City of Jade (54 page)
Authors: Dennis McKiernan
Lissa frowned and shook her head. “No. It’s more like the time we went ashore at that set of islands ringing ’round the blue hole. Vex just seems uneasy.”
Aravan turned to Brekk. “Remain alert, Armsmaster.”
Brekk grunted an assent.
Aravan then glanced at Aylis.
“My is invoked,” she said, without being asked.
“Then let us catch up to our wandering Waerlinga,” said Aravan.
“Would you have me try to overtake them ere they reach the city, Captain? Vex is quite swift.”
Aravan shook his head. “I deem they have enough caution to be the scouts they fancy themselves to be.”
With Pipper whistling snatches of a merry melody and singing a few words between, he and Binkton strolled out from under the jungle canopy to come to the edge of a forsaken place. Pipper’s tune came to an abrupt stop, and only the groan of the wind broke the stillness.
“Whoa,” said Binkton. “Would you look at that.”
Spread out before them lay the ruins of an abandoned city, with some buildings yet standing while others lay in shambles. Cracked pave made up the streets winding among dwellings and establishments and a temple or two, and all of the structures were made of stones of various hues. Vines twined among the rock and cascaded down the sides of walls, the leaves fluttering in the moaning wind as of green waterfalls tumbling. Here and there trees had taken hold and throughout the long eras had become huge, their massive roots snaking across the streets and diving into the earth, to fracture and tilt the pavement upward, splitting the stone with an inexorable, steadily increasing pressure as the trees had grown.
“Hoy, there,” said Pipper, pointing.
Dwarfing the other structures, in the near distance ahead in what appeared to be the city center stood five towers: a central one hemmed in by four.
“The middle one looks like Lady Aylis’s statuette,” said Binkton.
“Other way about,” said Pipper.
“What now?” asked Binkton.
“It’s the other way about,” said Pipper. “Lady Aylis’s statuette looks like the tower.”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“No, Bink, you said it just backwards.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
Bickering, in among the ruins they went, heading for the towers, while dark sky roiled above and the wind keened across stone and over walls and ’round corners, wailing as would a thousand ghosts lost in the cracks of time.
“Jade,” said Brekk. “This stone, all of it is jade.”
Aravan and Aylis, along with Lissa and the warband and sailors, had reached the edge of the ruins.
“The entire city is jade?” asked Lissa, even as she leaned forward and ran a hand along Vex’s neck, trying to soothe the vixen, who yet indicated that they should leave, even though she didn’t know why.
“At least this part of it is,” replied Brekk.
“But not all green,” objected Nikolai.
“Jade comes in many colors,” said Aylis. “Green, yellow, white, grey, black, orange, and even in pale violet.”
Brekk nodded his agreement.
“Speak of green,” said Nikolai, pointing.
“The tower,” breathed Lissa.
“I suspect that’s where we will find Binkton and Pipper,” said Aravan. He looked at Lissa and said, “Take point.”
As the Pysk and reluctant fox trotted ahead, Brekk gestured left and right, and Dwarves moved to flanking positions, and all set out, war hammers, crossbows, bows, or falchions in hand, though Aravan bore a spear.
With the moaning wind whipping his shoulder-length hair about his face, “It has no door,” said Pipper, as he and Binkton finished circling the midmost tower, central to four others close-set in a square, there in the heart of the city plaza.
“No doors, Pip? You noticed, eh?” said Binkton. Then he grinned and added, “Well spotted, bucco.”
Pipper looked up at the smooth, virtually seamless stone. “Wull, then, how does anyone ever get inside?”
“Mayhap they weren’t meant to,” said Binkton.
Pipper stroked his fingers across the pale green, almost translucent surface. “I don’t even think our climbing gear will be of any use.”
“I
told
you it would just be extra weight,” said Binkton smugly.
told
you it would just be extra weight,” said Binkton smugly.
Pipper looked at an adjacent tower. “That one has a door.—Say, maybe there’s a secret passage from that to this.”
Binkton sighed and said, “Let’s just wait for—Oh, here comes Liss now.”
“There you are,” said Lissa. “I don’t think the captain is very pleased that you didn’t wait.”
“Oops,” said Pipper, glancing at Binkton.
“Well, that’s all water under the bridge now,” said Binkton. He looked back in the direction Lissa had come. “Where is the captain?”
“He and the others are on their way,” said Lissa, gesturing hindward.
Vex whined.
Lissa petted the fox along the neck. “It’ll be all right, Vex.”
“What’s the matter with her?” asked Pipper.
“As I told you back along the trail,” replied Lissa, “there’s something about the city that seems to bother her.”
“Perhaps she scents something we cannot smell,” said Pipper.
“No, it’s not an odor,” said Lissa. “But something else that she cannot make me understand.”
Pipper looked about as if seeking hidden foes, and Binkton said, “Perhaps it’s this blasted wind, shrieking among the stone as it is. That or the darkness in the middle of the day. I mean, we’re in for a storm, and Vex knows it.”
“Arm hair,” blurted Pipper.
“What in the world—” began Binkton, but Pipper said, “What I mean is, sometimes when a storm is coming, the hairs on my arms stand straight up. Then there is a flash and a boom, and lightning streaks the sky.”
Binkton turned toward Pipper. “And what does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, Vex is hair all over, and—”
“I don’t think that’s it, Pip,” said Lissa.
“Oh,” said Pipper, then added, “Why don’t we wait here till the others arrive?”
Lissa turned the vixen. “I’ll tell the captain where you are.”
As Pysk and fox trotted away, Pipper and Binkton sat down on blocks of dark green jade, Pipper again looking about for . . . what? He did not know.
Amid the warband and sailors, Lissa and Aylis and Aravan entered the city square. At Aravan’s side, Brekk growled, “There they are,” gesturing toward the buccen, even as Pipper stood and began trotting toward the group, while Binkton followed at a more leisurely pace.
In that very same moment, as Aravan’s stone of warding grew icily chill, Aylis looked up at the pale green central tower and gasped in alarm. “Aravan, something, a thing dark to my , just flashed into—”
Before she finished saying what she , a great blast of aethyric energy exploded out through the openings high above, and, shielding her eyes, Aylis jerked her face to the side, just as a vast cloud of darkness boiled out from the top of the tower and swooped down toward them. “Châkka shok, Châkka c—” called Brekk, even as Aylis cried, “Oh, Adon, it’s not ali—” and Aravan hefted his spear, shouting, “ ’Ware—”
And then the darkness clenched them all—all Dwarves, all sailors, Aravan, Aylis, Lissa, Vex, and, at the far edge, Pipper.
And they fell to their knees and toppled sideways and began to scream in unendurable agony.
Yet within that seethe of anguish, though engulfed in unbearable pain as he lay upon the tiles, Aravan managed to reach out and take Aylis’s hand ere the torment o’erwhelmed him.
And even as Binkton ran toward fallen Pipper, to his Warrow sight he saw dreadful roiling within the darkness, and it seemed as if a monstrous twist of blackness descended upon one of the sailors, and the man screamed and screamed and writhed as if the life were being sucked out of him, and the darkness itself grew.
Binkton reached for Pipper—“Ahh!” he yelled in pain—as his hand entered the shadow. He jerked back. Yet Pipper shrieked in anguish. And, gritting his teeth, Binkton reached into the shade again. Screaming in dire hurt, still Binkton grabbed Pipper’s ankle, and gripping tightly and bawling, he fell backward while yet hanging on. Jerking, hauling, he dragged Pipper free of the
thing
. And then he sat sobbing, as Humans and Dwarves and a Pysk and her fox and a Seeress and an Elf thrashed in torment beyond bearing.
thing
. And then he sat sobbing, as Humans and Dwarves and a Pysk and her fox and a Seeress and an Elf thrashed in torment beyond bearing.
And the twist of blackness within rose up from the sailor and moved to another, the one left behind unmoving. And once again it coiled about its victim and began sucking away his life essence.
Binkton grabbed Pipper and began shaking him. “Come on, Pip. Come on. It’s killing them all.”
Pipper groggily opened his eyes—“Wha-wha-?”—and then snapped awake. “What is it?”
Binkton jerked Pipper about. “Look! Oh, Adon, look!”
“Oh, oh, oh no, oh no,” cried Pipper. He got to his feet and started toward the fallen. But Binkton grabbed him and hauled him back, shouting, “We can’t go into the darkness! It’s deadly!”
“Deadly?”
“It had you, Pip. It had you. Watch, watch the thing inside.”
Pipper turned and looked and cried out, “Oh, Elwydd, what is it? Adon! Adon! It’s killing them, killing them!”
“What’ll we do, Pip? What’ll we do?”
The knot of darkness released a now-dead sailor, and it descended upon a Dwarf.
“We can’t let this go on,” shouted Pipper. “What is it? Where did it come from?”
Binkton slued about, and his Warrow vision followed a dark, twisted, ropy strand of the
thing
back up to the top of the central tower. “There!” he cried. “Pip, it’s from there.”
thing
back up to the top of the central tower. “There!” he cried. “Pip, it’s from there.”
“We’ve got to get to the top,” cried Pipper. “Perhaps we can somehow stop it.”
“But how? There is no door,” shouted Binkton above the wail of a strengthening wind and the screams of agony.
Pipper whipped the pack off his back and dragged out the rope and grapnel. “It’s too high,” wailed Binkton.
“We’re going to the other tower,” shouted Pipper, “the one with the door.”
The twist inside the darkness moved from the Dwarf to another sailor and embraced the man, and again began sucking away the life. Yet at the same time, lo! Kalor, a descendent of Brega, Bekki’s son, stirred upon the tiles, and, screaming in pain, levered himself up to one knee. And he took his war hammer in hand and, yelling in agony, he swung at the knot of blackness, but the hammer passed through without effect. And the thing turned upon its assailant and took all his essence from him.
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