“You mean they’re made of rock?”
Freya was picturing little blue rock men gamboling through the tunnels and caverns of the pinnacle. She smiled a bit, inwardly.
“No, it’s not their bodies, it’s their horns.”
Rusty’s look was inscrutable, but Freya could find no trace of whimsy or mischievousness in the peculiar whorls and ridges of his marred face.
“Their what now?” Freya was incredulous.
“Their horns. They look a bit like a gazelle.”
“You have got to be joking me.”
She was an art history student not a trophy hunter of chimerical rock goblins.
“I don’t joke.”
That wasn’t hard for Freya to believe. She tried to take a steadying breath, but it came out in the short little bursts of a stifled laugh. She covered her face with her hand but a wave of laughter escaped despite her best efforts to keep it contained.
“Why are you laughing?” Rusty asked.
Freya wiped a tear from her eye as she tried to compose herself.
“I’m sorry, Rusty,” she said “but this is just so far beyond my realm of experience, I’m laughing more out of the sheer ridiculousness of my situation than anything.”
Rusty’s face remained impassive, but she thought she saw a hint of concern flit across his eyes.
“This is not a joking matter, Freya.”
It was the first time the phlegmatic man had said her name, and Freya liked the way it sounded coming from his deep voice. She smiled a bit despite herself and then thought better of it and composed herself into a semblance of seriousness.
“I think I’ll be needing one of those horns,” she said.
“For that you’ll have to speak to the königin.”
“The who?
“The königin. She’s their queen. You see, I’m just the steward of the kobold. The queen is the only one who can authorize the release of the cobalt you need.”
“And how amenable to releasing goblin cobalt is this queen?” Freya asked.
“Not very, but we may be able to convince her.”
“So you’ll be coming with me?” Freya asked.
“Yes, I wouldn’t send you in there on your own,” he replied.
“That’s very gentlemanly of you,” Freya said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
She regretted the cynicism but it was a natural response. She wanted to believe that she could handle this crazy task on her own. She was a strong woman, used to doing things for herself, and she was loath to admit that help, especially from a stranger, would be a welcome surprise, but it was. The hint of rancor in her voice was a defense mechanism. She wasn’t ready to trust this unusual recluse just yet.
Rusty looked at her searchingly for a moment, but then continued on.
“Not gentlemanly. Just necessary. The kobold don’t allow just anyone to enter their space. If you’re with me they might let you live.”
“Oh, I see,” Freya said, chastened. “They sound like a lovely bunch.”
What might have been a hint of a smile filtered across Rusty’s face.
“Follow me,” he said. “It’s getting late.”
Freya took a few steps forward and waited as Rusty turned quickly to face the fire. He reached into the neck of his sweater and fished out a little leather pouch. Silhouetted as he was against the brightness of the flames Freya couldn’t see exactly what he retrieved, but from her vantage point it looked small and round like a marble. He brought it to his mouth, muttered something unintelligible, and flicked it into the air reverently but with a sureness that could only come from frequent repetition. It sailed in a graceful arc the short distance between Rusty and the fire and landed amid the crackling embers at the base of the conflagration.
In an instant the white-yellow flames burst into the brilliant azure of cobalt blue. They appeared sharper somehow as well, as though their edges might shred and pierce was well as burn anyone foolish enough to come too close.
Rusty turned to face her once again and this time he looked Freya in the eye.
“Let’s go,” he said, and he held out his hand to her.
Freya looked at his ravaged face and his outstretched hand with its meaty palm full of deep creases. The fire burned bright behind him, but it seemed as though all the heat had gone out of the grand hall.
“Where are we going?” Freya’s question was quiet. She was pretty sure she already knew the answer.
“Through.”
Freya swallowed hard and twisted her clenched hands together. Stepping into an inferno hadn’t been on her to-do list today, but oddly enough she found herself moving forward until she was within reach of Rusty’s proffered hand. She paused for only a split second before she placed her hand in his, but it was long enough for her to take in Rusty’s gaze. It seemed fraught, but with what she wasn’t sure. Admiration? Aversion? The difference between the two vanished on the melancholy canvas of Rusty’s face.
Rusty didn’t so much hold Freya’s hand as lightly touch it with his callused fingers, guiding her towards the fire as a tuxedoed dandy of old would have led his partner during a Viennese waltz. It might have seemed quaint and old fashioned if it didn’t also mean he was leading her towards a wickedly glinting pyre. When she reached the point of no return Freya stopped and looked at Rusty. She didn’t say anything but hoped he might offer to take the lead.
“Ladies first,” her companion said without a trace of levity.
Freya sighed. He might be taking this gentleman thing too far. He released her fingertips and she clenched her hands at her sides and tensed her jaw. As she placed her foot into the blaze she closed her eyes. She remembered learning about the Salem Witch Trials in grade school and feeling horrified by the idea of being burnt alive. She had been a particularly sensitive child and that history lesson had haunted her dreams for weeks. But rather than searing pain, she experienced an odd combination of heat and cold. The alternating extremes made it feel as if the flames were effervescent, more like putting your foot in a warm soda bath than a blazing blue fire.
It took a good five paces before Freya was completely through the blaze. She hadn’t realized how deep the fireplace was nor that the darkness behind it was not a wall or a door but an open space. The darkness felt heavy after the sparkling airiness of the fire. It was so completely black that even the giant blaze was able to penetrate only a few feet before its cool light was absorbed by the gloom.
The inkiness of the space made Freya feel as if she had her eyes closed although she knew they were wide open, attempting to focus on anything in the void that enveloped her. It was disorienting after the brightness of the flames. Even after allowing her eyes to adjust for a few minutes, she could see nothing but the velvety threat of absolute black.
“Let me turn on the lights.”
Rusty’s voice was a like a bolt of lightning in her brain. To Freya it seemed as though the encroaching darkness had begun to seep in through her eyes and take hold of the rest of her senses. The deep resonance of Rusty’s words entered her ears and scattered the rapidly descending nightfall of her inner world. For a split second Freya felt a deep and painful rage like an addict suddenly stripped of her high.
“You don’t want to stay too long in this darkness. It’s not like any other you’re likely to encounter.”
From somewhere in the dark Rusty had retrieved a torch and, with a motion between a stab and a flourish, he stuck its thick blackened end in the fire. The sudden shock of fury Freya had experienced dissipated with the white-blue light it shed, only to be replaced by a jolt of panic when she turned back towards Rusty. His facial deformity was exaggerated grotesquely in the dramatic chiaroscuro cast by the flickering light. The effect was disturbing, divesting him of his last shreds of humanity and giving him the appearance of a nightmare, a monster more than a man.
Freya hoped her terror-stricken face had been sufficiently hidden by the darkness of her surroundings but she felt ashamed regardless. Rusty made no indication
of whether he had actually witnessed his companion’s less-than sympathetic reaction to the abrupt appearance of his twisted features in the torchlight. Instead he matter-of-factly touched the tip of the fire to an equally disconcerting visage carved into the rough stone wall nearby. After a moment, white-hot embers glowed blindingly in the monstrous carving’s grimacing jaws. Then, with a sharp pop, a line of azure fire shot up into the air with a racing sizzle that made Freya draw in a sharp breath.
After rising to a great height, the brilliant line of fire shot into the distant firmament of blackness until it suddenly split into six separate bands of flame. These new offshoots then reached both across and over, splitting and merging with each other in a complex pattern that formed a latticework of flame like the soaring filigree of gothic architecture. The darkness of the space seemed to actively retreat from the intensity of the flames as though it were a living thing rent into a million geometric pieces by the sparkling shards of the blue blaze. When the flames’ relentless merging and dividing ceased, Freya could see the space in which she now stood and it made her a little breathless.
She and Rusty were at the far end of what could only be described as the nave of a vast stone cathedral, the ceiling of which was almost certainly more than a hundred feet high and formed of twelve columns of solid rock that soared weightlessly upward to the ribbed vaults several stories above them. More than a football field away, at the opposite end of the huge cavern, the floor suddenly reared up, forming the most massive stalactite Freya had ever seen. Beyond that the space was empty, a solemn sanctuary of stone lit by infernal light.
The cavern felt sacred but dangerous. Freya couldn’t help but notice the ceiling seemed alive and malevolent, resentful of the bright blue light that kept it at bay. She shuddered when she thought about the way the darkness had overtaken her when she first stepped through the fire.
Rusty had followed her gaze upward to the stunning ceiling and the deep darkness it contained.
“Nasty stuff,” he growled under his breath. “Probably should have warned you about it, but then I thought you wouldn’t have agreed to come through.”
“Yeah,” Freya breathed in agreement.
Rusty shifted his eyes from her face to the floor in front of them. “Come on. The königin will be here soon.”
Freya exhaled slowly. “Lead the way,” she said, but Rusty had already started down the center of the cavern, and Freya had to jog a couple of steps just to catch up.
It took them several minutes to traverse the length of the huge space. As they drew closer to the mighty stalactite at the cavern’s opposite end and Freya had a better chance to examine it, she was startled by its sinister character.
Close up she was able to see that its surface was not dimpled and whorled like the rock formations of caves she had seen in textbooks, made from a millennia of slowly accumulating sediment. It seemed instead to have been born from a sudden upheaval of angry earth. Sharp blades of dark rock, shimmering here and there with minute crystals that caught the blue light from above, pushed against each other in a race to the top of the towering cavern. The wide base narrowed precipitously until it was no more than a few feet across at the pinnacle’s apex.
Freya reached out a hand toward the awesome column of rock. The surface glinted intensely. The edges were dangerously sharp, but Freya had an irresistible urge to touch their immaculate keenness. She was about to press a finger lightly against a particularly vicious-looking ridge when Rusty’s hand caught her wrist and stopped her hand in mid-motion.
“Don’t,” he said, his voice calm but firm.
It took a visible effort for Freya to stay her hand. Things were obviously treacherous here. Even the rocks, it seemed, had ulterior motives. She cursed under her breath. She was too trusting, too curious, always had been. She made a mental note to be more cautious, at least until she got out of this creepy cavern.
Freya turned toward Rusty, ready to barrage him with more questions about the cobalt and his role as a goblin steward, when a strange noise reverberated throughout the stone cathedral, like a thousand dissonant church bells ringing all at once. Freya reflexively reached out her hand to Rusty, grabbing his shoulder. She was used to being brave or at least doing a good job of feigning confidence when necessary but her fight or flight system was on high alert. It overrode any pretense she might still have at pretending courageousness. Rusty seemed startled at first by the unexpected contact but then Freya felt his arm relax under the thick wool of his sweater. He made no move to comfort her but she found that his presence was enough.
“What was that?” Freya asked, not sure that she wanted the answer.
“The summons,” Rusty said.
The bizarre cacophony rang throughout the monumental space once more. The unnerving noise intensified as it reverberated off the stone walls and floor. It crashed through the space like a wave stuck in a box, advancing and receding until it finally quieted. Freya breathed a sigh of relief when the roiling barrage of sound finally dissipated.
“How many more of those are there?” Her voice quavered a bit more than she would have liked.
“That’s it,” he said.
“Now what?”
“We wait.”
“How long?”
Rusty said nothing. Freya crossed her arms over her chest, and waited with as much patience as she could muster. Fortunately she didn’t have to wait long. Within moments the base of the pinnacle began to glow with the same blue light that lit the intricately patterned ceiling. The light traveled up the cracks and crevices of the rock, like blue blood in granite veins. When it reached the narrow plateau at the top it began to pool and then grow in height until it resembled the missing summit of the ominous stalactite. Freya and Rusty watched as a veneer of black the same color as the pinnacle dripped down the viscous blue apex forming a hard shell over the thick azure plasma.
“Now would be a good time to bow,” Rusty said.
“Bow?” Freya was perplexed.
“Just do it,” Rusty said as he bent slightly at the waist and dropped his head towards his chest.
Freya followed Rusty’s lead, but the action felt odd. She wasn’t used to genuflection. She kept her head up and watched as two shafts of the blue light that seemed to be the lifeblood of the place sprouted from the top of the rock. The light dimmed and solidified, forming twinned horns of cobalt blue. It took her a moment to discern the face that glowered at her from under the magnificent prongs, and she started when she finally distinguished the malevolent coal-black eyes from the rest of the rocky outcropping.
When the thing was certain it had her attention, it seemed to unfurl itself from the confines of the zenith and Freya was able to recognize spindly arms resting on pointed hips, a set of raised ridges that could have been ribs and two vertical spines that formed legs.
“Didn’t you bother to teach this outlander some protocol, Rusty?”
Its voice was surprisingly mellifluous. The question was formed out of slow and careful vowels and softened consonants. Freya had been expecting the harsh grind of rock on rock. Instead it put her more in mind of molten lava, supple and bright, but inexorably dangerous as well.
“I’m sorry, Königin.” Rusty’s voice was barely audible even in the stark silence of the grand hall.
Freya was struck by the great man’s timorousness. With his head bowed and his back hunched, his attitude went beyond respect to abjectness. Freya suffered from self-doubt as much as the next person, but one thing she had in bountiful supply was a profound respect for her individuality and for the individuality of others. It filled her with rancor to see anyone’s dignity trampled, and she could plainly see that Rusty’s had been crushed many times. Do that enough to a person and you break their spirit. There were few fates worse than that.
The thing’s flinty eyes stared coldly at Freya, but she was determined to remain unimpressed. She didn’t know what it was exactly, but already she couldn’t stand it.
“We’ll deal
with that oversight later, drudge.”
The thing almost sang the words, so sweet was its tone, but there was an unmistakable bite hidden behind the honeyed tenor. Freya looked over at Rusty and although he still stared blankly at the floor in front of him there was a great sadness in his eyes. Sadness and resignation.
“Who are you, girl?” asked the stony figure.
“My name is Freya,” she said, her tone somewhere between defiance and dread.
“You’ll have to do a little bit more explaining than that,” said the queen. “Just because you’re accompanied by our sorry excuse for a guardian doesn’t guarantee your safety.”
“I came for your color, for the cobalt blue of the kobold. My life depends on it.”
The thing stared down at her quizzically from its lofty perch.
“No one just takes our blue,” said the queen imperiously. “Surely our dear custodian Rusty explained this to you before dragging us all into this unfortunate and, apparently, unnecessary conversation.”
She shifted her gaze back to Rusty whose eyes still had not left the floor.
“Come now, Rusty, my boy, there is a certain minimum level of decorum that I would expect even out of a lout like you.”
“I’m sorry, Königin,” Rusty whispered. “But I know you have a reckoning to administer, and what greater humiliation could there be than to gift the offender’s horn to an outlander.”
The queen stared hard at Rusty, her flint eyes cruel and calculating.
“Intriguing idea, drudge,” she said. “Gifting the offender’s horn to an outlander. That is truly the ultimate dishonor.”
The queen shifted her gaze back to Freya.
“To come up with such an idea, our little Rusty must wish for a particularly happy ending with you, girl.”
The queen laughed musically. Freya shuddered at the sound. She glanced at Rusty who stared determinedly at the ground. Freya was beginning to understand his laconic attitude. He had learned long ago, she was sure, that things went better for him the less he said.
“Well, now. I think I struck a nerve,” said the queen. “Beauty and the Beast, eh. Well, why not? This is the Verge,” and she let loose her sickening giggle again.
On the Verge Page 9
