Working God's Mischief (69 page)

She kept moving as she chattered, as briskly as she thought they dared. Her speech seemed awfully slow.

Time constantly moved a little faster as they neared their goal.

*   *   *

Lord Arnmigal was so focused on being wary of supernatural pitfalls that he was not ready for more mundane dangers. Blessed be, he had the candle in hand rather than a blade when he stepped past a drunkenly leaning column and collided with an equally startled, bug-eyed little boy. A girl of the same age, size, and mien slammed into the boy's back.

Hourli hissed a warning, too late. It would have been too late ten seconds earlier. Those children were in full charge mode, headed out to lay an ambush, unaware that invisible invaders were closer already than those they had been sent to murder.

Disarming them took but seconds. The children abandoned bellicosity instantly. They became completely pliable. The Widow caught up just then, and was amazed by the effect of the candle—which lost most of its impact once five souls crowded the space it warped. Lord Arnmigal was surprised by the gentle sympathy she showed the children, then recalled that she had her own she probably felt guilty about having deserted.

He felt guilty himself—and his children were growing into their adult lives.

The Widow said, “I have them. Go ahead on.”

*   *   *

Kedle's
in loco
lasted only as long as it took her to find Brother Candle. She passed the twins along. The Perfect got no chance to refuse. He got the children and the Widow got back to sniffing after fresh blood.

*   *   *

Hourli eased past Lord Arnmigal, spear poised. “Stay close. And don't step on my heels.” She was a hound on track. The cock of her head said she heard directions to which everyone else was deaf.

The Widow caught up somehow. The candle's field had degraded seriously. Lord Arnmigal put down an urge to shove her out and run.

She had worth. She was receiving intelligence from elsewhere, too, he presumed from Aldi.

They pushed ahead. He failed to notice the move but the hammer was in his hand when they met the waiting dead. It flicked. The heads of dead sorcerers exploded, becoming dust and bone chips adrift in the moonlight. Heartsplitter glittered in Hourli's hands. Once-fallen Ansa braves went down once again and returned to their rest. The spear groaned softly, like a woman trying to keep the kids from overhearing evidence of her culminating intimate moment. Witnesses outside the candle's glow would have missed the destruction. It happened too fast.

Even inside the candlelight it happened blindingly quick.

Meanwhile, the ground indulged in slow rolls with an orchestral accompaniment of lesser vibrations, like something vast was drawing a long first breath.

Time to move a little faster.

Lord Arnmigal's foot did not want to come off the ground. Suddenly, he was slogging through what acted like deep muck. Moments earlier the footing had been barren, slightly tilted stone.

He was ankle deep in dust deliberately clinging like mud, clumping on his calves and ankles.

Bone chips sparkled within that dust, reflecting moonlight.

The dead Ansa, at least, had lain down, abandoning the fight forever.

“Keep moving, you.” Hourli sliced the dust with Heartsplitter's edge, weakening its power to clump dramatically.

Someone or something not far off definitely was not pleased.

The earth shuddered more vigorously.

Hourli positioned herself on Lord Arnmigal's right, caught his elbow, slowed him slightly. Heartsplitter darted into and sliced an unnatural clot of darkness. Lord Arnmigal hoisted the hammer. It did not feel unnatural to use his left hand.

The darkness parted. He looked into a room he had visited years ago. Old Az had stood where Hourli did now. Bone had been on his left with a ready crossbow. The room had been home to fox families that had lived and squabbled there for ages, filling the place with an eye-watering stench. The Sha-lug had surprised them there in the holy of holies of Asher's cult.

There were no foxes now. The fetor was gone. There had been one time-gnawed altar back then. Another had been added recently, crudely built from piled stone. A dried-up husk of an old man half sprawled, half sat amidst masses of rags once worn by people whose bones now lay scattered all round. Gnawed bones.

Carrion stench had replaced that of fox.

The shard of time the candle shaped was small. Time within was moving faster now but still dragged enough to let Lord Arnmigal see everything and fix it in mind before darkness slammed down again. He flung the hammer Bonecrusher. It groaned, produced a dry
thunk,
then a
thud!
of collision with stone, and, finally, a stinging
thwack!
as its haft slapped back into his open hand.

Hourli used Heartsplitter during Bonecrusher's flight. The spear reached and reached, extending in a violet shimmer providing just enough light to show the Dreangerean being lucky again. He dodged the hammer well enough to suffer only a passing blow to his right clavicle, not fatal but enough to stifle that one arm. He also twisted so that Heartsplitter only scored his ribs instead of living up to its name.

He howled in pain and rage.

The violet light went away, but then the darkness flickered and went out as er-Rashal lost the ability to quell the light.

Lord Arnmigal prepared to throw again. Hourli shifted Heartsplitter for an overhand strike in the classic fashion.

Despite tonight's abuse and his previous debility er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen rose halfway up, climbing an old serpent staff he had brought out of Dreanger. His face was ghastly pale, twisted in disbelief. He could not fathom how this had come upon him—till he acknowledged the hand of the Night, and no faction of that which aspired to delight er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen.

A snake-dagger appeared in his left hand, blade its body and head its pommel. Its eyes burned, one lemon, the other a deep lilac rose. He extended that pommel toward his uninvited guests. Those eyes waxed brighter.

Bonecrusher flew. Heartsplitter thrust. Blinding light burst from those demon eyes.

But Death chose to avert its gaze from everyone.

The earth heaved ferociously at the critical instant.

*   *   *

The Dead City shook to a grandfather of an earthquake. Everything standing began to come apart. Brother Candle, minutes after having taken custody of the Ansa twins, went down hard. The youngsters helped him up, showing reverence as they did so.

He began a prayer to the Good God on their behalf. There was no point trying to flee the epic disaster about to come.

*   *   *

Kedle hustled, determined to rejoin Lord Arnmigal. Her leg did not hurt. The pain dwindled when she was sufficiently engaged. Then Hope was beside her, pleasantly warm despite the heat of the Idiam. She hissed, “Get thee down and cling to the ground, dear one. Now!”

The earth began to stir.

*   *   *

Pellapront Versulius. Pella wondered how he had come to have the same name as a fictional character. He wondered what had become of the blood sister he had not seen since he ran into the man he now called father. Would his life echo Piper Hecht's when his own lost older sister resurfaced several decades down the road?

His past seldom occupied him. Mostly he did not care. Other than Alma, whose comforting arms he did recall fondly, there were few good memories. There were plenty from the years with Piper and Anna and the girls. But sometimes, when the waiting stretched, he could not help sliding off into bouts of wondering.

He did that while leaning on a ready falcon, trying to stay awake. That was a struggle common to the company. A plague of drowsiness had set in.

Then the ground heaved. Parts of the bluff slid down. Left of where he had been told to expect it a huge head began to emerge, shedding stone and adobe. It was a black of a sort that devoured light. It leaned back to consider the moon.

The falconeers did not stand around with their thumbs in, gawking. Weapons not charged with godshot fired immediately, whatever direction they were laid. Those properly charged quickly shifted and ranged—and the first to declare spoke fewer than forty seconds after the Mountain opened its womb.

Godshot hit the revenant at the nape of the neck. Two balls passed through what in a human would have been the brain stem. They exited through a piggish right nostril. The rest rattled around inside the devil.

It continued to emerge from the earth, ever more spastic, while trying to face the roaring that presaged its pain. Moonlight splashed an ugly, apish face drawn in both amazement and agony.

Gods were beyond challenge. Gods were the
source
of pain, not its object. That was the supernatural order. That was the Tyranny of the Night.

Crews stricken shaky by the magnitude of the demon nevertheless adjusted their aim. Another falcon bellowed. Shot hit the rising form with a wet, resounding
splat!
The demon swayed, groaned louder than any falcon's shout. It freed a seven-clawed hand, reached for one of the nasty mortal engines. The soil around the devil, though hard to see in the moonlight, shivered, danced, boiled.

Every falcon with a clear sight line fired during the next twenty seconds. The Asher revenant was too close to miss. One blast tore the reaching hand off between wrist and elbow.

*   *   *

Nassim was ashamed. He suffered from a terror so deep that he clung to Old Az in a ferocious, moments-from-death hug. His faith had been murdered. The demon shrieked like a mortally wounded war elephant. It leaned toward its attackers, head lolling as though it was about to come loose altogether. The severed hand hit the ground with the impact of a man-size tombstone. The demon bellowed again, then grew a new hand equipped with even more daddy-longlegs fingers. It snatched up a falcon, pulled it in for examination.

Pella's falcon spoke again. Silver-plated grapeshot hit the monster in the face. The meaty
splat!
was plain even to ears that had been near a falcon. Gangrenous pocks spotted that face. Parts melted, dripped away. The monster began to subside. The falcon it had meant to study dropped from its hand. A brace of unfortunate gunners fell with it.

Then the great face resumed rising and regaining its ugly original form.

Falcon doctrine was set. It was fixed, established, and acknowledged by the men who served the weapons. They pursued doctrine ruthlessly, now. Every weapon able to bear fired as briskly as it could. Those without a clear sight line moved to find one. Once godshot charges ran out crews used what they had. No Instrumentality had yet shown itself fully immune to physical law.

Every hit weakened the monster. That was the design. But it kept pulling itself together. Its enemies grew weaker each time it did.

Several invaders collapsed, too weak to go on. Rates of fire declined. The falconeers worked slower and slower.

A timely salvo melted more godstuff. The emerging Instrumentality stopped moving.

And the night filled with shrieks.

*   *   *

In Asher's salad days the Choosers of the Slain would have been hornets to his tiger. Asher revenant was a shadow of the horror that had been. Its strange flesh sagged under the weight of the godshot it had absorbed. The poison of all that never stopped poisoning.

The flow of stolen life energy ceased.

And the Choosers, fattened in the Wells of Ihrian, went for the devil's eyes. Other Shining Ones, equally well fed, followed on, wielding weapons gleaned from the Great Sky Fortress. They hammered, stabbed, slashed, and strangled. Seldom before had Instrumentalities ever joined in so malevolent, deliberate a plan to destroy another major Instrumentality for all time and ever, in all the worlds.

*   *   *

Lord Arnmigal and Hourli each lost their footing twice because the earth would not lie quiet. Both were down, facing a Rascal trying to get to his feet, when Hope and the Widow arrived. The latter tripped. She fell forward onto Hourli's back. Hope had no trouble staying upright. She charged the bug-eyed sorcerer, who recognized her as a serious Instrumentality targeting him for some extremely special attention.

Er-Rashal squealed the first word of some prayer, invocation, or spell. Hope blurred. Her hands clamped on his throat.

The gale generated by Hope's sudden movement extinguished Lord Arnmigal's time candle. Almost anticlimactically, from his point of view, er-Rashal's head popped off.

What?

The pretty girl had a grip that savage?

A man might ought to keep that in mind and not get on her bad side.

Reality wavered. Lord Arnmigal heard the roar of falcons. He had not, before. Their bellowing lasted a short while, then was replaced by the shrieks of Fastthal and Sprenghul. Other Shining Ones added their own ferocious commentary.

*   *   *

The confrontation between Instrumentalities ended before Lord Arnmigal and the Widow climbed back high enough to see the slag heap that had wanted to become Asher renewed. Aldi and Hourli had gone ahead, joining the assault by skipping the space between.

The Instrumentality carcass resembled newly excreted magma. Heat boiled off. Scarlet winked through cracks in its crispy black crust. Nearly invisible little Instrumentalities cavorted around the heap, jubilant. The monster would never claim dominion.

Lord Arnmigal settled on a broken block as close as the heat would allow, ignored the celebrating demons. He tapped the earth with the end of a broken Ansa spear, lost in thought.

Hourli, still in Helspeth guise, settled beside him, nearer than what was appropriate for the Empress's reputation. “She knows I'm not her.” Meaning the Widow had seen more than she should.

He shrugged. Aldi would handle it. An errant bit of curiosity: how come nobody ever asked why Lady Hilda stayed in Vantrad instead of sticking with her Empress?

“That was some all-time weird shit,” Pinkus Ghort mused, from behind Lord Arnmigal. He took a long pull off a fresh wineskin.