Vin of Venus (10 page)

Hajed's mask turned to me. I stood, wondering what she had meant by 'prospect.'

"You are an outlander," Ithal announced. "What is your name, outlander?"

"Vin," I said.

"Where are you from?"

"I am of the Sea Clans, Priestess. To the north. They are my adopted people, though as to my true origins I cannot say. My memory does not stretch back far."

"Are all men of the north hairless?"

"No, Priestess."

Hajed said: "I rescued him from the Moldering Ones. He was not among them long enough to acquire their taint. He carried with him a box, containing a human head. I checked its contents while he slept. He claims the head is owed in repayment to Siroth Hadz."

Ithal sucked in a long breath. "You are a vassal, to that old sorcerer?"

"I am not. Siroth aided my people in a great battle against the warlord Gann—"

She dismissed my statement with a wave. "Politics beyond my own tribe do not interest me. Siroth has no claim to you. That is well."

"See his muscles," Hajed said. "He is strong, and virile. He could help you bear many young."

I turned to her. "Is
that
what this is all about?"

"You will address me solely," Ithal said, in a tone suited to command.

I felt some of my diplomacy slipping away. "I was not sent here as breeding stock, Priestess. Though the offer is a tempting one, and I am indebted to Hajed for her rescue, there are other matters that—"

Ithal's silvery laugh echoed through the chamber. "You were not made an 'offer.' You are now the property of Black Gorge Creche, and whether you have the honor of hosting my offspring or scraping dung from the beetle-pens is entirely at my whim."

The ruby bracelet sent a throbbing pulse so violent I startled, and out of pure reflex leapt backwards. Just in time. Hajed had drawn a large thorn dripping with some viscous, clear fluid. She whirled to face me, raising the weapon for a downward thrust. My right hand flashed out and caught her wrist, while my left crashed against her flat, muscular stomach. She doubled. I tore the thorn from her grasp. A kick to the ankles sent her sprawling.

Ithal screamed in fury. The sound oscillated through a range not entirely human. She rose from the stone bench. Her lower body, hidden beneath the voluminous scarlet robes, made clicking noises as she extended to at least double my height.

I didn't wait to see what kind of horror would reveal itself. I hurled the envenomed thorn at Ithal, turned, and ran. Shrieks and more clicking sounded behind me.

The entrance tunnel seemed much longer coming out than it had going in. I ran stooped. In my mind, I recalled the breeding habits of certain insects. Female spiders that devoured the heads of their mates. Wasp larvae, burrowing from the paralyzed bodies of their hosts. Hajed must have imagined such a fate for me.

I broke free of the tunnel mouth. Ithal's high-pitched shriek had alerted the sentry, who came running towards me behind the bounding, three-horned beetle. At five yards he let go of the leash. The monstrous insect charged. I leapt, dove over the deadly horns, and planted both hands on the creature's slick carapace to vault clear. My momentum carried me right into the sentry. He crumpled, and I was racing again moments later.

Down the ramp. Onto the canyon floor. Somewhere behind me, I knew the beetle would be turning around to try a second charge. The stone pens with their giant striders loomed close. My only chance. The box with Lorci's head was back in Hajed's room, but there was no time to try and retrieve it. In moments the whole canyon would be swarming with warriors.

I leapt the gate into the stone pen. The striders chittered and reared, but none attacked. I wondered what it was that kept them inside. There were no tethers or restraints, and they could jump over the stone walls easy enough. No time to ponder. Gray starlight gleamed off a strip of metal secured to one of the striders. The Sword of the Sea Clans! Hajed must have left it there. I climbed atop the creature's harness, unsure how it would respond to me. But after a few deft kicks to the thorax, I maneuvered us alongside the gate. Close enough for me to shoot the bolt. Another kick; the strider reared and slammed the gate open. We were through.

Multiple shouts. The bracelet pinged a warning just as a now-familiar humming drew close. I threw myself flat against the strider's back. A poisoned beetle shot overhead. It tried to arc around for another pass, but hit the canyon's stone wall and dropped.

I slammed my heel against the strider's flank. It crouched, all six spindly legs quivering, and then night air was rushing past us at dizzying speed. We landed halfway up the stone ramp leading into the canyon. Another leap and we were clear.

To my left rose the jungle, black in the starlight. To my right the old lava plains rolled and heaved. Luckily, I had a clear marker to steer towards. The stone tower of Siroth Hadz, bold against the horizon like a pointing finger. I urged the strider towards it. Behind us came the chittering and scraping of at least a half-dozen riders, hot for pursuit.

How long it took me to affect a full escape from Black Gorge Creche I cannot recall. The chase seemed to last all night. Whenever I glanced behind me, the black-furred silhouettes were only a leap away. I'd dodged enough poisoned beetles to wonder when my luck would finally drain out. All the while, the stone tower grew larger.

At some point the terrain leveled into stretches of purple-black sand. I glimpsed the bleached white of skeletons, lashed to boulders. My pursuers dropped off. One moment they were close enough for me to hear the clatter of their armor, the next, they were bounding away in the opposite direction. My relief was quickly replaced by a sense of foreboding. Siroth's tower seemed to cast a cold shadow in the predawn light.

I slowed the strider's pace. The skeleton-warnings were becoming more frequent. Ahead, what looked like a fence of thick iron posts jutted from the sand, each at least triple the height of a tall man. But there was nothing to fill the broad spaces between the posts. What kind of barrier was that? And why waste so much precious metal on its construction?

Years of depending on the ruby bracelet for warnings had winnowed my own natural instincts. But now they screamed at me something was wrong. I brought the strider to a halt. Dismounted. A hint of ozone, like the smell of an approaching thunderhead, struck my nostrils. It grew stronger the closer I came to the metal posts.

A voice seemed to crackle from nowhere: "Stay where you are."

I whirled. There was no one for miles. The posts weren't thick enough for someone to hide behind.

"Is that you, Siroth Hadz?" I shouted, my hand reaching instinctively for the sword's hilt. "Show yourself."

Wheezing laughter. This time, I thought I could hear it echoing from the bar closest to me. I started to take a step forward—

"I said stop! If you fry yourself, Vin of the Sea Clans, it won't be on my conscience." The voice rang harsh and metallic.

"You know my name."

"Indeed. I've been watching your escape from those silly insect-lovers."

"Why won't you show yourself?"

"I can't. I'm talking to you from inside the tower."

"That's impossible."

A chuckle. "To your limited intellect, I suppose."

"I came all the way from the north to see you. Gann Lorci has been defeated, in part because of the radium cannons you showed my people how to build. We have questions—"

"Where is the warlord's head?"

I tried to keep my shoulders from slumping. "Back at Black Gorge Creche. I had to leave it behind in my escape."

"Pah. Excuses."

"But Lorci
has
been defeated. I killed him myself."

"I have my own ways of confirming that."

"Will you not see me?"

"I can see you just fine."

"I mean ... can't we speak, face to face?"

"Hold a moment. You've got something around your wrist. Step a little closer to the post in front of you. Not too close. There."

Now that the sun was coming up, I could see the post had a small hole covered by wire mesh. Just above the hole winked a tiny glass bead.

"That's better. Yes. You possess one of the bracelets of Abbadox. Impressive. And your physical form seems different. Not the normal Venusian stock. I suppose I should have you come in and run a few tests."

The voice was coming from the mesh-covered hole. I saw the wires vibrating a little, every time it spoke. But no one could be slender enough to hide inside the post. How was this possible?

"I'm going to shut the current off," said the voice. "Leave the strider here. When I tell you to, walk between the posts. You'd better toss your sword through first, though. I don't want the metal drawing any stray charge."

Wary, I readied to throw the blade as instructed.

"A moment. There. The current's down."

Faint violet sparks danced down the sword's length as it tumbled between the posts. It landed point-first in the sand. I followed. There was a brief sensation of pain lancing through my bones, but it passed as quick as it came. I was through. I grabbed up the sword and felt a pleasant tingle course from the hilt.

"Keep walking," cracked the voice behind me. "Approach the tower."

Up close, the structure bulked like a small mountain. I couldn't make out any masonry lines, giving the impression it had been carved from a single piece of basalt. No windows or openings. I'd seen similar ruins on the northern continent, but not to the same scale. No one knew who the builders had been. A race of giants? Certainly not men.

I stopped before the tower's broad base. It spanned at least three times the length of the sailing ship that had brought me across the Singular Sea. But there was nothing resembling a door or a gate.

Not at first.

With a flash, a rectangular seam appeared in the expanse of stone wall. White light limned the edges. Slowly, the rectangle swung open as if hinged. I had to squint against the glare spilling out.

A tall silhouette stood in the opening. The figure was at least seven feet, and would've been taller still if it wasn't stooped. Robes of checkered black and gray covered the lanky frame. It wore a bell-shaped helm of smooth bronze, without openings for eyes or mouth. The figure tottered forward a few steps and settled its hands on hips.

"Don't try anything," rasped a voice from under the helmet, the same one I'd heard coming from the post. Siroth gestured at an iron rod thrust through his robe's sash. One end looked melted. "This thing's accurate out to a hundred yards."

I showed him my empty hands. "I'm not here to take your life."

"Ha. 'Take my life.' I like that.
Attempt
, you mean." The helm rotated left to right, as if scanning the area. "Let's get inside. Never can tell on this goddamn planet when something will come swooping down out of the sky."

He backed through the doorway and beckoned. The sleeve of his robe fell away, and I saw a golden bracelet similar to my own, though studded with sapphires.

"Come," he said, impatient.

I followed him into a cylindrical chamber, walled with silver metal. Light streamed down from a panel in the ceiling.

The 'door' closed behind us. Siroth waved his hand and the chamber shuddered with sudden movement. My stomach lurched; the same sensation of leaping upwards on a strider.

Siroth indicated his bracelet. "The first of the series. You possess the third. A telepathic, extra-dimensional sentience is trapped within the matrix of gem facets, attuned to human emotions. It draws partially on your own life-force, and thus has a vested interest in keeping you alive. Magnificent objects. The science behind their construction has been lost, though I'm making my own modest gains in the field."

His words made no sense to me. I nodded so as not to appear ignorant.

The chamber shuddered again and the lurching sensation ceased. A section of wall slid back, revealing a vast, domed room, lit by floating globes of phosphorescence.

I gaped.

So many mystifying objects cluttered that space my mind reeled trying to identify them. The largest was a great golden sphere hovering just beneath the dome's apex. Around it swam a number of smaller spheres; silver, green, blue, and red. They moved at varying speeds, but all in a slow circle.

"This world's piss-poor for astronomy," Siroth said, as if in explanation. "It's the cloud cover. And it's only going to get worse."

He led me down a steeply-angled staircase, onto the chamber's floor. We passed a row of radium cannons lying in wooden cradles. The designs were much more complex than the simple bronze cylinders cast by the Sea Clans. A rainbow of different-colored liquids bubbled through spiraling glass tubes. Purple flame arced between posts wrapped with wire. I smelled ozone, sulfur, copper, ash, and a dozen odd scents I couldn't recognize.

"Let me show you where I would've put Gann," Siroth said, stopping in front of a metal cabinet. He swung the doors back. Arranged on the shelves inside was an assortment of heads encased in thick glass. Not all were human. I counted three of the goggle-eyed Deep Folk, as well as some insectoid creature.

"You're looking at a history of Venus's greatest rulers," Siroth said. "Despots, all. I collect them. Up on the top shelf; that's Vass'k, of the Deep Folk. Eight centuries ago he united all the clans of the sea bottom and made war with the mainlanders."

He said it like he'd been around at the time. And he just might have.

"Eventually, despots such as these weld together empires, which in turn threaten my quiet repose. Gann Lorci was close to doing so. Not that it matters much, now. There are changes coming to do this world. I suspect we've seen the last of any would-be conquerors."

"Changes?" My pulse quickened.

"The Sea Clans have noticed them, have they not?"

"Yes. That's why I was sent to speak with you. The seas are—"

"I know what's happening to the ocean."

"But why?"

"Perhaps I can explain. If you're able to stretch your mind a bit."

He shut the cabinet doors. We walked deeper into the chamber, until the golden sphere floated directly overhead. Its surface shimmered as if made from freshly-poured bronze. "This represents our sun," Siroth said, pointing upwards. "These other objects swirling about it are balls of rock and gas called 'planets.' We live on the surface of such a planet—Venus, the second orb out. It's the green one. You'll notice Venus turns on its axis, even as it moves around the Sun. This causes the cycle of day and night. Do you understand so far?"