Chartomancy

Chapter Fifteen

29th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat

9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th year since the Cataclysm

Ixyll

It surprised Ciras Dejote to realize he didn’t hate Borosan’s gyanrigot anymore. He respected the gyanridin’s skill at fabricating the machines. During the one day they’d remained in a cavern while a torrential rain fell-which had the added effect of melting a mountain in the distance-Borosan was able to modify one of the skull-sized mousers, create another duplicate of it, and to get the larger Nesrearck working. It resembled the smaller ones in that it had a spherical body atop four spider legs, but boasted more substantial weaponry. Whereas the smaller ones could shoot darts sufficient for impaling vermin, the larger thanaton carried a crossbow and a small sheaf of bolts.

Originally, the magic machines had been nonfunctional in Ixyll, which Ciras didn’t mind at all. The excess of wild magic rendered them unreliable, so Borosan continued to tinker with the devices as they traveled. He eventually figured out that if he sheathed what he called their “difference engines” in the protective cloth men wore in Ixyll, they would be insulated from the wild magic. Another modification let the thaumston recharge overnight, so the gyanrigot functioned better than ever.

With three gyanrigot conducting the survey, they were able to move more quickly. Even Borosan had become anxious to push on, and Ciras found no reason to complain. While he respected Borosan’s decision to collect data for Keles Anturasi, the new mission they’d been given was to find the Empress and bring her home. Both men realized it took precedence over the survey, so they picked up speed.

As much as he came to appreciate the utility of gyanrigot, he still was not comfortable with one aspect of gyanri. The discipline of mechanical magic could impart skills to people. A gyanrigot sword would make a warrior formidable-at least while the thaumston held a charge. Once that wore off, the soldier would likely die.

Ciras had trained daily for years to gain his mastery with a sword. If men were able to get results with no work, then the very discipline of swordsmanship would wither. If success required no work, no one would work and the very means of accessing magic could be lost.

Ciras was fairly certain Borosan couldn’t see any of that. His machines went about their tasks faithfully, pacing off distances to landmarks, scaling cliffs, measuring depth. They did so many things that men could do, but could only do at great risk to themselves, that the benefit of their utility couldn’t be denied. Keles would be overjoyed to have the data they had collected.

But there would come a point where someone who did not have the Anturasi skill at cartography would be able to use gyanrigot to gather data for his own charts. The need for exploration would evaporate because men could soon just dispatch machines. Even if a few of them were eaten by things like the goldwort, losing a machine was better than losing a man.

As long as the machines cannot make judgments, men will always have to explore.

Yet even with his reservations, he became quite glad the gyanrigot existed. As they traveled northwest, they cut across the trail of another party. Ciras recognized the tracks. The men had been part of a bandit group they’d trailed through much of Dolosan. They’d lost track of them when they entered Ixyll, but before that had seen evidence of the men having defiled graves and slaughtering thaumston prospectors.

The tracks revealed that the men were three days ahead. Moving swiftly, they shortened the lead significantly and found them sooner than expected. Had it not been for the bandits lighting a fire, Ciras and Borosan might have ridden into the small valley where they had made camp. Forewarned, they dismounted, approached on foot, and dispatched the gyanrigot to reconnoiter the bandit camp.

While he waited for the devices to return, Ciras crept up to the valley ridge and peered down. He saw only three of the bandits, but a round hole had been pounded into a stone stab, so he assumed Dragright was somewhere in there. Bigfoot, an unkempt giant of a man, rested beside the heavy steel sledge he’d used to make the hole. Tightboots sat on the other side of the hole, a couple of yards from where a bow and quiver lay. Closer to Ciras, with his back to the swordsman and the fire between him and the hole, Slopeheel squatted and held his hands out to the fire. He wore a sword in his sash, but squatted as a peasant would, so Ciras dismissed him as any real threat.

Something crashed from within the hole, jetting out a dusty gust. None of the bandits reacted with anything more than idle curiosity. Then a long, narrow cylinder sailed out. Its lower half split on impact, revealing an aged sword with a stained hilt. The blade rang when it hit the ground, but none of them moved to retrieve it from the dust.

Dragright emerged from the hole, dirty enough for him to have lain there since the Cataclysm. He coughed, pounding on his chest with a fist while hoisting a prize into the air with his left hand. Bits of flesh fell from the skull he lifted, but much of the shrunken scalp remained in place. Ciras even saw a white ribbon woven into one brittle lock.

Dragright hurled it to the ground. It shattered on impact. He stomped on it, reducing the skull to dust. He laughed, the others joined him, then he squatted and sifted the dust with dirty fingers.

He took a pinch of the dust and brought it toward a nostril.

Tightboots tossed a pebble at him. “Don’t. Save it. It’s worth more than you are.”

Dragright shrugged. “Just seeing how good it is. We’ve enough. There’s a dozen more in there. Swords, too, maybe even a bow for you.”

He snorted the corpse dust.

His head snapped back and his eyes widened. His body shook violently and he should have toppled onto his back, but somehow he came upright, as if being lifted by his throat. Dragright sneezed once, hard, and thick green ropes of mucus dripped from his nostrils like wax. He coughed again, then shook his head spasmodically, four times.

He smiled, all gap-toothed and happy. “This is the best we’ve found.”

Tightboots lofted another stone at him. “You say that with every tomb.”

The man’s hand swept up fluidly and snatched the pebble from the air. “And this time I’m right.”

Ciras rose and began a casual stroll down into their camp. He angled to keep Slopeheel on his right and the fire between him and the other three. He forced himself to walk loosely, never betraying the revulsion he felt at finding breathers of the dead.

Nor did he let his fear show. If thaumston could animate machines, so corpse dust could power others. A Mystic weaver’s dust could impart her skill to someone who breathed it. Likewise the dust of a warrior. Just how much skill no one knew. The practice was proscribed and the only source of knowledge about it came from stories whispered around campfires.

Slopeheel turned to look at Ciras. “Who in the Nine Hells are you?”

Ciras’ blade cleared its scabbard in a draw-cut that caressed the man’s throat front to back. It parted his spine and only left a small flap of skin and muscle beneath the man’s right ear intact. Slopeheel’s head flopped onto his shoulder as blood geysered from his neck, then he collapsed thrashing.

Tightboots cursed as he dove for his bow. “Damn the xidantzu!” He rolled and came up with the bow, but by the time he nocked an arrow and started to draw it, Ciras had reached him. The archer began to turn toward him, but the swordsman’s blade descended. It swept through his right elbow. The forearm whipped away, propelled by the bow. The archer stared at the stump in horror, then a second slash blinded him.

As Ciras turned to the right, the giant ran into the darkness and Dragright kicked the antique sword into the air. He caught it deftly. He dropped into a fighting stance, with his left hand wide, his right jabbing with the sword, and his body open. He stood the way an unskilled brawler might, a casual cut away from death. In fact, tired, dirty, and snot-stained, he looked more dead than alive anyway.

Ciras did not attack. He took a step away from the dying archer, then bowed toward his opponent. He held it for a respectful time, then straightened up again.

Dragright frowned. “You’re a strange xidantzu. You slaughter two, then do me honor?”

“Not you. The warrior whose skull you crushed, whose sword you bear.”

“Heh.” The man half smiled, then convulsed again. He spun the sword up and around, easily, as if he had been trained to it all his life. “He was one of the best, you know. Out here. Better than you could have ever hoped.”

“Of this, I have no doubt.” Ciras waved him forward with his left hand. “But you are not he.”

The bandit attacked and the twin effects of the corpse dust and the sword made themselves readily apparent. Ciras had tracked the man and named him because he dragged his right foot a bit. In his attack, he moved more fluidly and with more precision. He flowed down into Dragon, whipping the sword down and around, then up in a cut meant to slash Ciras’ right flank.

Ciras slipped to the left, then pivoted back on his right foot and backhanded a slash aimed at the bandit’s spine. Steel rang on steel as Dragright spun back faster than possible and parried the slash high. Snapping his wrist around, he attacked back.

Pain scored a fiery line through Ciras’ armpit. He leaped away, feeling blood already dripping. He’d never seen an attack like that, and he knew the Dragon form well. Moreover, he felt a tingle in the air, much akin to what he’d felt when the magic storms played in Ixyll.

Magic! It wasn’t possible, but the bandit had accessed magic.

Ciras’ realization prompted him to take another step back. His right foot landed on the archer’s severed forearm. His ankle twisted and he went down. He landed on his right elbow, striking it against a stone. His sword twisted from numbed fingers and clanged against the ground.

Dragright strode boldly to him, kicked the archer’s arm away, then raised the sword in both hands, as if it were a dagger. Firelight played over the expression of glee on his face and, for the barest of moments, Ciras could see hints of softness there, as if the ghostly likeness of the dead warrior overlaid his features.

The man laughed. “It feels so good to fight again.”

He raised the sword higher, his back arched, his mouth open in a fearsome snarl. Then his body shook and a crossbow bolt burst out through his breastbone. The force of the shot sent him flying toward the tomb. He bounced once, hard, and rolled, coming to rest on his chest near the hole.

With delicate little arms setting another bolt in place, Nesrearck skittered forward and crouched.

Ciras smiled and scooped up his sword. He stood, gingerly testing his ankle, then bowed to the gyanrigot. Beyond it Borosan entered the firelit basin, skirting Slopeheel’s body. “Where’s the fourth one?”

“He ran.”

“How badly are you hurt?”

The swordsman shrugged his right arm out of his robe and checked. “He got flesh, nothing else. If he’d cut the artery, I’d have been dead inside a minute. As it is, I’ll live.”

“So will I, serrdin.”

Ciras spun as the corpse flopped itself onto its back. It grabbed a handful of corpse dust and stuffed it into the gaping hole in its chest. The body jerked and the spine bowed violently enough that the bandit bounced upright. It set itself, then waved him forward with its left hand.

This is impossible! Fear coursed through Ciras. Dragright had been faster and more skilled than he. He had used magic and cut him. He couldn’t stand against such a creature, especially when it clearly couldn’t be killed. To remain and battle against the unbeatable foe was suicide.

Panic seized him, and he almost turned to run. He knew what would happen if he did. The thing would catch him like a hawk stooping on a rabbit. It would cut him down. He’d die with his face in the dirt, his spine slashed open to prove that he’d died a coward.

Though he might not be a master or Mystic, Ciras was no coward. Shifting his sword to his right hand, he wrapped the sleeve of his robe through his sash so it would not flop around. He wiped blood from his hand, then took up the sword again.

He waited. It had used the Dragon form, and the best forms to counter it were Tiger and Wolf. But it will expect that. That meant it might shift to Eagle or Mantis, perhaps even Dog. The various permutations of the battle ran through his mind. As fast as Ciras could adapt his tactics, the creature would be faster, and the outcome as dire as if Ciras had run.

Ciras squared around and reversed his grip on his sword. He brought it back so it ran up along his forearm with the tip appearing at his right shoulder. Instead of using the blade to shield his body, he used his body to hide the blade.

“Borosan, get out of here. Take Nesrearck with you.”

“I don’t understand.”

Ciras began to move back slowly, easily. “Dragright is dead, but his body is linked to this place. You know the stories of corpse dust. Imagine how powerful it would be if the corpse had lain here since the Cataclysm.”

“Oh, oh, I see.” The inventor began to trek back up the hill. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to kill it.” He set himself and nodded to the corpse. “If I don’t, remember to mark this place as very deadly on your map.”

The corpse laughed. “I’ll hunt him down, too.”

“No, you won’t.” Ciras pointed toward the hole in the tomb entrance. “Leave here, and someone else will despoil your comrades. You can’t allow them to be dishonored.”

“No, I can’t.” The thing launched itself at him. The Dragon form shifted into Tiger, but Ciras kept his sword where it was. He cut to his left, working back against its right. The slash meant to decapitate him whistled just past his face. The blow opened the creature to a counterattack, but even as Ciras feinted with his right shoulder, the sword cut back to parry a low slash.

Again, Ciras danced away, working always to the right. The creature might no longer be Dragright, but whatever had caused him to drag his leg still affected it. Ciras moved with calculation, slowing to draw it into attacks, then cutting to the right. The creature darted around to head him off and trap him, but he just ran in the other direction.

The corpse, backlit by the fire, hunched its shoulders. “So this is what the Empire has come to? Unskilled cowards who run rather than fight?”

Ciras nodded. “The Empire you died to save is dead. The Nine Principalities have risen in their place. You and yours are all but forgotten.

“In fact,” Ciras added as he began to spin to the right, exposing his back to the creature, “you’re beneath contempt. Nesrearck, shoot it again!”

The creature had already begun a forehand slash at his spine, but glanced off up the hillside. Its blade rose with the distraction, and Ciras’ spin brought him down onto his left knee. As he spun, he shifted the sword around into a double-hand grip, directed by his left hand. As the corpse’s slash whipped past an inch above his skull, Ciras’ sword bit into the back of its right knee and continued out through the front.

The corpse continued its spin and began to fall. Shifting his blade to his right hand, Ciras rose and cut down. As the corpse hit the ground, his sword clove its skull in two.

It thrashed on the ground, then reached out and clawed the stone. It slowly began dragging itself back toward the white stain of corpse dust. Ciras could imagine it trying to pack its shattered head and come at him again.

He would have hacked it into pieces, but he had no desire to dishonor the warrior. He just let the corpse keep crawling, because between it and the corpse dust lay the fire.

He moved downwind so he’d not breathe any of the smoke rising from the body. Borosan appeared at the edge of the basin and smiled. “I’m glad to see you won.”

Ciras frowned. “You should have been a long way from here by now.”

“I couldn’t have left you behind.” Nesrearck strode up beside him. “I was refitting the thanaton. We would have gotten it.”

Before Ciras could ask, a panel slid up on the machine revealing the crossbow mechanism. Instead of a bolt, one of the mousers was set to be launched.

The swordsman nodded. “It would have taken him apart from inside?”

“That was the idea.”

“Better than what I had, which was just a lot of hope.” Ciras smiled. “It showed me a move I didn’t know, so I showed it no fighting style at all. That confused it.”

Borosan frowned. “But that left you vulnerable and could have gotten you killed.”

“True, but it did not. Not this time.” Ciras returned his sword to its scabbard. “Next time I hope I have a better plan.”