“I get the idea,” Gyre said, temper fraying a little. He held his hand out to Elariel. “Let’s go.”
They slipped down from the transporter. Kit’s spider, silent since Gyre had entered Refuge, still clung to one shoulder. He hoisted the pack full of thalers on the other and headed for the sliver of daylight. Elariel followed, blinking and rubbing her eyes.
They emerged into a narrow mountain valley. The door waited only moments before sliding closed with a shallow boom, leaving no trace of its presence behind.
“It’s… bright.” Elariel kept one hand over her face.
“Your eyes should adapt, if they’re human now.” Something poked Gyre not very gently in the back of the neck. “Yes, Kit, go ahead.”
“Oh-my-fucking-Chosen-defend-son-of-a-stinking-plaguepit,” Kit said, all in a rush. Her voice rose into song. “Gisela was a lusty lass, her breasts were big as mountains, and I’ll tell you ’bout her—”
“Is this really necessary?” Gyre interrupted.
“You try spending four days in enforced silence,” Kit said. “I’m never going to make fun of those monks up on Mount Shiver again. You know they do that for years? I’d go mad. Mad.”
“Don’t you have other bodies to keep yourself occupied?”
“I’ve got a dozen at the rendezvous point, but they’re just waiting. Boring.” The spider skittered higher up Gyre’s shoulder. “I could barely stop myself from giving you advice when you fucked everything up.”
“Thank you,” Gyre said, “for your forbearance.”
“Excuse me,” Elariel said. “Your construct is talking.”
“I know,” Gyre said.
“All right,” Elariel said, with the air of someone carefully remaining calm. “It’s just that they don’t, as a rule. And I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going mad. Under the circumstances it wouldn’t surprise me.”
“You’re not mad,” Gyre said wearily. “Let me make reintroductions. Elariel, Kitsrea Doomseeker. Kit, Elariel. Elariel looks human now, and Kit’s a construct. Everyone clear?”
“No,” Elariel said. “Not remotely.” She looked more closely at the little spider. “You told me that Kit was dead.”
“I am!” Kit said. “Kind of.”
“When Naumoriel tried to activate the Leviathan, there was an explosion,” Gyre explained. He felt a twinge of guilt at the lie, but he wasn’t sure Elariel would appreciate his role in what had happened. “Kit was dying. Naumoriel had explained how the Leviathan’s control system worked, the transfer of a mind into the Core Analytica, so I thought it was worth a try.”
“Sure,” Kit said, “why not take your mortally wounded lover and shove her into an ancient machine of uncertain effectiveness? What could go wrong?”
“Well,” Elariel said, “to begin with, if the transfer had failed partway, you could have been left a twisted wreck, in eternal agony—”
“Believe me, I have thought of that,” Kit said.
“It worked,” Gyre said. “The Leviathan is still crippled, of course, but its construct swarm still functions.”
“That’s… fascinating.” Elariel shook her head. “And you are… yourself? Fully intelligent?”
“I mean, as far as I know,” Kit said. “How would I tell?”
“There were always debates about whether an Analytica of sufficient complexity could support a true mind,” Elariel said. “But of course, what defines ‘mind’? Self-recognition? Surely too simple. Perhaps some tests—”
“Gyre, promise you won’t let her take me apart,” Kit said.
“You have other bodies.”
“It’s the principle of the thing.”
“I’ll do my best,” Gyre said. “But for now you’re going to have to leave us and head to the rendezvous.”
“Boring,” Kit singsonged.
“In Deepfire they’d think you’re a plaguespawn, and being taken apart would be the least of your problems.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Kit released her hold and dropped agilely to the ground. “If you’re not there on time, I’m going to assume you’re dead and find someone else to amuse me.”
“Thanks.”
The little construct scuttled off, losing itself surprisingly quickly in the rocks.
“I don’t remember her being so…” Elariel made a vague but evocative gesture.
“You didn’t know her as well as I did,” Gyre said, shifting his pack. “Though being dead has definitely made her… more so.”
Elariel tentatively lowered her hand from her eyes, blinking in the bright sunlight, and looked around curiously. It was, Gyre realized, probably the first time she’d been aboveground and unprotected in daylight.
“It’s very… blue,” she said after a moment.
“The sky?”
Elariel nodded. “I hope you have some idea where we are, because I certainly don’t.”
“More or less,” Gyre said. “At the bottom of this valley, we ought to be able to see Hunter’s Gap. We can be in Deepfire by nightfall.”
“Deepfire.” Elariel looked uncertain. “We have no other choice?”
“It’s the only place around here we’ll find the supplies we need,” Gyre said. “And I still have contacts there. Believe me, I don’t like it any better than you do.” He wasn’t sure how far the legend of Gyre Silvereye had spread, but in Deepfire the chance of someone recognizing him was high. Cross that bridge when we come to it. “We won’t be there for long.”
“All right.” Elariel took several deep breaths. “I am… in your debt, Gyre. After everything my master did to you, you… saved my life. I hope to make myself as useful as I can.”
“It was the right thing to do.” Gyre scratched his head, embarrassed. “Come on. Let’s get walking.”
It took considerably longer to reach the city than Gyre had expected, thanks to an amateur mistake on his part. He’d secured basic clothing for Elariel, but he’d forgotten to ask about shoes. Elariel herself hadn’t even considered footwear, since ghouls had tough, calloused feet and generally went without. Her new, human soles were as soft as if she’d spent her life in a carpeted palace. It took only a few minutes of picking their way down the slope before she was badly scraped.
Gyre tried to improvise, ripping up his spare shirt and winding the rags around Elariel’s feet, but it didn’t improve matters much. The ghoul did her best, but the pain was visible on her face, and she left a trail of bloody marks on the rock. Too much of that and she wouldn’t be able to walk at all. Gyre called a halt.
They were to the north of the city, on the same road he and Kit had taken on their first, desperate trip to Refuge. “Road” was an exaggeration, of course—it was nothing more than a vague track, descending from the outside lip of the Deepfire crater. At the head of the valley, part of the crater wall had collapsed, forming a low point called Hunter’s Gap. A set of crude stone steps had been hacked into the rock to make the way easier, but it was still a considerable climb.