by Tim Lebbon
“What is it?” Beko whispered below her.
“Hole in the cliff.”
“Cave?”
Nomi shrugged. “It's coming from there. I think Rhiana—”
The noise came again, this time a definite growl.
Nomi heard Beko climbing, pulling himself up the cliff face to reach her level. She looked up at Ramin where he hung suspended a few steps below the wound in the rock face. He was motionless and silent, head bent back so that he could look up, one hand grasping the long, curved knife he had taken from his belt.
Rhiana was above and to the right of the hole, trusting her ropes completely as she leaned back into space. She held the crossbow in her left hand, its aim sure and unwavering.
“Ramin!” Nomi whispered. “Move back down.”
Ramin shook his head slowly, gently, and Nomi wondered what he could see or sense up there.
Beko drew level with her. “Take this,” he said, offering her a knife similar to the one Ramin bore.
“I don't—”
Beko scowled at her and drew his own sword, careful not to scrape it against the stone.
They waited, Ramin just below the hole, Rhiana and Noon above and to the right, Nomi and Beko lower down and to the left, and listened to the growls growing in volume and frequency. Nomi splayed one hand against the rock, feeling for any sign of movement.
And then something came out of the hole on the cliff. A long snout, covered with scales and spiked with thick black hairs, sniffling and twitching at the air. It was at least as long as Ramin was tall, Nomi guessed, and the two clawed hands that appeared around the edges of the hole were the size of her head.
Nobody fired, nobody spoke; everyone became as still as stone.
The creature snorted as it came farther from the hole, displaying at least two more sets of clawed hands on long, muscled legs. The large head and mouth came next, and as it paused, Nomi was sure she saw the hint of wings to either side of its pale pink torso.
Its snout shifted again and the head moved slowly from side to side. Its mouth opened, and Nomi saw teeth.
Ramin moved. Perhaps his foot slipped, or maybe he pressed his legs and locked one knee against the cliff face, slipping him sideways. He hurriedly regained his balance, just in time for the animal to lash out and down with two long limbs and clasp him in its claws.
Ramin screamed. He swung his knife, missed, and the creature's limbs spasmed as it tore his arm off at the shoulder.
Nomi felt the Serian's blood splatter down on her upturned face, and as she went to scream, Beko's hand clapped across her mouth, splitting her lip.
Ramin's feet slipped and he hung face-first against the cliff, held in place by one vicious claw buried in his shoulder. The thing was eating his arm.
Something whistled and the creature jerked, screeching in pain. It emerged more fully from the hole, even more limbs uncurling to fix it across the entrance, and turned to face Rhiana.
She had already reloaded her crossbow, and she sent a bolt into the animal's head.
Noon was scampering across the cliff, sword swinging in one hand, but the thing lashed out. The frayed ends of a slashed rope whipped at the air.
Ramin, still shouting, blood pulsing from his tattered shoulder, drew back his right arm and threw a knife at the thing's pink underbelly. It bounced off and fell away, and the animal turned back to the bald Serian.
“Piss on you!” Ramin shouted, spittle and blood darkening the stone before him. He reached for another knife.
The thing's wings twitched. They were huge and leathery, laid back across its body like those of a massive beetle, and when they moved it sounded like metal on metal. It was preparing to take flight.
Rhiana fired a bolt into the thing's back, pinning one of its wings to its body. It screeched, drowning Ramin's cries with its own.
Beko threw a knife at its snout and it pierced, drawing blood but falling when the thing shook its head.
“Ramin!” Rhiana shouted. “Cut your rope!”
“Hold on!” Beko said to Nomi. He slammed a piton into a small crack before them and took some slack from the rope above Nomi, tying it tight.
Ramin strained on his ropes and cursed. Blood soaked his clothing now, and Nomi knew that he would bleed to death if they could not get to him soon.
“Noon!” Rhiana shouted. “Cut the rope!”
The line between Noon and Rhiana was slashed, and he had wrapped the frayed end around a small rocky spur to his right. But he had not yet tied a knot. He was holding his own weight against the cliff, sweat beaded on his face. Yet still he reached out again, hand going low, the knife tantalizingly close to the taut rope that held Ramin in place.
“Piss!” Rhiana shouted. She drew her sword and slashed the rope that tied her to the cliff.
“No!” Beko shouted.
Rhiana held herself in place, muscles taut in her right arm. Then her left foot turned out into space, her body slowly followed, and Nomi sensed her gathering her strength.
“Rhiana, don't—”But she did. She leapt along the cliff face, judging the arc of her plunge perfectly. Three beats after letting go she had fallen fifteen steps and landed across the creature's back.
Its one good wing slid open and Rhiana sliced it off. The wing flipped away, whooping at the air as though delighted at its freedom. The animal shook. Rhiana stuck her sword into its back and held on with both hands. It shivered and screeched, then turned back to Ramin. Its long limbs reached, claws opening, and Nomi shouted, “No!” But her word held no power. One set of claws sank into Ramin's good shoulder, the other crunched sickeningly into his neck and left cheek, and the animal roared as it ripped off the Serian's head.
It fell between Nomi and Beko, tongue lolling, tattered neck spewing blood.
Nomi closed her eyes and felt the whole world sway.
There was a moment of stunned silence, broken only by the sound of the creature suckling blood and flesh from Ramin's open neck.
Then Rhiana screamed, an exhalation of pure rage, and drew two short knives from her belt. She hacked at the animal's neck, holding on with her legs as she raised the weapons again and again, and as it went to roll over completely, she fell away into the hole from which it had emerged.
The animal was bleeding profusely now, dark red blood pouring down the cliff face just to Nomi's right. More sounds of fighting and fury came from the hole, and then the creature let out a hideous, fading wail before growing still.
Ramin hung dead below the hole, one foot tapping gently against the cliff as his leg spasmed.
“Rhiana?” Beko called.
Her hand appeared at the edge of the hole, and it was covered in blood.
“Rhiana!”
The hand was followed by an arm, and then Rhiana's face. She was looking down at Ramin. Her eyes were wide, stark white against the blood smeared across her skin.
The sense of shock was almost unbearable, unreal.
“Is it dead?” Nomi said.
Rhiana tore her gaze from Ramin's butchered corpse at last and looked directly down at the Voyager. Does she blame me? Nomi wondered. Is this all my fault? First Konrad, now Ramin. Do I attract death simply because I once gave it away?
“It's dead,” she said.
“What the piss is it?” Noon said. His voice was strained, muscles still tensed from holding on to the slashed rope.
“Never seen anything like it,” Beko said. “Like a bat with scales.”
“Eight legs,” Rhiana said. “If it had taken flight, we'd have been finished. We have to cut him down.”
“Stay here,” Beko said, leaning closer to Nomi to whisper the words. He made his way slowly up beside Nomi and then across the cliff face above her, pausing as he arrived close enough to Ramin to touch the dead Serian's body.
Rhiana tugged the dead thing back from the edge of its hole, making sure it could not tumble out and take Nomi and Beko with it.
“This doesn't feel right,” Beko said.
/> Rhiana lowered herself from the hole, found a footing and carefully descended the few steps to Beko. “There's no choice,” she said softly. Nomi was shocked to see that the Serian was crying.
Nomi turned away. She did not want to see their grief. She did not want to see them cut Ramin free, though she heard Beko's grunt as the corpse fell away, and she caught movement from the corner of her eye as he tumbled down, down the way they had come. Most of all, she wanted to look away from the second death her voyage had caused.
Chapter 16
CLIMBING THE CHIMNEY was easy. It was a massive fault in the cliff face, varying in width from a few steps to dozens. Its walls were rough and textured, providing many handholds and footrests, and for a long time Ramus and Lulah did not need to use the equipment they had scavenged from the campsite. The rope was heavy across Ramus's shoulder, the gear clanking where he had strung it around his waist on a leather belt. His hands burned, his feet ached, but he was ecstatic with their progress. It also helped, he believed, that climbing the chimney meant they could not see the whole expanse of the cliff around them. It was a long way up and down, but their views were often blocked by protruding rocks. The scale of the Divide was shattering, but here they could concentrate.
There were places where water ran down from far above, and they drank and filled their water skins. It tasted pure and fresh. Lulah found a species of insect grub that lived in shallow cracks in the rock walls, and though they looked disgusting they tasted sweet and nutty, and they both filled their pockets with the things. Ramus could tell that the grubs were full of energy.
Even light was not too much of a problem in the chimney. When its opening was wide enough light filtered in to make their going easy, but when it was narrow they found that some of the rocks possessed something of a glow themselves. Lulah said it was crystal specks buried in the rock's surface, and that such stone fetched a high price back in Mancoseria. Ramus did not care. It lit their way, and that was priceless.
They heard occasional noises from the rear of the chimney, issuing from the darkness where the fault penetrated the cliff. Whispers and sighs, squeals and grunts, and Lulah attributed them to the wind. Ramus was not so sure, but nothing threatened them, and nothing emerged. Whatever lay within the cliff preferred to maintain its mystery as it watched them climb.
Toward the end of that first full day, it became apparent that the chimney was fading out. The walls were closing in, the darkness of the crevasse was no longer so deep and the slice of Noreela that had been visible through the cliff opening grew narrow. They decided to find somewhere to stay for the night before venturing out onto the cliff-face proper the following morning.
“How far do you think we've come?” Ramus asked.
Lulah was chewing on another grub, and she nodded at the opening before them. “It's a long way down,” she said.
Ramus saw light fading from the wedge of Noreela before them. Grasslands, that was all he could see, and even the texture of hills and valleys was uncertain from up here. We must have come a long way, he thought. I wonder whether Nomi has started climbing at all?
Lulah clambered up a steep scree slope, moved around for a while and returned with an armful of twigs and dried moss. “The chimney even gives us a fire,” she said, grinning. Ramus thought it was the first time she had smiled in days.
“Good,” he said. “These grubs are fine, but I'd prefer their guts hot and cooked.”
_____
NEXT MORNING THEY emerged out onto the cliff face for the first time, and the whole view of Noreela was opened to them. They hung there for a while, trying to take everything in, but it was a sight neither of them could have prepared for. Distance was only swallowed by haze.
“On the clearest day, we could see forever,” Lulah said, and Ramus nodded.
Whoever or whatever lives up there, they have Noreela set out before them, he thought.
“We should tie on,” Lulah said. “You climbed well yesterday, and we've come too far for one of us to slip away because of a stupid mistake.”
Ramus raised his eyebrows and tried not to show the pain he was suffering. Every time he blinked it was like a pulse of fire behind his eyes. “You're sure?” he asked.
Lulah was already shrugging the coil of rope from her shoulder, knotting one end and threading the other through the hoops on her belt. “We need to do things the right way,” she said.
While Lulah tied them together, Ramus looked first east, then west, wondering whether he would see the shifting silhouettes of Nomi and her group. But it was a foolish thought. The Divide dwarfed Noreela itself, and anyone or anything crawling upon it would be lost.
Lulah went first, and to begin with, the going was relatively easy. Ramus shut out the sense of space by concentrating on his hands and feet. Though he had never feared heights, he did fear loss of control, and the farther they went the more he knew the cliff had them. He was trapped in every moment, and the only way to defy the cliff would be to fall.
The Sleeping God guides me in, he thought. The standing stones had led them to the chimney—an easy climb, food, water, shelter—and now even this exposed face provided them with adequate ledges and cracks to climb with relative ease. If he thought of the God and the cliff together, they had both stolen control. Perhaps illness was numbing his fear.
Around midday, Lulah halted above him and let Ramus draw level. She was panting and sweating. She nodded at the cliff just to Ramus's left and he saw the rusted remains of a set of old pitons.
“We're not the first,” she said.
“I never thought we were.” But Ramus looked away from Lulah so that she could not see his face. It was foolish, but he no longer felt quite so special.
“I wonder how far they made it?” Lulah said.
“Maybe we'll see.”
And later, they did. The body first, way above them, difficult to make out but definitely apart from the cliff. As they drew closer, they could see the shape swaying in the breeze, and closer still they could make out what it was. A climber, hanging from a frayed length of rope that looked as though it could give out at any moment. His or her hair flipped in the breeze, straining to loose itself from the tight leathery scalp. They drew level, a dozen steps across the cliff from the dead climber, and paused.
“Must have been climbing alone,” Lulah said. “Anyone else would have cut them free and let them fall.”
“What a way to die,” Ramus said. The body was bent backward almost in half, dried out by the sun and wind. Flakes of skin drifted from it with every gust. The clothing was nondescript and the person carried no weapons, so it was difficult to make out who it was, or where they may have come from.
“I promise if you fall, I'll cut you loose,” Lulah said.
Ramus turned to her to give sarcastic thanks, but she was already grinning at him. “What, you won't cook and eat me?” he asked.
She acted mock-offended. “Not all Serians are cannibals.”
They moved on, strangely buoyed by the fact that they had progressed farther than this climber. It marked a changing point, of sorts—the going became harder, but they were more confident than before.
Two camps at the base of the Divide, the easy climb up the chimney, this dead climber . . . Ramus began to wonder just how many the Sleeping God had guided in this way. And why. Those words from the old texts returned again, talk of a Fallen God, and the thought filtered quickly away, swallowed by that thing that sat next to the sickness in his mind, and nothing came back, nothing answered. The silence was heavy.
“The greatest voyage,” he whispered. Greatest Voyager, he thought.
He hid his pain well. It thumped behind his eyes, stronger with the pounding of his heart, but in a way it was welcome. It made the ache of his limbs, the pull of his shoulders, the dozens of cuts and scrapes on his hand and fingers seem trifling. He left evidence of himself on the cliff below, and that seemed only right.
They spent that second night in the lowest of a series of
caves. They'd been cautious, fearing creatures that would cause them harm. Lulah went first, slipping over the ledge and into the cave, disappearing for almost too long. She appeared again with an uncertain smile. “Safe,” she said, and as Ramus hauled himself up into the shadows, he wondered on what basis she had judged that.
The uneven cave floor was white with bones. Many of them were crushed, as if something of immense weight had settled upon them. There were hundreds of small animal skeletons, a few larger creatures—wolves, perhaps, or other wild dogs—and toward the rear of the cave Lulah had found three humanoid skeletons. Humanoid, because the skulls obviously belonged to men or women . . . but the limbs were far too long. The back was stretched. The hips were narrow.
“They've been distorted by whatever lay on them,” Lulah said.
Ramus nodded, but they both knew that was not the truth.
Lulah's “safe” pronouncement was based on the fact that these were all skeletons, and none of them had a scrap of meat left upon them. Whatever had nested here had left long ago. But Ramus felt far from safe. Even after Lulah lit a fire he could not sleep, and he lay awake all night listening to flying things crying in the darkness, smelling the musty odors of the long-deadand waiting for the shadow of something huge to obscure the cave entrance.
_____
SOON AFTER SETTING off the next morning, Ramus slipped. He shouted first—he could feel it happening—and scrabbled at the sheer cliff face as he slid down. His toe caught against a stone lip and his upper body leaned out, and then he fell away from the cliff with a jerk.
Lulah was ready. She grunted as the rope between them tautened with a snap. The grunt turned into a groan, which turned into a roar as Ramus felt for purchase. His fingers slipped into a fissure and his feet found a crack, and he took his own weight.
Lulah eased up above him, breathing hard. He looked up and saw her legs shaking with the effort she had just expended.