The west end of the City is a small shrine, similar in many ways to the place where he’d first met the natives, the building where they ’d worshipped the triple-succubus deity. The build ing is sinuous and curved. It’ s an almost organic thing made of cold wood and black iron. Frozen glass covers the temple ’s face.
The gaping doorway seems to stretch wider as he approaches. He senses a cold presence inside, but he is be yond fear. He will keep moving and earn his escape, or e lse he will die. He is tired of walking with no purpose.
The air in the sh r ine is warmer than outside. The pale light won’ t penetrate the gloomy interior.
A black corpse waits in the shrine. The ebon warrior kneels in penitence, petrified in reams of ice. Its dead eyes are cast to the ground, and its arms are frozen forward. Its hands grasp at something it will never hold.
He steps closer, and his eyes follow to where the corpse’s fingers point at something buried beneath the frost on the wall.
We search.
He looks upon that frozen figure and understands. They’d left that place, their home, to find a way to escape the Whisperlands, but something kept them from ever returning.
They forgot what they were… who they were. They went off to find a way out, but once they left this city they forgot what they were looking for. T he Whisperlands corrupted the ir minds before they could complete their quest, and now that this place is dead they can never gain that knowledge back.
But they still remember that they search. T hey remember that they came from the City of Thorns, even if they can’t recall what they ’d left to search for, or why.
Maybe that’s why I’m here, he wonder s. Maybe t hey need me to finish the search for them. To find wha t they couldn’ t.
H e turns away from the corpse and wipes the ice from the stone. W hat he sees there chills his heart.
Suddenly, he knows what he must do. He knows w hy it ’ s so important for him to escape that dread realm.
I just hope I’m not too late.
NINE
They took Kane below deck and led him down a narrow and dimly-lit hall filled with dangling hooks and rusted steel plates. Dank doorways led to foul-smelling rooms. They brought him to a wide cabin lined with wooden pillars, work benches and a table covered in sharp tools.
Ronan sat on a chair in the middle of the room. H is hands were bound behind his back.
“Ronan!”
“It’s ok, Mike. They’re not going to hurt you.” Ronan looked up at the nearest reptilian, who glared back at him with yellow-gold eyes. “Well…not yet…”
They fastened Kane to a chair with a length of nylon cord and then cut Ronan loose. A reptilian sentry armed with an iron spear and a pistol in his belt escorted Ronan from the room, while t wo of the creatures stayed in the cabin with Kane.
“Just relax, Kane,” Ronan said as they led him out of the room. “It doesn’t take long.”
“What? WHAT doesn’t take long?!” he yelled.
One of the reptilian s stood right in front of him. It wore no boots, which gave Kane a clear view of its clawed and iguana-like feet. Its skin was deep grey and brown, and its claws were diamond black. The creature wore a sun-colored leather cloak with e paulets on the shoulders. Beneath the coat, the creature wore an armored vest covered in thaumaturgic apparatus, a network of opaque tubes and metal syring es managed by a small clockwork engine. Green-grey saliva dripped from beneath its gasmask, and its eyes shone brightly in the dim golden light that spilled through the shuttered port windows.
“Hi.” It was all Kane could think of to say.
The creature watched him for a moment, and then nodded to the other creature in the room. The larger reptilian stepped up and wrapped its arm around Kane’s throat as it put him into a painful headlock. His back and shoulders ached as he was twisted and contorted. Breaths caught like balls in his throat.
“ S top…that… ” he coughed.
The creature in the coat leaned in close. Its grey and scaly hands were encased in some sort of arcane gauntlet, just like the ones Cross wore, leather and metal straps set with spidery nodes that extended along the back of each long finger. A dull black gem on the back of the ga untlet pulsed with light that intensified as the creature’s hands drew closer to Kane. He felt heat pulse against his skin, a toxic glow that smelled of fish and seawater.
The air grew moist. Sweat trickled down his face.
Relax, a voice said in his head. We must prepare you.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Kane coughed as claws took hold of his face. “Wait…you’re not even… talking… ”
Quiet, the voice commanded. It took Kane a moment to realize the voice was his own voice, and that it spoke inside his head.
His skin burned. Sickness crawled in his stomach, and every ache and wound he’d a cquired in the past twenty-four hours came rushing back at him. He struggled there, wracked with pain and nausea and about to pass out, forced to keep still as grisly green energy poured down his throat.
Images flashed through his mind with violent force.
He sees sinking sand and giant faces, obelisks of bone slate and rust. M assive winged creature s, primordial brute s with razor maws and saw blade ridges down their armored backs, scream into a black sky. There is b lood on the ground and smoke in the air.
R ows of reptile-fleshed humanoid s stand bound and bloodied at the edge of a deep pit. Something pushes them down, one by one, and t hey writhe and scream as they fall. Something in the depths of the hole consumes them, a dark and ancient presence with cold and calculating hunger.
Kane was back on the ship. He felt wrung dry, drained of all his energy and strength. The taste in his mouth and the cloying dampness on his chest and legs told him he’d vomited. His muscles ached so badly it felt like he’d been running for days.
And yet somehow he had the strangest sense they’d done no harm to him…t hat they’d somehow prepared him for something important.
Those creatures in the vision were the same race as these guys on the ship. They showed me something that’s happened to them…maybe even the reason they’re here now.
He was dizzy and disoriented and felt like he’d been drugged. His limbs were tired and the inside of his chest was raw, like he breathed through a filter of dust and ice.
He gave Sol a nod when they brought the criminal below and returned Kane topside. They secured his wrists in front of him and chained him to an iron loop on the deck.
Ronan seemed to be in the same state of disconnect as he was. Even though he felt tired and drugged, Kane’s vision seemed somehow sharper. Colors looked clearer, details seemed more defined.
Too bad there isn’t shit to see in the middle of the cold — ass desert.
The skiff travelled for over another hour. The cool desert sky was pregnant with steel clouds. Dark fliers skimmed close to the distant dunes, and signs of recent conflict showed on the sandy landscape: shards of wrecked vehicles, charred bodies, drifts of greasy smoke that hung over the remains of ruined settlements.
They saw the bones of tusked creatures and flew through the dank stench of the burning dead. They saw the remains of sacrifices. Tall crosses made of bone and sharpened bamboo had been erected on islands of jagged rock l ittered with eviscerated bodies. The oozing corpses had been burned and left for the desert predators.
All of the corpses were reptilian.
They never came for Jade or Maur.
“Can you use your magic?” Kane asked Jade quietly. She looked as exhausted and as worn out as he was.
