Babylon Steel (47 page)

“I’ll do this as fast as I can.” I would have to. Morning worship would take no more than an hour, and Shakanti was already suspicious.

I walked around the corner. Even Laney couldn’t make me walk with Shakanti’s drifting, arrogant elegance. I hoped they wouldn’t notice.

“Shakanti? What are you doing here?” Lohiria said. “I thought the
greater
Avatars were to receive worship as usual this morning.”

“The others may be as foolish as they wish,” I said. I could hear Shakanti’s voice over my own, slightly out of time. It almost threw me.

“Is something wrong?” Lohiria said. “We have waited hours. I still don’t see why we couldn’t have one of the priests guard it; we could always have killed them after.”

“It was necessary,” I said.

They looked at each other, and I wondered if they could sense something wrong. I was sweating cold.

“Have they
still
not decided?” Mihiria said. “I thought it was all done. We know that only an Avatar can use the ring, we must all be present, and then the power will flow into all of us,” Mihiria snapped, twitching at her robes. “I can’t see why there is all this waiting about. Wait, wait, wait. We’ve waited centuries.” She glanced at me, warily, as though she might have gone too far.

“You’ll wait longer,” I said. “Tell me, who ordered the statue of Babaska broken?” If it had been Shakanti herself I would have to fudge somehow.

“What? Why?” Lohiria said.

I said, hoping I sounded like Shakanti in a mood of thinning patience, “Well, who was it?”

“You
know
it was Hap-Canae,” said Mihiria.

“And why do you think he ordered it?” I said.

“He said it was part of the destruction of her worship; really, I don’t know what this has to do with anything,” Mihiria whined.

“He has tricked us all,” I said.

“What?” Lohiria glared at Mihiria. “I
told
you!”

Mihiria said, “What do you mean? What is he doing?”

“The statues. The power will go through the statues. That’s why he had Babaska’s broken. Her no longer having an Avatar, he didn’t know what would happen if power went there. Hap-Canae meant not to be at the ceremony; to make some excuse. If he is inside the statue of himself when the ring is placed, then he will take all the power to himself. He will leave us with nothing.”

“The statues?” Mihiria said.

“Where is Hap-Canae?” Lohiria said. “Why didn’t you stop him?”

“It is dawn,” I said. “My powers are weakening as his grow. I only just discovered this; how could
I
stop him?”

“But if we need to be inside the statues,” said Mihiria, “who will place the ring?”

“We don’t
need
to be,” I said. “It is only if one wishes to divert power from others, to keep it all for oneself. If we are all present for the ceremony, then things will go as planned, an equal share for all.”

I saw Mihiria’s face change as she realised that she, too, had a statue.

So did Lohiria.

“We’ll stop him,” they said.

“There are two of us, our powers don’t fade with the hours,” Lohiria said. “The room is still guarded
inside
.”

“We’ll come straight back,” Mihiria said. “But if something happens to keep us away, if Hap-Canae defeats us, don’t let them stop the ceremony!”

“Yes,” said Lohiria. “Better that we should sacrifice ourselves, and the rest of you take up your rightful places!”

Before I could even answer, they picked up their skirts and ran, trying to outpace each other. Sacrifice themselves, my backside; they just wanted to get to their own statues.

The door stood before me, as it had all that time ago. A good chunk of my life, it had been, since then. To the altar-stone I suppose it was nothing; a bare blink of time.

I could hear something moving in the room beyond; a dull scraping, like the body of an armoured man dragged across stone. Lohiria had said the room was guarded inside.

I beckoned the others.

Laney had gone so white she was almost transparent, and was shuddering all over.

“Laney. Laney! You can take it off now!”

She let out an explosive breath that ended in a harsh cough, and staggered. I felt Shakanti’s likeness run off me, and shuddered with relief.

We took turns listening at the door, but none of us could work out what the noise was.

“Never mind; whatever it is, I have to go in,” I said. “And one last time; if the Avatars turn up, just
run
. Get the hells out of here, make for the portal, and get off Tiresana. No arguments. There’ll be nothing you can do, and I don’t want the last thing I hear to be my friends dying. Understood?”

They looked at each other.

“Understood,” Previous said. “Do what you need to do.”

The words were in my head, as though I’d heard them the day before. That memory of mine. It wasn’t always a blessing, especially here.

I took a breath, and said:

“
Insiteth

“
Abea

“
Iatenteth

“
Hai ena.
”

The dust spiralled around us. Nothing. Then, as I felt failure take me like a sickness, the floor hummed beneath my feet and the doors swung open.

There were no windows in the room; the only light came from the torch on the wall behind us, sputtering near its end. At first I couldn’t make out what I was seeing. I could hear that slow, dragging sound, and the floor seemed to be
moving.
About three feet off the ground floated four red glowing lights, each the size of my palm.

Someone moved, letting in more light, and it fell on great scaled backs. Rohikanta’s pets, the Messewhy
.

They belted forward with that swaying ungainly run, which would look a lot more absurd if it weren’t so terrifyingly fast. I leapt back, almost knocking Previous off her feet. Someone shrieked, and the things reared up with a jolt, towering over us, yawing and hissing.

There were thick collars of black metal about their necks, and a chain of the same stuff ran from each to the wall. Adamant. They’d used it to hold me, too; the only material that could hold an Avatar. Or, it seemed, an Avatar’s uncanny pet.

They realised they couldn’t reach us, and dropped back onto all fours with resounding
thuds
. “Someone bring that torch here,” I said.

In the flickering light, I could see a small box on the altar, heavily decorated with lapis and shell. I could only hope I was right, and the fake ring was in there; if not, we were done for.

It was roughly thirty feet from the door to the altar, most of it covered with toothy reptile. The chains were taut at the door, and I realised, as one of the beasts moved to the far end of its length, that they couldn’t reach the altar either. That made sense, I supposed; it would be irritating if one of your guards, in a moment of boredom, decided to swallow the thing it was supposed to be guarding. Unfortunately they could cover most of the space between door and altar with no trouble at all.

“Unusual, is there rope in that bag?” I said.

“Of course.”

“How are you at throwing it?”

“Straight, weighted or looped?” he said.

“I guess that answers my question. Looped. Can you get loops round those beasties’ muzzles, and pull them tight?”

“If they need those chains, Babylon,” Unusual said, “I’m thinking even our best rope, which we don’t have, wouldn’t hold them.”

“It doesn’t need to hold the whole animal – just its jaw. Their strength is all in their downbite. You can hold their jaws shut with your hands, and they can’t open them. Normal ones, anyway.”

“There’s a normal version?” Previous said.

“Yes. Don’t go paddling in the river.”

Unusual was coiling the rope over his arm, and squinting into the room. “More light,” he said.

A couple of the crew grabbed torches from the wall-brackets. We wouldn’t need them for long. The day outside was rising much too fast.

Unusual flicked the rope out, the loop spun lazily through the air, over a beast’s snout, and he snugged it tight. The Messehflung its head about, hissing furiously; Unusual shoved his end of the rope at Flower, who grabbed it and braced.

The other one reared, disturbed, just as Unusual threw again, and the coil caught briefly across its eyes and slid away. It put its great clawed foot down on the rope before Unusual could yank it clear.

He started immediately to make another coil, his eyes never leaving the beast, his hands working by themselves. Behind us in the precinct I could hear the morning worship of Aka-Tete, a deep whispering chant followed by a wailing cry.

We didn’t have long.

Unusual raised the coil of rope to his mouth, and blew on it, a gesture I’d seen Kyrl make a hundred times before a tricky throw.

He swung. The rope seemed to hang in the air for an age, like a dream or a vision, then it fell. The Messehmoved its head; Unusual flicked his wrist and the coil slid over its muzzle neat as you please. He yanked. The beast froze, then dropped back to the floor.

“That’s not going to hold,” Cruel said.

“It’ll have to. We can’t wait. Stand over there and try and distract them.”

The crew moved to one side of the doorway, and began to wave their arms, and whisper invitingly. The beasts turned their heads that way, but as soon as I moved, one turned to watch me.

“Wait...” Laney said. “I can...”

“Laney, no. You’re wiped.”

“What do they eat?”

“Anything that gets close. Laney...”

She shushed me with a gesture so utterly imperious I couldn’t help but admire it, and there, suddenly, was a fat, slow, ripe-smelling hog, on the far side of the room. Both the beasts scrabbled across the floor towards it. I took a breath, and ran for the altar.

The scaly side of the nearest beast was as high as my waist. I ran as I’d not run since I was sixteen, my feet barely seeming to touch the floor, but still, that room was horribly long. Surely it hadn’t been so long, all those years ago?

I heard a shout of warning, put on a spurt of speed I didn’t have, and felt hot breath on my neck. I dived for the altar, slapped my hands on the surface, and whipped my legs up under me.

I looked down and realised that my hands were half an inch from the handholds. The ones I’d put them in before, when I became an Avatar – and when I stopped being one. I shuddered so hard I almost fell off the altar.

I could hear the beasts hissing and scrabbling behind me, but I was still alive. I grabbed the box, opened it.

Yes.
The false ring sat gleaming in the torchlight, with its slight roughness, its artificial shine. I thought briefly of Frithlit; chancer that he was, I doubt he’d ever imagined where his little replica would end up.

No time for triumph. I whipped out the false ring.

I heard a sigh, and a thud. Through the doorway I could just see Laney, crumpled on the floor. The image of the hog disappeared
.

“Is she all right?” I called.

“Breathing. She’s just drained herself,” Flower said, scooping her up into his arms. “Come on, get out of there.”

The second Messehshook its head, clawed at itself, and the single loop of rope dropped to the floor. It opened its jaw – big enough to swallow a cart whole and stuck with ivory daggers – and hissed.

It was still chained, but if I got five feet from the altar, it would have me.

It was suddenly very quiet. And I realised the chanting had stopped.

“Flower, take this! And get them out of here!”

I flung the false ring at him, and he snatched it out of the air.

“Go!” I yelled.

“We’re not leaving you!”

And then it was too late. The smell washed over me: myrrh and metal, rotting meat and cardamom and blood, and there they were – Hap-Canae. Aka-Tete. Shakanti. Meisheté.

The crew glanced from them, back to me, and stayed still.

I was cold all through.

“Thieves!” Meisheté said. She raised her hand towards me, her fingers glittering with blood, and Previous stabbed her in the side.

Meisheté hissed with fury, her eyes flaring in their dark surrounds, and flung the curse at Previous instead.

A red shadow seemed to coalesce around her, as she stood staring at the place where her dagger had barely dented Meisheté’s skin. Then she dropped to the floor.

“Previous!” I yelled.

“Stupid!” Aka-Tete said to Meisheté. “You might have hit the altar, or the ring! Who knows what that would have done!”

Rohikanta, his hair and beard tumbling white and green like a river over rocks, appeared in the doorway. The Messehwhyreared up at the sight of him. Rohikanta snapped his fingers and the beasts quieted.

Previous was bleeding; a shadow spreading beneath her thighs.

“Previous!”

Her eyelids fluttered. “What...”

“Help her,” I said, in Lithan. “Please.”

“Who are these people?” Meisheté said, ignoring me.

“Previous,” Unusual said. He and his sister knelt, either side of her. “What’s happening?” The Avatars ignored them, too.

“Meisheté governs childbirth,” I said, still in Lithan, realising what the vicious barren monster had done.

“Oh, no,” Cruel said. “Oh, that bitch. Previous... stay with me, sweetheart, please...”

The blood spread dark on the floor, like spilled wine.

Hap-Canae strode towards me, past the Messehwhy
–
of course, they wouldn’t touch an Avatar – and swung his arm.

I ducked, not fast enough, and hit the floor, with the breath knocked out of me. I heard a
crack
. Hap-Canae stood over me, seeming more curious than anything. That scent, that smell of myrrh and cardamom.

“The
ring,
get the
ring!
”

Shakanti.

I tried to get to my feet. Hap-Canae grabbed me by the wrist and hauled me up, yanking the ring off my hand. Pain pulsed out of my wrist in hot waves. Broken. Shit.

“A most audacious thief,” he said.

Aka-Tete, in his warrior aspect, blood running from his armour and spilling over the skulls at his waist so they seemed freshly killed, raised his sword. The blood dripped from his hands, disappearing before it hit the floor. I watched it fall.