A Lady in Crystal

by Toby Bennett

  “Nothing that should have come out this far.” Akna answered as he dragged himself onto his feet and peered back towards Niskar. He willed himself to be able to penetrate the gloom, to see what he feared might be behind them. Sure enough,if he squatted low in the boat, he could see a dark shape, silhouetted against the distant city light. Huge wings flapped, defying the demands of physics, as they kept the improbable shape flying low over the cold waters of the lake. Nothing so large should have been able to fly, even over the burning sands of the Degari desert, for such a monster to stay airborne over water there was only one explanation, sorcery.

  “They have found us,” Ilsar said speaking his mind for him.

  “They have found us. Karick make for the island, now.”

  “Without light and before the sun? We could be torn apart by any number of unseen rocks if we go any nearer.”

  “I don’t give a daemon’s gaping gash for the danger of rocks, the thing behind us will tear this boat apart like kindling, better to hope for a soft beach than soft claws. We either find somewhere solid to face what’s coming or we die.”

  Karick needed no more urging than the alarm in the dead-eyed man’s voice. There was no doubt that his abductor was not easily riled, nobody who could shrug off Nishgul’s bloody reputation could be of a nervous disposition.

  “I hope you’re desperate rather than mad.” Karick muttered, throwing himself against the rudder. If the sailor had any doubt about the existence of something coming up behind them, it was dispelled by another waft of carrion tainted air. The stench was stronger now, the great beast swooped closer straining the sail with every down beat of its huge wings. If the wind had been weaker or in any other direction the tiny craft would have been easily overtake but Karick knew how to take advantage of every gust and the massive flyer had to fight the limitations of its bulk with each thunder clap of its wings. The tiny boat ran before the great shadow, blindly daring the rocks of an island, their pilot could only guess at.

  “Light the lanterns.” Karick screamed as the hull grated on a unseen stone, “any closer and that would have sunk us.”

  Akna and Ilsar scrabbled to comply, working with the volatile lanterns as quickly as they dared. A shrill scream went up from behind them as the winged hunter saw their lights and Karick thrust the rudder starboard as hard as he could, narrowly avoiding a jagged finger of stone revealed by the newly born nimbus of light.

  The light uncovered more than the rocks ahead, it illuminated the dreadful spectre behind them. If the monster had ever lived it might have been some ungodly mix of lizard and bird but the most notable thing about it was that it was clearly dead. The long sharp muzzle had only the decayed remnants of lips, partially covering the long row of dagger- sized teeth. The great bat wings were threadbare and in some places the membrane had torn or rotted through, making its steady flight all the more unlikely. Arrayed on the swooping corpse’s back were House Asemutt’s hunters, no more than ten or so but Akna had no illusions that he and Ilsar would not be quickly overcome. There would also be more than one of these monsters seeking them and now that they had been found, all of them would be following. Akna cast his eyes in the direction where he thought he had seen the moon disappear, his only hope was that the island was near to the edge of the clouds and that dawn was not too far away.

  “I see a beach,” Karick called out.

  “Can we make it?”

  “Not before they sink us, they are almost upon us.”

  “We have one advantage there,” Ilsar called out over the sound of giant wings and the hissing of the shallow water under the boat, “they want us alive, else they would have used their bows by now.”

  “They may want us alive but I’m sure they’ll have no problem breaking our mast or tipping us into the water.”

  “Best to discourage them from getting too close then.” Ilsar said, taking a firing position in the bow. Akna couldn’t fathom how she expected to do anything with the undersized crossbows in her hand, the range had to be too short and the boat was far from steady as Karick wove through the channels of rock towards the small island. It was incredible that Ilsar could even stand so steadily, let alone shoot.

  They were a few hundred meters from the white sands of the island's only beach, when the great monster swooped down, clearly intent on capsizing the craft. Canvas cracked as the sails took the strain of the undead monster’s approach and Karick screamed in panic to match the bellow of exultation that went up from the hunters on the monster's back. Ilsar simply stood impassive and at the last moment, she loosed both crossbows into the desiccated eye of the swooping monster. The poison did nothing, nor in truth could the thin bolts do much physical damage, it was the timing that mattered most. The beast still had some memory of what it was to be alive and though its eyes were not truly meaningful any more, instinct made the monster flinch, only slightly but enough to throw it off its strike by a few inches, just enough to cause its wing tip to hit into one of the grasping figures of stone and spin it in the air. The priests on the thing’s back screamed as the world spun about them and the beast tumbled into the black waters.

  Wind and wave hit the small boat almost instantaneously and they were lifted up on the current, catapulted towards the shore. The wave broke close to the white sand and the boat spent the rest of its momentum ploughing into the soft fragments of shell and stone.

  “Niskaan’s black tits!” Karick swore, picking himself up from the bottom of the boat.

  “Are they still coming?” Akna asked Islar, who had somehow contrived to keep her feet, even through the chaos caused by her shot.

  “Not that one, but we both know more will be here soon.”

  Akna dragged himself up to stare out at the churning water behind them. The light of the wildly shaking lamps was enough for him to see the water boiling with slick shapes and eager tentacles. The ruin of the great beast had not gone unnoticed and Nishgul’s inhabitants made no distinction between old meat and fresh. Without the will of its master, the beast lay still and unprotesting, as the smaller horrors that inhabited the island’s shallows surged over it. The priests who had not already succumbed, were swimming for the island as fast as they could but first one then another was dragged down. Only one man made it to shore and Akna dispatched him with a single stroke, throwing his headless corpse back into the foaming water.

  “Better if they are well fed,” he said as he returned to the boat, “let’s just hope the hull is still sound.”

  “You don’t mean to go back out there?” Karick asked, his voice cracking with terror.

  “In time, but you don’t need to have sailed these waters to know that it would be best to let the lake calm. Besides there will be more of them coming soon, our best hope is to hide the boat and ourselves and to hope that dawn is not too far off.”

  “There’s not a lot of space to hide.”

  “Better to face an attack with stone beneath our feet, even a rock overhang will stop them taking us from the air.”

  “And the boat?”

  “We take the mast off and bury the rest in sand. They will know that we were last spotted at this position but I doubt anyone could maintain a trance through that kind of chaos. If they don’t see a boat they will assume we are trapped and that might make them take their time, at the least it will stop them destroying the boat outright.”

  While Akna and Karick struggled to undo the bolts on the small boat’s mast, Ilsar took one of the lamps and went looking for a position that could be best defended against the priests. As they had suspected the ‘island’ barely merited more than the title of ‘large rock’; thick grey stone rose a few feet over the tiny beach on which they had fetched up, wild grass and low bushes covered that for about a hundred meters, before the rock dropped off to the other side. The only growth of any size was a single Gasa-nut tree that grew out over the lake, bent in the direction of the prevailing winds. Ilsar quickly determined that the small tree would be too feeble to offer any protect
ion and went back to studying the rocks that jutted from the grass, for some bolt hole that they could use.

  The boat had been crudely buried when Ilsar got back, the sand that made up the slim stretch of beach was only a little deeper than the earth covering the top of the island and any serious search would easily reveal the shape of the little boat, below a thin layer of sand, but in the gloom the mound might go unnoticed, at least that’s what they told themselves as they followed Ilsar up onto the top of the rock they had washed up on.

  “It’s tight but it’s the best I could find.”

  “It’s more than we had a right to hope for,” Akna said, examining the narrow cleft that Ilsar had found.

  “It gets slightly wider once you get past the entrance but not much, the good news it that it’s not straight so they can’t just fire arrows at us.”

  “They won’t, Gilash wants us alive.”

  “But not uninjured, I’m sure, at any rate it can fit us at a pinch but there’s no room to swing a sword.”

  “The same holds true for them, it will be unpleasant but they’ll at least have to winkle us out and that might give us the time we need.”

  Ilsar checked the bolts stored in both her stolen crossbows, “I’ve got eight bolts left and they should prove deadly, in such a confined space.”

  “Going in there looks deadly to me, it’s you two they want, I’ll just stay out of it, if you don’t mind.”

  “There’s no way to do that, Karick, I could say that I regret having involved you but the truth is I care about you for the same reasons they will, you are an asset in crossing the lake. Your life means nothing to them but your death might inconvenience us, which means your best chance of survival is in that cave.”

  “Inconvenience? It might be a hump worse than an inconvenience to me.”

  “Which is why you should get in there now, they could be here any moment.”

  Akna proved right in his prediction, almost as soon as they had forced themselves into the narrow crack, the smell of rot assaulted them. The smell was made worse by the airless confines of their retreat.

  Whatever senses the carrion beast used, it seemed to have little trouble in finding their hiding place. Stones and dust fell from the ceiling, as the thing landed and snuffled at the ground that formed the roof of their tiny cavern. They heard the calls of the priests as they disembarked from the monster and began scrabbling down the side of the rock to the entrance of the cave.

  “They found us so quickly.”

  “They are Asemutt, we could expect no less.”

  “What if they find the boat?"

  “Don’t even think it,” Akna said sharply, “keep your mind from wandering, think on your family or some happy memory, for if they read what we have done, our fate is sealed.”

  “Akna?” The voice came from outside the cave and although it was unfamiliar, Akna knew to whom he was really speaking.

  “What do you want? Tell your master I’m listening, cipher.”

  “You may address me as Avid and I do indeed speak for my master. He offers you one chance to give him what he wants.”

  “I’ve told him that I cannot give him the stone.”

  There was silence as Avid conferred with his master, then he spoke again.

  “Can’t or won’t? Whatever hold the stone has on you, it surely can’t be worth your life.”

  “As if Gilash would let me live anyway.”

  “It is a true offer but we do not have time to debate, however much you might want to draw this out. The trap you have tried to set for us is obvious enough and I assure you we know when the dawn will come. Those of us who have been sent out into the wider world are well aware of the dangers. Summonings can be recalled and we are far from powerless without them, as you know. Besides you have chosen to hide in darkness, where our summonings will not have to fear the touch of the sun.”

  “The size of the summoning that brought you here makes me question whether you have strength left to summon more aid, after all you must store those energies against the coming of the sun, if you are to find your way back.”

  “You underestimate us.”

  “Any other cycle perhaps but my guess is that Gilash used much of your strength already on his war with the phantoms in the Ghosts. My guess is that we are both bluffing, if you had a summoning that could easily ferret us out, you would have used it.”

  More silence followed Akna’s reply, during which they heard the unmistakable sound of axes on wood.

  “They mean to smoke us out.” Akna whispered tearing off a piece of his tunic and dipping it in the shallow pool of water he was kneeling in before wrapping it around his face.

  “My master will have what he wants, Akna, if you have hidden the stone he will draw the truth from you. Just accept that your situation is hopeless and you will avoid pain.”

  “Wait for sunrise for my answer.”

  “As you wish.”

  More loud flapping from above announced the arrival of another summoning and more Asemutt priests. From within the cave the sounds of the priests shouting out arcane phrases were just audible over the sound of axes falling.

  “They’ve recalled their beasts, which means that dawn is close,” Akna said. “There must be a score or more of them out there and Gilash will simply wait till nightfall before he comes. He believes us pinned down and he’s right.”

  “Then why bother with the smoke?” Karick asked.

  “Why not? There’s a chance we’ll break. Don’t worry, they won’t let it get any more than uncomfortable, they can’t risk the possibility that I have found some clever hiding place for the stone.”

  “Perhaps we should do as he says, what’s the point dying painfully or delaying the inevitable?”

  “I agree but we have our best chance if we can hold on till the sun is up.”

  “Because you think you might just disappear and then it won’t matter to you? If you are some kind of phantom that’s your look out, I don’t want to die. Perhaps if the two of you went out that would be enough, they don’t have to know about me do they? If you have any mercy, you will not make me suffer for what you have done.”

  “I doubt you will be overlooked but I will not betray you, if I can help it. Here,” Akna thrust the satchel full of stones at the terrified fisherman, “if you do escape drop these into the lake on your way back. Don’t think of the wealth they might represent, they will only bring you misery.”

  Smoke began to billow into the narrow mouth of the cave, the wood they were using was wet and the smoke was heavy and acrid.

  Half a hour passed and the flickering of flames was replaced by a steadier light, red at first then golden, streaming through the twisting tendrils of black smoke and bringing a more wholesome, unfamiliar warmth. In the choking confines of their bolt-hole, the new heat brought little comfort.

  “You’re sure you want to go now?” Ilsar asked

  “No point in waiting, if we survive this every hour will count. I’ll go first because they will have instructions not to kill me. You stay close to the cave and use the smoke for cover.”

  So saying Akna wriggled into the narrow cleft that led towards the sun. The light he had seen in the Hierophant’s tomb had been a mere echo of the brilliance that burned beyond the cover of the smoke. In all his life he had never seen so much light, for such a sustained period of time and he paused, just out of its reach, trying to acclimatise himself to the dazzling radiance. Or so he told himself, for as he stared into the golden shafts intermittently piercing the smoke, he knew an unwelcome feeling of doubt. The unfeeling assassin who had taken so many risks heedless of the outcome was gone and in his place he found the boy, so unwilling to relinquish his existence that he had literally torn himself apart. Ilsar’s hand on his back gave him some reassurance but it also made him realise that he had yet more to lose.

  “If the worst is true…” he said trying not to cough in the polluted air.

  “No, need to speak, I know your mind
.” He felt her reach for him through the bond that they had shared since the day that they met, feeling her reassurance and acceptance. There really were no words that needed to be spoken, they had been one since that moment. Akna nodded once and bunched his muscles to spring from the cleft in the rock, when, from above, the screaming began.

  Chapter 25:

  “Fast wrung my soul that teaches only darkness;

  The scars must take their toll and strip the world to starkness.

  Earth’s daughters will grow old and cease to take me in

  For hollow bells have tolled and we have yet to hear the din”

  Varkuz came out of the water in a rage, her body had changed, yet again, to facilitate the long swim and the pain of having to choke out water and replace gills with lungs did not improve her humour. The priests of Asemutt bore the full brunt of that rage, there was no sorcery, now, to protect them. The daemon loathed the sun but unlike the weak visions that the priests might draw forth from beyond the veil, it could withstand the harsh light, particularly when sheathed in another’s flesh. She could scent her true quarry beyond the line of panicked men and the thick smoke thrown off by the spluttering fire at the entrance to the narrow cave. The assassin would not be able to go anywhere, first she had a score to settle with these arrogant priests who had dared to enslave her, presumed to use her as a common hound. She struck out with a thick paddle shaped hand, sending the first man flying. Arrows flew and some even found their mark, but they were unable to penetrate very far into the thick hide that that had protected her from the lake’s chill waters. The arrows, the sun and the frustration of being denied her revenge for so long, all these things translated into a berserker rage that drove her into the ranks of Asemutt’s priests, heedless of their steel or any possible hurt and when the haze of battle cleared, she was covered in a hundred painful cuts but her opponents were nowhere to be seen some having even chosen to try to the mercy of the lake rather than face the maddened daemon in their midst.

  “I know you are in there, assassin.” The daemon tried to say but her jaw was too thick and her mouth to full of hair and carrion. She spat and sat back on her haunches. Much as she wanted to tear the man who had robbed her of victory apart, she did not wish to forgo the pleasure of taunting him, of hearing him beg. Also, some part of her warned, if she didn’t halt her animalistic development, she might find herself trapped in a form dictated by a revenge already taken. There was another way to play things, if she could just calm down enough. The deaths of so many had sated the daemon for a while and that let her reach deeper into the mind that she now inhabited, to draw forth something equally primal but more subtle, the true basis of the empire she would build.