Fire and Dust

by James Gardner

  «That was sorcery, honored-but-slow-on-the-uptake Cavendish. Shekinester's flame burned me clean of Rivi's dust. I have my magic back!»

  «What about the others? Have you heard anything about them?»

  Wheezle shook his head, but turned to the nagas who'd brought him here. The old female shrugged… or made a motion that would have been a shrug if she'd had shoulders. «No one knows how the Holy Mother will conduct Her tests,» she said. «It may take an hour, it may take a year. I can give no better answer.»

  «We don't have a year,» I muttered. «We may not even have an hour. Rivi's taken a long headstart, and she's not one to waste opportunities. Still,» I clapped Wheezle on the back, «you've got magic, and I've got one shining blood of a sword. Why don't we go kick some —»

  Suddenly, the air ripped open in front of me, spilling out a stench of sulphur stronger than the vilest pits of Baator. The nagas hissed, Wheezle's hands blazed with eldritch energies, and I whipped my rapier up to attack position.

  Obliviously, Hezekiah stepped from the reeking rift. «Hey Britlin,» he said, «see how far I can teleport now?»

  20. THREE FLOORS OF MADNESS

  I wanted to wait for Yasmin, Hezekiah wanted to wait for Miriam, and surprisingly, Wheezle showed interest in waiting for our alu-friend, November; but we couldn't afford the delay. On another piece of bark, I scratched a note saying that the three of us had gone ahead… and I hoped Shekinester would release our companions in time to read the message.

  The young and old naga watched wordlessly as I propped the chunk of bark beside the chapel door. For a moment, I considered asking them to join against our enemies – heaven knew, we could use all the help we could get – but what incentive could I offer? The chance to get shredded by Rivi's wights? Or perhaps the possibility of having their minds enslaved by Rivi herself? The older naga was almost certainly the mother of the young one, and would never put him in danger.

  Instead, I simply gestured for the mother to come nearer. She slithered warily across the snow. «If we fail,» I told her in a low voice, «this area may not be safe in future. Sigil's on the other side of that portal, and Sigil may turn ugly. Talk to your people about mounting a guard.»

  She stared at me a moment, then nodded. «Try not to fail,» she said.

  Then she and her son slid quietly into the woods.

  * * *

  The interior of the chapel was filled with gloomy thickets of shadow, but a few shreds of light still managed to slip through the dirt-crusted windows. A smell of damp rot hovered in the air, coming from the clumps of fungus that fed off the long-unused pews. Here and there along the walls, a spill of white showed where snow had blown in through cracks between the stones; and somewhere close to the front of the sanctuary, a steady drip told of a leak in the roof.

  Hezekiah's hand clutched at my sleeve. «November promised this place wasn't haunted, right?»

  «Hezekiah,» I said, «correct me if I'm wrong, but you went through a series of tests in the Court of Light, true?»

  «I don't want to talk about them,» he muttered.

  «But at the end,» I continued, «you must have walked into a pillar of fire, surrounded by several hundred undead of all descriptions. Now you're worried about this little place being haunted?»

  The boy cleared his throat uncomfortably. «I wouldn't exactly say I walked into the pillar of fire. I was kind of escorted there.»

  «Escorted?»

  «Okay, dragged. By three vampires, two ghouls, and this big white thing that kept groaning all the time.»

  Wheezle murmured, «An interesting picture to imagine, honored Clueless.»

  «Yeah, I screamed so loud, I kind of reduced a banshee to tears. My point is, I'm not feeling very friendly toward the undead right now, so I hope there aren't any hanging their sheets here.»

  There didn't seem to be. Apart from a smattering of beetles sluggish from the cold, the chapel showed no sign of occupation by creatures on either side of death. We walked up the central aisle, eyes and ears open for peril, but all was quiet. It felt quiet too: not the least quiver of supernatural menace.

  Even in the dark, the soft glow of the portal was hard to see. As November had said, it lay in the doorway between the main sanctuary and a small sacristy at the back; and it occurred to me how piking inconvenient it must have been for the worshippers to have a snake-activated gate right in the middle of their cloister. If a priest had a naga tattoo, a serpent brooch, even a child's creed-school drawing of a pretty python, he'd start walking into his sanctum and get deposited in the middle of Sigil. No wonder this cult had never managed to make a go of itself.

  «Where do you think this portal goes?» Hezekiah whispered in the dark.

  «The way our luck's been running,» I answered, «it could be the Great Foundry's blast furnace.»

  «Correct me if I'm wrong,» Hezekiah said in an annoying tone, «but you must have walked into a pillar of fire surrounded by several hundred undead of all descriptions. Now you're worried about a little blast furnace?»

  «Pike it, berk,» I growled; and holding my sketch of the spitting cobra, I stepped through the portal…

  * * *

  …and into a spartan room with mildewed walls and a single barred window. There was no furniture, simply a heap of limp straw piled in front of the window. My nostrils told me the straw had lain there for some time, long enough to begin a rancid decline into rot; and other smells mingled with the sharpness of decay – the thudding aromas of a chamberpot whose slops have gone unemptied for days.

  Yet despite the stink of the place, I found myself hushed solemn by the room's one notable sight. Seated serenely on the pile of rotting straw was a venerable female orc, wearing an ornate satin wedding dress. At one time the dress must have cost a hefty sack of jink, for the bodice was stitched with a tasteful display of beadwork and fine embroidery; but age had yellowed the fabric and smeared it with copious smudges of unknown origin.

  The old orc woman showed no sign of embarrassment at the state of her gown. Indeed, her face was wreathed in a gentle smile, and her hands folded placidly in her lap, like an unruffled debutante waiting to be asked for a dance. As Wheezle and Hezekiah stepped through the gate behind me, the orc rose to her feet and curtsied smoothly, as if people materialized in her squalid boudoir every day.

  «Your majesties,» she said, «I have awaited your coming for some time. Some time. Some time. Have you decided which of you I shall wed?»

  Hezekiah nearly jumped back through the portal, but I stopped him in time.

  * * *

  «You are mistaken, honored lady.» Wheezle kowtowed to the orc with grace enough to match her curtsy. «We are not of royal blood, nor are we potential husbands.»

  «Ah, you have come incognito,» she smiled. «I find that charming. But I have waited so very long… very long, very long… it has been hard to keep up my spirits through the cruel days and nights. No doubt you were delayed by dragons?»

  «Something like that,» I murmured; but my attention was elsewhere, scanning the view out the barred and dirty window. It showed a wide cobblestone street, a few ramshackle hovels, and a queue of people – humanoids and others – waiting somberly in dim twilight before this very building. Something about that queue seemed familiar: young adults standing with writhing children; older adults carrying stretchers where elderly white-hairs lay as still as corpses; men pleading with monsters only they could see, and women cringing as if every sound around them was a needle plunged into their flesh…

  Suddenly, I recognized it all and knew where we were. «It's the Gatehouse,» I said to Wheezle.

  The gnome nodded as if he'd been thinking the same thing, but Hezekiah asked, «What's the Gatehouse?»

  «A place for those whose minds are bruised,» Wheezle told him. «It means we have truly returned to Sigil,» he added; but his tone of voice suggested he would prefer the blood-soaked streets of Plague-Mort to the Gatehouse Asylum.

  Hezekiah's expression s
aid he felt much the same as Wheezle. «We'd better leave,» he muttered.

  «Your majesties, please!» the orc woman cried. «You must not…» Her agitated voice broke off, and eased once more into a tranquil smile. «But of course, you will take me with you.»

  «Honored lady,» Wheezle began… but she placed a wrinkled hand to his lips and shushed him.

  «I know,» she said. «Gossiping tongues will wag – a young and vulnerable lass traveling unchaperoned with three lusty princes. But I have waited… I have waited so long… and people have said so many cruel things already. They have tried to tell me… they have claimed I am… foolish.» Her hands were still folded in front of her, but the knuckles had turned white as they squeezed against each other. «Please, your majesties… I have waited… I have worn this dress… this dress… I saved every farthing for this dress because I knew you would come… and marry me…»

  I couldn't meet her tear-filled gaze. As I lowered my eyes, I realized all my clothes were pristine white… as were Wheezle's robes and Hezekiah's foppishly-tailored outfit. No wonder she took us for princes, princes dressed for a wedding day. When this poor old woman had seen us, we must have fulfilled her every confused dream.

  «What is your name, young miss?» I asked as gently as I could.

  With another curtsy, she answered, «Irene, may it please your majesty.» It wasn't an orc name, but then, the white satin gown was not an orc wedding dress. Perhaps she fancied herself human… or perhaps, she had been raised by humans in a manner at odds with her orc heritage. Such things happen in Sigil.

  «Irene,» I told her, «my fellow princes and I must go on a dangerous quest. It would not be safe for a delicate —»

  Before I could finish the sentence, she seized my arm. «Please don't leave me here,» she whispered. «If you leave me after all this time, I fear I might… go mad… please, don't make me be a mad old woman…»

  I turned to Hezekiah and Wheezle. Both of them were staring at the floor.

  «All right,» I told her. «You can come with us a little way.»

  * * *

  Hezekiah offered Irene his arm. He didn't look comfortable about it – he held himself as rigid as a steel fencepost, and never let his eyes stray in her direction – but the boy was clearly making an effort to show her courtesy. Irene didn't seem to notice his tension; she settled in against him with the composure of an experienced courtesan taking a baron's hand.

  The room had only one exit, the doorway that framed the portal to the Outlands. I threw away my sketch of the cobra before leaving – otherwise, I'd find myself back in the chapel. Wheezle led the way into the corridor, followed by Hezekiah and Irene, with me trailing as rear guard… which meant I was the last to confront the full squalor of the Gatehouse Asylum.

  The place stank of desperation. Yes, the smells in my nostrils were more specific, mildew, slops, and a wispy tang of blood; but over everything hung an oppressive desolation, tangible enough to make my skin crawl. Half the rooms along this corridor had their doors closed, secured with cast-iron padlocks. The others had their doors wide open, letting out the whimpers and moans of their inhabitants. A few patients had emerged from their rooms, to lean against the walls and stare vacantly into the distance, or to stand with eyes closed, rocking and humming tunelessly in their throats. One wore an unbuckled straitjacket; the rest wore unwashed garments, some no better than rags.

  Wheezle headed for a door at the end of the hall. Most of the patients took no notice of us as we passed; those who did covered their eyes with their hands and shivered until we were gone. Irene touched one of the shiverers on the shoulder and said in a gentle voice, «You may have my room, Mazey. I shall not need it again.»

  Past the door, we came upon what passed for a nurse's station: a flimsy wooden table where a bulky young dwarf sat picking his teeth with a sliver of bone. He glanced up at us, and his eyes widened. «I told you they would come for me,» Irene said triumphantly. «I told you they would come.»

  He stared for another second or two, then shrugged and went back to digging between his molars.

  * * *

  Irene's room had been on the third storey; and when we finally found a stairway, it only went down one floor. That meant we had to backtrack along the length of the whole wing before we could get down to ground level. I assumed this design made it harder for barmies to escape, forcing them to run all the way along one floor, then all the way back on the next floor down, keeping them inside the building that much longer… but that only worked if someone tried to stop them from leaving. As far as I could see, none of the staff showed the least concern as we passed. No one asked who we were or where we were going; no one even recognized our existence.

  No one in an official capacity, that is – we got plenty of attention from the inmates. Many tried to hide from us; many more tried to talk to us, in languages that may or may not have been spoken by anyone else in the multiverse. A few followed us, gesticulating as they babbled, and pointing at odd objects: cracks in the wall, their own teeth, a single red shoe someone had left in the hallway. After a while, each lost interest and wandered off some other direction, still talking and waving incoherently.

  Down more stairs and an exit door came in sight – its glass smudged by the noseprints, gawkers looking in and inmates gazing out. A pair of guards in badly scuffed armor leaned against the wall near the door, passing a flask between them; but they straightened an inch as they saw us approach.

  «Yeah?» said the taller one, as if we had asked a question. She had a sleek crown of black feathers on her head instead of hair; I couldn't tell if it was a hat or actually part of her body.

  «We are leaving, honored guard,» Wheezle replied. «May your death be everything you hope it to be.»

  «Huh?» Feather-Woman asked. She must have shone in conversational skills at the job interview.

  «Don't mind him,» Hezekiah said hurriedly. «He's a Dustman. They say things like that.»

  «Dustmen wear gray,» observed the other guard. He had the head of a tortoise-shell cat, and by the looks of it, his fur went all the way down. Unlike most cats, this one hadn't done much in the way of licking himself clean for a long time.

  «Alas,» Wheezle told the guard, «my gray robes were burned when a death knight directed me to walk through a pillar of sacred fire. These clothes were reconstructed for me by nagas.»

  I cringed. If Wheezle blurted out everything from the past few days, these guards would heave us directly into padded cells. Magic salt-and-pepper grinders, camping out with fiends, getting chummy with wights on the Plane of Dust, then fighting them in Plague-Mort… this was not a story to convince people of our sanity. «We have to go now,» I said, stepping toward the door.

  Feathers hiked up her foot and planted it against the opposite wall of the narrow corridor, neatly blocking my exit. «Pass?» she grunted.

  «I beg your pardon?»

  «She wants to see your pass,» the Tortoise-Shell said. «A paper what says you can leave.»

  «We don't have a pass,» Hezekiah answered, too quickly for me to stop him.

  «Gotta have a pass,» Tortoise-Shell replied. «Patients get a pass from their doc. Visitors get a pass when they come in.»

  «That's the problem then,» Wheezle said. «We entered the building through a portal from Plague-Mort. Well, not directly from Plague-Mort… from a chapel outside of town, dedicated to nagas.»

  «Little berk's got a thing about nagas,» Feathers observed. «His doc must have a lot to say about that.»

  «I don't have a doctor,» Wheezle snapped. «We are just passing through on our way to fight an evil albino.»

  «Albino naga?» Tortoise-Shell asked with interest. «That's what you might call a provocative image.»

  «The albino's not a naga,» Hezekiah retorted, «she's a psionic. She's sucked all the power out of my brain twice, but I won't let her do it again.»

  «Good thinking,» Feathers said. «I sure hate it when albinos suck power out of my b
rain.»

  «If you berks got a thing about albinos,» Tortoise-Shell asked, «why are you all wearing white? Some self-punishing identification-with-the-enemy thing?»

  «They are wearing white,» Irene announced, «because they are three royal princes come to marry me.»

  «All three gonna marry you at once?»

  «They're princes,» Irene answered. «They can do whatever they want.»

  «Just the kind of attitude that gives royalty a bad name,» Tortoise-Shell observed. «Shame on your highnesses.»

  «Majesties!» Irene corrected.

  «A prince is Your highness,» Feathers said. «Your majesty is for kings and queens.»

  «Is that how it works?» Hezekiah asked. «I always wondered.»

  «They are all majesties,» Irene insisted, «because they will marry me and make me a queen.»

  «Even if they're only princes themselves?»

  «Maybe,» Hezekiah suggested, «if you marry three princes at once, you become a queen. It could be cumulative.»

  «All right, that's it!» I snapped. «Much as my companions belong in a barmy bin,» I told the guards, «we have to get out of here. So here's my proof that we aren't really inmates.»

  In a split-second, the tip of my rapier was poised a hair's breadth from Tortoise-Shell's right eye. The cat gulped and froze. Feathers followed suit.

  «Follow my logic, if you please,» I said. «Patients surely aren't allowed to carry weapons, right?»

  «Right,» the guards answered in unison.

  «I am carrying a very sharp, very lethal sword… right?»

  «Right,» they chorused again.

  «Therefore, I must not be a patient, right?»

  «Got me convinced,» Tortoise-Shell said, swallowing hard.

  «Pass, friend,» Feathers added, carefully dropping the leg that barred our way, and nudging the door open.

  Wheezle smiled and trotted out, followed by Hezekiah. As Irene glided regally past the guards, she stopped and whispered, «Please forgive Prince Britlin's impulsiveness. He is the eldest, and has endured many long years of chaste abstinence, waiting for our union.»