This stair has no bottom,” I told Goblin. We were puffing badly despite the direction we were headed. We had passed openings into other caves the stairwell had pierced. Each appeared to have been visited by human beings sometime in the past. We discovered both treasures and bone-yards. I suspected Sri Santaraksita, Baladitya and I could not live long enough just to catalog all the mysteries buried beneath the plain. And every darned unknown ancient thing I glimpsed in passing called to me like the sirens of legend.
But Tobo was still ahead of us and seemed deaf to our calling. Perhaps just as we did not waste time and breath responding to Suvrin and Santaraksita, who kept calling down to us from ever farther behind. It was my devout hope they would be smitten by good sense and abandon the pursuit.
Goblin did not respond to my remarks. He had no breath left over.
I asked, “Can’t you use some kind of spell to slow him down or knock him out? I’m worried. He really can’t be so far ahead that he can’t hear us. Darn!” I had gotten tangled with the standard. Again.
Goblin just shook his head and kept moving. “He can’t hear.” Puff-puff. “But he don’t know that he can’t hear.”
Enough said. There was a bottom to the stair. And the Queen of Deceit was napping down there, with just a whisper of awareness left for manipulating a cocky, know-it-all boy who had a touch of talent and had taken possession of an instrument that could become a nasty weapon in the hands of those who would disarm her and have her slumber continue neverending.
After a while we had to slow down. The unnatural light faded until it became too weak to provide a reliable forecast of our footing. The occasional breezes rising past us were no longer cold. And they had begun to bear traces of a familiar, repugnant odor.
When Goblin caught that smell he slowed way down, worked hard on regaining his breath before he had to suck that stench down in its full potency. “Been a while since I’ve come face-to-face with a god,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ve got what it takes to wrangle one anymore.”
“And what would that be? I never realized that I was in the company of an experienced god-wrangler.”
“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.
“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.