At last, she was close enough to the floor to let go of the wriggling ladder and drop the last three feet. Jay curled against the wall. His weapon lay on the floor at his feet. Down the tunnel, toward a lighted archway, lay three corpses. Human gore spattered the walls around them. Arla swallowed against the sweet, coppery scent that filled the tunnel.
Arla turned her eyes quickly back to Jay. His jaw was slack and a small trail of spittle trickled out over his lips. His eyes were open but he didn’t blink, or track her as she leaned over him.
“Jay.” She laid her hands against his chest and felt his shallow breathing. “Jay!” The spittle dripped onto the back of his hand, and Arla saw a dart with a sapphire blue shaft sticking out of his arm.
“Garismit’s Eyes.” Arla plucked the dart free. She bit her lip.
Probably not poison, or he’d be dead already. Probably just drugged. It’ll wear off. She sniffed the dart carefully and smelled crushed leaves and antiseptic. She glanced down at Jay’s paralyzed figure. In time.
But I need him now.
Arla tucked the sling into her belt and opened the pouch of stones. She touched her fingertips to one of the cool spheres.
Her mind opened with staggering force. Light surged through her, illuminating every thought, every facet of knowledge that she carried inside her. The substance on the dart was a paralyzing agent. It would wear off in about four hours if not reinforced. When used as a weapon against people or animals, an antidote was generally carried.
Arla shook her hand and the stone fell, but the light didn’t fade. It carried her down the tunnel to the corpses. The light was a shield and a bind. It moved her hands while she watched, bemused, from the back of her mind. Her strong fingers ripped open the corpse’s tool belt and found a flat case the size of her hand. Her fingernail pried the cover open. Inside lay a selection of color-coded needles. Her hand selected the blue one and the light drew her back to Jay. It reached her arm out until the needle drove itself into the Skyman’s neck. It held her there for a dozen or so heartbeats and then drew her arm back. The needle came away with it, and Jay blinked.
The light winked out and Arla dropped to the floor. Her heart spasmed madly and her stomach heaved. She coughed and gagged against her bile.
“Arla?” Jay croaked.
“I’m here.” She pushed herself upright.
Jay was sitting up too. His eyes looked dazed, but at least they were focusing.
“What happened?” he asked.
Arla swallowed bile and blotted at the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand. “I don’t know.” The stone lay on the floor, as perfect and beautiful as it had ever been. “This place may be having an effect on my namestones.” Or on me. She lifted her free hand away from the floor that felt so much like the skin of her stones. Nameless Powers preserve me.
“Can you stand?” Jay drew his legs under him in a series of short jerks.
Arla nodded. “Can you?”
Pressing his hands against the corridor wall, Jay climbed to his feet. “Looks like it.” He lifted his hands carefully away from the wall, and stayed standing.
Arla undid her headcloth and wrapped one end around her hand before she picked up her stone to return it to the pouch. She clenched her muscles and lifted herself to her feet without touching the corridor’s surface.
“Let’s go.” Jay’s walk was wobbly at first, but it improved rapidly. He stepped between the corpses without hesitation, or even a second look.
Arla felt a cold void in the pit of her stomach. There were three bodies on the floor, and Jay had killed them all. That merited something, a prayer, or a curse at the very least.
What have I allied myself with? she wondered as she picked her own path between them. She tried to tell herself that she was just overreacting. She had seen too much death and blood in the past two days and it was making her squeamish.
The cold did not fade. She touched the pouch of her sling to check the load.
Walk softly, whatever you are, she thought toward Jay’s back as he disappeared through the lighted archway. Neither you nor I have any time for games.
She followed Jay through the threshold, very aware of the cluster of shadows trailing along at her right hand. They did not pause for blood or death either.
The chamber beyond the archway was even more staggeringly strange than the common room aboard the U-Kenai had been. Feathery stars pressed against the walls, creating a net that caught the drifting shadows and held them in place.
So they can get a really long look. Arla shuddered.
Then, she saw the bank of arlas. A dozen stones, sisters to the ones she had carried for all her adult life, nestled in fitted sockets and reflecting the patterns of light and shadow that filled the bizarre room.