Hinterland

by James Clemens

  The last to leave, Tylar turned to Kathryn and Delia. Gerrod had already clanked off to oversee something near the stern tie-down.

  The two women seemed to suddenly become aware they were alone together. Kathryn broke the spell first. “I should get below. Argent will need much calming. And we have our towers to ready.”

  Delia stepped off after her. “And I should see to Laurelle and the other Hands.”

  Tylar lifted an arm, to object, to offer some more intimate farewell.

  But he wasn’t sure to which woman he raised his arm.

  Before he could decide, the pair retreated back toward the warmth and light of the open tower door. Left out in the cold, Tylar turned toward the waiting ship. A frigid breeze swept through him. His broken finger ached, and behind the palm print on his chest, something deep inside him churned with distress.

  Rogger stood at the open hatch to the flippercraft and waved him to hurry. Ducking against the wind, Tylar headed toward the ship.

  He did not whistle.

  Dart held tight to the belt that secured her seat as the flippercraft lifted from its docking cradle. A tremble passed underfoot and under her buttocks. The mekanicals had been set to full burn. In her belly, she felt the world fall away under her.

  Pupp stood near her seat, legs wide, spiky mane sticking straight out around his face. Dart swore she could hear him whine in the back of her head, but maybe it was the mekanicals ratcheting up into higher pitches, where the normal ear could not discern but only felt in the bones.

  She glanced to the porthole window beside her head, but there was nothing to see. Even the windows were coated with bile.

  Across from her sat Calla, the gray-cloaked Black Flagger. Despite the ash on her face, Dart read the worry. She kept glancing to Krevan, her leader, who stood at the door to their tiny cabin braced in the opening, ready to ride out the storm on his feet. He had argued earlier to join Tylar and the captain in the forward controls, but he had been refused. Captain Horas was in no mood to argue, and Tylar supported him.

  “His ship, his command,” the regent had said.

  Past Krevan, another cabin stood open to the hall. Malthumalbaen filled an entire bench by himself. Brant was propped up next to him, his head hanging, asleep or despondent. The giant rested a massive hand on his shoulder. On the opposite bench, Lorr sprawled on his back, knees up, as if they were all afloat on a sunny river.

  Rogger spoke beside her. “Best you blink a few times, lass. Your eyeballs will dry out if you keep staring like that.”

  Dart leaned back. Her fingers remained clenched.

  “We’ll get through this storm,” he assured her.

  “How do you know?” She coughed to chase the tremulous keen from her words.

  “We’re covered in shite. What storm god would want to snatch us from the air? Probably part the clouds themselves so we don’t smudge their snowy whiteness.”

  She offered a weak smile.

  “We’ll make it through,” he promised.

  She took a measure of strength from his confidence, but not all her worries were buried in the storm. We’ll make it through. But what then? Though she appreciated Rogger’s company, she was all too aware of the burden he carried in his satchel. It rested beside him tied to his wrist.

  The skull of the rogue god.

  She had been trying her best to ignore it, to dismiss it as some cursed talisman, none of her concern. Even the others continued to avoid mentioning the more intimate history of the bones.

  The rogue had a name.

  Keorn.

  After so many years wondering about her mother and father, dreaming her childhood fantasies, here was her reality. Her father was no faceless rogue. In one night, she had gained not just a father, but an entire lineage.

  Chrism’s son.

  That made her Chrism’s granddaughter.

  It had been Chrism who had forged Rivenscryr and sundered the gods’ homeworld in the first War of the Gods. And now a new war was starting here on Myrillia. Ancient enmities, drowned in the naether, were rising again.

  And she stood at the heart of it.

  Chrism’s granddaughter.

  That was enough to unsettle her, to make her want to run and keep running. But that was not the primary reason for her bone-deep unease. She had long come to accept her heritage as the progeny of rogue gods. Even this new revelation of her heritage, she could come to acknowledge. In fact, she had already unburdened her fears to Laurelle and Delia. After an initial surprise, Laurelle had readily accepted her heritage.

  “It makes no difference,” Laurelle had said and hugged her to prove it.

  But it had been Delia who truly helped return Dart’s footing. “It doesn’t matter,” she had said. “You are not your father, nor your grandfather. And I should know, being the daughter of Argent ser Fields. Blood does not dictate the woman. Only your own heart does. You must remember that.”

  And she would.

  But that sentiment did not soothe another reality, one more solid than fear. She stared at the satchel. After so long being mere myth and dream, here was her father. The last of his bones. All that was left, all she would ever truly know. And despite the curse, she longed to touch them, to make at least that much contact, between daughter and father.

  And deeper below this desire lay a well of grief.

  Her father was dead. And if the stories were true, he had sacrificed himself to bring forth word of his enslaved and tortured brethren. This was also her heritage. And it both warmed her and filled her with sorrow.

  Who was her father?

  Even a name did not fully answer that.

  She tried searching out the window to distract her, but there was nothing to see. We’ll make it through. Then what? From there, they would follow the last footsteps of her father.

  But where would they lead?

  Around her, the flippercraft shuddered, from bow to stern.

  “We’re entering the storm,” Rogger said.

  Tylar crashed against the railing. He clutched at the grip, earning a protest from his wrapped hand. He stood at the foot of the spar that led out to where the pilot had been belted to his chair. Like the bowsprit of a deepwhaler, the man’s perch protruded from the deck and overhung the wide curved glass Eye of the ship.

  Nothing could be seen below. Blinded by bile, the pilot had to trust the calls of fathoms from his crewmate who manned a steaming curve of mekanicals locked in bronze to the left. The mica tubes and vessels bubbled with the churning alchemies. The mate, a short, bandy-legged man, kept a continuing report of the ship’s health and course.

  On the far side of the deck, to the right, Captain Horas stood before another curve of mekanicals. He danced across the jarring deck as if it were as steady as stone. Tugging at his forked beard, he monitored his stations, becoming another mate of the three-man crew. At the same time, he did not forsake his role as captain.

  “Two turns to port!” he shouted to the pilot. “Catch the wind on the aft flippers!”

  This was his ship. He seemed to read its every bump and roll with more intent than the mekanical soundings. Tylar kept out of his way, out of everyone’s way. He was here only in case his blood was needed. Through his veins, raw Grace flowed. It bore the aspect of water, not air. But power was power, and if it proved necessary…

  The ship heaved up on one side. Tylar slid down the smooth rail, hanging by his hands. Terror rang through him.

  Captain Horas came running down the tilted deck. He skidded next to the smaller mate and clapped him on the shoulder as if greeting him on the street. “Feed a flow here…and here…” He tapped at two mica tubes that steamed and hissed.

  “Will it hold?” the other asked, but he was already turning bronze knobs.

  “It will have to,” Captain Horas said as the pilot corrected the roll and evened the deck. He crossed to Tylar on his way back to his original post. Their eyes met.

  Tylar pulled on the rail to gain his feet. “How are
the alchemies holding?”

  “We’re losing air.” Horas read the concern in Tylar’s face. “Not air Graces, just air. The storm gods know what we attempt. I can practically sense their Dark Grace swirling around us, seeking some crack to suck the power out of our alchemies. But as long as we keep a full burn, the mekanicals are holding steady.”

  The flippercraft suddenly dropped beneath Tylar’s feet. Someone screamed from the back of the ship. Then the deck came crashing back up, knocking Tylar to a knee.

  Captain Horas landed lightly. He waved an arm outward, at the sky, at the storm. “The storm gods have grown wise to our artifice. It is not only Dark Grace we must fight. Bile can’t block a wind. The storm turns its winds against us, seeking to drag us out of the skies.”

  “What can we do?” Tylar said.

  “Fly, your lordship. That’s what my ship was made for!” He said this last with a savage grin. “We’ll keep flying until the ground stops us.”

  Tylar gained his feet.

  The pilot called from his spar. “Captain!”

  Tylar and Horas turned to the man. He motioned below.

  Tylar leaned over the rail. Below, the black Eye was now streaked with white. “We’re losing bile,” he said.

  “Snow and ice…stripping us…” Horas shoved away from the rail and hurried back to his station.

  The ship rolled, first to one side, then the other. Though still blinded, Tylar felt the pressure in his ears.

  “We’re losing Grace!” Horas called. “They’re breaking through! Open all taps! Full flow!”

  As Tylar watched, a large swath of bile washed off the Eye. Through the rent in their protection, the storm swirled white. He searched below, expecting a dark eye to form, to peer inside. Instead, far below, globes of light floated and rolled near the bottom of the storm, like luminescent fish at the bottom of the Deep.

  As he struggled to discern the source, the pressure continued to squeeze his ears. They were plummeting into the depths of the storm. The strange lights below grew larger.

  Captain Horas passed him again, drawing his eye. “The more power we burn,” he called as he passed, “the more Grace they steal!”

  Tylar followed him across the deck. “Then stop burning Grace!” An idea grew in him. He joined the captain and the mate at the wall of mekanicals.

  “Then we’ll fall to our deaths that much sooner,” Horas said.

  Tylar kept his voice fierce. “You said this ship is built to fly! Then fly her! Cut the flow of Grace. Use the winds for as long as you can. Convince them we’re lost—flying Graceless.”

  He read a growing understanding in the captain’s eyes. “You’re mad…”

  “Gain as much distance as you can.”

  The captain nodded. He waved for the mate to obey. Together the pair began shutting valves and turning knobs. The bubbling in the mica tubes slowed.

  “Captain!” the pilot cried, sensing the sudden loss of Grace.

  “Keep her nose up! Into the wind. True south!”

  Tylar backed a step as the mate and captain stifled the flows. The tubes still steamed, but all that bubbling died.

  “Keep the mekanicals stoked,” the captain said. “Hot and ready. Wait for my word.”

  Horas led Tylar back to the rail. The deck tilted nose down. The pilot fought to pull her up, shoving the bow of the ship into contrary winds. The craft jarred up momentarily, gaining a bit more distance, a few breaths where the ship rose instead of falling. But it was a doomed struggle.

  Down the nose went again.

  Tylar bent over the rail. The floating lights grew as the land rose. The lights, azure and scintillating with power, grew clearer. Globes of lightning, trapped in the heart of the storm.

  The plunging flippercraft sailed across a wide field of the glowing orbs, stirring them up with the wake of their passage. Below, the hills of Tashijan sped past, lit by the deadly cold fire.

  But the hills weren’t empty.

  A vast army spread across the hills.

  “Wind wraiths,” Horas said, recognizing the spindly forms as they spiraled into the air, men and women born under alchemies of air, like loam-giants and wyld trackers.

  But even from this height, Tylar saw the twist of their bodies. He remembered the tortured figure that had attacked them from the air in Chrismferry. The same here. Wind wraiths corrupted by Dark Grace into beasts.

  “They’ve been ilked,” Tylar said.

  A shout from the pilot warned them back from their dark observations. The hills climbed toward them. The captain watched, studying.

  “Be ready!” he yelled to all.

  Another breath…the ground rushed up at them.

  “Now!”

  To the side, the mate yanked a large bronze lever. Flows, boiling and pent, were finally released again. The mekanicals gasped with a thick wheeze of steam.

  The pilot hauled on his controls, leaning back, as if by muscle alone he could pull the nose back up. But it wasn’t just muscle that powered the flippercraft now.

  Grace slammed through the mekanicals.

  A tubing exploded with a spat of flaming alchemies.

  Horas rushed to aid the mate. Tylar kept his post by the rail.

  The hills continued to rise toward them, snowswept waves ready to accept the keel of their craft. The army of wraiths vanished behind them, along with the globes of lightning.

  The flippercraft raced across the frozen landscape.

  Slowly…slowly…the nose lifted to an even keel. They flew no more than the height of a man over the hills. Then began to climb. Caught by surprise, the dark forces were sluggish in bringing their Dark Grace to bear. The churning alchemies remained steeped in the air aspect.

  The pilot tilted their nose up, shooting back into the skies. The land dropped away, vanishing into the swirling snow.

  Then in one breath, they were through the clouds and shot out into open air, like a bile-streaked arrow. The world opened and stretched ahead of them. Moonlight and starlight cast the world with a silvery gloaming.

  “We made it,” Captain Horas said, making it sound more like a question.

  “We did,” Tylar mumbled.

  He turned to stare toward the stern of the flippercraft, but his eyes did not see the ship any longer. He pictured the wraith army—and the towers lost in the heart of the storm.

  But mostly, he pictured two women’s faces.

  Despite his fear for them, he turned his back on the storm. He had no choice. He had his duty.

  Off to the east, the night sky purpled, heralding dawn and another day.

  “Head south,” he ordered the captain.

  “Aye, ser.”

  The flippercraft swung toward the open sea. They would stop at Broken Cay, to wash their ship and freshen their alchemy. Tylar would send ravens flying in all directions. The First Land must rally, but he knew it would not be his war.

  The skies continued to brighten to the east as the world turned, oblivious to the struggles of man and god.

  Another day.

  It was all a man could truly hope for in life.

  One more day to make it all right.

  Tylar stared south, beyond the curve of the world. He had escaped, but it was only a small victory. Saysh Mal and the hinterlands awaited. There were battles yet to be fought.

  Still, something troubled Tylar.

  Something he had forgotten.

  Far below Tashijan, she sat in a stone chair. A spider, blanched white by a life beyond the sun, crept across her veined hand. Its legs suddenly curled, its body dried to a husk, and it rolled from her flesh.

  Mirra did not move. She remained very still until a thin smile stretched her lips. Then she slowly rose to her feet.

  “So he has slipped our noose,” she said to the darkness that surrounded her. The only illumination came from her stone seat, a melted drape of volcanic flowstone. It shone with a soft sheen of putrefaction and decay. She trailed one finger along its arm as she stood, s
ensing the whispers of her naethryn masters.

  “No matter. Tashijan will fall all that much faster.”

  She crossed to where the putrefying glow met the darkness. In that border, her creation abided, her last and most perfect. Twelve others circled this margin between corruption and darkness. They would serve their new master.

  “Perryl,” she whispered, naming her finest creation.

  No reaction. Eyes stared into nothingness.

  “You know what you must do,” she whispered to him.

  He lifted his sword in acknowledgment and stepped back into the darkness. He drifted into the shadows, his white face fading as if he were sinking into a black sea.

  The others followed.

  Her black ghawls were creatures of Gloom. They flowed through more than mere shadows. Just as these few had drifted between the glow and the darkness, they could also sail between the world of substance and the naether, spaces misted with Gloom, slipping between the cracks of the world.

  Into one and out another.

  No place was beyond their reach. Throughout Myrillia, such dark cracks existed, where Gloom seeped and leached into this world: down in sunless caverns, in the midnight depths of the sea, beyond sealed doors of forgotten crypts, even under the roots of ancient forests. Wherever Gloom bled and trickled, her legion could travel.

  “Go,” she whispered to the fading figure. “Hunt them all down.”

  As the ghawls slipped away, Perryl’s sword was the last to vanish, sheathing slowly into the Gloom. She reached for its tip, lanced through with malignant green fire. The Godslayer thought he had escaped—he remained blithely unaware of his own doom.

  Her smile widened.

  Though his naethryn had avoided the full kiss of Perryl’s blade, it had not remained unscathed. A nick was more than enough.

  As the blade sank into the darkness, whispering with emerald fire, she named the poison within the sword, a venom without cure, already instilled in naethryn and man.

  “The blood born of hatred…the blood of Chrism.”

  FOURTH

  RUIN AND ASHES

  Farallon Jeweled Bloom