Ashes of the Sun

by Django Wexler

  “Maybe that would have been better,” Lynnia said, voice cracking.

  They stared at one another in silence.

  “You need to leave the city,” the alchemist said quietly.

  “How long until Kit is fit to travel?”

  “You’re not going to abandon her too?” Lynnia snarled. “I suppose you still need her, don’t you?”

  Gyre tried to keep his voice steady. “Once she can move, we’ll leave. You won’t see us again.”

  “Good,” Lynnia said. She turned away from him, and a measure of professional detachment returned to her tone. “She should wake up anytime. I’d wait until tomorrow evening to get moving.”

  “Until tomorrow evening, then.” Gyre hesitated, and Lynnia walked away, bad leg dragging. “Thank you, Lynnia.”

  The alchemist snorted and slammed the door behind her.

  Eventually, with the quickheal doing its work, the pounding in Gyre’s head subsided. He managed to make it to the washroom at the end of the hall, and after a long piss and the chance to scrub the last of the bloodstains from his face, he felt better.

  He found his mind already back at work, planning the next step. It all depends on where they took the Core Analytica. From Lynnia’s description, it sounded like there had been considerable chaos at the warehouse, and it was just possible no one had realized its importance. But Maya would have brought my pack back with her, so it’s probably in the Spike by now. That made things harder, but not necessarily impossible—

  Halfway down the hall, outside the guest room door, he paused at the sound of sobbing.

  The only person who could be in that room was Kit. But the idea of Kit crying—Kitsraea Doomseeker—seemed about as likely as taking a stroll to the moon. She’d barely flinched at the charge of an ancient ghoul-construct, and laughed at the prospect of being caught by Raskos’ Legionaries.

  He hesitated, then rapped at the door.

  “I’m still not hungry.” It was Kit’s voice.

  “It’s me,” Gyre said. “Can I come in?”

  There was a long pause. “I suppose.”

  He opened the door. Kit was sitting up in the spare bed. She wore nothing but a thin shift and a collection of bandages, one wound around her head, another swathing her broken fingers, and several more covering a variety of cuts. Bruises were blooming across the right side of her body, and her eyes were red and puffy.

  “You carried me back here?” she said.

  Gyre nodded and closed the door behind him.

  “I admit I expected to wake up in a prison cell,” she said, pulling her knees to her chest under the blanket. “Or not at all. Did you kill that centarch?”

  Gyre gave an involuntary laugh. “Not even close.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “She let us go. It’s… a long story.”

  “But she got the Analytica.”

  Gyre nodded. Kit put her chin on her knees, eyes fixed on the opposite wall. After a moment of silence, Gyre dragged a chair over to the bedside and sat down beside her.

  “Lynnia’s very angry with us,” he said. “With me, really. But she said we can stay here until tomorrow night, and you should be mobile by then. We can try—”

  “You don’t need to wait for me,” Kit said. “Just go.”

  “I need you,” Gyre said. “That hasn’t changed. And I think you still need me, if we’re going to get the Analytica.”

  “You don’t understand.” She turned to face him. “It’s over, Gyre.”

  “Of course it isn’t.”

  “Naumoriel doesn’t tolerate failure. After this, he’ll cut us loose. Use someone else.”

  “I’ll apologize,” Gyre said. “Grovel, if I have to.”

  “Gyre—”

  He got to his feet. “We can’t just give up.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “You’re right, I don’t.” Gyre turned away. “Stay here. Get some rest.”

  Kit looked down at the bed and said nothing.

  Gyre had a fair few bruises of his own, and his fighting gear was stained with sweat and blood, so he ventured out in civilian clothes and a hooded robe. He didn’t bother bringing any weapons. If the ghouls decided they were going to kill him, he wasn’t foolish enough to imagine he could change their minds.

  Lynnia was working in the basement when he slipped downstairs and out into the city. It was still before noon, and the streets were busy as usual, full of hurrying pedestrians and animals hissing, bellowing, and squawking. It didn’t seem fair, somehow, that nothing had changed, that Deepfire went on just as it had before last night. Before my sister found me. Before someone killed Yora.

  A cabbie was happy to take him back up to the manufactory district, and even happier to wait around once Gyre shoved a stack of thalers at him. He got some odd looks from passing vehicles as he approached the door to the ghouls’ hideout. It looked the same as before, windows boarded up, apparently long abandoned.

  The closer he got, the less sure he was that this was a good idea. Maybe Kit is right. Maybe we’re better off just getting as far away from here as we can. They could flee into the Splinter Kingdoms, beyond the reach of the Republic, and…

  And what? His lip curled in a snarl. You’ve been chasing the Tomb for years, Gyre, and this is as close as you’ve ever gotten. More to the point, now that he knew the city was full of living ghouls and not just their wreckage, he didn’t just need to find it to get the power he wanted. I need them to help me.

  I just have to explain that we’re not finished yet. He was already working on a plan to get the Core Analytica out of the Spike. It just needs a few tweaks. Maybe more than a few. But we’ll get there.

  He knocked. No one answered, but the door swung inward, just a fraction. The latch hung limp and broken. Gyre pushed through slowly and closed it behind him before parting the heavy curtains that blocked any hint of light from the outside.

  “Hello?” he said. “Elariel?”

  Even in total darkness, he could tell something was wrong. Fumbling in his pocket, he produced a glowstone, then hesitated.

  “If you’re here, say something,” he said. “Otherwise I’m lighting this.”

  Only echoes answered. Gyre gave the stone a sharp rap against his leg, and it started to glow with a soft blue light. The cavernous interior space of the hollowed-out building drank it in, wreathed in long shadows, but it was enough to see that nothing remained of the huge arcana Elariel had been tending. The complicated network of crystal and wire, the plantlike armature, everything was gone. Gyre raised the stone above his head and turned in a circle, then swore, as loud and violent as he knew how.

  By the time he returned to Lynnia’s, it was late afternoon. A tray with a bowl of soup and some soft bread sat untouched outside the closed door of the guest room. Gyre stepped over it, rapped sharply, and went in without waiting for an answer.

  Kit, still in a borrowed shift, was sitting cross-legged on the bed, unwinding a bandage from her arm. She looked up as he came in, and for a moment he expected a sarcastic quip, but she didn’t seem to be able to muster the energy.

  “They were gone,” she said.

  “I don’t understand,” Gyre said. “How could they move all of that in one night?”

  “Most of it moves itself, I think.” Kit finished peeling off the bandage with a wince.

  “You knew they’d just vanish like this?”

  “Mmmhmm.” She poked the bruise and winced again. “It’s what they do. When one pawn fails, throw it away and bring out the next.”

  “So that’s it?” Gyre said.

  “That’s it.” Kit looked up at him. “I told you to leave, didn’t I? I’m useless to you now, I promise. I won’t even—” She stopped abruptly.

  “You won’t what?”

  “It’s not important,” Kit said. “You should go.”

  “Kit. Tell me.”

  “If you’re that interested.” She sighed and put on a singsong tone. “In
about a month, I’ll be dead. Six weeks at most. So if you’ve got some fantasy about you and me, I don’t know, becoming partners in crime out in the Splinter Kingdoms, you can give it up.”

  “You’ll be… why?” Gyre’s eyes narrowed. “Is it the ghouls? They don’t want you to give up their secret—”

  “They couldn’t care less. Maybe once upon a time they were worried the Order would find out they’re still alive, but after this long, who would believe me?”

  “So who’s going to kill you?”

  “Nobody. I’ll just… expire. Although, frankly, maybe it would be more poetic to find a cliff somewhere—”

  “I don’t understand.” Gyre took a step closer. “You’re—”

  “Oh, for Chosen’s sake.” Kit leaned over and grabbed his wrist, pulling him forward and pressing his palm against her chest. “Feel.”

  After a moment, Gyre cleared his throat. “Your breasts may be a little on the small side, but that hardly seems fatal—”

  “Not my lack of tits, moron.” She actually smiled, though her eyes were damp with tears. “My heartbeat.”

  Gyre concentrated a moment on the gentle pulse under his hand. It sped up slightly, and in between the thumps, he felt something else, a soft buzz like there was an insect trapped under Kit’s breastbone.

  “I told you when I was fifteen, I got some bad news,” she said. “I’d been having… spells. Dizziness, nausea. I went to an alchemist, and she told me it was my heart, that it was weak and getting weaker. Within a year or two, it would just… stop. And that would be that.” She shrugged. “I asked if there was anyone who could help me, and she told me that I needed a dhakim.”

  “So you went looking for the Tomb,” Gyre said.

  “I wasn’t looking for it, exactly. I wasn’t in a good place.” Kit took a deep breath, and her heart thumped harder against Gyre’s hand. “I figured either I’d find something that could save me, down in the dark places, or I’d die trying. The latter seemed more likely.”

  “But the ghouls helped you.”

  “Most of them wanted nothing to do with humans. Naumoriel helped me, after a fashion. He put a little bit of arcana in there”—she tapped the back of Gyre’s hand—“that keeps my heart going. But it needs fuel, and only a ghoul can fill it back up again.” She blinked and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. “By this time my heart is too weak to manage without it. So in a month or so, it runs out, and then… all done. No more Kitsraea.”

  Gyre sat for a moment, trying to digest that.

  “You can take your hand off my tit now,” Kit said.

  “Sorry.” Gyre leaned back. “So you’ve been working for Naumoriel in exchange for more fuel?”

  She nodded. “He had a whole series of things he wanted retrieved, Chosen know why. The Core Analytica was the last, and the hardest to get to. He said…” She swallowed. “He said if I got it for him, he’d fix me permanently. I’d be free.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “Maybe. I don’t have much of a choice, do I? Not that it matters now.” She flopped back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “Do you think it hurts to blow your head off with a blaster? It looks like it hurts, but I think it’d be over too quick for you to notice.”

  Gyre looked past her, eyes distant.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Kit said. “If I’m going to die, why not spend the next six weeks getting absolutely catastrophically drunk and fucking anything that’s warm and willing? And believe me, I intend to. But I don’t know exactly when it’ll happen, and how disgusting it’ll be when it does, and I’d rather not be remembered as the mess someone had to clean up in the back room of a tavern.”

  “Kit—”

  “And can you imagine if it happened while you were, you know, busy? Like one minute someone’s fucking your brains out, and then next minute, GACK.” She put her hands to her throat and stuck out her tongue. “Definitely not an appealing prospect. I don’t know if I could live with myself, putting that on someone. I mean, I guess I wouldn’t have to, obviously, but—”

  “Kit.”

  “What?” Her eyes were tearing up again. “Can we please be done with this subject? Better yet, can you just go? You’re done with me.”

  “I’m not,” Gyre said. “I want you to take me to the Tomb.”

  Kit snorted. “I told you, the ghouls won’t contact me again.”

  “So? You found it once.”

  “Not exactly,” Kit said. “It was more like I got separated from my crew, and I was wandering alone in some old tunnels, and when I passed out from exhaustion I was close enough that they sent their constructs to bring me in. I couldn’t find my way back.”

  “You know the basic location, which is more than anybody else. We’ll find it together.”

  “I’ll draw you a map. I have important drinking and fucking to do.”

  “Kit—”

  “I failed, Gyre. Do you have any idea what they’ll do to me—to us—if we just turn up again?”

  “Kill us?”

  “Worse,” she muttered. “It could be so much worse. You haven’t seen that place; you have no idea—”

  “I’m willing to risk it, if there’s a chance.” He cocked his head. “Aren’t you supposed to be the Doomseeker?”

  “You’re serious,” she said. “Even if we get there, which we won’t, what are you planning to tell Naumoriel? ‘Sorry we fucked up, can we have another shot?’”

  “More or less. I’ll have time to work on the wording.”

  “You’re crazy.” Kit sat up, and for a moment her old smile flickered across her face. “And that’s me saying so.”

  “I can’t go backward,” Gyre said. “Not now.”

  Kit stared at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing.

  “Plague it,” she said, running a hand through the blue spikes of her hair. “What the fuck. Why not? Tramping through freezing tunnels is as good a way to spend the last few weeks of my life as sitting in a tavern with a bucket of rum and a pretty boy’s head between my legs, right? Don’t answer that.”

  Gyre found himself smiling back at her. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  Chapter 16

  Someone had apparently drawn the line at actually throwing Maya into a cell.

  Tanax had taken her haken and panoply belt, and she’d been escorted back to the Spike by a quartet of Legionaries. Once there, though, they hadn’t taken her to the dungeons. Instead, she’d been marched gently but firmly back to her own room, where two of the white-armored soldiers settled in beside the door as guards. Another, she noticed, was stationed outside to keep an eye on the windows.

  Treason. She could see how it might look that way to Tanax. She’d disobeyed his orders and attacked Auxiliaries, and no doubt Raskos had been on hand to explain why his private warehouse was stuffed full of illegal arcana. But he won’t get away with it. It was obvious that an investigation by an unbiased inspector was called for, and whoever it was wouldn’t be fooled by the dux’s justifications. He’s not going to wriggle out of this one.

  With deiat gone and adrenaline fading from her veins, exhaustion slipped over her like lead chains, but sleep still seemed distant. She found herself walking up and down her too-large suite, replaying the conversation with Gyre, trying to imagine what she could have said to make him understand.

  I didn’t realize Va’aht hurt him so badly. She’d remembered Gyre standing up to the centarch, and that something had happened afterward, but she hadn’t imagined anything like the scar that sliced across her brother’s face. It’s no wonder he hates us. She hadn’t seen Va’aht since he’d brought her to the Forge and given her into Baselanthus’ care. Now she wondered if that was deliberate, if he was ashamed to face her.

  And still, for all the anger she’d seen in Gyre, she couldn’t help but think that if he would only listen, she could reach him. If I could sit him down and explain everything. Tell him about my work with Jaedia, how we’ve helped people. T
he threats of plaguespawn and dhakim were real. If the Order doesn’t stop them, who will?

  She wished, more than anything, that Jaedia was with her. She would understand everything.

  From time to time, she caught the sound of conversation outside her door, but not clearly enough to make out the words. No one seemed inclined to come and check on her, in any case. Eventually, she decided to at least try to sleep, and to her surprise she barely managed to get her boots off before collapsing into bed. Between blinks, night outside the windows changed into a rosy dawn, and someone was knocking at her door. Maya sat up, head spinning.

  “Who’s there?” she said.

  “It’s Beq.”

  Shit. Maya looked down at herself, still in a rumpled uniform stained with ash, blood, and sweat. “Uh. Wait a minute, would you?”

  “Are you all right?” Beq said.

  “Fine. Just… hang on.”

  What she really needed was a bath, but that would have to wait. Maya hurriedly stripped and went over herself with a dampened towel, removing at least the worst of the grime. She paused for a moment at the sight of the Thing in the mirror—the little arcana was surrounded by a ring of angry red flesh, puffy to the touch. It itched.

  Another thing to ask Baselanthus about. She shook her head and dressed—thankfully, the palace staff had cleaned her other uniforms—before rushing to the suite door. Beq, framed between the two Legionary guards, was carrying a tray with breakfast, for which Maya was suddenly ravenous.

  “Let me put this down,” Beq said, depositing the food on the table and closing the door behind her. Then, to Maya’s surprise, Beq wrapped her in a tight hug. “Chosen defend, Maya. Are you okay?” She pulled back and put her hand against Maya’s forehead. “You’re burning up.”

  “I’m all right,” Maya said. She was more aware than she wanted to be of the shape of the other girl’s body pressed against her. Idiot. She’s trying to be a friend, something you badly need, and you’re thinking about… that. “Really. A night’s sleep helped a lot.”