To Green Angel Tower, Volume 1

by Tad Williams

  “Oh, God help me, he can’t do it himself,” Isgrimnur groaned. He began making his way down the slippery mud, spreading his arms for balance. “Stay there,” he called to Miriamele.

  “I’m coming with you,” she shouted back.

  “No, damn it,” the duke cried. “Stay there with the torch so we can find our way back to this tunnel! If we lose the light, we’re done for!”

  He turned, lifting Kvalnir over his head, and swung it at the nearest ghants. There was an awful hollow smack as he struck the first one. He took a few steps forward into the swarm and the noise of his struggle was lost in the greater uproar.

  The humming had completely died out. The great chamber was now filled instead with the staccato cries of angry ghants, a dreadful chorus of wet clicking. Miriamele tried to make out what was happening, but Isgrimnur had already lost his torch and was now little more than a dark shape in the middle of a seething mass of shells and twitching legs. Somewhere closer to the center, Camaris’ torch still cut the air like a banner of fire, swinging back and forth, back and forth, as he waded toward the spot where Tiamak was prisoned.

  Miriamele was terrified but furious. Why should she wait while Isgrimnur and Camaris risked their lives? They were her friends! And what if they died or were captured? Then she would be alone, forced to try and find her way out, pursued by those horrible things. It was stupid. She wouldn’t do it. But what else could she do?

  Think, girl, think, she told herself, even as she hopped up and down anxiously, trying to see if Isgrimnur was still on his feet. Do what? What?

  She couldn’t stand waiting. It was too horrible. She took the two remaining torches from her belt and lit them. When they were burning, she thrust them down into the mud on either side of the tunnel mouth, then took a deep breath and followed Isgrimnur’s track down the slope, her legs so wobbly she feared she might fall down. Unreality gripped her: she couldn’t be doing this. Her skin was pricklingly cold. No one with their wits left would go down into that pit. But somehow her booted feet kept moving.

  “Isgrimnur!” she shrieked. “Where are you?”

  Cold muddy legs clutched at her, chitinous things like animate tree branches. The hissing creatures were all around; knobby heads butted at her legs and she felt her stomach thrash again. She kicked out like a horse, trying to drive them back. A claw caught at her leg and hooked itself into her boot top; the torch momentarily illuminated her target, which gleamed like a wet stone. She lifted her short spear, almost dropping the torch, which was clutched awkwardly in the same hand, and stabbed down as hard as she could. The spear thumped into something which gave satisfyingly. When she jerked it back, the claw let go.

  It was easier to swing the club, but it did not seem to kill the things. At every blow they fell and tumbled, but a moment later they were back again, scratching, clasping, worse than any nightmare. After a few moments she pushed the cudgel into her belt and took up the torch in her free hand, which seemed at least to keep them at bay. She hit one of the ghants full in its empty face, and some of the burning palm oil spattered and stuck. The thing shrieked like a fool’s whistle and dove forward, digging itself into the mud, but another clambered over its quivering shell to take its place. She shouted in fear and disgust as she kicked it aside. The army of ghants was never-ending.

  “Miriamele!” It was Isgrimnur, somewhere ahead of her. “Is that you!?”

  “Here!” she cried, her voice tearing along the edge, threatening to become a shriek that would never stop. “Oh, hurry, hurry, hurry!”

  “I told you to stay!” he shouted. “Camaris is coming back! See the torch!”

  She stabbed at one of the things before her, but her spear only scraped along the shell. Out in the churning mass there was suddenly a glint of flame. “I see it!”

  “We’re coming!” The duke was barely audible above the rattling voices of the ghants. “Stay where you are and wave your torch!”

  “I’m here,” she howled, “I’m here!”

  The sea of writhing creatures seemed to pulse as though a wave rolled through it. The light of the torch jiggled above them, moving closer. Miriamele fought desperately—there was still a chance! She swung her torch in as wide an arc as she could, trying to keep her attackers at a distance. A clawing leg caught at the brand and suddenly it was gone, sizzling into the mud and leaving her in darkness. She thrust out wildly with the spear.

  “Here!” she screamed. “My torch is gone!”

  There was no reply from Isgrimnur. All was lost. Miriamele wondered briefly if she would be able to use the spear on herself—certainly she could never let them have her alive....

  Something grasped her arm. Shrieking, she struggled but could not break free.

  “It’s me!” cried Isgrimnur. “Don’t stick me!” He pulled her against his broad side and shouted to Camaris, who was still some distance away. The torch came closer, the ghants dancing around it like water drops on a hot stone. “How will we find our way out?” Isgrimnur bellowed.

  “I left torches by the door.” Miriamele turned to look, even as something snatched at her cloak. “There!” She realized Isgrimnur could not see her pointing. She kicked and the snagging claw fell away. “Behind you.”

  Isgrimnur lifted her bodily and carried her for a few steps, clearing the way with Kvalnir until they had pushed through a clump of buzzing creatures and found their feet on the upward slope.

  “We have to wait for Camaris.”

  “He’s coming,” Isgrimnur bellowed. “Move!”

  “Did he get Tiamak?”

  “Move!”

  Slipping back half as far as each step took her forward, Miriamele struggled up the muddy incline toward the light of the twin torches. She could hear Isgrimnur’s grunting breath behind her, and at intervals the muffled crack of Kvalnir’s steel against the shells of their pursuers. When she reached the top she grasped the two torches and pulled them from the mud, then turned, ready to fight again. Isgrimnur was right behind her, and the flickering brand that she knew must belong to Camaris was at the bottom of the slope.

  “Hurry!” she called down. The torch paused, then waved from side to side, as though Camaris used it to keep the swarm away as he climbed. Now she could see his hair gleaming silver-yellow in the torchlight. “Help. him,” she pleaded with Isgrimnur. The duke took a few steps down, Kvalnir moving in a blurry arc, and in a moment Camaris had broken free and the two of them came tripping and sliding up the slope to the tunnel mouth. Camaris had lost his club. Tiamak, covered with white jelly and apparently senseless, hung over his shoulder. Miriamele stared at the Wrannaman’s slack features in dismay.

  “Go, damn it!” Isgrimnur pushed Miriamele toward the tunnel. She tore her eyes from Tiamak’s sticky form and began to run, waving her burning brand as she went, making shadows leap and streak madly across the dun walls.

  The floor of the chamber behind them seemed to erupt as the ghants came scurrying in pursuit. Isgrimnur pushed through into the tunnel; a mass of angrily clicking shapes followed him, a wave of armored flesh. The pursuing ghants might have caught the duke and his companions within moments, but their numbers were so great that they filled the passage almost completely, tangling themselves. Those following tried to force their way past; within instants the tunnel mouth was clogged with writhing, leg-waving bodies.

  “Lead the way!” the duke cried.

  It was difficult to move quickly with her head hunched down and her back bent, and the muddy floor had been difficult to traverse even at walking speed. Miriamele fell down several times, once giving her ankle a nasty twist. She scarcely felt the pain, but a dim part of her thoughts knew that if she survived, she would certainly feel it later. She did her best to look for the marks Isgrimnur had so conscientiously scraped in the foamy walls, but by the time they had gone a few hundred paces from the great chamber Miriamele realized in horror that she had missed a turning. She knew that they should have passed through at least one of the egg-chambers by now
, but instead they were still in one of the featureless tunnels—and this one was sloping downward, when the return trip should have led up.

  “Isgrimnur, I think we’re lost!” She slowed to a trot, holding her torch close to the dripping walls as she looked desperately for something that she recognized. She could hear Camaris’ heavy tread just behind.

  The Rimmersman swore floridly. “Just keep running, then—can’t be helped!”

  Miriamele sped her pace again. Her legs were aching, and each breath pushed at her lungs with sharp needles. Positive now that they had lost their course, she chose the next of the cross tunnels that seemed to lead upward. The slope was not steep, but the slippery mud made climbing difficult. Above the sound of her own ragged breath she could hear the clatter of the ghants rising again behind them.

  The top of the rise came into view, another tunnel running perpendicularly to theirs, about a hundred ells above; but even as Miriamele’s heart lightened a little, a swarm of ghants came scuttling into the tunnel below them. Moving low to the ground and traveling on four legs instead of two, the creatures were making much swifter time up the sloping pathway. Miriamele dug harder, forcing herself up the final slope. She only hesitated an instant before choosing the right-hand side of the cross-tunnel. Even Camaris’ breathing was loud and harsh now. A few of the fastest ghants reached Isgrimnur, who was bringing up the rear. Bellowing with anger and disgust, the duke made a broad sweep with Kvalnir; hissing, the ghants tumbled back down into the boiling mass of their fellows.

  Before Miriamele and her companions had gone fifty paces down the new passage, the ghants reached the top of the rise behind them and spilled out into the tunnel. On flat ground they traveled even more swiftly, hopping forward at a terrifying pace. Some ran directly up the walls before swiveling to pursue the fleeing company.

  “We must turn and fight,” Isgrimnur gasped. “Camaris! Put the marsh man down!”

  “Oh, God love us, no!” cried Miriamele, “I hear more of them ahead!” It was a nightmare, a dreadful, endless nightmare. “Isgrimnur, we’re trapped!”

  “Stop, damn it, stop! We’ll fight here!”

  “No!” Miriamele was horrified. “If we stop here, we’ll have to fight both swarms, front and back. Keep running!”

  She took a few steps farther down, but she could tell no one was following her. She turned to see Isgrimnur staring grimly at the ghants behind them, who had slowed when their prey did and now came forward with deliberate caution, their numbers swelling as dozens more scrambled up from the tunnel below. Miriamele turned and saw jiggling spots down the corridor before her as the glossy, dead eyes of the ghants there began to catch the torchlight.

  “Oh, Merciful Elysia,” Miriamele breathed, utterly defeated. Camaris, who stood beside her, was staring at the floor as though musing on some odd but not terribly important thought. Tiamak lay against his shoulder, eyes closed and mouth open like a sleeping child. Miriamele felt a moment of sadness. She had wanted to save the marsh man ... it would have been so lovely to save him....

  With a bellow, Isgrimnur abruptly turned. To Miriamele’s complete astonishment, he kicked the wall behind him as hard as he could. Caught up in what must be some fit of insane frustration, he slammed his boot sole against it again and again.

  “Isgrimnur... !” Miriamele began, but at that moment the duke’s boot smashed through the wall, making a hole the size of his head in the crumbling mud. He lashed out again and another section fell through.

  “Help me!” he grunted. Miriamele stepped forward, but before she could lend any aid, Isgrimnur’s next blow knocked out a large section. There was now a hole in the wall almost two cubits high, with nothing beyond but blackness.

  “Go on!” the duke urged her. A dozen paces away the ghants were clicking madly. Miriamele pushed the torch through the gap, then forced her head and shoulders after it, half-certain she would feel jointed claws reach down and clutch her. Slipping and struggling, she scrambled through, praying that there was some solid ground there, that she would not fall into nothingness. Her hands touched the muck of another tunnel floor; she caught a momentary glimpse of the empty passage that surrounded her before she turned back to help the others. Camaris pushed Tiamak’s limp form through to her. She nearly dropped him—the slender Wrannaman did not weigh much, but he was sagging dead weight covered with slippery ooze. The old knight followed, then Isgrimnur squeezed his own broad body through a moment later. Almost on his heels, the hole filled with the reaching arms of ghants, hard and shiny as polished wood.

  Kvalnir slashed out, bringing fizzing squeals of pain from the far side of the hole. The arms were quickly withdrawn, but the chittering of the ghants continued to grow.

  “They’ll decide to come through in a moment, sword or no sword,” the duke panted.

  Miriamele stared at the gap for a moment. The stench of the ghants was strong, as was the coarse noise they made as they rubbed against each other. They were gathering for another attack, and they were only a few scant inches away.

  “Give me your shirt,” she told Isgrimnur suddenly. “And his, too.” She pointed at Camaris.

  The duke looked at her for a moment in alarm, as though she might have suddenly lost her wits, then quickly stripped off his tattered shirt and handed it to her. Miriamele held it to the flame of her torch until it caught—it was a maddeningly slow process, since that shirt was damp and mud-streaked—then used her spear-point to push the burning cloth into the gap in the wall. Surprised hisses and quiet snicking noises came from the ghants on the other side. Miriamele pushed Camaris’ shirt in beside it; when it had caught fire and both garments were burning steadily, she took Isgrimnur’s heavy cloak as well and crammed it into the remaining space.

  “Now we run again,” she said. “I don’t think they like fire.” She was surprised at how calm she suddenly felt, despite a certain light-headedness. “But it won’t hold them long.”

  Camaris scooped up Tiamak and they all hastened on. At each turning they chose the tunnel that seemed to lead upward. Two more times they broke through sections of the passageway walls and sniffed at the holes like dogs, hunting for outside air. At last they found a tunnel that; although lower and narrower than many through which they had passed, seemed somehow fresher.

  The clamor of pursuit had begun again, although as yet none of the creatures had come into view. Miriamele ignored the gelatinous froth beneath her hands as she half-walked, half-crawled through the low tunnel. Strands of pale foam fell wetly across her face and fouled her hair. A curl of it touched her open lips, and before she could spit it out, she tasted bitter musk. At the next bend in the passage the tunnel suddenly became larger. After a few more lurching steps, they turned another comer and found light splashed across the mud.

  “Daylight!” Miriamele shouted. She had never been happier to see it.

  They stumbled along until the tunnel turned again, then found themselves facing a round but ragged hole in the tunnel wall, beyond which hung the sky—gray and dim, but the sky nonetheless, the glorious sky. She threw herself forward, clambering through the hole and out onto a rounded floor of lumpy mud.

  Treetops waved below them, so green and intricate that Miriamele’s muck-deadened mind almost could not take them in. They were standing atop one of the upper parts of the nest; a scant two hundred cubits away lay the watercourse, tranquil as a great snake. There was no flatboat waiting.

  Camaris and Isgrimnur followed her out onto the roof of the nest.

  “Where is the monk?” Isgrimnur howled. “Damnation! Damnation! I knew he couldn’t be trusted!”

  “Never mind that now,” said Miriamele. “We have to get off this thing.”

  After a quick search they found a way down onto a lower roof. They teetered across a slender ridge of mud for some dozen paces before reaching the safety of the next level, then continued from flat spot to flat spot, moving always toward the front of the nest and the waiting watercourse. As they reached the outermost
point, from which it was only a leap of three or four ells down to the ground, a company of ghants surged out of the hole near the top of the nest.

  “Here they come,” Isgrimnur wheezed. “Jump down!”

  Before Miriamele could do so, another, larger swarm of the creatures came spilling out of one of the nest’s large front entrances, gathering quickly into an agitated mass directly below them. Miriamele felt a deathly, terrible weariness settle over her. To be so close—it wasn’t fair!

  “Holy Aedon, save us now.” There was little strength left in the duke’s voice. “Move back, Miriamele. I’ll jump first.”

  “You can’t!” she cried. “There are too many of them.”

  “We can’t stay here.” Indeed, the other ghants were moving rapidly down across the uneven upper levels of the nest, leggy as spiders, nimble as apes. They were clicking in anticipation and their black eyes glittered.

  A bright streak abruptly flashed across the beach. Startled, Miriamele looked down at the ghants below, who were milling wildly. Their percussive cries were even wilder and more shrill than they had been, and several of them seemed to have caught fire. Miriamele looked out to the watercourse, trying to make sense of what was happening. The flatboat had floated into view. Cadrach, who stood spread-legged in the square bow, held something in his hand that looked like a large torch, its upper end burning brightly.

  As Miriamele stared in numb astonishment, the monk swung the thing forward and a ball of fire seemed to leap from the end, arcing across the water to land amid the ghants clustered on the sand below her. The fiery blob burst, scattering great splashes of flame which stuck to the creatures like burning glue. Some of those who were struck fell to the ground with their shells bubbling from the heat and began to pipe like boiling lobsters, while others ran back and forth, tearing ineffectually at their own armor, clacking and clattering like broken wagon wheels. Out on the flatboat, Cadrach bent; when he straightened, another flame had blossomed at the end of his strange stick. He threw once more and another gout of liquid fire spattered across the shrieking ghants. The monk raised his hands to his mouth.