by David Hair
I will do anything to see her safe.
Ramita produced the key and unlocked the door, they stumbled through and she shut it on the thick dust swirling behind them. He caught his breath and inhaled the wondrously clean air. ‘We did it,’ he gasped. He reached for more gnosis to lock the door.
And found nothing.
What? He clutched at his periapt and tried again.
Ramita saw his bewilderment and patted his arm. ‘Calm, bhaiya. I have been here before. This palace has a barrier that prevents use of the gnosis.’
‘What?’ he asked, astonished. ‘How?’
‘Something my husband devised, to protect the mughals from the magi. Hanook brought me this way when we met with Tariq.’ She walked to the next door and pulled a bell-rope. ‘We must gain entrance to the palace. I fear that Huriya will still find a way to reach us.’
‘Your sister is here?’
‘Adopted sister,’ she corrected curtly. ‘I saw her during the attack.’
‘Then it’s the same group who attacked us at the Isle?’ Alaron was astonished. ‘They’ve chased us a long way.’
Ramita was cooing in Dasra’s ear and he tended to Nasatya, stroking his head and sending soothing thoughts. The baby stopped wailing, looked up at him with wide, serious eyes.
Don’t fear, little one. I’ll protect you.
At last a panel opened in the inner door and a man spoke in Lakh. Ramita stood, faced the panel and bowed slightly as she answered. A few words passed back and forth, then the door opened. An impressively attired guardsman admitted them to another room beyond: a hall of white marble, with a balcony above.
Ramita touched his arm, pointed. ‘Archers,’ she whispered.
He looked up and saw the dozens of slots in the stonework, and the arrowheads that tracked them around the room.
He instinctively went to shield, then remembered that he couldn’t. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked her, trying to silence the bell of joy he felt just from looking at her.
‘I’ve told them something terrible has happened,’ she replied. ‘Mughal Tariq is coming himself, to hear our story.’
He exhaled heavily. ‘Well, he better not take too long. And tell them to guard that door.’
*
When the dust settled, they were still alive, alone in the darkness. For no good reason Malevorn reached up and kissed Huriya’s mouth. Despite being only a Noorie, she tasted like any other girl, until she bit his lip so badly his mouth was filled with blood and he could barely think past the pain.
‘Do you think you’re funny, slugskin?’ She pushed off him, kindling gnosis-light. When he tried to rise, she slammed him back onto the rubble-strewn ground hard enough to wind him. ‘Stay there, bakrichod.’
‘What’s a bakrichod?’ he asked as he gasped for breath in the choking dust.
‘It’s Lakh for goat-fucker, which is what you are, slugskin. Don’t touch me without permission.’ She climbed into a shaft of light that coated her in silver like one of Kore’s angels descended from on high, then he realised it was just moonlight, pouring from a long rift in the roof of the tunnel that reached the surface.
He wiped the blood from his mouth and sat up. The lure of the Scytale was goading him on, despite all the loathing for felt for his enforced companions. As Huriya climbed the rubble he staggered upright and went after her.
Every second revealed more of what had happened: the tunnel roof had collapsed – probably brought down by Mercer or his Lakh bint – and most of the remaining pack-members had been right under it. He wondered if any still lived. They emerged into the moonlight to find that the tunnel had been following the route of a street, presumably to avoid the weight of buildings above.
As he watched, the rubble about him shook, and suddenly Wornu emerged, half-mad and roaring in bewildered rage. Hessaz followed him, shrieking triumphantly at still being alive. Both were caked in dust and blood and looked ready to tear apart the rest of the city in vengeance. Half a dozen other mounds slowly rose and hands started clawing a way to the surface. An animagus was usually also an Earth-mage, so the capacity of the shifters to survive such an attack did not altogether surprise him. But there had been sixteen Dokken in the tunnel, and only seven emerged from the rubble.
He joined Huriya and she called the rest of the pack, those who’d stayed outside the vizier’s palace to keep the soldiers out. A dozen winged shapes flapped down and joined them. He scanned the area, seeking their prey. The whole of the street running from the vizier’s palace visible at the far end to the glowing Dome of the Mughal’s Palace towering above was in a state of semi-collapse. Bells were ringing and torches flaring on the battlements. To the left and right he could see people peering from ruined houses, and even as he watched, more came down, amidst screams from those trapped within.
‘Brethren!’ Huriya called to the pack as they settled about her. She gestured furiously towards the Mughal’s Dome. ‘We must go on! The prize is here, right before us. We have lost many, but the ultimate goal is in reach and we must not flinch now!’
He half-expected that they would tell her to piss off, that nothing was worth the trail of death she had led them to, but he underestimated the depth of longing the Dokken felt to escape their condition, for they obeyed instantly. Huriya looked back at him, at Wornu and Hessaz and the few left from the tunnel collapse who were fit to go on. ‘Come!’ she shouted at them, her eyes ablaze. She looked deranged to his eyes, unhinged, a figure of Lantric myth come to life: Luna, the Mad Queen of Heaven.
But Mercer is here, and so is the Scytale.
He found himself clambering through the rubble in the pack’s wake.
*
Ramita placed Dasra against the wall and Alaron put Nasatya beside him, then they both stood. She looked at the staff he carried and murmured that he should leave it by the wall as well. ‘There are archers, and it is a weapon,’ she told him. She wanted to take the young Rondian mage’s hand and ask him what he’d seen in her face just before, for something had blazed through him like wildfire. But there was no time.
Before Alaron could discard the staff, the far doors flew open and half a dozen soldiers strode through, tall lean men with immaculate moustaches and silk uniforms, armed with gilded spears and gleaming sword-hilts. After the terrifying Souldrinkers, these men looked like toy soldiers, and about as threatening. But the shaven-skulled bodyguard Kindu was with them, and he looked like someone who could rip up trees. Then the young mughal himself appeared, and she fell to her knees, because Tariq had to do exactly as she needed and she couldn’t afford him to stall over protocol. She tugged at Alaron’s knee, but he remained standing, his face pale and truculent.
‘Please, Al’Rhon!’ she hissed softly. ‘We need his help!’
Reluctantly, the Rondian youth dropped to one knee, his look making it clear it was only because she asked him to. He placed the staff on the floor at his own feet. They were both caked in dust and dried blood, him in a tunic and breeches, her in the ruined sari. We must look like beggars.
‘Lady Ramita?’ Tariq looked severely put out. He was dressed in a red turban and an ivory and gold coat that glowed in the lamplight, but they were rumpled, as if he’d just thrown them on. Maybe he’d been asleep, or frolicking with his pretty little wives. There was no fondness in his face for her. At his shoulder was a white-robed man with a long curling grey beard and a face like iron: the Amteh Godspeaker Vahraz, already whispering in his ear.
‘What are you doing here, Lady? Where is Vizier Hanook?’
Her voice caught as she replied, ‘Exalted Lord, your vizier is dead.’
Tariq went pale, his hand going to his mouth. ‘Dead?’
Behind him, Godspeaker Vahraz’s face lit up.
‘He was murdered. His house was attacked. Only we escaped, with these two’ – Ramita thought swiftly as she indicated the twins – ‘infants from the nursery.’
Tariq barely registered her words, for he had just realised that the man w
ith Ramita was white. ‘Rondian?’ he gasped.
The word was universal.
Alaron raised a defiant head. ‘Noroman,’ he said. ‘And a mage.’ He picked up the staff and stood, and the tension in the room redoubled. Ramita wavered between pulling him back to his knees or standing: she chose to rise also.
Tariq probably understood only one of the four words Alaron had said: mage. He swallowed, while his six soldiers aligned their spears protectively about their ruler. Ramita realised that everyone here knew of the wards that suppressed the gnosis. They knew that she and Alaron were helpless.
‘Why is a Rondian mage here, Lady?’ Tariq demanded, clearly on the point of ordering his men to attack. Vahraz plucked at his sleeve but he ignored the Godspeaker, staring at Alaron in fascination.
‘He is a Zain novice. He is not a Crusader.’
‘A Zain?’ Tariq’s eyebrows shot up. ‘A Rondian mage sworn to the Zains?’ His voice was incredulous.
‘Yes, Exalted Lord. He is protecting me. I trust him with my life.’
The Godspeaker whispered urgently in Tariq’s ear and the mughal said, ‘Godspeaker Vahraz reminds me that any magus discovered in my lands must instantly be put to death.’
‘But he is my protector,’ Ramita protested.
‘That might mitigate his punishment in Shaitan’s demesne,’ Vahraz replied coldly, looking down at her with chilling eyes. He turned to Tariq. ‘Who is this woman?’
Tariq hesitated as the deeper implications of Hanook’s death struck him. ‘Where is Dareem?’ he asked her, lifting a hand to Godspeaker Vahraz to forestall answering his question.
Ramita bowed her head as she felt the threads of Hanook’s plans come apart. ‘I believe he is also dead, Exalted Lord,’ she said in a small voice.
The triumph that flared in Godspeaker Vahraz’s eyes was perhaps the most hateful thing she had seen that night. Alaron saw it too, and his jaw hardened. He stared along the spear-shafts pointed at him with a fatalistic fearlessness that scared her.
‘Do nothing,’ she begged him, in Rondian. ‘Please, do nothing.’
‘Who is she?’ Vahraz persisted, eyeing Ramita with distaste, seeing her dark skin, grimed with dust and sweat. ‘What is a half-dressed peasant girl doing in this place?’
She looked up at Tariq and realised that their lives were in the fourteen-year-old’s hands. If he tells him, without Hanook to protect us, they’re going to kill us both.
Alaron could see it too, judging by the way his hand changed grip on the staff. Sudden violence lurked in everyone’s stance.
Only an Ascendant can use the gnosis here, Hanook had told her. But I’m even stronger than that, as my husband said I would be. She dropped her eyes and reached inside herself.
It was hard, like trying to dive deeply into water when your lungs were already bursting, but it was there, suppressed by the wards that had been built into the bones of the building – but she could reach her powers if she had to. She looked up again, the realisation that she wasn’t helpless after all thrilling through her.
The young mughal’s eyes met hers. Without Hanook to champion her, it came down to his desire for a mage-bride against his fear of the Godspeakers. He made the answer clear with his next words. ‘This is the widow of Antonin Meiros,’ he said in a disdainful voice. His eyes trailed to the twins beside the wall. ‘And it would not surprise me if those brats are his.’
Godspeaker Vahraz’s mouth went round in surprise and excitement. This would surely be the coup of a career, to be the one who condemned Lady Meiros to death for her sins. ‘She must go on trial,’ he announced triumphantly. ‘Arrest them!’
Alaron rose and stepped in front of her, his kon-staff gripped firmly and his pale face full of desperate courage. She reached for the gnosis, through the oppressive wards …
Despite his belief that she and Alaron were unable to reach the gnosis, Tariq stepped back timidly and let the six spearmen close ranks before him. From above she heard a dozen bows creak as they were bent.
Then there came a great boom! that reverberated through the open door behind her, a blow upon the outside door, and it splintered with a deafening crack. That sound was still echoing through the chamber as a jackal howled.
*
Huriya sent her kindred along the line of the collapsed tunnel while she flew behind them, careless now of who saw them. Though both were wounded, Wornu and Hessaz led the way. To her eyes, Wornu was being pulled along in Hessaz’s wake, his spirit crushed by his failure in the fight against Dareem.
Malevorn Andevarion still followed her, blood trickling from his mouth where she had bitten him – the least the chodia deserved for his temerity. She just wished one or two of the pack had even half his skill and nerve.
Those few citizens stupid enough to get in the way were battered aside by the remaining pack members – just a dozen of them – storming along the collapsed street, seeking a way back into the tunnel beyond the rockfall. Soldiers began to appear on all sides, but they backed away at the sight of the beasts – and more especially at her, gliding through the air aglow with the gnosis.
They found another hole, about eighty yards short of the palace walls. The pack milled about, snarling at the soldiers and keeping them at bay. The bells still rang from all around as the temples and Dom-al’Ahms awoke to the calamity. Growing crowds of people were emerging to aid the trapped and injured.
‘Down, down,’ Huriya shouted, ‘into the tunnel!’
‘Huriya,’ Malevorn interjected, ‘leave some up here, to keep our exit clear. Otherwise we could be trapped below.’
Would that leave enough to capture Ramita and her Rondian? Huriya bit her lip, then nodded. She grabbed Wornu’s shoulder. ‘Leave four up here, Wornu – they must hold this exit. Take the rest below. I’ll be with you.’
The massive packleader bellowed orders while beside him Hessaz was testing the pull of a bow she’d come across somewhere. She went to follow her mate down into the darkness, but Malevorn stopped her. ‘We’ll need an archer up here,’ he snapped. ‘You’ll have no field of fire below.’
The Lokistani woman glowered at him, but he was right again. ‘Do as he says,’ Huriya ordered.
The two women glared at each other for a second, then Hessaz grimaced sourly and took up a stance beside the hole. ‘Do not forget to return for us,’ she snarled through gritted teeth.
Huriya tried to reassure her. ‘We will prevail.’ I need her, she’s the only competent woman I have.
Hessaz met her eyes, then leant forward and whispered in her ear. ‘Wornu is a broken vessel: widow me.’
They shared a look of understanding, then the Lokistani woman nocked an arrow and with her fellows, faced the gathering crowds. Huriya turned and glided down into the tunnel in the wake of Wornu and his group. The passage was still intact here, leading to a doorway lit by a single oil-lamp. The pack members slavered and whined, while Wornu dithered. ‘Is it warded?’ he asked, as if he had no means to work it out himself.
Hessaz is right: he’s lost his nerve.
She pushed through the dozen pack-members and laid her palm against the door. Extending her senses, she found nothing: no wards – just a dulled absence that was puzzling … but there was no time to contemplate it, so she shrugged it off. If it’s a trap, it’s a trap. The Scytale lies beyond.
‘Break it down,’ she told them.
‘Use that fallen beam as a ram,’ Malevorn suggested in his coolly detached voice, and yet again the packmates muttered and growled, then did his bidding. Trying to reassert himself, Wornu organised the ramming, taking the lead as they hefted the beam. The rest lengthened their claws and teeth or cradled their weapons, preparing to pour through as soon as the door was breached.
She had thought it might need several blows, but it took just one. Fuelled by raw strength and the gnosis, the beam smashed the door to kindling and those who had wielded the ram dropped it and staggered through the opening. Beyond she glimpsed a small room, an op
en door and a larger space, but that was all there was time to see before Wornu roared and led the warriors of the pack through and into the fray. She let them go until there was only the Inquisitor left beside her. He drew the scimitar she had given him.
‘Another kiss for luck?’ he asked archly, licking his torn lip.
‘You push your luck, slugskin. Get in there and die.’
He gave an ironic bow as the first cries of battle welled back to their ears, then followed the Dokken into battle.
*
Alaron never took his eyes from the six spears thrust in his direction, not until each one wavered and the eyes of the soldiers went to the commotion behind him. Then he moved, stepped back and sideways, out of thrust distance, and pulled Ramita towards the twins, trying to shield her with his body as he went. Ramita’s face looked like she was caught up in some kind of inner struggle; it reminded him of how she had looked in early labour … or straining to use a gnostic skill. But there was no time to consider it further: the archers on the opposite balcony above were standing and taking aim at them – then a burst of dust and splinters preceded a flood of shapechangers into the chamber.
The first man through was massive, six foot and more with the build of a wrestler – but he had the head of a bull, complete with a pair of thick horns, and he held a giant war-spear in his hands. Behind him came more giants, the largest of the Dokken in semi-human forms of varying horror, and all of them were roaring and snarling—
—and changing.
Alaron realised instantly what was happening; not only was the gnosis that supported the Souldrinkers’ shapes being negated, but they were being stripped of their shielding wards. He saw fangs and nails shorten and bestial faces begin to turn more human – and it was hurting them too, warping their bodies as their shapes altered.
