Somewhither: A Tale of the Unwithering Realm (75 page)

Unlike the law of conservation of mass, the law of conservation of momentum turned out to be more than a suggestion. He could not stop.

Rahab slipped on his own blood, did a pratfall, and smashed into the bars. There was a crash, and shards of razor-sharp glass went everywhere. There was a storm of dark red lighting all over him. It was what Abby had called distilled essence of pain.

Yes, Rahab had indeed struck me with his pike as I turned, and I think he broke my spine and both legs when he did, but merely being near the firestorm of pure pain was enough to snap my body back to its true form, unbroken and whole.

Rahab was back to his normal size too. His limbs were jerking, not in his control. Each time he jerked, another little razor sharp leaf or needle of blue glass would break. The stuff dripping out, whatever it was, would add to the torture he was already in.

The slave-girls were screaming. Rahab was screaming. I was trembling with fatigue and battle-adrenaline, but I resisted the urge to break stance or lean on my sword. (No one actually leans on a sword when they are tired: it would damage the tip. But I wanted to.) So I was the only one not screaming. I was too tired.

Not everyone was screaming. Penny came up beside me, quiet as a doe. She had a jar of water she was carrying on her head, which I thought was a neat trick.

And from somewhere, she had found her eyeglasses, which she was wearing. I saw she had a small book covered in black shagreen leather in her hand, with corners, hasps and lock of gold, zipped into a plastic baggie.

She knelt gracefully and lowered the water jar to the floor without spilling it.

Then she unzipped, unlocked and opened the little book. She unlocked it by touching her tongue to the hasp. The shining yellow pages were mirror-bright, covered with tiny, cramped and intricate cuneiform and hieroglyphs in black and red and green inks, diagrams and pentagrams and woodcuts of angular, bestial faces. Their eyes moved and looked at me as she flipped the golden pages. And, oddly enough, some of the pages were covered in European musical notation with clefs and notes and bars and staves.

She adjusted her eyeglasses, found a page of music, and started singing.

The words and the tune were alike lost in the uproar. I did not see any water rise up out of the jar, but I could not shake the impression that I should have been seeing it. That eerie weird-beard sensation I got from Rahab was coming from the jar. I don’t know how I could sense it, but I could.

Fascinated, I put my hand down to a point in the air between the opening of the jar and Rahab. I gasped. I could feel a cold trickling flow over my hand. I felt water. My eyes did not see any water. My eyes told me my hand was in the air.

I cupped my hand and lifted it to my face. My fingers were dry. I touched my lips to the hollow of my palm. I did not taste or feel any water, but a sensation of coolness touched my lip and ran down my throat. It was just the sensation of refreshment without the actual water. The spirit of water. I was fascinated, and stepped forward. The cool touch fell across my knees. There was an invisible and impalpable column of water about a foot in diameter writhing through the air.

Penny scowled at me with her eyes, not ceasing to sing, and waved me angrily to one side. I stepped back, feeling foolish. Note to self: do not interfere with the affairs of witches, for they are sexy and quick to anger.

From the way the writhing body of Rahab reacted, I could tell the non-existent water stream had flowed about him. Then the broken ends of the shattered blue glass flickered. The non-existent water conducted electricity just like real water, or so it seemed, because at that moment streams and darts of dark red sparks swirled out of the broken ends of the many blue bars, and the air around Rahab, and the floor where he flopped and twisted, all of it, grew dark and angry with crawling sparks. They followed invisible swirls and streams of motion.

On and on she sang, and the sparks thickened and darkened into a liquid cocoon of pure pain. Rahab could not stop shaking and twitching, and so he could not rise to his feet, or even inchworm away from the broken glass, and neither could he warp his flesh into any new shapes or sizes.

Then the shivering mass of dark red sparks flowed over his head like a plastic bag, and entered his mouth and eyes and nose. Having that stuff up your nose and down your throat must have really hurt, because all Rahab’s muscles locked up with agony, shivering and tense, and the sound of his shrieks turned into a gargle. I assume the unreal water must have created a sensation of drowning. Rahab made all the noises you’d expect from someone whose head was underwater. It sounded awful.

I threw back my head and laughed long and loud, the laughter of the Host who Yearns for Death in Vain.

“Water bending!” I grinned down at Penny. “Cool beans, Katara!”

The water left in the jar before Penny looked odd. It was de-natured, and would not create a sensation of drowning even if you were drowning. An amphibious girl might convince even a suspicious guard that she had granted him the ability to breathe water.

Penny, kneeling on the floor with her well-shaped arms aloft, now smiled, but the silvery flow of song from her throat did not cease, nor did she take her eyes from her book. Then I realized why she looked worried.

Penny dared not stop her song, lest her spell drop. I assume a professional singer can keep up a tune for a long time, but everyone runs out of breath eventually.

I sat down next to her, got the kit out of my father’s belt, and started cleaning my sword.

I used a sheet of rice paper from the cleaning kit to remove all oil and blood from the blade, carefully holding the scalpel-sharp edge away from me.

“Penny,” I said. “You look anxious.” She looked lovely too, but I did not tell her that. She had left aside the silk bedsheet in which I’d wrapped her, so she was now just in the lowcut sleeveless white tunic bound at the waist with a black wide belt, and a black collar like an evil version of a necklace locked around the white skin of her throat.

“Don’t worry, I'll brush my teeth before you give me that kiss you owe me. Because I did defeat him”

She angrily rolled her enormous emerald eyes at me over the top of her little book, but she did not stop singing.

“You think I am an idiot—which, I admit, shows that you are a good judge of character. You are probably thinking that, as soon as you run out of breath, our pal Rahab is going to stand up, shake off his pain, turn into a whirlwind of bone fragments or something, and just rip me to shreds, and torture all the girls here to death.”

I started to tap the powder ball softly, each tap two inches apart, along the length of the blade. I worked carefully, dusting the blade very lightly with the polish. It must be done precisely and rhythmically, so there is something almost soothing about the task. I was far enough from Penny that there was no danger of her inhaling the powder, even when she drew in a deep breath between staves.

“But looks can be deceiving! There is one other thing that can defeat an Undying One. I know, because it got me the first hour I was here in crazyland. And I just found out less than an hour ago, that the same thing can kill living metal, because it happened to the cunning metal weapon sticking through me at the time. And Abby told me all these magical, shape-changing metals operate on the same principle.”

I used a cotton cloth to polish the blade.

“As to where we end up once I get you and the other girls out of here, that I do not know. At this point, I am thinking any place is better than this. See? It will all work out.”

She squinted at me as she sang, and I don’t know if that meant she figured out my plan—which was not all that complicated, really—or if she had not, and was still filled with doubt.

I turned the shining blade to the other side and started tapping it with the little ball of powder.

I turned my head and called to the other slave-girls there. “Hey! Young ladies. If they gave you anything more sturdy to wear, put it on. Shoes? If you have any possessions, gather them up. We are all getting out of here.”

There was a little cooing and murmuring among the teenagers. I could not make out the words, but there were notes of doubt.

“Ladies, ladies! I defeated the big bad abomination, did I not? There he lies in a lump of pain and not one of you even has a splinter! Now get a move on!”

One of the girls stepped forward, knelt and bowed her head to the ground, so her generous cleavage was well displayed a moment before her lovely hair was on the floorstones, and her hips, round and pink as the lobes of a peach, were hoisted aloft behind.

“Master, I am Urad-Betti.”

“Please get off the ground, Betty. I am an American, and we are all equal to everyone else, and a damn sight better than most. Don’t bow to me.”

She straightened up, so that she knelt with her hips over her ankles, her feet tucked under her. She had been trained to sit with her shoulders back, so that the fabric of her tunic strained against the swell of her pert bosom. I put her age at maybe sixteen. Old enough to wear lipstick, and, if her parents were permissive, to stay out until eleven. No later.

“I will kill someone to avenge the indignity done you, Miss,” I said, teeth clenched. I could feel the muscles in my jaw twitching as I ground my teeth together.

She lowered her eyes, unwilling to look me in the face. “By what name shall we worship our master?”

“Don’t call me
master
. It makes you sound like Barbara Eden. My name is Ilya Muromets. As soon as I rescue you damsels in distress, I will officially be a hero. Right now I am just kind of winging it.”

She lowered her head in a bow. “Your maidservant does not understand your words, mast—”

“My first command is that you not call me
master
and stop taking commands! I hereby free you. You are manumitted. All the other girls also. Stop bowing!”

She straightened up, blinking, looking alarmed.

“Sir does not like it?”

Not like what? Having a beautiful girl fawning all over me in a getup skimpy enough to make a Vegas showgirl look overdressed?

All I said was, “Gather your things.”

“We have nothing, sir. We have no possessions to bring.”

I said, “Then loot the place. Do they dress you in jewelry? Gold? Anything like that may be useful where we are going.”

Urad-Betti said, “But where are we going, sir?”

Just at that moment, I heard the noise of wind, and the sound of voices, but no footsteps. I said to Urad-Betti, “I am about to find out myself where we will go. Get the other girls ready. If there is anyone sleeping in the back, wake her up! Prepare everyone. And don’t be afraid! I’ll get those collars off you. I promise.”

I looked up at the ceiling, and whispered, “
Saint Peter Claver! Help me not to fail of that vow
!” Saint Peter Claver is the patron saint of slaves and those who free them.

As I drew my eyes up to breathe that brief prayer, I saw a coffin floating in midair come wafting through the broken balcony where we entered, halfway up the dome, pushing aside music stands and instrument racks.

Abby was sitting atop the coffin, and she waved at me.

The coffin swooped and made a perfect three-point landing next to me. A feeling of dizziness wiggled through my head from the cold issuing from the coffin. I sheathed my blade slowly, and then jumped up and backed away rapidly. “Watch it! Don’t let him get too close to me! Just being near him makes us weak.”

Ossifrage emerged as if from a mist, along with Nakasu the headless giant, and Foster in his white hood and cloak. The crucifix I had loaned them was on the coffin lid, held in place with the copper chain from Abby’s kusarigama encircling the coffin. The long loop of rosary beads swung and rattled from the crucifix.

Abby hopped down. She said, “Who is ‘us’?” She looked at the slave teens not much older than she (who were bustling about), then glanced at Penny (who was still singing) and at Rahab (who was still writhing and drowning silently in a bubble of red-sizzling but invisible water).

I nodded at the quivering form of Rahab. “Him and me. His name is Raw Hate, or something like that. He is one of the Host that Yearns for Death in Vain. I figured this is the best way to fulfill his yearning. Or do the next best thing.”

There came a pounding and a scratching at the coffin lid from the inside, and a voice like ice spoke in Greek. “Release me, that I may slay you all. I feel life, precious life, life like a bonfire near me: I must drink your soul, even if it burn me. I am Vorvolac!
Vorvolac
! None live who know that dread name and fear it not!”

“None live who know that dumb name and can pronounce it,” I shouted back (in rather ungrammatical Greek). “Shut your mouth! We are deciding how much to kill you!”

The icy voice grew even colder. “Fool! You would not have borne me here unless you seek to bargain with me. You will spare me if I serve you, is that it? But why should I trust your oath?”

“I am an honest man,” I said.

“You are not a man at all: you are prey. Can the pigeon cow the raptor into obedience, or the yearling awe the jackal?”

Ossifrage said something in Hebrew, a question.

Abby answered him, saying, “I will be the one to threaten the Cold One. He is as a corpse, and my people can handle corpses.” She drew her green shawl to shadow her head, pulled up my father’s huge crucifix in her hand, and retracted the chain holding the coffin shut.

Penny stopped singing long enough to shout, “Don’t look in his eyes!”

Because her singing was interrupted, the bubble of imaginary water surrounding Rahab popped and spread. (I mean that literally. I felt something cold slosh against my toes, even though I saw nothing.)

Rahab coughed and roared and rose to his hands and knees. I picked up the nearest heavy object at hand — I think it was a vase or a bottle sitting on one of those wee little tables that dotted the garden beneath the pleasure dome — and chucked it into the glass bars right next to Rahab. Shards and fiery garnet sparks shot out, but I was standing far enough away not to be jolted. He wasn’t far enough away, and he stumbled, and fell onto some upjutting blue glass shards that still had some pain inside them.