Brothers of the Knife

by Dan Rabarts

  Akmenos frowned, sipped his Youngling Wyrmwhiskey. “Never heard of it.” He studied the text Cordax had indicated—the language he’d assumed was Giant. Rows of tiny triangles were scribed in the surface, the etched pattern incongruent with the ink which loosely overlaid it. The text hid the true message.

  “It’s a machine language,” Cordax said.

  Akmenos frowned. “Machine?”

  “Mecha,” said Cordax. “Constructs.”

  Akmenos stared at her blankly.

  “Never mind,” Cordax sighed. “We can take this somewhere to read it.”

  “To a…construct machine?”

  “Yes,” Cordax nodded, her face perfectly straight, “to a construct machine.”

  Akmenos slipped the case back into his pocket. “You mentioned bacon sandwiches.”

  Cordax tapped the top of the table, and a panel opened in the surface. A metal plate on an armature lifted from the tabletop, inscribed with short strings of writing in another foreign language. Beside each line was a softly glowing button. Cordax pushed a couple of these and slid the plate back inside the table. “Something like that,” she said. “Ever tasted cloudray?”

  “Um,” said Akmenos. As a gourmand of the highest order and a cook in one of the world’s finest royal palaces, he liked to think he’d tried every exotic meat known to Hornung. Then: “No. No, I don’t think so.”

  “First time for everything.”

  “Tell me,” Akmenos said, “what is the Holy Flame? To you.”

  Cordax leaned back, her brow creasing in tiny brass lines. “Freedom, I like to think.”

  “How so?”

  “The Holy Flame seeks to end oppression in all its forms. To the Flame everything is equal, we’re all but dust and ash. All matter, all power is consumed to nothing. Knowing this, it is right and good that the structures of injustice be torn down and rebuilt in equality.”

  Cordax sounded more like a dissident revolutionary than a blacksmith, her fervour no less disturbing for being so genuine.

  “How will they do that, exactly?”

  Cordax riveted him with her steely gaze. “I’m just a soldier,” she said, low and haunting. “I do as I’m commanded.”

  Akmenos frowned. “You do appreciate the irony there, don’t you?”

  It was Cordax’s turn to look at him blankly.

  “Never mind,” Akmenos sighed, and wondered how people could entertain illusions while living in realities they didn’t comprehend. Forest for the trees, kind of thing. Perhaps he should’ve been a wandering philosopher, or a warrior poet, instead of a cook. Maybe then he would’ve had the words to explain to this burgeoning freedom fighter that submitting to the command of a higher power was exactly the opposite of what she claimed to be fighting for.

  But he didn’t.

  He was a cook.

  Which gave him great cause for excitement when another metal-clad woman deposited a plate of pale steaming fish, shredded greens and some thick, dark bread on his table. Aromas of mountain herbs and rock salt and rain wafted over him. Struck by how hungry he was, he fell to with gusto. The plate was empty far too quickly, and Akmenos could’ve gladly demolished another plateful along with quaffing another Wyrmwhiskey.

  But with his meal complete, Cordax rose. “We should go,” she said.

  Akmenos acquiesced reluctantly. Cordax was his only ally here, and it would be unwise to lose her favour. He followed his metallic companion out into the deserted street. Night-mist obscured the peaks of towers hinting at the city proper. Akmenos scooped up his harpoon and fell in beside Cordax, who was scanning the shadowed streets and alleys, the crooked rooftops. “Where are we going?” Cordax wasn’t leading them back the way they’d come.

  Cordax flexed her forearms, twin blades suddenly glittering in her hands. Akmenos reeled. All it’d taken to buy his confidence was a fish salad sandwich. He was so pathetic. Tensing, he raised the harpoon, and his paranoia saved his life.

  The metal haft shuddered, accompanied by a resounding zing and a ricochet of sparks. Cordax was moving, running and leaping, as Akmenos stared at the harpoon. It didn’t take a real questing hero to know he’d nearly been skewered by a crossbow bolt. He didn’t hear Cordax, but suddenly she was beside him. Blood spattered her chest, arms, and face.

  “Best keep moving,” she said. “They won’t stop.”

  “Who?” Akmenos stood. He was tired of people incessantly trying to kill him. The thrill was gone, leaving a hollow dread in the pit of his stomach. Cordax grabbed his hand and dragged him down the alley, to a rusted metal ladder leading roofwards.

  “Come on,” she urged, and climbed. Akmenos glanced over his shoulder. Had something moved in the darkness? He abandoned his harpoon and followed as fast as he could. Halfway up, he stopped for a breather because his arms were burning, and his knees were shaking, then he pushed on, sucking in ragged breaths as he gained the guttering.

  Cordax hauled him the rest of the way up onto the sloping, gabled tiles. “Quick,” she hissed. “Run!” Cordax drove him forward, running along the gutter towards the void. “Jump!” she grunted as the darkness opened up below them.

  Akmenos jumped. He’d never know how, but he did. Legs flailing and arms spinning, he crashed into the roof across the alley, the wind rushing from his lungs in a whoof. Stars exploded in a blossom of pain.

  Cordax hauled him upright.

  Awkwardly, he scrambled at gables and chimneys, hooves scraping across slate, balancing with his tail. Another bolt zanged off the roof, and he scrambled faster. Gaining the apex, he slid over and down, catching himself at the guttering.

  Cordax was poised near the peak, looking back. Metal glinted blade-bright in her fingers, and she hurled the weapon. Somewhere in the darkness someone cried out. Cordax’s face was grim in the wan light.

  Clutching a gargoyle, Akmenos assumed the most suitably heroic grimace he could muster.

  Cordax slid down the roof.

  Akmenos followed.

  “They must really want you dead,” Cordax said as they walked.

  Akmenos was just glad the running and jumping was over. He’d almost certainly pulled a couple of muscles back there. “Who?”

  “Agents of the Eternal Stair. If you’re on the quest for the Holy Flame, they’ll want to stop you.”

  “Ah,” Akmenos said, then frowned. “Funny you should say that, because as far as the Eternal Stair know, I’m on their quest, not the Holy Flame’s.”

  Cordax shot him a look. “Why would they think that?”

  “Lying seemed like the best way of staying alive at the time.” Akmenos grinned.

  “You’ll have to tell me the whole story, when we have a moment.”

  The whole story. What a comedy of errors that would seem to smooth, sophisticated Cordax. Akmenos winced, remembering Scimitar, how she’d felt against his skin when she’d drawn him close, and the cold hollow which had opened inside him when he’d penetrated her deception, felt her betrayal. It wasn’t something he wanted to share with this strange and attractive young woman, which made no sense whatsoever. He wasn’t ready for all these unexpected feelings.

  He followed Cordax close, up slopes and down gables and stepping across the darkness. Amazingly, her ludicrous metal suit didn’t seem to weary her. The seed of a thought fell in the soily depths of his mind then, but it was too inane to even comprehend. That maybe the metal was not a suit, but rather, a skin.

  “If not the Eternal Stair,” Cordax mused, “then maybe relic hunters. Someone saw the scroll case in the tavern and wants it. Business can be swift and brutal in Vaporia.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” Akmenos quipped. “I need more people trying to kill me.”

  ~

  Throwing up clouds of dust from its bloodied hooves, the taur ran beneath the slate-dark sky, spittle frothing its lips. Hal’alak drove the creature on, despite its wounds. The Rift had not given up its power readily, and forcing it to bend to her will may have caused some disastrous rupt
ure in the fabric of reality. But anything which sowed chaos and destruction among the lesser races could only serve her purpose, particularly as the Rift was a crucial point in the journey undertaken by adherents of the Holy Flame. Until they had stepped out of the Prime into the Abyssal, questers would never discover the myriad worlds beyond, and until they understood this they could never fully serve their masters.

  As if from nowhere, they came upon a shape, a huddled bundle of cloth laid out on the sand, harassed by the Abyssal Plane’s spectral wind. Hal’alak halted beside the broken figure. Akmenos? She pressed the hilt of her sword into the taur’s neck, dropping it to its knees. Gripping her crackling reins, she stepped off and approached the body.

  Not Akmenos though. Not round enough. Someone she knew rather more intimately.

  “Hrodok,” she said, nudging him with her boot. “Get up.”

  Hrodok rocked and moaned but did not obey.

  Hal’alak moved closer, frowning. Hrodok was not one to simply give up when the road became hard. Maybe he was wounded, but surely good-hearted Akmenos would never have left his own brother behind? Hal’alak rolled him over. She’d seen many terrible things in her time but, even so, her throat tightened. One side of Hrodok’s face was a bloody ravaged mess, his left eye a crushed mass of jelly and sinew, caked with black dust. His remaining eye stared blankly upward, at the bleak and unforgiving sky. His lips moved, muttering. Hal’alak sighed. She had invested much in this creature, and for him to fall now to injury or madness would be a setback.

  Still, all was not lost. She reached into her belt pouch, sorting through the fragments of black stone she had scooped off the rift surface, settling on a suitable chunk, sharp-edged but about the size and shape of Hrodok’s ruined eye-socket. Summoning one of the old magics she’d learned while gathering arcane secrets in her quest for the Eternal Stair, she breathed over the glassy shard. “This’ll hurt,” she said bluntly.

  Hrodok twisted, trying to break free. That was good. He wasn’t completely lost. Gripping the back of his head, she angled the sharpened rock carefully, and pushed it into the wreckage of his eyeball.

  He screamed, and the haunted winds of the plain screamed with him.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Akmenos started awake, sitting up at a sudden noise. His horns collided with something hard, and he collapsed back onto the rough bed. Memories flooded in. An endless trek across rooftops and through dark alleys, along creaking balustrades and over rusted rails, past steaming chimneys and sputtering gutters until, exhausted beyond reckoning, they’d arrived at a doorway. Cordax had lit a lantern and walked him to a hole in the wall inside the mysterious building. Ushered to a tiny bunk, he had gladly folded into it, pulled a blanket over himself, and fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep. Daylight now bathed his surroundings, so hours must have passed.

  Wearily, and warily, he dragged himself from the bed, aching where knives and grinders and jars had dug into his muscles while he slept. Cold daylight scoured hard rock walls, arrayed with a dizzying melange of bizarre contrivances and contraptions, all shivering and shimmering together with a low, ominous humming noise. Occasionally, something would thump, something else would hiss, and yet another thing might grind or creak. Yet it all crinkled along together, the sound unceasing, and for all its vibrations and puffs of steam it didn’t appear to be tearing itself apart. Whatever it was.

  “You’re awake.” Cordax stood a short way down the corridor, half in shadow, a stray beam of sunlight catching the rim of her shoulder and striking him, gold and blinding, square in the eye.

  “Um, I might be.” His stomach rumbled. Typical.

  “Rax,” Cordax called, “he’s awake.” She looked him over. “You look awful.”

  “Thanks,” Akmenos grumbled. “You’re not looking too bad yourself.”

  Which was entirely not the rebuttal he’d wanted, but it was also undeniable. For all their crazy scrambling over eaves and downpipes, she looked no worse off for it. Akmenos had never known he might be partial to human women before meeting Scimitar, but looking at Cordax standing there, all sleek curves shining in the morning light, he felt a distinct stirring in his loins.

  “Excellent,” came another voice from some deeper part of the warren, along with a strangely familiar clacking of hooves. Another hornung appeared around a corner, peering down at him from beneath spiral horns. “Wow,” the hornung said, frowning. He was Akmenos’ senior by a good handful of years. “He looks like crap.”

  “Thanks,” Akmenos said dryly.

  “No seriously, you look like rubbish.” The hornung continued to stare at him for a long moment, with a disquieting air. “Want some tea?”

  Akmenos smiled. “Love you like a brother.” He rose unsteadily and followed the new arrival, whose face seemed like it ought to be familiar, yet wasn’t.

  Cordax fell in beside him, briefly squeezing his hand. “This is Araxtheon’s workshop,” she whispered. “He’ll help read the scroll case. Be nice.” Akmenos was about to reply when the corridor opened into a kitchen, and he was distracted by the smell of frying bacon.

  Araxtheon was busy at the grill. He spun around as Akmenos entered, a plate in one hand and a ceramic mug in the other. Akmenos ogled the steaming pile of bacon, scrambled eggs, potato hash, and sausage.

  “Cordax said you wanted bacon.” Araxtheon beamed, though his smile didn’t reach his eyes. Akmenos wouldn’t let a little disingenuity in the morning come between him and a hot breakfast. “Took a bit to find some, but I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.”

  “What can I say?” Akmenos slavered. “That’s just magic.”

  Like a raincloud sweeping across the face of the sun, Araxtheon’s smile vanished, replaced by a sullen glower. He thrust the crockery into Akmenos’ hands. Akmenos stumbled, stepping back and inadvertently depositing his behind into a bench seat at a low table, spilling hot tea over his hand in the process. Yelping, Akmenos dropped the plate and mug on the table and shook his fingers.

  “Maybe while you’re still waking up,” Araxtheon growled, “you could give us the scroll case, so I can make a start on it.”

  “Of course,” Akmenos stuttered, taken aback by his host’s sudden mood swing. He fumbled wet fingers into his deepest pocket and handed over the relic. Araxtheon strode from the room, his footfalls reminding Akmenos of Kriikan, and in particular of the purposeful stride of those who drew an air of command about them; Bane, his father; Arah, his mother; Versha, his brother.

  Hrodok.

  Akmenos shot Cordax a confused look. “What was that all about?”

  Cordax’s lips formed a thin, straight line. “He’s a bit touchy about magic,” she said, then disappeared down the corridor after Araxtheon.

  “Oh,” Akmenos said to no-one, and took up a fork. “Nice of you to tell me that before I made an ass of myself.” He shovelled a hunk of bacon into his mouth and chewed. It tasted like salt and fat and disappointment. He ate it anyway.

  ~

  Wiping his mouth on his apron, Akmenos slipped down the corridor with all the stealth cloven hoofs on hard stone would allow. The hum of the weird confabulation that filled much of the next room masked his approach, and as he neared he heard Cordax and Araxtheon talking.

  Araxtheon’s tone was unforgiving. “He’s a ball of lard. He’ll never survive the journey. We’re wasting our time.”

  “He’s made it this far. He’s resourceful.”

  “But would he have, if you hadn’t saved his skin last night? We don’t even know his real name.”

  Valves hissed, and something banged, causing Akmenos to jump. The voices fell silent. Nonchalant as you please, Akmenos swept into the room, doing his absolute best to look as unlike a ball of lard as possible. Which was difficult with bacon grease on his chin.

  “So,” he said, forging on in the manner of a determined hero committed unerringly to his quest, “what did the case tell us?”

  Araxtheon glared. “It’s taken some time to calibrate
the engine to receive it. We’re almost ready.”

  Akmenos swallowed the dregs from his mug and set it down. “Great,” he said, noting the tension in the air and choosing to ignore it. “What’s the ‘engine,’ then?”

  Araxtheon turned away. Picking up the relic, he attached it to a set of articulated metal arms, the hidden text facing up. He drew additional armatures towards the suspended scroll case. Springs creaked, and metal slid slick along metal. At the tip of one arm were several fine points, while another held a brass ring containing a glass lens which made anything viewed through it appear larger. Ingenious. Looking through this lens, Araxtheon aligned one razor point with the first groove on the case and eased the lens away. After a moment of fiddling with dials and knobs, he moved to a brass panel bristling with buttons, gauges and levers.

  “The Analytical Engine,” he said at last, as if he had ignored Akmenos’ question for long enough that it should’ve been insulting, “is a device for translating Analytica into a language non-Mecha can comprehend.”

  “I understood everything you just said,” Akmenos lied.

  “Let’s see what it says, shall we?”

  Araxtheon pulled a lever, and the armature scraped across the scroll case. A sound emanated from within the engine and, on what appeared to be a window into darkness, green lights formed lines of obscure text in a language he didn’t recognise.

  So much for that then, he thought, but bit his tongue.

  The armatures bobbed and shifted as the tiny needles followed the grooves etched in the relic, an ominous dirge rising over the hum of the contraption, the little window choking up with symbols. Desperate as Akmenos was to know what was happening, he really didn’t want Araxtheon to think him any stupider than he no doubt already did. So he said nothing. Finally, the weird song finished, and the needle lifted. Araxtheon studied the glowing symbols, his face becoming grave. “You see that?”

  Akmenos’ mouth opened and closed. Sure, he saw it all, but it meant nothing to him. What made the writing appear in that window? “Sure,” he said, nodding. “Fascinating.”