Kit was dancing. Of course she was. She seemed particularly popular, spinning from one partner to the next, pressed close against a portly woman and then passed off to a gangly boy who nearly lost his feet trying to keep up with her. She’d lost her shirt somewhere and wore only her trousers and a cloth wrap around her chest, her blue hair damp and floppy with sweat. Every time she passed close to the bar, someone held out a clay mug, and she took a long pull and handed it back without missing a beat.
Show me your pack, tunnel boy, show me your pack, the chorus went. What’re you bringing down?
There was a moment of confusion, since there were at least a hundred verses to the song and a dozen different people had different ideas of which came next. Gyre took the opportunity to slip to the edge of the dance floor and take Kit by the arm, just as she snatched another mug from a waving girl in the crowd.
“Heya,” she said, trying to drink and getting maybe half of it in her mouth. By the way she wobbled, she’d had more success earlier in the night. “Where you been? You’re missing the fun.”
“I can see that,” Gyre said. “You seem very popular.”
“At first everyone was just sitting around being boring,” Kit said. “But when I told ’em drinks were on me until dawn, they livened up. And—” She looked around the packed crowd. “I think people brought their friends?”
“I thought,” Gyre said, as quietly as he could given the continued attempts at song, “that we agreed to keep a low profile.”
“Relax.” Kit patted him confidently on the shoulder. “Raskos skipped town, and your sister’s gone too. Nobody’s looking for us.”
“That we know of. We’re still—”
“You really need to learn to have fun.” Kit gave him a sloppy grin and gestured at the party. “See? This is fun. Fuuuuuuuun.” She wobbled dizzily. “I need a drink.”
“Okay.” Gyre tightened his grip on her arm. “Come on. Time for bed.”
“What’re you on about?” Kit lurched away from him, tugging hard. “Let go of me.”
“Kit—”
“Hey.” A large woman, a head taller than Kit, loomed behind her and draped an arm over her shoulders. “This a problem?”
“Nope,” Kit said, eyes not leaving Gyre. “Not a problem. Right?”
Gyre let go. Kit looked up at the woman, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed her, awkwardly but enthusiastically. Eventually Kit stumbled back a step, giggling.
“Get me another drink, would you?” she said, and the woman grinned and pushed into the crowd. Kit turned back to Gyre.
“Don’t give me that look,” she said.
“What look?”
“I am not coming to bed, and I am definitely not coming to your bed.” She set her jaw. “I may have had a… a moment of weakness when we were freezing to death—”
“—and in the tunnel—” Gyre muttered.
“—but that doesn’t mean we’re… whatever you think we are. You don’t own me.”
“I wouldn’t suggest I did,” Gyre said. “But we’re partners on this job—”
“And I’ll be ready. You just make sure you are too.” She leaned in closer. “You sure you don’t want a drink? You need to loosen up.”
“I’ll be fine.” Gyre took a deep breath and immediately regretted it. “Enjoy the dance.”
“I plan to.”
He turned away, pushing through the crowd until he reached the stairs. It was darker here, which apparently made it the venue of choice for couples who couldn’t keep their hands off one another long enough to make it to a room. Gyre edged past two young men in a complicated tangle of limbs and kisses, stepped over a stray pair of trousers, and climbed to the second floor, where several hallways of rooms extended to the back of the inn, up against the rock. The sounds of those who had managed to make it to a room followed him as he trudged along the corridor.
It wasn’t as though they were short of funds. Naumoriel seemed to be able to produce thalers in almost unlimited amounts, and the old ghoul hadn’t batted an eye when Gyre had asked for sixty thousand. What he’d given Kit for traveling expenses would cover buying drinks for the whole inn every night for a month. But it’s still a risk to draw attention like this.
Something had been off about Kit since they’d left the Tomb. He didn’t know how she’d spent her time there, though at least the ghouls had refueled the arcana that kept her heart beating. Maybe that’s what’s gotten to her. The sudden release of tension might be a shock, he supposed. But something was off between them, and they’d barely talked on the trip back up the valley to Deepfire.
He was surprised to discover how much that bothered him. Gyre closed the door to his small room and sat down on the bed, trying to quiet his mind. It makes no difference to me how much she drinks or who she fucks, he told himself. As long as she’s there when I need her. That’s all I’m worried about.
Right.
“There will be pain,” the old ghoul had said.
Gyre considered himself inured to pain. He’d been shot, stabbed, broken. Had his eye cut out by an enraged centarch. But Naumoriel had taught him he didn’t know what pain meant.
He couldn’t move. There were restraints on the table, but they were unnecessary—Naumoriel’s magic, the soft breath of dhaka, had simply turned off Gyre’s control of his body. Why he couldn’t turn off the pain as well, Gyre had no idea. Maybe the old ghoul was just a sadist.
“The threads wrap around your bones,” Naumoriel said. “It is no use being able to see what is coming but not to be able to respond, you understand?” The ghoul gave a toothy smile. “Of course you do.”
Gyre could, of course, say nothing. But he could feel. One of the table-construct’s narrower limbs was bent over the crook of his elbow, carrying a spool of fine silver wire. A blade had made a narrow cut in the tender skin there, and the wire had wriggled of its own accord, one end plunging into the bleeding wound like an eager maggot. Searing agony marked its path as it burrowed through his flesh, down through skin and muscles, until it reached the bone.
“You are fortunate,” Naumoriel said, through the haze of blinding pain. “In the days of the war, our methods were cruder. The gifts we gave to those who fought at our side were… less subtle.” The ghoul looked down at Gyre, blurry through the tears that filled his eye. “Oh yes. Your kind fought beside us. Those who were brave enough to turn against their masters. Those who wanted a better world. I imagine your Order doesn’t speak of such things.
“All we wanted was to be left in peace. Not so dangerous, you would think. But oh no. That was not enough for the lords of the world, the wielders of the fire of creation. They had to have obeisance. It was only their due, they told us. Were they not the Chosen? Chosen, pfah.” Naumoriel coughed, a tearing sound that rattled deep in his chest. “They feared us. The masters of divine fire feared our power, because it comes from within. Anyone can wield it. Even humans can learn. Dhaka is the birthright of all who live and breathe. And so the Chosen wanted it destroyed. Wanted us destroyed.” He gave a hollow chuckle. “See how well they have fared, with all their power.”
Gyre wanted to scream but could not. The worm reached his wrist and mercifully stopped, leaving a spiraling tunnel of slowly dulling pain in its wake. Naumoriel roused from his reverie, passing his spotted, gnarled hand over Gyre’s skin, nodding approval.
“Very good,” he said. “Very good. You are strong, for a human.” He brushed a finger against the table-construct, and its limbs whirred. Naumoriel poked with one long, ragged fingernail at the tender pads of Gyre’s palm. “The hand next, I think…”
Gyre awoke with a mouthful of blood from where he’d bitten his tongue, his teeth clenched against a shriek that seemed determined to work its way out from somewhere deep in his chest. He could feel the wire running through his body, wrapping his skull and spiraling along every bone, a set of blazing threads that seemed to be cooking him from the inside. His new eye was a mass of agony, ghost-memories of the whirring
blades of Naumoriel’s construct slicing through flesh and bone.
It’s over, he told himself, breathing hard and fast. It’s over, it’s over, you lived through it, it’s finished. The old ghoul had told them there would be a price, and he’d paid it. It’s only a dream, and the memory of pain.
Slowly, too slowly, the pain faded. Gyre relaxed, the muscles in his jaw aching. He lay on the bed, a shuddering, sweaty mess. His right eye saw the room in darkness, the rafters above only a suggestion of deeper shadow, but his silver eye laid over that a clean, clear image, bright as day. He could see the cobwebs in the corners and count the desiccated flies trapped there.
It was still before dawn, but there was no chance of any more sleep. Not with Naumoriel waiting in his dreams, with his whirring blades and his silver wire, his endless ranting about the war. Gyre rolled out of bed, stripped off his sweat-sodden clothes, and dressed in fresh things from his pack.
The corridor was quiet. Not many early risers after last night, I imagine. A woman, wearing nothing but a ratty pair of trousers, lay snoring on the landing, still curled around a bottle of something. Gyre stepped over her, then paused by the door to Kit’s room. It stood slightly open, and he shifted, peeking through the crack. Just to check that she’s all right.
She lay on the bed, facedown, a line of drool soaking the sheet by the corner of her mouth. To Gyre’s mild surprise, she was alone. Not that it matters to me, one way or the other. He turned away and hurried to the stairs and down into the common room, where several harassed-looking servants were clearing away the remains of the night’s festivities. An older woman sat behind the bar, shouting unhelpful advice.
“Excuse me,” Gyre said, all smiles, letting his old rural accent return. “I have a good friend who works for a grocer that makes deliveries to the Spike. He told me that I might be able to get a position with them, but I can’t seem to find the place.” He waved his hands helplessly. “This city is a maze.”
“There’s a dozen grocers that serve the Spike,” the woman said. “You know which one your friend’s at?”
“I don’t have the proprietor’s name,” Gyre said. He dug in his pocket and produced a couple of decithaler coins. “Maybe you could just point me to the closest? I’m sure I’m in the right neighborhood…”
Two nights later, everything was in place.
Gyre was in the driver’s seat of a small wagon pulled by a pair of loadbirds. The name “M. Snadbury, Master Grocer” was rather grandly stenciled on the side in jolly blue letters, and the packet of papers in Gyre’s pocket confirmed that he was to deliver a load of mixed fruits to the palace kitchens. All this was quite genuine—M. Snadbury’s regular driver had been happy to accept the last-minute change of assignments, especially as it had come with a stack of thalers to make up for his time.
Kit lounged on the seat beside him, looking absolutely untroubled by the enormous volume of alcohol she’d downed over the past couple of days. She wore an ugly brown coat and leather cap, with her fighting blacks underneath. Gyre was in similar garb, plus a large brown satchel containing a selection of interesting gear.
They’d rounded the southern end of the Pit and joined a queue of carriages and wagons approaching the palace. Most deliveries came in the morning, but the grocer had received an emergency order to replace another shipment that had gone rotten. All the better for us. Gyre closed his eyes and tried to visualize the grounds, based on the crude map Kit had drawn for him. Main drive, delivery drive, the servants’ entrances. The storehouse.
“You’re sure they’re not keeping the Core Analytica somewhere more secure?” Gyre asked.
“Not unless they’ve moved it in the last couple of days,” Kit said, and yawned. “Elariel’s constructs confirmed they took it there. And I don’t see any reason why they would move it; they don’t know what it is.”
“We don’t know what it is.”
“I mean they don’t know it’s important. They cleared out the storehouse to keep all the crap they pulled out of Raskos’ stash before they can drag it back to Order headquarters and… burn it, or whatever they do with ‘unsanctioned arcana.’” Kit snorted. “Such a waste of good scavenging.”
“If you’re wrong, this is all going to be worse than useless,” Gyre said. “We won’t get an easy shot at them again.”
“Unless you have a way to get past a locked steel door without anyone noticing, we’ll have to take the risk.” Kit sat up straighter and dusted off her coat. “But it’ll be there.” She eyed him sidelong. “Starting to worry now that we’re in the same boat?”
Gyre snorted, but she had a point. Though he wouldn’t actually die without regular infusions of dhaka energy, as Kit would, using his new eye and the advantages it offered depended on a steady supply of energy bottles. Elariel had told him that his own body’s energy would refill them, but only very slowly, like trying to fill a canteen with condensation from the side of a glass. Only a master of dhaka could provide the energy in bulk.
“Worrying about getting cut to pieces by a dozen Legionaries is quite enough for me, thanks,” Gyre said.
“Pfeh,” Kit said. “Maybe we’ll have to hide in another closet.”
“Given the way your breath smells at the moment, I’d take being cut to pieces.”
Kit puffed into her cupped hands, sniffed, and wrinkled her nose. “Point.”
They were nearing the point where the servants’ drive curved away from the main drive, the former curling around the back of the palace, the latter heading off through the gardens to the elegant front entrance. Gyre whistled to the team and tugged on the reins, and they veered to the right, leaving the line of cabs and expensive carriages. Their borrowed wagon rattled over the gravel, eventually pulling into a broad oval space where several other wagons were already parked. Gyre put his at the end of the line, as far as possible from the doors.
A woman in a butler’s uniform trudged over to them, clearly irritated at being made to walk so far. Gyre handed her the papers, and she squinted at them, then sighed.
“You’re early,” she said. “It says ten o’ clock here, doesn’t it? We won’t have staff free to unload you for a couple of hours.”
“Sorry ’bout that,” Gyre said. “Best I could do. We’ll wait. Figured I’d find somewhere quiet and have a bit of a nap, eh?”
The butler gave him the look of someone who was working herself to the bone while other people slacked off.
“Just be here at ten,” she said. “We’ll need the space, so you’ll have to shift as soon as you’re unloaded.”
“As you say, sir.” Gyre touched his cap. “Sorry to be trouble.”
The butler turned and stalked back to the kitchen door. Kit glanced curiously at Gyre.
“Is that why you insisted we come early?” she said. “So there wouldn’t be people around?”
“We can’t have them searching the wagon,” Gyre said, looking back at the crates of fruit. “Why, do you object?”
“No,” Kit said. “I just thought you were a little bit harder than that.”
She hopped down off the box. Gyre stared after her, then shook his head.
Harder? He got down as well and grabbed his satchel. Maybe. The palace servants work for the Order, just as much as the Auxies do, I suppose. Still, he had to admit that the idea of slaughtering a bunch of unarmed cooks and porters stuck in his throat. Kit, he guessed, would have no such inhibitions.
He hurried a little bit to catch up to her as she strode confidently toward the back corner of the gravel lot, where there was a small gate in a line of shrubbery. It wasn’t locked, just latched, and it let onto a more utilitarian section of the palace gardens, neat lines of herbs and other kitchen plants hidden by the shrubs from visitors. It smelled like a spice shop, and Gyre stifled a sneeze.
“The storehouse is—there.” Kit scanned and pointed. Gyre could make out a peaked roof, past several more hedges. She kept turning and pointed farther back, at a bend in the outer wall. “And that�
��s our escape route.”
“Looks like the back gardens are empty for the evening,” Gyre said. “But let’s try not to startle anyone yet.”
Kit, who’d been about to doff her concealing brown coat, pulled it back on grumpily. Gyre led the way to another gate, which let into an adjoining garden. They passed through flower beds and a row of eye-watering compost heaps, eventually emerging into a dirt lane that led back toward the kitchen doors. On the other side of it was the storehouse, a solid brick building with a slate roof. The entrance was around the corner. Under normal circumstances, Gyre imagined the place was used for gardening supplies and probably wasn’t even locked. Now that it had been pressed into service to store dangerous unsanctioned arcana, there would certainly be guards.
“Okay.” Gyre untied the satchel and set it between them. “No blasters unless you have to. Hopefully in the commotion nobody will notice us.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Kit’s face lit up with glee as she shrugged out of her coat. Her weapons were in the satchel, and she rapidly equipped herself with saber, blaster pistol, and an alarming number of knives.
Gyre retrieved his own sword, the hilt tingling under his fingers, and the pack with spare energy bottles. Another small pack full of alchemicals hung beside it, along with a small folding crossbow. Last but not least was the arcana trigger Sarah had given him. It was a square of unmetal about the size of a sheet of paper, half an inch thick and rounded at the edges. On the face were a dozen depressions, three of which were filled by hexagonal crystals.
What this bit of Chosen arcana had been originally, Gyre had no idea, but Sarah’s tweaks had transformed it into a weapon. A metal grille, crude compared to the smooth perfection of Chosen work, had been fitted over the three crystals to keep anyone from touching them accidentally. Sarah had showed him how to unlatch it and press the trigger with his thumb.
Ashes of the Sun Page 42
