by David Drake
Alecto gave her a look of irritation, apparently uncertain whether Ilna was joking. Since Ilna wasn't sure herself, the confusion was understandable.
Something thumped against the door. Ilna hesitated, deciding between her noose, the hank of cords in her sleeve, and the small bone-cased knife she carried in her sash for general utility. In the end she readied the silken noose. It wasn't a good weapon for these tight quarters, but she liked the feel of it. There wasn't light enough to expect their attackers to see a knotted spell.
Alecto hopped up to the transom again, then dropped back with a grim expression. This time the villagers didn't fling a torch at her.
“They're piling rocks in front of the door,” she said. “They're going to block us in.”
Ilna nodded without expression. “I'll see where the cave goes, then,” she said. It led to somewhere big enough to hold a salamander the size of a horse, after all. And since there were no other options...
Alecto didn't seem to have heard her. Outside on the porch, villagers crunched another block of stone down beside the first. With the whole community working, the entrance would very quickly be blocked beyond the ability of the two women to clear.
“I'll kill you all!” Alecto screamed at the door panels. “I'll wipe you off the face of the Earth, you cowards!”
The wild girl knelt and began drawing on the floor with her athame. The blade was covered with the priest's blood, but it had mostly dried by now. She spat on the bronze so that her point left thin red trails of dissolved gore on the stone.
Her face screwed into tight, sour lines, Ilna lay on her belly and crawled cautiously into the narrowing cave. The rock was slimy—from the salamander's skin, she now knew, not water sweating through the limestone as she'd thought when Arthlan first showed them the temple's interior.
Peasants got used to filthy jobs. Ilna smiled: the slime would wash off, if she lived long enough to reach a place with clean water. That didn't seem likely at the moment.
Her body blocked the little light that entered through the temple's transom. She regretted that, but Alecto's chanting also blurred into a dull murmur. Ilna didn't know what the wild girl was attempting, but it probably wasn't anything a decent person wanted to know about.
The tunnel narrowed further. The salamander was thicker through the body than Ilna, but it must be able to squeeze itself down to a degree that a human rib cage couldn't. If she became stuck in the throat of the passage—
Ilna laughed—and regretted it, because the stone didn't let her body shake with laughter as it should. If I get stuck, she thought, I die in a small stone box. Which is exactly what happens to me if I don't find a way out of the temple in the first place.
Ilna had her arms stretched out in front of her. She squirmed forward by twisting her torso while one elbow or the other anchored her against the stone. It was slow and unpleasant, but—she smiled—not as slow or as unpleasant as the alternative.
Tight places didn't especially bother her. Stone did, though, but there wasn't anything to do about the fact except ignore it and keep on going. In Ilna's philosophy, going on was the only choice.
The cave started to open up again—not much, but enough for Ilna to reach out with both hands against the stone and pull her hips through the narrowest point. She could smell water close; if nothing else, that meant she and Alecto would starve in three weeks instead of dying of thirst in three days.
She got up on all fours, then lifted her head carefully in hopes that there was room enough to stand. No, the ceiling was still just above her. At least she could keep her torso off the ground.
She reached forward with her right hand and shifted her weight onto it. Her palm slipped down a short, slimy slope into water as cold as charity. She jerked back and just missed lifting her head hard into the rock.
Ilna paused for a moment, tasting the water—good, though with a slight tang of iron—and getting her breathing back under control. Maybe I'm more nervous than I'd thought... . Because of all the stone, she supposed; but that was no excuse, there were no excuses.
Alecto's chant echoed down the tunnel, blended into a threatening rumble by its passage. Occasionally a word came clear: “... palipater patrima...” in one moment, “... iao alilamps...” in another.
Ilna explored the edge of the pool with her left hand, hoping she'd find something more promising on the other side than there was in the direction she'd come. There wasn't another side: when Ilna stirred the water, it lapped against a solid stone wall. The pool wasn't much bigger than the tunnel through which she'd crawled to reach it.
She felt as far as she could reach into the water without finding bottom. There was enough water somewhere to hold the salamander now dead on the temple porch; it was possible, probable even, that this pool was a tunnel like the one that led to the outside; but slightly lower and flooded.
“... nerxia...” echoed a voice, no longer identifiable as Alecto's or even as human.
Of course even if there was a larger cavern beyond, it too might be water-filled: an underground sea in which the monster slept motionless in the intervals between crawling to the surface to eat. It didn't come out often, from what Arthlan had said. The salamanders Ilna knew, hiding under the rocks of Pattern Creek or crawling across the leaf mold on damp evenings, had none of the eager liveliness of mice and birds.
She hiked up her tunic to keep it dry—drier than otherwise, at least—and lowered herself feetfirst into the pool. She felt the smooth stone channel curve, but again she didn't find an end. There was no point in trying to go farther unless she was willing to go all the way.
Ilna pulled herself out of the water, a harder task than she'd expected. The monster had polished the rock over the ages of passing to and from the outer world, and Ilna's limbs were already numb from their immersion.
She breathed deeply on her hands and knees, then lay flat again and squirmed through the tunnel in the other direction. It was easier this time. She had a glimmer of moonlight to guide her, and she knew that there was an end.
As Ilna worked her way past the tunnel's throat, a flash of scarlet wizardlight blotted the moonglow. Alecto's voice rose into a high-pitched rant: “Brimo!”
Another flash, much brighter.
“Ananke!”
Ilna got her legs past the narrowest part of the cave. She thrust her feet hard at the rock walls, at the same time scrabbling forward with her arms. She didn't know why she was in such a hurry, but if the wild girl was bringing matters to a climax, Ilna wanted to be present for good or ill.
Present for ill, probably. Even at better times, Ilna didn't have much confidence in good things happening.
“Chasarba!” Alecto screamed.
Ilna squeezed out of the cave. Alecto knelt, holding her dagger point in the center of the figure she'd scribed in human blood. Her face was a study in hellish triumph.
Wizardlight blazed from the blade, penetrating flesh and even rock. For an instant Ilna saw the villagers staring at the temple with expressions of stark horror. Wingless things flew between suns in the void beyond the sky, and creatures swam like fish in the lava beneath the mountains.
The light died, leaving a memory of itself in Ilna's eyes. Alecto laughed like a demon. The ground began to shake.
Outside the temple, villagers screamed. The first tremors were slight, but everyone who lives in a mountain valley knows the danger of landslides.
A violent shock threw Ilna off her feet. The mountainside crackled like sheets of lightning. Slabs of rock broke away, roaring toward the bottom of the valley and sweeping up more debris in their rush.
The tremors lifted dust from the temple floor; Ilna held her sleeve over her mouth and nose so that she could still breathe. The slope was shaking itself like a dog just out of the water.
The temple porch collapsed, blotting out the sheen of moonlight through the transom. Ilna grabbed Alecto's shoulder and dragged her into the natural part of the temple, the funnel in the living rock. It mig
ht not survive the violence the wild girl had called down on the whole valley, herself included, but it might. Nothing made by men could possibly—
Cracks danced across the temple roof. “Come on!” Ilna screamed, pulling Alecto with her as far as she could. She couldn't have explained why she was trying to save her companion, except perhaps that their two lives were the only things Ilna thought she might save from the thunder of destruction.
Going on is the only choice... .
The cave narrowed. Ilna slid into the throat. “Come on!” she repeated, but she couldn't hear her own voice against the shuddering terror of the earthquake.
The stone squeezed Ilna, battered her. It could close and chew her body like a grass stem in a boy's mouth. No one would ever know that Ilna os-Kenset was a smear of blood between layers of stone.
She worked through, pulling herself into the enlarged chamber. She felt triumphant for the instant before a greater shock threw her against the ceiling, numbing her shoulders and nearly stunning her.
She turned. Water from the pool sloshed across her in icy fury.
“Alecto!” she shouted, knowing she might as well save her breath. She reached back into the tunnel. Her companion's hand was stretched out, still gripping the bronze dagger. Ilna grabbed Alecto's wrist and pulled, dragging her hips through the narrows.
There was nothing to see, nothing to hear but the mountain destroying itself and all the world besides. Guiding Alecto by the hand, Ilna poised on the edge of the pool.
She dived in, headfirst. She couldn't swim, but her hands and feet against the smooth stone would take her as far down as she could go before she drowned or froze ... or just possibly, she reached a place where a human could live, at least for a little while longer.
No choice... .
* * *
Tilphosa screamed. Cashel jumped to his feet, slanting the quarterstaff across his body. He kicked the bedding into the darkness. The shuttered windows blocked all the light that Soong's fog didn't smother to begin with.
Leaning forward, Cashel swept his left hand through the air above where Tilphosa should be lying. His right arm was cocked back, ready to ram his staff's ferrule through anybody he touched who wasn't the girl herself. Nobody was bending over her.
Cashel scooped Tilphosa up one-handed and started for the common room. Rather than strike a light in here, he'd take her to the hearth and blow the coals bright.
Tilphosa's body was as cold as a drowned corpse: colder than the air, colder than mere death.
The door at the far end of the passageway rattled open. Leemay stood back holding an oil lamp, while two of the men who'd slept in the common room stood in the doorway. One held a cudgel and the other, a fisherman, had a gaff with claws of briar root.
“Let me get her out into the light!” Cashel said. He'd let his staff drop in the aisle, but there still wasn't width enough for his haste. His right hip brushed down a hamper of spirits in stoneware bottles; they clattered among themselves without breaking.
“It wasn't a sound!” said one of the men in confusion. “I didn't hear her scream, I thought it!”
The trapdoor into the loft overhead was open at the back of the room. A proper ladder leaned against the molding. In Barca's Hamlet, most people used fir saplings trimmed so that the branch stubs provided steps of a sort—
“Get out of my way!” Cashel said, pushing into the common room. The fisherman jumped out of his way in time; the other fellow didn't and bounced back from Cashel's shoulder. Cashel laid Tilphosa on the bar, cradling her head with his left hand until he found a sponge to use as a pillow.
The fellow's comment about thinking the scream made Cashel frown. That's what it seemed to him, too, now that somebody'd mentioned it. He'd been asleep, though, and dreaming—
Leemay held the lamp so that its light fell on the girl's face. The innkeeper was expressionless, scarcely livelier than Tilphosa... and Tilphosa might have been a wax statue, her face molded by an artist whose taste was for art that showed bones and ignored the spirit.
“What'd you do to Tilphosa?” Cashel said. Anger deepened his voice. The two men flinched; Leemay did not.
The outside door was already ajar. The left panel opened fully, and more people bumped their way in. Either they'd been summoned by the scream, or somebody'd gone out to call them.
“How could I touch her?” Leemay said. “She was with you; I was up on the roof.”
The lamp trembled in the innkeeper's hand. She was weary, weary from the spell she'd just woven on the roof.
The fishermen touched Tilphosa's cheek, then her throat, with the back of his fingers. “She's dead,” he said. “Cold as ice. Somebody get the Nine.”
“Do you suppose it's plague?” a man asked in concern.
Cashel grabbed for Leemay's throat. She leaned back, too quick for him and a perfect judge of how far he could reach with the bar between them.
“Watch him,” she said to the local men around her. “He may have gone mad with grief.”
The bar was of heavy hardwood, anchored to the walls and floor, but Cashel would've pushed it over if the girl hadn't been lying on it. He came out through the gate instead, tearing it away instead of folding it up and back.
Two men grappled him. Everyone was shouting; the only light was from Leemay's lamp, though a woman in the doorway held a lantern with lenses of fish bladder.
Cashel caught the two men in his arms and rotated his torso, hurling them both over the bar and into wall. Somebody grabbed his legs. He brought his right foot back, then kicked hard with his callused heel. The hands released. Cashel lunged forward with his arms outstretched.
He was going to get his hands on Leemay. Then she'd undo whatever it was that she'd done to Tilphosa, or...
The crowd milled between him and the innkeeper. More people were coming through the door every moment, but Cashel didn't care about that. The men in front of him struggled, but they could as well have wrestled with an ox as try to stop Cashel in his present rage. He plowed forward, his shoulders hunched.
Leemay backed a step and another step. She was against the wall, now, still holding up the lamp, her flat face passionless.
Somebody threw a net smelling of river mud onto Cashel. Men shouted, twisting it over his torso. It was only a fishnet, but the openwork fabric of tough cords flexed when he pulled at it. It gave against him, never releasing and never allowing his strength a way to break it.
Cashel forced himself another pace onward. An overturned table tripped him; wrapped in the net, he couldn't throw an arm out to keep his balance. He fell, smashing a stool under him.
“I've got a net!” a man cried. “Let me—”
Cashel kicked violently, trying to twist up onto his knees. Several locals shoved him down, and a second net fell over his legs. Willing hands wrapped it tight, trussing Cashel like a hen for market.
Leemay stared down at him. “Don't hurt him,” she said, not that anybody seemed disposed to do so. They were just decent citizens, restraining a stranger who'd gone berserk. “He's upset! He'll come to his senses later.”
“You killed her!” Cashel shouted.
He squirmed across the puncheon floor, still trying to reach the innkeeper. Cashel wasn't sure he'd even be able to bite her ankles through the fishnet, but at least he was going to try.
Men grabbed the casting ropes and hauled back. The net was made to hold heavy, fiercely struggling prey; it worked as well on land as it would've done with a catch of eels.
“Tie him to the pillar,” Leemay said calmly, nodding toward the roughly shaped tree trunk which supported the main roof beam. “Let him sleep off the madness.”
Experienced hands slid Cashel across the floor, then lifted his torso upright against the pillar. He twisted, but they were fishermen and used to muscling a writhing netful.
“There you go, lad,” one of them said. “Just calm down, and we'll let you loose.”
The front door's other panel opened deliberately. The crowd
quieted from the back forward as everyone turned to look at the doorway.
Everyone but Leemay. She glanced at the door momentarily, then looked across the room to Tilphosa's still form. She smiled faintly and became expressionless again.
A hooded figure, skeletally thin despite its billowing robes, entered the common room. It had to bend to clear the doorway, but the ceiling between the beams was high enough for it to straighten again.
“Where is the departed?” said a voice. It had to come from under the hood, but it had no more direction than it had life or humanity. It sounded like the wind wheezing through rotten thatch.
“Here,” said the man who'd sat in the chimney corner when Cashel and Tilphosa arrived. He gestured toward the bar top.
“You can carry her on one of my tables,” Leemay said. “She may have had something contagious, so we need to be quick about taking care of her.”
“Tilphosa wasn't sick!” Cashel shouted. “You killed her, woman! You!”
Men took the table that was already upended and knocked out the pins attaching the trestle legs. They carried it to the bar, where two more men lifted Tilphosa's still form onto it. They worked efficiently but with a degree of respect which Cashel noted, though anger was a fire in his throat.
The hooded figure nodded, then bent again and left the inn. Even as close as Cashel now was to the member of the Nine, he couldn't see any sign of legs moving beneath the robe.
The men carrying Tilphosa on the table shuffled out after the priest. The other locals bowed their heads; then, when the impromptu procession was well clear, they began to return to their own homes for the remainder of the night.
Leemay closed the door again; the three guests in the common room muttered quietly as they found their bedding and crawled into it.
Leemay looked at Cashel once more before she pinched out the wick of her lamp. He couldn't see her features through the red rage in his heart.
Ademos, not a man Garric had suspected of being devout, knelt on the millipede's third segment and prayed loudly: first to the Lady, then to the Shepherd, and then back to the Lady. His voice was so loud that Garric—standing with Vascay, Thalemos, and the wizard just behind the creature's head—could hear every word clearly.