While the darkness itself held no fear for him, Austin was grateful for Corinna’s presence as they entered it to face whatever creature it held. Rhi had, he reminded himself, faced much worse alone. Going in first was the least he could do.
“No comments on the situation, Boden?” he whispered.
“Only a superfluous advisement of caution. Should I have anything further, be assured I will make it known. I trust you will heed it as well as you did my earlier guidance.”
Austin didn’t bother responding beyond a nod, which he still didn’t know if Boden could sense. When Corinna made it down the slope beside him, he moved inside the passage.
Once out of the daylight, the lantern glow carried a few yards farther. Mud coated a stone floor strewn with debris and probable animal nests. Austin guessed the rainwater spilling in found its way into hidden cracks in the floor; his shoes were thankfully in little danger of becoming more soaked than they already were. The room was wider than it was deep. It extended to his right. Another wall stood only a few long strides in front of him, of a more modern construction than the rest. Two square pillars, each made from gray brick, supported the ceiling. The place smelled of mold and unpleasant emptiness.
“Some sort of basement?”
“No, Austin,” Corinna whispered. “I’m sure it’s one of those old attics they used to build underground.”
Austin resisted the urge to elbow her and instead looked for any signs of their “friend” from the darkness. “Hello?” he called.
There was no answer. Corinna touched his arm and pointed to the right, beyond the far pillar, where he could discern a set of stairs leading upwards in the gloom. He led the way as something scraped against an unseen corner.
The staircase allowed his shoulders little more than a few inches’ clearance. Mud gave way to dry grime after the first step, and Austin caught sight of a footprint the size of a child’s. He might have been inclined to dismiss its irregular shape as a product of a pivot of the foot in making the print, but Austin couldn’t find any way to account for what looked to be a sixth toe.
He was halfway up the stairs when the voice came again.
“Come! Closer, yes! Friends will talk! All gets what they want, yes!”
It came from the room above, though Austin still couldn’t see the speaker or pinpoint a source. The more it invited them in, the less he wanted to go. After a wary pause, he continued up with Corinna behind him. They needed whatever information they could get. The book was their only choice.
Austin reached the top. The room on whose edge they now stood appeared roughly identical to the one below, with drier grime but more spider webs in the corners. Corinna gave a small sigh of dismay from behind him. The ceiling was higher here, with at least one dangling chandelier, unlit and cloaked in age.
“Closer, closer, almost there!” came the voice. It called from a shelter of darkness at the other end of the room. “You know of Rhyll. One smells like Rhyll, but funny, nnn?”
“Where are you?” Austin called. He moved, with Corinna beside him, toward the voice. Together they stayed out from beneath the chandelier. He tried lifting the tiny lantern higher. Its light carried no further.
“Am here, Light-bearer!”
With that, a face poked around the side of the nearest stone pillar. Tiny, pure black eyes peered at them from a triangular, gaunt face that was certainly not human. A broad, cuneate nose extended slightly below the eyes in almost feline fashion. Below that, a thin mouth wrapped around its cheeks toward ears resembling the undersides of mushroom caps. Aside from its head, only its long, serpentine neck was visible. It led upward, as if the thing was clinging upside-down to the other side of the pillar. Austin recognized a tattoo similar to Fefferman’s on the creature’s left cheek. Another exile.
“Greetings,” Corinna spoke before Austin could find words. “This is a nice place.”
“Nnnnn!” it whined. “Do you like, Hair-of-fire? I finds in wandering, smelling book. Smelling Rhyll, nnn? Is home. Sad home.”
Austin almost asked what made it sad, but uncertainty in the face of what he judged as so far the second strangest creature he had ever seen gave him time to think better of opening his mouth this time. In any case, in the darkness and grime, the question felt foolish.
“Not too sad, I hope,” Corinna said instead. “Thank you for hosting us. May we have our book back now, please?”
“Finders is keepers, nnn?” The thing disappeared behind the pillar to peer out from the other side. “Not give. But trade! Yes, is fair. Is very fair.”
“We haven’t got much. Would you like this light? It’s dear to us, and pretty, but we’ll trade it to you for the book.”
“No, not for light.” Tiny nostrils flared large before returning to slits. A spine extended from around the pillar. Austin registered it as a finger pointed at him only after it said, “But Light-bearer one has something of Rhyll, too, yes? Its smell is good, and rich. Trade that for book, yes?” Beady eyes widened as it nodded. “Is good trade! Nnn . . .”
Austin shook his head, but Corinna only raised a patient hand to him and continued to address the creature.
“How do we know the book you’ve got is the same one we’re looking for? We’d need to know that before we can really think about trading.”
“Nnn! Am not lying!”
“Oh, I’m sure you’re not! But what if someone else took our book and stashed another before you came? We need to be sure it’s the right book. May we see it? Please?”
“You will see, yes! Then, nnn, we will talk of trade?”
Corinna nodded. Austin followed suit. The creature pointed at them. Its fingers were pencil-length and nearly as thin, each tapered down to a single point. “Wait there.”
It sniffed again, eyes dancing between the two of them, and disappeared behind the pillar. Austin heard a scrambling that moved upward and away.
He turned to Corinna when the sound faded and whispered, “I know you don’t mean to trade the crystal.”
“I should hope not.”
Corinna was peering into the darkness, a frown on her face. “No.”
“What, then? And what is that thing?”
“Might be a spriggan. I don’t know. I’ve never seen one, and the Rhyll ones’re a mite different from legends here, but — just get ready to turn your coat inside out, when I say. Not yet. I wish we had some iron.”
Torn between asking what a spriggan was and what turning his coat inside out had to do with anything, Austin managed neither before the scrambling returned. A book dropped from above them, hitting with a bang at their feet. Austin jumped, and then winced on the book’s behalf.
The possible-spriggan landed beside it a moment later. Austin struggled to not visibly recoil. Its pale, white-blue body shared the spindly quality of its arms and neck, yet while its fingers were stretched and needled, its toes were gnarled and grasping even as they stood on the flat floor. The creature’s only bulk came from its head and curiously broad hips. It extended a single finger down atop a rune etched in the tome’s leather cover and watched the both of them with a proud jealousy.
“Nnnn? Is book you want, yes?” The finger remained, as if keeping the tome beneath it from floating away.
Corinna’s visible relief showed it was indeed the right book. Austin belatedly slid his pack off his shoulder and hooked it to a miniature carabineer he kept on a belt loop. It occurred to him the book’s presence likely meant the creature held no affiliation with Maeron. The man surely would have taken it for himself already otherwise.
“That’s our book,” Corinna said.
“Is my book, nnn? Yours if trade.”
“Yes, well, we can’t trade what he has. We need that, too. Would you consider anything else? We can get you more books, in trade for that one.”
“Book smells sweet of Rhyll!” it whined. “Reminds of Rhyll! You trade more books of Rhyll for this?”
Corinna hesitated. “Maybe. But we’ll need that bo
ok to get the others.”
The creature snatched up the book with fingers surprisingly dexterous for their shape. “No!” Its snarl softened to a thin smile. “No. Trade first, nnn? Then book.”
Corinna took hold of her coat. “Might do. What else would you like?”
Austin considered the difficulty of wresting the book from the creature’s grip, if it came to that. Yet it was a tiny, pitiable thing. Despite its alien look and sharpened fingertips, it might feel like beating up a toddler.
Its dark eyes trembled. “Book reminds of Rhyll! Will trade for other reminder.” It sniffed, then leveled a fingertip at Corinna, still clutching the book to its chest like a float in water. “Hair-of-fire smells strange of Rhyll. Why is?”
“I — I have a ring. Perhaps you smell that? I would trade it.”
“Is of Rhyll?” The creature sniffed.
“Aye, it is.” She took it off her finger, a silver band with a cluster of green stones.
The spriggan watched, its head floating dubiously atop its long neck. Its nostrils flared once more. “How does Hair-of-fire know of Rhyll, have things of Rhyll, if not from Rhyll?”
“One thing at a time. Or will you trade the book for that secret?”
“Nnn? Not trade for secret. No way to learn if secret is grand without telling. May not think secret worth a trade once heard, but you demand book anyway.” It reached toward them, palm up. Fingertips wafted in the air like swaying wheat stalks. “Let me hold, and smell, for Rhyll.”
“If we can hold the book while you do.”
“You accuse? Call untrustworthy? Am friend! You can trust.”
“I’m not accusing, I just . . .”
Austin jumped in as Corinna trailed off. “We just want to be on equal footing. All of us equal. That’s for the best, isn’t it?” He glanced at Corinna and hoped he hadn’t said the wrong thing. Her eyes held no recrimination.
The creature whimpered through a grin that somehow struck a chord along Austin’s spine. “Put ring in Light-bearer’s hand. Book in other. Neither will have, and I smell, nnn? Is fair, yes?”
Corinna glanced at Austin, then nodded. “Looks like you’re playing escrow.”
“I’m unpracticed.” Austin held out both hands. Corinna placed her ring into his left palm and took back her lantern. The spriggan shuffled closer with a whimper, its eyes on the ring.
“Put the book in his hand,” Corinna told it, “Like you agreed.”
It did so, albeit with many a scornful glance between the two of them before the book settled on Austin’s right hand. Almost instantly, pointed fingertips lifted his left for the creature to sniff the ring. The spriggan’s nails pressed into Austin’s skin like tacks. Black eyes fixed on Corinna as it whined in appraisal. The spriggan’s eyes narrowed . . .
“You lie!” it shrieked.
“Austin, now!” Corinna tugged her jacket off.
Startled to action, Austin followed suit. He jerked Corinna’s ring away, scraping himself on the creature’s nails in his rush to tear his coat off and reverse it. The unsupported book hit the floor, further startling the spriggan, who jumped backward. Austin yanked the coat inside out as he tugged his arms from the sleeves, then shoved it back on faster than he would have thought possible. It somehow wound up on him backwards as well as inside out.
Poised to snatch the book off the floor, the spriggan recoiled in mid-reach with a piteous howl. Wordless rage twisted into disgust as it glared at the both of them.
“Liars! Tricks! Repulsive-repugnant-revolting-backwards!” It staggered back in absent-minded revulsion.
“Austin, the book!”
Austin scooped it up off the floor, amazed at the creature’s retreat. “It can’t stand inside-out clothes?”
“Well — ”
“Is rude! Hideous!”
It sprang up onto a stone pillar and, clinging to it, spat a burst of heavy smoke barely visible in the lantern light. The smoke staggered Austin as it rushed over him, seeming to permeate his skin to fill his lungs directly. A wave of fatigue rolled through his body. His legs became sap. His mind turned to sludge. The instinct to flee pulled his feet back a step, but what should have been a rush felt like moving through water.
“Ohh, not good . . .” He struggled to clear his mind.
Corinna appeared at his side and put an arm around his shoulders to pull him away toward the stairs. She kept watch back over her shoulder. Above, Austin could hear the creature scraping along darkened rafters.
“Don’t drop that book, Austin!”
Though his arms felt far too thick to be of use, Austin clutched the book to his chest. His feet dragged on the stone as he pushed through lethargy. Faintly, he could feel its grip on his body starting to loosen, but not quickly enough.
“Hurry!”
“Trying,” Austin managed.
They reached the top of the stairs.
A scrape above heralded another spit from the spriggan. Austin felt it rush through the air beside him before he could brace himself. Corinna took the worst of it. She gasped, slumping suddenly into him, then forcing her eyes open anew.
The creature leaped from the rafters into the wall overlooking the stairs before dropping further to the bottom step ahead of them.
“Book is mine!” it shrieked. “Ugly rude ones will not take!” Its fingers spread wide, twitching.
Corinna clung to Austin. “Don’t stop,” she gasped. “It won’t get close while . . . our . . .”
Austin spared one arm from the book to wrap about Corinna’s waist as his strength continued to trickle back. He forced his way down another step. Corinna managed it alongside him, but the spriggan took hold of the stairway walls below to bar their way. Austin watched its claws scratched into the stone. This thing was no toddler.
“You not leave!” it hissed.
Austin yelled back a wordless warning. He took another step, matching the creature’s glare with his own and hoping its ludicrous dislike of inside-out clothes would repel it. Nevertheless, Austin readied the book as a shield in case it found courage to claw at them. The fading lethargy kept him too weak to be confident about it with only one arm.
The spriggan moved back a step, now half-obscured by the end of the wall that bound the stairs.
“Why does Hair-of-fire smell of Rhyll so strange, nnn? She stays behind, tells us why, and Light-bearer may go with book.” It hissed through clenched, sharpened teeth. “Will overlook your rudeness . . .”
Austin didn’t bother to gauge Corinna’s reaction to the offer. He didn’t like the sound of that “stays behind,” and wouldn’t consider it safe even if the creature specified how long she would be staying. They pushed their way down the steps. The lethargy had mostly passed, yet kept a grip on him that refused to dissipate further. He had to get them out of there.
“We’re both leaving, with our book,” he told it.
It whimpered into a chuckle and ducked out of sight. “Other visitor came once,” it called to them from below. “Wished to leave, too, nnn? But he got tiiired. Felt the breath-swoon, had to sleep. Had to staaay. Now visitor doesn’t move, doesn’t eat, doesn’t breathe. Only stays, keeps company, for years. Is a friend now . . .”
“Keep going,” Corinna whispered.
They pressed their way down to the muddy floor of the lower level. Daylight glimmered from the exit at the far end. The spriggan scrambled and sloshed somewhere in the gloom.
“Will it follow us outside?”
Corinna shook her head, looking stronger herself. “I don’t think so. Hey, good for me, I’m able to think again.”
A thick wooden beam flew out of the darkness and crashed against the opening. Partially broken from the impact and rot, it sagged to a stop, cluttering the exit. A satisfied whine echoed from where the beam had come. They could still squeeze past it, but it would slow them down.
“Can you run?” Austin whispered.
“Aye, I expect — ”
The spriggan sprang into the e
dge of their light and spewed another rush of smoke, this time at Austin. His knees buckled, legs close to giving out, his mind swimming. The creature trembled and fled to safety moments before Austin’s eyelids rebelled.
“Austin!”
“Wake up, you lummox!” Boden urged. “Fight it!”
He forced his eyes open. Whatever the creature’s breath contained, its effect was stronger with the second dose. Austin was tugging at Corinna’s side like an anchor. He forced his legs to push against the ground, but his feet slipped in mud. Teetering on the edge of losing his balance, he muttered something, wordless, and tried to push toward the exit.
A thought drifted through the fog: how often could the spriggan do that?
Corinna hauled him forward. “You Yanks, always so lazy!” Her humor was forced.
The exit loomed beyond his half-closed eyelids. He could only hang onto Corinna and shuffle his feet toward it through the mud. Somewhere, the creature whined and taunted them with words he was too dazed to make out. Again he began to feel the fatigue dissipating, more slowly this time. If he could just get a little farther . . .
His foot dragged into a jutting stone and he spilled from Corinna’s arms into the mud. The book popped from his grip like a cork.
Corinna cursed and tried to tug him up by the waist. “You get the book, I’ll get you!”
Mud pressed under his nails as he gathered the book out of it. The creature sprang. Austin caught sight of its eyes clenched shut before nails scratched his face in their effort to seize upon the book. They succeeded. With its head held back as if avoiding a stench, it scrambled up Austin’s hips and tried to find purchase enough to pry the book away. Toes dug into Austin’s stomach as it bucked and twisted. He wanted to yell, to shake the thing away, but the impulse failed to reach his muscles. It took every bit of focus he had to simply hang on.
Corinna let go of his waist and grabbed the spriggan’s shoulders in an effort to tear it off. It squirmed and struggled like a captured eel. The three spun in a moving grapple, and nails punctured Austin’s shoulder through his jacket. The creature’s aborted cry gave way to another rush of lethargy that spewed across Austin’s face. He slipped, then fell again. The spriggan and Corinna tumbled free.
Memory of Dragons Page 18