by J. V. Jones
To awaken meant the death of her soul.
Dreaming was the only way to keep it alive. Nothing could be taken from her while she was here in the pit. It was getting harder and harder to stay, though. Little discomforts began to niggle away at her: the pit was growing horns. Pain pricked at her arm, head, and back. Dryness tickled her throat. An aching softness lay between her legs and her stomach felt strangely hollow. Melli tried to burrow deeper, tried to gaze downward instead of up, but the walls of the pit began to close in on her, and the floor rose up and squeezed her out.
She opened her eyes. Bright bands of sunlight sliced the room. Melli blinked, trying to make sense of the shadows and forms, forcing her mind into focus. She was looking at the ceiling: curved stone, wooden beams, damp patches where the rain came through. In the same way Melli knew she shouldn’t wake up, she also knew she shouldn’t look down. Her eyes moved ahead of her brain, however, and her gaze arched a quarter circle to the floor.
She was lying in a pool of dried blood. Her dress, her legs, and the surrounding stone were sticky with wine-dark stains. Melli was aware of a feathering sensation in her head: a lightness, a ripple across her thoughts. All pain had left her. The slate was clean. A tiny dark spot was all that was left, and as she raised her gaze to her stomach, the spot hardened to lead in her throat.
Her belly was a slack curve. The gleaming roundness had gone.
Melli’s body began to convulse. Her spine jerked against the stone floor. Dry sobs pumped up from her chest to her lips. Her mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, with only a soft choking noise to show for it. She was empty. Empty. Her baby had gone. They had forced it from her and taken it away.
“You’re not really going to do this, Tawl?” said Jack. “The water temperature alone could kill you.”
Tawl looked at him in what Jack had come to recognize as his hardheaded way. “It’s too late to go back now.”
They were walking up a winding mountain path, their horses trailing behind them. Rocks, tufts of dry grass, and thorny yellow bushes marked their way. Lake Ormon lay below them, its deep green water as glassy as a jewel. The sky was pale and cloudless, the sun already on its way to the west. They had spent the last four hours edging the lake, and for four hours before that they were riding along the Silbur’s bank. Darkness was two hours away at the most.
Crayne was leading the way. Nabber and Borlin were bringing up the rear. A small mountain village was their destination, a sheep herding village that lay in the same high valley as the Faldara Falls. Tawl was going to jump into the River Viralay and go over the falls to the lake. “Valdis did it,” he explained, “to gain the faith of the villagers. Over the centuries a handful of others have followed his lead, seeking to prove their worth, or their faith. Or both.”
Jack thought it was madness. Like every child, he had heard the tale of Borc freezing the waterfall, but he never thought it was true. And he couldn’t believe that they were actually hiking up to that same waterfall now.
“There must be an easier way to make the men believe in you.” Jack wiped the sweat from his brow. It was cold, but the path was steep. “I can’t see a dead man inspiring much faith.”
Tawl shrugged. “The knights respect the falls. If I back out now, they will say I have no faith.”
“Why did you offer to do it? No one forced your hand.”
“You heard them, Jack. They don’t believe what I say. They still think I’m a murderer, a liar. A man who has forsaken his oath.”
“They were beginning to listen to us. Andris and the younger ones are on our side.”
Tawl started shaking his head even before Jack stopped speaking. “Crayne, Borlin, the others—they’ll never listen. They understand courage and strength and faith. Words mean nothing to them. Actions are the only way to judge a man.”
“You’ve taken actions enough,” said Jack. Frustration over Tawl’s stubbornness was making him lose his temper. “You’ve got nothing to prove to these men. Nothing.”
“You don’t understand, Jack. You’re not a knight. You don’t bear the circles. You’ve never lived your life for one thing only to find corruption at the very heart of it.”
“I understand revenge.”
Tawl looked at Jack. He ran his fingers through his hair. When he spoke, the tension had drained from his voice. “I won’t lie to you, Jack. Part of this is revenge. I’m only human; I hurt, I feel betrayed, but most of all I feel lost.”
“And what about Melli?” said Jack quickly, grasping for anything that would make Tawl listen to reason. “How lost will she feel if you don’t survive?”
Tawl closed his eyes. When he opened them a moment later, they were infinitely brighter and darker than before. A soft sound, like the cry of a wounded animal, escaped from his lips. Hearing it, Jack wished he had never asked the question. Seconds passed. Tawl’s face fell under the shadow of a nearby pine. He gripped the reins of his horse so tightly that white bands of flesh swelled to either side of the leather. When he spoke his voice was so low that Jack had to strain to hear it. “If I don’t make it over the falls, Jack, you must take my place. You must protect Melli for me. She must be kept safe.”
Jack nodded once. Briefly he met Tawl’s gaze and then looked away. He felt ashamed. There was a lifetime’s worth of anguish shining softly in the knight’s blue eyes. “I’m sorry, Tawl. I shouldn’t have mentioned Melli.”
Tawl seemed not to be listening; he adjusted his horse’s bit and then smoothed down its mane. After a moment he patted the old horse gently and said, “Melli is everything to me, Jack. But since we left Marls, saving her no longer seems enough. I must be worthy of her, too. I can’t bring all my failures back with me and expect her to love me all the same. She deserves better than that.” Tawl made a small, helpless gesture with his hand. “If I don’t take this jump, I will have failed Melli as well as myself.”
Jack knew he spoke the truth. The falls were a personal ordeal for Tawl—they weren’t just about winning over the knights, they were about testing his own worth. “What will happen if you do succeed?”
Tawl shrugged. “I don’t really know—I haven’t got a plan. I just know that I want to replace something in the knighthood that has been lost.” Tawl paused a moment before adding, “And perhaps something in myself, too.”
As if embarrassed by this admission, Tawl rushed on. “With the knighthood corrupt there’s nothing to look up to anymore. There’s no ideal—there’s just men, merchants, and mercenaries. To say you were a knight used to mean something; strangers would trust you, old ladies would invite you into their homes. People were never afraid to ask for your help. Now, if you’re a knight in the north you’re branded a mercenary, and if you’re a knight in the south you’re a fugitive.”
Tawl stopped a moment and gazed out over the lake. “I want the ideal back. I want it for the knights who have deserted and all those who are thinking about desertion. I want it for these men here and I want it for myself.”
Jack had never heard Tawl speak so long and passionately, and he began to understand just how deep his feelings ran. Nothing short of drugging and binding would stop him from taking the jump. Some things were madness—helping a golden-haired stranger escape from the guards, entering the temple at Larn with only a handful of rocks as a weapon, setting a rowboat down in a storm—and perhaps it was that element of madness that helped them get so far.
They’d been acting on faith all along: faith in Marod’s prophecy, and in each other, and the belief it could all be done. Jack tugged his horse away from a snatch of grass and made his way up the trail. Could he really blame Tawl for taking one more leap?
The men formed a crescent around the bank. They were silent, faces grave, weapons unsheathed, arms bared to reveal their circles.
Tawl looked at them, meeting their gazes one at a time, making a connection with all who were there. The knights regarded him with grim respect: the falls were the ultimate test of a knight. Not of his trainin
g, or his skills, but of his courage and his heart. Believe in something enough to ride the river down to the lake and you might not be a good man, might not be a bad man, but at least you had the strength of your convictions.
And to Tawl that was what it was all about: showing these knights that he believed in himself.
He took a step back toward the edge. Jack raised his hand—in farewell or warning, Tawl didn’t know. Seeing him from this distance, Tawl realized just how much Jack had changed. He was so much older now.
Nabber was looking down at the ground. Dark brown hair falling over his eyes, shoulders slumped, hands clasped into tight knots by his side—he didn’t like this one little bit. Tawl wanted to say something to him, to reassure him, but false promises had no place at the falls. As he looked on, Jack put his arm around the pocket. That would have to do.
Tawl turned to face the river. The Viralay belonged to the mountains. It flowed through valleys and clefts and hollows, gathering mass during the spring thaw, running low in midwinter. It was low now, down to two-thirds of its normal level. Low, cold, and slow-moving until it came to the twist before the drop. Tawl looked along its length: it ran straight, right up to the end, and then a sharp outcropping of rocks changed its course, bending the river into the shade of overhanging cliffs, concealing the drop from all who stood on the bank.
No one would see him go over the edge. They would wait until he was out of sight and then make their way down the path to the lake. He was on his own once he disappeared behind the bend. It had taken the party almost an hour to climb up here. It would take them at least half of that to come down: by that time he would be saved or damned.
Tawl took off his leather tunic and his heavy boots. He unhooked his sword and laid it on the ground. Reaching for his knife, he went to discard that, too, and then thought better of it. He replaced it in its scabbard.
He didn’t turn to look at the knights. He looked only at the water. With the words “Es nil hesrl” on his lips, he jumped into the river.
The shock of the cold hit him straightaway. The water was only a few degrees above freezing. He had minutes before his body started to numb. He felt the water soaking his undershirt and his britches, settling against his skin.
The current took him, dragging his body away from the bank, tugging his torso under. Water splashed, then covered his face. Tawl looked up through the wetness to the bank. The knights’ figures rippled above, green-hazed, distorted, like a coven of witches. The water was too cold to bear and Tawl closed his eyes. Moss-green light filtered through the lids. He raised his neck out of the water and took a gasp of air. The current snatched him back before he’d finished.
He felt himself moving downward and along, his speed quickening. Arms and legs moved rapidly at first, working to counteract the current’s pull, buoying, steering, keeping him afloat. It was so cold, though. Freezing. Tawl started to shiver. His instinct was to curl up, to bundle his body into a warming ball. He fought his desire for warmth, forcing his feet to keep kicking and his arms to stay straightened out.
The shivering changed to shaking as he rounded the bend. The current was strong now; it was an icy band around his waist. It wanted him under. Tawl flexed his shoulder muscles and sent his arms beating against the water. His face broke the surface. The air was warm on his forehead, hot in his lungs. He took two mighty breaths and then the current was at him once more. As he was sucked under, he risked opening his eyes again. Everything was green—above and below—green flecks floated on the surface, fragments of plant life swirled beneath.
Suddenly his body was yanked around. His shin hit something hard. Tawl was glad of the pain. His mind was growing torpid, and anything that helped him fight the numbing cold was welcome. In water near freezing, losing consciousness was the greatest danger. He had to stay alert.
The end was just ahead of him now. The various eddies within the river were streamlining, giving way to the overpowering pull of the falls. Tawl felt as if his whole body was being sucked forward. Feeling the beginnings of panic, he opened his eyes, trying to orientate himself. The green flecks on the surface had stretched to lines. He was moving quickly now. He spotted the cut-off point ahead. The water ended abruptly, leaving only the green-gray sky.
He needed to take a breath. His arms were slow to respond. He had no sensation in his fingers. Stretching his neck up as far as it would go, he propelled his elbows backward. Up he went, through the mineral-heavy froth, up to the surface. He took a mariner’s breath. A deep, lung-stretching, water-chasing gulp. The river water slid along his tongue. It tasted of copper and cloves.
There was a lot of white in the green now. The rocks bounced the water into a surface frenzy. Below, the current remained unaffected, the foam nothing more than a sideshow.
Tawl had stopped moving his arms and legs; he didn’t want to exert himself. His last breath had to take him over the falls.
He was fully under now. The current had flipped him over onto his back and swung him around feet-first. Panic had fallen from him. Calmness remained. Whatever happened now was just water over the falls. Melli could survive without him, the knighthood would go on, Jack was capable of reaching Kylock on his own, and whoever prevailed in the end would find their triumph only fleeting.
A sucking rush filled Tawl’s ears. The drop was a void that pulled him in. His body careened forward, buffeted by the current. Hard, driving water surged between him and the sky. A blink revealed the gray-green and then the world turned inside out.
Down he went, reality dropping from beneath him. The current was gone, replaced by crashing water and damning gravity. Wind ripped along his body, pushing on the soles of his feet. The wind blew upward, but the water plunged him down.
The light was beautiful, radiant, a many-hued green. The water glittered around him in tiny, dazzling drops.
He was so cold. So very cold.
And then he crashed into the water below.
His body slammed into the lake. The jolt was shocking. His wrists bent backward, his teeth smashed together. Downward he speared, the water from the falls ramming him under.
The greenness became thicker, heavier. Colder. The light grew dim. Down and down he went, leaving it all behind.
The water was a heavy cloak about his shoulders. The coldness was a drug that made him sleep. Descending ever deeper, he gave in to the icy darkness, leaving all thoughts, dreams, and oaths silently behind. Air no longer had any business in his lungs, and the future had lost its hold upon his heart.
Tawl glided into Lake Ormon’s depths, memories racing ahead of him like torches to light the way. Sara and Anna were there, arms open in welcome, leafy tendrils trailing from their hair. His mother flitted past, not pregnant anymore, but young and beautiful, a smile just for him upon her lips. Bevlin was there, too: age wrinkles and water wrinkles vying to line his face. Their welcomes were a rite of passage. He was finally being allowed home to the cottage by the marsh.
Tawl’s chest was tight with joy. This was all he had ever wanted.
As he reached out to Sara, a dark green shadow caught his eye. Two shades short of black, it hovered behind his family like an armed man ready to strike. Tawl screamed a warning, but it was drowned out by the pressure rush. The dark shadow showed its carrion teeth and Tawl’s family sped away, disappearing into the darkness like ghosts before the dawn. The creature raised an armlike limb, and even before Tawl’s eyes focused he knew what was branded upon the flesh: the mark of Valdis. Three circles. Everything began and ended with them.
Tawl looked more closely at the shadow. A tremor of recognition passed along his spine. It wasn’t a random monster conjured up out of the depths, it was his own demon.
He had brought it down with him.
And with him it would stay until the very end.
Unless.
Tawl began to kick his feet, beating at the water with sheer willpower alone. Up came his hands, over his head, fingers pointing skyward to the world of light above
. His life was far from finished, his fate far from complete, and as he rose toward the surface, he knew what he must do.
Tavalisk was eating pansies. Purple ones.
Flowers, his cook said, were good for the digestion, the hiccups, and for garnishing a platter. The pansies in question were here in their garnishing capacity, but, due to the unsavory nature of the main dish—eels baked in a casing of pig’s intestines—the archbishop had promoted them to food. At this point he wasn’t entirely sure that he found them appetizing—they had the texture of damp velvet and the taste of cheap perfume—but they were a definite improvement on the eels.
He was just considering having his cook fry a few for him when in bounded Gamil. The guilty expression that was so often upon his face of late had been replaced with a sort of stricken death mask.
“You’re looking remarkably well today, Gamil. That glazed expression is really most becoming.” The archbishop rose from his chair. “Would you care to try a pansy?”
“Kylock’s forces are on their way to Camlee, Your Eminence.”
The pansy fluttered to the floor. The archbishop sent out a hand to steady himself against his desk. His heart started pattering like hailstones against a shutter. “Not Ness?”
Gamil shook his head. “They turned at Lake Herry.”
Tavalisk closed his eyes. Of course they turned. Why hadn’t he thought of it sooner? He knew Baralis, and had learned not to underestimate Kylock, so why had this latest strategy passed him by? Unsure that his legs could carry him any longer, Tavalisk sat down. He slumped heavily in his chair, his many rolls of fat gathering around him like worker bees. For the first time in years, he actually felt afraid. Events were getting out of hand. The northern empire was no longer a vague possibility; it was here, on their doorsteps, about to pry its way in.