The Infernal city

He reached down and pulled it up—Annaig’s magic locket.

He felt like something hot was vibrating in him when he got back to the skraw warrens. When he took Wert the anemones, he found him with Eryob, their overseer.

“You’re late,” Eryob said. His gaze moved to the anemones. Then to Wert. “Did you send him to do your work?”

“Wert does his job, and more,” Mere-Glim bristled. “I was just helping him out. Everything got done.”

Eryob’s bushy red eyebrows sank so low they nearly covered his eyes. “That’s not the point, skraw.”

“Well, enlighten me,” Glim snapped. “What is the point? And who are you to make it? You don’t inhale the vapors. You don’t pick around corpses or bring anyone up to be born. What does the sump need with you? Just leave us alone and everything will get done. In fact—”

He didn’t get to finish. Eryob lifted his fist and uncurled it, and black pain exploded in Glim’s head. His limbs spasmed and he toppled to the floor. It went on for a long time.

TWO

Heat woke her, suffocating heat wrapped around her body, burned into her lungs. She gasped and flailed; the air seemed incredibly heavy and murky. She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling only slick, wet skin.

She heard a whimper and then a strangled shriek. She made out a silhouette a few feet from her, revealed in the dim illumination from four fuzzy-looking globes of a dark amber color, one in each direction, all above her.

“Slyr?”

“Yes,” the frantic voice answered. “What’s happening? We’re being burned alive!”

Annaig swung her feet down and found the floor, wincing at the heat of the stone against her soles. The air hurt to move through, too, especially when she found the vent in the floor it was coming out of. She jumped back with a shriek.

“It’s steam,” she said.

“Why? What are they doing to us?”

Annaig recalled the battle, and Toel’s blue eyes. Then he had touched her lips. That was all she remembered.

She found a wall and began working down it and soon discovered a seam that might be a door.

Slyr had joined her in exploring now, panting hoarsely.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Annaig said. “But I … I think this isn’t meant to kill us. It’s hot, but not that hot. And I don’t think it’s getting worse.”

“Right,” Slyr said. “You must be right. Why would he go through the trouble of capturing us only to kill us? He wouldn’t do that, would he?” She sounded as if she were trying to convince herself.

“I don’t know Toel,” Annaig said. “I don’t know anything about him.”

“Why do you think I do?” Slyr snapped.

There was something strange about her tone.

“I didn’t say you did,” Annaig replied.

Slyr was silent for a moment.

“Well, I do know a bit,” she finally offered. “He—” She stopped, then laughed softly. She folded back down on her bench.

“What?”

“I think they’re cleaning us,” she replied. “I’ve heard they use steam to draw the impurities from the body.”

“I’ve heard of that,” Annaig remembered. “In Skyrim they do it, and it’s come and gone as a fashion in Cyrodiil. Black Marsh is already a steaming jungle and Argonians don’t sweat, so it never caught on there.”

Her breathing slowed as panic faded. Now that the surprise and fear were gone, the pervasive heat actually felt pretty nice.

“What else do you know about Toel?”

“Everyone has heard of Toel,” Slyr said. “Most master chefs of the higher kitchens are born to it, but Toel started down with us. When he wants something, he will do whatever is necessary to get it.”

“Clearly,” Annaig replied.

“More than you know. Qijne and her kitchen served three lords. Toel serves a much greater one, but that is still a dangerous thing. Bargains must have been struck, and probably a few assassinations accomplished.”

“A few?”

“Other than the rest of our kitchen, I mean.”

“They’re all dead, aren’t they?”

“I didn’t see anyone moving.”

Annaig was starting to feel a little dizzy. It wasn’t getting any hotter, but the heat was beginning to sit more heavily on her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know many of them very well, but you …”

“I hated most of them,” Slyr said. “And I was indifferent to most of the rest.”

“But you saved my life. Qijne was trying to kill me.”

“You’re—ah—different,” Slyr said.

“Well—thank you.”

Slyr crossed her arms. “Besides, he came for you. If you were dead, what use would I be to him?”

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

“I don’t,” Slyr said softly.

An awkward pause followed.

“I hope they let us out of here soon,” Annaig ventured, to try to lighten things.

“Yes.”

But it was too hot to talk after that. Annaig sat with her head on her knees, closed her eyes and pretended she was on the levee at Yor-Tiq, back in Black Marsh, lazing in the sun while Glim went diving for trogfish. It was a difficult fantasy to maintain; images of the slaughter kept coming back to her, especially Qijne’s dying gaze.

Remembering that, she felt at her wrist. It was still there, the torus. They hadn’t noticed it when they took her clothes. If she could figure out how to use it, she would at least have one small advantage.

She squeezed it, tried to think the blade out, but nothing worked, and the heat made her so tired she finally stopped trying.

Just as she thought she couldn’t take any more, light came flooding through what she had earlier guessed was a door, and behind it the sweet kiss of cool air.

“Out, and into the pool with you,” a voice said. Annaig hesitated, embarrassed at her lack of clothing but anxious to get out of the heat. She saw the mentioned pool ahead. It looked cool, lovely.

Slyr was already on her way, so she followed. To her surprise, she didn’t see anyone, although the voice had sounded near.

The water was so shockingly cold that for an instant she thought she might lose consciousness. Her yelp literally got closed in her throat.

“Kaoc’!” she finally managed.

“Sumpslurry!” Slyr gasped.

Their gazes met, held for an instant—and then together they began laughing. It just exploded out of Annaig, as if it had been bottled and pent up for a thousand years. The feeling wasn’t happiness; it was more like being crazy.

But it was a lot better than crying.

“You should have seen your expression,” Slyr giggled when she finally got control of herself.

“I’m sure it was no more ridiculous than yours,” she replied.

“Lords, this is cold.”

Annaig took in the new chamber then; it had low ceilings of cloth woven in complicated, curvilinear patterns of gold, hyacinth, lime, and sanguine. It draped down the walls, giving the appearance that they were in a large, very oddly shaped tent. Globes like those in the sweat-room, but brighter, depended here and there, filling the chamber with a pleasant golden light. On the near wall, two golden robes hung.

“I hope those are ours,” she said.