Styrax looked out at where the low morning sun shone from just above the western cliffs. In his chest he could feel his heart hammer¬ing away, reminding him with every thump that he was still alive. At each beat he wanted to call out, to shout with laughter. He wiped the blood from his mouth, never once taking his eyes from the horizon beyond which the Gods lived in splendid isolation away from their mortal subjects. The legend was that they had retired there to recover after the Great War and the horrors they had inflicted upon the de¬feated, and there they would stay, apart from the affairs of mortals, content to sit and play with strands of destiny, as long as they never again had to see any of their own dying at the hands of mortals.
Were you watching, you bastards? Do you fear me yetl
CHAPTER 24
Breytech eased the door of his room open far enough to peer out at the street beyond. It looked quiet now, but he still had to be wary. He'd barricaded himself in the cramped room for days now, and from the shouts and screams outside, he knew the city was falling further and further into chaos. Over the last month the Chetse trader had seen the character of the city change completely as the locals descended into savagery. Though he was a frequent visitor to the city, Breytech had never seen anything like this before. Passers-by had turned on him, or attacked their fellow citizens, without provocation or intimi¬dation, as abruptly and unexpectedly as a sentinel lizard guarding its nest: timid one moment; savage the next. He grimaced; at least with a sentinel you had a chance of escaping. In Scree the people didn't have the sense of animals; they wouldn't content themselves with just chasing you off.
He fought the urge to close the door and push the table back against it. Eyes that had grown used to the gloom of shuttered win¬dows squinted in the painful light. It was the hottest part of the day; the sun was fierce enough to kill the old and sick. He was a Chetse and knew perfectly well the dangers of Tsatach's ferocious glare, but he had to gamble that even the insane would not venture out at mid¬day. As much as he wanted to stay and hide, he knew he had to get out before his tired limbs grew too weary to carry him out of this place to replenish his water skin. He looked back at the cramped and airless room that had been his prison for the past week, since things had become really bad, and felt revulsion crawling over his skin as he realised he hated that space with a passion he couldn't explain. The weather had been merely warm when he rented the room, and what reason had there been for anyone to think he would spend much time there beyond sleeping.1' Bui worse it had become, and the four square yards of grime-encrusted floorboards had started to stink like a festering gaol.
Beyond a table and bed, and the chamber-pot that had forced him to unblock the door each day and risk being seen, much of the room was taken up with Breytech's remaining wares, stacked against one wall. He'd removed the canvas sacks filled with bolts of cloth from the warehouse he usually used after watching the owner, a man he'd known for five years, go crazy. Two nights ago the man had burned his own building down, screaming frantically all the while about shadows with claws.
He found his own mind wandering now as the waves of heat radi¬ating from the streets made him drift feverishly away. Images of his children appeared in his mind; their skin untouched by the smallpox that had taken them from him. When he'd rolled over on the straw-packed bed this morning he'd felt his wife's soft breath on his ear and had turned with a smile to greet her, though she'd been gone this past three winters now. And all the while, there were sounds on the edge of hearing: distant shouts and howls that a part of him wanted to join in with, the quiet hum of a priest's incantation, the groan and ache of the building as it suffered through another blistering day. On occasion, a faint scent of tainted sweetness found him, like overripe peaches left out in the sun. The stink of waste and decay was all he smelled in Scree now. He'd even forgotten what a breeze felt like…
With a real effort of will, Breytech drove the confused thoughts from his mind and muttered an old mantra his grandmother had taught him, a prayer of sorts against the maddening effect of the sun that could drive men from the road and out into the desert. It had no effect on the pounding behind his eyes but the words were comforting and kept his mind focused. He edged out into the street, eyes flicker¬ing nervously around at the baked empty road.
Scree was as still and silent as only a dead thing could be; the dis¬eased city streets looked on the verge of crumbling to dust, all the life sucked from them. Breytech crept forward, mouthing the mantra and keeping in the shadows as best he could, though in truth there was no hiding from the relentless sun. He wore a shapeless white desert robe and a scarf of the same material draped over his head to protect him from the sun. Hidden in one voluminous sleeve was an ancient long-knife, its edge battered and scarred with use, but still dangerous enough to afford him a small shred of comfort.
The main street before him was empty of all life. With the bright sun reflecting off bleached stone and the air shimmering uneasily under its assault, he found it hard to make out details – until he realised with a start that the largest building around, a merchant's office, he thought, was now just a charred ruin.
Without warning a whisper reached his ear as it raced around the confines of the street. Breytech flinched and looked behind him, pushing his scarf back a little to afford a better view – but it was still empty: no people, nothing alive to move, or speak. Despite the beads of sweat running down his throat, Breytech felt a chill pass though him, as though a ghost had laid its pale hand on his neck.
For a few moments he was frozen to the spot, until a drop of sweat from his brow ran down his nose like a tear and it jerked him into action, sending him stumbling off towards the spot where he thought he'd seen a well. If that looked unsafe, he would have to go further south, to the Temple District, maybe. He'd seen a shrine to Vasle – surely the God of Rivers would not fail him? For a moment he wondered whether he should have brought an offering, but then he thought that Vasle was unlikely to be listening to prayers from Scree. Perhaps only Death walked these streets, with his more awful Aspects, like the Reapers, at his heel. Or perhaps even they had deserted the city and turned their back in judgment. What curse on men, when even the final blessing of Death is denied them?
As he scampered from shadow to shadow he saw bodies. A whimper of fear escaped his parched mouth. Some were burned, limbs curled up in their final moment of pain. Some were missing limbs, even heads; others lay with the weapons that had killed them still in the wounds, eyes staring up to the sky as though pleading for help from Gods that had abandoned them.
He was beginning to feel like the sole survivor of some atrocious cataclysm. He peered into shattered doorways, but with the sun so high, there were only impenetrable shadows within. Slumped against one half-burned door was the torso of a child, missing its limbs. Breytech looked around, but they were nowhere to be seen. He tried not to dwell on why they might have been taken away. The fearful voices in the distant corners of his mind shrieked more urgently, and it was all he could do not to wail uncontrollably himself.
His sandal caught a stone and sent it clattering over the open ground. He gave a whimper of terror and crouched clown beside the
remains of a barrel, the closest thing to cover he could see. The horror of being found gripped like a vice around his stomach and he clamped his lips together to stop himself crying out in fear. At last the stone came to rest and silence descended once more. He didn't dare even breathe for a few more moments.