All this time the priest’s fevered gaze had been flicking between them. Now the bloodshot orbs narrowed and the man pointed. ‘I surmise you do not have it. You have failed! Return and retrieve it!’
Mara waved him to the wreck. ‘Be our guest.’
‘That is not the agreement. You do the retrieving. Otherwise our master will be displeased.’
Mara had been searching for her robes and she found them now and pulled them on. ‘What of it?’
The priest jerked as if slapped. ‘
What of it?
You should ask such a question given what we have just witnessed?’
Mara sat heavily in the sand. ‘We would not be of much use to your master twisted in such a fashion.’
‘That would be your problem,’ the man returned so smugly that Mara considered killing him on the spot. But, exhausted, she could only be bothered to again wave vaguely to the wreck.
‘We shall see.’
Stymied for the moment, the priest edged from foot to foot, all the while mouthing complaints under his breath. Petal arrived carrying an armload of driftwood, then set to lighting a handful of dry grass with flint and steel. This drove the priest to snipe: ‘Some magi you two are. Can’t you even start a fire?’
‘Certainly I can,’ Petal answered, then continued striking, tongue clenched between his lips as he concentrated.
‘I favour taking a lit stick from one fire and touching it to another,’ said Mara.
Petal sat back with a satisfied sigh to fan a thin plume of white smoke. ‘That can be known to work also,’ he allowed, squinting.
The priest stormed off, hopping and twitching as if the sands were white-hot embers beneath his feet.
Mara brushed the grit from her hands. ‘Well, at least we’re rid of him. So, what do you think now?’
Petal tossed twigs on the gathering fire. ‘By morning, I should think.’
‘Agreed.’
‘And for the meantime,’ he sighed, ‘I should like some privacy to dry my clothes. If you do not mind.’
‘Shouldn’t I remain in case a lovesick whale should lunge on to the beach …’
Pausing at his shirt-ties Petal let his head hang. ‘Again the caustic humour. I have warned you it hurts my feelings.’
Mara rolled her eyes to the darkening sky. ‘My apologies. I’ll go have a look around.’
‘Very good.’
It was full night when Mara returned to the fire. Petal sat in his undershirt. His wide pantaloons and outer robes hung over sticks next to the fire. The priest had returned as well and now sat glum and quiet, staring out to the glowing surf. ‘Anything?’ she asked.
Petal shook his head. ‘I’ll take first watch,’ he added.
Mara grunted her acknowledgement and promptly rolled up in her robes to sleep. This she found difficult as not only was the Banner high as usual, so too was the moon. The light was almost bright enough to read by. She threw a fold of cloth over her head.
It seemed as if immediately someone tapped her shoulder and she jerked, yanking down the cloth. ‘What?’
‘Something,’ Petal said.
She sat up. The priest was already down amid the surf frantically waving his arms and jumping. Further out, in the lagoon, a dark shape was making its slow laborious way towards them. ‘Go help him,’ she told Petal.
‘Only now have I just dried …’
‘Go on!’
The man winced as if hurt. ‘Well … if it so be that I must …’ and he lumbered down to push awkwardly into the surf, leaning forward to advance through the waves out to the figure, which was
now
plainly Skinner, still in his black armour, but missing his full helm, his blond hair and beard sodden and streaming with water.
He was dragging what looked like some sort of box or chest but Mara knew it must be the remains of Veng’s body. Just up from the surf he dropped it one-handed to the sands. Petal dragged it the rest of the way while the priest tore at it as if worrying a corpse –
just like a dog
, she thought.
She went to Skinner who stood weaving unsteadily, looking far more pale than usual, his helm in his other hand. ‘Sit at the fire,’ she told him. ‘The leg?’
‘The ribs,’ he ground out. She helped him to the fire where he slumped like a sack of grain and hissed his pain.
‘Your armour …’ She ran a hand down the back, searching for catches or ties. Strangely, the individual scales of the coat seemed to shift beneath her fingers.
He shrugged her away. ‘No! Just … just get me to Gwynn—Red.’
Red was their best bonesetter and surgeon now that Gwynn had deserted them to rejoin K’azz. Mara looked to the priest. ‘We have to leave! Now!’
The man had literally thrust his head into Veng’s torso. He was tearing at the wreck, which, horrifically, still jerked and writhed like the crippled wind-up automaton that it was. The metal bands of its arms still flexed and the remains of its torn legs twitched. The priest flinched away, yelping, ‘Aya!’ He studied a hand that he then thrust into his mouth. He kicked the shuddering beetle-like body and yelped again, hopping on one foot.
‘I cannot get it out!’ he wailed. ‘All is lost! I will be refused my lord’s reward!’
Skinner lifted his chin to the wreck. ‘Mara …’
She let out a snarled breath.
Stupid useless fool
… She shoved the priest aside and studied the mangled torso. Something did reside there wrapped in bands of bronze in the middle of the chest.
The heart. How … poetic
.
She focused her Warren and envisioned those bands parting. Metal stretched and deformed. The thrashing of the creature became frantic, as if it sensed the end. Reports of metal parting sounded like the popping of small munitions. The torso spasmed the way anyone might, were you in the process of tearing out their heart.
Bronze parted shrieking and something fell to the sands. The body slumped, suddenly quiescent. The priest dived upon the object, cackling and chuckling, and wrapped it round and round with rags.
Mara released her Warren, suddenly exhausted. Petal stepped up next to her. Pulling on his lower lip he asked, ‘Did you see it?’
‘Just a glimpse. It looked like a black rock.’
The man grunted thoughtfully, still plucking at his lip.
Mara blinked, remembering Skinner. ‘We must go now!’
The priest was hugging his prize to his chest. He seemed to be crooning to it. ‘Yes, yes,’ he answered without even glancing up.
‘Return us to the column.’
‘Of course! Just four more to go.’
‘Four? There’s four pieces left?’
‘That we know of!’ the priest snapped, and he slid the object behind his back as if Mara had made a lunge for it.
She raised a finger to his face. ‘Now.’
The priest backed away. His bloodshot eyes darted about as if seeking escape. ‘Get your commander then! We must all be together.’
‘Fine.’ She marched off. The fine sands squeaked and slid under her boots. Back at the fire Skinner had somehow managed to lever himself to his feet. She saw that his sheath hung empty at his side and she remembered that when he emerged from the waters he carried only the automaton and his helm.
Skinner, it seemed, had lost his sword.
* * *
The sky might be partially overcast, but there was no respite from the heat. Their local guide led them past intermittent jungle now. They climbed a rising slope bringing them to the first of the naked stone cliffs of the Gangrek Mounts, known to some as the Fangs, or the Dragon’s Fangs.
They had lost a man yesterday. He’d disappeared down a crack hardly large enough for anyone to slip through. Pon-lor sent a fellow after him on a rope. The man reported that no one answered his calls and that the torch he dropped fell a great distance before it dashed itself out on rocks. Pressed for time, Pon-lor was forced to call off the search and they’d continued on.
That concern for time also forced them to march on into the night. Their captured bandit guide, Jak, led carrying a torch while two of Pon-lor’s soldiers followed. Even the sun sliding down behind the steaming ocean of jungle behind them to the west did little for the heat. Though Pon-lor had grown up knowing such heat it felt different here – perhaps because the air was so humid that streamers of water seemed to hang within it. In the middle of the column he
pulled
his sweat-soaked shirt from his chest and paused for a moment to catch his breath. His guards halted about him.
He’d known such claustrophobic heat before, and the memory did not sit well with him – his childhood quarters in the Academy at the capital, Anditi Pura. They were taken as children. They were always taken as children. All would-be Aspirants. He did not know what supposedly guided that choice: some demonstrated predilection or talent? In his case he remembered being taken into a hot overcrowded room and led to a low cloth-covered table. There lay an assemblage of trinkets, some bright and rich-looking, others plain and worn: rings, cups, necklaces of beads or of gems (fake no doubt), combs, knives, and assorted other mundane possessions. He remembered his confusion, not knowing what was expected of him, facing these gathered fierce-looking old men and women in that hot smelly room. He’d searched their gazes hoping for some sign, some hint, of what he must do. And thankfully he found it. While a number of them kept their eyes on him, a few kept darting their gazes to the table and those glances kept returning to one area in particular among the proffered bits and pieces. Experimentally, he extended his hand in that direction and was rewarded by an almost imperceptible tension gathering within the tiny room. He moved his hand closer, passing over several of the offerings, a silver wristlet among them: one of the most attractive trinkets, gleaming brightly in the lamplight. The breathing of all those gathered slowed in expectation. A few breaths even caught. Emboldened, he edged his hand further across the table towards the edge. The atmosphere subtly changed. It was as if the room had suddenly expanded, the ancients now distant and withdrawn.
By then he’d identified it. The object, the thing they seemed to want him to pick but wouldn’t, or couldn’t, say. A silly game. All to get him to pick a plain wooden stick – the least interesting item laid out on the table.
And so he chose it. And they chose him.
And now, standing in the dark and the rain, the sweet cloying scent that permeated the jungle slipping from his nostrils, Pon-lor wondered, had it been just that all along: a test of awareness, of a kind of native intelligence? Or were those old Thaumaturgs of the testing board blithely unaware of their own subverting of the entire selection process? If so, so much for the organization’s conviction of its privileged superiority – held by virtue of having passed the test!
A tautology affirming only the most appalling self-delusion …
But no. Those of the selection board must be briefed in how to
run
the test. Acuity of mind, awareness and perception must be the desired traits, and the test designed appropriately. And yet – what of certain youths from certain influential families selected despite any demonstrated virtues or abilities that he could see? What of that? And their quick promotions to positions far above his – one and all! Again, no. He was simply of too low a rank to know the reasons behind such choices. He mustn’t question the sagacity or plans of his superiors.
His sodden robes now sucked out his warmth and he shivered. He focused upon warming himself and was rewarded by the sensation of heat flowing outwards from his core. Mist began to rise from his clinging robes.
Torches approached from the van and their youthful guide appeared, though not that much younger than he, Pon-lor had to remind himself. His guards flanked the fellow. Some sort of worry rode the youth’s brows and in his eyes Pon-lor read open hatred and, oddly enough, a kind of prideful contempt for all he viewed.
‘You have stopped?’ the youth asked, delivering the question more as a challenge. As if to imply: had enough walking? Too weak? Frightened?
And now Pon-lor had to come up with a justifiable reason for why he’d stopped. ‘Our destination is close?’ he asked, his tone one of lofty scepticism.
Insulted, Jak drew himself up tall. ‘Not far. We can camp at the Gates of Chanar.’
Pon-lor arched a brow. ‘The Gates of Chanar …?’
The local hunched slightly, lowering his chin. ‘A stone arch. It marks the beginning of the path to the fortress, and the pass.’
‘I see. Very good.’ Pon-lor waved him onward. The youth sketched a perfunctory bow. The burning pitch of his torch hissed and spluttered, dripping now and then. He headed back to the van. Soon all that could be seen of him was the floating yellow globe bobbing between the black tree trunks and obscuring leaves. Pon-lor followed, walking slowly. The rain intensified, slashing down to erase all distances and all other noises of the jungle. As Pon-lor was not of sufficient rank to be allowed to hold a parasol – it was the symbol of a master of the order – he gestured to a nearby guard and this man unfurled one to hold above him while he walked.
And so do we find our ways around rules and prohibitions
, he mused, stepping over moss-covered fallen logs, loose talus sliding sometimes beneath his sandals. Was this not the case even among the Thaumaturgs? The thought left him uncomfortable. Though
he
wished he could forget, he remembered his days – and nights – in the dormitory of the Aspirants. Certain teachers arriving in the dark to take boys off alone for
special attention
. Including himself. He remembered the fate of the boys who complained to the masters of their treatment. How they were assured steps would be taken – though none ever were. And later, how it was these boys, among the entire class, who failed to advance in the courses, and they who fell behind and came to be relegated to menial positions. Yet the Thaumaturgs prided themselves on an organization based on skill and merit alone. Perhaps it is the case that no organization or hierarchy can withstand the closest of scrutiny. Not even a smugly self-touted meritocracy. The success and persistence of utter fools everywhere is sad testament to that.