His head swam and his perception rippled, like jelly tossed into a swimming pool. He was dizzy and sick, and wondering why everything had become so dark.
He shook his head to clear it, and through a dim tunnel of fuzzy grey, he saw an enormous head with even more enormous teeth grinning at him, as though it was very far away, but he could feel and smell a breath that stank like rancid ditch water.
“Tasty,” the face said, and Sean felt a massive hand wrap around his arm and he was lurched upright, which made the world spin horrifyingly. There was intense pain and a chomping noise and then nothing more.
II
Freya clutched at her chest and fought for control of her breathing. In the sea of terror, she found a brick and then another and set them together. Piece by piece, she rebuilt the wall until finally she and Fear were two separate entities again. But when, in her mind, she stood on solid ground, she found that Rage had made her higher, and drier. These were the two opposing forces inside her now: Fear and Rage. The Rage she felt she could control, and use it against the Fear.
She felt Vivienne’s hand on her shoulder and her warm presence behind her. “Deep breaths, Freya darling. Deep breaths.”
Stronger now, she pushed herself up, bracing herself against the wall of what seemed to be the end of a long passage. Stairs rose up behind her and terminated in dark stone. The portal had already shut. Daniel was exploring; he had flicked on a small flashlight and was inspecting the area.
“See anything?” Freya asked, her voice barely more than an inaudible whisper. She took a deep breath and asked again, “What do you see?”
Daniel shined the light back at her; its brilliance cut into her eyes. She was already getting used to the darkness.
“It’s just a cave.”
“Are you okay?” Vivienne asked.
“Yes.”
“Anything broken?”
“No.”
“Do you need-”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Freya snapped testily. “I don’t need to be coddled.”
“Right, good.” Vivienne shouldered her pack again. “Let’s get moving; it’s just a few miles.”
Freya hoisted her pack up on her shoulder as well and then fell into step behind Vivienne and Daniel. The pace and sensation of walking in the dark was sickeningly familiar now.
They walked for about an hour in what felt like a fairly straight line. Freya dwelt on the anger inside of her, trying to stoke it by meditating on all that she had unfairly suffered, the last time she was here and ever since, but found that she couldn’t hold on to the flames-it was just too exhausting. After a time she found that it had fallen away from her, leaving her alone with just the cold emptiness of the Fear.
The tunnel dipped and Vivienne stopped.
“What is it?” Daniel, behind Freya, asked.
“It’s a door.”
Freya took a deep breath. “So open it,” Daniel said.
“Here we go,” Vivienne said, and there was a metallic rattling and then a creak as an ancient metal door swung open. Stepping through it, they found themselves on a landing where a circular stairway continued downward.
She wasn’t prepared for the smell. It wasn’t overtly unpleasant, but it so instantly and so fully brought back the emotions of her first time here that she wanted to weep.
She sucked her breath in, inflating herself, doing her best to bury all the emotions within her. Not even a day into her new mission and she was nearly an emotional wreck. She stepped through the doorway and almost automatically took a step back in order to re-enter several more times, but then she thought, Why bother? I’m already here.
“I don’t believe it,” she muttered loudly. “All this time-there was a door at the top of the Langtorr. We could have gone back anytime we wanted.”
“Yeah,” Daniel said. “But you wouldn’t have left, even if you knew about it. You would have gone on the quest anyway, just like me.”
“Now come you two, no squabbling,” Vivienne said. “We’ve got other things to-”
“No, actually, I think I would have just liked to have gone home,” Freya cut in. “Having had a chance to think about and reflect on it at length over the past eight years. . I think I would have just liked to have gone home.”
“I don’t think so. You would have done the right thing in the end.”
“We’ve got other things to focus on,” Vivienne said.
More Rage boiled up inside Freya. That’s good, I can use that, she thought. “Really? The right thing? Trick two thirteen-year-old children into going on a dangerous, top-secret mission?”
“That’s enough now,” Vivienne said.
“Well, I’m glad I went,” Daniel said. “And you are too, deep down. What we did made a difference. We killed Gad.”
“I said enough!” Vivienne exclaimed in a hushed, urgent voice. “If you two weren’t so busy scrapping just now, you’d have heard what I’m hearing.”
Freya swallowed a breath. “What is it?”
“Listen.”
Up from the twisting stone passage came the sound of leathersoled shoes on stone stairs. Standing very still, Freya watched as Daniel slowly shrugged open his coat. He quietly adjusted the leather strap that held his sword’s scabbard so that it hung freely at his side and not hitched up to his chest. This action was not unnoticed by Vivienne, who turned slightly and placed a hand on Daniel’s shoulder.
Freya blinked in the blackness but soon found that a light was growing from the stairwell beneath them. She stood her ground, tentatively, standing on the balls of her feet. She watched the farthest corner of the wall below them to see what would appear.
The face was the first thing she saw-it was white, haggard, and surrounded by a black halo of frizzy, unkempt, and matted hair. It was illuminated from below by one of the silver lamps of Ni?ergeard.
“Frithfroth!” Daniel exclaimed.
“Frithfroth, it’s us-it’s Daniel and Freya. Do you remember? We were children-” He broke off.
Freya wondered if the old man might be blind. The way his lamp cast its light, it was hard to see his eyes; she could only spot two dim gleams of reflected light. When Daniel started speaking, Frithfroth stopped.
“Who is he?” asked Vivienne.
“He’s the Langtorr’s sort of. . housekeeper person,” Freya said a little uncertainly. “But when we knew him, he wasn’t-” Freya didn’t have to describe the unfortunate man in order to make her point clear. The long, gaunt face was definitely that of Ni?ergeard’s ward and the Langtorr’s protector, but he was wasted away, almost literally a shadow of the already slight and wiry man whom they had first met. His eyes were sunken and his cheeks collapsed in on themselves. He kept advancing, and now Freya could see his hunched shoulders and thin limbs. He held his arms up to his chest, but he had no hands-only two terrible-looking puckered scars at the end of his wrists. He wore a dusty, fraying tunic that had decayed through in places. Leather garments beneath his shirt were similarly deteriorating and, she believed, rotting.
Daniel and Freya both retreated back a step. Daniel found his voice first.
“I remember,” Frithfroth said then, in a voice that came from a very long way away. “I remember. . Daniel and Freya, the lifiendes. Have you come to destroy this place?”
Yes, thought Freya. Perhaps.
“No,” said Daniel.
“Pity.” Frithfroth looked down at his scarred wrists. “So what do you want?”
“We want to help,” Daniel said, turning back to Frithfroth, whose face was impassive, showing no thought or emotion. “We’re here to liberate you. We’re here to run the yfelgopes right out of the city.”
“First, however, we want answers,” said Vivienne firmly.
“Answers,” Frithfroth repeated, staring into nothing. “Answers depend on questions.” He turned and started walking awkwardly down the stairs-a slow, unbalanced walk, halfway between a lurch and a limp. He led them down the corkscrewing stairs into the Langtorr, the last stronghold at the centre of Ni?ergeard.