by Ashley Capes
The young one swallowed, glancing at Joris, who winced. “Don’t say anything, Lindr.”
Flir sighed. “You have to know we’re going to see for ourselves soon enough.”
Lindr squeezed his eyes shut. “She’d kill us.”
“We’ll kill you,” Kanis said.
“Please, I cannot die,” Lindr said. “I-I have to return to Whiteport. My mother, she’s—”
“Enough,” Flir snapped. “You have a choice, which is more than your friends and your commander received. Speak, or I will drive my fist through Joris’ face and then yours – and that is no idle threat, you know what I am.”
He shuddered. “Yes. Dilar.”
“Very well. Tell us what you know, and I will let you return to Whiteport.”
Lindr glanced at Joris, whose eyes were half-closed; the man had obviously not heard the last exchange. New blood was seeping from the bandages at his side. “The governor... he was working for a woman. I only saw her once.”
“Can you describe her?”
“I just saw her mouth really. She wore a white robe with a hood and she didn’t speak to us. Just Governor Mildavir. She seemed almost as young as me but her voice... I can’t describe it properly…”
“Try.”
“It seemed older somehow.”
Flir looked to Pevin and Kanis, neither of who seemed to recognise the description of the woman. “Was she Renovar?”
“No. Maybe Anaskari. That’s all I really know. The governor called her ‘mistress’.”
“And your purpose here?” she asked.
He slumped down onto his haunches, staring at the floor. “I thought joining his personal guard would be a good thing for my career.”
“She means the caves, Lindr,” Pevin said, his tone gentle.
Lindr nodded, not bothering to lift his head. “She’s doing something to the Ice-Priests... I don’t know, experimenting on them or something. I heard screams once, in the rooms below.”
Flir looked to Pevin. His jaw was clenched. “What about Mildavir and you, Lindr?” she asked.
“Word was getting out; we were supposed to stop that.”
“By forcing everyone here to lie about it?” Flir asked.
He still could not lift his head and he lowered his voice. “No. We were going to make a show of investigating. There are robes from the priests in our packs. We were going to impersonate some of them, let people in the area start to believe everything was fine.”
Pevin stood and crossed to the window.
“Then you don’t know what’s happening in Ithinov?”
He lifted his head and now his eyes were wide. “Do you mean... that man, the innkeeper?”
Grav opened the door. “Someone approaches, dilar.”
Flir stood. “We’ll talk again Lindr. Pevin?”
“I will watch him.”
In the hall, Grav was still trembling but seemed a little more together. “I hear something below.”
“Go inside,” Flir said as she and Kanis approached the stair, starting down and peering into the common room – there, movement at the bar.
“That had better not be Boles again,” Kanis whispered.
Flir ignored him, descending another few steps, revealing the whole of the bar, and stopped when she saw who it was. “Ekolay.”
The traveller was pouring himself a drink, the amber whiskey filling the glass to the brim. He still wore his white cloak but had lain his bow, quiver and long dagger beside him.
“What did you find?” she asked.
“Nothing I thought I’d ever see, and nothing I can explain,” he said, then lifted the drink and downed half the glass.
“That bad?” Kanis asked.
Ekolay nodded. “Don’t worry; I’ll save you some of Boles’ finest.”
“Where?” Flir asked.
“Behind the blacksmith, there’s a... nest. I missed the opening the first time. When you see them, be careful. Whatever lives there could come back.”
“It’s that thing again,” Kanis said.
Flir nodded as Ekolay took another drink. “Ekolay, what’s in there? Is that where the rest of the villagers are?”
“And some people I don’t recognise,” he said. “Maybe don’t touch them.”
“Stay here,” she told Kanis. “In case someone else turns up.”
He caught her arm. “Not a chance.”
“Fine. Ekolay, would you protect the others?”
“From man or woman, yes.”
“Good.” Flir charged up the stairs and retrieved her lamp, grimacing at the still-fresh wound in her ribs. Nearly healed but she probably wasn’t quite ready for things like running and jumping. Before she left, she stuck her head into Pevin’s room and explained. “Ekolay is downstairs.”
“Mishalar watch over you, dilar,” he said.
Back in the street she glared through the blacksmith’s quiet doorway, to a cold anvil. No hint of movement within the shadowy room. Where was the smith? Inside, she found him, slumped between workbenches, head on his chest, seemingly asleep.
“So where’s the entry?” Kanis said. “I don’t see that thing fitting in here.”
“No.” She wove between the half-finished pieces and pushed through the rear door to a generous courtyard.
Perhaps it had once been beautiful, but it was another nest now. Spun with the same grey web, it was augmented with dead trees, earth and paving stones, those which had doubtless once covered the ground. Empty pots lay scattered around, the corpses of a few remaining bushes were bent and broken, frost-blackened buds closed.
Flir circled yet there was no opening. “How did Ekolay get inside?”
“Let’s just break our way in,” Kanis said.
“Wait.” Up close, she saw the gouges made by feet and hands. “It must be up top.”
“Do we really have to hide the fact that we’ve been inside?”
She shrugged.
“Right.” Kanis drew an arm back and punched a hole in the side of the nest. He withdrew his fist then struck again, tearing a few hunks free, until a rough opening had been made. “See, much easier.”
Flir stepped within, finding a similar scene to the last nest – only now there was a tunnel sloping down beneath the smithy. “Listen for it coming home,” she said as she readied the lantern.
“No argument here.”
The tunnel wound down and around before opening into a vast chamber lined with shadowy shapes. Flir’s feet crunched on something; a dead torch, the faint scent of ash lingering. She circled the room slowly, Kanis beside her. Dozens of people lined the walls. All were suspended in the webbing, only their empty faces remained free, features revealing no pain, no terror either, just a simple muteness. A line of glimmering webbing had been spun from each head to a central column at the roof – which in turn ran down to hover over a stone pool, something that looked to have once belonged to a fountain.
“What is this?” she said as she approached.
She lifted the light over the pool. Something dripped to the surface, a rippling spreading somewhat slowly, as if through oily water.
“The strands extract something from the bodies,” Kanis guessed. “But what?”
In the hush that followed his question, a rustling crossed the cave.
“Hear that?” Flir started toward the sound. While not robust, it was persistent. It came from directly to the right of the entrance.
She stopped before a struggling figure; it bore no thread and the pale face was contorted in desperation. “This one’s alive,” Flir said.
She lifted the lantern.
Aren.
45. Flir
Flir tore at the grey muck, Kanis working on the other side, until Aren fell forward. She dragged him the rest of the way free, setting him on the ground. The man’s eyes were closed now, and his chest barely moved, as if the effort of gaining their attention had spent the last of his energy.
“I’m going to lend him some of my strength,” s
he said.
“Now? We should move him – what if the thing comes back?”
“Aren won’t last that long. Protect me,” Flir said as she gripped Aren’s hands and drew in deep breaths. Slowing her own racing pulse wasn’t easy, the odd scent of something sickly sweet and the scrape of Kanis’ boots on the earth as he paced were persistent distractions. “I need to concentrate,” she said. “Just listen for something.”
He stopped pacing but did not answer. She was able to focus on Aren’s thin pulse and calm herself, then she began to chant until the words became mere sounds. Warmth built, sliding down her arms to her hands. She tensed, ready for what would come next.
Pain rocked her.
Flir’s eyes flew open – Aren was dragging her strength once more, like a drowning man snatching at straws. She released him, breaking the link. He gasped for air, his whole body shuddering. What she’d given was negligible truly, but to Aren, on the edge of death, it was more than enough.
“Where am I?” he rasped. “I took a room at the inn and...” he paused to catch his breath.
“Talk later,” Flir said as she lifted him, the fellow groaning. She nodded to Kanis, who’d taken up the lantern. “Let’s check on the inn.”
They climbed up and out of the nest, passing through the still-empty smithy and into the street where the afternoon light was fading. The only source of sound came from the inn – the scrape and thud of furniture being moved.
Ekolay was righting an overturned table when Flir entered; it looked as though he’d already set half the room back in order, the shattered furniture stacked in a corner. “Can you find any medicine? Aren is alive,” she said.
He blinked, then started for the kitchen.
Flir took Aren upstairs, calling for Pevin at the landing. The door opened, and he peered out, eyes widening as he threw the door wide to admit them. Flir placed Aren on the bed and stood back. Grav barrelled across the room, collapsing at his master’s side with a glad cry.
“Show a little dignity, will you?” Kanis muttered.
Flir said nothing, but it was hard not to agree.
“Where was, I mean, how did this happen? Is he going to wake? Thank you, thank you both, dilars,” Grav said, words tumbling forth.
“Pick one question, Grav,” Pevin told him, not unkindly.
“Yes, of course. Will he recover?”
“I think so,” Flir said. “The more pressing question, I feel – is will we? That thing is still out there.”
“Can we fortify the inn?” Pevin asked.
“We can try,” Flir said with a nod. “Ekolay is bringing whatever medicine he can find; administer it if he wakes, Grav.”
“Of course, dilar.”
Downstairs, Flir checked on their horses then organised Pevin and Kanis with the tools she found in the stable, which they used to board up the windows in every room, after which, they prepared a makeshift palisade for the entry within the inn, using tables, chairs and even the bar itself, which she and Kanis tore free.
“Wouldn’t it be better to just take the wagon, dump Aren in it and get out of this place?” Kanis asked over the regular pounding of Pevin’s hammer.
“Do you think he’d survive the ride?”
“I don’t know if that matters,” Kanis replied. “Just because he was caught unawares here, doesn’t mean I trust him any more than I did before.”
“So you think he was working with Mildavir in the caves?”
“If he wakes, I plan to find out.”
Aren had woken by the time they finished securing the place as best as they could – the man stirred during their evening meal, which they ate in the kitchen. Pevin, who’d taken a turn watching over the cultist, called down from the landing.
He looked better, though his pale skin bore a dark blue tint, giving him the appearance of illness or great cold, yet the room was warm enough, a brazier having been dragged up the stairs earlier.
The cult leader was drinking from the still-steaming cup of soup that Ekolay had sent up not long before Pevin called for them.
“How do you feel, Master?” Grav asked.
“Weary. And empty, like I’ve had something taken from me – but I know it not to be true. The creature affixed no tentacle to me.” He smiled at Flir and Kanis. “No doubt I have you both to thank for my life.”
“Don’t get used to it,” Kanis said.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Flir asked.
“As best I can recall.” He set the cup aside. “I sent Tikev to Tiramof and set out alone, for speed. When I arrived in Ithinov it was quiet, but someone directed me to the inn. I knew where it was of course, I’d stayed at Boles’ before. But this time he seemed... different. Still cheerful but I don’t know. Like he wasn’t quite himself; I tried to joke with him but he didn’t understand. It should have been my first clue.” Aren took another drink as he shook his head.
“Did he offer the room cheap?” Flir asked.
“He did. And again, I just thought he was being kind. I took my room, settled in to sleep and woke in that place.” He took a deep breath. “I watched the creature regurgitate that gunk over one of the villagers, then hoist the man up to the wall where it attached one of those things to the fellow.”
“Can you guess at why?” she asked.
“I fear it may have been trying to learn.”
“What?” Flir frowned and Pevin’s eyes had widened.
“I was there for what felt like days and even though the time is blended together in my mind, from what I recall I’m growing more certain that it drank from the pool periodically. In between such actions it would control the movements of a marionette, and it seemed to ponder and then return above. When it came back, if it wasn’t with more travellers, it was to take villagers up. When it returned, it was to drink and work with the marionette once more.”
“Making adjustments based on how things went above,” Pevin said, his voice horrified.
“We saw no puppet,” Kanis said.
“Perhaps it carries it?”
It would have explained everyone’s odd behaviour – if they were being controlled by the creature. Flir stood. “Where is it now?”
Aren shook his head. “I don’t trust my memory. It seems that it left days ago. Or maybe only yesterday? But I feel that it is not nearby.”
“What makes you say that?” Kanis asked.
“A sensation. Or a fear perhaps; I fear I would know if it approached.”
Kanis snorted. “Wonderful.”
“I do not claim to be able to explain it, dilar,” he said.
Flir paced the room as best she could. “Wherever it is, we need to decide something. Staying here indefinitely seems pointless. As soon as Aren is ready, I think we should head for the caves. This might be our best chance.”
“I will be ready by dawn,” Aren said.
“Any objections?”
No-one spoke, and Pevin straightened – he was understandably still worried about his brother – so Flir nodded. “Good. We post a watch in pairs – and tomorrow we find out what Mildavir’s mistress is doing to the Ice-Priests.”
46. Flir
Flir found herself pacing once more – this time before the dark rockface, the noon wearing on and the temperature falling as Kanis pummelled the stone door, swinging mighty overhand blows, fists linked.
Yet nothing worked – not for him and not for her.
And after a long, tense night spent waiting for the creature to return, either on watch or tossing and turning in her bed, Flir wanted something to kick – something she could actually break. Pevin, Grav and Aren were scouting the trail, seeking another way into the caves. Ekolay had bade them luck and left for Enar from the inn; Flir could hardly blame him.
“This is pointless.” Kanis gave the stone wall another kick.
“Well said,” Flir replied.
“I hope you’ve got a new suggestion to go with your clever comment.”
“Of course I don’t,” she sn
apped. “Short of digging our way through from the side, I think we’re going to have to rely on the others since we didn’t bring any tools.”
Kanis looked set to retort but instead, he snapped his fingers. “Maybe we do have tools after all – back at the smithy.”
“It’d be another half a day there and back,” Flir said. “Putting us back here well after nightfall. We’ll be even more vulnerable.”
“The creature?”
“Exactly. I’m sure it prefers night; you’ve seen the nests.”
“It seemed to cause plenty of problems for us in broad daylight before.”
“Well, imagine how much worse things will be in the dark – we wouldn’t even see it, Kanis.”
“You’ve got a point,” he said after a moment’s thought.
“Well, here they come.” Flir pointed to the trail beyond the door. Pevin was striding with some purpose, Grav hanging back a little with the slower Aren. “Let’s see what they’ve discovered.”
“There’s some sort of window set into the hills themselves,” Pevin said. “It looks like they’ve been cleared recently. Perhaps a month ago at most – but the windows are ancient, they bear a similar spoked design to the third Mishalar Temple in Enar.”
Two hundred years at least. “Let’s take a look,” Flir said.
Pevin led them back up trail, leaving it for a winding path lined with weeds and crossed by cracks and broken ground. They climbed as the sun started a slow fall, reaching three large, evenly-spaced windows. As Pevin had said, spoked like a wheel, parts of the glass near-buried in mildew and mould – save for where it had been scrubbed clean.
“Not much to see below; it’s not lit very well,” he said as he gestured within, then folded his arms, one foot set to tapping. Flir put a hand on his shoulder. “If he’s in there, we’ll get him out.”
He nodded and she knew from his expression that she didn’t need to add anything about the dozens of dark alternatives. She knelt to peer down through the first window. Dim light revealed little but the stony floor and the edge of what might have been a cot. Flir looked up to the others. “I don’t think we can quietly remove these windows, nor stop debris falling inside, for that matter.”