Of the Abyss

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  Watch your thoughts, Mancer, the Numini hissed warningly. Your tie to the Abyssi is making you irrational and disrespectful. We have given you a task. If you are not our servant, we have no responsibility to give you aid.

  “Is this the first time you’ve manipulated Antioch into helping you get your way?” she asked, this time not worrying about keeping her voice quiet enough to keep the others from overhearing. “Or were you the one who made his mancer throw the knife at me, too?”

  If you hope to save her, you had best decide swiftly, the Numini advised.

  Xaz opened her eyes, and blinked them twice to clear the rim of frost that tried to stick the lashes together. The world around her had the silver halo she knew meant the Numini were still riding her.

  She said the words swiftly, bluntly. “A necromancer cannot raise Ruby unless she has a body to raise, and the Quin will have destroyed that by now.” She saw Hansa and Umber both tense, their faces showing wary relief that disappeared swiftly when she continued. “There is a sorcerer who can raise her, though, a man named Terre Verte. The Numini want us to retrieve him from the Abyssi court.”

  Hansa’s breath hissed in as if he, too, had been stung by the Abyssi. Umber raised his eyes skyward, took a breath, and said flatly, “You’ve relayed your message. Can you help Cadmia now?”

  Before Xaz could turn her attention to the effort, she felt the Numini’s power rush through her, not a river but a torrent. Cadmia called out wordlessly, her body spasming once as the magic struck her.

  When it was done, Xaz collapsed, panting, on the black sand, which was rimed with ice in a spreading circle. She wasn’t sure when Umber had moved away, but he and Hansa had judiciously stepped back from the needle-­like icicles and frost heaves that grew like strange plants ringing her and Cadmia.

  Umber called, “Are you two all right?”

  Before Xaz could catch her breath to answer, Cadmia’s dazed voice said, “I think so.” As Xaz struggled to sit up, Cadmia prodded at the remnants of the wounds on her side and arm. The bleeding had stopped, though not in the neat way an Abyssumancer’s wounds healed; it looked more like the injuries had been seared shut with frostbite. More importantly, though, the swelling had gone down, and Cadmia’s skin had returned to a healthier shade.

  As she remembered the price she had paid for that healing, Xaz looked up at Umber and said, “I’m sorry.”

  He gave a half shrug, his other arm around Hansa, who looked as dazed and exhausted as Xaz felt.

  Briefly, Xaz indulged a fantasy in which the hero of Mars had discovered himself to be a mancer following Baryte’s death. Would Antioch have been able to twist him fast enough to secure his loyalty even as he served Kavet from such a lofty role? Or would Hansa have found an excuse to resign when he realized what he was? Would he have killed himself?

  “We need to rest before we can accomplish anything else,” Umber said, surveying their bedraggled group. “That will give Alizarin time to come back. Or not,” he admitted with a wince. “I do not think we can plan a trip into the royal court until we know if we have him on our side.”

  Xaz had been so focused on Cadmia, it hadn’t occurred to her until that moment that Alizarin hadn’t come after them. The fight had to be over by now. She looked out over the Abyss, which had now grown so dark it was hard to even see Hansa and Umber a few feet off. A breeze had sprung up as the light faded, and though it couldn’t compete with a Kavet winter or come anywhere near to divine cold, Hansa and Cadmia both hunched against it.

  Hansa stepped away from Umber as he asked, “Can we make a fire?”

  “Do you see anything that might burn?” Umber asked in reply. “I don’t know what the shades made their fire from, but all I see here is stone and sand. If we all stay close, we should be all right.”

  Cadmia nodded, warily looking between the two men, as if recognizing the logic in the suggestion but not entirely comfortable with it. Hansa, who Xaz would have expected to jump at the invitation to lie down with the Abyss-­spawn he had been intermittently cuddling against all day, continued to make excuses.

  “One of us should stand guard. I’ll take first shift,” Hansa volunteered. “I know I can’t kill an Abyssi if one comes, but those shades talked about hunting. That means there are some creatures here a mortal is strong enough to fight.”

  Umber sighed, shook his head, and said, “Do whatever you want, Quin. Just don’t wander off.”

  “Are we really helpless against the Abyssi?” Cadmia asked. “Aren’t Numenmancers supposed to be able to summon lightning?”

  Supposed to was the operative word. Cadmia clearly hadn’t been coherent enough to realize how close she had come to dying through the Numini’s stupid pride and refusal to help unless Xaz heeded their will.

  She said, “Don’t count on the Numini’s help. They aren’t that generous.”

  It was the closest to a direct criticism of her divine masters as she had ever dared speak aloud, but she was too tired to worry about whether they heard her and would make her pay for the words later. She led the way to a hollow where black stones and sand dunes would block the worst of the wind and reached out to smooth the sand—­

  Umber pulled her back an instant before a glistening, transparent tentacle no thicker than her little finger flailed upward, seized nothing, and disappeared again beneath the sand.

  “What was that?” Cadmia asked hoarsely.

  “I think . . .” Umber trailed off and frowned, looking around. After a moment he found a shell a little longer than his forearm, which he used to gingerly prod the black sand.

  Again the tentacle came up, this time joined by several others. They slapped the shell with a meaty sound and wrapped around it, questing both directions. Just before they reached Umber’s hand, he yanked on the shell, pulling the creature attached to the tentacles up like a carrot.

  The little beast had a fat, bulbous body that looked like a jellyfish’s, eight thick legs segmented like an insect’s, and a mass of slender tentacles that groped toward Umber’s hand before he threw the shell and dangling thing away. Every part of it looked watery and translucent, like something that should have been crushed by the sand in which it had hidden.

  It started moving toward Umber, who pulled Xaz with him as he backed away.

  Hansa stepped forward with another long, sharp-­edged shell, which he used to decisively cut the creature in half.

  “Be careful of sheltered places where the sand is soft and deep,” Umber said. “There are small creatures in the Abyss that can devour a man or woman as surely as the larger beasts can. They just do it more slowly.”

  Xaz was reconsidering whether she ever again needed to sleep when she felt the approach of familiar power.

  Alizarin’s normal bounding stride was more subdued than usual, and as he drew close, Xaz could see scalds and tufts where his fur pulled irregularly over new injuries. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but even his colors seemed subdued, blue tinged gray instead of his normal brilliant turquoise and sapphire.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, reaching toward him instinctively.

  Somehow Cadmia got there first. Alizarin leaned toward her hand.

  Through their magical bond, Xaz could feel the Abyssi’s overwhelming fatigue, but he tossed his head dismissively as Cadmia crooned sympathetic words.

  “I won,” Alizarin announced. “I needed to hunt after. You did, too?” he asked, looking at the still-­twitching creature. “I don’t think you can eat those.”

  “I wasn’t going to try,” Hansa said.

  “They taste bad,” Alizarin said idly, “and their poison rots flesh, though it takes a few days to get all the way in to the heart and brain. They didn’t touch you, did they?” he asked Hansa, seeming reluctant to spend time on the question.

  Eyes wide, Hansa paused to look at his hands, then shook his head.

&
nbsp; “Good,” Alizarin said. “Umber wouldn’t want to cut pieces off you.” With no further concern, he stretched, fluffed his fur, yawned widely and announced, “It’s time to sleep. You picked a good spot.”

  He didn’t wait for Xaz to reply, but went to the hollow Xaz had considered before realizing how dangerous it was. As Alizarin paced the spot, kicking at the sand, a half-­dozen creatures rose and scampered away, including a second jellyfish-­beast and a strange mass Xaz might have mistaken for a brightly-­colored dust bunny if it hadn’t moved with deliberate speed away from the Abyssi.

  We would never have made it through the night without him, she realized abruptly.

  The Abyssi sprawled out on the sand, and Xaz thought for a moment he was going to leave the rest of them to find their own beds. Then he stretched, and looked up at them. Specifically, he frowned at Cadmia. “Why are you glowing like a Numini?”

  “Antioch hurt me,” she answered. Xaz wasn’t sure if the Sister of Napthol kept the words simple in deference to the Abyssi’s simple nature, or if she didn’t want to dwell on her near death. “Xaz healed me.”

  Alizarin began to growl, then swallowed it. “Sleep here,” he said, tapping the sand near him with his tail. “Nothing will try to eat you beside me.”

  There were two ways to interpret those words, but Cadmia clearly took them to be reassuring, because she accepted the offer. Xaz squelched an instinctive, irrational moment of jealousy as the Abyssi invited someone else to snuggle close. Yes, her power drew her to him, but she wasn’t a slave to her power.

  Besides, the cold wouldn’t bother her as much as it would Cadmia.

  With the magic gone and the fear of Alizarin’s absence abated, the anxiety and lack of food or water during the previous day caught up to Xaz. All her muscles felt so weak she could barely stand. Cadmia lay down inches from the Abyssi, and Xaz took the spot next to her.

  That left Hansa and Umber. As if on cue, the guard’s sharp protest reached Xaz’s ears.

  “Don’t touch me.” All day long, Hansa had gone back and forth between moving close to Umber and pulling away. Xaz had resisted the urge to needle him about it only because she remembered her own reaction to Alizarin, the physical draw of Abyssal power that craved the slide of skin on skin—­or fur, in that case.

  “Come on, Hansa,” Umber sighed.

  “It’s not cold enough to freeze to death,” Hansa said, “and I doubt anything really dangerous will come close with Alizarin here.”

  Umber’s reply was too soft to hear, as was Hansa’s, but it must not have been flattering because Umber didn’t bother to lower his voice as he grumbled, “Have I done anything to suggest I might be interested in assaulting you in your sleep?”

  More muttering from Hansa, but this time Umber laughed. A brief, quiet conversation later, and Xaz heard the two men’s quiet footsteps on the sand moving toward them. She judiciously kept her eyes closed, pretending not to notice and sparing Hansa’s . . . whatever it was that was stopping him from being practical. Pride? Shame?

  “Sleep, Hansa,” Umber whispered, when Hansa again hesitated to lie down. The words were quiet, but they reached Xaz on a wave of power; Hansa’s knees buckled and Umber caught him and lowered him gently to the ground.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked. It shouldn’t have taken so much energy to knock out a human unless something equally strong was fighting to keep him awake.

  “Is anything?” Umber replied, before giving a long, drawn-­out sigh and pointedly turning his back.

  In the darkness, Xaz listened to the sounds of the Abyss at night: rattling, hissing noises from the stones around them as smaller creatures marked their passing; distant, baying howls too deep and undulating for dogs; and the occasional, piercing shriek as some distant creature . . . died? Was that what it was here?

  Would they find out firsthand?

  CHAPTER 27

  It was nice to be warm. That was the thought Hansa woke up with. It was nice to be warm, and it was nice to be safe, to be in someone’s arms and held gently—­

  The sense of peace shattered as he remembered where he was, how he got there, and who he was with. His head was on Umber’s tanned arm; his own arm was around the other man’s waist. And the worst part was, that was where he had wanted to be all the day before. Umber thought Hansa was worried the spawn would assault him if they slept next to each other. Hansa’s real fear was that he would pounce on the spawn with less inhibition than an A’hknet monger.

  For now, Umber was still asleep, black lashes making soft crescents on his honey skin. In sleep, his full lips were relaxed instead of quirked up in the half smile, half sneer to which Hansa had become accustomed. His lithe body was finely muscled, his chest lightly dusted with black hair, his—­

  “Fuck,” Hansa breathed, squeezing his eyes shut. This was supposed to wear off.

  Eyes open again, he tried to gather the willpower to sneak out of Umber’s arms. He didn’t want to be this close when the Abyssi-­spawn woke. If Umber said anything snide—­and how often did he say anything else?—­Hansa was going to have to hit him.

  He lifted his arm from around Umber’s waist, but that was as far as he got.

  The hair on Umber’s chest was softer than it looked. Lower down on his stomach, it was almost fine enough to be fur, like the Abyssi’s. The skin beneath was smooth and hot.

  Umber’s eyes shot open. They seemed to hold a thousand different colors of blue, even in the fine band left by dilated pupils. “Hansa?”

  Hansa shoved at the other man, tried to push himself to his feet, and then fell, breathing as if he had just run an uphill race and lost. “Why hasn’t this worn off?”

  Umber rose to his knees and helped Hansa do the same, hands on his wrists the only thing that kept Hansa from reaching out again. “ ‘This’?” Umber echoed.

  Showing was easier than forming words. Umber released Hansa’s wrists as Hansa pushed forward to wrap one hand around the back of the Abyssi-­spawn’s neck and pull him forward to kiss him. Dear Numen; he tasted even better than he looked, and felt even better than that. Umber didn’t object. He twined a hand in Hansa’s hair and pressed his other hand to his lower back.

  Hansa barely noticed when Umber shoved him back and his shoulders impacted the black sand beneath them. He also barely noticed the swift kick someone delivered to his shoulder, despite the fact that it was hard enough to make his fingers tingle.

  Umber did react, slowly lifting his head and turning from Hansa to snarl at Xaz.

  “Glare all you like,” Xaz said. “I thought I’d warn you before Alizarin decided to make this a threesome.”

  The possibility of suddenly being joined by a full Abyssi was just enough to jolt Hansa back to reality and make him realize what he had been doing. He pushed Umber away, but didn’t get much further than that. Umber stood. Hansa stayed on the ground, knees up with his head resting on them while he relearned how to breathe.

  Cadmia asked Umber, “Is he all right?”

  Umber paused, thinking too long for Hansa’s taste, before he answered, “He could be much worse.”

  If he let go of his knees, Hansa was sure he was going to throw himself at Umber again. “What in the name of the Abyss have you done to me?” he gasped.

  “Me?” Umber asked. “Done to you? This, dear Quin, is your own fault. And I find it beautifully ironic.”

  “If you two are . . . awake,” Cadmia said, with a judicious pause that made it clear she had to consider whether or not to comment on what she had just seen, “Alizarin brought food.”

  Hansa pushed to his feet, shaking himself. He felt like he had taken a beating, and he was still exhausted despite having slept deeply and dreamlessly. He vaguely recalled Umber convincing him that sleeping next to each other wasn’t a fate worse than death, and then . . . nothing.

  Xaz had gone back to dissecting
some kind of purplish fruit, and Cadmia was examining a broad, shallow shell serving as a platter for what Hansa could only assume was meat. Looking at either option made Hansa’s stomach roll.

  That wasn’t what he wanted.

  He crossed his arms, fingers bruising his own skin with the effort it took not to close the distance between himself and Umber, who had joined the others at their meal. This wasn’t as bad as yesterday—­it was worse.

  I did warn you, Umber said silently.

  Hansa tried to think of a way to change the subject, to focus his mind on the task at hand, but he couldn’t.

  Don’t think about Umber. Think about why you’re here.

  He tried. He remembered what Xaz had told them about Ruby’s body being burned, and the Numini’s desire for some sorcerer, but he couldn’t even begin to process what that meant for their next steps. All he knew was that thinking about Jenkins and Ruby and all the others should make him sick with grief, but when he tried to let that emotion in, it was shoved aside by the longing for Umber’s skin against his.

  As if desperate to start a conversation that didn’t involve Hansa’s relationship with Umber, Cadmia asked Alizarin, “Why are you wearing pants?”

  The question was so bizarre it momentarily drew Hansa’s attention. Xaz snickered.

  “No one else finds this odd?” Cadmia asked defensively.

  “A little, only now that you mention it,” Umber said.

  Hansa thought he would have noticed immediately if the Abyssi hadn’t been wearing pants . . . maybe. He thought back to the other Abyssi they had seen in this place. He had been far too distracted by his terror and focused on details like teeth, claws, and poisonous spines to take note of Abyssal wardrobe choices.

  Alizarin tilted his head in the teasing way he had. “Humans find nakedness distracting.”

  “I didn’t realize one of your kind would worry about that,” she remarked.

  Hansa had already given up all his preconceptions on Abyssi. It had never been his job to know more about them than he needed to fight their Abyssumancers, so he dealt with being wrong with relative equanimity, but Cadmia was clearly more intent on understanding.