“Something struck it from my hand,” said Neda. “A globular thing. It flew out of the darkness as though someone had hurled it.”
“Hear me, people,” said Bolutu. “We have been drugged. We are seeing and hearing what is not there. Do not trust your eyes. And for the love of Alifros, do not be guiled into attacking one another!”
“The trouble,” said Pazel, “is that some of the dangers are real. Those white worms, for instance. And whatever struck the torch.”
“The fungus-trap holding the boy is real as well,” said Ensyl.
“And I know just the solution,” said Alyash. “We’ll find a long stick, see, and push his mucking head under the surface. Deceitful son of a whore! He’s managed to betray us one last time. Arunis could be anywhere by now.”
“How do you propose to find out, if you kill the boy?” said Cayer Vispek.
But the bosun was suddenly distracted. “Look up,” he murmured.
Whispered curses: dangling overhead was an enormous mass of crisscrossed vines, so laden with growths they looked almost like a second forest floor. And hanging on the underside of every surface were bats. They were tiny, no larger than hummingbirds, but their numbers were incalculable. Most dangled motionless, upside down, their wings enveloping their bodies like cabbage leaves. But a few strained their necks around to look at the travelers. Their eyes gleamed purple in the torchlight.
“Those!” said Neda suddenly. “It was they who snuffed the torch! Why would they burn themselves up, attacking a fire?”
“Light here seems to be the enemy,” said Bolutu. “Or rather: our kind of light. If they live off the fungus, perhaps they do it a service, too. The pool’s glow draws creatures near; the liquid catches them. And the bats-they eat something that thrives here, around this pool.”
“They’re weighing down the vines,” said Alyash.
It was true that something was making the vines hang low and taut, as though under some heavy strain. “It’s not the bats,” said Pazel, “they’re too small, even if there are ten thousand up there. You could set a mansion on those blary vines, Mr. Alyash.”
“There is something else,” said Ensyl, shielding her eyes. “Something wide and smooth. I can’t quite make it out, but it is enormous-far wider than this clearing.”
Hercol stepped away from the others. With a sidelong swipe of Ildraquin, he slashed away a yard or more of the wriggling tentacles. The other appendages writhed in distress, and the bats quivered and squeaked (more were waking; a few flitted about). Hercol raised the sword high. “Watch your feet,” he told the others. Then he struck, lightning-fast, and a V-shaped chunk of the pool wall fell outward. Hercol jumped back. The gelatinous substance began to ooze through the gap, and Fulbreech, floating like a raft, slid toward it as well.
They groped for sticks in the weird light and used them to drag the limp youth through the incision, out of the worst of the spreading ooze. With the tip of Ildraquin, Hercol snagged a corner of the rag in Fulbreech’s mouth and lifted. The rag came out; Fulbreech gagged and retched.
“Master Hercol,” he rasped, his voice a feeble mockery of the one that had, briefly, excited dreams in Thasha’s heart. “Master Alyash. It’s really you, isn’t it? By the Blessed Tree, you’re not illusions, not ghosts.”
“Are you certain, Fulbreech?” said Alyash. “I think we’d better prove it to you.”
The Simjan’s face looked drowned: not in the substance of the pool, but in a boundless immensity of terror. “I can’t feel my limbs,” he said.
“That’s all right, boy,” said Alyash. “You won’t be needing ’em.”
Fulbreech gazed helplessly at the bosun. “He will not harm you without my consent,” said Hercol, “and I will not give it, whether you help us or refuse. For I have done you a disservice, Fulbreech.”
Thasha, and most of the others, looked at him in shock. “A grave disservice,” Hercol went on. “I have had some opportunity to reflect on my mistake, these last days of traveling. How you came to be Arunis’ creature I will never know. Were you madly ambitious as you seem? Or were you weak, like Mr. Druffle, seduced into lowering your defenses, until he made a puppet of you, colonized your mind? Do not speak yet! I will believe nothing you say. But the fact is that when I guessed whose work you did, I chose to leave you in his clutches, for weeks. It was the only way I could think of to locate Arunis’ hiding place on the Chathrand. But in so doing I treated you as a pawn, just as Arunis did. I might have struck a deal with Ott, had you safely confined, asked Chadfallow and Lady Oggosk to attempt the rescue of your soul.”
“You don’t know that he needed any rescuing,” said Thasha, her rage boiling over. “You don’t know that he wanted any.”
“And now I never shall,” said Hercol, “unless we escape this place. Then, Fulbreech, I will seek help for you- again, whether you aid us now, or not.”
“Damn it, Hercol!” Pazel exploded. “Why don’t you make him your mucking heir and be done with it?”
“Pazel’s right,” said Neeps. “You’re going too blary far.”
“Thashiziq!” said Ibjen suddenly. “I hear voices. From the black water beneath the roots.”
Hercol waved imperiously for silence. “What you must appreciate, Fulbreech,” he went on calmly, “is that if you do not help us, we cannot prevail. And then you will be doomed. Your body will perish here, and your soul-what did he say would become of it, lad? He had a promise for you, didn’t he?”
“They’re calling me, calling me away,” whispered Ibjen.
Bolutu shot him a quick, distracted look. “You’re in nuhzat, lad. Be still and it will pass.”
Ibjen sank to the ground, hugging his knees. Thasha crouched down and held him, whispering, begging him to hush. Whatever Hercol was attempting she didn’t dare interrupt.
Fulbreech’s tongue slid over bloodless lips. “I don’t know what you want, Master Hercol,” he said.
“What I want is answers,” said Hercol, “although I know you cannot give them if you still serve the mage. If that is the case we must fail, and perish here together. But even then I will help you.”
“How?”
“With a clean death,” said Hercol, “and if I discover you in a lie I will do it instantly, for our time is very short.” Then, as if following a sudden impulse, he added, “I will also do so at a word from Mr. Undrabust. You may not be aware of it, Fulbreech, but he has a nose for lies. The best I have ever encountered.”
Neeps stared at him, shocked silent in his turn. Pazel reached out and squeezed his shoulder. Courage, mate. Hercol rested the tip of Ildraquin on Fulbreech’s throat.
“Speak a little truth,” he said.
Fulbreech lay there, blinking and trembling. He licked his lips again. “Arunis can use the Stone,” the youth whispered. “He’s already doing it. Through the tol-chenni we brought from Masalym. He has terrible powers now, worse than anything you’ve seen.”
“Then we’re too Gods-damned late,” hissed Big Skip. But Ensyl, on his shoulder, hushed him quickly.
“He’s keeping the forest dark,” said Fulbreech. “He says it’s always full of light-made by creatures, and plants, and mushrooms-just not the kind our eyes can see. Only the fireflies make our sort of light, and he’s driven them into hiding. And he… created this place around me. As a trap, in case you made it this far.”
“What is the danger here?” asked Hercol. “The bats? The pool itself?”
Fulbreech shook his head slightly. “He said that if I didn’t know, I couldn’t tell you. That’s the truth, by all the Gods. But I know this: he has power from the Stone, but not control-not yet. The idiot really is mad-dangerously mad. And to use the Stone, Arunis has to reach into his mind and make him see what he wants.”
“How much does he know of us, boy?” said Lunja suddenly. “Our numbers, our distance from him? Is he watching us even now?”
“No,” said Fulbreech. “He has caught only glimpses of you, though they seemed to grow clearer with each day-as you grew closer, perhaps. When we stood on the shores of the glacier lake, he closed his eyes suddenly and cried, ‘Vadu! Vadu has drawn his knife, somewhere on the plain below! That buffoon is chasing us!’ Then again, a day later, he stopped and pressed a hand to his forehead. He was furious, and I heard him growl: ‘So you are bringing her, are you, Counselor?’ I thought he meant Macadra, the sorceress from Bali Adro City: after all, we fled when he learned that she was coming for the Stone. But now I think he meant you, Thasha darling.”
“Enough of that talk,” snapped Hercol. “Where is Arunis now?”
“Deeper inside the forest. Where the River of Shadows breaks through to the surface.”
“That is no help,” said Cayer Vispek. “Which direction, and how far?”
Fulbreech shook his head again. “I don’t know. He would not tell me.”
