I longed to put it on, but my harness and muzzle made this impossible. I donned the arm guards and greaves just the same. They were much lighter than I had expected. A wave of vigor washed over me. Streaks of green like old bronze forked along my arms. The vitality of elder days gathered in my loins.
The shaft beckoned to me. I went and looked down it. It was like a black hole to the nether abyss. I stepped off the edge, plummeted past the lid, and landed on my feet, unhurt. Then I bent my knees and sprang. With that one leap I ascended halfway up the shaft. I shot out my arms and stopped myself there, then worked my way back up to the vault.
Hope beat high in my heart now. I wouldn’t be in Hela forever. The seraphim had not forsaken me.
I took off the armor and returned it to its place. The green faded from my limbs. I lowered myself carefully back down the shaft and replaced the lid, having decided to keep the antechamber of heaven to myself. I went out, taking an alabaster headrest with me.
The rest of my time I spent exploring around the maze of foundations, building a mental map. Then I felt the chain’s tug, and set my face toward Hela.
Granny was there when I stepped into the cellar. She approved what I had brought back.
“I have news for you,” she went on with an ugly smile. “We just made a good sale. Your woman brought a high price. From a friend of a friend of mine.”
Dead at heart, I let them take off the harness and metal mask. I went back through the store with the guard. When I passed the treasure case I looked through the bars. Deinothax was gone, too.
I balled my fists. Soon I would act.
16 Entrails of Enoch
Days passed. The cycle of delving repeated. I planned my escape. I didn’t tell my cellmates about it because I was afraid they’d oppose it and try to stop me. But I intended to give them a chance to come at the last moment.
My plan was something like this. Granny’s familiar had shown herself my friend, whatever Jubah and Bulna might say. I hoped she would bring me the keys if I asked her. I would attempt to slip out, not through Hela again, but through the lower levels. Once down below I would retrieve the armor and make my way up to the surface. I wanted to find Seila. That was my first goal. The friend of which Granny had boasted had some connection with the Misfit. Of that I was certain. I would try there first. Once I found Seila I would resume my quest for Narva.
The only problem was that I hadn’t seen my friend since my fight with the cyclops. For all I knew she was dead, or gone somewhere else; perhaps she simply never ventured into that ward. There was nothing to do but wait, however. In the meantime I devoted my delving to exploring the maze of foundations. The chain always gave out before I could find a way upward, though. Sometimes I returned with a find, sometimes not. The reward system I ignored entirely.
One day while I was returning empty-handed the chain stopped being reeled in. I waited for a while, then continued on my own. I spiraled up the stairs and stepped into the cellar. No one was there. I went across it and peered into the store.
The floor was crawling with strange, silent intruders. They were pawing at things, sniffing at jars and vases, peering into holes and tubes. They seemed more like animals than men. Their master, a phylite, sat primly on a dusty settee. He was perfectly bald and had pale, powdered skin. His cranium was soft-looking, like an infant’s. There was a jeweled ring on each of his fingers. His expression was friendly and his eyes twinkled.
Granny was beside herself. She followed now this man, now that, complaining about how they were overturning her store. “There now,” she was saying to one, “that’s a collectible. From the Third Chiliad, that is.”
“My dear woman,” the little man said suavely, “please calm yourself. All will be restored to order in due time. This is only a routine check-up, I assure you.”
The old woman addressed her answer to the nearest of the mutes as though he were the one who had spoken. “I don’t understand it,” she whined. “I’ve always been a good helot. The Cheiropt has never bothered me before. I—I have connections, you know.” She seemed not to know whether to use the Misfit’s name.
The man smiled genially, revealing a set of filed white teeth inlaid with gold filigree. “Everything will be sorted out,” he said. “Chances are you’ll be back here in no time.”
That made Granny start. “You mean I’m to be arrested.”
He waved his hand. “Oh, I’d hardly call it that. ‘Detained’ might be a better word.”
Her eyes got the mean look that I had come to know so well. The vertical lines above her lip deepened. “No,” she said. “I’m no fool. If you’re here, then that son of a maugreth, Jairus, must have let you come. Or asked you to, more likely.”
The man became a shade more polite. “If you don’t come willingly, it will be necessary for us to insist.”
With surprising swiftness Granny struck out at the mute she’d been addressing. A knife had appeared in her hand. The man clapped his paw to a bleeding ear and scuttled off into the shadows, squealing. The master whistled and pointed. The other mutes converged upon Granny with drawn blades. She struck out again, then went down, screaming horribly. An angry red splash appeared on the front of her gown.
I, who had gone unnoticed up to that point, leaped into the fray, laid hands on one mute’s shoulder and neck, and smashed his head against a stone pillar. I picked up the dropped poniard and threw myself against the others. Two of them I wounded. The rest gave back.
To my surprise, Granny was getting her flabby body to its feet. She was gibbering hysterically. I maneuvered her behind me.
The mutes were still at bay. The man on the settee eyed me ironically. “Well, well,” he said. “Now I’ve seen you at last. You’ve made quite a name for yourself. Someone I know is interested in meeting you.”
“Is that so?”
“You’re being foolish, young man. Why don’t you hand over that knife and come with us peaceably?”
I was backing toward the cellar door. Granny was still behind me. “You first,” I said to her. Then, to the master: “Another day, perhaps. On terms of my own choosing.”
We were through the door. I slammed it shut and threw the bolt. The mutes began banging against it immediately. Granny was still holding her side. Her dress was red and sodden. Something moved beneath the cloth. My senses reeled. “Let me see,” I said. She let me, nodding weakly while avoiding my eyes. I drew the gown up gingerly, expecting to see her sides spilling out.
Instead I saw a huge cavity in the side of her distended body, a kind of burrow under her ribs. Tucked inside it was her familiar, curled up in the fetal position. There was a dark red hole under her little armpit. She writhed around, saw me, and held out her paws. I took them and lifted her out. The pouchy skin that lined Granny’s cavity was unbroken. The little one alone had been injured.
I cradled her like one of my godmother’s babies. She looked up at me, whispered one word. She said it as though the weight of the universe hung from it. But it meant nothing to me. A red bubble rose to her lips and burst, and she was dead.
Gently I closed her eyes. “Your sister?” I asked.
Without answering Granny took the little body out of my arms. She placed it carefully back in her hollow and drew down her gown.
The pounding on the door hadn’t let up. The hinges were starting to give. “We have to go,” I said. “Quickly, unlock me.”
“I can’t,” Granny said hoarsely. “I don’t have the keys.”
My heart fell. “Well, there’s no help for it,” I sighed. “Let’s go anyway.” I led the way to the stairs. She went past me and waited. I dragged a chest into the shaft and wedged it against the closed door, threading my chain through the space at the bottom. Then we went down the stairwell. Granny leaned on my arm. She was careful to keep the little one’s body in place.
When we reached the foot she paused. “Here,” she said, drawing a tiny pair of shears out of her pocket. They snipped through the chain as if it
had been a cord of hair. My heart became lighter. I was still locked in my harness and mask, but at least now I couldn’t be reeled in like a fish.
We went on through the maze. “I don’t understand it,” Granny kept muttering. “It all began with that chit of a girl. And then you showed up and strangled that brute, and they were so anxious that you should have her. And now she’s sold—why? they don’t tell me!—and here we are in the pits.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Who was anxious?” But the old lady didn’t hear me, or pretended not to. She stopped muttering.
We reached the ancient alley. I started toward the light. “No,” said Granny, “not Sabhenna. They know me there. Down, deeper down.”
I complied. We went the other way, into the darkness. I had her pudgy hand in my own now. At a place where a cave-in had blocked the tunnel, we turned aside into a space between two foundation piers like monstrous ziggurats. Granny slipped on the scree, pulling me with her. Together we went slithering down the slope. We came up with a bang at the bottom, bruised all over and sticky with blood.
Still we went on. We passed through a grid of tall, square chambers with ceilings hidden in darkness. I’d never been so deep. Huge, hard, chitinous sacs clung to the walls, brown and glossy. The floor was littered with rotting bones. The air grew more humid and foul with each step.
We emerged into a black cathedral space, a titanic corridor of ribbed stone twisting through Enoch’s entrails. I helped Granny down the side of a buttress to the floor. After a rest we went on.
The floor was moist and rotten. Eyeless things crept over the stones and splashed in the pools, untroubled by the light at my breast. Colorless trilobites skittered across the walls. Nests of white worms with scarlet plumes writhed in dark hollows. Giant pillars and wrecks of iron beams rose toward the unseen ceiling like gods of elder days.
At an angle in the corridor we came upon a tribe of pygmies huddled around a cesspool. They were eyeless and hairless. A disturbed stone sent them scrambling into the shadows, grunting and clicking in a strange, guttural tongue. “The wretches,” I whispered. Silence settled back down like a pall.
A wide pool prevented further progress. “I have to rest here,” Granny said. I helped her up a hill of rubble to a sheltered hollow at the top. She settled herself down and I sat beside her, poniard in hand, peering into the darkness.
“Why did you help me?” she rasped.
I shrugged my shoulders. “It wasn’t my way to do otherwise.” Silence fell between us. “What were those men?” I asked. “Those ones who couldn’t talk.”
“Ghulim,” wheezed Granny. “Eaters of the dead. Animal men. Without souls.”
“What is this place?”
“Don’t know. Never been this deep. Footsteps of the Eldenes.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. There was no answer. The blank night swallowed my words. Granny had fallen asleep. I let her rest.
For several hours I sat there, looking out into the darkness. There was no mistaking it, despite the horror. I had found the songlines of Enoch.
I began to grow desperately hungry. I wouldn’t be able to eat until I got off the muzzle, and, if I succumbed, then Granny would die, too. I laid my hand on her shoulder to rouse her. She was as cold as ice. Her heavy body slumped sideways.
I held the lamp over her. Something had eaten half of her face. She must have died the moment she finished speaking. Upon searching her gown I found three rods she wouldn’t be needing and stowed them away in a pouch. Then I raised a barrow of rocks over the sisters and went on my way.
17 Maze of Fear
I was wandering through a brick maze. I had escaped the black bowels of the city, leaving the songlines behind. The place where I was now was like an abandoned termite nest with crumbling passages running in all different directions. Gravity was the only thing that told me which way was down.
As I went forward something broke the palpable silence. I stopped to listen. The noise grew, a steady string of shrill curses. I followed it like a thread to where light showed around a corner. I crept up and peered out from the shadows.
Three men in scrap-iron armor were standing around a bound prisoner who was wriggling on the floor. It was Maruch, the helot.
I stepped into the sphere of lamplight. The warriors turned and saw a mysterious, muzzled apparition, bound in iron and streaked with blood, with a tube of argent light at his breast and a murderous poniard in his hand, magnified by a black shadow behind him that shuddered with its own life. They fled with their lantern.
I stepped over and cut Maruch’s bonds. “Thanks, friend, thanks,” he said, chafing his wrists. His eyes kept flicking toward my dagger. “Haven’t we met somewhere before?” He smiled ingratiatingly, showing his fangs.
“Yes,” I said, standing over him.
His eyes flew open wide. He tried to scramble away, but I was already on him. He fell limp, feeling the point of my poniard against his neck. He began to whimper and tremble. “Don’t kill me, oh, please don’t kill me.”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “The old woman is dead.”
“Dead? You mean you—”
I shook my head. “They claimed to be from the Cheiropt.” I released Maruch and allowed him to sit against the wall. “Where were they taking you?”
“The Misfit.”
“The Misfit! You mean those men—” I looked down the way they had gone and took an involuntary step.
“Don’t leave me here in the dark!” Maruch wailed, throwing himself at my feet.
“But I need to follow them.”
“You want the Misfit? I’ll lead you there.”
“I’ve been told he’s difficult to get to.”
“There’s ways.”
“Why would you risk getting caught again?”
“I’ll just take you close enough to point out the direction.” His voice became shrill. “I’ll die if you leave me here in the dark. It would be murder. You’d be murdering me.”
I looked down the tunnel. “So be it,” I said. “Lead the way. Just remember that I have an answer for treachery now.”
The helot got to his feet and we set out.
“So,” I said as we went along, “you’re the one who found the old woman her misfits.”
“Not exactly. You know. You want something done, Maruch does it for you. I did business with her now and then.”
“Where’s Gehud?”
“Oh, you won’t be seeing him no more.” He nodded the way the Misfit’s men had gone.
“Why were they taking you?”
“Eh? Oh. I don’t know. They never told me that.”
“You’re lying,” I mused. “Why are you lying? What reason could you have to lie to me?” I thought about what the man in Granny’s mart had said. Maruch glanced at me and then looked away quickly. I grabbed him and set the point of my dagger against his throat. “It has to do with me, doesn’t it? What’s the idea? Is the Misfit asking about me?”
The helot began to blubber again, mumbling inarticulately. “Yes or no,” I insisted. He nodded. I released him. When I spoke again I was surprised at the hardness in my voice. “I don’t know what you’re planning, Maruch. But don’t doubt that I’ll be able to pay you back for a betrayal in the twinkling of an eye, whatever happens to me.” He nodded again, sniffing. We went on.
I noticed that that the helot had a strong, unpleasant smell, a mixture of decay, sweat, and urine. It was the smell of fear. “Why are you afraid of the dark?” I asked. “I thought you helots liked the dark.”
Maruch answered in a low, quavering voice. “Never complete darkness. There are things down here. Light keeps them away.” He tried to smile. “You really are new-hatched, aren’t you? You, ah, you still trying to find the secret of life?” He shied away, as if expecting a blow.
“I’ve been detained here,” I said, “but I’ll be on my way soon.”
“To Narva, eh? Don’t be too sure. It’s not so easy to get around i
n Enoch.”
“I’ve discovered that,” I said. After that we went on in silence.
* * * * *
The brick maze had fallen behind. We had ascended into a network of basements of abandoned high-rises.
Maruch drew to a stop. “Here,” he said. “This is part of the Misfit’s district. Those stairs go up to the street. When you get to the top, you’ll see a wall built between the buildings. That’s the Cheiropt’s wall. Head away from it. Stay out of sight. I’ll come out after you and go the other way.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Maruch laid a moist paw on my arm. “Try to stay alive, Bronze. You’re just crazy enough to go far in this place.”
I climbed the tiled staircase to the street. The avenue was a canyon of limestone flowing with a river of refuse. A fortified wall ran across it. A hoplite in black armor paced along it behind a parapet. As soon as he was out of sight, I crept the opposite way.
Maruch emerged a moment later. I hid in a doorway to watch. The helot went toward the great wall. The hoplite strode back into view, wielding something like an axe with a circular blade. He pointed it, saying something I couldn’t make out. Maruch began flailing his arms and shouting. The guard issued a second warning. Maruch, still trying to explain himself, took a step forward. The disk in the hoplite’s weapon shot out and returned to the haft. The helot fell back into the refuse, his brains tumbling out like spilled curds. I waited until the guard was gone, then continued on my way.
It was daytime—late afternoon, I thought—but the sky was overcast, and the overhanging towers filled the street with gloom. It seemed a paradise to me. It had been weeks—I could hardly tell how long!—since I’d found myself in Hela, since I’d last felt the wind on my face, seen the open sky. I exhaled, filling my lungs with the dank city air as though I stood in a high cleft of the mountains.
Dragonfly: A Tale of the Counter-Earth at the Cosmic Antipodes Page 9