Chapter Thirteen
28th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat
9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th year since the Cataclysm
Ministry of Harmony, Liankun
Moriande, Nalenyr
Pelut Vniel knelt at a small table. The brush in his right hand hung high over the pristine sheet of rice paper. Ink hung in a pregnant drop at the bristle’s end. He did not know if it would grow fatter and drop, splattering over the paper, ruining it, or if somehow it would remain there, where it should, waiting for him to apply brush to paper in a flash of inspiration.
How like the problem the Prince has presented me.
His face tightened slightly. The Komyr, grandfather through grandsons, had never understood the way the world worked. They were great ones for giving lip service to how valuable the ministries were; they praised how well the ministries worked and urged them to do more. In private—but what in the world was ever truly private?—they railed against sloth and inaction, as if they were bad things.
What they missed was that the bureaucracy was the foundation of the world. Emperor Taichun had seen this when he organized and formalized the ministries to administer his Empire. Urmyr, the most celebrated of his generals, had been placed at their head. He gave them the directives that ordered their lives and set their mission. From the beginning it all had been very clear: the bureaucracy was not a means through which revolutionary ideas and practices could be efficiently spread through the Empire. Quite the opposite: it was the brake on reckless fads that might be a cure for an immediate ill but would prove fatal to society in the long run.
Pelut Vniel needed look no further in the past than to the Viruk Empire and its history to know the consequences of failure. The Viruk had employed the Soth as their bureaucrats, and the Soth functioned perfectly. Since they were a subject people, however, and as much slaves as the humans who supplied muscle to the Viruk Empire, the Viruk ignored their counsel when it came to matters of internal politics. As a result, doctrinal differences split the Viruk population, and the resulting civil war destroyed their homelands and broke the Empire’s power forever.
He studied the drop of ink and found in it a correspondence to the world’s black moon, Gol’dun. Legends cast it as the last resting place for all Viruk evil, and while historical conflicts had proven that to be a lie, every minister knew that if he failed in his duty, another black moon would rise to the heavens to mark the passing of mankind.
And Prince Cyron hastened that outcome.
Pelut Vniel did admire Cyron on one level, for he had managed to motivate the ministers to speed up their work in ways no one else ever had. Of course, outright bribery had been tried in the past with a modicum of success, but the Komyr Dynasty’s expansion of trade required internal distribution of wealth. This was overseen by ministers, and the opportunities to enrich themselves had gone neither unnoticed nor unexploited. Ministers acting in their own best interests had moved quickly, and this had created a great deal of internal strife, both within Nalenyr and the wider bureaucracy.
The haste with which ministers moved to facilitate the expansion of trade created many problems, too—not the least of which was ambition among the lowest ranks and a desire to rise more quickly. Ministers who felt threatened sought to reinforce their own positions by grabbing as much wealth as they could, then bribing subordinates or buying the loyalties of others. This destabilized the bureaucracy and had to be stopped.
What the Komyr had never truly appreciated was that bureaucracy was the true nature of the world. Flocks of birds would fly in formations that mirrored the bureaucracy’s organization. The heavens had countless stars organized into constellations that had their own hierarchy and yet were all ruled by the whim of the sun. Even the Nine Heavens and Hells were ranked, and progression through them was all but impossible. And the gods, with minor spirits beneath them, had arranged supernatural hosts as a bureaucracy.
That was simply the way things were.
Disasters of epic proportion could be seen in the natural world when this hierarchy was abandoned. When farmers wiped out wolves in a district, rabbits ran wild and destroyed their crops. That was divine retribution for failing to recognize the natural order and attempting to subvert it.
What Cyron had asked him to do was an even more heinous crime against Heaven. Cooperation throughout the bureaucracy was the way things were meant to be. It had always been thus, even after the Empire had been split into the Nine. It had been reinforced since then that only by cooperating could the nature of the Empire be preserved even though local political events might shift the people on the thrones. Whereas the Emperor might remove a provincial governor, now the bureaucracy permitted the removal of a leader who was a threat to stability. It was just part of what the bureaucracy had to do.
Pelut Vniel did see Cyron’s point. This new invasion was overturning the whole of the nature of society. It did threaten everything, and he did fear what would happen if Erumvirine fell and the invaders moved into Nalenyr. Unlike Cyron, though, who feared being overthrown because his dynasty was the product of usurpation, Pelut knew that the bureaucracy was more resilient than the Prince could imagine. While the invaders might have swept into eastern districts, he was certain that ministers were already organizing things in the occupied lands to ensure that life continued as normal.
The Viruk had needed ministers. Men had needed them. Why would not the invaders need them? There was no question they would. In time, they would come to rely upon them and, once again, the way of the world would be restored and life would continue as it had been meant to.
But Prince Cyron threatened the natural order. By ordering Pelut to keep silent, he raised the Naleni bureaucracy above all the others. He was asking Pelut to create a new level of bureaucracy, which was something only the Emperor could do. Cyron was arrogating power and position he had no right to—trying to change the natural order by way of a most unnatural whim.
While Pelut Vniel did acknowledge that he, himself, was certainly the best candidate to be the Grand Minister of a new empire, he knew that the consequences of abiding by Cyron’s request would be swift, disastrous, and inescapable. Cyron would immediately set each nation’s bureaucracy against one another. The invasion would face a fractured enemy. Their advance would be certain, and the demise of each nation would be just as sure. Only by remaining united in the face of the threat could humanity survive.
Cyron missed a key point in his analysis of events. Dynastic revolutions came and went. Hot blood would earn a throne, but in time it would temper even the most vigorous bloodline. The bureaucracy could rein in even the most ambitious. It could thwart alliances or halt armies, all by misplacing dispatches or rerouting supplies. The invaders, unless possessing their own bureaucracy, would need the ministers.
And, in time, they will come to be dependent on us, and we will become their masters.
Only for the briefest of moments did Pelut Vniel feel guilt at suggesting collaboration with an enemy that likely was not human and clearly sought dominion over mankind. Collaboration with such an enemy was no vice. The farmer whose field was overrun with rabbits killed and ate them, preserving his family for a time of no rabbits. So it would be with the bureaucrats. They would save mankind for a time when the enemy would be weak and could be overthrown.
This left him, of course, with the problem of Prince Cyron. Here he had a twofold dilemma. The first was not that great a problem. Getting rid of Cyron was simply a matter of choosing someone to replace him. Countless of the inland lords would be happy to take his place. Because Lord Melcirvon had never been proficient with letters or ciphering, he entrusted all of his confidential correspondence to a clerk who, in turn, made copies of them available to the ministry—in hopes of currying favor. Providing information to the ministries had forever been the means of advancement, and one Pelut much preferred over the buying of position with newfound wealth.
Melcirvon’s letters revealed a rather extensive network of treasonous lords in the interior. All that their success would require was the raising of an army and an opportune moment to strike. Cyron had actually supplied the reason for the former, and Pelut would see to it that a call for troops went to the interior. It would be rebellious troops who would secure the northern Naleni border.
The lords of the interior could actually supply Pelut with the solution to his second problem. Cyron especially, but even his father before him, had encouraged the merchant houses in their trading ventures. As they grew rich, they created newer and bigger ships. The taxes they paid allowed Cyron to create even bigger ships, and to send them off on expeditions, like the one the Stormwolf was engaged in.
It would be tricky to manage, but Pelut could engineer a revolution that would replace Cyron with a trio of lords acting as corulers. They would impose taxes to enrich themselves and their home realms, which would beggar the merchants and slow the economic expansion. They would cancel Cyron’s current shipbuilding programs and discontinue funding any exploration. With a few well-placed hints on devoting oneself to security matters at home, he could also divide the trio into warring factions and they would collapse.
Giving him the opportunity to rise at the head of a ruling council that, unlike its counterpart in Helosunde, would not be foolish.
The brush descended and caressed the paper swiftly. Black ink bled out over the white surface and Pelut began to smile. He lifted the brush again and nodded. In a moment of inspiration, he had stroked the glyph for serenity, which is exactly what his plan would bring.
He lifted the paper from the table and realized, too late, that he had acted in haste. One droplet of ink trailed down, adding a stroke which changed serenity into ambition. Then it continued its waving trail down the page, cutting across another stroke.
Ambition became chaos.
Pelut set the paper back down again, then laid his brush beside it. A superstitious man might have read doom in the omen he’d witnessed, but Pelut Vniel prided himself on being free of superstition. He knew exactly what the drippings meant, and his smile broadened as he nodded.
Haste will be the undoing of all good. He knew Master Urmyr had written that in one of his books. And I must use better ink.
Chapter Fourteen
28th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat
9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th year since the Cataclysm
Ixyll
The moment I awoke, I knew who I was not. Moraven Tolo I had been, or, rather, he had been a part of me. He was an aspect of who I was, and perhaps a glimmer of who I could have become. He had been useful, and doubtless would yet be useful, but he and I were separate individuals.
I had no sense of how much time had passed, and the place in which I found myself served only to heighten my confusion. I had access to Moraven’s memories, but they had a dreamlike quality to them. I could not be certain which parts of them were true or which might be his dreams. I had, after all, been somnambulant while he controlled my body. Yet, even in that state, I knew time had passed.
But this place—a tomb complex clearly—showed little signs of decay, and all the signs of Imperial construction. Gathering myself, I slowly stood. I wavered as dizziness washed over me, then rested against the wall until the world stopped spinning.
When it again turned normal, I stepped forward to the nearest sarcophagus. A woman’s effigy had been raised on the lid, and the artisan had done an admirable job. I recognized Aracylia Gyrshi and caressed her cold stone cheek. Her name I knew, and her loss I felt as keenly as a fist tight around my heart. I likely could have even picked her voice out of a chorus. I definitely remembered stitching up the wound that gave her the serpentine scar on her brow.
I could not, however, remember who I was.
“Awakened, I see.”
The voice did not surprise me, though it should have. A note of the familiar ran through it, too. I looked slowly to the right and found a Soth Gloon perched on another sarcophagus. “Seven eyes do not lie. I am awake. You were once known as Enangia.”
“An old name only whispered by ghosts.” He canted his maggot-white head. “I am Urardsa now. And what shall I call you?”
“Call me the name you know me by.”
“Most recently this is Moraven Tolo.”
I refused to take the bait in his game. He knew who I was, but he would not tell me. Soth logic demanded he withhold that information, and I had neither the patience for his game nor need for the information. Names and identities meant nothing—labels at best, masks hiding doom at the worst.
“Then I shall be Moraven Tolo for a while yet.”
The Gloon fell silent, which is what they preferred to do rather than cackle insanely, as a man might in a similar situation.
“You have been trapped here for how long?”
“Long enough for empires to be forgotten and the world to be made anew.”
I shook my head. Though I did not know who I was, I did know better than to ask a Gloon questions that did not demand specific answers. I thought about the last memories Moraven Tolo had and formulated another question. “Tell me please of the disposition of my companions—their suspected locations and intentions.”
The Gloon’s gold eyes closed. “Your apprentice and the gyanridin are bound northwest on the Spice Route, hoping to find the Sleeping Empress and awaken her to save the Empire. They have no sense of what lurks out there, but one is inventive and the other desires to become a hero, so they will stumble on.”
I arched an eyebrow. “You see the future. How far do their life-strands extend?”
“Far enough for them to wish they did not.” His face tightened. “They will not emerge from their trials unscarred.”
“Keles Anturasi?”
“Gone. It is presumed Desei agents have him. Ask me not about his life-strand, for it is tangled and one loop has already been threaded through death. It is a knot I have never seen before, nor one I can untie.”
I nodded. “The Viruk and the Keru, they have gone after him?”
“As best they can.”
“And they left me with you.” I crossed from Aracylia’s bier to the small bundle of possessions that had been left for me. Rough canvas clothes meant to protect me against the magic of Ixyll had been neatly folded. Road rations, a canteen, and a small pouch of coins had likewise been left behind. All in all, it looked like meager offerings at some half-forgotten godling’s roadside shrine.
And then there was my sword.
More correctly, Moraven’s sword. I picked it up and slid the blade from the lacquered wooden scabbard. It came out clean. Single-edge, sharp, and polished until it seemed to glow all by itself, it was a pretty piece of metal. The balance was perfect, the hilt comfortable, and an unconscious smile came to my lips as I wove it through circles and loops. A single blade was not to my preference, but if I were limited to one, this would do very nicely.
I returned the blade to its scabbard and slid it into place over my left hip. “Did they leave me horses, or am I stuck here forever?”
“There are no horses.” The Gloon leaped from the bier and stood upright. “You will not be here much longer.”
“Have you foreseen that I’ll walk, or something else?”
The Gloon looked hard at me with all of his eyes. A flutter began in my stomach, but I refused to let my nervousness show on my face. His eyes narrowed, then opened again. He frowned heavily.
“There are simple people whose lives are a single, slender strand. Others have knots, or become interwoven with one or two others. Still others have many strands, many years. You have pieces. Broken pieces that pick up and leave off. They tangle with others, foul them, and there are points where your life makes the future incomprehensible. There is no predicting for you.”
I would have made to question him further save for a glow that began deeper in the mausoleum. It started as a dark blue spark, violet even, then cycled down to red. It vanished for a moment, then reversed itself, growing larger with each cycle. After five or six cycles it had become a sphere twenty feet in diameter within which I began to discern the shape of a man.
The sphere collapsed to reveal a man standing on an oblong wooden platform rimmed with gold. Around its circumference a railing ran about three feet high, and gold disks attached to the sides of the base, one at each of the eight cardinal points. Most remarkably, in front of the man sat a large globe on a gimbaled stand. While I could not see the six-foot globe clearly, I knew it had a map of the world spread over its surface. This told me I’d seen it before and, as if in confirmation, the man on the platform looked at me and smiled.
I bowed to him, respectfully, and he returned it. “I am Moraven Tolo, and though we have met, I do not know your name.”
“When we met, you were much worse for the wear. I’m glad to see you’ve recovered from your injuries.”
“Yes, the scar on my chest and back.” My left hand brushed over it. “Then the last time we met was over two hundred and fifty years ago?”
“It depends upon how it is measured.” He stepped toward me, then kicked one of the disks down parallel to the wooden base. “This time, I think you can hang on to ride.”
“Ride?” I questioned his comment, but still scooped up the coins and the traveling rations. “Obviously you got in. Presumably you can get out. Where will you be going to?”
“Where doesn’t matter quite as much as when.” He kicked another disk down on the other side and nodded to Urardsa. “You’re coming, too.”
The Gloon eyed him with a bit more consternation than he’d looked at me. “Who has told you this?”
“You did, or you will.” The man took my bundled goods and set them on the platform at his feet. “I’m Ryn Anturasi, by the way. Just hang on tight. This won’t take long.”
I grabbed the rail with my right hand.
“Try holding on with the other one. When we get to where we’re going, you’ll want your sword free.”
I nodded and shifted the blade to my right hip.
Urardsa got on the other side of the thing. He held on with both hands and winced.
Ryn fiddled with the globe. I recognized some features on it, though the map of the Empire had been split into many different nations. I knew of that from Moraven’s memories, but I still found it disconcerting. The regions themselves were represented by inlays of stone and wood, each bit of which, I assumed, was native to the location from which it came.
Ryn removed two carved bits of stone that appeared to be the front and back end of a dolphin. They must have been made of lodestone, for they stuck together and, as he put them down, they adhered to the globe itself. The front half he placed in Ixyll, roughly where we were now. The other piece he planted in the Empire. He slipped a lever to the right of the globe and slowly began to spin it. The rotation he imparted would have had the sun rising in the west instead of the east.
“Brace yourself.” He spun the globe so quickly the landmasses became blurred splashes of color, then he drew back on the lever and locked it into place.
From Moraven’s mind, I pulled the memory of the ball of wild magic exploding, and this felt much the same. Instead of a thunderous detonation, however, a wave of magic pulsed off the globe and took my breath away for a heartbeat, then two. A shifting sphere of red and blue surrounded us. All of a sudden the sphere evaporated and the wild magic moved back through me, canceling the vibrations it had started.
And even before I was certain our journey had begun, it had ended, and the familiar sound of battle again rang in my ears. I leaped away from the disk, bringing my sword to hand. Turning toward the sounds of battle, I found myself on a modest landing halfway up a small hill strewn with dead. The Soth Gloon crouched on a pile of bodies, and a new, diminishing glow heralded Ryn’s departure.
I did not wonder at his haste to be away. A quarter turn around the hill a steady stream of hulking beasts with long arms and scaled flesh scrambled upward. They clawed their own dead and wounded down in limp piles that slithered to the hill’s base. At the hill’s zenith fought a trio of people, two of whom I recognized.
Without a second thought I entered the battle. I did so without screaming out my history or any challenge, nor did I inform those above of what I would be doing. I merely flowed into it, became one with it, and began to change the nature of the fight.
There are those who will say that to be a Mystic is to use magic to make yourself better than others. It is true that this is the effect, but the means is almost unknowable. It is not so much that I move faster than others, but I perceive them as moving slower. I see the flows of energy in the battle. I know which way they will move, which ways they can move, and by which means I can most easily stop them.
And, for me, that means killing them.
The hulking creatures stood on powerful but short legs. Their knees, a fine creation of bone and sinew, parted easily as I swept a blade through them. Because they had no necks, I could not decapitate them, but a swift stroke across the throat slashed arteries. Blood geysered and bodies collapsed. Their heads, while massive, had little in the way of bone structure to protect their large flat eyes, and their braincases proved as brittle as sun-dried mud chips.
My first pass through their line harvested a full rank of seven and brought me an unexpected prize. A man, his face clawed to ribbons, had fallen and his sword impaled one of the beasts. I kicked the corpse off him, then tugged the sword free of its belly, before turning to face the things pursuing me.
Coming about, I realized none did pursue me, so intent were they on overwhelming those above. I knew I should have felt some relief at that. Moraven would have, but I was not Moraven. I did not feel what he felt.
And what I felt was insulted.
On my return I did not sweep through their line, I strode into it, boldly, head high, defiantly. One blade flicked out, then the other, plucking eyes, opening throats. Double slashes had sufficient force to spin a disemboweled beast so its entrails could snare others. I inflicted cuts here and there, not fatal, but painful—and it took some learning to find something those beasts considered painful—so their wails would inspire fear in their companions.
It seemed, however, they knew no fear, and in that their creator had doomed them. Someone unschooled in the art of war would think the perfect warrior should know no fear, but that is wrong. A fearless warrior continues forward even though death is inescapable. The perfect warrior is not one with no fear, but one who does not allow fear to overwhelm his judgment.
I slashed and cut at them, at once happy that Moraven had taught my body so many new things, but annoyed that he had abandoned the fighting styles I so much enjoyed. Because the creatures kept coming, each so like the last, I was able to practice and regain my skills. I learned to thrust just deep enough to explode hearts and shred lungs, or to open arteries or hole their stomachs. I fought as I had not fought for ages.
The trio from the hilltop descended and joined me, stealing my prey, but I did not mind. They’d already slain many, and so had the knack for it; but they had been running and relished a chance to regain ground they had lost. The woman I knew from Moraven’s mind and the scar on her cheek. She wore no crest, just simple robes long since scavenged, and had the look of having been on the run for weeks. She used her blade well and killed without remorse.
The second swordsman I had not seen. He wore the crest of a leopard hunting, but his robe and overshirt had been a long time without laundering. Neither he nor the woman would have been thought older than their thirties, save for the age that fatigue, blood, and grime put on them.
The boy, however, there was no mistaking. A mail sleeve had been tied onto his withered left arm, and a spike thrust out where his fingers should have been. In his other hand he carried a sword that had been snapped in half, then resharpened. The hardness of his eyes bespoke much of what he’d seen despite his youth. He was just entering his second decade of life, that I remembered from Moraven.
And his name. Dunos.
The beasts—which Dunos had named vhangxi—came until there were no more and out of deference for my companions, I did not go hunting. With Urardsa joining us, we moved into the night and toward the west. They slept for several hours, and then at dawn we pushed on. When we reached a road we joined a flood of refugees. Thus began the long journey to Kelewan and what they hoped would be a stronghold that would not fall.
Chapter Fifteen
29th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat
9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th year since the Cataclysm
Ixyll
It surprised Ciras Dejote to realize he didn’t hate Borosan’s gyanrigot anymore. He respected the gyanridin’s skill at fabricating the machines. During the one day they’d remained in a cavern while a torrential rain fell—which had the added effect of melting a mountain in the distance—Borosan was able to modify one of the skull-sized mousers, create another duplicate of it, and to get the larger Nesrearck working. It resembled the smaller ones in that it had a spherical body atop four spider legs, but boasted more substantial weaponry. Whereas the smaller ones could shoot darts sufficient for impaling vermin, the larger thanaton carried a crossbow and a small sheaf of bolts.
Originally, the magic machines had been nonfunctional in Ixyll, which Ciras didn’t mind at all. The excess of wild magic rendered them unreliable, so Borosan continued to tinker with the devices as they traveled. He eventually figured out that if he sheathed what he called their “difference engines” in the protective cloth men wore in Ixyll, they would be insulated from the wild magic. Another modification let the thaumston recharge overnight, so the gyanrigot functioned better than ever.
With three gyanrigot conducting the survey, they were able to move more quickly. Even Borosan had become anxious to push on, and Ciras found no reason to complain. While he respected Borosan’s decision to collect data for Keles Anturasi, the new mission they’d been given was to find the Empress and bring her home. Both men realized it took precedence over the survey, so they picked up speed.
As much as he came to appreciate the utility of gyanrigot, he still was not comfortable with one aspect of gyanri. The discipline of mechanical magic could impart skills to people. A gyanrigot sword would make a warrior formidable—at least while the thaumston held a charge. Once that wore off, the soldier would likely die.
Ciras had trained daily for years to gain his mastery with a sword. If men were able to get results with no work, then the very discipline of swordsmanship would wither. If success required no work, no one would work and the very means of accessing magic could be lost.
Ciras was fairly certain Borosan couldn’t see any of that. His machines went about their tasks faithfully, pacing off distances to landmarks, scaling cliffs, measuring depth. They did so many things that men could do, but could only do at great risk to themselves, that the benefit of their utility couldn’t be denied. Keles would be overjoyed to have the data they had collected.
But there would come a point where someone who did not have the Anturasi skill at cartography would be able to use gyanrigot to gather data for his own charts. The need for exploration would evaporate because men could soon just dispatch machines. Even if a few of them were eaten by things like the goldwort, losing a machine was better than losing a man.
As long as the machines cannot make judgments, men will always have to explore.
Yet even with his reservations, he became quite glad the gyanrigot existed. As they traveled northwest, they cut across the trail of another party. Ciras recognized the tracks. The men had been part of a bandit group they’d trailed through much of Dolosan. They’d lost track of them when they entered Ixyll, but before that had seen evidence of the men having defiled graves and slaughtering thaumston prospectors.
The tracks revealed that the men were three days ahead. Moving swiftly, they shortened the lead significantly and found them sooner than expected. Had it not been for the bandits lighting a fire, Ciras and Borosan might have ridden into the small valley where they had made camp. Forewarned, they dismounted, approached on foot, and dispatched the gyanrigot to reconnoiter the bandit camp.
While he waited for the devices to return, Ciras crept up to the valley ridge and peered down. He saw only three of the bandits, but a round hole had been pounded into a stone stab, so he assumed Dragright was somewhere in there. Bigfoot, an unkempt giant of a man, rested beside the heavy steel sledge he’d used to make the hole. Tightboots sat on the other side of the hole, a couple of yards from where a bow and quiver lay. Closer to Ciras, with his back to the swordsman and the fire between him and the hole, Slopeheel squatted and held his hands out to the fire. He wore a sword in his sash, but squatted as a peasant would, so Ciras dismissed him as any real threat.
Something crashed from within the hole, jetting out a dusty gust. None of the bandits reacted with anything more than idle curiosity. Then a long, narrow cylinder sailed out. Its lower half split on impact, revealing an aged sword with a stained hilt. The blade rang when it hit the ground, but none of them moved to retrieve it from the dust.
Dragright emerged from the hole, dirty enough for him to have lain there since the Cataclysm. He coughed, pounding on his chest with a fist while hoisting a prize into the air with his left hand. Bits of flesh fell from the skull he lifted, but much of the shrunken scalp remained in place. Ciras even saw a white ribbon woven into one brittle lock.
Dragright hurled it to the ground. It shattered on impact. He stomped on it, reducing the skull to dust. He laughed, the others joined him, then he squatted and sifted the dust with dirty fingers.
He took a pinch of the dust and brought it toward a nostril.
Tightboots tossed a pebble at him. “Don’t. Save it. It’s worth more than you are.”
Dragright shrugged. “Just seeing how good it is. We’ve enough. There’s a dozen more in there. Swords, too, maybe even a bow for you.”
He snorted the corpse dust.
His head snapped back and his eyes widened. His body shook violently and he should have toppled onto his back, but somehow he came upright, as if being lifted by his throat. Dragright sneezed once, hard, and thick green ropes of mucus dripped from his nostrils like wax. He coughed again, then shook his head spasmodically, four times.
He smiled, all gap-toothed and happy. “This is the best we’ve found.”
Tightboots lofted another stone at him. “You say that with every tomb.”
The man’s hand swept up fluidly and snatched the pebble from the air. “And this time I’m right.”
Ciras rose and began a casual stroll down into their camp. He angled to keep Slopeheel on his right and the fire between him and the other three. He forced himself to walk loosely, never betraying the revulsion he felt at finding breathers of the dead.
Nor did he let his fear show. If thaumston could animate machines, so corpse dust could power others. A Mystic weaver’s dust could impart her skill to someone who breathed it. Likewise the dust of a warrior. Just how much skill no one knew. The practice was proscribed and the only source of knowledge about it came from stories whispered around campfires.
Slopeheel turned to look at Ciras. “Who in the Nine Hells are you?”
Ciras’ blade cleared its scabbard in a draw-cut that caressed the man’s throat front to back. It parted his spine and only left a small flap of skin and muscle beneath the man’s right ear intact. Slopeheel’s head flopped onto his shoulder as blood geysered from his neck, then he collapsed thrashing.
Tightboots cursed as he dove for his bow. “Damn the xidantzu!” He rolled and came up with the bow, but by the time he nocked an arrow and started to draw it, Ciras had reached him. The archer began to turn toward him, but the swordsman’s blade descended. It swept through his right elbow. The forearm whipped away, propelled by the bow. The archer stared at the stump in horror, then a second slash blinded him.
As Ciras turned to the right, the giant ran into the darkness and Dragright kicked the antique sword into the air. He caught it deftly. He dropped into a fighting stance, with his left hand wide, his right jabbing with the sword, and his body open. He stood the way an unskilled brawler might, a casual cut away from death. In fact, tired, dirty, and snot-stained, he looked more dead than alive anyway.
Ciras did not attack. He took a step away from the dying archer, then bowed toward his opponent. He held it for a respectful time, then straightened up again.
Dragright frowned. “You’re a strange xidantzu. You slaughter two, then do me honor?”
“Not you. The warrior whose skull you crushed, whose sword you bear.”
“Heh.” The man half smiled, then convulsed again. He spun the sword up and around, easily, as if he had been trained to it all his life. “He was one of the best, you know. Out here. Better than you could have ever hoped.”
“Of this, I have no doubt.” Ciras waved him forward with his left hand. “But you are not he.”
The bandit attacked and the twin effects of the corpse dust and the sword made themselves readily apparent. Ciras had tracked the man and named him because he dragged his right foot a bit. In his attack, he moved more fluidly and with more precision. He flowed down into Dragon, whipping the sword down and around, then up in a cut meant to slash Ciras’ right flank.
Ciras slipped to the left, then pivoted back on his right foot and backhanded a slash aimed at the bandit’s spine. Steel rang on steel as Dragright spun back faster than possible and parried the slash high. Snapping his wrist around, he attacked back.
Pain scored a fiery line through Ciras’ armpit. He leaped away, feeling blood already dripping. He’d never seen an attack like that, and he knew the Dragon form well. Moreover, he felt a tingle in the air, much akin to what he’d felt when the magic storms played in Ixyll.
Magic! It wasn’t possible, but the bandit had accessed magic.
Ciras’ realization prompted him to take another step back. His right foot landed on the archer’s severed forearm. His ankle twisted and he went down. He landed on his right elbow, striking it against a stone. His sword twisted from numbed fingers and clanged against the ground.
Dragright strode boldly to him, kicked the archer’s arm away, then raised the sword in both hands, as if it were a dagger. Firelight played over the expression of glee on his face and, for the barest of moments, Ciras could see hints of softness there, as if the ghostly likeness of the dead warrior overlaid his features.
The man laughed. “It feels so good to fight again.”
He raised the sword higher, his back arched, his mouth open in a fearsome snarl. Then his body shook and a crossbow bolt burst out through his breastbone. The force of the shot sent him flying toward the tomb. He bounced once, hard, and rolled, coming to rest on his chest near the hole.
With delicate little arms setting another bolt in place, Nesrearck skittered forward and crouched.
Ciras smiled and scooped up his sword. He stood, gingerly testing his ankle, then bowed to the gyanrigot. Beyond it Borosan entered the firelit basin, skirting Slopeheel’s body. “Where’s the fourth one?”
“He ran.”
“How badly are you hurt?”
The swordsman shrugged his right arm out of his robe and checked. “He got flesh, nothing else. If he’d cut the artery, I’d have been dead inside a minute. As it is, I’ll live.”
“So will I, serrdin.”
Ciras spun as the corpse flopped itself onto its back. It grabbed a handful of corpse dust and stuffed it into the gaping hole in its chest. The body jerked and the spine bowed violently enough that the bandit bounced upright. It set itself, then waved him forward with its left hand.
This is impossible! Fear coursed through Ciras. Dragright had been faster and more skilled than he. He had used magic and cut him. He couldn’t stand against such a creature, especially when it clearly couldn’t be killed. To remain and battle against the unbeatable foe was suicide.
Panic seized him, and he almost turned to run. He knew what would happen if he did. The thing would catch him like a hawk stooping on a rabbit. It would cut him down. He’d die with his face in the dirt, his spine slashed open to prove that he’d died a coward.
Though he might not be a master or Mystic, Ciras was no coward. Shifting his sword to his right hand, he wrapped the sleeve of his robe through his sash so it would not flop around. He wiped blood from his hand, then took up the sword again.
He waited. It had used the Dragon form, and the best forms to counter it were Tiger and Wolf. But it will expect that. That meant it might shift to Eagle or Mantis, perhaps even Dog. The various permutations of the battle ran through his mind. As fast as Ciras could adapt his tactics, the creature would be faster, and the outcome as dire as if Ciras had run.
Ciras squared around and reversed his grip on his sword. He brought it back so it ran up along his forearm with the tip appearing at his right shoulder. Instead of using the blade to shield his body, he used his body to hide the blade.
“Borosan, get out of here. Take Nesrearck with you.”
“I don’t understand.”
Ciras began to move back slowly, easily. “Dragright is dead, but his body is linked to this place. You know the stories of corpse dust. Imagine how powerful it would be if the corpse had lain here since the Cataclysm.”
“Oh, oh, I see.” The inventor began to trek back up the hill. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to kill it.” He set himself and nodded to the corpse. “If I don’t, remember to mark this place as very deadly on your map.”
The corpse laughed. “I’ll hunt him down, too.”
“No, you won’t.” Ciras pointed toward the hole in the tomb entrance. “Leave here, and someone else will despoil your comrades. You can’t allow them to be dishonored.”
“No, I can’t.” The thing launched itself at him. The Dragon form shifted into Tiger, but Ciras kept his sword where it was. He cut to his left, working back against its right. The slash meant to decapitate him whistled just past his face. The blow opened the creature to a counterattack, but even as Ciras feinted with his right shoulder, the sword cut back to parry a low slash.
Again, Ciras danced away, working always to the right. The creature might no longer be Dragright, but whatever had caused him to drag his leg still affected it. Ciras moved with calculation, slowing to draw it into attacks, then cutting to the right. The creature darted around to head him off and trap him, but he just ran in the other direction.
The corpse, backlit by the fire, hunched its shoulders. “So this is what the Empire has come to? Unskilled cowards who run rather than fight?”
Ciras nodded. “The Empire you died to save is dead. The Nine Principalities have risen in their place. You and yours are all but forgotten.
“In fact,” Ciras added as he began to spin to the right, exposing his back to the creature, “you’re beneath contempt. Nesrearck, shoot it again!”
The creature had already begun a forehand slash at his spine, but glanced off up the hillside. Its blade rose with the distraction, and Ciras’ spin brought him down onto his left knee. As he spun, he shifted the sword around into a double-hand grip, directed by his left hand. As the corpse’s slash whipped past an inch above his skull, Ciras’ sword bit into the back of its right knee and continued out through the front.
The corpse continued its spin and began to fall. Shifting his blade to his right hand, Ciras rose and cut down. As the corpse hit the ground, his sword clove its skull in two.
It thrashed on the ground, then reached out and clawed the stone. It slowly began dragging itself back toward the white stain of corpse dust. Ciras could imagine it trying to pack its shattered head and come at him again.
He would have hacked it into pieces, but he had no desire to dishonor the warrior. He just let the corpse keep crawling, because between it and the corpse dust lay the fire.
He moved downwind so he’d not breathe any of the smoke rising from the body. Borosan appeared at the edge of the basin and smiled. “I’m glad to see you won.”
Ciras frowned. “You should have been a long way from here by now.”
“I couldn’t have left you behind.” Nesrearck strode up beside him. “I was refitting the thanaton. We would have gotten it.”
Before Ciras could ask, a panel slid up on the machine revealing the crossbow mechanism. Instead of a bolt, one of the mousers was set to be launched.
The swordsman nodded. “It would have taken him apart from inside?”
“That was the idea.”
“Better than what I had, which was just a lot of hope.” Ciras smiled. “It showed me a move I didn’t know, so I showed it no fighting style at all. That confused it.”
Borosan frowned. “But that left you vulnerable and could have gotten you killed.”
“True, but it did not. Not this time.” Ciras returned his sword to its scabbard. “Next time I hope I have a better plan.”