The Iron Ship (50 page)

“But those are the works of men. Men are bound to change. The dead are constant”

“You are correct, it is something greater. Listen to me, my boy. The world we inhabit is not so stable as we think. Each generation lives in a false bubble of permanence. It is only at times like this, when the fulcrum of change itself moves, that we realise the extent of mutability inherent in all the world. The mages understand this, even as the magisters do not. I cannot fail to see the humour that the greatest change in recorded history is being driven by a doctrine founded on the empirical uncovering of changeless laws which are anything but changeless. Without gods, we have become arrogant.

“Aarin, we are not so mighty as the true mageborn, but you, nor I, would not be able to do what we do without a certain amount of talent. We can perceive this, we who tread the borders of life.”

“I wish it were more.”

“You have enough for the task ahead of you.”

“The dead then, are they perturbed by the altering fabric of our times? The cities, machines, and so forth?”

Triesko sucked in a deep breath of chill air, held it, and blew it out. “It is more fundamental than that. Something is shifting. The modern world owes much to the knowledge of the ancients.”

“The Maceriyans?”

“The Morfaan,” said Triesko. They sat quietly for a few moments, their clouds of breath moving off to lose themselves in the fog. The day was brightening, individual layers of the mist made themselves apparent. The sun shone through the vapour, a pale yellow circle.

“It was expected that you would come to ask about this. Well done.”

“I do not understand.”

“Yes you do.” Triesko’s other hand came out from under his blanket. He handed Aarin a heavy metal medallion, as old and smoothed as the gate knocker. He took Aarin’s hand by the wrist in fingers that, though thin, still had strength, and pressed the medallion into his palm. It was warm from Triesko’s hand.

Aarin held up the medallion. It was the same as he used in the Guiding ceremony, but far older. There had been an inscription around the edge of the medallion, but it was unreadable. A horned depiction of the Dead God, bearing his twin staffs, danced in the middle.

“The words say, ‘He who watches the gate, is watched’,” said Triesko.

“What does it mean?”

“What do you think?”

“Death has his eye on us all,” hazarded Aarin.

“It also means what with all the fat and useless fourth sons of nobles that make up the majority of our number, we have to be careful who knows what. You are aware of the Monastery of the Final Isle?”

“I am. You are going to tell me that it is not a simple monastery.”

“It is not. There again is something that is not widely known. You must go there, Aarin, to one of the gates of death. Consult with the greatest oracle we might access.” Triesko gripped Aarin’s hand in both his tightly. The wool of his gloves pressed into Aarin’s skin.

“Not all the gods were driven away.”

“Yes, I know. Everyone knows. There are a number of minor beings who escaped Res Iapetus’s wrath, as well as two of the gods themselves.”

Triesko shook his head. “There are only two living gods.”

“The Dead God was not driven forth?” said Aarin.

Triesko smiled. “You must see for yourself.”

“You will say no more?”

“I would, my boy, but I cannot. That is one ban I cannot break.”

At that moment, Brother Yostion came over the lawn, hips stiff but stride swift. “You said you would be but a short while!” he complained.

“I am done. I apologise.”

“Don’t be such an oaf, Yostion. I get precious few visits as it is,” snapped Triesko.

Triesko stood stiffly, his blankets and fur falling around his feet. Yostion clucked his displeasure and plucked them up. Aarin embraced his old mentor.

“Good luck, my boy,” Triesko whispered into Aarin’s ear. “My time is almost done. By the end of the spring I will be gone, following those I have guided into the next world. You and I shall meet no more in this life.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Through Dalszystron

T
HEY WENT AS
swiftly as only dracons might. Muscular, reptilian legs ate up the miles. The desert receded, drawing further and further away from the mountains as the party went north, until it became a black line on the horizon and the spikes of the warding obelisks small as thorns. Eventually the line and the obelisks vanished beyond the sea of grass. A brown haze in the distance became the sole sign of the Black Sands’ presence. The steppe began to climb, and the mountains to the west became taller.

They camped every forty miles or so. On the seventh night they stopped early to allow the dracons to hunt. The eighth day they went more slowly, the beasts sated and torpid. Rel felt increasingly at home in the saddle. Zorolotsev showed him how to rig his saddle in the proper Khusiak way—there were marked differences to the saddles of Karsa. All the men were excellent riders, Deamaathani especially, but Rel was feeling less embarrassed of his own abilities.

The land dropped unexpectedly away, sheared by a steep scarp east-west across the steppe. The desert reappeared, coming in a wide bight across the base of the slope, so that their position atop the ridge overlooked sand more than the steppe, both lightened here by thin, icy snow. The grassland widened again to the north, but became hillier and more broken so that the mountains did not rise so abruptly, being fronted by a swathe of foothills absent further south.

The major pulled up his dracon and slid from its back. He gave the call to dismount, and directed his men to stake their mounts away from the slope’s brow.

“Keep down,” he urged them as they gained the edge. He beckoned to Veremond, who passed him a brass telescope. Zhinsky extended it and set it to his eye. He grunted.

“What do you see?” asked Rel.

“There, about three miles out.”

Rel squinted against the brightness of the day. Ripples chased one another over the yellow grasses.

“There,” Zhinsky said, directing him to the north east.

A line of black dots moved across the plain, heading from the desert into the mountains. “I see a line of figures,” Rel said.

Veremond drew in his breath. “There are no herders this far out at this time of the year.”

Zhinsky passed Rel the glass.

Rel brought it up to his eye. The figures blurred, and leapt into close view. Rel gasped. “They are not men.”

What he saw walked like men, but they were too tall and too thin. Their bodies were covered in long, feathery hair. Their faces were dark and flat, dominated by wary eyes.

“Some say they are a kind of men.” Zhinsky rolled onto his back and looked at the clouds hurrying through the sky. “Or that they were men and are no longer, because they angered a Tyn. Or a sorceress. Or a demon. Take your pick. They were transformed into those half-beasts you see. Whatever they are, we of Khushashia call them Yeven.”

Dramion muttered some minor cantrip under his breath. Deamaathani had his own glass out and was watching intently.

“Are they dangerous?” asked Olb.

“Probably not,” said the warlock.

“And what would you, native of less uncanny deserts, know of them?” said Zhinsky.

“I know enough,” said Deamaathani. “I can feel little malice from them.”

“You can do that?” said Rel, surprised.

“When one is engaged in waging war with magic, it is well to know whether or not your opponent bears you ill will. So yes, I can do that.”

“They are dangerous,” said Zorolotsev. He gestured for the glass. Rel handed it over reluctantly. “There are many legends of them in my village. I come from other side of the mountains, not far from here as the eagle flies. They sometimes come over the mountains and down into the forests in hard winters. Never cross them. They are cruel to those that anger them.”

“It does not matter, dangerous, not dangerous,” said Zhinsky. “They will avoid us, and we will avoid them. What is of note here, is that they walk directly from the desert, up into the hills, and there the mountain peoples of the Dalszystron live.”

“They stay away from people,” said Zorolotsev. He spoke rapidly in Khusiacki to Zhinsky, then added in Low Maceriyan, “These are in poor condition. The bull that leads, his fur is matted.”

“A sign then,” Deamaathani said. He snapped his telescope shut. “I’ve learned to be wary of signs.” He looked at Zhinsky. “It’s not them we should be afraid of.”

“It is not,” said Zhinsky. “It is what they are running from we should be concerned with. They come from there.” He pointed. “We make small detour, go look. Now! Up up, my bold warriors.”

Zhinsky had them go swiftly down the slope to where the Yeven had come from. Their mounts had not eaten for two days now and so were quicker on their feet, if harder to control, and ran so quickly down the slope Rel feared he would fall from the saddle. The Khushashians and Deamaathani laughed and whooped as they hurtled down to the plain. The others cursed and held on tightly.

Once down, it was a short gallop to the boundary between desert and grass. Zhinsky sent Veremond, Olb and Dramion ahead to the point they judged the Yeven to have emerged from the Black Sands; the rest of the squadron ran along the edge cautiously, stopping every three quarters of a mile to examine the obelisks for damage. Rel had never been this close to the unwebbed desert. The line between sand and steppe was practically a blade-slash. Isolated tussocks of grass deformed the line of the turf here and there, but it was unnervingly close to dead straight.

“This does not look like a natural border,” said Rel.

“Who ever said it was? I did not.” Zhinsky leaned far forward in his saddle. “The say that the gods made it in ancient days, one side for men, one side for their other children. These obelisks are the border, to keep the bad things out from the lands of men.”

“Is it true?”

Zhinsky shrugged, preoccupied by the obelisk they had stopped by. A narrow pyramid twice as high as a man emerging from the turf like a tooth from a gum. It was a dull grey, like iron, although it was free of rust. Four-sided, a symbol on each face at just above head height. “Is a folktale, but there is much truth in folktales. If not for that devil-dog Iapetus, we could ask them, no?” He looked out over the desert. Sinuous loops of sand hissed over the surface. The pale grasses of the steppe rattled back in defiance. “But these things are true, the desert is not a natural place, and there are inhuman things dwell in it, brothers of mankind or not, and the obelisks work. Come! This one is fine.”

“It amazes me,” said Rel, “that there is one of these, every three quarters of a mile, for three thousand miles.”

“I told you before, little merchant boy, this is not Karsa.”

Veremond crested a low rise ahead. “Captain!” he shouted. “Major!”

Rel and Zhinsky wheeled their dracons about. Veremond was making his way rapidly down the divide between sand and turf with Olb and Dramion. They met the group halfway.

“The spires, major. You should see. One is down. The Yeven’s prints go past it.”

Zhinsky gave Rel a foreboding look, and spurred his dracon to a full gallop.

They passed two further obelisks before they reached Zorolotsev, standing guard over a toppled spire. The top part lay half on the desert, half on the grass.

The group reined their dracons in. The lizards clicked and chattered in agitation, raking at the ground with their running claws. Their massive fighting claws twitched. Zhinsky leapt down and crouched by the pylon’s broken end. “Merchant boy, you tell me your father is big industrialist. What do you think?”

Rel looked over the edge of the upright portion from the top of his dracon. “Looks like it happened recently. But I can’t tell, these things look like they were made last year.”

“How did it happen?” asked Merreas quietly. He hunkered into his clothes, and eyed the desert warily.

“It looks broken, but I don’t see how.” He peered closer. The outside and the inner portion were the same exact shade of dull, silvery grey. “I’m sorry, I really don’t know. This stuff doesn’t corrode. If there were rust, we could guess when it happened...” Rel reached out to it.

“I would not touch it, if I were you,” said Deamaathani. “The spires gather in bad energy. It can cling to them, and discharge unexpectedly.”

“You don’t want to be a frog, eh captain?” said Dramion. Zhinsky shot him a look that reminded the Karsan who made the jokes in their group.

“Has it been overloaded?” asked Zhinsky.

“It is possible, I suppose,” said Deamaathani. “The sigils are intact. But I would have been aware of such a large discharge of energy. And I have never heard of such a thing happening before. Jakkar tells me that they are practically indestructible.”

“Could it have been broken, physically. Pushed over?”

Rel checked the sheared surfaces again. “Perhaps. The bottom would have shifted out of true though.”

“These things are sunk thirty feet into the ground,” said Deamaathani. “They do not shift.”

They looked around the base of the spire. The turf was close in to the metal, undisturbed.

“It could have been snapped by force, I suppose,” said Rel. “My brother would know.”

“And where’s your brother?” said Merreas.

“About two thousand five hundred miles away,” said Rel.

“Watch your tone with the captain,” warned Veremond. Merreas scowled.

“So we’re here, in the middle of nowhere, sent to deal with a monster. And now this, broken by something,” said Merreas, uncowed by Veremond’s rebuke.

“Purposefully, I’d say,” said Deamaathani.

“The dead. Is this why we saw them? Is this why Wiatra died?” said Rel.

Zorolotsev made a noise in his chest.

“With this broken the dead are the least of our troubles. This is how the changeling came out of the sands,” said Zhinsky.

“And it may not be the only thing to come through,” said Deamaathani.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Changeling