The Pearl of the Soul of the World

3

Weaselhounds

She lay in darkness, curled around the light of the pearl. If she stayed very still, then perhaps the horrible, tangled string of senseless images evoked by Brandl's song would not return. The pin behind her ear throbbed still, though the worst of its pain had passed. She was afraid of the Shadow, here in the dark, but the terrible rime frightened her even more. Exhausted, she dozed. A scuffing sound brought her sharp awake. How long she had slept, she had no way to tell. Her legs were cramped to numbness, her stomach tight, mouth dry. She was shivering so hard her jaw ached. Something moved beyond the bend in the narrow tunnel. Terror seized her for a moment as she realized it must be the Shadow. Then Maruha came around the curve of the tunnel, a fingerlamp flickering upon one hand.

"There you are!" the duarough exclaimed. "I had nearly despaired of ever finding you, you strange girl."

The pale girl stared at her, tensed and frightened still. She laid one hand over the pearl, hiding its light.

Maruha drew closer, carefully, as though afraid of startling her.

"Collum and Brandl swore they'd no notion why you ran off, but I got it out of them in the end."

The duarough laid her hand gently on the pale girl's arm, and when the upperlander did not bolt, she seemed glad. With a puff, she sat, obviously weary.

"That fool Brandl and his barding. He should know better than to sing of the Sorceress War in front of you."

The girl felt a breath of reassurance pass through her. Maruha would not recite the horrible rime that made the pin ache so. She felt safe now that Maruha had found her.

"And with the Witch's pin in your head, you doubtless know more of that grim conflict than we. How much of what we say do you understand, girl?" The little woman eyed her closely. The upperlander shifted uncomfortably, looked away. She did not want to understand, dared not. In a moment, Maruha shrugged. "No use asking, I suppose. If only you could talk!"

She patted the pale girl's arm.

"Here, child, are you hungry?" She fished in one of her many pockets and drew out a square cake that smelled of honey and pungent dram. "It's been ten hours since you ran away."

She broke the cake and held up one half to the girl, who snatched it from her. The dense stuff tasted sweet and tart, but her mouth was so dry she could scarcely swallow. Maruha's little skin water bag had come out of another pocket in the sark. The girl wanted to reach for it, but hesitated, unwilling to remove her hand from her breast.

"Child, what are you holding?" the duarough asked, setting down the water bag and leaning closer.

"Will you show me?"

The upperlander drew back. The pearl was her secret, its wan glow visible only in near total darkness. Not even the Bird had known she had it, the terrible black bird that had…A sharp twinge behind her ear warned her away. Hastily, she shoved the almost—memory aside and stared at the duarough. Surely she could trust Maruha. Slowly, she drew back her hand. Beneath the yellow fabric of her gown, the clear blue light shone constant white.

The duarough gasped. "What is that? Did you find it here in the caves?"

The girl shook her head, making bold to follow the other's words a little now. The duarough reached for the pearl.

"May I see it, child?"

The upperlander's hand clapped down again, covering her treasure.

"Hi—migh—mine!" she gabbled. No words came out, only fragments. Maruha drew back.

"Very well, child. I'll not disturb it. But I've never seen the like. You never found it in these caves, I'll vow. Had it with you all along, I'll wager, and we never even noticed."

She lifted her fingerlamp from the floor and held it up so that its strong, dancing light drowned out the pearl's cool, gentle one. The red-haired duarough got to her feet and brushed the cave grit from her trousers distractedly. She donned the fingerlamp again.

"Wonders upon wonders," she murmured. "Who are you, girl?"

But the upperlander could not answer. Already the sense of the other's words was fading. She could no longer follow. A fog covered her thoughts. She was very tired. Maruha pulled her to her feet.

"We had best get back. I left those two fools at the camp, though they wanted to help me search. I told them they would as likely fright you away again as find you."

As Maruha started down the corridor, the pale girl hesitated.

"Come. All's well," said the duarough, turning. "I've forbidden Brandl any more barding. He won't frighten you again."

She let Maruha draw her away down the dark and narrow hall.

They were nearing where Maruha said the camp must be. All the corridors looked the same to the girl. The duarough called out a greeting, but only silence answered.

"That's odd," she murmured.

She had extinguished her fingerlamp, since the pearl gave a more constant light, with none of the jump and shadow of flame. Maruha quickened her step until, rounding the bend, she halted dead. The campsite lay in disarray, the cooking lamp overturned and deep ruts in the sand, as though made by running, slipping feet. The duarough hurried forward, pulling the girl along.

"This was not the way I left them!" Maruha exclaimed. "They had put the camp back in good order after you fled. Collum? Brandl?"

Only stillness replied. Collum's pack rested far off to one side, as though dragged there, or thrown.

Tools lay scattered about. Brandl's harp gleamed, tilted upside down against one tunnel wall. Maruha caught it up in passing, then fell to her knees beside the upturned cooking lamp.

"Ravenna preserve us," she whispered. "I should never have left them! We are in strange territory, long deserted by our folk. None of our wards operate here, and no telling what is loose in these halls."

Frantically she snatched up Collum's tools, throwing them willynilly into the pack along with the harp and the cooking lamp. She slung the strap over one shoulder beside her own and grasped the pale girl's hand again.

"The sand is so dry and scattered, I cannot find a good print. The lamp's still half full. This could not have happened long ago at all. We heard nothing of struggle, but these twisting tunnels distort the sound."

Reaching into her sleeve pocket, she pulled out a dirk, slim and narrow shafted—more stiletto than dagger—with a hollow point. It gleamed in the light. Astonished, the upperlander drew back from it: ugly, poison-filled weapon. It reminded her of what the black bird had carried in its bill...Maruha paid no attention, only pulled her along hard behind.

"Hurry, child," the stout little woman urged. "Brandl and Collum are doubtless in jeopardy. I only pray we are not too late!"

Snarls and coughlike barking, the scratch of boots on sand and the grunt of men hard-pressed quickened Maruha's pace to a hurtling run. She dragged the pale girl after her down the wide white corridors. A jumping lampflame and shadows on the wall around a sharp turn in the tunnel made the duarough catch in her breath. Rounding the corner, she dropped the upperlander's hand.

The girl stumbled to a halt. They stood at the junction of several corridors. All looked old and unused, the masonry of the arches crumbling. She saw Collum and Brandl with their backs to a blank stretch of wall, cornered by the snapping, snarling creatures that crouched sinuously before them. Brandl had a shortsword, Collum a hollow dirk like the one Maruha held. Both men wore fingerlamps, holding them high for light and occasionally driving back their attackers with fire instead of blade.

The creatures that had cornered them were large and white with stubby legs: two before, two behind, with an extra pair at midbody. Their blunt snouts emitted a doglike coughing. Patches of black masked their fierce red eyes and tipped their long, thick, tapering tails. They traveled low to the ground, their bodies so long that they humped in the middle. Their gait was an odd, fluid undulation, deceptively agile.

There were nearly a dozen of them. The upperlander recoiled.

"Weaselhounds!" cried Maruha sofdy. "Part of the Witch's brood."

Flinging off her packs, she rushed forward and stung one of the creatures from behind widi her dirk. It turned like a whiplash to snap at her. Maruha stung it again across the muzzle. It shrank away, scratching its mask with long-nailed paws. The pale girl stood mesmerized, not daring to move.

Before her, too hard-pressed to look up, Collum and Brandl seemed not to have noticed Maruha yet.

One weaselhound leapt and caught hold of Brandl's sleeve. He brought his fingerlamp down on its skull with a crack. The white creature released its grip, but the impact had jarred loose the lamp. It fell to the floor and went out. One of the beasts seized it in its jaws and slung it away. Collum cursed.

He drove his hollow dirk into the neck of one of the animals as it lunged for his leg. The creature gave a yip and sprang back, shaking its head. Then it stumbled and sank. Two of its fellows dragged its still form out of their path and plunged again at the duarough men. The weaselhound Maruha had stung now lay still as well. She waded forward and pricked another on the ear.

"Maruha!" Collum looked up in startled disbelief. His joy quickly vanished. "It's no good—there are too many…"

"Save yourself!" Brandl shouted above the growling. "We'll hold them as long as we can—"

"I will not," Maruha flung back, kicking one of the weaselhounds in the ribs so that it turned and pricked itself upon her poisoned dagger. It sprang away with a yelp. Its fellows, aware of the duarough woman now, turned on her.

"Run, Maruha. It's hopeless!" cried Brandl.

He stumbled backward into Collum beneath the furious onslaught of two of the hounds. Collum lost his footing in the fallen masonry. As his arm struck the cave wall, his lamp, too, went out. All three of them gasped, as though expecting to be plunged into darkness, but the cool, steady light of the pearl now filled the chamber. The duaroughs looked up, and the weaselhounds turned suddenly, all of them, to stare.

The pale girl stood shaking. The Witch's creatures terrified her—yet they seemed arrested by her light. Unsteadily, she reached into her garment and drew out the pearl, so that its wan glow might shine more strongly. The pin behind her ear pricked warningly, but the red eyes of the weaselhounds frightened her more than the prospect of pain. The light, she realized, would hold them at bay.

As if sensing her defiance, the pin bit down viciously until she gasped—but she refused to return the jewel to its hiding place. Gritting her teeth, the upperlander held up the pearl. Circling, watching her every move, the Witch's beasts began to yip and howl. They cowered before the pearl's dim blue light. Maruha stabbed two with her poisoned dirk before they slunk snarling into the nearest of the tunnels. Collum and Brandl stood open mouthed. Though the pain intensified with every step, the girl forced herself to follow the weaselhounds, herding them.

Whining and snapping, the Witch's brood retreated farther down the hall. Drawing his pick, Collum sprang onto the pile of rubble that lay to one side of the tunnel's collapsing arch. Barely short of the entryway, the pale girl halted, panting with the effort of defying the pin and gazing after the snapping hounds that milled and paced just beyond the first intensity of the light. Collum struck the keystone of the arch.

"Get back, girl!" Brandl cried, rushing forward.

Above them, the arch collapsed with a roar. The upperlander clutched the pearl to her as Brandl shoved her clear. She lay on the hard ground a moment then, her head still one great throbbing ache.

Choking, the young duarough held his sleeve over his nose. Collum threw a handful of something into the air, and in a moment, the dust abruptly settled. From the other side of the rubble, the girl heard the weaselhounds gargling and digging. Bruised and shaken, she straightened. Brandl picked himself up, still staring at her.

"What is that light, that jewel she carries?"

Maruha shook her head. Collum was kneeling beside her, examining a wound on her wrist. The sleeve was bloody, torn. "It's nothing," she told him and pulled away. Then, to Brandl, "I know not. But it can be nothing Witch-made, that I vow, since her creatures shun it."

She knelt, rekindling fingerlamps, handing Brandl his harp and Collum his pack.

"Do you still say she must be one of the Witch's?" she demanded tartly. The bearded duarough flushed.

"I know not what she is," he answered at last. "But I know she has saved us this day."

Brandl put up his shortsword and stowed the harp. He glanced uneasily at the new-made wall. "That'll not last long against their claws."

Shaking, the upperlander put away the pearl. The pain in her head did not subside. Angrily, she stood. She was tired of this blankness of memory and the torment of the pin-tired of being terrorized and controlled! Who was she? How had she come here? She needed answers. Wincing, she ignored the pain and surveyed the scene around her.

The concussion of the tumbling arch had shaken loose other stones as well. The blank wall against which Collum and Brandl had made their stand was cracked now with a spiderweb of fissures. Near the ceiling, a slab of plaster had sheared away to reveal a great starburst carved into the stone. It occurred to the pale girl that most of this wall might be plaster, not stone at all.

"But which path?" Maruha was saying. "If weaselhounds are afoot, you can be sure all the paths hereabouts are overrun with them."

The girl moved nearer, drawn to the starburst. The pin throbbed ever more fiercely, but furiously she disregarded its signal to retreat. As she lifted one finger to touch the starburst, the fissure below it deepened, and a crumbling brick of dried clay fell with a thunk, leaving a hole in the wall. Darkness and emptiness lay beyond, and the scent of stale air. Collum was fishing for the map in his sark. Unfolding it, he and Maruha bent over it. The pale girl grimaced as the pin twisted down. Defiantly, she pulled another brick from the wall.

"This way leads on to other paths, as do these," the duarough woman murmured.

"They could lead to weaselhounds as well..."

With growing determination, the girl dug more bricks from the opening. The pain was nearly blinding now, but she kept on. Despite the heavy cost, she found that thwarting the pin brought her an immense satisfaction. Though it could still torture her, the Witch's weapon no longer possessed her will.

The wall's opening was now wide enough to admit the upperlander's head and shoulders. Leaning through, she felt a sudden peace washing over her, better than food or drink or rest. She halted, stunned as the pain behind her ear abruptly ceased. Before her, the pearl's light revealed a very broad, straight corridor stretching away into the distance. The walls were carved with figures of duaroughs and machines.

"Whatever path we take, let us take it quickly," Brandl, behind her, was urging.

Carefully, the pale girl glanced around. If she removed her head from the opening, she knew, the pain of the pin would return. His back to her, Brandl eyed the shifting rubble of the rockfall nervously. The growling of weaselhounds and the sound of their digging on the other side grew more vigorous. Collum bent over his fingerlamp, trimming the wick. Neither of them took any notice of the girl.

"No path is safe," Maruha told them, rattling the map one-handed in exasperation and nursing her wounded arm. "We must choose one and go."

Without another moment's hesitation, the upperlander turned from the duaroughs and crawled through the opening into the adjoining corridor. Here! she wanted to call. Here lay the path they must take. But the pin still prevented her from speaking—even if it could no longer cause her pain. The ceiling overhead rose beyond her reach. The carvings ran in a low, narrow band along either wall. The Shadow would never find her here. She was certain of it. Faintly behind her, she heard Brandl cry out.

"Where's the girl?"

Maruha gave a shout. Their voices sounded remote, like words whispered into a copper bowl.

Curses. The sound of busding.

"She was standing just there—" Brandl started, then: "Look!"

Exclamations. Murmuring. Silence.

"A false wall!" That was Maruha. "Boost me up, Collum, so I can see."

Scrabbling. The girl turned to glimpse the duarough woman staring at her through the hole. She smiled at Maruha, trying to show them by her expression what she could not put into words: what a miraculous place this was. Her serene feeling of contentment grew. They would all find what they were seeking here—or if not quite here, then somewhere very close at hand. Perhaps at the end of the corridor.

Maruha vanished. A frantic rattling of parchment.

"That's Ravenna's Path," Collum was exclaiming. "One of the pilgrims' roads to the City of Crystalglass! See, it's marked here on the map. It must have been walled off when the City was sealed."

"It's very wide and straight, with beautiful carving along the walls. The girl's in there," said Maruha.

"Let's follow her, then," Brandl hissed, "and seal it after us: quick! Before the 'hounds break through.

We can hide in there until they move on."

Scrabbling again. The youngest duarough wriggled through the hole and dropped to the ground with a breathless oof. He glanced at the girl, who smiled radiantly back. He stared a moment, obviously puzzled, then shook his head as if too pressed to wonder at it now. But she noted a trace of a smile beginning to tug at his own lips, as though he, too, were starting to feel the strange tranquillity of the pilgrims' road. Picking himself up and turning to stand on toes, he called cheerfully back to Maruha and Collum. "Pass me the bricks and the packs!" Smiling still, the pale girl turned away from him and wandered down the hall, aware of a gentle, inexorable tug pulling her on. A Call. Sweet, feerie euphoria continued to steal over her. She ran her fingers along the wall carvings: small, squat figures that were surely duaroughs, here and there taller figures like herself, and occasionally one very much taller than the rest—human-shaped, but strangely garbed.

They all meant nothing to her, but she felt sure now that all her questions would be answered if only she could discover the source of that which summoned her. Behind her, Collum had boosted Maruha through the crack and let her pull him up after. The two of them stood furiously shoving clay bricks back into place, while Brandl, grinning ecstatically himself now, exclaimed in wonder, holding his fingerlamp up before the frieze. The girl kept moving, farther and farther from the false wall and the duaroughs.

"No, wait. It's no good!" Brandl cried suddenly, his smile washing away. "The 'hounds will know we're in here—they'll follow our scent."

"Not if we confuse their senses," replied Maruha grimly.

Glancing back, the upperlander saw her drawing from her sark a glass ampoule. Brandl retreated swiftly. Kneeling on Collum's shoulders, Maruha shook the amber globe, then tossed it through the last brickhole. The girl glimpsed a phosphorescent flash. Coughing and shielding her nose with her sleeve, Maruha shoved the last brick into place and jumped down. Collum guided her after Brandl. Presently a stink like rotten toadstools drifted past. Uninterested, the pale girl turned away.

Come. The Call reached out to her down the broad corridor: Come.