He was too late. The shield formed as the ball exploded around his head. Tal felt burning fire in his eyes. He screamed and fell back, twisting his hands into what he imagined were blackened sockets.
"Blind!" he screamed. "I'm blind!"
Sushin laughed, and the Guards and his own Spiritshadow charged forward.
The laughter stopped suddenly as Milla threw her Merwin-horn sword. It arced through the air like a golden lightning bolt and hit Sushin's left shoulder, the point sticking out his back. He stared openmouthed at it.
The Guards and his Spiritshadow stopped and looked back.
Sushin closed his mouth. A smile started to spread across his bloated face.
Then he started to laugh again.
It was the laugh that made Milla decide to run. She knew she'd missed his heart, that it wasn't a killing blow. But no normal man could take such a wound and laugh.
Tal had described Sushin to her and she had heard his fear. Now she felt it, too.
This was no normal Chosen. His laugh made her feel cold inside - colder than the Ice.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
"Adras, get Tal!" shouted Milla. "Then run!" "I can't see!" Tal cried out as he felt his ruined eyes.
Adras picked him up and shoved him under his arm and then they were running again, taking turns at random, always away from wherever they saw Guards.
Milla had the sense that soon every corridor would have Guards in it. They had to have a plan. She had to know where they were going.
The moment that no pursuers were in sight, she stopped. The others almost crashed into her.
"Blind!" screamed Tal. "He blinded me!"
Milla slapped him, hard. Then she held his hands and looked at his eyes.
"Your eyes are fine," she snapped. "It is like being snow-blind. You will recover."
"I will?" whispered Tal. He took a deep breath and then another. Blindness was the great fear of all Chosen. A blind Chosen was automatically relegated to the Underfolk, for they could not work with light.
"You will," confirmed Milla, though she wasn't really sure. His eyes did look normal. "If we get away. How do we get out of the White Rooms?"
"Where are we now?" asked Tal. "I don't know! A tunnel!" Tal thought for a moment, ignoring the pain in his eye sockets.
"The laundry chute," he said. "It'll be the only way between levels that won't be guarded. Find an Underfolk and make them show you the way." "And how do I do that?" asked Milla.
"West. Keep going west."
Milla didn't answer. She just started running again. Tal heard her footsteps, but he hadn't been picked up.
"Adras!" he shouted, panicked, sure that he had been left behind. "Adras!"
"Yes?" asked Adras.
"Carry me. And keep up with Milla and Odris!" "Where did they go?" asked Adras, as he picked up the Chosen boy. "I wasn't looking."
Tal bent his head, exasperation fighting with fear inside him to see which would win. He was about to explode when Milla's voice came echoing back down the corridor.
"Adras! Come on!"
As Adras half slid and half ran with him, Tal cautiously felt his eyes again. Surely they had been burned? But he was calmer now, and his fingers assured him that his eyes were still there after all.
Then he found that Adras's shadow-flesh was quite cold, and he pressed his forehead against the Storm Shepherd's side so his eyes were cooled.
"What are you doing?" asked Adras, and he slowed down to look.
"Cooling my eyes," said Tal. A thought struck him and he asked, "Can you still make rain?"
Adras shrugged, a movement that made him nearly drop the boy. "I have to go puffy. If I go puffy I can't have legs. We could fly."
"No, no," said Tal. Having Adras fly in the narrow corridors of the White Rooms would be a disaster.
Then Tal heard two voices at the same time. One was obviously a Guard and the other Milla.
"There they are!" and "Hurry up! Hurry! I've found an Underfolk!"
Tal never heard what Milla said to the Underfolk because Adras didn't catch up before they were running again. He kept his eyes pressed against the cool shadow, blinking frequently.
Gradually, he became aware of light filtering into the corners of his eyes and he felt a great surge of relief.
Relief that was dampened by the shouts behind… and now ahead of them.
Tal risked taking a look. He could see, but only just. His vision was blurry and full of floating specks and dots.
They were in an Underfolk passage now, barging between rows of boxes and bags that could contain anything. Milla was screaming at first Tal couldn't understand why and then he saw terrified Underfolk pressed up against the walls as they flung themselves out of the way. Then they had to do it again, seconds later, as the Guards came charging after, their swords out and Spiritshadows running with them.
There was no sign of Sushin, for which Tal was unbelievably grateful.
"Stop in the name of the Empress!" roared the lead Guard, and he paused to project a Violet beam of light at Tal. But he had not warned the Guards behind him that he was stopping, and they crashed into him just as he fired the beam. It hit a pile of cloth bags, exploding them into shredded pieces.
Fire caught and smoke billowed up, as Guards jumped over their fallen comrade and ran on. Spiritshadows spread to the outer walls and ceiling, where they could run more freely above and to the sides of their masters.
Underfolk tried to stay out of the way, in silent suffering.
"Chute!" said a voice Tal did not recognize. He hurled himself out of Adras's grasp and saw an old Underfolk man pointing at the swinging hatch that covered the laundry chute.
"You first!" said Milla. "You know the way!"