The Infernal Lands (The Aionach Saga Book 1) (57 page)

Leuk stayed behind while Merrick and Caliber climbed the
library’s grand curving staircase. The stairs weren’t as big a hindrance as
Merrick had anticipated; his knee was already getting stronger, his blistered
fingers recovering from their burns. He could feel the heat fading from his
chest, and he knew the immense surge he’d absorbed at the power station was
almost exhausted. It had been effortless to ignite with so much power swelling
inside him. Now it was a strain just to feel it, and that made it harder to
find the warmth and draw it out. Once it was gone, he’d be back where he
started, without the will or the experience to ignite again. For a moment, he
felt a deep regret over having to part ways with the Decylumites before they
could teach him more.
I did the right thing
, he assured himself.
I
couldn’t have learned everything I needed to know before they left. I would’ve
had to go with them, and that might’ve gotten me killed. I’ll just have to teach
myself from now on. It’ll be slow going, but I’ll get there
.

“Stay behind me.” Caliber put on his mask and leaned into the
door at the top of the stairs. The hinges didn’t make a sound.

They emerged beneath the roof dome and had to climb another
set of steps before they were high enough to see out. Merrick gave a silent
whistle when he saw the terrace. What had appeared to be a simple, empty dome
on a flat roof was actually a lookout post full of niches where hidden figures
watched over the city in every direction. This provided an intricate optical
illusion to anyone looking at the roof from the surrounding streets. Men
reclined in alcoves tucked into the architecture, each surveying his own sliver
of the cityscape. Others lay prone at sighting holes located around the roof’s
lip, scanning the ground through the spyglasses on their strange-looking
rifles. They all wore the same style of long trencher jackets in dappled gray, making
them hard to find even when they stood in plain sight against the stone.

“What kind of rifles are those?” Merrick asked, after he had
taken in the wonder of the living stonework around them.

“Same as this one,” Caliber said, slinging his own weapon
around in front of him. “They ain’t rifles though. These are coilguns, from a
hidden stockpile we found on the other side of town. I figure these were
experimental, since I ain’t never seen a thing like ‘em before. As much as we
coff on its memory, we owe the Ministry our thanks for leavin’ us such neat
toys. Every building of theirs we find, even down to the ones as plain-Jane as
a library like this one, seems to have some secret compartment or another. We
been pulling sweet gear like this out of ratholes and stowaway lockers for
years. Ministry must’ve been paranoid as it gets, keeping so many secrets.
Guess you could say I’ve become a bit of a history buff on account of finds
like these. That’s the real reason we came to this library. To search it.”

“Found anything good yet?”

“Still looking. There’s one vault we ain’t been able to open
yet. There’s a key hole, looks like a three-sided star fixed up with some nubs
in the middle. I’ll crack it, though. You know, the city north might be full of
skyscrapers built by fat cats fightin’ over who had the biggest pile of
hardware. But the government did its real business here, in the south.
Downtown. This is where all the action is. Brass elevators and granite sinks
might’ve made you look rich in the old world, but these days, rich is just
another word for better armed than the dway who’s after your lunch.”

Merrick was too busy studying Caliber’s weapon to respond.
First,
people from a lost Ministry facility show up in Belmond. Now, a hidden weapons
cache. Who knows what other secrets the Ministry hid around the Inner East
before it collapsed…

“This beauty right here is a mark-three LoCharge coilgun. Not
as powerful as an automatic rifle, maybe. Less accurate over distances, and
it’s got a much slower rate of fire. Experimental, like I said. But it’s quiet,
and there are no shells to worry about. No gunpowder to get wet or spoil over
time. We found barrels full of ammo, too, enough to keep us running hot for a
hundred long years.”

“How do they work without gunpowder?”

Caliber smiled and pointed at the sky. “Daylight, my good
man. Believe it or not—see this strip here, along the top? You just set this
out during the day in a good spot where it can drink up plenty of Infernal’s
shine, and you’re good to go. I’m guessing the Ministry must’ve had this piece
of tech in the works when everything went downhill.”

“Coff me. How many of these are there?”

“More than we got Revs to carry ‘em. And on that subject, I’d
like you to meet a few of my colleagues.”

Though they had to crawl on their bellies or slink through
the dome’s alcoves to reach them, Caliber introduced Merrick to each of the
watchers on the rooftop. In their masks and trenchers, all the Gray Revenants
looked the same. Their greetings were brief; cordial nods and half-hearted
salutes. He learned many new names—Mellobar, Draich, Bucyrus, Rapter, Ferriss,
Eldridge, Kulryon—but soon they all started to blend together, and Merrick was
sure he’d have to see their faces before he began to know them by name. That
done, they left the lookouts to their business and withdrew from the roof.

“So, you all seem to know what you’re doing. You’re not just
some ragtag band with big aspirations,” Merrick said as they descended the
stairs. His leg was feeling better now, but there was still a dull throbbing in
his face from where the hoodlums had beaten him.

“More than just a name and nothin’ else, huh?” Caliber said.
“We want to get this city working again. Ain’t about a power struggle or a bid
for superiority. We just want to give people a fair shot. That’s all anyone
deserves these days, ain’t it? A chance to survive, and the freedom to live
without being afraid. Belmond is our home. If you can’t make things better at
home, I figure there ain’t much hope for anywhere else.”

“Alright, I’m convinced,” Merrick said. It came out sounding
like half a joke, but he was serious.

“You really think you got a place here with us?” Caliber
asked.

“Yeah,” Merrick said, nodding. He wasn’t lying. He and these
people were of the same mind, or at least it appeared that way. He’d joined the
Scarred Comrades because that was what you did in North Belmond, unless you
wanted to be a merchant or a utility worker, or lose your mind building widgets
in a factory somewhere. He’d been clinging to the hope of returning to Mobile
Ops, to do a job he actually enjoyed and contribute something meaningful. But
when it had come time to contribute something else that was real, Pilot Wax had
thrown him out. Now he knew he had something to add, and he was in a good place
to do it.
Someday I’ll make you sorry for missing out on your big chance,
Wax
.

Caliber smiled. “That’s good.”

“What do I have to do to become a Gray Revenant?”

“Well it ain’t gonna happen overnight, that’s a guarantee. When
you’re ready, I’ll say so. First thing is, you need some training and a little
exercise. We don’t eat as well down here as they do up north.”

“It’s about time I got back in shape,” Merrick said,
smirking. “It feels good to be a part of something I believe in. Something I
can stand behind.”

Most of all, it felt good to
matter
. Not many people
mattered—really mattered, the way you did when people depended on you. That was
what Merrick had been looking for his whole life; to be accepted. To be
depended upon. Whether joining the Gray Revenants would get him there, he
couldn’t yet say. But he was ready to find out.

“Welcome,” Caliber said. “We’re glad to have you. Take the
afternoon to rest up. We got a few things we’ve been looking to get done over
the next few weeks. There’s an old church downtown I want to have a look
inside. My nose tells me there’s something big in there, and when my nose tells
me something, I’ve learned it’s best to listen. We’ve been testing the place’s
defenses lately and I think the iron’s hot to make a move on it. Come on, I’ll
give you the rundown.”

“There’s one more thing you should probably know,” Merrick
said. He flexed his hands, felt the creases in the skin where his fingernails
used to be.

Caliber turned back. “What’s that?”

Merrick curled his bottom lip, hesitating. If he told Caliber
about the gift, there was no telling how the Gray Revenants would react. Maybe
the same way Pilot Wax had. Maybe the way Toler Glaive had. Or maybe it would
be something completely different and even less favorable for Merrick.
No,
I’d better not
, he decided. He waited a long moment before he spoke. “The
city north has a working power station,” he said.

CHAPTER 51

The Slaver’s Guests

Raith and the Sons of Decylum left Belmond under the
protection of Lethari Prokin and his Salt Nomads, crossing the open desert and
heading northeast toward the Brinescales, with a roving banquet of slave carts
and grain wagons and livestock herds trailing out behind them. They had stayed
at the nomads’ factory camp in the city south for several days while the
warlocks tended to their wounds. Now they were rested and their bellies were
full, and for the first time since leaving Decylum, Raith was comforted to know
their survival rested in the hands of capable men. If anyone was capable of
braving the desert, it was the nomads.

“My scouts have not found any of your kinsfolk yet,” said
Lethari Prokin from atop his corsil, “but they will keep searching, and they
will send word as soon as the first man is found.”

Raith, sitting on a white spotted gelding a distance below,
nodded his thanks. “I regret that we had to leave so soon, but I understand
that your master-king is expecting you back. I only hope Rostand’s grandfather
is among those your scouts come across. He’s a dear friend to me, father of
many, and a wise councilor.”

“Councilor? I do not know this word.”

“We have eleven rulers in Decylum, called councilors.
Together, they form a council.”

“You have no master-king? Even the Scarred have a
master-king.”

“A council is better for us than a single master. A council
spreads the burden of leadership onto the shoulders of many, so that no one man
has to bear all the responsibility. Or all the power.”

Lethari laughed. “I do not understand all your words, but…
this is bad, I think. One master speaks from one mind. Many masters speak like
the voices in a wayfarer’s head. They wander around, and nothing ever gets
done.”

“Things do go that way sometimes,” Raith admitted, chuckling.
“But it works for us.”

Lethari was unconvinced. “I do not understand your customs.
They are… I do not know a word to describe them.”

“Weird?”

“Yes. And bad.” With that, Lethari spurred his corsil ahead
and took his place at the front of the caravan.

Before mid-morning that day, they came to the remains of the
slaughter that had welcomed the Sons of Decylum to Belmond, a place where dark
crusted patches in the sand circled the bleached bones of their fallen. Lethari
halted the procession and gave them the time they needed to mourn the dead and
bury what was left of them. The Scarred men had picked the site clean of usable
goods, and the wasteland’s carrion feeders had done the rest.

“Granddad and the other survivors should be just over the
next rise,” Rostand said, looking toward the long, high dune with a glimmer of
hope in his eyes. “That’s where he said to meet.”

“Right then. Let’s have a look,” said Derrow, clapping him on
the shoulder.

Before they splintered off, Lethari offered to send a retinue
of warriors with them. When Raith shook his head, Lethari insisted on coming
himself. Raith and Jiren rode along, staying quiet while Rostand foretold of
the stories he and his grandfather would exchange when they were reunited.
Derrow humored him with affirmations, but Raith could see the way he worried
for the younger man.

Presently the five riders crested the dune that shielded the
eastern wasteland from view, and looked out over the sands with Belmond at
their backs. The territory was flat and low, and they could see clear to the
next horizon without obstruction. A shadow flashed in the distance, some animal
sensing their presence and moving to evade them. Wind from the east rushed in as
their mounts fussed to find their footing. The winds had swept the ground
smooth, its clean sand almost white under the beating light-star, whose rays
were full in their faces. They squinted against it, scanning the expanse for
signs.

“No tracks,” said Lethari.

“We passed this way not five days ago,” Rostand said
somberly.

Lethari wiped the sweat from his brow where it peeked through
his thin white hood-scarf. “Five days? A lifetime. You speak as if the
wasteland remembers. The only thing it knows is how to forget.”

Rostand hung his head and squeezed his eyes shut. Tears fell
on his saddle and dried in the heat. The riders turned back one by one, Lethari
high on his corsil, Jiren and Derrow following on horseback. Raith stayed with
Rostand for a while, looking out across the sands and thinking of Hastle.

“Your granddad has always been a resourceful person. When he
lived here in the old days, before you were born, he made it to Belmond and
back all by himself. And on foot, no less. I’ll wager he and the others are
halfway back to Decylum by now.”

Rostand nodded, glancing over his shoulder. When he saw that the
others had left, he gave in to his sobs.

Raith reached out a hand. “Don’t underestimate him, Ros. If
he’s out there, he’ll find us.”

The rest of their journey to the Brinescale Mountains took
the better part of a week, but the nomads were as well-accustomed to life in
the desert as Raith had guessed. Nothing dared waylay the nomads; they were the
lords of this domain, and neither man nor beast nor nature itself had the power
to hinder them.

For most of the journey, Lethari had let one of his slaves
ride on the back of a mule, keeping him separate from the others. A murrhod
with scraggly blue-gray fur and black eyes, the slave was bruised and thin,
with a set of long yellowed teeth and a pink nose with brown splotches. Raith
noticed Lethari paying special attention to the slave, making sure it was
well-fed and watered each time they stopped to rest. He had heard the hunters’
stories about the creatures who infested the mountains and caves near towns and
villages in the above-world, but Raith had never seen one with his own eyes.

“What makes this slave different from the others?” Rostand
asked one night, as they sat preparing supper by the fire.

Lethari furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t keep him in the cages.”

“The slaves in the cages are healthy,” Lethari said. “This
one is sick, so he must be watched.
Muirrhadi
do not travel well already
because the above-world is too harsh for them. This
muirrhad
belongs to
a close friend of mine, a man who would not like it if I brought him back a
dead slave. Tell them, Tazkitt.”

The murrhod slave spoke in a quiet voice, even-tempered and
cautious. “My name is Tazkitt. I belong to Oale Haelicari.”

“You see? A good slave is agreeable, and never lies. But now
his health is poor. His owner lent him to the Order of the Infernal Mouth, in
Belmond. They treated him badly.”

“The Order of—who’s that?”

“Of the Infernal Mouth,” Lethari said. “Light-star
worshippers in South Belmond.”

“A church with slaves?” said Derrow.

“Crazy as bushcats, they are. A few keep slaves in secret.
They are…
methachti
… how do you say it in the Aion-speech? Men who like
to do torture?”

“You lent them a slave so they could torture him?” said
Derrow Leonard, wrinkling his lip.

“Not me. Oale Haelicari. I do not lend my slaves. No other
man will treat your property as well as you. They were not supposed to do
torture. I made them pay for it.”

“Why would he lend his slave to people like that?” asked
Rostand.

“They paid high prices. They should have listened as well as
they paid.”

On the fourth day of their journey, a line of bluffs rose in the
distance. As they approached the face of the mountains, it seemed certain to
Raith that they had a long climb ahead of them.
How do they intend to get
these animals up such a steep incline?
he wondered.
Perhaps they harbor
some secret prowess for traversing these lands.

Raith didn’t notice the mountain pass until they’d come
almost to the edge of the sands. The face of the rock folded in on itself like
a fish hook, bending into a path that was indiscernible until they were right
beside it. The nomads smiled at one another, murmuring glad sounds in their
strange tongue as they goaded their steeds through the entrance.

The procession wound into a narrow channel like thread along
a stitch, sandstone walls soaring upward on either side. The passage became so
tight in places that they had to squeeze the carts through and ride single
file. The nomads’ tension eased visibly, shoulders relaxing and muscles coming
to rest as they passed into the safety of their hidden realm.

They camped beneath the stars for two nights, passing dozens
of manned guard stations high in the rocky clefts above. On the third day, the
mountain pass opened into a wide valley nestled inside the mountain range. The
adjacent cliffside was like an ornate sandstone carving with a series of
staggered levels, like steps in a giant staircase. As they drew nearer, Raith
began to make out hundreds of tiny holes in the cliff face. Some were simple,
round cave mouths; others were stark hewn rectangles, and the most decorative
among them were carven with ancient curling symbols. Tiny shapes moved on the
platforms and catwalks and staircases. The shapes became people, and the people
became nomads going about the day’s business.

“Sai Calgoar,” Sig said. “Home.”

“For you, maybe,” said Ernost Bilschkin.

“We’ll get out of here,” Rostand said. “We’ll speak to their master-king
and get him to lend us some provisions for the way home.”

“I hope you’re better at negotiating than Jiren is,” Derrow
said with a smile.

Jiren elbowed him.

“We’ll negotiate your release too,” Rostand told Tazkitt.

“You should not make such promises,” Sig said, overhearing.
“This slave is not the property of the king. He is the property of Oale
Haelicari. Oale would be angry if his property were to be stolen.”

“We’ll talk to Mr. Hae—Haelic—we’ll talk to your owner,” said
Rostand.

“Don’t bother,” Tazkitt said. “Asking a master to sell you
his slave is an insult.”

Sig nodded. “This is the truth. A master chooses when to sell
a slave. And no one would sell a slave to a pale-skin. This, too, would be an
insult.”

“Is everything an insult to you people?”

“Yes,” Sig said, matter-of-fact. “When you offer insult, you
give a man reason to exercise his privilege. What is a man without privilege? A
woman. You want to make a man feel like a man? Two ways. Insult him, or do sex
to him.”

Rostand smirked. “What about slaves? They never get to feel
like men. Or women, even. Do they ever have the chance to go free?”

“A slave belongs to his owner until he dies. When a man dies,
his slaves pass to his sons and nephews. Only when there are no sons or nephews
or sons-of-sons or sons-of-nephews in his line, do a man’s slaves have any hope
of freedom.”

At the edge of the plateau, a bustling market spread out to
fill the valley floor below them. Raith could hear music, drums beating on the
noontide air, pan flutes and gut-stringed instruments, wooden xylophones
plinking among the tents and stands and booths. The place had an atmosphere of
movement, of health and vigor like none he had expected to find in the
above-world.

Lethari led them down a trail cut into the side of the
plateau, and they began making their way through the busy market streets toward
the cliff of holes. The curious crowds swarmed around them, merchants and
shopkeeps and commoners desperate to see what Lethari’s warriors had brought back
from their ranging. Raith and the others had shed their Scarred uniforms back
in Belmond, but he still felt the same scorn and judgment in the nomads’
stares. People pointed at his hands and whispered. Women giggled and made
wide-eyed gestures about his height. Children chased them, trying to shimmy
their hands and fingers into bags and pockets, and big men lowered their
shoulders to block their way.
The only time these savages ever see
pink-skinned men from newer bloodlines, those men are their slaves
.

There were dogs barking in the streets, the smell of animal
dung mingling with the tang of seared meat and spiced vegetables. There were
stands of woven fabric dyed in bright colors. A potter sat molding clay, the
shelves behind him overflowing with red-orange pots and bowls and plates. A
woman was sliding painted beads onto a string behind her jewelry display. Raith
saw a fishmonger, a butcher, and a man sharpening knives. There were crates
bursting with fresh crops and customers haggling at every stand.

At the far end of the market, a wide cave mouth took them
into cool darkness. The sounds of the market died away behind them as they
entered a long hall adorned with stone statues bearing likeness to grotesque
winged beasts. Oil lamps flickered on the walls, giving shape to the dim
corners of the room. They passed beneath a heavy iron portcullis. Lethari
pointed down a long corridor, and a few of his men split off from the main
group, pulling the slaves along with them.

“Goodbye,” said Tazkitt. The murrhod gave Rostand a hard look
as they led him away.

“Farewell, my friend,” Rostand said.

Raith felt sorry for the thing, but not enough to offend their
hosts by trying to help him.

Their walk ended in a sandstone chamber whose walls were
carved to look like a grand cityscape, its pillars and windows etched in
painstaking detail. A wide, shallow staircase led up to a great sandstone
throne set within an alcove at the back of the room. The throne’s coloring
matched the layers in the chamber’s sandstone walls, as if it had been carved
out of the existing rock.

Lethari stood with Raith before the throne, his warriors arranged
with Decylum’s sons in a loose arc behind them. From down a side hallway came
the sounds of jingling metal and soft scuffling footsteps.

A slender man appeared at the opening, a pair of guards
flanking him. He wore loose-fitting robes with bright patterns woven like the
sandstone itself, bands of red and brown and rose and orange. The edges of the
fabric were clasped in gold ringwork, and he wore thick circlets of copper and
brass around his neck and wrists. The front half of his scalp was shaved clean,
while tight curls of black hair tumbled past his shoulders at the back. He
ascended the steps and flung himself into the throne, letting one leg dangle
across the armrest. “
Ach urraim tigueir
, Lethari,” said the master-king.