Skin Game
Page 110
Deirdre turned toward me, her blade-hair rasping and slithering against itself, and shook her head with an expression of faint disgust. Youve won the round, boy. Theres no point in doing a victory dance too.
Still need the big guy to give me a lift, I insisted.
Why? she demanded.
I jerked a thumb at the Gate of Ice. Theyre moving in a pattern. If I can see the whole field, if I can track the pattern, I can find a way through. But I cant see over the first row of blocks. So I need to get higher.
Deirdre stared at me steadily, both sets of eyes on mine, and I dropped my gaze away from hers hurriedly. The last thing I needed, at the moment, was to accidentally find myself in a soul gaze with a Fallen angel or a psychotic murderess with centuries of dark deeds behind her.
Very well, she said. I will lift you.
How? I asked.
Her hair suddenly burst into motion, striking down into the stone of the cavern floor and sending up bursts of sparks where the steely stuff bit deep into the rock. I would have jumped back from her if doing so wouldnt have put me far enough out onto the ice to get myself smashed flat. Then some more of the blades slithered down to the floor and lay flat, side by side, in several layers. It was like looking at a floor tile made from razor blades.
Stand there, Deirdre said. Plenty of strands of her hair were still free and moving slightly. I will lift you.
I arched an eyebrow at her. Youre kidding, right? What happens if you drop me? Itll be like I fell into a blender.
Well, golly, Dresden, she said, deadpan, then I guess it looks like youll be well motivated to keep your balance and think positive thoughts.
Heh, said Grey.
I glowered at him for a second and then said, Fine, and stepped onto Deirdres hair, keeping some bend in my knees.
The hair moved and she lifted me slowly, while other razor-blade strands rustled and rasped around me. There was something deliberate about the motion, as if it was taking all of her concentration to prevent herself from slicing me into confetti, and I decided that a comment about split ends and using some chain-saw oil for conditioner could go unspoken.
Thats what I call diplomacy.
She got my feet up maybe ten feet off the ground, which was more than enough for me to be able to look over the entire two hundred yards. I lifted my staff, murmured a word, and willed more light to issue forth from it. The air was filled with droplets of water and tiny chips of ice, where the blocks were smashing into one another, creating a glittering haze over everything, but I could track the motion of the blocks well enough, and in the archway ahead, I could see another lever exactly like the one at the Gate of Fire.
Seemed pretty simple. Get through the grinders. Get to the lever. I scanned the place for some kind of ice-amander, but saw nothing.Nothing that I knew of would be able to survive all the abuse the grinders were dishing out, but that didnt mean that there wasnt something I didnt know about that could handle it just fine.
My imagination promptly treated me to an image of a viscous, blobby monster that could lie flat on the floor in perfect concealment, and be smashed between grinders with no particular trauma and that would melt my face off the second it touched me. Then my imagination showed me my skinless self, flailing around like a victim in a horror movie, getting blood everywherefor about two seconds. Then I imagined two of the grinders smashing me to jelly that could be readily consumed by osmosis.
My imagination needs therapy.
I closed my eyes for a second and dismissed such flights of fancy. That wasnt what I needed right now. I needed to find the pattern in the movement between me and the gate, to determine the path I could take to get inside. I opened my eyes again and watched.
It took me several minutes to see where it began. The movement of the nearest blocks began to repeat itself after seventy-five seconds or so. The next row had a similar pattern, though it was happening on a separate cycle. As was the next, and the next, and the one after that.
I stood there watching the patterns for a good fifteen minutes, tracking them, focused, keeping track of every separate motion in my head, in much the same way you had to do with the most complex of spells, and realized that I could simplify the model for each row to a cog with one broken tooth. As long as I entered the row on the beat that the broken tooth was aligned with me, I could breeze through it. So it just became a matter of timing my run so that the openings lined up for me. Theoretically.
I watched for another ten minutes, until I was pretty sure I had it, and could see the patterns aligning to give me my string of openings.
Harry? Michael asked, finally.
I held up my hand to silence him, bouncing my hand slightly to help me keep track, following the pattern. The way through was going to open about . . . now.
I leapt down to the ground and started running.
I was five strides onto the ice, and through the opening in the first row of grinders, before I realized that I may have miscounted, and that if I had, I would have no opening through the next-to-last row.
There was no help for it. The opening behind me was already gone. Id just have to adjust on the fly.
I kept moving forward, dashing ahead through a pair of house-sized grinders before they could crash together with me in the middle. I whipped to the diagonal for a couple of rows, and the air got colder and colder as I went ahead. I could stand at the heart of a cavern of ice deep within a glacier, na**d and wet from the shower and not shiver, but this cold was beginning to get to me. My breath became a large plume, visible in the air, and the floating chips of ice gathered on my eyelashes, making me fear that if I blinked, they might freeze together.
Still need the big guy to give me a lift, I insisted.
Why? she demanded.
I jerked a thumb at the Gate of Ice. Theyre moving in a pattern. If I can see the whole field, if I can track the pattern, I can find a way through. But I cant see over the first row of blocks. So I need to get higher.
Deirdre stared at me steadily, both sets of eyes on mine, and I dropped my gaze away from hers hurriedly. The last thing I needed, at the moment, was to accidentally find myself in a soul gaze with a Fallen angel or a psychotic murderess with centuries of dark deeds behind her.
Very well, she said. I will lift you.
How? I asked.
Her hair suddenly burst into motion, striking down into the stone of the cavern floor and sending up bursts of sparks where the steely stuff bit deep into the rock. I would have jumped back from her if doing so wouldnt have put me far enough out onto the ice to get myself smashed flat. Then some more of the blades slithered down to the floor and lay flat, side by side, in several layers. It was like looking at a floor tile made from razor blades.
Stand there, Deirdre said. Plenty of strands of her hair were still free and moving slightly. I will lift you.
I arched an eyebrow at her. Youre kidding, right? What happens if you drop me? Itll be like I fell into a blender.
Well, golly, Dresden, she said, deadpan, then I guess it looks like youll be well motivated to keep your balance and think positive thoughts.
Heh, said Grey.
I glowered at him for a second and then said, Fine, and stepped onto Deirdres hair, keeping some bend in my knees.
The hair moved and she lifted me slowly, while other razor-blade strands rustled and rasped around me. There was something deliberate about the motion, as if it was taking all of her concentration to prevent herself from slicing me into confetti, and I decided that a comment about split ends and using some chain-saw oil for conditioner could go unspoken.
Thats what I call diplomacy.
She got my feet up maybe ten feet off the ground, which was more than enough for me to be able to look over the entire two hundred yards. I lifted my staff, murmured a word, and willed more light to issue forth from it. The air was filled with droplets of water and tiny chips of ice, where the blocks were smashing into one another, creating a glittering haze over everything, but I could track the motion of the blocks well enough, and in the archway ahead, I could see another lever exactly like the one at the Gate of Fire.
Seemed pretty simple. Get through the grinders. Get to the lever. I scanned the place for some kind of ice-amander, but saw nothing.Nothing that I knew of would be able to survive all the abuse the grinders were dishing out, but that didnt mean that there wasnt something I didnt know about that could handle it just fine.
My imagination promptly treated me to an image of a viscous, blobby monster that could lie flat on the floor in perfect concealment, and be smashed between grinders with no particular trauma and that would melt my face off the second it touched me. Then my imagination showed me my skinless self, flailing around like a victim in a horror movie, getting blood everywherefor about two seconds. Then I imagined two of the grinders smashing me to jelly that could be readily consumed by osmosis.
My imagination needs therapy.
I closed my eyes for a second and dismissed such flights of fancy. That wasnt what I needed right now. I needed to find the pattern in the movement between me and the gate, to determine the path I could take to get inside. I opened my eyes again and watched.
It took me several minutes to see where it began. The movement of the nearest blocks began to repeat itself after seventy-five seconds or so. The next row had a similar pattern, though it was happening on a separate cycle. As was the next, and the next, and the one after that.
I stood there watching the patterns for a good fifteen minutes, tracking them, focused, keeping track of every separate motion in my head, in much the same way you had to do with the most complex of spells, and realized that I could simplify the model for each row to a cog with one broken tooth. As long as I entered the row on the beat that the broken tooth was aligned with me, I could breeze through it. So it just became a matter of timing my run so that the openings lined up for me. Theoretically.
I watched for another ten minutes, until I was pretty sure I had it, and could see the patterns aligning to give me my string of openings.
Harry? Michael asked, finally.
I held up my hand to silence him, bouncing my hand slightly to help me keep track, following the pattern. The way through was going to open about . . . now.
I leapt down to the ground and started running.
I was five strides onto the ice, and through the opening in the first row of grinders, before I realized that I may have miscounted, and that if I had, I would have no opening through the next-to-last row.
There was no help for it. The opening behind me was already gone. Id just have to adjust on the fly.
I kept moving forward, dashing ahead through a pair of house-sized grinders before they could crash together with me in the middle. I whipped to the diagonal for a couple of rows, and the air got colder and colder as I went ahead. I could stand at the heart of a cavern of ice deep within a glacier, na**d and wet from the shower and not shiver, but this cold was beginning to get to me. My breath became a large plume, visible in the air, and the floating chips of ice gathered on my eyelashes, making me fear that if I blinked, they might freeze together.
