The Infernal Lands (The Aionach Saga Book 1) (40 page)

Adeleine gave him a shy smile and turned away, kneeling next
to Sister Bastille.

“How are you feeling, kind Sister?”

“That barbarian hit me in the face. How do you
think
I’m feeling?”

“I’m sorry, kind Sister. That must be painful. Is there
anything I can do?”

“You can stifle your libidinous behavior and remember your
oaths.”

“Lib—”

“Libidinous. Flirtatious.”

“But kind Sister, I was—”

“I don’t care what you were doing. You’re not as safe as you
seem to think. The only way for a young woman to preserve herself around men
like these is through modesty and piety. Do you think there’s anyone who can
protect you if you don’t do it yourself? It isn’t Brother Soleil, if that’s
what you thought. It’s not Brother Mortial. Worse than heathens, the both of
them. You’d do well to recognize that being among the heathens is no excuse for
acting like one.”

“You’re right, kind Sister. Thank you for correcting me.”

“I told Sister Jeanette the same thing. Before you betrayed
her to these heathens.”

Sister Adeleine’s eyes flashed with rage. “If kind Brother
Soleil is worse than the heathens, then how… how does Sister Jeanette compare?
You spit on her with one side of your mouth and pretend to be her confidant
with the other.”

“She told you what I said to her, even after she swore she’d
keep it between us? Sister Adeleine, if you ever speak to me like that again, I
swear I’ll—”

“Speak to you like what? Like you speak to me? The way you
treat me with no respect, like I’m a stepping stone to be walked on? Sister
Jeanette can say whatever she wants to whomever she likes. She doesn’t need a
hypocrite like you telling her what to do.”

Bastille felt herself go rigid, but she kept her exterior
calm. “We’re all hypocrites, Sister. No matter where you come from, or who you
are. Everyone has hated another person for something they themselves have
done.”

“You’re different. You don’t just find the occasion to
criticize,” Adeleine said. “It’s all you ever do.”

“Is it? Well, then, I’ll do something different. I’ll report
you to the Esteemed and have you punished for this insolence. Would that make
you happy?”

“Go right ahead and report me. I’m leaving with Brother
Mortial and Sister Jeanette. Tonight. I’ve already told them I am. I used to
think the Order would be good for me, but it’s not worth this. I can’t stay
here another minute.”

Bastille stood, using the wall to push herself up. She
dropped the bloodsoaked cloth she’d been holding over her forehead. A dizzying
rush came over her. She almost fell over, but Adeleine caught her and held her
up.

“You’re not allowed to leave,” Bastille said. “You’ve pledged
yourself to the Order. No priest or acolyte leaves the Order once they’re
pledged. We live here, and we’re devoured here.”

Sister Adeleine propped Bastille against the low steel table
and backed away from her. “Not me.”

Bastille’s head was pounding, her vision red with fury—or
blood; she couldn’t tell which.
You’ll be devoured here, Sister Adeleine. Just
like everyone else. Sooner rather than later, it would seem
. When
Bastille’s fingers swept across the cold metal of a pair of surgical scissors,
she wrapped her fingers around them. Shoving herself off the wall, she lunged toward
Adeleine. The younger woman screamed, raising her hands to protect herself.
Bastille stabbed at her, felt the scissors glance off the woman’s arm, rake the
skin, and plunge into softer flesh.

The soldiers were on them in an instant, yanking Bastille
away and wrenching the scissors from her hand. There was blood everywhere, and
there were dark spots on Sister Adeleine’s prosaics. Reed, the portly one, was
holding Bastille’s arms back with a firm grip. Though she tried to struggle,
there was no getting away from him. Kugh and Trim were helping Adeleine to her
feet. She was crying, wounded and terrified. There was a childlike hurt in her
eyes; the heartache of a little girl, betrayed by someone she admired.

Bastille’s heart sank. Shame swelled inside her.
Rules are
rules
, she always said.
Once you join the Order, you stay until you die
.
She had put the rules first again, to the detriment of the woman who had been her
most loyal ally. Sister Bastille had squandered that loyalty; abused it. When
these heathens left the basilica, Adeleine would be with them, and Bastille
would have no one.

As ever, Bastille’s skull was grinding like a rock in a
tumbler. She rubbed at her forehead, winced, and realized that most of the
blood wasn’t Adeleine’s. It was hers. The scratches and gouges Adeleine was
examining along her arms were the only damage Bastille had been able to do
before the soldiers grabbed her.

“I told you that old woman was crazy,” Kugh said. “What’s taking
Dashel so long? I’m about to let loose on this stupid bitch.”

“Do it, then. Filthy heathen,” said Bastille, still
struggling in vain to free herself from Reed’s grasp.

“You need a new hobby, lady,” said Kugh. “I think the smell
down here is going to your head.”

Bastille licked the blood off her lips and spat. Kugh stepped
out of the way.

“Shit man, she’s bleeding on me,” Reed said.

“Let her go. I got her,” said Trim, gun trained.

Reed eased up, and Bastille pulled free of him. She scooped
up the towel, folded it to a clean side, and reapplied it to her forehead.

“Try anything like that again, and he’s gonna shoot you this
time,” said Kugh, pointing at Trim and his gun. “I don’t care how much noise it
makes, I’ll allow it. Swear to Infernal, I will. I’ll mow down every last
Mouther in this place if that’s what it takes to shut you up.”

“Manners,” Bastille said.

“Yeah, what about ‘em?”

“You have none. I suppose they didn’t teach you any when they
were training you to be a meathead.”

“Keep it up, lady.”

The door opened, and in came Sister Jeanette with Mortial in
tow. Jeanette was pale, still recovering from the same sickness that had
rendered her bedridden for the last several days.

Mortial was dazed, as though he’d just seen something he
would sooner have avoided. It was almost the same look he’d had after coming
back from the lavatory that day during Bastille’s class. His brow darkened when
he looked around. “What happened in here?”

“Nothing,” Adeleine said. “Everything’s fine.” She crossed
the room and hugged Sister Jeanette, then took her by the hands. The two women began
to speak in hushed tones.

Bastille felt a wave of jealousy. Sister Adeleine was like a
chair Bastille had sat on until it broke. Now she was bruised, sitting over
splinters on the cold stone floor. “I forbid you to leave,” she said. “Any of
you. You were all three inducted into the Order with lifelong vows. If you wish
to ask for release, go before the Most Highly Esteemed and request it. But I won’t
let you just leave.”

Bastille knew that the Most Highly Esteemed never let priests
leave the Order. The ones who tried became food for the hogs and the Cypriests.
Her entire crop of new students was in this room. If they all left, she would
have to start over.

“I don’t want anything to do with this ridiculous cult,” said
Mortial. “I got sent here to spy on you. Now that my work is done, I’m never
coming back. I won’t speak for these two ladies, but whatever pretense they had
for joining is obviously not strong enough to keep them here either. It’s best
for everyone involved if Sister Jeanette comes with us. The fact that she wants
to come is even better. If Adeleine wants out as well, I’m happy to bring her. That
goes for you too, Sister Bastille. Just say the word. The city north is safe.
It’s successful. There are laws there. Real, actual laws that people have to
live by, for everyone’s benefit. It’s the furthest thing from the anarchy
that’s so commonplace across the rest of the Aionach. Who knows, you might even
like it there more than here.”

Bastille’s heart jumped at the thought of leaving. If she
went to the city north, maybe she could find this healer the soldiers had
spoken of. It sounded like they knew him well. Surely the healer offered a more
promising hope than did standing in line for a Nexus. But there were things
besides the Nexus keeping her here. The moment slipped away from her, and she
knew she had to stay. “There is no anarchy in this basilica, Mortial,” she
said, “and this is no cult. The Order is the counterpoint to everything that’s
wrong and unkind in the Aionach. It’s a solitary point of light in this darkest
of worlds. To live for the Most High Infernal Mouth demands a higher calling; a
calling for which you have clearly never found inspiration. The three of you
have been misguided, and I pity your undevoured souls for the torment that
awaits you when you leave.”

Kugh gave a loud sigh, checked the chamber of his rifle, and
shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Can we coffing get out of here
already? I don’t understand a word of what this lady is saying.”

“Yeah, we’re going,” said Mortial. “But Sister Bastille,
don’t forget what I said about Soleil. He isn’t a person to be trifled with.
The Order will never attain that flawless purity you seem to be so determined
to find. There will always be priests who carry their depravities through the
labyrinth’s halls, and acolytes who bring the secrets of their past lives with
them through those gates. The Order is not what you think it is. You may not
realize it yet, but you’re more lost than you know. If there’s any shred of
doubt in you, any part of you that wants to leave this all behind, now’s the
time to listen to it. I can only guarantee your admittance to the city north
while I’m with you. I’m never coming back here. You won’t get another chance.”

Bastille wanted to weep. Her mentor was a degenerate. Her
pupils had chosen to follow a doomed path. Her chance at inheriting a Nexus
would elude her for years yet to come. And still, this quiet life of solitude,
of study and devotion and higher thought—it was what she wanted. The past two
years had been better for her than any life she’d known outside these walls.
Even if there was nothing she could do about Brother Soleil, she could be content
with carrying on as though none of this had ever happened. She was comfortable
here, with or without a chair to sit on.

Bastille put a hand to her chest. When she felt the iron star
hanging there between her breasts, a sense of calm came over her. “No, I’m
sorry,” she said. “I won’t be coming with you. But I do thank you for your
advice, however misguided it may be. I have no way to summon the Cypriests or
the Esteemed without leaving the room. As much as I wish you all were staying
to live out your vows, I have no choice but to let you go.”

Kugh muttered a curse about something that had
finally
happened. He stormed to the door and pried it open, waving a hand to get the
others moving.

There go my two last hopes
, thought Bastille, as she
watched them exit the room.
Adeleine, my last hope of passing down the
rites; and Jeanette, my last hope of ridding the Order of Soleil and his
corruptions.
Or maybe not. There was still the body rotting in the nook
beside the east tower. Brother Froderic’s body. Or someone else’s. But
Mortial’s warning was enough to make Bastille hesitate before she thought of tampering
with it again.

The three soldiers and the three former acolytes left the
room and shut the door behind them. Bastille didn’t follow them to see which labyrinth
entrance they’d used to access the cellars. Instead, she took a roll of gauze from
a supply shelf and dressed the wound on her forehead.
I must look rather a
fright
, she thought.
I’ll need an explanation for this
.

When she was done, she hung up her robe, hid the iron key in
a pocket, and returned to the woman’s corpse to resume the sacrificial rites.
There would be no students in Sister Bastille’s class today.

CHAPTER
36

Visited

When Daxin’s eyes
opened, he was looking down into a pool of brown water. The floods had engulfed
the cave floor while he slept, and the water had risen until it was no more
than half a fathom below him. The far-off sound of the rain pounding the desert
outside was like a layer of static over the
plip-plip-plip
of thousands
of tiny droplets from the cavern ceiling.

The ripples on the water’s
glassy surface made the ceiling’s reflection tremble like a mirage. The cave
smelled of soured mud, and the stone pathway at the entrance was awash with
snaking trails of residue. They were trapped in here until the rain let up and
allowed the cave to drain—unless they wanted to suffer burns and rashes for the
next week—and the water might rise higher still.

Daxin’s mare was already
learning that the hard way. The skin on her lower legs was pink and inflamed,
the hair falling out in patches. He cursed himself for not tying her off, and
the horse gave him a belligerent snort from across the pond as if to scold him
for it.

Ellicia lay tucked further in
on the ledge, her breathing slow and deep. She opened her eyes when Daxin stirred,
smiling when she saw him looking at her. Daxin turned away without smiling back.
He pulled himself to the edge of their little cubbyhole and sat with his legs
dangling over the side.

“Sleep well?” came Ellicia’s
voice from behind him.

Daxin felt her hand on his
lower back. He hadn’t planned for the two of them to be isolated from everyone
else, but after she’d climbed up the ladder to join him, everybody else who
passed by their little rocky cleft had taken one look and gone off to find
another. Not that Daxin could blame them; it wasn’t as if there was a soul in
Dryhollow Split who hadn’t noticed them together.

He couldn’t deny that being
with her was a comfort, but being alone with her was a temptation. He missed Vicky,
all the more because he’d had to dredge up old stories about their life
together to fill in the details of his lies. He missed Savannah, his baby girl.
He wondered whether Toler had already begun to poison her against him. Daxin
even missed his brother, as strange as that made him feel to realize. Being
alone had been easy at first, but loneliness had been wearing away at him for
so long that he’d begun to crave the affection he’d once known. Four years was
a long time. Sometimes it felt like so long ago that it was almost as if
Victaria had come to him in some dream, or some other life.
Ellicia is a
replacement
, he reminded himself.
A gratuitous, ill-fitted replacement.
No one could ever mean what Vicky meant to me. Not Ellicia—not anyone
.

It would be easy to have
Ellicia if Daxin wanted. He knew how she felt about him; he knew she didn’t
have the slightest reservation. He could turn to her now, take her in his arms,
and make love to her. She would let him do whatever he liked. The thought made
his pulse quicken.
Vicky left you
, he heard Toler’s voice say.
Let
her go. Vicky made her choice
. The memory of his shame was enough to stifle
Daxin’s desire like a torch beneath a river. There was a stubborn hope wrapped
up in it too. Fool that he was, he was still holding onto the belief that one
day he would find Victaria and she would realize that she had been wrong to
leave him.

He’d spent so many long
evenings lying awake as his despair drove him mad, that he had convinced
himself he no longer cared whether Victaria loved him. They’d pledged themselves
to one another until death. Not until they stopped loving each other, or until
they lived under different roofs, or until he fell in love with another woman.
Death. He would keep that pledge as long as he lived, until he knew the truth,
or died finding it.

“Yeah, I slept pretty well,”
he told Ellicia, sliding further down the ledge to escape the reach of her
hand.

She crawled over and sat next
to him. “What’s going on? Is something wrong?”

“I’m just getting cabin fever,
being cooped up in here like this.”

She gave him a gentle prod
with her shoulder. “What’s the matter, you don’t enjoy my company?”

“I’m just sore, and I want to
stand up straight and walk around.” He hadn’t meant to sound irritated, but he
was, and it came out that way.

Ellicia bit the corner of
her mouth, and when she turned away from him, her eyes were welling with tears.
It’s just as well that I distance myself from her now
, Daxin reassured
himself. He’d be leaving Dryhollow Split when the rains stopped, and he’d made
plenty of unwise decisions already; decisions that had brought him dangerously
close to being found out. Now he was trapped in a hole in the ground while the
above-world went by without him. He stared out over the water, watching the
ceiling’s reflection waver. It was like the veil of a dream; it relaxed him,
and it made him remember.

The saddle. The one
Toler loved.

The one he always kept in the
house, even though it smelled like horse. It was Toler’s prized possession, the
thing the nomads had brought with them the day they had carried the bodies of Lyle
and Priella Glaive back to Bradsleigh. Before he was old enough to ride, Toler
would set the saddle on the living room floor and play make-believe in his
pajamas, reliving their parents’ glory days on the wastes. He never let that
saddle out of his sight. It was the talisman of their father’s spirit, and as Toler
grew, it had become his as well.

“Pchhh. Pchhh. I sooted the
duns and tilled all the bad dways,” he would shout. “Wahoooo! Dassin! Dassin!
My hoasey wunned weally fast!”

Daxin and Toler had made an uneasy truce a few months after
their big falling out. They’d done it for Savvy’s sake more than anything
else, but things hadn’t been the same between them since.

The saddle had been resting in
its usual place, laid over the old wooden bench in the foyer, where Toler
always kept it when he came to visit. He never stayed long enough to call the
Glaive compound anything but a vacation home anymore; he was too busy making a
name for himself at Vantanible, Inc., spending his time in Unterberg whenever
he wasn’t crisscrossing the Inner East on every trade route from Tristol to
Southcape.

Savannah loved when Uncle
Toler came to visit. They’d grown up close; being only six years apart, Daxin
and Victaria had raised them like siblings. Savannah loved to hear Toler’s
stories of danger and exploit. Every time he visited, she would ask him if he’d
found a girlfriend yet, and every time his answer would be the same: ‘
I’ve
got plenty of girlfriends, Savvy. One in every town, at least.
’ Daxin would
frown and sigh and shake his head while Toler and Savvy laughed at him.

As seldom as Toler came home
anymore, he never forgot to bring Savvy some trinket from a faraway place.
First, it was a flowered hairpin from Yellow Harbor. Then he’d brought her an
old make-up kit he’d picked up in Lottimer, traded off a ship from somewhere
across the Tideguine. There were lipstick cases and decorative candles and
earrings and statuettes, a burlap doll with cotton stuffing, and a silver
teaspoon with the symbol of the Ambassador’s flag from Beywarden.

Savannah was never as excited
when Daxin came home. She always worried about him, but she also knew he was
off somewhere in search of her mother. He would trudge in the door, brooding
and silent and sweat-stained, and she would know the result had been the same as
each time before. It was always the elephant in the room, and in the ensuing
years, the subject of Victaria became a rift between father and daughter. The
more distant and rebellious Savannah got, the more Daxin closed himself off
from her and everyone else, and the more often he left Bradsleigh to search for
his wife. He’d convinced himself that finding Vicky would make his daughter
happy again, but his motives had been selfish. He’d been wrong about everything.
He was still wrong, though he only admitted it in those rare moments when he
swallowed his pride long enough to be honest with himself. If he’d spent time
nourishing his relationship with Savannah instead of chasing shadows, he might
have repaired the damage.

Daxin’s first mistake that day
had been going through Toler’s belongings. He’d noticed the saddle and the open
saddlebag beside it while he was walking through the living room, nursing a cup
of stale coffee. Toler hadn’t been around; he’d probably been downstairs
catching up with his niece. Inside the saddlebag, Daxin had found the usual
traveling man’s fare: trail food, cooking utensils, waterskins, and a good bit
of hardware. He’d been making plenty of money working for Vantanible, by the
looks of it. Then Daxin had seen the rolled piece of parchment poking its neck
above the other items. He knew he could slip it out and have a look without
touching anything else. He had a moment of hesitation, where he heard that
little voice that always told him when he was being a jackass. Sometimes he
wished he’d listened to that voice.

The parchment unfurled into a
detailed map of the Inner East. Vantanible trade routes were sketched out
between every town and city and colony and settlement. The page was entitled
UPDATED CARAVAN SCHEDULE, and at the bottom was a list of each caravan,
followed by the dates they were scheduled to arrive at each stop. He’d found a
summary of Nichel Vantanible’s entire business.
Toler must be moving up in
the world to be trusted with this kind of information
, Daxin remembered
thinking.
Someone in possession of a piece of paper like this could ruin
Vantanible, given the right resources
.

In the confines of his study
that day, Daxin had found a blank sheet of parchment and begun to sketch.

Somewhere in the cave, a
woman screamed.

Daxin’s mare bellowed, rearing
up and plodding sideways into the standing water as if she no longer minded the
irritation it caused. Two adult sanddragons came slinking into the cavern,
their slender scaled bellies dragging in the muck. They fought for position,
snapping at one another as if racing toward some invisible finish line. Daxin’s
mare floundered in the pool, the water halfway up her legs and the whites of
her eyes gleaming. There was no doubt that the tarragons could smell the
horse’s fear; their red-orange eyes were colder than death, and they spoke of
hunger.

When the head of a third
sanddragon came around the bend, Daxin knew his decoy had been a failure. He
thought of the bag hanging from the tree, the amputated leg inside, and how the
thirsty ground had swallowed the blood. Carrying Duffy’s venom-infused leg
through the scrubs was akin to spraying perfume in a corner and carrying the
bottle across the room. Every hungry sanddragon for horizons around would be on
its way here, following the perfume trail.

Daxin watched the great
lizards wriggle through the opening, clawed feet at the end of powerful legs
scraping trails in the mud and over each other’s backs. He counted eleven of
them before there were so many he lost track. Some looked like they could’ve
been twice as long as a man. They dispersed and began to prowl, pacing the
crescent-shaped fragment of land along the cave’s edge, licking the air with
forked tongues, hanging back from the water as if aware of its taint.

Ellicia had scrambled backward
into the depths of the crevice and was looking on in horror as the sanddragons
crowded in. “What should we do?” she asked, a tremor in her voice.

“I don’t know. I never thought
there’d be so many.” Daxin gave the loop that had held his skinning knife a
habitual fondling and confirmed it empty. The shotgun was in his bag beside him,
the saddle behind that. The frame of wooden poles where Ellicia had hung out his
hood-scarf and tunic was gone. His mare was only a few fathoms away. If he
could calm her down and get her to come to him, maybe they could get out. But with
the rain still coming down outside, leaving now wouldn’t do him any good. As
much as he hated to admit it, letting the sanddragons eat their fill of horse
meat might be the thing to make them leave.

They began to hear the sounds
of the other villagers’ terror; an initial barrage of frightened screams had
faded to a murmur of frantic whispers and mewlings. Daxin’s mare was sidling along
the back wall now, wading chest-deep, eyes still white with fear. Daxin slipped
his bandolier over his bare shoulders and dragged out his shotgun. He
slid his fingers over the grip, feeling the comfort of the oiled ironwood
beneath his fingers.

“Are you gonna use that
thing?” Ellicia wanted to know.

“Get as far back as you can
and cover your ears. These are hand-loaded rounds. This thing could blow my
face off if I packed one of them wrong.”

“Oh, Luther. Be careful.”

The mass of tarragons had dispersed.
Some were slithering out of sight toward the other end of the crescent-shaped
strip of land. Daxin could hit more than one with a single shot, maybe, but at
this range the wounds were less apt to be fatal. He raised the gun and sighted
down the barrel, considered warning the others before he pulled the trigger,
but then thought better of it. More shouting would only create more confusion.

Holding the gun in both hands,
heart throbbing in his chest, he took careful aim and shut his eyes. It was
worth being less accurate if it meant keeping his eyesight. So much for his
ears, though; the echo in here was going to be excruciating.

The gun chugged and kicked, the sound more deafening than he’d
imagined. The villagers gave panicked shouts, the lizards hissed, and Daxin’s mare
spooked and plunged through the deep water toward land. A sanddragon on the shore
snapped at her, sending her splashing backward the way she came. The lizard looked
too afraid of being trampled to follow her into the water, if indeed it could.