This last statement prompted Kiripao to make a whuffling sound, like a bear slavering over a carcass. Perhaps the sound was laughter… or weeping.
«Now, darlings,» said Rivi, «far be it from me to interfere with a monk enlightening his flock; but I could try to restrain him, if you showed a wee bit of cooperation. Give me the grinder, right here, right now, and I guarantee we'll all walk away from this, whistling tunes of cheer.»
«I can't whistle,» Hezekiah snapped back, in what he must have thought was a brilliant retort.
Wheezle said in a low voice, «Once the honored madwoman gets through, you'll whistle any tune she wants.»
«I don't have to be nice about this,» Rivi called. «I have enough wights to take what I want by force. But Plague-Mort is such a dear wee town, it makes me sentimental to a fault. Why don't I give you a count of ten? One… isn't this exciting? Two… no, it isn't. Ten. Sorry, I got bored.»
That's when the wights charged en masse.
It didn't happen all at once. A dozen sets of claws smashed the building simultaneously, stabbing through the wood exterior and the plaster inside. I could see individual fingers piercing the wall in front of me, talons flexing. In unison, the fingers clenched into fists and pulled backward with supernatural strength. Plaster broke off in handfuls… and with a groaning of rusty nails, board after board ripped off the front of the house, leaving long horizontal gaps. It took the wights a few moments to shake off the lumber still clinging to their fingers; then their hands crashed out in unison again, like claw-tipped battering rams.
You know, I thought to myself, in a normal town, bar fights, prowling monsters, and a house being demolished by the undead would eventually catch the attention of the city watch. But in beautiful Plague-Mort, pearl of the Outlands…
The wights heaved and ripped off another bunch of boards. It was a riveting visual effect, strips of the house being ripped away to let lamplight glimmer through: lamplight choked with plaster dust and twinkling off the broken glass on the floor. A painting of that would sell very well to an Anarchist… not that most Anarchists had money, of course, but there must be some prominent merchants who were secretly Anarchist sympathizers…
«Are you going to stand there and let them tear the house apart?» Yasmin demanded.
«Sorry,» I murmured, collecting my thoughts. «I was just contemplating the beauties of Entropy.»
She looked at me narrowly, debating whether I was mocking her beliefs. Before she could come to a conclusion I'd regret, I said, «Let's get busy, shall we?» and lifted my sword.
Truth to tell, wights whacking the wall of one's only refuge might look sodding scary, but the house was built to withstand hurricanes like the one Zeerith had described; the undead were still a long way from collapsing the place, or even clawing their way inside. All they'd really done was rip out the horizontal equivalent of arrow slits: four-inch wide holes, ideal for stabbing swords out at attackers. Even better, as soon as the wights rammed their talons into the wood again, they were as good as handcuffed, like condemned prisoners waiting for the axe.
Yasmin and I gladly played their executioners.
I took out two the first time: a pair of quick thrusts, both through rotting faces, the jabs hard enough to drive bone chips liberally through the wights' brains. The first one fell without a sound. The second had enough time to spit a hiss of rage; then my rapier plunged straight between its eyes, pithing whatever last thoughts such a creature might have.
The other wights tore away a few more boards; but the monsters Yasmin and I dispatched only slumped where they were, their claws still deeply imbedded in the wall. I wished I could see them from the street – a group of dead wights dangling from the front of the house by their hands, their heads skewered and spilling out brains.
A nice score, I thought to myself. If Yasmin and I both killed two wights with every assault, we'd soon whittle down the opposition to just Rivi and Kiripao… and Qi and Chi, of course, wherever they were.
Sod it all… where were Qi and Chi?
The wights slammed forward again… and even as I cleaved the heads of two more, my thoughts raced in other directions. Why had Rivi let the wights make another charge? She'd seen how easily we could kill them. No doubt she had more wights back at the Glass Spider, but they weren't here now. And where were Qi and Chi? Two sneak thieves who had robbed faction headquarters in Sigil while the defenders were kept busy with a diversion…
«Sod it, she's peeling us,» I growled. In a low voice, I said, «Yasmin, you deal with the wights. I have to check on the others.»
Still cursing, I dashed toward the kitchen. Breaking into this house would be child's play for experienced thieves: over the back wall into the garden, then a short sneak up to the kitchen door. If the others had their attention focussed on the fight out front, they wouldn't notice Qi and Chi till much too late.
And it was too late. Even before I reached the kitchen I heard the sound of snoring – Hezekiah's snore, something I'd heard often enough since we began keeping vigil outside the Sigil Mortuary. The Clueless boy certainly wouldn't fall asleep in the middle of a battle, even if someone else was doing the fighting; indeed, I should have been suspicious when he didn't come running to gawk at the wights. Slowing down, I walked the last few paces to the kitchen door as quietly as I could, trusting that the banging and hissing from the street would cover whatever little noise my boots made.
My father could probably list all the ways of putting people to sleep against their will – spells, magic powders, potions and vapors – but my only knowledge of the subject came from the penny dreadfuls I read as a teenager. In those stories, both heroes and villains had infallibly effective ways of knocking each other out, ones that never made you vomit afterward, never gave concussions, never killed people with weak hearts. I stopped reading penny dreadfuls when I stopped believing in such wondrous tricks, but clearly I'd done the books an injustice… Qi and Chi had apparently put Hezekiah, Wheezle, and Zeerith to sleep as easily as snuffing out a candle.
Boy, gnome, and naga all lay on the floor, limp and peaceful. Qi and Chi were already inside the room, one of them rummaging through our backpacks while the other stood guard with a crossbow. Luckily for me, the guard had to divide his attention between the front and back doors of the kitchen; and at the moment I peeked around the corner, he was looking out into the garden. I ducked out of sight again immediately.
All right, Britlin, think. Rivi sent the thieves to steal the dust grinder while the wights kept us busy in front. I could simply let the bad guys take the piking grinder and hope Rivi would leave us alone once she got what she wanted; or I could try to stop them, hope I won the fight, and hope we could still get out of Plague-Mort with our skins intact. One hope to two – a gambler would say that letting them walk off with the grinder was the safer bet.
On the other hand, no self-respecting Sensate ever made safety his first priority…
The Hounds had scattered plenty of debris during their raid. Close to hand were numerous pieces of ripped clothing, the smashed remains of a wooden chair, and an oil painting with its canvas slashed. From what I could see, the painting hadn't been much of a treasure – a bad approximation of a woman looking at an even worse version of her face in a mirror – but its gold-leafed frame was sturdy and solid, rendered with admirably detailed curlicues. Flat and heavy, it would fly like a discus, at least over the short distance between me and the thief with the crossbow. If it stopped him from plugging me with that arrow, the painting would have served a more useful purpose than most abstract art.
A deep breath in. A slow breath out. Then I leaned around the corner and whipped the painting at the bowman with all the strength I could muster.
The frame struck him hard, one corner burying its point into his solar plexus. His breath whoofed out and his trigger finger on the bow must have jerked in pained reaction – the arrow snapped away from the bow with a crack, glancing off the closest wall, and digging into one of the cupboards. Even before it had chunked home, I was crossing the gap between me and the bowman, shouting at the top of my lungs in the hope of jolting him. It didn't work; before I got close enough for a slash with my rapier, he had raised the bow to block, knocking my blade away from a killing stroke.
«Qi!» he shouted… or maybe «Chi!», it was hard to tell. Not that he needed to alert his partner to my presence – I'd made enough noise to wake the undead, though my sleeping companions continued to snore placidly. Any moment now, the other thief would enter the fray, probably with a crossbow of his own; and my current target only had to parry my thrusts until I took an arrow through the heart.
You wouldn't think a crossbow made an effective fencing weapon; and in more appropriate conditions, it wouldn't have. However, the kitchen was dark, its floor was littered with easy-to-trip-over rubbish, and I was doing everything I could to keep my target (the githyanki) between me and his fellow thief – the last thing I wanted was to give the githzerai a clear shot at me. All these complications prevented me from delivering any swordplay worth the name… which meant that thrust after thrust got deflected by the crossbow's wooden body. Even worse, it was just a matter of time before my blade bit too deeply into the wood. If my sword got stuck, the githyanki would leap on me instantly, scrabbling to take me apart with his bare hands.
An arrow buzzed past my ear – the thief at the far end of the room had taken a shot at me, despite his partner in the way. I wondered if a fragment of his racial instincts remained, despite Rivi's tinkering with his mind: the githzerai hatred of githyanki, secretly delighted if his bolt went awry and took the githyanki in the back. Perhaps he simply thought he could hit me… and he came piking close, near enough that I felt the arrow's wind. If I gave the berk time to reload, I wouldn't be so lucky the next time.
Still, what could I do? The githyanki in front of me had reflexes like an eel, swiping aside my every strike. He had a smile on his ugly face, almost as if he was playing with me – as if he knew he could hold me off for as long as he needed. Perhaps he could have too, if he hadn't made the mistake of stepping too close to Wheezle's small body.
The gnome wasn't really asleep: he'd just been playing possum, biding his time for the moment when a magicless paraplegic could make a contribution.
Wheezle reached out, grabbed the githyanki's ankle, and bit hard into the thief's fleshy leg.
The githyanki opened his mouth as if to yell from the pain. It looked like a target to me… and I jabbed forward with an all-or-nothing thrust, the tip of the blade punching through the roof of his mouth and straight into the hind-brain. His body jerked in a violent spasm, dancing uncontrollably on the end of my sword as muscles were suddenly freed from the mind's command; then he slumped into dead-weight, dragging my rapier down until he slid slickly off the blade.
«Thanks, Wheezle,» I sighed.
«A pleasure to serve, honored Cavendish.»
«When this is all over,» I said, «tell me what his leg tasted like.»
«The githzerai has found the grinder,» Wheezle observed, as the spray slammed us into the wall.
«So how,» I said, choking on dust, «can the sodding thing have so much kick without a speck of recoil?»
«It was made by gods,» Wheezle replied, «and gods despise physical law. They regard action/reaction as a personal affront, and defy it whenever they can.»
All this time, of course, I was attempting to squirm to my feet. The effort was fruitless: whenever I managed to get my legs underneath me, the spray simply bashed me down again. Dust clogged the air, pooling up an ever-increasing mound on the floor. I covered my face with my coat-tail, just for the chance to breathe something other than white powder; but the dust kept pelting down, burying me like a Pharaoh.
Long seconds passed. At last, I realized the pressure from the spray had eased and I heaved myself up, scattering a haze of dust around me. Emerging from the cloud, I saw the githzerai was gone, fled out the back door. I ran in pursuit, but when I reached the garden there was no sign of him – he must have hopped it over the fence, and I had no delusions about catching such a speedy runner in the twisting lanes of Plague-Mort.
Wheezle came crawling toward me, pulling himself across the dust-heaped floor. He looked up at me, saw my expression and said, «We're piked?»
I nodded. «We are completely, totally piked.»
«Yes, Yasmin.»
«How are things in the kitchen?»
«It looks like the cook spilled some flour.»
Her forehead wrinkled. «What does that mean?»
«It means Rivi got what she wanted.»
With so many boards ripped off the front of the house, I could easily see out into the street. Only one wight was left, standing on one side of Rivi while Kiripao stood on the other. The ice-skinned woman faced our direction, but her glittering eyes were distant, focussed far elsewhere. As I looked at her, she suddenly straightened up and smiled.
«Darlings!» she called, «my wee githzerai pal tells me he's got away with the grinder. What fabulous news! My business here is done.»
I shouted, «Where do you think you're going?»
«O, dear heart, I'm bound for Sigil. I told what fun I'll have there – all those wizards and priests, who think they're protected by magic. Can't you imagine the looks on their faces when they can't cast a single spell without burning to cinders? And then I'll claim their minds.»
«You're barmy,» Yasmin told her. «The Lady of Pain will never let you into Sigil with those two grinders.»
«That's where you're wrong,» Rivi smirked. «The grinders are older than the gods, older than The Lady, older than the most ancient barriers guarding Sigil. I've heard our quiff modern deities can't even sense the grinders – that's why you could carry them through the Lower Planes without infernal powers trying to steal them. The most powerful forces of antiquity made the grinders invisible to divine eyes… which means that The Lady won't know what I'm doing till it's too late.»
Yasmin whispered to me, «We have to get out of here, Britlin. We have to warn someone what this slag is up to.»
«I know.» But secretly, I was gauging how fast I could reach the gloating albino: through the door, into the street, across the cobblestones. Could I reach her before the wight and Kiripao stopped me? Not likely; she was just too piking far away.
«Time to say good-bye,» Rivi announced. «I have ever so much work planned out. Things to do, people to brainwash… in the meanwhile, however…»
She chuckled. It was definitely not a chuckle to make children sleep smiling in their beds. Then she clapped her hands, and suddenly a stream of new wights poured around the corner: ten of them, twenty, thirty, and more, all of them racing forward with that peculiar arm-swinging gait, their eyes aflame with crimson fire.
«Have fun, my darlings,» Rivi said with a cheery wave. «I don't think we'll see each other again.»
Then she was gone, Kiripao covering her withdrawal as more and more wights filled the street. I could see lamplight glint off their pointed teeth. Then, in a rush, they struck the front of the house like a tsunami.
17. THREE MILES THROUGH THE OUTLANDS
18. THREE TESTS, COME WINTER
«Now, darlings,» said Rivi, «far be it from me to interfere with a monk enlightening his flock; but I could try to restrain him, if you showed a wee bit of cooperation. Give me the grinder, right here, right now, and I guarantee we'll all walk away from this, whistling tunes of cheer.»
«I can't whistle,» Hezekiah snapped back, in what he must have thought was a brilliant retort.
Wheezle said in a low voice, «Once the honored madwoman gets through, you'll whistle any tune she wants.»
«I don't have to be nice about this,» Rivi called. «I have enough wights to take what I want by force. But Plague-Mort is such a dear wee town, it makes me sentimental to a fault. Why don't I give you a count of ten? One… isn't this exciting? Two… no, it isn't. Ten. Sorry, I got bored.»
That's when the wights charged en masse.
* * *
I don't know what instructions Rivi had given the wights – probably to fight their way inside and kill anyone who resisted. Whatever she told them, the nasty wee albino still hadn't realized her hate-filled slaves yearned to pervert the intention of her commands; or perhaps, Rivi was so used to being loathed that she no longer gave it any thought. She certainly hadn't told the wights to exercise any useful tactics, like a two-pronged attack through window and door. Instead, the wights simply swarmed forward, claws swinging, throats hissing, until they collided with the front wall of the building… then they took out the wall.It didn't happen all at once. A dozen sets of claws smashed the building simultaneously, stabbing through the wood exterior and the plaster inside. I could see individual fingers piercing the wall in front of me, talons flexing. In unison, the fingers clenched into fists and pulled backward with supernatural strength. Plaster broke off in handfuls… and with a groaning of rusty nails, board after board ripped off the front of the house, leaving long horizontal gaps. It took the wights a few moments to shake off the lumber still clinging to their fingers; then their hands crashed out in unison again, like claw-tipped battering rams.
You know, I thought to myself, in a normal town, bar fights, prowling monsters, and a house being demolished by the undead would eventually catch the attention of the city watch. But in beautiful Plague-Mort, pearl of the Outlands…
The wights heaved and ripped off another bunch of boards. It was a riveting visual effect, strips of the house being ripped away to let lamplight glimmer through: lamplight choked with plaster dust and twinkling off the broken glass on the floor. A painting of that would sell very well to an Anarchist… not that most Anarchists had money, of course, but there must be some prominent merchants who were secretly Anarchist sympathizers…
«Are you going to stand there and let them tear the house apart?» Yasmin demanded.
«Sorry,» I murmured, collecting my thoughts. «I was just contemplating the beauties of Entropy.»
She looked at me narrowly, debating whether I was mocking her beliefs. Before she could come to a conclusion I'd regret, I said, «Let's get busy, shall we?» and lifted my sword.
Truth to tell, wights whacking the wall of one's only refuge might look sodding scary, but the house was built to withstand hurricanes like the one Zeerith had described; the undead were still a long way from collapsing the place, or even clawing their way inside. All they'd really done was rip out the horizontal equivalent of arrow slits: four-inch wide holes, ideal for stabbing swords out at attackers. Even better, as soon as the wights rammed their talons into the wood again, they were as good as handcuffed, like condemned prisoners waiting for the axe.
Yasmin and I gladly played their executioners.
I took out two the first time: a pair of quick thrusts, both through rotting faces, the jabs hard enough to drive bone chips liberally through the wights' brains. The first one fell without a sound. The second had enough time to spit a hiss of rage; then my rapier plunged straight between its eyes, pithing whatever last thoughts such a creature might have.
The other wights tore away a few more boards; but the monsters Yasmin and I dispatched only slumped where they were, their claws still deeply imbedded in the wall. I wished I could see them from the street – a group of dead wights dangling from the front of the house by their hands, their heads skewered and spilling out brains.
A nice score, I thought to myself. If Yasmin and I both killed two wights with every assault, we'd soon whittle down the opposition to just Rivi and Kiripao… and Qi and Chi, of course, wherever they were.
Sod it all… where were Qi and Chi?
The wights slammed forward again… and even as I cleaved the heads of two more, my thoughts raced in other directions. Why had Rivi let the wights make another charge? She'd seen how easily we could kill them. No doubt she had more wights back at the Glass Spider, but they weren't here now. And where were Qi and Chi? Two sneak thieves who had robbed faction headquarters in Sigil while the defenders were kept busy with a diversion…
«Sod it, she's peeling us,» I growled. In a low voice, I said, «Yasmin, you deal with the wights. I have to check on the others.»
Still cursing, I dashed toward the kitchen. Breaking into this house would be child's play for experienced thieves: over the back wall into the garden, then a short sneak up to the kitchen door. If the others had their attention focussed on the fight out front, they wouldn't notice Qi and Chi till much too late.
And it was too late. Even before I reached the kitchen I heard the sound of snoring – Hezekiah's snore, something I'd heard often enough since we began keeping vigil outside the Sigil Mortuary. The Clueless boy certainly wouldn't fall asleep in the middle of a battle, even if someone else was doing the fighting; indeed, I should have been suspicious when he didn't come running to gawk at the wights. Slowing down, I walked the last few paces to the kitchen door as quietly as I could, trusting that the banging and hissing from the street would cover whatever little noise my boots made.
My father could probably list all the ways of putting people to sleep against their will – spells, magic powders, potions and vapors – but my only knowledge of the subject came from the penny dreadfuls I read as a teenager. In those stories, both heroes and villains had infallibly effective ways of knocking each other out, ones that never made you vomit afterward, never gave concussions, never killed people with weak hearts. I stopped reading penny dreadfuls when I stopped believing in such wondrous tricks, but clearly I'd done the books an injustice… Qi and Chi had apparently put Hezekiah, Wheezle, and Zeerith to sleep as easily as snuffing out a candle.
Boy, gnome, and naga all lay on the floor, limp and peaceful. Qi and Chi were already inside the room, one of them rummaging through our backpacks while the other stood guard with a crossbow. Luckily for me, the guard had to divide his attention between the front and back doors of the kitchen; and at the moment I peeked around the corner, he was looking out into the garden. I ducked out of sight again immediately.
All right, Britlin, think. Rivi sent the thieves to steal the dust grinder while the wights kept us busy in front. I could simply let the bad guys take the piking grinder and hope Rivi would leave us alone once she got what she wanted; or I could try to stop them, hope I won the fight, and hope we could still get out of Plague-Mort with our skins intact. One hope to two – a gambler would say that letting them walk off with the grinder was the safer bet.
On the other hand, no self-respecting Sensate ever made safety his first priority…
The Hounds had scattered plenty of debris during their raid. Close to hand were numerous pieces of ripped clothing, the smashed remains of a wooden chair, and an oil painting with its canvas slashed. From what I could see, the painting hadn't been much of a treasure – a bad approximation of a woman looking at an even worse version of her face in a mirror – but its gold-leafed frame was sturdy and solid, rendered with admirably detailed curlicues. Flat and heavy, it would fly like a discus, at least over the short distance between me and the thief with the crossbow. If it stopped him from plugging me with that arrow, the painting would have served a more useful purpose than most abstract art.
A deep breath in. A slow breath out. Then I leaned around the corner and whipped the painting at the bowman with all the strength I could muster.
The frame struck him hard, one corner burying its point into his solar plexus. His breath whoofed out and his trigger finger on the bow must have jerked in pained reaction – the arrow snapped away from the bow with a crack, glancing off the closest wall, and digging into one of the cupboards. Even before it had chunked home, I was crossing the gap between me and the bowman, shouting at the top of my lungs in the hope of jolting him. It didn't work; before I got close enough for a slash with my rapier, he had raised the bow to block, knocking my blade away from a killing stroke.
«Qi!» he shouted… or maybe «Chi!», it was hard to tell. Not that he needed to alert his partner to my presence – I'd made enough noise to wake the undead, though my sleeping companions continued to snore placidly. Any moment now, the other thief would enter the fray, probably with a crossbow of his own; and my current target only had to parry my thrusts until I took an arrow through the heart.
You wouldn't think a crossbow made an effective fencing weapon; and in more appropriate conditions, it wouldn't have. However, the kitchen was dark, its floor was littered with easy-to-trip-over rubbish, and I was doing everything I could to keep my target (the githyanki) between me and his fellow thief – the last thing I wanted was to give the githzerai a clear shot at me. All these complications prevented me from delivering any swordplay worth the name… which meant that thrust after thrust got deflected by the crossbow's wooden body. Even worse, it was just a matter of time before my blade bit too deeply into the wood. If my sword got stuck, the githyanki would leap on me instantly, scrabbling to take me apart with his bare hands.
An arrow buzzed past my ear – the thief at the far end of the room had taken a shot at me, despite his partner in the way. I wondered if a fragment of his racial instincts remained, despite Rivi's tinkering with his mind: the githzerai hatred of githyanki, secretly delighted if his bolt went awry and took the githyanki in the back. Perhaps he simply thought he could hit me… and he came piking close, near enough that I felt the arrow's wind. If I gave the berk time to reload, I wouldn't be so lucky the next time.
Still, what could I do? The githyanki in front of me had reflexes like an eel, swiping aside my every strike. He had a smile on his ugly face, almost as if he was playing with me – as if he knew he could hold me off for as long as he needed. Perhaps he could have too, if he hadn't made the mistake of stepping too close to Wheezle's small body.
The gnome wasn't really asleep: he'd just been playing possum, biding his time for the moment when a magicless paraplegic could make a contribution.
Wheezle reached out, grabbed the githyanki's ankle, and bit hard into the thief's fleshy leg.
The githyanki opened his mouth as if to yell from the pain. It looked like a target to me… and I jabbed forward with an all-or-nothing thrust, the tip of the blade punching through the roof of his mouth and straight into the hind-brain. His body jerked in a violent spasm, dancing uncontrollably on the end of my sword as muscles were suddenly freed from the mind's command; then he slumped into dead-weight, dragging my rapier down until he slid slickly off the blade.
«Thanks, Wheezle,» I sighed.
«A pleasure to serve, honored Cavendish.»
«When this is all over,» I said, «tell me what his leg tasted like.»
* * *
I leapt the crumpled body of the githyanki, prepared to plunge my sword into his githzerai partner. What I wasn't prepared for was a ram-force gusher of white dust smashing me in the chest. It knocked me backward like a mace, and I tripped over the corpse I'd just killed; Wheezle barely got out of the way as I fell heavily to the ground. Then the dust spray struck again, sending me, the gnome, and the githyanki corpse skittering across the trash-strewn floor. Pans clattered as we smashed into them, and silver cutlery, knives and forks, were swept up by the hurricane of dust to slap against our faces.«The githzerai has found the grinder,» Wheezle observed, as the spray slammed us into the wall.
«So how,» I said, choking on dust, «can the sodding thing have so much kick without a speck of recoil?»
«It was made by gods,» Wheezle replied, «and gods despise physical law. They regard action/reaction as a personal affront, and defy it whenever they can.»
All this time, of course, I was attempting to squirm to my feet. The effort was fruitless: whenever I managed to get my legs underneath me, the spray simply bashed me down again. Dust clogged the air, pooling up an ever-increasing mound on the floor. I covered my face with my coat-tail, just for the chance to breathe something other than white powder; but the dust kept pelting down, burying me like a Pharaoh.
Long seconds passed. At last, I realized the pressure from the spray had eased and I heaved myself up, scattering a haze of dust around me. Emerging from the cloud, I saw the githzerai was gone, fled out the back door. I ran in pursuit, but when I reached the garden there was no sign of him – he must have hopped it over the fence, and I had no delusions about catching such a speedy runner in the twisting lanes of Plague-Mort.
Wheezle came crawling toward me, pulling himself across the dust-heaped floor. He looked up at me, saw my expression and said, «We're piked?»
I nodded. «We are completely, totally piked.»
* * *
Wheezle stayed in the kitchen to wake up Hezekiah and Zeerith, while I hurried out front again to check on Yasmin. She was still in one piece, her sword blade covered with clots of hair and cerebellum. «I'm worried,» she said as I entered the room. «All this wight-fighting… it's making me dependent on head– shots. I mean, spearing a wight through the heart isn't an instant kill, so a head-shot is the most effective approach. Still, I worry about getting into the habit of avoiding the body, when really, in most opponents… I'm babbling, aren't I?»«Yes, Yasmin.»
«How are things in the kitchen?»
«It looks like the cook spilled some flour.»
Her forehead wrinkled. «What does that mean?»
«It means Rivi got what she wanted.»
With so many boards ripped off the front of the house, I could easily see out into the street. Only one wight was left, standing on one side of Rivi while Kiripao stood on the other. The ice-skinned woman faced our direction, but her glittering eyes were distant, focussed far elsewhere. As I looked at her, she suddenly straightened up and smiled.
«Darlings!» she called, «my wee githzerai pal tells me he's got away with the grinder. What fabulous news! My business here is done.»
I shouted, «Where do you think you're going?»
«O, dear heart, I'm bound for Sigil. I told what fun I'll have there – all those wizards and priests, who think they're protected by magic. Can't you imagine the looks on their faces when they can't cast a single spell without burning to cinders? And then I'll claim their minds.»
«You're barmy,» Yasmin told her. «The Lady of Pain will never let you into Sigil with those two grinders.»
«That's where you're wrong,» Rivi smirked. «The grinders are older than the gods, older than The Lady, older than the most ancient barriers guarding Sigil. I've heard our quiff modern deities can't even sense the grinders – that's why you could carry them through the Lower Planes without infernal powers trying to steal them. The most powerful forces of antiquity made the grinders invisible to divine eyes… which means that The Lady won't know what I'm doing till it's too late.»
Yasmin whispered to me, «We have to get out of here, Britlin. We have to warn someone what this slag is up to.»
«I know.» But secretly, I was gauging how fast I could reach the gloating albino: through the door, into the street, across the cobblestones. Could I reach her before the wight and Kiripao stopped me? Not likely; she was just too piking far away.
«Time to say good-bye,» Rivi announced. «I have ever so much work planned out. Things to do, people to brainwash… in the meanwhile, however…»
She chuckled. It was definitely not a chuckle to make children sleep smiling in their beds. Then she clapped her hands, and suddenly a stream of new wights poured around the corner: ten of them, twenty, thirty, and more, all of them racing forward with that peculiar arm-swinging gait, their eyes aflame with crimson fire.
«Have fun, my darlings,» Rivi said with a cheery wave. «I don't think we'll see each other again.»
Then she was gone, Kiripao covering her withdrawal as more and more wights filled the street. I could see lamplight glint off their pointed teeth. Then, in a rush, they struck the front of the house like a tsunami.
17. THREE MILES THROUGH THE OUTLANDS
When there had only been a dozen wights clawing at the wall, the house stood up well against the destruction. With the demolition team multiplied threefold however, the building quaked at the very impact of so many talons smashing into the wood. Yasmin and I leapt forward, eliminating two attackers each; but the remaining undead heaved with such force, the entire wall ripped away in a solid flat. It wobbled in the wights' grip, two storeys high and shaken by the brisk wind that blew through the streets of the town. The wights tried to keep it upright, but they had no leverage. Slowly, the top of the facade tipped back, farther and farther, until a sudden breezy gust blew it against the house on the opposite side of the street.
The collision was the last straw for the poor battered wall. The lower storey, torn to tatters by previous wight attacks, broke apart completely, a wagon-load of lumber thunking down around the wights' ears. Then the upper story dropped in a single piece, like a great fly-swatter slapping down in a cloud of shattering plaster. Every wight was knocked to the ground, buried under the mass of wood.
Silence descended, broken only by soft, ominous creaks from the ceiling sagging over our heads. Yasmin stepped forward, staring out the open hole where a wall had once separated the house from the street. She peered at the tangle of timber heaped over the wights and whispered, «Do you think that crushed them?»
In answer, the mound of boards exploded upward, wood flying in all directions as undead muscles threw off the clutter. Planks whizzed in our direction, forcing us to duck; other boards smashed through windows of neighboring houses, or thunked heavily along the pavement. In a moment, an army of wights stood intact on the cobblestones, teeth gleaming, eyes filled with blazing hate.
The wall was gone. There was nothing separating them from us.
«Fight or flee?» Yasmin asked, lifting her sword.
«If we flee, they'll just catch us in the back garden,» I told her. «We can't all get over the fence in time.»
«But if we fight,» Yasmin said, «the others have a chance to get away.»
«Let's make it a last stand in the kitchen,» I suggested. «The Tooth Guild here can only come through the door one by one.»
«Until they rip out that wall too.»
«Don't give them ideas,» I growled. «Now we'll just back away.»
For our first two steps backward, the wights did nothing – just fixed their burning gaze on us with a palpable intensity. At our third step, one wight hissed; immediately, all the others took up the sound, a harsh rush of breath cutting across the midnight wind.
«Time for a strategic withdrawal?» Yasmin suggested.
«I'd prefer to run like a son-of-an-orc.»
So we ran, an army of undead at our heels.
«What's the problem?» Hezekiah asked, his voice thick with sleep.
A wight stuck its head through the door. Yasmin cut it off.
«Oh, them again,» Hezekiah said. He heaved Wheezle into his arms, and nudged a yawning Zeerith with his foot. «Time for us to go.»
«Perhaps,» said the naga, «I should stay and fight. If I have magic…»
I looked down at her sleek body, now coated in a flouring of the white dust that layered the whole kitchen. «The magic's gone,» I told her. «Wheezle will explain on your way out.»
Two more wights charged at the door. I took left, Yasmin took right, all the while yelling to our companions, «Run!»
Then there was no time to think about anything but the undead surging toward us like a hissing ocean.
Minutes passed: long, tiring minutes of constant fighting. I didn't know if wights felt fatigue, but I was on the verge of exhaustion. My swordplay had turned sloppy… and my mind was clear enough to recognize the degradation in technique, without being able to sharpen up. Claws whisked by my face, coming close enough to tear at my jacket; and the smell of rotting flesh filled the kitchen, biling my stomach with nausea.
«Maybe…» Yasmin panted, «we should try… to escape after all.»
«You think… you can move enough… to run?»
«No.»
Her reply was almost drowned out by the hissing of wights. They could smell victory.
«Yasmin…» I began. «If we're going to die… let me just say —»
«Don't!» she cried. «You'll break my heart.»
I closed my mouth and found enough strength to lop off the arm of a wight reaching for me. The amputated stump spurted red dust; the arm, dropping like a dead-weight, continued to clench its fingers, futilely trying to grab at something. «I know how you feel,» I told the fallen hand.
Yasmin's mouth turned up in a small grin. «Sentimental berk,» she said, trying to hide the smile. Then she tucked a toe under the cut-off arm and kicked it back into the scrum of undead…
…which for some reason had eased off their mob action at the kitchen door. Indeed, they were snarling up a storm of hisses, but not aimed at us – every wight had turned to face the street, and some were already shuffling in that direction, brandishing their claws in a ready-for-business way.
«What now?» Yasmin whispered.
«Now the wights try to kill whoever's coming down the street, while we sneak out the back.»
«But if it's Miriam and her friend out there —»
«They have a fair chance of outrunning the wights,» I interrupted, «while we have no hope of fighting through thirty undead to help them. Let us hie ourselves hence, good woman, before the monsters remember we're here.»
Yasmin didn't look happy about leaving the fight before all the enemy was dead – typical Doomguard – but I nudged her gently toward the door and eventually she started moving. Part of her resistance may have been simple fatigue; she could barely keep her swordpoint off the floor.
We both held our weapons at weary ready as we backed into the garden and the chill Plague-Mort night. Frost was beginning to whiten on the grass, making it easy to see the slithering trail from Zeerith crossing the yard. I wondered how she would react to the cool weather… if she hibernated like other cold-blooded animals. For the time being, however, she was clearly moving fast and strong; I couldn't guess how she climbed over the garden wall, but the marks in the frost showed she had succeeded without fuss.
Yasmin and I weren't fresh enough to scale the wall so easily – it was six feet of solid brick, topped by a row of spikes – but we found enough footholds to clamber over awkwardly and lower ourselves down the other side. Hezekiah was waiting for us, a beaming smile on his homely face. «You made it!» he cried. «Did you kill all the wights?»
Yasmin gave a snort of a laugh. «They let us go,» she told him. «Something else grabbed their atten —»
The wall stood between us and the house, but we could still see a sudden flare of crimson light dazzle the sky. A moment later came the muffled of an explosion. After our experiences of the past week, I had no trouble recognizing a fireball blast… landing, I would guess, in the midst of the wights who filled the house's living room.
«What was that?» Hezekiah gulped, eyes wide.
«Someone must be fighting the wights,» Yasmin replied. «Maybe the Hounds have finally shown up.»
«Can the Hounds shoot fireballs?» Hezekiah asked.
«They can now,» a new voice said.
Miriam stepped from the shadows, accompanied by a gray-skinned woman in her mid-twenties: a striking beauty with high cheek bones and glossy red hair, the kind a man would be happy to bed if he could figure out how to work around the scaly wings that sprouted from her back. The wings were tiny in comparison to the rest of the woman, less than two feet high, with an equally short span; but I had no doubt they could carry her far and fast if the need arose. The Planes are like that – out here, even the most vestigial wings can fly.
«This is the guide I told you about,» Miriam said, gesturing toward the winged woman. «Her name's November.»
«And what race are you?» Hezekiah piped up cheerfully.
His question was greeted with frosty silence from November, and embarrassed shuffling of feet from the rest of us. Finally, November said in a chilly voice, «There are some things you don't ask strangers, unless you like floating face down in the nearest sewage pond.»
«I was just trying to learn,» he protested. «How will I learn if I don't ask?»
November's eyes narrowed. «The multiverse does not care whether or not you learn. The multiverse does not care whether or not you live. Only people care, and precious few of them. Do you hear me?»
Hezekiah gulped. «Okay. Sorry.»
«Apology accepted,» November answered evenly. «And because I know you will make a nuisance of yourself, constantly staring and wondering what I am, I shall tell you I was born the child of a human man and a hell-spawned succubus. Some like to call my kind alu-fiends, but I do not want to hear that word cross your lips. You will call me an alu; my father raised me to suppress the fiendish aspects of my soul, and his spirit would grieve if I were forced to kill you over mere terminology.»
«Alu,» Hezekiah nodded. «A good old alu. Got it.»
He continued bobbing his head like a berk until a scowl from November stopped him.
«What is happening?» Zeerith asked, an edge of panic in her voice.
«Hounds versus wights,» Miriam replied. «Pity we can't go out front and watch.»
«I've seen fireballs before,» I said. «Unless, of course, the Hounds have some new, more interesting kind…»
«Standard stuff,» Miriam answered with a dismissive wave of her hand. «I happened to know where the Fox stashed a few firewands, right here in town. They came in handy for bribes.»
«Not bribes,» November bristled, holding up two wands of her own. «Payment for services to be rendered.»
Miriam shrugged. «You got payment, the Hounds got bribes.» She turned back to me. «I gave the Arch-Lector's doggies some fire-toys in exchange for fighting your wights.»
«You knew we had wights?» Yasmin asked.
«November and I came by a while ago when that sod albino was just setting up her attack. Rivi had stationed a few wights out front, and a lot more around the corner, so I knew you were going to need help. I bribed the closest detachment of Hounds to come and give you a hand. It took all the wands I had left, but they did come through.»
November gave a small snort. «They just wanted a chance to shoot fire at moving targets.»
«Probably,» Miriam admitted, «but they did what they were paid to and mounted a frontal assault. I knew you'd be smart enough to run out the back. That's why we're here.»
«And now we should go,» November said. She gestured at the red flicker of flames on the other side of the wall. «We only have minutes before that fire engulfs the whole quarter. Besides, I'm sure you want to see that gate to Sigil as soon as possible.»
Despite her exhaustion, Yasmin insisted on carrying Wheezle; and so we hurried away, following November's lead. Miriam fell in beside Hezekiah and the two of them began whispering to each other, heads close and the ghost of giggles in their voices. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I didn't need to: they weren't saying anything, they were merely talking… pleased to have the worst behind them, pleased that each step took us closer the portal home.
Zeerith slid along beside me, a stricken expression on her young face. She was leaving the only world she could remember, her adoptive family butchered by Hounds. Some cynical part of me didn't believe the family had been quite so kindly as Zeerith maintained; but they were all she knew, the center of her life. Now she was fleeing in the company of strangers, abandoning everything familiar.
For a time, I tried to reassure her – Sigil had a small community of nagas, a few of them Sensates whom I knew personally. We'd find someone to care for her until she was ready to fend for herself. Zeerith nodded politely and said she was sure Sigil was a fine city… but then she lapsed into silence again, her face wracked with grief.
We kept walking, down a dark dirt road with ankle-deep ruts. The fields came right up to the road, with only a thin strip of weeds separating the two. On a larger scale, the fields were just a thin strip themselves: a few hundred feet of cleared land on either side of the road, and beyond that, the Bush… virgin forest, walled with shadows. No doubt, local hunters ventured into the woods often enough, following the game trails and daring the underbrush; but hunters tended to camp where their ancestors had camped, to stake out the same watering holes, to lurk outside the same lairs. I was sure the trees concealed wilder places, a deep heartland where humans had not penetrated in all the lifetime of the multiverse.
And then the fields ended.
I could see the end coming: the point where the forest closed in around the road. The trees were tall and rustling in the wind, mostly elms and oaks and maples; in daylight, their leaves might be the vibrant reds and oranges of fall, but in the darkness they looked jet black. Branches reached across the road, choking off the slight glow of the overcast sky. As we approached, the way ahead looked like the mouth of a cave.
«Honored alu,» Wheezle said in a low voice, «is this truly wise? The trees provide perfect cover for bandits… or perhaps more fearsome threats.»
«I'm hard to surprise,» November answered. «Besides, this road runs spikeward and very little traffic comes this way. You may find the occasional barmy out here, living on nuts and berries, but the caravan routes run east-west around the rim. That's where you get bandits.»
She said nothing about other lurking things; and the Outlands were surely filled with dangerous beasts, especially near a cursed town like Plague-Mort. I looked at the blackness of the woods, drawing nearer with each step we took, and asked, «Where is this portal anyway?»
«Not far,» November said. «The gate is just a short way into the forest, inside a small chapel… built long ago by a group that worshipped the snake people.» She nodded toward Zeerith. «The nagas claim a huge tract of land spikeward from here, but they seldom come this close to town. According to legend, the nagas were embarrassed by the snake cult's form of worship, so they left the area in distaste. The cult faded away soon after; some say they all committed suicide in the hope of winning back the nagas' attention. All I know is, the chapel has been abandoned for as long as I've lived in Plague-Mort, and probably centuries before that.»
Hezekiah cleared his throat. «Have you, uhhh, ever been to this chapel at night?»
I could guess what was on the boy's mind. Abandoned chapels do not qualify as safe places for nocturnal visits, especially if all the former devotees killed themselves. But November said, «It's not haunted, if that's what you mean. Do you know how many do-gooders come through Plague-Mort every year? And can you imagine how they drool when they hear of a deserted chapel not far from town? If there were ever ghosts in the place, the poor shades got cleaned out generations ago. And don't worry about other kinds of trouble either: a party of adventurers toured the place just last week, and the worst they found was a squirrel who bobbed a crust of their bread.»
The others smiled at that, but not me. My father once listed for me a dozen lethal creatures who could magically disguise themselves as squirrels.
I had thought rabbits and badgers were field animals, not the sort to prowl through thick woods.
We made an unconscionable amount of noise – I defy the stealthiest of forest rangers to walk quietly along a path covered with crinkly dry leaves – but no monsters attacked us in the ten minutes it took to reach the chapel. Tree roots tripped us, nettles pricked us, and a pair of crows cawed indignantly at having their sleep disturbed; still nothing happened. In time, we walked into a clearing wide enough that the trees could not block a large patch of sky… and there in front of us was a square stone building perhaps ten paces on each side.
«The portal is the door to the inner vestry,» November said. For some reason, she was whispering. «The key is anything shaped like a snake. I've got a little talisman in my pocket, but frankly, your friend Zeerith would probably…»
Her voice trailed off. Speaking of things shaped like a snake, an enormous serpent had just emerged from the door of the chapel. It measured more than fifteen feet, almost twice as long as Zeerith; and although it had a male human head, it had no hair. Instead, it flared out a cobra's hood with menacing intent.
«Honored naga,» Wheezle shouted quickly, «we come in peace!»
«Do you?» His voice was iced with hostility. «When you hold my daughter captive?»
«Daughter?» Zeerith whispered.
«She isn't a captive,» Yasmin put in quickly, «she's a refugee. If we hadn't helped her out of town —»
«She should not have been in town!» the male naga roared. «Do you think we approve of leggers stealing our children? I have missed this daughter for years. I have sought this daughter for years. And only tonight, in the moment of her molting, could I finally sense her awakened soul. It is a gift our kind possess, to locate kin. Now she has been found, and her kidnappers will pay!»
«They didn't kidnap me,» Zeerith protested weakly. «They saved me from a fire —»
«Silence!» the other naga commanded. «You have known nothing but slavery, since the day of your birth. It has confused you. You think of your captors as generous people who gave you food and attention; but all leggers are exploiters, child, and they want you to do their bidding. If these particular leggers have not hurt you, it only means they are more subtle than most – they snare you with honey, rather than violence. You are too young and trusting. I know better.»
«You know fizz,» said November in disgust. «If this is your daughter, take her and be piked; but save the sermons for someone with a stronger stomach. I'm not getting paid to put up with such barcardle, and I certainly won't —»
A beam of red light lanced from the naga's forehead. It struck November in the face, splashed out, and wrapped around her head like a veil. She lifted her hands as if she could pull loose the weaving scarlet; but the glow swept down her body like a wave washing over the shore, speeding down to her toes and out to her fingers in less than a second. Her arms jerked to a stop. Indeed, her whole body froze as stiff as rigor mortis, and she tumbled to the ground like a statue knocked from its pedestal.
After a few seconds, the red light faded. She looked no different – still flesh and blood, not turned to stone – but if she was breathing at all, it was too thready to tell.
Yasmin slid her sword from its sheath. Reluctantly, I did the same. «Sir,» Yasmin called to the naga, «whatever you believe, we've done nothing wrong. The truth is, we've only known your daughter a few hours, and in that short time, we've saved her life from three separate threats. Of course, you'll just dismiss my claim as another lie. However, I'm not lying when I tell you this: the fate of thousands depends on us reaching Sigil before disaster strikes. You stand between us and the portal we need. We don't want a fight, but we'll do what we must with a clear conscience – you struck the first blow.»
Miriam raised her fists into a fighting stance, but whispered out of the side of her mouth to Hezekiah. «Why don't you just teleport us inside?»
«I can't,» the boy grimaced. «Rivi blanked me back at the house.»
«You've had a sleep since then,» I reminded him, but Hezekiah simply glowered.
«Not enough sleep,» he muttered, «and not the right kind.»
«We're waiting,» Yasmin called to the father naga. «Get out of the way, and we'll leave without a fuss. We're fond of Zeerith and would hate to hurt you for her sake; but we will if you leave us no choice.»
«You never had a choice, leggers.» The naga's voice was venomous… not a pleasant word to consider while confronting a giant snake. «When I sensed my daughter's molting,» he continued, «she was still inside the town. I thought I'd need an army to rescue her. As it turns out, you've conveniently brought her to me… but I still have the army.»
Suddenly, we were surrounded by scratchy rustling sounds. More than a dozen serpentine heads lifted from mounds of fallen leaves scattered around the forest – a platoon of nagas emerging from camouflage. Yasmin sprinted for the door of the chapel, but beams of scarlet light shot out from three directions and brought her down like a lassoed steer. She had time to curl into foetal position before the rays froze her as solid as November.
Miriam cursed and threw herself on top of Hezekiah. I dropped to the ground and rolled in the general direction of the chapel, aware that snakes were probably better at dirt-hugging than I was. Out in the darkness, Zeerith sobbed, «No, please, no…»
…then my world went scarlet, rapidly followed by black.
The collision was the last straw for the poor battered wall. The lower storey, torn to tatters by previous wight attacks, broke apart completely, a wagon-load of lumber thunking down around the wights' ears. Then the upper story dropped in a single piece, like a great fly-swatter slapping down in a cloud of shattering plaster. Every wight was knocked to the ground, buried under the mass of wood.
Silence descended, broken only by soft, ominous creaks from the ceiling sagging over our heads. Yasmin stepped forward, staring out the open hole where a wall had once separated the house from the street. She peered at the tangle of timber heaped over the wights and whispered, «Do you think that crushed them?»
In answer, the mound of boards exploded upward, wood flying in all directions as undead muscles threw off the clutter. Planks whizzed in our direction, forcing us to duck; other boards smashed through windows of neighboring houses, or thunked heavily along the pavement. In a moment, an army of wights stood intact on the cobblestones, teeth gleaming, eyes filled with blazing hate.
The wall was gone. There was nothing separating them from us.
«Fight or flee?» Yasmin asked, lifting her sword.
«If we flee, they'll just catch us in the back garden,» I told her. «We can't all get over the fence in time.»
«But if we fight,» Yasmin said, «the others have a chance to get away.»
«Let's make it a last stand in the kitchen,» I suggested. «The Tooth Guild here can only come through the door one by one.»
«Until they rip out that wall too.»
«Don't give them ideas,» I growled. «Now we'll just back away.»
For our first two steps backward, the wights did nothing – just fixed their burning gaze on us with a palpable intensity. At our third step, one wight hissed; immediately, all the others took up the sound, a harsh rush of breath cutting across the midnight wind.
«Time for a strategic withdrawal?» Yasmin suggested.
«I'd prefer to run like a son-of-an-orc.»
So we ran, an army of undead at our heels.
* * *
«Out the back!» I shouted to the others as Yasmin and I hurtled into the kitchen.«What's the problem?» Hezekiah asked, his voice thick with sleep.
A wight stuck its head through the door. Yasmin cut it off.
«Oh, them again,» Hezekiah said. He heaved Wheezle into his arms, and nudged a yawning Zeerith with his foot. «Time for us to go.»
«Perhaps,» said the naga, «I should stay and fight. If I have magic…»
I looked down at her sleek body, now coated in a flouring of the white dust that layered the whole kitchen. «The magic's gone,» I told her. «Wheezle will explain on your way out.»
Two more wights charged at the door. I took left, Yasmin took right, all the while yelling to our companions, «Run!»
Then there was no time to think about anything but the undead surging toward us like a hissing ocean.
* * *
Within seconds, we had six wight carcasses piled in front of the door – enough to form a rampart that kept the other monsters at a disadvantage. They still shuffled forward, trying to push down the wall of bodies and shove their way inside; but with a flurry of jabbing and stabbing, Yasmin and I held the line against them.Minutes passed: long, tiring minutes of constant fighting. I didn't know if wights felt fatigue, but I was on the verge of exhaustion. My swordplay had turned sloppy… and my mind was clear enough to recognize the degradation in technique, without being able to sharpen up. Claws whisked by my face, coming close enough to tear at my jacket; and the smell of rotting flesh filled the kitchen, biling my stomach with nausea.
«Maybe…» Yasmin panted, «we should try… to escape after all.»
«You think… you can move enough… to run?»
«No.»
Her reply was almost drowned out by the hissing of wights. They could smell victory.
«Yasmin…» I began. «If we're going to die… let me just say —»
«Don't!» she cried. «You'll break my heart.»
I closed my mouth and found enough strength to lop off the arm of a wight reaching for me. The amputated stump spurted red dust; the arm, dropping like a dead-weight, continued to clench its fingers, futilely trying to grab at something. «I know how you feel,» I told the fallen hand.
Yasmin's mouth turned up in a small grin. «Sentimental berk,» she said, trying to hide the smile. Then she tucked a toe under the cut-off arm and kicked it back into the scrum of undead…
…which for some reason had eased off their mob action at the kitchen door. Indeed, they were snarling up a storm of hisses, but not aimed at us – every wight had turned to face the street, and some were already shuffling in that direction, brandishing their claws in a ready-for-business way.
«What now?» Yasmin whispered.
«Now the wights try to kill whoever's coming down the street, while we sneak out the back.»
«But if it's Miriam and her friend out there —»
«They have a fair chance of outrunning the wights,» I interrupted, «while we have no hope of fighting through thirty undead to help them. Let us hie ourselves hence, good woman, before the monsters remember we're here.»
Yasmin didn't look happy about leaving the fight before all the enemy was dead – typical Doomguard – but I nudged her gently toward the door and eventually she started moving. Part of her resistance may have been simple fatigue; she could barely keep her swordpoint off the floor.
We both held our weapons at weary ready as we backed into the garden and the chill Plague-Mort night. Frost was beginning to whiten on the grass, making it easy to see the slithering trail from Zeerith crossing the yard. I wondered how she would react to the cool weather… if she hibernated like other cold-blooded animals. For the time being, however, she was clearly moving fast and strong; I couldn't guess how she climbed over the garden wall, but the marks in the frost showed she had succeeded without fuss.
Yasmin and I weren't fresh enough to scale the wall so easily – it was six feet of solid brick, topped by a row of spikes – but we found enough footholds to clamber over awkwardly and lower ourselves down the other side. Hezekiah was waiting for us, a beaming smile on his homely face. «You made it!» he cried. «Did you kill all the wights?»
Yasmin gave a snort of a laugh. «They let us go,» she told him. «Something else grabbed their atten —»
The wall stood between us and the house, but we could still see a sudden flare of crimson light dazzle the sky. A moment later came the muffled of an explosion. After our experiences of the past week, I had no trouble recognizing a fireball blast… landing, I would guess, in the midst of the wights who filled the house's living room.
«What was that?» Hezekiah gulped, eyes wide.
«Someone must be fighting the wights,» Yasmin replied. «Maybe the Hounds have finally shown up.»
«Can the Hounds shoot fireballs?» Hezekiah asked.
«They can now,» a new voice said.
Miriam stepped from the shadows, accompanied by a gray-skinned woman in her mid-twenties: a striking beauty with high cheek bones and glossy red hair, the kind a man would be happy to bed if he could figure out how to work around the scaly wings that sprouted from her back. The wings were tiny in comparison to the rest of the woman, less than two feet high, with an equally short span; but I had no doubt they could carry her far and fast if the need arose. The Planes are like that – out here, even the most vestigial wings can fly.
«This is the guide I told you about,» Miriam said, gesturing toward the winged woman. «Her name's November.»
«And what race are you?» Hezekiah piped up cheerfully.
His question was greeted with frosty silence from November, and embarrassed shuffling of feet from the rest of us. Finally, November said in a chilly voice, «There are some things you don't ask strangers, unless you like floating face down in the nearest sewage pond.»
«I was just trying to learn,» he protested. «How will I learn if I don't ask?»
November's eyes narrowed. «The multiverse does not care whether or not you learn. The multiverse does not care whether or not you live. Only people care, and precious few of them. Do you hear me?»
Hezekiah gulped. «Okay. Sorry.»
«Apology accepted,» November answered evenly. «And because I know you will make a nuisance of yourself, constantly staring and wondering what I am, I shall tell you I was born the child of a human man and a hell-spawned succubus. Some like to call my kind alu-fiends, but I do not want to hear that word cross your lips. You will call me an alu; my father raised me to suppress the fiendish aspects of my soul, and his spirit would grieve if I were forced to kill you over mere terminology.»
«Alu,» Hezekiah nodded. «A good old alu. Got it.»
He continued bobbing his head like a berk until a scowl from November stopped him.
* * *
On the other side of the wall, another explosion raked the sky, followed by a cracking of timbers. Any second, I thought I'd hear the entire house collapse; but the carpenters of Plague-Mort had clearly surpassed themselves in building the place. After two fireballs, an army of wights, and the earlier invasion by Hounds, the house remained standing – on fire now, but still mostly upright.«What is happening?» Zeerith asked, an edge of panic in her voice.
«Hounds versus wights,» Miriam replied. «Pity we can't go out front and watch.»
«I've seen fireballs before,» I said. «Unless, of course, the Hounds have some new, more interesting kind…»
«Standard stuff,» Miriam answered with a dismissive wave of her hand. «I happened to know where the Fox stashed a few firewands, right here in town. They came in handy for bribes.»
«Not bribes,» November bristled, holding up two wands of her own. «Payment for services to be rendered.»
Miriam shrugged. «You got payment, the Hounds got bribes.» She turned back to me. «I gave the Arch-Lector's doggies some fire-toys in exchange for fighting your wights.»
«You knew we had wights?» Yasmin asked.
«November and I came by a while ago when that sod albino was just setting up her attack. Rivi had stationed a few wights out front, and a lot more around the corner, so I knew you were going to need help. I bribed the closest detachment of Hounds to come and give you a hand. It took all the wands I had left, but they did come through.»
November gave a small snort. «They just wanted a chance to shoot fire at moving targets.»
«Probably,» Miriam admitted, «but they did what they were paid to and mounted a frontal assault. I knew you'd be smart enough to run out the back. That's why we're here.»
«And now we should go,» November said. She gestured at the red flicker of flames on the other side of the wall. «We only have minutes before that fire engulfs the whole quarter. Besides, I'm sure you want to see that gate to Sigil as soon as possible.»
Despite her exhaustion, Yasmin insisted on carrying Wheezle; and so we hurried away, following November's lead. Miriam fell in beside Hezekiah and the two of them began whispering to each other, heads close and the ghost of giggles in their voices. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I didn't need to: they weren't saying anything, they were merely talking… pleased to have the worst behind them, pleased that each step took us closer the portal home.
Zeerith slid along beside me, a stricken expression on her young face. She was leaving the only world she could remember, her adoptive family butchered by Hounds. Some cynical part of me didn't believe the family had been quite so kindly as Zeerith maintained; but they were all she knew, the center of her life. Now she was fleeing in the company of strangers, abandoning everything familiar.
For a time, I tried to reassure her – Sigil had a small community of nagas, a few of them Sensates whom I knew personally. We'd find someone to care for her until she was ready to fend for herself. Zeerith nodded politely and said she was sure Sigil was a fine city… but then she lapsed into silence again, her face wracked with grief.
* * *
Plague-Mort had no city wall, no definite edge at all. The raggedy shacks housing citizens outside of Rich Man's Row simply grew farther and farther apart, and their yards increased to the size of small fields. Perhaps they were fields, and I was just too much the city-dweller to tell. It was, after all, late autumn in Plague-Mort, with the chill of winter in the air. Whatever crops might have filled these fields in summer were harvested now, leaving nothing but stubble.We kept walking, down a dark dirt road with ankle-deep ruts. The fields came right up to the road, with only a thin strip of weeds separating the two. On a larger scale, the fields were just a thin strip themselves: a few hundred feet of cleared land on either side of the road, and beyond that, the Bush… virgin forest, walled with shadows. No doubt, local hunters ventured into the woods often enough, following the game trails and daring the underbrush; but hunters tended to camp where their ancestors had camped, to stake out the same watering holes, to lurk outside the same lairs. I was sure the trees concealed wilder places, a deep heartland where humans had not penetrated in all the lifetime of the multiverse.
And then the fields ended.
I could see the end coming: the point where the forest closed in around the road. The trees were tall and rustling in the wind, mostly elms and oaks and maples; in daylight, their leaves might be the vibrant reds and oranges of fall, but in the darkness they looked jet black. Branches reached across the road, choking off the slight glow of the overcast sky. As we approached, the way ahead looked like the mouth of a cave.
«Honored alu,» Wheezle said in a low voice, «is this truly wise? The trees provide perfect cover for bandits… or perhaps more fearsome threats.»
«I'm hard to surprise,» November answered. «Besides, this road runs spikeward and very little traffic comes this way. You may find the occasional barmy out here, living on nuts and berries, but the caravan routes run east-west around the rim. That's where you get bandits.»
She said nothing about other lurking things; and the Outlands were surely filled with dangerous beasts, especially near a cursed town like Plague-Mort. I looked at the blackness of the woods, drawing nearer with each step we took, and asked, «Where is this portal anyway?»
«Not far,» November said. «The gate is just a short way into the forest, inside a small chapel… built long ago by a group that worshipped the snake people.» She nodded toward Zeerith. «The nagas claim a huge tract of land spikeward from here, but they seldom come this close to town. According to legend, the nagas were embarrassed by the snake cult's form of worship, so they left the area in distaste. The cult faded away soon after; some say they all committed suicide in the hope of winning back the nagas' attention. All I know is, the chapel has been abandoned for as long as I've lived in Plague-Mort, and probably centuries before that.»
Hezekiah cleared his throat. «Have you, uhhh, ever been to this chapel at night?»
I could guess what was on the boy's mind. Abandoned chapels do not qualify as safe places for nocturnal visits, especially if all the former devotees killed themselves. But November said, «It's not haunted, if that's what you mean. Do you know how many do-gooders come through Plague-Mort every year? And can you imagine how they drool when they hear of a deserted chapel not far from town? If there were ever ghosts in the place, the poor shades got cleaned out generations ago. And don't worry about other kinds of trouble either: a party of adventurers toured the place just last week, and the worst they found was a squirrel who bobbed a crust of their bread.»
The others smiled at that, but not me. My father once listed for me a dozen lethal creatures who could magically disguise themselves as squirrels.
* * *
The road through the forest was dark enough; but soon November led us off on a side-path that was positively Stygian. Only a hint of light could struggle through the dense cover of autumn leaves, making our trail as dark as a mineshaft. Occasionally something would dart across the ground, stirring up a racket through the crisp fallen leaves; then November would call out «Rabbit» or «Badger» to calm our startled nerves.I had thought rabbits and badgers were field animals, not the sort to prowl through thick woods.
We made an unconscionable amount of noise – I defy the stealthiest of forest rangers to walk quietly along a path covered with crinkly dry leaves – but no monsters attacked us in the ten minutes it took to reach the chapel. Tree roots tripped us, nettles pricked us, and a pair of crows cawed indignantly at having their sleep disturbed; still nothing happened. In time, we walked into a clearing wide enough that the trees could not block a large patch of sky… and there in front of us was a square stone building perhaps ten paces on each side.
«The portal is the door to the inner vestry,» November said. For some reason, she was whispering. «The key is anything shaped like a snake. I've got a little talisman in my pocket, but frankly, your friend Zeerith would probably…»
Her voice trailed off. Speaking of things shaped like a snake, an enormous serpent had just emerged from the door of the chapel. It measured more than fifteen feet, almost twice as long as Zeerith; and although it had a male human head, it had no hair. Instead, it flared out a cobra's hood with menacing intent.
«Honored naga,» Wheezle shouted quickly, «we come in peace!»
«Do you?» His voice was iced with hostility. «When you hold my daughter captive?»
«Daughter?» Zeerith whispered.
«She isn't a captive,» Yasmin put in quickly, «she's a refugee. If we hadn't helped her out of town —»
«She should not have been in town!» the male naga roared. «Do you think we approve of leggers stealing our children? I have missed this daughter for years. I have sought this daughter for years. And only tonight, in the moment of her molting, could I finally sense her awakened soul. It is a gift our kind possess, to locate kin. Now she has been found, and her kidnappers will pay!»
«They didn't kidnap me,» Zeerith protested weakly. «They saved me from a fire —»
«Silence!» the other naga commanded. «You have known nothing but slavery, since the day of your birth. It has confused you. You think of your captors as generous people who gave you food and attention; but all leggers are exploiters, child, and they want you to do their bidding. If these particular leggers have not hurt you, it only means they are more subtle than most – they snare you with honey, rather than violence. You are too young and trusting. I know better.»
«You know fizz,» said November in disgust. «If this is your daughter, take her and be piked; but save the sermons for someone with a stronger stomach. I'm not getting paid to put up with such barcardle, and I certainly won't —»
A beam of red light lanced from the naga's forehead. It struck November in the face, splashed out, and wrapped around her head like a veil. She lifted her hands as if she could pull loose the weaving scarlet; but the glow swept down her body like a wave washing over the shore, speeding down to her toes and out to her fingers in less than a second. Her arms jerked to a stop. Indeed, her whole body froze as stiff as rigor mortis, and she tumbled to the ground like a statue knocked from its pedestal.
After a few seconds, the red light faded. She looked no different – still flesh and blood, not turned to stone – but if she was breathing at all, it was too thready to tell.
Yasmin slid her sword from its sheath. Reluctantly, I did the same. «Sir,» Yasmin called to the naga, «whatever you believe, we've done nothing wrong. The truth is, we've only known your daughter a few hours, and in that short time, we've saved her life from three separate threats. Of course, you'll just dismiss my claim as another lie. However, I'm not lying when I tell you this: the fate of thousands depends on us reaching Sigil before disaster strikes. You stand between us and the portal we need. We don't want a fight, but we'll do what we must with a clear conscience – you struck the first blow.»
Miriam raised her fists into a fighting stance, but whispered out of the side of her mouth to Hezekiah. «Why don't you just teleport us inside?»
«I can't,» the boy grimaced. «Rivi blanked me back at the house.»
«You've had a sleep since then,» I reminded him, but Hezekiah simply glowered.
«Not enough sleep,» he muttered, «and not the right kind.»
«We're waiting,» Yasmin called to the father naga. «Get out of the way, and we'll leave without a fuss. We're fond of Zeerith and would hate to hurt you for her sake; but we will if you leave us no choice.»
«You never had a choice, leggers.» The naga's voice was venomous… not a pleasant word to consider while confronting a giant snake. «When I sensed my daughter's molting,» he continued, «she was still inside the town. I thought I'd need an army to rescue her. As it turns out, you've conveniently brought her to me… but I still have the army.»
Suddenly, we were surrounded by scratchy rustling sounds. More than a dozen serpentine heads lifted from mounds of fallen leaves scattered around the forest – a platoon of nagas emerging from camouflage. Yasmin sprinted for the door of the chapel, but beams of scarlet light shot out from three directions and brought her down like a lassoed steer. She had time to curl into foetal position before the rays froze her as solid as November.
Miriam cursed and threw herself on top of Hezekiah. I dropped to the ground and rolled in the general direction of the chapel, aware that snakes were probably better at dirt-hugging than I was. Out in the darkness, Zeerith sobbed, «No, please, no…»
…then my world went scarlet, rapidly followed by black.
18. THREE TESTS, COME WINTER
Magic spells have many different aftereffects. Some leave you feeling as if giants have diligently clubbed every bone in your body; others cause no direct pain, but make you painfully sensitive to loud noises; a few put you into a state of insatiable arousal; and one I ran into in Ysgard left me unable to see any shade of green for three days.
I paid the mage double for that one.
When I awoke from the naga's spell, my throat was ragged by a raspy dryness, as if some frenzied clawed creature had crawled down to my epiglottis and was now digging its way out. There was a marble floor beneath my cheek, and lying on it had stiffened most of my muscles; but I was alive and relatively undamaged, a condition I certainly hadn't expected after the nagas coldcocked me.
Blinking, I sat up. The space around me was huge and very white, with marble slabs on the floor, walls, and even ceiling. In front of me, a row of unglassed windows opened onto a grayly overcast day, its sky displaying that muted fluffiness that always promises snow. Narrow marble benches ran under the windows, situated so that you could lean back and prop your arms comfortably on the window-ledge behind you.
A man was doing precisely that, sitting casually, watching me gather my senses.
«Hello, Britlin,» he said at last.
«Hello, Father,» I answered.
«How are you feeling?» he asked.
«Physically or emotionally?»
«Let's go with the physical for starters.»
I shrugged, then silently chided myself – if I reverted to a sulky adolescent at the first glimpse of this man, I'd soon despise myself. Being able to act like a grown-up was something that set me apart from him… wasn't it? «No broken bones,» I said. «I'm fit to fight a pit fiend.»
«With my sword.» He nodded down at my side, where the rapier still hung from my belt. «I'm glad it wasn't lost.»
«You can have it back any time you want.»
I began to unbuckle the sheath, but he waved at me to stop. «Keep it. I haven't handled a blade in twelve years; I'd probably cut myself. If it comes down to hack and slash, I'll leave that honor to the next generation.»
«Honor,» I muttered under my breath. Then more loudly, I said, «Can you tell me what's going on here?»
«You've arrived at the Court of Light,» Niles Cavendish replied. «The Holy of Holies for the entire naga race. Their Supreme Goddess Shekinester lives here somewhere, though I've never seen her. Not knowingly, anyway. I've seen one sodding lot of snakes over the years, and maybe one of them was divine… but who knows?»
«Are we still in the Outlands?»
«Indeed,» he nodded. «Only about twelve hours from Plague-Mort. I gather that's where the nagas bagged you.»
«You know about what happened?»
«Oh yes, they told me everything. They intended to kill you, but your young friend Zeerith begged so touchingly for your lives, they decided to bring you to Shekinester and let her judge the case.»
«My companions are all right?»
«As far as I know. Of course, Shekinester judges everyone individually, and it's possible she's already passed sentence on some members of your party.»
«That's no problem,» I told him. «A goddess must be able to tell we're innocent.»
I paid the mage double for that one.
When I awoke from the naga's spell, my throat was ragged by a raspy dryness, as if some frenzied clawed creature had crawled down to my epiglottis and was now digging its way out. There was a marble floor beneath my cheek, and lying on it had stiffened most of my muscles; but I was alive and relatively undamaged, a condition I certainly hadn't expected after the nagas coldcocked me.
Blinking, I sat up. The space around me was huge and very white, with marble slabs on the floor, walls, and even ceiling. In front of me, a row of unglassed windows opened onto a grayly overcast day, its sky displaying that muted fluffiness that always promises snow. Narrow marble benches ran under the windows, situated so that you could lean back and prop your arms comfortably on the window-ledge behind you.
A man was doing precisely that, sitting casually, watching me gather my senses.
«Hello, Britlin,» he said at last.
«Hello, Father,» I answered.
* * *
Niles Cavendish had aged considerably since I'd seen him last. His black hair was now amply salted with streaks of white; his moustache had turned completely gray, and every line on his face had deepened. Laugh-lines they were called, and Father Niles had obviously laughed a great deal after walking out on his wife and child.«How are you feeling?» he asked.
«Physically or emotionally?»
«Let's go with the physical for starters.»
I shrugged, then silently chided myself – if I reverted to a sulky adolescent at the first glimpse of this man, I'd soon despise myself. Being able to act like a grown-up was something that set me apart from him… wasn't it? «No broken bones,» I said. «I'm fit to fight a pit fiend.»
«With my sword.» He nodded down at my side, where the rapier still hung from my belt. «I'm glad it wasn't lost.»
«You can have it back any time you want.»
I began to unbuckle the sheath, but he waved at me to stop. «Keep it. I haven't handled a blade in twelve years; I'd probably cut myself. If it comes down to hack and slash, I'll leave that honor to the next generation.»
«Honor,» I muttered under my breath. Then more loudly, I said, «Can you tell me what's going on here?»
«You've arrived at the Court of Light,» Niles Cavendish replied. «The Holy of Holies for the entire naga race. Their Supreme Goddess Shekinester lives here somewhere, though I've never seen her. Not knowingly, anyway. I've seen one sodding lot of snakes over the years, and maybe one of them was divine… but who knows?»
«Are we still in the Outlands?»
«Indeed,» he nodded. «Only about twelve hours from Plague-Mort. I gather that's where the nagas bagged you.»
«You know about what happened?»
«Oh yes, they told me everything. They intended to kill you, but your young friend Zeerith begged so touchingly for your lives, they decided to bring you to Shekinester and let her judge the case.»
«My companions are all right?»
«As far as I know. Of course, Shekinester judges everyone individually, and it's possible she's already passed sentence on some members of your party.»
«That's no problem,» I told him. «A goddess must be able to tell we're innocent.»