“Nay, help un,” Beetledown told him. Nickel looked like a frightened child now. “Carry un to safety. If tha build’st a little fire for me, I will wait ’ee clear and then light the train.”
Antimony shook his head. “Someone must wait long enough to make certain the powder catches. Otherwise, all is lost. That’s my task.”
Finally Beetledown understood the monk’s strange expressions: he had not expected to make it out. “Thy task no more.” Beetledown petted Muckle Brown to calm her—the flittermouse was frightened of so much noise, of being on the ground for so long. “Un flies faster than you or any man can run—we’ll get out safe. Go now and save yon fellow, Brother. Time does be short.”
Antimony wanted to argue, but soon gave in and made a small fire. “Do not lose your life for Nickel,” he said quietly. The monk was still sitting on the floor but weeping now as well as moaning. “He isn’t worth it.”
“But tha dost be, friend monk,” Beetledown told him. “Fear not for Muckle Brown nor me. We’ll get well clear.”
Antimony lifted Nickel and tossed him over his shoulder. “Farewell, Beetledown!” he called at the last visible bend before the way curved up and out of sight. “Don’t wait too long!”
Beetledown waved, already wishing he had not done such a stupid, brave thing. And with no one even to see him! Pure foolishness.
But it be what my queen would want me to do, he thought. And nothing else am I if not her loyal Gutter-Scout.
When he had counted all his toes and fingers ten times slowly, Beetledown slid out from Muckle Brown’s saddle and lifted a bit of wood from the small fire Antimony had left for him. He took the small torch and set it squarely in the middle of the star, then, when the powder began to fizz and burn, he scrambled up into his saddle and urged the flittermouse into the air. They skimmed across the chamber and into the stairwell, and would have been gone to the upper levels, but Beetledown remembered his promise and turned back to make certain the powder train was burning.
Five of the trails had burned perfectly well, but the one that led back to Brewer’s Store and the cold wall had sputtered out just halfway across the cavern. He guided Muckle Brown down and took another burning twig to relight it. He watched as it caught and began smoldering forward once more, but he could also see that the other trains had vanished from sight on their way to the other caverns. Then the Brewer’s Store train went out again.
Un’s got damp, he thought, his heart beating very fast. He could no longer see the other trains and had no idea how long they would burn before reaching the blasting powder. Did he dare to leave? What if the failure of one would mean the failure of all? Or worse, what if it changed the destruction in some way that would make it worse, perhaps even threatening the castle itself and the home of Beetledown’s own people… ?
He hurried to pick a longer piece of burning stick. “Come, tha,” he said to Muckle Brown, then steered her down toward the cavern below.
The trail of powder reached all the way across the floor of Brewer’s Store. He chose a spot near the center of the cavern floor and touched it with the lit brand. It sparked, then caught and began to burn its way toward the powder-beetles packed along the cool wall, but even as he goaded the bat into the air once more the fire abruptly raced forward along the train, many times as fast as it had before.
Uphill, was all he had time to realize, un burns faster uphill!
He and Muckle Brown shot across the chamber and into the stairwell. He clung to the beast’s back, his fingers wrapped so tightly in its fur that he couldn’t believe it wasn’t coming loose in his hands. The powerful wings beat and the muscles pulled beneath him, beat and beat again as they rushed up through empty darkness. All Beetledown could hear was a sliver of the creature’s impossibly shrill voice as it sang for an open way home. Then hot air suddenly surrounded him, squeezing him like a brutal fist, and Beetledown the Bowman and Muckle Brown disappeared into noiseless red light.
43. Fever Egg
“When great Immon had turned away, abashed, Zoria entered the gate. Soon she stood before Kernios himself on his throne of black basalt, the Lord of the Dead, stern of face and cold of eye ...”
Please, gods, do not let him notice me. Do not let him notice me! It was foolish, Ferras Vansen knew, praying to absent gods to protect him from a god who was all too definitely present, but old habits died hard and he had never been so terrified in his life.
At Prince Barrick’s shouted order, he had carried the black-haired girl to the nearest of the reed boats drawn up on the beach, and now he struggled with the even more daunting burden of King Olin’s limp body. Madness and chaos were all around. Men who had been burned to death on their feet stood in brittle postures like scorched scarecrows; other corpses lay in smoking piles or bobbed facedown in the Silver only yards from the charred boats they would never reach. A few still lived, but in such horrible condition that Vansen could only pray their whimpering lives ended soon: not even their Xixian enemies deserved such deaths.
Vansen was a soldier. He had often risked his life in combat with other men. In the past year he had fought both the legendary Qar and the autarch’s vast armies. He had stood before the monstrous Deep Ettins and even the demigod Jikuyin, the one-eyed giant. Each of them had been fearful, and Vansen had lost track of how many times he had given himself up for dead. This, though… this was different. Because what had stepped through into this cavern from somewhere else—someplace Vansen could not even imagine—was an actual god.
A mad god, he thought in rising panic. And he is going to kill everything I know.
The cavern was ablaze with Zosim’s fiery light. It echoed to his booming, exulting voice. The beautiful, giant youth still struggled with Yasammez, but now with every passing moment he tore away and burned great pieces of the black stuff that made her, and with each attack, she grew a little smaller, a little less tangible. Vansen was astounded that she had fought so long and so fiercely—as terrifying as he had always found her, he would never have guessed she had such power. She truly was the daughter of a god, that was indisputable. But she was matched against another god, and this one was too strong for her.
“CAN YOU FEEL THAT, LITTLE COUSIN?” Zosim bellowed at Yasammez. “CAN YOU FEEL YOUR ESSENCE BEING BOILED INSIDE YOU? THE SALAMANDROS IS FAR BEYOND YOU. I WOULD HAVE BURNED YOUR FATHER TO ASH IF HE HAD FOUGHT ME FAIRLY ... !”
From somewhere in the swirling, dark cloud Yasammez’s face swam up, deformed like melting wax, full of rage and agony. “You are Liar by name and nature,” she cried, her voice distant as a fading thunderstorm on the horizon. “If you had not struck from hiding… you would never have wounded him ...”
“WOUNDED? KILLED HIM! WITH MY FATHER’S SPEAR!” Zosim’s fires blazed again, so that for a moment he became a pillar of white flame that seemed to stretch up through the roof of the great cavern. Hundreds of steps away, Vansen felt the hairs on his arms begin to smolder, his skin to dry and crack, until he stumbled and almost dropped the king’s limp body. “YOUR RIDICULOUS, LIMPING FATHER IS FINALLY DEAD,” Zosim bellowed, “AND IN A MOMENT, YOU WILL BE, TOO.”
“It… matters not ...” Yasammez said, each word its own painful breath, each more faint than the one before. “I have… held you back… long enough ...”