The Infernal City (15 page)

But if he survived long enough to find Annaïg and give her this bit of news, then what? How could he hide when he was the only one of his kind on Umbriel? He couldn’t. Not for long.

No, before he did something like that he’d need to have a lot more information to pass on. Could the ingenium be damaged from the sump? From anywhere? If so, how?

They descended about two-thirds of the way down the sump, and Wert began moving toward what appeared to be translucent sacs stuck to the wall. There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands, in all shapes and sizes. As he drew nearer, he could make out vague forms within the sacs.

“These are being born,” Wert said.

Curious, Glim moved closer, and to his astonishment found himself looking into a face. The eyes were closed, the features not fully formed, but it wasn’t a child’s face; it was that of an adult—just softer, flabbier than most. It was also hairless.

“I don’t understand.”

Wert grinned, plucked something from the water, and handed it to Glim. It was a sort of worm, very soft. It pulsed in and out,
and with every contraction, a little jet of water squirted from one end of it. Other than that, it was featureless.

“That’s a proform,” Wert said. “When someone dies, the ingenium calls one of these down to the conduit and gives it a soul. It comes back up here and attaches to the wall, and someone grows.”

“That’s interesting,” Glim said. He looked at the proform. “You all start as this? No matter what you end up looking like? This is what you really are?”

“You’ve got funny questions in your head,” Wert said. “We are what we are.”

“And everyone is born like this?”

“Everyone, from lord and lady to me and—well, not you. At least not yet.”

“How are they born?”

“Well, that’s one of your jobs—to recognize when one of these is about to start breathing. You can tell by the color of the sac—it gets a sheen, like this one. Then you swim that up to the birth pool—that’s another cave up in the shallows.”

“What if you don’t do it in time?”

“They die, of course. That’s why this job is the most important, really. And it’s why you’re so suited for it, see? Nah, they won’t waste you much on gathering. This is where you’ll be.” He doubled over suddenly, and Glim realized he was coughing. A dark stain spread from his mouth and nostrils.

“Are you okay?”

Wert gradually unfolded, then nodded.

“Why do the vapors hurt you like that?”

“Why is water wet? I don’t know. But I have to go up soon. Not lasting so long, this time. So let’s go see the birthing pool.”

As they started back up, Glim glanced back down toward the light, but he didn’t see it. Instead he saw a maw full of teeth gaping at him.

“Xhuth!” he gargled, jerking himself to the side and stroking hard to turn.

The fish turned, too, but not before he saw the thing was fifteen feet long, at least. Its tail was long, whiplike, and it had two great swimming fins set under it, like a whale.

But those teeth would shame a shark to blush.

“Sheartooth!” Wert shouted. “You’ve made it mad somehow.”

Glim swam desperately, but the head kept right toward him, so he slashed at it with his claws. They caught but didn’t tear the creature’s tough hide. He let go, then struck again, this time at the back, behind the head, and there he dug in. It couldn’t bite him there.

It could try, though. It thrashed like a snake in a hot skillet; he saw Wert stab at it with his spear, only to be struck by the tail. The skraw went limp in the water.

Wonderful
.

He was starting to get dizzy and his arms and shoulders were aching. He’d have to do something soon.

Here’s hoping your belly is softer, he thought. He let go with one set of claws and swung underneath. He was almost thrown clear, but one of the fins actually buffeted him back to the belly, and he slashed with all his might. Again his claws caught. He sank in the other hand.

The sheartooth gyred into a loop, and the force was such that he knew he could only hold on for another few seconds.

But the same force dragged Glim down the belly, opening it up like a gutting knife, and he was engulfed in a cloud of blood.

He kicked hard and swam free of the still-twisting monster, but it had lost interest in him, focusing instead on its own demise.

He realized suddenly that he’d forgotten Wert.

He had drifted down fifty or sixty feet. His eyes were closed and his chest was moving oddly.

Glim slung Wert over his back and kicked straight for the surface. He could feel the man quivering on his back. The light of the sun seemed a long way off.

He burst into air and reversed his hold, keeping Wert’s head out of the sump as he vomited water from his lungs and began to struggle. His eyes opened, looking wild. He began to make a horrible sucking sound that wasn’t breathing.

“Should I take you back under?” Glim asked.

Wert shook his head violently, but Glim wasn’t sure if that meant yes or no.

But then he seemed to draw a real breath, and then another. They reached the shallows, where Glim could stand and Wert could lean against him.

“Shearteeth—usually not so vicious,” he said. “Usually don’t attack us. Something about you set it off. Maybe because the sump was still learning you. Thought you were—intruder.”

He glanced at Glim. “Thanks, by the way. I wouldn’t have made it back up.”

“I thought you were going to die anyway.”

“It’s always bad between,” Wert explained. “You don’t want to be underwater when you start breathing air again, but then again, you still can’t breathe air.”

“That’s horrible,” Glim said. “There must be some better way to do this.”

“Sometimes a lord or lady will come down for a swim, and they have other ways, not like the vapors. But the vapors are cheap, my friend. And so are we—always more of us being born. You’re different—for now.”

“For now?”

“Well, the sump knows you now. So does the ingenium. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few more of your sort, pretty soon. And when there are enough of you—well, you’ll be cheap, too.”

When Attrebus, Gulan, and Radhasa arrived at Ione, dawn was just leaking into the sky. It was cool, and the breeze smelled of dew and green leaves. A rooster gave notice to the hens it was time to face the day. The town was waking, too—smoke from hearths coiled up through the light fog and people were already about in the streets.

“It’s not much to look at, this town,” Radhasa noticed.

Attrebus nodded. Ione wasn’t picturesque; a few of the houses were rickety wooden structures faded gray, but most were of stone or brick and simply built. Even the small chapel of Dibella was rather plain.

“It’s not very old,” he said. “There wasn’t anything here at all fifty years ago. Then—well, do you know what that is?”

They had reached the town square, and he didn’t have to point to indicate what he was asking about.

The square was mostly stone, oddly cracked and melted as if from terrible heat or some stranger force. Two bent columns projected up in the middle, each about ten feet high, and together they resembled the truncated horns of an enormous steer.

“Yes, I’ve seen them before—the ruins of an Oblivion gate.”

“Right. Well, when this one opened, it opened right in the middle of a company of soldiers recalled from the south to fortify the Imperial City. More than half of them were killed, including the commander. They would have all died, but a captain named Tertius Ione managed to pull the survivors together and withdraw. But rather than retreat all the way to the Imperial City, he instead recruited farmers and hunters from the countryside and Pell’s Gate. Then he made them into something more than what they were. They returned and slaughtered the daedra here, and when they were done with that, he led them through the gate itself.”

“Into Oblivion?”

“Yes. He’d heard that the gate at Kvatch had been closed somehow by entering it. So Ione went in with about half of his troops and left the rest here, to guard against anything else coming out.”

“It looks like he closed it.”

“It closed, but Captain Ione was never seen again. One of his men—a Bosmer named Fenton—appeared weeks later, half dead and half mad. From what little he said that made sense, they reckoned Ione and the rest sacrificed themselves to give Fenton the chance to sabotage the portal. The Bosmer died the next day, raving. Anyway, Ione was gone for a long time before the gate exploded, and in the meantime his company built some fortifications and simple buildings. Once the gate was gone, it was a convenient and relatively safe place, so a lot of people stayed, and over time the town grew.”

He turned about, spreading his arms. “That’s why I like this Ione. Because it’s new, because it speaks to the spirit of heroism that lies at the heart of each of us. Yes, there are no quaint old buildings or First Era statues, but it’s an honest place built by brave people.”

“And you have a house here?” Radhasa asked.

“A hunting lodge, in the hills just across town.”

“That’s quite a hunting lodge,” the Redguard said when they entered the gate.

Something about the tone irked him, made him feel a bit defensive. It wasn’t that big. It was built on the plan of an ancient Nord longhouse, each beam and cornice festooned with carvings of dragons, bulls, boars, leering wild men, and dancing, longtressed women.

“I suppose after the simplicity of Ione, it comes as a bit of a shock,” Attrebus admitted. “My uncle built it about fifteen years ago. He used to bring me down here, and left it to me when he died.”

“No, I didn’t mean to criticize it.”

And yet, he somehow felt she had been critical of something.

He pushed past it. There were other matters at hand now.

“They’re all here, Gulan?” he asked.

“They are.”

“And the provisions?”

“You had plenty in your stores. More than we can carry.”

“Well, I don’t see any reason to dally, then.”

He raised his voice and spread his arms.

“It’s good to have you with me, my brothers and sisters in arms,” he called out. “Give us a shout. The Empire!”

“The Empire!” they erupted enthusiastically.

“Today we ride to the unknown, fellows. Against something I believe to be as deadly and dangerous to our world as that Oblivion gate down there was when it opened—maybe more so. We’ve never done anything this dangerous; I’ll tell you that now.”

“What is it, Treb?” That was Joun, an orc of prodigious size even for his race.

He settled his hands on his hips and lifted his chin. Then he laid it out for them.

When he was finished, the silence that followed had an odd, unfamiliar quality to it.

“I know there are only fifty-two of us,” he said, “but just below us Captain Ione went into Oblivion with fewer than that and shut down that gate. The Empire expects no less from us—and we are better equipped in every way than he was. Even better, we have someone there, inside this monstrous thing—someone to lead us in, help us find the heart and rip it out. We can do this, friends.”

“We’re with you, Treb!” Gulan shouted, and the rest of them joined him, but it seemed, somehow, that a note was still missing. Had he finally asked too much of them?

No, they would follow him, and this would knit them all the more tightly as a band.

“An hour, my friends, to settle yourselves for the ride. Then we begin.”

But as they dispersed, there seemed to be much furtive whispering.