The Blighted City (The Fractured Tapestry)

by Scott Kaelen

  “Huh? Oh. Course.” He pushed himself up and paced across to the boulder, bent down to retrieve the crossbow and bolts. As he stashed them into the open pack he checked quickly that the jewel definitely wasn’t there. Spitting a curse, he tied the cord and slung it onto his back, then returned to the bedrolls to grab his gear.

  “I don’t understand it.” He clasped his swordbelt around his waist. “Where could he have gone? That village the girl’s from? Or maybe he’s set off already so we can catch him up.”

  “He’s taken the jewel back to the graveyard,” Jalis said as she tightened the pack’s straps around her shoulders. “Just that and his sword are gone. No pack, no provisions.”

  “Why would he?”

  “Remember what Demelza said? How the man in her village was eaten by his own dead child?” Jalis eyed him impatiently. “Come on! Talk and move!” She turned on her heel and ran across the clearing, heading in the direction of the graveyard.

  “What about my wet clothes and the bedding?” he called after her.

  “Fuck the bedding! We’ll come back for it.”

  He spat a curse and stooped to whisk his hat from the ground and planted it firmly on his head as he hurried to catch Jalis up.

  She glanced at Oriken as he caught up to run alongside her. “You know what Dagra’s like when it comes to superstition,” she said. “I imagine he’s thinking our bounty’s not worth the risk of the jewel staying out of Lachyla.”

  “But we burn our dead now. Have done since the Uprising. They can’t come back if they’re only charred bones.”

  “Right,” Jalis said as she bounded up the gentle incline. “And in some parts of the continent they throw their dead into ravines”—she paused to draw a deep breath—“so deep that you can’t see the bottom, no matter how many corpses are cast into it. Maybe it’s not the dead that Dagra cares about. Maybe it’s the living.”

  “Huh?”

  “What if everyone knew that something existed with the power to bring their loved ones back to life, or to stop them dying in the first place?”

  Oriken huffed and shook his head as he ran.

  “No matter what the truth is,” Jalis said, her words coming in steady gasps, “the powers of need and belief can turn a nation into a mob. The deadstones would make that happen.”

  “I don’t give a plate of cowshit about that. It’s Dag I care about. He’s not the sort to do something this sneaky.”

  “And yet he has.”

  I was stupid to let him take the watch, and now me and Jalis are paying the price for my stupidity.

  He took the second pack from her and slung it over his shoulder. They wasted no more energy on discussion. The minutes stretched by, and eventually they reached the remnants of the Kingdom Road. Up ahead, a single oak stood in the centre of the road, a testament to the years that the ancient highway had remained in disuse. They were almost at the rim of the valley where they’d camped the previous night.

  Oriken’s chest heaved as he reached the crest of the rise and the expanse of Scapa Fell’s south-western tip burst into view. The sunrise knifed across the heathland, burning red shadows into the creases of land. With Jalis a short distance behind him, he sped down the shallow descent to lower ground, leaping over a narrow tributary at the bottom. Spiky foliage and jutting reeds blurred by at the edge of his vision as he ran. A breeze buffeted beneath his hat, cooling the sweat that trickled from his forehead.

  Typical, he thought with growing annoyance, I finally get a half-decent wash, then Dag does a fucking runner on us.

  He looked across to the west, where the hazy heath met the golden-washed ocean. His eyes traced the line of the graveyard’s perimeter wall, its battlements and towers jutting like a monstrous backbone, the bumpy surface shining white in the sun. For a moment, he imagined he could hear the moaning of the creatures within, but perhaps it was nothing more than the muted crash of the distant waves.

  Though the portcullis was still a mile away, the route to it was a level run with few obstacles. Oriken’s attention was caught by a tiny figure approaching the wall. “Look there!” he called to Jalis. “Do you see? Is that Dagra?”

  “I see,” she said as she picked up her pace to run alongside him. “It’s too far away to tell if it’s Dagra.”

  They shouted Dagra’s name as they ran, but it seemed to Oriken that the figure neither slowed nor turned to acknowledge them.

  “I’ll give him a headache worth complaining about when we catch him,” he huffed.

  “You and me both. But let’s give him a chance to explain himself first.”

  “Huh. You know, when I asked him how he felt, he told me he was lively as a lyre.”

  Jalis frowned. “Who says that nowadays?”

  “Exactly.” Oriken licked his dry lips. “He called me Oriken. He hardly ever does that, and it wasn’t a moment for it. It’s just something you know after so many years.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “It just feels off. I shouldn’t have left him alone.”

  Jalis grunted. “Save your breath and we’ll get there quicker.”

  Far ahead, the figure reached the portcullis and dipped beneath it. Oriken quickened his pace and ran as fast as his tiring legs could go. Dagra meant to return the jewel to Cunaxa’s tomb, most likely. But how on Verragos would he find the courage to enter the Chiddari crypt alone? Oriken doubted their bearded friend would have the nerve.

  Finally, they arrived at the portcullis. Oriken slowed to a stride as he approached the partially-raised entrance, dropped the packs and took his hat off. He gripped the iron latticework and rested his forehead against the cool metal as his breathing slowed to normal. Sweat dripped from his face. He pushed away from the bars, ran his sleeve across his brow and peered into the graveyard. The last wispy remnants of mist licked at the cracked earth and flagstones, caressing the face of a nearby fallen statue like the tongues of ghostly lovers. The wide Litchway shrank into the distance, empty. The graveyard was devoid of wandering corpses, but also devoid of Dagra. Oriken swore in frustration.

  Jalis had shrugged out of her backpack and was kneeling before a cluster of sickly-looking shrubs, pushing their branches aside to stash her pack between them.

  “We’ll leave the gear here out of sight,” she said. “Take only what we need.” With the pack stashed in the bushes, she took the oil lamp and tinderbox from the ground and rose to her feet.

  Oriken snatched up the two remaining packs and crossed to join her. From them he took the crossbow, two cases of bolts and the hunting knife, then stuffed the packs between the shrubs.

  He and Jalis ducked beneath the portcullis. As they rose on the other side, they shared a momentary look of understanding. Their itinerary had long since gone to cowshit. The Deadlands had played dirty from the moment they entered it, and Oriken suspected it was only just getting warmed up.

  As they broke into a run along the Litchway, he glanced at the lamp in Jalis’s hand. Oriken tried to imagine Dagra venturing into the black stairwell without a light source, and utterly failed to match the action to their friend.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  BACK INTO THE BOWELS

  Oriken’s skin prickled as he and Jalis ran down the Litchway, and not just from the sweat that made his clothes cling to his body. The air itself seemed charged this morning. The sun was bright in a clear sky to the east, while the west was turning black with a storm crawling inland from the ocean.

  It was a small mercy that no corpses were in sight; no upright ones, anyway. The cracked stones of the pathway and the parched soil to either side were littered with the occasional piece of discoloured meat, as well as fragments of bone, bits of internal organs, and dark smears of dried ichor. Among it all, Oriken identified quite a few fingers, a couple of hands and forearms, several heads, and a leg that came complete with the remnants of a funerary slipper attached. Some of the limbs still twitched, fingers clutched at the air, and jaws opened and closed as if follow
ing an unknown instinct. Still, progress was progress, and the going was much easier without a lake of fog and a horde of ticked-off corpses.

  He spotted movement between the burial markers several rows up ahead – a corpse clawing its way through the dirt, or at least trying to. Its attempts were futile. It couldn’t have progressed more than a couple dozen yards during the whole night. It was missing one hand, and its entire lower half was gone, leaving its spine dangling like the macabre imitation of a tail. A streak of gore led up to the corpse from the Litchway like a giant, diarrhoeic snail track. Oriken slowed to a stop and studied the creature as it attempted to crawl onwards.

  Jalis drew up beside him. “What is it?”

  “There.” He nodded towards the struggling corpse.

  Jalis frowned at it. “Pitiful. How these bodies quickly grow, and yet slowly die.”

  “Hm?”

  “Never mind.”

  “I wonder if its legs wandered off without it?” Oriken turned to go. “I don’t know why I stopped. It’s just wasting—”

  “Wait.” Jalis pointed off to the side, far out into the graveyard. “Do you see where it’s heading – or, I should say, where it’s trying to reach? Look, all the way over there.”

  The sun’s rays streamed over the rows of headstones onto a scattering of figures in the far distance. He scanned the grave-studded landscape and located more of them wandering listlessly between the stones, heading for a large, pillared structure with a low, domed ceiling nestled in the graveyard’s corner. Enough daylight filtered between the pillars for him to see a ripple of movement throughout the entire shaded interior.

  “By the gods,” he groaned.

  Jalis grunted. “Just one god, apparently.”

  “So that’s where they were hiding. What ungodly thing is drawing them to it?”

  “It looks like an ancient type of chapel. Could be they’re just sheltering from the sun.”

  “Yeah, but why there? Why gather inside a chapel? Why not go back down into the crypts?”

  “Good for us that they don’t. Most are likely from the topside graves, not the crypts. As mindless as they are, perhaps they have no desire to return to the earth; would you, if you’d already spent so long down there?” Jalis pondered the point, then shook her head. “Or maybe the chapel was their sanctuary in life and they’re merely following what remains of their instincts. Flocking to service, as it were.”

  Oriken shuddered. “Damn, that’s grim. Even as a heathen I find that wrong on several levels.”

  Jalis forced a tight smile. “Come on. As long as they stay there they won’t bother us.”

  They resumed their run down the Litchway, retracing their steps from the previous day until they turned onto a narrow pathway and arrived at the Chiddari crypt. Cunaxa’s statue bowed in greeting, and Oriken touched his hat in return. While he kept a lookout for any stray corpses, Jalis set the oil lamp on a dais beside the entrance and set to work lighting it.

  With the job done, she stood within the entrance and glanced at him over her shoulder. “There’s something deadly about this whole place,” she said, “and I don’t just mean the legion of corpses. There’s something more than the blight here. Something beyond evil.”

  She was right. It was only a feeling, and Oriken always did his best to push aside such things, but there was an indefinable presence in Lachyla that went beyond the restless dead.

  “Ready?” Jalis said.

  He drew his sabre. “You want me to take point?”

  “No, I’ve got it.” Steel sighed as she slid Dusklight from its sheath, held the lamp low and ventured into the stairwell.

  With a last glance around, Oriken followed. Here we go, he thought. Back into the bowels. Back down to the leering death-mask of the real Cunaxa Chiddari. And, hopefully, to Dagra. They passed the first turn in the steps, then the second. He has to be in here. We’ve cornered him. Returning the jewel to where we found it is the only logical thing he could do. Unless… “Damn all the gods,” he growled.

  Jalis paused at the next turn. “What?”

  “Dagra might not be down here after all.” He kept his voice low. “Surely he’d realise we’d come after him, that we’d just take the jewel again and be on our way. He might not be the sharpest blade in the armoury, but he’s not so dull he wouldn’t consider that.”

  “If he isn’t here,” Jalis said tightly, “he could have taken the jewel to any burial vault in the graveyard. We can’t possibly check them all; the Gardens of the Dead covers a square mile if not more. It would be an exercise in futility that could take us longer than we’ve got daylight hours.”

  “That’s my point. Dag can be crafty when he wants to be. Though the stars know why he’s doing this at all.”

  “Stars, gods, or the Bearded One himself,” Jalis muttered as she continued down the steps. “It’s our only lead right now.”

  Oriken ducked into the narrow corridor behind her. He clenched his teeth and ignored the cobwebs as best as he could until he stepped into the main section of the crypt. It was impossible to tell if Dagra had returned to the crypt, since their footprints from the previous day were everywhere.

  They ventured warily but with haste along the dark hallway. Jalis approached the alcoves to left and right, holding the lamp into each, checking behind the pillars and glancing around each dais along the centre of the hall. The dust in the recesses which they hadn’t previously entered remained undisturbed, yet still Jalis gave them a cursory but careful check to ensure Dagra wasn’t hiding behind a pillar.

  Oriken held his sabre poised, ready for anything that might be lurking in the deeper darkness. Dead things. Not Dag. If he’s here, he’d better not jump out on us. I may be pissed off with him but I don’t want to gut him by mistake.

  Before long, they reached the fallen slab. The exposed burial hole was just as they’d last seen it, the thick webs unbroken. Oriken turned away in disgust, his skin crawling; passing under the threads in the narrow corridor was bad enough, but looking at that deep cavity filled with a giant cobweb made his head swim. He conjured an imaginary spider waiting behind the silken wall, its leg-span as wide as a human torso, with hairy limbs and hairy back, myriad eyes as black and shining as pebbles of obsidian, fangs dripping with poison, the sac at its rear swollen with eggs…

  “Ah,” he gasped with a shudder, then turned to follow Jalis. Her deceivingly delicate form padded along the hallway, and he knew she would spring into a deadly blur of action if anything ventured out of the dark.

  As he retuned his vision to the murk, he felt eyes watching his back – spider eyes, or dead eyes, perhaps both – but he attributed it to his nerves.

  Getting as bad as Dagra in the dark. Forget the spiders already.

  The last time they’d been in the crypt, he was able to keep his phobia at bay by harassing Dagra, a tactic he’d mastered over the years. But Dagra wasn’t here now – only the stars knew where the bearded bastard was – and Oriken was far from in the mood for giving Jalis mischievous banter. He knew she was in no mood for it, either.

  They reached the next pair of alcoves and Jalis approached the one on the left. The lamp shone a wan glow into the interior, and something within the penumbral shadows behind the right-hand pillar caught Oriken’s attention.

  “Hey,” he whispered. “Look there.” As with all the alcoves, the section of wall behind the pillar consisted of several columns of stone blocks, but the block that was level with Oriken’s face was recessed deeper than the rest. On the block beneath, a vertical brass lever jutted from the stone.

  “Huh,” Jalis muttered. “How did we miss this before?”

  “Dagra did most of the checking last time, and I doubt he looked behind the pillars since we were only searching for that damned jewel.” Oriken reached for the lever. “Shall I?”

  “No, wait.” Jalis bent and held the lamp to the floor, revealing bootprints scuffed into the dust. “He’s been here.”

  “Those could be f
rom yesterday.”

  “Perhaps.” She rose and stepped to the rear wall to study the granite slab. After a moment she muttered something Oriken couldn’t hear.

  He stepped up behind her shoulder. “What is it?”

  “At first glance this burial hole looks like any other, but there’s no gem set into the granite, nor any engravings. And the slab is taller like the one that contained the jewel.”

  “So there’s a corpse behind this one, too? Good to know. Thanks for the warning.”

  “No.” Jalis turned her attention to the upper corner of the slab. Carefully, she said, “I don’t think this is a burial hole.”

  “Cunaxa was behind the other one.”

  “Yes, but hers isn’t a blank slab.” She ran a hand along the granite’s side. “The edge is smooth in places, as if worn from years of being touched, like the stairwell steps are worn from visitors coming and going before the blight.” She crouched down, and Oriken noted how the slab reached all the way to the floor, unlike Cunaxa’s.

  “I knew it,” Jalis whispered, setting the lamp in the dust. “No doubt about it; this is a second entrance, and it’s been used recently.”

  Oriken frowned at the floor, and at the disturbed dust that arced from the bottom corner of the granite to a point half-way between the side walls.

  “That settles it, then.” He reached for the lever.

  “Hold on.”

  “What now? If Dagra’s been through here, we need to catch up with him.”

  “I know. But we haven’t checked the tomb at the end yet. The jewel could be there for all we know.”

  Oriken swore under his breath. He held his hand out for the lamp, which Jalis passed him. “I’ll go straight there. It’ll only take a few minutes. No messing about this time.”

  “If the lamp goes out,” she said, unsheathing her second dagger, “you had better not sneak up on me, because anything that does will be getting sliced apart.”

  Oriken left the alcove, his sabre ready on the off-chance that some of the undead had wandered into the crypt. But at this point he doubted it and didn’t much care either way. Other than Jalis and himself, the place was as silent as before; deathly so. He strode down the centre of the walkway as quick as the light would allow, arriving before long at the far end where, as he fully expected, Cunaxa’s blackened skull greeted him through the hole in her slab. Of the jewel, there was no sign.