Shadows of Asphodel

by Karen Kincy

  He squared his shoulders. “Ardis, get out of the automaton.”

  She narrowed her eyes, then unlatched the cockpit door and hopped out of the automaton. The archmage’s sigh clouded the air.

  “Give me my sword,” she said.

  He held out Chun Yi, and she buckled the scabbard to her waist. He caught her by the wrist and looked into her eyes.

  “Don’t,” he said. “We don’t know who’s inside there.”

  “We know Wendel might be.”

  “We won’t be any help to him dead.”

  She stared at the factory doors, zeal burning in her chest, and drew Chun Yi. Flames shivered over the blade and hissed in the rain. Konstantin squinted and retreated from her sword, and Ardis wondered if he mistrusted blood magic.

  “If we turn back now,” Ardis said, “we might never find him again.”

  “We should assess the situation first,” Konstantin said.

  “Fine.” She reached for the broken chain. “Let me start.”

  The doors squealed open on rusty hinges, and the mustiness of decay rolled over Ardis. She stepped into the gloom, her legs tense, her arms in a wary fighting stance. The coffin factory’s ceiling, spiderwebbed with mildew, floated high overhead. Decrepit iron machinery hulked like the black bones of giants.

  The floorboards creaked under her feet. She glanced at a machine with a press in the shape of a cross. Clearly, the factory hadn’t profited enough from the dead. She wondered if the Order would, once they had their necromancer back under their command. She also wondered how they planned to break him.

  If they hadn’t already broken him.

  Rain drummed on the roof. She furrowed her brow. That couldn’t be the roof. There should be a second story above them, judging by the number of windows. She found a zigzagging steel staircase and followed it upstairs.

  Half of the roof had collapsed. Rain splattered on the floorboards and splintered furniture. There must have once been offices here. The faint glow of distant streetlamps leaked through the jagged chasm in the ceiling. In the shadows beyond, she could barely see the opposite wall and the jumble of dark shapes there.

  One of the dark shapes moved.

  A small movement, but enough to make her clench her sword. She slid her feet forward, wary of rotten floorboards. Chun Yi burned brightly enough to light her way. Slowly, the darkness yielded to her sword’s fire.

  Until she saw who waited for her there.

  Wendel slumped against the wall with his hands shackled above him. He lifted his head. Blood stained his mouth and trickled down his jaw. His long hair had been hacked away, and the ragged remnants fell to his chin.

  Ardis sucked in her breath, then ran across the rain-streaked darkness.

  “Wendel!” she said. “Wendel. I’m here.”

  He looked at her, his face tight, and parted his lips. More blood dribbled down his mouth.

  She crouched beside him. “Are you alone?”

  He shook his head.

  Pain glittered in his eyes. No, it wasn’t only pain. Fear. Panic. She swallowed past the fierce ache in her throat and checked his handcuffs. The chain looped through the iron frame of a window with shattered glass.

  “Wait here,” she said. “Let me get Konstantin.”

  Wendel yanked against his handcuffs. The chain rattled. She looked into his eyes, and she saw his face twist. He shook his head.

  The incessant roar of rain filled the silence, broken only by the sound of breathing.

  The tiny hairs on Ardis’s arms prickled. When she climbed to her feet, Wendel shook his head, harder, and the muscles in his arms strained. But she wanted to break him free, and she needed the automaton for that.

  A floorboard creaked, and armored hands closed around her neck.

  Ardis barely had time to suck in a breath before darkness constricted her vision. The pressure on her arteries was relentless. Her cheek hit the floorboards. Rain splattered her face. The sensation faded, and she closed her eyes.

  ~

  Blood whooshed through Ardis’s ears. She blinked open her eyes. She sat with her arms pinned to the arms of a chair, rope twisted tight around her wrists. Something was wrong with her head, or something was wrong with the world. Time stuttered and sped forward like a bad movie reel, and she couldn’t hear anything.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, and sound returned to her ears.

  “Look at me,” said a man.

  Adrenaline jolted her nerves. She peeked through her eyelashes.

  An assassin stood watching her at arm’s length. His white cloak flowed to his feet, blood-splattered, and intricately engraved gauntlets armored his hands. Although he had a grizzled beard, his dark eyes glinted with vitality.

  Behind him, rain fell through the chasm in the roof of the coffin factory.

  “Temporal magic,” said the assassin, “often does strange things to the mind.”

  So that had been no ordinary chokehold. No wonder she had blacked out so fast.

  “Who are you?” Ardis said.

  The assassin pondered her question.

  “A technomancer,” he said. “You may call me Hieronymus.”

  “Hieronymus,” she whispered to herself.

  “And you?” he said.

  She narrowed her eyes. She didn’t know what Hieronymus already knew, and she didn’t want to tell him any more than she had to.

  “I think he knows your name,” Hieronymus said.

  The technomancer grabbed her chair and dragged her to face the wall. Now she could see Wendel. He fought his handcuffs, his wrists raw, and knocked shards of glass from the window. He held her gaze and shook his head.

  Ardis swallowed hard. “Why can’t he speak?”

  Hieronymus leaned over her shoulder and smiled indulgently, like she was a stupid child.

  “Because he wouldn’t,” he said.

  She knew that the blood on his white robes had to be Wendel’s blood, and rage bloomed in her ribs like a firework.

  “You should have never touched him,” she said.

  He tilted his head. “Do you care about him?”

  The icy fist of fear clenched her gut. There was no right way to answer that. She forced her face to be blank before replying.

  “Why do you care?” she said.

  “Curiosity.”

  Hieronymus tapped her shoulder, and she flinched.

  “What is your name?” he said.

  “Ardis,” she said.

  “Ardis,” he murmured in her ear, “I’m afraid that pain has lost its meaning for Wendel. Hurting him is pointless.”

  Her heartbeat drummed in her ears. She stared straight at the floor.

  “You cared enough to find him,” Hieronymus said. “Is the feeling mutual?”

  Ardis looked at Wendel, and saw how badly he was shaking. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the black blade of Amarant.

  Her mouth went bone dry. She decided to play dumb.

  “I’m a mercenary,” she said in a monotone, “with the archmages of Vienna. I was hired to watch the necromancer. They didn’t trust him without a guard. They had him working on some secret project with automatons.”

  Hieronymus circled her and traced the razor edge of Amarant along her forearm.

  “I have friends outside,” she said, “waiting for me.”

  Which wasn’t a lie, though she could only pray that Konstantin would realize something had gone terribly wrong.

  She forced herself to meet his gaze. “Talk to the archmages if you don’t believe me.”

  “Ardis?” Hieronymus sighed. “You are a pitiful liar. I see the truth in Wendel’s eyes.”

  The assassin twisted her left arm and bared the veins in her wrist. She curled her fingers into a fist and forced herself to look away.

  She had never been tortured before. She had to be strong—

  Hot liquid spilled over her skin, chased by a bolt of pain. She gasped and glanced at her wrist. Blood trickled down and pattered on the floor.
Hieronymus smiled and slashed her right wrist. Amarant cut her skin like a razor through silk, so mercifully sharp she felt nothing until her nerves responded a second later.

  “God,” she said through gritted teeth, “that smarts.”

  She tensed the muscles in her legs and moaned, trying to ride out the pain, but with every heartbeat the searing hurt pulsed along the length of her arms. An alarming amount of her blood pooled on the floor by her feet.

  When she looked at Wendel, she saw his perfectly blank face. If he couldn’t keep it together, then this whole ruse was useless.

  “How do you feel?” Hieronymus said.

  She bared her teeth in a smile. “Like I want to kill you.”

  Hieronymus circled her, inspecting his handiwork, and cupped his hands. His gauntlets crackled with the green glow of magic. She had seen magic like this before, when Konstantin healed Wendel, and she remembered Wendel’s agony. Her heart raced so fast the beats became uncountable. She sucked in a shaky breath.

  “Too much blood,” Hieronymus said, “too quickly.”

  The technomancer grabbed her wrists and squeezed the magic into her wounds. Pain roared through her head and obliterated all thought. She doubled over, her muscles in spasms, and she heard herself screaming.

  “There,” he said. “Better.”

  She opened her eyes, blinking back tears, and stared at the technomancer’s gauntlets bruising her flesh. Blood seeped between his fingers. He lifted his hands and revealed pink scars running the length of her arms.

  He had healed her, but she knew he would only hurt her again.

  “Thanks,” she said, her voice raspy.

  Hieronymus hardly seemed amused by her sarcasm. He clucked his tongue, then turned to Wendel, who slumped with his head bowed, his ragged hair shadowing his eyes. Hieronymus lifted the necromancer’s chin.

  “Well?” he said.

  Wendel stared at him with hollow eyes. He didn’t even glance at Ardis.

  “Disappointing,” Hieronymus said. “Perhaps I’m wasting my time.”

  Blood from his hand smudged Wendel’s jaw. He let Wendel’s head drop, then strolled to the table where he had left Amarant.

  “I may have to simply kill Ardis,” he said.

  Shivers washed over her skin. She felt her heartbeat grow far away, felt her emotions floating higher than she could reach.

  “You don’t want to do that,” Ardis said.

  Hieronymus lifted Amarant and tilted the blade. A drop of blood rolled to the ground.

  “Why not?” he said.

  She bit the inside of her cheek, her mind scrambling for lies, and—

  The window nearest them shattered. An iron beam flew through the air and crashed against the opposite wall. Shards of glass chimed on the floor. Slack-jawed, Hieronymus tiptoed to the window and peered outside.

  Ardis waited for Wendel to look at her. She mouthed, “Konstantin.”

  Downstairs, a massive crash shuddered the walls of the coffin factory. Plaster sifted from the ceiling. The rain-soaked floorboards groaned. She heard the unmistakable thudding of the automaton’s footsteps, then startled shouts.

  Hieronymus backed away from the window and swooped behind Ardis. He clutched her shoulder and held the dagger close.

  “Ardis,” he said, “you may prove—”

  An excruciatingly long screech like metal on metal. Silence. Then the floor exploded.

  A hunk of iron machinery splintered the rotten wood. The force of it flung Ardis and Hieronymus into the wall. Still tied to the chair, she landed on top of the technomancer and knocked the breath out of him.

  She felt the rope around her wrists loosen.

  The hunk of iron thudded against the opposite wall. Ardis clenched her fingers together and wrenched her hands free. She elbowed the chair away, jumped to her feet, and saw the black dagger spinning to a stop. It teetered on the brink of falling to the first floor. Gritting her teeth, she tightened her legs to lunge.

  Hieronymus seized her ankle. She twisted and kicked him in the face.

  Time around her slowed to a crawl. Every instant stretched into an eternity. Sweat dripped from the technomancer’s cheek and hung, suspended, in midair. She glanced at Wendel and saw him staring at her in silent horror, caught between one blink and the next. Her skin prickled with the wrongness of it.

  She had broken the technomancer’s temporal magic. Too much, or too little.

  Her heartbeat drummed in the uncanny silence. She might have mere seconds before her luck wore out. A handcuff key glinted on a chain at Hieronymus’s neck. Fingers shaking, she crouched over him and snapped the chain.

  When she whirled around, her vision flickered. The magic had to be fading fast.

  The black dagger tumbled infinitesimally to the first floor, barely within reach, and she snatched it from the air. Clutching the key, she ran to Wendel. As she unlocked his handcuffs, his eyes flicked toward hers.

  Time lurched back on track.

  Wendel sprang to his feet and staggered into the light. Blood dripped from his mouth, and he wiped it on his sleeve. Ardis’s hand closed on Amarant’s hilt, and she faced Hieronymus just as the technomancer straightened. He glanced down at his gauntlets, as if surprised they had failed him, then eyed the black dagger.

  “That won’t work,” Hieronymus said. “That’s a necromancer’s dagger.”

  Ardis angled the blade. Soundlessly, Wendel stepped beside her.

  “I don’t want to hide in the shadows,” she said.

  Blood trickled from Hieronymus’s nose. He shuffled backward, more like an old man, and leaned onto a battered desk. He tugged away a cloth and revealed Chun Yi. The sword looked dull and dark without its fire.

  “Where did you steal this sword?” Hieronymus said.

  “Steal?” Ardis narrowed her eyes. “What makes you think I stole it?”

  His fingers slipped around Chun Yi’s hilt, caressing it, and brilliant flames whispered down the length of the blade.

  Hieronymus smiled. “Because it longs to betray you.”

  Wendel’s hand closed around hers. His necromancy skittered like icy fire over her skin. It jolted down the length of her arm, electrifying her nerves, and travelled into the hilt of Amarant. Darkness unfurled from the dagger.

  Ardis gasped as shadows swept over them both.

  Wendel squeezed her hand, but she didn’t know what he meant when he couldn’t speak. He tugged her away from Hieronymus and pressed them against the bricks of the wall. His frantic heartbeat beat against her chest.

  “We need to get the hell out of here,” she whispered.

  He shook his head, then pried Amarant from her hand.

  Shadows rushed from Ardis like a wave retreating into the ocean. She stood illuminated in the dim light. Hieronymus spun her sword and traced a burning figure eight in the air. She bared her teeth. She hated theatrics.

  “Wendel,” Hieronymus said, “you should have never—”

  The floor shuddered. Ardis risked a look downstairs. Konstantin powered the automaton into a sprint and swung at an assassin. The assassin rolled out of the way, and the archmage punched the wall with bone-shattering force.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hieronymus advancing.

  He closed the distance between them in a few long strides. One more step, and he could strike. If he swung high enough, she could catch the blade with her hands. Painful, but it might deflect the blow. She edged along the wall and searched for an impromptu weapon. God, why had Wendel left her empty-handed?

  “Pity,” Hieronymus said. “It would have been a pleasure to kill you slowly.”

  A boot ever so softly scraped the floorboards. Hieronymus narrowed his eyes, then turned to look behind himself.

  He only made it halfway.

  Wendel stepped from the darkness like an avenging angel. He drove his dagger into the technomancer’s eye. Savagely, he twisted the blade before wrenching it out. Hieronymus clutched his face and screamed. Wendel kicked
him in the back and knocked him down, then crushed his sword hand beneath his boot. Chun Yi clattered on the floor, flames sputtering out, and Ardis lunged to grab it.

  But would her sword betray her? Fear sickened her stomach.

  On the floor, Hieronymus clawed his way upright. Wendel grabbed a fistful of his beard and yanked his face skyward, then slit his neck and left him to drown in his own blood. He wiped Amarant on the man’s robes.

  Shaking, Ardis backed away and sheathed her sword.

  “Is he dead?” she rasped.

  Wendel met her gaze, emptiness in his eyes. He pocketed his dagger and took both of her hands. She flinched, but he bared her wrists with great delicacy. His fingertips traced her scars. The emotionless mask of his face cracked.

  Wordlessly, Wendel clutched her to himself, tight enough to calm her trembling muscles.

  When her fingers found the nape of his neck, he shuddered at her touch. Hieronymus’s foot twitched in the corner of her vision. She escaped Wendel’s embrace, and she couldn’t stop staring at the blood on his hands.

  Downstairs, they heard the automaton’s footsteps, then a quaking thump.

  “Konstantin,” she said. “We have to help him.”

  Ardis skirted the splintered floorboards and tiptoed downstairs.

  The dimness of the factory disguised the assassins. Konstantin, in the automaton, wasn’t nearly so subtle. He swung a massive arm and swatted an assassin. The man flew clear across the room, slammed against the wall, and crumpled on the floor. Another assassin dodged and narrowly escaped the same fate.

  Konstantin had taken out six assassins, but six more had him cornered.

  Worse, he was limping. The pneumatics in the automaton’s leg had been damaged by an assassin’s blade. If they crippled his other leg, it wouldn’t take much to drag him down and pry him from the cockpit like crabmeat.

  Ardis knew now would be a good time for a distraction, and she would happily oblige.

  Her fingers closed around Chun Yi’s hilt. She pressed the sharkskin’s pattern into her skin. The armor of confidence hardened her heart.

  Sword blazing, she leapt from the stairs and charged the assassins.

  The nearest assassin barely had time to turn before she feinted with a swing at his face. He dodged, predictably, and she slashed his arm. She meant to incapacitate him, but Chun Yi sliced flesh and gouged bone like a knife through butter and bread. The assassin screamed and clutched his half-severed arm.