He divested himself of all the layers he could: outer jacket, fleece vest, thick overshirt. He left on the thick leather undervest which had saved his life on so many occasions, and hoped that its bulk wasn’t too excessive. “Leave the general supplies here,” he ordered. “Take weapons, tools, some food and water. We’ll come back here when we’re done.” If we can. “Take light,” he added. And he removed the precious pouch of Fire from his belt and hung it about his neck instead, so that it might not impede him in the narrow passageway.
Then: head first, shoulders brushing the uneven walls as he crawled slowly through. He had a long knife clasped in his teeth so that whatever danger might lurk on the other side would not find him unarmed, or unready. Thin calcite spines caught on his shirt as he passed, snapped off like burrs as he pressed onward. Good enough. He elbowed his way forward, through a tunnel that grew narrower and narrower, until he could feel the stone walls pressing close on both sides of him. Then he came to the first of the slender formations, and he leaned all his weight against it; it snapped off cleanly near the base, and he set it to one side. The same with the second. The tunnel widened somewhat, enough that he could crawl through. And then opened suddenly, without warning, into a much larger chamber.
He thrust himself into it and rolled to his feet, and then reached back the way he had come. Ciani had followed after him, close enough that when she extended his long sword toward him he was able to grasp its hilt and draw it. Thus armed, he surveyed his surroundings. A large room, empty of adversaries but filled with the reek of their presence. He saw where a tunnel opposite had been widened to allow for more comfortable passage, and he thought with grim satisfaction, This is it. This is where they’ll be.
“Come through,” he whispered. “Carefully.”
They did, with considerably less difficulty than he’d had. He noted that if they fled this way he would need to make sure he went through last, in order that they might not be delayed while he squeezed his bulk through the passage. Not a cheery thought.
“Can you See?” he asked Ciani. And even more than listening for her answer, he watched for her response. But she seemed to be somewhat under control, and she nodded as she gazed down at the fae. “Barely,” she whispered. “It’s very weak.”
“But it’ll have to do. We can’t use real light in here; they’d see it coming miles away.” Again she nodded, and he extinguished their illumination. It had only been minimal to start with, a bare spark of fire in a mostly hooded lantern, but now it was gone. He handed the lantern to Ciani, who hooked it to her belt. And looked down at the earth-fae, to see which way his guiding current was flowing.
“This way,” he whispered, and he led them into the heart of the demons’ lair.
It was dark, and cold, and rank with the smell of death. The chill of it seemed to exceed the natural cold of the underneath, as though some force had leached the heat from the very stone about them; Damien thought of the Hunter’s sword—now strapped again to his harness—and wondered at the similarity. An eater of souls, the pierced rakh had called it. Like the ones they were hunting. How similar were they, really?
And then Hesseth whispered Hsssst! in warning, and Damien fell back. The cold stone behind him pressed Tarrant’s sword even closer, so that its unnatural chill lanced into his back muscles; he had to fight not to alter his position, to remain utterly still and utterly silent while his companions also hid, waiting for any sight or sound that might tell him what the danger was. And after a moment, it came. The padding of flesh on stone, the whisper of clothing. The hoarse breathing of one who has no need to be silent, the muttered conversation of one who knows no reason to fear.
Then they came around the corner, and Damien paused just long enough to acertain that there were only two of them before he swung. He put all his strength into it, knowing that the unWorked steel was all but invisible to their fae-sight. And the full force of it hit the first creature at neck level and sliced through muscle and bone with a crack, coming out the other side with some speed still left in it. The creature’s head struck the wall, bloodily, and caromed off it to the floor; its body sank slowly, as if not yet fully cognizant of the fact of its death. Damien turned to the other one, quickly, ready to face whatever manner of defense the surprised creature could muster— but the face that stared at him had a black hole in the place of one eye, from which acrid smoke and golden sparks issued as he watched. He caught sight of the rear metal band of a bolt as the creature twitched, the Fire spreading in its veins like poison. And he turned back to see Ciani standing with springbolt in hand, an expression that was half fear and half pride suffusing her countenance.
“It seemed like the thing to do,” she whispered.
Damien leaned down to inspect the headless body. Vaguely human in shape, it was dressed in an assortment of mismatched garments, haphazardly arranged. Barefoot. After a moment he placed his hand on its flesh and muttered “Warm. The body’s alive. Not just a demon, then. Truly embodied.”
“What does that mean?” Hesseth asked.
“It means they bleed. It means they die.” He looked up at her; he could feel the fierceness in his own expression. “It means that whatever these things are, the odds in our favor just got a little better.”
They hid the bodies as well as they could. They couldn’t wash the blood from the ground or drive the reek of burning flesh from the area, but at least if someone passed through quickly they wouldn’t see what had happened. The earth-fae was faint enough here that whoever relied upon it for sight might miss seeing details. The dark fae, though far more intense, clearly had no love of carrion; it withdrew from the corpses as it would withdraw from cold, unliving stone, and therefore offered no illumination.
“Good enough,” Damien muttered at last.
They went on. Damien in the lead, with Hesseth right beside him. Her senses of hearing and smell were clearly more accurate than his, so he trusted her to be on guard for approaching danger. He studied the current, and the walls, and tried to get some feel for the lay of the land. At least this cavern system had been modified so that a man might walk through it upright. He had given one springbolt to the rakh-woman, and Ciani carried the other. Damien preferred his sword, not because it was more efficient—it wasn‘t—or even because it was marginally quieter—it was—but because it was . . . well, familiar. A weapon he had wielded through so many battles, relied upon in so many tight situations, that using it was like using part of his body. Second nature. And besides, he told himself, it doesn’t need reloading. The pierced one carried a slender wooden spear, brought with him from his home caverns. If the look on his face was any guide, he knew how to use it.
Well armed and more than ready, he thought grimly.
They passed through a number of chambers and passageways, including some where several routes intersected. At each of these he paused, and worked to commit the place to memory. He didn’t dare mark the walls here as he had during their descent; the marks he made would be as likely to lead their enemies to them as serve any purpose of theirs.
And then they came to it. It was the pierced one who felt it first, and hissed sharp sounds to Hesseth in warning. “Heat,” she translated. “From up ahead.” They looked at each other. “I don’t feel it,” the rakh-woman whispered.
“You wouldn’t, necessarily,” Damien whispered back. “Specialized senses. The temperature belowground is so constant, any change would have significance.” He nodded his approval—and his admiration—to the pierced one. And checked the current carefully before he moved again.
Now, if possible, they were doubly alert. If there were guards at all, they would be here. Damien felt a breeze brush by his face, something far more suited to open spaces than this underground warren. And then he understood: the fire. Drawing oxygen, and with it air. Creating suction as it burned, so that fresh air would be drawn to it. How else could it keep burning so long, regardless of its fuel?
“Very close,” he whispered. He signaled for
them to stop, and strained his senses to the utmost. The fetid stink of the demons’ lair was stronger here, perhaps concentrated by the fire’s pull. Not certain that Hesseth would pick up any smell besides that foul odor, he listened for a hint of movement. None. Not a sound or a smell to hint at the presence of any other being in this chamber, or in any adjoining passage. It was almost too good to be true.
He doesn’t expect us here, he reminded himself. There was a chance—just a chance—that the fire wasn’t guarded. At all. If so, they might even make contact with Tarrant before anyone realized they were there. . . .
And then all hell breaks loose. Because no matter what their enemy was doing with Tarrant, he’d damn well be monitering the results. Which meant that the moment they interfered with his plans, he’d be aware of both their presence and their purpose. They’d be lucky if he didn’t blast them right on the spot; if he lacked that kind of power he’d certainly send his people after them, and it was a good bet the resident soul-eaters knew this labyrinth better than Damien and his company.
We’ll deal with that when we get to it.
There was light, now, flickering and faint—but real light, golden light, like the kind that came from a natural fire. It seemed to Damien that now he, too, could feel heat on his face, as if each few steps brought him into a place where the air was noticeably warmer. He felt a cold buzz course up his back, as though Tarrant’s sword was somehow upset by the concept of warmth. Tough shit, he thought to it. He turned a sharp corner and squeezed around an obstruction—the light was much brighter now, and it seemed that in the distance he could hear the roar of flames—and then
Fire. Burning so brightly that he had to turn away from it. Burning so hot that the skin of his face reddened, just from standing before it. For a moment he saw nothing but the fire itself, a narrow-based bonfire that blazed upward a good fifty feet before licking even farther into a wide crack in the cavern’s upper surface. The chamber it was in was a good forty feet wide, if not more, and a jagged crack ran down the center of the floor; it was the middle of that which had broken open, giving access to the limitless fuel beneath. Sometime in the distant past someone or something must have ignited it—but that moment was little more than legend now, if that. As far as the Lost Ones were concerned, the fire had burned forever.
He forced himself away from the entrance so that the others might follow. And scanned the chamber as well as he could, for any sign of enemy activity. But for as much as his darkness-adapted eyes could see past the blazing fire, it seemed they were alone. Except for a pile of fabric against the far wall, and a long, slender object that lay atop it....
He walked toward it, half-aware that the others were following. He had a terrible feeling about what it was and fervently hoped he was wrong. But when he got to the pile at last, he saw that it was indeed what he had feared. Midnight blue silk and fine gray worsted, in layers that were all too familiar. And atop it all an empty sheath, its surface inscribed with at least a dozen ancient symbols . . . Tarrant’s sheath. Tarrant’s clothing. He felt sick, realizing why they were here.
He looked at the bonfire—squinted against its glare, and tried to make out details—and at last muttered, “He’s there. In that.”
Ciani shivered, and looked at the fire. And then said, “But it isn’t Worked. How could it hold him—”
“He can’t Work fire,” Damien said tightly. “Or anything connected to it.” It seemed to him that for a moment he understood what that meant, what it felt like for a being that powerful to be rendered impotent—utterly neutralized—by so simple a means. And the pain of it, the utter humiliation of it, was so intense that he nearly staggered back, as though struck. For a man of the Hunter’s arrogance to be trapped thus . . . he wondered if that fierce pride could survive such an experience. If the identity he knew as Gerald Tarrant could emerge from it unscathed—or even recognizable.
“I think,” he said slowly, “if there’s any one facet of our enemy that terrifies me . . . it’s how well he knows us. How well he knows how to get to each of us.”
He walked toward the fire slowly, his eyes filling with tears as the heat of it seared his face. He came as close as he dared and then stopped and stared into it. Into the brutal heart of it, the blazing core of its heat.
And he could barely make out, amidst the dancing flames, the black figure of a man. Stretched out across the opening, arms spread out in a cruciform arrangement. The fingers—if there still were fingers—would be just inches short of the fire’s edge. Damien looked for some kind of support, saw the blunt ends of coarse steel bars resting on both sides of the crevice. The metal glowed with heat where it lay against the stone floor. If he lay on that framework, perhaps bound to it . . . merciful God. No doubt it was the powerful air currents, fire-stirred, that kept the smell of roasting flesh from reaching them. Damien had no doubt that it was there, in quantity.
“We have to turn it off,” he muttered. His mind racing as it considered—and discarded—at least a dozen options. “I can’t get to him while it burns.”
“Smother it?” Ciani asked. She was by his side, a hand shielding her eyes as if from bright sunlight.
“Can’t. There’s air coming in, all along there.” He indicated the narrower portions of the crevice. “If not from underneath, too.”
“Block it?” Hesseth asked.
He bit his lower lip as he considered that. “Going to have to try,” he said at last. “The earth-fae’s weak, but I can’t think of another good option.” He turned back toward the chamber’s one entrance, saw that the pierced one had taken up guard there. “They’ll be on us the minute I Work. It may take them time to get down here, but they’ll come. In force. As soon as I alter the fire.”
“Then we’ll just have to be ready for them,” the rakh-woman said fiercely, and she braced the springbolt against her shoulder.
He went back where Tarrant’s possessions lay, and considered them. Then he removed the coldfire blade and unwrapped it, carefully. The Worked steel blazed with a chill blue light, as blinding as snow—and then was extinguished, as he thrust it deep into its warded container. He tested the handle, and sensed no active malevolence. Thank heaven for that, anyway.
He positioned the other members of their small company as best he could, to prepare for the arrival of the enemy’s servants. But: Our best won’t be good enough, he thought darkly. Without Tarrant’s power behind them they were no match for a horde of demons, flesh-dependent or no; they would have to work fast and get out quickly, and hope that Tarrant could be restored before battle commenced.
He looked at the body within the flames, and felt despair uncoiling within him. If he can be restored, he thought grimly. What if we’re doing all this for nothing?
He gathered himself for Working, and stared into the fire. Stared beneath it, to where the sharp lips of rock gaped wide above the earth’s store of fuel. He Worked his sight—no easy task, with the earth-fae so thin—and tried to look deep down into that opening, to assess its structure. But there was no place immediately below where the walls of the crevice drew any closer together. With a sigh he resigned himself to Working its upper edges, and braced himself for the effort.
And air roared past him, sucked up by the conflagration. Earth-fae swept past him, too thin to grasp. He tried to enclose it in his will, to force a form and purpose upon its tenuous substance—but it ran through his fingers like smoke and was sucked up into the inferno. Not enough of it, he despaired. Not enough! He was used to the currents of Erna’s surface, so deep and rich that the simplest thought was enough to shape it, the simplest Working enough to master it . . . but here, Working the fae was like trying to breathe in a vacuum. There simply wasn’t enough power for what he needed to do.
But there has to be, he thought darkly. Because we have no other choice. Already he could feel the malignant thoughts of their enemy closing in around him, like a fist being clenched. How long did they have before he struck? Mere minutes, he guess
ed. He poured everything he had into his Working: all the force of his hatred for Tarrant, his love for Ciani, his despair at losing her twice—first to the assault in Jaggonath, then to Tarrant’s corruption. If raw emotion could master the earth-fae, then he would use that as his fuel. His will blazed forth in need, in pain, and he grasped at the elusive power. And fought to weave it into a barrier, that might bridge the mouth of the crevice. But there simply wasn’t enough fae there to do what he needed. Again and again he tried, until his soul was scraped raw by remembered anguish, until his whole body shook from the force of his exertion. But his Bindings dissolved even as he made them, and the force of the fire broke through his every Working.
“I can‘t” he gasped at last. “Can’t do it.” His brain was on fire, his whole body shaking, his plans in chaos. What now? he thought desperately. What now? Behind him he could sense Ciani’s despair, and it cut into him like a knife. I failed her. I failed them all.
How much time had passed, while he wrestled with the earth-fae? He didn’t dare ask. But every second they spent here increased their danger. Already their only escape route might be cut off—
Think, man. Think! The earth-fae isn’t strong enough here. The dark fae can’t be used to bind fire. There’s nothing we can do by physical means alone. What else is there? What? Think!
He knew, suddenly. And turned to Hesseth.
“Tidal power,” he gasped. “Can you—”
“Not stable,” she warned. “Not for solid work. There would be danger—”
“To hell with the danger! It’s that or nothing.” He was drenched with sweat but refused to move back from the fire. “Can you do it?”
For a moment her eyes unfocused, and she stared not at him, but past him. Through him. He remembered the tidal fae fluxing over Morgot, the brief rainbow power that had suddenly filled the sky with brilliance, then vanished with equal rapidity. It was a fickle power, utterly impermanent. Dangerously unstable. And right now, it was the only hope they had left.