Water Sleeps (43 page)

T his stair has no bottom,” I told Goblin. We were puffing badly despite the
direction we were headed. We had passed openings into other caves the stairwell
had pierced. Each appeared to have been visited by human beings sometime in the
past. We discovered both treasures and bone-yards. I suspected Sri Santaraksita,

Baladitya and I could not live long enough just to catalog all the mysteries
buried beneath the plain. And every darned unknown ancient thing I glimpsed in
passing called to me like the sirens of legend.

But Tobo was still ahead of us and seemed deaf to our calling. Perhaps just as
we did not waste time and breath responding to Suvrin and Santaraksita, who kept
calling down to us from ever farther behind. It was my devout hope they would be
smitten by good sense and abandon the pursuit.

Goblin did not respond to my remarks. He had no breath left over.

I asked, “Can’t you use some kind of spell to slow him down or knock him out?

I’m worried. He really can’t be so far ahead that he can’t hear us. Darn!” I had
gotten tangled with the standard. Again.

Goblin just shook his head and kept moving. “He can’t hear.” Puff-puff. “But he
don’t know that he can’t hear.”

Enough said. There was a bottom to the stair. And the Queen of Deceit was
napping down there, with just a whisper of awareness left for manipulating a
cocky, know-it-all boy who had a touch of talent and had taken possession of an
instrument that could become a nasty weapon in the hands of those who would
disarm her and have her slumber continue neverending.

After a while we had to slow down. The unnatural light faded until it became too
weak to provide a reliable forecast of our footing. The occasional breezes
rising past us were no longer cold. And they had begun to bear traces of a
familiar, repugnant odor.

When Goblin caught that smell he slowed way down, worked hard on regaining his
breath before he had to suck that stench down in its full potency. “Been a while
since I’ve come face-to-face with a god,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ve got
what it takes to wrangle one anymore.”

“And what would that be? I never realized that I was in the company of an
experienced god-wrangler.”

“It takes youth. It takes confidence. It takes brashness. Most of all, it takes
a huge ration of stupidity and a lot of luck.”

“Then why don’t we just sit down here and let those sterling qualities carry
Tobo through? Though I confess I’m a little nervous about his supply of luck.”

“I’m tempted, Sleepy. Sorely and sincerely. He needs the lesson.” Troubled,

perhaps even a little frightened, he continued, “But he’s got the pickax and the
Company needs him. He’s the future. Me and One-Eye are today and yesterday.” He
started picking up the pace again, which meant a rapid heightening of the
intensity of my skirmish with the standard.

“What do you mean, he’s the future?”

“Nobody lives forever, Sleepy.”

The burst of speed did not last. We encountered a mist that complicated the
hazards of darkness. The visibility turned nil and the footing became
particularly treacherous for a short person trying to drag a long pole down a
tight and unpredictable stairway. The moist air was heavier than anything I had
experienced since the fogs above the corpse-choked flood that had surrounded
Jaicur during the siege.

A chilling shriek came from far back up the stair. My mind flooded with images
of horrors pouncing gleefully upon Suvrin and Master Santaraksita.

The shriek continued, approaching faster than any human being could possibly
descend that stairway. “What the hell is that?” Goblin snapped.

“I don’t—” The shrieking stopped. At the same time, I stepped down and there was
no more down to step. I staggered, betrayed by the darkness. The Lance banged
into overhead and wall. We had reached another landing, I assumed, until I felt
around with my toes and the standard and could find no more edge. “What do you
have over there?” I asked.

“Steps behind me. A wall to the right that goes forward about six feet, then
ends. All level floor.”

“I’ve got a wall on the left that just keeps going on and a level floor. Gah!”

Something slammed into my back. I had only an instant of warning, the sound of
wings violently flapping as a large bird tried to stop before it hit.

The white crow cursed as it landed on the floor. It flopped around for a moment,

then started climbing me. That would have been a sight, I am sure, had there
been any light to reveal it.

I fought down an impulse to bat the creature into the darkness. I hoped it was
here to help. “Tobo!”

My voice rolled away into the distance, then came back in a series of echoes.

The heavy air seemed to load those up with despair.

The boy did not answer but he did move. Or something moved. I heard a rustle
from less than twenty feet away.

“Goblin. Talk to me about this.”

“We’ve been blinded. By sorcery. There’s light out there. I’m working on getting
our sight back. Give me your hand. Let’s stick together.”

The crow murmured, “Sister, sister. Walk straight ahead. Look bold. You will
pass through the darkness.” Its diction had improved dramatically over the past
year. Maybe that was because we were so much closer to the force manipulating
the bird.

I felt around for Goblin, grabbed hold, pulled, dropped the standard, picked it
up and pulled again. “All right. I’m ready.”

That crow knew what it was talking about. After a half dozen steps we transited
into a lighted ice cavern. Make that comparatively lighted. Dim, grey-blue light
leaked in through translucent walls as though it was high noon just on the other
side of a few feet of ice. Much more light radiated from the vicinity of the
woman asleep on a bier at the center of the vast chamber, some seventy feet
away. Tobo stood halfway between us and it, looking backward, completely
surprised to see us there and equally baffled as to where there might be.

“Don’t you move, boy,” Goblin snapped. “Don’t you even take a deep breath until
I tell you it’s safe to do so.”

The form on the bier was a little fuzzy, as though surrounded by heat shimmer.

And in spite of that, I knew the woman lying there was the most beautiful
creature in the world. I knew that I loved her more than life itself, that I
wanted to rush over there and drink deeply of those perfect lips.

The white crow sneezed in my ear.

That certainly took the edge off the mood.

“Where have we seen all this before?” Goblin asked, voice dripping sarcasm. “She
must be awfully weak or she’d pluck something better from our minds than a
replay of an old Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. There isn’t a castle built like
this anywhere south of the Sea of Torments.”

“A castle? What? What castle?” The word for castle did not exist in Taglian or
Jaicuri. I knew it meant a kind of fortress only because I had spent so much
time exploring the Annals.

“We seem to be inside the keep of an abandoned castle. There’re dormant rose
creepers all over the place. There’re tons of cobwebs. In the middle of
everything is a beautiful blonde woman lying in an open casket. She just begs to
be kissed and brought back to life. The part that always gets ignored, and that
our ungracious hostess has overlooked here, is that the bitch in the story
almost certainly was a vampire.”

“That isn’t what I see.” Carefully, detail by detail, I described the ice cave
and the absolutely not blonde woman I saw lying upon a bier at its center. While
I spoke. Goblin finally worked some subtle spell on Tobo that kept him too
confused to move.

Goblin asked, “Do you remember your mother, Sleepy?”

“I vaguely recall a woman who might have been. She died when I was little.

Nobody talked about her.” We did not need to go into this. We had work to do
right here, right now. I hoped he got that message from my tone and expression.

“What do you want to bet that what you’re seeing is an idealized vision of your
mother charged up with a whole lot of sexual come-hither.”

I did not argue. That might be. He knew the artifices of darkness. I did keep
moving forward slowly, closing in on Tobo.

“Which would mean that up close and quickly, she doesn’t have a real good
connection with what’s outside her.” Two decades ago it had become clear that
Kina did not think or work well in real time, that she did best when she applied
her influence over years rather than minutes. “I’m too old to be snared by
temptations of the flesh and you’re too unsexed and undefined.” He grinned
weakly. “The kid, on the other hand, is at that age. I’d give a toe or two to
see what he sees. Ruff!” He gestured. Tobo collapsed like a wet sock. “Grab the
hammer. Hang onto it hard. Don’t get any closer to her than you absolutely have
to. Drag Tobo back to the doorway.” He sounded old and hollow and possessed by a
despair that he did not want to share.

“What’s going on, Goblin? Talk to me.” This was a situation where we ought not
to keep dangers to ourselves.

“We’re face-to-face with the great manipulator who’s been disfiguring our lives
for twenty-five years. She’s very slow but she’s far more dangerous than
anything we’ve faced before.”

“I know that.” But my reaction was elation. My spirits soared. All my hidden
doubts, kept so carefully submerged for so long, now seemed trivial, even silly.

This lovely creature was no god. Not like my God is God. Forgive me my weakness
and my doubts, O Lord of Hosts. The Darkness is everywhere, and dwells within us
all. Forgive me now, when the hour of my death stares me in the face.

In Forgiveness He is Like the Earth.

I grabbed hold of Tobo’s arm and yanked him upright. I clutched him as tightly
as I gripped the standard. He would not break away easily. Disoriented, he did
not struggle when I pulled him back from the sleeping form.

I averted my eyes. She was beauty incarnate. To gaze upon her was to love her.

To love her was to dedicate oneself to her will, to lose oneself within her. O
Lord of the Hours, watch over and guard me in the presence of the spawn of
al-Shiel.

“I need the pickax, Tobo.” I tried not to think about why I wanted that unholy
tool. At this distance Kina might be able to pluck that right out of my mind.

Moving slowly, Tobo removed the pick from under his shirt and handed it over.

“Got it!” I told Goblin.

“Then get going!”

As I started to do that, Suvrin and Santaraksita, gasping violently, stumbled
into the light. Both froze, staring at Kina. In soft awe, Suvrin declared, “Holy
shit! She’s gorgeous!”

Master Santaraksita seemed to be experiencing some confusion as he stared.

Suvrin started forward, drooling. I popped him in the funny bone with the dull
end of the pick head. That not only got his attention, it relaxed his
overwhelming interest in Kina. “Mother of Deceivers,” I told him. “Mistress of
Illusion. Turn around. Get the boy out of here. Take him back to his mother.

Sri, don’t make me hurt you, too.”

Something like a bit of mist rose from and hovered over the sleeping woman’s
mouth. For an instant it seemed vaguely man-shaped, which reminded me of afrits,

the unhappy ghosts of murdered men. Millions of such devils could be at Kina’s
beck.

“Run, goddamnit!” Goblin said.

“Run,” the crow told me.

I did not run. I got hold of Santaraksita and started pulling.

Goblin was talking to himself, something about wishing he had had the good sense
to steal One-Eye’s spear if he was going to get himself into something like
this.

“Goblin!” I heaved the standard. It was not my intent that it do so, but it
stood straight up and bounced a couple of times on its butt before it tipped
forward and fell into the little wizard’s eager hands. He turned with it as the
illusions surrounding Kina evaporated.

I f Kina was ever human, if any of the countless forms of myth regarding her
creation indeed resembled fact, a lot of work had gone into making her big and
ugly.

She is the Mother of Deceivers, Sleepy. The Mother of Deceivers. That great
hideous form covered with pustules from which infant skulls suppurated could no
more be the true aspect of Kina than the sleeping beauties had been.

The stench of old death became powerful.

I stared at the body, now lying upon the icy floor. It was the dark purple-black
of the death-dancer of my dreams but it dwarfed Shivetya. It was naked. Its
perfect female proportions distracted from the ten thousand scars that marred
its skin. It did not move, not even to breathe.

Another feather of vapor rose from one huge nostril.

“Get the fuck out of here!” Goblin shrieked. He jerked to the right suddenly,

the Lance of Passion darting toward some target I could not see. The Lance’s
head burned like it was covered by flickering alcohol flames.

A huge, unheard scream tore at my mind. Suvrin and Master Santaraksita moaned.

Tobo squealed. The white crow unleashed a random stream of obscenities. I am
sure I contributed to the chorus. As I kicked and punched the others to get them
going, I realized that my throat was raw.

Goblin whirled back to his left, thrusting at the wisp of mist that had left
Kina’s nostril a moment before.

Once again pale blue fire surrounded the head of the Lance. This time it ran a
foot up the shaft before it faded. This time the Lance’s head betrayed
penstrokes of dark ruby glow along its edges.

Another wisp of the essence of Kina rose from her nose.

There was no darkness or mist hiding the entrance now. Kina’s focus was
elsewhere. Suvrin and Santaraksita were on the stair already, wasting breath
babbling about what they had seen. I slugged Tobo up side the head with all the
force I could muster. “Get out of here!”

When he opened his mouth to argue, I popped him again. I did not want to hear
it. I did not want to hear anything. Not even a divine revelation. It could
wait. “Goblin! Get your sorry butt in motion. We’re out of the way.”

The third wisp impaled itself upon the Lance’s head. This time the fire crept
two yards up the shaft, though it did not seem to affect the wood directly.

However, this time the Lance’s head became so hot that shaft wood in contact
with it began to smolder.

Goblin started to back down but another wisp rose and drifted faster than he
moved, getting between him and the stair. He thrust at it a few times but each
time he did, it drifted out of reach. It continued to control his path of
retreat.

I am no sorceress. Despite a life spent in the proximity of wizards and witch
women and whatnot, I have no idea how their minds work when they are involved
with their craft. So I will never be clear on what thought process led Goblin to
make his decision. But from having known the man most of my life, I have to
conclude that he did what he did because he believed it was the most effective
thing that he could do.

Having failed to skewer the wisp, having noted that a second had appeared and
had begun to circle him from the opposite direction, the frog-faced little man
just whirled, lowered the head of the Lance and charged Kina. He let out a great
mad bellow and drove the weapon through the flesh of an arm and into her ribs
below her right breast. And just before the weapon struck home, one wisp flung
itself in front, trying to block the thrust. The Lance’s head was ablaze when it
pierced demonic flesh.

The second wisp set Goblin aflame.

Even screaming, telling me to get out, Goblin continued to heave against the
Lance, driving it deeper into Kina, possibly in some mad, wild hope of
penetrating her black heart.

The blue flame feasted on Goblin’s flesh. He let go of the Lance, threw himself
to the icy floor, rolled around violently, slapping at himself. Nothing helped.

He began to melt like an overheated candle.

He screamed and screamed.

On that psychic level where I had sensed her moments earlier, Kina also screamed
and screamed and screamed. Suvrin and Santaraksita screamed. Tobo screamed. I
screamed and staggered into the stairwell, retreating despite the urging of that
mad part of me that wanted to go back and help Goblin. And there could have been
no greater madness than that. The Destroyer ruled the cavern of her
imprisonment.

Goblin had struck a fierce blow but in truth, its impact was no greater than the
nip of a wolf cub at the ear of a dozing tiger. I knew that. And I knew that the
cub, caught, was trying to buy time for the rest of its pack.

I gasped, “Tobo, go ahead as fast as you can. Tell the others.” He was younger,

he was faster, he could get there long before I could.

He was the future.

I would try to keep anything from coming up the stair behind him.

The screaming continued down below, from both sources. Goblin was being more
stubborn than ever he had been with One-Eye.

We climbed as fast as Master Santaraksita could manage. I stayed behind the
other two, already ready to turn and put the unholy pickax between us and any
pursuit. I was convinced that the power of that talisman would shield us.

Darkness no longer inhabited the stair. Visibility was much better than it had
been when we came down. So good, in fact, that had there been no landings to
break up the line of sight, we would have been able to look up the stairs for a
mile.

I was gasping for breath and fighting leg cramps before the screaming stopped.

Suvrin had collapsed once already, losing what little his stomach contained.

Master Santaraksita seemed the hardiest of us now, without a complaint to his
name, though he was so pale I feared his heart would betray him before long.

As we fought for breath I stared downward, listening to the ominous silence.

“God is Great.” Gasp. “There is no God but God.” Gasp. “In Mercy He is Like the
Earth.” Gasp. “He Walks with Us in All Our Hours.” Gasp. “O Lord of Creation, I
Acknowledge that I am Your Child.”

Master Santaraksita had enough spare breath to chide, “He’s going to get bored
and find something else to do if you don’t get to the point, Dorabee.”

“How’s this?” Gasp. “Help!”

“Better. Much better. Suvrin! Get up.”

The white crow arrowed up the stairwell, nearly bowled me over landing on my
shoulder. I did make the process more difficult by trying to duck the arriving
bird. It lashed my face with flapping wings. “Climb,” it said. “Slowly, without
panic. Steadily. I will watch behind you.”

We climbed for five or ten days. Hunger nagged me. Terror and lack of sleep made
me see things that were not there. I did not look back for fear of seeing
something terrible closing in. We moved slower and slower as the effort devoured
our energies and will, and our capacity for recovery. It became a major trek and
an act of ultimate will to climb from one landing to the next. Then we began
resting between landings, though neither Suvrin nor Santaraksita ever suggested
it.

The crow told me, “Stop and sleep.”

No one argued. There are limits to how far and hard terror can drive anyone. We
found ours. I collapsed so fast I later claimed I heard my first snore before I
hit the stone of the landing. I was only vaguely aware of the crow launching
itself into the darkness, headed downward again.