GHOSTS IN THE GLASS Page 19

  “No. I told her to stay in the shack. I told her!”

  “Do you know how hard it is to break the loyalty of a Shyiine once they’ve decided you are a friend?” Aizr-hin arched his brows.

  “We ain’t—” Gairy began, but a horrible guilt cut him off before he could finish.

  Erid started the rover, impatience written all over his dirty face. “He won’t listen. He’s a turncoat.”

  “True enough, but I must have my say, Erid, or I will always regret I did not speak it.” Aizr-hin reached into his coat pocket. “You’ve done what even my father could not do with his slaves. I don’t know what you ever did to make her care for you, and I cannot see any reason why she should, but now you’ve broken that. Even Mi’et and Kaitar Besh were friends through their slavery despite beating each other near to death. My father wrote poetry about their last fight and how. . . ah, but I digress. Forgive me. What you did? It was worse than a beating in a pit. My father would have liked to know how you managed it.”

  “I tried to help her,” Gairy said lamely. He gripped the roll cage, pressing against the vehicle, desperate. “I told her to stay in the shack. I didn’t want to see her hurt.”

  Erid jammed the rover into gear. “Don’t touch my dad’s Draggin. Get your hands off it, or I’ll run you down like I did the Scrapper.”

  Gairy stepped away from the rover. “Erid, I didn’t mean for your old man to get killed. I didn’t think they’d do anything but keep him in Pirahj until it was over in Dogton, then send him back.”

  Erid’s face flushed crimson. “But they did do something to him.”

  “You deserve this, Gairy Reidur.” Aizr-hin reached across the front seat and shoved something at him, cool and rectangular; golden Saltang.

  “I relieve you of your obligation. Erid and I are going to the Foundry.”

  Gairy gripped the bottle, still warm to the touch where the Sulari had held it. He traced the pale, segmented shape floating in the amber liquid. The Nith’ath seemed to smile at him with its long, jagged teeth.

  “One drink,” his thirst whispered soundlessly.

  Cold sweat prickled along Gairy’s scalp. From beneath the brim of his hat, he peered at the ten-year-old boy in the driver’s seat. “He’s a squatter, Erid. A Sulari. And you’re takin’ him to the Foundry and leavin’ me here.”

  “Aerby likes him,” Erid said. “Aerby didn’t like the Scrapper, and he doesn’t like you, either. I trust my dog. He knows when people are rotten.” The tires churned and the vehicle lurched forth. The boy did not look back as the Draggin picked up speed, heading north.

  “Good luck, Goat!” Aizr-hin raised a hand. “If you meet Senqua, send her my sincere apologies about what my people did to hers—before she slits your throat or shoots you, preferably!”

  The Sulari said something more, but the engine drowned out his voice. Dust obscured his dark face until it was nothing but a murky outline. Then, they were gone, and Gairy was alone with the Saltang. He ran his thumb along the glass bottle and tilted it so it glinted in the light. Bright morning sunlight as golden as the whiskey itself cast darts of light on his duster. The Nith’ath’s spines shimmered with a strange iridescence.

  Thirst nudged at his gullet. “Here I am. And here’s what you’ve been waiting for. It’s been two months now, ain’t it? You need a kiss, Eizen. A final goodnight kiss—then it’ll all be gone.”

  Gairy pressed the bottle to his forehead. The world took on hues of brown and amber, sloshing by as he tilted the bottle. He held it still and studied the thing inside. The Nith’ath’s six-inch body bumped against the glass with a soft tapping of spines.

  A tickle radiated along the back of his skull, growing with each passing second until the sensation became a dull pain. His mouth ached, his tongue felt plastered to his lips. Dry. A drought that had gone on too long and turned him into a desert.

  “I’m ready for this,” he said aloud. “I don’t deserve any better. They were right. All of them.”

  He twisted the cap between his fingers. The fiery sensation in his head hurt, and he wanted it to be gone. Licking his lips, he tossed the cap aside lifted the bottle.

  The Nith’ath moved again—not with a shifting of a tilted bottle, but of its own accord. It twisted, thumped hard against the glass, flexed its jaws, and spoke.

  “One drink.”

  For a heartbeat, the world went red and his skull seemed filled with Firebrand. Gairy flung the bottle, bellowing wordlessly. Whiskey sprayed against the front of his duster and droplets sparkled in the air as the bottle fell to the grass. The thing inside crawled toward the narrow bottleneck, trying to get out. Writhing. Squirming against the glass, screeching inside Gairy’s mind so loud he thought he’d gone mad.

  “Just one! One kiss, Eizen. Remember!”

  He jerked the ancient revolver from his belt, pulled the hammer back, and fired blindly. Glass shattered, catching the light and spraying across the sand, bright as sparks. The Nith’ath spattered into a twitching yellow-gray smear on the ground. Then, the gelatinous pile fell still against the spreading amber puddle.

  It was going to crawl down my fucking throat.

  For a long time, he stood there, his mind slowly going cool and quiet again. Just as he thought it was over, his stomach heaved. Dropping the gun, he vomited the meager contents of his belly onto the sand. When his stomach stopped trying to pile out of his throat, he stared at the watery vomit, smelling the sour stench of bile rising from the mess. Shakily, Gairy righted himself, picked up the revolver, and shoved it back into his belt.

  She’ll probably kill me when I find her.

  A few southbound steps became yards, and finally miles compiled beneath his worn boots. He did not look back.

  Cake

  A single gunshot echoed over the desert. Erid looked back, but Aizr-hin did not; he knew what that isolated blast meant, and had no desire to squint through the dust for a glimpse of the dead man.

  “That’s the end of the Druen, then.”

  Erid blinked once behind the grit-caked goggles. “Do you think he. . . shot himself?”

  “I think it is so, yes. He was very sick, and he did something very terrible. Some men, such as Lein Strauss, thrive on doing terrible things. Others are strong enough to change their ways and make amends. But not men who live in a bottle, Erid—and maybe it is better so. Perhaps Gairy Reidur is out of pain now, and the world has one less coward in it.”

  Erid’s chin puckered, but he did not cry. He gripped the steering wheel, his watery expression twisting to grim determination. Aizr-hin recognized the look—he’d seen it on many of the children in Bywater before, too hard and adult for the unlined face of youth. Only the very young and very old ever had that savage glint in their eyes, fixing blank stares ahead with no other thought than surviving the next day.

  “Erid, when you told us last night about what happened to Lein Strauss, did that Enforcer woman. . . Leigh. . .? mention she’d heard any news of Bywater?”

  The boy shook his head. “No, only that Strauss was dead, but he was trying to take them—her and Kaitar, I mean—back to Bywater.”

  “He did not usually bother taking captives. Killing was more his style.” Aizr-hin shrugged. “So long as he is dead, that’s an improvement already for Bywater, though it doesn’t change the fact we are starving there. There’s never enough water. My father held sincere hopes of help from the Junkers’ Union. You said your father was one, yes?”

  “Yes.” Erid’s jaw tightened. “He was. Most my family are Junkers. My grandpa Romero was one, too, but he died before I was born. Now, Grandma is married to Ham Elgin, the elected president of the Union. He’ll listen to you. My dad always said he was a decent guy. Bit of an uptight prick.” Erid flashed a nervous glance. “But decent.”

  Aizr-hin laughed. “I’ve heard worse from boys younger than you when speaking of their elders. Go on, Erid, I’m not going to scold you over it.”

  Though Ga’behz would have. I wonder if
he still lives, or if he followed my father to Sun’s palace.

  Erid smiled sheepishly. “You don’t act much like any squatter I’ve heard about. People usually say they’re cutthroats and thieves.”

  “Some of us are, and that’s because there’s no other way to get food or water.”

  Aerby nudged his dusty nose under Azir-hin’s hand, and he rubbed the dog’s floppy ears. No dogs were kept as pets in Bywater anymore. Aizr-hin remembered a few of his relatives kept dogs in the early days of their exile, but as the people starved, those beloved pets had all been eaten indiscriminately, one by one.

  “The Foundry will help once they hear the story,” Erid said. “They helped some of the slave refugees when. . . ” He trailed off, looking sheepish.

  “You mean to say, ‘when the Sulari were removed from power’. I was a little younger than you when it happened, and I never did understand why we had to leave our manse until I was much older.” Aizr-hin studied the distant dry steppes. “I’ve never been this far north.”

  “I came here once with Dad. We took the Draggin up to Glasstown and raced on the salt flats, then we went to the Foundry.”

  Erid eased the rover down a rocky incline. North, the land leveled, stretching into a broad sea of dry, withered grass that only da’mel and wild asses could survive off. Aizr-hin regarded the boy more closely; he handled the rover with a casual sort of nonchalance Aizr-hin supposed was common for Junker children. While Erid did not have the starved, hawk-keen wariness of a squatter youth, he was no pampered brat, either.

  Erid said, “I know the way. It’s pretty easy to find, and we’ve got a GPS on here anyway, just in case.”

  “Did you truly kill the Scrapper?”

  “He kicked Aerby and was going to shoot him.”

  “How did you do it?”

  For a moment, Erid didn’t reply. Aizr-hin wondered if the question would go unanswered, though he didn’t think the child had lied. If he had been a liar, there’d be bragging. Boys bragged to impress, but the act of killing a man cut beyond boyish arrogance, down to the soul, where it left a long scar. Aizr-hin had been no older than Erid when he’d killed a man, and hadn’t wanted to talk about it afterward, either.

  “I ran him over with the Draggin,” Erid said abruptly.

  “Ran him over?”

  “Aerby shit in the back, and J.T.—that was his name—stopped the rover and pulled him out. He kicked him and pulled his pistol on him and was gonna shoot him. ‘I told you if that dog shit in here I’d kill it.’ I remember him yelling that just before I put the Draggin’ in gear and just. . . hit him. I think it broke his neck.” He reached and scratched his dog’s neck with one hand, the other still planted firmly on the wheel. “He was an asshole.”

  “And a stupid one,” Aizr-hin agreed. “To leave you in the rover and not think something wouldn’t happen. But his stupidity is your good luck, Erid. Now you’re free.”

  “Yeah.” Erid shrugged. “But now Dad is. . . I miss Dogton.”

  “What was it like there before Evrik Niles came? I’ve heard many stories about it, but I have to assume most were rumors and wishful thinking.” Aizr-hin patted the canteen lying on the seat next to him, making it drum hollowly under his palm. “They say the water flows like the finest wine, so sweet it will make your mouth ache. Everyone has so much to eat there are great feasts every night. Chicken, pork. . .” He counted it off on his fingers. “. . . Da’mel cheese, goat cheese, milk, eggs.” Aizr-hin grimaced. “I’ve made myself hungry, Erid.”

  A grin tugged the corner of Erid’s mouth. “Dogton isn’t like that. I don’t have any eggs or cheese, but there’s lots of beans and Shyiine travel cake.” He motioned toward several packs piled in the back seat. “The cake makes Aerby shit a lot, though. He got into some of it and that’s why he made a mess in the rover.”

  “No great feasts in Dogton, then?” Aizr-hin reached for one of the field packs. He opened it and saw a dozen wrapped bundles of Shyiine cake, smashed into flat patties rather than stuffed into cured snakeskin for carrying. The smell of rendered fat, honey, and dates struck him all at once, achingly familiar. The last time he’d tasted one had been the morning they’d left the palace forever. Mi’et had brought the cakes and given them each one, saying it would be the last thing any Sulari would ever have from his hands. Aizr-hin remembered the fear as keenly as the taste of the sweet honey.

  I thought he was going to kill us. But he only watched us eat while Father wept. Then he left, and so did we.

  “Aizr-hin? Did you hear me?”

  “No, forgive me, boy. I was remembering something. What did you say?”

  Erid fumbled with a travel cake, steering with one hand and trying to push Aerby’s inquisitive nose from the field pack. “I was telling you about Dogton. We don’t have feasts very often. Once in a while. But everyone there works pretty hard—field work or blacksmithing or in the big warehouse. And the Enforcers work pretty much non-stop. Me and my dad always had something to fix. It was a good place, before Evrik Niles came.”

  “Just remember, Erid. . .” Aizr-hin took a bite. The rich taste made his eyes water with more than a pang of chronic hunger. “Things change. Evrik Niles may not be in power forever. One day, Dogton may be a good place again.”

  The boy nodded thoughtfully, smiling, bits of date stuck in his teeth. “Maybe Bywater will be, too. A good place, I mean.”

  The food hit his belly like a stone. Aizr-hin wrapped the un-eaten portion and shoved it into the pack. “I intend to do my best to see that it is so. My father’s soul will never rest easily in the Sun’s glory until our people are safe.”

  Erid stared round at him, a frown wrinkling his forehead. From behind the goggles, his eyes appeared big and owlish. “Why. . .” He licked his lips. “Why did the Sulari do all the things they did? Take slaves and beat them, kill Estarian caravaneers that didn’t follow their mandates, that kind of stuff.”

  “Some would say it is human nature to do such things, though I personally believe there is more to it than that. My father always said Avaeliis had a part in it, and I believe him. How large a part, I don’t know.” He gripped the boy’s shoulder. “But I know this; Father held a secret hope that the Sulari would rise to power again one day.”

  “Do you have that hope?”

  I have a hope that I won’t have to drink my own water or eat bugs to keep from starving, Erid. I hope I don’t have to wear a coat that came from a man I had to kill before he killed me.

  It would not be proper for a prince to speak such ill-tidings aloud, though.

  “I’d like to see my people safe. I’d like to see trade start again, yes. However, I do not think the Sulari will ever rule in the desert in the same manner as before.”

  The boy didn’t relent. “But what if you do? Would you have slaves and make Estarians secondary citizens again?”

  Aizr-hin rubbed his chin, pretending to give great thought on the matter. He immediately knew the answer, but didn’t want to speak too quickly; Erid could be useful in swaying the Junker president, Ham Elgin, to his cause. He needed the boy’s friendship.

  At length, he inclined his head, speaking in the most grandiose, imperious tone he could manage. “I do not think it is wise to try to tame another person. No, Erid, I wouldn’t keep slaves. It ended in disaster for the Sulari once, and I know enough not to make the same mistake twice. As for the Estarians, I will sing praises in their honor for helping my people, not curse their names.”

  “So, you don’t want any slaves?”

  “The Shyiine—the Enetics—are far too dangerous to keep as pets, boy; no, I do not want any slaves.”

  Erid smiled. The rover sped north.

  The Retreat

  The charred ruins of the Dogton barracks smoldered in the red road like an awful memorial. A smoky odor lingered over the entire town, stifling as the faint scent of Lucy Corrin’s perfume. The flowery essence permeated the suites in the Dust Bin, where Leigh and the other two Enforce
rs had stayed since the fire. Never again would she listen to the gurgle of the old coffee pot, or stare up at the hated stain.

  Breathing through her mouth to avoid the stink, Leigh hurried past the spot. The quick steps made her side ache, but if she had to stand around and stare at the skeletal shapes of bunks and lockers, she’d begin to cry—or scream. A breeze stirred from the west, powdering everything with ash and making her shudder. Perhaps Lucy’s ghost caused that wind, or had it been Orin’s? Maybe even the twisted specter of Phineas Moad rode the hot breeze, preaching lies about a paradise no one would ever really see. The town would never be the same, even if Evrik Niles drank himself into a coma; there’d been too much death.

  The Scrapper named Markey called to her just as she reached the jailhouse. Leigh stepped inside and slammed the door, pretending not to have heard the summons. Karraetu’s men acted more impulsively by the day, and the commander himself seemed inclined to let a vicious chaos rule while Niles hid in the office, drinking. The Scrappers wanted to go run down bandits or patrol the edge of the Sand Belt for Shyiine, but could not. Despite the horrific events of the past two months, Dogton was too quiet a town for men with an underlying urge to kill.

  Leigh dug in the desk for the old key, her ears trained to the door, waiting for Markey bust in with some command. Mercifully, the door remained closed as she searched, fingers sliding over the dusty bottom drawer.

  The key was gone.

  She scanned the floor, hoping it had merely been dropped there. Nothing. A thump behind the interior door made her nearly lose grip on the bowl. Leigh caught it with the other hand.

  A voice spoke, slurred and muffled. “See. . . what I think is—”

  Niles. He must have been the one to take the key. Why is he here?

  “—we ought to just hang you and be done with it. You take up a lot of resources, and it’s clear Avaeliis don’t give a flyin’ fuck about sending a transport for your fishy ass.”