by Jim Butcher
Within a few feet, the cave became completely black, and Tavi had to force himself to keep going, his left shoulder pressed against the wall on that side. Varg let out another, almost inaudible growl in front of him, and Tavi tried to hurry, until Varg's feral scent and the odor of iron filled his nose. They went on that way for a time, while Tavi counted his "steps," each time he moved and planted his right hand. The sound of falling water grew louder as they proceeded. At seventy-four steps, Tavi's eyes made out a faint shape in front of him-Varg's furry form. Ten steps beyond that, he saw pale, green-white light ahead of him.
And then the wall on his right fell away, and the low tunnel they were in became a dangerously narrow shelf at the back of a gallery of damp, living stone. The Cane rose to a low hunting crouch, glanced at Tavi, and jerked its muzzle at the cavern beneath them. Tavi drew himself up beside Varg, instinctively keeping every move silent.
The cavern was enormous. Water dripped steadily down from hundreds of stalactites above, some of them longer than the outer walls of the citadel were tall. Their floor-level counterparts rose in irregular cones, many of them even longer than those above. A stream spilled out of a wall on the far side of the gallery, fell several feet into a churning pool, and rushed on down a short channel and beneath the back wall, continuing down toward the river Gaul. Tavi stared at the scene illuminated in green-white light, and his mouth dropped open in sickened horror.
Because every surface in the cavern was covered in the croach.
It had to be. It was exactly the same as he had seen in the Wax Forest two years before. It did not look as thick as the wax that had covered that alien bowl of a valley, but it gave off the same pulsing, white-green glow. Tavi saw half a dozen wax spiders gliding with sluggish grace over the croach, pausing here and there, their luminous eyes glowing in shades of green, soft orange, and pale blue.
Tavi stared down at them for a moment, too shocked to do anything more. Then his eyes picked out an area where the croach had grown up into a kind of enormous, lumpy blister that covered several of the largest stalagmites. The surface of the blister pulsed with swirling green lights and was translucent enough to reveal shadows moving within it.
Outside the blister were Canim. They crouched in the Cane four-legged guard stance along the base of it in a steady perimeter, no more than four or five feet apart, every one of them armed and armored, their heads mostly covered by the deep hoods of their dark red mantles. Not one of them moved. Not a twitch. From where he crouched, Tavi could not see them breathing, and it made them look like full-color statues rather than living beings. A wax spider made its slow way across the croach and climbed over a crouching Cane as if it was a simple feature of the landscape.
There was a sudden snarling bellow that rattled off the cavern walls, and from somewhere almost directly beneath them, several Canim appeared. Tavi watched as three of them hauled a bound and struggling Cane into the cave. The Cane was wounded, and its steps left bloody footprints on the cave floor. Its hands had been bound at the wrists, fingers interlaced, and several twists of rope bound its jaws shut. There was a mad gleam in its bloody eyes, but struggle as it might, the Cane could not shake the grip of its captors.
By contrast, the Canim dragging the prisoner were silent and calm, letting out no snarls, no growls, and wearing no expression whatsoever on their ferocious faces. They stepped onto the croach, dragging their prisoner, crushing the surface of the material as they went. Wax spiders moved with lazy grace to the damaged area and began repairing it, multiple legs stroking and smoothing the croach back into its original form.
Beside him, Varg's chest rumbled with another, quietly furious growl.
They dragged the prisoner forward to what proved to be an opening in the wall of the blister. They hauled the Cane inside. A second later, another shrill, smothered snarl erupted from within the blister.
Beside him, stone crunched as Varg's claws dug into it. The Cane's ears were laid flat back, and it bared its teeth in a vicious, silent snarl.
For a moment, nothing happened. And then four Canim emerged from the blister. They paced along the wall of the blister until they reached the end of the row of Canim, where they settled down into identical crouches and went still. The last Cane was the prisoner, now freed of its bonds. A pair of wax spiders appeared and began crawling lightly over the Cane, legs smoothing gelatinous croach into the Cane's wounds.
"Rarm," Ambassador Varg growled, in a voice barely audible over the sound of the cascading stream. "I will sing your blood song."
A moment later, more shadows stirred in the blister, and another Cane emerged from within it. Sarl still looked thin, furtive, and dangerous. His scarlet eyes flicked around the chamber, and when a wax spider brushed against him on the way to repairing the croach he had broken, Sarl let out a snarl and kicked the wax spider into the nearest stalagmite. It struck with a meaty-sounding splat and fell to the croach, legs quivering.
Without so much as hesitating, two more spiders diverted their course and began sealing the dying spider into the croach, where Tavi knew it would be dissolved over time into food for the creatures.
A second form emerged from the blister, this one smaller, no more than human-sized. It wore a deep grey cloak, and its hood covered its head altogether-but the way it moved was eerily inhuman, too graceful and poised.
"Where is the last?" the cloaked figure asked. Its voice was absolutely alien in tone and inflection, and revealed nothing about what might be concealed beneath the cloak.
"He will be found," Sarl growled.
"He must be," the figure said. "He could warn the Aleran leader of us."
"Varg is hated," Sarl said. "He was unable to so much as gain an audience with the Aleran leader. Even if he managed to speak to him, the Alerans would never believe him."
"Perhaps," the cloaked figure said. "Perhaps not. We must not chance discovery now."
Sarl gave its shoulders an odd shake and said nothing.
"No," the figure said. "I am not afraid of them. But there is little logic in allowing our chances of success to be endangered."
Sarl gave the cloaked figure a sullen look and eased a step away.
"Are your allies prepared?" the figure asked.
"Yes. Storms will strike the whole of the western coast this night. It will force him to his chamber to counter them. There is only one path to the chamber. He will not escape."
"Very well," the figure said. "Find your packmaster. If he cannot be found before the setting of the moon, we will strike without him."
"He is dangerous," Sarl objected. "As long as he lives we will not be safe."
"He is no threat to me," the figure said. "Only to you. We will strike at the setting of the moon. After which-"
The cloaked figure broke off and turned abruptly, staring up at the ledge and seemingly directly at Tavi.
Tavi froze, and his mouth went dry.
The moment passed in silence, then the cloaked figure turned to Sarl again. As it did, a pair of Cane rose from their stance beside the blister and moved to take position beside Sarl. "Take these. Hunt him down."
Sarl's teeth snapped in a sharp clash of bone on bone, and the Cane whirled to stalk out of the chamber.
The hooded figure stared up at the ledge for a moment more, then turned and glided back into the blister.
Varg pressed against Tavi and nodded toward the tunnel. Tavi turned and dropped to crawl back along it, to the chamber where Kitai waited with her knife and the Canim lamp. Tavi rose immediately, unnerved at the silent, dangerous presence of the Cane behind him, and stepped over to stand with Kitai, their backs to a wall, facing Varg.
"What did you see?" she whispered.
"Keepers of the Silence," he replied. "Croach. A great big nest, a lot like the one in the old Wax Forest." Kitai inhaled sharply. "Then it did come here."
"Yes," Tavi said.
The Cane emerged from the tunnel and rose to its full height, stretching. Though it wasn't showing i
ts teeth, Varg's ears were still laid flat back against its skull, and rage boiled off it in an invisible cloud. Tavi looked at Varg and asked, "What happened to them?"
Varg shook its head. "They are bewitched, somehow."
"But who are they?"
"Members of my battlepack," Varg replied. "My guards."
Tavi frowned. "But you are only allowed six. There were twenty there."
"Twenty-one," Varg corrected him. "Garl got a belly wound when the others came for us. I sent him to the blood lands ahead of us before those things could take him as they did Rarm."
"You knew they were coming for you?" Tavi asked.
Varg nodded. "Started to figure it out two days ago, when four of my guards were getting ready to leave. They mentioned rats in their quarters. Hadn't ever been any. But the month before, Mori and Halar said the same thing. Next day, when they left, they acted strange."
"Strange how?" Tavi asked.
The Ambassador shook its head. "Silent. Distant. More than usual." His eyes narrowed. "Their ears didn't look right."
Tavi frowned, and said, "Then… the departing guards, the ones you thought were going back to your lands, did not actually leave. They've been going down here into the Deeps instead."
Varg grunted. "And Sarl is behind it. With the cloaked one working witchery on my wolves."
"Why would he do that?" Tavi asked.
Varg growled. "Among my kind are several… castes, your word is. Warriors are the largest, the strongest caste. But also very strong are the Ilrarum. The blood prophets. Sorcerers. Deceivers, treacherous. Sarl is one of the Ilrarum, though he pretends to be of lower caste, working for me in secret. As if I did not have a brain in my head. The blood prophets hate your kind. They are determined to destroy you by whatever means."
"Then Sarl's working together with the cloaked one," Tavi said.
"And coming to kill Gaius," Varg said. "He wants to cripple your leadership. Leave you vulnerable." Varg rested a hand on the hilt of its sword and showed its teeth in an easy grin. "I attempted to warn your First Lord. But some pup with more guts than brains stopped me with a knife."
"So you tried to point me at it," Tavi said. "And hoped I would figure it out for myself. That's why you sent the letter to Gaius like that, too. So that he would investigate the ship and see that the guards weren't actually leaving."
Varg let out a growl that somehow sounded affirmative. "Didn't work. So I brought you here."
Tavi tilted his head and studied Varg closely. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why expose this to us at all? You are an enemy of my people."
Varg looked at Tavi for a moment, then said, "Yes. And one day my people will come for you, pup. And when I rip the throat from your First Lord, it will be on the battlefield, when I have burned your lands, destroyed your homes, and slain your warriors-and you. There will be no secrets. No sorcery. No betrayal. One day I will tear the belly from the whole of your breed, Aleran. And you will see me coming all the while."
Tavi swallowed, suddenly very afraid.
Varg continued. "I have no stomach for Sarl's methods. He would sacrifice the lives of my pack for the sake of a treachery he thinks will give us your lands. He defies my authority. He makes pacts with unknown forces employing strange witcheries. He would rob our victory of honor, of passion." Varg held up the claws of its right hand and regarded them for a moment. "I won't have it."
"He wants you dead, too," Tavi pointed out.
Varg's teeth showed again. "But I found him out too late. All but two of my battlepack had already been bewitched. They are now gone. They will hunt me. They may well kill me. But I will not let Sarl say that he bested me entirely. So the next step is yours, pup."
"Me?" Tavi asked.
Varg nodded and growled, "There is not much time before Sarl moves. And we both know that even if I spoke to Gaius, he would be slow to believe me." Varg pulled up the hood on his cloak and strode to a side passage leading off from the long gallery. "It will not be long before Sarl is on my trail. I will lead him away. You are the only one who can stop them now, pup."
Varg vanished into the darkness of the tunnels, leaving the dim scarlet lamp behind.
"Crows," Tavi said weakly. "Why does this keep happening to me?"
Chapter 38
Fidelias had to give Steadholder Isana credit: The woman had courage. Only hours ago, she had been wounded in an attack that had killed virtually everyone she knew within the capital. She had missed death by the width of a few fingers and by the fraction of a second it had taken Fidelias to steady his aim on the assassin-archer and release his own shaft. She was, as far as she was concerned, consorting with murderers and traitors to the Realm, even now.
And yet she walked with a quality of quiet dignity as they left the relative security of the room within the brothel. She had covered herself in a large cloak without complaint, though upon entering the raucous main hall of the house, her face had turned a decided shade of pink upon observing the activities there.
"This second-in-command," Isana asked as they walked outdoors. "Will he have the support of your employer?"
Fidelias mused over the woman's choice of words. She could as easily have said, "Lady Aquitaine" and "Lord Aquitaine," but she had not. She had understood that Fidelias had avoided mentioning their names where it might be overheard, and had respected that. It gave him hope that the woman might actually have enough flexibility of thought to work with them.
"Completely," he told her.
"I have conditions," she warned him.
Fidelias nodded. "You will need to take it up at the meeting, Steadholder," he replied. "I'm only a messenger and escort. But I think it likely that some sort of exchange can be negotiated."
Isana nodded within her hood. "Very well. How far must we walk?"
"Not much farther, Steadholder."
Isana let out an exasperated little breath. "I have a name. I'm getting tired of everyone calling me Steadholder."
"Think of it as a compliment," Fidelias advised her. The hairs on the back of his neck abruptly rose, and he forced himself not to turn and stare around like a spooked cat. Someone was following him. He had played the game long enough to know that. For the moment, at least, he did not need to know the details. He had shown his face too often the previous day, and one of any number of opportunists would love to turn him in to the Crown and collect his bounty prize. "No other woman in the Realm can lay claim to the same title."
"No other woman in the Realm knows my recipe for spicebread, either," Isana said, "but no one says anything about that."
Fidelias turned to smile briefly at her. He used the moment to catch sight of their followers in the corner of his vision. Two of them, large rough types, doubtless river rats for one of the hundreds of riverboats now docked at the city for the festivities. He could see little more than that they were not i dressed well, and one of them had a drunken hesitation to his step. "Do you mind if I ask you a question?"
"Yes," she said. "But ask."
"I cannot help but take note that you have no husband, Steadholder. Nor any children. That is… unusual, for a woman of our Realm, given the laws. I take it that you did spend your time in the camps when you came of age?"
"Yes," she said, her tone flat. "As the law requires."
"But no children," he said.
"No children," she replied.
"There was a man?" Fidelias asked.
"Yes. A soldier. We were together for a time."
"You bore him a child?"
"I began to. It ended prematurely. He left me shortly after. But the local commander sent me home." She glanced aside at him. "I have fulfilled my duties under the law, sir. Why do you ask?"
"It's something to pass the time," Fidelias said, trying for an amiable smile.
"Something to pass the time while you look for a place to deal with the two men following us, you mean," she said.
Fidelias blinked up at her, for the Steadholder was
a hand taller than he and more, but this time his smile was genuine. "You've a remarkable eye for a civilian."
"It isn't my eyes," she said. "Those men are putting off greed and fear like a sheep does stink."
"You can feel them from here?" Fidelias felt himself grow even more impressed with the woman. "They must be fifty feet away. You have a real gift for watercrafting."
"Sometimes I think I would prefer not to have it," she said. "Or at least not quite this much of it." She pressed fingers against her temple. "I do not think I shall go out of my way to visit cities in the future. They're far too loud, even when most are asleep."
"I sympathize to some degree," Fidelias said, and turned their path down a side lane that wandered among several homes and was thick with shadow. "I've seen watercrafters who were unable to maintain their stability when their gifts were as strong as yours."
"Like Odiana," she said.
Fidelias felt disquieted at the mention of the mad water witch's name. He did not care for Odiana. She was too much of an unknown quantity for his liking. "Yes."
"She told me about when she first came into her furies," Isana said. "Frankly, I'm surprised she's as stable as she is."
"Interesting," Fidelias said, and found a nook between two buildings. "She's never spoken to me about it."
"Have you asked?" Isana said.
"Why would I?"
"Because human beings care about one another, sir." She shrugged. "But then, why would you?"
Fidelias felt a faint twist of irritation as the Steadholder's words bit home. His reaction surprised him. For a moment, he considered the possibility that the woman might be speaking more accurately than he was prepared to admit. It had been quite some time since he'd had occasion to behave according to motives other than necessity and self-preservation.
Since the day he had betrayed Amara, in fact.
Fidelias frowned. He hadn't thought of her in some time. In fact, it seemed a bit odd that he had not done so. Perhaps he had been pushing her out of his mind, deliberately forgetting to consider her. But for what reason?