Annihilation (36 page)

Still water rippled and tapped against the bone hull as the ship glided slowly across the surface of the lake. Other than that, nothing changed at first.

The walls are thin here
, Aliisza whispered into his consciousness.

They are
, he agreed.

The walls she referred to were the barriers between planes. In certain places and at certain times those barriers drew thinner
and thinner and often broke all together. The Lake of Shadows was very close to the Plane of Shadows. The barriers between the two planes were especially thin there.

It’s good that you’re starting slowly
, Aliisza sent.
It won’t take much before we slip into the Sha—

They were there.

It took even Pharaun, who’d had quite a bit of experience in planar travel, by surprise. As they passed from the Lake of Shadows onto the Shadow Fringe Pharaun saw what little color there was drain from the dimly lit cavern.

The movement of the ship was smooth but disturbingly random. The deck rose gently, then fell gently, then rose a little farther, then fell not as far, then rose the same amount, then fell less far. Pharaun couldn’t tell if, on aggregate, they were going up, down, or staying the same. Sometimes they slipped straight to one side or rolled gently to the other. His stomach rolled with the ship, and he felt increasingly nauseous.

Don’t ride it
, Aliisza advised.
Be it
.

Pharaun concentrated on the deck, on the palms of his hands pressing against the warm, living bone. He watched random memories from the devoured souls pass across his consciousness then looked deeper into the ship itself.

Though the vessel lived, it didn’t think. He felt it react to stimulus, riding the cool water of the lake into the freezing water of the Fringe. It knew it had crossed into the Plane of Shadow by feel but had no way to form the word “shadow.” The ship didn’t like the Shadow Fringe, it didn’t fear the Shadow Fringe, and it didn’t hate the Shadow Fringe. All it did was ride the water from one universe to the next at the command of the Master of Sorcere.

Pharaun’s stomach felt fine.

Valas had traveled the Shadow Fringe before and was not impressed. It was a world devoid of color and warmth—two things the scout had little appreciation for anyway. Every turn in the caverns of the real Underdark had a requisite turn in the Shadow, but distance and time was distorted there, less predictable, less tangible.

The scout had been hired to guide the expedition through the Underdark, but they had left the Underdark. They were in a realm more suited to the wizard, on their way to a world only a priestess could appreciate. The time for Valas Hune to step aside was at hand.

Among the trinkets and talismans that adorned his vest was a cameo made of deep green jade that he wore upside down. He looked around, making sure that none of the others were looking at him. They were all too busy standing in awe of the difference in the air and water, obsessed with the feel of the ship moving across the shadow-water, to notice him. Touching the cameo with one finger, the scout whispered a single word and closed his eyes while a wave of dizziness passed through him.

Having sent his message back to his superiors at Bregan D’aerthe—a simple message they would easily interpret along the lines of “I’m no longer needed here”—Valas let go of the cameo and joined the others in marveling at the sometimes subtle, sometimes extreme differences in the world around them.

Bregan D’aerthe would answer in their own time.

Danifae could barely contain herself. The feel of the deck rocking beneath her was thrilling. The draining of color from
the world around her was exhilarating. The thought that they were on their way, and that thus far everything she’d planned had come to fruition excited her. The presence of the draegloth next to her reassured her.

Danifae had never felt better in her life.

“The wizard will avenge him,” Jeggred grumbled in what sufficed for a whisper from the hulking half-demon.

“The wizard will do what is best for the wizard,” Danifae replied.

“I don’t know what you mean,” said the draegloth.

Danifae could hear the frustration in his voice.

“You don’t fear him,” she said. “I know that. Forget the wizard. He won’t put his own life at risk to defend Ryld Argith, who’s dead anyway and no longer of use to anyone. Even now, if he isn’t too busy piloting the ship, he’s coming to the realization that the weapons master had abandoned us all—including him—anyway, so to the Hells with him.”

“And to the Abyss with us,” the draegloth said, “at Pharaun’s mercy.”

“Pharaun has no more mercy than you and I, Jeggred,” said Danifae, “but he has his orders from his archmage and his own reasons for remaining with the expedition. If he puts anything at risk at any time in the Shadow Plane, the Astral, or the Abyss, he dies. Until then, I want you to leave him alone.”

“But—”

“No, Jeggred,” Danifae said, turning to face the draegloth and look him directly in the eyes. In the dull gloom of the Shadow Fringe, his eyes glowed an even more brilliant shade of crimson. “You will not touch him unless I tell you to, and even then only in the way I tell you to.”

“But Mistress …”

“Enough,” she said, her voice flat with finality.

There was a moment of silence intruded upon only by the creak of the rigging and the strangely echoing water splashing against the living bone of the ship of chaos.

“As you wish, Mistress,” the draegloth said finally.

Danifae forced herself not to smile.

You will grow accustomed to the motion after a time, Mistress
, Yngoth reassured her.
Eventually, you won’t notice it at all
.

The vipers could speak to her, directly into her mind, but Quenthel didn’t know they could sense what she was feeling. She hadn’t articulated, aloud or telepathically, how uncomfortable she was with the motion of the undulating deck.

It’s the water that’s pushing us up and down
, K’Sothra offered.

Quenthel ignored her, choosing instead to look out into the cold gloom of the Shadow Fringe.

“Care, all,” Pharaun said, his voice distant and echoing in the strange environment. “We’ll be crossing into the Shadow Deep. There are dangers there … creatures, intelligences … keep your arms and legs inside the rail at all times, please. Try not to make eye contact with anything we might pass. Be prepared for any manner of strange effects and all manner of strange creatures.”

Only a wizard
, Zinda hissed,
could offer such vague and meaningless warnings. Does he expect any of us to jump overboard in the Shadow Deep?

He’s right
, Yngoth argued.
The Shadow Deep hides many dangers
. “Hold onto something,” the Master of Sorcere advised.
Perhaps the draegloth could keep you from falling, Mistress
, Hsiv advised.

Quenthel’s lip curled in a sneer, and she flicked the offending snake under his chin. She looked over at the draegloth. Danifae’s
hand absently stroked his mane, and the draegloth stood very close to her.

Quenthel looked away, trying her best to rid her mind of the image. She kneeled on the deck and wrapped her arms around the bone and sinew rail. No sooner had she tightened her grip than the world—or the water—dropped out from under the ship.

They fell, and Quenthel’s stomach lurched up into her throat. Her jaw clenched, and all she could do was hold on, her body tense and ready for the inevitable deadly stop at the bottom of whatever they were falling into.

It took a terribly long time for that to happen. Finally Quenthel began to relax—at least a little—even though they were still falling and she continued to hold on to the rail for dear life. Quenthel gathered her wits enough to survey the rest of the expedition.

The ship’s deck was elongated and twisted, as if it had been pulled at either end by a strong but careless giant. Pharaun seemed twice as far away, Valas twice as close, and Danifae and Jeggred appeared to be hanging upside down. The draegloth held the battle-captive in one arm and the rail in the other.

All around them black shapes flitted in and around the rigging, up and under the hull, and between the falling dark elves. The air was ribboned with black and gray, and there was a dull roar like wind but not wind that all but deafened her. The flying black shapes were either bats or the shadows of bats. In the Shadow Deep, Quenthel knew, the shadows would be the more dangerous of the two.

We’re stopping
, Qorra said, and Quenthel knew it to be true.

The sensation of falling had wafted away. It wasn’t that they had slowed in their fall, and they certainly hadn’t hit bottom, they simply weren’t falling anymore.

“Sorry, all,” Pharaun apologized, his voice cheerful and bright.

“A bit of a rough transition, that one, but you’ll forgive my general inexperience with the whole piloting a ship of chaos thing, I’m sure.”

Quenthel didn’t forgive but also didn’t bother to say anything. The ship was perfectly still, as if it had come up on solid ground, and the high priestess risked a glance over the rail.

They hadn’t come to rest on the ground, she saw, but had stopped in midair above a rolling landscape of gray cluttered with vaguely translucent silhouettes of trees. The shadowy, batlike things still raced all around them.

“Oh, yes,” Pharaun added suddenly, “and don’t touch the bats.”

Quenthel sighed but never touched a shadow-bat.

Pharaun extended his senses out into the Shadow Deep, using the properties of the ship of chaos in a way that felt natural to one who had become part of the demonic vessel. He did it the same way he would have strained to hear some distant sound.

The Shadow Deep is not unlike your Underdark after all
, Aliisza said,
and like the Underdark it has its own rules
.

Pharaun nodded. He didn’t pretend to understand those rules in any but the simplest way. He’d always been smart enough not to linger in the Shadow Deep.

We won’t linger now
, Aliisza said.

She touched his shoulder, and Pharaun took a deep breath. He was reassured by her touch, and not only for her help navigating and piloting the ship. With Ryld dead, he was alone with a group of drow who’d be as happy to see him dead as not. The alu-fiend might be more enemy than friend, but still Pharaun couldn’t help thinking she was the only one he could trust.