Of the Abyss

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  Not alone.

  Her skin crawled as the last few minutes caught up to her, and she remembered who had come here with her. The half-­Abyssi spawn. The Numenmancer. The Abyssi.

  What have I done?

  She turned, hoping futilely that the rift would still be open and she could go right back through it. Instead, her eyes found the creature she had been blind to on the mortal plane, and the sight of it made her blood run cold.

  Its shape shifted, never holding a single, identifiable form, but there was no mistaking what it was: Feral. Hungry. Vicious. Cadmia couldn’t make out teeth or claws, but she knew in her gut that it had those things. And in the primitive, furthest-­back portion of her brain, she knew that if she didn’t get away . . . if she didn’t run . . .

  “Hold it together, Hansa,” she heard Umber say. She looked past the Abyssi to find Umber with a hand on Hansa’s arm, clearly trying to stop him from bolting. Both men were wreathed in a hazy indigo glow, Umber’s brighter than Hansa’s. “Breathe. He’s on our side.”

  “Thank Numen he is,” Xaz whispered. She was furthest back, as if she had come through the rift last before it disappeared. The light she emitted was gray-­yellow, like the first breath of sunrise on a foggy spring morning, but so faint it seemed to disappear when Cadmia looked at her directly.

  Hansa’s panic gave Cadmia the strength to quash her own. She forced herself to turn away from the Abyssi. Ancient instincts screamed that doing so was deadly, but she was more than her instincts and refused to be ruled by them. Instead, she looked around, to confirm they really were in the realm whose name was synonymous with all that was cruel, avaricious, and venal.

  The ground was rolling black sand littered with bones—­or maybe they were shells, though unlike any found off the shores of Kavet. Many had sharp barbs. Most were deep, rusty colors instead of the bleached white or dull black that most often washed up on Kavet’s shores. All hinted at creatures more fierce than a clam or a snail, like an ash-­colored claw as long as Cadmia’s forearm that lay, empty, inches from her feet. What kind of creature left a shell like that?

  What kind of creature killed something with a shell like that?

  The answer to that question came in the form of a chorus of low, bone-­quivering growls. She looked up to see a trio of beasts that looked a little like wolves, though their low-­slung front shoulders bristled with spines, their heads were flat and wedge-­shaped like snakes, and their fur was the color of slick blood. Cadmia froze, her breath turning to lead in her lungs.

  The Abyssi flowed in front of the mortals and advanced toward the three scarlet beasts. When it struck them, the wolflike creatures scattered and tumbled, letting out pained, yipping cries as the personified darkness wrapped around them. A whiff of scalded fur reached Cadmia’s nose, and then the Abyssi moved on, leaving only a few fragments of red fur and gray bone behind.

  She swallowed thickly.

  Don’t you dare run, she told herself as the Abyssi approached again. If it wanted to kill her, she wouldn’t be able to stop it. If it was an ally, she needed to be able to look it in the . . . face? Cadmia locked her knees and forced herself to stand.

  “Thank you,” she managed to say. Her voice came out a tight squeak, but she was proud of herself for making it work at all.

  The longer she stared into the darkness, the easier it became. The visceral terror that had nearly overwhelmed her edged aside and she noted the colors—­sparks like firefly lights, but in a thousand unnamable hues—­that danced inside the shadow. They swirled and blinked, hypnotic, like the will-­o-­wisps whose beauty drew unwary storybook travelers to their doom.

  Her voice under control at last, she asked, “Are we . . . safe now?” She hesitated on the word, because if they really were in the Abyss, they certainly were not “safe.”

  The creature shrugged. How something made of pure amorphous terror could shrug, or how it could be perfectly clear that was exactly what it had done, Cadmia wasn’t sure. However, the gesture was very human, almost comical, and made her relax further.

  “From the red dogs, for now,” the Abyssi said. “They can’t best an Abyssi.”

  Cadmia would have expected its voice to be a growl or a hiss, as much animal as human. Instead it bordered on musical, like something you would expect crooned to you by a would-­be lover.

  Xaz asked, “Can you go back to your normal form?”

  “The lovely form with the blue fur, she means,” Umber clarified before the Abyssi could respond. “It’s easier on mortal minds.”

  Cadmia braced herself, every description of Abyssi she had ever read running through her mind. She knew fur, scales, tails, and claws were normal, as were poisonous barbs and razor-­sharp spines and—­and what do you really know? she chastised her thoughts. What Order scholars have actually seen what you are now seeing now?

  The thump her heart gave as smoke and shadow condensed was not entirely anxiety.

  Where a moment before there had been a creature from nightmare, now there was a creature who stood like a man—­or, almost like a man. The Abyssi balanced on the balls of his feet. Iridescent cobalt and turquoise fur, a lashing tail, and soft, tufted ears made it impossible to mistake him for a human.

  “Is this better?” he asked, tilting his head.

  “Much,” Xaz breathed.

  The Abyssi had long, silky black hair in addition to its fur, and the quizzical gesture caused several strands to fall forward and caress one cheek. Utterly inappropriate, the part of Cadmia that had grown up in the Order of A’hknet and had been trained to put a value to everything piped up to say, If it weren’t for the fur, that face could earn a lot of money down at the wharf. Dramatic cheekbones, full lips, heavy white lashes around wide blue eyes.

  Alizarin smiled, and Cadmia felt a brief panic that he had heard her thought. Could Abyssi do that? But the expression was open, engaging, not the sly, knowing look of a man who had caught a woman staring.

  “Stronger Abyssi only take on solid forms to communicate with mortals, or for play,” Umber told Xaz, oblivious to Cadmia’s uncomfortable moment. “His normal form is the one we saw a few minutes ago.”

  “Oh,” Xaz said.

  It was time to get back on task.

  As soon as Cadmia could remember what that task was.

  She remembered the plan she had proposed, but not why she had suggested it.

  “We’re . . . looking for the shades of the slain guards,” she said hesitantly, speaking aloud to try to make sense of her own jumbled memories.

  “Tell me again,” Umber drawled, “why you felt the need to come with us?”

  Cadmia opened her mouth to reply, then closed it without speaking. Why had she done this? She had run to Hansa thinking he and Umber might be able to heal Ruby, or possibly revive her with magic. How had that goal morphed into necromancy, resurrection, and an intended trek through the Abyss?

  Hansa was also frowning. Tentatively, he admitted, “I don’t entirely understand why we’re here.”

  “Because you’re a brat willing to use power you don’t understand to get your way,” Xaz snapped. She rolled her shoulders like someone who has slept in an uncomfortable position. “Or have you forgotten hysterically demanding that Umber save Ruby?”

  Hansa paled, and stared around as if the answers might be found on this desolate stretch of shell and bone-­littered beach—­if you could call it that, since where the water should be there was only an endless stretch of porous rock, which undulated like frozen waves. The sand, like the stone, was black and sparkled like raven feathers. Its beauty was only marred by Cadmia’s imagination telling her what creatures might come out of the dozen dark caves she could see among the stone sea.

  “I . . . did,” Hansa said, sounding as if he would like to deny it. “And then you came. And you.” He looked first at Xaz, and then at Cadmia. In his eyes she cou
ld see the desperate need for reassurance that was ever in the eyes of a man who has done something unforgivable.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” Umber murmured. “We have more company on the way. Alizarin, am I right that the upper-­level Abyssi respect my kind’s right to claim property?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Upper-­level?” Cadmia asked, before immediately adding, “Never mind. It’s not a good time for questions.”

  Hansa let out a startled protest as Umber reached out, wrapped an arm around his waist, and pulled the guard tightly to his side. Cadmia had an instant to wonder if he would further object to being considered “property,” and then Alizarin stepped up and casually looped his tail around her waist.

  The Abyssi’s current form was beautiful, but Cadmia had seen what Umber called its “natural” form, and she had seen what it did to the red dogs that threatened them. The only thing that kept her from screaming when she found herself suddenly clamped to Alizarin’s side was long years of rigid self-­control. Her chosen vocation required her to listen to the worst horrors the human race could manage, confessions from men and women who had committed atrocities most ­people assumed were confined to the Abyss, without flinching.

  He was protecting her, so it would be stupid to argue and fight to get away.

  She thought he was protecting her.

  She hoped so, anyway.

  Meanwhile, the creature coming toward them seemed to be Abyssi, though it wasn’t like Alizarin. Its body was slender and serpentine, its skin slick, and its eyes cold and slitted. Its six limbs were thick like a lizard’s, though it seemed to disregard them as it moved in long undulations of its snakelike body.

  The new Abyssi paused before them and bowed to Alizarin, bending armored front legs and dropping a diamond-­shaped head with long, glistening fangs in a deferential bob. Then it rose up like a snake about to strike, front legs—­arms?—­folded across its scaled gray torso. When it spoke, the sound was like claws on stone, a fierce etching noise that made all the hair on Cadmia’s body rise.

  “You bring gifts for the royal court?” it asked optimistically, its head sliding side to side as it looked at their assembled group.

  Alizarin grinned, but Cadmia didn’t think it was a happy expression. It showed too many sharp white teeth. “You were rude about my last gift.”

  The lizard-­Abyssi seemed puzzled for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure what Alizarin meant by “rude.” Then he took a half-­wriggle back, maybe a flinch. “He was my protector,” the Abyssi wheedled. “You killed him while I was sleeping, and I didn’t even get to eat him.”

  The silly notion that Abyssi were very like human beings, an idea that had been formed from Alizarin’s shrugs and grins, disappeared from Cadmia’s mind as she tried to parse what the lizard-­Abyssi had just said. He was my protector . . . I didn’t get to eat him.

  The lizard-­Abyssi took another step back and said, “Antioch has been in a rage. He says you got his mancer killed. If you give us gifts, maybe we can help you with him?”

  Alizarin’s grin faded and his tail lashed, releasing Cadmia. She desperately hoped he was irritated by the other Abyssi pushing the idea of gifts, and wasn’t concerned enough to be considering it. Umber’s question suggested that Hansa was considered his property, and she doubted Alizarin wanted to get rid of his mancer. That left Cadmia.

  “He is a prince of the fourth level,” the lizard-­Abyssi said, Alizarin’s reaction making him bolder. “You are only of the third. You will need help.”

  Some of the older texts in the Order of the Napthol’s most restricted libraries spoke of the “levels of the Abyss.” Cadmia had always thought it was euphemistic until now. If this Antioch was of a deeper level than Alizarin, he was stronger.

  “He is fourth-­level chattel,” Alizarin answered in a grumbling voice that bordered on a growl, “and you are a lord of the high court only because I slew all the Abyssi there stronger than you. These four are mine.” His tail wrapped snugly around Cadmia again, emphasizing his point. “If you touch them, I will eat you. Now go away.”

  The lizard-­Abyssi didn’t stay to argue with the threat in Alizarin’s voice, but turned and fled across the black dunes of sand in the direction from which it had come.

  “I think I probably speak for the group,” Hansa said, his throat so tight with tension that his voice came out a soft rasp, “when I say we should finish what we came here to do and then leave as quickly as possible.”

  “Is this Antioch likely to be a problem for you?” Umber asked.

  “Did you kill his mancer?” Xaz sounded like she was taking that more personally than the threat to the rest of their safety.

  “I didn’t kill him,” Alizarin huffed, responding only to Xaz. “Hansa did.”

  “Excuse me?” Hansa chirped.

  “I’m not the one who made him throw the knife away when you arrested him,” Alizarin told Hansa, sounding irritated that his role in Antioch’s mancer’s death was being questioned, and obviously missing the fact that the Quin guard looked terrified as he suddenly realized how many enemies he might have in this place.

  The scene came clear to Cadmia.

  “Baryte,” she said, recalling the name of the Abyssumancer who had asked for her counsel, as well as the stink of burning flesh as he held his hand over the candle, and the abrupt horror of his death. “Antioch was his Abyssi? Is he the black Abyssi Baryte mentioned?” All the puzzle pieces tumbled over and over in her mind, trying to find a pattern that made sense. “Did he somehow call us here?”

  “I think we should leave here quickly,” Hansa said. Then he winced, as if struck by a sudden pain. “As soon as we’ve done what we need to do.”

  He started to lean against Umber, flinched away, and then immediately repeated the action. Umber gave him an opaque look and shook his head, not acknowledging the touch or the comment.

  Was he trying to be discreet? Cadmia hadn’t thought that Hansa and Umber were lovers, but Hansa’s motions had the look of a man trying to resist old habits.

  Cadmia drew a deep breath, trying to find the best way to articulate the certainty that had been growing in her since they had stepped into the Abyss.

  “We’re looking for a shade,” she said haltingly, “to help us find a necromancer back in Kavet so you can resurrect a woman whose life is so dear to you, Hansa . . . that we all left her unguarded in a public inn.” Since the others didn’t seem inclined to clarify why this made sense or argue with her, she continued. “We all seem to have taken extreme measures to accomplish something I’m not sure any of us would ever desire. Unless you really think Ruby would want you to do this, Hansa?”

  The guard shook his head fractionally, horror and bewilderment warring in his eyes as he considered his own irrational actions.

  Cadmia remembered the old warnings: An impulse you can’t explain is the Others whispering in your ears. This time, the Others had done more than whisper, and the result was more than an impulsive walk down to the docks to visit old faces.

  But were they done yet? Or were they just now starting to speak?

  CHAPTER 24

  The last thing Xaz wanted was to focus the others’ suspicions on her, but she didn’t seem to have a choice. Cadmia was too obviously right; they hadn’t done this of their own free will.

  “I saw Numen power all around the docks and Ruby’s body,” she admitted. When the others just looked at her, waiting for further explanation, she shut her eyes to block out their stares and continued. “Ruby was impulsive,” she said, remembering the woman who—­in another world—­might have been her friend. “She had a temper. She wasn’t the kind of person who would normally have run off and hurt herself, but a Numenmancer could have convinced her to jump, and then nudged Hansa and Cadmia into reacting the way they did.”

  “That’s crazy,” Cadmia objected. “Why would
a Numenmancer go to that kind of trouble?”

  Xaz snickered. “You two can’t imagine why a mancer would think it’s funny to trick you into crawling into the Abyss? It wasn’t me,” she added sharply. “If it were, I wouldn’t be with you.”

  Cadmia’s face suddenly went stone serious. She turned to Umber. “What about you? Could a Numenmancer have manipulated you? Or Alizarin?”

  Umber shook his head. “Abyssi—­though beautiful and powerful, Alizarin, so do not take my words badly—­are not known for their forethought or careful analysis when unbridled impulse is an option. As for me, I owed Hansa a boon. That bond isn’t something that can be argued with.”

  “How much power would it take to influence you?” Cadmia pushed.

  Umber tensed, and Xaz sensed a defensive reply on the way. He clearly changed his mind at the last moment and said instead, “An Abyssumancer could have forced me to act, but not subtly. Even the most powerful Abyssumancer in Kavet couldn’t have tricked me into stepping into the Abyss without my sensing it.”

  Xaz saw where Cadmia was going with her logic, but hoped there was another explanation. She would far prefer a garden-­variety mancer had put them into this position.

  “Why did you save Hansa’s life?” Cadmia asked the spawn.

  Umber ignored Hansa’s squawked protest. “He had been tainted by the Abyssi who injured him. If he survived, that taint could have turned him into a mancer. I didn’t want to risk it. I told him—­”

  “Yes, yes, you told him that,” Cadmia said brusquely. “I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now. You could have killed him. Instead you granted him a boon. Why?”

  Umber tensed his jaw, and didn’t answer.

  “Could an Abyssi have done it?” Cadmia asked, looking at Alizarin. “Baryte talked about a black Abyssi. Is that Antioch?”

  Alizarin considered, and said, “Abyssi come in many colors. Antioch is ashy.”