The line of warriors moved to single file then, as they found themselves inching out onto a narrow ledge. The story came to an abrupt end as they became too strung out. Wouldn’t have mattered; Brin couldn’t have concentrated on the story anymore. They had their backs to a sheer cliff as they shuffled sideways. In front of them, the world dropped away into darkness. Across the narrow split, the far wall of the canyon could barely be seen. Brin heard a zzrrupt! sound and saw movement as if a bird had taken flight. Her mouth dropped open when she realized what it was.
Twelve ropes were stretched across the chasm. The far side was lower than the near side. As she watched, Herkimer tied his spear on his body. Then he laid a leather strap over the next available line and wrapped both ends around his fists.
He’s not going to—
Before she finished the thought, Herkimer jumped off the ledge and dangled from that tiny strap, his feet kicking out in front of him. The Dureyan slid as fast as a diving hawk across the gap between the two cliff walls.
“Oh Grand Mother of All!” Brin declared.
“Not as scary as it looks,” Beatrice called back as she stepped up and without a second’s hesitation, she followed Herkimer’s example.
Zzrrupt!
“I can’t do that,” Tressa said.
“Have to,” a dwarf at one of the ropes’ anchor points said while waving her over. “Only way across.”
“Why isn’t there a bridge?” Moya asked, sounding less than pleased as well.
The dwarf pointed up. “Queen’s forces would spot it—smash it. You’re lucky. They’re usually dropping rocks on us at this point. Guess they haven’t seen us yet.”
A dwarf stationed at a different line handed Moya a strap. She looked with wide eyes at Brin and shrugged. “Can’t die when you’re already dead, right?”
“Falling into the Abyss is worse than dying,” the dwarf said.
“Oh, shut up, will you?” Moya snarled. Then, mimicking the others, she shoved off.
Zzrrupt!
Brin held her breath as Moya rapidly diminished in size.
“Here.” The dwarf handed Brin a strap. She took it mindlessly. The thing was about three feet long, no more than an inch in width, and as thick as a belt.
“Like this?” she asked as she dropped it over the line. “How many times do I wrap it around my hands?”
The dwarf looked at her, irritated. “What hands? Now go, you’re holding up the line.”
Brin scowled. “You know, I’ve never really liked dwarfs.”
“What’s a dwarf? Never mind. Go!” he shouted.
At least he didn’t shove her. Thinking he might, Brin summoned the courage to jump.
To her surprise, the trip was incredibly easy. She expected to dangle helplessly, stretched by the weight of her body, but she found she hardly weighed a thing. Her arms never even extended as she zipped down the rope with ease. And then she was there, the trip over in a flash.
“Told you,” Beatrice said. “Easier than it looks. Of course, I think you’ll find that in here—for you—most things will be.”
From what Tesh saw, none of the realms of Nifrel were pretty or pleasant. Not the sort of place anyone would choose to be. In that respect, it had the odd virtue of feeling like home. Nifrel and Dureya were surprisingly alike: dreary, dismal, barren, filled with disagreeable people, and in a constant state of warfare. And like Dureya, some parts were nicer than others. The hole they dropped him in was by far the least pleasant place he’d been.
It really was just a hole: two stories deep, with sheer sides of damp stone and a puddle of something at the bottom. Not water, the liquid was something else—something slick, thick, and oily. It glowed a bit. Not much, but the bottom of the hole generated a faint blue light, which was good because otherwise Tesh would have been trapped in total darkness since the top of the hole had been sealed shut by a rock.
No ladder or rope for him—just a good solid shove. He bounced off one wall and crumpled at the bottom. He didn’t have a body to bruise, but it hurt anyway, just as falling on stone should. That might be part of it; things happened in Nifrel as he expected. This led Tesh to wonder if what he felt was real or merely what he imagined. Perhaps he anticipated pain, believed in it, and that belief became his reality. A lot of times nightmares worked the same way. When he was running from something, he would think how awful it would be if the door ahead were bolted closed. The moment he pulled on it, he knew it would be true, and sure enough, it was. That was Nifrel in a nutshell, and he imagined that’s what Fenelyus had been trying to explain.
Then a new thought arose. What if it wasn’t merely Nifrel or Phyre? What if it was the spirit? When the soul suffered pain, whether in Elan or Phyre, it translated it into familiar, understandable terms. As Brin entered that loathsome mud puddle in the Swamp of Ith—when he watched her die—he’d felt a pain in his chest and stomach like swords gutting him. Such wounds had nothing to do with the flesh, but that was how his spirit understood the pain, and it was his soul that had been wounded. Here in Nifrel, he didn’t breathe, but he felt short of breath while trembling at the bottom of that greasy black pit where only the glow of the liquid allowed him to see.
Maybe the mind and the spirit were linked in ways the body couldn’t share. If what he thought became real, how was that different from what Suri could do with the Art?
He shuffled to get his feet underneath his body.
The pit was narrow. He could touch both sides at once. Lengthwise, it was wider, and, stretching out, his hand touched a shoulder.
I’m not alone!
Through the gloom, Tesh could see that his cellmate was bald, and he had bushy brows, a craggy nose, and a beard that was braided like rope—a dwarf certainly, and none too attractive. He sat with knees up, his arms hugging them. Wide-set, deep-sunk eyes watched Tesh with alarmed intensity as if Tesh were a fanged monster. The dwarf didn’t move. He sat still as stone, easy enough when breathing wasn’t a requirement, which was why Tesh hadn’t noticed him sooner. Even his eyes didn’t move.
They watched each other for a long while. Tesh had no idea how long.
“Who are you?” the dwarf finally said, his voice the sound of rough rocks rubbed together.
“Tesh of Clan Dureya.” For some reason, pointing out his clan felt important even though his people had died years ago.
Start a family. Raise children. Live a good and happy life—someplace safe and pretty. At the time Raithe had said those words, they meant nothing. Years later, when Tesh was fighting in the Harwood, little had changed. Sitting in that hole beside the ugly dwarf, they were everything.
“What’d you do?” the dwarf asked.
“What do you mean?”
The bearded knee-hugger cast a quick glance toward the top of the hole. “To get tossed down ’ere.”
Tesh considered this. He was there because the queen didn’t believe him about Tressa; because he followed the woman he loved into a muddy pool; because he was born Dureyan. “Nothing,” Tesh said.
“Aye, me, too.” The dwarf nodded with a contrived grin. “Nothing at all.” He tightened his grip on his legs as if trying to squeeze himself as far away from Tesh as possible. The dwarf watched Tesh through surreptitious peeks from the corners of his eyes.