“In time,” the Consort of Shadows agreed.
“Please,” Averan begged, “let me go. You know the power of the Earth Spirit. You know that I mean you no harm.”
I must not speak of this human, the Consort of Shadows thought. Others will think I am worm dreaming.
Abruptly, Averan felt as if a gate slammed shut between her and the Consort of Shadows. Like the thief who had stolen her horse at Feldonshire, he pulled back from her scrutiny, broke their tenuous connection.
The huge reaver raced through the Underworld, the tunnel a grotesque blur. He clutched Averan so tightly, that she could hardly draw a breath. She tried to summon the attention of her captor, to beg him not to squeeze so tightly, but without her staff, she was almost powerless.
Averan dreamt of fire—slow-roasting coals that reddened the bottom of a campfire, and of tongues of flame as scarlet as those of the flame lizards of Djeban that snapped out and licked her skin till it was raw.
When she woke, as she often did while in the grasp of the Consort of Shadows, she would find herself racing along at a dizzying pace, plunging into the black depths of the Underworld through garish ribbed tunnels, past steaming pools that roared and thundered, past mud pots and the bones of strange Underworld creatures.
She woke once, after what seemed like days, gasping for breath, and found that the Consort of Shadows had stopped to speak with some other reavers. It was a war party of twenty-seven. They were led by a grizzled old veteran named Blood Stalker.
“Hide,” Consort of Shadows warned in a spray of scent. “Set an ambush. Assassins are coming from above, to hunt the One True Master. I have captured one of them, but more follow.”
“I shall not hide,” Blood Stalker said, in odors that hissed from his anus. “The One True Master has set runes of power upon us. I am strong now, stronger than you.”
Averan did not slip into her captor’s mind to learn what he was thinking. She already knew. Blood Stalker was a proud warrior, and even now he raised his tail higher than the Consort of Shadow’s tail, as a sign that he hoped to win the right to breed. His philia were waving excitedly, and all of his muscles had tensed.
The Consort of Shadows had long held such a reputation for ferocity that none dared challenge him. Now Blood Stalker imagined that he was equal to the contest.
“You may be strong,” Consort of Shadows said, “but so are the assassins that follow. Kill them and prove yourself worthy to challenge me.”
His huge paws tightened involuntarily upon Averan, as he prepared for battle. And as they tightened, Averan’s breathing was cut off. She struggled to keep from suffocating until she fainted.
When next she woke, it seemed to be hours later. The Consort of Shadows was feeding. He had torn the back off an enormous blind-crab, called a “mugger,” and he used his tongue to scoop out the crab’s entrails. Averan lay on her belly on the floor for a moment, seemingly forgotten.
Dazed, she wandered in a strange world, half in and half out of dream. She imagined that she roamed an empty plain, gray and without form. The ground was flat and featureless, with only cracked clay beneath her feet, as if from an interminable drought.
And in the dream she raised her staff, and the ground began to tremble. Rocks and clay rose up in a circle all around her, forming a ridge about a hundred yards across that became a strange and magnificent rune. And from those rocks and ridges, animals began to take shape. The gray clay at her feet shaped itself into a tiny stag only two feet long. The stag lay upon its side, mouth open, head tilted backward. At first the form was vague and general, a lumpy creature that a child might have wrought. But in moments the image became more and more refined, as if worked by the hands of an invisible sculptor. Suddenly, when the stag seemed perfect to Averan, it began to move, kicking about as if it were a babe, seeking to stand upon its own feet for the first time. It struggled to its knees, then climbed up, and suddenly the gray figure blossomed into color, a tawny red at the back, white at the throat, with living eyes that glinted in the sunlight. The creature bounded away, past Averan’s feet.
And as suddenly as the stag had formed, she turned her gaze and saw that it was happening everywhere across the vast rune. Tiny boars were taking shape, squealing with delight. Elephants trumpeted in a far corner, and snakes wriggled past her foot. A flock of tiny doves, smaller than moths, fluttered before her view, as if rising into the mountains. Everywhere she began to discern hopping frogs and wriggling fishes, butterflies in bright clouds, reavers and whales.
Filled with wonder, Averan strolled along the gray earth, studying the rune, seeking ways to improve it.
Ah, if I could only make such a rune, she thought.
Then she became aware of her surroundings once again. She opened her eyes, fumbling for her staff. But it was gone, and the Consort of Shadows was feeding.
Averan considered making a run for it.
She squinted furtively. Fortunately, her white opal ring still glowed, and by its light she could see that the reaver had brought her far down into the Underworld. The tunnel that she was in now had changed. The stifling heat and high humidity made the air muggy, and because of the heat and moisture, hairlike plants as gray and thick as a wolf’s pelt covered the tunnel floor. Wormgrass and feather fern battled for control of the walls, and rootlike plants dangled from the tunnel roof. The broken shells of blind-crabs and the round shapes of elephant snails littered the floor. More important, not far ahead, some crystalline rods grew near the wall and blocked the floor of an adjoining cavern. Each rod was as clear as quartz, and many reached as much as eight or nine feet in height. Each hollow rod came to a jagged point. Averan recognized them from reaver memories: the homes of flesh eaters.
Each tube was a cocoon, spun by a pregnant creature that looked like a crab stretched impossibly thin. Once the cocoon was complete, the crab crawled inside to die. As the eggs inside her hatched, the young devoured their way out of her womb, consuming her. These young, each not much larger than a flea, made the flesh-eater tube their lair.
They crawled to the lip of the tube and waited for something to brush against it—a reaver, a blind-crab, or mordant, it didn’t matter. Any animal would do.
Then the flesh eaters would burrow into their victims. They would be carried through the bloodstream, where they wreaked damage on its organs.
Reavers feared the tubes of flesh eaters. If such tubes began to grow in one of their tunnels, they would sometimes seal off the crawlway and dig a new route.
Thus, the tunnel that Averan was in now was dangerous. The number of plants dangling from the ceiling and growing from the floor showed that common reavers had abandoned it. But the Consort of Shadows often trod dangerous paths.
I could run in among the flesh eater tubes and hide, Averan thought. As long as I don’t get near the tip of the tubes, the bugs won’t get me.
But she didn’t dare. Not with the Consort of Shadows watching her. Instead, she used her summoning powers, concentrated upon the Consort of Shadows to learn what he was thinking, to feel what he was feeling.
“I should eat the human,” Consort of Shadows thought. “No one would deny me the pleasure. She is small and worthless.”
Yet another voice whispered inside him, as if it were the voice of an intruder. “No creature that the Earth has formed is worthless, especially not this one. She is not just its creation, she is its advocate.”
“This is only worm dreaming,” he told himself.
Consort of Shadows grabbed Averan violently, whisked her up against his chest, and began to run, scraping his hide against the far wall of the crawlway in order to avoid the flesh-eater tubes.
I’ve lost my chance to escape, Averan thought desperately.
She knew what was happening to the Consort of Shadows. Just as she had eaten the brains of reavers and thought at first that she would go mad, the Consort of Shadows had done the same. His grandfather had eaten the brain of an Earth Warden, and ever since, almost as if in punishment, the Earth Warden’s thoughts had haunted those who partook of its brains.