I didn't answer. I drew my runestaff over my head out of its leather boot, and gripped it tightly as I focused my force at the gorge wall. Soot and the debris of eons puffed out, and I saw another spiral mark in the wall like the one Kenzer had found.
'Charts,' I said.
'What, sir?' asked Lief.
I bent down, spitting on my fingers then rubbing my hand across the spiral marks. I tried to ignore the fact that there was a smear of blood in the spittle.
'No wonder Ravenor couldn't find a door. We're not seeing this in the right dimension.'
'Pardon me, but what the craphole are you talking about?' asked Lief. 1 liked him. Always honest.
'The warped ones understood location and moment in way we can't imagine. They were, after all, warped. We see this as a geometric network of mathematically precise chasms, a maze. But it's not. It's four dimensional…'
'Four?' Gustine began, uncertainly
'Oh, four, six, eight… who knows? Think of it this way, like a… a woven garment!
'A woven garment, sir?'
Yes, all those thick, intertwined threads, such a complex pattern.'
'All right…'
'Now imagine the knitting needles that made it. Just the needles. Big and hard and simple.'
'Okay…' said Medea, joining us.
'This planet is simply the knitting needles. Hard, rigid, simple. The reality of Ghiil is the garment woven from it, something we can't see, something complex and soft, interlaced round the needles.'
'I'm sorry, sir, you've lost me/ Lief Gustine said.
'Lost/ I said. 'That's damn right. These marks on the wall. They're like mini charts, explaining how the overall reality can be accessed and exited/
Ghustine nodded as if he understood. 'Right… so, going back, where the jesh did the janissaries come from?' he asked.
I slapped the hard wall.
'There. Right there/
'But it's solid rock!'
'Only to us/1 said.
As we moved on again, down the gorge, we formed a pack that covered all sides, like phalanx of spearmen from the old ages of warfare. The sounds of Ravenor's battle had become frenetic. Nayl reported grimly that he couldn't raise Skynner or any of his force any more.
We all hunted the walls for further carvings
'Here, sir! Here!' Kara sang out.
I ran over to the spiral cut she had found. 'Wait/1 ordered.
Like an eye blinking, the smooth rock opened. Suddenly it just wasn't there. A Vessorine janissary in combat carapace pushed out, weapon raised.
Nayl had him cold, felling him with a single shot. But there were more behind the first.
Medea started shooting. Two more meres had blinked out of the gorge wall on the far side of us.
There was no cover. No damn cover at all.
In a moment, we were fired on from a third angle.
I had already drawn the big Hecuter autopistol I had borrowed from the Hinterlight's arsenal. Gustine's old las was cracking away beside me and Eleena was emptying her pistol's extended clip on semi-automatic.
They'd just been poaching us up until now. This was a full scale ambush. I counted at least fifteen janissaries, as well as an ogryn with a heavy weapon. Nayl went down, hit in the thigh, but he kept blasting. A las round sparked bluntly against the heavy brace on my left leg.
Time to reset the odds.
'Cherabael!' I commanded.
It had been drifting high above the gorge, trailing us like a kite, but now it descended, gathering speed, beginning to shine.
I had been much more careful in my design of this daemonhost. Elaborating on the basic and hasty ritual construction Aemos and I had wrought in those last few minutes aboard the Essene, I had supplemented the wards and rune markings on its flesh to reinforce its obedience. This daemonhost would not be permitted to have any of the capricious guile of the previous versions. It would not rebel. It would not be a maverick that had to be watched at all times. It was bound and locked with triple wards, totally subservient. I liked to think I could learn from my mistakes, at least sometimes.
Of course, there was a price to pay for such security. This Cherubael could manifest much less power, a direct consequence of its reinforced bindings. But it had enough. More than enough.
