by Dan Rabarts
The fog parted, a wind nudging Akmenos as the thing appeared. A sleek hull hung in the air, two enormous sails like a bat’s wings extending to either side, the whole affair suspended beneath a shadowy bladder of some kind, whose upper limits vanished in the mist. Steam huffed and hissed from the boat’s sides, if a boat it was, for Akmenos had never seen one like it. At its far end, mostly obscured by the hull, two great wooden paddles turned slowly against the fog, like giant’s canoe paddles, if giants had canoes. The front of the boat was a framework of glass in brass frames, through which peered three long grey faces, neither elf nor hornung nor any race Akmenos recognised.
Nor did they look friendly.
A hatch in the side of the sky-bound ship opened, and one of the strange ship’s crew leaned out, his limbs too long and thin, fine and feathered like a bird’s. It raised something which might’ve been a crossbow, were it to be out hunting whales. Despite the insulting implication that he, Akmenos, might be the sort of target someone need fetch a whale harpoon in order to snare, this was no time to suggest such social impropriety. So, it was with mixed feelings—namely relief and blinding terror—that the cantrip expired, and he fell, right as the weapon twanged and the black barb hurtled past his head, trailing behind it a long spool of coarse rope. He was not falling so quickly, nor was he so trusting in the whims of fate and gravity, to let even the slimmest opportunity at salvation pass him by. Akmenos snatched the rushing rope.
Dragged through the mist, he squeezed his eyes shut, as hornung and harpoon arced down, down, a pendulum falling through blind fog. For a moment, it was liberating. Then came the thunk of the harpoon crashing into something solid, and moments later so did Akmenos. The wind burst from his lungs and he bounced, then rolled. Amazingly, every bone in his body wasn’t splintered to toothpicks. Possibly it was his naturally formidable strength and generally epic heroic qualities that had preserved him, but it was more likely the soft, springy moss growing two feet thick on the flat rocks on which he had landed. He’d take it, either way.
The mist was thinner down here. A vast expanse of moss-crusted rock undulated in all directions. Drawing a carving knife from his belt, Akmenos slashed the rope spliced onto the harpoon, and hefted the black metal spear. He was a hero in an unknown place, after all. It would be unwise to go unarmed. Far away through the fog whispered a hint of light, and the rumble of the air-boat. Akmenos set off at a brisk walk.
Sweating and puffing, he soon came upon a ragged collection of crude huts, built of thin pale wood and weathered canvas, which glowed with the warmth of cooking fires. The smells wafting between the tents and shanties were exotic, redolent with sharp and fragrant spices, hinting at wet earth and dry wind, crackling bark and crisping bone. His stomach growled. He’d hardly eaten in what felt like days. Hunger was turning out to be the part of being a hero he liked the least, so far. But he would endure, as only a hero truly can.
Heavy blankets hung across the shanties’ doorways, and although Akmenos could see light within and hear murmuring voices and spoons clattering in bowls, and smell the rich miasma of unknown flavours, he didn’t approach any of these strange, secret places, in case this was the camp of the fine-limbed sky-pirates, for pirates they surely were, to be so rude as to swoop upon an innocent hornung just floating through the ether, minding his own business. He looked about hopefully for an open door, a welcoming hearth, where a stranger might find a cushion by the fire, a plate of bread and cheese, wine to wet his dry gullet and warm his cold innards.
And bacon. Bacon would be good too. Bacon would be the best.
The huts gave way to houses of flat stone slabs, roofed in moss. Smoke crawled from low chimneys, quickly swallowed by the mist. Hunger burned in Akmenos’ belly, but he didn’t dare approach any of these low-slung hovels with their dark timber doors. As he walked, harpoon over his shoulder, he eventually reached a junction, with houses on all corners and lining the roads that led in all four directions. All cold and closed, uninviting to the traveller making his way between them. Akmenos shivered. In his own mountains, villagers barred their doors on nights when the wolves were abroad, and would not open them until daylight, not for hell nor screaming nor under threat of pain of death. He checked over his shoulder for wolves, saw none, and breathed in relief.
Ahead, a clanking.
Akmenos listened. More than a mere clanking, but indeed a solid thumping, such as that of a smith’s hammer ringing against metal. He quickened his pace and hurried towards the sound. Warm, shifting light spilled onto the street ahead. Between two moss-roofed houses stood one of stone walls and stone roof, its frontage open to the street.
Could nothing be normal in this place?
A figure dressed head to toe in a fine-fitting suit of bronze armour stood before a blazing forge, swinging a flat black hammer upon a sliver of red-hot metal gripped in heavy pincers. Even the hand gripping the hammer was sheathed in metal. A blacksmith at work ought to be drenched in sweat, as should a soldier encumbered by armour. Akmenos may never have actually worked a forge, nor worn armour any thicker than a grease apron, but it struck him that blacksmithing while sheathed in metal was about as sensible as slaving over a hot oven dressed in chainmail. Also, the hammering figure looked awfully…feminine. Not exactly the brawny back and shoulders one expects to see abusing an anvil.
He cleared his throat. “Um, excuse me?” His voice came out as a dry rattle, lost in the clamour. The figure didn’t turn. He laid down the harpoon and stepped into the smithy proper. “Er, might I bother you for a glass of water?” he croaked.
The figure looked around at him, surprised, but not as surprised as Akmenos. He’d never seen a helmet with such an intricate faceplate. The metal covered her features entirely, only her eyes visible beneath the sheen of bronze, and even these had an alien quality he couldn’t place. The smooth plates covering her cheeks curved down into overlapping folds to encircle her neck. A fine bronze mesh masked her lips. Even her hair appeared to be coated in copper. Not a scrap of skin was exposed. She blinked with an odd clicking sound, and even her eyelids gleamed.
Then she plunged the object of her ministrations into a barrel of water. Steam rose, dispersed. She set the metal on the anvil, placed her tools on a bench, and turned her hard, metallic gaze on him. She cocked her head, and her eyes narrowed with a tiny whir. “You’re not from around here, are you?” Her voice was taut, like strained wires.
Akmenos shook his head, colour flaming his cheeks. “I seem to have lost my way, yes.”
“You look hungry,” she said.
Akmenos shrugged. “Well, I might have missed lunch, too.”
She regarded him a moment longer, then nodded. “I have no food. But I can take you somewhere. Do you have money?”
Akmenos pursed his lips. “Umm, money.” He fumbled in his belt, found the tiny bag tied at the small of his back, and turned out the coins it contained. Three silvers, a bronze, and a couple of cloves.
The woman stepped closer. “Oh,” she said. “You really have lost your way.” She regarded him, and the sliding plates that feathered her brow furrowed. “You’re a long way from home, Hornung.”
“Do you think this will be enough for a bacon sandwich?” he asked.
The cheekplates creased, the mesh on her lips stretching. Beneath her intricate mask, she might’ve been smiling. “I’m not sure about bacon,” she said, “but we can find something.”
She closed his palm around his money—and his cloves. “What do they call you, stranger?”
Akmenos opened his mouth, then closed it again. Wasn’t the hero always undone by revealing his true name to the wrong person? “Kamenos,” he said.
She nodded. “That’s what they call you. But it’s not your name.” She shrugged, a clatter of bronze plates. “You can call me Cordax.”
Akmenos swallowed hard. “Er, nice to meet you, Cordax.”
“Come on,” she crossed the smithy in a rattle and a hiss. Akmenos blinked. Was that steam ghosting
from between her joints? So tired, he was seeing things. Or the night mist was creeping closer. Yes, that was it. She did not just steam.
Peculiarly, she didn’t stop to divest herself of her armour before strolling from the forge. Akmenos hefted his harpoon and hurried to keep up.
~
Hal’alak hauled back on the flickering reins. The taur leapt another burning heap of timber, another clutch of battling figures. There were elves amongst the fighting, and hornung, and taur. She crushed the wounded beneath her, leaving the bloodied to their fates. Ahead loomed the shadow of the desert stronghold, defiant pennants snapping in the night breeze.
However much time she may have lost navigating the plinths to get here, she had arrived at an opportune moment. From the parapets flew barrages of bolts and clusters of rock, though she was moving through an all-out melee not a siege. The banner of Bane flew high among the warring ranks. So her work was taking shape. Kriikan’s stranglehold was weakening, with the elves of Landaria in open revolt. Excellent.
Urging the captive taur to leap the smoking wreck of a catapult, she gained the wide causeway leading to the impenetrable gates of the dwarf stronghold. War is a curious thing. Battles turn not only on the strength of soldiers and the cunning of generals, but also on the taste of hope, of desperation. There were taur among the fighting, former slaves of the hornung, freed and fighting alongside the elves. The dwarves’ strikes from the walls were directed against their ancient enemies the hornung, waiting for the tide to turn sufficiently for them to sally forth and smash the hornung for good.
Hal’alak could use that. From a distance, she must look more elven than hornung, enough that the dwarves might think her their ally. Snapping the reins, she drove the taur up the causeway towards the iron-bound gates of stone. Sure enough, the dwarves cracked the gate open as the foe of their foe approached.
Hal’alak burst through the gap, where a platoon of armoured dwarves waited. The taur bucked and strained, but she wrenched the silver reins, relishing the strength of the beast bound under her. Then she kicked, and the taur trampled forward, crushing and scattering startled dwarves in her wake.
She was inside the stronghold. She had her black and white, her cruel and her noble; evil and good. Now all she needed was to find the Rift.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cinnamon and fenugreek, crushed mint and braised game, sour sweat and old charcoal smoke; the tavern’s mingled aromas assaulted the senses. Even the kitchen at Kriikan, where Skerrl—whose personal reek was itself legend—fried spices and sautéed herbs from near and far with ghastly abandon, had nothing on this place. Not to mention the patronage. Humans and elves and dwarves and taur and wyrmken and jackals all had something familiar about them, at least: a consistent number of limbs and heads, for one. Not so here. There were beings long of limb and sharp of face; creatures formed of squirming tentacle and garbed in shimmering diamond plates; something which appeared to be a living brick wall, thumping rocky hands on the table and bellowing like an avalanche; multi-headed serpents with a frothing pint for each mouth. So much strangeness Akmenos could barely take it in. Nor was Cordax the only one decked out in a suit of shifting metal. Several servers working the tavern floor were arrayed in such attire, no hint of skin visible.
Akmenos had left his harpoon outside, trusting to the knives that nestled against his apron. Didn’t hurt to be cautious. Everyone—everything?—here was armed, be it with sword or knife, hammer or axe, or shiny metal barrels with curved wooden handles which, while not apparently sharp, still hinted at being deadly.
Cordax slipped into a gap at the bar left by two burly creatures with horns and tusks, as they moved away with steaming tankards in hand. No one spared Akmenos and Cordax so much as a glance. They were positively pedestrian in this place of exotic weirdness. He crammed in beside Cordax, pressed between her metal plates and the towering bulk of another rock-like being. Behind the long slab of polished rock that served as a bar, buckets and tubs steamed over racks of hanging mugs. Some sort of worm, several yards long and wider around than a well-fed hornung, with a reptilian head, lay stretched out on a cushioned divan. A dozen sinuous tentacles curled and flexed along its rump. Beneath them, teats dripped and drizzled from its belly. A forked tongue lolled between thin lips, and its black eyes darted back and forth as it worked. Tentacles whipped out, snatched up mugs, dipped them in the various steaming buckets along the bar and then…
The creature lifted a mug from a bucket and brought it to rest against a teat; another of its tentacles wrapped around the teat and the beast milked itself, coaxing thick white fluid into the mug. Akmenos gagged. The bar-worm lifted the mug to the bar, where the expectant customer traded coins for the misting brew, and the barkeep continued its work.
Akmenos had fallen into some madman’s hell. This was a dream, and if he could just scream he could wake himself, but his throat was constricted in horror. Cordax signalled the bartender, and the beast dipped two more cups in a bucket. Thankfully, it didn’t add its own liquids to the mugs before sliding them across the bar. Akmenos trailed Cordax through the crowd to a vacant table.
“What—” he began, but Cordax held up a hand. She reached across the table, put her hand behind his head and drew him close, like a lover might for a kiss. Her metal lips to his ears, she whispered, “Better not to ask questions that reveal you as an outsider. Vaporians don’t trust outsiders.”
Akmenos shivered, both at her unexpected touch, and at the thought of the deserted streets he had traversed and of the ship that scoured the skies, hunting. “Well, then,” he said. “Fragrant brew, this.” He sniffed the mug, a heady barrage of peach, yeast and cinder, and with it, the tang of quiet excitement. How one smells a feeling was uncertain, but there it was.
“Youngling Wyrmwhiskey. I’d say you need it.”
“It has been a long couple of days.” Gingerly, he sampled the brew. Heat flickered along his mouth, fluttered down his throat, tastes of peach and autumn harvest, burning leaves, and smouldering greed. “Not bad.”
“So, what are you seeking?” Cordax asked.
“Right now?” Frankly, he wasn’t sure. To get home and clear his name, most definitely, but here, right now? “I have…” he stammered, thinking fast. Then his fingers brushed the scroll case. “I need something translated.”
Every time he used the scroll case, he arrived somewhere new where he could decipher another section and thus take another step forward. Surely here, in this place where all manner of man and beast congregated, someone would have the skill to read the remaining texts. If he could solve the entire riddle here, he could plan his onward journey, rather than fumbling from one disastrous misadventure to the next.
“A book?” Cordax asked. Akmenos met her curious gaze, stunned by how her eyes shone, bright like gold on bronze.
“Not quite,” Akmenos said, and put the scroll case on the table. There was a shift in the hubbub about him, a pulse of quiet as eyes flickered his way. But surely in a place this strange, a mere scroll case would not draw undue interest? “It’s nothing much. Just an antique. I have a…cousin…who would like to know what it says. For his collection, you see.”
Cordax’s eyes widened. “I see,” she said, turning the reliquary over. She gripped the sections, twisted them. “Kamenos,” she said, and it took Akmenos a moment to recognise his hastily fabricated alias, “it would be better if you didn’t lie to me.”
Akmenos managed a wry grin. “But I hardly know you.”
Cordax eyed him, her face hard. “There are people in this city who will cut you open for this without blinking an eye. And others who will give themselves to protect you from them.”
Akmenos took another swig of baked apricots and crackling tinder to cover his discomfort. “And which of those are you?”
Cordax trailed her fingers across a line of unintelligible text. When she spoke, her voice was so low he had to lean in to catch her words. “You have allies in the Holy Flame. We can see you saf
ely from here to the next place.”
Akmenos closed his hands over hers. “Which is where?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been. I’ve been waiting for you to arrive for the longest time.”
Akmenos watched her. He’d trusted Scimitar, and she had used him and betrayed him. How likely was it that of all the places in the universe he might’ve turned up, and of all the people for him to have stumbled upon first, this Cordax might not only be a helpful stranger in a dangerous city, but also an ally, an agent of the Holy Flame? Of course, he was the hero of his own story, so why complain when the pieces fell together nicely? Even so, it was a stretch.
Hedging his bets, he gripped the scroll case.
She released it, reluctantly.
“What do you know of the Holy Flame?”
“Only that we must be vigilant, and on the lookout for a hornung who appears to have lost his way, but who is deceptively resourceful in his own way. So I have remained watchful, and when you came down the road in the dark, carrying what could only be a krith harpoon, I knew you might be the one.”
It had the ring of truth about it, consistent with the taur who had carried him across the desert, and Scimitar who knew so much about him. He was a player in this vast game, and the other players would surely be watching for him. So, could he trust her? Was she truly of the Holy Flame, or was she one of the Eternal Stair, like Scimitar, hoping to lure him to his destruction? How could he prove it either way? Both factions seemed intent on pushing him towards the same goal, but for their own ends. And why him? This was either some vast cosmic joke, or a very unfortunate clerical error. He needed more time to work it out. “Can you translate it? Do you know the language?”
Cordax nodded. “Below the Dwarven is inscribed a line of Analytica.”
