He took a last look into each cage, a last listen at the door, then he went back into the main room and out the Quag Keep door. The sun was setting, brushing the stone of the Keep with an orange tint. Ingrge didn’t bother hiding from the gargoyles. Their heads continued to turn, and he was certain one looked directly at him as he cut across the dead grass that separated Quag Keep from the woods.
He was deep in those woods by evening, looking up through breaks in the canopy at the riot of stars that winked overhead.
“Forty-two steps to the beach," he said. “I forgot how many more to the ocean. Bound to be an ocean around here somewhere. Maybe Milo and Naile and I can find it. Because I don’t think we’ll ever find our way back home.”
In late fall the swamp was not as steamy as Gulth would have preferred. But it was warmer than the lands to the north, and there was no sign of any hated city. The air was different here, moist and filled with the scents the lizardman loved best — the wet loam beneath his clawed feet, flowers that grew on vines draped from the acacia trees, the plants themselves . . . some of which he steered Deav Dyne around, warning him they were dangerous. There was a faint cloying odor of something that had recently died and had started to rot, and the smell of dampness everywhere. With each step, the earth tried to pull at his feet, the vines caught around his ankles. It was as if the swamp was telling him to stay.
And that’s what the lizardman intended to do.
He’d regained some of his color, and most of his scales were once again the shade of the ferns that grew in profusion along the bank of the river they paralleled. Deav Dyne walked behind Gulth, struggling through the undergrowth, but not complaining.
It had taken them more than three weeks to reach these lands. There had been other marshes farther north, but they were smaller and there d been no sign of other lizardmen. Deav Dyne had asked lots of questions in some of the southern villages, and people there said Gulth’s kind could be found here.
“I am feeling better, priest . . . Deav Dyne.”
“You look much better, Gulth. And it does me well to know you will be all right.”
The hzardman stopped, relishing the feel of mud that was seeping between his claws. “You did not have to come with me, but I was grateful for your company. Where will you go now?”
The priest tipped his face up, smiling to feel the warmth of the sun. “With you for just a little while longer. Until we find your people. Then I’ll go back to the city.”
“To find Yevele.”
“And Milo and Naile and Wymarc. And maybe the four of us will find our way back home.”
“And where is home for you, Deav Dyne?”
“Bremen.”
“Where’s that?”
“Germany.”
"A long way from Toledo."
“A longer way from here.” Deav Dyne gave a single nod. “I run a little hobby shop there, and I sell at the conventions in Hanover. I sell games, Gulth. Board games, war games, card games . . . role-playing games. And miniatures.” He laughed, and Gulth joined him. “I sold miniatures. Right up until the day I got a special package in the mail containing the one that looks like I do here.”
Gulth put a clawed hand on the priest’s arm. “You could have picked up this figure instead.” He pointed to himself.
“If we find a way home, Gulth, I can come back here and look for you. Get you home, too.”
The lizardman shook his head. “I’ve forgotten the name of my aunt, the one who let us play the game in her house. Can’t see her face. Can’t remember the names of my friends who played the game with me. And I like this well enough, priest . . . Deav Dyne. I like this place just fine.”
They walked deeper into the swamp, finding a footprint here and there that likely belonged to another lizardman.
Neither of them knew they were being followed, had been tracked by the bracelets still on their wrists. The man moved silently and at a constant pace, trying to close the distance. They weren’t terribly far ahead now, he knew, as he saw their footprints in the mud and places where leaves had been pressed against the loam. A twig broke here, bark scraped there.
“Ah, Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling for you.”
Fisk Lockwood hated the swamp with all of his being. It was warm and the insects were thick. It was difficult terrain to cross, not a single merchant trail cutting through the morass to make the going easier. But he promised Pobe he would slay the people who’d come unbidden to this realm. In all cases but slaying the bard Wymarc and the bard before that, he’d failed. His bandits and undead could not best the other-worlders. And deep in the bowels of Quag Keep he’d not been able to kill the warrior-woman and the little thief.
He’d not heard from Pobe in some time, but that didn’t negate the promise he’d made to the ooze. Fisk assumed Pobe was angry with him, and he hoped that killing the priest and the lizardman might bring him a measure of acceptance.
They were so close, his targets, and so unsuspecting. He drew a long knife from the folds of his tunic. The lizardman first, Fisk decided, as Gulth was larger and would prove the bigger threat. The priest would fall easy after that.
“The Master will forgive me then,” Fisk whispered. "I will — ” His free hand went to his throat, which was constricted. The assassin tried to suck air into lungs that were instantly on fire. “The pipes, the pipes.”
Fisk gasped and dropped the knife, ripped his tunic open, thinking the fabric too tight. Foam flecked at his lips, and the muscles of his face twitched. He dropped to his knees, then fell on his side, struggling and spotting a vine that had wrapped around one of his ankles. A moment more and his struggles ceased; his body was paralyzed.
Poison. Fisk knew poison, and he’d used something similar on the blade he slew Wymarc with.
Attached to the vine was a large red flower that looked to be growing on an exposed, knobby root. Splinters of bones were scattered around its stalk. The flower’s petals opened wide, showing a maw ringed by tiny teeth. The vine pulled him closer.
Fisk hated the swamp.
One month to the day after leaving the city, Gulth was welcomed into a clan of lizardmen. They didn’t know he’d only worn their skin for less than a year, and that he didn’t really come from the city to the north like he told them. They didn’t know that he really came from Toledo, Ohio, where he used to play a game around his aunt s table.
Deav Dyne returned to the city, weary but satisfied that he’d helped his scaly friend. He found no trace of his companions, and he learned that Ludlow Jade’s caravan had disbanded. The priest searched for word of Yevele, Milo, Naile, Ingrge, and Wymarc for weeks before finally giving up. He hadn’t a coin in his pocket, but he had faith he would make it in this world. The dice-shaped gems on the bracelet on his wrist were valuable. Certainly in this city he could find someone able to take it off.
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