Etherwalker (17 page)

They walked for a while in silence. Enoch turned on the light in the next section in front of them. Up ahead, the passageway seemed to widen, and they could hear something that sounded like running water.

Enoch’s teeth wouldn’t stop chattering now. He shivered violently, inciting another round of growls from Mesha.

Hopefully we can find something more flammable than cable and metal panels up ahead. My hands are going numb.

Rictus saw the widening passage as a good sign.

“I was hoping we’d get out of these narrow tunnels at some point—sooner or later those trolls are going to figure out that they can circle around and break the lights in front of us. And then we’ll have to fight them in the dark.”

“But maybe they aren’t following us anymore, Ric,” said Cal hopefully. “We haven’t seen them for a good while now.”

“Look at Mesha, Cal. Her eyes haven’t left the passageway behind us for the last several minutes. They’re back.”

Both Cal and Enoch swung their attention to the shadowcat. She was staring intently into the darkness behind them. In the silence that followed, they could hear the soft popping sound of another bulb being shattered. Enoch had continued turning the lights off as they moved out of each section in the hopes that the trolls would lose their trail. It hadn’t worked.

“You made me nervous with that whole ‘circle around us’ thing, Ric,” said Cal. “Can we make a run for where the tunnel widens out ahead? Enoch, can you check if there are any lights there?”

Enoch
paused
and sent his mind along the electrical lines up ahead. This journey through the complex network of a Pre-Schism construct had been opening his mind to what would have been the amazing potential of a Pensanden in an electronic environment. He was learning that he could use his power to
see
far beyond the limit of his eyes, actually following the trails of energy that wound through the architecture around him. It would have been more exciting if he wasn’t freezing to death.

Enoch saw that the lines ahead got thicker and more complex as the tunnel widened out. But he recognized some of the forms within that complexity.

“Yes, there are lights up ahead,” he said, eyes closed. “A different . . . type of light. And I just turned them on.” A warm yellow glow was suddenly visible at the end of the passageway.

Cal looked at him, then turned to Rictus with a smile.

“As I said—
convenient
. Let’s make a run for it, Ric.”

“No, Cal. These trolls are starving. Desperate. I don’t know that a little painful light is going to keep them off of us for much longer. If they think we’re escaping, they’ll charge.”

So the trio kept walking. Their pace was deliberately, painfully slow, but the trolls stayed at the borders of the shadow. Enoch recognized the new lead troll as the one which had provoked, then attacked the first one. It was, if possible, even larger. A pale and wrinkly gray, it had a tumescent hump jutting from one side of its broad shoulders. The troll stepped carefully into the nearest light and reached up to smash the bulb. Enoch gasped. The “hump” was actually another head, with one bleary eye and a gaping, toothless mouth.

Am I partly to blame for this?

The big fist swung, there was a pop, and the light went out. Enoch lit the next one, now in the final section before the tunnel opened up. The troll shied back again, growling hungrily. A thin mewing came from the mouth at its shoulder.

Now I understand Cal’s pity. But I want to be rid of these things as well.

“Well, that’s a welcome sight,” said Cal as they emerged from the tunnel. The walls fell away from them on each side, the metal bolted to ice-covered rock walls. The floor continued level across open space—the path through this enormous cave now a bridge extending over a frozen subterranean river. The sound they’d heard earlier was the deeper water flowing under a thick layer of ice. But the best news, that which Cal had commented on, was that the cave had been wired to serve as some sort of decorative rest stop amidst the featureless network of tunnels. Huge electrical lamps were mounted in the rock ceiling above them, and they now filled the icy cave with a warm yellow light.

No more of that hideous blue flickering! It was making my head hurt. Well, that and the constant
pausing
to effect the on/off ignition of the lights.

Enoch rubbed at his forehead. The pain he associated with his powers was now a dull background ache, something he had become accustomed to.

Maybe Cal was right—will it become pleasant after more practice? It doesn’t hurt with any of the intensity it had when I first started using it.

The trolls had followed them to the edge of the tunnel but now had stopped. This stronger light really hurt their eyes, and they were getting angry. The lead troll took a few cautious steps out onto the bridge then snarled, retreating back into the darkness. There were answering growls behind him.

“We’re safe for now,” said Rictus, lowering his sword. “This new light really pains them.”

“Hmm,” said Cal, “well, Enoch, I figured out where all this cold air came from.”

“Where’s that?”

Cal whistled a trill, and Sal pointed to the far wall of the cave where the river disappeared into the dark. Hidden under a massive stone lip were two enormous cylinders, white storage tanks the size of a Babel city block. They were bolted to a collection of pipes and support girders, and tubes entered and exited these tanks all along their length.

“Frostwater.”

“Did you just say
frostwater
, Cal?” said Rictus, groaning. “Geez, you
have
been amongst the peasants too long. That’s liquid hydrogen, you caveman. Coolant for the Ark.”

Cal rolled his eyes. “That’s right, I forgot—you were a big spaceflight-junkie before the Schism. Seriously, Ric, remind me why you became a rock star again?”

Enoch turned away from their bickering to examine these giant “frostwater” tanks. The tanks weren’t actually white, just covered in a thick coating of frost. He could see the tank’s original metallic color on one corner where a newly-lit lamp was melting the frost away. And then he spied the problem, the thing Cal had been trying to show him.

One of the support girders, rooted on the bank of the river, had collapsed as the bank eroded away beneath it. The massive iron post had torn a gash in the lower tank. A thick stream of liquid ran down the side of the cylinder, coursed along the remaining ice-choked girders, and pooled on the glacial rocks below. The liquid gave off an icy steam, even in this cold air. It was devouring any heat in the room, even from the lights Enoch had just powered on. He thought he could feel the evil stuff suck the last bits of warmth from his arms.

“That is why the trolls are starving,” said Rictus. “The cold has killed any of the fish and vermin which used to live down here. And the cancer won’t let their own bodies die, probably sloughing off frozen skin.”

Cal nodded. “And that’s why they’ve started hunting topside.”

They all looked up as a cracking sound filled the cave. Rictus was the first to realize what was going on.

“Scales! Enoch, can you dim the power you’re channeling to the surrounding lights?”

“What? Why? They’re actually
warm,
Rictus. Besides, these aren’t adjustable like the blue lights in the tunnels—they’re only off or on.”

“Turn some of them off, then! The lamp materials have been cold for so long that . . .”

The cracking intensified, finally culminating in a loud crashing “pop!” as the lamp nearest to the tunnel they’d just emerged from went black.

“Run!” shouted Rictus. “Get to the passage on the other side and turn those lights on!”

The trolls had already moved onto the newly darkened edge of the bridge. The dying light had emboldened them.

Another lamp exploded in a cascade of glass and filaments, and another section of the bridge fell into shadow—this time behind them.

“Run!”

They ran. Enoch struggled to keep up with the specters. He couldn’t get his frozen body to move fast enough, couldn’t feel his feet as they pounded down the metal bridge. He was so cold. Rictus turned and came back for him.

“Keep going, Enoch. I’ll try and hold them here until you’re across.”

Enoch felt a tug at his pant leg and looked down to see Sal pulling at him. Cal was trying to keep his voice calm.

“One step at a time, boy. Follow me—Sal will make sure you don’t fall over the edge.”

At that, Enoch looked down. He was at the direct center of the bridge. The cave floor now dropped several hundred feet beneath him. The icy river was a narrow white line in the dimming light.

That would be a long fall.

Another pop, and the cave was darker.

“Move!”

Rictus pushed him, and he staggered a couple of steps. Sal kept Enoch’s momentum going in the right direction, pulling the boy along whenever he slowed. The bridge shook with the heavy footsteps of the oncoming trolls. They were charging now.

Everything felt slow, not like when Enoch
paused,
but frozen. Heavy. Numb. Enoch ignored Cal’s protests and turned to look back.

The first troll had reached Rictus, a smaller beast with tusks curving out from the bottom of its jaw. Rictus met the charge with a sweeping overhand blow, completely cutting the creature’s arm off at the shoulder. It squealed and fell to the metal floor with a wet thump. Enoch tried to smile, but his lips wouldn’t move.

Rictus can handle them.

The specter took a step back and almost fell over. The troll’s disembodied arm had curled around Rictus’s leg. The specter struggled to pull the muscled limb off of him. With a shout, he kicked free and stepped into guard position. The fallen troll was already back on its feet, the ghastly wound at its side squirming with some sort of muscular scar tissue. Enoch was repulsed but fascinated.

Is it growing a new arm?

He couldn’t look away, despite Sal’s insistent tugging, Cal’s desperate invective.

A new arm
was
growing from the wound. Enoch gasped as the scar bulged like a blister, writhing as snakelike muscles pulled the swelling mass into a thinner protrusion. Wet skin, pink as a newborn pig, rippled across the appendage. The troll panted and whined as its body contorted under the explosive powers of this
cancer
—apparently the regrowth was just as painful as the loss.

Rictus, less moved by the miraculous regeneration, kicked the still grasping arm off the side of the bridge and brought his sword down upon the troll’s head. The weapons’ vibrations caused the cranium to shatter, sending bits of brain across the cave. The troll wasn’t going to heal that one.

A detached part of Enoch’s mind applauded the move.

Just like he taught me. “The real trick is adapting to their strengths.”

Two more trolls leapt out of the growing darkness, and Rictus met them with his sword blurring the air.

Enoch finally turned and followed Sal’s frantic nudges. He was trying to remember something Rictus had told him, something important.

What did he say? What am I supposed to do?

Mesha hissed from his shoulders.

The lights! Rictus told me to turn on the lights in the tunnel up ahead.

He tried to
pause,
tried to remember the
litania eteria,
but none of it would come.

Focus! Why can’t I focus?

*  *  *  *

Cal looked back to see Enoch stumbling along behind him, tears streaming down cheeks red from the cold. Overhead lights exploded, syncopating to his wooden footsteps. The cave was almost dark.

“Come on, Enoch. Just a little bit farther!”

The tone of concern in Cal’s voice reminded Enoch of Master Gershom.

Master.

Master Gershom would be disappointed if his charge couldn’t focus just because of a little cold.

Focus, Enoch.

Enoch closed his eyes. He
paused.

The lights. Follow the lines, find the electricity. Direct it to the tubes. Ignite.

The hallway flickered to life ahead of them, that hateful blue light so welcome now.

Cal cheered and called back, “Come on, Ric, the light’s on—let’s go!”

Wait, that’s not what I was trying to remember!

Enoch staggered to a halt, and Sal spun around to resume tugging on his pants.

The lead troll. The one with two heads. Where did it go?

A roar erupted from the passageway in front of them, followed by a softer popping sound. The newly lit passageway was suddenly dark.

Enoch reached a frozen hand down to unsheathe his
derech.
The blade slipped from his unresponsive fingers and clattered to the ground.

“What are you . . .” Cal turned on Sal’s shoulder and saw the shadow.

“No!”

The troll stepped out of the dark hallway, its enormous figure outlined by the few remaining lights in the cave. Enoch could hear the small head mewling hungrily.