House of Chains

so clear and bright. The lightness of his step made her want to brain him with the flat of her sword.

‘How do you intend to evade the Whirlwind’s notice, Pearl?’ she asked as they drew closer.

He shrugged. ‘I have a plan. Which may or may not work.’

‘Sounds like most of your plans. Tell me, then, what precarious role do you have in mind for me?’

‘Rashan, Thyr and Meanas,’ he replied. ‘The perpetual war. This fragment of warren before us is not fully comprehended by the goddess herself. Not surprising, since she was likely little more than a zephyr spirit to begin with. I, however, do comprehend… well, better than her, anyway.’

‘Are you even capable of answering succinctly? “Do your feet hurt?” “Oh, the warrens of Mockra and Rashan and Omtose Phellack, from which arise all aches below the knee-” ’

‘All right. Fine. I intend to hide in your shadow.’

‘Well, I’m already used to that, Pearl. But I should point out, that Whirlwind Wall is obscuring the sunset rather thoroughly.’

‘True, yet it exists none the less. I will just have to step carefully. Provided, of course, you make no sudden, unexpected moves.’

‘In your company, Pearl, the thought has yet to occur to me.’

‘Ah, that’s good. I in turn feel I should point out, however, that you persist in fomenting a certain tension between us. One that is anything but, uh, professional. Oddly enough, it seems to increase with every insult you throw my way. A peculiar flirtation-’

‘Flirtation? You damned fool. I’d be much happier seeing you fall flat on your face and get beaten helpless by that damned goddess, if only for the satisfaction I’d receive-’

‘Precisely as I was saying, dear.’

‘Really? So if I was to pour boiling oil all over you, you’d be telling me-in between screams-to get my head out from between your-’ She shut her mouth with an audible snap.

Wisely, Pearl made no comment.

Flat of the sword? No, the edge. ‘I want to kill you, Pearl.’

‘I know.’

‘But for the moment, I’ll settle with having you in my shadow.’

‘Thank you. Now, just walk on ahead, a nice even pace. Straight into that wall of sand. And mind you squint your eyes right down-wouldn’t want those glorious windows of fire damaged…’

She’d expected to meet resistance, but the journey proved effortless. Six steps within a dull, ochre world, then out onto the blasted plain of Raraku, blinking in the dusk’s hazy light. Four more steps, out onto scoured bedrock, then she spun round.

Smiling, Pearl raised both hands, palms upward. Standing a pace behind her.

She closed the distance, one gloved hand reaching up to the back of his head, the other reaching much lower as she closed her mouth on his. Moments later they were tearing at each other’s clothes. No resistance at all.

Less than four leagues to the southwest, as darkness descended, Kalam Mekhar woke suddenly, sheathed in sweat. The torment of his dreams still echoed, even as their substance eluded him. That song again… I think. Rising to a roar that seemed to grip the throat of the world… He slowly sat up, wincing at the various aches from his muscles and joints. Being jammed into a narrow, shadowed fissure was not conducive to restorative sleep.

And the voices within the song… strange, yet familiar. Like friends… who never sang a word in their lives. Nothing to quell the spirit-no, these voices give music to war…

He collected his waterskin and drank deep to wash the taste of dust from his mouth, then spent a few moments checking his weapons and gear. By the time he was done his heart had slowed and the trembling was gone from his hands.

He did not think it likely that the Whirlwind Goddess would detect his presence, so long as he travelled through shadows at every opportunity. And, in a sense, he well knew, night itself was naught but a shadow. Provided he hid well during the day, he expected to be able to reach Sha’ik’s encampment undiscovered.

Shouldering his pack, he set off. The stars overhead were barely visible through the suspended dust. Raraku, for all its wild, blasted appearance, was crisscrossed with countless trails. Many led to false or poisoned springs; others to an equally certain death in the wastes of sand. And beneath the skein of footpaths and old tribal cairns, the remnants of coastal roads wound atop the ridges, linking what would have been islands in a vast, shallow bay long ago.

Kalam made his way in a steady jog across a stone-littered depression where a half-dozen ships-the wood petrified and looking like grey bones in the gloom-had scattered their remnants in the hard-packed clay. The Whirlwind had lifted the mantle of sands to reveal Raraku’s prehistory, the long-lost civilizations that had known only darkness for millennia. The scene was vaguely disturbing, as if whispering back to the nightmares that had plagued his sleep.

And that damned song.

The bones of sea-creatures crunched underfoot as the assassin continued on. There was no wind, the air almost preternatural in its stillness. Two hundred paces ahead, the land rose once more, climbing to an ancient, crumbled causeway. A glance up to the ridge froze Kalam in his tracks. He dropped low, hands closing on the grips of his long-knives.

A column of soldiers was walking along the causeway. Helmed heads lowered, burdened with wounded comrades, pikes wavering and glinting in the grainy darkness.

Kalam judged their numbers as close to six hundred. A third of the way along the column rose a standard. Affixed to the top of the pole was a human ribcage, the ribs bound together by leather strips, in which two skulls had been placed. Antlers rode the shaft all the way down to the bearer’s pallid hands.

The soldiers marched in silence.

Hood’s breath. They’re ghosts.

The assassin slowly straightened. Strode forward. He ascended the slope until he stood, like someone driven to the roadside by the army’s passage, whilst the soldiers shambled past-those on his side close enough to reach out and touch, were they flesh and blood.

‘He walks up from the sea.’

Kalam started. An unknown language, yet he understood it. A glance back-and the depression he had just crossed was filled with shimmering water. Five ships rode low in the waters a hundred sweeps of the oar offshore, three of them in flames, shedding ashes and wreckage as they drifted. Of the remaining two, one was fast sinking, whilst the last seemed lifeless, bodies visible on its deck and in the rigging.

‘A soldier.’

‘A killer.’

‘Too many spectres on this road, friends. Are we not haunted enough?’

‘Aye, Dessimbelackis throws endless legions at us, and no matter how many we slaughter, the First Emperor finds more.’

‘Not true, Kullsan. Five of the Seven Protectors are no more. Does that mean nothing? And the sixth will not recover, now that we have banished the black beast itself.’

‘I wonder, did we indeed drive it from this realm?’

‘If the Nameless Ones speak true, then yes-’

‘Your question, Kullsan, confuses me. Are we not marching from the city? Were we not just victorious?’

The conversation had begun to fade as the soldiers who had been speaking marched onward, but Kalam heard the doubting Kullsan’s reply: ‘Then why is our road lined with ghosts, Erethal?’

More importantly, Kalam added to himself, why is mine?

He waited as the last of the soldiers marched past, then stepped forward to cross the ancient road.

And saw, on the opposite side, a tall, gaunt figure in faded orange robes. Black pits for eyes. One fleshless hand gripping an ivory staff carved spirally, on which the apparition leaned as if it was the only thing holding it up.