This Crooked Way

by James Enge

  “Do the sewers reach all that way?” I asked.

  “Yes and no,” Naeli replied, and winked at me just before I exploded.

  I turned around and started walking upstream.

  We went as fast as we could; all too soon the clash of metal came echoing up the tunnel behind us. The Imperials were in the sewers.

  “Quick and quiet,” whispered Naeli, who led us up a tunnel leading northwest.

  “They'll have glass lizards,” Charis said. “They scent…they'll scent us.”

  He looked at me as he was speaking, and then away. All of a sudden I realized he meant, They'll scent Fasra.

  I was furious. He didn't smell so delightfully fresh himself. And I'd saved his stupid life! Catch me making that mistake again.

  I fell a little further behind, walking beside Thend at the back of the group. I was steamed at first, too mad to talk even if talking hadn't been too dangerous. But pretty soon I cooled off and, as I did, I realized something.

  Charis, damn him, was right. If the imperial troops had hunting beasts, and if they had caught a scent in the house that they were trailing in the sewer, it was probably mine. Plus, I was shorter than everyone else. If it had been a matter of a short sprint, I probably could have left them all behind, but on a long walk I was inevitably going to slow the group down, even if I weren't feeling sick, which I was: the cramping had started again, as bad as ever.

  I thought and thought and all my thinking came to one conclusion. I probably couldn't get away. But if I led the hunters astray, the others probably could.

  It wasn't my first choice, believe me. I was going to bull my way to the front of the pack and argue with Naeli that now was the time to trade Charis for our lives and freedom. The trouble was, I soon realized what Naeli probably had realized back at the house: it wouldn't work.

  Why were they after Charis, anyway? Because he knew something, or they thought he did. Probably the Khroic agent wanted him captured, because he was passing information on about the Khroi. Or maybe the Imperials wanted him because they thought he knew something about the Khroic agent. Either way, the trouble is, we had been traveling with Charis and protecting him—and knowledge is contagious. If the Imperials caught us they would take us all prisoner, and the Strange Gods only knew if we'd ever see the light of day again.

  That left my fallback plan: that is, Fasra takes one for the team, like any good vinch-ball player. (I hate vinch-ball, but we've been through all that.)

  Naeli was leading the group on a zigzag path through the interweaving tunnels: now northwest, now northeast, but always trending north. The ledges were a little narrower, and we were going single file. Naeli, at the head of the line, was often out of my sight around a corner. I dropped a little further back, and then further yet.

  “What are you doing?” Thend whispered, looking over his shoulder at me.

  I pointed over my shoulder, pointed at myself, and gestured wildly to the west. I hoped he'd get the idea and he did.

  “No,” he said, almost at his normal voice, and from the front of the line came an imperious whisper, “Be quiet!”

  In a schoolroom whisper, I explained to Thend why it had to be this way.

  He got it. There's nothing wrong with his wits, whatever you say about his manners.

  “I'll come with you,” he said quietly.

  I shook my head. “You have to stay with the group—make like I'm always a little behind you. Otherwise…”

  Otherwise Naeli would stop and come back for me. He knew it. His eyes looked tortured, and I hated the thought of the guilt I was inflicting on him. But I'd rather have him guilty and alive than have us all be guilt-free and dead in some imperial torture chamber. There are some occasions when family togetherness is overrated.

  “I'm sorry,” I whispered. “I'll catch up if I can,” I added.

  He shook his head, kissed me on the side of the face, and left me standing there. Soon he and the others were out of sight.

  I stood for a moment where I was, and then backtracked a bit. There was an arched stone bridge passing over the stream westward. I reached under my tunic and unbelted the rags that had been absorbing (partially) my flow. I dragged it behind me as I crossed over the bridge. Then I waited at the tunnel junction until it sounded like the pursuers were almost about to come in sight. I left the rags behind on the ground and fled up the tunnel.

  Soon I knew it was working: some, at least, of the pursuers were pursuing me. I couldn't run for very long, and soon I heard them behind me: the tramp of the soldiers' boots, muttered comments or orders (distorted into unintelligibility in the echoing tunnels), the sniffling of beasts (glass lizards?).

  I turned northwest or southwest at the junctions, always trending westward. I doubted I'd escape them, but there was always the chance that they'd think I was unimportant to them, nothing to do with Charis, or Morlock, or their damn city. (I wished it were true.) And every moment they chased me was one Naeli and my brothers were using to get away. Or so I hoped.

  How long it all lasted I really can't say. I'd had a long day and practically no sleep; a fog of weariness was settling over my mind. I found myself leaning against the entrance to one of these tunnels, my mind a blank, unsure what I was supposed to be doing.

  Then, in the tunnel I had come out of, on the far side of the stream, I saw the glass lizards. They were on long leashes; I didn't see any of their keepers, though I could hear them. There were four or five of the lizards, about the size of large dogs or wolves, and, as they came out into the larger tunnel, their transparent forms caught the light from the walls, like jars of clouded glass and they turned bright translucent green. I could see what seemed to be a human hand in one of their stomachs.

  I don't think they saw me: their eyes were sort of blank and squinty, and didn't look too useful. But they smelled me. Their heads weaved for a moment in the air as they stood before the bridge crossing the stream, and then they each pointed a blunt serpentine snout right at me.

  I spun around, ran up the tunnel, and heard them following eagerly as I ran. That jolt of terror lasted for a long time, and I even left them behind for a while. But eventually I was stumbling and staggering again, slowing down, hearing them closing in on me again and unable to remember why I cared.

  Presently I found myself staring, openmouthed, at a smooth-faced wall. There was no tunnel to westward: not northwest, not southwest. I couldn't understand it. How had they managed to block me off?

  It was the end of the sewer system, of course, but I was too stupid with weariness to understand that. But I had just enough wit left to understand I had to turn right or left. At random I turned left and stumbled as fast as I could, leaning from time to time on the smooth wall running along with me on my right.

  Except once, unaccountably, it wasn't there. I fell to my right through a dark hole and face-first on a pile of stones.

  Too tired even to feel pain, I crawled up the rockslide without thinking. At the top I staggered to my feet and looked blearily around. The place where I stood was much larger and more open than any part of the sewers I had seen; it was still underground, I guessed from the echoes.

  Ahead was a dark river, clean and cold. I realized that this must be the river that fed the sewer systems. There was some source of red light across the river, but I couldn't see what it was. My first guess was torches, but that turned out to be wrong. To my right and left were rough walls of stone. Behind me in the sewers were the imperial soldiers with their glass lizards. If I was going to escape from them, it would be across the river.

  I ran down to the bank of the river and was about to plunge in. I don't know why I didn't. I heard the soldiers shouting; I knew they had seen me. I could even hear the glass lizards snuffling behind me. I had every reason to risk leaping into the cold swift water—even if it killed me. But I didn't.

  As I stood there, hesitating, a drop of my blood dripped off my shoe into the water. Instantly, a white light appeared in the dark water. Somet
hing like a glowing orchid leaped up from the river bottom and snapped at the drip of blood like a dog snapping at a bit of meat.

  I stared, rooted with horror, as the glowing flower broke the glittering surface of the water. The skin of its petals was like human flesh, as white as Charis's, and they surrounded a dark mouthlike hole full of something like teeth. The hungry flower began to swing back and forth…seeking out the source of the tasty blood, I realized. Which was me, of course. As soon as I sorted this out I unrooted myself from the ground and ran up along the bank of the river.

  Soon I heard a great hissing behind me, like a chorus of snakes. I turned my head as I ran and looked back. The glass lizards (their skins now translucently white like Charis's) had followed my trail to the edge of the river. There were half a dozen of them there, facing maybe twice as many of the hungry white flowers. The lizards and the flowers both seemed to be trying to eat each other.

  I'd have cheered the flowers on, but just then something whacked me in the head as I ran. I bounced away and fell to the rocky ground, looking around groggily for what had hit me. It looked, at first, like a stone doorpost. Then I realized: it was the end of a stone railing for a bridge, covered with the same obscure (Old Ontilian?) carvings as the bridges in the sewer.

  Bridge. River. Cross. I had just enough brains left in my head to connect those dots. I leapt to my feet again and raced across the bridge. As I glanced back at the lizards and the flowers, I saw that the soldiers had joined the fight on the side of their glass lizards.

  Now, if ever, was my chance to get away. I ran off the far side of the bridge and away from the icy river as fast as I could. I don't know how fast this really was; I was nearly used up. But I kept going; that was the main thing.

  But pretty soon I realized I wasn't going to get much farther. Not because I was all used up, though that was nearly true, but because of another obstacle in my path. It was another river, a river of fire. It was the color of blood and a good deal hotter. It was the fiery river's fierce red light that dimly lit the gloomy cave.

  The fire was welcome at first: I felt my own blood pick up warmth from the heat; my shivering limbs took strength from it. But then it got hotter as I got closer. Long before I got to the fiery bank I had to turn away and run a parallel course.

  I was beginning to think this was the end. I didn't know what was ahead, but if the soldiers and their glass lizards got across the icy river, they could probably trap me between the two streams.

  I looked back to see what was happening. The soldiers had gotten away from the flowers, and they were now on the bridge. There were a lot of soldiers; more than I remembered. Only one glass lizard seemed to have survived the fight with flowers…but it was on my side of the river and coming up fast. It was the one with the human hand in its belly; it was translucently red, from the light of the blood-bright river.

  You want to keep your eyes on the ground when you're running over rough terrain. I knew that, even then, but I was too stupid with weariness to remember it. I tripped and went down, of course, with the glass lizard right behind me. I rolled desperately to my right, toward the fiery river. I latched on to a loose rock and sat up, expecting the thing to be at my throat.

  It nearly was, snapping and slavering at me with its glassy fangs. I bounced the rock off its blunt bright snout and it started back. Without getting up (no time for that) I crab-walked away from it toward the fiery river, its heat scorching my back. I reached out with my left hand, scrabbling for another rock.

  The glass lizard sort of dodged in toward me…and then slid back to where it was, hissing. A mist, stinking like poison, came out of the blisterlike sacs around its neck and drifted toward me. I scooted out of the stuff's way as soon as I caught a whiff of it, found my rock, and waited for the thing to attack again.

  It didn't. As I crawled up along the fiery river it kept pace with me, but didn't move in toward me. Like I say, I was stupid with fatigue, so it took me a couple of minutes to figure this out. Then I realized: it was repelled by the heat of the blood-bright river. I could get closer to the fire than the lizard could.

  “Hey!” I said. “Don't like the heat, do you?”

  Recklessly, I threw my rock at the thing. The lizard wriggled out of its way, but didn't charge me, even though I was unarmed.

  I chuckled, maybe a little crazily, and started to crawl closer to the fiery river. I couldn't have gotten to my feet if I'd tried, and I didn't feel like trying. My hazy idea, which looks even hazier as I recall it, was that what worked against the lizard might work against the soldiers—that I might be able to get closer to the fire than they could.

  I inched closer to the fiery river. But it wasn't really fire: I could see that now. It was thicker than water, too—more viscous, somehow. It was like the streams of melted rock that come out of the Burning Mountains sometimes: “lava” they called it in Four Castles. It was beautiful and terrible; I felt like my eyes were burning out from staring at it. Hot tears streamed down my face, because I wanted to get nearer to it but I couldn't stand to.

  There was life in the burning river. There were fiery flowers carpeting its banks, and little bright things flying from flower to flower, like bees made out of lava. I could see salamanders swimming in the stream. One of them looked at me with such a bright intelligent eye that I almost called out to it for help. But I couldn't speak, either; my throat was raw and choked from breathing in the burning air. I collapsed in a heap. The motion attracted some of the lava-bees. A cloud of them drifted toward me. I wondered what would happen if they landed on me, but there was nothing I could do to prevent it.

  It didn't matter anyway. I heard the rapid footfalls of men coming up behind me. If this was the end, I'd just as soon be killed by the lava-bees as taken by the imperial troops and their glass lizard.

  Then Morlock was there, his crooked form a dark silhouette against the bright red cloud of lava-bees. He snapped his cloak at them, scattering the cloud, and snatched one out of the air as they fled. He threw it straight over me and I heard a cracking sound behind me, like a heavy piece of glass breaking. I rolled over to see what had happened: the lava-bee had passed through the glass lizard, shattering its midsection. The glass lizard lay in pieces on the stones, opaque, inflexible, and dead.

  Beyond it stood my uncle Roble, looking down at the dead lizard with a bemused expression. Behind him an imperial soldier was approaching. I gestured wildly, tried to speak, but couldn't.

  The soldier came up and clapped Roble on the shoulder. “That Morlock!” he said. “Full of surprises! Did I tell you how I cut his head off, once?”

  “Only about forty times,” Roble replied. “But the day's young.” He stepped over the dead lizard and bent down over me. “Fasra! Are you hurt?”

  I croaked at him.

  “She needs water,” said Morlock, master of makers and of the obvious. “Let's get her out of this heat.”

  They dragged me to a cooler place in the wedge of land between the rivers, and the soldier handed me his water bottle to drink from. I recognized him then: he was Thrennick, the Keep we had met in the marketplace.

  I drank, cleared my throat and spat, and drank again.

  “How you find me?” I said when I could speak, in a manner of speaking.

  “By accident,” said Morlock wryly.

  “We weren't looking for you, Fasra,” Roble said. “Or rather, we thought you were with Naeli.”

  “I was. Only—”

  “You don't have to explain a thing to me, you crazy little wench; you're just like your crazy mother. I'm just glad you're all right and I hope it did some good.”

  I drank in more water, and also the idea that I was, indeed, all right.

  “Why soldiers our friends now?” I asked, after I caught a little more breath. “If are?”

  Roble said, “Morlock showed Thrennick the map, as proof that Guards-Commander Vennon had been taking money from the Sandboys. Then Thrennick showed it to the second-in-command, and it was
enough to get him to arrest his boss. Then he gave Thrennick a commission to take command of all the parties searching for Charis. He was furious at Vennon.”

  “Oh?” I said.

  “Well, the poor guy hadn't been cut in,” Thrennick explained. “Commander Vennon never was very bright that way. And when we searched his quarters we found letters proving he and another man had been acting as the Khroi's agents in the city.”

  “Who's the other man?”

  “Well, the fellow didn't sign his name, and Vennon claims he doesn't know it, but Morlock said he recognized the handwriting.”

  “Who?”

  “It was Charis,” Morlock said.

  I felt stupider than ever. Morlock had gone to Charis for information on the Khroi. Charis had tried to cheat him, and when that failed he had gotten the information. This had brought him under the hostile attention of the agent of the Khroi in Sarkunden…who was Charis, apparently.

  “Charis is trying to kill himself?” I said stupidly.

  Morlock shrugged and didn't otherwise answer.

  “Not exactly, miss,” Thrennick said patiently. “You have to understand, Vennon was a spy and a traitor, but an honest one. When Charis bribed him to get information about the Khroi, he sold Charis the information. But then he reported to the Khroi through their agent that Charis was collecting information about them for someone else. The agent told Vennon to pick Charis up and interrogate him and Vennon tried to do it, first with the Sandboys (who'd been in his pocket for years, or vice versa) and then with the imperial troops.”

  Something about this explanation didn't satisfy me, although Roble was nodding sagely as Thrennick spoke. Morlock wasn't nodding or making any other sign that he agreed, so I asked him, “What do you think?”

  Reluctantly Morlock said, “Thrennick may be right, as far as he goes. But the writing in the agent's messages to Vennon is Charis's. I think Charis wrote the message which lured us into the city, also. And I read the life-scroll of the watch-golem in Charis's house, the one you stopped. It was instructed to kill any human who entered the house; there was no exception specified for Charis himself. He wrote that, too.”