Fire and Dust

by James Gardner

  «The scepter does not talk, honored Clueless, but its presence here explains much. My faction calls this weapon Klemt Ur't'haleem, which might be translated as Unveiler. Unveiler is the creation of… a certain god, whose name it is unwise to speak aloud. Many centuries ago, the scepter came into the hands of the Dustmen; by which I mean that a party of Dustmen freed it from its former owner, and gave that owner a prominent place in our factol's retinue of zombies.»

  «So Unveiler belonged to the Dustmen and now it's here,» I said. «That tells us what the thieves were doing at the Mortuary this morning.»

  «Indeed,» Wheezle nodded. «They must have used the exploding giant as a diversion while they crept inside and stole the scepter.»

  «So what does this Unveiler do?» Hezekiah asked.

  «It gives the user extraordinary powers to control the alchemical undead,» Wheezle replied. «It can even animate these pathetic corpses and fill them with energy; but for all that, it is still a despicable object. This poor creature…» He pointed to the wight, still greedily licking blood off her fingers. «She is out of touch with the cosmos. She cannot commune with the undead gods. Her death is a stifled, paltry thing.»

  I couldn't see any stifled quality myself – she looked quite happy for a corpse. However, Wheezle was the expert in such matters, so I deferred to his judgment.

  «If the scepter is evil,» Hezekiah said, «maybe we should break it.»

  «My faction has tried,» Wheezle told him. «Alas, it is too powerful. The best we could do was hide it in the Mortuary until we found a way to unmake it.»

  «And the thieves must have stolen it because they were sick of the high failure rate from their alchemy,» I said. «Probably those three wights we killed back at the Mortuary were the only ones they had actually managed to get moving. Unveiler let them power up this whole pile of discards.»

  «That is a reasonable conclusion,» Wheezle nodded. «The enemy obviously has need of an army of undead servants.»

  «As if we don't have enough headaches already,» I muttered. «Still, we have the scepter now; does that mean we can control the wights?»

  «Any wights who see it in our possession will obey us,» Wheezle said. «We can turn them against their creators… as a temporary measure.»

  «Why temporary?» I asked.

  «These unfortunates must be freed,» the gnome replied. «We cannot leave them in their current condition. Yes, an army of wights might help us defeat our enemies, and I will reluctantly tolerate such an army until the task is accomplished. Once that is done, however, these souls must be released. The energy injection from this wand only lasts a few weeks – like throwing a few extra sticks of wood into a stove. Once that wood has been used, the wights begin to burn their own souls again. I will not be party to that.»

  «And you have a way to release them?» Hezekiah piped up.

  I wished the boy hadn't said that.

  With a wave of his hand, Wheezle shouted something that sounded like, «Hoksha ptock!» Unveiler's orange glow curdled to a bilious green, casting sickly shadows over the heap of corpses. Bodies rustled like leaves; a few of them uttered heavy groans. The wight who had been licking her fingers gave a startled jerk, as if the ground had suddenly quaked beneath her. She turned to me with a puzzled look on her face, the flames in her eyes sputtering like a dampened fire. Her mouth let out a bewildered hiss… then her legs buckled and she fell to the floor.

  Hezekiah, still sitting on top of the corpse-heap, yelped and tried to catch his balance. The bodies beneath him were shifting, muttering incomprehensibly. As fast as he could, the boy scrambled off the mound, running to my side as if I would protect him from whatever happened next.

  No need. The one active wight was on her knees, rocking back and forth like a child trying to comfort herself. The corpses too were moving, the whole pile shuddering in pulses. The muttering sounds grew louder, slowly blending together until all the bodies were moaning in unison, «Huhhhh… huhhhh… huhhhh…»

  «Hoksha ptock!» Wheezle cried again.

  «Ahhhhhhh,» the corpses sighed, and the wight hissed along. «Ahhhhh…»

  «Hoksha ptock!»

  Then, with a soft gooey sound, every dead body turned liquid – a runny brown liquid collapsing onto the floor with a loud splash, as gooey as egg whites. The fluid surged up to my feet like an ocean tide, flowing over my boots in a wave. Hezekiah tried to jump away, but there was nowhere to go: the spill of liquefying bodies covered the floor. We were both awash, up to the ankles.

  «Yuck!» the boy shouted. «Euuu!»

  «Do not fear,» Wheezle said calmly. «It is a form of ectoplasm. Not dangerous in any way.»

  «So it's not poisonous?» I asked. «Good.»

  The taste was something like olive oil, but saltier. With a little vinegar, it might make a fine salad dressing.

  7. THREE SLABS OF CLAY

  «We have done a great thing this day,» Wheezle said. «The undead gods will not forget us.»

  «Is that a good thing?» Hezekiah whispered to me.

  «Probably not,» I whispered back. «But I'd rather have them pleased with us than angry.» In a louder voice, I said to Wheezle, «Of course you realize you've destroyed… sorry, freed… a lot of corpses who could have been on our side.»

  «They would not truly be our allies, honored Cavendish. You must have observed how quickly the wight killed the drow once I took control of the scepter. Undead animated in this way always despise the persons responsible. The wights cannot resist direct commands from their creators, but they do their best to twist those commands contrary to the original intent. We will do better taking over the wights created by others – those wights will be grateful to us, at least for a time.»

  I had to grant the truth of what he said. Wights would never be trustworthy for long, but the one we freed from the drow had smiled at me in a friendly manner… until Wheezle turned her into brown goop all over my boots.

  «All right,» I said. «Let's find more wights and tear this place apart.»

  * * *

  With a swish, the door opened in front of us. Wheezle took the lead; he was no longer invisible, but he carried Unveiler… something we wanted the wandering undead to see as soon as possible. I followed Wheezle and Hezekiah followed me.

  The corridor continued to curve before us, following the building's central ring. This time, however, the inner wall was not opaque metal – it was another triangular patchwork of glass, finally revealing what lay inside the ring.

  The center was simply a bed of dust, light brown in the gray light. Our building surrounded the dust like an arena around a playing field, raised about two storeys above the surface. The enclosed region was enormous, a circle about four hundred yards in diameter – the far side of the ring was only a dim shadow in the grayness.

  For a moment, I thought the dust floor was completely empty. Then I caught some motion a quarter way around the ring. Asking Wheezle to stop for a moment, I pressed my nose against one of the glass triangles and peered out at the unmoving dust.

  Four figures had just emerged from a door at the base of the building, figures who moved with the peculiar arm-swinging gait of wights. Slowly, they waded into the arena, dust up to their thighs: a team of wights walking directly forward, swinging their claws to scoop up handfuls of dust and throw it over their heads.

  The disturbed dust did not drift down slowly as I might have expected – it fell as fast as stones. Was each dust mote as heavy as a boulder? No, the wights showed no strain as they tossed around handfuls of the stuff. After a few moments' thought, the explanation struck me: the arena had no air. The dust didn't drift because there was nothing for it to drift upon; with no air resistance, the dust fell as fast as anything else.

  «No wonder they wanted to manufacture all those wights,» I murmured. «Whatever they're up to down there, they need creatures that don't have to breathe.»

  As we continued along the corridor, I glanced out the window from time to time.
More and more wights were wading into the dust – all the four-monster teams that had been assembled while Hezekiah and I hid in the corpse-heap. They soon spread around the whole circle, simply walking and throwing dust in the air.

  «They're searching for something,» Hezekiah said in a low voice.

  «You think so?» I asked.

  The boy nodded. «There must be something buried in the dust and they're trying to find it.»

  For once, Hezekiah appeared to be right. The wights slowly worked their way across the surface, sweeping through the dust with their hands. I wouldn't call it a methodical search; but perhaps this random wandering was one way the wights could do a bad job for their masters without actually disobeying orders.

  In time, we heard the sound of shuffling feet directly ahead of us – four wights with a hobgoblin guide. Before I could stop him, Wheezle simply called, «Hello!» and waved the scepter. The instant the wights saw that someone new held Unveiler, they turned on the hobgoblin and ripped him to gobbets of bloody meat.

  «Wheezle,» I said, «next time, let's try to take one of these berks alive. If we can interrogate a prisoner, we might learn useful things.»

  «A hundred apologies, honored Cavendish.»

  Since the phrase was usually «a thousand apologies», I don't think Wheezle was particularly contrite.

  * * *

  We continued on our way with the four liberated wights trundling amiably behind us. Wheezle had chatted with them briefly, offering them a choice of being «freed» immediately or accompanying us on our hunting mission. All four were hissingly eager to slice into more of their former masters… which should be a warning to all you readers who want to create wights of your own.

  The wights trotted along at a healthy speed, far faster than the sullen shuffle they had shown previously. In minutes, we had caught up with the next team of four, this group led by a human woman. «Take her alive!» Wheezle shouted as soon as her party came into view; and a heartbeat later, the woman was pinned against the glass wall by her former followers.

  With four pointy-toothed wights grinning malevolently in her face, the woman opened her mouth to scream. Immediately, one of the wights stuffed its hand between her lips, pressing her head back hard against the glass panes. She still screamed, as any sensible person might with a corpse's hand thrust into her mouth; but the muffled sound went nowhere.

  As I trotted up to her, I told the wights, «Don't hurt her… for the moment.» I said it only for the woman's benefit – as long as Wheezle held Unveiler, the wights didn't care a pin about orders from me.

  The woman's eyes were wide and watery, glaring at me with vicious fury. She was in her early thirties, of middling height but very wiry. Up where the wights held her hands, her knuckles each sported a thick knot of callus, as if she liked to use her fists on passers-by; Brother Kiripao's knuckles had an identical set of calluses.

  «Hello,» I said to her. «I'm going to ask this nice wight to take his hand out of your mouth… and if you behave, he won't have to put it back in. All right?»

  Grudgingly, she nodded. «Do what he says,» Wheezle murmured to the wights, tapping Unveiler lightly against his thigh.

  The wight slowly removed its hand, watching for any sign the woman might try to scream again. However, the hard-edged expression on her face showed that her initial outburst had been a one-time reaction; now she wanted to show how tough she was. «Who are you?» she growled.

  «We don't have time to exchange life stories,» I said. «You're going to tell us everything we want to know, and you're going to keep answering our questions until we say otherwise.»

  «If I don't, you're going to feed me to the wights?»

  The wights all leered with their pointed teeth, but I shook my head. «That would be too easy. If you won't talk, I'll turn you over to… The Kid.»

  Dramatically, I spun around and pointed at Hezekiah.

  «Me?» he gulped.

  «Him!» I said, turning back to the woman. «Looks like a gawky little Clueless, doesn't he? Too stupid to live. I wish I had a ducat for every person who's thought that… every corpse left festering in an alley, the body mutilated and the face frozen in agony. Look at him again. Can anyone really be that much of a leatherhead? Or is it just an act to make you think he's harmless?»

  «Britlin…» Hezekiah began, but I stopped him quickly.

  «No!» I cried, cringing in front of him. «Don't be angry with me for giving away your secret. Please, master, don't… don't…» I stumbled against him, and in reflex, the boy reached out to steady me. The moment his hand touched my shoulder, I gasped, «Oh saints, the pain!» and collapsed, whimpering.

  «Please,» Wheezle said to the woman, «please, honored lady, you see I am a Dustman and no stranger to death. Yet even I cannot bear the hideous atrocities which this youth might visit upon your person. They claim he learned the arts of torture from the Lords of the Abyss. Surely you have heard of him? Surely you have heard of… The Kid.»

  A pity I was down on the ground, moaning like a barmy – I would have given a pound of gold to see the expression on the woman's face. Or on Hezekiah's face, for that matter. Still, I hoped the boy would have the wit to play along with the act; if we didn't scare this woman with cheap theatrics, we'd have to use real torture to get information out of her. That would mean noise and delay and a burden of guilt I preferred to avoid.

  Carefully, Hezekiah stepped over me and approached the woman. I groaned louder and wondered if the boy was about to mess up my plan. «Don't let these berks peel you,» he said in a passable imitation of a Sigil accent. «I'm really quite harmless.»

  And then, suddenly, Hezekiah was terrifying. From my position on the floor, all I could see was his boots; and they were the most frightening boots I had ever seen in my life. Terrible visions erupted in my mind, showing those boots kicking me mercilessly, breaking bones, crushing the skulls of children and grinding eyeballs under their heels.

  Boots marching over the stubble of scorched fields.

  Boots stamping face after face, annihilating every flicker of life.

  Then, just as suddenly, Hezekiah was once more just a Clueless youth, innocent and ungainly. «You see?» he said in his normal voice. «I'm harmless.»

  I moaned, and this time the moan was no act. It took all my strength to stop myself from shivering in the afterchill of terror. My sudden unreasoning fear must have come from magic, of course – some spell cast by Wheezle or Hezekiah himself, to make the little leatherhead seem monstrous; but my usual composure was shattered by the experience. I found myself asking which was the illusion: the suddenly horrendous aura surrounding the boy, or perhaps his usual bumbling persona. What did I really know about him? A Clueless hick who just happened to know high-powered magic… did that make sense?

  «Keep him away from me!» the woman shouted.

  «I do not have authority over The Kid,» Wheezle answered. «But if you tell what you know, perhaps he will not trouble himself to make an example of you.»

  «All right, I'll talk,» she said. And she did.

  * * *

  Her name was Miriam and she didn't know much. Ten days ago, she'd been a streetcorner thug in Sigil, playing the protection peel over a few blocks of dingy shops: «Cross my palm with silver, or I'll burn your place down.» When some basher in a tavern offered her a heavy purse in exchange for three weeks of strong-arm work, she'd said yes. That's how she'd come here to the Plane of Dust.

  Yes, this really was the Plane of Dust that Oonah had mentioned a few days earlier. The plane was nothing but an infinite ocean of dust – no water, no air, just dust untouched by the slightest wind. I'd heard a rumor that the Doomguard maintained a citadel somewhere on this plane, because it was the sort of lifeless place that appealed to their sensibilities; but this building didn't belong to the Doomguard. Miriam told us we were standing inside the Glass Spider… «Glass» because of its see-through walls, even though they were constructed from something much more indestructible t
han ordinary window panes. The «Spider» part of the name came from the building's shape: a circular central body almost half a mile in diameter, with eight arms radiating outward around the circumference. Each arm was a long sloping corridor like the one where we'd come in, and the outer end of each housed a portal to some other part of the multiverse.

  The most surprising aspect of the Glass Spider was that it could move. Miriam claimed the Spider's legs could crawl through the dust faster than an eagle could fly, stirring up silt in mammoth plumes that streamed away for miles behind the speeding bug. It had been racing through the dust for most of the past week, covering a hundred leagues every hour; but a short while ago it had finally stopped, apparently at its journey's end.

  What was the Spider's purpose? Who built it? Miriam didn't know, but at least she could list the people who had arrived with her ten days ago.

  Her immediate superior had been the drow back at the corpse-heap; since the wights had torn him to bloody confetti, we didn't bother asking his name.

  The drow's boss was our old friend Bleach-Hair, his real name Petrov. Petrov hailed from some Prime Material world whose predominant landscape was ice; Miriam didn't remember the world's name, and none of us cared. (I might comment, by the way, that so-called ice worlds usually have their share of green fields, lakes, and even jungles; when someone like Petrov says he comes from an ice world, he almost always comes from a perfectly normal world and just lived in an icy part of it. Folk of the Prime Material plane are so parochial they seldom know much about their own homes, let alone the multiverse at large.)

  Petrov occupied the second highest rung on the ladder of command. Above him were two powerful figures who shared control of everything that happened in the Glass Spider. One was a human mage who called himself «The Fox»… although Miriam contended «The Loon» was a more appropriate title. The Fox loved fire the way another man might love women; he could gaze at flames for hours, talking to the blaze and showing every sign of listening to it talk back. Thanks to various magic spells, he could even caress fire, bathe in it, wear it like a cloak. Needless to say, the Fox manufactured the firewands used at the courts, and masterminded all the other fiery accidents that had struck faction headquarters in Sigil. The very first incident – the riot at the Gatehouse asylum – had started when the Fox broke out of a padded cell where he had been confined for years.