Robert Redick - The River of Shadows

“A worm,” gagged Myett. “One of those dangling tendrils. It snatched him up by the throat. I was pinned against his neck, but my sword-arm was free, and I managed to saw through the thing. It was lifting us higher and higher.” Her eyes found the dlomu. “Your clan-brother is dead. Many worms seized his limbs; they were fighting over him. I am sorry. They tore him to pieces before my eyes.”

The dlomic soldiers cursed, their faces numb with shock. Big Skip drew an agonized breath. He did not look badly hurt, but he was frightened almost out of his wits. “Lost my knife, my knife-”

“You’re safe now, Sunderling,” said Hercol. At these words Jalantri actually giggled, earning him a furious stare from his master. Jalantri dropped his eyes, chastened, but a smile kept twitching on his face. What’s wrong with him? thought Pazel. Is that all the discipline they’re taught?

But Jalantri wasn’t alone in looking strange. The younger Turach kept glancing to the right, as though catching something with the corner of his eye. And Ibjen was staring at an insect on a frond, as though he had never seen anything more fascinating.

“Never mind your knife, Sunderling,” said Hercol. “We’ll find you a club. You showed us what you can do with one when we fought the rats.”

Big Skip stared up into the darkness. “The rats were easy, Hercol.”

They marched on. The gigantic trees were more numerous now. Pazel had barely cleared the slime from his face when the next torch died.

“Stanapeth!” hissed Alyash. “How much farther have we got to march into this hellish hole?”

Hercol did not answer, but Pazel heard him searching carefully for the matches. Pazel realized that his heart was still racing exceptionally fast. It was not just the heat, he realized-the darkness, the darkness was worse. It had begun to affect him like something tangible, like a smothering substance in which they could drown. Suddenly he thought of the Master Teller’s strange words to him in Vasparhaven: You need practice with the dark. Surely this was what the old dlomu had meant. But the Floor of Echoes had done him no harm, and the last encounter had even been wonderful.

Perhaps that was the point: that the darkness could hide joyful things as well as danger, love as well as hate and death. Yet when he had reached for that woman with love she had vanished, and the world they’d supported between them had been destroyed.

The third torch lit. Hercol looked at Alyash. “We should arrive within the hour, to answer your question. That will leave us three torches to return by, if our work goes swiftly.”

“Our work is the killing of a deadly foe,” said Cayer Vispek. “It may not be swift at all.”

“Then we will find which of these mushrooms best holds a flame,” said Hercol.

Off they started again. The ground descended, slowly; the water gurgling underfoot sounded nearer the surface. The heat, if possible, grew more intense; Pazel felt as if he were entangled in steaming rags. His leg throbbed worse than ever, and now he let Thasha support him, though walking together was hard on such treacherous ground.

“We have to stop and clean that wound,” she said.

“Not when we’re this close,” he replied.

“Stubborn fool,” she whispered. “All right, then, tell me something: your Master-Word. The one that blinds to give new sight. Could it help us, when the torches run out? Could that be the sort of thing it was meant for?”

Pazel had expected the question. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry, Thasha, but I’m sure it’s not. Ramachni said I’d have a feeling, when the time was right. And it feels completely wrong, here-like it would be a disaster, in fact. I don’t think it’s about literal blindness.”

“Ah,” she said. “I see.”

He could hear the effort she was making, trying not to sound crushed by his answer. She was desperate. The thought jabbed him like a splinter, much harder to ignore than the pain in his leg. And that was love, surely: when you could stand your own suffering but not another’s.

Neeps fell into step beside them. “Listen,” he said, “there’s something wrong with me.”

Pazel turned to him, alarmed. “What’s the matter, Neeps? How do you feel?”

“Easy, mate,” murmured Neeps. “It’s probably nothing, just… well, damn it! I keep hearing her.”

“Her?” said Thasha. “Do you mean… Marila?”

“Blary right,” said Neeps, shaken. “And someone else, too, with her. Some man. He’s laughing at her, or at me.”

Thasha touched his forehead. “You’re not feverish. You’re just worked up, probably.”

“I think it’s Raffa,” whispered Neeps, almost inaudibly.

Raffa was the person Neeps hated most in Alifros: his older brother, who had let him be taken away into servitude by the Arquali navy rather than pay the cost they demanded for his release. “I know it isn’t real,” he said, “but it sounds so real. Pazel, Thasha-what’s happening to me? Am I losing my mind?”

“No!” said Thasha. “You’re exhausted, and hungry, and sick of the dark.” She slapped his cheek lightly. “You stay awake, and calm, do you hear me? Pretend we’re in fighting-class back in the stateroom. And what’s the rule in class, Neeps? Tell me.”

“I obey you,” said Neeps, “like you obey Hercol.”

“That’s right. So obey me, and stop listening to voices you know are just in your head.” She leaned close to him, and sniffed. “And if we get another chance, wash your face. You smell sour. You must have got into something different from the rest of us.”

Neeps sniffed at his arm. “You’re cracked,” he said. “We stink like blary convicts, sure, but there’s nothing special about me.” He looked at Pazel hopefully. “Is there, mate?”

Pazel avoided his gaze. “You smell like a bunch of roses,” he said, feeling cruel and false. Even through the general reek of the forest and their bodies, Neeps’ lemon-smell reached him faintly. When was he going to say something? What was he going to do?

“Here!” shouted Alyash suddenly, just ahead of them. “What did you go and do that for?”

The bosun was sopping wet, and glaring at the younger Turach. The group had stopped by the base of one of the great trees. When Pazel rounded the trunk he saw a weird growth attached to it: a kind of bladder-shaped mushroom five or six feet wide, which the Turach had evidently stabbed. The thing had burst open like a ripened fruit, and water-plain water, as far as Pazel could tell-was gushing from the wound.

Alyash, soaked to the skin, was still glaring at the Turach. “I asked you a question,” he said.

“It was sneaking up on me,” said the Turach, still gazing suspiciously at the fungus.

“Sneaking?” cried Alyash. “That blary thing can’t sneak any more than one of Teggatz’s meat pies! You’re out of your head.”

“If he is, your own foolishness is to blame,” said Neda. “Taking your sword to an exploding fungus, coating all of us with spores.”

“That’s right, sister,” said Jalantri, drawing near her. “His stupidity could have killed us all.”

“Stupidity?” Alyash looked ready to explode himself. “You ignorant little groveler. I was smart enough to fool the Shaggat’s horde on Gurishal. I spied on ’em for five years, while you lot ran about saying it can’t be done, they’ll catch him tomorrow, they’ll roast him, eat him. And all the while I managed to get letters out to Arqual. Your shoddy spying guild never caught a whiff.”

“Devils grant the power of deception to their servants,” said Jalantri.

Neda, clearly annoyed at Jalantri’s interference, stepped away from him. To Alyash, who spoke perfect Mzithrini, she said, “I seek no feud with you. I only meant that you and the Turach made the same mistake.”