“I am not the sun god,” a new voice cried; loud as a trumpet’s call. “But I carry his sword. Come and taste its edge!”
As Zosim turned in surprise, Barrick rolled out from beneath the shadow of the god’s great heel and dragged himself as far away as he could. Yasammez stood at the edge of the Sea in the Depths, her face the only clear thing in the murk of her black armor and cloak; her blade, a clean slice of white light, was in her hand.
“YOU WILL DIE, OLD WOMAN.” The god sounded pleased, as though he had finally discovered something in this mortal world that interested him. “EVEN WITH UNCLE WHITEFIRE’S PALE PIG-STICKER, YOU CANNOT HOPE TO INCONVENIENCE ME!”
“Perhaps not,” said Yasammez. “But perhaps as you said, that body is more vulnerable than you wish anyone to know, little earthbound god.”
Laughing, Zosim threw back his beautiful head and the flames leaped higher, so that the stones of the cavern gleamed with yellow light far above him. “This weakness is a nice idea, old woman—but untrue. Come! Show me your mettle!” He held out his hand and a great golden sword appeared there.
Yasammez stepped into the underground sea. The thick, shining liquid flowed away from her like a retreating tide, but even as she neared the center of the Sea in the Depths Yasammez did not sink between the hovering waves; instead she appeared to be growing, so that by the time she reached the far side she was almost half Zosim’s size. A cold breeze knifed through the sweltering cavern as she passed, so that Barrick, who had been trying to rise, fell shivering back to his hands and knees.
By the time she had reached the Trickster god, Yasammez was as tall as he was, but where he appeared as solid as stone, the fairy woman was thinner and less substantial, as though she had stretched herself far beyond what was ordinarily possible. Barrick could see almost nothing of her true shape—she seemed as ill-defined as smoke. Only the great, white blade had retained its brilliance and density. It gleamed through the dark lady’s own essence like a slice of the full moon.
Barrick finally struggled back onto his feet as the two great swords clashed for the first time, meeting with a sound like a monstrous bell that made the entire cavern throb. He could hear the autarch shrieking somewhere on the island, demanding that his terrified men help him attack Zosim again. Barrick doubted he would find many volunteers. Above his head, the heavenly blades rose and clashed again, over and over until the ringing deafened him. Barrick hobbled toward the gigantic pair. The combatants now resembled some fantastic illusion at the center of the island, cloud-shapes whirling above a troubled sea, blades sweeping before them like the wisps of a growing storm. Zosim’s bright flames rippled and stretched, but as if in answer Yasammez only grew darker, more contained.
Barrick dodged through the murk until he saw the great moving wall of Zosim’s heel and limped toward it. He stabbed at it as hard as he could, shoving his sword into the weirdly liquid flesh to the hilt, but although he heard a dim rumble of discomfort, as he watched in dismay, the sword itself seemed to melt and vanish, so that only the hilt fell to the ground like the blossom of a broken flower. The vast foot moved suddenly and knocked him flying.
“Run, manchild!” Yasammez’s face appeared from the haze above him, grimacing in agony as though she held the weight of all the world and could not put it down. “You can do nothing here. Even I can do no more than steal his time for a few more moments.” Something crashed against her, and she swayed back, vanishing for a moment in the clouds of her own gigantic essence. The face appeared again like the sun struggling to pierce thick clouds. “Go! Save those you can. I can give you nothing else ...”
Something struck her again, and she shuddered and fell away from him, the whole of her dark mass toppled like a collapsing tower. Her white blade lanced out as she fell, but the monstrous burning shape that was Zosim was too fast, too strong. He leaped atop her and yanked her back upright again, or at least that was what Barrick thought he saw—it was all too blurry, too strange, like a battle in the mud at the bottom of a deep lake. The god’s own golden blade hacked at the dark apparition like a great tongue of fire, and Barrick heard the terrible sound of Yasammez screaming in pain, a hideous, wrenching cry that seemed to shake the very stone from the cavern walls.
Someone was pulling at his arm. Barrick turned slowly, as if in a dream, to find Ferras Vansen standing behind him, bloodied and dirty.
“You cannot help her—she said so!” Vansen shouted, struggling to be heard above the sounds of god and demigoddess tearing at each other. “Help me get the others to safety.”
“There is no safety ...” Barrick said, then a great, flaming hand swung down from above and knocked him spinning through the air.
All over… at last… was all he had time to think, and then blackness burst inside him.
The work crew hurried to place the last of the blasting powder beetles along the base of an immense stone wall that ran the length of Brewer’s Store cavern—the “cold wall,” as the monks called it. The cavern—a place Beetledown the Bowman had never seen before, and obviously would never see again—stank of sulfur and other, less familiar things, and lay perhaps a hundred feet or more beneath the temple itself. Because it was cooler than most of the other caves, the monks aged their mossbrew in rootwood barrels there, but the precious brew had all been carried away days ago. As far as Beetledown could tell, the beetles—wedgeshaped iron objects the size of a big person’s shoe—were all meant to burst at the same time and take down the entire side of the cavern. How the Funderlings thought this would affect a battle taking place much farther below he could not guess.
Beetledown could not sit comfortably after his long time in the saddle, but instead walked back and forth across the raised slab of stone that served as Antimony’s writing table, waiting while the monk sent messages up the line to the other, smaller caverns that were receiving similar treatment, each of his hastily-scratched missives sealed with clay and the imprint of the Astion.
The presence of so much blasting powder was making Beetledown very fretful. Since war had come to Southmarch, he had seen what the stuff could do. The roof of Wolfstooth Spire, a sacred Rooftopper spot for as long as anyone could remember, had been blown to flinders by one of the southern cannons, and pieces of all the cardinal towers, including most of the top of the Tower of Winter, lay scattered across the inner keep like a child’s broken toys. Yes, the black powder frightened him—but the waiting was even worse.
“Cinnabar, un said that the need were hasty,” Beetledown called up to Antimony, who was bent over his plans, sweat beading on his forehead and dripping onto the little slabs of clay on which he wrote. “Un said that t’were almost too late ...”
“For the love of the Hot Lord, little man, please be silent!” Antimony wiped his face. “I know we need haste, I know Cinnabar and the rest said to hurry—I know, I know, I know! But if we have made an error ...”
Beetledown didn’t know for certain what was going to happen if the Funderling engineers had planned incorrectly, but it was clear it wouldn’t be good for anyone. “Tha pardon, Brother. My family always said I had too much to say ...” He caught Antimony’s look of exasperation and fell silent.
“That’s the last,” said Antimony a few moments later, pressing the Astion into the clay and passing the pile of messages to the waiting courier. “Take the rest to the other works, boy, but this to Brother Salt—he’ll check the sums and if they’re right, he’ll lay the train.” The young messenger sped off. With so many men at war, nearly every remaining male worker was either a child or an elder.