The Empire's Ruin, page 79
He hit the landing, slid on the bare stone, then ducked through the doorway. For a moment he thought about diving into the water as he had the last time, but the footsteps following him were too close. If anyone followed him in, they’d see the waves of his passage, follow them back to his head bobbing just above the surface, and that would be that. There’d be no running away then. No fighting.
Instead, he lifted one of the Csestriim blades from the first alcove, then pressed his back against the wall just inside the doorway. It was the best defense he could think of; that didn’t mean it was good. He’d held a sword maybe half a dozen times in his life. He’d killed Scial Nin with a sword, but the old abbot had been kneeling, defenseless. Quickly he hauled to mind the memory of a dock guard he’d seen back in the Bend, shifted his body into a rough imitation of the man’s stance, hefted the blade into what felt like a plausible position. People fought with swords all the time. An arm’s length of razor-sharp metal—if it was, in fact, metal. How hard could it be?
Panting echoed off the walls of the stairwell, quick human breathing, wet and irregular. Boots clattered on the stone. Judging from the sound, the person was injured, limping slightly, but still moving faster than he could believe. The awful scrabbling and scratching followed behind it, and then, laid over those sounds like some kind of twisted flute above the thudding of a drum, rose a high, eager whine.
The footsteps skidded to a halt on the landing outside the door.
Akiil flexed his grip on the sword’s handle, imagined carving a cool arc through the air. Despite his ignorance, the Csestriim weapon felt right in his hands, solid.
After half a heartbeat’s pause, a woman stumbled through the open door, the same woman from before, the one who had taken the spear. Her own blade dangled from a mangled arm. Her other hand pressed tight to her stomach, as though holding shut a wound. It was impossible to be sure in the watery half-light, but she looked young, younger than he’d realized before, not much older than Akiil himself. Aside from that sword—which might as well have been the mirror of his own—she was unarmed and unarmored. A poor choice, evidently, given the blood matting her dark hair, and sheeting down her face.
He checked his attack.
Whatever danger she posed couldn’t be as great as that awful sound pursuing her.
She dove hard to her right, away from Akiil, collapsed, dragged herself up, twisted around so that she was sitting, back pressed against the wall on the other side of the door. Despite her wounds, despite the bloody spit slicking her chin, the woman mastered herself with astonishing speed, quieting her breathing, bringing her weapon awkwardly to bear. As she turned to face the doorway, she saw him. He expected some expression of shock, alarm, even relief, but aside from a slight dilation of the pupils she might have been expecting him all along, even counting on him.
“I will draw it this way,” she said. “You kill it. Strike where the thorax meets the head.”
Akiil stared at her. In the space of two heartbeats she had evidently abandoned one plan and devised another.
“Thorax?” he asked.
She gestured weakly to her torso. “Body.”
Even as she spoke, she staggered weakly to her feet, moved away from him along the stone walkway ringing the lake, turning as she retreated to keep that gleaming blade between her and whatever it was that came.
Akiil opened his mouth to ask something more, then stopped. The thing was just outside, scrabbling over the stone, keening that same hungry, eager cry. There was a time for talking and a time for shutting the fuck up, and it was pretty obvious which one this was. He nodded to the woman, rehearsed in his mind again swinging the sword, feeling it bite, and then the moment was upon him.
He had no name to put to the creature that surged into the chamber other than monster, no way to think about those bulbous, multifaceted eyes, that clear carapace, the glowing ichor pulsing within. It might have been an insect, except it was at least twice the size of Akiil himself and its shell and quivering limbs seemed to be made of ice or glass, a substance so translucent he could see right through it. Reddish light suffused it, a light brighter than the faint blue of the chamber. He could make out organs shifting, as though digesting something. What might have been veins or nerves glowed with a slick light all their own.
“Here,” the woman said. Her voice was flat, matter-of-fact.
The thing turned, quivered. Antennae like pale white ferns twitched, then went still.
The woman raised her blade into some kind of defense. She didn’t look frightened or defiant. She looked like a person preparing to do a dull, complicated job, the consequences of which she cared about only in the abstract.
After a tight silence, those antennae twitched again and the thing, which had been moving horizontally, hinged at a slender wasplike joint, reared the front half of its body, and made a noise like a scream, a scream that climbed through all human registers, high and higher, as though some harpist had overtightened his instrument then dragged a knife across the string. The creature unfolded gracile limbs—each tipped with a serrated claw—and advanced slowly on the woman.
“Its tail is poison,” she said calmly, never taking her eyes from the insect. “As is its venom. Stay well clear when you strike. Wait for it to come for me.”
He nodded, forced himself forward one silent step. Two. Three.
When the monster lunged, he lunged with it, closing the gap from behind, sweeping the Csestriim blade up in a wide, bright arc, then bringing it down into the narrow juncture just at the back of the head.
Someone else, someone who had held a sword more than half a dozen times in his life, might have carried the blow, but Akiil felt the blade bite, then twist in his grip. Red ichor splattered his face. Instead of collapsing, the creature screamed again, spasmed, then rounded on him. Its eyes, each the size of his fist, glittered red, like thousand-faceted gems. Its mouth hung open, a huge spiral of grinding teeth. From between those teeth, it spat something slick and viscous. Only a set of mindless reflexes saved Akiil from catching the venom directly in the face. It sailed over his head as he ducked. He stumbled to the side, came up awkwardly clutching the sword.
The thing advanced on him, slender claws opening and closing greedily.
Attacking from behind had been difficult enough. From the front it looked impossible. Each of the limbs was longer than his blade, and for all its size, the creature was fast. He barely managed to knock aside one claw when another darted out, snatching the sword from his grip, tossing it into the still water with a splash.
Akiil stumbled back, barely keeping his feet. The passage to the stairwell loomed directly behind him. He’d spent half his life running up and down the mountains around the monastery. If he managed to get two steps on the thing, he might be able to beat it to the kenta. If he fled, it might well turn back to finish off the injured woman while he made good his escape.
He glanced past the monstrous insect to find her closing on it from behind. She’d kept hold of her sword somehow—she clearly understood how to use it far better than he did—but her steps were weaving and uneven, as though she were about to collapse. This was the time to run, but he did not run. Instead, he dropped to his knees. If he was going to distract the monster, there was no point in doing so halfway. He spread his arms wide, tilted his head back, offering up his chest and throat. The creature advanced, and for a moment he thought he’d gambled wrong, that it was about to plunge one of those serrated claws through his neck, tear out his trachea, and devour him.
Just as it loomed above, however, he heard the sick crunch of steel striking home. The thing writhed, vomited a stream of ichor onto the stone floor. It hissed and steamed, tried to wrench itself around to face its attacker, but the woman moved with it, driving the blade deeper, then deeper still. With a high whining wail, the creature fell, carapace crunching against the stone floor. The front legs spasmed, reached for Akiil, then curled in on themselves. Those fernlike antennae jerked over and over. Dark, foul-smelling ooze drooled from between razor teeth. The red light pulsing in the abdomen faded, then failed entirely, tossing the whole scene back into cool blue light.
Shaking, careful to avoid the pool of vomit, Akiil picked himself up, then circled the monster’s carcass to where the woman lay panting on her back. Blood flooded the lower half of her jerkin, stained her pants all the way down her left leg. Her breath rattled in her chest, wet and ragged. She tried to rise, then fell back, the sword wrenched from her grasp, blade still lodged in the creature’s shell.
Akiil hesitated, then glanced back toward the doorway. The fight had been loud. If someone else was inside the fortress—or something else—it might have heard. Even as he stood there, it might be coming. The smart thing to do was to run, to get free.
The smart thing, he thought grimly, would have been not to come in the first place.
After listening for a dozen heartbeats, he turned away from the silence, back toward the woman sprawled across the stone.
She looked up at him with dark eyes. There was no terror in that gaze, no rage or defiance, no obvious response at all to her body’s ravages. Even up close, it was impossible to put an age to her. At first glance, she appeared young—no sign of gray in her black hair, skin unlined, unweathered—and yet there was something about her, some quality to which he couldn’t put a name, that whispered age. She fixed him with a stare, tried to speak, choked, spat up blood, then tried again.
“Shin monk,” she managed.
He raised his brows. “How did you know?”
“Robe.” She nodded toward him weakly. “Eyes.”
“Who are you?”
“Doesn’t matter. Take the seed.” She struggled to raise her hand, to unclench bloody fingers. Cradled in her palm was … something. Something dark, the diameter of a walnut, but nothing like a walnut. It looked like a hole punched out of the world straight into the night sky. Akiil could see stars spangling the far side, dozens of them sparkling in the small space. Vertigo washed over him. He closed his eyes, drew in a steady breath, then another. The feeling dissipated.
When he opened his eyes again, the woman tipped her hand, and he realized the thing he’d been looking at—the seed, she’d called it—wasn’t a hole at all, but an object, like a smooth but irregular stone. She gave it a weak toss. He caught it reflexively before it hit the floor.
“What is it?” he asked, Gelta Yuel’s cautions echoing in his ears.
“A weapon…” she replied, voice reed-thin. “A destroyer … The most dangerous … The Nevariim…”
A hacking cough choked off her words. She turned her head, vomited blood onto the stone, spat, tried to speak, but managed only a groan.
“What kind of weapon?” he asked, leaning closer.
He could smell the blood on her, the sweat, and something else, too, something wrong and awful, like rot.
“Winter…” she murmured. “Wait for winter…”
“Why? What happens in winter?”
She stared at him as though lost. Then her gaze swam back into focus. “Where … did you come from?”
He hesitated, unsure what to say, whether to lie or tell her the truth.
“Annur?” she demanded. A new urgency flooded her voice. “You are from … Annur?”
“I work for the Emperor,” he replied at last.
“No,” she whispered, gazing past him, as though she could see the whole edifice of the Dawn Palace looming behind him.
“Yes.”
“She cannot…” The woman trailed off, hacked a glob of blood across the floor, spat to clear her mouth, then tried again. “You cannot give it to her.”
He nodded, uncertain.
Not good enough, evidently. The woman struggled to one elbow, seized him by the front of his robe, dragged his face close enough that he could see the blood vessels ruptured across the whites of her eyes.
“Hide it,” she whispered. “Keep it hidden. If the Emperor knows…” She choked on something deep in her throat, opened her mouth, gagged. “Over…” she gurgled.
“What?” he demanded. “If the Emperor knows, what’s over?”
The woman stared at him as though baffled. “Everything,” she whispered. “Everything.”
Her grip on his robe slipped. She fell back, head thudding back against the floor, eyes blank and staring. He put a finger against her neck, but her pulse was gone. Akiil studied her face, carved the saama’an into his mind.
She was Csestriim. Like the object he cradled in his hand, the truth was both impossible and undeniable.
According to Adare, for centuries the Malkeenian emperors had effectively blocked the few surviving Csestriim from using the kenta. With the empire in flames, however, and no one on the throne capable of passing through the gates, the Csestriim would be free to travel them once more. The question was why?
He turned his attention to the stone—the seed, the woman had called it—rolling it in his hand. It was made of some substance that looked like coal and felt like water. Even holding it, his mind bucked at the thought that it was a real thing with solidity and weight. It looked like a lack, an absence. Only when he closed his fingers, blotted out the sight of it, did it feel real.
A weapon … A destroyer …
If the Emperor knows, everything is over.…
The words were cool razor dragged down his spine.
He hesitated, then tucked the object into a pouch hidden inside the stitching of his robe. It nestled beside the tooth and the necklace. Straightening, he tested the fabric between his fingers. It had been thick and rough enough to hide the dagger on his last trip, and these items were so much smaller. Adare hadn’t patted him down yet; she shouldn’t have any reason to start now. She would, however, be expecting him back, and soon. The longer he remained, the more questions she would ask, and he had no answers to any questions.
The dead woman, the dead Csestriim, gazed into the darkness. As a child, he’d been able to rifle a body in less than a dozen heartbeats. It didn’t take him much longer now. All he found, however, were a belt knife—ordinary steel, not the strange metal of the sword—and what looked like a bird’s bone on a leather thong around her neck. It seemed strange for a creature with no emotion to wear jewelry or adornment, but this wasn’t the time to consider it. With a sharp tug, he ripped the thong free, tucked it into the secret pocket alongside everything else.
He briefly considered doing something with her body, but what was there to do? He couldn’t bury her, couldn’t burn her. He might have rolled her into the lake, but he’d seen too many sodden, half-rotten bodies in the canals of the Quarter. And anyway, what was the point? She must have walked the world for thousands of years, thousands upon thousands, piling up experiences, thoughts, memories. The monstrous insect had hacked all of that out of her with its claws. What was left of the immortal creature was what would be left of any of them in the end—bone and blood, sightless eyes, an unbeating heart, everything else vanished, evaporated, stolen, drained away, a whole life reduced to rotting meat between one breath and the next.
53
The wound burned.
The teeth of the gabhya hadn’t severed the tendon or the muscle, which, though torn, bore up readily enough under Gwenna’s weight. The blood had already clotted to scab, and by the morning following the fight she could feel the flesh stitching itself back together. It should have been reassuring—her body healing itself the way it always had. Except for that ice-hot burning.
Gwenna studied the wound, flexed her ankle, stretched the injured muscle.
Vague predawn light washed the sky above the peaks to the east, but the ravine they’d been ascending remained plunged in chilly darkness. The others still slept wrapped in their blankets: Pattick curled in on himself, one arm between his knees like a small child; Bhuma Dhar slumped in a corner between two boulders; Cho Lu huddled beneath a shelf of stone; Kiel sitting cross-legged in that unnerving way he had, breathing slowly, steadily; Rat a tangle of skinny limbs half a pace away.
Gwenna had pushed them hard after the battle with the gabhya, driving them up the defile toward the safety of Kiel’s promised fortress. Jonon was dead. Chent and Lurie were dead. The hideous creature that had been preying upon them for weeks was dead, and yet something inside her refused to let them rest. Even if they didn’t reach the fortress, the more distance they put between themselves and the diseased forest below, the safer they’d be. That, at least, was what she’d told herself. Studying the flaming, tender flesh of the gabhya bite, however, a sick worry settled in her gut. What if she was running from the wrong thing? What if she’d carried the danger along with them?
“It is infected.”
Gwenna jerked her head up to find Kiel—still cross-legged, still motionless—gazing at her with those gray, illegible eyes.
“Kettral don’t usually get infections.”
“This is not a normal infection.”
The words were a cold hand gripping her by the throat. For a few moments she didn’t move, didn’t breathe, as though if she remained perfectly still the danger might pass her by.
“How bad?” she asked finally.
“Bad.”
“Is it going to…” She shied away from the words, then forced herself to say them. “Is it going to drive me mad? Turn me into … whatever Jonon became?”
“In time.”
“How much time?”
“You are stronger than the admiral, more stubborn.”
“I’m also not stupid. Poison kills strong people, too. And stubborn people.”
“The etiology of the sickness is variable, inconsistent.”
“Which means?”
“Blood is a more direct vector than water. The change may take a day. Two. Likely no more than three.” He cocked his head to the side. “How do you feel now?”
She stared at the historian for a moment, then studied the scabbed-over skin, then turned her attention inward, to the tangled mess of her own thought and feeling. She found none of the euphoria she remembered from the jungle, none of the feverish heat or hunger. But there, like a dark vine twisting around all the rest—something strange, foreign, wrong.
