Ship of Smoke and Steel (The Wells of Sorcery #1)(15)

My heart starts to race, and I wonder if I’ve made a horrible mistake. Maybe I should have taken that last chance, however thin it might be.

I wait, sitting in the center of the cage, trying not to move, since every shift of my weight sets it swinging. The boat below me grows smaller, its lantern a single speck of light, and then it disappears into the fog. Total darkness envelops me, but I can hear the rattling of the chain, and feel the lurch in my stomach that means I’m still moving upward.

Finally, there’s a hint of light. It’s a gray, rotten light, not torchlight or a lantern. I can see a sharp edge, the top of the endless wall of darkness. Along the edge of the wall are figures, enormous things made of pale rock. The Jyashtani build statues to their heathen gods, humans with the heads of animals, but these are more like creatures out of some horrible nightmare. The closest one has a roughly equine body, with six legs all of different sizes and shapes. One wing emerges from its back, twisted and misshapen, and the head sitting on its thick neck looks almost human, but distended by an enormous bird’s beak. The one beside it looks like a snake with human arms and legs emerging from its body at random.

And running over all of them is a gray light, a faint miasma that surrounds them completely. It shifts and swirls like part of the fog. It has to be magical energy, but it looks like nothing I’ve ever seen. The cage keeps rising, passing above the twisted creatures, and looking down I can see a line of them stretching off into the dark.

There’s a sound, too. A susurrus of voices, down at the edge of hearing, mostly covered by the rattle and screech of the rusty chain. When it stops, though, just for a moment, I can hear them.

—“kill me kill her kill me kill her—”

—“around and around, push push push, one more time—”

—“make it stop; oh please make it stop—”

—“skin left on the bones—”

—“my baby you can’t have her; she’s mine to eat—”

“Blessed One.” I haven’t had much use for prayer in my life. But now I squeeze my eyes shut and beg. “Blessed One and all the heavenly hosts.”

Another screech, thankfully banishing the voices. The cage swings sideways, and I open my eyes in time to see the edge pass underneath me. I’m over a flat surface, now, what I can only assume is the deck of the ship, though it looks like more metal. At the edge of my vision, the gray lights swirl, and something moves. Something big. My heart hammers.

Then there’s darkness below me again. An opening in the deck, ragged edged, like a wound. The cage descends with another screech, the hideous statues passing out of sight. There are walls all around me, now, and I realize I’m being lowered into a pit.



* * *



The bottom of the pit is lit by actual lanterns, their wan glow welcome after the weird gray half-light. I can see dim shapes around the edges, crouching in the shadows. The cage comes to a halt about a foot above the deck, swinging slowly back and forth and spinning on its chain. I look around and guess there are a half-dozen people, but none of them seem to want to get close.

“Someone let the lakath out!” a voice shouts, from above me. It’s a man’s voice with a heavy accent I can’t place. As the cage spins, I see one shape detach itself from the wall and come toward me. A young woman, about my age, with very dark skin and tightly braided hair. Her eyes are wide with fear, but she comes forward with slow, deliberate steps, and grabs the cage to stop its spinning. She struggles for a moment with the rusty bolt, then gets it free, and the cage door swings open with a squeal. The woman takes several quick steps back, with the air of someone who has just unleashed a wild beast.

I edge out of the cage and take a deep breath as soon as I’m standing on solid ground. My stomach lurches a little before settling down. It’s hard to believe that I’m on a ship—the metal deck under my feet feels steady as bedrock. I wonder, again, if Naga has played some kind of trick on me.

Focus, Isoka. I draw a slow breath, let it out, pushing back against the fear. Whatever those things were up above, they’re not down in the pit with me. I look around at my new companions. The girl who freed me wears a strange outfit, a long green dress in a style I’ve never seen, with asymmetric silver bands around her arms. She’s not an Imperial—by her skin, I’d guess she was from the Southern Kingdoms, about which I know almost nothing. What she’s doing in Kahnzoka harbor I have no idea.

Behind her, in the corner of the room, a large young man in rough leather stands in front of a girl in a kizen. The girl is younger than me. The boy has a fresh bruise on his forehead and a split lip. He looks like a low-ward brawler, a type with which I’m intimately familiar. He’s sizing me up the same as I’m doing to him, and when our eyes meet, he bristles, like a dog’s hackles rising.

Another young woman in the next corner, huddled in on herself. Her cheap, colorful wrap and gaudy makeup mark her as a streetwalker, one of the lowest rungs on the city’s tawdry ladder of prostitution. Her garments are torn, and her makeup is smudged with blood where she’s been beaten. Completing the group, in the last corner, is a scrawny boy with flyaway hair and threadbare clothes. He looks on the edge of panic.

Not a dangerous group, I assess. The southerner is an unknown, and the brawler could try something. The other three don’t seem like a threat. Then I remember Naga telling me that they only send mage-born to the ship, and change my mind. If these are the latest sacrifices, which seems likely, then they can all touch the Wells. Which means I can’t afford to ignore any of them.