Beyond the Shadowed Earth
Page 24
“Should have tried that earlier,” Morin quipped.
Tainir gave her brother a dirty look.
Eda barely registered them. Because beyond the wall of ice stretched an expanse of snowy ground, and beyond that—
Beyond that stood a plain peak of dirt and rock, wreathed all in clouds, and she knew without a doubt that they’d found Tuer’s Mountain.
Eda grabbed her pack and stepped across the shattered ice. She was tight with fear and hope and triumph, and overwhelmed with a desperate need for haste. She broke into a run, feet pounding across the snow, not even glancing back once to make sure Morin and Tainir were following.
The sun rode high in the sky as she ran. The snow turned to slush and then mud and then bare dirt. Somehow, it was warmer now. She shrugged out of her pack and her poncho, dropping them heedlessly to the ground as she ran on and on.
The ground began to rise again. The clouds melted away.
Morin and Tainir kept pace at her heels.
She ran and ran, the mountain growing larger against the sky until she could no longer see the top of it. She felt smothered by the clouds, by something strange on the wind she didn’t have a name for.
A jagged crack split the air away to her left and the noxious scent of decay filled her nostrils. A host of spirits flew through on dark wings, jaws gaping, teeth flashing, bone swords raised high.
Eda tore the priestess’s knife from its sheath as behind her came a sudden snarl—Tainir, changed into her snow leopard form.
Morin’s hand wrapped around Eda’s wrist. “We have to run.”
They hurtled headlong up the mountain, hand in hand, Tainir bounding beside them on four paws. The spirits pursued them, shrieking and laughing, mere heartbeats behind.
Eda didn’t dare look back. She held tight to Morin. They came to a worn stone path, moss growing bright between the cracks, and kept running. The very ground seemed to hum.
The path ended abruptly at a stone doorway that looked into yawning darkness. Eda, Morin, and Tainir skidded to a stop.
Behind them, the winged spirits circled, preparing to attack. But something kept Eda standing there, staring through the gaping entranceway, frozen, unsure.
An ancient altar stood just past the doorframe, a simple plinth of carved stone, with an empty spot at its base where a petitioner could kneel. There had been a cushion there once, perhaps, but it had long since rotted away.
On top of the altar rested a basket of grain, a bowl of wine, and a loaf of bread, all as fresh-looking as if they’d been set there a moment ago, though Eda knew very well that was impossible. Had the gods preserved them, somehow? She felt suddenly foolish, small. She had brought no offering to the god of the mountain. Why did she think he would hear her?
“Do you think you need an offering? You, the god’s chosen one?”
She blinked and a shadow stood beside her, black feathers brushing against her arm. She looked up into Rudion’s face and he smiled.
Beyond him there was no one else: not Morin, not Tainir, not the host of spirits. Just Eda, and Tuer’s Shadow, the altar, and the door to the mountain.
Eda clenched her jaw, her hand wrapping around the priestess’s knife. “Why are you hunting me? I’m here. Where you wanted. At the doorway to Tuer’s Mountain.”
“I’m not hunting you,” said Rudion. “I’m driving you. And if my people devour your companions along the way, so be it. What is two less of the race of mankind on the earth? You should have come with me when I asked. Perhaps that would have saved them.”
Fear for Morin and Tainir seized her, but she refused to rise to his bait. “Your people?”
“The gods cast my fellow spirits into exile. I am merely restoring them to their rightful place.”
“With you as their king?”
His crown pulsed brighter. “As you say. But what are you waiting for, little Empress? I think you had better run.”
Lightning split the sky and thunder roared, shaking Eda from her vision. She jerked her head back to see another crack opening in the world, more and more spirits coming through.
“Eda!” Morin cried.
The spirits shrieked, pinning their wings to their sides.
They dove.
Eda grabbed Morin’s hand and pulled him through the yawning doorway into Tuer’s Mountain, Tainir at their heels.
Part Three
STARLIGHT AND SORROW
At last they reached the doorway to Tuer’s Mountain, but a spirit with a burning sword barred their way.
Chapter Thirty-Six
EDA RAN BLINDLY INTO THE DARK, MORIN beside her, Tainir at their backs, her claws clicking on stone.
The spirits came after them, teeth snapping, wings scraping the sides of the passageway. Ahead, there was nothing but blackness.
“Light.” Eda breathed it out like a prayer. “Just a little light.”
Her forehead pulsed again with heat and started to glow, enough so she could dimly see a foot ahead of her, no more.
She ran faster, and Morin matched her pace, stride for stride.
She glanced back. A mistake.
The spirits were only a heartbeat behind, forced to come one at a time through the narrow passage. One of them leapt at Tainir, who met it head on with a roar, slashing at it with her huge paws.
Morin clung to Eda’s hand. They hurtled on.
Whispers echoed far off. Laughter coiled near. Lights flickered into being and winked out again, in shades of violet and blue and green, like they had yesterday out in the snow. Eda thought she saw a blur of faces in the lights, dead eyes, moaning lips.
Terror coursed through her, and she tightened her grip on Morin’s hand, nails digging into his skin. She wished they’d had time to put their climbing harnesses back on. She got the feeling the darkness had grown hands and wanted to separate them.
They ran on, their footsteps echoing overloud in the stone tunnel. Tainir loped at their heels, a blur of white.
And then Eda and Morin and Tainir ran through a carved wooden door that slammed firmly shut behind them, an iron bar locking into place across it. The spirits clattered shrieking against the door, scraping it with swords and teeth and talons.
A shadow person stood beside the door—the one who’d shut and locked it. A girl, no older than Tainir and so faded that Eda could see all the way through her. She bowed her shadowy head and pointed on down the tunnel.
They didn’t need to be told twice—the door would not hold against the spirits forever. They ran on.
The passageway widened around them. Lanterns sprung up in the dark, illuminating a cavernous hall. Massive stone pillars stretched up from the floor and were lost somewhere far above. More shadowy people crouched behind the pillars, peering at Eda and Morin and Tainir as they raced by. Eda realized they were ghosts, souls lost and wandering with no one to guide them to their rest. Anger twisted sharp between her ribs. She hated that, despite her best efforts, her world had expanded to contain more than her thirst for vengeance. She wanted justice, now. Justice for all these wandering souls, and for the ones she’d killed as well: the Emperor. Rescarin. Niren.
She’d killed them because it suited her. She’d traded their lives for an Empire. And yet Eda was brazen enough to seek out a god, to demand he answer for his crimes when she had yet to answer for hers.
She kept her gaze fixed ahead as she ran, but she was still aware of the ghosts, more and more of them, leaving their pillars, following silently in line behind her and Morin and Tainir, like the strange wistful tail of a kite.
“Look,” said Morin softly, pulling her to a stop. Tainir pressed up warm against the backs of their legs.
They’d come to the end of the hall, where a rectangular wooden door stood shut beneath a carved stone frame. An … entity stood beside the door. It was something like a tall silvery figure, its form angular, thin, but at the same time it had no shape. It wavered like water or smoke, the only thing solid about it a pair of fierce bright eyes.
“You are a spirit.” Morin’s voice was hushed with awe. “A servant from the beginning of time, one of the few who did not betray the gods.”
“I guard the door, by command of the Lord of the Mountain.”
Eda set her jaw. “We’re here for Tuer. Take us to him.”
“The Lord of the Mountain is out of your reach. The doors are sealed. Not even he can pass through.”
The spirit brushed a translucent hand across Eda’s forehead. She felt that familiar pulse of heat under her skin, and also the faint touch of the spirit’s fingers, soft as rain. “You are gods-touched, bright one. There is Starlight in you.”
“Starlight?”
“You burn with it. Can’t you feel it?”
Eda shuddered where she stood. She thought of the shattered ice wall, the light that had guarded her through the dark. The spot in her forehead grew suddenly, unbearably hot, as if there were a live coal under her skin.
“What god was it who touched you?” asked the spirit. “I have not seen one such as you in millennia.”
“I spoke with Tuer’s Shadow when I was young.”
“It was not Tuer’s Shadow—Rudion has not that power. Perhaps one of the gods looked in on you when you were born. Perhaps that is why you do not remember.”
Eda brushed its comments off, even though they made her roil with a sense of uncertainty and violation. “If Tuer is behind that door, that’s where we’re going. Now let us pass.”
The spirit seemed to shake its head. “You may pass, bright one. The others may not. They have no Starlight in them. They could not bear to step through that door. It would rip them apart, and not even a Bearer of Souls in all her rightful power could save them.”
Morin caught Eda’s arm. “You can’t go in there alone.” There was panic in his face, a desperate helplessness.
She fractured inside, felt every break, every splinter. Her soul cried out for his, but she thought of Raiva, calling Tuer’s name in the dark, and she closed herself off. She couldn’t do that to him. She wouldn’t. “I started this journey alone, Morin. It’s only fitting I should end it that way, too.”
Behind and around them, the throng of ghosts began to scream and wail, and Eda glanced back. Her heart nearly stopped. The dark spirits must have battered down the door in the passageway; they were flooding into the cavernous hall, shrieking with triumph, cutting through the ghosts with their bone swords as they careened toward the greater door. Rudion stood in the midst of them, fire licking his crown and raging all down his sword. His eyes met Eda’s. He smiled.
And suddenly Eda couldn’t step through. Couldn’t leave Morin and Tainir here to face Rudion, and their death. “Morin—”
But his expression hardened. He touched her cheek, the barest pressure of warm fingers against her skin. “Go. Tainir and I will be fine.”
“But—”
“I’ll see you again.” He pushed her, gently, toward the door. He smiled, and the smile broke her yet again. “Go,” he said. “Go!”
The dark spirits shrieked and dove at Morin and Tainir, Rudion at their head.
Eda let out a fierce cry and leapt through the door.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
SHE WAS STANDING ON A DARK HILL beneath a sky strewn with stars. Beyond her sprawled a wide, endless land, all hills and valleys and broad-leafed trees that smelled of rich honey and the tang of fire.
It was …
It was beautiful, and its beauty pierced her through. The darkness was deep, but not all-consuming, and it made her feel strangely at peace. She stretched her free hand out in front of her, her fingertips buzzing at the icy touch of the air. She knew it must be frigid enough to shatter bone, and yet her body pulsed with the heat emanating from her forehead. The cold couldn’t touch her.
Starlight, the spirit at the door had told her—there was Starlight inside of her. Her whole body hummed with it.
She descended the hill and strode through a wooded valley, the broad trunks of the honey-fire trees shimmering violet and silver in the faint light emanating from her forehead. She touched one of the trees as she passed, and yanked her hand back with a startled cry—it was sharp as teeth, and blood dripped red from her fingers.
After that, she was more wary.
She walked on and on. The Circle of the Dead grew no less beautiful, but its utter, desolate loneliness cut deeper and deeper until its beauty didn’t matter anymore. She wanted to collapse under one of the honey-fire trees and never get up again. But the Starlight compelled her to keep going.
She broke through the forest all at once, and came into a valley that was somehow darker than the wood had been, like the light from the stars far above couldn’t reach it. The ground was writhing with shadows. They slithered over her feet like eels, and they stank of moldering stone, of dead, rotten things.
Eda trudged through them as fast as she could, shuddering.
Is this what it would mean to be the Bearer of Souls? To command this domain, know every hill and valley, every shadow, every tree? How good it must feel, to have the power of a goddess at her fingertips. To have a place, a purpose. But how cruel of the gods, to offer her all that in exchange for a lifetime of all-consuming loneliness.
She ran, shadows screaming and flopping to get out of her way. She tread dozens of them under her feet, desperately trying to ignore the pop and squish of them, the thick darkness that splashed all the way up to her knees.
And then she was running out onto a wide desert plain. White sand glittered and flashed, a field of stars stretching endlessly before her.
One of the shadows clung to her boot. She tried to shake it off and fell to her hands and knees. Pain seared through her, and she leapt to her feet again—the sand, like the trees, was sharp. Blood ran down her legs and arms. The light from her forehead wavered.
“Bring me to the door,” Eda whispered, nearly sobbing. “Bring me to the door. Please.”
She ran on.
A silver ship sailed through the sand in front of her, and it was filled with a host of the dead. They wept and wept, scores upon scores of them. Somehow, Eda knew the ship had been sailing in circles, searching for the door. And she also knew that the dead would never be free, that way.
She ran farther, and saw a mass of silver ghosts walking together across the brutal desert. The awful slithering shadows from the valley were hanging from the ghosts’ shoulders, sinking sharp teeth into gray flesh, devouring them unawares.
And Eda knew, as she had known about the ship, that the dead did not feel. That they didn’t know the shadows were there. That they would be eaten for all eternity, unless someone showed them the way to the door.
Eda ran past them, agonized. But she couldn’t help them, not yet. Not until she found Tuer.
She ran on, through a tunnel of writhing trees and into a great empty darkness. Screams and weeping echoed around her. Chains rattled, unseen creatures hissed and roared. There were more shadows here, and they were larger, tall as men, every inch of their bodies covered with jagged silver teeth.
Groups of dead souls were huddled together, weeping and weeping, because they couldn’t find the door, couldn’t go to their rest.
In the center of the darkness stood nine shining figures: tall, fierce women, with hair in different shades of cerulean and coral and sea-foam. They circled round a mass of the dead, flaming swords in their hands, fighting back the shadows that sought to devour their charges.
All the dead of the sea, Eda knew, protected by the Billow Maidens of legend. But even they could not hold back the shadows forever. Even they would eventually fall.
And then suddenly Eda was hurtling back out onto the dark hill under brittle stars. It was the same hill, or seemed the same, but she knew it could not be, for the sound of roaring water reached her ears.
And she was not a
lone.
A woman stood at the brow of the hill, looking down to where the water flowed. Dark hair blew loose past strong shoulders, and bare brown feet peeked out from beneath the hem of a silver gown.
“Niren,” Eda breathed.
Her sister turned, and Eda saw her face—haggard, weighed down and aged with sorrow, with fear.
“The door is near.” Niren’s voice was hollow, expressionless. “I have been waiting for you. Come.”
And she turned and descended the hill. As Eda followed her she saw it: a dark river made of those vicious shadows, a writhing mass of snapping teeth and hissing jaws.
Niren led Eda to the bank, and Eda balked. “Where are you taking me?”
“The door is in the midst of the river.”
“But we’ll be devoured.”
“There is no other way.”
“Then my journey ends here? Eaten in a river in the Circle of the Dead?”
Niren’s face went hard. “Even now you think only of yourself. This story isn’t about you, Eda Mairin-Draive. It never was. You took things that didn’t belong to you, things you were never meant to have.” She brushed cold fingers across Eda’s forehead, and the Starlight pulsed hot. “I would be devoured if I went into that river. But perhaps you will not. Perhaps the Starlight is enough to save you. Or perhaps you will be eaten. But if you’re too much of a coward to even try, I’m pushing you in anyway.”
Eda took a step backward, afraid of the darkness in Niren’s eyes, afraid of Niren. For the first time since she had entered the Circle of the Dead, Eda felt the cold. She stared at her sister, and ached. “I’m sorry. For everything I did to you in life. For bargaining you away to the gods. For dragging you to the capital. For forcing you to be my friend. And you’re right. If I don’t go in there—” Eda glanced at the writhing river. “If I don’t, all this will be for nothing.”
Niren gave a sharp, final nod. “Then go. While there is still time.”