of the Temple. Men had trimmed the hedges in the shapes of various weapons. Scythia remembered frolicking among the trees and shrubs with the other boys and girls when her parents had come here on pilgrimage one year. The garden was gone, but the land had been cleared. Humans and gen were using it as a staging area for timber and stone. No sooner had one team dropped off the fresh materials than another would come and cart some off to go rebuild one thing or another.

  "Is it going to work?" Axebourne asked his wife.

  She was silent a long time, watching the fortress's ramparts, the traffic moving in and out of the gates. Humans and gen working together. It was unheard of. Even the Monstrosities had been put to good work.

  No one in Overland could say when the rift had begun, or whether it had always been that way. It had just seemed so natural.

  We live up on the surface, she thought. They live down below, where they belong. If it were to be otherwise, the world would feel askew.

  Certainly the world did feel off. In bad ways, but also in good. Axebourne should not be here, by all rights, and yet the Blacksmith himself had sent her husband back. Everything she thought she knew was shifting. If a man could come back from death, his body glorified, to serve a grand purpose, then anything could change, couldn't it?

  "Scythia?" Axebourne asked.

  "I'm sorry, my love. I drifted," she said.

  He smiled and kissed the side of her head. "That boy's rubbing off on all of us."

  Scythia chuckled.

  "I think so," she said, watching a human man exchanging chatter with a gen woman as they leaned on a pile of timber to eat their lunch. "I think it's going to work."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Flood Day

  In all the ruckus of the invasion, many people had been unable to prepare for Flood Day. Everyone called it a day, but it was really more of a short season - a rolling flash flood that covered the breadth of the continent.

  It always started in the northwest, with a sudden gushing of water from the mountains that overlooked the Chasm there. The moats that surrounded every city and homestead were uncovered and cleared of critters and random debris. Sandbags were piled against anything that might leak. The ground floors of any building not made of stone were vacated, their modular walls removed temporarily so that their upper floors now stood on sturdy stilts.

  News from elsewhere revealed that this season had most everyone scrambling to prepare. The new city of Testagrond was in good shape, though, being in the midst of rebuilding from scratch.

  Gorgonbane sat together at the bar in Sugar's new tavern, Ugrata and Deathgripz with them. The rest of the place was full of humans and gen just now experiencing the euphoria of Sugar's cooking. Many of them watched Gorgonbane and whispered.

  The window shutters were open, and Pierce watched the Flood waters amble by. This far southeast, the water didn't really rush, so damage was minimal. The moats helped considerably to prevent catastrophe, but they weren't deep enough to route all the water away.

  Someone rowed by on a canoe, and Pierce waved.

  "I know the farmers and merchants hate it," Sugar was saying as she leaned on her bar, "but I've always liked Flood Day."

  "My grandmother used to tell me fairy tales about a thing called winter," Deathgripz said. "People would huddle in their houses together burning wood for warmth, since the outside was so cold it chilled you to the bone."

  She nudged Agrathor in the rib as she said this and said, "You'd probably like that, huh?"

  Agrathor cackled and his green eyes brightened.

  "This reminds me of that," Deathgripz finished.

  "Exactly!" said Sugar, and refilled Deathgripz's stein, though it was far from empty. "Everyone all cozy in a small place together. It's a hugger's dream."

  "Winter, huh..." Pierce said. "Never heard of that one. Wonder if the sky's blue on that level."

  "What level?" Agrathor asked.

  "The one where winter happens."

  The bone man growled. "Oh no, don't you go thinking a
gain. You get these thoughts in my head..."

  Deathgripz thunked a metal finger on Agrathor's hollow skull and it played a short, clear note. He snapped his jaws at her finger and she laughed. He chuckled too.

  Pierce started to wonder when all this had happened, something starting between them and all the questions that entailed, but Agrathor's grumbling kept his mind on track.

  "You get it in my head, and I can't think about anything small all of a sudden," Agrathor said.

  "What's wrong with that?" Pierce said.

  "Not everyone wants to be operating at full blast all the time, Pierce," said Ugrata. "People like to rest their minds, to relax, especially on a day like today."

  "But it's not like it's that big a deal, is..." Pierce started, then the thought blossomed.

  Of course it was a big deal. Another level, another realm, perhaps another set of rules. It wasn't just adventure anymore. It was responsibility. Possibly a threat. Just because some level with a season called winter lay somewhere above and not below, that didn't mean it was benign. It would be yet another thing to deal with, now that Ugrata and Gorgonbane effectively ruled the Over and Underlands.

  "What are we going to call the new kingdom, anyway?" Pierce asked on a whim.

  "I'll never understand how you think, kid," Agrathor said. He took a large bite of his spiced meat pie. Pierce didn't see where it went.

  "And I'll never understand how you eat," Pierce said.

  "Good one, kid," Deathgripz grinned one-sidedly. It was a lot like Sev's grin. She proffered her stein for a cheers and Pierce banged his mead against hers. They swigged.

  "For Gorgonshire!" Axebourne bellowed and hefted his stein, laughing.

  "For Gorgonshire!" the others echoed. They drank.

  Scythia shook her head. "No, too self-centered."

  Everyone hmmmed, musing.

  "To the United Republic of Over, Under and Subland. U.R.O.U.S.!" cried Agrathor. The cheer was not so resounding as before, but everyone toasted still, repeating.