"The Count is coming with us," said Shrike. "We can use the help, getting where we need to go."
"He's on our side now? Okay, a**hole, who paid you to get us?"
"I was hired by the Wizard's Guild. I wasn't told why, but I understood that you were about to acquire something that would upset the balance of magical power in all the Spheres."
"So, you're some kind of magician union buster?"
"The Brotherhood doesn't believe in magic, but is more than willing to use it to its own ends. As we all recently witnessed. I knew then that whatever you were up to could only weaken them. The wizards will just have to sort out their business themselves."
"Just like that?" asked Spyder. "You're not afraid of a whole army of pissed-off magicians?"
"I have my own sources of power and protection," said count Non.
"Like me, the Count is royalty without a country."
"No quite," he said. "We're far from conquered. I'm traveling all the Spheres looking for help."
"How? By working as a merc?" said Spyder.
"What better ways to meet other warriors and adventurers such as yourselves?"
"Spyder, listen to me," said Shrike. She sat beside him in the sand and put her hand on his shoulder. "You've been unconscious for a full day. And the Count and I have been talking. I believe him. Please trust my judgment on this. I want him to come with us."
Spyder reached out to where Lulu was pouring drinks from a leather sack with a bone spout. She poured a glass of amber liquid and handed it to him. Spyder took a pull and felt the liquor burn where sand had scoured the back of his throat.
"Fuck every single little bit of this," said Spyder. He rubbed his temples. "So, where the hell are we?"
"We made it to Kher-aba, the right island to get to the Kaslan Mountains," said Shrike. "But we're on the wrong side."
"How big is Kher-aba?"
"Big enough," said Lulu. "Walking is not plan one." Sometime during the night she'd lost the pieces of paper she'd kept taped over her eyes. The empty sockets were black and deep. Spyder tried not to stare.
"Before we landed, we spotted a city a day or so through the desert to the north," said the Count. "There's a fresh water river nearby. We'll follow that to the city."
"What city is it?"
"We don't know," said Shrike.
"It's not on our map," Primo said.
"That doesn't sound like a good thing," said Spyder.
"It doesn't mean anything, necessarily," said Shrike. "The map Madame Cinders gave us is old. The city could be a recent vintage."
"In any case, we have no choice. We need transportation," said the Count.
The liquor was making Spyder light-headed. He remembered that Shrike said he'd been unconscious for a day, which meant that he hadn't eaten in all that time. The liquor buzz made the ache around his middle seem far away.
"Thanks for fixing my ribs," Spyder said.
"Glad to help a fellow fugitive."
Spyder finished his drink and held out his glass for another. "So, Countdown, Lulu tells me you have some wicked bad weapons?"
Count Non's face widened into a smile, showing perfect white teeth. Suddenly Spyder felt like a little kid who'd just gotten a compliment from his favorite teacher. He'd asked exactly the right question.
Twenty Seven
The Hall of Mirrors
The sun was up and the air was warm when Spyder awoke. It was the kind of early morning heat that he knew meant that the afternoon would be an inferno. Hope the river water's cool, he thought.
Spyder rolled over and groaned. His side hurt less, but now his right arm was sore. He'd spent a good part of the previous evening drunkenly playing with one of Count Non's odd weapons. What had he called it? Spyder tried to remember through the haze. It was something unpronounceable, with a lot of back-of-the-throat "ch" sounds. Spyder had just ended up calling it a Hornet, he recalled. His high school football team had been the Hornets and the weapon buzzed like a stinging insect when it was spun properly (which Spyder failed to do, most of the time).
Spyder held his side and let out a groan when he stood up.
"The more you move around, the better you'll feel," said Count Non. The big man was packing his gear into a pair of leather saddlebags, like the ones Spyder had installed on the Dead Man's Ducati. The Count's bags looked hand-tooled, with squids or some weird animals stitched all over them. Spyder envied the bags.
"That'll fix my side, but what'll fix this arm?" he asked, rotating his shoulder painfully.
"You just need more practice. At least you didn't cut off your own head with it. I saw someone do that once."
"Thanks. I'll be playing that little movie over and over in my head all day."
"Here, drink some water," said Shrike. "We're all going to have to be careful not to dehydrate out here."
Spyder sat down next her and took the canteen she offered. The water was cool and delicious.
"That's about perfect," he said. "Did this come from the river?"
"Yes, the Count and I brought it back this morning."
"You were out there all night?"
"A good part of it. We wanted to know if anyone or anything was coming down that river."
"Was there?"
"Not a soul. Just night animals having a drink."
"Must have been boring."
"We talked."
"About anything in particular?"
"Different things."
"Different things are good. I like different things."
Shrike took her coat from the ground and, after testing with her hand to see if the ashes were cool, scooped the charred remains of their fire into lining. She then tied the whole thing in a bundle.
"What are you doing?" asked Spyder.
"I don't want to leave a big arrow pointing to where we've been or where we're headed. We bought some reeds from the river and can drag those over the sand to dampen out footprints. The wind will do the rest."
"Any ETA on that city?"
"A day or two, depending on our pace," said Primo. He was already smoothing the sand on the far side of the fire with another bundle of reeds.
"I don't suppose we have any food?"
"No, but we have a fresh water source and that's more important," said Shrike.
"And lord knows we've got weapons," Lulu said, using the bottom of her Hello Kitty shirt to polish the blade of a long, thin knife with a yellowed bone grip.
"When do we move out?"
"Right now," Shrike said. "Ready?"
"As a bubbling Pop Tart."
"If the wind will not serve, take to the oars," said Count Non, hoisting his saddlebags onto his shoulders.
"What?"
"From the Romans. Marcus Aurelius, I think. In this case, it means, let's start walking." He tossed Spyder the weapon he'd been playing with the night before. "Here. Work with that some more. You really weren't doing too badly. And it can't hurt to have as many competent fighters as possible on this journey."
"Thanks," Spyder said, not sure if he'd just been insulted or not.
The river was a few yards beyond the nearby dune wall. The water looked clean and clear. Animal tracks by small stands of reeds and algae-covered rocks lined the banks. Spyder leaned down painfully and scooped some of the water onto his face. It was icy, runoff from the mountains in the distance, he figured. They headed inland, toward the city that wasn't on their map. The Count and Lulu were talking up front, with Primo trailing behind. Shrike dumped the remnants of their campfire in the water and used her cane to navigate the sand and rocks. Spyder walked with her. He had his leather jacket tied around his waist, holding Apollyon's knife in place.
"So, straight up, how do we stand right now?" he asked.
"We were blown out of the air. We're moving too slowly. And we're too many people."
"Why do I think that last one includes me?"
"I didn't say that, but I still don't want to see you get hurt."
"I appreciate that and double-down on that particular wish. But we're alive and moving. Besides, we've got the Countdown with us now. The way I see it, Lulu and I are the only dead weight."
"I don't believe in dead weight when it comes to people. People are too complicated. Too capable of surprises."
"For an ex-princess stuck in the desert with a bunch of semi-cripples, you're awfully Up With People."
"I like the heat. It reminds me of home."
"What's your reading on the Countdown? Sounds like you spent a nice day and night getting to know each other."
"I wish you wouldn't call him that."
"He's sure your type. Tall, armed to the eyeballs, a hunk of burnin' love. He even has better saddlebags than me. I don't have any illusions about you and me, you know."
"Now who's jealous?"
"This isn't jealousy. This is the voice of pure reason. I just know that slumming for a few nights with a drunk ink monkey doesn't mean anything. Hell, he's even royalty. You can compare scepters."
"I'm not picking out bridesmaids dresses yet."
"Red is in this year. It goes with everything."
"I asked you silly questions when you brought Lulu, remember? We're still working on this trust thing."
"That remains the sad truth."
"Tell me a story," said Shrike.
"What kind of story?"
"Something about your life before. Something illuminating and revealing. Not tattooing or sexual conquests. An adventure."
"You don't think sex is an adventure? Tough room," Spyder said.
He played idly with the Hornet. The weapon had a long cylindrical grip wrapped in a light, tough leather. At the top hung several whip-like strands of a stiff, saw-tooth metal. From the weight and feel of the weapon, the metal strands seemed to slide around the edge of the cylindrical grip on some kind of internal runner. With a little practice, Spyder discovered that he could spin the metal strands until they hummed like a swarm of locusts. When he had the rhythm right, the whirling strands formed a kind of shield that pulverized anything they made contact with. It was like holding off an enemy with a woodchipper. Spyder remembered Lulu and Primo taking turns chucking rocks and burning wood from the fire at him. The only times anyone hit him was when he lost the rhythm that kept the strands moving at top speed. He wondered what those saw-tooth blades would do to flesh.