I step onto a plank held by a large hoist arm with massive pulleys and thick rope, all attached to the base of the city. I know it’s made to support multiple trollis, but the way it sways with my weight makes my lungs seize. Steeling myself, I sit down for better balance, then slowly work the rope. It’s similar to how the lifts operate, but the pulleys must be oiled or more complex, because it takes less strength to operate them. Makes sense. I have a long way to go.
I expected the darkness and have a lamp with me. I expected the exertion, which doubles because I work quickly. But I hadn’t considered the temperature. The more I descend, the cooler the air becomes, until shivers of trepidation and cold merge into one, racking my body harder and harder as I drop. I hear the distant clicking of a tharker, a nonaggressive reptilian creature roughly the size of a man. Still I descend. A cool wind raises the skin across my shoulders and neck. I hear a croon of another beast, but I don’t search for it. I don’t try to scare it. I need it to find me. I need all of them to find me. After all, I’m the bait.
My sense of time fails me. I’ve been on this plank for both ten minutes and ten days. I hear the river long before I see its rapids in my lamp. When I touch the ground, I have to remind myself how to walk. I hear a rushing that swallows my thoughts, and it takes me several seconds to realize it’s the river; I’ve never seen a real river. Corpse-cold sprays of water tickle my legs. My own sour sweat sticks to my shirt. Chills twist my sinews and bend me like an old woman.
I turn the dial that feeds fuel to my lamp, until the light borders on blinding, creating a beacon. Its halo touches on a giant rib cage close to the canyon wall, half-crushed. Turning away, I shield my eyes from the light in an attempt to preserve my dark vision.
My spine aches. My stomach turns itself inside out. And I haven’t even used my fear yet.
I hear clicks, croaks, breaths. Come to me, I think. I need to draw them in. I need to tell them I’m here.
So I sing. I sing an old song, part of the old bard’s story that first told me of Cagmar and the oath that would see me in safely, a song of courage and promise. When I sing, my voice splits into a hundred echoes between the canyon walls, as though an entire chorus sings with me.
My love is true, my heart is yours
You deserve much more than I am
Four hundred suns, and I will come
A wealthy and affluent man
A canyon so deep, a canyon so wide
Monsters who feast upon flesh lurk inside
On his way to the glory of man
Crossing the bridge built by ten thousand hands
I feel the monsters coming. Their presence resonates under my skin, like worms in my food and breath on my neck. I sing the song again, taunting them, casting shadows by the light of my beacon.
They move slowly, stalking, glistening, hungry. I don’t recognize most of them, despite all Unach’s drilling.
Then, before they can attack, I reach out to them and push, push, push.
Fear floods the canyon, riding across the river and climbing up the stone. My skin rises in thousands of short peaks. My chest constricts. My lungs quit. But I keep pushing. I must reach all of them. I must horrify them. I must make them flee so far they will seek out the sun and the army that stands beneath it.
My heartbeats melt into one another. My bones rattle so violently I fall to my knees and hands. Hot streaks of urine coat my legs. The monsters howl and squall and bolt away. I push so hard, even the fighting ones turn back. Blood runs down my lips. Bile claws up my throat. But I follow them, pushing and stabbing, emitting as much fear as I can. I am their nightmare. I am their torment, their succubus.
They are my army. My monsters.
I push everything I have into them, until my heart arrests and muscles seize. Until I shatter into a million pieces, darkness rushes into every aperture and crevice, and the entire world snuffs out like one weeping candle.
Chapter 28
I dream of snow. It’s a strange thing to dream, because I’ve never seen snow. It’s one of those mythical story-time phenomena, just a fanciful thing to imagine.
The dream is reluctant to leave me as I wake, but consciousness wriggles through, eating away at it like moths. The first thing I feel is cold. The coldest I’ve ever been. Cold in my muscles, my bones. Even my eyes are cold, my lungs.
Then the pain. My heart hurts like it’s collapsed and someone has built steel girders in my chest to keep me from falling into its brokenness. My breathing hurts, a deep and unusual pain that slowly beats away my dream and stirs me to consciousness.
I’m abnormally tired, like I could sleep forever and it still wouldn’t be sufficient. Everything is dark, save for a dim, flickering light. I stare at its uneven lambency before recognizing it as a lamp. The rest of my unconsciousness falls away, and only then do I hear the angry river beside me. I can’t see the sky. I’ve always thought of the canyon as a great maw, and now its jaws have closed around me.
I roll to my side, a weak groan pressing my throat. Sleep. I just want to sleep.
Something thumps nearby. The cold penetrating me makes it hard to turn my head. Monster. I didn’t get them all. Of course I didn’t. And now this one will consume me.
I’m almost too tired to care. If I can just fall back into my dream . . .
Thump. Thump.
I dig an elbow into the cold, moist earth beneath me. Mud clings to my clothes, skin, and hair as I lift onto an elbow and peer north. Shadows coat everything, but as the monster nears, my glimmering lamp catches its edges. It isn’t the largest I’ve faced, but it’s larger than I am. Memories of fear stir in my belly, but they’re sleepy, too.
Then I notice its light. My sluggish mind can’t recount monsters that glow. But the footsteps approach, and the creature takes on a greenish hue and bright eyes. Lifts its lamp.
“I thought it was you,” it says. It sounds strangely like Unach.
My neck loses its strength, and I slip back into the muddy, blissful slumber.
When I wake again, I’m jerking up, up, up, on the waterworkers’ plank. I blink, waiting for my senses to connect.
“—came out in droves,” Unach is saying. She sounds like she’s on the other side of a wall of water. “All breeds and species, even the ones that hunt each other. Utter insanity. I knew something was wrong. I knew it had to be you.”
Ropes slide. Pulleys creak. Up, up, up.
She sighs. “I know you’re good. I know you’re useful. I know Azmar . . . loves . . . you, if he was willing to part with his stone. In truth, I thought he’d be a lifelong bachelor.”
Something new and sharp hurts under the persistent ache.
I force my eyelids open. Force myself to look where the lamp highlights Unach’s armor.
“If you were trollis, I would love you, too.” She’s so quiet. Maybe I heard wrong. “But you’re not, so I can’t. Either way . . .” Wind blows. No, that’s a sigh. “I can’t let you die. If you die, I’ll lose my brother completely.”
I try to respond. I don’t understand my own words. My voice hurts, deep and raw. I’m so tired.
The plank halts. The lamp lifts. Unach reaches toward me. I feel a slap on my cheek.
“Wake up, Lark,” she says.
But I’m gone.