“What is this place?” asked Mothi with wonder in his voice.
“Looks like a subway station to me, Cousin Mouthy,” quipped Sig. He walked over to one of the red doors and tried the knob. “Locked,” he said with a shrug.
“Welcome to Isi’s domain,” said Farmathr. He swung his leg over his horse’s rump and jumped down. The sound of his feet hitting the floor echoed throughout the chamber.
“That’s quite a claim,” I said.
Farmathr shrugged. “Don’t take my word for it,” he said, pointing at something behind me.
I dismounted and turned. Runes decorated the wall between this room and the antechamber. “Behold the power of Isi,” I read. “Greatest of the Sons of Mim, ruler of the land and everything underneath it. Through his auspices, the Fast Track Travel Network was established under Osgarthr’s skin. Isi welcomes you. The FTTN welcomes you. All praise be to Isi.”
“We can rest here,” said Farmathr. “These couches are much more comfortable than they look.”
“What is the Fast Track Travel Network?” asked Meuhlnir. “Some kind of proo?”
Farmathr chuckled, but not unkindly. “No, not a proo. I’ll show it to you after we’ve rested. I haven’t slept in days.”
“Okay. I’ll stand the first watch,” I said.
Farmathr laughed again. “No need for watches or guards here. There are no threats inside this place, nor can there be.”
“How can you be so sure?” asked Veethar, eyes darting around the big space.
“It’s simple. The guardians of this place have accepted you because I knew the proper incantations. The guardians would have killed off any threats long ago. No enemies exist in this underground realm.”
“How can you be sure?” demanded Frikka. “What would stop an enemy from knowing the proper incantations and entering earlier to lie in wait?”
“The guardians wouldn’t allow it.” Farmathr shrugged. “Set a watch if it makes you more comfortable, but it is a waste of time and effort.”
“Is there wood?” asked Yowrnsaxa. “We haven’t had a hot supper for days and days.”
Farmathr shook his head. “No wood. The guardians will not allow open flame inside the stronghold in any case.”
“Another cold supper,” grumbled Yowrnsaxa. “Wonderful.”
“Nothing for me,” said Farmathr. “I have already eaten.” He turned and walked away from us and fell onto one of the low-slung couches.
Forty-five
I cupped my wings to catch the updrafts from the perpetual storms over the Stormur Syow. Ahead, there was a promontory of black basalt, and a fortress castle of the same stone stood on its pinnacle. A man walked from one building near the outside wall, across the courtyard, and opened a door set in the inner keep’s back wall. He glanced up at me and sneered. The man’s name—Vowli, servant of the Dark Queen and compatriot of Luka—crept into my mind from some unknown source. The name of the fortress—Helhaym—came half a heartbeat later. The castle could only be approached from the west…unless you had wings.
“Well, come on, antafukl. I don’t have all afternoon.” He held out his arm, inviting me to land on his clenched fist, and I felt compelled to do as he wished. Once I’d landed, he turned and entered the main keep, striding down a long hall and into a small square room, containing only the head of a spiral staircase.
Vowli hummed as he descended into the depths below Helhaym. The black stairs spiraled down through the man-made parts of the castle, and deeper through the parts of the castle’s dungeon that had once been caves in the promontory. As he descended, the air got colder and wetter as if the spray from the waves crashing against the base of the cliffs had somehow penetrated through solid stone.
“Why have you come, antafukl? What is it you seek? I do not recognize you. Do you come with a message from Mithgarthr? Have you come from the queen? From Luka?”
I could speak if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to speak to Vowli. I treated him to a crrruck as I imagined any raven would.
Vowli laughed. “So be it.”
When the staircase ended, Vowli stopped, content to let his muscles relax for a moment. The deepest subterranean level of Helhaym swam in darkness, by necessity if not design. “Lyows,” he murmured, and a globe of golden light burst into existence at his shoulder. Despite its color, the light cast no warmth, but rather the opposite.
The floor made the shape of a giant X with the stairwell ending at the center. Vowli strode down the northwestern leg of the X, humming again. He passed empty cell after empty cell—as if he’d wanted the occupant at the end of the corridor to drown in silence and darkness. As he approached the end of the corridor, my sensitive nose picked up the man’s stench—staggering in its potency. “Owtroolekur, you reek of the grave,” he called. “Worse than some of the truykar.” Vowli stepped up to the iron-banded door and peered in through the grate covering a hole the size of a book. “You don’t appear well. Have you eaten?”
“Master, I put out the food, but he won’t eat,” said a young woman in a piping, yet mournful voice. “He doesn’t speak to me, nor gaze upon me. He ignores me.”
Vowli hid a grin by glancing at his feet. “That can’t be true, Edla. You are too delightful.”
“Perhaps I offend him, Master.”
“I’m sure not, Edla. You are a beautiful woman. Succulent. What man could be offended? What do you have to say, Owtroolekur? Does Edla offend you?”
“She does! Send her away!” Owtroolekur croaked.
“Ah, now! Come toward the light and let me survey the sorry state into which you have no doubt fallen.”
I wanted to see through the square window, but Vowli held me well away. I snapped my wings out, intending to fly to his shoulder, but, quick as a snake, he grabbed my feet and held me fast. An annoyed croak flew from my beak instead.
“What is that? Is that a bird?”
Vowli scowled and shook his head. “I wish you would eat, Owtroolekur.”
“You promised to free me.”
Vowli shrugged. “You promised to eat.”
“He has tried, Master. The food makes him sick.”
“Indeed,” said Vowli. “He knows the cure for that problem, don’t you, Owtroolekur? Such recalcitrance. Why do you still resist?”
“You understand why!” he cried.
Vowli shook his head and blew out a breath. “Still? After all these years?”
“Until the day I starve to death!” snapped Owtroolekur.
“Such vehemence. Wasted, I’m afraid, as I am not impressed.”
“In that case, I must try harder.” Something scraped inside the cell, sounding like stone against stone.
“Where did you get the stone?” asked Vowli, sounding bored. “You’ve sharpened the edge of the stone, I see. To what end?”
Edla cried out, and the scent of blood filled the air. Vowli’s nostrils flared. “Oobna,” Vowli muttered, and the door sprang open. “Shut up, woman.”
He set me on the ground. “Frist,” he said, and a coldness crept from the stone floor into my feet. I tried to hop away, but my feet had frozen to the floor.
“He’s killed himself,” whispered Edla. “Did you bring a raven to carry his soul away?”
Vowli turned and strode through the cell door. “He’s done nothing of the sort.” He stopped walking, and his booted feet scraped against the roughhewn floor as he copped a squat. “Lifa ow nee.”
Inside the cell, something twitched violently, and someone gasped. “Why?” he cried.
“I’ve told you more than once, Owtroolekur. I have the power over life and death. You made your choice all those years ago. You swore yourself into the Queen’s service, did you not?”
“Under duress,” whispered Owtroolekur.
Vowli scoffed and pulled Owtroolekur to his feet. “Such trivialities have no merit, Owtroolekur. You will stay in this cell until you eat to sustain yourself, until you honor your vow.”
“Never! I never will!”
“The weight of the years you’ve spent in this cell have taught you nothing? There is no such thing as ‘never.’” Vowli chuckled nastily. “You will eat, Owtroolekur, and when you do, you will see how foolish you’ve been.”
“Never,” repeated Owtroolekur, but his denial lacked conviction.
Vowli’s laughter echoed through the dark recesses of the subterranean dungeon and…
Forty-six
I awoke with the sound of Vowli’s harsh laughter in my ears, and a headache that made me long for a power drill. I sat up on the low couch I’d slept on and rubbed my face.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” said Jane. “Another dream, birdbrain?”
“Yeah. More flying.”
Jane shrugged. “Better than falling.”
“I guess,” I said with a sigh. “But this time, I saw Vowli. He carried me down into the dungeons of Helhaym.”
“Lucky he didn’t eat your liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”
“Don’t make the slurpy sound. You’re horrible at it.”
“Bah. I’m good at everything I do. Don’t you know that by now?”
“Of course, but I can’t let you get The Big Head.”
“Sif says it’s time for your checkup, and you will comply. Resistance is futile.”
“Hannibal Lector and Seven of Nine in the same morning? Give a guy a break.”
“Which arm?” She smirked at me and waved Sif over. “Watch out, Sif, he’s ornery this morning.”
“He’s ornery every morning, isn’t he?”
“Well, there’s that.” Jane walked away, whistling.
“How have you been feeling?” Sif asked while she poked and prodded my joints.
“Good. I didn’t enjoy the forced insomnia, but it was…survivable.”
Sif harrumphed. “I’d say you did more than survive.”
“Yes, I’ve felt much better since you started the anti-inflammatory bacon.”
“Bacon?” she asked with her eyebrow crooked.
“You said you made the anti-inflammatory from pigs. Everyone knows the best thing to come from pigs is bacon, so there you are.”
She shook her head, but I could see the grin in her eyes. “So…you are admitting I was right?”
“Sure,” I said without hesitation.
“Such a refreshing attitude,” she said raising her voice so it would carry to where Meuhlnir lounged on one of the many couches.
“Hank, I wish you’d stop getting me in trouble with my wife!” yelled Meuhlnir.
Sif grinned, patted my shoulder, and left.
I stood and looked around. Veethar had convinced the horses to stay in one corner of the vast room, and they seemed content there. Keri and Fretyi had invented a new game with Sig and Mothi—which amounted to the puppies attacking either Sig or Mothi’s feet, then switching and attacking the other for no discernable reason.
Farmathr watched us all as we performed our morning routines. It was as if he didn’t know how to interact with people anymore. He sat by himself, almost in the shadows near the far end of the room.
I grabbed two pieces of bread and two slices of dried fish that Yowrnsaxa had laid out for breakfast and joined him, sitting across from him in the little conversation grouping he’d set up camp in. He looked at me with a vague smile on his lips.
“Breakfast,” I said, holding out a piece of bread and fish.
He took the food but put it aside, eyes drifting back to the others.
“You’ve been alone for a long time, haven’t you?”
As he looked away, a strange expression crept over his face. “Yes. A long time. Well, alone in all ways that matter.”
“You said before that Vowli imprisoned you somewhere. Was it at Helhaym? A big lump of black basalt near the Stormur Syow?”
He flinched and looked up, raw eyes locking onto my own. “I…I think so. It’s been so long…”
“Do you know how to get back there?”
He shook his head. “No. And I would not take you there if I did. It is a vile place.”
I sighed. “I know it’s not a great spot, but…but I think Vowli has another prisoner there.”
His expression knotted up like a fist, but his eyes blazed. “Why would you think that?”
“It’s…” His reaction perplexed me. Is he angry I asked him about this? Or is it PTSD from being held prisoner? “It may be nothing. I’ve been having these dreams… Dreams about being a bird. I fly different places, see different things, but they seem to be prophetic. I…” I shrugged.
“Being a bird?” His voice was barely above that of a whisper.
“Yeah. In the dream, I’m a raven or something. Probably a silly, meaningless dream, but…”
Farmathr scoffed, and again, his eyes drifted away from mine.
“I dreamed about Helhaym. I saw Vowli, and he took me down into the dungeon caves below the fortress. He spoke to a man in a cell…a man who wanted to die—he even slit his own throat with a piece of sharpened stone, but Vowli resurrected him. He—”
“I don’t want to hear anymore!” Farmathr shot to his feet, scattering the food I’d brought him, and stomped away.
“Sorry!” I called after him, but he didn’t slow, didn’t turn. He strode out of the lobby area, into a darkened hall nestled in the shadows. “At least take your breakfast!”
One of the doors—a blue one—clicked open, and a sound like a cross between a vacuum cleaner and a riding mower sounded from behind it. After a moment, the door swung wide, and through it, I glimpsed a sea of chrome appendages.
A thing made from a nightmarish combination of spider-like limbs, metal tentacles, and an insect-like torso and head, skittered out the door and with a clatter of multi-jointed legs, spun around to face me. It clicked toward me, moving with the slow, careful grace of a ninety-year-old. As it moved, one of its spindly arms contorted, bending back at the wrist to expose a matte-black tube. I got up and backed away, hands automatically seeking the butts of my pistols—which I hadn’t strapped on yet.
“Leave it be!” yelled Farmathr from the darkness at the end of the room. “It just wants to clean.”
The robot aimed the black tube at Farmathr’s spilled food and a high-pitched whine tore the air as a greenish-white bolt of energy flew from the tube and obliterated the mess. There was no smoke, no charred marks on the floor, no sign that the food had ever been there. With a series of clanks, the robot’s hand flipped forward to cover the tube, and the robot pirouetted toward the door from which it emerged and clattered back inside.
“That’s some janitor,” muttered Jane.
Forty-seven
Farmathr returned two hours later. In his absence, we’d packed up, and made ready for another long ride, and Althyof had taught me the basics of enchanting, reviewing the runes I wanted to inscribe on Jane’s golden spear.
Farmathr looked at our preparations with a slight smile on his lips. “Everyone ready?” he asked, looking at each of us in turn. When he got to me, his face was pleasant, as if we’d never spoken about Helhaym. He led us across the long lobby into the darkened area on the far side. The lights on the high ceiling hadn’t fared as well on this side of the room, and shadows reigned. Farmathr strode through a set of wide doors and skipped down three flights of stairs.
“Are all the rooms this smooth?” asked Althyof.
“All the ones I’ve seen are,” said Farmathr.
“Masterful craftsmanship,” Althyof muttered.
“At least we will make better time on horseback,” said Mothi. “Though what the horses will eat is beyond me.”
Farmathr laughed. “Patience,” he said.
Mothi’s expression communicated how much he liked that answer with no room for doubt—or maybe it was being laughed at that offended him. The big Isir shook his head and glanced at me.
“We don’t like surprises overly much, Farmathr,” I said.
He looked my way, and his expression soured a little. “Fine,
fine. We’re almost there, anyway. Your horses won’t eat more than the provisions you’ve brought with you, nor will we ride them. Isi built a wonder down here in the dark. A barge that rides the air and travels faster than a man can ride. It will take us far to the north before nightfall.”
“Is it safe after all this time?” asked Jane.
Farmathr shrugged. “The ‘lectrics and plasms can be wicked and deadly if let out to run, but they are both safe enough trapped in their tiny tubes, as they are in the tunnel we will use.”
“I meant the train, or whatever it is. Are the tracks maintained? Are the tunnels free of debris?”
Farmathr shrugged again. “They leave no tracks. Either the tunnels are clear, or they aren’t. They were the last time I rode the FTTN. We’ll know more when we see the platform, won’t we?”
The expression on my wife’s face matched Mothi’s, but she didn’t pursue it.
We followed him down a tunnel wide enough for us to all walk side by side, and out onto the universe’s biggest subway platform. The platform perched between two parallel tunnels. To the left, the tunnel ran north, while the tunnel to the right ran south. In the left-hand tunnel, a huge, rectangular platform furnished with conversation pits that matched those found in the lobby above, hung in midair. In the tunnel that ran to the south, the platform lay in its berth but canted to the side at a dangerous angle.
“You see?” Farmathr bubbled like a child, almost hopping from foot to foot in his excitement. “Isn’t it grand? Isn’t it magnificent?”
Jane’s gaze lingered on the northbound platform. “What happened there?”
“Oh, who knows,” snapped Farmathr. “It’s always been that way.”
Veethar looked down the southbound tunnel. “Where is the terminus of this platform?”
Farmathr shrugged—it was becoming his signature gesture. “Remember what I said about the ‘lectrics and the plasms? They run free on that side so I wouldn’t recommend exploring that tunnel.”
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 81
