GHOSTS IN THE GLASS Read online

  Copyright © 2016 S. Cushaway and J. Ray

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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  For Valera, our wonderful daughter. We will always love you.

  Heaps of gratitude to all my beta-readers and friends who gave support for this project.

  Table of Contents

  PART ONE: THE WEAPON Farewell Gift

  Kestrel

  The Darkest Cave

  Monsters

  Den

  Ice in the Sky

  The Shade

  A Black Cloud

  Burnt

  Sunday Lunch

  PART TWO: THE ENFORCER Water Rights

  Sisters

  The Drell

  Homesteader

  Light of Mary

  An Empty Chair

  Ants

  PART THREE: THE BELT The Liar

  Brass

  The Song

  The Last Kiss

  Cake

  The Retreat

  Lost in the Fog

  Mercy

  Spider at the Well

  The Foundry

  Reins

  Nith’ath

  The Prince and the Threk

  The Road

  A Hard Man

  Burial

  Like a God

  Blue

  A Man with Three Eyes

  Hammer on Glass

  About the Authors

  PART ONE:

  THE WEAPON

  Farewell Gift

  The canvas tarp beat against the thick poles as the wind rose to a howl. Never again would Mi’et wake to the sound of a storm shaking the barracks. There’d be no more listening to the old coffeemaker choke every morning while the other Enforcers snored on. He wouldn’t hear the tell-tale thud of boots thumping in and out of the dingy place he’d called home for so long, or stand over the battered camp stove stirring eternal bean stew. Every sound and smell he’d associated with the Enforcers and Dogton would be left behind forever.

  I won’t miss any of it. Or them, either.

  Aware the others watched and waited for an answer he would not give, Mi’et scooped the canteen from the table and hooked it to his belt. Pain rippled along the ruined nerves in his right arm as he hoisted the heavy field pack. Adjusting the bag so it hung evenly against his broad back, he turned to go.

  “Leaving without even a single tear in your eye?” Eli Vorensi nudged the cell lantern hanging from the center beam. It creaked until he steadied it. “Why, I consider that rude, even for you. And who’s gonna cook for us? We can’t eat Garv’s cookin’; we’ll all die.”

  “Fuck you, Vore.” Kira Bolgarv rose from a rickety chair and gave it a hard kick. “Mi’et, say something. You haven’t let us know what’s going on since you came from Niles’s office last night. Are you going out to find Kaitar, or what?”

  “The Captain did say Kaitar was about due for one of his little breakdowns,” Vore added. “I suspect if Orin were still. . . with us. . . he’d have Mi’et goin’ out to fetch him home, anyway.”

  “Are you two gonna be back soon?” Garv asked.

  “Who’s gonna cook?”

  “I still want to know why Niles gave him permission to leave.”

  “He probably flexed those big muscles until Niles got all randy and ordered Mi’et outta town before he did somethin’ to shame himself.” Vore sighed. “Mi’et, are you really gonna leave us?”

  The two Enforcers continued firing off questions and Mi’et let them talk until their mouths ran dry. For two decades, he’d listened to them caw like crows over a garbage heap, and he’d grown tired of their noise. As the talk died away, he scanned the barracks for the last time. Beyond the annex, Zres Corrin lay on his bunk, sullen in grief. The boy had a blanket pulled close to hide his face. Crying again, Mi’et supposed. On another cot, Leigh Enderi sat watching him, one arm bracing her side where Lein Strauss had cracked a rib. She’d found a different sort of blanket to hide herself in—cold dignity. She lifted her chin when she noticed him staring and looked as though she might speak. But then she turned, keeping her stony silence.

  Sulari. I should kill her before I go.

  Mi’et rejected the idea as soon as it entered his mind; if he went after Leigh Enderi, he’d be executed and would never find Kaitar Besh. He loosened the straps on the field pack and moved toward the exterior flaps separating the barracks from the outside world.

  Vore caught his arm. “Hey, don’t just walk out on us.”

  “Find someone else to do your chores.” Mi’et shoved the lanky Enforcer aside and shouldered past the heavy canvas without waiting to see if Vore had any retort to make. The wind slapped his face as he turned away from the barracks. Nearby, a red mule tied to a hitching post lifted her head at his approach. She didn’t so much as stamp a hoof under the heavy load of supplies tied to the saddle. For a long moment, the mule regarded him warily.

  Mi’et smirked. “Molly.”

  She curled her upper lip to catch his scent, swished her tail once, and then bobbed her muzzle as if shrugging. Mi’et tossed the field pack onto the saddle, untied the reins from the post with his good hand, and gave a tug. Molly hesitated, then plodded behind without a fuss.

  Ignoring armed Scrappers patrolling Dogton’s two lonely roads, Mi’et surveyed the damage the Bloom had wrought. The little town seemed the victim of a grainy, red paintbrush that had dipped its way across the landscape. Sand drifts taller than a man crowded against every shack and building, blocking windows and doors. A few roofs had been damaged by the storm, and the gate surrounding the town had collapsed on the western side. Many of the stalls in the marketplace were buried, and goods that hadn’t been barricaded in the warehouse lay strewn about, ruined. The Scrappers had reconnoitered other shops, leaving merchants to bunk together in whatever buildings remained unoccupied.

  Beyond the gates, the water-fields stood dry, the remaining crops destroyed, the irrigation system too damaged to pump water from the reservoir onto the dying plants. And that was only the outward damage; Toros had planted its own seeds in that storm, invisible to the eye but ready to take root and sprout. The Bloom would change the land, the people, the animals—all in small ways at first, but cascading over the years until even the humans would no longer be able to deny they were part of the world, and not masters of it.

  A small shop lay at the end of the main street, conspicuously clean and already repaired. The smell of leather, tallow, and dye drifted on the wind, making Mi’et’s nose itch. After wrapping Molly’s reins onto a post near the shop, he gave the mule an absent pat and turned to stare at the unpainted door. For a moment, he simply stood with his eyes fixed on the tarnished brass handle, his maimed hand curling into a fist. A phantom ache traveled from the two missing digits all the way to his shoulder.

  Do it.

  He knocked once. As the brass handle turned and the door opened wide, Mi’et found himself studying an intricate pattern on an expertly tooled belt. Onyx and bluestone beads shone from the leathe
r, inlaid around a pattern resembling desert flowers.

  I know those plants. Shaman’s Braid and Dusk Eye.

  “My shop is closed. Evrik Niles isn’t allowing any business until it’s certain the Bloom is over.”

  Mi’et tore his gaze from the belt. “You know the Bloom is over. Evrik Niles is a fool.”

  Anaz’dalo’s pupils contracted to slits as frown lines appeared on his leather-brown forehead. “The shop is closed. I’ve work to do. Go away.”

  Mi’et caught the door just as Anaz’dalo slammed it in his face. The old Shyiine strained and shoved, but Mi’et braced himself until Anaz’dalo stepped back, glaring.

  “Why are you here? You’re not welcome in my shop.”

  “I’m going. Will you come with me?”

  Without speaking, Anaz’dalo shuffled back inside, long, gray braids swaying with each step. Mi’et followed, bumping through the gloom. The smell of leather permeated everything, thick and warm, laced with an odor that was distinctly Shyiine. Various leather working tools—awls, knives, needles, and scrapers—lay neatly arranged on a small workbench. A pile of soap made from rendered fat, oil, and lye was bundled next to a small pot. Drying herbs hanging above a covered window added their own earthy fragrance. Mi’et paused to touch one of several cured snakeskins dangling from a beam. They were stuffed with dried meat, dates and honey mixed with rendered fat; traveling food, stored in the old Shyiine way, and favored by scouts always on the move.

  A cell flicked on, throwing a long shadow over the walls. Anaz’dalo held a lantern in one hand, and a bone-handled knife flashed in the other.

  Mi’et waited, the scars along his right arm ached all the way down to where two of the fingers should have been. He could still feel them sometimes, as though his body had not yet realized those digits were twenty-three years digested. Perhaps they had been stuffed along with the threk in Neiro’s office, still waiting for him in the beast’s preserved belly.

  After a long moment Anaz’dalo sheathed the knife at his belt. “I am waiting for my daughter.”

  “They put a bounty on her and Gairy Reidur for betraying Dogton.”

  “It was Niles and those Scrappers that betrayed Dogton, not Senqua. That bounty cannot be collected. When Avaeliis reinstates Neiro, it will be called off.”

  Mi’et snorted. “Avaeliis never cared about us, and Neiro might be dead. You know that. If Senqua comes here, the Scrappers will shoot or hang her.”

  Anaz’dalo’s chin jerked as though he might fly into a rage or begin to sob, but his voice was steady as he spoke. “I’ve no time for this. What do you want?”

  “I want to buy all of the stuffed snakeskins from you. A threk-hide coat, too, if you have one made that will fit Kaitar.” Mi’et motioned to the door. “Come with me. We’ll find him in two days at most; I know where he’s gone off to. Then, we’ll look for Senqua and go to the Belt together. No Shyiine should stay here now.”

  “I have a coat ready, and boots as well. Kaitar wanted them made and I finished the order just after he left with the Junker and the Sulari woman.” The old leatherworker nudged past with a grunt, stooped near a workbench, and produced a pair of snakeskin riding boots and a large bundle from underneath.

  “Take these to him,” he said. “Kaitar already paid me for it, anyway. And you can take the snakes hanging there, too. They were part of that order.”

  “You’re not coming with us, then?”

  “No.”

  Mi’et took the offered bundle and cradled it to his chest. It weighed several pounds, at least, too heavy for even a thick, threk-hide duster. When he pushed aside the coat sleeve and saw what had been wrapped inside, his jaw tightened.

  A miet.

  Meant to fit over the arm, the Excerii armored miet—the weapon the Sulari had named him for—glistened, black as a scorpion’s tail. The long hook curved perfectly along the length of his palm. Mi’et caressed it, remembering the first time he’d worn one on the day Prince Gah’leen had tossed him into the sparring pit to train. Kaitar had been a cull then, too. When Kaitar had finally been goaded enough to fight back, the blow had sent a pain all the way up Mi’et’s jaw and loosened a tooth.

  “Mi’et.”

  The memories burned away like fog under a desert sun. Gripping the bundle tighter, he nodded at the older man. “You made this. It can’t be the same one I wore all those years ago. Why?”

  “Because it’s a coward’s weapon, and you a coward’s death.” Anaz’dalo’s red eyes glowed faintly against the dim light like fire-lit rubies. The cell lantern in his hand shook, making the shadows dance across the walls. “If you two make it across the Belt, the Shyiine will kill you. They have no need of you or Kaitar Besh.”

  Anger pricked Mi’et for the first time since stepping inside the leatherworker’s shop. “And you should hope your daughter does not come back here. The Scrappers will hang her if she does. They’ll kill you soon, too.”

  Anaz’dalo lunged at him, his bone-handled knife a silver streak. The blade nicked Mi’et’s throat just below his chin and hovered there, ready to slice deep. Blood dripped down his neck and onto his yalei and staining it red.

  “Are you going to kill me, or are you going to keep hiding in this cage until they string your daughter up by the neck?”

  Anaz’dalo spat in his face.

  Mi’et wiped away the spit. Laughter bubbled at the back of his throat, mingled with an unfathomable shame. “That’s your answer then? You’d rather keep hiding in this shop, letting yourself be kicked like a dog.”

  Anaz’dalo sheathed the knife. “You are one to speak of hiding. Go. Never come back here. If you do, I’ll kill you.” He lifted his chin, turned, and shuffled toward the back of his little shop without saying more. Gripping a tattered curtain hanging above the doorway, the old man bared his teeth briefly before vanishing. The scant light filtering through the curtain went dark as the lantern clicked off.

  Mi’et fingered his nicked throat.

  Goodbye.

  One by one, he pulled the snakes from the rafters and draped them over his shoulder. Then, he took a square of soap and left. He expected to feel remorse, maybe even sorrow, but could not quite muster those emotions; perhaps the Sulari had left his heart as scarred and useless as his right arm.

  It’s for the best. I waited too long. I should have left days ago. Years, perhaps.

  He made no more stops and spoke to no one as he led Molly out of Dogton. The gates squealed behind them, echoing for miles over the desert, blending with the wind until it sounded like the wailing of lost souls.

  Kestrel

  As the sun broke over the horizon, the tiles along the domed roof blazed orange and gold. Despite her unwillingness to look back, Senqua found herself staring. From where she stood, it seemed two suns crowned the sky in perfect reflection of each other. And—just as that sight had in her youth—the dazzling beauty of the Sun Plaza made her wonder how such an evil people could create such a marvel.

  The imprint stayed burned in her vision as she turned north. After blinking to clear her eyes, the distant Senbehi came to focus, looming hazy and huge. Between her and those mountains lay hundreds of miles of arid, red desert, dotted with thorny scrub and dry gullies.

  “The Plaza was a beautiful place once,” Aizr-hin said as he marched past, swinging a battered Pumer rifle over his shoulder. His goat-wool coat hung too short for his tall frame, but he sauntered along as though he were wearing a silken robe. “I used to love coming to see it as a boy. I must confess, it doesn’t look so glorious now.”

  Senqua ducked her head to hide a scowl.

  “It wasn’t so beautiful cleaning up the mess you Sulari left,” Gairy muttered. He sweated as he plodded along, a cloud of dust rising with each heavy footstep. Numerous canteens hung from his belt and more clattered from rawhide straps tied to his wide shoulders.

  “Bet you won’t own up to that part, though,” he added.

  Senqua sighed. “Gairy, don’t—” />
  He cut her off with a stormy look. “This is half your fault. I should have known that old man wasn’t gonna give me the bottle. Now, that Sulari’s got it, and all because you kept insistin’ I would drink it before we hit the Foundry.”

  Senqua forced herself to walk more quickly. Her legs ached from the exertion as she caught up with Aizr-hin. “Don’t give him the bottle, even if he threatens you.”

  “I promised my father the He-Goat wouldn’t have it until he took me all the way to the Foundry. You have no need to worry, little She-Snake. I keep my word.” He grinned and swatted at a fly humming near his head. “Especially when that promise is to my father.”

  Gairy snorted audibly. “You keep your word to an old man you just left to die in that ruin? Heh. If that’s how Sulari treat their families—”

  “You’re treading on loose sand, Druen.” Aizr-hin’s dark eyes flashed. “It is one thing to make a little fun of me, but don’t question my love for my sire.”

  Without losing a step, Senqua pivoted on her heels and pointed at the half-Druen. “You, of all people, have no right to question anyone else’s integrity! And you would drink that whiskey, Nith’ath and all.”

  “Not your business what I do.”

  “It is my business. I’m out here because of you. I was almost shot by Scrappers because of you. And now, because of you, I’m stuck in a deal with a Sulari. I’m only doing this because the Junkers may help Dogton.”

  “She has a point, He-Goat,” Aizr-hin said. “You—”

  Senqua whirled to face him. “Say our names. He’s not a goat, and I’m not a snake.”

  The Sulari prince merely cocked a brow and inclined his head without comment. Quickening his step, he shifted the weight of the big rifle to the other shoulder. Grit powdered his coat until it looked more red than gray. Sweat glistened against his blue-black skin, but he gave no sign of being winded.