he replied, and made no other comment, even when she began hinting that one ought to be forthcoming.
Rose was blooming in the east by the time they scaled the last of the stairs and stood on the moss and low ferns on the flat summit of the tabletop. It was quiet, dreamlike, and everything suddenly seemed turned around and impossible. What was she doing here, chasing this fantasy? Nothing was happening, nothing ever happened …
“Xhuth!”
Glim breathed, just as the bright line of the sun lit the bay on fire.
Her first impression was of a vast jellyfish, its massive dark body trailing hundreds of impossibly slender, glowing tentacles. But then she saw the solidity of it, the mountain ripped from its base and turned over. The mass of it, the terrifying size.
She had been picturing a perfect cone, but this had crevassesand crags, crude, sharp, unweathered angles, as if it had just been torn from the ground the day before. The top seemed mostly as flat as the summit they stood upon, but there were shapes there, towers and arches—and most strangely, a long, drooping fringe depending from the upper edge like an immense lace collar, but twisted about by the wind and then frozen in its disheveled state. It was still south of them and a bit west, but its movement was clear enough.
She watched it, frozen, unable to find a response.
Something faint broke the silence, a sort of susurrus, a buzzing. She fumbled in the pockets of her dress, found the vial marked with an ear, and took a draft.
The hum sharpened into not one voice, but many. Vague, gibbering cries, unholy shrieks of agony and fear, babbling in languages she did not know. It sent scorpions down her back.
“What …?” She strained at the jungle floor below the island, where the sounds seemed to be coming from, but couldn’t make anything out through morning haze, distance, and thick vegetation.
She turned her attention back to the island, to the glowing strands it trailed. They might have been spider silk spun from lightning, some flashing briefly brighter than others. She realized they weren’t trailing, but dropping down from the center of the base, vanishing into the treetops, flashing white and then withdrawn into the island’s belly. As some came up, others descended, creating her original impression of a constant train of them.
Amidst the bright strands, something darker moved.
Swarms of something—they might have been hornets or bees, but given the distance, that would make them huge—emerged from the stone walls and hurtled toward the jungle below. But at some invisible line a few hundred feet below the island, they suddenly dissolved into streamers of black smoke, then vanished into the treetops. Unlike the threads, they did not reappear.
“Glim—” she whispered.
She turned and saw him going back down the steps. Only his head was visible.
“No, Glim, I’ve changed my mind,” she said, trying to keep her voice low, despite the distance. “We’ll wait for it to pass. It’s doing something—”
Glim’s head vanished from view.
Seized with fresh terror, she bolted after him. He was easily caught—he wasn’t moving fast—but when she did catch him, his eyes were oddly blank.
“Glim, what is it?”
“Going back, back to start over,” he murmured vaguely. Or at least that’s what she thought he meant, because he was speaking in Jen, a deeply ambiguous tongue. He might have been saying, “Going back to be born,” or any of ten other things that made no sense.
“Something’s wrong,” she said. “What is it?”
“Back,” he replied. He kept walking.
For another ten steps she watched him go, trying to understand, but then she knew she didn’t have time to understand, because the howling and screaming was beneath them now, echoing up through the caverns.
Whatever they were, they were coming.
She caught up with him and tickled him under the jaw. When his mouth gaped reflexively—she’d had a lot of fun with that when
Rose was blooming in the east by the time they scaled the last of the stairs and stood on the moss and low ferns on the flat summit of the tabletop. It was quiet, dreamlike, and everything suddenly seemed turned around and impossible. What was she doing here, chasing this fantasy? Nothing was happening, nothing ever happened …
“Xhuth!”
Glim breathed, just as the bright line of the sun lit the bay on fire.
Her first impression was of a vast jellyfish, its massive dark body trailing hundreds of impossibly slender, glowing tentacles. But then she saw the solidity of it, the mountain ripped from its base and turned over. The mass of it, the terrifying size.
She had been picturing a perfect cone, but this had crevassesand crags, crude, sharp, unweathered angles, as if it had just been torn from the ground the day before. The top seemed mostly as flat as the summit they stood upon, but there were shapes there, towers and arches—and most strangely, a long, drooping fringe depending from the upper edge like an immense lace collar, but twisted about by the wind and then frozen in its disheveled state. It was still south of them and a bit west, but its movement was clear enough.
She watched it, frozen, unable to find a response.
Something faint broke the silence, a sort of susurrus, a buzzing. She fumbled in the pockets of her dress, found the vial marked with an ear, and took a draft.
The hum sharpened into not one voice, but many. Vague, gibbering cries, unholy shrieks of agony and fear, babbling in languages she did not know. It sent scorpions down her back.
“What …?” She strained at the jungle floor below the island, where the sounds seemed to be coming from, but couldn’t make anything out through morning haze, distance, and thick vegetation.
She turned her attention back to the island, to the glowing strands it trailed. They might have been spider silk spun from lightning, some flashing briefly brighter than others. She realized they weren’t trailing, but dropping down from the center of the base, vanishing into the treetops, flashing white and then withdrawn into the island’s belly. As some came up, others descended, creating her original impression of a constant train of them.
Amidst the bright strands, something darker moved.
Swarms of something—they might have been hornets or bees, but given the distance, that would make them huge—emerged from the stone walls and hurtled toward the jungle below. But at some invisible line a few hundred feet below the island, they suddenly dissolved into streamers of black smoke, then vanished into the treetops. Unlike the threads, they did not reappear.
“Glim—” she whispered.
She turned and saw him going back down the steps. Only his head was visible.
“No, Glim, I’ve changed my mind,” she said, trying to keep her voice low, despite the distance. “We’ll wait for it to pass. It’s doing something—”
Glim’s head vanished from view.
Seized with fresh terror, she bolted after him. He was easily caught—he wasn’t moving fast—but when she did catch him, his eyes were oddly blank.
“Glim, what is it?”
“Going back, back to start over,” he murmured vaguely. Or at least that’s what she thought he meant, because he was speaking in Jen, a deeply ambiguous tongue. He might have been saying, “Going back to be born,” or any of ten other things that made no sense.
“Something’s wrong,” she said. “What is it?”
“Back,” he replied. He kept walking.
For another ten steps she watched him go, trying to understand, but then she knew she didn’t have time to understand, because the howling and screaming was beneath them now, echoing up through the caverns.
Whatever they were, they were coming.
She caught up with him and tickled him under the jaw. When his mouth gaped reflexively—she’d had a lot of fun with that when
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