13. THREE MINUTES OF DEPARTURE

   One cannot paint while wearing a sword, so I had set mine down… only a few paces away, but the wight now stood between me and the weapon. While alive, this particular wight had been mostly human, but back a generation or two his family must have received an infusion of giant blood – the creature stood close to seven feet tall, with shoulders as wide as a wheelbarrow. He looked vaguely familiar; and in the split second before he lunged for another attack, I realized where I'd seen him before.
   This was one of the wights attending Rivi when she confronted us back in the Glass Spider.
   «She's found us!» I yelled to Hezekiah; then I was too busy rolling out of the way as two handfuls of talons tried to embed themselves in my chest.
   «That isn't Eustace, is it?» Hezekiah observed.
   The boy was still sitting blithely on his tree stump, watching as the wight took another whack at me. This time, the monster dug his claws so deep into the muddy ground I had time to scramble to my feet before he could pull his hands free. With a snap of his wrist, the wight flicked the muck on his fingers into my face, spattering my cheeks and nearly blinding me in one eye. A moment later, he charged straight for me, hoping to run me through while I was distracted. He very nearly managed it too; but I dove over the skiff I'd been painting and scudded away along the slippery mud.
   «My sword!» I gasped to Hezekiah. «Get me my sword!»
   The wight didn't bother to jump the skiff after me; he simply bent down, planted his hands on the boat, then shoved it forward with all his strength, like a carpenter shoving a wood-plane over the flat of a board. The keel of the boat skimmed up a mound of mud as it skated over the ground, but the resistance wasn't enough to slow down the wight. In an instant, the skiff slammed into me and propelled my whole body forward, knocking me roughly down the beach. I could handle the bruises; but another five paces would drive me straight into the River Styx. From the blazing fury in the wight's eyes, I guessed that was precisely the plan.
   Digging my heels into the mud, I tried to resist the steady push forward; unluckily for me, the wight's toe-claws gripped the ground and gave him excellent traction, much better than the smooth leather soles of my boots. I slipped and slipped and slipped again, as the wight bent his back into one heave after another. There was no respite to let me stand up, no chance to scramble away around the front or back of the skiff. It might have been possible to clamber over the gunwale into the boat, but that would only put me within range of the wight's life-draining touch.
   «Hezekiah!» I yelled. And the lapping sound of the Styx was almost as loud in my ears as my own voice.
   The wight hissed with glee. The river was only inches behind me; one more push and I'd be swimming… at least for a second or two, before the memory-stealing waters wiped out all knowledge of how to keep myself afloat. The wight's arms flexed, ready for the final thrust…
   …and then he stopped and turned around, an expression of polite curiosity on his face.
   Behind him Hezekiah held my sword, both hands on the pommel. The boy had taken a swing at the wight, perhaps trying to whack off the creature's head with a single mighty blow. However, he'd scarcely made a mark; he had botched the angle of attack and delivered a glancing strike with the flat of the blade. To the wight, it was no more than a shaving nick. The creature curled his lip in something approaching a grin and reached out toward the boy, close enough to crush Hezekiah's head like a wineskin.
   That's when I shoved on the boat with all my strength and caught the wight at the back of his knees.
   The skiff was the perfect height for buckling the monster's legs. He jerked backward, trying to keep his balance; and at the same time, Hezekiah had the presence of mind to jab forward with the rapier. It didn't actually pierce the wight's chest – the boy hadn't kept his wrists straight as he thrust out – but the tip of the blade banged against the creature's breastbone, giving him some extra momentum for falling. As the wight began to topple backward, I reached up and helped him along, grabbing a handful of his ripped clothes and yanking with all my strength.
   For a moment, the wight's arms flailed. His rotting face loomed close to mine, his pointed teeth gnashing, his hot breath hissing rankly against my cheeks. Then he was spearing down headfirst into the black water, his body collapsing into globules of greasy pus the moment he hit the surface.
   I froze. He hadn't made much of a splash as he went under, but a small shower of droplets had spattered over my clothing. Should any of that wetness soak through to touch my skin… so I didn't move, didn't breathe, didn't blink an eyelash. If I lost my memory now, I'd have to start experiencing life all over again from the very beginning. I might even have to eat another swineberry.
   Seconds passed. The only dampness on my flesh was sweat, pouring out in gushers. Thank all the friendly powers, the day had been cool and I was wearing my jacket; it had given me that extra bit of protection against the splash. At last I let out a shuddering breath and struggled to my feet.
   «That was exciting, wasn't it?» I said to Hezekiah.
   He nodded. «I can hardly wait to tell Miriam.»
   «Wonderful. Give me my sword.»
   «Could I practice a little with it?»
   «No. Give me my sword.»
   «Yes, Britlin.»

* * *
   No other wights showed their decaying faces before lunch. Over the meal, however, the six of us met and agreed it was only a matter of time before we received more undead company. Rivi must have brought the Glass Spider back to an even keel, then sent wights through the portal to search for us. When that ugly basher from the riverside didn't report back to Rivi's base, she would eventually muster other wights to find us. Dangers like the Tooth-Storm bushes might slow her forces down, but I doubted the nasty wee albino would be completely stymied by such nuisances. To someone as vicious as Rivi, the swamps of Othrys might look as congenial as a backyard garden.
   The news was not good from Wheezle and Kiripao either. For the umbrals, negotiations were a process of «becoming one mind»… a process that consisted of long silences, punctuated by grisly stories of life among the fiends. «The stories are bad,» Wheezle murmured, «and the silences are worse. They press in on one's brain…» He shook his head and refused to say more; but his face looked more haggard than it had through all the trials of the Glass Spider.
   After lunch, the others accompanied me back to the Styx, keeping watch as I continued painting the boat. I welcomed their presence as a way to steer my mind away from morbid brooding; the face of that man on the bow looked less like my father while Miriam was telling about a drunk who walked into a tavern of centaurs and called it a «hay bar».
   So the afternoon passed with inconsequential conversation. By the time Garou returned to view the work, my stomach was growling for supper… which just goes to show what addle-coves stomachs can be, since I was not looking forward to forcing down more bulrushes and beetles. The boatman looked over my shoulder for a few moments, gave a soft sigh, and said, «I suppose it will do.»
   «It's an exact copy,» Yasmin offered on my behalf.
   «Close enough,» Garou replied. I recognized the voice of a customer who doesn't want to sound too enthusiastic for fear the price goes up. «Have you decided where you want to go when the job is done?»
   «Do any of us know anything about the gate-towns?» I asked the others.
   «I know people in Plague-Mort,» Miriam answered. «I've been there a couple of times.»
   «What's a Plague-Mort?» Hezekiah asked.
   «Gate-town on the edge of the Abyss,» Yasmin replied. «From what I've heard, it's a depraved and violent place to spend your time.»
   «No worse than a lot of neighborhoods in Sigil,» Miriam protested. «And it has some first-rate taverns.»
   «Dens of iniquity?» Hezekiah asked hopefully.
   «Dens, yes,» Miriam said, «but I wouldn't use big words like iniquity there, unless you want your teeth shoved down your bone-box. A bunch of us from the Glass Spider had some fine nights in Plague-Mort.»
   «From the Glass Spider?» I choked.
   «Sure,» she replied. «One of the Spider's portals led straight to a Plague-Mort butcher shop.»
   «It seems to me,» Yasmin said, «if there's a direct portal from the Spider to Plague-Mort, we should head someplace else. We don't want to make it easy for Rivi to find us.»
   «Rivi's looking for us here,» Hezekiah piped up, coming to Miriam's defense. «This Plague place is several planes away, right? She won't suspect we've gone there.»
   «True,» Yasmin admitted.
   «And I know the lay of the town,» Miriam said. «I also met someone there, claimed she knew a portal from Plague-Mort to Sigil.»
   «Was this someone you could trust?» I asked.
   «Depends what you mean by trust,» Miriam replied. «Her name was November. Would I let her hold my jink-bag for a few days? No. But if I gave her a handful of gold, would she stay bought an hour or two? I think so. She showed me a license from the Arch-Lector authorizing her to 'arrange divers services' for visitors to town… which probably means she knows who to bribe to get things done. I know how bloods like November work – they peel your pennies every chance they get, but they won't try to do you a slice-job.»
   I had to admit I'd met the same sort of person, in Sigil and most other places I'd visited in the universe. If you wanted a room or a meal or some lamp oil, she'd escort you to an establishment that overcharged and slipped her a kickback under the table; but in exchange for wringing your purse dry, she'd honestly take good care of you. Then again, I'd met some not-so-honorable «city guides» too – the kind who smiled with helpfulness till nightfall, then led you straight into ambush. Usually, there was no way to distinguish the two types.
   «We should go to the Plague place,» Hezekiah said with surprising firmness. «Anywhere else would be worse, right?»
   Yasmin looked at me. I shrugged. «From everything I've heard, all the Lower Plane gate-towns are bad. If Miriam knows Plague-Mort and can find us a quick way back home… Garou, I assume you can ferry us to Plague-Mort?»
   «The Styx does not touch on the Outlands anywhere near Plague-Mort,» the marraenoloth replied, «but I can take you to a portal which jumps to the town.»
   «And you can supply us with a key to that portal?» Yasmin asked.
   Garou smiled. I've never liked the sight of a smile on a fleshless face – it's all in the mouth, without touching the eyes. «As it happens,» the boatman said, «the key to that particular portal is an open bleeding wound. I would be happy to supply you with an appropriate gash; but I suspect you'll be spoilsports about that.»
   A bleeding wound: just what you'd expect to open a portal in the Lower Planes. I shuddered and kept on painting.

* * *
   The light never changed, the clouds never varied… but night fell.
   Wheezle and Brother Kiripao emerged from the hut where they had been «negotiating». They looked exhausted, and were deliberately vague about what had happened in the most recent discussions. «We learned how the umbrals think,» Kiripao said. «I have never… pondered such subjects before.» He refused to say anything else.
   Wheezle looked worse and said nothing for the first few minutes in our company. After a while, he chose a moment when the others were engaged with trifling conversation and dragged himself close to me. His still-useless legs trailed along behind him through the mud.
   «Honored Cavendish…» he murmured.
   «Yes?»
   «The umbrals have undeniable powers of persuasion.» He mopped his brow with the hem of his sleeve. «I told you they want us all to become 'of one mind'. Do you know what that means?»
   «Tell me.»
   «We talk of ourselves… they talk, Kiripao and I talk. All together in a single hut. It becomes hard to breathe; their bodies take on a peculiar smell; the room darkens almost to blackness…»
   «In other words,» I said, «there's magic at work.»
   «Perhaps.» The thought seemed new to him. «Perhaps magic. Perhaps the power of their thoughts. But there were times… times I felt I was losing myself. Becoming one of them.»
   «Maybe that's why they spend so much time over negotiations like this,» I suggested. «After all, how long does it take to agree on a simple selling price? But if this bargaining process is actually some kind of assimilation that takes three days to complete…»
   «It could be,» Wheezle nodded. «I do not think I can withstand another day in that hut. By the end, I would be an umbral… mentally, if not physically.»
   «Not to worry,» I assured him. «We're getting out tonight: Garou will help us escape to Plague-Mort. Of course, Plague-Mort has risks of its own —»
   «Please,» the gnome interrupted, holding up his hand. «I do not wish to hear about risks, honored Cavendish. If you believe this is our wisest course of action, so be it. As long as we leave tonight.»
   I patted him on the shoulder. «We're just waiting for the umbrals to go to sleep.»
   But the umbrals showed no sign of sleeping. There were always a few of them sliding silently through the streets, though they had long ago abandoned their daytime activities of sculpting and harvesting beetles from the marsh. Even when I couldn't see the fiends amidst the shadows under the trees, I could still feel their hollow eyes gazing at us from the pockets of darkness.
   At last Miriam whispered the words that must have been on everyone's mind. «Something's up tonight. Maybe they suspect we're trying to give them the laugh.»
   «Impossible,» Kiripao answered immediately. «They cannot know our thoughts.»
   I looked at him and wondered why he used that turn of phrase. Know our thoughts. Kiripao and Wheezle had been cloistered with the fiends most of the day, with the purpose of becoming one mind. Perhaps our monastic companion was steadfastly trying to deny something he secretly feared was true: that as umbral thoughts invaded his brain, some of his own thoughts bled into the fiends. They might have caught enough psychic vibrations to know we were jumping their cage tonight… which was why they now kept a peery eye on us.
   Hezekiah turned to Garou, who was sitting watching me paint. I had already explained I would not finish the job until we'd reached some sort of safety; the marraenoloth was not pleased, but he wasn't surprised either. «So little trust in the world,» he had sighed. Now he looked at Hezekiah and said, «What do you want?»
   «Do you know what the umbrals are up to?» the boy asked.
   «I believe they will hold a revel – in honor of negotiations with your group. They will dance, they will sing, they will play the pipes… all to make you feel at home, of course.»
   He cracked a wicked smile at Kiripao and Wheezle. The elf quickly spun away to face the Styx, but the gnome simply stared, his face slowly turning ashen. In a strained voice, he finally said, «I do not think I can tolerate any sort of carousal. It might… overwhelm me.»
   I knew piking well what he meant. If he and Kiripao were in danger of being assimilated, the last thing they needed was an umbral orgy getting under their skins. Music, dance, perhaps debauchery… even in the absence of magic, those were powerful forces for establishing communal unity; and there would be magic at work too, I didn't doubt that.
   In the heart of the village, fire blazed to life in the flame-pit: a fire that burned as scarlet as blood. «Isn't that interesting,» Hezekiah said. «The wood here must have strange alchemical properties to burn such an odd color of red. Uncle Toby would be interested in —»
   «Hush!» Wheezle snapped, the sharpest I'd ever heard him speak. That didn't bode well; the strain was already showing on his face.
   And then the pipes began to play.
   I couldn't see the pipers, let alone the pipes – the flame-pit was fifty paces away, too far to distinguish unmoving umbrals from normal shadows – but my ears were keen enough to identify the instruments as simple unreeded flutes, made from some wood like bamboo or rattan. A trio of the flutes played, weaving together three separate melody lines with a subtle dissonance that made my flesh crawl. Wheezle clapped his hands over his ears and began to whine softly. Kiripao just listened slack-jawed, as if he had lost the ability to move.
   «We have to get out of here,» Yasmin whispered to me.
   «Don't rush your painting,» Garou snapped. «I'll be very upset at a slapdash job.»
   «I'm just about done,» I told him, then turned to Hezekiah. «Can you teleport yet?»
   «Sure, I just needed some sleep,» he replied. «What did you have in mind?»
   «Jump from here to our hut, gather everyone's packs, then teleport back here.»
   «On my way,» he nodded, but Yasmin stopped him with a hand on his arm.
   «Is it safe for him to teleport?» she asked me. «Remember the white dust.»
   «The dust doesn't affect psionics,» I reminded her. «That's why Rivi wanted the grinders in the first place – the dust stops other people's magic but Rivi's own powers stay intact. Get going, Hezekiah.»
   The boy furrowed his brow, then winked out of existence without a sound. «I'll have to learn that someday,» Miriam muttered.
   Wheezle began panting. Yasmin wrapped her arms around him and tossed a meaningful look in my direction. I knew what that look meant: finish the painting fast.
   Fortunately, I was close to the end. In fact, I'd been dragging things out over the past hour, waiting for the umbrals to slink off to bed. Three minutes would be enough to finish as much as I wanted to; I just hoped we had that much time.
   Up at the flame-pit, someone started playing a drum: a soft pattering beat, like raindrops. Wheezle groaned. I dipped my brush into the paint and concentrated on not making mistakes.

* * *
   Two minutes later, Hezekiah returned with our gear. By then, Yasmin was rocking Wheezle like an infant, while he whimpered, «No… no…» A few paces away, Miriam stood beside Kiripao, ready to wrestle him to the ground if he took one step toward the center of the village; but the elf had not budged, simply blinking at the distant fire and swaying in time with the flutes.
   «All right,» I said with a last swipe of the brush, «I'm done. Let's go, Garou.»
   «Are you mad?» the boatman asked. «We can't put into the river till the paint dries.»
   «The paint is more than a foot above the waterline,» I told him. «It will be perfectly all right if you keep the splashes to a minimum.»
   «I shall not be the one to splash,» Garou replied. «Your companions, however, may choose to rock the boat.»
   «Miriam,» I said without looking at her, «can you safety-proof our friend Kiripao?»
   , «Oof!», , «Oof!», .
   «He'll be quiet as a lamb now,» Miriam announced. She and Kiripao would no doubt debate the ethics of sucker-punches when the elf woke up, but that could wait.
   «Put him in the boat,» I told her, «and let's get out of here.»
   Under Garou's supervision, Hezekiah and Miriam eased the boat into the water, while Yasmin held Wheezle and I packed equipment. «Peel it away,» Wheezle muttered. «Peel away the shell.»
   «What's he talking about?» I said.
   «Look,» Yasmin replied, nodding toward the fire in the center of the village.
   The umbrals had begun to caper around the flames, a dance with slip-sliding shuffles and extravagant leaps through the blood-red fire itself. Back-lit by flames, one fiend stood motionless at the center of the dance, hissing the same words as Wheezle: «Peel it away. Peel away the shell.» Then the umbral reached up to its face, dug its talons into the skin of its cheeks, and raked down with all its strength.
   The flesh fell away: ribbons of it, sloughing off in tatters. Beneath was something darker – pure shadow, the blackness that had been visible in the umbrals' hollow eyes. Faster and faster the creature slashed at its skin, ripping away the dross and letting it pile up on the ground. Naked darkness emerged… still shaped like an umbral, but much harder to see, even silhouetted against the flames. The figure seemed to flicker with every move of the fire, blending into the shadows cast by the other dancers.
   «Peel it away,» hissed a second umbral. «The shell, the shell…» And its claws sank into its face up to the quick.
   «Sod me,» I thought; I was seeing the umbrals' true form for the first time. The bodies they had previously worn were conveniences, garb for everyday. Now they had revealed their genuine selves: shadows of profane blackness, the stuff of nightmares.
   «Peel it away,» Wheezle giggled. «Peel away the shell.»
   His fat little hands reached up toward his face. I barely caught them in time; a moment later, and he would have raked out his eyes. «We have to get to the boat,» Yasmin shuddered. «Maybe if he can't hear the music…»
   It was awkward getting into the skiff, with Yasmin holding Wheezle, and me holding the gnome's hands. The boat rocked precipitously on the greasy waters of the Styx; then Garou plunged his punting pole down to the river bottom to hold the craft steady. «If you've damaged my paint job…» he growled.
   «My paint job,» I replied, «and I'll fix it if I have to.» Looking around, I saw Hezekiah and Miriam at the far end of the boat, arranging the unconscious Kiripao into a safe position. «Get us out of here,» I said to Garou, as I struggled to keep Wheezle from clawing his face.
   «One last thing,» Garou replied. «You may think of the Lower Planes as a crude and vicious place, but manners are manners.» He held up his head and shouted to the dancing umbrals, «Thanks for your hospitality. We're going now.»
   «You berk!» Miriam exploded. She lifted her fist but Hezekiah caught her arm. «You sodding, sodding berk!» she cried at the marraenoloth. «They'll come after us now… and we're sitting ducks out here on the water.»
   «That's what we get for making deals with evil,» Yasmin muttered. She snatched up her sword and thrust the point a hair's breadth away from the boatman's face. «Get us out of here, Garou, or I swear you'll die before we do.»
   «You have your hands full already,» he sneered, and nodded back toward the flame-pit.
   Shadows were speeding toward us; shadows racing on scaled bat wings, vanishing into every pocket of shade beneath the trees as if they were winking out of existence. Their wings rustled like leaves on the clammy air – a hundred umbrals, stripped of their outward flesh, angry to be cheated by our escape.
   I shouted to Hezekiah, «Take Wheezle,» and heaved the gnome toward the far end of the skiff. There was no time to see if the boy managed to keep the Dustman from harming himself; I grabbed one of our packs from the floor of the boat and threw open the flap. «Garou,» I snapped, «it may seem like fun to betray us, but remember I haven't finished the painting. You think you can find a painter like me anywhere else in the Lower Planes? One who won't try to pike you the way you're piking us?»
   «Don't be so melodramatic,» the boatman replied. «I'll get you out of here.»
   Languidly, he pushed off the bank with his pole. «Faster!» Miriam cried.
   «And ruin my paint job? I think not.» He planted the pole with extravagant slowness and gave a soft nudge. The boat moved inches forward, drifting into the river's sluggish current.
   «Ten seconds before the fiends get here,» Yasmin murmured to me. «Are you the sort of man who likes to hear mushy things before he dies?»
   «I'll let you know if I come close to dying,» I told her. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw the fiends were almost upon us: pure darkness, with teeth. «Chew on this!» I yelled, as I plucked a soul-gem from my pack and hurled it into their midst.
   The rushing horde hissed like hot iron thrust into ice water. The three frontrunners all fell back to catch the prize, colliding with the fiends racing up from behind. I heard a dull crunch, the sound of delicate wing-bones breaking in the tangle of bodies. A moment later, two fiends fell screeching out of the scrum, their wings trailing uselessly behind; they both caromed off the bank and into the water, where their caterwauling stopped abruptly.
   Several more seconds passed as the mob of flying fiends fought over possession of the gem. At last, a victor shot away from the group, clutching the gem to its chest – the gem's purple light throbbing against the umbral's blackness. A few fiends broke off to pursue the one with the gem, but the rest turned back toward us and howled with fury.
   «Yeah, yeah,» Miriam growled back. Following my lead, she had fished out another gem from our packs; now she hurled it full-force at the screaming fiends.
   «Please don't rock the boat, madam,» Garou chided.
   «Please get the lead out of your sodding arse,» Miriam snapped back.
   «Language, language,» Garou sighed. He gave another half-hearted push with his pole, sending us out a few more inches into the stream. The current angled the prow around and drew us forward, aiming us toward one of the pillars of mist hovering above the Styx. My guess was that each such cloud acted as a portal, opening to another part of the river on a different plane; even spurred by greed, umbrals would fear to follow us through… I hoped.
   The struggle to claim Miriam's gem ended after only a few seconds. No one's wings broke; indeed, a few of the fiends ignored the gem entirely, circling around the other umbrals and continuing to pursue us. Did that mean they wanted to attack us more than they wanted to claim a gem? Or had they remembered we possessed many such gems, free for the picking if they managed to dump us in the Styx?
   I had plucked up another gem and Yasmin had found one too; we threw simultaneously, aiming for the closest fiends. One fiend managed to catch a gem, and was immediately set upon by two others. The remaining gem was fumbled by clumsy-clawed hands and fell toward the river. Two fiends dove for it at full speed; they reached the gem simultaneously, clonked heads like a clown act, and plummeted the rest of the way into the water. A moment later they surfaced, sputtering and gasping. Both gripped the gem… and both stared at its purple glow as if they'd never seen such a thing before. There was no way to tell how much the water had affected their memories, but they goggled at the gem with obvious greed, like crows coveting a shiny bauble. Immediately, they began clawing and biting at each other, splashing showers of greasy water into the air.
   «Peel it away,» Wheezle shouted. «Peel away the shell!»
   «Britlin…» Hezekiah gasped, as he struggled to hold the gnome's hands. «We've got more trouble.»
   I glanced in his direction. At first, I couldn't tell what Hezekiah was talking about; then I saw that Wheezle's eyes had turned into hollow pits of blackness, as empty as the night sky. Nightmare eyes. Umbral eyes.
   «He's converting,» Yasmin said. «What do we do?»
   «Keep throwing gems,» I answered. «Keep the fiends off our backs until we get into that mist.»
   I nodded toward the closest bank of cloud, but Garou gave a low chuckle. «You'd be very upset if I took you through that one. There's no air on the other side, and the temperature's cold enough to freeze your eyeballs to ice cubes.»
   «How do you know?» Miriam asked.
   «It's my business to know,» Garou replied. «We're heading for that fog there.»
   He pointed to another patch of mist, some fifty paces away. It seemed like a long distance with a swarm of fiends screaming for our blood; I wondered if Garou was stringing us along, taking pleasure in our fear. «Make it snappy,» I told him, «if you ever want your painting done.»
   «Britlin!» Hezekiah cried again. «Hurry!»
   Wheezle's fingernails had begun to extend into claws, ripping at Hezekiah's hands as the boy tried to hold him still. The gnome hissed and growled, spitting out words like a snake spitting venom. «Peel, peel, peel! Peel away the shell!»
   There was another soul-gem in my hand; perhaps that would pacify him. But when I dropped the gem in Wheezle's lap, it only spurred him to greater exertions, screaming and foaming at the mouth. Bar that then – I grabbed the gem and threw it at an umbral flying less than two yards behind the boat. The fiend caught the gem, squealed in triumph, and sped away, three other fiends chasing him.
   «I can't help but think,» Yasmin said matter-of-factly, «that our visit has had a negative effect on this village's sense of community.»
   «Peel, peel, peel!» screeched Wheezle.
   «I can't hold him,» Hezekiah warned. The gnome's claws had torn the boy's hands bloody.
   «Damn it,» I said. Poisonous umbral thoughts must be filling his mind completely. If only…
   I froze. Desperate times call for desperate measures. My sword lay on the floorboards, ready to be snatched up if I needed to fight the fiends. I grabbed it now, dipped its tip into the Styx, and lifted it out again. Carefully, I moved the blade over Wheezle's screaming face and let a single drop fall on his cheek.
   He stopped shouting immediately. To be precise, he fell completely quiescent, as if he had plunged into a coma. Two seconds later, we passed through a pillar of mist and the rest of the world fell silent too – the hissing of umbrals, the splashes of fiends fighting in the water, all vanished in a trice.
   We emerged into a bleak expanse of gray.

14. THREE PLANES TO PLAGUE-MORT

   The sky had a mournful lack of color, like a muted winter's day when the snow falls somberly from dawn to dusk. The land was equally bleached of anything to please the eye: nothing but dying willows and poplars, their leaves white, their bark black, all drooping limply along the shores of the Styx. Gray mold fuzzed over the soil, stifling any chance for grass to struggle up into the light… but I wondered if even grass would have the heart to grow in such a cheerless world.
   «The Gray Wastes,» Garou announced… as if any of us needed to be told.
   In the Walk of Worlds at the Sigil Festhall, the Gray Wastes were portrayed in dignified shades of silver, with soft enchanted mists draping demurely over the entire scene. It was a popular room for elderly lovers, dancing with unhurried composure to the slow music that plays continuously.
   But there was no music in the real Gray Wastes. I doubt if you could find lovers of any age, and unhurried composure would quickly degrade into dejected lassitude. The oppressive gloom of gray trees/gray land could deflate the most confident of spirits.
   «Lovely day,» Garou said, inhaling deeply.
   He had no reason to inhale. Admittedly, the plane offered breathable air, but it was completely devoid of smell. No odor came from the trees, the moss, the oily river water… I sniffed at my own skin, damp with the sweat of exertion and fear; but I couldn't smell the slightest hint of perspiration. In a way, it was worse than going blind.
   «How's Wheezle?» I asked loudly, to force my mind onto other thoughts.
   «Better,» Hezekiah replied. The gnome's hands had reverted to normal, the claws shrinking as quickly as they had grown. His eyes looked like gnome eyes, watery and brown, not empty hollows in his face. The single drop of Styx water had made Wheezle forget all that had happened to him among the umbrals, had purged his mind of their influence; the only question was, how much more of his memory had it stolen?
   «See if you can wake him up,» I told the boy.
   Hezekiah gave the gnome's cheek a few light pats, and said, «Come on, Wheezle. Wake up, come on.»
   Wheezle stirred. His eyelids fluttered and his gaze focussed on Hezekiah. «Who are you?» he asked.
   «You remember me – Hezekiah Virtue.»
   «Ah.» Wheezle's voice sounded polite, but dubious. «Who are all you other people? Why can't I move my legs?»
   Garou laughed. «Think of the positive side: at least he still remembers how to talk.»

* * *
   As closely as we could figure, Wheezle had lost a year of his life: a year of unreclaimable experience vanished like smoke. To a Sensate, stealing those memories was a hideous crime; I cringed with guilt at the thought. Certainly, splashing him with that drop of water prevented him from turning into an umbral… but I felt as if I should have found some less destructive way to help him.
   My father would have thought of something.
   Garou poled on past the silent gray banks, as the others explained to Wheezle what had happened. He took it calmly, for the most part; he even thanked me for saving him. His voice, however, had nothing in it but formality, good manners without warmth… and his hands were continually straying down to his useless legs, pinching the skin as if he could not accept that he would live paralyzed all the rest of his days.
   Wheezle lapsed into silence soon enough; and the rest of us found we could think of nothing to say to each other. The gray quiet pressed in around us, muffling emotion as well as sound. It was actually a relief when Kiripao woke and grabbed Miriam by the front of her shirt… but his anger evaporated almost immediately into a slump of exhaustion that laid him down on the floorboards.
   «Are you all right?» Hezekiah asked.
   «I'm tired,» Kiripao answered softly.
   «If your mind is full of umbral thoughts,» Hezekiah pressed on, «Britlin has found a cure.»
   «Yes?» Kiripao did not sound hopeful.
   «It's only a last resort,» I said. «Why don't you sleep for a while? Now that we're clear of Carceri, the umbral influence should fade.»
   Kiripao didn't answer. He closed his eyes, but I could tell he was nowhere near sleeping.

* * *
   Time passed like an old man on weary legs. This stretch of the river had its share of misty patches, but Garou steered around them. Once I came close to asking him how much longer we'd have to travel through this soul-wearying plane; but the effort of opening my mouth seemed too great to bother.
   Yasmin leaned back against me, her head settling against my chest. The feel of her there was a comfort; I wrapped my arms loosely around her, and after a while, the warm solidity of her body eased some of the dissipated melancholy weighing down my heart. Touching me must have had the same bolstering effect on her, because after a while she found the strength to ask Garou, «How much longer here?»
   The boatman's eyes grew a deeper black, just for a second. In that moment, I had a flash of insight: that Garou was toying with us again, just as he had alerted the umbrals to our departure out of sheer malignant whim. Garou wanted us to succumb to the dreary oblivion of this place, the dull ache of its emptiness… not because he planned to rob us, sell us into slavery, or otherwise exploit the erosion of our wills, but simply because he liked to see us miserable. Suffering for suffering's sake: just to know he had the power to get under our skins.
   «Yes,» I said loudly to him, «are we going to hang around this boring place much longer? It's putting me to sleep.»
   Garou let out an angry snort and stabbed his pole into the water. «If you're so impatient,» he replied, «perhaps we'll take a short-cut.»
   With a ferocious shove, he sent the skiff veering into a patch of mist we had almost passed by. The fog thickened around us until I couldn't see Yasmin's head still pressed against my chest; then the clouds wisped away and we were somewhere else.

* * *
   Open water spread without end beneath a jet black sky. There were no stars, but three moons, all of them full – a white moon, a silver one, and a moon of frosted green, each lunar face pocked and ravaged with craters. The moons cast enough light to provide a clear view around us: the waters of the Styx, as foul and fetid as ever, streaming out like a malodorous black stripe across an otherwise crystal sea. Two paces away the sea water glistened with the dappling of moonlight, as calm as a windless lake. The sight made me yearn for a swim in the soft, beckoning waters; but even as I tried to touch the cleanness beyond the polluted path of the Styx, a body bobbed to the surface.
   The body was naked and female, possibly human… but it was difficult to be sure, given the bloat of the corpse, plus the damage done by fish and eels. The woman's ears were completely eaten away; the fingers were simply bones held together by gristle, and the cheeks were both torn open into ragged holes. As I watched, a delicate silver pilchard darted in through one of the cheek cavities, bit into the dead woman's tongue, and tried to wrestle away a piece of pink meat.
   I had to look away. When I did, I saw other bodies drifting up out of the sea, as if our arrival had loosed them all from some confinement fathoms below. Each corpse was tattered with bite marks; each belly was swollen with the gases of decay.
   «A pocket in the Astral Plane,» Garou said. «The Sea of the Drowned.»
   But Yasmin looked at the woman closest to us and whispered, «Mother.»

* * *
   The woman's half-eaten eyelids opened. I saw now that her eyes had a tiefling cast: blood-red and feline, with no discernible whites. She did not move a muscle, but her body circled on some undetectable current until her face was focused on Yasmin. «I have been recognized,» she said, in a breathy voice that released the stink of gases from her gut. «What do you ask?»
   «Nothing,» Yasmin answered immediately. «I don't want anything from you. Go away.»
   «What do you ask?» the woman said again. Her breath fouled the air like sewage.
   «I told you, I don't need anything. I don't want to talk to you.» Yasmin snatched up her sword, though the body was floating just too far to reach. «Go back wherever you came from.»
   «Impossible,» the dead woman said. «I have been recognized. What do you ask?»
   «I ask you to get out of my sight!» Yasmin's voice was becoming shrill. «Now!»
   «That is not within my power,» the floating corpse replied. «What do you ask?»
   Yasmin balled her hands into fists and covered her eyes. I put an arm around her shoulder and growled at Garou, «What's this all about?»
   For a moment he didn't answer, perhaps debating whether the truth would cause us more pain than ignorance. Then he said, «Nothing truly dies in the multiverse. When a soul is killed in one place, it is merely re-embodied on another plane… but with no memory of its former existence.»
   «Any leatherhead knows that,» Miriam muttered.
   «But if the memories are gone, where do they go?» Garou asked. «They can't just vanish – the multiverse doesn't let anything slip through its fingers so easily. Every dying person's memory drifts like flotsam on unseen tides, until it fetches up in a holding basin like this one. Here lie the remembrances of all those drowned on a million worlds. I could show you other such memory sinks: the Poisoned Jungle, the Plain of Knives —»
   «What do you ask?» interrupted the floating corpse.
   «Why does she keep saying that?» Yasmin whispered.
   «The memories are drawn to those who knew their owners in life,» Garou replied. «If you recognize and name them, they are compelled to reveal a secret to you. Your mother – or rather, the cast-off memory of your mother – will not rest until she has discharged this burden.»
   «What do you ask?» the dead woman said. She spoke in a monotone, devoid of emotion; yet I suspected she would follow us the length of the Styx until we had let her disclose something of her past.
   «Ask her anything,» I told Yasmin in a low voice. «If you don't have an important question, ask something trivial. What she had for breakfast the day she died.»
   But Yasmin wasn't listening. She simply stared at the floating woman, an unreadable expression on her face. Yasmin had never spoken to me of her mother, nor revealed a word about her childhood… but then, we'd had so little time to talk. Anyway, a child may have a hundred hard questions to ask her mother, and be afraid of every answer.
   Yasmin licked her lips. «Who…» She cleared her throat. «Who was my father?»
   The corpse sighed. I could almost see the air thicken with the bilious smell of corruption from her guts. «Your father was a man, a human man,» the woman said. «For the week we were together, he called himself Rudy Liagar. But later, much later, I saw him from a distance in the streets of Sigil; and every tongue chanted admiration for the hero, Niles Cavendish.»
   Without hesitation, the corpse disappeared once more beneath the clear moonlit water. I would have sold my soul for her to leave ten seconds earlier.

* * *
   «It could be a lie, couldn't it?» Hezekiah said, when no one else spoke. «Some kind of demonic trick…»
   His voice trailed away. Even a Clueless boy knew when he was grasping at straws.
   Still, Yasmin turned to me with a fierce look in her eyes. «Tell me it is a lie, Britlin.»
   I couldn't meet her gaze. All I could say was, «My father was a hero, not a saint. I know he had other women: mostly short-lived romances during his adventures, but a few dalliances in Sigil too. It always made me so sick at heart, but… never mind. I usually didn't know the women. One of them might have been your mother; but by all the gods, Yasmin, I never suspected… if I ever suspected…»
   Could I say it would have made a difference? It made a difference now, yes, with Yasmin staring at me in horror; but still, the sight of her, the brown skin of her shoulders, the flow of her body… could I have resisted her on mere suspicion?
   «It's possible,» I sighed. «It's very possible. What else can I say?»
   Miriam made a spitting sound. «How about saying, 'Who the hell cares?' I've been watching you two; I have eyes. And the way I see it, people should play things for themselves, and pike the rest of the world. Why should fathers and mothers matter? The past is past, and bloody good riddance. Seize the present, make it yours, however you want. It's your own hearts that matter, and sod all else.»
   None of us said anything in reply. Garou laughed and continue to pole past the silent floating bodies.

* * *
   The skiff was moving swiftly at last. Our marraenoloth boatman had no more reason to dawdle; he had hurt us and was happy. Soon we entered another spume of fog, leaving behind the haunted moonlight and coming out under a swollen red sun. A wash of heat struck our faces, like stepping into the Great Foundry when the furnaces blazed their brightest. In seconds, sweat was dribbling profusely down my forehead.
   The banks of the Styx rose high on either side of us, twenty feet tall and made of dusty red clay. Much of the bank was covered with bramble, a thick brush reminiscent of Sigil's omnipresent razor-vine; but in spots, recent earthslides had left patches of bare dirt, now squirming with ants and beetles. Fossilized bones poked out from the soil, all of them blood-red, of no recognizable species. A skull with three fat horns protruded some distance over the water… and each horn ended in a screaming skeletal face.
   «The uppermost level of the Abyss,» Garou announced, «called the Plain of Infinite Portals. We're not far from a portal that can take you to Plague-Mort.»
   «And you'll show us which that is, right?» Hezekiah said.
   «All part of the service.» The boatman bowed mockingly.
   The river soon widened and the banks fell away, to reveal a desert of rusty gravel and stone. Here and there, pools of molten metal dotted the landscape, sizzling with bright orange heat; their shores were scattered with lumps of glowing lava, spat out by the pools as subterranean gases belched up to the surface. I could see no lifeforms larger than insects moving amidst this desolation, but I was sure bigger game lurked out of sight – creatures that could eat our party and wash it down with a slurp of liquid iron.
   «Just your typical homey hell,» I said aloud; and I huddled myself sullenly on my chosen thwart of the boat, refusing to gawk at the infernal scenery. As a Sensate, maybe I should have tried seeking out ever more sulphurous fumes to sniff, or strained my ears to hear the wailing of the damned… but frankly, I wasn't in the mood for such melodramatic fizz-fazz. I'd seen lava before. I'd tasted iron-contaminated dust. For a while, let the world rot on without my active participation.

* * *
   Garou put in at the base of a ruined bridge: a construction of pure white marble that seemed to have dropped in from the Upper Planes by some fluke of magic. Local citizens had obviously taken offense at the arrival of such a pristine celestial object, and demolished the central span – fallen chunks of marble congested the river below, raising doubt whether we could sail our way past. However, it appeared we didn't need to; Garou pointed up the bank and said, «There's your portal.»
   We all looked. Hezekiah was the first to say, «I don't see anything.»
   Garou chuckled, in a tone I had come to dread. «It's up there, my esteemed passengers. Do you recall I said the key was an open wound? Go up there bleeding, and see what happens.»
   «How addle-coved do you think we are?» Yasmin demanded.
   But Hezekiah had the required addle-coved look in his eye, the kind that was seconds away from volunteering. The boy took a moment to look over at Miriam; and I realized he wanted to show her how brave he was. The truth clicked for Miriam too. Before Hezekiah had a chance to speak, she hopped from the boat and growled, «Wait here, you berks.»
   «You'll need this,» I said, holding out my sword. She stared at it a moment, then swiped her finger along one edge of the blade, opening an inch-long cut. Her expression didn't change as she squeezed the edges of the incision to force out a line of blood. Then she slapped the blade out of her way and walked away from the river, with an obvious stiffness to her gait. I suspected Miriam hadn't made many sacrificial gestures in her life, and she was floundering in self-consciousness trying to pull this one off.
   Hezekiah hopped out of the boat himself, with every sign of following Miriam into whatever nasty surprise awaited. Yasmin grabbed him by the shirt-tail and held him back; but she stepped out on land too, and unlimbered her sword in case she had to run to the rescue. In short order, we were all poised on the bank, weapons ready for action.
   Now that we were on our feet, we had enough height to see a large carcass lying on the sandy red dirt, about forty paces inland from the Styx. The dead thing might have been an elephant before the scavengers got to it, but it was hard to tell now. Dozens of carrion-eaters had already eaten their fill, and now it was the turn of the flies, buzzing all over the corpse as they chewed inroads through its leathery hide. When Miriam approached, the buzzing increased; like sharks, the flies could smell her blood from many paces away. I tightened my grip on the pommel of my sword, and offered up a prayer to any friendly powers who might be listening – if those flies went for her, we'd have a sod of a time getting them off.
   No sooner had the thought entered my mind than it came true.
   As a single mass, the flies lifted off the carcass and swarmed Miriam, roaring. Flies covered her face like a buzzing hairy-legged veil; they clotted her clothes and tangled themselves blackly in her hair. The densest concentration, however, attached themselves to her hand, to the finger with the bleeding cut. They teemed there by the hundreds, a thickening ball of insects the size of a massive beehive. Their weight dragged Miriam down to her knees… and I could imagine the ones closest to the wound jostling each other to attach their filthy sucker mouths for a sip of human blood.
   «We have to save her!» Hezekiah cried, taking a step forward.
   Wheezle, lying on the ground at the boy's feet, grabbed the leg of Hezekiah's pants. «Wait, honored Clueless. If this were a true feeding frenzy, the flies would have flayed her to the bone in the blink of an eye. She is still alive; wait.»
   Miriam was so carpeted with flies, I couldn't tell how Wheezle knew she still had flesh on her skeleton… but perhaps Dustmen have an instinct that can sense life and death. I stared at her fly-laden body, trying to discern any sign of a living woman beneath the buzzing mass; and as I watched, a few flies struggled out of the clump on her hand and soared into the air.
   The flies were glowing red, like blood-colored sparks.
   Moment by moment now, more of the insects were taking their leave, all of them blazing the same color. They flew a short distance, then simply stopped and hovered… until enough of them had taken position to show they were arranging themselves in an arch. A red-glowing arch.
   «A gate of flies,» Kiripao murmured. His voice betrayed an unhealthy tone of rapture. Clearly though, he was right. As more flies tasted Miriam's blood, they too joined the arch, filling in a parabolic curve that shimmered with buzzing power. Other flies, still clinging to Miriam's body, flapped their wings in unison, raising enough wind to spin up dust-devils in the surrounding red sand. They didn't have the strength to lift a full-grown woman into the air and fly her through the portal; but they generated sufficient force to propel Miriam forward, still on her knees and blinded by so many insects on her face.
   At the very last moment the flies scattered away from her, swarming off her skin and clothes, giving her one last push toward the glimmering arch. Miriam toppled forward, head and chest crossing the line. Immediately, they vanished into darkness beyond; a moment later, the rest of her body was sucked through, as if some monster had grabbed her by the arms and was dragging her away.
   «Well, that was amusing,» Garou said with a raspy chuckle. Standing beside him, Hezekiah tried to punch the boatman in the jaw; but Garou caught the fist in his own hand and squeezed until the boy grimaced with pain. «You're amusing too,» Garou laughed. He shoved the fist away, and Hezekiah backed off, nursing his knuckles.
   «We have to do something,» Hezekiah muttered to the rest of us.
   «Wait a second longer, honored Clueless,» Wheezle told him. «The honored thug-lady —»
   «Miriam,» Hezekiah interrupted. «Her name is Miriam.»
   Wheezle dipped his head, as much of a bow as he could manage in his condition. «Your honored Miriam may well…»
   The flies, mostly quiet for the past few seconds, suddenly burst into a thunderous buzz. The hovering archway, still intact, darkened again; and this time I could see that the other side wasn't complete blackness, but simply a normal night sky, scattered with clouds. Miriam emerged from the darkness, her face fly-specked, but definitely in one piece.
   A very angry piece, I might add.
   «Garou!» she roared, loud enough to be heard over the din of buzzing flies. «You're going for a swim, you berk!»
   The boatman curled his fleshless grin at the rest of us. «Cherished friends, if you'd be so good as to prevent your comrade from rash action…»
   «Oops,» said Yasmin, «my boots are all dusty.» She bent down and busied herself picking invisible flecks of dirt from the black dragon skin.
   «Sorry,» I smiled at Garou, «I have to finish that last painting.» I picked up a brush and made a show of cleaning the bristles.
   Garou looked nervously at the approaching Miriam, much closer now and still furious. «I brought you all to a perfectly respectable gate,» he stammered. «It leads to Plague-Mort and you can see this woman is unhurt…»
   «You should have warned her about the flies,» Hezekiah said. The boy stepped back to give Miriam a clear path to the boatman.
   «A swim should not harm you,» Wheezle added. «Your kind are immune to the Styx, are they not? Unlike the rest of us.»
   «Make him suffer,» Kiripao murmured softly to no one in particular. «Make him wriggle with fear. Come from the shadows, come from the night…»
   «Hush,» Wheezle told the elf.
   «I can defend myself,» Garou told Miriam in a cracked voice. «I have powers beyond your mortal ken.» He lifted his hands in something that might turn into a mystic gesture.
   «Naughty, naughty,» I said. In my hands was the salt grinder. A moment later, Garou was covered with white dust. «If you try any magic now,» I told him, «you'll really regret it.»
   He tried anyway. He howled in pain as the dust briefly flared with heat. And that was about the time Miriam grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and heaved his flailing body into the river.
   The splash was magnificent.

* * *
   Garou came up spluttering. The dunking hadn't washed off much of the dust – I doubt if Styx water can make anything clean – so there were patches of white caked wetly all over his head. «You'll regret this,» he coughed. «You have earned the enmity of the marraenoloth race…»
   «Why?» Yasmin snapped back. «You set a price for transporting us here. We paid it. And for all the other services you've done us – alerting the umbrals to our escape, showing me my mother, feeding Miriam to the flies without warning her – well, we've paid you for those too. And a damned low price too, considering. You'll dry soon enough. How soon do you think Wheezle will get his memory back?»
   Garou dragged himself onto the bank and lay there glowering. A sweep of sand clung to his wet clothes, forming a crusty red layer over the dusty white one. «My anger is not so easily calmed,» he rasped.
   «You aren't looking at this the right way,» Hezekiah said. He squatted over the dripping boatman, much closer to the Styx water than I would have dared. «Back in my hometown,» the boy told him, «people were constantly throwing me into the river too. It was just their way of being friendly… you know, smearing your face with swineberries, pulling down your pants in public, pelting you with horse apples… it's all in fun. Like I'm sure when you yelled good-bye to the umbrals, you were just playing a joke, right?»
   Garou looked up at Miriam, who happened to be cracking her knuckles meaningfully. «Yes, a joke,» the boatman answered hurriedly.
   «And throwing you in the Styx was the same kind of joshing around,» Hezekiah said. «Miriam's way of being friendly. We're all friends now.»
   «Absolutely,» Garou nodded. «Just high-spirited monkeyshines.»
   «He fears us,» Kiripao whispered to me. «The dust has robbed him of his power, and he grovels before our strength.»
   «We aren't so strong ourselves,» I whispered back. «Keep quiet.» In a louder voice, I said, «Now that there are no more bad feelings… Miriam, what's on the other side of that portal?»
   «Rich Man's Row in Plague-Mort,» she answered, still glaring at Garou but restraining her fists. «I recognized the street. It's night there now; a bit cold for my tastes, but nothing unnatural. The town looked pretty quiet.»
   «You see?» Garou asked. «I kept my part of the bargain.»
   «That's why I only threw you in the drink,» Miriam told him, «instead of feeding you your ears.»
   «Then let me finish my part of the deal,» I said, «and we can get out of here. I've had enough of the Lower Planes for a while.»
   The others fanned out in a watchful circle as Garou beached the skiff and I went to work with the paints. Hezekiah held Wheezle in his arms, ready to dash for safety if the need arose; and Yasmin stayed close beside Kiripao in case Brother Elf broke into more umbral babbling. Kiripao certainly had the twitches, hearing sounds and smelling odors the rest of us couldn't detect… but Yasmin reined him in with a gentle hand on his arm, and nothing unfortunate happened.
   From time to time, I glanced in her direction. She wouldn't meet my eye.

* * *
   It took me ten minutes to finish the last painting. My nerves were on edge the whole time – this was, after all, the Abyss, filled with some of the most hellish creatures in the multiverse – but apart from a green-fire explosion many miles away, we saw no sign of trouble. I took my time to get the final face right, did some touch-up on the other faces, then pronounced the work done. Garou wasted another five minutes on close scrutiny of each grieving figure, but that was expected; I had already sized him up as a customer who would love to find fault if it existed, but not the kind who invents last-minute changes just to impose his stamp on the artist's work (like a dog, urinating on a stick to make it smell more like himself). The faces I had painted were exact copies of the ones on the other side of the boat… and eventually, Garou had to admit it.
   «Acceptable,» he said grudgingly. The boatman bowed a a fraction of an inch, and in a formal voice recited, «Britlin Cavendish of Sigil, there is no bad will between us.»
   I supposed that was a ritual farewell among his people. For a moment I considered giving him my business card, in case he or his fellow marraenoloths had work for me in future. Then my gaze lighted on that picture of the man who reminded me of my father; and I decided I could do without such employment.
   «Good-bye, Garou,» I told him. «Safe journeys.»
   But he was already putting his skiff back into the Styx. Within seconds, he had disappeared into another pillar of mist.

* * *
   Slowly, our group trudged away from the river. The archway of flies was gone; the insects, no longer glowing, had returned to picking apart the elephant carcass. They buzzed lethargically as they sucked at the leathery hide.
   Wheezle cleared his throat. «It seems we must open the gate again.»
   «Count me out,» Miriam snapped. «I refuse to be smothered by bugs twice in one day.»
   «We could draw lots…» Yasmin said, with an obvious lack of enthusiasm.
   «Don't you dare,» I told her. «Treats like this should be savored by those who appreciate them.»
   And in the next minute, a million flies gave me an experience I shall not easily forget.

15. THREE HOURS OF AUTUMN NIGHT

   A fly-spawned wind thrust me onto the cobblestoned streets of Plague-Mort. I landed on my knees, just short of an open sewer that was surprisingly empty of slops; water running at the bottom of the ditch showed that it must have rained here recently. The air had a just-washed cleanness to it, touched with the bittersweet fragrance of woodsmoke. As Miriam had said, the night was cool: an autumnal chill, as if the land had grown tired of life and longed for winter's oblivion.
   Footsteps sounded behind me. I turned to see Kiripao pounce onto the street, followed more warily by Yasmin and the others emerging into this plane of reality. The portal they used was simply the doorway of a house – a house whose windows had been broken and whose walls had been vandalized with the word Traitor! written in red paint. The woodsmoke smell came from inside, and suddenly the odor didn't seem so dreamily nostalgic.
   Hezekiah sniffed, then turned toward the house. «Fire?» he asked, looking around at the rest of us to see if we smelled it too. The boy took a step toward the closest broken window, and said, «Maybe we should check if everything's all right.»
   Miriam placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. «Whatever happened, it's over now. Anyway, this is Plague-Mort; don't borrow other people's problems.»
   «But if someone is in trouble…»
   «No,» she told him. «This is Rich Man's Row, Kid, the closest thing this town has to a Nob Hill.» That in itself said volumes about Plague-Mort, I thought. The houses, even the ones untouched by vandals, exhaled an air of decrepitude. Roofs sagged; cement footings were riddled with dark gummy cracks. «The people who live here,» Miriam went on, «can pay for protection against normal cross-traders and bub-heads… which means if a house like this gets smashed open, the Arch-Lector was behind the job.»
   «What's an Arch-Lector?» Hezekiah asked.
   «A fancy title for the head thug,» Miriam replied. «In a slumtown like Plague-Mort, you can't just call yourself king. Rulers need chi-chi titles: 'Viscount' or 'Rajah' or 'Holder of the Sacred Sphere'. All comes to the same thing, though – the guy who tells his soldiers to break down your door if you've got something he wants. Whoever lived in this house had a pretty wife, or a fast horse, or maybe just one piece of gold too many. Tonight, the Arch-Lector decided to claim it for himself… and unless you want to fight the local army, you'll mind your own business.»
   «But the army isn't here anymore!» Hezekiah protested. «They've taken what they want, right? And if someone here is hurt and needs our help…»
   He didn't bother finishing his sentence, as if it was obvious we should dash to the rescue. I thought, Father would have dashed in too; and he'd save the life of a beautiful woman who'd be boundlessly grateful… the berk.
   «Miriam,» I said softly, «how long before the looters come?»
   «At least a day,» she answered. «Even the greediest knight of the post keeps clear of the Arch-Lector.»
   I nodded. «Then for a day, this house could be a safe bolt-hole.»
   «Sure,» she admitted, «provided the Arch-Lector doesn't come back in the morning to finish cleaning the place out.»
   «We can post a watch,» Wheezle suggested. «If the soldiers return, they will make no effort at secrecy. They have had their fun with the first attack, ripping whoever lived here out of their beds.» The gnome looked at the broken windows, the smashed-in doors. «If the soldiers left any corpses in there, perhaps we could offer the proper obsequies…»
   «In Plague-Mort,» Miriam muttered, «the only last rites are cleaning out a deader's pockets.» But she didn't stop the Clueless boy from heading inside.

* * *
   Hezekiah went through the door. If he'd had an open wound, he would have ended up back in the Abyss – the door was a portal, and blood was the key. However, the lucky sod had survived the last few days without so much as a paper cut, so he entered the house without incident. The rest of us went through a smashed-in window, stepping down on splinters of broken glass that crunched under the soles of our boots. Rats skittered away from the noise; in Plague-Mort, even the vermin watched their backs.
   Hezekiah sped toward the back of the house while Kiripao bounded up the stairs to the top floor. Sighing, the rest of us split up to keep the two of them out of mischief… and I noticed that Yasmin waited for me to head after Hezekiah before she chose to follow Kiripao.
   Anything to avoid me.
   The house was dark, and we dared not light a lantern that might be seen from the street. Miriam and I stumbled through the front room waiting for our eyes to adjust to the dimness. All of the furniture had been demolished, as well as a collection of china that had once been displayed on plate-rails around the ceiling. The carpet smelled of urine; I supposed that had to be blamed on the soldiers, determined to bespoil every inch of the house… but I could not picture men doing such a thing.
   Miriam noticed me sniffing at the odor. «Hounds,» she said in a low voice. «The Arch-Lector's troops call themselves the Hounds. Sometimes they go out of their way to act like dogs.»
   «Charming,» I murmured. «If I head into town I'll carry a bucket of water, in case one goes for my leg.»

* * *
   The back half of the house contained the kitchen and servants' quarters… although in Plague-Mort, those «servants» might actually be slaves. There was no way to determine their status looking at their rooms now – after the Hounds had smashed, slashed and thrown around slops, who could tell if these were the cozy quarters of valued retainers or the squalid pens of chattel? Whatever the servants might have been, they were gone now. In the darkness of the house, I couldn't tell if those smears on the kitchen wall were blood or perhaps just gravy; but there were no bodies here, living or dead.
   «The smoke is coming from the basement,» Hezekiah whispered in a low voice. He had just opened a door at the rear of the kitchen, showing steps that descended into blackness. Dank air seeped up from below.
   «Can you see down there?» I asked. As a half-elf, Hezekiah had better-than-human eyes when it came to poking around in the dark.
   «There's a tiny bit of light,» he said, taking a few steps down. «Yes, over in the corner: the remains of a fire.»
   I ventured warily down the stairs after him. In the blackness, I could just make out the dull glow of embers, maybe twenty paces away. The smell of smoke was strong down here, and suddenly that struck me as odd. The Hounds hadn't lit fires elsewhere in the house – they probably had orders from the Arch– Lector not to burn a valuable property (and half the neighborhood with it). Why had they chosen to torch a small corner of the cellar, and left the blaze untended? Were they afraid of something that had been here?
   «Be careful,» I whispered to Hezekiah ahead of me. «Something isn't right.»
   «There's nothing down here,» he replied, approaching the glowing coals. «I'd be able to see the body heat of any warm-blooded creature.»
   «That still leaves cold-blooded…»
   At that instant, a gigantic snake rose amidst the remains of the fire. Hundreds of silvery spines lined its back, each spine edged like a razor. The serpent lifted itself a full six feet into the air, hissing with rage… and in the dim light, I could have sworn its head was that of a human woman.
   Hezekiah gave an incoherent yell, and suddenly disappeared: the Clueless little berk had teleported away, and this time he'd forgotten to take me. «Nice snakey,» I murmured in what I hoped was a soothing voice. «I'm not with those other guys. What did they do, set you on fire? They're scum, but I'm not like that.»
   All through this speech, I was slowly moving my hand to the pommel of my sword; but I froze when the snake spoke in a gentle female voice. «Please help me, good sir,» she said. And then her upraised body toppled forward, slumping flat across the burning coals.

* * *
   A moment later, Hezekiah reappeared behind me. «Sorry,» he whispered. «I jumped by reflex.» The boy glanced down at the snake lying across the embers and said, «Looks like you didn't need my help.»
   «I need it now,» I told him. «We have to get her away from that fire.»
   «Are you nuts?» Hezekiah asked. "Sorry… barmy?
   «Just give me a hand, would you?»
   Despite his misgivings, the boy followed me toward the snake. She seemed unconscious now… which might have been a blessing, given the burning coals under her torso. I stepped into the simmering ring, ignoring the smell of singed leather as my boots began to smoulder. Putting my hands under the snake was out of the question, because of the bed of embers; but I could squeeze the sides of her body enough to lift her off the ground, and then get an arm underneath for support.
   She was about nine feet long and heavy – two hundred pounds of solid muscle – but between us, Hezekiah and I wrestled her away from the fire and up the darkened stairs. Scaly skin flaked off liberally in our hands. I hoped this was normal reptilian shedding, but feared it was actually burned tissue ripping away from her body.
   Grunting and panting up the last few steps, Hezekiah gulped, «Uncle Toby… says snake-meat… tastes like chicken. Is that why we're… Britlin, look at its head!»
   Enough starlight filtered through the dirty kitchen windows to show what had astonished the boy. The snake did have a human head: the face of a girl about twelve years old, soft and vulnerable, with delicate green skin and long hair of burnished gold. True, she had two sharp fangs protruding from her mouth; but they didn't negate the sweet gentleness of the rest of her features.
   «What is she?» Hezekiah breathed.
   «A naga,» I said, «one of the snake-people. I've met a few adults in Sigil, but never one this young. She's just past her first molt; while they're children, their heads don't look human at all.»
   «What's she doing here?»
   «I don't know. Perhaps she was a pet… or a slave. They're as smart as most humans, and have magic abilities. If you got hold of an infant and raised her as a member of the family, she could become a powerful asset.» I laid a hand on her cheek; the flesh was cold, but I could feel her breath on my fingers. «At least she's still alive.»
   «But what do we do with her?» The question came from Miriam who stood in the kitchen doorway. I didn't know where she'd been for the past few minutes; possibly rummaging through other rooms in search of removable goods.
   «We treat her kindly,» I replied. «Some naga breeds are innately malicious, but most are quite civilized.»
   «She's still a snake,» Miriam grumbled, as if anything else was irrelevant.
   «Who's a snake?» Yasmin asked, coming in with Wheezle in her arms.
   «Her.» I pointed. Even in the dim light, I could see Yasmin's eyes grow bigger.
   «She is a snake,» Yasmin admitted.
   «And she's waking up,» Hezekiah said.
   The naga's eyelids fluttered and a soft moan escaped her lips. Miriam tensed and Hezekiah backed away; but I stayed put, hoping she was too ladylike (and too weak) to use those wicked fangs.
   «Who are you?» she whispered.
   «Friends,» I told her. «My name is Britlin.»
   «My egg name is Zeerith,» she replied. «I must choose a tooth name soon, but… I apologize. I'm so tired.»
   «What happened here, Zeerith?» Yasmin asked gently.
   «Men came,» the naga answered. «I don't know why. I had been downstairs for a day, enduring my… transformation. The family was very kind, giving me privacy – since they found me outside town, they have always been kind.» She blinked, and a tear beaded in the corner of one eye. «Can you tell me what happened to them?»
   «Nothing good,» Miriam muttered.
   «I fear she is right, honored snakeling,» Wheezle said. «We have searched the house and found it empty. One can always hope —»
   «Not in Plague-Mort,» Miriam cut him off.
   Zeerith closed her eyes. The lingering tear spilled down her cheek. «This is not a happy town,» she murmured. Opening her eyes again, she said, «The soldiers thought I was an ordinary snake. They were cowardly men, too fearful to approach and see what I was.»
   «Count yourself lucky,» I told her. «If they realized the truth, you wouldn't be here now.»
   «Perhaps not,» Zeerith nodded. «As it was, they simply lit burning sticks, then threw them at me until I played dead.»
   «Played dead!» Miriam snorted. «I thought nagas could cast magic.»
   «I do not know what I can do,» Zeerith answered. «I am virtually new-born. As the men pelted me with fire, I was still in the final stages of molt. I… pardon me, I feel so weak…»
   Yasmin handed her a water flask. It only contained brackish water from the umbral village, but Zeerith drank it gratefully. When the naga was finished, I eased her head down to the floor and told her to rest. Hezekiah stayed by her while I stood up to talk with Yasmin and Miriam.
   «So?» I said in a soft voice.
   «There's no one in the house,» Yasmin replied. «I say we stay here while Miriam finds this friend of hers… November, was that the name?»
   «And if the Hounds come back?» Miriam asked.
   «We head out the back door and take Zeerith with us,» Yasmin replied. «The Hounds will kill her if they find her; and she can't go far on her own.»
   «Won't that look subtle,» Miriam grimaced. «The bunch of us wandering the streets, carrying a boa constrictor.»
   I smiled and patted Miriam's shoulder. «You still haven't got the hang of this friendship thing, have you?»

* * *
   Zeerith pleaded for more water. Hezekiah found a rain barrel in the house's back garden and fetched in a few quarts with a soup cauldron. As he was beginning to apply cold compresses to the naga's burned skin, Hezekiah looked up and asked, «Where's Kiripao?»
   «Right behind me,» Yasmin answered. Then she turned and let out an angry breath. «Sod it, he's gone.»
   «He could just be lurking in shadows,» I said. «Yasmin, search the house. Hezekiah, you stay with Zeerith. I'll have a peek outside.»
   «Me, I'm going to find November,» Miriam announced. «That piking Kiripao will stir up trouble, I can feel it in my bones. Before that happens, I want an escape route back to Sigil.»
   «If we have to leave this house,» I told her, «we'll head for the closest inn.»
   She nodded and hurried out the front. I looked through a window into the back garden but didn't see any sign of Kiripao. That left the street. When I stepped onto the cobblestones, Miriam was jogging away to the right so I went left, hoping that one of us might catch sight of our missing ally.
   Assuming, of course, that Kiripao still was our ally. Since the very beginning he hadn't been easy to trust; now, with the umbral contagion infecting his mind, he might well turn stag on us. Would he stoop so far as to sic the Hounds on us? Or would he simply go berserk in the dark streets of Plague-Mort?
   I reached a T-intersection, but saw nothing in either direction. Arbitrarily, I turned left again. Halfway up the street, I heard the far-off sounds of a tavern – a rumble of conversation, bar wenches shouting orders to the tapman, and the ragged muddle of inept musicians: drum, fiddle, and flute. It occurred to me Kiripao might be drawn to the flute's music, even though it was nothing like the piping we'd heard from the umbrals. Crossing my fingers that the tavern wasn't some killhole catering to vacationers from the Abyss, I pushed through the pub's front door.
   The place smelled of every staleness known to humanity: stale sweat, stale beer, stale dreams. Not that the place was quiet – it was full of people in constant motion, shouting at each other and playing cute with members of the appropriate sex. What was missing was the sense that anyone took delight in the frenzy. When a patron pinched a passing barmaid, I saw no lust or teasing lechery; it was simply something to do with his hands, some meaningless gesture he'd learned a long time ago and was still repeating because he knew no other tricks. The whole thing looked like a bar scene in the thousandth performance of a long-running play… people going through rehearsed motions, their minds disengaged and distant.
   As in most pinch-crust taverns, the proprietor saw no need to invest in over-many candles. The back recesses were too dark to inspect from the door, so I wove my way through the clutter of tables and found some leaning space at the bar. I put a coin down on the counter and the tapman replaced it with a mug of something foamy; but after one sip, I set the mug down with the intention of never touching it again. Perhaps somewhere in the multiverse, a tavern owner has found a way to water ale that I haven't tasted before… but this wasn't it.
   I let my gaze roam around the room, searching for Kiripao. He'd be lurking in the shadows, if he was here at all, but that didn't make my job easier – the whole taproom was one big shadow, and the constant movement of people running to the bar or privy made it hard to check every face. I had covered most of the left half of the room when someone squeezed in on my right, calling to the tapman, «A mug of your best for me and my friend!»
   Idly, I turned my eyes to glance at the newcomers… then looked away again, my blood running cold. Leaning next to me at the bar were a certain githyanki and githzerai: Qi and Chi, Miriam had called them.
   Don't go blubbery, I told myself. They never saw you at the City Courts, the Glass Spider, anywhere. They don't know you… and after traipsing through the Lower Planes so long, you're just a dirty and unshaven cob like everyone else in the room. They won't give you a second glance, as long as you don't go addle-coved.
   I picked up my watery ale and had another sip after all; no local pub-patron would leave without emptying his glass. I'd calmly finish my drink, then walk out the door. If Kiripao was hiding in a corner, he could sodding well look after himself.
   Another sip, as unhurried as I could make my hand move. Please let it be a coincidence Qi and Chi were here. Miriam had said people from the Glass Spider came to Plague-Mort for rest and recreation; and this tavern was right on Rich Man's Row, which meant it had to be one of the best in town. I'd been here five minutes and hadn't seen a fight yet – in a place like Plague-Mort, that meant the ultimate in chic. Come to think of it, Miriam had recognized Rich Man's Row the second she walked through the portal, so she must have spent time here. Maybe the portal from the Glass Spider came out in this neighborhood too. Qi and Chi were merely here for a drink.
   Or else they knew everything, and I'd get a poniard in the back the moment I went outside.
   I quaffed off the last of the beer, wiped my mouth in what I hoped was typical Plague-Mort fashion, and eased away from the bar. There was a strong temptation to glance at Qi and Chi to see if they were following; I resisted the urge. Still, as I ambled past tables of irritable customers, most simply looked up in annoyance, then looked down again as soon as I passed. Qi and Chi couldn't be trailing along behind me – otherwise, there'd be three people's worth of glaring instead of just me.
   The doorknob was under my hand and I was building up to a sigh of relief, when suddenly the latch snapped away from me. I took a step back, unnerved… and there, outlined in the doorway, stood Kiripao. He hissed softly and pointed at the musicians in the corner of the room. «The flute is mine.»
   «What are you talking about?» I whispered.
   «The flute is mine, it's mine, it's mine.»
   «It is not,» I told him. «It probably doesn't even belong to the flute player. She's so bad, she must have found it in the gutter on her way over.»
   «Have you no ears?» Kiripao hissed. «She is playing blasphemies.»
   «It sounds more like The Maiden and the Hungry Pigboy.» I put my hand on his arm. «Why don't you come along —»
   He shrugged me off, glared at the flautist, and screamed, «Blasphemer!»
   «That's enough!» I said sharply… but the tavern had already grown quiet behind me. The small of my back itched at the thought of Qi and Chi staring at us. Even so, I couldn't turn around – Kiripao might notice me look at them. The two thieves shouldn't recognize him, but the elf knew them well enough; he had followed them back in Sigil, from the Mortuary to the Vertical Sea. If he caught sight of Rivi's two henchmen, I didn't know what he'd do. I just knew I didn't want him to do it.
   «You're coming with me,» I told the elf with all the command I could muster. Since the tavern was silent, every patron listening to our conversation, I added, «Your mother has been distraught since you chewed your way out of the straitjacket. Come home now, or Doctor Uvula will feed you more quicklime.»
   A few people behind me laughed. That was good.
   Brother Kiripao had no sense of humor. That was bad.
   I remember grabbing the collar of his robe and tugging him toward the street. I remember going, «Whoof!» as Kiripao's fist connected with my solar plexus. After that, I don't remember much of anything, but I hope he hit me a few more times, and maybe landed some flying drop-kicks to my head – it would be embarrassing to get knocked out by a single punch

* * *
   The process of «coming to» spread itself over ten seconds: first a muddy emergence of my brain, then other parts of my body checking in to complain about how much they hurt. Several ribs spoke the loudest, followed by a diffuse throbbing around my left cheek and eye.
   There was a rough wooden floor beneath me, with splintered furniture scattered all over it… and let me assure you, it hadn't been the kind of furniture that splinters easily. No tavern in Plague-Mort, not even an upscale one in Rich Man's Row, would buy bar stools that had to be replaced every time people played fast and loose with their fists. All the chairs, all the tables, had been thick, heavy oak; and now they were thick, heavy sticks of firewood, littering the floor around me.
   Knowing it would hurt, I sat up. Yep… it hurt. I wasn't the only person laid low by the brawl – unconscious bodies sprawled in undignified poses everywhere I looked – but I was the only one moving at the moment, which I took as a tribute to my constitution. Perhaps I hadn't been out long at all; for one thing, I still had my money-purse, which meant there hadn't been time for thieves to go through my pockets. It was still dark outside too, as I could see through the open doorway: somehow, the door had got knocked clean off its hinges.
   I tried to struggle to my feet… but the moment I moved, gravity suddenly increased by a couple hundred per cent, and I sat down again abruptly. Just what I expected in a place like Plague-Mort: natural forces playing dirty tricks on me. I resolved to try again in the near future, this time leaping up fast to catch gravity offguard; but seconds turned into minutes, and the time never felt right.
   A figure appeared in the doorway – a lean woman with bony ridges protruding from her arms. Sitting on the floor I waved to her, then found that very funny for some reason and started to giggle.
   «Britlin?» she whispered.
   «Hello,» I said in a loud voice. «Hello,» I repeated more softly, then wondered how it would sound in a deep voice. «Hello,» (deep bass). «Hello,» (falsetto). «Hell-o-ohh!» (an unsuccessful combination of both).
   Yasmin knelt beside me. «What are you doing here?»
   «Having a concussion, that's what I'm doing.» Those were the words in my mind; but all that came out of my mouth was a jumbled syllables. My incoherence struck me so funny, I laughed out loud. Flashes of purple light exploded in front of my eyes, with a pain like a mace pummeling my head from the inside; but I couldn't stop laughing, no matter how much it hurt.
   «Shh,» Yasmin said.
   She laid a hand on my lips, then immediately jerked away again. I guessed she'd made some vow not to touch me, and I was going to tell her how stupid that was as soon as I could remember how to string words together intelligibly. Another thought struck me and I pulled myself together enough to say, «Qi and Chi.»
   «Shh,» she said again, as if I was babbling.
   «Qi and Chi,» I told her. «Qi and Chi, Qi and Chi, Qi and Chi-di-dee-di-dee.»
   Yasmin showed no sign of paying attention to my words. She looked around the ruined tavern as if one of the other unconscious patrons might offer advice on what to do next; then she slid a hand under my armpit and jerked me to my feet. The room spun and more of those purple flashes burst in front of my eyes.
   I remember thinking, If she gives me a good fast twirl, I should feel something really worth remembering. But she didn't. The Doomguard can be so repressed.

* * *
   Yasmin half-dragged me out of the tavern, my feet bouncing along like a marionette's. A few more crumpled bodies lay outside on the cobblestones, but none I recognized. Kiripao must still be on the loose… as if Plague-Mort wasn't a dangerous enough place already. Qi and Chi were also gone; I wondered if they had slipped away from the fight, or bashed in heads until no one was moving.
   All these thoughts seemed very lucid to me; and yet, when I tried to speak to Yasmin again, all that came out was, «Qi Chi there-there.» Even I had to admit that probably wasn't helpful communication.
   Perhaps to keep me quiet, Yasmin started talking herself. «It took me an hour to find you,» she said in a low voice. «The town's quiet tonight – absolutely no one on the streets. Maybe people heard the Hounds were out on a raid, so they're staying indoors.»
   «Rivi Qi Chi,» I answered. «Here, Rivi Qi Chi.»
   «Hush,» she said, «you're delirious.»
   «Run, hide, Rivi Qi Chi —»
   Yasmin clapped her hand over my mouth. «No noise,» she whispered. «The Hounds may prowling. Please, Britlin, please… don't talk.»
   She said those last words staring straight at me – the first time she'd allowed me eye contact since the Sea of the Drowned. I tried to meet her gaze clearly, despite the dizziness coating my brain… tried to be the man she had kissed in the darkness of the umbral village. She must have seen something in my eyes because she quickly turned away again, and whispered, «Don't.»
   I didn't say anything. At the best of times, I probably couldn't have found the right words.
   After a while, she started helping me along again. Without looking at me, she murmured, «I told you I had a brother. Well, maybe two brothers if I count you… skip that. My brother Jadon was eight years older than me, and always in trouble. Drinking, gambling, bashing old bubbers for fun…»
   She kicked at a pebble lying in the street. It clattered over the cobblestones, then splashed softly into the rain-filled gutter.
   «When I was ten,» Yasmin went on, «my mother died. Found floating in the Ditch. No one knew if it was suicide, murder, or accident, and apart from me, no one cared. After that, Jadon 'took care' of me. You know what I mean? My own brother. Put me on the streets at ten years old, and used me himself whenever he felt like it.»
   I thought of my mother. I shuddered.
   Yasmin didn't notice. «Four years of hell,» she said. "Until one night, Jadon roughed up a woman who turned out to be a succubus in disguise. So much for Jadon; and praise The Lady for making Sigil a city where such things can happen. Anyway, I joined the Handmaids of Entropy the same night, thinking they would turn me into a remorseless killing machine… which is what I dearly wanted to become at that moment. I was all wrong about how the Handmaids actually worshipped Entropy, but I was all wrong about wanting to kill people too. The Handmaids gave me what I needed, and here I am.
   «But Britlin… if you really are my brother, half-brother, I can't let those old wounds open again. I can't. It's not your fault, it's Jadon's… and maybe mine too, maybe it shouldn't make a difference to me. You and I were happy yesterday, why should it make a difference? But it does. When I think that you might be my brother, it wrenches my stomach and I feel so sick… I can't breathe. And the only reason I can even say this in front of you is you don't understand a word.»
   She bent in and kissed my cheek, a kiss thick with good-bye. Even as she continued to help me down the street, Yasmin had left me – as surely as if she had stepped through a portal and disappeared forever.

* * *
   In minutes we were back at the smashed-up house. Hezekiah had found an old wash-tub and Zeerith was dipping herself in it to soothe the pain of her burns. Her serpent's body was much too long to fit inside the tub all at once, so she was immersing a bit at a time, the rest of her body hanging out over the sides. It looked uncomfortable, but the soaking had clearly eased the pain on her gentle face.
   Wheezle sat propped against one of the kitchen cupboards, his hands folded placidly in his lap. Missing a year from his life, paralyzed from the waist down, he was still as tranquil as death… but when the gnome caught sight of me, his eyes opened wide and he cried, «Honored Cavendish!»
   «I found him in the remains of a brawl,» Yasmin said as she lowered me to the floor. «I don't know how Britlin got involved… maybe Kiripao was there.»
   «Qi Chi,» I told everyone. «Rivi Qi Chi.»
   «He keeps saying that,» Yasmin muttered. «He must have a concussion and it's making him delirious.» She let out an exasperated snort. «If it weren't for the sodding dust in my lungs, I'd have the magic to heal him!»
   «Is he very ill?» Zeerith asked softly. The naga raised her head three feet off the ground and gazed down at me as I slumped on the floor.
   «He's incoherent,» Yasmin replied. «Conscious but incoherent… and that scares me. Something's seriously wrong with his brain.»
   I wanted to tell her I could think just fine; but my tongue couldn't put the words together. It occurred to me, maybe there was something wrong inside my head – some rupture in the conduits connecting thought and speech. Very bad, very very bad.
   «Perhaps,» Zeerith murmured shyly, «I could…» She lowered her eyes in embarrassment. «People have suggested I can work magic, but I never… still, now that I have molted…»
   «It is worth a try, honored snakeling,» Wheezle said. «And perhaps we can offer you some small advice for focusing the energy…»
   «We'll help,» Yasmin assured the naga. «If you have the power inside, we'll show you how to draw it out.»
   «This'll be great,» Hezekiah enthused. «A magic lesson!»
   «Rivi Qi Chi,» I said. But nobody paid attention.