The Infernal City by Greg Keyes

all?”
    “Then we can’t permit Umbriel to learn your form. We must cut your body away from what inhabits it and send it back out into the void.”
    “Why not simply let me go? Return me to Tamriel? Why kill me?”
    “Ah, a soul is too precious for that. We could not think of letting one waste. Now, tell me about this form of yours.”
    “I am as you see me,” he replied.
    “Are you some sort of daedra?”
    Glim gaped his mouth. “You know what daedra are?” He asked. “The man we talked to below didn’t.”
    “Why should he?” the man said. “We have incorporated daedra in the past, but none exist here now.
Are
you daedra?”
    “No.”
    “Very well, good, that makes things less complicated. Those spines on your head. What is their function?”
    “They make me handsome, I suppose, to others of my race. More to some than to others. I try to take care of them.”
    “And that membrane between your fingers?”
    “For swimming.”
    “Swimming?”
    “Propelling oneself through water. My toes are webbed as well.”
    “You move through water?” The fellow blinked.
    “Often.”
    “Beneath the surface?”
    “Yes.”
    “How long can you remain beneath before having to surface for air?”
    “Indefinitely. I can breathe water.”
    The fellow smiled. “Well, you see, how interesting. What Umbriel lacks, it will seek out.”
    Glim shifted on his feet, but since he didn’t understand what the man was talking about, he didn’t answer.
    “The sump. Yes, I think you might do well in the sump. But let’s finish the interview, shall we? Now, your skin—those are scales, are they not?”



ONE

    He saw the blow coming from the shift of the Redguard’s shoulder, but it was fast, so fast his dodge to the right almost didn’t succeed, and although the edge didn’t bite, the flat skimmed his bicep. He swung his sword at her ribs, but that same quickness danced her just beyond the reach of his blade.
    “Right idea, Attrebus,” he heard Gulan shout.
    She backed off a bit, her gaze fixed on his. “Yes,” she said. “Try that again.”
    “Got your breath yet?”
    “I’ll have yours in a minute,” she replied. She appeared to relax, but then suddenly blurred into motion.
    He backpedaled, but once again her speed surprised him. He caught her attack on the flat of his weapon and felt the weight of her steel smack against the guard. Then she was past, and he knew she would take a cut at his head from back there, so he dropped, rolled, and came back up.
    He saw it again, that slight slumping before she renewed her attack. Again he parried and broke the distance, but not quite so much.
    She circled, he waited. Her shoulders sagged, and he suddenly threw himself forward behind his blade, so that while she was starting to step and lift her weapon, his point hit her solar plexus and she went down, hard.
    He followed her and—as his people cheered—put the dull, rounded point in her face.
    “Yield?”
    She coughed and winced. “Yield,” she agreed.
    He offered her his hand and she took it.
    “Nice attack,” she said. “I’m glad we were at blunts.”
    “You’re very fast,” he said. “But you have a little tell.”
    “I do?”
    “Well, I’m not sure I want you to know,” he said. “Next time it might not be blunts.”
    She seemed to be favoring one foot, so he offered her his shoulder. He helped her limp over to the edge of the practice ground, where his comrades watched from their ale-benches.
    “Bring us each a beer, will you?” he called to Dario the pitcher-boy.
    “Aye, Prince,” he replied.
    He sat her down a bit apart from the others and watched as she unlaced her practice armor.
    “What was your name again?” he asked her.
    “Radhasa, Prince,” she replied.
    “And your father was Tralan the Two-Blade, from Cespar?”
    “Yes, Prince,” she replied.
    “He was a good man, one of my father’s most valued men.”
    “Thank you, highness. It’s nice to hear that.”
    He focused his