Mortal Consequences (10 page)

The Street of the Faithful Protector sported a statue of Tyche where it branched from a roundabout. The goddess—more capricious than faithful, Sunbright knew—was tall and willowy with a clinging gown. The statue was etched from some iridescent metal, or else enspelled, so dawn light scintillated across the surface like a rainbow. One outthrust arm of the goddess arched down the street as if to point their way.

It was warm, so Knucklebones wore only leathers and knucklebone pendant and knife, with a rucksack slung over one shoulder. Sunbright wore a shirt of washed-out yellow and tall boots, and lugged weapons, satchels, and their blanket rolls so he looked like an itinerant peddler. As they passed along the street of square white stone buildings with particolored doors, the big man asked casually, “Do they erect statues to the god of thieves in the enclaves?”

“They try,” Knucklebones said as she counted houses, alert for a red and green door. “They erect statues to Shar with big purple agates for eyes, but thieves steal the eyes, leaving her blind. It’s a funny tribute.”

“The only one of your gods that makes sense to me is Kozah the Destroyer, lord of storm and wildfire and rage. Or Vaprak the Destroyer, god of ogres. To brave the tundra, you need a tough god. Clingy-Robe back there would freeze her melons off in my country.”

“Which is why the empire leaves your country alone, I suppose,” Knucklebones joked. “Who wants frozen melons? Ah, here!”

The door of Bly the Seer was indeed red and green, as they’d heard, and decorated with a glaring eyeball surmounted with bat wings. Knucklebones tripped up the stairs and rapped sharply on the eyeball. “Perhaps I should steal this. I could use a spare,” she said, and winked at Sunbright with her one good eye.

A servant looked them over, then admitted them down a long hall glittering with gold mirrors and candelabra to the rear of the house, where they descended a short stair, passed outside through opulent gardens, and entered a two-story workshop against a high fence of white brick. Climbing to the second floor, they found the workshop of Bly lined with books and racks of odd cards in wooden holders, with sheaves of herbs hung from the rafters. Centermost was a table so black it absorbed light like a square hole gaping to another world.

Bly was so old her white skin was like parchment etched with unreadable writing. Drawn-back hair was white, and her face was painted on. She wore a quilted gown of silver and blue that failed to hide a rail-thin figure. Sunbright reflected that, if these archwizards could sustain life for centuries, Bly must be near the limit.

Knucklebones introduced them, her cultured accent and easy poise marking her as Neth-born. Bly stared at Sunbright until the thief wondered if she wasn’t dotty and man-crazed. When they explained their wish, Bly creaked, “You seek the whereabouts of these Rengarth? And this man is one? Simple, then. Let me work.”

Plucking a sprig of sage from the rafters, the archwizard walked circles around Sunbright, bidding him stand still as she brushed the herb up and down, from topknot to toes. The barbarian frowned, but the thief shook her tousled head. Finally, Bly stepped to the black table.

There was nothing on the tabletop, yet Bly bid them stand back. Raising her skinny hand, she dropped the sage. It struck the table once, bounced, then sank from sight, as if into water. The visitors gasped. Without touching the table, Bly bent over and peered deeply, all the while crooning some ancient air. Then she smiled and said, “Look you.”

Sunbright and Knucklebones craned. Below the surface of the table, as if seen through polar seawater, he glimpsed a shaggy head. The man wore his hair like Sunbright’s, shaved at the temples, with the distinctive roach and horsetail of the Rengarth.

“Rattlewater! He’s a cousin, many removed! Who else is there?”

Slowly the image widened, until Sunbright saw Rattlewater talking to Leafrebel, his wife. The two argued, it was clear: the man stabbing the air angrily, the woman shaking her head, tight-lipped. Behind them Sunbright saw a reindeer hide painted with a raven, totem of his clan. The picture widened further, and he saw other folks sitting around the common house fire. He recognized Forestvictory, and thought he saw Archloft. The picture lit up as the fire itself was revealed. A copper pot of cornmeal bubbled at its side, and Sunbright could almost smell it. The familiar sights sent a pang through him, a wistful stab that almost stilled his heart. He hadn’t known he was so homesick until he saw home. It took all his willpower not to leap into the black tabletop and see if he could plunge into the scene. The picture widened, and he held his breath, for there was his mother—

A scrawny hand slapped the table, and the vision vanished.

Wrenched from his waking dream, Sunbright cried, “Don’t! Let me see! Please! I must know—”

“When I’m paid,” Bly said simply. The archwizard’s mouth was prim and dry as a parrot’s beak. “You know I can locate your tribe. As we widen the sphere of the scrying spell, you’ll see some landmark you recognize. Then you’ll know the way home.

“After I’m paid.”

“What do you want?” Sunbright babbled. “I’ll get you anything, find anything!”

Knucklebones tsked, rolled her one good eye at his hopeless non-haggling. Promise the moon to this rich archwizard and she’d demand it. The way her rheumy eyes assessed Sunbright, Knucklebones disgustedly thought she knew part of the payment.

But oddly, the archwizard gathered her silver-blue hem in one claw and waved toward the stairs.

Bemused, thief and barbarian followed the sweeping train down the stairs, past the first floor, to the cellar. Knucklebones knew that, since the enclave was honeycombed, the archwizard might have any number of basements or storage rooms beneath her estate, as many as she wished to pay for.

One vast cellar matched the lot. Bly spoke a word to make the ceiling light. Along the outside wall a locked door obviously gave onto thin air. The room was packed with crates and heaps and furniture under dusty covers. But also two vehicles they recognized. Sunbright groaned.

“Oh, no! Not flitters!”

“I hate these things!” Sunbright groaned.

“Anyone with sense does,” Bly replied. “That’s why I need flyers. A team. I’ve had a standing wager with Lady Fayina for months now—we contest ownership of a building on the north side—but we’ve been unable to secure flyers. Too many have been killed, and the new ones are incompetent. She’s hired two airboaters from Buoyance and challenged me. And—Lady of Luck—in walk you two daring freebooters! Surely Tyche favors me, and all who adorn her street!”

“How do you know we’re ‘daring freebooters’?” Sunbright asked dully.

“No one could acquire so many scars without sojourning after trouble,” the mage reasoned. “And you’re still alive, so competent. Have you flown before?”

With a ghost of smile, Knucklebones nodded. Sunbright groused, “Once, for the merest moment, and mostly straight down.”

“But you survived. Splendid! This won’t be any more complex.” She turned to go upstairs.

“Wait!” Sunbright called. “We crashed in a tree! Knuckle’s still got a scar over her eyebrow—”

“Don’t bother,” the thief put in. “She’s set on us flying this beast. We might as well accept it.” Shucking her battered rucksack, Knucklebones walked around the two flitters, grabbed the overhead bar of one and oozed into the seat. She cheerfully tested the twin steering bars, watching the tail and wings tilt and straighten. They’d flown a similar vehicle from Karsus, in the future. These primitive gliders were simpler, with shiny gossamer wings overhead and to the sides, and an upright fishtail, all painted with an ornate B and connected by brass tubing, steel struts, and numerous wires bearing on rollers. The seats were wicker with no floor. The thief nodded.

“This one’s in fine shape,” Knucklebones said. “There is one difference, though. That later flitter had wards to protect you in a crash. This one doesn’t.”

“Ouch,” Sunbright joked. “You seem a presumptuous expert, having flown once and cracked your pate.”

She craned one eye as if winking, and said, “We wouldn’t have crashed if you hadn’t crumpled the wings.”

“It wasn’t me! It was a guard dog!” his voice echoed in the cellar. “We were under attack. Otherwise, I never would have set foot in the damned contraption! And speaking of feet, why is there no floor? My boots will fall off!”

Knucklebones pursed kissable lips and said, “You launch by holding the frame around your waist and running off the edge. Skids on the bottom there let you slide to a landing.”

“Run off the edge … ?” Sunbright closed his eyes, held his stomach, and groaned, “Why must we do this?”

Knucklebones slithered out of the seat, lithe in tight, buffed leather, to inspect that wires and fixtures ran smoothly. “We’ve nothing else to offer. She could see that by our clothes,” she told him. “We have little money, not near enough to pay for scrying. Thirty thousand crowns wouldn’t buy that spell, I’d guess. Any tasks we might perform for her—thieving or brute strength work—she can buy elsewhere.

“But there’re always foolish bets amongst the rich, and she needs two fools to launch this butterfly. We’re big fools in need. You want to find your tribe, don’t you? This is how.”

A wave of homesickness washed over the barbarian, and weakened his knees. He made to lean on the flitter, then thought better lest it crumple under his hand. “But what’s this ‘other team’ tripe? What are we supposed to do, outfly them, or outrace them?”

Fiddling with wires, Knucklebones huffed, “My guess is we tear them from the sky—make them crash. She was eyeing your tackle, especially your longbow. The Neth favor blood sports.”

Now Sunbright held his head. “Wonderful,” he grumbled. “And if we don’t shoot them down like ducks on the wing, they shoot us?”

“Absolutely,” Knucklebones said as she straightened. “But don’t fret. We’ll win, because you’ll shoot, and I’ll fly. I liked it last time!”

Sunbright stared through thick fingers at her grin.

“Traitor.”

She stuck out her tongue. “Sissy.”

Knucklebones had guessed correctly. After a while Bly returned and announced that the duel was set. Lady Fayina’s team would launch from her mansion, three blocks hence, and Lady Bly’s team from here. Their opponents were a man and woman in a flitter marked with an F. By common consent with the other “gamers,” no other flitters would launch at that time. The object was to knock your opponent from the sky.

They could shoot the flyers, tear or ram their wings, grapple on, or use any other method. There were only two rules: no magic, and they mustn’t crash themselves or their opponents on the city. The opponents were not to meet, or spy on one another, until the duel. Nobles would gather in the late afternoon to watch and cheer, judge, and lay sizeable bets. “So put on a good show,” Bly commanded.

“Good show,” Sunbright groused. “We’re pitted like dogs on short leashes.”

“Such are commoners to the highborn,” Knucklebones nodded. “Good for work or play, to live or die or suffer, as long as we do as we’re told.”

“No wonder this empire crumbles,” the barbarian complained. “If it treats its people, the foundation of its wealth, like animals—”

“Animals eat better,” Knucklebones interrupted, then stretched like a cat. “We should pillage the kitchen, build up our strength.”—Sunbright held his stomach— “I’ll eat. You fast. We don’t want to knock the enemy from the sky with puke.”

“You’re …” the barbarian hunted for a word, “.. . unkind.”

Knucklebones smiled and sashayed up the stairs. Sunbright stared bleakly at the flitter.

“It’s time. Get in. And don’t step through the wing. We need it.”

“I’d rather just jump off the edge of the city and get it over with,” Sunbright said as he climbed carefully through bars and wires and finally squeezed his big frame into the small wicker seat.

In three hours, Knucklebones had rummaged through the cellar and garden shed, and cobbled some tricks. Tied with thread across the front of the cockpit were a dozen long arrows with heads a foot wide. The thief had scavenged rake teeth in the hopes these T-shaped arrows would shear through gossamer fabric and disable a wing. Another addition was a long scythe blade spot-welded to the nose of the flitter like a mosquito stinger. And lastly, a length of light chain with a long hook nestled between them on the seat.

How they’d ply these Sunbright didn’t know, or care. “We’re doomed, and that’s plain,” he said dramatically. “I was born on the tundra, an earth-dweller. I don’t belong in the sky.”

“Hush, and do what I say, or you’ll visit the earth sooner than you’d like,” Knucklebones scolded. “I intend to land us whole and hale. And stop whining. You’ll jinx our luck.”

“If we had luck, we wouldn’t—I’m not whining!”

From the entrance to the cellar, a maid heard a signal from above and called, “They’re ready!”

Knucklebones grunted, “Drop your feet, country mouse. You’re a country bat today.”

Stiff as a zombie, Sunbright planted his boots, caught the edges of the flitter, and marched forward. Servants had shot the bolts and unlocked the outside door, and it did indeed gape upon nothing but blue sky and blue hills in the vast distance. The barbarian closed his eyes as the thief called, “Run, run, run, run—here we go!”

A hop, a stomach-lurching drop, a sickening tilt toward the ground, and a prolonged scream from Sunbright… .

Swearing a steady streak, Knucklebones twisted and yanked and shoved the twin steering bars until suddenly, as if by magic, the wings scooped wind and the flitter buoyed on air currents like a boat. Quick experimentation and fast hands leveled them.

Knucklebones hooted with laughter as she hauled a bar to her belly, made the nose of the glider climb, then level again. The framework vibrated like a balky horse at a run, the wings and wires hissed, gusts of air slapped their faces and mussed their hair, but she hollered, “I’ve got it! I can fly! We’re saved! Open your eyes, damn it!”

Unsquinching his eyes, stomach, and bowels, Sunbright peeked, and gasped. His boots dangled over a mile of sky. Spread in all directions were summer-yellow fields giving way to dull green forest and blue hills. Far to the north he saw the Narrow Sea like a squiggle of quicksilver. “Lord of War!” he screamed. “Beyond that’s tundra!”