The River of Shadows (71 page)

Alyash crashed away into the darkness, blind with pain, sweeping through the white ropes like curtains. The others charged in pursuit. Cayer Vispek and Neda managed to grab him after thirty feet or so, but it took the whole party to calm him down. “He was cutting extra notches,” said the older Turach. “He was afraid you weren’t marking the trail well enough. I was about to say something when he slashed one of them fat yellow globs, and it exploded!
Credek
, I breathed that powder in myself, it burns like thundersnuff!”

“I breathed it too,” said Ibjen. “What is thundersnuff?”

“Something not to be toyed with,” said Hercól, “like the things that grow in this place. You are a fool, Alyash. Were you hacking any fungus in your path, or did you choose that one because it resembled a sack fit to burst?”

Alyash’s eyes were streaming. “It stings, damn it—”

“You’ll be lucky if the spores do only that,” said Bolutu.

Alyash screamed at him: “What’s that supposed to mean, you damned bookish fish-eyed doctor to pigs?”

With rare fury, Bolutu retorted: “These
fish eyes
see more than the little oysters in your face! I know! I had to use them for twenty years!”

They were still bickering when Lunja gave a cry. “Indryth! Indryth is gone!” She was speaking of one of her comrades, a Masalym soldier.

“He was right beside me!” shouted another. “He can’t have gone far!”

“Fan out,” said Hercól. “Watch one another, not the forest alone. And do not take a single step beyond the torchlight!” Then he whirled. “Gods, no! Where is Sunderling? Where is Big Skip?”

“Myett!” cried Ensyl. “She was with him, on his shoulder!
Spiraké!
Myett, Myett!”

Three of their number had suddenly, silently vanished. The others turned in circles, casting about for foes. But there was nothing to be seen but the brilliant spots and stripes and whorls on the fungus.

Then came a sickening sound of impact, not five feet from Pazel. A fungus like a glowing brain had suddenly been crushed, splattering all of them with slime. Out of the remains of the mushroom rolled Big Skip, both hands at his neck, barely able to breathe. Clinging desperately to his hair was Myett.

Big Skip’s hand came away from his neck holding six feet of slippery white tendril, writhing like a snake. With a tortured gasp he hurled it away.

“A worm,” gagged Myett. “One of those dangling tendrils. It snatched him up by the throat. I was pinned against his neck, but my sword-arm was free, and I managed to saw through the thing. It was lifting us higher and higher.” Her eyes found the dlömu. “Your clan-brother is dead. Many worms seized his limbs; they were fighting over him. I am sorry. They tore him to pieces before my eyes.”

The dlömic soldiers cursed, their faces numb with shock. Big Skip drew an agonized breath. He did not look badly hurt, but he was frightened almost out of his wits. “Lost my knife, my knife—”

“You’re safe now, Sunderling,” said Hercól. At these words Jalantri actually giggled, earning him a furious stare from his master. Jalantri dropped his eyes, chastened, but a smile kept twitching on his face.
What’s wrong with him?
thought Pazel.
Is
that
all the discipline they’re taught?

But Jalantri wasn’t alone in looking strange. The younger Turach kept glancing to the right, as though catching something with the corner of his eye. And Ibjen was staring at an insect on a frond, as though he had never seen anything more fascinating.

“Never mind your knife, Sunderling,” said Hercól. “We’ll find you a club. You showed us what you can do with one when we fought the rats.”

Big Skip stared up into the darkness. “The rats were easy, Hercól.”

They marched on. The gigantic trees were more numerous now. Pazel had barely cleared the slime from his face when the next torch died.

“Stanapeth!” hissed Alyash. “How much farther have we got to march into this hellish hole?”

Hercól did not answer, but Pazel heard him searching carefully for the matches. Pazel realized that his heart was still racing exceptionally fast. It was not just the heat, he realized—the darkness, the darkness was worse. It had begun to affect him like something tangible, like a smothering substance in which they could drown. Suddenly he thought of the Master Teller’s strange words to him in Vasparhaven:
You need practice with the dark
. Surely this was what the old dlömu had meant. But the Floor of Echoes had done him no harm, and the last encounter had even been wonderful.

Perhaps that was the point: that the darkness could hide joyful things as well as danger, love as well as hate and death. Yet when he had reached for that woman with love she had vanished, and the world they’d supported between them had been destroyed.

The third torch lit. Hercól looked at Alyash. “We should arrive within the hour, to answer your question. That will leave us three torches to return by, if our work goes swiftly.”

“Our work is the killing of a deadly foe,” said Cayer Vispek. “It may not be swift at all.”

“Then we will find which of these mushrooms best holds a flame,” said Hercól.

Off they started again. The ground descended, slowly; the water gurgling underfoot sounded nearer the surface. The heat, if possible, grew more intense; Pazel felt as if he were entangled in steaming rags. His leg throbbed worse than ever, and now he let Thasha support him, though walking together was hard on such treacherous ground.

“We have to stop and clean that wound,” she said.

“Not when we’re this close,” he replied.

“Stubborn fool,” she whispered. “All right, then, tell me something: your Master-Word. The one that
blinds to give new sight
. Could it help us, when the torches run out? Could that be the sort of thing it was meant for?”

Pazel had expected the question. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry, Thasha, but I’m sure it’s not. Ramachni said I’d have a feeling, when the time was right. And it feels completely wrong, here—like it would be a disaster, in fact. I don’t think it’s about
literal
blindness.”

“Ah,” she said. “I see.”

He could hear the effort she was making, trying not to sound crushed by his answer. She was desperate. The thought jabbed him like a splinter, much harder to ignore than the pain in his leg. And that was love, surely: when you could stand your own suffering but not another’s.

Neeps fell into step beside them. “Listen,” he said, “there’s something wrong with me.”

Pazel turned to him, alarmed. “What’s the matter, Neeps? How do you feel?”

“Easy, mate,” murmured Neeps. “It’s probably nothing, just … well, damn it! I keep hearing
her.
”

“Her?” said Thasha. “Do you mean … 
Marila
?”

“Blary right,” said Neeps, shaken. “And someone else, too, with her. Some man. He’s laughing at her, or at me.”

Thasha touched his forehead. “You’re not feverish. You’re just worked up, probably.”

“I think it’s Raffa,” whispered Neeps, almost inaudibly.

Raffa was the person Neeps hated most in Alifros: his older brother, who had let him be taken away into servitude by the Arquali navy rather than pay the cost they demanded for his release. “I know it isn’t real,” he said, “but it
sounds
so real. Pazel, Thasha—what’s happening to me? Am I losing my mind?”

“No!” said Thasha. “You’re exhausted, and hungry, and sick of the dark.” She slapped his cheek lightly. “You stay awake, and calm, do you hear me? Pretend we’re in fighting-class back in the stateroom. And what’s the rule in class, Neeps? Tell me.”

“I obey you,” said Neeps, “like you obey Hercól.”

“That’s right. So obey me, and stop listening to voices you know are just in your head.” She leaned close to him, and sniffed. “And if we get another chance, wash your face. You smell
sour
. You must have got into something different from the rest of us.”

Neeps sniffed at his arm. “You’re cracked,” he said. “We stink like blary convicts, sure, but there’s nothing special about me.” He looked at Pazel hopefully. “Is there, mate?”

Pazel avoided his gaze. “You smell like a bunch of roses,” he said, feeling cruel and false. Even through the general reek of the forest and their bodies, Neeps’ lemon-smell reached him faintly. When was he going to say something? What was he going to do?

“Here!” shouted Alyash suddenly, just ahead of them. “What did you go and do that for?”

The bosun was sopping wet, and glaring at the younger Turach. The group had stopped by the base of one of the great trees. When Pazel rounded the trunk he saw a weird growth attached to it: a kind of bladder-shaped mushroom five or six feet wide, which the Turach had evidently stabbed. The thing had burst open like a ripened fruit, and water—plain water, as far as Pazel could tell—was gushing from the wound.

Alyash, soaked to the skin, was still glaring at the Turach. “I asked you a question,” he said.

“It was sneaking up on me,” said the Turach, still gazing suspiciously at the fungus.

“Sneaking?” cried Alyash. “That blary thing can’t sneak any more than one of Teggatz’s meat pies! You’re out of your head.”

“If he is, your own foolishness is to blame,” said Neda. “Taking your sword to an exploding fungus, coating all of us with spores.”

“That’s right, sister,” said Jalantri, drawing near her. “His stupidity could have killed us all.”

“Stupidity?” Alyash looked ready to explode himself. “You ignorant little groveler. I was smart enough to fool the Shaggat’s horde on Gurishal. I spied on ’em for
five years
, while you lot ran about saying it can’t be done, they’ll catch him tomorrow, they’ll roast him, eat him. And all the while I managed to get letters out to Arqual. Your shoddy spying guild never caught a whiff.”

“Devils grant the power of deception to their servants,” said Jalantri.

Neda, clearly annoyed at Jalantri’s interference, stepped away from him. To Alyash, who spoke perfect Mzithrini, she said, “I seek no feud with you. I only meant that you and the Turach made the same mistake.”

“Except that
his
may have done real harm,” put in Jalantri.

“I should blary stab
you
, and see what harm it does!” said Alyash.

“You should sheathe your weapon, and empty your boots,” said Hercól. “If we turn on one another the mage’s victory is assured. Now be
silent
, everyone.” He drew Ildraquin and pointed off into the darkness. “Fulbreech is but half a mile away, perhaps less. And he has not moved in hours.”

“Then Arunis must have found what he seeks,” said Cayer Vispek.

“I fear so,” said Hercól, “but that does not mean he has managed to use it yet. Regardless, the time to strike is now. We cannot go on without the torch, but we can stop it from shining forward, until we are nearly atop the sorcerer, and then attack him at a run. Come here, Jalantri; and you too, marine. Grasp each other’s shoulders, that’s it.”

He made the two enemies stand together, as if partnered in a three-legged race. “Why us?” snarled Jalantri.

For a moment Hercól actually looked amused. “For the sake of the Great Peace, of course. And also because you have the widest chests.”

Removing his own tattered coat, he draped it over both their shoulders. Then he passed the torch to Neda and made her hold it low behind the men. He looked at the others, grave once more.

“Stay low until I give the signal to run. Then there must be no hesitation, no turning. Arunis is very great, but with Ildraquin I stand a chance of slaying him. I will take that chance, but you must help me drive through his defenses, no matter how many, or how fell. Think of what you hold most sacred; think of what you love. You fight for that. Let us go now and finish it.”

They drew what weapons they had and crept forward. Pazel thought the heat had never been so intense. The very trees felt hot to the touch. Off to their left something enormous loomed in the torchlight: another of the bladder-fungi, Pazel saw, but this one was the size of a house, and wedged high above the ground between two trees. What were they for? Water storage? Could there possibly be a dry season here?

He let go of Thasha and pressed her forward, shaking his head when she objected. He feared he would be no use in the fight. But Thasha would be, if he let her. He hobbled, gritting his teeth against the pain.

Neeps looked back at him over his shoulder, his face utterly filthy. Neda glanced back at him too. Pazel nodded to them:
I’m managing
. And to his great surprise he felt a kind of happiness. His best friend, his sister and his lover: all here with him, even if here was hell. They cared for him; it seemed somehow miraculous. He thought:
I’m going to fight you, Arunis, on one leg or two
.

Then he went mad.

He was sure of it, for a horror beyond anything he had ever dreamed had enveloped him, a horror you could not look at and stay sane. They were walking on babies. Mounded, rotting, torn open as if by the gnawing of animals, human babies, and dlömic, and—

They were gone. A hideous lie, an illusion. He was bathed in sweat, and needed to scream. What had just happened to him?
Was
he mad? Or was something attacking his mind, some illness, some enchantment?

The spores?

Alyash and several others had been stung by the spores. But what if not all of them stung? What if some could not even be seen, or smelled or tasted, but were potent nonetheless? They had shoved and stumbled through
miles
of fungi. Of course the spores were inside them. Could they brew visions in the mind? Neeps was hearing voices, and the Turach had seen that bladder-fungus move …

“Now!” said Hercól, and flew forward like the wind. The others bolted after him, weapons high, rushing heedless through the fungi, slashing through the dangling worms, moving like a scythe toward their goal. Pazel ran too, faster than he thought himself capable. He actually passed Ibjen and Neeps, and drew level with Bolutu. They jumped a stream, darted around several of the towering trees (how close together they were now!), slid down an eight-foot embankment of roots and globular fungi, leaped through a last tangle—and saw the whole party, standing still and aghast beside an orange pool.