The Path to Loss (Approaching Infinity Book 4) Page 6

  He felt none of the intense heat rising up from the seemingly endless lava ocean which separated most of Thrax Palonis from Chan Fa’s territory. The ocean was a natural barrier to all, with only the strongest Shields possessing enough endurance to cover the distance under such adverse conditions. There was a rumor that Kels Ansrath had made the trip, but this was unsubstantiated.

  Chan Fa’s territory lay ahead now, a small island continent with the majority of its surface occupied by his walled castle city, and that half submerged within a cloud lake, which spun like a tethered pinwheel, perhaps hemmed in by the heat of the ocean or by other, unknown means. This territory was different from all the others, unique in that it was the birthplace of all the Shields of Thrax Palonis. The society responsible for creating the Shields was long-dead, their arts forgotten, but their legacy lived on. Lustrous black iron walls, immune to rust, stood forty meters high and twenty meters thick to form a square perimeter from which great cube towers rose to greater heights. Everything was of the same smooth, black iron. Peshil couldn’t help but think that the world was unbalanced on its axis with so much metal, surely more than half of all there was to be had on Thrax Palonis, right here in one place.

  Peshil stopped above the castle city in his dragon form. He had no way of knowing how to make himself known to Chan Fa, what might incense him, what would be acceptable to him. After only a moment’s hesitation, he cried out to the unmanned gates, “Chan Fa, the Everliving! I am Gim Peshil, the Light Smith! I come seeking audience!”

  As there was no response for several minutes, Peshil guessed that his call had gone unheard. For the first time since dining on Shields, a hint of fear crept into him. He wanted to respect Chan Fa’s sovereignty here, but there was nothing to do except drop down inside the walls and make his way into the catacomb network of giant iron cubes that characterized the city’s infrastructure. This would certainly increase his chances of being considered an intruder with designs on Chan Fa’s territory, but he saw no other alternative.

  Down upon the ground—which, like the rest of the city, was of dark, burnished iron, perfectly smooth—Peshil resumed his human shape and made the disturbing realization that there were no people anywhere. He hadn’t known what to expect on arrival, but now two thoughts competed in his mind: either Chan Fa had eaten every last one of his subjects, or he was in fact dead, with his legend outliving him and perhaps having an existence more vital than the Shield himself.

  The conglomerations of cubes rose up to form an irregular skyline. Peshil took a deep breath and advanced towards the first of the huge structures which looked as though it allowed entry into the rest. Indeed, there was an open aperture three meters tall and wide directly before him. There may have been doors or shutters of some sort at one time, but now there was nothing but a square hole lit from within.

  Orange lava light whorled in slow motion giving the interior a surreal, dreamlike quality. Peshil crossed the threshold into a great hall one hundred meters high, wide, and long. At the far end was an elevated desk that was clearly the focal point and which had the bearing of an alter. Behind this were ten open doorways, evenly spaced along the back wall, presumably leading off into various routes through the cube city. Between Peshil and this desk, however, the ruined floor gaped and revealed a lava flow not fifteen meters below.

  Given the pristine state of the rest of the city, Peshil guessed that someone—Chan Fa—had done this deliberately. The iron floor looked as though it had been about a meter thick, but this was impossible to ascertain, since all the edges had been curled under. The strength required to rend something of such scale humbled him. He stood at the edge closest to him and peered down. The flow was actually a wide stream that twisted and turned with porous black stone banks on either side.

  Peshil suddenly felt dizzy and blinked several times to try to focus his vision.

  Laughter echoed through the chamber, startling him. He made to straighten, to look around for the source, but found that he could not move from his bent position, looking down towards the lava stream.

  “Chan Fa!” he cried. “It can only be Chan Fa! Please, I come not as a threat, I swear it. Why can’t I move?”

  The laughter returned. When it died out, a harsh voice replied, echoing from far off, “You cannot move because I fill the entrance to my territory with venom at the start of each day.”

  Peshil’s breath came with greater and greater effort. “I-I must. . . speak with you.”

  More laughter.

  Peshil couldn’t keep his eyes open or maintain a clear thought. Perhaps it was the heat accelerating the effects of the venom or perhaps it was the venom itself. He knew the risks in coming here. He’d been lucky with Sera Fontessa. Any other Shield would have turned him away or challenged him outright. He’d done what he could for Thrax Palonis. He grinned inwardly at the recollection of his last meal and then toppled down from the floor’s edge into the viscous orange light.

  • • •

  When Peshil awoke, he was shocked to be alive. He had a gash on his forehead that was already caked with dried blood and he had trouble moving his left arm, but otherwise he lived, somehow managing to land upon a craggy bank, somewhat protected from the heat of the lava stream by a rising lip of rock. He stood on shaky legs and saw that the banks on both sides continued onwards, winding out of sight. He was pretty sure that the stream and this cavern or series of caverns extended to the limits of the island continent and that it formed a kind of basement to the castle city.

  Something caught his eye at the bend up ahead where the stream turned out of view. He steadied himself and moved to investigate. On his bank and the opposite were statues of dragons in miniature, only slightly taller than himself. Each was carved of a different stone, one bluish, the other white. They were similar, but as with Shields, maintained their individuality. Carved wings were folded on their backs, and their postures were mirror images of each other. Both stood erect and held in their claws the bottom halves of broken-open eggshells. Peshil drew close to the blue one on his bank and peered into the broken eggshell. There was nothing remarkable about it, but Peshil thought there must be some significance. He stared at the white statue across the wide stream for a while, then followed the curve of the flow, intrigued by these idols and somehow certain that there would be more of them.

  He encountered several and stopped counting after the first ten. All were housed in natural nooks in the rock and though he at first considered them to have been carved or sculpted, close examination showed no chisel work, no marks of tools of any sort. He smiled at the thought that they may have occurred naturally—or supernaturally, though Thrax Palonis had abandoned superstition long before Peshil’s grandfather’s grandfather. Some he thought he recognized, or were at least reminiscent of Shields he had known. His breath stopped when he approached one that was all too familiar.

  Peshil knew his own outline while transformed and here it was staring back at him, “carved” in quartz that seemed to glow yellow at the edges. It was, like the others, much smaller than true Shields, but he had no doubt that this was the representation of his own Shield, that the broken egg, which every figure so far also held, was the source of his Shield, given to one of his ancestors unknown ages ago. He stared open-mouthed and raised a tentative hand to it, brushing his fingers lightly over its surface. He half-expected to receive a shock at the touch, but there was nothing. He hesitated to leave his own image—or the image of what he had been given the power to become—behind, but moved on.

  He followed the bends and twists along the lava stream, sure that he heard the noise of men farther ahead. He chuckled aloud when he passed the effigy of the Shadow Thief, and then checked himself, thinking that it was somehow wrong to gloat or mock in a place like this.

  He stopped again, this time intrigued by an unbroken egg held by a green dragon, one he certainly did not recognize. He wondered if the state of the egg meant that there was a Shield inside ready for a host or if the—magi
c?—was exhausted after so long. He placed his fingers on the smooth cream-green shell and this time he did feel a shock.

  “That is not for you!” the voice from before boomed.

  From the lava stream, a great corpse-gray dragon rose. Smoking orange runnels trailed down the crags and valleys of its head and face as it filled the immediate space in the cavern to tower above Peshil. Thick drops of molten stone fell upon the bank, splattering there and forcing Peshil to hop away.

  When far enough away from the lava splash, Peshil bowed and cried out, “Chan Fa, the Everliving! Please, hear me! I come in friendship, with news of peril that threatens all of Thrax Palonis.”

  “I have been following your progress through the Shrine Hall. You are the Light Smith, but far more daring than accounts maintain,” Chan Fa said, his voice accusing.

  “I-I am. I must be, considering what has come to Thrax Palonis.”

  Chan Fa turned in the direction of the lava flow, and before flying off in that direction under the power of skeletal wings, he said without room for argument, “Come.”

  Peshil obeyed. As he continued along the bank, he was torn between a desire to transform, to meet Chan Fa on at least slightly more equal terms, and an overwhelming compulsion to be subservient. The result was an endless stream of conflicting thoughts that preoccupied him until the bank he was on spread out, rose up to form a canopy over the lava flow and join the other bank. He was shocked to find himself in a cavern of enormous size with people—all of them women as far as Peshil could tell—engaged in tasks ranging from food preparation to napping. A scrawny, wizened man with corpse-gray skin sat upon an elaborate couch, which was more like a throne, and which was placed before the effigy of the dragon Peshil had just encountered.

  Peshil approached cautiously, stepping carefully among some of the women, who stared at him vacantly. As he drew closer, the man upon the throne sat up straighter, seemingly tugged by his nose as he sniffed at the air. Fresh familiar laughter filled the chamber.

  “That might account for your nerve. You’ve had a taste. I can smell it in you, in your sweat,” the man said.

  “Then there can be no doubt. You are Chan Fa and all the rumors are truth,” Peshil said.

  Chan Fa shrugged, his eyes gleaming, his smile revealing perfectly healthy teeth—his canines strangely overdeveloped—which seemed contradictory for someone of his obvious years.

  “So was it a ruse?” Chan Fa said.

  “A ruse?”

  “The danger to Thrax Palonis. You’ve had a taste and you surely know what it’s done to you. Have you come here on a pretense only to try your hand at Chan Fa?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Let us hope that your story is believable, because no matter how many you’ve put away, no Shield may raise a hand to Chan Fa.

  “You can only summon your Shield if I allow it, but even then the most you could do is run away. If I allow it.”

  “Let me show you, Chan Fa, what has come to Thrax Palonis.”

  • • •

  “I have seen your forebears create fictions with their light and you could be doing the same now.”

  “So. . .?”

  Chan Fa shrugged. His eyes never left Pehsil’s and his expression was a skull’s grin, mirthless. “For Thrax Palonis, it would be better to confirm the truth or falsehood of your claims. For me, it’s an inconvenience. If you’re lying, it will not serve you or any conspirators in the end. No Shield can make a direct use of his or her powers against me. Mine is the King Shield, you see. Superior by design.”

  “And yet, you have sought to become even more superior,” Peshil said, lowering his eyes slightly as he finished, and shocked by his own audacity.

  Chan Fa stared at Peshil in silence. Finally he spoke again. “When the first of us came across the Shields, not yet hatched in this place,” he said waving a hand, “already the rumor of supremacy through cannibalism was present, even prevalent. It was said that if a single Shield were to consume all other Shields, he—or she—would become a god.”

  “A god? But the existence of such is childish superstition, long ago banished from Thrax Palonis.”

  “Maybe. But that didn’t stop the lot of us from trying.”

  Now Peshil stared incredulously, trying to penetrate what he assumed must be Chan Fa’s jest. When Chan Fa’s expression didn’t change, Peshil asked in a low, humbled tone, “What happened?”

  “We fought. And ate. But everyone learned that none could beat Chan Fa, the Everliving. All who came against me found themselves powerless and subsequently devoured.”

  “Why did you stop? Was godhood no longer appealing to you?”

  “They stopped because they wanted to live. I stopped because I knew something they did not, a secret I used to care about protecting.”

  “And what’s that?”

  Chan Fa motioned with his hand. A woman, perhaps thirtyish, approached with a bowl holding a variety of mushrooms. He reached in, took one, popped it in his mouth. He then fondled her naked left breast and gave her a slap on the behind to send her on her way.

  “This place, the statues, they power our Shields. We are potent here, but even you, Gim Peshil, able to travel as light far beyond the basalt shores of Thrax Palonis, would surpass the limit of the Shrine Hall’s influence and then be forever stuck in the black glue that holds the stars in the sky. No Shield can leave Thrax Palonis and remain a Shield. So what is there to gain by being god of this place that I don’t already have?”

  “Some of the eggs haven’t hatched yet,” Peshil said.

  “That’s right,” Chan Fa said with a knowing grin. “They’re inedible like that, though.”

  “Do you know how to hatch them?”

  “I do, but I won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s too much trouble and ends up a waste. Much good could come of them in the right hands.”

  “You’re not at all what I expected.”

  “No? Cross me and everything foul you’ve ever heard of me will be visited upon you a hundred fold. Just because I’ve grown bored with feeding on other Shields, doesn’t mean that I’ve given it up entirely.” Chan Fa paused, narrowed his eyes. “How many have you consumed?”

  Peshil was surprised by the direct question. “Seven.”

  Chan Fa snorted. “Seven? Impossible. Name them and give their titles.”

  “The only one with a title was Bek Ialo, the Shadow Thief. The other six were artificial and had no titles.”

  “Artificial? What do you mean?”

  “There was a Shield who could spawn other, lesser Shields. I don’t remember his name. I haven’t seen or heard of him for many years now.”

  “Oh yes, I remember. That was Jallam Zeppo. I couldn’t allow him to go on making those little abominations.” Chan Fa slapped his bare belly and let loose with rolls of laughter. “I thought that all his spawn were dead already, though.”

  “Sera Fontessa employed six of them. Those are all dead now.”

  “Sera Fontessa?” Chan Fa said, sobering.

  “Yes, she is helping to coordinate other Shields for our attack on the invaders.”

  “Of course she is. She and Kels Ansrath, undoubtedly.”

  “Y-Yes. Is there a problem?”

  “No.” All the humor in Chan Fa was now gone. He was like a hollowed shell, dangerous with unknown potential. “As I said, I have nothing to fear from any Shield. If any of this proves to be a sham, I will hunt you, Sera Fontessa, Kels Ansrath, and any others I find or think are involved and renew my journey to godhood. Do you understand, Gim Peshil?”

  Peshil swallowed hard. This Chan Fa, empty of all but the threat of vengeance, frightened him. “I do.”

  10,735.224

  The change from being in Chan Fa’s presence to being in Sera Fontessa’s did much to improve Peshil’s mood. With her arms around his neck, she escorted him back to her couch.

  “He will come,” Peshil said. “He’s leary of traps, though.�
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  “And rightfully so.”

  “He said it would take him eight days to traverse the great ocean, but that we should expect him. I must ask you, Sera Fontessa—as the fate of Thrax Palonis may hinge on the nature of your relationship with him—how do you know Chan Fa?”

  She bowed her head and waited a full minute before responding. “I did not receive my Shield from my father as you did from yours.”

  Peshil stared at her for a moment as he realized the import of what she was saying. “You hatched one of the eggs.”

  She nodded.

  “I was not alone.”

  “Kels Ansrath.”

  She nodded again. “I don’t know how Kels came to know about the Shrine Hall. I could tell even before he took his Shield that he’d always been strong, both in mind and body. He devised the means to cross the ocean. He lived in the ancient castle city for months without Chan Fa’s knowledge before finding a safe way down into the Shrine Hall.

  “I was one of Chan Fa’s women. His favorite for a while, but Kels found me alone one day. I would say he seduced me, but I would be lying. I was never content with my life as a possession of Chan Fa. I always wanted more, to live above ground, in a real city, not trapped by the scalding ocean. But never did I dream that I might find escape through the theft of a Shield. Kels filled my head with fantastic hope and the potential to make that hope real.”

  “So you two stole your Shields and escaped?”