by John Brown
From wall to wall was water. Black, icy water.
Talen held the torch out. There was no way around it.
So be it. Sugar stepped into it. At first it only came to her ankles, but then it deepened and she found herself wading in spots up to her thighs, hoping with each step that the ground didn’t completely drop out from under her.
Her feet quickly began to ache from the cold. She had calluses built up from walking barefoot all summer, but they were not proof against the water and sharp points of the rocks.
She stumbled, caught herself, then stumbled again. She did not want to lose her grip on the tooth, and so let her knees take the brunt of the fall.
She landed on the edge of a stone underneath the surface of the water and cursed at the pain.
“Lords,” said Talen.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“No,” he said, “not that. Look.” He held the torch higher.
She pushed herself up and looked ahead. The pathway ended in a wall.
“Are you sure this is the right cave?”
“I’m sure,” she said. But then her courage faltered: maybe the thing climbed the walls. Furthermore, in many places the torchlight did not reveal this wall’s total height. Maybe the creature’s lair was up, not forward, and they’d already walked past it.
She took the torch from Talen and splashed forward. When she got to the wall, she held the torch up. The jagged wall stood perhaps twelve or fifteen feet high. Water dripped down from the ceiling. She could hear water splashing from above like a brook cascading over a small fall. She reached out and felt the slippery rock of the wall. There was no way they could scale it.
“There,” said Talen and motioned to the right. “We can get up that way.”
On her right the rock face was broken and free of slime. It looked like a narrow ledge joined up with the area above the wall.
“How are you going to get up that?” she asked.
“You go first, then pull me up with the rope.”
She looked at him. “I don’t know if your lame carcass is worth it.”
“Oh, it’s worth it,” said Talen.
She looked back up into the blackness. “It’s going to be up there waiting for me.”
“Maybe,” said Talen.
“And I can’t climb that holding the tooth in my hand.”
“No, you can’t. But I’ll hold the light for you.”
“Oh, that’s a big help.”
He shrugged.
“I’ll carry the torch in my teeth,” she said. At least then she’d have light when she got to the top. She put the hag’s tooth back into its case. Then she tied the case to her body. She didn’t take off the gauntlets. If something was up there she wouldn’t have time to retrieve the case and put them on. When she finished tying the case to her, she put the stem of the torch between her teeth, then began to climb.
If the creature caught them now they were lost.
There were plenty of foot-and handholds, but they were not as dry as they seemed. And her dripping clothes only added to the problem. But even if it had been dry, her feet and legs were still stiff and hurting from the icy water. Nevertheless, she rose. It was slick and slow going and she expected the monster to appear at any moment.
But then she reached the ledge. It was perhaps two feet wide and more than enough for her to sit on. She clambered over the edge, and then took the torch from her mouth and held it to see farther down the passage.
The ceiling seeped. Long stalactites and stalagmites had formed, looking like huge caramel teeth. Farther down, water poured out of a rent in the side of the corridor, then slid over the wall. Beyond that was blackness.
The ledge did indeed join that passage.
She untied the case, placed it on the ledge beside her, then threw down one end of the rope.
Talen tied the remaining torches into a bundle, and she hauled them up. When the torches were resting next to her, she held the light out for Talen.
“I can do it without a rope,” he said.
“It’s slicker than it appears,” she said.
“I can feel that,” he said. “Especially where you dripped.”
He climbed, gingerly at first, then began to proceed at a good pace. Soon he was almost to the top
“Ha,” he said. “Lame indeed.” But at that moment his footing slipped and he lurched to the side, then backward. He tried to grab the ledge with his bad arm, and winced. She reached out for him, but instead of grabbing her hand, he grabbed a thick handful of her hair.
His grasp caught her off guard and she was yanked toward him.
Talen shouted his dismay, his eyes wide.
They were both going to pitch over the ledge.
Then Sugar caught a seam in the rock on the ledge with both hands and pushed back. It was like a man trying to tug a donkey, except in this instance Talen was the man, holding on to a fistful of her hair, and she was the donkey.
He twisted, and for a moment she thought his weight would pull them over, or pull her hair out, but then he got a secure foothold. The change in balance was enough for her to reach up and grab his arm, and then with a mighty tug, pull him over the brink and onto the ledge.
Talen finally let go of her hair and pulled himself to sit with his back against the wall. He held his shoulder and grimaced.
Sugar felt her stinging scalp. “You couldn’t have grabbed my outstretched hand? Lords, I don’t know who’s going to kill me first-you or the monster.”
“I’m doing my best.”
The way he said it made it sound as if he were doing his best to kill her. She looked over at him and laughed. It was unexpected. Probably nothing but nerves. Yet it felt good.
Talen finally understood what he’d said and laughed with her.
“I guess we could look on the bright side,” she said. “If it wasn’t already aware, your yelling has certainly alerted the monster to our presence. So that will save us some walking.”
“There you go,” he said. “Now give me the torch. If I’m going to meet my death, it’s going to be with thawed toes.”
That was a good idea. They both turned and sat cross-legged facing each other with her holding the torch between their bare feet. Talen’s back faced the main corridor beyond.
The warmth was wonderful.
“That’s going to be a bugger climbing back down,” he said.
“No. Next time, seeing how poor a climber you are, we’ll just be sure to use the rope. I think I’ll tie it around your neck.”
He smiled.
Something sounded in the corridor behind Talen’s back.
Talen slowly reached for the torch and took it from her hand.
Sugar opened the case and withdrew the hag’s tooth. There was not enough room to stand up, and she doubted whether the monster could fit on this ledge, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t climb up just as they had.
They waited until the torch had burned through the rope and now was little more than a fire stick.
“I don’t think anything’s there,” said Talen.
“If something were,” she said, “then at least we could get this over with.”
“Well, we won’t get over anything squatting here,” he said.
She looked at him. He was not some strapping armsman. Not a formidable warrior. But she was happy he was with her.
“What?” he said.
“We’re going to have to light another torch.”
Talen nodded. He took one from the bundle tied with rope and lit it.
“Let me go first,” she said. “The last thing I want is for the monster to snatch you and leave me trying to strike it in the dark.”
“What are you going to do? Crawl over me?”
“Exactly,” she said.
When he saw she was serious, he lay on his belly. She crawled over him, careful to not to touch his ribs or shoulder, and then moved along the ledge until it joined the main passage and they could stand up.
Talen
held the torch up and scanned the ground. “There,” he said and pointed to a spot on the tunnel floor. “And there.”
Sugar looked at the ground. There were a brief series of regular markings on the floor. They were partial footprints. Not a human’s. But something two-legged that was large and twisted its right foot slightly as it walked. “We’re in the right place,” she said. “That’s a comfort.”
Talen held the torch higher, illuminating the path beyond the stalactites.
The cavern walls here were much different from the ones below. They rose up to the ceiling in smooth lines with patterns carved into them.
“This is stone-wight work,” Talen said.
“Do you think this monster is one of them?”
“I don’t know.”
At her feet, covered in thick dust, were different-colored stones set in a geometric pattern. She wondered where the bat dung was. A cave such as this should be heaped high, beetles crawling about in it. But there was no dung. No bats. No cave vermin.
“You keep your ears perked,” said Sugar. Then they proceeded down the corridor, always just a stride or two from the swallowing dark.
They passed many carvings. One was of a great tree with all manner of beasts in it. Another of a bear carved with such fine detail she could see individual locks of its fur. Yet another contained a panel of ancient writing carved from top to bottom.
At one point she thought she’d heard something again. They froze, her waiting for the creature to come running out of the shadows, Talen stepping forward and to the side so the torch would illuminate more of the corridor.
She decided the sound was some trick of the cave, and proceeded forward, still tracking the creature by the occasional marks the creature made as it walked. She held the hag’s tooth ready in one hand, the case in the other. The silver glimmered in the torchlight. The tooth was long and felt well-balanced for throwing. But she couldn’t risk a long throw. After seeing the battle with the Skir Master, she knew she’d only have one chance.
With every step she became more certain that their names were going to be added to the list of those fools who had been swallowed by the ancient stone-wight ruins. Soon the second torch burned low. Talen lit the third. They now had only three left. Not long after that they arrived at a fork. Talen held the torch at a low angle to create better shadows that might reveal footprints. They walked down to the right a few paces and found nothing. A few paces down the left passage Sugar found another half print.
Talen froze and sniffed.
Sugar sniffed as well. Sulfur.
“The monster’s up there,” she said. “In that stink.”
“Aye,” said Talen.
Sugar gripped the tooth in her gauntlet, the gold studs gleaming in the torchlight, and took a step forward.
45
THE GROVE
Argoth could not stop shaking. The tremors came in waves, starting deep within and building until his whole body spasmed. When each wave began, the monster carrying him would hold him tighter to keep him from shaking loose. He thought at first the tremors were signs of his terror at this beast. But the fear of the creature had quickly subsided, and he realized he had begun shaking as soon as it killed the Skir Master.
It was an effect of the breaking of the bond, he was sure of it. What it meant for his survival, he did not know. It might build until, like a case of lockjaw, he died in a horrible contraction. Or it might eventually pass.
Between tremors he examined the creature, the dark pits of its eyes, the rough edges of its hideous mouth protruding like the spines of a cod, the exposed skeleton of stone. A smattering of tiny, pale, white flowers grew across its neck and shoulder. He wondered why they had not wilted and supposed the earth from which they grew was living, part of its skin. At one point in the journey, when the monster stopped to kick a tumbled tree out of its way, a fat bumblebee droned about the monster’s head and landed on its shoulder. It had time to probe one of the pale flowers before the monster began running again and the bouncing shook it off.
Argoth could not understand why the creature had taken Legs. Perhaps he would deliver Argoth to the master and then reward itself with Legs as a meal. Whatever the reason, in between spasms, Argoth talked to Purity’s blind boy, soothing him, thinking all the while of Nettle, and the sacrifice he’d made-the sacrifice that had been wasted on his cursed, foolhardy scheme.
The creature kept, for the most part, to the woods. Argoth knew there was no use calling for help. He’d tried, and the monster had clamped a rough hand over his mouth. Besides, this was not a weave of flesh and blood. How it lived, he could not guess. What he did know was that it could only be undone by special lore. Lore of which he had no knowledge. He could only hope that the Creek Widow had mustered the strength of the Grove. He was spent, but there still was a chance the Grove could defeat this thing.
The tremors continued for the many miles, but he noticed they were coming farther and farther apart. Perhaps he would survive the breaking of his bond to the Skir Master.
The monster carried them along a ridge of hills. It came to a small bluff, covered in trees, and jumped down to the ground a few yards below. They landed with a thump, and when the creature turned, Argoth saw why they’d come here.
Before them a cave opened into the rock. The monster repositioned them in its arms and strode into the darkness. It splashed through water, icy spray wetting Argoth’s exposed feet and face.
“We’re in a cave,” Argoth said to Legs.
“I know, Zu,” said Legs. “Please, unless you see something, it is important that I listen and smell.”
Argoth startled at the mild rebuke, but thought perhaps this is how the blind dealt with the unknowns in their world.
The monster climbed hill and valley, taking them ever deeper into the bowels of the rock. His tremors lessened. After some time, Argoth saw a bluish light up ahead. He mentioned this to Legs, who said, “I don’t know that I can keep the orientation points all in my head.”
Orientation points? Then he realized that the boy was keeping a map of sounds and smells in his mind. Argoth looked at him with new admiration.
As the monster jogged, the light grew stronger. Soon Argoth could make out the walls of the passage they were in. The monster took them past a chamber containing a large pool of black water, past pillars, past openings to other dark passageways. The light grew, they turned a corner, and Argoth found himself in the room that was the source of the light.
The light came from the dead body of a large, pallid beast with an eyeless head. There was no odor of rotten flesh, which meant it must have been recently killed. It lay on the far side of the chamber. It looked like a monstrous salamander, as long as a man, but with a stubby tail and the tusks of a boar. Two vertical cuts ran along its belly. The creature’s juices oozed out of the cuts, and when the separate juices ran together, the mixture shone with a white and bluish light. A bowl had been set on the floor beside the creature to capture the fluorescing liquid as it dripped from the creature’s side.
Argoth had seen creatures similar to this before. They were called night maws. But those were never longer than a man’s hand. And they were rare. That same light shone from two other bowls set in the room. It was not the blinding light of the sun, but an odd light that still left much of the room in shadow.
The monster released Argoth and Legs to stand.
“No,” a woman said.
The voice surprised him.
Argoth turned and saw figures chained at even intervals along the walls to his right: Hogan, the Creek Widow, Ke, River, Purity.
“No,” said the woman again. It was the Creek Widow, full of despair.
His heart sank. He’d hoped, at the very least, that Ke had escaped to call in the last two members of the Grove. But that would not be. There would be no muster.
Purity looked like the walking dead. Hogan did not look much better.
“Legs!” Purity said.
Argoth stepped toward H
ogan, but the monster grabbed him by his injured arm and wrenched him to an open set of manacles. The pain shot up Argoth’s arm. He took in a sharp breath.
Legs carefully walked to his mother, hands out front.
The monster stood Argoth a few paces from River, manacled his ankles, then his wrists. It passed a chain through both to a stout ring in the wall. Then it bent two links of the iron with its bare hands to secure Argoth to the ring in the rock. It yanked on the chain to test its strength.
Then the creature gaped open its mouth and coughed. It coughed again and plucked something dark and wet off its tongue. The object writhed like a worm between the monster’s two rough fingers. It was as thick as a man’s thumb and maybe a foot long.
Argoth backed up against the rock wall.
The monster reached out, steadied Argoth’s head with its free hand, then held the wet worm close to Argoth’s throat.
Argoth felt a cold touch at the hollow of his throat. Then the creature slithered up and around and circled his neck.
The monster stepped back.
Argoth braced himself, but nothing happened.
The monster ran a finger along the creature, then turned and walked over to Legs. He plucked him up from his mother and exited out of an opening in the far side of the chamber by the pallid beast.
“Mother,” he heard Legs call from the corridor.
Argoth stood frozen, still expecting the creature about his neck to bite or burn. He reached up carefully and touched it. It was cold and smooth as silk.
“It’s a king’s collar of sorts,” said the Creek Widow. “At least, none of us can work any power that it doesn’t immediately consume.”
Argoth looked at each of them in turn-all wore a similar creature.
The Creek Widow shook her head in the pale light. “You were our last hope. We are not going to be able to resist her for long.”
Her?
Argoth tested the chains. They were heavy and strong. The weight of them made his injuries throb.
Another tremor built in him. “Who is this enemy?” he asked.
The shaking increased. He braced himself, but it faded as quickly as it had come.