Moontide 02 - The Scarlet Tides (25 page)

This Keshi was a towering young man with athletic grace and a fanatic’s ferocity. Sordell threw up his hands and blocked the youth’s sword with shields alone, but the effort staggered him. He bought himself time by shoving the young assassin away with telekinesis, but somehow the youth resisted that too, though he was knocked off-balance.
He’s magi too
, Sordell realised with shock, and suddenly galvanised by the fear that he was burning too much power, he hacked at the youth. But he missed, and was forced to block another thrust …

Too. Fucking. Slow.

He stared stupidly at the foot of steel in his right shoulder, the curved blade like a half-moon. Icy numbness blossomed about the wound even as he tried to muster some kind of response.

The young man twisted the blade, and he screamed as the world tilted.

Stupid damned body, never worked for me anyway …

*

Kazim spun from his falling foe, yanked out his scimitar and slashed at the back of the monstrous red-haired woman. Unseen wards smacked his sword away, and then the steel itself warped in his hand. He gaped, uncomprehending, as the blade twisted, smoking hot in his hand. From the corner of his eyes he saw Sindon fling Gurvon Gyle all the way onto the roof, then leap after him, but it was the fat woman who filled his vision. They’d been briefed
about her –
Mara Secordin
– but before he could remember if they’d said anything useful, she was on him like some Lakh demoness, an extra pair of arms – no,
snakes
! – erupting from her shoulder blades just above her arms and snapping at him. He lopped the head from one with his ruined scimitar, but the other one’s jaws clamped onto his shoulder. Fangs punched through the leather and punctured the muscle. He slashed again and managed to slice the snake-arm in half, but it evaporated as if it had never been and Mara barely winced.

Kazim staggered away from the demoness, the ruined blade falling from his hand as his shoulder went numb.

He lived through the next instant only because of Jamil, who shouted in defiance and thrust his sword at Mara. He didn’t kill her, but he did puncture her shields and cut her arm. Red blood spattered about her and she shrieked and turned towards Jamil.

Kazim saw his chance.
I’ll just—

His legs wobbled as numbing pain shot down his shoulder and his right arm went limp. The blood on the tiles did the rest, and he slipped and fell beside the fallen Anborn woman as Mara Secordin drove Jamil back.

Suddenly he was struggling to manage even small things. Sight and sound became a confusing vortex behind his eyes. The world was receding, or he was.
Is this death? Am I dying?
He felt numb, and yet moving was all pain. He tried to stand, managed, but barely.

There was no one but dead people around him. Yadri and Talid, torn and blasted, motionless. The two Rondians, lifeless manikins. Sindon and Gyle were gone. Mara was pursuing Jamil through a door. Then he realised that Elena Anborn still lived …

I should finish her off, before she does the same to me—

He fumbled for a dagger as the woman stirred and her mouth fell open.

A black chitinous body like some obscene bloated beetle crawled from the woman’s mouth. It seemed to peer up at him, and purple light formed in its eyes. In a flash he recalled how Talid had died and so he backed away, fear overtaking all other emotions.

Without shame, he ran, on legs that wavered like a newborn colt’s.

*

Elena came up like a drowning man from beneath the surface of the ocean, fighting through the tumult, following the bubbles of light. She tasted a ghastly oily film as the cavity in her upper mouth where the scarab had nested burst, followed by the iron-sugar sweetness of her own blood. Then everything,
everything
, came back and she was ALIVE and the body she dwelt in was HERS.

She rolled and slashed, but too slow. The scarab scuttled from her reach. She went after it,
needing
to
killthefuckingfilthything
…

Her blade struck sparks from the cobbles inches behind it, but the scarab reached the shadows and was gone before it even occurred to her to summon the gnosis. She howled in silent rage until sheer relief overtook her frustration.

I’m alive. I’m free. I’m ME …

She flooded her mouth and shoulder wound with healing-gnosis, clean, beautiful energy that was HERS ALONE. She spat pus and blood and then vomited out the sheer horror of the nightmare she’d escaped.
Sordell was gone.
She almost wept.

The courtyard had fallen into silence. She could taste the crisp metallic feel of gnosis on the air as light flashed outside. Mara Secordin was screaming blue murder, the beast in her let loose. Gurvon was out there, fighting Sindon; she didn’t know the traitor mage but she knew Gurvon, and she expected the Ordo Costruo man was in deep shit by now. Bodies lay all about her, unmoving. The last attacker had fled the scarab emerging from her mouth, and no blame for that. She rose, reeling at the effort. She’d closed the wound, but the blood-loss had been real, and thanks to that bastard Rutt Sordell, she was horribly out of condition.

I’ve got to run before Gurvon comes back.

She went out through a side window, blown open by Mara’s fury, and into the road. She knew roughly where she was, and where she had to get to. The streets were empty, in that way violence empties a place; she could sense folk cowering in dread behind their closed doors.

She ran, not fast – her wounds and blood-loss prevented that – and she didn’t look back. But she didn’t run blindly either.

Ahead of her, the young man who’d wounded Sordell was also running on unsteady feet. One of Mara’s snakes had bitten him.
Dead man
, part of her thought, but she followed him nevertheless, hoping to learn who these people were.
The enemies of my enemies might be friends. Or not
.

She came up on him quickly, and he barely saw her. He tried to parry, but she was more or less back in control of herself, and he was reeling dizzily. She battered his blade aside with her blade, then slammed her hilt into his temple and he dropped like a sack of wheat and sprawled at her feet.

Now what?
She stared down at him. Young, handsome, really, with a half-grown beard and thick, dark lips. He was big, much bigger than her. He’d moved like a panther until Mara got him. His shoulder where she’d struck was swollen, the flesh mottled and greenish. He’d probably be dead by dawn. She placed her blade against his throat, then relented: she might be able to keep him alive long enough to question him, perhaps learn who he was; who his friends were, maybe even verify Sindon’s story.

Then a low voice called to her from the shadows, ‘Mistress Elena—?’

She looked up warily as a plump Jhafi man emerged from the darkness, flanked by smaller, more agile shapes.

‘Mustaq al’Madhi? Is that you?’

Religion: Omali

You will smile, brother, when I say that every morning we pray to Agni the Sun and bathe in water to cleanse ourselves of nightly sin. We touch the earth and pray to Bhumasi for fertility of harvest and womb. We go to the temples of whichever deity pleases us that day, sometimes to many, and stay as long or short a time as we wish. We pray to Gann the Elephant for luck, and to Hanu the monkey for strength of body and mind. Soldiers revere Ram, and lovers the divine couple Krishu and Radhika. And we never forget the Trimurthi and their consorts. In truth, this must be the holiest of lands, for the gods are never out of our thoughts. Yes, brother, your Lori, who hated every second of Sollan worship, is drowning in faith!

L
ORENZO DI
K
ESTRIA
,
WRITTEN WHILST TRAVELLING IN
L
AKH
, 924

Isle of Glass, Gulf of Dhassa, Antiopia
Shaban (Augeite) to Rami (Septinon) 928
2
^nd
and 3
^rd
months of the Moontide

The flying carpet took them far to the north of Haveli Khayyam, flying through the night at a torrid pace. From time to time Justina waved her hand, almost as if flapping at midges, which puzzled Ramita until she realised that the jadugara was warding off supernatural attacks. She was frightened that Justina might succumb, and then they would fall from the skies.

‘What is happening?’ she called anxiously in Rondian.

Justina glanced behind her. ‘Nothing. Go back to sleep.’

I haven’t slept yet,
Ramita thought ruefully. She was tired but not remotely sleepy, not when they were shrieking through the air thousands of feet above the dark earth. The eastern skies were glowing behind them and to the right, which meant they must be travelling northwest. Beyond that, she had no idea where they were.

As the sun rose, staining the vast scarred face of the setting moon pink, she realised in shock that they were flying over water – and not just a lake, but the ocean itself. She had once flown over the sea with Antonin Meiros, but still gave a small shriek of fear, though from so high up the great waves were just ripples in a rain-swept pond. When Justina had said they were going to the Isle of Glass, she’d envisaged an island in a river. She should have known better.

The rising sun revealed how drained and haggard Justina Meiros looked. Normally her face was flawless as white silk, but in the new dawn crow’s-feet were revealed about her eyes and the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were bloodshot, and thin colourless mucus was streaming from her nose.

‘What are you staring at?’ she snapped when she felt Ramita’s eyes on her.

‘You look tired. When will we return to land? You need to rest.’

‘I’ll rest when we arrive,’ Justina replied tersely.

Ramita shut her mouth. There was no communicating with her daughter when she was like this. She smiled at the thought that aloof, arrogant Justina was her daughter-in-law; it was endlessly amusing.

But I am magi too now.
There was so much she didn’t know, so much she burned to ask – there was so much to learn, not just about this Rondian magic, but about the world – and how to have children. She’d always ignored the details, for of course her mother would be present. But now her family were who knew how many hundreds of miles away.
I should have asked to be taken home. Ha! As if Justina would heed anything I say.

Steadily they flew on, the enchantments woven into the carpet keeping the winds from plucking them off the rug and the rain at bay. They were flying lower, and slower, and the waves were greater now: mighty troughs and peaks in constant motion, each one dozens
of feet high. The Leviathan Bridge was out of sight, away to the west, Justina told her when she asked, but she could see massive cliffs in the distance, far to the north and east: the coast of Javon, apparently. More information was not forthcoming.

Gradually their destination came clear. A series of huge jet-black pillars of stone jutted above the waves where the land to the east ended, a jagged range of hills running into the sea. Waves crashed about them, massive white explosions of spume and spray, but never covered them. It was only when she got closer that Ramita realised the peaks were hundreds of feet above the surface, and as wide as they were tall. They gleamed like glass.

‘They are called the Pillars of the Gods,’ Justina told her. Her harsh, clipped voice held grudging resignation, as if she’d decided that she would have to communicate with Ramita at least a little. ‘They’re the cores of old volcanoes, eroded by the sea. There is no stronger stone, for it is fused in heat that melts metal like butter. They will stand for all time.’

Ramita stared in wonder. They did indeed look as if Sivraman and Vishnarayan had made them, or perhaps Agni had forged them in his smithy. They looked utterly inhospitable.

As they swooped towards one of the larger of these great pillars, Ramita realised that it wasn’t really flat; in fact it was hollow, like a cylinder. Justina guided the carpet in closer, fighting the winds ripping at them; they pitched and steadied as she fought the air-currents until she’d brought them directly over the opening at the top – then she dropped them within. and they fell into shadow until the carpet struck stone some forty feet down. Ramita squealed in relief and fright at the same time. The winds howled above them like a pack of jackals, but beneath the rim they did little more than whip at her hair and clothing. She crawled to the edge of the rug, feeling weak-limbed and ill. Inside her belly her babies were squirming. She kissed the smooth glassy stone, pressed her forehead to it and let it steady her.

Beside her, Justina moaned and flopped onto her back, panting as if she’d run all day – in a way she had. Ramita had only seen her mask slip once or twice before and she found it oddly comforting, to see
her spent and frail. It reminded her that Justina really was a person, not some animated statue.

‘Come on!’ Justina scolded herself, sitting up and glowering at Ramita. ‘Feel that?’ She held up her long white fingers, like sun-bleached bones. The air was frigid, Ramita realised as the wards about the carpet faded. ‘The temperature here is barely above freezing. We must get below.’

Below?
Ramita looked about, and saw a small door in the stone walls. She groaned, but stood up and hefted her bags. Justina went to the door and pressed her hand to the single knob. Gnosis-light flared from it, seeping between her fingers, then the door opened of its own volition. The jadugara turned. ‘Hurry. It’s starting to rain.’

Ramita staggered past her as raindrops began to splatter about them, the water mixed with chips of ice. She’d never seen such a thing before. The frigid cold was going straight to her bones.

With a gesture, Justina caused the carpet to roll itself up, then she drew it through the air with one hand while opening another unseen door in the wall opposite with her other hand, her kinetic-gnosis doing all the work. In a trice the carpet was sealed away in the storage compartment. Then she closed the doors, leaving them momentarily in darkness, until lights like little stars flared on the walls, revealing a rough-hewn chamber. Justina gestured imperiously towards stairs spiralling down into the pillar of stone. ‘Follow me.’

They descended many flights, and as they did, Ramita felt the air becoming steadily warmer. At the base of the long stairs, Justina spoke aloud in a strange tongue, and doors so cunningly made they were invisible in the wall slid open, revealing a warm darkness. She called again and light flared inside, brighter than those which had lit the stairs. Ramita blinked hesitantly, but Justina pulled her inside quickly and spoke again, and the doors slammed shut with a frightening boom.

‘What is this place?’

Justina scowled. ‘Father created it as a secret refuge. We have stores kept on ice, enough for more than a year. The earth supplies heat. Air is taken from outside and constantly circulated. There are books and
musical instruments, anything one could need.’ She looked down at Ramita in that way she had of emphasising that she was almost two feet taller. ‘And the only rukking company I have in this damned place is you.’

Ramita smiled sweetly. ‘Think how much worse it is for me. I’ve only got you.’ She looked around curiously. There was a fireplace surrounded by couches, and rugs on the floor. A tabula game-board. Another stair going further down. ‘Are there more rooms?’

‘Below,’ Justina answered shortly. She strode to a cabinet shaped from stone and pulled out a bottle and a glass. ‘Father’s room is off-limits. Mine is the larger one with the red wall-rugs. Pick any other.’ She poured a drink and turned away.

‘Thank you for coming for me,’ Ramita said to her back.

‘I did it for the children.’

Ramita screwed up her courage. ‘Where were you, the night my husband was murdered?’

Justina’s voice cracked a little and her rigid demeanour sagged. ‘Alyssa hosted a party to celebrate Odessa’s birthday. They had new wines from Bricia. There was no reason to believe that anything was going to happen …’ She turned her face away.

‘And since then?’

Justina made a half-sobbing sound. ‘I’ve been with Alyssa and my other friends. They told me you were dead. That your body and Father’s were torn apart by a mob. There was nothing to go home for.’ Her voice broke and her shoulders heaved. ‘Alyssa was so
kind
to me …’ She fell into a chair and cradled the wine bottle as if it were a newborn child.

Ramita took a few steps towards her, reaching out.

Justina’s head snapped around and her eyes blazed. ‘
Do not presume to give me your sympathy, you dung-skinned parasite! You’re the reason he’s dead!
’

Ramita went rigid in shock.
Does she know about Kazim?
Then she realised that Meiros’ daughter was only lashing out blindly from the pain inside. She swallowed her fright, backed away quietly and picked up her bags. As she left, Justina rocked soundlessly in her chair.

She found a room below, disentangled herself from her clothing and crawled between the sheets. She didn’t know how to make the light stop shining so she pulled the blankets over her head and let all the fear and the ache of the long weeks of captivity gather behind her eyes, pressing her down, until she was nothing but darkness herself.

*

It was amazing to her how quickly wonders could become commonplace, ever since Antonin Meiros had chosen her, of all people, to wed. The devil-magic of the Rondians had once been just a legend, like the old Amteh tales of pale-skinned afreet, the servants of Shaitan. Then, suddenly, she was married to one, and frightening magic became ever-present, buildings that were like dream palaces compared with her own humble family home in Baranasi were a daily part of her life. She scarcely noticed marble and gold now; flying carpets were just another way to travel …

But even by the standards she was now used to, this place was strange and uncanny.

There should have been no natural light, this far below the surface, but Meiros had created massive transparent skylights high in the walls of the top-floor lounge. Elsewhere, he had set pale glowing lights like tiny candles, each little filament that glowed bright as the sun controlled only by a touch to the glass bubble that protected it: one touch to light it, another to brighten, a third to extinguish: simple, wonderful. The first day she played with one for hours, turning it on and off over and again, feeling each touch draw a little from her reservoirs of energy. By the second day the lights were just another fact of life; likewise the fire that consumed no fuel, the heat that flowed through the ventilation holes, and the fresh water that poured from taps set cunningly over marble basins. There was always hot water for her bath without any need to build a fire.

These everyday miracles did not mean there was no work. She still had to prepare their meals from the icy-cold chamber below filled with row upon row of animal carcases and bins of frozen vegetables of all kinds. She fell into the role of maid for the two of them without
complaint; she’d been brought up to labour and had never expected anything else – and Justina seemed incapable of anything useful.

However, doing the maid’s work was one thing; being treated as such was quite another. When Justina ordered her about, Ramita snapped that she should do it herself; if asked respectfully, she would acquiesce. Not that Justina asked for much, rudely or otherwise; her protector spent most of her days in her room, with opium smoke seeping through the cracks of the door. She knew that her husband would not have stocked his sanctuary with such a thing, so Justina must have brought her supply with her.

There were five levels to the living quarters of the Isle of Glass and it wasn’t long before Ramita knew them all. The top floor with its high ceiling and daylight shafting through the rock was the lounge, and she lived according to its rhythms, sleeping when the skylights were dark, working when they were lit by sunlight. Next level down were functional rooms: the kitchen and laundry, and a separate stair that went into the food-storage area on the next level down. Below that, accessed by the main stair, were the sleeping rooms, seven of them. She’d never entered Justina’s, or her late husband’s, but the other five, including her own, were spartan and cold. She hung some of the blankets on the walls of her room, as much to make them more welcoming as to bring a bit of warmth to the chamber.

The next flight down were a large library and office, where two desks were well-stocked with writing implements and stacks of unused parchment. The final floor housed the ice-room and storerooms and a large chamber with bathing pools, which had huge doors to the outside. The pools could be heated, but Ramita didn’t bother; she was quite happy with the one-person bath in her room.

She had quickly decided the library was the nicest room in the Isle of Glass sanctuary. The rounded outer wall was filled with books, mostly histories of Urte written by the Ordo Costruo. Ramita nosed through them with difficulty; she’d learnt how to read only recently, and was not yet proficient. But she started reading the observations of the Bridge-Builder magi about their world, and found that she agreed with some while others made her wrinkle her nose. Some
threatened her, contradicting things she regarded as true – she didn’t enjoy reading those passages but she made herself do so anyway.