The spells I’d carved into the new staff were much the same as the ones in my old shield bracelet, if less efficient and less capable of tightly focusing power, but it was much better than I could have managed without any focus at all, and it was sufficient to protect me from harm as I crossed the still smoldering-hot ground.
Passing from the mortal world into the Nevernever is both more and less dramatic than you’d think. There’s no real sensation to it, apart from a mild tingle as you pass through the Way itself, kind of a protracted shiver along your skin. But when I stepped into the Underworld, I knew that I had just crossed an unimaginable distance. My body felt slightly heavier, as if the gravity itself was different from that on Earth. The air was hot and tainted with sulfur and other minerals, and it felt utterly alien in my nose and mouth. The ground around me was all stone, covered in protruding chunks of what might have been still-glowing charcoal, and I could see the melted stumps of what must have been, at one point, stalagmites, their limestone now running like candle wax. Shattered, half-molten remnants of what must have been stalactites fallen from a ceiling out of sight in the darkness overhead were scattered around my line of vision.
Of course. We were in a cave. An unthinkably enormous cavern that stretched out of sight in the glowing light of the Way behind us and that was interrupted by a wall at least forty feet high and the archway set into it in front of us.
I crossed the ground rapidly to Ascher’s side. My shield was good when it came to stopping fire, but it probably wasn’t quite as good as a single one of the layers she’d held in place around her. “Hey,” I said. “You all right?”
“I was sweating,” she said, her face twisted with pain, and she lifted her hands to show me blisters bubbling up in a line along her palms where she had grabbed the lever. The lever itself still glowed red with heat that it hadn’t yet lost. “Dammit. The sweat went into steam and screwed up the last few layers of protection.”
“You just grabbed freaking red-hot metal with your bare hands and you’ve got nothing to show for it but blisters,” I said. “Totally badass.”
A smile fought its way through her expression of pain for a moment, and she said, “Yeah, it really kind of was, wasn’t it? Was that a Salamander?”
“Pretty sure,” I said.
“They’re so much bigger than in those Xanth books.”
“No kidding,” I said. “Maybe Ha—our client got one some hormone treatments.” I offered her the clothes I held cradled in my broken arm. “Shellac free.”
She took them from me with another grimace of pain and said, “Thanks.”
Grey came ambling up over the ground. If the temperature bothered him, he didn’t show it. “Want a hand with those?”
Ascher arched an eyebrow at him. “From you? I think I’m a little smarter than that.”
“You only say that because you think I’m only interested in you for your body.”
“Yes, obviously.”
“Totally unfair,” Grey said, with a disarming smile. “I’m also interested in what you might elect to do with your body.” He added, in a more sober voice, “You’re going to have trouble with clasps and buttons with your fingers like that. I know.”
Ascher squinted at him. She looked at me uncertainly, and then said to Grey, “Probably true.”
She got dressed. Grey helped her, without doing anything untoward, and the rest of the crew joined us a moment later.
“Maybe I should have let you handle that one, Dresden,” she said. “Traded you for the ice thing. Normally when some beastie comes at me, I use fire. Useless here.”
“I’d never have gotten through when it turned up the heat,” I said. “But if you’d like to handle my gate for me, I’m willing.”
“Maybe I will,” Ascher said with a cocky grin.
“Come,” Nicodemus said. He’d picked up his sword. One of its edges was blackened and had been visibly dulled, steel bubbling up like the edges of a pancake when the griddle is too hot. “Defeating the Salamander has surely warned someone of our presence here. The less time wasted, the better.”
And so all of us passed through the Gate of Fire, through a tunnel about thirty feet long that had me briefly worrying about the Murder Holes of Fire, but no threat materialized. We came out of the archway onto another broad expanse of stony cavern.
But this one was covered in ice.
The stalagmites and stalactites were all intact at this gate, and were in fact spread out in a suspiciously regular, almost geometric pattern for a couple of hundred yards, stretching between us and the next gate. They were covered in a thick sheath of old, old ice, which had universally come down from the stalactites to meet the rising stalagmites, forming great columns as thick as I was tall. The ice sparkled in the light cast by the last smoldering remains of the flames at the Gate of Fire, throwing back shimmering spectra of color. The floor, too, was covered in the same shimmering ice, starting about ten feet from the opening from the Gate of Fire. The air was dry and bitterly cold, and I saw Ascher draw a short breath and stop suddenly as it reached her.
I stared out at the glittering, frozen cathedral between us and the Gate of Ice and my palms began to sweat a little. I licked my lips and took a steadying breath as I regarded the passage in front of us.
Michael came to stand at my side and said, “It doesn’t look too bad.”
“Yeah,” I said, “which worries me.”
“Dresden,” Nicodemus said. “The time has come for you to redeem Mab’s word.”
“Hold your demonic horses,” I said, annoyed.
I put my hand forward for a moment, half closing my eyes, reaching out with my wizard’s senses. The air was frigid, as bad as anything you’d find at the South Pole, but that wouldn’t bother me much more than would a cold October evening back home. I sensed no enchantments, which meant little here in the Nevernever, where enchantment could just as easily be a part of the very fabric of reality, and thus no more remarkable or out of place than gravity or air in the mortal world.
I took several cautious steps forward, and put the toes of my left foot down on the edge of the icy floor.
And as if some vast machine had whirled to life, a block of ice the size of a small house plunged down from overhead and smashed onto the floor five feet in front of me, retaining its cut shape, its regular edges. No sooner had it settled than it whirled in place, flopped on its side, and a second house-sized block came rumbling out along the horizontal, sliding along the ice floor to smash into the first block. They parted for an instant, then slammed together again and shattered into dozens of smaller blocks that whirled off on their own, spinning into positions, slamming into one another with the speed and energy of high-speed traffic collisions, rearranging themselves into random, violent stacks every few seconds, each impact resounding through the vast space with enormous grinding crunches.
I stared at the field of gnashing, mashing ice-oliths in dismay, and saw more of the original huge blocks sliding out of the shadows to the side of the cavern, and falling down from overhead.
Dozens and dozens of them.
In seconds, there were thousands of blocks crunching and grinding and smashing away at one another over every foot of the space between me and the Gate of Ice. The air filled with the deafening sounds of impact, as if a glacier had come to life and begun to utter threats.
The smallest of the blocks, if they trapped me between them, would have smashed half of my body into tomato paste.
“Dresden,” Ascher said, and swallowed. “Uh. I’ve decided that maybe you should handle this one.”
Thirty-eight
Giant, angry, crushy blocks of ice, check.
One deity of the ancient world about to be royally pissed off, check.
Pack of rampant bad guys with whom I was about to lose major value, big check.
First things first.
I whirled away from the Gate of Ice, pointed my staff at the distant glow of the Way standing open behind us, unleashed my will and thundered, “Disperdorius!”
Magic lanced from my staff, disruptive and hectic, a spear of greenish light wreathed with corkscrewing helixes of green-white energy. The dispersal spell smashed into the Way and tore it to shreds, closing the passage between the mortal world and the Underworld as thoroughly as dynamite brings down a tunnel.
And instantly, the Underworld was plunged into pitch-darkness, broken only by the few smoldering remnants from the Gate of Fire, visible only dimly, at the other end of the tunnel.
I heard several sharp indrawn breaths before I could bring light from my staff and my mother’s pentacle amulet with a murmur and a minor effort of will. Green and blue light, respectively, illuminated the area around me, and spread out for a remarkable distance, reflected endlessly by the Gate of Ice and its thousands of moving parts.
The light revealed Nicodemus’s hard, narrow eyes. “Dresden,” he snapped. “Explain yourself.”
“Sure,” I said. “See, the way I figure it, after I get you through this gate, I’ve got exactly zero utility to you people. It would be a great time for you to stick a knife in my back.”
“That wasn’t the plan,” Nicodemus said.
“Yeah, you’re such a Boy Scout, Nick,” I said, “with the best of intentions. But for the sake of argument, let’s say you weren’t. Let’s say you were a treacherous bastard who would enjoy seeing me dead. Let’s say you realized that here, in the most secure portion of the Underworld, the demesne of a major Power, there’d be no way for Mab to directly observe what you do. Let’s say your plan all along was to kill me and leave me here in the Underworld, maybe even try to pin the whole thing on me so that you don’t have to worry about the client, later—you could just let him tangle with Mab, sit back on your evil ass, and laugh yourself sick over it.”
Something ugly flickered far back in Nicodemus’s eyes. I didn’t know if I’d gotten every single little detail of his plan right, but I was sure I’d been in the ballpark.
“Maybe you can still pull it off,” I said. “But if you do, you’re going to have to find another ride. If I don’t make it to the end of this, there’s no one left to open the Way home—and we all stay down here.”
His jaw tightened, but other than that, his expression didn’t change.
“Christ, Dresden,” Grey complained. “What if you get killed trying to run through that thing? How are we all supposed to get out of here then?”
It was a point that had bothered me, too, but I’d had few options to work with. Besides, given a choice between a psychotically dangerous, bone-crunching obstacle course or Nicodemus at my back with nothing to gain by keeping me alive, I knew damned well which was more likely to result in my death—and once Nicodemus took me out, there was no way he’d choose to leave my friends alive behind me as witnesses to his treachery.
“Well, golly, Goodman. Then I guess it looks like you’ll all be well motivated to genuinely wish me good luck and think positive thoughts,” I said. I turned to the hulking blur that was the Genoskwa. “Starting with you, big guy. Come on over. I need to get a better look at this thing.”
A subterranean growl rumbled through the air, audible even over the grinding of the Gate of Ice.
“Hey,” I said, spreading my hands. “Be that way if you want to. It’s not like that attitude might get all of you trapped in the Underworld forever or anything. I hear, like, two or three whole people made it out of this place. Ever.”
The Genoskwa rippled out from beneath his veil and stalked toward me. I’m pretty sure I only imagined that his footsteps shook the ground beneath my feet as he walked, and I had a sudden desire to flee with my arms out in front of me and my legs rotating in a circular blur. But instead, I stood my ground, eyed the Genoskwa, and thrust out my jaw as it got closer.
Michael laid his hand on his sword and put himself between Anna Valmont and the rest of the group, his expression questioning. I gave my head a quick shake. If Michael drew Amoracchius in earnest against this crew, there would be a fight to the death and that’s all there was to it. I didn’t mind the thought of a fight, but I wanted better ground and better odds if I could get them.
“Nick,” I said, without looking away from the Genoskwa, “run the numbers before your gorilla does something stupid.”
I saw Nicodemus nod his head to one side, and Deirdre suddenly slipped between me and the Genoskwa, facing him, both palms lifted in a gesture of pacification.
“Stop,” she said in a quiet voice. “The wizard is insufferable, but he’s correct. We still need him.”
The Genoskwa could have kicked Deirdre aside like an empty beer can, but instead he slowed, glowering down at her and then, more intensely, at me.
“Arrogant child,” the Genoskwa rumbled. His eyes went to the Gate of Ice and then back toward the now-closed Way. “You think you’re clever.”
“I think I want to get home alive,” I said, “and if I thought that you people would be willing to behave with something approaching sanity for five minutes, stuff like this wouldn’t be necessary. Shut up and play the game, and don’t come crying to me if you aren’t winning. Lift me up. I need to get a look at the whole field if I can.”
“Because that might help.” He lifted one rubbery lip away from his tusks and said to Deirdre, “Rather rot down here than help this one for two minutes.” Then he turned his broad, shaggy back and padded away.
Deirdre turned toward me, her blade-hair rasping and slithering against itself, and shook her head with an expression of faint disgust. “You’ve won the round, boy. There’s no point in doing a victory dance too.”
“Still need the big guy to give me a lift,” I insisted.
“Why?” she demanded.
I jerked a thumb at the Gate of Ice. “They’re moving in a pattern. If I can see the whole field, if I can track the pattern, I can find a way through. But I can’t see over the first row of blocks. So I need to get higher.”
Deirdre stared at me steadily, both sets of eyes on mine, and I dropped my gaze away from hers hurriedly. The last thing I needed, at the moment, was to accidentally find myself in a soul gaze with a Fallen angel or a psychotic murderess with centuries of dark deeds behind her.
“Very well,” she said. “I will lift you.”
“How?” I asked.
Her hair suddenly burst into motion, striking down into the stone of the cavern floor and sending up bursts of sparks where the steely stuff bit deep into the rock. I would have jumped back from her if doing so wouldn’t have put me far enough out onto the ice to get myself smashed flat. Then some more of the blades slithered down to the floor and lay flat, side by side, in several layers. It was like looking at a floor tile made from razor blades.
“Stand there,” Deirdre said. Plenty of strands of her hair were still free and moving slightly. “I will lift you.”
I arched an eyebrow at her. “You’re kidding, right? What happens if you drop me? It’ll be like I fell into a blender.”
“Well, golly, Dresden,” she said, deadpan, “then I guess it looks like you’ll be well motivated to keep your balance and think positive thoughts.”
“Heh,” said Grey.
I glowered at him for a second and then said, “Fine,” and stepped onto Deirdre’s hair, keeping some bend in my knees.
The hair moved and she lifted me slowly, while other razor-blade strands rustled and rasped around me. There was something deliberate about the motion, as if it was taking all of her concentration to prevent herself from slicing me into confetti, and I decided that a comment about split ends and using some chain-saw oil for conditioner could go unspoken.
That’s what I call diplomacy.
She got my feet up maybe ten feet off the ground, which was more than enough for me
to be able to look over the entire two hundred yards. I lifted my staff, murmured a word, and willed more light to issue forth from it. The air was filled with droplets of water and tiny chips of ice, where the blocks were smashing into one another, creating a glittering haze over everything, but I could track the motion of the blocks well enough, and in the archway ahead, I could see another lever exactly like the one at the Gate of Fire.
Seemed pretty simple. Get through the grinders. Get to the lever. I scanned the place for some kind of ice-amander, but saw nothing. Nothing that I knew of would be able to survive all the abuse the grinders were dishing out, but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t something I didn’t know about that could handle it just fine.
My imagination promptly treated me to an image of a viscous, blobby monster that could lie flat on the floor in perfect concealment, and be smashed between grinders with no particular trauma and that would melt my face off the second it touched me. Then my imagination showed me my skinless self, flailing around like a victim in a horror movie, getting blood everywhere—for about two seconds. Then I imagined two of the grinders smashing me to jelly that could be readily consumed by osmosis.
My imagination needs therapy.
I closed my eyes for a second and dismissed such flights of fancy. That wasn’t what I needed right now. I needed to find the pattern in the movement between me and the gate, to determine the path I could take to get inside. I opened my eyes again and watched.
It took me several minutes to see where it began. The movement of the nearest blocks began to repeat itself after seventy-five seconds or so. The next row had a similar pattern, though it was happening on a separate cycle. As was the next, and the next, and the one after that.
I stood there watching the patterns for a good fifteen minutes, tracking them, focused, keeping track of every separate motion in my head, in much the same way you had to do with the most complex of spells, and realized that I could simplify the model for each row to a cog with one broken tooth. As long as I entered the row on the beat that the broken tooth was aligned with me, I could breeze through it. So it just became a matter of timing my run so that the openings lined up for me. Theoretically.