Dead Man's Steel Read online

  Not that Cole would have time to sample any of that, particularly not the bordellos for which the Pink District was so famous. No, it was his lot to once again play errand boy for the powerful. He had no idea how he would go about gaining entrance to the palace and meeting with this Zatore. The White Lady had handed him a letter for him to present to the king’s advisor. That struck him as an artless means of communication when both were mages and could presumably send a message through a dream or magical familiar or some other arcane bullshit, but then who was he to question a Magelord?

  I only kill them from time to time. When they’re bored enough of life to decide death might be worth a shot. Cole had the feeling that even with Magebane in hand, Salazar could have swatted him like a fly if he had really wanted to. Certainly the White Lady had not broken a sweat putting him in his place.

  Without looking, he turned and spat and almost hit a passing rider on the other side of the road. The man shook a fist at Cole, who waved an apology. A few minutes later Cole spotted a wagon approaching. The teamster brought the wagon to a halt and beckoned Cole to do the same.

  The wagon-master looked friendly enough, and Cole hadn’t spoken a word to anyone since bidding farewell to what remained of the crew of the Caress at Ro’ved. Curious, he trotted over to the man.

  ‘Well met,’ he said, bringing his horse around. ‘I’m Davarus Cole. Something you need?’

  ‘These are dark times,’ the wagon-master said, in a thick Tarbonnese accent. He was a wide man with a thick moustache. ‘Take care on the road. The Cult of the Nameless preys on unwary travellers. They have eyes everywhere.’ He cast a furtive glance around, as though they could be being watched at this very moment.

  ‘Thanks for the warning,’ Cole offered. The teamster was watching him expectantly and he felt obliged to continue the conversation, though he would just as soon be on his way. ‘Tell me more about this cult,’ he obliged. He recalled the baker woman back in Ro’ved mentioning something about this ‘Nameless’.

  ‘You know of the disappearances in recent years? Fathers, mothers leaving their families never to return. The wars that tore this kingdom apart before the Rag King won the throne have bred despair and that despair has found a voice. The Cult of the Nameless. They preach that love is weakness. That if we submit to the darkness we will know pain no more.’

  ‘Sounds like a bunch of shit to me,’ Cole said angrily. ‘I’ve been to some dark places this last year and trust me when I say the pain never goes away. You just learn to live with it.’

  The teamster shrugged a thick shoulder. ‘I bring fair warning, is all. You are a foreigner in this land. Better to walk with your eyes open.’

  ‘I appreciate the advice,’ Cole lied. ‘How much farther to Carhein?’

  ‘Ride fast and you will be there by nightfall,’ replied the teamster. He looked around fearfully one last time before going back to his wagon.

  Cole waved farewell and decided to follow the wagon-master’s advice and maintain a brisk pace. As his horse cantered down the road towards the capital, he passed only a few folk travelling the other way. Several wore fearful expressions. A few gave him curious glances. None were pretty or interesting enough to pique Cole’s curiosity and so he paid them little mind.

  A few more miles passed before he became aware of just how thirsty he was. The conversation with the teamster had dried his throat and his waterskin was down to a few trickles. As luck would have it, he noticed a white brick building on the side of the road just ahead. The signage outside indicated a tavern: the Farmboy’s Folly.

  Cole hesitated a moment. The White Lady had specifically told him to make for Carhein with all haste and not to become sidetracked. The insinuation that he couldn’t be trusted made him bristle with indignation. After all that bitch has put me through I’ll be damned if I’ll go thirsty because of her! He glanced at Midnight and reasoned she must be thirsty too. If there was one character flaw that could never be levelled against Davarus Cole it was a disregard for the welfare of animals.

  At least that’s what he told himself as he handed his horse’s reins over to the stable boy and pushed open the door to the tavern. It was pleasantly warm within. A log fire blazed in the hearth and the smell of roasting meat wafted through the air. There were a score or so of locals lounging around the tables. In the time-honoured tradition of alehouses everywhere, they all turned to stare at Cole as he wandered in. A few of them were playing cards, while in the corner of the tavern a group of young men of a similar age to Cole were laughing and pointing at something on the wall.

  ‘Just some water,’ said Cole as he approached the bar. The barman looked slightly taken aback, and when Cole added ‘and a saucer of milk’, the disapproval in the man’s glare could have stripped paint off the walls. Over in the corner, the group of young Tarbonnese were jeering at Cole and joking among themselves. Something about that stung. After all he’d been through, he deserved more respect.

  ‘What are they doing?’ he asked the barman, pointing a finger towards the snickering men.

  ‘Playing knife toss,’ the barkeep replied, with a sniff. ‘It is a tradition in these parts. A game for real men,’ he added, casting a dark frown at Midnight. The kitten was perching on the bar, lapping up the milk from the saucer.

  ‘Real men, you say?’ Cole shot back, trying unsuccessfully to mask his indignation. He walked over to the group. One of the men threw a knife at the wooden board hanging from a rusty nail on the wall. Painted circles covered the board, one inside the other, getting progressively smaller towards the centre. The man’s throw landed in one of the outer circles. Despite his poor effort, his friends clapped him on the back as though that were some kind of impressive achievement.

  ‘Mind if I try?’ Cole asked. He took a nonchalant sip from his glass of water.

  One of the men nudged another, who grinned and took a swig of his ale. He handed Cole a knife and gave him a wink. ‘It is simple,’ he said. ‘You aim for the brown hole in the centre. I am sure you are familiar, yes?’ His friend chuckled and made a gesture involving a finger and a certain part of the anatomy that filled Cole with anger. He lined up the knife and threw it, barely looking. It stuck in the board, far closer to the centre than the other knives.

  ‘You mean like that?’ he said sarcastically. He turned as if to walk away, but then plucked Magebane from its scabbard, twisted around and hurled it in one smooth motion. This time it hit dead centre, quivering there like an exclamation mark. ‘Or is that how a real man does it?’ he asked loudly, spreading his palms.

  There was a stunned silence and then a chorus of cheers burst from the small audience that had gathered to watch the show. The men who were but moments ago questioning his masculinity were now patting him on the back and extolling his virtues. Cole unstuck Magebane from the board and thrust it inside its scabbard. He gracefully accepted the plaudits and went to fetch Midnight, who had finished her milk and was curled up around a bottle of Tarbonnese red wine, snoozing happily.

  ‘A toast!’ cried one of the knife-tossers. ‘To our new friend from the Trine!’

  Cole grinned and shook his head. ‘I can’t,’ he protested. ‘I have somewhere I need to be.’

  Besides. After what happened back in the Blight, I can’t allow myself to let my guard down ever again. The last thing he wanted with all this talk of a cult was to get careless. He had learned his lesson.

  ‘He throws like a man but he drinks like a girl!’ someone yelled. Cole couldn’t help but bristle at that. His drinking prowess down in Dorminia’s grimiest dives had been legendary. It hurt to have it defamed by a bunch of smelly foreigners.

  ‘Another time and I’ll drink you all under the table,’ he snapped back. He placed Midnight carefully in his backpack. She purred softly. ‘Some of us have matters of great importance that demand our attention. The fate of the world could well rest upon my shoulders.’

  ‘Oh, will you listen to him,’ said one of the serving girls. He hadn’t
noticed her before. She had pretty eyes – but even those weren’t her most obvious assets. Somehow her alluring accent made her words all the more arresting. ‘If he wants a go under the table I’ve a mind to say yes!’

  That brought a fresh chorus of laughs and Cole found himself stopping halfway to the door. Every instinct was telling him to leave, save for one. Unfortunately, it was a rather pressing instinct. ‘Oh, all right,’ he said, turning back to his new friends and giving them a big grin. ‘I’ll accept a toast. But just one drink,’ he added in a stern voice. ‘Just one.’

  *

  All was darkness.

  Blinding pain assaulted his skull, as though there was a host of tiny men inside bludgeoning it with tiny hammers.

  He could smell vomit. Sour and acrid. The smell was so strong that his clothes must have been covered in it. His eyes were open, but all he could see was blackness. Panic seized him. Panic, and fresh nausea. His mouth tasted foul – ale and wine and spirits mixed with the bitter taste of bile.

  ‘Where am I?’ he rasped. He could feel motion beneath him. He was lying on a moving object, being taken somewhere. He tried to move his arms, to reach up to his face, but his wrists were tied. He tried to move his legs, but they too were secured.

  What happened? He struggled to piece together his memories. They were like shattered glass, confusing and incomplete. He had the mother of all hangovers, he knew that much. Even thinking hurt.

  ‘Where am I?’ he said again, louder this time, his voice cracking with desperation.

  He heard movement nearby. Smelled the sour stench of someone’s breath as they leaned down. A sack was pulled from his head and then he was staring up into a hooded face. Dark eyes glittered with sinister fervour beneath the hood.

  ‘You are on a wagon. You and your friend from the tavern. The Cult of the Nameless has you now, child. Do not resist. Submit to the darkness. Soon we will reach our destination and then your pain will be gone.’

  The cultist placed the sack back over Cole’s head. He closed his eyes and let his head slump back against the wagon. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he whispered.

  An Unexpected Ally

  ✥

  A WEEK AFTER THE White Lady’s confrontation with Saverian outside Thelassa’s harbour, the Lady’s Luck entered the last stretch of her desperate voyage to the Celestial Isles.

  Sasha wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and spat out what little bile she hadn’t already vomited over the edge of the carrack.

  Gods, I hate this ship, she thought angrily. The trip across the Broken Sea to the flooded ruins of Shadowport had been painful enough, but this was torture. The Unborn crew clearly didn’t feel the effects of such things as seasickness – not even when the terrifying waves that surged across the Endless Ocean threatened to capsize the ship on occasions too numerous to count. She, however, had puked up her guts so often it hurt to breathe.

  She wondered to what depths the dark grey water beneath her reached. Once or twice she’d glimpsed gigantic shapes surfacing in the distance, only to dive back into the water seconds later in gigantic explosions of spray that surely would have flooded the Luck had the ship been anywhere near them.

  Perhaps worse than her seasickness was the sense of boredom. Her shipmates were not very communicative – with one unfortunate exception.

  ‘A beautiful morning, is it not?’ Fergus asked as he came to stand beside her at the prow. A tall, sharp-nosed man with a prominent widow’s peak, Fergus might be considered handsome and distinguished – at a distance.

  Before you see the void behind his eyes. The emptiness where a soul should be.

  The truth was, Fergus made Sasha’s skin crawl. He seemed devoid of human emotion, even more so than the Unborn around them. The difference, perhaps, was that while the Unborn had never developed to a stage capable of feeling, he had simply bypassed it completely. He was a whole man, except he lacked the parts that made a man a person. At one time each of the Unborn aboard the ship had been a baby girl. They had Fergus to thank for their unnatural existence, for it was he who pioneered the unholy creation of the White Lady’s handmaidens.

  Sasha turned her back on Fergus, but it seemed he was unwilling to take the hint. Unwilling, or unable to comprehend her body language.

  ‘The Isles are only a few miles ahead of us now.’ The self-proclaimed ‘man of progress’ ran a long-fingered hand through his grey hair. His eyes always seemed to be calculating, analysing, stripping things apart and refiguring them. She remembered the snip of his scissors back in the tower of horrors in Thelassa and suppressed a shudder.

  ‘I told you not to talk to me,’ she spat. ‘You’re a monster.’

  Fergus gave what for him passed as a smile – a slight twitching of his lips. ‘No, my girl, you are mistaken. These are monsters.’ He pointed at the handmaidens on the ship’s deck. ‘I am a man of progress.’

  Sasha squinted across the endlessly rolling waves, hoping to spot land. Anything to give her an excuse to busy herself away from this sociopath. Fergus was a high-ranking member of the Consult, who governed the city in the name of the White Lady, and hence held seniority over Sasha, who was still confused about her own role aboard the Lady’s Luck. The Magelord had inexplicably taken a shine to her, magically fixing Sasha’s fractured ankle and giving her a living apartment in the Consult chambers. Fergus had personally requested she be part of the crew to travel to the Celestial Isles.

  ‘I hope there is yet something to be salvaged from these Isles,’ Fergus commented. ‘They were the greatest source of untapped magic in the known world. Who knows in what ways the Ancients may have desecrated them.’

  May have desecrated them? They murdered hundreds of Dorminians here! Sasha wanted to scream at the man. Instead she took a few breaths to calm herself and wondered how Cole was faring down in the Shattered Realms. Knowing him, getting himself involved in ridiculous escapades and pissing folk off left, right and centre. She also knew that if there was anyone who could succeed in spite of all that, it was Cole.

  She felt something being pressed into her hand and glanced down. It was a pouch; a small brown pouch. She glanced up to see Fergus’s thin face twitching in another mockery of a smile. ‘A little something for you. To help with your seasickness.’

  Sasha untied the cord and peered inside. It was filled with a silvery powder.

  ‘I don’t need this,’ she said, thrusting the pouch back at him. But she didn’t thrust it all the way back, and as it hung from her twitching fingers she wanted nothing more than to tear it open and snort it all up her busted nose. And that bastard Fergus knew it. He was watching her as though she were a curious insect, dissecting her thoughts, her emotions. Her needs.

  ‘Very well,’ he said and took the pouch from her, stashing it in his coat. He glanced out over the water and his lizard’s stare lit up. ‘Ah-ha! I do believe we near our destination.’

  Emerging out of the mist ahead was the dark outline of a coast. Even at this distance Sasha could sense that something was amiss. The air felt heavier, fertile, as though there were vast energies at work that could not be seen or felt or heard but which might manifest themselves in unexpected form at any moment.

  The Unborn captain of the Lady’s Luck joined them at the prow, moving as silently as a ghost. ‘The Celestial Isles were torn from the heavens during the Godswar,’ said the handmaiden. It was unclear if the words belonged to her or if she were merely acting as a mouthpiece for her master in the City of Towers. Sasha had already witnessed the telepathic link the White Lady and her minions shared. ‘What you can feel is the raw essence of magic. The potentiality of creation. This place is dangerous – perhaps even more dangerous than the Swell. Even the local wildlife is touched by its aura.’

  A dark shadow engulfed the deck and Sasha glanced up to see a colossal eagle fly past, its wingspan wider than the ship below it. It screeched once and turned slightly, as if contemplating whether those on the ship might be prey. Evidently it decided not –
or perhaps the unnatural presence of the Unborn disturbed it; either way it changed course and soared back towards the Isles.

  Fergus steepled his fingers together and made a hmm sound. ‘An impressive specimen – and quite unnatural, of course. During the Age of Legends there was said to be a bird so large its shadow could encompass a town. A “roc”, I believe it was called. I’ve always wondered what would happen if one were to encounter a dragon in the skies. I suppose we shall never know.’

  As they sailed nearer to the Isles, the strange feeling in the air grew stronger. Sasha heard a thump on the deck behind her and turned to see what she at first assumed to be a fish lying on the deck. On closer examination she saw that the fish was strangely shaped, with a large blunt head that tapered smoothly to the tail and unusually intelligent eyes. There was something unsettling about the animal.

  Fergus bent down to examine it and murmured in delight. ‘My, my. A whale!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘A whale?’ Sasha exclaimed. ‘Those massive creatures I glimpsed a while back? They were huge. Bigger than a house.’

  ‘This whale is touched by the magic of Isles,’ Fergus said. ‘Not every such touch is a welcome one. It is said that a whale’s brain is close in size to that of a man, in relative terms. How fortuitous that one should find itself stranded here, and in such... agreeable form.’ His eyes seemed to light up as he stared at the creature. It didn’t flap as a fish might but rather lay there mournfully, as if it knew its fate. Fergus reached into his coat and withdrew an extremely sharp-looking knife.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Sasha asked, though the glitter in the man’s eyes told its own story.

  ‘I am going to experiment,’ Fergus replied. ‘I wish to see this animal’s brain for myself. The search for knowledge is never-ending. I am after all a man of progress.’