How long would Bors and Roshad keep the angels occupied? Three minutes? Five? He doubted it would be even that long. And as soon as someone realized that Salim had slipped away, the chase would begin. He needed answers now.
Which meant that he couldn't afford to take chances. A confident step was one thing, but...
Taking a deep breath, Salim closed his eyes and unbarred the gates inside his soul, letting the pale worms of the Lady of Graves wriggle inside. At his direction, they split open, liquefying into a thin film that spread out and over his skin and clothes.
There was a soft pop, like a bottle being opened, and then he could see once more, staring out through eyelids made suddenly transparent. A wave of disorientation rolled over him, but he breathed slowly and opened his eyes—a motion now accomplished solely via muscle memory. He waved a hand in front of his face and felt the wind, yet saw nothing. Concentrating, he stared hard at where instinct told him his hand must be. Slowly it faded back into view, albeit still wispy and transparent, as the spell and his mind learned to work together.
Good. Invisibility magic wasn't perfect—he suspected some of the more powerful angels would see right through his amateur efforts—but it would be better than nothing, especially if they also couldn't hear him coming. Drawing up more of the goddess's filth, he cast it around himself, visualizing it as a sort of mist. All sound abruptly ceased, muffled by an invisible, intangible cloud.
It would have to be enough. Now he just needed a target.
From all across the vault, concerned angels were moving quickly toward the commotion at the front. Salim found a spot where a main avenue met a smaller aisle that branched off into a mazelike tangle of shelves and alcoves. Thrusting out an arm, he silently swept a precarious pile of unbound pages off a shelf and onto a floor in the larger pathway, then hid around the corner.
Within moments, six veiled Censors—these wingless and even taller than Salim's guides, though not as tall as the Exscinders—came hurrying down the corridor. One of them spotted the fallen manuscripts and stopped to reshelve them, waving the others on.
Salim smiled. Librarians were the same everywhere.
As soon as the other angels were far enough ahead, Salim slipped out from his hiding place and drew his sword. He took several running steps, then launched himself onto the kneeling Censor's back, wrapping himself around the giant like a child riding piggyback.
The angel jerked in surprise, no doubt shouting an alarm, but the spell that silenced Salim muffled the angel as well. Allowing himself to become visible once more, Salim reached around and placed his blade against the angel's throat.
That got the Censor's attention. It froze, and Salim swung awkwardly down off its back, drawing its cowled head down with him. Unwilling to risk releasing the silencing spell, he settled for tugging on the angel's head, directing it to crawl after him into the narrower offshoot aisle. After several turns in the maze of shelves, he stopped in a dead-end aisle that seemed unlikely to see any traffic.
Salim signaled for the Censor to lie on its back on the floor, then crouched beside it and pulled back its hood and veil, revealing a long-faced man with deep bronze skin.
Or was it a man? Salim blinked, and this time the set of the cheekbones and softness of the jaw suggested a woman.
Whatever. Angelic androgyny was none of his business. The important part was that it had a mouth, which meant it could speak.
Salim let the aura of silence drop, but as he did so he visualized scooping up a handful of the goddess's magic and plastering it over the angel's mouth. The Censor's eyes went wide as sound rushed back into its ears. It opened its mouth to shout, but only a whisper emerged.
"Nope." Salim pressed harder with his sword, heading off any further protests. "No loud noises. I'm going to ask you some questions, and you're going to answer. You make any other move, speak any word that sounds like a spell, and I'll end your scholarship right now. If you understand, say ‘yes.'"
The Censor's muscles tensed, bunching admirably beneath the dark cloth, but all it said was, ‘Yes.'"
"Good." Salim didn't bother with the thought-reading spell—the time for subtlety was long past. Instead, he let more of Pharasma's magic scrabble like a roach up his throat and fill his mouth, then spoke with a voice that was both his own and something else. "Do you know anything about schematics for a machine that circumvents the River of Souls?"
During his life in the Pure Legion, Salim had led his share of interrogations. Most of the time, he could break a man without ever touching him. Humans, like any other pack animals, responded to dominance. All you needed was absolute control.
This was different. Backed by the goddess's magic, the question became a fist, smashing into the Censor's defenses. The angel flinched beneath the blow, then spat out a strangled, "No."
Well, that had been a long shot. Time for another. "Which Censors would you suspect of corruption?"
"None of them!" This time the whispered words came quickly, of their own volition. "They're Censors, fiend—you won't turn any of them, nor leave this place alive."
"I'm no devil," Salim said. "I'm actually on your side." But there wasn't time for explanations. Salim did what he could to widen the pipe inside him, letting the magic flow faster. "When I asked Garinas if there was a copy of the text I'm looking for in the library, he said no, but he was hiding something. What isn't he telling me?"
The Censor held out with the fortitude of a saint—which, come to think of it, maybe it was. It arched its back, neck tendons standing out as it fought the pressure of the spell, before finally gasping out, "The Lower Collection! We don't like to talk about it."
"So talk anyway."
The angel's mouth twisted in distaste. "We have an...arrangement with the Fallen Fastness in Hell. We don't raid their libraries, and they don't raid ours. Sometimes we confer with their scholars or exchange books. Inter-library loans."
"Loans?" This time the words carried none of the goddess's weight, only Salim's own surprise. "You share with Hell?"
"The devils are abominations, but they keep their bargains," the angel snapped. "Knowledge benefits us all. We purify those books we can, but we dare not risk sending the Exscinders into the Fastness and starting a war. Sometimes the best way to fight something is to understand it—even heresy. In the interest of continued cooperation, both Heaven and Hell sometimes make use of specific books held by the other. Garinas spoke the truth—we don't have a copy of the blasphemy you seek. But if anyone does, it will be the Lower Collection."
"Angels and devils working together," Salim muttered. "I'll be damned."
"You will," the Censor agreed.
Salim rose from his crouch, the point of his sword still at the angel's throat. "The Lady of Graves thanks you for your assistance."
Now to make his exit. Siphoning up the last of the quickly receding pool of darkness inside him, he threw it all into one final command. "Now don't move."
Salim withdrew his sword. When the angel made no motion to rise, he spun on his heel and sprinted back out of the alcove, taking several quick turns as soon as he was out of the frozen angel's sight, trying to angle toward the front of the vault again without retracing his steps. He knew from experience that this particular magic wouldn't last long—either because he was an imperfect vessel for Pharasma's will, or because the cranky old bitch liked to see him squirm. Probably both.
He came out in a larger aisle leading back toward the ovens. He slowed and brought up his hood, then grabbed another book, once more adopting the confident stride of someone with legitimate business.
Now to collect Bors and Roshad and get out of here. He wasn't sure what his bronze-skinned angel—or archon, or azata, or whatever it was—specialized in, but he was sure that it would be highly unpleasant to meet that particular celestial again. At least he now had something new to go on. The Lower Collection. It was a thin lead, but—
"You!"
Salim whirled left and found Garinas barreli
ng down on him, followed by Nemeniah, Malchion, and a half-dozen Censors. Bors and Roshad moved between the twin angels, almost sprinting to keep up with the celestials' long legs. Salim stood still and let the angry mob surround him.
"How dare you?" Garinas's blank white eyes blazed with actual bursts of light as he circled predatorily around Salim. "You overreach, human. You may be your goddess's servant, but the Gray Lady has no direct authority here. We should kill you right now and send your spirit back to her, to explain what you've done."
Salim smiled. "I needed some information, Garinas. This is still a library, isn't it?"
The Head Censor growled and grabbed Salim with both hands, lifting him off his feet. For one horrible second, those huge hands squeezed his chest, and Salim was certain Garinas was going to take his own advice and simply rip Salim in half.
With a snarl, the Head Censor threw him back down, sending him sprawling into Roshad and Bors.
Perfect. Salim smiled again, wider this time, and looped his arms through the two men's, locking elbows. With his right hand, he dug inside his robes and grasped the spiral amulet.
"Thank you again, Garinas," he said. "You and your staff have been wonderfully helpful. I'm sure I'll have more questions for you once I return from the Lower Collection."
"The Lower Collection?" Garinas's jaw dropped. "But how—"
"Hold tight, boys." Salim focused on the spiral in the stone. "Things are about to get a whole lot hotter."
And then they were somewhere else entirely.
paizo.com #3236236, Corry Douglas
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Iron City
They landed in a heap, arms still tangled. Bors and Roshad scrambled to their feet, putting their backs together defensively. Salim lay where he'd fallen, ribs aching where the Head Censor had gripped him.
"Where are we?" Roshad's voice was tight, anxious.
Above, the sky was black. Not the black of night, star-studded or lantern-washed, but a pure, oppressive black that hung low like cloth. Despite the lack of a sun, the ground was still lit with an eerie, directionless light that cast no shadows. The hardpan beneath Salim was cracked and parched, the color and texture of an old scab. Wind tugged at his robes, carrying with it icy grit and the faint sounds of distant screams.
Salim reached up and tucked the amulet back into his robes. "Anyone ever tell you boys to go to hell?"
Roshad's eyes bulged. "We're in Hell?" Next to him, Bors calmly surveyed the sea of low hills and sickly scrub, all dark thorns and weeping sores.
"Part of it," Salim said. "Hell has nine layers, ruled by the nine archdevils. We should be on Dis right now, the domain of the First King."
"Not much of a kingdom," Roshad observed, attempting to regain his usual bluster. He almost succeeded.
"We're still in the Outlands," Salim said. "Even the devils don't have much use for this place, except to train their armies. Let's hope we don't meet any of those."
Slowly, feeling like an old man, Salim hauled himself to his feet and began walking. Bors and Roshad flanked him.
"How do you know where we're going?" Roshad looked around at the maze of broken hills. "There's nothing here but wind."
"We're heading toward the screams," Bors rumbled.
Salim nodded. "We're lucky. The Iron City is close."
"So we're just going to walk into a city of demons?" Roshad demanded. "And you call that lucky?"
"Devils," Salim corrected. "Walk into a city of demons, you're likely to be torn apart before you can get a word in edgewise. Devils are organized. They make laws and obey them. We'll be safe enough in Dis as long as we have legitimate business." They crested a ridge and he pointed. "Look."
Perhaps two miles ahead, the horizon made a right angle, rising up in a wall hundreds of feet high. It stretched away out of view to the left and right, the line of watch fires along its parapets shrinking to pinpricks before vanishing into the distance. Beneath the wall's spiked top, where tiny figures patrolled, the vertical face was a mixture of gray stone, glistening iron, and masses of what looked like brown and pink flesh. As they watched, a section of the wall's foot bulged outward, pulling the fortification with it like an advancing slug.
Behind the wall, an immense tower like a needle-thin cathedral climbed into the darkness, its metal thorns piercing the sky. The roar of a million voices followed it up and out, spilling over the ramparts and echoing across the wastes.
"Gods of light," Roshad breathed. "We're going there?"
"Eventually." Salim switched his attention from the wall to the scattered lights spreading out from it, a sprawling network of dirt-walled slums. He nodded toward the closest one, a single hovel positioned away from the others, near a copse at the bottom of the next hill. A sickly candle wavered in the hut's open window. "First, we rest. Let's see if anyone's home."
The other men followed him down the hill. Roshad's muttered grumbling cut off as they drew close and saw what the stand of stunted, leafless trees had concealed.
A woman hung from one of the trees. She was naked, of middle years, and so emaciated that bones seemed ready to burst through the pale parchment of her skin. Her dark hair hung in wild, dirty strands around her face.
She was also transparent, the rough bark of the tree visible through the misty wisps of her body. She hung face-out from several large thorns driven bloodlessly through her wrists and shoulders, her toes pointed and dangling several feet above the ground.
Between the trees and the hovel lay a long wooden banquet table. Arranged artfully along its blood-red runner were roast pheasants, bowls of steamed vegetables, fruit-studded confections, and more, permeating the air with incongruously delicious aromas. Salim's stomach rumbled.
The woman saw them. Her blank face twisted into a mask of rage, and she opened her mouth to reveal bloody, toothless gums.
"Mine!" she shrieked. "All mine! You can't have any!"
Salim ignored her and walked over to the table. He selected a drumstick and tore it off its chicken. It felt reassuringly solid in his hand. Behind him, the crucified woman screamed in rage.
"Should...should we get her down?" Despite the question, Roshad looked as if approaching the ghostly woman was the last thing he wanted to do.
Salim shook his head. "Don't bother. She'll either be caught and put back, or else appear there again as soon as we leave. And she'd likely attack us anyway. We're in the Ghetto of Outcasts—the punishment for those who were privileged in life, and used that power to take advantage of others. Now they get to steep in their envy for eternity, the things they desire held always out of reach. This table has probably been taunting her for a hundred years."
Roshad relaxed visibly. "So she deserved it."
"I didn't say that." Salim's voice came out sharp, and he softened it. "Who knows? Probably she does. But the gods are fickle, and their doctrines conflict. I trust my own judgment."
"And in your judgment," Bors asked, "it's safe to eat the food of Hell?" He nodded toward Salim's drumstick.
"It wouldn't be much of a taunt if the food were tainted." But the big man had a point. Drawing on the goddess's power once more—just a trickle, this time—Salim guided the energy into the food, then let it flow back into himself. In his mind's eye, a stream of dark water ran clear and cold.
"It's clean," he said. "Eat up."
The Iridian Fold men selected their own meals, though they picked at the fare more gingerly than Salim. Behind them, the covetous soul continued screaming.
When they were finished, Salim turned toward the hovel. In contrast to the fine banquet table, its mud walls enclosed nothing but a single dirt-floored room. The candle burning in the shutterless window did so without seeming to melt its sickly yellow tallow.
"We rest here," he said. "One of you should take the first watch."
"Here?" The trepidation had returned to Roshad's voice. "What if whatever lives here comes home?"
"Let's ho
pe it doesn't."
Bors pulled gently on his end of the chain, drawing Roshad close against his side. "Roshad is right. Shouldn't we keep moving?"
Salim let out a long breath. "We're about to head into the greatest city in Hell, and I'm completely wrung-out. You may have magic in your blood, Roshad, but mine comes from Pharasma, and the crone takes her price. Would you rather sleep here, where it's reasonably remote, or somewhere closer in, where we can barter with a devil for lodging?"
Bors grunted. "I'll take first watch."
"Good man." Salim sat, putting his back to the hut's wall and wrapping his robes around himself. His last image was of Bors and Roshad standing in the open doorway, hand in hand, staring out over the broken landscape. Then his eyelids drooped, and he slept.
∗ ∗ ∗
When Salim woke, Bors was asleep against the opposite wall, Roshad crouched in the doorway facing outward. They'd switched their chain sometime in the night, likely to give themselves more room to stretch out, and it now hung between Bors's outflung left wrist and Roshad's right. The big warrior's eyes snapped open as Salim stirred, and he sat up without any apparent grogginess.
"Better?" he asked.
"Much." Salim stretched, feeling the tendons pop in his shoulders, chilled blood sluggishly making its rounds. His dreams had been less than pleasant—a common feature of Hell—but that was nothing new. "Lets get moving. Or are you hungry?"
Bors shook his head. "The table replenished itself maybe an hour after you fell asleep. One moment it was as we left it, the next it was as we first found it." He frowned. "I don't trust anything in this place."
"Wise." Salim stood, shifting his sword belt back from where it had twisted as he slept. "A devil can be trusted to match the letter of an agreement—but also to find some way to twist it against you. If you ever think you've won here, you're probably deeper in their nets than you realize." He stepped out the door, the Iridian Fold men following. Above, the sky had brightened to an ominous red, though there was still no visible source of light.
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