Page 59 of Chained Knight

Heads down,hooves clicking on shards of black gravel, the equines walked. The chain to their left scintillated at irregular intervals, a blood-red glow tightening each link as it passed. Which was disconcerting, true, but no more so than anything else in this place. The route twisted, hairpinned, and zigzagged between spires, and Ari was soon hopelessly turned around. Each passageway looked identical, especially in the dark—sheer obsidian sides vanishing overhead, passageways branching on either side, a few stars glimmering between crowded fangpoints, sharp-glinting pebbles underfoot, the dry wind singing, musical creaks, and occasional violent shatterings in the distance.

“Glassfalls.” Darjeth roused enough to explain, when the first sound of breakage gave Ari a violent start. “The Spires sometimes break, my lady, but the guide will keep us from such danger.”

She hoped he was right. Imagining vast sheets of glossy, razor-edged stone calving off glacier-style was terrifying.

Their halts were brief, and Ari was glad of the starry darkness when she had to somehow haul herself onto the white equineonce more; at least nobody could clearly witness her lack of grace. The moon didn’t rise far, lingering near the horizon, and wondering about whatever fucked-up astronomical rhythm this place had was a waste of energy.

Sometimes you just had to go with the weirdness. She was getting a lifetime’s worth of experience inthatdepartment.

Occasionally deeper shadows flitted overhead, long sinuous shapes with frilled wings blotting out the stars. “Windsnakes,” Keners said softly during a short break, when he noticed her staring nervously upward. “So long as we stay near the guide, they are little danger. They have learned to fear it, and taught their brood to do so as well.”

Which was great, but Ari still flinched each time she noticed the drift-fluttering shadows. And when the sound of giant blackglass sheets hitting the ground vibrated underfoot, as well. Some were too near for any comfort.

Darjeth didn’t complain, but his breathing grew shallow and getting him out of the saddle took all three of his companions. He apologized for the trouble each time—until he didn’t, barely conscious, his eyes nearly closed. Hannixe’s heart-shaped face grew grave in the gloom, and she applied the last of the poultice herbs to his wound in a thick paste made with a scant dribble of canteen water.

Keners often sniffed the breeze wandering through the Spires, tense and alert, the streak at his temple glowing. With his sharp nose and quick movements, he did indeed look the fox they named him.

The night wore on. Ari’s throat ached, but she waved aside the canteen each time Hannixe offered. “Save it for Darjeth,” she said, finally, and the Grey Lady nodded.

She didn’t drink either, and the long considering look she shared with Ari felt like an old friend’s. The chain made a low metallic noise, tightening as another brief crimson pulse passedthrough; Keners helped his lady mount, then cupped his hands to help Ari as well. “Up,” he said, softly. “Morn comes, my queen. Take heart.”

The last stretch seemed to take forever, the chain doubling and twisting between sharp-edged folds. The crashing of calved glass-sheets intensified, some shatteringly close, and the chain’s pulses grew more frequent. The frilled, sinuous flying shadows lingered; Ari glimpsed the glitter of eyes on a few of them, alight with pale blue foxfire very like the Small Pavilion’s lamp-flame.

Then she realized she could see Keners’s equine in front of her, and Darjeth’s beside him. Hannixe to her right was visible instead of a mere indistinct shadow, and the pale smears clutching her own reins were Ari’s aching hands, glowing in the dim grey of approaching dawn.

The Spires sang a long, low mournful note. Keners pulled rein, his head up, and Darjeth’s equine followed suit. The blond man slumped in the saddle, either not noticing the lack of movement or too exhausted to care.

“Never the same way twice,” the Fox said. “And we have moved slowly indeed. Yet…”

Ari peered past him. The chain reached a tall wooden post past the final obsidian skyscraper to their left, an iron snake rising to terminate in another carved eyelet. Just beyond, a long bare slope full of scattered glass-gleaming pebbles and other small gravel ran downhill to an amber-tinted ribbon—the Road, it looked like, led even here. Its auriferous gleam cut through a flat landscape reduced to greyscale rendering, all color drained. Indistinct and arid, the plain looked… unhealthy.

Drained, she thought.Sucked dry.

A line of whitish glow along the horizon showed where the sun was struggling up; the moon hung low too, huge in perspective though no less perfect and unstained.

“Is that…” Ari shivered.

“The Conjunction is nigh,” Hannixe confirmed. “There lies the Mirrored City, home of the Bright King and source of his Blight.”

It was difficult to tear her gaze from the dawn, but as Ari focused she saw a vast vengeful glitter at the Road’s northern terminus. High mercury-colored walls restrained a swelling bulge of reflective surfaces full of what little illumination empty sky and depleted plain could manage. Come actual daylight the entire thing would no doubt flame like an infected blister; she blinked several times, trying to make sense of the shapes in the middle distance.

“And there,” Keners added, “the army of the faithless accursed. He is expecting visitors, it seems.”

The Fox was right. Rank upon rank of Golden stood before the bright-polished walls, their horned heads swiveling. Between their neatly regimented squares other shapes cringed and writhed, moving restlessly; plaintive moans lingered just at the edge of hearing. Ari sensed the wet nasty slapping of their swollen paws, though the susurration was too far away to be truly audible. The plain was crawling with all manner of sickening shapes, and Ari was suddenly, nauseatingly certain she had made the wrong decision, that Darjeth was going to die and the monsters below were about to notice three intruders on a hill, charging up to welcome their enemies in a gleaming, rotting wave.

A rim of fire touched the edge of the world, its angry flush breaking bland uncolor. The vast crunches of glassrock shattering from the Spires ceased for a breathless moment as the guide-chain ran with bright crimson. Another rumble of thunder sounded, though the sky was innocent of any cloud; the scree on the slope moved uneasily, like a pan of popcorn kernels in hot oil just before the real fun begins.

“Is that the Conjunction?” Ari whispered.

“No.” Keners shook his dark head and glanced to their right, the stripe at his temple flickering. “’Tis rage, my lady queen, that of your first companion. Naught rouses it but a threat to his lady, and any true knight shares the feeling.”

Oh.Ari shifted in the saddle, feeling disheveled, aching, worn out.

And very, very frightened.

The sun’s first limb boiled free, sky-lakes bursting into flame. Rumbling increased, stones on the slope pop-jumping wildly though none approached their small group, and the Spires suddenly shrieked as a cold gust blew through the entire collection of polished obsidian fangs. The road blazed bright gold, bloody streaks crackling along its flow, and the sound of galloping hooves shook cringing air.

Another red gleam appeared opposite the Mirrored City, the space where the Road vanished alive with glitters of lightning. The hoof-growl crested, and so did the thunder.

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