Souldancer (Soul Cycle Book 2) (17 page)

Szodrin lay face down in the rubble, pinned under an oppressive weight. Hot, moist air beat down on his neck.

“Enough,” a harsh voice said in the Night Gen dialect. “You know our brother’s scent.”

The great hairy weight removed itself from Szodrin’s back, and he gulped a breath of air. A firm hand gripped his arm and hauled him to his feet.

“You’re not hurt,” the guttural voice said. “If we’d meant you harm, you would see Shaiel; not me.”

What Szodrin saw was a Gen in filthy leathers. His dark hair was a web of braids twined with iron; his studded face ashen but for the three red gashes across his right eye.

Savages,
Szodrin thought.
What are they doing here?

The
Isnashi
looked Szodrin over and frowned, tugging on the bloodstained uniform. “You return from battle.”

“Yes,” Szodrin said. “My foe did not.”

“We saw battle as well.” The savage pointed behind Szodrin, who turned to see a hulking grey shape with one taloned hand. The other arm ended in a raw stump.

“Why have you come here?” the
Isnashi
asked.

“I was about to ask the same question,” said Szodrin.

The
Isnashi
drew uncomfortably close. He reeked of sweat and sour milk. “We chase a mighty prey for Shaiel’s Blade. A ship was due to meet us.”

“That’s why I came,” Szodrin lied. “The
Kerioth
mutinied.”

Both
Isnashi
closed in. A third wolf that Szodrin hadn’t seen loped toward him.

“They turned apostate?” Their leader spat through pierced lips. “What madness took them?”

“Anything you can report may help me find answers.”

“We met a Light Gen and his dog.” The savage smiled, showing straight white teeth. “We killed the dog.”

“Good work,” Szodrin said. “Are there any others?”

“Only the rest of our pack, and the one we hunt. Its scent is sweetness and metal and fire.”

“Is it human?”

“Sometimes.”

“Show me.”

The savage pointed toward the beacon that he couldn’t have seen. “It’s good that you came. Where’s your ship?”

“I’ll send for it right now.” Szodrin couldn’t see the nearest tower’s top, but he deemed translation worth the risk. He willed himself onto the building’s roof and emerged about twelve feet too high. His shock abated in time for a hard landing absorbed by bent knees and a roll across ash-blanketed concrete.

Szodrin ignored the howling savages far below. He rose and looked north to where the nexic beacon was shedding its invisible light.

Is that you, Xander?

The boy was gifted, but to grow so strong in such a short time was unheard-of. Whatever the waves’ source, Szodrin would find it soon enough.

Xander sat on the couch in the silence of Astlin’s apartment. He wrestled with himself over how best to make amends, but when his host failed to emerge from her room after several minutes, he took her absence to mean that he should leave.

The hallway beyond the front door proved empty, as did the stairwell below. The somehow artificial aromas of bygone meals haunted Xander all the way to the exit.

Outside, the smell of wet concrete and the dull roar of Salorien pumping its populace through streets like arteries doubled Xander’s sense of estrangement. He felt like one leaving the campfire to begin a cold and lonely night watch. The intensity of his regret at alienating someone he’d known for only a day surprised him. Then again, she’d been the only one on this unnatural sphere to show him kindness.

Kindness he’d returned with bitterness.

My father was right
.
I deserve my exile.

Reunion with his friends was the sole guiding star that shone through Xander’s desolation. Perhaps finding Nahel and Damus would redeem him. The unbidden memory of his recent nightmare sent a shiver down his spine and lent speed to his steps.

Xander was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice the drifter until it pulled up beside him. An instant aversion to the sleek black car prompted him to keep striding down the sidewalk, but the vehicle matched his pace. The opaque window on the driver’s side descended with an odd whirring sound.

“Excuse me,” the driver said in a Mithgar accent.

Xander supposed he should have been glad to hear a familiar-sounding voice, but its flat predatory tone made him want to run.

“A moment of your time,” the Mithgarder said again. “Have you seen this man?”

Curiosity compelled Xander to look, and he dearly wished he hadn’t. Not just because the car’s occupant was hideous—and he was, with a hard face that bore scars spiraling down from the crown of his head; leaving furrows in his bristly hair—but because he held a picture of Astlin’s father.

“Who are you?” asked Xander.

The scarred man flashed bad teeth in a smile that no more touched his cold grey eye than his milky dead one. “Guild Customs. You must be new here.”

Visceral dread quickened Xander’s steps. He cast about the strangely empty street for an escape route, and his heart leapt when he saw an alley entrance between two brick buildings halfway down the block.

“The chap in that picture is mixed up in all sorts of unsavory trade,” the guildsman said. “You just came out of his last known address.”

Xander kept his eyes forward. The alley seemed to recede from his anxious steps. “I had never been there till yesterday.”

The guildsman chuckled without mirth. “You
are
new in town. Word to the wise—learn who’s in charge.”

The window’s whirring hid the guildsman’s scarred face behind smoked glass. The drifter sped up, pulled away, and vanished around the corner.

A host of questions besieged Xander at once. Had the Guild really survived on Keth? How had Astlin’s father earned their ire? Did they now suspect Xander?

One thought cut through the mental chatter:
Men like
that
are watching Astlin’s home.

A terrifying prospect dawned on Xander. What if Astlin’s unease was justified? What if her clan’s enemies had distracted him while plying their “unsavory trade” upon her?

Xander had no memory of running the half block to Astlin’s building or ascending the four flights of stairs to her door. His mind compressed the distance into a dark corner of memory from which he only emerged when Astlin answered his urgent knocking.

“What are you doing out there?” she asked, her blue eyes wide.

“Came back…to warn…you,” he said, doubled over and panting.

Astlin held the door for him. “I never knew you left.”

Xander limped inside and collapsed on the couch. A few deep breaths gave him enough wind to talk. “After I insulted you, I thought it best to leave.”

Astlin closed and locked the door. “I thought I insulted
you
. I was lying in bed working up the nerve to apologize when someone started pounding on the door. I thought I was dreaming when it turned out to be you.”

“A man in the street accosted me,” said Xander. “His face looked like it got wound up in a sharpened spring.”

Astlin’s voice fell to a whisper. “Inspector Culvert. They call him Spiral.”

“He really works for the Guild?”

Astlin nodded. “Not that they like him much. My dad said a Worked Enforcer made those scars.”

“Your father is who he’s after.”

Astlin’s face paled. She rushed to the window and cast frantic glances up and down the street.

Xander joined Astlin at the window. He spoke gently. “This Spiral is a man to fear?”

“They say he locked a bum in an old fridge and dumped it in the river,” Astlin said like a child reciting grim tribal lore. “One time he kicked a man to death at a crime scene. Nothing to do with the case; just some drunk wandering by.”

Xander gaped. “His crimes went unpunished?”

Astlin met his gaze. He had seen fear on a woman’s face before—the confusion of betrayal and the terror of death. She feared something worse. “Culvert has friends. The old cults are supposed to be gone, but…”

Xander’s sense of decorum warred against a deep and sudden urge to hold Astlin. Decorum lost. Joy burned away his shame when she accepted his embrace. Though born from fear, the moment when he sheltered her softness; her smallness, in his arms—when her floral scent enveloped him—fulfilled a need he’d hardly recognized before.

Astlin laid her head on his shoulder. “I miss my father.”

“As do I,” Xander said, “but the day comes when we must rely on each other.”

The burned-out building had held ten floors when the city lived. Now the fourth story lay broken atop the third. A wreath of rebar, cables, and pipes ringed the rubble in between. Directly above, the night wind sighed through girders bared by fallen walls.

“Of course the scent would lead here,” Damus groaned. His nose wrinkled at the stench of rot wafting down from above. He found himself caught in a tug of war between his loyalty to Xander and the terrors he imagined lurking in the ruins.

Damus’ inner struggle slowed his reaction to the sound of rubble shifting behind him. He turned to find the point of a short sword hovering mere inches from his throat.

“I’m disappointed.” The blade’s wielder spoke the
Isnashi
dialect, but his voice was far less brutish.

Damus froze, but gathered his wits enough to study his attacker. The man’s Gen heritage was certain, though his grey complexion gave him an unnatural look. Drying blood stood out from his tan uniform.

“If you want an all-night laundry, disappointment’s the only thing you’ll find,” said Damus.

The swordsman’s ashen face was unreadable. “The skin changers said there was a Light Gen here. You proved them right.”

Damus examined the sword poised under his chin. Its blade resembled one of Nahel’s in length but its design was much more utilitarian.

A Night Gen has me at sword point.
Damus willed his face to betray no fear.
Why hasn’t he killed me?

“Have you seen a lone Nesshin boy?” The Night Gen asked. “Shorn head. Rather stout.”

“That would be a sight,” said Damus. “And Nesshin don’t travel alone.”

“This one does.”

“On whose behalf are you asking?”

“My name is Szodrin. I ask for myself.”

“Forgive me,” said Damus. “I thought your uniform implied membership in some sort of military. Of course, associating with
Isnashi
does little to recommend you.”

Szodrin sneered. “I ended that association. You’ve crossed paths with them?”

“They killed my friend,” Damus said more sharply than he’d intended.

Szodrin’s yellow-green eyes betrayed real concern. “The boy?”

“Hopefully not. I’d hate to have trudged across this charnel yard for no reason.”

Szodrin pointed toward the building where death’s scent lingered. “Something hides within—a power beyond us both.”

“Fire and metal,” Damus thought aloud. “And death.”

Szodrin marched forward. “If we join forces, if the boy helps; one of us may escape alive.”

Damus fell in behind him. “Excuse my lapse in manners. I am Damus Greystone, envoy from Her Majesty, Nakvin of Avalon.”

Szodrin glanced back over his shoulder. “Knowing your name only compounds my burden if you die.”

Damus nodded. “More equitable that way. If you don’t mind my asking, what’s your interest in Xander?”

Szodrin turned away again. “He is the sole heir to a promise I made to one long dead.”

What a morose fellow.
Damus considered pressing the issue but thought better of it.

The two Gen approached the building. Wreckage spilled from the ground floor’s pitch black interior, but Szodrin picked a winding path through the rubble. The ruins were deathly still except for the trespassers’ breathing and the shifting of debris underfoot.

Suddenly, Szodrin came to a halt.

“What is it?” whispered Damus.

The rustle of fingers searching through pockets preceded a green glow shining from a crystal in Szodrin’s hand. Its verdant light fell upon a rusted gate. A narrow corridor lay beyond, ending in a flight of stairs.

“If I know my Guild-era architecture,” said Damus, “that’s a fire exit.”

Szodrin tried the rusted handle. The bars rattled but held fast. “Locked. Or jammed. I don’t suppose you’re skilled in nexic translation?”

“Stand back,” Damus sighed. He squeezed past Szodrin and bent to inspect the lock. It was no less weathered than the rest, but seemed intact.

Damus slid a hand into his boot and produced a small leather bundle that unfurled to reveal a set of miniature tools. He chose two bits of wire—one straight and one with a right angle bend—and set to work on the lock.

“I thought you were a diplomat,” said Szodrin, “not a housebreaker.”

“Her majesty knows that diplomacy sometimes requires unorthodox measures. She appoints her envoys with this in mind and thus proves her wisdom.”

Damus stood back and pushed on the gate, which swung open with a shrill creak. He stepped aside and gestured toward the stairway. “Night Gen first.”

Szodrin preceded Damus up the stairs. Each echoing step profaned the tomblike silence. Damus almost ran into him on the fourth floor landing.

“Why did you stop? Is it Xander?”