The Company of Glass

by Tricia Sullivan

  ‘Pentar, you might have to knock him out for his own protection,’ Istar said, and then stuck out her arm to prevent Pentar taking the remark literally, for he was already on his way to obey her.

  ‘All right, I’ll go,’ she said. ‘It can’t be any worse than any of the other nasty tunnels I’ve been down today.’

  To her surprise, when she got inside the well, it wasn’t filled with water at all, but with light. And there was a ladder set in the side of the shaft. Pleased, she climbed down it. She called back to Xiriel but could no longer see any of the others; this sort of thing was ceasing to bother her very much and she climbed on down blithely until she reached a flat area with turnings going in several directions. None of the openings was high enough to permit her to stand up; they were all crawlways.

  She picked one at random and started down it. It was made of warm grey stone and it twisted and turned smoothly, not unlike the H’ah’vah tunnel. Then it opened into what seemed a perfectly ordinary room that might well have been part of Jai Khalar. There were tapestries on the walls and a locked door at the far end. Knowledge-lights glowed from ornate sconces in the walls.

  Istar turned and went back the way she had come to call the others. No one answered. She climbed back up the ladder and poked her head out into a rainstorm. Thunder sounded through the walls of the well. Rain pelted down, and the sea below could be heard like a whole flock of dragons. She climbed out all the way, still calling. Nobody.

  It was dark.

  ‘Xiriel? Pallo?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Damn you fools, did you follow me and pick different tunnels? What is this, a picnic? Why do you idiots have to go getting ideas of your own?’

  She paused, wiped rain off her face that was soon replaced by even more of the infernal downpour.

  ‘Pentar?’

  She would have been glad to see even him, but there was no one there.

  Then she picked out black shapes moving among the wreckage. She opened her mouth to call out again, but something silenced her. These were not her friends. There were too many of them, and they moved silently, and they scared the shit out of her. She ducked back inside the well and slid down the ladder without using the rungs at all.

  A pool of rainwater should have collected at the bottom by now, but it hadn’t. Her hair and clothes were soaked, but the floor was bone-dry except for the puddle she made.

  ‘Pallo? Kassien?’

  She hissed the question, afraid of being overheard from above. Although it was warm and dry here, her teeth were chattering with anxiety.

  ‘Pallo, you’d better not be dead,’ she warned.

  Bugs?

  Pallo was not dead. On the contrary: couchant on a silken divan, he was having his feet massaged and being fed exotic fruits by a woman with eight breasts and a tail. He was pleased with himself, but only because he assumed he was dreaming.

  ‘I am fond of you,’ she said.

  ‘Really?’ he asked with his mouth full. ‘That’s nice. I wonder what this is all about.’

  ‘As do all of us,’ she said gravely, and dropped something red and delicious on to his tongue. ‘I think you should consider looking at these.’

  She moved away from him and he sat up. She came and knelt at his feet with an enormous book.

  ‘You don’t have to sit at my feet,’ he protested, embarrassed.

  ‘Don’t talk,’ she said. ‘Just look.’

  He obeyed – who wouldn’t?

  It was a book of maps: maps of many places far and near, but especially maps of islands, and a city that travelled forever, made all of glass.

  ‘Ah,’ said Pallo in a pleased tone. ‘This is lovely of you.’

  ‘I know many things,’ she purred, stroking his forehead. ‘I have travelled in many places.’

  He flipped through the pages, his brow wrinkling as he suddenly had a thought.

  ‘Say – you wouldn’t happen to know anything about the rusted nail beetle of Ristale, would you?’

  ‘The what?’ She popped a strawberry in his mouth and he chewed slowly, savouring it.

  ‘The rusted nail beetle. They’re insects. You know. Bugs.’

  She drew back from him. ‘Bugs?’

  ‘Yeah, they’re my favourite. I’d love to know …’ He caught himself, belatedly noticing that her expression was no longer so adoring.

  ‘You mock my gift!’ she accused.

  ‘N-no! Not at all!’

  When she drew herself up to her full height, she was quite large, he realized. Quite long, and her tail had a sting on the end of it, which was now quivering as she flexed the muscles of her back.

  ‘I’m sorry, I meant no offence, really!’

  She brought her nails together and they sparked; a tiny dancing light appeared between the tips of her forefinger and thumb.

  ‘Come here, my sweet,’ she beckoned. ‘If you like bugs, then you must come into my little world.’

  ‘That’s not necessary,’ he demurred, backing away. He didn’t stand a chance.

  For Her Prince to Come

  Ajiko spent the morning explaining to the Council of Elders why he was taking the hard line with Tash; fielding questions about the Eyes; and vainly asking everybody for some kind of insight as to where all the mice and other miscellaneous animals were coming from.

  ‘Jai Khalar is besieged within and without,’ he jested. ‘Does anyone have any ideas about the cause?’

  Yanise murmured something from the sidelines about the Animal Magic, but none of the others had anything to say. Half of them were dozing, too old to stay awake all morning without refreshments; the other half fidgeted, waiting for their chance to pester him about getting rid of the Pharician invaders. He had no plans to do so for the moment, so he adjourned the meeting abruptly and slipped out with the air of someone who has just remembered he has other, more urgent, business. He hoped to elude the old men of the Council this way; but he could not elude Sendrigel, who was lurking in the hall waiting for the meeting to end. Sendrigel came running after him. ‘Tash’s men are camped in the field below. Only two hundred, but they ride desert warhorses and carry the red halberds of Hezene’s highest order.’

  ‘Horses cannot harm us in a castle,’ Ajiko said, unperturbed. ‘Let them graze all they want. Let them grow fat on our grass. We can wait.’

  ‘This is only the beginning,’ Sendrigel said darkly. ‘How can you be so nonchalant? If we negotiate now, we can hope to retain some control. But I am sure Tash’s threat is not idle. Hezene will have sent more troops behind these; this is only the foreguard.’

  ‘Let them come. I think this Tash is bluffing.’ The general started walking away from the crowd of officials and clerks and hangers-on. His guards flanked him on either side; they stuck to him everywhere he went.

  ‘What?’ Sendrigel trailed after them, bouncing on to his toes to look at Ajiko over the heads of the guards.

  ‘I’m not convinced he’s one of Hezene’s boys. He could be one of the Circle, looking to capitalize on our misfortune and using Hezene’s name, and our isolation, to frighten us.’

  ‘I have no information pointing to such a conclusion,’ Sendrigel stated, huffing as they climbed the stairs. ‘Why do you appoint me to monitor affairs in Pharice if you aren’t going to listen to what I have to say?’

  ‘I didn’t appoint you.’ Ajiko answered. ‘But I’m operating on a hunch. I just don’t believe this Tash is telling the truth. He’s overeager.’

  ‘A hunch? What’s come over you, man? You’re not yourself, having these fanciful ideas. What’s put this wishful thinking into your head?’

  Ajiko shrugged and kept walking. He turned into a courtyard but just as quickly spun round and left it: the fountain with its ornamental sailsnakes had clogged and was overflowing everywhere. He began looking for an alternate route to the battlements.

  ‘You don’t think the king is going to somehow save us, do you?’

  Ajiko said nothing.

  ‘Aji
ko, you behave like a girl who keeps herself virgin waiting for her prince to come back from war. Lerien’s not coming back! And if he does, the Council won’t have him for king any more. It’s time we had a change.’

  ‘I will never give Everien to Pharice.’

  ‘Then you are stupid. They can help us.’ Sendrigel swerved to avoid a posse of purposeful-looking mice and followed Ajiko into a work hall filled with looms and girls hard at work weaving. He nodded apologies to them and touched his head; one or two looked vaguely amused as the armoured men crossed the room slowly, avoiding the looms.

  ‘Helps knocks on the back door,’ Ajiko replied. ‘It doesn’t come crashing through the roof with fire in its jaws. You like the Pharicians too well, Sendrigel. For all I know, you have been plotting with them all along.’

  ‘Now hold on a second—’

  ‘Lock him up,’ said Ajiko crisply. His guards leaped to do his bidding. The looms fell silent. Girls stared, openmouthed.

  ‘General, have you gone mad? You act like a despot! The Council—’

  ‘Oh, stuff the Council – they’re halfway there already. As for you, maybe a dark cell will foster your creativity and you will think of a more profitable means by which to get us out of this jam with Hezene.’ There were a few gasps at his hard tone. From the corner came a feminine snicker of appreciation.

  ‘But—’

  ‘If not, at least I don’t have to worry about tracking down a traitor.’

  ‘I’m not a traitor!’ Sendrigel cried as they dragged him off before the astonished eyes of the weavers.

  ‘Then you’d better start thinking,’ Ajiko called after him. The girl in the corner laughed again; he glanced in her direction and saw that she was plump, and young, and red-haired. He adjusted his cloak self-consciously and swept on through the room without the guards. There were a few titters. Under his dark skin, he blushed.

  A Bearskin Cloak

  There was no point in staying in the intersection. Istar hurried down a different passage from the one she’d taken before; this one, too, was grey and plain. It let out into a room identical to the one she had left. She rattled the handle of the locked door. Cursing and dripping, she returned to the bottom of the well and took the third passage, with the same result.

  ‘Is this on your map, Xiriel?’ She addressed the air at large in a sarcastic tone. Then she took out her sword and hacked at the door until she could get a hand through. Ignoring the splinters, she unlocked the door from inside and jerked it open.

  The room she entered was richly appointed with velvet brocade and deep carpets. Knowledge-lights cast a subdued glow over an ornately carved bed draped with red silk, a tall wardrobe whose dark wood gleamed with polish, and a dressing table and chair with beautiful inlays of leaves and flowers in blond wood. A fire had been set but not lit; on the mantelpiece was a single unused candle and a matchbox. There were no other doors, but there was a curtained window holding a single, thick pane of glass that looked out over a twilit sea. Rain beat against it. The floorboards of the room creaked beneath the carpet when Istar walked on it.

  She felt completely out of place. She searched the dressing table, but all the bottles and jars seemed only to contain perfumes and other unguents unfamiliar to her. She sniffed and abandoned them. She lit the candle.

  Something dark writhed inside it, as if an insect had been trapped there and was burning. She stared. It was Pallo in miniature, as tiny and precise as Dhien’s bear. She called his name and he spun in circles, burning.

  ‘The hole’s not big enough,’ he screamed back, and his voice was as tiny as his form. ‘You have to enlarge it.’

  ‘How? Where are you?’

  She jerked her face back from the candle, baffled, and the flame flared brighter in the draft of her movement.

  ‘That’s it!’ he cried. ‘More! Bigger!’

  She fanned it again and as the flame flared larger, so did Pallo.

  ‘It’s still too small,’ he sobbed, beating at the flames around himself. By all rights he should be dead by now, Istar thought. It couldn’t be a real flame.

  ‘Bigger!’ screamed Pallo in agonized tones. As far as he was concerned, the fire was real.

  She bent and lit the fire on the hearth. Pallo appeared in the flames curled up and clutching something protectively to his abdomen. He was larger than before, and huddled in a ball.

  ‘Now I get it,’ Istar said, and held the candle to the fringes of the bedsheet. The flame didn’t catch right away. She went to the dressing table and doused the bedclothes with perfume and oil. This time the fire caught instantly, roaring high over the magnificent bed. Pallo rolled out of the fire, himself alight, clutching a large album to his breast. Istar dragged him from the room and out into the grey passage, beating at him with her cloak. It wasn’t really necessary; the flames disappeared as soon as they left the room, and Pallo was unscathed except for the real singeing his hair had taken earlier.

  ‘I got some maps!’ he announced, and held up the book.

  ‘How—?’

  ‘But they’re all burned,’ he added miserably.

  ‘Where are the others? How did you get inside a candle?’

  ‘I think I made her angry,’ Pallo answered dreamily. ‘She turned out to be so unkind! But Istar, the places I saw when she was burning them all! She shrank me into the map. It was the strangest thing—’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure it was. Where are the others?’

  ‘Oh – the others. After you went down, the leader of the army made a bridge extend, and they started crossing over. So we climbed down and Kassien and Pentar went down one tunnel, Xiriel took another, and I took a third. Here, I’ll show you.’

  When she looked at Pallo’s book of maps, Istar had to agree that they weren’t of much use; still, without Xiriel around, they were better than nothing. She was able to locate their position now, and according to the map, although the four doors at the ends of the four grey passages looked the same, they weren’t. One led to a maze of tunnels ending in a large cavern with a picture of a snake for its label. Another led to a small chamber that Istar guessed must have been the bedchamber where she’d found Pallo. The other led to a wide tunnel and thence into a series of rooms that had writing on them; this section of the map was burned, and neither of them could read the writing, although Istar recognized some of the characters as similar to the ones on the bridges Xiriel had manipulated.

  When they got back to the intersection at the bottom of the well, a wet trail led off in the direction of the door that led to the writing.

  ‘I think Kassien and Pentar went this way,’ whispered Pallo.

  ‘Did anyone follow you down?’

  ‘No. They must think this is an ordinary well.’

  ‘Good. Let’s go get Kassien.’

  They found the wooden door broken open and swinging from one hinge, and using Knowledge-lights they stole from the walls, they followed Pallo’s map into a large central room. They emerged into a chamber with a high ceiling, lit from a bright beam coming down a shaft near its centre. In each of the walls were either doors or open passageways leading into darkness through which the wind whistled to eddy unpredictably around the metal and ceramic rigging that littered the area. There were cylinders of various sizes, and ropes made of metal, and frames and poles all jumbled together. Istar had seen the like of such junk in the Fire Houses, but she had never understood what it was all for and at the moment, all she could think was that there were a lot of hiding places for enemies in the shadows. Towards the far end of the hall, a large metallic structure had been overturned against one wall, blocking a door.

  As they entered the room, Kassien and Pentar stepped out from the shadows where they’d been hiding. Pallo pointed to the blocked door. ‘That’s the way we’re supposed to go,’ he said, showing Kassien his charred map. ‘It looks like this shaft might lead back to the surface, but it’s a bit hard to be sure …’

  Kassien swatted the book away. ‘Useless documents
,’ he said. ‘We’d be better off following one of those open tunnels. Where’s Xiriel?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Istar said, and then the light from the shaft above began to move, just as if the shaft itself were moving. It picked up speed, dodged from side to side, and whirled around them, giving them the impression that they were inside a globe being spun and the light-filled shaft was therefore sending its beam into different parts of the cavern. This was impossible, of course – they had no sensation of moving – but it would be equally impossible for the shaft to be moving. Yet the light flew overhead, and the skeletal forms around them cast shadows every which way. Everything danced and changed, and there was a hissing noise that, like the light, seemed to locate itself in different places at whim.

  Pallo said, ‘Does anyone else hear boots?’

  Istar looked at Kassien and the light flashed off his teeth and eyes. Then shadows hid him. She was apprehensive. Their eyes had no time to fix on their surroundings, in which there were a hundred blind spots and hiding places. They could be easily surrounded.

  ‘Let’s climb the shaft,’ Pentar said suddenly. ‘Quick. Come on.’

  He hurled a line into the light, pulled it back; threw it again; pulled it back and threw it again, but each time the light moved and the hook came clattering back to him. At last it caught and held. Pentar stepped back. ‘Go on, Pallo – you say you know the way.’

  ‘There’s someone here,’ Kassien said, whirling and drawing his sword. Pallo leaped on the rope and began to shinny up; but the shaft and the light and now the rope continued to rove around the cavern at high speed. Pallo was taken along for the ride, whipping through the air as if being dragged by a powerful beast. Yet he clung to the rope and made his way closer to the light. The others crouched with their arms out for balance, disoriented by the impossible motion. Kassien had begun to stalk among the metallic structures, perfectly balanced even as the others were nearly nauseous with sensory confusion.