He snatched the bucket and dropped it over the rim and listened . . .
. . . and never heard it strike bottom.
Keeping one hand on the lip of the chasm, he dragged himself a few feet to the left and came to another bucket. He dropped that one into the pit too. It never made a sound. He scooted a little farther, found a small nail, then a rake. He dropped them over. Nothing. He moved on, finding several more buckets, a small spade, a shovel, and lastly, what felt like a pickax. None made a sound when he tossed them over the edge.
He eventually came to a wall that blocked his way. So he scooted in the opposite direction, back toward the right, past where he’d begun, finding more buckets, more nails, more mining tools, throwing them all into the gaping pit.
Last he found one very long flat piece of lumber before he reached the opposite wall. He did not throw the lumber over the edge. He judged the cavern to be about thirty paces across, from wall to wall, dead-ending at the edge of a bottomless abyss.
This was where he would die. He slumped against the wall, the battle lost.
Alone he sat, accompanied by nothing more than a great yawning black silence and dwindling hope. He sensed oghuls were now hunting him. Wraiths, too. Possibly even dragons and silver-skull-faced knights. All of them searching the deep, dark places for him, tracking him through the mines by the trail of blood he knew his knees and ankles and hands had left smeared along the floors.
And now they would find him alone with no arrows and a useless bow in this enchanted little dead-end tunnel. Every sound his agonized lungs made was exaggerated by the cold silence. He was so thirsty. He coughed, chest-plate armor constricting his lungs. He coughed again, a guttural, scratchy sound that blasted from deep in his chest, the sound resonating in the air, echoing back and forth down the tunnel from which he’d just come, alerting any oghuls or fiery beasts of the underworld to where he was.
Deep aches had settled into his bones. His muscles brimmed with cramps and pains. His head threatened to burst with the clamor of surging blood and pain. And with his foot—naught but a throbbing agony that assaulted him like never before.
Ignore it! Store the hurt in that hollow place in your mind.
Think, Stefan, think.
He didn’t want to turn around. Didn’t want to backtrack. Yet the fact was, the deep and bottomless hole before him gave him no choice. But I’ve come so far. . . .
Frustration mounted. Rage swelled. A boiling, seething, painful rage.
He reached out and snatched the bow from off his back. He hurled it angrily as far as he could out over the pit, expecting to hear the hum of its twirling flight down, down, down, into the nothingness of the abyss, never to reach bottom.
Gisela. Gone.
But instead he heard the bow strike ground. It clanked and clattered across a hard stone floor not more than ten or fifteen paces away.
He unstrapped the empty quiver from his back next. Tossed it out over the abyss. He heard a twang, twang, clatter, twiiiing as it skipped over hard stone some thirty or forty feet away. He grabbed a pebble from the floor and tossed it. It too lit on solid ground.
Idiot! Stefan! Idiot! The tunnel he’d been following ended at the edge of a bottomless pit, that was for sure, but the tunnel itself picked up again not more than thirty or forty paces away. But I’m no Cotton Stansfield at a Mourning Moon Feast athletic competition. I can’t jump that.
He tossed another pebble. Not quite as far. It lit against the far corridor. He tossed a dozen more, gauging that the opposite rim of the tunnel was likely only fifteen feet away.
He felt the length of lumber at his side. It was easily fifteen paces long. It was a foot wide, at least two inches thick, and solid. But can I stretch it over the pit? He took three deep breaths, collected his thoughts, and formulated a plan.
He placed one end of the lumber flush with the lip of the drop-off, then rolled onto his back, the stone floor cold under him. He scooted forward until his legs were over the edge of the chasm, both feet dangling down into the nothingness. He half rolled onto his side, grasped the board with both hands, and lifted, rolling onto his back again at the same time. The wood was heavy, but he placed its length firmly over his stomach, over his forehead, inching it back until he could grip its end with his thighs. Then he sat up, lifting the board as he went, hand over hand, balancing it as he rose up, the end of the board between his legs—like a soldier walking a tall ladder up against a castle wall. He sat up all the way. The length of the lumber was now standing on end, clenched tightly between his legs, towering fifteen feet above him. Luckily, the roof somewhere above was high enough for that. Slowly he let the top of the board continue in its arching path down, dropping, dropping, in an uncertain plummet. He kept hold of it with both hands, falling with it, praying to Laijon it was long enough to catch the opposite ledge.
It was. The board smacked hard against the far rim of the trench. The reverberation shot up through Stefan’s arms, and he lost his grip, face and body smashing down against the lumber with a slap, his chest-plate armor absorbing the blow.
And there he lay, arms and legs a-dangle, suspended on a thin piece of wood over empty air and nothingness. His heart thundered. One breath. Two breaths. Three breaths. After his bones stopped quaking, and his frame solidified from the quivering mess it had become, he melted onto the length of lumber under him.
His bridge.
But he dared not move. Dared not crawl forward. Is it thick enough? Wide enough? These whirling thoughts spawned other questions that immediately began to develop into buds of doubt.
Wind washed up the tunnel from behind, racing over his flesh. I’m no longer alone. His heart beat faster as he heard the guttural sound of oghul voices in the distance behind him.
He inched forward, the sound of beasts in the tunnel behind him growing, the glow of their torches now a flickering haze of light. The lumber creaked and groaned under him as he crept forward. Ever so slowly he moved, the board dipping farther at its center, bowed inward under his weight . . .
. . . and he could feel it letting go . . . splintering . . .
The oghuls, dozens of them, torches aloft, were suddenly pouring into the cavern behind him, all shouting oghul curses. He scrambled forward, the board bouncing under him, creaking and cracking as he reached the opposite edge and rolled to safety, hugging the surface of the floor, spent, staring out over the chasm at the growling beasts, their gray visages dancing in the light of their torches, burly bodies bristling with heavy rusted armor and weaponry. Fear and tension drained from Stefan’s body like some form of otherworldly sweat as he met each one of their hungry gazes.
I made it! his mind screamed. Rotted angels and Bloody Mother Mia, I made it!
The chasm was behind him. He had conquered it. The oghuls gathered on the other side were snarling, their long and sharp fangs useless to them now. The length of wood had held. It was only inches from his feet, still stretched over the pit, bowed in the middle and a little worse for wear. Several of the torch-bearing oghuls were heading toward it. Stefan kicked the board into the chasm.
He turned and spotted his bow on the ground and snatched it up. Gisela. His heart soared when he saw the precious weapon was undamaged. Stefan left the empty quiver where it lay and limped down the corridor away from the abyss and the oghuls, turning for one last look . . .
. . . and seeing nothing.
No oghuls. No cavern. No torchlight. No bottomless pit.
The hairs along the back of his neck sang with warning. Only a smothering blackness stared back at him as if none of it had ever existed.
It had to be real! He whirled in frustration, face smashing into a stone wall.
He stumbled back and fell into a puddle of cool mud. He gasped aloud at the feel of it squishing between his fingers. Water! His tongue immediately sought the ground, tried to suck the moisture free. Dirt! Bitter!
Is it even real . . .
He searched the floor with his hands, tracing the sou
rce of the mud to the rock wall. Water seeped from the rock. Kneeling, he placed his face to the wall and let the beautiful coolness trickle over his lips and tongue. It tasted like iron, but good.
Then he saw a sliver of light from the corner of his eye.
Light streamed through a cleft in the wall just above and to his left. A beam of hazy white, slanting down through the dust into his space. It was faint, ghostly, and white! Not red and fiery and demonic, but white! Like it was coming from a place where things like trees and flowers and sunshine might live and breathe. He stretched his hand out into the beam, trying to make out the color of his own worn and bloody flesh.
Stefan stood and peered into the crack from whence the light had sprung. The fissure in the wall was about five paces high, perhaps a foot wide, and extended into the rock wall for what seemed about twenty paces, emptying into another tunnel—a tunnel with light so blinding it hurt his eyes!
Without thinking, he shed his blood-splattered chest-plate armor and tossed it aside, overjoyed to finally have an excuse to be rid of it. With his bow in hand, he shoved his body into the cleft, wiggling his way sideways toward the light, slowly inching his way forward. His back was smashed against the rock behind him, his chest scraping painfully against the wall in front. He could feel his tunic tear and peel away against the rough stone. Still, he pushed onward, the light of the tunnel beyond beckoning, bow held out in front of him, Gisela guiding his way.
Soon the crevasse seemed to constrict inward, and he found it hard to breathe, hard to move at all. Panicked, his heart thumped. A suffocating dread crept over him. His breath quickened. And with every labored gasp for air, it seemed the rock pressed inward. He was so near the end.
Three deep breaths . . . three deep breaths . . . three deep breaths like Val-Draekin taught us . . . then hold it. And when he held his breath, he felt the walls loosen around his body. He held his breath again, tried to squirm forward, gripping his bow.
Guide me, Gisela. Lead me to safety.
One last push and he spilled out into the tunnel on the other side and collapsed as startled bats clinging to the ceiling took flight, swirling in mad haste toward the light.
And what a light it was . . .
. . . so dazzling he had to clench shut his eyes, the warmth of it melting over him like liquid fire. He scrambled toward the source of the warmth, crawling, dragging his leg, only briefly opening his eyes. Through stinging tears, he squinted into the coruscating brilliance. A fleeting image. An exit! His aching gaze drank in the sight.
He crawled, and crawled, almost in ecstasy.
Soon he smelled the mingled fragrances of pine and aspen and saw more clearly the round outline of the opening of the cave, the scent of things familiar spurring him on.
Then he was outside—in the sunlight.
Alive!
His bleeding hands covered his face, as the scintillating brightness of his surroundings was almost too much to bear. Through straining, watery eyes he looked, sensing a faint wash of green here and there, only tenuous images. The sun flashed stark and bright reflections, trees, long and tall and towering and creaking in the breeze.
Aspens! Nothing ever seemed so heavenly and fine!
His laughter was like wind rippling through the brush. He was stunned by the spaciousness of the outside world around him. He breathed in the aroma of trees and leaves and dirt and sun. The fragrance of grass and pine filled his heaving lungs.
He crawled, the feeling of the brittle twigs against his bloody hands almost too overwhelming to describe. He tore a handful of weeds and grass from the ground and rubbed them over his face, relished the feel, the texture, the life within.
Then he lost hold on the soil beneath him and rolled down a hill toward the sparsely treed floor of a narrow gully, laughing, not caring at all.
At the bottom, he sat up, his wounds forgotten. Nothing could hurt him now. He tilted his head back, singling out the elusive scents of pine, willow, moss. As the mixture of unmistakable smells flooded him, saliva swelled under his tongue, reminding him that he was ravenously hungry. He gazed up. But the brightness of the light stung his eyes, scraped them raw. He shut them tight to stave off the pain.
And that was when he heard the voices.
Not oghul voices but unintelligible human voices that slowly sharpened into a babble of coherent words that eventually took shape.
He forced his eyes open again.
Over the brushy green slope floated two ghostly apparitions, their familiar faces wavering in and out of sight during those initial blinking moments. Dissolving. Reshaping themselves. His eyes struggled to adjust to the confusing brightness of it all. Two gleaming swords sparked shards of sunlight into his eyes, blinding him further, adding to the chaos.
“Stefan,” both people called out to him at the same time.
Help! he wanted to reply, but was astonished to discover that his voice would not respond when he tried to speak. He swallowed, breathed deep. Tried to speak again. No sound issued forth from his dry throat but a hissing rasp.
“Stefan,” the voices called again, and the two people above suddenly became one. More illusions! He sat up and shielded his eyes from the sun, squinted, tried to concentrate on the strangeness he spied on the slope above.
It’s Seita!
The Vallè maiden approached. Her two wavering forms converging again, coming into focus as one. She wore her gray cloak tied at the waist, face mostly concealed within the cowls of her hood, a familiar leather satchel thrown over her left shoulder. She held a tremendously long sword in her right hand, its thin hilt curved and graceful in the shape of a crescent moon. The lethal-looking weapon she carried didn’t gleam or sparkle like a normal sword, but merely hung menacingly, suspended in her grip, creating a pitched white void in the tall shadows of the aspens.
“We thought you were dead,” she said. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know,” Stefan’s voice finally cracked. Her image shimmered, and he wondered again if the Vallè before him was even real. “Where is Culpa?” he asked.
She stopped a few steps away and cast her green-eyed gaze back toward the cliffs above. “Culpa’s behind me, up the hill and through the trees some, making his way as best he can along the bottom of the rockfall.” Seita pushed the hood of her cloak back, eyes still on the slope of aspens and jagged rock wall rising up behind her. When she turned back toward Stefan, her face was grim. “When I saw you stumble out of that cave, I left Culpa immediately and hurried to you. . . .”
She paused, as if trying to find her next words. With grave concern in her voice, she continued in a hushed whisper, “Culpa was hurt in the mines, Stefan. He is sorely injured. Dying. I can scarcely fathom what stamina must live within him to have kept him alive this long. He carries Blackest Heart strapped to his back, insisted on it, refused to let me take it from him. He can barely toddle about in what remaining armor he has. It was all I could do to get him to agree to let me carry his satchel.”
“What happened?” he asked.
“Culpa fell into the silver.” She no longer whispered.
“Fell into the silver?” Confused, Stefan stood, legs wobbly, ankle flaming with pain. Then, horrified, he remembered the mines above Sky Lochs and the silver streams.
“I’m surprised Culpa made it as far as he has,” Seita went on, gulping. “Don’t be alarmed when you see his injuries. . . .”
Her eyes searched the surrounding trees as if looking for oghuls or worse. “We must not tarry, Stefan. The Dayknight is a liability to us now. We will have to leave Culpa here. . . .”
She paused again, once more choosing her words carefully. “Something terrible is soon to occur in Amadon. And only I can stop it, Stefan. Only I know of it.”
“Your visions?” He gathered his balance, ankle aching.
“Aye.” Her green orbs nervously scanned the slope above once again.
“I’ve had visions too,” Stefan muttered. “There is a beast of the underworld deep i
n the mines. Did you see it too? A knight in red-scaled armor with a silver mask? I thought it was a Skull man, but with the pale face of a Vallè.”
“Skull man?” Seita turned back to him, eyes now wide. “That looked like a Vallè?”
It seemed all he could do was stare at her. Beautiful. She’s always so beautiful and fine. The pale perfection of her face was such a welcome sight after the ugliness of the mines. He looked down at the long white sword in her hand. Then he looked back up.
A mantle of concern had passed over her features. “There are no dragons here.” Her eyes were fixed on his, sharp brows furrowed.
“I know what I saw,” he said.
She stepped toward him, placing her other hand on his shoulder. “Cast your evil visions away, Stefan. Remember, Culpa said those mines could play with your mind. Many things and creatures can play with your mind. They say even the merfolk give those they capture visions before the slow drowning death overcomes them.”
“You’re saying I just imagined it all.”
“Aye. You were lost in there for some time.”
He was angry. “What makes your visions real and mine not?” His ankle hurt, and he fought to keep his balance.
“Because I am pure Vallè.” She tightened her grip on his shoulder, steadying him.
Stefan looked up the hill again. Is Culpa Barra even up there? Am I even out of the mines yet? Is this just some cruel dream?
The delicate hand on his shoulder felt real.
“Look.” Seita raised the marvelous sword into his line of vision again. “We found it. Afflicted Fire. The angel stone too. It’s in the satchel.”
Stefan’s eyes took in the full measure of the astonishing weapon the Vallè carried. It was as long as she was tall, a bright round ruby of deep red set within its white pommel. The weapon’s curious crescent-moon-shaped hilt and cross-guard looked carved of one solid piece of walrus bone, or the tusklike horns of some beast of the underworld, or something else entirely. Its blade was forged of glorious silver mixed with twisting veins of translucent ivory that seemed to pulse red light from somewhere deep within. It was the largest, most magnificent sword he had ever seen.
The Blackest Heart Page 69