The wind was a hand at their backs, dismissive of hesitation in its unceasing pressure. Darkness swept around them as they staggered on, within a cauldron of screams.
The floor had been sculpted into ridges, making walking difficult. Fifteen paces on, they stumbled into an outcropping of quartzite or some other crystalline mineral that resisted the erosive wind. They worked their way around it and found in its lee the first surcease from the Whirlwind's battering force in over seventy hours.
Heboric sagged in their arms. They set him down in the ankle-deep dust at the base of the outcropping. 'I'd like to scout ahead,' Kulp told Felisin, yelling to be heard.
She nodded, lowering herself to her knees.
Another thirty paces took the mage to a larger cavern. More quartzite filled the space, reflecting a faint luminescence from what appeared to be a ceiling of crushed glass fifteen feet above him. The quartzite rose in vertical veins, the gleaming pillars creating a gallery effect of startling beauty, despite the racing wind's dust-filled stream. Kulp strode forward. The piercing shriek dimmed, losing itself in the vastness of the cavern.
Closer to the centre of the cavern rose a heap of tumbled stones, their shapes too regular to be natural. The glittering substance of the ceiling covered them in places—a single side of their vaguely rectangular forms, the mage realized after a moment's examination. Crouching, he ran a hand along one such side, then bent still lower. Hood's breath, it's glass in truth! Multicoloured, crushed and compacted…
He looked up. A large hole gaped in the ceiling, its edges glowing with that odd, cool light. Kulp hesitated, then opened his warren. He grunted. Nothing. Queen's blessing, no sorcery—it's mundane.
Hunching low against the wind, the mage made his way back to the others. He found them both asleep or unconscious. Kulp studied them, feeling a chill at the composed finality he saw in their dehydrated features.
Might be more merciful not to awaken them.
As if sensing his presence, Felisin opened her eyes. They filled with instant awareness. 'You'll never have it that easy,' she said.
'This hill's a buried city, and we're under what's buried.'
'So?'
'The wind's got into one chamber at least, emptied it of sand.'
'Our tomb.'
'Maybe.'
'All right, let's go.'
'One problem,' Kulp said, not moving. 'The way in is about fifteen feet over our heads. There's a pillar of quartzite, but it wouldn't be an easy climb, especially not in our condition.'
'Do your warren trick.'
'What?'
'Open a gate.'
He stared at her. 'It's not that simple.'
'Dying's simple.'
He blinked. 'Let's get the old man on his feet, then.'
Heboric's eyes were blistered shut, weeping grit-filled tears. Slow to awaken, he clearly had no idea where he was. His wide mouth split into a ghastly smile. 'They tried it here, didn't they?' he asked, tilting his head as they helped him forward. Tried it and paid for it, oh, the memories of water, all those wasted lives
They arrived at the place of the breached ceiling. Felisin laid a hand on the quartzite column nearest the hole. 'I'd have to climb this like a Dosü does a coconut palm.'
'And how's that done?' Kulp asked.
'Reluctantly,' Heboric muttered, cocking his head as if hearing voices.
Felisin glanced at the mage. 'I'll need those straps from your belt.'
With a grunt, Kulp began removing the leather band at his waist. 'Damned strange time to be wanting to see me without my breeches, lass.'
'We can all do with the laugh,' she replied.
He handed her the belt, and watched as she affixed the binding strips at each end to her ankles. He winced at how savagely she tightened the knots.
'Now, what's left of your raincloak, please.'
'What's wrong with your tunic?'
'No-one gets to ogle my breasts—not for free, anyway. Besides, that cloak's a tougher weave."
'There was retribution,' Heboric said. 'A methodical, dispassionate cleaning-up of the mess.'
As he pulled off his sand-scoured cloak, Kulp scowled down at the ex-priest. 'What are you going on about, Heboric?'
'First Empire, the city above. They came and put things aright. Immortal custodians. Such a debacle! Even with my eyes closed I can see my hands—they're groping blind, so blind now. So empty.' He sank down, suddenly racked with shuddering grief.
'Never mind him,' Felisin said, stepping up as if to embrace the jagged pillar. 'The old toad's lost his god and it's broken his mind.'
Kulp said nothing.
Felisin reached around the column and linked her hands on the other side by gripping two ends of the cloak and twisting them taut. The belt between her feet hugged this side of the pillar.
'Ah,' Kulp said. 'I see. Clever Dosü.'
She hitched the cloak as high as she could on the opposite side, then leaned back and, in a jerking motion, jumped a short distance upward—knees drawn up, the belt snapping against the pillar. He saw the pain rip through her as the bindings dug into her ankles.
'I'm surprised the Dosü have feet,' Kulp said.
Gasping, she said, 'Guess I got some minor detail wrong.'
In all truth, the mage did not think she would make it. Before she had gone two arm-spans—a full body's length from the ceiling—her ankles streamed blood. She trembled all over, using unimagined but quickly waning reserves of energy. Yet she did not stop. This is a hard, hard creature. She surpasses us all, again and again. The thought led him to Baudin—banished, likely to be somewhere out there, suffering the storm. Another hard one, stubborn and stolid. How fare you, Talon?
Felisin finally came to within reach of the hole's ragged edge. And there she hesitated.
Aye, now what?
'Kulp!' Her voice bounced in an eerie echo that was quickly swept away by the wind.
'Yes?'
'How close are my feet to you?'
'Maybe three arm-spans. Why?'
'Prop Heboric beside the pillar. Climb onto his shoulders—
'In Hood's name what for?'
'You've got to reach my ankles, then climb over me—I can't let go—nothing left!'
Gods, I'm not as hard as you, lass. 'I think—'
'Do it! We have no choice, damn you!'
Hissing, Kulp swung to Heboric. 'Old man, can you understand me? Heboric!'
The ex-priest straightened, grinned. 'Remember the hand of stone? The finger? The past is an alien world. Powers unimagined. To touch is to recall someone else's memories, someone so unlike you in thought and senses that they beckon you into madness.'
Hand of stone? The bastard's raving. 'I need to climb onto your shoulders, Heboric. You need to stand firm—once we get up we'll rig a harness to pull you up, OK?'
'On my shoulders. A mountain of stone, each one carved and shaped by a life long since lost to Hood. How many yearnings, desires, secrets? Where does it all go? The unseen energy of life's thoughts is food for the gods, did you know that? This is why they must—they must—be fickle!'
'Mage!' Felisin wailed. 'Now!'
Kulp stepped behind the ex-priest and set his hands on Heboric's shoulders. 'Stand steady now—'
Instead, the old man turned to face him. He brought both wrists together, leaving a space between them where hands should be. 'Step. I'll launch you straight to her.'
'Heboric—you've no hands to hold my foot—'
The man's grin broadened. 'Humour me.'
Something pushed Kulp beyond wonder as his moccasined foot settled into the firm stirrup of interlaced fingers he could not see. He placed his hands on the ex-priest's shoulders once again.
'Straight up you'll go,' Heboric said. 'I'm blind. Position me, Mage.'
'Back a step, a little more. There.'
'Ready?'
'Aye.'
But he wasn't prepared for the immense surge of strength that lifted him, flung him effortlessly straight up. Kulp made an
instinctive grab for Felisin, missed—luckily, as he was then past her, through the ceiling's hole. He almost fell straight back down. A panicked twisting of his upper body, however, landed him painfully on an edge. It groaned, sagged.
His fingers clawing unseen flagstones, the mage clambered onto the floor.
Felisin's voice keened from below. 'Mage! Where are you?' Feeling a slightly hysterical grin frozen on his face, Kulp said, 'Up here. I'll have you in a moment, lass.'
Heboric used his invisible hands to swiftly climb the makeshift rope of leather and cloth that Kulp sent snaking down ten minutes later. Seated nearby in the small, gloomy chamber, Felisin silently watched with fear racing unchecked within her.
Her body tortured her with pain, the feeling returning to her feet with silent outrage. Fine white dust coated the blood on her ankles and where the pillar's crystalline edges had scored her wrists. She shook uncontrollably. That old man looked dead on his feet. Dead. He was burning up, yet his ravings were not just empty words. There was knowing in them, impossible knowing. And now his ghost-hands have become real.
She glanced over at Kulp. The mage was frowning at the torn shambles of the raincloak in his hands. Then he sighed and swung his gaze to a silent study of Heboric, who seemed to be sinking back into his fevered stupor.
Kulp had conjured a faint glow to the chamber, revealing bare stone walls. Saddled steps rose along one wall to a solid-looking door. At the base of the wall opposite, round indentations ran in a row on the floor, each of a size to fit a cask or keg. Rust-pitted hooks depended on chains from the ceiling at the room's far end. Everything seemed blunted to Felisin's eyes; either it was strangely worn down or the effect was a product of the mage's sorcerous light.
She shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself to fight the trembling.
'That was some climb you managed, lass,' Kulp said.
She grunted. 'And pointless, as it turns out.' And now it's likely to kill me. There was more to making that climb than just muscle, and bone. I feel… emptied, with nothing left in me to rebuild. She laughed.
'What?'
'We've found a cellar for a tomb.'
'I ain't ready to die yet.'
'Lucky you.'
She watched him totter to his feet. He looked around. This room was flooded once. With water that flowed.'
'From where to where?'
He shrugged and approached the stairs in a slow, laboured shuffle.
He looks a century old. As old as I feel. Together, we can't make up even one Heboric. I'm learning to appreciate irony, at least.
After some minutes Kulp finally reached the door. He laid a hand against it. 'Bronze sheeting—I can feel the hammer strokes that flattened it.' He rapped a knuckle on the dark metal. The sound that came was a rustling, sifting whisper. 'Wood's rotted behind it.'
The latch broke in his hand. The mage muttered a curse, then set his weight against the door and pushed.
The bronze cracked, crumpled inward. A moment later the door fell back, taking Kulp with it in a cloud of dust.
'Barriers are never as solid as one thinks,' Heboric said as the echoes of that crash faded. He stood holding his stubbed arms out before him. 'I understand this now. To a blind man his entire body is a ghost. Felt but not seen. Thus, I raise invisible arms, move invisible legs, my invisible chest rising and falling to unseen air. So now I stretch fingers, then make fists. I am everywhere solid—and always have been—if not for the deceit perpetrated by my own eyes.'
Felisin looked away from the ex-priest. 'Maybe if I go deaf you'll disappear.' Heboric laughed.
At the landing, Kulp was making moaning sounds, his breath oddly harsh and laboured. She pushed herself upright, stumbling as pain closed iron bands around her ankles. Gritting her teeth, she hobbled to the stairs.
The eleven steps left her reeling with exhaustion. She fell to her knees beside the mage and waited a long minute before her breathing steadied. 'You all right?'
Kulp lifted his head. 'Broke my damned nose, I think.'
'From that new accent I'd say you were right. I take it you'll live, then.'
'Loudly.' He rose to his hands and knees, thick blood hanging in dusty threads from his face. 'See what's ahead? Ain't had a chance to look, yet.'
'It's dark. The air smells.'
'Like what?'
She shrugged. 'Not sure. Lime? As in limestone, that is.'
'Not bitter fruit? I'm surprised.'
Shuffling steps on the stairs indicated Heboric's approach.
A glow rose ahead, raising vague highlights that slowly etched a scene. Felisin stared.
'Your breath's quickened, lass,' Kulp said, still unwilling or unable to lift his head. Tell me what you're seeing.'
Heboric's voice echoed from halfway up the stairs: 'Remnants of a ritual gone awry is what she's seeing. Frozen memories of ancient pathos.'
'Sculptures,' Felisin said. 'Sprawled all over the floor—it's a big room. Very big—the light doesn't reach the far end—'
'Wait, you said sculptures? What kind?'
'People. Carved as if lying around—at first I thought they were real—'
'And why don't you think that any more?'
'Well…' Felisin crawled forward. The nearest one was a dozen paces away, a nude woman of advanced years, lying on her side as if dead or sleeping. The stone she had been fashioned from was dull white, limned and mottled with mould. Every wrinkle of her withered body had been artfully rendered, no detail left out. She looked down on the peaceful, aged face. Lady Gaesen—this woman could be her sister. She reached out.
'Don't touch anything, mind,' Kulp said. 'I'm still seeing stars, but I've got raised hackles that says there's sorcery in that chamber.'
Felisin withdrew her hand, sat back. 'They're just statues—'
'On pedestals?'
'Well, no, just on the floor.'
The light suddenly brightened, filling the chamber. Felisin looked back to see Kulp on his feet, leaning against the crumbled door frame. The mage was blinking myopically as he took in the scene. 'Sculptures, lass?' he growled. 'Not a chance. A warren's ripped through here.'
'Some gates should never be opened,' Heboric said, blithely stepping past the mage. He walked unerringly to Felisin's side, where he stopped, cocking his head and smiling. 'Her daughter chose the Path of the Soletaken, a fraught journey, that. She was hardly unique, the twisted route was a popular alternative to Ascension. More… earthly, they claimed. And older, and that which was old was in high favour in the last days of the First Empire.' The ex-priest paused, sudden sorrow crumpling his features. 'It was understandable that Elders of the day sought to ease their children's chosen path. Sought to create a new version of the old, risk-laden one—for that had crumbled, weakened, was cancerous. Too many of the Empire's young were being lost—and never mind the wars to the west—'
Kulp had laid a hand on Heboric's shoulder. It was as if the touch closed a valve. The ex-priest raised a ghost-hand to his face, then sighed. Too easy to become lost…'
'We need water,' the mage said. 'Does her memory hold such knowledge?'
'This was a city of springs, fountains, baths and canals.'
'Probably filled with sand one and all,' Felisin said.
'Maybe not,' Kulp said, glancing around with bloodshot eyes. The break in his nose was a bad one, the swelling cracking the too dry skin on either side. This one's been emptied out recently—feel how the air still stirs.'
Felisin eyed the woman at her feet. 'She was once real, then. Flesh.'
'Aye, they all were.'
'Alchemies that slowed ageing,' Heboric said. 'Six, seven centuries for each citizen. The ritual killed them, yet the alchemies remained potent—'
'Then water deluged the city,' Kulp said. 'Mineral-rich.'
'Turning not just bone to stone, but flesh as well.' Heboric shrugged. 'The flood was born of distant events—the immortal custodians had already come and gone.'
'What immortal custo
dians, old man?'
'There may yet be a spring,' the ex-priest said. 'Not far.'
'Lead on, blind man,' Felisin said.
'I've got more questions,' Kulp said.
Heboric smiled. 'Later. Our immediate journey shall explain much.'
The chamber's mineralized occupants were all elderly, and numbered in the hundreds. Their deaths appeared to be, one and all, peaceful ones, which had a vaguely disquieting effect on Felisin. Not all ends are tortured. Hood's indifferent to the means. So the priests claim, anyway. Yet his greatest harvests come from war, disease and famine. Those countless ages of deliverance must surely have marked the High King of Death. Disorder crowds his Gates and there's a flavour to that. Quiet genocide must ring very different bells.
She felt Hood was with her now, in these hours and those since their return to this world. She found herself musing on him as if he was her lover, driven deep inside her with a claim that felt permanent and oddly reassuring.
And now, I fear only Heboric and Kulp. It's said gods fear mortals more than they do each other, is that the source of my terror? Have I captured an echo of Hood within me? The god of death must surely dream rivers of blood. Perhaps I have been his all this time.
Thus I am blessed.
Heboric turned suddenly, seeming to regard her with his sunburned, swollen-shut eyes.
Can you now read my mind, old man?
Heboric's broad mouth twisted wryly. After a moment he swung back, continued on.
The chamber ended in a portalway that funnelled their path into a low-ceilinged tunnel. Past torrents of water had smoothed and polished the heavy stones on every side. Kulp maintained the diffuse, sourceless light as they stumbled onward.
We shamble like animated corpses, cursed in a journey without end. Felisin smiled. Hood's own.
They came to what had once been a street, narrow and crooked, its cobbles heaved and buckled. Low residential buildings crowded the sides beneath a roof of crusted, compacted glass. Along all the walls in sight ran narrow bands of similar substance, as if marking water levels or layers in the sand that had once filled every space.
In the street lay more bodies, but there was no peace to be found in their twisted, malformed shapes. Heboric paused, cocking his head. 'Ah, now we come upon altogether different memories.'
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