A Painted Goddess

by Victor Gischler

  “Olgen, help me!”

  The young man crowded in and gripped the pry bar, adding his strength to Brasley’s. They gnashed teeth and grunted, and the doors . . . budged!

  “Keep going!” Brasley shouted. “We’re getting it.”

  The doors slid back haltingly, making an ugly scraping sound of metal on metal.

  “We may have knocked the doors off their tracks when the lift hit so hard,” Olgen said. “Probably there’s rust too.”

  “I don’t care,” Brasley said. “Just put your back into it.”

  There was another cracking sound above them, and the room shimmied, floor tilting slightly one way and then the other.

  “Hurry!” Talbun urged.

  “Oh, hurry? Really?” Brasley pushed the pry bar with everything he had. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  Something gave and both doors slid to the side enough for Brasley and Olgen to get their hands and shoulders in. They pushed, the doors sliding rough until they were open enough for the humans, goat, and cart to get through.

  “Come on!” Brasley grabbed the goat by the reins. Olgen and Talbun went through ahead of him.

  Brasley backed through the doors and out of the lift, dragging the goat behind him. “Titan, you stupid beast, let’s go already.”

  Because the floor of the lift had tilted, it was six inches lower than the floor beyond the doors. The front two wheels stuck, jamming the cart in place. The goat kept on with its panicked racket.

  “Help me!” Brasley shouted. “It’s stuck.”

  Talbun and Olgen reached past him, each grabbing hold of the cart. They heaved and managed to pull the front wheels over the hump. Titan took that moment to discover a reserve of strength and bounded past them, pulling the cart into the chamber.

  There was a series of snapping sounds.

  Brasley leaned forward to look into the lift.

  The floor of the lift gave way, tumbling back down the shaft and taking the lantern with it. The floor bounced off the sides, shattering into pieces, plummeting, thick ropes and pulleys chasing after it. The falling lantern cast strange shadows. The lantern and debris seemed to fall forever until there was a final crash, the last echo rising until it reached Brasley in the darkness, and then all was silent.

  A long dreadful moment settled over the three.

  “Is everyone okay?” Talbun’s voice somewhere behind him.

  “I am, milady,” Olgen said. “Milord?”

  “Alive,” Brasley said. “Everyone stay put. The last thing we need right now is to trip over each other and break our necks. I’ll find one of the other lanterns.”

  Feeling his way in the dark took longer than he’d anticipated, but he found the cart, felt his way through the gear until he found the lantern and the flint and steel. He struck a spark, and soon they had light again.

  Brasley checked the gear while the others looked around to figure out what sort of place it was they’d suddenly found themselves. They’d been lucky in one respect: if Titan and the cart had fallen back down the shaft with the lantern, they’d have nothing. They’d be crawling through the dark with no food or water.

  Brasley saw Olgen standing at the edge of the shaft, looking back down. “Careful. It’s a long drop.”

  “One of the legendary engineering feats of the Great Library. A perfectly balanced and self-contained system of weights and pulleys,” Olgen said. “And we wrecked it.”

  “Never mind,” Brasley said. “It brought us here, and anything this high up must be important. Maybe we’ve had a lucky accident. Come. Let’s see what Talbun’s found.”

  They came up behind her where she stood looking up at a set of tall double doors, carved from some black stone. There was a golden circle at the center of the doors. It was covered in ancient runes Brasley couldn’t hope to read. Golden chains went from the circle to the four corners of the door.

  “It’s a seal,” Talbun said. There was a faraway quality to her voice.

  “Sealed? Damn,” Brasley said. “So we can’t get in.”

  “It’s not a seal to keep us out,” Talbun said. “It’s to keep something in.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Miko hung on the tiller, guiding the scow along a narrow passage between two islands. He seemed to know where he was going, or at least Tosh hoped so because he certainly had no idea where they were.

  He’s crazy but you’ve got to trust him, Tosh thought. He knows the Scattered Isles like the back of his hand.

  Tosh hoped.

  How had he been drawn into this? A common soldier, then a deserter, then a cook in a whorehouse, and now on a mission he didn’t completely understand for a duchess hundreds of miles away, in a foreign land so hot it made him sweat between his thighs until he had a rash.

  Tosh sighed. He didn’t much like boats either.

  “Tosh,” Lureen called from the prow. She pointed ahead of them to a small island.

  Tosh squinted into the waning light. A twisting pillar of smoke rose into the air. A campfire maybe.

  He turned back to Miko. “A settlement?”

  Miko shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Cannibals?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Should we avoid it?” Tosh said.

  “No,” Miko said. “We go there.”

  “What for?”

  “This place is the place,” Miko said. “From the gypsy-girl map.”

  Shit.

  Nobody paid much attention to the man in the cloak as he hobbled through the marketplace. He made a slow circle of the Great Library, looking for a likely place.

  Traffic in and out of the Great Library was limited to the front gates. There were no side doors, no rear entrance. There was nothing special about the other three sides of the huge structure. The city of Tul-Agnon went on as usual. He’d passed through a fetid slum and kept circling and now found himself in a market. It was closing up now, getting late into the evening. A few taverns would stay open, but none of the shops. Good. He could attend to his business without prying eyes upon him.

  He ducked into an alley between two closed shops that had been built right up against the wall of the Great Library, paused a moment to listen. When he heard nothing, Ankar threw off his cloak. If anyone had been there, they would have seen a hulk of a man, covered head to foot in exotic tattoos. All except for one metallic leg that gleamed in the moonlight. He’d had the leg made by one of the university’s best engineers. It would never be as good as his old leg, but he was surprised how well it worked. He’d been practicing with it, and his limp was only very slight now. In battle, he doubted whether it would hamper him very much at all.

  Ankar climbed the side of one of the shops. This was the easy part.

  Once upon the roof, he ran a hand across the smooth stonework of the ancient builders. Ankar would not need the permission of the university scholars to enter the Great Library. He had his own methods. No ordinary man could hope to scale the smooth outer surface of the library.

  Ankar was no ordinary man.

  He tapped into the spirit.

  He had a tattoo that gave him the strength of a mountain troll, another that made his skin hard as iron. He didn’t need handholds. He could make his own. He jammed a fist into the stonework two feet above his head, pulled himself up. He kicked a foothold and kept going. It might take him all night, but he’d get there.

  Slowly but surely, Ankar climbed.

  Darshia didn’t want to know how Stasha Benadicta had gotten the information out of Giffen, but she could imagine. Giffen had never struck Darshia as a particularly courageous man. She doubted he’d held out long if Bune and Lubin had been their usual persuasive selves.

  The first piece of information they’d extracted had been the password. Fire toad. She supposed it had been chosen for the fact it was unlikely anyone would utter such words accidently. The second bit of information was the name of the man she was supposed to meet. A man of southern-island blood called Harpos Knarr. In Klaar, a man with t
he dark skin of the southern islanders should be fairly easy to spot.

  The final bit of information had been the location of the rendezvous.

  The statue of the First Duke stood in what had once been Klaar’s main square before the second castle was built. Although in fairness the first castle wasn’t much of a castle. More like one of the great wooden halls favored by the northern chieftains from whom the First Duke was a descendent. The king of Helva had made him a duke as part of a treaty—the settling of some long-forgotten dispute—and had granted him the lands of Klaar. The great hall and the first buildings had been erected ten years before construction of the Long Bridge.

  A century later, another duke built a proper castle in an attempt to dispel the widely held notion the citizens of Klaar were rustic, backwoods bumpkins barely a step removed from the barbarians of the north.

  It hadn’t worked.

  Darshia considered the bronze statue of the First Duke. He did look every inch a barbarian. Broad shouldered, hair and beard wild and shaggy. He wore heavy furs and had been posed heroically, a huge battle-axe held aloft in one hand. An eye patch over his left eye. The stories of how the First Duke had lost the eye ranged from the dull to the outlandish. The cumulative effect of his appearance made him seem striking, imposing, and virile.

  I seriously doubt he ever had to pay for sex.

  The old town square was in a reasonably good neighborhood, where the patrols still lit the street lamps. Most of the shops were closed at this hour—tailor, glassmaker, apothecary—but it was reasonably cheerful with the warm glow of lantern light in the windows, and a small chapel to Sharine, the moon goddess, across the square. Most people worshipped Dumo, of course, but the moon chapel did a fair bit of business this time of the evening. All in all, the square was far from deserted, but it certainly wasn’t crowded either.

  Which means Knarr wants to do his business in public . . . but not too public.

  Darshia circled the statue again, scanning the square as she strolled. Knarr hadn’t shown the first night, and she was about to give up on him now. He was nearly an hour past the agreed time. A few more minutes and she’d call it quits.

  A man in heavy blue robes emerged from the moon temple, walking rapidly toward the statue of the First Duke. His hood was pulled forward, hiding his face, but even in the dim illumination of the street lamps, Darshia could see the hands clasped in front of him were a dark brown. Darshia didn’t need to move to intercept him. He was walking right toward her.

  And then passed her without so much as a glance, continuing on to the statue in the middle of the square.

  “Fire toad,” Darshia said in a low voice.

  Harpos Knarr froze in his tracks. Slowly he turned to look at her, eyes gleaming from the darkness within his hood.

  “Did I say it wrong?” Darshia asked.

  “Forgive my reticence. Giffen’s underlings aren’t usually so . . . appealing.” He pushed back his hood. He was a little older than she thought he’d be, gray hair over each ear, hairline receding. He was clean shaven with an open face and an easy smile full of white teeth. He seemed amiable and fatherly.

  Darshia wasn’t falling for it.

  “Do you have it?” Darshia asked.

  “Do you have the gold?”

  Darshia had a bag slung over one shoulder. She wore only a plain dress, no armor, no sword hanging from her belt. She didn’t want to send the wrong signal. But there was a short dagger in the bag next to the gold. So far, there seemed no need for it, but situations like this were known to change rapidly.

  She took out the gold, jingled the purse.

  Knarr reached into his robe and came out with something wrapped in soft leather. He handed it to her. It fit into the palm of her hand but was heavy. She dropped the object into her bag.

  Knarr reached for the gold, but Darshia pulled back.

  “Not so fast,” Darshia said. “Sorry to put you on the spot, but I have some questions. I’d like you to come with me, and we can discuss—”

  He was surprisingly fast, reached out, latched on to Darshia’s wrist, and drew her close. The unmistakable feel of cold steel against her ribs told her Knarr held a dagger.

  “Forgive me, madam,” Knarr said. “But I’m afraid I have neither the time nor the inclination to answer awkward questions. I have no desire to mar what I’m sure is lovely skin underneath your dress, but I must insist on my payment. Simply hand it over, and I’ll be on my way and we can avoid an unpleasant altercation.”

  “Nobody wants anything unpleasant.” Darshia turned her head to speak to the others who were approaching at a fast walk. “Do we, ladies?”

  Knarr looked to see the approaching Birds of Prey, a dozen of them in full armor, hands on the hilts of their swords, expressions stern. They formed a circle around Knarr and Darshia.

  Knarr considered a moment and then stepped back from Darshia. He flipped the dagger over in his hand and gave it to Darshia hilt first. “It would be rude of me to refuse the hospitality of such lovely—and well-armed—ladies.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Alem lay shivering in the sand. He couldn’t quite decide if that were better or worse than baking on a hot rock, which was how he’d started the morning. Every muscle screamed pain. It had been a much farther swim than it had looked.

  He curled there a long time, listening to the surf. The upside to his situation was that he was far too exhausted to think about the things he didn’t want to think about anyway. He didn’t want to think of Rina hundreds and hundreds of miles away, planning her marriage to another man. He didn’t want to think about Maurizan possibly drowned or worse. Had she really been taken by Miko’s Fish Man? The world was crazy.

  But Alem was relieved for the moment from such concerns. All he could think about was that he was incredibly thirsty and hungry.

  And stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere that might have cannibals on it.

  He forced himself to his feet and took stock. His worldly possessions amounted to the ragged wet clothes he wore and his boots. He’d also managed to hang on to his coin purse but didn’t imagine there was anywhere nearby he might spend his coin. The moon hung huge and bright, and he took a good look at the island in front of him. Palm trees. Undergrowth not too thick. The smart thing would be to sit tight and wait for daylight.

  He couldn’t think why he should all of a sudden start doing the smart thing now.

  Alem pulled on his boots and cautiously moved inland.

  Water drove him to explore. The inside of his mouth was salty and dry. There had to be water somewhere.

  Under the canopy of palm trees, it was much darker, moonlight filtering through here and there. Alem tripped over a vine and almost went down. Some small animal rustling in the brush to his left startled him. He was already regretting his decision to venture into the darkness.

  Water. You need water and soon.

  He realized he’d been walking on a narrow trail the last few minutes, following the path of least resistance between the trees. Probably a game trail. And if animals made the trail, then it might lead to water, right?

  And a few minutes later, he heard it, the telltale trickle of flowing water. He picked up speed, hope blooming in his chest.

  Alem felt and heard himself splashing in it before he saw it. He went to one knee, shoving aside the ground foliage, and felt along the ground, his hand wet and cold as he found the shallow stream. He scooped water frantically. It was so cold and wet in his mouth there was a moment of pain, but then pleasure as he scooped more. He spit out pebbles and dirt. The slow trickle of water could barely be called a stream.

  He trudged uphill, and soon the stream was ankle deep and then knee deep. He scooped in big mouthfuls of water until his belly stretched full. He dunked his head. Alem hadn’t fully realized how desperate he’d been until relief flooded him. He felt refreshed and alive.

  Immediately a deep fatigue soaked his bones. The long swim and critical thirst had sapped him. H
e trudged out of the water until he found a dry spot, collapsed, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  It seemed only a few minutes later that his eyes popped open again, but it must have been hours because it was full daylight. He sat up, groaned, every part of him stiff, but he felt a world better than he had the night before. He crawled a few feet back to the stream and drank deeply.

  He stood, looked back the way he’d come the night before, and could glimpse the sea between the trees. He hadn’t really come as far inland as he’d thought. Everything seemed different at night.

  Alem’s clothes clung to him, salty and damp. He looked around to make sure nobody could see him—which was idiotic since of course nobody was around—and stripped naked. He soaked his clothes in the pool, wrung them out, and hung them on a nearby tree limb to dry.

  He put his boots back on and decided to follow the stream uphill. He wasn’t thrilled to set off exploring completely nude, but sitting around watching his clothes dry didn’t appeal to him either.

  As the hill steepened, the stream became wider and foamy, cascading down rough boulders. He looked ahead and saw that the face of the hill became sheer gray rock for a ways, and the stream flowed from the wide mouth of a cave entrance. Alem climbed to the edge of the cave and peered inside. If he were stranded for long on this island—Dumo forbid—he would need some kind of shelter.

  He entered slowly, rough gravel crunching beneath his boots. Once inside, he saw that the stream was fed from deep underground, but to the side, the cavern widened to a dry area, the ceiling rising enough to make standing straight no problem. It wouldn’t be a bad spot. A place out of the sun or rain. He scanned about for a likely spot to—

  Alem screamed when he saw the man. He stumbled back, tripping over his own feet.

  He fell back into the water and was swept out of the cave, tumbling and splashing back down the slope until he was thrown up against a boulder. He grunted, holding his ribs, and staggered out of the water.