A Secret Atlas

by Michael A. Stackpole

  “Nauana, you must understand something.” Jorim pointed to the lines of the trenches that cut from the northwest edge of the jungle down to the southeast and the base of the escarpment. “My advisors and I have shaped the best defenses we can think of. Your warriors are going to fight hard, and I know the maicana will do all they can to contain the oquihui. There are no guarantees of victory, however.”

  She smiled in a way that made him want to take her face in his hands and kiss her senseless. Her faith in him could not be broken, and when she looked at him like that, he didn’t want it to be.

  “Your will shall be done, my Lord.”

  Down below, horns sounded and those few people who remained in the lowlands—save the soldiers—retreated to the causeway and began the long ascent to the heights. The last to leave had lit fires in the buildings—all of which had been emptied of supplies well before the retreat. The breeze coming in from the ocean blew the smoke back onto the Mozoyan, and Jorim hoped that neither their gills nor their lungs would function well under that assault.

  The horde came on, angling down to reach the breastworks close to the middle of the line. The trenches themselves had been excavated with magic—the maicana working at night both so enemy scouts could not see them, and so their people would not be terrified by the power they wielded. Their magics would have been enough to cast the Mozoyan back into the sea—and might have been enough to send the entire horde to the Mountains of Ice—but they would not employ it that way. Warfare was the province of the Warrior Caste, and for the maicana to usurp their place would mean the utter destruction of the Amentzutl culture.

  The warriors had plenty of time to prepare for the attack. The bottoms of the trenches and the faces of the breastworks were festooned with sharpened stakes. More importantly, the warriors had studied the battleground and knew the landmarks that would indicate the Mozoyan had entered spear-casting range. Using weighted sticks to effectively extend the length of their arms, the Amentzutl warriors launched spears and barbed darts in concentrated volleys as the grey masses drew closer.

  The spears, tipped with obsidian points, sliced through Mozoyan flesh with ease. Creatures clutched at shafts and flopped on the ground, soon to be crushed beneath the feet of their advancing fellows. Showers of darts cut whole swaths through the horde. Bright crimson splashed over grey flesh as the Mozoyan went down.

  But the holes in their lines closed and on they came. The Amentzutl warriors impressed Jorim with their discipline. If the trench line broke, the horde would pour through it relentlessly. Those northwest of the break might be able to flee into the jungle, but that sanctuary would only last so long. While the horde had emerged entirely from the jungle to fill the lowlands, they would certainly dispatch a part of their force to hunt down fresh meat. The warriors between the breach and the causeway might be able to fight their way up toward the heights, but it would be as part of a rear guard that would eventually be worn down.

  The line had to hold, and would. Already, companies of Amentzutl warriors were moving southeast to bolster those soldiers running out of spears and darts. While new missiles arced above them, brave warriors mounted the breastworks as the first of the Mozoyan leaped forward. Many fell short, and with wet thuds impaled themselves on two or three spikes. Others, hit by a dart in midair, fell into the pit to die. Those that made the leap successfully faced no less dire a fate, for the stone-edged war clubs slashed more keenly than steel. Tzihua knocked one Mozoyan back into the pit. Other devil frogs sailed past him to be dismembered by the warriors where they landed.

  Despite the heroic Amentzutlian effort, the horde pressed on. Dying Mozoyan filled the trenches with bloody grey flesh. A carpet of bodies would soon cover the breastworks and their spikes. Mozoyan would be able to walk over the bodies and crest the breastworks. While the Amentzutl would be able to beat them back once, perhaps even twice, the war of attrition would end up in the Mozoyan’s favor.

  Jorim looked over at the Naleni signalman stationed below him on the stairs. “Blow the first signal, please.”

  The sailor raised a horn to his mouth and blasted out a low, rumbling tone that echoed from the buildings and mountains. Below, on the edge of the escarpment, Naleni soldiers stepped to the edge, nocked arrows, and let fly on command. Hundreds of shafts filled the air, then fell among the Mozoyan. As had the spears and the darts before, the arrows cut down throngs of devil frogs. The archers concentrated on the Mozoyan closest to the escarpment and as the horde flowed to fill the gap, their entire line shifted laterally. They mindlessly shortened the line along which the Amentzutl needed to defend, buying them time and allowing them to concentrate their forces.

  Jorim nodded. “Well, that is a help. The question is, is it enough?”

  Nauana smiled again. “My Lord, you ask a question to which you already know the answer.”

  Jorim nodded. “I wish you were right.” He crouched and set Shimik down, then pointed at the signalman. “Go tell him.”

  The Fenn’s eyes brightened. “Twoooo?”

  “Two.”

  Shimik scrambled off, taking stairs three at a bound. He howled “Twooo, twooo, twooo!” with an enthusiasm that sparked a smile on the signalman’s face. He raised the horn again and let loose with another blast, this one broken and repeated as if matching Shimik’s chant.

  Jorim glanced at her. “Even that might not be enough, but it’s the best we’ve got.”

  Chapter Fifty-six

  6th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

  9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

  163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

  737th year since the Cataclysm

  Ixyll

  Fear possessed Moraven Tolo, and this surprised him. He could not remember the last time he had truly been this afraid. But the faint copper taste in his mouth was something he’d experienced before. He recognized the voracious thirst. He felt very cold, and even the thought of food made him nauseous.

  What compounded the fear was his being unable to remember the last time he’d felt this sort of terror. He found it too familiar, and he wanted to remember when he’d been this afraid, but it wouldn’t come. It lurked beyond the veil of his amnesia, tantalizingly close, but insubstantial. And if it has no form, no substance, I cannot fight it.

  The fear had begun as they set out from Opaslynoti, but the first giddy excitement of racing up the valley and into Ixyll before the tavam eyzar closed again helped him keep it at bay. Still, it chafed his psyche the way the clothes rubbed his flesh raw, and the tingle of magic grew into a torment.

  They were not alone in making the trip, and studying the others did distract him somewhat. Rekarafi was not the most unusual creature in the Ixyll-bound rabble, though he was the only Viruk Moraven saw. The men they chased had ranged ahead of them, but Keles had said he didn’t think they had any more of an idea where they were heading than he did. Veteran thaumstoneers suggested that after such a fierce storm, anything that had been seen before could have been obliterated, so everyone was moving into virgin territory.

  Dangers abounded, and disaster struck some of the stoneseekers the moment they set foot in Ixyll. Here and there, small cyclones of dust sprang up and danced playfully, much as dust devils would in the Nine. One lit a man on fire. Another turned a scrounger into a mass of beetles that actually managed to function as a man-shaped community for several hours. It might have survived longer, save for a hearty, congratulatory pat on the back. Moraven did not doubt that the beetles would eventually reconstitute themselves.

  If they are not scattered again by a storm.

  Quickly enough, the horde fragmented, as the beetle-man had. Keles pointed his companions toward the northwest. His choice made sense, as northwest was the direction of the old Spice Route, but no discernible track lay out that way. Keles’ course took them into a rumpled blanket of hills with yet higher slopes beyond. Its only virtue was that the hills had a number of caves large enough to house their entire group, hor
ses included. Scavengers had recommended seeking shelter underground, because while storms had been known to shift whole mountains from one place to another, rarely did the wild magic penetrate the earth.

  The land itself bore countless signs of just how powerful the storm could be. Giant boulders had been rolled down or even up hillsides, then polished smoother than an infant’s cheek. Trees had leaves that bled—not sap, but blood—and branches that curled around birds to devour them. Other plants grew up, blossomed, sowed seeds, and died on an hourly basis, sending circular ripples of flowers out—flowers of odd shapes and colors, with stripes and spots that shifted like oil on water, and would have been beautiful if they did not stink of swamp gas and decayed meat.

  Ixyll’s wild magic clearly did not kill everything it touched. Those things that had grown seemed to thrive. Places where storms had denuded a swath of land were quickly colonized by plants, or else insects raised great mounds that pulsed with life. Rekarafi pointed to one particular mound that rose like a volcano and had streams of yellow ants running like lava up and down the sides. He said those ants had not been seen in the world for hundreds of years. They used to be considered a delicacy in Virukadeen, but no one wanted to stop and sample them.

  Those sorts of things did not increase Moraven’s fear because they gave him points of reality to which he could cling. It didn’t surprise him that insects that had been extinct had suddenly appeared in the storm’s wake. Not only did he have the overwhelming sense of being elsewhere, but also elsewhen. It felt as if they were riding through a land that shifted and took form as their minds imposed order on it. Moraven had seen the shape that Rekarafi had called the mound, but it only took on definition when he named it, and the insects appeared as the Viruk pointed them out.

  Would they have seen what I saw, if I had been able to point it out first? He shivered. He wasn’t certain what he had seen, but it felt hauntingly recognizable. Memories were returning, clawing their way into his mind from some abyss. The scrabbling of their talons resonated through his fear.

  Where are we? His stomach clenched. When are we?

  For three days they rode through Ixyll in a fruitless search for tombs or traces of the old Spice Route. While they found caves aplenty—and some with signs of habitation—they didn’t find so much as a Viruk burial, much less a catacomb full of fallen Imperial warriors. Granted, Moraven wasn’t really certain what such tombs would look like, but to find no signs of anything predating the Cataclysm frustrated him.

  If I knew what we were looking for, I know we would find it.

  Worse yet, they came across no sign of the bandits who had preceded them. Keles’ logic in heading northwest had been impeccable, based on history as well as tales like those of Amenis Dukao. The route northwest was well known; the Empire had outposts along it, so drawing the Turasyndi out that way would give Cyrsa’s troops a better chance. But the lack of bandits suggested they might have other information. That meant they could be heading for a tomb complex while Keles and the others blundered around blindly.

  The trip and the nature of Ixyll wore on them all. Rekarafi became hypervigilant and seemed to go without sleep at all. Ciras became more irritable and slept poorly, as did Tyressa. Keles, who seemed to be fully recovered from whatever had been giving him headaches, still approached things very cautiously. Borosan became uncharacteristically taciturn and obsessed with modifying his mousers and his new thanaton—Number Five—to guard them. Even the machines acted oddly, with the smaller ones riding on the back of the larger as it trotted along beside the horses.

  All of them seemed to be waiting for something—and, in part, Moraven was as well. But for him, something felt different. They all faced a sense of the unknown and even unknowable. For him there was something out there that he knew, but just could not name. That sense of familiarity brought with it foreboding, and the foreboding came because he knew that thing was waiting for him.

  But what is it?

  Darkness began to fall on the third day, though dusk would linger this far north. They descended the northwest face of some hills and started across a flat, dusty expanse that might have once been a lake bed. A mile further on, already shrouded in shadows, a striated bluff waited. Despite the sun setting beyond it, however, Moraven caught sight of a flash of light—of the sort made by a signaling mirror. He pointed, but Tyressa and the Viruk had already seen it.

  Is it my light they see, or had they already created it?

  Keles had not seen, nor had Borosan, but that was because they were both studying the device the gyanridin used to measure the levels of wild magic. While Moraven pointed northwest, Keles swung around in his saddle and pointed to the northeast.

  “There it is, Borosan, you’re right. It’s a storm, and a big one.”

  Moraven turned, and could see it even through the gauze veil. Most of the storms they had seen while in Ixyll had been small and far off, but this one was neither. Already the purple-grey clouds had screwed down into a serpentine funnel that lashed at the landscape. Red-and-gold fire shot through it, and black lightning clawed out. Thunder crackled, and the storm’s roar vibrated in his chest. Ciras groaned, and Moraven reached out to steady him in his saddle.

  Keles caught that. “We need to find shelter.”

  Tyressa pointed northwest. “In the bluff there was light. There, again, see? Flashing.”

  The cartographer nodded. “It’s not reflecting the lightning, that’s for certain. Let’s ride. I think we can make it before the storm catches us.”

  The riders set spur to horse, but beneath their canvas caparisons the animals felt nothing. The horses, however, needed no real urging to flee the storm. Luckily the dry lake bed was flat, so the horses were able to race across it easily.

  Moraven pushed past his own fear as best he could to keep Ciras in the saddle, but the storm would not be ignored. The winds it kicked up began to howl. An oppressive heat built, making him want to strip off his clothes. All around him, the magic was making the thaumston fabric glow. As riders moved and horses galloped, as cloth gathered in wrinkles, the edges and peaks would flash with silver or blue, while iridescent violets filled the darker valleys.

  The storm would kill them, there was no question of that. But despite his certainty, it wasn’t death he feared. It was something else. It came from the deepest recesses of his mind, a black creature, hulking and reeking of corruption. It wore armor that clanked, and a mask. An armored battle mask with the scales of a dragon. Its mouth gaped open showing sharp teeth, and from its throat issued a low laugh that blended into the wind’s lupine shrieking . . .

  Hoofbeats competed with thunder. Illuminated by the light of the storm’s fire, the line of a path became visible. Not too steep and fairly wide, it cut up and across the bluff’s face, leading to a large dark opening through which they would be able to ride without dismounting. Borosan’s horse took it first, and the others followed. Rekarafi cut to the right and just scaled the cliff face, lurking beneath the edge at the opening until the thanaton chased the last of the horses within.

  Moraven ducked his head to enter the cave, then vaulted from his saddle. Ciras sagged away from him, but clung to the saddle. Before he could fall, Keles and Moraven were able to ease him to the ground. Tyressa herded the horses deeper in and around the corner to the left, and their hoofbeats clicked and echoed from what sounded like the walls of a massive chamber.

  Moraven tore away his veil and pulled the paired coifs back to a thick roll around his neck. “We need to get Ciras deeper into the chamber. Help me.”

  Keles nodded and took the young man beneath the armpits, while Moraven grabbed his ankles. They made their way slowly along the passage, relying on sound since the light from the opening faded the deeper they went. The Viruk’s shadow played along the walls, effectively blocking much of the light. Moraven could understand the fascination with the storm, and knew the Viruk would not be so foolish as to linger there when it hit.

  As they reached the e
ntryway to the next chamber, Borosan ignited the gyanrigot lantern he’d brought along. Its blue light stabbed deep into the chamber, illuminating the tall, arched opening into yet another chamber, but it penetrated no further. As the gyanridin swung it around to the right, splashing it over the chamber’s wall, it became obvious that what might once have been a normal rock formation had been worked long and hard by the hand of Man.

  Moraven dropped Ciras’ ankles and straightened up mutely. He wanted to speak, but words would not come. He found what the light revealed both glorious and terrifying. He knew in an instant that he had found the source of his fear. He had found what they had been hunting, what jaecaiserr Jatan had sent him to find. His knees buckled.

  Borosan’s light played over a wall that had been worked smooth, then had square chambers the height, width, and depth of a man carved into the face. Each one of these holes had been plugged by a slab of stone that had been cemented into place. On these stone slabs had been carved the names and deeds of the people entombed behind them. The lettering had been leafed with gold, so the names and legends glowed in the light.

  Keles gasped. “That one there. It’s the grave of Amenis Dukao. He died with the Empress!”

  Before anyone else could offer a comment, the Viruk screamed. Moraven turned, unable to make any sense of his words, but it didn’t matter.

  The storm has finally caught us.

  The Viruk’s silhouette filled the opening. Rekarafi grabbed both edges of the entryway and hung on as the storm hit. A cloud of dust blasted in first, lifting the Viruk from his feet. His legs trailed out behind him, then a red-gold tongue of flame jetted in, wreathing him. The rock in his right hand crumbled. Rekarafi, still anchored by his left hand, flew back and smashed into the entryway’s wall.