James Enge - This Crooked Way

Too tired even to feel pain, I crawled up the rockslide without thinking. At the top I staggered to my feet and looked blearily around. The place where I stood was much larger and more open than any part of the sewers I had seen; it was still underground, I guessed from the echoes.

Ahead was a dark river, clean and cold. I realized that this must be the river that fed the sewer systems. There was some source of red light across the river, but I couldn't see what it was. My first guess was torches, but that turned out to be wrong. To my right and left were rough walls of stone. Behind me in the sewers were the imperial soldiers with their glass lizards. If I was going to escape from them, it would be across the river.

I ran down to the bank of the river and was about to plunge in. I don't know why I didn't. I heard the soldiers shouting; I knew they had seen me. I could even hear the glass lizards snuffling behind me. I had every reason to risk leaping into the cold swift water-even if it killed me. But I didn't.

As I stood there, hesitating, a drop of my blood dripped off my shoe into the water. Instantly, a white light appeared in the dark water. Something like a glowing orchid leaped up from the river bottom and snapped at the drip of blood like a dog snapping at a bit of meat.

I stared, rooted with horror, as the glowing flower broke the glittering surface of the water. The skin of its petals was like human flesh, as white as Charis's, and they surrounded a dark mouthlike hole full of something like teeth. The hungry flower began to swing back and forth …seeking out the source of the tasty blood, I realized. Which was me, of course. As soon as I sorted this out I unrooted myself from the ground and ran up along the bank of the river.

Soon I heard a great hissing behind me, like a chorus of snakes. I turned my head as I ran and looked back. The glass lizards (their skins now translucently white like Charis's) had followed my trail to the edge of the river. There were half a dozen of them there, facing maybe twice as many of the hungry white flowers. The lizards and the flowers both seemed to be trying to eat each other.

I'd have cheered the flowers on, but just then something whacked me in the head as I ran. I bounced away and fell to the rocky ground, looking around groggily for what had hit me. It looked, at first, like a stone doorpost. Then I realized: it was the end of a stone railing for a bridge, covered with the same obscure (Old Ontilian?) carvings as the bridges in the sewer.

Bridge. River. Cross. I had just enough brains left in my head to connect those dots. I leapt to my feet again and raced across the bridge. As I glanced back at the lizards and the flowers, I saw that the soldiers had joined the fight on the side of their glass lizards.

Now, if ever, was my chance to get away. I ran off the far side of the bridge and away from the icy river as fast as I could. I don't know how fast this really was; I was nearly used up. But I kept going; that was the main thing.

But pretty soon I realized I wasn't going to get much farther. Not because I was all used up, though that was nearly true, but because of another obstacle in my path. It was another river, a river of fire. It was the color of blood and a good deal hotter. It was the fiery river's fierce red light that dimly lit the gloomy cave.

The fire was welcome at first: I felt my own blood pick up warmth from the heat; my shivering limbs took strength from it. But then it got hotter as I got closer. Long before I got to the fiery bank I had to turn away and run a parallel course.

I was beginning to think this was the end. I didn't know what was ahead, but if the soldiers and their glass lizards got across the icy river, they could probably trap me between the two streams.

I looked back to see what was happening. The soldiers had gotten away from the flowers, and they were now on the bridge. There were a lot of soldiers; more than I remembered. Only one glass lizard seemed to have survived the fight with flowers …but it was on my side of the river and coming up fast. It was the one with the human hand in its belly; it was translucently red, from the light of the blood-bright river.

You want to keep your eyes on the ground when you're running over rough terrain. I knew that, even then, but I was too stupid with weariness to remember it. I tripped and went down, of course, with the glass lizard right behind me. I rolled desperately to my right, toward the fiery river. I latched on to a loose rock and sat up, expecting the thing to be at my throat.

It nearly was, snapping and slavering at me with its glassy fangs. I bounced the rock off its blunt bright snout and it started back. Without getting up (no time for that) I crab-walked away from it toward the fiery river, its heat scorching my back. I reached out with my left hand, scrabbling for another rock.

The glass lizard sort of dodged in toward me …and then slid back to where it was, hissing. A mist, stinking like poison, came out of the blisterlike sacs around its neck and drifted toward me. I scooted out of the stuff's way as soon as I caught a whiff of it, found my rock, and waited for the thing to attack again.

It didn't. As I crawled up along the fiery river it kept pace with me, but didn't move in toward me. Like I say, I was stupid with fatigue, so it took me a couple of minutes to figure this out. Then I realized: it was repelled by the heat of the blood-bright river. I could get closer to the fire than the lizard could.

"Hey!" I said. "Don't like the heat, do you?"

Recklessly, I threw my rock at the thing. The lizard wriggled out of its way, but didn't charge me, even though I was unarmed.

I chuckled, maybe a little crazily, and started to crawl closer to the fiery river. I couldn't have gotten to my feet if I'd tried, and I didn't feel like trying. My hazy idea, which looks even hazier as I recall it, was that what worked against the lizard might work against the soldiers-that I might be able to get closer to the fire than they could.

I inched closer to the fiery river. But it wasn't really fire: I could see that now. It was thicker than water, too-more viscous, somehow. It was like the streams of melted rock that come out of the Burning Mountains sometimes: "lava" they called it in Four Castles. It was beautiful and terrible; I felt like my eyes were burning out from staring at it. Hot tears streamed down my face, because I wanted to get nearer to it but I couldn't stand to.

There was life in the burning river. There were fiery flowers carpeting its banks, and little bright things flying from flower to flower, like bees made out of lava. I could see salamanders swimming in the stream. One of them looked at me with such a bright intelligent eye that I almost called out to it for help. But I couldn't speak, either; my throat was raw and choked from breathing in the burning air. I collapsed in a heap. The motion attracted some of the lavabees. A cloud of them drifted toward me. I wondered what would happen if they landed on me, but there was nothing I could do to prevent it.

It didn't matter anyway. I heard the rapid footfalls of men coming up behind me. If this was the end, I'd just as soon be killed by the lava-bees as taken by the imperial troops and their glass lizard.

Then Morlock was there, his crooked form a dark silhouette against the bright red cloud of lava-bees. He snapped his cloak at them, scattering the cloud, and snatched one out of the air as they fled. He threw it straight over me and I heard a cracking sound behind me, like a heavy piece of glass breaking. I rolled over to see what had happened: the lava-bee had passed through the glass lizard, shattering its midsection. The glass lizard lay in pieces on the stones, opaque, inflexible, and dead.

Beyond it stood my uncle Roble, looking down at the dead lizard with a bemused expression. Behind him an imperial soldier was approaching. I gestured wildly, tried to speak, but couldn't.