Tallah

Sleeping with a belly full of tonic and blood still wild with adrenaline would be a challenge, Sil knew. She insisted on it regardless. Yes, they were now on the threshold of their destination, but she wouldn’t have them facing whatever new buggering to come without fresh energy and a clear head.

Tallah succumbed to slumber last. She’d wanted first watch but Sil would have none of it. She’d had to promise she’d wake her, but woke Vergil instead.

“Wasn’t it Tallah’s turn?” he asked, rising bleary-eyed.

Sil tied back her hair just to get it off her sticky shoulders. If anything, it had gotten warmer once out of the labyrinth. Sweat dripped down her neck and back. Pacing around the tight corridor while the others slept, and jumping at every sound from beyond the door had her drenched.

“Don’t wake Tallah unless you’re about to be eaten by something. She needs sleep. Don’t wake Ludwig for the next watch either.” She regarded the old man’s sleeping form and scrunched up her nose. “I don’t trust him not to wander away now that we’re here.”

That made Vergil sit up straighter as he shook sleep out of his eyes.

“Got it. Sleep well.” A hint of pride entered his voice.

He sat by the backpacks, fishing some dried meat from one. The boy could eat at any time, anywhere, in and out of danger. Good. He’d fill up nicely by next Summer if this trip didn’t kill them all. When exactly had he started eating meat, though? Didn’t matter. It was good that he did.

Her pack of herbs and vials made for a suitable, lumpy but fragrant pillow. Sleep overcame her as she ran a mental inventory of the draughts in store and what she could with only the supplies on hand. She drifted off while running the formula for aerum through her mental checklist.

And woke with a kick to the rear.

“You were supposed to wake me,” Tallah’s voice complained above her.

“You’ll pay for that one,” Sil groaned, wanting nothing more than to turn over and get in some more shuteye. Shifting on the rough stone sent pangs of stiff agony across her ribs. “Go away.”

“Get up. There’s coffee.”

Through the haze of a blooming headache and the many creaks, pops, and general unpleasantness of sleeping on naked rock, Sil smelled it. It drew her up to a sitting position. Tallah handed over a metal mug, steam curling over its lip.

“Who brought coffee?” Sil inhaled the sweet aroma. There was sugar in there. A lot of it.

“Vergil, if you’ll believe it.”

That woke her fully. She dimly recalled Mertle handing him a bundle of something, but in the rush of that night it had slipped her mind entirely. She offered a silent prayer to the Goddess for Mertle’s safety and good health, and ignored the pang of guilt that it brought.

“How long have I been out?” she asked. A sip of the wondrous brew cleared her head. Her calves and the soles of her feet throbbed dully in protest to the abuse endured over the march.

“Who can say? You were supposed to wake me, not the boy. Bianca says seven bells.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point.” Tallah scowled at her.

Sil grinned, sipped coffee, and went on before the sorceress rallied for more complaining, “You’re welcome then. Haven’t seen you sleep like that since you made peace with the second one.”

Tallah drained her mug and handed it to Vergil for cleaning.

“When your soul’s not being dragged out through your eyeballs, sleep tends to be better. Place is shielded somehow.”

Sil accepted the offered hand and finally drew herself up.

“Are you sure?”

A seed of optimism took root through the weariness. They’d chased after hope like this before. It never ended well.

Tallah cupped a hand under her mug and pushed it slightly up. “Don’t waste it. Who knows when we’ll get more?”

“Are you sure?” Sil asked again, unmindful of her drink. “There’s no draw. You’re safe?” Realisation hit a moment later and she pressed a hand to her mouth and looked around.

“Old man’s gone ahead a bit. Coffee’s made him giddy. And yes, we’re sure. Both Christi and Bianca confirm it.”

“So this won’t be a waste of time. We need to find whatever shields you. We need to get it.”

Tallah gave her a patient smile and gestured for calm. “We’ll see. May just be the place itself. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” She gave Vergil’s helmet a meaningful side glance. “We’ve been down that road.”

Sil downed her coffee, switched her vials out, and ate a sparse breakfast of hard cheese and salted meat, wet with a drop of wine. Her stomach wouldn’t allow for anything more. Ludwig didn’t return for a long time. When he did there were tears in his eyes.

“Couldn’t resist a glance?” Tallah asked.

The old man didn’t reply. He hoisted his bag, slung it over bony shoulders, and waited at a distance for the others to finish their preparations. His reluctant silence unnerved her, but she’d seen the looks he threw Tallah’s way. Absolute and unadulterated terror. She couldn’t blame him, all too aware of the thing buzzing in rage within her friend’s rend.

The tunnel out was longer than the one that had led them in. Part of her was excited to see the end of it, to finally reach this place for which they’d risked a ghastly death. Yet she also struggled with renewed hope for a choice in how to deal with Tallah’s condition, one that wouldn’t require blood sacrifices and endless hunts.

“Ladies, and Vergil, welcome to Grefe,” Ludwig said as they passed the threshold, his gloom replaced by theatrics.

Torchlight had become such a constant companion that emerging into bright, colourful light felt profoundly disorientating. The final set of ornate doors led them into a vast cavern. A wide bridge connected their egress to a crystal spire far in the distance. Light streamed down through gaps in the high ceiling, pooled in the great structure ahead, and reflected away to illuminate… well, indeed, a city.

“No vague rocks here,” Sil whispered. She was first to step out onto the bridge, caution stolen away by the sight.

So much to take in at once. The bridge first, ornate with statues, pristine in its ancient glory. The spires of reflected, broken light that hid the far edifices in a blinding haze of rainbow-coloured majesty. And the impossible city beyond, clustered on the far walls, shining like a dragon’s horde of jewels across the great ravine.

Now she was thinking in faer stories too and chided herself for it.

“Unless that labyrinth did some clever thing with reality, I don’t think we’re supposed to be close to the surface,” Tallah said from the side. She eyed the light from above, her torch still uselessly lit.

Ludwig couldn’t answer. His bluster from a moment before had vanished and he knelt by an ornate statue, weeping with hands covering his face. Vergil tried to go to him but Tallah dragged him away.

“Leave him be,” she whispered.

“Why are angels here?” Vergil asked. He dug his heels in and shrugged off Tallah’s grip. His gaze lingered on the first statue they passed. “That one there. I think I saw some in the labyrinth too.”

Tallah released him and looked up as well. The statues were all different people, repeating in sequence. Sil had spied the same strange winged beings from the labyrinth, dwarves further on, aelir, and what she could only assume was an elend depiction. Vergil had given an alien name for the winged ones.

“What are angels?” She left Ludwig to his own mix of emotions and joined Tallah and the boy.

Where the heads in the labyrinth had been smashed, here they retained their old glory. Human features stared out in marble blindness across the bottomless gap, and a corolla of eagle-like wings sprouted from their backs, aimed at a far distant sky. They were all naked and showed quite human anatomy. Apart from the legs, which were double-kneed and ended in avian-like four-toed feet, complete with talons gripping the rock.

“Looks like a harpy to me,” Tallah said, studying the figure.

“Harpies don’t have arms,” Sil put in. “And this doesn’t look like it’d lay eggs. Did you have beings like this on the Gloria?”

Vergil spluttered now that both their attentions were focused on him. Sil already knew he’d raise more questions than he’d answer.

“No. They’re not real. I mean, they weren’t real. Just… religious stuff. Like... Uh. Like...”

Tallah stared at the statue, then back at him with the intensity of a hunting corallin. “What do you mean by religious stuff?”

“Some people were worshippers. Not only on the Gloria. On all ships. One of my A.R.E. friends always stopped to pray at set times.” He gestured up at the statue, seemingly trying to recall something from memory. “Angels were the servants of god. Demons were their enemies.”

“Which god?”

“Just… god?” he said and shrugged. “I wasn’t brought up in any faith. Does being Argia’s thrall count?”

“Were they real? Angels I mean?”

“Not as far as I know. We had a lot of fantasy beings. Angels. Demons. Dragons. Fairies. Whales. Uh, genies? I could name more if I still had access to the database.”

“Dragons are real,” Sil said. “So are daemons. Maybe we’re not talking about the same creatures.”

“Dragons are real? Giant, winged lizard? Breathes fire?” Vergil grinned maniacally and came so close to Sil that she had to draw a step back.

“Pretty much. I think I mentioned them before?”

“Here be dragons,” Vergil muttered. A far away, mouth agape look covered his face.

“Hopefully not,” Tallah groaned. “Bastard of a time fighting one off. Stumble across it roosting and you’d need seven baths in tomato puree and vinegar before it lost your scent.” She shuddered appreciatively. “The stink of it. The rash—”

“You fought a dragon?”

“Ran from one. You can’t fight a dragon. Better chances to stop a volcano.”

Each statue further on represented a different being, but the pattern repeated. Angel, dwarf, aelir, elend. The elend statues were shown as tall as the aelir, and much more muscled than any elend Sil had ever seen. A true-blood aelir would balk at the very idea of an elend statue, and get murderous at the equal height and nobility.

Who these people had been, to be immortalised like this, she could only wonder. No humans though.

Ludwig joined them at a trot about halfway across.

“I apologise,” he said. “I still feel as if I might wake up in Valen and none of this would be real.”

“I’d be furious if it weren’t.” Tallah strode forward. “Even as a figment of your imagination, I’d still be angry.”

More of the city resolved through the haze. Sheets of it thin mist drifted lazily over the bridge. Not mist at all Sil realised as a passing waft of sulphur and brimstone crossed her nose. Smoke. Nothing burned that she could see. It rose from the very bottom of the chasm Was there some lava river down there? It would explain the warmth.

“It’s safe to breathe in,” Ludwig assured them when Tallah hesitated. “We did. And I still live.”

“Debatable.”