Farlander hotw-1

by Col Buchanan

  The chaos was one of panic: a desperation to escape the torrent of crazed vermin now converging on everything that moved. Acolytes struggled across the open space as though they were on fire, each enveloped in a mass of writhing fur. Some rolled on the floor, trying to crush their attackers. Yet the three Rshun stood amongst it all, unmolested.

  'I did not expect this to be so easy,' quipped Baracha, which only an Alhazii could say while his ear dangled loose from his head.

  The rats cleared a path for them as they trod through the mayhem. An enclosed spiralling stairwell occupied each corner of the temple space, three of them leading upwards. The nearest one, on their right, led downwards, however. The Rshun hovered next to it, peering into the gloom below.

  'Slave quarters,' announced Ash.

  'How can you tell?'

  'The stink.'

  The Rshun converged on the far end of the sanctum, before a shallow pool of water that extended across the entire floor, and separated the rest of the temple from the altar. They stopped to confer.

  'You think Kirkus is still in the Storm Chamber?' Baracha asked, as an Acolyte charged past him and dived into the water. They all ignored him.

  'We have no choice but to assume so.'

  'There should be a climbing box,' said Baracha. 'All of these towers have one. Can you spot it?'

  'There,' said Aleas, motioning to a door he could just discern in the wall behind the altar.

  'We try the climbing box, then,' said Baracha. 'We'll never make it if we have to fight our way through every floor to get to the top.'

  'Agreed.'

  Ash mounted the thin bridge that vaulted the pool, his sword, even now, still in its sheath. Baracha stepped straight into the water and waded across. Aleas chose the bridge.

  The twin doors of the climbing box were small, cast-iron, and firmly shut. There appeared to be no hole for a key, or any other obvious way in which it could be opened. 'Crowbar,' demanded Baracha with a snap of his fingers, hand outstretched.

  Aleas began fumbling within his robe, till Baracha impatiently tore the front of the garment open to expose the harness. He snatched the crowbar from it, and set to working on the doors.

  Still, they wouldn't open.

  'We need to blow them,' he grunted, handing back the crowbar. Ash consented, and they took the remaining keg of blackpowder, set it against the door, soaked the fuse.

  'Clear away!' bellowed Baracha as they scurried for cover. This time they had the good sense to cover their ears.

  As the smoke cleared, a shaft was revealed through the blasted doorway. It soared straight upwards through blackness, as did the metal cable hanging taut to one side, and an iron ladder next to it.

  'I was rather hoping we could hitch a ride,' observed Aleas drily.

  'We climb,' rumbled Baracha.

  *

  Aleas went last, and he gritted his teeth with effort as he hauled his weight, hand, by hand up the rungs of the ladder. The shaft was illuminated partway by the light from below, but already he had lost sight of Ash in the murk above him, leading the way with Baracha some distance behind, climbing more slowly, because of his bulk. The shaft reeked of grease and was full of dust, so that Aleas stopped to sneeze more than once.

  After a time, he was forced to stop and rest. The air rattled in his throat. His lungs were burning. He wiped his nose clean on his sleeve, and then crooked an elbow around a rung and locked himself in position by clasping both hands together. Aleas was strong and fit, but he wondered whether he could finish this climb. They were too far up now for the light penetrating the open door below to reach them, but his eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and he could see his master vanishing up ahead.

  He had no choice but to follow, so he began to climb again.

  It took him another four rests, with a great deal of hauling in between, before he rejoined his master. Baracha hung on the ladder in the dimness, waiting for him.

  'What took you so long?' he hissed down.

  'I was enjoying the sights,' said Aleas. 'And then, for the fun of it, I got to talking with a pretty girl from Exanse. Or was it Palo-Valetta? You know, I don't recall.'

  'Pass the crowbar,' mumbled Baracha's voice.

  Aleas did so, no easy manoeuvre with them both perched precariously on the ladder. He watched his master pass the crowbar on up to Ash, who was blocked from further progress by something solid spanning the shaft. Before long, chips of wood cascaded from above.

  Aleas caught a fragment in his eye, and cursed as he blinked to clear it. For a moment his legs dangled freely.

  'Aleas!' hissed his master in remonstration.

  An entire plank of wood tumbled past then, bouncing off the side of the shaft as it disappeared beneath his feet. Two more followed, and then Ash was clambering up through the hole he had made, with Baracha following soon behind. Aleas, half blinded, pulled himself wearily up the final stretch. He grasped the edge of a jagged hole which had been hacked through the floor of a climbing box. Next moment, Baracha clutched him by the harness and heaved him right through, so that he hung there in his grasp, facing the big man, before his feet were set on the floor. He rubbed his afflicted eye, though that only served to make it worse. He could feel grime in his nostrils, sweat pouring from his skin.

  The carriage was sealed with iron doors, a curved handle on either side obviously intended to slide them apart. Through them they could hear the muffled sound of bells ringing, and a voice barking orders.

  Again, the crowbar failed to prise the doors open.

  'Stuck fast,' gasped Baracha, while Ash studied a metal lever sprouting from one side of the cubicle. He pushed it up: the climbing box shuddered and rose by a centimetre. It clunked to a stop, then dropped back to its original position.

  'We are not at the very top yet. This climbing box goes further.'

  'So why doesn't it move?'

  Ash stroked at a brass plate fixed immediately beneath the lever. All three peered closer, and saw that embedded in the plate were four brass tumblers, each stamped with a series of digits. Ash tried them with his thumb. They rotated, like tiny wheels on an axle, revealing different numbers as they moved.

  'I've heard of this,' piped up Aleas. 'It's a number lock. You need to set the correct number on all four tumblers.'

  Ash, thumbing through them, gave up with a wave of his hand. 'It would take a miracle to chance upon the correct sequence. I fear we are stuck.'

  Even as he said this, the doors slid apart.

  A dozen startled Acolytes stood blinking at the Rshun, who blinked back at them just as surprised.

  Baracha, growling, grabbed the Acolyte closest to him and yanked him into the carriage. It broke the spell.

  Ash and Aleas each grabbed a handle and began to close the doors, while the other Acolytes struggled to push their way through the narrowing gap. Fists crashed against Aleas' head, clawing hands grabbed for his hair.

  Aleas strained against the handle while fending off an Acolyte; with blows impacting against his head, he saw glimpses of bared teeth, eyes widened in anger, a backdrop of bobbing heads and blades manoeuvring for an opportunity to strike. The doors were almost closed now. They were blocked by the shoulders and legs of a single Acolyte, who snorted through his nostrils at the effort of it, but still would not pull back.

  'Arm yourself,' ordered Ash, as he wove his head back and forth from a lashing fist. The old man drew his blade at last as he jerked his head back from the point of a sword, and hacked down with his own. Blood shot into the climbing box, unreal, ghastly, bright.

  Aleas struggled to draw his own steel. The sight in his left eye was bad – there was a splinter there for sure, which he could feel every time he blinked. He freed his blade and jabbed without aim.

  Behind, he heard Baracha shouting at his captive. 'The number!' he was demanding.

  'Push,' Ash encouraged the young apprentice, leaning into the effort. The door closed by another fraction.

  More hands gripped a
t the closing edges. The Acolyte in the gap was either unconscious or dead, and those behind were using him now as both shield and leverage. Ash was meanwhile making a fine mess with the point of his blade. Blood jetted and pooled on the floor; Aleas slipped on it, fumbled to stay fixed to the door handle, dropped his sword in the process from his greasy hand. A burning pain slashed along one cheek, and he dodged his head aside, feeling wetness there. He tightened his grip against the door handle. and instinctively batted aside a blade he did not even see.

  'Master!' he hollered, turning his head to the Alhazii.

  Baracha had a hold of the man he was interrogating and was panting deeply only a millimetre from his face. The man was no Acolyte at all, but a priest of elderly years, with a bald pate and white hairs sprouting from his flaring nostrils.

  'You'll get nothing, I tell you, nothing at all out of me.'

  'No?' replied Baracha, as he hiked up the priest's robe and worked his hand beneath it.

  Across from Aleas, Ash tumbled away from the door.

  Aleas yelled as his hand lashed out to grab the suddenly vacated handle. The doors slipped wider again, allowing more shoulders and arms to gain leverage. Aleas roared for new strength, fought to keep the gap from widening any further. This is it, he thought, expecting a knife in his ribs at any instant. We never stood a chance.

  The priest bumped against his back in his struggle with Baracha. 'Stop that,' the old man was shouting in a clipped accent.

  'Master!' Aleas tried again. A face cursed at him, thrust so close he could smell the garlic on its breath. Above it, a length of wood was being forced between the doors, then someone else began to lever them open.

  Baracha ignored him. 'The number, or I rip them right off of you.'

  Ash was down; he was conscious, but moving as though drunk.

  'Stop it!' shrilled the priest in a voice that verged on hysteria. Then he screamed with all his might.

  'The number!' Baracha raged.

  'Four-nine-four-one! Four-nine-four-one!' The priest's awful squeal filled the small space, and then it ceased abruptly. Aleas felt him slide down against his legs.

  Baracha tossed something ragged and bloody to the floor. Bile rose in Aleas's throat. He didn't have time to linger on it, though, for a knife was snaking about his stomach, trying to find a way through all the gear slung about him.

  Baracha leaned over Ash and thumbed the number lock on the door.

  'Hurry,' Aleas growled.

  'It doesn't work. The fool lied to me.'

  'The lever! Push the bloody lever!'

  With a shudder, the climbing box began to rise. Shouts of pain accompanied the sudden withdrawal of limbs from the doors, which did not move along with the carriage but fell away as they rose.

  Aleas sagged back against one of the walls. He was sheeting sweat. Three gulps of air and then he pushed himself off the wall, and knelt down beside Ash.

  'What's wrong with him?' Baracha asked.

  Aleas saw the knife dangling from the old man's thigh, and inspected the gash. 'It's only a flesh wound,' he announced. Carefully, he drew the blade free. Ash gasped.

  Baracha sniffed at the blade.

  'Poison,' he said. 'Hurry boy, an antidote.'

  Aleas gathered his wits. This was no time to fall apart.

  He grabbed the medico hanging over his hip. 'Which one?'

  'All of them.'

  Aleas lifted all four vials of antidote and poured a few drops from each one between Ash's lips.

  The climbing box clattered to a stop. Baracha jumped over to the new set of doors, grasped the handles to keep them closed. No one attempted to open them, though.

  Aleas rubbed at his inflamed eye. He lifted the flask of water he carried and tilted his head back to wash it clear. He blinked, and repeated the treatment. It seemed to work. He then took a long drink.

  'Rush oil,' Ash rasped from the floor.

  Aleas knelt. He took a small clay pot from the medico, peeled off its paper stopper, dabbed some of the waxy cream on his finger, and smeared it on to Ash's lips.

  The sparkle quickly returned to the old man's eyes. 'Help me to my feet,' he ordered.

  'Easy,' said Aleas, helping him up. 'You've been poisoned.'

  'I know. I can feel it.'

  Baracha was listening against the double doors. 'How do you feel?' he asked quietly, turning. Ash offered a quick shake of his head.

  'I think it's crushed hallow seed,' said Aleas, holding the poisoned blade close to his nose.

  'Very rare,' commented Ash.

  'And difficult to flush. We must purge you, once we get out of here.'

  'Are you both ready?' asked Baracha.

  Ash recovered his sword from the floor. He cast free his heavy robe and used it to clean the hilt, and then the curved length of its blade. He looked like a farmer cleaning his scythe.

  A sharp pain struck the old man as he finished. He stooped, clutching his side as he sucked in a lungful of breath. It took an obvious force of will to straighten his back.

  He finally nodded.

  Baracha slid open the doors.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  A Killing Kirkus felt sick. He stood by the heavy vault door, his ear pressed against it. He could hear only silence beyond.

  They were coming for him, and he knew it, and the knowing made him want to run. But run where? He was at the very top of the sky-steeple here; the only way out was down through the very people who were trying to kill him.

  He could only hope the Temple guards would stop them. They would stop them, he was certain of it, for they had been trained since childhood for such an event. But how, he wondered again, had these people even made it so far?

  Kirkus pushed away from the door and strode back into the Storm Chamber. He held a short-sword in his hand. He hefted it, swung it once, twice, through the air.

  He would not need it, Kirkus told himself. They would never get inside.

  Manse, the old priest, stood waiting in the centre of the room with hands in sleeves and head bowed. A mute servant tended the fire, though occasionally she glanced towards Kirkus.

  'Both of you, to the door,' Kirkus instructed. 'Inform me if anything occurs.'

  He ignored them as they scurried past him. He prowled the room, stopping before the window glass. He pressed his forehead against its coolness. At this height he was above the fog; the effect was that of the tower rising above a sea of clouds, with other towers elsewhere, poking through here and there, like islands.

  He heard a shout even through the thick glass, carried up from one of the windows on the floor below. Again his stomach quailed.

  Kirkus had only truly feared for his life once before now, and that had been several years ago during his first purging. He had broken halfway through that week-long ritual; in no way had he been able to summon the will to carry on.

  His grandmother had come to him then, offering water as she sponged the foul mess from his face. At last he had stopped shaking. His tears had ceased to flow. He had looked up at her, still seeing phantoms. He knew he was close to losing his mind.

  Why is the divine flesh so strong? she had whispered into his ear.

  He had only croaked in response, unable to speak.

  Tell me! she demanded, her voice lashing him like a whip.

  Because… it does not suffer… from weakness, he had recited, barely able to breathe the words.

  Good. Now tell me of such weaknesses.

  He felt then as though he was high on narcotics and his thoughts refused to focus. He fought to gather them by holding fast to his grandmother's words.

  Conscience, he gasped.

  Good. And why do we consider conscience to be a weakness?

  He had faltered at that. He knew the answer, but in his broken condition, his mind shattered, he was unable to frame it into words.

  The old crone smiled. Because, my child, it is not our natural condition. And then her smile faded, for his head had dropped again in exhaustion.
Listen, this is crucial!

  With all his strength he lifted his head once more.

  Even the Daoists know this. There is no natural sense of right or wrong in the world, no inherent laws of justice. Does a she wolf feel guilty when she comes upon something young and vulnerable, and devours it? No, she does not, for she needs to live and feed her pups. Conscience is a concept know only to man. People teach their children such notions, so that they might know from right and wrong, but no one is born with these beliefs within them.

  Kirkus had frowned. He knew all of this. Why was she wasting what little time was left to him?

  Now tell me. Why do people instil such ideals as conscience in their young. Hmm?

  Because they're weak, he said, recalling the words he needed. They need rules to protect themselves from the strong.

  Indeed. For they look at the world around them, and they see the cruelty of it, the death and injustice, the blind chance, the struggles for survival and dominance, their own ever-closing mortality, and they quail. They cannot face the bitter truth of it; to do so would be to drive them mad, even as they call us followers of Mann mad. And so, they invent ways to protect themselves from the realities of life; conscience, laws and justice, right and wrong, the World Mother. In these things they seek sanctuary, huddling together against the coldness of the world while they share in the warmth of their own delusions.

  But we are Mann, Kirkus. We are not so weak. You and I, all of us of Mann, we have been instilled since youth with a more honest set of rules. We have been forced to look upon the world and accept it for what it truly is. This is our power. This is your power. Never forget that, child. Never forget your power, for you are strong boy, strong.

  Now survive this. Summon your will. Push through.

  It had been enough, at that time. He had made it through the purging.