The Sable City tnc-1

by M. Edward McNally

  Claudja jerked Phin’s sleeve, and when he turned to her she was looking up at him with her gray eyes steely.

  “Phinneas. If you have a plan, might not this be the time for it?” she whispered.

  Phin looked at the legionnaires. Rickard had set his sword down on the ground and the two of them were sliding on their knees along the edge of the trap stone, though that was only making it harder to push it open. Phin took Claudja’s arm and the two of them started to back away slowly.

  Ty had not said anything since he had cried out, and the Sarge started hammering a fist on the block.

  “Ty! Are you still with me boy?”

  “Sarge?”

  Phin stopped and gasped, a cold shiver running down his spine.

  “I hear you, Ty! Keep talking.”

  Claudja pulled at Phin’s arm but he only kept staring at the legionnaires and the trap stone. In his mind he was back in a seminar at Abverwar, years before. An old Circle Wizard was lecturing on necromancy. Explaining why death magic was not taught in the Circle.

  “Sarge,” Ty’s voice called plaintively. “I’m hurt bad. There’s so much blood.”

  “We are coming!” the Sarge said, now holding Rickard by the back of the belt while the sandy-haired legionnaire put a foot on the bottom end of the trap stone and started to push it open.

  “Sergeant!” Phin shouted.

  The old Wizard had cast a spell as part of his talk. The corpse of a dead dog had barked at the class.

  “What?”

  “That is not Ty.”

  The Sarge and Rickard glared back at Phin. Claudja had taken a step away from him, but she froze as well.

  “Sarge?” the voice that was and was not Ty called again, though a different note was creeping into it. Impatience. “Come on, Sarge. I’m waiting.”

  The voice started to laugh. The Sarge and Rickard sprang away from the trap stone, and the glint of gold from the bait coin. The laughter changed until it did not sound like the dead legionnaire anymore. It sounded like a woman. Cackling.

  The Sarge, sunken eyes wide in his ashy face, turned toward Phin and he shouted. Phin blinked and looked around, and saw that the Duchess of Chengdea had not waited for him. She was running, and was already halfway back to the north exit from the plaza.

  The sergeant charged, and Phin turned and ran after Claudja. Rickard must have reached for the sword he had set down next to the trap stone, for the sharp scraping sound came again. Rickard screamed.

  Phin looked back and saw the Sarge skid to a halt and turn around. The stone had been yanked open from below and a hand had reached out to grab Rickard by the wrist. It was pale and thin, like a woman’s, and the long nails were painted crimson red.

  Rickard was falling forward into the hole as Phin turned and ran full-out after Claudja. The Duchess left the plaza and took the first corner, then she screamed.

  Phin licked a finger as he ran and slipped it into the pouch of sand at his belt, bringing to mind the arcane words to release a Sleep spell. He rounded the corner with his hand in front of his face, hoping the few grains of sand on his finger were enough to constitute the material components for the spell, but his breath caught in his throat before he could exhale at the thing holding Claudja.

  It was a figure in white robes though its hood was thrown back to reveal a scaly, crimson head with horns, a bristling beard of wiry hair, and green eyes without pupils. It had lifted the struggling Duchess off her feet by the shoulders, and there were another half dozen creatures just like it, grinning at Phin.

  Phin started to speak his spell, though there wasn’t much point. He did not get halfway through the sentence before one of the things bounded forward, grabbed his hand in a cold grip strong as iron, and jammed two fingers into Phin’s mouth so hard he started to gag. He was jerked off his feet by one wrist and his chin, spun around in the air and slammed to the cobbles on his chest.

  The fingers came out of his mouth but the hand pressed Phin’s face against the ground, and a sharp knee settled on his spine between the shoulder blades.

  “No spell, mage,” a voice hissed in his ear, so close that a flicking tongue tickled the lobe.

  The leather satchel containing the book was yanked off his shoulder.

  Phin could not see Claudja but he still heard her, voice muffled but furious and feet scraping a wall as she kicked in the air. There was some dark, sibilant chuckling all around, and when it subsided Phin heard footsteps. A clacking as though from boot heels, drawing near from the direction of the plaza.

  As his face was pinned to the ground all Phin saw was a pair of boots come around the corner, moving at an unhurried stroll. They were of shiny black leather and extended up shapely calves at least past the knees. The heels were ridiculously high, though the woman wearing them did not totter as she sauntered forward and stood directly in front of Phin. Behind him, Claudja stopped struggling.

  “Dead or alive, Mistress?” the creature on Phin’s back asked.

  There was an agonizing pause, before a throaty voice purred.

  “Alive, I think. The Lord Balan may wish to speak with them.”

  A legionnaire’s short sword clattered to the ground next to the boots. The blade was bloody, but it was smeared. Like it had been licked.

  A scaly hand slithered around Phin’s throat, and he was throttled unconscious.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  On their third day in Vod’Adia, Nesha-tari and her party experienced something of what the Sable City was like for a more typical band of adventurers.

  The majority of those who came into the place were in search solely of loot, and so spent their days entering the buildings which Nesha-tari’s group had avoided as much as possible. While it was known that the demonic denizens of Vod’Adia spent their days indoors, that was also where the riches were believed to be. Anything of value accessible from the streets was long since gone from an earlier Opening. Carvings had been chipped off buildings and banisters, metal lantern posts and signs had been yanked down, and even the ornate plates that had once identified streets by name in the old Ettacean script were now just rectangular outlines on corner buildings. With the streets picked clean centuries ago, anything worth having had to be looked for indoors.

  Nesha-tari’s party did not enter a building for loot, but only for a vantage point. After walking south for yet another hour parallel to a tall district wall within Vod’Adia under the shimmering sky of sheeting rain above, they at last reached a gate. There were two massive doors around forty feet high set in the great wall, made of ancient wood that was itself as hard as stone. The doors were closed and the grim square towers on either side of them, in which some sort of winch system must have been housed, had no access from this side of the wall.

  The party huddled before the gate to decide what to do, Zebulon quietly translating for Nesha-tari. Amatesu or the Miilarkian girl might have climbed into a tower to try and find a winch, but that idea was not particularly popular with anyone. Beside the danger, it was unclear if they should try to pass the wall at all. After more than two days of heading south as much as they were able they should have been about as deep into the city as was necessary to find a palace in the middle of it, at its “heart.” That place could be on the far side of the district wall, or it might still be on this one. It was impossible to tell from street level for here all the buildings were at least three stories tall, blocking the view in any direction. The group decided they needed a look around, and so they back-tracked to a tall tower they had passed by earlier.

  The structure was of black stone, of course, cut in triangular blocks and fitted together like saw-teeth in ascending rows, rising in a round cylinder half-again as high as the adjacent wall. The tower stood by itself in a walled courtyard of barren dirt but the gate and the door had long since been staved-in. There was no way to tell what the purpose of the place had been, but while the tall tower would have been a remarkable feature in most contemporary cities it was not unduly impres
sive within Vod’Adia.

  The others discussed their intentions before venturing inside, all arming themselves fully and advancing with great care. A single chamber filled the ground floor, naked stone with alcoves and niches showing where objects had at one time been displayed. Fluted columns supported a high ceiling and an ascending stone stair wrapped around the outer wall. The party lit the lantern and some torches, leaving a couple in mounts on the columns as there were no windows nor even arrow slits on the ground floor. They relieved themselves of excess packs which they piled in the center of the room, and Nesha-tari had Zeb tell the others she would wait with the packs. Shikashe did not like the idea and seemed to order Amatesu to wait as well, but Nesha-tari insisted through Zebulon that the party was far more likely to need a healer than was she. At length Nesha-tari was grudgingly left alone and the party ascended the stairs, Shikashe in front with the Miilarkian girl Tilda right behind him, her bow drawn and eyes narrowed for any sign of a trap.

  It was barely ten minutes before the sounds of combat rolled down the stairs; yelling, growling, the clash of weapons and the thud of bodies. Nesha-tari did not expect the others would run into anything they could not handle, and sure enough the sharp sounds of battle were soon followed by the six party members sounding off one at a time. A few minutes later, Zebulon came bounding back down the stairs bearing a torch and his axe, his face flushed beneath a layer of dust and his scruffy beard.

  “We found four nasties,” he huffed as he reached Nesha-tari. “Third floor. Ugly little critters, all beaks and claws. Regular weapons worked on ’em. Tilda took one down with an arrow right in the eye!”

  “Did the bodies disappear?” Nesha-tari asked.

  “Disappear? Oh. No. They’re still up there, all right. Smelly and bloody.”

  “Not devils, then. Minor demons or Hordlings of Hades.”

  Zeb only looked puzzled.

  “Are you stopping, or going on?”

  “Oh, we’re still going up. Just thought we'd keep you apprised.”

  “Don’t bother. If your head comes rolling back down the stairs I will know that something is amiss.”

  Zebulon did not look very pleased with that image. He swallowed hard before turning and banging back up the stairs, ring mail jingling and axe knocking against the wall.

  Nesha-tari waited another five minutes during which she further considered just what she intended to do. She still felt tremendously strong for Horayachus, now little more than three days dead, had been a man of great power. No trace of the Hunger had yet returned to Nesha-tari. Her head was clear and she could access her magic with little effort. Not the magic of what she was, but that which she had been taught in Blue Akroya’s service.

  She left the tower briefly to check the street, looking both directions with her sharp blue eyes for the vision that was the mark of Akroya’s favor was the one sense that did not need the Hunger to make it exceptionally keen. There was no sign of movement in either direction. Back inside, Nesha-tari moved to the dustiest part of the floor far back from the front door, her boots leaving tracks across it. She stopped and took a jump forward, catching her balance and standing on an undisturbed section of floor. She knelt, closed her eyes, and pressed bare fingers into the dust.

  Nesha-tari had not learned her magic in the manner of an Imperial Wizard. No Circle had neutered her mind, forcing false obstructions between her will and her power. To release an invocation like the lightning that was the attack form favored by her Master, she did not have to memorize spells and bind their release to meaningless words, gestures, and material components. If Nesha-tari wanted to throw lightning, she would bring it into being in her hands. If she wanted a shield against scrying magic, it formed unseen in the air around her. She could cast spells so long as she had the strength to do so, or focused just enough attention to maintain them. The sorts of incantations and rituals that the training of the Circle Wizards forced them to use for everything were only used by Nesha-tari for the purpose to which they had been originally developed centuries, if not eons, ago. The rituals were for casting spells too powerful for any single mage to manage. They bridged the extra-planar spaces to siphon strength from realms of energy, rather than from the physical world of matter.

  Nesha-tari began to speak, quietly and rhythmically. The words were in the tongue called Low Drak, the first language that the Great Dragons had taught to men. When she felt the rising warmth in her chest and limbs, Nesha-tari’s boots left the floor. She began to turn in the air, trailing the fingers of one hand in the dust. Rather than leaving only runnels, the dust shifted and shook as though something crawled through it behind her hand, leaving as a trail two solid bands forming a circle. Between the bands, mystical runes and characters, symbols and signs formed, seemingly of their own accord.

  Nesha-tari completed one revolution and lifted her hand. The head of the circle met the tail with an audible snap, and the whole glyph flared blue for a moment. Nesha-tari stood up in the middle of the circle and wiped the dust off her fingers. Her heart was beating fast but she took several long, deep breaths until it slowed. Then she faced back into the room toward the front door, and spoke a name three times, loudly and clearly.

  “Balan. Balan. Balan.”

  The torches flickered as an acrid breeze wafted across the chamber, moving the dust except for that immediately around Nesha-tari’s feet. The Devil Lord Balan stepped into being from behind a column and grinned at her, his teeth shining white against his gray countenance.

  Nesha-tari could see the devil much better now as he approached, stopping only a stride short of the glyph on the floor. His single hoof was shod in silver and it struck up a spark each time it touched the stone floor. His other foot was in a soft boot. Balan’s creased trousers, vest, and waistcoat were all of dark gray trimmed with black, and a lavender boutonniere poked through a buttonhole. The flower’s aroma was obscured by a stony tang in the air, a smell like a coke furnace. His face was handsome in a decidedly diabolical way, with sharp, angular features and a chin beard meticulously trimmed to a perfect triangle. His jet black hair was swept back from his temples, and the devil’s smoldering red eyes had no pupils. The tip of the snaky tail swishing behind him was shaped like an obsidian spearhead.

  “I was so hoping you would call,” Balan said, his smile very much like a leer.

  “That is why you said your name, was it not?” Nesha-tari said calmly. The sharp smell in her nostrils made her want to flinch, though she did not let herself.

  “Not my True Name, of course,” Balan said. “Don’t get any ideas.”

  He walked slowly around the glyph looking only at Nesha-tari rather than at the writing on the floor, with his hoof chuffing up its spark at every step. The devil’s tail seemed to move independently of his gait, rearing up serpent-like and prodding its bladed head forward, jerking back before the glyph every time.

  “That’s cute,” Balan said as he passed behind Nesha-tari. “Not bad workmanship, if a little hurried.”

  Nesha-tari stood still until Balan had circumnavigated her and halted in front, still grinning. His mouth seemed to be full of many more teeth than would a human’s.

  “You don’t really think that would stop me, do you?” he asked, playfully moving his hoof through the dust just shy of the glyph. “Not if I tried very, very hard to step across?”

  “It would slow you down,” Nesha-tari said. “And prevent you from raising any defense.”

  Balan’s eyes flared. “Hmm. Violence.”

  “If that was what you wanted,” Nesha-tari said. “You would have come without being called.”

  “Quite right. At any time I liked.”

  “Then what is it that you do want?”

  Balan shrugged and held the lapels of his coat in jeweled fingers with black nails.

  “Why, just to get a better look at you, my dear,” he said, his voice as silky as his clothes. “Perhaps exchange some pleasantries. Chew the fat, as it were. I must tell you, I have n
ot seen your like before. You are positively scrumptious.”

  Nesha-tari turned her head the slightest bit, moving her hair on her shoulders and jutting out her chin.

  “Oh, not that,” Balan said. “The package is delightful, in its way, but I am looking a good deal deeper.” The devil gave a broad and knowing smile. “I am looking at all those things you are trying to keep hidden from the world. Do you have any idea how beautiful you truly are, Soul Eater?”

  Nesha-tari felt more profoundly naked before the devil than she ever had in her life, and yet it was not an entirely unpleasant sensation.

  “May I ask an impertinent question?” Balan politely requested.

  “Only if you answer a question of mine in return,” Nesha-tari said. She had never dealt directly with a devil before, but she knew that one never gave a creature such as Balan anything without receiving something in return.

  “Very well,” Balan nodded. He narrowed his crimson eyes at Nesha-tari, and she understood that it would not do to lie.

  “Just what manner of creature are you?”

  “My father was human,” Nesha-tari said. “My mother is a Lamia.”

  Balan looked thoughtful. He blinked once, eyes flashing for the moment like red lanterns.

  “Lamia,” he said slowly. “A beautiful name for a beautiful beast. I don’t believe we have had one of those in here before.”

  “It is my turn, Lord Balan.”

  The devil spread his hands and bowed.

  “Two nights ago, a Dragon flew over this city. Who was it?”

  Balan sighed but kept grinning. “Ah, yes. She does seem to feel the need to announce her presence rather loudly, doesn’t she? That was the one I believe you call Danavod, the Great Black Wyrm.”

  That came to Nesha-tari not as a surprise, but as confirmation. “Why is she here?”

  “Shall we trade another question for a question?”

  “Fine.”

  “Then it is my turn to ask.”