Dark Forge

by Miles Cameron

  He looked at the bodies.

  “Right,” he said. “Let’s keep going.”

  An hour later, they were trotting along the road, which was broad enough for a column of cavalry eight men wide. They had passed two more villages, both of them empty of either living people or dead.

  Al-Khaire grew before them, the magnificent domes of its citadel plain against the sky. It was clear that part of the city was afire; there was smoke rising from the lower town, nearest the river.

  Aranthur began to have doubts about their entire course of action.

  The immensity of the Black Pyramid was a matter for awe. On the far side of the river, a stone wall ran almost as far as the eye could see, with a walkway beneath it and stone piers at regular intervals. There were towers, low, squat, and black, and beyond, a vast paved field, and then the pyramids, each the size of a small mountain. Aranthur could not see more.

  Closer in, he found traces of sihr on the road, but no more obvious sign.

  Ahead of them, the magnificent acropolis of Al-Khaire towered in the smoky air above the devastation below it. The temples still glowed with golden light in the sun.

  The road turned away from the waterside at what appeared to be a ferry dock. There were a dozen dead. Aranthur dismounted to look at them: three dead Safians, instantly identifiable by their headgear, and the rest some sort of local militia.

  “Why weren’t they buried?” he asked.

  “We need to keep moving. I think there is an Apep-Duat on this side of the river, and it will stalk us.” Qna Liras’ voice betrayed anxiety.

  Aranthur looked at the bodies again.

  Sasan, who had confirmed their origin, shook his head.

  “These all died by good old-fashioned human violence. Maybe five days ago.”

  “When the rift opened,” Dahlia said. “All these could have been killed by Pindari raiders.”

  Sasan pointed back behind them.

  “These are not Pindaris. These are Tufenchis—like your better quality militia. Not professional warriors, not thugs.”

  “We need to move,” Qna Liras said.

  Aranthur nodded. “Let’s go.”

  They turned north and west with the road, away from the river.

  Soon after, his scouts reported movement on the road, and Aranthur closed the column.

  “Please. These are likely my people,” Qna Liras said.

  “Of course,” Aranthur said.

  But he brought up his magesight and went forward with Dahlia and the Lightbringer, just to be sure.

  What they found was a temple priest and two eights of priest-soldiers. The priest wore all black; the soldiers were mounted on camels, and wore black turbans and black robes.

  Qna Liras saluted and sang something in Masri.

  “Any idea what he’s saying?” Aranthur asked.

  “No clue,” Dahlia said.

  The priest spread his arms wide, and locked the Lightbringer in an embrace.

  “Well, we’re friends, anyway,” Aranthur said.

  “When did you become so cynical?” Dahlia asked. “You were such a lovely innocent.”

  She smiled, as if to take the sting from her words.

  Aranthur shrugged, and looked back along the column.

  “Move it,” he called.

  “I was right—there are Apep-Duat loose on this side,” Qna Liras said. “The Black Pyramid is broken, but all of the White Pyramids are still functioning. Nazar here believes that the Ammit is itself still anchored on the other side of the river, and we face only tendrils of its power. Or its servants.”

  “That’s cheering,” Ansu said.

  Qna Liras looked back along the column, now augmented by the Masran priest-soldiers on their camels.

  “Not really,” the Magos said. “Nazar says it has broken the city wards of Al-Khaire and taken or killed more than a thousand people.”

  Ansu grunted. “And the killings make it more powerful?”

  Qna Liras glanced at him.

  “Exactly. If we allow it too many victims, it may be able to manifest. You know this sort of lore?”

  Ansu smiled. “It is not unknown in Zhou. We also have a black pyramid of sorts, although it is neither black nor a pyramid.”

  “Has anyone seen it and lived?” Aranthur asked.

  Qna Liras asked the Masran priest. Nazar nodded.

  “He says it looks like fog,” Qna Liras said.

  Aranthur nodded.

  “Perfect,” muttered Dahlia.

  “Where are we headed now?” Aranthur asked.

  “The Mirza Gate,” Qna Liras said. “It’s strongly warded.”

  Aranthur nodded. “Keep going,” he said, and turned out of the column.

  He rode back along his people, all the way back until he reached the rearguard, which was Sasan and his people.

  “Fog,” he said. “The entity, or what have you, looks like fog.”

  Sasan looked back. “How do you fight fog?”

  Aranthur shook his head. “We don’t. We out-ride it.”

  He went off to the north, found two outriders, and told them about the fog. He had no outriders along the river; he was ready to ride back to the column when Batu pointed.

  “Fog,” he said.

  And there, crouched amid the treetops of a village with a stand of date palms, was a patch of fog, or maybe damp spiderweb. It had a yellow cast in bright sunlight, like horse-piss on snow.

  “Fuck,” Aranthur breathed. He saw it with magesight—a gaping maw of sihr.

  “On me. Run,” he ordered.

  He waved, and Batu needed no urging, and they were galloping across a rutted field full of gravel and leaping an irrigation ditch, their horses skimming the ground as if they were flying low. Aranthur looked back, but he could no longer see the village or its malevolent occupant.

  They reached the road.

  “Tell the others!” Aranthur shouted.

  He turned south, riding hard for the rearguard.

  As soon as Sasan saw him coming, he made the right guess, and the Safians started forward at a rapid pace.

  Aranthur turned Ariadne. Now he could see the blob of sihr off to the north, flowing over the field he’d just covered.

  “Come on!” he roared.

  He watched it move, tried to guess its speed.

  As Sasan came abreast, he pointed at the distant cloud, and brought Ariadne to a canter.

  “Go!” he yelled, and then the Safians needed no more urging.

  Aranthur followed them, watching the cloud, and casting occasional glances behind. There could always be two, or even three, whatever they were.

  They raced along the road, the horseshoes casting sparks even in the brilliant sun. But the yellow mist was still three hundred paces away when they passed it, and ran on, and by the time they reached the column, it was well behind.

  They arrived at the gate through a slum of ramshackle hovels built outside the protection of the walls with their horses blown. Aranthur was not sure he’d ever felt quite so dirty or so tired. He’d been awake for almost two days. He wasn’t sure he could concentrate to cast effectively. Ariadne, the strongest horse he’d ever known, was done, almost unable to walk after the last burst. Aranthur changed to his Steppe pony to save Ariadne, and then fretted with Qna Liras under the gate.

  “Men are deserting their posts. The city is in the grip of fear,” Nazar said, through Qna Liras.

  And it was obvious there were no soldiers on the walls. It took long minutes to get the gate opened, and then only when the Masran priest became shrill in his denouncements. When the gate opened, the people inside only opened a small postern, and they all had to dismount and enter the city in single file. Aranthur waited with Sasan and Dahlia, and their horses were restless.

  Aranthur turned and looked back over the deserted gateside slum.

  “It’s close,” he said.

  Dahlia nodded. “I can feel it,” she admitted.

  The line of men in front of
them seemed to take forever to pass the gate.

  “There it is,” Aranthur said.

  In magesight, the first tendrils of the sihr were like rotten vines creeping across the slum—long, slimy tentacles of Dark power.

  Aranthur’s pony exploded away. He spent a terrible minute fighting for control of his mount, and when he had the horse calm, he saw that Dahlia was down, and her mount had run. Sasan gave her a hand up behind him.

  One of the tendrils was just a hundred paces away. It was curiously hesitant; it moved with caution, probing, probing…

  Sasan got a hand on Dahlia’s horse’s bridle and went for the little postern gate.

  “Come on!” he called.

  Aranthur wished he was mounted on Ariadne. But he backed the pony towards the gate, watching the tendrils. There were two, now—like the tentacles of a kraken, often the way the enemy, the God of Darkness, was represented in Twelver art.

  The pony quivered between his legs.

  He cast the preparatory for his aspis, so that the working was ready in his hand, or that’s the way he framed it.

  Sasan was through the postern.

  “Watch out, Aranthur!” called a voice.

  High above him, Jalu’d leant out over the wall, and lightning flashed.

  One of the tentacles of damp darkness was moving very quickly now. Jalu’d twirled, high on the wall. A bolt of jade-green lightning struck the tentacle, and it lashed furiously.

  Now the other came along the ground at waist height, as fast as a swung sword.

  Aranthur interposed his aspis with a muttered word.

  He had to dismount to pass the gate—he didn’t want to lose the pony. He cast a second aspis and used the two shields aggressively, pushing them against the immaterial form of the tentacle. It gave, but he didn’t appear to be doing it any harm. On the other hand, he could push his aspis quite far. Now he used his will and all the new-found power he could access to thrust both aspides away. Despite exhaustion, his desire to save his horse, and his people, fired his will.

  He slapped his pony on the rump and she put her head down and followed the smell of the other horses into the darkness. He turned back, and pushed the tentacle twice, once with each aspis. It was baffled, but the yellow fog was coming up to the wall, and it was, if anything, growing.

  A beam of sea-green struck it from the wall with no apparent effect, and then another crack of Jalu’d’s jade lightning.

  Aranthur longed to see if the sword would do it any damage…

  No! Not now. Unless there is no other choice.

  He tried another gambit, casting two more aspides and juggling all four like a shield wall.

  “You are restraining it in the Aulos.” Dahlia was at his shoulder. “Very clever. Now get your arse inside so we can close the gate.”

  He felt sheepish, but he stepped back, and Sasan slammed the heavy oak door closed. Immediately, lines of blue-white fire traced the outline of the door, and then the greater gate in which the door was set. They flared, and then went out.

  Aranthur was left with an after-image burning on his retinas.

  “Did you see that?” he asked over his shoulder.

  There were upset horses milling in the near-darkness of the gate, and dozens of men and women trying to calm them.

  Whooom.

  The gates rattled.

  “That can’t be good,” Dahlia said.

  “Get the horses into the city!” Vilna called.

  “They won’t open the inner gate!” called one of the Safian riders.

  Aranthur put a hand on the gate and pulled it away as if he’d been burnt.

  “Eagle. It’s attacking the gate.” He looked back at Dahlia. “You get up on the wall. You have all kinds of offensive stuff I don’t have.”

  Dahlia nodded, handed him her reins, and brushed under the outstretched neck of an angry mare.

  Aranthur steadied himself, grabbed saar, and put his hand on the gate. Then he pushed saar very slowly into the ward he found there, ignoring the existential pain of the attacker against his own will.

  The ward took the power. The gate flared in the real.

  Whooooom.

  The gates shook as if a great wind was blowing against them. The horses began to panic—ears were down, and the younger horses rolled their eyes.

  Vilna had his horse lying flat on the cobbles, and he was pulling other horses down. Most of the Nomadi emulated him.

  Aranthur pushed more saar into the gate.

  He was still working when the attacker struck, and just for a moment he was confronted with…

  Minemineminemineminemineminemineminemineminemine

  It was hideous, and all-encompassing—a unitary horizon of mine. It was like the embodiment of a will of selfishness, and it knew no other boundary but the unitary desire to possess. It was absolutely seamless and pure in its devouring desire. Its will contended for possession of the ward, the gate, and Aranthur’s mind at the same time.

  Then he was out, on his knees by the gate, vomiting up his empty stomach. He felt unclean—as if the slime had rubbed over his entire body and every happy memory in his mind.

  He tried to stand. His mind went back.

  He stumbled.

  Whooooom.

  The gates rattled hard, flexing against the heavy iron rod that pinned them to the road and slamming against the massive wooden bar set across them.

  Aranthur raised his hand. It took an effort of will to make himself touch the gate.

  He threw what saar he had.

  Out! he ordered in the Aulos.

  He retreated from the bond ahead of the attacker’s backlash.

  Behind him, one of the priests finally got the inner gates open, and the horses began to push through into the city. Aranthur glanced back, almost blinded by the sunlight, to see fire damage and a smoking ruin. Vilna ran with the horses, holding the reins of one of his own mounts.

  WHOOOOOOOM

  The gates slammed against their stops, and they seemed to bend.

  Aranthur took one of the kuria crystals he’d taken so long ago in the fight in Megara. He opened it in his mind, and placed it against the gate.

  There was an explosion of light, and his gauntleted left hand stung as if it had been hit with a sword. But he felt none of the filth, and the gate felt solid under his hand.

  The crystal, one of the largest he’d ever seen, was gone. Subsumed.

  Outside, a cry like that of a bereft child.

  Aranthur stumbled back away from the gate. He found Ariadne, loyal to the end, standing behind him, and he put his arms around her warm, horse-smelling neck.

  “Eagle,” he murmured.

  She stood there, perhaps puzzled by the embrace, and perhaps happy to have a little comfort when the world was so upsetting, at least to a horse.

  And to a man.

  “Show me your drawings from the Well,” Aranthur said.

  They were in the Temple of the Sun, in the citadel on the massive acropolis of Al-Khaire. Qna Liras had been closeted with the priests—the surviving priests—for hours. All of the Imperials had received medical attention, and food, sparingly rationed, and fresh water. Their horses had been fed.

  The city was packed with desperate people, and low on food and drinking water. One whole quarter had burned, outside the new walls, down by the ancient Temple of the Kings. The people, citizens and refugees alike, were in a state very like the horses—near panic, a smouldering fear needing only a hot spark or a breeze to become an inferno. At least one and as many as ten Apep-Duat stalked the land outside the wards on the city. Worst of all, Qna Liras reported that the wards in the older districts had been overcome at least once, with a consequent massacre of people.

  And then the Lightbringer had gone back to his interminable meeting.

  Dahlia was smoking stock, passing a pipe with Sasan. But she got up and walked to her saddlebags, rooted around for a moment, and extracted a scroll tube, which she rolled out on the floor.


  Aranthur crouched over it.

  “I think that I saw it,” he said.

  “Saw what?” she asked.

  “The sigil on the gate wards. It’s in this somewhere.”

  Dahlia knelt next to him.

  “I did see it,” she said, chagrined. “Of course it’s a Great Ward. But why it would be on the Well…?”

  Jalu’d joined them.

  “The Well, as you call it, is a sacred place of power. Of course it would have a ward. The world is not more dangerous now than when it was young. If anything, the converse.”

  The three of them went over the scroll. In the end, it was Dahlia who found it.

  “Look, it’s right here. The ward sigil is set into the stone sigil.”

  “I didn’t even know that was stone,” Aranthur said.

  “It’s not stone,” Dahlia said. “It’s like stone, though.”

  Jalu’d nodded. “It is probably a glyph made especially for that stone, or perhaps for any white marble. The Magos is right—glyphs lack flexibility, unless you constantly create new ones, and then no one can read them.”

  “But this glyph is certainly ward,” Aranthur said.

  Dahlia glanced at him. “‘Certainly’ seems a little strong.”

  “Let’s go down to the gate,” Aranthur said.

  It wasn’t so simple. It took the five of them over an hour to find a priest with authority, to make their way to one of the gates, and to invoke the ward by opening and closing the gate.

  Dahlia rubbed her eyes. “I agree that it’s probably the ward glyph,” she said.

  Ansu was more enthusiastic.

  “Now I wonder how permanent the substance holding the ward must be?” he asked.

  The priest was looking at them with ill-concealed suspicion. His superiors had ordered him to support the foreigners, but he didn’t have to love them.

  Dahlia started the long walk back to the citadel.

  “It is my sense that the more durable the physical substance is, and the better embedded the ward is in the substance, the tougher it is.”

  “Like to like,” Aranthur said.

  “Exactly,” Dahlia said.

  Sasan shook his head. “You two are not much fun for those of us who don’t happen to cast bolts of lightning.”

  Aranthur sensed a hint of jealousy, and he nodded inwardly, aware that the events of the last two weeks had forced him to work constantly with Dahlia in a way that had to feel unfair to Sasan. And equally aware that all was not well between Dahlia and Sasan. Once that might have pleased him; now it was more like a disaster.