His awareness of life at the surface suddenly faded away. He could no longer remember if his cell had been warm or cold, if the floor had been smooth or rough. Somehow, he knew that this was right, that he was going inside of himself, the same as he would have done had he called on his kevra.
The door had another ring-pull on this side, dangling on a short chain. His lungs screaming for oxygen, he grabbed it and heaved the door shut.
Within seconds, the water level dropped below his eyes. It continued to drain at a rapid pace, soon uncovering his entire face. He coughed, wheezing as he took deep, sucking breaths.
Finally, the only water left was in the dampness on the walls, his clothes, and in the little splashes of puddle at his feet.
In front of him was a tunnel.
Again, he thought he heard a strange sound - a patter, a clank - but then he felt the pulse of the stone in his mouth, driving him deeper, and the sensation of an outside world vanished again.
He followed the tunnel out, until it exited into a small cave. The walls were studded with tiny pinpoints of twinkling light. He pulled one off of the rocks nearest to him, and it crumbled in his hands, the glowing dust flowing through his fingers.
Lichen, he thought. He could feel them, not as a single mass, but as a multitude of individual beings.
There were thousands of them. As he breathed, their night-sky of lights faded and brightened ever so-slightly, an eerie dance that was ineffably beautiful.
They shimmered again, the wave passing through the walls, and although he did not speak the language of the lichen, he knew well enough what they meant to say.
Welcome.
Yearning to respond, he opened his mouth, and out flew the Eye of Muninn, as swift and direct as an arrow. It hovered around his head for a moment, glowing with the yellow-green luminescence of a firefly. Then, it dipped once in the air and bobbed up again, as if to signal him. The lichen glowed brighter in response.
Follow, said the stone.
FOLLOW, responded the lichen.
He reached out, suddenly filled with the desire to touch the glowing artifact. Before his hand could make contact, it dipped and rose again, resting slightly outside of his reach.
FOLLOW.
The message seemed more urgent.
He walked after it, leaving behind the cave walls for a pool of black water in the middle. As he neared the edge, the stone dived at him. His arms flew up to block his face, but when the impact didn't come, he slowly lowered them back to his sides.
The stone was hovering two inches from his face. It was making a hissing noise.
Was it laughing?
He reached out again, but it rapidly zigzagged from side to side, ending it with another dive at his face. Clearly, he was expected to wait.
He turned back and looked the way he had come. The lichen aside, it was, in many ways, as it had always been - a soundless, dark inner place that was so isolated, his entry caused him to disappear from the outside world.
The stone blinked once, signaling, and he caught the murky shadow of something upon the water. As it neared him, the light of the lichen gently revealed its elegant contours.
It was a boat, its only occupant a hooded being with sleeves that were so exquisitely long, they obscured the hands completely. With an easy, steady rhythm, the advancing boatman circled the paddle through the water, the ends of the sleeves trailing in and out, in and out.
"Hello," said Laufeyson, but the only reply was a flash from the lichen and the stone.
FOURTEEN
Every time Alsvior looked at De la Roca, her eyes were pointed straight ahead. The feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach was familiar now. Hoping to impede their progress, he had already reached into the depths of his mind and pushed them away from the mountain as hard as he could. Still, he could see and feel the Oracle's home growing closer with each passing second. As De la Roca pointed out, many times they skipped forward - was her desire to arrive that great, that it could push them so easily through the fabric of space and time?
Perhaps, but he could feel the Oracle's pull. He knew that she was aware of their nearness and eager for them to come and offer what they could. It raised the hairs on the back of his neck, and for a moment, he had the irrational thought that he would spin around and see her standing behind him. It was only with the greatest of efforts that he was able to choke back the urge. It wouldn't do to have De la Roca see something like that; her deep mistrust of him was obvious.
"Do you smell that?" said De la Roca.
Alsvior wrinkled his nose, but the only scents that came to him were the fresh odors of trees and earth.
"What?" he asked.
"Cinnamon," she answered. "It smells like cinnamon."
#
What is he waiting for?
Alsvior had immediately silenced each of her attempts to speak with a flourish. Bristling at his imperative glare, she sighed and leaned against a tree.
I should just shoot him.
Some time before they had penetrated the grove, De la Roca noticed that the surface of the mountain was covered in fog thick enough to obscure its overall form and major features. Incredibly, Alsvior had not mentioned it or reacted to its oddness. In fact, from the time they passed the first clump of massive arboreal giants, he had not spoken a word. Once they reached the base of the mountain, he proceeded to stare directly into the mist. She followed his gaze back and forth a few times, trying to find what caught his interest. The wind had blown with a fierce brutality for the last hour, yet somehow, the mist that enveloped the mountain had not moved. Her jacket, buttoned from neck to knees, fluttered around his body as if draped over stone.
"Now," he said.
"What?" she snarled. "Is something going to come out of there?" Her hand stole down to her gun grips and her focus sharpened to a fine blade.
And then she felt the change in the air. The wind grew sluggish, blowing erratically in weaker and weaker bursts. Finally, it died off completely, and even to De la Roca's finely tuned ears, there was only silence.
Alsvior looked at her once, a sly glance that somehow lingered long after his eyes had returned to the mountain. He cupped his hands around his mouth and inhaled audibly. After a pause, he blew out fiercely, and the wind began to pick up - only this time, it traveled in the opposite direction.
As the gale grew stronger, the thick field of mist began to shift, giant clumps drifting like titanic icebergs. Cotton-like tufts blew away from the mountain's surface, exposing parts of the rock face. Very quickly, she got the impression that it had been designed. Its features and angles were too determined, too sharp to have occurred as the result of tectonic activity. It was not until the last cloud blew away, though, that she recognized the mountain for what it was.
"Alsvior," she said, the register of her voice nearing awe, "it's a giant statue of a snake."
She imagined the sculptor that could work on such a scale. Was it God? Who else could have carved the long, sinewy body that coiled around the rock, all of the way to the top? She traced the statue with her eyes, from the tip of the tail to the square head that rested on the mountain peak. Every scale was beautifully, painstakingly rendered, from the rattle to the great stone eyes.
Her gaze froze on the eyes, somehow bound. Suddenly, she was running, flying towards it with the eagerness of a hunter giving chase. Before Alsvior could react, she leapt.
"No!"
She was midair before she heard him yell. Seconds later, there came a deep rumbling, a cavernous rattle that seemed to emanate from under the ground.
Avalanche, she thought, and she pivoted in midair. She landed neatly, facing Alsvior, and quickly streaked toward him. Something in the round cast of his eyes made her stop, her heart beating wildly.
She looked over her shoulder, following his gaze, and her mouth fell open. The great stone eyes that had drawn her before, they were no longer the dull grey of the mountain. Instead, they glinted like glass, a flame of intelligence
visible in their black depths. She backed up, Bluot drawn, but when she stood shoulder to shoulder with Alsvior, he shook his head.
"Put that away," he said. "Your gun does not work on those without blood or a soul. A bullet fired would mean death for one of us."
Reluctantly, she holstered it and turned her attention back to the mountain. Like eyelids, two great gray sheets of stone slid down and covered the eyes, before shooting back up again.
"Alsvior," she exclaimed, "it … blinked!"
With a great crack, the angular head of the snake tore away from the mountain, showering them with a hailstorm of dust and rubble. It opened its mouth and hissed, the sibilant warning echoing off of the trees and sending shivers down her spine. The muscles of its neck bulged, and the movement rolled smoothly down its body, freeing it from its rocky bonds.
De la Roca watched all of it, dumbstruck, but she was still surprised by what happened next.
The snake's coils squeezed and turned around the mountain like giant gears. It opened its jaws, revealing rows of fearsome teeth, and then the mandibles snapped shut with a deafening boom. She clapped her hands over her ears as it raised its tail to reveal the rattle, a monstrous stack of rings larger and longer than the two of them laid end-to-end. And then, it shook its tail, and the air roared with the sound of a thousand boulders crashing into an abyss.
"This might be harder than I thought."
#
Surprised by the cool tone of her voice, Alsvior glanced over and noted that her mouth was drawn in a grim line.
Does she know fear?
Perhaps she has a soul after all. He shook his head slightly, as if waking himself.
"In case you are wondering," he said, his voice hollow, "this fortress has only one door. It's on the inside, and it leads … somewhere that we do not want to go."
"So how do we get in?"
"We have to make it to the top."
FIFTEEN
The enormous snake stared at them relentlessly, occasionally winding its coils around its mountain perch and squeezing until another avalanche rained down upon them.
"Are you with me, Alsvior?"
He raised his dark eyes to hers, and for a moment, she caught a glint of - what was it? Weariness? Regret?
Before she could identify it, it was gone, and his eyes were once again bland and hollow.
"Of course. When have I not been?" His voice was quiet, a question more to himself than to her, and she wished that he was still Alsvior, her trusted steed. Alsvior the Horse had been reckless, fearless, and proud - a gifted fighter and her greatest companion. Alsvior the Man was sullen, quiet, and tiring.
She looked up at the mountain's peak, estimating its distance from her spot on the ground. The snake met her gaze, and the slow crashing of its rattle quickened into a frenzied roar.
Come, it challenged.
Her hands again slid to her sides, before she remembered that the guns would be of no use; the creature had no soul and a stone hide.
Now or never.
Without looking behind to see if Alsvior followed, she repeated her run to the mountain's base, the joy of the hunt building again in her heart as she picked up speed.
Once, she had thought that the killing lust was brought on by Bluot. She knew now that it was also hers, that the act of murder suited her and marked her as surely and as exquisitely as the barrel of a gun marked its bullet.
As she ran, she analyzed the surface of the mountain and calculated the best path. Much of it was composed of sheer rock formations thirty, forty feet high, impassible even for a demon like herself. Then, her keen eyes spotted two lines that sloped more gently, winding curves that reflected less light, suggesting a softer texture.
Perfect, she thought. Streambeds.
The snake watched her approach, rattle - shaking. As soon as her feet connected with the base of the mountain, it writhed wildly, as if possessed. Avalanches of stone and rubble pelted her from the mountainside, and the ground shook with the waves of an ocean.
She climbed, the sandy bank of the streambed giving way under her feet.
She risked a glance over her shoulder; Alsvior was following at five paces behind, his mouth tight and his eyes resolute. In all of their fights, they were extensions of each other - but what were they now? She wondered if his body shivered with the joy of the hunt, if his mind was approaching the cold focus of a killer. She reached for him, pushed at him with her thoughts, but of course, there was no response.
Will that ever be the same?
She felt the mist starting to come over her eyes and embraced it readily. It was life. It was death. It was an escape.
She dodged the rubble without incident, until she heard a dense thwack from right behind her. She glanced back, and Alsvior was ruefully rubbing his cheek with his right hand, a rock the size of an orange in his left. She grinned comically, and for the briefest moment, she saw the first twinges of a smile around the corners of his mouth, but they vanished before she could say anything.
She was a quarter of the way up the mountain now, her pace flagging occasionally as she leapt over boulders or trees. Once, confronted by a sheer drop, she had to double back and climb a section of uneven ground before she could find the streambed again. Even so, the going was easy enough. Her instincts had kept her alive through more dangerous centuries.
I was meant to do this, she thought.
Are you sure about that?
The joy that surged through her suddenly curdled in her stomach. She could feel her awareness building, as it had in the lamprey's factory, seconds before she had avoided being shot off of her once-horse. Her skin prickled.
She sped along, the environment fading away as her motions became automatic. She was only vaguely aware of Alsvior behind her, but his presence irked her.
What is it?
The answer hit her like an arrow.
It's too easy.
It was true; she was upset by their good luck. Alsvior had known where to go and how to get there. They had made record time, half-teleporting across an alleged Hell to this mountain. And, most importantly, they had not seen a single living being that would have been able to report their presence.
To who? The Consortium? Alsvior has already lied about so much - do you trust him about this?
She felt guilty for the thought. He had been her only companion - perhaps even a friend - and he had never betrayed her.
Unless, his transformation has turned him into something else entirely. What is this business of a betrayal? For what was he being punished?
She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she almost didn't hear Alsvior's shout.
"De la Roca, Jump!"
SIXTEEN
By now, the man in the boat was close enough that Laufeyson could make out the frayed fibers of his robe. The tapestry-like cloth appeared hand-woven, and the folds of his cowl hung so loosely around his face and hands that Laufeyson still had not had a chance to lay eyes on the man's skin.
He knew he should be more curious, but his mind was pleasantly numbed by the sensation of waiting. It defined his whole existence.
Soon, the man was close enough that Laufeyson could have reached out and touched his face. He was waiting for some sort of acknowledgement, but boatman with the trailing sleeves said nothing.
Laufeyson watched as he lifted his arms out of the water and placed his hands on either side of his head. The dangling sleeves were graceful, like a geisha's. In one swift move, he pulled the cowl back, but where his head should have been, there was nothing.
The robe collapsed into the floor of the boat, and Laufeyson knew - the boat had been empty all along.
It was meant for him.
For a moment, he briefly debated turning back. He couldn't remember what waited for him there, although he knew it was unpleasant. It had something to do with angels and with …
… with the girl. De la Roca? … Only that wasn't her name … was it?
He couldn't remember, so instead, h
e shambled into the boat, the golden light of the Eye flying enthusiastic circles around his head. He picked up the oar and dipped it into the water.
#
The streambed had narrowed to the width of a few men, with steep walls that ran up either side. A massive boulder, possibly dislodged by the snake's exertions, sat in the middle, completely blocking the view of what lay ahead.
"We could go back and find another way around," said Alsvior. "The serpent is calmer now; there might be a better way."
Before he could continue, she leaped, dizzy with the power that her muscles unleashed. From ten feet in the air, she heard a rumble and altered her trajectory, twisting her body upwards to slow her forward motion. Before she landed, she caught a flash of yellow in her periphery, and an acrid scent filled her nostrils.
She hit the boulder, her knees bending to absorb the shock, her hands awkwardly scraping the rock between her feet. Her nose was further assaulted with the odd tang of something vile, and she scoped out the path ahead from her new vantage point.
Past the boulder, the streambed was no longer visible - instead, the depression was filled to the brim with a bubbling, stinking mess of golden liquid. It was clear to both her eyes and nose that whatever it was, it would be to her advantage to leave it alone.
Before she had the chance to investigate further, she heard a whistle, and the surface of the boulder darkened with a shadow. She flung herself back and gyrated midair, a pole-vaulter clearing the hurdle. She saw Alsvior shoot out in front of her, his head rotating to follow her descent, his pace slowing and body turning as he realized she had backtracked.
She landed, and for a moment, they stood motionless, their faces mirroring confusion and surprise. Realization spread over his features like a gruesome dawn. He turned in time to see the serpent's coil smash into the boulder. The top of the giant rock shattered into a cloud of dust, and the shockwave sent the bubbling liquid sloshing forward like a great, golden tsunami, cresting up and over the remains of the boulder. Before gravity began to pull its arc toward the ground, she saw Alsvior's arms come up, a shield against the massive wave, and she knew it wouldn't be enough.
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