by Jack Conner
“Let’s find him first,” Sheridan said.
“What I don’t understand is how an underworld figure could get his hands on a weapon that could subdue a Collossum,” Avery said. “If it were the venom whips, maybe I could see it, but this invisible force ... ”
Sheridan rubbed her chin. “I’d expected it to be revolutionaries that had attacked the god, not criminals.”
“We’re missing something. Something important. And don’t forget, we only have a lead on the Collossum, not the Codex. We can only hope one brings us to the other.”
They split up again and began hinting to selected locals that they were interested in meeting members of Lord Onxcor’s organization. It wasn’t long before Sheridan came to Avery and said, “Someone wants to speak with us. I’ve already informed the Professor. We’re to meet the man at our booth in five minutes.”
Onxcor’s representative resembled a panther seal, lean and black and lethal. Avery thought he would have appeared lethal enough anyway. Scars cut the black fur of his face into white lines, his sharp teeth glimmered when his mouth moved, and his eyes were large and utterly black. It might have looked cute on a seal, but not on him.
“I’m Asclan,” he said in accented Ysstran. “You wish the meet Lord Onxcor?”
“Does Lord Onxcor have the Collossum?” Sheridan said.
“Do you want to make a bid?”
Sheridan’s face did not flicker. “Yes.”
“You represent the Temple? I’d expected a priest.”
“I’m who they send to deal with these sorts of things. You wouldn’t expect priests to dirty their hands, would you?”
Asclan appraised her, then the others. “And these two?”
“Don’t worry about them. When can we bid?”
He appeared doubtful. “Prove it.”
She reached into her breast pocket, pulled out a hunk of cash and laid it on the table. Asclan picked it up, thumbed through it and looked back up. “You brought it. Good.” His skepticism cleared away, and he stood. “Well, are you coming?”
Avery met Sheridan’s gaze, but she very subtly shook her head: Not now. He tried not to show his panic as he and the others emerged from their booth, Sheridan laying some bills on the table for the tip—good. She had some cash left.
Asclan led the way outside, past where the soldiers had disappeared and down the street, where four more men joined him—body guards or lesser soldiers of Lord Onxcor, it appeared, as they took up position around Asclan and his guests. Over his shoulder, he said to Sheridan, “You’re who I was hoping to meet, actually. We hadn’t heard from the Temple yet. You’re the party I expected to be first.”
“What other parties are interested?”
“Two when I left. There might be more by now. There are others out like me, scouting for bidders. If you win, I get a cut.”
Avery and Sheridan exchanged another glance. Who else was trying to buy a god? He wondered what the wad she’d given Asclan was for. Some sort of down payment, he supposed. Or good faith money, proving that they had enough to pay whatever they bid for the god. At least, that’s what Avery assumed was up for sale. Why else would the Temple be involved?
He shivered as the cold dug into him again, and shivered again when his situation occurred to him in full: being led at night through a war-torn city—an arctic city, alien, remote and under siege—by five armed criminals whom he didn’t know and didn’t trust toward a destination that hadn’t been named under a false pretence that when revealed could kill them all. Gods, he wished that Layanna was here. Sheridan was tough, and frighteningly good at what she did, but she was only (amazing as it was to believe) human. Yet in a way he was almost glad—glad to be with Sheridan, anyway. She accepted him for who he was. With Layanna, he had always felt himself striving to be something more, something else—better perhaps, but always aware of his frailties. With Sheridan he could just be.
The snow thickened, and he shoved his fur-gloved hands into his pockets as deep as he could get them. The snow settled on the goggles he wore over his glasses, frosting them over, making it difficult to see.
“How far is it?” he said, seeing his breath steam.
“Not far,” said Asclan.
Avery tried not to glance at Sheridan but failed. She didn’t meet his gaze. Still, he knew she had to be wondering the same thing. Were they being led into a trap? He could only hope that if they were she was equal to the challenge. He knew he and Risiglon would be useless. In fact, he was pretty sure Sheridan was the only one with a gun. She probably had at least two pistols on her, in addition to a knife.
The men around them carried submachine guns.
The snow thickened still more, and the night grew blacker. The rattle of guns sprang from down a side street. Asclan and his men didn’t even look.
A great black dome loomed ahead, unlit but blazing with life from its many porthole-like windows; they glared like insect eyes from along its massive black bulk. The block-dome was among the largest that Avery had seen.
“Fort Onix,” Asclan said. “The home of the chief.”
No one guarded the door that they went to, at least not outside, but, when the party drew close to the wide metal portal, a voice crackled from an ice-encrusted speaker. Asclan pressed a button and replied, speaking Xlacan.
“He just told them it was him, and he brought bidders,” Risiglon said.
The door swung open with a metallic groan, throwing light onto the snow, and bulky shapes gestured Asclan’s party in. Avery hustled in with the others, stamping his feet and shivering in the sudden warmth. Part of him was actually surprised not to have been led into a cage, and then he cursed himself for his naivety. The night’s young.
Scarred and tattooed criminals surrounded them, patting them down and collecting Sheridan’s guns. There were two, just as Avery had imagined. At first he thought she would protest, but she simply gritted her teeth. They were so close to their goal, after all, and it made sense that only Lord Onxcor’s people would be allowed to go armed in his lair. The guns, as well as a knife and the radio Sheridan was to use to contact Segrul (Avery could tell its loss especially galled her) were all tossed in a locker, one of many, and she was given a key. The same was done for Avery’s medical bag, which with its many scalpels and alchemical compounds was deemed too dangerous to allow in. Then the three were led along an icy tunnel into the heart of the enclave.
“We came through the private entrance, not one of the public ones,” Asclan explained. “Most enter through the residential doors, or into one of the businesses—the casino, the brothel, the pharmaceutical lounge.”
“Residential?” Avery asked, via Risiglon’s translation.
“Of course. People live here, lots of them. All members of the Onix Clan. There are other Onix clan-hives, but this is our heart.” He grunted, then corrected himself. “Lord Onxcor is the heart of the Onix. Remember that. Show him disrespect and you won’t live to brag about it.”
They passed rooms where men and women (mostly men—the Xlacans had not progressed quite as far in gender roles as some civilizations had) cleaned guns, dressed, even wrote in ledgers and books. This is where the clan’s illegal enterprises were organized and processed. Asclan’s party had to move to the side as another group came shuffling down the hall from the other direction, each man (and they were all men) bundled up and carrying shotguns and submachine guns. They were going out to war, to slaughter and terrorize those of opposing clans. Or, Avery reflected, possibly to loot and scavenge whatever they could in this chaos. Probably some of both.
Asclan led his party into a cavernous room, so warm it was almost hot, and yet most surfaces were fashioned of ice. Avery had noticed the Xlacans used wood floors and cement walls where applicable and did not hesitate to shore up ceilings with wood timbers shipped in from elsewhere—such were surely expensive—but they predominantly used ice. In this room the ice had been put to novel use, and yet it was a moment before Avery really noticed what he was
looking at. It was a huge chamber, the very center of the dome, not flat but with various levels to the natural-seeming ground, ice stalactites hanging from the ceiling and stalagmites rearing up from the ground, as if this were a natural cavern, though it couldn’t be. The stalactites and stalagmites were colored, all glowing with different hues, as were the walls, and this added to the chaos of the room, further distracting Avery, but then he made out the forms encased in the stalagmites.
“Dear gods,” he said.
Human shapes, butchered and twisted, screamed silently from the rearing pinnacles of ice, frozen in their moment of death or shortly afterward. Some had been tortured hideously before they had been allowed to expire, and Avery saw limbs hacked off and burns showing lividly on scrotum and face and chest. Many simply had their heads severed, but even this was eerie, as the heads floated several inches above the bodies they had belonged to, hair seeming to wave like seaweed. Some trick of the Atomic ice made the bodies seem to move, like the Carathid in the ice cave, as if the dead ones still struggled on, missing heads and all, and, surrounded by colorfully glowing ice, the spectacle was more than surreal; it was nightmarish.
Asclan laughed at Avery’s shock.
The doctor turned to Sheridan, hoping for some reaction, hoping to see some vulnerability or humanness from her, but distaste merely flickered across her face, and she said nothing. When she caught him looking at her, she said, “We can’t always choose the company we keep, Doctor.”
Really, he knew he should be relieved at her stoicism. With a start almost as violent as his reaction to seeing the bodies frozen in the stalagmites, he realized he was looking, despite his misgivings, to Sheridan as a leader now. She had been his captain on the Maul, after all, and she was the leader of this expedition, too. Wasn’t that only natural? Or was it something more? Something about her exuded command. Just the same, it bothered him, and he determined to look to himself for leadership first. His and Sheridan’s goals may be in alignment for the moment, but then again they may not be, and even if they were that could change at any time.
She was aware of that, he knew. He needed to be, too.
Feasting tables had been laid between the frosty fangs with their grisly trophies, and furred criminals (undeterred by the bodies trapped in ice) hunkered around them drinking beer, eating steaming food or conversing. It was a busy, noisy chamber, the true lair of the inner circle of the clan and the clan’s lord, and people came and went from a variety of entrances, some servants bringing food, some swaggering gun-men bringing in spoils of war—various pieces of loot—guns and money, yes, and also hunks of beef, a jewel-encrusted tusk of some mastodon or large walrus, and women. Even as Avery watched, three furry brutes dragged in a struggling girl—she could not have been more than fifteen—and threw her at the base of the dais that occupied the rear of the room. Steps led up it to the icy throne (inset with waterproof cushions) upon which sprawled the great shaggy shape of—it must be—Lord Onxcor. Huge, nearly seven feet tall, tusked and white-furred, some of the fur arranged into a wooly and drooping mustache, Onxcor slurped on a winking goblet and appraised the girl with shrewd but admiring eyes. He was a paragon of exotic, almost ridiculous barbarism.
“You’re a pretty one,” he said, or so Risiglon reported as Avery’s group drew closer. “What’s your name?”
The girl whimpered and wiped away a tear. She had the coloring of a seal, and a seal’s lustrous eyebrows over all-black eyes; unlike with Asclan, on her they looked lovely. Most of her clothes had been torn away, and though she tried to arrange them to cover herself better she had the good sense not to show any disdain for the tusked chief.
Demurely, she said, “Mixa, Lord Onxcor.”
“Let’s see ... you’re from the Xanilov Tribe, aren’t you? No, wait—Maligo! You’re a Maligon.” When she simply nodded, he laughed. “You’re a rare one, then. I didn’t know if there were any left in Xlatleb.” To the men who had brought her, he said, “Well done, lads.” To the girl, he said, “You know why you were brought here?”
She swallowed. “I-I think so, my lord.”
Anger flashed across his face. “‘Lord’? I’ve never been your lord, girl, and don’t say I have. You have a different chief, or you had one. Mablixu had his head cut off last week, and I haven’t heard of another chief cropping up.” He paused, and his gaze intensified. “Is there another?”
Plainly terrified, she shook her head. “N-no ... sir.”
He almost smiled. “You wouldn’t tell me if there was, though, would you?”
Her eyes widened, and for a moment Avery thought she might pass out from fear. Should she betray her clan or save herself?
“Never mind,” Onxcor said. “I’ll find out soon enough on my own. Back to what I was saying—the Maligo Tribe is no more, or it will be eradicated soon enough. The Onix Tribe will forever prosper, and to doubly ensure that we’re taking opportunity of the current lawlessness to plant our seed far and wide.”
The men that had brought the girl leered at each other, then at her. Lord Onxcor seemed to see it, too, and for a moment conflicting emotions played across his face. One won out, and in dangerously level tones he said, “Men, tell me—who gave the girl the bruise?”
Avery hadn’t even noticed it because of the girl’s fur, but now that he was close (Asclan had brought them to the half-ring of stalagmites that served as border for the throne’s audience area), he could indeed see a darkness around one of the girl’s eyes, a sort of deepening of her fur’s natural coloring, perhaps even blood seeping into it.
The leers dropped from the toughs’ faces. They looked startled, then fearful. Guilty.
Lord Onxcor’s eyes narrowed. With new harshness in his voice, he asked the girl, “Were you taken?”
She swallowed. “Pardon, Lord Onxcor?”
“You heard me. Did one of these men rape you? More than one?”
She stared from him to the men. Her body stiffened, yet her chin quivered.
“Speak!” Lord Onxcor said. “Fear no repercussions. I will not harm you, and I will make damn sure no one else does either.” With a terrible growl in his voice, he repeated, “Did one of these men rape you?”
Silence had settled over the icy hall, and all those gathered had turned their attention to the clan chief and the scene playing out near his throne.
The girl, eyes wide, studied the chief tensely, but his face remained fierce, his eyes like those of an eagle about to strike. His white mustache seemed to bristle, and his long tusks gleamed like aged ivory. Avery could see that they had been chipped and cracked from vigorous use. One was missing its tip.
The three brutes that had brought the girl had gone rigid. Very subtly, they edged away from the throne, toward the half ring of stalagmites.
“Well?” demanded Lord Onxcor.
The girl raised a trembling hand and pointed a still-shakier finger at the man on the right. The other two looked at him, then stepped away. The one who had been indicated glared evilly at the girl, then turned a pleading expression at Lord Onxcor.
“But—but my lord! That’s what we do! That’s what we’re doing. Seeding the next generation!” He waited for this to have some impact, then added, “You can’t hold it against us if we get a little too enthusiastic, can you?”
Lord Onxcor stared at the man for a long moment, the lord’s face darkening. Then, abruptly, the darkness left, and he grinned widely, revealing teeth just as yellow and cracked as his tusks. “I do hold it against you, as it happens. You represent our clan, and what you do out there reflects upon not just you but me and all of us. Don’t you worry about that. What you need to worry about is if this girl holds it against you,” To the girl, he said, “What was your name, child—Mixa?”
She nodded mutely.
“Well, Mixa, do you hold it against this man, what he did to you? Would you free him, or would you like to see yourself avenged?”
Without hesitation, she said, “Avenged.”
He nodded
. To the rapist, Lord Onxcor said, “Then present your apology to the lass.”
“My ... apology?”
“It was your manhood that offended her. Perhaps removing it will satisfy her. If it doesn’t, I’m afraid she’ll have to have your life instead. I will.”
His two mates, after a moment of deliberation between them, moved to either side of him and grabbed him by the arms. The act might have saved their lives. After all, they had witnessed the rape and failed to either stop or report it. The man struggled and cried out, and Risiglon didn’t bother to translate his protestations and curses.
“Choose!” Lord Onxcor said. “Apology or death!”
The man gaped. For the girl’s part, the ferocity had drained out of her, and she was crying again, her shoulders shaking. Avery didn’t think she had quite expected this, or if she had she had not really wanted it, it had only been a momentary flash of fury and hurt that had led to this pass. But the lord, perhaps truly offended by the act—something Avery didn’t believe; punishing a member of a rape gang for rape was borderline insane—or for reasons of his own, had decided to make this an issue.
The rapist stuck out his chin. “My life,” he said. “It’s yours. You can’t have anything else.”
“Let it be done.” Lord Onxcor gestured to his underlings, and in swift, fluid motions, as if they had done this every day, every hour, for years, they dragged out a wide ice block, chipped and stained by the blood of numerous such executions. They must go through blocks quickly.
From its sheath, Lord Onxcor drew a large curved sword of Azrai style. The rapist’s eyes fixed on it. In moments Onxcor’s warriors had taken custody of the doomed man, dragged him to the block, shoved him to his knees and placed his head upon it. Lord Onxcor, carrying the heavy sword easily, descended from his throne with grim, slow steps.
“You have been a good soldier, Palix, and I am sorry it has come to this.”
In a strangled voice, Palix replied, “Me, too, sir.”
