Near dawn, when the wind quieted enough that the creaking and groaning of the trees stilled, I pushed up and pulled twigs from my hair. Sap plastered a clump of needles to my cheek. I peeled it away and grimaced as the needles then stuck to my fingers. After shaking my hand to no avail, I finally wiped the mess off on my trousers.
Gray light filtered through the heavy branches. Avill’s face was ghostly in the dimness. I brushed hair from her brow, and her eyelids fluttered.
“You smell like the sticky gunk they use to seal the sluice boxes,” she said.
“Your breath smells like the inside of a midden heap, but I wasn’t going to say anything.”
Avill groaned as she sat up. She held her head between her hands. “No more pendant. Not a chance.”
“What was that yesterday? I was sure I’d be torn to shreds. And then… I’m ashamed to admit the thoughts I had.” Azar rolled over, rubbed her eyes, and sat up. Her head thumped against a branch, sending flakes of bark and a few pine needles raining down. “Ow.”
“I could feel you changing,” Avill said. “Becoming… rotten, I guess. It took everything I had to keep you together.”
“The winds come from the Maelstrom,” I said. “They’re much worse than before.”
“It got harder to hold you the farther south we came,” Avill said. “We’ll have to walk from here. Sorry, Savra.”
“You did bring us halfway across the Empire. So I guess you’re forgiven.” I dragged over Azar’s rucksack and started rummaging for breakfast. Beashi had packed a large chunk of salt-cured ham along with a stoppered pot of honey. We’d managed to beg a loaf of crusty bread from the waystation at the plateau’s edge. My mouth started watering at the thought of a nice breakfast sandwich.
“Hey!” Avill screeched, snatching the bundle of food.
I sat back, shocked.
She smirked. “It’s fine if you want your food to taste like the inside of the sluice box, smelly hands.”
Azar nodded in agreement.
“Anyway,” Avill said, “at least we don’t have far to go today.”
“We’re already near Cosmal?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “I thought you were paying attention.”
“To what?”
“The journey? Our location?” She smiled to show she was teasing.
“It’s a little challenging when I’ve been turned into a gust of wind.”
She rolled her eyes. “Try paying attention when you’re carrying around people that weigh as much as—”
“Pregnant cows. You don’t need to repeat yourself.”
“Okay. So you’re heavy as a pair of dead whales, then. But no, we’re not almost to Cosmal. I thought you could hear the town ahead.”
“Town?” Azar asked.
Avill cocked an ear. “Listen.”
Now that I focused, I heard a moan like a hundred oxen lowing in the distance. Only the windmills of Bellows, capital of Guralan Province, made that particular sound.
The low hum brought back memories of the clangor of machinery, the din of voices in the travelers’ bazaar, the press of humanity that had seemed so shocking on my first trip through. Compared to Jaliss, the town was a backwater outpost. But back then, it had seemed enormous.
I let Avill cut me off a slice of ham and slather it with honey. Lost in thought, I scarcely tasted the meal. When we’d eaten, I helped Avill scramble out from beneath the shelter of the tree.
Outside, the wind buffeted us. Daggers of ice cut straight through my clothing. I tucked my elbows close to my ribs, squinted against the gale, and marched toward the city.
The mood in Bellows was somber. Provs kept their cloaks pulled tight as they shuffled across the main street. The stalls and the bazaar had been boarded up, and though the windmills cut the heavy gale with enormous blades, the machinery they once powered had been disengaged. Now, the moan raised by the whirling mills seemed mournful. A dirge.
I caught a shuffling woman’s arm. “We’re looking for accommodations and the courier.”
She looked at me with tired eyes, shrugged, and pointed south toward the crossroads at the city center.
At the intersection, a sign squealed as it swung from rusty hooks. Weathered lettering marked the town hall. We stomped onto the porch and pressed through the door. It took Azar and I shoving together to close it behind us as a gust skirled into the room.
“I’m looking for the courier—”
My breath froze in my throat at the sight of the figures standing before the counter. My parents’ backs were turned, but there was no mistaking the determined set of my father’s shoulders nor the affection with which he wrapped an arm around my mother’s waist.
I blinked, dumbfounded.
When Avill shrieked, everyone in the room started. Papers went flying from a clerk’s desk. My parents had managed to turn halfway around before Avill plowed into them, a screaming whirlwind.
They fell on her with embraces and muttered words and sudden tears.
Finally released from my paralysis, I took slow steps forward. My father’s eyes met mine over Avill’s head.
“It’s okay,” he said. “We’re not phantoms. No more than you are.”
It was all the confirmation I needed. I rushed forward and threw myself into the arms of my family. I never thought we’d be reunited. For the first time in many months, a tear escaped the corner of my eye.
***
The walls shook. Windows rattled.
“How do they know the building won’t come apart?” Avill asked, staring around the edges of the small room. There were just two beds, but I would have been content to curl up in the middle of the dust-driven street if it meant being with my family.
“They don’t.” Father shrugged out of his backpack. “But if it hasn’t fallen by now, chances are we’ll survive the night.”
Avill looked skeptical. I didn’t blame her.
“I’ll leave you to catch up,” Azar said.
“You don’t have to,” I began.
She shook her head. “Ferro mages spend so much time working in secret. I’ve come to enjoy having time alone.”
“Fair enough.”
When the mage shut the door behind her, I met my parents’ eyes.
“There’s so much to tell,” I said.
Father’s face sobered. “Stormshard? If you’re here, the battle for Jaliss must have been fought. Did we take the throne, or…?”
“So much has changed, Papa. It’s—Stormshard and the Empire are working together.”
Over the next couple hours, I filled him in on the fall of Steelhold, our flight from the capital, Parveld’s legions, and Avill’s and my mission to enter the Maelstrom.
Afterward, he ran his hand through his hair and shook his head. My mother looked on, resting her hand on his shoulder.
“Our story is less spectacular,” Father said. “I found your mother in Arborhem, and after some discussion—”
“Or argument, depending on your definition,” my mother said with a smile.
Father smiled back. “I admit, I was afraid to bring your mother back through the forest.”
“He said it was dangerous.” My mother rolled her eyes. “From the recent stories I’ve heard about your father, I’m safer with him than anywhere in the Empire.”
My father’s cheeks reddened with embarrassment.
“The stories are true,” I said. “But go on. Why come here instead of heading for Numintown?”
“I have sad news,” Father said. “No, devastating news.”
A chill gripped into my chest. Father rarely spoke of things in such terms. Even when most of his Shard had been killed in a cavern collapse, he’d shown a brave face.
“Cosmal is gone,” Mother said quietly. “We heard the news from enough people that there’s no doubt it’s true.”
“Gone?” Avill asked. Horror painted stark lines on her face.
My fa
ther nodded. “Swallowed by sea. The waves rose up and covered the land all the way to the Crease.”
“We thought we could sail into the Maelstrom from Numintown. What about the coastal cities in Guralan? Do you think we could hire a fishing boat?”
My father shook his head. “Waves the height of five men batter every stretch of coastline. The rumors from Anisel are scattered. But I’ve heard even the harbors have been wiped away.”
“You’re certain you can’t carry us into the Maelstrom on the wind, Avill?” I asked.
“I’m sure. I almost lost you before, and it will only get worse the closer we get.”
“We need to get as close as we can, then,” I said quietly. “We have to try.”
“We’ll leave in the morning,” my father said. “Together.”
***
“I don’t know how to answer your question,” Azar said, speaking loud to be heard over the roar of the wind. Though I hadn’t thought it possible, her room was draftier than the chamber the inn had given my family.
“Well, can you describe your process?”
“When I’m wearing my black-iron rings, the spirits of the dead are all around. I only need to pay attention to them.”
“You don’t do anything special to cross the veil?”
“I don’t believe so.” The ferro mage was sitting crosslegged at the foot of her bed while I faced her from the headboard. Her eyelids drooped; the rest of my family had been asleep for hours before I’d given up trying. Azar had clearly been sleeping when I’d banged on her door, but she’d ushered me out of the gale without complaint.
“When you say the spirits are nearby… Does that mean you don’t enter anything that looks like a cathedral?”
She chewed her lip while thinking. “Usually I just hear their voices, but there was one time… I remember hallways.”
“Yes, that’s it.” I sat up straighter. “Did you do anything differently that time?”
She tugged on a lock of dark hair. “I suspect I was concentrating harder than usual to spite Ilishian. It was after he’d delivered a lecture on my lack of focus. Never mind that I’d advanced faster than every other apprentice.” A melancholy smile touched her lips. “After we fled Steelhold, he confessed that he’d always believed there was something different about my ability.”
“Do you think Lilik is right about your magic?”
She shrugged. “Maybe I was born with a bit of spiritism.”
I pulled my knees to my chest. “Do you think you could repeat that extra concentration?”
She shrugged. “I suppose so. Why?”
“The last time I visited the halls of the dead, I went too deep. I almost didn’t make it back. But I still believe the ancient dead have answers for us. I hoped you could help me find them.”
So you’re going to send her, instead? Lilik asked.
I hope it doesn’t come to that.
Azar cocked her head. “I’ve only experienced the hallways once. How would I know where to go?”
“I want to try to enter them together.”
Even if you could cross the veil, how does having a companion keep you from getting lost? This doesn’t seem well thought out, Lilik commented.
Believe it or not, I do have a plan.
“I’d be happy to help,” Azar said. “How do we…?”
“See if you can enter. I’ll try to join you. ”
Avill closed her eyes and nodded. I took a deep breath. If Lilik was right about my mental resistance being caused by fear, that barrier should be gone now. My family was here. Mother, Father, Avill. For the first time in seven or possibly even eight years now, we were all together. I had nothing to fear.
Well, I had lots to fear. But I didn’t have to live with that uncertainty anymore.
Their bedroom shared a wall with this one. Gently, I laid a hand on the splintered wood. When viewed with my aura-sight, their spirits were tranquil pools of energy sleeping next door.
“They’re here,” I said aloud. “I’ll never lose them again.”
To Azar’s credit, she held her tongue. If not for her slight shifting of position, I could’ve forgotten she was with me.
As I focused on the sense of peace I felt with my family nearby, I tried to imagine the cathedral forming around me. After a moment, Azar gasped.
“I see you,” she said.
My brows drew together. “You see me?”
“Through the windows. I see you wandering around outside. Your spirit.”
“Windows? I never noticed any…”
“Regardless, you’re blundering through the fog. Come this way.”
Faintly, as if through layer after layer of wool, I heard her voice double. The Azar who stood in the cathedral of the dead rasped like the night whispers from so long ago. The Azar in the wind-battered bedchamber sounded like the young woman with whom I’d spent the last days.
“Say something else,” I said quickly. “I’ll try to follow your voice.”
“What should I talk about?”
You’re making this too complicated, Savra, Lilik said. Forget the notion of a veil—it’s an idea created by the living. You heard what Azar said before. The voices of the dead are all around her. All the time.
Abruptly, I felt them. The phantoms waited for me. All I needed to do was step closer.
Azar laughed when I stumbled across the hallway. “It wasn’t graceful, but you’re here.”
As I stood in place, the cathedral solidified. Cool breezes wafted through the corridors, entering from windows that opened into featureless fog. When Azar took a step toward me, the soft shuffling of her shoes echoed.
I glanced down at my empty hands. It felt strange to be here without the ferros’ rod as an anchor. “Do you know how to get back?” I asked.
Azar looked at me strangely. “The same way we came in, I should think.”
You are awfully forgetful for someone so clever, Lilik commented.
Oh?
How did you leave during your last visits?
By the alcove… I turned slowly. Oh.
The glowing chamber opened right behind me. As I peered, the light brightened in response to my attention.
“So, what’s this plan of yours?” Azar asked.
“Right,” I said, gathering myself. “I need you to imagine something for me.”
“All right…”
“You’re holding a rope. It’s very light, and one end is tied around my waist. It will help me a great deal.”
Azar gasped when, abruptly, a silken cord appeared in her hands. A shimmering length stretched from her coil to a loop knotted around my middle.
“I didn’t know I could do that.”
“I didn’t either, at least, not for certain. The idea came to me tonight. When the dead cross the veil, they build this place from the emotions they carried through life. Since we first joined forces, you’ve done everything you could to help on our quest.”
“I’ve been trying to battle the Hunger for a long time. Even before Emperor Tovmeil’s assassination, Ilishian warned me about the man’s visions. I knew I wasn’t the person who would save the Empire. But I vowed to do what I could to help that person.” She hesitated, then shrugged. “Of course, at the time, I thought our hero would be Kostan.”
“But you believe in me, too.”
She nodded. “Very strongly.”
“When I mentioned the rope, you knew it would help me, and so, like the dead building this place to express their emotions, you created it.”
She glanced at the heavy pillars and archways that loomed above us. “You know a lot for someone who couldn’t find her way here.”
“Yes, well, that or it was a lucky guess. Come on. The chambers where I need your help are much deeper.”
***
I stopped leading her forward as soon as the hallway began to twist and contort around us. “Back,” I said. After a few, shuffling steps in the o
pposite direction, the walls stopped moving.
Azar shuddered. “I can see how it would be easy to get lost.”
“It gets worse the farther you go. Doorways shift. Tunnels turn back on themselves.”
“And you think the Lethin’s spirits are here?”
“Somewhere in the corridors ahead.”
She firmed her shoulders. “What do I do?”
“Let out rope as I move forward. Keep it tight so that when I start back, you can feel it and reel the rope back in. Pretty simple.”
“And if you don’t come back?”
“Wait as long as you can. I suppose if I stop moving for a very long time, you could try dragging me back.”
She winced. “I hope it doesn’t go that far.”
“Me too.”
Azar plucked a loop of rope from the coil and dropped it to give me slack. Heart thudding, I stepped down the corridor. The floor tilted under my feet as the wall twisted like putty. I felt sick, so I closed my eyes and walked with hands outstretched.
“Nevyn!” I yelled, hands cupped around my mouth.
Rather than throwing my words back at me, the corridor seemed to swallow them. I peeked through slitted eyelids. Ahead, the tunnel branched, or at least it appeared to branch. I shuffled forward, eyes once again clamped shut, until my outstretched fingertips brushed a wall.
I stepped to the right until I felt an opening under my hands and then continued forward. The rope tugged lightly on my waist as Azar managed the slack to keep it from getting too loose between us.
At each intersection, I felt around until I located the rightmost opening. As I moved, I kept a rough count of the paces I’d traveled. Better to keep track in case something happened to the rope.
As my fingertips fell into the empty space of yet another opening, I stepped forward and noticed a new sensation on my arms. Hot air seemed to bake my skin, and I got the strange sense that this corridor was much wider than the others.
I opened my eyes and gasped. A wasteland spread into the distance, gorges splitting cracked earth, skeletal trees leaning in the yellow haze. Sharp rocks littered the ground, their facets glinting.
“What is this?” I whispered, taking a couple of steps forward.
The sound of my footsteps vanished, replaced by the whistle of a ceaseless wind. I reached back to check that the rope was still taut. Azar responded to a tug by quickly letting out an armful of rope and then pulling back on the line until I felt the pressure at my waist again.
Fate of the Drowned (The Broken Lands Book 3) Page 27