by Peter David
I looked up.
The snow on the mountains was breaking loose, descending toward us at horrifying speed and velocity.
Instantly I realized what had happened. The pounding hooves of the unicorns had jarred loose the snow from the mountains. “Avalanche!” I shouted. Entipy looked up as well and gasped. There was nowhere to go but forward, and that we did as fast as we could.
It wasn’t fast enough.
The snow came crashing down, filling in the gap between the mountains. A sea of white of a very different sort from the equine sea that had been pursuing us, but no less deadly.
The path ahead of us suddenly dropped off. We ran as fast as we could and then the snow caught up with us. The frosty tidal wave lifted us off the ground, tumbling all around us, and I held on to Entipy’s hand for as long as I could, but then I was torn away from her. I heard her cry out my name once and then her voice was lost in the crashing of the snow.
Gods, how could this get any worse? I wondered, right before we hit the cliff.
I wasn’t aware of it until I was over it, nor did I have any true picture of how high it was. All I knew was that suddenly there was no sense of solidity beneath me aside from the huge pieces of snow that were endeavoring to bury me. I thrashed at the air as if I could somehow use the airborne ice chunks as stepping-stones to keep me aloft, an endeavor which worked about as well as you can probably suspect. Amazingly, I managed to hold on to my staff, wrapping my arms around it, and it was raining snow all around me. I resolved never to wonder how things could get worse, and then I hit bottom—or whatever it was—so hard that it knocked all the breath out of me. That was unfortunate, because more snow piled on top of me from overhead. I curled up, bringing my arms over my head to try and afford me protection, and waited until the rumbling—which seemed to go on for an eternity—ceased.
I was entombed. Buried alive in white.
I had no definite idea which way was up or down, but I took a guess and started digging as fast and as frantically as I could. For all I knew, it was a futile endeavor. If I was under twelve feet of snow, there was no way I was going to be able to break surface before I suffocated. But that wasn’t going to stop me from doing my damnedest to survive.
There was a small pocket of air around me, and I clawed for the surface, trying to dig my way through it. It was everything I could do not to let sheer panic overwhelm me. I knew that if that happened, I’d be finished. I’d thrash around so much that I’d use up my air before I even came close to escaping.
My fingers dug into the snow as I shoved and pushed, trying to burrow out. Right above me, the snow seemed so packed in that I couldn’t get through it at all. I snapped open the bladed end of my staff and shoved it in, prying at it, jarring it loose. It fell in my face and there was more right above it, but at least it was loose enough that I could push it away and keep going.
My breath was coming in ragged gasps, my eyes filled with dirt and moisture so that I could barely see. My feet and hands were completely numb. I wasn’t scooping or pushing the snow away at that point; I was clubbing it with fists that weren’t feeling anything anymore. Once again I felt light-headed, but this time it wasn’t from the scent of lilacs; it was from the scent of my own death. I was going to be buried alive there, and my body would never be found. Runcible’s people would be sitting there in Terracote, waiting in futility. I wondered how long they would remain there before they gave us up for lost; before they decided that that bastard whore’s son, Apropos of Nothing, had bungled the job of returning the “precious cargo” and my name was entered into the lists of the greatest failures in Isteria.
Had Entipy made it out? Had she survived somehow? Was she nearer to the surface, on top perhaps? Or was she buried even farther below? She could be within inches of me and I’d never know. So much I would never know. My life was going to end there, a series of questions with no answers …
The world was hazing out around me, my efforts to clamber upward becoming less and less emphatic. I tried to tell myself that I had to keep going. To make it for Entipy … for my mother’s sake … for …
For yourself. That’s the only thing that’s really important to you. Don’t try to pretend otherwise.
It was the voice of Sharee … the voice of the weaver whom I had rescued a lifetime ago … and she was right there next to me, in my mind’s eye, looking at me with open scorn. That’s really all it’s been. You. You can fool others, but not me.
“Go away,” I muttered between swollen lips as I kept pushing upward, if for no other reason than to get away from her.
Do you want some free advice?
“No.”
She’s not worth it, she went on as if I hadn’t spoken—which, considering my state of mind at that point, I might actually not have done. The princess, I mean. She’s going to bring you nothing but heartache. Trust me on that.
Trust a weaver. Fat chance.
If you get out of this, you head off and never look back. Carve out a new life for yourself. Stay away from knights. You were never meant for that life. Live within your reality, not your dreams.
“All I have are my dreams, because the reality is a nightmare.”
Your reality is what you make it.
I moaned. Not only was I going to die, but I was going to die having to listen to homilies.
Her face was floating just above me. And another thing …
“Shut up,” I growled in my delirium, and I shoved the frozen meat-and-bone thing called my fist through her face. It punched through the snow overhead …
… and touched nothing.
I couldn’t believe it. My flesh was so numb, my mind so frozen, that it took a few moments for the significance of what I wasn’t feeling to set in. The surface. The surface was just above me.
There was still no sensation in my legs, and yet somehow I managed to muster enough strength to push my way up and through the snow. It was like being born again as my head crunched through the hoary crust, and I gasped in great lungsful of air. I struggled like mad, throwing aside caution, pushing and shoving and clawing the rest of the way until I had pulled myself completely clear.
I looked up. The edge of the cliff we’d gone over looked hideously high. I couldn’t believe I’d survived the fall.
Then I saw that the snow around me had a large area of red on it, and I wondered about the source of that until I touched my forehead and saw my hand come away stained with a dark red. The snow had actually benefited me as the chill had slowed the blood loss. Still, I felt dizzy, the world beginning to spin around me.
Then I saw her hand.
It was sticking out of the snow not three feet away.
She’s not worth it, came Sharee’s warning unbidden to me, but I ignored it and lunged for Entipy. I grabbed the hand; it felt frozen solid. For one moment I was actually worried that it might snap off the wrist. “Entipy! I’m up here! Don’t you die on me! Don’t do it!” I shouted, knowing that I might already be addressing a corpse. I had set my staff on the ground next to me and shoved aside the snow as frantically as I could. The towering mountains looked down upon us, uncaring of whether we lived or died.
I kept calling her name, trying to let her know that I was there, trying to get some sort of response out of her. She was giving me absolutely no help. If she wasn’t dead, she was most certainly unconscious. Fortunately, the one benefit I had was that my arms were strong, almost tireless, especially with the goal so close. It took me seconds to clear away enough snow to expose her head and shoulders and then pull her clear of her snowy entombment.
Her eyes were closed, her face and clothes covered with frost, her skin slightly blue. She looked terrible, and I can only imagine how I must have looked. I shook her violently, trying to bring her to wakefulness. Nothing. I put my head to her chest, tried to hear some sign of a heartbeat. I thought I detected something faintly, but couldn’t be sure. What I knew beyond question, though, was that she wasn’t breathing.
“Breathe! Breathe!” I shouted at her. She didn’t respond. I shook her again. Still nothing. I did the only thing I could think of: I opened her mouth, brought my lips down upon hers, and blew into her mouth. Her lips were frozen solid; it was like sucking on ice. I tried to keep my breath slow and steady, tried to simulate normal breathing. Her chest rose up and down, but not on its own. I kept going, despair clutching me and chilling me as thoroughly as the snow had. I lost track of how long I breathed into her mouth. I lost track of time … of myself … of everything … the world was swirling around me, and I fought desperately to hang on, to push back the blackness.
And I failed. Failed as I had at so many things in my life.
I slumped forward onto her body, unable to keep my mind functioning anymore. My head lay on her chest …
… and rose slightly …
… and settled down slightly … and rose again …
She was breathing.
Son of a bitch, I thought, right before I passed out.
Chapter 22
I awoke slowly and painfully to find myself on the floor of a surprisingly warm cave.
As caves went, it was quite sizable. Not only that, but it was clear that someone had gone to a good deal of effort to transform it from a simple shelter into something that was actually rather homey. Several torches were mounted on the walls, the flames flickering pleasantly and providing both light and warmth.
I was lying on what appeared to be a bed of hay. Someone had lined the floors as well. I glanced to my right and saw the princess lying a short distance away. A similar layer of hay had been laid down for her as well, and she appeared to be resting comfortably.
Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw someone, or some thing, huddling just beyond the glow of light that the torches were giving off. He (if it was a he) was crouched over in a corner, and he appeared to be watching me. I sat up slowly, feeling the creaking in my joints, and blinked against the dimness. “Who’s there?” I called.
The figure in the darkness slowly stood. Actually, he didn’t stand so much as he seemed to uncoil. He took a step forward, then a second, and emerged into the pool of light.
My breath caught in my throat.
Tacit glowered at me with his one good eye.
I let out an ear-piercing scream and jolted, waking from a horrible dream. Except when I looked around I was saddened to discover that I had not, in fact, awoken, because I was not dreaming. The cave, the torches, the bed of hay, and Tacit were all still there, and my shriek of alarm was just starting to fade in its echo. Tacit said nothing, but simply titled his head slightly as he stared at me. I looked to the princess. She stirred slightly but otherwise continued to slumber.
My sword was to my right. My staff was to my left. He’d left both of my weapons within easy grabbing distance. But Tacit was not the type who was sloppy or forgetful; if he’d done that, it was because he didn’t care whether I reached them or not. That showed a remarkable degree of confidence. Would that I had possessed some.
Still he did not speak. I said nothing either. I was actually somewhat curious, even as my heart hammered against my chest, who would break the silence first.
Tacit did so.
“How could you?” he asked.
Except I didn’t quite understand him. It came more along the lines of, “Howcudoo.” I frowned and said, “What?”
He rolled his eye slightly, the other obscured by the patch, and when he spoke again he did so very meticulously, moving his tongue slowly over each syllable, repeating the question.
“How could I what?”
Tacit shook his head, as if astounded that I would even have to ask. In retrospect, I suppose it was pretty obvious. He was asking how I could possibly have betrayed him the way that I had. In fact, it was so obvious that he apparently didn’t feel the need to repeat the question, probably going on the assumption that he wouldn’t get a straight answer out of me.
Now that I saw him closer, I could make out the residual damage from our last encounter months ago. There was a fearsome scar where I had laid open his forehead. It had healed, but irregularly, almost zigzag. There was some disfigurement to his nose as well, and his jaw seemed a bit askew. I could see where the teeth were missing on the side. When he spoke, not only did he have to fight to make his words clear, but there was a faint whistling sound through the space. His hair was wild and matted, his beard scraggly. He didn’t look remotely heroic.
He looked insane.
“I had to reset my jaw on my own,” he said as casually as if we were sitting at a table in a pub knocking back drinks and he was looking back on a portion of his life that had provided him some mild inconvenience. “You did quite a thorough job, Po.” He paused and then said again, “How could you?”
I tried to find an answer. After all this time, I felt I owed him one. Nothing came to mind, and finally I shrugged and said, “I had to.”
He nodded. In a bizarre way, it seemed to be an answer that made sense to him. “We all do what we have to,” he said philosophically. “We cannot help ourselves. Just as now: I’m going to have to kill you, Po. Nothing else for it. Hope you understand. No offense.”
“None taken,” I said hollowly. I paused and then said, “Are … you going to do it now?”
“Oh, no!” he said with astonishment, as if the very idea was unthinkable. “No, why would I do that? While Entipy is unconscious? No, Po. No … first we have to wait until she wakes up. Then you have to grovel. That’s very important. She has to see you grovel.”
“Why does she have to do that?”
“Because she’s fallen in love with you by now. Am I right? You can tell me; I won’t get upset.”
“Won’t get upset?” I yelped. “You just got through telling me you’re going to kill me!”
Tacit came toward me and knelt a few feet away. He focused his one eye on me, and when he spoke—again, carefully caressing each word—it was as if something had died in his throat. “Yes. I am going to kill you. But there’s no upset over that. There was at first. I would like to tell you that, as a true hero, I rose above such petty concerns as anger … or revenge. I would have liked to, truly. But I did not. When you ambushed me, left me lying there … then I wanted to kill you with a passion hotter than a thousand suns.”
“That’s … very hot,” I said, not knowing how else to respond.
“Then when I had to reset my jaw, when I felt that agony that lanced through my skull as if it had been cut in half, it just inflamed my fury all the more. A thousand suns? Say a hundred thousand and you’d be closer to the mark. But you know what, Po?”
“No. What.”
“It is most difficult to maintain that level of intensity of hatred. Not when you’re expending energy to try and survive at the same time. One has to pick and choose. To decide where one’s priorities are going to be. And I had to set my priorities on healing … on surviving … on hoping that somehow, in some way, we would meet up again. Following you wasn’t difficult. The phoenix was newly hatched; as a result, he left a small fire trail behind him when he flew. It singed the tops of trees. Left a trail of burnt wood that most others could not have followed. But I could. You know what I’m capable of, don’t you, Apropos.”
I nodded. Strength had surged back into my limbs, possibly a giddy rush of energy coming from the fact that I was still alive. But I made no motion. What motion could I make, after all? I was on his terrain, under his control.
“Actually, I might not have been able to survive at all … had I not met my friend.”
“Friend?”
He puckered his lips, putting his front teeth against his lower lip, and blew a sharp whistle of a note. I heard a faint clip-clop approaching, and braced myself for another onslaught by unicorns. And then a large, equine shape glided into the cavern. I could scarce believe what I was seeing.
“Titan!” I said in astonishment. For indeed it was; gods knew that I had combed down that coat so many times, I could likely have rec
ognized the steed of the late Sir Umbrage even if I were blindfolded. I could see scar tissue on the horse’s magnificent coat, but otherwise it appeared unharmed.
Tacit looked mildly surprised, but only mildly. “So … Ulysses, as I called you … or Titan, as you were formerly known …” He looked at the horse. “It appears that you did, indeed, recognize him at that. Take a long look at him, Apropos. This noble beast may well be the only creature in the world, walking on two legs or four, who feels any loyalty to you whatsoever.”
“But … this is impossible …”
“I found the mighty beast after the caravan transporting my beloved Entipy had been assailed by the Harpers Bizarre. Oh, yes, Apropos,” and he smiled at my obvious confused surprise. “Between the scents, the broken branches, the bodies … I was more than capable of figuring out what had happened. Ulys—my apologies—Titan … had been gravely wounded. I took it upon myself to attend to the horse, to nurse it back to health. Thanks to the burn trail, I knew which direction you had gone in … at least in general terms. Titan was too magnificent a creature to leave to the untender mercies of the forest. So I aided him.”
As if knowing that he was the topic of discussion, Titan let out a little whinny and bobbed his head up and down.
Entipy was starting to stir. I heard a low moan from her. Tacit cast a glance toward her before turning his focus back to me.
“We came as far in this direction as we could before the winter set in. Unfortunately we traveled somewhat slower than you. After all, we did not have a phoenix upon which to ride … thanks to the intervention of my erstwhile friend, Apropos. We took refuge here, and it is here that we have been residing for some time now. All this time I have been hoping, praying that somehow I would catch up with you, Po. And then … then …” and he sighed softly, blissfully. “I smelled the lilacs. I smelled the unicorns. My olfactory senses are not what they once were; the damage done to my face by my good friend, Apropos, attended to that. But even though I was not what I once was, I knew a herd had come to the area. I was going to go to them, find a way to them … when I sensed that they were disturbed. The next thing I knew, there was an avalanche, cutting off the mountain passes that would have enabled me to join them. I cursed my fates once again, as I have a great deal recently. And then … then Titan here seemed to scent something. He insisted on going out into the snow, in searching out something that he was sure was there. And he was right. He found you, Po. Nor did he protest in the slightest at the additional weight when I loaded both you and Entipy onto his back so that you could be brought here. His loyalty to you knows no bounds. That sort of loyalty is very touching, don’t you think? And so rare … so rare …”