“Yes.”
She rubbed her forehead. “Go get Attrebus and Sul. Then I’ll give you this.”
“I could take it from you,” Glim said very softly.
“I’ll throw it, if you try.”
“It may be too late by the time I find Attrebus. Give it to me now, and I promise I’ll do as you ask.”
“Glim-”
“Nn, it’s me.”
“Right,” she said. “Weren’t you just threatening to use force on me?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “If you could feel them, like I do… Nn, our whole lives, it’s always been you, your desires, your needs. And despite my protestations, I’ve been happy to be at your side. But this time you have to stand with me. You have to trust me.”
She closed her eyes, trying to remember what he was talking about, to a time when everything hadn’t been about suspicion and betrayal and heartsickness, but nothing came, nothing-until, finally, an image. The face of a five-year-old girl with long, curling black hair, and that of a young Saxhleel about the same age, reflecting up from water twenty feet below. She saw their feet, too, perched on the crumbling wall of an ancient, sunken structure.
“Let’s jump,” the girl said.
“That’s too far down,” the boy replied.
“Ah, come on. Let’s do it together.”
“Well… fine,” he grumbled.
And they jumped.
Annaig opened her eyes, and Glim suddenly remembered her when she was a little girl, how full of everything her eyes seemed to have been in those days.
She didn’t say anything. She just handed him the bottle.
“Thanks,” he said. He turned to Fhena. “Take her to the hiding place. I’ll be back.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Fhena said.
Glim slipped the antidote into his belt-pouch and bounded down the trunk, feeling the sickness invade it deeper. He wondered how to do it-if he could simply empty the contents where the roots would find it, or use one of the nutrient injectors the fringe workers used. In their pain, the trees had become unfocused, distilled to need and demand, and it was all he could do to keep his mind singular enough to be Glim, and not just a part of the hurt and panic. But Annaig trusted him, and he had to be worthy of that trust now. He would find the prince and his companion, and hopefully by then he would figure it out.
The sump felt sick and oily, and he nearly retched when he pulled in his first breath. He surprised a school of bladefish, but they hardly reacted, and instead continued along, unsteadily, as if they had lost half of their senses.
He found shattered crystal tubes in the shallows and followed them to their greatest concentration, and then began searching the caves. He discovered them in the third one he tried. The Dunmer saw him first, reaching for his sword before Glim was even out of the water. Then the Imperial turned.
“Wait,” he said. “That’s an Argonian. Mere-Glim?”
“Yes, Prince,” he replied, making a little bow.
“Do you know these people?” the prince asked.
Glim noticed a number of skraws on the other side of the cavern. Several of them were armed. As Glim approached, Wert pushed through.
“I know them,” Glim replied.
“Who are they, Glim?” Wert asked. He looked tired, more jaundiced than usual.
“You can leave them alone. What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Wert replied. “Hiner and Skrahan dropped dead. The rest of us-it’s like everything is getting sick, all at once.”
He coughed, and for a moment Glim thought he would fall.
“What should we do?”
Glim took several deep breaths, looking at the skraws. His skraws, and in an instant he felt not just the trees anymore, but all of it, everyone, and he knew what to do.
He took out the antidote, removed the stopper, and drank it all.
Annaig paced back and forth in the wooden cavity, wishing she had something to do, something to cook with. One minute she’d been in control of everything, and suddenly she didn’t know what was happening anymore.
“Glim can do what he says,” Fhena said. “I believe him.”
“Of course you do,” Annaig said. “And maybe he can. But maybe-have you thought of this?-maybe he’s gone crazy.”
“No. I can feel it. The trees made him different, and now somehow they’ve changed, too. As if they got something from him as well. They have a purpose for him. Anyway-you gave him the antidote. You must believe.”
“No,” she said. “That’s not why I gave it to him.”
“I don’t understand. I-”
Fhena was interrupted by an odd coughing sound. Annaig saw the other woman’s eyes dart past her and turned.
Umbriel stood there. “It had to be you,” he said. “As soon as I felt your venom, I knew your scent on it.”
“Lord Umbriel…”
“The trees are fighting hard,” Umbriel said. “They’ve shunted the poison through the ingenium, poisoning the rest of the city while they try to synthesize an antidote. It will cycle back around to them in time, but by then most of the damage will be done. I don’t know if you meant it to work that way, but it was brilliant; it’s attacking the head first-which means me. I had to absorb Rhel and three other lords just to keep going on in this body, to find the venom’s mother.”
“So much for Rhel’s illusion of immortality.”
“His illusion was that he was any less a part of me than everything here. It’s an illusion you share. The poison will kill you, too.”
“If that’s what it takes to stop you, I’m willing,” she replied.
“I see. And yet you have an antidote.”
“I don’t,” Annaig said.
“I’m weak,” Umbriel said, his voice beginning to change. “I’m not deaf.”
“I don’t have it. I gave it to someone else.”
“Possibly,” Umbriel replied, moving toward her. “But you still have it, right there behind your eyes.”
“Stay back,” Annaig said. “Keep away from me.”
“We’re almost there,” Umbriel snarled, revealing sharp, yellowed teeth. “All we have to do is reach the White-Gold Tower, and we’re free of him forever.”
“I don’t care,” Annaig said.
He lunged at her, and she whipped out the invisible blade, slicing three of his fingers off.
He barked a harsh sort of laugh and made a fist. He didn’t hit her, but something did, hurling her against the wall and knocking the wind out of her.
He held up his hand, and the fingers grew back. His spine seemed to straighten; the lines of his face filled in.
“What’s this?” he murmured. “Incredible. They did it.” He looked down at her, his lips curling up in a malicious grin. “It was a nice try,” he said.
“Get away from her,” someone else said.
At first the voice didn’t sound right to Annaig-it was too full, somehow, too large. But then she recognized Attrebus striding toward Umbriel, sword in hand. Glim and an ancient-looking Dunmer came with him.
“No,” she shouted as Umbriel’s words sorted themselves into sense and she understood. “Attrebus-the sump. The sword didn’t work because his soul isn’t in him-there wasn’t anything to reclaim. Glim! His soul is in the ingenium-”
But then Umbriel’s eyes stabbed green fire at her, and every muscle in her body went rigid with pain.
Sul snarled in agony, and something erupted into existence between them and Vuhon, something with huge bat wings and claws, but in the shape of a woman.
Then Sul turned and ran back toward the way out, grabbing Mere-Glim by the arm.
“Wait!” Attrebus said.
“You heard her!” Sul shouted.
Sul’s monster and Vuhon slammed together. Attrebus could see a dark elf woman dragging the fallen Annaig away from the confrontation. He stood there, paralyzed. He’d come here to rescue her, hadn’t he? She was so near…
But if he died here, rescuing her, what of the Imperial City? His father? His people?
He knew then, in that moment, that he was ready to die trying to save Annaig-but didn’t have that luxury.
So he turned and ran after Sul.
He emerged from the trunk of the tree and saw the old man and Glim bounding down a branch. It took him a few seconds to catch up, but the three of them hadn’t gone another thirty steps before they saw figures boiling up the tree toward them. Some seemed human or elven-others were stranger. There were a lot of them.