by D. H. Dunn
If this route didn’t lead to somewhere with a way to feed Lhamu, Nima would have the same problem. One of many problems she had no idea how she would solve.
Upala climbed alongside her, the woman having sensed a portal down the passage Kater had led them through. That path had ended in a long, deep crack in the mountain where the stone ladder had been carved, descending into the shadows.
Nima had first met Drew climbing in a similar crack, though that one was made of ice. She never could have guessed all the things that chance moment would lead her to.
Now Drew seemed to have gained access to magic, the same type of magic as Upala and Kater.
It was hard to imagine that he was the same man she helped escape a crevasse back in the Khumbu, but it was hard to accept she had once been in the Icefall as well.
So much had happened since then, so much had changed. Everest and Nepal were truly worlds away, but somehow they seemed even farther.
Yet there were things there she had left undone, strings that pulled across the portals at her. Even if she felt no yearning to see her homeland again, her brother was still there. Her father was still there.
And even with Jang gone, they still needed her help. Wanda’s words came back to her, whispered underneath a wall of glowing portals in the cold, distant Under.
“When is it about what you want, Nima?”
She wasn’t sure what she wanted, not after Val. But not feeling the weight of her responsibilities back home would be a good start.
Yet for now, none of that mattered anyway. All that mattered was a long descent, the tiny child strapped to her back and a portal they hoped was there.
They had no ropes, no equipment, nothing to aid in the descent. They also had no time, and no choice. There had been little debate. Nima and Upala had decided to take the lead going down the ladder, Lhamu being the best source of light and Nima being unwilling to let someone else carry her.
“Can’t your people ever put one of these portals in an easy-to-reach place?” Nima asked, lowering her feet to the next rung. The climb was not challenging, or would not have been had she not been so tired, so fatigued both in body and heart.
“That is not how it works,” Upala said. “The portals between worlds are simply there. They exist wherever they do, as part of nature.”
Nima grunted her acknowledgment. She continued to view the portals as magical and mysterious doorways, and liked the idea that gods put more of them there than people like Kater and Upala. Even if Merin’s people seemed to consider the Manad Vhan gods at times, to Nima they were just people who could do things she couldn’t.
“I must admit,” Upala’s voice came from above, her words taking on a melancholy tone. “The irony here is challenging, Nima. For days you have been wandering through a world that to me has been a legend, a dream. By the Hero, you have gazed upon the very form of Sessgrenimath.
“He just looked like big, glowing eyes,” Nima said. “You didn’t miss much.”
It was much scarier than Nima allowed her voice to show. She felt a chill run down her neck thinking of the massive presence all the same, but she did not want Upala to feel bad. Besides, it had been dark, and they really only did see the eyes.
“It is hard for me to explain, Nima. I have been dreaming of seeing this world my whole life. Now I am lost and blind inside the Hero’s temple, looking for a way to leave the only place I have ever wanted to go.”
“You sensed the portal, right?” Worry began to creep into the shadows as they descended the ladder. “So, we’re not lost.”
“I sense the direction,” Upala said. “I do not know the route. If only we had a map of this place.”
“I thought you had been excavating ruins and temples for centuries?” Nima recalled Merin mentioning it to her when they were in the Under. Both Upala and Kater had used Merin’s people to dig up old relics and scrolls, apparently for centuries. “Didn’t you find any maps of the Hero’s temple?”
“Ah, if only we did!” Upala’s voice became wistful. “I can think of little in life more fascinating to me than a map. A simple paper, yet filled with both history and mystery. Calling me to study every corner, follow every line and route.”
Nima kept her hands moving on the cold, stone rungs of the ladder. Whatever was below them, each step took her closer. She supposed it should make her afraid, but it didn’t
“My grandfather used to say the best part of the map was the other side, the blank part. The one you get to fill in yourself.”
Upala laughed, a sound that echoed into the darkness. It was a nice laugh, and Nima guessed Drew liked to hear it.
“I guess you have the heart of an explorer, Nima!” Nima smiled at the pronouncement. That was something her Pagaga would have been proud of. “I am more of a historian. Journeying down dark holes and climbing mountains? I would much rather be reading.”
They descended in silence for a time, though Nima could hear the sounds of Kater and Drew far above them, clearly making out the irritated tones but not the words.
On her back, Lhamu continued to sleep soundly, even as the white light from her headcrystal illuminated their path.
“Nima, may I ask you a question?”
Nima found Upala’s voice to be the most pleasing thing about her, there was a quality to her speech that reminded her of the wind chimes at the temple.
Yet now those chimes were influenced by darker moods and worries.
“What will happen to Lhamu if she leaves this world? How much do you understand about her, about how Caenolans work?”
“I don’t know what will happen,” Nima said. There was so much Val and his people knew that was lost to her now. The most important fact about Lhamu was the one that drove her forward, with each slap of her hand against the stone, another step on Lhamu’s best chance to be safe. “I was told she will die if she stays here, Val explained that much to me. She is linked to Sessgrenimath, and when the Calm comes again, her connection to him will kill her.”
If she did not starve first, Nima knew, but there was no reason to say that. If they did not find this portal back to this other world, that was what would happen to Nima and Merin as well. Nima did not think she was afraid to die, but the thought of something happening to Lhamu felt like a spike being shoved in her heart. She would do anything to prevent it.
“Where we go, her fate may not be any better,” Upala said with a sigh. “I cannot say what the woman you knew, this Tanira, will unleash. Kater and I know some lore on the Dragons, but there is much we may not know. I know that they are powerful and terrifying, I have seen this first hand.”
Dragons, always Dragons. Each of the others had spoken of nothing but Dragons since Kater had returned. Yet it was Tanira who had killed Sinar, a Manad Vhan who Drew said was more powerful than Upala or Kater. With her strange armor and weapon, Tanira had easily held off Upala and Drew as well.
Tanira would be going back to free the Dragons, but she would be there too. Tanira, who killed Val, stole Lhamu, and left Nima to die on the summit or Varesta. Tanira, the knight whose noble quest was to help kill the woman who now climbed next to Nima.
“Tanira told me about the two of you,” Nima nodded upward to where Kater climbed alone, Drew and Merin higher above. “How you and your brother have been ruling over her people for a long time. Treating them badly. Is that true?”
Upala nodded her head, her shoulders slumping. “I cannot say that is not true. Whatever I might say to explain would only be an excuse. What I do now, I do to save all people in my world, Manad Vhan and Rakhum. After that, my brother and I have much to decide and much to answer for.”
Nima could sense the regret in the woman’s voice, an echo of the tone she often heard from Drew.
“What about these Dragons? Even if we find a way back through this portal, how can you fight them? Even Kater seems afraid of them.”
“It depends on the Dragons, facing the Thread would be very different from having to battle the Weight.�
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“I thought all Dragons were the same,” Nima said. “In my grandfather’s stories they were powerful snakes with legs. They have long necks and feet with big claws. They can control the weather, make it rain or snow.”
“That is different than the Dragons I have read of,” Upala said. “Our Dragons were created by Sessgrenimath, so only he would know why he made them all so different. Some, like the Thread or the Voice, are subtle and much more than physical challenges. Others, like the Claw, wield massive additional physical abilities.”
“How can you hope to defeat them? Do you have a plan?”
“Beyond returning to Aroha Darad, no I do not. Perhaps Kater will think of something. My hope is we can stop Tanira before she can release any of the Dragons. That is our first hope, our best--” Upala stopped speaking, staring down past Nima into the darkness. “By the Hero,” she whispered.
Peering into the shadows, Nima could just see what Upala was looking at, though it didn’t seem to be anything amazing to her. Just a faint light coming from below, light emanating from a hole in the stone face they were descending, just to the left of the ladder.
Upala began scrambling down the ladder, her hands barely touching the rungs in her excitement.
“Hey!” Nima said, increasing the pace of her descent. “Upala--slow down!”
She had just gotten even with the woman’s shoulders when Upala’s hands slipped from the stone rung. Nima whipped out her arm just as Upala leaned backward into the abyss, grabbing hold of the shoulder of her cloak.
Upala pulled herself back, her hand quickly returning to the rung. Without a word, she continued descending at a breakneck pace, quickly reaching the lighted landing and disappearing inside the crack in the stone face.
Gritting her teeth and wondering if maybe they just didn’t teach politeness in Upala’s world, Nima forced herself to keep climbing slowly until she reached the opening.
Peering inside, she saw Upala silhouetted against an astonishing backdrop, gasping much as Upala had done on the ladder at the sight.
Oh Chomolungma, what have you led me to now?
Drew descended the stone ladder, Kater slightly below him. The old man kept one hand on the ladder, the other producing just enough flame for the two of them to see.
Far down in the shadows Nima and Upala were leading the way, Upala guiding them to the portal. Drew had tried to sense the portal as well, but had come up empty. He noticed Kater hadn’t mentioned anything about portal sensing either, so perhaps this was something Upala had become attuned to over time.
He felt proud of her. Even if the rasi sakta no longer seemed to be beating passionate thoughts for her into his every moment, seeing her change had given her a new beauty to him, a loveliness of character that no magic could force into his heart.
Yet, where was this going? Whatever these new abilities of his meant, whether they were connected to the Manad Vhan or not, they certainly suggested he might have a lot of future to fill.
Would Upala really want to spend that with him?
He couldn’t deny the excitement he felt at the prospect, but what would that truly mean?
Am I really prepared to spend the rest of my life away from … everything? The whole world?
The prospect seemed too incredible to consider, yet Drew had to admit he was hard pressed to come up with something waiting for him back on Earth.
If Nima was here, or Merin even, he could ask them what they thought.
But Merin had taken a middle position between the two pairs, speaking little since Nima and Drew had returned. He was relieved to see her at all, and glad to see that she seemed to have found some level of support in Upala. Whatever Merin’s reasons for bringing Kater back, Drew saw no need to make her go through explaining them. He was there if she needed him.
As always, Kater was talking. Musing out loud really, the old man had been discussing the possibilities of Orami and Feram being separate people all the way down the ladder. He was a slow climber, and the gap between Merin and Kater was growing, leaving Drew with Kater and his endless words.
“You’d think dying would have quieted you down a bit more, Kater.”
I am poking him again, why am I doing that? They needed Kater. He really was essential, and not just here, but back in Aroha Darad as well. No one knew more about the Dragons than he did. Yet, Drew found he just couldn’t help himself.
“I am attempting to riddle out the problems that are in front of me, yet you are content to make jokes and insults.”
“I think you are just mad that I figured out in moments what you missed for centuries.” He could feel the adrenaline begin to pump inside him, that same feeling that often led to bar fights where he ended up on the wrong side of men twice his size.
Or his father.
“Do not think I missed your pronouncement earlier, Adley, though I suspect you yourself did not perceive it. ‘Our portal home’ you said. Down in these depths may indeed lay a path back to Aroha Darad, but that world will never be your home. My sister’s foolish preoccupation with you aside.”
Drew recognized the comment for what it was, a misdirect. Still, perhaps there was value in poking this particular bear after all. Kater was a wild card, and Drew didn’t trust him to do anything predictable. If Kater decided to turn on those who walked alongside him, it was better he turned on Drew.
“I don’t think this has anything to do with Upala. I think you don’t like that I’m like you now, except younger of course. Your sister is a good, decent woman and-”
“On this we agree,” Kater interrupted.
Really? Drew’s words died on his tongue. Could Kater’s feelings about his sister, about anyone, be more complicated than they seemed?
“You are nothing like me,” Kater continued, “Whatever perversion of Manad Vhan you might become. My respect for my sister shocks you? Do not think to know me, to understand me. Abilities or no, you are still a quicklife with the experience and perspective of a blade of grass. You might as well attempt to understand the sun. Like the sun, you require my presence, but the reverse is not true. I am a necessary element to everyone’s survival. You are not.”
Drew could feel his temperature rising with his temper, yet the mind that normally always gave him the cutting remark, the quick takedown failed him.
He sounds so much like Dad. Yet Dad hadn’t been all wrong about me, had he?
More than a hundred sailors would agree with his father, and with Kater. Drew stayed locked in his place as Kater continued to descend, still talking. Each word from the old man brought him farther back in time, placing him first in a cemetery, facing two graves and his father’s anger. Then back in the Indian Ocean, blood and oil rolling in the waves.
“And for accuracy’s sake, you did not kill me. You merely placed me in a situation where I could not affect my own recovery. Regrettable, even humbling for a moment, but that moment is over. Now, if you’ll grant me the silence you were previously gifting, I may be able to plan our strategy once we return to Aroha Darad, assuming that is possible.”
Kater continued descending, Drew’s hands staying locked on the ladder rungs. Drew knew the look his face wore, a look that had ended every argument he ever had with his father in a loss. Artie might as well have been right on the ladder there with him.
Kater’s voice echoed up from the depths.
“Once I have eliminated the Dragons as a threat, perhaps you and I can explore those new abilities of yours Adley. I would much like to see the extent of your healing, how much punishment can you really take?”
Prying his fingers from the stone rungs one at a time, his breath coming out in ragged spurts, Drew slowly started moving again.
Chapter 6
Upala gaped as she ran across the stone-tiled floor. The scene in front of her was too incredible, too amazing. In all her years, millennia of research and speculation, she never imagined anything like this.
The small hole next to the ladder had opened up into a
massive chamber, the dimensions of the room so great every wall and the ceiling itself was lost to the darkness, details fading into shadows. It looked large enough to contain all of Rogek Shad and Nalam Wast inside it, buildings and all.
Or it could contain them, if it were empty. Instead the room was filled with machinery, gears and axles, poles and platforms suspended on chains. Most of it was stone, but she could see the glint of gold and silver here and there, all of it tinted green by the unseen light sources farther ahead.
After about twenty paces of bare stone, the room became a chaos of right angles and toothed gears. There were complex systems of pulleys that stretched from the floor to the ceiling, mazes of pipes of numerous sizes. Machinery seemed built into every wall, every surface. Even the stone floor contained ridges, paths for some unseen wheels to follow.
Yet none of it moved or gave any indication to Upala that it was even operable.
All of it suggested to her that the entire room, and the thousands of elements inside it, were part of one massive machine, a device whose purpose Upala could not even begin to guess.
“What is this?” Nima came up beside her, the child Lhamu’s bright-lighted crystal casting new and complex shadows everywhere as it bounced off the equipment. “Is this the portal? Is it here?”
It was here, somewhere. She could sense it, could feel the tans and browns of Aroha Darad as clearly as if they were outside a window.
Yet there was a second portal here as well. She could detect it more strongly over the now-faint sense of the one they had been descending toward.
Somewhere in front of her, through the jungle of carved stone and formed metal, was the path home. Back to a world filled with people she had wronged who were under threat, and was, only moments before, her heart’s only desire to return to.