“I think we should strike a light,” Leofric said, putting his hand in his pocket.
“Nothing will burn,” she told him, but the little stone globe he took out from his coat wasn’t flint or steel. It was cloudy and greenish, like the bottom of a mossy lake.
“Fire won’t, but this will,” he said. As soon as Leofric brought it close to his mouth and breathed warm air over it, it started to glow ever so gently: a cool, blue blush like the lanterns she had seen in Emyer-Ekvori.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “How does it work?”
“The neneckt have more wisdom than cruelty in them,” he said, wrapping a bit of twine around a shallow groove cut into the object so it could hang from his fingers and cast a stronger light. “But like so many of us, they often let their faults outweigh their cleverness.”
“I already said I was sorry about the teahouse,” Nikko said, holding together a curiously muted outline of himself, the glow filtering through him like frosted glass that caught the edge of his mischievous grin.
“The very least of your transgressions,” Leofric sniffed, turning away to see if Jairus had joined them. He had, seeming no worse for wear, so Leofric started to lead the way down the path, holding the soft radiance in front of him.
The light was just strong enough to make groping along in the gloom a marginally less frustrating experience, but Megrithe still felt a slow fountain of panic rising inside her the further they traveled, her fingers reaching out to brush the back of Leofric’s shoulder every so often just to reassure herself that he was really there.
The tunnel started to slope steeply forward, at times so near to vertical that she wished they had brought a rope. They were forced to slither down backwards, doing their best to let their toes slide through the rough powder, trying not to tumble on top of the person in front. The plumes of dust swirled upwards in the salty water, creating hanging clouds that got up Megrithe’s nose while she followed along the incline, making her cough as she scrabbled to keep her balance as the difficult descent continued.
Eventually the route flattened out again, and Nikko let them stop to take a short rest. The sphere was giving off less light now, and Megrithe was a little afraid of what would happen when it lost its power completely. She didn’t want to be crawling blind under thousands of tons of immovable rock, she thought, then guiltily snuck a glance at Jairus. That’s exactly what he was doing, and he didn’t even have a choice.
She hadn’t the faintest idea how he could tell when she was looking at him as they sat huddled in a tight circle, dusting off dirty palms and knees and catching their breath the best they could, but he always seemed to turn towards her with a smile when he felt her eyes on him.
He had a nice smile. It was kind. Almost benign. He was not a harmless man – she knew that much. He just smiled like he meant it, or maybe like he had nothing to hide. No one ever smiled like that at a Guild inspector. A smile always meant that someone wanted something from her. On Jairus, it just looked like he was enjoying the moment.
“Almost there,” he said, somewhat more cheerfully than she thought was warranted, under the circumstances.
“How do you know?”
“I don’t. I’m just trying to be optimistic.”
“Well, stop it,” she said cringing at how harsh she sounded, and his expression immediately sobered.
“I’m sorry,” he said. The careful way he spoke, as if he was afraid of making her cry again, just made her more annoyed.
She clamped her mouth shut and felt her back teeth grinding hard against each other. She didn’t want to say something stupid. She didn’t want to say anything at all. It wasn’t his fault that she was being too prickly to accept his good intentions, but now was not the time to be making friends – or whatever he thought he wanted to make of her. It was time to stay on her task. She just wanted it all to be over.
Megrithe stood up and stepped over Leofric, making him lean back so she could pass without sweeping him in the face with her dress. She wasn’t going to wait around resting with such foolish thoughts in her head when she could be moving forward instead.
It was another hour, at least, until the walls started becoming warm to the touch. The vague breath of hot air brought with it a reddish light, too faint to replace the dying glow-sphere as a guide, but just enough to drip the tainted wine of apprehension into the back of her throat, making her swallow hard again and again as her feet moved of their own accord, her mind working furiously but not focusing at all, a swirl of terrible visions clouding the blackness in front of her.
“Wait,” Leofric said at one point, hooking his hand around her arm and pulling her backwards.
Megrithe blinked and all of a sudden she was standing right on the edge of another steep slope, the path falling away in front of her to shoot downwards into a pit of heat that sent gentle waves shimmering up through the water. She stepped away with a grateful glance, trying to shake herself out of her miserable reverie.
“We’re too high,” she said, peering down the length of the tunnel to see a crescent of the massive cavern that held the mountain’s heart.
“Not for long. I’ve got you,” Nikko said, gathering them up again. “Hold on tightly.”
It was a narrow fit as they slowly floated down the chute, as if they were standing in a bucket being lowered through a well – a well in which the water was nearly scalding and smelled of yellow sulfur and harbored the specter of death. The cave opened up around them as they looked down at the circle of tall, icy boulders standing like silent monks around the pit of roiling fire, locked in a centuries-long meditation unaffected by the visitors to their noxious lair.
The travelers were still nearly as high as a second-story window, drifting carefully towards the crackled ground, when Megrithe screamed. Something had pushed her hard, dislodging her grip on Nikko, and all of a sudden she was tumbling headlong to the unforgiving stone below her.
The fall was slow and leisurely, like dragging through treacle, giving her panicked mind more than ample time to contemplate the crunch of her bones and the wet splitting of her skull as she tried to bring her shoulder around to take the brunt of the blow, tried and failed to think of anything that would make her last moments any more worthwhile than the rest of them.
It took only a fraction of a second, of course – it took less time than that to realize that she was not falling alone. Jairus had slipped away, too, the fire’s glow catching the silver of his wide-eyed surprise as he instinctively tried to grab onto her, whether to help her or help himself, she wasn’t sure.
They hit the ground together, an elbow smashing into her cheek; her knee in his ribs before the back of her head bounced on the flat rock, a shower of sparks cascading in front of her as his solid weight crushed her, a breathless groan coming from one of them, or maybe from them both.
“Get off,” she gasped, trying to push him away, but her arms had no strength in them, and she couldn’t raise her head.
A string of curses eventually turned into a question. “Are you all right?” he asked, holding his stomach where she had jammed into him.
“No, I’m bloody well not all right,” she replied, putting a hand to her face. His sharp blow had opened a bleeding gash in her skin. “Get off me right this instant.”
He rolled to the side, but instead of moving to help her up, the motion brought him into an alert crouch, his head cocked upward, and Megrithe became aware of a terrible racket hovering somewhere in midair.
“Who is it?” Jairus said urgently, turning first one ear and then the other towards the sound, like a bat trying to locate its supper by moonlight. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t –”
“What is happening?” he repeated, grabbing her arm tightly and hauling her half-upright, pointing her at the noise.
“It’s a neneckt,” she said, trying to focus on the commotion. Nothing seemed to be where it ought to – she was fairly sure the walls weren’t supposed to be moving like th
at. “It’s Nikko – and someone else. Something else. I can’t – where’s Leofric?”
A quick look around did not reveal him, and she turned her attention back to the point where Nikko and a strong, immense shadow were grappling in mid-air. “I don’t know. It’s a neneckt, I think. Is it Faidal?”
Jairus stood up and gave her his hand to do the same. “I need you to tell me where I have to go. How do I get up there?”
“There’s no way,” she said, scanning the stone for a pathway that didn’t exist. “It’s just a sheer cliff.”
Just then, she heard Leofric shout something that echoed dully behind them, too distorted to understand. He was on the other side of the circular moat of molten rock that ran along the edge of the space – the one that she and Arran had crossed over on the slender bridge that later collapsed. There was no other way across. Leofric was trapped.
Whatever he had shouted had caught Nikko’s attention, and the two shaded figures crashed like falling stars to the earth. Jairus sprinted ahead, a pair of slim knives appearing in his hands as if by magic.
“They won’t work,” Megrithe muttered, swaying on her feet as crashing nausea slammed through her. Nothing could kill a neneckt except for coral glass. She had learned that somewhere.
She wasn’t entirely sure what happened next. She thought she was falling, but then someone was lowering her gently to the ground, propped up against a pillar of stone that felt as cold as packed snow. It was Leofric, she realized, as soon as she saw his back, running away from her and towards the fight. He must have jumped the molten stream.
It wasn’t Faidal fighting with Nikko, she thought blurrily as she blinked hard, vaguely wondering what was getting in her eyes before wiping away the blood. It couldn’t be Faidal. This creature was huge and angry and mad as a bull, charging like a thunderhead while Nikko flitted moth-like around him, sweeping and stabbing and trying to bring the creature down to earth again, so Leofric and Jairus could help him.
It must be Habur, she realized, and the notion made her head swim. Habur liked blood. Habur liked to make a show. She shrank up as small as she could behind the boulder, but she knew there was nowhere she could truly hide. Habur would kill Nikko and then he would find her, and he would tear her limbs from her body like a rag doll.
She had to run. Somewhere. She knew there were other tunnels – she had used one to enter Sind Heofonne the first time, when Arran had tried and failed not to peek up her skirts. But she was cut off from that exit by the river of magma, and she knew she would not be able to make the leap that Leofric had. There was only one other place to go.
The central pit of fire, with its slow, thick bubbles blobbing to the surface before popping damply with an exhalation of lethal breath, was so far away. She wasn’t sure she could reach it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. But that was where Arran had gone. And if hiding was useless, she might as well try to follow him.
She tried to grasp at the smooth surface of the stone behind her as she levered herself up, but snatched her fingers away with a cry, slumping back to the ground as she stared in confusion at the blistered skin of her palm. It was cold enough to burn, leaving a strange, pale mark in the flesh, and under the creamy surface, something was moving.
“N-Nikko?” she breathed, watching the delicate darkness congeal and stiffen, as if it was a chicken’s egg held up to the light with a tiny, half-formed life stirring inside.
“Leofric?” she called a little louder, panic overtaking her as she scrambled backwards on her rear end, trying to get as far away from the wrongness and the terrible, terrible fear that threatened to burst from the chrysalis.
She wasn’t looking where she was going, scuttling on all fours, and bumped into something that was softer than stone, but only just. She looked up to see an outstretched arm coming down, and the neneckt grabbed her by the throat.
There was nothing Megrithe could do as the neneckt started to squeeze. Of course Habur would not have come alone to such a place. It briefly occurred to her to be angry with herself for not anticipating that, but the anger was swept away by dismay as the air drained from her lungs.
She couldn’t see the others. There was noise from somewhere, maybe close by, but the whole of her attention was on the watery outline in front of her, inches from her face, staring into her bulging eyes with absolutely no expression as it wrung the life from her.
It wasn’t how she wanted to die. It wasn’t how she had imagined it would be, and she had thought about it a lot over the years. She had asked her mother what it was like, once, after her father’s funeral, and her mother had said it was just like quietly drifting off to sleep. Megrithe had always wanted to believe that, despite all the evidence to the contrary she had experienced during her career. But now she knew better as she sagged to her knees, entirely consumed by searching, strumming agony while the soft structures of her throat crumpled under her skin.
Megrithe had closed her eyes by the time the neneckt let her go, throwing her to the side with a shriek like a startled kettle, as if it had suddenly realized she was poisonous to the touch. Some part of her realized that it would behoove her to start breathing again, and without much of her consent, she was gulping in great raggedy gasps of air that sawed through her in convulsive coughs, a hand weakly opening and closing in front of her, a dying spider that had been crushed by a heavy book.
There was more noise. There was more than noise: there was a chanting of voices and a cracking of stone. A man’s clear, cold singing covered the cavern in unearthly music as the words took the shape of hammers, smashing the tall, shining prisons standing guard over Sind Heofonne.
Megrithe stared in silent shock as the white boulders around her shattered under the incantation. From within each one rose a shrieking phantom made of formless smoke. Before she could even convince herself that she wasn’t dreaming or already dead, they had disappeared into the scalding wreath of cloud that clothed the mountain’s mantle, as quickly and completely as if they had never been there.
Megrithe raised her head and tried to understand what was happening. The echoing melody came from everywhere and nowhere, overwhelming her. A stranger’s voice. A familiar song. An exhortation to madness that stopped her breath as surely as the grip of the neneckt, which had had fled from the music while she was preoccupied.
Much had happened in the few seconds that had passed – it was only a few seconds, she was nearly sure. But the colossal form of Habur was lying sprawled on the ground, flickering somewhat in and out of the visible realm as his life fought to stay within him. There was an ornately carved dagger sticking straight up from his breast, the edge of a salmon-colored blade just visible above the burbling gore. He was still and silent. Nikko was standing over him, staring down for a moment before reaching over to pull the weapon out with a tug of slimy resistance and tucking it in his belt.
She turned back towards the ring of boulders. There were pieces of stone scattered across the ground. She didn’t know what had escaped from the shells, but she was somehow sure that the singing was like the whistle of a master to his dogs, and something sinister had heeded the call.
“Come with me,” someone said in her ear, an arm around her waist, the stickiness of blood soaking through her dress as Jairus drew her close for support as she found her feet. He was hurt.
She fell again as the earth shook beneath her, and something crashed down beside them: a shard of rock, long and thin and massive, that had fallen from the ceiling. Jairus picked her up again, but he was limping, and she didn’t know who was helping whom as they lurched forward and ran for safety.
But they didn’t know where they would find it. The cavern was shaking and her skin was tingling with the chant that seemed to fill her bones with screaming despair. What was it? She needed to know. She craved the knowledge; she ached to follow the sound and break free from her skin and shriek into the heavens like the unknown creatures hidden for so many ages in the buried earth.
“Come on,” Jairu
s said again, urgently, trying to push her forwards as she slowed to a halt. If she left now, she would never know. She would never understand, and she would never be able to return to finish her search for Arran. The gods of the sea were trying to seal the cavern, and she could not bear the notion of leaving him to the crushing depths of such a terrible mausoleum.
“No,” she said, pulling away. “Not yet.”
She stumbled back towards the crater of boiled earth, another tremor unbalancing her, knocking her to her knees, but she scrambled along like a crab for a moment until she could get her feet again. “Not without Arran.”
“He isn’t here,” Jairus shouted after her. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“He is here,” she said, mostly to herself, staring downward at the gateway, a strange conviction filling her as the song pounded in her ears. She suddenly felt like she could see him, if only she could slip below the illusion of instant, fiery death. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t hurt her – there was something underneath. There was so much just below the surface. The song was telling her. The song was opening the way. She only had to find it. She only had to jump in. The song would open the way.
She felt like sparks would crackle off her skin if she touched anything; she felt rather than saw the scorching wall of heat that suddenly exploded in front of her, slamming her backwards as the molten core of the earth shot upwards to the ceiling of the immense heart of the mountain.
The blast triggered another quaking, strong enough to crack the cooled surface where she stood, and she nearly slipped sideways into a bottomless crevice as Jairus caught up to her, yanking her upwards, tumbling away to firmer ground before he picked her up bodily, her arms flailing and her mouth screaming curses, and ran as fast as he could towards where Nikko waited.
How he got there without falling, she had no idea. But she wasn’t about to marvel at his reflexes as she tried to pull away from Nikko, his arms now wrapped as firmly as iron around her as he sprang upwards towards the tunnel they had entered only a few minutes before.
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