Scriber

by Ben S. Dobson

  At the bottom of the ravine, a slim trickle of water ran through a riverbed filled with debris from the slide and a hundred slides before it. Directly below, a vast slope of fallen rocks piled against the cliff. There was no sign of poor Kaelyn, undoubtedly buried somewhere in the rubble, and I did not see Tenille at first either, until Orya pointed to a small ledge perhaps a third of the way down the cliff to my left.

  Tenille lay upon the ledge, and even from this distance I could see the awkward angle of her leg, the bone jutting from beneath the skin. The light snow had all but stopped, but a slight powder coated her motionless form. It was impossible to tell if she was alive or dead—there was no obviously fatal wound, but the fall might easily have killed her, and I could not see if she was breathing.

  “Bugger me,” Orya swore. “She looks bad. Think she’s alive, Scriber?”

  “I can’t say from here,” I said. “She would look considerably worse if the larger rocks had struck her, I think. If it was only the fall… it is not so far that survival is out of the question. I don’t know.”

  Wynne leaned over my shoulder to see. “We need to get her,” she said anxiously. “If she’s alive, you can help her, can’t you?”

  “I don’t know!” Getting to my feet, I stepped away from the edge of the cliff and began to pace, rubbing my temple with two fingers. “I don’t know. I need to examine her.”

  Please let her be alive, I begged whatever god might be listening. Kaelyn is already gone. Let just one more death on my conscience be enough.

  “I can pull her up,” said Debra. “Need to get a rope around her though.”

  “How in the depths are we supposed to do that?” I demanded, gesturing angrily at the sheer cliff walls.

  Orya stood and shrugged off her pack, pulling out a length of rope. “Told you before, Scriber, I grew up climbin’ the cliffs in Highpass. Gettin’ to her won’t be a problem.” Uncoiling the rope, she tied the end around her waist and yanked at the knot a few times to test it. With a satisfied nod, she tossed the other end of the long cord to Debra.

  “Should I lower you down?” the big woman asked uncertainly.

  Orya knelt again, peering down into the ravine with no sign of fear in her wild blue eyes. “Faster doin’ it my way,” she said.

  Then, without warning, she swung her legs over the cliff’s edge and dropped out of sight.

  “Mother below!” I gasped, scrambling to the edge of the ridge. Behind me, I was vaguely conscious of a panicked Debra pulling back on the rope to arrest Orya’s fall.

  I expected to see Orya dangling at the end of the rope far below, or crumpled against some ledge or outcropping. I did not. She clung to the cliffside several feet beneath the edge, searching for a foothold. As I watched, she began to descend, her hands and feet somehow finding purchase where I could have sworn there was none.

  “Are you insane?” I shouted at her.

  “Might be,” she replied with a grin, and flung herself sideways through the air.

  My lungs stopped working; my stomach threatened to leap out of my throat. Forgetting for a moment the rope cinched tight about her waist, I was quite certain she would plummet to her death on the rocks below. Instead, she reached out and grasped some invisible handhold, lurching to a stop and laughing with exhilaration.

  I could only shake my head in amazement as she scampered nimbly down the cliff in heart-stopping leaps and drops. In no time at all, she was lowering herself onto the small outcropping that held Tenille.

  “Is she all right?” Wynne called down.

  Orya leaned down over Tenille for a moment, then answered, “She’s breathin’. Hurt bad though.”

  “Can you wake her?” I asked. I did not want Tenille bouncing against the cliff when we pulled her up—better if she could help control her own ascent somewhat.

  It took several attempts, but eventually Orya’s prodding and slapping and yelling roused her.

  “Tenille,” I shouted. “Can you tell me where your injuries are?”

  “B-broken ribs.” Her voice was strained, and I could hear the wince in it; she had to yell to be heard from this distance, and with broken ribs that was no easy thing. “My right arm and leg.”

  I nodded to myself. With one leg and arm, she could at least hold herself upright and keep from scraping against the cliffside too badly, though the pain would be substantial. “We’re going to pull you up. Orya, we’ll send the rope back down for you.”

  “I’ll get myself back up, you just see to her,” Orya yelled back. She untied the rope from her waist and looped it under Tenille’s buttocks, forming a makeshift seat.

  When the harness was secure, Debra began to heave, cords of muscle bulging along her thick arms. Slowly, Tenille rose, gripping the rope with her left hand and extending her good leg to push herself back from the cliff. She said something to Orya as she started to ascend, but I could not hear what it was.

  When we pulled her onto the ridge a short while later, Tenille’s face was pale and drawn, and sweat beaded on her forehead. As we laid her on her back, she looked me in the eye and whispered in a strained voice, “Something is shining in the rocks.” Then her eyes rolled back and she fell unconscious again.

  I did not let myself dwell on her strange words. Kneeling at her side, I examined her as thoroughly as I was able. She was breathing regularly—her broken ribs had not punctured the lungs—but there were bruises all along her right side. Below her knee a jagged shard of bone penetrated the skin; her right arm was broken as well, but less badly. The pain must have been incredible—I could not imagine how she stayed conscious even as long as it took for us to pull her up.

  “Hold her,” I directed Wynne and Debra, gesturing to Tenille’s thigh.

  With the two women anchoring her in place, I pulled on her injured leg until the bone drew back beneath the skin, setting the break as best I could. After bandaging the wounded flesh, I did the same with her arm. There was little I could do about her broken ribs, and we would have to find something to splint the broken limbs—but barring some internal injury I could not treat, she would live.

  “She is going to survive, I think,” I told the others, relief coloring my voice.

  “What did she mean about something shining?” Wynne asked. “She must have seen something below.”

  “A trick of the light, perhaps,” I said. “Quartz or mica in the stones. Or…” A sudden, unlikely hope surged through me then, and I scuttled back to the cliff to look for myself.

  Orya was already halfway down to the debris strewn riverbed, to my surprise.

  “What are you doing?” I shouted, scanning the ravine floor for whatever it was Tenille had seen.

  “Tenille saw somethin’ while you were liftin’ her,” Orya answered. “Thought I’d have a look.”

  “Where is it?” I could make nothing out amid the stones.

  Orya leaned precariously back from the cliff and pointed to a spot near the bottom of the pile of rubble. “Looks like metal.”

  I saw it then, a bright reflective glint between stones that shone for just a moment as the sun hit it through the clouds. Closing my eyes, I said a silent prayer to the Mother and the Father. If something good comes of this disaster, I promised, I will be devout for the rest of my days.

  When I looked again, Orya was nearly at the bottom of the ravine. She dropped the last several feet and strode to the base of the stone pile, crouching down where I had seen the metallic gleam.

  When she grasped the first stone to move it aside, she paused.

  “This ain’t no stone.” She held the smooth yellow-white object up for me to see. Even from so far away, I recognized the vague shape of a human skull. “There’s a mess of bones here.”

  Morbid as it was, my first reaction was elation. “Orya, you need to find that metal. I must know what it is.”

  Wynne sensed my excitement. “You think this is what we’ve been looking for, don’t you?”

  I nodded slowly, almost scared to admit
it for fear of angering some capricious luck spirit. “Those bones could have been hidden here for a very long time,” I said. “Buried in a rockslide, concealed for years until the pile was disturbed enough to reveal them. The Scribers would have found no sign of them when they searched.”

  At that moment, Orya’s voice rang out from below. “Mother’s teats, I can’t believe it. Look at this, Scriber.”

  In her extended hand, she held a long, thin metal object. Despite the distance, I could tell what it was instantly: a tarnished silver scroll case.

  We had found the Lost Prince.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Prince Willyn was not a smart man. He badly wanted to be a Scriber, but none of the six Schools would give him his pin. Even for the King’s son, no Master could justify rewarding such poor performance on exams, or such general ignorance.

  And yet, it appears that he came closer to finding the Archives than anyone else for some three hundred years. This is, to say the least, somewhat embarrassing for the Scribers.

  — From the personal journals of Dennon Lark

  Willyn’s scroll case held another page from Prince Fyrril’s journal, dated a month after the one we had found in Three Rivers.

  Adello sends word from Three Rivers, though he risks discovery in doing so. The voices are stronger than ever, he says—the sorcery has claimed many of the nobles, most of the officers in the Army. He begs to return to my side. I sent him a final message today, telling him of my plans; telling him that he must remain there, that if he and his songs do not survive, all our efforts are wasted.

  We cannot hold here. Father and Oryn have brought the entire Army to Ryndport, leaving the rest of the Kingsland at the mercy of the rebels. And these walls were not made to hold back a siege. The storms have halted shipping, and our supplies dwindle. The city will fall within the week if we continue to fight. I have ordered a surrender at dawn tomorrow, and instructed the people not to resist when Father takes the city. I hope that will be enough to spare their lives when he realizes I am gone.

  My men and I sail for the Salt Mountains tonight under cover of darkness. I am on the verge of understanding this sorcery, I think—the words of the Sages must hold the secret, though I fear whatever truths I may find come far too late. I know where I can hide the books when I am done. There is a small cave, in a valley that I discovered years ago while hunting with the Whiteclaw Clan.

  I hope that whoever finds them can do more than I have.

  On the reverse side, the entirety of the page was given to a hand-drawn map of the Salt Mountains. There was no uncertainty here, no hidden meaning or clues to be sought in song. The map showed the way to the last undiscovered remnants of the Archives.

  Bryndine ran her finger along the route Fyrril had marked five hundred years before. “If we travel north along the ridge where you found the Prince and then east when the ravine ends, this valley should be no more than two days away.”

  It had taken us hours to carry Tenille back to the camp through the difficult terrain of the mountains. When evening fell and we had not yet returned, Bryndine and the others had come looking for us; with their help, we had arrived back at camp shortly before midnight. After a moment of silence for Kaelyn, most of the company had retired for the night. Those of us still awake—Bryndine and I, Wynne and Deanyn, and of course Sylla—sat by the fire, examining the page that had led Prince Willyn to his death.

  “Prince Willyn was barely a day from the place when the landslide took him,” I said, hardly able to believe it. “Of all the people to come so close…”

  “Why did he not just tell the Scribers?” Wynne asked. “I thought he wanted his pin, wouldn’t this have helped?”

  I shook my head. “He wanted his pin once, but he left the Academy on… poor terms. He was angry with the Scribers. Perhaps he wanted to embarrass them by finding what they couldn’t.”

  “That is… sad.” Wynne’s eyes were full of pity for the long dead Prince. “If the Scribers had given him just a bit of respect, these books might have been found two hundred years ago.”

  “If he had earned more respect, they might have given it to him,” I countered, feeling an impulsive need to defend the Scribers of Willyn’s time despite my poor relations with so many of their current number. “Willyn did not deserve a pin, by all accounts.”

  “Almost hard to believe, for a man who thought it a good idea to run off into the mountains without telling anyone,” Deanyn said, absently tossing a twig into the fire. I grinned at her across the flames, and the corner of her mouth twitched upwards, ruining her deadpan expression.

  Wynne did not smile. “I suppose,” she said. “It still seems sad.” It occurred to me that she might have related to the Prince’s plight—she had wanted to be a Scriber herself, and had been disappointed.

  “We cannot change what happened to him,” Bryndine said seriously. “But we must act quickly if we wish to succeed where Prince Willyn failed. The snows have already begun. We will set out tomorrow. A small group, I think—no more than four, including you and I, Scriber.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want more than three people to look after Dennon?” Deanyn asked. “He’s trouble, that one. Gets in barfights, argues with the clergy.”

  Bryndine ignored the joke. “The fewer of us there are, the faster we can move, and with less risk of disturbing the mountain and causing another slide.”

  Breaking her long, glowering silence, Sylla said, “I’m coming with you.”

  Deanyn laughed. “Ah, that solves the problem then. She’ll just kill him within the first hour.”

  Sylla only narrowed her eyes at Deanyn and kept silent. My stomach clenched tightly. I smiled and forced a chuckle to cover my fear, but knowing what I did about Sylla, Deanyn’s jest felt more like prophecy.

  “We should bring Orya too,” I suggested. “She climbs like a spider. We may need her.”

  Bryndine nodded. “That is it, then. You and I, Sylla and Orya. We’ll leave at first light. Deanyn, you have the first watch. Rylene will relieve you in two hours.” She handed Fyrril’s page back to me and stood. “Get some rest, Scriber,” she said as she headed for her tent. “You will need it.” Wynne and Sylla followed her to the sleeping tents, leaving Deanyn and I alone by the fire.

  I was about to retire myself when I glanced down at the map Fyrril had drawn, and noticed something that made me snort with amusement.

  “Is something funny?” Deanyn asked.

  “More ironic than funny.” I held up the map. “Waymark is directly south of us. No more than a week’s travel from here, if I’m reading this correctly. I spent years telling the villagers Willyn never passed through there.” Perhaps I should have been embarrassed by my mistake, but somehow it seemed fitting.

  Deanyn grinned. “You, wrong about something? By the Divide, how can this be?”

  “Your faith in me is overwhelming,” I said, laughing. “It’s too much for me. I’m going to sleep.”

  Rolling the map up and placing it back in its tarnished case, I pushed myself to my feet. Bryndine was right; it had been a difficult day, and I needed a good night’s rest. I did not want to be tired and irritable in the morning—making Sylla angry was an easy way to get myself killed.

  Deanyn, apparently, could sense my unease. “Don’t worry too much about Sylla,” she said. “I was only joking before. She’s a fierce guard dog, but a tame one. She’ll bark, but she won’t bite unless the Captain lets her.”

  “I know,” I said, though I was not half as certain as Deanyn sounded. Sylla had accused me several times of risking their lives for nothing—if we did not find the books, if they had been moved or destroyed in the last five hundred years, how would she react? By putting a sword through me, I suspected. It would be understandable, really. If it came to that, I might fall on her sword myself.

  Deanyn could not hear my doubts, though, so she only nodded and said, “Good. Sleep well then.”

  As I ducked into my small tent, I hear
d her voice again.

  “Dennon?”

  I turned to face her. “What is it?”

  There was real concern in her eyes. “Promise me you’ll keep yourself alive. I’d consider it a personal favor.”

  Somewhat touched, I gave her a tired smile. “I will,” I said. “Believe me, no one wants that more than I do.”

  She nodded. “I will hold you to it.” She waved me into the tent, and when I crawled under my scratchy woollen blanket, I fell asleep almost instantly.

  * * *

  Travelling alongside Sylla, with so few companions to distract attention, was difficult to bear. Everything I did seemed to raise her ire; I could not so much as take a step without her snapping at me for making too much noise.

  “Unless you want to bring every snowcat on the slopes down on us, you had better step quieter, Scriber,” she would say, though no one had seen so much as a paw-print for the entire week we had been searching the mountains.

  Though I had promised myself I would not antagonize the woman, I found it difficult to take her abuse silently. But when I offered a retort, it always met the same response—she simply laid her hand on the hilt of her sword, and I bit back any further insults and retreated.

  Orya, at least, was better company. Not even Sylla’s dour presence was able to repress her buoyant and frequently obscene spirit, so I did not lack for conversation. Bryndine, surprisingly, was also a good travelling companion—our relationship was approaching something like friendship, or at least mutual respect. During most of our earlier travels, she had talked more with the women than with me, but that day, she reminded me that she had spent time at the Academy by engaging in discussion on an impressive variety of scholarly subjects.

  There were some slight snowfalls throughout the day, never lasting long, but enough to leave a thin white coat on the ground, and to make me nervous. Though we were moving at a decent pace, and could in theory reach Fyrril’s cave and rejoin the others in as few as three more days, a single heavy snow could make the return trip near impossible.