The Blood Storm

by John C. Wright

“Put her to the hooks,” Enmeduranki was saying, “let the rape-beasts have their sport with her, and he will be broken to your will, and shall encompass the defeat of the Slumbering Crown of Shazand, uplift the Great Seven-Headed Beast of Sasan, and so end all who in this generation oppose the fates the stars ordain. All is known and foreknown.”

  “Did he just call you a whale?” I muttered to Penny. “Better watch your weight.” I am glad I did, because she was nervously touching her throat, and beginning to look panicked, looking over the balcony rail as if calculating her chances of surviving the five-hundred-foot plunge into the cistern, but then my little joke snapped her out of it. Her hand twitched like she wanted to slap me, but considering the circumstances, she thought the better of it.

  Foster said, “My arm is getting tired. Want me to shoot?”

  “Uh,” I said.

  There were maybe two hundred large-bore and small-bore weapons of various designs pointed at us. None of them would kill me, but they would kill everyone else.

  I took a step forward. I was about to shout out something brave and stupid, like demanding to fight their champion, or asking my friends to be let free, but Enmeduranki glanced down at the golden dial in his hand as if checking his pocketwatch, and then, looking weary but not looking up, waved his finger at me.

  The armor I was wearing flexed, snapped rigid, went tight, and I was held with my arms at my side as if in a metal cocoon. I went from tree stance to falling like a tree, and I could not bend my legs or use my arms to break my fall, so my skull hit the ground hard enough that it should have killed me, if I could have been killed. I mean, I felt the plates of my skull separate, and I smelled the smell of blood and neural fluid leaking out. No one ever felt pain like that, because I assume they would have been instantly dead.

  Instead of dying, I said a prayer to St. Denis, the patron saint of headaches, gritted my teeth, and forced my skull plates to scrape back into place, once I had forced the escaping blood and fluids to run backward into my head wound. The legend is that Denis was beheaded by Emperor Decius, but that his headless body picked up his head and walked off with it. Maybe he was like me. Whatever he was, I promised gentle St. Denis that I would never complain about the gory nature of my superpower again.

  And, just because I was getting better and better at this stuff, I concentrated on making my burnt hair come back where the death-lanterns had blackened the top of my head. There was a rustling noise, and I felt a sensation like ants crawling over my scalp. I lifted my head as far as the neck armor strangling me would allow, and saw that I had overdone it: At least a yard of black unruly hair, coarse as the hair of a bear, was pushing through the links of the coif, spread out in a semicircle from me, and writhing like a nest of snakes.

  Meanwhile, a hook-toothed ramp fell from the slope of the gondola beneath the beard of the giant face on the prow and latched onto the railing. It created a remarkably long and narrow catwalk that swayed slightly, but connected the belly of the metal airship and the balcony.

  The narrow boarding ramp was quickly crowded with soldiers. Their high cylindrical helms of brass and clanking chestplates gleamed in the harsh blue light from the lampwood spears and searchlight-shaped weapons prepped for firing. The soldiers in front held shield and spear in hand, and walked with mincing unsteadiness, because they had no hand free with which to steady themselves. Each alternate man in the rear had shield or spear slung, and used his free hand to grasp the chain that formed the railing. The soldiers on the narrow catwalks ringing the equator of the zeppelin aimed their crossbows and harquebuses downward, covering the boarding party.

  The man in the front was a scarred man missing most of his nose. He put one foot on the wooden balcony rail, and hesitated. He was staring at my hair.

  And if I read his expression correctly, it scared him.

  6. Inevitable and Unexpected

  Enmeduranki was speaking to me. “Deathless boy, I rename you Utu’abzu the Ascending Sun. Your service shall be long and loyal, indeed, shall be eternal. What else could you serve? Only the Dark Tower shall stand forever. Or would you serve blind kings, blind causes? I will tell you before each battle the exact outcome, if you like, every wound dealt, and each deathblow to our foes, to the precise minute. Do not bother to open your mouth to defy me: you know we foretell all.”

  My eye fell on Abby, who was standing next to Penelope. I noticed a blind spot of something my brain would not let me notice between the two girls. It was Foster, whose question I had not answered. He was still holding his longbow drawn. It was not a compound bow, so his shoulders were probably beginning to give out with the strain. Meanwhile, Abby had donned her monkey-face breathing mask, probably to hide her fear.

  Enmeduranki called, “Surrender! Beg for servitude! Fate is determined and inevitable. Even the people of your world know this: all things are controlled, down to the smallest element, the tiniest motion or passion of heart or brain, all is controlled by nature and the laws of nature. Yield! Beg to be my slave!”

  Then he had to pause to cough, which sort of ruined the oratorical impression. Dark Lording is really a young man’s game. Being a gray and aging tyrant must suck.

  I had been planning to be the strong and silent type, and not give them the satisfaction of getting any word out of me. Partly this was because Rahab had played it quiet when he first came upon me, and I remembered how creepy it was. Partly because I was pissed at getting caught so easily, and it was so obviously my fault. Heck, I had even been warned! Hadn’t Abby told me I was going to throw to his death someone I said I would spare? I did it anyway.

  But I did not want Abby to feel disheartened. For her sake, then, I raised my head as far as the constriction of the coif would let me, and called back in my loudest and most sarcastic voice: “I laugh at fate and nature! You could not predict me in the past, and will never control me in the future!”

  And I laughed, and the laughter seemed to have a life of its own as it came out of my mouth, because it sounded high and lofty and jovial and joyous, nothing like the laughter of Rahab at all.

  The man with no nose in the front of the landing party still had not stepped onto the balcony. He and all his men were still on the precarious narrow ramp or corvus leading to the airship.

  I realized that the reputation of the Host that Yearns for Death in Vain was so horrifying that even doughty veterans were reluctant to approach me, even though I was helpless and motionless on the ground, no more dangerous than a rump roast.

  The soldiers were more spooked by that happy, ringing mirth, coming from a man they thought a monster, than anything else I could have done or said. It must have been like hearing a Tyrannosaurus Rex laugh.

  The reluctance could only last a moment. The parlay between me and the Lord High Astrologer made everyone pause. But as soon as it was over, or as soon as the Great King or any of his lieutenants noticed the soldiers hesitating, someone would bark out the order and everyone would swarm over us. Why weren’t they hurrying?

  The Great King Anshargal tilted his head and gave Enmeduranki a sardonic look.

  “Did your wisemen invert a fraction?” said Anshargal sourly.

  The aged Lord of Magicians Enmeduranki looked poker-faced. Some intuition told me that I had not been supposed to talk or laugh. They had not predicted that I would say anything at this moment.

  What had thrown off their prediction?

  I saw a portly general in a gold duncecap next to Anshargal was pointing his finger at me. Not at me, at us. He was counting.

  Anshargal spoke with a rolling note of dangerous mockery to Enmeduranki, “Well…?”

  Enmeduranki said stoically, “Great King, we are both slaves of the Dark Tower, you and I. Even though a king, you cannot oppose the fates the Astrologers read: and I am the Lord of Magicians.”

  “We are both slaves of the Dark Tower, yes. Even though you are the Lord of Magicians, if your star-mages read your tablets of fate awry, what use are they?”

 
Enmeduranki was staring at me, at the people next to me, and at the girls cut off when the gate had shut (who were still prone and kowtowing at this point, saying nothing). His face seemed momentarily alive, excited, despite the look of bewildered fear. It was gone as soon as it appeared, covered over with an expression of detached professionalism. But I saw it. He was glad something had gone wrong.

  The portly general said, “The count is correct, Great King. There are forty-one here on the balcony, as foretold. They are standing where the sketch depicts.” He proffered a thin yellow tablet made of cunning metal to the Great King.

  The Great King did not glance at it, but passed it to a servant who handed it to Enmeduranki.

  The gaggle of Astrologers behind Enmeduranki, as if at an invisible signal, had each one taken out tablet and stylus, abacus and some instrument as long as a yardstick which might have been a charming wand, or might have been a jumbo-sized sliderule. They were checking their math.

  One of the younger ones stepped forward. “Great King! Forgive me for speaking. There is the anomaly. That one in the mask! That is not Eflast Falinn of Riphath. Where is his longbow?” And he pointed with his yard-long sliderule at Abby.

  Another Astrologer spoke up, “Forgive me for speaking. The bow is unseen. He is a Rider of the Mist, and the art of mistweaving they know on the slaveworld from which he comes.”

  But a third Astrologer said, “If he is a Rider, we would not see him! That is someone other!”

  While this was happening, Foster said softly, “Ilya? Should I shoot? I cannot hold this long.”

  Penny said, “The King is invulnerable in that robe, which angels wove in heaven for the eldest of men. Shoot the magician!”

  But Abby said, “Another will take his place, and be told everything he must do. Magicians know their death hour from when they are born.”

  Enmeduranki was grinning a sick grin, excited because something was happening in his life he had not foreseen years in advance. He was also quicker on the uptake than I would have been in his position. “That is a foreverborn! It must be Ersu’s lost Hope, the daughter of Uridimmu of Bashtubaraquin…” he said softly in a weird, cracked cackle. “Who else could stand where none were foreseen to stand?”

  Bashtubaraquin, the Clan Under the House of Cygnus, was Abby’s old family name, back from when she was a princess. Uridimmu must be her father’s name, the man she said she could never see again. It meant Stormbeast.

  Unless she was seeing him now. I wondered if he were standing there, among the warlords and Astrologers and princes.

  My life had some problems, but, really, nothing like hers.

  Enmeduranki shouted in his thin, weak voice: “A kingdom to whoever slays the foreverborn ! A world to who takes the foreverborn alive for the tortures!”

  The Great King was raising his hand. His next command would be the order to attack.

  Foster said, “The king! Should I shoot him? I can put the arrow in his eye at this distance, robe or no robe.”

  I closed my eyes, trying to think. I only had a moment.

  I could not think of anything.

  So I prayed. Saint Agnes of Rome, send me a good idea. Tell me how to save little Abby. Tell me how to save Penny. I’ve failed. I’ve been knocked from my feet. I’ve fallen, and I cannot get…

  My eyes snapped open. “Up,” I said.

  Foster said, “What?”

  “Shoot up. Shoot the lampwood spear.”

  Penny said, “Why bother? They will have foreseen all this.”

  Foster did not ask, but shot. I heard the bowstring sing, and then, eight seconds later, sing again. I did not see the arrows like slim slivers of glass dart up, but, since I was on my back looking up, I saw the two eight-foot long spears of lampwood tremble as they were struck. Once again, it was a great shot, an awesome shot, to hit a wand twenty feet straight up.

  And I had figured that the mists of invisibility, if it was not cut off by the blue ylem-banishing light from the lampwood, must be the other kind of magic, celestial magic. If it came from the moon, why wouldn’t it be celestial? And the way everything worked in this world, whatever did not cut off magic made it stronger.

  What I was not expecting was the glass arrows to catch fire, turn all blue through their length like neon tubes, and explode.

  They exploded with mist.

  For a moment, I could not focus my eyes on anything. I assume no one else could either. I was not blind. Not quite. I could still see shapes and motions, but something in my brain was not allowing me to see them clearly. I guess it was a lot like ordinary mist, except that you think you are going crazy because your optic nerve is not working right.

  I heard growls, or actually, screams coming from overhead. Remember those troops of wolf-creatures that had been rushing down the sheer slope of the wall toward us? At least one of the wolves lost his footing when he went blind. I heard a long, sad, lingering wail pass overhead and fall away in an audible analogy of a parabola. Whether more fell, I could not tell; there was too much noise all around.

  I also hear Penny say, breathlessly, in wonder, “That is impossible. Why did that work?”

  “Because I am awesome,” I said. “And I protect women and children. When I looked at Abby, I did something according to my higher nature. I laughed, and that threw off their calculations. That is all it took.”

  Whoever was concentrating on holding my chainmail rigid was distracted, or else the mist cut off the spell, because I could move again.

  The voice of the Great King cried out the command to attack. A trumpeter blew.

  The soldiers on the narrow catwalk all shouted their battle slogan. “Duhumnamar Nabu!” The Dark Tower decrees!

  I decided I need a battlecry, too. “Beau Seant!” I cried. It was the cry of the Templars during the Crusade. Some say it means for the Glory! I say it means Looking Good

  And in despair, I realized that I could never overcome so many, even with Foster and his longbow, or Penny with her witchcraft. These men knew how to fight creatures like me.

  And I knew I had to call upon a greater name. I was fighting for something more than even the Templars fought, fighting an evil even deeper and older than the Paynim they faced.

  “Yahweh!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “For Yahweh!”

  And I started laughing like a madman. Again. Because I heard a groan of metal against metal passing up from underfoot, as if from miles away, approaching.

  At the same moment, I saw Glede the cloudwalker standing in midair with this black camel-hair robe and long black ponytail flying around him—and saw him because, with an impatient gesture of his hand, he had blown Foster’s mist upward off the balcony floor, restoring everything to visibility. Cute trick.

  And then I saw Foster, looking like a specter of death in his faceless white-hoodedness, eyeless mirrored goggles, and white cloak billowing about him in the winds, appearing out of nowhere like an actor behind a rising curtain. I saw first his toe-socked sandals spread in their stance, then his uplifted bow in his arms, then his goggles beneath his hood to whose ear the string was pulled, then I saw his bow hand and his deadly icicle-hued arrow. He let fly. An unseen shaft planted itself neatly in Glede’s chest, right between the two tails of his forked beard, for from that spot a gush of blood spurted. This one time the wound looked just like it does in the movies, shooting a ghastly crimson stream into the dark air.

  I saw Glede topple backward and fall.

  The sight of Glede plunging like a paratrooper with a tangled chute seemed ridiculously funny to me. I was braying like a donkey as the sound of the approaching metal groans from underfoot grew louder, like an express train coming.

  And then the quake struck.

  The airship rocked back and forth. Men spilled off the catwalks lining the rigid airframe, screaming. The ramp between the airship and the balcony reared back, pulling yards of wooden railing into the air, and snapped magnificently in two.

  Men in armor plunged down. T
he guy with no nose was standing on the balcony, safe, the only man of his squad not tumbling headlong through the air, and I rushed him before he got his shield ready, plunged my sword into his belly, and then kicked him out into the air, flicking the blood off the blade nonchalantly. Wished I had had a camera. I bet I looked cool.

  The airship ignited its artillery, but the temblor was making the vast vessel roll and pitch and yaw. Bolts and cannonballs and catapult stones and beams of futuristic death-ray fire all flew high, smashing and scarring the walls above and behind the balcony where I stood.

  The wolf-headed men clinging to the walls above us were struck full on with beams, blasts, gouts of poison, shattering arrows, and explosions, and scores of them dropped like lemmings in a Disney documentary. The outer wall to which they no longer clung was beetled out over the balcony, so they plunged into the lakewater, or rebounded like clowns on trampolines off the vast lifting envelope of the airship. Perhaps some of them clung frantically to the sloping sides of the rocking airship, but I was looking at the wolves who spun as they fell, and beat their limbs against the thin air. I could not help but think of the Coyote from the cartoons dropping from some Chuck Jones cliff in Arizona.

  Really wished I had a camera. I laughed so hard I felt bad. Lord, have mercy on my soul that I thought it was so funny.

  7. Exit Stage Left

  And then, to my left, I saw a black ball of nothingness appear, surrounded by the aurora borealis.

  The Moebius gate was open, whistling like a teakettle.

  Foster’s mist had cut off the blue light, preventing it from reaching the golden flail, and Glede had parted the mist horizontally, so there was still a bar above us, still blocking the lampwood spear fragments embedded in the wall. Out from the zenith of the black sphere Ossifrage stepped into midair like a man climbing stairs. On ground level, nearest the sphere’s equator, came forth Nakasu, roaring, a worried look on his chest. Penny shouted to the girls to get to their feet and run for it. The closest ones scrambled into the ball surface, not even bothering to stand all the way up.