“Itla sem Yetur.” Meuhlnir’s head was down so I couldn’t see his expression, but I got the feeling he was nearing the point of losing control.
“Well, yes,” said John. “In their case, it was that or watch them all starve to death. To my mind, it was the lesser of two evils to teach them layth oolfsins.”
“Was it?” said Meuhlnir with an edge to his voice.
“That’s what you call it? The way of the wolf?”
John nodded.
“Cannibalism by any other name…” muttered Jane. “It’s not sweet.”
“There were other tasks. I sailed to the other continents for her, to determine if people thrived there. I ran the preer to many other realms, serving as spy, as merchant, as diplomat. Many things, many years of service.”
“You couldn’t break their grasp on you?”
“I could not,” he said. “To my eternal shame.”
“Then what has changed?” asked Sif.
His eyes strayed to Sig. “I swore my oath to the Dark Queen—gave up my faith, my humanity—to save one boy. I couldn’t stand to cause another boy’s death. I couldn’t break Hank’s family the way mine was broken.”
The cavern fell silent in the wake of that, and John sighed like a man who had nothing to live for. “You have to understand,” he said into the silence. “I didn’t think I had any choice. I had no way to return to my home, no way to break away from the darkness, from the Briethralak Oolfur…from Vowli. They…they kept me down there in the dark…until I…until I killed Edla—until I ate from her body. I don’t have any idea how long they kept me down there—I’d been there a long time before he brought Edla. He brought her because I refused to eat the…the meat he brought me. I starved myself rather than give in to what he demanded. He thought her…freshness would tempt me.” No one spoke, no one moved. John looked around, seeing only hard faces and cold glares. “They broke me, down there in the darkness. A man named John Calvin Black went down into that pit of despair, but only I came out—a husk of a man with no name, no past. Nothing but the Dark Queen’s will.”
Meuhlnir scoffed and turned away. “Pointless,” he muttered.
“What about redemption, Meuhlnir?” I asked at just above a whisper. “Have you changed your mind?”
He whirled on me, eyes blazing. “That’s not the same.”
“Isn’t it?” I cocked my eyebrow and flashed a mordant smile at him.
He shook his head. “Luka is—”
“Your brother,” I said. “Is that the only thing that makes his situation different from John’s?”
Meuhlnir scythed his hand through the air. “Enough of this! It gets us nowhere.” He glared at John. “Be forewarned, Farmathr or John or Owtroolekur or whatever you want us to call you next. You will not break the Ayn Loug again, or you will face my hammer.”
John ducked his head but nodded. “I…I’m not sure I remember how to live contrary to layth oolfsins any longer. I—”
Mothi took an angry step closer to him, eyes blazing. “You’d better start remembering how,” he growled.
“Don’t you think I want to?” pleaded John. “I hate what they’ve made me into! I hate the things I’ve done. It’s easy for you all to judge me, but you don’t understand what it was like to be under her spell. I can’t even remember the last time I did something that was my idea!”
“Back there on that bridge,” I said.
He looked at me, breathing hard, for the space of five heartbeats, then nodded. “I guess I did.”
“It was the first step,” said Freya. “What remains is divorcing yourself from her influence, from Vowli’s teachings.”
Meuhlnir scoffed.
“Redemption, remember?” I said. “Let John be your brother’s test case. Help him as you would help your brother.”
“Redemption!” spat Althyof. “The best redemption is the grave, Hank.”
“When I first came to Osgarthr, I thought the same way. I thought Luka and the Black Bitch had to die for their crimes back on Mithgarthr and for daring to take my family from me. But a wise man pointed out that everyone can change.”
Meuhlnir’s eyes sought mine, softening a little. His gaze pinged back and forth between my two eyes until, finally, he nodded.
“Let’s all agree to give John a chance to prove what he says. The preer will not open themselves while we sit here and argue.”
“Let’s get moving,” said Althyof after a long sigh.
“No,” said Freya. “I can’t take the risk that my sister will see the party’s location because of me. I can’t continue to travel with you.”
“Now, wait a minute—”
“No, Hank. No. I will stay here, in these caverns until you’ve succeeded.”
“Wife, please reconsider—”
“Husband, don’t argue,” she said with a smile. “You never win.”
“Freya, this isn’t necessary,” I said. “If she sees you, she sees you.”
“Besides,” said Jane, “what’s the difference if she sees you in these tubes or with us inside the Herperty af Roostum?”
“If she sees me inside, she will know you are inside, and she will bring her army. But, if she sees me wandering around in these tubes, she will continue to believe the tunnels have confounded us, that we can’t find our way inside. My sister will think the plan to separate Hank from the rest of us has succeeded. She will think he is vulnerable, but no threat and will leave her army to guard the entrance to Pilrust. She will come for him, but with only a small segment of her forces.”
“But—”
“I will not be coming with you. If anyone wants to stay and keep me company, I wouldn’t mind. Husband?” She gazed at him with a twinkle in her eye and a faint smile on her lips.
“Of course,” said Pratyi.
“What if other dangers await you in the tubes? Other traps? More fire demons for instance.”
She turned her gigawatt smile on me. “I’m not helpless, and neither is Pratyi. We survived without you before we met.”
I shook my head. “I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to,” said Freya. “It is our choice, our responsibility. We will see you soon.” She mounted her horse, and Pratyi did the same.
“Maybe we should split the party more evenly?” I said.
“John, Althyof, Yowtgayrr, Meuhlnir, Mothi, Veethar, and I could go on and—”
“Yowrnsaxa, may I borrow one of your cooking pots?” said Jane. “He needs a smack to the head.”
“Jane, if we—”
“Still talking?” she said with a crooked smile.
“And you don’t get to decide what Sif and I do any more than the great lout over there does,” said Yowrnsaxa. “We can’t let him go on alone. There’s no telling what trouble he will get himself into.”
Arguing with them was pointless, so I gave it up. I turned to Freya with a smile. “Don’t go far. You should follow us toward the entrance to Herperty af Roostum. We can send word when it no longer matters if the Dragon Queen knows where you are.”
Freya inclined her head. “No. It is better that we find our way out of these tubes and head toward Suelhaym. My sister may think you’ve given up.”
“Even so, we’ll mark our passage, in case you change your mind.”
“There’s no need, Hank. If you think about this rationally, you will understand that I am right. Frikka and Veethar can contact us if something changes.”
I nodded, thinking of Jax and his fluorescent paint on the walls of Luka’s abattoir with profound sadness. “Still, we will mark the path.” I glanced over at Slaypnir. “John, will the horses be able to go inside the complex with us?”
John started as if he’d been lost in his own thoughts. “Oh! No, they won’t fit through the door we will use.”
“I thought as much,” I said. “Freya and Pratyi should take the horses with them. There’s nothing for them to eat here.” Veethar nodded and waved us away from the horses.
“The rest of us should get moving. How much farther, John, if we go on foot?”
“Another day, perhaps, if we walk fast.”
Fifty-four
After a dreary day of trudging along, buried under miles of rock with no fresh air, no sky, no change in terrain, we came to a graceful bend in the tube we followed, and set into the wall at its apex was an immense stainless-steel door, polished to mirror brightness. Various mechanical gadgets adorned our side of the door, along with a massive hinge, replete with reinforced mounting points. In the center of the door was a grate, similar to what would cover a car’s speaker, and a large steel wheel.
“We should rest here,” said John.
“Why?” demanded Meuhlnir.
“Because dangers exist on the other side of this door. Things like the ‘lectrics and plasms in the Fast Track Travel Network, and far, far worse. There are…well, I don’t know what to call them, other than guardians—things like the silver creature that cleaned up the spilled food in the first stronghold. They are things of metal that move about on their own and speak in a twisted tongue. If you don’t answer them with the right set of sounds, they get nasty. It’s best to be fresh and well-rested.”
“We will be sleeping on stone, John. None of us will be well-rested after much time on this cold floor.”
“Is it dangerous to be so near the door?” asked Jane.
“No, the guardians inside never venture—”
“I was thinking more of the Dark Queen.”
“Oh. She would never think to look for us here. Not with her sister farther back in the tunnels.”
Jane only raised her eyebrows.
“I’m willing to sleep here,” John said. “And I’m the one who will suffer the most if she catches us.”
“I doubt that,” said Meuhlnir. “But your point is well-taken.” He stood from his resting squat with a groan and went to inspect the door.
As if that were the secret cue, everyone dropped their packs and stretched. Of course, there were no logs and no detritus on the ground to soften it, but that couldn’t be helped. We sat in a circle anyway as if there was a campfire in the center. Yowrnsaxa made a face as she passed our stale bread and strips of dried meat. “This is no way to eat,” she muttered.
“You’ve been inside before?” asked Veethar with a nod toward the door.
“Once,” said John. He held the dried meat in his hand as if it was a snake. The bread he’d set aside.
“Go on,” said Sif. “Eat it.” Her voice was as hard as diamond.
He glanced at her impassive expression and brought the dried meat to his mouth, making a face that any parent of a two-year-old would recognize. He opened his mouth the barest of slits and slid a strip of dried meat into his mouth. His expression worsened, and his eyes watered like a Florida thunderstorm, but he worked his jaws methodically, grinding and grinding. His throat spasmed and his eyes opened wide, but he kept his mouth closed with grim determination. When he swallowed, it resembled a contortionist mimicking a snake.
“That’s a start,” said Sif. “Have a mouthful of water to wash it down and after you have, have a bit of bread.”
John looked at her with horror painted on his face. He repeated the whole process with a sip of water, then sat there breathing hard as if he’d run a marathon.
Sif cocked her head to the side and pointed at his portion of bread on the ground beside him. “Bread.”
“I… I don’t think I can.”
She nodded, face stern, eyes hard. “You can.”
“You’d better,” growled Mothi.
John’s gaze darted between mother and son and sought mine. “I feel I know you,” he said. “Isn’t that strange?”
“Bread,” said Sif.
“Trust me, John. You’d rather do what she says than have her concoct some vile brew to fix you.”
Sif gave me a flinty look devoid of amusement, then returned her gaze to John. “Eat.”
“Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve had anything from a plant inside my mouth? Do you—”
“Eat!” roared Mothi.
John tore off a minuscule piece and slipped it between his lips, grimacing. A total body shiver overtook him as he squeezed both his eyes and lips shut. He didn’t chew.
“Now, water,” said Sif.
He gulped at his water, eyes still closed, and the muscles in his throat knotted as he choked the bread down. John sat very still, eyes closed, barely breathing, hands pressed to his thighs. He looked like a drunk fighting to keep the swill on the inside.
“That’s enough for now,” said Sif. “Each day, take a little more. As long as you stay away from human meat, the foul change to your body will eventually reverse itself.”
John cracked his eye open while she spoke, body still rigid. He tried to nod, but an expression of pure misery stole across his face, and he bolted away from the circle, running around the bend of the lava tube. The sounds of retching drifted back to us.
“It’s a start,” Sif whispered.
Fifty-five
After we’d gotten as much rest as we could with the cold stone floor beneath us, we gathered around the stainless-steel monstrosity of a door. We all had our arms and armor ready and packs across our backs.
“How do we open it?” asked Veethar.
John pointed at the grill set next to the wheel in the face of the door. “This thing here,” he grated. He was still pale and more than a little green around the gills, but he was up and moving like the rest of us.
Veethar cocked his head at it. “What do we do?”
“It conveys what you say to something inside that is similar to the metal guardians, but it doesn’t ask questions, only listens. If you say the right sounds, it opens. If not, nothing happens.”
“You know these sounds?” asked Meuhlnir, arms crossed, head cocked to the side.
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“Raidho…naudhiz…ehwaz…ingwaz,” he said into the grill.
Those “sounds” were the names of four runes. Roughly speaking, the runes translated as move…need…trust…begin. The grill emitted a loud buzz and a series of loud clunks. I drew my pistols and stood ready.
John nodded and spun the wheel to the left. As he did, the door edged open and stale, foul-smelling air whisked out the crack.
“Hasn’t seen use in a while I take it,” I said.
“Not in a long while,” John said. “Help me with this—it’s heavy.”
Mothi stepped forward and grabbed one of the more solid-looking doo-dads on the door. “Pull,” he said, and he and John swung the door outward on its complicated, heavy-duty hinge. The thick door came straight out of the jamb at first, but once its girth cleared, it swung to the side and out of the way.
“Keep the pups with you, Sig.”
“Um, have you seen the size of these monsters? How am I supposed to make them do anything?”
“Ask them nicely,” I said, giving him the Dad-eye before stepping across the threshold into a short hallway. A regular-sized door stood opposite the vault door, separated by a short hallway. I crossed to it and shoved it, standing back as it swung all the way open, revealing a huge room swathed in darkness and dust. For a moment, the incredulity of standing inside the Herperty af Roostum washed over me, and I froze, staring into the blackness.
I stepped inside the huge room, guns ready. Dark shapes loomed, towering into the hidden heights of the room—reminding me of those pitch-black anterooms in Isi’s Fast Track Transit Network. The others crowded in behind me, eyes wide, necks craning.
“Lyows,” I said, and a brilliant, bluish-white light exploded into being around us. I’d once been to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida—one of the world’s largest buildings on Mithgarthr by volume—and the room we stood in dwarfed it. The haze of distance obscured both the ceiling and the lengthwise ends of the room. The far side of the room was a quarter of a mile away if it was an inch, a
nd giant, pale-blue metal rectangles of unknown purpose filled the room. When I realized I was standing there slack-jawed, pistols hanging limply at my sides, I holstered the guns, feeling sheepish. Other than our breathing and a strange, almost inaudible hum that vibrated in my teeth and chest, I couldn’t hear a thing.
“What now?” asked Jane. “Is there an information kiosk?” I knew she meant it as a joke, but the awe in her voice was plain.
“Well…” Meuhlnir scrubbed his hand through his beard. “Maybe we can…”
“We’ll have to find the control room,” I said into the gap. “There has to be one.”
“Control room?”
“A centralized place that controls all this…” I swept my arm in an arc that encompassed all the humming rectangles of metal. “And the preer.”
“How will we ever know what the controls are? How will we know which machines, if those even are machines, control the preer and which do God-knows-what?” muttered Jane.
A soft click sounded somewhere behind me, matching the click of a single key press on a mechanical keyboard. A high-pitched whine pierced the stillness following the click, and I would have sworn I could feel the whine reverberate up and down my spine.
Keri and Fretyi set up a racket, snarling and barking, spinning in circles, challenging the dark spaces in the room. “Quiet please, puppies,” said Sig, putting a hand on each of their backs. They looked up at him and whined.
“What’s that?” asked Jane.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as the whine grew in volume. The frequency of the sound escalated as the volume increased and soon we were all covering our ears against the pain. Something vibrated against my kidney, something that was hot and growing hotter.
I spun around, but there was nothing there. The intensity of the shriek grew as did the heat on my back. Something in the pack? I ripped off my rucksack and dug through it.
All at once, the shriek faded away, but I could still feel the heat radiating from inside the kit bag. I searched the large container that made up the bulk of the pack’s storage, thinking that if the heat was against my back, it had to be in there, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. I dug through the outside pockets and pouches before it dawned on me.
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 87