by Alec Hutson
I turn to Bell. “And you? A glass of wine and a novel while I’m skulking about?”
She shakes her head. “No. There’s no time. You’ll be off trying to get my papa back, in your own way, with your sword and your brawn. I need to do something as well, but with my talents.”
“And . . . what are those, exactly?”
Bell ignores Deliah’s tone. “Science. Study. We’ve been one step behind ever since Soril because we simply don’t know what is going on. Why does the Marquis want the glitter? By the saints, we don’t even know truly why the Contessa wants it.” Her eyes harden. “And if it’s something terrible, something that will hurt people, then we need to know how to destroy it.”
Deliah glances at me with raised eyebrows. That sounds like Bell is entertaining the possibility of betraying the Contessa.
“I’m going to the sanctum of Lahgokep. The knowledge-saint’s archives are open to all, and I’ve spent enough time in the stacks that I understand the rather . . . quaint organizational system. While you’re spying on the Marquis, I’ll be finding out all I can about glitter and the Cleansing Flame.”
The vastness of this place astounds me. Xela and I are crouched behind a pillar so large it would take a dozen men to encircle it, and this is only one of at least two dozen ringing the edges of the open-air temple. Far above us the roof is peaked, though I only know this from when we approached the temple – I can’t see anything now, as a smoky haze has collected beneath the ceiling. That smoke is billowing from a large, slightly curved brazier in the center of the space, upon which a blindingly white flame dances. The flickering light thrown by this fire is pale and ghostly, sliding between the pillars like stalking wraiths.
A pair of statues twice the height of a man stand beside the flame. They appear to be shaped of black iron and covered in wicked-looking spikes, and their gauntleted hands grip the pommels of gleaming broadswords. These blades might be merely steel, but the unnatural flame causes the metal to glow with a strange light, almost as if the weapons have been coated in quicksilver.
A fat man in flowing purple robes is standing between these statues, and even where we are hiding two dozen paces away I can see that he’s nervous, shifting his weight from foot to foot and craning his neck to peer through the pillars at the darkness of the night beyond. His fingers are fumbling with a faceted red gem that hangs around his neck on a gold chain. He’s talking to himself, but it’s quiet enough that I’m not certain if it’s some prayer he’s intoning or if he’s merely speaking to try and settle his nerves.
“Bishop Velishan,” Xela whispers, leaning towards me. She’s coated with shadows, so it just seems like a slightly deeper patch of darkness has shivered. I’m covered with the same stuff, and it feels strangely cool, like I’ve been slathered with a layer of mud. It doesn’t weigh anything, I think, but it’s a little hard to tell as I’m unused to wearing this leather and ring mail armor Deliah has bought for me.
“Why is he here?”
The shadow shifts again, and I think she might have shrugged. “It is well known that he desires to be hierophant. And clearly this meeting is supposed to be secret.”
The bishop suddenly straightens, letting the gem fall as he slips his hands into his long dagged sleeves. From the darkness figures have emerged, and I recognize one of them.
Fen Poria. The pale girl is scowling, her gaze flickering over the huge temple and all its shadowed corners. For a moment it seems she’s looking directly at us, and then her eyes slide past. I let out the breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding.
Flanking her are a pair of identical-looking men, even down to their patchwork leather and mail armor and the long, sickle-shaped swords at their sides. Both are tall and broad shouldered, though oddly enough one is smirking and the other looks to be on the verge of flying into a rage.
A half-dozen warriors in the same dark armor I remember from Soril follow these three, crossbows slung across their backs. I’m surprised the Red Trillium Trust is flaunting their weapons in this holy place, and it looks to me like the bishop is as well. He dabs at his forehead with his long sleeve, and he seems to be suffering standing so close to the huge flame.
“Where is the Marquis?” he asks as Fen Poria stops and rests her hand on the hilt of the dagger at her waist.
“He’s busy,” she replies, tilting her head to one side so that her ragged white hair reaches her shoulder.
The bishop’s fingers flutter to the gem around his neck. “I won’t treat with servants. If he wants my aid, he must be here when the bargain is struck.”
“I speak for him,” Fen Poria drawls, and her left hand leaves her dagger to lace her fingers with her right – she moved so quick that I doubt the bishop caught it, but I saw her quickly stroke the pronged throwing knives fixed to the underside of her right bracer.
“No,” the bishop says. The red gem at his throat flashes, and an answering light flares in the narrow eye slits of the metal statues arrayed around the flame. Fen Poria sees this as well, and her mouth twists.
“Wait.” The word is spoken so loudly it echoes among the pillars, but there’s no urgency or anger or fear.
A cloaked figure moves from the shadows across from us, stepping into the light. The firelight gleams on the lacquered red mask beneath his hood, which, unlike what the Contessa had worn, is not featureless – a twisted mouth leers above a pointed chin, and the nose is long and curved, almost like a bird’s beak.
“Marquis,” the fat man says, dabbing at his glistening forehead with his long sleeve.
“Bishop,” the Marquis replies.
“Do you realize how dangerous this is for me, sir? How dare you play games. If the hierophant heard what –”
“Shut up,” says Fen Poria, and the bishop’s mouth closes with a click. His eyes bulge in outrage.
The pale girl turns slowly, her gaze scouring the shadows. She sniffs. Then she looks at the Marquis. “Someone is here.”
“By the fathers!” Xela hisses. “She’s a feral!”
“What do we do?” I whisper as the Red Trillium warriors begin to fan out, creeping towards the shadowed fringes of the temple.
“We run,” Xela says, and then she’s past me in a blur of shimmering darkness.
“There!” I hear Fen Poria cry as I follow the shadowdancer.
The Temple of the Cleansing Flame is perched atop a series of tiered stairways, and though I want to see if we’re being pursued I don’t dare turn around because if I miss a single step I’ll break several bones in my body by the time I arrive at the bottom. Xela is a ways ahead of me, her legs and arms flailing as she careens down the stairs – the shadows she’d adhered to our bodies have begun to flake away. I do risk a glance at the gates, about a hundred paces away. If we can reach that and find the ropes we used to scale the wall we can disappear back into the city. The other large buildings and edifices in this temple complex have remained dark, though their imposing facades are lit by braziers not unlike the Cleansing Flame we’ve left behind us.
Something clatters on the steps near my feet and skips away into the darkness. Another brief shriek, metal on stone. Quarrels. They’re shooting at us with crossbows. The half-unraveled swath of darkness ahead of me suddenly gives a cry and stumbles, then goes to one knee. I crouch beside her.
“What?” I gasp.
“My arm,” she says through gritted teeth, and I see then that blood is streaming from where a chunk of her flesh has been carved away.
“Just the meat. I’ll be fine.”
I glance behind us as Xela stands again, cradling her wounded arm. The Red Trillium Trust aren’t chasing us, oddly enough, though a few of them are standing at the top of the stairs with crossbows braced. That small dark shape must be Fen Poria. Why aren’t they coming?
The stairs shiver, and I nearly go sprawling forward before I catch myself.
What now?
A cascade of pounding crashes layered over each other. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Sounds almost li
ke . . . footsteps.
A huge shadow erupts from between two of the cyclopean pillars.
“Oh, damn the dead gods,” I murmur as one of the metal statues slows and begins to awkwardly descend the stairs – it seems to lack the flexibility necessary to move like those made of flesh and blood, and so it is forced to take each step like an old man, one stiff leg at a time.
“Go!” I cry at Xela, and we resume our flight. When we reach the base of the stairs I look again and see that both of the statues are now after us. The Red Trillium warriors are gone, at least.
We race across the empty square, and I expect at any moment to see priests or other guardians streaming from the stone buildings around us. But none do. The gate and walls swell larger.
“They are coming!” Xela cries, and I steal a quick glance – she’s right, the statues have reached the ground. Their black iron limbs seem much more comfortable on a flat surface, and they are moving with impressive speed.
“What are they?” I yell as we pass into the sheltering shadows of the temple complex’s walls and find our thin black rope. I give a silent little prayer to whatever higher beings I used to believe in that no one had discovered and removed our way inside.
“They look like golems of some kind,” Xela gasps as she tries to scurry up the rope – only to give a strangled cry and collapse backwards into my arms. “I can’t,” she says, holding up her arm. Even in the darkness I can see the glistening blood.
The crashing steps of the statues are getting closer. Dust sifts down from the wall.
“Wait here,” I say, and begin to climb the rope. My ribs complain but I try to ignore them – no time for weakness. I reach the top of the wall, bracing myself between two spiky merlons, and look down at Xela huddled at its base, staring up at me. The statues are less than thirty paces away.
“Grab the rope!” I cry, and she does. As fast as I can I start to pull, hand over hand; soon her fingers curl around the stone battlements, and I grip her forearm and haul her up beside me.
The statues haven’t slowed.
“Are they going to –”
“Yes, jump!” Xela cries, and then she throws herself over the wall.
Damn.
I leap after her, and just as my foot leaves the stone I feel more than hear the sound of an explosion, the wall buckling beneath me.
I’m tumbling. There’s a roaring in my ears, and the night is full of flying shards of stone.
My shoulder strikes the cobbles and I try and roll to spread out the impact. Sharp pain blossoms, but I don’t think anything is separated or broken.
I’m on my feet, my sword in my hand, coughing in the cloud of dust billowing from the remnants of the shattered wall. There are screams rising up around me, folk who had been strolling along the street outside the temple complex.
Dark shapes are moving through the haze, red eyes burning. Xela is a heap at my feet, but she stirs when I touch her shoulder. “Hng,” she says, rolling over. Blood is sheathing her left arm like the shadows she’d molded earlier, and I can’t imagine she’s going to remain conscious for long.
The statues are moving slower now, turning helmeted heads to sweep the ruin of the street. I need to get them away from Xela.
“Hey!” I scream, running towards them. “I’m here, you ugly codpieces!”
They swivel towards me, their swords coming up with alarming quickness. I swing my sword with all my strength, and the green glass slices into the leg of the closest statue. Unlike when it had earlier met swords or armor, the blade does meet some resistance, and it only makes it about halfway through the thing’s thigh before it gets stuck.
“Damn!” I let go of the hilt and throw myself backwards as a sword as broad as my body carves where I’d been standing. The statue lurches forward, stumbling slightly, and chops down – I roll to the side as iron clangs on cobblestones, coming to my feet again. The statue’s sword has gone skittering from its grip, but there’s little I can do with my own sword lodged in its leg. Also, my head is ringing like I’m in a bell tower. Another of the statues charges at me, exploding through a fruit seller’s cart in a shower of juice and shattered rinds. I duck beneath another sweeping cut that severs one of the street’s black iron poles. Its electryc sphere falls, flickering, and then erupts in a flash when it shatters on the stone. I stumble back, blinded. Something heavy hits me in the chest and I’m flying, the air driven out of my lungs. I strike the stone hard and try to leap to my feet, but my body betrays me, and I collapse again.
One of the statues is stalking closer, while the other bends stiffly at the waist to retrieve the sword it has dropped.
Whatever the hells these things are, I don’t like them.
The statue looms over me, its sword upraised. I try to get my legs to work but it’s like they’ve already been cut from me. Still seated, I hold up my arms, as if I can stop what is coming by sheer will.
The sword sweeps down, flashing in the light of the remaining electryc spheres.
I close my eyes. I’m sorry, Bell. I’m sorry, Valyra.
A rending shriek, and I flinch, but it’s not the sound of a sword passing through my armor and flesh. I crack open an eye.
The sword has been halted a hand span from my head by a gray haft.
“Deliah!”
The lamias has been driven to one knee by the force of the blow, but her glaive has caught the sword and held.
“I can’t have these things kill you,” she says in a strained voice. “They’d be terrible choices to replace you.”
Silently the statue raises its sword again. Behind it the other one is rapidly approaching, its sword again in its hand.
“Now get up and fight!” Deliah cries. She explodes into motion, the curved ax-blade of her glaive raising a scattering of sparks as it slides across the statue’s belly. She twists away as the sword lashes out, driving the tapered end of her weapon hard into the thing’s groin. There’s a hollow booming, but the statue seems unhurt as it swings again.
Get up, fool.
I’m on my feet, somehow, and with a tremendous effort the listing ground stabilizes. The blurred edges of the world around me sharpen. Deliah is dancing as the giant statue stabs, her glaive lashing out to scrape iron. Again and again she strikes the statue, but the construct’s hide is impenetrable. The other statue has nearly reached her.
Forcing my legs to move I run at the statue coming towards us. A sword-blow that would have chopped me in two passes over my head as I lower myself and leap forward, my hand closing on the hilt of my green glass sword. I pull with all my strength, shearing through the statue’s leg as the blade comes free. The construct tries to twist to follow me, but it’s unbalanced now and with a tremendous crash it collapses atop an abandoned food stall. I whirl to face Deliah, who has just deflected another sword-strike with her glaive; the lamias catches my eye and grins, but in that moment of distraction one of the statue’s great feet kicks out and catches her in the side, sending her tumbling through the air. She smashes against one of the buildings with a sickening crunch and falls motionless to the cobbles.
“Deliah!” I scream, but I have no time to see if she’s still alive as the statue is clomping towards me, sword at the ready. Behind it the shattered pile of tarp and wood that was once a food stall shivers as the legless statue drags itself free of the debris.
So losing a limb won’t kill these things.
I raise my sword into one of the dueling forms that I know instinctually, mastering my breathing and my mind. The pain flooding my body abates and is replaced with cool strength. The sword in my hand has become warm, and veins of darker emerald have spread beneath the green glass of the blade. Am I drawing this healing energy from the sword?
The statues stop moving. It’s like they can sense my resolve and new-found power and have decided they’ve lost enough in this fight already. The burning red embers in their eyes fade to black. They are now as still as they were in the Temple of the Cleansing Flame.
> A ragged cough comes from behind me, and I twist around. Deliah is on her knees; her beautiful face is smeared with grime, her flowing indigo hair matted with dust and dirt.
I hurry over to her. “Are you all right?”
She sits back on her haunches and grimaces. “My arm,” she says, indicating her left shoulder with a nod of her head. “It’s broken, I think.” She’s cradling it against her body, and with some relief I don’t see any bone sticking through the flesh. “But I’ll live,” she finishes with a wince of pain.
“Xela!” I say, suddenly remembering the shadowdancer. I hurry over to where she’s sprawled and gently shake her.
“Ah,” she says, her eyes fluttering open. Then she sits up, glancing around the destroyed street. “What happened?”
“The statues suddenly stopped,” I say, indicating the hulking guardians. “I’m not sure why.”
I help her to stand. She seems to have escaped without any serious injury, though her arm will need to be bound soon to stop the bleeding.
“Their master must have been slain,” she says.
“Who?”
“Bishop Velishan, I would assume. Do you remember the red jewel around his neck? Often the control artifact for golems looks like that.”
I think back to the nervous, fat priest.
“Perhaps the excitement caused his heart to go out.”
Xela chuckles. “You and I both know it was the Red Trillium. But why? They were meeting as allies.”
I notice out of the corner of my eye that heads have started to emerge from windows, goggling down at us. Xela sees this as well and scowls.
“We need to go. The Contessa will have our heads on a silver tray if we’re brought in by one of the other Trusts. It’s only great good luck that there isn’t a patrol already here.”
Deliah has joined us now, holding her wounded arm gingerly.
Xela nods at her in what I think must be thanks. “Let’s go.”
17
“You’re lucky – the break is clean.”
The cadaverous doctor straightens and steps away from the bed. Propped up against the headboard by a pile of cushions, Deliah takes another long swig from her cup of sap.
