Fractured Everest Box Set

by D. H. Dunn

  Wanda leaped to her feet, not giving Nima the chance to follow up on Kater’s offer. Nima had her brother now and Wanda had been patient enough.

  “How did you really know my father?” Wanda asked, her heart beginning to pound. “How did you manage to arrange to meet me in Gorak Shep?”

  “Does that matter?” Nima asked. “He was there. Now he is here. How he did it won’t help us now.”

  “It will help me,” Wanda said. “It will help me trust.”

  “Very well,” Kater said. “The reason is not what you might expect, but I will explain if it will help you, Miss Dobrowolski. No doubt my sister’s attendant here described the differences between Upala and me to at least some of you. Merin, would you summarize?”

  “Why not do it yourself?” Merin asked. “After all, it will allow you to hear yourself speak more.”

  Kaditula slapped his wife on the thigh, his smile clear. Kater laughed, his bitter chuckle echoing through the chasm.

  “Oh, Attendant. I hope Upala treasured you, a wit is a rare thing. Do you know how many years I often have to go without hearing a good joke?”

  Merin’s glare her only response.

  Kater took a deep breath, brushing snow off a large boulder before sitting.

  “As I have said before, I am Manad Vhan, as is my sister. We’ve learned that there are supposedly many of our kind in our world, yet in all our long lives we have never seen any but each other. Our parents were cast out of the City of Sands, the home of our people, millennia ago, sentenced to wander Aroha Darad for some crime. What that was Upala and I never determined.”

  Wanda sat back down next to Nima, still staring at Kater’s face in the low crystal-light of the Under’s colored veins. She found herself leaning forward slightly, her mind waiting on each of Kater’s words.

  “In our world, people like them,” Kater nodded toward Merin and Kaditula, “the rakhum, they consider Upala and me gods.” There was a laugh from Merin at this pronouncement, but Kater did not respond to it. “Gifted not just with sorcery but with limitless healing that keeps both weapon and time at bay, to the rakhum we seem immortal. As untouchable as the mountains. This may be true from their quicklife perspective, but my sister and I know it to be a lie.”

  Kater looked down, his face doused in shadow.

  “We know we can be killed,” he said, his voice growing quieter. “As children we saw our parents slaughtered, shredded before our eyes by the one thing on Aroha Darad that can harm a Manad Vhan. The great Fear of my people: a dragon.”

  Drew gasped, while Nima looked up with an expression mixing wonder and excitement. Wanda folded her hands, keeping her breathing steady. It sounded incredible, impossible. Yet in two days she had seen much she would have considered impossible.

  “Our parents defeated the beast, but at the cost of their own lives. We were able to flee, ending up in the lands of the rakhum. Later we learned the dragons had been sealed away from the world, but that story is far too long to tell here. Yet sealed is not defeated, and their return had been prophesized.”

  Kater leaned down, picking up a stray stone and casting it into the chasm. It bounced and chattered against the rock walls for a moment, then was lost into the darkness.

  “My sister and I were shaped by what we witnessed that day. It set us on different paths.”

  Wanda unfolded her hands and stood again. Kater took no notice, his gaze running down into the shadowed depths which they hoped led to his sister.

  “Upala’s obsession has long been to find an escape. Which led her to discovery of the portals, and for millennia she has poured all her essence into finding a world in which the beasts cannot touch her. I have chosen a less . . . cowardly route. She―”

  “Kater,” Wanda interrupted. “What has any of this to do with my father?”

  “Yes, I was getting to that. You quicklifes are so impatient. My life’s pursuit has been to find weapons I could use against the Fears, the dragons. It was in this element that your father, even in his brief time with me, showed an ability to help me push past internal barriers, obstacles in my thinking process that had slowed me for decades. He was like no rakhum I have ever known.”

  Kater pulled a small tube from the pocket of his cloak. It looked to be made of brass or copper and was about the size and width of her finger. Kater turned it over in his hands, looking up with a smile.

  “For example, in just the few short days Henryk was with me, he helped me perfect this.”

  He nodded toward Wanda, tossing the small object to her. It arced in the dim light of the cavern, this last creation of her father’s triggering memories within her. Papa in the basement, parts of clocks and watches covering his workshop. Always tinkering.

  She caught the tube deftly in her palm, where it landed with a clink. It felt light in her hand, weighing almost nothing. Wanda could sense Nima peering over her shoulder as she examined its smooth surface.

  One end of the tube had a small opening on it, the opposite end sporting a small button. There was a seam in the middle as if the device could be unscrewed.

  “Is it a pen?” Nima asked.

  Wanda pointed the tube at the ground a few meters away from her feet and clicked the button. A thin line of blue light emanated from the opening, ending in a dot that danced on the cold stone.

  “A light? This is your great breakthrough?”

  “It is empty,” Kater said. He seemed to bristle a bit as Nima took the small tube from Wanda’s hand and began examining it. “Loaded with the shard of a crystal―any crystal mind you, color is not important―it will translocate the holder to wherever the light shines. Effectively granting the transport powers of a Yeti―in the palm of your hand.”

  She watched as the Sherpa pointed the blue light off into the darkness around her, shining it on various rock outcroppings and crystals.

  Translocate? If it were true, it was no wonder her father had been so adamant in his notes about this place. To move as she had seen the Yeti do―the nation that harnessed that technology would change the world.

  “My father,” he voice was only a whisper now. “He helped you complete this?”

  “He called it a ‘blink tube,’ Kater said with a chuckle. “I find I like the name. It would have been impossible without him.”

  He stood and retrieved the device from Nima, the woman shooting him a disappointed look. Wanda barely noticed as everything around her seemed to be drained of color and interest. Only the tube mattered, and the possibilities of its application were almost endless.

  “This was how you survived that fall in the crevasse. How you caught up with us so quickly after the avalanche,” Wanda muttered.

  “Wait a minute,” Drew said. “If you have this, why haven’t you used it? You could reach your sister much more easily with this.”

  The question and its obvious answer pulled Wanda from her thoughts. Adley, always with so little vision. A good man in his way, she supposed, but not decisive enough to look ahead.

  Properly primed, her mind was now running like a finely tuned instrument, extrapolating information and answering her own questions.

  “They don’t work here,” Wanda said, looking at Kater. The old man smiled and nodded. “That is why they have not used it. The Under seems to suppress and dampen the magic from your world, this Aroha Darad. The portals are dying, your blink tube doesn’t work, and you . . .”

  She stood again, walking across the stone platform toward Kater. She passed the others without looking, keeping her eyes locked on the old man.

  “It affects you too, doesn’t it? Not just your magic, but your immortality. The gray hair, the wrinkles around your eyes; that’s all new isn’t it? The Under is aging you.”

  Kater let out a sigh, his hands clenched. Wanda could see the discomfort in his joints as he cracked his knuckles one by one. It was something she had seen her own father do in his later years as arthritis began to work upon him.

  “There it is,” Kater said through
gritted teeth. “That keen Dobrowolski mind, like a knife. The same blade of words your father used. Quick and sharp they cut for the truth, all things a fair target.”

  “So, it’s true?” Drew asked, standing up and taking a step forward. Kater rose to meet him.

  “Of course it’s true, idiot quicklife. She’s right, the tubes don’t work here. It is fortunate they worked in your world or I’d never have made my way down your mountain.”

  “Wanda’s father found you?” Pasang asked. Wanda noticed he had moved to sit with Kaditula and Merin, though she did not recall seeing it. “How? He could never have gotten up the Icefall.”

  “No, of course not.” Kater sat down. “The Yeti found him. I had been sending the beast out through the portals looking for a route home.” He turned to look directly at Wanda. “It was chance that brought your father to me, already dying. His body could not be repaired, but his mind was powerful and inquisitive. He lived here for a few weeks before passing. Yet in that short time he provided me with much enlightenment.”

  Damp tears threatened Wanda’s vision, forming at the corners of her eyes. It was heartbreaking to think of her Papa trapped here inside the Under, spending his last days with strangers.

  “I have told many lies, but Henryk’s deathbed request to bring you here was true. He hoped you’d finish his work, help save his Poland. So, I found my way down the mountain and assumed the Carter identity to meet you.”

  “Was there a real Carter Bruce?” Drew asked, still standing. “Did you kill him and take his place?”

  “Does it matter?” Kater asked. “I suppose to you it does. Through my talks with Wanda’s father, I knew he had an associate nearby. It would be enough, the ruse only had to last a few days and I would have my goal.

  “There were too many problems left to solve. If the elder Dobrowolski could no longer help me, perhaps his child could?”

  “I’m sure killing another man didn’t matter to―”

  “Quiet, Drew,” Wanda interrupted, pushing past the American to get closer to Kater. The old man was sitting looking up at her, and in that moment he appeared more fragile. More like her own father, right down to the short beard.

  “What, old man?” she asked. “What did you need his help with? My help with?”

  “There are many remaining problems in preparing for the dragons. Mythical weapons, lost tombs, mysteries. I need someone to teach who can also teach me, challenge my ways of thinking. Your father showed an affinity for understanding our technology, one that you seem to share. A rare gift.”

  He coughed, a soft sound that carried little strength. Wanda stared at Kater. He looked thin in his climbing clothes, like they had swallowed him up.

  In that moment, she was shocked to find she felt protective of him, if only for a second. Whatever evil he had done, this man’s mind also contained the knowledge she had come here looking for, untold secrets and possibilities.

  The difficult choices and dilemmas she could see ahead threatened to overwhelm her.

  Was he truly offering her these secrets? Would the strength of that knowledge be worth the deaths it had taken to acquire? Yet how many lives might it save?

  Kater rose, his joints cracking as Wanda took a step back. Her left hand twitched, itching for her pencil and notebook. She needed time with this information. She needed to stay ahead of her heart.

  “Now I find I am growing quite tired, as I’m sure you all are,” Kater said. “We still have a long climb ahead. Hopefully this information has given you new things to think about, yes? There is much that awaits us at the bottom of this chasm.”

  Giving Wanda a ghost of a smile, he walked past her and headed for his tent. The others began speaking before Kater was even out of sight, but Wanda heard none of their words. Pencil and notebook finally in hand, she began to work through what she had learned.

  21

  “Of course, I couldn’t let go.”

  —Pete Schoening

  Drew pounded the anchor into the side of the chasm, the rhythm of his actions echoing the throbbing of his head. He had no idea what time it actually was, but it felt like early in the morning. Certainly, that would line up with the small amount of sleep Kater had allowed them.

  It had seemed like only moments after he lay his head down that Pasang was shaking his boots, rousing him at Kater’s instructions. “Early start!” the old man had said, acting as if he were the youngest person there. It was all Drew could do to not throw him over the side and be done with it.

  Of course, he reminded himself, Kater had the cards they needed. Only his sister, the spell-queen, could get them home, and only he knew how to free her from this crystal prison she had put herself into. Therefore, Drew was forced to allow Kater to call the shots. Having had plenty of experience taking orders from people he didn’t respect in the Navy, he gritted his teeth and told himself he could get through this, too.

  Far below him, Kater and Nima were pushing deeper into the chasm at a rapid pace. Drew wasn’t sure if Nima had slept better than he did, but she was attacking the route with an energy he couldn’t match. Nima had plenty of slack on the rope which connected her to Wanda, the line shaking and shuddering with her movements.

  While the Kater and Nima scouted the best route to the fissures, Drew and Wanda hammered anchors into the stone to provide a path for the rest of the team.

  Above them, Pasang led Kad and Merin down the chasm’s face, following their route and pulling the anchors out as they went. They were so far up Drew could no longer hear them speaking, Pasang forced to slow his pace to accommodate the two non-climbers.

  Looking down, Drew could see the top of the fissures Pasang had described. Where Kater and his last attempt to reach his sister had failed at the hands of Vihrut. The stone wall they had been climbing for the past two days ended in a broad flat slab of ice- and snow-covered rock, with three long gouges cut into it like claw marks.

  Drew glanced down as Nima and Kater continued to descend to the trio of openings. Each fissure was a several feet across. Drew trusted Nima to pick the best route to pass through to whatever was underneath this section of the chasm, and he guessed Kater did, too.

  “Nima. She moves like someone possessed,” Wanda said from slightly above him, passing him another section of rope.

  “She gets like that,” Drew replied, accepting the rope. Just before leaving camp, Kater had moved Merin to the other team without explanation, replacing her with Wanda. “When Nima has a clear goal in front of her, she can get very focused, almost obsessed. I’m sure you can understand that.”

  “Not very subtle, Drew,” Wanda said, working her way down to the same narrow ledge he was balanced on. “Nor very fair. I have cause for my obsession.”

  Drew took another step down, kicking around for a good toehold before settling his weight. The chasm may have been colder than he had expected, but thus far, it was still easier to deal with than Everest.

  “Fair or not, you were practically salivating during Kater’s speech last night.”

  “I can separate the gift from the source,” Wanda said. “If this sorcery can help give Poland leverage against our enemies or currency with which to coax allies, does it matter from where we acquire it?”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” Drew said, dropping down again while holding out his right hand out to accept the next anchor from Wanda. She slapped it into his hand, stinging his fingers.

  “Hey!” he said, glaring back at her. “Good guy here, remember?”

  “Yes, you’re a hero, like all Americans,” she spat. “Perhaps we should trade roles for a time, no? I feel the desire to hit things.”

  She passed him the small leather bag of anchors and crawled over him, moving farther down the chasm as Drew continued to stare at her. He noticed Nima and Kater standing on top of the fissures, dozens of yards below them. The pair appeared to be checking the width of the openings, seeing which would be the safest to enter.

  “Hammer,” Wanda said flatl
y, her hand outstretched.

  With a sigh, Drew pulled the hammer off his belt and handed it to her. Below, Nima gave a tug on the main line, the rope connecting all four of them. Drew flashed Nima a wave, noting Kater had already started his descent into the largest of the three fissures.

  “So, we get Kater to his sister,” Drew said, threading the line for team two through the anchors Wanda was nailing into the rock. “He frees her, then she gets us all home. That’s the plan. But why should she do that? What’s in it for Kater or his sister to help us?”

  “It is a gamble,” Wanda said, dropping her voice slightly. “As Kater has mentioned, we do not have a better option. We will still outnumber him and his sister. Though in the face of these flames Kater can produce, that may not matter. I suppose he cannot attack us all at once, perhaps we could overwhelm him.”

  “Perhaps,” Drew said, following Wanda to the next ledge. “I still think we need to expect trouble once we get there, we’re taking an awful lot on faith. I think we might―”

  Drew stopped, hearing a slight yelp from below―Nima’s voice. He peered down just in time to see Nima pulled over the edge of the fissure by her rope.

  Dammit, Kater must have fallen.

  “Brace!” he yelled, Wanda’s section of rope was already uncoiling in a blur. He pulled his ice hammer off his belt, gripping it with both hands. There was no time to make sure Wanda was ready. His eyes searched for a better handhold.

  Then the tug came.

  Drew was nearly yanked off the surface of the wall by the force, only the slight angle of the chasm allowed him to maintain contact with the slick stone. He heard Wanda’s cries below him, just barely audible over the roar of rock and ice passing by his stomach at lightning speed.

  In a moment he would be pulled off, too. He had one chance to arrest the fall, one opportunity alone.

  With a yell, he jammed his ice ax with both hands into the blur that was passing by his eyes, hoping that somehow it would find something to lock onto. Sparks flew as the tip of the ax skidded across the rock, his descent barely impacted. He increased the pressure on the ax, a long gouge was scored into the side of the chasm above him by his passage.