Ash and Ambition

by Ari Marmell

  He started with his hands. He held them before him, after ensuring that everyone near enough to see him was, indeed, asleep, and concentrated. He remembered the feel of tearing flesh, the hunt, the many lives his “hands” had taken in their prior form.

  His nails began to harden, to blacken. They grew curved, melding with his fingertips, lengthening…

  Earlier he had struck as though his fingers were talons, the claws he remembered of old. Now they truly were.

  As he had forced himself to swallow his earlier scream, so now did he fight back an almost hysterical laughter. More intense concentration and they had reverted. His hands were, again, entirely human.

  What else?

  If he could strengthen his muscles, what of his skin? Could he armor himself against the blows of his enemies, turn aside blades—or at least cudgels, and the lash—as once he had?

  Again he concentrated, focusing on only the surface of his body, his outer flesh, far from the organs that pumped air and blood.

  Yes! He felt a change, though he at first saw no alteration to the deep brown skin of his arm. He tapped it with a finger, and then—after regrowing it yet again—a claw. Tougher than human, but still normal mammalian hide. It would still bruise, still cut, but not readily. Would turn aside at least a glancing blow.

  Useful, certainly, but could he go further?

  The skin grew obviously thick, leathery; impossible to pass for human except in deep shadow. And then…

  Nycolos’s arm took on a pattern of tight, overlapping scales, iridescent as a jungle snake. In the dim confines of the slave barracks they appeared a reflective black, but he knew, in better lighting, they would boast a deep, magnificent purple. Deeper than wine, deeper than twilight, yet shimmering as he moved, as the sun or the moons shone down upon them, reflected from them, dark yet radiant…

  With a sharp gasp, he forced himself to revert, until his skin was, once more, just that. Tougher than it had been, enough to take the edge off the sting of the lash, but not enough to draw attention. Subtlety, for the time being. Secrecy.

  But he knew, now, that he was capable—even in this miserable body—of so very much more. And one day soon, he would reveal it. Revel in it.

  In the gloom and grim misery of the slave barracks, Nycolos could not suppress a widening grin.

  Chapter Three

  How long he labored in those mines, making his so-called “owners” wealthy, Nycolos was never certain. In the monotony of those efforts, a seemingly changeless purgatory, he lost count of the days. Measuring the passage of time in such tiny increments had never much concerned him, and it was a knack he would have had to learn even under circumstances far less mind-numbing than these.

  Weeks, at least; of that much, he was positive. The sentence Justina had degreed had come and gone long since.

  Which was not to say that things had gone back to the way they were during his first days here. Branded a troublemaker, he still—like Keva and some others—wore manacles around his ankles. The chain was long enough that his walking steps were unimpeded, but try to climb one of the sloping passages, or to run for any reason, and he found himself hobbled and off-balance. It made his task of pushing the rock cart that much more frustrating, which in turn provided no end of amusement for the Firsts and the guards.

  Oh, but they held a grudge over what he had done to Veddai, one that would not be satisfied by a week of the lash and short rations. The end of his formal chastisement was not, by far, his last taste of the lash. The collaborators—particularly Veddai’s friend, whose name Nycolos never bothered to remember—took every opportunity to direct the guards’ whips against him. The slightest delay in responding to a call for the cart, a word that could be twisted and massaged until it became an insult or other mark of disrespect, anything was justification if his tormentors were in the mood to make it so. Their penalties were never severe; a single stroke, maybe two; a half-empty bowl at the next meal, or short sleep the next night. Never enough to significantly impact his work, or to attract the attention of Justina or Rasmus.

  Well, Justina. Nycolos had his private suspicions that Rasmus was fully aware, and approved. Although the taskmaster himself treated him no differently than any other slave, the man couldn’t quite repress the occasional smirk or knowing gaze.

  Nycolos bore it, as he’d borne everything else—a trial made rather easier since he’d toughened his skin, so that the kiss of the whip was markedly less agonizing than it had been.

  Thus did time, however much of it, pass. The mine slowly grew, creeping deeper into the mountain like a curious, questing tendril. The corridor of rock and wooden beams became familiar as any home; the slaves, particularly Keva and Safia, as recognizable as the many servant creatures Smim had once managed for him.

  Not comfortable, never comfortable. And never acceptable. But, until he came up with a way to either escape his circumstances or turn them to his advantage, unavoidable and, in the day-to-day, unremarkable.

  So he never knew how long he’d waited for something to change before it finally did.

  Nycolos had dragged his cart over to a trio of slaves working one particular vein, chipping and picking at the walls to reveal more valuable ore, and had just begun loading their latest detritus into the cart when he heard it. He froze, a hefty chunk of rock in his hands, head tilted, trying to listen and wishing the grunts and the panting and the tools would go silent for just a moment.

  “You! Nycolos!” Veddai’s friend; of course it was. “Get the hell back to work!”

  Couldn’t they all just shut up a minute a let him listen?

  “You just go deaf? I told you—!”

  “Quiet!”

  It wasn’t just the bellow, thundering as it was, but the fact that a slave had dared to make such a demand of a First—and in front of other workers, no less—that grabbed everyone’s attention. Whether in shock or in fury, the entire tunnel indeed went silent.

  For a few breaths only, of course, but that was long enough for Nycolos’s more than human hearing to confirm what he’d thought he’d sensed, that nobody else present could possibly yet have noticed.

  The stone surrounding them had begun, ever so faintly and oh so deeply, to hum.

  They’ve come.

  “Oh, that’s it, you stupid bastard!” The First was near apoplectic with fury, but a note of gloating had wound itself into his snarled and spit-drenched words. “I’m going to enjoy having you flayed and roasted for—”

  Nycolos had absolutely no time for that idiot right now. “Everybody step back!” he cried out, shuffling toward the center of the tunnel as fast as his manacles would allow. “Back away from the walls!”

  Not that they couldn’t come from the floor or ceiling just as readily, but at least there would be a chance…

  The captives had little reason to trust Nycolos’s judgment, nor had they any notion of what had triggered his sudden alarm, but these were men and women accustomed to following commands. Most did as he’d ordered, stepping away from their work and from the walls of stone. Even several of the Firsts and guards had done the same, only slowly realizing that they’d just accepted the command of a mere slave.

  Others, however, including the enraged First, only grew angrier and more resentful that Nycolos dared think to order them about. Their shouts and threats and curses filled the mine, echoing from the rock as they advanced, fists and cudgels and whips raised high.

  Yet even they could no longer drown out the alien song of the stone that had finally risen high enough for human ears. Slaves gawped in growing panic, and many clutched pickaxes and shovels to their chests, feeble weapons indeed but all that stood between them and a threat they sensed but could not begin to comprehend. The air in the passage grew heavy with a peculiar earthy scent.

  The mountain fey had finally come to Justina’s mines.

  The rock disgorged them like jellyfish on the tide. They varied widely in size, some taller than Nycolos, some little larger than a child
’s marionette. A few boasted wings, though to what purpose Nycolos couldn’t have said; others extra legs or arms, which they used to scrabble across wall and ceiling as readily as floor. Beyond such details, however, they all looked very much alike.

  It appeared some sculptor or toymaker had abandoned his work halfway through. Their faces were greatly detailed, though lacking in any human expression. Eyes and mouths were rounded hollows in the stone, twisting and writhing as they shrieked their rock-grinding cries. Those faces were misshapen, often bulging and stretching around cheeks and chin, doubtless the source of the “beards” such creatures wore in bedtime tales told to children. Their bodies, however, were far less intricate, consisting only of vague shapes that approximated gaunt torsos and spindly limbs, far too long and possessing far too many joints. All were simple stone, though several possessed striae or embedded crystals granting them additional color and even a touch of beauty.

  They clawed at the air even as they emerged, spindly fingers of rock swiping through empty space where the workers had stood only moments ago. Nycolos’s warning had spared a dozen from injury or death, though whether that respite was to last more than a few seconds remained to be seen.

  The first of the mountain fey to completely leave the wall appeared near the man who had been so eager to see Nycolos beaten, and Nycolos gave half an instant’s thought to letting him suffer whatever fate had in store. But no, if he was to fight, he would fight.

  Strength rippled through his body, the culmination of an internal effort he had begun the instant he sensed the coming fey. He sprang forward, leaping hard and twisting in the air, then kicked out with both feet.

  The cart, only partly full of rocks, cracked along one side as its wheels left the earth, hurtling back to slam against the wall—and the fey creature that stood in its path. Nycolos didn’t know if such an impact would be enough to kill the thing, but surely it would at least be injured, slowed.

  His jaw hanging in a stunned and vaguely sickly gape, the First retreated back into the midst of his fellows.

  Still, that man was not the only one to have ignored Nycolos’s warning, and not all the rest were so fortunate as he. Even as one of the armored guards dropped her whip and fumbled for the short sword at her waist, another of the fey slid from the wall and raked its fingers across the exposed flesh of her bicep.

  The woman’s scream choked off halfway through as she collapsed, her body going into shock at the unnatural injury. The triple gashes through muscle and flesh calcified instantly into solid stone, severing arteries, destroying tissue, and further tearing the skin around them. Even if she survived the shock, Nycolos knew, the best she could possibly hope for was to lose the arm.

  Others were unluckier still, the blows delivered by the mountain fey piercing and petrifying organs or closing off throats, leaving a small but growing heap of cadavers part statue and part flesh.

  Hysteria and dread spread before the fey, and the screams of the living swiftly overwhelmed the cries of the dying.

  Until another shout came, louder still. “Panic and die!” Nycolos roared. “Fight back! You can hurt them!”

  Not well, they couldn’t. The steel of the picks and spades would require a great deal of strength to damage the rocky bodies of the mountain fey. Accustomed to hard labor, the slaves were assuredly strong enough—but whether they could deliver such blows swiftly, consistently, or for long was doubtful.

  But picks and spades were not the only available weapons. For all their connection with the mountain, he knew, still these were fey, with everything—and every vulnerability—that entailed.

  Hoping that what he was about to do would, like his kick to the wagon, be attributed to desperate strength bestowed by the heat of battle, Nycolos reached down and snapped the chain free of the manacles. Hefting the short length in one fist, he swung it in quick circles, links whistling as they cut the air.

  Not the most accurate weapon, nor simple to wield. More than once, he came nearer to striking himself than any legitimate target. Still, as the wall disgorged another of the fey, Nycolos swung, catching the creature across the head with the chain.

  The chain, made not from steel but from plainer, purer iron.

  Wailing piteously, broad flakes of stone “bleeding” from the side of its head in a bizarre, sifting torrent, the fey creature retreated into the wall as rapidly as it had emerged.

  “Unlock the chains!” Nycolos shouted. “We need iron, not steel!”

  No longer hesitant to follow his orders, guards leapt to obey, fumbling at heavy keys. Several of the slaves equipped with older or simpler tools of iron—a prybar here, a hammer there—moved to protect their friends, or else passed the weapons to men and women in better shape and of braver mien. Nycolos was unsurprised, and yet strangely gratified for reasons he could not define, to see both Safia and Keva among those who had taken up iron.

  The next wave of fey threw themselves at the assembled workers. Nycolos’s chain lashed out, not unlike the whips he’d so recently endured, smashing a small depression into a skull of stone. Keva had wrapped his own chain around and through his fist to make an awkward cestus and punched like a taproom brawler, while Safia thrust the long end of her prybar like an clumsy spear. Others along the line struck with varying effect, but Nycolos hadn’t the attention to spare them.

  Faced with unexpectedly effective resistance, the mountain fey paused to reassess, but not for long. They advanced again, slower, more cautiously, even as a second wave clambered from the floor, reaching up and out as though from some premature grave. Workers and guards alike screamed and toppled as fingertips raked their feet, transforming tendon, flesh, and bone to lifeless rock.

  A hand appeared inches from Nycolos, and he whipped his chain down and around him, kicking up a cloud of rock dust. Another rose and snatched at Keva; Nycolos yanked his fellow slave from its path and literally off the floor by his ragged tunic, then kicked to the side so the manacle around his ankle impacted and shattered the flexing stone digits.

  Yet another fell to the spinning chain, but Nycolos’s good fortune with the awkward weapon had finally run its course. In its fervor to escape the burning and cracking touch of iron, the fey spun away as it crumbled, winding the links around its body. The unexpected weight yanked the chain from the slave’s hand, carrying it several yards down the passage before it finally landed in a heap of broken rock-flesh.

  He’d taken one long stride toward the fallen weapon when he heard the cries and grunts from behind. Safia and several others were pinned in a tight cluster with their backs to the half-broken cart. Nobody else seemed able to reach them (assuming any would even have made the effort), and the few iron weapons they wielded only barely kept the grasping, swarming creatures at bay.

  Cursing under his breath, a string of profanities that nobody present would have recognized had they heard them, Nycolos bolted across the passage. Certain that the others had more to occupy their attention right now, he focused on his left hand, fingertips warping into blackened talons. He grabbed the first of the fey from behind and tossed it away. Those he rescued could never have seen that his grip punched into the creature’s back, severing whatever it might have in place of a spine. With his other hand he scooped up a short sword from where it lay beside a fallen guard. A second fey fell before him—not dead, for the blade he wielded was of steel, but temporarily pinned through the chest to the body of the sword’s former owner.

  Even now, as they turned to face this new assault, he grabbed a third from where it clung to the wall—both his hands were, again, entirely normal, merely human—and hurled it with bone-crushing force to the floor. There, before it could recover, he stepped beside its head, closed his iron-clad ankles around its neck, and twisted.

  It wasn’t much, but it opened a small gap through the converging fey. Still laying about them with what weapons they had, Safia and the other slaves broke through, racing to join with the larger band further down the passage. They, in turn, swa
rmed over the nearest of the creatures, making for the mine entrance. Thanks once more to his enhanced senses, Nycolos heard not only the panicked retreat, but the pounding footsteps of more guards charging this way, having finally overheard and reacted to the mayhem from within the mountain.

  He had no idea, of course, if these new combatants carried weapons that could significantly harm the fey—but then, neither did the fey themselves. Having anticipated a slaughter, not a battle, and uncertain what they might soon be facing, they began to slide back into the walls and the floor whence they’d come.

  Not that their efforts at slaughter had been wasted. The corridor lay strewn with bodies of the dead and dying, people with injuries of solid stone that no mortal being could heal. Doubtless Justina and Rasmus would order the survivors put out of their misery; not out of kindness, though it was the most compassionate option, but because it was cheaper and easier than trying to keep them alive.

  Before the overseers arrived, however, Nycolos had something of his own to accomplish. Swiftly he returned to the side of the fey whom he had impaled, and who still struggled to free itself from the corpse to which he’d effectively staked it.

  The harsh sounds contorting his jaw so that it instantly began to ache, tearing at his throat until he felt it might bleed, he spoke to it in its own inhuman tongue.

  “You do not drive the invaders from your kingdom of stone, not this way. Not without great loss. Hold off your attacks until I call to speak with you once more, and we can both have what we desire.”

  He yanked the sword free with a piercing screech and a fainter squelch of steel through flesh. “Go.”

  It made no response, this creature of the mountain, but it peered at him long enough that he knew it understood—though whether it would heed his words, or bother to relay them, he couldn’t guess. Then it was gone, as a fish vanishing into the deep waters of a pool of earth, an instant before the first of the guards appeared.