by karlov, matt
What in the hells was that? Arandras shot the other man a sidelong glance. A gesture of conciliation? The disquiet that had been with him since the village intensified.
I’m not a traitor. A traitor would be leading Clade here to thwart the Quill. Arandras was bringing him here to destroy him. And in any case, the Oculus weren’t the real issue, whatever Bannard’s misgivings. I can’t let Fas take the golems. Not after Isaias’s shop. And there was no reason why he should. Fas had never asked for the golems. He’d just assumed they were his for the taking.
Arandras was simply assuming them back.
The sun was approaching its zenith when Ienn returned from his climb. “It’s passable,” he said, a faint sheen on his brow. “Narrow in places, though. Some of you will need help.”
On Ienn’s advice, a rope was tied around a thick tree above the back-and-forth path. Mara volunteered to go first, stepping lightly onto the trail and out of sight. Ienn followed her progress along the cliff edge, pulling the rope across the low scrub as she descended. Arandras watched it slither from side to side, stripping the leaves from the slender shoots in its path, until at last it went still.
“Clear,” came the call from the bottom of the cliff.
Ienn tugged the rope back to the beginning of the track. “Who’s next?”
Arandras allowed several Quill to take their turn before he stepped up to the path. Wrapping his hands around the thick, scratchy rope, he edged out onto the first shelf. Patterns of sunlight danced over the pale stone of the cliff, reflected from ripples and wavelets on the lake’s surface far below. He narrowed his eyes, focusing on the ledge and the placement of each step as the gentle breeze nudged him against the cliff.
At the first gap he halted, frowning appraisingly. A section of path had fallen away, the resulting space just wide enough to be uncomfortable. On the far side lay a slanting ledge less than half the width of the one he now stood on. Wonderful. Miss it by a finger and I’ll be taking the short way down.
Grasping the rope in both hands, Arandras shuffled forward. He crouched, feeling the stone’s edge beneath the toes of his boots. Then, eyes fixed on the ledge before him, he leapt.
He landed awkwardly, feet scrabbling for purchase on the pebble-strewn shelf. Heart thudding, he hauled on the rope, pulling himself tight against the cliff wall. Still here. I’m still here. He edged further along, breathing a sigh of relief as the shelf began to widen beneath his feet. There. That wasn’t so bad. Swallowing, he loosened his grip on the rope ever so slightly, eyes darting ahead to the next break in the path. Piece of cake.
But the first gap was the worst. Thereafter he was able to step across the holes, aided by the downward slope, using the rope only to steady himself when the ledge became too narrow to trust his footing. By the time he reached the bottom he was almost relaxed, stepping from one shelf to the next with such settled concentration that he was surprised to find the cliff end and the shore begin.
“Clear,” Mara called as he released the rope. He stepped back, taking in the cliff and the path he’d just traversed. Yeah. Piece of cake.
The next Quill began to pick his way down. Arandras glanced westward, his gaze drawn by a hole in the craggy stone about halfway up the escarpment. How deep does that go, I wonder? He moved closer, squinting at the dark hollow, boots crunching on the pebbled shore. The cavity was wider at the bottom than the top, but too regular to be natural. A window, maybe?
Someone drew up alongside. “Looks almost like the lower half of a triangle, doesn’t it?” Narvi said. “I keep thinking it looks familiar, but I can’t work out why.”
Arandras scratched his beard. Now that Narvi mentioned it, it did look familiar. He peered up, trying to place the nagging sense of having seen it before.
Narvi pointed further along the cliff face. “Is that another one over there?”
The second window was higher and smaller, and seemed to point in a slightly different direction. The rock around it was mottled, rough with crags and creases. Viewed from the lake, it was probably indistinguishable from the rest of the cliff.
The third overlooked a cleft in the rocky wall. Fallen rocks choked the fissure after several dozen paces, a few spilling to the base of a great boulder that looked to have been pressed into the cliff. Narvi grasped Arandras’s arm in excitement. “That’s it. Get out the urn.”
Of course. Arandras dug the pewter vessel out of its pouch, pushed aside its wrapping. There it was, in the band of images etched into its curved belly: a cliff split by a gorge, a man and a golem standing at its mouth; and high in the cliff wall, almost too small to see, a window shaped like the lower half of a triangle.
“This is the place,” Narvi said, his eyes dancing; and despite himself, Arandras found himself smiling in return.
The golems. They’re here.
Chapter 22
Your life is a song in the ears of the All-God, and every past day a voice in your choir. They sing without surcease: harsh or soft, treacherous or beautiful, the forgotten days no less than those remembered.
Today, my friends, you will add a new voice to your choir. Choose it well.
— Herev Gis
Latter Sermons
Chapter 28, Verses 43–44
(as ordered by the Gislean Provin)
For the fourth night in a row, Eilwen slept badly.
Though misty horses no longer filled her dreams, she found herself waking with a violent start again and again, heart racing and dagger drawn, staring in mindless panic at the shadowy trees above her. Eventually, after half a dozen such wakenings, she gave up, raising herself to a sitting position and listening to the called greetings of magpies, lorikeets, and other birds as the grey light of dawn crept slowly over the forest.
Despite the difficult night, she found the stillness of the morning strangely calming. How rarely have I done this? Alone under the sky with the sunrise, welcoming the day. There was a power in it, something great and constant and unyielding. Dawn is the Dreamer’s time, before the sorrow of the day begins. She’d heard the words since childhood, even recited them herself on occasion, but she’d never understood them until now.
The sense of calm stayed with her throughout the morning, bringing an ease to her steps which she found both refreshing and confusing. What had changed? Nothing she could think of. Perhaps it was something about getting out of the city, and it had taken this long for it to finally work its way into her system. Though I’ve been out of Anstice plenty of times before, and it never made me feel like this.
Maybe the difference was that this time she knew she wasn’t going back.
She stopped around midday, sitting on a boulder and chewing some flatbread. The leafy canopy danced above her head, sending shadows scurrying across the forest floor. She smiled, tilting her face skyward to catch the breeze, and felt the egg stir at her side.
It whispered to her like an old lover, crooning to her, murmuring the secret song that only they had ever shared. Her feeling of wellbeing slipped away, replaced in an instant by something cool and dark and intimate. Hunger bloomed in her belly, the kind of hunger that bread did nothing to assuage, and she felt the beast stir. It opened a slitted eye, then stretched, baring its teeth in a savage smile.
He’s coming. The token-bearer returns.
Hurriedly, she crammed the last of the bread into her mouth and stepped into the shadow of a large tree. The trail crested a hill just a few paces ahead, and for a moment she considered peeking over the rise. No. He’d have as good a chance of seeing me first as the other way around. She slowed her breaths, pressing her back against the tree trunk. Thick ferns crowded the other side of her tree, making a stealthy approach from that side impossible. Anyone backtracking would have no choice but to come right past her hiding place.
She eased the knife into her hand and listened to the egg.
It began to pulse, the rhythm thin but unmistakable. A token-bearer again, no question. With luck, the same one; if not, she’d have to
chance her hand. Either way, the same tactics would likely suffice: a single knife thrust between the back ribs into the heart. Gods grant he hasn’t found his armour.
The pulse strengthened to a throb. The rustling overhead dimmed in her ears, giving way to a strained silence. Something scraped just ahead: a boot on the ground, or just a branch against its neighbour? She tightened her grip on the dagger and held her breath.
A figure stepped soundlessly into view. Eilwen glimpsed a stooped shoulder and dark hair in Plainsmen’s braids. The head swivelled away from her, searching the scrub on the other side of the trail. Her arm tensed, ready to strike. Just one more step. One more… and…
Her knife slipped into his back as though of its own accord, as if skin and sinew offered no more resistance than hot wax.
The man cried out once and crumpled to the ground. She stooped to retrieve her dagger, wiped it clean on his shirt. Then she straightened, looking down at the body through the beast’s eyes, drinking in the sight. The peace she’d felt all morning was gone, but there was nothing unpleasant in its place. Just a different kind of calm.
One down, she thought. Six to go.
A shouted hello from beyond the hill pulled her attention back to her surroundings. The man’s companions were coming. Eilwen tore her gaze from the body at her feet and started down the hill, away from the approaching voice. If she stuck to the trail, they might think her a better woodsman than she was and not bother trying to find her.
On the other hand, if they decided to split up to search for her, that would be even better.
Once upon a time, she’d have had days of nausea to look forward to after something like this. Murder always left me feeling ill. But then, it wasn’t really murder, was it? That was what she’d never understood before.
The Oculus were the enemy. This was a war. And she was a soldier.
She smiled and stroked the hilt of her dagger.
•
The massive boulder seemed impervious to sorcery, but the Quill earthbinders were able to cut a hollow in the ground before it, forming a trough into which it might be rolled. Arandras was assigned a place behind the boulder with a Quill he didn’t know. Two more Quill mirrored their positions on the other side, with the rest of the group divided between three ropes fastened to the mammoth rock. When Ienn called the order, Arandras pushed, those on the ropes pulled, and slowly, grudgingly, the boulder shifted a hand’s breadth away from the cliff.
“Again!” Arandras set his feet against the wall, straining against the rock with his entire body. It shifted a fraction, then abruptly lurched forward. He fell to the ground, wincing as he landed on his side, a knuckle of stone digging into his thigh. Grimacing, he stumbled to his feet and looked around.
A dark opening yawned where the boulder had been. Half again as high as a man and wide enough for four or five, the passage stretched away into impenetrable blackness. A cool draught wafted past Arandras’s face, laced with a dusty, unfamiliar scent, and he sneezed.
Light flared among the Quill, casting flickering shadows into the passage. “If you’ve got a lamp or a sparker, fire it up,” Ienn said. “If not, stay close to someone who does.”
“And nobody touch anything,” Narvi added. “First time in is observation only.”
The Quill began to file in, lamps in hand, some leaving their bags outside the passage. Arandras watched the procession go by. Anyone feel like sharing a light? Narvi and Fas walked past, Fas murmuring something about Chogon’s likely reaction to their discovery, and Arandras grimaced. Maybe that rangy Jervian…
Mara halted beside him, a slender torch in her hand. “Waiting for someone?”
Huh. Look who’s come around. He gave a quick smile of thanks. “Not any more,” he said, and thought he saw her lips twitch in response.
They entered the passage on the heels of the last Quill, the group spread out before them, each island of light illuminating another small section of stone; and though most of the passage was still shrouded in darkness, Arandras could see enough to get a sense of its shape.
The space was a cavern, at least three times as wide as the entrance and twice as high, and deeper than the light could penetrate. The walls curved into the ceiling in a giant semicircle of pale, grey-brown rock. Footsteps and voices echoed in the hollow space, as though each person was shadowed by a muttering, foot-scuffing twin just beyond the lamplight. Arandras brushed his hand against a rocky spur protruding from the wall. It was hard, its edges smoother than he expected. His fingers came away coated with a fine dust bearing the same dry scent he’d smelled by the entrance, tickling his nose with hints of leather, and spice, and hot desert sand. He sneezed again, and the sound boomed around the cavern like cannon fire.
“Gods,” Mara hissed. “Don’t do that again.”
The cavern sloped down just enough to be noticeable. Doorless portals pierced the walls at irregular intervals, similar in size to what might be found in any building across the Free Cities, though in this place they seemed absurdly small. Some opened to cramped, windowless cells, others on winding stone staircases leading to some lower level. But there seemed an unspoken consensus among the group: onward, to the end of the passage and whatever lay beyond.
They pressed on. In the dark it was impossible to judge distance. A sudden thought made Arandras glance back the way they had come. All was black, save for a faint smudge of what might have been daylight on a pale wall. The passage must be turning. Steering us back toward the cliff. He ran his hand along the wall, feeling for the curve in the rough stone, but it was too slight to detect.
Voices called out from the other side of the cavern, drawing Arandras’s attention. Two lamps and a torch had come to a halt before what appeared to be a mound of rocky earth. There was a muted exchange, then a word from Narvi that sounded like either permission or a command; and a moment later, a gout of flame bloomed up from the torch, billowing to the ceiling in a fiery mass of orange and yellow, lighting up the cavern for the space of a heartbeat before winking out and plunging them back into gloom.
Firebinder, Arandras thought, even as he took in what he’d seen. The loose earth was more than just a mound — it extended all the way to the ceiling, sprawling across half the cavern’s width like an underground hill. A cave-in. Hells. I thought the Valdori were supposed to be better than that.
“Old, I think,” someone said as Arandras and Mara joined the rest of the group, gathering before the heaped earth.
“How old, Halli?” Fas said.
The woman shrugged. “Years. Centuries. Who knows? It’s not about to come crashing down on our heads, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Good to know,” Arandras muttered.
Mara quirked an eyebrow at him. “Of course, that’s probably what the Valdori said, too.”
Yeah. Probably.
“All right,” Narvi said. “Let’s move on.”
They resumed their course, skirting the edge of the cave-in, Arandras and Mara now at the fore of the group. Arandras peered into the still, inky blackness, straining for any glimmer of reflected light from something solid. The slope seemed to have levelled off now — either that, or he could no longer sense it in the dark.
Mara shifted the torch to her other hand, causing the shadows at their feet to jump and flicker. Her boot scraped against something and she stumbled, cursing. “Weeper’s breath! Why doesn’t Narvi just put a firebinder in the lead and have him light the whole place up?”
“Yeah,” Arandras said. “Because nothing brightens a dark cave like accidentally setting something on fire.” Or triggering some ancient binding with a grudge against sorcery.
“We survived a moment ago,” Mara muttered. “A little more wouldn’t kill anyone.”
A dark shape loomed before them, tall and wide, blacker even than the surrounding gloom. Arandras blinked, trying to make sense of the murky object. Then Mara moved the torch, and the shadows resolved into pale stone walls about another empty portal, this one of
similar dimensions to the entrance now lost to sight behind them. Aha. The end, at last. Mara glanced across, brows raised in anticipation; then she raised the torch and they stepped inside.
At first they could see little more than a smooth section of floor. Then, as the Quill entered behind them with sparkers and lamps, the room’s layout became clear. The chamber was roughly square, a stark contrast to the rounded walls and ceiling of the passageway. An uneven bench ran along one wall, apparently carved in place when the chamber was cut from the stone. The other sides of the chamber offered no such amenity — instead, shackles hung from the walls in clusters of four, two just above the ground, two more at about the height of Arandras’s shoulders.
“The gods wept,” Narvi breathed. “What is this?”
Arandras lifted one of the shackles, causing the chain to clink softly. It was lighter than it appeared, the strange, speckled metal cool and smooth, unmarked by rust or verdigris. He held up the fine circlet, running a finger around its circumference. The band was wide enough to fit around both his balled fists with room to spare.
A simple key protruded from the lock, and he gave it an experimental twist. The shackle shut with a smart click. He opened it again, let it fall back against the wall.
“They’re too big,” Fas said. “Too big to be human. They must be…”
“For the golems,” Mara said.
“Weeper’s blessed tears,” Narvi said. “Why?”
Nobody answered.
Another doorless opening stood directly opposite the one they had come in. Mara stepped toward it, Arandras close behind. She reached the threshold, then stopped dead with an audible gasp.
Arandras stepped alongside. “What’s the — oh.” Oh my.
Where the first, empty cavern had been raw display of might, this was a soaring expression of elegance and grandeur. He stood on a low platform at one side of the tremendous room. Thin streams of light filtered in from windows and other openings high in what Arandras judged to be the rear wall. Vaulted ceilings rose in dizzying arches, their peaks lost in the shadows above. And before him, like giants frozen in time, like strange formations of earth and clay growing from the rock itself, stood rows upon rows of golems.