The passage was wide enough to walk side by side, Sthirothh padding close behind. It bent first this way and then the other, limiting sight, and the floor rose and fell in gentle curves. The pink stone and rounded edges were uncomfortably reminiscent of something organic – an intestine perhaps? Instinct kept their voices low and their footfalls soft.

After a few turns Fremin twisted her head to say “I am sorry that I tried to strangle you. I was startled and thought I was about to be attacked.”

The apology felt forced but all Gherrit could say was “It’s alright. My throat is not sore now,” and they walked on for a time. Then, because he was curious, Gherrit asked “Have you been attacked before?”

“Many, many times,” came Sthirothh’s voice from behind, and Gherrit cursed silently. Fremin gave him a frown. “Weren’t you supposed to be the careful one?”

“Yes, he was,” affirmed Sthirothh, and Fremin cursed aloud.

“No more questions,” said Gherrit firmly, “although I have wondered if the right question could get Sthirothh to lead us out of here safely.”

Fremin rubbed the back of her neck as she considered this. The passage began to slope upwards enough to be noticeable through the legs.

“It is a demon, and they are rarely helpful,” she said at last.

“It did lead me to water and fetch the magician’s things,” Gherrit pointed out. “The land let it walk among the thorns without striking at it.”

“It would. Demons are creatures of the ether, and so of the same stuff as land-spirits,” Fremin informed him.

“I suppose you learn this stuff in the Archivists,” said Gherrit, carefully to make it a flat statement.

“You do, along with much else, including history, a bit of botany, languages, land-lore, the kinds and places of the Powers ... “

Her recital cut off as the passage suddenly changed form. To Gherrit’s alarm, they were surrounded on all sides by a grey mist, thin enough to give a sense of endless distances fading away. Gherrit liked walking through the fogs that rolled over Daruz Alman, the way things were indistinct and wavered in and out of view. This was different and much less comfortable. The floor underfoot was an invisible but yielding surface, visually the same mist as the rest, as though he walked on clouds (with what below?). Gherrit felt he was inside some ephemeral bubble, elastic but fragile. The sense was enhanced when he veered to the side to look more closely at some passing shadow. Each step took more effort than the last until he was straining against some intangible membrane. He retreated before he could push to the point of bursting through, an outcome he was sure would not be good for him. Fremin stuck resolutely to the middle and Sthirothh lolloped behind, unperturbed.

They stepped gingerly on. Gherrit felt he should be groping ahead, for the normal cues provided by sight were missing. One sense told him he walked in a straight line, another that the way curved, a third that he was supported, a fourth that he floated above a void. He was profoundly relieved when they were all expelled into a more normal space. The relief did not last long. They were no longer in a bubble in space but in a bubble in the stone. The light shone on rough surfaces curving around them in a sphere three times the width of Gherrit’s outstretched arms. Around the equator ran a thin band of a lighter colour, once again marked by sets of rods and dots, one in each quadrant.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Where in the unwritten are we?” wondered Fremin. Sthirothh immediately answered.

“In a chamber of the southernmost of three delvings within the Hansippif.” It went on “What was your maternal grandfather’s first two names?”

“Uh, Gheyos Tchenle,” Fremin replied.

“Who wrote Three Wrong Things,” was the second question.

“Paman tel Tkvassin.”

“How many are elected to the Skull-Moot each year?”

“Uh, uh, I don’t know.” cried Fremin. Sthirothh drew back its head to strike, she whirled, grabbed its neck and swung it hard against the wall. Gherrit heard the crack of a bone breaking, Fremin whacked it against the rock again, twisted the neck and Sthirothh dissolved between her hands into purple motes which were sucked into a small vortex. The vortex closed with the faintest of noises, leaving Gherrit open-mouthed.

“Wha ..?”

“Demons are not immune to physical harm, and pervolve back into the ether if hit hard and often enough,” Fremin told him. “That’s the last we’ll see of it unless we say the Name aloud. Aaagh!”

Sthirothh materialised behind her as she spoke and stabbed its beak into her leg. When she spun around the demon had leapt away from her grasping hands. She stalked forward, hissing in pain and Sthirothh retreated, hopping backwards up the wall until it loomed over them like some living gargoyle. Fremin ground her teeth in frustration, then sat to examine the wound oozing blood over her thigh. It was a nasty puncture, and Fremin swore with real feeling as she pressed her hand over it.

When Gherrit tore two strips from his shirt and folded one into a pad Fremin accepted his help with a grunt. The pad went over the wound and the strip tied it into place. Fremin tested the leg and hobbled to her feet with a mutter of ‘mother-trashed pervert’ at Sthirothh. Gherrit took stock. Sealed chamber deep in the rock. Fremin wounded. Sthirothh not to be banished. One All-Day Sucker left, and a water bottle one quarter empty. The patterns on the wall made no sense to him, squint as he might. In sudden reckless desperation he asked “Sthirothh, is there a safe exit from this place to human lands?”

Sthirothh shook its head, clacked its beak, bobbed down and up above their heads and finally croaked “I do not know.” A lone feather drifted down to land on Gherrit’s head, where it melted.

“What, what!” cried Gherrit, clutching at his scalp. He could feel nothing different about his hair but his vision had changed. Sthirothh’s physical form was still clear but now overlaid? underlaid? by a dense tangle of lines. It was as if the demon were made of tight knots of yarn in all colours, some glowing, some quiescent, all writhing gently. Fremin’s form was outlined by a nimbus of pastel colours shifting gently her pouch and a dot on her chest in more solid lines. Gherrit looked down at his own chest to see the same together with a larger dot that was his glowstone and realised the dots were the protection against insects everyone wore. He was seeing the etheric force of Items. When Gherrit looked at the walls they had a faint underlying sheen as if a thin coat of watercolours had been imposed over them. Some of the markings on the wall stood out boldly, firm in outline and brighter, like their amulets. Was this how demons saw the world? It was confusing.

When he told Fremin of the markings she came out of her slump.

“What do they say, Gherrit?” with a hostile glare at Sthirothh.

“Some dots and lines glow, and there is a marking – some kind of writing – above each one.” He tried to describe what he saw and then borrowed a piece of paper and stylus to draw the markings. Fremin puzzled over them.

“These look like Ssaved ideographs, although I cannot read them. Odd. The Ssaveds are known only in the north, in the upper reaches of the Four Kingdoms. It will be a major find if I can document them here. The rest is just dots and lines to me.”

“They are mathematical series. If you draw lines from here to here then it completes the next term.”

“And the last time you did that you were transferred to a crypt,” Fremin reminded him.

“Well, yes. But that let you out or awakened you or whatever. And it can’t be worse than staying here eating our own toes.”

“I’ll be eating your toes if it comes to that. But I suppose you’re right. Lead on. I’ll hold your shoulder, so we don’t get separated.”

Gherrit adjusted the belt slung over his shoulder, waited until Fremin’s hand had a firm hold and drew the lines. Again, abruptly they were elsewhere. Fremin took in their place of arrival.

“Did you say it could not be worse? Really? Tell me how this is better.”