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20

When I triggered the opening sequence of that copper veined rock in the bed of the Multnomah Channel, I’d expected it to open like a portal.

The rock was round, and about as wide as one of my arms, so I’d expected its face to be replaced by a whorl of energy, whose feel and scent would tell me something about its character and destination.

True, I was well underwater at the time, but with the underwater freedom spell — or skill, as Vasco would have me call it — my senses were working pretty well. Everything except my vocal cords.

Yes, I know that my vocal cords aren’t a sense. But they were the only part of me not working normally, all right? I think it was a side effect of having gills so close to them. But that’s speculation on my part.

Anyway, I’d been expecting the swirling energies, ready to convey me not to some other location or plane of existence, but to some energetically designed interior. Fabricated and manipulated space, built into the rock.

More important than that, I’d been expecting a choice about when I went inside.

Most important of all, I wanted to have some idea of what would be waiting for me on the other side before I entered.

I mean, I knew I was going to go in. Vasco, Magellan and I got there following Brikatika, which meant that Brikatika had gone into the rock.

And where that dorach went, I needed to go.

Still, as a Locksmith, figuring out what’s on the other side of portals — and things like portals, into which category this rock fell — was stock in trade. I didn’t even have to try to have a number of appropriate skills leap back to mind.

I just wanted a moment to prepare before I ventured inside a rock.

(A concept I tried very hard not to think too much about at the time, I can tell you.)

The rock didn’t work like a portal though.

I triggered the opening.

Icy blue energies swirled around me with the smell of lutefisk.

The rock sucked me right inside.

The world about me now was ice.

The floor was white ice. The walls a pale blue. The ceiling, a dark blue. All of it smelled cold and vaguely like the Willamette River.

But I wasn’t freezing.

I mean, my first thought, once my eyes successfully resolved that I was standing in a room made entirely of ice, was that I’d need to huddle in on myself and conserve warmth.

Well, also that I had to hope some personal warmth spell occurred to me before I froze to death.

But I really wasn’t that cold. More like forty-degree-day cold, not Jesus-Christ-it-must-be-zero-Kelvin cold.

So after a brief shiver, I settled down and reviewed my surroundings.

The room I stood in had a fifteen foot ceiling, and walls at least twice that far apart. It was longer than it was wide, too. Maybe … forty feet long?

Something like that.

No furniture in here. No light source either, except maybe the walls.

Yes. Now that I could take a closer look, I could see that the walls were actually the darker blue of the ceiling, except that light emitted from them, lightening their shade and keeping me from being totally blind.

In the wall behind me, I could spot grooves in the shape of a doorway. Not a small, round doorway, but a regular doorway, like the ones in my apartment. No handle, but that didn’t worry me.

That door was probably the way back out. But what about the way…

Wait.

Where were Vasco and Magellan?

They’d been right behind me, in the river. When I triggered the rock’s opening, they’d been moving forward, same as me.

But they weren’t here.

“Great,” I muttered aloud. “Looks like there was one more trap.”

That brought a snickering laugh that slithered through the air, rather than echoed.

“Yessss….”

I was just about to reply, when the voice continued.

“You arrrre trapped here, Locksssssmith. Even yourrrr ssssskills cannot open that doorrrr from the inssssside.”

Something was wrong with this. And not just the sibilance.

“All right,” I said, stretching my senses to try to pick up where that voice came from. “I’m here. And clearly I missed the all-you-can-eat lutefisk lunch. So why don’t you tell me where I can find Brikatika.”

“Dead.”

The word didn’t hiss, but it felt as though it should have.

“Sssssorry, Lockssssmith, but you’rre too late to ssssave the dorach.”

“So, you’re confessing to a Locksmith that you violated a treaty? I mean, I haven’t met you yet, so I don’t know which treaty applies, but I’m pretty sure every treaty we have makes killing a no-no.”

My senses were settling in now. I could pick up the energetic patterns that formed the icy structure surrounding me.

It was consistent with the color of the ceiling, and the smell of lutefisk. But there was something off about the sound of it. The energies of this place hissed, when there should have been a slower cycle to them. Should have been something more like a hum.

But what did that mean?

“Funny,” the voice said. “You ssssslew a rissssskatan with yourrrr own hand.”

“I was saving a life.” I started slowly through the room, my hands out and moving to keep my awareness going as many directions as possible. “You shouldn’t try to pretend you were doing the same thing.”

Hissing. I was pretty sure it was laughter.

Something nipped at my ankle. A sudden, icy pain shot up my leg all the way to the knee.

I stumbled. Caught myself on my hands.

More hissing laughter.

“Poorrrr Locksssssmith. Cannot sssssave the dorach. Cannot sssssave himssssself.”

Movement. I could feel it nearby. But the icy pain made my leg throb. Numbness followed the throb, and that numbness started creeping up my calf.

“No,” I said. “I can save myself just fine.”

Movement to my left. I clenched my arms. Made myself not twitch. Not give away anything.

“I’m a Locksmith. There’s a reason we’re the badasses of this world.”

“Badassssessss.” More snickering, slithering laughter. “Not forrrr long.”

“Now just hold on a second. Look. Hissing esses is one thing. Sounds menacing. But what’s the deal with your r’s?”

Sudden darting in from my left. Coming down from the ceiling.

Looked like a blue-green tentacle, but slimy.

I caught it. Snagged it in both hands.

Not a tentacle. A snake of some kind. Its hood flared out. Its mouth opened wide, fangs dripping purple venom.

It hissed, and that venom got airborne in a cloud of purple gas.

I had to throw the snake away and dive for the floor. Roll along the ice.

I’d evaded the poison cloud. But the snake was gone again.

“All right,” I said, coming to my knees. Listing slightly to my left and worrying about the numbness that was reaching my left thigh.

“All right,” I said, again. “I know what you look like now, ice serpent. You won’t surprise me again. Just give me Brikatika, and maybe I’ll let you live. I mean, you attacked a Locksmith, but still, maybe I could make the case that you were defending your home.”

Hissing sound. I kept talking.

“But defending your home and either harboring or murdering a fugitive from treaty justice?” I shook my head as I turned to try to watch all directions at once. “Can’t make that sound like anything other than what it is.”

Movement. Behind me.

I flung myself forward. Left leg gave out mid-effort. I banged my head on the ice, but still rolled to my back. My hands came up.

I caught the snake again. This time by the crest. Wrestled with it.

The ice snake’s jaws opened wide. Dripped purple venom on my nice silk shirt, and where the venom touched, little spots on my chest went numb.

But no poison cloud this time. I’d guessed right. It couldn’t breath the cloud without flaring its hood.

And I had the hood pinned.

“I can snap you,” I said. I wasn’t sure of that, but it sounded good. And besides, I was a strong guy even before I went through the combat training.

“I mean it,” I said. “I’ll snap you right here. Rip your head off.”

The snake lifted me right off the ground.

The thing had to have been anchored in the ceiling.

There. I could see now where it had a hole it was coming out of.

A hole.

It was attacking me out of a hole.

A hole that hadn’t been there earlier. I knew that, because I’d looked. The ceiling had been solid.

“Last chance,” I said, confidence all through my voice now. So much confidence that I swear I felt that ice snake hesitate. “I don’t want to kill you, but I will.”

The ice snake hissed and yanked faster. Maybe it sensed that something was wrong.

Clearly, the snake didn’t understand the dual nature of a Locksmith.

Yes, we can open damn near anything.

But we can close damn near anything too.

I tapped into the flow of the icy blue energies of that ceiling.

I slammed the hole shut.

Cut the snake right in half. The half outside the hole fell to the floor.

The snake wasn’t dead yet. That astounded me, but even being astounded didn’t slow me down. Not now.

The remainder of the snake’s body writhed, venting acidic purple ichor all over the left side of the chamber, eating away slowly at the interior.

The head kept trying to bite me.

I slammed its fangs down against the ice of the floor.

Twice.

Three times.

On the fourth repetition, the fangs broke. And that wasn’t all. I’d been slamming the thing down with all the force I could muster, which was considerable. When the fangs broke, the jaw unhinged and tore away.

I jumped back, but all the fight had gone out of the snake now. Even the flow of its purple ichor had diminished to a trickle.

The snake twitched a few more times, then was still.

But it occurred to me that one snake hole might hide more than one snake.

I needed to get out of here.

But first, I needed to do something about this spreading numbness, which was now getting dangerously close to, well, let’s just say to the top of my thigh.

I hopped over to a corner of the room, well away from the hole, the door in, and most important, the dead snake and the havoc its blood had caused.

Double-puncture wound at my left ankle, with purple lines coming out of it. Already the ankle was swollen. I just hadn’t noticed, through the numbness.

Not good.

Worse than that, I could feel my pulse beginning to slow. Get a little thready. That was even less good, especially after a fight.

I was starting to get lightheaded too. The ice chamber got brighter. Not much, but enough to worry me.

I didn’t have Vasco’s bag of tricks to help me now. Fortunately, the right information came back, as soon as the need was there.

First, I applied Serpent’s Kiss to the snake bite.

Felt like I’d shoved hot coals onto the wound.

And I have to admit, on the one hand, that was good. I could feel the burn. Picked my heart rate right back up too, and helped me focus.

Also on the good side, there were no witnesses to the bout of swearing that came out of me then. I must have run through curse words in at least a dozen languages. I know I pounded a few cracks into the ice, too.

But I had more to do. The Serpent’s Kiss wasn’t enough.

I really didn’t want to do this next step.

I stretched my awareness down inside the Serpent’s Kiss, where I’d rubbed it into the wound.

I found the energies at the core of the concoction.

And I started dragging those energies up through my leg.

Felt as though I were willingly yanking a downed power line right up my calf and well into my thigh. My free hand kept pounding on the ground. I had my eyes squeezed tight. Drenched myself in sweat. All the muscles in my shoulders and back seized up.

I clenched my teeth so tight I’m amazed they didn’t crack.

But it worked.

My leg healed. And I just had to sit there, shivering against the gelling sweat all over my body, while I recovered from the healing, as well as the attack.

Finally, though, I needed to find my way out.

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