The Dead of Winter- - Thieves World 07 (31 page)

"Stilcho," Ischade said.

Stilcho backed away a pace. Behind him, with a small, terrible smile on his face, Haught held up the lantern. The third scream was the worst of all.

"Maybe you have been suffering too much in my service," Ischade said, as she sliced his soul-shadow too and draped half of it over the branches of a shrub hard by the altar. "Maybe I should let you go back to being quite dead ..." The shrub came out in leaves and little round berries of blackness, trembling.

"We'll talk about it when I come back," said Ischade. She tucked the crumpled shadow into her dark robes. "Mor-am, Haught, guard this spot until an hour before dawn. We won't be coming back this way. Look for us at the house, by the back gate. And don't forget Stilcho's body." She glided over to the altar, lifting the dark-stained sickle again. "Be ready, goddesses."

"What about Tyr?" said Siveni.

"She'll ride this soul," said Ischade. Her hand had fallen on the ram's head again. It looked up at her, and up, and helplessly, up; and Ischade swung the sickle. In the unlight of the dark lantern, the ram's eyes blazed horribly, then emptied, and the black blood gushed out on the altar's white stone. "Now," said Ischade, a slow warm smile in her voice, and reached out to the ewe. Mriga swallowed the little struggling darkness, in horror, and felt it go down fighting like something itself horrified and helpless. Its darkness rose behind her eyes for a moment and roared in her ears. The ewe cried out and bubbled into silence. When her vision cleared, she found herself looking at an Ischade truly dressed in shadows and grinning like one of the terrible gods who avenge for the joy of it, and at a Siveni robed and helmed in dark, only the spearhead bright. Even Tyr had gone black-furred, but her eyes burned as a beast's will when a sudden light in darkness finds them. Tyr threw back her head and howled in good earnest. The earth beneath their feet buckled and heaved like a disturbed thing, as if in answer, and then shrugged away its paving and split.

"Call up your courage," said Ischade softly, "for now you'll need it." And she walked down into the great crack in the earth, into the fuming, sulfur-smelling dark.

Tyr dashed after her, barking; other howls echoed hers, above the earth and below it. Mriga and Siveni looked at each other and followed. Groaning, the earth closed behind them.

Mor-am and Haught looked at each other and swallowed. They did this again later, when the donkey, frightened and hungry past caring, stretched to the end of its tether and started browsing on the nearest shrub. It had shied away when the shrub screamed, and its broken branches began to bleed. The donkey stood there for a while shaking, then looked hungrily over at the next nearest food, a downhanging willow with oddly dark leaves. The willow began to weep....

The road down was a steep one. That alone would make return difficult, if the slope on hell's far side were the same. But Mriga knew there would be other problems, judging by the sounds floating up through the murky darkness. Dim distant screams, and howls of things that were not only dogs, and terrible thick coughing grunts like those of hunting beasts all mingled in the fumy air until the ears ached, and the eyes stung not just from smoke but from trying to see the sounds' sources. For once Mriga was glad of the sharp ozone smell that came of the lightnings crackling about Siveni's spearhead; it was something familiar in the terror. And even if the lightnings were burning blue, they were better than no light at all. Ischade seemed to need no light: she went ahead sure as a cat, always with a slight smile on her face.

The way wasn't always broad, or easy, no matter what the poets said. After a long, long walk down, the sound of their footsteps began echoing back more and more quickly, until Mriga could put out her hands and touch both walls. "Here is the strait part of the course," said Ischade. One after another they had to get down on their knees and crawl-even Siveni, who grumbled and hissed at the indignity. Mriga was used to dirt and had less trouble; though the dank smell, and the way the cold, sour clods of earth seemed to press in against her, made her shudder. Right before her, Tyr's untroubled breathing and little whimpers of excitement were a comfort. At least they were until Tyr began to growl as she crawled.

The tunnel grew smaller and smaller until Mriga had to haul herself along completely flat, and swore she couldn't bear another second of it. The fifth or sixth time she swore that, the echoes suddenly widened out again. Tyr leaped out into the space; Siveni almost speared her from behind in her haste to follow. Tyr was still growling. Ischade stood in the dimness, still wearing that wickedly interested smile. Mriga looked around, dusting herself off, and could see little until Siveni came out and held the spear aloftA growl like an earthquake answered Tyr's. Mriga looked up. Hoary, huge, and bloodstained, filling almost the whole stone-columned cavern where they stood, a Hound crouched, slavering at the sight of them. It was the same Hound that the Ilsigs said ate the moon every month, and sometimes the sun when it could catch it; though usually Ils or Siveni would drive it away. Here, though, the Hound was on its own ground, and Mriga's omniscience informed her that Siveni would be badly outmatched if she tried conclusions with it.

"Aren't you supposed to give it something?" Siveni said from behind Ischade, sounding quite casual, and fooling no one. "A cake, or some such-?"

"Do I own the moon?" Ischade said. "It wouldn't be interested in anything less, I fear." And she stood there in calm interest, as if waiting to see what would happen.

Siveni stared at the Hound. It looked at her out of hungry eyes, growled again, and licked its chops. Where its saliva dripped, the stone underfoot bubbled and smoked.

The answering growl startled Mriga as Tyr shouldered past her and Siveni. "Tyr

!" she said, but Tyr, bristling, walked straight up to the Hound and snarled in its face.

The Hound reared up, its jaws wide....

"Tyr, no!" Siveni cried, and slipped forward, raising her spear. Too late: Tyr had already leapt. But the growling and snarling and roaring that began, the rolling around and scrabbling and biting, didn't have quite the sound any of them expected. And it all stopped quite suddenly to reveal the Hound on its back, its belly showing, its tail between its legs, and Tyr, flaming-eyed, holding it by the throat. It was as if a rabbit held a lion pinned, but the rabbit seemed unconcerned with such details. Tyr snarled again and somehow seized that throat, as wide and heavy as a treetrunk, in her teeth; lifted the Hound and shook it, snarling, as she would have shaken a rat; then flung the whole huge monster away. "Yi, yi, yi, yi, yi!" shrieked the chief of the Hounds of Hell, the Eater of the Sun, as it scrambled desperately to its feet, away from the little dark-furred dog, and ran for the walls. It went right into one, and through it, and was gone.

Tyr panted for a moment, then shook herself all over, sat down, and scratched. Mriga and Siveni stared at each other, then at Ischade. "I don't understand it," Mriga said to her. "Perhaps you do."

Ischade smiled and held her peace. "Well," Siveni said, "she is a bitch ..." Tyr swung her head around-she was washing, with one leg up-and favored Siveni with a reproachful look.

"An extraordinary one," Ischade said, "but still a bitch; and as such no male dog, even a supernatural one, would fight with her under any circumstances. I suppose that even here, dogs will be dogs ... Canny of you to bring her. Shall we go on?" And she swept on into the darkness that the Hound had blocked. Mriga followed, thoughtful.

On down they went, the light of Siveni's spear burning bluer and brighter. The sound of moaning and screaming grew less distant. Goddess or not, Mriga shook. The voices were lifted less in rage or anguish than in a horrible dull desperation. They sounded like beasts in a trap, destined to the knife, but not for ages yet-and knowing it. A horrible place to spend eternity, Mriga thought. For a moment she was filled with longing for her comfortable, dirty hut in heaven, or even for the real thing of which it was the image-the rough hut in the Stepsons' barracks, and her own old hearth, and Harran busy on the other side of it. At least one of us will get out of here, Mriga thought. The sunlight for him, if for no one else.... ,

Siveni glanced over at Mriga with a curious look and opened her mouth, just as Ischade glanced lazily over her shoulder at them. "We're close to the ferry," she said. "I trust you brought the fare?"

Mriga shook her head, shocked. Her omniscience hadn't warned her of this. But Siveni's mouth quirked. She went rummaging about in her great oversized tunic and came out with a handful of money: not modern coin, but the old Ilsigi golden quarter-talent pieces. One she handed to Ischade with exaggerated courtesy, and one to Tyr, who took it carefully in her teeth; another went to Mriga. Mriga turned the quarter over, looked at it, and shot her sister an amused look. The coin had Siveni's head on it.

Ischade took the coin with a courteous nod, drew her cloak about her, and continued down the path. "They will be thick about here," she said as they descended, and the darkness opened out around them. "The unburied may not cross over."

"Neither would we, if we'd left all the preparations to you," Siveni said.

"Trying to make things more 'interesting,' madam?"

"Mind the slope," Ischade said, stepping downward into the shadows and putting her hood up.

The ground was ditch-steep for a few steps, and they came down among shadows that moved, like the struggling scraps of darkness they had swallowed. These shadows, though, strode and slunk and walked aimlessly about, cursing, whining, weeping. Their voices were thin and faint, their gestures feeble, their faces all lost in the great darkness. Only here and there the blue-burning lightnings of Siveni's spear struck sparks from some hidden eye; and every eye turned away, as if ashamed of light, or ashamed to beg for it.

They made their way through the crowd, having to push sometimes. Tyr ranged ahead, her gold piece still in her mouth, snuffing the ground every now and then, peering into this face or that one. Following her, Mriga shuddered often at the dry-leaf brush of naked, unbodied souls against her immortal's skin. No wonder the gods hate thinking about death, she thought, as the ground leveled out. It's an ... undressing ... that somehow shouldn't happen. It embarrasses them. Embarrasses us....

"Careful," Ischade said. Mriga glanced down and saw that just a few steps would take her into black water. Where they stood, and other souls milled, the sour cold earth slanted down into a sort of muddy strand, good for a boat-landing. The water lapping it smoked with cold, where it hadn't rimed the bank with dirty ice. Tyr loped down along the riverbank, pursuing some interesting scent. Mriga looked out across the black river, and, through the curls of mist, saw the boat coming.

It was in sorry shape. It rode low, as if it were shipping a great deal of water-believable, since many of the clinker-boards along its sides were sprung. Steering it along with the oar that is also a blade, was the ferryman of whom so many songs circumspectly sing. He was old and gray and ragged, fierce-looking: too huge to be entirely human, and fanged as humans rarely are. He was managing the blade-oar one-handed. The other held a skeleton cuddled close, its dangling bones barely held together by old, dried strings of sinew and rags of ancient flesh. The ferryman sculled his craft to shore and ran it savagely aground. Ice cracked and clinker-rivets popped, and Mriga and Siveni and Ischade were pushed and crushed together by the press of souls that strained, crying out weakly, toward the boat.

"Get back, get back," the boatman said. He lisped and spat when he talked: understandable, considering the shape his teeth were in. "I've seen you lot before, and you none of you have the fare. And what's this? Na, na, mistress, get back with your pretty eyes. You're alive yet. You're not my type." Ischade smiled, a look of acid-sweet irony that ran icewater in Mriga's bones.

"It's mutual, I'm sure. But I have the fare." Ischade held up the gold quarter talent.

The ferryman took it and bit it. Mriga noticed with amusement that afterward, as he held it up to stare at it, the coin had been bit right through. "All right, in you get," he growled, and tossed the coin over his shoulder into the water. Where it fell ripples spread for a second, then were wiped out by a wild boiling and bubbling of the water. "Always hungry, those things," grumbled the ferryman, as Ischade brushed past him, holding her dark silks fastidiously high. "Get in, then. Mortals, why are they always in such a hurry? Coming in here, weighing down the boat, has enough problems just carrying ghosts. Nah, then! No gods!

Orders from her. You all come shining in here, hurt everyone's eyes, tear up the place, go marching out again dragging dead people after you, no respect for authority, ghosts and dead bodies walking around all over the earth, shameful!

Someone ought to do something ..."

Mriga and Siveni looked at each other. Siveni glanced longingly at her spear, then sighed. Standing in the bows of the boat, Ischade watched them, silent, her eyes glittering with merriment or malice.

"... Never used to be that way in the old days. Live people stayed live and dead people stayed dead. You look at my wife now!-" and the ferryman bounced the skeleton against him. It rattled like an armful of castanets. "Wha'd'ye think of her?"

Siveni opened her mouth, and closed it. Mriga opened her mouth, and considered, and said, "I've never met anyone like her." The ferryman's face softened a little, fangs and all. "There, then, you're a right-spoken young lady, even though you do be a goddess. Some people, they come up here and try to get in this boat, and they say the most frightful rude things about my wife."