Somehow Avery doubted that they had.
“But why did he stare at you like that?” Janx asked. “Don’t tell me he wanted your autograph.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps …”
“Yeah?”
“If I sensed something strange about him, maybe he sensed something strange about me.”
“Honey, you are strange,” said Hildra. “Even I know that.”
Vague shapes appeared in the eerie fog around them—appeared, then disappeared, like ghosts. The city was breathing.
“What’s that?” Avery said, some minutes later. The rear of the transport vehicle was open, and he’d been watching buildings recede through the mist to either side of the convoy when a curious figure on the street had caught his attention: seven feet tall, beaked and covered in brilliant red feathers.
Janx laughed. “That’s a Nisaar. Bird-folk.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard about them. I never thought to see one in real life.”
Lisam, who had accompanied them, chose this moment to lean forward and enter their conversation; Avery reminded himself not to speak too freely. “The Nisaar are indigenous to the area, just as my people are, and many live in the city. Usually they keep to their own quarter, but what with the fighting, they’ve been venturing out more. Some have joined our side. Others are trying to establish their own power, or joining the Dark Brothers in the Maze.”
“I ran into some Nisaar in the jungle once,” Janx said, with an exaggerated wince. “Not the friendliest sort.”
“The jungle tribes are more hostile than the individuals in the city,” Lisam allowed, “but then that’s true of humans, too.”
Avery thought of the short, thick, curved beak of the creature he had seen before the mist had swallowed it and tried to imagine its bite. Just as well to avoid them, he thought. Then he thought of the sort of humans capable of surviving in the Atomic Jungle. It might be best to avoid them, too.
The convoy bribed its way through another checkpoint and out into a vast no-man’s-land inhabited by ruined, bombed-out buildings that loomed like deformed giants in the fog. The jungle had overgrown this section even more thoroughly than in the sections they’d been in so far, and much of the vegetation was infected, perhaps even a majority of it—and so was the wildlife.
Avery saw something that might once have been a tiger crouching atop a crumbling, vine-overgrown strip center; its flesh was transparent so that Avery could see its organs and intestines, and its face had become eerily fish-like, complete with bulging eyes and long needle teeth dripping an orange fluid. Gills pulsed along its neck. Above it, some glowing, bioluminescent flying creatures, possibly mutated birds or bats, arced against a daytime moon, and the great cat watched their glowing shapes avidly.
“This is where the previous team disappeared,” Lisam said.
“What do you think got ‘em?” Hildra said.
“Could have been ambush. A hostile sect or tribe, maybe. Could have been agents of Octung. Could even have been some animal.” He shrugged. “All I know is that they radioed in that they’d reached this area, then never made contact again. Look, we’re entering the Maze of Dark Delights.”
They were passing through a surprisingly crowded quarter of the city. Peculiar shop signs blazed the alchemical equivalent of neon through the green fog. Red, gold and turquoise shone brightly, all tinged greenish. Avery saw figures moving down both sides of the streets.
“Why is it so busy here?”
“You never heard of the Maze?” Janx said.
“Only vaguely.”
“Well, if Ezzez is the dark heart of alchemy in the world, Doc, the Maze is its showroom.”
They passed out of the Maze and came into a district of crumbled, jungle-overgrown mansions. The buildings had been refurbished, but they showed signs of terrible neglect in the past, a posh sector devalued, then made good again. At one particular estate they stopped and disembarked, and Avery stared over a high brick fence to the sturdy mansion beyond, some of its slopes and summits overgrown with greenery. Trees leaned against it, some even jutting through the edges of its slate roofs or thrusting through its windows. Birds fluttered about its summits, or something like birds; they had the texture of sea horses. Slimy white things with many legs scuttled about on wall and roof, and the trees growing on the four chimneys dripped tentacles coated in what was surely poison. The fading sun painted it all in tones of red.
The gates sagged open, the breath of the city oozing through them.
Trading looks, the company moved through the gates and into the lushly overgrown grounds. Things moved in the shadows around them, and trees dripped poison to either side. Blanching at the noxious smell, Avery gripped his pistol tighter; even he was armed. His god-killing knife rested in his pocket. They shoved their way through the trees, occasionally having to slash their way forward with machetes, and finally reached the stone doors leading into the massive brick edifice. A finned animal large as a boar shambled away, unhurried. Others joined it.
“Fuck this place,” Hildra said, but she said it in a whisper.
Major Nezine pried the door open, and several of his men entered, then called back that the way was clear. Another group entered, then Avery and his party, followed by more troops. Avery glanced uneasily at the silent halls and empty rooms around him. The place seemed abandoned. It reeked of mold and rotten vegetation … and something else, too. Something sickly sweet.
“Is anyone here?” Avery called. “Mr. Coleel?”
He tensed as his voice echoed in the large, ivy-covered halls, but he called again. No one answered.
“No one’s here,” Janx said. “I think we should go.”
“Maybe we can find some documents,” Layanna said. “Some record of the nectar or Coleel’s whereabouts.”
They began a search, going from floor to floor.
“Anything?” Avery asked Layanna, as they rifled through a study.
“Nothing.” She was about to say more when shouts came from down a hall, and they all converged to see some of the soldiers standing over a pile of bodies. Flies crawled across the faces of the dead men, who wore the same green uniforms the soldiers did. Blood stained them, and a foul, sickly sweet odor rose from their remains. Animals had obviously been gnawing at them, and Avery was sure that had this place not been so overgrown they would have stumbled across bones before now.
Looking grim, Lisam turned to Layanna. “These were some of the men sent to find Coleel originally.”
Layanna gasped.
Avery spun to see a dart standing out on her neck. Raising his gun, he fired at a shape disappearing into an air vent, and several nearby soldiers fired, too. The shape vanished.
Layanna sank to her knees. Dropping to his own, Avery caught her.
