“Oh, no, Captain Marukh, let the peasant watch, too,” said the autarch cheerfully to the guard captain. “Olin is his king, after all… and soon I will be his god!”
The pain was growing, there was no doubt about that. Every drop of Qinnitan’s blood seemed to be getting hotter until she felt certain she would cook from the inside like a goat stuffed with hot stones. But it was more than just pain: the very air seemed to have become thicker, something as hard to breathe as water or the silvery stuff that surrounded this island at the bottom of creation. And cruelest of all, now Barrick had appeared before her at last, the one thing she had lived for during her miserable exile, and she was helpless to do anything about it.
Why have you done this to me? she demanded of Heaven. Taken me from the Hive, dragged me across the known world, tormented me ceaselessly, just to show him to me in the moments before I die? I curse you, gods!
But if the gods heard her, even at this moment when they seemed closer than ever, they clearly did not care. Barrick lay only a few steps from her but it might as well have been miles. He had been beaten so badly and was bleeding in so many places that she doubted he would ever awaken.
And Olin… ! What tortures had the uncaring gods condemned him to?
As the chants of the priests rose again, the northern king finally stopped shaking, but Qinnitan now could barely see him. Something terrifying was happening to her, as if with each moment that passed, her essence was boiling away. All that she was, all she knew and remembered, was beginning to evaporate.
“Groaner! Lifter! Bringer of Winter and Darkness!” the priest intoned.
Each time the priest cried out that word, Qinnitan cried out too, and Olin made a sound without much humanity left in it. Qinnitan tried to roll toward the suffering king but she could not make herself move and could scarcely hold onto her thoughts.
“Arise!
“Arise!”
Suddenly Olin sat bolt upright, swaying like a hood snake, his mouth split in a clench-jawed grin of intense pain. His eyes had rolled up until only the whites showed.
“The door is open!”
It was so very near to her now—Qinnitan could feel the gap in the world that had been clawed open, and the huge, horrible presence that was forcing its way through. How could the priests go on chanting? How could Sulepis stand so straight, showing no more emotion than the weird half-smile on his face? The autarch, his soldiers, the priests—they all hardly seemed to notice the dreadful presence that was killing both her and the northern king.
Olin’s breathing had grown even faster, a chain of rasping, percussive grunts. His arms rose up from his sides like the wings of a bird, as if he was being forced to embrace this terrible visitor. Blood started from his nose and his head rolled from side to side.
Qinnitan felt the thing thrusting itself into the body of the king, but somehow just by being near it burned into her as well. It was climbing into her world… into this very place… !
A stab of pain made her writhe and for a moment everything went black. When her sight came back, she saw that Olin had thrown back his head, his neck bent at a terrible angle as though he hung on a fishhook. The king’s gasping breath had become a single, moaning cry of pain.
“Oh, gods, if you have any mercy, help us… !” she cried… but no god answered.
At the sound of her voice, Barrick’s eyes opened. For just that instant, for perhaps the only instant Qinnitan would have again in this world, their gazes met… then the hot, remorseless blackness swept over her, swallowing her whole.
40. Fiery Laughter
“When he saw what had happened, Zmeos in fury left his castle behind. Because he could not undo what the Orphan had done, the Horned Serpent fled far into the cold north, to lands where ice and darkness still lived. And all the people of Eion rejoiced to see that the sun burned in the sky once more, and thanked the Three Brothers ...”
Those who didn’t fly them didn’t know anything about it—flittermice and birds were just different. A bat didn’t push as smooth as a bird, and the glide was shorter. A rider also had to cling close to the creature’s furry body or else he’d wag from side to side and slow the bat’s progress even more.
Beetledown the Bowman knew all this and more—he had been riding on bats since he had been big enough for his father to tie onto the saddle in front of him. People said nobody knew flyers better than old Beetle-wing had, and his son was proud of that legacy. What glory was to be found exploring the heights of the world on a docile rat, or on your own legs? A winged mount was the mark of a true Gutter-Scout.
But his command over Muckle Brown was more than a matter of pride, it was a matter of life and death—especially now. The farther into the depths he flew, the more the fetid air began to affect him as it had when Chert had first brought him down. He was already finding it hard to keep his mind on his journey, and each time his mount flew into a cold downdraft and dropped suddenly, or banked and turned him upside down in a matter of a single pulse, Beetledown felt himself less and less in control of either the flittermouse or himself.
Tha hast promised, he kept telling himself. Tha hast promised Chert the Funderling and thy queen. Beest tha the man thy father named! But it had already taken him an hour and more simply to find his way across Funderling Town and through the dark passages beyond the Silk Door, as Chert had once shown him, and more time had passed since then. It was work to stay alert, work to stay balanced on Muckle Brown’s velvety back, and Beetledown had already been wearied by days of constant riding and flying when the queen’s order had come. As the flittermouse plunged deeper and deeper into the pestilent depths he was finding it very difficult to stay awake.
A new smell tickled his nose, distant but unmistakable, and with it came a gradually swelling murmur, like the sound of ocean that echoed deep in the Royal Spindle Shell. The murmur continued to get louder even as the air itself grew thicker, until the report of his addled senses began to make him think that he and his mount had somehow turned downside-up: surely a roar like that could only come from the great ocean itself! But how could that be? Could he have so badly lost his way?
No, he decided a moment later, that be no smell of good and honest ocean. He had encountered the thick, cloying scent before, if not the noise. No proper sea that, but Chert’s foul silvery pond in the earth’s heart.
But where did this scent and the sounds come from? He was still far from the Metamorphic Brothers’ temple, let alone the distant deeps to which Chert had sent him—and his time to reach them was also dwindling, he had no doubt.
He hesitated for only a moment before pulling on the reins and leaning to bank the flittermouse hard. Beetledown and the bat sailed on, farther and farther away from the one path he knew. After passing through a long and intricate series of narrow places, one of which was a crevice too tight to fly through, so he had to get out and lead the balking Muckle Brown through it, he began to smell the odd salt-and-metal scent stronger than ever. The echoes changed, too, the murmur spreading to take up space in what was clearly a huge, wide cavern.