The gray man gestured. Two huge, hairy guards pulled Barrick up onto his knees in front of Ueni’ssoh, who was still chanting, then one of them yanked Barrick’s head back so that the boy’s chin jutted out toward Vansen and the others watching. The other guard unsheathed a strange, terrible knife with a jagged blade half as wide as it was long, and set it almost tenderly against the white flesh of the prince’s throat. Frenzied, Vansentried to struggle to his feet, and just at that moment he felt the creature behind give a last wrench at the shackles and they tumbled off his arms. Knives of pain stabbed in his joints as he raised his arms and staggered toward Barrick and the guards.
“O Narrowing Way, open the gate!”
The chanting words of the Dreamless filled every part of the world, every part of Vansen’s thoughts. They were heavy as stones, dropping on him, crushing him—or was that the thunder of Jikuyin laughing? The prince, the guards, and the gray man were washed by torchlight but framed against absolute darkness as if the gods themselves had forgotten to provide a world for them to inhabit.
Ueni’ssoh’s voice surged in triumph.
Something was in the black space of the door now, something invisible but so all-pervasive and life-crushing that Vansen shrieked in terror like a child even as he threw himself at the shaggy guard who held the knife to Barrick’s throat. A shadowy recollection of Donal Murroy’s teachings came to him as if from another person’s life: he grabbed, braced, and snapped the guard’s elbow against its own hinge, so that the creature howled with pain and dropped the queer blade. Vansen snatched it up and whirled to look for Ueni’ssoh, but the gray man seemed lost in some kind of trance, so Vansen lunged at the other guard instead, knocking Prince Barrick free from the creature’s grasp as he did so and sending the shaggy beast skidding face first across the rocky floor. Vansen snatched up a stone from the floor and began pounding on the lock of the prince’s shackles, intent on freeing him, ignoring Barrick’s cries of agony as the boy’s crippled arm was rattled in its socket.
A moment longer, something whispered in his head. Ferras Vansen’s own thoughts were so tangled and diminished that for a long instant he could not understand who was talking to him, and even when he could, he could not understand it. Keep fighting a moment longer...!
The lock broke and the prince’s shackles fell away just as the other guard attacked him. It was all Vansen could do to shove Barrick aside, then use the knife to dig at the guard’s stinking, hairy body. Vansen and the guard stood, locked in a helpless clinch, gasping into each other’s faces, each with a free hand gripping the other’s weapon, both weapons shuddering in front of an enemy’s wide, terrorstaring eye. Vansen could see the monstrous open gateway past his attacker’s shoulder, the blackness roiling and bubbling with invisible forces that squeezed Vansen’s bones and guts until he thought his heart would stop.
Vansen had a moment to wonder if Gyir really had made a plan, but that everything beyond getting the shackles off had simply failed to happen. Then the second guard hit him in the back, forcing him to let go of the other creature’s killing hand. He swung his weight and ducked to avoid the stabbing blow to his face and he and the two guards became tangled. Locked in a straining, gasping knot, the three of them hobbled a few steps, then stumbled together over the threshold of the god’s door and fell into darkness.
Black.
Frozen.
Nothing.
The apelike guards spun away and vanished into the void as they all plummeted downward; within a heartbeat their wordless screams had faded. His own voice was gone. He could feel his lungs shoving out a scream of absolute terror but he heard no sound except the almost silent whistle of his fall.
Ferras Vansen hurtled down and down. Within moments he was far beyond the point where he could survive the impact, but still he fell. At last his wits flew away in the emptiness and wind.
35. Blessings
Of all the rebel gods who had survived the battle against the Trigon, only a few were spared. One of them was Kupilas, son of Zmeos, because the Artificer proclaimed his allegiance to his uncles and promised he could bring many useful things to the three godly brothers and their heavenly city. And thus it proved to be. He taught them healing and other crafts, and even the making of wine, so that mortals could make offerings of drink to the gods as well as meat and blood.
Utta stared at her reflection. Even looking in a mirror was an unusual experience, since Zorian sisters were generally given neither opportunity nor encouragement to contemplate their own reflections. “I cannot help it,” she said. “I look like something in a mummer’s play.”
“You do not,” said Merolanna, invisible for a moment in a cloud of powder as her little maid Eilis vigorously applied the brush to Utta’s face. “You look extremely handsome— like a highborn gentleman.”
“I am not supposed to be a gentleman, even in this ridiculous imposture, but an ordinary servant. In fact, though, I am neither of those. I am an old woman, Your Grace. What am I doing got up in such a semblance?”
“You must trust me,” the duchess replied, waving away the last of the powder. The maid began to cough, so Merolanna sent the girl out of the room. “I simply cannot do what must be done,” she said when they were alone in the bedchamber, “since I am bound to be at the blessing ceremony, especially with Duke Caradon coming to Southmarch. The Tollys are swarming, so we Eddons must make a show. I have to go. That is why you must do your part, my dear.”
But I’m not an Eddon. Utta looked at the duchess with what she hoped was a certain sternness. She thought Merolanna had grown a bit careless about this matter of her lost son, her plans getting stranger and more wild, as though the steps they were contemplating now really were nothing more dangerous than a mum-show. She also clearly felt that Utta had become some kind of foot soldier in the cause, bound to obey all orders.
“I can understand how you feel about the child...” she began.
“No, you can’t, Sister,” said the duchess with unconvincing good cheer. “Only a mother can. So let’s just get on with this, shall we?”
Utta sighed.
When she was finished, with all the unfamiliar ties and buckles done up, Utta took one last look at the dour creature in the glass—an aged, effeminate servant dressed in dun-colored robes and a shapeless hat. It seemed scandalous to be showing so much hose-covered leg, but that was what men did every day. She squinted.