Pathfinder Tales: The Redemption Engine

by James L. Sutter

  "Don't underestimate them," Cobaru said. "And don't expect your normal tactics to carry you through. The Caulborn aren't a normal society—they're like a single person with a thousand bodies. And that one person is older than anything you've ever encountered. Their logic is perfect every time, and they never forget anything they've learned. Ever."

  "And the vampires?"

  Cobaru gave a rueful little half-smile. "I'd like to say I'm the most capable of them, but I think I'm actually just the most imaginative. They're powerful in their own right, Salim, and very old. You may be used to fighting undead, but if you want to get out of there alive, your best bet is to go in as an emissary of something greater. The outside world scares them, but if they think you're on your own, and in their domain..."

  "I understand."

  "Good. Now hold still."

  The vampire reached up and touched the lintel stone. He closed his eyes, and as he did so a veil of light cascaded from the top of the archway like a waterfall, a curtain of brilliant golden energy. The back of the alcove disappeared behind the blank, electric sheen of magic. Cobaru opened his eyes, then grabbed Salim's shoulders and positioned him directly in front of the portal, facing away from it. The vampire squared up with him and unrolled the scroll. Parchment in one hand, gem in the other, he began to read.

  The words were unfamiliar, sizzling briefly on Salim's ears before disappearing, like raindrops on a hot skillet. He knew enough about magic not to bother trying to catch any of the arcane syllables, but in their wake came other things, more disorienting—brief flashes of memory, of places and things long thought forgotten. The sting of desert sand against exposed cheeks. The feel of leather against his palm. The smell of cinnamon. And through it all, a sensation of falling.

  Salim took a deep breath. He closed his eyes, but that only made the flood of half-remembered images worse. He opened them again and fixed his gaze on Cobaru, on the vampire's moving lips, on anything other than the tide that threatened to overwhelm him.

  Cobaru stopped speaking. He raised two fingers and made a series of plucking motions, as if drawing invisible threads from a tapestry.

  Disorientation. Salim felt the overwhelming need to say something—anything—to assert some control over the situation. "Thank you, Cobaru," he managed. "I won't forget this."

  "Yes, you will," Cobaru said, not looking from the scroll. "That's kind of the point."

  Then he spoke a final syllable, and fog slammed down behind Salim's eyes like a portcullis. The world wrapped itself in cotton, and he swayed like a man on a three-day bender.

  Cobaru stroked his beard and studied Salim.

  "What—" Salim began.

  Cobaru nodded. "Perfect."

  Then he raised one foot and kicked Salim in the chest, knocking him backward through the glowing door.

  paizo.com #3236236, Corry Douglas , Aug 10, 2014

  Chapter Eight

  Tower of Night

  Salim stumbled and fell hard onto rough stone, landing on his ass. A series of clatterings followed as the lintel stone bounced and slid to a stop somewhere near his right hip.

  He was blind. No matter which direction he looked, the darkness was perfect, enfolding, without so much as a distant star. Salim felt a brief moment of panic, then shook it off long enough to let the goddess touch him, just barely. He groped for his dagger and let the magic flow through him into the weapon's hilt, making it glow cold and bright, then covered it with his hand to let his eyes adjust.

  He was in a tunnel. Beneath him, the floor was uneven and dusty. The ceiling was perhaps six feet high, expanding upward as the tunnel stretched forward and curved around a corner. Behind him, it dropped dramatically, sloping down until it met the floor.

  Salim didn't rise. Instead, he stared at the lines of light escaping from between his fingers and concentrated on the air moving in and out of his lungs. With each breath, the cobwebs in his head cleared a little more.

  He was underground. He had gone to see Cobaru, the incongruously handsome corpse-merchant that Mubb had pointed him to, who ultimately turned out to be a dead end. He had just returned to Canary House when Ceyanan had appeared with the lintel stone and a story of a second city deep below Kaer Maga. He needed to meet with some creatures called the Caulborn, and their vampire minions, in order to find out what they could tell him about the murders and the missing souls.

  As he reviewed the facts, they seemed to settle deeper into place in his mind, his body losing its unexplained tension and wooziness. Feeling slightly foolish, he stood, gathered up the lintel stone, and brushed off his robes.

  Vampires. Well, that was something he understood, at least. Touching the spiral of Pharasma that hung around his neck, he let another sliver of the goddess pierce his internal shield. He brought three fingers up to his forehead, then moved them down, as if drawing a veil. His skin tingled as the droplet of her power spread out over his skin and disappeared.

  It would be enough. Salim didn't need to avoid discovery forever—just long enough to get his bearings. Lintel stone safely in an inner pocket, he lifted the light-dagger over his head and moved forward around the bend in the tunnel.

  And into a dream.

  The cavern was enormous—larger than any he had ever seen. Huge stalagmites and stalactites thrust up from the floor and hung ponderously from the ceiling, slicing through the great open space. The tunnel Salim had emerged from was one of many tiny cracks and seams in the walls, more doubtlessly hidden among the field of boulders and rock formations that curled along the cavern's twisting outer edge. Yet for all its size, the cavern wasn't what took Salim's breath away.

  In the center stood the city, its towers and arches stretching almost to the ceiling. Lights flickered or shone steady red in dozens of windows, and faint blue-green phosphorescence limned other structures in faerie fire. Bridges soared unsupported between buildings whose shapes twisted Salim's eye, the angles seemingly simple yet somehow wrong.

  Even the brightest section of the city was little more than dusk and half-light. Salim realized that if not for the spell hiding him from vampires and other undead creatures, his own little dagger would stand out like a signal fire.

  Well, why not? Meeting people was what he was here for. He set the dagger down on the cavern floor and stepped away.

  The response was immediate. From his right came a muffled exclamation and a clatter of stones.

  Outside of the circle of light, the nearby terrain was a painting of black shapes at night. Cursing softly, Salim slipped into the forest of stones, trying to force his pupils to open wider. His outstretched hands found the rough overhang of a boulder and he crouched at its base, back to the stone.

  He didn't have long to wait. As his eyes finally grew accustomed to the slight variations in shadow, he saw two shapes approach the dagger. They were humanoid, but moved with an eerie grace, alternately flowing and skittering. As they came they whispered back and forth to each other in what sounded like an argument, though too quietly for Salim to hear their words. Upon reaching the dagger they picked it up, sniffing it and turning it over in their hands. Then they split up and moved out into the surrounding boulder field.

  One disappeared as it approached a pillar of stone, discorporating into a puff of smoke with a soft pop. A moment later, it coalesced into a humanoid shape once more, perched atop the rock.

  So they were vampires after all. Well enough. Straightening, Salim moved back out into the open space where he'd stood before.

  Neither of the shapes paid him any attention. One seemed to look right at him, then kept scanning the area. Salim felt a grim satisfaction, and briefly considered sneaking into the city and doing further reconnaissance. But he wasn't here to spy—he was here to make contact. Better to do it with two, where he could dispatch them and employ the goddess's veil again if necessary, rather than in the city where he might be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

  He let the spell drop.

  The vam
pires hissed and whirled, the one on the rock going to all fours.

  A chill ran up Salim's spine. For all that vampires like Cobaru might play at being human, it was only an act. These vampires were truer to their nature, and moved with feral grace, all crouches and sudden leaps. Their eyes caught the dagger's light as they bounded toward him and circled, wolves around a campfire.

  Salim tensed, but kept his hand away from his sword.

  "Hello," he offered. "I've come to speak with your masters."

  One of them hissed something unintelligible. There was an expectant pause.

  Of course—no one living underground for millennia would still speak Taldane. In all probability, there hadn't been a Taldane when their ancestors forsook the surface. He felt a flash of disgust at how many times he'd already been forced to lean on the goddess's crutch this trip, but there was no helping it. He reached out and let the power fill his mouth with the taste of moist earth, his ears aching as it trickled into them. Then he repeated his greeting.

  The vampires rose from their hunting crouches and stepped closer. One was male, the other female. Both were pale—not the blue-veined fairness of a northerner, but the worm-belly pallor of something that never saw the sun, and was never meant to. The man's hair was black and long, and seemed to flow into his black and gray jacket and trousers. The woman wore similar clothes, but her hair was boyishly short and nearly as white as her skin. Their garments were fitted and strangely baroque, with elaborate pockets and buttons, and diagonal slashes that seemed to serve no purpose but fashion. Their delicate, high-cheekboned faces might have been beautiful if not for the eyes, which studied him as a butcher studies meat.

  Salim remained unperturbed. He knew how to deal with predators. He was one himself.

  The woman hissed again, and this time her words were as clear as if Salim had grown up speaking them. "Who is your master?"

  "I don't have one." Not exactly true, but best to take things slow. His connection to Pharasma might intimidate, but it certainly wouldn't make him any friends.

  "Don't lie to us," the man snapped. Where the woman's expression was neutral, detached, his lips seemed made to frown.

  "Which tower do you serve in?" the woman asked. She took in his clothing, doing a clear double-take at the sword on his hip.

  The man scoffed. "He's from the pens, no doubt. Trying to escape into the tunnels."

  Still they circled. Salim spun slowly with them, refusing to let either get behind them. The rotation had the strangely measured quality of a dance.

  "I'm not from your city," Salim said. "I'm from elsewhere, here to speak with your masters, the Caulborn." A term tugged at his memory. "From the City Above."

  "More lies!" The man looked ready to say more, but the woman cut him off.

  "He has a sword, Lorilen."

  "Also a dagger," Salim noted, gesturing to the glowing weapon in the woman's hands.

  "Stolen," the man—Lorilen—said, but he sounded uncertain. That uncertainty seemed to make him angrier. "If the Caulborn brought him here, he'd be in the city, not skulking about on the edge of civilization. The only reason we even do these ridiculous patrols is to find runaways, and now we have." He addressed Salim again. "This is your last chance to tell us who owns you. We can take you back and see you get a whipping. Or I can drink you dry right here." Black eyes glittered.

  "I'm neither slave nor guest," Salim said, feeling his own temper rise. "I'm an emissary. If you're too stupid to understand that, perhaps your friend can take me to someone who isn't."

  Even as the words rang in the air, the vampire was moving, surging forward with inhuman speed. Fingers elongated to clawed talons swept toward Salim's throat.

  Salim, however, was no stranger to this particular dance. As the blow came in, wild and scything, he drew smoothly and held up his blade.

  He didn't swing, or dodge—that wasn't necessary. He simply raised his blade and let the vampire's own momentum send enchanted steel through dead flesh, slicing through tendons and slamming home against bone with a palpable click.

  The vampire howled, then evaporated in another puff of mist. This time Salim was close enough to see the cloud's green-gray hue as it recoiled, then streamed away toward the city as if caught in a gale.

  Salim ignored it and turned to the woman. Despite hands curled into claws, she made no move to attack. Salim lowered his sword.

  "And you?" he asked.

  "Lorilen is an idiot," she said, without emotion. "If you're really what you say you are, we should take you to the city. And if you're actually an escaped slave, or one of their guests, then we should still take you back to the city." She watched Salim expectantly.

  "Good." He sheathed his sword. "May I have my dagger back?"

  She handed it over without protest, then turned away. "Come."

  They picked their way through the boulder field toward the softly glimmering light of the city. From a perch on one of the higher rocks, Salim could see that this rough and cluttered section of the cavern was only the thinnest of rings around its edges, with the city itself taking up the rest of the space. In no time at all they were out of the broken land and onto a cavern floor that undulated in low waves before crashing against the first of the great towers.

  "What's your name?" Salim asked.

  "Kian."

  Salim waited, but she didn't ask for his. He was on the verge of trying another question when she asked, "Is it true that skyfire burns you in the City Above?"

  Salim was momentarily nonplussed. Then he understood. "The sun. Yes, vampires burn in sunlight. You'd have to hide and wait for night."

  Kian nodded. They left the unworked stone behind and stepped onto streets that were tile mosaics or patterns etched into the stone. The buildings to either side of them rose up shimmering and pearlescent, their stone ranging from polished onyx to bright marble.

  Kian led him to the foot of a stairway that swept up wavelike from the ground, and they began to climb. The steps were wide enough for them to travel abreast, and they did so, though Kian paid Salim little attention. It seemed that single question had satisfied her curiosity about who he was and where he came from.

  The steps shallowed out and elongated as they rose, becoming as much a bridge hanging in space as an actual staircase. From here Salim could see more of the city. It was small and dense, which he supposed made sense in a cavern, even one as large as this one. Between the twisted and sometimes leaning towers spun more staircase bridges, gossamer threads that connected different buildings, often at different stories. A few platforms and plazas seemed to float free of anything, simply hanging motionless in the air.

  Below, the cavern floor was a mass of domed and columned buildings, some of which had terraced gardens of huge, softly glowing mushrooms and shelf fungi. In addition to these, the city was lit with tiny, steady balls of mage-light hanging in glass lanterns. Yet despite the way the city had shimmered from the tunnel where Salim entered, it was now clear that lights were in fact spread quite thin, with most of the streets left to shadow.

  Shapes moved in those shadows—little blots of darkness coursing through the city's black veins, or moving along distant bridges like beads on a string. Another staircase crossed near theirs, and Salim caught a brief glimpse of something that was not a vampire drifting along it in long robes, a massive tome clutched to its chest.

  For all that his eyes told him the city was alive, Salim's ears refused to believe it. Where were the barking merchants? The cries and laughter? The creak of wagon wheels and brays of livestock? The whole city was hushed, its residents making no more than a soft susurrus like the whisper of cloth across stone. Even Salim's own steps on the marble rang less than they ought to, as if he walked in a dream. Clearly, Xavorax had earned its title as the City of Silence.

  Salim paused, frowning. Had Ceyanan used that name?

  A few steps ahead, Kian stopped and looked back at him expectantly. Salim shook his head, clearing it. "Where are you taking me?"


  "To the Tower of Night," she said. "To wait for the Caulborn."

  Not the most inviting name, but Salim supposed this was a city of vampires. He began walking again. The bridge they traveled on—now almost entirely bereft of stairs—split into three, and they took the leftmost fork, beginning a long, graceful curve.

  A thought occurred to him. "Why do you call it the Tower of Night?"

  She shrugged. "Because that's its name."

  "But you don't have days down here." Salim gestured toward the darkened reaches of the cavern ceiling. "Right? For you, it's always night."

  "Then the name fits."

  Salim was beginning to wonder if perhaps living in a literal hole in the ground had stunted the vampires' intelligence when Kian said, "We know about you."

  "What?"

  "About surface-dwellers. Night and day, the humanoid peoples, the City Above—the watchers see it, and the scholars tell us of it, or share it with us. We know that you've forgotten us, but we haven't forgotten you."

  "I see." Salim looked for some way to prolong this sudden loquacity. "And are you one of these...watchers?"

  She made an unreadable gesture. "Everyone watches. The windows must always be monitored, yet some enjoy it more than others. There are those who do nothing but observe, and servants bring them what they need to live. Others prefer the books, or the sharing."

  "And you?"

  Her eyes met his. "I prefer to work."

  Salim was planning his next question when she pointed past him. "There."

  It was huge. Or rather, they were huge—an enormous stalagmite rising up from the darkness of the cavern floor, its twin descending from the half-seen reaches of the ceiling, mirror reflections that tapered as they neared each other. Black brick bridged the space between them in a cylindrical tower, turning the stone spikes into a single wasp-waisted edifice, like an enormous hourglass. Dark staircases spiraled their way up around both brick and natural stone, augmented with jutting balconies and sharp-edged buttresses. Low red light shone from narrow, arched windows.