They didn't walk far. Delfine called a rest break when they reached a human-made clearing ten paces from the track. It was barely large enough for the eleven of them, even with the wing standing on one end, propped up between Skender and Chu as they sat and caught their breath. Skender leaned back and listened to the noises of the forest. Animals called constantly, hooting and hollering from unknown distances. Birds chattered among themselves, either ignorant of, or just plain ignoring, the humans in their midst. Smaller creatures rustled through the undergrowth. None of them were visible. All he could see when he looked into the forest were plants, some of which he recognised from books, but others he found strange and almost threatening in their weirdness: fungi clinging to rough-barked pines; ferns crowding every available space; brightly coloured flowers nodding sleepily in darkened recesses, heavy with nectar. Life thrived all around him, perhaps a little too vigorously for his liking.
His eyes closed in the moist air. He slept without knowing he had fallen asleep, and drifted into a strange state wherein he seemed to be awake but suspected he wasn't. Events followed no obvious logic. People and things came and went without warning. He wandered among them, lost and confused and unsure how to make it stop. If he was asleep, why not give in and stop worrying about it? If he was awake, things had become very odd indeed.
“It's the way of things,” said a sinister, insidious voice from the bushes. “Don't you know that, rabbit?”
Skender stiffened, looking around him in a guilty panic. “You— here?”
A wall of fronds parted to his right, revealing the twisted, scarred face of the jailer he had left behind in the Aad, horribly injured by the Homunculus and abandoned to die in the dirt. “Yes. It's me. You'll never be rid of me. Ever.”
Clawed, black-nailed hands reached out of the forest, clutching at Skender's face, and he jerked awake with a cry and leapt to his feet.
“Easy,” said Navi, leaning over him. “It's just a bad dream.”
“He has them all the time,” said Chu blearily from the other side of the wing.
“He was here, right here…” Skender pointed vaguely at the ferns, aware that the foresters were watching him with a mixture of weariness and alarm. He scoured the undergrowth, afraid of what he might detect in there, and of course he saw nothing.
“It's gone now.” Navi leaned away from him, staring at him as though he had gone quite mad. “There's nothing to be frightened of.”
“I'm sorry,” he said, genuinely embarrassed at what, to her, must have seemed a total overreaction.
“Sit down, Skender,” said Chu, reaching around the wing to tug at his robe.
He resisted, still rattled by the dream and an uneasy feeling about what the undergrowth might be hiding.
“Sit.” She pulled him so hard he almost fell on her. “There's nothing you can do about it,” she said, not very helpfully. “Instead, look at that tree over there and tell me why it's so weird.”
He did as she indicated, knowing she was only trying to distract him and perversely reluctant to go along with it. The tree was by far the largest abutting the clearing, with a broad, rippling trunk from which extended branches heavy with glossy dark leaves. He had glanced at it on arriving in the arbour but given it no more than a single thought. A tree was a tree was a tree.
He chastised himself for being so lazy. Rocks weren't just rocks, just as deserts weren't just deserts and people weren't just people; everything in nature came in many different shapes, sizes, and qualities. To a forester, each tree was probably unique, with its own strengths and character. He wouldn't get very far if he assumed everything was the same.
Looking at the tree more closely, he realised that there was something odd about it, on two levels. Superficially, strange whorls and lines marred the relative smoothness of its bark. The patterns didn't look entirely natural, as though they had been carved there as a sapling and left to heal over. Like scars, in other words, or tattoos.
And like the tattoos he had earned during his training, these marks appeared to follow flows of the Change. With senses more subtle than sight alone, he traced powerful energies moving up and down the trunk, from its roots to its branches and back again. The tree glowed like an enormous candle, rich with life—and more than that. The whole forest was full of life, but most of it was without direction. This tree took that life and did something with it.
But what was that?
“Well?” Chu nudged him, waiting for an answer.
“I don't know.” The dream was quite forgotten as he contemplated the problem. “It doesn't seem to be alive—”
“You mean someone killed it?”
“No. Just not alive like we are. It's not about to uproot and go for a walk, or start talking to us.”
“Well, that's a relief.”
He thought about it some more. “I wonder if this is why we're here, in this particular spot. The tree could be a signpost.”
“Or a guard?”
“How do you mean?”
“To stop enemies from coming up the path—out of the Divide and into the forest. Maybe it'll fall on anyone who is unauthorised.”
“Interesting.” And it was. The Keep's library contained nothing like this.
“Keep it down, you two,” said Heuve. “People are trying to rest.”
“Sorry.” Skender was genuinely repentant. His own fatigue had begun to return after his shocked awakening. He would have been quite happy to let the matter of the tree drop forever, but for the bodyguard's next words.
“The forest is none of your business. Keep your nose well out of it.”
“Kind of hard to do that now,” said Chu testily, “don't you think?”
Heuve ignored her, and Skender ignored him in turn. His attention drifted back to the tree. He sensed more than just innocent exhaustion in Heuve's irritation. Was there something about this particular tree he didn't want them to see or understand?
Tracing the trunk up into the canopy, Skender tried to follow and count the branches through the tangle above him. Even with the help of the Change, he couldn't do it. The tree was intimately bound up in the fabric of the forest, so whatever capacity it possessed, the forest possessed it too.
Bringing his gaze back to the clearing, he found Marmion watching him. The warden inclined his head in something that might have been a nod, then closed his eyes and went to sleep.
By midmorning, the forest was raucous and stifling. Mist curled through the trunks like ghostly fingers, making the air heavier and warmer than it had been in the Divide. Skender rolled up the sleeves of his robe, but that didn't stop him sweating. The rumbling of his stomach as they resumed their journey only made him more uncomfortable still.
“What, no breakfast?” Chu had commented on Delfine's call to rise and resume their journey.
“Did you bring any food with you?” asked Navi, brushing down her uniform and adjusting her boots.
“There wasn't time.”
“No breakfast then, I guess.”
“What about fruit? There's plenty on the trees.”
“Can you tell the safe from the poisonous?”
“No, but I presume you can.”
“The Outcast will not take from the forest,” grated Heuve, even grumpier after a couple of hours sleep than he had been before. “If she does—”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it. I'll just starve, then.”
“We eat in Milang,” said Delfine, more reasonably but with a warning edge. “We lost our supplies in the attack, too.”
Chu had turned away and busied herself with getting the wing ready to travel. This time she went first, leaving Skender with nothing better to do while he walked than contemplate his empty stomach and her behind.
The sun, diffused by fog and leaves, cast no shadow, but he could follow its steady progress across the sky through breaks in the canopy. He reckoned by its position that they were heading due north. By the time the sun reached directly overhead, he felt ready to take his chances with
the local produce and Heuve both. The wing seemed to weigh a ton or more, and his fingers were getting cramp. But he didn't complain. The thick moist air left him panting like a dog. He had barely enough energy for walking. The others, Chu included, seemed to be in much the same state, as no one spoke at all, except to curse.
The forest towered over them, seeming more impenetrable than before, not less. His eyes were becoming desensitised to green. Remembering his expectation that the forest would soon peter out, he began to wonder just how far it might extend. They had walked at least two kilometres through the dense vegetation, their path rising and falling and taking sudden turns to avoid sheer rock faces that couldn't be crossed, but in general their altitude rose. He watched for paths leading elsewhere; they either didn't exist or were as well hidden as the entrance to the forest had been. Soon the fog was so dense that he could barely see as far as Lidia Delfine, leading the way at the head of the group.
Finally the foliage parted before them. Chu stumbled as she stepped from thick undergrowth onto solid stone, and he did the same two paces later. When he had recovered, his gaze lifted up to find nothing but fog ahead and above him, its hazy white brilliance blinding after the mottled shadows of the forest.
Chu put down the wing to look around. Those ahead of them had stopped on the edge of a cliff and were peering along an insubstantial-looking rope bridge which vanished into fog barely halfway across its span. The far side was invisible, except as a very faint shadow. There could have been anything there.
Skender regarded the bridge with a sceptical eye. It appeared to be well maintained, but the planks were thin and the way narrow. Ropes at his waist height provided the only handholds.
“Looks safe enough to me,” pronounced Warden Banner, the Engineer of the group.
“Of course it's safe,” said Navi. “Unless you're Panic soldiers, in which case…” She mimed cutting one of the ropes securing it to the cliff wall.
“How would you know if we were Panic or not?” asked Chu. “Who can see through this murk?”
“There are lookouts stationed at every bridge,” said Delfine with the air of someone determined not to reveal any secrets. “We call this the Versegi Chasm, after the man who built the first bridge across it. People used to think it bottomless; if you drop a stone anywhere along the bridge's length, you'll never hear it hit the bottom.”
“What is down there?” asked Skender, hoping it was soft, just in case.
“A riverbed, and plants growing from seeds that fall from above. It's very dark and very quiet. The people who live there are said to be mad or mystics, depending on who you ask.”
Marmion acknowledged this with a nod. “Very good, but shall we keep moving?”
“I thought you'd like the chance to rest for a moment.”
“That will not be required.”
Skender was about to protest that it was indeed required when he realised that Marmion's revived testiness came from a desire to put the bridge behind him. The crossing would be especially difficult for him with only one hand to balance himself. No wonder he was acting with such impatience.
Then Skender remembered the wing, and groaned. He too would be crossing the bridge without both hands on the guide ropes. If he dropped the wing, he might as well follow it over the edge. Chu wouldn't suffer him to live after a mistake like that.
“All right, then.” Delfine nodded. “Let's keep moving.”
“How much longer?” Skender blurted.
“Not far. I'd suggest keeping your eyes up as you go across, but I don't want you to slip either.”
With that, she headed out onto the bridge and strode confidently over the chasm. The bridge swayed alarmingly with every step she took. Skender tried not to pay too much attention to that.
Marmion waved Eitzen after her, then followed when Eitzen had vanished into the mist and the bridge ceased dancing. He walked slowly and carefully, making no attempt to be as quick as Delfine or young Eitzen. Hunched like an old man, he made it across in twice their time.
“We'll go last,” Skender told Heuve as the other foresters went ahead.
“No. You'll go next.”
“Do you think we'll run away?” Chu asked him. “We have no idea where we are, and just one path to follow. It wouldn't be a very smart move.”
“No,” Heuve repeated, cracking his knuckles. “It would not.”
Chu rolled her eyes and turned to Skender. “Want to go first?”
“Sure.” He swapped places with her and picked up his end of the wing. The truth was, heights didn't bother him. He had spent much of his early life scaling the cliffs into which the Keep had been built centuries ago. It was slipping and falling to his death he didn't like the thought of.
“If I said I was nervous,” he asked Chu, “would you kiss me again?”
“Nice try, but I want you concentrating firmly on your feet, nothing else.” The wing poked him in the back. “Get going, mage, or you'll let the crowd down.”
Skender took a deep breath and stepped out onto the bridge. It wobbled underfoot, but not as badly as he had feared it might.
“Keep going.” The wing poked him again. “The faster you go, the easier it'll be.”
He had no choice, the way she was shoving him. With his left hand alternating between the guide ropes and steadying the wing, he moved forward one step at a time, eyes fixed firmly on where his next footfall would be.
The fog swallowed the two of them, tugging at their clothes and the wing with insubstantial fingers. Wind moaned eerily along the canyon, growing louder with every step he took. In his peripheral vision he noticed the cliff face behind him fade to grey long before their destination appeared.
Even when it did, he kept his eyes down and his pace unchanging. He resisted the urge to hurry as the last metres swept by. The last thing he wanted to do was become overconfident and trip on the verge of safety. Only when hands reached out for him and the world stopped rocking did he breathe easily again.
“Well done,” said Marmion.
Delfine nodded in approval at the warden's side. “You can look up now,” she said.
“What? Oh, right.” He put down the wing—thinking for the first time how much easier it would have been just to fly over, if only the foresters would have let them—and tilted his head back.
What he glimpsed through the fog made him gape in awe—and when Chu softly exclaimed “Goddess,” he could think of no better word.
“Jade is stone like any other, and as such it possesses
distinct chimerical properties. The angels of jade who
carried the Goddess aloft might be nothing more than
metaphorical creations, but they might also be very real
beings we have simply failed to encounter in our
exploration of the world thus far.”
THE BOOK OF TOWERS, EXEGESIS 25:11
The balloon swayed and rocked as it travelled through the fog. Shilly shivered, feeling cold and damp. She shuffled closer to Sal for warmth, and he snorted awake, having nodded off without her noticing. She apologised and encouraged him to lean on her. The cuts and scratches on his face and hands had turned brown and stopped bleeding long ago, thanks to Rosevear's ministrations. They might not even scar. That took some of the edge off her apprehension. The camouflage charms had been part of their life for years, since their return to Fundelry from the Haunted City, but she had never wanted them to be permanently etched on him.
That raised a whole series of thoughts she was reluctant to pursue at that moment: how did she view their future, if hiding forever wasn't an option? She and Sal had no intention of starting a family any time soon; they were too young, for a start, and their existence on the outer fringe of Fundelry didn't allow easy access to schooling. At some point, kids or not, they would have to reconnect permanently with the world around them. But how, and when, and where? Perhaps, she thought, they had already done so by joining the expedition hunting for the Homunculus. Perhaps it was alread
y too late to turn back…
Too edgy to sleep, she tried to focus her attention on the world around her rather than on her thoughts.
It was impossible to tell how high they were flying, since the cloud—even with the dawn slowly lightening it from behind—was impenetrable, but they had to be well above the treetops that she had glimpsed while taking off from the boneship. The Panic crew swarmed all over the balloon and its gondola, adjusting vanes and tightening stays with assurance, gripping wherever they needed to with strong hands and feet and sometimes using the hooks they carried at their sides as well.
Their long-armed grace was prodigious and sure; they moved as though gravity barely mattered to them. One even scurried up and over the forward airsac, dropping with quiet grace in front of her when his job was done. Their leader, Griel, watched from the rear by the pilot. Behind goatee beard, ebony eyes, protruding jaw and brow, his mood was unreadable.
Shilly's fellow passengers maintained a subdued silence. Rosevear tended Kemp with weary diligence. She was afraid to ask how her old friend was coping, fearing the worst. Tom, like Sal, had fallen asleep and slumped open-mouthed against Highson, who watched the world as she did, with a frown.
How long they travelled she couldn't tell. She felt cut off from the world, as though the balloon was hanging motionless in a grey void.
“This isn't the first time you've flown,” said Schuet, sitting opposite her with hands clutching the rail.
“No,” she admitted. “You? Oh, yes, that's right. You said your people don't trust things that fly.”
“It's dangerous and disrespectful.” One of the Panic soldiers issued a noise that might have been a snort of amusement, but Schuet ignored it. “Our place is among the trees, not above them.”
The Hanging Mountains Page 11