Illusion (27 page)

She reversed, tried not to think about how the tunnel squeezed her like a coffin. If her feet hit a barrier she’d fall apart, couldn’t stand the idea of suffocating under all that stone. She struggled to keep her perspective, to keep out the reaches of the darkness prodding on the edge of memory. Dried, emaciated bodies, covered in their tattered linen shrouds rose in her mind—gold and blue sarcophagi and ritual chanting. She shoved the images away and focused on her breathing.

In. Out. In. Out.
Eyes closed, she imagined Balkaith’s coastline when she first arrived. The rock and grit beneath her fingers became Resh’s hot body, and the ripe smell of damp earth his herbal elixirs and spells.

Her feet found empty space and she groaned in relief at the rush of fresh air. A strange noise, a mix between a grunt and strangled rattle crept out of her throat. Her legs, hips, then torso, wriggled free. She fell to the floor of the alcove in semidark surroundings. Once her eyes adjusted she realized she was back where the Khereb had attacked such a short time ago. Alexandr’s staff lay against the wall, still releasing a faint light. Tears she didn’t know she’d been shedding wet the front of her T-shirt.

She knew what freedom tasted like. It was the bittersweet knowledge she wasn’t stuck in a tunnel, but would die in a four-foot hollow instead.

Most of the cavity recess had caved in, burying the place where the warlocks had slept. Two lonely sleeping bags, her leather backpack, and the staff were all that waited for her in the crypt-like chamber.

Okay. She’d been in worse situations than this. Her heart thumped in her chest and those damn tears still wouldn’t stop falling. Who was she kidding?

Maya leaned over the hole she’d come from.
Come to me.
The knife spun out of darkness and hit her waiting hand with a bounce.

Before the ceiling caved in, she’d just reacted without thinking, throwing the knife in denial of the Khereb. She must have created an energy shield around herself when the roof fell in. She wanted to scream at someone, but there was only herself to blame.

She sat back on her haunches and tried to think. She patted down her body, realizing that apart from some cuts and bruises she was unharmed. The tattoos on her arm itched, letting her know Resh was close. He must have made it through the cave-in. There was some courage to be gained from that. If so, he’d be away from the primary cave, in one of the smaller network of tunnels to the northeast, maybe close to that barricade inside the hollow tube. She tried hard not to think about how tight it was inside.

Could she dig her way through that barricade, yell for help? One thing she could count on was the djinni doing a big fat zero to help.

She’d have to find her own way out of this one. The others wouldn’t know where to find her and couldn’t teleport even if they knew. If she could get to the barrier and push through, she might be close enough for Esmonda to pick up her thoughts, or for the others to dig her out.

Something creaked ominously and shale fell from the roof, coating her in black dust. The tunnel she’d just crawled from rumbled.

It was a long shot, but she couldn’t just stay here and wait to die. She sniffed the air. Inside the tunnel she hadn’t smelled the Khereb, but out here the scent of sulfur and rotting flesh clawed at her throat. The light from the staff flickered and dark shadows crept up the walls, stretching and expanding. She found herself muttering.

It will be a slow death. The oxygen will run out first.

Maya crouched down and looked into the tunnel, feeling something inside her shift like the gears on her old bike. The world narrowed and flattened as if she saw the grotto with all its rough, wet walls in the pages of a book. Her hands and feet tingled, and her skin tightened.

Call the Khereb. Nothing is worse than sitting here alone, surely?
Who was that? It wasn’t her voice. Surely the djinni wouldn’t torment her when she was so low?

It was a male. A low tone with aristocratic syllables. Her father.

She closed her eyes and the world went red behind her closed lids and she opened them quickly. Her ears rang as she tossed the backpack and sleeping bags into the tunnel, scraping her knuckles on the jagged stone. She angled the knife into the hole to reveal a few feet of the small channel—just enough of a visual to remind her how bad it had been the first time.

The blade hummed slightly in her hand, a low, bell-like tone. The walls moved and the ceiling swung in front of her eyes. She cried out and lowered herself to her stomach.

Nausea rose in a terrifying wave as reality shifted. When she forced her eyes open, the cave had disappeared. She was floating in darkness and a small figure lay on a dark floor way below.

She evened out her breathing, tried to stop the full-body panic attack. “Stop it. Get back into your body.” Her voice didn’t sound like herself. It was husky and terrified.

The figure below twisted, and slanted yellow eyes stared back up at her. The replica shoved herself into a crawling position.

A deep thrumming pulse and a discordant perspective of two points of view crowded Maya’s mind. Both were semitransparent and folded on top of one another. She saw through her double’s eyes, and with her own. Her voice mumbled away, a tedious droning sound in the background.

Her Second crawled into the tunnel and left Maya floating in stygian darkness.

She’d separated from her body and her mind wasn’t rational enough to get her back.

*

Resh continued grinding unfired clay and wax with a tree root in a shallow bowl. A burst of magic and a taut scream pulled his attention to the corner.

“Go gently.” Esmonda’s mouth was ringed in white as Alexandr cast a spell into her spine. Apart from her grunts of pain, the silence was charged in the lower branch tunnel.

Alexandr sat back on his heels, a troubled expression on his face. “It’s as good as I can get it. Anything else requires regeneration.”

“It will do.” She shrugged and rocked her shoulders on the makeshift cot.

Resh stared down at his unsteady hand, the skin ripped and encrusted with grime. He scraped blood and bits of what he hoped was Maya’s skin from under his nails into the formula, ignoring the quick bite of pain as he sliced too hard into his cuticle with the point of the blade. Hair would work better but he didn’t have time to search for remnants. The mountain wouldn’t enable anything more powerful anyway. A simple evocation spell would have to do. He clenched his fist and hurled all his fear into an evocation, allowing his blood to fall in a circle around his body.

“Molokh,
expergiscor et omnivolus
…”

“Don’t be a fool.” Esmonda had pushed into a standing position and staggered over to him. She grasped his bloody fist in both hands and cupped the trickle before the last drops fell to the earth and closed the circle. “I know where she is.”

*

Maya placed her hand on the rock fall and carved a wedged cuneiform into the surface with the
kila
. A fine misty rain dripped in the tunnel, dampening her hair. The rocks shuddered as she hurled energy into the wall. Loose grit fell from the ceiling and a rush of energy bolted up her spine and into her hand, spreading a white glow over the knife. Red smoke wound from the tip and the rock turned lava hot, burning her face. She pressed her face into dirt and rock, screwing her nose up at the acrid smell of scorched hair.

Fresh air wafted across the top of her skull and she lifted her head to see Resh covered in rock and debris. Dirt and blood had dried in the vicious lines on his face. He reached in and dragged her through the hole.

Dark eyed, he stared at her, while the vibrating thumps from the Khereb became increasingly violent.

He seized her with hard hands and squeezed her against his chest before patting her down as if checking if she was in one piece.

She pushed back and he bent low to look into her face. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

Maya scrunched her eyes tight while the thumps increased in volume and dirt and stones spilled from the roof.

“Something’s wrong with her,” said Esmonda, head turned to the side in consideration. “She has no smell, just like porcelain or dust.”

“What’s wrong?” Resh said, shaking her slightly. “What happened?”

There was a rattle of rock falling and a small woman emerged from the tunnel. He reached forward reflexively to push Maya behind him. Both women’s eyes were completely black and his hand fell through her incorporeal image—a specter of shape and sound—an illusion.

A strange emotion filled the cavern. It was not quite relief, nor dread, but something in between. Resh stared down at the two women, perfect reflections of one another, his grip tight on his sword.

One of the replicas smiled, an expression that lasted for a split second, but it raised the hair on his arms.

An unremitting garble in the old tongue spilled off their tongues, slightly offbeat.

“Honey-colored children burning on funeral pyres, boiling in milk, while masked sorcerers rape women and children, and blood runs in scarlet ribbons down cobbled streets. Run, run, you can’t hide. I am She who takes life.”

The two women flickered and buzzed as if charged with an unstable electrical current. They stepped forward, their bodies shadowed and blurred around the edges, their images flat and single-dimensioned and strangely carbonized—almost colorless. The figures blended, their outer edges disappearing like negative space. Maya’s form toned in contrasting colors and she shuddered, became a single person again.

Her bracelet rattled around her wrist as she clapped her hand over her mouth, bent over, and vomited all over Esmonda’s leather boots.

“Ass of an angel,” Esmonda said, retreating rapidly. It broke the frozen silence.

Alexandr’s expression was shocked. He busied himself by calling back his staff and the surviving supplies from the tunnel.

Resh tilted Maya’s chin and stared into her now yellow eyes, then tucked her head under his chin, held her tight as if he could protect her from herself. With a sudden shift, he realized this small woman was far more than a misplaced human with exceptional talents.

She was the woman he’d never thought to meet, his partner in all things. More precious than his own life—except she was aberrant, carried a djinni. Her face was sheet white, the skin waxy and covered in perspiration with dark rings around her catlike eyes. Her skin was stretched so taut the fine bones showed beneath.

But there was no time to rest, to examine the strange being that had stormed into his life. The others looked at him in fear, undoubtedly wondering what he’d committed them to. He handed her a water flask and she drank deep before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and returning it.

She nodded. “Let’s keep moving. The Khereb are close to breaking through.”

Resh extended his senses toward her, but she reeled back.

“Don’t shut me out.” He wanted to roar in pain, but he forced an even tone.

She responded to his concern by picking up her backpack and slinging it over one skinny shoulder.

“I’m fine. Keep out of my head until you’re invited in,” she responded in a reedy voice.

Alexandr flung a spell at the tumbled wall of stone. Oily flames rose to the ceiling and filled the cavern with smokeless heat. Rocks dropped with a roar, sealing the exit. He shoved a backpack into Esmonda’s hand and nodded to the enveloping darkness.

Resh searched Maya’s face. “Did you know you could do that?” It seemed inadequate, but he couldn’t think of what else to say.

“Yeah right. Splitting in two is a party trick I pull when I’m bored.”

Shadows formed on her face, dancing across her cheekbones like the fingers of a phantasm. She turned on unsteady feet and stumbled into the narrow tunnel.

They’d lost access to the primary caves, would have to travel through the smaller tunnel until it connected with the Chasm of Light.

He wouldn’t rest until they reached Tau.

Would even the witches take her in once they realized what she was?

* * * *

“The Khereb track us across the mountain range,” Esmonda said, in a too-loud voice. “This one is calling them.”

Maya had no doubt whom “this one” referred to.

“She’s demonic—evoking energy from Eodolon.” The words echoed, bounced back to assault Maya’s ears.

They walked single file down a narrow tunnel. Resh first, carrying the staff, followed by Esmonda and Maya, while Alexandr held the rear guard. The yellow light cast long shadows on the cave walls.

Maya had been holding her breath and exhaled sharply. “I’m right here, you know. I can hear everything you say.” Eodolon. Resh had told her it was the paired tree of each realm of existence. Resh had told her it was extremely dangerous, that no one visited there.

Esmonda’s comment jolted her memory. Back in the cave, the world had blurred and lost energy. Her body had prickled from head to toe. A slow, steady stream of amber smoke had seeped from her skin, drifted away. The radiance had rippled out and formed the shape of her double, misty at first, then more distinct with each passing second. Esmonda was right. She was a foul being—should never have been born.

If she returned to Earth, she’d spend her life hiding from the authorities. Earth’s
Conjurare
already knew she could draw power. If so, she’d never be able to roam Earth as a free agent. Magical and mundane law enforcement would fight over jurisdiction, seclude or imprison her while they dug around in her brain and tried to find some node that normal people didn’t have. No wonder the House of Horus had tried to pull her off the streets. Oxyhiayal had said her painting in Jhara’s safe had tipped them off. Worse, if she was exposed as Molokh’s daughter to the conservative religious groups, she’d end up disemboweled, carved up in little pieces, and buried at a crossroad.

She’d never be able to go home. The idea didn’t bother her as much as she thought it would.

She’d always dissociated, but this was taking things further than she’d dreamed possible. She touched the hilt of her knife for reassurance. Her first instinct was to deny the possibility. A laugh caught in her throat and she masked it with a cough. Resh glanced back at her. It was too late for pretense; the look on his face proved her latest escapade really worried him.