Axtli, first." Taslin sounded about as scared as a stone, and Rel fought down a hot surge of anger at his own weakness.
"Deeper into the Sherim?" Even to his own ears, Rel knew he'd failed; he couldn't manage more than a thready whisper. He was glad the two women couldn't see his face.
Darkness answered in a voice barely recognisable as the Gift-Giver's, merciless. "I can get us out again, with the benefit of your Clearsight."
A chill shot through Rel, and a pang of nausea followed it. "I can't See Clearly in a Sherim!"
"The alternative is to spend the rest of the night here and hope that daylight gives me enough light to work by." That was the contempt Rel was used to from Wildren. He gritted his teeth and glared at the gloom where Taslin must be. She could sneer at him all she liked, but Clearsight there and then could only make the situation worse.
Another whimper from Dora served only to underline their plight. Not much chance of any support from that quarter, then. At least Taslin was distracted for a moment; some of the uncanny warmth came back to her voice as she said, "Are you alright?"
"Headache." What the hell was wrong with her? So much for a Four Knot's duty to protect humans from Wildren. Dora grunted in pain and shook her head - somehow the Sherim, already gently tight around them, carried the motion to him. "Rel, I can't stay here long. It hurts."
"Why are you so afraid?" Directed at him like a thrown stone, Taslin's voice went back to alien tonelessness.
The Gift-Giver's mockery made opening his jaw to speak a trial. "You can't not know how dangerous this is. Sherim and Clearsight do not mix."
"If there was a less dangerous alternative, wouldn't I choose it?"
"Please, Rel..."
"I'm not asking you to risk anything I won't share. If you die, we're all lost."
"Alright!" Rel's outburst surprised him almost as much as the trembling of the Sherim suggested it did the women. At least they shut up. "Alright, I'll try. But I don't know what I'm looking for."
"Nor do I. Every Sherim is different." A reminder he didn't need, but at least Taslin didn't sound like she was instructing a child. If Dora had been herself, Rel knew she'd be lecturing fit to irk the pride of a mountain. The Gift-Giver finished, "Just keep a tight grip on your thoughts. If your attention wanders and you start applying First-Realm logic to anything, blink right away. That should keep you safe."
Automatically, he said, "I know." It wasn't true, but he wasn't going to let the Wilder think she'd taught him something useful. And anyway, if the Gift-Givers knew how to handle Clearsight in a Sherim, Rel should have heard about it in training.
He took a deep breath and the sound - all too coldly clear in the dead air of the Sherim - betrayed his nervousness in its tremor. Some way to die, humiliated in the darkness by his own breathing. Not that it should be shaming to be afraid in this situation, but he doubted the women would see it that way.
Against the muted quality of the firelight through the threshold of the Sherim, Clearsight was like opening a pair of eyelids he didn't have. In place of light, chaos and cold poured in. The Sherim was a tangle of silver threads, tinged blue or pink or purple by lights he couldn't see. Every thread was taut - it was this web that had transmitted Dora's trembling to him - but none were straight. Paradoxical, impossible, but Sherim were like that.
The maze of reflected glimmers dazzled, too complex for the eye to pick out patterns, even with the benefit of Clearsight. Dimly, Rel could sense the ceiling of the Sherim above him, a squashed dome rendered vast by the intricacy of everything within it. Dora, ahead, seemed only half there, as if her very fabric had tangled in the web. No, as if she was woven together with it. Perhaps that explained why she felt such pain. Only long training allowed Rel to suppress the wince that almost closed his eyes as he saw with sympathy how tightly the Sherim already held his Four Knot.
Beside her, the threads writhed and snapped around an invisible form that had to be Taslin, the only actual movement Rel could see. Instinct had him seeking to map the shape of her for a second before he realised it, and he forced himself to relax, let his eyes glaze and de-focus so that the image with its dangerous burden of First-Realm logic dropped away. Under the bridge of his nose, an ache pulsed, just enough to warn him of his building fatigue.
Some fold or twist of the Sherim put the image of the Axtli and the croft just to his left, even though by the lie and curve of the threads around him Rel could tell that the monster - and the way back to safety - was behind him. The creature was a cloud of needles again; three sets, all pointing identically at Dora, and yet two of the sets pointing beyond her and around through the convoluted structure of the Sherim to Rel and Taslin. By the length of the needles, the thing knew where they were, but could no longer identify them as food.
Rel resisted the urge to close his eyes before speaking. "What do you need me to see?"
"I'm going to start moving deeper into the Sherim, very slowly. Look ahead of me and see if you can see me dying." With the task right in front of her, there was no human fear in Taslin. Nor did any reluctance make her falter.
"How can I, when I can't see you?"
There was no mistaking the hissed curse that whispered through the net of the Sherim to him. "I'll make a light. Watch for it going out."
Put so bluntly and in a Wilder's flat tones, Taslin's statement became crushingly morbid. Rel felt himself grimace. "Wouldn't it be better to look for the path where you live?"
"The path on which we survive is likely to require some action on your part."
Which would block his Clearsight completely, maybe before they'd gotten anywhere at all. "Good thinking."
"Part of my training." Did the pattern of squirming threads around her settle a little? "This is how all the Sherim that have been were first mapped."
Another thing he should know already, if true. Still, it was reassuring to know the plan had worked in the past. Better not to ask how many of the hundreds of failed attempts to map Sherim had used this strategy.
No, that was his thoughts wandering again. Focus. "Okay. Go ahead."
A light, glimmering in one of those Second-Realm colours that wasn't quite yellow, appeared just above Taslin. Rel pushed his vision a little way into the future, watching the light move forward. Too far - all too easy to do - and the light winked out in stages, multiple overlapping lights disappearing into the sparkling background or fading as Taslin died in different ways.
He pulled back until his eyes rode time only a second or two ahead of the rest of him, feeling the whole Sherim pulling at his eyeballs, as if it threatened to tear them out. Gloved in ice, his eyes already felt detached from his body, but at least the discomfort had washed away awareness of the smell of the place. Off to the side, the Axtli's spines turned through no dimension the First Realm had words for as they tracked Taslin.
No, concentrate.
Taslin said, "Follow close. Anything could separate us."
Her light made no effort to move around any of the threads, but then with the way Taslin disrupted them perhaps she didn't need to. Dora walked - better not to think what on - straight through the tight bundle of silver strands, and though she moaned softly as she did, her pain didn't seem connected to the obstacles.
Still, Rel felt another surge of nervous nausea and a shiver as he reached out to touch the thread immediately in front of him. Though it looked cold and metallic, to the touch it was warm, the slick surface fleshy. Gruesome. His fingers tingled, just ever so slightly, at contact, then went through. The thread didn't snap, but Rel could feel it inside him, in between the bones of his hand, a light pressure and building pins and needles.
Eyes on the task. Taslin showed no sign of slowing to wait for him, and Dora was close on her heels. He pushed forward, watching the light, holding his Clearsight just that second ahead of him against the ache between his eyes. It was like leaning heavily on a spring, pressed into his forehead.
Lose focus, push out in the wrong direction, and the light spread out in
to a field, dimmer near danger, but too even and broad for him to tell where Taslin was. He struggled forward, wanting to look down at his feet - the floor felt uneven, treacherous - but knowing that was the surest way to lose contact with the Sherim and fall out, right next to the Axtli.
The light dimmed, and he called out, "Stop!"
Taslin adjusted whatever she'd been doing and tried again; this time, the light stayed.
With a scream, Dora vanished. The entire net of the Sherim shook, and the floor became elastic, stretching and bouncing under Rel so he stumbled. Reflex made him grab at the strand by his shoulder, but his hand went straight through it.
Mustn't fall over in a Sherim. A step that was half a leap got him his balance back, but the ground stayed unsteady and strange. Taslin shouted Dora's name. She hadn't planned this, then. Or she had, but she still needed his trust for something. Getting through the Sherim?
His first duty was to protect. Sorting the Gift-Giver out could wait. Find Dora, first. He turned to look behind, towards the threshold of the Sherim. Angles stretched, so that he might have turned all the way round by the time he caught up to what he wanted to look at.
And saw the last thing he wanted to see. Long, black spines, following the impossible twists of the Sherim's internal structure, reaching for him along what he knew had to be the shortest route. Clearsight at least told him how far away the