I sighed. «Is this the part where we both taunt each other into a rage?»
«No – rage is overrated.» Chi smiled an ugly smile. «This is the part where I kill you in cold blood.»
I prepared myself to lunge forward: ready for the slightest lapse in his concentration, a laugh, a moment as he savored his triumph. All I needed was the merest instant of distraction; but Chi was an experienced blood who didn't make stupid mistakes. The wand in his hand didn't waver an eyelash. His lips opened to speak the invocation that would fire his weapon…
…and an egg sailed out of nowhere, smashing his face with yolk.
I was almost as surprised as Chi. Almost. But while he was still spitting egg-white from his mouth, my rapier punched clean through his ribcage, smashing bone fragments into his heart and lungs. I kept driving forward, hearing the edges of my blade scrape against vertebrae as the tip pierced out his back; and I held him upright on the end of my sword until I could pluck the firewand from his strengthless fingers. Then and only then did I turn across the street to see who threw the egg.
On top of the tenement across the street stood three women in brilliant white.
Miriam waved to Hezekiah.
November leaned coolly against a chimney.
Yasmin flexed her fingers and scowled. «That sodding chicken pecked my hand.»
«Hezekiah,» I called, «this would be a good time to get us out of here.» No such luck – the leatherhead boy was still a dozen paces behind me, and puppyishly waving back to Miriam; he hadn't even noticed we had undead company. «Hezekiah!» I roared, even as the stench of dead flesh and chemicals filled my nostrils.
«Hi,» I said to the wights, mere inches from my nose.
«Hiss,» they replied by way of repartee.
The first two monsters to reach me had simply abandoned their wheelbarrows and charged, their claws ripping greedily through the air. If one hadn't stumbled over Chi's dead body, I might be writing these memoirs with a fistful of talons embedded in my face; but Chi's body sprawled across a good portion of the ramp, and the wight was too filled with bloodlust to care. It ran forward, tripped, and went down, catching itself from a face-plant only by throwing out its hands. Those nasty claws struck the wooden ramp like fourpenny nails, digging deep into the board… and by the time the creature could pry itself loose, I had dispatched the other wight with a nicely executed decapitation.
The wight on its knees suffered the same fate, just as it pulled itself free. Its head bounced briefly across the ramp, scattering a trail of red dust; then it toppled over the edge and into the squid tank below.
«Hezekiah!» I shouted again, but couldn't spare a glance in his direction. Another wight was racing up; and this one, her brain less decayed than her fellows, was still jockeying her wheelbarrow – a big heavy wheelbarrow, wide enough to block much of the ramp, and long enough that my blade couldn't reach over the cart to impale the creature. Not that she gave me time to try such an attack: she simply drove straight at me, the wheelbarrow crunching over assorted corpses on the way, as it hammered forward like a battering ram. The ramp gave me no room to move aside, unless I wanted to swim with the squid… so I took the only choice left and jumped forward into the wheelbarrow itself.
When I say I jumped, I wish I could claim that I nimbly hopped into the cart and landed on my feet with panther-like grace. The truth was less feline: just as the wheelbarrow was about to bang into me, I rolled over the front lip and landed lumpishly inside.
My rapier was pointed in the right direction, and I stabbed out with it, just to keep the wight from coming at me with her claws. The tip pierced the rotting meat of her shoulder and sliced off a pound or two. She hissed in pain, and heaved on the wheelbarrow handles with supernatural strength… or more precisely, she heaved on one of the handles – the other arm, injured by my sword thrust, didn't have nearly the same amount of muscle. One side of the wheelbarrow went up, the other scarcely moved at all, and I found myself tipping sideways out of the cart, staring down at a school of eagerly waiting squid.
«Gack!» I commented; and trying not to drop my sword or gash myself on its blade, I scrambled to grab the edge of the wheelbarrow cart before I plunged straight into the water. My fingers found purchase, splinters found my fingers, and I stopped my immediate fall. The wight kept heaving sideways, however, and my feet slid out of the cart, slipped past the edge of the ramp, and plunked knee deep into the tank.
So here's the picture – I'm dangling over the side of the ramp, one hand clutching the cart, the other aiming my sword in the wight's direction to discourage the monster from lunging for me… and a crowd of squid are caressing my feet with their suckered tentacles, trying to decide if I'm edible. «You can't eat me raw!» I called down to them. «You have to marinate, then simmer for a few hours or I'll be all rubbery.»
The wight hissed. «Everyone's a critic,» I muttered. Then I noticed that the wight was hissing because its body had been hacked lengthwise from shoulder to crotch by a familiar-looking longsword. A white-shod foot kicked the bisected wight off the ramp, much to the culinary appreciation of the squid; and moments later, another white-clad woman with ridiculously puny wings tucked her hands under my armpits and flew me up to a solid footing.
«Thanks,» I said to November, then «Thanks,» again to Yasmin who was dealing with the remaining wights. «I take it you flew across?»
«Why not?» November answered, folding her wings back flat across her shoulders. «I've never been fond of barrow wights.»
I buried my face in my hands and groaned.
«Pike this nonsense,» Miriam growled.
She bent and picked up Chi's firewand, something I'd dropped in the course of my gymnastics on the wheelbarrow. Before I could guess what she was up to, she shouted «In nomine Vulpes!»
The wand loosed a crackling fireball straight into the wight's faces.
«What the sod are you doing?» I cried. To be sure, the wights had abruptly ceased to be a threat – in fact, with all the chemicals used to resurrect them, their bodies burned as if they had been doused with Phlegistol. One fell off the ramp and into a fish-tank two storeys below, releasing a gush of steam as thick as a pea-soup fog. The rest simply blazed down to ash in seconds, oil-soaked torches burning in the night… and all around them, the Vertical Sea burned too, a framework of age-old wood.
«Honored Miriam,» Wheezle said, «while you should be congratulated for guessing the firewand's invocation —»
«No trick there,» Miriam interrupted. «The Fox used the same phrase for every wand he made – the old sod had a real bee for mass production.»
«Still,» Wheezle continued, «one cannot help noticing that your fire has cut off our route to the ground.»
«It's cut off the wights too,» Miriam answered. «We won't have to worry about those berks anymore. If you're worried about getting away, November can fly some of us out, and the Kid can teleport the rest to safety. What's the problem?»
«In polite company,» I told her, «we don't use city monuments for kindling. On the other hand, we can discuss that after Hezekiah… Hezekiah?»
The boy had slumped to his knees and was pressing his hands against his head. «Rivi's trying to blank me again,» he wailed.
«November!» I shouted, «start flying people out of here. Take Irene first…»
«Who's Irene?» the alu asked.
«I am Irene,» the old orc answered serenely, «betrothed bride to these three noble princes.»
«Do tell,» Yasmin said. «You've been a busy boy, Britlin.»
«Can we start the evacuation?» I snapped. «The Sea's on fire, Hezekiah's in trouble, and…»
The boy howled with fury and pounded his hands against his temples. «I am not… in… trouble!»
He threw his head back and screamed, the kind of scream used by martial artists the instant they drive their fist through a brick wall. A moment later, the cry was echoed from somewhere overhead: a woman's shriek, poisoned with outrage.
«I beat her!» Hezekiah crowed. He threw his head back to stick out his tongue in the direction of the woman's cry. «Three's the charm, Rivi!» he called. «You may think you're tough, but I've been incinerated by a goddess. You'd better not mess with Hezekiah Virtue or I'll… uh-oh.»
Hurtling down through the smoke came Kiripao, brandishing Unveiler and coated from head to toe in brown dust. «Peel it!» he screamed. «Peel away the shell!»
Miriam shouted a curse and raised the firewand toward Kiripao. She might have blasted him then and there, catching all of us in the radius of the fireball; but the monk sprang forward the moment he struck the ramp, and bolted straight at Miriam before she could speak the invocation. He swung Unveiler at Miriam's head, a whipcrack strike that would have crushed her skull if she hadn't thrown up her arm to block. Bones cracked as the scepter smashed her forearm; and she shied back a step, trying to bring the firewand to bear on her screaming opponent.
Kiripao didn't give her time – he had been fast before, but the umbral insanity had keyed him to a fever pitch, removing every inhibition and giving him a lust to inflict pain. He followed up the scepter smash with a snap kick that caught Miriam flush on the floating ribs. Breath whoofed out of her and she flew backward off the ramp, moving so fast I feared she might be knocked clear of the squid-tank and fall nine storeys to the ground; but Miriam was a tough old basher, one who could take a few hits without letting it rattle her. Somehow she managed to snag her foot on the rim of the tank as she hurtled by, then gave herself a backward thrust. Instead of going over the side, she splashed into the water, sending dozens of squid into panic. The tank began to fill with their ink, an opaque blackness that hid both Miriam and Hezekiah sinking beneath the waves.
«Kiripao, you fool!» Rivi shouted from the level above us. I could see her garishly painted face peering over a catwalk – the catwalk leading to the Plane of Dust portal. She and Kiripao must have come from the Glass Spider, possibly to meet with Chi; and when the fighting started, the ever-impulsive elf had decided to break a few heads himself. «Kiripao!» Rivi continued, «I command you to get back up here.»
Easy for her to say… but our side had recovered from the confusion of Kiripao's sneak attack. Now Yasmin and I stood shoulder to shoulder, our swords ready for blood. Smoke roiled around us. In the tank below, water thrashed and churned, a sound I hoped meant Miriam was swimming to help Hezekiah. Even if the noise was actually my friends being dragged under by squid, I knew what my first duty was. This fiasco had to end now.
«Kiripao,» Yasmin said in a cold voice, «you have one chance: put down Unveiler and surrender. I consider you diseased, not evil… but I would not hesitate to kill a rabid dog. The choice is yours.»
The monk's eyes glittered, reflecting the fire that crackled behind our backs. I could not read the expression on his face – did he even understand what Yasmin had said?
«Get up here!» Rivi snarled.
«You saw what she did to Petrov,» Yasmin told the elf. «You know she'd do the same to you, just for amusement. Put down the scepter.»
Kiripao's gaze dropped and he looked at Unveiler with surprise… as if he hadn't realized he was carrying anything more than a convenient weapon for clubbing people. He held it up, like a curious object he'd just found lying at his feet; firelight glinted off its surface, throwing beads of ruby illumination across his face.
«Peel,» he whispered. «Peel it! PEEL IT ALL AWAY!»
I tensed, waiting for him to charge… but Kiripao's brain brimmed with the pus of umbral thoughts, and forthright attack was not the umbral way. He feinted toward us, then spun off in the opposite direction, up the ramp. Perhaps he was responding to Rivi's summons after all; perhaps he was simply looking for a shadowy spot to lie in ambush. Either way, he never made it – two steps before he reached the stairs to the next level, he ran smack into something invisible.
Yasmin and I had raced after our quarry as soon as he ran. We had no hope of catching him – the monk moved as fast as a ferret – but we were close enough to see what happened next. Kiripao swung Unveiler at whatever he had bumped into; and two gnarled little hands flickered into visibility as they deflected the strike.
«Honored Madman,» said the owner of those hands, «this scepter is an abomination. It must return to the keeping of my faction.»
With a strength I had never suspected, Wheezle yanked down Unveiler, pulling Kiripao's whole upper body with it. The monk's mouth flopped open in surprise; and while Kiripao was gaping, Wheezle jerked the scepter up again, driving it into the underside of Kiripao's jaw. Teeth clacked together hard, and Kiripao's tongue must have got in the way – the monk spat blood, splattering Wheezle's face and dribbling more down his own chin.
«Peel it,» he gurgled, the pronunciation fuzzed by his wounded tongue. «Peel it hard!»
Wheezle struggled to twist Unveiler out of Kiripao's hands, but the monk simply smiled – a smile with blood-smeared teeth. He lifted the scepter, with Wheezle clinging fiercely to it, and swung it at high speed over the edge of the ramp. His intention was obviously to play crack-the-whip: spin Wheezle out, then give Unveiler a vicious snap that would send the gnome flying free. Wheezle would fly a long way; they had moved far enough up the ramp that the squid tank was no longer beneath them.
The drop was now a full nine storeys down to the cobblestone street.
Wheezle's feet lifted off the ramp as Kiripao swung the scepter. His body swept out to the horizontal, but he maintained his grip, hands clenched on the artifact he called an abomination – to a Dustman, death was far less terrible than what Unveiler could do to an undead soul. Kiripao gave the scepter a snapping jerk to throw Wheezle free… but the little Dustman found some well of strength as deep as death itself and clung on despite the jolt to his wrists.
Kiripao had never imagined the gnome would keep hold. Brother Monk had thrown everything he had into the snap; now he was off-balance, Wheezle's weight dragging him forward to the edge of the ramp. For a split-second, Kiripao fought to keep his feet… then both he and Wheezle were plunging away from the tower, hurtling toward the ground.
«November!» I shouted. But the alu had already taken to her wings, swooping after the two with every scrap of speed she possessed. Time blossomed the way it sometimes does when you can only watch the inevitable. November sped like a sling bullet through the smoke, through the darkness; and I could see she would make it, she was right on target. Her arms reached forward, one aiming for Wheezle, one for Kiripao…
…and Kiripao lashed out a fist as hard as iron, hooking around November's head and smashing into her closest wing.
The wing bones didn't just break, they shattered… as if they had always been as flimsy as twigs and someone had finally called their bluff. The other wing, still intact, spread wide as November reflexively tried to use it as a brake; but its effect was minimal, providing no more than a meagre ability to steer. All three, gnome, elf, and alu plummeted downward.
Just before impact, Kiripao threw out his arms and gave a single flap, as if he had an umbral's wings to pull out of the dive. He didn't; and with a last sweep of her good wing, November twisted the falling group so that Kiripao took the brunt of the crash.
The crunch was loud enough to hear nine storeys above.
Thanks to her last second maneuver, November came out on top of the heap. After a few moments, she rolled off the other two and onto the cobblestones, clutching her belly as if she'd ruptured something. Her good wing jerked back into place across her shoulders; her bad wing trailed out across the pavement like some limp cloth streamer barely attached to her body. She made a weak gesture in our direction, but at that distance, I couldn't understand what she meant.
Wheezle stirred. His fall had been broken by Kiripao beneath him, but he'd still had November squash down on his body from above. As the gnome pulled himself off the motionless monk, I saw that his legs were dragging uselessly behind.
«Oh Wheezle,» Yasmin whispered. «Your spine again?»
There was no way to tell how badly he was injured. But the little gnome still held Unveiler, even as he crawled to the street curb and propped himself up so he could face the Vertical Sea.
I looked down at the lower levels of the tower. Every wight had stopped in its tracks… waiting, watching Wheezle.
The gnome raised the scepter. «Hoksha ptock!» he shrieked, his voice so piercing it echoed over and over again from the surrounding tenements.
Unveiler erupted with sickly green radiance, blindingly bright against the darkness of the street. The faces nearby were lit as clearly as day, November grimacing, Wheezle stone-faced with determination… and Kiripao, blood trickling darkly from his nose. The extra illumination made it easy to see the unnatural angle between Kiripao's head and body. I had seen such an angle once before: at a public hanging.
«Hoksha ptock!» Wheezle shrieked again.
From every level of the Vertical Sea came the sound of wights hissing. «Sssss… sssss.» They had started rocking, wavering in unison as the glow of Unveiler intensified. «Sssss… sssss.» A hundred wights swayed together on the burning tower; I could feel shivers through my feet as the tower itself vibrated in synchrony. Wights above, wights below. «Sssss… sssss.»
The living thugs, down on the lowest levels, had begun to flee for the street. Given the fire and the behavior of the wights, they must have decided their jobs with Rivi were terminated. Those who reached the pavement first didn't spare a second glance at Wheezle or the others; they simply ran, disappearing into the impenetrable warrens of the Hive.
"Sssss… sssss.
Sssss… sssss."
Wheezle held Unveiler over his head, the scepter's metal blazing like a small green sun. My mind went back to Petrov, holding the same scepter and consumed with anti-magic fire; for the first time, I wondered if Unveiler might be burning hot in the little gnome's hands. He showed no sign of pain – nothing but an iron-clad resolve to finish what he had started.
«Hoksha ptock!» Wheezle said. This time he didn't shout; but his words carried just the same, resounding the full twenty storeys of the tower.
Every wight turned to ectoplasm in the blink of an eye.
Floods of ectoplasm spilled down the ramps, down the stairs, splashing into the fish-tanks to form gooey slicks on the water, slopping in cascades down to the pavement, plopping in huge drops on our heads, our shoulders. Runnels of it poured into the fire; and like fuel oil, the fluid ignited into a blue-hot blaze, the flames racing up the ectoplasmic streams faster than the liquid could fall. In seconds, the fire had spread to a dozen other levels of the tower, spewing greasy smoke as it fed on the wights' last remains.
Wheezle slumped back limply against the curb. Unveiler slid from his strengthless hand.
Her voice choked off as a sudden gust of smoke billowed up from the floor beneath us. Not only did the smoke make it impossible to see the ground, it brought home the precariousness of our own situation.
«We have to get out of here!» I shouted, as flames roared from below.
«Say, there's an idea!» Yasmin replied. «Why didn't I think of it?»
We turned back to our companions. Only Irene was still standing on the ramp, and she had calmly lowered the train of her bridal gown into the tank to let Miriam climb out. Miriam fought to extricate herself and Hezekiah from a weight of squid now attached to both their bodies; but Yasmin and I rushed forward to help, jabbing our swords carefully to persuade tentacles to let go. In seconds, Miriam had wrenched herself all the way out, and together we hauled Hezekiah onto the ramp with us.
«He's out cold,» Miriam muttered, giving the boy a few sharp whaps on the face. «Still breathing though.»
«Kiripao hit him pretty hard,» I replied. «Harder than the kid could take, anyway. I'll carry him.»
«No,» Miriam said, «I will.»
I didn't fight her for the honor – a sopping wet Clueless was not something I really wanted to throw over my shoulder. Miriam, however, was already soaked to the skin, so carrying the kid wouldn't drench her further.
«You grab the boy,» Yasmin nodded to Miriam, «and then let's peel it. Britlin, show Irene the way to the portal.»
«The portal?» I shuddered.
«It's the only way out,» she said. «Hezekiah can't teleport. November can't fly up to us with that broken wing. There are a dozen fires between us and the ground, not to mention the entire tower's going to fall any second. Up to the portal before it all tumbles down!»
«Your majesty is most eager,» Irene smiled.
«Sure am,» I muttered under my breath. «This is exactly how I pictured a honeymoon would be.»
As we stepped onto the next catwalk, however, I sighed with relief. I had half-expected to see Rivi waiting for us, brandishing yet another of the Fox's firewands; but the nasty wee albino was nowhere in sight. No doubt she had retreated through the portal as soon as the fire hit the fan.
This level of the tower had less smoke than the one below, but our visibility was still obscured – wisps of steam rose off the tank of dogfish below us, as the fires beneath heated the water. A tank that size would take ages to come to a boil, but already the little sharks were darting about in agitation, thunking desperately against the tank walls. Their fear churned the surface, splashing hot water across the boards of the cat-walk.
«Don't worry,» I assured Irene, «we're almost safe. Just ahead there's a portal that will take us out of here.»
I didn't mention that a homicidal psionicist could be lurking on the other side, waiting to trample our brains. Nor did I mention that Rivi might have more wights with her, or thugs, or a firewand, or other lethal tricks we hadn't seen yet. I thought those were our only concerns… until Irene brought up an issue that had completely slipped my mind.
«And what,» she asked, «is the key to this portal?»
«Key,» I said. «Key. Yes. We need a key.»
The key to this portal was, of course, a picture of oneself. I didn't have such a thing. I doubted my companions would either – they all wore naga-spun clothing, so I had to assume that all their possessions had burned when they entered the Arching Flame. Yasmin's sword must have had enough magic to survive, just as mine did; but everything else was gone, cinders, smoke.
«Sod it all!» I muttered. No paper, nothing to draw with… oh yes, in time the tower would be a plentiful source of charcoal, but by then we'd be charcoal too. Could I use the tip of my rapier to scratch out on image on a chunk of wood? Maybe, if I had a useful chunk of wood; but the Vertical Sea was built of stout beams and planks, and nothing close to hand was thin enough to chop or pry loose.
Think, Britlin, think. How do you make a picture when you can't make a picture?
«Okay,» I told myself. «Other artists do this all the time. Nothing to it.» Turning to Irene, I bowed deeply. «Your pardon, good lady, but I require a swatch of your gown.»
«Ahh,» she said, a gleam in her eye. «You are so bold.» She didn't flinch as I lifted my rapier and sliced out a section of cloth the size of my hand, taken from the bottom front of the dress.
White satin of the finest silk, smeared with unidentifiable smudges of brown and green. Lovely.
«Now, milady, a lock of your hair.»
She lifted an eyebrow, but there was a smile on her face.
A scrap of stained silk, frayed on the edges.
A few weedy strands of gray hair.
A shred of Irene's veil, covering the hair.
Four thin splinters of wood shaved off the catwalk, lined up side by side on the white cloth; one of the splinters was partly broken halfway down, canted off at an angle.
«Britlin,» Yasmin scowled, «what do you think you're doing?»
«I'm making a portrait of Irene. It's an abstract.»
«Oh.» Yasmin leaned over my shoulder. «It needs a teardrop.»
«I know it needs a teardrop!» I snapped. «Any fool can see it needs a teardrop.» Pause. «Where does it need a teardrop?»
«On the veil,» Yasmin and Miriam said in unison.
«Okay.» I bent over the catwalk and reached down toward the fish-tank.
«What are you doing now?» Yasmin asked.
«I'm going to dip my finger in the vat. Get some water, get a teardrop.»
«That just gives you a water drop, Britlin.» Yasmin sighed. «You're making art – you want to ruin it?»
«Men!» Miriam muttered under her breath.
«Fine!» I said. «Irene, can you produce a teardrop?»
«A sad tear or a happy one?»
I turned to other two women. «Your opinion, ladies?»
Before they could answer, another vat of fish fell off the tower. This one started three stories above us: smashing down to the next lower level, then angling off a slanted beam that tipped the tank sideways and deflected it to the rear of the structure. Several tons of water and confused lobsters streamed past us in a thunderous cataract, followed by the heavy vat itself.
«No point getting picky about the type of tear,» Yasmin said quickly.
«Yeah,» Miriam nodded. «The leatherheaded portal can't tell the difference.»
I spared a last glance at our comrades down below on the street, and was relieved to see November dragging Wheezle into a nearby alley. She could barely stand, her body doubled over with the pain of her own injuries; yet the look of determination on her face showed she would get the gnome to safety before the tower came crashing down. They were still in serious danger – in the Hive at night, with a price on their heads – but they would not die in an avalanche of lumber and boiled prawn.
Now to make sure we didn't die either. «Irene,» I said, putting the collage carefully into the orc-woman's hands, «you're going to lead us through the portal now. You're holding the key.»
I hoped I was telling her the truth. Yasmin and Miriam might believe a few scraps could substitute as a portrait, but I was far from convinced. Yes, the assemblage suggested a deluded bride – dirty silk, a broken splinter, an ambiguous tear – but was it enough? Would the portal accept a depiction that was at most vaguely evocative? Or did its magic require a clean representation of face, flesh, and bone?
A beam overhead gave a loud crack as flames licked around its girth. «Go ahead, Irene,» I said, swallowing hard. «I'm sure this will work.»
«Of course, your majesty,» she answered with a small curtsy. Showing no doubt at all, she walked toward the dim outline of the portal, the rest of us following behind…
…and the portal opened.
Dust skirled around us, buffeting our cheeks. The wind had to come from the Glass Spider itself – air leaking out, or perhaps deliberately sprayed to keep dust from accumulating around the entrance. Putting my arm around Irene to keep her on her feet, I pushed forward against the gale, unable to see if the door in front of us was open. It was; and as soon as we had fought our way inside, it slid shut with a hiss, closing off the rasping rush of the duststorm.
«How about that!» I said to the others. «The sodding collage actually worked. The portal thought it was a picture of Irene!»
«This is a picture of me?» she asked, looking down dubiously at the scrap of cloth, the hair, the wood splinters.
«Absolutely,» I told her, laughing with relief. «We got approval straight from the portal's mouth.»
«Then,» she said graciously, «I must add this to my hope chest… to complement my other portrait.» She reached into her bodice and withdrew a cheap tin locket. «See this?» She opened the locket to show me a tiny watercolor of herself, perhaps thirty years younger. «Rather a good likeness, don't you think?»
I looked at the watercolor, then at the collage, then at the watercolor again. Don't ask me which was the better portrait – ask the sodding portal.
22. THREE TIMES THE BANG FOR THE BERK
«No – rage is overrated.» Chi smiled an ugly smile. «This is the part where I kill you in cold blood.»
I prepared myself to lunge forward: ready for the slightest lapse in his concentration, a laugh, a moment as he savored his triumph. All I needed was the merest instant of distraction; but Chi was an experienced blood who didn't make stupid mistakes. The wand in his hand didn't waver an eyelash. His lips opened to speak the invocation that would fire his weapon…
…and an egg sailed out of nowhere, smashing his face with yolk.
I was almost as surprised as Chi. Almost. But while he was still spitting egg-white from his mouth, my rapier punched clean through his ribcage, smashing bone fragments into his heart and lungs. I kept driving forward, hearing the edges of my blade scrape against vertebrae as the tip pierced out his back; and I held him upright on the end of my sword until I could pluck the firewand from his strengthless fingers. Then and only then did I turn across the street to see who threw the egg.
On top of the tenement across the street stood three women in brilliant white.
Miriam waved to Hezekiah.
November leaned coolly against a chimney.
Yasmin flexed her fingers and scowled. «That sodding chicken pecked my hand.»
* * *
«Thanks for the egg,» I shouted to her, then didn't have time for more conversation. Six wights had appeared, trundling up wheelbarrows to harvest squid from the tank below us; but when they noticed our presence, their eyes blazed like volcanos and they hissed with delighted fury.«Hezekiah,» I called, «this would be a good time to get us out of here.» No such luck – the leatherhead boy was still a dozen paces behind me, and puppyishly waving back to Miriam; he hadn't even noticed we had undead company. «Hezekiah!» I roared, even as the stench of dead flesh and chemicals filled my nostrils.
«Hi,» I said to the wights, mere inches from my nose.
«Hiss,» they replied by way of repartee.
The first two monsters to reach me had simply abandoned their wheelbarrows and charged, their claws ripping greedily through the air. If one hadn't stumbled over Chi's dead body, I might be writing these memoirs with a fistful of talons embedded in my face; but Chi's body sprawled across a good portion of the ramp, and the wight was too filled with bloodlust to care. It ran forward, tripped, and went down, catching itself from a face-plant only by throwing out its hands. Those nasty claws struck the wooden ramp like fourpenny nails, digging deep into the board… and by the time the creature could pry itself loose, I had dispatched the other wight with a nicely executed decapitation.
The wight on its knees suffered the same fate, just as it pulled itself free. Its head bounced briefly across the ramp, scattering a trail of red dust; then it toppled over the edge and into the squid tank below.
«Hezekiah!» I shouted again, but couldn't spare a glance in his direction. Another wight was racing up; and this one, her brain less decayed than her fellows, was still jockeying her wheelbarrow – a big heavy wheelbarrow, wide enough to block much of the ramp, and long enough that my blade couldn't reach over the cart to impale the creature. Not that she gave me time to try such an attack: she simply drove straight at me, the wheelbarrow crunching over assorted corpses on the way, as it hammered forward like a battering ram. The ramp gave me no room to move aside, unless I wanted to swim with the squid… so I took the only choice left and jumped forward into the wheelbarrow itself.
When I say I jumped, I wish I could claim that I nimbly hopped into the cart and landed on my feet with panther-like grace. The truth was less feline: just as the wheelbarrow was about to bang into me, I rolled over the front lip and landed lumpishly inside.
My rapier was pointed in the right direction, and I stabbed out with it, just to keep the wight from coming at me with her claws. The tip pierced the rotting meat of her shoulder and sliced off a pound or two. She hissed in pain, and heaved on the wheelbarrow handles with supernatural strength… or more precisely, she heaved on one of the handles – the other arm, injured by my sword thrust, didn't have nearly the same amount of muscle. One side of the wheelbarrow went up, the other scarcely moved at all, and I found myself tipping sideways out of the cart, staring down at a school of eagerly waiting squid.
«Gack!» I commented; and trying not to drop my sword or gash myself on its blade, I scrambled to grab the edge of the wheelbarrow cart before I plunged straight into the water. My fingers found purchase, splinters found my fingers, and I stopped my immediate fall. The wight kept heaving sideways, however, and my feet slid out of the cart, slipped past the edge of the ramp, and plunked knee deep into the tank.
So here's the picture – I'm dangling over the side of the ramp, one hand clutching the cart, the other aiming my sword in the wight's direction to discourage the monster from lunging for me… and a crowd of squid are caressing my feet with their suckered tentacles, trying to decide if I'm edible. «You can't eat me raw!» I called down to them. «You have to marinate, then simmer for a few hours or I'll be all rubbery.»
The wight hissed. «Everyone's a critic,» I muttered. Then I noticed that the wight was hissing because its body had been hacked lengthwise from shoulder to crotch by a familiar-looking longsword. A white-shod foot kicked the bisected wight off the ramp, much to the culinary appreciation of the squid; and moments later, another white-clad woman with ridiculously puny wings tucked her hands under my armpits and flew me up to a solid footing.
«Thanks,» I said to November, then «Thanks,» again to Yasmin who was dealing with the remaining wights. «I take it you flew across?»
«Why not?» November answered, folding her wings back flat across her shoulders. «I've never been fond of barrow wights.»
I buried my face in my hands and groaned.
* * *
«More company,» Yasmin called, as a dozen new wights clattered up a spiral staircase from the next floor down.«Pike this nonsense,» Miriam growled.
She bent and picked up Chi's firewand, something I'd dropped in the course of my gymnastics on the wheelbarrow. Before I could guess what she was up to, she shouted «In nomine Vulpes!»
The wand loosed a crackling fireball straight into the wight's faces.
«What the sod are you doing?» I cried. To be sure, the wights had abruptly ceased to be a threat – in fact, with all the chemicals used to resurrect them, their bodies burned as if they had been doused with Phlegistol. One fell off the ramp and into a fish-tank two storeys below, releasing a gush of steam as thick as a pea-soup fog. The rest simply blazed down to ash in seconds, oil-soaked torches burning in the night… and all around them, the Vertical Sea burned too, a framework of age-old wood.
«Honored Miriam,» Wheezle said, «while you should be congratulated for guessing the firewand's invocation —»
«No trick there,» Miriam interrupted. «The Fox used the same phrase for every wand he made – the old sod had a real bee for mass production.»
«Still,» Wheezle continued, «one cannot help noticing that your fire has cut off our route to the ground.»
«It's cut off the wights too,» Miriam answered. «We won't have to worry about those berks anymore. If you're worried about getting away, November can fly some of us out, and the Kid can teleport the rest to safety. What's the problem?»
«In polite company,» I told her, «we don't use city monuments for kindling. On the other hand, we can discuss that after Hezekiah… Hezekiah?»
The boy had slumped to his knees and was pressing his hands against his head. «Rivi's trying to blank me again,» he wailed.
* * *
«I'll kill that slag!» Miriam roared, flourishing the firewand with homicidal intent. But the nasty wee albino was nowhere in sight… not that we had much of a view of our surroundings. With so many ramps, tanks, and support beams in the way, we had no clear line of sight to any of the other levels in the tower; and to make matters worse, smoke from the burning stairway had drifted in around us, stinging our eyes and reducing visibility to only a few paces.«November!» I shouted, «start flying people out of here. Take Irene first…»
«Who's Irene?» the alu asked.
«I am Irene,» the old orc answered serenely, «betrothed bride to these three noble princes.»
«Do tell,» Yasmin said. «You've been a busy boy, Britlin.»
«Can we start the evacuation?» I snapped. «The Sea's on fire, Hezekiah's in trouble, and…»
The boy howled with fury and pounded his hands against his temples. «I am not… in… trouble!»
He threw his head back and screamed, the kind of scream used by martial artists the instant they drive their fist through a brick wall. A moment later, the cry was echoed from somewhere overhead: a woman's shriek, poisoned with outrage.
«I beat her!» Hezekiah crowed. He threw his head back to stick out his tongue in the direction of the woman's cry. «Three's the charm, Rivi!» he called. «You may think you're tough, but I've been incinerated by a goddess. You'd better not mess with Hezekiah Virtue or I'll… uh-oh.»
Hurtling down through the smoke came Kiripao, brandishing Unveiler and coated from head to toe in brown dust. «Peel it!» he screamed. «Peel away the shell!»
* * *
The elf monk struck Hezekiah feet first in the chest. It was a glancing blow, but still enough to knock the boy backward. Hezekiah wheezed, trying to force his lungs to draw breath, then toppled off the ramp into the tank.Miriam shouted a curse and raised the firewand toward Kiripao. She might have blasted him then and there, catching all of us in the radius of the fireball; but the monk sprang forward the moment he struck the ramp, and bolted straight at Miriam before she could speak the invocation. He swung Unveiler at Miriam's head, a whipcrack strike that would have crushed her skull if she hadn't thrown up her arm to block. Bones cracked as the scepter smashed her forearm; and she shied back a step, trying to bring the firewand to bear on her screaming opponent.
Kiripao didn't give her time – he had been fast before, but the umbral insanity had keyed him to a fever pitch, removing every inhibition and giving him a lust to inflict pain. He followed up the scepter smash with a snap kick that caught Miriam flush on the floating ribs. Breath whoofed out of her and she flew backward off the ramp, moving so fast I feared she might be knocked clear of the squid-tank and fall nine storeys to the ground; but Miriam was a tough old basher, one who could take a few hits without letting it rattle her. Somehow she managed to snag her foot on the rim of the tank as she hurtled by, then gave herself a backward thrust. Instead of going over the side, she splashed into the water, sending dozens of squid into panic. The tank began to fill with their ink, an opaque blackness that hid both Miriam and Hezekiah sinking beneath the waves.
«Kiripao, you fool!» Rivi shouted from the level above us. I could see her garishly painted face peering over a catwalk – the catwalk leading to the Plane of Dust portal. She and Kiripao must have come from the Glass Spider, possibly to meet with Chi; and when the fighting started, the ever-impulsive elf had decided to break a few heads himself. «Kiripao!» Rivi continued, «I command you to get back up here.»
Easy for her to say… but our side had recovered from the confusion of Kiripao's sneak attack. Now Yasmin and I stood shoulder to shoulder, our swords ready for blood. Smoke roiled around us. In the tank below, water thrashed and churned, a sound I hoped meant Miriam was swimming to help Hezekiah. Even if the noise was actually my friends being dragged under by squid, I knew what my first duty was. This fiasco had to end now.
«Kiripao,» Yasmin said in a cold voice, «you have one chance: put down Unveiler and surrender. I consider you diseased, not evil… but I would not hesitate to kill a rabid dog. The choice is yours.»
The monk's eyes glittered, reflecting the fire that crackled behind our backs. I could not read the expression on his face – did he even understand what Yasmin had said?
«Get up here!» Rivi snarled.
«You saw what she did to Petrov,» Yasmin told the elf. «You know she'd do the same to you, just for amusement. Put down the scepter.»
Kiripao's gaze dropped and he looked at Unveiler with surprise… as if he hadn't realized he was carrying anything more than a convenient weapon for clubbing people. He held it up, like a curious object he'd just found lying at his feet; firelight glinted off its surface, throwing beads of ruby illumination across his face.
«Peel,» he whispered. «Peel it! PEEL IT ALL AWAY!»
I tensed, waiting for him to charge… but Kiripao's brain brimmed with the pus of umbral thoughts, and forthright attack was not the umbral way. He feinted toward us, then spun off in the opposite direction, up the ramp. Perhaps he was responding to Rivi's summons after all; perhaps he was simply looking for a shadowy spot to lie in ambush. Either way, he never made it – two steps before he reached the stairs to the next level, he ran smack into something invisible.
Yasmin and I had raced after our quarry as soon as he ran. We had no hope of catching him – the monk moved as fast as a ferret – but we were close enough to see what happened next. Kiripao swung Unveiler at whatever he had bumped into; and two gnarled little hands flickered into visibility as they deflected the strike.
«Honored Madman,» said the owner of those hands, «this scepter is an abomination. It must return to the keeping of my faction.»
With a strength I had never suspected, Wheezle yanked down Unveiler, pulling Kiripao's whole upper body with it. The monk's mouth flopped open in surprise; and while Kiripao was gaping, Wheezle jerked the scepter up again, driving it into the underside of Kiripao's jaw. Teeth clacked together hard, and Kiripao's tongue must have got in the way – the monk spat blood, splattering Wheezle's face and dribbling more down his own chin.
«Peel it,» he gurgled, the pronunciation fuzzed by his wounded tongue. «Peel it hard!»
Wheezle struggled to twist Unveiler out of Kiripao's hands, but the monk simply smiled – a smile with blood-smeared teeth. He lifted the scepter, with Wheezle clinging fiercely to it, and swung it at high speed over the edge of the ramp. His intention was obviously to play crack-the-whip: spin Wheezle out, then give Unveiler a vicious snap that would send the gnome flying free. Wheezle would fly a long way; they had moved far enough up the ramp that the squid tank was no longer beneath them.
The drop was now a full nine storeys down to the cobblestone street.
Wheezle's feet lifted off the ramp as Kiripao swung the scepter. His body swept out to the horizontal, but he maintained his grip, hands clenched on the artifact he called an abomination – to a Dustman, death was far less terrible than what Unveiler could do to an undead soul. Kiripao gave the scepter a snapping jerk to throw Wheezle free… but the little Dustman found some well of strength as deep as death itself and clung on despite the jolt to his wrists.
Kiripao had never imagined the gnome would keep hold. Brother Monk had thrown everything he had into the snap; now he was off-balance, Wheezle's weight dragging him forward to the edge of the ramp. For a split-second, Kiripao fought to keep his feet… then both he and Wheezle were plunging away from the tower, hurtling toward the ground.
«November!» I shouted. But the alu had already taken to her wings, swooping after the two with every scrap of speed she possessed. Time blossomed the way it sometimes does when you can only watch the inevitable. November sped like a sling bullet through the smoke, through the darkness; and I could see she would make it, she was right on target. Her arms reached forward, one aiming for Wheezle, one for Kiripao…
…and Kiripao lashed out a fist as hard as iron, hooking around November's head and smashing into her closest wing.
The wing bones didn't just break, they shattered… as if they had always been as flimsy as twigs and someone had finally called their bluff. The other wing, still intact, spread wide as November reflexively tried to use it as a brake; but its effect was minimal, providing no more than a meagre ability to steer. All three, gnome, elf, and alu plummeted downward.
Just before impact, Kiripao threw out his arms and gave a single flap, as if he had an umbral's wings to pull out of the dive. He didn't; and with a last sweep of her good wing, November twisted the falling group so that Kiripao took the brunt of the crash.
The crunch was loud enough to hear nine storeys above.
Thanks to her last second maneuver, November came out on top of the heap. After a few moments, she rolled off the other two and onto the cobblestones, clutching her belly as if she'd ruptured something. Her good wing jerked back into place across her shoulders; her bad wing trailed out across the pavement like some limp cloth streamer barely attached to her body. She made a weak gesture in our direction, but at that distance, I couldn't understand what she meant.
Wheezle stirred. His fall had been broken by Kiripao beneath him, but he'd still had November squash down on his body from above. As the gnome pulled himself off the motionless monk, I saw that his legs were dragging uselessly behind.
«Oh Wheezle,» Yasmin whispered. «Your spine again?»
There was no way to tell how badly he was injured. But the little gnome still held Unveiler, even as he crawled to the street curb and propped himself up so he could face the Vertical Sea.
I looked down at the lower levels of the tower. Every wight had stopped in its tracks… waiting, watching Wheezle.
The gnome raised the scepter. «Hoksha ptock!» he shrieked, his voice so piercing it echoed over and over again from the surrounding tenements.
Unveiler erupted with sickly green radiance, blindingly bright against the darkness of the street. The faces nearby were lit as clearly as day, November grimacing, Wheezle stone-faced with determination… and Kiripao, blood trickling darkly from his nose. The extra illumination made it easy to see the unnatural angle between Kiripao's head and body. I had seen such an angle once before: at a public hanging.
«Hoksha ptock!» Wheezle shrieked again.
From every level of the Vertical Sea came the sound of wights hissing. «Sssss… sssss.» They had started rocking, wavering in unison as the glow of Unveiler intensified. «Sssss… sssss.» A hundred wights swayed together on the burning tower; I could feel shivers through my feet as the tower itself vibrated in synchrony. Wights above, wights below. «Sssss… sssss.»
The living thugs, down on the lowest levels, had begun to flee for the street. Given the fire and the behavior of the wights, they must have decided their jobs with Rivi were terminated. Those who reached the pavement first didn't spare a second glance at Wheezle or the others; they simply ran, disappearing into the impenetrable warrens of the Hive.
"Sssss… sssss.
Sssss… sssss."
Wheezle held Unveiler over his head, the scepter's metal blazing like a small green sun. My mind went back to Petrov, holding the same scepter and consumed with anti-magic fire; for the first time, I wondered if Unveiler might be burning hot in the little gnome's hands. He showed no sign of pain – nothing but an iron-clad resolve to finish what he had started.
«Hoksha ptock!» Wheezle said. This time he didn't shout; but his words carried just the same, resounding the full twenty storeys of the tower.
Every wight turned to ectoplasm in the blink of an eye.
Floods of ectoplasm spilled down the ramps, down the stairs, splashing into the fish-tanks to form gooey slicks on the water, slopping in cascades down to the pavement, plopping in huge drops on our heads, our shoulders. Runnels of it poured into the fire; and like fuel oil, the fluid ignited into a blue-hot blaze, the flames racing up the ectoplasmic streams faster than the liquid could fall. In seconds, the fire had spread to a dozen other levels of the tower, spewing greasy smoke as it fed on the wights' last remains.
Wheezle slumped back limply against the curb. Unveiler slid from his strengthless hand.
* * *
«Wheezle!» Yasmin cried.Her voice choked off as a sudden gust of smoke billowed up from the floor beneath us. Not only did the smoke make it impossible to see the ground, it brought home the precariousness of our own situation.
«We have to get out of here!» I shouted, as flames roared from below.
«Say, there's an idea!» Yasmin replied. «Why didn't I think of it?»
We turned back to our companions. Only Irene was still standing on the ramp, and she had calmly lowered the train of her bridal gown into the tank to let Miriam climb out. Miriam fought to extricate herself and Hezekiah from a weight of squid now attached to both their bodies; but Yasmin and I rushed forward to help, jabbing our swords carefully to persuade tentacles to let go. In seconds, Miriam had wrenched herself all the way out, and together we hauled Hezekiah onto the ramp with us.
«He's out cold,» Miriam muttered, giving the boy a few sharp whaps on the face. «Still breathing though.»
«Kiripao hit him pretty hard,» I replied. «Harder than the kid could take, anyway. I'll carry him.»
«No,» Miriam said, «I will.»
I didn't fight her for the honor – a sopping wet Clueless was not something I really wanted to throw over my shoulder. Miriam, however, was already soaked to the skin, so carrying the kid wouldn't drench her further.
«You grab the boy,» Yasmin nodded to Miriam, «and then let's peel it. Britlin, show Irene the way to the portal.»
«The portal?» I shuddered.
«It's the only way out,» she said. «Hezekiah can't teleport. November can't fly up to us with that broken wing. There are a dozen fires between us and the ground, not to mention the entire tower's going to fall any second. Up to the portal before it all tumbles down!»
* * *
The first tank fell as Irene and I were coming to the top of the stairs. It came from a few levels below us, down where the fire had been burning the longest; a huge vat of water and fish breaking through its weakened supports and crashing down onto the next level. The whole tower quaked with the force of the impact – I couldn't see the extent of the damage, but I could hear the cracking of timbers, and feel the sudden bend as the tower pitched out of balance. Only quick reflexes allowed me to grab the stair railing with one hand and Irene with the other.«Your majesty is most eager,» Irene smiled.
«Sure am,» I muttered under my breath. «This is exactly how I pictured a honeymoon would be.»
As we stepped onto the next catwalk, however, I sighed with relief. I had half-expected to see Rivi waiting for us, brandishing yet another of the Fox's firewands; but the nasty wee albino was nowhere in sight. No doubt she had retreated through the portal as soon as the fire hit the fan.
This level of the tower had less smoke than the one below, but our visibility was still obscured – wisps of steam rose off the tank of dogfish below us, as the fires beneath heated the water. A tank that size would take ages to come to a boil, but already the little sharks were darting about in agitation, thunking desperately against the tank walls. Their fear churned the surface, splashing hot water across the boards of the cat-walk.
«Don't worry,» I assured Irene, «we're almost safe. Just ahead there's a portal that will take us out of here.»
I didn't mention that a homicidal psionicist could be lurking on the other side, waiting to trample our brains. Nor did I mention that Rivi might have more wights with her, or thugs, or a firewand, or other lethal tricks we hadn't seen yet. I thought those were our only concerns… until Irene brought up an issue that had completely slipped my mind.
«And what,» she asked, «is the key to this portal?»
«Key,» I said. «Key. Yes. We need a key.»
The key to this portal was, of course, a picture of oneself. I didn't have such a thing. I doubted my companions would either – they all wore naga-spun clothing, so I had to assume that all their possessions had burned when they entered the Arching Flame. Yasmin's sword must have had enough magic to survive, just as mine did; but everything else was gone, cinders, smoke.
«Sod it all!» I muttered. No paper, nothing to draw with… oh yes, in time the tower would be a plentiful source of charcoal, but by then we'd be charcoal too. Could I use the tip of my rapier to scratch out on image on a chunk of wood? Maybe, if I had a useful chunk of wood; but the Vertical Sea was built of stout beams and planks, and nothing close to hand was thin enough to chop or pry loose.
Think, Britlin, think. How do you make a picture when you can't make a picture?
«Okay,» I told myself. «Other artists do this all the time. Nothing to it.» Turning to Irene, I bowed deeply. «Your pardon, good lady, but I require a swatch of your gown.»
«Ahh,» she said, a gleam in her eye. «You are so bold.» She didn't flinch as I lifted my rapier and sliced out a section of cloth the size of my hand, taken from the bottom front of the dress.
White satin of the finest silk, smeared with unidentifiable smudges of brown and green. Lovely.
«Now, milady, a lock of your hair.»
She lifted an eyebrow, but there was a smile on her face.
* * *
By the time the others arrived – Miriam cradling Hezekiah's unconscious body, while Yasmin kept her steady whenever the tower shuddered – I had assembled a somber montage on the catwalk in front of me.A scrap of stained silk, frayed on the edges.
A few weedy strands of gray hair.
A shred of Irene's veil, covering the hair.
Four thin splinters of wood shaved off the catwalk, lined up side by side on the white cloth; one of the splinters was partly broken halfway down, canted off at an angle.
«Britlin,» Yasmin scowled, «what do you think you're doing?»
«I'm making a portrait of Irene. It's an abstract.»
«Oh.» Yasmin leaned over my shoulder. «It needs a teardrop.»
«I know it needs a teardrop!» I snapped. «Any fool can see it needs a teardrop.» Pause. «Where does it need a teardrop?»
«On the veil,» Yasmin and Miriam said in unison.
«Okay.» I bent over the catwalk and reached down toward the fish-tank.
«What are you doing now?» Yasmin asked.
«I'm going to dip my finger in the vat. Get some water, get a teardrop.»
«That just gives you a water drop, Britlin.» Yasmin sighed. «You're making art – you want to ruin it?»
«Men!» Miriam muttered under her breath.
«Fine!» I said. «Irene, can you produce a teardrop?»
«A sad tear or a happy one?»
I turned to other two women. «Your opinion, ladies?»
Before they could answer, another vat of fish fell off the tower. This one started three stories above us: smashing down to the next lower level, then angling off a slanted beam that tipped the tank sideways and deflected it to the rear of the structure. Several tons of water and confused lobsters streamed past us in a thunderous cataract, followed by the heavy vat itself.
«No point getting picky about the type of tear,» Yasmin said quickly.
«Yeah,» Miriam nodded. «The leatherheaded portal can't tell the difference.»
* * *
Like many a bride, Irene had a ready source of tears; happy or sad, I couldn't say. She took almost no time to deposit a lady-like dewdrop on the veil of my collage… and speed was good, considering the ominous creaks now wracking every inch of the tower. The Vertical Sea's lifetime could be measured in minutes, if not seconds, and we fervently hoped to relocate before it collapsed.I spared a last glance at our comrades down below on the street, and was relieved to see November dragging Wheezle into a nearby alley. She could barely stand, her body doubled over with the pain of her own injuries; yet the look of determination on her face showed she would get the gnome to safety before the tower came crashing down. They were still in serious danger – in the Hive at night, with a price on their heads – but they would not die in an avalanche of lumber and boiled prawn.
Now to make sure we didn't die either. «Irene,» I said, putting the collage carefully into the orc-woman's hands, «you're going to lead us through the portal now. You're holding the key.»
I hoped I was telling her the truth. Yasmin and Miriam might believe a few scraps could substitute as a portrait, but I was far from convinced. Yes, the assemblage suggested a deluded bride – dirty silk, a broken splinter, an ambiguous tear – but was it enough? Would the portal accept a depiction that was at most vaguely evocative? Or did its magic require a clean representation of face, flesh, and bone?
A beam overhead gave a loud crack as flames licked around its girth. «Go ahead, Irene,» I said, swallowing hard. «I'm sure this will work.»
«Of course, your majesty,» she answered with a small curtsy. Showing no doubt at all, she walked toward the dim outline of the portal, the rest of us following behind…
…and the portal opened.
Dust skirled around us, buffeting our cheeks. The wind had to come from the Glass Spider itself – air leaking out, or perhaps deliberately sprayed to keep dust from accumulating around the entrance. Putting my arm around Irene to keep her on her feet, I pushed forward against the gale, unable to see if the door in front of us was open. It was; and as soon as we had fought our way inside, it slid shut with a hiss, closing off the rasping rush of the duststorm.
«How about that!» I said to the others. «The sodding collage actually worked. The portal thought it was a picture of Irene!»
«This is a picture of me?» she asked, looking down dubiously at the scrap of cloth, the hair, the wood splinters.
«Absolutely,» I told her, laughing with relief. «We got approval straight from the portal's mouth.»
«Then,» she said graciously, «I must add this to my hope chest… to complement my other portrait.» She reached into her bodice and withdrew a cheap tin locket. «See this?» She opened the locket to show me a tiny watercolor of herself, perhaps thirty years younger. «Rather a good likeness, don't you think?»
I looked at the watercolor, then at the collage, then at the watercolor again. Don't ask me which was the better portrait – ask the sodding portal.
22. THREE TIMES THE BANG FOR THE BERK
Miriam laid Hezekiah on the floor of the entrance area… not far from the smear of blood where we'd found the dead hobgoblin the first time we came to the Glass Spider. «How is he?» Yasmin asked.
«Still breathing,» Miriam replied, trying to sound unconcerned. «He'll come around when he's ready.»
«And what do we do in the meantime?»
«The last time we were here,» I said, «you talked about a portal to Mount Celestia.»
«Yeah,» Miriam nodded. «The place is supposed to be boring as a beadle, but at least no one will slip a dagger into your kidneys.»
«And Mount Celestia has gates to Sigil?» Yasmin asked.
«Every plane has gates to Sigil,» I said. «We'll find something.» I glanced back at Miriam. «Have you ever visited Mount Celestia?»
She shook her head without meeting my gaze. «Didn't think I'd be welcome. They, uhhh… the Mount Celestials have a reputation for hunting down evil.»
«You are not evil,» Irene said without hesitation, «you are simply gruff. It is unfair to judge people as wicked, just because… they are gruff.»
I got the feeling our orc friend was speaking of someone other than Miriam; but she suddenly shifted her bridal veil and lowered it over her face, turning away as she did. Whatever submerged pain had bubbled to the surface, she didn't want to share it.
There was a brief but awkward silence. Finally, Yasmin said, «Whatever any of us might have been, we aren't evil now. There's only one true evil in the Glass Spider, and that's Rivi.»
«She's probably not in the Spider any more,» Miriam muttered. «Odds are she's done a flit out one of the other portals… and not to Mount Celestia.»
«Do you really think she'd run?» I asked. «I doubt she's desperate enough yet to abandon a posh base like the Glass Spider. Who could she possibly believe would track her here? No one but us – we were the only people close enough to get through the portal before the Vertical Sea collapsed. Do you think Rivi's afraid of us?»
«She should be,» Yasmin replied, drawing her sword.
Time to get on with it.
Yasmin and I started with a circuit of the Spider's upper floor – rooms full of the wights' chemical smell, but empty of opposition. Puzzling; but then, in the past few days, we had whittled down the numbers of Rivi's bashers, both the living and the undead. The personnel needed to work the Vertical Sea must have exhausted the rest of her crew. To all appearances, there was no one left in the whole of the Glass Spider… either that, or they were all waiting in ambush on the lower floor.
Outside the windows of the Spider, the infinite Plane of Dust lay quiet and gray. Patient. Ashes to ashes…
When we had assured ourselves the top floor was clean, we headed for the stairs to the basement. There was only one staircase to the bottom level, a perfect spot to set a trap; and considering how the Fox mass-produced firewands, Rivi must surely have kept one for herself. Even so, we descended the steps without incident, down to the spartan utility corridors that echoed with the throb of machinery.
«Maybe Rivi doesn't know we're coming for her,» Yasmin murmured.
«Or maybe she died laughing at the thought,» I replied.
«If we find her dead, we'll muss up her corpse and say we killed her,» Yasmin smiled – a beautiful, pure smile, as if for this one second in all eternity, we were together. I don't know if we were together as lovers, as brother and sister, as comrades-in-arms… and for that one second in all eternity, it didn't matter.
One second in all eternity: most people don't even have that.
She smiled again… and I opened my mouth to say something, I don't know what, I'll never know what, when she turned away from me and put out a hand to steady herself against the corridor wall. The gesture didn't seem out of place – I thought she just wanted to stop me from speaking, to let the moment last a little longer without being spoiled by words. That's why I held back, giving her time with her thoughts.
Perhaps thirty seconds passed, and still she stood there, head slightly lowered, hand against the wall… until finally, a needle of fear worked under my skin and I stepped around to look her in the eye. «Are you all right?»
She didn't answer right away, but finally she lifted her head, eyelids flickering. «I'm fine, darling,» she answered. «Quite, quite well. In fact, I'd be completely on top of the world if you'd kiss me.»
Another wide smile swept across her face as she stepped toward me and draped an arm over my shoulder. She leaned forward with her lips slightly parted, but I held up a hand to stop her. «Before you kiss a Sensate,» I said, «you have to remember that our perceptions are… heightened through intensive training. We have a better sense of smell…» I touched her nose lightly with my forefinger. «A better sense of hearing.» I brushed her earlobe. «Extremely keen vision… not just for seeing, but for observing. For staring at a beautiful woman, and taking in every nuance.»
«Do you see any nuances that… interest you?» Her voice was throaty.
«Definitely. A minute ago, your smile started in your eyes and bloomed through your whole face. Now, it's only your mouth that's smiling. Your eyes are as cold as the ninth level of Hell.»
She swung her sword, but I had my own blade ready, easily parrying the attack. Skittering back a few steps, she graced me with a glittering leer. «What a clever boy! Who would have guessed your wee male brain wouldn't be completely blinded by animal lust? Once I've made this tiefling slag my own, I must have you on my side too.»
The voice came from Yasmin's lips… but of course, it wasn't Yasmin speaking.
«Yes,» Rivi laughed with Yasmin's mouth, «you must be torn, poor man. On one hand, I'm sure you could kill this lovely body without a speck of trouble. On the other, I've detected a wee fondness, shall we say, between you and this woman. Can you really kill her to get me? Especially when you have no idea whether killing her will hurt me at all.»
«If you've switched bodies with Yasmin —»
«But that's the question, isn't it?» Rivi interrupted. «Is Yasmin's wee soul safe and sound in my own body… a simple swap? Or is Yasmin still inside this body, but dominated by my vastly superior willpower?»
«In a contest of willpower between you and Yasmin,» I said, «I'd put my gold on Yasmin any day.»
«Loyalty!» she chuckled, clapping her hands with delight. «How quaint. And perhaps, darling, the contest between me and Yasmin might have been a wee bit fiercer another time, another place. However, for one enchanted second, your dear-heart completely let down her guard – no doubt staring into your strong manly eyes. She opened herself so wide… well, I just couldn't resist slithering in. And now that I'm inside, only another psionic could possibly throw me out again.»
She simpered, as if she expected praise for being so clever. I marveled at just how repugnant I could find the face that I loved; at how the same flesh and bone could be so transformed by the spirit within. Then again, a painter's eye is keenly attuned to such subtleties – a tiny stroke of the brush can change a portrait's features from stern composure to pompous buffoonery. I'd played such tricks many times on canvas; I just never expected to see the effect in real life.
«All right,» I said, «have fun in Yasmin's body. I'm going to find your real carcass.» Stepping around her, I strode off down the corridor, heading for the room where Wheezle and I had found Rivi's belongings on our first visit to the Spider. Perhaps Rivi's body wouldn't be there, but it was the natural place to start looking.
Rivi/Yasmin loosed an indignant squeal and scurried to follow on my heels. «You can't just ignore me!» she cried. «I'm in your lover's body!»
«So?»
«So you should… you should…» Her voice trailed off.
«I should moan and groan that Yasmin's possessed? Beg you to let her go? Pike that, Rivi,» I laughed, «the best way to handle brats is to ignore them.»
And I ran down the hall, leaving Rivi to fume.
In less than a minute, I had reached the machine room where Wheezle and I found the clay tablets. Unlike the room where we'd fought the Fox, this place still had its engines intact: pistons clanging, steam hissing, belts slapping through pulleys and gears. In the corner of the main room, the walls of the control bunker had turned transparent… a disconcerting effect, even if I'd seen it before. Rivi's body lay comfortably on a cot inside the room, her eyes closed, her hands folded, her chest rising and falling with tranquil breaths. The grinders, white and brown, stood atop large glass jars beside the cot; dust trickled out of each grinder like sand through an hourglass, so that the jars were now half full.
This looks easy, I thought to myself: just walk in, put my rapier to Rivi's throat, and threaten to carve her like mutton unless she lets go of Yasmin's mind. But why waste breath on threats? Why not try a gash or two, non-lethal cuts to see if the pain made it impossible for Rivi to keep Yasmin under control? I strode toward the door, ready to wreak violence on the albino body…
…and the sodding door was locked.
The body on the cot stirred, opened her eyes, and smirked as she sat up. «Troubles, darling?»
«Just a minor setback,» I replied. «If I can't get in, you can't get out. How long does it take to die of thirst, Rivi?»
«More time than you've got, Britlin dear. I've given back Yasmin her precious wee mind… with one tiny alteration.»
I shuddered. «What did you do?»
«A simple illusion – when she sees you, she'll think she's looking at me.»
Behind my back, Yasmin roared, «Rivi, prepare to die!»
Her first charge was pure rage, no feints, no tricks, no strategy – just a lightning lunge that would have gutted me if I hadn't knocked it aside and backed off fast. I would have gone for Rivi the same way: swift and lethal, trying to put her down before she could use her mental witchery. Yasmin followed up with more brute strength, slashes, thrusts, hammering at my guard, urgently pressing to end this quickly. I parried, dodged, blocked, and sideslipped, until I finally saw a momentary opening and drove a kick into her stomach. She staggered back a foot, then retreated further to a point where she could study me warily.
«You're better than I expected,» she said. «Maybe because you're using Britlin's sword. What did you do to him?»
«I am Britlin,» I replied. «Can't you tell?»
«Sorry, darling,» called Rivi, lounging on her cot, «she won't understand a word you're saying. All she hears is gibberish.»
I cursed and pointed toward the control room. If Yasmin couldn't understand what I said, at least she could follow my finger. «Look!» I told her, «there's the real Rivi!»
«Sorry again,» Rivi laughed, «but her wee brain can only see one of me. I'm afraid that one is you.»
«If you've hurt Britlin,» Yasmin stared venomously at me, «I'll run you through —»
She stabbed forward in the middle of her sentence: an old trick, aimed at skewering your opponent while he's waiting for you to finish the phrase. I parried, ducked under a moving machine-belt, and blocked another thrust mere inches from my groin.
«Still breathing,» Miriam replied, trying to sound unconcerned. «He'll come around when he's ready.»
«And what do we do in the meantime?»
«The last time we were here,» I said, «you talked about a portal to Mount Celestia.»
«Yeah,» Miriam nodded. «The place is supposed to be boring as a beadle, but at least no one will slip a dagger into your kidneys.»
«And Mount Celestia has gates to Sigil?» Yasmin asked.
«Every plane has gates to Sigil,» I said. «We'll find something.» I glanced back at Miriam. «Have you ever visited Mount Celestia?»
She shook her head without meeting my gaze. «Didn't think I'd be welcome. They, uhhh… the Mount Celestials have a reputation for hunting down evil.»
«You are not evil,» Irene said without hesitation, «you are simply gruff. It is unfair to judge people as wicked, just because… they are gruff.»
I got the feeling our orc friend was speaking of someone other than Miriam; but she suddenly shifted her bridal veil and lowered it over her face, turning away as she did. Whatever submerged pain had bubbled to the surface, she didn't want to share it.
There was a brief but awkward silence. Finally, Yasmin said, «Whatever any of us might have been, we aren't evil now. There's only one true evil in the Glass Spider, and that's Rivi.»
«She's probably not in the Spider any more,» Miriam muttered. «Odds are she's done a flit out one of the other portals… and not to Mount Celestia.»
«Do you really think she'd run?» I asked. «I doubt she's desperate enough yet to abandon a posh base like the Glass Spider. Who could she possibly believe would track her here? No one but us – we were the only people close enough to get through the portal before the Vertical Sea collapsed. Do you think Rivi's afraid of us?»
«She should be,» Yasmin replied, drawing her sword.
* * *
It only took another minute to formulate a plan. Miriam would carry Hezekiah to the Mount Celestia portal, and wait for us there with Irene. Yasmin and I would scour the rest of the building for Rivi; we would take appropriate action if we found her. Neither of us expected the job to be that simple, but we knew we had to try: Yasmin in the cause of Rightful Entropy, me on behalf of Wheezle, November, and Oonah DeVail.Time to get on with it.
Yasmin and I started with a circuit of the Spider's upper floor – rooms full of the wights' chemical smell, but empty of opposition. Puzzling; but then, in the past few days, we had whittled down the numbers of Rivi's bashers, both the living and the undead. The personnel needed to work the Vertical Sea must have exhausted the rest of her crew. To all appearances, there was no one left in the whole of the Glass Spider… either that, or they were all waiting in ambush on the lower floor.
Outside the windows of the Spider, the infinite Plane of Dust lay quiet and gray. Patient. Ashes to ashes…
When we had assured ourselves the top floor was clean, we headed for the stairs to the basement. There was only one staircase to the bottom level, a perfect spot to set a trap; and considering how the Fox mass-produced firewands, Rivi must surely have kept one for herself. Even so, we descended the steps without incident, down to the spartan utility corridors that echoed with the throb of machinery.
«Maybe Rivi doesn't know we're coming for her,» Yasmin murmured.
«Or maybe she died laughing at the thought,» I replied.
«If we find her dead, we'll muss up her corpse and say we killed her,» Yasmin smiled – a beautiful, pure smile, as if for this one second in all eternity, we were together. I don't know if we were together as lovers, as brother and sister, as comrades-in-arms… and for that one second in all eternity, it didn't matter.
One second in all eternity: most people don't even have that.
She smiled again… and I opened my mouth to say something, I don't know what, I'll never know what, when she turned away from me and put out a hand to steady herself against the corridor wall. The gesture didn't seem out of place – I thought she just wanted to stop me from speaking, to let the moment last a little longer without being spoiled by words. That's why I held back, giving her time with her thoughts.
Perhaps thirty seconds passed, and still she stood there, head slightly lowered, hand against the wall… until finally, a needle of fear worked under my skin and I stepped around to look her in the eye. «Are you all right?»
She didn't answer right away, but finally she lifted her head, eyelids flickering. «I'm fine, darling,» she answered. «Quite, quite well. In fact, I'd be completely on top of the world if you'd kiss me.»
Another wide smile swept across her face as she stepped toward me and draped an arm over my shoulder. She leaned forward with her lips slightly parted, but I held up a hand to stop her. «Before you kiss a Sensate,» I said, «you have to remember that our perceptions are… heightened through intensive training. We have a better sense of smell…» I touched her nose lightly with my forefinger. «A better sense of hearing.» I brushed her earlobe. «Extremely keen vision… not just for seeing, but for observing. For staring at a beautiful woman, and taking in every nuance.»
«Do you see any nuances that… interest you?» Her voice was throaty.
«Definitely. A minute ago, your smile started in your eyes and bloomed through your whole face. Now, it's only your mouth that's smiling. Your eyes are as cold as the ninth level of Hell.»
She swung her sword, but I had my own blade ready, easily parrying the attack. Skittering back a few steps, she graced me with a glittering leer. «What a clever boy! Who would have guessed your wee male brain wouldn't be completely blinded by animal lust? Once I've made this tiefling slag my own, I must have you on my side too.»
The voice came from Yasmin's lips… but of course, it wasn't Yasmin speaking.
* * *
The woman in front of me held her sword with Yasmin's strength, but none of Yasmin's skill. I couldn't tell if she was even making an effort to guard herself; certainly, it would have been laughably easy to knock the blade aside and run her through. Just one small problem…«Yes,» Rivi laughed with Yasmin's mouth, «you must be torn, poor man. On one hand, I'm sure you could kill this lovely body without a speck of trouble. On the other, I've detected a wee fondness, shall we say, between you and this woman. Can you really kill her to get me? Especially when you have no idea whether killing her will hurt me at all.»
«If you've switched bodies with Yasmin —»
«But that's the question, isn't it?» Rivi interrupted. «Is Yasmin's wee soul safe and sound in my own body… a simple swap? Or is Yasmin still inside this body, but dominated by my vastly superior willpower?»
«In a contest of willpower between you and Yasmin,» I said, «I'd put my gold on Yasmin any day.»
«Loyalty!» she chuckled, clapping her hands with delight. «How quaint. And perhaps, darling, the contest between me and Yasmin might have been a wee bit fiercer another time, another place. However, for one enchanted second, your dear-heart completely let down her guard – no doubt staring into your strong manly eyes. She opened herself so wide… well, I just couldn't resist slithering in. And now that I'm inside, only another psionic could possibly throw me out again.»
She simpered, as if she expected praise for being so clever. I marveled at just how repugnant I could find the face that I loved; at how the same flesh and bone could be so transformed by the spirit within. Then again, a painter's eye is keenly attuned to such subtleties – a tiny stroke of the brush can change a portrait's features from stern composure to pompous buffoonery. I'd played such tricks many times on canvas; I just never expected to see the effect in real life.
«All right,» I said, «have fun in Yasmin's body. I'm going to find your real carcass.» Stepping around her, I strode off down the corridor, heading for the room where Wheezle and I had found Rivi's belongings on our first visit to the Spider. Perhaps Rivi's body wouldn't be there, but it was the natural place to start looking.
Rivi/Yasmin loosed an indignant squeal and scurried to follow on my heels. «You can't just ignore me!» she cried. «I'm in your lover's body!»
«So?»
«So you should… you should…» Her voice trailed off.
«I should moan and groan that Yasmin's possessed? Beg you to let her go? Pike that, Rivi,» I laughed, «the best way to handle brats is to ignore them.»
And I ran down the hall, leaving Rivi to fume.
* * *
Let me say for the record that I was not so bla sas I wanted Rivi to believe – seeing the nasty wee albino inside Yasmin's body gave me cold chills. If Rivi wanted, she could use Yasmin's own sword to start carving up her body, flesh wounds just to horrify me or a good slash to the throat to end it all. One reason I ran was to get away before such ideas occurred to Rivi's foul mind; she wouldn't hurt Yasmin unless I was there to watch. Besides, Rivi might not be able to damage Yasmin without dislodging herself: the pain of injury might break Rivi's concentration, sending her back to her own body. I didn't know if psionics truly worked like that, but I prayed to The Lady it was so.In less than a minute, I had reached the machine room where Wheezle and I found the clay tablets. Unlike the room where we'd fought the Fox, this place still had its engines intact: pistons clanging, steam hissing, belts slapping through pulleys and gears. In the corner of the main room, the walls of the control bunker had turned transparent… a disconcerting effect, even if I'd seen it before. Rivi's body lay comfortably on a cot inside the room, her eyes closed, her hands folded, her chest rising and falling with tranquil breaths. The grinders, white and brown, stood atop large glass jars beside the cot; dust trickled out of each grinder like sand through an hourglass, so that the jars were now half full.
This looks easy, I thought to myself: just walk in, put my rapier to Rivi's throat, and threaten to carve her like mutton unless she lets go of Yasmin's mind. But why waste breath on threats? Why not try a gash or two, non-lethal cuts to see if the pain made it impossible for Rivi to keep Yasmin under control? I strode toward the door, ready to wreak violence on the albino body…
…and the sodding door was locked.
The body on the cot stirred, opened her eyes, and smirked as she sat up. «Troubles, darling?»
«Just a minor setback,» I replied. «If I can't get in, you can't get out. How long does it take to die of thirst, Rivi?»
«More time than you've got, Britlin dear. I've given back Yasmin her precious wee mind… with one tiny alteration.»
I shuddered. «What did you do?»
«A simple illusion – when she sees you, she'll think she's looking at me.»
Behind my back, Yasmin roared, «Rivi, prepare to die!»
* * *
Yasmin had a longsword, I had a rapier. Her weapon gave her the edge in strength, mine the edge in speed. In terms of skill, I thought we might be evenly matched, but in terms of motivation… she burned with a killer's fury, while I was sick at heart.Her first charge was pure rage, no feints, no tricks, no strategy – just a lightning lunge that would have gutted me if I hadn't knocked it aside and backed off fast. I would have gone for Rivi the same way: swift and lethal, trying to put her down before she could use her mental witchery. Yasmin followed up with more brute strength, slashes, thrusts, hammering at my guard, urgently pressing to end this quickly. I parried, dodged, blocked, and sideslipped, until I finally saw a momentary opening and drove a kick into her stomach. She staggered back a foot, then retreated further to a point where she could study me warily.
«You're better than I expected,» she said. «Maybe because you're using Britlin's sword. What did you do to him?»
«I am Britlin,» I replied. «Can't you tell?»
«Sorry, darling,» called Rivi, lounging on her cot, «she won't understand a word you're saying. All she hears is gibberish.»
I cursed and pointed toward the control room. If Yasmin couldn't understand what I said, at least she could follow my finger. «Look!» I told her, «there's the real Rivi!»
«Sorry again,» Rivi laughed, «but her wee brain can only see one of me. I'm afraid that one is you.»
«If you've hurt Britlin,» Yasmin stared venomously at me, «I'll run you through —»
She stabbed forward in the middle of her sentence: an old trick, aimed at skewering your opponent while he's waiting for you to finish the phrase. I parried, ducked under a moving machine-belt, and blocked another thrust mere inches from my groin.