‘What is it?’ Rix said hoarsely.
Tobry’s eyes flicked open, staring. ‘It’s enormous.’
‘Who could have made such a place?’
‘I don’t think we should go any further.’
‘I know damn well we shouldn’t, but we’ve come this far and I’m never coming back.’
Rix held the sword out before him. It felt heavier; he needed two hands to hold it steady and the hilt was so cold that his skin was sticking to it.
‘Rix, I really don’t like this place.’
‘Stay here. I’ve got to know what’s down there.’ He went forwards.
‘We’re trespassing, and when the owner catches us — ’
‘The spirals could have been empty for five thousand years.’
Tobry caught Rix by the left shoulder and jerked him back. ‘Stay here.’
Tobry pushed past, down into the darkness, his footsteps making odd, rustling echoes. Rix waited, fuming and afraid in equal measure. After some minutes, Tobry reappeared.
‘I don’t need to be protected, Tobe.’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘Well, what’s down there?’
‘Pens,’ said Tobry.
‘For animals? What kind?’
‘Couldn’t see. But I’d guess shifters …’
‘I’m getting a bad feeling — ’
From below them came another heavy thud, as if a stone door had been slammed, followed by a rush of air so cold that it crackled. Rix’s ears and the tip of his nose began to hurt; the next breath pricked his nostrils as if he’d breathed in a cloud of icy needles. He turned and thrust the torch forwards but the flames died until it gave out no more light than a match.
‘Back,’ Tobry croaked.
They hurried back. The flames kept low. At the passage with the steep, glassy-smooth steps, Rix stopped. Tobry caught his shoulder, as if to stop him again, then let go.
‘This time, I’m going down,’ said Rix. ‘Stay here.’
He sheathed his blade and went on, feeling his way down the precipitous stair, which had neither railing nor landings. Tobry followed.
‘Feels like ice,’ Rix whispered. ‘Like we’re in a flow tube melted through a glacier. We’re not though, are we?’
‘No.’ Tobry was panting.
‘Now would be a good time for your magery to work, Tobe.’
‘As I keep telling you, I don’t know enough — stop!’ Tobry’s fingers clamped Rix’s shoulder, hard enough to hurt.
Rix’s hair stirred. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘You’re about to walk off the end of the stair.’
It ended in mid-air three steps below them. The feeble torchlight reflected back from odd, alien curves a long way down, though he could not see enough to discern the shape they formed.
‘What’s down there, Tobe?’ he said softly. ‘Tobe?’
Tobry was waving the elbrot furiously but here it had no aura at all. ‘Weird,’ he muttered. ‘It’s shaped like some gigantic alchymical vessel.’
‘A what?’
‘An upside-down retort, and we’re above the top of the bulb.’
As Rix moved the torch, curved reflections shifted along arcs. ‘Can’t make any sense of it.’
‘It’s an impossibility,’ said Tobry in a low voice, ‘nothing can curve around and back through itself that way.’
As they peered down, Rix thought he could see spectral figures watching with dead eyes. His own eyes were watering from the cold, tears freezing as they formed.
‘Turn around,’ Tobry said in his ear. ‘We’re going up. Don’t make a sound. Don’t even breathe.’
For once, Rix was glad to do as he was told. His sword rattled in its sheath as if trying to get out. He clamped onto the hilt, sensed something moving below him and glanced over his shoulder.
From far below the spectral figures, a shadow was rising, so black that it stood out against the darkness.
‘Caitsthe?’ he whispered.
‘Too big,’ Tobry said hoarsely.
Too big? What could be bigger?
‘And it’s shooting up towards us.’
The steps below their feet undulated like water rippling in a basin. Rix’s knees wobbled. The air felt as though it had been charged up by a thunderstorm, and his hair was crackling.
Tobry swallowed audibly. ‘We’re getting out now.’ He pulled on Rix’s shoulder. ‘Pray to your Five Heroes.’
It was not in Rix to retreat from a fight. ‘You don’t believe in the Heroes.’
‘I’d pray to a pickled onion if it would get us home safely. Come on.’
‘What is that thing?’ Rix made out a pair of yellow pinpoints, racing upwards. Through the rents in his shirt, cold stabbed at his chest like icicle daggers.
‘We shouldn’t be here!’ Tobry yanked Rix’s arm. ‘Run, like you’ve never run before.’
Rix ran, glancing over his shoulder but the black shadow reflected nothing. Their hunter might have been man-shaped or it might have been winged. It was too large to be the caitsthe in cat form or human but, whatever it was, it was fast. There was a faint luminance about its middle, a reddish, uncanny glow, and shimmers of light further out. He could smell the magery on it, magery that gave him the blind horrors.
They scrambled up the steep steps, through the pool of bitter cold, and were approaching the maze when Rix stumbled on a loose stone, twisted his right ankle and landed on his knees. Tobry, who was ahead, came running back and heaved him up. Wrenching the torch from Rix’s hand, he whirled it around his head until it flared, then hurled it at the onrushing shape.
Momentarily the figure was outlined in tinges of red — swirling robes, staff like a shepherd’s crook, a vaguely human shape that was glacier blue at the centre. It was like a wrythen from the nightmares Rix had been having lately, then the torch went out as if it had been swallowed whole.
‘The land is haunted,’ Rix gasped. ‘How are we going to survive?’
‘How are we going to survive?’ Tobry retorted.
He waved the elbrot furiously and it lit, telling him which path to take through the maze. Rix was glad of the enchantment now, for he could never have found the way. But then, he would not have seen the concealed cave in the first place.
‘It’s gaining,’ said Rix. ‘Can you hold it off?’
Tobry laughed hollowly. ‘Not even if I were Hightspall’s chief magian.’
They were approaching the rubble pile below the cave entrance, Rix limping badly, when a blast woven from a thousand shrieking souls howled up at the fissured roof ahead of them. It touched it with a pearly flicker, drifted forwards, and stone spalled away everywhere it touched. Crevices opened, fractures ground over rock fractures.
‘It’s trying to bring the roof down,’ gasped Tobry.
Rock began to fall, making a deadly curtain across the passage.
‘Don’t stop!’ Tobry dragged Rix on. ‘Dive through!’
‘We’ll never make it.’
‘Better we don’t than be trapped here with that.’
The wrythen hated them — Rix could see the rage shimmering all around the creature. It had never met them before, yet it loathed and despised them, wanted nothing but to crush them into oblivion. Why?
He ignored the pain and ran harder, preparing to leap the rubble pile and dive through the falling rocks. They might just make it.
Then something rose up from the other side of the rubble, its eyes reflecting the pearly light coming off the roof. Eyes that were higher than the top of Rix’s head.
The caitsthe was blocking the way out.
CHAPTER 18
What was alkoyl, and why had the master chymister shuddered at the thought of going down the Hellish Conduit, whatever that was, to get more? What were the enemy readying in such haste? And why?
Without warning, fingers thin and cold as knotted wire closed around Tali’s upper arms and she was jerked backwards into darkness. Tinyhead? No, her attacker was far too small. Biting her tongue to stifle a cry that was bound to bring guards running, Tali tried to pull free.