This stair has no
bottom,” I told Goblin. We were puffing badly despite the
direction we were headed. We had passed openings into other caves
the stairwell had pierced. Each appeared to have been visited by
human beings sometime in the past. We discovered both treasures and
bone-yards. I suspected Sri Santaraksita, Baladitya and I could not
live long enough just to catalog all the mysteries buried beneath
the plain. And every darned unknown ancient thing I glimpsed in
passing called to me like the sirens of legend.
But Tobo was still ahead of us and seemed deaf to our calling.
Perhaps just as we did not waste time and breath responding to
Suvrin and Santaraksita, who kept calling down to us from ever
farther behind. It was my devout hope they would be smitten by good
sense and abandon the pursuit.
Goblin did not respond to my remarks. He had no breath left
over.
I asked, “Can’t you use some kind of spell to slow
him down or knock him out? I’m worried. He really can’t
be so far ahead that he can’t hear us. Darn!” I had
gotten tangled with the standard. Again.
Goblin just shook his head and kept moving. “He
can’t hear.” Puff-puff. “But he don’t know
that he can’t hear.”
Enough said. There was a bottom to the stair. And the Queen of
Deceit was napping down there, with just a whisper of awareness
left for manipulating a cocky, know-it-all boy who had a touch of
talent and had taken possession of an instrument that could become
a nasty weapon in the hands of those who would disarm her and have
her slumber continue neverending.
After a while we had to slow down. The unnatural light faded
until it became too weak to provide a reliable forecast of our
footing. The occasional breezes rising past us were no longer cold.
And they had begun to bear traces of a familiar, repugnant
odor.
When Goblin caught that smell he slowed way down, worked hard on
regaining his breath before he had to suck that stench down in its
full potency. “Been a while since I’ve come
face-to-face with a god,” he said. “I don’t know
if I’ve got what it takes to wrangle one anymore.”
“And what would that be? I never realized that I was in
the company of an experienced god-wrangler.”
“It takes youth. It takes confidence. It takes brashness.
Most of all, it takes a huge ration of stupidity and a lot of
luck.”
“Then why don’t we just sit down here and let those
sterling qualities carry Tobo through? Though I confess I’m a
little nervous about his supply of luck.”
“I’m tempted, Sleepy. Sorely and sincerely. He needs
the lesson.” Troubled, perhaps even a little frightened, he
continued, “But he’s got the pickax and the Company
needs him. He’s the future. Me and One-Eye are today and
yesterday.” He started picking up the pace again, which meant
a rapid heightening of the intensity of my skirmish with the
standard.
“What do you mean, he’s the future?”
“Nobody lives forever, Sleepy.”
The burst of speed did not last. We encountered a mist that
complicated the hazards of darkness. The visibility turned nil and
the footing became particularly treacherous for a short person
trying to drag a long pole down a tight and unpredictable stairway.
The moist air was heavier than anything I had experienced since the
fogs above the corpse-choked flood that had surrounded Jaicur
during the siege.
A chilling shriek came from far back up the stair. My mind
flooded with images of horrors pouncing gleefully upon Suvrin and
Master Santaraksita.
The shriek continued, approaching faster than any human being
could possibly descend that stairway. “What the hell is
that?” Goblin snapped.
“I don’t—” The shrieking stopped. At the
same time, I stepped down and there was no more down to step. I
staggered, betrayed by the darkness. The Lance banged into overhead
and wall. We had reached another landing, I assumed, until I felt
around with my toes and the standard and could find no more edge.
“What do you have over there?” I asked.
“Steps behind me. A wall to the right that goes forward
about six feet, then ends. All level floor.”
“I’ve got a wall on the left that just keeps going
on and a level floor. Gah!” Something slammed into my back. I
had only an instant of warning, the sound of wings violently
flapping as a large bird tried to stop before it hit.
The white crow cursed as it landed on the floor. It flopped
around for a moment, then started climbing me. That would have been
a sight, I am sure, had there been any light to reveal it.
I fought down an impulse to bat the creature into the darkness.
I hoped it was here to help. “Tobo!”
My voice rolled away into the distance, then came back in a
series of echoes. The heavy air seemed to load those up with
despair.
The boy did not answer but he did move. Or something moved. I
heard a rustle from less than twenty feet away.
“Goblin. Talk to me about this.”
“We’ve been blinded. By sorcery. There’s light
out there. I’m working on getting our sight back. Give me
your hand. Let’s stick together.”
The crow murmured, “Sister, sister. Walk straight ahead.
Look bold. You will pass through the darkness.” Its diction
had improved dramatically over the past year. Maybe that was
because we were so much closer to the force manipulating the
bird.
I felt around for Goblin, grabbed hold, pulled, dropped the
standard, picked it up and pulled again. “All right.
I’m ready.”
That crow knew what it was talking about. After a half dozen
steps we transited into a lighted ice cavern. Make that
comparatively lighted. Dim, grey-blue light leaked in through
translucent walls as though it was high noon just on the other side
of a few feet of ice. Much more light radiated from the vicinity of
the woman asleep on a bier at the center of the vast chamber, some
seventy feet away. Tobo stood halfway between us and it, looking
backward, completely surprised to see us there and equally baffled
as to where there might be.
“Don’t you move, boy,” Goblin snapped.
“Don’t you even take a deep breath until I tell you
it’s safe to do so.”
The form on the bier was a little fuzzy, as though surrounded by
heat shimmer. And in spite of that, I knew the woman lying there
was the most beautiful creature in the world. I knew that I loved
her more than life itself, that I wanted to rush over there and
drink deeply of those perfect lips.
The white crow sneezed in my ear.
That certainly took the edge off the mood.
“Where have we seen all this before?” Goblin asked,
voice dripping sarcasm. “She must be awfully weak or
she’d pluck something better from our minds than a replay of
an old Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. There isn’t a castle built
like this anywhere south of the Sea of Torments.”
“A castle? What? What castle?” The word for castle
did not exist in Taglian or Jaicuri. I knew it meant a kind of
fortress only because I had spent so much time exploring the
Annals.
“We seem to be inside the keep of an abandoned castle.
There’re dormant rose creepers all over the place.
There’re tons of cobwebs. In the middle of everything is a
beautiful blonde woman lying in an open casket. She just begs to be
kissed and brought back to life. The part that always gets ignored,
and that our ungracious hostess has overlooked here, is that the
bitch in the story almost certainly was a vampire.”
“That isn’t what I see.” Carefully, detail by
detail, I described the ice cave and the absolutely not blonde
woman I saw lying upon a bier at its center. While I spoke. Goblin
finally worked some subtle spell on Tobo that kept him too confused
to move.
Goblin asked, “Do you remember your mother,
Sleepy?”
“I vaguely recall a woman who might have been. She died
when I was little. Nobody talked about her.” We did not need
to go into this. We had work to do right here, right now. I hoped
he got that message from my tone and expression.
“What do you want to bet that what you’re seeing is
an idealized vision of your mother charged up with a whole lot of
sexual come-hither.”
I did not argue. That might be. He knew the artifices of
darkness. I did keep moving forward slowly, closing in on Tobo.
“Which would mean that up close and quickly, she
doesn’t have a real good connection with what’s outside
her.” Two decades ago it had become clear that Kina did not
think or work well in real time, that she did best when she applied
her influence over years rather than minutes. “I’m too
old to be snared by temptations of the flesh and you’re too
unsexed and undefined.” He grinned weakly. “The kid, on
the other hand, is at that age. I’d give a toe or two to see
what he sees. Ruff!” He gestured. Tobo collapsed like a wet
sock. “Grab the hammer. Hang onto it hard. Don’t get
any closer to her than you absolutely have to. Drag Tobo back to
the doorway.” He sounded old and hollow and possessed by a
despair that he did not want to share.
“What’s going on, Goblin? Talk to me.” This
was a situation where we ought not to keep dangers to
ourselves.
“We’re face-to-face with the great manipulator
who’s been disfiguring our lives for twenty-five years.
She’s very slow but she’s far more dangerous than
anything we’ve faced before.”
“I know that.” But my reaction was elation. My
spirits soared. All my hidden doubts, kept so carefully submerged
for so long, now seemed trivial, even silly. This lovely creature
was no god. Not like my God is God. Forgive me my weakness and my
doubts, O Lord of Hosts. The Darkness is everywhere, and dwells
within us all. Forgive me now, when the hour of my death stares me
in the face.
In Forgiveness He is Like the Earth.
I grabbed hold of Tobo’s arm and yanked him upright. I
clutched him as tightly as I gripped the standard. He would not
break away easily. Disoriented, he did not struggle when I pulled
him back from the sleeping form.
I averted my eyes. She was beauty incarnate. To gaze upon her
was to love her. To love her was to dedicate oneself to her will,
to lose oneself within her. O Lord of the Hours, watch over and
guard me in the presence of the spawn of al-Shiel.
“I need the pickax, Tobo.” I tried not to think
about why I wanted that unholy tool. At this distance Kina might be
able to pluck that right out of my mind.
Moving slowly, Tobo removed the pick from under his shirt and
handed it over. “Got it!” I told Goblin.
“Then get going!”
As I started to do that, Suvrin and Santaraksita, gasping
violently, stumbled into the light. Both froze, staring at Kina. In
soft awe, Suvrin declared, “Holy shit! She’s
gorgeous!”
Master Santaraksita seemed to be experiencing some confusion as
he stared.
Suvrin started forward, drooling. I popped him in the funny bone
with the dull end of the pick head. That not only got his
attention, it relaxed his overwhelming interest in Kina.
“Mother of Deceivers,” I told him. “Mistress of
Illusion. Turn around. Get the boy out of here. Take him back to
his mother. Sri, don’t make me hurt you, too.”
Something like a bit of mist rose from and hovered over the
sleeping woman’s mouth. For an instant it seemed vaguely
man-shaped, which reminded me of afrits, the unhappy ghosts of
murdered men. Millions of such devils could be at Kina’s
beck.
“Run, goddamnit!” Goblin said.
“Run,” the crow told me.
I did not run. I got hold of Santaraksita and started
pulling.
Goblin was talking to himself, something about wishing he had
had the good sense to steal One-Eye’s spear if he was going
to get himself into something like this.
“Goblin!” I heaved the standard. It was not my
intent that it do so, but it stood straight up and bounced a couple
of times on its butt before it tipped forward and fell into the
little wizard’s eager hands. He turned with it as the
illusions surrounding Kina evaporated.
This stair has no
bottom,” I told Goblin. We were puffing badly despite the
direction we were headed. We had passed openings into other caves
the stairwell had pierced. Each appeared to have been visited by
human beings sometime in the past. We discovered both treasures and
bone-yards. I suspected Sri Santaraksita, Baladitya and I could not
live long enough just to catalog all the mysteries buried beneath
the plain. And every darned unknown ancient thing I glimpsed in
passing called to me like the sirens of legend.
But Tobo was still ahead of us and seemed deaf to our calling.
Perhaps just as we did not waste time and breath responding to
Suvrin and Santaraksita, who kept calling down to us from ever
farther behind. It was my devout hope they would be smitten by good
sense and abandon the pursuit.
Goblin did not respond to my remarks. He had no breath left
over.
I asked, “Can’t you use some kind of spell to slow
him down or knock him out? I’m worried. He really can’t
be so far ahead that he can’t hear us. Darn!” I had
gotten tangled with the standard. Again.
Goblin just shook his head and kept moving. “He
can’t hear.” Puff-puff. “But he don’t know
that he can’t hear.”
Enough said. There was a bottom to the stair. And the Queen of
Deceit was napping down there, with just a whisper of awareness
left for manipulating a cocky, know-it-all boy who had a touch of
talent and had taken possession of an instrument that could become
a nasty weapon in the hands of those who would disarm her and have
her slumber continue neverending.
After a while we had to slow down. The unnatural light faded
until it became too weak to provide a reliable forecast of our
footing. The occasional breezes rising past us were no longer cold.
And they had begun to bear traces of a familiar, repugnant
odor.
When Goblin caught that smell he slowed way down, worked hard on
regaining his breath before he had to suck that stench down in its
full potency. “Been a while since I’ve come
face-to-face with a god,” he said. “I don’t know
if I’ve got what it takes to wrangle one anymore.”
“And what would that be? I never realized that I was in
the company of an experienced god-wrangler.”
“It takes youth. It takes confidence. It takes brashness.
Most of all, it takes a huge ration of stupidity and a lot of
luck.”
“Then why don’t we just sit down here and let those
sterling qualities carry Tobo through? Though I confess I’m a
little nervous about his supply of luck.”
“I’m tempted, Sleepy. Sorely and sincerely. He needs
the lesson.” Troubled, perhaps even a little frightened, he
continued, “But he’s got the pickax and the Company
needs him. He’s the future. Me and One-Eye are today and
yesterday.” He started picking up the pace again, which meant
a rapid heightening of the intensity of my skirmish with the
standard.
“What do you mean, he’s the future?”
“Nobody lives forever, Sleepy.”
The burst of speed did not last. We encountered a mist that
complicated the hazards of darkness. The visibility turned nil and
the footing became particularly treacherous for a short person
trying to drag a long pole down a tight and unpredictable stairway.
The moist air was heavier than anything I had experienced since the
fogs above the corpse-choked flood that had surrounded Jaicur
during the siege.
A chilling shriek came from far back up the stair. My mind
flooded with images of horrors pouncing gleefully upon Suvrin and
Master Santaraksita.
The shriek continued, approaching faster than any human being
could possibly descend that stairway. “What the hell is
that?” Goblin snapped.
“I don’t—” The shrieking stopped. At the
same time, I stepped down and there was no more down to step. I
staggered, betrayed by the darkness. The Lance banged into overhead
and wall. We had reached another landing, I assumed, until I felt
around with my toes and the standard and could find no more edge.
“What do you have over there?” I asked.
“Steps behind me. A wall to the right that goes forward
about six feet, then ends. All level floor.”
“I’ve got a wall on the left that just keeps going
on and a level floor. Gah!” Something slammed into my back. I
had only an instant of warning, the sound of wings violently
flapping as a large bird tried to stop before it hit.
The white crow cursed as it landed on the floor. It flopped
around for a moment, then started climbing me. That would have been
a sight, I am sure, had there been any light to reveal it.
I fought down an impulse to bat the creature into the darkness.
I hoped it was here to help. “Tobo!”
My voice rolled away into the distance, then came back in a
series of echoes. The heavy air seemed to load those up with
despair.
The boy did not answer but he did move. Or something moved. I
heard a rustle from less than twenty feet away.
“Goblin. Talk to me about this.”
“We’ve been blinded. By sorcery. There’s light
out there. I’m working on getting our sight back. Give me
your hand. Let’s stick together.”
The crow murmured, “Sister, sister. Walk straight ahead.
Look bold. You will pass through the darkness.” Its diction
had improved dramatically over the past year. Maybe that was
because we were so much closer to the force manipulating the
bird.
I felt around for Goblin, grabbed hold, pulled, dropped the
standard, picked it up and pulled again. “All right.
I’m ready.”
That crow knew what it was talking about. After a half dozen
steps we transited into a lighted ice cavern. Make that
comparatively lighted. Dim, grey-blue light leaked in through
translucent walls as though it was high noon just on the other side
of a few feet of ice. Much more light radiated from the vicinity of
the woman asleep on a bier at the center of the vast chamber, some
seventy feet away. Tobo stood halfway between us and it, looking
backward, completely surprised to see us there and equally baffled
as to where there might be.
“Don’t you move, boy,” Goblin snapped.
“Don’t you even take a deep breath until I tell you
it’s safe to do so.”
The form on the bier was a little fuzzy, as though surrounded by
heat shimmer. And in spite of that, I knew the woman lying there
was the most beautiful creature in the world. I knew that I loved
her more than life itself, that I wanted to rush over there and
drink deeply of those perfect lips.
The white crow sneezed in my ear.
That certainly took the edge off the mood.
“Where have we seen all this before?” Goblin asked,
voice dripping sarcasm. “She must be awfully weak or
she’d pluck something better from our minds than a replay of
an old Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. There isn’t a castle built
like this anywhere south of the Sea of Torments.”
“A castle? What? What castle?” The word for castle
did not exist in Taglian or Jaicuri. I knew it meant a kind of
fortress only because I had spent so much time exploring the
Annals.
“We seem to be inside the keep of an abandoned castle.
There’re dormant rose creepers all over the place.
There’re tons of cobwebs. In the middle of everything is a
beautiful blonde woman lying in an open casket. She just begs to be
kissed and brought back to life. The part that always gets ignored,
and that our ungracious hostess has overlooked here, is that the
bitch in the story almost certainly was a vampire.”
“That isn’t what I see.” Carefully, detail by
detail, I described the ice cave and the absolutely not blonde
woman I saw lying upon a bier at its center. While I spoke. Goblin
finally worked some subtle spell on Tobo that kept him too confused
to move.
Goblin asked, “Do you remember your mother,
Sleepy?”
“I vaguely recall a woman who might have been. She died
when I was little. Nobody talked about her.” We did not need
to go into this. We had work to do right here, right now. I hoped
he got that message from my tone and expression.
“What do you want to bet that what you’re seeing is
an idealized vision of your mother charged up with a whole lot of
sexual come-hither.”
I did not argue. That might be. He knew the artifices of
darkness. I did keep moving forward slowly, closing in on Tobo.
“Which would mean that up close and quickly, she
doesn’t have a real good connection with what’s outside
her.” Two decades ago it had become clear that Kina did not
think or work well in real time, that she did best when she applied
her influence over years rather than minutes. “I’m too
old to be snared by temptations of the flesh and you’re too
unsexed and undefined.” He grinned weakly. “The kid, on
the other hand, is at that age. I’d give a toe or two to see
what he sees. Ruff!” He gestured. Tobo collapsed like a wet
sock. “Grab the hammer. Hang onto it hard. Don’t get
any closer to her than you absolutely have to. Drag Tobo back to
the doorway.” He sounded old and hollow and possessed by a
despair that he did not want to share.
“What’s going on, Goblin? Talk to me.” This
was a situation where we ought not to keep dangers to
ourselves.
“We’re face-to-face with the great manipulator
who’s been disfiguring our lives for twenty-five years.
She’s very slow but she’s far more dangerous than
anything we’ve faced before.”
“I know that.” But my reaction was elation. My
spirits soared. All my hidden doubts, kept so carefully submerged
for so long, now seemed trivial, even silly. This lovely creature
was no god. Not like my God is God. Forgive me my weakness and my
doubts, O Lord of Hosts. The Darkness is everywhere, and dwells
within us all. Forgive me now, when the hour of my death stares me
in the face.
In Forgiveness He is Like the Earth.
I grabbed hold of Tobo’s arm and yanked him upright. I
clutched him as tightly as I gripped the standard. He would not
break away easily. Disoriented, he did not struggle when I pulled
him back from the sleeping form.
I averted my eyes. She was beauty incarnate. To gaze upon her
was to love her. To love her was to dedicate oneself to her will,
to lose oneself within her. O Lord of the Hours, watch over and
guard me in the presence of the spawn of al-Shiel.
“I need the pickax, Tobo.” I tried not to think
about why I wanted that unholy tool. At this distance Kina might be
able to pluck that right out of my mind.
Moving slowly, Tobo removed the pick from under his shirt and
handed it over. “Got it!” I told Goblin.
“Then get going!”
As I started to do that, Suvrin and Santaraksita, gasping
violently, stumbled into the light. Both froze, staring at Kina. In
soft awe, Suvrin declared, “Holy shit! She’s
gorgeous!”
Master Santaraksita seemed to be experiencing some confusion as
he stared.
Suvrin started forward, drooling. I popped him in the funny bone
with the dull end of the pick head. That not only got his
attention, it relaxed his overwhelming interest in Kina.
“Mother of Deceivers,” I told him. “Mistress of
Illusion. Turn around. Get the boy out of here. Take him back to
his mother. Sri, don’t make me hurt you, too.”
Something like a bit of mist rose from and hovered over the
sleeping woman’s mouth. For an instant it seemed vaguely
man-shaped, which reminded me of afrits, the unhappy ghosts of
murdered men. Millions of such devils could be at Kina’s
beck.
“Run, goddamnit!” Goblin said.
“Run,” the crow told me.
I did not run. I got hold of Santaraksita and started
pulling.
Goblin was talking to himself, something about wishing he had
had the good sense to steal One-Eye’s spear if he was going
to get himself into something like this.
“Goblin!” I heaved the standard. It was not my
intent that it do so, but it stood straight up and bounced a couple
of times on its butt before it tipped forward and fell into the
little wizard’s eager hands. He turned with it as the
illusions surrounding Kina evaporated.