by Michael
“You’re Raithe’s father!” Brin exclaimed.
“Indeed, I am. Did you know him? His brothers are here, too.” The man lifted his chin, trying to see over the heads of the others in the moving column. “Somewhere.”
“Where’s Raithe?” Brin asked.
Herkimer shrugged. “Still alive, I suppose. Up there killing Gula and preserving the family name.”
“Actually, he died several years ago,” Moya said. “And the Gula and Rhulyn Rhunes are united now. They all serve under Keenig Persephone.”
This brought a puzzled look to the man’s face, not sorrow but confusion. “Strange. I guess maybe he went to Rel then. He always was an odd boy. Head full of dreams. Used to say he wanted to do something important with his life—as if the fighting his brothers and I were doing in the Gula Valley wasn’t good enough. Looks like he never amounted to anything. That’s too bad.”
Brin looked back at Roan, whose workshop had hosted the sacrifice. Of course, Roan wouldn’t say anything, and Tressa, who looked exhausted, didn’t seem as if she had heard. Brin held her tongue.
That isn’t why Raithe did it. That isn’t what he would want.
The tunnel was mostly uniform, but from time to time, it widened in natural places where the cut passage broke into existing caverns. Dull, shattered rock with uneven floors announced the shifts. At such times, they could have walked as many as twenty abreast, but they never did. The three-wide march was a disciplined one. In these natural caverns, Brin noticed that the stone under their feet was different from the rest. The gray stone was harder, colder. How she knew this was a mystery, but she felt the change—the gray rock wasn’t eshim, it was real.
Tressa, who’d been strangely silent since they left the Bulwark, stumbled. Brin turned. “You okay?”
The woman shook her head, causing the plume of feathers on her helm to whip from side to side. Despite the armor, Tressa didn’t look heroic. She looked withered.
“Tressa, is it because of . . . what you’re carrying?” In a place where ideas and feelings had substance, such a powerful thing—such a responsibility—must be a burden.
“No,” Tressa replied. Both her hands crossed over her chest, palms to the key hidden beneath. Her armor didn’t glow, not so much as a glint or reflection. Tressa’s was so dull the metal looked worn. “That’s not a burden at all. If anything, it’s lifting me up,” she said with a strained voice. “I swear, right now it’s all that’s keeping me on my feet.”
“What’s wrong, then?”
“I don’t know. I just feel . . . I feel so heavy. Didn’t bother me so much in the fortress, but outside . . .”
The column slowed to a crawl. Brin couldn’t see over the heads and shoulders of all those ahead of her.
“What’s up?” Moya asked Beatrice when they came to a complete stop and stood within the forest of metal-clad men and dwarfs.
Beatrice looked back, bright eyes flashing within that frame of white hair. “We’ve reached the first crevice. With so many people crossing, it will take some time.” She sighed. “Just have to wait our turn.”
“So, we’re beyond the castle walls now?” Moya looked up.
“Oh, yes, but there’s no going under the crevices. They go all the way down to the Abyss, and much of the stone here can’t be dug.”
“The Abyss,” Brin said. “Where the Typhons are?”
“Exactly.”
“You never finished your story.”
“You’re right, I didn’t.” Beatrice thought a moment. “And it seems we have some time.” She motioned for them to gather close. “Where did I leave off?”
“Turin’s time to die had come,” Brin said.
“Oh, yes.” Beatrice thought a moment then began her tale once more. “So at that time, everyone—all the peoples of the world—lived in one place, a great city named Erebus.” She winked at Brin.
“So Drome was telling the truth. It really was a city.” Brin grinned.
“That’s right.”
“I suppose that works, too. I mean, people come from a city, but—where did those first people come from?” Brin asked.
“Descendants of the Aesira, that’s what we all are. People had longer lives then and many, many children.”
“In this city—in Erebus—were there Fhrey, and men, and—”
“No, there were no races. Everyone was pretty much the same at that time—except the Grenmorians, who, as I said, are another story, and they didn’t live in Erebus.” She waited a moment to make certain no more questions were coming, then went on. “So anyway, everyone lived in this great city, and they were happy, but no one had ever died before. Turin was the oldest, so he would be the first. He didn’t know what to expect, but he knew he would be alone, and he was terrified. He begged Eton to reconsider but was refused, and Elan wouldn’t chance going against her husband again. No one was willing to help him. No one except his closest friend—Alurya. Using the gift of immortality granted to her by Eton, she grew fruit that held the essence of eternal life and offered it to Turin. He plucked two, devoured one, and saved the other in case he needed it.”
The line of soldiers shuffled forward, and they followed suit. As they did, Brin noticed a light coming from above. Faint and starless, what the realm of Nifrel considered a sky outlined the crevice they approached.
“This was the start of it all,” Beatrice said as they moved forward. “By eating the fruit, Turin made his Elan-half—his body—immortal. With no fear of death, he grew arrogant. He saw himself as superior to his brothers and sisters and began to rule over them and their families. Having successfully defied Eton’s edict, he saw himself as a god and changed his name, calling himself Rex Uberlin. He became a tyrant. Then when his brother Trilos fell in love with Turin’s daughter Muriel, Turin—who was every bit as selfish as his father—separated the two and ordered that they never see each other again. Trilos and Muriel defied him and plotted to run away together. Turin discovered their plans, and in a fit of rage, he killed his brother, making Trilos the first ever to die.
“Outraged at the murder of Trilos, Ferrol took her people and left Erebus. She set out into the western wilderness, into the forests. Soon after, Drome did the same, taking his descendants and leading them to a dome-shaped mountain in the southwest where they built their new city. Mari followed suit, escaping to a river valley and settling on its banks.
“Distraught over killing Trilos, Turin let them go, maybe thinking they would come back. When they didn’t, when he heard that they mocked him from their new cities, Turin followed his invention of murder with the creation of war.”
The line of warriors moved to single file then, as they found themselves inching out onto a narrow ledge. The story came to an abrupt end as they became too strung out. Wouldn’t have mattered; Brin couldn’t have concentrated on the story anymore. They had their backs to a sheer cliff as they shuffled sideways. In front of them, the world dropped away into darkness. Across the narrow split, the far wall of the canyon could barely be seen. Brin heard a zzrrupt! sound and saw movement as if a bird had taken flight. Her mouth dropped open when she realized what it was.
Twelve ropes were stretched across the chasm. The far side was lower than the near side. As she watched, Herkimer tied his spear on his body. Then he laid a leather strap over the next available line and wrapped both ends around his fists.
He’s not going to—
Before she finished the thought, Herkimer jumped off the ledge and dangled from that tiny strap, his feet kicking out in front of him. The Dureyan slid as fast as a diving hawk across the gap between the two cliff walls.
“Oh Grand Mother of All!” Brin declared.
“Not as scary as it looks,” Beatrice called back as she stepped up and without a second’s hesitation, she followed Herkimer’s example.
Zzrrupt!
“I can’t do that,” Tressa said.
“Have to,” a dwarf at one of the ropes’ anchor points said while waving her
over. “Only way across.”
“Why isn’t there a bridge?” Moya asked, sounding less than pleased as well.
The dwarf pointed up. “Queen’s forces would spot it—smash it. You’re lucky. They’re usually dropping rocks on us at this point. Guess they haven’t seen us yet.”
A dwarf stationed at a different line handed Moya a strap. She looked with wide eyes at Brin and shrugged. “Can’t die when you’re already dead, right?”
“Falling into the Abyss is worse than dying,” the dwarf said.
“Oh, shut up, will you?” Moya snarled. Then, mimicking the others, she shoved off.
Zzrrupt!
Brin held her breath as Moya rapidly diminished in size.
“Here.” The dwarf handed Brin a strap. She took it mindlessly. The thing was about three feet long, no more than an inch in width, and as thick as a belt.
“Like this?” she asked as she dropped it over the line. “How many times do I wrap it around my hands?”
The dwarf looked at her, irritated. “What hands? Now go, you’re holding up the line.”
Brin scowled. “You know, I’ve never really liked dwarfs.”
“What’s a dwarf? Never mind. Go!” he shouted.
At least he didn’t shove her. Thinking he might, Brin summoned the courage to jump.
To her surprise, the trip was incredibly easy. She expected to dangle helplessly, stretched by the weight of her body, but she found she hardly weighed a thing. Her arms never even extended as she zipped down the rope with ease. And then she was there, the trip over in a flash.
“Told you,” Beatrice said. “Easier than it looks. Of course, I think you’ll find that in here—for you—most things will be.”
From what Tesh saw, none of the realms of Nifrel were pretty or pleasant. Not the sort of place anyone would choose to be. In that respect, it had the odd virtue of feeling like home. Nifrel and Dureya were surprisingly alike: dreary, dismal, barren, filled with disagreeable people, and in a constant state of warfare. And like Dureya, some parts were nicer than others. The hole they dropped him in was by far the least pleasant place he’d been.
It really was just a hole: two stories deep, with sheer sides of damp stone and a puddle of something at the bottom. Not water, the liquid was something else—something slick, thick, and oily. It glowed a bit. Not much, but the bottom of the hole generated a faint blue light, which was good because otherwise Tesh would have been trapped in total darkness since the top of the hole had been sealed shut by a rock.
No ladder or rope for him—just a good solid shove. He bounced off one wall and crumpled at the bottom. He didn’t have a body to bruise, but it hurt anyway, just as falling on stone should. That might be part of it; things happened in Nifrel as he expected. This led Tesh to wonder if what he felt was real or merely what he imagined. Perhaps he anticipated pain, believed in it, and that belief became his reality. A lot of times nightmares worked the same way. When he was running from something, he would think how awful it would be if the door ahead were bolted closed. The moment he pulled on it, he knew it would be true, and sure enough, it was. That was Nifrel in a nutshell, and he imagined that’s what Fenelyus had been trying to explain.
Then a new thought arose. What if it wasn’t merely Nifrel or Phyre? What if it was the spirit? When the soul suffered pain, whether in Elan or Phyre, it translated it into familiar, understandable terms. As Brin entered that loathsome mud puddle in the Swamp of Ith—when he watched her die—he’d felt a pain in his chest and stomach like swords gutting him. Such wounds had nothing to do with the flesh, but that was how his spirit understood the pain, and it was his soul that had been wounded. Here in Nifrel, he didn’t breathe, but he felt short of breath while trembling at the bottom of that greasy black pit where only the glow of the liquid allowed him to see.
Maybe the mind and the spirit were linked in ways the body couldn’t share. If what he thought became real, how was that different from what Suri could do with the Art?
He shuffled to get his feet underneath his body.
The pit was narrow. He could touch both sides at once. Lengthwise, it was wider, and, stretching out, his hand touched a shoulder.
I’m not alone!
Through the gloom, Tesh could see that his cellmate was bald, and he had bushy brows, a craggy nose, and a beard that was braided like rope—a dwarf certainly, and none too attractive. He sat with knees up, his arms hugging them. Wide-set, deep-sunk eyes watched Tesh with alarmed intensity as if Tesh were a fanged monster. The dwarf didn’t move. He sat still as stone, easy enough when breathing wasn’t a requirement, which was why Tesh hadn’t noticed him sooner. Even his eyes didn’t move.
They watched each other for a long while. Tesh had no idea how long.
“Who are you?” the dwarf finally said, his voice the sound of rough rocks rubbed together.
“Tesh of Clan Dureya.” For some reason, pointing out his clan felt important even though his people had died years ago.
Start a family. Raise children. Live a good and happy life—someplace safe and pretty. At the time Raithe had said those words, they meant nothing. Years later, when Tesh was fighting in the Harwood, little had changed. Sitting in that hole beside the ugly dwarf, they were everything.
“What’d you do?” the dwarf asked.
“What do you mean?”
The bearded knee-hugger cast a quick glance toward the top of the hole. “To get tossed down ’ere.”
Tesh considered this. He was there because the queen didn’t believe him about Tressa; because he followed the woman he loved into a muddy pool; because he was born Dureyan. “Nothing,” Tesh said.
“Aye, me, too.” The dwarf nodded with a contrived grin. “Nothing at all.” He tightened his grip on his legs as if trying to squeeze himself as far away from Tesh as possible. The dwarf watched Tesh through surreptitious peeks from the corners of his eyes.
Tesh didn’t move beyond what it took to get comfortable, or as comfortable as he could get in a wet pit.
The dwarf was breathing again, but too quickly to be normal. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Tesh asked, but the dwarf didn’t answer.
Tesh laid his head back on the stone.
Tesh, you aren’t going to be with Brin, no matter how things turn out. The queen had intended this to be hurtful, as some sort of revelation.
Had he thought of it at the time—had he been capable of thinking—he might have told her, “No kidding. Let me introduce myself; my name is Tesh. I’m Dureyan.”
Tesh had hoped he might have a future with Brin in the same way he wished winters to become a passing fancy. Such hopes were nice to dream about; everyone needed something to look forward to. But believing in them was the mistake. Once that happened, dreams grew teeth, and if you didn’t feed them, they would bite. Tesh had only one dream he’d endowed with fangs. He’d come inches from achieving it, but now it gnawed on his bones. Ferrol didn’t know about that dream or she didn’t care. She thought his disappointment of losing Brin would hurt more, but she was stabbing a numb leg. Tesh knew he’d never had a future with Brin. This was why he’d kept her at a distance, why he’d spent so much time away. Brin liked him too much, and she deserved better.
“So you’re not going to do anything to me?” the dwarf asked.
Tesh looked over, puzzled. “Like what?”
The dwarf shrugged. “Beat me, stab me, gouge me eyes out?”
“Why would I do any of that?”
The dwarf squinted at him and shifted his lips so that his mustache and beard did a little dance. “You’re new ’ere, aren’t ya? How long ya been in Nifrel?”
“I don’t know.” Tesh looked up. “How do you tell time?”
“When was it ya died?”
“Just about winter.”
“Ah, no, ya crazy badger.” The dwarf rolled his eyes, scowling so that the hair under his lower lip bristled like the back of an angry woodchuck. “Rhunes,” he muttered. “Ya have no se
nse of history.”
“Whose story?”
The dwarf turned his head and looked at Tesh with full-faced disbelief.
“How long have you been here?” Tesh asked.
“Don’t know.” The dwarf relaxed his grip on his knees and let his back settle against the wall. “Was hoping you could tell me. Several centuries, I’m guessing.”
“You’ve been in Nifrel for that long or you’ve been sitting here for that amount of time?”
“Aye.” The dwarf nodded. That single word was spoken casually and followed by a tension-releasing sigh. The dwarf let his little legs extend out as far as they would go, which was almost straight. “Ya might want to get comfortable, too, lad. Ya ain’t going anywhere, either.”
“Why’s that?”
“Ferrol doesn’t let anyone near me unless she trusts them, or they are beyond all hope, and you don’t look like the trustworthy type.”
“I don’t understand. Do you have a disease or something?”
“Worse. Knowledge. Can’t let me run loose, and she doesn’t want ta lose me to the Abyss—that’s how aff ’er hide she is.”
“How what?”
“You know, doo-lally.” He made a swirling motion with his finger while pointing at his own ear.
“Crazy?”
“Aye, she is that. No one has ever come back from the Abyss, but that’s too great a risk. Might need me someday. This hole is her solution to the folk she doesn’t want to erase, but also doesn’t want running around and causing trouble. A way to bury us forever, but in a place where she can check on. There’s only this one hole that’s deep enough and made o’ real stone, with a mouth small enough to be covered by those flat rocks they laid over top—they’re real too. So, we’re stuck together, I guess. The good news is she’s not done with ya, but that’s also the bad news.”
Tesh rotated and put his back to the stone to better face his hole-mate. “Who are you?”
“Wondering when you’d ask. Name is Andvari Berling. You should be impressed, should have your mouth hanging open right now, but being a Rhune, you have no idea what that means, do ya?”