A Blade of Black Steel

by Alex Marshall

  That wasn’t real. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be, not even Chainites believed the dead could return, but knowing her bug-bitten brain was applying familiar faces to random strangers hardly made the reality of their sacrifice more bearable.

  As each wailing innocent or ecstatic reveler disappeared into the opening, the entire idol shuddered with the twist of internal mechanisms, and spumes of blood ejaculated from vents beside Indsorith’s feet. The reverberations of the heated metal coursing up through her seat might have felt nice, under different circumstances, but combined with the fumes baking her skull she would have fallen from her perch on the sculpted head of the phallic statue if the ropes hadn’t held her tight, the cool cords biting into her burning flesh. The chants of the procession reverberated through the city as the Fallen Queen led them inexorably onward, and now Indsorith was sure their goal must be what the Chainite mystics called the Navel of the Star, the Gate at the heart of Diadem…

  In all her years as Crimson Queen, Indsorith had hardly ever visited Gate Square, and never if she could help it. Whatever purpose the place had served for the architects of Diadem when they had first raised the city in the belly of the dead volcano was long since lost, as was so much else from the Age of Wonders, and the only ones who voluntarily came to the city’s solemn center were agents of the Burnished Chain. It was hard to belive that only two years had passed since Indsorith had wondered aloud what purpose a window into the First Dark served for such holy-minded mortals, and an advisor had told her that before being fully welcomed to the breast of the Fallen Mother, reformed anathemas had to first march out to the very rim and cast in any devilish deformities the Papal surgeons had saved them from. The image of wretched weirdborn penitents being forced to empty buckets full of their own amputated body parts into a Gate before being granted the privilege of serving the very institution that had mutilated them was enough to make Indsorith reconsider her own position of not eradicating every trace of the Burnished Chain from the Empire. Instead she settled for issuing a decree that weirdborn Imperials were no longer subject to the brutal laws of the church, which resulted in Pope Shanatu crying bloody murder and accusing her of overstepping her bounds as sovereign… which in turn led to the last civil war, when she wouldn’t back down.

  And what had it gotten her, or her subjects? Death as far as the eye could see. Famine in parts of the Empire, rampant lawlessness in others, every province and city-state at its neighbor’s throat. To restore the peace and end the war she’d been all too happy to accept Shanatu’s abdication of the papacy, but she’d also been forced to allow his batty niece to succeed him, and grant the girl all manner of additional powers to boot. The weirdborn weren’t much better off than they’d been before, Indsorith had lost even more of her tenuous hold on the Crimson Throne Room, and now? Now Indsorith was blasted out of her mind on all manner of poisons, taken hostage in her own city, and more than likely about to go the way of a weirdborn’s amputated wing or tail.

  Which all just went to show that she should have listened to Hjortt and Waits and her other veteran colonels when they’d suggested she march every fucking Chainite in the capital out here to this quiet quarter where not even gulls or owlbats took sanctuary in the ancient ruins that bordered Gate Square, and deliver the true believers to an immediate reckoning with their god. To think such a suggestion had struck her as barbaric, savage…

  When they reached one of the iron-spiked hawthorn cordons that blocked each of the five boulevards that terminated in Gate Square, the great barrier was rolled back on its hinges to admit the stamping, slick-scaled bulls and their iconic cargo. Y’Homa left her roost at the yonic end of the construct, strutting down the wide length of the phallus and casting handfuls of ash into the crowd from a goat-hair satchel. From the vantage of Indsorith’s lolled-back head, the wide-eyed Black Pope seemed to dance toward her across the gilded roof of heaven. Then the mostly naked girl steadied herself against the back of Indsorith’s uncomfortable throne, and the expression on her wine-stained lips was as mad as any of the flame-winged angels the queen saw wheeling over the teenage pontiff.

  This wasn’t all real, but it was all too real.

  “Witness the miracle,” the Black Pope whispered to Indsorith, the words echoing louder and louder behind them, and then the monstrous bulls dragged the phallic machine into the sacrosanct courtyard where Diadem Gate pooled black before them, impervious to the firelight. Indsorith’s limp head fell forward as they jerked to a stop, and she saw the overworked beasts were sweating flames, their glistening flanks alive with green and yellow wisps as they were released from their yoke and led away by their handlers. Icy fingers dug through Indsorith’s blister-thin shoulder, Y’Homa repeating her entreaty as she pointed to the Gate directly ahead of them. “Witness the miracle!”

  Metal screeched and wood groaned and the back of the long idol raised jerkily into the air, the nose of the phallus shifting forward, dipping over the Gate, and even tied in place Indsorith groaned, feeling her body rebel against the bonds that prevented her from sliding down into the darkness. As the wheeled construct seesawed into position, a thick discharge gushed from the open tip that had greedily swallowed so many. Rather than disappearing into the Gate, the bone-flecked flood splashed and spread across the black surface and, clinging to the throne-backed saddle beside her former nemesis, Y’Homa gasped, holding her breath as the last few trickles dribbled out of the mechanical idol. Looking away from the skein of gore cresting the Gate like oil settling atop water, Indsorith saw even Y’Homa was afraid, and she laughed in the idiot girl’s face, her lungs erupting smoke instead of breath. This wasn’t happening, this couldn’t be happening.

  Yet it was. This was no dream of drug and insect; this was a nightmare made manifest. Indsorith had sought to make peace with her enemies, and now she would pay the ultimate price, as would her people.

  A rich cobalt glow reached them both, and Indsorith turned in tandem with Y’Homa to behold the brilliance flaring up from the Gate that in all the years she’d presided over obligatory ceremonies of state had only ever swallowed light, never returned it.

  It was not the Gate that glowed, however, but what lay beyond it. The sight would have made her swoon even if she hadn’t been suspended over it, for the perspective was all wrong, as though Indsorith stood on the prow of a ship overlooking the horizon. And what a horizon it was: blue sky and bluer sea, and pinned between them at the border of water and air, a coastline of such rich emerald it made her eyes water, the steam hissing on her cheeks as she saw it. And she knew it for what it was even before the shore of the once-Sunken Kingdom raced up toward the Gate, protean towers of white stone distorting and wobbling as they thrust up from the verdant jungles, the view now that of a bird darting above the trees, then over quiet alabaster cities, toward what waited at the bowels of the long-lost land of Jex Toth, and Indsorith closed her burning eyes, as beside her Y’Homa whispered.

  “Her will is done, sister, her will is done. Heaven is made real, and the faithful are called home to the cosmic axis. Behold, the Fallen Mother has delivered unto us an army that no sinner may stand against. We have weathered five centuries of iniquity, but we have kept the faith, and our reward is at hand. The Angelic Brood of the Allmother returns to cleanse the Star, to save us all.”

  Even with her eyes closed, Indsorith still saw the swarming, jet-shelled nest of countless horrors, their almost-human faces staring at her from across the Gate, and she shed boiling tears not just for herself and her subjects, but for all of the Star, for she now knew that they were beyond all hope. The Black Pope had lowered the Burnished Chain into the deepest depths of the First Dark, and now drew it back up into the light, carrying with it nothing short of the end of all things.

  PART II

  AND THE DEVILS OF DAYS

  The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.

  —Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes

&nb
sp; CHAPTER

  1

  Choplicker whined and licked Zosia’s face, his normally slimy tongue dry and flaking against her cheek, but she had begun drifting out of her dreams even before the infirm dog had doddered over to wake her. She was buoyed up to the light by the sound of bugles… Imperials on the march, and close. As she blinked her eyes and her nose wrinkled at the hot garbage scent of her dog’s breath, Zosia struggled to place herself—where was she? When was she? She had been dreaming of the lean old days, working with Singh and Kang-ho to rouse the rabble in some piazza in Rwake or maybe Intarma, when the Eleventh Regiment, out of Lento, had ambushed them, rivers of soldiers pouring in from every street and alley, brass horns announcing the attack…

  Another bugle, closer now, and Zosia pushed Choplicker away before he could deliver another rasping lick to her face, her mind finally catching up with her bleary eyes. An anxious devil, looking every bit as sickly as he had last night, and her dim, cramped tent—she barely remembered finding her way back here after Choplicker’s rescue. With aching limbs she freed herself from the layers of blankets her devil must have dragged on top of her after she collapsed to the cold dirt floor, feeling like a defective caterpillar as she emerged from her sour-smelling cocoon of furs no better off than she’d been the day before. She felt worse, in fact. The only thing that ached more than her neck and her knees was the bite wound on her shoulder, and a skull-splintering headache rounded off the whole depressing portrait. She shuddered at the stamping feet outside her tent, the rising cries and banging metal and Cobalt horn after horn after horn drowning out the blasted Imperial bugles that had first roused her.

  “What the absolute fuck?” Zosia mumbled as she used her thumbnail to scrape the patina of mold off a strip of buffalo jerky. On closer inspection, perhaps it was actually venison—or maybe just a scrap of rawhide? No matter, it went into her mouth as she limped over to her chamberpot, batting Choplicker away when he tried to nose her outside. He barked as she hunkered down, the sound like dull daggers being slowly pushed into her eye sockets. Hard to believe she’d missed the bastard. “Yeah, I know, I know, we’re off to war—just shut up and give me a minute.”

  That calmed him down, at least. The devil poked his snout around the messy tent, retrieving her hauberk from a heap of clothes and dragging over the war hammer Singh or Purna or somebody must have retrieved after Zosia’s dustup with Ji-hyeon and dropped off back here while she was stuck in the stockade. Her eyes settled on the crown that had been so bright and shiny when she’d first placed it on her brow but now lay bent and dull on the bare floor of her dirty tent: as fitting a metaphor as they came. She knew if she actually intended to turn over a new leaf and be a better woman she’d have to start with something simple, like helping out the less fortunate, and that meant taking the thing to Ji-hyeon and sharing her suspicions about something bad having befallen Queen Indsorith. That was exactly the sort of intelligence a bright-eyed young idealist could use in her campaign to right all the Star’s wrongs and cast down the corrupt and all that shit. But like an old drunk who’d sworn off spirits the night before only to wake up with a commanding thirst, Zosia found yesterday’s easy and seemingly obvious resolutions to get on the path of righteousness sorely tested by the sheer amount of bullshit that would go into such a venture…

  But who knew, the way Choplicker was ferreting around the tent and dragging her things together, she might not even have time to soften up this codpiece-tasting scrap of jerky before more pressing concerns made themselves known. The only thing that could make him this excitable in his current bedraggled condition was the prospect of a big breakfast, and a devil’s meal wasn’t the sort of thing that made Zosia hungry. She swallowed a mouthful of salty jerky juice all the same; we’ve all got to eat, even when we’d rather starve. At least the devil was so occupied rushing her out the door that he wasn’t watching her do her business over the chamberpot, which had long been a bone of contention between them. Said a lot about their relationship that she’d take something like this as a boon. What a charming start to the first day of her new life as a new woman.

  So far, this life looked even more miserable than the last one.

  Just when she thought the morning had already reached the absolute pinnacle of dumbfuckery possible in a single dawn, Ji-hyeon noticed the spotting of fresh blood on the warm sheets she had just vacated. She dabbed a finger between her legs, hoping it was just one of her many recent wounds that had—mother of fucks. More distant bugles and too-close horns sounded, the impatient clamor of her bodyguards reaching a fever pitch right outside her tent; what period had ever arrived to such fanfare? She had to get outside and see what the merry hob was happening. Rather than embarking on what might be a long hunt in the cluttered tent for her box of lady’s handkerchiefs, she tore a little strip off the already threadbare sheet, folded it into the appropriate shape, and after finally locating a clean pair of knickers, tucked the makeshift cargo into the crotch and stepped into them. All of which proved even more annoying with only one good hand, the underwear catching on her knee, and—

  “I do hate to interrupt your beauty sleep, oh weary general, but I fear—oh shit, pardon me!” Hoartrap’s usual devils-may-care tenor abruptly changed as the creeper rose to his full height in the back of her tent and caught sight of what she was up to, turning his head and shielding his face with his hand in belated decency. Ji-hyeon yanked her panties into place, too furious to speak, and so a long, uncomfortable silence persisted as she also turned away and began donning her armor. The only thing worse than the arrival of her cramps was the appearance of Hoartrap, who eventually tried again. “I, um, never would I have—”

  “I fucking warned you what would happen if you snuck in here again.” Ji-hyeon hated how close to angry tears he’d brought her, when she’d already shed so many the night before. “You’re fucked, Hoartrap, for serious this time.”

  “Sure, yes, absolutely,” said Hoartrap, still not sounding quite like his old self. “But first maybe you’d like to see to the Thaoan regiment marching on our camp. Evidently your father and his good friend Colonel Waits have decided to decline your invitation to work with us against the Chain.”

  “I never would’ve guessed that, what with all those distinctive bugles getting closer by the second,” grunted Ji-hyeon, trying to get her sword belt buckled with only one and a half hands. “Whatever would I do without you, Hoartrap?”

  “I dare not even ponder it,” said Hoartrap, suddenly right behind her and reaching for her waist. “Here, let me help you with that.”

  “Back the fuck up!” Ji-hyeon shoved the two remaining fingers of her left hand in his face. “You must really want to die this morning, huh?”

  “I hadn’t planned on it, actually, but my schedule’s still open, so—”

  “If you forget the general’s bubble again, you get stuck!” Ever since her bodyguard Sasamaso had been swallowed up by the Lark’s Tongue Gate along with so many other soldiers, Ji-hyeon had missed the woman terribly, and mourned her death as a friend… and now she couldn’t help but be reminded of her again, because the Flintlander chevaleresse would’ve stormed into the tent to smash in Hoartrap’s ugly mug as soon as she heard raised voices coming from her general’s dark tent. Apparently the rest of her bodyguards had grown too accustomed to overhearing shouts from the command tent at all hours.

  “Apologies, apologies,” said Hoartrap. “I was only trying to help.”

  “You want to help, you godsdamned freak, pass me my fucking pipe.” Ji-hyeon’s cramps tightened along with her belt. “I thought Colonel Waits was supposed to be cautious as a smuggler going through Immaculate customs, what the fuck is she doing rolling up on us like this!”

  “Some might argue that attacking your trapped, exhausted, and outnumbered foe before they have a chance to recuperate is judicious to the extreme,” said Hoartrap, picking up Ji-hyeon’s colorful glass bubbler from the table and offering it to his general. “Or perhaps she’s just
seeing if you’ll fold without a fight, and if you lead the Cobalts down to meet the Thaoans she’ll call off the advance.”

  “So much for my dear old fucking dad giving two shits about me,” Ji-hyeon grumbled, taking the pipe in her good hand and nodding at the candle burning on her table. In the past she’d avoided smoking in the mornings so as not to risk compromising her perspective when making important decisions, but since her second father and Colonel Waits hadn’t left her with any options to weigh she might as well be as high as a majordomo’s hat when she led her last charge. It would help her cramps, too. As Hoartrap dutifully held out the flame so she could hit the stale, half-burned bowl, she added, “So much for all of us, if Waits isn’t bluffing.”

  “If she’s not, I do have an idea of how we might discourage her with a minimum of casualties,” said Hoartrap as Ji-hyeon’s lungs filled with deliciously itchy saam smoke. “But I don’t think you’ll like it.”

  “Try me,” Ji-hyeon gasped, holding in her smoke as the riot outside her tent grew louder and louder, her still-pale owlbat fluttering weakly down to land on her shoulder, and Hoartrap’s thick lips split into a devil-eating grin.