things perished for want of light—or it might have been a quality peculiar to that place, as heat seemed peculiar to the lowlands. No star could be glimpsed, and the only light was a sort of glow that pulsed along the silver lines in the rocks. The silence was dreadful.
But the place was known to John through the dreams the Demon Queen had sent. A dreadful déjà vu tangled with other memories that he could not clearly identify as either true or illusory. In sleeping, other dreams had come to him, terrible dreams from which he would wake crying out or weeping and see lines of filthy littlepooks perched on the rock rims above his camp, puffing and crooning with content at the pain and terror they drank.
The rivulet was exactly as he had seen it in his dream. It dribbled from a crack high in the rock face and ended in a pool perhaps the size of the communal wash fountain of Alyn village, and the air above it shone with the sickly luminosity of the shining creatures that had attacked them. In her delicate flutter of revealing rags, Amayon stared transfixed.
There have been attempts to unseat me
, Aohila had said. She might even have been telling the truth. Aversin wondered what Folcalor’s summer gambit with demon-ridden wizards had to do with such matters, if anything, and what Folcalor’s lord—Amayon’s lord—the arch-demon Adromelech would give for this water.
And what would Aohila give Amayon for it, if the demon returned with it instead of John and bargained for freedom?
Deliberately Aversin unslung the satchel from his shoulder—much lighter now, for food and water were scant—produced the ink bottle, and dropped half a score of flax seeds inside.
Amayon cursed him and tried to snatch the bottle from his hand. But even as she reached, her white fingers thinned to smoke and whirled into the tiny aperture. John stoppered the bottle, stuffed it into the front of his tattered and sorry doublet, and stood for a time listening.
But the only sound was the lick and twitter of the water over the rock.
The Queen had given him nothing in which to carry the water, nor had there been any vessel save for the onyx ink bottle in his dream. Among the things he’d brought from the Hold were two small silver flasks:if spells changed from Hell to Hell, he hoped anything watertight would do. And he hoped, too, that whatever this water really did would not work to the peril of his own world. He filled both bottles, placing one in his satchel, the other in the bottom of a food bag.
“Now let’s hope she can’t see from one Hell to the next,” he muttered and slung both satchel and bag over his shoulder.
He made a careful examination—and a sketch—of the desolate fountain but saw no rune, no wyrd, no sigil; there was no indication at all that the place was anything other than what he had been told.
Aching in every limb and joint, he began his slow descent of the mountain.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“He said there was aught he had to do.” Sergeant Muffle turned back from the milky brightness of the doorway into the gloom of the smithy where Jenny had sought him out. “He wouldn’t say where he was bound. But he burned his work shed before he left.”
“
John
burned the work shed?” Jenny had heard from Bill, when he’d helped dig the snow from her doorway, that the shed had burned. She had grieved for John, knowing how he loved all those half-made projects, how he’d sought the length and breadth of the Winterlands for metal and springs and silken cord.
She put out her hand half blindly to touch one of the roof posts that surrounded the low brick forge, the warmth and amber light beating gently up against her face. And she saw her own shock, her own fear at the implications of such a deed, reflected in the smith’s small bright brown eyes.
“And none have seen him.” John’s brother picked up again the pot he’d been repairing when Jenny came into the forge and set it over the horn of the anvil to tap and file
But the place was known to John through the dreams the Demon Queen had sent. A dreadful déjà vu tangled with other memories that he could not clearly identify as either true or illusory. In sleeping, other dreams had come to him, terrible dreams from which he would wake crying out or weeping and see lines of filthy littlepooks perched on the rock rims above his camp, puffing and crooning with content at the pain and terror they drank.
The rivulet was exactly as he had seen it in his dream. It dribbled from a crack high in the rock face and ended in a pool perhaps the size of the communal wash fountain of Alyn village, and the air above it shone with the sickly luminosity of the shining creatures that had attacked them. In her delicate flutter of revealing rags, Amayon stared transfixed.
There have been attempts to unseat me
, Aohila had said. She might even have been telling the truth. Aversin wondered what Folcalor’s summer gambit with demon-ridden wizards had to do with such matters, if anything, and what Folcalor’s lord—Amayon’s lord—the arch-demon Adromelech would give for this water.
And what would Aohila give Amayon for it, if the demon returned with it instead of John and bargained for freedom?
Deliberately Aversin unslung the satchel from his shoulder—much lighter now, for food and water were scant—produced the ink bottle, and dropped half a score of flax seeds inside.
Amayon cursed him and tried to snatch the bottle from his hand. But even as she reached, her white fingers thinned to smoke and whirled into the tiny aperture. John stoppered the bottle, stuffed it into the front of his tattered and sorry doublet, and stood for a time listening.
But the only sound was the lick and twitter of the water over the rock.
The Queen had given him nothing in which to carry the water, nor had there been any vessel save for the onyx ink bottle in his dream. Among the things he’d brought from the Hold were two small silver flasks:if spells changed from Hell to Hell, he hoped anything watertight would do. And he hoped, too, that whatever this water really did would not work to the peril of his own world. He filled both bottles, placing one in his satchel, the other in the bottom of a food bag.
“Now let’s hope she can’t see from one Hell to the next,” he muttered and slung both satchel and bag over his shoulder.
He made a careful examination—and a sketch—of the desolate fountain but saw no rune, no wyrd, no sigil; there was no indication at all that the place was anything other than what he had been told.
Aching in every limb and joint, he began his slow descent of the mountain.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“He said there was aught he had to do.” Sergeant Muffle turned back from the milky brightness of the doorway into the gloom of the smithy where Jenny had sought him out. “He wouldn’t say where he was bound. But he burned his work shed before he left.”
“
John
burned the work shed?” Jenny had heard from Bill, when he’d helped dig the snow from her doorway, that the shed had burned. She had grieved for John, knowing how he loved all those half-made projects, how he’d sought the length and breadth of the Winterlands for metal and springs and silken cord.
She put out her hand half blindly to touch one of the roof posts that surrounded the low brick forge, the warmth and amber light beating gently up against her face. And she saw her own shock, her own fear at the implications of such a deed, reflected in the smith’s small bright brown eyes.
“And none have seen him.” John’s brother picked up again the pot he’d been repairing when Jenny came into the forge and set it over the horn of the anvil to tap and file
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