And something else. For a flicker of a moment, so fast my mind barely even registered it, I seemed to be somewhere else. A rocky peak, marked by a great black stone spearing toward the sky.
And a feeling of shock—followed closely by one of recognition.
Then it was gone. I stumbled, catching myself on the wall. “Whyborne?” Griffin called, and hurried to my side. “Are you all right, my dear?”
“Yes.” I put a hand to my temple. “For a moment, when I stepped through the line, I thought I saw something. Morgen’s Needle, I suppose.”
Griffin frowned. “I didn’t feel or see anything.”
“Nor did I,” said Mother, crossing along with the others. “Mr. Endicott?”
“No.” Rupert shook his head. “Dr. Whyborne, has this ever happened to you before, when encountering a line?”
Unease soured my gut. “No. It hasn’t.” I paused, concentrating on the memory of that brief flash. “I was right. It was a boundary. And something noticed me crossing it.”
Worry darkened Griffin’s green eyes. “I can’t say I care for that.”
“Nor me.” Hattie rested her hands on the hilts of her blades. “Everyone be on your guards.”
There was nothing to do but push forward. Very soon after we crossed the line, we came to rooms and corridors leading deeper into the heart of the island mount. As with the city of the umbrae, the rooms all maintained a hexagonal shape, their walls covered with reliefs of animals that seemed like distant relations of our modern fauna. Unlike the maze of the massive city, however, the passageway we were in was clearly a main thoroughfare of some sort. It was much larger than any of the others which burrowed off into the rock, and continued upward in a gentle, curving slope.
A curving slope.
“It’s a spiral,” I said, coming to a stop.
Christine nearly walked into me. “Good gad, man, watch yourself. What are you talking about?”
“The passageway we’re in.” I stepped aside to let her pass. “Mr. Endicott, didn’t you say Balefire is built in a spiral up the peak?”
“Bloody hell.” Hattie halted beside me. “I’ve been wondering why this place felt familiar. The layout’s same as the house.”
“Not the same,” Rupert said. “But similar…you’re quite right, Hattie.”
“Old Sir Richard must’ve known about this place.” Hattie’s white skin took on a sickly pallor. “But why would he base Balefire on this? There are damned ketoi on the walls, in the murals!”
“He used a spell created by the masters to build the barrier, possessed a fragment of the Wisborg Codex along with its key, and constructed his house according to the plan of a city of the masters?” I liked Richard Endicott less and less, which was saying a great deal considering.
Rupert’s expression said he shared my unease. “It’s said he planned Balefire based on visions that came to him in dreams. If his mind was influenced in some fashion…well, I’m not sure what that means for us, to be quite honest.”
I was surprised to hear him even entertain the notion, rather than dismiss it out of hand. I’d yet to meet an Endicott who liked the implication any of them could possibly be influenced by malign sorcery, or anything else. Theo and Fiona had reacted in violent disgust when they’d found out my Endicott ancestor had married a ketoi woman; certainly they’d instantly ceased to regard me as part of the family. The suggestion the Endicotts’ entire history might have been affected by the masters and their creations surely wouldn’t go down easily.
Hattie’s response was more typical. “But we hunt these things.” She didn’t bother to hide her distress. “We ain’t like those other sorcerers, Rupert. We don’t have any truck with the Outside.”
A horrifying thought struck me, one I had no intention of sharing with either Rupert or Hattie. I’d always assumed the maelstrom had collected Mother to Widdershins because she had the incredibly rare mingling of both ketoi and sorcerous lineages. But what if it had begun its work long before then?
The maelstrom, like the ketoi and umbrae, was a creation of the masters. Did it have some special affinity with places of power such as this, where they had once lived? Was it a mere coincidence that I was descended from the man who had taken this island, who had perhaps been influenced by the works of the masters? A simple twist of fate that my great-great-great grandfather had fled to the colonies, though of course he had died without ever setting foot in Widdershins?
The maelstrom was connected with the arcane line in Fallow. Could it somehow be linked to this vortex as well?
God. Surely not. The maelstrom didn’t have infinite control over those it touched. It merely weighted the dice of chance toward the outcome it wanted.
But over centuries, no matter how many throws it lost, those it won would gradually begin to accumulate. To aggregate into a pattern I suddenly wasn’t sure I liked at all.
Mother gestured at the passageway ahead of us. “Does this mean we’re going in the right direction?”
“Yes.” Rupert’s voice gained confidence as he spoke. “This should take us to the end of these…diggings. I know the way out.”
“Let’s just hope it isn’t blocked,” Christine said. “Come along, Whyborne.”
Hattie and I had fallen to the rear of the group. She strode ahead of me, and I found myself playing the part of rearguard. Not that there seemed to be anything to guard against. Probably no one had been in this passageway for centuries.
I tried to escape my dark speculations about the maelstrom by turning my attention to my immediate surroundings. The air in the corridor was surprisingly fresh, and, once we left the sea behind, smelled only of cool stone. There were no traces of animal intruders, not even insects.
And it was silent. I hadn’t noticed it at first, as Christine and I had been talking, but there were no sounds besides those our group made. No rustle of animals, not even the fall of a loose pebble thanks to the magic sustaining the walls and ceiling. How long had it been since so much as a sigh had disturbed the profound quiet? Even our footsteps faded quickly, without echo, as though the silence resented us for breaking it.
We passed a bas-relief depicting one of the dwellers in the deep, surrounded by a host of comparatively tiny ketoi. The detail really was quite extraordinary. If only we’d been able to take photos or rubbings in the umbrae city to compare the styles. Were they as identical as our memories suggested, or would some variation show in a direct comparison? Had Carn Moreth and the city in Alaska been inhabited at the same time, or had they been separated by millennia?
One of the ketoi in the bas-relief turned its head and looked directly at me.
I came to a sharp halt, staring in shock. I hadn’t actually seen it move, had I? A trick of shadow and light must have confused my eye.
The others drew ahead of me, but I hesitated, unsettled. I leaned in closer to inspect the carving. Just my imagination…but I couldn’t get over the feeling it was watching me.
I shook my head and took a step back. My shoulder bumped into someone. “I’m so sorry,” I said, turning to see which of my companions had come up soundlessly behind me.
A man stood there, dressed in once respectable clothes now stiff with grime. His hands and bare feet were encrusted with filth. Blond hair hung limply around his ears, clearly untouched by either scissors or comb in quite some time.
Where his face should have been, there sprouted a blood-red tentacle, dripping with slime.
Chapter 23
Griffin
Whyborne’s shout of horror echoed up the passageway.
I’d thought him right behind us, but when I spun to help him I glimpsed only the reflection of his witch light from around the curve. Damn it.
“Percival!” Heliabel exclaimed, even as she rushed back down the passageway. My heart in my mouth, I ran after, my heart pounding with fear, and left her quickly behind.
Wind screamed down the passageway, tearing at my hair and damp clothing, and nearly knocking me off my f
eet. I rounded the curve and spotted Whyborne cringing away from something, hands in the air as he summoned a gale.
“Ival!” I shouted.
His attacker struck the wall with stunning force, propelled by the blast of wind. A man, I thought, at least judging by the clothing. One of the Fideles?
“Griffin!” Whyborne let the wind die away and backed toward me, his eyes locked on the slumped figure. “Don’t get too close to it.”
It?
His assailant pushed itself to its hands and knees, then surged onto all fours. Though it seemed human at first glance, it moved more like an animal. Then it turned toward us, and my gorge rose at the sight of the enormous tentacle protruding from its head where its face should have been.
“Dear God in heaven,” I whispered through a dry throat.
Reddish slime dripped like blood from the writhing appendage. A slit of a mouth gaped open beneath the tentacle, allowing it to draw breath and presumably feed, but it had no nose, no eyes. How it navigated, I hadn’t the slightest idea, but the lack of sight didn’t hinder it from charging directly at us.
“The fire spell,” I barked, even as I thrust my sword cane at it.
Whyborne channeled power down the blade. But before I could close with the creature, the ruddy tentacle snapped out at me, like the tongue of a frog striking at a fly. I tried to skip back, but it seized my wrist and yanked me toward it.
My wrist felt as though encircled with acid. I let out a cry of surprise and pain, and dug in my heels to keep the creature from wrenching me to the ground.
Then Heliabel was there. She sprang onto its back, her tentacles stinging its exposed flesh in a furious assault. It let go of me, a pained shriek sounding from its slit-like mouth. The creature bucked, and Heliabel was flung to the floor. Still squealing, it reared up onto its feet, standing like a man again. The great tentacle lifted, no doubt preparing to lash out at her.
One of Hattie’s knives sliced through the horrid protuberance. It fell to the ground with a disgusting plop, even as she buried her other blade in the thing’s throat. A gurgle escaped it, before it crumpled to the floor, dead.
“Griffin!” Whyborne seized my injured arm, pulling it to him to inspect my wrist. “Are you all right?”
The strange slime clung to my sleeve. Where it had touched my skin, it had left behind an angry red mark, as though I’d been scalded. “The tentacle seems to secrete some sort of acid,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Here.” Iskander and Christine had arrived; Iskander removed the cap from his canteen. “Hold out your arm, and I’ll rinse it off.”
Heliabel stepped cautiously over the severed tentacle and joined us. “Percival? Are you hurt?”
“Thankfully, no.” He shivered. “I was able to use the wind spell to repel it, before it could attack me. Griffin is the only one injured.”
“The water helped,” I said, lowering my arm. My skin still stung, but not as badly, and the rest of the slime was gone from my clothes. “Thank you, Iskander.”
“What the devil is that thing?” Christine asked, nudging its leg with the toe of her boot. “One of the Fideles, being punished for disobeying Nyarlathotep? They didn’t drip acid slime before, but perhaps he’s refined his technique.”
Hattie took one step back, then another. “It ain’t one of the Fideles,” she said, her voice shaking. “Rupert, look. The ring on his hand.”
Rupert crouched beside the body. Now that I had the chance to actually examine the thing, I was struck by its poor condition. Its clothes were filthy and crusted with old blood. They hung loose on a boney frame that looked as though it were slowly starving. A silver ring encircled one stick-like finger, close to slipping off. Rupert tugged it the rest of the way, then held it up.
It seemed a simple enough ornament, just a plain band set with three tiny emeralds. But Rupert stared at it as though it held horror.
“Earnest,” he whispered. “No. It can’t be.”
“It is.” Hattie continued to back away, shaking her head. “It’s bloody Earnest!”
Dread leached the warmth from my extremities. “One of the Endicotts who was trapped here?”
Rupert nodded wordlessly. He slipped the ring into his pocket and turned away.
“I’m sorry.” It seemed a hopelessly inadequate thing to say, but what sentiment could soften such horror?
“The Fideles did this to him.” Hattie turned away, staring at the wall, her hands shaking in fury. “How long was he like this? What about everyone else? To hell with that, what about the kids?”
My stomach rolled over. Iskander’s skin took on a grayish hue, and Rupert closed his eyes.
“We’ll make them pay,” Christine said firmly. “We’ll kill every last one of the bastards and send them screaming to hell.”
Hattie nodded once, sharply. “Yeah.” Her shoulders straightened. “I’ll gut them all myself if I have to. Come on.”
She strode ahead, and everyone moved to follow. I put a hand to Whyborne’s elbow. “Best stay close, my dear.”
“I almost forgot.” He turned to the mural behind us. “Look, Griffin. The…”
He trailed off, head cocked to the side in bafflement. “This ketoi.” He hesitantly touched one of the carved figures. “It’s back to normal now, but it moved earlier. Looked at me. Or at least I thought it did.”
Even through the lacework of ancient spells that kept the walls from crumbling, I could make out the fading luminosity of enchantment. “There was sorcery done here recently. You say it looked at you?”
He nodded. Unease crept through me, growing by the minute. “And you said earlier, when you crossed the first arcane line, that you felt something had noticed you doing so?”
The witch light already lent his pale skin a greenish cast, but I fancied the unnatural hue deepened. “Oh dear.”
Blast. Something had taken note of his presence, and I didn’t imagine for a moment it had anything good in mind for him. Or the rest of us, for that matter. “Exactly.” I forced my fear down and tried to speak lightly. “We’d best stay with the others. Whatever noticed you has already caught you alone once.” He’d been fortunate, but what if things had gone differently? What if I’d raced down the curving corridor to find him strangled by the horrid tentacle?
“You think it sent the…creature?” he asked unhappily.
“I think we should assume the worst.” I hurried him up the gentle curve. “Something in Carn Moreth is hunting you.”
Chapter 24
Whyborne
The skin between my shoulder blades itched, and I found myself jumping at every unexpected scrape of boot on stone or glint of light on metal. I wasn’t the only one; Mother kept casting looks back, and even Hattie slowed each time we approached a side corridor or doorway. Christine kept her cudgel ready in her hand, and Griffin held his sword cane unsheathed.
I couldn’t imagine what Hattie and Rupert must be feeling, to have seen someone they knew so hideously transformed. The Endicotts might have tried to kill us all in the past, and likely would do so again, but no one deserved such a fate. Certainly not any innocents who’d been trapped in Balefire alongside the adults when the Fideles took control.
God. Surely even mad cultists weren’t so evil as to twist the bodies of children.
My clothing clung to me, unpleasantly damp, and salt and sand caused it to chafe against my skin with every step. I longed for a hot bath, preferably with my husband in the same tub, followed by a soft bed and his arms. It seemed like the eye of every carved animal watched me as we passed by, even though I knew Griffin’s shadowsight would betray the presence of such a spell.
Hattie, who had taken the lead, slowed. “The walls look different ahead.”
We crowded behind her. The passageway didn’t come to an end, but there was a doorway set into it, as if marking the extent of the masters’ ruins. Any door that had been there was long gone now, making it easy to see what lay beyond.
Rather than the
masters’ smooth sculpting from solid rock, decorated with bas-reliefs and writing, the passage from here on out was formed by large, upright stones. They stretched from floor to ceiling, packed tightly shoulder to shoulder, like misshapen sentinels. The ceiling seemed composed of smaller stones carefully layered to create a slightly arched roof. For the most part, they appeared undecorated, though here and there a spiral or other symbol had been carved into one.
Iskander pushed to the front, his eyes bright with curiosity. “This construction appears neolithic. Very much like a passage grave, wouldn’t you say, Christine?”
“You’re the expert on this area of the world,” she replied. “I’ll rely on your judgement.”
“Fascinating,” he murmured, running his hands over the stones. “It looks no different than other neolithic construction made by human hands. The ancients must have discovered the ruins left behind by the masters and added on to them. Do you think the ketoi directed them here? Perhaps the builders were even hybrids.”
“Possibly.” Mother’s hair slithered restlessly over her shoulders. “It seems the island was used as a meeting place long after the ketoi forgot anything but the most distant legends of the masters, though. The discovery could have been accidental.”
“Or something else directed them to build here, the same way something seems to have directed Sir Richard,” I said. Rupert winced but remained silent.
Griffin touched one of the ponderous stones. “The only magic here seems to be that of the vortex.”
After the wide corridors of the masters, the neolithic passage felt claustrophobic. The walls were closer to one another, and the ceiling lower. The weight of the earth seemed to press down more heavily. At least it lacked the maze of side corridors, with only the occasional niche meant to mimic the rooms below.
The rocks of the wall were roughly shaped, which meant their width and depth was rather uneven. One in particular seemed to bulge out from the wall as we approached. Hattie came to an abrupt halt, holding up her hand.
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