The Infernal City Read Online Free PDF Page B

there.
    “Change is inevitable,” Urvwen went on. “Indeed, change is sacred. But it is not to be unguided. I came here to guide; the An-Xileel—and the city council—the ‘Organism’ that they so thoroughly control—do not listen.”
    “They have a guide—the Hist.”
    “Yes. And their guide brings change, but not the sort that ought to be encouraged. But they do not listen to me. Truth be told, no one here listens to me, but I try. Every day I come here and try to have some effect.”
    “What’s coming?” Mere-Glim persisted.
    “Do you know of Arteum?” the old man asked.
    “The island you Psijics come from,” Glim answered him.
    “It was removed from the world once. Did you know that?”
    “I did not.”
    “Such things happen.” He nodded, more to himself, it seemed, than to Mere-Glim.
    “Has something been removed from the world?” he asked.
    “No,” Urvwen said, lowering his voice. “Something has been removed from another world. And it has come here.”
    “What will it do?”
    “I don’t know. But I think it will be very bad.”
    “Why?”
    “It’s too complicated to explain,” he sighed. “And even if youunderstood my explanation, it wouldn’t help. Mundus—the world—is a very delicate thing, you know. Only certain rules keep it from returning to the Is/Is Not.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    The Psijic waved his hands. “Those boats out there—to sail and not founder—the sails and the ropes that hoist them, control them—tension must be just so, they must adjust as the winds change, if a storm comes they may even have to be taken down …” He shook his head. “No, no—I feel the ropes of the world, and they have become too tight. They pull in the wrong directions. And that is never good. That is what happened in the days before the Dragonfires first burned—”
    “Are you talking about Oblivion? I thought we can’t be invaded by Oblivion anymore. I thought Emperor Martin—”
    “Yes, yes. But nothing is so simple. There are always loopholes, you see.”
    “Even if there aren’t loops?”
    Urvwen grinned at that but didn’t reply.
    “So this—city,” Mere-Glim said. “It’s from Oblivion.”
    The priest shook his head, so violently Mere-Glim thought it might come off.
    “No, no, no—or yes. I can’t explain. I can’t—go away. Just go away.”
    Mere-Glim’s head was already hurting from the conversation. He didn’t need to be told twice, although technically he had been.
    He wandered off to find his cousins and procure a bottle of Theilul. Annaïg could wait a bit.

FOUR

    Hecua’s single eye crawled its regard over Annaïg’s list of ingredients. Her wrinkled dark brow knotted in a little frown.
    “Last try didn’t work, did it?”
    Annaïg puffed her lips and lifted her shoulders. “It worked,” she said, “just not exactly the way I wanted it to.”
    The Redguard shook her head. “You’ve the knack, there’s no doubt about that. But I’ve never heard of any formula that can make a person fly—not from anywhere. And this list—this just looks like a mess waiting to happen.”
    “I’ve heard Lazarum of the Synod worked out a way to fly,” Annaïg said.
    “Hmm. And maybe if there was a Synod conclave within four hundred miles of here, you might have a chance of learning that, after a few years paying their dues. But that’s a spell, not a synthesis. A badly put-together spell likely won’t work at all—alchemy gone wrong can be poison.”
    “I know all of that,” Annaïg said. “I’m not afraid—nothing I’ve ever made turned out too bad.”
    “It took me a week to give Mere-Glim his skin back.”
    “He had his skin,” Annaïg pointed out. “It was just translucent, that’s all. It didn’t
hurt
him.”
    Hecua buzzed her lips together in disdain. “Well, there’s no talking to the young, is there?” She held up the list and began picking through the bottles, boxes, and canisters on the shelves that made up the walls of