Iron Angel (2 page)

While Cospinol considered this grim turn of events, Rys returned his attention back to the witchsphere. The hag inside was gurgling pitifully now, choking on her own blood. Rys closed the panel and then opened another flap on the top of the globe. A second hag peered out: a woman even uglier and more ancient than the first. Her single white eye lolled in a skull-like face as black as burnt oak. “Mercy for my sisters!” she cried. “Let us return to Hell, son of Ayen.”

Rys grinned. “When you have told my brother all you know,” he said.

“We have told everything,” the hag wailed.

“Tell
him
.”

The hag moaned. “Our master is building a second arconite, even greater and more powerful than the first. Forged of bone and iron and leashed to the soul of a powerful archon, it will move in sunlight and walk freely across unblooded earth.” Her face twisted into a hideous sneer. “It will crush the remnants of your armies like ants!”

Rys set about her with his knife. All the time the smile never left his face.

The god was panting when he finally finished with the witchsphere. “So far the Mesmerists have been confined to Pandemeria,” he said, “simply because they cannot survive for long without drawing power from blood. In order to remain in this world, Hell’s creatures must walk upon the red earth of battlefields or upon land already saturated by the Menoa’s bloody mists. But these arconites…” He balled his fists. “We could not
kill
the first one, Cospinol.”

“And when the second one leaves Hell,” Cospinol said, “you will lose your hold on this world.”

“
We
will lose
our
hold,” Rys said.

But that wasn’t true. Cospinol owned none of the wealth or kingdoms his brothers possessed. He had been trapped in this rotting ship for three thousand years, wreathed in fog to hide himself from the destructive power of the sun. Only Ulcis, the eldest of all the goddess Ayen’s sons, had been similarly trapped—hidden beneath the earth while he harvested souls to join Rys’s army. But now Ulcis was dead, leaving Cospinol as the last of the gods to remain imprisoned.

“What has become of Ulcis’s reservists?” he asked. “The hordes he harvested from Deepgate?”

Sabor stepped forward. “Their flesh is lost,” he said. “The Mesmerists will have already used their blood for their own purposes.” Everything about the god of clocks was grey: his skin, his feathers, his hair, even his eyes. To read his shadowless expression, one required a degree of patient concentration. No wonder Sabor chose to wear black: a single item of coloured raiment might distract the viewer’s eye and doom any conversation. Sabor continued in dull, authoritative tones. “Yet their souls remain in this world.”

Cospinol frowned. “How?”

“Ulcis’s daughter did not spill her father’s blood. She merely displaced the essence of it.”

“She drank the fat sod,” Rys confirmed. Cospinol could not help but notice a glint of satisfaction light in Rys’s eyes. Should the mother goddess’s sons ever reclaim Heaven, Ulcis’s death left only Cospinol in line for the throne before Rys—a thought the old sea god found suddenly unnerving.

Hafe slammed a fist against his copper breastplate. “You bastards do nothing but talk,” he boomed. “When do we eat?”

Cospinol’s slaves brought tray after tray to the captain’s table: corpse crabs from Gobe Bay and steamed kellut from Oxos; squid and cuttlefish and bowls of pink prawns. The god of brine and fog had chosen the very best from his larders for this occasion, but now he had no appetite. While his brothers ate and chatted, Cospinol brooded in silence.

Ulcis was dead, his army lost, and his untimely departure had offered Menoa’s hordes a second route out of Hell. Rys’s armies had been decimated at Skirl. The survivors had retreated to Coreollis in a desperate attempt to defend that stronghold against Mesmerist attacks from the Red Road. Even if the god of flowers and knives could spare enough of his troops to make a difference, would they be able to travel to Deepgate in time to halt this new incursion?

Cospinol doubted it. He began to suspect why his brothers were really here.

Rys spat at one of the serving girls. “This food isn’t fit for a dog,” he announced. “Fetch us something edible. Bring us a bowl of the soulpearls your master hoards.”

She bowed and hurried away, without even a glance at Cospinol.

Mirith sniggered. “Bowls of souls,” he said. “Better than this filth. The dead can’t cook.”

Hafe grunted in agreement without raising his face from the platter of eels he was devouring. Sabor glanced up at Rys, and then quickly back to his own plate, yet Cospinol noted the dark look of disapproval in the grey god’s eyes.

Rys set down his fork. “Your slaves are tediously slow,” he said to Cospinol, “and your whole skyship stinks of corpses, gull shit, and brine. Tell me, brother, do you enjoy living in such squalor?”

“I survive.”

“But it’s hardly a life,” Rys commented. “Don’t you tire of roaming the skies like a vulture, picking up the souls we leave behind? Wouldn’t you rather sail a real ship upon a real sea? You must yearn to feel the sun on your face again, the wind in your hair. Would you not prefer to stand beside your own brothers as an equal?”

Cospinol said nothing.

The serving girl returned with a small bowl full of soulpearls. The tiny glass beads glimmered faintly in the gloom, while the whorls and loops etched into their surface seemed to writhe like threads of darkness. Cospinol tried to hide his dismay—he could not afford to squander so much of his hard-won power. Yet he dared not oppose Rys.

“Some real sustenance at last,” Rys said. He scooped up a handful of the priceless beads and tipped them into his mouth before handing the bowl to Hafe. The fat god took most of the remainder for himself, then slid the container across the table to Sabor.

The god of clocks said, “No, thank you.”

“You refuse power?” Hafe asked.

“It is not your power to offer,” Sabor replied.

Rys snorted. “Sabor’s quaint sense of honour will be the end of him one day. His own swordsmen slay wounded Mesmerists on the battlefield, rather than leave them to the slow suffering they deserve.” He nodded at Hafe. “Cospinol can always fashion more pearls. Give the dregs to Mirith.”

Mirith lifted the bowl with both hands and upended it into his mouth. Then he giggled and shook his lopsided wings to make his bells chime. “Even these souls taste like brine.”

“Enough!” Cospinol rose from his seat and glared down at Rys. “I am the master of this vessel,” he hissed, “and while you are aboard you will treat me with respect.” His thin chest heaved beneath his shell breastplate. “You speak of arconites and fallen gods, and a new threat to your forces from the west. Do you take me for a fool? You wouldn’t have come here unless you needed my help. Yet you evade the question and continue to mock me at my own table.”

Rys scraped his seat back and stood up. He slapped Cospinol hard across the face.

The old god recoiled, his cheek burning with the blow. The slaves stopped what they were doing, and the ringing in Cospinol’s ears diminished to a profound silence. Everyone was staring at him.

“Get out,” Rys said to the slaves.

They left.

The god of flowers and knives strolled over to the cabin windows and gazed out at the fog. “I will forgive your outburst,” he said. “I realize life has been hard for you here, Cospinol…trapped aboard this skyship, denied the freedom we four have won for ourselves.” He almost managed to sound magnanimous. “But I am prepared to help you change all that. We would like for you to join us as an equal—to have the honour of standing with us, shoulder to shoulder, against Hell’s armies.”

How generous of you.
Cospinol’s cheek smarted. He felt bile rise in his throat, but he said nothing.

Rys went on, “Only after we have defeated this Mesmerist threat to our lands here on earth will we be able to storm the gates of Heaven and reclaim our rightful inheritance.” He smiled. “But you must prove yourself worthy first. This war with Hell threatens everything we have achieved thus far. Since our mother Ayen crushed our uprising in Heaven we have struggled back from the brink of oblivion. Our father Iril was shattered, the pieces of him scattered throughout the Maze. Do you think
he
can help us?” Rys shook his head. “Iril’s dissolution gave this upstart King Menoa the opportunity to claim the title of Lord of the Maze for himself.”

He sifted through a platter of shells, then wrinkled his brow in disgust. “And now there is no more room in Hell. The Mesmerists must extend their bloody Maze into this world.” He gave a deep sigh. “If his creatures win, mankind faces the same oblivion Ayen sought to bestow upon us.”

“And if you win,” Cospinol said, “mankind faces slavery.”

“A kinder prospect, surely?”

Cospinol ground his teeth.

Rys stared at him for a while, then finally shrugged. “After our victory, you can take as many slaves as you like. Keep them alive for all I care. Just don’t breed with them—don’t make the same mistake as Ulcis. One demigod loose in our world is quite enough.”

“It was never our world,” Cospinol said.

Rys ignored this. “Take your skyship to Deepgate,” he said. “And seal this new portal before the Mesmerists can gain a foothold there. While our enemy’s attention is focused on the chained city, the flow of demons into Pandemeria will cease. This will be the best chance we’ve ever had to attack the Mesmerists and drive them back into Hell.”

Cospinol gave a grunt of derision. “You make it sound so simple, Rys. Yet you expect me to risk my life to secure your freedom when I remain imprisoned? What do you have to offer? A vague promise of solidarity between us? You’ll betray me as soon as the Mesmerists are defeated.”

“You prefer oblivion?”

“If I am doomed to die aboard this ship, at least I’ll die knowing that you have failed.”

The knives in Rys’s belt glittered. “But we intend to offer you the means to free yourself.”

Cospinol shifted his gaze between his brothers, looking from Rys’s hard stare to Mirith’s drooling grin; from Hafe’s sweat-crumpled brow to Sabor’s darkly serious frown. How could he trust any of them? “Explain.”

Now Sabor rose from the table. “Ulcis had feasted for three thousand years,” the god of clocks explained. “He had harvested enough power to leave his abyss, yet he was murdered before he could realize his escape. The souls in his veins have now passed to his daughter, Carnival. Her blood would provide you with enough power to leave the shelter of the
Rotsward
.”

Cospinol felt his heartbeat quicken. Three millennia of souls for the taking? If Sabor was speaking the truth, and Cospinol could capture this girl and harvest her blood, then he would be free of his prison at last. He would feel the sun on his face again.

“The witchsphere is capable of guiding you towards her,” Rys said. “It is my gift to you.”

Mirith sniggered. “Beware of lies, Cospinol.”

Rys wheeled on the crippled god, a silver knife already in his fist. “Don’t test me, Mirith. You rely too much on your fool’s face to shield you.”

The crippled god jerked away from the blade. His chair fell back, striking the floor, and Mirith rolled backwards out of it wings over heels. He squawked and came to rest on his rear.

Hafe boomed a laugh.

Rys turned back to Cospinol. “Why should we betray each other when mutual cooperation benefits us all?” he growled. “Seal the portal under Deepgate while we fight the enemy in Pandemeria. Kill the girl and use her power to shed this rotting carapace. Then join us as an equal.”

An equal? Like poor Mirith?

The sea god realized now how much his younger brother needed him. Rys’s armies could not withstand an assault from a second arconite; he had no choice but to offer Cospinol the demigod’s power in payment for his aid. “The daughter…Carnival,” he said. “She’s already murdered one god, and she’ll be vastly stronger now.”

“She’s savage and untrained,” Rys said. “No match for your slave…” He gestured at the floor. “What do you call him? The barbarian who drags this ship?”

“Anchor.” Cospinol barely noticed Hafe’s guffaw in response to this. “You suggest I use my slave as an assassin?”

“He is already an assassin,” Rys replied. “How many has he killed for you now? A hundred thousand? Half a million?”

“More.”

Hafe chuckled. “Half a million souls!” The god of dirt and poison thumped one fist against his huge copper breastplate. “And you call me greedy? Goat’s balls, that human slave has eaten more souls than the Maze.”

“Indeed,” Rys agreed. “While we fostered legions to break free of Ayen’s bonds and win our own kingdoms on this world, our brother has invested the bulk of his power in one single mortal.” His eyes narrowed on Cospinol. “And yet he himself remains weak, trapped here aboard his own airboat. It seems he has been feeding the choicest morsels to his pet.”

Cospinol’s shoulders slumped. “It’s the weight,” he explained. “The corpses…I take their souls, but the dead refuse to leave my ship. They cling to the rigging, masts, and yards; they wander the decks and haunt my steps. I hack them off the gunwales, send them screaming to the ground below, but they always return. Each new cadaver slows the
Rotsward
further, and so my giant needs greater and greater strength to pull the ship behind him. I must give him his share of souls or else remain grounded and helpless.” He sighed. “Ayen was clever in her choice of prison.”

“Our mother’s cunning was evident in the design of all our gaols.” Rys flashed his teeth. “Yet we escaped ours long ago, while you remain here and starve.”

“I do not starve,” Cospinol snarled.

“But you are a prisoner.” The god of flowers and knives leaned closer. “A slave.”

Cospinol’s heart filled with despair. Rys was right: he was a slave, as pathetic as the hook-fingered boy who clambered through the rotting spaces of his skyship’s belly. This floating wreck offered him no future. Yet with the Mesmerist witchsphere to guide him, he might find the power to be free of his skyship…

“I’ll do it,” he said at last. “I’ll travel to Deepgate and seal the portal. I’ll kill the girl and return to Coreollis.”