by Toby Bennett
“Well? Have they been here?” Gilash asked, turning his attention to the snarling thing that had once been a young girl.
“Yes they were here, I can smell them, taste them.” The daemon was frothing at the mouth and Gilash privately wondered how much longer the warped body the imp inhabited could survive its new owner. Come to that, it was clear that the bond with the twisted body was having some effect on the Imp. The slavering lunatic seemed to have little resemblance to the cold and calculating Lothar, evidently possession was not a one way street.
Gilash shook a couple of silver wasps from a sleeve and sent them circling up towards the thick wooden boards that formed the ceiling for the room and the floor for the Pickled Pike. Akna was close and Gilash had faith that his pets would find him. Out of the corner of his eye, Gilash noticed the thief open one of the cupboards at his knee and reach inside.
“Hands off fool, I don’t need you to find my stones for me.” Ruddy light swelled from within the gloom of the cupboard and smoke rolled out of the dark, as Zenker apparently considered the Patriarch’s order.
“You are trying my patience, and I assure you I don’t have any left to spare. Unless you want to loose your thumbs in the next minute you’ll stand up and back away.”
“I’m ready to lose more than that,” Zenker said his voice cold and menacing.
“I smell smoke.” Varkuz growled.
Gilash was about to open his mouth to say that everyone could smell whatever the hell it was the thief was smoking, when he detected the metallic tang behind the earthier smells of tobacco and gutterweed.
The hairy thief was turning towards him now and in the light of the glow gem on the table, Gilash could see that the sharp features beneath the thick whiskers weren’t quite human. Forgetting his usual caution, Gilash sent a tendril of his thought towards the menacing figure, sure enough there was no response, no mind or soul, the thing standing in front of him was as much a phantom as anything walking the Ghosts.
The instant Gilash pieced it together, his guard responded and sprang into action but it was already too late. Zenker had hidden the flickering light from the cupboard as best he could but there was no mistaking the fire that burned in the confines of the cupboard, as Zenker’s fuses burnt down. Gilash was running for the exit before his guard could even register what their master had seen. Varkuz gave a scream as her chained body hit the floor. The guards were moving fast, only seconds behind their master, but they were seconds that would mark a barrier between life and death.
Zenker smiled to watch them run, faint smoke drifting from his mouth and nose, even he could detect the tang of the blasting powder in the air now, he could taste it the through the pungent gutterweed. The thief took a final suck on the cigarette and pulled the dull green stone in his hand to his chest
“I wonder who I’ll be next time?" he said to himself, then the room exploded into brilliant light. Zenker’s body was atomised a fraction of a second before the inferno swept out from the cupboards. The floor of the Pike bulged and then buckled, sending chunks of stone and heavy lumber crashing down on those unfortunates who had somehow survived the initial wave of flame and burying the glowing green stone that had fallen to the floor only moments before.
Hot air threw Gilash over the last few rungs of the ladder and out into the stinking street. His ears were ringing with the force of the explosion and his robes had been reduced to rags. Smoke and small gouts of flame boiled up from the hatch behind him. Rage and frustration boiled up within him and for once, he was unable to suppress his emotions. Akna had to have been behind the treachery, somehow he had managed to conjure the thief to make good his escape. Gilash knew that he had underestimated his opponent. How had Akna found the strength to reach the veil? His soul had barely more substance than the thing that had just lured Gilash and his men down into destruction. It was inconceivable that the boy could have such power left within him but what other explanation was there? Summonings lost their purpose quickly, without someone holding the reigns. Gilash sent his seething thoughts out, questing for survivors but his oversight had cost him dearly and only a handful of his guard responded.
Gilash dragged himself from the alley behind the Pike towards his men, those who had been guarding the perimeter and had not been in the cellar or the Pike itself. Arvid was the first to reach his master, it was so rare to see any emotion from the Patriarch that the lieutenant had to blink a couple of times before he could believe that the snarling, ragged figure, emerging from the alley, was indeed his master and not some madman from the gutter; he felt the anger radiating from Gilash, with as much heat as the flames of the burning buildings behind him.
“My Lord are you all right? Should we seek a surgeon?”
“You know what we seek and if the wretch hadn’t got past your patrols...”
“Forgive me, My Lord but Akna knows these streets and he is resourceful, he even…”
“Even what, you worm? You think to mention my error to excuse your own?”
“No, not that, I simply mean that we are doing all we can.”
“Can you at least tell me where he is going?”
“He has not been sighted, so far.”
“How do you know that if you are stood here talking to me?”
“My apologies, My Lord, I thought your welfare to be paramount, I could not stay in trance and aid you.”
“Well here I am, still amongst the living, listening to you state the obvious. Shades and blood man, I nearly died, I’ve lost good men and added to that, the beast, which was leading our hunt, is buried under tons of rubble. I don’t care for any of that so long as we find the fugitive. Do you understand, yet? Nothing else matters.”
“Of course, My Lord, at once.”
Avid’s face became slack, while he focused on regaining the trance, which would allow him to get reports from the squads they had sent out across the city. Gilash was forced to give grudging respect to his man for the speed with which he was able to dispel his obvious fear and regain his equilibrium. Gilash fought hard to ignore his wounded pride and seared skin and regain his own usual level of control. After a moment or two, Avid spoke again, his voice heavy and slow with the lethargy of his trance state.
“Our squads report nothing, Lord but Kavex was despatched to watch the docks and he and his men are not answering my projections.”
“It is close enough, if they hurried. It must be them.”
“Sir?” Avid asked, still only half in the waking world.
“It makes sense, Akna could not realistically expect to make it out of any city gate, he would know we would be watching those, he plans to escape over the water.”
“He would take such a risk?” Avid asked, his mind going to the stories he had heard about the terrors awaiting those who ventured out in the great lake. Only the poorest fishermen, or in some cases the richest and best equipped, would sail far out into the lake, for fear of the horrors, inhabiting the deeper waters.
“He has little left to lose, we were close this time and we will not let him slip by again. He knows he must run or be caught and since he obviously didn’t get the help he had hoped for from his criminal connections, the water must seem like the last chance to get out of the city; he must think we will have less chance of catching him.”
“Your orders?”
“Narrow the search down to the docks and order Haldriz’s squad to join us, they will have to bolster our numbers until proper replacements can be found for those we’ve lost.”
“I have done as you asked, My Lord, but won’t it be difficult to find them over water?”
“Akna is not the only one who can call on assistance from beyond the veil.”
Giash drew forth a purple crystal from the remains of his robes, “He thinks he has crippled me with his trick but I have kept my true strength for precisely this moment, tell the rest to begin summoning anything they have that with travel well through air or water.”
“I shall convey your orders, My Lo
rd, but many are already exhausted from their efforts in the Ghosts, the cost of maintaining their summoning for that battle was great for some of the lesser brothers.”
“More questions and excuses, Avid?”
“No, My Lord, it shall be as you say.”
“I have no doubt of that. Now, we must hurry, they can’t have gone far.”
*
Varkuz, strained against the weight that pressed in on her from all sides. Her body had not snapped like the weaklings around her, nor had her thick skin shrivelled at the touch of flame. There was pain to be sure, despite all the work the imp had done on the body it inhabited, there were limits to working with mortal flesh. The chains and vines binding her had not survived the heat and impact and she had been able to shift her arms so that she finally had some room to work on digging herself free. The hooked claws, on which she had worked so long, had shifted, becoming thick, blunt shovels that she used to dig downwards rather than up. The scent of Akna and his woman filled the daemon’s mind, an obsession that drove her on, even as she twisted, dragging most of her left leg out from under a fallen beam and focusing her attention on the cracked flagstones that had once been the floor. Black drops fell from her ruined leg, until she remembered to seal over the wound. Most of her will was fixed on the two thin strips of luminescence that were developing under her bloodshot eyes. Eventually, the tiny space she had dug for herself was full of soft blue light; shed from modified cells, it was enough to quiet the child screaming somewhere inside her and then she began to dig in earnest.
Chapter 24:
“Far flung the light that reaches me in darkness;
The stars are set just right and I slip out from the harness;
Night’s waters are all cold and gently take me in,
For years have rolled and I have yet to begin.”
The weathered wood creaked beneath them as the small sail boat swung out onto the black waters. The wind favoured them and the craft slipped over the shallow waves almost as fast as the pale birds, flying alongside them in the hopes of sharing the fisherman’s morning catch. Ilsar sat in the stern, a needle crossbow in either hand while Akna took what rest he could, with his back against the mast. Their unwilling host, a lean haggard man with thinning hair, busied himself with the job of catching the wind and cursed himself for a fool for thinking he might beat his competitors by going out early.
“No light,” Ilsar said as the fisherman made to light his Calub lanterns.
“If we’re going into deep water it might be best to know what’s out there.”
“Your lamps will hardly tell us much, and they’ll as like just draw trouble.”
“Nishgul’s children need no light to mark us, woman, and they are always hungry. I’ve been told of sleeping giants the size of small islands out close to the cloud break, I’d sooner not wreck us on one.”
“If we get that far out, the sun will give us light enough to sail by,” Akna said
“Very confident for someone who's never seen the sun, there are clouds above Niskar’s vapours, you know, besides which, my real concern was getting far enough to worry about that. Nishgul’s waters are wider than you could know, I’ve heard tell that if you sail in the wrong direction without light, you can slip through tears in the veil itself.”
“There are things worse than sailor’s superstitions hunting us this night and I have seen the sun before and I mean to see it again, even if it costs me dear.”
Akna lapsed into silence and stared back at the retreating lights of the city he had known all his life. The pure lights that illuminated the path leading up Graven Hill to the sprawling immensity of the Asylum, seemed to call to him, as they did to all pilgrims at a distance. It was as if the palaces at the heart of the ancient beast had never burned, as if nothing could disrupt the peace offered by the clerics who waited, hungry within. Black vapours spiralled up above the hill, illuminated by the eternal pillars of light. Those lights would not be extinguished until the sun rose once more over the city and in Niskar, City of Eternal Night, the sun was only a dream.
A dream insubstantial and fleeting, yet Akna knew better. Zenker had seemed solid; the Hierophant had existed for centuries. The line between dreams and waking was blurred in the city over the water and the swirling smoke it spat forth, now seemed vile, like discharge from a wound. A wound that never healed but stained everything it touched; in such a place there could be no certainty, no real truth. As he leaned back against the rough wood of the mast and watched the many lights of the city blur together in the distance, he wondered if he wanted the truth that lay beyond the protection of the clouds. His words to Zenker had been spoken in anger and fear, he did not want to die, or perhaps cease would be more accurate. If Zenker was right one touch of the sun, the true sun rather than the reflection he had already seen, one touch of the sun might blow him apart, like mist in a strong wind. At his worst, when he felt nothing, Akna had still not been able to allow himself to die, if he were no more than a mirage or shadow, then at root he had been created from the need to survive.
“There is no need to fear,” Ilsar said softly, just loud enough to hear.
“No point in trying to hide from you, is there?”
“For better or worse no.”, she smiled. “Before you decide that we are sailing to destruction, remember that Zenker could be wrong, he assumes you are like him because of the stone but you have your own explanation for that, why believe his?”
“Why take the chance?” Akna smiled, ruefully and held up a hand before she could answer, “I know, ‘because to stay would be worse.' I’m simply unsure.”
“Who isn’t? Which of us, when asked to prove that we are more than the imaginings of another mind, could truly do so? The priests' art is to hide the distinction, for then both dream and dreamer dance to their tune. You have no more to fear than myself or even our new friend, Karik, who by his own admission, has never been out as far as we will go. We’ve none of us truly faced the sun, nor this boat for that matter. For all we know we’ll find ourselves sailing on mist, when we get beyond the clouds.”
“Too many river worms in this tub for me to believe it was ever anyone’s dream.” Karik commented as he took position next to the rudder, but he couldn’t help taking a second glance at the old fishing boat, he’d had her from his father and for her age, the boat was doing almost supernaturally well.
“I tell you this,” the old sailor muttered, “if the boat goes there’s no chance of swimming back, Nishgul’s critters might not mind us sliding past but they can smell blood in the water and sense you thrashing from miles away. Not too late to go back? Can whatever is coming really be worse?”
“Pray you don’t have to find out.”
Akna shifted so that he could look ahead, away from the city lights. There was only darkness ahead, velvet and all encompassing, he could well see how tales of being drawn beyond the veil would have arisen. The lights in the Asylum made subtle shadows but here, bobbing on the unfamiliar motion of the water with only black emptiness ahead, he felt he was truly in the heart of Nishkaan’s kingdom. Somewhere on his left, the water stirred and a dim green fire played just beneath the surface, not enough to clearly see by but enough to outline the spindle shape of some great fish, its fin cutting a line in the stygian waters. There was no way to tell if the fish was hunter or hunted and it was gone almost as soon as he saw it, leaving only the pale green wake in the dark water.
Akna stared into the blank void, as the boat glided forward, hours rolled into the silence and the dark. The journey was so peaceful that Akna forgot the danger of the lake, even the danger of Gilash and the city behind them. Nothing seemed more important than reaching the edge of the great cloud and finally, standing under a clear sky, if only for an instant.
The boat bore them effortlessly on towards the edge of Niskan’s clouds, its sails catching a chill wind that rose off the water, carrying with it the slight stench of organic rot, in spite of the boat’s distance from the shore. A
kna paid the wind no heed, instead he was staring at the dim luminescence of the water, in the far distance he briefly saw a flash of sliver, perhaps a moon reflected on distant ripples, perhaps a fish with a tall fin or an inhabitant of the depths surfacing for a lungful of air.
“I think I see light ahead,” Ilsar called from behind him.
“So do I.” As he spoke the silver light from the sinking half moon peeked from the clouds in the distance.
“I never thought we’d get so far, you two must have the luck of devils.” Karik commented. “Just hope you’re not right about the boat disappearing.”
“Better it than anything else.” Akna said.
“All the same I’m going to aim to be close to that island over there, just in case.”
Akna strained to see anything.
“Island? I can’t see a thing.”
“I’ve fished this lake for a long time friend, I can feel it out there, in the currents. Don’t worry I won’t get close till we have more light.”
“What about your monster islands?”
“They’d not stick around for sunrise, so if we time this right I reckon we can be close to somewhere to swim for, if the worse happens.”
“I thought you were sure of the boat.”
“Why take chances?”
“You mean apart from the rocks?” Ilsar commented.
Karick snorted, “Been on these waters too long to be taken in by anything so mundane, if you think I’m being too superstitious, you can always steer, but I’ll warn you that my way at least gives us something to head towards, apart from the moon, which is about to set. Not interested in trying your hand? Then we’ll take the course I choose.”
Akna wrinkled his nose as another gust of thick smelling air wafted past him.
“Could this island you want to navigate by be the source of that smell?”
“Not sure what smell you mean, friend but given the direction of the wind the only stink that’s going to reach us will come from behind. Why, what can you smell?”
