The catwalk was empty, save for falling dust.
6. THREE BLOODS TO RESCUE
Racing down the stairs from the rooftop, I had only one question: what was the portal's key? The githyanki and githzerai had been carrying packs; no doubt the key was inside one of those packs where I couldn't see it. Kiripao had run through the portal without activating it, so he didn't have the key. Yasmin, however, did – when she dove backward, she had hit the portal first, carrying Oonah and Kiripao with her. Then Bleach-Hair had done the same thing, taking the lead and dragging the other two behind.
But Bleach-Hair had almost nothing on his person: just the pants he'd stolen from the clothes line… the firewand he'd borrowed from his cohort…
…and the tattoo on his arm. A picture of himself, that he'd purchased with his last piece of gold.
Need I repeat, Yasmin had been carrying that piking sketch I'd made of her?
A portrait of yourself – that must be the key that opened the portal. It was the only answer. That's why Bleach-Hair had been so desperate for the tattoo: it was his only way home.
I hit the ground running and sped to where Hezekiah lurked in the alley, still watching the base of the tower. «What's wrong?» he asked as I dashed up to him.
«They have Yasmin and the others trapped,» I answered. «Enemies in front and behind. We have to rescue them.»
«How?»
«Take the bad guys by surprise. Can you cast another teleport spell?»
«It's not exactly a spell,» he said. «I convince myself that here is there, and the world goes along with the idea just to humor me.»
«Explanations later,» I told him. «Can you get us up there?»
«Where?»
I pointed. And I pointed again. And I said a lot of, no, not that catwalk, the other one, just to the right… no, no, up one floor, can you see the dogfish…
You know how it is. When you're in a hurry, the people around you are always impenetrably leatherheaded. And every second counted; I had to save Yasmin. The moment Hezekiah was sure where to go, I grabbed him and shouted, «Now, now, now!»
The world flickered and we were suddenly standing on the edge of the catwalk. The very edge… in fact, we teetered on the verge of falling, with shark-like dogfish circling below us. By myself, I could have caught my balance; but Hezekiah had wrapped his arms around me to make sure we teleported together, and now he was dragging me over the brink.
«Hezekiah!» I had time to say. Then someone grabbed the two of us from behind and pulled us delicately back to safe footing.
I turned to see who had saved us from taking the plunge. There was nobody there.
«Wheezle?» I whispered.
«A pleasure to be of service, honored Cavendish,» answered the invisible gnome. «I am surprised to find you here.»
«It surprised us too,» I told him. «Did you see what happened when Bleach-Hair caught up with Yasmin and the rest?»
«Only from a distance,» Wheezle replied. «Mr. Bleach-Hair's legs are considerably longer than mine, so I had difficulty keeping up.»
«Pity… the others could have used your help. But it's still not too late.» I pulled out my sketchbook and a piece of charcoal. «It'll just take a second to make a key for that portal.»
«What portal?» Hezekiah asked.
I ignored him as I started drawing my own face, but Wheezle answered the boy's question. «There is a transplanar portal anchored in the archway in front of us. Alas, persons from the Prime Material plane do not have the attunement to see such portals, but those of us born in the Outer Planes have no trouble discerning it.»
«A portal?» Hezekiah said, squinting at the arch. «I came through one of those to get to Sigil. My Uncle Toby showed me where it was.»
«Well, you aren't going through this one,» I told him, still drawing. «You're heading straight back to Lady Erin so you can report everything that's happened.»
«Like what?» Hezekiah asked.
Pausing a second, I ripped off a blank page from my sketchbook and handed it to the invisible Wheezle. «Why don't you jot down everything Lady Erin should know… just in case Hezekiah isn't sure what's important.»
«I know what's important,» Hezekiah objected. «And it's not fair: you get to dash to the rescue while I have to stay in Sigil.»
«We don't have time to argue,» I snapped. «Someone has to rescue our teammates, and someone else has to report to the authorities. It's the only sensible plan.»
«Then you report to the authorities,» Hezekiah said. «I'm going to save the others.» And he stepped toward the portal.
I didn't try to stop him; I doubted that he carried a picture of himself, and I had a sketch of my own to draw – every second I wasted might be one second too many for Yasmin.
Wheezle, however, didn't know what opened the portal and obviously didn't like taking chances. «Please, honored Clueless,» he said to Hezekiah, «I cannot permit you to rush in unwisely.» The paper I'd handed Wheezle fluttered in the air, then moved toward the portal as the gnome tried to block Hezekiah's passage. I had time to think, That's a blank piece of paper and Wheezle's invisible. Wouldn't it be a laugh if that counted as a picture of himself?
Then Hezekiah tripped over the invisible gnome, the two of them pitched forward under the archway, and, the portal was open.
You can never see much through a portal, and this one was murkier than most – a gap of twilight in the middle of Sigil's afternoon. The twilight was darkened by a clot of dust clouds, whirling in thick spirals. Hezekiah tumbled into those clouds and out of sight, accompanied by a gnome-shaped silhouette that briefly broke through the dust.
At that moment, something went click in my mind. Sensates call it the «once-in-a-lifetime» instinct: an opportunity arises and you're struck by some premonition that says this chance will never come again. You see a cheesecake and your nose tells you that this is the peak, the pinnacle, that if you pass this one by, you'll never come close to such perfection ever again… or you meet a woman at some gathering, and the flames inside you say, «It has to be her, it has to be tonight, or my soul will shrivel to ashes.» Our Sensate leaders teach that your once-in-a-lifetime instinct is almost always wrong – there will be other cheesecakes, other encounters with this woman or someone equally fascinating – but they also say who cares? Pike common sense and leap in with both feet.
Once-in-a-lifetime instinct: see a portal, dive through it.
I dove.
I dove, throwing caution to the wind. More precisely, I dove throwing my sketchbook and charcoal wherever they might fall, because the portal would close within seconds and I didn't want to miss it. One moment, I was traveling through the soot-laden air of Sigil; and the next, I struck the dust-choked atmosphere of the other side.
Dust enveloped me, as thick as a blanket. There was no way to tell when I actually hit the ground – the dust in the air blended so directly into the dust underfoot that it was all a continuum, clogging, raspy piles of dust. I sank up to my elbows before I finally stopped, and it took all my strength to struggle to my feet. Breathing was impossible, and visibility reached less than an arm's length; a faint gray light barely managed to penetrate the continually swirling cloud.
How long could I hold my breath? Thirty seconds? A minute? How long before I had to fill my lungs with dust?
Something loomed in front of me, a slight darkening in the grayness. I grabbed at it and pulled it close enough to see; as I expected, the shadow was Hezekiah, blundering about blindly. Another moment and he might have been lost forever in the dust storm.
Leatherheaded Clueless – any citizen of Sigil knows, when you come through a portal into a hostile environment, you never stumble away from your entry point. Portals have to anchor themselves in some kind of archway; figure out what the arch belongs to, and maybe you've found shelter.