“Damn,” he wheezed. “That really hurt.”
“How do you feel?” she asked him.
“Alive,” he said.
The floor shook.
“It still wants us,” Ivrian said groggily.
The lizard man turned his large eyes to Mirian. “How are you?”
“I’ve felt better. Did you get hit at all?”
“No.”
That was odd. But then, maybe the electrical attacks weren’t quite as deadly in the air as they were underwater.
“We have to follow that passage back to the Hall of Records,” she said. “Jekka, do you know how far it can reach with that storm breath?”
“At least this far,” Jekka told her.
Mirian nodded. “Ivrian, do you think you can run?”
“Um.” Ivrian tripped over his own feet as he tried to rise, catching himself on the wall. “Maybe.”
“Take a good long breath. Slowly. In and out. There you go.”
Again the floor trembled. It was hard to tell exactly what the beast was doing. Did it mean to lure them out of hiding and then pop its head out of the pool to blast them? Or was it trying to nudge them into motion so it could feel where they were, tracking them through the tunnels from below?
“Here’s what we do,” she said. “We wait until we feel another of those bumps. Then we run like hell for the Hall of Records and hope we can find a way out through one of the towers. We’ve got to get everybody out before it gets a fix on us.” She looked to Ivrian. “Ready?”
The boy nodded.
“Go!”
Jekka was out and running at full speed. Ivrian made a good show of it. Mirian lagged back to run at his side, looking over her shoulder. The entrance to the water certainly seemed a long way back there.
The floor rocked and splintered. A huge crack appeared in the tile.
Ivrian cursed.
As they passed the next intersection, Mirian saw Rendak waiting in the doorway ahead, waving them forward. The floor rocked a second time, and then they were through the red archway and into the brightly lit room beyond.
Gasping, she explained the situation to Rendak and Alderra, who hurried forward to assist her son, immediately proffering her own healing potion. The Karshnaar consulted among themselves.
“How did things go here?” Mirian asked Rendak.
“Quiet, until you showed up. Heltan’s found something important, but he’s wanting to take about a hundred of these book cones with him. I’m not sure there’s even room in Lady Galanor’s magical bag.”
Apparently satisfied with her son’s status, Alderra arched an eyebrow at Mirian. She bent down to undo the ties that bound Ivrian’s packs. Her eyes brightened when she gazed upon the sparkling contents, and her smile spread wide. Ivrian seemed to be talking to her about the treasure room, but Mirian couldn’t quite hear over the Karshnaar, whose own conversation had grown increasingly voluble.
Kalina and Jekka had taken issue with Heltan and now gestured toward him with some violence. Each of their frills had risen.
“What’s that about?” Mirian asked.
Rendak passed her another of the healing potions. “Hell if I know. Drink this.”
“I don’t need that.” The tarnished bronze tube was a great temptation, but she knew they should hold off until they really needed it.
“Yes you do. You look like a devil’s dance partner, Mirian.”
“We don’t have that many left.”
“We use them when we need them. And if you got hit by even part of a sea drake blast, I guarantee you need it.”
Mirian finally gave into the temptation, pulled the cork free, and quaffed the potion. Mostly bitter with a hint of cinnamon. But she felt almost normal within moments.
One of the walls rumbled. The Karshnaar, seemingly oblivious, continued their argument.
“Hey. Hey!”
All three lizardfolk looked toward her at once, their heads snapping about on their long necks.
“We need to get out of here through one of the towers,” she said.
Heltan shook his head. “I think all of them are blocked.”
“There’s a sea drake down there,” Mirian said. “I don’t know if you know what those…”
Her voice trailed off. The Karshnaar stared at her, expressions unreadable, and she thought of the sea drake sculpture she’d brought with her, as well as of the bones in the cenotes.
Heltan reached up to finger his turquoise necklace.
One of the necklaces all of them wore, their stones the same color as the sea drake’s scales.
Mirian’s jaw dropped.
“Did you know it was down there?” she shouted.
Kalina and Jekka stared at Heltan as if daring him to answer.
“They were city guardians,” Heltan said. “I didn’t think any could still be alive—”
“But you brought protective necklaces just in case,” Mirian finished in disgust. “I asked you what the boggards might be afraid of!”
“We were just discussing that with him,” Jekka said, glaring at his brother.
“We didn’t know,” Kalina explained.
“Of course you knew!” Mirian said.
“Only Heltan knew,” Jekka said, hissing. “He did not tell us, either.”
“Really, everything is fine,” Heltan said. “No one has died. A beast is still down there, but we can get out. Surely you cannot blame me for trying to do a little more to protect my clan when—”
“You could at least have warned us,” Alderra told him icily. “You could at least have loaned the necklaces to my son and Mirian when they went diving!”
Heltan bobbed his head. “I was distracted. I—”
“Hey,” Rendak whispered from the doorway. “Boggards. Hallway!”
Mirian scowled at Heltan. “Jekka, Kalina, get to the doorway. The rest of you, get your gear.” She handed off her spare pack and shouldered into her own. Then she and the lizardfolk pressed themselves to the wall next to the door alongside Rendak.
“Scouting party,” Rendak whispered. “Best finish them.”
“Yes,” Kalina said. One of her disk weapons dangled from her right hand.
They stepped out together.
Down the hall, three hunched green forms with bowed legs and huge, froglike heads looked up. Immediately, the boggards let out an excited burbling, one that rose to a scream as Kalina’s disk embedded itself in the head of the one on the far right. Mirian concentrated with her wand and blasted the legs out from under the next. It fell, mouth moving in soundless pain.
The third bounded away. Mirian aimed her wand to fire again even as Kalina dashed to retrieve her weapon.
A wave of boggards poured out of a corridor farther down the hall, feet slapping the floor tiles like drums. Kalina spun, disk in hand, and raced back toward her friends. From below came the thump of the sea drake in response.
“Move!” Mirian roared, flinging herself back through the door as the lizard woman passed her. “Heltan, get us out of here!”
She brought up the rear as the others rushed ahead. The hopping boggards followed. One alone looked ridiculous. A dozen of the things, toothed heads bobbing, weren’t remotely funny.
A blast from Mirian’s wand felled one with a squeal, but its brethren hopped right over it, advancing with astonishing speed.
She rounded a corner to discover Heltan and the other humans stopped at the pool in the scorched hall. Alderra faced him, hand on her hilt.
“Then give over the necklace, if you think it’s so safe!” the noblewoman sneered.
“Belay that!” Mirian snapped. Behind her the boggards’ pounding feet sounded like thunder. “They’re almost on us!”
Heltan dropped through the hole. Alderra, eyes burning with hatred, shoved her air tube between her teeth and went in after, followed by the others.
They were all swimming within a few moments, following the lizardfolk in the forefront. Mirian half expected the drake to be waiti
ng for them, but the water seemed clear. The only worrisome thing was the rumbling overhead of the boggards nearing their drop point.
On the way in they’d passed a number of exits to the surface; she hoped they were nearby, for boggards were excellent swimmers.
As if on cue, she heard the splashes of boggards dropping in behind her, the sound dulled by the water. She didn’t slow down to look over her shoulder.
Heltan suddenly veered left—a left Mirian didn’t remember. What was he doing? But the rest of the party had no choice but to follow, and Mirian went after, fully cognizant of the thrashing in the water behind. She passed Ivrian as she turned the corner into the wider corridor.
And there was sunlight, shining from on high into a vast, vaulted space. What this chamber once had been she could not guess, but now it was their salvation. She turned to wave Ivrian on just in time to see the first four boggards swimming furiously after. She blasted one between the eyes. It sank slowly, dropping through a slanting sunbeam.
A wide-eyed Ivrian swam toward her past a row of sculpted lizardfolk standing atop stone columns, his glowing fins briefly tinting them in emerald light. Beyond was the circular light of the pool rim. Heltan had reached it and was already clambering up.
Rendak and Alderra were halfway there, while Kalina held on to the rim, looking back. Jekka hung back, suspended in the water near Rendak, waiting for the oncoming boggards with spear readied.
Then the sea drake appeared, sending a ripple of lightning through the boggards even as it tore through the pack, leaving bloody limbs in its wake. The closest three were caught by the electrical blast.
Along with Ivrian.
Damn it!
As the boy sank, Mirian dove after, knowing it was foolish, that he was probably dead already.
The drake thrashed through the water like a winged eel, set on rending and devouring everything in reach. The remaining boggards scattered, one swimming straight down for Mirian, who paused to blow a smoking hole through its face.
Then she had Ivrian by a shoulder strap and was kicking toward the surface. She saw in surprise that he was kicking feebly himself. The boy was hard to kill.
As she rose, Mirian saw Alderra swimming down, spear in hand, and called for her to get out. But Lady Galanor drove the weapon into a boggard as another gouged her shoulder with a clawed foot. The water was a fury of crazed forms, Kalina and Jekka fighting savagely to keep the path open.
Rendak was suddenly there at her side, grabbing Ivrian’s other shoulder strap. With his aid, their speed almost doubled.
The sea drake roared, and the water hummed with another blast of electricity. Mirian silently mouthed a prayer to Desna.
Time crawled. Every heartbeat seemed an hour, the water filled with bubbling and screams. She tasted blood as she breathed in.
At last she broke into the air. She and Rendak grasped the stone rim and pulled Ivrian up.
A reptilian hand thrust out toward her from the blinding surface world. Heltan. She grasped it, and between his clasp and her knee upon the stone, she leveraged Ivrian out.
A dripping Rendak scrambled up beside her, tube hanging beside his mouth as he gasped in air. The three of them dragged the weak, coughing Ivrian farther back from the edge.
Kalina and Jekka were out in the next moment, and Mirian whirled, coughing fluid. She hadn’t been able to fully empty her lungs.
Alderra swam furiously just a few feet below the surface. The drake was only a body length behind, and rising fast. Below, scattered boggard body parts drifted in billowing crimson clouds.
Mirian aimed the wand at the drake’s bloody maw, commanded it to fire.
Nothing.
The creature’s mouth closed around the noblewoman’s lower body, engulfing her to the navel. Mirian saw the astonishment in the woman’s gaze as she was dragged off, disappearing in a welter of blood.
“No!” Mirian screamed, and fired again, then once more. Each blast of acid burned into the drake as it lashed away and out of sight. Too late.
Too late.
21
Missing Friends
Mirian
Rendak grabbed her shoulder and pulled her away. “Mirian, get back! That thing can crawl right out of there!”
He was right. Sea drakes were amphibious. If it wished, it could follow them into the sunlight. She allowed herself to be led away, stumbling. Alderra. What if she’d made Heltan turn over the necklaces to the humans? Alderra might be standing beside her now.
She pulled herself together and spun to take in their surroundings. Her eyes had finally adjusted to the brilliant noonday sun. Kalina and Jekka were on guard, him standing post to the north, her to the south. The ruins stretched away in every direction.
Mirian put her anger at Heltan aside for a moment. “Heltan, how close are we to the tower? We need to tend Ivrian.”
The boy was huddled to one side, coughing water out of his lungs. “My mother,” he said weakly, “has a potion on her belt.” He could barely hold up his head.
Rendak and Mirian exchanged a quick glance.
“She didn’t make it, lad,” Rendak said.
“What?” Ivrian fell into another coughing fit.
“Heltan?” Mirian prompted.
The Karshnaar leader was turning this way and that. Finally, he pointed south.
With Kalina and Heltan leading, Mirian and Rendak carried the wounded young man through the empty, weed-choked courtyard and around the dilapidated towers. Ivrian tried to ask about his mother, but Rendak shushed him gently. Jekka brought up their rear.
The sun was hot on Mirian’s shoulders; she could practically feel the water steaming up from her exposed skin. It wasn’t especially pleasant making their way barefoot across the rough ground, but they had no other recourse.
They found the first of the boggards about ten feet out from the tower, transfixed by a spear. There were four others about its base.
She knew then the creatures must have been watching from the jungle since this morning, or maybe even the evening before. She grimly climbed the tower with Rendak and Jekka to seek the bodies of her friends.
But the only bodies were two more boggards, lying amid a great deal of blood that may or may not have been human. Human belongings were scattered haphazardly about the room. Anything fragile was broken, and much of their clothing was in tatters, but mercifully their footgear was still intact, and while some boggards seemed to have taken delight in smashing each of Tokello’s glass bottles, a single healing potion in its brass tube had survived. Mirian clambered down to pass it off to Kalina, who’d taken it upon herself to guard Ivrian.
He was weak enough that even downing the potion was a challenge. While Kalina assisted him, Mirian consulted Jekka. “Can you find their tracks?”
“Tracks?” Heltan asked. He had donned his robe, marred now by a run of boggard footprints near the waist. He stretched his neck forward, eyes wide. “There is nothing you can do for the others.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I mean to find them. Jekka?”
“It should be easy,” Jekka announced, and crept away, head low.
“I am sorry about these others,” Heltan said, “but you know as well as I that they are probably already food—”
“You know as well as I they’ll probably be dragged back to the village for torture!” Mirian snapped. “You think I don’t know how boggards act? We can save them if we reach them in time.”
“How are you going to do that?” Heltan’s voice grew challenging. “Three humans against an entire tribe of boggards?”
It hadn’t occurred to her that the Karshnaar wouldn’t help. She stared at him, torn between a desire to punch him in the snout and the urgent need for his aid.
Kalina stepped between them. “First, I wager fully half the warriors of the tribe are food for the drake.” She paused and eyed her mate. “Second, the humans will not go alone.”
Heltan responded in the lizardfolk language.
�
��This is a council of peers.” Kalina sounded angry. “You will speak so we all understand.”
Heltan hissed. “That is a very noble thing to consider, Kalina, but we cannot risk this venture. Not now. We have come through, alive, and done what we were asked. I don’t want those humans ended, but we did not agree to help them.”
“So your precious library is more vital than your allies?” Kalina countered. “Maybe that is why our people are dying out. Because our leaders don’t know what’s important.”
“But if we die now, all of this will have been for nothing!”
Jekka loped up to them and interjected without preamble. “Their tracks are simple to follow. Very fresh.”
“Numbers?” Mirian asked.
“Probably two tens.”
“Right.” Mirian faced the dwindling members of her expedition. “Who’s coming?”
“You know I am,” Rendak said. He clapped a hand to his sword hilt. Ivrian, revived but haggard, stepped up behind him.
Jekka and Kalina both nodded their assent and fingered their weapons.
Heltan hissed, showing his teeth. “Brother, beloved—”
“Say nothing more, beloved, lest it be agreement.”
The lizard man all but gnashed his teeth. He stared hard at the other members of his tribe, then faced Mirian. “Very well. Do you have a plan?”
“My plan is to sneak in close and then arrange a distraction.”
“What sort of distraction?” Heltan asked.
Mirian smiled thinly. “I think you’ll like it.”
22
Reunion
Ivrian
Of that time, I shall not speak.
—From The Collected Writings of Lord Ivrian Galanor
One foot before the other. Later, Ivrian would try to remember how he pressed on so easily after the death of his mother, and recall that it was by moving forward. There might have been more to worry about, but he didn’t. Mirian was calling the shots and the lizardfolk were guiding, so he just held his weapons and looked forward to killing something.
He’d never really imagined his mother’s death, except as an abstract possibility. He’d never thought about how it would affect him.
Beyond the Pool of Stars Page 19
