The Pilgrims

‘Correct! So. If you wanted to go back to your own world, I’m afraid not. Discussion over.’

Eric shrugged. ‘You seem to forget that I was sent here. I’m not meant to return yet.’

‘Sent here?’ Kiown looked at him, and a flicker of doubt went across his face.

‘Don’t tell him,’ said Sharfy. ‘Kiown’s not in charge. Save it for Anfen.’

‘Well and true,’ Kiown said. He produced a little jar half filled with paste, which he rubbed on his clothes, neck, legs and arms, then passed it around. It smelled musky and unpleasant. ‘Put on that mask,’ said Kiown. ‘This could prove a good little test of things. If you heard the groundmen right, we shall have to sneak past some devils. Then we’ll know Eric was right, and Sharfy was wrong. None shall be surprised.’

‘Coincidence,’ Sharfy said sourly. ‘We already seen the tracks.’

Kiown grinned. ‘One day you’re going to be telling the story of how you lost nearly a hundred arguments, with a thousand people who were all way, way smarter than you. As in, so much smarter you wouldn’t believe-’

‘Fuck you.’ Sharfy’s hand went to his knife.

‘Oh hush.’ Kiown stood on tiptoe, examining the marks on the roof. ‘Hmm. Not far from the grain-wagon tunnels, this way. If there are devils in this tunnel, I will be puzzled. We’re smack bang under the castle. They should not be here at all. Now listen: we are in disguise. If we see devils, we will crawl on hands and knees to be extra safe. Do not speak, or they shall know that you are not in fact a pit devil, and be truly pissed. They shall proceed to savagely maul you. And maybe everything else in sight, including each other. They’re like that. A bit unbalanced in the head, like Sharfy. Maybe they, like him, have heads stuffed with traumatic memories. And foul secrets. Who can say?’

Sharfy looked at Kiown darkly, and suddenly looked more like doing him harm than he had earlier with his knife drawn. Seemingly oblivious, Kiown said, ‘Eric, do you understand?’

‘I hope so.’

‘Mmmm. So do I. Because if you don’t,’ he cackled nervously, ‘we’re all going to die.’

The musky stink of their pit devil scent was dizzying, and soon pushed all other observations to the background. When the walls widened out they came to a spectacular mosaic, spread over a large area of the wall and linking up with another, set some way distant, its blooming light beams crossing the first’s, to form a huge three-dimensional portrait on the opposing wall. A lush garden was depicted, a scene of feasting and joy, the groundmen looking far nobler in this artwork than they’d been in person. Eric only just spotted the dead ‘evil giant’ in the grass amidst this splendour, the corpse seemingly a decoration like the flowers and jewels. He had to hand it to the little people, they knew a thing or two about holding a grudge.

As yet there’d been few of those slitted tracks in the stone. Then they came to a part of the tunnel where the lightstones were sparse. Ahead, something moved which Eric’s eye had marked as just an outcrop of rock on the cavern’s side wall, some way off the path. It might have been a large dog’s silhouette, but for the two pointed horns atop its skull, visible against a distant slab of lightstone. The others had missed it. He tapped Kiown’s shoulder and pointed.

Kiown pulled the mask down over his face and got on hands and knees. Sharfy straddled his back, hiding his head under the much taller man’s shirt. Eric gingerly slid his own mask on, and kneeled down too. Perhaps the thing heard them, for its head turned their way and it made an inquisitive sound.

They began their crawl. Beyond the first pit devil, another raised its head their way, and another, all little more than black shapes in the gloom. Rounding a bend where the light was better, they suddenly found dozens climbing over the cavern’s walls and floor. Little clicking sounds came from their claws across the stone; now and then there were faint inquisitive growls. Kiown balked to see so many, and looked nervously back the way they’d come. So quietly Eric could barely be sure he heard it, the redhead whispered: ‘We … are … dead.’

By the path now were scattered piles of small, broken bones. To their left, the nearest pit devil stood perfectly still. Its head slowly turned to watch them crawl by. Its eyes were blank pits. A ridge of naked white bone above its nose, dividing left and right, curled up as twin lumps in the brow, and seemed to pierce the forehead like a weapon driven through it. That aside, strangely, it did not look too far from human. But its eyes expressed nothing at all: no intelligence, emotion or even hunger. They were perfectly dead, and its lethal mouth hung wide open like something with broken hinges.

When they were safely past the first, there was a scuffling, grinding sound. It was trailing them, mindless as a sheep just following the herd. Kiown halted, subtly gestured for Eric to do the same. The pit devil made a sound in its throat then slowly loped past them on all fours, its shoulder brushing against Eric with intense warmth. It continued ahead, movements lithe and seeming to defy gravity slightly. Its clawed feet and hands left gouged slits in the rock floor like knives through wet clay.

To their left and right, yet more of the creatures watched them with distinct interest. Some were high up on the walls, even hanging from the cavern’s roof by their claws. As Eric began to wonder if the path through these fiendish things would ever end, he was amazed to discover he understood the gargling, snarling sounds they made.

‘Hunger. Builds.’

‘Shape. Moves. Comes.’

‘Scent. Good.’

‘Pack. Need …’

‘Teeth. Bone. Horns.’

‘Scent. Natural.’

‘Climb. Dark.’

‘Seek. Hunt.’

He shuddered.

13

Outside the high tower window she waited, hidden as the Invia could hide even in plain light, as long as she stayed stiller than a statue. His charm she would faintly perceive even through the enchanted walls, and thus follow his progress inside. But she would not save the old man’s life from danger, for there was an extremely powerful mage walking the halls nearby. She felt his presence, and surely her presence disturbed him; maybe like a background noise he’d hardly notice, or maybe he knew exactly what she was, where she was, but was just too busy to bother with her. Yet.

The old man fidgeted nervously on the window ledge, speaking to himself and trying not to look down. She waited ready to catch him if he fell or jumped, and the time passed slowly.

At last, Vous’s daughter began her daily routine. Sometimes, even from high in the clouds, the Invia had heard the girl scream in this way and wondered why. Her curiosity was what had made her choose this window to set down the spy.

The girl opened the latch now, pushed open the glass and cleared her throat. The old man saw his chance and slipped past her. He was inside! Good.

Case had never seen such sadness in all his life, not at funerals, not even worn by those posh grieved parents walking away from gaol after visiting a son who they never thought would be in such a place, face newly busted up and all. This girl topped it all, in her long black gown with her long flaxen hair tied back in a ponytail. How old — seventeen? Twenty? She had one of those slightly heart-shaped faces, with eyes and mouth that drooped a little, and a soft undefined chin. Pretty, but her slow movements and bowed head were grief itself, with — if he wasn’t mistaken — something almost ritual about it. His heart went out to her and for a second he forgot he was meant to sneak into her room.

He quietly ducked past her while she rested her hands on the sill, sad eyes staring unfocused into the distance. If she noticed his feet touching down on her floor she gave no sign.

The room was neat and filled with pretty things: ornaments made of crystal, dolls of all sizes, weavings, knitting balls and needles, and a large plush bed Case felt he could sleep for a week in. There was a ticking device on the wall — a clock? Hard to tell, with those funny symbols on it, and the odd crisscrossing hands at weird angles. The girl watched it, waiting for (if Case judged right) the hour hand to tick over.