“Sul!”
“You can’t help him now,” a weary voice said.
He looked up and saw Vuhon gazing down at him. With a cry of fury, Attrebus clambered up the wall of cable and wire and stood over him.
“I can kill you, though,” Attrebus said. He reached for Flashing.
“You might,” Vuhon said. “And you might not. It would be a wasted effort. Vile will have me now no matter what. I can fight him-I had power before I met Umbra, and that he can’t take back-but I won’t last long. But maybe long enough.”
“Long enough for what?”
“For your friend there to save something of Umbriel,” Vuhon replied.
“I don’t understand.”
“Clavicus Vile will have the city now. Is that really what you want? He’ll probably just drain it and let it fall on the Imperial City, but knowing him, he may just play in your world for a while.” He nodded at Mere-Glim, who was standing up, wiping blood from his nose.
“The Argonian is a part of this place now. He has the power to remove it from this plane.”
“That’s what he said. He tried it and it didn’t work.”
“Because I became aware of him and stopped him. After all, I have been master of this place for decades.” He looked at Mere-Glim. “Do you feel it now?”
The Argonian nodded.
“Go, then,” Vuhon said. “The membrane will allow you to pass from this side as well.”
Then he turned to face the cloud, which was now twenty feet high and beginning to take on something like a human shape again. His face, so like Sul’s, was set in an expression of quiet determination.
“He’s right,” Glim said. “But we have to hurry.”
Annaig felt Umbriel shudder beneath her, and then she was suddenly falling. It lasted only an instant, but it was a terrifying one.
“What’s happening?” Fhena asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “Maybe they made it to the ingenium.”
“You mean maybe they’ve destroyed it? What does that mean?”
“Well, if the ingenium stops working, I imagine we’ll fall,” Annaig said.
“But then we’ll die.”
Annaig reached into her pocket and produced a small vial.
“There is a chance,” she said to Fhena. “If you drink this, you should be able to fly. We might dissolve into smoke, but it’s worth a try.”
“But what about Glim? And your other friends?”
“We’ll wait as long as we can,” Annaig said.
“But what about everyone else?” Fhena demanded.
“I don’t care about everyone else,” she replied. “Come on; let’s get above, so we can see what’s going on.”
They climbed up to where they could see Tamriel spread before them. She could see a lake, but the Imperial City wasn’t visible, so it must be beneath them.
Umbriel shuddered again.
They sat and waited, while Fhena wept.
Umbriel was trembling constantly by the time Attrebus and Mere-Glim reached the hiding place. They found the women outside, clinging to branches. Fhena rushed to Glim, sobbing, as a deeper convulsion quaked the tree. Attrebus found himself staring at Annaig, wondering what he was supposed to do. He felt as if he was watching everything through Coo now-the fight, Sul’s death, this meeting-all seen from a great distance. He didn’t seem to feel anything at all about any of it.
But Annaig strode purposefully across the shivering branch.
“Drink this,” she said. “At least we’ll have a chance.”
He took the vial numbly, glad he didn’t have to respond to anything more-emotional.
When Annaig reached Glim, he threw his arms around her and enveloped her in his familiar musk. Something burst in her then, and tears trickled on her cheeks as he stroked the back of her head.
“I’m so sorry, Glim,” she said. “About all of it.”
“It’s fine,” he said. “You know I love you.”
“Still?”
“Always.” He held her for a few more heartbeats and then pushed her gently back. “Vile lifted his striction. You’ll be able to leave this time.”
Annaig felt her heart pause.
“You mean we,” she corrected.
He shook his head. “I’m taking the trees home,” he said. “I’m going with them.”
“You can’t,” she said. “What will I…” She broke off and put her forehead against his scaly chest.
“What will I,” she repeated. “ I. But this is about you, isn’t it?”
“Finally, after all of these years, yes,” he replied. “I have people who need me. I have a place that wants me.”
“I understand,” she said. “I don’t like it, but I understand.”
“I’m glad,” he replied. “It makes it easier. Now, go. I have to do it now.”
She wiped her eyes and glanced over at Fhena.
“Take care of him,” she said. Then she drank the contents of her vial and turned to Attrebus.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“What do I do?” he asked.
She lifted her arm toward him and spread her fingers.
“Just hold my hand,” she said.
Colin thought of Anvil, where he had been born, of the docks and the autumn evenings, when the sun painted the sky red and gold and the waves seemed to murmur in a melancholy but somehow contented way.
He remembered the fingers of a five-year-old boy, fiddling with a little boat made of reeds. He’d put a lot of care into it, because he knew it had a long journey to make. He glanced down at the stream that wound through the willows toward the sea, but he knew the boat wasn’t ready yet, so he brushed the cracks with pine resin.
He remembered his grandmother placing those same little hands on the altar of the great chapel of Dibella.
“The gods are good,” she told him. “They came from an infinite place, but for us they limited themselves and became this world. They are everything we see and touch, everything we feel. And of them all, Dibella is most kind.” And she smiled so beautifully that he wondered if it was really his grandmother at all.
He woke on stairs, sticky with blood, laboring to breathe. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been unconscious; he hoped not long, because he didn’t have that much time left.
Doggedly, he dragged himself to his feet, leaned against the wall, and put one foot in front of the other. He felt oddly stronger, as if the prayer to Dibella had actually been answered in some small way, although he’d never had that talent.
But he knew soon enough he was either going to bleed to death or drown in his own blood.
Letine must have known or guessed where the stairs were-they hadn’t been on his map. He doubted it was a coincidence that the steps began at a hidden door in Hierem’s chambers; the minister must have been thinking about this moment for a long time. Colin guessed the secret stairway was hidden just below the much broader, higher staircase that led up from the Emperor’s quarters to the summit of the White-Gold Tower.
He moved slower now, but knew he couldn’t stop again.
He heard her before he saw her, or in fact saw any light at all. She was talking to herself, but he couldn’t make out the words. Presently he encountered a flat surface, and after a little searching found the catch that opened it.
He’d expected to be on the summit of the tower, but instead saw a large, low-ceilinged room. Signs and sigils were painted all over the floor, familiar to him from the diagram he’d seen in Hierem’s chambers. Fires of strange colors flickered on some, while arcane objects of various size were on others. Letine stood in the center of the
