by Peter David
“Maybe we weren’t.”
“Obviously we were.”
“Maybe…”
“Maybe what?” said Graves in exasperation.
“…she’s standing behind you.”
“What is that supposed to mean? Maybe she’s standing behind you. Maybe she’s on the bottom of the ocean. Maybe she’s on the moon. This is—”
“No, you don’t understand,” said Trott, and he was pointing.
Graves turned and looked behind him.
Jepp was standing there. She was rubbing her eyes and yawning, running her fingers through her hair to try and free it from tangles. “Hello again,” she said.
Graves stared at her. He could not believe what he was seeing. “How? How is it possible? You…you’re dead…”
“If I am,” she said, “then I have nothing to fear, do I? So,” and she clapped her hands and rubbed them briskly. “Bring me wherever you wish to bring me, secure in the knowledge that you are speaking to someone who Death had in its embrace and decided to throw back. Oh,” and she smiled, “and do you have any more of those delicious bread-type things? I ate the last of them during the night and I’m feeling a bit hungry.”
Graves and Trott had nothing to say.
ii.
The Truller car bumped gently to a halt, jolting the passengers into wakefulness.
Initially Eutok had been controlling the speed and direction of the Truller, but he soon came to the realization that it was all preset and needed no handler. So he, along with the Bottom Feeders, had settled in for a trip the length of which none of them knew.
Zerena Foux had spent much of the time glowering at her son. Karsen, for his part, had made absolutely no attempt to engage his mother in any kind of conversation. Taking their cue from the mother and son, the rest likewise were not particularly chatty, save for the demented old Mandraque who seemed quite interested in recounting adventures that he may or may not have ever had and that absolutely no one was interested in.
Most disconcerting was the Piri that seemed to be inhabited by the shapeless blob. Eutok knew precisely what was going on; the blob had done exactly the same thing to Eutok’s mother, the queen. The Piri was looking twitchy as a result, and every so often he would look as if he were trying to shake off the blob’s influence, but he was having no luck doing so. The blob thing—Gant, his name was—remained firmly in control.
Eutok had endeavored to stay conscious, but even he had been drifting in and out until he was abruptly awakened by the car’s cessation of forward movement. The others stirred to wakefulness as well, looking around and trying to figure out where they might be. “Is this it?” Karsen said cautiously.
“I have to think it is.”
“The Spires. The heart of the Overseer’s territory,” said Zerena.
“Would you prefer to go back, mother? I’m quite sure the Piri would be more than happy to see you return.”
“Let them come!” declared Rafe Kestor. He tried to pull his sword from his scabbard but it remained stuck within, unwilling to budge. He did not seem to notice. “I shall smite them one by one, or all together if need be! They shall rue the day—”
“Rafe,” said Mingo tiredly. “Not now. All right? Just…not now.” He climbed out of the car and staggered slightly, gripping the side of the tunnel and stretching his legs to get them working once more. The others followed suit.
All save Zerena.
“How are we going to get back?” she said. “The jumpcar is back in Porto. Our lives are back in Porto.”
“So perhaps we begin new lives here,” said Karsen. “This is a world of possibilities, mother.”
“Because of her.”
“Yes, Mother, because of her. And if you want to berate me, if you want to upbraid me, then please, for the love of the gods, do it now so that we can get it out of the way and for—”
Her voice unexpectedly soft, she said, “I have no intention of doing either.”
That caught him off guard. “You don’t?”
She vaulted out of the Truller, landing unsteadily on her feet, experiencing the same lack of feelings in her legs as the others had. “No. I don’t,” she said as she shook out her legs.
“Dare I ask why?”
“Because,” she said, leaning on the Truller, “you stood up to me. I’ve been waiting for you to become enough of an adult to do that. I may think the reason you have for doing so is a crap one, but at least you did. And I am…impressed by that.”
“Thank you, Mother,” he said.
She kicked him in the genitals.
Karsen went down, gasping, grabbing at them.
Zerena stared down at him. “That’s for punching me before.” She then turned to Eutok. “All right, Trull. Let’s go topside and check out this dump.”
Nodding, Eutok headed out the exit of the tunnel. The other Bottom Feeders followed, with Mingo stopping to look down at Karsen and say, “I saw that coming. How could you not have seen that coming?”
Karsen moaned.
The Bottom Feeders slowed at first, giving Karsen sufficient time to recover and catch up with them. Trying to keep the pain out of his voice, he said, “Are you at all capable, Mother, of just issuing a compliment and allowing it to stop there?”
“Apparently not,” she said.
The tunnel upward was fairly straightforward. It wasn’t packed with additional crossways or intersections; it was a simple ramp that proceeded upward at an incline. “You can tell this was made quite some time ago,” said Eutok. “The quality of the digging is far inferior to what we can do now.”
“Seems like a hole to me, just like any other hole,” said Zerena.
He sniffed in obvious contempt. “Amateur.”
“In this, yes, and happily so.”
In time the ramp evened out. They kept going and discovered a dead end. The wall was perfectly smooth in front of them. Eutok placed his hands flat against it, searching around.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to find some manner of trip switch or something that would cause this to move. But I’m not finding any.” He glanced at them. “They sealed it.”
“To make sure that nobody returned? Or to make sure that no one followed?”
Eutok shrugged at Karsen’s question.
“Very well,” said Karsen. He hauled out his hammer. “Let’s go to work.”
He started hitting the wall repeatedly, and Eutok likewise unslung his battle axe. Together they began to pound at the wall. It shook against the assault and resisted at first, but soon huge chunks were flying out of it. The initially slow progress moved along quickly once they really got going, and finally a slam from Karsen’s hammer sounded different in its impact from the ones before. When he withdrew the hammer there was a hole in the wall. From that point on it was a matter of minutes to clear enough space in the hole for all of them to pass through.
They stepped out into a different world. It was a large tunnel with a track down the middle that dwarfed the one the Truller car had run down. The walls were thick with ancient dirt. Eutok had removed the three hotstars from the Truller car, reasoning that it would be wasteful to leave them behind. He held one of them up now, suffusing the tunnel in a soft glow. It seemed to go on forever in both directions.
Eutok whistled. “Looks like Morts weren’t exactly slouches at making their own tunnels.”
“Which way?”
“Your guess is as good as—”
Suddenly they heard distant screams from down the tunnel.
“That’s as good an indicator as any,” said Karsen.
“For once we agree,” said his mother.
Karsen, Eutok, and Rafe Kestor immediately headed in the direction of the screams; the rest of the Bottom Feeders went the other way. Both groups stopped dead when they realized which way the others were going, save for Rafe who kept running toward the screams. There was momentary hesitation, but Rafe’s headlong dash toward danger was enough to settle the matter
for all concerned, although Zerena was heard to moan loudly as they followed.
They ran as quickly as they could, Karsen having grabbed one of the hotstars from Eutok and now leading the way. The tunnel opened up in front of them, light flooding the far end. They emerged from the tunnel and came upon a scene of absolute horror.
There were dead Morts everywhere.
It was a mix of males and females, young and old. Karsen almost tripped over a youth whose leg appeared covered in a massive bandage. There was a look of permanent surprise upon his face. His body had been broken practically in half. Other humans lay scattered about, similarly smashed and mutilated.
And there were Travelers everywhere. One of them was allowing the dead body of a female Mort to drop from its hands. The Mort was still twitching, but those were just post-death spasms. The life had already fled.
For a moment, Karsen was terrified that Jepp might be among them. He quickly realized that she was not. The relief of that realization gave way to stark terror as the level of their own jeopardy dawned on him.
The Travelers saw them.
“Shit,” muttered Eutok, who very nearly did.
The Bottom Feeders and Eutok were frozen in their metaphorical and literal tracks. The Travelers seemed to come together like a large black storm cloud and they approached the intruders.
And Zerena Foux stepped in between her son and the oncoming Travelers and said softly, “I’ll die before I let them touch you.”
“Yes,” said the nearest Traveler. They all stretched out their hands, and a dark and terrible energy began to build within the confines of the tunnel.
“Ayrburn!”
It had been Gant, still clad in the body of the Piri, who had spoken. He strode forward and incredibly, impossibly, the Travelers backed up. Gant walked right up to one of the Travelers and seemed to be studying him with outright curiosity. “That is you, Ayrburn, is it not? Ayrburn the taciturn? Ayrburn the oblique? Ayrburn the sorely irritating?”
The foremost Traveler approached him, stunned. “Gant?”
“The same.”
Whispers of Gant’s name echoed among the other Travelers as they looked at each other. They appeared confused, which was something that seemed staggeringly mundane for a Traveler.
“You’re…a Piri now?” said the one he’d addressed as Ayrburn.
“No. Nothing that simple. I’m inhabiting a Piri. Tania turned me into…” He looked chagrined. “…into nothing I want you to see.”
Ayrburn considered his words. “Bitch,” he said at last.
“That, my friend, is understating it.” He indicated the corpses of the humans that were scattered around the tracks. “And what was the purpose of this? Seems rather a pointless slaughter.”
“Overseer.”
“The Overseer told you to do this?”
Ayrburn didn’t respond. He just tilted his head slightly.
Eutok was finding the entire business just a bit surreal. To him the Travelers had always been these mysterious, unknowable creatures. Yet here was one of the Bottom Feeders having what amounted to a casual conversation with one of these harbingers of death and destruction.
“Well, that is…unfortunate,” said Gant. “So…” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together briskly. “I see that you have been…busy. And we have things to attend to. So we will just get out of your way…”
“Overseer,” said Ayrburn.
“Yes, I’m sure the Overseer has many serious matters that he wants you to see to. So certainly we—”
“You,” said Ayrburn, and he pointed, “and them. Now.”
The other Travelers slowly spread into a half circle, ringing them. Eutok definitely did not like the way this was shaping up. He tightened his grip on his battle axe and brought it up in a defensive position.
Gant’s Piri head immediately snapped around and he looked with great urgency at Eutok. “Don’t do it. Don’t even think it. None of you,” and he addressed all the Bottom Feeders, “even think about it. They want to bring us to the Overseer, and if we resist, they’re going to kill us. They will do it quickly and efficiently and without the slightest hesitation.”
“Why are they bringing us to him?” said Karsen.
“Because this is his city,” said Gant. “Because if you’re coming to the Spires, then you’re going to have to deal with him. That’s the way the world works, and if you were not prepared for that, then you should not have come here in the first place.”
“All right,” said Karsen. “But I’m going to make it clear to the Overseer that this was entirely my doing. So if he has any complaints with our being here, then I’m the one who should answer for it.”
“Yes, I’m sure he’ll take that very much to heart before he slaughters all of us,” said Mingo.
Rafe Kestor raised his fist defiantly. “I would like to see him try!”
“You may very well get your wish, Rafe,” said Zerena.
Perriz
I.
Evanna would not stop screaming and it was beginning to get on Kerda’s nerves.
“Oh my gods,” Evanna screamed. “Oh my gods, Xeri, oh my gods, he’s dead!”
Kerda pulled the hysterical Firedraque over into an alleyway, looking apprehensively toward the Zeffers. “We don’t know that! We don’t know for sure that he’s dead!”
“Oh, yes, he’s dead.”
It was the amused voice of a Mandraque who had spoken. Kerda looked up and saw that two Mandraques were approaching. They were heavily armed, and they were grinning mirthlessly. Kerda placed herself between the oncoming Mandraques and Evanna, who was still sobbing and screeching. The Mandraque further back had a crossbow with the arrow already in place and ready to fly.
“Thulsa Odomo,” said the nearest Mandraque, “cut off his whining head, and then we kicked it around a bit for our amusement. And that is very similar to what is going to happen to you. As for your mighty defender, I’m reasonably sure that a crossbolt in the eye will dispatch her as readily as anyone else.”
Evanna had stopped sobbing very suddenly. “You…bastards,” she said, her voice trembling with fury. “Oh you…you heartless bastards. You will be destroyed for this. You will suffer. Oh, how you will suffer.”
“Ah yes,” said the Mandraque. “The power of the Firedraques. Why not simply ask the gods, with whom you are so close, to simply strike me down from on high…?”
That was the moment that the sword of Arren Kinklash, knocked out of his hand and sent tumbling off a Zeffer, landed with remarkable precision squarely in the skull of the Mandraque holding the crossbow. The Mandraque literally never even knew what hit him. The sword bisected his brain. He staggered and, as his legs collapsed, his finger spasmodically pulled on the trigger of the crossbow. The bolt went wide of its target and landed squarely in the back of the other Mandraque, who let out a high, outraged shriek of pain. He reached around, trying to claw at it, howling a string of profanities.
That was the moment Evanna pushed Kerda to one side. She took a deep breath and let out a jet of flame so bright, so searing, that Kerda had to shield her eye lest she be blinded by it even though she had the lens covering it.
If the Mandraque had been in pain before, Evanna’s attack took it to an entirely new level. He went up in flames, screaming, batting at his body, trying in futility to extinguish it. He stumbled, tripping over his own feet and fell. He continued to flail about as the fire eagerly consumed him. Kerda took a step forward to bring her foot down on his head, but Evanna stopped her. “No,” she said tersely. “Don’t end his suffering. Let him burn.”
Kerda did as she was told. They stood there and watched as the Mandraque twisted and flopped around while the fire devoured him. Before long he stopped moving as a plume of black smoke filled the air.
And that was when all hell broke loose from on high.
ii.
Demali felt chills running down her spine as Pavan stood in the middle of the Zeffer and sang. She had never heard
him sing before. It was so beautiful that her eyes were tearing up. All the Zeffers were attending to him now. They didn’t seem to be responding to their Riders at all.
They began to sing back. The air was filled with beautiful notes, cascading all around, and Demali felt as she was a child again, sprinting through the dizzying paths of the Upper Reaches, her father running behind her and laughing and calling out that he was going to catch her, and when he did he would raise her high and speak her name with such love that she knew she would always be his, and he hers, and the memory caused her to sob all the more.
Then Pavan’s voice began to slide up and down the scales. It was a dazzling array of notes, but it sounded like something more to Demali. It almost sounded like…
…instructions.
That was when the Zeffers began to turn.
They did so in almost leisurely fashion. All the Zeffers, save for the one that Pavan was upon and the one where Arren, the two Ocular and her father were situated, responded in the exact same manner. They started rotating, slowly turning sideways.
Which proved catastrophic for their Riders and the Mandraques who were upon them.
They scrambled around trying to find purchase, but there was nothing for them to hold onto on the surface. Some managed to grab onto the upper edges of the Zeffers as they ponderously, even majestically turned completely sideways. The rest of them skidded, tumbled, and slid right off the huge creatures. The air was discordant, filled with the sounds of Pavan’s and the Zeffers’ beautiful songs overlayed with the howls and screams of terror as the Riders and the Mandraques tumbled to their deaths hundreds of feet below.
Some were still managing to cling on, batlike, and then the Zeffers continued to turn until they were completely upside down. Their edges fluttered as they did so, and that was sufficient to loosen the holds of the remaining passengers. They lost their grips as well, and the last of the Riders and Mandraques, who had sought to leave a lasting impression on Perriz, managed to achieve their goal. Perriz’s streets were awash with blood that would never fully come out, and a number of the plummeting bodies left huge dents and shattered pavement in the streets far below.