CrossTown
Page 21
Then I fell away into darkness, even the voices of my Legion lost in the silence.
CHAPTER XXIII
OF ALL the places in the world to find yourself when you wake up, an oubliette has to rank as one of the worst. Oubliettes are the most primitive of dungeons, basically low-rent hellholes. That’s literally what an oubliette is: a hole in the ground, ordinarily used as a dump for people that the owner doesn’t ever plan on seeing again.
I cracked open gummed lids, my head pounding as if I’d had one hell of a good time the night before (which, all in all, I thought a bit unfair: dying is one thing, but dying with a hangover you didn’t even earn is something else again) and took a look around. That hole held an old smell of pain and fear and piss and shit and vomit and blood and things even less pleasant.
My limbs felt distant. I could not hear the voices of my Legion. My cache of driller worm spores had vanished. So had my silver and iron chains. So had my other surprises. All my goods had undoubtedly been dumped on the Way before they carried me into durance vile. I had a good idea where. I had been in one of their sanctums before. Less as a guest than an invader, that time around. Beyond me, burning distantly on my clouded senses, I could feel the overlay of the main barrier the Whitesnakes used to secure their privacy.
A tall figure wearing a white, hooded robe loomed over me in the shadows, a lantern dangling casually from one clawed hand. The floor moved in a queasy fashion that did nothing for my already delicate digestion. Then I realized that the man in the hood stood ankle deep in snakes. Even worse, I lay supine on that floor, covered in the living coils of those same snakes. Knowing the Whitesnakes’ enduring fondness for poisonous reptiles, I chose not to move.
“Where is it?” The voice issuing from that hood sounded decidedly sepulchral. Like all cults, the Whitesnakes were more than slightly taken with theatrics. On the other hand, the hood kept me from seeing his eyes, those windows to the soul, so I would have to work harder to touch his will. That would take time, and given the snakes …
I wished I had a cigarette to light up, just to show him how calm I was about my captivity.
“You can talk,” he said impatiently. “My friends will let you move that much. Move any more than that, and I have no assurances as to their behavior.”
On reflection, the absence of a cigarette could be seen as a good thing.
He waited. I waited. When I didn’t answer, his tone became irritated. “If you don’t answer, I might have to ask my friends to encourage you to talk.”
I hadn’t ever been that fond of snakes, anyway.
He reached down slowly, held out one hand, and a small, brightly colored serpent curled its way down his arm and into his cupped palm. “Take this little fellow, for instance. Interesting venom. It’s not fatal to humans, but it does seem to have a particularly distressing effect on the central nervous system. I understand that the level of pain involved is really quite unendurable. I don’t believe that I know anyone who’s needed more than one dose to be persuaded to do anything. Remember, you are the one who banished the last physical incarnation of our Living God. If you think we might have any merciful impulses that could spare you even the smallest element of suffering, think again.”
“What do you want to talk about?” I reached for the Legion but hit a moving, yielding but tough personal barrier—a smaller version of the larger binding over the Whitesnake holy ground, and the snakes tightened around my limbs.
My interrogator made tsk’ing noises. “Shouldn’t try that. My friends are sensitive to sorcery. You can’t dominate them all. At least, not all at once.” He bent down until I could see his eyes burning like coals in the depths of the hood. Not that I could take any advantage of that. “Don’t make me repeat myself,” he said softly. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?” I did my best to look innocent. The snakes didn’t seem to be buying it. They didn’t seem to be relaxing, either. I tried for the power of the Shadow Hound, but I couldn’t focus well enough to bring it up. That dancing mesh of a barrier seemed to be interfering with my access to my captive darkness as well as my Legion.
He looked into my eyes. I looked back. Despite the snakes, he looked away. “The Raven’s Key. Where is it?”
“Under his doormat?” I suggested helpfully.
He shook his head. “You never learn.”
“Well, actually …” I had begun another smartass comment when the hand holding the small snake dipped down, and the snake slipped his fangs into me. At once the world began to burn. I thrashed and screamed as I felt the venom of it slither through my body like a swarm of tiny snakes engendered by the mother and already feeding on my still-living flesh.
Nature can be merciful.
Systems built into the body, such as the shock reaction, can act to damp out certain levels of pain in extreme circumstances. Of course, not only can this particular reaction prove counterproductive at times, but Nature often chooses to arm some of her children with a nearly limitless arsenal of ways to circumvent the gifts she has bestowed on other children.
In other words, Nature can also be a heartless bitch.
I don’t believe that I ever really understood that until my experience with the venom. I have no idea how much time passed. I only know that as the levels of pain faded, and I could actually begin to perceive the world around me again, I fully understood the Christian concepts of eternity, hellfire, and damnation. Trust me, I wanted to repent. I wanted to be saved.
I also knew that I would have no salvation I didn’t provide for myself.
As I came back to my body, I became aware that I had fouled myself. The stench of shit and piss and vomit and blood had become considerably stronger. The Hooded Man had not moved. The snakes still wrapped my limbs. My body ached all over, but that was bliss compared to what I had left behind. I wondered distantly how much time had passed for him. Eternity for me compressed into an inconvenient few seconds for him? How many doses did the snake hold?
I watched the Hooded Man and his little hell spawn like a bird watches, well, a snake. The Hooded Man leaned back down. “Where is it?”
My mouth tasted much like I imagined the oubliette would. “Where’s what?” I croaked.
He didn’t say a word. Down came the snake. I went to hell for a second eternity.
When I came back, I had all the fortitude of a drowning kitten. If the bastard had been patient, I would have told him anything he wanted to know. I would have invented shit on the spot. I would have become Homeric in my response. But he didn’t give me the chance.
I heard the repeated, implacable question, and it almost made sense to me. I stared up through the flickering torchlight at him, trying to wrap my mind around language again, then trying to persuade my tongue, jaw, lips, and everything else to function, when the snake came down again.
It’s possible that I died. I’m not really sure. I mean, I’d died once before, but this was a bit different from that. I had gone to a place completely absent of pain. The oubliette and its contents faded to distant transparency. I felt a perfect, unencumbered clarity as I looked around. I floated in the living mesh of a single, unending, fiery snake. It held me in place. I understood that Whitesnake sorcery took this form as it cut me off from my Legion, binding my mind as the exterior serpents bound my soul.
The Whitesnakes had an ugly, hobgoblin consistency in their method. Little minds, and all that.
Through the barrier I could see very clearly the Captains of my Legion fighting against the barrier. Something in me broke as I watched them struggling without any orders on my part. They fought without any hope of reward, without any fear of punishment. As they were not tied to my body, other than voluntarily in the case of the White Rose, the venom would not touch them. If it had, they wouldn’t have been able to fight anyway.
I explored the confines of the area in which I found myself and made a couple of interesting discoveries. First, I floated in a suspension of darkness. Everything I did, everything I was
, had become encapsulated in shadow. In some ways, I had become shadow. I realized then that in my desperation I had somehow reached through the barrier to touch the captive power of the Shadow Hound, and in doing so, I had fled the only way I knew how. I had fled the same way that I had left my body to possess my clone, and later used the shadow as a link to do the same to Edward Harvest. I also noticed that the barrier I had examined earlier distended where it encompassed me. The burden of capturing my fleeing shadow self had stretched it out of the pattern established to hold me in place without any consideration for my wandering spirit and its shadow path.
I thought again of Bright Angel’s longing, of the renegade Captains of my Legion, and of the White Wolf’s fierce independence. I thought about all the things I had done and all the things I had been. I thought about what I might become, in the unlikely event that I did survive the next few hours. It was then that I realized that I fully intended to pursue the work of my master, but in my own way.
I had no other alternative. I refused to abandon CrossTown. I refused to abandon my obligation to Corvinus. I would see his work through to the end. If I died, at least I would have the satisfaction of keeping the heart from falling into the hands of someone like the Whitesnake cultists.
And I would not carry slaves with me. I would not continue to compel the Legion to serve me. I had other tools. I had my will, my knowledge of the Ways, and the stolen power of the Shadow Hound. I could not continue to compel them. I could not continue to carry the risk they represented. I feared what it would mean for me to continue to hold them, when they had stood by me in my time of need. I feared that if I died, they would be taken into some Whitesnake sorcerer’s Legion. I damned sure wouldn’t have that burden on my soul.
The idea had been growing in the back of my mind for some time. I was honest enough with myself to admit that had I not had an alternative tool in the growing power of the shadow, I would not have been able to let them go. I had depended on their strength. I could no longer afford to do so.
I turned my efforts to breaking through on the inside of the barrier. It gave, but I could not break it entirely. I accomplished what I had hoped, however. Blade noticed my efforts. Soon the entire Legion worked at the side of the barrier opposite from me, attacking in force and desperation. The inner skin of the barrier fell before our combined strength, snapping back around to seal me in with the Legion. The cloak of darkness, I noticed, remained joined with me, instead of separating.
My Legion simply stood for an instant, regarding me numbly. I had managed to shock them.
The White Wolf recovered first. “Tell me that this is part of a plan.”
“It’s not so easy,” I told him. “But I do have a plan.”
“Why did you come in?” Blade asked. “You could have fought your way out, where you could have accomplished something against the enemy.”
“I’m not so sure that I could have fought my way out. The barrier is strong. And I need you all for a few last things.”
“A few last things?” Bright Angel shifted uneasily. “What do you mean?”
“I need your help taking the Whitesnake priest and his little helpers down. Then I want you to carry a message for me, if you can. Chances are you won’t make it. If we’re in a Whitesnake stronghold, the obstacles raised against spirit traffic will be harsh. If you can break free, carry word to Vayne. Show him where this place is. If he can’t pull me out, perhaps he can avenge me.”
The White Wolf cocked his head. “You sound like you’re preparing to die. Don’t you think that you’d have a much higher chance of surviving with us?”
“Possibly.” I didn’t even sound like I believed it to myself. “But if I fall here, with all of you, some Whitesnake sorcerer will take you into his Legion. I don’t want to see that. I’m not comfortable holding you anymore. Do this last thing for me. I’ll break the chains that bind you, regardless. If you work with me against the Hooded Man and carry my message to Vayne, then you’ll do that of your own free will. I will not compel you. I will not argue if you choose to try and escape on your own, though I’ll warn you,” I swept the lesser ones lined up behind their Captains with my gaze, “all of you, that you stand the greatest chance of success when you act together.”
The White Wolf shook with anger. “Is this some trick? What brings on this sudden change of heart?”
“I think it’s been coming for some time,” I said. “Even Sapienta chafed at her bonds. I’ve known that, but I don’t think that I’ve ever truly understood it until now. I’ve been thinking more and more about it. The Hooded Man’s passport to hell convinced me in the end. I can’t find it within myself to hold you anymore. Don’t get me wrong, there’s pragmatism to this as well. These Whitesnake barriers are strong, but designed to balk a single concentrated rush. I don’t think that they’ll do so well against all of us collectively. I won’t be able to divert any attention to direct you, or hold you. It will take all of us to give any of us a chance of escaping. Alas, the compelled Legion has been my strength, but also my weakness. I have been attacked through you time and time again, as I have been tracked through all of my contacts. I’m changing my profile. I’m not eliminating my senses, or my ability to bind spirits, or any of my other basic strengths. I’m simply following advice I heard before. I’m purging the Legion. And I’m purging it in the only way that feels clean.”
The White Wolf suddenly grinned. “You don’t expect to survive. You want to die with a clean conscience. I get to benefit from it. Count me in. I’ll help you here, and carry your message for you. Break my bonds.”
Bright Angel sneered at the White Wolf, but I could see her burning even more strongly. “Break my bonds. I will help you.”
A chorus of the others followed. Blade answered last, slowly. “It’s been so long since I’ve known freedom, I do not know what it means. Will you object if any of us choose to stay with you?”
“Of course not,” I said gently. “But if any stays with me, it will not be because I have compelled it.”
In the end, even Blade decided to seek his freedom. Perhaps he had been testing me. Two of the lesser ones took their freedom and refused to help. At least they were up front about it. I didn’t care by that time.
I felt curiously clean, cleaner than I had felt in a long time. Together, we turned our attention to the plan. I laid it out for them. Their assent came easily. Having agreed, we turned to the two dissenters and told them that they must not attempt to escape the confines of the Whitesnake stronghold until after the Legion moved against the barrier. If they attracted the attention of the Whitesnakes too early, their ends would be both short and terrible. They agreed easily. I should have taken more notice of that than I did, but I had other things on my mind.
Girding our collective loins, the Legion and I directed our effort against the barrier that held us.
CHAPTER XXIV
WE STRUCK in a focused rush. While perhaps not as focused as they had been in the past, the Legion’s new motivation more than made up for it. I had never seen such strength and such ferocity from them. I had heard that the free always fight with more conviction than slaves. I believed it then. The barrier that bound us fell almost as we hit it.
Time bent around us. The Legion diverged to fill the snakes. I took my own target, possessing the new host easily. No defenses had been raised, no expectation of resistance even crossed its mind. I didn’t adjust easily to the new flattened perspective—the strange new form, the vastly different musculature and nervous system—but I did gain enough understanding to look up at the face of the huge creature I had wound myself around. I opened my jaws experimentally. I felt him twitch. I like to think that he understood what was about to happen, right there before the end.
Then I buried my new fangs in the base of the Hooded Man’s hand, clenching tighter as he convulsed. I then proceeded to pull out and slam the fangs home again and again, as the other snakes swarmed away from my supine form and over his writhing body, lockin
g him down, burying their fangs in every available piece of his twisting shape. Once I had emptied the snake’s venom sacs into him, I killed my host, deliberately burning out its primitive nervous system as I left. Then I walked through the shadows to my own abused corpus.
I rose slowly to my feet, feeling less than human but also steadily better as the White Rose and others rose from the dead bodies of the snakes they had possessed to mend my own battered physical shell as well as they could. I opened my eyes and looked down on the corpse of the Hooded Man and numerous dead reptiles. The hood had fallen back away from his reptilian features. His TechTown-purchased genetic bodymods had changed him enough that his features and expressions could not truly be regarded as human, but the expression on his face—the last expression he would ever wear—had enough human frailty in it to almost satisfy my sadistic side.
In his case, my sadistic side would never be entirely satisfied.
I thought step one had gone off without a hitch. The White Rose completed her work. I thanked her solemnly. She didn’t reply. Instead, she swarmed up to join the rest of the Legion as Blade came to stand before me. “We have a problem.”
On the end of his sword hung one of the two small rebels who had agreed so easily to wait and join our concerted attempt to escape the confines of the Whitesnake stronghold. It still twisted feebly against the force consuming all that it had been. “Where’s the other?”
“That’s the problem.”
Panic squeezed my heart like a vice as I heard a long, trailing scream. I didn’t realize immediately that the scream had not been physical, but I understood what it meant: every Whitesnake around would have been informed by the temple barrier and that scream that something unusual was happening. The other small rebel, the one that Blade had not been able to pin down, had apparently become impatient and tripped the Whitesnake alarms.