Dust of Dreams

The ghost agreed. Fleshless and yet chilled, shivering. There had been a spear in his past-yes? Perhaps? A dreadful thing, lunging at his face, his chest, slicing the muscles of his arms. Reverberations, shivering up through his bones, rocking him back, one step, then another-

Gods, he did not like spears!

‘Come on,’ Taxilian said. ‘It is time to find a way in.’

There was a way in. The ghost knew that. There was always a way in. The challenge was in finding it, in seeing it and knowing it for what it was. The important doors stayed hidden, disguised, shaped in ways to deceive. The important doors opened from one side only, and once you were through they closed in a gust of cold air against the back of the neck. And could never be opened again.

Such was the door he sought, the ghost realized.

Did it wait in this dead city?

He would have to find it soon. Before the hunter found him-found them all. Spear Wielder, slayer, the One who does not retreat, who mocks in silence, who would not flinch-no, he’s not done with me, with us, with me, with us.

We need to find the door.

The way in.

They reached the dragon’s stone forelimb with its claws that stood arrayed like massive, tapering pillars of marble, tips sunk deep into the hard earth. Everywhere surrounding the foundations the ground was fissured, fraught with cracks that tracked outward. Rautos grunted as he crouched down to peer into one such rent. ‘Deep,’ he muttered. ‘The city is settling, suggesting that it has indeed sucked out the water beneath it.’

Taxilian was scanning the massive tower that comprised the limb in front of them, tilting his head back, and back. After a moment he staggered, cursing. ‘Too much,’ he gasped. ‘This one leg could encompass a half-dozen Ehrlii spires-if it is indeed hollow, it could hold a thousand inhabitants all by itself.’

‘And yet,’ Rautos said, coming up alongside him, ‘look at the artistry-the genius of the sculptors-have you ever seen such skill, on such a scale, Taxilian?’

‘No, it surpasses… it surpasses.’

Sheb stepped in between two of the talons, slipped into shadows and out of sight.

There were no obvious entranceways, no formal portals or ramps, no gates; no windows or apertures higher up.

‘It seems entirely self-contained,’ said Taxilian. ‘Did you notice-no evidence of outlying farms or pasture land.’

‘None that survived the interval of abandonment,’ Rautos replied. ‘For all we know, after all, this could be a hundred thousand years old.’

‘That would surprise me-yes, the surface is eroded, worn down, but if it was as old as you suggest, why, it would be little more than a shapeless lump, a giant termite tower.’

‘Are you certain of that?’

‘No,’ Taxilian admitted. ‘But I recall once, in a scriptorium in Erhlitan, seeing a map dating from the First Empire. It showed a line of rugged hills inland of the city. They ran like a spine parallel to the coast. Elevations had been noted here and there. Well, those hills are still there, but not as bold or as high as what was noted on the map.’

‘And how old was the map?’ Rautos asked.

Taxilian shrugged. ‘Twenty thousand? Fifty? Five? Scholars make a career of not agreeing on anything.’

‘Was the map on hide? Surely, no hide could last so long, not even five thousand years-’

‘Hide, yes, but treated in some arcane way. In any case, it had been found in a wax-sealed container. Seven Cities is mostly desert. Without moisture, nothing decays. It just shrinks, dries up.’ He gestured with one hand at the stone facade before them. ‘Anyway, this should be much more weathered if it was so old as to outlast signs of farming.’

Rautos nodded, convinced by Taxilian’s reasoning.

‘Haunted,’ said Breath. ‘You’re going to get us all killed, Taxilian. So I now curse your name, your soul. I will make you pay for killing me.’

He glanced at her, said nothing.

Rautos spoke. ‘See that hind foot, Taxilian? It is the only one on a pedestal.’

The two men headed off in that direction.

Breath walked up to Asane. ‘Spin that cocoon, woman, make yourself somewhere you can hide inside. Until you’re nothing but a rotted husk. Don’t think you can crawl back out. Don’t think you can show us all your bright, painted wings. Your hopes, Asane, your dreams and secrets-all hollow.’ She held up a thin spidery hand. ‘I can crush it all, so easily-’

Last stepped up to her, then pushed her back so that she stumbled. ‘I grow tired of listening to you,’ he said. ‘Leave her alone.’

Breath cackled and danced away.

‘Thank you,’ said Asane. ‘She is so… hurtful.’

But Last faced her and said, ‘This is not a place for fears, Asane. Conquer yours, and do it soon.’

Nearby, Nappet snickered. ‘Dumb farmer’s maybe not so dumb after all. Doesn’t make him any less ugly though, does it?’ He laughed.

As Rautos and Taxilian drew closer to the hind limb they could see that the pedestal was rectangular, like the foundation of a temple. The vertical wall facing them, as tall as they were, bore the faint remnants of a frieze, framed in an elaborate border. All too eroded to interpret. But no sign of an entranceway.

‘We are confounded again,’ Rautos said.

‘I do not think so,’ Taxilian replied. ‘You look wrongly, friend. You search out what rises in front of you. You scan right and left, you crane your sight upward. Yes, the city encourages such deception. The dragon invites it, perched as it is. And yet…’ He pointed.

Rautos followed the line of that lone finger, and grunted in surprise. At the base of the pedestal, wind-blown sands formed a hollow. ‘The way in is downward.’

Sheb joined them. ‘We need to dig.’

‘I think so,’ agreed Taxilian. ‘Call the others, Sheb.’

‘I don’t take orders from you. Errant piss on you highborn bastards.’

‘I’m not highborn,’ said Taxilian.

Sheb sneered. ‘You make like you are, which is just as bad. Get back down where you belong, Taxilian, and if you can’t manage on your own then I’ll help and that’s a promise.’

‘I just have some learning, Sheb-why does that threaten you so?’

Sheb rested a hand on one of his daggers. ‘I don’t like pretenders and that’s what you are. You think big words make you smarter, better. You like the way Rautos here respects you, you think he sees you as an equal. But you’re wrong in that-you ain’t his equal. He’s just humouring you, Taxilian. You’re a clever pet.’

‘This is how Letherii think,’ said Rautos, sighing. ‘It’s what keeps everyone in their place, upward, downward-even as people claim they despise the system they end up doing all they can to keep it in place.’

Taxilian sighed in turn. ‘I do understand that, Rautos. Stability helps remind you of where you stand. Affirms you’ve got a legitimate place in society, for good or ill.’

‘Listen to you two shit-eaters.’

By this time the others had arrived. Taxilian pointed at the depression. ‘We think we’ve found a way in, but we’ll have to dig.’

Last approached with a shovel in his hands. ‘I’ll start.’

The ghost hovered, watching. Off to the west, the sun was settling into horizon’s lurid vein. When Last needed a rest, Taxilian took his place. Then Nappet, followed by Sheb. Rautos tried then, but by this point the pit was deep and he had difficulty making his way down, and an even harder time flinging the sand high enough to keep it from sifting back. His stint did not last long before, with a snarl, Sheb told him to get out and leave the task to the lowborns who knew this business. Last and Taxilian struggled to lift Rautos out of the pit.

In the dusty gloom below, the excavation had revealed one edge of stone facing, the huge blocks set without mortar.

The argument from earlier disturbed the ghost, although he was not sure why it was so. He was past such silly things, after all. The games of station, so bitter, so self-destructive-it all seemed such a waste of time and energy, the curse of people who could look outward but never inward. Was that a measure of intelligence? Were such hapless victims simply dimwitted, incapable of introspection and honest self-judgement? Or was it a quality of low intelligence that its possessor instinctively fled the potentially deadly turmoil of knowing too many truths about oneself?

Yes, it was this notion-of self-delusion-that left him feeling strangely anxious, exposed and vulnerable. He could see its worth, after all. When the self was a monster-who wouldn’t hide from such a thing? Who wouldn’t run when it loomed close? Close enough to smell, to taste? Yes, even the lowest beast knew the value of not knowing itself too well.

‘I’ve reached the floor,’ announced Sheb, straightening. When the others crowded to the uncertain edge, he snarled, ‘Keep your distance, fools! You want to bury me?’

‘Tempting,’ said Nappet. ‘But then we’d have to dig out your miserable corpse.’

The shovel scraped on flagstones. After a time Sheb said, ‘Got the top of the doorway here in front of me-it’s low… but wide. There’s a ramp, no steps.’

Yes, thought the ghost, that is as it should be.

Sheb wasn’t interested in handing off the task, now that he could see the way in. He dug swiftly, grunting with every upward heave of heavy, damp sand. ‘I can smell the water,’ he gasped. ‘Could be the tunnel’s flooded-but at least we won’t die of thirst, will we?’

‘I’m not going down there,’ said Breath, ‘if there’s water in the tunnel. I’m not. You’ll all drown.’

The ramp angled downward for another six or seven paces, enough to leave Sheb exhausted. Nappet took over and a short time later, with dusk gathering at their backs, a thrust of the shovel plunged into empty space. They were through.

The tunnel beyond was damp, the air sweet with rotting mould and sour with something fouler. The water pooled on the floor was less than a finger’s width deep, slippery underfoot. The darkness was absolute.

Everyone lit lanterns. Watching this, the ghost found himself frightened yet again. As with all the other accoutrements; as with the sudden appearance of the shovel, he was missing essential details-they could not simply veer into existence as needed, after all. Reality didn’t work that way. No, it must be that he was blind to things, a vision cursed to be selective, yielding only that which was needed, that which was relevant to the moment. For all he knew, he suddenly realized, there might