by CJ Brightley
No one said anything.
“Good,” Carden said. “All right, boys, into the cave. After Miss Lainie, of course. Ladies first.” He bowed to her, gesturing her forward, with that same bland, deadly look on his face. “Or do I have Gobby tie you up again?”
“Can’t we wait till morning, boss?” Mooden asked. “It’s awful dark in there.”
“Shoot him, Gobby,” Carden said.
“No! No, no, no!” Mooden protested as Gobby drew his revolver from his gunbelt. “I’m sorry, boss, I’ve been a pain, I know, I’ll shut up now!”
Gobby looked at Carden; after a moment, Carden gestured for Gobby to put his gun away. “The next word out of you,” Carden said to Mooden, “Gobby blows a hole right through your head. Got that?”
Mooden nodded, his face pale and his eyes huge, and didn’t say anything.
“Go,” Carden said to Lainie. Lainie faced the crack into the darkness under the mountain. She was no more eager to enter the cave than Mooden was. But Carden’s patience had clearly been pushed to the breaking point. “It’s your funeral,” she said, hoping that it was just his funeral, and not hers and everyone else’s as well. Then she stepped through the opening and into darkness.
10
SILAS, BANFREY, AND Dobay started up Yellowbird Canyon late in the afternoon. The creek was still running fast and high, fed by the afternoon’s storms higher up in the mountains. The sun had already gone behind the mountains and the canyon lay in shadows, but no one suggested stopping for the night yet. Carden had had a considerable head start on them, and even with his greater numbers of men and the carts, it was sure that he would be moving as fast as he could.
Silas kept his mage senses extended. From time to time, he detected bursts of power – the dark power from the ore, Lainie’s magic, and, a couple of times, something that he recognized as Carden.
Just inside the mouth of the canyon, they passed the A’ayimat markers, two sticks about half a measure tall hung with bunches of feathers that marked the border of A’ayimat territory. Not ten measures farther on, a party of seven A’ayimat on horseback appeared ahead of them, seemingly out of nowhere but more likely from one of the smaller ravines opening off of the canyon. In the dusk, their skin was dark but still had a distinct bluish tone. Their snow-white hair was bound in multitudes of braids, and their long, tilted eyes shone bright amber even in the dim light. Five of them wore only long leather leggings; the other two, who Silas now realized were women, also wore sleeveless leather vests. Men and women alike were solidly muscular and heavily armed. The men carried two short, curved swords each, hunting knives, and bows and quivers of arrows slung across their backs. The women each held a short spear at the ready, and were also carrying bows, arrows, and hunting knives. Silas sensed a strong aura of power from at least one of them.
The A’ayimat stopped in front of them. The expression on their faces was hard and grim. This was a raiding party in retaliation for Carden’s intrusion onto their lands, Silas realized. There could be any number of additional warriors behind them, farther up the canyon. By Banfrey’s and Dobay’s sharp, hushed exclamations, they realized this as well. In spite of the A’ayimat’s open hostility, from previous encounters Silas knew that they generally preferred to deal, and be dealt with, respectfully and avoid unnecessary violence. “Dismount, and don’t say anything,” he said quietly to his companions. He climbed down from Abenar and waited politely for the A’ayimat to speak first. Dobay and Banfrey followed his example.
The A’ayimat man in the lead and one of the women dismounted as well; the A’ayimat considered it rude to converse from horseback. “If it isn’t more Grana intruders,” the woman said, her voice tight with anger. “Give us one good reason why we shouldn’t go into the valley tonight and slaughter all the lying settlers who live there.”
“You talk like us!” Banfrey burst out. Seven pairs of gold eyes turned to him, and he took a step back. “Begging your pardon – I’m sorry, no offense.”
“We know all languages that are spoken to us,” the man said. “Now, tell us why you and those others have trespassed on our territory. We’re not eager to shed blood, but your people have broken the Compact.”
“We’re hunting a group of men who kidnapped this man’s daughter.” Silas gestured towards Banfrey.
“Yes, we saw them during the night,” the A’ayimat man said. “We didn’t know the woman had been kidnapped. She was being carried in the manner of a newly-taken bride.”
“What?” Banfrey demanded.
“What do you mean?” Silas added, remembering how Carden had promised Lainie to Gobby. His insides twisted into a knot of fear and rage.
“Lying over the horse, across the legs of the man who had taken her. A proud man dressed all in black.” The A’ayimat man shrugged. “We did think the bound hands and feet seemed strange for a bride-taking, but you Grana have some strange customs.”
There were times, speaking with the A’ayimat, when Silas couldn’t tell if they really didn’t understand something or if they were just having a joke at the expense of Granadaians. He suspected it was the latter. “Her hands and feet were bound because Carden, the man in black, kidnapped her.” He was probably stating the obvious, but he wanted to be clear about what was going on. “Carden is the one responsible for breaking the agreement. He’s looking for a kind of ore that he believes he can find up in the mountains. The settlers in the valley tried to stop him.”
The A’ayimat man and woman traded looks. “So he’s the one who has awakened the Sh’kimech,” the man said. “He’s a fool. He doesn’t know what he’s dealing with. The ore is their mindsoul, their life-force, and they have no love for those of us who dwell in the sunlight. What does he want with the ore?”
“He’s a wizard. He wants the power in the ore for himself. I don’t know what for, but I know it can’t be anything good. We’re trying to rescue the woman and stop him before he finds more of the ore. Will you help us?”
“He is Grana,” the woman said scornfully. “It’s the Granas’ problem to solve.”
“But aren’t you in danger too, from these Sh – whatever they are?” Banfrey asked.
The man shrugged again. “We A’ayimat can see to our own safety, but we won’t solve the Grana folks’ problems for them. Here’s what we’ll agree to. For now, we won’t attack the settlers, since you say they tried to keep this man Carden from breaking the Compact. If you quiet the Sh’kimech and capture Carden and turn him over to us, we’ll let the settlers go unpunished.”
“Agreed,” Silas said, as if there was any choice in the matter.
The two A’ayimat mounted up again. They spoke to the others in their own language, and the raiding party turned and rode back up the canyon, disappearing into the shadows and whatever side gully they’d emerged from.
“Not very helpful, were they,” Banfrey said when the A’ayimat were gone.
“Helpful?” Dobay exploded. “Damn! We’re lucky they didn’t cut us to pieces! Did you see those swords?”
“I don’t think they want trouble any more than we do,” Silas said. “At least we know Carden and his men came in this way with Miss Banfrey. And they’ve promised not to attack the folks in the valley for now. Can’t complain about that.”
He led Abenar over to the creek to drink, and the others followed. While the horses drank and grazed on the grass growing along the creek, the men took sips of water from their canteens and chewed on flatbread.
“To think I spoke to a blueskin and lived,” Banfrey said. “They really are blue – I wonder if they’re even human.”
There had been quite a bit of debate and speculation in the Mage Council and the schools of magic as to whether or not the A’ayimat were human, and mage hunters were instructed to, if possible, obtain some A’ayimat “specimens” and send them back to Granadaia for study and eventual vivisection. To Silas, it was blindingly obvious that the A’ayimat were as fully human as any Granadaian or Islander, so he disr
egarded these instructions and omitted any mention of his few encounters with the A’ayimat from his reports to the Mage Council, not wanting to give the Mage Council reason to become even more interested in the native people of the Wildings.
“They’re as human as any of us, I reckon,” he said. “They seem to want the same things we want, even if I don’t understand how they think sometimes. But they live and die just like us, and want to protect their homes and families just like us.”
“Reckon you’re right,” Dobay said. “Though I’d be just as happy not to meet up with any more of ’em.”
“Gotta agree with that,” Banfrey said, and Silas had to admit he felt the same way. Though no A’ayimat had ever done him harm, he always had this itchy feeling when dealing with them that one wrong word or gesture would change his luck.
With the horses and themselves rested, watered, and fed, they mounted up and rode on, anxious to close as much of the distance between themselves and Carden as they could. A couple of leagues farther on, as the twilight deepened into night, Banfrey said, “It’s getting awful dark. It won’t help Lainie none if we lose our way or fall. I reckon Carden’s party will have to stop for the night, too.”
“I say we gain some ground on them,” Silas said. He focused power through his mage ring, and his hand began to glow blue. The glow gathered itself into a ball and floated up from his hand. It was bright enough to illuminate the trail a good four or five measures ahead of them. “I can keep that up till about midnight,” he told the others. He didn’t want to risk running short on power, not with the confrontation with Carden still ahead of him, but the power required to maintain the light until midnight could easily be replenished by three or four hours of sleep.
Banfrey and Dobay both stared open-mouthed at the light. “Well, now, that’s a fine trick,” Banfrey said. “I suppose wizards have their uses after all. Let’s get moving, fellas!” Guided by Silas’s blue mage light, the three of them continued up the canyon.
LAINIE WENT FORWARD into the pitch darkness of the cave one cautious step at a time. After several steps, she looked back to see only a sliver of twilit sky through the narrow opening. A sense of being closed in a trap came over her, and she had to stifle a rush of panic at the thought of never seeing the sunlight again. Carden followed her into the cave, and one by one the miners, no more than bulky silhouettes against the darkening sky, squeezed through the crack in the mountainside, panting and cursing. As they crowded into the cave, one of them bumped against Lainie and knocked her off her already shaky balance. She stumbled and smacked her hands against the rock of the cave floor. “Ouch!”
“Be careful, there,” Carden said. “We don’t want her damaged before she leads us to the ore. Well?” he asked Lainie. “Is this it? Or do we go on?”
Lainie set her hands on the ground again. Through the contact, she reached deep with her magical senses. She didn’t have to go far to find the Sh’kimech. Come to us, Sister, they called to her, reaching out for her with cold, invisible fingers and tugging her downwards. Bring them to us.
Lainie got to her feet, brushing her stinging hands against her pants to get the dirt off. “The ore isn’t here,” she said. “We have to go down into the mountain.”
“All right, then. Lead the way.”
She couldn’t bring herself to go one step farther into the dark. Certainty settled heavily in her mind and gut that once they were inside the mountain, they would never come back out. “I can’t see the way. All they’re saying is down, but they aren’t telling me how the path goes, or if there’s any holes or anything in the way. Without any light we could end up going around in circles or falling down a hole or something.”
Carden laughed. “And you call yourself a mage.” A faint orange glow feathered with black bloomed in his hand, illuminating his face. It grew larger, then gathered itself into a ball of light and floated up above their heads. The light revealed three dark openings in the back wall of the cave. Lainie didn’t need to touch the ground or reach out with her mage senses to feel the cold, malign presence seeping out of the tunnels. “There’s some light,” Carden said. “Now, go.”
She still couldn’t make herself move. She sank to the ground again, arms wrapped around her knees. “I can’t go on. I’m too tired.” It was true; even if she weren’t so afraid, after the long night and the day’s hard climb, she didn’t think she could go another step.
“Yeah, boss,” one of the miners added. “We ain’t had any rest all night an’ all day, an’ it’s some hard climbing we been doing.”
Carden peered at the three tunnel openings, then looked around at his crew. His eyes were hard and bright in the orange glow, and he was jittering with eagerness to go on. The miners stared back at him, their faces haggard in the eerie light. In a surprising show of defiance, a few of them sat down on the ground and took the heavy, clanking knapsacks and saddlebags off of their shoulders and backs.
“All right,” Carden finally said, though he didn’t sound happy about giving in. “You’ve got until moonrise. Should be an hour or so. Then we move, and anyone who doesn’t keep up gets left behind.”
The rest of the miners sat down, groaning in achiness, exhaustion, and relief. They took out water bottles and packages of hard flatbread and began eating. Mooden, the big, nervous miner, who was sitting near Lainie, handed her a water bottle and a broken-off triangle of flatbread, which she accepted with a silent nod. She took several swallows from the bottle and tried to hand it back to the miner.
“Keep it, Miss,” he said. “I got extra.” He moved a little closer and whispered, “I want you to know I don’t hold with how they’re treating you, hitting you an’ threatening to – use you ill, an’ such.”
“What are you whispering about there, Mooden?” Carden demanded.
“Nothing, Mr. Carden, sir. Just giving Miss Lainie some rations an’ telling her not to be afraid.”
Gobby barked with laughter. “That’s good, comin’ from you!”
“Thanks,” Lainie murmured back to Mooden. She wondered if she could count on him to help her escape if she ever found the chance. Probably not, given his lack of nerve. She glanced at the cave opening; half a dozen miners sat right in front of it, blocking it. She shook the bottle Mooden had given her to find out how full it was – about halfway. She screwed the cap back on without drinking any more. There was no way to know if they would come across any drinkable water in the caves, so she had to save what she had. She slung the bottle by its long strap diagonally across her right shoulder and chest so she wouldn’t lose it, and gnawed on the piece of flatbread.
While the miners ate and rested, Carden, who apparently never got tired, moved off and began examining the openings in the back of the cave. Could the Sh’kimech tell her which was the right way to go? Lainie wondered. Or did it matter? Did the Sh’kimech care if she wandered forever in the tunnels beneath the mountains and canyons, as long as they had her life to add to theirs? She pushed back the thought. She wasn’t ready to give up yet, though the odds of getting out of this looked worse than a hand of Beggars and Jokers.
Not nearly enough time had passed when the moon rose over the ridges east of the cave and shone in through the opening. “That’s enough rest, you lazy bastards!” Carden said. “Now, Miss Lainie, which way do we go?”
This might be her last chance. She stood up and faced him. “Listen to me, Carden. You don’t hear the voices in the ore. I do. They want you to come to them so they can destroy you. And they want to use me to destroy everyone else. You’re crazy if you go through with this.”
A few of the miners muttered under their breath at her words, whether in fear or in annoyance, Lainie couldn’t tell, but Carden laughed. “You’re the one who’s hearing voices in those rocks, and I’m the crazy one? Come on, boys, I’ll double what I’m paying you for that stuff.” He gave Lainie a bone-chilling grin. “As for you, my dear, since you refuse to cooperate, I’m afraid I’ll have to take sterner measures. You two,�
�� he said to Gobby and another miner as he took out his pouch of ore again. “Hold her.”
Lainie tried to twist away, but the two miners grabbed her arms and held her in place. Carden seized Lainie’s right hand. She tried to wrench it away from him, and something popped painfully in her wrist. Carden twisted her hand palm up, pressed a couple of chunks of ore into it, and folded her fingers tightly around it.
Pain and icy cold shocked through her, and a weight of malignant darkness threatened to crush the breath from her body. Through the darkness veiling her vision, she saw Carden produce more orange light threaded through with black from his right hand. Murmuring words in the wizard language, he stretched the light out into a long, thin rope and wound the rope around her hand. The magical rope stung and burned her skin and sent sparks like hundreds of needle-pricks along her nerves. She tried to shake off the magical binding, but that only made it tighten itself even more around her hand. At the same time, an irresistible compulsion came into her mind, to do what Carden ordered. No! she tried to protest, but her lungs and voice were paralyzed.
The miners who were holding her let her drop to the ground. Come to us, the voices in the ore said. Down into the earth, into the dark, to our home. Bring the man to us and add your life-force to ours.
Lainie tried to push away the voices and the covetous grasp that was dragging her into the darkness. But the cold malice only pressed down more heavily on her. Between the pull of the Sh’kimech and the compulsion of Carden’s spell, Lainie couldn’t stop herself from crawling forward. Blinded by pain and the darkness of the Sh’kimech’s presence, she groped ahead for one of the tunnel openings. I don’t want to, she begged both the Sh’kimech and Carden. Please don’t make me. The words, if she did speak them out loud, came out as no more than a strained whisper.
Take us back to our home, the Sh’kimech bound to her hand said. It matters not which way you take; it is all the same. From deep beneath the earth, other voices, yet the same voice, added, Bring back the pieces of our mindsoul that have been taken from us, and be one with us.