The Ventifact Colossus (The Heroes of Spira Book 1)

by Dorian Hart

  She was completely bald, and the torchlight flickered over her indigo face.

  “That’s him, Lapis,” said Romas. “He says he’s the man paying for everything.”

  Oh, crap. Dranko had more than half a mind to run. He could lose himself in the shadows, dart around the tent city until he found a pair of sand-shoes, and bolt for his escape rope. Fighting was out of the question; the use of weapons against people was forbidden by the Church of Delioch.

  But Lapis herself forestalled any panicked moves on his part by launching into a tirade of her own. “This is outrageous!” she practically shouted. “We could not have spelled this out any more clearly. Your only role in this is to supply the money for our operation. Under no circumstances were you and your scar-faced brethren to get involved, let alone come out here yourselves! I should consider this a breach of contract.”

  Dranko saw the opening and lunged for it, praying that his grasp of the situation was accurate.

  “Mokad does not see it that way,” he said, watching her face as carefully as possible for her reaction. And react she did; her face stiffened and her breath caught. “He is dissatisfied with your progress, and asked me personally to inspect the premises.”

  “Dissatisfied? It is not Mokad’s place to express his opinion! He should be more than pleased with his end of the bargain.”

  Dranko desperately wanted to know what that was, but it was the sort of question that could disrupt this delicate dance.

  “That’s as may be,” he said, making a show of choosing his words carefully—and that was not difficult, given how fast his mind was racing. He forced himself into what he called his “fancy pants mindset,” where he dropped his usual crude speech patterns and tried to sound as snobbish and effete as possible. Pretend you’re Aravia.

  “But Mokad and his associates are beginning to run a risk of discovery, so large are the sums involved,” he said. “He might be obliged to, how shall I say this, turn off the tap, should he not be satisfied. That would be a shame, don’t you think? Though not as much as the particulars of all this becoming common knowledge.”

  Lapis’s eyes grew wide. “Are you blackmailing me?”

  “I am merely conveying Mokad’s opinions on your agreement. But, no, I am not blackmailing you because we want nothing except for some visual confirmation of your progress.”

  He leaned forward just slightly and in a more conspiratorial tone added, “I understand that you have found what we’ve been looking for.”

  Lapis said nothing for a second, her face a twisted blue mask of rage. If she wielded any magic, like Haske, she might just blast him to smithereens and sort things out afterward.

  “And who are you, exactly?” she asked, her voice calmer, though her eyes flashed fire.

  “My name is Pietr,” said Dranko smoothly. “I am the man Mokad turns to when he needs something done properly.”

  “And how is it that Mokad never mentioned you, Pietr?”

  “He keeps me in his pocket,” said Dranko. “It keeps me out of harm’s way until my services are required. Mokad considers me an irreplaceable asset.”

  “I see.”

  Lapis mastered herself and looked directly into his eyes, which made him recall Morningstar’s interrogation of Tig—specifically, the part where Tig claimed that Haske could read minds. If Lapis could do likewise, he was in deep, deep trouble. Her gaze was steady now, her eyes narrowing, and she swallowed as she stared. For the tiniest moment Dranko felt something like a feather brush over his mind, soft little tendrils seeking access to his thoughts. Realizing that the game was up, Dranko focused all his thoughts on giving her the finger.

  Beneath his shirt, the black metal circle grew warm against his skin. Lapis stared at him a moment longer, then let out a frustrated sigh.

  “Tell Mokad that I will report this to my own superiors. Tell him he can be replaced. Tell him…tell him the sage will not be happy with his behavior.”

  Dranko nodded, entirely uncertain how or why this was playing out the way it was. Who was the sage? But she was believing his lies, and he had one more card to play.

  “Mokad had another message for you,” he said, pitching his voice low. “But only for you.” He glanced at Khorl. Lapis shooed the foreman a short distance away and stepped closer. Her lips were almost black, and her breath carried a whiff of something indescribably foul.

  “Tell me,” she hissed.

  “Mokad said to tell you, he may have a lead on an Eye of Moirel. If he’s pleased with the outcome of this operation, and his investigations prove out, he may be willing to share what he knows.”

  Lapis straightened suddenly, as though someone had goosed her with a pike. Her eyes and mouth both opened comically wide.

  “Listen to me, Pietr,” she whispered menacingly. “If Mokad knows about an Eye, he will tell us everything, even if all we dig up here is a rusted bucket. He is playing a game for which he is not ready. Tell him I’ll be talking to him as soon as I’m off this Circle-forsaken rock, and if he holds anything back, I will tear off his face and see what kind of scar it leaves.”

  She took a step back and smiled at him. “Khorl, please escort Pietr here to site nine and show him what we’ve found. Then see him to the platforms and get him off my island.”

  “Yes, Lapis.”

  * * *

  Dranko wasn’t sure what he was looking at.

  No, that wasn’t entirely true. He knew it was a statue, half again as tall as he was. He knew that while it was humanoid, it wasn’t human; no man or woman or goblin-touched had fangs that long, or claws that sharp, or eyes that far apart, or a chin that long and pointed, or wings neatly folded behind its back. And he knew that it was made of rock, some kind of striated marble as orange and luminous as a harvest moon.

  But he also knew that this thing was more, and that it was worse, and that he wanted as little to do with it as possible. Its deep-socketed eyes, two blood-colored marbles with cat-slit pupils, were like windows into the Hells, and something looked out of them, eager, hungry. Though it was just an inert stone sculpture, inanimate, incapable of causing him harm unless it fell on him, Dranko had to fight down his flight reflex from the moment he laid his eyes upon it.

  “As you can see,” said Khorl, “the artifact is entirely unharmed, and the greatest care has been taken to preserve it in its original condition.” The bearded man sounded bored.

  Dranko wanted to make a dash for the elevator and scream for the pulley-men to haul him back to the surface. He forced himself to speak. “Impressive. But since you’ve found it, why is it still down here? What is the delay?”

  “You may have noticed that the rock of the wandering islands is not of any kind found elsewhere on Charagan. The greatest care must be taken to avoid cave-ins and rock falls. We are doing everything possible to make sure that when the artifact is extracted, there are no accidents that might damage it.”

  “And how long do you anticipate that will take? We’re paying for every hour you spend, after all.”

  “I think I heard another three days,” said Khorl.

  “Acceptable,” said Dranko. He forced himself to look at the orange monster, and though the marble statue hadn’t moved an inch, Dranko would have sworn on Delioch’s name that it was not only looking back at him, but planning to murder him, to sink its claws into his guts and eat them, slowly.

  Dranko edged away from it ever so slightly. He could hardly bear to look at the statue’s cruel features, but he feared that if he took his eyes off it, it would choose that moment to strike. “Once you have it safely removed, where does it go next?”

  He asked the question with all the nonchalance he could muster, but Khorl still gave him a narrow-eyed look. “I don’t know,” he said. “And I was under the impression that all of the post-operation details were none of the investors’ business.”

  “That’s fine,” Dranko said quickly. “I only asked out of personal curiosity. Khorl, thank you for your time. I think we’re done
here.” Maybe he could squeeze some more information out of the foreman, but he’d be damned if he was going to stay one more minute down here with that orange devil silently plotting his death.

  As the pulley-men hoisted the platform that brought Dranko and Khorl to the surface, miners were still working all around them, widening the shaft that led down to where the monstrous statue had been unearthed. Khorl had already told him it had been found in its hollowed-out rectangular gap, buried deep in the gritty rock that composed the wandering island, with no sign of how it had been placed there.

  The farther the elevator took him away from the statue, the more relieved and optimistic Dranko became. He stepped off the platform and onto the island’s surface and breathed in the cool desert air, only now realizing how hot and dusty the chamber had been down below. He turned to Khorl, thinking that he might risk another few carefully couched questions before heading back to the desert to find his friends.

  Two thoughts came to him immediately. One was that he had no good sense of how far the island had moved since his arrival, which would make locating the others a dicey proposition.

  The second was that he needed to leave right now. Over Khorl’s shoulder, some thirty feet away and standing in the direct light of a torch, Lapis was listening to an animated man who was vigorously gesticulating as he talked. He was tall, stoop-shouldered, and his frizzy red hair glowed in the firelight.

  Lapis turned and looked directly at Dranko. She raised her hand to point at him just as he decided to run like the Hells, and even as he dashed away leaving the bewildered Khorl behind, the scaffolding holding up the array of pulleys and the elevator platform burst apart in a spray of beams and spiraling ropes.

  Shouts and commotion erupted in his wake, but Dranko never looked back. He sprinted through the tent city, keeping his eyes open for any sign of where anyone kept their sand-shoes. He saw none. He should have asked Romas. More to the point, he should have had a less suicidal plan from the start.

  It didn’t take him long to leave the torchlight and scattered tents behind, and find himself on the steepening downward slope at the island’s edge. Praying that his sense of direction wouldn’t fail him in his panic, he turned to his left and started to run around the island’s perimeter, barely able to see in the faint light from the nearest torches. Dranko knew there was a good chance he’d miss his rope in the darkness if he ran too fast, but as soon as Lapis got things organized, there would be search parties out in force.

  After five minutes of a frantic jogging search, Dranko convinced himself that he’d gone too far and turned around. From the tent city came more cries and barked orders, and clusters of men with torches were floating free of the busy center of the island, heading toward the edges. How much time did he have before he was spotted?

  Not long, it turned out. Less than a minute after he had changed directions, he found his rope because the metal spike was gleaming in the torchlight. Unfortunately, the torch in question was held by a large bearded man not more than thirty feet away.

  “Found him!” bellowed the man! “He’s here!”

  New plan. He’d rappel down the side of the island, cling spider-like to the wall lower down, scuttle sideways along it, climb back up at a different point along the island’s circumference, sneak into the tent city again, find sand shoes, then climb down again, all before the sun came up.

  It was a stupid plan. Its chance of success was essentially zero, but there was no time to devise another.

  Dranko needed to rappel downward as fast as possible, in case the man who found him pulled up his stake. He gave himself as much of a running start as he could, sprinted down the steep slope letting gravity assist as much as possible, and launched himself out into the air. The rope slid through his fingers, burning away the skin of his palms until he grabbed hold. As soon as he secured his grip, he swung back toward the island and slammed into it about fifty feet down, bruising his right shoulder, his right knee…Hells, every bone and muscle on the whole right side of his body. He’d probably broken something, but he could figure out what later.

  He rappelled downward, wincing in pain, kicking off the island wall with his left foot, feeling his right shoulder burn like it was on fire.

  He was still thirty feet above the desert floor when the spike gave way, either loosened too much by his initial jump or pulled out by someone up top. It hardly mattered. His brain suggested that he try to land spread-eagled, but long before his battered body could act on the idea he fell in feet first.

  The sand offered little resistance; the Mouth of Nahalm swallowed him whole.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  MORNINGSTAR CAST HER gaze westward into the darkness. The island was a purple-gray hill outlined against the night’s starry black. Dim orange light flickered on its top, which made sense; if the Black Circle cultists were working on the mesa, they’d have torches or bonfires lit. Assuming the island was the same size as the one upon which they had camped, it should be about a half-hour’s trudge away.

  They had agreed to give Dranko three hours, but Ernie grew fidgety after twenty minutes.

  “Maybe we should follow him,” he said. “Make sure he gets there okay.”

  Morningstar shook her head. “We should stick to the plan. If we get too close, it’s more likely we’ll be noticed.”

  They had spread out one of their sheets over the sand, and Aravia was taking the first turn lying down. The wind had calmed, stilling the restless powdery sand, and the only sound was a tiny rhythmic clinking coming faintly across the desert.

  “But we could be closer than this,” said Ernie. “If it’s dark out here and light up there, they wouldn’t see us unless we were practically on top of them, right?”

  “Maybe,” Morningstar conceded. “But what does it matter? If he gets caught, are you proposing we mount a rescue? How would we even get up there? Dranko says he can climb, but I know I can’t. We’d be throwing our lives away after his.”

  Throwing good lives after bad.

  Not that she specifically wished death upon Dranko; he was vulgar and lacked redeeming qualities, but he was part of the team, and she’d look out for him if it came to it. Still, there were limits to the risks she’d take to save his life.

  “Aravia,” asked Ernie, “do you have any spells that would help?”

  The wizardess thought for a moment. “I could try arcing one of you high enough to crest the angle of the island wall, but I’d have to improvise. I’d give it about a one in ten chance of working, and if it missed, you’d bounce off and fall back into the…”

  “So, no,” said Morningstar. “Ernie, I understand you’re worried, but Dranko will either get caught or he won’t. There’s no wind tonight, so he can follow his footprints back here easily enough. Let’s give him time to work, and minimize the risk.”

  “I guess.” Ernie sounded unconvinced.

  Morningstar tried to imagine what Dranko would do when he reached the island. Would there be places for him to hide? If the enemy had sentries posted around the perimeter, he’d be spotted almost immediately. And if he were captured, would he give them up? They were sitting ducks out here, should any sort of armed expedition be launched from the island.

  She didn’t trust him. Dranko was a confessed criminal and had lied about being a Deliochan channeler. (If not for his scars and his admittedly expert field-medic skills, she wouldn’t believe he was a disciple of Delioch at all.) But he was risking his life already, and, begrudgingly, she decided he wouldn’t betray them.

  She stared out at the distant island with its crown of lights. Dranko would be arriving there any minute.

  “I hope he’s okay,” whispered Ernie.

  “He can take care of himself,” said Morningstar. “Stop worrying and—”

  She blinked and refocused her eyes. Was the desert air playing tricks?

  Oh no.

  The island was moving.

  “We have to go,” she said sharply. “Now!”

  �
��Is Dranko coming back already?” asked Ernie.

  “It’s the opposite. He’s getting farther away. The wandering island is wandering away from us.” She kept talking as she and Ernie hoisted Aravia to her feet. “If it moves far enough, Dranko won’t be able to find his way back here. We need to follow it, so that when Dranko gets off the island I can see him. We’ll follow our tracks back to Sand’s Edge. Come on.”

  They marched as quickly as they could. The only sounds were the rasps of their paddle-shaped sand shoes sliding across the sand, and their soft grunts of exertion. Morningstar’s legs were already sore. As they moved, she became more and more convinced that Dranko was going to fail. If ever there lived a man whose bravado outdistanced his abilities, it was him. And sneaking around one’s home city was one thing, but infiltrating an enemy camp was something else entirely. He had probably already been captured.

  “Are we catching up?” gasped Ernie.

  Morningstar had to stop walking to be certain. “Yes. It’s not moving very fast, but it’s still angling away from us. No more stops until we get there.”

  There was nothing else to do but to keep slogging. They plotted an indirect course, which was made easier when the island veered a bit toward them and picked up speed.

  “The optimal plan is not to get too close too fast,” Aravia explained. “We don’t want the island to go shooting past an hour before Dranko decides to leave. The goal is to approach at an angle, keep it within your sight for as long as possible.”

  Now they were close enough to see individual torch fires, though soon those would be eclipsed by the island’s steeply dropping sides. Morningstar was relieved to see that the firelight didn’t wash onto the desert floor around it, so they would be effectively invisible until they were close. An irregular pattern of staccato clinks, metal on stone, came from high up.