Batanya and Clovache were cleaning their
armor in one of the courtyards of the Britlingen
Collective, which sits atop a hill in the ancient city
of Spauling. It was a fine summer day, and they sat on
benches that they’d positioned to catch the sun.
“I’m as pale as a pooka belly,” Clovache
said.
“Not quite,” Batanya said, after looking
at Clovache rather seriously. Batanya was the older of
the two; she was twenty-eight to Clovache’s twenty-four.
Batanya was pale, too, since she spent most of her time
in armor of one kind or another, but that didn’t bother
Batanya.
“Oh, thank you. Not
quite,” Clovache said, imitating Batanya’s husky
voice. It was a pretty bad imitation. Batanya smiled.
She and Clovache had worked together for five years, and
there wasn’t much they didn’t know about each other.
They had both done most of their growing up within the
Collective walls.
“You are a bit like a pooka, though. Your
hair is the same color as the back fur, and you like the
night life better than the daylight. But I’m sure you
wouldn’t taste as good deep-fried.”
Clovache stretched out a foot to kick
Batanya, very lightly. “We’ll go out to eat later,” she
said. “How about Pooka Palace?”
Batanya nodded. “Unless Trovis is there.
If he’s in the place, I’m leaving.”
The two women worked in a friendly
silence for a few minutes. They were polishing what they
called their “liquid armor,” the most popular single
item of body defense in the Britlingen’s huge
collection. Liquid armor wasn’t really liquid. It
resembled a wet suit more than anything, but it was
considerably easier to don. There was a keypad the size
of a credit card on the chest. It allowed for
communication with anyone else wearing a similar suit,
and it had a personal sequence programmed into it that
allowed only one wearer to use the armor. The material
would toughen when the sequence was pressed in, to allow
the wearer to be almost invulnerable; without this
procedure, the armor was ineffective. The protocol had
been added to prevent the armor from being stolen.
Before the code had been added, a few Britlingens had
been murdered for their armor. It was used in cooler
weather. The two women had already cleaned their
summer-weight gear.
Batanya had turned her suit inside out
and was cleaning the inner surface with a
pleasant-scented solvent from a large green pot.
Clovache was using the all-purpose cleaner on the
hardened pieces that could be strapped on over the
liquid armor.
Clovache threw a finished piece down on
the towel she’d spread on the ground and picked up
another one. “Hard drill this morning,” she observed.
“Trovis was not in a good mood,” Batanya
said.
“And why would that be?” Clovache asked,
trying to sound innocent.
Batanya flushed a little, causing the
scar that ran across her right cheek to stand out.
Clovache had heard people tease Batanya about the scar,
but they only did it once. “He tried to jump me in the
bathroom last night. I had to give him an elbow to the
gut. Trovis is making a fool of himself.”
Clovache agreed. “If he’s trying to show
you who’s boss, he is a
fool,” she said. “And if he keeps it up, I shall go to
Flechette and put it to her that Trovis should be
removed from his command.”
“That would make Trovis crazy, which is a
good thing,” Batanya said. “But it would make us look
weak.”
Clovache looked startled, but after a
moment, she nodded. “I understand. We should be able to
eat whatever Trovis puts on the table.” She tested the
strength of a strap. “If worse comes to worst, perhaps
he’ll have an accident.”
“Hush your mouth,” Batanya said,
genuinely shocked. “After all—”
“Britlingens don’t kill Britlingens,”
Clovache said dutifully. “We leave that to the rest of
the world.”
That was the first lesson a novice
learned when he or she came to the fortress.
“There are exceptions,” Clovache said
stubbornly as she gathered up her armor. “And his
obsession with you provides one.”
“Not for you to say.” Batanya stood, the
sheet containing all her paraphernalia draped over one
shoulder. “I’ll meet you at the gate in a couple of
hours?”
“Surely,” her junior said.
Later that same afternoon, the two
bodyguards strolled down to the Pooka Palace. Batanya
grumbled about the narrow streets and their ancient
cobblestones, which made it very impractical to keep a
hovercraft at the castle. This was a source of grief to
Batanya, who loved to drive fast.
Pooka Palace had opened its outside
section in honor of the balmy weather. The place was
full of familiar faces from the Collective. Though
Britlingens had the run of the city, they tended to
linger close to the hilltop castle. Naturally, the shops
that clustered in the winding old streets around the
base of the hill were mostly dedicated to serving the
bodyguards and assassins who lived in the ancient
castle. There were a lot of storefronts that advertised
repair services, either of armor or of arms. There were
magic shops filled with arcane items the witches of the
Collective might need or want. There were dark-fronted
shops filled with bits of machinery that the mechs found
intriguing. There were at least a score of bars and
restaurants, but Pooka Palace was Clovache’s favorite.
Waiting at a fairly clean table was a
friend of theirs named Geit, a broad-shouldered and
genial man who could swing a sword with enough force to
take off a head with one lop. He was an assassin; though
Clovache and Batanya were in the bodyguard division,
they didn’t discriminate in their friendships as some
did.
Geit had already ordered baskets of fried
pooka and fish, and they’d just toasted with three
tankards of ale when they saw a child from the castle
approaching, wearing the red vest of a messenger. Though
walking quickly, the boy was also playing with a
conjuring ball; it was clearly a cheap one, but the ball
was still charged with enough magic to keep it in the
air for a few seconds each time he tossed it up. The
child interrupted his play to scan the faces at the
tables. He spotted them and trotted over.
“Lady Warrior, excuse me,” said the
child, bowing. “Are you Senior Batanya?”
“I am, squirt,” Batanya said. She drained
her mug of ale. “Who needs what?”
“Commander Trovis has, ah, requested,
that you and your junior come up to the fortress
immediately, to the Hall of Contracts.”
Geit whistled. “But you just got back
from a job. Why would Trovis send you out again?”
“After the last one, I’d hoped we’d rest
longer,” Batanya said. “Getting out of that hotel was no
fun, especially carrying a client who would burn up in
sunlight. Well, we must go, Geit. Have a drink on us.”
After hastily finishing their baskets of food (a
Britlingen never passes up a chance to eat), she paid
the bar tab and looked away as Clovache gave Geit a
quick kiss on the cheek. The two women followed the
child back up the winding streets to the gate of the
Collective. The guards on duty recognized them and
nodded to indicate they could reenter without the usual
search.
The Hall of Contracts was conveniently
close to the witches’ and mechs’ wing, since witchcraft
(enhanced by science) provided the transportation to at
least fifty percent of the missions. In fact, Batanya
couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone overland to a
job.
The hall itself didn’t look important. It
was a just a large room, one wall of which was decorated
with some indifferent paintings. This was called the
Wall of Shame; the art hung there depicted employees of
the Collective who had screwed up in some notable way.
(The Britlingen instruction model was heavily weighted
toward learning by the mistakes of one’s predecessors.)
Aside from the paintings and some benches, there was
only a table with a few chairs, a large lightsource, and
some writing instruments.
Trovis was leaning back in one of the
wooden chairs, his feet propped on the table. This was
inappropriate behavior for the Hall of Contracts, for
these contracts were the lifeblood of the Collective.
Signing each contract was an important moment. Not only
was this the main source of income for the Collective,
but each contract might bring about the death of the
Britlingens charged with fulfilling it.
“His promotion’s gone to his head,”
Clovache muttered. “He wouldn’t have dared behave so a
halfyear ago.”
The child scampered off once he’d gotten
his tip, and Batanya and Clovache advanced to the table.
One of the senior commanders, Flechette, entered from a
side door, and since she had a staff in her hands, she
used it to sweep Trovis’s legs to the side, neatly
knocking him out of his chair.
“Respect for the room,” she said harshly,
as Trovis scrambled to right himself. The two bodyguards
kept their faces absolutely blank, which took a lot of
effort. Flechette paid no attention to the lower-ranked
Trovis’s shock and anger, but threw herself into one of
the chairs. Despite Flechette’s apparent age—she looked
at least sixty, which few Britlingens attained—she moved
like a much younger woman. “You’ve summoned us,”
Flechette said. “What have you, Sergeant?”
Trovis collected himself. If he’d had a
weapon, perhaps he would have drawn on his superior, but
he’d come to the hall unarmed—an unusual circumstance
for a Britlingen, even as poor a Britlingen as Trovis.
“This customer has come in person,” he said, biting off
his words. He gestured toward a man standing at the rear
of the hall, apparently examining one of the
paintings—the one of Johanson the Fool, Batanya noted.
She was trying to avoid meeting Trovis’s eyes.
“What happened to this fellow?” asked a
light voice, and the stranger turned to look at them
inquiringly. He was a couple of inches taller than
Batanya, who was of medium height for a woman. The
stranger was lightly built, and fair, and wearing
clothes that signaled he was from the city-state of
Pardua, which lay about two hours’ drive from Spauling.
Batanya had visited there on business several times. In
Pardua, poor vision was corrected by brilliantly colored
and decorated goggles, and the stranger wore a striking
pair: a shrieking blue, spotted with artificial purple
stones. They made him look remarkably silly.
Since no one else spoke, Batanya said,
“Johanson the Fool walked his client into an ambush.
When it was over, he and his client were as full of
darts as a pincushion has pins.”
“I don’t know what a pincushion is, but I
take your meaning,” the stranger said. He cast another
look at the grisly picture. “I am here to hire two
Britlingens as bodyguards. I don’t want to end up like
Johanson’s client.” He shuddered elaborately.
“Very well,” said Flechette. “You
understand, clients don’t actually show up at the
Collective very often. Usually the contract is
negotiated on the witchweb.”
“Is that right? I’m sorry I broke with
proper procedure.” The blond dandy minced over to the
table. “I happened to be in Spauling and thought I’d
come directly to the source. See what I was getting, in
other words.”
“You would be getting Clovache and her
senior, Batanya,” Trovis said, smiling broadly. “After
he described the job, Commander Flechette, I knew they
would be perfect.”
“Why?” Flechette said. She had little use
for Trovis, and she’d never hidden her opinion. After
Batanya and Trovis had both been out of commission
following a previous set-to, Flechette had begun
watching the man like a hawk.
“They protected their last client under
circumstances that no one foresaw,” Trovis said, his
voice silky. “Who could not be impressed by their
performance? I am sure they can handle this.”
Flechette eyed Trovis before turning her
attention to the client. “What is your goal, stranger?
And your name, incidentally.”
“I’m so sorry! My name is Crick. And I
need to retrieve something of mine that I lost in a
rather dangerous place.”
Bodyguards go into tense situations all
the time (especially ones of Batanya and Clovache’s
caliber), so it wasn’t the word “dangerous” that
bothered Batanya: it was the bullshit detector shrilling
in her brain. She looked at Clovache, who nodded grimly.
Crick was not telling all the truth, certainly; and he
was not the silly, rather effeminate Parduan he
portrayed himself to be. The oblivious Trovis wouldn’t
have spotted the excellent muscle tone in the slender
body. The bodyguards had. But clients lied all the time,
didn’t they? Batanya shrugged: what could you do?
Clovache nodded again: nothing.
Trovis and Flechette went over the basic
contract with the Parduan. It covered the price of
transference by witchweb to the site the client chose.
It covered the directive of the mission—to get Crick and
his property back in one piece. It contained the
standard insurance clause, so the treatment of any
injuries the bodyguards sustained would be paid for by
the client.
Batanya and Clovache paid attention,
because that was part of the deal. All bodyguards had to
be aware of what they’d agreed to do, and what they
hadn’t. Though the two had stood in the Hall of
Contracts dozens of times and listened to exactly the
same discussion, this preparation was as much part of
the work as getting their weapons ready. No deniability
on this job.
At last the prolonged contract session
was over. Since Crick was a first-time customer of the
Britlingen Collective, it had taken a bit longer than
usual. Batanya noticed that Crick had asked some very
shrewd questions.
“Will you sign?” Flechette asked
formally, when Crick declared himself satisfied.
Crick picked up the pen and signed the
contract.
“The client has agreed. Will you sign,
senior?” Flechette asked Batanya. She sighed, but she
picked up the pen and scribbled her name.
“You, junior?” Clovache followed suit.
“Now what?” Crick asked brightly.
“We withdraw, you give your bodyguards
your place of destination, and they fetch the
appropriate gear. They meet you here, then you go to the
witchwing through that door. The witches and the mechs
take over the transportation.” Trovis was bored now, and
showing it. He hadn’t found an excuse to provoke anyone
into a fight, the client had the money and had paid the
asking price, and furthermore Trovis had arranged to rid
himself of his most irritating subordinates for at least
a few days—possibly permanently. There was nothing more
to be wrung from the situation. He took the earliest
opportunity to slip out of the room, if a rather solid
man six feet tall can “slip” anywhere.
“Where’s he slinking off to?” Clovache
muttered.
“Some quiet spot where he can think of
some other way to make me miserable,” Batanya answered,
and then was sorry she’d spoken. She hoped Flechette
hadn’t heard. Going over the head of one’s superior
officer to complain to a higher rank was not admired
among the members of the Britlingen Collective.
But Flechette seemed intent on observing
the courtesies required by her position as commander:
she wished the client a successful journey, clapped
Clovache on the shoulder and shook Batanya’s hand, and
advised them to eat before they left . . . her standard
farewell. Then she drew herself up, gave the Britlingen
salute, and said, “What is the law?”
“The client’s word,” Batanya said
smartly. Clovache was a beat behind her.
Crick was watching, his eyes intent
behind the ridiculous goggles. When Flechette had left,
the two bodyguards drew closer to him.
“What temperature should we pack for?”
Clovache asked. “What kind of fighting?”
Crick had been listening while the
contract was explained, but nonetheless he asked, “You
can’t tell anyone what I say; is that right?”
Batanya nodded. Clovache just looked
resigned.
“To Hell,” Crick said. “We’re going to
Hell.”
After a long moment of silence, Clovache
said, “We’ll need our summer armor, then.”
“What happened was this,” Crick said,
suddenly chatty. He’d taken a seat at the table, and
Clovache and Batanya followed suit. “I obtained a
certain item from the King of Hell, and I misplaced it
when I had to leave. I definitely didn’t enjoy my stay
with the king, and I’m afraid my abrupt departure may
have angered him. As you may have deduced, I need to
avoid Lucifer. I very much need to avoid him. I must get
in and out of Hell as quietly as possible. Since I can’t
look in every direction at once, I hired you two to help
me watch.”
“So you’re a thief.” Batanya was entering
a list of things she needed to take, using her wrist
communicator. She glanced up long enough to make sure he
was listening.
“Ah, yes. But a thief with a cause,”
Crick added brightly.
“Don’t care,” Batanya said. “No matter
what you are, no matter what your cause or motivation,
we’ll do what we’ve been hired to do.” She looked him
square in the eyes.
“Then we’re all fine,” Crick said, in his
most foolish voice. One of the castle cats wandered in
and leaped into his lap. He stroked its long orange fur.
Batanya eyed it indifferently. She’d never been one for
pets, though cats were at least preferable to dogs.
Anything was preferable to dogs.
“How long do you expect we’ll be gone?”
Clovache asked Crick.
“If we’re not back in two weeks, we’re
not coming back,” Crick said with a pleasant smile.
“That would be my best evaluation.”
Batanya remembered that Clovache had
tickets to a concert in a week’s time.
“Can you turn those tickets in?” Batanya
asked. She ran her fingers through her short, inky hair.
“Nonrefundable,” Clovache said gloomily.
“Oh, well.” She rose to her feet. “Senior,” she said,
her voice formal, “I ask leave to go prepare.”
“I’ll be there in a minute myself,”
Batanya said. “Go ahead.” She eyed their client
narrowly. As soon as Clovache had gone, Batanya said, “I
know there’s much you’re not telling us. No client ever
tells us the whole story. You always lie. But if there’s
some word you could speak that would help us prepare to
guard you, now is the time to speak that word.”
Crick looked down at the table for a long
moment. The cat jumped out of his lap and left by a
window. “Nothing,” he said. “There’s nothing else I can
tell you now that will be of any assistance.”
“All right then,” she said grimly.
“You’ve got two of Britlingen’s best protecting you,
Crick. I hope you appreciate that.”
“I am paying well for the service,” he
said. His voice was cool.
Batanya might have told him that no
amount of money could make up for the loss of their
lives, but that wouldn’t have been true. The Britlingen
Collective had put a price on that, and Crick had paid
it.
“I’ll return shortly,” she said, and rose
to her feet. “The witches and mechs will be ready by
then, too.” She saw, with a grim satisfaction, that the
mention of the witches made Crick shiver. Witches gave
everyone the creeps.
Standing in the middle of her little
room, Batanya hauled her backpack from the footlocker.
She checked her wrist communicator. It showed her the
list she’d made—not in written words, but in symbols.
Some of the weapons she often carried would be useless
in Hell. Any fray would take place suddenly and at close
quarters, almost certainly, so taking some of the
missile-firing guns would be useless, as would any of
the weapons relying on sun power. Hell was underground
in a vast network of intersecting tunnels.
“Batanya,” called Clovache, whose room
was across the hall, “What about crossbows?” The wrist
crossbows were incredibly powerful and ranked at the top
of Clovache’s list of favorite devices.
“Do they kill demons?” Batanya called
back. “I don’t think so. I think we should take the . .
.” What did kill a demon?
The bespelled throwing stars, of course. “The throwing
stars,” she called. Steel? Silver? What else would be
useful?
She went over all the armaments in her
head as she pulled on her summer armor, which was a very
lightweight porous fabric spun by spiderlike creatures
from Moraeus. The summer version was like wearing chain
mail all over, though it had the texture and appearance
of cloth. It was even more expensive and harder to find
than liquid armor. The Britlingen company store sold it
at what they said was cost—but Batanya had had to save
for two years to purchase it. She’d loaned Clovache the
money to buy her own summer armor during Clovache’s
first year as Batanya’s junior. “Damn Collective,”
Batanya muttered as she put the few extra things she’d
need into the prepared waterproof backpack that all
Britlingens carried on their travels. It was always
stocked with a few microthin clean garments, compressed
cooked food that could be eaten on the run, a pill or
two that provided bursts of energy and had to be used
judiciously, some bandages and antibiotics, and a bottle
of water. To forestall other kinds of emergencies, all
the Britlingens, male and female, were injected with
birth control drugs on a monthly basis. Those who
skipped this injection were listed in bright red chalk
on a big board in the entrance hall.
“Got your list?” she asked from
Clovache’s doorway. “Oh, have you checked your pocket?”
Batanya had already touched her tongue to the artificial
pouch in her right cheek, and she nodded when Clovache’s
right hand flew to her left armpit. Clovache nodded in
confirmation and then burrowed back into her closet.
“Yes, I just need to write Geit a note.”
Clovache’s voice was muffled. She was probably searching
for some paper and a pen, items Clovache didn’t need too
often.
“Are you and Geit knocking armor?”
“Yes. He’s very vigorous.”
Smiling, Batanya shook her head, though
Clovache couldn’t see her. “You’d do better to keep Geit
as a friend,” she said. “But I guess it’s too late for
that.”
Her junior reemerged. “He will be. I
always stay friends with my lovers. It’s my gift.”
Clovache’s light brown hair stuck up in spikes all over
her head. She hadn’t pulled on the armor’s hood yet. It
was her least favorite piece of protection. Batanya was
none too fond of it either, though her own close-clipped
curly black hair lay so close to her skull she might as
well have been wearing the hood already.
Together, checking and rechecking their
equipment, the two bodyguards went down the list.
Traveling very light made careful preparation even more
crucial. The older warrior noticed that Clovache had
slipped the frame of her wrist crossbow into the special
compartment on the outside of the pack, and she kept her
mouth shut. If it made Clovache feel stronger, the
slight extra weight was worth it.
At last the two decided they were ready,
and they walked out of the dormitory. Neither Batanya
nor Clovache bothered to lock their doors behind them.
Theft was a rare occurrence in the castle. It was
punishable by death. Of course, unlocked doors made
elaborate practical jokes very easy to stage. Batanya
touched the scar on her cheek.
Their employer was waiting in the Hall of
Contracts, just as he’d been bid. Batanya gave the
Parduan a sharp nod to indicate they were ready to go.
Crick stood, brushed the wrinkles out of his outer
tunic, and said, “I suppose now we meet the witches and
the mechs?”
“Yes,” Clovache said. “No way around it,
Crick.”
He looked startled for a brief moment.
“It shows, then.”
Batanya snorted.
“That would be a yes, I take it. Well,
well. Where do we go?”
“This door.” It was heavy Moraeus wood
and banded with metal. There were runes and other
symbols from several magical systems incised in the
stone all around the door and carved into the door
itself. If the Britlingen Collective were destroyed at
that moment, Batanya reckoned the Hall of Witchcraft and
all within it would remain standing.
She knocked on the door, the pattern of a
bodyguard, four evenly spaced knocks. After a moment, it
swung open, and the three walked through, falling into
the pattern they would assume for the journey: Batanya
in front, her eyes moving from side to side, Crick
following, and then Clovache, whose task was to keep her
face forward but her ears behind—a tricky thing to do,
but that was the traditional job of the junior.
The door swung shut behind them, and they
were faced with a veiled man in white robes. His
glistening silver hair trailed almost to the floor.
Fucking witches,
Batanya thought. Always posing.
“We come for transportation,” she said,
though of course the witch already knew that. But she
had to adhere to the ritual. The witches and the mechs
went nuts if the rituals weren’t followed.
“We’re ready,” said the witch, who
appeared to be smiling behind the veil. “So few want to
be sent to Hell. We’ve enjoyed the preparations.” That
was an unexpected bit of sharing; Clovache was almost
inclined to think not too badly of him, when the witch
added, “Of course, we’ve never gotten to bring anyone
back.”
“Which room?” Batanya asked, her voice
quite level.
He inclined his head toward the doorway
behind him and turned to glide into the huge room ahead
of them. He moved with an eerie smoothness. Batanya and
Clovache had wondered between themselves if the witches
practiced moving like that. They had entertained the
whole bar at the Pooka Palace one night by acting out
the Floating Walk 101 class. Batanya turned to exchange
a weak grin with Clovache. That had been a very good
night.
In the middle of the room was a shallow
basin raised on a plinth, and in the basin was a smoky
fire. A group of seven witches stood in a casual circle
around the basin, and they all seemed prepared with
small vials of herbs or chemicals, and a number of focus
items. The children taken in by the Collective came in
handy for the witches’ rituals, too. At the side of each
witch was a boy or girl of ages ranging from fourteen to
five. Each child held a cloudy globe.
In the corner of the room, a lone mech
was seated on a stool before a vast and complex machine.
Batanya saw her client’s shoulders jump a little. The
Parduan was wound pretty tight, and she hoped he didn’t
come unsprung. What would she do if he withdrew a weapon
from his clothing and tried to kill the witches? Hmmm,
that was a poser. The client’s wish was law, right? But
the witches were under the protection of the Collective;
in fact, they were an essential part of the Collective’s
operation. The scenario presented a neat problem to
debate over many tankards of ale when they returned . .
. if they returned.
Batanya turned to the client and pointed
to a little set of steps that led to a platform over the
basin. “Up,” she said, and went up herself ahead of him.
The three crowded onto the small platform, and the two
bodyguards put their arms around Crick, which made him
jump yet again. “A Crick sandwich,” he muttered
foolishly, and over his shoulder Clovache rolled her
eyes at Batanya, who sighed.
Then the witches began their chanting,
their drawing of runes in the air, and their tossing of
herbs on the fire, and the smoke began to rise, and the
mech in the corner began his mysterious button punching
on the machine, and then . . .
They were in Hell.
Of course, it was hot in the tunnel. The
smell was most unpleasant. Hell had been named from the
stories from Earth, and its atmosphere was not the only
similarity that had spawned the comparison. Life on the
surface above Hell was almost impossible because of the
pools of gases that dotted the landscape. The beings
that still lived aboveground were savage and very
foreign. Down below, where the being named Lucifer
ruled, was where almost all Hell’s life was conducted.
Its curved tunnels were notoriously dangerous and
difficult to navigate.
Crick had a map, which he whipped out of
a pocket in his tunic. The map was made from a very
flexible material, and he held the unfolded surface wide
open to peer at it, angling the face of the map toward
the arched roof. That was where the tunnel’s lightsource
originated, though Clovache couldn’t identify the
devices that issued the light, or how those devices were
powered. They’d found themselves in a main passage;
Clovache noticed that other branch tunnel mouths within
view were much darker and smaller. For the moment, the
three were alone, but there was a clear sound of
footsteps from the west. It was the work of a moment for
Batanya to drag Crick backward into one of the dark
tunnels, though the rock floor was so inexplicably slick
that she almost landed on her back. Clovache leaped
after her and skidded so hard she almost hit the wall.
Crick still had his map spread in his hands, and he
squawked, but it was through Batanya’s fingers.
The two Britlingens pressed their client
up against the stone wall of the tunnel, their bodies
between the opening and Crick. Crick was very quiet now,
having grasped the situation, and Batanya thought it
safe to remove her hand. She eased a throwing star out
of its sheath and held it at the ready.
Two demons walked past the mouth. They
were perhaps five feet tall, red and bumpy, and though
they had two arms and two legs, that was the end of
their resemblance to humans. They did have cloven hooves
and tails, and sharp pointed ears, but they were
hairless and their genitals were barbed, whether they
were male or female. Batanya saw Crick’s eyes lock onto
the crucial area, and she shared his wince. No matter
how many times you had seen the demons strut their
stuff, it was awful to imagine that “stuff” in
operation.
The demons passed out of view without
detecting their presence.
All three of them exhaled with relief,
and Batanya put the star away.
“Let’s just stay here for a moment,” she
whispered. “Tell us what your plan is.” When Batanya
made a suggestion in that particular voice, even if she
had to whisper it, wise people listened, and Crick was
at least that wise.
“All right,” Crick said, just as quietly.
He extracted something from one of his pockets—his
garment seemed to have a hundred of them—and pressed a
button. It was a tiny lightsource, probably battery
powered, and he turned so that his body was between the
light and the mouth of their tunnel. He handed the map
to Batanya. Clovache squatted right beside him to add
her body to the screen, and they all peered down at the
map.
It was detailed, showing tunnel after
tunnel, chamber after chamber. “How’d you get this?”
Clovache said, her voice hushed and respectful. This was
a valuable item.
“You don’t want to know,” Crick said, his
tenor voice cheerful. “You really don’t.” His long, thin
finger moved over the markings on the map for a moment,
and then he said, “Here we are.” There was a pulsing
star at the spot he indicated.
“Too bad the other critters don’t show up
the way we do,” Batanya muttered. “But at least we have
a frame of reference.”
“I couldn’t afford the kind that shows
all life-forms,” Crick said apologetically.
“What, you actually paid for this?”
Clovache’s eyebrows were raised skeptically. She clearly
thought he’d stolen it.
“Well, no. I mean I couldn’t afford the
jail time. The better ones were locked up tighter, and I
was in a hurry,” he said, without the slightest trace of
shame.
“What is this object of yours that you
‘left behind’ the last time you visited this place?”
Batanya said.
“It’s a conjuring ball.”
“But those are everywhere, you can buy
one in any shop.”
“Not like this one. It’s for real.”
The two Britlingens stared at their
client. Conjuring balls, full of tiny machinery and
spells and capable of performing very innocuous bits of
magic like lighting candles or drying plates, were
hugely popular gifts for children. Even a cheap one
could entertain a child for hours until the magic ran
down, and the more expensive models were almost as good
as giving someone a pet. They might last two or three
years, and could do quite a variety of tasks and tricks.
But everyone knew that the balls were not permanent
sources of magic. Sooner or later, they’d exhaust their
power.
“You’re telling us this conjuring ball is
eternal?” Clovache said, her voice almost a growl.
“Yes.” Crick looked rather proud.
“Did you make it?”
“No, of course not. I stole it on
commission.”
“You mean you stole it from the Lord of
Hell because someone had asked you to get it?”
Crick nodded, looking pleased with her
acumen.
“Who?” Batanya had a creeping feeling
along her arms. This was getting worse and worse. “Who
commissioned the theft?”
“Belshazzar.”
“And you went back to Pardua without the
ball? Having taken his money?”
“Taken it and spent it,” Crick said, his
foolish face looking rather downcast.
“We are so fucked,” Clovache said.
There was a moment of silence while they
all considered the truth of this. Belshazzar, a warlord
of Pardua, was actually a glorified gangster. (Perhaps
all warlords are.) Belshazzar was ruthless, drastic, and
notoriously indirect in his punishments. He would enjoy
amputating your hand if you stole from him, but he
enjoyed even more kidnapping your mother, say, and
forcing you to watch as he amputated
her hand. Then yours.
“Hey, we’re Britlingens,” Batanya said
bracingly. “Not only are we made of tough stuff, but we
can hardly be blamed for what our client has done.
Britlingens are hired hands, not the responsible
parties.”
“True,” Clovache said. “Our Collective
would intervene, if they had any notion of where we
were. Trovis wouldn’t pay ransom for us, but Flechette
might. I’m not so very partial to my left hand, anyway.
And maybe we can buy some time by persuading Belshazzar
to kill Crick here, first.”
“Thanks, bodyguards-sworn-to-protect-me,”
said Crick, somewhat coldly, “but let’s leave the
discussion of my possible demise for later. Right now,
we’ve got a conjuring ball to retrieve.”
“Did you hide it or was it captured?”
Batanya asked.
“I hid it,” Crick said. “I seized a
moment of solitude.”
“Where?”
He peered at the map. “Here,” he said,
and indicated a tunnel to the north of the one where
they crouched. There was a fair amount of walking in
between.
“If you had given the witches this map,
they could have landed us right there,” Clovache
muttered.
“Yes, but then we would have landed in
the barracks. So that seemed like a poor choice to me.”
“You hid the ball in the barracks of the
soldiers of the King of Hell?”
He shrugged. “It was where I was.”
“How’d . . . No. Let’s focus. Unless you
have a better idea, we’ll work our way closer and see
what our chances are.” It was obvious from Batanya’s
tone that she considered those chances slim to nil.
“Lucky for you I don’t have children, Crick, or I’d be
cursing you in their names.”
“Oh my goodness, that’s hard to believe,”
Crick said blandly. “That you don’t have children, I
mean. What could the men of Spauling be thinking of?”
“Slitting your throat, most likely,”
Batanya said. “I know that’s crossed
my mind.”
“What is the law?” Crick didn’t sound at
all worried.
“The client’s word,” Clovache said, but
Batanya could tell it hurt her to say it.
“Let’s get moving. Stop the jawing.”
Batanya wanted to correct Clovache’s attitude. That was
her job.
“This place gives me the creeps,”
Clovache muttered, by way of apology. “This is a very
bad mission.”
In a few seconds, Clovache’s dark outlook
was validated. Just as they were edging forward to take
a gander out the mouth of their tunnel, they heard
something moving in the darkness behind them.
It was something that was dragging itself
along.
“It’s a slug,” Crick said urgently. “We
must move now or be stuck to the tunnel walls in a coat
of slug goo. Or we’ll be absorbed.”
They hadn’t the faintest idea what Crick
was talking about, but he’d been there before and they
hadn’t. Also, the smell that preceded the dragging sound
was strong enough to make even the hardened bodyguards
gag. Batanya checked to make sure the passage was clear,
and the three darted out into the main tunnel, turning
left; Batanya figured that was north. They left the
dragging noise and the awful smell behind them, so
evidently the slugs didn’t move very swiftly. But after
a few minutes, Batanya heard footsteps coming at a fast
clip. At her hand gesture, the three leaped into a very
small side tunnel, much narrower than the one that had
been their first refuge.
This tunnel turned out to be occupied by
three soldiers doing the nasty, and in this instance
that was no euphemism. Since they were from different
species, this was an unattractive and complicated
undertaking. Before Crick’s involuntary sound of disgust
had cleared his throat, before Clovache had quite
figured out how they’d all hooked up, Batanya had
silenced the soldiers permanently with her short sword.
It was hard to say in the dim lighting
that was only a step above darkness, but Batanya,
cleaning her sword on the trousers of one deceased
soldier, felt Crick might even look a bit green.
“Thank you,” he said, after a moment.
“Don’t mention it,” she said.
They crouched in the gloom with the
corpses, Clovache glancing at the bodies from time to
time in curiosity. “Have you ever seen that?” she asked
Batanya, pointing to the conjunction of a greenish brown
snake-headed humanoid creature and a wolfwoman. Batanya
shook her head. “This job is always an education,” she
said.
After a few minutes, it seemed apparent
no one had heard the muted groans and gurgles of the
dying soldiers; or perhaps if any passerby had, the
noises had been perceived as arising from their
activity. At any rate, no one came to investigate.
Batanya knew it was only a matter of time
before they came face-to-face with someone who would
challenge them. The traffic in the tunnel made it
obvious that they were getting closer to the hub of
Hell’s activities. Several times various beings passed
the mouth of their little hidey-hole, and each time the
three held their breath until the footsteps had passed
(if the creatures had feet). One of the slugs oozed by,
and Clovache and Batanya got to observe firsthand how
the creatures undulated through the tunnels, the slime
oozing from their underbellies and sides to grease their
passage. This slime hardened within seconds. Now
Clovache understood why the floor of the tunnel was so
smooth and even; the passage of the slugs, the largest
of which was perhaps ten feet long and as big around as
a medium barrel, had led to a gradual buildup of the
substance. There was a coating on the bottom half of the
walls, too, but it wasn’t as thick and glassy as the
layer on the floor.
“If we’d known, we could have brought
metal cleats,” Batanya said practically. “Perhaps
someone should have told
us.”
Crick was wise enough to keep his
response to himself. He just grinned at Batanya in a
foolish way. “There’ll be less traffic at nighttime,” he
whispered. “We’ll have to wait it out.”
Some hours passed, and the activity in
the tunnels died down. The three spent the passing time
trying to ignore the smell of both the heaped bodies and
the dark area beyond them at the end of the tunnel,
perhaps five yards farther. The area had evidently been
used as a latrine in the recent past, and though the
functional amenity was handy, it was also unpleasant to
be around for any length of time—and all they had was
lengthy time. Very lengthy. The two Britlingens dozed,
ate a couple of energy bars, gave Crick another, and
drank sparingly. Presumably there were underground
springs somewhere; almost all living beings needed
fluid. But they hadn’t seen one, and the map showed only
the tunnels.
“At least we haven’t seen any animals,”
Clovache said in a bright whisper. “I wonder how they
supply themselves with meat?”
“There are pens of cows and other edible
creatures, kept pretty far distant from the rest of
Lucifer’s palace,” Crick said. “Why are you glad we
haven’t seen animals?”
“They might bark,” Clovache said quickly.
In the dim light that pervaded the tunnels, which varied
quite a bit from one tunnel to the next, she looked as
if she wished she hadn’t spoken.
Crick looked curious, which was probably
his natural condition. “You wanted to avoid dogs in
particular?” he said. “Why?”
There was an awful moment of silence.
“Because this large scar on my face was
caused by a dog. I got it on my first mission,” Batanya
said, with no inflection at all. “We were protecting a
guy who bred attack dogs. His breeding and training
methods were famous. A rival of his, as a
practical joke, bribed one
of our client’s kennel boys to feed the dogs an irritant
that acted on their nervous system.”
“How did that turn out?”
Batanya shrugged and looked away.
“Not very well,” Clovache said. “I hadn’t
finished training. A man named Damon was Batanya’s
junior. This alleged practical joke cost him his life.”
“Did your client live?” Crick asked
Batanya directly.
She met his eyes. “Yes,” she said. “He
lived, though he lost a leg and one hand. Damon died
after four hours. I got the scar.”
That was end of all conversation for a
long time.
Batanya gradually became convinced that
it was night. It was hard to tell with no change in the
light, but it felt like night to her. She gave Clovache
a hand signal. After a quick check of all their
accoutrements, the bodyguards prepared to move.
According to the legend on Crick’s handy-dandy map, they
were about a mile from their objective as a crow flies,
if a crow would be demented enough to navigate the
tunnels of Hell.
Clovache glared at the map, which in some
ways was a godsend, in other ways completely useless.
Fumbling their way ignorantly would have been nearly
suicidal, but the map would have been so much more
valuable if it had shown the rooms that must be lying
somewhere. Presumably, in this huge underground empire,
there was a throne room for the king, a refectory of
some kind, a prison, an audience chamber, and so on. As
it was, they knew where they had to go in order to
retrieve Crick’s left-behind treasure, but they had no
idea what they might encounter on the way there.
“It’s not like we ever knew what to
expect anyway,” Clovache said to Batanya, who nodded.
They’d been partners long enough to have abbreviated
conversations.
As if her words had been a
self-fulfilling prophecy, they rounded the next bend to
find two armed guards blocking the way.
“We heard you coming a mile away,” said
the one who was least humanoid. He was a not a demon. In
fact, Batanya had no idea what his origin was. He was
quadrupedal, gray, and clothed in a material like
cobwebs. He had a device in his hand that looked like
the frame for a tennis racket. With a dexterous motion,
he swung the thing toward them, and a large-weave net
flowed out of the frame to land over Batanya and Crick,
who was right behind her.
Clovache fled, rightly figuring that
someone needed to stay free. To the hoots and jeers of
the two guards, Batanya unsheathed her short sword and
began sweeping the blade from side to side. To her vast
irritation, the strands of the net stuck to the sword
and moved with it. The net was so elastic that it didn’t
provide enough resistance to be severed.
“Shit!” she said. From the corner of her
eye she saw that Crick had adapted and was working with
his dagger. He was having better luck with his smaller
blade than she was with her sword, so she pulled out her
own knife and began cutting. The second guard, a human
who looked quite a bit like Trovis, had drawn some kind
of handgun, a hazardous decision in a rock tunnel. Since
a ricochet was just as likely to wound her or her client
as it was to hit the one who deserved it, Batanya threw
her dagger through a rent she’d just made in the net and
killed the Trovis-like human, who gurgled dramatically
before he crumpled to the floor of the tunnel. There was
a certain flash of satisfaction in the moment.
The net-thrower seemed startled that
things weren’t going his way, and he wasn’t keeping the
net mended quickly enough to contain Crick and Batanya.
Crick was working very quickly, which was good, since
Batanya had been forced to return to using her sword.
She’d changed her technique to the more effective one of
stabbing through the net in short jabs, rather than
trying to sweep a large cut through the strands.
Batanya was startled to see something
long and dark slide past her on the tunnel floor. By the
time she realized it was Clovache, the other woman was
on her feet and plunging her neotaser into the mass of
the net-throwing thing’s body. A good jolt of
electricity will interrupt almost any being’s thought
processes, and it had a dramatic effect on their gray
enemy. All four legs shot out and began skidding around
on the slippery surface of the tunnel. The effect was
weirdly like dancing, but when Clovache delivered
another jolt, it became evident that the creature was in
its death throes. It collapsed in a spidery heap,
twitched a couple of times, and lay still.
“That was brilliant,” Batanya said,
trying not to pant.
“I took a running start, threw myself
down, and away I went. It was just like sliding over
ice.” Clovache looked rather pleased at the compliment.
“Especially at the sides of the floor where no one
walks.”
Crick was staring at them wild-eyed while
Batanya cut the remnants of the tattered net away from
their limbs.
“You all right?” Clovache asked him,
clapping him on the shoulder by way of encouragement.
“Yes,” Crick said. He took off the
idiotic goggles. He had quite sharp blue eyes underneath
them. Without the sparkly distraction, his face was bony
and agreeable and intelligent. “I want to say right now,
you two are worth every penny I paid.”
“Say that after you get back alive,”
Batanya advised him, as Clovache deposited the neotaser
into the pocket designed for it. After the slide across
the slug slick, her summer armor was a little grubby,
but completely intact. Clovache’s hood had come off in
the fracas, and she tugged it back over her matted hair.
(“If you have an iota of vanity, this is not the job for
you,” the sergeant who’d recruited her from her home
village had said. Clovache, like all the young recruits,
had lied.)
“We have to get out of here fast,”
Batanya said, and without another word, they all stepped
over the bodies and hurried down the tunnel. With a
glance at the map, Crick indicated a dark opening to the
side, again to the left, and they ducked into it, none
too soon. Howling, another gray quadrupedal creature
loped across the spot they’d just vacated.
Batanya wondered if the gray creatures
had some kind of mind-link. Perhaps the dead one had
sent some kind of signal when he was wounded.
After a long moment, they heard an eerie
wailing. The second soldier had found his dead buddy.
This was going to draw all kinds of attention to the
area, and the faster they relocated, the better.
Batanya made the punching gesture with
her fist that meant “move out,” and they hurried away
from the wailing. This time they were going west,
following Crick’s gestures. This tunnel was particularly
slick, and they had to pick their way very carefully to
avoid landing on their asses. The unpitted glassiness of
the slugs’ hardened secretions argued that this passage
was not much traveled by the minions of Lucifer; that
was the good part. It also argued that the slugs used it
a lot. That, of course, was the bad part. Batanya had a
momentary image of being beneath one of the slugs as it
moved with its slow, sure, rippling motion. She could
feel the goo clogging her nose and mouth until she
couldn’t breathe. She would harden to the floor after
the slug had passed.
Then she shook herself vigorously.
Letting one’s imagination take over was an indulgence
that sapped the energy of a warrior. She glanced over
her shoulder at Crick, who was shuddering. Maybe he’d
had the same mental image.
From behind him, Clovache hissed, “Hurry
up!”
Their luck held for ten frantic minutes.
Then they heard the dragging sound of an approaching
slug, and there was no handy escape hatch. In fact,
there was not an intersecting tunnel opening as far as
the eye could see. If there was one around the next
bend, they simply couldn’t count on reaching it before
they met the oncoming slug.
“Back,” Batanya ordered. Abruptly, they
were hurrying as fast retracing their steps as they had
been going forward. The first tunnel mouth they spotted
also contained an approaching slug; it was so close to
issuing forth into their main tunnel that its antennae
were waving in their direction. They kept on going,
hearing the relentless progress of the larger creature
behind them, until they spotted another opening, a much
smaller one.
It was like a baby tunnel, but it
represented safety at that moment, and they dove into it
with all haste. They had to crawl in on their knees. At
least it was extensive enough to hold all three of them.
“The slugs don’t seem to be sentient,”
Batanya said, keeping her voice low. “That is, I don’t
think they’re smart enough to be working for the King of
Hell. I think the slugs made the tunnels.”
Crick said, “Lucifer adapted the idea
from the slugs. When the surface planet was growing
uninhabitable, he began exploring down here; or at
least, he sent his creatures and hirelings down here.
Many of them died because they underestimated the sheer
power of the slugs. The nasty things don’t think much,
but they’ve got very strong instincts, and they can
attack with surprising speed when they’re angry.”
This was a flood of information. “What
makes them angry?” Clovache asked.
“Anything blocking their way,” Crick
said.
“What do they eat?”
“Anything blocking their way.” Crick
looked apologetic. “They seem to take nutrients from the
soil. But when they run over someone, they generally
pause on top of them, and suck up everything they can.”
That was much
worse than Batanya’s mental image, and she felt quite
sick for just a moment. “Then we’d better not get under
them,” she said, in the toughest voice she could manage.
“Why don’t Lucifer’s warriors clear them out of the
tunnels? Surely they’re the ones in the greatest
danger?”
“Lucifer needs the slugs too much,” Crick
explained. “They do most of the digging for him. Of
course, he can’t really direct where the slug tunnels
go, but they add to his palace for free. At the same
time, the slugs stabilize the tunnels with their
secretions. He only has to shore up the occasional roof.
Plus, the slugs are good at patrolling the existing
passageways. If he loses the odd fighter, he doesn’t
really care.”
“You know a lot about this.” In the dim
light, Batanya couldn’t read their client’s expression,
but she had the impression he flinched.
“Yes,” he said. “I was a prisoner here
for quite some time. Lucifer enjoys talking.”
“This is information it might have been
good to have before,” Batanya said. “Not so much about
your imprisonment, though that’s interesting, of
course.” Batanya could be polite when she chose. “This
stuff about the slugs . . . We needed to know that
before now.”
“Why don’t you tell us something else we
might need to know?” Clovache suggested. “Just in the
interest of keeping you alive.” Another slug was coming.
They could hear the distinctive dragging sound, inhale
the noisome smell. They were stuck here for a few
minutes.
“Belshazzar heard from an informant that
the conjuring ball was in the private cabinet of the
King of Hell,” Crick said. “It was a commission steal. I
was hired by Belshazzar partly because I’m good, partly
because I owed him a lot of money anyway. But I did
succeed in getting the ball, though it was in the
darkest corner of the darkest cabinet in Lucifer’s
apartment . . .”
“Less with the colorful and more with the
facts,” Batanya said firmly.
Crick was a bit disconcerted to be
knocked out of his storytelling groove, but he nodded
obligingly. “Actually, it was in a special room off the
king’s bedroom. His, ah, toy room, so to speak.
Belshazzar was pretty sure I’d get to see that room when
Lucifer found out I was actually one of the last of the
Harwell Clan.”
Batanya’s eyes widened. Clovache looked
bewildered.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“It means our client here has special
physical attractions.”
Clovache looked him over, couldn’t see
it. She liked her men big and burly. “Like what?”
When Crick just shrugged, Clovache looked
at her lieutenant. “What?” she asked.
Batanya said, “Crick here has two
penises.”
“Get out of town,” Clovache said.
“Really?” She sounded both admiring and intrigued.
Crick nodded, trying to look modest.
“There are few of us left. We don’t tend to be model
citizens, according to the rules of other societies, so
the Harwell Clan has been decimated in the last decade.”
“Is there anyone
who doesn’t want to hurt you?” Clovache asked.
“Sure. You two.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Batanya
muttered. She pulled her hood down and ran her fingers
through her short black hair. “Okay, so how’d you get
the conjuring ball into the barracks?”
“They didn’t know I had it,” Crick said.
“When I decided it was time to take my leave of the
king—his demands got rather tiresome—I ran away, taking
the conjuring ball with me. When it was obvious I was
going to be captured, I concealed it.”
“Where?” Batanya asked bluntly.
“Ah, in the only available place.”
“And they didn’t search you thoroughly?”
Batanya was professionally astonished. “It wouldn’t get
by us.”
Crick half-bowed to them. “I have no
doubt,” he said politely. “However, they thought I might
have stolen one of Lucifer’s big pieces of jewelry or
some of his coins, which could not be concealed in the
same manner, and they didn’t think of checking me to see
if I’d made off with anything else of value. I, ah,
couldn’t tolerate the concealment anymore, so in a
moment when no one else was in the room, I hid the ball.
They’d parked me in a room in the barracks while the
sergeant needed them to beat another prisoner, and that
gave me ten minutes locked by myself in a room without a
window. I took advantage of the opportunity.”
“So you want us to take you back into the
barracks, find the room where you were held, extract the
conjuring ball, and get you out again alive. To return
you to Spauling. Where you have to seek sanctuary
because Belshazzar wants to kill you. Or perhaps you
want to send the ball to Belshazzar in the hopes that
he’ll honor his original contract with you. And King
Lucifer wants you back in his playroom.”
“I suppose all that’s true,” Crick said.
For the first time, when he tried to sound cheerful, he
failed.
“Belshazzar is angry because of your
tardiness and your loss of the ball, and Lucifer is
angry because you ran away before he’d finished playing
with you.”
“That’s a fair summary,” Crick admitted.
“How’d you get the fee for the witches at
the Collective? I’m just curious,” Clovache said. “It’s
not my business. But I know they don’t extend credit.”
Batanya’s shoulders heaved with silent laughter at the
idea.
“Ah, well, I may have lifted a few things
from the houses of various nobles in Spauling.”
“A few things? Must have been more like a
cartload, to have afforded us.”
“You’ll be interested to know I got a
price break as long as I specified the two guards I
wanted to hire.”
Both the women became very serious
instantly. “Trovis,” hissed Batanya.
“He really has a big hate against you,”
Crick said. “When he heard where I needed to go, he
jiggered around the duty roster so that your names came
up.”
Batanya and Clovache looked at each
other. “When we get back,” Clovache said, “we’ll take
care of him. This has gone on long enough.”
“Why does he hold such a grudge?” Crick
asked. The two turned as one to stare at him. “Oh,
ladies, come on! We’re in this together. If I make it
back alone, I’ll kill him for you.”
“Good enough,” Clovache said. “My
esteemed senior, here, turned him down so forcefully she
broke his arm.”
Crick whistled silently. “I take it a
plain refusal wouldn’t suffice?”
“He wouldn’t take no for an answer,”
Batanya said. “He was waiting in my room when I came
home one night. I tried being tactful, which doesn’t
come easily to me. I tried being firm. I tried being
rude. He persisted. The time came to try force.”
“He broke her nose,” Clovache said to
Crick. “He broke her collarbone. But she broke a major
bone of his, so she won.”
“He cried,” Batanya said, her lips
curving in a slight smile. “But enough of happy
reminiscences. We’ve hunkered here long enough. Time to
be on the move.”
This time Crick had to brace himself a
bit before he stepped out into the larger tunnel.
Batanya thought she knew what had made him run before he
was ready, during his earlier stay with the king. Maybe
he’d lost his nerve, maybe he’d lost his ability to
handle the physical tastes of Lucifer, but Batanya was
willing to bet he’d lost his tolerance for the tunnels.
She couldn’t deny that she shared a bit
of that feeling. In fact, Hell was awful. She took a
deep breath of the thick stinking air, and the closed-in
feeling began to lay a blanket over her normal brisk
spirit. The indirect light wasn’t bright enough to
really illuminate the way; it was better than nothing,
but its dull consistency added to the gloomy atmosphere.
They’d moved out again, but their pace was too slow.
Batanya felt that their energy was being sapped by the
place.
Batanya realized their mission had to be
completed at what speed they could summon. They needed
to get out of the tunnels and back home before they grew
too tense—or too depressed—to cope. She’d never
encountered such a set of circumstances.
“You remember our last mission?” she said
suddenly to Clovache.
Clovache was visibly surprised at
Batanya’s question. “Of course.”
“That was a very bad situation. The
building exploding, our client being completely
defenseless and unable to walk. Yet I never despaired,
and I never thought we wouldn’t get out of it.”
“Senior, do you have a fever?”
“The tunnels are getting to me and Crick,
here. You don’t seem to be as bothered by them. You may
have to take over the lead.”
“I don’t mind them. Just say the word,
senior.”
“Thanks, junior. I’ll let you know.”
Batanya turned and began to lead the way
again. Crick kept possession of the map, using whispers
or a pointing finger to give directions. They kept to
smaller tunnels so they’d be less likely to meet up with
Hell’s denizens. The downside to this stratagem was that
when they did meet up with a creature, there was no side
tunnel to help them dodge the attack, which came
instantly. During an incredibly long journey that seemed
to last at least six hours, but actually lasted perhaps
two, the Britlingens killed at least ten of Hell’s odder
creatures. Only by the narrowest of margins, the three
avoided the slow but inexorable progress of two slugs.
Batanya’s fingers began to tremble, and she knew the
time was approaching when she’d have to hand over
leadership to her junior.
But before she had to cede her position,
they were captured.
It happened very quickly. They were
caught in the worst possible situation, in a long
stretch where there weren’t any hidey-holes to duck
into. Also, the tunnel was gently curved, so the
oncoming enemy was hidden from them until there was no
possibility of escape. No change in sound announced
their coming. These soldiers were like large dust
bunnies. They progressed by rolling silently down the
slick floors. At first, Batanya was inclined to laugh,
but Crick’s expression told her that they were in big
trouble. “Run!” he said hoarsely. “Run!” They reversed,
but Batanya, who was now in the rear, was overcome
within seconds.
It was like being sucked up in a vacuum
cleaner, Batanya thought, as she gagged and choked on
the dust and bits of hair and trash that made up the
creature’s body. It managed to get strands twisted
around her wrists and to lift her off the floor so she
had no traction. She began to kick out and throw her
body from side to side, but somehow the dust bunny
surrounded her with strands and particles of debris that
restrained her efficiently.
“Clovache!” she called. “You?”
“Held fast,” came a muffled voice.
“Crick?”
There was only a choked series of coughs
to indicate Crick’s position.
The ball began rolling down the tunnel,
Batanya inside. She rapidly became so dizzy that her
priority changed from escaping the creature to not
throwing up.
The heat increased as her encompassing,
nebulous captor rolled through the passages. Finally,
the sense of constriction eased. The wretchedly sick
Batanya felt that they’d arrived in a large open space.
Then movement blessedly ceased, and all the threads and
bits of debris that had snared her simply unknitted.
“Oh, shit,” she said, a second before she landed on a
stone floor that had never known the passage of a slug.
The impact knocked her breathless for a
minute, but the second she could inhale she was on her
feet with her short sword drawn. The dustball that had
held her rolled away, and for the first time she saw
Lucifer’s great hall. It had a high vaulted ceiling and
was randomly dotted with stone pillars. There was a
throne carved out of the stone; it had been created when
the rest of the hall was mined, and it stood in dark
splendor by itself in the middle of the vast space. The
handsome gentleman standing on its bottom step was
wearing a three-piece suit and a neck scarf decorated
with a huge ruby stickpin. He was blond. He was smiling.
“I always thought Lucifer would have
black hair,” Clovache whispered, as she got up on one
knee. She was a yard away, and she had given in to the
impulse to vomit. Crick? Batanya looked around for their
client, and she found him on the floor behind her. She
positioned herself in front of his prone form and got
ready to fight.
“Brave but foolish,” said the blond man.
“Look.” He pointed behind her, and very cautiously
Batanya turned her head. Just in the edges of the light
that hung over Lucifer’s head was a host of
creatures—demons, more of the quadrupeds, wolf-men,
snakemen, dust bunnies, humans. There were at least two
hundred of them, and they were all armed in one way or
another.
“Well, shit,” Batanya said for the second
time. She nudged Crick with her heel. “Shall I die in
your defense?” she asked. Crick groaned, rolled on his
side away from her, and puked, considerately aiming away
from her boots. Clovache staggered upright and with
fingers that were shaking so hard they were almost
useless, she attached her wrist crossbow to her left
arm, the bow cocked and at the ready and the arrows
neatly lined up in their strap. Batanya had never been
prouder of her junior.
“Surely he doesn’t want you to,” Lucifer
said. “You two are so . . . formidable. The great thief
Crick wouldn’t want to condemn two brave warriors to
death unnecessarily?”
“No,” Crick moaned. “No, don’t do it.”
“That’s good, Crick! Now they can provide
entertainment for my troops,” Lucifer said, smiling
angelically.
“The Collective would frown on that,”
Batanya said.
Lucifer’s smile dimmed a little. He
strolled over to the little cluster of shaken outer-worlders.
His nose didn’t wrinkle when he got within smelling
distance, so Batanya figured his olfactory sense must
have been damaged by his long sojourn in the fetid air
of Hell. “The Britlingen Collective,” he said, only the
faintest trace of a question in his voice. The two women
nodded in unison. Lucifer made a face; a disappointed
face, Batanya decided.
“I have no wish to fight the Collective,”
Lucifer said. He brightened. “On the other hand, who’d
know?”
“If we don’t come back, everyone would
know,” Batanya said. “Our souls belong to the
Collective. You’re aware of our death clause?”
Everyone who’d heard of the Britlingens
had heard of the death clause. When a Britlingen died,
his or her soul appeared in the recording hall,
reenacting that death. The reenactment was recorded for
posterity. The recordings were required viewing during
the course of instruction.
“Perhaps some of my people could keep you
just at the brink,” Lucifer suggested. “They’re quite
talented at that.”
“They’ll die out of sheer pigheadedness,”
Crick said, his voice raspy. “Lu, what the hell?”
Lucifer was close enough now for Batanya
to see every detail. He was formed like a man, and was
extremely handsome; his short blond hair was more golden
and thicker than Crick’s, but it was smoothed back in
the same way. Lucifer was also thin and well-muscled
like Crick, but he made no pretense at foolishness. Even
a sick bodyguard could register the avidity in his eyes
when he looked at the recaptured Harwellian.
Clovache stood on Crick’s far side, her
back to Batanya’s. There was a long moment of tension
while they waited to hear what Lucifer would say.
“Oh, all right,” Lucifer said. He sounded
both gleeful and a little sulky, as if he’d gotten what
he wanted but it could have been a little better.
“All right what?” Batanya said, not
relaxing in the least. A wolfman was snarling at her
from three yards away, and she was keeping her eyes on
him. He was close enough to a canine to give her the
creeps. She was ready to sweep the sword across his
throat, given half a chance. She could feel Clovache
trembling at her back. The trip through the tunnels had
taken its toll on the junior Britlingen.
“We’ll make a deal,” Lucifer told them.
He took a step closer. “Stand down, and your client only
has to stay for a week with me. Fight, and he stays the
rest of his life.”
“Why are you willing to make such a
deal?” Batanya said, after examining the idea briefly.
“Kill us both, and you have him forever anyway.”
“True. But you’re right, I don’t want to
get in bad odor with the Collective,” Lucifer said.
“I’ll hold you all for a week, enjoy the delights of
Crick . . . then you can all three return to the
Collective, more or less unmolested. Besides, when I was
taking inventory a few days ago, I found that an item is
missing from my collection of wonderful things. I’d like
to ask Crick a few questions about that, while we’re
having fun. But I swear he’ll live, especially if he
talks quickly.”
Batanya’s leg was touching Clovache’s,
and she could feel Clovache’s leg begin to shake a bit
harder.
She didn’t believe Lucifer, of course,
but she couldn’t think of any counteroffer that would
give them an advantage. The wolfman advanced an inch or
two, his lips drawing back from his fangs. Another one
of the four-legged creatures with a net eased a little
closer on her left.
“What is the law?” Batanya said quietly.
“The client’s word,” Clovache whispered.
There was a moment of silence.
“I accept your offer,” Crick said to
Lucifer. His voice was devoid of any inflection.
“Oh, that’s good then,” Lucifer said. He
beamed at the three. “Ladies, you can stand down. I have
a lovely jail just waiting for you, and you can enjoy it
all by yourself. I won’t permit any company. Crick, for
you I have something else entirely.” The host of
creatures circling them began yowling and laughing, or
making whatever noise passed for it.
Batanya turned to help Crick up, and
their eyes met squarely.
“He won’t keep to his word,” Crick said
very close to her ear.
“What shall we do?” Batanya said. “We can
fight to the death. I will kill you now, if you would
prefer that to him.” She jerked her head toward the
advancing Lucifer.
“No,” Crick said. “That part’s bad, but
not fatal. I can get through it and even enjoy some of
it. He won’t let me go, though. Something will happen to
me, or you. We have to get out with the conjuring ball.
I might as well die here if I don’t get out with it.
It’s in Barrack Three, on top of the first cabinet on
the right.”
Batanya said, “All right,” having no idea
what she could do with the knowledge. “I’ll ask to speak
to you in a couple of days.”
Crick patted her on the shoulder, turned
to nod at Clovache, whose face was streaming with sweat,
and then bowed to Lucifer.
“Marl, take them to the cells,” Lucifer
instructed the wolfman, and draped his arm across
Crick’s shoulders to lead Crick away.
Batanya heard him say, “Love, I’ve gotten
some new toys since you were here last,” and then the
wolfman snarled at her. When he could see he had her
attention, he jerked his shaggy head northward. The two
Britlingens surrendered their weapons to two quadrupedal
net-throwers, then trudged off, following the wolfman’s
lead. The crowd of Lucifer’s hirelings surrounded them,
but aside from an occasional poke or prod or gobbet of
spit didn’t offer them harm. Batanya didn’t like being
spit on, but then again, no one had ever died of it,
unless you counted the acid-spitting lizards she’d
encountered on a previous job. She cast an uneasy look
through the crowd and didn’t spot any.
“Well,” she said to Clovache, “We’ve been
in worse spots.”
“Right,” Clovache said, with some effort.
Batanya could tell Clovache’s stomach was still acting
up. “This is an evening at the Pooka Palace compared to
some of the places we’ve been.”
Batanya almost smiled, to the
astonishment of the crowd.
Jail in Hell was about what you’d expect.
They passed through the guardroom, with weapons hung on
the walls that even Batanya had never seen, and many
that she had. The weapons ranged from full-tech guns to
your basic swords and spears and clubs. The guards were
your basic hostile and contemptuous louts. A snakeman
flicked his forked tongue out to touch Clovache’s cheek
as she passed him, and he laughed in a hissing kind of
way at her expression of disgust. The wolfman growled,
“Keep your tongue to yourself, Sha,” and Sha snapped to
attention, or at least as close to that as a curved
spine like his could manage.
Clovache and Batanya had to strip under
all eyes, because they couldn’t remain in their armor;
they had expected that, but it wasn’t pleasant, of
course. They donned the drawstring pants and shapeless
tunics they were given, along with pairs of thick socks
with padded soles. Then Marl, who appeared to be the
shift captain, unlocked a heavy door with a peephole in
the middle, and held it open for the prisoners to pass
through.
The cells were rough-floored, having been
hewn out of the rock instead of being created by the
tunneling slugs, and the dimensions were roomy since
occasionally they had to house creatures much larger
than humans. Batanya assessed hers in one quick look.
There was a latrine in one corner, which was quite an
odd shape since all species don’t poop the same way, and
there was a cot, twice as wide as Batanya’s bed in
Spauling, to accommodate a variety of creatures.
Clovache’s cell was right by hers, and there were bars
from floor to ceiling in between, spaced a little less
than the breadth of a hand apart. In the same manner,
the front of the cells were also barred from floor to
ceiling, so the prisoners were always in view of their
fellow prisoners and whoever happened to be in the jail
block. There were only six cells. The first cell on each
side was empty. The last one on the left became
Batanya’s, and the one next to it, Clovache’s.
The two cells directly across from theirs
were also occupied by humans. Opposite Batanya, a young
man was sitting on his cot. He jumped up eagerly while
the guards were locking up Batanya. He was wearing the
same prisoners’ outfit, but on him it looked good.
The youth was slender, ethereally lovely,
and very pleased to have some company. “People who can
talk to me!” he said in a melodic voice. “Am I not
beautiful? Do I not deserve to be admired?”
Since Batanya was busy pulling down the
tunic and tightening the drawstring on the pants, she
didn’t answer immediately. When she’d gotten herself
arranged and the guards were occupied with Clovache, she
turned to give him an examination. “Oh, yes, you’re
pretty as a picture,” she said politely. “Why are you
here instead of in Lucifer’s bed?” If Lucifer was hooked
on men, she couldn’t imagine him turning down such a
choice morsel. The rich chestnut of the youth’s hair,
his wide green eyes, his smooth-as-silk tan skin . . .
Well, it was enough to make your mouth water, if you’d
been in any mood for fun and games. Batanya wasn’t.
“Oh, I was for a while,” he said. Even
his voice was pleasant; just deep enough to be
masculine, formed by a smiling mouth. “He was so
incredibly lucky to have me! I shone in his bed like a
star in the night sky! Not that I’ve seen the night sky
in many ages. But I do remember it,” he added wistfully.
He pulled his own tunic off over his head and doffed his
trousers in a second graceful gesture. “Do you notice
how lovely my ass is? Is not my cock perfect? And my
legs—so straight, so well formed.”
The guards hardly gave the prisoner a
glance as they exited. Presumably they’d seen the show
before. Batanya was pleased to see that Clovache was
regarding the young man with interest. He rotated slowly
so that both newcomers could get a comprehensive look at
his assets.
“Yes, very nice,” Batanya said, which was
not nearly enough for the youth.
“You can’t have seen anything like me
before,” he said to Clovache, coaxingly.
“That’s for damn sure,” she agreed,
cocking an eyebrow.
“Yes, one of kind,” he said proudly. He
couldn’t seem to speak of himself any other way. “It’s
simply inexplicable that Lucifer could prefer anyone
else to me. Though some of the things he liked to do
hurt me and bruised my fair flesh,” he added, looking a
little sad. “However,” he said, brightening, “the blue
tint did look fascinating against my normal skin tone.”
The two Britlingens tried hard not to
look at each other.
“You can put your clothes back on,”
Batanya said. “You’re certainly very attractive, but we
have more urgent things to think of. What is your name,
handsome?”
“Narcissus,” he said. “Isn’t that
beautiful?”
“Yes,” Clovache said, with every
appearance of sincerity. “We’ve heard of you.” She
turned to Batanya and winked. Batanya was relieved her
junior was feeling well enough to react to the young
man.
“Oh, my fame has spread even to . . .
wherever it is you come from?” This idea made him very
cheerful. He picked up a small mirror and began
examining his own face in it.
“I guess the guards let him have a mirror
so he’d shut up,” Batanya muttered. Narcissus, totally
involved in his reflection, didn’t seem to notice his
fellow prisoners anymore.
“Excuse me,” called the woman across from
Clovache.
The two Britlingens went to the front of
their cells. “Can I help you?” Clovache asked. It was a
ridiculous question, but it would start the
conversational ball rolling.
“Can you tell me what year it is?” the
woman asked.
“That depends on what dimension you
inhabit,” Batanya said. “And what planet you live on.”
The woman sighed. She appeared to be in
her forties. She had short brownish hair, straight white
teeth with a marked gap in front, and a pleasant face.
“I hear things like that here all the time, and I’m not
sure what to make of it,” she said. She was wearing
tailored pants and a blouse with funny dots down the
front. Batanya realized, after a moment’s study, that
these round objects were the means of holding the shirt
closed. Buttons, that was what they were called. There
was a heavy jacket with big lapels and a hat and goggles
hanging on a peg on the wall, the only place in the cell
to hang possessions.
“You’re not wearing the prison outfit,”
Clovache said. “Why is that?”
“I don’t know. I landed on an island in
the Pacific, after the longest flight I’ve ever had.”
The handsome woman looked momentarily confused. “I don’t
know exactly where we were when our plane began to
falter. And my navigator didn’t survive the landing.”
She was silent for a long moment. “When I got out of the
plane, I was stumbling around, and I went between two
palm trees, and suddenly I was here. I was caught right
away by some of those spidery things, and they brought
me down to show me to the handsome gentleman. Is his
name really Lucifer? Have I gone to Hell?”
“You landed on Hell. Now we’re below the
surface, of course. What country are you from?” There
was something oddly out of place about this woman.
“I’m from the United States of America,”
she said. “I’m an aviatrix.”
Clovache looked over at Batanya, who
shrugged. “I don’t know what that is,” she said.
“I fly airplanes,” the woman said with
simple pride.
“I’m afraid you’re not on Earth any
longer,” Batanya said. “At least . . . you’re not in the
same dimension as Earth. We were just there a few weeks
ago.”
“I figured that I couldn’t be back home.
And I am surely not in the Pacific.” The woman sat on
the cot, as if her knees had simply given out. “I don’t
know how long . . . What year is it? I left in 1937.”
“The year here wouldn’t be the same as
the year it was when you left,” Clovache said. “We are
Britlingens.”
The woman’s face stayed blank.
Batanya said, “You seem to have been
caught up in some event, or some magic, unknown to us.”
The woman took a deep, shuddering breath.
“What year was it when you were last on Earth?” she
asked, as if not quite certain she wanted to know the
answer.
“Ah . . . well past your time,” Clovache
said. She glanced across Narcissus’s cell to Batanya.
“After 2000, anyway, though I’m not sure I ever noticed
what year it was.” She shrugged. “We knew we weren’t
going to be there long.”
“It was in the 2000s,” Batanya agreed.
“I can’t understand this,” the woman said
quietly. “I must be insane.”
“What’s your name?” Batanya asked. Maybe
a change of topic would break the woman’s black mood.
“Amelia Earhart.” She glanced from
Batanya to Clovache as if, despite everything, she
thought they might recognize her name. She and Narcissus
had that in common, anyway.
When Amelia saw that the two Britlingens
hadn’t heard of her, she shrugged. Then her whole
posture stiffened as the prisoners all heard a sound
approaching the big door that was supposed to seal off
the cells, though the guards had left it open. It was a
sort of scratchy, snuffly sound. “Ah, the dogs,” Amelia
said. “It must be almost dinnertime.”
“Dogs?” Batanya said hoarsely, at almost
the same moment that Clovache said, “What kind of dogs?”
“They’re large,” Narcissus said. He was
taking a break from staring at his reflection. He was
polishing his mirror with the hem of his tunic.
“Large!” Amelia laughed, the first normal
sound they’d heard in this place. “They’re giants!”
Two huge black hounds came through the
doorway and began sniffing down the corridor. They had
short, shining fur, pointed ears, and long, thin tails.
Their mouths were open and their long pink tongues were
lolling out, providing a sharp color contrast to their
sharp white fangs and their glowing red eyes.
Batanya pressed herself as far back in
her cell as she could go, unless she could gouge a niche
in the stone wall. She managed to say, “Do they let the
dogs come into the cells?” Dogs! It would be dogs! Why
couldn’t the prison level be guarded by hydras, or
gargoyles? Anything besides dogs.
“No,” Narcissus said. The dogs swung
their heads toward him and took a tentative step closer
to the bars of his cell. With a complete disregard for
the long, sharp teeth and the demonic eyes, Narcissus
moved to the front of the cell and stretched his hand
between the bars. The fearsome beasts took a big sniff,
and the one nearer Narcissus let the young man scratch
his head.
The three women stared at this, and
Narcissus smiled. “Even dogs are attracted to me,” he
said happily. “But you know, I love them, too.”
Batanya shuddered when she thought of
some of the things she’d seen in her travels. She hoped
the bars remained in place, for Narcissus’s sake.
“Attracted” could translate in many ways.
After a moment, the hounds seemed to lose
interest in Narcissus and resumed their prowl down the
corridor. The red eyes fixed on each prisoner in turn,
and a growl began rumbling through their chests as they
came to Batanya’s cell. Her face was set in the clenched
expression of someone completely determined not to show
what she was feeling, but she was pale and sweating.
“Just stay back from the bars,” Clovache
said, keeping her voice smooth and calm with a huge
effort. “They can’t get you. They’re just reacting to
your . . .” Clovache couldn’t bring herself to say the
word in connection to her senior.
Batanya understood her, though, and she
said it herself. “Yes, they smell my fear.” She hated
this, hated herself for feeling it. Hated having a
weakness. You’re a warrior,
she told herself. That was years
ago. You’re too old to feel this, now.
Both the hounds thrust their heads
against the bars of her cell, and they began to bay. It
was like nothing she’d ever heard. It took every ounce
of grit she had to keep her knees stiff. Two human
guards came rushing down the corridor to check out the
hounds’ agitation. The hounds were by now so excited
that they wheeled and leaped toward the guards, who were
completely taken by surprise. Both men were armed with a
form of gun, but before the stocky man on the left could
draw his from its holster, the nearest hound had leaped
upon him and taken out his neck with one huge bite. The
guard’s head, its expression still startled, rolled
grotesquely across the floor, coming to stop at Amelia
Earhart’s cell. The other man was faster and steadier.
He was ready to fire before the second hound was on him.
His finger tightened on the trigger and the first bullet
thudded into the beast leaping for him. The hound landed
short, whimpering, and its decapitating buddy swung his
head toward the attacking guard and growled.
But the tall, brawny fellow was not going
to back down. “I’ll shoot you down!” he screamed, and
the dogs seemed to think better about attacking someone
as aggressive as they were. The one that had been shot
was healing already. A gout of black blood spattered on
the stone was the only reminder of the wound.
“They’re not going to die,” Batanya said.
She and Clovache noticed at the same moment that the
black blood on the stone was beginning to hiss, and a
cloud of smoke was rising from the place where it had
lain. When the smoke dispersed, there was a miniature
crater in the floor of the corridor.
“God almighty,” said Amelia Earhart.
Narcissus crooned to the dog, “Did the
nasty man want to shoot you?” and the hound that had
been shot snuffled the hand that Narcissus extended
through the bars. Even the guard watched incredulously.
The hound licked Narcissus’s hand.
Clovache’s mouth fell open and they all
waited to see what would happen. But Narcissus didn’t
scream and fall on the ground in pain. He stood
regarding the huge beast with self-centered benevolence,
and the huge tongue, long and thin and somehow obscene,
slathered the beautiful pale hands with dog spit. Only
the blood was corrosive.
“Hmmm.” Batanya was calmer now. She was
ashamed of her display of fear, and she’d begun
thinking. The hounds padded off the way they’d come, the
guard watching them cautiously and keeping his gun
drawn. Only when they’d left the room and he’d watched
them exit the guardroom beyond did he squat down to get
a grip on his former colleague’s ankles. He tugged.
Leaving an unpleasant swath of body fluids in its wake,
the corpse began moving. Finally, it vanished from
sight. After a moment or two, the guard came back for
the head. He didn’t speak to the prisoners, and the
prisoners didn’t say a word.
After he was gone, Clovache said, “I’m
guessing the guards are chosen among the unpopular and
the incompetent.”
Narcissus smiled. “Yes, the guards don’t
last long. For a while, I got special concessions when I
told them that since the dogs liked me, they’d be less
likely to attack the ones who gave me things that made
me happy. That worked for while; I got the mirror, and
some extra food, and even a hairbrush. But then the
bigger hound got angry with the female guard, one of
those insectlike ones, and snapped off her foreleg. I
didn’t get any extras after that.”
“How’d she walk without the foreleg?”
Clovache asked.
“Not very well. In fact, I had to laugh,”
Narcissus said.
Batanya looked at him. He was quite
heartless, she decided, unless the pity and sympathy
were directed at him. But he wasn’t useless.
“How often do the hellhounds come
around?” she asked Amelia.
“Twice a day, at least that’s what they
did yesterday,” Amelia said briskly. “I think this is
morning, and this was their first visit. Do you know
what time it is?”
Batanya shrugged. “I lost track.”
“I guess they’re let loose for regular
patrols. Or maybe they’re controlled some other way. I
haven’t seen a handler. They get to do what they want,
as you saw.”
Batanya sat on her bed and began to
think. At least she and Clovache were side by side.
There was no point in counting on any help from
Narcissus. At any moment, his mirror could distract him,
and his only concern was himself. At any moment, he
could decide that his own comfort and pleasure were
better served by inaction than action. But Amelia seemed
plucky.
Perhaps Narcissus, a mythological
character known even in Spauling’s literature, could be
considered timeless. Maybe he was even immortal. But
Amelia Earhart, according to her own testimony, was a
complete human, tied to a specific time line in Earth’s
history. Somehow, she’d time-traveled successfully, a
fact that the magicians and technicians who powered the
Britlingen Collective would find extremely interesting.
Not that they had any business tampering with time; in
fact, the possibility gave Batanya deep misgivings. But
returning with Amelia, if that was possible, would make
up for having let their client Crick get captured. Plus,
Amelia seemed like a sensible woman, and she didn’t seem
to have any idea of how to return to her own time and
place in the world, whatever that might have been.
“Listen, Amelia, Clovache,” Batanya said.
She didn’t like that Narcissus could overhear, but she
had no option. She had no writing materials, and she
wasn’t telepathic, and she didn’t know sign language.
When I get back, she
thought, I’ll ask the teachers to
put sign language on the curriculum. She smiled.
It was extremely unlikely they’d live to do that, but
she could tell her survival sense had decreed that she
should plan on it.
Amelia and Clovache both came to the
front of their cages.
“How long do we have before they feed
us?” Batanya asked Amelia.
Amelia pondered. “They should be by with
something pretty soon,” she said. “The feeding’s not
exactly regular, but we do get three meals a day. It’s
pretty much the same food no matter what the time of day
is: not really breakfast, dinner, supper.”
Batanya said, “We have to get out of
here. Sooner or later, Lucifer will get tired of Crick,
or he’ll forget he doesn’t want to alienate the
Collective—we’ll explain that to you later, Amelia—and
he’ll have us killed, or we’ll meet an ‘accident.’
You’ll notice he’s pretty careless with his soldiers.”
“I’m listening,” Amelia said. “What about
sissy-boy, here?” She nodded toward Narcissus’s cage. A
glance told Batanya that the beautiful youth was busy
brushing his chestnut hair.
“He’s all for himself,” Batanya said.
“The best we can hope is that he doesn’t get in our
way.” Narcissus, still sans clothing, began examining
his body, pore by pore, as far as Batanya could tell. He
lifted his genitals, gave them a good scan, and then
dropped his package as casually as if it’d been a bunch
of wilted flowers.
“What’s your plan?” Clovache said.
“Here it is.” It didn’t take long to
explain.
In a little while, two guards (the one
who’d escaped the hellhounds, and Sha) brought in a cart
with four large bowls. The pass-through hatches for the
bowls were at the bottom of the bars in the door, and
each bowl was shoved through with very little care for
whether it slopped over or not. A bucket of water
followed it. This must have been intended for both
washing and drinking, since there was a dipper hanging
from the side of the bucket. Sha, the snakeman, still
found Clovache attractive and showed his admiration
openly.
“Show me what you’ve got, little one,” he
hissed to Clovache, who looked a little anxious. Sha had
a spear, and a dagger thrust through his belt. Lucifer
had ordered the guards not to go into the cells, but Sha
might disobey.
“He can’t let you out, and he can’t go
in,” Amelia said. “He doesn’t have the key on his belt.”
Batanya could tell by the relaxation in her shoulders
that Clovache was relieved, though her face remained
stony as he continued to tell her what he’d like to do
with her.
“Who does have the key?” Batanya said to
Amelia. She didn’t want Clovache to think she was
worried. “The other guard doesn’t have it either.”
“I think the commander of the guard has
it at all times, at least as far as I’ve been able to
see. That would be the wolfy one called Marl.”
Clovache grew tired of Sha’s suggestive
remarks and told him to fuck off. Batanya laughed, but
she noticed that Amelia looked quite shocked. “I’m
sorry,” Batanya called. “We are rough soldiers, and our
language is sometimes just as rough.”
Amelia’s face cleared, and she managed to
smile back at Batanya.
“Did you notice how that guard couldn’t
take his eyes off me?” Narcissus asked, and the three
women sighed in unison.
Batanya hunkered down to examine the
contents of her supper bowl. She had a very rudimentary
Plan A, and she turned it over in her head while she
ate.
There was no Plan B.
Like good Britlingens, Batanya and
Clovache consumed everything in their bowls. Batanya
wasn’t sure what the meal was—some kind of noodle and
some meat, though what the creature had originally been
was anybody’s guess—but it wasn’t spoiled. She sniffed
very carefully for poison, and asked Amelia how she’d
felt after the other meals she’d eaten.
“Fine,” Amelia said, astonished.
At last Clovache took a mouthful to see
if the food was drugged, since that was the job of a
junior. The Britlingens waited for a few minutes.
“I feel fine,” Clovache said, and without
further ado they dug in. There was a hunk of bread in
the bowl, too, and it was fairly good. No vegetables;
she guessed those would have been hard to produce
underground. Not a healthy meal, but it would supply the
energy they’d need.
“Save a bit of meat,” Batanya said.
After they’d eaten and rested, the two
Britlingens exercised. Amelia and Narcissus were
interested, Amelia because she was obviously a normally
active woman and because she was bored, and Narcissus
because he thought exercise might improve his body.
Amelia showed them how to do “jumping jacks,” which
amused Batanya. They ran in place, lunged, squatted,
punched at the air in jabs (Amelia called that “shadow
boxing”), and completed a hundred push-ups (at least,
Clovache and Batanya completed a hundred). After a few
more exercises, they all took a nap, for lack of
anything better to do. The guards didn’t reappear for at
least four hours, and then when they opened the door at
the end of the corridor, it was to push the cart through
again, so it was time for lunch . . . or maybe supper.
Possibly breakfast?
Batanya was ashamed that she’d lost track
of how many hours they’d moved through the tunnels
before they’d been captured. They’d left Spauling in the
middle of the afternoon, though that didn’t necessarily
mean they’d arrived in Hell at the same time of day.
And, really, did it make a difference? Some of the
denizens of Hell were sure to be awake around the clock.
When she heard the click of the hounds’
claws on the stone floor, Batanya got ready, though her
hands were not steady and sweat was already trickling
down her back.
“I fucking hate dogs,” she whispered, but
Clovache heard her.
“Have you reached in your pocket?”
Clovache asked.
“Your outfits don’t have pockets,” Amelia
said.
“We brought our own,” Batanya told her.
After a particularly successful mission,
their client had given Clovache and Batanya a sizable
bonus. Clovache had wanted to take a trip to Pardua and
go to the famous male whorehouse there to see the
dancing, but Batanya had persuaded her to visit a
special medical technician instead. Batanya had a false
wall in one cheek, prepared with careful and expensive
surgery. In that secret thin pocket, she’d stowed a
small flat blade. It was sharp enough and long enough to
open a vein, whether her own or someone else’s, but it
was strictly an emergency option.
The time had come to use it.
Clovache had a similar false pouch on the
underside of her arm, high up near the pit. A
very thorough search would
have uncovered her pocket, and possibly Batanya’s, but
they hadn’t been searched very thoroughly, proof of the
fact that the worst soldiers got prison guard duty in
Hell. Clovache stepped to the front of her cell at the
moment Batanya did.
“Narcissus,” Clovache said. The young man
stopped examining his fingernails and looked at her.
“Don’t be upset,” she said steadily. “I promise you
they’ll heal.”
“Good luck,” Amelia said, very quietly,
as the hounds entered the jail corridor. Their massive
black heads swung from side to side, as if they were
considering who would taste best. Their red eyes glowed
like burning coals.
The Britlingens held out the bits of meat
they’d saved, for the hounds’ inspection. They were
standing as close together as they could get at the
juncture of their cells. Noses twitching, the two beasts
approached cautiously. Clovache’s hand was just within
the bars, and the hound sniffing at her meat shoved his
head closer. It was much too broad to fit between the
bars, but his nose extended inside the cell. While
Clovache’s left hand fed the hound, her right hand slid
between the bars to grip the broad studded collar, and
then her tiny blade scored the hound’s skin at the neck.
A gush of blood told her she’d struck the best spot, and
that blood sprayed on the bars of the cell as the hound
reared back, baying and shrieking.
The blood also spattered on Clovache’s
hands.
Batanya’s hound turned slightly to leap
against the bars at the juncture of the cells in an
attempt to get at Clovache, and as he reared with his
chest and stomach exposed, Batanya’s bladed hand darted
out to rake the hound’s skin. She’d had the presence of
mind to pull off her tunic and hold it to the dog, too,
which was a good thing, since she didn’t get an arterial
spray. Pulling the soaked tunic back through, she
immediately rubbed the bloody cloth over the metal of
the bars. She stuffed the tunic down at the bottom of
the bars, so the blood remaining in the cloth might do
some good. This left her standing bare-chested, but she
pulled the blanket from her bed and draped it around her
shoulders. She hoped they wouldn’t notice the absence of
her tunic.
A group of guards rushed in to
investigate the dogs’ commotion, and it took everything
the Britlingens had to look stunned. Though Narcissus
had flinched when the dogs were hurt, he was silent, at
least for the moment. Amelia provided a great
distraction by screaming up a storm, and since the
guards looked at her and the hounds first, Batanya and
Clovache had the chance to slide their thin blades into
places that might escape inspection. Batanya’s went into
the thick padding of her socks, and Clovache’s into a
tiny crevice in the stone floor of her cell.
“Hands in the water!” Batanya said
hoarsely, and Clovache immersed her hands in her water
bucket. Batanya hoped it was quick enough to save
Clovache’s skin.
“They attacked each other!” Amelia told
the guards. The American woman was not a great actress,
but she did look very excited. They believed her.
“I’ve never seen them turn on each
other,” Sha hissed, but he didn’t seem inclined to ask
more questions. After all, the prisoners were in their
cells, and unarmed.
Though the hounds were still whining,
their wounds were healing fast. Narcissus called them to
him and stroked their huge heads while they whimpered.
Narcissus had kept silent for so long that Batanya was
hopeful he wouldn’t blurt out some information. He was
watching all the action with an expression that sat
oddly on his face.
“He’s thinking about something besides
himself,” Clovache muttered to Batanya, who was standing
as close as she could get, because she wanted a look at
Clovache’s hands. “That can’t be good.” Tears were
running down Clovache’s face. That meant the water
immersion hadn’t completely worked.
“Steady,” she said, and Narcissus moved
to the corner of his cell to look at the bars on
Batanya’s. Batanya followed the direction of his gaze.
The bars were beginning to smoke; just a little, easy to
miss in the murky atmosphere, but still ... Their eyes
met. Come on, beautiful, she
thought. Give me this. I’ll admire
you till the pookas return to their burrows, if you’ll
just give me this. She tried to smile winsomely,
but it was too much of an effort. She gave him a good,
hard stare. She was much better at that.
“What are you doing, bitch?” screamed
Sha. Clovache whirled to face him, her fingers
scattering drops of water. The skin of her hands was
blistered, and Clovache clasped them behind her after a
quick downward glance.
“Washing my hands, since the hounds
slobbered all over them,” Clovache said. “What did you
feed them, razor blades? Why’d they bite each other?”
Sha glared at her, suspicion written all over his scaled
face, and a third guard, one of the dust-balls, rolled
around in an unbelieving manner.
The steam coming off the bars was slowly
increasing in density, and any moment the guards would
notice. If sheer force of will could have moved them,
they would have shot back outside the doors. The hounds,
casting malevolent looks at Batanya and Clovache,
skulked out into the guardroom. The guards, after a few
more threats and a lot more curses, followed. The doors
slammed shut just in time, because the smoke was
beginning to really pour off the bars that had been
touched with hound blood.
“Let me see your hands,” Batanya said,
and Clovache held them out. There were bright red
blisters covering the palms of Clovache’s hands. They
looked so painful that even Narcissus winced in
sympathy. (He felt better after he looked down at his
own white, unsullied hands.)
Clovache shrugged. “Worth it, if we get
out. Will they come back in if we make a lot of noise?”
she asked Narcissus.
“No,” said the beautiful youth after a
moment’s thought. “Others scream and plead all the time.
And they only came in before because the hounds were
howling, and the hounds are favorites of Lucifer’s. An
ogre beat his heads against the bars for an hour before
they came to check, two weeks ago.” He looked at the
Britlingens expectantly.
“You were so clever to keep silent when
the hounds were in here,” Batanya said hastily. “I was
so proud of you. I don’t know how we’d accomplish this
without your help.”
Satisfied temporarily, Narcissus gave her
a lovely smile and fetched his hairbrush.
The smoke roiled and thickened, and the
air got even worse. After perhaps five minutes, the
smoke began to dissipate, though the thick atmosphere
made it hard to see what damage had been done. Batanya
positioned herself carefully and swung the heavy water
bucket at what she figured was the weakest point. She
got as close as she could to examine the weak spot. She
hadn’t caused any visible damage, but the impact of the
metal-rimmed bucket against the bars hadn’t felt as
violent as she’d expected. Heartened, Batanya swung the
bucket again, putting all the strength of her upper body
into the movement. The bars bent outward, and a few
flakes fell off the fast-corroding metal. She swung
again, and the metal bent outward. Clovache had grasped
her own bucket in her damaged hands and began the same
procedure on the bars of her own cell. That didn’t go as
swiftly, because smearing the blood on a wide section
had produced better results than a more intense
application in a few spots. With a roar of sheer focus,
Batanya swung the bucket for a tenth time, and a section
of the bars broke off, creating an aperture large enough
to allow her to climb out. Amelia cheered, Narcissus
gaped, and Clovache sagged against her cot with relief.
The next instant, she was back to swinging her bucket.
While Batanya ran to hide behind the door, Clovache
began to yell in time with her attacks on the bars.
Narcissus had told them the guards were
slow to react to prisoner noise, and it took a few
minutes before the combination of Clovache’s piercing
screams and the banging of the bucket roused them to
come check. The first one through the door was the
snakeman, Sha, and Batanya was on his back instantly,
slicing the side of his neck with her tiny blade. His
blood was not red, more of a deep purple, and it didn’t
spray, but welled sluggishly from the gash. But he
crumpled to the floor, scaled hands clutching at the
wound as if to keep his blood inside. Batanya leaped
over him to attack the dustball. It didn’t seem to have
a mortal spot to wound, at least to human eyes, but
Batanya swung her arm as if there were a sword in it
instead of an inch-and-a-half blade, and the startled
dustball rolled farther into the corridor, bringing it
closer to Amelia’s cell. Amelia thrust her arms through
the bars and brought them together, as she would as if
she had caught an assailant’s neck. Batanya had wondered
if Amelia’s arms would cut through the dustball, but the
aviatrix seemed to be compressing an area. The dustball
reacted in an agitated fashion, so at least it was
seriously frightened at being held like that.
Compression was the key to defeating the creature.
Clovache, halfway out of her own cell,
climbed back in to get her blanket from the cot.
“Stand away,” she yelled to Batanya, who
obeyed instantly. Clovache tossed the blanket over the
creature, and then she and Batanya threw themselves on
it. The dustball began to deflate as they pressed it
against the bars of Amelia’s cell, and when the two
Britlingens dug their feet in and pushed harder, the
escaping air achieved a moaning sound. The smell was
even more unpleasant than the other smells in the jail,
and Amelia looked really queasy.
After a silent struggle that seemed to go
on for hours, the dustball was squashed flat. When the
Britlingens cautiously released their pressure, a large
lump of hair, trash, and dust fell to the stone floor.
Clovache threw the blanket on top of it, in case it
could pump itself back up, and she dragged the
snakeman’s ghastly body on top of that, while Batanya
divested Sha of his dagger.
“What’s happening?” Marl called from the
guardroom. The door had swung shut behind Sha and the
dustball, so he didn’t have a good view, and he wasn’t
at the peephole—too cautious, maybe.
“Help! Help! He’s killing me!” Clovache
screamed. Furious that Sha was interfering with a
valuable prisoner, Marl threw open the door and rushed
into the prison wing, sword drawn. Batanya tripped him
and stabbed him through the neck with Sha’s dagger.
Within seconds, they’d gotten the keys off his belt and
Batanya was unlocking Amelia’s cell. The tall woman
didn’t waste any time getting out, and the four former
prisoners clustered together for a minute.
“Amelia, Narcissus, I don’t know what you
want to do, but Clovache and I have to rescue our
client,” Batanya said. “Does either of you have any
knowledge of where Lucifer’s chambers are?”
“I do,” Narcissus said. “I spent hours
there, entrancing and entertaining him.” He made a
ludicrous attempt to look modest.
“Will you take us there?” Batanya asked.
There was no time for finesse. They were in the middle
of hostile territory.
“We want to keep you with us as long as
we can,” Clovache said more diplomatically, “and if you
can’t help us, we have to be on our way.”
“Since you ask so nicely,” Narcissus
said, casting a cold look in Batanya’s direction, “I
will lead you there.”
There was no question that Amelia wanted
to go. She was pale with anxiety, and choking on the
suffocating miasma of the jail. The four ex-prisoners
crept to the open door. The air in the guard chamber
outside was remarkably stinky, but it was a big
improvement nonetheless.
For a few seconds they just breathed.
The great thing about the guardroom was
the weapons hanging on the walls. Batanya felt much more
like herself with a gun in one hand and a sword in the
other. Clovache spotted their armor, and seized it with
a yip of delight. She was about to shimmy into it when
Batanya stopped her. “It’s too Britlingen,” Batanya
said. “We need to be guards.” The two pulled on the
green pants and tunics that the guards wore. Clovache
reluctantly bundled the two suits into a backpack. She
would have felt much better with it on her body, but
Batanya knew Clovache could see the sense of her
decision. To compensate, Clovache armed herself to the
teeth with two guns, a short spear, and a dagger.
“We’re going to pretend we have you two
in custody,” Batanya explained to Amelia and Narcissus,
who had pulled on his clothes. “If we herd you ahead of
us, that’s a good way for Narcissus to guide us to our
client without it being obvious we don’t know the way.”
Amelia nodded. She was so anxious to leave the jail that
she couldn’t form words.
The Britlingens held their new weapons at
businesslike attitudes. When Batanya glanced down at the
gun she held, she found she had no idea what would
happen when she fired it, or even if she had it pointing
in the right direction. Narcissus stepped ahead of them,
casting a look over his shoulder to make sure they’d all
noticed his beautiful butt. They smiled at him
reassuringly and nodded to show encouragement and
admiration. He led them to the right into the large
trunk corridor they’d traversed to get there.
When they passed another group of
Lucifer’s soldiers, Batanya gripped the gun so hard she
thought it might bend, but no one questioned them. One
woman whistled after Narcissus, which pleased him no
end, though he seemed equally happy when a snakeman
pinched his left lower cheek.
“When you get through with him, pass him
along,” hissed the snakeman.
“Lucifer wants him,” Batanya said,
shrugging.
Because of the uniform tunics they’d
donned in the prison area, they went a long way without
challenge. The two Britlingens looked very different
without the hoods of their summer armor, and they were
certainly sufficiently tough to pass as guards. As they
moved through the tunnels, the traffic increased and the
tunnels themselves became wider and decorated with
paintings and lamps. These bits of civilization
gradually increased in frequency and splendor, until
they found themselves in the audience hall where they’d
first seen Lucifer. Narcissus led them across this,
though they were going much more slowly now because of
the groups of servants or soldiers who were also
crossing the large space. Hell sure was busy. Lucifer
wasn’t in the great hall, to Batanya’s relief. She
wanted to reclaim Crick when there weren’t scores of
Lucifer’s minions around.
After they’d freed their client, all
they’d have to do was fight through all these savage
creatures to get to the surface, or at least find some
quiet and undisturbed spot so the Britlingens could
trigger their beacon and their party could be returned
to the castle in Spauling.
That was all they had to do.
Batanya quelled a moment of despair.
Britlingens never gave up. There was a client to save.
She thought of her picture going up on the Wall of
Shame, and her lip curled in distaste.
They were brought up short just at that
moment by the four guards barring the two magnificent
doors. Narcissus’s dead halt meant this was Lucifer’s
personal suite.
Talk their way in, or just start killing?
If a troop of soldiers hadn’t appeared just at that
moment marching by on some other business, Batanya might
have found out how well her new sword worked. But there
were at least twelve soldiers, and two of them were the
quadruped net-throwers. Batanya had formed a strong
disinclination to tangle with them again, if she could
help it. Clovache glanced at her senior, a question in
her face, and Batanya nodded.
Clovache said, “Lucifer wants these two,”
jerking her head to indicate Amelia and Narcissus.
“He didn’t say anything to us,” the guard
with the fanciest uniform said. She was a huge woman
with golden skin and golden eyes. Narcissus fluttered
his eyelashes at her, and she choked back a surprised
laugh. “I’m Ginever, day captain,” she said.
“I’m Clovache, prison guard. The Master
apparently told Marl, who ordered us to bring them,”
Clovache said.
Ginever looked surprised, as if Lucifer
talking directly to Marl was unlikely. It probably was,
considering Marl had been a lowly prison guard overseer.
“Let me just ask,” she said. “He’s got
his shiny toy back, and he doesn’t like to be disturbed
when he’s playing.”
Batanya felt an unexpected wave of pity
for Crick. The Harwell Clan was nearly extinct because
of its members’ unusual physical attribute. Being gifted
had its price. When Batanya had the time to be curious,
she promised herself she’d learn the clan’s history.
“This one is wanted to join in the fun,”
Clovache said, pointing to Narcissus. “You can see the
attraction.”
“Oh, yes,” said the golden woman,
smiling. “Oh, yes. He’s been here often enough before.
Well, I must check.” She knocked on the left door, a
quick set of three raps. Her ear to its surface, she
waited. She must have heard some sound of assent,
because she drew back to open the door. Batanya exhaled
a silent sigh of relief.
“In, prisoners, move your feet!” she
said, as curtly as a real prison guard. Ginever was no
fool and certainly had a full complement of arms as well
as three comrades, and the sooner they were out from
under her eyes, the better.
Clovache led the way, followed by
Narcissus and Amelia Earhart, with Batanya prodding from
behind with the sword.
Lucifer, a flogger in his hand, was
standing by a pillar. Crick was bound to the pillar, his
back exposed and striped with blood. Batanya gulped,
resisting the nausea that rose in her throat. Lucifer
was staring at them, trying to figure out their
presence, and in the split second before he could
decipher their intent, Batanya leaped at him with the
sword.
She got him, right through the stomach,
but not before he managed to swing the flogger. It raked
Batanya’s back without enough force to draw blood
through her clothing, but enough to make her dig in the
sword for all she was worth.
Lucifer’s beautiful face was twisted with
anger. Despite the blade in his guts, he said, “I’ll
kill you for this, if I live.”
“Oh, of course you’ll live,” Clovache
said. Narcissus was looking at Lucifer hungrily, as if
seeing someone else lovely was enough to excite his
libido. Amelia was throwing up into a pot on the floor.
Crick looked at them as if they were all as beautiful as
Narcissus. But what he said was, “Get me out of this.”
“The key?” Batanya said. Lucifer sneered
at her. Batanya pulled a dagger from her belt. “You
don’t need both those pretty blue eyes,” she said.
“Which one do you want the most?”
“On the table by the bed,” Lucifer said.
Clovache ran to fetch it, and Batanya risked a glance to
check on Narcissus and Amelia. Suddenly Lucifer bellowed
at the top of his lungs, and in quick response there was
pounding at the door. Ginever called, “Master? Master?”
“Kill them all!” Lucifer yelled, and the
door began to bow inward.
“Find an exit,” Batanya told Amelia,
who’d finished being sick. “There’s sure to be one.”
Amelia nodded, braced herself visibly, and began
scanning the walls of the huge room. It was a very busy
boudoir. It contained an enormous bed, many hangings,
lots of torture paraphernalia and knickknacks, and a
roaring fire; about what you’d expect of the personal
apartment of the King of Hell.
“Here,” Amelia called. She’d pulled aside
a wall hanging depicting—well, it was as complicated as
the threesome of soldiers they’d seen in the tunnels—and
sure enough, there was a door.
“It doesn’t lead to the surface,” Lucifer
said. “You’re all going to die. But not before I have
some fun with each of you, I hope.”
“You already had fun with me,” Narcissus
said plaintively. “Surely you haven’t forgotten
me?”
“Just kill him right now,” Lucifer
advised Batanya, and for a second she was tempted. But
there were other things to do, and besides, she had a
jumbled feeling that killing Narcissus would be like
breaking an ancient porcelain vase. He wasn’t very
useful, but he was beautiful.
Lucifer’s wound was healing, as she’d
expected, and he wouldn’t be on the floor for long. The
pounding at the door had accelerated, and there wasn’t
time to do more than wrap one of Crick’s chains around
the no-longer-bleeding lord and lock it with one of
Crick’s locks. Clovache had Crick moving and had picked
up one of Lucifer’s tunics and pulled it roughly over
their client’s head. Crick himself bent with obvious
pain to pull on some shoes, and then they were tumbling
out the door Amelia had found.
Batanya hadn’t been sure Narcissus would
follow, he’d seemed so intent on forcing a compliment
from his former lover—or torturer; but the beautiful
youth trailed after them, though he didn’t seem nearly
anxious or urgent enough to suit her.
The door had to be blocked behind them.
There was nothing in the dusty passage to help them do
this, and the door didn’t lock on this side.
Clovache said a few choice things, and
Crick said, “Stand back.” His voice was shaky but clear,
and Batanya was grateful that he was well enough to
remain on top of their perilous situation. Crick
muttered a few words under his breath and pressed his
hand in a curious gesture toward the door.
“It will hold them for a few minutes,” he
said, and they hurried away. “That’s pretty much all the
magic I have, so don’t expect more,” he added, getting
the words out with an obvious effort. The passage was
stone-floored like the rest of the underground palace,
but it had been made strictly by men. The roof was
braced, and there was no slug slime on the floor and
walls.
“Do you know where this leads?” Batanya
asked Narcissus.
“I didn’t even know it was here,” he
said. “I never tried to escape from Lucifer before.” Of
course not.
It would have been wonderful to have
Crick’s map, but there was no telling where it had gone
after Crick had been stripped. It wasn’t like they had a
lot of choices to make; the passage had so far not
branched off.
“We’re going northwest,” Crick said, when
they paused to get their breath. By now, the back of
Lucifer’s tunic was striped with Crick’s blood. His face
looked even bonier than it had before. Batanya admired
his fortitude. “That’s the direction of the guards’
barracks.”
“You’re still determined to retrieve the
conjuring ball,” Batanya said with resignation.
“I might as well go back into that room
and let him kill me there if I don’t return with the
ball. I held out telling him where it was. I can’t come
back to get it.”
“Crap.” Batanya wanted to pat him or
choke him, she wasn’t sure which.
“What is the law?” Clovache said
sullenly.
“The client’s word,” Batanya said, with
resignation.
They started out again, trying to move
faster. Amelia was uncomplaining, but she was panting
heavily, and she stumbled from time to time. Narcissus
was in better shape, but he was not as keen as the rest
were on getting out of Hell. Crick kept pace gamely, but
he didn’t object when Batanya put her arm under his
shoulder to help him along.
The passage did branch off, finally,
though the dust on the floor would surely indicate which
way they’d taken. There was no help for it. They barged
on straight ahead, since according to Crick that was
still the best way to the barracks. The passage had led
them slightly uphill, Batanya had noticed, and ahead of
them they saw extra light coming from a grate in the
floor.
The small group paused, and Clovache
whispered into Narcissus’s ear, “You must keep silent.”
They crept forward as quietly as they could, and Batanya
felt Amelia’s arm quiver with the effort the older woman
was making to calm her ragged breathing.
When they got very close to the grate,
Batanya leaned Crick up against the wall and stepped
silently up to it by herself.
She was looking down into one of the
soldiers’ mess rooms. There were about twenty various
creatures sitting around a table eating bread and meat,
and drinking—those that had mouths—from bowls. They were
all talking (or growling, or hooting), and when there
was a loud alarm, at first they ignored it. Suddenly a
large snakeman bounded into the room, and he bellowed
(as much as his throat would permit him), “To arms!
Lucifer has been attacked!” Whether from devotion or
fear or professional pride, the collection of soldiers
cleared out of the mess hall in double quick time.
“Shit,” Batanya said, and Crick tried to
smile.
“I agree,” he said. “But at the same
time, this is the last place they’d expect us to come,
and if they’re clearing out, this is our best chance to
retrieve the ball.”
“Which way?” Batanya said, having no
argument to make with that.
“Forward,” he said, trying to put some
energy in his voice.
So on they hurried. Two more grates were
passed, Crick taking a careful look down each one, and
at the third one he said, “This is it.”
Batanya’s shoulders wanted to sag with
relief, but she kept herself braced and ready for
action. She had an awful feeling she could hear the
sound of pursuit coming up the passage; it was some way
distant, but their pursuers would catch up quickly since
they were all fit. So she wouldn’t think about what
would happen after that, she squatted down to remove the
grate, which wasn’t secured in any way; why would it be?
Before she could speak, Crick grasped the rim and
lowered himself down to the bed that was almost squarely
beneath the grate. Crick gasped in sudden pain and
dropped heavily, and the bed broke. Crick ended up on
the floor, curled in a ball. In a flash, Batanya lowered
herself through the opening and dropped a lot more
gracefully.
“You idiot,” she said as she helped Crick
to rise. “Where is it?” He pointed to some cabinets
lined up against the wall, obviously intended to hold
the soldiers’ effects.
“On top,” he said. “On top of the first
cabinet to the right.” This proved to be a narrow
cabinet with three lines scratched on it. Batanya opened
the cabinet, stood on the lowest shelf, and heaved
herself up. Sure enough, back against the wall where it
would be out of sight, there was the conjuring ball,
hastily concealed by Crick months before. It was wrapped
in a rag that had been used to wipe it clean.
Remembering where Crick had kept it concealed, Batanya
was grateful. She grabbed the ball and leaped down,
bounding over to Crick in almost the same moment. He
took it and tossed it up to Clovache. Batanya gripped
Crick around the hips and lifted. Clovache and Amelia
reached down and seized Crick’s upstretched hands, and
together they bundled the thief up into the passage
again. Once he was out of the way, Batanya made a good
leap to seize the lip of the opening herself, and with
the help of the two women she managed to join the
others, just as the door of the room below opened with a
crash.
“Now,” she said to Clovache. “Now!”
Clovache pressed a lump behind her ear
where the beacon was implanted. Then she pressed it
again. Batanya reached behind her own ear and pressed
hers three times. Five people to transport.
Nothing happened.
“Fuck,” Batanya said. “Can the ball get
us out of here?”
“I don’t know how to get it to . . .”
Crick began, and then the sounds of pursuit became
immediate. Batanya swung around to face the oncoming
horde, and Clovache picked up her short spear and hurled
it at the lead figure, one of the snakemen. He fell and
the others stumbled around him, but it was only a matter
of seconds before they were overwhelmed. Crick dropped
the conjuring ball, and Amelia retrieved it
automatically. “I want to go back,” she said, almost
weeping.
Pop!
There was confused swirl of colors and
sounds, the impression of a high wind, and they were
standing under a brilliant sun on what appeared to be a
small island. The sea surged all around; there was no
other land in sight. There were a few palm trees, and
Batanya heard a bird scream. A wrecked airplane was
crumpled on the beach before them, a dead man lying next
to it. Amelia’s face was a study in shock, and Batanya
was sure her own face matched it. Clovache, thinking
very quickly, seized the conjuring ball from Amelia’s
hand, and said, “To the beacon.”
Pop!
The sounds and colors again, the dizzying
whirling feeling, and then they all arrived on the
platform in the hall of the magicians and mechs.
There was quite a crowd in there; and it
took Batanya a long second to realize she didn’t need to
kill them. Clovache actually took a swipe with her short
sword, which made her commander leap back smartly.
“Hold!” Flechette bellowed. “Hold, you
fool!”
After a moment of reorientation, Batanya
understood she didn’t need to stand in front of Crick
any longer, and she stepped aside. Crick was doubled
over, gasping in pain. Amelia stared around her, so
stunned it would be hard to pick one emotion from
another as they crossed her face. After a moment’s
evaluation, Narcissus trotted down the few stairs to the
handsomest person he could see, a young mech woman.
Though he was grimy and wearing his prison tunic, she
looked at him as if she’d seen the face of a god, which
Batanya supposed was not too very far from the truth.
Narcissus held out his hand, and the mech had a hard job
to decide whether to shake it or kneel to kiss it. She
settled for holding it and basking in the smile
Narcissus bestowed. “Do you like dogs?” he asked her.
Batanya and Clovache helped Crick down to
the floor. Crick said, “For a bit, there, we didn’t know
if you would get us out in time.” He made an effort to
sound casual. That was exactly what Batanya had been
thinking, but she hadn’t wanted say it out loud
(especially in front of her junior).
“This asshole almost prevented us from
extracting you,” Flechette said, and for the first time
Batanya noticed that Flechette was gripping Trovis by
the arm. “He tried to persuade the magicians and mechs
that you’d sent a false signal, that the minions of Hell
would home in on the beacon if they acted on it.”
“I didn’t believe him,” said the young
mech woman, with a shy smile. “I called Flechette to
overrule him.”
“Can I execute Trovis?” Clovache asked.
“He has tried to have us done in more times than I can
count, and all because Batanya wouldn’t lie with him and
broke his arm making him back off.”
“Ah,” said Flechette. “Perhaps we
shouldn’t kill him . . . but he must be punished.”
Clovache still had the conjuring ball.
Though Trovis made an effort to dodge and to twist out
of Flechette’s grip, Clovache ran her arm around
Trovis’s neck, looked down at the ball, said, “Go back!”
Pop! She and Flechette and
Trovis were staring at a vast green sea, scraggly palm
trees, a wrecked airplane, and a dead man.
“Drop Trovis’s arm,” she told Flechette,
who did, at least partly from surprise at getting an
order from a junior. Clovache took a step back from the
gaping Trovis herself, gripped Flechette’s shoulder,
concentrated on the ball, said, “Back to the hall,” and
Pop! They were back in the
magicians’ hall.
Minus Trovis.
“Brilliant,” said Batanya.
When she’d collected herself, Flechette
said, “This is just. No one will dispute it.”
Trials had never really caught on at the
Britlingen Collective.
“Who—and what—have you brought with you?”
asked the tall, veiled magician who had ushered them in
on the day they’d departed. Every magician and mech in
the room, even Narcissus’s new admirer, was electrified
with excitement at Clovache’s demonstration.
“This is Amelia Earhart,” Batanya said,
taking care to pronounce the name correctly. “She is a .
. . She can operate a flying machine, and she left home,
which was America, on Earth, in July of 1937.”
“A time traveler,” exclaimed the
magician. His eyes, above the veil, were almost glowing
with interest. “And that is surely Lucifer’s conjuring
ball.”
“It’s the island. That one tiny island,”
Batanya said. “That’s the key. Amelia landed on it by
accident, and then as she explored the island, she found
herself in Hell. The island is a portal of some kind.
Once Amelia had come through, she could pass back, with
the help of the conjuring ball. She took Clovache and
the rest of us through. Then our homing spell finally
worked, and we returned through the portal to land here.
So the conjuring ball can take you through the portal,
if you’re with someone who’s passed through it once.”
Batanya couldn’t decide if her theory was complete
nonsense or not. The magicians and mechs could study
their magical hearts out and tell her their findings.
In the meantime, she would have happy
daydreams of Trovis on a deserted Pacific island in 1937
in the middle of nowhere.
“If this proves to be true, you have
experienced amazing magic,” the veiled magician told
Amelia, who looked heartened by the greeting.
“Well, thank you very much, sir,” she
said. “I’ll try to make myself useful. I don’t guess you
can send me home? Not to the island.” She shuddered.
“But to America? In my own time?”
“Not at this moment,” said another
magician, “but maybe we can work on it with your help.”
“Sure,” Amelia said.
“Crick,” Flechette said, “we will take
you to the medical rooms. Was your mission achieved?”
“Yes,” he said. He was glad of the two
men who came to help him down the steps, but he turned
to look back at Clovache and Batanya. “And I was very
satisfied with the service.”
A week later, Batanya and Clovache had
returned to their favorite courtyard to spar with each
other. First they used weapons, then they wrestled. They
were sweaty and limber and pleased with themselves when
they were through, and though Batanya pointed out a few
mistakes her junior had made, they sprawled on the grass
in the sunlight in good harmony.
“How is Geit?” Batanya asked.
“Glad to see me again, and very vigorous
in telling me so,” Clovache said, smiling to herself.
“Did I hear someone knocking on your door at night?”
“Unexpectedly, yes.” Batanya grinned,
which made her scar more obvious. But who cared?
“Do tell?”
“Our client,” Batanya said.
“Oh, my honor! Then you’ve experienced .
. .”
“Oh, yes,” Batanya said, her voice rich
with satisfaction.
“I didn’t get a very good look in
Lucifer’s chamber,” Clovache said, “being in imminent
danger and so forth. How is he all . . . arranged?”
“Very satisfactorily,” Crick said,
dropping onto the ground beside Batanya.
“How are you today, Harwell Clansman?”
she asked.
“Very well, Britlingen.” He smiled down
at her. “But I have to go to Pardua to give Belshazzar
his conjuring ball, now that I’m well enough to travel.”
“Will you be there long?”
“Depends on how much Belshazzar believes
me.”
“What, do you need a sworn statement?”
Clovache said. “We were there, we saw the conjuring
ball, we saw you retrieve it, and in fact we came within
a breath or two of losing our lives for it. Though it
turned out to be quite handy, if you can concentrate.
That’s all I did, you know, concentrate on where I
wanted to go.”
“Ah, but am I taking Belshazzar the same
conjuring ball that we retrieved?” Crick said. “That’s
what he’ll wonder.”
Clovache gaped at him. “And why would you
not?” she demanded. “Oh. Oh, it’s very valuable. But he
commissioned you to steal it!”
“And what am I?”
“A thief,” Batanya said, without opening
her eyes. “Dear Crick, you are a thief.” Her hardened
hand slipped into his bony one.
After that, they all enjoyed the blue sky
and the floating clouds, the light breeze that stirred
their hair. Perhaps they were all thinking about how
excited the magicians and the mechs had been when they’d
seen the conjuring ball; how they’d peppered Crick with
questions, most of which he couldn’t answer, about the
ball’s properties and history and operation; how they’d
disappeared with it for a few days, taking Amelia with
them, to “make sure it still worked.”
“Be careful along the road, and come back
when you can,” Clovache said, when she got up to take
her gear into the castle.
“Oh, I will,” Crick said. He lay back in
the green grass, smiling gently at Batanya. “I’m
thinking of taking an apartment down the hill, in
Spauling.”
“Really?” Batanya said. “That’s very
interesting.” She was on her feet. “Invite me to the
housewarming, will you?”
“You’ll be the only guest.”