“My tyr, are they our escort to Splashtown?”
Tejohn was surprised by the question. “No. They’re our assassins.”
“That’s inconvenient.” Arla picked up her bowl and began to eat with gusto. “My yr,” she said when she had finished, “you called him a liar. But... What did I miss?”
Tejohn pushed his empty bowl away. “He asked about Samsit. He asked about the king. He asked about the ruhgrit. But he never asked what happened on the day Peradain fell.”
Arla sat suddenly upright. “Great Way.”
“He already knows the story, which means they did rescue someone from the city. Someone who was there when the portal opened.”
There was no choice. Tejohn needed to get into the Finstel holdfast and find out who had been rescued from Peradain. He’d seen Amlian killed, but Ellifer had been lost in the confusion. Could the king still be alive?
And he needed a flying cart, still, because someone had to get to Tempest Pass.
He pushed his empty bowl away. “No sense in waiting around here. Let’s give those assassins their shot.”
Chapter 23
Climbing down was easier than climbing up, because this side of the Northern Barrier had a more rounded, weathered surface. It certainly wasn’t a slick, featureless wall.
But it was still dangerous. It took the rest of the day to descend only a couple dozen feet to the plateau below.
The dragon bones were monstrous. The skull alone was as large as Mahz’s wagon, and Ivy immediately announced, eyes shining, that she planned to camp inside it for the night. She crawled through the opening in the neck and assured them it was quite roomy inside.
Cazia didn’t like it, but she crawled in after. The skull was larger than the chambers she’d created inside the rock, but her spellcasting had already made her feel somewhat less than real, and now she was going to spend the night inside a dead thing’s head like a bad dream.
A month before, she might have objected strenuously. She might have insisted they shelter somewhere else. Instead, she rolled out her cloth and went to sleep.
Ivy woke her in the middle of the night. They could hear the beating of wings, and by the starlight coming through the eye sockets, Cazia could see that the princess’s eyes were wide and terrified.
She rolled over and peered through the eye sockets. A pair of giant eagles had landed on the plateau nearby, beating their wings rhythmically. Then they began to squawk in high, harsh voices.
Kinz started out of a sound sleep, but Ivy shushed her. Had the birds spotted them? Cazia wondered if they would tear her apart to eat her--how much would that hurt?--or drop her from a height first.
Neither happened. Instead, they leaped into the air, circled higher and higher, then crossed over into the Sweeps.
The three girls held hands and lay as quietly as they could. The night winds were gentle now that they were out of the Sweeps, but that only meant they could better hear the beating of wings.
At dawn, they carefully crawled out to check the sky. There were no birds nearby, but two circled lazily over the misty place where the mountain ranges met. They were barely smudges against the gray sky; surely they wouldn’t be able to spot her from so far away.
“We must be careful,” Kinz said. “We can not climb down the side of the hill in open view the way we did yesterday.”
Ivy came close. “We can not ask Cazia to tunnel us down. She would never survive it.” The girl laid her hand on Cazia’s elbow. “How do you feel?”
That was a good question. Cazia found it difficult to turn her attention inward to take stock of herself. The urge to cast a spell was growing. She felt as thin and hollow as an eggshell. Every word they spoke to her was like a shriek. Her skin burned when the wind blew across it, and it chafed where her skirts touched. She lifted the cloth to look at her legs—as much to break Ivy’s touch as anything else—but there were no sores, no swelling, not even any redness there. She had magic inside her, and the magic hurt.
“I’m in pain,” she admitted. There was no point in hiding it. “Not my hands, for some reason, but most every other part of me feels like I’ve been sunburned.”
And I don’t care. She couldn’t bring herself to say that, not when her tears were so close to the surface again.
“You have been Cursed,” Kinz said, but Cazia ignored her.
“Why do you look as though you are about to cry?” Ivy asked. She wrung her hands nervously, as though she’d done something wrong.
Cazia thought about her dreams and of falling during the climb. “Don’t I have reason enough?”
“We are going to stay here for a few days,” Ivy announced. “We have the rations, do we not?”
“If we stretch them,” Kinz announced.
“We will. We can not climb down until we are all back to full strength. That is common sense. So, it is settled.”
Kinz sighed. “You just want to camp inside the dragon skull the little longer.”
“Of course!” Ivy answered, grinning suddenly. “Think of the story it would make.”
The giant birds were least active around dawn, and that’s when Kinz did her exploring. It was dangerous, but she insisted that she was skilled at moving through cover. Cazia suspected that as someone who had lived her whole life under the open sky, her scouting missions were more about escaping their confined space than actual reconnaissance.
In the meantime, Ivy spent a fair portion of the day digging out the dragon’s teeth. She confided that she’d heard that, if they were planted like seeds in fertile soil, they would grow into new dragons.
By the third night, Cazia lied and said she was ready to continue. Kinz had been filling their canteens from a hillside stream, and there was no reason at all for her to cast a spell. Her pain had eased, but her insides still felt hollowed out. She’d felt no worry when Kinz crawled out of their shelter, no amazement when Ivy told the story of the ancestor who single-handedly slew a dragon, and no irritation when the others bickered about food or religion.
None of it meant anything to her.
It was clear that she wasn’t going to get her personality back, so it was time to start down the mountainside. Ivy looked skeptical but Kinz was clearly grateful. She had found a way down, she said.
She showed it to them just before dawn. There was a vertical crevice in the side of the mountain that was choked with thick, bark-covered vines. None of them had ever seen anything like it, but the lattice was strong enough to support their weight. They could climb down through them, well out of sight of the birds overhead.
Ivy attacked it enthusiastically; Cazia struggled the most and often felt on the verge of falling. It wasn’t just that her hands were weakest or that her body was heaviest, although they were. It was also that she felt weary of everything, and was bored even by the need to preserve her own life.
Fury guide me, she thought. She closed her eyes and silently repeated the prayer over and over. It was a prayer for poor people and servants, not for the children of tyrs. It was a prayer of desperation. Fury guide me. Fury was a god of many aspects--every kind of human being, good or evil, was contained in him, and that meant every human had Fury in them.
Cazia needed that fury. She wouldn’t survive without it.
And there it was, kindled inside her like a spark of the divine. She closed her eyes and mentally fed that little light until it began to burn. Magic had scoured her empty, but it couldn’t take away the touch of her god.
They stopped for food at nearly the bottom of the crevice, and Kinz began to rub Cazia’s hands.
“How are you holding up?” Ivy asked.
Fury guide me. “No mountain is going to get the better of me.”
At the bottom of the crevice was a tumble of rocks as large as Ivy’s Peradaini house but no more vines. The eagles had taken to the air, hovering over ridges and shelves in the surrounding mountainside, but the morning mists were still thick, and the girls managed to slide down out of sight without be
ing eaten.
Kinz moved very close to the other two girls and whispered, “Sound carries in the mists. We must be as quiet as snakes in the grass.”
They nodded and began to clamber down through the rocks. The fog made it impossible to plan a route to the forest floor--soon, they couldn’t see much farther than the reach of their arms. Each time Ivy cat-crept down a huge, sloping rock, she seemed to vanish into the mist. Still, they managed by trial and error.
By midmorning, the sun became hot enough to burn the fog away. The girls had to crawl under an outcropping of stone to hide. “Listen!” Kinz hissed.
They listened. As the fog retreated down the mountainside, they heard a strange tapping noise retreat within it. An eagle swooped low, almost down into the swirling mists toward the sound, but flew upward again with empty talons.
“What makes a noise like that?” Ivy whispered. “It sounds like someone drumming the fingernails on a piece of horn.”
No one could answer, and they stayed under cover during the hot part of the afternoon. Cazia was uncomfortable, but also so exhausted from the climb that she fell asleep. It was well after dark when she woke to the sounds of Ivy and Kinz arguing with hissing voices over the empty canteens.
“I can fill them,” Cazia said. She was parched herself, and while she knew the spell would increase her curse, she had been aching to use one of the Gifts all day. And what did it matter, anyway?
“No.” Ivy answered, putting her hand on Cazia’s shoulder. “There is no rush. We can go a day without water.”
“My spells have gotten stronger. I could probably fill them all at once.”
Kinz shook her head and stuffed the canteens into her pack. “You only have the few more in you, yes? Save them for when we are desperate.”
They slept through the night, waking a few hours before dawn. They didn’t wait; moonlight lit the fog well enough to cast everything in a diffuse light. Kinz tried to pretend she knew exactly which way to go, but Cazia could see that she was putting on a show. No matter.
They almost tripped over another column of woody vines, but unlike the one near the top of the mountain, this one creaked under their weight and sagged alarmingly. The tapping noises grew louder, then softer, moving closer, then farther away. Cazia imagined an old man below them so blinded by the fog that he went about tapping a cane against the rocks. The image was so absurd that she had to stop climbing and cover her mouth. The magic inside her wanted to scream with laughter.
Kinz disappeared below but Ivy paused to lay her hand on Cazia’s shoulder. “Are you well?” she whispered.
I think I’m going mad. No, that wasn’t something you said to a twelve-year-old girl. She shut her eyes. There was nothing absurd about their situation. Ivy and Kinz had been important to her once... Well, maybe not Kinz. Magic had taken that connection away, and she would never return to herself if she was not ready to fight for them. What’s more, if she turned back without discovering the secrets of this valley, she would have hollowed herself out for nothing.
Fury guide me. Fury, I need your spark to protect my friends. She felt it kindle again, that tiny bit of heat that showed her god was still alive and still active within her. What magic had done to her could not be undone, not by her, but she could still fight against it. She could still try to remain herself.
Ivy was waiting. “I’m just getting ready,” Cazia whispered, and it was almost true. “But stop paying attention to me; look out for yourself.”
At the bottom of the column, they found themselves on a grass slope. Ivy immediately lay out flat against it, pressing her face among the blades to smell them. Kinz touched her shoulder and, through gestures, bid her string her bow. The tapping sound returned, and Ivy quietly did as she was told.
They could only see a dozen feet ahead of them in the mist, and the sound seemed to be coming from everywhere. By unspoken agreement, they did not speak. Cazia heard water lapping against rocks and moved toward it, idly wondering if she should feel afraid but glad that she didn’t. Hent had been so certain she would die in this place….
The gray silhouette of a boulder loomed in the dim mists. She moved toward it almost out of instinct simply because it was a landmark, and discovered it wasn’t a boulder after all. It was a skull. It lay crooked against the ground, with a single, massive eye socket in the middle of its face. Broken tusks stuck out from the sides of its ugly mouth.
She rubbed her hands over the rough bone--were her own bones this rough? The dragon’s had been smooth. Ivy came up behind her, then Kinz, but neither of them wanted to touch the skull. Maybe she should have been frightened by it, too, but instead she just found it fascinating.
Besides, they needn’t be afraid of a skull. They should be afraid of whatever had killed it.
Cazia turned to them and touched her ear. After listening for a moment, they heard the faint sound of water. Great Way, they were so thirsty. They moved carefully around the bones, licking their lips.
The ground sloped downward, the air grew warmer and the mist thinner. The sun was coming up, somewhere, because the mist seemed to glow faintly. They came to a long mound of loose dirt that stood higher than their heads. It extended into the mists beyond where they could see, and they had choice but to climb over it.
On the other side, the soil became muddier and the mist thinner still. Kinz began to push the grass flat with her feet so she could step on it. Cazia found a place where stones had fallen from the mountainside above, and she walked across them until she reached the water.
Little wisps of steam rose from it, clearing away the mist nearby. Just like the heat of the day, she thought. The water was little wider than a small pond--a distance of some thirty paces--and it felt a bit scummy. It would have been nice to know why it was so warm, but she didn’t see much hope of discovering that.
“I do not think it is safe to drink,” Kinz whispered. Cazia figured she was right, but dipped her hands into it anyway. After days of spellcasting, moving rocks, and climbing down the rough vines, she figured the heat would feel good.
It did, actually. The warmth was soothing for all of two heartbeats, when she felt a tiny bite on the side of her hand.
“Ouch!’ she exclaimed, yanking her hand back. There, stuck to the side of her hand, was a little round fish no larger than her earlobe. As she watched it drink her blood, it turned gray and died, falling into the water with a tiny splash.
The pond was full of those tiny fish. A drop of blood fell from her hand, and the fish fled from it as though it was poison.
Cazia crept back up the rocks. The injury was tiny—if it didn’t get infected, there wouldn’t be any problem with it. She sucked out a bit of her own blood and spit it onto the rocks.
The other girls waited for her by edge of the water. “Sorry for the noise,” she whispered, “but—”
The tapping sound returned, louder than ever. All three of them turned toward the water, but they couldn’t see what was making the noise. They slowly withdrew toward the mists just as the wind shifted direction, and a sour, acrid, burning stench made Cazia’s nostrils tingle. A second tapping sound joined the first.
Whatever was making that noise, Cazia’s outcry had caught its…their attention. She glanced at Kinz and Ivy again, both of whom were carefully retreating toward the giant skull, their gazes turned toward the sound. She wanted to cry again, although she couldn’t understand why. Yes, she might have just gotten them all killed, but even that didn’t seem terribly important.
Kinz was right. She had been Cursed. Magic had left her full of miseries she couldn’t identify but no room for other human feelings. All she had left was a holy spark, and what good was that?
She had brought the tapping closer. It only seemed sensible that she should lead the danger, whatever it was, away from Kinz and the princess. Besides, she was genuinely curious what it could be.
Ivy had an arrow nocked, but now more than ever before, her weapon looked like a tiny thing--a toy for hunting sq
uirrels. Cazia laid her hand on Ivy’s shoulder, encouraging her to get low to ground beside the skull. Of course, Kinz had Cazia’s spear.
“I’ll be right back,” Cazia lied. Lying was easy now. “Keep quiet.”
She snatched a fistful of squarish teeth from beside the broken tusk and hurried into the mists before they could respond. She crouched behind a tree and looked back; they hadn’t tried to follow her. A few days before, she would have been disappointed, but now she felt an odd satisfaction. She’d crossed the mountains to discover a secret, but now all she wanted to do was prove Hent right.
What am I doing? What is wrong with me?
She hurried into the trees, circling around the steaming pond. The trees she passed were spindly and narrow, with scorch marks low on the trunk; a fire had passed through here recently. She threw one of the teeth in the general direction of the pond.
She heard a satisfying splash, followed by a rustling of grasses. Something was moving toward her, and it sounded big.
Now would have been the time for her fear to really grow, but it didn’t happen. She loitered by the tree, waiting for the creature, whatever it was, to appear out of the mists.
And she waited. Whatever it was, it wasn’t in a hurry. It occurred to her that she could be just as cautious, so she moved backwards into the trees. Her feet made the grass rustle, but she didn’t mind, not if it drew the thing toward her.
The fog thickened and her view of the forest around her shrank. She felt lost, cut off from the world. If she died here, her bones would lie in the grass for ages, just like the ones behind her. Not that it mattered.
Still, she couldn’t help but be terribly curious how it would all turn out.
She came to a sturdy-looking oak broad enough to hide behind. Far enough. She circled it and crouched low on the bare roots, peering around the edge back the way she came. Her hand rested on the tiny quiver at her hip. It was still full.
The tapping had stopped but she could still hear the rustling of grass and bushes. She wondered, almost idly, if the thing would be too big to follow her between the trees, and whether that would be a good or a bad thing.
The Way Into Chaos: Book One of the Great Way Page 36