Glen Cook - Working God's Mischief

The Widow elbowed past Pinkus Ghort, snatched up the rope. It seemed as lively as a snake. It lacked any tension because of the weight of the people on it. She looped it around herself easily. A pulse in the cable encouraged her to move.

This was sorcery, indeed.

The old man, muttering prayers to the Good God, started down behind her, eyes squeezed shut.

Pinkus Ghort lined up for his turn.

Lord Arnmigal watched Hourli disengage from the rope. She joined him in a clot of darkness. He secured a fat candle from her pack. She said, “Light it before any witnesses show up.” The rope’s end lashed like an injured snake.

He willed the candle to life.

Nothing happened.

Hourli snarled. The candlewick burst into flame. Time slowed. She grumbled, “Stay close. We’ll end up sorry if I stumble outside the light.” He would carry the candle in the hand that had no shadow.

She did not suggest that he might suffer a lethal trip himself.

What a cosmic anticlimax that would be, clumsily breaking his neck moments before er-Rashal could be conducted to his doom.

“Through there.” Hourli indicated a gap between memorial stelae. Those leaned against one another like drunken comrades. Flickering firelight splashed their inner faces creamy yellow and occasional orange. “Careful. He could smell us out even like we are now.”

The earth trembled underfoot-despite the candle.

The leaning stelae shifted slightly. Detritus fell from where they met. Lord Arnmigal watched a small chunk, guessed that it would take a minute to reach the ground. Time was moving slowly but it was passing.

“He does feel us coming,” Hourli grumbled. The Commander of the Righteous heard nothing. She swore. “Damn! The big devil is stirring.” The falling chunk, behind them now, was halfway to the ground. “We walked into a trap. Not us. Not you and me. The company. He doesn’t know about the candle. Oh. And he isn’t expecting us two, after all. He just feels the threat from those behind us. He is vampirizing them somehow. The middle-worlders. Not us. But he is weakened by the presence of the Shining Ones, some. He wasn’t watching the right way. We got close. He should have noticed. But we weren’t part of his calculations. Even so, his human trap is working. We could end up sorry if we don’t distract him quick.”

She kept moving as she chattered, as briskly as she thought they dared. Her speech seemed awfully slow.

Time constantly moved a little faster as they neared their goal.

Lord Arnmigal was so focused on being wary of supernatural pitfalls that he was not ready for more mundane dangers. Blessed be, he had the candle in hand rather than a blade when he stepped past a drunkenly leaning column and collided with an equally startled, bug-eyed little boy. A girl of the same age, size, and mien slammed into the boy’s back.

Hourli hissed a warning, too late. It would have been too late ten seconds earlier. Those children were in full charge mode, headed out to lay an ambush, unaware that invisible invaders were closer already than those they had been sent to murder.

Disarming them took but seconds. The children abandoned bellicosity instantly. They became completely pliable. The Widow caught up just then, and was amazed by the effect of the candle-which lost most of its impact once five souls crowded the space it warped. Lord Arnmigal was surprised by the gentle sympathy she showed the children, then recalled that she had her own she probably felt guilty about having deserted.

He felt guilty himself-and his children were growing into their adult lives.

The Widow said, “I have them. Go ahead on.”

Kedle’s in loco lasted only as long as it took her to find Brother Candle. She passed the twins along. The Perfect got no chance to refuse. He got the children and the Widow got back to sniffing after fresh blood.

Hourli eased past Lord Arnmigal, spear poised. “Stay close. And don’t step on my heels.” She was a hound on track. The cock of her head said she heard directions to which everyone else was deaf.

The Widow caught up somehow. The candle’s field had degraded seriously. Lord Arnmigal put down an urge to shove her out and run.

She had worth. She was receiving intelligence from elsewhere, too, he presumed from Aldi.

They pushed ahead. He failed to notice the move but the hammer was in his hand when they met the waiting dead. It flicked. The heads of dead sorcerers exploded, becoming dust and bone chips adrift in the moonlight. Heartsplitter glittered in Hourli’s hands. Once-fallen Ansa braves went down once again and returned to their rest. The spear groaned softly, like a woman trying to keep the kids from overhearing evidence of her culminating intimate moment. Witnesses outside the candle’s glow would have missed the destruction. It happened too fast.

Even inside the candlelight it happened blindingly quick.

Meanwhile, the ground indulged in slow rolls with an orchestral accompaniment of lesser vibrations, like something vast was drawing a long first breath.

Time to move a little faster.

Lord Arnmigal’s foot did not want to come off the ground. Suddenly, he was slogging through what acted like deep muck. Moments earlier the footing had been barren, slightly tilted stone.

He was ankle deep in dust deliberately clinging like mud, clumping on his calves and ankles.

Bone chips sparkled within that dust, reflecting moonlight.

The dead Ansa, at least, had lain down, abandoning the fight forever.

“Keep moving, you.” Hourli sliced the dust with Heartsplitter’s edge, weakening its power to clump dramatically.

Someone or something not far off definitely was not pleased.

The earth shuddered more vigorously.

Hourli positioned herself on Lord Arnmigal’s right, caught his elbow, slowed him slightly. Heartsplitter darted into and sliced an unnatural clot of darkness. Lord Arnmigal hoisted the hammer. It did not feel unnatural to use his left hand.

The darkness parted. He looked into a room he had visited years ago. Old Az had stood where Hourli did now. Bone had been on his left with a ready crossbow. The room had been home to fox families that had lived and squabbled there for ages, filling the place with an eye-watering stench. The Sha-lug had surprised them there in the holy of holies of Asher’s cult.

There were no foxes now. The fetor was gone. There had been one time-gnawed altar back then. Another had been added recently, crudely built from piled stone. A dried-up husk of an old man half sprawled, half sat amidst masses of rags once worn by people whose bones now lay scattered all round. Gnawed bones.

Carrion stench had replaced that of fox.

The shard of time the candle shaped was small. Time within was moving faster now but still dragged enough to let Lord Arnmigal see everything and fix it in mind before darkness slammed down again. He flung the hammer Bonecrusher. It groaned, produced a dry thunk, then a thud! of collision with stone, and, finally, a stinging thwack! as its haft slapped back into his open hand.

Hourli used Heartsplitter during Bonecrusher’s flight. The spear reached and reached, extending in a violet shimmer providing just enough light to show the Dreangerean being lucky again. He dodged the hammer well enough to suffer only a passing blow to his right clavicle, not fatal but enough to stifle that one arm. He also twisted so that Heartsplitter only scored his ribs instead of living up to its name.

He howled in pain and rage.

The violet light went away, but then the darkness flickered and went out as er-Rashal lost the ability to quell the light.

Lord Arnmigal prepared to throw again. Hourli shifted Heartsplitter for an overhand strike in the classic fashion.