by Conner, Jack
“Traitors,” a soldier said, returning from the fight to deliver his report, and Avery knew he meant local soldiers under the command of Octung. Collaborators. “Bloody bastards’ve taken down six men.”
“Damn it!” Nezine said, and slammed a fist against a wall. Cracks spread out from the impact on the wall, and the vines he’d struck writhed in agitation.
“Can you bring your other-self over?” Avery asked Layanna.
Trembling, she shook her head. “That … weapon …”
He swore. “Jellyfish venom, I’d bet.”
“Well, that sucks,” Hildra said. Then, angrily, to Avery: “This is your fault. Sheridan must have told them. Thanks, bones.”
“Enough,” said Janx. “We’ve got to get out of this. If the Octunggen are attacking us, or sending their puppets, they ain’t playin’ to lose.” To the major, he said, “Tell your people to get out of here.”
“I won’t run,” the major said. “Besides, there’s nowhere to go.”
“What if there was?” said Avery. “I don’t hear any gunfire above. We can flee to the roof. The trees—”
“Very well.” Nezine snapped some orders to his men, and they began to fall back to the stairway, then up it. Avery and the others stayed with the major, Avery helping Layanna as she went.
They emerged into the less-than-fresh air of the roof. The sun was just setting, throwing dark shadows across them, and the white, many-legged creatures, each about the height of a cat but long as a snake, scuttled into the protection of the dripping, glistening trees that tainted the air with ammonia and less easily-identified chemicals. The reek burned Avery’s eyes and nose.
Janx approached the edge of the roof. He reeled back as gunfire ripped the gutter and flung shrapnel up around him. He fired off a couple of rounds from his big revolver, brought along, just like Avery’s knife, in their suitcases, and made his way over to Hildra, who had gone to the other side of the building. She seemed relieved to see that he hadn’t been hit, and she gestured for them all to approach.
“No one’s here,” she said.
No wonder, Avery saw, as he neared the edge—the jungle had grown thick in the yard below—thick and dangerous. Still, having no choice, the soldiers began to climb out onto the trees. Janx and Avery helped Layanna out onto one branch while Hildra scouted the way ahead and called back suggestions.
Soldiers, still firing back at the enemy troops, slammed the roof door shut and dragged the bodies of two of their own before it to hold it closed, then ran for the trees. The enemy soldiers were already shoving at the bodies as the rebels reached the vegetation and climbed out onto it.
Gunfire sounded behind Avery. A bullet whizzed by his cheek. He forced himself not to look back. It was all he could do to navigate the carapace-covered branches and avoid the dripping tentacles while at the same time half-supporting Layanna. At last he and Janx were able to bring her to a lower branch, then a still lower one, a route which Hildra had found for them.
“Come on!” she said, leaping to the ground. She spun and fired at something. “It’s okay, keep going.”
They reached the ground, surrounded by soldiers doing the same, and made for the nearest stretch of the wall around the estate, just visible between the trees. The green fog devoured them, and Avery wished he had a gas mask. A soldier cried out as something jerked him into the shadows. Others swiveled to fire at whatever it had been, but, when they did, the enemy soldiers, having reached the lip of the roof behind them, let loose with their own guns. Two of the rebel soldiers flew backward, blood spurting.
The rest ran, including Avery’s party. He breathed heavily under Layanna’s weight. Janx had let her go and turned to fire at the shadows around them—and shadows did move around them. Avery saw glowing eyes in the mist.
Hildra ran back from somewhere. “Hurry! Hurry!”
They reached the wall. Hildra scrambled up it, amazingly nimble for someone with one hand. Janx grabbed Layanna and flung her up, and Hildra caught her and brought her over. Next Janx gave Avery a boost, and Avery awkwardly fumbled his way over the top and dropped to the other side in an ungainly display, biting his tongue as he did and nearly breaking his hip. Janx dropped beside him, heavy and not as young as he used to be, but up to the task for all that.
Soldiers spilled over around them. Blood dripping from an ear, Lisam approached, saying, rather needlessly, “We have to get out of here!”
They pelted down the fog-filled street. Bullets whizzed around them, at first sporadically, then steadily. A man grunted behind Avery, then fell. Hot blood spurted the doctor’s back. A bullet grazed his arm. The group turned down a street. Most of the rebels plastered themselves against the buildings or behind corners in order to ambush the enemy, but Avery and his group ran on, along with a few rebels, either fleeing or leading the fallback, Avery wasn’t sure.
Suddenly, the ground pitched beneath him. He was flying through the air, Layanna beside him, and small things were hitting him, fast, He smashed against the ground and slid. Something roared in his ears. When the sound faded, he climbed to his feet, then helped Layanna to hers, with one of her arms around his neck.
“W-what was that?” she said.
He coughed dust. “A bomb, I think.”
Guns rattled from in front of them. Soldiers gaped and fell, only silhouettes in the cloud of dust. Avery saw dark shapes sagging lifelessly against the walls and prayed that Janx and Hildra weren’t among them. Coughing, he dragged Layanna down an alley.
“Here!” he called behind him. “Janx! Hildra!”
He heard the roar of a pistol and knew it must be Janx. He hurried Layanna around a corner. In his hand he gripped a gun. When men wearing brown uniforms stormed down an alley at him, he fired. They shrank back.
Sweat beaded his entire body and he shook as he ran, tugging Layanna with him. At one point he fired behind him at the uniformed figures, half hidden in the fog, as they pursued him, then ran up a busy street, down another, and into still another set of alleys, more twisting and ancient than the ones before.
“I think we’re entering the Maze of Dark Delights,” he huffed.
“The Maze …”
“I don’t know where Janx and Hildra are. Or Lisam and the others.”
They plunged deeper into the warren of alleys and boulevards. Strange shops reared to either side through the fog, their display windows glowing with severed, preserved heads, some stained or shrunken, and other curious, often morbid objects—strangely shaped animal skulls, horrific illustrations and knick-knacks. Avery saw bizarrely mutated animal fetuses still moving in glass jars filled with viscous fluid.
This was the heart of the sinister cult of alchemy in the region, possibly where the mist originated. Many unique plants grew in the jungle, some of them containing elements that could be used in alchemical practices, though why this was no one knew. No one understood the source of the power behind alchemy, though there were many theories about it. The Ezzezians had taken this power in their own direction, building a fairly sinister business around it, and its practitioners—sorcerers, some said—believed in making a profit off their mysteries. Incense burned in niches, and exotic, warbling reed music filled the air. Night had gathered in full, and darkness draped the streets save for the gas lamps. Moths and other insects, not all of them natural, swarmed around the street lamps, which spread diffuse light through the fog.
In some of the doorways, black men with glowing tattoos gestured customers inside, and Avery wondered what the customers might be purchasing—love spells, reanimation compounds, remedies for unnamed diseases? It could be anything. Avery wondered how many of them actually worked.
“I don’t hear any … gunfire,” he said, stopping to rest.
“Me either.”
Layanna leaned against a building. “I think I can … walk now.” Instead of walking, though, she just leaned there, breathing fast. Sweat glimmered in her hair, shining by gaslight.
“We should wait fo
r them,” Avery said.
“They know where to meet us—the temple.”
Yet after an hour of walking, they came to the end of the Maze, at least on this side, and saw sirens; collaborating soldiers blocked the roads. The troops seemed reluctant to enter the Maze itself. Avery and Layanna retreated backward around a corner.
“We’re trapped,” he said.
“Let’s get a hotel room. I doubt the police blockade will last long—that could turn into a riot. I’m sure by morning they’ll be gone.”
They checked in at a three-story motel with a sharply triangular roof—two triangles, in fact, representing the fangs of a serpent. Avery paused when the clerk asked him whether they needed one room or two, but Layanna, despite her obvious sickness, said, “Two, thank you”, and Avery, hiding a sigh, forked over some cash. Fortunately Layanna had been carrying most of the money Denaris had vouchsafed to the group, so that wasn’t a problem, though he did worry about Janx and Hildra; they only had a handful of the local currency.
A bellboy showed them up the mildewed stairwell, redolent of strange spices, and up to the third story. It proved to be a seedy, nefarious-looking inn, but Avery understood that was part of the charm. Tourists in happier days had come to Ezzez, some traveling quite far, simply to behold the Maze in all its unwholesome splendor and revel in its wantonness. This was a city within a city, and there were no laws here except those enforced by the underworld powers.
They had rented two adjoining rooms, but there was no connecting door, and Layanna consented to allow Avery to help her inside and to her bed for the night. The room was small and oddly-angled, with the ceiling not straight across but rising from two corners and sloping across overhead. The wallpaper was stained and sagging. No electrical lights lit the space, nor did the inn seem to have electricity. Various-colored alchemical lamps throbbed from lamp stands or niches in the wall, throwing languid fever-dream colors across the room. It was like plunging into a rainbow dreamt up by some madman.
Avery helped Layanna undress down to bra and panties, then she slipped into bed. Sweaty, all but naked and abnormally fragile, she suddenly and somewhat perversely seemed alluring to Avery, more so than usual, and he began to feel a swelling in his groin as he sat down on the bed beside her. The adrenaline-filled blood still rushing through his veins didn’t make it any easier to hold back.
She seemed to be aware of his sudden randiness, but she made no comment about it.
“Do you think the others are all right?” she asked, and he wondered if she said it because she was concerned or to get them talking about something other than sex and relationships.
“I don’t know. They may come looking for us here. Or they may not even be in the Maze at all—I didn’t see what direction they went in.” He didn’t have to add, If they’re still alive. That was understood. “At any rate, we need to think of our next move. Losg Coleel is either dead, captured or in hiding, the Octunggen want us dead, and we’re on the run in a most foreign country.”
“Actually,” she said, looking thoughtful. “I’m not sure they do want us dead.”
“Why do you say that? They had someone in position to poison you, and once that was done they sent in the troops. They’d obviously murdered the previous company of rebels sent to find Coleel.”
“Yes, but if they’d really wanted us dead, they would have just planted a bomb, wouldn’t they? They could have had their dart-shooter incapacitate me, retreat, then hemmed us in with gunfire while he got to safety—then blown us up.”
Avery scratched his cheek. “Why would they want us alive?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they think we know something, that we could help them find Coleel, assuming he’s still alive.”
“You think they want to find him?”
“Why else would they have been at his house when the first company arrived? They were trying to find him. Maybe they’d set a watch on it after finding it abandoned. I don’t know why they would want Coleel, except for the same reason we do.”
He nodded. “To locate ghost flower nectar. Maybe they know what it can do and want to get to it before we can, or someone with similar motives. Prevent us from using it.”
“Maybe.” She looked tired.
“Rest,” he said, and tucked her in. As he drew his hand back, their fingers touched, though the contact was brief. “I’ll check on you when I get back.”
“‘Back’? Where are you going?” The idea of him going off on his own seemed to alarm her.
He smiled. “Losg Coleel is missing. Why? Likely because he knew the Octs were coming after him. That’s if they haven’t captured him already, but I get the impression they haven’t. As you said, why else would they have put a watch on his house? So he’s in hiding somewhere. He had friends in the government—paid friends, probably—and they tipped him off when the authorities started to move against him. Where would he have gone?”
She blinked slowly. “Somewhere where local law would hesitate to go …”
“Exactly.”
“You think he’s here somewhere, in the Maze.”
“It makes sense. I just need to ask around.”
He stood to go, but she, to his surprise, reached out a hand and grabbed him by the sleeve. “Don’t go, Francis.”
“Why not? This is our chance.”
That divot appeared between her eyebrows. “I admire your bravery, but you, alone … in a strange land … you don’t even speak the language.”
“It’s an international city. Besides, I speak a hundred tongues.” He said this last part in the most pompous voice he could, and was rewarded with a small smile; it had been something Lord Haemlys had said back in Maqarl.
“Just the same, I wish Janx or Hildra were here to go with you.”
Privately, he did, too, but he smiled again, putting a bold face on it, and said, “I’ll be fine. Sleep well, and sweet dreams.”
Shocking them both, he leaned over and kissed her, full on the lips, and she didn’t pull away. Her lips were very warm. Before she could say another word, he was out the door.
* * *
Laughter echoed about him as Avery shoved his way through the press of people in the Singing Snake. Half the taverns and clubs in the area had “snake” or “serpent” in their titles, and Avery wondered how precisely a snake was supposed to sing, or if perhaps it belonged to some old myth or fable. Maybe it was even an amusing phallic reference. Janx would know. Avery prayed that the whaler and Hildra were okay. I can’t do this without you.
At last arriving at the bar, he took a seat, the only vacant one, and turned to see what everyone was watching. All the noise and activity seemed to revolve around a certain event. It was a large, evidently popular establishment, and the disparate patrons were grouped around a fighting arena of a most unusual sort; instead of ropes hemming the combatants in there was instead, ranged around the arena in a sunken, watery moat, a collection of giant, predatory salamanders, all brilliantly colored and watching the pugilists with hungry black eyes as they lolled and snapped at each other in the water. One salamander opened its mouth wide, its jaws connected by streamers of saliva, as a fighter reeled backward, teetered on the brink of the raised arena and then flung himself forward again, swinging a wild punch at his foe. The amphibian closed its mouth and sank back in the water, but its eyes remained fixed on the action.
The fighters themselves were unusual. The taller one’s skin had hardened and thickened, becoming gray and almost bark-like, and the smaller one’s rapid fist-falls didn’t even make the dark flesh roll. The large fellow moved slowly and deliberately, and his swings carried so much force that Avery feared they might prove fatal. Fortunately they rarely landed, and then only glancing blows. The smaller one—by his sallow skin and narrow eyes a native of Gurzing far to the southeast—was, by contrast, light on his feet—too light. He moved at eye-blurring speeds, zipping around his large opponent like a hummingbird and landing lightning punches to kidneys and chin and thigh … to l
ittle effect.
They’d altered themselves with alchemical drugs, Avery knew. It didn’t surprise him. In the last three hours, he’d wandered up and down the narrow channels of the Maze, popping into many similar establishments, and seen fighters of all shapes and sizes, some human, some not, and almost all of them appeared to have injected themselves (or otherwise taken in) some form of alchemical compound (or compounds), perhaps over a span of time. The barkskin certainly hadn’t happened overnight. There were no laws against such things here, and indeed seeing such enhanced combat was the main draw of the fight clubs in the Maze—the sex clubs, too, though of course combat was not the attraction there; at least Avery hoped not. He had seen some things in the last few hours that he hadn’t been able to imagine before. A shame Layanna had been feeling so poorly. Some of it had been disgusting, yes, but some of it surely would have put her in a more amorous mood, provided she was well enough.
“I’ll take a glass of whiskey,” he told the bartender in Veklan, which he had learned many of the locals spoke and which he could utter passably.
“We’re out,” the man said. He was a hulking black fellow whose lips had been dyed purple. A yellow-glowing tattoo in the shape of a severed human head blazed on his forehead. “What with the fighting. We have beer.” He proceeded to list a few brands.
Avery picked one and poured himself a glass when it came. At least the glasses were kept cold—by alchemical means, he knew. Everything revolved around alchemy in the Maze.
“I’m looking for a man named Losg Coleel,” he said. “Do you know where he might be?”
“No.” The reply came immediately and without reflection.
Avery raised his eyebrows. He’d learned that Coleel was quite a storied person in Ezzez, the aging playboy who had controlled the monopoly on ghost flower nectar, a lucrative local export, for thirty years.
