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THIRTY-EIGHT




Marty yanked the javelin from François’s shoulder.

François screamed—a wet, bubbling shriek that sprayed blood all over his legs, Marty, and the steps, and slumped forward.

Gunther’s brows furrowed as a lattice of blue light expanded from his hands. The web of light wrapped around François’s upper body, including his arms and his head, then constricted suddenly. The light slapped itself against François’s skin and conformed itself to his contours, as if it were bands of tape. Between the bright blue lines, a dimmer blue sheen, with sparkling white in it, filled the gaps. The blood flow stopped and François slammed upright again, as if the light were pulling him.

Marty tossed aside the javelin.

Gunther’s knees buckled and Marty caught him. The light sank into François’s skin, showing briefly as a dull subcutaneous glow. The hole in the Frenchman’s shoulder knit shut. The glow beneath his skin blinked out. Then François opened his mouth and light spewed forth, dissipating into the night air.

Then a Gray stood among them, clapping Marty on the shoulder and drawing François to his feet. “Come, come, my friends, we have no time. The vessel is on fire!”


Darkness fell, and Kareem felt at home.

He’d grown up in a village with two electric lights at the edge of Cairo and had spent plenty of time moving around the farms and wadis in darkness. He’d led a dissolute youth mostly on the streets of Cairo, in alleyways sometimes lit by an oil lamp or a candle. He was utterly comfortable in darkness and always had been, even before he’d gained the ability to see in the dark.

The City of the Hungry Dead was not thoroughly dark, but it was comprised of twisted alleys. With its central square reshaped by Lowanna throwing a mass of boulders and chunks of ice into it, it was now even more labyrinthine than before.

He slit throats. He padded up behind gray demons, and while they were still sniffing for him, trying to determine from which direction they were detecting an approaching human, he stabbed his ankh through the backs of their necks.

When their heads hit the ground, he kicked them like footballs, watching them dissolve into goo before they landed.

He struck with killing blows that left no chance to escape, cry out, or make reprisals. That meant using the ankh, which cut without fail through muscle and bone. That mean striking at the heart, the lungs, the brain, the neck.

He killed them perfectly, then stabbed or slashed or kicked their defenseless bodies to vent his disrespect and rage on them. He spat on them, he severed arms and legs and threw them into windows, he stuffed a severed head into a latrine. He disemboweled a Gray warrior, holding its jaws clamped shut so it couldn’t attract attention while its life force flowed over its knees, then hung it from a lamppost by its own linen scarf.

He found demons that were unconscious and slaughtered them. He crossed the path of his own comrades and found a wake of battered, bruised, and injured Grays. He released every one from its misery, sending them all to whatever demons presided over their miserable afterlives in hell, to be punished for their failures.

He took javelins from several dead warriors and climbed up onto a balcony overlooking a wide canyon. He looked toward the flying saucer; it was still burning. He was sure Marty and the team would have to extinguish that fire before they went anywhere, so that gave him time yet.

He lay on his belly beside the stack of javelins. Below him, the canyon lay in shadow, but he saw the Grays walk along it in perfectly visible blobs of red heat. He watched, waiting until any one of the gray demons got into the center of the avenue, far from either end, and then it was a simple matter to throw a javelin through their chests. Mostly, the demons fell at the first blow and lay dead. Twice, he had to throw a second javelin, once to a Gray who tried to drag itself away down the street and once to a demon that dragged itself to a door and pounded on it, demanding admission.

Elsewhere in the city, buildings burst into flame. The end near the door seemed to be turning into an icy lake; Kareem could tell because he could see the cold water as a sheet of blue-gray darkness.

Kareem grew bored of killing the gray demons with javelins. The ankh made it too easy, too. For a brief period, he entertained himself by throttling gray demons with his bare hands. That, too, was too easy. The Grays were short and not very strong and by the time they realized what was happening, the struggle was generally already over.

Kareem didn’t want to be left behind. This was a garbage place and he didn’t want to be surrounded by the gray demons for the rest of his life. Part of him wanted to just go home, but he didn’t know what home would look like. His uncle Abdullah would certainly not be there. Other family members would ask him about Abdullah, and where Abdullah had gone. That would be uncomfortable. Would Kareem retain his new skills? His extraordinary gifts for stealth, climbing, and so forth? If he didn’t, would he once again become a young man who rode a cheap motorcycle and scrounged for odd jobs as a guide or day laborer? He could smell the bad foreign cigarettes, slutty perfume, strong coffee, diesel engine exhaust, and sweat of that life as he visualized it.

He should look for something new. Not work as François’s apprentice, like François seemed to imagine for him, but some situation in which his abilities would matter. Some situation in which he would be king. At the head of a robber band or a guild of pickpockets. Strongman of an important alley in a large city. Maybe a respected pimp or a feared drug smuggler. Some person in the community everyone needed, feared, and respected, some role in which both his ability to be stealthy and his desire for violence would bring him out on top.

It was time to join the others. He didn’t need to take the walkways and stairs, as he’d seen them do. He put away his ankh and started climbing the wall of the bluff, directly toward the flying saucer.


“How does a flying saucer burn?” François demanded.

“Shut up and rest,” Marty said. “Heal. Fight later!”

“I’m healed!” François shoved Marty away, in part playfully but also in irritation. “Go fuss over Gunther, you mother hen, he’s the one who’s exhausted himself helping me.”

It was true. Gunther drained the last of the flasks he’d had with him since leaving the island and even though he no longer looked like death warmed over, he was definitely sagging. François took Gunther by one arm as Marty took him by the other.

“It’s not the metal burning, of course,” Yotto said. “But that doesn’t prevent the ship’s hull from getting scorched, and if there’s any content within that is flammable, it might burn.”

“Well”—François shrugged—“if things go pear-shaped with the portal over here, I see no other choice but to climb the ice wall, cross the glacier, build a ship, sail back to the City of the Gods on Earth, and find the portal there.”

“Yeah.” Lowanna rolled her eyes. “Piece of cake.”

“Here,” Gunther said. “The voice is telling me to use the portal here. But I have nothing left in me. I’m really running on empty, and I’m out of that stuff the islanders concocted that seemed to help.”

“All you need to do is walk,” Marty said.

“Don’t get injured,” Gunther told him with a weak smile.

“Yes,” François said. “We got this.”

“It is under control,” Yotto said confidently.

Another hundred feet of steps separated them from the flying saucer. François could see an orange glow coming from inside the opening. He saw none of the interior lights he’d spotted before; either the flames obscured them or else they were out. Given that night had fallen, and the flames were what lit the steps he was climbing, he figured he ought to see those lights.

If they were out, that boded poorly for the portal. It suggested the ship might have lost power or taken other internal damage.

Was the voice in Gunther’s head going to power the portal without any need of resources from the ship? He said nothing, but he felt disquieted.

He heard Edu voices from inside the vessel. He saw Grays beating at the flames with blankets. Surely, that couldn’t be the most effective way to put out a fire. You’d think a species that could create a spaceship would have better fire retardant technology. As if reading his mind, Gollip emerged from the flames, ran halfway down the steps toward them, and shouted, “The fire extinguishing systems are out!”

As Gollip turned to walk back to the ship, a shadow rose from the darkness, outlined against the fire. For a moment, François assumed another of Yotto’s Gray assistants had come with a message, but then he saw the hooked scimitar raised high, and the facial scars on one side in high orange relief.

Pinosh slashed sideways with his sword, slicing Gollip’s head clean off. The egg-shaped leathery skull bounced down the steps past François, mouth agape in an expression of surprise for brief seconds before it melted.

“Nooooo!” Yotto shrieked and fell to his knees, scooping up his assistant’s head and cradling it in his arms.

Or had François misunderstood the nature of their relationship?

François drew his ankh, but the truth was he was afraid to get under the feet of Marty in a fight. Surjan and Lowanna were inside the saucer, and the roar of the flames might make it difficult for them to hear. Gunther wasn’t much of a fighter anyway, and was now tapped out magically. François held his ankh in his hand, but he expected Marty to take out the trash and make short work of this murderous upstart.

Marty set out to do it. He leaped up on the wall to his right, and François expected to see a spectacular spinning kick take the head clean off the Gray, a perfect act of justice. Instead, Pinosh jumped to the opposite wall, compacted like a spring, and hurled himself off it toward Marty, sword swinging.

Marty deflected the scimitar softly, the combatants swung about each other gently, and they perched on walls opposite each other, Marty with fists raised and Pinosh brandishing his sword.

“Go!” François pushed Gunther forward and rushed after him on his heels. They ducked low and passed beneath the duelists right as Marty leaped high, arcing in midair and angling to crash into the Gray feet-first. Pinosh responded by throwing his sword and then jumping like a living cannonball immediately after it.

François and Gunther scooted through. Marty caught the sword between his palms. Pinosh’s head struck Marty in the thigh, sending him spinning down the stairs and hurling the sword onto a balcony above the steps, where it clattered to a halt.

“Gunther, you’re in no condition to be out here with this fight. Are you able to make it to the map room?” François asked.

“I think I can,” Gunther said. “As long as fire isn’t blocking the way.”

“Okay,” François said. “You go run inside and talk to that voice in your head and figure out what needs to be done.”

“Listening to strange voices in my head,” Gunther said, “while standing inside a burning flying saucer.”

“You’ve done stranger things than that.” François slapped him on the back. “And if Surjan and Lowanna are in there fighting the fire and can be spared, send them on out.”

Down below in the stairwell, Marty and Pinosh threw hammer-rains of blows on each other. Yotto wept on a step above them, curled into a ball over a puddle that had once been Gollip.

“Go!” François pushed Gunther toward the saucer’s entrance.

He turned to try to see how to help Marty with his surprisingly difficult fight and stopped in his tracks at the scraping sound of two climbers coming over the lip of the bluff. In the same place Gollip had stood lookout for them before, two Grays now climbed into view. The fire gave their gray skin a ruddy cast and their black eyes glinted. They both drew scimitars and advanced on François.

François knew he was outclassed and had nowhere to run. If he drew them into the ship, he’d be burned alive. If he drew them down into Marty’s fight, he risked making Marty lose by distracting or impairing him.

He took the offensive. He threw his voice behind the Grays and to their left, uttering a strangled, berserk war cry: “Garnier!”

The Grays startled and turned, fearing attack from behind, and François lunged forward in a desperate attack. He stabbed his ankh down through the upper arm of the Gray nearest him. The blow cut right through muscle, bone, and artery, and the Gray wheeled away shrieking, blood spraying from its wound and the arm hanging useless by its side. François lost his grip on his ankh and it flew into the fire below.

The wounded Gray bumped into its comrade, nearly hurling them both over the side of the bluff. While they struggled, François scooped up the dropped scimitar. Marty and the Gray warrior chief traded kicks now, still deeply focused.

The wounded Gray ran off the edge of the bluff, screaming.

François steeled his voice, giving it an edge of command. “Surrender, demon!” he barked. “Stand down and I will spare your life!”

The Gray charged. François tried to back away, scorched himself as he backed into rising flames from below, and scooted sideways instead. That put him on the stairs, though, and slightly downhill of the Edu warrior. Suddenly he found himself warding off a flurry of attacks aimed at his head.

His voice had gained some kind of hypnotic power at times—how far did that extend? Throwing his voice was a trick he’d picked up, but that usually only worked once against anyone.

He risked a long jump to his left. He made it out of the stairwell and back onto level ground, but he moved a little more slowly than he had imagined and received a cut along the ribs. Also, he had now put himself out on the bluff, where the stone fell away from under his feet on three sides.

No more retreating. He struck a fierce stance and threw his voice behind the Gray again. “Avast!” he yelled.

This time, the Gray ignored the thrown voice and rushed François. Unable to retreat, François tried to dodge, then to parry, and didn’t quite manage to pull off either. For the second time in an hour, he was run through the shoulder, and fell to the ground. The scimitar bounced from his grip and fell down into the canyon.

The Gray stood over him, a wide grin on its toothy mouth. It ran its scimitar past its maw and a thin, bright green tongue snaked out, licking off François’s blood. It raised the weapon over its head to strike.

A metal spike abruptly flowered in its chest, poking right through the Gray warrior’s heart.





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