Hoarfrost (Whyborne & Griffin Book 6) (18 page)

Whyborne

I didn’t
know how long we lay there amidst the squirming, crawling mass of umbrae.
Eventually the frantic alarm seemed to die down. There came the hiss of
displaced air, and the solider gave off attempting to breach the seals and
glided back to the depths of the nest.

When I
was certain it had left, I heaved up, shoving aside the workers. Their slime
slicked my clothing and skin, and I shuddered. “Are you all right, Christine?”
I asked.

“I’m
fine.” But her voice shook on the words.

“That
was foolish of you.” Incredibly my dropped lantern hadn’t gone out, so I went
to retrieve it. “You should have run.”

She sat
up shakily. I disliked her pallor and the way she winced when she tried to use
her injured arm. “I’m not abandoning you! Honestly, how could you even think I’d
agree to such a thing?”

“Because
there isn’t any other choice.” I went to the open doorway and gently laid my
hand on the barrier even I couldn’t see. “I’m trapped in here, as surely as the
umbrae.”

“But
why? You aren’t an umbra.”

“No.” I
shook my head. “But you heard Turner. You saw how the workers react to me.”

Christine
scowled at the seemingly empty air. “It doesn’t make sense, though. You said
the carvings and the buildings remind you of the temple you glimpsed at the bottom
of the sea. But these umbrae surely didn’t build it. Or this. I mean
look
at them.” She gestured at the nearest, which drifted across a wall, like a
stingray gliding over the bottom of a sandy bay. “Whatever race created the
city and trapped the umbrae inside surely wasn’t quite so…alien.”

“I don’t
know.” I rubbed tiredly at my eyes. “I don’t know what the link is between the
umbrae and the ketoi. But there is something here…I can’t really say what for
certain, but I feel it against my mind. I think the umbrae communicate by some
sort of telepathy.”

Her eyes
widened in alarm. “Like the dweller with the ketoi?”

“Yes.” I
dropped my hands. “When we were in Egypt, Griffin ended up psychically linked
to the umbra there, and…oh dear.”

Christine’s
eyes widened. “Do you think that has something to do with the voices he’s been
hearing?”

“Voice,”
I corrected. “I…I don’t know. If there is some remnant of the link still
active…blast. And the dreams he had, of being the daemon of the night. What if
they weren’t dreams but memories? Its memories?”

“Dreams?”
she asked in alarm.

“It
doesn’t matter—I’ll explain later. Curse it all, why didn’t I put the
pieces together earlier?”

She
snorted. “Why on earth would you? It isn’t as if you knew what the creatures
down here were. Why would you connect the umbrae in this frozen wasteland with
something we encountered amidst the burning desert?”

“I
suppose.” I wasn’t so certain, but argument would be pointless at this juncture.
“When we were running from the daemon, er, umbra, beneath the lightless
pyramid, I tried to injure it with fire. It…screamed, and I felt the sound in
my head. As did Griffin. It made sense for him to do so because of their link,
but me? At the time, I didn’t think anything about it.”

“You
were rather busy trying not to die. I suppose you can be excused,” she replied
dryly. “Do you think there’s any connection between the dweller’s ability to
touch the minds of ketoi and hybrids, and whatever is down here?”

“I haven’t
the slightest idea.” I spread my hands out. “And even if I did, it doesn’t
change the basic facts. I’m trapped here and I can’t leave.”

“At
least there’s air moving. Perhaps there’s another entrance we might find?” she
suggested.

“We
don’t need to be finding anything. You have to leave, Christine.” I swallowed. “I
know you feel it would be disloyal, but Griffin and Iskander are still in
danger. They need your help.”

She
shook her head. “All of which is well and good, old fellow. But I’m not going
far on my own with this arm.”

“Blast!”
I should have known something was wrong simply because she hadn’t yet stood up.
I hurried to her side. “Take off your coat and let me see.”

“No—I
think it’s stopped bleeding, finally.” She shifted her weight with a wince. “If
we peel everything off, it will only start up again. But there’s no way I could
climb up a rope, even if they left one for me. And the mouth of the ice cave is
likely to be near the foot of the glacier. I’m not certain I could make it that
far without assistance.”

I sank
down beside her, feeling helpless. “What shall we do? We can’t just sit here
and wait to die.”

“Don’t
be absurd,” she said briskly. “As I said before, the air is…well, not fresh
exactly, but moving. Surely there’s another way out.”

“If so,
why aren’t the umbrae using it?” I asked dubiously.

“How
should I know? Perhaps they are.” She scowled. “Assuming we can believe
anything that liar Jack said, the natives have been smart enough to avoid this
area. Before Hoarfrost camp, who would even have been here to know? The umbrae
could be leaving all the time, foraging on the mountain, then returning.”

“True,”
I admitted.

“And if it
isn’t the case, we know the glacier sheered off upper portions of the city. If
it nicked any of these underground passages, we may have a way out.”

“Only if
there’s a tunnel.”

“If
there isn’t, you’ll melt the damned ice!” she snapped. “I don’t care how long
it takes—you and I are both getting out of this hellish prison. Do you
hear me?”

I couldn’t
help but smile. “I do.”

“Then
let’s go.”

I helped
her to her feet. “I can manage on my own,” she said gruffly.

“Very
well. But let me go first, and for heaven’s sake, stay close to me. It seems my
presence will serve to keep them docile, but if you stray too far I’m afraid
they’ll realize they’re being invaded.”

“A good
point,” she allowed. “They aren’t very bright, are they?”

“I don’t
suppose they have to be. Even the one in Egypt merely followed the compulsion
laid on it by others.” I shrugged. “How intelligent is an individual ant, after
all?”

“Not
very…oh.”

The
deepening of her pallor alarmed me. “Christine? Are you all right?”

“I just
had a thought. About the image on the door, and what Turner thought it
signified.”

“The
Mother of Shadows.” I’d almost forgotten in all the panic and fear.

“We’ve
seen soldiers and workers. And you said Griffin heard
a
voice.” She
gestured vaguely at the creatures as they crawled over and past one another. “What
if they have a queen?”

Ice
touched my veins, as if the glacier had found its way inside me. “Oh dear,” I
said.

“Indeed.”
Christine nodded toward the depths. “And with that cheery thought to inspire
us, let’s try to find our way out of here, shall we?”

Griffin

Jack
tramped across the snow-covered glacier beside me, as we made our way back to
the moulin. “I know you’re angry,” he said.

The
others had drawn ahead of us. I glanced at him, but the shadow of his hood hid
his eyes, leaving only his mouth exposed.

The
aurora glowed red, so bright it threw our shadows onto the snow and made the
ice look like rubies, or frozen blood. The voice in my head hadn’t grown
louder, exactly. But something had changed. What, I wasn’t certain, but it
terrified me. What was happening even now beneath the ice?

“You’ve
lied to me, put my life in danger, and endangered Whyborne and Christine,” I
said, because any distraction from that distant sound, hovering just out of
range of understanding, was welcome at the moment. “No, of course not, why
would I possibly be angry?”

Jack’s
mouth flattened into a tight line. “Fine. Be angry. I’m angry with myself, to
be honest. I’m your older brother. I’m supposed to look out for you, and I
failed. If I’d only found you earlier, before Dr. Whyborne had the chance to
seduce you.”

“Whyborne?
Seduce me?” A mix of anger and grief twisted in my belly, but I’d be damned if
I let Jack misconstrue our relationship. “I’m afraid you have it the wrong way
around.”

Jack
gave me a sharp look. “Are you serious?”

“If you
imagine I was some innocent who had never even considered bedding a man, let
alone actually done it, you are sorely mistaken,” I said coldly. To hell with
Jack and what he thought of me.

“Well…yes…things
get lonely on the frontier, in mining camps. It’s only natural, under such
circumstances…” Jack cleared his throat uncomfortably. “But this is different.”

So Jack
had availed himself of male company, and more than once, if I was any judge.
“Yes,” I said. “It is different. I love Ival, and he loves me. And it’s still
been hard sometimes, damned hard, to carve out a life together. So if you think
he beguiled me into becoming his paramour for some incomprehensible plan of his
own, you’re wrong. He didn’t even know sorcery existed when we first met.”

My words
seemed to catch Jack even further off guard. “Are you certain?”

“Of
course I am.” I hitched my pack higher on my back. “I’ve walked this path with
him, every step of the way.”

Jack
fell silent. Hopefully I’d given him something to think about.

We
reached the moulin soon after. I stood beside it and tried not to betray my
fear.

The
smooth-edged hole vanished into darkness, untouched even by the blazing lights
of the aurora.

Nothing
good ever happened underground. Every instinct I possessed told me to run and
not stop until I was far, far away. To do anything, go anywhere, but down this
narrow slot. To draw no nearer to that distant, incomprehensible voice that
even now spoke just on the edge of hearing.

But my
husband was in danger. Even if I hadn’t been the one to get us all into this
mess, I couldn’t leave him. I had to get to him, had to try. Even if it cost my
sanity.

The
ropes still hung in place, and no tracks led away from the moulin. Iskander had
already taken up one of the ropes, his face set in a look of grim
determination. Our eyes met, and he gave me a nod. “We’ll get them back,
Griffin. Or we’ll sodding die trying.”

“I know.”
I took a deep breath and seized another rope. Jack crouched by the moulin,
peering down. “Last chance to back out, Jack. The things down there are…well.
Terrifying is one way to put it. We might none of us ever see the light of day
again.”

Jack
shook his head. “You know I can’t do that.”

We made
our way down the long, long drop, feet braced against the smooth ice and ropes
clutched tight in our hands. I tried to pretend the ice wasn’t closing around
and above me. Instead I pictured Ival’s face, the way his hair refused to lie
flat for any length of time, the way his smile transformed his features. I
imagined us in our study, curled together on the couch with Saul sprawled
across our laps, this horror long behind us.

We’d
make it home again. No matter how many umbrae I had to face. Anything else was
unthinkable.

After
what seemed an eternity, my feet touched the loose gravel. We were down.
Beneath the glacier.

Down in
the dark where the monsters lived.

Would I
see Jack devoured, nothing left but a pile of bones? Or would we find Whyborne
in the clutches of one, screaming for help, a bare skull in place of his face?

“Are you
all right, old boy?” Iskander asked.

I took a
deep breath. “Y-yes. I’m fine.” I had to be. If I fell apart now, all hope of
saving Whyborne and Christine would be lost. “Christine said she found a ramp
of some sort. Let’s look for it.”

I didn’t
want to pay any more attention to the mysterious voice in my head than I had
to. But if it could lead me closer to Whyborne, I’d let it. My footsteps
carried me unerringly to the rectangular hole in the glacier-ground rock.

“At
least there’s a fresh breeze blowing through,” Scarrow remarked.

I stared
at the opening, my heart in my mouth. “I’ll take whatever good news I can get,”
I said around it. My attempt at lightness fell flat.

Jack put
his hand tentatively to my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“You
know my past, thanks to the Endicotts,” I said. “What do you think is wrong?”

The
words came out more harshly than I’d intended. He flinched and let his hand
fall. “I’m sorry. Perhaps you should remain here. Iskander, Scarrow, and I will
find Nicholas and the others.”

“No.”
Taking a deep breath, I started for the ramp. “I’m going with you. Let’s just
get this over with.”

Whyborne

Up
seemed the direction most likely to get us away from the umbrae and back to the
world of air and light. Accordingly, when we returned to the first room beyond
the door, we chose the ramp angled toward the heights rather than the depths.
Workers moved about us, ignoring our presence, and once a larger soldier slid
past, as if patrolling for intruders. I tucked Christine behind me, but it paid
us no more attention than the workers.

“At
least these don’t seem as violent as the one we encountered in Egypt,” Christine
said when it had left.

“The one
in Egypt was taken from its own kind to guard and kill,” I pointed out. “Presumably
its natural behavior would be somewhat different.”

She
nodded. “True. How many do you think there are, stolen from places like this? I
know Griffin encountered one beneath Chicago, but surely there couldn’t be that
many, could there?”

“I
certainly hope not.” I stepped carefully over a worker lying in my path. “We
know from the one in Egypt they can live unfathomably long lives. I have no
trouble imagining men like my father, or sorcerers like Blackbyrne, passing
them from hand to hand over the centuries.”

“Let’s
hope you’re correct. And let’s hope whatever ancient cities they came from are
now long destroyed, or else very, very remote indeed. Can you imagine someone
digging a subway or a sewer and coming across
this?”

“All too
well, given what happened with the Eltdown Shards,” I said grimly. “Assuming
the blasted Endicotts didn’t do away with the villagers themselves.”

I
stopped long enough to dig out my canteen and take a drink. Not enough water
remained to sustain us for long. Was there any source of fresh water down here?
There must be, surely, even if only a seep of some kind. Unless the umbrae didn’t
need to drink, in which case our situation would become dire rather quickly. “I
wonder who sealed the umbrae in here, and why? Did they invade the city and
drive out the original inhabitants? Or was the place already deserted when the
umbrae moved in? Either way, who cast the spells? Given the door seemed the
same antiquity as the rest of the construction, to have created a magical seal
powerful enough to last eons…it’s very impressive. More than impressive,
really.”

“The
Pnakotic Manuscripts didn’t say?”

“No,
although from what Turner said, there are hints in other books.” I’d been
trying not to think about my scholarly failure. “If only I’d looked harder, we
wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“You’re
being ridiculous.” Christine touched the smoothly carved surface of the nearest
wall with her good hand, then drew back as a worker slid past. “You can’t blame
yourself for not having read every book in the library, on the off chance you
might have found some scrap of information. Assuming the museum even has the
pertinent tomes. If you’re looking for someone to blame, it’s that damned liar
Jack Hogue.”

I ground
my teeth together at the memory of the look of betrayal on Griffin’s face. If I
did manage to escape this place, I’d make Jack pay for hurting Griffin. “I
should have let him tumble over the waterfall.”

“Hindsight
is always perfect.”

The ramp
ended in another of the large, hexagonal rooms. Clearly, whoever built the city
had been unusually fond of the shape. Smaller rooms budded off from it, all
filled with what looked like some sort of strange fungus. The flabby, white
shelves grew in an almost column-like formation, creating a veritable thicket
of living matter. The black bodies of workers moved about the pallid fungi,
breaking off pieces here and there, then slithering away with them still clutched
in their feelers. Others appeared to tend the fungi, inspecting their surfaces
or the thin mycelium spread across floor and wall.

“I
believe we’ve found their garden,” Christine said, leaning against the doorway
for support.

I
touched the nearest fungal body. It gave nauseatingly under my fingers, and I
snatched my hand back. I’d never view mushrooms the same way again. “Agreed. Do
you think they subsist on this? And where do they get the organic matter to
feed the fungus?”

“Their
dead?” Christine suggested, a bit morbidly in my opinion. “Whatever the case,
this room didn’t begin as a garden. Look at the carvings on the wall.”

Although
hard to make out between the thick ropes of fungus, the murals in this room appeared
less decorative and more purposeful. “Astronomical charts?” I guessed.

“And
maps. A shame we can’t make out more of them.” She stepped carefully over the
seething workers and peered into a side room. “And no exit save the aperture we
entered through, curse the luck.”

We
retreated and took the only remaining corridor we’d not yet tried, which at
least ran level if not up. But before long, it angled down, and we once again
reached a room with no other exit.

“We’re
going to have to go back through the nursery,” Christine said, staring at the
carvings on the blind end, as if they might tell us how to leave this hellish
place. And for all I knew, they did, had we the ability to read them.

I
shuddered, remembering the soldier and its vast wings and burning feelers. “Do
you think it’s safe?”

“As long
as we don’t disturb the chrysalises.” She shrugged at my skeptical look. “What
other choice have we?”

The
workers in the nursery were still agitated, swarming about the cocoons as if
carefully inspecting each one to make certain it remained undamaged. Some they
lifted in their feelers and moved about, rearranging the young to a purpose
only they understood. Even so, we made our way carefully through them, and I
kept a tight grip on the lantern. I wasn’t certain I could call down lightning
here beneath the ground—even if I did, it would be no titanic strike like
the one that killed the umbra in Egypt and left my arm laced with scars. Meaning
fire remained our best weapon, should we have to use it.

“Whyborne,
look,” Christine hissed, and pointed to one of the corners.

A
soldier lurked there, curled up in a large ball for the moment, but obviously ready
to move should the need arise. Fear trickled down my spine like cold water, but
I only said, “Let’s be certain not to bump any of the chrysalises, shall we?”

We moved
slowly. Workers swarmed about, and I stepped over them when necessary, or else
waited for them to pass by. The nursery was full, and picking a path between
the cocoons proved difficult.

“The
carvings,” Christine said. Her good hand closed around my shoulder, halting me.
“On the southern wall. Do you see?”

I’d been
paying attention to the floor, not the walls. To my surprise, the murals of
this room showed undersea scenes: great fish, whales, seaweed twining in
fantastic arabesques, and…

“Ketoi.”
Whatever I expected from my conjectures, I’d not imagined to be confronted with
proof of the link between whatever had lived in these halls, and my cousins
beneath the sea. “And look—the city of the dweller. And the dweller
itself.”

I felt
her shudder. “I’d forgotten how awful it was.”

“Was it?”
Possessed by it, our minds sliding into one another, I’d not been able to judge
such things.

“Yes.”
She swayed against me abruptly, and I caught her. “Blast—sorry, old
fellow. Got a little light-headed for a moment.”

Her skin
was terribly pale, and her grip weak. Blood trickled from beneath the fur-lined
cuff of her parka, onto her pale fingers. Even as I reached for her arm, single
drop of blood fell from her hand and splashed directly on top of a passing
worker.