by Ian Irvine
But, she had to get out before Vivimord came back for her, and she had to have a weapon. She wasn’t going to let him off, either. If she got the chance, he was going to die.
She wasn’t game to go near the ovipositor, but the left fang was dangling from its venom bulb, half torn off by the force of her impact. Coating her hands liberally with protective muck, she wrenched the bulb and fang off, plugged the tip of the fang with a globule of ooze, then wrapped all in a strip torn from the bottom of her gown and tied it around her neck.
It was an awfully long climb up to the hole, and she was quite desperately exhausted and sore, but she knew she was going to make it. Nothing was going to stop her this time!
She caught hold of the web and began to pull herself up.
THIRTEEN
Flydd rubbed his stinging hand as he tried to come to terms with what had just happened. From what he remembered of the Secret Arts, he couldn’t explain it.
‘Was that her again?’ said Colm.
‘It looks that way.’
‘Is she here?’ Colm kept his eyes averted from the hissing flame.
‘I don’t know, though I know when I’m being used. We’ve got to get out.’
‘You said the flame was our only hope.’
‘But I don’t think it’s meant to be used here.’
‘How else can we use it?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t understand anything! Guard the door. I’ll see if I can find another way out.’
Colm took up position by the door, his bloody sword upraised. ‘They’re coming! It sounds like his whole army.’
‘And this time the sounds are real, which means that Vivimord can’t keep Jal-Nish out any longer.’ Flydd walked around the altar, staring into the flame. ‘How did that power come to my knife? What’s she trying to tell me? How to get away?’
‘Xervish!’ Colm said urgently.
He was near to cracking. Flydd could see it in his eyes as they reflected the flames. ‘I haven’t found the way out.’
‘Get a move on. They’re nearly here.’
Flydd ignored him. He had to focus all his wits on finding the way – her way. He could hear the pounding boots now, hundreds of them, and felt a shiver of fear. ‘Bar the doors.’
‘With what?’
‘How the bloody hell would I know? Use your initiative.’
Colm thrust the dead soldiers’ swords through the U-shaped door handles and studied the result. ‘That won’t hold them back a minute.’
Flydd left it to him. I’m not even asking the right questions, he thought, trying to conjure up his mental image of the woman holding the chalice. Who could she be? She must have been a mighty sorcerer once.
The army thundered up the passage towards the doors. He had mere seconds to find the way. If he wasn’t meant to use the flame here, how was he supposed to take it where it was needed? Ah!
He brought his knife to the flame until the blade began to sing anew, then used the beam from its tip to cut a small rectangular block from the altar, no longer than the palm of his hand. Holding the block carefully, he eased the singing blade into it, almost to the bottom, then carefully turned it in a circle and broke out the cylinder of rock. Cutting its top off, he wetted the sides with his tongue – sizzle – and slid it in. It fitted perfectly, making a stopper for the empty bottle.
Taking it out again, he reached out and gingerly held the bottle to the fire, upside down, until it was full of green-black abyssal flame. Could such a small amount of flame be enough to open the way? It would have to do; there wasn’t time to make another bottle. He stoppered it, tied the stopper on with a piece of string and pocketed the bottle alongside the phial containing the cursed flame. If only he knew how to use them.
The swords rattled as someone pushed on the doors. ‘Xervish?’ Colm hissed. ‘Are you all right?’
Flydd was pressing his fist to the centre of his chest again. The burning pain was stronger than before, and anxiety seemed to make it worse. He felt quite ill with it. ‘Yes,’ he lied. ‘Come here.’
Colm ran back to the altar, reaching it as an armoured shoulder hit the doors hard. The swords held, though Flydd knew they would not survive many more blows. His knife was dead again. He recharged it in the flame.
‘Make another bubble,’ said Colm. ‘She might show you the way this time.’
The doors burst open, the swords snapping under the force of the impact, and two soldiers pushed in. Flydd saw dozens more behind them, the flame reflecting off their upraised blades.
Flydd thought he knew what to do, but he was afraid. What if the flame paralysed him, as the cursed flame had Maelys? Yet it was the woman in red’s flame; might that protect him? No time for hesitation now; he had to follow his intuition – or hers.
He stripped the cloth off the taphloid, sprang up and, holding it by the chain, thrust his hand into the flame. Colm choked and turned away. The flame burned, though not with the heat of a normal fire. Flydd held his hand there for as long as he could endure the prickly heat, and a few seconds more, whipping it out as a monstrous bubble emerged from the hole in the altar, temporarily blocking the flame, which gushed out on all sides in tongues of green and black. Why the bubbles, he wondered. Were they the easiest way she could communicate with him, from wherever she was?
The bubble rose, slowly revolving, though this time, to Flydd’s dismay, he couldn’t see anything in it. He’d been expecting the woman to solve his problems, but how could she? She must be far away, for every communication took a greater effort and seemed to hurt her more.
‘How am I supposed to get out?’ he muttered.
Down. The voice in his head sounded really strained now.
‘What do you mean?’ he said, low and urgent. ‘Am I supposed to go down, or out? Speak to me!’
She did not answer. He felt that her strength was failing. Was she trapped as well?
‘If this chamber was built as a way for her to recharge her power,’ Flydd added, ‘why doesn’t she use it?’
‘She can’t get to it,’ guessed Colm.
‘Take them!’ ordered an officer with a plume of ochre feathers rising from the top of his helm. The soldiers advanced. ‘Battle mancers, neutralise Flydd.’
A pair of robed mancers pointed their rods at Flydd. He ducked behind the altar. Did her instruction mean to go down, or to send something down? The flame, perhaps? Following his intuition, he thrust his hand into the flame again and roared, ‘Down!’
To his surprise, the bubble dropped sharply, pushing the flame out to all sides like the petals of a buttercup. A green wisp made his hand tingle until the vent blocked and the flames went out.
The room grew dark, apart from the glimmering hemisphere of the bubble. The whistling note of the abyssal flame was cut off and the room became as silent as stone. The soldiers froze; even the mancers went still, arms outstretched. Flydd didn’t understand what he had done, nor why the God-Emperor’s battle mancers, who were hardened to every kind of atrocity imaginable, seemed to be afraid.
‘Cut them down!’ said the plume-helmed officer.
The floor seemed to move in a circle beneath Flydd’s feet. ‘Down and down and down again!’ he said softly, concentrating on the bubble, though he did not see how it could work. He no longer had the Art for it.
Suddenly, silently, the bubble was sucked down through the vent and the whole floor circled the other way. The only light came from a pencil beam, with the same glimmer as the bubble, shooting vertically from the vent and making a small green circle on the ceiling, many spans above.
‘Lantern bearers, unshutter your lanterns,’ shouted the officer.
Dozens of metal shutters rasped open, but no light came forth.
‘Lantern bearers, re-light your lanterns.’
After a pause, a man yelped. ‘They’re lit, sir,’ he said in a hoarse whisper. ‘I burned my fingers on the flame but it’s not giving out any light.’
‘Nor mine,’ said another.
One mancer bellowed like a trapped buffalo and a fizzing sound issued forth, but the blackness remained impenetrable. The other’s rod shone white at the tip before fading again.
‘Troops, move around the walls.’ The officer’s voice rose. ‘Stand shoulder to shoulder until you encircle the room completely, then move in to the altar. Allow no one to get past. Take Cryl-Nish Hlar and the black-haired girl, if you can find them. Kill the others.’
‘What are we going to do, Xervish?’ Colm said, beside him.
Flydd could feel the woman straining to tell him something, and he could sense her pain, but nothing came through. Pushing the bubble down had been the right thing to do, but it hadn’t saved him; it hadn’t shown him anything either; or had it? Maybe he hadn’t gone far enough. His eye followed the pencil beam up to the ceiling, where a spiral engraved on the stone appeared to be the twin of the one on the top of the pedestal. And it, he recalled, looked as though it was meant to turn. Could it open some secret passage or path, and if so, how was it operated?
He ran through those methods of opening he could recall, though most relied on knowing particular words of command, on solving fiendishly difficult puzzles or on mechanical devices of great cleverness and subtlety. But he could not be expected to know such words of command, nor solve such puzzles in an instant. Besides, this was her flame, and as far as he knew she had dwelt here alone. The answer would surely be simple, and encoded in the one word, down.
‘Down!’ he said softly.
Colm began to duck below the altar.
Flydd gripped him by the shoulder. ‘Not you; stand firm. Down!’ he said to the bubble, using his most commanding tone and, with a rumble that shook the floor, it continued on its downward path.
The shaking intensified until Flydd had to hold onto the altar with his free hand, but it began to separate into two sections at the spiral engraved on the stone. Now he could feel the floor cracking, no, separating from the altar and moving outwards, carrying them with it. Vapour hissed up. The ceiling also seemed to be spiralling apart though there was not enough light to see it clearly.
The altar section twisted itself down through the ever-widening hole. Flydd staggered and nearly fell in as the other section went too. Was he supposed to follow? He could not see what lay below, nor any way to get down, but going to the source of the flame seemed like a bad idea. Then, as he teetered on the edge, he heard rock being torn open in the depths. Had he set off some trap or curse?
It definitely did not help; it hadn’t revealed any way out. The floor opened just behind them, in a ring centred on the altar hole but a few spans out, leaving them on a narrow doughnut of floor. Flydd was eyeing this new opening when, with a roar and a rush, a column of vapour shot up, and ignited. The abyssal flame was back, a hundred times greater, a vast ring of green-black fire surrounding them.
Colm shuddered, his eyes took on an insane blankness and he barely choked down a shriek. He was cracking and Flydd could hardly blame him: the flame was his worst nightmare.
‘Hold on, Colm,’ he said softly.
The soldiers were equally wide-eyed, but they were tough, disciplined men who obeyed orders without question. They began moving around the wall to encircle the flame, and more were streaming in through the doors.
‘What’s going on –?’ It sounded as if a band had been clamped around Colm’s vocal cords. He screwed his eyes shut, took a deep breath and opened them again, staring at his feet. ‘We’re between the pit and the flame, and there’s no way out!’
Flydd was beginning to think the same thing but, before anything else, he had to calm Colm. If he broke down it would make their situation impossible. ‘Get ready to fight.’
He held his knife as close to the raging flames as he could bear, but this time it made no sound.
‘What’s the matter now?’ Colm shrieked, running around in circles.
‘The perversity of the Art,’ Flydd muttered. ‘Things seldom work the same way twice, especially when you really need them. Stay calm; I’ll get us out yet,’ he lied, for he had no plan at all.
What if the abyssal flame were linked to the cursed flame, as he’d speculated earlier? He knew the cursed flame had some connection to the obelisk at the centre of the plateau, which was an ancient Charon memorial as well as a warning that all things must fail. Could it also be a signpost pointing straight down to the vast power of the abyssal flame which the woman in red could no longer reach?
It made sense. What if she’d come to him during renewal because she’d read his intention to go through the shadow realm, and realised that he could help her? She must intend him to use the power of the flame to open a portal into the shadow realm, from the obelisk. He closed his mind to the step after that – what she would do once he’d given her what she wanted. If this was the only way out, he was going to take it, no matter the consequences.
‘Show me the way,’ he said softly, eyeing the creeping soldiers.
She did not reply; he would have to work it out, but how was he to activate a link between the flames? By mixing them? Flydd opened his phial and bottle, and allowed wisps of their flames to merge in the air. The flames went blue and began to revolve in a tight spiral that reminded him of a galaxy he’d seen while studying the stars in his prenticeship, near sixty years ago. The spiral spun in on itself, ever faster, only to collapse into nothingness. He hastily stoppered his bottles as the rock groaned below him.
The circular altar hole closed over, shot open again and a set of stone steps twisted up from the depths like an auger to form a tight, rail-less stair moving towards the opening in the ceiling.
‘That’s it.’ With each turn of the steps Flydd felt the strength drain out of him, as if he were heaving it up with his own muscles. He slumped to his knees. ‘That’s her escape route.’
But were they supposed to go up, or down? The ceiling opening was dark; whatever lay in the depths was equally indeterminate.
‘Jump through the flame!’ shouted the plume-helmed officer. ‘Take them!’
The leading soldiers hesitated on the other side of the ring of fire. It was not a difficult leap, had it not been for the uncanny flame, but no doubt they’d heard of Flydd’s singing blade and no one wanted to be first to feel it.
‘Take them, you stinking dogs,’ the officer bellowed.
A group of soldiers moved forwards, slowly and uneasily. Colm was panting raggedly and did not know where to look, for the maddening flames were all around.
‘Do what you like, Flydd. I’m going up.’
Head down, covering his eyes, he stumbled onto the rotating stair, whose blade-sharp apex was already six coils above them and slowly rising.
Oddly, though, the rising treads did not carry him up with them, and he began to lurch up the steps. Fresh blood stained his shoulder where he’d been cut during the fight that had killed Zham; the wound had broken open again.
Flydd put his knife to the flame and felt the remaining strength being drawn from his own bones, though the knife remained mute. He backed towards the stair. Three soldiers ran towards him, attempting to leap the annulus of flame together; if they got through he was a dead man. He held up the useless blade and made a humming sound in his throat.
The officer laughed mockingly. ‘The blade isn’t working and he’s got no Art. He’s helpless.’
The running soldiers hit the flame but were hurled back, statue-stiff. Another man checked them. ‘They’re dead, surr. Stone-dead!’
Flydd took no heart from it; it wouldn’t take the battle mancers long to find a way across. His body felt worse than before: exhausted and ill-fitting. As he dragged himself up the steps, three more soldiers crept forwards, raised the statue-like corpses to the vertical and toppled them across, attempting to form a body bridge. Two fell into the depths but the third body spanned the gap. The living soldiers were flung backwards, as stiff as their fellows, however another three s
oldiers threw the bodies across the gap. This time two spanned it, and only one of the living fell.
A soldier tried to walk the body bridge but fell onto the dead men and lay there, legs dangling off to the left, arms hanging to the right. Unlike the others, he was still alive and twitching, but unable to move. Not far away, a dozen soldiers waited their turn, fearful yet eager to get the reward for Flydd’s head.
He continued up to the tenth turn of the stairs, where he looked down into the slowly widening annulus of fire. Something green and black swelled and pulsed in the depths. The stair was still rising, though he could not see what was supporting it. Previously, the abyssal flame had begun at the top of the altar, but its base was creeping ever lower into the subterranean abysses, feeding on itself. What would happen when it got to the bottom? You don’t want to find out.
He was halfway to the ceiling, some twenty turns of the staircase above the floor, when he stumbled, missed the step and nearly went over. The first of the soldiers had crossed the bridge and was on the stair, climbing more quickly than he could. He searched the flame for another of those glimmering bubbles that had been so helpful before, but could not see any.
Previously he had created them with the taphloid. As he reached out to the flame with it, it swung against his wrist and its touch was like boiling lye; a little circle of skin blistered before his eyes. The soldiers were coming up rapidly now, their swords out. He had the advantage of height, though it did not nullify the greater reach of their weapons.
Flubber-flub. It came sweeping in through the open doors, banked and curved towards the flame – an entirely new creature-construct of Jal-Nish’s, something he’d never heard of before. It was like a flying wing – no, more like one of the stingrays Flydd had seen gliding through the shallow water of the bay where he’d played as a child, so many years ago. It was slate-green with a broad, arrow-shaped head, the mouth opening on its underside; its delta-shaped wings stretched out a good span and a half to either side, and it had a whip-like tail plus an erectile sting which lay along its backbone.