by Jim Butcher
At the heart of the scene stood a single, ancient tree, barren trunk lifting high, dead branches mostly worn away by time. Though there was nothing to hold to scale, Tavi thought that the spire of ancient, dead wood had to be huge.
“The Wax Forest,” Tavi said, quietly. “Wow. They didn’t say it was so pretty.”
“Danger,” Fade said, quietly. “Danger, Tavi. Fade will go.”
“No,” Tavi said, quickly. “I’m the one who spoke. I’m the one who has to answer the trial.” He glanced at Doroga. “Right?”
Doroga looked back at Tavi and then glanced at Fade. “Too heavy,” he said.
Tavi tilted his head. “What?”
“Too heavy,” Doroga repeated. “His weight will break the surface of the croach. The wax. It will alert the Keepers as soon as he steps on it. Only our whelps or a small female can enter the Valley of Silence and live.”
Tavi swallowed again. “Right then,” he said. “It’s got to be me.”
Fade frowned, but fell silent.
The gargant’s slow-seeming steps covered ground quickly and carried them down to the edge of the precipice. There, Tavi saw Hashat standing beside a large, pale horse, the wind tossing their white manes off to one side, the lean Marat woman with her long legs somehow a mirror of the big grey beside her. The cool winter light gleamed on the captured eagle brooches on her sword belt.
Over to one side, seated at the edge of the precipice, near a couple of lumps in the snow, was Kitai, still dressed in his rough smock, skinny legs dangling over the edge, feet idly waving. The wind pressed his hair back from the slender, stark lines of his face, and he had his eyes narrowed to slits against the drifting flakes of snow.
Tavi scowled at the other boy, and his face stung for a moment, where he had been cut the previous morning.
Doroga nodded wordlessly to Hashat and clucked to his gargant. The great beast let out a snort and rolled to a stop before lowering itself almost daintily to the ground. Doroga tossed down the saddle strap and used one hand to steady himself with it as he slid down. Tavi followed suit, as did Fade.
“Doroga,” said Hashat, coming toward them, frowning. “Are you ready?”
Doroga nodded, once.
Hashat said, “Word is abroad. The wolves were leaving, as I left to bring Kitai here. They attack with the dawn.”
Tavi drew in a little breath and looked at Fade. The slave looked worried, though his eyes weren’t focused on anything. He just stared out over the Wax Forest.
Doroga grunted. “Then this will decide it. If the Aleran prevails, we avoid the struggle.”
“Atsurak will not be happy with you, Doroga.”
The big Marat shrugged. “He may not survive the day. If he does, he does. That is yet to come.”
Hashat nodded. “Then let us begin.”
“Kitai,” Doroga rumbled.
The figure at the edge of the precipice did not move.
Doroga scowled. “Whelp!”
Still, he did not move.
Doroga glared at Hashat. The maned Marat turned her face away a little too late to hide her smile. “Your whelp is growing up, Doroga. They always get moody before they bond. You know that.”
Doroga rumbled, “You just want Kitai to be part of Horse.”
Hashat shrugged her shoulders. “Speed, intelligence. Who wouldn’t want that?” She lifted her chin and called, “Kitai. We are ready to begin.”
Kitai stood up, idly dusted snow off of his smock, and paced toward them, his expression cool. He stopped not a pace away from Tavi, glaring at the Aleran boy.
Tavi felt a sudden fear, as his cut throbbed again, and then set his jaw stubbornly. He had never allowed a bully to frighten him. He’d been beaten often enough, but he’d never surrendered to fear. He took a step closer to Kitai, eyes narrowed, facing the other boy’s opalescent gaze with his own. Their eyes were on a level, and the other boy did not seem to be much bigger than Tavi was. Tavi folded his arms and stared at his opponent.
Kitai seemed uncertain how to react to Tavi’s stance and glanced at Hashat.
Doroga growled irritably. “You both know the trial. The first to recover the Blessing of Night and return it to my hand will be the victor.” He turned to Tavi. “Aleran. The Blessing is shaped as a mushroom. It has a flat head, slender stalk, and is the color of night. It is located at the base of the great tree, within its trunk.”
“Black mushroom,” Tavi said. “Great tree. Fine, got it.”
“Kitai, you are familiar with the trial.”
The other boy nodded. “Yes, sire.”
Doroga turned to him and placed his huge hands on the boy’s slender shoulders. He turned Kitai to face him, an effortless flexing of Doroga’s shoulders. “Then be careful. Your mother would want you to be careful.”
Kitai lifted his chin, though his eyes glittered bright. “My mother,” he said, “would have fetched the Blessing and been back by now while you talked, sire.”
Doroga’s teeth showed, suddenly. “Yes,” he agreed. One of his hands squeezed Kitai’s shoulders, and he released the boy, to turn to Tavi. “We will lower you down and wait until dawn. Once you begin, there are no rules. The results are all that matter. You can choose not to face the trial now, if you wish, valleyboy.”
“And go back to your camp and be eaten?”
Doroga nodded. “Yes. Regrettably.”
Tavi let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah, well. I’ll take my chances with the Keepers, I think.”
“Then we begin.” Doroga turned to one of the lumps in the snow and dug into it with his huge hands, uncovering a great coil of rope of a weave Tavi had never seen before. Beside him, Hashat did the same with a second coil of rope.
Tavi saw Kitai step up beside him out of the corner of his eye. The Marat boy watched the two adults uncovering the rope and testing its length. “It is rope from the Gadrim-ha. From the ones you call the Icemen. Made of the hairs of their females. It will not freeze or break.”
Tavi nodded. He asked, “You’ve done this before?”
Kitai nodded. “Twice. It wasn’t for a trial, before. But I have gone in twice and returned with the Blessing. I was the only one who returned.”
Tavi swallowed.
“Are you afraid, Aleran?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Kitai said. “Afraid to lose. Everything depends on this night, for me.”
“I don’t understand.”
Kitai sniffed. “When I return with the Blessing before you, I will have defended my sire’s honor in a trial before The One. I will be an adult and may choose where I live.”
“And you want to live with Hashat,” Tavi said.
Kitai blinked and looked at Tavi. “Yes.”
Tavi studied the other boy. “Do you, uh . . . are you sweet on her?”
Kitai frowned, pale brows coming together. “No. But I wish to be a part of her Clan. To be free with her Clan. Not to plod around with Doroga and his stupid Sabot.” He glanced aside, to be sure no one was close, apparently, and confided in a low voice to Tavi, “They smell.”
Tavi lifted his brows, but nodded. “Yeah. I guess they do.”
“Aleran,” Kitai said. “My sire is right about one thing. You have courage. It will be an honor to face you in a trial. But I will defeat you. Do not think that this will end in any other way, despite whatever spirits are yours to call.”
Tavi felt a scowl harden his features. Kitai’s eyes narrowed, and he stepped back a half pace, one hand falling to the knife at his belt.
“I don’t have any,” Tavi said. “And back at my steadholt, we have a saying about counting your chickens before they’ve hatched.”
“My people eat eggs before they’ve hatched,” Kitai said, and stepped toward the coiled ropes. “I thought you might make it out alive, Aleran, thanks to your spirits. But we will only need to use one rope before dawn.”
Tavi started to say something quick and heated back, but Fade’s hand gripped his shoulder ab
ruptly. Tavi turned to face the slave.
Fade frowned at him, his scarred face hideous and concerned. Then he said, “Be careful, Tavi.” And with that, he took the pack that had been slung over his shoulder and dropped it onto Tavi’s.
The boy let out a breath at the sudden weight. “Fade, uh. Maybe it would be better if I didn’t take anything with me. I’ll move faster without it.”
“Marat stronger than Tavi,” Fade said. “Faster.”
“Thank you,” Tavi said, testily. “I needed that kind of encouragement.”
Fade’s eyes glittered with something like good humor, and he ruffled Tavi’s hair with one hand. “Tavi smart. There. Bag of tricks. Be smart, Tavi. Important.”
Tavi tilted his head to one side, peering at the slave. “Fade?” he asked.
The glitter faded from the man’s eyes, and he gave Tavi his witless grin.
“Valleyboy,” Doroga called. “There is no time to waste.”
Tavi said to Fade, quickly, “If I don’t come back, Fade. I want you to remember to tell Aunt Isana that I love her. Uncle, too.”
“Tavi,” Fade nodded. “Come back.”
The boy blew out a breath. Whatever spark of awareness had been in the man’s eyes was gone now. “All right,” he said, and walked over to Doroga. He shrugged into the pack, drawing the straps down to their smallest size, so that it would fit closely to his back.
Doroga was handling his rope. Tavi watched as the Marat worked a loop into the end of it with the skill of a sailor and drew it tight. The Marat stood, leaving the loop just touching the ground, and in a moment of understanding, Tavi stepped forward and slipped his foot into the loop, taking up the rope itself to hold it tight.
Doroga nodded his approval. To Tavi’s right, Kitai had knotted the rope himself and stood at the edge of the precipice, his expression impatient. Tavi walked awkwardly to the precipice’s edge and stared over it to a drop of several hundred feet down a nearly sheer surface. His head spun a bit, and his belly suddenly shook and felt light.
“Are you afraid, Aleran?” Kitai asked, and let out a low little laugh.
Tavi shot the other boy a sharp glance and then turned to Doroga, who had secured the far end of the rope to a stake driven into the earth and looped it about a second such stake, so that he could let the rope out gradually. “Let’s go,” Tavi said, and with that, took a step back over the precipice and swung himself down into space.
Doroga held the line steady, and after a very short moment of terror, Tavi bumped against the wall and steadied himself, holding on. Doroga began to lower the rope, but Tavi called up, “Faster! Let it out faster!”
There was a brief pause, and then the rope began to play out quickly, lowering Tavi down the face of the cliff at a rather alarming rate.
From above, there was a yelp, and Kitai swung out into space. The boy plummeted down for several yards, and Tavi got the impression that when the rope finally did tighten and catch him that Hashat had only just managed to do so. Kitai shot Tavi a bright-eyed, angry glance and called something up the cliff in another tongue. A moment later, he, too, began to descend the cliff more quickly.
Tavi used one foot and one hand to keep himself from dragging on the stone and found that it was more effort than he would have expected. He was shortly panting, but a swift glance up at Kitai told him that he had thought correctly: Doroga’s huge muscles had an easier time letting out the rope at a faster, controlled rate than the more slender Hashat’s did, and Tavi had gained considerable distance on the other boy as they descended.
As he came down, closer to the lambent green glow of the croach, he shot a glance up at Kitai and smiled, fiercely.
Kitai let out a sharp whistle, and the line abruptly stopped playing out.
Tavi stared up at him in confusion. Until the other boy drew his knife, reached across to the rope that held Tavi thirty feet over the floor of the bizarre forest below and, with an answering smile, used the dark, glassy knife to begin swiftly slicing through Tavi’s rope.
CHAPTER 33
Tavi took one look at the thirty odd feet between him and the ground below, then reached a hand up, fumbling at Fade’s pack. He jerked the flap open and grabbed the first thing his fingers could reach, though all the squirming made him twist and spin on the rope. He squinted up as best he could and then flung it at the Marat above him.
Kitai let out a yelp and jerked back in a dodge. A hunk of cheese smacked into the stone beside the Marat’s head, clung for a moment, then dropped and fell toward the wax-covered ground below.
Kitai blinked at the cheese and then at Tavi, his face twisting into a scowl. Doroga hadn’t stopped lowering the rope, and so the cut the Marat had begun had already descended out of his reach. Kitai steadied himself against the cliff face, then reached out with his knife and began slicing at the rope again. “Foolish, Aleran. Kinder if you fell, broke a leg, and had to turn back rather than be devoured by the Keepers.”
Tavi scrambled in the pack and found cloth wrapped around several biscuits. He grabbed the first and hurled it at Kitai. “So I could be eaten by your people instead?”
Kitai scowled, not deterred this time. A biscuit bounced off his outstretched arm. “We would at least not eat you alive.”
“Stop that!” Tavi shouted. He threw another biscuit, to no effect. A thick strand of the braided rope parted with a whining snap, and Tavi’s heart lurched as the rope spun and swung from side to side. He glanced below him. Another twenty feet to ground. He’d never be able to fall that far without hurting himself, possibly too badly to continue.
Another strand parted, and Tavi swayed wildly back and forth, his heart hammering high in his throat.
Arms and legs shaking with excitement, Tavi took one last glance down (fifteen feet, or a little more?). He slipped his foot out of the loop at the bottom of the grey rope, and as quickly as he could, he slipped down the rope, gripping with his hands, and letting his legs swing below him. He reached the loop and with a gulp grasped onto it, letting his legs swing out far beneath him.
The rope parted with a snap. Tavi plummeted.
Between Doroga lowering the rope from above and the few feet he had gained by letting himself farther down the rope, the fall might have been little more than ten feet. Not much higher than the roof of the stables, and he had jumped from there several times—always into mounds of hay, true, but he had made the jump without fear. He tried to remember to keep his legs loose, to fall, roll if he possibly could.
The fall seemed to take forever, and when Tavi landed it was a shock to his ankles, knees, thighs, hips, back, all in rapid succession as he tumbled to the earth. He landed on one side, arms flailing wildly out and slapping down with him, and his breath exploded out from him in a rush. He lay for a moment without moving, dimly aware that he was on the ground, still clutching the loop in the end of the rope in his fist.
He regained his breath in a few moments, becoming aware of a couple of incongruous facts as he did. First, there was no snow, down here in the chasm. Of course, he had seen no snow from above, but the significance of it hadn’t quite registered on him until he reached the ground. It was warm. Humid. Nearly stifling. He sat up, slowly, pushing himself up with his hands.
The ground beneath him, or rather, the greenly luminous wax beneath his fingers felt pleasantly warm, and he let them rest against it for a moment, letting his chilled fingers recover from the cold wind that had frozen them on the way down from the top of the cliff. His ankles stung as though being prickled by thousands of tiny needles, but the sensation faded after a moment, leaving them feeling merely uncomfortable and sore.
Tavi gathered himself to his feet, the pack shifting about uncomfortably on his back, and squinted at his surroundings.
What was beautiful from high above was, once among it, disorienting and a little disturbing. The waxy growth, the croach, grew right up to the stone walls of the chasm and stopped there, but for one place he could see, where it had crept up the walls,
evidently to engulf a lone and scraggly tree trying to grow from a crack in the stone. The luminous glow made shadows fall weirdly, with one engulfed tree casting several ghostly weak shadows on the glowing floor of the forest. Beneath the croach, the shadowy outlines of the trees themselves reminded Tavi uncomfortably of bones beneath flesh.
Tavi heard a scrabble on the wall and turned in time to see Kitai drop the last dozen feet to the floor of the forest, landing soundlessly, absorbing the shock of landing on both feet and on his arms, crouching for a moment on all fours, pale hair and opalescent eyes wild and greenish in the quiet light of the croach. His gaze darted left and right, wary, and his head tilted to one side, listening, focused on the lambent forest before him.
Tavi’s temper flared, fear and pain quickly becoming an outraged anger that made arms shake with the sudden need to avenge himself. He rose and stalked silently toward Kitai. Tavi tapped the Marat on the shoulder, and when Kitai turned toward him, he balled up his fist and drove it into the other boy’s ribs as hard as he could.
Kitai flinched, but didn’t move quickly enough to evade the blow. Tavi pressed his advantage, jerking the Marat’s arm away from his flank and punching him again in the same spot, as hard as he could. Kitai fumbled for his knife, and Tavi shoved him away as hard as he could, sending the other boy sprawling onto the glowing surface of the croach.
Kitai turned his opalescent eyes toward Tavi and pushed himself up with his hands. “Aleran,” he snarled, “my sire’s generosity is wasted on you. If you want a Trial of Blood, then—”
Kitai stopped abruptly, his eyes going wide.
Tavi, prepared to defend himself, blinked at the sudden change in the Marat. Gooseflesh rippled up his arms. Silent, he followed the Marat’s gaze down—to his own feet.