Starspawn

by Wendy N. Wagner

  Then her foot slipped and she tumbled down the last three or four feet, hitting the floor and tumbling in an awkward somersault. She lay still a few seconds and waited to see if her soul would escape her body.

  “You okay?” Boruc gasped.

  Her ears still worked. And she could make out a vague flicker on the rock beside her head. She blinked a few times—the faint light probably meant she could see. Now if only she could stop feeling everything. Her head pounded like a barbarian was using it for a drum and every inch of her skin stung and prickled. Her knees felt like they’d been put on backward.

  “Jendara?” Vorrin’s voice sounded panicked. “Jendara!”

  “I’m—” She had to pause. “All right, I guess.”

  She got to her feet, although she hobbled more than walked the few steps toward the flicker of Boruc’s lantern. As she got closer, she saw that a decorative support column on the side of the hallway had provided a bit of shelter for her friend. Most of the hallway really was clear, but rock had piled up on all sides of him, and the big slab of stone Tam had tried to lever was pressed right up against his round belly.

  She pushed aside some of the debris. “I think we can get you out of here.”

  “Good thing,” he whispered.

  It took a few minutes to shift rock from the far side of him and from the back side of the column. She wasn’t in any kind of shape to move quickly. Only a few years ago, a few bumps and bruises and sore muscles wouldn’t have been anything she’d even notice, but those days were behind her. “I refuse to get any older than this,” she grumbled.

  “If our luck doesn’t improve, you won’t have to,” Boruc growled.

  She removed another rock, and Boruc let out a gasp of relief. “I can move!” He squeezed out of his prison. Jendara helped him across the debris-strewn hallway. They backed away from the wall, just to be safe.

  “We’re clear!” Jendara called. “Bring it down!”

  The big stone slab began to pivot. The small hole Jendara had created in her passage over the wall widened, and then rock and dust rained down. Jendara had to grin a little, watching the display of destruction.

  Boruc put his arm around her shoulders. She winced. “Don’t even talk to me about getting old,” he said. “Just tell me you’ve got some kind of liquor hidden in your pack.”

  Jendara gave a weak laugh. “Maybe our young companions came prepared.”

  * * *

  This second tunnel proved as wide as the first, and in much better shape. The decorative columns stood tall and strong, and there was no further debris to slow the group, although here and there the top layer of stone flooring had buckled, leaving pockets for water to collect. Gardens of colorful sea anemones still waved in these pools, their tiny sticky fingers grasping for fallen bits of weed. They wouldn’t live forever like this, not without some kind of wave to refill the pools and bring more food. But for now they were reminders of the beauty the sea could provide. It wasn’t all crab-monsters and putrid corpses.

  “This is amazing,” Glayn murmured.

  Jendara looked up from the pinks and greens of the anemones. The gnome wasn’t looking at the tide pools; he walked with his head craned back, eyes wide. “What are you looking at?”

  He pointed at the ceiling. She tipped back her head to squint into the shadows that mostly obscured the ceiling above. “More mica?”

  “Tam, can you shine your light on this?” Glayn waited for the light to come close, then began to point out the constellations outlined in glittering minerals. “There. That’s The Rose, I think.” He broke into a half-run, splashing through the nearest pool. “And that’s The Caravan. Zuna, come see!”

  The navigator joined him. “Yeah, that’s The Caravan, all right. I can’t believe these frescoes weren’t more damaged when this place flooded.”

  “Me, neither.” Glayn ran ahead a few feet. “But look! This could be the Stair of Stars!”

  Zuna strode faster to catch up with him. “It’s almost like it’s pointing at this—” She broke off and stabbed at the wall ahead. “Door.”

  They all came to a halt, staring at the massive set of double doors. The lower half of the doors was almost impossible to make out beneath the thick layer of dying anemones and shellfish encrusting them. The faint glimmer of gold showed here and there on the pale bonelike material whose carvings had once been lavishly decorated.

  “They’re like the Star Chapel’s doors,” Boruc observed.

  “But not as well-preserved,” Jendara pointed out. “I don’t think we could open these even if we used a pickaxe.”

  “I can still make out some of the details.” Glayn pointed to stone doorframe. “This looks like it was painted. Some of it looks like the glitter they used on the ceiling.”

  “More stars,” Zuna interjected.

  “Yes, exactly.” He pointed to the top of the doors. “That’s a crescent moon. And down here,” he had to jump up to tap the midpoint of the door, “looks like some kind of procession. It’s hard to make out the creatures in the procession, because the corrosion is so thick, but they’re built a lot like people.”

  “Hey, look over there.” Vorrin reached for Boruc’s lamp and played it down the hall a few feet.

  “That’s a rib cage!” Jendara hurried toward the bones. “There are bones spread up the hallway, probably scattered by the water when it ran out.” She moved to the nearest pool of water. “I’m looking at a jawbone, maybe some kind of arm bone, and—” She broke off.

  She reached into the water. The sea anemones snapped shut their colors. Jendara could see the soft glint of steel sticking up from the sand and broken shells covering the bottom of the little pool. Her fingers closed on the smooth shape of a pommel. The rest of it was buried beneath the dirt, and bits of the rusted blade crumbled away as she eased it out of the water.

  “A dagger,” she announced.

  “It looks heavy,” Vorrin said, squatting down beside her to see better.

  “That’s why it didn’t get washed out of the pool,” she said. “The hilt’s in pretty good shape. Could probably still be attached to a new blade.”

  In the background, she could hear Glayn still wondering over the doors. “That one’s holding up something. I wish I could see better. Tam, could you move the light?”

  Jendara tucked the dagger hilt into the small pocket of her pack just as a clatter sounded behind her.

  “Tam!” Glayn shouted. Jendara spun around.

  “I’m fine,” Tam reassured them as he brushed himself off. “Under all the shells, this wall is in bad shape.” Where he’d rested his weight on the wall, the stone showed a network of cracks, and had actually broken through in one spot, leaving a hole the size of Jendara’s fist. Water must have eroded the stone on the back side of the wall, weakening it.

  Zuna held up her lantern. “Good thing you didn’t lean any harder on this; it looks like this wall’s about to fall down.” She squinted. “Is there something moving in there?”

  Rock exploded from the wall as the head of a sea snake punched through and snapped shut on Zuna’s arm. With a shriek, she whipped around and bashed the greenish snout with her fist. It didn’t let go, its long fangs digging into the thick leather of her coat.

  She leaned back, straining to get free. Its neck looked thicker than her arm.

  Jendara ran toward Zuna. Tam dropped his lantern and grabbed the beast. It wriggled and bucked.

  “I can’t get a good hold on it!” Tam lost his grip and stumbled backward.

  Zuna bashed at the snake’s head again, and then tried to wrench herself out of the beast’s bite. “Somebody help me!”

  Jendara unsheathed her sword. “Watch out!” She brought her sword down on the thing’s exposed neck.

  The tough hide blunted the blow, but at least the snake dropped Zuna’s arm to focus its attention on its attacker. Blood spurted from the gash in its neck as it snapped at Jendara’s face.

  But she’d fought snakes before and
was ready for the attack, her blade leveled at its eyes. The sword passed through its skull with a wet crunch as it skewered itself.

  The snake went still.

  Jendara pulled her blade free and wiped the worst of the gore off on the sea snake’s green hide. She kicked the snake’s drooping head, just to be sure. They were primitive creatures: she didn’t trust one to die just because its brain had a hole in it. “I don’t like snakes.”

  “Zuna, you okay?” Tam’s voice was worried.

  The navigator pulled off her jacket. “Anyone have a handkerchief? I’m bleeding.”

  “Kran’s dog has mine,” Boruc complained.

  Vorrin handed her a spare kerchief. She hissed a little when it touched her wound. Like all their gear, the cloth was soaked with saltwater.

  “Do you think it was poisonous?” she asked.

  Jendara used her sword tip to lift the snake’s head. She peered into its mouth. “The teeth don’t look hollow, so I doubt it. Do you feel all right?”

  Zuna shrugged. “It hurts. Guess I’ll find out.”

  Jendara let out a wry laugh. Then she cocked her head. For a moment, she thought she’d heard the sea. She leaned a little closer to the hole in the wall. “Hey, Tam, come listen.”

  He put his ear up close. “Sounds like surf.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She pushed some of the broken rock out from around the dead sea snake and tried to see deeper into the hole. The sound of waves came up to her, far away and somehow down, as if the sound traveled through some fissure in the ground to taunt her. “Somewhere beyond those doors, this leads to the ocean,” she said.

  “Or maybe another sea cave,” Boruc suggested. “There’s no way it’s the grotto where we left the Milady, but who knows how many caves and fissures this island’s got? The sea has a way of wearing things down.”

  “Yeah, if there’s one thing the sea is good at,” Jendara said, her voice dry, “it’s finding weakness.” She thought of her cottage as she said it, flooded and ruined. The sea had found Sorind’s weaknesses that day, all right.

  They began to follow the corridor away from the corpse of the dead sea snake and the doors that might never open. Vorrin leaned close to her. “We can rebuild, you know. Maybe we’ll put the cottage on stilts.”

  “You knew just what I was thinking.” She smiled at him, although in the dim light, he probably couldn’t see her expression.

  “I often do,” he said.

  They walked in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Then from the lead, Boruc announced: “I see a stairwell just ahead.”

  Jendara took a deep breath to clear her tired head. Perhaps this was finally it, the way up to the purple boulevard. It felt like days since they’d left the flooded prison, although if it hadn’t been for the tunnel’s collapse and their long work clearing it, they could have reached this point an hour ago.

  “It’s clear!” Boruc called.

  Jendara’s spirits rose a little.

  11

  THE MINDS OF PRISONERS

  Jendara waved Yerka in front of her. The woman had kept quiet except for the occasional cough, and now Jendara gave her a closer look. Circles ringed her eyes and she held onto the wall as she trudged up each step.

  “It’s been a long day, hasn’t it?” Jendara asked.

  Yerka nodded. She wheezed a little as she climbed.

  “When was the last time you—” Jendara paused, not quite sure how to ask. “I mean, has it been a long time since you were around humans?”

  “There was another girl.” Yerka paused and sniffled, making mucus rattle loudly in the back of her throat. “A few months ago. She died, though.”

  “Oh.”

  Yerka took a few more steps, then turned to look at Jendara. “Them that gets pregnant usually do. Childbirth is hard enough when it’s human, ain’t it?”

  When it’s human. The thought turned Jendara’s stomach. But of course, that was where hybrids came from, wasn’t it? From those kidnapped women like Sarni’s mother and Yerka. Jendara forced her attention back to the woman.

  “You’ve never borne a…” She searched for the right word.

  “Nope. Body don’t seem to work that way. Glad of it. Don’t want to die.”

  Then she noticed: beyond Yerka’s silhouette, a faint bloom of light showed. It wasn’t lantern light, either, but the soft purple haze of the boulevard. “Look!” Jendara called out. “The sun’s up.” She felt a tired grin start to spread across her face. “Don’t worry, Yerka—we’re almost to the Milady. We can get you a nice meal and maybe a hot toddy for your cold, and hells, you can even go down and punch that hybrid bastard in the face if it’ll make you feel better.”

  Yerka paused. “Hybrid?”

  Jendara nudged her forward. “Yeah, we captured one of those half-ulat-kini. If you want—”

  But they had reached the open hallway and she forgot what she was going to say in the pure excitement of seeing and feeling light. It may have been filtered through layers of grime and warped glass, but the lavender light of the boulevard felt as warm and fresh as a summer day. Laughing, Kran ran forward and Jendara left Yerka behind to run after him.

  They stood together at the intersection of the two halls, reveling in the light, and Boruc joined them. “We’re a bit north of the midpoint,” he announced. “Between the big pool and the Star Chapel.”

  “I hadn’t even noticed this cross-tunnel the last time we came down here,” Jendara admitted.

  “Neither did I.” Vorrin tucked his thumbs in his sword belt, swiveling at the hips to scrutinize the length of the boulevard. “But I think there’s one more headed off at the far end—we probably missed that one because we were distracted by the entrance to the Star Chapel—and I think there are two other tunnels closer to the stairs leading to the sea cave, including the one we took earlier.”

  Tam passed them to stand in the middle of the boulevard. “You don’t really see them from over here,” he said, surprised. “There’s a lot of debris heaped up at the entrance to that far one.”

  Fylga began climbing up on the heap of debris, sniffing at the rotting sea weed and detritus. She grabbed a fragment of driftwood in her mouth and dashed down with it. Kran grabbed it from her and tossed it a few feet, as if they were on a completely ordinary beach on an ordinary day.

  Jendara smiled. Kids were resilient, she had always maintained, and here was the living proof of it. They were good at making the best of things.

  Then movement called her eye and she glanced over her shoulder. “Yerka? What’s wrong?”

  The rescued woman didn’t look back. If anything, she ran faster toward the tunnel at the end of the hall.

  “Is she afraid of the dog?” Vorrin asked. “Maybe she didn’t notice Fylga in the dark.

  “I’ll get her!” Boruc called as he ran after Yerka.

  “Wait!” Tam shouted, running after his friend and the frightened woman, his lantern light bobbing as he went. They disappeared into the cross-tunnel.

  “I guess we go after them,” Vorrin said.

  Then Fylga began barking.

  Jendara swiveled to face her son and his dog. Fylga’s lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl, and the hair on her back rose up in damp prickles. Kran looked around, unsure what the dog sensed.

  The soft scrape of chitin against stone made Jendara turn to face the same direction as the dog: toward the tunnel they’d just left. She drew her sword.

  “That door couldn’t hold forever,” she said.

  Then the crab-thing stalked out onto the boulevard. Out of the water, it was no less terrifying. It stood a good ten feet tall, its thick, armored legs like an extrusion of the stony floor itself. Its carapace nearly blocked the entrance to the smaller side tunnel; Jendara had no idea how it had gotten through the rock falls and the stairwell to reach them. It raised its cracked pincer, clacking it menacingly.

  At least its humanoid hand was too badly injured for it to use. She should have never
have left it alive back there. Nothing with such evil eyes could resist revenge.

  “Get Kran out of here!” she shouted and charged the beast.

  Her blade slipped into the joint between its two massive leg segments, and the creature staggered a little. She darted sideways, but the beast moved faster than she expected, its claw smashing into her side. She tumbled against a heap of stone.

  “No!” Vorrin bellowed. Sword in hand, he launched himself at the crab-thing.

  The creature caught him by his wounded arm, flinging him out of the way like a bug. It wanted Jendara. That was all it cared about.

  “Big mistake,” she growled, scrambling higher up the hill of debris.

  It charged her.

  With a roar, she leaped off the crest of rock and landed on the beast’s shoulders, sword plunging into the gap where the thing’s carapace ended and its armored skull began. The creature stopped. She twisted her blade, grinning at the sick squelching it made. Green ichor welled up from the wound.

  The crab-thing toppled against the rocky pile. Jendara jumped onto the rocks, ripping her sword free.

  “You dead yet?”

  The creature didn’t move.

  Jendara’s pulse beat hard in her ears, the wild energy of battle cooling in her veins. By the ancestors, it felt good to finish off that thing! She climbed to the base of the heap and nudged the creature’s leg with her toe. It flopped a little, but the beast was clearly dead.

  Her brain snapped out of its fight-fueled bliss. “Vorrin!” She ran to his side.

  “I’m fine,” he said, sitting up with wince. “My arm—”

  “You ripped your stitches.” She helped him up. “That’s a lot of blood. We’d better get you back to the Milady so Glayn can sew you up again.”

  She squeezed his bloody arm tight and led him down the hall.

  “What about Tam and Boruc?”

  “They’ll find Yerka soon,” she said, “and they know the way back.” She glanced over her shoulder. “If they forget, they can just follow the blood trail.”