The Gods Return (41 page)

She didn't have to like the reality of the world—she didn't remember a time she had, save for the brief period when Chalcus and Merota were with her. No one had ever claimed that Ilna didn't accept reality, however.

She didn't look over her shoulder at Usun. If things went as planned, he'd be out of sight anyway.

Ilna smiled again. If things didn't go as planned, she'd be dead very shortly and probably buried in the belly of a ghoul. She supposed she could throw herself over the edge of the chasm to prevent that, but if suicide had had any attraction for her, she wouldn't have survived this long.

If things went wrong, she'd attack the ghoul with the bone-cased paring knife she carried in one sleeve of her tunic. From what Usun had said, its hide was so thick with bony nodules that the little blade probably wouldn't be able to nick him. Still, it was something to do while the creature bit her face off.

Ilna placed the loop precisely on the pathway and straightened. She rather liked the rope. It was of good quality linen, and it'd been wound tight and smoothly. A pity to dispose of it in this fashion, but all things end. The rope presumably didn't care.

She walked on, past the center of the span. The ghoul might be watching her through the falls, though there wasn't any obvious reason why it would keep its attention a secret instead of rushing out to rend and devour her.

"Ghoul!" Ilna shouted. How good was the creature's hearing, anyway? This close, the water snarled as it tumbled down into the gorge. "Come out!"

She had only Usun's word that the ghoul was there. An almost-smile lifted the left corner of her lips. Indeed, she had only Usun's word that there was really a cave behind the waterfall. Well, she'd done far more foolish things in the past than shouting insults at a solid stone wall.

"You visited me!" Ilna said. She took another cautious step. Her eyes were on the waterfall, and to slip here would be more than embarrassing: the chasm was many furlongs deep. "Now I've come to see you, filth-eater!"

The curtain of water shivered aside. The ghoul stepped out, a hulking blackness against the blue shimmer.

"Are you afraid of me, ghoul?" Ilna said. Could the creature even understand speech? It was hard to believe that something so huge and misshapen had ever been human. Usun had been right on everything else he'd said, though.

The ghoul raised its bull-like head and roared, setting the waterfall atremble. Ilna stood where she was. She'd have to retreat shortly, but not just yet.

The ghoul stamped down the path toward his side of the bridge. Its steps were deliberate but as certain as the approach of dawn.

She wondered if she
could
outrun the ghoul. Probably not, since its size would be an advantage in this waste of stone jackstraws. Besides, there was nowhere to run, save to the pocket where Gaur deposited its dead. She wouldn't have a candle to drive the creature away a second time.

Not that it mattered. Ilna wasn't going to run.

The ghoul started across the stone arch. It was walking upright, but it hunched forward as if about to fall onto all fours.

Ilna began backing. She hadn't thought about how she was going to retreat. If a vicious dog was advancing on her, turning her back would draw a charge. She didn't know whether this ghoul would react like a dog, but it was certainly no less a beast.

On the other hand, if Ilna slipped—or tripped over a mound of flow rock—and fell, the ghoul would also rush her. Unless it was laughing too hard. Or unless she simply went over the edge into the chasm, in which case it didn't matter.

The ghoul crossed the centerpoint of the bridge. It seemed even larger than it had when it was close enough to grab her with its long arm.

She wondered if Usun would finish the creature if she was killed. She rather thought he would. The little man projected a sense of single-minded determination that Ilna found comforting.

Ilna stepped into the loop she'd laid in the path, then out of it. She was very close to her side of the chasm.

A stalactite grated over the rim of the gorge. White anger flared across Ilna's mind. She was going to die in a moment or two, but that didn't bother her.

Too soon, you fool! You should have waited!

Instead of uncasing her knife, Ilna knotted a pattern that would ease a troubled mind into sleep. Nothing she did would have any practical effect, so she did what gave her the most pleasure at the moment.

The ghoul dropped onto all fours and sprang like terrier on a vole. It smashed down before her, stinking of a meal that had been rotten before it started to eat, and reached out.

The weight of the stalactite Usun had levered into the gorge with his dagger snatched the rope taut. The loop closed with both the ghoul's feet in it, yanking the creature with it. The bestial face was expressionless, but Ilna thought she saw fury glint in the great eyes.

The ghoul grabbed at the arch as it went over. It was amazingly strong: the clawed forepaws actually plowed furrows in the rock as the stalactite dragged it to its doom.

Ilna crossed her arms and leaned over the edge of the chasm. She couldn't see the bottom. It seemed a very long time before she heard an echoing crunch, followed by a barely audible splash. She smiled in satisfaction.

The little man walked up beside her. The dagger's point was bent up at a sharp angle. He shook his head and tossed the weapon over the sheer cliff.

"With all the gold chasing on the blade," he said, "you'd think they'd have used better steel."

"I'm never surprised to find that people want something flashy rather than something useful," said Ilna. "Though, given that the man who wore that dagger probably never used it for anything in his life, I suppose I shouldn't fault his choice."

She cleared her throat. "Master Usun," she said, "I thought you'd sprung the trap too soon. I apologize."

The little man chuckled. It was probably meant for a laugh, but because he was so small it sounded disquietingly like a titter.

"He was tensing to pounce, mistress," he said. "And there was a good deal of slack in the rope, which I had to allow for. I could have waited some seconds longer and still caught him, of course, but he would've started to eat you."

"Yes," said Ilna. "That's what I think also."

She looked about her. This was as bleak a landscape, so to speak, as she could remember seeing. Not even fungus grew here, and the rocks' odd blue haze added to the feeling of death and ruin.

"We're no closer to getting out of here," she said, "but disposing of that creature was worthwhile. Someone should have done it long since."

"Let's see what we find in the ghoul's lair, Ilna," said Usun, starting across the bridge. His short legs moved so smoothly that he seemed to glide rather than walk. "He wasn't always an animal, you know."

"I'll take your word for it," Ilna said, following him with less deliberate care than she'd needed to use when she was calling out the ghoul. Then she had a task to complete. Now, well . . . . Despite Usun's cheerfulness, it didn't seem to matter whether she starved to death over a matter of weeks or plunged to her death in the gorge considerably sooner.

The track up the rock face on the other side was surprisingly narrow, given that the ghoul had come down it with careless unconcern. Perhaps its claws had gotten purchase on the rock; there were gouges that could have come from that. They roughened the path for Ilna's feet too, so in justice she should feel grateful to the beast. That'd be difficult, but if she lived long enough she might manage.

The waterfall sprang far enough out from the cliff face that only its margin cut the path, splashing away in all directions. The cavern's dead blue light didn't wake a rainbow the way the sun in open air would've done.

Usun paused just short of the spray. The water's impact could sweep somebody his size into the chasm, however strong and skilled they were.

"Here," said Ilna. She tossed him one end of the silk rope she wore in place of a sash. The little man flashed her a grin, then stepped through the curtain without accident.

Ilna followed, feeling the spray plaster her hair to her forehead and neck. It didn't soak through her tightly woven tunics immediately, though it would before long.

She expected the alcove behind the falls to be pitch dark. The cold, blue light was instead more intense than it had been in the main cavern. Its source seemed to be the convex circular lens which leaned against the sidewall. Shadows moved in its depths.

"It's a cyclops' eye," Usun said, looking at the crystal also. Even tilted, it was as tall as Ilna. "There are other things here as well, though I suppose a lot of them have moldered to dust."

He glanced deeper into the alcove. It wormed back deeper than Ilna could follow, narrowing visibly as it twisted away. The floor was deep in slime from which partial rib cages and skulls projected; there seemed to be other artifacts as well.

"He was a great wizard, you know," Usun said. He tittered. "He had to be great to destroy himself so thoroughly."

Ilna stepped over to the crystal. The squelching reminded her that she was walking in filth, but this wasn't the first time. It wasn't deep enough to drag the hem of her tunic, though that wouldn't have stopped her either.

The shadows looked almost
. . . . She bent closer.

"No," said Usun. "Stay at arm's length, but look squarely into the center. That's where it focuses."

Ilna straightened, then leaned back slightly. "That
is
Brincisa!" she said. "In her workroom. And there's Ingens, but he's not moving. Is he alive?"

"Alive, yes," the little man said; on him the slime rose to mid thigh. "But he won't move until a wizard releases him."

He gestured proudly toward the crystal and said, "The Eye doesn't only show images, you know. The ghoul used it as a portal in the days before he succeeded in making himself a deathless thing of death. I could do the same."

"You could walk through this crystal?" Ilna said. Her fingers paused in the pattern they were knotting.

"
We
could walk through the Eye," Usun said. "We could walk straight into Brincisa's sanctum. The ghoul wasn't the only wizard in this cavern, you see."

"Then," said Ilna, "let us do that, if you please. I have business with Mistress Brincisa."

Usun's chant was a high-pitched warble, more like a chorus frog than anything human. Of course Ilna had only the little man's own word for it that he was human.

He continued to trill. Human or not, he didn't look much like a chorus frog.

The surface of the lens rippled like light falling on the dimples that a water-strider's feet make in a pond's surface.

Ilna's fingertips played lightly over the knots in the pattern she held doubled between her hands. She was ready to act as soon as there was something to do. Till then she'd wait.

Usun hadn't marked the cavern floor before commencing to chant. The slime wouldn't hold lines, but he could've floated fabric or wood shavings on the surface if he'd thought he needed something.

Ilna smiled wryly. Normally she'd occupy the time by making and picking out patterns, but she couldn't do that now and still be prepared to face Brincisa. It served her right for using her fingers to control her nervousness.

Instead of an athame or a wand, Usun spun a doubled length of sinew in time with his chant. It had been coiled around his waist, the way Ilna carried her lasso. She wondered how the little man had come to be trapped in the box with his lips sewn shut.

If he really
had
been trapped, of course. Usun wasn't a person to underestimate, though Ilna was confident that they were on the same side. As distressing as she found most of the world and her life, she didn't recall ever having misjudged a person who she had to deal with. Mostly she judged people to be weak, treacherous and stupid, of course, but Usun was an exception.

The little man gave a muted screech and fell silent, though he continued to spin the loop of sinew. Shadows swelled across the crystal, blotting out first the background and then Brincisa herself in the center.

"Now, Ilna," Usun said. He was drawing in deep breaths. "It's prepared. Step through the Eye."

It looks like a slab of polished stone
. . . .

Ilna strode into the crystal. Many handfuls of candles made Brincisa's workroom a flood of light to eyes adapted to the blue dimness of the cave.

Ilna raised her pattern. Brincisa threw her left arm in front of her face; her baggy lace sleeve distorted the knotted fabric that was meant to paralyze her.

Something swished behind Ilna.

Snap!/thunk!

A pebble bounced from Brincisa's scalp. She flung her arms wide and toppled backward. The stone that'd felled her ricocheted off the far wall, breaking a divot from the fresco. It left a spot of blood against the sudden whiteness.

Ilna tucked the pattern into her sleeve and bent over Brincisa, jerking off her belt of braided leather. The strands were dyed black and each had a separate golden nib; despite the ornamentation, it seemed sturdy enough. Ilna flopped the wizard on her belly and tied her wrists securely behind her back with the belt.

Usun hopped onto a table with a top of polished cedar, carried on three bronze legs cast into the form of elongated demons. "My, look at the artifacts of power," he said, surveying the room. "She and Hutton had ages to gather them, of course. Though there's nothing—"