The Infernal City (30 page)

When he was finished, he stoppered the jar and put it in his haversack.

“Get what you need,” he said. “We’ll be traveling light. When we start, stay close to me, as close as you can. We’ll be moving fast.”

Attrebus shouldered his pack and put his hand on Flashing’s hilt. He faced the Khajiit. There were four of the massive Senchetigers and four riders. Lesspa with Sha’jal, Taaj with S’enjara, M’kai with Ahapa, and J’lasha riding M’qar.

“You’re sure about this, all of you?” Attrebus asked them.

“Our lances are with you,” Lesspa said.

“Only our lances,” M’kai added. “I hope you know how to use them.”

His accent was so thick and his tone so solemn that it took a snicker from Taaj before he realized M’kai was joking.

“We’re ready, Prince,” Lesspa said.

“Okay,” he told Sul. “I’m ready, too. You can start whenever.” He looked up at the moons.

Sul nodded and the sky shattered.

The landscape beneath Mere-Glim had changed considerably since he’d last been in the Fringe Gyre. Gone the dense forest, winding rivers, and oxbow lakes, all replaced by ash-colored desert and jagged peaks. That meant they were out of Black Marsh at last, and well over Morrowind.

He’d never been out of his homeland before.

Not that it mattered anymore. He was dead to the Hist, and almost everyone he knew was dead. For all intents and purposes, he hadn’t been in Black Marsh since he and Annaïg had come upon Umbriel. Crossing a border was just a formality.

Of course, he could jump. Why shouldn’t he? His body would be too broken to become one of the living dead he could see massed in every direction now that the concealing canopy was gone.

He hissed. Maybe later. Annaïg was probably dead, but until he was sure, he would go through the motions as if they mattered.

So back up the tree he went, retracing his path to where he’d met Fhena.

True to her word, she appeared within half an hour, smiling.
Her grin broadened when he handed her a sack full of orchid shrimp.

“I thought you might not be coming back,” she said.

“I … got in trouble last time,” he said.

Her smile vanished. “I didn’t tell anyone,” she said. “I promise.”

“It wasn’t that,” he said. “I got distracted on the way back. I was late. Since then I’ve had to be a little more careful.”

“Well, I’m glad you came back. Everyone else I meet—they’re all pretty much the same. You’re very strange.”

“A … thanks.”

“I mean it as a compliment.”

“I’ll take it that way, then.”

She perched on one of the smaller branches and crossed her legs. “Where you come from—is everyone strange, like you?” she asked, plucking one shrimp from her sack and biting its head off.

“Well, of course where I’m from doesn’t exist anymore, thanks to Umbriel.” At least the place that I grew up doesn’t. Everyone I know there is probably dead.”

“I know. I’m sorry. But what I meant—”

“I know what you meant,” he replied. “Where I
was
from—is called Black Marsh. That’s where my people are from. But there are other sorts of people, just as there are here.”

“What do you mean, ‘other sorts of people’?”

Right, he remembered. They’re really all just worms. Their appearance is superficial.

“Well, there is a whole race of people, for instance, who look a lot like you. We call them the Dunmer, and they used to live in Morrowind, which is what’s below us now. Now most of them are gone.”

“Used to live?”

“There was an explosion,” he said. “A volcano erupted and destroyed most of their cites. Then my people came in and killed or drove out more.”

“Why? To claim their souls?”

“No, because—it’s a long story. The Dunmer have preyed on my people for centuries. We paid them back for that. The few that remain are scattered. Most are on Soulstheim, an island far north of here.”

She clapped her hands in delight. “I don’t understand half of what you’re saying. More than half.”

“That makes you happy?”

“Yes! Because it gives me questions. I love questions. Like—what’s a volcano?”

“It’s a mountain that has fire inside of it.”

“See? So what’s a mountain?”

It went on like that for a while, and he actually found himself enjoying it, but finally he knew it was best he go, so he said so.

“Can we meet again?” she asked.

“I’ll try to come back.” He gathered his courage to ask his question, but she swam ahead of him.

“I found your friend!” she said. “I should have told you to start with, but I was afraid you would leave without talking to me if I did.”

“You know where Annaïg is? She’s alive?”

“I’m sorry—were you hoping she was dead?”

“No, I—where is she?”

“I didn’t mention you, when I was asking,” she assured him. “She’s very famous in the kitchens, especially after the slaughter.”

“Slaughter?”

“She was in one kitchen, but then another kitchen invaded it to capture her. Like your story about your people invading Morrowind, I guess. And now she’s in a much higher kitchen.”

“Do you know which one?”

She concentrated for a moment. Then her face brightened again. “Toel,” she said. “Toel Kitchen.”

“And do you know where it is?”

Her face fell. “I don’t. I don’t know my way around outside of
the Fringe Gyre. I could ask Kalmo or someone else who makes deliveries, but then they might want to know why I’m asking.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “Don’t ask, for now. I don’t want to get you in trouble. It’s enough to know she’s alive.”

“I’m glad I was helpful,” Fhena said.

“You’ve no idea,” Mere-Glim told her. He hesitated, and then touched his muzzle to her cheek. She jerked away in surprise.

“Why did you do that?” she asked.

“It’s called a kiss,” he said, feeling stupid. “Humans and mer do it to express—”

“I know what a kiss is,” she replied. “We do it during procreation. Not like that, though. Are you asking me to procreate?”

“No,” Mere-Glim said. “No. That was a different kind of kiss—it just expresses thanks. I’m not trying … No.”

“I wonder if we even could?” she wondered.

“I’m going now,” Glim said, and hurried away.

Mere-Glim woke from nightmares of emptiness and pain and it was a moment before he understood someone was whispering his name. He sat up, grunting, and made out Wert’s features in the dim light.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Come with me,” Wert replied. “We want to talk to you.”

He groggily followed Wert through the skraw passages and then out of them, into a place that had a stale sort of smell to it, as if it wasn’t used very often. Light wands had been placed in a little pile, and around it stood eight other skraws.

“What is this?” Glim asked.

Wert cleared his voice. “You stood up to the overseer,” he said.

“I was angry,” Glim replied. “And I’m not used to being treated like that.”

“He’d never felt the pain before,” another of the skraws said. “I’ll bet he wouldn’t do it again.”

“Well?” Wert said.

“Well, what?”

“Would you stand up to him again?”

“I don’t know. If I had reason to. It’s only pain.”

“He might have killed you. Probably the only reason he didn’t is that there’s only one of you, and you’re so valuable. But that’ll change soon.”

“Why are you asking me this?” Glim snapped. “Why do you care?”

“You said it yourself,” Wert said. “Why should we have to take the vapors? I didn’t really understand you when you started talking that way. It’s hard to think like that. But you’ve been most of your life without overseers. Things occur to you that don’t to us.”

“It’s never occurred to you that your lives could be better?”

“No. But now you’ve brought it up, see? Now it’s hard to make the thought go away.”

“And you’ve spread it around.”

“Right.”

“So what do you want with me?”

“Let’s say we want free of the vapors—just that one thing. How do we go about that?”

Glim almost felt like laughing. Here was Annaïg’s resistance, such as it was.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I haven’t thought about it. I’m not sure I want to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this isn’t my sort of thing,” Glim replied. “I’m not interested in leading a revolution.”

“But that’s not right,” Wert blurted. “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“Situation? You haven’t done anything yet, have you?”

“Situation,” Wert repeated, tapping his head.

“Look—” Glim began, but then stopped. He could use this,
couldn’t he? If they thought he was leading them in some sort of insurrection, he could use them to get to Annaïg.

He saw they were all watching him expectantly.

“Look,” he said again, “without the sump, no one is born. Probably more than half of the food supply comes from here, and I’ll bet the Fringe Gyre needs water from here to produce the rest. And we control the sump.”

“But the overseers control us.”

“But they can’t—or won’t—do what we do. What if things started going wrong? Mysteriously? We don’t tell anyone that we’re behind it, and they punish us, but if things keep going wrong—if water doesn’t go where it’s supposed to, if the orchid shrimp die because we forget to scatter the nutrients, well, we’ll make a point. They can’t kill us all, because then who would see that new skraws are born? And then we let them know that all we ask for everything to go back to normal is something better than the vapors, something that doesn’t hurt you so much.”

He saw they were all just staring at him, dumbstruck.

“That’s crazy,” one of them finally said.

“No,” Wert breathed. “It’s genius. Glim, how do we start?”

“Quietly,” he said. “For now, the only thing I want you to do is make maps.”

“Maps?”

“Maps of any place we deliver to—food, nutrients, sediment—anything. I want to know where the siphons at the bottom of the Drop go and why. Do we have access to the ingenium through any of them?”

“I mean, what’s a map?” Wert asked.

Glim hissed out a long sigh, and then began to explain.

Attrebus screeched involuntarily and the Khajiit howled; the sensation was like falling—not down, but in all directions at once. The moons were gone, and in their place a ceiling of smoke and ash. Stifling heat surrounded them and the air stank of sulfur and hot iron. They stood on black lava, and lakes of fire stretched off before them.

“Stay together!” Sul shouted. He took a step, and again the unimaginable sensation, and now they were in utter darkness—but not silence, for all around them were chittering sounds and the staccato scurrying of hundreds of feet.

They were in an infinite palace of colored glass.

They were on an icy plane with a burning sky.

They were standing by a dark red river, and the smell of blood was nearly suffocating.

They were in the deepest forest Attrebus had ever seen.

He was braced for the next transition, but Sul was suddenly swearing.

“What?” Attrebus said. “Where are we? Is this still Oblivion?”

“Yes,” he said “We’ve been interrupted. He must have sniffed out my spoor and laid a trap.”