‘A deceiving drink,’ Fayne grunted. ‘Nothing substitutes real rest. The drink merely makes you believe you don’t need sleep.’
‘True, people can damage themselves with it,’ Zabrielle mused.
They carried on after the coffee, feeling no better than before. They traversed dead landscapes, their lamps catching more remnants of the world that was. Soon, Maya and Gray were not paying any attention to their surroundings; they were beginning to doze off whilst walking, their stride a drowsy one. Gray desperately hoped Maya would see sense in asking for rest, perhaps an hour’s sleep, but she did not. He was too proud to suggest it, and so they trudged.
Slowly, the sun crawled back into the sky, an uneventful night behind them. Fayne and Zabrielle were walking together, talking, while the siblings were sleepwalking behind them, when Gray suddenly tripped and stumbled. Fayne caught him before he could fall.
‘You should sleep, both of you,’ Fayne said shortly. ‘Two hours. Then we’re back on the road.’
No one protested. Gray and Maya slept off in minutes, not bothering with their sleeping bags. Fayne had resisted bandages fiercely before, but walking had hurt—he now acquiesced to Zabrielle as she set about running a healing hand over his wounds, taking away as much pain as she could, speeding up the healing process, and then cleaning and bandaging the wounds. When she was done, Fayne grunted his thanks.
Zabrielle waved it aside. ‘Why did you resist before?’
‘Bandages give an appearance of weakness.’
‘But you heal slower.’
‘I can handle it. It is just that all this walking, it is tearing me up inside.’
Zabrielle looked at him, her dreamy eyes sharp. ‘You’re hurt more than you are letting on.’
Fayne looked back at her, his mask defending his face. ‘Zabrielle. There is something you have to know, as the other defender of Maya and Gray.’
He looked at the siblings to make sure they were asleep. ‘Do you know how I make my daggers?’
‘You are an alkhatamish of the human sheath, are you not?’ Zabrielle asked.
‘Wahiyan. A blood curse runs through me, something primeval. Very strong. An evolving curse.’
The Demon nodded gently.
‘Every time I’m near death, very near,’ the assassin continued, ‘the curse gets stronger, eliminating previous weaknesses, granting new strengths. I fear the Infernal brought me to the very doors of death, and the process has begun.’
‘So you’re growing stronger?’
‘At a certain cost, yes. There is a period of time, an incubation period, when the curse grows in my blood. I am very weak during this time.’ He paused in what seemed like regret. ‘My movements are slower, my strength half of what it normally is. I will not be the protector I am used to being.’
‘How long is this process?’
‘It has happened to me once before. It took a week then. I hid from the world and sweated out a terrible fever. It was a rented room where no one bothered me.’
‘So it would be reasonable to expect a week, perhaps ten days this time as well. Do not worry. Concentrate on hurrying the process up, however you can.’ Now Zabrielle could see the sweat, the mask sticking to the forehead. ‘One will protect them.’
Fayne sat on the ground, hunched into himself. ‘My thanks. It is not something I would want either Maya or Gray to know.’
‘They should,’ Zabrielle said. ‘They depend on you in battle.’
‘It is not that simple. There is the matter of my charge. I have promised to fight. And I will fight, even if it claims me. In case I do not make it, I would like you to protect them all the more. It is a request, a most personal one.’
‘One understands,’ Zabrielle said. ‘One will do one’s best, Fayne. Zarra Khazam. Upon one’s life.’
They sat in silence after that. In due time, Fayne woke the siblings up, no signs of weakness apparent. All of them ate except for the assassin. ‘Hip flask?’ Gray asked. ‘Oh. Infernal.’
‘It is fine,’ Fayne said. ‘I feel no hunger.’
They moved off soon, into the foothills of a dry mountain before them. There was a path that snaked up the mountain ridge, snatches of dead forest in between. They cut through the forest as they made their way up, meeting the path again and again.
‘Not far,’ Zabrielle observed during one of their stops. ‘The city rests on the other side.’
But once they reached the summit, it was clear the Demon had been mistaken—there was another hill in the distance, perhaps the one she had originally meant. They made their way down the mountain, walking towards the next one, night descending once more. Wolves howled but did not attack. A short plateau rested between the two heights, and this they scaled and then trudged across.
Night deepened midway through, bringing a sudden chill. They decided to make camp and sleep a good sleep. Fayne sought a dead tree and slept as well, standing up. Maya went out like a light. Gray went to have a few words with Zabrielle before he did too. She was taking the first watch.
‘The Shadowlands,’ he said. ‘I’ve been wondering for a time why it is like this.’
‘Ah yes,’ Zabrielle said. ‘The story of the Shades.’
‘Is it a long one?’ Gray yawned. ‘I must sleep. Didn’t sleep enough.’
‘A bit long,’ Zabrielle said apologetically. ‘But one important for you to hear.’
‘Important? Why?’
‘You will know after you hear it, young one.’
Gray sighed. ‘I’ll make some coffee,’ he said, reaching for his goatskin.
‘Long ago,’ Zabrielle started a few minutes later when Gray, wrapped in a blanket, sat sipping his drink, ‘it is said the Shadowlands were green. Rivers flowed that were a crystal blue, the water clean—and so did grass grow, long and wild, the forests lush with plants and trees. Animals lived freely. It was easy to live off so rich a land. Even then had people started practicing magic, trying to use it, bending it to their will. They speak of wondrous things back in those days, of a harmony between magic and science, of devices unimaginable. Either way, magic had been discovered, and with it, a great number of people succumbed to their deaths, trying to unlock its greater secrets.
‘And thus was the Guild formed. Regat, protegat. Regulate and protect. The Guild, you see, oversaw the use of all magic and archived all magical explorations in its vast, well-protected corridors. As the masters of the Guild delved deeper into the arts and the arcane, the Guild discovered sections and branches, kinds of magic very proficient at building a body count. Magic with a bloodlust, magic killing off the best Guild mages.
‘The Guild, however, needed to buttress its financials. There were several investors, awed at the prospects of magic and the wonders it presented. Even a parlour trick, presented well, could ensure a prospective investment. Magic, therefore, could not scare. It had to be, in short, marketable. Magic had to appear harnessed, controlled, far from its true nature. Tricks of light and illusions gave way to more practical applications—magic powered gadgets, devices of everyday use. The Guild got grants, large grants, and they started production, trivialising the art to a degree unforgivable.
‘The Guild had plans, however, and the seven leaders secretly weaponised magic in their workshops. They researched and pushed magic, took it as far as it could go. Publicly, they made two areas of magic unlawful to practice, the two sections which had claimed most researchers. Blood. And shadow.
‘You see, young one, blood magic and shadow magic were the darkest forms of the power, closest to the true essence of the old art. The Guild practiced it in secret, unravelling its mysteries.
‘Young, bright men and women joined the Guild every passing day, people who had a way with magic. They worked for the Guild and they died for the Guild. The Guild needed people, continuously, and they did not think their secrets would leak, for they silenced who they did not need.
‘But the way of magic has always been subtle, and soon the survivors emerged, pe
ople tainted by the magic, people forever cursed, the magic a part of their very being, the magic controlling them as much as they would control it. Two groups were formed, two clans—the Ichor and the Shades—corrupted by blood and shadow respectively. Here, one shall talk of the Shades, as they were the ones who would defile the Shadowlands.
‘The Shades tried to declare to the world what the Guild had done, what their conversations with magic had turned them into. But people feared the Shades. None could look upon them, none would believe them. So retreated the Shades, and waged a long war against the Guild, a war the Ichor did not join. The Guild had been training soldiers in secret for a long time, and suddenly it seized power, toppling kingdoms, assassinating people in power, many of them the investors it had gained over the years. The Guild was called that no longer—the Seven now called it MYTH, a world power without end, supreme in its might. MYTH Sorcerers and Tantrics were unleashed, and the Shades, after being hammered furiously, endlessly, fell before the sheer numbers of MYTH forces. They broke into small groups that retreated further, some of them disappearing, some meeting death at the hands of this new superpower.
‘MYTH then built New Kolkata with a promise to keep it all expanding, both to the north and the south. But it had underestimated the Shades. With a last burst of power and defiance, the Shades corrupted the lands above Old Kolkata, making it impossible and immaterial for MYTH to annex the north. The corruption spread through what is now known as the Shadowlands, killing every living creature, every leaf in every tree. Nila shish ei sumen. Nothing may grow here, so have said the Shades.’
Zabrielle slowly turned to look at Gray. He was asleep, snoring softly.
‘Your sister, one is afraid, walks the path of the Shade,’ she said sadly. ‘If she talks to the darkness, it will be too late. Only blood may save her now, the blood of a family tied.’
She turned back to look at the growing moon as Gray continued to sleep, oblivious.
11
They started again at dawn, across the plateau, past the dead earth. The hill stared down at them, not as vast as the mountain, but a more challenging climb. It took them till midday to reach the peak. It was then that Maya looked at the other side of the hill, the city resting at its foot.
Sharp, black spires, tall buildings, walls of wood and metal, golden and red, a blanket of rust. Smoke emerged from within the houses, the towers, the churches, yet no one was on the streets, not in daylight. It looked like a pincushion, the main buildings bunched together at the bottom and scores of thin, sharp towers spread across, some as high as the peak itself.
It gave off an aura immediately, the mere sight of it.
‘Nemen Sui,’ Gray said, ‘because someone has to say it right now.’
Maya turned to the others, keeping her bag on the ground. ‘We’ll make camp here,’ she said. ‘Good vantage point.’
Fayne nodded. ‘Tonight?’
‘Yes,’ Maya said. ‘Tonight.’
‘What exactly are the Flesh Eaters?’ Gray asked. ‘I want to know everything about them before I creep into their city.’
‘One will tell you,’ Zabrielle said.
They settled down. Evening brought cold with it, and Fayne was quick to start a small fire. Gray sat against a rock, drinking from his goatskin. Maya could not help but notice how he uncorked and drank with the same hand. She felt the subtle anger once more.
‘How are your wounds?’ Zabrielle asked Gray. She had been watching the siblings.
‘The burns on my back hurt less,’ Gray said dispassionately. ‘If you’re asking about the arm, it’s beginning to shed bits of dry skin, like scraps of paper. I still keep thinking the arm is there.’
‘The phantom limb. It will pass in time.’
‘So, how about the Flesh Eaters? Know thine enemy and all that.’
‘Cannibals, as is obvious,’ Fayne replied. ‘They have made enemies with humanity, eating their own kind. They were once men.’
‘That is not our problem, not the Flesh Eaters,’ Zabrielle said. ‘The threat is their deity.’
‘The Beleaguer,’ Fayne nodded. ‘We could have used the pashlin.’
‘The Beleaguer?’
‘A twisted spirit,’ Zabrielle said. ‘The one to whom they sacrifice, the Flesh Eaters.’
‘A new enemy?’ Gray asked, exhaling. ‘We just fought an Infernal, dammit.’
‘The Beleaguer does not have a body,’ Fayne said. ‘It is a spirit, in the truest sense, which makes its home here among the Flesh Eaters.’
‘Why hasn’t some Tantric captured it yet, then?’ Maya asked.
‘Tantrics are said to be afraid of this one. Though I’m sure the pashlin would have tried, if he were to be in his body. It possesses, fatiya. That is its master weapon. Manipulation, getting companions to kill one another . . .’ He paused. ‘You understand where this is going.’
‘You’re trained to resist spirits,’ Maya said. She looked at Zabrielle.
‘As am I,’ she said.
‘So both of you will be going,’ Maya said heavily. ‘Fine. I will not risk the group in an obstinate need. Leave at nightfall, then. Find the Gunsmith. Bring him back.’
‘This spirit,’ Gray spoke. ‘This—Beleaguer. What stops it from coming up the mountain, where we are right now?’
‘Legends say it is bound to the city,’ Zabrielle said. ‘The Flesh Eaters are not. They can chase us.’
‘No,’ Fayne shook his head. ‘No one will see us enter or leave. We will be parzhai—shadows in the night.’
Gray nodded. ‘Good. We can get some rest then, while you are gone.’
They waited, patiently, for evening to give way to night. Night came, and with it, Fayne and Zabrielle moved off, quietly, without another word. Maya and Gray watched them make their way down the mountain.
‘Nemen Sui is enormous,’ Gray said to himself.
‘They’ll find him,’ Maya replied. ‘Fayne can find people, and Zabrielle has magic on her side.’
Gray turned a deaf ear. ‘I’m sleeping,’ he said, to no one in particular. ‘I would like to be woken up for the next watch.’
‘Sleep,’ Maya said.
She watched as a hundred torches were ignited in the city before her, burning inside windows, from dim, cramped streets. The towers glittered, as if coated with black ooze, their sharp structure almost surgical. A menacing aura, one which announced that all was not right with this place.
A city of murderers.
Fayne knew of the slaves that maintained Nemen Sui. Every morning they would sweep the pathways and the buildings, wash the stone, and then dutifully return to their cells by dusk. It was a thankless task, and the assassin did not know if the slaves chose to stay. There were stories of a slave rebellion back when the skies were blue, an uprising calmed by the snipers. Fayne also knew of the snipers. It was because of the ever vigilant sharpshooters of the Black City that he and Zabrielle stayed in the shadow of the outermost wall of Nemen Sui, inching their way towards a back gate.
The city had a central tower, thin and spiky like the rest, originating from the temple, where most of the bloody dining happened. It was around this tower that the other towers sprung, their placement deceptively haphazard. In the nooks and crannies between these towers emerged the city, a confusing mass of flat rectangular structures built from stone. These were mostly windowless buildings, bare, flat walls without texture that caught shadows easily. There were no roads, only a maze of streets, alleyways, and well-maintained cobbled paths of identical stone.
‘Where could they be keeping him?’ Zabrielle asked in the slightest of whispers. To someone else it might have seemed like a faint breeze passing through leaves.
Fayne liked her caution. ‘We’ll ask one of them,’ he whispered.
They headed towards the gate, barred, two grunts standing guard behind. The grunts wore thorned helmets with face masks and eyepieces, standing guard in dark obeisance. Fayne spied ritual markings on their armour. They held guns and
had swords slung at their sides.
Scaling the outer wall was easy. Fayne crept up, quiet as a cat, reached the edge and sat in a hunch. Zabrielle, with a burst of silent magic, leapt up. She almost missed the wall, but Fayne caught her arm with one hand and eased her onto the surface.
‘Take that one,’ he pointed, and dropped inside. Zabrielle summoned a ghost blade, the straight, needled rapier she usually preferred as a projectile, and waited. The blade waited too, levitating next to her.
Fayne subdued a guard in another moment, a dagger over his throat, other hand muzzling in a grip of iron. The other guard spun about.
‘What in the—’he managed to say before Zabrielle’s ghost sword was sticking out of his heart. He dropped, dead, the ghost sword gone and not a drop of blood spilt.
‘See that?’ Fayne rasped at the soldier he held, as the dead body slid into the shadows, pulled by an unseen force. ‘If you scream for help, I will slit your throat. No heroes here tonight.’
The grunt, terrified, nodded. Fayne removed his hand from the man’s mouth, holding him powerless, crimson blade still at his neck.
‘I want the Gunsmith. Where are they keeping him?’
‘I’m . . . I’m not a Flesh Eater!’ the man stammered.
‘I know that. I said they, not you.’
‘I don’t know who you’re talking about! I don’t know anything! Masters keep prisoners all over the city!’
‘One last chance,’ Fayne said.
‘I really don’t know—’ the man cried out and fell, his throat slit. Zabrielle stepped out of the shadows, her eyes flaring green. ‘A sad waste.’
Fayne slid the blade into a sheath on the side of his stomach. ‘No help. Let’s try others.’
‘These are slaves, Fayne. Shouldn’t we get a Flesh Eater?’
‘Risky,’ Fayne said. ‘The Beleaguer will know when one of his own goes missing.’
‘We cannot keep killing slaves.’
‘We find a victual. They will know.’
‘There’s no guarantee of that.’
‘They’ll be looking forward to the meal, khushmakas,’ Fayne said with a little exasperation. ‘Or they will have devoured part of him. Let us find one.’
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