by J. F. Lewis
“So the natural predator of dragons?” Vander yelled.
“Is Time,” Coal bellowed the answer as he flew west. “And other dragons.”
CHAPTER 38
MIDIAN
Rain reached Midian about the same time Rae’en did, the heavy drops of water coating the—she didn’t know what to call it—sprawl? Even back at Darvan where the people lived in a cluster—buildings atop buildings, sharing walls, one neighbor’s roof serving as another neighbor’s floor, she had seen nothing like Midian.
It’s almost like, she thought to Kazan, though she knew her Overwatches couldn’t hear her, Darvan and the Guild Cities were smashed together and reshuffled like a deck of cards. Not that she’d seen a deck of cards before the Guild Cities. Back home, the Dwarves preferred to play games centered around runed tiles and nesting crystal pyramids. Tiles stacked on other tiles, and the three different sizes of pyramids each had different abilities based on size.
Midian’s bones reminded her of a game Glinfolgo favored in which each player tried to get all three of his pyramids to the center of the arrangement of tiles to seize a central stack of tiles. Escape. Such a strange name for a game about getting to the center of things. If it was called escape, then why not start in the middle and move outward? One never knew with Dwarves.
Thoughts of the game drew her eyes to the middle of the city where, from her perch on the wall, she watched white plumes of steam trailing up from the Central Forge. Its massive middle chimney stuck up well beyond the height of the bridge walls. Most of Midian’s buildings soared like that. Only the buildings closest to the bridge walls kept to the sub-wall height restriction seen along the rest of Bridgeland.
Architecturally, the construction in Midian appeared to have been started by Dwarves, many buildings rising as high as twenty stories. While the core of the buildings matched the Dwarven magnificence Rae’en had seen elsewhere on the great bridge with rounded spires and triangular wedges arcing up to immense heights, these were dotted with architecturally diverse additions jutting like barnacles from the buildings’ original design.
She’d missed the sound of rain on stone. The sight of the city all wet and clean reminded her of the watch stations back homes, the way they glistened in the rain.
Of course, back home, the only flying beasts would have been birds or Coal. Rae’en fancied she could almost make out his figure far off to the west diving through the clouds and twirling through the air.
No dragons in Midian. Instead, the insectoid Issic-Gnoss could be seen flying through the steam-choked sky alongside the bronze dwarvenflies and the occasional winged manitou. To her left, a human with webbed membranes running from her hands to her feet jumped from the roof of a dark-gray building, gliding down to a lower structure while guards of mismatched race shouted after her to stop.
Rae’en found a rain-slick ladder and started her descent, marveling as she dropped lower and lower at the way the streets were even more crowded than the air. Horse-drawn carts shared the smooth, even streets with steam-driven horses, trams, and small carts pulled by humans, Issic-Gnoss, or the occasional being she could not identify.
At ground level, glowing signs flashed in the air announcing services on the walls of buildings.
More Dwarven rune magic? she thought at her Overwatches.
Bloodmane says it’s Stopping Time, Kholster’s voice said in her mind.
I just got to Midian, she thought back.
Remember you’ll need to find an inn, Kholster advised. They do not take kindly to street sleepers in Midian.
Any suggestions?
I never sleep there. Too noisy. Too many thieves.
It’s big. Rae’en looked back up at the wall, wondering if she might be safer climbing back up and rolling out her bedroll on the wall again.
It is.
Are . . . are you still here?
Yes, Kholster answered, at the Central Forge.
When did you get here? Rae’en passed by street vendors selling everything from soup with noodles, various charred, steamed, or raw things on sticks, to fragrant teas and breads. She bought two rats on a stick from a vendor who looked part rat him(or her?)self. One was glazed with a thin layer of salt, nuts, and honey, the other raw, sold by special arrangement with the vendor from a stash beneath the main compartment of his cart.
A few days ago.
A few? Rae’en thought back. Unlike human flesh, the rat’s tasted better cooked than raw, but from the loud complaints her stomach was making, she was certain it would give her a very interesting yarp later.
Many of the lower floors of the buildings appeared to be occupied by shops and pubs, while upper floors, based on the children she spotted looking out of windows and laundry lines hanging between buildings, appeared to be occupied at least in some cases by living space.
A spider-like Issic-Gnoss tempted her with a small sack of fried, candied, and salted roaches. Though it seemed pleasantly crunchy when she relented and sampled one, she wasn’t sure how they’d sit with the food she’d already eaten, so she tipped him (it?) and moved on.
Two hours of shopping later, she’d purchased and consumed a soup of spicy goat and mushrooms, as well as a bag of fried roaches from a different vendor. She’d also been sick into a bin filled with garbage. Unlike other places, the residents didn’t seem to find her presence at all strange, and, in fact, the gnome selling the goat stew had sold her on it by telling her it was a favorite amongst the local scarbacks.
What she had not done was find a gift for her father. She looked, but nothing seemed like him. Buying her father an implement of combat was useless. If he wanted a weapon, he’d make it. He wouldn’t eat cooked meat, so the idea of a rare food item didn’t sound good enough . . . plus, she’d long suspected his sense of taste wasn’t very good anyway.
She passed a store selling gnomish and Dwarven creations, but the only things she could afford under the agreed-upon budget were little more than curiosities. She didn’t think Kholster would have much use for fake crickets which chirped back when you whistled at them or little bronze kittens that batted your finger when you stroked them.
Clothing was out of the question. Kholster expected clothes to last forever. Every Aern knew about the “incident with the shirts.” Never mind the fact that the newest of the shirts in question had been ten years old.
Buying him a plant or a pet, even though she thought he would look cute with one of the mug-sized lizards she saw some citizens carrying around . . . there was also the chance that he might eat it. Even Rae’en wondered what they tasted like.
Finally, sleepier than she ever remembered being, Rae’en headed back to the ladder. It took longer than she thought it would. Several times, she got turned around, not able to see the wall, before she stopped and took the time to re-create a map in her head, retracing her steps. It was much easier to let her Overwatches do it, but she was a kholster. She could remember.
Halfway there, in the middle of a long line of street vendors, she saw . . .
The perfect gift.
She had it wrapped and stowed in her saddlebags quick as a neck snap without even haggling over the price.
*
“She’s sleeping on the wall,” the smith’s voice called above the clanging of hammers and the loud whoosh of the Central Forge itself.
Kholster looked up, his pliers slick with blood from the most recent assassins. Seeing the Dwarf’s reaction, Kholster shrugged.
“I’ve stayed in one place for too long.” He bent the last link in the chain into a complete loop and smiled as he held up his gift. “It was convenient anyway. Soul bonding doesn’t require blood after the first slaking, but the more you use, the easier it is. I’ve never understood exactly why.”
He held out the loop of silvered bone-steel and its matching chain.
“Soul bonded?” The Dwarf’s eyes widened. “You did that all here?”
“Only the ring is soul bonded.” Kholster wiped them down with a cloth. �
�Every time it’s different. This time, the piece of my soul that went into it was long and quick. Like a snake . . . or a ferret. Do you think it’s because of the ring? The way we hammer it into wire?”
“I don’t know.” The Dwarf’s eyes went down to the carnage.
Kholster’s latest assassins had been a trio of crystal twists. A pile of dismembered parts lay scattered on the ground at Kholster’s feet.
“Oh,” Kholster noticed the Dwarf’s discomfort. “They kept interrupting the engraving. Do you know how hard it is to get bone-steel engraving just right?”
“Yours?” The Dwarf shook his head. “Difficult.”
“Did Karl tell you how many assassins his men have had to . . . divert . . . from Rae’en?”
“Only three.”
“Did she notice?”
“We don’t believe so.”
“Good.”
It’s time to resume, Bloodmane intoned.
Kholster blew out a breath of air. He wanted to let her sleep, just delay things until he knew she’d had a full four hours. But that was not what he’d said he’d do so . . .
*
It’s time to move.
Rae’en’s eyes did not exactly snap open, but they did open . . . mostly.
Rae’en?
Yes, sir, she pushed herself up on her elbows, only half-surprised to find rain pouring down on her, soaking her bedroll. Are you still in Midian?
I’m getting ready to depart.
Then so am I, Rae’en forced herself the rest of the way up and began packing her sodden bedroll, wringing it as best she could, letting the water splash down onto the stone.
We can discontinue the race, Kholster offered. If you like.
Why? Rae’en started running along the wall, stumbled once from sheer exhaustion, got back up, and started running again. Getting tired?
Kholster’s laugh rang out in Rae’en mind, and as happy as she was to know she’d amused him . . . she also wanted to strangle him . . . just a little.
CHAPTER 39
THE GARDEN OF DIVINITY
Stepping through the North Gate of the Junland Bridge felt like stepping backward in time. The cobblestone streets of Castleguard stank in a way that the inhabitants of the Guild Cities would have found offensive in the extreme. No dwarvenflies flew north of Bridgeland. No steam-driven horses trod its muck-encrusted streets.
It reminded Rae’en of certain areas of Gastony or Khalvad, but the people here were mostly light-skinned humans instead of the many shades of brown and tan closer to home . . . and . . .
Do they not have running water?
Many places don’t, Kholster thought back.
But, this close to the Dwarves, surely—
Look at the gates. Kholster gestured past the Dwarven fortifications, up the winding path in the mountains to the human-built walls and towers where Castle Mioden sat like a suspicious golem glaring in baleful disapproval at its unwholesome neighbor. Rae’en recalled the Guild Cities’ border with Bridgeland, which had no walls except for those the Dwarves themselves had erected. Castleguard’s defenses treated the bridge continent as a threat of invasion, the walls of the city even trailing down to the seaport below. It did not look as though the people of Castleguard were friendly with their Dwarven neighbors.
She peered out across the ocean and smiled to think the fleet had lost only two ships to the ice—all the Aern rescued—and Uncle Glinfolgo was safe.
Once, the water would have tempted Rae’en even though she could barely swim in it because of her bones. She’d sailed around the Cape of Cavarous, with its massive cliffside caverns filled with the bat-winged Cavair, to fish and trade, but now that she’d been in a fight underwater . . . the idea was less appealing. She thought of Vander and the five thousand Armored . . . a journey of so many miles over sea . . . Rae’en wondered what that would be like.
Maybe Uncle Vander will share the memory, she thought at her Overwatches.
No Token Hundred had greeted them at the Castleguard border, only human men-at-arms in royal-blue brigandine backed by stone walls festooned with archers. There were nonhuman residents in Castleguard, but none were allowed to join the guard or be a knight in Mioden’s service.
Is the castle named after the king or—?
I believe the current monarch is Mioden the Twenty-Seventh, if that answers your question.
Why are the humans all so pale?
It must be their diet, Kholster thought with a mental shrug. I don’t know. Humans come in lots of different shades. They all taste the same.
Drizzling rain clung to the mountains, wreathing them in mist, even covering the streets in a layer of fog. The guards said nothing to them as they passed deeper into the city, as if being an Aern was all that was needed to allow them to wander wherever they wanted. Rae’en spotted other travelers being stopped to have papers they carried stamped or marked.
Kholster kept them moving, past drab little shops and mirthless inns. Rae’en had seen beggars before, but the ones in Castleguard all seemed to be maimed in some way, some missing limbs, others missing eyes or tongues.
Veterans probably, Kholster explained. They don’t treat them the way we do. If they can’t fix them, they cast them aside. And Castleguard is perennially at war with Gromm, so there is rarely a shortage. I’m sure it makes Dienox happy.
Moving up the mountain toward the castle proper brought cleaner streets and shops of more unique nature and higher standard.
There are some wonderful caverns and gardens, even a museum I’d like to show you when we have more time, Kholster sent. They have a preserved Gromman Mount.
Rae’en had always wanted to see one of the plant steeds of the Gromman Plainsriders, but she guessed it would have to wait.
“How much time do we have left?” Rae’en unslung Grudge and offered it back to her father.
“Twelve days.” Kholster raised an eyebrow but accepted the warpick and returned Testament to her.
“Can we still make it?”
“It’s just under nine hundred jun to Oot.” Kholster settled Grudge on his back, and Rae’en wondered if he noticed that she moved in unison with him, returning Testament to her back with the same one-armed careless sling. Her shoulders, aching from days of near-constant travel, flared with pain when the warpick snapped into place on her back, but it felt good to be whole again.
“We will have to keep a steady pace, like we did in Bridgeland.” Kholster patted her on the shoulder.
She smiled, but inwardly her heart sank. Did her father’s muscles not ache as hers did? Fiery lances of protest shot through her thighs, calves, and the bottoms of her feet with each step. Even her back and arms hurt. At any moment she was sure she’d start trembling and not be able to stop, but . . . is Kholster hiding it?
Probably not, she answered her own question. She wondered if age would grant her that boon as well, or if that was a benefit only afforded the Armored.
“The Garden of Divinity.” Kholster nodded toward Castle Mioden, “is on the far side of the castle.”
“Then we can find out who won the Bridge Race.” Rae’en perked up, patting the saddlebag containing her gift.
“I win either way, you know.” He looked at her askance.
“How do you plot that course?” Rae’en smirked.
“Simple.” They walked together under a bridge lined with soldiers. “If I win, I am victorious, and if you win, my troops have seized victory, and, as Kholster, I am therefore . . . ?”
“Victorious.” She laughed. “Very funny.”
*
They reached the Garden of Divinity a few hours before noon, and Kholster guided his daughter through the manicured garden surrounding the likenesses of the gods on a scale which Rae’en felt had to be about twice life-size. After all, the statue of Kilke was roughly twice the size of her father, roughly thirty-six hands, and what god would need to be larger than Kholster?
Worked in white marble, some of the gods looked diminished, while
others seemed well suited to such a pale palette. The statues were arranged in half circles, six on one side, six on the other, with Shidarva standing where Kilke once stood, at the head of the design, one half-circle on her left, the other on her right. A tremendous fountain in the middle sent up synchronized lances of water into the air.
Kilke, with his two horned heads on either side of the central stump he’d lost in some long-ago cosmic coup, leered at her with one head, the other tilted toward Nomi, the once-mortal woman who’d stolen Dienox’s flaming hair as he slept in a postcoital daze, becoming the goddess of fire. Xalistan, the hunter, appearing as a snarling wolf (also horned)—these male gods love their horns, Rae’en thought to her Overwatches, partly out of habit and partly out of hope that they could hear her even when she couldn’t hear them—his teeth bared at the outstretched hand of Queelay, who appeared to have playfully dampened his fur.
Yhask, god of the wind, ignored them both, glaring hatefully across the fountain at the figure of Dienox in full plate armor who—
“Is he pouting?” Rae’en prodded Kholster.
“I’d say he’s angry that Coal killed his hurricane.” He studied Yhask, running his hand between the layers of statue; the wispy rings of Yhask’s elemental form did not quite touch, some hovering over others with a magic Rae’en’s father clearly found interesting. “Yhask, I would imagine, is angry that Dienox didn’t believe it would all be for nought, but look at his eyes.”
At a second glance, Rae’en saw triumph layered amidst the disdain, revealed by a scarce turning up of the lip and crinkle at the edges of Yhask’s eyes.
“He got something out of Dienox,” Rae’en said, “Yhask still isn’t thrilled about it, but it’s a consolation.”
“I agree.”
Kholster tipped his head to the statue of Aldo, who, despite his appearance as an Oathbreaker in voluminous robes, was reading a book. Rae’en started as Kholster stopped at the base of Shidarva’s statue and yarped up a wet mass of hair and bones on the statue’s feet.
