The Infernal City (34 page)

His lover formed like a column of dust, like the whirlwinds in the ashlands, tightening in circumference as her presence intensified, until at last each delicate curve of her face drifted before him. Only her eyes held color, and those were like the last fading of a sunset.

“Ilzheven,” he whispered, and the eyes flickered a bit brighter.

“I am here,” she said. It was a mere wisp of sound, but it was her voice, the only music he remembered from that long-ago life. “I am always here. A part of this.” Her face softened.

“I know you, Ezhmaar,” she said. “What has happened to you, my love?”

“Time still passes for me,” he replied, angry at his voice for the way it quavered. “Much has happened to me in its grip.”

“It is not time that has hurt you so,” she said. “What have you done to yourself, Ezhmaar?” She reached to touch his face, and he felt it as a faint, cool breeze.

“Is it still there?” she went on. “The house where we learned
each other? In the bamboo grove, where the waters trickled cold from the mountains and the larkins sang?”

His throat closed and for a moment he couldn’t answer.

“I haven’t seen it since we last were there together,” he finally managed. But he knew it couldn’t be. Not as close as the valley had been to the volcano.

“It is still here,” she said, lightly touching her chest. “That place, my love—our love.”

He touched his own breast, but couldn’t say anything for fear of undoing himself, just when he most needed all of his strength.

“I don’t have long, Ilzheven,” he said. “I need to ask you something.”

“I will answer you if I can,” she said.

“There was a sword here, in the ash. It fell after the impact. Can you tell me what became of it?”

Her gaze went off past him and stayed there for so long he feared he couldn’t hold her present any longer. But then she spoke again.

“Rain exposed the hilt, and men found it. Dunmer, searching this place. They took it with them.”

“Where?”

“North, toward the Sea of Ghosts. The bearer wore a signet ring with a draugr on it.”

He felt his grip loosening. Ilzheven reached for him again, but her fingers became dust and blew off on the breeze.

“Let it go,” she whispered. “Do no more harm to yourself.”

“You don’t understand,” he said.

“I am part of this place,” she said. “I know all that happened, and I beg you for the love we shared, let it go.”

“I cannot,” he said, as her face was erased by the wind. He stood there for a long time, fighting his shame, hardening his heart. It would not do for Attrebus to see him like this.

But it had been so good to hear her voice. He missed that most of all.

“I have to go,” Annaïg said suddenly. “I hear someone coming. Keep well.”

“Take care,” he said, “don’t …” But she was already gone. He held the bird for a few more moments, thinking that perhaps she’d been mistaken and they could resume their conversation.

After a few minutes he gave up and replaced Coo in his sack. Then he looked off what he guessed to be south, where the crater opened into what must be the Inner Sea, if he remembered his geography lessons correctly.

Something about the scene struck him as peculiar—other than the boiling of the water and all—but at first he couldn’t place it. Then he realized what he was seeing was the top of a mountain, peeking through the clouds.

Peeking through the
bottom
of the clouds.

“Oh, no,” he whispered.

From Annaïg’s description, he’d thought he would see it coming, even with the clouds—where were the flashing threads, the larvae diving down? But that would only happen if something alive was below it, and there wasn’t anything living here, was there?

He smelled boiled meat and tracked his gaze back to the water.

Things were coming out of Scathing Bay.

North, beyond the Sea of Ghosts, Sul reflected. That probably meant Soulstheim. That would have to be overland or by sea, then. He didn’t have a handy path through Oblivion to reach the islands. He wondered if all of the inner sea was boiling.

He heard Attrebus shouting.

Swearing, he drew his sword and ran toward where he’d left the prince. He nearly ran into him on the rise.

“It’s here!” Attrebus shouted. “The damned thing is already here!”

Sul gazed toward the water, at the lumbering monsters that had once been living flesh. It would be hard to tell what most of them had been if it weren’t for their tails.

“That way off of the island you were talking about?” Attrebus asked.

“The way we came,” Sul replied. “We have to fight our way back to the spot where we arrived.”

“That’s … not good. Do you have any arts that will allow us to swim in scalding water?”

“No.”

Sul saw that he was scared, and that he was trying not to be.

“The longer we wait, the harder it will be,” Sul said. He reached into his sack and produced his ointment, redabbing their brows. “We cut a path to our arrival point,” he said. “That’s all we have to do. Just stay alive that long.”

“Let’s go, then,” Attrebus said.

When Colin heard the tap of hard-soled shoes, he whispered the name of Nocturnal and felt the shadows around him; felt the moonlight press them down through the marble of the palace to kiss the camp, gritty cobblestones, felt them enter his eyes and mouth and nostrils until he was a shadow himself. Felt them drape across the woman who emerged into the courtyard from the office of the minister.

He padded after her. She was cloaked and cowled, but he knew her walk; he’d been watching her for days. Not for long at a time, because he had cases to attend to. Marall had been right about that—he’d been pulled from the business concerning Prince Attrebus immediately.

But he wasn’t quite willing to let it go, was he? He couldn’t even say why.

So he’d found the woman Gulan had spoken to that last time, an assistant to the minister. Her name was Letine Arese, a petite blond woman of thirty years. He’d learned her habits, how she moved, when she left the ministry evenings, where she went after.

Tonight, as he’d expected, she was breaking all of her patterns.
Leaving at eight instead of six. Going northeast toward the Market District instead of heading for the Foaming Flask for a drink with her sister and assorted friends.

She wound her way through the crowds of the market district, and Colin became less a shadow and more a nobody—there, avoided if necessary, but not really remarked. After a time she left the arteries for the veins, and then capillaries, where once again it was him and her and shadow.

She came to a door and rapped on it. A slit opened; soft words were spoken. Then the door swung out a crack and she entered.

He quickly examined the building. There were no ground-floor windows, of course—not in this neighborhood, but the house had three stories, and on the third he made one out. He couldn’t see ladders or drainpipes to climb, but the building next door was so close he was able to brace his arms and legs and go up it as he might a chimney.

Annaïg just managed to hide the amulet before Slyr came out of the corridor. The other woman looked around, puzzled.

“Who were you talking to?” she asked.

“To myself,” Annaïg replied. “It helps me think.”

“I see.” She stood there for a moment, looking uncomfortable.

“Do you want something?” Annaïg inquired.

“Don’t kill me,” Slyr blurted.

“What the Xhuth! are you talking about?” Annaïg demanded. “You were there—you heard Toel. If I had wanted you dead, you would be dead.”

“I know,” she cried, wringing her hands. “It didn’t make any sense. The only thing I can think of is that you want to do it yourself, when I’m not expecting it. You could probably think of something really inventive and nasty. Look, I know you’re probably mad at me—”

“‘Probably’ mad at you?” Annaïg exploded. “You tried to kill me!”

“Yes, I see now how that might upset you,” Slyr said. “To be fair, I wasn’t expecting to have to deal with any sort of … Well,
this
.”

“Yes,” Annaïg said, measuring her words. “Yes, I understand that because you imagined I would be dead. Now I’m not, and because you haven’t a decent bone in your body, you assume no one else does.”

In that instant, her anger constricted violently into the most vicious rage she’d ever known. She felt a sudden jerk on her wrist and then something slid around her pointer finger and stiffened.

Qijne’s filleting knife. Of course—all she needed was to
really
want to kill someone. And she could. Two steps …

“Please, don’t joke with me,” Slyr pleaded. “I can’t even sleep, I’m so miserable.”

Annaïg willed her heart to slow. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “You’ve been sleeping with Toel.”

Slyr blinked. “I’ve been procreating with Toel,” she admitted, “but you don’t imagine he lets me stay in his bed all night! I’ve been sleeping in the halls, terrified of what you’re going to do next.”

“Next? I haven’t
done
anything to you.”

“You didn’t poison the Thendow frills this morning?”

“They were poisoned?”

“Well,” she hedged, “not that I could tell. But I heard you were down there,
handling
them, and that doesn’t make much sense unless you were up to something. And you knew I was supposed to make the decoction of Thendow—”

“You aren’t dead, are you?”

“Of course not! I made Chave do the Thendow.”

“Unbelievable,” Annaïg said. “And did Chave die?”

“You’re clever enough to make something that would only affect me—I know you are. My hairs are all over our room.”

Annaïg rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to kill you, Slyr. At least not today.”

But then she remembered her appointment with Glim, and she shot the other woman a nasty smile.

“But there’s always tomorrow.”

“I’ll do anything,” Slyr said. “Anything you ask.”

“Perfect. Then go away and don’t talk to me again unless it’s pertaining to our work.”

It was probably twenty minutes after the woman left that the knife slowly withdrew back to Annaïg’s wrist.