Carefully I looked up, keeping a firm grip on the boy's arm. Sure enough, my eyes blearily made out that we were standing in the mouth of an open tube, high enough and wide enough that the walls were only slightly darker blurs in the gray wash of dust. I staggered forward along the tube with Hezekiah in tow, both of us pushing against a strong wind that roared into our faces. The dust dragged heavily at my feet; and then suddenly, there was solid floor beneath us. Moments later, a door shut behind us with a sigh, closing off the wind and the sifting sound of dust.
Silence. We stood in a small chamber, its walls a dome-like patchwork made from triangles of glass. Outside, the dust continued to swirl in constant motion, dancing close to the glass but never settling down. Gray light filtered through the crystal panes, a light as frail as the thinnest dawn.
«Britlin!» Hezekiah whispered sharply. I turned and saw the boy standing above a huddled mass that lay in front of a second door. A few steps closer and I recognized the shadowy bundle as a body, lying in a slick of its own blood – a hobgoblin in chain mail, its lifeless hand still clutching a short sword.
«It's some kind of monster,» the boy said.
«The dead kind,» I told him. «Probably stationed as a guard on this door when Yasmin, Oonah, and Kiripao showed up. Poor berk never knew what hit him.»
«Now let us rejoice that his journey is done,» said a third voice in the room. «He has shed the burden of life and found the purity that awaits all creatures in the cup of oblivion.»
«Hello, Wheezle,» I sighed. «Cheerful as ever.»
«Indeed, sir,» the invisible gnome said. «The other Dustmen often remark on my high spirits.»
Hezekiah looked like he was going to ask a stupid question. I covered his mouth with my hand.
«Now,» I said, «the original plan still stands. Hezekiah goes back to Sigil, while Wheezle and I stay to rescue the others. Don't argue, there isn't time.»
«But how do I get back to Sigil?» Hezekiah asked.
«You go back to the portal and you…» I stopped. To open the portal, he needed a picture of himself; and I no longer had my sketchbook. «Wheezle, I don't suppose you still have that paper I gave you?»
«In the confusion of falling through the portal, I fear I let the paper go.»
And now it was blowing out there in the storm, or buried under a couple feet of dust. «Blast!» I muttered, trying to think of anything else I could use to draw a picture of the boy. Nothing came to mind, and time was passing quickly. «All right,» I told Hezekiah, «you're on the rescue team for now. But the second we find some way to draw a picture of you, you're going back to Sigil to report.»
«Once we rescue the others,» the boy answered, «we can all report.»
«Pray that you're right,» I nodded. «Just remember we're in unknown territory. Be careful, be quiet, and don't touch anything!»
«Yes, sir,» he saluted. And he immediately pushed the button that opened the door the hobgoblin had been guarding.
Under other circumstances, that would have earned him a couple arrows in the chest – two archers had been stationed on the other side of the door, crossbows ready and waiting. Fortunately for the boy, Yasmin and the others had come through ahead of us; the bow strings had been cut, along with the throats of the two men.
«Are you completely addle-coved?» I snapped at Hezekiah. «You don't just barge through doors like that! Wheezle, you take the lead… and keep a sharp eye out for traps.»
«Yes, honored Cavendish.»
Something invisible nudged the boy out of the doorway, and he stepped aside. A corridor extended for more than a hundred paces ahead of us, its floor ramping gradually upward. Like the first room, this corridor's roof and walls were made from triangles of glass fitted snugly together in a metal framework. Wan gray light filtered in from outside, so feeble it seemed the light itself had somehow become disheartened.
As we hurried up the ramp, the dust storm outside tapered off. By the look of it, the dust only tossed itself about near the entrance to the building; once we had gained some height, we could see that the dust lay flat and quiet farther off. The flatness had an eerie quality to it – in a normal desert, the wind leaves ripples in the sand or heaps the surface into dunes. Here, however, the dust lay as evenly as sifted flour. No scrub brush, no cacti, no hills or valleys… just a motionless expanse of dust stretching flat to the horizon.
«Creepy, isn't it?» Hezekiah whispered.
«Yasmin would love it,» I replied. «The very essence of entropy. Wheezle probably likes the view too.»
«Not especially, honored sir,» the gnome answered. «I revere Death; this place is simply lifeless. It's not the same thing.»
The corridor ended at an open door which led into a chamber stinking of smoke. Not so long ago, the room must have been a comfortable lounge, equipped with adequately upholstered chairs and well-cushioned divans; but some time in the past few minutes, a battle had ripped the place to shambles. The far half of the room was scorched black, walls caked with soot and furniture burned to the springs. The near half sparkled with a thick layer of hoar frost, couches and chairs encased in ice. Where the halves joined, icicles dripped down from the ceiling, slowly extinguishing the dribbles of fire still smouldering from the furniture.
Almost without thinking, I reached up and broke off one long icicle. I had always found icicles a comfort to suck – cold and clear, with a sharp point on the end that danced with your tongue. This icicle, however, tasted of smoke and soot; I spat out its water and tossed it away.
No bodies here. No evidence to suggest who won. But one way or another, the fight was over. If Yasmin and the others had lost… well, in the absence of corpses, I could tell myself they'd simply been taken prisoner. All we had to do was find them and stage a rescue. Of course, if they'd won this fight, they must be exploring the area ahead and could still use our help. Either way, they'd be glad to see us.
If they could still see. I couldn't help remembering the burnt bodies of the court rotunda, their eyes scorched out of the sockets.
No. That couldn't happen to Yasmin. Her eyes were too… worth looking into.
The battle-scarred room had two exits, one right, one left. Both had once been closed with sliding doors, but the doors had blown off their tracks thanks to the barrage of magic unleashed in the fight. I glanced out both doorways but saw nothing to indicate which direction our teammates had gone.
«Given a choice,» Hezekiah whispered, «I always go left.»
That gave me a strong urge to go right, but I resisted.
The left corridor curved around in an arc, circling away from the entrance we came in. I had no idea what this whole building was, but it resembled a huge central ring with the occasional ramp-like corridor radiating outward from the center, like spokes from the hub of a wheel. We had come in along one spoke; looking out the window, I could see another spoke-corridor some distance in front of us. At the free end of the spoke ahead, a dust storm swirled in the air, just like the storm where we had entered. I wondered if that spoke had a portal too… if all the spokes had portals as exits from this bleak dustscape. Perhaps this building shot air out the mouth of each spoke to keep dust from clogging the portal – it made as much sense as any other theory that came to mind.
For the moment such questions could wait… but curiosity dogged me on one other point. If the heart of this building was a circular ring, what was inside the middle? I didn't know. The outer wall of this corridor might be made of those small triangles of glass, but the inner wall was sheet metal, polished to a mirror-like shine. All that wall showed was the haggard face of one Britlin Cavendish, his goatee and hair so streaked with dust they looked white instead of their usual fetching black.