The Way to Babylon

by Paul Kearney

  Riven thanked him, thinking of the injuries the company had suffered. Madra, at least, could go no farther, and from what he could remember of the fight at Phrynius’s house, Ratagan and Isay were likely to be hurt also.

  The thought of Madra touched off a coldness in his belly, and he cursed himself for it. There was a time and a place for everything, but he had yet to find it.

  ‘My friends are still locked up in a dungeon,’ he said.

  One of the Vyrmen leaned forward and said something in his own tongue, which made Quirinus nod.

  ‘Not for much longer, it would seem. They are at this very moment in the tunnels, being led to the city walls. It will soon be time for us to leave as well.’

  Riven looked from the Vyrman to Quirinus and back again, and the Lord of Armishir laughed. ‘They speak to each other with their minds, my friend. Sorcery of a sort. It is one of the reasons they needs must skulk down here.’

  Quirinus’s dour bodyguard spoke for the first time.

  ‘If those we came for are at liberty then we must be on our way also, lord. We have a long way to go before daybreak, and the night is passing now above ground.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Quirinus mused. ‘You are ever ready to remind me of my duties, Keigar, which is just as well. I’d have happily sat here and spun some talk a while longer.’ He stood up, throwing aside his cloak. His clothes were still wet underneath. He beamed down on Phrynius, who squatted at his feet, reminding Riven irresistibly of a garden gnome.

  ‘Time to go, my old friend. It seems that whenever I have a chance to talk with you these days, there is someone at my elbow making me hurry. I hope there will come a time when we can sit and yarn to our heart’s content.’

  Phrynius gazed at him gravely. ‘I will look forward to it. Be careful of yourself.’ He touched Riven on the shoulder. ‘Quirinus will take you to your friends, and a place of safety. My job has been done.’

  ‘You’re not coming?’ Riven asked stupidly. He knew suddenly that he would miss the odd little man.

  ‘I stay here. The Vyrmen will find a place for me. But I wish you every blessing on your journey, for the sake of all the people of this land, but for your own sake as well.’ He smiled. ‘And now you must get wet again.’

  The Vyrmen had already positioned themselves at the pool’s edge and were talking to Quirinus. There was a splash, and Keigar had disappeared. The bald man beckoned to Riven once, and then followed.

  Riven stood up reluctantly. The pool looked dark and cold and uninviting, and he shivered momentarily. One of the Vyrmen touched his forearm and said something.

  ‘He wishes you a safe journey,’ the healer said.

  ‘Cheers,’ Riven muttered, and he dived into the water.

  SIXTEEN

  THE JOURNEY WAS longer this time, and Riven was surprised to find they were travelling steeply downwards until he remembered that Talisker was built on a high-sided hill. If they were to leave the city by way of the tunnels, then they would have to descend to its foot.

  He was exhausted, and stumbled as he trailed along in the wake of Quirinus and Keigar, his shoulders scraping the walls and his head banging against low spots in the passage. Thirst ravaged him also, though he was not yet desperate enough to consider the water running down the walls around him. It had an unwholesome look, though they had left the sewers behind.

  The tunnels grew older in appearance, their walls sagging and crumbling, the floor becoming uneven and the black dagger-shapes of stalactites stabbing from the ceiling.

  Quirinus led the way with a torch he had left on the far side of the entrance pool, the light throwing huge, vague shadows around the passageways and leaving floods of blackness in side tunnels and corners. There were no more rats, but several times Riven thought he saw quick, flurried movements out of the corner of his eye and he wondered if the Vyrmen were keeping a watch on them yet. Or perhaps there were other things creeping about in the darkness down here. The idea made the flesh between his shoulder blades crawl, and he wished he were not at the rear.

  At last they halted, their breathing and the crackling of the torch the only sound in the subterranean quiet. Riven was grateful for the respite. He leant his back against the wet wall and sucked air in deeply. His legs were on fire, and there was a lightness in his head. His throat seemed to have contracted to a marble-sized hole.

  Quirinus handed him a leather-covered flask. ‘Drink this. We will be out of the tunnels soon, but there is a journey to make over the land, a ride of some miles, and you will need your strength.’

  ‘How far?’ Riven rasped, uncorking the flask. The contents smelled fruity and alcoholic.

  ‘From the city walls to my home at Rim-Armishir is a dozen miles, and we will have to be swift. No doubt, at this moment, the city is humming with the news of you and your friends’ disappearance. Sergius’s mob will be out in force. Discretion is called for.’ He smiled. ‘Drink. It will put some strength in you.’

  Riven drank. The liquid tasted of tangerines. It cooled his throat and warmed his stomach. His tongue began to feel its normal size again. He handed the flask back, but Quirinus refused it.

  ‘Keep it. By the looks of you, you will have more need of it before the night is out.’ Then he turned, nodded at Keigar, and led them onwards again.

  This time it was not long before they halted once more. They had only gone a mile or so by Riven’s blurred estimation when Quirinus held up his hand for silence and stood with his head cocked, listening. Off in front of them was the rush of running water, echoing up the passageway. Quirinus frowned.

  ‘The water is high, higher than I had thought. Usually there is only a trickle in these levels.’

  ‘It was raining when we took to the sewers,’ Keigar offered. ‘Perhaps it did not stop.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Quirinus grunted. He shrugged. ‘There is little choice for us in the matter, at any rate. Grab each others’ belts. I am going to douse the torch.’ He looked at Riven. ‘This may be a struggle of sorts, getting through this next part, so hold tight.’ He raised his arm, and then thrashed the torch out in an explosion of sparks and gledes, leaving them in darkness. The sound of the water seemed abruptly louder. Riven felt Keigar edging forward and tucked his fist into the rear of his belt. They inched along like a trio of blind men.

  There was water underfoot, rising rapidly; It climbed over Riven’s toes, lipped his ankles and kept rising. When it was up to mid-thigh, he uncorked Quirinus’s flask with his free hand and took a few generous swallows. If he was going to be immersed in freezing water yet again, he felt he deserved it.

  When it was chest-deep, he could feel the current trying to sweep him off his feet, and his grip on Keigar’s belt tightened. He had visions of being swept away to be lost down unknown tunnels in the bowels of the city, lost for ever inside his own story. He smiled wryly into the darkness.

  The water had become a roaring torrent that buffeted and thrust at them, but there was a faint light ahead, grey as cobweb. Riven saw that the tunnel was arching up overhead, widening, and there were squares of grey light set in its ceiling high above. But the water was still rising.

  ‘Keep to the wall!’ Quirinus yelled. ‘There is a ladder on the right-hand wall. Feel with your hands!’

  They struggled along blindly, spray smashing into their faces and filling their gasping mouths. Riven had to struggle to breathe. The air seemed full of furious liquid that beat and thrust at him like storm-tossed branches. For a moment, he lost his feet entirely and was trailing in the rapids, hanging on to Keigar’s belt grimly. But he regained his feet and battled along again, keeping the wall close to his right hand, his fingers searching it for a purchase that would help him along.

  Keigar stopped, and there were shouted words which Riven could not hear. Then he began to ascend. Riven felt along the wall frantically until he came across a metal rung set in the stone. He pulled himself upwards in Keigar’s wake, leaving the water behind. Above, he could see the round shape of Quirinus
’s head outlined against a square of night sky. He and Keigar pulled him up through the hole, and then he was lying on the shining cobbles of a dark alleyway, with the roar of the water far below him and a soft rain pouring down on his face.

  He began to chuckle. A soft night, indeed.

  But there was to be no rest. His companions hauled him to his feet and half-carried him along the alley. He blinked water out of his eyes. There were horses here, and men in the shadows wearing rain-silvered armour. He stiffened. A trap, then, after all? But someone wrapped a cloak around his shoulders and shoved him towards a riderless horse.

  ‘Mount!’ Keigar’s voice hissed in his ear. ‘We must be gone!’

  He pulled himself wearily into the saddle, feeling the cold water in his clothes gather round his buttocks. Someone else took his reins, and then hoofs were clattering in the street. He pulled the cloak’s hood over his head against the insistent rain, and as they rode off, he became dimly aware that Talisker’s great walls were looming up around them in the night. The hoofbeats echoed in a tunnel and they passed through a great gateway, then the land was open and dark before them, rolling out into expanses of shadowed hills and the dark pinnacles of the mountains beyond. His mount lurched into a canter along with the others, and he cursed feebly, clinging to the saddle. They were leaving Talisker behind at last, but he felt too tired and beaten to care.

  THEY PUSHED THE horses without mercy, seldom slowing from a canter. The ground rose and fell under them, and several times their mounts crashed through the sparkle of shallow streams. The air bit at Riven’s wet face, whipping the hood of the cloak back on to his shoulders. He shivered uncontrollably as it froze his sopping clothes to his skin and iced his beard. It was truly winter now, and they were climbing into the foothills of the Greshorn Mountains, the highest of this world. From his glimpses of them, they were many times higher than anything he had climbed on Skye. He put the thought of scaling them out of his head. Warmth was what he wanted now, warmth and sleep. He felt for Quirinus’s flask again, but it was gone, lost in the maelstrom of the sewers. He cursed silently and endured the long pain of the ride, losing all sense of time and distance and feeling his toes grow numb in his water-filled boots.

  He must have slept or dozed, or at least lost consciousness for a while, for a jolt roused him and he had to struggle to stay in the saddle. They had stopped, and around them was the golden, wind-whipped bloom of torchlight and people on foot taking the horses’ heads. A wall reared up, grey and massive, packed with arrowslits and dominated by the yawning chasm of a gate. For a second, Riven thought they were back in Talisker, but people were helping him off his horse, and Quirinus was standing with his face grey in the torchlight and his eyebrows encrusted with rime, telling them to be careful with him. His helpers caught him as his legs crumpled, and someone gathered his frozen form up in their arms. It was Isay, Riven noted without surprise. The Myrcan’s face was savage with bruises and gashes, but the flat eyes were as unreadable as ever.

  ‘Well met, Michael Riven,’ Isay said, and Riven shut his aching eyes.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ he replied, and felt himself carried out of the reach of the wind and the searching rain.

  FACES CAME AND went. He was aware of a fire, of heat baking him. Someone undressed him and wiped the ice from his face, and then he was laid down in a bed; a real bed. And he was able to leave this dream for a while and go back to the real world.

  But he woke again with the light of an afternoon steaming in through narrow windows to bar the coverlet. The room was warm, the fire glowing in the hearth. He was stiff and sore, but he found that his scratches had been bandaged and he could feel his toes, which was an improvement.

  He sat up. He was alone in the room, though there was a chair by his bed. Outside, he could hear the wind in the eaves, and voices from elsewhere in the house. He lay back again comfortably, memories of dungeons and sewers and rat-people coming and going in his head like the shards of a nightmare. What a place. What a bloody place!

  And then he remembered Isay from the night before. So they were safe. They were here. Thank Christ.

  There were clothes on a low table to the right of the bed, and he flung aside his coverings to examine them. More Minginish clothes. He was building up quite a wardrobe—or would be, if he were not destroying them all the time.

  The door opened, and Madra stood there, joy lighting her face as she saw him sitting up. He grinned at her, and she ran across the room to fling herself into his arms, tumbling him to his back on the bed. He laughed out loud and kissed her soundly. She had a dressing still bound around her throat. He held her face in his hands and gazed into the grave eyes that were dancing with gladness. The sight of them took ten years off him.

  ‘Can you talk yet?’

  Her face clouded slightly, and she shook her head. He kissed her on the forehead.

  ‘Are you all right? Did they treat you badly?’

  She nodded and shook her head, unable to look away from him. There was incredulity in the eyes now, and her fingers ran through his hair, over his chest, as though to verify that it was really he who was asking her this, who had kissed her so unrestrainedly.

  ‘What about the others? Ratagan—is he all right? I saw him—’

  She nodded again, then kissed him into silence.

  ‘Ratagan is alive and well, and I see that you are not in such ill health either, my friend,’ the familiar deep voice said from the doorway.

  Madra rolled off him and he saw that Ratagan, Bicker, Finnan and the rest of the company were clustered there. Even Luib’s face seemed to hold a flicker of amusement.

  ‘There’s a time and a place for everything,’ Bicker laughed, and they came in like a gale with Quirinus at their rear, his thick brows halfway up his forehead.

  Riven threw his legs off the bed and found himself in a bearlike embrace as the big man crushed him to his chest. His face was a purple swollen mess with a livid scab running from temple to nose, but the blue eyes were as unsullied as ever in the middle of it.

  The rest of the company were in a similar condition. Even Finnan had his fair share of bruises, whilst Bicker had a linen bandanna stained vermilion around his skull. The dark man grasped Riven’s shoulder and shook him.

  ‘Quirinus tells us you have been consorting with wizards and Vyrmen, exploring the hidden passages of Talisker and swimming in the sewers. None of us believes him, of course. For a time, there, you almost had us concerned, Michael Riven.’

  Riven grinned. For some reason it seemed remarkably easy to do so.

  ‘I’m as fit as a fiddle. When do we leave?’

  ‘Soon, but not too soon,’ Quirinus put in dryly. ‘You and your friends had best rest for a day or two before setting out for the mountains. Bicker will explain.’

  ‘Indeed,’ the dark man said, his face sobering. ‘We are all suffering the after-effects of the Lady Jinneth’s hospitality, and her Sellswords are combing the foothills for us.’

  ‘We are, you might say, a trifle sought after,’ Ratagan interjected.

  ‘We are outlawed,’ Finnan said. He looked glum, probably thinking of his flatboat, still moored inside Talisker’s Rivergate. ‘They took me soon after I left Phrynius’s house. They had been watching it.’

  ‘What happened?’ Riven asked. ‘How did the Vyrmen free you?’

  ‘With stealth and skill, and some luck.’ Bicker nodded towards the bald man in the corner who was watching them intently. ‘Quirinus’s men helped once we were out of the cells, but even so we had to dispose of a few mercenaries before we quit the city.’

  ‘Not such a distasteful task,’ Ratagan said. There was a perilous light in his eye that made him look oddly like Isay.

  ‘And now my Hearthwares have joined in the hunt for you,’ Quirinus added with heavy irony. ‘It need not be said that Keigar and I have them well-briefed. You should have a clear route up into the higher foothills at least.’

  ‘Supplies have been readied,’ Bicker
said. ‘We can leave within two days, perhaps even in one, depending on how able we feel.’

  Riven asked the question that had been occurring to him even in Phrynius’s house.

  ‘Who goes?’

  ‘Yourself, Ratagan and I.’ The dark man glanced round the company a trifle uncomfortably. ‘Isay insists on joining us. That is all. Madra, you are not fit for it—’

  Riven felt her stiffen.

  ‘—and Corrary and Luib will stay to try and see you safely home.’

  Corrary made a swift movement of protest, instantly stifled by a look from Bicker.

  ‘I got your brother killed,’ the dark man said softly. ‘One is enough.’ Luib remained impassive.

  ‘At least that is sorted,’ Quirinus said, the dry tone back in his voice, and he moved out of his place in the corner. ‘And it is almost time to eat. I like my food, and will be happy for whoever of you it pleases to join me.’ He left unobtrusively, followed closely by a thoughtful-looking Finnan.

  ‘Our waterborne friend is after a new job,’ Ratagan remarked when they had gone.

  ‘And who can blame him?’ Bicker asked. The gladness had leeched out of him, and he was worn and drawn again. ‘Come. We will eat. Join us if you feel up to it, Michael Riven. Quirinus lays a good board.’ He smiled. ‘Though his steward is not yet up to our Colban. I will see you later.’

  And he left also, ushering out Corrary and the two Myrcans. Ratagan lingered a moment longer. He strode over to one of the windows and stared out at the snow-flecked mountains beyond.

  ‘Almost there,’ he said. He turned around. ‘Mereth is doing well. She is a fine girl. A fine woman, indeed. Quirinus is trying to locate her father—discreetly, of course...’ He trailed off, and bent his great grizzled head to look at his hands. There was grey in his hair, Riven noted with something like a shock. He seemed battered and mortal, and suddenly unsure; a Thor facing Ragnarok. But when he looked up, there was the usual grin on his face. ‘I had best go. I will miss the best of the beer. And I think you two may have a few things to talk around. Be good.’ He exited quietly.