* * *
   A minute later, we had caught up with Hezekiah and Miriam who were taking a breather some distance down the corridor. Hezekiah still held the grinder, which pleased me no end – without that «wee bauble», Rivi's plans would go nowhere.
   «All right,» I said to the boy, as I drew even with him. «You want to tell me how you did that trick back there? One second you were behind me in the control room. The next, you were showering the Fox with his own dust. I thought Rivi had blanked you from teleporting.»
   «I thought so too,» he answered, panting a bit after his run down the hall. «But…» He lowered his voice. «Oonah died right in front of us – she sacrificed herself. And then Miriam was watching me, as if she knew I'd do something to save everyone… I don't know, Britlin, it made me so mad and desperate, I felt this surge of energy, as if a little sun had caught fire inside of me. The next thing I knew, I was standing beside the Fox… and he'd left the grinder just lying on the floor while he was casting his spell… I didn't mean to kill him, Britlin, I just thought it would stop him from finishing the enchantment…»
   Miriam took the boy's arm and squeezed it with fierce protectiveness. «The old berk had it coming. Barmy as a bison and twice as nasty.»
   «You used to work for him,» Yasmin coldly reminded her. «And Rivi.»
   «Yeah, well.» Miriam dropped her gaze to the floor. «I took Rivi's jink, sure… but I didn't give a tinker's about her cause. No one did. And Rivi didn't give a tinker's for any of us. You saw how she treated Petrov; she'd do the same to me as easy as breathing, and I'd return the favor if I could.»
   «What a paragon of loyalty you are,» Yasmin muttered. Turning to the rest of us, she added, «Let's all bear that in mind, shall we?»
   «Honored Handmaid,» Wheezle said, staring up at Yasmin like an infant in her arms, «we have greater concerns than this woman's feelings toward us.»
   «That's right,» I put in, «like your state of health. How are you doing, Wheezle?»
   «Most of me is doing well, honored Cavendish. However, I have no feeling in my legs.»
   Hezekiah's face went pale. The boy whispered to me, «Wheezle hit that wall pretty hard…»
   «I know… could be a spinal injury.» In a louder voice, I told Wheezle, «Don't worry – whatever it is, they'll be able to fix it in Sigil.»
   «Indeed,» Wheezle nodded, «many of those in my faction have quite remarkable magic for curing —»
   The floor suddenly heaved beneath our feet, whipping all of us against the left-hand wall. By luck, I happened to be standing between Yasmin and the wall's glossy steel, which meant I could cushion her and Wheezle from full impact. The experience was not quite so cozy for me – Yasmin was no featherweight debutante, starved down to look good in taffeta – but I'd had it easy so far compared to the others, so I couldn't complain about a few bruises.
   A moment later, the floor's motion stopped; but the whole corridor remained slanted with a leftward slope of about five degrees. I didn't want to guess what was happening to the Glass Spider now that one leg was blowing its gaskets. Long ago, one of my father's friends had told me stories about all the planes, including the Plane of Dust: «There's places there, boy, where the dust runs a thousand miles deep. You can be walking along, dust only up to your ankles, and suddenly, the floor just drops away and you sink forever.» If the Spider's malfunctioning leg had somehow kicked us off the edge of safe ground into one of those dusty morasses…
   «Miriam,» I said, «I believe you were showing us the closest way out?»
   «Follow me,» she answered.
   And we followed.

* * *
   Corridors blurred by. At first we ran full speed, but another lurch from the Spider sent us toppling again, banging painfully into the metal wall. From that point on, we slowed to a nervous trot, as fast as we could go while still retaining some hope of staying on our feet at the next shudder. Three more times, the Glass Spider quaked; and each time, the floor tipped a little more sideways.
   «This feels like a sinking ship,» Hezekiah blurted out as we pressed on after the third upheaval.
   «I suppose you've been on a sinking ship,» Yasmin said.
   «No,» Hezekiah replied, «but my Uncle Toby —»
   «How far is it to the exit?» I interrupted: anything to avoid more about his sodding berk of an uncle.
   «Not far,» Miriam answered. «Every one of the Spider's arms has a portal at the bottom end. The one back to Sigil is too far away, but there's a portal nearby that goes to Mount Celestia.»
   I grunted in approval. Mount Celestia, the Plane of Lawful Good, was a bit restrained and conservative for my tastes, but it certainly qualified as a safe bolt-hole under the circumstances: the people were tolerant and friendly, the climate mild and hospitable. Sensates who visited there claimed it had the most boring night-life of any plane that wasn't actually encased in ice; at the moment, however, a short stint of tedium was just what I needed. No doubt we could find a portal from Mount Celestia back to Sigil, and then we could put this whole mess into the hands of Lady Erin.
   We came to a spiral staircase just like the one we'd descended to get to this level. As each of us climbed, I waited for another Spider-quake, one vicious enough to toss us screaming off the steps; but the Fates were kind and we all reached the top before the next tremor hit. This tremor had none of the snap and tumble of the previous ones, but it seemed to go on forever: a slow and persistent drag that dropped one side of the Spider until the floors were all slanting at a tilt of thirty degrees.
   «The ship is definitely sinking,» Hezekiah muttered.
   None of us bothered to reply.

* * *
   Miriam led us to the right, down a corridor that ran around the outer ring of the Spider's body. Looking out the window, I could see that the closest legs to us had lifted right off the ground – the opposite side of the Spider must have plunged so deeply under the dust that the legs on our side could no longer reach the surface. I took some comfort in that; on this side, we'd keep our heads above ground level substantially longer.
   In fact, I was feeling positively chipper until we ran into the wights.
   Twenty wights – yes, twenty – waited in the next lounge area around the circumference of the circle. And at their head was a milky transparent image of Rivi herself.
   «Hello, darlings!» she called. «After the Spider started its jumpy wee dance, I assumed you might head for this exit. Did you miss me?»
   «That's just a projection,» Hezekiah hissed, pointing at the ghostly Rivi. «She can't exert any power through it.»
   «True,» the projected Rivi smiled. «But I can still command these dear obedient wights to rip out your entrails if you don't give me back the grinder.»
   «Sorry,» I told her. «We've grown quite attached to the wee bauble. It would look simply precious on my dining room table.»
   Rivi's projection flickered momentarily, but I could see a storm of murderous fury sweep across her face. It lasted only a moment; then she forced it away and the ghostly image stabilized once more.
   «I don't want to kill you, I truly don't,» she said. «You're dangerous people; I admire that enormously. You've killed the Fox, crippled the Spider, and terrified all my lackeys. I'd love to have you conquer the multiverse by my side. But you must give me the grinder.»
   «She's playing for time,» Yasmin murmured. «She probably has more wights coming around behind us.»
   «We can't take on twenty wights in our current condition,» I replied.
   «And,» Miriam added, «they're standing between us and the portal to Mount Celestia.»
   «Hezekiah,» I said, «can you teleport us around those wights?»
   He shook his head. «I don't have enough strength. I thought I was empty before I went after the Fox; now I know I'm tapped dry.»
   Wheezle cleared his throat. «I might have a spell that could help…»
   His face, his hair, his clothes were still caked solid with white anti-magic dust. «Don't do it,» I told him. «Losing Oonah was enough for one day.» I turned to Miriam. «You said there was a portal at the end of every Spider leg?»
   «Yes, but I don't know where they all go.»
   «Do you know what the keys are?»
   She shrugged. «Whoever built the Spider left keys at most of the portals. Not the one to Sigil – the key there is a picture of yourself, so you have to make your own drawing. But the other portals have keys just lying around.»
   «Darlings!» called out Rivi's projection, «have you decided to surrender yet?»
   «Just about,» I answered. «Or else we've decided to… run!»

* * *
   The wights were not fast runners; that's all that saved us. We ran back the way we had come and the wights pursued, but with the lunging arm-swinging gait of all their kind. It slowed them down… and perhaps they were also inhibited by the resentment of being controlled, of being forced to submit to Rivi's every command. Slaves seldom move with the same zeal as those whose wills are free.
   Even if the wights could not keep up with us, the projected image of Rivi dogged our heels every step of the way. It didn't move by walking or running – Rivi's pose remained as sedate as a statue, hands folded demurely across her lap – but the projection sped effortlessly along with us, as inescapable as starlight. The ghostly image wove among us, making sudden darting motions, trying to distract and confuse us, make us trip over our own feet. Along with the sight of her was the grating honey of her voice, «You won't get away, you know. I have wights all over this building. Give me back my grinder!»
   None of us answered. We were too busy running, trying to keep our balance despite the aggravation from Rivi and the increasingly frequent tremors that rocked the building.
   Ahead of us was a lounge area, located at the junction of another of the Spider's legs. Beyond that, I could hear the hissing of more wights racing toward us from the other direction. «We have to take this exit,» I said, pointing along the corridor through the leg.
   «I don't know where the portal goes,» Miriam protested.
   «Doesn't matter. Peel it.»
   The corridor had originally sloped downward toward the ground; but as the other side of the Spider sank, this side had slowly tipped upward like the end of a see-saw. Now the corridor angled slightly skyward – only a bit, but it still took extra effort to run up it. «Kiripao,» I shouted, «I sure hope you're praying to whomever you worship that this slope doesn't get any steeper.»
   «It is counter-productive to pray while running,» he yelled back. «While you are running, run. While you are praying, pray. Never whistle while you're —»
   The Spider gave a staggering heave. Our end of the see-saw tilted a little higher.
   «Isn't this glorious!» the ghost of Rivi crowed a hair's breadth from my face. «Do you find this corridor getting a wee bit hard to climb? You'll really have to watch your footing now, won't you – one little slip, and you'll roll all the way back to the waiting arms of my wights.»
   «Pike it, slag,» Miriam snapped. But Rivi had a point: one or two more tremors and the corridor would become too steep to climb without pitons. The wights had already given up – they stood like a pack of undead wolves at the bottom of the ramp, waiting for their prey to slide down into reach.
   The Spider rocked again. Hezekiah gave a surprised little, «Whoops,» and nearly lost his feet; but Miriam was right beside him and grabbed his arm before he went down.
   The slope of the corridor was now more than forty-five degrees. It didn't help that the floor was an artificial material as smooth as marble. The leather soles of my boots provided poor traction on such a surface; barefoot would be better, but I wasn't about to sit down and waste precious seconds unlacing.
   «Poor wee darlings,» Rivi mocked. «Time is running out.»
   «What about you?» Yasmin snapped. «The whole place is sinking. Are you planning to go down with it?»
   «So what if I do?» Rivi laughed. «The Glass Spider is air-tight… and given time, I can find the controls to set things right again. You're the ones with the tight schedule. I'm afraid you can't take another tremor. What do you think, Petrov?»
   And suddenly, the ghostly projection of Rivi was joined by a second image: one whose appearance shocked me so badly, I nearly stumbled. Petrov stood before us, his mouth open in a soundless scream. Flames still surrounded him like a furnace; his arm had burned completely down to ash. Before Unveiler could drop from his hand, Rivi must have forced him to press the scepter to his chest. Now it blazed there like the symbol on a paladin's breastplate, grafted to his skin by the withering heat. How could he still be alive? His heart and lungs must be on fire, his throat completely seared to charcoal; and still he stood before us, too agonized to scream.
   «Release him!» Wheezle cried from his perch in Yasmin's arm. «He has earned death. Let him go!»
   «Give me the grinder and I will,» Rivi purred.
   «Sorry, Petrov,» I muttered, and ran through the poor sod's projection, trying not to think of the flames. Even the illusion of them made me shudder.

* * *
   Up ahead lay the end of the corridor, marked by a closed doorway. Kiripao, running several paces ahead of the rest of us, slapped the button to open the door and leapt inside as soon as the gap was wide enough to let him enter. Miriam dragged Hezekiah through a moment later, followed by Yasmin carrying Wheezle. As soon as I had passed the threshold, Kiripao stabbed the button behind me and the door began to close.
   The very second the door snicked shut, another tremor struck. All five of us fell backward, striking the door with our full weights. It gave one loud creak, and for a moment I thought it would give way, sending us flopping all the way back down the corridor to the waiting wights. I held my breath, heart pounding… but the seconds ticked by, one, two, three, with no sickening collapse and eventually I let the air sigh out of my lungs with relief.
   Just across the room I could see the faint glow of a portal in the arch of the outside doorway. Imbedded in the wall beside the door was a steel cable from which dangled several cheap tin whistles on strings. Obviously, the whistles could open the portal, and the portal could take us away from Rivi's madness; the only problem was that the floor between us and the exit now sloped upward at an angle of about sixty degrees.
   Without hesitation, Kiripao pushed himself away from the door at our backs. His hands and feet were bare; although the floor was too smooth to offer convenient handholds, he still managed to pull himself up to the cable and seize one of the whistles.
   «All right,» Yasmin called, «just hold onto the cable and lower a rope…»
   But Kiripao had other ideas. Sticking the whistle in his mouth and blowing loudly, he threw himself directly at the portal.
   It flickered open giving a glimpse of somber gray skies clotted with forbidding black clouds; then it winked shut again.
   «Sodding berk!» Miriam shouted at the vanished Kiripao.
   «Now, now,» Hezekiah told her, «he's a Cipher. He probably decided to rush ahead and make sure the coast was clear.»
   «Either that,» Miriam muttered, «or he wanted to give us the laugh before the damned Spider drops completely down a hole.»
   «Problems, darlings?» The smirking image of Rivi flickered into existence once more, standing at an absurd slant in the middle of the room. «Abandoned by your wee friend?»
   «He's just scouting ahead,» I snapped, then turned my attention toward taking off my boots. The slope was sharp, but I could still climb up to the door barefoot, provided the Spider didn't tilt anymore. I couldn't participate in the conversation anyway – Yasmin and Miriam wouldn't have let me get a word in edgewise, because they were too busy pouring curses on Rivi's head. Rather intriguing curses I might add… I certainly wanted to find out what Yasmin meant by «that sneaky trick with the neckerchief.»
   By the time I was ready to climb, Hezekiah had pulled out a rope from his own knapsack. «This'll be good and sturdy,» he said as he handed the rope to me. «Uncle Toby made it himself.»
   «Wonderful,» I growled. But perhaps my surge of annoyance at the mention of Uncle Toby had its positive side – it spurred me up the incline with a driving ferocity that brought me to the steel cable in record time. Once I had an arm safely wrapped around the cord, I set about fastening the rope for the others to climb.
   «This is getting irksome,» Rivi's image said to me as I let the rope tumble across the slanted floor. «Did you know, darling, that all this time I've been standing in one of the Spider's other control rooms?»
   The image bent over, as if Rivi was reaching toward something. Then, suddenly, the Spider careened wildly to one side, emitting a monstrous groan of protesting metal. Through the glassed-in walls of the room, I saw the next Spider leg to the right snap as viciously as a bullwhip, then come hurtling toward our own leg… as if one leg of the Spider was attacking the next. By my estimation, the incoming leg would hit our own leg about halfway down its length. There was nothing I could do but close my eyes and wait for impact.
   When the collision came, it rattled my teeth like a punch in the mouth. Our leg weathered the blow rather well… by which I mean it didn't break clean away. After a single bone-shaking shudder, our leg steadied back in position. Even before the vibrations had begun to die away, Yasmin was already climbing the rope, with Wheezle's arms clasped around her neck.
   «You were lucky, darlings,» Rivi's projection said. «The legs aren't really designed to mount such attacks. Then again, they aren't designed to withstand them either. A pity I can't move your own wee leg to shake you off… but that's because you destroyed the appropriate engine room. Oh well, I'll make do.»
   The attacking leg swept back for another strike. As Yasmin reached me, I shoved a whistle into her mouth and shouted, «Go! Go!»
   «Thanks for the advice, Britlin,» she muttered, despite the whistle held in her teeth. «I would never have thought of it myself.» And then she was blowing on the whistle and swinging her legs toward the portal. As it winked open, I caught a whiff of dank and fetid air; then Yasmin and Wheezle were gone.
   Miriam and Hezekiah rushed through immediately after her, taking advantage of the few seconds that the portal remained open. Rivi screeched in fury as the Clueless boy, still carrying the white grinder, disappeared through the gate. A split-second later, the portal winked closed, putting the grinder finally out of Rivi's hands.
   I wished I could aim some devastating taunt in Rivi's direction; but I had already stuffed a whistle into my mouth, and was busy shoveling the other whistles into my pockets. Why make it easy for Rivi to pursue us? Let her find her own whistle.
   But I had momentarily forgotten the Spider leg that was hurtling in on a collision course. A leg like that doesn't move quickly; but once it is aimed, nothing can stop it.
   Like a battering ram it slammed home again, and this time the impact nearly knocked me free from my grip on the steel cable. I heard a crunch, a snap… and then I could feel myself in freefall, as my half of this Spider's leg broke off and plunged toward the surface. Maybe the dust below would cushion the crash, but I didn't feel in a gambling mood. Blowing a piercing blast on the whistle in my mouth, I hurled myself through the waiting portal.

11. THREE WELL-FERTILIZED SHRUBBERIES

   Here's a tip for any would-be bloods who may be reading this memoir: try not to jump out of an unfamiliar portal while blowing a whistle loud enough to wake the dead. Stealth is better… trust me.
   Since I had swung myself through the portal feet first, I emerged the same way, landing flat on my back in mud and still blasting away on the whistle. Yasmin leaned over me, snatched the whistle from my mouth, and hissed a desperate, «Shh!» I shushed with all due haste; and since I expected that dragging myself out of the muck would be a noisy process, I simply lay where I was, hoping I had not dropped into quicksand.
   Or a corrosive bog.
   Or into the path of ravenous army ants.
   All of which seemed distinct possibilities, since I didn't know where the sod I was.
   My view of the world was restricted to a number of tree branches crisscrossing close overhead – gnarled and twisted branches of mist-slick wood, wreathed with dagger-like leaves. All the branches hung heavily with streamers of frosty green moss, like pale fat boa constrictors lying well-fed in the trees and letting their tails dangle.
   The cool air smelled of damp-rot, strong and cloying… the normal smell of a swamp, of course, but more intense than any natural swamp I'd visited. There was nothing placid in this swamp's aura of decay, no calm decomposition of fallen leaves into rich brown muck – I had a hunch that putrefaction here would be swift and aggressive, enough to rot the boots off your feet if you stood still too long.
   When I thought about it, that wasn't such an unappealing prospect: having my clothes decay off my body would be an interesting sensation, if not downright titillating. But I had no time to wait for the rot to set in, because somewhere off to my right, Hezekiah whispered, «They're coming this way.»
   «They heard the piking whistles,» Miriam glowered.
   «If I could just cast a spell —» Wheezle began, but Yasmin cut him off immediately.
   «No spells. We're covered with dust.»
   «Then we must fight.» That last voice was Kiripao's… no surprise. Our elven monk was beginning to worry me; impulsiveness was one thing, but his constant eagerness to plunge into battle would spell trouble if we couldn't keep him in check. I had to wonder what religious order Kiripao belonged to – the monks I'd met before Kiripao had all conducted themselves with delicate restraint, fighting only when circumstances left no other choice. They certainly didn't leap into combat without the slightest attempt at parlay.
   Still, I couldn't waste precious moments brooding about Brother Monk: it was high time to get off my back, and face whatever new ugliness was heading our direction. The mud put up sticky opposition to my plan, but it wasn't deep enough to hold me securely; in three or four seconds, I had ripped myself free and regained my feet.
   We stood on a small rise in the middle of a bog that stretched as far as the eye could see. Stunted trees grew wherever the ground was solid enough to support them, but much of the landscape was covered with water: stale and brackish water, lying in stagnant black pools. As I continued to examine my surroundings, the surface of the closest pool broke into rings of dark ripples. Something white and shapeless rose from the depths, sucked briefly at the air, then disappeared once more into the lower darkness.
   «What are they?» Hezekiah whispered.
   Was he asking about the white thing in the water? No, his head was turned in a different direction. I followed his gaze out over the swamplands… and there, coming toward us with silent speed, were ten slices of blackness. For brief instants, as one or another of them glided over a patch of ground that was clear of tree-shadow, I could make out a gaunt humanoid shape, like a walking skeleton – a skeleton equipped with small bat-shaped wings ending in fearsome claws. Then the figure would move into the shade of another tree and virtually disappear, blending so completely with the shadows that even my Sensate's eyes could scarcely discern them.
   «Does anyone know what they are?» I whispered.
   «Umbrals,» Kiripao replied. «Close cousins to shadow fiends. Umbrals steal souls and sell them to the highest bidder.»
   «If they want to steal our souls,» Hezekiah said, «they'll have to use magic, right?» He lifted the white grinder and tapped it meaningfully against his palm.
   «Use the dust sparingly, honored Clueless,» Wheezle warned him. «Umbrals are only found on the Lower Planes; and if we have landed on a Lower Plane, we do not want to attract the attention of any powers who dwell here. They may decide to seize the grinder for their own.»
   «Back in the Spider,» I reminded him, «you said that gods would leave this grinder alone… that they'd be afraid of every other god ganging up on them.»
   «That would be the attitude of any sensible god,» the gnome nodded. «However, the Lower Planes are a patchwork of divine fiefdoms, each ruled by its own distinct deity. Every significant god is shrewd enough to exercise caution; but there are numerous small gods too, many of whom are gibberingly insane. If this land belongs to one of the mad powers, we must try to remain beneath its notice.»
   «Get ready to fire anyway,» Yasmin muttered to Hezekiah. «Those things are getting too close for comfort.»
   The umbrals were now only fifty paces away, close enough for me to catch the occasional glimpse of mouths filled with bristling teeth. Those teeth could tear through throat-flesh like a rip saw; and I didn't want them any nearer my jugular than they already were.
   «That's close enough!» I shouted. «Stop and we'll talk.»
   The creatures didn't slow down. They knew they outnumbered us; they carried no weapons, but those teeth and claws could shred us just as efficiently as a butcher's axe. I drew my sword and waited. For the last twenty paces of their approach, the umbrals would have to climb the rise where we stood. Holding this higher ground was our group's one advantage, and I intended to exploit it to the fullest.
   At the bottom of the rise, the shadow things halted… possibly because they realized a mad rush would be risky, possibly because they had something else in mind. One of their number slipped back into the thickest darkness under a tree and drew something from a black pouch at its waist. I could barely see the umbral, let alone the small object it was holding; but whenever a foe acts furtively, it's time for preemptive action.
   «Down there by that tree,» I said to Hezekiah. «Blast the berk.»
   Hezekiah cranked the grinder and let loose a stream of dust with all the pressure of the main jet in the Great Fountain of Sigil. The whiteness of the dust showered down over the fiend's head, clearly outlining the creature's form – we could see that it was bent over some sort of black-glinting orb and chanting an invocation. The spray of dust didn't interrupt the creature's attempt at casting a spell… but the subsequent fire did. The umbral's body flared with the fierce white brightness of a sun, sending its fellow fiends shrieking to cover their eyes. In a split second, the umbral dissipated into ash; and the orb it had been holding fell to the muddy ground with a dull thud.
   «Now can we talk?» I called down to them.
   «Talk, yesssssssss,» one of the other umbrals replied in a whisper. It rubbed its eyes furiously, trying to recover from the blinding burst of their comrade's incineration. «We like talking. Very friendly umbrals, yessssssss.»
   Yasmin gave a snort of disgust. «The first step in diplomacy,» she muttered, «is always getting their attention.»

* * *
   As far as I could tell, only one of the creatures was capable of speech; the rest simply stared at us with huge hollow eyes, their hands constantly flexing as if they longed to imbed their claws into our flesh. I noticed Kiripao's hands were doing much the same thing, eager to break a few umbral heads… but he restrained himself while I spoke with the fiend leader.
   «We don't want any trouble,» I told the chief shadow, «we just want to get back home.»
   «Where isssssss home?»
   «Sigil. Are there any portals nearby?»
   «Portalsss. Portalssssssss.» The umbral tucked a claw under its chin and made a show of pondering the question with great seriousness. «No portalsssssss here.»
   Kiripao growled. «He's lying – every umbral village has a portal in the center.»
   «No, no,» the speaker said. «Our people very poor. No portalssssss.»
   «There must be other villages nearby,» Miriam suggested.
   «Not friendly villagesss. Wicked, greedy sssshadowsss. Sssteal your sssoulsssss.»
   «Like you tried to do,» Yasmin muttered.
   «Sssss'sssop very young,» the umbral shrugged. «Impulsssive. Not friendly like ussss.» It smiled an unconvincing smile and took a step up the hill. Hezekiah gestured with the grinder, and the speaker backed up quickly.
   «If you don't know where to find a portal,» I said, «we have nothing else to say to you. Push off.»
   «Oh, oh, oh,» the chief fiend replied. «Jussst remembered. A portal, yessss. A portal to Ssssigil.»
   «What a remarkable coincidence,» Yasmin murmured.
   «Yessssss, lovely portal,» the umbral continued. «Not far away.»
   «A portal to Sigil?» Hezekiah repeatedly eagerly.
   «Lovely clean portal, jussst your sssizzze. Lead you to it.»
   «It's a trap,» Kiripao whispered.
   «I never would have guessed,» Yasmin replied.
   «Even if it is a trap,» Wheezle said softly, «perhaps we should accept their offer.»
   «Are you barmy?» Miriam snapped.
   «I know something of umbrals,» Wheezle replied. «They are greedy creatures… greedy to trap our souls in those orbs they carry. If we try to force them away, they will almost certainly attack.»
   «And we would fight back,» Kiripao answered.
   «They outnumber us. If they won the battle, all of our souls would be trapped in gems forever, cut off from rightful death.» Wheezle shuddered for a moment, then continued. «Even if we managed to kill them all, we would surely have our own casualties… and I do not think any of us wishes to die on a Lower Plane. Souls seldom escape from these planes, even in death – we would be reborn as mindless things of evil.»
   Kiripao gazed at Wheezle with narrowed eyes. «You want to go along with these creatures because you are afraid to fight.»
   «Honored brother,» Wheezle replied, «why not go along with them until we see a clear chance for escape? We are too exposed here. We have nowhere to run.»
   The gnome had a point: if push came to shove, our muddy rise of land gave us the advantage of higher ground, but it was exposed and visible to all the surrounding territory. I'd learned enough from my father's stories to know that swamps in the Lower Planes are nasty places, filled with lurking vipers, stalkers made of ooze, and plants that suddenly lash their branches around your neck. Did we want to stay in plain sight with such threats slithering out there in the muck? On top of that, I wanted to get away posthaste from the portal at our backs – nothing more than a decrepit stone arch covered with clots of moss, but as soon as Rivi found a whistle to open the gate, she and an army of wights would come charging into this plane to retrieve the grinder. By the time that happened, we had to be long gone.
   «All right,» I called to the umbrals. «Show us this portal of yours… but no tricks.»
   «Tricksss? Tricksssssss? No play tricksss on friendsss… promisssssssse.»
   For some reason, that didn't reassure me.

* * *
   We kept our distance from the fiends, giving them a lead of about thirty paces. «Keep peery,» I told the others, as if they needed the advice. «We grab any chance of escape that presents itself, and we watch for any sign of a trap.»
   «What kind of trap?» Hezekiah asked.
   I patted his shoulder. «Let's watch for every kind of trap, shall we?»
   But that was easier said than done. The swamp was filled with rustles and slithers, with bogs of quicksand and shrubs sporting poison-drenched thorns. For the umbrals, this was home: they knew where they could step and where they couldn't, which snakes were harmless and which would strike if you walked within range. The rest of us had no such knowledge; and with each step along the muddy trail, my nervous tension screwed up another notch.
   Approaching a patch of blooms whose smell made my head spin… were they giving off dangerous gas, or just a cloying perfume? And that clacking sound to the right… tree branches knocking together in the breeze, or a monster sharpening its claws? Every ripple in every pool… every drop of mist falling from the leaves overhead… every insect suddenly buzzing past our ears… we jumped at everything. Kiripao snapped his nunchakus at unknown phantoms; Yasmin plunged her sword into the undergrowth once or twice a minute, never telling us what she had seen; and even Hezekiah was jumpy, yelping at every odd gurgle of water, every croak from a frog.
   My nerves were just as strained as my friends', but I concentrated on the umbrals, not creeping menace from the swamp itself. The fiends seemed in high spirits, conversing with each other in a language that consisted of hisses and hand gestures. From time to time they actually laughed, with a throaty sound like a dog being strangled. Whatever «tricksss» they had up their sleeve, they were obviously congratulating themselves at the cleverness of their plan.
   This umbral snickering continued as they led us past a dozen black-water pools. After an hour or so, the tree cover thinned as the ground grew damper; and about a league ahead there appeared an honest-to-goodness river, perhaps ten paces wide. Trying to get a good view of that river, I almost missed something important closer to home: the fiends had stopped laughing.
   In fact, they had stopped talking altogether – no hissing and none of the intricate hand gestures that made up their form of speech. They clutched their wings tight to their bodies, and they walked with a cautious, silent delicacy, like cats picking their way through mud. Why? I waved the others to a halt, placed a finger to my lips, and squinted carefully ahead.
   Although there were no trees nearby, the path was still bordered by scrubby bushes, most of them reminiscent of nettles and burdock. At this very moment, however, the umbrals were passing three bushes that stood out from the rest: taller and fuller than the others, with leaves that had a soft reddish tinge to their green. The front fiend kept his gaze glued tightly to the bushes as he drew near them, and his pace grew even more cautious. Clearly, our «friendsss» intended to pass those bushes with the utmost silence… so just for the sake of interest, I pulled out a whistle from the Glass Spider and blew an ear-piercing blast.
   With the force of an explosion, all three bushes expelled a barrage of white-wood flechettes, V-shaped thorns whizzing through the air. The fiends were mowed down like wheat, reaped by a thousand tiny scythes. Shreds of shadow were ripped from their bodies and scattered over the bulrushes behind them, black clots flung across the green.
   The leaders of the party fell butchered without a single sound. The ones farther back, partly protected by their fellows, didn't die immediately, but uttered breathy little shrieks as the projectiles cut through their bodies. They shouldn't have made such noise – it stirred the bushes to shoot another fusillade, thorns imbedding themselves in shadow flesh, shadow wings, shadow eyes. The umbrals fell in tatters, their bodies perforated like moth-eaten clothes.
   «Quickly,» Wheezle shouted, «we must get to them now! We must perform the proper death rites.»
   «Don't be barmy,» Yasmin snapped. «We can't get close to those bushes.»
   «We must!» Wheezle repeated. «Keep blowing the whistle, honored Cavendish. The plants cannot shoot thorns forever.»
   And the little gnome was right: the bushes' supply of ammunition was limited. When I blew the whistle again, the responding volley of flechettes was smaller than the first two bursts. Three more whistles and the attacks had dribbled out; I gave another two toots just for safety's sake, but by then Wheezle was urging Yasmin to run full speed toward the slaughtered fiends. «The death rites are crucial!» he kept shouting.
   «Dustmen,» Yasmin muttered and made a face. But she bounded into a sprint down the muddy path, goaded on by Wheezle shouting, «Faster, faster!»
   The rest of us jogged along behind, wondering what could send Wheezle into such a tizzy. It didn't surprise me he knew the death rites for umbrals – Dustmen study the sentient races of the multiverse, just to know how to bury each one. On the other hand, I had witnessed dozens of deaths since I met Wheezle, from the Collectors incinerated by the exploding giant, to the Fox and all the others we'd killed inside the Glass Spider; our gnome had shown no urgent need to give them a proper send-off. He hadn't even offered a prayer for Oonah… so why did he care about monsters who'd tried to have us julienned by vegetables?
   The moment Yasmin reached the closest fiend, Wheezle demanded to be set down. Quickly, he plunged his hand into the umbral's belt pouch and pulled out a dark sphere about the size of a walnut – twin to the gem-like orb we'd seen before, the one used by the umbral who tried to steal our souls at the portal. Raising the orb in his hand, Wheezle called out, «Come, beloved, to your —»
   Yasmin clamped a hand over his mouth. «No magic, Wheezle! You're covered with dust – it's too dangerous.»
   «This is not magic, honored Handmaid. I am simply calling a soul that may yet be lingering near this body.»
   «Using that gem was magic before. Remember a certain umbral bursting into flames?»
   «The umbral was attempting to steal a soul against our will; such theft does require magic. However, showing a soul that we have a receptacle available for habitation… that is not magic. The soul chooses for itself whether to enter the gem.»
   Yasmin didn't look convinced, but she kept still as Wheezle called out again, «Come, beloved, to your home. A mansion has been prepared for you. Live in it and be glad.»
   The dark orb flickered with a sudden thread of light. The gleaming strand shuddered once, twice, then blossomed into a deep purplish glow. It lit the gnome's face with a soft violet radiance and he smiled. «Good. Good.»
   Suddenly, he tossed the orb to me with careless disdain. «Hold onto that, honored Cavendish. Umbrals sell souls to the highest bidder… so can we. It's justice.»
   And then he urged Yasmin to carry him to the next body.

* * *
   Nine orbs, glowing purple. Nine umbral souls, housed inside these strange gems. «A good haul,» Kiripao said approvingly.
   «You know something about the soul trade?» I asked.
   «Some,» he nodded. «It is a popular form of commerce here in Carceri.»
   «You think we're in Carceri?»
   Kiripao pointed to the thorn-shooting bushes. «Those plants are called Tooth-Storms. I have never seen one before, but I have heard tales of how they… make their own fertilizer. They are found only in Carceri, on the swampy layer known as Othrys.»
   «Wonderful,» I growled.
   «What's Carceri?» Hezekiah piped up.
   «One of the Lower Planes,» Miriam told him. «A place of utter evil, with a dash of chaos to make things cozy.»
   «So how do we get out?» the boy asked.
   «First, we must find an umbral village.» That answer came from Wheezle, who lay on the chest of the last fiend and rolled one of the soul-gems between his palms. «As the honored Kiripao has observed, every such village is built around a portal of some kind. With luck, the gate can take us somewhere less hostile.»
   «Walking into an umbral village will surely provide all the hostility we can handle,» I said. «This bunch wanted to steal our souls the moment they saw us… and their families won't be pleased we've scragged a load of their cousins.»
   «Umbrals have hard hearts,» Wheezle replied. «They feel no fondness for others of their kind, and will not grieve over those who have died. The one thing they do feel is greed: greed for…» He held up the glowing soul-gem.
   «So the second we walk into a village,» Miriam growled, «they'll put us in the dead-book so they can bob our gems.»
   «Not true, honored ruffian. Umbrals respect few rules, but the trade in souls occupies the center of their lives. If we present ourselves as merchants with goods for sale,» he held up the soul-gem again, «they will treat us as respected guests. We will embark upon a formalized process of negotiation, and during the time it takes to strike a bargain, they will provide us with free lodging, food, and clean water.»
   The moment he said the word food, I could feel my stomach rumble. It had not been so long since my last meal – astonishing though it was, we had only left Sigil three hours earlier – but I was definitely growing peckish for a feed. Was there anything edible out here in the swamps of Othrys? Probably, but it would be sheer luck if we found it. None of us had any wilderness experience. Kiripao showed some small familiarity with this plane, but he hadn't recognized the Tooth-Storm bushes till they started shooting their thorns. That didn't bode well for stumbling around the swamp, trying to find food without getting eaten ourselves.
   «Are you sure the umbrals won't kill us?» I asked Wheezle.
   «They will rip out our throats the moment we conclude negotiations,» he answered, «but until then, they will show meticulous hospitality. It is their way. Umbrals have no honor as we recognize it, but while there is business to be conducted, they make every show of friendship.»
   «Like half the merchants in the Great Bazaar,» Miriam muttered.
   I was beginning to like her.

* * *
   We continued along the muddy trail in the direction we had been traveling. There was no guarantee it would lead to an umbral village, but we could see it was a well-used path. It was also heading for the river far ahead of us, and that was another good sign; even in the Lower Planes, it's practical to build your village close to a waterway, for the convenience of transportation and drinking.
   An hour later, however, when we finally reached the river, it became apparent that drinking this particular water would be risky. It was not just black; the water had an oily obsidian gloss to it, as if it could immediately squash the color out of anything that touched its surface. The smell of sulphur tainted the air, possibly from the water, or possibly from the curling clumps of mist that hung above the river at random points along its length.
   As we watched, a dark skiff emerged from one of the banks of cloud. It moved slowly, giving us plenty of time to examine the ornate illustrations painted on the prow – row upon row of faces, some humanoid, some not, and all consumed with a quiet, ineffable sadness.
   In time, the skiff emerged far enough from the mist for us to see the boatman: skeletally thin, clad in a hooded robe that didn't quite hide the fleshless face. A human woman sat passenger on the wooden seat behind, her eyes sewn shut with coarse black thread. Her hands lay folded in her lap, and no matter how the boat rocked on the river's current, the woman remained immobile… as if she weren't really sitting in the skiff at all, but gliding forward on the strength of some unknown destiny.
   The woman was Oonah DeVail. Her soul. Her dead spirit.
   She took no notice of us as the skiff silently floated by; but the boatman turned to look at us briefly, pale eyes in a face of bone. Then the skiff entered another pillar of mist and disappeared without leaving a ripple.
   «This is the River Styx,» Kiripao said.
   None of us spoke for some time.

12. THREE BLOSSOMING RAPPORTS

   Our muddy trail led along the Styx for the better part of a mile. Then as we rounded a bend in the river, we saw a gathering of black huts ahead, tucked beneath a grove of moss-laden trees. The huts seemed to be sculpted from solid darkness, as if they had congealed from the gloom of shadows that permeated the grove.
   «Each of us will carry a gem,» Wheezle said softly, handing around the glowing purple orbs. «We must all present ourselves as soul-merchants.»
   Hezekiah wore a pained expression. «I don't think Uncle Toby would approve of me —»
   «Do not worry, honored Clueless,» Wheezle interrupted. «The umbrals voluntarily chose to enter these gems. It is how they always expected to end their lives: as objects of trade. And we must remember the treasure you carry.» He pointed to the grinder, still trickling out white dust. «We have a responsibility to keep that out of the wrong hands.»
   Hezekiah nodded gravely… as if he found it obvious what the right hands would be. To me, the issue was not so clear-cut. I was inclined to pass on the grinder to Lady Erin as fast as possible; but I knew Wheezle would want to turn it over to the Dustmen, Yasmin to the Doomguard, and Kiripao either to the Ciphers or to whatever power he worshipped. When the time came, there would be a sodding huge argument. Still, we tacitly agreed we didn't want the grinder taken by Rivi or the umbrals, so the question could be postponed a while.
   With each of us prominently displaying a soul-gem, we walked toward the village. I almost missed the sentry fiend, posted beside the path; it stood under the hood of a willow-like tree, glaring at us from the shadows. When it saw I had noticed it, the umbral took to its wings immediately, staying low to the ground but swinging its flight-path over the Styx, getting an unobstructed route to the huts. Since we were still on foot it took us longer to cover the remaining distance, forced to clamber over fallen logs and detour around spots where the muddy bank had crumbled into the river; so by the time we reached the umbral village, a sizable welcoming party had assembled along the path.
   Every pair of hollow eye sockets pinned a yearning gaze on the soul-gems we carried, as if the villagers were deciding which gem they would claim as their own. Yasmin's free hand strayed to the hilt of her longsword; but the fiends made no motion toward us. They watched in silence, shadows among shadows, each sepulchral face lit by the purple glow of the gems.
   Without speaking, we walked to the very heart of the village, coming to a circular patch of mud with a shallow flame-pit dug in the middle. Unfamiliar runes had been carved in the stones that lined the pit; I suspected they were invocations to whatever god the umbrals deemed it necessary to mollify.
   Wheezle nudged Yasmin and she held him aloft, her hands under his arm-pits like a mother lifting her child. «Honored fiends,» he called, «we have come to negotiate trade.»
   The crowd of shadows uttered no words, but they rustled like poplar leaves stirred by a stiff wind. Every shade-dark face crinkled into a razor-toothed smile.

* * *
   The swamps of Othrys have no cycle of morning and night. The sky is always somber and overcast, the air pregnant with the anticipation of a storm that never comes. Sages claim that the red-tinted light of Carceri comes from the land itself; but in the fetid umbral swamps it leaked up to the sky, then reflected down again from the clouds, casting a cold illumination whose chill gradually seeped into our bones.
   Wheezle told us the negotiations to sell the soul-gems would take three days – not more, not less. I wondered what a day meant in a place without light or dark; but Kiripao told me the umbrals measured out time in chunks of twenty-four hours, just like so much of the multiverse… an enigma that has puzzled more learned brains than mine.
   As promised, the fiends supplied us with all the necessities of life, even before Wheezle and Kiripao began discussions with the village council. Umbral food consisted of marsh weeds and beetles, which the others refused to eat until I assured them the insects had an appealing nutty flavor… rather like a cross between grasshoppers and earthworms, although the worm taste probably came from the mud clinging to each beetle carapace. (Haven't you found that no matter how thoroughly you wash a bug, you can never clean away the grit that lodges in the crannies of its exo-skeleton? Then again, my dwarven friends say the dirt is the best part.)
   The water offered by the fiends had a greasy aftertaste, but it was drawn from a well, not the river. I had heard stories about water from the River Styx – how the tiniest dribble touching tongue or skin could erase your memories, leaving you empty as an infant – and I worried that some portion of the Styx might have seeped into the well. However, after steeling myself to try a sip, I suffered no ill effects… so I used every drop in the bucket to wash off the sticky white dust still coating my body. The others did the same with their own buckets, and Yasmin went so far as to begin a tiny invocation to test whether the dust was safely gone. A second later, she broke out in a fit of coughing, pressing her fists to her chest.
   «What's wrong?» I asked, wrapping my arms around her.
   Wheezing, she gasped out, «Lungs… my lungs!»
   As I held her, waiting for her to recover, I contemplated how much dust we must have inhaled during our fight with the Fox. How much lurked in our noses, our throats, our bronchial tubes and deeper? I couldn't say; but none of us would be casting magic for a long, long time.

* * *
   The umbrals gave us a single hut for lodging, with a floor three paces square… not much space for five human-sized people and a gnome. On the other hand, we weren't all going to sleep at the same time; even with the fiends on their best behavior, we scheduled a watch around the clock.
   To prevent the enemy from catching any of us alone, we decided to pair off. Wheezle and Kiripao, our two most knowledgeable bloods when it came to umbrals, would handle negotiations. Miriam volunteered to accompany Hezekiah wherever he went, leaving Yasmin and me together… which caused us a nervous blush or two, but we didn't ask for a different arrangement.
   The four of us who weren't negotiating took on the task of learning if this village had a portal, where the portal went, and what key was needed to open it. Accordingly, Yasmin and I took a stroll around the area, keeping our eyes peeled for the faint glimmer of a gate. Soon, however, I found my attention straying to something totally unexpected: umbral art. The huts weren't the only things molded from solid darkness; everywhere you looked there was brooding black statuary, sculpted from pure shadow. A few had recognizable subjects – a fat human man laughing wildly, a woman being crushed under a stone – but most were utterly alien shapes. What was I to make of a pitted block that resembled a human knucklebone, or something like a huge axe-head attached to a shriveled cone?
   As I was looking at this last one, an umbral slithered up beside me and murmured, «You like ssstatue?»
   «Is it supposed to be a tomahawk?» I asked.
   «Isss abssstract,» the umbral replied, sounding as if I'd offended him. «Isss ssstatement.»
   «What kind of statement?»
   «Come now, Britlin,» Yasmin said beside me. «It shows the precarious balance of all our lives… how we cling fanatically to familiar concepts, while deep in our hearts we doubt if we've made the right choice.»
   «Yessss, yesssssss!» the umbral whistled. «Issss exactly that.» He sidled closer to Yasmin. «You are artissst?»
   «No, I just know what I like.» She reached out to tap on the axe-like statue, but her finger went right through. It seemed the shadow-stuff wasn't so solid after all. «Were you the one who made this?» Yasmin asked.
   «Made it, yesss,» the umbral replied. «Jusssst a humble effort.»
   «It's very good,» Yasmin said. «It has a particularly strong sense of form and motion.»
   «There's no motion,» I muttered, «it's a sodding statue. The piking thing just sits there, doesn't it?» In a louder voice, I asked the fiend, «Have you considered making a piece that actually looks like something? Perhaps you could get a pretty she-umbral to model for you. Nothing develops your attention to accuracy as much as sculpting from the figure…»
   But that was as far as I got. The fiend covered its ears with its hands and ran shrieking into the marsh.
   Yasmin patted me on the shoulder. «I don't think they're ready for these advanced artistic concepts.»
   «Primitives,» I growled. «I can't understand why their work gets so much attention.»
   And for several minutes thereafter, I found myself kicking at any pebble with the audacity to lie in my path.

* * *
   Our walk through the village and outlying regions took several hours, after which I arbitrarily declared that night was drawing in. Of course, there was no change in the uniform grayness of the Carceri sky; but fatigue was pressing down on me, compounded by the many exertions of the day. Yasmin agreed it must be dark by now, back in Sigil… and she took my hand as we walked quietly back to the hut.
   When we arrived, Miriam announced she had found the portal. It lay inside a piece of sculpture shaped something like a ruptured watermelon, with a crack down the side just big enough for an emaciated umbral to squeeze through. The crack was, of course, the portal; and it remained to be seen if we humans could fit into the gate. We would have serious difficulty at the best of times. It would be next to impossible to squash through quickly and quietly.
   Alas, «quickly and quietly» was exactly what we needed. After hours of formal discussions, Wheezle and Kiripao had established only one point: the umbrals would double-cross us as soon as bargaining concluded. The moment they handed over the agreed-upon price, any outsiders in the village would change from «merchants with goods to sell» into «targets with gold to steal». Of course, the fiends hadn't said this in so many words; but the undercurrents of gloating hostility were too obvious for our companions to miss. The gnome and elf insisted we must have an escape route ready by the time negotiations ended.
   I did not sleep well that night; and I was grateful when Hezekiah woke me to say it was my watch.

* * *
   As I stepped out of the hut, I saw Yasmin already standing in the gloomy shadows. The sky was still gray and overcast, unchanged since we had arrived in Othrys; but the village had a brooding silence to it, as if true night had fallen. No umbrals walked the streets or hovered in the doors of their huts, watching us with greedy eyes. Perhaps they had gone to sleep too… if shadows are capable of slumber.
   «It's quiet,» Yasmin whispered.
   I nodded.
   After some time she said, «Sometimes I have this vision of Sigil, completely empty. No one left in the city – no people, no dogs, no rats – everyone gone but me. I have the whole perfect silence to myself.»
   «It's a Doomguard kind of dream,» I said. «The twilight at the end of the world.»
   «Not the end of the world,» she replied. "The completion of the world. Have you ever been in a tavern when a truly great bard starts to sing? At first, people keep talking to their neighbors, clinking tankards, making noise… but as the bard's voice reaches them, they stop to listen, one by one. The hush spreads over the crowd, until all you can hear is the singing. No one wants to breathe or move, for fear of missing a note of the song.
   «That's what Entropy means to me, Britlin: the beautiful song of Time. I dream of the day people stop their desperate jabbering and finally hear the music.»
   «A pretty metaphor,» I told her, «but in real life, people don't just fall quiet and listen to the Harmony of the Spheres. In real life, people die – often painfully and pointlessly. Where's the music in that?»
   «You're too short-sighted,» Yasmin replied. «Death is merely a transition, like adolescence. It may be easy or hard, but it's not the final word. Your soul moves on to another plane, Upper or Lower, wherever your heart truly belongs. And when your afterlife ends, you move on again, absorbed into the multiverse one way or another. We'll all be present for the final song. We'll all be part of the final song.»
   I shrugged. «Pardon me if I want to put off choir membership as long as possible.»
   «I'm a Handmaid of Entropy, not a leatherhead. I don't want to die in the near future either – there are still a million things I have to do… and a million others I want to do.»
   «Even so, you're devoted to helping Entropy along.»
   She shook her head. «Entropy doesn't need help, any more than stars need help to shine. Entropy is always on the job, berk, and whatever pace it wants to move is fine by me. I only get annoyed when someone tries to jig the natural progression faster or slower. Trying to accelerate Entropy is just as bad as trying to stop it: both are presumptuous… tinkering with the great bard's song. The path of wisdom is just to go about your business and try to hear the music.» Her eyes were distant; but suddenly she broke into a chuckle. «By the gods, I sound pompous.»
   «Let's be kind and say you're profound.»
   «I've never been profound in my life. I've been…» Her voice broke off. «I've been a lot of things, but never profound.»
   «Tell me what you've been.»
   She bit her lip. «You don't want to know, and I don't want to remember. Life was not good before I became a Handmaid. Life was very bitter and lonely.»
   «No friends or family?»
   «No friends, bad family. My mother died. My older brother – he died eventually too, but not soon enough.» She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. «Let's talk about something else.»
   I looked at her closely. Maybe I was jumping to conclusions, imposing my mother's history on another woman; but the sound of her voice when she mentioned her brother… ugly. So much ugliness in the world. And despite my grousing, I knew I had lived a pampered life, all things considered.
   Reaching out, I took Yasmin's hand. «Okay. Let's talk about something else.»
   Her mouth curved into the ghost of a smile. «What did you have in mind?»
   «Giving this place the laugh. Declaring that this patch of ground is not Carceri at all, but other plane entirely. What would you like it to be?»
   «The Plane of Dust,» she answered immediately.
   «Dust?» I snorted. «Pardon me, but I was there mere hours ago, and didn't enjoy it at all.»
   «The Glass Spider wasn't the real Plane of Dust,» she said. «I visited Dust years ago, while studying to be a Handmaid. It was very soothing. Quiet and healing.»
   «But it has no air!»
   «They taught us spells that could cope with that.»
   «You can't cast spells at the moment,» I reminded her.
   «Oh no?» She draped an arm over my shoulder. «Imagine we're on the Plane of Dust,» she said in a low voice. «No umbrals. No swamp. No smell or noise…»
   «No air.»
   «Shh.» She put a finger to my lips. «We're in the Plane of Dust and I have wrapped us 'round with spells that will keep us very safe. Very private. No one for a million miles around but you… and me…»
   For more than an hour after that, we weren't very good watchguards.

* * *
   Early on our second «day» in Othrys, a boatman from the Styx arrived at the village. At the time, Yasmin and I were sitting on a clump of moss, watching an umbral artist shape a block of shadow into what looked like a headless rhinoceros. The sculpting process appeared no different from molding clay, full of kneading and squeezing and slapping; yet when I tried to touch the lump of darkness, I found it as insubstantial as mist. Maybe the shadow-stuff existed on a shifted plane of reality, one the umbral could contact and I could not… or maybe I was just spouting gibberish because I didn't have any rational explanation.
   Yasmin, of course, didn't care about the «how» of shadow-sculpting. Every few minutes, she hiccupped with admiration as the fiend's hands pinched out a blob of blackness or smoothed down a dimple in the rhino's left buttock. No doubt, my tiefling inamorata would have happily explained how the piece symbolized the Voice of Irony, the Cosmic Jest, or some other deep theme; but I refused to ask. In fact, I was delighted when a group of umbrals broke into hysterical gabbling down by the riverside – it gave me an excuse to leave. Leaping to my feet I hurried to the Styx, with Yasmin close behind.
   As we came into sight of the river, the boatman's skiff was just drawing up to the shore. A crowd of umbrals stood back a short distance, clacking their teeth together rhythmically. The sound seemed to be their way of offering a cheery hello; and they kept up the noise as the boatman tied his skiff to a tree stump and climbed onto solid ground. Yasmin grabbed my arm and whispered, «Maybe we should get out of here.»
   I hesitated. True, this skeletal ferryman gave me more cold chills than a trip to the privy in January; but he hadn't shown any overt hostility. The umbrals seemed delighted to see him… and as for myself, I'd never met such a creature before. Would he let me shake his boney hand, maybe take flaky samples of his skin? No – I wouldn't ask him about that at the moment. But I didn't want to run either. I simply watched as his pale gaze flicked our way then moved on, as if Yasmin and I didn't deserve his attention.
   Stepping into the circle of fiends, the boatman bowed once in the direction of the village fire-pit, then a second time toward the Styx. The umbrals bowed back… and I noticed their bows were much deeper than the boatman's, like peasants bowing to their lord. Dapperly waving his hand, the boatman acknowledged the bows; then he cleared his throat with a loud raspy cough, sounding as if he hadn't spoken in weeks. When he finally opened his mouth, his voice resembled the scrape of gravel on sandpaper.
   «Greetings,» he said huskily. «I have come to bring light to your dreary circle of hovels… because I find myself in need of an artist.»
   Yasmin's grip on my arm tightened. I'd have to talk to her about clipping her fingernails.

* * *
   Five minutes later, the boatman's skiff was beached on shore, open to the inspection of every fiend with artistic aspirations. The starboard side of the bow was painted much like the skiff we'd seen before: with a profusion of faces from many sentient species, all of them clouded by a profound sadness. None of these people wept openly, or even seemed close to tears; instead, they wore the dull expression of long-term grief, too wearily dispirited to cry. I had to admire the technique of the painter – each face, rendered in muted browns, had a clinical accuracy I found uncanny.
   Unlike the painted starboard side, the port side of the bow was completely undecorated: bare wood, simply sanded smooth. The planks looked freshly cut and trimmed; and as I ran my fingers along the wood's surface, the boatman stepped up to my side. «You will notice this is newly repaired,» he said in his rasping voice. «My boat suffered damage after… a financial disagreement with some passengers.»
   I made a sympathetic noise. «Customers can be so hard to please.»
   «Indeed. They had quite a falling out.» He smiled. His teeth were yellow, with dark brown stains that gave me cause for unpleasant speculation. «Now that my boat has been refurbished,» he went on, «I wish to restore the usual… embellishments.» He turned to the crowd of umbrals. «Your fame as artists has spread the length of the river. I would be pleased to pay a reasonable commission to anyone who could copy the images from the starboard onto the port.»
   A chorus of murmurs rustled through the assembly. Every bat-like wing trembled with dark shivers. «Copy?» several voices whispered. «Copy?»
   «Yes,» the boatman replied. «These faces are my personal insignia. I must have them painted on both sides of the bow so that I am recognized by my… clients.»
   «Copy?» the whispers continued. «Copy facesssss…»
   «Surely this is not a difficult assignment?» the boatman said. «I've brought the necessary paints, and even a few brushes.»
   «Not facessss,» said a nearby fiend. «Maybe nice mandala with sssstar motif?»
   «Yessss,» agreed another, «or Cosssmic Egg with wreath of ssstylized sssnakesss?»
   «Ssscythes,» chirped up a third, «I sssee ssstunning asssemblage of peach-toned ssscythes, sssuperimposed on mauve medicine wheelsss, sssurrounded by cressscent moonsss and dolphinsss.»
   «Dolphins?» the boatman shuddered.
   «Ssscarlet onesss. Very pudgy, with lightning boltsss coming out of tailsss.»
   The boatman made a strangled sound. «I do not want scarlet dolphins, whether or not they come equipped with anal lightning bolts…»
   «Isss sssymbol,» an umbral put in quickly. «Dolphinsss sssymbolize river Ssstyx.»
   «There are no dolphins in the Styx!» the boatman snapped. «There are only unpleasant creatures called hydroloths, and they would rip a sissy little dolphin to fillets just for the fun of hearing it squeak.»
   One fiend cocked its head to the side. «Hydrolothsss look good with lightning boltssss?»
   «A hydroloth wouldn't look good if you put a bag over its head, and one over yours while you're at it. I do not want hydroloths; I do not want stylized snakes; I do not want a nice mandala. I want an exact copy of the faces that are already on the other side of the boat, all right? Do you think you can handle that?»
   The umbrals bristled with artistic indignation and stormed away, stomping louder than you'd think shadows could manage.
   Yasmin stepped forward and tapped the boatman on the shoulder. «Sir,» she said above the noise of the fiends' departure, «you don't need an artist; you need a hack. Let me introduce the most unrepentant hack in the multiverse…»
   I tried my best to look modest.

* * *
   In the next few minutes, I learned several things: that the skeletal boat people who ply the Styx call themselves marraenoloths; that marraenoloths are the only creatures who have learned the secret of navigating the river's black waters; and that this particular marraenoloth was a haughty berk named Garou, who refused to admit how lucky he was to find the one village in Carceri with a painter who would (a) take his commission and (b) not charge an arm and a soul for it.
   «There is no element of luck involved,» Garou insisted. «I simply concentrated on my need for a suitable artist, and the Styx carried me here. You could have been anywhere on the Lower Planes and the river would have brought me to you… or to someone else equally talented and perhaps less imbued with that foul-smelling dust.»
   I was going to snap back a caustic reply, but stopped myself before the words came out. Instead, I asked, «Can you really smell the dust on me?»
   «Most certainly,» Garou replied. «And let me add that in my day, I have inhaled the stench of rotting corpses, the reek of embalming chemicals, the odors of a thousand types of river pollution… but never have I smelled such a disgusting aroma as that which arises from the dust in your garments.» He leaned toward me, thrust his gaping nasal cavity against my jacket, and drew in a heady breath. «Ah yes,» he sighed with pleasure, «totally, putridly repugnant.»
   Yasmin's jaw tightened and she let out her breath slowly. «You're a Sensate, aren't you, Garou?»
   «I have the good judgment to belong to the Society of Sensation, yes. Is there something wrong with that?»
   «No, no,» she answered, a fatalistic tone in her voice. «Britlin, shouldn't you give him the secret handshake or something?»
   «Handshake?» I snorted. «The formal Sensate greeting is rather more tactile than a mere handshake.»
   «Indeed,» Garou said. «It requires a hundred and twenty-seven meticulously prepared props, takes a day and a half to perform, and may only be conducted under the auspices of a qualified chirurgeon.»
   «I've done it twice,» I told Yasmin. «Remember that scar I showed you last night? The sodding duck moved at precisely the wrong time.»
   «You too?» Garou asked with something close to sympathy in his voice. «I now make a point of ramming ducks with my skiff whenever they cross my path. Of course, all marraenoloths like to ram ducks – it's one of our little traditions. But for me, it has personal meaning.»
   «Yes? Then clobber one for me sometime,» I said.
   And if there is such a thing as friendship between humans and creatures of evil, that was the start between me and Garou.

* * *
   We negotiated a simple deal: I'd paint Garou's boat, and he'd ship us out of the village before the umbrals had a chance to butcher us. The Styx flows through all the Lower Planes, offering access to every form of hell imaginable; but it also passes close to a number of portals, and Garou promised he could take us to gates that led to relative safety. Nothing so convenient as a route directly to Sigil, alas – the best Garou could offer were portals to the so-called gate-towns, outposts which serve as staging points between the Lower Planes and the neutral Outlands. From the stories my father told, I knew the gate-towns to the Lower Planes were vicious places in their own right, tainted by evil seeping up from below… but as long as they retained some vestige of neutrality, any gate-town would be less lethal than where we were now. In a gate-town, we could contact the local chapters of our factions and get help. After that, we could worry about our next move.
   Soon I had a paintbrush in hand, and was roughing out the sorrow-filled faces I would have to copy. There were sixteen of the portraits, a day's work at most: by the time the umbrals retired to their huts for the night, I'd be finished. Garou assured us he could slip our party out of town quietly while the fiends slept.
   «Can we trust him?» Yasmin whispered to me as I started to paint the grief-ravaged face of a high elf.
   «That's the question, isn't it?» I muttered. «He has nothing to gain by betraying us and we seem to get along passably well; but it still might amuse him to deposit us in some festering cesspit. On the other hand, he is a fellow Sensate… and I think he'll be impressed on with my work on his boat.»
   «Maybe you should leave one face unfinished until he takes us somewhere safe.»
   «Good idea,» I nodded. «It'll give Garou some incentive to live up to his half of the bargain.»
   Yasmin watched me paint a few strokes, then asked, «Which gate-town do we aim for?»
   «I don't know. Have you visited any of them?»
   «No.» She shrugged. «Maybe one of the others has.»
   «Why don't you check with them?» I suggested. «I'll be all right here.»
   She stared at me for a moment, clearly debating whether she could safely leave me by myself. «Very well,» she said at last. «I don't want to watch you work on these pictures anyway. Too depressing.»
   «Because the faces are so sad or because it's just a hack copy job?»
   She didn't answer. I watched her walk away.

* * *
   Time passed. Garou watched long enough to see me finish the high elf's face, then wandered off into the village. I took that as a vote of confidence; he had accepted I possessed sufficient talent for the job, and could work without his supervision. The umbrals were not so quick to drop the issue – I could feel their hollow eyes peering at me from dark vantage points under the trees, and could hear their rustling voices whisper unrecognizable words – but in time they too faded away, vanishing on unknown errands.
   I was left alone with the grieving faces.
   Whoever painted the originals had done good work: nothing too difficult in the way of technique, yet with a sure touch in capturing the pathos of each subject. It was easy to believe the faces had been taken from life; but I didn't want to pursue that line of thought. Sixteen people, heartsick people, herded together and forced to pose for the unknown artist… it didn't bear thinking about.
   But I couldn't keep my mind off the subject. Garou's previous artist had done that old trick with the eyes, aiming them out flat so they seemed to follow me wherever I moved; and it is hard to bear up under such sorrowful scrutiny for long periods of time. Sad, mad eyes, always watching.
   Among the faces was a human man, light-haired, full-bearded, nothing like my dark and well-trimmed father… yet the more the face stared at me, the more I felt this was Niles Cavendish: not dead, not lost these fifteen years, but still alive somewhere here in the Lower Planes and crushed by overwhelming grief. Time and again, I caught myself staring instead of painting. It was not my father, it was nothing like him – nothing like anything he could have become since I saw him last. And yet, when I was fleshing out other faces, I would repeatedly catch sight of the man from the corner of my eye and gasp. My father. Papa.
   «Magic,» I muttered under my breath. «Sodding magic.» It could have been in the paint, on the boat, or hanging in the very air around me. Every plane lays its fingers on your soul and toys with you, trying to seduce you into its dance. Carceri wanted to embrace me with its ripe despair, and why not use visions of Niles Cavendish as bait? The man in the picture was not my father… any more than I was.
   That was it: I was not my father. He had been a hero. I was a mere copyist; as Yasmin said, a hack. How long before she despised me for that? She knew I was the son of Niles Cavendish – we'd talked about it the night before, after… after we'd finished being inattentive sentries. Maybe my father was the only reason she cared a twig for me. Maybe she thought I was a savior with a sword, like him; and when she learned the truth, how I could scarcely bear thinking of him… would she walk away disappointed, longing for a real man, and a real life, and real emotion on the canvas…
   «Painting more pictures, huh?» said a nasal voice behind my shoulder. «You must be really dedicated – working every chance you get. Uncle Toby says artists are like that.»
   I turned and saw Hezekiah looming over me. For some reason, he didn't look like a gawky Clueless nuisance at this moment; he looked downright welcome. «I don't know sod about artists,» I told him. «I don't know sod about anything, except this piking place is playing tricks with my mind. Sit down on that stump and keep me sane.»
   «How do I do that?»
   «Grant me wisdom. Grant me truth. Grant me the secrets of life. Or failing that, tell me about your home town, the girls you left behind, and your piking Uncle Toby.»
   Which he did.

* * *
   Like every home town, Hezekiah's birthplace of Templeford had the dewiest dawns, the slowest horses, and the tangiest cheese in the multiverse. The barber was missing a finger and knew more jokes than any man in history. The tailor who sold men's clothes held a «going out of business» sale at least once a year. There were two blacksmiths, one competent, one not… and the well-to-do patronized the fumble-fingered fellow because the other man's smithy was always full of commoners. Of course, no one locked their doors at night. Of course, everyone went skating on the creek in winter time. Of course, there was an old house suspected of being haunted, a young woman suspected of selling her nights for silver, and a butcher suspected of adding cat-meat to the ground pork.
   Born and bred in Sigil, I still knew Hezekiah's home. I'd never been there… perhaps no one had ever been there, including Hezekiah. In real towns, drunks are sad or intimidating, never innocently amusing; and the girl next door has a complicated life of her own, not centered on being your foil. In real towns, marriages are neither unending bliss or unmitigated disasters, but always somewhere in between; and the same goes for children, never purely angels or demons as the stories would have you believe. But none of us comes from a real town – we come from home towns, where everyone is a «character» and where our stories, smiling or angry, are all painted in primary colors.
   At that moment, I liked primary colors; they were a welcome change from the subdued browns on the palette in front of me. Thus I let Hezekiah prattle on about the dances in Pecksniffle's pack-barn, and the blizzard three years ago that buried houses up to their eaves. Was the creek full of trout in spring? Of course. Did the leaves turn crimson and gold at harvest time? Every tree in the forest. And every grandmother could cook better than the greatest chefs in Sigil, every grandfather could whittle better than the most famous sculptors, every hunting dog could sniff out a partridge ten miles away…
   What about Uncle Toby?
   «What do you want to know about Uncle Toby?» Hezekiah asked.
   «He raised you?»
   «Yes.»
   «And he taught you the tricks of mind over matter?»
   «Oh sure – he taught me lots of stuff. But…» Hezekiah's voice trailed off and he sighed a sigh of theatrical proportions.
   «What's wrong?» I asked.
   «Well,» the boy said, «I think Uncle Toby skimped on one part of my education.»
   «Yes?»
   «He never… well, Uncle Toby was a bachelor, see. He knew about the multiverse, and the gods, and the powers of the mind, but he never really talked about… you know.»
   Hezekiah looked at me with anxious brown eyes. I knew exactly what kind of guidance he wanted, and as a Sensate, I had plenty of experience to draw upon. The trick was not to unnerve the boy with excessively hydraulic details.
   «What do you want to know?» I asked.
   «Well… it's just that… ummm, well… I think Miriam likes me.» He lifted his eyes quickly, then lowered them again. «I could be all wrong about this, but…»
   «But you're probably right,» I finished for him. «That trick you did back in the Spider – making yourself look terrifying – I think that caught her attention.»
   «That? But that was… she liked that?»
   I held up my hands in a shrug. «All I said was, it caught her attention. By now, I'm sure she realizes you aren't the demonic horror we claimed you were. But she's still here, isn't she? What do you think of her?»
   «I don't know…»
   «Do you want her to go away, or do you want her to stick around?»
   «Oh, I don't want her to go away.»
   «That's all you have to know at this point,» I told him. «You want to spend time with her and see what happens. Right?»
   «Right.»
   «So don't start worrying about a million other things.» I gave him a quick smile. «You've known her less than two days. There may come a time when you should start thinking of the future, but right now, stick to the present.»
   «Thanks, Britlin,» Hezekiah answered earnestly, as if he believed I'd given him advice instead of platitudes. «I've been really confused about… oh, hi Eustace, what are you doing here?»
   «Eustace?» I repeated. The boy was looking at something behind my back. «Eustace?» I choked. And then I was diving out of the way as sharp wight claws sliced down through the position I'd occupied a split-second earlier.