Glissa pulled out her sword and jumped over the edge of the chimney. She twisted in the air as she fell and plunged the sword into the metallic structure with both hands. I hope this works again, thought Glissa as her feet slammed into the side of the chimney. She plummeted toward the ground. The sword sliced through the chimney as easily as it had through the Tangle tree. Glissa slid down the slight incline at breakneck speed.
The sword hardly slowed her down at all. She pushed with her feet and dug the blade in deeper. Glissa began to slow down, but she could see ground coming up fast. As she neared the bottom, she tensed her muscles and flexed her knees. About five feet from the ground, she released the sword and kicked off hard with her legs. The change in direction didn’t lessen her momentum, but instead of slamming into the ground, the elf skipped across it and rolled to a stop.
Slobad came running over to her. “Hey, crazy elf,” he called, “why not use stairs like normal person, huh? You not see stairs with bad elf eyes, huh? Crazy …”
“No time,” said Glissa, panting from the exertion. “The welcoming party is right behind me.”
Slobad let out a low whistle as Glissa stood up. She turned around. The nim emerged from the haze, headed straight for them.
“Is that defensible?” she asked, pointing back at the chimney Slobad had come down.
“We could keep nim out,” said the goblin, “but wouldn’t help. Nim don’t eat. They wait until we come out, huh? We starve or die; you pick.”
“Then run for the Mephidross!” shouted Glissa, pointing toward the green haze at an angle away from the oncoming horde. “I’ll catch up.”
She sprinted back to the chimney and pulled out her sword. The nim were almost on top of her. The lead nim grabbed for her, but Glissa dodged under the claw and ran toward Slobad. She glanced back and was happy to see she was leaving the nim far behind. They were slow, and now she could outrun them.
Glissa caught up with Slobad at the edge of the haze. The goblin had stopped.
“Come on,” she shouted at she passed him. “They may be slow, but they’re still coming.”
“Wait,” said Slobad. “Crazy elf, don’t-”
It was too late. Glissa entered the Mephidross … and sank to her knees in a putrid, purple-green muck. The swamp stretched before her as far as she could see into the haze. Beyond that, the air seemed to swirl around with an almost liquid quality. Dark wisps of slime hung in the air around them, mixed with the green gas. Glissa drew a breath to scream at Slobad, but the stench almost overtook her. It was a hundred times worse than when she had been surrounded by the nim at the gate of Taj Nar. She had no choice, though. To get to the Vault of Whispers, they had to go through the Mephidross.
“Come on!” she called again, then began coughing. Phlegm caught in her throat and she almost vomited. “If we keep moving, they can’t catch us.”
Slobad held back for a moment, then looked over his shoulder at the shambling horde and stepped into the haze. Where the muck came up to Glissa’s knees, it was almost at the chest of the short goblin.
“Raksha calls it the Dross,” he said. He held his satchel up over his head to keep it dry. “Say it stick to you for days, huh?” It wasn’t hard for Glissa to see he wasn’t happy.
“Just move as fast as you can,” she said. “They’ll have to wade through it, too.”
The two companions pushed their way through the muck. Glissa had to concentrate on her breathing to keep the bile from building up in her throat. After a while, her eyes stopped burning, and she could actually see a little better through the inky haze. There were several chimneys ahead of them. Now she understood why Raksha had given them that name. The dark wisps in the air seemed to be coming from their tops.
Unlike the chimneys outside the haze, these seemed to be active, almost alive. The black exteriors glowed with a purple energy, while clouds of black smoke belched from the tops. She could barely see strands of cable connecting the tops of the chimneys. She wasn’t sure, but Glissa thought she saw a ball of purple energy run along the cable from one chimney to the next. An eerie hum in the air was starting to make her teeth ache.
“Why would anyone live here?” grunted Glissa as she headed toward the nearest chimney. It might provide a way to get them from the Dross, even if for just a while. The ground did begin to rise as they neared the chimney. The level of the thick sludge fell to Glissa’s ankles. However, the hum intensified, and the ache in her mouth shot up into her temples.
Glissa looked behind. The nim were gaining on them. They seemed to glide right through the Mephidross. On the firm ground of the Glimmervoid, the nim’s shambling strides had made them slow. Here in the Mephidross, their long legs kept them above the muck, and they used their long arms to push the liquid from the way. Glissa and Slobad could not outrun them, especially with Slobad’s short, labored strides.
“Climb on my shoulders,” she said to the goblin as she hunched down into the Dross.
“Huh?” asked Slobad.
“Ride on my shoulders, you stupid goblin!” she shouted. “I can carry you quicker than you can run.”
Slobad handed Glissa his satchel and scrambled onto her shoulders. Glissa slung the satchel over her head and took off at a dead run around the chimney. She could see another chimney and headed toward it, trying to stay as much as possible on higher ground. She flitted from chimney to chimney. The elf was faster than Slobad, even with the weight of the goblin on her back, but still the nim gained on them. The combination of the liquid air in her lungs and the hum of the chimneys was wearing her down. She couldn’t keep up her pace much longer.
“Don’t they ever give up?” she gasped through deep breaths of acrid air.
“Slobad don’t know much about nim, huh?” replied the goblin. “Raksha say they mindless. Never stop before reaching goal. Never stop. Never tire, huh? Mindless.”
“If they’re mindless, how do they know where to go and who to attack?” asked Glissa. “Could someone be controlling them?”
“Raksha sometimes sees humans behind nim in battle,” said Slobad. “Don’t know if they control.” Slobad thought they just turning into nim, huh?”
“If they’re being controlled,” huffed Glissa as she ran, “they might stop if we can take out whoever is controlling them.”
“What if they not stop, huh?” asked Slobad. “What if they not controlled at all? We stop; they not stop; we die, huh?”
“It’s better than running ourselves to death.”
They had come around another chimney. Glissa stopped. She hunched down so Slobad could slip off her back. “You continue on,” she told him. “Climb a chimney for safety. I’ll let the nim pass and try to find the controller.”
Slobad looked as if he was going to argue, but Glissa cut him off. “It’s our only hope. We can’t outrun them, and we can’t run all the way to the Vault of Whispers. Now go, and make sure they follow you.”
Glissa handed Slobad his satchel and pushed him off into the Dross. He looked back at her, then shrugged before trotting off into the haze. Glissa turned and looked at the sheer side of the chimney. She pulled out her sword, made several notches, and began scaling the chimney, cutting holes for her hands and feet as she went. Fifteen feet above the swamp, she stopped and waited. She hoped the nim were as mindless as Slobad had heard. If even one turned after passing the chimney, she’d be trapped.
* * * * *
From her perch on the chimney Glissa watched Slobad. He slogged through the Dross, holding his pack over his head. The humming intensified as she clung to the chimney, and her teeth were almost vibrating in her mouth. Below, the nim poured around the chimney. Glissa watched as row after row passed beneath her. Gas from the spouts on their sides wafted up, adding to the stench of the haze. Glissa closed her eyes and concentrated to keep the bile from welling up in her throat.