Beneath the Canyons

by Kyra Halland

  They rode on for a few more leagues, making small talk about the weather and events in town, until a ranch house and its outbuildings and sheltering stand of scrub oak and lowland pine came into view a hundred measures or so north of the road. “That’s our place,” Lainie said. “I’ll go on along to the house. Keep on the road till you come to the next creek. Turn north before you cross it, and follow it to the mushroom pine. Wait for me there.”

  In the Wildings, especially in the more remote areas where roads were almost non-existent and landmarks were few, such arcane directions were common, and Silas had learned long ago to pay close attention to them. “I’ll do that,” he said.

  Lainie headed for the ranch house, and he continued on down the road, the oaks and pines keeping him hidden from view of the ranch compound. Soon he came to a wooden bridge over a shallow wash with about a hand’s depth of water running in it. There must have already been a fair amount of rainfall up in the mountains. He turned right before crossing the bridge, and followed the creek north, keeping to higher ground in case it continued to rise. After a league or so, he came to the tree Lainie had described, a stunted lowland pine with a strangely-rounded top.

  Thunder rumbled from the mountains to the west, and gray sheets of rain obscured the front range as the clouds moved down the slopes. By the time Lainie arrived at the mushroom pine, the storm was moving east across the valley. “Sorry,” she said. “Pa kept wanting to talk about things in town. I told him I needed to check on some fencing out here before that storm blows in. Come on.”

  She led him another league or so north, veering away from the creek, then stopped near a wooden structure like the others Silas had seen scattered across the valley. She dismounted, and Silas followed suit.

  “Look at the grass.” Lainie gestured towards the structure.

  In an area perhaps ten measures wide around the mine shelter, the long green-gold grass that covered the valley floor had turned gray. A closer look revealed that it wasn’t just dead but slimy and rotten, with a rank smell of decay. The strange, dark power he had detected days ago while he was still a hundred leagues away was so thick here that he could feel it even without using his mage senses.

  “And there’s a spring over here.” Lainie led Silas a short distance into the area of dead grass, to where water oozed sluggishly from the ground only to disappear again after only an arm-length or so. Although springs were often slow or dried up this time of year, at the tail end of the dry season, there was something unnatural about this spring’s slowness, as though the water itself was dead. It was also strangely dull, not reflecting even the slightest glint of daylight. It gave off a faint sour, metallic odor. “That spring’s ruined,” Lainie said. “If it’s a stream passing through where they’ve mined, it clears up again a little ways beyond the area. But if the spring is in the mining field, that spring and the water from it are no good any more, far as anyone can tell. At least they’re too dead to spread to any other streams and poison them, but during the dry season we can’t afford to lose too many springs that should be running.”

  Silas walked over to the wooden structure, Lainie keeping well behind him as though afraid to approach it. He didn’t blame her; something about that particular spot made chills run up his spine and the back of his neck go all prickly.

  The structure surrounded a rough-edged hole in the ground. He peered down the hole; it was deep enough that the bottom was lost in darkness. A crudely tied-together ladder extended a couple of hand-widths out of the hole. Though it looked rickety, Silas judged that the wood was sound.

  He returned to Abenar and took a hunting knife, his leather gloves, and a small leather pouch from his saddlebags. “What does the ore look like?” he asked Lainie.

  “I’ve never had a close look at it. It’s black, that’s all I know.”

  “It shouldn’t be too hard to spot, if those beef-brains Carden has working for him can find it. I’ll be right back.” He pulled on his gloves, in case the ore was poisonous to touch, then climbed down the ladder into the dark pit.

  * * *

  LAINIE WATCHED NERVOUSLY as Mr. Vendine climbed down the rickety ladder into the hole. She hoped he didn’t take too long; it made her uneasy, being around the pits where they’d dug the ore out. Echoes of the night terrors crept into her body, chilling her, making her lungs labor for air and her heart pound heavy and fast. Fear teased at the edges of her mind, and harsh, wordless whispering filled her ears. She pulled herself away from the brink of panic and focused on hoping that the ladder wouldn’t break.

  Her fears for Mr. Vendine’s safety eased a few minutes later when his brown leather hat reappeared at the top of the ladder, followed by the rest of him as he climbed out of the mine. The leather pouch hung heavily from his gloved hand, and he was grinning. “It’s not too hard to find, even if you don’t know what you’re looking for.” He tipped the contents of the pouch into his hand. The ore looked like small chunks of coal but blacker than anything Lainie had ever seen, and completely dull, not reflecting even the tiniest flicker of light. It actually seemed to smother any light that touched it.

  “What’s it like?” Lainie asked.

  “Cold,” Mr. Vendine said, rolling the lumps of ore around in his hand. “I can even feel it through my gloves. And there’s definitely magic in it.”

  “Let me see.” Lainie held out her hand.

  Mr. Vendine took a bandana out of one of his duster pockets, folded it and covered her hand with it, then dropped a few of the black lumps into her palm.

  Icy pain shot up through her arm, seizing her heart and her lungs in freezing agony. Dark terror wrapped around her mind, cutting off sight, hearing, and even thought. Cold ran through her veins, spreading through her arms, her back and legs, her belly and loins. It was like the night terrors, only a hundred times – a thousand times – worse. The harsh, malicious whispering filtered into her mind, and the words took shape. Come with us, you are like us. Come with us, renew us, let us make you stronger, be our hands under the light…

  Terrible visions of what they wanted came to her – her life-force to replenish them, her hands and will and her power, strengthened by their own, to do their work, to destroy all that lived in the light, the infestation that fouled the surface of their world. Their frozen grasp dragged her down into a crushing weight of darkness, where more hateful voices whispered to her and greedy fingers of ice probed at her, violating every part of her mind and body and spirit. Frantically, she struggled, trying to free herself, but their grip was too strong and, in the dark, she didn’t know which way to go to get away –

  “Lainie!” Her name, shouted in a male voice filled with strength and desperation, penetrated the malicious voices and snagged her awareness. A blue glow, faint and distant, pierced through the darkness surrounding her mind. Putting all of her thought onto that voice, now calling out words in a fluid-sounding language she didn’t understand, and that small blue light, she began dragging herself towards them with all her strength.

  The icy fingers pulled at her, scrabbling and snatching, trying to keep her from going. No! she cried out. They pulled all the harder, but she poured every scrap of her will into moving towards the light and voice, towards freedom.

  Finally, she slipped free of their grasp. For now, they said as they let her go. For now you leave us, Sister. But you will return.

  The dark and cold melted away. She came to herself hunched up in a tense huddle on the ground. Mr. Vendine was crouched beside her, his arms around her, his left hand glowing blue. A cool breeze whipped her hair, thunder rumbled overhead, and fat, hard raindrops fell against her face. She had dropped the chunks of ore. She dragged in a long, deep breath; had she breathed at all during the time she was lost in the dark, struggling to get free? “I’m okay now,” she said as the tension drained from her body.

  “Thank the gods,” Mr. Vendine said, his voice worn to shreds. “What happened?”

  “It’s – like the night terrors. But – m
ore. Hateful, powerful. They want to destroy all of us, they wanted me…” She got hold of herself before she could spin away into terror again. “Why did that happen to me, and not to you or anyone else who touches it?”

  “You’re a Wildings-born mage. You must be attuned to the power in that stuff in a way that I’m not, nor would any Plain person be able to sense it.”

  Sister, they had called her. Lainie shuddered. “But the night terrors – I’m not the only one who’s had them.”

  “It could be,” he said slowly, as though thinking it out as he spoke, “that when the ore is dug up, or when it’s exposed to the open air, some of the power is released to affect the grass and water around the mines or any people in the area.”

  He took his arms from around her, and Lainie realized that she was nearly sitting in his lap. Her cheeks grew warm. The edges of her mind and emotions still felt shredded by the horror she had experienced, but she was well enough that there was no more excuse for her to stay where she was. Although she did like it there.

  She stood up, and Mr. Vendine got to his feet as well. “I’d like to know how much Carden knows about this stuff,” he said. “I’m certain he knows the night terrors come from it; I wonder if he realizes how powerful it really is. And I’d like to know what it’s being used for, and by whom.”

  “Foreign scientists, supposedly.”

  “I’m not so sure I believe the scientist story any more. This is magic, going beyond the common forces of nature that anyone can sense and use. Scientists deny the existence of this kind of power.”

  “Do you think Mr. Carden might be the rogue mage you’re looking for, and that he’s really collecting it for himself, or for another renegade?”

  He gave her a keen look and seemed to think it over for a moment. “Could be. The thing is, I haven’t detected the slightest trace of power from him, and running an operation like this is more work than most rogue mages are interested in doing. Besides, he’d have to be a damned reckless fool, even for a rogue, to be messing around with this stuff if he does have any idea at all how powerful it is. Either way, though, I think I need to take a closer look at him.”

  The rain was coming down harder now. Lainie wiped water from her eyes. Her clothes were fast on the way to being drenched.

  “Let’s get you out of this storm and safe home,” Mr. Vendine said. He tossed the ore he had dug up back into the pit, then fetched an oiled canvas rain cape from his saddlebags and draped it around Lainie.

  “What am I going to tell my Pa about why you’re bringing me home?” she asked.

  “We’ll tell him the truth. Or something close to it.” He gave her a grin and a wink, and a shiver went through her, deliciously warm in spite of the chill from the rainstorm.

  Chapter 6

  THE RAIN WAS still pouring down hard when Silas and Lainie rode up to the Banfrey house. As they dismounted, a ranch hand sitting on the front porch in a chair tilted back against the wall stood up. “I’ll take the horses,” he said. “You folks go on in and get dry.”

  “Would you like to stay for supper, Mr. Vendine?” Lainie asked.

  Silas couldn’t turn down the rare offer of a home cooked meal, or the promise of pleasant company. “Indeed I would, Miss Banfrey.” He judged it better to be more formal when her very protective father might be within earshot.

  Before Silas could start up the front steps, two giant brown cattlehounds came galloping around the corner of the house, splashing through the mud and puddles on the ground, barking excitedly. When they reached Silas, one of them reared up on its hind legs, planted its wet, muddy forepaws on Silas’s shoulders, and proceeded to thoroughly lick his face. The other one enthusiastically jammed its muzzle into Silas’s crotch.

  “Bunky, Snoozer! No!” Lainie shouted. Her face was red, but she was laughing. “Bad dogs. To the barn!”

  The dogs backed off. Tongues lolling out of their mouths, they trotted back the way they had come, with a quick sniff at Lainie on the way.

  “Ferocious beasts,” Silas said, laughing as well. He liked animals, though his present way of life didn’t allow for keeping any besides a horse.

  Lainie glanced aside, her smile turning shy again, and tucked some strands of loose hair back under her hat. “If anyone ever tries to rob us, they’ll probably get licked to death.”

  The sight of her smiling, her laughter and jokes, did Silas a world of good; it had given him a real scare when she collapsed and went rigid, not even breathing, an expression of utter horror frozen on her face, after he put the ore in her hand. For an awful moment, he had thought he had killed her. Fortunately, she seemed to have recovered completely. He laughed again, then started climbing the front steps – and nearly tripped over the fat one-eared, orange-striped cat that had started winding itself around his legs.

  “An’ if Bunky and Snoozer don’t do ’em in, Rat’ll make ’em trip an’ break their necks,” Lainie said.

  Silas reached down and scratched the loudly-purring cat’s head. “Rat?”

  “After the rat that ate his ear off. His first catch, when he was about five ninedays old.”

  “Thieves better watch out, then.”

  She laughed shyly. “Yeah.”

  She led him into the front parlor of the house, where she took off the rain cape and he shed his dripping coat and hat. Lainie hung her hat and Silas’s, her gunbelt, and the wet garments on some hooks by the door. Then she turned to the small household shrine in the corner of the room. A few handfuls of grain and seeds and a couple of pennies lay on the altar before a candle inscribed with the symbols of the eight gods. In the Wildings, only the wealthiest households could afford individual candles dedicated to each god. Lainie set a flower she had picked somewhere along the way on the altar, then touched the first and middle fingers of her right hand to her forehead, mouth, and heart.

  Silas made his respects likewise at the shrine, and fished in his pocket for several pennies, which he added to the offerings. Once a nineday, on All-Gods Day, the offerings would be distributed, the seeds and grain set aside for planting or grinding, the coins distributed to the needy.

  A thin, weathered man in his mid-forties, with gray-streaked black hair and sky blue eyes, came through a door into the parlor. “What took you so long?” he asked Lainie. Then he looked at Silas. “Who’s that?”

  “Don’t forget your hospitality, Pa,” Lainie said. “Mr. Vendine helped me when I got caught in the storm.”

  “That so,” Banfrey said. He bore little resemblance to Lainie, except around the eyes and cheekbones and in his intent stare as he examined Silas. “Well, then, Vendine. There’s a pot of hot chickroot brew out in the mess room –”

  “Dining room, Pa. It’s the dining room.”

  Banfrey ignored his daughter’s correction. “Why don’t you come in with me and have a cup and tell me how you happened to come across my daughter?”

  Silas looked at Lainie. “Can I be of any more assistance, Miss Banfrey?”

  “No, I can manage now. You go on, and I’ll get supper ready.”

  Banfrey went back out the door he had come in by, while Silas watched Lainie go into the kitchen, trying to not be too obvious about it. Underneath the ill-fitting men’s clothes, she had a trim, neat, undeniably feminine figure, and when he had held her, drawing her out of the darkness and then comforting her, she had smelled so good – grass and horse and sweat and something spicy, and, underneath it all, woman. Here in her home she seemed capable and in charge, which only added to her admirable qualities. Then, before her father could notice his delay, he followed Banfrey through the door into the dining room.

  * * *

  IN THE KITCHEN, Lainie checked on the big pot of beans and salt pork that had been simmering all day and kept an ear open to her Pa’s conversation with Mr. Vendine in the dining room. “So, tell me what you’re doing out this way, Vendine, and how you happened across my daughter,” her Pa said.

  Lainie held her breath. The truth, or close
enough, Mr. Vendine had said. Please don’t tell him you’re a mage, she silently begged. He had hidden his mage ring back inside his shirt; surely that was a secret he meant to keep.

  “Well, sir,” Mr. Vendine said, “I’ve been curious to see one of these mines that folks are so upset about, and Miss Banfrey had mentioned there was one on your land, upstream along the creek west of here. So I came out here to take a look at it. Terrible what it does to the grazing and water.”

  The beans were done; Lainie gave them a stir, tossed in a couple of pinches of dried stingergrass, and covered them again. Her beans were always good, but she wanted them to be extra good today. Not just to impress Mr. Vendine, she told herself. They almost never had company, so this was a special occasion and she wanted to put her best face forward, no matter who their guest was. And, after the horrifying ordeal with the ore, the simple tasks of cooking were a relief; they helped her feel steadier and leave the last remnants of the nightmare behind. She opened the oven to see if the loaves of sour-everlasting bread she had put in to bake earlier were ready. They were brown and crusty; perfectly done.

  “Damned terrible,” Burrett was saying. “Most stock won’t eat the poisoned grass or drink the water. It smells and tastes foul to them. But there’s always some that do, and then we have to figure their meat is poisoned as well. Terrible waste. An’ then there’s the ones that fall down the open pits. Lost three head that way since early spring. Should make the gods-damned miners try to live off the land they’ve ruined. Hanging’s too good for ’em.”

  Mr. Vendine made a vague sound that might have been agreement. Still listening, Lainie went out to the front porch to fetch the colander of greens she had washed and set out there earlier.

  “Now,” Burrett went on, “how did you happen to meet up with my daughter?”