The Silver Key

by Emery Gallagher

  But what Griffin had called her mad resolution was still humming in the back of her mind, and she soon found that lazy, meaningless days fell rather flat compared to the traveling and independence she had grown used to. She liked the soft bed and the good food, but she hadn’t forgotten where she needed to go or why. Charlie found that as she had feared, she had outgrown the mold she had left. She had come to Shala for a reason, and she had one more place left to look before she could consider defeat. With a fair amount of grumbling to herself, she began to plan to continue her journey.

  When she made known her intentions to leave Hawk’s Rest, Charlie found herself having a serious talk with the duchess about her travel plans and how she meant to spend the upcoming winter. She was just as silent about where she was going and why as she had been with Griffin, though distinctly more courteous to her host. The duchess questioned her, but when it became clear Charlie would provide no substantial answers, she didn’t press further. Instead she had Charlie provisioned from the castle stores, with plenty of food, clothing, and a new, thicker bedroll. The supplies were accompanied by several lectures and much advice, which she listened to politely.

  Charlie was half-afraid she would be prevented from leaving and wondered if perhaps Griffin had intentionally brought her to Hawk’s Rest to trap her in a luxurious prison. If he had thought to tell the hostler at the inn not to let her have her horse, she wouldn’t put it past him to ask his relatives to prevent her leaving. But when the morning of her departure came, she was sent away with fond farewells and stern reminders to be careful and to come back at once if she needed anything at all. She thanked the duchess with sincerity and rode out of the castle courtyard, away from its comforts and good company. As she passed under the curtain wall and started down the path leading into the forest, she felt a moment of reluctance at leaving the safety and hospitality of the castle behind but didn’t let herself look back, even when the gate clanged softly shut. There was no point in looking back when you had to move forward.

  * * *

  7

  Mountain of Souls

  Though it had still been warm and pleasant when she left Hawk’s Rest, with just a faint chill in the evenings to suggest the onset of fall, the air became noticeably cooler as she neared the mountains that contained her final destination. She was subtly but surely traveling upward. Unlike the first mountain range Charlie had crossed, the Mishanta Mountains were high, jagged shapes that loomed starkly against the sky. There was no well-used road winding through the rolling hills toward a well-cut pass here. The terrain was becoming rougher and more difficult to navigate, and there were no other people around to share her journey. The distance she had left to travel was much greater than it appeared when drawn flat on a map, and she was growing more anxious with every passing day about how long it might take her to go up the mountain. And then, of course, there was the return trip.

  Even though it was not yet cold, the surprising bite to the wind that came from the direction of the mountains was making Charlie uncomfortably aware that she was ill-equipped to spend a winter outside. She had been generously provisioned by the duchess of Hawk’s Rest before setting out, but the worries about how she would survive the next few months were getting harder to dismiss. It had taken her months to travel across the width of Shala, and she was still heading east, not west. Even taking a direct and hurried route home would not spare her weeks of traveling in increasingly bitter cold. Her progress would be further hampered if she was forced to shelter in inns along the way, unable to camp outside. And that was assuming she either found the dagger this time or was willing to go home empty-handed.

  The prospect of the approaching winter and the unusual silence left by Griffin’s absence gave her pause to reevaluate her plans. Ultimately, she decided to continue onward. She had only one more place on her list to visit, the little spot in the Mishanta Mountains she was headed toward now. There was no point in turning back while she was this close and there was still a chance. There would never be another opportunity to come back and try again. If the dagger wasn’t there, she would consider going home. She couldn’t continue to wander the countryside any longer. She was homesick and tired, and the idea of returning home was beginning to become more appealing with every gust of cold wind.

  Charlie rode toward the mountains at a relentless pace, rising as soon as it was light and covering as much ground as possible before nightfall. The Mishanta Mountains loomed closer as she wended her way through the growing hills, making her own way now because there was no road. Sometimes she passed enormous stones lying on the forest floor, as though a giant had thrown them down. She was very pleased with her progress until a fresh obstacle appeared in the distance.

  She had spent her journey riding along the streams and other tributaries that filled the big rivers on her map. She had even seen one or two of the large rivers, but she had never had to cross one of them as none of them had impeded her path. This river ran parallel to the mountains, and she could see no way to ride around it. She would have to go across. When she reached its edge, she stood eyeing it with trepidation for a while. It wasn’t very swift, but it was wide, and she couldn’t see the bottom through the murky water. She found the narrowest place in the river to cross, but the visible current still made her uneasy. This would be much more difficult that wading across a creek.

  Mystic snorted, sharing her thoughts about the river. She pawed at the water with one hoof, then backed rapidly away. It took Charlie several tried before she could convince the mare to step into the water. Slowly the horse waded out into the river, the water swirling up to her hocks. By the time they had reached the middle of the river, the water splashed up to Mystic’s shoulder. The horse took another step and stumbled. Charlie lurched forward in the saddle, barely managing to right herself before she slipped into the water. Mystic lurched frantically, unable to get her legs back underneath her or find any traction on the slick riverbed.

  To Charlie’s horror, the mare fell to the side, taking her rider down with her. Charlie frantically kicked her feet out of the stirrups and let go of the reins, swimming away from the horse. Gasping for air, she came up from the water to see Mystic thrashing madly in the river. Charlie kicked for the shore on the other side, the current sweeping her downstream. She wasn’t a strong swimmer, and the water washed over her head several time before the current lessened.

  “Mystic!” she yelled over her shoulder, trying to get the mare to come toward her voice. “Mystic!” The mare’s ears pricked; her eyes found Charlie. “This way, Mystic!” Charlie’s feet found the bottom. She turned back and whistled. The horse was now swimming towards her. “Keep coming, Mystic, good girl! Come on!”

  The bay pulled herself onto more solid ground, visibly trembling. Charlie caught the mare’s reins and led her onto the shore with a sigh of relief. Once on dry ground, Mystic shook the water out of her coat like a dog would, throwing more water over the already-soaked Charlie.

  Still gasping for breath, Charlie examined the horse for injuries. Amazingly, neither of them had been hurt, but her saddle and saddle blanket were soaked. Her oiled saddlebags were meant to shed water, but they were no match for a dunking. Thankfully nothing seemed ruined. She herself was thoroughly waterlogged and muddy, but she would survive. She decided to set up camp early so she could dry all of her belongings over the fire. The cold dunking had been a sobering reminder of the dangers she faced now so far from civilization and how quickly things could go wrong.

  When she woke the next morning, she saw the most astounding sight. The mountains in the distance were covered in a silver blanket of mist. The peak of one tall mountain stood above the rest. It was shaped like a horn, cut on three sides by glaciers, and its forbidding, twisted summit stood alone above the fog.

  Charlie’s shiver had little to do with the wind. She knew somehow that this mountain was the place she was looking for.

  * * *

  As she drew near to the horn-shaped mountain, Charl
ie followed a little rivulet of water she thought must be snow melt. There was no real path up the side, but there were a few faint trails where animals had come to drink from the seasonal stream and one or two natural switchbacks leading upward. Close to the base of the mountain stood a pile of stones that looked to have been gathered intentionally. When she investigated, she found the words “Mountain of Souls” scratched into the side of one, so faint she had to trace the letters with her finger several times before she could tell what they said. She searched the cairn thoroughly just in case, but she knew the spot she was looking for was further up.

  When the ground grew too rocky and the grass sparse, Charlie made the decision to leave Mystic behind. She picketed the horse in a spot by the stream where she could reach the most grass and promised her she would be back soon. She also left behind all but the most essential items, stuffing her selections into one saddlebag that she turned into a pack with a bit of twine to hang on her back. She filled her waterskin and cut herself a walking stick with her sword.

  Apprehensive but determined, she continued upward, walking along the animal trails when possible. The sun was warm today, especially when it reflected off the rocks. With the absence of plant roots to stabilize it, the soil became gravelly and loose, and she had to be careful not to slip. The walking was tedious and surprisingly hard work. The consistently uphill nature of her journey tired her legs, and the constant attentiveness required to not lose her footing exhausted her mind. She stopped every hour or so to drink, refill her waterskin, and rest for at least five minutes. She knew she had to be practical and responsible by conserving her energy and pacing herself no matter how eager she was to reach her goal. There would be no green-eyed knights popping up to save her if she got hurt.

  Even taking such care, the way was still treacherous. When something rustled the bushes to one side of the path, Charlie turned to look too quickly, and her foot slipped on the loose soil, causing her to fall hard onto her side. She slid several yards back down the mountainside, stones and brittle shrubs added bruises and scrapes to her injuries as she crashed over them. Her descent was arrested by a large rock.

  Groaning softly, Charlie took inventory and determined she was still in one piece—not that that did her much good. Slowly she extracted herself from the debris that had accompanied her and cursed. She had fallen back at least fifty feet. Charlie touched her back gingerly, and her hand came away blood-streaked, but she determined the scratches were only superficial. Little nicks and scratches now covered her arms and legs along with not-so-little bruises. Her cloak, which she had worn because it kept off the sun, had taken most of the abuse, and the hood had kept the gravel from her head. Wearily Charlie trudged back up the mountain, holding onto whatever might hold her up. She found the bag she had been carrying, but her walking stick had disappeared.

  As the sun started to sink, she began to make out a sort of hollow in the mountainside, not really a cave but a sort of sheltered place. She thought the stream might lead her there. The mountainside was becoming increasingly un-traversable, and the little plateau might be as far as she was able to go. Charlie had to set up camp earlier than she normally would have because it was too dangerous to walk when she couldn’t see well. She positioned herself with a large boulder on her downhill side so she wouldn’t roll in her sleep, and lit a little brush fire to huddle close to while she ate. The heat of the day dissipated rapidly after the sun set, leaving the mountainside surprisingly cold. She wrapped herself in both her cloak and her blanket and lay listening to the strange rustles and the moan of the wind around her for a long time. The sliver of moon only served to cast eerie shadows. At last she fell asleep.

  The next day she was able to see the hollow in the mountainside much better. She reasoned if it was accessible to humans, it was as good a place as any to search. She didn’t think she could go much further. She didn’t have enough food for a long trip, and there was nothing to forage on the mountain. Even if she could successfully climb higher, there was snow on the mountain peak, and she didn’t have the clothing or equipment to survive those temperatures. It was harder to follow the stream now because she occasionally had to leave it to go around something she couldn’t go over, and at times she feared she wouldn’t find it again.

  Once when she moved aside some dead brambles, she found what appeared to be an old skeleton, just a few tatters of cloth still clinging to the bones. Some of the bones were missing, possible dragged away by predators. This was the second time Charlie had stumbled across a skeleton while traveling in a dangerous environment, and she wondered as she had in the forest maze if this was the body of someone who had died doing what she was trying to do now. She really did not want to die on a lonely mountainside and be eaten by vultures. It occurred to her that the body might be Jordana’s, since this was one of the last places the woman was known to have visited. She braced herself and examined the skeleton more closely. There was a ring around one bony finger that bore an emblem from some army division, and what was left of its boots looked too large to belong to a woman. She decided it probably wasn’t Jordana.

  The sun had already begun its descent when Charlie reached the dip in the mountainside. As she approached, she began to make out a space big enough for a small band of travelers to camp, sheltered from the wind and rain by the rock overhang. Even in the waning light, the hollow seemed inordinately dark, and she felt a sense of foreboding she couldn’t justify. She hesitated a moment at the edge of the shadow cast by the stone roof and turned to look back the way she had come. She was so far up the mountain that she couldn’t see the bottom where she had left her horse. There was no point in turning back now. Charlie stepped into the shadows and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  At once her unreasonable fears were justified. Skeletonized bodies littered the ground close to the back wall, lying in twisted, prone positions that suggested they had either been thrown there or were abandoned where they had fallen. At the back of the hollow, the dark, gaping mouth of a cave yawned.

  Charlie had felt frightened as soon as she saw the bodies, and she had to fight the urge to run screaming back down the mountainside. But a strange, detached calm rose to squelch the fear after a moment. What she was looking at was too horrifying for fear, too overwhelming for her mind to comprehend. Quietly she walked among the skeletons, trying to understand. Like the man she had found in the bushes, these bodies were wearing men’s clothing and armor, and they had been armed. Hidden under the shelter of the hollow, they were better preserved than the first skeleton had been, and desiccated flesh had shrunk against the bones. Distant and apathetic, she searched through the bodies and their belongings for clues about who they were and why they had died here, feeling no compunction about touching the deceased or searching through their pockets. There was very little left to identify the bodies—a letter from a pocket with the ink too faded to read, a lucky talisman on a leather thong, initials scratched into a knife hilt—but she determined by their matching tunics that they were soldiers. From the way they had fallen, they had either been running to or away from the mouth of the cave.

  A crack of thunder jerked her attention back toward the mountainside. While she had been investigating, a storm had been rising outside. Charlie walked to the edge of the sheltered spot to look and was almost knocked over by the wind. By leaning against the rock wall she managed to look out and see that the sky had grown suddenly darker and streaks of jagged lightening were now the only source of light. The wind was whipping the scant shrubs back and forth, and it sent swirls of dust and gravel into the air. The temperature had plummeted.

  Charlie went to her bag, found a candle, and lit it. There was a pile of dry brush against one wall, leftover from someone’s campsite, and she dragged it to the middle of the open space and touched the candle flame to it. The wood caught quickly, but it was burning quickly too. Charlie stood close to the light while it lasted, wondering what she should do when it was gone. She didn’t for a moment
believe the storm was natural. The sky had been clear all morning. Perhaps storms rose quickly in the mountains, but this one had an unnatural feel to it. The wind didn’t seem to be penetrating the shelter of the hollow at all. Even with the overhang to keep out the rain, there shouldn’t be such a clear demarcation between the tempest outside and the still, dark air of the hollow.

  The brush pile burned itself down to a smoldering pile of embers, and Charlie took her candle to stand just inside the edge of the hollow. It was black as pitch outside now, and she knew that if she attempted to leave the shelter of the cleft, the wind would knock her over before she could even take a step. She was effectively trapped here until the storm passed. Just her and a bunch of skeletons. She turned to eye the skeletons and almost jumped out of her skin.

  There was a faint, pulsating blue light glowing far back in the dark cave. Mesmerized, she stared at it as it grew brighter, then dimmed again.

  “I should stay here,” she said aloud to herself. “I should stay right here and wait for the storm to be over and then go back down the mountain.”

  Instead of following this reasonable advice, she walked slowly toward the hypnotic light, bending to pick up her bag along the way. She reached the mouth of the cave, hesitated for a moment, then stepped inside.

  * * *