“It takes youth. It takes confidence. It takes brashness. Most of all, it takes a huge ration of stupidity and a lot of luck.”
“Then why don’t we just sit down here and let those sterling qualities carry Tobo through? Though I confess I’m a little nervous about his supply of luck.”
“I’m tempted, Sleepy. Sorely and sincerely. He needs the lesson.” Troubled, perhaps even a little frightened, he continued, “But he’s got the pickax and the Company needs him. He’s the future. Me and One-Eye are today and yesterday.” He started picking up the pace again, which meant a rapid heightening of the intensity of my skirmish with the standard.
“What do you mean, he’s the future?”
“Nobody lives forever, Sleepy.”
The burst of speed did not last. We encountered a mist that complicated the hazards of darkness. The visibility turned nil and the footing became particularly treacherous for a short person trying to drag a long pole down a tight and unpredictable stairway. The moist air was heavier than anything I had experienced since the fogs above the corpse-choked flood that had surrounded Jaicur during the siege.
A chilling shriek came from far back up the stair. My mind flooded with images of horrors pouncing gleefully upon Suvrin and Master Santaraksita.
The shriek continued, approaching faster than any human being could possibly descend that stairway. “What the hell is that?” Goblin snapped.
“I don’t—” The shrieking stopped. At the same time, I stepped down and there was no more down to step. I staggered, betrayed by the darkness. The Lance banged into overhead and wall. We had reached another landing, I assumed, until I felt around with my toes and the standard and could find no more edge. “What do you have over there?” I asked.
“Steps behind me. A wall to the right that goes forward about six feet, then ends. All level floor.”
“I’ve got a wall on the left that just keeps going on and a level floor. Gah!” Something slammed into my back. I had only an instant of warning, the sound of wings violently flapping as a large bird tried to stop before it hit.
The white crow cursed as it landed on the floor. It flopped around for a moment, then started climbing me. That would have been a sight, I am sure, had there been any light to reveal it.
I fought down an impulse to bat the creature into the darkness. I hoped it was here to help. “Tobo!”
My voice rolled away into the distance, then came back in a series of echoes. The heavy air seemed to load those up with despair.
The boy did not answer but he did move. Or something moved. I heard a rustle from less than twenty feet away.
“Goblin. Talk to me about this.”
“We’ve been blinded. By sorcery. There’s light out there. I’m working on getting our sight back. Give me your hand. Let’s stick together.”
The crow murmured, “Sister, sister. Walk straight ahead. Look bold. You will pass through the darkness.” Its diction had improved dramatically over the past year. Maybe that was because we were so much closer to the force manipulating the bird.
I felt around for Goblin, grabbed hold, pulled, dropped the standard, picked it up and pulled again. “All right. I’m ready.”
That crow knew what it was talking about. After a half dozen steps we transited into a lighted ice cavern. Make that comparatively lighted. Dim, grey-blue light leaked in through translucent walls as though it was high noon just on the other side of a few feet of ice. Much more light radiated from the vicinity of the woman asleep on a bier at the center of the vast chamber, some seventy feet away. Tobo stood halfway between us and it, looking backward, completely surprised to see us there and equally baffled as to where there might be.
“Don’t you move, boy,” Goblin snapped. “Don’t you even take a deep breath until I tell you it’s safe to do so.”
The form on the bier was a little fuzzy, as though surrounded by heat shimmer. And in spite of that, I knew the woman lying there was the most beautiful creature in the world. I knew that I loved her more than life itself, that I wanted to rush over there and drink deeply of those perfect lips.
The white crow sneezed in my ear.
That certainly took the edge off the mood.
“Where have we seen all this before?” Goblin asked, voice dripping sarcasm. “She must be awfully weak or she’d pluck something better from our minds than a replay of an old Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. There isn’t a castle built like this anywhere south of the Sea of Torments.”
“A castle? What? What castle?” The word for castle did not exist in Taglian or Jaicuri. I knew it meant a kind of fortress only because I had spent so much time exploring the Annals.
“We seem to be inside the keep of an abandoned castle. There’re dormant rose creepers all over the place. There’re tons of cobwebs. In the middle of everything is a beautiful blonde woman lying in an open casket. She just begs to be kissed and brought back to life. The part that always gets ignored, and that our ungracious hostess has overlooked here, is that the bitch in the story almost certainly was a vampire.”
“That isn’t what I see.” Carefully, detail by detail, I described the ice cave and the absolutely not blonde woman I saw lying upon a bier at its center. While I spoke, Goblin finally worked some subtle spell on Tobo that kept him too confused to move.
Goblin asked, “Do you remember your mother, Sleepy?”
“I vaguely recall a woman who might have been. She died when I was little. Nobody talked about her.” We did not need to go into this. We had work to do right here, right now. I hoped he got that message from my tone and expression.
“What do you want to bet that what you’re seeing is an idealized vision of your mother charged up with a whole lot of sexual come-hither.”
I did not argue. That might be. He knew the artifices of darkness. I did keep moving forward slowly, closing in on Tobo.
“Which would mean that up close and quickly, she doesn’t have a real good connection with what’s outside her.” Two decades ago it had become clear that Kina did not think or work well in real time, that she did best when she applied her influence over years rather than minutes. “I’m too old to be snared by temptations of the flesh and you’re too unsexed and undefined.” He grinned weakly. “The kid, on the other hand, is at that age. I’d give a toe or two to see what he sees. Ruff!” He gestured. Tobo collapsed like a wet sock. “Grab the hammer. Hang onto it hard. Don’t get any closer to her than you absolutely have to. Drag Tobo back to the doorway.” He sounded old and hollow and possessed by a despair that he did not want to share.
“What’s going on, Goblin? Talk to me.” This was a situation where we ought not to keep dangers to ourselves.
“We’re face-to-face with the great manipulator who’s been disfiguring our lives for twenty-five years. She’s very slow but she’s far more dangerous than anything we’ve faced before.”
“I know that.” But my reaction was elation. My spirits soared. All my hidden doubts, kept so carefully submerged for so long, now seemed trivial, even silly. This lovely creature was no god. Not like my God is God. Forgive me my weakness and my doubts, O Lord of Hosts. The Darkness is everywhere, and dwells within us all. Forgive me now, when the hour of my death stares me in the face.
In Forgiveness He is Like the Earth.
I grabbed hold of Tobo’s arm and yanked him upright. I clutched him as tightly as I gripped the standard. He would not break away easily. Disoriented, he did not struggle when I pulled him back from the sleeping form.
I averted my eyes. She was beauty incarnate. To gaze upon her was to love her. To love her was to dedicate oneself to her will, to lose oneself within her. O Lord of the Hours, watch over and guard me in the presence of the spawn of al-Shiel.
“I need the pickax, Tobo.” I tried not to think about why I wanted that unholy tool. At this distance Kina might be able to pluck that right out of my mind.
Moving slowly, Tobo removed the pick from under his shirt and handed it over. “Got it!” I told Goblin.
br />
“Then get going!”
As I started to do that, Suvrin and Santaraksita, gasping violently, stumbled into the light. Both froze, staring at Kina. In soft awe, Suvrin declared, “Holy shit! She’s gorgeous!”
Master Santaraksita seemed to be experiencing some confusion as he stared.
Suvrin started forward, drooling. I popped him in the funny bone with the dull end of the pick head. That not only got his attention, it relaxed his overwhelming interest in Kina. “Mother of Deceivers,” I told him. “Mistress of Illusion. Turn around. Get the boy out of here. Take him back to his mother. Sri, don’t make me hurt you, too.”
Something like a bit of mist rose from and hovered over the sleeping woman’s mouth. For an instant it seemed vaguely man-shaped, which reminded me of afrits, the unhappy ghosts of murdered men. Millions of such devils could be at Kina’s beck.
“Run, goddamnit!” Goblin said.
“Run,” the crow told me.
I did not run. I got hold of Santaraksita and started pulling.
Goblin was talking to himself, something about wishing he had had the good sense to steal One-Eye’s spear if he was going to get himself into something like this.
“Goblin!” I heaved the standard. It was not my intent that it do so, but it stood straight up and bounced a couple of times on its butt before it tipped forward and fell into the little wizard’s eager hands. He turned with it as the illusions surrounding Kina evaporated.
90
If Kina was ever human, if any of the countless forms of myth regarding her creation indeed resembled fact, a lot of work had gone into making her big and ugly.
She is the Mother of Deceivers, Sleepy. The Mother of Deceivers. That great hideous form covered with pustules from which infant skulls suppurated could no more be the true aspect of Kina than the sleeping beauties had been.
The stench of old death became powerful.
I stared at the body, now lying upon the icy floor. It was the dark purple-black of the death-dancer of my dreams but it dwarfed Shivetya. It was naked. Its perfect female proportions distracted from the ten thousand scars that marred its skin. It did not move, not even to breathe.
Another feather of vapor rose from one huge nostril.
“Get the fuck out of here!” Goblin shrieked. He jerked to the right suddenly, the Lance of Passion darting toward some target I could not see. The Lance’s head burned like it was covered by flickering alcohol flames.
A huge, unheard scream tore at my mind. Suvrin and Master Santaraksita moaned. Tobo squealed. The white crow unleashed a random stream of obscenities. I am sure I contributed to the chorus. As I kicked and punched the others to get them going, I realized that my throat was raw.
Goblin whirled back to his left, thrusting at the wisp of mist that had left Kina’s nostril a moment before.
Once again pale blue fire surrounded the head of the Lance. This time it ran a foot up the shaft before it faded. This time the Lance’s head betrayed penstrokes of dark ruby glow along its edges.
Another wisp of the essence of Kina rose from her nose.
There was no darkness or mist hiding the entrance now. Kina’s focus was elsewhere. Suvrin and Santaraksita were on the stair already, wasting breath babbling about what they had seen. I slugged Tobo upside the head with all the force I could muster. “Get out of here!”
When he opened his mouth to argue, I popped him again. I did not want to hear it. I did not want to hear anything. Not even a divine revelation. It could wait. “Goblin! Get your sorry butt in motion. We’re out of the way.”
The third wisp impaled itself upon the Lance’s head. This time the fire crept two yards up the shaft, though it did not seem to affect the wood directly. However, this time the Lance’s head became so hot that shaft wood in contact with it began to smolder.
Goblin started to back down but another wisp rose and drifted faster than he moved, getting between him and the stair. He thrust at it a few times but each time he did, it drifted out of reach. It continued to control his path of retreat.
I am no sorceress. Despite a life spent in the proximity of wizards and witch women and whatnot, I have no idea how their minds work when they are involved with their craft. So I will never be clear on what thought process led Goblin to make his decision. But from having known the man most of my life, I have to conclude that he did what he did because he believed it was the most effective thing that he could do.
Having failed to skewer the wisp, having noted that a second had appeared and had begun to circle him from the opposite direction, the frog-faced little man just whirled, lowered the head of the Lance and charged Kina. He let out a great mad bellow and drove the weapon through the flesh of an arm and into her ribs below her right breast. And just before the weapon struck home, one wisp flung itself in front, trying to block the thrust. The Lance’s head was ablaze when it pierced demonic flesh.
The second wisp set Goblin aflame.
Even screaming, telling me to get out, Goblin continued to heave against the Lance, driving it deeper into Kina, possibly in some mad, wild hope of penetrating her black heart.
The blue flame feasted on Goblin’s flesh. He let go of the Lance, threw himself to the icy floor, rolled around violently, slapping at himself. Nothing helped. He began to melt like an overheated candle.
He screamed and screamed.
On that psychic level where I had sensed her moments earlier, Kina also screamed and screamed and screamed. Suvrin and Santaraksita screamed. Tobo screamed. I screamed and staggered into the stairwell, retreating despite the urging of that mad part of me that wanted to go back and help Goblin. And there could have been no greater madness than that. The Destroyer ruled the cavern of her imprisonment.
Goblin had struck a fierce blow but in truth, its impact was no greater than the nip of a wolf cub at the ear of a dozing tiger. I knew that. And I knew that the cub, caught, was trying to buy time for the rest of its pack.
I gasped, “Tobo, go ahead as fast as you can. Tell the others.” He was younger, he was faster, he could get there long before I could.
He was the future.
I would try to keep anything from coming up the stair behind him.
The screaming continued down below, from both sources. Goblin was being more stubborn than ever he had been with One-Eye.
We climbed as fast as Master Santaraksita could manage. I stayed behind the other two, already ready to turn and put the unholy pickax between us and any pursuit. I was convinced that the power of that talisman would shield us.
Darkness no longer inhabited the stair. Visibility was much better than it had been when we came down. So good, in fact, that had there been no landings to break up the line of sight, we would have been able to look up the stairs for a mile.
I was gasping for breath and fighting leg cramps before the screaming stopped. Suvrin had collapsed once already, losing what little his stomach contained. Master Santaraksita seemed the hardiest of us now, without a complaint to his name, though he was so pale I feared his heart would betray him before long.
As we fought for breath I stared downward, listening to the ominous silence. “God is Great.” Gasp. “There is no God but God.” Gasp. “In Mercy He is Like the Earth.” Gasp. “He Walks with Us in All Our Hours.” Gasp. “O Lord of Creation, I Acknowledge that I am Your Child.”
Master Santaraksita had enough spare breath to chide, “He’s going to get bored and find something else to do if you don’t get to the point, Dorabee.”
“How’s this?” Gasp. “Help!”
“Better. Much better. Suvrin! Get up.”
The white crow arrowed up the stairwell, nearly bowled me over landing on my shoulder. I did make the process more difficult by trying to duck the arriving bird. It lashed my face with flapping wings. “Climb,” it said. “Slowly, without panic. Steadily. I will watch behind you.”
We climbed for five or ten days. Hunger nagged me. Terror and lack of sleep made me see things that were
not there. I did not look back for fear of seeing something terrible closing in. We moved slower and slower as the effort devoured our energies and will, and our capacity for recovery. It became a major trek and an act of ultimate will to climb from one landing to the next. Then we began resting between landings, though neither Suvrin nor Santaraksita ever suggested it.
The crow told me, “Stop and sleep.”
No one argued. There are limits to how far and hard terror can drive anyone. We found ours. I collapsed so fast I later claimed I heard my first snore before I hit the stone of the landing. I was only vaguely aware of the crow launching itself into the darkness, headed downward again.
91
“Sleepy?”
My soul wanted to leap up and flail around in terror. My flesh was incapable and quite possibly indifferent. I was so stiff and I hurt so much that I just could not move.
My mind still worked fine. It ran as sparkling swift as a mountain stream. “Huh?” I continued trying to get the muscles unlocked.
“Easy. It’s Willow. Just open your eyes. You’re safe.”
“What’re you doing way down here?”
“Way down where?”
“Uh—”
“You’re one landing downstairs from the cave of the ancients.”
I kept trying to get up. Muscle by muscle my body gradually yielded to my will. I looked around, vision foggy. Suvrin and Master Santaraksita were still asleep.
Swan said, “They were tired, guaranteed. I heard you snoring all the way up in the cave.”
Twinge of fear. “Where’s Tobo?”
“He went on up top. Everyone went. I made them go. I stayed in case.… The crow told me not to come down. But what’s one landing? You think you can get moving again? I can’t carry anybody. I can barely keep going myself.”
“I can manage one flight. Up to the cave. That’s far enough for now.”
“The cave?”
“I still have something to do there.”
“Are you sure you want to go out of your way?”
“I’m sure, Willow.” I could tell it was a matter of life or death. For a whole world. Or maybe for multiple worlds. But why be melodramatic? “Can you get these two moving again? And headed toward the top?” I did not think Master Santaraksita could bear seeing what I intended to do next.