The Ventifact Colossus (The Heroes of Spira Book 1) (20 page)

At last he drew close enough to make out detail. The nearest arc of the enormous hill was covered with complex scaffolding, a tangle of ropes, pulleys, platforms, hanging lanterns, and baskets the size of cows. That must be how supplies and workers were brought up to the top of the mesa, well over a hundred feet above the sand. Though it was hard to judge now that the moon was down, this second island was at least half again as big as the previous one.

With only a final twenty yards to go, it became apparent that the wandering island was
not
outrunning him, but he was not gaining on it very quickly. The first tough decision was upon him: boldly approach the “front door” and get a lift on one of the platforms, or scale a different side of the island to arrive unseen and unnoticed. He had talked a good game about sneaking around and staying out of sight, but he guessed that anything worth seeing would be heavily guarded and inaccessible.

No, he had another idea in mind, one that played just as much to his strengths. Even his scars could work to his advantage.

Dranko circled around to the left, allowing the island to slide past him. Only once he had hiked around to the far side from the scaffolding (and there didn’t appear to be any other “official” ways up) did he spot the serious flaw in his plan: he couldn’t climb while wearing his sand-shoes. If the island were stationary, he could unstrap them but still stand upon them, then reach down and grab them after he had secured purchase on the rock face. But the motion of his climbing wall made that nearly impossible; his shoes would get left behind the moment he stepped out of them.

“Screw it,” he muttered. “Everyone up there must have sand-shoes. I’ll just steal a new pair before I come back down.”

Climbing the side of the wandering island was barely a challenge; the strange gritty rock was rough and pitted, offering plenty of finger and toe holds. The only tricky part was at the beginning; he had unlaced the shoes and had to wait for a likely looking entry point to slide past, then hope he didn’t screw up and end up plunging into the dust. His experience with climbing onto moving walls was understandably limited. But having succeeded at that, he scrambled up the side of the island without any slips, all the while trying hard not to think about the consequences of losing his grip. The higher he went, the gentler was the angle of his ascent. After ten minutes of steady progress, the slant of the island’s flank pitched forward abruptly, turning his climb into more of a steep walk for a good fifty feet before mostly flattening out entirely.

The rock plateau—at least the part he could see—was covered with canvas tents of varying size and dozens of torches on extremely tall poles. The tent city was awash in flickering shadows, but the ground sloped gently up towards the center of the island, so Dranko couldn’t see much beyond twenty yards. While no people were in view, there was a distant clink of metal against stone in an uneven syncopated rhythm, as well as a cacophony of shouts, exhortations, songs, and general chatter coming from farther in, toward the middle of the island’s flat head.

Before going any further he retraced his steps back to where the angle of his climb had changed. There he hammered one of his hammock stakes into the rock (timing his strikes with the rhythmic clinking to mask the sound), then uncoiled his longest length of rope and tied it fast, letting its slack length fall down and away into the darkness. He prayed to all the Gods that he wouldn’t have to use it, but it never hurt to have an escape route ready.

A tent city lit only by torches was about as perfect a sneaking environment as Dranko was ever likely to see. Unhurriedly he slipped from shadow to shadow, always moving toward the center of activity in the middle of the plateau. Within two or three minutes he started to see people, some trudging between tents hauling heavy sacks, some carrying large picks or oversized hammers. One rolled a sloshing barrel in a barely controlled stagger, weaving between the tents. There wasn’t any standard uniform in play, which gave him one less thing to worry about.

On a hunch he took Haske’s pendant from his pocket, draped its chain around his neck, and tucked the little black metal circle inside his shirt. There was always the possibility of using it as credentials. He still felt an ambiguous unease about the thing—maybe Delioch was expressing displeasure at him wearing the talisman of an evil cult?—but after his failure to channel at Verdshane, he and his god weren’t really on speaking terms. Then, having made up his mind about how to approach this, he strode boldly out from the shadow of a tent and approached the nearest worker.

“You there,” he barked. “Come here.”

The man, a towering brute with a neck bigger around than Dranko’s thigh, was walking slowly, clutching a bowl and spooning gruel into his mouth. He held up his spoon. “I’m on lunch break.”

“Then I’ll be quick,” said Dranko. “The sooner you answer my questions, the sooner I’ll give you leave to go.”

“What’s this about?”

“My people are paying for this dig,” said Dranko. “I’m here to make sure our money is being well-spent. What’s your name?”

The man glanced around in confusion. “Uh…I’m Romas. But shouldn’t you be talking to Khorl? Or Lapis? I’m just here to—”

“I know why you’re here, Romas,” Dranko snapped. “And I’ll be talking to the others soon enough. But first I want to hear how things are going from someone else, someone lower down the chain of command, in case your superiors try to blow smoke up my arse. Now, tell me, between Lapis and Khorl, who would you say has more authority here?”

“Lapis does. She’s in charge of everything. Khorl’s just my foreman.”

Dranko whipped out the paper map he had filched from Haske’s corpse and made a show of looking at it. “Interesting. And how is the dig progressing? What have you found so far?”

Romas scratched his head. “Are you sure you should be asking me? Khorl told me we shouldn’t—”

“I don’t care what Khorl told you. Frankly, we’re not entirely certain Khorl is cut out for this operation, and that’s part of why I’m here. Now answer my questions…or do I need to tell Lapis that you’ve been uncooperative?”

“No, I—”

“Good. Now I’ll ask again. What have you unearthed so far?”

Romas squinted down at Dranko, and Dranko returned a look of impatient expectation.

“My team ain’t found nothin,’ but Khorl says we’re still digging for…” He scrunched up his face in concentration. “For sec-on-dar-y re-lics.”

Dranko picked up on the operative word at once. “Still? Have any of the other teams found something important?”

“Well, yeah. Day before yesterday I heard they finally found the big statue we’ve been looking for. Now they’re trying to figure how to get it out.”

“Excellent,” said Dranko.
Looks like Abernathy was wrong about this operation being about finding an Eye of Moirel.
He tried not to let any emotions show besides a muted satisfaction. “Show me.”

“Uh…what?”

“Show me where the statue is. I need to see it for myself.”

“I don’t think I can do that. We have to keep to our own site. Boss’s orders.”

“That’s fine. I’ll make a note to commend your discipline. Can you direct me to where they’ve found the statue?”

“Uh…no, sorry. I don’t know which dig it got found at.”

“How many dig sites are there?”

“I dunno. Maybe twenty?”

Dranko sighed. He could keep edging inward, shanghaiing random workers until he found one with satisfactory clearance, but each person he tried to bluff increased the chances that one of them would call him on it and raise a ruckus. And it was likely to wind up in the same place anyway, so he decided to raise the stakes sooner rather than later.

“Romas, thank you for your time. One last thing before you go back to your lunch—can you find Khorl and ask him to meet me here? Tell him one of the investors wishes to speak with him, but don’t mention that I’ve already interviewed you.”

“Uh…sure.”

The man lumbered into the shadows and disappeared around the back of a large tent. If his luck continued to hold, this Khorl fellow would be exactly the sort of mark he was hoping to find—someone with enough authority to get him where he needed to go, but not enough to realize that Dranko was spewing one hundred percent horse manure.

He rehearsed what he’d say, the attitude he’d strike, the names he’d be willing to drop. As long as he maintained the illusion that he could call down Lapis’s wrath, he could wangle his way just about anywhere. For an evil cult of forbidden knowledge, these Black Circle people weren’t particularly…

“What is going on here? Who are you?”

Three figures stepped out of the darkness and into the pool of light thrown by the nearest torch. One was his good friend Romas. To the bulky gentleman’s right was a middle-aged man with a black beard and a scowl—probably Khorl. And to Romas’s left was a tall, hawk-faced woman wearing baggy gray trousers and an unbuttoned black jacket over a gray blouse. From her neck hung a black circle pendant, twin to the one Dranko had stripped from Haske and which was now tucked into his own shirt. A small silver ring pierced her right nostril.

She was completely bald, and the torchlight flickered over her indigo face.

“That’s him, Lapis,” said Romas. “He says he’s the man paying for everything.”

Oh, crap.
Dranko had more than half a mind to run. He could lose himself in the shadows, dart around the tent city until he found a pair of sand-shoes, and bolt for his escape rope. Fighting was out of the question; the use of weapons against people was forbidden by the Church of Delioch.

But Lapis herself forestalled any panicked moves on his part by launching into a tirade of her own. “This is outrageous!” she practically shouted. “We could not have spelled this out any more clearly. Your only role in this is to supply the money for our operation. Under no circumstances were you and your scar-faced brethren to get involved, let alone come out here yourselves! I should consider this a breach of contract.”

Dranko saw the opening and lunged for it, praying that his grasp of the situation was accurate.

“Mokad does not see it that way,” he said, watching her face as carefully as possible for her reaction. And react she did; her face stiffened and her breath caught. “He is dissatisfied with your progress, and asked me personally to inspect the premises.”

“Dissatisfied? It is not Mokad’s place to express his opinion! He should be more than pleased with his end of the bargain.”

Dranko desperately wanted to know what that was, but it was the sort of question that could disrupt this delicate dance.

“That’s as may be,” he said, making a show of choosing his words carefully—and that was not difficult, given how fast his mind was racing. He forced himself into what he called his “fancy pants mindset,” where he dropped his usual crude speech patterns and tried to sound as snobbish and effete as possible.
Pretend you’re Aravia.

“But Mokad and his associates are beginning to run a risk of discovery, so large are the sums involved,” he said. “He might be obliged to, how shall I say this, turn off the tap, should he not be satisfied. That would be a shame, don’t you think? Though not as much as the particulars of all this becoming common knowledge.”

Lapis’s eyes grew wide. “Are you blackmailing me?”

“I am merely conveying Mokad’s
opinions
on your agreement. But, no, I am not blackmailing you because we want nothing except for some visual confirmation of your progress.”

He leaned forward just slightly and in a more conspiratorial tone added, “I understand that you have found what we’ve been looking for.”

Lapis said nothing for a second, her face a twisted blue mask of rage. If she wielded any magic, like Haske, she might just blast him to smithereens and sort things out afterward.

“And who are you, exactly?” she asked, her voice calmer, though her eyes flashed fire.

“My name is Pietr,” said Dranko smoothly. “I am the man Mokad turns to when he needs something done properly.”

“And how is it that Mokad never mentioned you, Pietr?”

“He keeps me in his pocket,” said Dranko. “It keeps me out of harm’s way until my services are required. Mokad considers me an irreplaceable asset.”

“I see.”

Lapis mastered herself and looked directly into his eyes, which made him recall Morningstar’s interrogation of Tig—specifically, the part where Tig claimed that Haske could read minds. If Lapis could do likewise, he was in deep, deep trouble. Her gaze was steady now, her eyes narrowing, and she swallowed as she stared. For the tiniest moment Dranko felt something like a feather brush over his mind, soft little tendrils seeking access to his thoughts. Realizing that the game was up, Dranko focused all his thoughts on giving her the finger.

Beneath his shirt, the black metal circle grew warm against his skin. Lapis stared at him a moment longer, then let out a frustrated sigh.

“Tell Mokad that I will report this to my own superiors. Tell him he can be replaced. Tell him…tell him the sage will not be happy with his behavior.”

Dranko nodded, entirely uncertain how or why this was playing out the way it was. Who was the sage? But she was believing his lies, and he had one more card to play.

“Mokad had another message for you,” he said, pitching his voice low. “But
only
for you.” He glanced at Khorl. Lapis shooed the foreman a short distance away and stepped closer. Her lips were almost black, and her breath carried a whiff of something indescribably foul.