by K. Ferrin
She swam into the narrow vertical tunnel, pulled the bag with her grimoire around so that it rested against her chest, wedged herself in as tightly as she could, and began to climb.
She fell twice before she’d gotten even five feet above the water. She fell again when she was about halfway to the top. She could see Fern’s pale face glowing in the darkness above watching her struggle up the rock wall.
She wedged herself in again even tighter than before. Her muscles screamed at her, her skin felt rubbed raw, but she pressed her legs into the wall opposite her and climbed.
Progress was agonizingly slow. She could move only a few inches before the angle was too much for her to hold and she began to slip. After an eternity, she felt Fern’s hands slide under her arms and pull her up over the lip. Ling stood and turned to see another tumble of rocks just on the other side of a broad pool. Her stomach dropped as she realized she would have to climb more.
“No, it’s this way,” Fern said, waving to the left side of the rock jumble.
A rambling, erratic path wound its way through the pile of rock, a sight that made Ling want to weep with relief. She followed it as it jogged up a number of smallish stones in irregularly sized steps. At the top, the steps shifted into a ribbon-sized trail that ran along the outside edge of a boulder the size of a palace, then squeezed into a narrow crack between two carriage-sized stones that had fallen against one another. She was inside the rock pile now, weaving her way through tight cracks, slithering up through narrow—though thankfully short—pipes.
As she moved, the light around her became increasingly bright. Bands of illumination ran in veins through the rock here. There were stripes of pale yellow, brilliant gold, shimmering blue, midnight purple, and a rich green tone. Far above there was a twinkling, as if stars shone down on them, though Ling knew they were still deep underground. The cave around her shimmered with gentle light, and everywhere was the sound of running and dripping water. It was quite beautiful, and for a time Ling lost herself in the magic of the moment, in the focus of mind and body intent on a difficult task.
When they finally cleared the huge rock fall, her breath caught in her throat. Before her, a ribbon of water wound itself through a large cavern. Veins of light curled up the walls lazily, and elsewhere splashes of brilliant color splattered joyously. A cascade of stars weaved and danced across the ceiling, and scattered along the moss-covered stretch of earth that she now walked upon was intricate statuary that reminded her of the memorials sometimes erected in Brielle to honor someone who had passed on. Some sat sedately on the earth. Others floated in the air, drifting in the unfelt currents that must have wafted through the cavernous space.
Fern gently wrapped Ling’s hand in her own. “This is a holy place,” she whispered as she led Ling along a weaving route between tombs. “This is where we are born and where we come when our time here has ended.”
Ling looked at Fern, surprised the Mari had brought her here.
Fern read the question in Ling’s eyes and smiled gently at her. “You are one of us, now. This is yours as much as it is ours.”
The cavern was quiet. Not the tense silence of the barrens in the Colli Terra nor the complete lack of sound in the Salt Caves, but the sort of gentle hush that settles on holy places. Their footsteps were muffled by a thick green moss that covered everything around her. Tiny flowers danced in small circles on stems barely longer than the plant around them, blooming despite the lack of sun. The muffled silence was broken now and then by the gentle buzzing of an insect flying nearby.
“What holds the statues up like that?” Ling asked, unable to contain her curiosity.
Fern looked at her briefly, humor in her eyes. “Magic, of course.” She paused, turned, and stroked Ling’s cheek softly with the tip of a talon. “You have much to learn. It is good you are here,” she whispered. She turned and walked on, Ling’s hand still held warmly in her own.
“Where do you…I mean, how…”
“How are we born? You can ask anything, Ling. You have no need to feel ashamed at what you don’t yet know. This question, however, I cannot answer, for we don’t really know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Ling asked. “It’s a pretty obvious thing.”
“For humans, yes. But for us, not so much. One day we simply are. We awake, somewhere down here amongst our ancestors. We feel no need to discover the mystery of our births. It just is.”
Ling breathed, running one finger lightly along the curving spine of a dragon that crouched over one tomb.
“They are the first of my people.” Fern said.
Ling’s mind buzzed with questions, but the somber peacefulness of this place stilled her lips. They walked on through air perfumed with the scent of the sweetest spring flowers. The statues were larger and more elaborate versions of those the grimoire had described as being just outside of Malach. There was also much greater variety here. The winged human forms and sirené were joined by tiny, human-shaped urns, one large bee-shaped figure, and so many more. Many of those floating in the air had stone dragonflies hovering above, the tomb attached to the dragonfly only at the tips of its dangling feet.
They walked for a long way, weaving through cavern after cavern filled with statuary, peacefully buzzing insects, and waving wildflowers. Eventually the statuary fell behind, and they began moving upward. Ling realized they were climbing in large, lazy circles, walking the perimeter of a massive, round cavern. At the center, everything floated. Billowy grasses, chunks of stone in every size, those cheerful waving flowers. Even water floated, throwing glinting rainbows randomly across the cavern. But far from the destruction this floating had indicated in the Colli Terra, this place held a deep sense of peace and wellbeing. She could hear the faint titter of birds in the distance, and closer at hand, the busy buzz and whir of insects at work. The air itself seemed to shiver with a glittery light.
At the top of the winding stairway, they took a tunnel that led off to the right, and after many switchbacks, Ling was finally able to once again see the open sky.
They stepped into a large round sinkhole, just maybe twenty feet from the surface, with a beautiful pink pool swirling lazily at its center. Light from the setting sun touched the surface of the pool, and Ling could see all manner of creatures flitting about in the air above it. Thick tree roots gripped at the sides of the sinkhole, and tendrils of vine dangled all around them. A soft green crescent of sand curled around the far side of the pool. Ling had never seen anything so beautiful.
A narrow walkway of the same green stone she’d seen in Malach curved around the sinkhole, leading them upward into the open air. Massive trees towered above them, and off to her left a short distance away, a beautiful, almost translucent building hovered amongst the branches of several vast trees. She recognized it from the grimoire immediately.
“Welcome to our home.”
Fern smiled warmly as she gestured toward the rambling, transparent structure. Ling looked up in awe. The house looked even larger from this perspective. She couldn’t believe they’d come so far and that she was once again so close to Malach. She couldn’t see the river though—in fact, there was nothing here that looked familiar other than the house.
She turned to look at Fern to ask if they were really where she thought they were, but she was knocked from her feet and shoved back down into the cavern they’d just emerged from.
“It’s impossible. There’s no way they found this place.” Fern kept her voice to a low whisper as she huddled below the house, peering upward cautiously.
“What is it? What’s going on?”
“Someone’s been in there,” she said. “The door is ajar there.”
Ling looked up again and saw what she’d originally missed. A door hung from its hinges at the base of one of the large trees, and as she looked up through the translucent floors, it was obvious some violence had occurred in the house. Furniture was knocked over, chairs were tipped onto their sides, and there were sco
rch marks along the far walls. The flowering vines in that area blackened and dead.
“Fariss?”
“It has to be. No one else would dare. No one else would want to. Those few disciplines not allied with Fariss keep themselves out of this war as best they can. They’re too fearful of Fariss to say so or do anything to aid us. I need to see if it’s safe. Wait here.”
Fern took several steps away from Ling and hunkered down close to the ground. Ling had just enough time to wonder what she was doing before a ring of shimmering light formed around Fern for a moment before vanishing. Fern had vanished as well. In her place was an enormous sapphire blue dragonfly.
Ling gasped in surprise and recognition. She had seen a large sapphire dragonfly while making her way up to the Salt Caves. She’d seen a large yellow one too, flying into captain Drake’s cabin aboard the Courser. They had both been Mari.
Ling stepped forward and reached out a hand to stroke the iridescent blue scaling of Fern’s side. The contact was brief, but that momentary touch was enough for her to tell that the scales were warm and supple.
The shimmering blue dragonfly hopped into the air and vanished between the trees. Ling huddled in the cavern below, more terrified of being alone than she cared to admit, even to herself. Five minutes later, Fern was back. That same glittering light materialized around her, and seconds later Fern was standing once again in front of her.
“I can’t believe it!” Fern’s face was red, eyes wide with rage. “How dare they come here, to this place!” Fern paced back and forth in front of Ling. “They’re gone, and they’ve got Alyssum.”
“How can you know that?”
“Alyssum’s magic keeps this place deeply hidden, Ling. They have never, in all the centuries of our enmity or all the centuries of our friendship before that, ever found this place. They’d never have been able to find it unless they had her.” Fern was frantic, her eyes wide. “They have her in Shadowhold; it’s the only place they could hold her. I have to go get her.”
“But, I saw this place on my trip to the Colli Terra. It’s easy to find.”
“That is the incarnation of our home in Malach. This, here, is very different, Ling. We are deep in the Colli Terra here. No warlock could ever find this place. There are only four beings in all the world who know how to get here, and one of those people is you.” She paced again, this time only three steps in each direction. “She told me not to underestimate them. She warned me this might happen.”
“Warned you that they might take her?”
“This is because of you; it has to be. Of course they’d know it was me that rescued you—it couldn’t have been anyone else. He had to move.”
“Because of me?”
“Haven’t you heard anything I’ve been saying? Fariss thinks you are the key to a new secret army. He intended to use you to finish killing us off. He would have to assume we’d do the same. He had to make a decisive move now, before we have a chance to figure out where he failed.”
Ling had to admit it made a sick sort of sense. If Fariss truly believed she was a weapon, knowing that she was now in the hands of his enemy would force his hand. She felt sick thinking of Alyssum strapped down as she had been.
“There is no chance of closing that breach without Alyssum. She’s studied it from its inception. No one knows it as well as she does, not even Fariss himself.”
Ling felt like everything was falling apart around her again. Every time she felt herself moving forward, something happened that knocked her ten steps back. So many people had given so much for her. Her father had broken before he relented to her mother’s hatred. Dreskin had put his body between her and the blows of Fraser and the captain of the Scarlet Float. Mercer had almost given his life to protect her. Witch had probably given her life getting Ling out of Meuse, and now, quite possibly, Alyssum would give hers. The only thing she’d given them in return was suffering and grief. She was done with that.
Fariss could not be allowed to win this fight. His greed for more magic was what had created the breach to begin with. His experiments were what had created the Forsaken and left them wandering in the Colli Terra. He had turned the sirené into mindless, hungry beasts in the Darkling Sea. He’d killed off every other Mari. His selfishness and greed was tearing Marique to pieces and would take the rest of the world with it. Evelyn would have no life as long as Fariss had his. He had to be stopped, no matter the cost.
“Well then. Let’s go get her.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Every structure has gaps and cracks in it—Shadowhold is no different,” Fern said. “How do you think I got in to rescue you?”
“What do you mean?” Ling asked. “I assumed you just knew the way. So you could spy on them or something, learn what they are about.”
“Believe me when I say none of us have any desire to spend any time in that place. Until I went into Shadowhold to rescue you, I had never been there.” Fern stopped pacing long enough to glance at Ling. Ling imagined she must have had a dumb look on her face because Fern shook her head and sighed.
“Look, almost everyone in the known world uses magic,” Fern said. Her voice took on a lecturing aspect that reminded Ling of school. Her voice was calm, but she didn’t pause in her preparations. “Your people, those in Brielle? They are the only people who don’t. Most people have only a certain sort of power, like the Brisians and their skill with animals or the Bremen and their farming. You’ve heard of them, right?”
Ling nodded. Brielle traded with both Brisia and Noorland, the people of the former were known for their abilities with livestock and the people of the latter for their skill in the fields. She knew other people used magic—everyone in Brielle knew that. They just never talked about it.
“The magic in Marique is different. It’s wilder, more erratic. In most places, for most people, using magic is like breathing. The Bremen don’t exert any effort or have to think about using their magic in their gardens. It’s just there, in the way that they plant, in the touch of their hands or the whisper of their breath. But here, you must learn to control the magic if you wish to use it. The warlocks are just normal people, people from Brisia, from Noorlend, from all the places you know, they just have powerful ambitions. They come here to learn to control magic, to allow them to do things the people back home can’t do with it.”
“The Mari seek to work with magic rather than force it, but our capabilities vary widely. Alyssum and I can both transform into dragonflies—an act of extreme difficulty—but we also have other abilities that are quite divergent. I can see into the earth, including where water flows and where cave systems travel. It’s like looking at a map, but it’s shared with me from the earth itself. Alyssum can’t do that, but she can speak with the various creatures that call Marique home. And there were some among us who would have looked strange to your eyes, but had no power otherwise.”
“So your plan is to use your ability to see into the earth to find a different way into Fariss’s fortress? A way you are convinced he won’t already know about, won’t already have discovered during his thorough search after my escape? Don’t you think he knows you’ll try to rescue Alyssum, and don’t you think he’ll tear that place to the ground finding every possible means of entry?”
“His fortress is called Shadowhold, Ling. The humans of Marique won’t use that name—they are far too superstitious and afraid of drawing his eye to use its proper name, but you should. And yes, of course he knows we’ll be coming. He’ll have a trap set, I’m certain of it. But he doesn’t know exactly what we are capable of. He can’t anticipate how we’ll come for her. We’ll be in and out before he even realizes it. It will take us significantly less time to get there traveling overland than it did underground.”
Ling had finished reading the grimoire just a few hours before. Her memory of Shadowhold was fresh from the descriptions in the book, and she wasn’t sure it would be that easy. She wanted to help, but she wasn’t certain that sneaking right back
into Shadowhold was the answer. She rather thought they were mad to even consider it. The idea of Alyssum becoming one of the Forsaken was disturbing, but Ling had only just escaped Fariss, thanks to Fern, and she never wanted to set foot in that place or see the warlock again.
They’d had surprise on their side the last time, with Fariss confident in the inaccessibility of Shadowhold. They wouldn’t have that advantage this time. There was no doubt in her mind that he had scoured every inch of that house for any crack big enough for a person to slip through and had blocked them using every magical ward that existed in the world.
Besides, even if they did find a way in, it was unlikely they’d find one back out, and that would very likely be the end of all of them.
The end of them…but not the end of you.
The thought sent shudders down the length of her body. Fariss had tried to destroy her and had failed. Fern and Alyssum would find release eventually, in the form of death or the mindlessness of the Forsaken, but she might face an eternity of torture at Fariss’s hands. He would never let her die if he found out she could store magic.
Fern finished loading up the small rowboat and then sat down on a tree root, leaning back until her head rested on her pack. Ling wanted to argue with her, but she had no other ideas. Fern was insistent that they would never seal the gap without Alyssum, and her plan was the only plan they had.
Fariss couldn’t see a way to win the war without Ling, and she and Fern could not seal the breach without Alyssum. It was a terrible risk, but she could not think her way to another solution.
Fern lay still, studying in her mind the strange map only she could see, seeking a path into that dreaded place. Ling watched as the sun slowly worked its way across the sky. Fear gnawed at her. She was convinced every rustle was a warlock sneaking up on them, every bird call a signal for them to attack. Fear had been her constant companion since Hanner had grabbed her at the raft so long ago, but she didn’t think it had ever been as oppressively heavy as it was right now.