The Infernal Lands (The Aionach Saga Book 1) (46 page)

As Belmond shrank behind his left shoulder, the light-star
was setting across the westering sands. He came upon a pack of
wild dogs fighting the buzzards over what remained of some grisly event that
had taken place out here, half a horizon from the city. The scavengers fled
when he came through, and he found himself amidst a field of gore that covered
an area several hundred fathoms in width. The wind was whiling away the last
remnants of thick-treaded tire tracks that came in off the wastes and led
toward the city.

At first glance, it looked like the remains of a trade
caravan, ambushed by the nomads, like Gachenko had mentioned. That couldn’t be;
the flesh was riddled with gunshot wounds, and only the Scarred Comrades could
boast that kind of weaponry. The Scarred would never attack a train bound for
the city north, stocked with the types of provisions that were scarce in these
parts. Also, the corpses of horses and corsils were mixed in among the human
remains, and it was rare for a trade caravan to mount on corsils.

Then something else caught Daxin’s eye: a small rectangle,
flat and worn and half-covered in sand. He got down and brushed the sand away,
picking it up. It was some form of identification badge from the old world,
coded with a black strip along the back edge. The front of it read:

NATIONAL MINISTRY OF THE INNER EAST

DECYLUM RESEARCH FACILITY

Harold T. Beige

Department of Health

Chief Scientific Officer, Cellular Research Division

Employee ID# 33-429-7

Daxin spent some time searching the bodies, but most anything
of value had been stripped from the site already. From what he could tell by
examining what was left of the dead men, they were pale of skin, and most bore
severe lightburns.
Decylum
. He turned the word over in his mind. He
knew it. The stories said that hundreds or thousands of Ministry employees had
died there, cut off from civilization at the beginning of the Heat. This card
he’d picked up meant either that someone had found its location and plundered
it… or that the stories weren’t true, and someone from Decylum
had
survived.

Neither scenario made much difference to Daxin. Whatever
had occurred here appeared to have put an end to these people, whomever they were.
He tucked the ID badge into his saddlebags and continued on his way. The ankle
felt stronger tonight, and he rode alongside Infernal’s descent with renewed
vigor for the path ahead.

Another two nights of riding brought him to the feet of the
Brinescales, where he realized he’d misjudged his position and arrived a ways
off from where he’d intended to. It took him half the third night to retrace
his steps and find the mountain pass, a cleft between two bluffs that was wide enough
and flat enough to ride through. The guardians of the pass were watchful at all
hours, and traveling at night made it more likely that they’d mistake Daxin for
an intruder.

He’d gotten no more than half a horizon through the winding
pass when he rounded a bend to find them waiting for him, coffee-colored skin
glowing with a warm sheen in the light of their torches. More light came from
behind him, and another troupe appeared on the trail to block his retreat.

“
Litruil cha trath
,” Daxin said.
You waste no time
.
His Calgoàric was so rusty he almost laughed aloud at himself.

“
Far tisaoel titadael
?” said one, black braids swaying
over the scars on his chest.

It took Daxin a
few seconds to translate.
He wants to know where I’m going… or is it,
‘where do I think I’m going?’
“Sai
Calgoar,” he said. “Lethari Prokin.”

“Lethari
Prokin,” the nomad repeated. His laugh was haughty, and the others joined him.
“Lethari Prokin
cha oar
Sai Calgoar
. Oen oar sai staèl
.”

Daxin sighed.
“He’s not in Sai Calgoar,” he muttered, comprehending. “He’s in the steel city.
He’s in Belmond. Coff it, I was just there.”

The nomad gave
him a confident nod, as if he understood.

Daxin scratched
his head. The hair had started to grow in again, but his scalp was itchy and
flaky from lightburn and the last of the rain rash. He was tired, hungry, and
in need of rest, and the thought of returning to the wastes did not appeal to
him. “The master-king, then,” he said. “Tycho Montari.”

The nomad with the black braids laughed again. “Tycho Montari
cha coes lathcui
.”

Lathcui
. Daxin knew the word all too well—it
was slang for half-breed or mongrel.
Lathcui
was what the nomads called
everyone who wasn’t a nomad.
You may think your master-king is no friend of
mongrels, but…
“
Oenaithen ain
.”
He knows me
.

“
Maetha
,”
said the nomad, shrugging. “
Titadael
.” He stepped aside and swept his
arm out over the path ahead, then leaned back and whispered into the ear of the
man behind him. “
Tin fos
.”

Two of the
nomads fell in beside Daxin, looking less than pleased at having been chosen to
escort him. Sai Calgoar was another day and night from here, at least, and the
nomads were apt to pull him along at whatever pace they chose. That meant
traveling during daylight hours—easier to do in the shade of the ravine than in
the open wastes, but unpleasant nonetheless. They moved at a relentless clip,
perhaps anxious to be done with him. Even on horseback, he had trouble keeping
up.

Daxin decided it
would be wise to befriend his escorts, but doing so proved difficult. They
spoke the Aion-speech passing well, and he managed to get their names after
some prying. Both were young men, the eldest of the two a wiry fellow with
loose waves of black hair called Yual Elekassi; he wore horseshoes of bone
through his nose and ears, and his arms were covered in swirls of decorative
scarring. Tiobad Angeides was the younger, though just as slender, but with a
shorter coif of razor-sharp hair that pointed toward the sky.

“What is your
trade with master-king?” asked Tiobad in a loud voice, as the two nomads darted
over a strand of loose rocks.

Daxin’s mare was
picking her way over the terrain in careful strides. The pass had grown more
treacherous, and he’d had to dismount several times already to lead her through
the roughest patches. There was a smoother sandstone pass further south, better
for riding through; he could’ve taken that instead, had he been willing to go
further out of his way. For now, he’d have to make the best of it and hope his
mare chose her steps wisely.

“My trade is information,”
Daxin replied. “Information that will help you against the Scarred Comrades.”

Tiobad slowed
and waited for the mare to catch up, then walked beside her. “All you
pale-skins are same,” he said. “No trust. Blood is thin with your kind. You
deceive kinsmen, not respect them. That is why
lathcui
are better as
slaves than as free men.
Lathcui
must learn what honor is.”

“The Scarred
Comrades aren’t my kinsmen,” Daxin said. “I have no loyalty to them.” And yet,
the young nomad’s words had stung him, ineloquent though they might’ve been.

Yual had slowed
to listen to their conversation. “Who is your loyalty to?” he asked.

Daxin started to
speak, then realized he had no answer for the man.
What can I say to that? Who
does have my loyalty? Is it the daughter I’ve left on her own, the brother I’ve
betrayed, the wife I drove away, the village I abandoned, or the parents I
buried twenty years ago? Is this what I’ve come to call loyalty?
“I’m loyal
to me, and nobody else,” he heard himself say. He was proving the nomads’ point
for them, but there was no other way to spin it.

“
Oen toig cha
cariad, oedaoraich oefein
,” Yual said.

“
Tha
,” Tiobad replied, laughing.

Daxin processed.
‘He’s his own slave.’ That’s what they’re saying. ‘He who has no friend is a
slave to himself.’

Their attitudes
toward him changed after that. They weren’t unkind to him; they only regarded
him with passive indifference instead of outright enmity. They allowed him a
brief stop, during which they made camp at the edge of the pass and let him
rest for half a night before moving on. The delay put them behind schedule, so
rather than reach Sai Calgoar in the pre-dawn coolness, they arrived in the open
vale with the heat of midday upon them.

The City of Sand
was always a sight to behold, its cavelike hovels bordered by tiered walkways, with
steep carven staircases providing access between them. The market was closed
every odd day at the master-king’s decree. Dust devils drifted through the
empty streets below, making idle wanderers of yesterday’s debris.

Daxin let Yual
and Tiobad bring him to the edge of the valley before he stopped them. “I’ll go
the rest of the way from here and let you start back.”

The nomads
shared a suspicious look.

“I’m going to
visit Lethari Prokin’s household to pay my respects before I see the
master-king,” he assured them. “I can make it there on my own.”

It took only a
minute of further convincing to thank the nomads and send them on their way.
Now all he had to do was get to Lethari’s house and wait for him there. The
warleader of Prokin may have been gone for the time being, but Frayla Prokin
would be at home, Daxin knew.

CHAPTER 41

Gris-Mirahz

The rest of Lizneth’s journey through the vale was as
miserable and bothersome as the first part had been. At least now they had full
waterskins and a few bits of food to tide them over. Lizneth had recovered from
the poison enough to walk on her own, but the daylight had made her feel weak
and overheated. She could hear the chain gang following them, keeping pace even
though they were still strung together. The sound of their chains reminded Lizneth
how guilty she felt about leaving them behind.

The light-star passed overhead and began to slip over the
mountaintops, covering them in a sliver of welcome shadow. They’d hardly spoken
a word to one another since their encounter with the slaves from Gris-Mirahz,
but they followed Zhigdain with the shattered conviction of lost souls whose other
options had run out. The big-eared buck himself never wavered in determination.
He’d spread the load of their plunder evenly among them, and he kept them
moving with little digression apart from the occasional suspicious glance over
his shoulder.

Lizneth and her companions knew when they had reached the
entrance to Gris-Mirahz even though they couldn’t see it; the scent alone was a
sufficient harbinger. The
calai
slave must’ve known little of the
ikzhehn
if he’d thought they could miss the place. It was a return to bilge and
seawater; a damp smell that punctured the dusty exterior world like clarity
through a haze of confusion. It was unpleasant and familiar, dredging up the
memories of the sea that Lizneth had been trying to forget.

With the stink of the Omnekh to guide them, they rounded a
cutaway in the rock and slogged up the incline on the other side, half-climbing
until they made it to the top of the ridge. Zhigdain gave them each a short look
through the goggles so they could see out over the vale before they continued
on.

When Lizneth slipped the lenses over her eyes, everything
that had glowed white and blurry and overexposed in the daylight became crisp
and fell into deep hues of grayish blue that looked almost normal again. With
the mountains to her back, she gazed out over the stone-pocked grasslands of
the vale and stood in awed silence, unable to comprehend the breadth and beauty
of it all. It was so overwhelming it made her dizzy, and the wind tearing past
them put her on her heels and made her plant her tail to keep from toppling
over.

“You’re standing in the very heart of the world,
cuzhe
,”
Bresh said. “Did you ever imagine there was a place like this?”

Lizneth couldn’t speak; not yet.

“To the far north are the Vors’ Rhachis, the largest and
longest of all mountain ranges in the Aionach,” Bresh explained, “and beyond
that lies Calgareth, the northern lands where the
calaihn
claim their
heritage. The rest of those mountains, to the east and the south, are called
the Brinescales. Straight ahead over the vale is the Slickwash, a
zherath
many millions of fathoms larger than the Omnekh. To the south are the lands
called the Inner East, a dangerous place where the
eh-calaihn
live in
great number.”

“The world is too big,” Lizneth said, still feeling faint.

“Too big for what?” Zhigdain said. He’d taken a seat to have
a sip of water while he waited.

“Tanley was small. I knew there was more, but not this much.
I used to dream that one day I would see all there was to see. Now I think I
could spend the rest of my life looking and never have time to see it all.”

“Here come the slaves,” Fane said, returning from the crag
where he’d been keeping an eye out.

“Best we get moving,
cuzhe
,” Bresh said.

Lizneth closed her eyes and removed the goggles, holding them
out toward Zhigdain. The buck refused them. “Keep them for me,” he said. “I
won’t need them for a while.”

She slid the strap over her head and let the goggles hang
around her like a necklace, then followed Zhigdain through the narrow fissure
and down into the dark, where the rock softened to sludge beneath her feet. The
smell of the sea built up to a palette of moldering greens and decaying browns,
washed with the perpetual rhythm of the surf. The sound of the breakers drenched
the passage depths, and almost at once Lizneth’s eyes were adept and competent
again; the clumsy blindness she’d felt in the daylight was gone.

It was a long way to the village from ridge level; the grade
was so steep and slippery in places that Lizneth and her companions had to pick
their way down on all fours, and for a time they could see only bare stone and
muddy sand ahead. The air was cool through her fur, a refreshing surge that
livened her scenting and vision toward thresholds that reminded her who she was.
It was as if the blind-world had made her senses forget what they were capable
of.

The group descended to where the mud slope leveled off and
was swallowed by cold sand. Gris-Mirahz appeared in soft contour, with pale
glimmers of wave stirring behind it. The village was built across the expanse
of a wide cave beach, all huts of mud and thatch and the odd placement of
driftwood logs or wooden planks that had been swept ashore with the refuse from
old shipwrecks. The buildings bore domed annexes like the cells of a hornet’s
nest, and the occasional multi-level structure towered above the others. Light
flickered through round windows, giving the place a warm halo in the fog that
smelled of sea air tinged with cooked fish. The sight of the village taking
form gave Lizneth the sensation that it was rising from the darkness as they
approached.

“
Zhegho gha invehr
?” came a voice from the shadows.

“
Veh
chevehr
ssepikheh
,” Zhigdain
replied.

A pair of
ikzhehn
materialized, accompanied by more
than half a dozen
eh-calaihn
armed with cudgels and fish spears. They
were bone-thin and dressed in ragged cloth, with the odd iron manacle and a
link or two of loose chain hanging from a wrist or ankle.

“What’s your purpose here?” said one of the
eh-calaihn
,
looming over them. He was as slender as the rest, but taller, with deep
vermilion hair that fell to his shoulders in brittle shag. His teeth were
fringed in brown rot, his skin stretched over his skull and riddled with
hundreds of tiny brown flecks.

“We seek safety, and that alone,” Zhigdain said. “But perhaps
also, if we could have a word with someone who can strike off these chains…”

“Every newcomer speaks with Artolo the Nuck. We wait here.”
The tall light-skin tilted his chin toward one of the
ikzhehn
, who
darted off into the darkness.

“May we rest while we wait?” Bresh asked.

The tall one shrugged, planting his fish spear in the sand
like a soldier standing guard. Bresh, Fane and Dozhie sat down. Zhigdain paced,
and Lizneth propped herself against the wall of the cave.

Presently the
ikzhe
returned and whispered, “
Ke
zheratheh, philectivh
.”

“He hunts the waters,” said another
ikzhe
.

“We wait,” said the
eh-calai
, counting Lizneth and her
companions on his fingers.

It seemed like hours before anyone came. The tall light-skin
and his
eh-calaihn
had soon plopped down in the sand, arranging
themselves in a protective semi-circle between the newcomers and the village.
Lizneth used the time to rest and observe her surroundings. The more she examined
the huts on the near side of the beach, the more signs of disrepair she
noticed; walls that were pitted, crumbling or half caved-in, thatch that was
old and rotting from the sea air’s moisture, and some structures that were no
more than piles of mud and sand and straw, left to be taken by the wind.

Across the water, she could see the torches and lanterns shining
from the ships and harbor houses of Sai Calgoar’s port, reflecting in
shimmering yellow strokes over the Omnekh. The smoke from the
Halcyon
’s
burning was still thick against the pulse of daylight at the cave mouth beyond.
The black gulls called their distant cries, floating like specks of ash caught
in an updraft.

Artolo the Nuck arrived with an entourage, meeting them where
they sat like an ambassador greeting visitors from a foreign land. His identity
was certain from the start. He was an
ikzhe
, to Lizneth’s surprise;
skinny like the rest, but somehow lean and imposing despite his lack of bulk,
and the way the others flocked around him lent credence to his standing. He
wore a loincloth, with shackles on his ankles and a thin necklace of beads and
braided rope tight about his neck. His
haick
was clean despite the damp
of the seawater on him; his scent was familiar too, somehow, and he had a sharp,
easygoing look, as if he lived his life like the blade of a dagger that’s
become accustomed to cutting only soft things. Lizneth liked his eyes, the way
they glittered like deep red rubies against matted black fur that shone wetly
in the light of their driftwood torches.

“Tell me your stories, newcomers,” said Artolo the Nuck,
spreading his hands.

“We’re fugitives from Sai Calgoar,” Zhigdain said. “All of
us.”

Artolo gave him a tolerant look. “I like long stories.”

“We were rowers aboard a slave galley. The ship caught fire
at port, and we ran. We came here because we’ve heard Gris-Mirahz is a safe
place.”

The
ikzhehn
in Artolo’s entourage chittered. The
eh-calaihn
laughed.

“Good story. Still shorter than I like, but good. I’m Artolo.
And you are…?”

Zhigdain gave Artolo each of their names in turn.

“Your albino is a wonder to look at,” Artolo said, eyeing
Lizneth. She wasn’t sure what he meant, but if he was talking about her, he
seemed to be pleased. “That coat is magnificent, even dirtied up. I’ve always
liked albinos.”

“The
scearib
is only a
cuzhe
,” said Zhigdain. “And
a feisty one, at that. You’d do well to stay away from her. Now, as for this
place—we’ve gained our freedom, and we want to keep it. Can Gris-Mirahz grant
us that much?”

Artolo waggled his head from side to side, as if to
contemplate the question. “Many would say life in Gris-Mirahz is better than
life as a slave, certainly. But it’s no freedom. We have no masters to look
after us, and the food isn’t free. We work hard, and we scrape by. That’s as
good as it gets around here. Gris-Mirahz is the barnacle that feeds on Sai
Calgoar’s waste. As for safety… if you’re sure to keep no belongings but the
hide on your bones, you’ll be safe as anyone in the Aionach. If you’re looking
for a place to hoard your wealth, this is not such a place. Everyone
contributes. Everyone sacrifices for the well-being of us all. Your safety goes
only so far as your readiness to coexist. You work hard, or you starve. You do
your share, or you leave.”

“And who sees to that?” Zhigdain wanted to know.

“The residents see to it,” Artolo said, gesturing. “There are
humans and murrhods alike here who will open your belly to steal a bite of food
you’ve already eaten. Most learn quickly that even a half-full stomach is
better than one that’s been opened.”

Zhigdain was appalled. “This isn’t a haven for outcasts. It’s
a colony of delinquents and escaped slaves.”

Artolo held out his hands. “You’ll fit right in. Which is a
good thing, since it’s the only way to get by around here.”

“I’m no slave,” said Zhigdain. “I was taken from my home and
pressed into service against my will.”

Artolo cracked a smile. “How do you think everyone else got here?”

“The
eh-calaihn
are born slaves,” Zhigdain insisted.

“You should get your facts straight, big-ears. Humans are
made into slaves the same way you were. They’re stolen. The nomads—the
calaihn
,
as we call them—bring their
eh-calai
slaves to Sai Calgoar for trade.
The light-skinned humans are from other parts of the Aionach, but they’re no
lesser men.”

“And I’m no less an
ikzhe
than the bluefurs I escaped
from, either,” Zhigdain said.

“
You
may believe that, but what do the slavers think?”

“
Dyagth
what they thought. I put an end to that. I
paid the price for my freedom, and they’ll never have it back.”

“You put an end to it, did you? Yet here you are, tucked away
with us, safe as nestlings under a blanket,” said Artolo, his voice singsong.
“I know the ship you speak of. I saw the fires from my fishing hole this
morning. You can still see the smoke.” He waved a lazy hand toward the port,
where the distant haze still lingered. “Others from your vessel arrived here
earlier today. The ship didn’t catch fire on its own. It was you who set those
fires, wasn’t it?”

Zhigdain scrunched up one side of his mouth, but he seemed to
see no need to respond.

“It’s treacherous ground you’re walking on, big-ears. The
scent of the above-world may be foreign to you, but for a slaver who’s been
there before, finding your
haick
will be no different than tracking you
underground. I hope for your sake that the end you gave your slavers was good
and final.”

Zhigdain cleared his throat and averted his eyes, his truculence
curbed. Lizneth couldn’t help but think of Qeddiker. He was still alive, and
she had no doubt that there were more of the slavers who’d survived the fire.
Her
haick
would lead them here, she knew.

“Lizneth,” Artolo said, trying out her name for the first
time. “That’s it, isn’t it?” He smiled at her. Even in the eerie glow of the
torchlight, something about his look was warm; the way his eyes glimmered made
her feel like she was the only thing he saw.

“Yes,” she said, and shuffled forward a step.

He hesitated, looking unsure of himself for the first time.
“First things first. Let’s get those chains off you, shall we? All of you,
right this way.”