Lord of Souls

TWO

Mere-Glim was finishing off a sheartooth steak when Wert burst into the chamber they shared with four other skraws, a damp stony room grown up in phosphorescent moss. He had an agitated look on his face, even for Wert. Oluth came in right behind him.

“They’re coming for you,” Oluth gasped. “You have to go.”

“What? Who is coming for me?”

“Guards from one of the lords-Ix, I think. They’ve been questioning people. They broke poor Jith. I know he didn’t mean to-”

“You have to hide someplace until they’re gone,” Wert said.

“That will only put you in more danger,” Glim replied. “If they’re after me, they probably know you’re my second. I’m not going to leave you here to face them.”

“I’ll run, too, just in a different direction,” Wert said. “Glim, we need you. The skraws need you, especially if they’ve caught on to us. You know how to think about these things-we don’t.”

“It’s just I don’t see how they found out,” Glim said. “It was supposed to look like the kitchens were doing it to each other. It was working, I’m sure of it.”

He saw Oluth start at that, but before he could say anything, Wert began trying to push him into the water.

“Go,” he said. “Go someplace deep.”

He saw them as soon as he was in the water. They were smart; they probably had sent someone to run him down in the caves, but figured he would come out here-and he had, right into their hands-if not their net, which he saw descending from above.

He only had one way out, and the four figures ahead were blocking it, so he went straight at them with all the speed he had, which was clearly more than they were expecting. He avoided their spears and bowled right through them, diving for the Drop.

He thought he was free when something hit him in the side, hard. He spun down to his right, but after a few yards something yanked him back and sent waves of agony through his ribs.

He looked back into a cloud of blood. His blood, pouring from where a harpoon was stuck in him. One of the men was lashing the other end of the line around a spike of coral.

With a harsh cry, Glim hurled himself back at them, but they were more ready for him this time, three of them setting their spears and the harpooner reloading his weapon, which looked a lot like a crossbow.

He jagged at the last moment, but one of the spearmen managed to shift his point so it hit him in the forehead. He screamed as the tip found his skull and deflected, slicing all the way to his ear. The pain was terrific, but it only seemed to make him stronger as he jerked his way down the shaft and buried his claws in the man’s throat. One of the others gripped him from behind, and then they all had him. He rolled and pitched furiously, smashing them into coral. Two let go, but the other managed to hold on by grabbing the harpoon, and this time his senses were shattered by the pain, and for a moment he wasn’t sure what was happening.

The next thing that came to him clearly was Oluth, trying to say something. Blood was coming from his mouth. A quick look showed his attackers all dead or too badly wounded to do anything.

“What?” he asked Oluth.

“I’m sorry,” the boy said. “We did it, the glimmers. We thought it was what you wanted.”

“What?” Glim demanded. “What did you do?”

“They were supposed to know, so they would do something about the vapors. We were proud, proud to be a part of-” He coughed, and a great gout of red poured from his mouth.

“We broke a tree-root feed,” he said. “We left our sign there, the sign of the vapors.”

“Sign of the vapors?”

“Right,” Oluth said weakly. “You wouldn’t have seen it. It’s on the door to the chamber. Four wriggling lines, in a spray.” He closed his eyes. Glim saw the wound now. The knife was still in it.

“Let’s get you fixed up,” he said.

“No,” Oluth said. “More coming. I’ll wait here for them.”

“I can’t let you, not alone.”

“Please,” Oluth said. “Please, for me? If you forgive me, please go.”

Glim cut the line to the harpoon and was trying to pull it free when several figures emerged from the cave entrance. Oluth launched himself forward.

“Go!” he screamed. Glim saw he had the harpoon gun.

More guards came out, seven now.

So he did as Oluth asked and swam deep.

When Glim had put some distance between himself and his pursuers, he found a crevice in the side of the sump, wedged the other end of the harpoon into it, and finally managed to yank the barbed head free. He almost passed out, and for several long breaths he couldn’t swim, but then he started stroking again, trailing more blood than ever.

He couldn’t get Oluth’s last words out of his head. Where had he gone wrong? Hadn’t he explained well enough? And what were they doing breaking a tree-root feed? That hadn’t even been one of the targets he had approved.

But it did give him an idea. He took a twisting course, past where a cluster of middens emptied into the sump, hoping the turbulence would disperse his blood trail, then swam toward the capillaries that drew water up to the Fringe Gyre. It took him a few minutes, but he found the one with the lines crudely etched into the stone above-the sign of the vapors. They had smashed the filter, so the capillary was pulling up debris that in time would choke the feed. Hoping it wasn’t blocked already, he went up it.

It was nearly too tight for him; he had to writhe up the thing for the first hundred feet or so, but finally it met a larger tube and he let himself drift for a moment before continuing on.

He’d never been in these passages before for the simple reason that none of the filters were ever broken. Older skraws who had made repairs said they formed a webwork that brought water to the roots of the Fringe Gyre. He hadn’t wanted to take his usual path up, because it would have been far too easy to track him. Now, as he passed dozens of branching tubes, many far too small to admit him, he wondered if he hadn’t merely managed to trap himself. If they found him here, his speed and maneuverability wouldn’t count for much.

Not that he had that much of either left anyway. He didn’t know how much blood he had lost; his wounds stanched themselves pretty quickly, but he was still bleeding.

Hoping he wouldn’t pass out before he found a way up, he swam on, through passages that became increasingly more dizzying and labyrinthine.