An Affinity for Steel, page 184
EPILOGUE
THE GRAY MAN AND HIS LONG TEETH
The Aeons’ Gate
The Sea of Buradan
To my most esteemed colleague,
It may grieve you to hear of the loss of Sheraptus and his warriors. It most certainly may grieve you to know that the vast majority of his knowledge on the manipulation of portals went to the grave with him. You undoubtedly know by now that our agents were unable to retrieve anything from his operations on Komga but bodies and a flimsy gate he used to enter.
Comparatively, the loss of the martyr stones he loved so well may seem a trifle.
Still, I must urge you to look at this as a gain for us. Ulbecetonth is dead. This is certain. And her brood and consort and prophet followed her back into hell. I can sense no more of her taint in this world. It is of little consequence that Sheraptus’s hand was not the one that struck the final blow, as was intended.
It may even be to our boon that it was not. I know you were originally skeptical of my decision to send adventurers as insurance should Sheraptus fail—and for this, I will expect more deliberate thought given to my ideas in the future—but I presume you take no issue with the results of their handiwork, admittedly sloppy.
Regardless, the item is once again in my possession. I make for Cier’Djaal at once and shall rejoin you in ample time.
I anticipate the guise may have to be left behind, unfortunately. While Toha is far enough removed from civil society that the nation of the House of the Vanquishing Trinity is easy enough to believe, it will be harder to masquerade as a Lord Emissary of a nonexistent organization in a more populous area.
You will have questions, undoubtedly. I will provide answers. With one more obstacle removed, our goals are that much closer. I can speak only for myself, as I ever do, but I view any loss as acceptable so long as it brings us closer to our goal of awakening these mortals to the reality of their situation and the blindness of their gods.
Yours,
A.M.
When he was done, Miron set aside his quill and inkwell. He neatly folded his letter into thirds and placed it in an envelope. He dripped a bit of wax upon it and let it dry before holding it to his lips and muttering something in the old words from the old speakers.
And then he turned to his window.
The creature perched there looked at him without eyes. A woman’s face, gentle and curved, rested on her hands. Behind her, a bulbous abdomen quivered beneath a pair of moth wings. Those wings rose, the eye spots upon them blinked. She spoke through teeth contorted into a permanent smile.
“It goes?”
“It goes,” Miron replied, handing the letter to the creature. “Far away and you know where.”
“I cannot forget. Ever.” Its eyes drifted to the book, the flat black square upon the table. “This goes?”
“This stays. You go.”
“I go.”
And with that, the creature took the envelope and fluttered away into the night. Miron did not bother to watch it go. He had watched it go many times and always had it found its way. The Laments had their way of going unnoticed.
That was no worry for him, either. He had more pressing concerns.
The book. The tome. The key to everything. Despite everything else he had ever spoken of, he had been earnest when he said he doubted the adventurers. Even knowing Lenk to be what he was, he had doubted the man’s ability to deliver.
Maybe it had been that inside him that had delivered it. Maybe it was something else, something mortal.
Little problems for little men.
He had a vision.
And now, he had the means to realize it. He slid his hands over the tome. The change came almost instinctually, reaching out to the words in the book as they reached out to him. His skin slid off of his hands, his fingers suddenly too large for it. Gray flesh shone stark like stone in the firelight. He felt his lips peel over themselves, his teeth too large for his mouth.
He felt his hands tighten around the book as it whispered to him. As it told him all the great things he may accomplish, all that he was doing was good.
It spoke to him.
And Azhu-Mahl answered.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The end of a trilogy comes with a lot of feelings. If you can simultaneously eat a slice of pizza while hitting your pinky finger as hard as you can with a hammer, you’ll have a pretty good grasp of what they are. And like the two books that have come before it, none of this would have happened without a few key people.
Most notably, my editors, Simon Spanton and Lou Anders, were of amazing help in getting this produced. As was my agent, Danny Baror, who was probably the most important part. And no slouch at all were my gurus: Matt “Skunk Ape” Hayduke, John “Hot Mess” Henes, and Carl Emmanuel “The Dangling Participle” Cohen.
But most importantly, I’d like to thank you, the reader. If you’ve been with me this far, I can guarantee everything is only going to get more intense from here. But it’s far too late to back out now.
You and me, baby. We’re going down this road.
Together.
Meet the Author
SAM SYKES is the author of the acclaimed Tome of the Undergates, a vast and sprawling story of adventure, demons, madness, and carnage. He lives in Arizona.
Photo Credit: Libbi Rich
By Sam Sykes
BRING DOWN HEAVEN
The City Stained Red
The Mortal Tally
God’s Last Breath
THE AEONS’ GATE TRILOGY
Tome of the Undergates
Black Halo
Skybound Sea
An Affinity for Steel (omnibus edition)
introducing
If you enjoyed
AN AFFINITY FOR STEEL,
look out for
THE CITY STAINED RED
Bring Down Heaven: Book 1
by Sam Sykes
STEP UP TO THE GATES.
After years in the wilds, Lenk and his companions have come to the city that serves as the world’s beating heart.
The great charnel house where men die surer than in any wilderness.
They’ve come to claim payment for creatures slain, blood spilled at the behest of a powerful holy man.
And Lenk has come to lay down his sword for good.
But this is no place to esca pe demons.
PROLOGUE
Cier’Djaal
Some crappy little boat
First day of Yonder
You can’t lie to a sword.
It’s a trait you don’t often think of between its more practical applications, but part of the appeal of a blade is that it keeps you honest. No matter how much of a hero you might think you are for picking it up, no matter how many evildoers you claim to have smitten with it, it’s hard to pretend that steel you carry is good for much else besides killing.
Conversely, a sword can’t lie to you.
If you can’t use it, it’ll tell you. If you don’t want to use it, it’ll decide whether you should. And if you look at it, earnestly, and ask if there’s no other way besides killing, it’ll look right back at you and say, earnestly, that it can’t quite think of any.
Every day I wake up, I look in the corner of my squalid little cabin. I stare at my sword. My sword stares back at me. And I tell it the same thing I’ve told it every day for months.
“Soon, we reach Cier’Djaal. Soon, we reach a place where there are ways to make coin without killing. Soon, I’m getting off this ship and I’m leaving you far behind.”
The sword just laughs.
Granted, this probably sounds a trifle insane, but I’m writing in ink so I can’t go back and make it less crazy. But if you’re reading this, you’re probably anticipating the occasional lapse in sanity.
And if you aren’t yet, I highly recommend you start. It’ll help.
I’ve killed a lot of things.
I say “things,” because “people” isn’t a broad enough category and “stuff” would lead you to believe I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it.
The list thus far: men, women, demons, monsters, giant serpents, giant vermin, regular vermin, regular giants, cattle, lizards, fish, lizardmen, fishmen, frogmen, Cragsmen, and a goat.
Regular goat, mind; not a poisonous magic goat or anything. But he was kind of an asshole.
When I started killing, it seemed like I had good reasons. Survival, I guess. Money, too. But the more I did it, the better I got. And the better I got, the less reason I needed until killing was just something I did.
Easy as shaking a man’s hand.
And when it’s as easy as shaking a man’s hand, you stop seeing open hands. All you see, then, is an empty spot where a sword should be. And will be, if you don’t grab yours first.
I’m tired of it.
I don’t live in lamentation of my past deeds. I did what I had to, even if I could have thought of something better. I don’t hear voices and I don’t have nightmares.
Not anymore, anyway.
I guess I’m just tired. Tired of seeing swords instead of hands, tired of looking for chairs against the wall whenever I go into a room, tired of knowing lists instead of people, tired of talking to my sword.
And I’m going to stop. And even if I can’t, I have to try.
So I’m going to. Try, that is.
Just as soon as I get my money.
I suppose there’s irony in trading blood for gold. Or hypocrisy.
I don’t care and I sincerely doubt my employer does, either. Or maybe he does—holy men are odd that way—but he’ll pay, anyway. Blood is gold and I’ve spilled a lot of the former for a considerable sum of the latter.
Ordinarily, you wouldn’t think a priest of Talanas, the Healer, to appreciate that much blood. But Miron Evenhands, Lord Emissary and Member in Good Standing of the House of the Vanquishing Trinity, is no ordinary priest. As the former title implies, he’s a man with access to a lot of wealth. And as the latter title is just cryptic enough to suggest, he’s got a fair number of demons, cultists, and occult oddities to be eradicated.
And eradicate I have, with gusto.
And he has yet to pay. “Temporary barriers to the financial flow,” he tells me. “Patience, adventurer, patience,” he says. And patient I was. Patient enough to follow him across the sea for months until we came here.
Cier’Djaal, the City of Silk. This is the great charnel house where poor men eat dead rich men and become wealthy themselves. This is the city where fortunes are born, alive and screaming. This is the city that controls the silk, the city that controls the coin, the city that controls the world.
This is civilization.
This is what I want now.
My companions, too.
Or so I’d like to think.
It’s not as though anyone chooses to be an adventurer, killing people for little coin and even less respect. We all took up the title, and each other’s company, with the intent of leaving it behind someday. Cier’Djaal is as good as any a place to do so, I figure.
Though their opinions on our arrival have been… varied.
That Gariath should be against our entrance into any place where he might be required to wear a shirt, let alone a place crawling with humans, is no surprise.
Far more surprising are Denaos’s objections—the man who breathes liquor and uses whores for pillows, I would have thought, would feel right at home among the thieves and scum of civilized society.
Asper and Dreadaeleon, happy to be anywhere that has a temple or a wizard tower, were generally in favor of it. Asper for the opportunity to be among civilized holy men, Dreadaeleon for the opportunity to be away from uncivilized laymen, both for the opportunity to be in a place with toilets.
When I told Kataria, she just sort of stared.
Like she always does.
Which made my decision as to what to do next fairly easy. This will be the last of our time spent together. Once I’ve got my money, once I can leave my sword behind, I intend to leave them with it.
Their opinions on this have been quiet.
Possibly because I haven’t told them yet.
Probably because I won’t until I’m far enough away that I can’t hear my sword laughing at me anymore.
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Tome of the Undergates
ACT ONE: Few Respectable Trades
Chapter One: Human Litter
Chapter Two: Blood and Salt
Chapter Three: Presiding Over Ruin
Chapter Four: The Lord Emissary
Chapter Five: Counting Kou’ru
Chapter Six: The Herald
Chapter Seven: Last Rites
Chapter Eight: Enticement
Chapter Nine: Deathscrolls
ACT TWO: Shores of White and Black
Chapter Ten: Pitiless Dawn
Chapter Eleven: Berth
Chapter Twelve: Wake
Chapter Thirteen: An Earnest Hunt
Chapter Fourteen: The Preacher
Chapter Fifteen: You, Too, Shall Hear
Chapter Sixteen: Mother, Why?
Chapter Seventeen: Bury Your Friends Deep
Chapter Eighteen: To Kill Again
Chapter Nineteen: Loud and Needy
ACT THREE: The Mouth, the Prophet, the Voice
Chapter Twenty: The Pleasant Lies
Chapter Twenty-One: A Sermon for the Damned
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Colour of Pain
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Proper Mindset
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Opportune Moment
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Prophet
Chapter Twenty-Six: A Beautiful Death
Chapter Twenty-Seven: To See with Ears
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Tasting the Scream
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Burn
Chapter Thirty: More Personable Company
Chapter Thirty-One: That Which Fades
Chapter Thirty-Two: An Uncaring Wing
Chapter Thirty-Three: Meek Expectations
Chapter Thirty-Four: What is Left
Chapter Thirty-Five: Nothing Remains
Chapter Thirty-Six: Tragic
Acknowledgements
Black Halo
Prologue
ACT ONE: The Stew of Mankind
Chapter One: Stealing the Sunrise
Chapter Two: To Murder the Ocean
Chapter Three: One Thousand Paper Wings
Chapter Four: The Pristine Madness
Chapter Five: White Trees
Chapter Six: Cheating Life
Chapter Seven: Honest Afflictions
Chapter Eight: The Naturalist
Chapter Nine: Pests
Chapter Ten: Dreaming in Shrieks
Chapter Eleven: The Inopportune Conscience
Chapter Twelve: Instinctual Shame
Chapter Thirteen: Scorn
Chapter Fourteen: The Many Corpses
Chapter Fifteen: Preferable Delusions
Chapter Sixteen: The Sin of Memory
Act Two: Island of Hope and Death
Chapter Seventeen: Better Off Ignorant
Chapter Eighteen: The Benefits of Swaying Genitals
Chapter Nineteen: Men of Virtue and the Nooses they Sway From
Chapter Twenty: The Sound of Sickness
Chapter Twenty-One: The King of Teji
Chapter Twenty-Two: Wise Men Remember to Stomp Faces Twice
Chapter Twenty-Three: Questions of a Visceral Nature
Chapter Twenty-Four: Naming the Sin
Chapter Twenty-Five: Confessional Violence
Act Three: Feast among the Bones
Chapter Twenty-Six: Whispers in Dark Places
Chapter Twenty-Seven: An Invitation with Fists
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Besides the Obvious Internal Bleeding
Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Scent of Memory
Chapter Thirty: Buried in Skin
Chapter Thirty-One: Subtlety is for the Dead
Chapter Thirty-Two: Mercy is for the Dense
Chapter Thirty-Three: To Our People
Chapter Thirty-Four: Mother and Child
Chapter Thirty-Five: The Sins in the Stone
Chapter Thirty-Six: A Settling of Debts
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Remorse
Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Dead, Honoured and Impotent
Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Kindest of Poisons
Chapter Forty: Broken Promises
Chapter Forty-One: Compulsory Treason
Chapter Forty-Two: The Ice Speaks True
Epilogue: The Stirring in The Sea
Acknowledgements
The Skybound Sea
Act One: The Beast’s Many Names
Prologue
Chapter One: Mankind
Chapter Two: In the Gristle
Chapter Three: The Etiquette of Bloodshed
Chapter Four: The Dead Mind
Chapter Five: Drasticism
Chapter Six: Hallowed, Humble, Soaked in Blood
Chapter Seven: Rite and Reason
Chapter Eight: The World’s Mask
Chapter Nine: She Keeps Her Promises
Act Two: Forgotten Sky, Rising Sea
Chapter Ten: If Madness Isn’t the Answer, Why Do We Even Keep the Voices Around?
Chapter Eleven: Sleep Now, If Not Soundly
Chapter Twelve: Gods Without Water
Chapter Thirteen: Heaven
Chapter Fourteen: Virtuous Labor
Chapter Fifteen: Heart of Fury, Intestines of Resentment
Chapter Sixteen: No Ears Where We Need Them
Chapter Seventeen: The Furnace
Chapter Eighteen: For Blood, Everything
Chapter Nineteen: Death Lanterns
Chapter Twenty: Gibbering, Giggling Mess
Chapter Twenty-One: Starlight and Shadow
Act Three: Tears Upon the Proud, Dead Earth
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Dead Talk To the Dead
