by D. H. Dunn
Both Drew and Wanda about for her well-being, and she was glad to see they were unharmed. Drew had a quick reunion with Pasang, which Nima used to remind them both about their crazy plan to raid Jang’s tent that had acted as the catalyst to bring them here in the first place.
There was no sign of Jang, Kater, or Kad. A few of the Others roamed the small stone outcropping, bringing in supplies and tending to the camp. Attendant Perol kept a close eye on them but was silent. Nima also noted the woman ate nothing.
“Pasang,” Drew said while eating his bowl of cold soup with a commitment Nima admired. “Tell us about the last descent. How far did you get? What made you turn back?”
“It was not that bad, at first,” Pasang said. “Kater is a better climber than I thought he would be, and the rest of his team listened to me. For a while, we went slow and did well.”
Nima found herself smiling thinking of her brother leading Kater’s team down into the depths of the Under. That his expertise would be so trusted, even under these grim circumstances it still made her proud.
“We were fine for the first day. They even treated me pretty well. On the second day things started to go wrong. There were these fissures we had to go through, and they got narrower and colder the farther down we went. We started to see a light below us, and that’s when it happened.”
“What happened?” Wanda asked. Nima was not surprised to see her notepad was back out, but it was surprising to see the Others had let her keep it.
Pasang looked down into the dark chasm for a moment. Nima watched his breathing increase, her concern growing. Normally he was quick to speak, quick to answer. What had he seen?
When he finally replied, his voice had changed. He sounded older to Nima, more like his father. “It was a nightmare. So fast . . . it was so fast and terrible. This thing―this huge beast. It came out of the rock, like it could swim through it. It was red, all scales and eyes, and that horrible belly. It was a demon.”
“That’s Vihrut,” Drew said. “We’ve run into him, too.”
“Yes,” Pasang replied, nodding his head rapidly. “Yes! One of Kater’s men called it that. The force of its arrival shook two of the men off their ropes. They fell, gone. Leaving just Kater, myself and one other man. This Vihrut, it . . . did something to the other man.”
“What do you mean, ‘something,’” Wanda asked.
“It . . . he . . . pulled the man into him, into his belly,” Pasang stared at Nima as he spoke, his eyes wide. She could feel the weight of his fear. “You could see the man inside there, you could see him being taken apart. Then it dove into the rock again. If Kater and I hadn’t been roped on, we would have fallen, too.”
“What did you do?” Nima asked. She was breathing faster, her hands twitching as she imagined her brother in such peril.
“I froze,” Pasang said. “I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think. I just hung there, clinging to the rope, and swung. Like a worm on a hook. Kater, he climbed down to reach me. He got me moving again.”
“Kater saved you?” Nima asked, standing. “He came down to help you?”
“Of course he did,” Wanda said. “He needed Pasang.”
Nima sighed, grinding her teeth. Perhaps Wanda was right, Kater may have simply been protecting her brother as a useful tool. Yet she owed him all the same.
“I don’t know why, but he did. He got me moving again and we started out of there. Once I was climbing, it was hard to stop. All I wanted to do was get back home, back to Nima and Awa. Even after we got past the fissures, I was still scared. That’s when I heard it.”
“Heard what?” Drew asked.
“The monster. It spoke,” Pasang said, dropping his head and looking at the ground. “I heard it, down in the darkness. The voice was low, like an earthquake was talking. It said, ‘I hunger still.’ It sounded angry.”
“Ah, such wonderful stories,” Kater said, striding into the group and walking past them. His deep voice cut through them as easily as their scythe in the barley fields back on Awa’s farm. All heads turned to watch him as he strode by, Pasang sitting back down to grab his bowl of soup.
Nima was happy to see Kad emerge from the crack in the wall behind Katar, but was stunned to see Merin was with him as well.
Kad’s face was free of the fear she had seen on it since Jang’s attack, though his gait was more tired than she had seen before. He leaned on his wife, whose strong arm was wrapped around him. They walked as a pair, Merin’s expression dark and grim.
Nima ran over to the pair. The urge to embrace them was strong, but she was unsure of their culture, and the sad looks they wore made her pause.
“I was so worried about you,” she said, ignoring Kater’s pained glance as she ran by.
Kad surprised her by opening his arms with a small smile. Nima accepted his embrace, and after a moment she felt Merin’s arms around her as well. For a moment, she felt safer than she had in days.
“I am so sorry, my friends.” Kad said, even as he showed her a small grin. “My failure caused all of this. A scout, and I was caught unaware.”
“Sorry?” she asked, pulling away a bit to look down into Kad’s face. Below his shy smile and beard, she could see the wound on his neck from Jang’s knife. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
“Merin,” came Wanda’s voice from behind her. “I am glad to see you, but why are you here?”
Nima looked up from Kad to see that Wanda and Drew had come over. She noted Pasang still sitting by the soup bowls, looking into the chasm.
“That one brought us,” Merin said, indicating Jang, who was now standing just behind Kater. “The small man. He came with a Yeti, acting on Kater’s instructions. They came looking for me.” She faltered, her voice catching. “Oh, it was all because of me.”
“What happened?” Drew rushed over. “What about the rest at the camp?”
Merin scowled past them with tears in her eyes, staring at Jang with a gaze so angry Nima thought could shatter a mountain.
“The great beast came again, drawn by that fool. That fool from your Out. Vihrut emerged right underneath the healing tent. Ridhan lost his life protecting me. They are gone . . . all gone.”
Merin turned away, accepting Kad’s arms as she wept into his shoulder.
Kater clapped his hands forcefully, Nima turned to see him standing before the edge of the deep chasm. Everyone but Merin turned to look at him, Nima suspected that was just how Kater liked it.
A pair of the cloaked guards approached, motioning with their spears for Nima and the others to line up against the wall. Pasang was already standing there, watching Nima as she walked toward him.
Jang stood alone, away from where the rest were gathering.
Kater paced back and forth, hands were behind his back, his head down, keeping himself between the assembled group and the dark abyss behind him. Nima watched as he looked up for a moment at the group, and then looked back down again. Everyone was watching him, waiting for him to speak, a situation Nima suspected Kater liked.
Finally, he turned to face them directly, hands still behind his back. His jaw was set firmly, his wire-thin beard framing his face. Nima thought he looked somehow both older and younger than when she had first met him, back in Dorjee’s tent.
His voice boomed and echoed as he spoke. “Some of you are here by choice,” Kater began. “Others, because I have forced you here. There has been much conflict, both before we arrived in the Under and after.” The man paused, Nima wondered if Kater expected someone to argue with him. This man had lied and tricked them all into this situation, had bound them and kept them prisoner. But he had also saved Pasang. “I remind you,” Kater continued, walking back and forth at the edge of the drop. “You may view me as the enemy, and perhaps rightly so. Other circumstances, other conditions. Yet that is not relevant to where we are now. Where we are now, we are one group, with one problem. That unifies us.”
Merin grunted at that statement, putting her hands on her husb
and’s shoulders.
Kater stepped forward, walking to Nima first. Nima kept her eyes locked on the old man’s fierce stare, searching for hints or clues.
“Hold out your hands please, miss.”
Nima did so, presenting her bound wrists to Kater. The old man produced an ornate knife from his cloak and sliced the ropes cleanly. Nima rubbed her wrists and looked up at the man’s bearded face. He knelt and took his hands into her own. His hands were warm, soft. Different from the hands of Drew, Pasang, or Awa.
“In the Khumbu, I watched you judge the Icefall. I saw your innate connection to the mountain, your instincts and judgment. Many see you as just a young woman, but I see more. I knew then that you were indeed the best hope of getting all of us home. My people, Upala’s people, and your own.”
She remembered him in the Khumbu, nearly falling from an ice pillar. Freezing in fear on a ladder as they crossed a crevasse. Laughing like a madman in front of a portal.
Where did the act end and the truth begin?
He was clearly waiting for her to speak, yet Nima could find nothing she wanted to say. Kater leaned in closer, his face only inches from her own. She fought the urge to back away, not wanting him to see her discomfort.
He continued to look into her eyes, perhaps looking for the same things she was searching for. She could feel the quickness of his pulse in her hands.
“I restored your brother to you,” he said, his voice a whisper. “Please help me find my sister.” He released her hands and stood, not waiting for her answer. The boom of command came back into Kater’s voice as he addressed the larger group. “Yet, this is not a time for enemies. The whys and whos of our situation are no longer relevant. Somewhere at the bottom of this great chasm is my sister Upala. Either she can restore all of us to our homes, or we will all die here. Corpses have no enemies.” He gestured to Perol, who stood at his side. “Untie them.”
One by one, Perol walked to each of them and removed the bonds from their hands. Pasang took the additional freedom to grab one more bowl of soup. Wanda began to reorganize the satchel around her shoulders, while Drew moved to put his arm around Kad.
“We will take the last of our climbing supplies with us.” Kater continued. “The last ropes, pins, hammers. All the equipment we can afford to carry. There will be no attempt after this one, there is no going back. We make this our best effort. We will reach Upala or we will die in the attempt.”
Nima wondered what this meant for the Others who were staying behind. Would Kater come back to rescue them? How long would their remaining food and resources last? If the few remaining guards had any concerns, they gave no sign of them.
“We will descend in two teams. The first will set ropes for the second, alternating in shifts so we can rest. On our last descent, Pasang was able to locate small areas where we can camp. The first team will be myself, Nima, Mister Adley, and my sister’s fair attendant, Merin. Nima will set the pace. The second will be Perol, Miss Dobrowolski, the scout, and our sirdar, Pasang.”
“My lord. If I leave the encampment―” Perol spoke from the rear of the stone ledge, where she had moved to confer with her guards. Her frown was even more pronounced, her arms crossed. Nima wondered if she was saying goodbye.
“Peace, Perol,” Kater said. He crossed over to her and put his hand on her shoulder. “If we fail, protecting the encampment will mean little. I need you with me; I cannot do this without you.”
Perol nodded, her expression unchanging.
Jang stepped forward with a noticeable limp. She could see his left hand shaking, the fingertips blackened from frostbite. His voice had a catch in it as he spoke, though Nima noticed the intensity in his eyes was undiminished.
“Lord Kater,” he said, bowing slightly, “I see that I have no place in either of your teams. Given my physical condition, I understand why you might discount me, yet . . .”
Kater put his arm around Jang’s shoulders and began to walk with him. He had to hunch over to do so, due to the differences in their heights, an image that was almost comical to Nima. He led Jang to the edge of the chasm, waving his free arm outward at the deep abyss.
“This chasm has given me great perspective, on many things. For example, on you, I didn’t like you when I met you, Jang. You seemed a lot like this hole in front of us here. Full of air and darkness with little substance. A worm really, no different than the ones we have seen here in the Under.” Kater’s deep voice echoed down into the mountain.
“My lord, I . . .” Jang started, but let his voice trail off as Kater continued.
“Yet I have come to admire you, my boy, after a fashion. You are tenacious and resourceful. You’ve survived astonishing perils, and your commitment to your cause is not without passion. You also delivered to me both my sister’s scout and her attendant, both who are key to my plans.”
“I was happy to do so my Lord,” Jang said.
“Yes, I know,” Kater replied. “Happy to be useful to people of power in the hopes you will be one of those people yourself someday, am I right?”
“As you say. I have proven useful,” Jang said.
“This is true.” Kater paused for a moment, taking a sharp intake of breath. With one move of his arm, he then shoved Jang off the edge and into the abyss. Nima and Drew cried out, their shouts drowned out by the echoing screams of Jang as he fell.
Kater turned back to the group, a smile on his face. His smile was no different than the one he had offered on their first meeting back in Gorak Shep. Free of menace. Just a friend there to help.
“In the end, though, I still didn’t like him,” he said. “A useful worm is still just a worm after all.”
Kater removed his cloak and clapped his hands together. He picked up the nearest pack and slung it over his shoulder. “Well,” he said. “Let’s get started.”
19
“The longer I climb, the less important the goal seems to me, the more indifferent I become to myself.”
—Reinhold Messner
Drew hammered another anchor into the wall of the chasm, trying to keep his hands straight and his mind on his immediate task. If he could lose himself in the work, he could focus. Merin was tied off to him, standing a few feet to his right, handing him anchors and keeping her distance. He appreciated both.
They had left the ledge several hours before, Drew so quick to take point he nearly leaped onto the sheer wall. He didn’t want to give Kater a chance to make any more team assignments or selections, and he needed space between himself and the old man.
He looked past Merin, to his right, making sure Nima and Kater were doing all right setting the ropes behind them. He didn’t love leaving Nima with him, but he couldn’t trust himself right now, not with Kater.
He clipped his secondary rope onto the anchor he had just set, his hands gripping small cracks as he searched for another good foothold. It was a slow process.
Kater had killed Jang, killed him in cold blood. Why should that bother him? Wanda wasn’t here to ask that question, but she might as well have been. Drew had been wondering about it all day during the descent, but the truth was he didn’t know. Jang certainly would have killed him, he had no doubt of that.
“You seem preoccupied,” Merin said, handing him his next anchor. They had spoken little in the hours since leaving the ledge. Normally, Drew would be happy to have the company. Today, he was grateful for the silence.
He took a short step down and to his left. Another solid foot hold, his boot catching into one of the many cracks in the rocks easily.
“Yes,” Drew said. “I apologize. I know you must have a lot on your mind as well.”
“I do,” Merin said. “I’m sure we all do. Perhaps we could unburden ourselves to each other.”
“Of course. That’s only fair.” Drew struck the anchor into the rock, giving it a few test taps with his hammer. The stone gave way too easily. Drew pulled it out and began searching for another spot. “How about you first? What’s on your mind?”<
br />
She slid over, her left foot finding the same hold Drew’s right had just vacated. “I am preoccupied with the future,” Merin said. “Right now, our goal is clear and plain: reach Upala in her library, where she will open the portals.”
“How does that work, though? Kater hasn’t really been forthcoming with what happens once we get to his sister.” Having found a more solid location, he hammered the next anchor in, leaving it twisted to make it easier for Nima to thread the rope through when she and Kater followed them.
“One of my concerns as well. I suggest we follow up with him on that subject when we make camp tonight.”
“Agreed,” Drew said, looking down the face of the chasm. The next ledge was about six feet below, it was tempting to jump to it. He thought better of it, finding a new boot hold about three feet down. Slowly he inched his way down.
“Suppose . . .” Drew paused for a moment, leaving one hand gripping the shaft above his head as the other hung at his side, resting. “Suppose this works. Kater somehow gets his sister to unlock the portals, sends us all back home. What does that look like for you? What do you do?”
“Does Upala still live?” Merin asked.
“I take it your answer changes depending on the answer to that?”
“Quite a bit,” Merin said. “Without Upala, some amount of anarchy is likely. There are many who would claim leadership in her absence, but no succession hierarchy was set.”
“I suppose when you are immortal you don’t worry about that sort of thing,” Drew said.
“Yes,” she said. “Without the spell-queen, things might be better, or they might be worse. Maybe a lot worse. What does this mean for our children? I think on it. I think on it without ceasing.”
In essence, Merin was dealing with the same issue his own mother had―the thought of her children far away and out of her ability to protect them. In the end, this worry had crushed his mother. Merin seemed so much stronger. Merin had Kad, he reminded himself, whereas his mother had only had his father.