by Jack Conner
Nevertheless, he ran. With all his strength, he ran. His lungs burned, and sweat stuck his shirt to this back, his pants to his knees. His legs cramped and flamed.
The group passed out of the caves and into the fortress, where the ngvandi rolled about on the floor much as they had in the grottoes, clutching dumbly at the air. They offered no resistance.
* * *
Outside, night smothered the land. A light snow drifted over the city, and screams and shouts echoed up from the shadowed streets. The ngvandi that occupied the city had not been as deeply affected by the psychic screams of the Mnuthra as those in the fortress, perhaps because of distance, perhaps because they were not as high in the echelons of the faith and thus not as connected to their gods. Even as Avery and the others threaded their way through buildings and roads, they saw the ngvandi prowl the streets in groups, dragging screaming slaves out from hovels and tearing into them indiscriminately with bare hands and claws. Slaves ran panting down the streets, terrified, some bleeding. Avery’s group ducked into an alley after seeing one slave gutted in a town square.
“Why’re the ngvandi attacking their own damned slaves?” Hildra said.
“I don’t know,” Avery panted. “But I think—they don’t know what’s going on—just some attack—from non-ngvandi—”
Layanna said in Octunggen, “They’ll know soon.”
“Over the bridge,” Avery said. “It’s the—only way.”
“We can cut it behind us,” Janx agreed.
“Wait!” said Hildra, when the others had started to move. They turned to her. “Where can we go once we get over? Bridge or no, they’ll be after us.”
“She’s right,” Layanna said.
Suddenly Avery remembered the Octunggen slaves. “I have an idea.”
Slaves ran down the streets, fleeing from the enraged ngvandi. It wasn’t long before Avery picked out one of the Octunggen and with Janx’s help wrestled the man into an alley. The fellow fought against them, but Janx was too strong. Avery saw that the Octunggen already showed signs of infection, black growths along one cheekbone, and one eye bulging out, fish-like, its pupil transformed.
“Release me!” the man cried in his native tongue. “They’re on my heels!”
Avery thought of what the Octunggen had done to Mari and Ani, and he felt no pity. “Tell me where your dirigibles are, and we’ll let you go,” he said.
The man stared, shocked.
“Tell me!” Avery demanded. He knew the Octunggen raiding parties, like those that had attacked Benical and killed his wife and daughter, used dirigibles to hop from mountain to mountain. They were the ideal vehicle for such purposes—small and light and silent.
The howls of the ngvandi drew closer.
The Octunggen sweated, and nodded. “Fine. They’re no use to me anymore. It’s not as if I’m in any condition to escape. We came here to attack them, but—”
“Just tell us,” Avery said.
The man scowled. “My mate Sunctanis was just sacrificed to the fish-gods yesterday. If you really did kill one, mister, you have my blessing to take as many ships as you want. Here’s how you’ll find them ...”
Chapter 3
Wind rustled through Avery’s hair as he slumped against the dirigible gunwale, exhausted. Below ngvandi hordes howled and raged. Some flung spears. Hildra laughed at them and made obscene gestures, while Janx piloted. It had been a tense day since their escape from the Mnuthra-con, and the mutants had hounded their steps every inch of the way, having been summoned from other cities or towns. The dirigibles had been right where the Octunggen had said they would be, under tarps on the top of a certain summit. Avery and the others had taken one just as a ngvandi patrol had come across them.
The dirigible rose higher—higher. Avery clutched the gunwale and gulped down deep breaths; he felt as though he’d been running forever. A stitch flared in his side. The mountain peak grew small below, as well as the howling mob. The creaking and swaying of the dirigible was strangely reassuring, and Avery almost smiled as he caught his breath and lifted his head to behold the panorama of the mountains, whose snow-capped summits stretched in every direction for as far as the eye could see.
Layanna’s ragged gasps drew him. She’d said little since the events in the cavern. For most of the journey, she’d been unconscious, pale and shaky, and it was clear she was terribly wounded, if not on this plane, then in another. Several times she’d vomited, and her veins showed, too visible, beneath her skin. Whatever had happened to her in that other dimension, if that was the proper way to think about it, was affecting her here. Avery wasn’t sure if she would survive.
Janx continued to pilot, his face a mask of misery. Avery wanted to reassure him but knew it would be at best useless and at worst resented. Janx and Muirblaag had been close friends, almost brothers, and the pain of losing him clearly cut deep. Janx needed to mourn. He would grieve about losing Byron, too, of course, and the others who had died in Hissig, but their deaths would not have affected him like Muirblaag’s. Avery would just have to give him time, and space.
Hildra paced back and forth, smoking and staring at Layanna. The Octunggen had left stores of food, whiskey and cigarettes, as well as first-aid supplies. They had probably also brought their strange weapons with them, but these they must have unloaded to use against the ngvandi. Now that the thrill of escape had worn off, Hildra looked like she was working herself into a fit. Hildebrand chattered in shared agitation as he climbed the rigging.
“Alright,” Hildra snapped at Layanna. “I’ve had enough. First Jay and Hold, now Mu and By. I don’t want any more of us to die for this bullshit. Saving the world! Who do you think you are, lady?”
It’s my fault, not Layanna’s, Avery wanted to say. Layanna gave me the option to go back, to prevent what happened, but I chose to go on, and to bring you all with me. If you want to beat up on someone, Hildra, beat up on me. He thought about saying this, then saw the set of Hildra’s face and said nothing.
“I am sorry for your losses,” Layanna said, apparently willing to take the blame. Silently, Avery thanked her.
“Lot of good that does us,” Hildra said. “You want us to—”
Janx interrupted her with an upraised hand. To Layanna, he said, “Just tell me this: was it worth it? Did Mu and By ... did they die for nothing?” There was a raw edge to his voice, a strain, and something crazy gleamed in his eyes. It was a fierce anger, Avery realized, a bottled force that was ready to explode—and would, Avery sensed, if Janx got the wrong answer.
For a moment, the world took a breath and waited to see which way the fates would blow, and then, to Avery’s intense relief, Layanna said, “No.” He translated as she added, “I got what I needed. When I was ... engaged with the Mnuthra—and he was a powerful one, one I had heard of long before, known as Uthua—I was able to touch his thoughts. I learned what I came to find: the location of the nearest functioning altar.”
“Where?” asked Avery.
A dark look crossed her face. “A place known as Cuithril.”
Hildra swore.
Furrows wrinkled Janx’s face. “But ... but that’s not even a real city!”
“He’s right,” Hildra said. “Isn’t Cuithril the afterlife of the Ungraessotti?”
“Yeah,” said Janx. “A city in the Underworld. Where you go when you die, right through the Soul Door. If you worship the God-Emperor, anyway.”
“It’s a real place,” Layanna assured them. “The Ungraessotti attach mythical connotations to it, but it’s real enough—a great subterranean city in the northeast of Ungraessot, near Maqarl, the capital. It’s only accessible through the system of caverns that runs beneath the country. Actually, they run beneath many, even stretching most of the way to Octung. I believe the Ungraessotti call them the Hallowed Halls, or the Tunnels of Ard.”
“Ungraessot,” Avery mused. It was one of Ghenisa’s nearest neighbors, and it lay just over the Borghese to the east. He had always wanted to v
isit the country for its L’ohen history. “Then that’s where we’re going.”
“You’re insane,” Hildra said. “We can’t go there. Ungraessot’s under invasion by Octung. It’s liable to fall any day if it hasn’t already.”
“It’s the only way,” Layanna said.
Hildra groaned. “Let me get this straight. You want us to find some altar in a mythical city on the other side of a godsdamned warzone?”
“You took an oath,” Avery reminded her.
“Fuck my oath. This is batshit!”
Janx rubbed her shoulder, but she shook him off and retreated into a corner, where she sulked and smoked in private. Janx nodded his head at Avery.
“I’m in,” Janx said. The crazy gleam in his eyes had vanished, but the anger was still there, lurking just below the surface, ready to erupt—only now its target would not be Layanna but anyone that stood between him and Cuithril. “No way I’m letting Mu or any of them die for nothing. And don’t worry about Hildy. She’ll come round.” He paused. “Mind, she’s right. This thing we’re doin’ ... well, it’s a suicide run, you realize that?”
“We’ll find a way,” Avery said.
Janx gave him a doubtful look. “I’m in, but if we’re really gonna survive this ... you’d best start thinkin’ of a plan.” He moved off to comfort Hildra, and Avery gripped the wheel.
Layanna seemed pensive. When Avery asked what was wrong, she said in Octunggen, “There is one problem.”
“What?”
“You can not tell the others this. I don’t want them to despair.”
“Go on.”
“It’s Uthua. The Mnuthra.”
“Could he ... have survived?”
“Uthua is quite old, and powerful. He’d let his human self whither, but yes, he survived. What’s more, I sense that he’s ... stronger now than before. How I don’t know.”
She gnawed at her bottom lip.
“There’s more, isn’t there?” Avery said.
“When our minds touched, there is a chance, however small, that Uthua was able to read my thoughts, as I was able to read his. It’s possible he knows our destination.”
“You’re not telling me ...”
“Yes, Doctor. He could try to intercept us on our way to Cuithril. I wasn’t able to defeat him last time, and I certainly won’t be able to next time.”
“If you can’t stop him, and if being stabbed through the chest can’t do it, what can?” When she didn’t answer, he asked, “Will he alert the other Collossum?”
“Certainly. But he’s much closer to us than they are and can reach us faster.”
Avery felt a momentary flutter in his belly, but he was able to push the fear aside, at least for now. It would come back later, he knew. Oh yes, it would come back.
“Then the race is on,” he said.
* * *
Avery piloted for a while. He was far from an expert dirigible pilot, but he slowly began to get the hang of it. Gears and levers jutted up on either side of the console, and pedals stuck out below. The rear propellers could move them faster or reverse to slow them down, even stop them. They could also be positioned to angle the ship up or down. And the balloon, the stiff, ovoid envelope, could be filled with hotter or cooler gases, or combination of gases, that would make them rise or fall. He experimented—unsuccessfully at first, to the curses of Janx and Hildra—but slowly improved. It was not surgery, but it was not child’s play, either ... although, after a time, he couldn’t help but feel a sort of thrill, despite everything. He was flying.
I wish you could see me now, Mari. I wish you could be here with me. You and Ani both.
All the while, Hildra shot dark glances at Layanna, and Avery could tell something was building in her again. Finally, Hildra stormed up to her and said, “If we’re really gonna do this, blondie, really gonna go to—to Cuithril, of all places—I want you to do me one thing for me. Just one fucking thing.”
Layanna waited.
“I want you to be honest,” Hildra said.
“I have not lied to you,” Layanna said, and even Avery could tell that there was something evasive in her tone.
“But you haven’t told us the truth, either, have you?” Hildra leaned forward, her face deadly serious. “If you want my help, that’s my price.”
“What truth do you require?”
Hildra’s eyes glittered. “Just what are you, sunshine? And don’t give me that line you used before. You’re kin to that ... that thing that killed Mu. Just saying you’re an extra-whatsit, that’s not gonna cut it. I want to know exactly. What the fuck is a Collossum? Byron asked you, but you wouldn’t tell him, and now he’ll never know.”
Layanna glanced to Avery as if for shelter, and he hid a twinge of discomfort. Even now, she didn’t want to give up her secrets.
Keeping his voice gentle, he said, “It’s time, Layanna. We need to know. Please. We’ve earned that much.” When she hesitated, he made himself smile and patted her on the shoulder. She regarded him warily. “It will be all right,” he said. “If it helps, I can guess some of it. You’re ... when you said you weren’t from here, you didn’t mean Urslin, did you?”
Layanna appeared surprised. “No. I did not.”
“What gives?” said Hildra, her gazing flicking from Layanna to Avery, as if they shared a secret.
To Hildra, Avery said, “Remember the salamander people that used to live near your hometown? The Suulm?”
“Yeah ...”
“It was said that they hailed from another world. You believed it.”
She nodded, slowly. “Yeah. I guess.” Her gaze moved back from Avery to Layanna. “You sayin’ that’s where she’s from? Up there?”
“It was true with the Suulm,” Avery reminded her.
Layanna, with a visible effort, made herself look Hildra in the eye. It was clear that, finally, she was ready to come forward with the truth, and in spite of everything, Avery couldn’t resist a surge of anticipation. Now, at last, he might get the answers he’d been seeking since he helped pull her out of the water long months ago. She began to speak in low, clear tones, and he translated as best he could. The others listened raptly.
“The universe is stranger than you think, Hildra,” Layanna began. “The fabric of space strains, twists, rips. There are folds, hidden abysses, vast labyrinths and honeycombs where voids emerge from voids, where dimensions shift and merge and tear. Where I come from, reality is different. Our race, the R’loth, was vast and strong, advanced beyond your ability to understand. I’m sorry if that sounds patronizing, but ... .” She sighed. “We delved too deeply into ... well, you might think of it as arcane lore. We plumbed the secrets of ancient mysteries. You cannot imagine our creations, our cities, our worlds, our gods. A vast empire, with cities and its inhabitants spanning a myriad of worlds, dimensions, our machines and our very natures capable of twisting planes and spheres, of existing across them. But we delved too far, explored too recklessly.
“We investigated the depths of distant abysses, seeking answers to mysteries hinted at in our scriptures. We dredged them, the great gulfs in the fabric of the voids, and brought forth things ... beings. Some thought them gods. We thought they could be our allies. Gods or not, they worshipped the same over-deities as we. But they turned on us. A great war consumed Luz’hai, the Forever Empire, and we developed more and more devastating weapons to combat the Muug, the H’ss’rul, the beings we had summoned. At last we sundered that which we sought to save, and the Muug, greater and more awful beings than we, at home amidst the splintered and twisted fabric that had become of Luz’hai, inherited the ruins.
“We, the few survivors, fled from our quarter, our universe, our planes. We fled through the twisting labyrinths of the voids, and at last passed into your quarter. We found your world, a world with a great sea, which we required, and something else, which we desired. The latter proved impossible, but the former, viable. So we came here. We inhabited your depths, built anew our cities. Much of
our civilization is irrevocably lost, of course, but it is a beginning. We’ve had to transform your world into one that could sustain us. Our natures are different from yours. Thus ... we changed the sea.”
Hildra gasped, and Avery blinked rapidly.
“Gods damn,” Janx said.
“It ... it was you,” Hildra said, her eyes riveted on Layanna. “You made the Atomic Sea!”
“We changed it into what it is, yes,” Layanna said. “And with it the world. Now the planet can begin to sustain us, be a reflection, however pale, of the worlds we left behind.”
“Amazing,” said Avery.
“But we needed more,” Layanna continued. “To rebuild our civilization, we needed to conquer the stars, to spread throughout the galaxy, then beyond. But to do this swiftly we needed to strip this world, to denude its resources. We knew we would leave behind only a burning, naked rock, and that your kind would resist us—unless they were under our power. Thus, in time we selected a nation, a mighty nation, Octung. It would be our herald on the surface world. It would subdue the surface people, bring about order so that we could rule, so that we could have our slaves carve up the planet for our needs. We gave the Octunggen leadership, technology—religion.
“In order to do all this, we needed to deal with humans directly. And in order for them to treat with us, we had to make ourselves into forms that they would find appealing, desirable, worthy of respect, not flee from in terror. Thus a small segment of our race was ... changed. Changed so that our material representation in this plane appeared human. This ...” she pinched the skin of her forearm “... this is not how most of my kind look. I am human, at least on this plane. I have been fundamentally altered. I still require the sea, or things from the sea, but as long as I do not bring my other facets through very often I can exist on dry land.