The Raven's Friend
So it is that the true gods have reigned in peace ever since, thanks to Habbili and the wisdom of Nushash. After they die, those who bow their heads and do them homage will find themselves serving at the right hand of the mighty in the ultimate west. So say the prophets. So says the god of fire. It is truth, my children, it is true.
— from The Revelations of Nushash, Book One
B
RIONY'S MALE DISGUISE, which had already been compro¬mised by her stage costume representing the goddess Zoria, had not survived a search for weapons by the Syannese soldiers who had ar¬rested her and the other players.
(Feival Ulian, who had left the stage as Zuriyal, wife of the rebel god black Zmeos, had also been led off to the palace in a gown. It was an open question as to which of them, he or Briony, felt more comfortably dressed.)
Briony and Estir Makewell had been shoved into a room that wasn't quite a dungeon cell, but was no chamber for honored guests, either: dank and windowless, it smelled of mold and sweat and urine, and contained no furniture but a single crude bench; the sound of the outside bar being low¬ered had a distressing thump of finality.
"Should have known there was more to you than a chance meeting," Estir sneered. "That old mare Teodoros, up to his same old tricks. Did he bring you along to get into someone's bed, then, winkle out secrets that way? Now we're all for the headsman's block, thanks to you two."
"What arc you talking about? I'm not a spy-1 had nothing to do with any of this!"
"Oh, that's likely." Estir Makewell sat back with her arms folded across her dirty dress, but Briony could see that the woman was shaking with fear, and her own anger turned to something like pity.
"Truly, I knew nothing about this. I was running away from… from my home when I fell in with you." Estir sniffed in an unconvinced manner. "What do you mean, same old tricks?" Briony asked. "Has he done some¬thing like this before?"
The woman glared at her. "Don't pretend with me, girl. I saw you talk¬ing to that black fellow like he was an old friend-that Xixian. How would you know someone like that if you weren't one of Finn's coneys?"
Briony shook her head. At least Dawet had escaped, not that it would do Briony any good. "I know him a little, but it's nothing to do with Finn. I had met him before, in Southmarch. But I swear on… on the honor of Zoria herself," she thumped her fist against her chest, bleakly amused to be swearing on herself, or at least her costumed self, "that I knew nothing about any spying." She suddenly looked at the closed door. "Do you think they're listening?" she asked in a quieter voice. "Did we say anything we shouldn't have?"
"What do you care if you've nothing to hide?" sniffed Estir, but she seemed a little less angry. "You're right, though. We should keep our mouths closed. If that fat know-it-all's got himself in trouble, it won't be the first time. That's all I'll say, except to curse him for dragging us all into it this time."
Briony looked at the walls, so damp they seemed to be sweating. They had trudged for the better part of an hour to reach this place, which she as¬sumed must be in the royal palace, but they were several floors below the main body of the castle. I could disappear here very easily, she thought. Exe¬cuted as a spy, and that would be the last of me. King Enander would be doing Hen-don Tolly's work for him without even knowing it. Unless they're already in league…? It was hard to believe-Southmarch had never been a threat or even a real rival to Syan. What could Tolly offer to the more powerful Syannese monarchy except the uncomfortable possibility of dynastic up¬heavals? What king would would want to encourage that unless it benefited him personally?
But what had Finn Teodoros been up to? Was it a coincidence Dawet had come to the innyard?
Briony fell into a frowning, miserable silence, trying to understand what
had happened and decide what she could do about it. Me, she thought, it's down to me. Keep drifting or stand up. At last she went to the door ol the room in which they were prisoned and rapped on it hard, with both hands.
"Tell your captain or whoever is in charge that I want to talk to him, I want to make a deal."
"What are you doing, girl?" Estir demanded, but Briony ignored her.
After a moment the door swung open. Two guards stood in the door¬way, only a little less bored than when they had thrown the two women into the room. "What do you want? Make it fast," said one.
"I want to make a bargain. Tell your commanding officer that if you'll bring me the man called Finn Teodoros and let me speak to him, I swear on the gods themselves that afterward I'll tell you something that will make even the king of Syan sit up and take notice."
Estir was watching her with her mouth open. "You traitorous bitch," she said at last. "Trying to buy yourself out? You will get us all killed!"
"And take this woman out," Briony said. "She knows nothing. Let her go or put her somewhere else, it makes no difference to me."
The soldiers, actually interested now, exchanged a brief glance with each other, then closed the door and tramped away up the corridor.
"How dare you!" Estir Makewell said, striding forward to stand over her. Wearily, Briony stared up at her, hoping she wouldn't have to fight the woman. "How dare you tell them what to do with me?"
Briony rolled her eyes, then grabbed the woman's arm roughly, silencing her. "Stop-I'm trying to help you." Estir stared at her, frightened. She had her mask on now, Briony realized, the Eddon mask that none of the play¬ers had seen. She made her voice hard. "If you keep your mouth shut, you and the others may walk away from this happy and healthy. If you cause a fuss, I can't promise anything."
Estir Makewell's eyes grew wide at the change in Briony's tone. She re¬treated to the other side of the room and stayed there until the guards came and led her out.
Finn Teodoros had some bruises around his eyes and a bleeding weal on his bald head. He gave Briony a shamefaced look as the guards led him in and sat him down on the bench beside her.
"Well, Tim, my young darling," he said, "it seems as if your disguise has been penetrated by these crude folk from outside the theatrical fraternity." He touched his swollen cheek and winced. "I swear I didn't tell them."
"'I'hey found out when they searched me. It doesn't matter anyway." Briony took a breath. The very fact that the guards had left the two of them alone in the room meant they were almost certainly listening to everything that was being said. "I need your help," she told Teodoros. "I need you to tell me the truth."
He gave her a look that contained a mixture of caution and amusement. "And who in this wretched old world can actually say what that is, dear girl?"
She nodded, conceding the point. "As much truth as you know," she said, then looked significantly around the room. "As much as you can tell."
He sighed. "I am truly sorry you were caught up in this. I have tried to tell them that you had nothing to do with it."
"Don't worry about me. I am less innocent than you think, Finn. Just tell me one thing-were you working for Hendon Tolly?"
He stared at her, clearly calculating. "Tolly?"
"I may be able to protect you, but you must tell me the truth about that. I must know!
"You, protect me? Girl, you are not Zoria in truth, you merely aped her on the boards!" He smiled, but it was little more than a fearful twitch. He swallowed, leaned close to her. "I… I do not know," he said in a voice that was scarcely even a whisper. "I was given a… a task… by someone else. Someone high in the government of Southmarch."
She hazarded a guess. "Was it Lord Brone? Avin Brone?"
His eyebrows rose. "How would you know of such things?"
"If I can save us, I will, and then you will learn more. Were you to meet with Dawet dan-Faar on Brone's behalf? Drakava's man?"
This time Finn Teodoros could say nothing, but in his surprise could only nod.
Briony stood up, walked to the door. "I wish to talk to the guard cap¬tain, please," she called, "or anyone in authority. I have something to say that the king himself will want to know."
This time there was a much longer wait before the door opened. Sev¬eral guards came through, followed a moment later by a well-dressed man in the high collar of a court grandee. He had gray in his pointed beard, but did not otherwise seem very old, and he moved with the grace of a young man. He reminded her a little bit of Hendon Tolly, an unpleasant associa¬tion. "Do not rise," the noble said with perfectly pitched courtesy. "I am the Marquis of Athnia, the king's secretary. I understand you believe you have
something to say that is worth my listening. I'm sure it goes without s.iv ing that there is a very unpleasant penalty for wasting my time."
Briony sat up straighter. She had heard of Athnia-he was a member of the old and wealthy Jino family and one of the most important men in Syan. Apparently the guards had taken what she said seriously. On the bench Finn Teodoros swayed, almost fainting with apprehension at the ap¬pearance of such a powerful figure.
"I do." She stood up. "I can do no good to anyone by proceeding with this counterfeit. I am not an actor. I am not a spy. I do not believe this man here or any of the other actors are spies, either-at least they meant no harm to Syan or King Enander."
"And why should we believe anything you say?" the marquis asked her. "Why should we not take you down to the brandy cellars and let the men there extract the truth from all of you?"
She took a breath. Now that the moment had come, it was surprisingly difficult to put off the cloak of anonymity. "Because you would be tortur¬ing the daughter of one of your best and oldest allies, Lord Jino," she said, straightening her spine, trying to will herself taller and more imposing. "My name is Briony te Meriel te Krisanthe M'Connord Eddon, daughter of King Olin of Southmarch, and I am the rightful princess regent of all the March Kingdoms."
It's my dream, he thought. I'm trapped in my own nightmare!
Shouts and screams surrounded him like strange music. The corridors were full of fire and smoke and some of the running, horribly charred shapes were as black and faceless as the men in his dream.
Is that what it meant, then? He staggered to a stop in a wide place at the junction of several tunnels and crouched beside an overturned ore cart. Every bone and sinew in his body had been battered until he could hardly walk, and his crippled arm felt like the bones were grinding together each time it moved. Was my dream telling me that this is where I die?
A small, clumsy shape staggered past him, keening in a shrill, mad voice. Barrick tried to rise, but couldn't. His heart was shuddering and tripping like a bird's, and his legs felt as though they would not support a sparrow, let alone his own weight. He let his head sag and tried to breathe.
I don't want to die here. I won't die here! But what was the sense of such
foolish statements? Ciyir hadn't wanted to die here either but that hadn't saved him-Barrick had felt the fairy's dying moment. Ferras Vansen hadn't wanted to die here either, yet he had still fallen down to certain destruc¬tion in the stony black depths. What made Barrick think he would be any different? He was lost in the deeps of an old, bad place, trapped in the dark, surrounded by enemies…
But I have to try. Must. I promised…!
He wasn't even sure any more what he had promised or to whom: three faces hovered before his eyes, shifting and merging, dissolving and reforming-his sister with her fair hair and loving looks, the fairy-woman with her stony, ageless face, and the dark-haired girl from his dreams. The last was an utter stranger, perhaps not even real, and yet in some ways, at this moment, she seemed more real and familiar than the others.
Push against it, she had told him on that bridge between two nowheres. Escape it. Change it.
He had not understood-had not wanted to understand-but she had insisted he not give up, not surrender to pain.
This is what you have, she had told him, eyes wide and serious. All of it. You have to fight.
Fight. If he was going to fight, he supposed he'd have to get up. Didn't any of them understand he had a right to be bitter-to be more than bit¬ter? He hadn't asked for any of this-not the terrible injury to his arm or the curse of his father's blood, not the war with the fairies or the attentions of an insane demigod. Didn't all the women who were demanding he do this or that-go on a mission, come home safe, fight against despair-didn't they know he had a right to all that misery?
But they just wouldn't leave him alone.
Barrick sighed, coughed until he doubled over and spat out blood and ash, then climbed back onto his feet.
Many of the tunnels started out with an upward slant, but soon tilted back down again. The only certain way to know that he was climbing was to find stairs. But Barrick Eddon was not the only one with that idea: half the lost, shrieking creatures in the smoky depths of Greatdeeps seemed to be looking for a way to the surface. The others, for reasons he could not imagine, seemed equally determined on rushing down toward the place where Gyir and the one-eyed demigod had died, a cavern that had already collapsed in fire and black fumes when Barrick had crawled away from it
perhaps an hour ago. Sometimes he actually had to wade through a tide of maddered shapes, some of them as big as himself, all hurrying as fast as they could down toward what must be certain death. He had lost the ax when the ceiling fell; now he found a spadelike digging tool that someone had dropped, and used it the next time the tunnel became frighteningly cramped, clearing his way with it, hitting out when he needed to against the claws or teeth of frightened refugees.
As he climbed higher through the mine the stairwells opened onto rooms and scenes of which he could make no sense whatsoever. In one broad cavern which he had to traverse to reach the bottom of the next stairwell, dozens of slender, winged creatures were savaging a single squat one, their voices a shrill buzz of angry joy-their victim might have been one of the small Followers like those that had attacked Gyir in the forest, but it was hard to tell: the silent creature was too covered with blood and earth to be certain. Barrick hurried past with his head down. It reminded him of his own vulnerability, and when he saw the dull glow of a blade lying on the stairs where its owner had dropped it, presumably in panicked flight, he dropped the digging tool and picked this up instead. It was a strange thing, half ax, half poniard, but much sharper than the spade.
A couple of floors up the stairwell suddenly filled with small, pale skit¬tering things which seemed to care little whether they were upside down or right side up; just as many of them raced across the ceiling and walls as along the floor. Their bodies were bone-hard, round and featureless as din¬ner bowls, but they had little splay-toed feet like mice. The scrabbling, clinging touch of those tiny claws disturbed Barrick so much that after the first one landed on him he hurriedly brushed off all others.
Barrick Eddon was staggeringly weary. He had climbed several staircases, some taller than anything back home in Southmarch, and also two high, terrifyingly rickety ladders, yet he still seemed no closer to the surface: the air was still as dank, hot, and choking as before, the other slaves and work¬ers just as confused as they had been a half dozen levels lower. He was lost, and now even the strength that terror had brought him was beginning to fade. Things fluttered past in the dark tunnels and shadowy figures slid across his path before vanishing down side passages, but more and more he seemed to be alone. That was bad: to be alone was to be obvious. The mon¬strous demigod might be dead but that didn't mean Jikuyin's surviving minions would just let Barrick go.
He grabbed at the first creature he found that was smaller than himself, a strange, hairless thing with goggling eyes like a two-legged salamander, the last of a pack that slithered past him in a stairwell. It let out a thin shriek, then before he could even find out if it spoke his language it fell into pieces. Arms, legs-everything he tried to grab dropped off the torso and the whole slippery, strange mess tumbled from his grasp and then hopped and slithered away down the stairs after its fellows. Barrick was so startled that he stood staring as the hairless creatures (trailed by the one he had captured, still in its constituent parts) hurried down and out of his sight, then was almost crushed by a large, hairy shape chasing after them.
The hairy thing was on him and then past him so quickly that he only knew it was one of the apelike guards by its foul smell and by the scratch of its fur as it forced its way past him down the narrow stairwell. He stood for a moment after it was gone, gasping, grateful that it seemed more in¬terested in the hairless things than in him.
Maybe they're good to eat, he thought miserably. Barrick wasn't only aching and tired, he was famished-the guards hadn't bothered to feed them before dragging them off to the gate. I'll be killing and eating the hor¬rid things myself before long, and glad to have them…
Just as he reached a landing, lit fitfully by a pair of guttering torches, a small shape dashed out of one of the side passages. The little, manlike crea¬ture took one look at Barrick and turned to run back the way he'd come, but Barrick lunged forward-surprising himself almost as much as the newcomer-and gripped the creature's knotted, oily hair with the fingers of his good hand.
"Stop or I'll kill you," he said. "Do you speak my tongue?"
It was a Drow like the one which had ridden the burning wagon, tiny and gnarled, with bristling brows, a wide, onion-shaped nose and a ragged beard that covered much of its face. It was strong for its size, but the more it struggled the tighter Barrick held. He drew it toward him and laid his found blade against its face so it could not fail to notice. He struggled not to show the creature how much it hurt him just to hold the blade with his bad arm.
"Nae hort," it cried, the voice both gruff and high-pitched. "Nae hort!"
It took a moment. "Don't… don't hurt you?" He leaned closer, glar¬ing. "Don't think to trick me, creature. I want to go out, but I can't find the surface-the light. Where is the light?"
The little man stared at him for a long moment, then nodded. "Yow
beyst in Rootsman's Nayste — ouren Drowhame High in mountain, beyst, wuth caves and caves, ken? Wrong way to dayburn."
If he listened carefully, he could make sense of it. So he was climbing in side the mountain itself-no wonder he couldn't find the surface! He was relieved, but if the creature considered the weak light of the shadowlands worthy of being called "dayburn," he hoped it never found itself in the true light of day on the other side of the Shadowline.
"How do I get out. Out to… to dayburn?"
"Thic way." The Drow squirmed gently until Barrick loosened his grip. It turned and pointed with a stubby, crack-nailed finger. "Yon."
Barrick gratefully transferred his blade to his good hand. "Very well. Lead me."
"Willae set a free?"
"If you lead me to the dayburn, yes, I'll free you. But if you try to run away from me before we get there, I'll stick you with this!" He was sick of blood and killing, but he didn't want to spend the rest of a short, miserable life in these caverns, either.
Barrick didn't know if it was a good or bad sign that the farther the crea¬ture led him, the more deserted the corridors became. They moved mostly horizontally at first, through rooms that clearly had some kind of function, mostly as storehouses stacked with bent and broken digging tools, battered, empty ore buckets, broken wagons awaiting repair, ropes and other supplies, or with less comprehensible things-piles of what looked like fired clay chips covered with incised marks, leaking bags and barrels of different col¬ored powders, even one chamber so misty and chill that at first he thought they had stepped out of the mines at last and into the midst of a terrible winter storm. He was several paces into this last cavern before he realized they were still deep under the earth, and that the tooth-chattering cold was because the room was piled high with blocks of snow or ice. But why? And where could such things come from?
The answer to the second came a few moments later, as he began to see what was stacked along the walls, largely hidden by the mist. Corpses, al¬though of what it was hard to tell, because they had been quartered as if by expert butchers. His already cringing spirits plummeted even farther. What was the reason for such madness? In a trembling voice, he asked the Drow, but the creature only shrugged its ignorance.
Was it meat? But certainly none of the prisoners had been fed any, and there hadn't seemed enough guards to need such a monstrous supply: the
frost-blanketed carcasses were stacked like kindling all around the huge room. And where did the ice itself come from? It had been cold outside, rainy and often miserable, but there had been nothing like snow, let alone such vast quantities of ice.
Unless all this was meant just to feed Jikuyin, he thought, and his stomach lurched with horror. He shoved the little Drow to make him trot faster. Barrick could not get out of the icy cavern fast enough.
They passed through another large storehouse cavern, this one lit only by a single small torch, and Barrick was grateful that the Drow could move more easily in the dark than he could, since he could barely see anything. As to what the piles of cloth-covered bundles in the room might be, he couldn't tell and did not particularly want to investigate, but a stream ran through the middle of the room-he could hear its whispering progress more clearly than he could see it, since it was set in a deep crevice in the floor-and dozens of tiny, pale creatures fluttered about the room. It was only when one of them landed on his shoulder, startling him so badly he almost cut himself with his own blade trying to knock it off, that he saw the little flyers were winged white salamanders, blind gliders that came up out of the crevice in the floor like bats heeding the call of sunset. Now he could see that the pale creatures were clinging everywhere on the roof and walls of the chamber, as placid as if they basked on a hot rock in the sum¬mer sun instead of in a dark chamber deep in a mountain.
As they came out of the salamander cavern and onto a downward slop¬ing path, he caught at the Drow and demanded to know why they were heading back down into the depths. The bearded, pop-eyed creature looked understandably frightened of the blade at his throat, but not, as far as Barrick could tell, guilty of any wrongdoing.
"Canna go out lest go down from Rootsman's Nayste," his guide ex¬plained. "Nayste is riddlin', full o' holes, all different roads up, down- f'Rootsman, see?".
After wearily puzzling over this for a little while, Barrick finally decided that the little man was telling him they had to descend from something called Rootsman's Nayste-or maybe Nest? — because he had climbed up in it too high to go straight to the gate that led out of the mines. If it was true, the little bearded man was playing him fair and he might actually soon be out in the air again.
Even as hope surged, he could not help thinking of his lost companions. There were many times he had felt sure he would die in these tunnels, and
he was still far from certain he would survive, but he had never once imag-ined the possibility of getting away without the other two. Now, even il lie managed to escape the mines, he would still be alone in a murderous, bizarrely unfamiliar place.
He pushed the thought away, knowing that if he didn't the last bit of his strength would leak away and he would tumble to the ground and never get up.
As they crossed a wide chamber lit with a thousand small tapers, which burned on the walls and ceiling like the light of the stars themselves, the little bearded man slowed and stopped. "Here beyst," he said breathlessly, his voice hoarse with fear. "See. Fore yow beyst the dayburn."
Barrick stared. At the far end of the chamber there was a glimmer of light-a crack at the bottom of a door leading to freedom, perhaps-or might it be merely an illusion? "That?"
"Ayah." The creature stirred nervously in Barrick's grip, but it was quite possible the Draw's fretfulness signified only that he did not know whether or not Barrick would prove trustworthy and release him as promised.
"Let's go ahead, then, and see if it opens." Barrick laughed, although he did not know why. He was light-headed at the thought of getting out, but half-certain the little man was trying to trick him. "We'll do it together."
Joy washed over him as he drew closer and could see that it truly was the great front doors of wood and metal, the light spilling in where they had been left a little way open, perhaps by deserting guards. With the sur¬prisingly strong arms of the Draw helping him he managed to tug them wider, until he thought the space was big enough for him to slip through. At another time he might have been interested in the figures and runes that had been cast in the black metal and carved into the dark wood, but now he was overwhelmed by the light of day spread before him, sumptuous as a meal.
It was day only in the most basic sense, of course-the gray, sunless day of the shadowlands-but after his imprisonment in the depths it felt like the brassy blaze of a Heptamene afternoon.
So much light was also far too much for the Draw, who stepped back from the doorway waving his hands before his face and hissing like a ser¬pent. Easing himself sideways into the gap, Barrick ignored the creature- the Draw had fulfilled his bargain, after all-but a moment later the little man staggered back into view and tumbled at Barrick's feet, three feathered arrowshafts quivering in his back and the wounds already soaking his
nigged, dirty shirt. The little creature was not dead yet, but judging by his harsh, whistling breath, he had only moments.
"You are perfectly framed in the doorway," a stony voice declared, stir¬ring up echoes. "If you do anything but move slowly back toward me, my guards will shoot you. You will not die as fast as your small friend, however."
Barrick knew that even if he could force himself through in one try, the invisible archers would have plenty of time for an unimpeded shot. Even if he got out, he had no strength left to outrun anyone, let alone evade the arrows of trained bowmen. Barrick slowly eased himself out of the door¬way and stepped back into the cavern. Standing before him, at the front of a mixed pack of apish guards and bony, quietly gabbling Longskulls, several of whom held longbows, stood the cadaverous figure of Ueni'ssoh, his eyes gleaming like blue fires.
"You were Jikuyin's," the gray man said in his cold, uninflected voice. "But now you are mine. We will dig out the gateway chamber once more. Nothing has changed except who will own the god's treasures."
"I'd rather die," Barrick said, then turned and leaped toward the door¬way, but something hit him in the leg like a club and he tumbled to the floor, half in and half out of the room with an arrow through his boot and a searing pain across his calf. Despite the queer, breathless ache of the wound he could feel the cool, gray light of the outside world on him like a balm, smell the sweetness of the air. Only now did he realize how foul were the stenches he had been living in so long, the smoke and blood and filth.
So this was the ending. After all that he had done, after all the people he had tried to please… well, he had told them he wasn't up to it, hadn't he? He had told them he would fail-or if he hadn't actually told them, they should have known.
The gray man stood over him now, the bright eyes watching Barrick in¬tently. Ueni'ssoh's tongue flicked out, lizardlike, to touch his dry lips. "There is something… Yes, you have something. I feel it now. Something… pow¬erful. Things begin to make more sense."
Barrick snarled at him, but it was hard to make words, at least any words that mattered. Then he remembered.
The mirror. Gyir's mirror, the sacred trust of Lady Yasammez! Barrick could feel it against his breast in the pocket of his shirt. He could not let this hairless, corpselike thing take it. "I don't know what you're talking about…"
"Silence." The gray man readied out a bony hand that paused just above Barrick's chest. The Longsklllls and hairy-pelted guards crowded around their master, staring down like the demons in a temple fresco. "Give it to me."
Barrick tried to deny him again, but although the gray man was not touching him, he could feel a force tugging at the mirror under his shirt. An intense agony blossomed in his chest, as though the mirror had sunk roots into his skin and bones, as though it would not be pulled away with¬out tearing the greater part of Barrick away as well. He shrieked, but the gray man did not even flinch; except for those moonstone eyes, Ueni'ssoh might have been carved stone.
Barrick gripped the mirror through his shirt, but a curious weakness was already starting to spread through him. What use resisting? This creature, this gray demon, was stronger than he could ever hope to be-so much stronger…
"No!" He knew that voice in his head. It was not his own but the gray man's. "I won't…!"
A smile curved the stony lips. The pull on the mirror seemed as though it would yank Barrick's entire body inside out. Ueni'ssoh was kneeling above him, hand held a foot above Barrick's breast. "But you will, sunlander-of course you will. And when I have this secret thing in my hand, I will know why One-Eye was so interested in you…"
"You can't…!" But they were nothing but gasped words. He could not resist the gray man's power. He would lose the mirror and lose everything.
"Stop fighting," said the Dreamless. His teeth were clenched, and Bar¬rick suddenly realized that beads of sweat had formed on Ueni'ssoh's ashy forehead.
But I'm not fighting, Barrick thought. / wouldn't know how, not against some¬thing like him. Still, something was resisting the gray man's power-something was holding the Dreamless at bay.
A great heat suddenly tilled Barrick. It was the mirror itself, blossoming with power even as Ueni'ssoh tried to make it his. A light flared around them, warm and almost as brilliant as the sun itself, so strong that Barrick himself screamed out, though it caused him no pain. As the light burst forth all the guards screeched and fell back, waving their clawed hands before their eyes. A moment later the light fell back on itself, but Barrick could still feel it even so, a tingling like sparks all over his skin. Someone else was howling now, too. Like a spider that had caught a huge, murderous wasp in its fragile web, it was now Ueni'ssoh who was trying to break contactBarrick could feci the gray man's mounting terror, could almost smell it, or hear it like a shrill noise-but the mirror or whatever empowered it would not let the Dreamless go.
"No!" the gray man shrieked and tried to stand up, but something in¬visible had clutched him and he contorted and thrashed like a living fish dropped on a hot stone. His eyes bulged, and his muscles writhed beneath the parchment skin, knotting and coiling. A moment later great black flow¬ers of blood appeared on his face and neck and hands. The bestial guards, still howling in pain at the light that had blinded them, began stumbling away in all directions, tearing at each other in their haste to escape the growing incandescence that pulsated between Barrick's breast and Ueni'ssoh's still outstretched hand.
Then the gray man caught fire.
Ueni'ssoh jerked upright, shrieking and jigging, as the glow spread up his arm and into his chest. His eyes began to burn out of their sockets. His gaping mouth vomited flame. The guards fled barking out of the wide an¬teroom, back into the darkened corridors of the mine.
When Barrick looked again the gray man was nothing but a hissing, twitching, blackening shape. The boy turned away in horror and disgust, crawling over the arrow-riddled corpse of his Drow guide in his despera¬tion to get out into the daylight.
Outside, he looked down the narrow valley beyond the base of the steps, bewildered. Was he really free? What had happened? Had he destroyed the gray man somehow? He didn't think so-it had been the mirror, defend¬ing itself. But it had done nothing until the gray man had tried to take it. Would it have let Barrick be killed if the gray man had left the mirror it¬self alone? He didn't know, and he certainly didn't want to do anything to find out.
He broke off the protruding arrowhead and pulled the arrow out of his boot, which was slippery from the blood of his slashed ankle, then he limped down the steps and onto the open ground-the end of the long road they had traveled as prisoners to come to this terrible place, however many days or even months ago that had been. Only a little more walking, however painful, and he would be out of reach of the mine's guardians, if any were minded to follow him.
Feeble as it was, the half-light still seemed strong to him after his days in underground darkness, and so at first Barrick did not notice the trembling of some of the huge statues in front of him until one of them swayed and then
fell over, landing with a shuddering crash that almost knocked him off his led, Two more statues toppled as the soil erupted before him in great crumbling chunks. A massive shape thrust itself up out of the earth and into the daylight.
At first Barrick thought in weary horror that it was some unimaginably large spider from the depths, all hair and malformed, corpse-colored limbs and gleaming, dripping fluids. But its appendages stuck out in unexpected directions, some shattered and peeling, all smoking and oozing like melted candlewax, as though the thing were some terrible combination of sea urchin or jellyfish and butchered animal. Then he finally saw the raw face hanging between two of the limbs, oozing with the glowing golden ichor that ran through it instead of blood. The horror that had cut off his escape still had a few tendrils of singed beard around the broken-toothed maw, and that single huge, mad eye.
"You wretched little ball of shit." The demigod's lower jaw was shattered, drooling a liquid that looked like molten metal, and so Jikuyin's physical voice was an unrecognizable gurgle. The words were only in his head, but so powerful despite the demigod's countless injuries that Barrick stumbled and almost sank to his knees. "Thought I was dead, didn't you? But we im¬mortals aren't so easy to kill… /"
Barrick staggered to one side, praying he could dodge around the huge, crippled thing, but despite all his terrible wounds the demigod moved with devastating speed, scuttling crablike on his broken limbs to block the boy's escape.
"Not so fast, man-child. Your blood will open the god's house and I will be made whole again. This is only an inconvenience."
Barrick's head seemed too heavy to hold up any longer. He could not get past the thing and he certainly couldn't outfight it. He could not go back, either. He was done.
Unless…
Barrick Eddon reached into his shirt and pulled out the mirror. For a moment he felt it warm in his hand, felt its power begin to bloom again as it had when the gray man had tried to take it, but Jikuyin held up a splayed, shattered hand-Barrick thought it must be a hand-and the burgeoning flare of light suddenly died.
"Whatever it is," Jikuyin told him,"i7 is a lesser power than mine, mortal boy' His single, bloodshot eye no longer had the means to show expression- the meat of his face was too ravaged for that-but Barrick could tell the demigod was pleased and even amused. Barrick knew also that what
Jikuyin said was true-the mirror was now cold and inert. "After all, the blood of the great gods runs in my veins…!"
Something dropped down out of the sky, covering the demigod's face for a moment like a living black shadow. Jikuyin let out a screech of star¬tled pain that ripped through Barrick's brain and knocked him to his knees. When he managed to climb back onto his feet, Barrick saw that the black shape was gone and that the spidery demigod was moaning and rubbing at his face. When he took his limbs away, the place where Jikuyin s single re¬maining eye had been was now a welling crater of radiant gold.
Blind…! He's blind! Barrick knew he had only one chance: while the monster shrieked and thrashed his tattered arms in fury, Barrick put his head down and ran at stumbling speed straight toward him, then veered wide, diving and rolling just beneath the grasping talons of a gold-dripping hand the size of a wagon wheel.
The giant sensed that he had missed his quarry and let out a rasping, wordless bellow that shook the very hills around them, so that stones came tumbling down out of the heights. Barrick did not stop to look, but ran as fast as his exhausted muscles could carry him, gasping for breath with every step. The god's cries of rage dwindled behind until at last they were only a distant noise like thunder.
He had finally staggered far enough to feel safe. He dropped onto his hands and knees, straining for breath. A black shape plummeted down out of the air, its wide wings brushing him as it landed. It took a few hopping steps and then leaped up onto a rock to regard him with a bright eye. Bar¬rick had never thought he would be so pleased to see the horrid creature.
"Skurn-is that you?"
"Where be my other master?"
It took a moment for Barrick to realize what the bird was asking. "Vansen. He… he fell. Down in the mine. He's not coming out."
The raven regarded him carefully. "Saved you, I did. Poked that big one's eye right through, did. Was that Jack Chain?"
Barrick nodded, too tired to speak.
"Then I be the mightiest raven what ever lived, be'nt I?" The bird ap¬peared to consider this, walking back and forth along the top of the stone, clucking a bit. "Skurn the Mighty. Pecked out a god's eye."
"Demigod." Barrick rolled onto his back. He had better be far enough away now, because he couldn't move another step.
Skurn leaned hack his head. His throat pumped, swallowing. "Mmmm," he said. "Clod's eye. Slurpsome. Wishet I'd got the whole tiling."
Barrick stared at the bird for a moment, then began to laugh, a ragged, painful bray that went on and on until he began to choke.
When the boy had his breath again and was sitting up, a thought came to him. "Tell me, you horrible creature, do you know where QuI-na-Qar is? The House of the People?"
The raven regarded him. "What be in this plan for me? Didn't save me like my master did-fact be, 7 saved you! He preened. "Fact. Skurn the Mighty."
"If you'll help me take this… if you'll help me get to Qul-na-Qar, I'll make sure you never have to hunt for food the rest of your life. In fact, I'll bring you fresh kills on a plate, every day."
"True?" The raven hopped a few times, fluttered up, and settled. "Bar¬gain, then. If you be trustworthy."
Despite feeling as empty as a forgotten scarecrow, Barrick could still muster a little irritated pride. "I am a prince-the son of a king."
Skurn made a snorting noise. "Oh, aye, that makes a difference." He thought, blinking his dark eyes slowly. "But you were my master's friend. So-partners."
"Partners. By the gods, who would have thought?" Barrick crawled into the bushes, not caring where he lay his head. "Let me know if anyone comes to kill me, will you?"
He did not wait to hear the raven's reply, because sleep was already pulling him down into dark places deeper than any mineshaft.
Vansen kept on because there was nothing else he could do, putting one foot in front of the other, trudging forward along the endless pale span through black nothing. There were times that he paused to rest, but he never did it for long, because each time he would begin to worry that he might somehow get himself turned around, that he would confuse the two indistinguishable directions and by accident set off back in the direction he had come.
At other times he entertained the amusing notion that instead of a curv¬ing span across an abyss, he was walking on the outside of a great ring float¬ing in darkness, that it had no beginning or end, and that he, Ferras Vansen,
sentenced for crimes about which he was not quite certain (although he could judge himself guilty of much) would walk it forever, undying, an endless sentence.
But could the gods really be so cruel? And even if they were, why did he still feel tired, as a living man might feel?
And what was it about the gods that pricked at him? Why were they weighing so heavily on his thoughts? Every time he tried to remember how he had come to this place, what had seemed solid fell apart in his grasp, like fog. He could not remember where he had been before this-in fact, he could remember almost nothing that had happened since he threw himself against the guards in the demigod's underground fortress. He seemed to recall a city, and something about his father, but surely those were dreams, since his father had been dead for years.
But if those had been dreams, then what was this place? Where was he? Who or what had set him on this unending track?
What if he just stepped off this pointless, endless bridge, he wondered, and let himself fall? Could whatever happened-death or an equally point¬less, endless plunge-really be so much worse? It was something to keep in reserve, he decided-a door. It might turn out to be the only door that could lead him out of this dreadful emptiness.
Ferras Vansen had no answers, but being able to ask questions at least kept him from going mad.
It was as though he had blinked, but the moment of his eyes being shut had lasted for a year instead of an instant. When he noticed what had hap¬pened, everything had changed.
The abyss was gone, the infinite, eternal black faded in some strange way to a much more tangible darkness, that of ordinary shadow. Something that felt like stone still lay beneath his feet, but flat, not curved, and he had the distinct sense of being surrounded by something other than the dreadfully familiar void.
He stopped, surprised and more than a little frightened-after so long, any change was terrifying. He dropped to his knees and sniffed the cold stone, pressed his forehead against it. It felt real. It felt different, which was even more important.
He stood up and to his immense surprise the darkness itself began to re¬cede, or rather the light came and dissolved it: brightness flooded in, the
light of actual, homely torches, and he could see walls around him, stone walls that had been decorously carved. He followed the lines ol the ceiling up and discovered, to his horror, an immense shape looking back down at him, black and ominous. But it was only a statue, a huge image of Kernios, and although Vansen was startled when he looked down and saw the same statue staring up at him from beneath his feet, he grasped a moment later that he stood on some kind of looking-glass stone, a vast mirror which re¬flected the pit so intricately carved in the ceiling overhead, as well as great Kernios looking down, or up, from its depths.
Staring up and then down made him dizzy. Vansen almost fell, but caught himself. Where was he? Was this some deep place in the earth be¬neath the demigod's mine? He had fallen through the god's open gate¬way-was this the heart of the god's sanctuary? But it seemed too… ordinary, somehow. The carving was beautiful, the statue of Kernios awe-inspiring, but they did not seem otherworldly.
He caught himself when he almost toppled again, forced himself to breathe. He was weary beyond belief. He was alive. The one was proof of the other, and the solid room around him was more proof that he had sur¬vived, no matter where he might be. Across from him was a massive door¬way. He went to it and tested it. Despite its heaviness, it swung open at a touch.
The room on the other side was full of small figures-waiting for him, Vansen thought at first, but when he saw the startled look on the little men's faces he knew that was not true. Servants of Kernios, perhaps? But there had also been tiny men like this injikuyin's mines. Vansen held up his hands, wondering if they could speak any language he knew. "Can… you… understand… me?"
"What in the name of the Earth Elders were you doing in the Council Chamber, stranger?" one of the little men asked him, frowning. "You're not allowed in there." His eyes grew wide with alarm and he turned and scut¬tled out the far door. The rest of the little men followed him, looking back fearfully as they fled, as though Vansen were some kind of dangerous beast.
He stared after them and a chill traversed his spine from tailbone to skull and back. Not only was it his tongue the little man had spoken, it had been a perfect Southmarch accent. What was happening? What kind of trick was being played on him?
Vansen stood for a long time letting his heart slow, staring around the wide room and trying to make sense of what had happened to him, but almost afraid to find out. At last the door of the large chamber opened and a group of the little men, this time carrying shovels and picks and other weapons, came cautiously toward him across the shiny stone floor. Vansen lifted his hands to show he was unarmed, but his attention was caught by the stout man who came with them-a normal man, someone Vansen's own height. There was something oddly familiar about his face…
"I know you, sir," he said as the big man and his child-sized army ap¬proached. "You are… gods save me, you are Chaven, the royal family's physician."
"So you say," the man said. He did not look the type to be leading any armed band, even one this size. "But I do not admit it. You are trespassing here, you know. What are you doing in the Funderling's guildhall?"
"Funderlings? Guildhall?" Vansen could only stare at the man. "What madness is this? Where am I?"
"By all the gods," Chaven said, and stopped. He put out his arms to hold back the nearest Funderlings, or perhaps to support himself-he looked as though he had been struck a blow. "I know this man, but he was lost in the battle against the Twilight People. Are you not Captain Vansen, sir? Are you not the captain of the royal guard?"
"I am. But where am I?"
"Don't you know?" The physician shook his head slowly. "You are in Funderling Town, of course, underneath Southmarch Castle."
"Southmarch…?" Ferras Vansen looked around the chamber again in stunned amazement, then took a staggering step toward Chaven and the Funderlings, causing some of the little men to raise their weapons in alarm. Vansen fell to his knees, raising his arms in the air to praise all the gods, then the crowd of Funderlings watched with worried faces him as he threw himself down on the floor, laughing and weeping, and pressed his face against the blessed solidity of the stone.