The River of Shadows Part 56

"They feel fleshy," said Ibjen.

"Don't touch them, you daft babe!" said Alyash, smacking his hand.

It was hard not to touch them, the things grew so thick and close. Pazel tried to look through the ma.s.s of petals, bulges, braided tentacles, feathery limbs, flaring blue, purple, green in the torchlight. They were even shedding shedding color: rainbow droplets were falling and splattering everywhere, as though the things were exuding brilliant nectar or pollen from their pores. color: rainbow droplets were falling and splattering everywhere, as though the things were exuding brilliant nectar or pollen from their pores.

"Fireflies!" said Bolutu suddenly, and Pazel turned just in time to see them: a trail of blue sparks, whirling around Bolutu's upraised hand, then speeding off to a cl.u.s.ter of growths beyond the torchlight, where they all winked out together. There were other insects, too: flying, crawling, wriggling, with bright reflective spots on wings or feelers. Only the fireflies, however, glowed with their own light, and they were already gone.

Pazel wiped his forehead. The hot air wrapped him in a smothering embrace. Then he felt Ensyl scramble nimbly to his shoulder. "The ground is alive," she said. "Have a look at your boots."

m.u.f.fled cries and curses: their feet were being embraced by pale, probing tendrils, wriggling up from the ground on all sides. They were easily broken, but relentless in their work. The scene might have been comic, if anyone had the heart to laugh: twenty figures shuffling in place, lifting one foot and then the other. "Pitfire, we can't stay here," said the older Turach.

"Keep close to me," said Hercol. Raising the torch, he set off in a straight line, forcing a path through the rubbery growths. The others fairly stampeded after him. They had not gone twenty steps when Pazel realized that they were no longer pus.h.i.+ng through so many of the weird living things. Hercol stopped and turned to look back, and Pazel did the same.

They had been standing in a thicket formed by the great vine. The growths surrounded it, grew atop it, buried it in their flesh. The vine snaked away across the forest floor, every inch of it covered with growths.

"Like a reef back home," said Neeps, "except that it's so blary hot."

"It feels feels like the bottom of the sea," said Pazel. "And this is just a clearing. Those growing things are still all around us." like the bottom of the sea," said Pazel. "And this is just a clearing. Those growing things are still all around us."

"Other things, too," said Big Skip. He pointed away from the cliff: white, rope-like strands were dangling there, from somewhere far above. They were thick as broom handles and segmented like worms, and they ended in coils a few feet above the ground.

"There must be hundreds," said Ensyl. "They go on and on into the forest."

"The plants seem hardly of this world," said Neda, gaping.

"Maybe they're not plants at all," said Pazel.

"Well, naturally they're plants, Muketch, Muketch," said the younger Turach. "What else, by Rin?"

"Mushrooms," said Thasha.

"Mushrooms?" Bolutu looked startled. "That could well be so. Fungus, molds, slimes-they all thrive in darkness. And moisture too, for that matter."

"And heat," said Cayer Vispek. "But great devils, a whole forest of fungi?"

"Not the trees," said Thasha. "They're plants, all right. That vine is a plant too, and there must be others. But most of these things-yes, I'm sure they're mushrooms."

"Come here often, do you?" asked Alyash. "Summer picnics and such?"

Thasha turned away, indifferent to his taunts. But Pazel touched her arm, trying in vain to get her attention. The familiar, faraway look was creeping back into her eyes.

Neeps pointed off to the left. There the growths, though tall as apple trees, were the same parasol-shapes as any mushrooms of the North. "I guess that settles it," he said.

Hercol put his hand on Ildraquin. "Our quarry is motionless, but still far away. Let us form ranks and be off. Ibjen, bear the torch as you would bear no weapon. Stand in the center and hold it high. And to all of you: need I say that Alyash is right? You must touch nothing, if you can avoid it, and be ever on your guard." He glanced back to where they had started. "The vine heads toward the center, and that is where we are bound. Let us follow it-safely to one side, of course-for as long as we may."

They left the cliff wall and started out over the spongy ground. The vine grew thicker still, and its load of outlandish growths even heavier. Soon it was less a vine they followed than a twisting, scaly wall, each section flaring brilliantly in the torchlight as they neared. It was very quiet. Nothing moved save a few tiny insects, and the root-tentacles s.n.a.t.c.hing weakly at their boots. Pazel was soon gasping with heat. His leg too began to hurt, but when Thasha came to his aid he shook his head and whispered, "Not yet."

"Don't ignore it," she said, and gave his hand a squeeze. She marched ahead, fierce in her readiness for whatever was to come. As she had been just hours ago, in that so-much-gentler darkness, walking with him to the cedar tree. For an instant the wonder of their lovemaking came back to him, and he felt a wild need for her, a contempt for everything but the desire to be with her, far from these troubles, far even from their friends. The feeling appalled him with its selfishness.

An hour pa.s.sed. With every step they saw new beauties, new horrors. The crown of one mushroom was a miniature flower garden, each blossom smaller than a grape seed. Another mushroom was as large as a haystack, and twisted as they pa.s.sed, aiming a hideous, hairy mouth in their direction. The great dangling worm-tendrils moved also, reaching slowly for an outstretched hand. When Ibjen brought the torch near, the tendril coiled like a snake into the darkness above. In some places the tendrils had reached the ground and taken root, so that one looked through them as through prison bars.

Other vine-reefs descended from the unseen trees. Some they pa.s.sed under; others lay upon the ground like the one they followed. Climbing them was an awkward business, for it was hard to find the solid vine beneath the fungal ma.s.s. And some of the mushrooms burned like nettles to the touch.

Atop one of these reefs they suddenly came face to face with a pair of enormous, four-legged creatures, grazing placidly on the far side. Elephant-tall and milky white, they resembled giant sloths, but their backs were hidden under jointed sh.e.l.ls. They had great lower mandibles with which they scooped up mushrooms, and gigantic eyes, which they pinched shut against the torchlight. Flapping their soft ears in vexation, they shuffled away from the vine.

As the journey continued they met other creatures: graceful deer-like animals with serpentine necks; a waddling turtle that hissed at the dogs; and far more alarming, a swarm of bats the size of pumas that blasted like a storm through their midst, at eye level, and never brushed them with a wing tip. The bats settled on a gargantuan loop of vine and feasted on its melon-like fungi, before racing off into the perpetual night.

"Fungivores, all of them!" said Bolutu. "They must rarely go hungry. I wonder if anything in this forest lives off meat?"

"I do," said Big Skip, "but I'll settle for one of those fruits. How about it, Hercol? They smelled like blary ambrosia."

"Hold out a little longer," said the swordsman, "we may find something better, after all. I was a fool not to kill that turtle."

A bit later they heard running water, but saw none. The sound grew louder, closer, and at last Neda bent to the ground and said, "It is under us. It is flowing beneath the roots."

After that they realized that they were often mere feet over a rus.h.i.+ng stream. Once or twice the gap in the roots was wide enough for them to reach a hand inside. There they found the running water deliciously cool, and bathed their faces. But Hercol warned them not to dip their arms too deep, or to taste even a drop of the water. As soon as they left these gaps the heat swallowed them anew.

They were on their second torch when they reached the base of one of the gigantic trees. It was a straight pillar, twelve or fourteen feet thick. Though painted with lichens its bark was paper-smooth, with no k.n.o.bs or branchings as high as they could see.

"We will not easily climb such a trunk," said Cayer Vispek.

"Myett and I could manage," said Ensyl. "Those lichens will bear our weight."

Then they saw it: the vine they had followed from the start took root here, right at the base of the tree. Beyond it there was no clear path to follow.

Hercol was unperturbed. "We will blaze a new trail," he said. "Step up here, Neda, and count paces, and speak each time you reach twenty."

Sweating and stumbling, they moved on. Each time Neda spoke Ildraquin cut a deep slash at breast height in the nearest fungus. "What if we miss one, Stanapeth?" Alyash called out. "What if something eats them? This is lunacy, I say."

"The bosun's right," Pazel heard Myett say to Ensyl. "We should not have descended to the forest floor! We should be walking above, in the sunlight!"

"And then?" asked Ensyl. "The sorcerer is not up in the sunlight. What if we had marched all day across the surface, only to find no way down?"

"I do not want to die in this place, sister, on this giants' quest. A reunion awaits me in Masalym."

"I do not want to die at all," said Ensyl. "But Myett, be truthful with yourself: Taliktrum surely returned to the Chathrand Chathrand, ere the s.h.i.+p departed?"

"You do not know him as I do," said Myett, "and you did not hear his words to Fiffengurt. Nothing will persuade him to return to the clan."

"Love might," said Ensyl, "and I think you will have your reunion, however unlikely that appears. We are not defeated yet."

"Ensyl, you amaze me. Do you truly have such faith in them?"

"In the humans?" said Ensyl, surprised. "Not all of them, of course. But in Hercol, and the tarboys and Thasha-yes, in them I have faith a-plenty. They have earned it. And besides that, I would honor...whatever made us unite. Even as we honor the founders of Ixphir House, what they lived and died for."

She knows I'm listening, thought Pazel, smiling. It was Diadrelu who brought us together, Ensyl. Your teacher, Hercol's lover, my friend. Diadrelu who showed us the meaning of trust It was Diadrelu who brought us together, Ensyl. Your teacher, Hercol's lover, my friend. Diadrelu who showed us the meaning of trust.

Someone screamed.

It was Alyash, Pazel realized a moment later. He was holding his head, reeling, smas.h.i.+ng into the others. Then Pazel saw that there was something in the air, like a fine sawdust, trailing from his hands and head. Some of it drifted into the torch's flame and crackled; some of it touched those nearest Alyash, and they too cried out.

Alyash crashed away into the darkness, blind with pain, sweeping through the white ropes like curtains. The others charged in pursuit. Cayer Vispek and Neda managed to grab him after thirty feet or so, but it took the whole party to calm him down. "He was cutting extra notches," said the older Turach. "He was afraid you weren't marking the trail well enough. I was about to say something when he slashed one of them fat yellow globs, and it exploded! Credek Credek, I breathed that powder in myself, it burns like thundersnuff!"

"I breathed it too," said Ibjen. "What is thundersnuff?"

"Something not to be toyed with," said Hercol, "like the things that grow in this place. You are a fool, Alyash. Were you hacking any fungus in your path, or did you choose that one because it resembled a sack fit to burst?"

Alyash's eyes were streaming. "It stings, d.a.m.n it-"

"You'll be lucky if the spores do only that," said Bolutu.

Alyash screamed at him: "What's that supposed to mean, you d.a.m.ned bookish fish-eyed doctor to pigs?"

With rare fury, Bolutu retorted: "These fish eyes fish eyes see more than the little oysters in your face! I know! I had to use them for twenty years!" see more than the little oysters in your face! I know! I had to use them for twenty years!"

They were still bickering when Lunja gave a cry. "Indryth! Indryth is gone!" She was speaking of one of her comrades, a Masalym soldier.

"He was right beside me!" shouted another. "He can't have gone far!"

"Fan out," said Hercol. "Watch one another, not the forest alone. And do not take a single step beyond the torchlight!" Then he whirled. "G.o.ds, no! Where is Sunderling? Where is Big Skip?"

"Myett!" cried Ensyl. "She was with him, on his shoulder! Spirake! Spirake! Myett, Myett!" Myett, Myett!"

Three of their number had suddenly, silently vanished. The others turned in circles, casting about for foes. But there was nothing to be seen but the brilliant spots and stripes and whorls on the fungus.

Then came a sickening sound of impact, not five feet from Pazel. A fungus like a glowing brain had suddenly been crushed, splattering all of them with slime. Out of the remains of the mushroom rolled Big Skip, both hands at his neck, barely able to breathe. Clinging desperately to his hair was Myett.

Big Skip's hand came away from his neck holding six feet of slippery white tendril, writhing like a snake. With a tortured gasp he hurled it away.

"A worm," gagged Myett. "One of those dangling tendrils. It s.n.a.t.c.hed 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? What's wrong with him? thought Pazel. thought Pazel. Is Is that that all the discipline they're taught? 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 h.e.l.lish 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 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 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 literal blindness." 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, d.a.m.n it! I keep hearing her. 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 sounds so real. Pazel, Thasha-what's happening to me? Am I losing my mind?" 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-cla.s.s back in the stateroom. And what's the rule in cla.s.s, 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 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 gus.h.i.+ng from the wound.