Beneath the Precinct: Reprise (To Walk the Path 19)

by Paul Smith

Sighted… “Well?”

  “I… I don’t know. I’m sorry. It might still be there, though if I had to guess I’d say it’d be on the move after what’s just happened.”

  “Hmm, okay.” Kel pushed the doorway open, peering into the corridor beyond. Empty. “Anyone know whether dragons can see in the dark?”

  “I’d imagine so,” Daniel replied, glancing about blindly. “And if not I gather they have an excellent sense of smell.”

  “Reassuring stuff.” Kelsaro squared her shoulders. “Well, we’re not going to make it out into the open air by standing around here. You’ll have to help me with directions though, my memory’s useless for that sort of thing.”

  “Down to the end and first door to the left of the main staircase.”

  “Very well.” She set off, feeling the others creep up behind her. “Keep those fingers crossed people.”

  Shoulders hunched, they crept forward through the pitched darkness.

  This must be terrifying for them… Kel realised as she led them down the corridor, the foyer at the end slowly coming into view. Bad enough for me, and I can see what I’m doing...

  Wraethi night vision had been a blessing so often these last few years, and yet she’d found herself missing the dark on more than one occasion. Apart from anything else it made it very difficult to get to sleep when the room about you was painted with these weird phosphorous echoes.

  It was not a true sight of course. She could feel her eyes staring blindly about her. But some other sense took their place under such circumstances, feeding information to her brain which then chose to interpret the spacial input in visual terms.

  Fair, given that’s how we normally experience the world around us.

  The corridor was drawing to an end. She squeezed Rina’s hand in warning, glancing back to check the message made it down the line. The Myson boy almost tripped over Tomen’s foot, but to his credit he caught himself silently, righting himself and taking his place at the rear again.

  Kel peered out of the corridor entrance and had to forcibly swallow her heart as it leapt into her throat at the sight of the great white Drake crossing the floor opposite. A pair of Myson jogged at its side like eager lap dogs as the dragon mounted the stairs, clearly making for the upper levels and open air.

  Shit.

  Kelsaro forced herself to remain still, stamping down the desperate desire to do something about the monstrosity heading for the city above.

  Then a pair of figures appeared at the entrance to the corridor opposite and all thoughts of the Drake evapourated.

  “Look!”

  “Bollocks!”

  The two Myson raised their hands, the one on the left raising a hand and splaying his fingers in a gesture that caused the wisp above his head to expand like a balloon.

  Kelsaro smiled evilly as she stepped forwards into the light.

  “Shit! She’s one of them!”

  Ooh yeah…

  She reached down, drawing matched stilettos from her boots and striding forwards, feeling the contained power within her thrum. Awareness of, and control over, the surrounding grid was a discipline Galairel had tried to teach her a number of times over the year before eventually giving up. It was a sad but true fact that she simply did not have the patience for the subtler possibilities offered by her new state of being.

  “You’re too used to the direct approach,” he’d admonished one evening, after their third failed attempt at guided intervention with the Skuigr. “You’ll just have to rely on your natural effect on the grid to protect you, if you ever go up against anyone with green fingers.”

  The direct approach it is then.

  As she advanced on the Myson the wisp above them began to come apart, shredding like a gas giant caught in a solar storm. Streamers of light ripped away from it, diving out of the air to kiss her skin, bathing her in luminescence as she raised her knives. One of the Myson panicked, clearly forgetting himself as he drew a flaming arrow. It disintegrated, along with the bow that birthed it, the embers of their death flowing across the space towards her as she met his companion, catching him about the throat. Like many Daiku he had clearly eschewed any kind of physical training as there wasn’t even an attempt to block her, beyond the feeble struggles anyone might put up. His companion cast about desperately, only now seeming to take in the rest of the group and the figure lurking behind Tomen.

  “But you’re one of us, how could you?!”

  “Because Calistair is leading us into madness. Islan would be ashamed to see what we have become!”

  Kel glanced at the Fang, nodding as she met his eye over the shoulder of her struggling captive. “What shall I do with this one? He’ll raise the alarm if we let him go.”

  Daniel nodded, stepping forwards. “Crack his ice.”

  Kel increased the pressure she was applying, the man’s ice crackling as it buckled. The other Daiku made a break for it, and Kelsaro rolled her eyes as she thrust their captive into Daniel’s waiting arms, sprinting to beat him to the doorway.

  They’re only techs, she realised, taking in his wheezing breath as he regarded her in horror. Academics caught up in the struggle. She smacked him sharply in the face with the back of her arm, dropping him snivelling to the floor. Boo fucking hoo.

  “Was that strictly necessary…?”

  She looked up at Tomen, lowered her gaze contritely to the man now trying to staunch the flow of blood from his crushed nose. “I didn’t knife him.”

  Tomen raised an eyebrow, shaking his head in bemusement as the Myson approached to repeat whatever slight of hand he’d just performed on victim number one. Kelsaro watched as he dragged the two men to one side, leaving them slumped up against the wall.

  “You want to organise a cushion for them as well?”

  Daniel looked up, eyes narrowing slightly. “They’re innocents. Relatively speaking anyway. Just wanted to make sure no one treads on them while they’re asleep.”

  Kel rolled her eyes. “Well, when you’re quite done we need a way out of here that doesn’t put us in the same courtyard as Baelmont. If that’s not too much trouble to ask.”

  Daniel shook his head, straightening his robes as he stood and gesturing them towards the doorway ahead. “There’s an alternative route on the floor above that will take us round to the Mission’s chapel. You can make your getaway from there.”

  “Much obliged.”

  It was only as they were leaving Kelsaro realised they could all see each other now. And that the reason was that she was glowing softly.

  I am the beacon and the fucking hope… she quoted sourly, remembering her Book of Tine. Wonder if Colleen ever got this much lip for getting things done.

  Sighing, she followed the others as they crept up the stairs ahead towards the soft red glow of emergency lights on the next floor. The corridor they entered was dim and reeked of dragon. Kel suppressed a shudder as they crept down its length, ignoring the tingling touch of the nifl as they passed beyond the immediate environs of the Mission.

  “Up here.”

  And Daniel was leading them up a ladder into ringlight, at the centre of a small but well appointed chapel. She looked out of one of the windows, towards the Mission itself, which now stood in darkness. The twin pillars of the Drake’s wings rose skyward above the roof like a pair of folded down circus tents, the sinuous curve of his neck visible briefly over the tiled peak.

  “Quickly, before he smells you on the wind.”

  Kelsaro nodded, reaching out to squeeze Daniel’s shoulder once. “Come with us.”

  But he was shaking his head. “You might still need someone on the inside.” His smile was grim. “Someone needs to stay and help run interference from this end now the shit’s hit the fan.”

  The expletive sounded somehow incongruous coming from the Daiku’s lips. “Okay. Stay safe.”

  “You too. The southern portal…”

  “We know. We’ll be okay.”

  A moment’s held look, then they part
ed company, he back down the narrow stairwell into the Mission’s undercroft, she to follow Rina and Tomen out onto the trellised path that led away south towards the bustle of an open square. Revellers had gathered there, standing nervously about a group of blazing fire pits that were now the only light on this side of the Precinct.

  Behind them a bellow rent the sky.

  “Oh shit.”

  She stopped at the edge of the square as Tomen placed a hand on her arm, turning to see Baelmont rising into the sky, fire licking about his muzzle from between bared teeth. Light flared from the courtyard beneath him, the eerie glow of seferiks as the Myson tooled up for the coming fight.

  “Come on! We have to get to the rendezvous now that we know Ms Durz is no longer here.”

  Nodding the others followed her across the square, ignoring the sounds of panic rising about them.

  Time, Kelsaro thought, to get out of this ridiculous dress.