Songreaver (31 page)

"I wish we had more rope," Marla said.

"Yeah, and if wishes were corpses, the
beggars would eat," Warren said.

"What's left of the floor
might
hold
us," Scupp said with a hopeful smile.

"That or go back," Warren said,
"Garrett?"

Garrett shook his head. "I don't know... I
hate to give up now, but..."

"Then we try it," Diggs said.

The other ghouls shrugged and worked their
way along the wall to where a large portion of the crystal floor
remained, unbroken.

Garrett followed, feeling a sudden wave of
vertigo as he stepped out onto the transparent glass, looking down
through it at the violet floor far below. The clear crystal
squeaked beneath his boots as he walked, a high, piercing sound
that set his teeth on edge. "I don't like this," he said.

"I think we can make it," Diggs said, making
his way further out along the wall where the remains of the old
floor narrowed to only a few inches wide.

"Be careful," Scupp said, following close
behind her brother.

"When am I ever
not
careful?" Diggs
growled, reaching a shaggy claw out to grasp another handhold in
the waxy stone of the wall.

"Whenever you're awake, that's when," Scupp
said.

"You're just jealous o' my climbin' skills,"
Diggs said, lifting himself over a particularly narrow patch of
crystal.

"I'm jealous o' your bein' able to keep
talkin' without havin' to stop to think," Scupp said.

"It's cause I'm so
ela-quint
," Diggs
said.

"Is that what they call it?" Warren grumbled,
taking his first steps out onto the narrow ledge with his face
pressed against the wall.

"You go first this time," Marla said.

Garrett nodded, trying to look down as little
as possible by feeling his way along the ledge with his toes. He
pushed his body against the smooth stone of the wall and made his
way, handhold by handhold, between Warren and Marla. The wind
whistled through the holes in the wall, chilling his damp clothes
until his limbs ached with every exertion.

They were halfway across when the last shards
of the crystal floor gave way beneath them.

Garrett yelled in terror as he fell, sliding
along the curved surface of the violet stone. He caught one glimpse
of the ghouls, digging their iron-hard claws into the soft stone of
the wall, before he disappeared into one of the many large holes in
the violet chamber's floor.

Darkness closed around him as he fell into a
dizzying void of shadow. He had time only to inhale once before his
vision exploded in a universe of stars and then blackness swallowed
him completely.

Garrett's consciousness returned in a gray
haze of hurt. He cried out, trying to feel for his head with his
hands, but his knuckles didn't go where they were supposed to and
scraped against rough stone. He felt as though he were lying back
on a rapidly tilting table, and someone was twisting his head
around on his neck like they were trying to unscrew it from his
body.

Stop it
, he tried to say, but the
words that came out of his mouth sounded more like,
"
Stahbdit
." He blinked, trying to make sense of what he'd
just said. His hands were still having trouble finding his head.
Where were they?

He tried lifting his head, but that only made
it feel like it was spinning in the opposite direction now. He lay
there and blinked again. That he
could
do. A very faint
violet light filled his vision. A rough, stony texture swam before
him, though it could have been inches away from his face, or
yards.

"Garrett!" someone's voice called.

His thoughts focused, catching hold of a
name, and holding onto it for dear life.

"Marla?" he croaked.

Then she was there, leaning over him, two of
her at first, and then just the one as his eyes started working as
partners once again. She looked very worried.

"Garrett, can you hear me?" she cried.

Garrett flinched at the volume of her voice.
"Yeah," he gasped, "not so loud though."

"He's here!" Marla shouted, and Garrett
winced, trying to cover his ears. His hands still weren't working
right though. His thumb went into Marla's ear.

"Sorry," he said.

"Where's
here
at?" Warren's voice
echoed from somewhere far away.

"I don't know," Marla shouted, and Garrett
winced again, "We're somewhere beneath the floor of the
cavern."

"Yeah, I figured that much!" Warren shouted,
"But how do we get to you?"

"Just wait there," Marla shouted, "I'll see
if we can make it back up to you."

"Ow," Garrett said.

"Where does it hurt?" Marla asked, leaning
close.

Garrett took a mental inventory. "My brain,"
he said.

Marla gently felt at the sides of Garrett's
head beneath his hood, working her fingers back behind his
head.

"Ah!" Garrett gasped, "Yeah, that's the
spot."

"Is Garrett all right?" Warren's voice
called.

"He's alive, but he's injured," Marla
shouted.

"I'm fine," Garrett tried to call out, but
raising his voice hurt too much.

"Warren," Marla called, "See if you can climb
out and go back to the pit and cut off the rope that's hanging
below the level of the ledge. Bring it back here when you have
it."

"Right!" Warren shouted.

"Whata you want us to do?" Scupp's voice
called.

"Just stay up there," Marla shouted.

"All right," Diggs shouted.

Garrett tried to lift his head again and
decided that he still wasn't ready for that yet.

"Lie still," Marla said, "You could make it
worse if you move."

"Yeah," Garrett agreed. At least the rock
wall behind Marla had stopped spinning. He could make out that he
was lying in a relatively flat section of a long stone tube, nearly
five feet wide. Various other tubes intersected with it further off
in either direction.

Suddenly Marla stiffened, and her eyes went
wide, looking past Garrett into the shadows of a nearby tunnel
mouth. "Who are you?" she demanded.

"A friend!" a girl's voice answered, a
familiar voice.

Garrett turned his head to see the Girl in
Brown, moving toward them on her hands and knees. He knew her only
as the Girl in Brown, for that was the color of her clothing, and
he had no other name for her. It seemed somehow odd to his
impact-addled brain that he could not recall her real name, but he
knew, somehow, that she was surely an old and dear friend.

"Hi," he said, "What are you doing here?"

The Girl in Brown's eyes widened, and she
froze, her lips parted in astonishment.

"You know her?" Marla asked.

"Yeah, she's a friend of mine," Garrett said,
looking at the Girl in Brown, "but I... can't remember your name
right now. I think I hurt my head."

The Girl in Brown held her hand to her mouth,
trembling, her brown eyes wide and locked on Garrett's face.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yes," she gasped, "Yes."

"Who are you?" Marla asked.

The Girl in Brown ignored the question. "What
are the extent of his injuries?" she asked, scooting forward to
join Marla at Garrett's side.

"He hit his head," Marla said, "His bleeding
has stopped, but I'm concerned about internal injuries. We fell
down from the chamber above."

"I know," the Girl in Brown said, "I saw."
She lifted Garrett's head slightly to feel at the base of his
neck.

"You were following us?" Garrett asked.

The Girl in Brown frowned. "Annalien would be
furious if she knew you were doing this, but I had to follow to
make sure you were all right. You could have gotten yourself
killed, Garrett!"

"You know Annalien?" Garrett asked.

The Girl in Brown nodded. She probed the same
spot that Marla had felt before and was rewarded with an identical
gasp of pain from Garrett.

"Annalien is the ghost, isn't she?" Marla
said.

"Yeah," Garrett hissed.

The Girl in Brown let Garrett's head back
down gently.

"Where do you know this girl from?" Marla
asked, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Garrett thought for a moment. "I... I don't
know," he said.

"But you are certain that she is a friend?"
Marla asked.

The Girl in Brown eyed the vampire girl
warily.

"Yeah," he said, "I'm pretty sure... I just
don't know how I know that."

Marla pursed her lips and fell silent, not
taking her eyes from the Girl in Brown.

"Please tell me your name," Garrett said,
"I'm sorry I forgot it."

The Girl in Brown ignored him and reached
beneath her cloak, fumbling at the clasp of a pouch on her
belt.

"You didn't forget her name, Garrett," Marla
said, "You never knew it."

"What?" Garrett asked.

"She won't tell you her name either," Marla
said, "or, rather, she
can't
."

The Girl in Brown stared at Marla, her face
unreadable, as she pulled a roll of gauze from her kit and began to
thread it under Garrett's neck.

"What are you talking about?" Garrett
asked.

"I only just now put it all together," Marla
said, "It had been bothering me for a long time that I couldn't
remember the details of what happened that day we went to visit the
ghost in the Old City."

Garrett gritted his teeth against the pain as
the Girl in Brown pushed back his hood and began to wrap his head
in bandages, her flawless brown eyes wandering from Garrett to
Marla and her lips tense with silence.

"I remember fighting with the huge spiders in
the old tunnels," Marla said, "but I don't remember how the fight
ended. Honestly, I don't remember anything else after that until we
reached the ghost's lair. It's as though a portion of my memory had
been blotted out. Do you remember anything about that time,
Garrett?"

Garrett thought for a moment. "I don't know.
It was so long ago."

"And I'm fairly certain that, if we asked
Warren, he wouldn't be able to recall anything during that time
either," Marla said.

"What do you mean?" Garrett asked.

"I mean that, whenever this girl is around,
it is impossible for any of us to make new memories," Marla said,
"That is her power... to remain forever forgotten."

The Girl in Brown gave a bitter laugh, but
said nothing.

"Or is it a curse?" Marla asked.

The Girl in Brown looked at Marla for a
moment, and then her eyes fell.

"That doesn't make any sense," Garrett said,
"I mean I remember her... it's a little hazy, but I remember
her."

The Girl in Brown looked down at him with a
small, sad smile. She brushed the tips of her fingers across his
forehead.

"The moment she leaves, you will forget she
ever existed," Marla said.

"Wait," Garrett said, "She said that she
knows Annalien. Maybe ghosts can remember her."

Marla shook her head. "The only way you can
ever remember having met a
Banal
is to know its true
name."

The Girl in Brown flinched.

"A what?" Garrett asked.

"And a
Banal
can never tell anyone its
name," Marla said, "so the ghost must know her from long ago...
when she was sent to..."

"To what?" Garrett said.

"To spy on the humans of Wythr," Marla said,
"This creature was created to be a spy in a war that ended long
before you or I were ever born."

The Girl in Brown glared at Marla, her lips
twitching and her fingers flexing into a fist around the throat of
Garrett's hood.

Garrett lifted his hand to touch the girl's
sleeve. "She's just a girl," Garrett said, "and she's my friend.
That much I remember."

The Girl in Brown looked down at him with a
trembling smile and tears in her perfect eyes. She relaxed her grip
on Garrett's collar and exhaled slowly.

"Hey," Garrett said, "do
you
know the
way to the Chamber of Kings?"

The Girl in Brown looked at him for a long
moment and then nodded. "I can take you there," she said.

****

"Why can't the ghouls come with us?" Garrett
asked as he walked, partially supported between Marla and the Girl
in Brown with his arms draped over their shoulders. His legs had
the strength to walk again, but his sense of balance had yet to
return.

"They could come, but they would surely die,"
the Girl in Brown said.

"How do you know?" Garrett asked.

"Because their instinct would be to fight the
Guardian, and it can't be fought," she said.

Garrett frowned, hating to leave his best
friend behind. Warren
would
want to fight, that was certain.
He hoped that Diggs and Scupp would be able to convince him not to
follow when he got back with the rope. Only Marla's most plaintive
assurances had convinced them wait while Garrett and Marla went on
ahead to scout out a potential lead.

They emerged from the tunnels of stone into a
wide chasm, over which a natural stone bridge stretched to the
other side. Fine veins of glittering gold light twisted through the
black stone walls of the chasm, casting a pale glow over the trio
as they walked.

"How do you know the way?" Garrett asked.

The Girl in Brown chuckled. "I know
everything about this city," she said, "I've been around long
enough."

"How old are you?" Marla asked.

The Girl in Brown hesitated a moment before
responding, "I came to the city shortly after the arrival of the
Songreaver
, when the last elves were still alive."

"They did not all die in the defense of the
city?" Marla asked.

The Girl in Brown laughed. "I suppose they
left that part out of the history books," she said, "The elves
let
him in."

"They surrendered?" Garrett asked.