Oblivion's Grasp

by Eric T Knight

  “Did you see that low mountain in the distance?” Quyloc asked. “It’s a volcano. That’s where the gromdin lives. I think that’s where we’re going.”

  “Is the gromdin that thing you told me about that’s trying to break into our world?”

  “Yes.”

  “That sounds bad.”

  “It is bad.”

  “This gromdin thing, you think you could kill it with your spear?”

  “What?”

  “Do you think you could kill it with your spear?”

  “I don’t know, maybe. The thing is huge.”

  “But you’ve killed other things in here with it.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can kill the gromdin.”

  “I bet you can. We’ll just have to wait for our chance. When it comes, I’ll distract the gromdin and you stab it.”

  “Just like that.”

  “More or less.”

  “What if the gromdin never releases us from these bonds? What are we going to do then?”

  “It’s not a complete plan.”

  “It’s not a plan at all.”

  “It’s a start. We’ll make up more as we go along.”

  “You’re unbelievable. You know we have basically no chance of surviving this, right?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. It’s a bit of a long shot, I’ll admit. But something will come along. It always does.”

  Quyloc twisted around so he could look at Rome. “What’s my job?” he asked him.

  “What?”

  “What do I do?”

  “Well, I don’t know your actual title. You know I’m not good with that stuff. But you’re my main adviser.”

  “And what does an adviser do?”

  “Is this a trick question?”

  “Just answer it.”

  “You advise me. Right? Is that what you’re looking for?”

  “And do I advise you?”

  Rome gave him a funny look. “Did you hit your head?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “Yes, you advise me all the time. You’re the best adviser a man could have. What’s your point?”

  “The point is that I can’t see any reason why you have an adviser when you never take my advice!” Quyloc shouted the last words.

  “That’s silly. I take your advice all the time.”

  “Name one time.”

  “Well, there’s that time when…no, that’s not a good example. How about when…? Do we need to talk about this right now? I’m having trouble thinking.”

  “Why not talk about it now? As you pointed out recently, we don’t exactly have anything else to do right now.”

  “It’s just hard to concentrate. I’m thirsty.”

  “You can’t be thirsty. You’re not really here.”

  “I’m going to drink some of this water.”

  “I advise you not to. Water is power on this world, but it’s also poison. We probably won’t live long enough, but eventually that poison is going to seep into us and kill us. Last time I only got a little bit on my skin and I would have died if Lowellin hadn’t drained it out of me.”

  “What can it hurt? You said we’re not really here.”

  “Go ahead, then. You’re just proving my point.”

  “Which is…?”

  “That you never take my advice!”

  “That’s not true.”

  “You’re right, Rome,” Quyloc said, his voice returning to normal levels. “You do follow my advice. Why, for instance, there’s the time I advised you not to pull the black axe out of that wall…oh, wait, you ignored me and released Melekath and his Children. Or there was the time when I advised you not to attack Melekath. Let me see. How did that go again?”

  “Okay, okay, so I don’t take your advice very often—”

  “Ever.”

  Rome winced. “Ever?”

  “Promise me one thing. If we somehow get out of here, just listen to what I have to say once in a while. I’m not saying you have to listen to me every day. But every now and then, instead of running off like a difficult child and just doing the first thing that pops into your head, stop and listen to me. Okay?”

  “Am I really that bad?”

  “You’re like a dog that gets a bone in its teeth. You get an idea and you just won’t let go.”

  “Things mostly work out though, don’t they?”

  “I’m not answering that until I see what happens with the gromdin.”

  “I promise,” Rome mumbled, feeling chastened. “When we get out of here I’ll start taking your advice more often.” Was he really that bad? He had to admit, he couldn’t think of any times when he’d actually taken Quyloc’s advice. He remembered asking for it…and then just doing what he’d meant to do anyway. Still, things did mostly work out. Didn’t they? He looked at the strange, thick greenery sliding by on the bank as they floated down the river, the weird bronze sky overhead. Maybe Quyloc was right. A lot of where they were right now was his fault.

  They floated for a while in silence, then Rome said, “I can move my left hand a little bit. If I can work it free a bit more I might be able to get a hold of my belt knife… Hey, my knife’s gone.”

  “That’s because you’re not really here. What’s here is more like a thought of yourself. I don’t really understand it. Anyway, even if you had your knife on you, it wouldn’t be your knife. It would be nothing more than a mirage.”

  “But your spear is real.”

  “It came from here.”

  “And that bone knife you used to have, that you killed that monster with?”

  “It probably came from here also.”

  Rome thought about this for a time. “Didn’t you tell me that when you want to leave this place you kind of picture the Veil in your mind and it appears?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, can’t you do that now?”

  “No, I can’t. I couldn’t do it the first time the hunter caught me either. Even if I could summon the Veil, I’d still have to cut it and I can’t get my arms free to do that.”

  Rome pondered some more. “You said that my body, what I’m looking at now I mean, is like a thought of me.”

  “Yes.”

  “So, if I’m just a thought, why can’t I just think myself out of here?”

  At that moment something appeared in the sky, heading toward them.

  Four

  Opus hurried out of the palace. Tairus was waiting for him at the foot of the front steps. Opus didn’t need to say anything; his appearance said it all. For once the small man’s perfect decorum was broken. His hair, always neatly oiled and combed, was in disarray. His jacket had a smudge on it. Even his thin mustache seemed to droop. Clearly, he’d had no luck finding Rome or Quyloc either. It was midmorning. They’d been searching for Rome and Quyloc since shortly after dawn, when the two men failed to show for a meeting with Tairus and Naills.

  “I turned out the entire staff,” Opus said. “We searched every room.”

  Tairus cursed under his breath. Melekath and the Children would be here in two days and their macht and his chief adviser were missing. Tairus didn’t have to look around the courtyard to see what was on the face of every soldier, every servant, every man, woman and child. He’d had men search every inch of the palace grounds and sent others into the city, to every spot either man was known to frequent. There was no way to keep such a search quiet. By now the entire city knew. Rome was the glue holding them all together. Without him, Tairus feared the whole city would fall apart.

  The palace gates opened and a carriage carrying the FirstMother Nalene and the Insect Tender Ricarn entered, answering Tairus’ summons. Tairus didn’t particularly like either woman, but he was happy to see them right now. This was a problem that was clearly beyond his ability to solve.

  “How long have they been gone?” Nalene asked in a peremptory tone as she got down out of the carriage. She sounded like she was addressing a servant who had burnt supper, rather than the general
of Qarath’s army.

  Tairus bit back his angry reply. This was no time for it. “No one has seen them since last night.”

  “You checked the taverns and the brothels?” Nalene demanded. She had lost weight and the stubble on her head was mostly white. She looked like she’d aged twenty years since all this started. But she had not lost her arrogance or her haughtiness. “Likely Rome simply drank too much and is sleeping it off.”

  Then Tairus did snap. “Macht Rome is not in a tavern or a brothel. You’ll do well to watch how you refer to him.”

  Nalene drew herself up—she was actually taller than Tairus, who was short and stumpy—a scathing reply coming to her lips, but Ricarn forestalled her by holding up one hand. Nalene wavered, then backed down and closed her mouth. Ricarn had that effect on people.

  “Can you find them?” Tairus asked her, turning away from Nalene, deliberately excluding her. “Use your bugs or something?”

  “My sisters are searching as we speak,” she replied. “If the two men are within the city, we will know. But they will not find anything. This I know already.”

  Tairus felt like he’d been punched in the stomach, her words reaffirming his worst fears. In truth, he’d already known Rome wasn’t in the city. If Rome was in the city nothing would keep him from turning up. “Do you think they’re…dead?” It was hard to say the words.

  Something crawled out of Ricarn’s long, straight black hair and disappeared into her red robe. She was staring at Tairus, but he had a feeling she wasn’t seeing him. For long seconds she stood motionless. She might have been carved from alabaster, so unearthly white and flawless was her skin. A butterfly landed on her shoulder, its wings waving slowly.

  “No,” she said at last. “They’re gone.”

  “But where? How?”

  A servant came tentatively down the stone steps toward the little group then. She was in her middle years, hands red from hard work. She had hold of the hand of a little boy, probably about five, and she was pulling him along behind her. He was trying desperately to get away, clearly terrified.

  “Begging pardon, Chief Steward, sir,” she said.

  Opus turned to her.

  “You said we were to tell you at once, if we learned anything about the macht, however so small.”

  “What is it?” Tairus barked, louder than he’d meant to. The woman shrank back and the little boy gave a small shriek. Opus held out a hand to stay him.

  “What is it?” Opus asked, crouching and speaking directly to the little boy. “Come, no one will hurt you. But you must speak up and quickly.”

  The woman pushed the boy in front of her. Something about Opus seemed to give him courage for he pulled his hand away from his mother and stood straight, looking Opus in the eye.

  “I saw the macht, sir. Before dawn. He was going into the tower. He had the black axe.”

  “You’re sure it was him?”

  The boy nodded.

  “That’s no help,” Tairus said. “We already searched the tower.”

  “Not everywhere,” Opus replied, tapping himself angrily on the temple as he stood. “I should have thought of it sooner. I must be an idiot.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Quyloc has a secret chamber under the tower that he likes to go to. Part of an old escape route for the king, I think.”

  “If it’s secret, then how do you know of it?”

  Opus gave him a look as if he was a slow child. “This is my world. I pay attention.”

  Opus led them around the edge of the palace and to the tower, calling for a servant to bring a lantern as they went. They entered a store room on the ground floor. In the corner of the room, hidden behind some crates, was a trap door. He pulled it up, revealing iron rungs set into the wall of a shaft that led down into the stone.

  “His chamber is down there.” Opus handed Tairus the lantern and Tairus started down, followed by the two Tenders. A few minutes later they were standing in a small room with a small window that looked out over the sea. Against one wall was a cot, a chair sitting beside it.

  On the cot, lying on his side, was Rome. Slumped in the chair was Quyloc.

  Tairus ran to them. “Rome! Wake up!” He shook Rome but there was no response. He put his fingers to the large vein in Rome’s neck but could feel no pulse.

  “They’re not dead,” Ricarn said. “They’re gone. There’s nothing inside.”

  “What do you mean they’re gone?” Tairus asked. “I can see them.”

  “You see their bodies. The essence of who they are is elsewhere.”

  Tairus remembered then: Quyloc lying motionless on the stone, while at the same time he was across the battlefield, fighting Kasai.

  “But why? Where would they go? Especially now, with Melekath so close.”

  “The boy said Rome was carrying the axe,” Ricarn mused. “Maybe they went to attack Melekath, surprise him like Quyloc surprised Kasai.”

  Suddenly it all made sense and Tairus sat down heavily on the desk. “Yeah,” he said wearily. “That sounds like Rome, damn him. It’s just the kind of thing he would do.”

  “It’s an idiot thing to do, that’s what it is,” Nalene said harshly, suddenly angry.

  “I’m sure he had his reasons.”

  “Yes, I’m sure they seemed like good reasons after a night of rum with his whore,” she shot back at him.

  Tairus came off the desk, his fists clenched. “You will not speak of the macht this way,” he growled.

  “Why are you defending him? Look what he’s done. Just when we need him the most he runs off on a fool’s mission and gets himself killed. Gets them both killed.” Her sulbit, sitting on her shoulder, crouched as she spoke and hissed softly, opening its mouth, which was filled with fine, needle-like teeth. It was the yellow of old ivory and the size of a cat, its head blunt and rounded, its eyes black and deep set. Its hind legs were thicker than its front legs, and the toes on its front paws had grown longer, more fingerlike.

  “Ricarn just said he’s not dead, only gone,” Tairus snapped. “He’ll be back.”

  “Stop deluding yourself. If he was going to come back, he would have already. He’s been gone for hours.”

  Ricarn raised one hand. She didn’t say a word or make any other motion, but both of them ceased at once. “There is another possibility. They might be in the Pente Akka itself.”

  “The place where Quyloc got his spear?” Tairus asked, feeling sick at the thought.

  Ricarn nodded. “There is no way to know for sure, of course. Not without help. Though I believe you can help us with that, can’t you, T’sim?”

  Tairus looked around. “Why are you talking to T’sim? He’s not…” His words trailed off as T’sim entered the room. He was dressed as always, in his long, brown coat with the polished silver buttons. He looked like a small, slightly built man of middle years, a completely unremarkable man. And yet, his face was curiously unlined and just a little too symmetrical, with none of the flaws that make faces human. His eyes were different too, a blue that was sometimes startling and clear and other times cloudy and almost gray, like the sky. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back.

  “You wish my assistance, Insect Tender?” T’sim asked, giving a slight bow.

  Ricarn gestured toward the still forms of Rome and Quyloc. “We are missing two of our leaders.”

  T’sim nodded. “They left in the early morning, before the sun.”

  “We need to know if they are anywhere under the sun, or if they are in the Pente Akka.”

  T’sim frowned slightly. “You want me to look into the Pente Akka and see if they are there. I confess, I do not like to go near that place.”

  “It would be a great help.”

  T’sim blinked, considering this. “It is not our way. My kind have never involved themselves in the world. We have always stayed above the endless conflict.”

  “Listen, T’sim—” Tairus began, but again Ricarn stopped him with the sligh
test gesture.

  “However,” T’sim continued, “the prospect of a future without those two is a considerably less interesting one. Fascinating events seem to revolve around them.”

  Now Tairus just couldn’t hold it in any longer. Ignoring Ricarn, he burst out, saying, “That’s all you have to say? You know, if we don’t stop the Children they’ll devour everything, even you and your brethren. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “Actually, I find the prospect somewhat enticing,” T’sim answered, unperturbed by his outburst. “I have long envied your kind the ending that awaits you at the end of your lives. This world has grown very old for me.” His brow furrowed slightly. “My only concern is that the end offered by the Children may prove to be even duller than what I now experience. The last time I sought a change, when I moved into this form—” he indicated his body “—and took up residence within the Circle known as Life, it did not, admittedly, turn out the way I thought it would. Some decisions, once made, cannot be undone.”

  Tairus just stared at him. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  T’sim looked at Ricarn. “I will look for them.”

  A sudden gust of wind blew into the room through the window, whirling around T’sim. It was as if T’sim were made of sand. He just seemed to blow away and then was gone.

  They were left there looking at each other. Finally, Nalene said, “How long will this take? I have a great deal to do. The sulbits are not nearly strong enough. They need to feed more and it is better if I am there when it happens. Sometimes it does not go…well.”

  That made Tairus shudder. Nalene and the rest of the Tenders who had sulbits had been letting them feed on the citizens of Qarath for the past few days, the idea being that the sulbits needed to grow as strong as possible before Melekath and his Children arrived. Even though the citizens who were fed on were volunteers, and even though Rome had given his approval and Tairus knew it was necessary, he still hated the idea. It felt horribly wrong. Several people had already died during the process, when the Tenders were unable to pull their sulbits away in time. He only hoped it was worth it in the end.

  “He will not be gone long,” Ricarn responded. “Time and distance do not mean much to him.”