Salim looked up at the larger streams, squinting to make out details.
“You said your father worshiped Abadar?”
“Yes,” Neila answered, somewhat uncertainly. “Though I don’t know if his faith went beyond facilitating his business transactions.”
“What more could a god of merchants ask?” Salim noted absently, but his gaze was still on the sky, looking from stream to stream. At last he found what he was looking for, and nodded.
“This way,” he said, and began walking counterclockwise around the circle’s edge, its radius so wide that their path was almost straight.
Neila followed without further prompting, and together they walked for quite some time, with Salim periodically glancing up to ensure that they were indeed following the correct branch.
“Where are they all going?” Neila asked.
He waved a hand. “Heaven, Hell, the Abyss—each of the eight aligned planes has a place in the Outer Courts, and the souls in these larger branches are the ones already sworn to a deity, or consigned by their conduct in life. They flow directly to their destined courts, where portals take them on to the appropriate planes.” He pointed back the way they’d come. “The smaller streams are those souls whose fates are contested, or not yet determined. Those are the ones that go straight to the Inner Court, to be judged by Pharasma and fought over by emissaries by the various factions.”
“And this is the stream for souls bound to Abadar?”
Salim nodded. “For all of Axis, actually. This is the stream of souls for whom law and reason are the highest calling. But the Master of the First Vault claims his souls from that court, so we’re going the right way.”
For a moment the stream they were following dipped low, almost touching the ground, and they gave it a wide berth. The new angle put them underneath a different conduit, one which was still safely above their heads. Neila looked up at it for a moment, then suddenly jerked her head back down.
“Gods!” she said. “They’re screaming.”
Salim glanced up as well, long enough to make out the horrified faces that stretched and elongated in their headlong rush toward their destination.
“Probably on their way to Hell,” he said.
As if to confirm his statement, a black-winged devil with the half-nude body of a beautiful, savage woman came swooping along the outside of the river, spiraling around it as she went. She briefly regarded the two humans on the ground, flaming bow drawn taut, then clearly dismissed them, flapping lazily back the way they had come, toward the main river. Neila shuddered.
“Is she here to keep them from escaping?”
Salim shook his head. “Hardly. They can no more escape the river at this point than they could escape dying in the first place. Their choices made in life pull them onward.”
“Then what’s she doing here?” In the distance, the flying devil was now no more than a dot. As they watched, other specks converged from other directions, following the streams but clearly not of them.
“All the planes have their representatives here,” Salim said. “Most of them stay in their specific courts, helping to shepherd souls to their proper place on the new planes. But some stay out here, patrolling the river against those creatures like hags that would attempt to steal away souls, or feed on their substance.”
“Souls like my father.”
“Yes.”
Neila frowned and picked up the pace.
It wasn’t long until the stream they followed peeled off from the others, and Salim brightened. “We’re close now,” he said. “Very close. We’ve entered the court of Axis.”
“How can you tell?” Neila asked.
In response, Salim pointed to the ground at her feet. For a second, he could tell that she clearly saw nothing but the same rocky earth and clumps of grass. Then she gasped.
“It’s a pattern! All of it!”
Salim nodded. All around them, the landscape had changed subtly. While the dirt was still dirt and the rocks were still rocks, the mathematics were all wrong. There were too many right angles, too many perfect curves. Symmetry and grids that, though sometimes so immense in scope that they were almost impossible to see, nevertheless gave the impression of having been placed precisely by an enormous hand, all the way down to the smallest grain of sand. Even the flow of souls above them seemed to be more regimented now, its course twisting and rippling less.
“Order,” Salim said. “The plane of perfect law. Or rather, its embassy—Axis’s court within the Boneyard.”
They walked on, Neila continuing to marvel at the strange way in which the landscape twisted itself to form grids and matrices, like the whole thing was one of the elaborate Keleshite rugs that some wealthy Thuvians favored. Now the stream of souls skimmed close to the ground, snaking its way in a current that rippled, not smooth-walled but wriggling and shifting course minutely as the souls within bunched and flowed. At one point, Neila, distracted by the sight of the buildings looming closer on the horizon, failed to notice a shift in the river’s course, and Salim pulled her back sharply from the hands of spirits who reached out for her.
“Careful,” he warned, “unless you want your soul stripped from your body and sent on before its time.”
“Would it do that?” Neila looked shocked.
Salim shrugged. “Who can say? It’s the River of Souls, and not meant for mortals. None of this place is. Best you remember that.” Then they continued on, giving the stream a much wider berth.
Just when it seemed like neither of them could bear to walk any longer, the portals came into view.
There were several, of varying sizes. By far the largest was a massive, square-edged thing that looked like nothing so much as an enormous doorframe from which the door had been removed. Made of the same gray stone as the distant buildings, its two columns and tower-sized lintel were featureless, imposing in their bulk and absolute symmetry. Within the frame of the trilithon, the air shimmered and burned a brilliant gold, as if light hung from it in a curtain. It was into this radiant screen that the majority of the souls in the River of Law flowed and disappeared.
Yet it was not the only one. Smaller and less imposing, several other portals glowed at measured intervals around the central stones, and these culled their own spirits from the primary flow, causing a further splintering of the branch the two humans had been following. And it was just ahead of them, at the point at which the river radiated its new branches, that Salim and Neila spied figures moving about. Neila looked to Salim, her hand going to the basket hilt of her sword, but Salim merely continued toward them. When they were close, he raised a hand in greeting, and one of the figures did the same.
There were half a dozen of them, male and female, standing in a seemingly casual yet somehow precise manner. Above them, the current of souls arched briefly over their heads before touching down again, as if to grant them free access to each of the diverging streams without having to cross them.
In appearance, the figures most resembled elves, but elves of a beauty and perfection never seen even among the fair folk. Their ears were pointed, their bodies long and lithe, and their hair as straight and smooth as rays of light, yet where the elves of Salim and Neila’s world were still mortal, and bore the scars and minor blemishes that are the gift and curse of life, these were something different—an ideal made flesh. All were dressed in plain but well-fitted robes and wraps of gray or white.
“Well met, traveler,” the one in front said, and put out his hand. Next to him, Salim heard Neila attempt to stifle a gasp and only halfway succeed.
Where the stranger’s arm bent, the substance of both arm and cloth dissolved into a shower of sparks that swirled outward. They lingered for a moment, drifting into eddies of tiny golden grains, then flowed back together as if drawn by a magnet, configuring themselves perfectly in the new position, as natural-looking as any human arm.
Salim took the hand and shook it. “Well met,” he agreed. “We’re here on behalf of the Lady
of Graves.”
The leader—or at least Salim presumed the spokesman to be such, for the others did nothing but watch—raised an eyebrow in an expression that was both skeptical and amused.
“Not directly,” Salim clarified. “We seek a soul that went missing somewhere along the river’s course, after he reached the Boneyard. A human called Faldus Anvanory.”
All amusement vanished from the man’s face, replaced by a flat, neutral expression that seemed more natural there.
“Your claim seems unlikely,” he said. “Most souls stolen from the river are taken on their course through the Astral, where it’s difficult to guard it sufficiently. That’s where the hags and astradaemons have the greatest luck in their hunts. Not near the Outer Courts, where the eyes of half the planes and Pharasma herself are upon them.”
“Yet so we’ve been told,” Salim said. As he spoke, his voice took on the same inflection as the stranger—flat and downturned at the end, as if both men were reciting facts to themselves rather than actually conversing.
“We will check the book,” the man said, and gestured to one of the women. This time the motion was greater, and the glittering specks flew out in wider spirals and eddies, allowing Salim to see the glowing motes for what they truly were—tiny, abstract symbols and runes, like those used by scholars in the discussion of mathematics and the unseen principles that bind the world.
The indicated woman reached behind her and drew forth an enormous tome, bound in clasps of glittering metal, from where it hung from her belt on a stout chain. She opened the covers, and thin, cream-colored pages whirred and flipped by themselves before finally coming to rest somewhere in the middle. She consulted it briefly.
“Faldus Anvanory,” she said. “Sworn to Abadar. Received at the central branching in the Court of Axis and sent on to the portal of the First Vault.” She closed the book with a snap.
“What does that mean?” Neila whispered to Salim.
“It means his soul made it this far safely,” he replied. He looked up at the diverging streams, then off to where the array of portals stood, less than a mile away. He gestured toward one in particular. “Somehow the kidnappers snagged it between here and the entrance to Abadar’s realm.”
“Are they sure?”
This time everyone turned to stare at Neila, and their eyes were wide with surprise—even Salim’s.
“We’re axiomites,” the woman with the book said, as if that explained everything.
“My apologies,” Salim said quickly. “My companion is unfamiliar with this plane of existence.”
The spokesman nodded agreeably. “Language is rarely a perfect construct.” He turned to Neila. “While the inherent instability of existence and the finite capacity for understanding, combined with the influence of the observer on both events and his/her/its perception of them, make tautological proof inherently impossible, I believe that you were instead asking about the relative probability of the event in question, which is so great as to render the other possibilities statistically insignificant.” He paused and looked expectantly at her.
Salim leaned over and spoke in her ear. “That means he’s sure.”
“Of course,” she said, making a little curtsy. The axiomite nodded.
“Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary?” Salim asked the figures. “Anything which might bear on the missing soul we’re searching for?”
As one, they shook their heads, the unison eerie in its perfection.
“We only learned of a soul’s absence from one of the Lady of Graves’s heralds—the black-winged one. Were it not for the fact that the soul’s name was never recorded at the portal, we would say that it was impossible, and that it must have gone missing on the other side. But we cannot doubt the Lady’s precision.”
“Thank you,” Salim said. “You’ve been most helpful.” He took Neila’s arm. “Come on, Neila.” Bowing slightly to the axiomites, he turned and led her down the path of the stream he’d indicated.
When they were beyond hearing distance, she spoke. “What were they?”
“Axiomites,” he said. “Creatures of perfect reason and logic. They live in Axis, the Eternal City. You saw it from the edge of the Spire. Those were acting as shepherds for souls entering the court, making sure they go where they’re supposed to.”
“Do you trust them?”
He looked over at her and smiled.
“Trust doesn’t enter into it. They’re axiomites—reason and balance are the tenets of their existence. If they didn’t want to tell us something, they wouldn’t. They’re probably capable of telling lies when they need to, but for the life of me I can’t imagine why they would care. One human life is nothing to them.”
Neila opened her mouth to respond, then reconsidered. She looked to their destination. “And that’s the door to Abadar’s realm?”
“One of them.” Salim followed her eyes and caught the glint of gold on the distant portal. It was round and circular, like a bank vault. Around its base, another group of figures that might have been axiomites stood watching the stream of soul-stuff pour through the portal. “There are other ways, of course—the First Vault of the merchant god sits in Axis proper, where it guards the first, perfect archetypes upon which everything in existence is based. The perfect sword, the perfect chair—even the perfect man and woman.”
“And we’re going there?”
“Only if we’re unlucky.” Salim stopped and put a hand out, gesturing at the ground in front of them. “We know that the soul went missing somewhere between here and there. With luck, there’ll be some sort of indication of where or how the kidnapping took place. If we reach the portal and haven’t found anything, we’re back where we started.”
“That’s the plan?” Her voice was sharp. “Walk along the River of Souls and look for clues like characters in a minstrel’s mystery?”
He looked at her levelly. “Do you have a better one?”
“Of course not. I just thought that, being as you had the power to bring us here in the first place, you might have something a little more elaborate planned.”
Salim gave her a small smile. “Don’t place too much faith in magic, Lady. In most cases, especially where the gods are involved, it’s best to rely on yourself.”
“And luck.”
“And luck,” he agreed. “Which, you must admit, we’ve had so far.”
Her fists went to her hips in a gesture of irritation that was probably habit. Both hair and blouse were now damp with sweat, and clung to her becomingly as she glared at him. “We’re in the hind-end of a fairytale graveyard, looking for a needle that may or may not be in the proverbial haystack, while the minutes until my father’s soul is destroyed continue ticking away. You call that luck?”
Salim began walking forward along their path again, eyes toward the ground and hands clasped behind him. “Tell me, Neila, have you ever encountered an astradaemon?”
“Of course not!”
Another smile.
“Luck.”
She stood considering that for a long moment. Then she grasped her sword hilt and hurried to catch up.
∗∗∗
In the end, it was Neila who discovered the first one, almost tripping over it before she realized it was there.
“Salim. Look at this.”
She sat down on her haunches in a most unladylike fashion and scraped away the dirt, then held up her prize.
“What is it?” she asked. “It looks like a witch’s crystal ball.”
So it did. Salim moved over and peered at the strange glass sphere. Clear and greenish, it was the size of a man’s fist, with a surface that was almost perfectly smooth. A lattice of thin, dirty cording enclosed it like a bag.
“It’s a fishing float,” he said, wonderingly. His fingers traced the lines of cord, which stopped abruptly a few inches below the ball as if they’d been cut.
“A what?”
“A fishing float—a hollow ball used to hold fishermen’s nets
up. They use them all along the coast of the Arcadian Ocean.”
“What’s it doing here?”
“A damned good question.” Salim stood but remained stooped over, scanning the ground. “It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s more than we’ve had so far. Help me look.”
Together they began scouring the ground, spiraling outward from the point where she’d located the ball.
Salim found the next object—a strange, illustrated card of a rabbit with a broken sword, about the size of his palm. He recognized it as being part of the deck northerners called the harrow, which they used for gambling and fortune-telling. Then Neila gave a triumphant cry and held up a feather that had been half-obscured by the dirt, a brilliant pink pinion. Together they circled in wider and wider arcs, searching for nearly half an hour before deciding they’d found all that was to be found aside from the red-brown dust of this part of the Boneyard.
In all, there were half a dozen objects: the globe, the card, the feather, a scrap of unlabeled map, a tiny and rootless pine sapling that struggled to grow in the dead soil, and the broken headstock of what looked to be a mandolin. Salim laid them out in a row, and he and Neila sat looking at them in silence. Salim brought his hand to his mouth and tapped on his teeth with a thick thumbnail. At last he spoke.
“I don’t understand it,” he said. “None of this makes any sense.”
“Could it be trash?” Neila asked.
“Trash from where? The souls?” Salim shook his head. “They carry nothing, and the axiomites who act as shepherds would have no need for any of this. Damn it, there’s no one on this plane to make trash, let alone leave it here.”
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