by Dan Rabarts
For somewhere between an eyeblink and the long dusty stretch of dead aeons, they fell. Then a frigid wind slammed them, hurling them sideways in a flare of harsh bright light, and, spinning, they crashed into something soft.
Akmenos sputtered, legs scrabbling in the powder with Cordax still locked around his limbs. He paused, lying still and breathing hard, blinded by the glare, cold cutting through his clothes. Cordax was above him, looking down, their fingers and legs still entwined, hips still pressed together. Despite knowing this was no hornung lass, no lass of any kind that a virile male might be stirred to heat by, a sudden warmth flushed his groin. Cordax gazed at him, her eyes shining copper and bronze in the white light, the most human part of her. How could anyone think her merely a machine? Neither spoke. The warmth in his loins had swelled to a rather uncomfortable pressure, of flesh against metal, and that flesh had nowhere to go. He grunted and tried to shift from under her. She didn’t move, and Akmenos wondered if she was damaged somehow, broken by the whirlwind, and he was staring up at her…corpse? What do you call an automaton when it perishes? A shell?
Then she smiled, a metallic crinkling of her lips. Akmenos held his breath, shivering. Cordax was stronger. Her grasp rendered him powerless.
She shuddered and extracted herself. Awkwardly, he sat up. They were surrounded by snow, a thick dusting over frozen rock. The sky was white, more powder swirling in on the chilling breeze. Cordax stood, her movements stiff. Her limbs had been so supple when first they met, yet now they seemed to stick and catch as she moved.
“So,” she said, “where are we then?”
They scanned the horizon of swirling white murk. “What’s that?” Akmenos said, getting to his feet, and cupping a hand over his eyebrows. The cold stung his lungs, chapped his lips. “Some kind of light?”
“Looks like a mountain, but yes, I see light too.”
Akmenos shrugged. “Light has to be a good thing, right? Better than freezing to death out here.”
“Come on then,” she said, and stamped across the snow.
Akmenos watched her go. He was studying how her gait was different now, somehow damaged, and was absolutely not enraptured by the way her coppery buttocks moved when she walked. She was a machine, not a person. No matter how much he tried to convince himself she might, just might, make a good lover, she simply didn’t have the parts. Hell, she didn’t even have a heart.
Which made his own heart sink.
~
“Lady,” the breathless servant stuttered as he all but collided with the doorframe, “your son Grebbeth begs your presence.” Arah looked up from the parchment she was studying. “Very good. Lock this room behind me and let no-one enter until I return. Or I’ll have your horns.”
The servant paled, trembling as she swept past him. Arah had been long hours poring over every available scrap of rumour about the mysterious Eternal Stair, trying to determine how Hrodok and Akmenos had come to the Crystal Desert. There was a distinct lack of information held in the library on the subject, yet more disturbing was the discovery that many of the relevant tomes and scrolls in the vaults were either missing or were suspiciously devoid of dust, suggesting someone else had been here, seeking just what she sought, not long before. And the kitchen had run out of cicadas. She had been forced to snack on crickets instead, and she loathed cricket.
She arrived at Grebbeth’s scrying chamber in a clash of hooves. “What news?”
Grebbeth slumped haggard in a stuffed chair beside the firepit. Multicoloured flames flickered over the coals. “He’s back.”
Arah’s throat tightened. “Hrodok?”
Grebbeth shook his head. “Akmenos.”
“Where?”
Grebbeth shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
Arah settled beside the fire. Opening her inner eye, she concentrated on the flames, focussing on the images within.
Two figures, leaning into wind-swirled snow. One shining dark as brass, the other Arah’s well-rounded youngest son. The landscape was a white blur. It had to be far to the south, or even farther to the north. With the plinths and rifts in play, who could say? Arah bent her will to the scrying fire, shifting her perspective. Pain rippled through her skull as she wrestled the vision, drawing it down to look over Akmenos’ shoulder, seeing what he would see were his head not bowed against the wind.
On the horizon, a mountain. Its peak glowed hellish orange.
The sight hit her like a hammer blow. “Helspake,” she breathed.
A volcanic peak on a plain of eternal ice and snow. Records told of ancient explorers who had ventured far into the southern wastes, past drifting islands of ice, to Helsrech, a land devoid of life where a great peak smoked and burned on the horizon. The gate to hell, they had called it.
How Akmenos had arrived at the very ends of the earth was a question for later. Who was with him, and where was Hrodok? Arah clung to the vision, dragging Grebbeth’s eldritch sight around to reveal her son’s face. Furrowed with determination, and more besides: pain, weariness, determination. So he wasn’t dead yet. That was something. Arah had lost one son already, and she had no wish to lose any more, even the annoying and disappointing ones.
Satisfied, she withdrew. “Rest. I’m going to find Fraag.”
“What will you do?” Grebbeth asked. “Where is this Helspake?”
“Too far,” she replied. “But we must get there, one way or another.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The thing about mountains is that you can see them from a great distance. When one is walking towards said mountain, such great distances are slow to diminish. When those great distances are coated in snow, soaking cloaks and leggings and hoof-hair, and the wind knifes through wet clothes, stripping away warmth and leaving its victims shaking and shuddering, crossing those distances might outstrip even what the heroic can overcome by sheer force of muscle and will alone. Akmenos no longer felt heroic. He felt cold and tired and hungry, and was questioning very hard the wisdom of having ever taken up the heroic profession at all, at least without a more suitable cloak. Gloves would’ve been nice too, lest he become a fingerless hero. But Cordax creaked on in the cold, and Akmenos couldn’t exactly give in while she persisted. Crossing this desert, he wasn’t astride a taur’s shoulders. They were in this together, heads to the wind, feet to the trail. He could give as much as she could.
“What’s that?” he pointed, his voice frost-brittle. The slope fell away towards what appeared to be an ice-locked harbour, the remains of several derelict longboats hauled up on the shore. There were no ships to be seen, no town or trading post hugging the cove, no signs of life. Just these skeletal boats on the stark shore, ghosts of ancient sails twisting in the breeze. They hurried down the hillside. The freezing air must have preserved the boats somewhat, for at least a couple were still sound, despite their tattered sails.
Cordax assessed the fleet enthusiastically. “Help me,” she ordered, handing Akmenos lengths of spar and timber, hanks of rope fished from under lockers, and a massive bundle of sewn leather.
“What are we doing?” Akmenos asked, struggling with the load.
“It’s a long way to the mountain. Would you rather walk, or sail?”
“You mean,” Akmenos grumbled, “aside from the lack of sea between here and there?”
“We don’t need water,” she said, continuing to load him with timber and boxes of rust-coated nails that appeared from the bowels of the boats.
Within an hour, the vessel was ready. Hastily fixed sleds graced the hull of the least dilapidated longboat, and the spare sail they had found wrapped in the leather sheeting snapped and whistled as they hauled it to the wind. With a grind of smooth wood across gritty snow, the boat began to move, the breeze filling the sail, their speed climbing. Angling across the wind, Cordax tacked then gybed towards the mountain, dodging the crops of boulders that peppered the plain.
“You’re right,” he said, hunkering in the stern out of the stinging wind.
&n
bsp; “About?”
“It beats walking.”
“I doubt it will get any easier once we get there.”
Akmenos peered at the glowing peak, rapidly growing closer and more ominous. The snow was darker here, dusted with ash. “It’s just a volcano. What could possibly go wrong?” His sarcasm matched his grimace.
“I’ve waited a long time to meet a pilgrim on the road to the Holy Flame. You’re the first. I have no idea if either of us will survive, but the path of the Flame is one of co-operation, and sacrifice. When we burn, we all burn together.”
Akmenos frowned, squinting against the wind while the snow glissanded under the runners. “I don’t plan on sacrificing or burning anyone, or anything,” he protested.
“Glad to hear it,” Cordax smiled grimly. “But it may not be your choice.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” he grumped. “Someone framed me for a political murder is how it all started. Now look at me.”
“Do tell.”
Akmenos bit his tongue. His web of lies was unravelling. How much could he share without revealing himself as no more than an unlikely refugee, pawn to a dynasty that ruled much of the world? An heir without an inheritance? A brother to many brothers, all with a claim and a taste for power. He had only ever been an extra in the drama of empire, but now found himself an unsuspecting lead player. For once, he mattered. How to say this, without admitting this quest for the Holy Flame was a foil? Because the closer the volcano loomed, the more real and deadly everything became.
“It’s a long story,” he said weakly.
“We’ve a long way to go.”
Akmenos nodded. “Fair enough.” She’d risked a great deal for him. He could return the gesture. “First up, I lied. My name isn’t Kamenos. It’s Akmenos.”
Cordax rolled her eyes. “Pulled that one out of your hat, didn’t you?”
He shrugged.
“I should’ve guessed. Kamenos isn’t even a real name. Who’d call their kid that?”
“Cruel parents?” Akmenos offered, relieved his real name meant nothing to her. Still, he couldn’t keep it a secret any longer. “My father is Bane, and Arah is my mother.”
“And they are…?”
“Bane? Cursemaster of Kriikan? Right hand of Emperor Rathrax, ruler of most the world? Arah, Bane’s wife, head Seeress of the Hornung Coven?”
“So, you’re some sort of prince?”
“No, I’m not the Emperor’s son. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. I’m just a cook, but someone killed an elvish prince and they blamed me, called me an assassin. I had to run away, and the next thing I know I’m being hunted by my own people, and the Eternal Stair, and the Holy Flame are helping me out, and people are dying all around me…”
“And,” Cordax said carefully, the pieces connecting too late, “you’d never heard of the Holy Flame before this?”
Akmenos shook his head. “Not a sausage.”
Her fingers gripped the tiller more tightly. “And now that you know, about the Stair and the Flame and our struggle for freedom, what do you think? What with you being an imperial prince and all?”
“I’m not a prince, just a cook. I work in the kitchens, I sweat and strain and burn my fingers just like any other servant. I’m a long way from being powerful, or free.”
“So, you’re with us?”
Akmenos eyed her warily. With a snap of the tiller, she could flip this fragile sleigh, breaking his neck in the process, while she with her metal limbs and joints would walk away unharmed. She was toffee to his spun sugar. He chose his next words carefully. “You might say my eyes have been opened. The world isn’t just. Maybe I can do something to make it better.”
Cordax’s fingers relaxed, and Akmenos exhaled. Perhaps he’d learned something of politics and intrigue from his parents after all. Would it see him through what lay ahead? If tact was required even among apparent allies, he was going to have a hell of a time talking his way past enemies. Since he wasn’t a warrior by any stretch, he’d be relying on the wit of his tongue.
Damn. He was doomed.
~
At times like this, Hal’alak savoured the world’s mistrust, its spies and traitors susceptible to coinshine or the threat of blood on cobbles. Vaporia might be new to her, but it was much the same as every city; a den of watching eyes and loose tongues. While Hrodok had pursued Akmenos’ phantom through the shifting magics of the stone in his eye-socket, Hal’alak had snatched cutpurses and beggars from the shadows and pulled answers from them: Where had the hornung gone? Who with? Why had others tried to kill him? Where had the airship gone?
People were so easy to bend, to break.
Stealing an airship was nothing a raging bull, a handful of well-placed sword blows, some bone-breaking sorcery and a slightly maddened hornung warlock couldn’t achieve. According to her sources, combined with Hrodok’s unerring certainty as to Akmenos’ route, they would soon arrive at the Rip, another trans-dimensional portal. Hal’alak approved. If Akmenos had survived such a challenge, then he was indeed proving as tenacious and determined as she’d hoped. He might yet serve her purposes after all. Hrodok, conversely, she wasn’t so sure of, as he slipped along the fringes of unknown madness. His mind broken, he was rapidly slipping from Hal’alak’s grasp, which would not do. If he became a liability, she might have to dispose of him. But for the moment he was a halcyon, nose to the wind, confirming the scent of the hunt. She needed him to locate Akmenos, and she needed Akmenos to bring her scheme together; otherwise it was all for nought.
The horizon was black, and the rigging howled as the taur, bound to the airship’s winches, strained against the wind. Sails snapped, and timber groaned. The airship shrieked as a gust caught it, twisted it, outriggers creaking in protest. Hal’alak pushed the tiller over, fighting to keep the dirigible nose to the wind. Something snapped in the rig, the report jarring through the airship, a side-sail whipping free. The taur bellowed. The ship rolled, bucking and yawing.
“Hold on!” she yelled over the howl of spar and sail and wind, as the freighter pitched sideways and slewed, like a wounded whale in the tide, towards the black and gaping heart of the Rip.
~
Araxtheon tweaked the telescope, perplexed. The Gorgon was circling the Rip at a safe, hazy distance, and this other airship now barrelling into the storm was a mere speck. He’d remained nearby, watching the Rip, hoping beyond hope that Cordax would re-emerge sans Kamenos, but never had he expected any fool might follow them. He scanned the freighter’s deck as it was dragged sidewise into the vortex. A bullish creature worked the lines, ensnared in some sort of sorcerous silver-blue lightning, which in turn arced to a human woman at the helm. Another hornung clung to the prow gunwale. The bullman was a slave, but not the hornung. It had to be the Eternal Stair, moving against Kamenos, which placed Cordax in grave danger.
The freighter barrelled over, prey to the wind. The Rip might tear the ship and its crew apart before they reached the other side but, then again, it might not. If they made it through…
Glowering, Araxtheon ground the propellers into gear, tilted the ailerons, and dropped the Gorgon towards the Rip.
~
“There.” Akmenos pointed.
“What?” Cordax scanned the snow-swept rocks. The mountain loomed out of the snowy plain, painting the clouds ruddy orange and casting everything in a hellish glow. She eased a line to depower the sail, slowing the sleigh.
“Flat patch between those boulders. See it?”
Cordax dropped more lines, sloughing their unlikely vessel to a stop. “You’re sure? Not a gate, or a door? A stair, maybe?”
Akmenos flushed with a strange, secret pride. For once, he had a better feel for things than Cordax. Awkwardly, he disembarked into the snow, heading for what he hoped was a plinth like the others he’d seen.
Cordax followed, her motions stiff despite the warm breeze swirling down from the peak. The open space lay between several high, arching black boulders, like a gate into
some nether hell.
“It does look suspiciously flat,” Cordax conceded, surveying the almost perfect circle drifted with ash-dark snow. The upthrust boulders gave the impression of stepping into some massive, clawed hand, ready to crush whatever fell into its grasp.
“Under the snow we’ll find glyphs, spells, that sort of thing. And there should be a receptacle for the scroll case.”
Cordax crossed to the centre while Akmenos began brushing aside the snow at the circle’s edge. When he looked up, Cordax was crouched with her palms pressed to the ground.
“What are you…” Akmenos started, but then he saw.
Her mouth was open, and under her the snow was turning to slurry, to water, running away. She was breathing out heat. The melt spread, the snow breaking up and running away as water. A carven plinth was indeed revealed, etched over with foreign markings, spiralling out from the centre.
Akmenos crossed the circle, his pulse jumping.
Cordax stood, pointing at the circular gap in the middle of the plinth. “Like this?”
“Exactly like that. I wonder how we activate it?” he murmured, extracting the scroll case. “Presumably we insert it into the hole, but there’s usually something to do first.”
“Like what?”
Scimitar had cast some kind of spell to activate the first plinth, but in the desert, he had simply decided to search for the Holy Flame, rather than the Eternal Stair. At the Rift, he had ground salt and pepper on the black rock, though he couldn’t be sure if that had actually been the key. The Rift had functioned, but had the seasoning mattered? Something about the black and the white, but could that…could that have been Hrodok and him? On the Abyssal plane there had been no spells, no locks or keys. Same for the Rip. He’d needed the scroll case and Araxtheon’s engine to find the location, but all it had required of Akmenos had been the courage—or the arrogance—to believe he could survive the magical vortex.
“Well, you know,” he said. “Magic and stuff.”
He stooped and slipped the scroll case into the receptacle. With a mechanical pop, a cover snapped shut, like an eyelid closing over the reliquary. All fell silent.
