Chain of Shadows (Blood Skies, Book 6) (25 page)

“Cross,” she said.  “Promise me you won’t do anything foolish.”

He hesitated.  “I can’t do that,” he said.  “And I think you know why.  I’m sorry.”

Ankharra smiled.  “You really love her, don’t you?”

That took him off guard.  “I didn’t realize it was that obvious,” he said.  “But yeah, I do.  And even if I didn’t, she’s still one of my own.  I’ve lost too many of them, Ankharra.  I don’t want to lose any more.”

Ankharra watched him carefully.  She seemed to be concentrating. 

He felt her spirit in the air around him, intangible lines of ethereal force subtly shifting across his skin.  Ankharra’s eyes grew wide.  He saw her draw a deep breath.

When she spoke again her words were slow and measured.  “You should probably try not to think about it so much,” she said.  “And yes, it
is
obvious.  You don’t have to be a mind reader to be able to determine that.”

“
Can you talk to Hakim?” he asked her.  “Or maybe the Masters?  Hakim said he’d speak to them about maybe going tomorrow, but I don’t know if I can wait that long.”

“
What if I ordered you to?” she asked.

“
I’m not sure it would matter,” Cross said matter-of-factly.  “I know this trip was under military supervision and that you’re in charge now…but the playing field has changed.  I have to watch out for my team.”

“
And I have to watch out for everyone else,” Ankharra said sternly.  “You do realize that if you do something rash you might be jeopardizing the rest of the people from the ship, right?”

Cross nodded.  “I do,” he said.  “And that’s why I came to you first.  I…”

“…think you’ve said enough, don’t you?” she said, in a tone that made clear she didn’t want him to say anything else.  “I appreciate your visit, Eric.  But like I said…you shouldn't think about this so much.”  She looked up, as if something was hovering over them, and then she glanced at the hilt of Soulrazor/Avenger where it was strapped to Cross’s back.  Her eyes lingered on it for a moment before she stood up, walked past him and opened the door for him to leave.  “Have a good….productive night, Eric.”  She gave him a nod, and closed the door behind him as he left.

Cross stood in the hall for a moment, confused.

What the hell was that? 

He slowly returned to his room, trying to determine how exactly their hosts were watching them.  It wasn’t through magic: Cross had been a warlock long enough to recognize when he was being scried, and he hadn’t sensed any trace of the subtle fluctuations caused by probing spirits or thaumaturgy.  Granted, there in Nezzek’duul they could have been using some different methods, something that didn’t make use of magic at all, but for some reason he doubted that.  This was something else.

Maybe you shouldn’t think too hard about it.  Ankharra
had said that at least twice. 
Have a productive night. 
She’d looked at his blade. 
You don’t have to be a mind reader…

“
Shit,” he said aloud.  He ducked back into his room – Flint hadn’t come back yet – and closed the door.  Acting on a hunch, he drew Soulrazor/Avenger and held the pommel tight.

He didn’t sense anything different, not at first, but after a moment he felt it – a slight buzzing in the back of his mind vanished.  He hadn’t even noticed it before, but its absence was notable, and he couldn’t fathom now how he
hadn’t
heard it, a dull and constant hum that had been undetectable in the background noise.

They’re reading our minds. 

It seemed that his blade shielded him from the effect.  He wasn’t sure how they did it – maybe the Nezzek’duulians were telepathic, or perhaps they’d found some way to modify their technology so the hex patterns and arcane fluctuations were untraceable.  Either way, Cross kept his blade in hand, and wondered what he should do next.

Ankharra did have a point: it wasn’t at all unreasonable that their hosts would want to keep an eye on them.  If Cross understood correctly, they were the first people from the Southern Claw – maybe the first outsiders, period – to have ever successfully made it to Nezzek’duul.  Why that was the case was still unclear, but judging from the warm reception they’d received the Masters of the city and their emissaries seemed pleased to have received visitors…or were they?

Hakim’s rapid response to Cross’s desire to leave had left him unsettled, and the excuses about the holy night and holy day to follow just rang false. 

Cross had the acute sense they were being coerced into staying, but why?  A chill of fear ran down his spine.  He wanted to trust these people, but he couldn’t.  Too much was at stake.

He steeled himself.  He knew what he had to do.  As usual, he didn’t seem to have any other choice.

Cross waited until full night.  Flint returned a while later, but Cross told him he was going to wait it out until morning, when he’d see if Hakim could help them.  Flint wasn’t happy with that at all, and said so, but he didn’t press the issue, and after a short time he returned to his and Shiv’s quarters to try and get some rest.

Before Cross left he tested to see if Soulrazor/Avenger would protect him even if he didn’t grip the hilt, and he was relieved to find the buzzing presence in his head was still absent – now that he’d “activated” the protection it seemed to maintain itself, though he had no idea why. 

I swear, this God-damn sword needs a manual.

Cross threw his dark cloak on over his tattered uniform, checked his weapons, and left just before midnight.  The halls were dark and quiet as he slipped into the maze of corridors, his boots stamping softly on the stone floors.  Candles set in high recesses provided scant light.  He moved by touch, and swore he could hear the furious pounding of his own heart.

He knew the elevators were manned at all times, but in their exploration of the residence floors he and the others had come across a number of stairwells, and Cross quickly made his way to the nearest one.  The door swung open and he descended the narrow steps in near darkness, with just an occasional window offering scant light from the industrial fires outside.  Odd dirigibles like bladed eggplants with wings cruised through the air, their hooded spotlights flashing across the network of Raijin’s towers and city streets.  It occurred to him that acquiring one of those vehicles might prove useful, if only he could figure out how to fly one, but for now he was content to take a more practical approach and just try to steal a horse or a camel to get him across the wastes. 

Cross moved down the stairs, quiet and afraid, circling the tower’s core as he made his descent.  The harsh wind battered the windows.  He glimpsed outside and saw distant dust storms and flat stars.  The air rang with the sound of metal on metal, a low and threatening percussion beyond the tower walls. 

He made it to the ground floor without any issues, save that his chest was tight with exhaustion and his body was bathed in sweat.  Cross peered out into an open courtyard filled with carved fountains covered in frescoes of moons and stars.  Everything had been cast from dark stone and steel that had faded beneath the rays of the merciless sun.  The doorways leading off the courtyard were angular and steeply curved and the staircases were rounded and opulent. 

Nothing moved.  The silence was interrupted only by gusts of hard wind blasting in from out of the desert.  Cross saw out to the wide steps leading down to the plaza, which was lit by twin pillars of furnace-driven flames that never stopped burning, even during the day.  If his recollection of the city’s geography was accurate he needed to go east, towards the rear of the ziggurat – the temple of the Masters – and from there it would be a simple matter of reaching the city gates.  Raijin was a labyrinth of alleys and shadowed roads, but so long as he stayed out of sight he thought he’d be fine. 

Famous last words.

Cross’s heart hammered as he made his way down to the plaza.  The dark citadel loomed overhead.  He was exposed out there in the open, and he was positive he felt eyes on him.  The lack of people was unnerving – if he didn’t know better he could have swore the entire city was deserted. 

Steps inlaid with jet and pewter led down to the road.  Green lights shone through grills in the street.  He smelled furnace heat and burned flowers. 

Cross was nearly to the front of the temple when he saw motion from the corner of his eye.  He pressed himself flat against a wall.  His breath caught in his chest as he froze, one hand on his HK, and waited to see if he’d been detected. 

The silence of the ghost city pressed down on him.  All he heard was the shrill hiss of the wind and the spatter of sparks from the fires.

Two small and cloaked figures moved off in the distance, heading towards a dim shine near the northern plaza.  He couldn't tell if they were children or Gol, but whoever they were they tried to stay hidden, and they traveled with some haste.

He hesitated, then followed them.

It was difficult to keep them in sight.  The night sky was a slate of darkness, and though specks of stars floated far overhead they gave off little light.  Stone walls pushed in, forming an urban canyon.  Cross kept his eyes on the ground so he wouldn’t stumble and fall on something in the alleys while at the same time trying not to lose the cloaked figures.  On a couple of occasions they slipped away but then suddenly reappeared, revealed by burning lights that pushed up through the grills in the street or the flashing pillars of distant industrial flames.

What the hell are you doing?
he asked himself. 
Get out of here.  Go find Dani.

And yet he followed.

The shadows eventually led him to another plaza, but not the one he expected – this was a sunken courtyard, a lowered recess of granite which stood utterly dark within a perimeter of flickering and icy flames.  A series of shaved pillars stood around the central pit, which had been tucked away from the main roads and was accessible only by using a complicated network of side streets and back alleys.  Sound echoed harder in those crooked lanes, and everything Cross saw was blurred, like it had been mirrored.  The strange illumination stripped the scene of color. 

By the time Cross came to the edge of the pit the small figures were gone.  He stared into the shadows.  Bulky forms lumbered through the darkness, vague shapes pushing against one another like ships in a harbor.  He saw a triumvirate of shadow masses, twisted forms made of ebon vapors and black steam.  Cross tried to fix them in his gaze but couldn’t.

Shadows.  The Maloj. 

His heart went cold.  Had they followed them there?  Or had they been waiting all along? 

The sword was ice against his skin, alerted by the presence of those monsters.  Cross watched the shadows as closely as he could, tried to see what was happening.  His breath caught in his chest, and something pulled at him like gravity. 

He looked away, and saw that the figures he’d followed were children.  They stood just at the edge of the pit, a boy and a girl.

A boy and a girl.  Wait.

They stood quiet, and pulled back their hoods.  He knew them. 

Not the Maloj.  An Eidolos. 

The children weren’t children at all, but extensions of a massive and grotesque form hiding down in the pit.  He’d encountered an Eidolos in the Whisperlands – this was the same one, for all he knew, a bulwark of darkness.  It had sent him to kill the Shadow Lords, the cadre of mages who’d controlled the dismal and timeless realm.  Cross had always suspected its true motivations, had always wondered if the reason it had sent him was out of loyalty to Azradayne.  Maybe it had known all along that Cross was playing into the spider’s web and leading Danica into a trap from which she couldn’t escape.

He looked into the pit and saw a mass of columnar dark flesh.  No eyes, no orifices, just ebon skin scaled with sharp edges, its unfathomable form anchored to the floor like a dismal tentacle.

Ribboned columns of black clay reached up and took hold of the children and sucked them into its shadowy bulk.  Their bodies dissolved.  They weren’t real, had never
been
real, just extensions of this monstrous telepathic being.  It was an ancient marauder, incapable of motion, relying on enthralled underlings and flesh puppets to do its bidding. 

How many of the people in Raijin are under its control?
Cross wondered.  He felt the creature’s corrupted breath.  Reality warped in its proximity.  Everything seemed to bleed and twist.

Cross turned to flee and came to face-to-face with Hakim and a host of warriors.  The Magister opened his mouth wide, and a tide of shadows rushed out and enveloped Cross.

FOURTEEN

STRANGERS

It was a hard day’s travel.  Danica was in great physical condition, but she had her limits, and dragging Ronan’s unconscious body across the desert was testing them.  The makeshift sled grew heavier by the hour, and even though Danica used her spirit to lighten the load she didn’t want to put too much strain on him in case she ran into trouble out there in the wastes.

And I will. There’s no doubt about it.

Her metal arm was supernaturally strong when it came to crushing things with her fist, but since lifting strength depended on the rest of her body the bloodsteel limb didn’t help much with hauling Ronan beyond the ability to maintain an unerring grip.  Her skin ached where the metal joined with the scapula, and the entire area around her shoulder was puffy and raw, since it had never properly healed in spite of her spirit’s best efforts.