Saul and Olivia found their footing in a darkened passage above the foodfall, warm and smelling faintly of sulfur and decay. The ceiling was low. Crystalline walls let in only faint slivers of light. Steel pipes blocked most of the remaining gray illumination. Saul looked one way down the passage, then over Olivia’s head in the opposite direction.

  “You can let go of me now,” she said.

  Saul grunted and released her wrist. He couldn’t recall adjusting his grip from her hand. He stepped past Olivia and peered further down the passage.

  A light shined brighter down that direction, past a series of side passages that connected to the one in which they stood. Saul squinted toward it. “Is that the way to the city?”

  “Yes,” said Nat. “I sense a lot of light up there.”

  “We should go quietly. No telling what’s up here.”

  Olivia nodded. She took the lead, staying low. The end of her cattle prod bobbed in front of her as she crept forward.

  Saul watched her back for a moment. The ape part of him was happy with the sight. The hand that had held onto her wrist still tingled. Focus, Saul. Besides, Irene is up above, somewhere. He followed Olivia down the passage.

  She stopped by the first side passage and looked down it. “What was that?”

  “What was what?”

  “You didn’t hear a voice?”

  Saul grimaced. “No, but I could believe anything showing up at this point.” He took an oven rod in one hand. He kept his eyes on the light at the end of the tunnel while Olivia stepped into the side passage.

  “I could swear someone said something, but it wasn’t you or me.” She peered into the darkness. “I see someone down there.”

  “Olivia, we have to keep going up.”

  She turned toward him, frowning. “I thought they sounded like they were in trouble.”

  “Who? I didn’t hear anything.”

  She shook her head and stepped back from the side passage’s entrance. “See for yourself.”

  He grunted and brushed past her to take her place peering down the passage. A skinny, dark shape was propped against the wall just ten yards away. Saul squinted. A rasp of a voice issued from the husk. “Help. Me.”

  Saul took another step into the passage. “Who are you?

  The form pushed itself forward so its head hung down between bony shoulders. A low rasp issued from its throat, but the sound could not have been a word. Saul scowled. “Look, what can I do to help?”

  “Help. Me. Water. Find.” One skeletal arm rose. A finger pointed down the side passage away from Saul. “That way.”

  Saul nodded. “Alright. I’ll get you water. Just wait here. My friend will keep an eye on you.”

  He back out of the passage. Olivia drew back from the corner. “You saw him?”

  “Yeah.” Saul shivered as he wondered how the poor guy had ended up in this passage. “He says there’s water down the passage from him, and he wants us to bring him some. I told him you’d watch him until I got back.”

  She frowned. “I don’t know why I didn’t hear that. I’ve been right here.”

  The sound of rushing water through the pipes along the wall accompanied her words. She followed Saul into the passage with the dark form. Saul couldn’t tell if the person huddled against the wall was a man or a woman, but whoever he or she was, the person needed help.

  He set off into the darkened side passage. His eyes adjusted fairly quickly. Olivia stopped beside the trembling, skinny form of the person in the hall and crouched down. “It’ll be alright.”

  Saul sincerely doubted the person in the passage could be saved, between the lack of flesh on the bones and the way the body shook. That did not change the fact that he would get water. Nobody deserved to die abandoned in a place like this, not even an exile, stranger, or enemy.

  He followed the side passage to a corner and took it. The passage angled slightly upward, as did the pipes along the side. Walls were blackened with dark slime. In the enclosed space, the bitter smell was worse. Were the pipes leaking?

  Nat eased his tiny body against Saul’s neck. “This looks like the same stuff dripping on the towers below.”

  “Yeah.” Saul pinched his nose and kept going. He reached another jagged turn in the passage. Around the corner, a long corridor stretched ahead. The ceiling here was lower, but still barely high enough for Saul to stand upright. The entrances of six other passages stood three to each wall down the length of the corridor. “Great.”

  He took a step into the corridor. Then he heard a scream from behind. Olivia.

  Saul whirled. Footsteps splashed in the puddles of slime on the floor, coming closer. He clutched his oven rod in the dark. He started down the passage back the way he had come. The footsteps approached.

  Darkness closed in around him. He tensed as the sound of the runner approached the corner at the bottom of the sloped passage. A dark shape barreled up the passage toward him. He glimpsed sneakers. An outstretched arm knocked his oven rod to one side and the shadowy mass collided with Saul.

  The wind went out of him and he staggered but kept his feet. He grasped in the dark and seized a few strands of hair.

  “Damn it, Saul.” Olivia’s head was lodged against his chest.

  He released her hair. “What happened?”

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Her teeth chattered. “That thing back there wasn’t human.”

  “What?”

  “The passage sealed behind me. It got my cattle prod. Almost tripped me.”

  Saul sucked in a breath. “This is a trap.”

  She nodded, forehead brushing against his shirt. She stepped back from him. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  He turned to the long corridor. “If the passage behind us closed, then we’ve just got the one option.”

  “Right.” Olivia took a deep breath, then held a forearm to her nose. “Ugh, that smell.”

  “It’s the slime.” Saul shifted his feet, arm over his nose. He held his oven rod out in front of him, facing down the passage. In his pack, Rult hissed. Saul gritted his teeth. “Come on.”

  They paced into the darkness. The slime squished under his soles. The two of them passed the first set of openings, one on either side of the passage. Slime dripped down the walls, blotting out the light from outside more and more.

  “Nat, can you take us out of here?”

  “I can’t sense anything outside of this passage.”

  “Damn it.” He stalked toward the second set of side passages, at the middle point of the corridor. Cold slime dripped from the ceiling and speckled on his shoulder and the front of his shirt.

  Olivia’s breathing was loud in the dark behind him. He squinted into one of the passages at the middle of the corridor. A creaking sound issued from the shadows, but Saul could see nothing but black. They continued down the passage. Their footsteps sent ripples through the slime.

  She inhaled sharply. “Saul. There’s one right behind us.”

  He clenched his fingers on the oven rod. His feet carried him forward. “Keep moving.” His teeth chattered as he spoke, and not just from the increasingly cold air around him.

  Olivia aimed a taser down the corridor behind them. They passed the last set of side-doorways while she was walking backwards. “What are they?”

  “They’re not gern and they’re not human.”

  “Children?”

  “Maybe.”

  The darkness of the corridor gave way to dim light filtered through crystal walls. The slime wasn’t as thick between the pipes in the small circular room, barely fifteen feet in diameter, they stepped into at the end of the line. Two doors led out on the other side of the room from Saul and Olivia.

  “Which way?” he asked.

  Nat shivered. “I can sense light to the right.”

  Olivia’s shoulder touched Saul’s back. “Light is good.”

  “Right.” He pressed toward the right. The bitter smell of slime grew intense ahead of them.

  A series of high-pitched clicks reminded Saul of a knife on a ceramic cutting board, like the ones his father kept at the estate. The difference in the new sounds was the speed of them, one after another. The sounds quickened.

  Saul hesitated at the entrance of the right passage. He listened for the source of the sounds. However, he could not single out any one direction. The clicks were joined by scraping, as of sandpaper being dragged over stone.

  “They’re getting closer,” said Olivia in a soft voice.

  “Follow me.” Saul stepped into the right passage. The passage beyond the doorway was broad, almost the size of the circular chamber behind them. The beam of Olivia’s newly drawn flashlight cut through the darkness from over his shoulder and cast his shadow on the glimmering slime-streaked floor.

  In the shadows off to the sides of the passage glittered dozens of eyes with multiple facets, like those of flies. Saul took a step back as creatures unfolded from their places on the floor.

  Slime dripped from them as they rose, some on six legs, others on two. Chitinous armor covered mostly humanoid bodies. Additional legs extended from different parts of their bodies, slender and spider-like.

  The flashlight beam bobbed. Olivia’s breath caught. The spider creatures scuttled and crawled and stalked toward them. Saul’s arm shook, but he kept his grip on the oven rod.

  The nearest spider creatures reared up to twice Saul’s height, spine uncoiling like a whip. He dived toward the creature’s midsection as talons scythed down all around him. His oven rod struck the art-child a few inches above its human-like navel, near the base of its torso. A claw slashed into Saul’s back, tearing through his shirt and embedding in his shoulder blade.

  He howled with pain and his spark ignited the oven rod. The spider child’s black eyes burst and the smell of cooked meat filled Saul’s nostrils. The monster toppled backward, slime oozing between slack mandibles. It’s talon broke off in his shoulder. He grunted with pain.

  Saul shifted and dodged, avoiding the bladed hands and slicing claws of more monsters. One of them cried out and then went down, a pair of taser tines stuck in its chest.

  Olivia dropped the taser and followed him as he shouldered his way through one of the spindly bodies with a crunch of cracking shell. He stomped down on the spider child as it fell. The creature shrieked in agony. Saul gritted his teeth and drove his boot into the thing’s jaw. The scream cut off. He stepped over the body.

  “This way.”

  She drew a stun gun and kept pace with him. He plowed forward, swatting out with his arm. When his oven rod found carapace or limb or eye he activated it. Charred flesh fell away, but the creatures showed no fear or hesitation in racing at him.

  Ten yards down the passage, he knocked down the last of the monsters in front of him. He looked back. The talon embedded in his shoulder oozed slime over the bloody wound. He grimaced. “So much for this shirt.” But in his head he, was yelling to break for it. He was already wounded. If he took any damage to his legs he would have no chance of getting away, even if the mob had to pursue him.

  He looked back. “Olivia—” He stopped.

  She had been walking with her back close to his. She stared at the mob of mangled slimy spider children behind them. Each one twitched, and even those with broken limbs or backs rose up from the floor. Strands of slime flowed through their wounds and buoyed them up.

  Both she and Saul gasped for breath. From the circular room, a very human-looking shadow stalked into the doorway. All traces of feigned weakness were gone. The creature that had led them down this path in the first place carried a length of polished wood and metal, now dotted and streaked with slime, Olivia’s cattle prod. The skeletal shape raised the weapon as the horde of spider children rose.

  When the creature spoke, it was no longer halting like before. “Congratulations. You are fairly resourceful for such young creatures.”

  “What is this?” Saul glared at the shadowy face of the creature with the cattle prod. “What are you?”

  The creature smiled. “Our name is Iago. But we prefer Chill Wind.”

  Saul grimaced. “You say that name like it should mean something to me.”

  “Never mind what our name means. We protect the city. We will have your water, intruders. Do you think this web is easy to maintain?”

  “The slime,” said Olivia. “It’s all part of this thing.”

  “Very astute, Earth—born. You are clever. But only giftmakers may pass this gate.” The creature strode to the front of the mangled spider children. “Water. We need water.”

  The spider creatures leapt toward Saul and Olivia. She raised one arm and a taser sprang into it. She aimed at the speaking creature and fired. The shadowy thing took the darts in the middle of its leap and fell face first onto the floor, skidding to Olivia’s feet. The cattle prod cut a trail through the slime. Olivia dropped her taser and crouched to pick up the prod. Another spider leapt at her.

  Saul’s oven rod cooked the monster in flight though the force of its leap turned him to one side. The body fell at his feet in front of Olivia. She scrambled up, cattle prod in hand.

  The creature she had shocked with her taser was already trying to stand. She jabbed it with the prod. The art-child shuddered, then fell back to the floor. “We’ve got to run.”

  He nodded, in spite of the pain from the talon in his shoulder. Together they took off down the passage, racing to who-knows-where over slime that coated the floor. The sounds of spiders scuttling and creeping followed them.

  Sweat trickled from his forehead. Bile rose in his throat. The passage angled upward. A whiff of clean air reached his nostrils as the incline of the passage steepened. He panted for breath. His shoulder seared with pain.

  A doorway marked the ending of the passage up ahead. An iron door stood open, but still on its hinges. Saul fell behind as Olivia charged through it. He stumbled over the threshold and then collapsed just inside the doorway. His hands skinned on the stone floor, but at least, there was no slime.

  He lay on his front, unable to do anything but gasp for air. He closed his eyes and grimaced in pain. The door slammed behind him with a metallic clang that echoed through the chamber where Saul lay. His forehead rested on rough stone and he passed out.