Whyborne
Griffin finished his tale as Iskander bound Christine’s wound. I sat with my back against the corridor wall, hands dangling loosely between my knees. “So I was correct in my guess,” I said. “This Mother of Shadows can communicate with you telepathically because of what happened in Chicago and Egypt. Is that right?”
Griffin shrugged. He watched Iskander help Christine back into her layers of clothing, rather than look at me. “Such was my impression.”
“The Lapidem is probably the key.” Griffin had returned my poor abused scarf to me, and I wrapped it around my neck again with a silent thanks to Miss Parkhurst. “It had already created a conduit between you and an umbra. Some imprint of that connection must remain on your mind.”
“I suppose.” His tone was flat, the words clipped, and he still didn’t look at me.
“What are we to do?” Christine asked.
“Run for the exit?” Jack suggested hopefully.
Iskander shook his head. “I can’t imagine the umbrae will simply let us leave.”
“And Whyborne’s trapped here anyway.” Christine struggled to her feet, leaning heavily on Iskander.
“What?” Griffin finally turned to me, his eyes wide.
Curse it. “My ketoi blood has proved a bit of a problem.” I explained what happened to us, and my own conjectures.
“Why didn’t the Mother of Shadows just speak to you instead of Griffin?” Jack asked when I finished.
“I’m not certain. Possibly because I strengthened my mental barriers, to keep out the dweller in the deeps.” My knees creaked as I levered myself up. “Still, she might not be able to talk to me even if I lowered my defenses.”
“Don’t,” Griffin said.
“I assure you, I have no intention of doing so.” I looked at the wan faces around me. “Christine’s question remains—what are we to do now?”
“I doubt we’ll be left much in the way of choice.” Griffin’s mouth tightened into a grim line. “The Mother of Shadows wants to see us face-to-face, as it were.”
“Then let’s go,” Christine said. “We’ve already wasted enough time. Turner could be halfway back to Hoarfrost by now.”
I looked at Jack uneasily. He’d saved Griffin from being shot by the guard, and he’d accompanied Griffin and Iskander on this rescue mission, but I didn’t trust him for an instant.
Umbrae waited for us in the room beyond, their black bodies glistening slick and oily in the lantern light. Workers clustered in the corners, and soldiers blocked every entrance save for the one going deeper into the mountain. No doubt the Mother of Shadows watched us through their eyes.
I glanced down at Griffin. His face was set, but the corners of his mouth had gone white. I couldn’t imagine the courage it took him to come here, to the stygian depths haunted by the very creatures that had destroyed his life with the Pinkertons and left him burdened by memories that woke him screaming in the night.
And he’d done it for me. Well, for Christine also—Griffin would never leave a friend behind. But I knew without asking he’d thought of me to shore up his courage, as I had thought of him. I wanted to tell him how brave he was, wanted to show him how much I loved him.
“Thank you for coming for us,” I said, too quietly for anyone else to hear. “I know it can’t have been easy. Isn’t easy.”
“Of course I came.” His hand brushed against mine. “You had to know I would.”
I hooked my smallest finger with his. Jack walked behind us, but I didn’t give a damn what he thought.
We passed through what seemed an endless series of ramps and rooms, herded continuously deeper by the umbrae. Eventually, the rooms let out into an enormous chamber, large as a cathedral. Columns marched down the center of the huge space and stretched to a distant ceiling lost to the reach of our lanterns. The ubiquitous murals covered every inch of column, every expanse of wall. Unlike the rest of the city we’d seen, the reliefs here had bits of inlaid mica or small gems, forming the eyes of the animals or adding a flourish to the decorative arabesques. The entire room glittered as a result, as though we stood beneath the night sky, or amidst a host of stars.
Workers swarmed everywhere, gliding up columns and along walls, withdrawing from our lights. Beyond them, in the shadows where our small lanterns couldn’t reach, something stirred.
There came the sound of a soft-bodied creature slithering against the stone. A huge feeler, as thick around as my body, wrapped about one of the columns. Coils of something long and black seethed and slid, blending into the shadows. For a moment, my mind couldn’t make any sense of what I was seeing. Then a single, huge eye opened high above us, peering down from near the ceiling.
Dear God. Mother of Shadows indeed.
She was a titan, the coils of her body vanishing into darkness. Her form reminded me again of some colossal Chinese dragon, bewhiskered and serpentine. Or perhaps the dragons recalled some fragmented memory of her kind. Did a great city like this one lurk in the far wastes of Asia, amidst the desolation of the deserts or the wildness of the mountains? Rumor claimed the plateau of Leng lay somewhere in Asia, perhaps in Tibet.
“Fuck me,” Jack whispered, his voice stripped with terror.
Griffin stiffened, and his hand fell away from mine. Knowing this must be horrifying to him, I turned to him, reaching out—
But it wasn’t Griffin who stared back at me through his eyes.