by P. M. Biswas
“Prince Loren?”
“Here.”
“Seer Soma?”
“Here.”
“Human?”
“Hey! Why don’t I get called by my name?” Tam said defiantly.
“I just called you ‘Human.’ I didn’t call you ‘Human Filth.’”
“That isn’t my name, Nala.”
“Isn’t it?” Nala said unconcernedly. Her eyes scanned the rock face ahead of her for obstacles before she scaled it nimbly.
The mountain was no longer walkable; now it was earnest climbing, and Nala was far ahead of the rest of them. The rope stretched taut between her waist and theirs. She routinely had to stop to let them catch up, mostly because Soma and Tam were slowpokes.
Despite Soma’s ability to heal herself, her elderly body was beginning to fail; after every hour or so of relentless climbing, her kindly brown face would become ashen and a cold, clammy sweat would lend her skin a sickly sheen. Whenever that happened, Tam would support Soma’s fragile frame on her broad shoulders, allowing Soma to draw a few breaths before they clambered on.
As a consequence of that, it wasn’t just Tam’s legs that hurt anymore; her arms and shoulders did too, because she had to hammer the picks into rock, pull herself up, and lift Soma during Soma’s resting periods. It meant that Tam was pushing herself beyond what she had once thought herself capable of, and that satisfied her pride as much as it depleted her strength.
“I’ve reduced you to a pack mule,” Soma said guiltily when Tam next allowed Soma to rest on her shoulders. “I am so sorry, my dear. If only my ancient heart could sustain such exertion! I grow fainter and weaker as the days pass by.”
That couldn’t be good. Tam looked behind her to exchange an anxious glance with Loren. Nala not only stopped but climbed back down until she was leaning over Soma.
“Please, Seer, climb onto my back,” Nala said. “I can carry you for at least three hours, which should grant you a reprieve.”
“No, child, I am burden enough. You must save your attention for your work as a Sentinel. Should I require a more lengthy recess, I will inform you. I must consult the Earthstone soon anyhow. I must then take it into myself, as I am the sacrifice to the Stone. We are but days away from the summit. I cannot delay the ritual much more. Else I will not have the energy to conduct it.”
Dread filled Tam, poison-dark and stifling. She’d become fond of Soma, whose grandmotherly affection had endeared her to Tam as much as it had to the elves. Soma might not be the Seer of Tam’s people, but she was precious to Tam regardless. Losing her would be a blow Tam would take a long time to recover from. She didn’t even want to think about it. She’d been avoiding thinking about it thus far.
“W-won’t you die when you take the Stone into yourself?” Tam asked. “Shouldn’t you not do it until you’re at the peak, just before we bring down the mountain?”
“No, Tam, it is not taking the Earthstone into myself that requires my sacrifice, but using the Stone. It will be easier to use the Stone than it will be to absorb it, for the ritual is to absorb the Stone. Unleashing it will require nothing but my will. I must absorb the Stone prior to using it.”
There was a lull as all the climbers deliberated on what was to come. For once, it did not occur to Tam to joke or to lighten the atmosphere. She couldn’t. Her throat was as clogged up by sorrow as everybody else’s. Gravity had seemingly tripled, dragging Tam down even as she fought to keep her grip on her picks and to not buckle under the pressure of her own despair.
“Tam,” Loren said from below her, likely affected by their bond, but he could say nothing more. How could he, if a chatterbox like Tam was overwhelmed by grief?
“My children,” said Soma softly, “let us move on.”
Move on. As usual Soma’s words had multiple meanings. Tam realized that Soma’s sacrifice would probably be a release for her, a welcome sleep after a thousand years of forced wakefulness, her tired spirit liberated from its aging prison at last.
It did not sadden Tam any less.
“DANIS’S SOLDIERS are entering the pass.” Nala squatted on a north-facing ledge, gazing into the foggy distance, her breaths puffing in front of her because the temperature had plummeted just that drastically.
It was unimaginable that somewhere down there—in the moss-green valley so far beneath them that it was partially obscured by mist—it was summer. It seemed a world away. The air up here was as thin and sharp as a knife, slipping under the hems of their sleeves and into the gaps between their buttons, threatening to slit them open with every step.
They were all bundled up in their cloaks and hats and gloves, hidden as they were amidst the snow-capped, glittering pinnacles that protruded from Mount Zivan at this height. Those protrusions were like miniature peaks, presaging the mountain’s great icy zenith.
“I can see them now,” Nala said. “Tiny as insects, thousands upon thousands of them, a slow-moving river of the dead. They are gathering at the entrance to the pass; by the morrow, they will all be directly below us, perfectly situated to be buried by the landslide.” Nala frowned. “There is still something… I cannot describe it, but I still feel as though there is something I am not quite sensing; perhaps it is all those absent heartbeats, all those moving bodies devoid of a pulse. It is unnatural.”
“What’s unnatural is that it’s ruddy well winter up here.” Tam was blowing at her gloved fingers to warm them, even if it was only by a tenth of a degree. “I was sweating like a farmer’s overworked ox only weeks ago, and now I have so many goose bumps I resemble a horned toad.”
“Resemble?” Nala retorted. “You are a horned toad.”
“Wasn’t I supposed to be ‘Human Filth’?”
“That was a flattering nickname,” Nala said. “To encourage you.”
“Consider me encouraged,” Tam replied, because at this point verbal sparring was all she had to cheer her up… before her mind periodically reminded her of Soma’s impending sacrifice.
Tomorrow was to be the day Soma would take the Stone into herself. After that ritual was performed, they would climb the last hundred or so meters to the summit and Soma would unleash the power of the Earthstone—even though in so doing, she would sacrifice herself.
Soma had instructed Loren, Tam, and Nala to abandon her shortly beforehand, and to take shelter on the south side of Mount Zivan so that the landslide would spare them. Since Soma would be commanding the mountain to crash, she was hoping she would be able to control how it crashed. If the mountain obeyed her and if the three of them followed Soma’s instructions, they might—might—be saved.
And if they weren’t, at least the rest of Astaris would be, and the Wanderwood along with it. That would be reward enough.
The setting sun cast a purplish glow on the snow that gave it the appearance of a bruise, darkening as the sun dipped below the horizon. Not daring to light a campfire whose smoke might alert the troops gathering below, they huddled close to each other, trying and failing to fall asleep.
Soma was the only one who actually managed to sleep, at peace as she was with her own death. Nala’s eyes were open, gleaming like marbles in the night, fixed on the summit as if on her own fate. There was no doubt in those eyes. There never was.
Tam was not as free of doubts. Her primary fear was that the mission would go wrong, that some crucial component of the ritual would go awry, and that Soma’s sacrifice would be in vain. Her secondary fear was that Nala and Loren may not survive. Tam had written off her own survival long ago, when she’d volunteered for this task, so that did not worry her.
What did worry her was that Loren’s lissome form would be pulverized beneath a mountain’s worth of rocks, and that Nala’s clever fingers would never draw a bow again. There were injuries it would be impracticable for even immortals to heal from; there were circumstances so agonizing that they could only will themselves to die.
Sometime in the night, Tam felt a gloved hand searching for hers—Loren’s. Was
he comforting her or taking comfort from her? Tam wondered if Loren ever felt alone in the bond, since he could feel Tam’s distress but she couldn’t feel his.
Then again, Tam didn’t need the bond to feel how shaken Loren was. The fingers that twined with hers were trembling, and she latched on to them as tightly as she could. They held hands until sunrise, which they greeted with gritty, slitted eyes. The sun was a blazing disc of bleached gold that transformed the mountaintop into a wasteland of windswept ice, the ice itself fracturing into a million bewildering, refracting angles of blinding white. It was like being in the middle of a shattered mirror.
Today was the day.
Breakfast was a cake divided into quarters, so that they would all die with a sweet taste upon their tongues. Tam wished she could have complimented Ato on his baking and on his food-preserving spices. If Emeraude ever discovered how talented Ato was, she’d recruit Ato for her kitchens. Emeraude was as obsessed with accumulating the best artisans as dragons were with accumulating hoards. Mayhap Ato would be put to work in the dorm’s canteens, doing away with those flimsy, flaky quince pies once and for all.
The thought made Tam smile faintly. She got up, relinquishing Loren’s hand. Loren looked up at her with exhausted circles under his eyes.
“Oi, princeling.” Tam tapped her boot against Loren’s. “Up with you. Not losing your resolve now, are you? We’re almost there.” She squinted up at the dazzling summit, a spire of ice piercing the sky. “At the peak.”
“At our deaths.” Nala got up fluidly.
“At our destiny.” Soma’s hands were folded calmly in her lap, dusted as it was with cake crumbs. The contrast of those crumbs with Soma’s powers was oddly charming; it was an indication of simplicity, of Soma’s childlike purity in spite of her age.
Tam’s heart squeezed. The world would be losing this person today—this person who despite her status was unbothered by the crumbs in her lap, who laughed at Tam’s jokes as if they were the epitome of wit, who eased the souls of others with her very presence, and whose smile was so beautiful that Tam would never forget it.
“Bring me the Stone, please,” Soma said.
Loren extracted it from its bag but faltered in bringing it to Soma, clutching the Earthstone as if he might prevent Soma from touching it—and therefore from sacrificing herself.
“It is written, Loren,” Soma reminded him gently. “When the price of many lives is only one, then it is a price that must be paid.”
Loren settled the Stone in Soma’s lap, atop all those crumbs, his face crumpling as he brushed them aside. He sagged to his knees as Soma unwrapped the Stone.
As before, the Earthstone was swathed in a magical cloth on which symbols of enchantment glimmered and moved. When Soma bared the Stone and laid her hands on it, there was a palpable billowing of magic around them, like that of a wind through rushes. Tam reflexively wrapped her cloak tighter around herself.
Soma’s milky eyes shone as she spoke in some alien, archaic tongue. It summoned a brilliant, burning silver from deep within the Stone itself, a silver that gradually overtook the Stone as Soma chanted. The center of the Stone was melting, sinking inward, leaving its shell merely that, a shell—a vessel filled with a silver fluid, a molten, moving, sentient silver that rippled and shifted.
Like it was magic itself.
That’s what it is, Tam realized. Pure magic.
Soma lifted the Stone as she would a bowl, opening her mouth and tipping the Stone to pour all that silver into herself.
The terminal stage of the ritual was about to begin—the imbibing, the taking of the Stone into oneself. It was the beginning of Soma’s sacrifice.
Nala knelt before Soma, her head bowed. Loren shut his eyes tightly, as if it would hurt him to watch.
But Tam… Tam could not look away. It was horrendous and it was awful, but Tam could not look away.
Time seemed to slow down. The liquid that had once been the Earthstone glinted and sloshed like molten steel, rolling inch by inch toward Soma’s parted lips. Soma was going to fill herself with that, with that blistering, boiling heat. How would she not be seared to cinders?
But before a drop could so much as scorch Soma’s tongue, an object whizzed through the air toward Soma, so fast that it was a singing blur.
The blur only coalesced into a shape when it lodged itself in Soma’s chest.
It was an arrow.
Soma doubled over, dropping the Earthstone back onto her lap.
Nala didn’t even shout in surprise—she simply unwound from her kneeling posture and segued seamlessly into an archer’s stance, slotting arrow after arrow into her bow, firing shots in a continuous arc across the ledge.
There was nothing there. Whoever was attacking them was invisible. Nala continued shooting regardless, even as Loren unfroze and scrambled to tend to Soma, whose clothing was growing wet and dark with blood. She was bleeding copiously—and perhaps fatally, if it weakened the already frail, aged elf such that she could no longer will herself to live, and where death was her only choice. Tam swore and flung herself before Soma, slanting her spear crossways, blocking any incoming arrows from reaching the fallen Seer.
For the Seer had fallen. Her body had crumpled, and now Soma lay prone in Loren’s lap, the silver light that had been glowing in her eyes growing dim. The silver in her blood was subsiding too, diminishing it to a stagnant red.
“What—” Loren was hitching panicked sobs, his fingers slipping over Soma’s bloody cloak. He wadded extra fabric around the arrow buried in her, seeking to stem the gushing of all that red. “Seer Soma, wh-what should we—”
“I cannot imbibe the Stone,” Soma rasped. “I am too drained from my wound. My body will give out before I reach the summit. Though I may keep myself alive, I will not be strong enough to channel the Stone. It will all be for naught.” She reached up with the bloodied hand she had pressed to her chest and cupped Loren’s face, stained with tear-tracks as it was. “It breaks my heart to say this, child, but you must imbibe the Stone. You must be the sacrifice.”
Tam’s mind echoed with the shock of what Soma had just said, a hollow chasm of anguish yawning open within her. Now, not only would Soma die, but Loren might die too.
Loren.
No. Not Loren. Please, Astar, not Loren.
But Tam could do nothing to change what was happening, other than to pray. She was trapped where she was, fending off the arrows that zoomed toward Soma and Loren. Tam was their only shield, for Nala was concentrating on dispatching as many of her own arrows as she could against their invisible foe.
It was only when an arrow of Nala’s accidentally made contact that their attacker manifested—a man who grasped at the arrow sticking out of his belly, letting go of his own bow as he slumped to the earth.
It was Alfernas. He was clad in a cloak similar to the cloth that concealed the Stone, embroidered with those sorcerous, transmuting symbols that hid whatever they enveloped from the eyes of Seers and Sentinels, although the symbols were swirling to a halt now that the cloak had been punctured and was no longer intact.
So that was how Alfernas had gone unremarked on by the Seer and by Nala. This was what had been niggling at Nala, the sensation that she was missing something. Alfernas had been creeping up on them all along, misusing the very magic he had woven into the cloth that protected the Stone. He had used that magic to target the Seer… and the mission. He had sought to doom them all.
“You slinky scum!” Tam yelled. All she wanted to do was leap upon him and slay him with her spear, but she had to be where she was, protecting her charges from whatever hexes Alfernas may hurl at them.
Nala didn’t even pause; she kept up her merciless volley, drawing closer and closer to Alfernas as she shot him full of arrows. Alfernas gave up on getting back on his feet when an arrow tore into his throat; he collapsed at that, clawing at it futilely.
“Why?” demanded Nala as she loomed above him, her next arrow slotted for the finishing strike
. Since Alfernas was immortal, it may not kill him, but it would incapacitate him long enough for the mission to be accomplished.
“C… an’t….” Alfernas gurgled around the blood bubbling up in his mouth. “Can’t… let elves… unite… with humans…. They are… beneath us…. Savage creatures…. We should… use the Stone… only for ourselves…. Once Soma… is dead… a new Seer… will be born…. A wiser Seer….”
“Wiser? Wiser?” Nala’s words resonated with fury and betrayal. “Seer Soma is a mother to us all, and you—you—”
“Not a mother…. A traitor… I left… a simulacrum… of myself… in the Wanderwood… to deceive them all… into thinking… I was there… while I was here, assassinating… this misbegotten… Seer….”
An expression of such ferocious, vicious revulsion overtook Nala’s face that it contorted—but then it blanked again as Nala aimed her arrow and shot it into Alfernas’s eye.
Alfernas fell back, motionless.
Nala stalked back to where the others were. Her wrath made her features even stonier than before.
“Technically, he agrees with you about the humans,” Tam pointed out to Nala, who only snarled at her.
“Shut up. He is nothing like me. He is a coward who perverted his magic for a delusional cause.” Nala crouched beside Soma and checked on the Seer’s injury.
Loren was still just sitting there, cradling Soma and shaking, trying frantically to contain Soma’s bleeding. As the Seer declined, her hand slipped away from Loren’s cheek, leaving a broad stripe of blood along his jaw. Soma’s eyelids fluttered to half-mast, and though she was breathing, it was the shallow, rapid breathing of one who was on the verge of unconsciousness.
“Your Highness,” Nala said to Loren, “compose yourself. I can heal the Seer if given enough time. Time you will have to buy us.”