«All right,» I said to the boy, as I drew even with him. «You want to tell me how you did that trick back there? One second you were behind me in the control room. The next, you were showering the Fox with his own dust. I thought Rivi had blanked you from teleporting.»
«I thought so too,» he answered, panting a bit after his run down the hall. «But…» He lowered his voice. «Oonah died right in front of us – she sacrificed herself. And then Miriam was watching me, as if she knew I'd do something to save everyone… I don't know, Britlin, it made me so mad and desperate, I felt this surge of energy, as if a little sun had caught fire inside of me. The next thing I knew, I was standing beside the Fox… and he'd left the grinder just lying on the floor while he was casting his spell… I didn't mean to kill him, Britlin, I just thought it would stop him from finishing the enchantment…»
Miriam took the boy's arm and squeezed it with fierce protectiveness. «The old berk had it coming. Barmy as a bison and twice as nasty.»
«You used to work for him,» Yasmin coldly reminded her. «And Rivi.»
«Yeah, well.» Miriam dropped her gaze to the floor. «I took Rivi's jink, sure… but I didn't give a tinker's about her cause. No one did. And Rivi didn't give a tinker's for any of us. You saw how she treated Petrov; she'd do the same to me as easy as breathing, and I'd return the favor if I could.»
«What a paragon of loyalty you are,» Yasmin muttered. Turning to the rest of us, she added, «Let's all bear that in mind, shall we?»
«Honored Handmaid,» Wheezle said, staring up at Yasmin like an infant in her arms, «we have greater concerns than this woman's feelings toward us.»
«That's right,» I put in, «like your state of health. How are you doing, Wheezle?»
«Most of me is doing well, honored Cavendish. However, I have no feeling in my legs.»
Hezekiah's face went pale. The boy whispered to me, «Wheezle hit that wall pretty hard…»
«I know… could be a spinal injury.» In a louder voice, I told Wheezle, «Don't worry – whatever it is, they'll be able to fix it in Sigil.»
«Indeed,» Wheezle nodded, «many of those in my faction have quite remarkable magic for curing —»
The floor suddenly heaved beneath our feet, whipping all of us against the left-hand wall. By luck, I happened to be standing between Yasmin and the wall's glossy steel, which meant I could cushion her and Wheezle from full impact. The experience was not quite so cozy for me – Yasmin was no featherweight debutante, starved down to look good in taffeta – but I'd had it easy so far compared to the others, so I couldn't complain about a few bruises.
A moment later, the floor's motion stopped; but the whole corridor remained slanted with a leftward slope of about five degrees. I didn't want to guess what was happening to the Glass Spider now that one leg was blowing its gaskets. Long ago, one of my father's friends had told me stories about all the planes, including the Plane of Dust: «There's places there, boy, where the dust runs a thousand miles deep. You can be walking along, dust only up to your ankles, and suddenly, the floor just drops away and you sink forever.» If the Spider's malfunctioning leg had somehow kicked us off the edge of safe ground into one of those dusty morasses…
«Miriam,» I said, «I believe you were showing us the closest way out?»
«Follow me,» she answered.
And we followed.
«This feels like a sinking ship,» Hezekiah blurted out as we pressed on after the third upheaval.
«I suppose you've been on a sinking ship,» Yasmin said.
«No,» Hezekiah replied, «but my Uncle Toby —»
«How far is it to the exit?» I interrupted: anything to avoid more about his sodding berk of an uncle.
«Not far,» Miriam answered. «Every one of the Spider's arms has a portal at the bottom end. The one back to Sigil is too far away, but there's a portal nearby that goes to Mount Celestia.»
I grunted in approval. Mount Celestia, the Plane of Lawful Good, was a bit restrained and conservative for my tastes, but it certainly qualified as a safe bolt-hole under the circumstances: the people were tolerant and friendly, the climate mild and hospitable. Sensates who visited there claimed it had the most boring night-life of any plane that wasn't actually encased in ice; at the moment, however, a short stint of tedium was just what I needed. No doubt we could find a portal from Mount Celestia back to Sigil, and then we could put this whole mess into the hands of Lady Erin.
We came to a spiral staircase just like the one we'd descended to get to this level. As each of us climbed, I waited for another Spider-quake, one vicious enough to toss us screaming off the steps; but the Fates were kind and we all reached the top before the next tremor hit. This tremor had none of the snap and tumble of the previous ones, but it seemed to go on forever: a slow and persistent drag that dropped one side of the Spider until the floors were all slanting at a tilt of thirty degrees.
«The ship is definitely sinking,» Hezekiah muttered.
None of us bothered to reply.
In fact, I was feeling positively chipper until we ran into the wights.
Twenty wights – yes, twenty – waited in the next lounge area around the circumference of the circle. And at their head was a milky transparent image of Rivi herself.
«Hello, darlings!» she called. «After the Spider started its jumpy wee dance, I assumed you might head for this exit. Did you miss me?»
«That's just a projection,» Hezekiah hissed, pointing at the ghostly Rivi. «She can't exert any power through it.»
«True,» the projected Rivi smiled. «But I can still command these dear obedient wights to rip out your entrails if you don't give me back the grinder.»
«Sorry,» I told her. «We've grown quite attached to the wee bauble. It would look simply precious on my dining room table.»
Rivi's projection flickered momentarily, but I could see a storm of murderous fury sweep across her face. It lasted only a moment; then she forced it away and the ghostly image stabilized once more.
«I don't want to kill you, I truly don't,» she said. «You're dangerous people; I admire that enormously. You've killed the Fox, crippled the Spider, and terrified all my lackeys. I'd love to have you conquer the multiverse by my side. But you must give me the grinder.»
«She's playing for time,» Yasmin murmured. «She probably has more wights coming around behind us.»
«We can't take on twenty wights in our current condition,» I replied.
«And,» Miriam added, «they're standing between us and the portal to Mount Celestia.»
«Hezekiah,» I said, «can you teleport us around those wights?»
He shook his head. «I don't have enough strength. I thought I was empty before I went after the Fox; now I know I'm tapped dry.»
Wheezle cleared his throat. «I might have a spell that could help…»
His face, his hair, his clothes were still caked solid with white anti-magic dust. «Don't do it,» I told him. «Losing Oonah was enough for one day.» I turned to Miriam. «You said there was a portal at the end of every Spider leg?»
«Yes, but I don't know where they all go.»
«Do you know what the keys are?»
She shrugged. «Whoever built the Spider left keys at most of the portals. Not the one to Sigil – the key there is a picture of yourself, so you have to make your own drawing. But the other portals have keys just lying around.»
«Darlings!» called out Rivi's projection, «have you decided to surrender yet?»
«Just about,» I answered. «Or else we've decided to… run!»
Even if the wights could not keep up with us, the projected image of Rivi dogged our heels every step of the way. It didn't move by walking or running – Rivi's pose remained as sedate as a statue, hands folded demurely across her lap – but the projection sped effortlessly along with us, as inescapable as starlight. The ghostly image wove among us, making sudden darting motions, trying to distract and confuse us, make us trip over our own feet. Along with the sight of her was the grating honey of her voice, «You won't get away, you know. I have wights all over this building. Give me back my grinder!»
None of us answered. We were too busy running, trying to keep our balance despite the aggravation from Rivi and the increasingly frequent tremors that rocked the building.
Ahead of us was a lounge area, located at the junction of another of the Spider's legs. Beyond that, I could hear the hissing of more wights racing toward us from the other direction. «We have to take this exit,» I said, pointing along the corridor through the leg.
«I don't know where the portal goes,» Miriam protested.
«Doesn't matter. Peel it.»
The corridor had originally sloped downward toward the ground; but as the other side of the Spider sank, this side had slowly tipped upward like the end of a see-saw. Now the corridor angled slightly skyward – only a bit, but it still took extra effort to run up it. «Kiripao,» I shouted, «I sure hope you're praying to whomever you worship that this slope doesn't get any steeper.»
«It is counter-productive to pray while running,» he yelled back. «While you are running, run. While you are praying, pray. Never whistle while you're —»
The Spider gave a staggering heave. Our end of the see-saw tilted a little higher.
«Isn't this glorious!» the ghost of Rivi crowed a hair's breadth from my face. «Do you find this corridor getting a wee bit hard to climb? You'll really have to watch your footing now, won't you – one little slip, and you'll roll all the way back to the waiting arms of my wights.»
«Pike it, slag,» Miriam snapped. But Rivi had a point: one or two more tremors and the corridor would become too steep to climb without pitons. The wights had already given up – they stood like a pack of undead wolves at the bottom of the ramp, waiting for their prey to slide down into reach.
The Spider rocked again. Hezekiah gave a surprised little, «Whoops,» and nearly lost his feet; but Miriam was right beside him and grabbed his arm before he went down.
The slope of the corridor was now more than forty-five degrees. It didn't help that the floor was an artificial material as smooth as marble. The leather soles of my boots provided poor traction on such a surface; barefoot would be better, but I wasn't about to sit down and waste precious seconds unlacing.
«Poor wee darlings,» Rivi mocked. «Time is running out.»
«What about you?» Yasmin snapped. «The whole place is sinking. Are you planning to go down with it?»
«So what if I do?» Rivi laughed. «The Glass Spider is air-tight… and given time, I can find the controls to set things right again. You're the ones with the tight schedule. I'm afraid you can't take another tremor. What do you think, Petrov?»
And suddenly, the ghostly projection of Rivi was joined by a second image: one whose appearance shocked me so badly, I nearly stumbled. Petrov stood before us, his mouth open in a soundless scream. Flames still surrounded him like a furnace; his arm had burned completely down to ash. Before Unveiler could drop from his hand, Rivi must have forced him to press the scepter to his chest. Now it blazed there like the symbol on a paladin's breastplate, grafted to his skin by the withering heat. How could he still be alive? His heart and lungs must be on fire, his throat completely seared to charcoal; and still he stood before us, too agonized to scream.
«Release him!» Wheezle cried from his perch in Yasmin's arm. «He has earned death. Let him go!»
«Give me the grinder and I will,» Rivi purred.
«Sorry, Petrov,» I muttered, and ran through the poor sod's projection, trying not to think of the flames. Even the illusion of them made me shudder.
The very second the door snicked shut, another tremor struck. All five of us fell backward, striking the door with our full weights. It gave one loud creak, and for a moment I thought it would give way, sending us flopping all the way back down the corridor to the waiting wights. I held my breath, heart pounding… but the seconds ticked by, one, two, three, with no sickening collapse and eventually I let the air sigh out of my lungs with relief.
Just across the room I could see the faint glow of a portal in the arch of the outside doorway. Imbedded in the wall beside the door was a steel cable from which dangled several cheap tin whistles on strings. Obviously, the whistles could open the portal, and the portal could take us away from Rivi's madness; the only problem was that the floor between us and the exit now sloped upward at an angle of about sixty degrees.
Without hesitation, Kiripao pushed himself away from the door at our backs. His hands and feet were bare; although the floor was too smooth to offer convenient handholds, he still managed to pull himself up to the cable and seize one of the whistles.
«All right,» Yasmin called, «just hold onto the cable and lower a rope…»
But Kiripao had other ideas. Sticking the whistle in his mouth and blowing loudly, he threw himself directly at the portal.
It flickered open giving a glimpse of somber gray skies clotted with forbidding black clouds; then it winked shut again.
«Sodding berk!» Miriam shouted at the vanished Kiripao.
«Now, now,» Hezekiah told her, «he's a Cipher. He probably decided to rush ahead and make sure the coast was clear.»
«Either that,» Miriam muttered, «or he wanted to give us the laugh before the damned Spider drops completely down a hole.»
«Problems, darlings?» The smirking image of Rivi flickered into existence once more, standing at an absurd slant in the middle of the room. «Abandoned by your wee friend?»
«He's just scouting ahead,» I snapped, then turned my attention toward taking off my boots. The slope was sharp, but I could still climb up to the door barefoot, provided the Spider didn't tilt anymore. I couldn't participate in the conversation anyway – Yasmin and Miriam wouldn't have let me get a word in edgewise, because they were too busy pouring curses on Rivi's head. Rather intriguing curses I might add… I certainly wanted to find out what Yasmin meant by «that sneaky trick with the neckerchief.»
By the time I was ready to climb, Hezekiah had pulled out a rope from his own knapsack. «This'll be good and sturdy,» he said as he handed the rope to me. «Uncle Toby made it himself.»
«Wonderful,» I growled. But perhaps my surge of annoyance at the mention of Uncle Toby had its positive side – it spurred me up the incline with a driving ferocity that brought me to the steel cable in record time. Once I had an arm safely wrapped around the cord, I set about fastening the rope for the others to climb.
«This is getting irksome,» Rivi's image said to me as I let the rope tumble across the slanted floor. «Did you know, darling, that all this time I've been standing in one of the Spider's other control rooms?»
The image bent over, as if Rivi was reaching toward something. Then, suddenly, the Spider careened wildly to one side, emitting a monstrous groan of protesting metal. Through the glassed-in walls of the room, I saw the next Spider leg to the right snap as viciously as a bullwhip, then come hurtling toward our own leg… as if one leg of the Spider was attacking the next. By my estimation, the incoming leg would hit our own leg about halfway down its length. There was nothing I could do but close my eyes and wait for impact.
When the collision came, it rattled my teeth like a punch in the mouth. Our leg weathered the blow rather well… by which I mean it didn't break clean away. After a single bone-shaking shudder, our leg steadied back in position. Even before the vibrations had begun to die away, Yasmin was already climbing the rope, with Wheezle's arms clasped around her neck.
«You were lucky, darlings,» Rivi's projection said. «The legs aren't really designed to mount such attacks. Then again, they aren't designed to withstand them either. A pity I can't move your own wee leg to shake you off… but that's because you destroyed the appropriate engine room. Oh well, I'll make do.»
The attacking leg swept back for another strike. As Yasmin reached me, I shoved a whistle into her mouth and shouted, «Go! Go!»
«Thanks for the advice, Britlin,» she muttered, despite the whistle held in her teeth. «I would never have thought of it myself.» And then she was blowing on the whistle and swinging her legs toward the portal. As it winked open, I caught a whiff of dank and fetid air; then Yasmin and Wheezle were gone.
Miriam and Hezekiah rushed through immediately after her, taking advantage of the few seconds that the portal remained open. Rivi screeched in fury as the Clueless boy, still carrying the white grinder, disappeared through the gate. A split-second later, the portal winked closed, putting the grinder finally out of Rivi's hands.
I wished I could aim some devastating taunt in Rivi's direction; but I had already stuffed a whistle into my mouth, and was busy shoveling the other whistles into my pockets. Why make it easy for Rivi to pursue us? Let her find her own whistle.
But I had momentarily forgotten the Spider leg that was hurtling in on a collision course. A leg like that doesn't move quickly; but once it is aimed, nothing can stop it.
Like a battering ram it slammed home again, and this time the impact nearly knocked me free from my grip on the steel cable. I heard a crunch, a snap… and then I could feel myself in freefall, as my half of this Spider's leg broke off and plunged toward the surface. Maybe the dust below would cushion the crash, but I didn't feel in a gambling mood. Blowing a piercing blast on the whistle in my mouth, I hurled myself through the waiting portal.
11. THREE WELL-FERTILIZED SHRUBBERIES
12. THREE BLOSSOMING RAPPORTS
«I thought so too,» he answered, panting a bit after his run down the hall. «But…» He lowered his voice. «Oonah died right in front of us – she sacrificed herself. And then Miriam was watching me, as if she knew I'd do something to save everyone… I don't know, Britlin, it made me so mad and desperate, I felt this surge of energy, as if a little sun had caught fire inside of me. The next thing I knew, I was standing beside the Fox… and he'd left the grinder just lying on the floor while he was casting his spell… I didn't mean to kill him, Britlin, I just thought it would stop him from finishing the enchantment…»
Miriam took the boy's arm and squeezed it with fierce protectiveness. «The old berk had it coming. Barmy as a bison and twice as nasty.»
«You used to work for him,» Yasmin coldly reminded her. «And Rivi.»
«Yeah, well.» Miriam dropped her gaze to the floor. «I took Rivi's jink, sure… but I didn't give a tinker's about her cause. No one did. And Rivi didn't give a tinker's for any of us. You saw how she treated Petrov; she'd do the same to me as easy as breathing, and I'd return the favor if I could.»
«What a paragon of loyalty you are,» Yasmin muttered. Turning to the rest of us, she added, «Let's all bear that in mind, shall we?»
«Honored Handmaid,» Wheezle said, staring up at Yasmin like an infant in her arms, «we have greater concerns than this woman's feelings toward us.»
«That's right,» I put in, «like your state of health. How are you doing, Wheezle?»
«Most of me is doing well, honored Cavendish. However, I have no feeling in my legs.»
Hezekiah's face went pale. The boy whispered to me, «Wheezle hit that wall pretty hard…»
«I know… could be a spinal injury.» In a louder voice, I told Wheezle, «Don't worry – whatever it is, they'll be able to fix it in Sigil.»
«Indeed,» Wheezle nodded, «many of those in my faction have quite remarkable magic for curing —»
The floor suddenly heaved beneath our feet, whipping all of us against the left-hand wall. By luck, I happened to be standing between Yasmin and the wall's glossy steel, which meant I could cushion her and Wheezle from full impact. The experience was not quite so cozy for me – Yasmin was no featherweight debutante, starved down to look good in taffeta – but I'd had it easy so far compared to the others, so I couldn't complain about a few bruises.
A moment later, the floor's motion stopped; but the whole corridor remained slanted with a leftward slope of about five degrees. I didn't want to guess what was happening to the Glass Spider now that one leg was blowing its gaskets. Long ago, one of my father's friends had told me stories about all the planes, including the Plane of Dust: «There's places there, boy, where the dust runs a thousand miles deep. You can be walking along, dust only up to your ankles, and suddenly, the floor just drops away and you sink forever.» If the Spider's malfunctioning leg had somehow kicked us off the edge of safe ground into one of those dusty morasses…
«Miriam,» I said, «I believe you were showing us the closest way out?»
«Follow me,» she answered.
And we followed.
* * *
Corridors blurred by. At first we ran full speed, but another lurch from the Spider sent us toppling again, banging painfully into the metal wall. From that point on, we slowed to a nervous trot, as fast as we could go while still retaining some hope of staying on our feet at the next shudder. Three more times, the Glass Spider quaked; and each time, the floor tipped a little more sideways.«This feels like a sinking ship,» Hezekiah blurted out as we pressed on after the third upheaval.
«I suppose you've been on a sinking ship,» Yasmin said.
«No,» Hezekiah replied, «but my Uncle Toby —»
«How far is it to the exit?» I interrupted: anything to avoid more about his sodding berk of an uncle.
«Not far,» Miriam answered. «Every one of the Spider's arms has a portal at the bottom end. The one back to Sigil is too far away, but there's a portal nearby that goes to Mount Celestia.»
I grunted in approval. Mount Celestia, the Plane of Lawful Good, was a bit restrained and conservative for my tastes, but it certainly qualified as a safe bolt-hole under the circumstances: the people were tolerant and friendly, the climate mild and hospitable. Sensates who visited there claimed it had the most boring night-life of any plane that wasn't actually encased in ice; at the moment, however, a short stint of tedium was just what I needed. No doubt we could find a portal from Mount Celestia back to Sigil, and then we could put this whole mess into the hands of Lady Erin.
We came to a spiral staircase just like the one we'd descended to get to this level. As each of us climbed, I waited for another Spider-quake, one vicious enough to toss us screaming off the steps; but the Fates were kind and we all reached the top before the next tremor hit. This tremor had none of the snap and tumble of the previous ones, but it seemed to go on forever: a slow and persistent drag that dropped one side of the Spider until the floors were all slanting at a tilt of thirty degrees.
«The ship is definitely sinking,» Hezekiah muttered.
None of us bothered to reply.
* * *
Miriam led us to the right, down a corridor that ran around the outer ring of the Spider's body. Looking out the window, I could see that the closest legs to us had lifted right off the ground – the opposite side of the Spider must have plunged so deeply under the dust that the legs on our side could no longer reach the surface. I took some comfort in that; on this side, we'd keep our heads above ground level substantially longer.In fact, I was feeling positively chipper until we ran into the wights.
Twenty wights – yes, twenty – waited in the next lounge area around the circumference of the circle. And at their head was a milky transparent image of Rivi herself.
«Hello, darlings!» she called. «After the Spider started its jumpy wee dance, I assumed you might head for this exit. Did you miss me?»
«That's just a projection,» Hezekiah hissed, pointing at the ghostly Rivi. «She can't exert any power through it.»
«True,» the projected Rivi smiled. «But I can still command these dear obedient wights to rip out your entrails if you don't give me back the grinder.»
«Sorry,» I told her. «We've grown quite attached to the wee bauble. It would look simply precious on my dining room table.»
Rivi's projection flickered momentarily, but I could see a storm of murderous fury sweep across her face. It lasted only a moment; then she forced it away and the ghostly image stabilized once more.
«I don't want to kill you, I truly don't,» she said. «You're dangerous people; I admire that enormously. You've killed the Fox, crippled the Spider, and terrified all my lackeys. I'd love to have you conquer the multiverse by my side. But you must give me the grinder.»
«She's playing for time,» Yasmin murmured. «She probably has more wights coming around behind us.»
«We can't take on twenty wights in our current condition,» I replied.
«And,» Miriam added, «they're standing between us and the portal to Mount Celestia.»
«Hezekiah,» I said, «can you teleport us around those wights?»
He shook his head. «I don't have enough strength. I thought I was empty before I went after the Fox; now I know I'm tapped dry.»
Wheezle cleared his throat. «I might have a spell that could help…»
His face, his hair, his clothes were still caked solid with white anti-magic dust. «Don't do it,» I told him. «Losing Oonah was enough for one day.» I turned to Miriam. «You said there was a portal at the end of every Spider leg?»
«Yes, but I don't know where they all go.»
«Do you know what the keys are?»
She shrugged. «Whoever built the Spider left keys at most of the portals. Not the one to Sigil – the key there is a picture of yourself, so you have to make your own drawing. But the other portals have keys just lying around.»
«Darlings!» called out Rivi's projection, «have you decided to surrender yet?»
«Just about,» I answered. «Or else we've decided to… run!»
* * *
The wights were not fast runners; that's all that saved us. We ran back the way we had come and the wights pursued, but with the lunging arm-swinging gait of all their kind. It slowed them down… and perhaps they were also inhibited by the resentment of being controlled, of being forced to submit to Rivi's every command. Slaves seldom move with the same zeal as those whose wills are free.Even if the wights could not keep up with us, the projected image of Rivi dogged our heels every step of the way. It didn't move by walking or running – Rivi's pose remained as sedate as a statue, hands folded demurely across her lap – but the projection sped effortlessly along with us, as inescapable as starlight. The ghostly image wove among us, making sudden darting motions, trying to distract and confuse us, make us trip over our own feet. Along with the sight of her was the grating honey of her voice, «You won't get away, you know. I have wights all over this building. Give me back my grinder!»
None of us answered. We were too busy running, trying to keep our balance despite the aggravation from Rivi and the increasingly frequent tremors that rocked the building.
Ahead of us was a lounge area, located at the junction of another of the Spider's legs. Beyond that, I could hear the hissing of more wights racing toward us from the other direction. «We have to take this exit,» I said, pointing along the corridor through the leg.
«I don't know where the portal goes,» Miriam protested.
«Doesn't matter. Peel it.»
The corridor had originally sloped downward toward the ground; but as the other side of the Spider sank, this side had slowly tipped upward like the end of a see-saw. Now the corridor angled slightly skyward – only a bit, but it still took extra effort to run up it. «Kiripao,» I shouted, «I sure hope you're praying to whomever you worship that this slope doesn't get any steeper.»
«It is counter-productive to pray while running,» he yelled back. «While you are running, run. While you are praying, pray. Never whistle while you're —»
The Spider gave a staggering heave. Our end of the see-saw tilted a little higher.
«Isn't this glorious!» the ghost of Rivi crowed a hair's breadth from my face. «Do you find this corridor getting a wee bit hard to climb? You'll really have to watch your footing now, won't you – one little slip, and you'll roll all the way back to the waiting arms of my wights.»
«Pike it, slag,» Miriam snapped. But Rivi had a point: one or two more tremors and the corridor would become too steep to climb without pitons. The wights had already given up – they stood like a pack of undead wolves at the bottom of the ramp, waiting for their prey to slide down into reach.
The Spider rocked again. Hezekiah gave a surprised little, «Whoops,» and nearly lost his feet; but Miriam was right beside him and grabbed his arm before he went down.
The slope of the corridor was now more than forty-five degrees. It didn't help that the floor was an artificial material as smooth as marble. The leather soles of my boots provided poor traction on such a surface; barefoot would be better, but I wasn't about to sit down and waste precious seconds unlacing.
«Poor wee darlings,» Rivi mocked. «Time is running out.»
«What about you?» Yasmin snapped. «The whole place is sinking. Are you planning to go down with it?»
«So what if I do?» Rivi laughed. «The Glass Spider is air-tight… and given time, I can find the controls to set things right again. You're the ones with the tight schedule. I'm afraid you can't take another tremor. What do you think, Petrov?»
And suddenly, the ghostly projection of Rivi was joined by a second image: one whose appearance shocked me so badly, I nearly stumbled. Petrov stood before us, his mouth open in a soundless scream. Flames still surrounded him like a furnace; his arm had burned completely down to ash. Before Unveiler could drop from his hand, Rivi must have forced him to press the scepter to his chest. Now it blazed there like the symbol on a paladin's breastplate, grafted to his skin by the withering heat. How could he still be alive? His heart and lungs must be on fire, his throat completely seared to charcoal; and still he stood before us, too agonized to scream.
«Release him!» Wheezle cried from his perch in Yasmin's arm. «He has earned death. Let him go!»
«Give me the grinder and I will,» Rivi purred.
«Sorry, Petrov,» I muttered, and ran through the poor sod's projection, trying not to think of the flames. Even the illusion of them made me shudder.
* * *
Up ahead lay the end of the corridor, marked by a closed doorway. Kiripao, running several paces ahead of the rest of us, slapped the button to open the door and leapt inside as soon as the gap was wide enough to let him enter. Miriam dragged Hezekiah through a moment later, followed by Yasmin carrying Wheezle. As soon as I had passed the threshold, Kiripao stabbed the button behind me and the door began to close.The very second the door snicked shut, another tremor struck. All five of us fell backward, striking the door with our full weights. It gave one loud creak, and for a moment I thought it would give way, sending us flopping all the way back down the corridor to the waiting wights. I held my breath, heart pounding… but the seconds ticked by, one, two, three, with no sickening collapse and eventually I let the air sigh out of my lungs with relief.
Just across the room I could see the faint glow of a portal in the arch of the outside doorway. Imbedded in the wall beside the door was a steel cable from which dangled several cheap tin whistles on strings. Obviously, the whistles could open the portal, and the portal could take us away from Rivi's madness; the only problem was that the floor between us and the exit now sloped upward at an angle of about sixty degrees.
Without hesitation, Kiripao pushed himself away from the door at our backs. His hands and feet were bare; although the floor was too smooth to offer convenient handholds, he still managed to pull himself up to the cable and seize one of the whistles.
«All right,» Yasmin called, «just hold onto the cable and lower a rope…»
But Kiripao had other ideas. Sticking the whistle in his mouth and blowing loudly, he threw himself directly at the portal.
It flickered open giving a glimpse of somber gray skies clotted with forbidding black clouds; then it winked shut again.
«Sodding berk!» Miriam shouted at the vanished Kiripao.
«Now, now,» Hezekiah told her, «he's a Cipher. He probably decided to rush ahead and make sure the coast was clear.»
«Either that,» Miriam muttered, «or he wanted to give us the laugh before the damned Spider drops completely down a hole.»
«Problems, darlings?» The smirking image of Rivi flickered into existence once more, standing at an absurd slant in the middle of the room. «Abandoned by your wee friend?»
«He's just scouting ahead,» I snapped, then turned my attention toward taking off my boots. The slope was sharp, but I could still climb up to the door barefoot, provided the Spider didn't tilt anymore. I couldn't participate in the conversation anyway – Yasmin and Miriam wouldn't have let me get a word in edgewise, because they were too busy pouring curses on Rivi's head. Rather intriguing curses I might add… I certainly wanted to find out what Yasmin meant by «that sneaky trick with the neckerchief.»
By the time I was ready to climb, Hezekiah had pulled out a rope from his own knapsack. «This'll be good and sturdy,» he said as he handed the rope to me. «Uncle Toby made it himself.»
«Wonderful,» I growled. But perhaps my surge of annoyance at the mention of Uncle Toby had its positive side – it spurred me up the incline with a driving ferocity that brought me to the steel cable in record time. Once I had an arm safely wrapped around the cord, I set about fastening the rope for the others to climb.
«This is getting irksome,» Rivi's image said to me as I let the rope tumble across the slanted floor. «Did you know, darling, that all this time I've been standing in one of the Spider's other control rooms?»
The image bent over, as if Rivi was reaching toward something. Then, suddenly, the Spider careened wildly to one side, emitting a monstrous groan of protesting metal. Through the glassed-in walls of the room, I saw the next Spider leg to the right snap as viciously as a bullwhip, then come hurtling toward our own leg… as if one leg of the Spider was attacking the next. By my estimation, the incoming leg would hit our own leg about halfway down its length. There was nothing I could do but close my eyes and wait for impact.
When the collision came, it rattled my teeth like a punch in the mouth. Our leg weathered the blow rather well… by which I mean it didn't break clean away. After a single bone-shaking shudder, our leg steadied back in position. Even before the vibrations had begun to die away, Yasmin was already climbing the rope, with Wheezle's arms clasped around her neck.
«You were lucky, darlings,» Rivi's projection said. «The legs aren't really designed to mount such attacks. Then again, they aren't designed to withstand them either. A pity I can't move your own wee leg to shake you off… but that's because you destroyed the appropriate engine room. Oh well, I'll make do.»
The attacking leg swept back for another strike. As Yasmin reached me, I shoved a whistle into her mouth and shouted, «Go! Go!»
«Thanks for the advice, Britlin,» she muttered, despite the whistle held in her teeth. «I would never have thought of it myself.» And then she was blowing on the whistle and swinging her legs toward the portal. As it winked open, I caught a whiff of dank and fetid air; then Yasmin and Wheezle were gone.
Miriam and Hezekiah rushed through immediately after her, taking advantage of the few seconds that the portal remained open. Rivi screeched in fury as the Clueless boy, still carrying the white grinder, disappeared through the gate. A split-second later, the portal winked closed, putting the grinder finally out of Rivi's hands.
I wished I could aim some devastating taunt in Rivi's direction; but I had already stuffed a whistle into my mouth, and was busy shoveling the other whistles into my pockets. Why make it easy for Rivi to pursue us? Let her find her own whistle.
But I had momentarily forgotten the Spider leg that was hurtling in on a collision course. A leg like that doesn't move quickly; but once it is aimed, nothing can stop it.
Like a battering ram it slammed home again, and this time the impact nearly knocked me free from my grip on the steel cable. I heard a crunch, a snap… and then I could feel myself in freefall, as my half of this Spider's leg broke off and plunged toward the surface. Maybe the dust below would cushion the crash, but I didn't feel in a gambling mood. Blowing a piercing blast on the whistle in my mouth, I hurled myself through the waiting portal.
11. THREE WELL-FERTILIZED SHRUBBERIES
Here's a tip for any would-be bloods who may be reading this memoir: try not to jump out of an unfamiliar portal while blowing a whistle loud enough to wake the dead. Stealth is better… trust me.
Since I had swung myself through the portal feet first, I emerged the same way, landing flat on my back in mud and still blasting away on the whistle. Yasmin leaned over me, snatched the whistle from my mouth, and hissed a desperate, «Shh!» I shushed with all due haste; and since I expected that dragging myself out of the muck would be a noisy process, I simply lay where I was, hoping I had not dropped into quicksand.
Or a corrosive bog.
Or into the path of ravenous army ants.
All of which seemed distinct possibilities, since I didn't know where the sod I was.
My view of the world was restricted to a number of tree branches crisscrossing close overhead – gnarled and twisted branches of mist-slick wood, wreathed with dagger-like leaves. All the branches hung heavily with streamers of frosty green moss, like pale fat boa constrictors lying well-fed in the trees and letting their tails dangle.
The cool air smelled of damp-rot, strong and cloying… the normal smell of a swamp, of course, but more intense than any natural swamp I'd visited. There was nothing placid in this swamp's aura of decay, no calm decomposition of fallen leaves into rich brown muck – I had a hunch that putrefaction here would be swift and aggressive, enough to rot the boots off your feet if you stood still too long.
When I thought about it, that wasn't such an unappealing prospect: having my clothes decay off my body would be an interesting sensation, if not downright titillating. But I had no time to wait for the rot to set in, because somewhere off to my right, Hezekiah whispered, «They're coming this way.»
«They heard the piking whistles,» Miriam glowered.
«If I could just cast a spell —» Wheezle began, but Yasmin cut him off immediately.
«No spells. We're covered with dust.»
«Then we must fight.» That last voice was Kiripao's… no surprise. Our elven monk was beginning to worry me; impulsiveness was one thing, but his constant eagerness to plunge into battle would spell trouble if we couldn't keep him in check. I had to wonder what religious order Kiripao belonged to – the monks I'd met before Kiripao had all conducted themselves with delicate restraint, fighting only when circumstances left no other choice. They certainly didn't leap into combat without the slightest attempt at parlay.
Still, I couldn't waste precious moments brooding about Brother Monk: it was high time to get off my back, and face whatever new ugliness was heading our direction. The mud put up sticky opposition to my plan, but it wasn't deep enough to hold me securely; in three or four seconds, I had ripped myself free and regained my feet.
We stood on a small rise in the middle of a bog that stretched as far as the eye could see. Stunted trees grew wherever the ground was solid enough to support them, but much of the landscape was covered with water: stale and brackish water, lying in stagnant black pools. As I continued to examine my surroundings, the surface of the closest pool broke into rings of dark ripples. Something white and shapeless rose from the depths, sucked briefly at the air, then disappeared once more into the lower darkness.
«What are they?» Hezekiah whispered.
Was he asking about the white thing in the water? No, his head was turned in a different direction. I followed his gaze out over the swamplands… and there, coming toward us with silent speed, were ten slices of blackness. For brief instants, as one or another of them glided over a patch of ground that was clear of tree-shadow, I could make out a gaunt humanoid shape, like a walking skeleton – a skeleton equipped with small bat-shaped wings ending in fearsome claws. Then the figure would move into the shade of another tree and virtually disappear, blending so completely with the shadows that even my Sensate's eyes could scarcely discern them.
«Does anyone know what they are?» I whispered.
«Umbrals,» Kiripao replied. «Close cousins to shadow fiends. Umbrals steal souls and sell them to the highest bidder.»
«If they want to steal our souls,» Hezekiah said, «they'll have to use magic, right?» He lifted the white grinder and tapped it meaningfully against his palm.
«Use the dust sparingly, honored Clueless,» Wheezle warned him. «Umbrals are only found on the Lower Planes; and if we have landed on a Lower Plane, we do not want to attract the attention of any powers who dwell here. They may decide to seize the grinder for their own.»
«Back in the Spider,» I reminded him, «you said that gods would leave this grinder alone… that they'd be afraid of every other god ganging up on them.»
«That would be the attitude of any sensible god,» the gnome nodded. «However, the Lower Planes are a patchwork of divine fiefdoms, each ruled by its own distinct deity. Every significant god is shrewd enough to exercise caution; but there are numerous small gods too, many of whom are gibberingly insane. If this land belongs to one of the mad powers, we must try to remain beneath its notice.»
«Get ready to fire anyway,» Yasmin muttered to Hezekiah. «Those things are getting too close for comfort.»
The umbrals were now only fifty paces away, close enough for me to catch the occasional glimpse of mouths filled with bristling teeth. Those teeth could tear through throat-flesh like a rip saw; and I didn't want them any nearer my jugular than they already were.
«That's close enough!» I shouted. «Stop and we'll talk.»
The creatures didn't slow down. They knew they outnumbered us; they carried no weapons, but those teeth and claws could shred us just as efficiently as a butcher's axe. I drew my sword and waited. For the last twenty paces of their approach, the umbrals would have to climb the rise where we stood. Holding this higher ground was our group's one advantage, and I intended to exploit it to the fullest.
At the bottom of the rise, the shadow things halted… possibly because they realized a mad rush would be risky, possibly because they had something else in mind. One of their number slipped back into the thickest darkness under a tree and drew something from a black pouch at its waist. I could barely see the umbral, let alone the small object it was holding; but whenever a foe acts furtively, it's time for preemptive action.
«Down there by that tree,» I said to Hezekiah. «Blast the berk.»
Hezekiah cranked the grinder and let loose a stream of dust with all the pressure of the main jet in the Great Fountain of Sigil. The whiteness of the dust showered down over the fiend's head, clearly outlining the creature's form – we could see that it was bent over some sort of black-glinting orb and chanting an invocation. The spray of dust didn't interrupt the creature's attempt at casting a spell… but the subsequent fire did. The umbral's body flared with the fierce white brightness of a sun, sending its fellow fiends shrieking to cover their eyes. In a split second, the umbral dissipated into ash; and the orb it had been holding fell to the muddy ground with a dull thud.
«Now can we talk?» I called down to them.
«Talk, yesssssssss,» one of the other umbrals replied in a whisper. It rubbed its eyes furiously, trying to recover from the blinding burst of their comrade's incineration. «We like talking. Very friendly umbrals, yessssssss.»
Yasmin gave a snort of disgust. «The first step in diplomacy,» she muttered, «is always getting their attention.»
«We don't want any trouble,» I told the chief shadow, «we just want to get back home.»
«Where isssssss home?»
«Sigil. Are there any portals nearby?»
«Portalsss. Portalssssssss.» The umbral tucked a claw under its chin and made a show of pondering the question with great seriousness. «No portalsssssss here.»
Kiripao growled. «He's lying – every umbral village has a portal in the center.»
«No, no,» the speaker said. «Our people very poor. No portalssssss.»
«There must be other villages nearby,» Miriam suggested.
«Not friendly villagesss. Wicked, greedy sssshadowsss. Sssteal your sssoulsssss.»
«Like you tried to do,» Yasmin muttered.
«Sssss'sssop very young,» the umbral shrugged. «Impulsssive. Not friendly like ussss.» It smiled an unconvincing smile and took a step up the hill. Hezekiah gestured with the grinder, and the speaker backed up quickly.
«If you don't know where to find a portal,» I said, «we have nothing else to say to you. Push off.»
«Oh, oh, oh,» the chief fiend replied. «Jussst remembered. A portal, yessss. A portal to Ssssigil.»
«What a remarkable coincidence,» Yasmin murmured.
«Yessssss, lovely portal,» the umbral continued. «Not far away.»
«A portal to Sigil?» Hezekiah repeatedly eagerly.
«Lovely clean portal, jussst your sssizzze. Lead you to it.»
«It's a trap,» Kiripao whispered.
«I never would have guessed,» Yasmin replied.
«Even if it is a trap,» Wheezle said softly, «perhaps we should accept their offer.»
«Are you barmy?» Miriam snapped.
«I know something of umbrals,» Wheezle replied. «They are greedy creatures… greedy to trap our souls in those orbs they carry. If we try to force them away, they will almost certainly attack.»
«And we would fight back,» Kiripao answered.
«They outnumber us. If they won the battle, all of our souls would be trapped in gems forever, cut off from rightful death.» Wheezle shuddered for a moment, then continued. «Even if we managed to kill them all, we would surely have our own casualties… and I do not think any of us wishes to die on a Lower Plane. Souls seldom escape from these planes, even in death – we would be reborn as mindless things of evil.»
Kiripao gazed at Wheezle with narrowed eyes. «You want to go along with these creatures because you are afraid to fight.»
«Honored brother,» Wheezle replied, «why not go along with them until we see a clear chance for escape? We are too exposed here. We have nowhere to run.»
The gnome had a point: if push came to shove, our muddy rise of land gave us the advantage of higher ground, but it was exposed and visible to all the surrounding territory. I'd learned enough from my father's stories to know that swamps in the Lower Planes are nasty places, filled with lurking vipers, stalkers made of ooze, and plants that suddenly lash their branches around your neck. Did we want to stay in plain sight with such threats slithering out there in the muck? On top of that, I wanted to get away posthaste from the portal at our backs – nothing more than a decrepit stone arch covered with clots of moss, but as soon as Rivi found a whistle to open the gate, she and an army of wights would come charging into this plane to retrieve the grinder. By the time that happened, we had to be long gone.
«All right,» I called to the umbrals. «Show us this portal of yours… but no tricks.»
«Tricksss? Tricksssssss? No play tricksss on friendsss… promisssssssse.»
For some reason, that didn't reassure me.
«What kind of trap?» Hezekiah asked.
I patted his shoulder. «Let's watch for every kind of trap, shall we?»
But that was easier said than done. The swamp was filled with rustles and slithers, with bogs of quicksand and shrubs sporting poison-drenched thorns. For the umbrals, this was home: they knew where they could step and where they couldn't, which snakes were harmless and which would strike if you walked within range. The rest of us had no such knowledge; and with each step along the muddy trail, my nervous tension screwed up another notch.
Approaching a patch of blooms whose smell made my head spin… were they giving off dangerous gas, or just a cloying perfume? And that clacking sound to the right… tree branches knocking together in the breeze, or a monster sharpening its claws? Every ripple in every pool… every drop of mist falling from the leaves overhead… every insect suddenly buzzing past our ears… we jumped at everything. Kiripao snapped his nunchakus at unknown phantoms; Yasmin plunged her sword into the undergrowth once or twice a minute, never telling us what she had seen; and even Hezekiah was jumpy, yelping at every odd gurgle of water, every croak from a frog.
My nerves were just as strained as my friends', but I concentrated on the umbrals, not creeping menace from the swamp itself. The fiends seemed in high spirits, conversing with each other in a language that consisted of hisses and hand gestures. From time to time they actually laughed, with a throaty sound like a dog being strangled. Whatever «tricksss» they had up their sleeve, they were obviously congratulating themselves at the cleverness of their plan.
This umbral snickering continued as they led us past a dozen black-water pools. After an hour or so, the tree cover thinned as the ground grew damper; and about a league ahead there appeared an honest-to-goodness river, perhaps ten paces wide. Trying to get a good view of that river, I almost missed something important closer to home: the fiends had stopped laughing.
In fact, they had stopped talking altogether – no hissing and none of the intricate hand gestures that made up their form of speech. They clutched their wings tight to their bodies, and they walked with a cautious, silent delicacy, like cats picking their way through mud. Why? I waved the others to a halt, placed a finger to my lips, and squinted carefully ahead.
Although there were no trees nearby, the path was still bordered by scrubby bushes, most of them reminiscent of nettles and burdock. At this very moment, however, the umbrals were passing three bushes that stood out from the rest: taller and fuller than the others, with leaves that had a soft reddish tinge to their green. The front fiend kept his gaze glued tightly to the bushes as he drew near them, and his pace grew even more cautious. Clearly, our «friendsss» intended to pass those bushes with the utmost silence… so just for the sake of interest, I pulled out a whistle from the Glass Spider and blew an ear-piercing blast.
With the force of an explosion, all three bushes expelled a barrage of white-wood flechettes, V-shaped thorns whizzing through the air. The fiends were mowed down like wheat, reaped by a thousand tiny scythes. Shreds of shadow were ripped from their bodies and scattered over the bulrushes behind them, black clots flung across the green.
The leaders of the party fell butchered without a single sound. The ones farther back, partly protected by their fellows, didn't die immediately, but uttered breathy little shrieks as the projectiles cut through their bodies. They shouldn't have made such noise – it stirred the bushes to shoot another fusillade, thorns imbedding themselves in shadow flesh, shadow wings, shadow eyes. The umbrals fell in tatters, their bodies perforated like moth-eaten clothes.
«Quickly,» Wheezle shouted, «we must get to them now! We must perform the proper death rites.»
«Don't be barmy,» Yasmin snapped. «We can't get close to those bushes.»
«We must!» Wheezle repeated. «Keep blowing the whistle, honored Cavendish. The plants cannot shoot thorns forever.»
And the little gnome was right: the bushes' supply of ammunition was limited. When I blew the whistle again, the responding volley of flechettes was smaller than the first two bursts. Three more whistles and the attacks had dribbled out; I gave another two toots just for safety's sake, but by then Wheezle was urging Yasmin to run full speed toward the slaughtered fiends. «The death rites are crucial!» he kept shouting.
«Dustmen,» Yasmin muttered and made a face. But she bounded into a sprint down the muddy path, goaded on by Wheezle shouting, «Faster, faster!»
The rest of us jogged along behind, wondering what could send Wheezle into such a tizzy. It didn't surprise me he knew the death rites for umbrals – Dustmen study the sentient races of the multiverse, just to know how to bury each one. On the other hand, I had witnessed dozens of deaths since I met Wheezle, from the Collectors incinerated by the exploding giant, to the Fox and all the others we'd killed inside the Glass Spider; our gnome had shown no urgent need to give them a proper send-off. He hadn't even offered a prayer for Oonah… so why did he care about monsters who'd tried to have us julienned by vegetables?
The moment Yasmin reached the closest fiend, Wheezle demanded to be set down. Quickly, he plunged his hand into the umbral's belt pouch and pulled out a dark sphere about the size of a walnut – twin to the gem-like orb we'd seen before, the one used by the umbral who tried to steal our souls at the portal. Raising the orb in his hand, Wheezle called out, «Come, beloved, to your —»
Yasmin clamped a hand over his mouth. «No magic, Wheezle! You're covered with dust – it's too dangerous.»
«This is not magic, honored Handmaid. I am simply calling a soul that may yet be lingering near this body.»
«Using that gem was magic before. Remember a certain umbral bursting into flames?»
«The umbral was attempting to steal a soul against our will; such theft does require magic. However, showing a soul that we have a receptacle available for habitation… that is not magic. The soul chooses for itself whether to enter the gem.»
Yasmin didn't look convinced, but she kept still as Wheezle called out again, «Come, beloved, to your home. A mansion has been prepared for you. Live in it and be glad.»
The dark orb flickered with a sudden thread of light. The gleaming strand shuddered once, twice, then blossomed into a deep purplish glow. It lit the gnome's face with a soft violet radiance and he smiled. «Good. Good.»
Suddenly, he tossed the orb to me with careless disdain. «Hold onto that, honored Cavendish. Umbrals sell souls to the highest bidder… so can we. It's justice.»
And then he urged Yasmin to carry him to the next body.
«You know something about the soul trade?» I asked.
«Some,» he nodded. «It is a popular form of commerce here in Carceri.»
«You think we're in Carceri?»
Kiripao pointed to the thorn-shooting bushes. «Those plants are called Tooth-Storms. I have never seen one before, but I have heard tales of how they… make their own fertilizer. They are found only in Carceri, on the swampy layer known as Othrys.»
«Wonderful,» I growled.
«What's Carceri?» Hezekiah piped up.
«One of the Lower Planes,» Miriam told him. «A place of utter evil, with a dash of chaos to make things cozy.»
«So how do we get out?» the boy asked.
«First, we must find an umbral village.» That answer came from Wheezle, who lay on the chest of the last fiend and rolled one of the soul-gems between his palms. «As the honored Kiripao has observed, every such village is built around a portal of some kind. With luck, the gate can take us somewhere less hostile.»
«Walking into an umbral village will surely provide all the hostility we can handle,» I said. «This bunch wanted to steal our souls the moment they saw us… and their families won't be pleased we've scragged a load of their cousins.»
«Umbrals have hard hearts,» Wheezle replied. «They feel no fondness for others of their kind, and will not grieve over those who have died. The one thing they do feel is greed: greed for…» He held up the glowing soul-gem.
«So the second we walk into a village,» Miriam growled, «they'll put us in the dead-book so they can bob our gems.»
«Not true, honored ruffian. Umbrals respect few rules, but the trade in souls occupies the center of their lives. If we present ourselves as merchants with goods for sale,» he held up the soul-gem again, «they will treat us as respected guests. We will embark upon a formalized process of negotiation, and during the time it takes to strike a bargain, they will provide us with free lodging, food, and clean water.»
The moment he said the word food, I could feel my stomach rumble. It had not been so long since my last meal – astonishing though it was, we had only left Sigil three hours earlier – but I was definitely growing peckish for a feed. Was there anything edible out here in the swamps of Othrys? Probably, but it would be sheer luck if we found it. None of us had any wilderness experience. Kiripao showed some small familiarity with this plane, but he hadn't recognized the Tooth-Storm bushes till they started shooting their thorns. That didn't bode well for stumbling around the swamp, trying to find food without getting eaten ourselves.
«Are you sure the umbrals won't kill us?» I asked Wheezle.
«They will rip out our throats the moment we conclude negotiations,» he answered, «but until then, they will show meticulous hospitality. It is their way. Umbrals have no honor as we recognize it, but while there is business to be conducted, they make every show of friendship.»
«Like half the merchants in the Great Bazaar,» Miriam muttered.
I was beginning to like her.
An hour later, however, when we finally reached the river, it became apparent that drinking this particular water would be risky. It was not just black; the water had an oily obsidian gloss to it, as if it could immediately squash the color out of anything that touched its surface. The smell of sulphur tainted the air, possibly from the water, or possibly from the curling clumps of mist that hung above the river at random points along its length.
As we watched, a dark skiff emerged from one of the banks of cloud. It moved slowly, giving us plenty of time to examine the ornate illustrations painted on the prow – row upon row of faces, some humanoid, some not, and all consumed with a quiet, ineffable sadness.
In time, the skiff emerged far enough from the mist for us to see the boatman: skeletally thin, clad in a hooded robe that didn't quite hide the fleshless face. A human woman sat passenger on the wooden seat behind, her eyes sewn shut with coarse black thread. Her hands lay folded in her lap, and no matter how the boat rocked on the river's current, the woman remained immobile… as if she weren't really sitting in the skiff at all, but gliding forward on the strength of some unknown destiny.
The woman was Oonah DeVail. Her soul. Her dead spirit.
She took no notice of us as the skiff silently floated by; but the boatman turned to look at us briefly, pale eyes in a face of bone. Then the skiff entered another pillar of mist and disappeared without leaving a ripple.
«This is the River Styx,» Kiripao said.
None of us spoke for some time.
Since I had swung myself through the portal feet first, I emerged the same way, landing flat on my back in mud and still blasting away on the whistle. Yasmin leaned over me, snatched the whistle from my mouth, and hissed a desperate, «Shh!» I shushed with all due haste; and since I expected that dragging myself out of the muck would be a noisy process, I simply lay where I was, hoping I had not dropped into quicksand.
Or a corrosive bog.
Or into the path of ravenous army ants.
All of which seemed distinct possibilities, since I didn't know where the sod I was.
My view of the world was restricted to a number of tree branches crisscrossing close overhead – gnarled and twisted branches of mist-slick wood, wreathed with dagger-like leaves. All the branches hung heavily with streamers of frosty green moss, like pale fat boa constrictors lying well-fed in the trees and letting their tails dangle.
The cool air smelled of damp-rot, strong and cloying… the normal smell of a swamp, of course, but more intense than any natural swamp I'd visited. There was nothing placid in this swamp's aura of decay, no calm decomposition of fallen leaves into rich brown muck – I had a hunch that putrefaction here would be swift and aggressive, enough to rot the boots off your feet if you stood still too long.
When I thought about it, that wasn't such an unappealing prospect: having my clothes decay off my body would be an interesting sensation, if not downright titillating. But I had no time to wait for the rot to set in, because somewhere off to my right, Hezekiah whispered, «They're coming this way.»
«They heard the piking whistles,» Miriam glowered.
«If I could just cast a spell —» Wheezle began, but Yasmin cut him off immediately.
«No spells. We're covered with dust.»
«Then we must fight.» That last voice was Kiripao's… no surprise. Our elven monk was beginning to worry me; impulsiveness was one thing, but his constant eagerness to plunge into battle would spell trouble if we couldn't keep him in check. I had to wonder what religious order Kiripao belonged to – the monks I'd met before Kiripao had all conducted themselves with delicate restraint, fighting only when circumstances left no other choice. They certainly didn't leap into combat without the slightest attempt at parlay.
Still, I couldn't waste precious moments brooding about Brother Monk: it was high time to get off my back, and face whatever new ugliness was heading our direction. The mud put up sticky opposition to my plan, but it wasn't deep enough to hold me securely; in three or four seconds, I had ripped myself free and regained my feet.
We stood on a small rise in the middle of a bog that stretched as far as the eye could see. Stunted trees grew wherever the ground was solid enough to support them, but much of the landscape was covered with water: stale and brackish water, lying in stagnant black pools. As I continued to examine my surroundings, the surface of the closest pool broke into rings of dark ripples. Something white and shapeless rose from the depths, sucked briefly at the air, then disappeared once more into the lower darkness.
«What are they?» Hezekiah whispered.
Was he asking about the white thing in the water? No, his head was turned in a different direction. I followed his gaze out over the swamplands… and there, coming toward us with silent speed, were ten slices of blackness. For brief instants, as one or another of them glided over a patch of ground that was clear of tree-shadow, I could make out a gaunt humanoid shape, like a walking skeleton – a skeleton equipped with small bat-shaped wings ending in fearsome claws. Then the figure would move into the shade of another tree and virtually disappear, blending so completely with the shadows that even my Sensate's eyes could scarcely discern them.
«Does anyone know what they are?» I whispered.
«Umbrals,» Kiripao replied. «Close cousins to shadow fiends. Umbrals steal souls and sell them to the highest bidder.»
«If they want to steal our souls,» Hezekiah said, «they'll have to use magic, right?» He lifted the white grinder and tapped it meaningfully against his palm.
«Use the dust sparingly, honored Clueless,» Wheezle warned him. «Umbrals are only found on the Lower Planes; and if we have landed on a Lower Plane, we do not want to attract the attention of any powers who dwell here. They may decide to seize the grinder for their own.»
«Back in the Spider,» I reminded him, «you said that gods would leave this grinder alone… that they'd be afraid of every other god ganging up on them.»
«That would be the attitude of any sensible god,» the gnome nodded. «However, the Lower Planes are a patchwork of divine fiefdoms, each ruled by its own distinct deity. Every significant god is shrewd enough to exercise caution; but there are numerous small gods too, many of whom are gibberingly insane. If this land belongs to one of the mad powers, we must try to remain beneath its notice.»
«Get ready to fire anyway,» Yasmin muttered to Hezekiah. «Those things are getting too close for comfort.»
The umbrals were now only fifty paces away, close enough for me to catch the occasional glimpse of mouths filled with bristling teeth. Those teeth could tear through throat-flesh like a rip saw; and I didn't want them any nearer my jugular than they already were.
«That's close enough!» I shouted. «Stop and we'll talk.»
The creatures didn't slow down. They knew they outnumbered us; they carried no weapons, but those teeth and claws could shred us just as efficiently as a butcher's axe. I drew my sword and waited. For the last twenty paces of their approach, the umbrals would have to climb the rise where we stood. Holding this higher ground was our group's one advantage, and I intended to exploit it to the fullest.
At the bottom of the rise, the shadow things halted… possibly because they realized a mad rush would be risky, possibly because they had something else in mind. One of their number slipped back into the thickest darkness under a tree and drew something from a black pouch at its waist. I could barely see the umbral, let alone the small object it was holding; but whenever a foe acts furtively, it's time for preemptive action.
«Down there by that tree,» I said to Hezekiah. «Blast the berk.»
Hezekiah cranked the grinder and let loose a stream of dust with all the pressure of the main jet in the Great Fountain of Sigil. The whiteness of the dust showered down over the fiend's head, clearly outlining the creature's form – we could see that it was bent over some sort of black-glinting orb and chanting an invocation. The spray of dust didn't interrupt the creature's attempt at casting a spell… but the subsequent fire did. The umbral's body flared with the fierce white brightness of a sun, sending its fellow fiends shrieking to cover their eyes. In a split second, the umbral dissipated into ash; and the orb it had been holding fell to the muddy ground with a dull thud.
«Now can we talk?» I called down to them.
«Talk, yesssssssss,» one of the other umbrals replied in a whisper. It rubbed its eyes furiously, trying to recover from the blinding burst of their comrade's incineration. «We like talking. Very friendly umbrals, yessssssss.»
Yasmin gave a snort of disgust. «The first step in diplomacy,» she muttered, «is always getting their attention.»
* * *
As far as I could tell, only one of the creatures was capable of speech; the rest simply stared at us with huge hollow eyes, their hands constantly flexing as if they longed to imbed their claws into our flesh. I noticed Kiripao's hands were doing much the same thing, eager to break a few umbral heads… but he restrained himself while I spoke with the fiend leader.«We don't want any trouble,» I told the chief shadow, «we just want to get back home.»
«Where isssssss home?»
«Sigil. Are there any portals nearby?»
«Portalsss. Portalssssssss.» The umbral tucked a claw under its chin and made a show of pondering the question with great seriousness. «No portalsssssss here.»
Kiripao growled. «He's lying – every umbral village has a portal in the center.»
«No, no,» the speaker said. «Our people very poor. No portalssssss.»
«There must be other villages nearby,» Miriam suggested.
«Not friendly villagesss. Wicked, greedy sssshadowsss. Sssteal your sssoulsssss.»
«Like you tried to do,» Yasmin muttered.
«Sssss'sssop very young,» the umbral shrugged. «Impulsssive. Not friendly like ussss.» It smiled an unconvincing smile and took a step up the hill. Hezekiah gestured with the grinder, and the speaker backed up quickly.
«If you don't know where to find a portal,» I said, «we have nothing else to say to you. Push off.»
«Oh, oh, oh,» the chief fiend replied. «Jussst remembered. A portal, yessss. A portal to Ssssigil.»
«What a remarkable coincidence,» Yasmin murmured.
«Yessssss, lovely portal,» the umbral continued. «Not far away.»
«A portal to Sigil?» Hezekiah repeatedly eagerly.
«Lovely clean portal, jussst your sssizzze. Lead you to it.»
«It's a trap,» Kiripao whispered.
«I never would have guessed,» Yasmin replied.
«Even if it is a trap,» Wheezle said softly, «perhaps we should accept their offer.»
«Are you barmy?» Miriam snapped.
«I know something of umbrals,» Wheezle replied. «They are greedy creatures… greedy to trap our souls in those orbs they carry. If we try to force them away, they will almost certainly attack.»
«And we would fight back,» Kiripao answered.
«They outnumber us. If they won the battle, all of our souls would be trapped in gems forever, cut off from rightful death.» Wheezle shuddered for a moment, then continued. «Even if we managed to kill them all, we would surely have our own casualties… and I do not think any of us wishes to die on a Lower Plane. Souls seldom escape from these planes, even in death – we would be reborn as mindless things of evil.»
Kiripao gazed at Wheezle with narrowed eyes. «You want to go along with these creatures because you are afraid to fight.»
«Honored brother,» Wheezle replied, «why not go along with them until we see a clear chance for escape? We are too exposed here. We have nowhere to run.»
The gnome had a point: if push came to shove, our muddy rise of land gave us the advantage of higher ground, but it was exposed and visible to all the surrounding territory. I'd learned enough from my father's stories to know that swamps in the Lower Planes are nasty places, filled with lurking vipers, stalkers made of ooze, and plants that suddenly lash their branches around your neck. Did we want to stay in plain sight with such threats slithering out there in the muck? On top of that, I wanted to get away posthaste from the portal at our backs – nothing more than a decrepit stone arch covered with clots of moss, but as soon as Rivi found a whistle to open the gate, she and an army of wights would come charging into this plane to retrieve the grinder. By the time that happened, we had to be long gone.
«All right,» I called to the umbrals. «Show us this portal of yours… but no tricks.»
«Tricksss? Tricksssssss? No play tricksss on friendsss… promisssssssse.»
For some reason, that didn't reassure me.
* * *
We kept our distance from the fiends, giving them a lead of about thirty paces. «Keep peery,» I told the others, as if they needed the advice. «We grab any chance of escape that presents itself, and we watch for any sign of a trap.»«What kind of trap?» Hezekiah asked.
I patted his shoulder. «Let's watch for every kind of trap, shall we?»
But that was easier said than done. The swamp was filled with rustles and slithers, with bogs of quicksand and shrubs sporting poison-drenched thorns. For the umbrals, this was home: they knew where they could step and where they couldn't, which snakes were harmless and which would strike if you walked within range. The rest of us had no such knowledge; and with each step along the muddy trail, my nervous tension screwed up another notch.
Approaching a patch of blooms whose smell made my head spin… were they giving off dangerous gas, or just a cloying perfume? And that clacking sound to the right… tree branches knocking together in the breeze, or a monster sharpening its claws? Every ripple in every pool… every drop of mist falling from the leaves overhead… every insect suddenly buzzing past our ears… we jumped at everything. Kiripao snapped his nunchakus at unknown phantoms; Yasmin plunged her sword into the undergrowth once or twice a minute, never telling us what she had seen; and even Hezekiah was jumpy, yelping at every odd gurgle of water, every croak from a frog.
My nerves were just as strained as my friends', but I concentrated on the umbrals, not creeping menace from the swamp itself. The fiends seemed in high spirits, conversing with each other in a language that consisted of hisses and hand gestures. From time to time they actually laughed, with a throaty sound like a dog being strangled. Whatever «tricksss» they had up their sleeve, they were obviously congratulating themselves at the cleverness of their plan.
This umbral snickering continued as they led us past a dozen black-water pools. After an hour or so, the tree cover thinned as the ground grew damper; and about a league ahead there appeared an honest-to-goodness river, perhaps ten paces wide. Trying to get a good view of that river, I almost missed something important closer to home: the fiends had stopped laughing.
In fact, they had stopped talking altogether – no hissing and none of the intricate hand gestures that made up their form of speech. They clutched their wings tight to their bodies, and they walked with a cautious, silent delicacy, like cats picking their way through mud. Why? I waved the others to a halt, placed a finger to my lips, and squinted carefully ahead.
Although there were no trees nearby, the path was still bordered by scrubby bushes, most of them reminiscent of nettles and burdock. At this very moment, however, the umbrals were passing three bushes that stood out from the rest: taller and fuller than the others, with leaves that had a soft reddish tinge to their green. The front fiend kept his gaze glued tightly to the bushes as he drew near them, and his pace grew even more cautious. Clearly, our «friendsss» intended to pass those bushes with the utmost silence… so just for the sake of interest, I pulled out a whistle from the Glass Spider and blew an ear-piercing blast.
With the force of an explosion, all three bushes expelled a barrage of white-wood flechettes, V-shaped thorns whizzing through the air. The fiends were mowed down like wheat, reaped by a thousand tiny scythes. Shreds of shadow were ripped from their bodies and scattered over the bulrushes behind them, black clots flung across the green.
The leaders of the party fell butchered without a single sound. The ones farther back, partly protected by their fellows, didn't die immediately, but uttered breathy little shrieks as the projectiles cut through their bodies. They shouldn't have made such noise – it stirred the bushes to shoot another fusillade, thorns imbedding themselves in shadow flesh, shadow wings, shadow eyes. The umbrals fell in tatters, their bodies perforated like moth-eaten clothes.
«Quickly,» Wheezle shouted, «we must get to them now! We must perform the proper death rites.»
«Don't be barmy,» Yasmin snapped. «We can't get close to those bushes.»
«We must!» Wheezle repeated. «Keep blowing the whistle, honored Cavendish. The plants cannot shoot thorns forever.»
And the little gnome was right: the bushes' supply of ammunition was limited. When I blew the whistle again, the responding volley of flechettes was smaller than the first two bursts. Three more whistles and the attacks had dribbled out; I gave another two toots just for safety's sake, but by then Wheezle was urging Yasmin to run full speed toward the slaughtered fiends. «The death rites are crucial!» he kept shouting.
«Dustmen,» Yasmin muttered and made a face. But she bounded into a sprint down the muddy path, goaded on by Wheezle shouting, «Faster, faster!»
The rest of us jogged along behind, wondering what could send Wheezle into such a tizzy. It didn't surprise me he knew the death rites for umbrals – Dustmen study the sentient races of the multiverse, just to know how to bury each one. On the other hand, I had witnessed dozens of deaths since I met Wheezle, from the Collectors incinerated by the exploding giant, to the Fox and all the others we'd killed inside the Glass Spider; our gnome had shown no urgent need to give them a proper send-off. He hadn't even offered a prayer for Oonah… so why did he care about monsters who'd tried to have us julienned by vegetables?
The moment Yasmin reached the closest fiend, Wheezle demanded to be set down. Quickly, he plunged his hand into the umbral's belt pouch and pulled out a dark sphere about the size of a walnut – twin to the gem-like orb we'd seen before, the one used by the umbral who tried to steal our souls at the portal. Raising the orb in his hand, Wheezle called out, «Come, beloved, to your —»
Yasmin clamped a hand over his mouth. «No magic, Wheezle! You're covered with dust – it's too dangerous.»
«This is not magic, honored Handmaid. I am simply calling a soul that may yet be lingering near this body.»
«Using that gem was magic before. Remember a certain umbral bursting into flames?»
«The umbral was attempting to steal a soul against our will; such theft does require magic. However, showing a soul that we have a receptacle available for habitation… that is not magic. The soul chooses for itself whether to enter the gem.»
Yasmin didn't look convinced, but she kept still as Wheezle called out again, «Come, beloved, to your home. A mansion has been prepared for you. Live in it and be glad.»
The dark orb flickered with a sudden thread of light. The gleaming strand shuddered once, twice, then blossomed into a deep purplish glow. It lit the gnome's face with a soft violet radiance and he smiled. «Good. Good.»
Suddenly, he tossed the orb to me with careless disdain. «Hold onto that, honored Cavendish. Umbrals sell souls to the highest bidder… so can we. It's justice.»
And then he urged Yasmin to carry him to the next body.
* * *
Nine orbs, glowing purple. Nine umbral souls, housed inside these strange gems. «A good haul,» Kiripao said approvingly.«You know something about the soul trade?» I asked.
«Some,» he nodded. «It is a popular form of commerce here in Carceri.»
«You think we're in Carceri?»
Kiripao pointed to the thorn-shooting bushes. «Those plants are called Tooth-Storms. I have never seen one before, but I have heard tales of how they… make their own fertilizer. They are found only in Carceri, on the swampy layer known as Othrys.»
«Wonderful,» I growled.
«What's Carceri?» Hezekiah piped up.
«One of the Lower Planes,» Miriam told him. «A place of utter evil, with a dash of chaos to make things cozy.»
«So how do we get out?» the boy asked.
«First, we must find an umbral village.» That answer came from Wheezle, who lay on the chest of the last fiend and rolled one of the soul-gems between his palms. «As the honored Kiripao has observed, every such village is built around a portal of some kind. With luck, the gate can take us somewhere less hostile.»
«Walking into an umbral village will surely provide all the hostility we can handle,» I said. «This bunch wanted to steal our souls the moment they saw us… and their families won't be pleased we've scragged a load of their cousins.»
«Umbrals have hard hearts,» Wheezle replied. «They feel no fondness for others of their kind, and will not grieve over those who have died. The one thing they do feel is greed: greed for…» He held up the glowing soul-gem.
«So the second we walk into a village,» Miriam growled, «they'll put us in the dead-book so they can bob our gems.»
«Not true, honored ruffian. Umbrals respect few rules, but the trade in souls occupies the center of their lives. If we present ourselves as merchants with goods for sale,» he held up the soul-gem again, «they will treat us as respected guests. We will embark upon a formalized process of negotiation, and during the time it takes to strike a bargain, they will provide us with free lodging, food, and clean water.»
The moment he said the word food, I could feel my stomach rumble. It had not been so long since my last meal – astonishing though it was, we had only left Sigil three hours earlier – but I was definitely growing peckish for a feed. Was there anything edible out here in the swamps of Othrys? Probably, but it would be sheer luck if we found it. None of us had any wilderness experience. Kiripao showed some small familiarity with this plane, but he hadn't recognized the Tooth-Storm bushes till they started shooting their thorns. That didn't bode well for stumbling around the swamp, trying to find food without getting eaten ourselves.
«Are you sure the umbrals won't kill us?» I asked Wheezle.
«They will rip out our throats the moment we conclude negotiations,» he answered, «but until then, they will show meticulous hospitality. It is their way. Umbrals have no honor as we recognize it, but while there is business to be conducted, they make every show of friendship.»
«Like half the merchants in the Great Bazaar,» Miriam muttered.
I was beginning to like her.
* * *
We continued along the muddy trail in the direction we had been traveling. There was no guarantee it would lead to an umbral village, but we could see it was a well-used path. It was also heading for the river far ahead of us, and that was another good sign; even in the Lower Planes, it's practical to build your village close to a waterway, for the convenience of transportation and drinking.An hour later, however, when we finally reached the river, it became apparent that drinking this particular water would be risky. It was not just black; the water had an oily obsidian gloss to it, as if it could immediately squash the color out of anything that touched its surface. The smell of sulphur tainted the air, possibly from the water, or possibly from the curling clumps of mist that hung above the river at random points along its length.
As we watched, a dark skiff emerged from one of the banks of cloud. It moved slowly, giving us plenty of time to examine the ornate illustrations painted on the prow – row upon row of faces, some humanoid, some not, and all consumed with a quiet, ineffable sadness.
In time, the skiff emerged far enough from the mist for us to see the boatman: skeletally thin, clad in a hooded robe that didn't quite hide the fleshless face. A human woman sat passenger on the wooden seat behind, her eyes sewn shut with coarse black thread. Her hands lay folded in her lap, and no matter how the boat rocked on the river's current, the woman remained immobile… as if she weren't really sitting in the skiff at all, but gliding forward on the strength of some unknown destiny.
The woman was Oonah DeVail. Her soul. Her dead spirit.
She took no notice of us as the skiff silently floated by; but the boatman turned to look at us briefly, pale eyes in a face of bone. Then the skiff entered another pillar of mist and disappeared without leaving a ripple.
«This is the River Styx,» Kiripao said.
None of us spoke for some time.
12. THREE BLOSSOMING RAPPORTS
Our muddy trail led along the Styx for the better part of a mile. Then as we rounded a bend in the river, we saw a gathering of black huts ahead, tucked beneath a grove of moss-laden trees. The huts seemed to be sculpted from solid darkness, as if they had congealed from the gloom of shadows that permeated the grove.
«Each of us will carry a gem,» Wheezle said softly, handing around the glowing purple orbs. «We must all present ourselves as soul-merchants.»
«Each of us will carry a gem,» Wheezle said softly, handing around the glowing purple orbs. «We must all present ourselves as soul-merchants.»