Touching the Void

by R. J. Davnall

when the cellar gave way to caves. A thick steel panel, eight feet high and half that wide, had been torn clean through and bent out of the way; its twin lay on the uncut stone beyond, its microscopic structure oddly quiescent against the surrounding, stressed rock. The footing in the caves was rougher, but at least the lack of straight lines removed the impression that he walked on a floor sloped at angles the First Realm lacked words for.

  Rel's footsteps scuffed back from the darkness ahead as drawn-out, bloated whispers. Lack of a breeze made the air lifeless despite a chill that was oddly soothing. It took the worst of the sting from his developing headache. Here and there, water glistened with reflected gloom, running silently down the walls. It was all Rel could do not to hold his breath.

  A few signs remained that the tunnels had once seen human use - broken fittings in twisted steel dotted the walls, and in a few places there were still the remains of a crude artificial floor, metal grating wrecked by some effect or other of the Realmcrash. The destruction was too haphazard to have been deliberate, but where had the rest of the wreckage gone? It was unlikely to have been salvaged; any scavenger would have had the hefty doors first.

  In tiny clues that would have taxed even most Clearseers, he followed Rissad's trail; a pebble that had scratched the floor as it rebounded from the other man's boot, a drop of water diverted from its path by grease transferred from his skin where he'd stopped to lean on the wall. Rel spared thought for a grim, tight smile. Let Dora and Taslin try to follow his trail this way. Even Taslin probably couldn't manage that.

  He'd catch Rissad himself, and then there'd be no need to sort things out with the local Four Knot, and they couldn't humiliate him into apologising. Dora had provoked him. Anger was a fair enough response, even if he regretted lashing out quite so fiercely.

  A flash of light - ordinary, honest-to-goodness, real light - brought Rel's mind back to the present. Just for the moment's relief, and to check he hadn't imagined it, he blinked away Clearsight. Darkness was like a warm towel about his face and shoulders, infinitely comforting. Even the strain as his eyes adjusted to pick out the faint glow of a distant, approaching torch was welcome. And torch it was, from the flickering. Where the cave turned the corner ahead, an orange glow began to rise, flecked with glimmers of white-gold where the walls were wet.

  Rel took a deep breath and wriggled his feet in his boots to make sure they were squarely planted. No need for this to turn into a confrontation, since his job sent him here, but Wildren were never predictable at the best of times and the Wildren guarding the Abyss were already well outside the terms of the peace. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his arms out, conscious that a fortnight of sleeping rough had left stiffness that might well impair his agility.

  He was just reaching the thought that this could be a town guard sent after him at Dora's behest when the torch rounded the corner, in the hands of something unmistakably inhuman. The Wilder moved smoothly across the tops of four stumpy legs that despite their tree-trunk proportions stuck out sideways like a spider's. Above that, a torso leaned forward, topped by an uncanny, triangular, thick-set head. Despite its imposing mass - the head, even bowed, barely cleared the roof of the cave- the creature made little more sound than Rel had.

  Rel recognised it; it, or another of its species, had been the Wilder to capture Rissad, perhaps only a few days before. He let out his breath, took another. The Wilder stopped short well shy of looming range, and Rel told himself he wasn't really relieved. It was just nice to be able to look the thing in the eyes, or whatever they were.

  It said, "Clearseer." Its voice was flat and bland, the voice of a Wilder not well-practiced at speaking to humans. Looking at it, Rel guessed it rarely needed speech to make its point. It went on, "I apologise. Humans cannot come further here."

  The torch probably gave enough light to banish the worst effects of the darkness on his Clearsight. Rel stepped forward, pushing back into his Gift, fighting down the shiver of nerves. The Wilder opposite didn't actually move, but Rel clearly saw caution brace its stance. He said, "I'm acting on a Clearviewing I had two weeks ago. You've taken a human captive here?"

  "Yes. He trespassed." It took the Wilder a long moment's pause to find that last word. It continued, "If you do not go back, I must arrest you as well."

  Tentatively, knowing the Wilder would sense it, Rel looked a little way forward in time, trying to judge his adversary's capabilities. Clearsight should warn him of a coming attack, but Clearseers had died to sudden attacks before. This Wilder promised little danger, though, beyond the strength written in its frame. Rel said, "You have no power of arrest here. If you continue to interfere with my job, I will be forced to take you in for censure." Better not to think about the tangle that would create, since then he would have to make himself known to the Four Knot.

  "You cannot go further. It will not be safe for you."

  "So I've heard." The Wilder wouldn't pick up the sarcasm in Rel's acknowledgement. "Still, I'm a trained Clearseer and I know my job. Let me pass."

  "I cannot do so." It managed a clumsy shake of its head. Rel frowned, suddenly conscious of how used he'd become to Taslin's fierce grace with the performance of human emotion. Still, there could be no backing down for the sake of this Wilder's awkwardness. Rel steadied himself and leaned forward slightly, braced for the lunge that would have to come next.

  He pushed his Clearsight ahead in time again, searching for the direction that would keep him out of the Wilder's crushing grasp. In his previous Clearviewing, the thing had picked Rissad up as if he weighed nothing at all, but Rissad was no Clearseer. The creature in front of Rel would have weaknesses like any other of its kind.

  Five seconds into the future, the lunge came, made unwieldy by the torch the Wilder didn't drop. Its arm would swipe across the passage, and if Rel didn't cling on it would throw him against the wall and knock him out. Rel took two of those seconds to measure the difference between going for the Wilder's right and left ankles - the right stood on looser footing, as the creature's attack shifted its weight left - then leaned forward, ready to drop.

  The swipe came, and Rel threw himself down under it, judging exactly how low to go by the drag of air as the Wilder tried to lower its aim. Just barely, Rel kept his knees off the stone, shifting so he could drive his shoulder forward at the creature's shin. Impact shoved the leg back, twisting at the high arachnid knee, and Rel grabbed, lifting and straining to shift the Wilder's balance further.

  It dropped the torch with a clatter and Rel had time to grab the second's future-sight that showed him the next blow chopping down. Above him, the Wilder was still off-balance, and through the shaggy leg-fur Rel could make out the shape of tendons under strain. While air surged in fraught eddies away from the arm descending on him, Rel risked an extra fraction of a second to waiting.

  The torch guttered, painting the ankle that was his target a dark cherry-red that the most primeval part of Rel's mind read as purely evil. Just under six and a half feet away. He rolled sideways, feeling the Wilder's instinctive Second-Realm curse twist the Realmspace near the ceiling, and stabbed with straight fingers into the hollow at the back of its heel.

  His fingers bent sharply as the shock travelled up his arm, but the Wilder's leg spasmed and gave way. Rel rolled again, came up spitting grit, and hopped backwards, clear, as the creature crashed to the floor with a bellow. Still wary, Rel leapt over the now-outstretched limb and gave himself some distance, ready for another round if the Wilder forced him to it.

  The creature knew it was beaten, though, and its struggle to regain its footing was all backwards motion. It swept up the torch and dashed into the darkness with a surprising turn of speed given its limp. Few sentient Wildren were stupid enough to stand toe-to-toe with a Clearseer for long.

  Rel let his breathing settle, a fierce, toothy grin on his face. He flexed his wrist and fingers, working the ache loose. It felt good, after two weeks of awkward diplomacy and provocation, to go through the simpler s
ide of his job. He should, technically, be pursuing the Wilder and arresting it, but Rissad conveniently took priority.

  The tunnel returned to the shifting, uneasy pattern of hard matter in darkness and Rel pressed on. The Wilder had scuffed some parts of the tunnel that might have hidden clues to Rissad's route, but there were few junctions and Rel only had to backtrack a couple of times. He gritted his teeth against the building headache and tried not to worry about facing Dora again.

  Dizziness began to build as the cave walls continued to assail him with the suggestion of ripples and tremors. He focussed on the solid, steady feeling coming up through his boots, all but ignoring the confusing sights piling in through his ice-numbed eyes. Provided he paid enough attention to keep spotting the tiny clues - there, the shimmer of stone was muted by a fine layer of leather particles scraped from the bottom of Rissad's boot - he could maintain sanity by relying on senses his Gift didn't augment.

  Clinging to the confidence that came from seeing off the Wilder, Rel went back over everything he knew about what he was walking into. The Gift-Givers prevented humans from coming to the Abyss, Taslin said, because it was dangerous. But the Wilder on guard had said Rissad had been arrested for trespassing. And Rel had seen with his own eyes the mysterious Witnessing that showed Rissad being beaten and left to starve.

  Was Rissad really up to no good? All Rel knew for sure was that the other man had come here looking for something. It was easy to think that because Rissad's younger brother Chag had terrorised half a dozen towns on his northward rampage, Rissad had to be bad news. The Van Raighan name was tarnished with all sorts of dark rumours, but no-one really knew what Chag thought he was doing.

  And the Gift-Givers were clearly doing far more than preventing humans falling into the chasm here. It was possible that Rissad's incarceration had resulted from a misunderstanding, but you could never rely on the simple explanation with Wildren, and there were too many unknowns to trust so innocent an answer. Rissad clearly knew something important about the Abyss.

  Rel fought down a gurgle in his stomach that had nothing to do with hunger, the sound loud enough to echo faintly from the darkness. For the Gift-Givers to keep something like the Abyss so completely secret from humanity suggested there was something here they were really worried about, and whether it was a threat to them, humanity or both, he was walking towards it with only his wit to guide him.

  Still, he'd look pretty pitiful going back to Vessit for help now. He had to at least bring back proof that the Children of the Wild were up to something at the Abyss. Resisting the urge to wince as his headache cranked up a notch, pulsing at the back of his eye, he rubbed a hand across his brow. To Clearsight in darkness, his skin was a night sky, sparkling with stars. Could it be very much further to the Abyss itself?

  Disoriented as a fresh wave of distortion swept through his Gifted vision of the rock around him, Rel staggered, threw out a hand to steady himself against the wall. Long practice let him resist blinking, so he failed to miss the pattern in the illusion that looked like a curved sword-blade. When it scattered a spray of pebbles from the solid stone of the wall, Rel's blood went cold.

  Clearsight revealed the new-cut faces of the chips just dislodged. His chance impression had sliced them effortlessly from the bedrock. It could only be wild power, Second-Realm power mixing erratically with First-Realm logic, and that meant a Sherim nearby. Nothing else could twist First Realmspace like that.

  There were all sorts of