GHOSTS IN THE GLASS Page 4

  He reached into the top drawer, rummaging inside, and something scrapped against the wooden interior.

  He’s going to shoot me. I’ve killed myself with my own temper.

  Niles yanked a slim, black object from the desk and pointed it at her. It flickered brightly, a familiar chime buzzing in her ears: Veraleid. Bringing you closer to the future.

  Glaring at the VDA as though it were some nasty bug, Niles said, “The numbers are all in there. I looked them over. Take it. See? I’m not as dumbfuck as your Sulari ass thinks. I know what I’m doin’. I ran Glasstown, didn’t I?”

  Rows of numbers glowed up at Leigh, detailing water production, consumption and projected use for the next year. She moved her thumb across the screen, scanning information on town population, Scrappers included. Each citizen’s water share was listed, too; most people had a few barrels to their name, though a few had nearly a hundred owed them by contract.

  “It’s all mine, by rights,” Niles said. “And I’ve got half a mind to clean it out and head to Glasstown with it in the spring. Dogton ain’t all Neiro made it out to be with all his bullshit talk.”

  Leigh tossed the VDA onto the desk. “If you do that, Glasstown will be the next to fall. Dogton is in an ideal location. The springs in the foothills are siphoned directly into our reservoir. It’s what we use for the water-fields.”

  “I know that, you dumb bitch.”

  “Then I fail to see why I am sitting here speaking to you. If you know, then you know how to fix the impending crises before it happens.”

  “You’re a prisoner, don’t forget it. Until I decide this town is stable and has accepted the change of power, you and those other Enforcer shits will be the first to go if anyone so much as farts in my direction. The Scrappers will carry out those orders. Hell, Jess Karraetu would be happy to give them.” Niles leaned back so hard the chair squeaked. “Now, I’m gonna put you to work. I got enough to do gettin’ stuff in order for Avaeliis. Neiro’s bitch sister is supposed to be here sometime before summer. Right now, you’re in charge of inventory and makin’ sure the water pump stays runnin’. If it fails, you’re in charge of fixing it or findin’ another way.”

  Leigh swallowed a hot lump of anger. “I need more help than Vore, Zres, and Garv to do that. You let Mi’et leave, and he was the one who kept the inventory in the warehouse, but there are people in town who could use the work and will do it happily—if you pay them in clean gallons.”

  “They’ll get paid,” Niles said with a smirk. “So long as you keep the water flowin’. You’re Sulari, you oughta know how power works. None of those princes or their sluts ever got their hands dirty, did they? They had more important matters to work on. Political deals. Trade deals. Alliances with other powerful men.” His eyes narrowed dangerously. “It’s the slaves that did all the work, and right now, you might as well consider yourself one. I’ll even put a chain on you, if you want. Might be Avaeliis would turn a blind eye to a new slave cartel.”

  “They wouldn’t turn a blind eye if you run the town into another Nal’ves or Bywater.”

  “Talk like that’ll get you tossed in jail for treason.”

  Leigh stood. The sound of the chair scraping over the floor filled the room and made her skin crawl. “I will cooperate. Not for you, Evrik Niles, or because I’m afraid of being in the jailhouse, but because I know what a squatter town is like. I will not let Dogton become one.”

  “You think I would? Think again.” Niles slid a hand atop the dead threk’s bristling head, but Leigh hardly noticed his sneer; the stuffed beast was every bit as awful as the two threk that followed Kaitar Besh, their eyes bright as suns, scales gleaming molten copper in the moonlight. The ghostly odor of burning flesh filled her nose, so sudden and strong she almost gagged.

  No! The only monster in this room is Evrik Niles, and he’s nothing compared to what I saw in the desert.

  “You can go,” Niles said.

  “Why did you want Dogton? Tell me that before I go. Wasn’t Glasstown enough? You had an easy life there. No worries about Avaeliis or Scrappers who would rather be out hunting bandits than garrisoned in a town where there’s not enough water.”

  “Get out.”

  She left him sitting behind the desk, restlessly toying with the threk’s grimy feathers. As the heavy door clicked shut, Leigh wished with all her heart Orin and Gren were there to help take up the burden Evrik Niles had dropped at her feet. But they were gone—blown away, perhaps, by the same ill wind that had driven Kaitar into the desert and scattered the ashes of a nightmare named Lein Strauss.

  Den

  Bones littered the path outside the Al’Daree manse, and countless more lay buried by the Bloom, moldering. A smell of old death drifted on the wind. There had not been as many dead things the last time Mi’et had come to the empty estate fifteen years before, but now it seemed frequent catastrophes had happened there, leaving grisly reminders. Cautiously, he guided the nervous mule past a half-buried ribcage, hoping she would not balk and refuse to go further. Molly didn’t shy away, though her long ears swiveled with each step.

  Are there cannibals hiding here? Does she smell them?

  But that didn’t make sense; bandits and cannibals avoided the manse. Too many stories of ghosts and strange happenings had given the place a reputation gruesome enough to scare off even the most ruthless outlaws. Some spoke of the ghost of Madev Al’Daree haunting the grounds, while other stories added Ohrain—Kaitar’s father—into the mix. Rumors persisted, too, of Nah’gatt in the form of twin sisters, preying on hapless caravaneers who wandered too near. A monstrous black bird was said to sometimes fly over the manse, carrying the names of the dead to whatever hell awaited them.

  Mi’et didn’t believe in any of those stories, but as he led Molly across the vast, bone-ridden estate, he saw evidence more tangible than ghost stories—tracks. Tucking the mule’s reins in his disfigured hand, he knelt and traced the claw marks, each as wide as his palm and long as his foot.

  Threk.

  Another print marred the dust nearby, slightly smaller than the first, but otherwise identical. All were fresh and un-scathed by wind.

  A pair of them. This is their home den, then. And this is where Kaitar came to.

  His throat tightened with an emotion too loose and vague to be called fear, but close kin to it. Mi’et stood and, without realizing it, leaned against the sorrel mule. Molly grunted softly and tossed her head, ears flattened in equine reproach. He hardly noticed the animal’s annoyance, however; his eyes fixed on a smooth, round shape peeking from behind a stone, and his heart skipped a beat. But the bits of flesh and tufts of hair sticking to the skull were too pale to belong to a Shyiine, so Mi’et left it lying there without further inspection.

  The sun had taken on a vivid, bright-orange glare, heralding a dusk soon to fall. Several hundred yards in the distance, the Al’Daree manse wedged upward from the desert, cutting a long shadow across the barren land. The high wall surrounding the palace stood intact, too strong for the wind to break or the sun to crack, but the tarnished bronze gates were gone. Taken, probably, by bandits after the fall of the Sulari and before the big threk had claimed the territory. Fruit trees, once laden with riberry, Senbehi plum and thorn lime, raked the sky with bare branches, where only a few stubborn leaves remained in defiance of the desert wind. The dust in Mi’et’s mouth suddenly tasted sour.

  Chirrrup!

  Something in the dead grove moved, half-hidden beneath the shadow of the largest tree. Molly snorted, her powerful front legs going stiff as her head jerked up, long ears pricked forward.

  Mi’et slid along the loose sand as the reins ripped from his grasp. He reached for them, missed, and almost lost his footing as Molly’s shoulder bumped hard against his hip. His boot collided with a delicate femur poking from the ground, sending it skidding. The sorrel mule pranced backward, nostrils wide, head bobbing. One hoof stamped down an inch from his foot. Mi’et growled under his breath and caught
the bridle. As he stroked the mule’s soft muzzle, her hot breath tickled his palm.

  “You know these threk? I think you do. I think Kaitar does, too.”

  Molly pressed close, ready to bolt, her muscles twitching. Stillness crept over the grove. Mi’et studied the beasts, and they stared back, alert, eyes burning in the lengthening shadows. Twelve feet from nose to tail, they were even larger than the ancient specimen Neiro Precaius had on display in his office.

  Then, a sparrow began singing its bedtime song. The thin note pierced high into the air, breaking whatever spell held time hostage. One threk yawned wide, its long, venom-wet teeth catching the evening sunlight. It lowered its head to resume napping. The other predator continued to watch them at leisure, but made no move to attack.

  “They’re not interested in eating you right now.” Mi’et patted Molly’s neck and tugged the bridle. “But if you know any other secrets Kaitar’s keeping, best to tell me, Molly.”

  Molly’s ears swiveled as he spoke, listening. She lipped his yalei and took a hesitant step forward, then another. As they walked, Mi’et glanced back several times to make sure the threk were not following, but both had gone back to sleep. Neither stirred as he and the mule passed the grove.

  He led Molly through the broken gate and beyond the palace yard. Mi’et paused, scanning the withered garden that had once been lush and green in a region where that shade was almost unheard of. The pool in the center had long since evaporated in the desert sun, leaving only dirty, cracked marble behind. How much water had Madev Al’Daree and the other Sulari wasted during their rule? And had they ever regretted all that water they’d sprinkled so carelessly on their exotic flowers as they watched their children splash through fountains?

  Mi’et did not know.

  They left the courtyard to its eternal silence and made their way between tall sandstone pillars and through the horseshoe arches. Like the front gate, the manse’s carved, ornate doors were conspicuously missing. Those empty spaces stared back at him, hiding secrets from the sun underneath the domed roof. Beckoning.

  “She’s down here,” the wind seemed to whisper. “Your half-sister. Do you remember her?”

  Mariyah.

  Mi’et forced himself to look away from the vaulted doorways. It would do no good to go and see now; they were only bones, not his sister. Not Madev, either. He could not save those bones in that cell and he could not kill the bones scattered inside at the dining hall, for they already belonged to death. Or perhaps they belonged to Kaitar Besh, who might have acted in death’s place that day, whether he would admit it or not.

  The hush continued as they neared the back of the Al’Daree estate, broken only by the scuffing of Molly’s hooves against the stone path. Even the wind died to a mere whisper, as soft and mournful as the tired breathing of old ghosts. They passed more columns and came near a pavilion, which had once sported a gilded tile walkway. The tiles had chipped in places and were missing all together in other spots. Beyond the pavilion and the walkway, marble benches lined a sandy pit, too heavy to be carried off or ruined by sun and wind. The benches had always reminded Mi’et of blunt teeth surrounding a forty-foot mouth yawning from the desert. That gritty mouth had chewed up more than a few slaves and drank its share of blood. Not even the Bloom, in all its fury, could close it completely.

  Molly lifted her head as she caught a scent on the wind, nickering softly. Without being urged, she nudged past, daintily picking her way around rubble. Mi’et followed, wind tickling his cheek as he stepped beyond the pavilion toward the gaping, sandy maw.

  “Ohrain should be there,” the breeze hissed. “Waiting in that pit with his yatreg. Telling you over and over again that you are nothing but a weapon, until it is the only thing you can think to say.”

  He’s gone. Thirty years or more now.

  The wind laughed. “Oh? But do you remember Gah’leen and his whip, tapping it against your back, promising if you did not learn he’d personally flay your mother alive?”

  He nodded that yes, he did remember Gah’leen and his whip.

  “What did they do to you there, Mi’et?”

  Mi’et did not answer. Instead, he came close to Molly and slid an arm around her neck so her head rested on his shoulder. She seemed to be scanning the area with wary interest, and he wondered if she could sense the stain of death in that sand.

  “Go and find him.”

  Molly trotted away, circling the depression cautiously. When she came to the lowest wall—no more than three feet where the Bloom had piled sand taller than a man—she jumped down with sure-footed ease. One of the stuffed snakes fell from the saddle as her front hooves hit the loose earth. Molly brayed, the discordant notes echoing through the archways and far over the desert.

  In the pit, a figure stirred, dust-red and so covered with sand it seemed a part of that earth. Mi’et craned his neck and nodded in silent approval.

  Still alive then. Good. Now I have to remind him of that fact.

  Kaitar rolled to his side and lay motionless. The scout’s chest rose and fell in a shallow, slow rhythm, but he didn’t move as the red mule nudged his bony shoulder with her inquisitive nose.

  Mi’et studied the gaunt, silent figure, considering the best way to proceed. If he made his presence known too early, Kaitar would balk entirely. Refuse to get up. Perhaps even kill himself with one of his own yatreg. But if he waited too long and dusk fell, the threk would come hunting, and there would be no chance of leaving the Al’Daree estate alive.

  Mi’et moved to the place the mule had made her descent, and jumped in. When his boots hit the ground, making his legs ache in a familiar way, his pulse beat faster. He imagined laughter and jeering, could smell sweat and blood and the heat of a noon sun, and tasted the salty sting of threk venom tea in his mouth. Only dimly aware he had crossed the length of the pit, Mi’et knelt, pushed Molly’s nose away, and jabbed Kaitar’s shoulder with stiffened fingers.

  “Get up.”

  Beneath the heavy tangle of grit-powdered hair, Kaitar’s face looked sharper than ever, as if the skin there had been stretched too tight. He made no response.

  “Get up or I will drag you to your feet. Your mule is here. I brought her.”

  A muffled grunt. Molly’s shadow fell over the Shyiine, but Mi’et nudged her aside again and she busied herself nosing at Kaitar’s boots.

  “So, you’re just going to curl up and die. Heh.” He scowled. “Look at you. Filthy, skinny, lying there like one of the culls. Ohrain might have been right about you after all.”

  Nothing.

  Mi’et stood and placed a broad boot against Kaitar’s side, then rolled the smaller man to his back with a grunt. The Shyiine flopped over, spread eagle, staring up with an expression of weary defiance.

  “I’m going to pull you to your feet.”

  Kaitar’s cracked lips parted with a moan.

  “Say it louder. I can’t hear you.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Not today, but it’s good to hear you cursing me.” Mi’et smiled. A flicker of feeling—almost strong enough to be called relief—touched the edges of long- practiced apathy. He gave Kaitar’s cheek a hard pat, then gripped the scout’s yalei and pulled him upward. Kaitar’s head rolled to the side, exposing the bruises and scrapes marring his thin face. His nose bore a new scar high on the bridge, half-healed and brighter than the coppery skin around it. The scout groaned, pushing syllables from his mouth with an effort that must have taken every bit of strength left in the starved body.

  “Go. . .away. . .”

  Mi’et grasped his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “You’re angry. Good. It means you’re not dead yet. Angry men don’t die easily; do you remember that lesson?”

  Kaitar’s eyelids drooped lower.

  Mi’et pushed the hair from his face and slapped the other cheek, leaving a red welt. “No. Look at me. Do you remember? You want to put a yatreg in me. It’s right at your belt. Why don’t you try?”

>   Kaitar lifted a trembling hand, but it fell back into the dust, his fingers twitching like the legs of a dead spider. Beneath the ragged, blue yalei, his shoulders shook. “Stop. Go away.”

  “No.”

  “You were. . .you were supposed to take care of Molly.”

  “I did; she’s here.” Mi’et motioned toward the mule, who took it as a signal to come close again. Molly’s warm breath washed over them as she lowered her long muzzle.

  Kaitar reached for the animal, but his weary gaze never shifted. “Fuck you. You know I meant in Dogton.”

  “No, we—” The words cut short as the pain in his bad arm swelled suddenly, making a vein pulse in his temple as the sensation roared through his body. Mi’et clamped his teeth on his tongue, tasted blood, and drank it down along with the rising urge to scream. Every muscle along his right side knotted in white sheets of agony. As quickly as it had come, the spasm ebbed to a dull ache. He would need threk venom tea soon, and so would Kaitar Besh.

  Taking a deep breath, he said, “Dogton is gone to us. Niles took it. Orin’s dead. Neiro might be dead, I don’t know. I don’t care. But it’s gone to us.”

  Kaitar stared out from beneath his hair, eyes going wide as some of the dullness there evaporated. “What?”

  Mi’et wrapped his arms around the gaunt body and heaved. “Get up. It’s getting dark and we should go. We’ll leave here and have some tea, and you can have an ash and sand bath if you want. Or soap. I brought some of that, too.”

  “Orin. . .” The Shyiine’s legs jerked feebly as he tried to gain his feet. “He’s dead?”

  “Two. . . almost three weeks ago. Niles shot off a static round. Brought the Bloom in. Orin got hit with it, and so did Neiro and the Mechinae.” Mi’et shrugged. The scout’s slight weight pressed against his side. “Niles has no use for Enetics. I told him I wanted to leave, and he let me go.”