A Discourse in Steel (28 page)

No, a serpent
man.

His heart leaped against his ribs. Sweat formed on his brow when he looked into the vertically slitted, yellow reptilian eyes, filled as they were with an alien intelligence. Deep green and black scales and bone ridges formed a sloped, sleek head with deep eye sockets. Two ridged gashes formed a nose and the mouth.

The alienness of the creature shook Nix. His thoughts went jumbled. He wanted to move, to cry out, but he could still do neither. He could simply sit there and shiver.

The serpent man wore green robes made from a fabric that glistened in the moonlight as though it were slick. Triangles within triangles were sewn into the sleeves and collar.

Nix had seen the creature and the robes before and in a flash realized that it had been the statue. The statue of the serpent man had come to life.

But the statue was still there, looming beside him. But it had spawned the serpent man somehow.

Or Nix was dreaming.

Was he dreaming?

The serpent man reached up and placed his clawed, scaled hand on Nix's head, the touch cold and dry.

The pressure in Nix's skull grew. His eyes went wide and he opened his mouth in a silent scream. A presence nested in his thoughts, ancient and alien. He felt it probing at his thought processes, flipping pages to read the book of his mind. Nix's stomach fluttered and he tasted bile. For some reason he thought of Blackalley.

He gritted his teeth as the serpent man dug deeper into his thoughts. His heart was going to burst. He had to try something, anything.

Are…you…Odrhaal?
Nix asked, daring to hope.

His thoughts seemed to echo through his own consciousness, as if the serpent man's violation had left Nix's mind as empty as the tower.

Need…your…help,
Nix projected.
We need…to see…Odrhaal.

Ssseee,
said a voice in his head, the power of its projection much stronger than Mere or Rose's, strong enough to make Nix wince. He felt something pop behind his faceplate, felt blood trickle from his nose.

Yesss. Ssseee. Seee.

And Nix did see, things he could not have imagined.

Images formed in his mind, rapidly shifting, images of Ellerth when it was young, when an empire of serpent men built basalt towers that soared to twice the height of the Archbridge, when flying cities floated through Ellerth's skies, when creatures of myth prowled primeval forests and grassy, windswept plains and mountains that reached the roof of the sky.

He saw a great war between that empire and another, the latter an island empire ruled by pointed-eared human wizards in red robes, wizards who rode dragons and brought fire and ruin and commanded soldiers who carried weapons of sharp steel that glowed with magic. And Nix saw the serpent men answer with weapons that infected the mind, that trapped the thinking. He saw cities fall, saw men and serpents die on great battlefields by the tens of thousands.

Stop,
Nix said.
Please stop.

He saw the human wizards respond with an army of constructs, animated men of stone and metal that marched on the soaring cities of the serpent men and left heaps of cracked stone in their wake. He saw the serpent men answer with tubes of strange metal that vibrated in a way that destroyed the wizard's magical constructs, that shattered their flesh.

Nix's mind was swelling with the knowledge. He could feel his heart pounding against his eardrums. He thought his skull must soon burst. Surely it would burst.

He saw the war go on for decades, saw mountains of corpses, the enormity of the conflict changing the face of Ellerth, drying lakes, destroying mountains, diverting rivers. And he saw it end, finally, in the defeat of the serpent men. Most were killed, but some fled and some were imprisoned.

Imprisoned.

Imprisoned,
the serpent man said.

The images vanished, leaving Nix gasping.

Free me,
projected the serpent man, and Nix heard in the mental voice an echo of the same plea he'd heard while leaving Blackalley.

You're Odrhaal?

I'm Odrhaal, yes. Free me. I know what you seek. I can help the girl. Free me, Nix Fall.

How? Free you from what?

The chime is in the tower,
the serpent man said.
Get it and bring it here. Free me.

What chime?
Nix asked.
This tower? The one that's here?

Not this tower,
Odrhaal said, and showed him, and Nix understood.

There is a guardian,
Odrhaal said, and showed Nix a sleeping horror of eyes and toothy mouths and grotesque, trembling mounds of flesh.

Nix awoke in the deep of night, gasping. He lay at the base of the statue of the serpent man, the statue of Odrhaal. He was freezing and had a headache worse than any hangover headache he'd ever had. But that didn't matter. He also had hope. He climbed to his feet, dizzy for a moment, Odrhaal's mental voice echoing in his head.

Get the chime, bring it here. It's in the tower.

He ran into the tower, stumbling in his excitement. “Egil! Wake up!”

The priest sat up in a flash, hand on a hammer. Seeing no danger, he rubbed his head and eyes. “What is it? I dreamed—”

“I know what we need to do,” Nix said.

“The tower in the water,” Egil said distantly. He looked at Nix sharply. “That fakking tower.”

“Get the chime,” Mere said, also awakened by Nix's call.

“Bring it here,” Nix said, almost jumping up and down.

They'd all had the same dream or vision or whatever the Hells it had been.

“Odrhaal, he's here,” Nix said. “You were right, Mere.”

“No, you were right,” she said.

“He's trapped in that statue,” Nix said.

“They froze him in stone, to imprison him forever,” Mere said. “The men with pointed ears.”

“And we need to free him,” Nix said. “And then he can help Rose.”

“Then let's get him the fak out of there,” Egil said, standing.

“Aye,” Nix said, grinning. “Gear the fak up.”

“It's the middle of the night,” Mere said.

Egil was already loading up his gear.

“We've got to backtrack,” Nix said. “Which will take us toward the guildsmen.”

“We can sneak past them at night,” Mere said, understanding.

“Aye. And they won't be checking that dowsing rod at this hour. Egil and I get into the tower, get the chime, and come back here. We free Odrhaal, he helps Rose, then we deal with the guildsmen.”

Egil dropped his hammers into their loops on his belt. “And if we have to deal with them before that…”

Nix nodded. “They get between us and that tower and they get a hard go.”

“Aye, that,” Egil said. “Though we could just ambush them now.”

Nix considered it. “We don't know how many they are and we can be sure there are good blade men among them. Won't be like in the guildhouse. We get Rose fixed first, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Egil said, grudgingly.

“We can't find our way in the dark,” Mere said.

She was right. The moons were down and the darkness was like tar. They'd have to risk a light. Nix took his magical eye from Mere, spoke in the Language of Creation, and awakened it. It opened and its beam split the night. Nix tapped the eye with his forefinger.

“Dimmer,” he said.

The etched eye bunched up in a glower but did as Nix commanded. Nix would keep it pointed at the ground and shielded with his hand. The guildsmen wouldn't see it unless they were looking for it.

“Let's move,” Nix said. “And be as quiet as possible.”

They started off and every damned sound they made seemed amplified by the night's relative quiet. Even Egil's breathing sounded loud in Nix's ears. Even so, Nix couldn't stop smiling.

Sleep eluded Rusk. Wrapped in his bedroll, he listened to Varn's and Kherne's snoring, listened to the sounds of the swamp. He searched his thinking for some play to get the situation to work in his favor, but other than something obvious and risky—killing Trelgin, for example—nothing came to mind. He found himself circling back to the same conclusion again and again. Rusk would have to rescue Channis unless Egil and Nix killed Channis for him. Hells, maybe Channis would be less of a bunghole if he owed Rusk his life. Doubtful, though.

He heard a sharp, wet intake of breath from Trelgin, saw the flabby faker tense and lean forward, as if hearing or seeing something out in the night. Rusk thought of the scaled creature they'd seen earlier and sat up himself, his hand on his blade hilt. He followed Trelgin's gaze out into the darkness. At first he saw nothing more than the ink of the undergrowth, but then he saw it, too.

A light, far out in the swamp. It appeared and disappeared now and again, probably blocked by the undergrowth or shielded with a hand. But it was definitely someone bearing a light.

Rusk eased up beside Trelgin.

“You see it, too, yeah?” Trelgin asked.

Rusk nodded.

Trelgin pulled the dowsing rod from his inner pocket, activated it with a word, and let it pull in the direction of their quarry. Its pointer settled in the direction of the light.

“That's them,” Trelgin said, sucking drool.

“They're heading for the boats,” Rusk said.

“Probably,” Trelgin said. “Must have spotted us. They'll sink our boats, go rabbit in theirs, and leave us to die in the swamp.”

“Let's move,” Rusk said. He moved through the camp, rousing the men. Trelgin did the same.

“Back to the boats,” Trelgin said softly. “Those fakkers are going there now. We go quiet and fast and end this right now. They're walking right into it.”

The men were awake, on their feet, and armed in moments.

“No lights,” Rusk said.

“And no stray shots,” Trelgin said. “Remember that they still have the guildmaster.”

They set out in the dark, heading back to the lake and the boats, to Egil and Nix and Channis.

Even before
they reached the lake, Nix said to Mere, “We'll all row out to the tower, but when Egil and I get out and take our run at the place, I want you to row back to shore.”

“No, I can wait for you there.”

“Row back to shore,” Egil said to her.

“Odrhaal said there's a guardian,” Nix said.

“I had the same vision, Nix,” she said.

“Then you know what it looks like. I don't want you nearby if…something happens.”

Mere said nothing so Nix took her silence as agreement.

When they reached the lake, they instead found three boats.

“We ought to sink these fakkers' boats,” Egil said. He pulled a hammer and moved toward the first. Nix grabbed his arm and halted them

“Too loud,” Nix said. “Just flip them and let them fill.”

“Aye,” Egil said. The burly priest stepped into the water and flipped the guildsmens' boats. The water pulled them down. It'd take a long while to pull them out and get them drained.

Afterward, they placed Rose in their boat, Mere took her place, and Egil shoved them off. They moved quickly over the dark water. Nix imagined the graves below them, hidden by the dark. The metal dome of the tower rose out of the water before them.

Rose whimpered, thrashed, cursed, finally screamed, the sound loud and cutting like a knife through the still air.

“We have to hurry,” Mere said, a trickle of blood leaking from her nose. “I'm doing what I can but…”

“We know,” Egil said, and touched her hand. “Once we're off, row back. We'll be along.”

Nix and Egil stripped down to their trousers and boots. Both kept their weapons and Nix kept his satchel. Egil gave his dice a single shake and handed them to Mere. He let his pack and its crowbar—his tool of choice—go only with reluctance.

“You could go shirtless in winter with that pelt,” Nix said to Egil.

The priest's powerfully built shoulders, chest, and back were covered in dark hair.

“I have,” Egil said with a chuckle. “Ready?”

Nix leaned over the side and touched the water with his hand. “Warm at least.”

Both of them leaped off the boat and onto the top of the stairs that led to the door in the tower's dome.

“Go on now, Mere,” Egil said.

“Be careful,” she said, and took position on the rower's bench. She struggled to work the oars, but managed them well enough to get the boat turned and heading back to shore. The darkness soon swallowed the boat, leaving Egil and Nix alone on the lake, standing on a submerged tower, twenty paces above an ancient graveyard.

“Strangely, this doesn't feel unusual to me,” Nix said. “You?”

“If the tower's filled with water?” Egil asked.

“Then we go swimming,” Nix said.

Egil eyed the door. “Open it.”

Holding the glowing, etched-eye crystal in his palm, Nix took out the magical key he'd purchased in the Low Bazaar.

“Give us a fish,” the key said.

Nix felt around in his satchel, pulled out the first thing he found, a browning apple.

“You get an apple,” Nix said. “Later, I give you whatever you want.”

“A fish,” the key said.

“Gewgaws,” Egil breathed.

“You get a fakkin' apple and you'll like it,” Nix said. “Otherwise, I'll drop you in this damned lake where you can rust away for a thousand years.”

A long pause, then, “Give us an apple.”

Nix gave the key a bite of the apple, let it chew, then stuck it in the round keyhole. As always, the key warmed and squirmed in his hand as it changed shape to fit the mechanism. It shifted several times, struggling with the lock, but at last it stopped moving and Nix gave it a turn. The lock clicked open and the smooth, metallic door slid aside as if on rollers. The stink that emerged on the stale air, like corpses ten days dead, made both of them gag.

Wincing at the stink, Nix stepped onto the small landing just inside the tower and aimed the beam from his light crystal into the tower. Metal walls glittered, their surface covered in complicated strings of glyphs and sigils, all of them etched deeply into the metal. Nix had never seen anything like them, not even at the Conclave. He could discern no method to their placement, either. The spirals and whorls and serifs and sharp angles twisted and turned this way and that, a disjointed, chaotic script that reminded Nix of nothing so much as the thinking of a madman. Or an alien mind, like the serpent men. Staring at the writing overlong made him uneasy. It was of another time, another world, and men weren't meant to see it.

A spiral staircase snaked down and around the interior of the tower, the stairs seemingly forged out of the wall. He swallowed and stepped farther in, Egil following. The door slid closed behind them before the priest could stop it.

“Fak,” Egil cursed.

“Hsst,” Nix said, but too late. A wet hiss sounded from down in the tower's depths, causing the hairs on Nix's arms to stand on end. He covered the crystal with his hand and he and Egil froze on the landing, listening.

Nothing more.

The etched eye of the crystal squirmed against Nix's palm. He lifted it to his lips and whispered, “Very dim.”

More agitated squirming against his palm, but the crystal did as he commanded.

He slowly released his palm from the crystal. The dim light it shed was similar to that cast by a full moon. He and Egil took another step into the tower, to the edge of the landing, and let the glow shine down into the tower's depths.

Their breath caught when they saw the grotesque form attached to the wall a third of the way down the tower. The dream had not communicated its horror. The shapeless mound of grayish-blue flesh was three or four times Egil's size. Lines and ridges and boils and pus-filled abscesses, and thick blue veins covered its form. A glistening substance that looked like phlegm coated its skin and caked to a crust in its creases. As they watched, one of the ridges opened to reveal a rictus filled with a handful of sharp teeth as long as daggers. Strings of yellow spit stretched between the fangs. The mouth snapped shut. Another opened elsewhere on the fleshy mound, another, another. The creature was covered in mouths of all sizes, all filled with sharp teeth. The horror they were looking at belonged to the world no more than did the alien sigils. Fortunately it looked like it might be sleeping, or perhaps it was just insensate.

Queasy at the sight of the thing, Egil and Nix backed away from the ledge. They put their heads close together and spoke in tiny whispers.

“Fak,” Egil said.

“Aye,” Nix said. “That's about the size of it.”

“What's the plan?”

Nix glared at him in the faint light of the crystal. “I always come up with the plan. You come up with the plan this time.”

Egil was already shaking his head, the eye of Ebenor wagging at Nix. “I smash things and make pithy yet profound observations. You make plans and then things go wrong.”

“Did you say ‘pithy'?”

“And we always have this kind of conversation before risking our lives. See? Pithy and profound is what that was.”

Nix was nonplussed. “Who
are
you?”

Egil ignored the question. “I also said ‘then things go wrong.' ”

“I won't argue that,” Nix said. “Fak. I wish you had your lucky dice.”

“Aye. Now plan, small man. Rose needs us and that thing looks unfriendly.”

Nix crept back to the edge of the landing and shined the light along the tower's walls, down into the depths, taking it all in.

The glyphs and sigils carved onto the walls stopped just above the point where the creature was attached to the wall. He pondered over that for a time, deducing purpose.

The staircase descended all the way down, though the creature's enormous bulk blocked it a third of the way down. The stairs ended before a door very much like the one they'd entered. There was a metal chest near the door. Nix estimated rough distances, then backed away from the ledge to regroup with Egil.

“The tower's watertight, so there's that,” he said in a whisper. “Nothing else good though.”

Egil waited so Nix went on.

“I think the sigils are to keep the creature from crawling up to the top. Probably they fed it or tortured it or…whatever they did to it, from the top.”

Egil ran a hand over Ebenor's eye. “They drew it up the wall, maybe fed it from the top, and while they did that, they put their treasures in the bottom.”

“Maybe makes sense,” Nix whispered. “Maybe also makes us fakked. The stairway goes all the way down and ends at a door like the one behind us. There's a metal chest at the bottom.” He consulted the dream-vision he'd had of Odrhaal. “I think the chime is in it.”

“Fakkin' chime,” Egil said. “Why'd they put them here? What's the point?”

“Secreted them here at some point during the war?” Nix speculated. “To keep them from the wizards? I don't know. When do sorcerers or mindmages or anyone who trucks in magic do things that make sense? Add to that the fact that we're talking about serpent men and this shite makes even less sense than usual.”

Egil tilted his head to concede the point. “So?”

“So…I have a plan. It's a very bad one.”

Egil waved him on. “That's assumed. Continue.”

“The only way to get past those sigils is fast. We have to leap down the tower.”

“Too far,” Egil said, frowning.

“That's why we go fishing first.”

Nix stared at Egil until the priest's eyes widened in realization. “As bad plans go, this may be your worst ever.”

“Agreed. I have nothing else.”

“Seems like we've been saying that a lot this time through.”