by Conner, Jack
The car entered a darker, more frightening area, with large buildings all but completely overgrown with unnatural foliage, great fish-scale-covered branches jutting from their faces, some even meeting overhead and blocking out the light, plunging the car into shadow. With the windows open, Avery could smell the reek of the vegetation, of ammonia and salt and brine and more.
“Gods,” Hildra said. “Does that tree have teeth?”
“We’re there,” Lisam said, before Avery could take a look, and the truck pulled to a halt. Fantastic trees and shrubs, some moving under their own power, stretched all around them, along sidewalks, cracks in the road, and vertically along the building faces. They were completely enclosed in the environment, with strange little—and some not so little—animals moving in the vegetation. “This way,” Lisam said, leading up a broad set of cracked steps toward the building they’d pulled up to. Thick bulwarks held up a heavy, multi-pointed roof, its pink stone facets and nicks glinting in the sun, vines curling around them, and grand, slender towers framed the sky, what little of it Avery could see through the vegetation.
“An old palace,” their guide said. “Ruined in some long-ago war and now a temple for the Sisters of Jucina.”
People, worshippers apparently, streamed in through the ruined doors, which gaped open and were carpeted in jungle. The worshippers carried candles and looked expectant. Music flooded around them, light and lilting—flutes and reed instruments of some kind, Avery thought. His group fought their way through the press of people and inside the hot, packed interior. The former palace had been remodeled, and a grand room yawned before them. Shafts of sunlight, muted somewhat, shone down through the overgrown and shattered windows upon a congregation in ornate pews wearing their local finery, with cotton shawls and colored robes. A paradoxically lewd display went on atop the stage the audience faced; naked nubile girls sparkling with golden glitter and glistening with oils danced in a circle while musicians played jaunty music to the side.
“The Sisters of Junica?” Hildra said.
“The junior priestesses,” said Lisam.
The girls wove among a copse of beautiful trees, and after a moment Avery realized there were men operating the trees. They shook and occasionally apples or oranges dropped from the branches.
Suddenly, men in fox masks popped out of trapdoors. Smoke billowed out, half concealing them as they danced about sinisterly. The girls screamed and ran, and the music grew tense as the chase went on.
Avery and his group descended along one side of the stadium toward rooms in the back. On stage, just as the foxes were about to catch the girls, the trees trembled to life, and their roots dragged the foxes under the ground, or through more trapdoors, to the accompaniment of more smoke. The girls and the trees danced together, and Avery received the impression this was the reenactment of some famous religious event, maybe the union between humans and nature. This was a nature cult, then. Well, that made sense. The city was surrounded by nature—of a sort, anyway.
Lisam conducted them into the back rooms, which led around, down a side hall out into a courtyard garden, all overgrown and dangerous-looking, then across it to another wing of the ruined palace. This apparently was where the Sisterhood lived, and they had made accommodations for the Resistance headquarters at the end of the upper story. Roots groped in through the ceiling and had ripped out chunks of the wall, and vines redolent of vinegar and cinnamon covered the walls. Avery was glad of the holes in the walls, as they admitted a breeze; without them it would have been awfully stuffy.
“We’re lucky to have the Sisterhood on our side,” Lisam said. “The people of Kusk love them more now than ever, and they’ve helped us recruit a good number of folk that wouldn’t ordinarily have joined up. But with the state of the jungle nowadays, people figure it’s a good time to be on the side of the gods of Nos Li, what you would call nature. Not that we really need the Sisterhood, of course. People hate Octung well enough on their own, and this isn’t a permanent arrangement. We relocate often.”
“The Sisters may have to invent some new gods,” Janx grunted, as they passed a bank of curiously humming blooms erupting from an expanse of black, oily vines covered in obscene veins. Lisam snorted but made no comment.
They found General Vursk at the penultimate room on the wing—the ultimate being caved-in—going over a map of the city with his top advisors. He made Avery and the others wait until he’d finished and his commanders had gone, then said, “You’re late.”
“We don’t run the airports,” Hildra said. “Can the attitude.”
Taking over (he had addressed her, anyway), Layanna said, “Thank you for helping us, General.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank your Prime Minister. She was very generous, and we happen to need the help.”
“Any enemy of Octung is a friend of ours.”
“I understand you need to find a certain Losg Coleel, is that right—the owner of Coleel Industries?”
“That’s right … unless you know where we can find a cache of fresh ghost flowers?”
The general smiled wryly. “Would that I did. I could buy a lot of guns with that nectar. With the war and all, the supplying of luxury items has been truncated severely. Things like that are hard to come by. Coleel—he’s pretty well known locally, by the way—he’ll have whatever supply is left stashed securely, I’m sure.”
“We understand you sent some men to find him,” Avery said, leading.
Vursk frowned. “Yes. They didn’t return. I’m willing to send one more team if you’re willing to lead them. I may want your P.M.’s money, but I want my men more. But I can send a full troop, with armored vehicles, machine guns and fifty men. If that doesn’t get the job done, then I’m afraid that’s all I can do for you.”
“That’s more than generous,” Layanna said. “When can we leave?”
“The Prime Minster, she … hinted that this had something to do with stopping the Starfish. Is that true?”
“If we don’t acquire that nectar, there will be no stopping them.”
Vursk wet his lips with his tongue. “So. This is about saving the world, then.”
They let their silence answer for them, and he nodded.
“Then I suggest we don’t dally,” he said. “The latest reports show that the Starfish are notably closer to the coasts than they were just yesterday. For things as vast as they are, the beings move quite rapidly. Before long they will arrive on the beach of Urslin and Consur. I suppose they’ll destroy the coastal powers, like yours, before they advance inland, but I have no illusions; it will probably be mere weeks before they raze Ezzez to the ground … if you’re not successful. Unfortunately, the soonest I can gather the men to escort you is tomorrow morning. I propose we meet again at dawn.”
They were each given a room to rest in and wait for morning. Unable to sleep, Avery wandered the temple grounds for awhile, soon finding himself in the gardens. They were lush—mad, really. Towering trees like crab antennae soared to one side, and riotous coral bushes blushed blue and pink to the other. He paused in a gazebo encrusted by vines whose thorns secreted something that smelled of phosphorous and watched the stream that trickled underneath the gazebo and out the other side, at least splashing down an ornate waterfall and into a little lagoon half hidden under scummy-looking lily pads. Things moved in the brackish water, but Avery didn’t look too closely. His mind was on other matters.
He stared out into the night for a long time, not seeing anything really, until he heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Janx approaching through the overgrown walkway, waving away fireflies that glowed violet. The big man was lighting a cigar. He didn’t say anything, but he moved beside Avery and stood there watching the play of water and listening to the croaking of things that might have been frogs once, and something large that may have been something decidedly unfrog-like. The smell of the big man’s cigar teased at Avery’s nose.
“Want one?” Janx tapped his breast pocket. “I’ve got
more.”
“Thank you, no. It does smell good, though.”
Janx nodded, said nothing. They stood in silence for another long moment, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. At last Janx said, “Thinkin’ about her, aren’t you?”
“Who?”
“Don’t play games, Doc. Ani. You’re thinkin’ about Ani.”
Avery let out a breath. He didn’t have to answer. He was afraid the truth was all too obvious.
“You did what you had to do,” Janx said.
“Did I? I left her with strangers. Worse than strangers. Voryses.”
Janx lifted an eyebrow. “Your girl’s a Drake, Doc, like it or not. They’re her people. Shit. They’re yours, too. Your fuckin’ in-laws.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Anyway. They love her, or they will, and they’ll take good care of her, mark me. She’ll be in silks and silver while we’re trampin’ around gettin’ shot at in fucking Ezzez. Can’t believe we’re here. Home of the damned Maze of Dark Delights. The center of some of the darkest alchemy in the world. You know, there’s an underworld fellow here supposed to control an army of braindead slaves with his mind. His mind, Doc.” Janx whistled. “That’s what alchemy can do in this place. Meanwhile Ani’s sippin’ tea and havin’ servants groom Hildebrand with golden combs.”
Avery allowed himself a smile. “I would like to see that.”
Janx clapped him on the shoulder, staggering him. “See, Doc. You did right. You did the only thing you could, anyway.”
“I don’t like it, though, Janx. The Voryses—the Drakes—they brought our country to ruin once.”
“Once. But before that there was a whole line of ‘em doin’ good. Built Ghenisa up nice and strong after the Severance. Put an end to the dark times under the Ysstrals.”
“I suppose.”
“Sure! Of course! And ol’ Idris is a chip off the ol’ block, I’d bet money on it.”
“The good block, you mean. Not the one full of sadists and paranoid rulers who delighted in torturing and killing for sport.”
“Yeah. Not them.”
“You know the story of the Rape of Lostrina?”
Janx’s cigar burned orange, then faded. “Can’t say I do. And I don’t suppose I can stop you tellin’ it.”
“King Rusic Vorys VII was a vain, gluttonous madman who nearly broke the Treasury by building monuments to himself—all pulled down now, thank the gods; my father helped tear one down himself. Broke his wrist doing it. Well, one day Rusic developed an infatuation with Lady Lostrina Gorliss, the daughter of one of the senators. This was back in the days when there was still a senate, not that it did much but carry out the king’s paperwork and various decrees. Rusic demanded Lostrina be given to him as a bed slave. Bear in mind that even back then Ghenisa tolerated no slavery … except on the part of the king, who had many, and all for his private amusement.
“Senator Gorliss refused. In retaliation, Rusic burned his mansion down and had all his servants and family butchered as they fled the pyre. Rusic’s soldiers caught both Lostrina and the senator, but instead of killing them immediately, Rusic forced Lostrina’s father to watch as he, the king, raped her right there in the still-smoking rubble, surrounded by her dead family members, then had his soldiers take turns on her.
“At last she begged for a blade to kill herself with, and the king threw her a fork he found lying in the rubble. She plunged it into her own throat and died while her father watched on. King Rusic had the senator blinded so that his daughter’s rape and suicide would be the last thing he ever saw in life, then let loose, the only member of his family to survive. He was made a beggar and pariah, but his example made the impression Rusic had intended, and when next he asked for the daughter of one of his senators to be made his bed slave, the girl was presented to him that very night along with her young brother, just so the senator could be certain to prove his loyalty.” Avery paused. “That is who I gave Ani to, Janx.”
“Bullshit, Doc.”
“Excuse me?”
“You gave Ani to Idris, not Rusic. Listen, I know yer pa fought in the Revolution, and you hate the Drakes even though you married one—no no, listen—but that time’s all passed now, Doc. Idris is a different man.”
“Is he, though? He’s planning a coup, or it certainly sounds like it. He’s planning to undo the democracy my father helped build, that Prime Minister Denaris is even now finally making flower.”
“That’s as may be. We’ll deal with that when we have to. But that just goes to show that in his mind Idris is still a king. That old fire is still there. It’s pride, Doc, that’s all, and Ani will pick up on that. It doesn’t make him one of the mad ones. Tell me, did you see anything like that in him when you met him? Did he seem a madder to you?”
Avery considered. He let out a breath. “No. No, he didn’t.”
“Of course he didn’t. You wouldn’t have given Ani to him if he had. No, she’s where she needs to be, Doc. And, godsdamnit, we’re where we do, like it or not. I just hope we can get this done with quick and get back home. What do you say, Doc? Is it time to go back inside? I think whatever’s movin’ in the water is growing agitated, an’ it looks bigger than anything I’d like to tangle with at the moment. And the mosquitoes are fierce.”
Reluctantly, Avery let Janx lead him back indoors and out of the sultry night. Janx was right. Ani was fine. It was himself that wasn’t. And by the state of the city, it didn’t look like things were going to be improved anytime soon. He slept fitfully that night under a mosquito net, and the next morning he and the others rejoined General Vursk in his office. “The men are gathering now,” Vursk said. “They’ll take you to Losg Coleel’s residence, although I can’t promise the man himself will still be there.”
“We understand,” Layanna said.
“I just wanna know what swallowed up that first team,” Hildra said. “Just what are we walkin’ into?”
“I wish I knew,” Vursk said. “If I knew that—”
A woman’s terrified shriek cut him off. At once the group was at the door and rushing down the hall, side by side with a score of soldiers. They bounded down a grand, ruined staircase and into a large open room that had likely once been some sort of lounge. The Sisters had apparently tried to recreate it, having dragged in several couches and urns smoldering with incense, but the marble floor was still cracked, and unwholesome vegetation curled along the ornate cream-colored columns.
A stocky woman in her fifties and wearing the elaborate blue dress of someone who must be high in the order, and with the golden baubles in her hair to prove it, was standing to receive a party of figures dressed in dark robes with the cowls pulled low over their faces, throwing their features into shadow. Only one of them wore no robe, and this man loitered in the back of their group looking nervous, yet eager. They were clearly not of the Sisterhood, and their presence seemed somehow unnatural, though Avery could not have said how.
He wasn’t the only one who seemed to feel that way; one of the Sisters present (several grouped around and behind their matron) had seen something in the newcomers that had made her scream, and as Avery and the others reached the bottom of the staircase another Sister was comforting her with an arm around her shoulders and reassuring words in her ear.
“What’s the meaning of this, High Priestess?” General Vursk asked the senior woman, and Lisam, who had come with them, translated for Avery and the others.
The High Priestess, if it was she, did not reply to him but to the robed figure who had taken the lead of its party. “Welcome to our inner sanctum. Forgive the hysterics,” she said, with a sharp glance at the girl who had screamed. “Some of us are easily excited. Won’t you sit down?”
The leader of the robed party made a gesture, which seemed to be a reply in the negative, but he—and Avery could tell that it was a he, if only by his frame—did not speak.
“Very well,” said the High Priestess. “Then let us proceed.” Finally, to Gener
al Vursk (who was waiting with surprising patience; evidently he respected the woman greatly), she said, “The Order of the Restoration sent us an envoy, asking to see me in person, and I’ve granted their Father and some of his people an audience.”
The general nodded, but his frown deepened.
“Order of the Restoration,” Hildra muttered. “What’s that all about?”
“A new cult,” whispered Lisam. “I know little about them. Some say that they can raise the dead.”
The lead figure—the Father—pulled something from within his robes, and Avery saw it was an old-fashioned scroll of paper. The man wore gloves, and Avery realized that he had yet to see any bit of exposed skin on any of the robed party. With something of a flourish, the Father passed the scroll to a junior member of his group, and this robed man passed the scroll to a junior priestess, who recoiled somewhat at receiving it, or at least recoiled at being so near the creature who had given it to her, then passed it on to the High Priestess, who read aloud:
“‘We beg your indulgence, revered mother, in allowing us a display of our power. We know you must have heard of our ability to restore the departed to life once more. Let us show that to you firsthand. Then you can make a decision regarding our alliance in the light of full knowledge.’”
“Alliance?” Vursk said. “What does he mean?”
