We pa.s.sed through several caves filled with subtle ornamentation of flowstone and stalact.i.tes, waded a shallow underground lake with green water as clear as gla.s.s, climbed a twenty-foot chimney, followed a set of narrow crawlways for a long distance, then scrambled up a huge dome and wriggled through a short pa.s.sage into a winding tunnel just far enough across for us to walk single-file.
With a startling suddenness, the tunnel opened onto a wide, flat sh.o.r.eline of a watercourse that extended, ruler-straight, as far as our lights could see. Nowemosdet was huge-a great semicircular hallway nearly two hundred feet wide, with even, flat banks about thirty feet wide on either side of the gla.s.sy-smooth emerald-glinting water. It felt slightly warmer here, and there was a hint of air moving.
We stared at it for long minutes, our breathing steadying after all the effort we"d gone through. Then I reached into the pocket of my pack. "Guess it"s time."
Jodi got out her vial.
We struggled a bit with figuring out just how they opened, but eventually realized they had to be squeezed and then twisted before pulling off. That over, we stared at each other for a moment. Then I shrugged and tossed the elixir down my throat in one swallow.
I immediately regretted that. Not that it felt bad-it was in fact the opposite. The taste of mikhsteri H"adamant was like nothing I"d ever tried before, and I tipped the vial back again, letting the last drop of it linger on my tongue. Sweet, cool, sharp, subtle, cold and warm at the same time . . .
"Clint . . ." Jodi"s voice held something close to awe. "Your face!"
I touched my face. I could literally feel the scabs falling away, leaving new skin where there had been raw wounds minutes ago. More than that, I felt exhaustion falling away from me as well, as though I had just put down a hundred-pound backpack. I felt I could jump across that entire giant reflecting pool. "Yeee-ha! Try it, Jodi, you"ll love it! Shoot, now I"ll have to see if Rokhaset"s got any other goodies like this in his recipes!"
Jodi swallowed her elixir, and now I got to gape. You could literally see the change, the head lifting, eyes shedding their tiredness, cuts and sc.r.a.pes fading away like bad dreams. Jodi looked more gorgeously alive than she"d ever looked before, worry lines smoothed away, uncertainty lifted. I knew that I must look the same way-confident, happy, and ready for anything.
"Oy! I"d start a war to get more of this stuff. I"m surprised you Slades didn"t get yourselves killed."
I couldn"t help but grin, and stepped forward. We hugged, kissed, then I laughed and spun her around with another whoop. "All right! Jodi, let"s see what the Road is like!" I jumped off the ledge towards the water two feet below.
And I didn"t sink into the water. It supported me, Jodi goggling wide-eyed while I stared back at her. Then, as though a decision had been made, I began to descend, but as though it were transparent quicksand. The feeling was something entirely different, though.
If you were lucky, you had a wonderful, loving mother who was never too busy for you, who always knew the right thing to say whenever you were sad, or scared, or hurt. If you weren"t, you probably wished you did. And if you had a mother like that, you might remember a morning or two when you, as a little child, were scared or lonely and crawled into bed when mommy was sleeping. And mommy, even though still asleep, somehow knew you were there, and her arm reached sleepily out and hugged you close, and you knew everything was completely and utterly right with the world, and nothing could hurt you as long as she was there.
That was what Nowemosdet was like. The presence here slept . . . yet She knew us, and somehow we knew Her, and Her Road was ready for us.
Jodi stood next to me in the water, both of us standing on the bottom, our heads just above the surface, and once more we just stared at each other. Then we took a step forward.
It was as though there was no water there at all-except that we seemed to be somehow supported by it. Walking together, we seemed not to walk really, but to float, carried onward by our intent, not by muscles. We didn"t really move very fast at all, but it was without effort. No matter how far we traveled this way, we sensed we would arrive completely rested and ready. Even more odd . . . I didn"t feel wet. The dirt had washed from us both, yet otherwise we seemed as dry as if we were walking on the bank.
"Rokhaset, you"ve steered us right so far," I muttered under my breath. "Let"s hope this last leg works out the way you planned it too."
We continued on, through the darkness, towards the enemies we had never met . . . yet.
13. Stone and Steel
"I just keep noticing weirder and weirder things."
"What is it this time, Clint?"
"Ripples. We"re not leaving any."
Jodi looked down, then behind us. "You"re right. No wake. Like we"re not even here."
I thought a moment. "No, more like we"re just a part of the water. The Road is taking us along just like we were part of the flow. Unless we hit something to cause the flow of the water to be upset, there won"t be ripples."
"That makes . . . hold it."
"What?"
Jodi"s forehead furrowed as she stared ahead. "The echoes. Something"s different. I think we might be finally getting to the end."
I glanced at my watch and received a bit of a shock. We"d been following Nowemosdet for nearly ten hours-which seemed to be no more than fifteen minutes or so to me. "I guess so!"
"Shh. They can"t hear most of our talk, but some of the high harmonics might get through."
Ahead, the darkness seemed to thicken, then lighten up into the yellow-gray of limestone. The water of Nowe "s Road continued on into the wall, through a pa.s.sage completely filled with water, but we felt the impetus which had carried us along weakening. The water still supported us, but clearly this was the end of the road.
On the right-hand side the walkway opened up into a huge tunnel, and on either side of the tunnel-Lisharithada.
They looked very much like the Nomes, but as I studied them, I could see some differences. The crystal crests which served as hair grew in a subtly three-ridged pattern. Their faces were slightly broader and more sharply pointed towards the chin. And they wore stony armor and carried weapons in a much more . . . comfortable fashion than the Nowethada.
I glanced at Jodi, who nodded. We turned towards the bank.
Even as we made the decision, the Road sensed it. We rose up out of the water and found ourselves stepping easily to the stone above, gripping the iron bars which seemed strangely light now.
As we had hoped, the Lisharithada seemed as oblivious to our presence as the Nomes had been when first we met. Rokhaset"s people had learned ways of sensing us to some extent-maybe, if by no other way, by paying careful attention to pockets of "air" that seemed even emptier than usual-but the Lisharithada apparently didn"t have knowledge of, or use, such tricks. Anyway, why would they? No human being could possibly come down this far without them knowing it.
Neither Jodi nor I saw any point in conflict when it wasn"t needed. Before we pa.s.sed between them, though, Jodi caught my arm and pulled me back up the walkway some distance. "Check our route."
I nodded, and we got out the portable. Rokhaset"s map glowed up at us from the screen. The Lisharithada city was large and complex. I carefully compared the version on the screen with the printed version and made a couple annotations to be sure I could tell which ones were supposed to be above the others, tracing the route in highlighter and checking to make sure Jodi agreed with me. Then I shut the machine down again. While so far there was no sign we were being sensed, given how little we knew about their senses I didn"t want to take any chances with having more electronic equipment running near them than I had to.
We pa.s.sed between the two guards, maximizing the distance between us by entering the large corridor directly in the center. After that, though, we moved to one side, figuring that, like most people, the Lisharithada wouldn"t generally crowd into the side of the corridor unless they had to and therefore wouldn"t be likely to b.u.mp us.
As we moved onward, this became a very real concern. The tunnel leading from the Road was empty, but soon it joined with another, and there were many of the city"s natives using it. The Lisharithada were a busy people. Maybe preparing for this destructive ritual demanded a h.e.l.l of a lot of work, or maybe they just liked to keep busy, but whatever it was, there were dozens-hundreds-of them in the main corridors. It would have been funny if it weren"t so deadly serious-watching how we contorted, jumped, and twisted keeping out of the way of hurrying contingents of rock people. Once one of them pa.s.sed within inches of me and stumbled, barely catching itself before hitting the ground. Its companion helped it up. "Pokil mondu ku?"
The fallen one responded with a quick spurt of language that I couldn"t catch, but I did get the word matturan, which made me hustle out of there. Clearly he"d gone momentarily blind near me, and that was something we definitely didn"t want anyone thinking about too much.
Jodi was more worried about their seradatho. Some of the creatures were clearly more formidably designed than those of the Nowethada-guard dogs, so to speak, rather than work dogs. It seemed that these seradatho also didn"t have any clue we were there, but I made a point of tracking their whereabouts more closely as we moved farther inwards.
"So far, so good." I muttered. "We"re about halfway there. Maybe we can make it all the way into their inner sanctum without them catching on. Then we can trash the equipment and get the h.e.l.l out of Dodge."
Jodi shook her head. "I wouldn"t bet on it."
Another great cavern opened up before us, this one similar to the one we had seen back in the Nome"s area-clearly a living or gathering place, with lots of traffic. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I could see some of the patterns in their movements and the shapes of the natural-stone areas that served them as . . . what, shop stands? Houses, without roofs because of the lack of weather? Offices?
"Y"know, I think I"m seeing better."
"You only noticed already? I"m like to be seeing twice as far as I usually can."
"I just hope this stuff doesn"t wear out too soon."
We came into sight of the next intersection. "Aw, s.h.i.t."
The free ride had evidently come to a halt. Probably the next area belonged to their ruling cla.s.s. Whatever the reason, this one had a door on it, and the door was guarded by three Lisharithada, who were being given a wide berth by the others. Even if the direction they were going would make it sensible to cut close by the doors, the others-civilians, I supposed-would detour quite a distance around instead.