Water Sleeps (40 page)

I got my daily constitutional in before we reached the stairway. I began to
appreciate just how vast the hall at the heart of that fortress was. My party
dwindled into the distance. I observed, “This thing has got to be a mile
across.”

“Almost exactly. It’s a few yards under, according to Soulcatcher. I don’t know
why. I wish we had a torch. I saw patterns in the flooring last time I was here,

when there wasn’t quite so much dust, but she wouldn’t let me waste time looking
at them.”

There was a lot of dust. There had been none outside. The plain tolerated
nothing alien except the corpses of invaders, evidently. Even here, we had yet
to discover any sign of the animals or equipment that had accompanied the
Captured south.

“How much farther?”

“Almost there. Watch for a drop-off.”

“A drop-off?”

“A step down. It’s only about eighteen inches but you could break a leg if it
surprises you. I turned an ankle last time.”

We found the drop-off. I stopped to look back once I stepped down. All sorts of
genius was being invested in the assignments I had given. Closer, Sahra and the
Radisha and several others to whom I had not given specific assignments had
decided to follow me. I said, “You’re right. It does look like there’re some
kind of inlays. If we have time, maybe we can take a closer look.” I considered
the edge of the stone. “This curves. And it’s polished.”

“That part of the floor is a circle. And it’s almost exactly one-eightieth of
the diameter of the plain. According to Soulcatcher. The raised part where the
demon’s throne used to sit is one-eightieth the size of this.”

“That’s probably got to mean something. It have anything to do with the
Captured?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Then we’ll worry about it later.”

“The stairs start over here.”

They did indeed, right next to the wall. The crack in the floor had extended
clear through that. The wall’s partial collapse had filled the gap there, then
the material from the wall had been pushed back up as the fissure healed itself.

The stairs simply started. There was a rectangular hole in the floor. Steps went
down, roughly paralleling the outer wall, away from the crack in the floor,

which had healed almost completely. There was no handrail.

Twenty steps down we reached a landing eight feet by eight. The descending steps
led off from our right. This flight appeared to go downward forever. Faint light
crept up it, just strong enough so you could see where to put your feet.

Sahra and the Radisha had caught up close enough that I could hear them talking
without being able to pick up specific words. Both women sounded frightened by
the immediate future.

I could sympathize. I was nervous about achieving my life’s ambition myself.

Just a little.

“You want to go first?” Swan asked. He lacked considerable enthusiasm, I
thought.

“Are there booby traps or something?”

“No. She probably wanted to, just in case somebody passed this way someday, just
for the sheer mean fun of it, but there wasn’t enough time. She piddled around
so much, for so long, I didn’t really believe we’d ever get away. I’m sure we
wouldn’t have if she hadn’t been who she was. She spun spells that chased the
shadows away. She’d been in there before. And she’d practiced.”

“There it is!”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just remembering something.” Stupid me. All those years I wondered how
Swan and Soulcatcher had found time to bury the Captured without getting gobbled
up by shadows and I had overlooked the obvious, the fact that Soulcatcher was a
major sorceress and already had some experience manipulating shadows. You can be
screamingly blind to the obvious if you don’t realize that you have not opened
up all the doors of your mind.

Forgive me, O Lord of the Hours. Be Merciful. Be Compassionate. I shall close
the borders of my soul as soon as my brothers are free.

At this point Swan had no incentive to steer me into danger. I started
downstairs.

The architects, engineers and stonemasons responsible had not been determined to
achieve geometric perfection. Though this portion of the stairwell continued
downward in a specific general direction, it tended to meander from side to side
of a straight line. Nor were the steps of a uniform height. The builders had
been thoughtful enough to provide landings every little way, though. I had a
feeling those would seem to be miles apart once I started climbing up again.

“If we have to bring One-Eye down here, we’re going to have to carry him back
up. He won’t survive the climb otherwise.”

“You might want to organize what you’re going to do before we go down there,

then.”

“I can’t decide what has to be done until I see what I’m dealing with.”

“You might call up your genie in a bottle. Get him to tell you.”

“He’s never said much about the place where he’s at. Not since he’s been in
there himself. It’s like he’s constrained against that. I dreamed about it a few
times but I don’t know how accurate my dreams were.”

Swan groaned. “I really didn’t want to make this trek.”

“Will it be that bad?”

“Not going down. But heading the other way is likely to change your attitude.”

“I don’t know. I’m beginning to get a little winded just going in this
direction.”

“Then slow down. A few minutes isn’t going to make a difference. Not after all
these years.”

He was right. And wrong. There was no rush for the Captured. But for us, with
our limited resources, time was destined to become critical.

Swan continued, “You need to slow down, Sleepy. Really. It’s going to get a
little bit hairy in a minute.”

He was absolutely right. But he understated the case dramatically.

The stairwell did a meander to the right. It caught up with the chasm caused by
the earthquakes that had occurred during the reign of the Shadowmasters.

There was only half a stairway there. It hung in the face of a cliff. That left
a whole lot of down on my right-hand side. And it was down that was entirely too
well illuminated by a reddish orange light that may have come from the stone
itself, since there seemed to be no other obvious source. Though I did have
trouble opening my eyes wide enough to look. Wraithlike wisps of vapor wobbled
upward from somewhere down below. The air seemed wanner. I asked, “We’re not
heading into Hell itself, are we?” Some Vehdna believe al-Shiel is a place where
wicked souls will burn for all eternity.

Swan understood. “Not your Hell. But I’d guess it’s Hell enough for them that’re
trapped down there.”

I stopped on the remains of a landing. The steps narrowed to two feet just below
me. By leaning out slightly I could see clearly that the stairwell had been
constructed inside a larger bore at least twenty feet in diameter. The shaft had
been filled with a stone darker than that through which it had been cut. Maybe
the bore had needed to be that big so Kina could be dragged down below. I asked,

“Can you imagine what an engineering project this must have been?”

“People with plenty of slaves aren’t daunted by big projects. What’s the
matter?”

“I have a problem with heights. This next part is going to take a lot of prayer
and some outside encouragement. I want you to go first. I want you to go slow.

And I want you to stay where I can touch you. I believe in meeting my fears
eyeball to eyeball but if it gets bad and I feel like I might freeze up, I want
to be able to close my eyes and keep going.” I was astounded by how calm and
reasonable my voice sounded.

“I understand. The real problem then is, who’s going to keep his eyes open for
me? Whoa! Don’t panic, Sleepy. I was joking! I can handle it. Really.”

It was not the worst thing I ever dealt with. I never abandoned rational
thought. But it was difficult. Even when Swan promised me that an unseen
protective barrier existed on the abyssal side and demonstrated its presence,

the animal inside me wanted to get the heck out of there and go someplace where
the ground was flat and green, there was a sky overhead, and there might even be
a few trees.

Swan assured me that I was missing one heck of a view, especially as we
approached the lower end of the gap, where the light was brighter, revealing
churning mists way below, mists that concealed the depths of the abyss. I kept
my eyes closed until we were back into a closed cavern again.

I had started counting steps up top so I could get an idea of how deep we went
but I lost count while I was pretending to be a fly crawling on a wall. I was
too busy being terrified. But it did seem like we had traveled a long way
horizontally as well as downward.

Almost immediately after I had that thought, the stair turned left, then left
again. The orange red light faded away. The stair made a couple more quick turns
into a total darkness, which aroused whole new species of terrors. But nothing
bit me and nothing came to steal my soul.

Then there was light again, growing so subtly I was never really aware of first
noticing it. It had a golden cast to it but was extremely cold. And as soon as I
was aware of it, I knew we were approaching our destination.

The stairwell passed right through a natural cavern. At one time that had been
sealed off but the quakes had toppled the responsible masonry walls. I asked,

“We here?”

“Almost. Careful climbing over the stones. They aren’t very stable.”

“What’s that?”

“What?”

“That sound.”

We listened. After a while, Swan said, “I think it’s wind. Sometimes there was a
breeze when we were down here before.”

“Wind? A mile underground?”

“Don’t ask me to explain it. It just is. You want to go first this time?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you would.”

G olden caverns where old men sat beside the way, frozen in time, immortal but
unable to move an eyelid. Madmen they, some covered with fairy webs of ice as
though a thousand winter spiders had spun threads of frozen water. Above, an
enchanted forest of icicles grew downward from the cavern roof.

So Murgen described it once upon a time, decades ago. The description remained
apt, though the light was not as golden as I expected and the delicate filigrees
of ice were denser and more complex. The old men seated against the walls,

caught up in the webs, were not the wide-eyed madmen of Murgen’s visions,

though. They were dead. Or asleep. I did not see one open eye. Nor did I see one
face I recognized.

“Willow. Who are these people?” The bitter wind continued to rush through the
cavern, which was a dozen feet high and nearly as wide, with a relatively flat
floor, side to side.

It sloped with the length of the cavern. It looked like ancient, frozen mud
covered with a pelt of fine frost fur. Water had run through the cavern in some
epoch before the coming of men.

“These ones? I don’t know. They were here when we came down.”

I leaned closer but was careful not to touch. “These caves are natural.”

“They have that look.”

“Then they’ve been down here all along. They were here before the plain was
built.”

“Possibly. Probably.”

“And whoever buried Kina knew about them. So did the Deceivers chased here by
Rhaydreynak. Hunh! This one is definitely deceased. Naturally mummified but
definitely gone.” The corpse was all dried out. Bare bone showed at a folded
knee and tattered elbow. “These others? Who knows? Maybe the right sorcery could
get them up and running around like Iqbal’s kids.”

“Why would we get them up? We’re here to get the guys that me and Catcher
buried. Right? They’re on up there.” He pointed upslope, where the light was
even less golden, becoming almost an icy blue.

The light was not bright. Not nearly so much so as in the vision I had
experienced. Maybe it was more a psychic witchlight than a physical one, more
suited to the dreamwalker’s eye. I mused, “They might be able to tell us
something interesting.”

“I’ll tell you something interesting,” Swan muttered to himself. In a normal
voice, for my benefit, he said, “I don’t think so. At least I don’t think it
would be anything any of us would want to hear. Catcher took extreme pains to
avoid even touching them. Getting the captives past without disturbing them was
the hardest work we did.”

I bent to examine another of the old men. He did not look like he belonged to
any race I knew. “They must be from one of the other worlds.”

“Maybe. There’s a saying where I grew up: ‘Let sleeping’ dogs lie.’ Sounds like
exquisitely appropriate advice. We don’t know why they were put down here.”

“I have no intention of releasing any deviltry but our own. These men here
aren’t the same as those.”

“There were several different groups last time. I doubt that that’s changed. I
got the feeling that they were dumped here at different times. See how much less
ice there is around these guys? Makes me think it takes centuries to
accumulate.”

“Ow!”

“What?”

“I banged my head on this damned rock icicle thing.”

“Hmm. I must’ve overlooked it somehow.”

“Get smart and I’ll punch you in the kneecap, Lofty. Does it feel like it’s
colder in here than it ought to be?” It was not my imagination and not the icy
wind, either.

“Always.” His grin had gone away. “It’s them. I think. Starting to realize
somebody’s here. It keeps building up. It can get on your nerves if you pay any
attention to it.”

I could feel the growth of whatever it was. Insanity becoming palpable, I
suppose. That was the impression, anyway.

“How come we’re able to move around in here?” I asked. “Why aren’t we frozen?”

“We’d probably end up that way if we stayed long enough to fall asleep. These
people all had to be unconscious when they were brought down here.”

“Really?” We were up where there was less ice. The frost on the floor still
betrayed the tracks left by Soulcatcher and Willow Swan years ago. The old men
here were different. They resembled Nyueng Bao, except for one, who had been
tall, thin and extremely pale. “But they don’t stay asleep?” Several pairs of
open eyes seemed to track me. I hoped it was my imagination, stimulated by the
spookiness of the cave. I never actually saw any movement.

Footsteps.

I jumped hip-high to a short elephant before I realized that it had to be Sahra
and the Radisha and whoever else had decided not to participate in all those
exciting projects that were underway upstairs. “Go keep those people from
stomping in here and messing everything up. I’ll get an idea of the layout and
try to figure out what we’ll have to do.”

Swan scowled and growled and grunted, then minced carefully back down the slight
slope toward the stairwell. He talked to himself all the way. And I did not
blame him. Even I thought nothing ever went right for him.

I took a step in the direction the old footprints led. My boots went out from
under me. I hit hard, then slid downhill until I caught up with Swan, who did a
convincing job of acting amused after he stopped me. “You all right?”

“Bruised my side. Hurt my wrist.”

“I shoulda told you. That floor can be pretty slippery where there’s a lot of
frost.”

“You’re lucky I don’t swear.”

“Uhm?”

“You forgot on purpose. You’re as bad as One-Eye or Goblin.”

“Did I just hear my name taken in vain?” One-Eye’s voice, punctuated by rasping
panting more suitable to a lunger, came from the shadows down where the stair
intercepted the cavern.

“God is Great, God is Good. God is the All-Knowing and All-Merciful. His Plan is
Hidden but Just.” And save me from the Mystery of His Plan because all I ever
get is the Misery of His Plan. “What is he doing down here?” I asked Swan. “I
know. I’ll leave him behind. I know I’m definitely not going to carry him up out
of here just so he doesn’t suffer another stroke from the effort. Hit him over
the head when he isn’t looking.” I began moving deeper into the cave again. “I’m
going to try this one more time.” Beneath my breath I continued my conversation
with God. As usual, He did not trouble Himself to defend His Works to me. My
fault for being a woman.

I nearly missed the transition from the ancient Nyueng Bao types to Company men
because the first few modern bodies belonged to Nyueng Bao bodyguards. I halted
only when I reached and recognized a Nyueng Bao bodyguard named Pham Quang. I
studied him for a moment.

I backed up carefully.

When you looked for it, the boundary was evident. My brothers and their allies
had several centuries’ less frost accumulation upon them. They had only just
begun to develop the delicate webbings that encased the older bodies. That
seemed awfully fast, actually, considering how long some of the others must have
been buried. Possibly Soulcatcher had indulged in a little artistry during her
visit.

Interspersed with my brothers were several bodies so ancient that they had
become completely cocooned. I intuited them as bodies only because the
chrysalises slumped just like the Captured did.

A thought. It might be worthwhile having One-Eye along after all. Down here
Soulcatcher might have taken time to set a trap or two, just for the devil of
it.

The Nar generals Isi and Ochiba sat against the cave wall opposite Pham Quang.

Ochiba’s eyes were open. They did not move but did seem fixed on me. I hunkered
down, got as close as I could without touching him.

Those brown pools were moist. There was no dust on their surfaces, nor any
frost. They had opened quite recently.

A chill crawled down my spine. A very creepy feeling came over me. I felt like I
was walking among the dead. In the far north, whence Swan came carrying
travelers’ tales, some religions supposedly pictured Hell as a cold place. My
imagination, running with the terror that my brothers’ situation sparked, had no
trouble picturing this cave as a suburb of Hell.

I rose carefully and moved away from Ochiba. Now the cave floor was almost
perfectly level. My brothers were not crowded together. The rest seemed to be
scattered along the next several hundred feet, not all immediately visible
because of a turn in the cave. A few old cocoon men were interspersed with them.

“I see the Lance!” I announced. Which was wonderful. Now we could split into two
parties and have both retain their capacity for accessing the plain.

My voice echoed like there was a chorus of me all talking at the same time.

Hitherto, Swan and I had tried to speak softly. The echoes had been little more
than ghostly whispers although extremely busy even at that level.

“Keep it down,” One-Eye said. “What are you doing, Little Girl? You don’t have
any idea what you’re dealing with here.” He had gotten past Swan somehow and was
headed my way. He was awfully damned spry for a two-hundred-year-old stroke
victim. This business had him truly excited.

That left me suspicious. But I had no time to try reasoning out what angle the
man might have.

I looked into another pair of eyes, these belonging to a long, bony, pallid man
who had to be the sorcerer Longshadow. Longshadow was a prisoner of the Company.

He had been brought along because neither Croaker nor Lady trusted anyone else
to guard him and he could not be exterminated because the health of the
Shadowgate, insofar as they had known, was dependent upon his continued
well-being. And well that they had been so distrustful. It would be a much
different and more terrible world if the Shadowmaster had been left behind to
tinker at whatever wickedness took his fancy. Soulcatcher’s evil was capricious
and unfocused. Longshadow’s malice and insanity were deep and abiding.

That insanity stared out of his eyes right then. On my mental checklist I made a
tick that meant this one would stay right where he was. Others might have plans
for him but they were not in charge. If we could work out how to strengthen our
world’s Shadowgate, maybe we could even execute him.

I continued moving, working my silent triage, constantly bemused because there
were so many faces that I did not recognize. A lot of men who had enlisted while
I was away from the center of the action. “Oh, darn!”

“What?” One-Eye was only a few steps behind me, gaining ground fast. His voice
seemed to rattle as it echoed.

“It’s Wheezer. The stasis didn’t take for him.”

One-Eye grunted, evidently indifferent. Old Wheezer came from the same tribe
One-Eye did, although Wheezer was more than a century younger than the wizard.

There had never been any affection between them. “He had a better run than he
deserved.” Wheezer had been old and dying of consumption when he joined the
Company during its passage southward, decades ago. And he had continued to
survive despite his infirmities and despite all the trials the Company had
endured.

“Here’re Candles and Cletus. They’re gone, too. And a couple of Nyueng Bao and
two Shadar I don’t recognize. Something happened here. This makes seven dead
men, all in a clump.”

“Don’t move, Little Girl. Don’t touch anything before I have a chance to look it
over.”

I froze. It was time to acknowledge his expertise.