It took another moment to register the smoke clouds rising from the city, and still another to realize the ships were exchanging fire, pounding cannon shot alongside flaming arrows launched from one deck to another.
They’d escaped the abyss, and dropped straight into a battle.
42
ARAK’JUR
The Mouth of a Cave
Lhakani Land
Sizzling meat filled the air with smells of home and comfort, pulling him back from the edge of sleep. Rhealla used to bring him fare from the cookfires, after a grueling hunt. She would have been proud of him, though the prospect of a guardianship had never entered into their plans together. He had aspired to be Valak’Jur, to share a hunter’s life with her, to raise their son in the Sinari tradition, to make him a good man, and to try to be one himself. He could live the rest of his life and never forget her, nor be free of the chord of sadness her death still struck, however he’d learned to live with its melody.
He gasped and lurched forward. He was seated, but his hands were held in place, suspended over his head.
A fire burned at the mouth of the cave, venting smoke into a darkening sky, and a woman sat on the opposite side, staring at him through the flames. He tried to move again and found the same resistance, his hands held in place against the cave wall. His body ached, with heaviness in his eyes when he tried to look and see what bound him.
The woman said nothing, watching him struggle.
He tried again. His muscles were raw, a deep pain when he strained his shoulder, and another in his chest. Finally he fell still. Una’re could aid him, if his body was too weak to break free.
“No.”
The woman’s voice, though she hadn’t moved from behind the fire.
He met her eyes.
Memories flooded in, of the moments leading up to his long sleep. The image of a winged creature, of talons and fangs. He’d landed a savage cut with mareh’et’s claws, ripping the sinews of her left arm free of its socket, dangling veins and gore as they fought. She’d screamed, more fury than pain, and redoubled her attack. More images came, of brutality without elegance or grace. Fire had been exchanged, and earth. Then without warning, blackness. He never saw the blow that put him down.
“Call upon the spirits and I will renew my attack,” the woman said. Ad-Shi. She said it flatly, without sign of malice or anger. “We are too close to the end to waste more time on recovery.”
His throat burned from thirst, and his arms throbbed from the exertion he’d already put them to. A lesser instinct demanded he call on una’re anyway, burst himself free of whatever prison she’d made in the stone, and run. The greater instinct won out. He was exhausted, on the barest edge of waking, where she’d had time enough to regrow the arm he’d severed, her left now a perfect mirror of the right. If she’d wanted him dead, he would have been dead long since.
When the moment had passed, she rose from beside the fire, retrieving a skewer he hadn’t noticed was there.
She approached, holding the stick to his mouth. Rabbit meat, still sizzling, giving off the scent that had awakened him.
“Eat,” she said.
Hunger overpowered defiance, and he tore a chunk loose with his teeth. His jaw ached after a single bite, but he forced his teeth to work the meat, chewing as simmering juices ran down his throat. Warmth spread through him, and he took another chunk before he was done with the first.
She stayed until he’d cleaned the skewer, then offered a skin of fresh water. More ran down his chin onto his chest than made it in his mouth, but every drop was sweet and cold. When it was done she stepped away, this time sitting closer, directly opposite where he was bound.
“Why?” he asked. One word, but enough to carry his meaning. Why had she attacked?; why had she let him live?; why nurse him back to health now?
“It was once our way, to recognize strength,” Ad-Shi said. “I have done many things, destroyed many things. Once, the Vordu were one people. One tradition. Now we are many, and we have forgotten. I am dying, but I do not mean to be the last to remember.”
It wasn’t an answer, at least not any he recognized.
“You murdered Ka’Urun,” he said. Better, perhaps, to try directness.
She nodded.
“In his ravings, he said you were the root of the spirits’ madness, of their drive to war.”
She nodded again.
“Why?” This time the question burned hot.
“I was once like you,” Ad-Shi said. “Though never as ignorant. I knew it would be my place, to kill. I trained for it. After the first Arak fell by my hand, rin’ji spoke to me, told me I was chosen, that I might ascend to serve the Goddess. I proved myself, and became her champion. I fought to protect my people, to protect our way of life. We created paradise, and you live in it with no understanding of its price.”
He shook his head. Answers he couldn’t understand were no answers at all. Whatever this woman was, she had a great many gifts. Easier to think her power-mad, her mind driven too far from what made men sane. It wasn’t unheard of, in the shamans’ stories. An Arak blinded by power, believing the spirits’ gifts set him too far apart from ordinary men. Perhaps the women told similar tales, for the war-spirits. Seeing her in such a light inspired pity in spite of her strength.
“May I free myself?” he asked.
She went back to staring at him. “I will kill you, if you run.”
He nodded, slow and deliberate as he called to una’re. Strength surged through him, and the crackling energy of the Great Bear’s thunderous claws. Earth and stone broke over his head, raining dirt on him as he pulled his hands free of the enclosure she must have used the earth spirits’ gifts to make.
He flexed his hands and forearms, turning them over to inspect that they were whole.
“How long has it been,” he asked, “since you encountered a man, or a woman, you didn’t have the ability to kill?”
She gave a bitter laugh, and he saw again the pain behind her eyes.
“I did what was necessary,” she said. “Would you do any less, to protect your people?”
He found himself wishing Ka’Inari were here, or any shaman. It was never the guardians’ place to deal with troubles of the heart or mind.
“Attacking me doesn’t protect your people,” he said. “It is evil. Holding me here on threat of death is evil.”
“You know nothing of good and evil,” Ad-Shi said. “I am tired. I have endured enough. I am ready to die. I meant to pass my knowledge to one strong enough to wield it, to give this world a chance when I am gone. Testing you was right. It was needful. To let Godhood pass to one without the proper strength would hand this world to the shadow. That is evil, guardian. The rest doesn’t matter.”
Tears had risen in her eyes; they reflected the firelight, even as the night sky darkened around them. Again he felt pity for her. Whatever had unhinged her mind, she had clearly been a powerful soul, blessed by the spirits’ favor.
“May I go?” he asked. “I wish you peace on your journey, but I see no reason for you to hold me here.”
“You think I am a wretch,” she said. “You see none of what approaches. You know none of it! The Regnant is an Eastern dream to you, if he exists at all. Do you not see the nature of our magic? Do you not sense the threat?”
She searched him with a piercing gaze, but he could offer no more than he understood.
Blue sparks enveloped her hand, and she closed her eyes.
“See, then,” she said. “Remember.”
The world faded to blackness.
A small girl bounded through a cave, humming a song she had heard her mother sing, before she died. She carried a stick meant to scrape lichen off the walls, but no firelight, leaving the passages black and sightless. Too dangerous to carry fire. She knew these tunnels well; she was no foreigner, to need to risk attracting astahg or valak’ar.
Fifteen paces carried her to the place, and she was careful to adjust for the way he
r stride had lengthened in the past year, since the last time she’d come here. It took time for the best patches to regrow. She reached through the blackness with her stick and found it right where it should be. A patch of soft, moist food almost as valuable as the stick itself. They’d eat it in the glowing room, where the mushrooms grew bright with colors, casting light—real light—as bright as Mountain’s gift. Her brothers would beg her to tell them where she found it, but they were cowards. She could give them all the paces and they’d never make it past the outlying rooms. If not for her, they’d have been sold off a dozen storms ago, deemed too frail to make their contributions to the tribe.
She rolled the lichen strip into her basket, fingering it closed in the dark.
A right turn led to a narrow passage, and she was careful to keep her balance as she crossed the windy place. She’d tested its depth with pebbles once, and they’d taken ten heartbeats to make their first clack. Any wind was dangerous, and she knew better than to breathe as she made the crossing. One skittering step in front of another, until she dropped down twenty paces later, lowering herself past the five rocks that led up to the windy place’s passage.
The last rock was smooth, a sign it had been near water once. That was a secret she had yet to explore. Not for today, though. She’d never been more than five paces from it, and there were at least two more smooth rocks leading away to the left, if she was facing home. A source of clean water would be a treasure, enough to put her name up for consideration the next time the Ka met to decide who got a chance to speak to Wind. Food first, though. If her brothers hadn’t come up short again she wouldn’t even have been in this tunnel, so far from the outlying rooms.
Twenty-six paces brought her through a narrow crack, two steps down and thirty more to the left. Another one hundred eighty-one paces weaving through the stalactites of the hot room, careful to pause and take a different route when the air grew too warm. Twenty paces down, using her hands to dig in to keep her from falling too far. Forty-nine down the tunnel where Makas had become an Arak, when the ipek’a pack attacked the tribe. Ten more to the left, then a short climb to the ledge where her brothers would be waiting. They were cowards, but they would come this far. She was careful to make the approach in silence, one slow shuffling step at a time. Her brothers couldn’t hide their breathing forever, and she wasn’t about to let them ambush her again, jumping out at her and making her howl while they cackled with delight.
She slowed even further for the last seven paces. Nothing yet. Even if they’d been practicing, they couldn’t hold their breathing for more than three hundred heartbeats. Not even Nok-Ta could hold her breath so long, and she’d once survived an ashstorm that had burned all her hair to cinders.
She reached the ledge, and it was empty. No sign of her brothers, though they’d promised to meet her here.
Ninety-six paces brought her to the winding tunnels, and another two hundred five took her through them. Her steps had quickened. She didn’t care if her brothers surprised her again. Yes, she’d yelp like a cornered fox cub, but it meant they’d be there. Fifty-three more steps across the shallow pools and she would have welcomed their laughter.
She took the leftward passage into the glowing room and dropped her basket, spilling her lichen on the ground.
Tears came before she knew what she was seeing.
Dead bodies, huddled together in the corner. Rows of them, piles. The glowing room cast its iridescent light as high as the cave ceiling went, bright enough to sting her eyes after her journey’s long darkness. She would have come here with them, if she’d been with the rest of the tribe. The glowing room was supposed to be safe. That was why the mushrooms grew here, old enough for the toadstools to be taller than her waist. Ashstorms and poison winds never reached it. She walked forward thirteen paces, counting the dead. Their skins were blackened, streaked with pox and sores, and rivulets of blood traced from their bodies into narrow channels, until it seemed as though a hundred riverways carved a path through the glowing room.
A new kind of storm. It had to be. Something the Ka hadn’t been able to see. And now her tribe was dead.
She cried.
The Yurani tribe would take her in, if she could get to them. It would mean burning fire to light the way, but she wasn’t going to die for fear of meeting the wraith-snakes in the tunnels. And Wind was on the way, the sacred place at Hanet’Li’Tyat. With fire she would find it, even without the Ka’s blessing. Her people might be dead, but Ad-Shi had no intention of dying with them.
Arak’Jur’s vision cleared, and he coughed out the blood and phlegm built up in his lungs. His body still healed itself, and the night sky was full darkness now. He’d been out for some time, and it took a moment for his senses to return.
When they did, he saw Ad-Shi sitting by their fire, unmoving. She watched him with redness around her eyes, sign of tears staining her cheeks, saying nothing.
“What did I see?” he asked. “And how did you show me?”
“It is part of the Veil’s gift, to impart one’s will to others. You saw my life, as a child. You saw the world as it will be if the Regnant wins.”
He moved closer to the fire, welcoming its warmth. The vision had been bleak, but it was the way of things, to fear nature’s wrath. He’d seen villages destroyed in his lifetime, peoples scattered and broken. Surely Ka’Vos’s visions had been at least as dire, or Ka’Hinari’s, before they were slain.
“You lived belowground,” he said, searching for understanding.
She glared at him. “You did not understand,” she said. “All things lived belowground. There was no light we did not fear. Winds carried poison. Dust and tremors meant storms, of ash and gas and fire. One child in three lived to make children of their own; one in thirty lived to see their children’s children.”
“Your people endured a great blight,” he said. “But you survived.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You still do not see.”
He fell quiet.
“You were strong, guardian,” she said. “Strong enough to face me and survive. But you must know what awaits. You must know.” She raised her hand, and again he saw it outlined in the blue sparks. “You must see.”
Thunder cracked through black clouds as she struck the killing blow. The Crane champion had failed to defend his flank, and she cut him down with mareh’et’s claws. Blood soaked her forearms as she rent his flesh, throwing his body into the stone. A voice sounded in her head again, for the third and final time: FOR THIS ONE, IT ENDS.
A man had appeared, dressed in a white robe. His face was creased with age and worry.
Paendurion dropped his sword, facing the man in white. “It’s done,” he said, in the heavy accents of the Amaros. “Accede, now, and honor our victory.”
The Veil stood behind, and she stepped forward. The old man met her on the rocks.
Ad-Shi flinched as a cold wind blew through the darkened sky. Clouds as thick as any cave ceiling hung overhead, but they were still outdoors, aboveground. The space was too broad. The wind was here, and even now she couldn’t escape the desire to run, to find shelter, even in their moment of triumph.
“My champions are defeated,” the old man said. “I acknowledge your right, to hold the Soul for this cycle. Let it be done.”
The Veil bowed her head, and the old man vanished.
The world changed.
The clouds’ color melted, falling to the ground like thick ink. Blue light shone overhead, an expanse of blue as wide as any underground sea. A ball of fire seemed suspended in the sky, radiating warmth. Heat touched Ad-Shi’s skin, and she stared in wonder. There was no danger here.
The change spread. Rocks crumbled to dust before her eyes, and what had been barren waste sprouted green. It spread like waves of fire, covering hills and mountainsides with plants thicker than any moss or lichen. Mighty sticks like hardened vines grew from the earth, covered in green, rising until they were taller than ten men. What had been a b
asin littered with corpses became a lush carpet of color. The darkness was gone, and the wind blew strong and sweet, coursing over her skin with a delicate warmth.
Ad-Shi trembled, daring to test an indrawn breath. Heat was a sign of ash; wind a sign of gas or noxious fumes. But she was safe now. The Regnant’s champions had fallen. She filled her lungs with clean air, staring over the basin with awe. It was done. The world was healed.
A faint scream echoed in his ears as the vision faded.
“Now do you see?” Ad-Shi asked. “This is the price of failure. This is what you fight to preserve, if you are strong enough to follow my path.”
His mind reeled from what he’d seen. It hadn’t been a blight. To his eyes the scene was no more than any lush valley, but through hers he had felt the wonder, the awe of seeing life in abundance for the first time. Of not believing it was possible for horrors to fade.
“I offer you the choice,” Ad-Shi continued. “If not you, then I must move on. Time is short. Will you follow me, and learn what you can, before the end?”
He thought of his people, of the Alliance and the dream of six tribes come together as one. He thought of Corenna and the child she would be bearing soon, if she still lived. He found himself nodding before he could consider the whole of it, the implications of the visions he’d seen shaking the foundations of what he knew of being Arak, of being Sinari, of being a man at all.
“Yes,” he said. “I would know more. But yes.”
A great tension melted from her face, and fresh tears escaped before she could close her eyes.
“Then we go,” she said. “We seek the guidance of the spirits. They will tell us where to begin the hunt.”
43
TIGAI
An Icy Shore
Blood of the Gods Page 39