"Forgive the pointiness of my nose," Gaits said. "But do you have any thoughts as to what you're going to do with it?"
"Be rich?"
"I'm serious. Are you going to leave it here? In the Strongbox?"
"Do you have a better idea?"
He wandered from behind the desk, circling around the shining bars set out on the table. "What've you got in front of you? Coins? Jewelry? Ingots? If I take one of these pretty silver bars out of here, whose is it then?"
She set her hand beside the dragon's hoard. "Mine."
"How are you going to prove that?"
"Because you keep records of everything you pay us."
"I could say you were paying your debt," he said. "Or I could take it to the nearest smith and have it melted into strips. At that point, it could have come from anywhere. Same with the jewelry. Sure, you could make records of it, leave them with the Hall. But gems can be recut. No one in Yallen cares who owned a ring taken from Narashtovik. Hell, that's how we make half our money."
"Do you have a point somewhere in all those words?"
"My point, Raxa, is that everything you've taken for yourself in the last month can be taken away from you just as easily. When you had little, there was no point keeping it safe. But now that you have a fortune? You need to get a hell of a lot smarter. Before some sly young thing grabs it out from under you."
He was right. That didn't stop her from being annoyed. "What do you suggest?"
He looked her in the eye. "Buy a house. Better yet, buy land. As much as you can afford."
"Land."
"There's a reason it's called real estate. The only ones who can take land away from you are your debtors—or Galand himself."
She ran her finger over the cool silver. Strange that an ounce of metal could buy an acre of land. Good thing, though, because she was very good at stealing pieces of metal. And if she had a house—better yet, houses—then the kids she plucked from winter's door would never have to worry about being turned out into the street again.
"Two conditions," she said. "First, I need someone you trust. Someone who's used to working with our kind."
"Agreed. And the second?"
"When the time comes? You help me carry this stuff downstairs."
* * *
"So." Gaits leaned out the open shutters, facing the wind blowing in from the bay a half mile to the north. "Does this one meet your standards?"
Keller turned enough to watch her without looking directly at her. He was Gaits' contact in this realm. According to Gaits, they'd done dozens of deals together—the Order, as it turned out, was involved in a surprising amount of legitimate business. Nobody had ever told her. Because she'd been uninterested? Or had she been too small-time to be worth showing?
Gaits' voice carried an edge. They'd been traipsing around town for three days. The first plot they'd taken her to had been three blocks from the Marrigan. Convenient, and stately enough, but it had only had three rooms that could serve as bedrooms.
When she'd mentioned this drawback, Keller had raised an eyebrow. "How many of you will be occupying the home?"
"For now?" she'd said. "Just me. But I plan on having a big family."
After that, the fixer had tried her with several places outside the Pridegate, where many homes remained empty. Hence big and cheap. But she'd eventually decided it was too far from the city's heart. She was looking for a home, not a country manor.
Next had come a string of houses in quieter sections inside the Pridegate. They were all fine, but they blended together. Didn't grab her. Nothing that felt like the place she'd spend her next forty years. Finally, in desperation, Keller had brought her here. He'd warned her how much the property would set her back. That she'd need to dress better to blend in with the neighborhood. That she might not feel at home.
Then she'd seen the rooms. And the bathtub. And the view of the bay that stretched away to the north forever, reminding her how vast the world was and how there was always somewhere else you could go.
She stared out at the ocean and she smiled. "I'll take it."
The next few days were among the worst of her life. It turned out it was incredibly difficult to give someone vast sums of money for a hunk of land they no longer wanted. The titles. Interviews. Barristers. By the end of it, she was starting to think the nomads had the right idea.
As Keller had prophesied, it sucked down most of the fortune Gaits had told her would last a lifetime. But that fortune hadn't been lost: it had been converted into a different kind of treasure. One that could never be taken from her.
The next few days were a mess of cleaning, meetings with woodworkers for furniture, and visits to the tailor. Not her idea of a good time. She was beyond relieved when a messenger arrived from the Marrigan. Gaits wanted to see her that night.
It was a hike from her new house and she set out early. Nine o'clock and the sun wasn't yet down. The high summer evening was sweltering. By the time she neared the Marrigan, she felt like she was swimming in her own sweat.
Smoke hung in the dead air. She didn't smell any roasting meat. Strange. Way too hot for anyone to need a fire. The odor had a second tang to it: whitewash. Angry shouts sprung up ahead. A prickle went down her spine. She dropped into a jog and turned the corner.
Directly ahead, the Marrigan was on fire—and beneath it, drawn swords glinted in the flames.
8
They hiked down a steep escarpment, black rocks tumbling away from their boots. Dust clung to the sweat on Dante's arms. The rocks ranged in size from walnut-sized rubble to slabs big enough to serve a formal dinner. The larger chunks felt sturdy enough, but if one slipped down on them, they'd be crushed like the grapes the basin was famous for.
The rocky scree quit, ushering them onto a slope of sagebrush and dead grass. Crickets whirred. They were a few miles north of the butte that hosted Collen. Ribbons of canal gleamed in the withering afternoon light. A blue haze hung on the horizon, darker than the sky, but it was too distant to tell if it was mountains or some form of weather.
They made their way to the nearest canal. Frogs croaked from its banks. Against the dust of the desert, the smell of the water stood out like a ship's lanterns at night. Blays led them east along the shore beneath fragrant trees. Around the waterway, trellises of beans and grapes curled in the sunlight. Small houses and large barns scattered the landscape.
"There it is." Blays pointed to two sticks jammed into the bank to form an X. He moved down to the canal's bank, indicating a fist-sized spiral shell resting in the mud.
Dante kneeled beside it, picking it up. It smelled tartly of rotting snail, but the meat was gone, a few small scraps clinging to the interior.
He glanced up. "This is it?"
"Sure is," Blays said. "You might recognize the shaden by its distinctly shaden-shaped shell."
"Are there any others?"
"This is the only one we could find."
"You realize we're looking for hundreds of these. Possibly thousands. We already know they're in the area. What does it prove to find one empty shell?"
Blays lifted his index finger. "The emptiness is the key to its use. The meat has all the shadows in it, right? I was thinking it's time for you to use your bloodhound impression. Use the bits of nether left in the shell to trace it back to the meat."
"And thus to where it was used," Dante said slowly. "And where all the other shaden likely are, too."
"Unless you have a better idea."
"One question. Why drag me all the way out here? Why not just bring me the shell?"
"I didn't want to disturb the scene. Anyway, we had to hike all the way out here. Fair's fair."
Still kneeling, Dante moved his mind inside the nether tucked beneath the shell's hard surfaces. It was far denser than it was in most living things and it was a trivial task to gather it up and reach out to the other shadows still linked to it. Pressure bulged in Dante's head. He turned in a slow circle until the sensation peaked.
&n
bsp; "Got it," he said. "North-northeast."
Blays clenched a fist in triumph. "How far away?"
"Good question. Let me consult the map they were kind enough to inscribe inside the shell."
"I was wondering if it felt closer to one mile or one million."
Dante gazed blankly, exploring the pressure in his mind. "It's neither very close nor terribly far. It might be a few days' walk from here."
"We'll need provisions," Blays said. "As long as we're out here, we may as well ask Mrs. Fielder if she knows what lays between us and where we're going."
Mrs. Fielder turned out to be the owner and chief farmer of the land on which they'd found the shell. Blays and Naran had first met her in town, where a chance conversation revealed that she'd recently found a few large black shells along the ditch that watered her property. In Dante's experience, farmers fell into one of two distinct shapes: implacable barrels, and animated twists of rope. Fielder was one of the ropy ones.
"Been showing up here and there the last few weeks." She stood on her shaded porch, watching the three of them flatly. "Knew they weren't from the river."
"Do you know anyone else who's seen them on their land?" Dante said.
"Far as I know, I'm it. What are they?"
"It's probably best if you don't know. Let's just say the Mallish brought them and leave it at that." He pointed in the direction of the pressure in his brow. "What's out that way?"
She scratched the back of her neck. "A few farms. Then a whole lot of nothing. Then the Spiderfields."
Blays frowned. "Tell me that's just a name."
"It is," Fielder said. "For a field filled with giant spiders."
"How giant are we talking? Giant like the size of a plump grape? Or giant like the size of the deposit we'll leave in our trousers upon seeing them?"
"Wouldn't know. I make it my business to have no business there."
After a few more questions, they thanked her and went on their way. Faced with the prospect of spending multiple days in the wilds, they returned to Collen to settle their affairs at the inn, then headed down the switchbacks to the town at the butte's foot, where they'd found provisions to be cheapest.
Despite their thrift, by the time they'd bought enough food for a week, they found themselves down to their last pennies. Dante used his loon to check in with Jona, but he and Fenk didn't have enough cash to their name to justify the trip to Collen.
"We're looking at a problem when we get back," Dante said as they hiked through the town. "The nights are warm enough for us to sleep outside. But we won't have anything left for food and supplies."
"When we were kids, you used to rob people in the street," Blays said. "Too distinguished for that now?"
"It's less a matter of being too distinguished and more a question of not wanting to be arrested and jailed by the people we share an enemy with."
"All right, new plan: when we find the Mallish, we rob them."
They made their way through the housing at the base of the butte, striking out north-northeast. A dirt path took them through a few miles of farms, quitting at the edge of the uncultivated desert. As the sun set, they cleared rocks from a square of earth and laid out their blankets. It was not the most restful night of Dante's existence. At every sensation on his skin, he sat up and slapped at it, convinced he was being overwhelmed by spiders.
At daybreak, they got back on their way, hiking through the low hills. Ahead lay nothing but wasteland: black rock, gray dirt, yellow grass, and pale green spiky plants, some of which grew ten feet high. It looked forbidding, but they covered their heads with cloths to shade them from the sun. And if their water grew short, Dante knew he could reach down into the dirt and draw up as much as they needed.
Good thing. The pressure in his head had only increased slightly since starting out. They had a long walk ahead of them, with no roads to ease the journey.
"While you were at the library, I've been doing some research of my own," Blays said after several minutes of silent hiking. "Starting with that damned wheel of theirs. Know what it's for?"
Dante stepped over a striped bug the size of his thumb. "Making you look foolish?"
"Combating heavily armored infantry. The club end is normally an iron ball. Will smash right through anything you've got on to protect you. In battle, the Collenese infantry keeps a tight formation, then the wheelers dart out, smash up everything they see, and fall back into cover. Then the front ranks advance to stab whoever the wheelers knocked down."
"Sounds effective against infantry. What do they do against cavalry?"
"Naturally, they retreat to the buttes," Naran put in. "And watch the Mallish burn their fields."
Blays shrugged. "Yeah, but the Colleners are fanatical about keeping their granaries stocked in case of blight or siege. From what I've seen, the farmers pull far more respect than the warriors."
"What warriors?" Dante said.
"Like Cord." Blays tapped his right elbow. "With the ribbons. They're all attached to a different temple. They live and train there. Totally taken care of. Some earn money on the side serving as Arms, but whenever the Mallish come calling, they're expected to serve in the army."
"Cord's ribbon was gold. Does she serve Barrod?"
"That's right."
"Barrod's the smith. What does he have to do with fighting?"
"This isn't the Celeset you grew up with," Blays said. "These people have been under constant war for a thousand years. Everything's about fighting."
Once or twice a mile, an abandoned building stood on a hillside, as conspicuous as the last tooth in an old man's mouth. The day was cooler than the few before it. Even so, they used twice as much water as Dante had expected. By the time they bedded down for the night, they'd only seen two other people trudging through the dust.
Before going to sleep, Blays tapped the middle of his forehead. "Any progress?"
"Getting stronger," Dante said. "Another day, maybe two."
"I sure hope I'm right about this. If we spend a week out here with no shaden to show for it, I'm going to be very mad at someone."
"Yourself?"
"What good would that do?"
As the next day of travel began, the landscape was no different than the day before. As the morning wore on, though, the land grew flatter. Abruptly, tree trunks projected from the dust, bleached white by sun and time. The soil was matted with dried matter that crackled underfoot with small puffs of dust. Rodents scampered across the flats, ducking into holes dug through the matting.
Dante gazed northeast. Mountains hung on the horizon, little more than a blue wall. "Does this remind you of anything?"
"Yeah," Blays said. "That I never want to do this again."
Dante was going to mention Morrive, then remembered Blays had never been there. "Let's take a quick rest. I'd like to look around."
"Yes, you wouldn't want to miss any of the rats. Or the dead trees."
Blays and Naran sat on a rotting log. Dante wandered away, tapping the dead tree trunks, producing hollow thuds. When he tested a branch, it snapped off in his hand. It felt incredibly light. He tossed it aside, then thought better and picked it back up. He crouched over and used it to scrape through the gray blanket covering the ground.
The substance shredded like old rope, revealing dirt beneath. Dante grabbed hold of the edge of the matting and walked back, tearing away a swath. It was vaguely reminiscent of dried thatch. He kneeled beside the exposed earth and sent his focus within it.
The nether there lay in thick pools, swirling at his touch. Most dirt was homogenous, studded with the occasional stone which he could manipulate as well, but as he'd suspected, there was much within this soil that he couldn't move at all.
He softened the dirt, pulling it aside. The hole breathed a smell of rot so faint it was like exposing the corpse of a ghost. The pieces of earth he hadn't been able to move turned out to be twigs, branches, and leaf mulch. He reached down with his stick and gave them a poke. The mulc
h collapsed into fragments, scattering on the light breeze.
He sat back, examining the trees. There was a lot of space between each one. Some trunks were slanted, broken off a few feet above where they stuck from the soil. He moved back to the hole, widening it. Dirt flowed like water, exposing more branches and ragged lumps of leaves. An eighteen-inch-wide hole opened at the bottom of his excavations.
Dante felt his way through the nether surrounding the hole. The passage delved downward, branching numerous times before terminating in a round space thirty feet below the surface. Tunnels for the rodents? It seemed far too wide for that. A well or latrine? Some kind of—?
Legs scrabbled up from the darkness. With a shout, Dante jumped back. Spindly legs churned into the light, as thick as his thumb and as long as a bent bow. These were attached to a pale globular body a foot across. Fangs twitched on the massive spider's face as it emerged into the depression Dante had dug in the ground.
Dante tripped on a rock and fell onto the crinkling gray matter. The spider dashed across his excavations and up the side without slowing down. While its body was no bigger than a small dog, its legs spanned eight feet. Dante yanked the nether loose from the earth, shaped the darkness into a spear, and plunged it into the spider's fat body.
Blue ichor spouted to the dry earth. The spider collapsed, legs waving like storm-tossed boughs. Feet drummed across the ground as Blays and Naran arrived, swords in hand. Dante blasted a second spike into the spider's head, stilling it.
Blays gawked. "Tell me that's not what it looks like!"
Dante got to his feet. "In that case, it's a nightmarishly large potato bug."
"Holy shit!" Blays shuddered, stalking in a circle. "I always knew you were going to open a portal to hell one of these days."
"These must be the Spiderfields. Would have been nice if your farmer friend had warned us what they look like."
Naran poked the oozing corpse with an extremely long branch. "I've sailed halfway around the world and I've never seen one a quarter this size. What can they be eating?"
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