"Then he almost certainly knows of Winden's importance. He must mean to use her to further his reach into the Mists—and thus past any defenses we can ever put together."
"Perhaps so. Or perhaps he has suffered too many losses to his lesser liches and desires to replace them. The question at hand is this. Even if we wished to find her, how will we do so when we have no way to track her?"
Dante finished closing the plants in their boxes. "You once tracked us across Collen by using the ether to expose our footprints. Can you do that here?"
Gladdic looked dubious, but spread his palm and shed a small amount of ether onto the floor. A mess of boot prints wavered dimly. "Do not grow excited. These are our own." He walked slowly across the room toward the door, where the tracks were least, then shook his head. "The ground is stone. There is almost nothing to disturb—and thus nothing for the ether to illuminate. I would not be able to see their passage unless they had left within the last two minutes."
Dante sat heavily in a chair. "I could use insects to search the city. But if they found her, it would only be through blind luck."
"Hope has killed as many men as swords. If the task is impossible, it is best to recognize it now, and move on, much as Lord Pressings was ready to do."
"I'll have my scouts search the streets while we take the tunnel. Maybe they'll see something."
"Maybe so."
Dante rose, feeling as heavy as a boulder, and stuffed the boxes of dreamflowers into his pack.
Across the room, Gladdic's ether had already faded, but Blays was staring at the floor near the doorway. He bent down, plucking at something on the stones.
"I should pretend I didn't, but I just found a woman's hair." He straightened, meaning to bear it aloft, then blinked at his fingers. "Er, where'd it go?"
Dante bustled over to him. Blays separated his thumb and forefinger. A thin strand lay across his thumb, just two inches long. Dante took it up and pored over it. It was pale, and though it was as thin as a hair, it felt somehow fleshy. He frowned and sent the nether into one of its ends. It slowly grew. Dante stopped when it had doubled in length.
"This isn't a hair," he said. "It's a root."
Blays crinkled his brow. "A root as in the things plants use to stop themselves from floating off into the sky?"
Dante got down on his hands and knees, isolating the two other lengths of it that had resulted when Blays had accidentally snapped it. One strand led back to the plants beneath the window. The other strand led under the door and out into the hallway.
Dante opened the door, crawling alongside the root. It was so small he could barely see it, but he followed it down the corridor for twenty feet before sitting back and laughing.
"Winden's brilliant," he said. "She left us a trail."
"She harvested a thread!" Gladdic laughed, the sound welcome in the empty palace. "I still believe this to be a fool's errand. Yet I am afraid that if we turn our backs on such ingenuity, Carvahal himself will descend to punish us."
"This is what we get for having smart friends," Blays said. "From now on, we shouldn't partner up with anyone who can speak in anything more complex than grunts."
They finished transferring the flower boxes to their packs, then followed the thread back out into the hall. Crawling along on hands and knees was gruelingly slow, but Dante soon discovered that if he sent a bit of nether into the root, he could see it clearly for a few feet in front of him. It continued to the stairwell, down into the hallways on the ground floor, and beneath a door into the courtyard.
They stopped there. Dante moved to a window and peeked out into the yard. "If we walk out there, the Blighted there will see us at once. And if we start killing them, hundreds more will come for us from beyond the walls."
"Damn!" Blays smacked his fist into his palm. "If only one of us had a means of becoming invisible, he might be able to follow the root out of the palace to somewhere that there aren't any Blighted, then come back and get the others!"
He blinked from sight. Dante could vaguely feel his presence as he walked through the stone wall and out into the courtyard, but the sense faded quickly. He and Gladdic retreated to an alcove, watching both ends of the hall for Blighted. It was several minutes before Blays returned.
"Got it," he said. "But there's about two thousand Blighted between us and it. We'll want to take the tunnel out of here."
They descended back into the basements and then to the tunnel. This time, they only traveled along it for a couple hundred yards before Dante opened a side hatch to the surface, but it was enough time for him to contemplate whether they were making a crucial mistake in not just leaving with the dreamflowers.
Dante crawled from his hole like a beetle from a fallen log and ran right into three Blighted. He swore involuntarily and shot them dead with darts of nether. But Blays claimed that the undead thinned out considerably once you got a bit west of the palace, and this turned out to be true: most of them were massing toward the eastern quarters of the city, where Pressings, Nak, and their soldiers were fighting to evacuate as many citizens as they could.
After a short jaunt west, the three of them veered south, coming to the winding street where Blays had followed the root. Dante highlighted it with the nether and traced it onward, which turned out to be directly west. They had to hide from and murder multiple Blighted along the way, and at two points the root had broken, requiring them to cast about with the nether to find the other end, yet it wasn't long before the trail led them to the banks of the Chanset. There, the root came to a stop.
"That's what I was afraid of," Dante muttered. "I've never hated a body of water as much as I'm starting to hate this one."
"If it helps," Blays said, "just remember that hundreds of people are using it for a toilet every day."
Keeping an eye out for undead, they hunted the shore until they found a rowboat. Crossing the river in broad daylight with Blighted traipsing about on both banks seemed idiotic, so Dante and Gladdic worked to forge an illusion of the water around them and paint that over themselves as Blays rowed them across. They landed on the western shore, dragging the boat up into the grass in case they needed it again.
Blays ducked for a better look through the trees. "Suppose she started a new root over here?"
Dante gathered up two handfuls of nether, kicking at the weeds and grass. "Suppose if she did that we'll be able to find it in less than a million billion years?"
Blays hadn't fought the current at all on the row over, and they'd landed well downstream of where they'd launched. Dante shuffled north through the grass, casting nether into it to hunt for a second root-thread. He'd only been at it for a minute before he began to despair. They had as much as a half mile of ground to cover. It was one thing to find the trail in Winden's room, but how was he supposed to find a hair-fine root among the grass and trees?
He stood straight, looking about himself. "We aren't searching for a root. We'd never find it. And unless Winden became magically idiotic mid-river, she'd know that, too. What we're looking for is a sign."
"A sign." Blays scratched his head. "Of what?"
"Any intelligence to be found in your questions. I don't know, look for an arrow. Or a word, like before. Or a hundred-foot tree-man dropping his pants-bark to moon the White Lich. Just anything that's out of place."
He moved quickly now, striding up the shore and letting his eyes roam where they may. Blays and Gladdic spaced themselves to his left. After traveling two hundred feet, Blays made an excited noise and pointed at a thistle sprouting above the grass. The plant bore three bristly heads at the tips of stems grown into the shape of a W.
"Looks pretty signy to me," Blays said. "Although I was really hoping to find the hundred-foot tree-man."
There were no obvious trails to be found leading from the thistle, so they headed west, soon coming to a second smaller W. This one grew at the edge of the field that bordered the river, and they picked up another root-thread spooling westward into the street
.
The afternoon was starting to grow long and the clouds were thicker than ever, squeezing the light down to the rind. Dante was afraid the root would take them northwest toward the Gods' Plaza, but it headed almost straight west over a minor hill. The street descended, then began to rise again.
Gladdic got a keen look on his face, but said nothing. The hill plateaued and the houses and buildings gave out as suddenly as if the ground ahead was the waters of a lake.
Though a lake would hardly have been less hospitable to structures. Much of the ground was sunken, as if eroded by a sudden flood, leaving crooked spires of rock reaching upward like misshapen fists. The "knuckles" of the fists were topped with turf; at the base of the spires, the ground was a mixture of thickets and open water. It smelled both musty and green.
"The Pits?" Blays said. "Why the hell would they take her here?"
"Yet they must have," Gladdic said. "For no one would have any reason to cross through them."
"My dad used to tell me this place was haunted and I should stay away. Which only made sure that I ran off to explore it the first chance I got. Funny thing though, as soon as I stepped into it, I started hearing things. Seeing them, too. Snatches of things like spirits. So I figured old dad must have been right about something for once, and promptly ran away."
"What you felt were the echoes of the past. For it is said that in the early days of Bressel, the Pits were once a hill—a hill that held the tower of Wayloc, priest of Taim. He isolated himself here, and made a show to the world of being a lighthearted eccentric, but this was no more than a mask, a puppet show to distract the people from the truth: he was a nethermancer, and a wretchedly cruel one. In secret, he worked to craft a race of demons, which he intended to use to wage war on the city that housed him.
"Yet his apprentice, once committed to the cause, grew doubts. He turned on Wayloc, and exposed his treachery to the other priests, who marched on Wayloc's tower to call him to task and know the truth. Knowing that he would be executed for his heresy, Wayloc cast loose his demons. A riotous battle ensued. Many priests were slain. The tower was cast down, the hill itself melted and slagged with the fire of their sorcery. But when the last flare of ether faded, Wayloc lay vanquished.
"It is a strange thing. I used to consider the story to be fanciful, more of a parable than explicit history. Yet after all that I have seen—the Andrac, the Blighted, the Eiden Rane, the deep Glimpse into a time when sorcerers broke the world with far worse monsters than anything Wayloc could have dreamed—I think that I believe."
"Ah," Blays said. "Hate to burst your nice little moment, but now that you've told us about Wayloc, I remember this place. I saw it in my Glimpse. This was the scene of the worst of the fighting between the Helods and the Stotts. It was here that the Stotts won."
Gladdic frowned. "Then why conceal the story of their greatest victory? Their very foundation?"
"Maybe it was part of the plan to conceal the fact the Stotts had stolen the city from the Helods," Dante said. "Or maybe there's something here that could expose their lies, so they cursed the place to stop people from finding it. In any event, there's no time to worry about the significance of this historic site, because Winden's probably getting tortured down in it. So how about we find her?"
The root they'd been following stopped at the edge of the defile. They found a stand of trees near it and hunkered down while Dante sent his flies down into the boggy depths. From above, it looked impassible, but there were game trails worn into the grass. And there were Blighted on the trails, some standing in place while others wandered apparently at random.
He moved off the trails, seeking other paths. The way was often blocked by the columns of rock, some of which leaned from the ground like giant tentacles reaching from the sea. At some places the earth plunged into deep, deep cracks, while at others lay pools of blackish, oily water. The whole place had a foul feel, a memory of brutal sorcery. It was little wonder that people had always stayed out of it.
He explored deeper through the maze-like rocks. The path descended further, the air darkening as it fell into the shadow of the stones, entering a calm yet troubling twilight. A few Blighted were trundling down the path with bound captives slung over their shoulders. Dante slowed the fly to follow them. They padded onward, underneath overhanging arches of rock, the grass growing taller around them.
They entered something like a cavern, the stone columns and the trees and shrubs growing atop them all but blocking out the sky. Smaller formations of rock broke up the interior. Still bearing their captives, the Blighted rounded a collection of rocks, passing by other prisoners lying on the ground and watched over by silent undead. One of the captives glanced up, dark hair falling from her eyes.
"Got her." Dante clenched his hand into a fist. "She's alive. And looks only minimally roughed up."
"I am still going to maximally assault everyone there," Blays said.
"Not a great idea. There's at least one lesser lich there. Possibly more. I don't want to get my fly too close to find out, they might pick up its link."
"So there's a lich. And some Blighted probably. So what?"
"So there are hundreds of Blighted close by. And thousands between us and any path out of the city. The last thing we want to do is draw attention with a fight."
"Well, if you're concerned about them feeling a tiny fly, there's not much chance I can shadowalk in."
"Or for me to tunnel in beneath her. That would use more of my reserves than I'd prefer, anyway."
Gladdic folded his hand at his waist. "She is being watched closely?"
Dante described the scene: the pathways through the grass at the upper levels, the Blighted lugging new victims down to the central bowl, the others watching over those who had already been stolen. And the lesser lich standing sentinel twenty yards from Winden.
"What is the meaning of their presence here?" Gladdic furrowed his brow. "Of what significance are the Pits?"
"Maybe the lich likes the symbolism of them," Dante said. "The place where the city was last truly conquered. Or maybe he's an inscrutable ancient wizard and it doesn't matter because the only thing we need to do is get Winden out of there."
"Is there a route from pillar to pillar, such as you used to cross the roofs before?"
"Maybe at the very end, but before that, they're much too widely spaced. Besides, we'd be completely exposed, especially when we came rappelling in from above."
"Then we have ruled out an approach from above as well as below. And traveling through the shadows is no use to us, either."
"Right," Dante nodded. "Well, all-out war it is."
"We could do that," Blays said. "Or we could just walk right in."
"Well, all-out war it is."
"The Blighted are moving in and out as they like, right? And some of them are carrying captives with them?"
"Oh hell," Dante said. "That might actually work."
Gladdic scowled. "The two of you have spent far too much time together. The language you speak to each other is more opaque than that between a man and his wife."
"You shouldn't have any problem infiltrating the Blighted," Blays said. "You appear to have the brains of one."
Dante turned from the shrubs they'd been hiding behind. "We're going to find three Blighted. I'm going to kill them and reanimate them. And then we're going to have them carry us down into the Pits."
"Wrong. You're going to kill four Blighted. One for Winden, too."
Gladdic's shoulders shook with quiet mirth. "And you believe this will work? The others will not turn on us?"
"The Blighted didn't immediate recognize my Blighted-zombies when I snuck them into the city the lich made in Tanar Atain," Dante said. "Typically, the zombies have to attack them or something before the Blighted clue in on the difference. From my time under the White Lich, I got the impression they don't have any psychic connection to each other, even if they sometimes act like it, so they have no way to automatically tell that the zo
mbies are intruders."
"Then let us make the effort. Yet there is a flaw in your plan. It might look strange if the fourth of your constructs walks in empty-handed. It would look even stranger for it to then pick up one of the people that has already been taken captive and leave with her."
Dante stared at him, then winced. "Okay, but if we can't find one that's already dead, I'm not killing a live one."
Gladdic smiled thinly. "It remains a constant amusement to discover which lines you will and will not cross."
They moved away from the borders of the Pits and back into the neighborhood below. It wasn't difficult to find four Blighted ambling about. Dante and Gladdic killed them simply, then revived them as their own. It was somewhat more difficult to find the deceased body of a relatively young woman, especially one that wasn't too badly wounded, yet within the context of that unpleasant day, it wasn't a great challenge, either.
Dante reanimated her. They pulled down the cords from a couple of nearby clotheslines, then moved behind a house. There, Dante bound the dead woman's hands and feet. They tied their own with fake knots, then Dante ordered the four ex-Blighted to hoist them over their shoulders and walk uphill toward the Pits.
Blays squirmed for a more comfortable position. "Now I see why we stopped using zombies and invented horses."
Dante had no idea if the lesser lich would recognize them, let alone the Blighted, but he tugged his hood over his head anyway. The zombies swayed through the turf, bony shoulders digging into the ribs of their cargo. As they started down the grassy slope into the Pits themselves, Dante had a moment of immense certainty that they were doing something incredibly stupid, but either it was just a fleeting feeling or he'd had it so many times before that he was inoculated against it, because it was gone as fast as it had been felt.
The Blighted-zombies walked somewhat more clumsily than their lithe non-zombie counterparts, slipping once or twice on the way through the grass. Stone columns loomed above them. They reached the path recently worn down and made way for the cavernous space near the Pits' center. Two Blighted appeared ahead, glancing at them with their reddened eyes, then loped on.
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