The Hour of Dust and Ashes cm-3 Read online

  He tipped forward, palms bracing against the marble floor. His head hung low between his arms.

  I bent down. “All this to be a hero?”

  He lifted his gaze, black hair falling over his brow. Intensity brightened the silver flecks in his eyes. “All this … to be … king.” His head dropped. He gasped. “Main chamber. Wall relief. Warrior. Press the jewel in the hilt …”

  Carreg fell onto his side.

  I couldn’t move.

  “Go!” Carreg hissed.

  Spurred, I swiped my gun from the floor, took Bryn’s shackled hands, and pushed her quickly toward the main chamber. Solomon couldn’t jump from person to person. He was stuck inside of Bryn until she died, or an exorcist pulled him out, but the nobles didn’t know that, and they didn’t know what he was capable of. Carreg’s story might actually hold water for a little while. But not long.

  We hurried into the main chamber to the wall reliefs I’d seen earlier. The black marble was covered in identical warriors, line after line of them. Way too many of them. Shit. “Start pressing hilts.”

  I forced Bryn to the wall and started pushing on the small marble jels of sword hilts. My hands were shaking. I repeated this several times, my desperation building until I thought I might scream.

  “I got it!” Rex whispered loudly.

  A slight hiss of air sounded. I scanned the chamber and saw a small, narrow opening in the marble. Hank snagged two ceremonial short swords from one of the walls and shoved them through his belt loop, one at each hip.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  We filed into the tunnel. Once inside I searched for a mechanism to close the door, knowing there had to be one. I found a small, round knob nearby and pushed it in. The door slid closed, leaving us in pitch black, surrounded by black marble.

  Rex cursed. Our movements were quick but careful as we started at a fast clip through the narrow tunnel. At least the floor was smooth and the walls kept us going in one direction. Our footsteps, heavy breaths, and Brim’s claws echoed in the space.

  I lost all sense of time, so focused was I on moving, getting away.

  We didn’t stop until Rex’s face came into contact with a door, his whispered curses filling the passageway. I put out my hand to steady Bryn as she bumped up against Rex’s back.

  “I’ll feel for a lever or a button,” Hank spoke up from behind me, so close my hair moved with his words. “Be ready. We don’t know what this will open up to.”

  Or if Carreg had set us up.

  I pulled my gun.

  The sound of stone cracking told me Hank had found the release mechanism. Rex whispered a command to Brim. “Brim goes first,” he whispered. Light filled the tunnel, blinding us for a moment, but it didn’t take long to acclimate and see that the light was actually dim and gray.

  Brim stepped out slowly, alert for signs of danger. Rex went next. Then me with Bryn, and Hank behind us.

  “Holy shit,” Rex breathed. “Is this going to hold us?”

  We’d come out on a small ledge in the rock that supported the nobles’ city above. I glanced up and saw the sheer walls of palaces shooting into the air. Below us was Telmath, but just a very small edge of it, since we were facing away from the city and toward one of the rock walls of the cavernous city. Hank searched for a way to shut the door, found the depression, and pushed. The door slid closed.

  Rex inched closer to one side, his back flat against the rock, and glanced down. “Looks like … some steps … oh, hell no …” He straightened, eyes wide, turning his head toward us. After a steadying breath, he attempted a nonchalant shrug. “Well, if we were a bunch of Munchkins going down the yellow brick road, this would be a piece of cake.”

  “Tiny steps or not,” I said, trying not to look straight down, “we need to keep going and I don’t see another way down. Let’s move and try to be careful.” I gripped Bryn tighter lest Solomon try to throw her off the rock and “release” himself that way. She’d been oddly compliant so far and it made me wonder if Solomon had exhausted his strength escaping from the cold cell, traveling—however the hell he̱d done it—to Telmath, and getting inside of the nobles’ city … Or he could be lulling us into a false sense of security or resting up for another suicide attempt later.

  Whatever the case, we needed to get as far away from the city as possible.

  We started moving, falling back into our focused silence, going one by one down the small footholds carved into the rock.

  Step after step, story after story. And I knew far above us, they had to know by now. Carreg was probably being healed and telling his tale. Sweat trickled down the sides of my face. My clothes were damp, and I longed to take off my jacket. I would’ve given anything for a gust of cool air or a drink of cold water. But we were close to the bottom. The scents and sounds of the city grew heavier and heavier.

  Finally we reached the end and took a path which curved around the enormous base of the rock toward the dark streets of Telmath.

  “If I never see another step in my lifetime, I’ll be happy,” Rex muttered.

  “Me, too.” I stopped before the path led us behind a house and into what looked liked the dead end of a street. “So I think it’s safe to say they know by now.”

  “And the terminal is out,” Hank said, echoing my own thoughts. Going back to the terminal meant the possibility of being detained. If I didn’t have the sylph timeline breathing down my neck, it might be a different story. But as it was, I needed to get home ASAP.

  “All right, Rex,” I said, turning to him. “Time to put your jinn memories to work. How do we get back home?” The gates might be the current and law-abiding mode of travel, but in ancient times it was well-known that the jinn had ways of travelling to our world.

  He frowned and then scratched his stubbly jaw. “Let me think …” After a long moment he said, “There used to be a jinn temple outside of Tel-math. The Temple of the Moon. There was a portal there …”

  “You’re talking thousands of years ago,” Hank said.

  “Well, I don’t see you offering anything,” Rex shot back.

  “Could you find it again?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yeah, it was a couple hours east of Telmath, through the sand flats. The portal was underground and was kept secret from the nobles … If the temple is still there, the portal might be, too. Those things, once they’re created, are near impossible to destroy.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. “Okay, so first we need to find out if the temple still exists. We’ll find out along the way. If it does, then we’ll try it. Agreed? And as soon as we can, we steal a cloak for Bryn to cover the blood and the gag.”

  Rex shrugged and readjusted the axe strapped to his back.

  I turned to Hank to find he was staring at me. He pulled the hood over his head. The stark intensity in his gaze had darkened the color of his eyes until they appeared nearly black in the dim light. “Hank?”

  “We only have one day. If we’re not back in one day, the sylphs8217; ‘gifts’ …”

  “Will kill me,” I finished for him quietly. “I know.”

  16

  It wasn’t hard to lift a cloak from one of the houses near the dead-end street. It was dark, quiet, and Hank had taken five minutes tops between the time he drifted into the shadows until he returned with something to cover Bryn. Once that was done, we started toward the mouth of Telmath’s cavern.

  The smoky, shadowed streets of the city reminded me of the congested atmosphere on Solomon Street back home in Atlanta, only on a grander, darker, otherworldly scale that stretched for miles.

  I could easily imagine that I was walking through the crowded streets of some ancient civilization—the sunlight replaced with the dim violet glow of typanum running through the “sky,” the sunbaked houses replaced with gray stone and timbers, and the humans replaced with hulking jinn warriors strutting around, cloaked ghouls peering beneath their hoods, darkling fae weaving effortlessly through the narrow streets …

/>   As we moved through narrow alleys and busy marketplaces, over bridges that spanned rivers and gaping black chasms in the ground, our passage was either ignored or met with curious frowns that passed over us quickly and then were forgotten. I saw humans—more than I’d expected to see—shopping, touring, engaged in dark pursuits. Black crafting was allowed here. So were gambling and prostitution …

  In one of the busiest corners we passed, Rex ducked into a storefront that sold what looked to be antiques and artifacts and came back out with a nod. “The temple is still there. In ruins. But there.”

  I had no idea what was happening far up on the plateau or if guards had begun searching. But if they were, they were slowed by the vastness of the city, the crowds, and the darkness. Still, I turned and glanced up even though the plateau was too high to see anything.

  “Charlie,” Hank said, making me jump.

  He stepped aside. I gripped Bryn’s arm tighter and nudged her forward, following Rex and Brim through the dense streets of Telmath as Hank fell in behind us. All the sights, sounds, and scents filled in around us, but we moved as though we were in a bubble of silence. Isolated.

  * * *

  The closer we came to the gaping twenty-story-high mouth of the cavern, the scents slowly changed from tar and earth to dry wood and sand. The humidity disappeared, the air turning arid and hot. Several lonely-looking paths, carrying one or two dusty travelers, led into and out of the city.

  All the action was behind us, and in front of us, framed by the massive cavern mouth, was wide-open Charbydon sky. Inky blue and lit with stars. As beautiful as it was, a shiver crept down my spine. Despite the danger back in Telmath, the cavern had provided a sense of insulation and protection. Out here, in the wild … God only knew what awaited us.

  As we passed into open air, our strides lengthened and our pace increased, all of us wanting to get as far away from Telmath as possible. Several minutes passed before my fears of getting caught finallyased and I was able to really notice the environment.

  A dim, moonlight-like glow bathed the landscape. Everyone called the giant orb hanging in the sky a moon, but it was really a white dwarf star, one that was slowly dying out. Once this “moon” set below the horizon it was blacker than black, and when it rose again it was dim and not nearly—so I’d heard—as bright as in older days. Ahead of us stretched a barren land of shrubs, rocky outcroppings, clumps of stubborn trees, and patches of small flowers in blues and whites.

  The road was so soft that fine grains puffed up like smoke as we walked, and the edges were littered with petrified woods and loose rocks.

  “We might be able to make it most of the way before the moon sets,” Rex said. “Once it does, this place turns pitch-black, and we’re screwed. And don’t use those lights on your belts. The light draws the predators.”

  Great.

  The only one who seemed happy to be out here in the wild was Brim. He trotted around us in large serpentine patterns, his nose trailing the ground, investigating, processing the scents, and then coming back in toward us to cross over to the other side. He never disappeared from view.

  My feet burned inside of my socks and shoes, and my face felt sticky and grimy. We hiked at a fast clip for at least three miles before I slowed, turning around to check our progress. The mountain that rose up behind us was a jagged behemoth. My jaw dropped. It made the opening of the cavern look like the mouth of a sea bass. Behind the dark, jagged shape were more mountains, an entire range that shot up into the inky sky.

  I turned back around and continued on, amazed at what I was seeing—at what I’d seen so far. Bryn muttered something through the gag and jerked her arm. I stopped her and removed the hood and then set to work untying the gag. We were far enough away that her screams wouldn’t be heard. But I shoved the gag into my pocket in case the need arose. She bent over and spit. “God, it’s hot,” she gasped.

  “Make any trouble,” I said, “and it’ll be back on.” She didn’t respond. I couldn’t help but wonder if Solomon was still pulling the strings, but right then I didn’t want confirmation. I was tired, too tired to deal with the emotional onslaught that would come if my sister “appeared.”

  The image of my baby sister straddling the Abaddon Father, blood sprayed over her front, and that dagger making its way toward her belly, was enough to make me sob. But, right then, all that mattered was making it across the flats, through the portal, and back home.

  Hank trailed behind us, the cloak off and thrown over his shoulder. “I don’t suspect the nobles would think we’d be desperate enough to cross the sand flats.” He glanced over his shoulder to the mountain range. His profile was grim and since we were out of the city he let down some of the blocks on his aura. I couldn’t see much, but I could feel the vibe coming off him and it was … distracted.

  I frowned at that revelation.

  “Well,” I said, “hopefully they think we’re off chasing after Solomon like Carreg told them.” I wanted to say more, but then thought better of it. Asking him now about the sirens in the terminal probably wasn’t the time or the place. But I hadn’t forgotten. It was pretty clear they recognized Hank, and just as clear that he wanted nothing to do with them. I bit the inside of my cheek to temper my curiosity and took Bryn’s arm. “Let’s keep moving.”

  A strange rattlesnake sound echoed around us. The hairs on the back of my neck lifted and made me shudder. I glanced around at the unfamiliar landscape, my other hand going back to rest on the hilt of my Nitrogun. But Rex, I noticed, kept walking and Brim didn’t seem alarmed. My anxiety remained, however, the place too foreign and strange for me to relax.

  Eventually the rocky ground, trees, and bushes disappeared, giving way to a vast sea of the finest gray sand, which slowly made its way into my clothes and stuck to my exposed skin. In random patches, large outcroppings of rocks and jagged monoliths jutted up from the sand.

  Despite the “moonlight,” there were huge black shadows made by the dunes. Every time we crossed through one, the idea of stepping on something or being ambushed heightened my uneasiness.

  After what felt like hours, Rex suddenly stopped. He went very still, face turning from side to side, staring out into the shadowy distance. Even though he was in the body of a human, one very familiar to me, Rex seemed more jinn than ever. The way he carried himself, the confidence, the sense of self … It was all very … strange.

  “They’re already following us,” he said, and started walking again.

  “Who’s following us?” I struggled through the sand as I tried to catch up. The faster I stepped, the deeper my boots sank.

  “We’re being tracked by a pack of nithyn. And probably one or two sand lizards.”

  Was it too much to hope that a sand lizard was tiny and harmless? As it was, I was already aware that nithyn were dragon-like creatures that grew to the size of large goats. Moon snakes ate their eggs, but once grown, the nithyn turned the tables and ate snakes, lizards, and—if they were hungry enough—off-worlders too weak to defend themselves … or humans stupid enough to trek through the sand flats at night.

  “What the hell is a sand lizard?” Bryn asked in a scratchy voice.

  “A chameleon,” said Rex. “Blends into the dunes and rocks to catch its prey. Travels beneath the sand. Its scales are like armor, impervious to nitro, bullets … You have to get in close to kill them, find their soft spots.”

  A far-off screech echoed through the air. “Was that a nithyn?” I asked as Rex slid his axe off his back.

  “Probably ringing the dinner bell.”

  “Brilliant,” Hank muttered.

  “See those boulders?” Rex pointed with his weapon to a large outcropping of rocks along the ridge of the sand dunes. “We’ll head for the rocks. Don’t run, though.”

  “What about the sand lizards?” Bryn said.

  “They can only move on and in the sand. They’re rather … large. But once we hit the rocks, we should be fine. And if something should happ to me, th
e ruins lie east; the portal is beneath the altar stone in the temple. Feed it your power. Where you end up is subject to your ability to concentrate on your destination.”

  I stored his information, eyeing the rocks about a quarter of a mile away. A quarter of a mile of thinking every step would land me in the mouth of a damn reptile. And what did large mean anyway?

  We never made it to the rocks.

  One second I was walking on soft sand and the next, the ground was falling out from under me.

  I fell with Bryn as the sand was sucked downward. A plume of fine, gritty dust rose up to envelop us. “BRYN!” With her hands bound, she fell face-first and rolled toward the deepening depression in the ground—a deepening depression that revealed the giant sand lizard rising up to greet us.

  My heels dug into the sand. “You said it was a lizard!” I yelled.

  Rex was sliding on his back down toward the creature. “It is! Just a really big one!”

  Big as an elephant with a scaled body as thick as a California redwood, the sand lizard emerged. It resembled a gigantic salamander with a forked tongue that snaked out and tested the air.

  Bryn smacked into its belly. Its tail whipped out of the sand and thankfully the ground stopped moving. I rolled down the sides of the depression, using my momentum to pop to my feet and run for her, directly beneath the sand lizard’s gaze. I grabbed her arm as she stumbled to her feet, covered in sand.

  “RUN!” I shouted, yanking her.

  Running in sand was an exercise in futility. My heart pounded so loud through my ears that it muted the sound that came out of the creature’s mouth—a shrieking hiss that crawled up my spine like lightning with a thousand feet.

  The hunt was on.

  “Get to the rocks!” Rex’s voice was close. I searched, finding him scrambling up the beast’s tail like some fucked-up version of Legolas, as Brim leapt onto the scaly thigh and clamped down with his massive jaws.

  Hank withdrew both of the ceremonial swords he’d taken from the palace and stabbed both blades between the sand lizard’s toes.