Of the Abyss (19 page)

 

Part 2

 

 

“T
his is not what you promised me!” The Abyssi snarled and whined, his voice replete with the offensive blend of arrogant and juvenile that seemed the province of the creatures of the infernal realm.

The Numini drew back, disgusted.
“Promise,”
it echoed. “I would never make a promise to one of your kind. All I have done is try to clean up the mess you have created.”

The Abyssi growled. If it could have reached across the realms with its body in addition to its awareness, it would have pounced on the Numini, heedless of the death that would have immediately followed. “
The blue prince,” it said petulantly. “He killed my mancer. I want his.”

The Numini did not need to reply in words. The blue Abyssi, Alizarin, had bonded himself to a Numenmancer. Even this low creature surely knew better than to threaten one of
them
while speaking to a lord of the divine realm. The bridge of power that allowed them to speak became rimed with frost and sparked with arcs of blue electricity.

“Then I want something else of his,” the Abyssi said, compromising in the face of the Numini's wordless threat.

“I agree that Alizarin has been a
 . . . complication.” The Numini sighed. “I understand that he often meddles with others' property. Deal with him as you see fit. I will see to the rest.”

 

CHAPTER 23

C
admia hadn't felt this
right
about her life in a long time. She had been feeling extraordinarily anxious for a while there, but now she couldn't remember why. The plan to help Hansa, help Ruby, and help the guards who had died was a good one, and she was glad she had been able to suggest it.

She was blind to the Abyssi itself, but she could see all too clearly when the air tore, leaving a jagged scar in reality that could only be the rift to the Abyss. Snow swirling in through the open window became steam as it struck the rapidly growing rip, which quickly became a doorway-­sized hole leading to tarry darkness. A twinge of unease tried to pierce her meditative calm when she saw the portal the Abyssi had opened so they could step into its native realm in search of the slain guards.

Calm, calm,
the snow around her seemed to whisper.

How much power must it take to cut a portal like that? “It probably won't stay open long,” she said, when none of the others seemed inclined to step forward. “We should go.”

Umber caught her arm when she moved to lead the way. “You can't really intend to go with us,” the spawn said.

What a funny moment to question her. “Yes, I do,” she asserted, and then put action to her claim and walked into the rift.

Like the nursery-­rhyme child whose cradle tumbles when the wind blows, she plummeted into a harsh reality. She had been wrapped in a warm blanket of peace and contentment, and completely unaware how unnatural that calm was until it was ripped brutally away. There had been something . . . someone . . . with her, but they were gone now. She was achingly alone.

Not alone.

Her skin crawled as the last few minutes caught up to her, and she remembered who had come here with her. The half-­Abyssi spawn. The Numenmancer.
The Abyssi
.

What have I done?

She turned, hoping futilely that the rift would still be open and she could go right back through it. Instead, her eyes found the creature she had been blind to on the mortal plane, and the sight of it made her blood run cold.

Its shape shifted, never holding a single, identifiable form, but there was no mistaking what it was: Feral. Hungry. Vicious. Cadmia couldn't make out teeth or claws, but she knew in her gut that it
had
those things. And in the primitive, furthest-­back portion of her brain, she knew that if she didn't get away . . . if she didn't run . . .

“Hold it together, Hansa,” she heard Umber say. She looked past the Abyssi to find Umber with a hand on Hansa's arm, clearly trying to stop him from bolting. Both men were wreathed in a hazy indigo glow, Umber's brighter than Hansa's. “
Breathe.
He's on our side.”

“Thank Numen he is,” Xaz whispered. She was furthest back, as if she had come through the rift last before it disappeared. The light she emitted was gray-­yellow, like the first breath of sunrise on a foggy spring morning, but so faint it seemed to disappear when Cadmia looked at her directly.

Hansa's panic gave Cadmia the strength to quash her own. She forced herself to turn away from the Abyssi. Ancient instincts screamed that doing so was deadly, but she was more than her instincts and refused to be ruled by them. Instead, she looked around, to confirm they really were in the realm whose name was synonymous with all that was cruel, avaricious, and venal.

The ground was rolling black sand littered with bones—­or maybe they were shells, though unlike any found off the shores of Kavet. Many had sharp barbs. Most were deep, rusty colors instead of the bleached white or dull black that most often washed up on Kavet's shores. All hinted at creatures more fierce than a clam or a snail, like an ash-­colored claw as long as Cadmia's forearm that lay, empty, inches from her feet. What kind of creature left a shell like that?

What kind of creature
killed
something with a shell like that?

The answer to that question came in the form of a chorus of low, bone-­quivering growls. She looked up to see a trio of beasts that looked a little like wolves, though their low-­slung front shoulders bristled with spines, their heads were flat and wedge-­shaped like snakes, and their fur was the color of slick blood. Cadmia froze, her breath turning to lead in her lungs.

The Abyssi flowed in front of the mortals and advanced toward the three scarlet beasts. When it struck them, the wolflike creatures scattered and tumbled, letting out pained, yipping cries as the personified darkness wrapped around them. A whiff of scalded fur reached Cadmia's nose, and then the Abyssi moved on, leaving only a few fragments of red fur and gray bone behind.

She swallowed thickly.

Don't you dare run,
she told herself as the Abyssi approached again. If it wanted to kill her, she wouldn't be able to stop it. If it was an ally, she needed to be able to look it in the . . . face? Cadmia locked her knees and forced herself to stand.

“Thank you,” she managed to say. Her voice came out a tight squeak, but she was proud of herself for making it work at all.

The longer she stared into the darkness, the easier it became. The visceral terror that had nearly overwhelmed her edged aside and she noted the colors—­sparks like firefly lights, but in a thousand unnamable hues—­that danced inside the shadow. They swirled and blinked, hypnotic, like the will-­o-­wisps whose beauty drew unwary storybook travelers to their doom.

Her voice under control at last, she asked, “Are we . . . safe now?” She hesitated on the word, because if they really were in the Abyss, they certainly were not “safe.”

The creature shrugged. How something made of pure amorphous terror could
shrug,
or how it could be perfectly clear that was exactly what it had done, Cadmia wasn't sure. However, the gesture was very human, almost comical, and made her relax further.

“From the red dogs, for now,” the Abyssi said. “They can't best an Abyssi.”

Cadmia would have expected its voice to be a growl or a hiss, as much animal as human. Instead it bordered on musical, like something you would expect crooned to you by a would-­be lover.

Xaz asked, “Can you go back to your normal form?”

“The lovely form with the blue fur, she means,” Umber clarified before the Abyssi could respond. “It's easier on mortal minds.”

Cadmia braced herself, every description of Abyssi she had ever read running through her mind. She knew fur, scales, tails, and claws were normal, as were poisonous barbs and razor-­sharp spines and—­
and what do you really know?
she chastised her thoughts.
What Order scholars have actually seen what you are now seeing now?

The
thump
her heart gave as smoke and shadow condensed was not entirely anxiety.

Where a moment before there had been a creature from nightmare, now there was a creature who stood like a man—­or, almost like a man. The Abyssi balanced on the balls of his feet. Iridescent cobalt and turquoise fur, a lashing tail, and soft, tufted ears made it impossible to mistake him for a human.

“Is this better?” he asked, tilting his head.

“Much,” Xaz breathed.

The Abyssi had long, silky black hair in addition to its fur, and the quizzical gesture caused several strands to fall forward and caress one cheek. Utterly inappropriate, the part of Cadmia that had grown up in the Order of A'hknet and had been trained to put a value to everything piped up to say,
If it weren't for the fur, that face could earn a lot of money down at the wharf.
Dramatic cheekbones, full lips, heavy white lashes around wide blue eyes.

Alizarin smiled, and Cadmia felt a brief panic that he had heard her thought. Could Abyssi do that? But the expression was open, engaging, not the sly, knowing look of a man who had caught a woman staring.

“Stronger Abyssi only take on solid forms to communicate with mortals, or for play,” Umber told Xaz, oblivious to Cadmia's uncomfortable moment. “His
normal
form is the one we saw a few minutes ago.”

“Oh,” Xaz said.

It was time to get back on task.

As soon as Cadmia could remember what that task was.

She remembered the plan she had proposed, but not
why
she had suggested it.

“We're . . . looking for the shades of the slain guards,” she said hesitantly, speaking aloud to try to make sense of her own jumbled memories.

“Tell me again,” Umber drawled, “
why
you felt the need to come with us?”

Cadmia opened her mouth to reply, then closed it without speaking. Why
had
she done this? She had run to Hansa thinking he and Umber might be able to heal Ruby, or possibly revive her with magic. How had that goal morphed into necromancy, resurrection, and an intended trek through the Abyss?

Hansa was also frowning. Tentatively, he admitted, “I don't entirely understand why we're here.”

“Because you're a brat willing to use power you don't understand to get your way,” Xaz snapped. She rolled her shoulders like someone who has slept in an uncomfortable position. “Or have you forgotten hysterically demanding that Umber save Ruby?”

Hansa paled, and stared around as if the answers might be found on this desolate stretch of shell and bone-­littered beach—­if you could call it that, since where the water should be there was only an endless stretch of porous rock, which undulated like frozen waves. The sand, like the stone, was black and sparkled like raven feathers. Its beauty was only marred by Cadmia's imagination telling her what creatures might come out of the dozen dark caves she could see among the stone sea.

“I . . . did,” Hansa said, sounding as if he would like to deny it. “And then you came. And you.” He looked first at Xaz, and then at Cadmia. In his eyes she could see the desperate need for reassurance that was ever in the eyes of a man who has done something unforgivable.

“We'll talk about it later,” Umber murmured. “We have more company on the way. Alizarin, am I right that the upper-­level Abyssi respect my kind's right to claim property?”

“That is correct.”

“Upper-­level?” Cadmia asked, before immediately adding, “Never mind. It's not a good time for questions.”

Hansa let out a startled protest as Umber reached out, wrapped an arm around his waist, and pulled the guard tightly to his side. Cadmia had an instant to wonder if he would further object to being considered “property,” and then Alizarin stepped up and casually looped his tail around her waist.

The Abyssi's current form was beautiful, but Cadmia had seen what Umber called its “natural” form, and she had seen what it did to the red dogs that threatened them. The only thing that kept her from screaming when she found herself suddenly clamped to Alizarin's side was long years of rigid self-­control. Her chosen vocation required her to listen to the worst horrors the human race could manage, confessions from men and women who had committed atrocities most ­people assumed were confined to the Abyss, without flinching.

He was protecting her, so it would be stupid to argue and fight to get away.

She thought he was protecting her.

She hoped so, anyway.

Meanwhile, the creature coming toward them seemed to be Abyssi, though it wasn't like Alizarin. Its body was slender and serpentine, its skin slick, and its eyes cold and slitted. Its six limbs were thick like a lizard's, though it seemed to disregard them as it moved in long undulations of its snakelike body.

The new Abyssi paused before them and bowed to Alizarin, bending armored front legs and dropping a diamond-­shaped head with long, glistening fangs in a deferential bob. Then it rose up like a snake about to strike, front legs—­arms?—­folded across its scaled gray torso. When it spoke, the sound was like claws on stone, a fierce etching noise that made all the hair on Cadmia's body rise.

“You bring gifts for the royal court?” it asked optimistically, its head sliding side to side as it looked at their assembled group.

Alizarin grinned, but Cadmia didn't think it was a happy expression. It showed too many sharp white teeth. “You were rude about my last gift.”

The lizard-­Abyssi seemed puzzled for a moment, as if he wasn't sure what Alizarin meant by “rude.” Then he took a half-­wriggle back, maybe a flinch. “He was my protector,” the Abyssi wheedled. “You killed him while I was sleeping, and I didn't even get to eat him.”

The silly notion that Abyssi were very like human beings, an idea that had been formed from Alizarin's shrugs and grins, disappeared from Cadmia's mind as she tried to parse what the lizard-­Abyssi had just said.
He was my protector . . . I didn't get to eat him.

The lizard-­Abyssi took another step back and said, “Antioch has been in a rage. He says you got his mancer killed. If you give us gifts, maybe we can help you with him?”

Alizarin's grin faded and his tail lashed, releasing Cadmia. She desperately hoped he was irritated by the other Abyssi pushing the idea of gifts, and wasn't concerned enough to be considering it. Umber's question suggested that Hansa was considered his property, and she doubted Alizarin wanted to get rid of his mancer. That left Cadmia.

“He is a prince of the fourth level,” the lizard-­Abyssi said, Alizarin's reaction making him bolder. “You are only of the third. You will need help.”

Some of the older texts in the Order of the Napthol's most restricted libraries spoke of the “levels of the Abyss.” Cadmia had always thought it was euphemistic until now. If this Antioch was of a deeper level than Alizarin, he was stronger.

“He is fourth-­level chattel,” Alizarin answered in a grumbling voice that bordered on a growl, “and you are a lord of the high court only because I slew all the Abyssi there stronger than you. These four are
mine
.” His tail wrapped snugly around Cadmia again, emphasizing his point. “If you touch them, I will eat you. Now go away.”