"Slowly now, easy!" Portus whispered to himself.
"A few more steps!" Harmier said to the group. "I am nearly there."
The six of them balanced and steadied themselves in valiant fashion; without an anchor to hold to, one false move or over-correction and all of them would plummet to the endless darkness below. A squeeze and then a step, a squeeze and then a step; the rhythm of the remnant propelled them slowly toward their refuge.
"A little more!" Harmier shouted back. "Just a little further!" The group responded with another ripple of forward movement and then at last, after what had seemed like an eternity upon this purgatorious passage, the boots of the merchant fell on the solid granite of the opposite cliff. "We did it! I made it across!" Harmier said with a relieved grin.
A collective sigh could be heard, for though they were not free from danger, at least they had something to anchor their hopes to. "Kahri!" Margarid called back. "Kahri, we are ready for you now."
CLANG! The sound of metal upon stone rang out as something crashed in the passage behind them.
"Never mind that noise, girl, just walk out here and give Portus your hand," Margarid said sharply.
Kahri walked to the edge and placed her boot upon the sliver of granite. Portus was beyond the point of reach now, so she would have to make a step or two on her own without the reassuring safety of the tanner's large hands. Quickly and unmeasured, driven by the fear of the fast approaching enemy, Kahri took one step, and then another and then a third before she crashed into the arm of the tanner with unbalanced force, sending a shockwave down the line of weary and terrified travelers.
"Kahri!" Portus grunted as he flexed his arms and tightened his grip in an effort to absorb—or at least control—the effects of the collision. But it was of little help. Arms began to twitch and shake, trying desperately to regain the control they had worked so hard to maintain. Harmier pulled tightly, preparing for the worst.
The woman flailed and cried, pulling on Portus as she tried to recover from her hasty entrance.
"Kahri, stop!" Portus shouted again, but it was too late, for in an effort to regain balance, the soles of her boots slipped from the thin granite and she began to fall. The tanner grabbed tighter, but gravity had already taken hold of her. She slammed her chest against the sliver of rock, and as she did Portus released his grip from Margarid's arm in an effort to save both the falling woman and the rest of his friends. The impact of her body's collision against the rock offset his balance, and the tanner too fell sideways along the pass of granite. He kept his hold on her while he frantically grabbed at the slippery rock with his free hand. Screams rose from the other five as they desperately fought for balance while Portus hung upon the rock, grasping with arm and chest and leg, using all of his massive body to keep purchase while yet clinging to the flailing arm of the screaming woman as she hung, maddened and terrified, over the nothingness below.
The shouts of horror and fear were punctuated by the sounds of movement in the passage behind them.
"Hurry!" Harmier shouted. "They are nearly upon us! Pull her up!"
"Kahri, Kahri you have to stop kicking and screaming!" Portus shouted through gritted teeth. "You have to stop!"
But the woman continued her flailing frenzy, and her madness chipped away at the strength of the tanner. "Kahri! I need you to use the wall in front of you, use your feet to find purchase and help me pull you up!"
"Help me! Help me!" she screamed and cried, completely ignoring the instruction of her wearied friend.
"That is what I am trying to do!" Portus shouted back in exhaustion as his hand began to slide upon her slick skin. "Use the face of the ledge! Hurry, you are slipping!"
"Portus!" the desperate woman cried.
"Portus, hurry!" Harmier called with a heightened sense of dread. "I can see their torches in the passage."
Kahri's boot found the face of the rock ledge. Quickly she placed her boot upon its smooth surface and in a desperate effort to propel herself upward, she pushed all of her weight against the stone.
Portus gritted his teeth, willing his strength not to fail him now. "That's it! That's it, Kahri!" he shouted encouragingly. "Climb, girl!"
The torchlight in the passage suddenly lit the whole cavern in a subtle glow, and Kahri looked wildly toward the crevasse to see who it was that came upon them. In the moment that her head turned and her attention shifted, the young woman's boot failed her, slipping upon the slick surface. The force of the jolt and the weariness of both their hands caused Kahri to slip in Portus' grasp. He reached fiercely for her, trying to catch the falling woman, but all he could touch were the fingertips of his friend as she fell, screaming wildly, into the abyss.
"NO!" Portus shouted after her, clinging to the pass as his tears fell helplessly from his bearded face. "Kahri, no!"
Screams were replaced with sobs as the remaining travelers stared in utter disbelief at the empty darkness that had swallowed their friend. None could find the words to express the horror that they felt in the wake of this needless loss. Portus still lay dangerously upon the sliver of rock, his chest heaving in exhausted grief, while the rest of them still stretched both their limbs and their resolve halfway across the abyss, barely aware of the danger that still pursued them.
It was Margarid who first raised her gaze up to behold the torch-lit passage across the chasm. No longer was it empty, for their pursuers had emerged from the cleft in the rock, and as she looked upon their faces she was overcome with a different sort of shock.
"What?" she whispered as she choked back the sadness that had overcome her, "What in the damnable dark?"
Chapter Forty-Two
THE SOUND OF A CRACKING branch woke the weary travelers from their sorrow-filled reveries. "What was that?" Astyræ asked.
"I cannot say," Deryn said as he flew to the edge of the camp to survey the darkened forest line. "But it is time that we leave."
"Agreed," Cal said. "I fear that the hospitality of this place may have run its course."
"Where exactly are you leading us, groomsman?" she asked. "You speak of light, but do you know where we should begin to look for it?"
Cal thought on her question, for this was the very same question that he had been asking himself since he was a boy. In fact, this was the very same question that all of Haven had been asking since the first branch fell more than seventy years ago.
"Shaimira," Cal replied to the violet-eyed woman. "It is the only direction, the only clue that we have, and if I am honest, I am not really sure where it leads or even what it means."
"The guardian," Deryn answered in reply.
"The guardian," Cal said under his breath, letting the idea run through his thoughts.
"How will we find this guardian, this Shaimira?" Astyræ asked as Cal helped her atop the large chestnut of a horse.
"HIM, I imagine," Cal said matter-of-factly as he cinched tight her saddle and adjusted the braided leather stirrups.
"Him?" she asked, unsure of his meaning. "Who is Him?"
"The very one who called me across the angry waters of the Dark Sea and led my weary feet to these western shores. The very one whose call to seek the light led me also to find you," Cal said with the brightest of smiles and an effortless conviction in his eyes. "The THREE who is SEVEN, or as Deryn's people call Him, the Great Father."
"And you think He will just lead you? Just magically point the direction?" she asked skeptically as she watched him mount the silver courser in a single, fluid motion.
"Hasn't He already?" Cal told her as he tapped his boots to his horse's flank and clicked his tongue, signaling it was time now that they made their way from this place.
Astyræ just sat there atop the mighty horse, still and stunned, her mind reeling at what this groomsman, this tree man, took as truth. "Wait a moment!" she yelled after him, but Cal and Deryn continued their ride.
"Groomsman!" she shouted, and then tapped her own heels upon the horse's side, following after him in frus
tration. "You are not suggesting that the writing on the wall and the northward arrow were placed there by the hand of the THREE who is SEVEN; are you?"
"Yes, actually," Cal said as he turned with a grin. "That is exactly what I hold to be true. Nothing is ever wasted in this world of ours, is it? I happen to believe that even the worst of the travesties and terrors wrought by the hands of men will yet have their illuminated redemption. The men who made those markings upon the walls of that prison tower sought the same light that I seek." He stopped, remembering that it was not just he who heeded this great call; he was no longer alone in this quest. "That we seek, even now. It cannot be reduced to chance that I found you there in the bowels of the tower Enguerrand, retracing the very steps of Illium himself."
Astyræ rode in silence for a moment, considering the depth of his words. "I have known magic in this world, Cal, though the benevolent kind only ever existed in childish fables and in the minstrels' song of heroes and legends," she reasoned.
"Well, perhaps that is precisely where we have found ourselves," Deryn suggested to his companions.
"Ha ha!" Cal blurted out in a laugh. "I'm sure that He would have chosen someone much more heroic than the likes of us. I'm not too worried about legends and lore, but I do want to see His new light. I want that for us all."
They rode alone in silence for a while before Astyræ spoke again. "You are a peculiar one, groomsman." She shook her flaxen hair and smiled in amused wonder. "You believe in your heart that the THREE who is SEVEN is guiding your every step, leading you with magic and intercession on a perilous quest, and yet you do not find yourself—nor will you dare to call yourself—heroic?"
This time it was Deryn who laughed, and the laughter of the fruit of the ancient trees of beauty was almost musical, both whimsical in nature and bright of tune. His traveling companions could not help but smile in merriment at the sound of his genuine amusement, and as they shared this moment of levity, the bonds of their shared calling drew the three of them closer together.
"Alright, alright," Cal finally said in mock annoyance. "I hear what you are saying, my lady." Cal looked out before them, surveying the richly forested highlands of this foreign wilderland, all by the faith light of his violet hope that burned bright in this jovial moment. "We still have a long road before us, and though I am certain we are not left to our own devices to traverse its hidden pathways, I am not certain I will always act heroically upon the journey." His face turned solemn as he spoke. "So, no. I will not confuse myself with a hero. I am, rather, a hopeful sojourner, who is both grateful enough to have been called and frightened enough to not dare travel alone."
She smiled a kind smile, a knowing smile, her eyes aglow more violet than yellow at this very moment. "What kind of groomsman ponders such possibilities? None that I have known, and my father was once a lord with many horses."
"Where was his kingdom?" he asked, doing his best to shift the subject away from such flattery. "Your home, I mean? You said he was the steward of Dardanos before it fell to the sorceress. Is that ... I mean, was it nearby? I would like to see it."
Astyræ's smile faded a bit. The longing for her home was still fresh in her heart, even after all of these years. "No, not so near to where we are now. Dardanos is south, behind the marches of the Greywood Forest, nestled in the heart of the Itzal Valley."
They continued riding northward as she spoke. "Those few who did not bend their knee to the un-light of Nogcwren were forced to abandon the walls of our homeland; she would give no sanctuary to those who resisted her. Some packed their mule carts and horses and rode north, seeking to make a home for themselves here in the thick of the Greywood. But her ravens—her damned, greened-eyed spies—flew throughout the forests, leading her warlords right to their camps. Others sought out refuge in the foothills and highlands, reduced to living like thieves."
"Is that where you lived all these years? In the foothills?" Cal asked again. His curiosity about the Wreath was overshadowed only by his curiosity towards this magical, golden-haired woman.
"Yes," she answered. "On the eastern fingers of the Hekate'. A mere forty of us dared to defy her power and escaped to a safe and hidden place. I have lived among them, though I have never wholly been welcomed. For though I, too, chose not to take the offer of the un-light, I have seen plainly enough the blame that my people still heap upon my head."
"But how could they blame you? You were in the womb of your mother, innocent and helpless!" Cal reasoned, flabbergasted at the very notion of such reasonless accusation.
She smiled sweetly at this naïve defender of her honor. "My eyes betray my origin, groomsman. For it was the fruit of the ancient Jacaranda that once bolstered our conviction and held back the darkness. The sacrifice made to save me bred contempt, and how could it not? A reckless decision to save but one, when the whole of our people depended upon its magic."
"Is that why they locked you away in that old tower?" Cal asked.
She grew quiet for a moment before she replied. "No, Cal, not completely," she said quietly. "Though I am sure their contempt sharpened the sword of their justice. But if you mean, as you have already said, to seek this light together ... then please do not ask me to tell that tale to you now, groomsman."
Cal rode in silence, not answering the request of his violet-eyed companion, though his curiosity threatened to boil over in speculation. "Very well, then," he agreed. "I will not ask it of you. But if you choose to tell me one day, I hope you will know that I would not damn you for deeds done before our paths even intersected." A wry smile crept across his bearded face. "One day I would very much like to hear about whatever this folly of yours was that just so happened to become this fortune of mine! Alright?"
She laughed at his presumptions, but could not help but to be taken aback by them too. "We will have to wait and see," she replied coolly. "Perhaps we should be more worried about finding this Shaimira-"
Her words caught in her throat as Cal raised a finger to his lip, begging for her silence.
"What is that? What … what is this place?" he whispered nervously as his widened eyes darted back in forth, surveying the absurdity of what he beheld.
"I have not been here," she said as she gulped back her emotions, "since I was but a little girl."
"How is this possible? This makes no sense to me!" Cal blurted out his whispered questions without waiting for any answers. "We are at least a league—if not two—from the shores of the Dark Sea. How could something like this be here?"
"I cannot say," Astyræ whispered as a flood of memories washed over her.
Cal could not wholly believe his eyes, for there, laying crookedly upon its battered hull in the forest clearing before them, rested the withered and rotted remains of a once mighty sailing ship. "There is a small stream five hundred paces south of us, and that is the only water I have seen all day long. How is it that a ship of this magnitude has found its way here? What kind of devilry can drive a full-masted sea treader across the forest?" Cal marveled in whispered disbelief.
"Tell me this, groomsman," she demanded of him. "Why must it be devilry? I mean, magic, of that I am sure it must be; but devilry? Did you not mere moments before dare to argue that nothing in this world is wasted, but rather it was used by the will of your THREE who is SEVEN to guide you on this quest of His?"
"I ... yes ... I did say that," Cal said, quite a bit more unsure now. "But this, this does not make much sense. This is impossible!" He pointed demonstrably to the large sailing ship that loomed eerily out of place before them.
"I sense that the tracings of our Great Father's handiwork course ever and through this peculiarity," Deryn said, interrupting the battle of words.
Cal and Astyræ stopped to watch their winged companion, taken aback by his sudden sense of doom.
"Whose great vessel was this? Do you know, my lady?" Cal asked.
"Yes, of course I do. All of Dardanos once revered the lore of this place, though we did not wholly believe it," she
told them. "This is the great ship of the tree men, and a mighty ship it once was when it first appeared in this wilderness; or so my grandfather said."
Cal was stunned; the very breath seemed to freeze inside his lungs as he beheld quite possibly one of the greatest mysteries in all of Aiénor. "You are telling me this ship belonged to Illium? But how do you know this? How can you be sure that this was his ... Illium's ... the tree men's?"
"My grandfather and even my own father told many tales of its discovery. Although none know how it came to be here in the forests of the Greywood, there can be no mistaking its mariners," she replied.
"I have to see it ... closer, I mean," Cal said, stumbling over his words with an all-too-boyish excitement. "What if ... what if?" His words trailed off as the groomsman of Haven spurred his silver horse and took off with great haste towards the forgotten wreckage of these royal ruins.
As he neared the fabled ship, he leapt from his horse and approached it reverently. "See! See, look, look right there!" he blurted again. "Do you see the sigil? It is just like the one in the prison tower. There is no flint marking the trunk of the great tree." He was overcome with wonder as his own two hands traced the forgotten, splintered remains of this ghost of legend. "Deryn!" he exclaimed, his excitement barely contained. "Deryn! What can you see up there? Will you look, please? I must go inside."
Deryn smiled at the youthful curiosity of his friend. "Yes, Cal, I will fly, and I will observe all that I might and happily bring you word." And with that the Sprite shot the fifty or sixty hands it was up into the curved hull of the aging relic.
The violet light by which the groomsman beheld this treasure of forgotten hope shone all the brighter as his fingers traced the aging wood on the belly of the mighty ship, Wilderness.
"Oh what a gift, what a gift indeed!" Cal prayed aloud.
"A gift?" Astyræ said, confused at the very idea. "How does one call this wreckage a gift?" she asked him with sincere curiosity.
The Ravenous Siege (Epic of Haven Trilogy Book 2) Page 38