Kell snorted. “What do you take me for? Some yellow bellied whelp?” Leaping up to the quarterdeck, he nudged the helmsman from the wheel. “When I used to run with the smugglers in my youth, we knew all the ways to get in and out of the cities unseen. There’s a beach on the other side of the cliff.” He paused, eyeing his crew. “Come on, then? Get to the sails if you want food in your bellies! We’re getting into this damned city one way or another!”
Janus slumped against the railing, the tension in his muscles draining away. It seemed that everything turned to fighting these days. He couldn’t escape it. Couldn’t run from it, no matter how much he tried. The most reliable thing in his life had been his trusty revolver. He always seemed to lose his second gun when he carried two but for some reason the damned thing clung to him as much as he did it, like they were bound by the memories they shared. Even the rift maidens messing with it had not destroyed it, nestled where it belonged on the holster at his hip.
Watching the smoke climb higher into the sky, Janus ran his hand over the familiar curve of it and forced himself to still. The fighting would come. For now he had to wait.
*
“Can I say it?”
Janus marched through the ghost of a once glorious city, treading upon the chalky rubble and eggshell pieces of gold painted dome tiles. The debris crunched beneath his boots, the sound ringing out in the resounding silence. Such a city was not meant to be so still, nothing to disturb the clear surface of the canals beyond the remaining shrivelled leaves from the surviving trees.
“Really wish you wouldn’t.”
Somehow the ancient trunk in the centre had survived, twisting up into a sky like a putrid wound, a pale green discolouring the filmy white. The bony hands of its branches grasped out to the sky, the few leaves left like brilliant rubies amongst so much grey and white. Like drops of blood, if he looked out the corner of his eye.
“I told you so.”
It felt like walking the fallen kingdom of some long dead monarch. It felt like walking across the skulls of those who had died to save their crumbling lands, bone to ash to dust. It felt like hands tickling down his spine, gooseflesh reminding him he had to be alert for whatever came next. There was always a next.
“Where was the headquarters of the Order?” asked Hika, clutching at the scarf draped over her head. The bumps of her antlers deformed the shape of the red cloth, making her look alien and wrong.
Janus spared a glanced for the city hall, the crumbling pillars and smashed windows. The roof caved down towards the ground on one side, gaping chunks torn from what had once been a resplendent and historic landmark of the city. His thoughts strayed to Sandson but he pulled them back. He owed the mayor nothing. It would do no good to dwell.
“Nothing left to see,” he said.
“What in the Locker has happened here?”
Janus cocked his head at Ziko. It always seemed so strange to him, how quickly the idiosyncrasies of these islands embedded themselves. “Some kind of stance from the Empire.” He shrugged. “Something must have happened.”
Ziko paused. “I can feel traces of signatures here.”
Janus pointed to a riftspawn that swirled through the sky above, vaguely gargoyle in shape. Pieces of stone dropped from its form as it moved. “Plenty around.”
“No. I mean, your friends.”
Janus stilled. “Don’t really have any.”
“The boy of fire and the beserker girl. They were here not long ago.”
His heart gave a solitary thump before quieting once more. “Where?”
“I can follow it, if you want.”
“Need to get back to your body.”
Ziko tilted his head, apparently contemplating. “If I can survive a few days without one I can manage this much.”
Janus scratched his head. “Sure?”
“I wouldn’t say so if I wasn’t. Come on, we need to go this way,” he said, pointing along the length of one of the canals.
Hika had wandered some distance away, her mouth open as she studied the ruins. At his whistle she whirled and then scampered after them, her long kobi in a deep purple trailing dust at the bottom. It swirled around her worn boots, opening to reveal the dark trousers she wore beneath. There was the handle of a knife peeking from within, strapped to her side. He refrained from commenting on it.
Walking along the side of the canal in silence, they fell pray to the sombre atmosphere that had befallen the city. Everywhere he turned Janus saw the scars of the warship cannons. Whole buildings had collapsed in places, leaving behind mounds of stone and rubble. Others were stained with ash, holes yawning wide in homes otherwise unharmed. Trees had fallen across the path, scattering their red leaves to the still water of the canal beyond. His reflection kept pace with him, a gaunt, pale spectre of a man that he barely recognised. He longed for a cigarette but he had no tobacco left in his stash so he buried the urge down, alert for the slightest movement around him.
Eventually they came to the point where the canal fed out to the sea beyond, a pier stretching out into the dark water. Moored to it were a pair of old, worn rowing boats that had somehow survived the onslaught that the city’s finest structures could not best. He looked between his companions.
“Fancy a swim?”
Hika’s mouth pursed. He wondered if she regretted following them here, to a city stripped of its grandeur. There was nothing here for her, no matter what she had thought about her situation amongst the rift maidens. “Where are we going?”
“I still have the trail,” said Ziko.
Janus nodded. Hika frowned.
In the end he did not most of the rowing. He didn’t mind it; the looping motions of his arm helped soothe his mind, focusing on the way the water trickled past his oars and the burn of his muscles as he pushed the three of them across the strait to the next fragment of island, where the city continued on. White and grey buildings bobbed across the broken surface of the water and when he looked up he saw the land unfold before him, pink blooms trailing from balconies and windows reflecting a murky sky.
By the time he reached the pier on the other side he was soaked through with sweat despite the wind chill and he swiped at his forehead as he leapt from the boat to tie it down. From there his small party of three traversed the streets, through the plaza with the roofed shelter and the dragon statue, past the tunnel of red trees, and beyond. Finally, Ziko stopped by a staircase that wound up above them and gestured upwards.
“We need to go this way.”
The stairs followed up to a neatly tiled landing with an iron railing, small pots littering the small courtyard. Their flowers drooped downwards, a few blooms already brown and shrivelled. It seemed it had been some time since they had been nurtured/ Now they were dying off with the rest of the city.
Beyond lay a green door, the paint fading slightly as if it had been exposed to harsh sunlight. Looking up at a hazy, clouded sky, Janus could only wonder when that had been.
“They are in there,” said Ziko, stiffening.
Janus looked to him, drawing his revolver. “What is it?”
Ziko merely shook his head, lingering behind him when he stepped forth to knock on the door. Apprehension filled him. As much as he wanted to believe it was really them, Janus had always had a bit of a problem when it came to faith. His knuckles rapped the door, gun poised before him.
For too long there was nothing. His fingers twitched around the gun, looking at Ziko out of the corner of his eye. Perhaps he had been mistaken, senses distorted from having lost his body. The man had travelled through the otherworld – who knew where that had left the state of his mind and –
The door swung open, a ball of green fire shining in front of him. Flinging his arm out, he blocked Ziko from reacting as a snarling Viktor stopped mid attack, a litany of emotions rolling over his face. Anger. Confusion. Something like relief, maybe, from the way his shoulders slumped and he rocked back on his heels. No shock. Instead he smothered the flame in hi
s hand and looked at Janus with recognition. It was truly Viktor.
“It’s been a while. You better come in.” Then he turned away, leaving the door open.
Janus entered to a cozy hallway, brown tile beneath his feet and plants climbing up the bannister leading upstairs that created an earthy feel. It smelled like herbs and tea. Warm. Comforting. Immediately his eyes began to droop, exhaustion crashing over him in a heady wave until he swayed where he stood.
“Janus? Are you all right?”
“Fine.”
Floorboards creaked above his head. If he strained his ears he thought he could hear faint voices so he followed the sound, his body moving on instinct. When he reached the landing at the top he found himself faced with two doors. The voices came from the one on his right so he shoved his way through, not bothering to knock in warning. Viktor gazed up at him, eyes shining in the dim light from a pair of wax candles set on a small nightstand. “Should I wake her?”
Sprawled across one cot on her stomach lay Rook, head turned to the side and eyes closed in slumber. Her hair exploded out in a tangle of curls around her, pushed off her shoulder where the hint of pink flesh peeked from a bandage. Janus crossed the room and crouched down next to Viktor to watch her, a strange release of tension making him feel shaky and elated. His hand fell upon Viktor’s shoulder and squeezed. It felt right, in some way, to be reunited with them. Even if one of them was still missing.
“She got hurt fighting off her father.”
Janus grunted.
“I killed him. I killed them all.”
He looked at Viktor, at the hard lines of his face shaved of the last of his baby fat. Leaner and plagued with dark stubble, eyes heavy with baggage, he looked much older than the last time than Janus had seen him. It had not been that long.
“I don’t know if she’ll talk to me again. I don’t know if –” he released a rattling breath. “The Sonlin attacked the city. We had to find somewhere to go. I don’t know if my sister is safe. Sandson – we managed to pull him from the wreckage. Locker knows if he’ll survive the night. I don’t know if I’ve done enough, Janus. I don’t know what I’m doing. Sometimes I wake up and I’m not myself. The memories just won’t go away no matter how much I want them to. I’m not even me.” Another breath, more of a gasp. He rubbed at the corner of his eye.
“Viktor,” he intoned, waiting until red-rimmed eyes peered up at him.
Janus didn’t know what possessed him. All he knew was that he was tugging the boy into his arms, wrapping a hand around him so he could pat him gently on the back. Viktor let out a choked sob and buried his face in his shoulder, hand grasping his coat tight in his bunched fists. There was nothing he could really say. Janus had never had the words but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be there, if his friend needed to cry.
Part Eight: The Dusklands
It should have been easier, Ziko thought, to be able to move as a spirit. Surely being without the burden of physical flesh meant he had been stripped of his limitations, able to move at will. It shouldn’t have mattered, how steep the climb was to Ak Reisarth, or how fit his body was, when all he had to do was think and he would move. As it was, he struggled to maintain any sort of pace, his focus waxing and waning with the erratic heartbeat of the rift. He would travel so far only to find himself drifting way off course, forgetting what was driving him forwards in the first place, drawn by the bright sparks of energy coming from nearby riftspawn. If he could only take some of their strength, maybe it would be a little easier to reach his body.
Now you understand why I came to you, back then.
Ziko could not see Niks as such, but her voice still echoed inside his mind. He did not know what it would mean for them, that they were two spirits joined as one. A sense of dread sank into him, that he was about to be chewed up by Niks until there was nothing left of him.
It might end up the other way around, you know. He caught a mask out of the corner of his eye but when he turned there was nothing but the jungle. The sounds of the animals, the humidity from the previous night’s rainfall, and the swaying fronds of the trees were all fading. All he could focus on were the currents of energy threading through the foliage and the zips of colour as riftspawn swooped past him. Their fear rippled through the air, fleeing the power of his signature. Their signature.
“Of the two of us who do you believe to be stronger?”
Only one of us survived death.
His lips quirked. “That wasn’t an answer.”
Perhaps I do not have one for you, Rift-breaker. Perhaps I am afraid, too.
Ziko stopped. “You are afraid of nothing.”
That is not and never has been true.
It was no lie. He could feel a chord of anxiousness weave through his own, creating a fractured melody within. It amplified his own tension, pushing him harder through the jungle. By now he knew the way well enough, but that didn’t change the way his consciousness would flare and fade, drifting and drifting until he realised he was moving in the wrong direction. He could feel the scar of the rift on the landscape.
This world is not meant for the likes of you and I. Not like this.
“This is why you needed a physical form.”
Yes.
The closer he came to the rift, the easier it got for him to keep hold of himself. It was like the glue he needed to stick his thoughts together into a sequence that made sense, strength bolstered by each pulse of spiritual energy crashing over him. The last leg of the journey towards the shrine was the easiest and by the time he reached the plateau that led towards the Riftkeepers’ cottage, he was bounding towards it with his feet barely touching the ground. Perhaps it was unnecessary without a body but some habits were so ingrained they could not be broken.
The part of him that was still human could smell smoke souring the wind, tendrils unfurling like the wings of a bird into the sky. Mood curdling, Ziko ran towards it with Niks’ voice in his ear, warning him. Heedless, he dashed past the circular structure that contained the door to the otherworld, the riftspawn gathered around it scattering at his presence. He ran until he reached the cottage, smoke curling up from the chimney. Relieved, he slowed to stop, feeling like he should be breathless, only he did not feel much at all.
Ziko, you should –
Voices caught his attention, drifting over the crackle and hiss of flame. The smell grew stronger the closer he came, the stench of charcoaled flesh permeating. Blanching, he rounded the side of the small stone building until he got to the overgrown garden on the other side, bushes and shrubs bleeding into one another in a tumble of twigs and decaying leaves.
In a small clearing of patchy lawn and dirt a structure had been built from huge tree branches, flames licking up the sides and columns of thick grey bleeding into a sky the same sombre shade. Ziko knew this practice. He had seen it in his time on Nirket. He had once been fascinated by the practice of the locals of burning their dead, so that their spirits would be free to complete their cycle back to rebirth. Only Ziko’s spirit was finding no body to return to.
“No!” he shrieked, running towards the pyre.
Wild eyed, both Riftkeepers whipped around at his cry, shifting into defensive positions. But Ziko had nothing in him to fight with.
Crashing before the flames, he let loose a shuddering sob. Around him the sky blackened and rumbled all at once, a sudden fork of lightning cutting through the thick cloud to strike the pyre. The sparks flared out, the Riftkeepers crying out as they dived to the ground. Ziko barely noticed, gaze chained to the burning, shrivelled remains of a man he had once known, if not well, then at least with a sense of familiarity. As the first tear slid down his cheek the rain began, a few spots quickly turning into a downpour that his spiritual form barely felt.
With a storm brewing around him, Ziko stared at the burned remains of his body and wept.
*
Kilai had heard many conflicting stories about the Dusklands. Some said they were lands of riches and prosperity, la
nds united by technical innovation and a relentless pursuit of progress. Lands where trade prospered and free thought blossomed. To those fortunate merchants, they were a place of great wealth and possibility, where status of birth mattered less than a willingness to work hard and a good attitude. Paupers could become princes, in a land like that.
Others said they were lands of eternal gloom and darkness. Shrivelled wastelands of dirt and desert, their boots still dusty from the hard-packed earth and grit. Across the ocean there was nothing but dour faced soldiers forcing the people to keep their heads bowed low. They were obsessed with warfare, with conquering, with eating up the world until everything was raked clean by their greed.
“You know what the good book says, Chana,” one old wizened sailor had said to her as she stood watching the boats in Nirket’s harbour, “the West is where one goes to die.”
So when the first crest of land broke the endless swell of the ocean, her gut filled to the brim with a ragged kind of anticipation. Which tale would be the truth, she wondered. Would she come to harbour in a utopia of wealth and fortune, or to a dreary grey wasteland, as had been told to her. The craggy rock rose out of the grey sea, reflecting off the surface of the sea stark and imposing. Overhead the clouds gathered in a heavy drapery across the sky. She held her breath, feeling the salt breeze tug her hair from the confines of her bun. What awaited her on these shores, so far from where she had grown?
“Welcome to Kar Anwan,” said Koda, moving to stand beside her at the prow of the ship. His mouth was set in a tight line as he watched the town creep into view.
The homes began at the waterline, a ghostly version mirrored on a calm sea. Densely packed together, most were painted white, so bright against the strange cratered grey rock that sloped up in the direction of the mountains in the distance. Bright lines of oranges and purples and greens were the only shocking sparks of colours against a greyscale landscape, outlining their houses in a way that made them look unreal. Like she was looking at an artist’s rendition of a town rather than a real place. Interspersed between the buildings was thick, leafy foliage in a green so dark it could almost be black. The trees were so tall she could barely believe how they dwarfed the tiny houses beneath their sprawling canopies. And nestled amongst the greenery stood a titan of a statue of a man with six arms, forming a circle around his chiselled form.
The Rising Tide Page 48
