Antrax

13

A handful of the Rindge took Quentin Leah and his companions from the ruins of Castledown back to their village. Most stayed to finish setting traps for the mysterious wronks, but the one who had spoken with Panax, along with several of his fellows, broke off from the main group to act as escort. Although the Rindge made no mention of it, the bloodied, ragged, and worn condition of their visitors made it obvious they needed food, rest, and medical treatment. Quentin and company, while reluctant to break off their search for the others, realized they were in no condition to continue. If they were to be effective in finding their missing friends, they would first need to eat, dress their wounds properly, and sleep in a safe place. Moreover, the Rindge might prove helpful in telling them how and where to direct their efforts once they resumed looking.

So they made the three-hour trek through the woods to the Rindge village and were there by midday. On their journey, they learned more about the land to which they had traveled. The Rindge who did all the talking was called Obatedequist Parsenon, or something that sounded very like it, according to Panax. Since the Dwarf was unsure, the cumbersome name was quickly reduced to just Obat. Obat was a subchief in the village hierarchy, the son of a former high chief. It was clear from the deference showed him by the other Rindge that he was a respected member of the community. Obat told them the land of his people was called Parkasia and they had been there two thousand years, since the beginning of time. He did not speak of the Great Wars, but seemed to date everything from then, as if nothing had existed before his people’s appearance in Parkasia. It was difficult to be certain, but it appeared to Panax that Parkasia was a peninsula attached to a much larger body of land north and west in which tribes other than the Rindge made their home.

There were various tribes of Rindge living in Parkasia, Obat explained, some of them hunters, some farmers. They were a self-sufficient people and engaged in little trading. Wars sprang up between them now and then, but their greatest common enemy was the thing that lived in Castledown’s ruins. Antrax, Obat called it, but he could not find a way to explain what it was. He said it was a spirit, but it commanded creepers and fire threads, strange things that seemingly had nothing to do with spirits. Antrax warded Castledown against all intruders and had done so for as far back as anyone could remember. But it also raided the villages of the Rindge now and then and stole away the people. Those taken were never seen again. They were sacrificed to satisfy Antrax’s hunger, their bodies dismembered and their spirits enslaved so that they could never die or be at rest.

It was the same story the company had been told earlier and it made no more sense than it had then; dead was dead, and you didn’t enslave souls once the body was gone. But Obat insisted on it, even though he could offer no explanation as to why Antrax took the Rindge and treated them so, what he needed them for, or why he would bother with humans when he possessed command over such formidable technology. Every time the name Antrax was spoken, the Rindge showed signs of discomfort, casting glances in all directions, making warding motions, even when they were several hours away from the ruins.

Still mired in his discomfort at leaving Bek, Quentin Leah listened to it all with half an ear. Exhausted and battered from his struggle against the creepers, he knew he was staying upright through sheer force of will. But he was heartsick at abandoning his search for his cousin, and he could not stop thinking about it. They had promised they would look out for each other. Bek would never break that promise, no matter what, unless he was unable to carry it out. It didn’t matter that Quentin had no idea where to look for his cousin other than in the ruins, and that looking for anyone in the ruins was suicide. It didn’t matter how tired he was. All he knew was that he was walking away from Bek at a time when Bek might need him most.

Obat was talking about Antrax again, saying that many of the Rindge tribes believed that Antrax had created humans at the beginning of time and took some back now because he was dissatisfied with their behavior. Antrax was a god and must be worshipped and respected or disaster would result. So they made pilgrimages, bringing gifts to the ruins several times a year. Sometimes, they brought humans as sacrifices to the wronks who were once their kindred. They did not do those things in Obat’s village, but that was because the Rindge there believed in the old stories that said humans were created from the earth and given life long before Antrax discovered them. In Obat’s village, they believed that Antrax was a demon.

Quentin absorbed all that and consoled himself about Bek by deciding that his cousin, with his newly discovered magic, was probably better equipped than he to ward off demons or creepers or anything else. That Bek should have magic of any sort still astonished him, yet it made sense in light of what they had both decided about Walker’s decision to bring them along. It explained why they had been chosen when there were so many others who might have been taken instead. But it left the Highlander pondering anew his cousin’s origin and the reason it had been kept secret so long. It made him wonder how much Coran and Liria knew and had been keeping from them.

They arrived at the village of the Rindge by midday, newly footsore and barely mobile. The village sprawled through a series of connected clearings in a wooded area backed up against foothills leading west into a spine of mountains and consisted mostly of open-air huts and pavilions constructed of wood and bark with blankets and reed screens used as dividers for rooms. The people came out to look at them, men, women, and children alike, all henna-complexioned and red-haired, the youngest darker than their elders.

No palisade or moat warded the village, and when asked, Obat said there was no point; the wronks and creepers could push right through such defenses in any case. When a raid took place, the Rindge simply fled into the hills until it was safe to return. A good system of outposts kept them safe most of the time. The defenses that made a difference were the traps they set out in the woods, deep camouflaged pits with jagged rocks at their bottoms. The creepers and wronks often fell into them and if damaged or not sufficiently mobile, could not climb out. If the metal predators were found and the pits filled in quickly enough, they could no longer hear the commands of Antrax and so remained there.

Fetishes tied to poles ringed the village, protectors for the Rindge against the things that sought to hunt them. Quentin looked into the eyes of the children who watched him and wondered how many the fetishes would save from raids and other dangers.

The five guests were taken to a screened-off area to bathe in large tubs of heated water, then visited by healers who dressed their wounds. Afterwards, they were taken to a pavilion, seated on mats, and given food. The Rindge were primitive, but their life seemed well ordered and reasonable. Quentin thought them intelligent, as well, not just from their speech, which had a musical lilt, but from the look in their eyes and the feel of their homes. Everything was simple, but all needs appeared to be met and served.

After an initial period of congregating to look over their visitors, the Rindge went back to work. Everyone seemed to have a task, even the children, although the youngest mostly played and clung to their mothers. Things aren’t so different here than they are in the Highlands, Quentin thought.

They slept then, and although Quentin promised himself he would rest for no more than a couple of hours, he did not wake until dawn. Panax was already up by then, engaged in conversation with Obat, and it was their voices, soft and distant from where they conversed outside the sleeping shelter, that roused Quentin. He glanced around and found to his chagrin that the Elves were up and gone, as well. Washing his hands and face in the basin of water provided for that purpose, he strapped the Sword of Leah across his back and walked out to see what was happening.

He found Panax and the Elves with Obat and several more of the Rindge, seated in a circle on mats, talking. As he walked up, he saw that sketches had been drawn in the dirt in front of them. The conversation between Panax and Obat was sufficiently intense that the Dwarf did not even glance at Quentin, but Tamis caught his eye and beckoned him over.

“Nice to see you back among the living,” she offered dryly. Her round, pixie face was freshly scrubbed, the skin ruddy beneath her tan. “You snore like a bull in rut when you sleep.”

He arched an eyebrow in response. “You spend a lot of time with bulls in rut, do you?”

“Some.” She brushed at her short-cropped hair. “What would you say if I told you that Obat knows another way into Castledown?”

Quentin blinked in surprise. “I’d say, when do we leave?”

There was no hesitation on anyone’s part about going. Rested and fed, their spirits renewed, the edges of their memories sufficiently blunted that wariness had replaced fear, they were anxious to return. All of them sought answers to what had happened to their friends, and there could be no peace of mind until those answers were found. Each of them, without saying so to the others, believed that there was still something to be accomplished at Castledown.

Their attitude was buttressed in no small way by the fact that the Rindge had agreed to guide them. Creepers and fire threads notwithstanding, if there was another way into the chambers beneath the ruins, they were eager to explore it. Ard Patrinell, Ahren Elessedil, and a handful of other Elves were still missing. Walker was still unaccounted for. Bek had disappeared along with Ryer Ord Star. Some of them, perhaps all, were still alive and in need of help. Quentin and his companions were not going to make them wait for that help.

They ate a quick meal, strapped on their weapons, and set out. Obat led their Rindge escort, two dozen strong. Most of the Rindge carried six-foot blowguns along with knives and javelins, but a substantial number bore short, stout, powerful spears with razor-sharp star heads that could penetrate even the metal of creepers. They used them like pry bars, Obat explained when Panax questioned him about it. They jammed the heads into joints and gaps of the creepers’ metal armor and twisted until something gave. Numbers usually gave the Rindge the advantage in such encounters. The creepers, he advised solemnly, were not invincible.

It was educational to watch the Rindge at work. They were a tribal people, but their fighting men appeared to be well trained and disciplined. They fought in units, their numbers broken down by weaponry. The front ranks used the heavy spears, the rear the blowguns and javelins. Even during travel, they kept their fighting order intact, dividing the men into smaller groups, scouts patrolling front and rear, and spear bearers warding the edges of the march. The outlanders, untested in battle, were placed in the middle, screened by their would-be protectors.

Quentin noted the way the Rindge rotated in and out of their loose formation as they traveled, shifting here and there in response to orders from Obat, burnished bodies gleaming with oil and sweat. No one in the little company thought to question their tactics. The Rindge had been living in that land and dealing with the minions of Antrax for hundreds of years; they knew what they were doing.

After a time, Panax dropped back to walk with Quentin, letting the Elves walk ahead of them a few paces. He did so quite deliberately, and the Highlander let him choose his own pace.

“The Rindge believe that Antrax controls the weather,” the Dwarf told him quietly, keeping both his head and voice lowered.

Quentin looked at him in surprise. “That isn’t possible. No one can control the weather.”

“They say Antrax can. They say that’s why the weather in their region of Parkasia never changes like it does everywhere else. He says he knows of the glaciers and ice fields on the coast. He says it snows inland, farther north and west, on the other side of the mountains. There are seasons there, but not here.”

Quentin shifted the weight of the Sword of Leah on his back. “Walker said something to Bek about the weather being odd. I thought it must be a combination of wind currents and geography, an anomaly.” He shook his head. “Maybe Antrax is a god after all.”

The Dwarf grunted. “A cruel god, according to the Rindge. It preys on them for no discernible reason. It uses them for fodder and then throws them away, minus a few parts. I keep asking myself what we’ve gotten ourselves into.”

“I keep wondering how much of all this Walker knew and kept to himself,” Quentin replied softly.

Panax nodded. “Truls would tell you Walker knew everything because Druids make it a point to find things out and then keep them concealed. I’m not so sure. We walked right into that trap three days back, and the Druid seemed as surprised as any of us.”

They walked on in silence, passing into the midday calm and heat, winding along a well-used trail that took them through ancient hardwoods whose boughs canopied and interlocked overhead in such thickness that the light could penetrate only in slender threads and narrow bands. Birds flew overhead, singing cheerfully, and there were squirrels and voles in evidence. The sun traveled slowly west across a cloudless sky, and the air smelled of green leaves and dry earth.

Then Tamis dropped back to walk with them. “I’ve been thinking,” she said quietly. “Something is wrong about this.”

They both stared at her. “What do you mean?” Panax asked, looking around as if he might find the answer hidden in the forest green.

Tamis glanced from one to the other. “Ask yourself this. Why are the Rindge being so helpful? Out of the kindness of their hearts? Out of a sense of obligation to help strangers from other lands? Out of compassion for our obvious misery at losing our friends and finding ourselves stranded?”

“It’s not unheard of,” Quentin replied, an edge to his voice.

She glared at him. “Don’t be stupid. By helping us, the Rindge are risking their lives and possible retaliation by Antrax, whatever it is. They wouldn’t do that unless there was something to be gained from doing so, something that would benefit them.”

Panax scowled, no happier than Quentin upon hearing this accusation. “What would that something be, Tamis?”

“I’ve been thinking,” she advised, keeping her voice low, her eyes on the Rindge. “You told them we came here seeking a treasure, and they know we went into the ruins very deliberately to find it. They must assume we knew something about what we were getting ourselves into before we tried that—however misguided that assumption might be. At the very least, that suggests to them that we have a means of dealing with Antrax. Now think about this. They haven’t said so, but what if they were watching us the first time we went in and know about Quentin’s sword and Walker’s Druidic powers? They’ve been looking for a way to rid themselves of Antrax for hundreds of years, and now, finally, they may have found one. Us. What if they’re using us as a weapon?”

“To destroy Antrax,” Quentin finished. “So they’re taking us right to it and turning us loose, hoping for the best. They won’t stand and fight with us, if it comes to that. They’ll run.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what they’ll do. I just think we’d better watch our backs. They have to wonder about us—where did we come from and what do we intend to do when this is over? Perhaps they’re thinking that the best thing that could happen would be for Antrax and us to destroy each other and leave the Rindge in peace. They have to have considered that. They don’t want to swap one form of tyranny for another. They know that’s a possibility, and nothing we say is going to convince them otherwise.”

“Obat doesn’t seem like that,” Quentin ventured after a moment.

Tamis sneered softly. “You haven’t been out in the world as long as I have, Quentin Leah. You haven’t seen as much. What do you think, Panax?”

The Dwarf glanced at Quentin, his gruff features set. “She’s right. We’d better be ready for anything.”

“Kian and Wye already know my thinking,” she said, starting ahead again. She glanced back at Quentin. “I hope I’m wrong, Highlander. I really do.”

They marched on in silence for the remainder of their journey, Quentin mired in gloom at the prospect of being betrayed yet again. He knew Tamis was right about the Rindge, but he could barely bring himself to consider what that might mean. He wished Bek were there to give his opinion. Bek would see things more clearly. He would be quicker to ferret out the truth. The Rindge didn’t seem antagonistic, but they had been at war with Antrax for the whole of their existence, so they knew something about staying alive. They hadn’t tried to harm their visitors, but Tamis might have been right about them watching the company fight its way clear of the maze. It was possible they were simply waiting to see what would happen when Antrax and the outlanders came face-to-face.

The more Quentin thought about it, the more uneasy he grew. The only real weapon they had was his sword. It might be enough to see them through, but he could not be certain. If Walker had been overcome by Antrax, what chance did he have? He wondered if Bek had come up against Antrax, as well, and having discovered his own form of magic, brought it to bear. If so, what success had he enjoyed? If his magic was powerful enough to shred creepers, as Tamis had reported, could it bring Antrax down? He did not like thinking of Bek facing Antrax alone. He did not like even considering the possibility. It shouldn’t happen that way, Bek alone. Or himself, for that matter. It should be the two of them, standing together the way they had planned it, watching out for each other.

He wondered if there was any chance that it could still happen like that and if it could happen in time to make a difference.

It was still early afternoon when they reached the edges of Castledown and paused long enough for the Rindge to scout ahead for creepers. While they waited, Quentin sat with Panax and stared out into the midday heat as it rose in visible waves off the metal of the devastated city. In the flat, raw wasteland, nothing moved. There was no sign of the maze, farther in from where they sat, and nothing to show that anyone had ever passed that way. Panax drank from a water skin and offered it to Quentin.

“Worried about Bek?” he asked, wiping his mouth.

Quentin nodded. “I can’t stop worrying about him. I don’t like the thought of him out there alone.”

The Dwarf nodded and looked off into the distance. “Might be better if he is, though.”

The Rindge scouts returned. There were no creepers in evidence along the city’s perimeter. Obat motioned everyone ahead, and they moved through the trees, staying just inside the forestline as they followed the edge of the ruins east and south. No one talked as they scanned the city, moving with slow, careful steps. The buildings stared back at them, the gaping holes of windows and doors like vacant eyes and mouths. Castledown was a tomb for dead men and machines, a graveyard for the unwary. Quentin carried the Sword of Leah unsheathed, bearing it before him, feeling just the slightest tingle of imprisoned magic awaiting its summoning. His pulse throbbed in his temples, and he heard the sound of his breathing in his throat.

Obat brought them to a grated entry cut into the side of a building that sprawled several hundred yards in both directions. Stationing Rindge at either end and carefully back from where he stood, he worked with a handful of others to free the grate from its clasps and swing it back on its rusted hinges. The effort produced a series of squeals barely muted by old grease and the weight of the metal.

Obat pointed into the black opening and spoke to Panax in hushed tones.

“Obat says that this leads to where Antrax lives,” the Dwarf translated. “He says this is how it breathes underground.”

“A ventilation shaft,” Quentin said.

“Ask him how he knows Antrax is down there,” Tamis demanded.

Panax did so, listened to Obat’s reply, and shook his head. “He says he knows because this is where he’s seen the creepers come out to hunt.”

Tamis looked at Quentin. “What do you think, Highlander? You’re the one with the sword.”

Quentin stared into the blackness of the shaft and thought that it was the last place he would like to go. He could just make out lights farther in, dim glimmers in the blackness, so they would not be blind. But he didn’t care for being trapped underground beneath all that stone and metal with no map to guide them and no way of knowing where to look.

“This might be a waste of time,” Panax offered quietly.

Quentin nodded. “On the other hand, what else do we have to do? Where else do we look for the others if not here?” His grip tightened on the sword. “We’ve come this far. We should at least take a peek.”

Tamis stepped forward to peer more closely into the darkness. “A peek should be more than enough. Are the Rindge coming with us?”

Panax shook his head. “They’ve already told me they won’t go into the ruins, above or belowground. They’re terrified of Antrax. They’ll wait for us here.”

“It doesn’t matter. We don’t need them anyway.” She looked over her shoulder at Quentin. “Ready, Highlander?”

Quentin nodded. “Ready.”

They went in bunched close together, Tamis leading, picking her way carefully. Their eyes adjusted quickly to the blackness. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the air shaft were smooth and unobstructed. They walked for several hundred yards without changing direction, locked in silence and the faintly metallic smell of the corridor, the opening through which they had entered shrinking behind them to a pinprick of light. The shaft began to descend then, dropping away at a slant, then splitting in two. The little company paused, then turned into the larger of the passageways, descending farther, moving past countless smaller ducts that burrowed through the walls and ceiling like snake holes. Ahead, still so distant at first that it was barely discernible, they could hear the sound of machinery, a soft purring, a gentle hum, a reminder of life ancient and enduring.

Lights burned at regular intervals, flameless lamps set into the walls, yellowish light steady and unwavering. Strange fish-eyes peered down at Quentin from the ceiling, set farther apart than the lights, tiny red dots blinking steadily at their centers. They seemed to be looking at him. It was ridiculous to think this, yet he could not shake the feeling that it was so. He glanced at Panax and Tamis to see if they were looking, too, but their eyes were directed ahead into the corridor they followed.

Quentin found himself staring around in amazement. He had never seen anything like this. So many metal sheets layered together, yards and yards of them, bolted and sealed against weather and animals and plants, a man-made warren carved into the earth. How had it been done? He tried to picture the culture and machines and skill that must have been required but he failed. The Old World had been a very different place, he knew, but that had never been more dramatically apparent to him than it was in the ventilation shaft.

Held in place by stanchions, metal pipes began to appear in connected lines along the walls of the passageway. Quentin could not discern their purpose. Everything felt strange and foreign to him, all the metal surfaces, all that space and emptiness. If Antrax lived down there, he had room to move about—that much was clear. But what sort of creature would choose to live in such a place? Only another machine, another creeper made of metal, Quentin thought. Perhaps Antrax was a machine, similar, yet more powerful than the creepers it commanded.

Suddenly, Tamis froze. Her hand came up in warning. The four men stopped instantly. Everyone listened. Ahead, the corridor ended in a hub from which a series of similar corridors fanned out like spokes in a wheel. Within one of those corridors, footsteps were audible. The footsteps were heavy and slow and deliberate, as if what made them bore a great weight.

Quentin had never heard footsteps like those. What made them walked on two legs, but it did not sound like something he had encountered before. He glanced at the others. Tamis was crouched like a cat. Panax stood upright, his expression unreadable. There was a sheen of sweat on the faces of the Elven Hunters, Kian and Wye. Quentin felt as if he couldn’t breathe. No one seemed able to move.

Then Tamis started forward, creeping up the corridor toward the shadowy hub ahead. She glanced back at Quentin once, her tough, no-nonsense face intense and her gray eyes bright. Don’t let me down, she was saying. Without even looking at the others, he went after her, matching her pace. Behind him, the Dwarf and the Elven Hunters followed. The sound of the footfalls grew louder. Whoever or whatever it was, it was making no effort to disguise its approach. It was big and it was confident. It was no one, Quentin thought in dismay, that he and his companions had come looking for.

Twenty feet from the hub, with the entrances of all of the intersecting tunnels visible, they slowed as light cast a shadow from the one just to the left of where they crouched in hiding. Then a tall, lumbering figure stalked out of the gloom and into the light of a dozen lamps set all around the hub.

Quentin caught his breath sharply as the figure was revealed. He heard gasps from the others. Even Tamis, who seemed unafraid of anything, took a step back in shock.

Like a shade or a demon or perhaps something of both, but most like a monster come from a nightmare’s imagining into the real world, the thing—for there was no other word for it—turned to face them.

It was Ard Patrinell.

Or what was left of him.