The Lost Heiress

12

The creatures of the deep, how shall we number them?

Beasts of nightmare, spun from the dark mind.

All the spiny, envenomed things of anger.

They infest us, they breed.

Who will rid us of them now that the

Makers are gone?

Poems of Anjar Kar

IT RIPPLED LIKE A GREAT WORM, its fluid body thick and loathsome. As they stared, the tail slid out of the hole, whipping swiftly behind the dark bookshelves.

Harnor looked ashen. “God,” he kept muttering. “Oh God.”

Carys stuffed the relic inside her coat and grabbed him tight. “Keep quiet. Quiet! And stay close.”

He shuddered; she saw the knife blade quiver in his hand. They stepped carefully down from the dais, every nerve alert. She held the crossbow ready.

Neither of them spoke.

On each side the vast black shelves loomed, the creature winding invisibly among them. Faintly, they could hear it; somewhere it was slithering, its scales making a light, sinister hiss and scrape on the stone floor. The sound seemed to be all around; Carys, her fingers clutched on the bow trigger, glanced nervously behind them.

Harnor jerked her arm in terror. “There!”

She whirled, saw a length of something slide into shadow. Her fingers were damp with sweat; she knew if she fired and missed, it would be on them before she could reload. It was hunting them, whatever Kest-horror it was, rippling around them with its endless coils. Somewhere in the halls the narrow eyes would be watching, behind some tower of books, through some slit.

It stank, too: a sickening, putrid stench.

The black halls seemed enormous; far ahead in the darkness the trapdoor waited, a slanted square. It was their bait.

“We’ll never make it,” he moaned.

“We’re not meant to make it.” She was walking backward now, the bolt spanning the shadows.

They came through the first hall, then the second. Small squirms and ripples of movement slid in the dark, out of sight. Carys’s arms ached with tension.

Ahead, the doorway to the third hall loomed. They were almost under it when his choked yell made her leap around and she saw it, towering over them: a great looping, uncoiling serpent, grotesque fins of small bones splaying from its neck, its great head flat like a snake’s but crested with spines that dripped poisons and acids in pools on the floor, bubbling and hissing into the stone. Wide green eyes gleamed at her. She jerked back as the scorching saliva seared her face, then she aimed and shot the bolt straight at its throat.

Almost mocking, the head swerved aside; the bolt splintered something in the dark. Cursing, Carys scrabbled for another, but the worm darted straight at her, and with a gasp of terror she squirmed away, fell into a gap between shelves, picked herself up, and ran.

Harnor was ahead, reckless in the dark. They raced the length of one passage, then swung into another before she hauled him down and they crouched, breathing hard, the darkness spitting and slithering all around them.

“Don’t get lost!” She jammed the bolt in frantically. “We have to get down that hole!”

“We can’t.”

“We can! Don’t panic. It’s a beast—it has no reason.”

He was white; the knife trembled as he clutched it. She had to drag him to his feet, but he crumpled again and cowered into the shadows, hands over his face. “I can’t. I can’t. I’ll stay here. I’ll be all right.”

“It can smell you!” She hauled him up, furious. “For Flain’s sake, listen to me! Listen! We get through these shelves till we’re opposite the trap. Understand? And don’t get lost, Harnor, because I won’t come looking for you.”

He stared at her in dread. Then he rubbed his face again. “All right.”

They paced down rows of books. Halfway along one, Carys paused. The library was utterly silent, except for, far off, the drumming of rain. Nothing moved. The silence was like an ache. And now she could smell the thing, a strong stench of rotting weed, stagnant water. Bending, she felt the stones of the floor. Her fingers touched a thick slime, an acrid smear that crossed before her and ran under the dark shelves.

Hurriedly she straightened and stepped over it. But the hall was crisscrossed with the worm’s trail; soon the stench was on their hands and boots, a cold slime they couldn’t rub off. By the time they crept to the crack in the shelves they were sick with it, Harnor retching with the back of one hand over his face. Sweating, she peered out.

Everything was still.

“Now,” she whispered. “Stay together. We’ll need both of us against this thing. Stab deep, but remember there are coils of it, so don’t stop. Just get down the ladder.”

He nodded, but she saw he was stupid with terror. Gripping the bow tightly, she said, “Now. Run.”

He didn’t move.

“Run!”

“It’s out there. It’s waiting.” His voice was a breath; he was staring out at the trapdoor like a man in a nightmare, frozen with panic. Suddenly she turned and shoved him, hard, out onto the dark floor so that he screeched and rolled and scrabbled in horror toward the square of darkness.

And instantly the creature was on him.

It swooped, out of some high place, and she was awed at the rippling speed of it, the glistening coils. Harnor shrieked; Carys fired the bolt hard, and it thumped into the creature’s flesh, but the thing didn’t stop. It kept coming, and Carys pulled out her long knife and ran, slashing at it. It hissed and spat; it was all around her, moving fast, bewildering, and suddenly she was entangled in it, the firm muscles slithering under her arms, around her knees. As she slashed, some coils loosened but others came, squeezing her tighter, slippery with slime and a cold, watery blood.

“Harnor!” she screamed.

Then she saw him. He was halfway down the hole; for a second he looked up and saw her and she yelled at him again, and caught the furtive glimmer of his face, white as paper. Then he was gone, and she was being dragged, one arm trapped tight, kicking and fighting. She had no breath now; she squirmed and wriggled, and then suddenly, lay limp.

The terrible squeezing slowed. Somewhere in the dark, a long hiss told her the head was zigzagging in.

Carefully, one-handed, she felt inside her pocket and pulled out the tiny firelighter she had picked up earlier. She felt choked; the cold grip of the contracting worm was suffocating all the anger out of her, but she waited until its head loomed above, spiraling down, the green eyes alight in the dark.

Then she flicked the lighter on.

The head whipped back.

She held it out, as far as her arm would reach; then, with a better idea, she brought it back against the beast’s skin. It convulsed into shivers, squeezing her harder, but she held the flame there, relentless, coughing at the burning of the scales and the acrid smoke, the tiny fierce Maker-light flaring blue and green. Then, with a jerk that almost broke her ribs, the creature opened up and flung her out, kinking and wriggling in irritation, and she dived under it into the open square of the hole and fell, swinging with a scream and a crash against the ladder, grabbing again, the knife and bow clanging and clattering down into the darkness below.

Above her the creature searched frantically; as its body looped she hauled herself up and grabbed the trapdoor and with one great heave pulled it down over her, so that the blackness rang with the crash of falling dust.

For a long time she clung to the ladder, shaking, breathing hard. Above her the slither of scales sounded faintly; she was sore and bruised, her legs weak with sickness and relief.

After a while, she felt calmer. Then she thought of Harnor. Where was he? She cursed him silently, calling him coward, craven little rat, and the anger put fresh strength into her; she found herself clambering down the slimy ladder, down the long descent into blackness until her feet met the stone floor abruptly.

She stood still.

“Harnor?”

The whisper echoed; she hadn’t expected any answer. Moving cautiously, her foot nudged something. She bent and groped for it, her hands feeling it over. The crossbow. Dented. She took out the tiny fire-maker and flicked it on; the blue flame shone pale. After a longer search she found her knife and stuck it into her belt grimly. So he’d gone, then. And what a squirming panic he’d be in, running back through the silent rooms, sobbing with fear, dodging shadows, imagined slithers down the walls.

She smiled remotely. Poor Harnor. Was this what the Watch had done to him, or had he always been afraid? Was that why they’d never trained him? How would she be without that training? She frowned. Anyway, he must think she was dead, or if not dead, then lost, hopelessly lost in this labyrinth of rooms and tunnels and halls.

She grinned, pushing the grimy hair from her eyes. Then she lit the torch propped against the wall and began to walk, the bow slung ready.

The first mark was on the corner of three passages; the torchlight fell on it and she reached out and smudged it off, the chalk whitening her thumb. He hadn’t seen them, then. She’d made them low, bending in snatched moments when he hadn’t been looking, with the tiny lump of chalk she’d brought. If he’d been trained, he would have guessed.

“Always leave yourself a way out,” old Jellie would say, pounding up and down the icy classroom with his stick, crunching daydreamers sharply in the back. “Never rely on anyone else to get you out.”

She walked quickly, but the way seemed endless and she had no idea how much time had gone by. The rooms and halls were dark, and once or twice she had to search hard for the chalk-marks. Down in the dampest tunnels great slugs had crawled out; the torchlight flickered on them, white, flabby monsters. She ignored them because they were no danger, but sometimes there were other sounds: a creak of wings in a high hall, muffled voices, and once a faint scuttling, as if some immense insect ran up an invisible wall.

The Hall of Clocks was a relief; she heard the tocking from far off and almost ran through the hall toward it, but when she’d squeezed through the twisted gate into the courtyard she was dismayed to see how light it was. Drizzle was falling, but it was well into the morning. Cursing, she kicked the weeds aside and raced for the opposite door, praying that Braylwin would still be asleep. In her hurry she took two wrong turns; it must have been over an hour before she came through the door into Harnor’s cluttered secret halls. She dumped the worn-out torch into a corner and ran past the piled-up relics and smooth statues to the hidden sliding panel.

For a moment she thought he had locked it; then she realized she had never opened it from the inside, and it took her hasty, irritated minutes to find the catch.

Once out, she sped through the halls and courtyards. The tower was awake; a clock chimed ten, and she pushed through the crowds of clerks and wagonloads of files with rising despair.

Up the stairs, along the corridor, smoothing her hair, rubbing dirt from her face, and then as she turned the corner she saw Braylwin’s door was open and heard his high, plaintive voice whining inside.

“Well, where is she? How long has she been gone?”

Coming to the door, Carys peered in.

Braylwin was swelling with rage, his red silk gown bursting its buttons. The man-at-arms looked sour. In one corner Harnor was working, bent over his desk as if he wished he could disappear into it. He looked tired out and terrified; he still wore the same clothes, and she could see the dried mud on his boots.

Braylwin took breath for another outburst. Then he saw her. “There you are! Where on earth have you been?”

All heads turned.

Carys came in and looked at Harnor. She had never seen anyone cringe like that. For a moment their eyes met and she stared at him levelly, wanting him to feel the terror, the suspense. It was the only punishment she could give him; now she had to save herself, get herself out of the stifling tower before the loss of the relic was traced to her.

“Well?”

She perched on the table and began picking at the remains of Braylwin’s lavish breakfast. “Out. I wanted to walk.”

Harnor almost collapsed in relief. Braylwin glared at him. “You. Get on.” Looking back at Carys he said, “So early?”

“Yes. I had to think.”

“About what?”

“About whether to tell you.” She looked up and gave him the best lie she could think of. “I’ve had a message from Galen.”

Braylwin rubbed his fat hands. “You have?”

“I have. We need to leave at once. He’s found the Interrex.”