by Rin Chupeco
“You’re all going to describe to me in painstaking detail what these traps are,” Arjun said, “if you don’t want us using any of you to spring them.”
“We don’t know!” another of the cannibals cried out. “There was a flash like lightning, and then the meat was dead, burning. We ran.”
Noelle bent down and picked up a small rock. Hefting it expertly, she threw it in the direction of the shrine—
—and it felt like the whole world had caught on fire. We dove to the ground as flames lashed out, engulfing the stone and dying out almost as quickly as they had begun.
“What . . . ,” Arjun said, spitting out sand. “What the hell was—”
“My apologies,” Noelle said. “There are no winds in these parts. I wondered if any errant movement would serve as a trigger. It seems that these mirages are marking the radius of where it becomes dangerous for us.”
“They’re actually warning us of these traps,” Tamera sputtered. “Protecting us!”
“I cannot walk on air to access it, then?” Sonfei asked.
“If you don’t want to share the same fate as the rock I threw, no.”
Haidee shivered. “How do we get past it?”
“Let me figure something out,” I said. “The rest of you keep your distance.”
“I’m not going to let you do anything dangerous, Lan,” Odessa said fiercely.
“I don’t intend to do anything dangerous. But of all of us here I’m the one with the most experience taking stock of strange territories.” The clans knew the sunlands better than I did, but exploring unknown terrain was my specialty, and I was determined to be useful. “Trust me.”
She took a deep breath. “I do. Please be careful.”
I gave her a quick kiss, then began to circle the mirages. The sand within the radius was far too pristine, marred only at the points where the unfortunate corpses lay. There were half a dozen bodies that I could see at a glance; soldier’s uniforms on some, raggedy clothing like the Hellmakers’ on others.
Halfway through my survey, a sudden flash of light caught my attention. I looked up, and nearly fell over.
The eyes of the half-destroyed statue stared at me, a dazzling bright blue.
The others wasted no time copying my route, after I’d explained. “I don’t see it,” Odessa said, puzzled.
Arjun positioned himself in the exact spot where I’d been standing, and muffled a curse. “I can only see it when I stand at this point,” he said tersely. “What kind of trick is this?”
“Wait!” The agonized cry came from Lord Vanya. “‘Where blue shines brightest; let it show you the way.’ That’s what the passage meant!”
“But that means nothing,” Tamera scoffed.
“Noelle,” I said. “Fancy you could put your stone-throwing abilities to the test again?”
Noelle bent to retrieve another rock. “Where do you want it, milady?”
“Imagine a straight line between Arjun and the statue. Toss it anywhere within that path.”
Noe’s aim was true. The rock sailed in a perfect curve and landed in the sand within the mirages’ circle.
Nothing happened. The sands didn’t catch fire; the stone landed unmolested.
“As long as you keep a direct line of sight to those glowing blue eyes,” I said, “then you can enter the circle without harm.”
“A rock is one thing,” Arjun said, “and a human body is another. I can fight almost anything, but hell if I can walk in the absolute straight line this requires.”
“I can try something,” Odessa said, taking Arjun’s place, “but I’ll need some of your water rations, and Haidee’s help.” She looked over at Haidee.
“I understand,” was the prompt response. “And I can use air patterns to pack in the sand from either side, so it’s as straight as we can manage it.”
I offered Odessa my flask. Her and her sister’s eyes glowed, one a bright amber and the other a silvery gray, and a thin wall of wet, tightly packed sand slowly rose on either side of the line I had indicated, bordering the safe path leading into the shrine. The mirages on either side of it didn’t even budge.
I took a step into the circle. Odessa cried out, but nothing else happened. I took several more steps, not stopping until I was halfway through. “Well,” I said, not bothering to hide my relief. “That was a rush.”
“Please tell me what you intend to do before you actually do it,” Odessa yelled at me.
I grinned at her. “Why does it feel—colder in here?”
She stared at me, eyes widening, then turned to face the statue. Her eyes glowed, just as blue as the figure’s.
Something rippled through the air surrounding the statue, the effect much like that of a reflection on a lake disturbed by some idle hand. I crouched down, expecting the worst, but the ripples only extended outward, until they wavered and vanished. The statue was still there, but a temple now loomed behind it: smaller than Brighthenge, propped up by columns on three of its four sides, with the fourth on the ground, broken up into pieces.
“I wrung the water out of the air,” Odessa breathed.
“A mirage,” Haidee gasped at the same time. “A true mirage—an illusion of the desert; a displacement of light that can be distorted by colder air as it descends. Leeching the water out broke the illusion.”
We all looked at each other. “‘Take water from where your eyes cannot see,’” Vanya repeated shakily.
“Hell,” Arjun said, and I agreed.
Chapter Nineteen
Odessa and the Trials
NOT EVERYONE WOULD BE ENTERING the temple. Tamera and her clan were to stand guard outside, partly to keep an eye on the cannibals but also to alert us of any more hostiles. The cannibals were happy enough to remain behind, clearly wanting nothing to do with the place. From the outside, it looked to be no bigger than my room back at Aranth—
I stopped, forcing myself not to think about Aranth. My city was gone. There was nothing I could do about it. Moving forward, protecting what people I had left was the only option I had—
But even that was deceptive. We realized as soon as we crossed the threshold that no shrine existed within; only stairs that led further underground, further into the unknown. Should galla descend on Tamera and the others, we might not even be able to hear them. Should we encounter any threats, they might not be able to hear us.
“It explains why they chose to build a shrine here, of all places,” Noelle noted. “The layer of hard rock above would make this an ideal place for secrets. Any artifacts stored here could last longer away from the sun’s heat.”
“At this point,” Lisette grumbled, “I wouldn’t be surprised if the artifact was Inanna’s bleeding heart, considering the ways this place has already tried to kill us.”
“Stay with Tamera,” Arjun told her. “You aren’t used to closed, dark spaces.”
“Neither are you. If you can do it, so can I.” She paused. “I’d appreciate some light, though. A lot of light.”
Lan took the lead over my protests, arguing that she had the most experience with unknown terrain—true enough, but that didn’t mean I liked it. Sonfei and two of his Liangzhu, Pai and Oda, also accompanied us.
The corridors were dark and smelled moldy, but no other traps had lain in wait for us so far. Our progress was slow but steady, with my Catseye stopping to inspect nicks in the walls and floor in case they were trigger mechanisms for snares. Haidee and I reached out with our gates, trying to feel for potential threats, searching for anything that felt atypical: unnatural concentrations of metal, for example, or areas of unexpected heat in the otherwise cool surroundings.
“Be cautious,” Lan said. “The path widens from this point on, so I want you all to stay close. Try to step exactly where I go.”
“Water,” Arjun said.
“I have some to spare,” Haidee offered.
“No, I hear water.”
“That’s impossible,” my sister said, shocked. “This is the m
ost arid part of the Skeleton Coast.”
But I already had my hand pressed against the wall, concentrating. “You’re both right,” I gasped, repulsed. “It feels like there’s a large stream up ahead, but at the same time it’s—not a stream at all.”
“And if that’s water,” Lisette said grimly, “then it’s shining a lot more brightly than any I’ve seen before.”
Lan cursed, coming to an abrupt stop. “Stay back!” she ordered.
It was my turn to gasp. Flowing perpendicular to us was a river. But there was something peculiar about the way it looked; a glimmer to it that I’ve never seen in the seas of Aranth, a bright waxiness that clung to the sheen on its surface.
“That isn’t water!” Haidee cried out. “It’s quicksilver! Don’t fall in!”
“Does quicksilver occur naturally underneath rocks like this?” Lisette demanded.
“Not at this concentration,” Lord Vanya whispered. “But the Golden City maintains some quicksilver mines—Father owns one, in fact. Finding a natural deposit isn’t a surprise, but not in liquid form like this. This was deliberately planted here.”
“But for what? Is it another trap?”
“Quicksilver has a greater density than most liquids,” Haidee said. “The cooling system inside the Golden City is run with it in place of water. You could technically walk on quicksilver, if you don’t consider other factors.”
“What other factors?”
“Quicksilver has little surface tension. You’re more likely to fall down when you try to stand on quicksilver, and walking would be all but impossible. It’s also toxic when ingested in large amounts. So are its fumes.”
“Not just in large amounts,” Lan confirmed grimly, her eyes glowing ivory and gold. “They’ve added something else to this river. I can literally see the poison running through it.”
“Great,” Arjun said. “What you’re saying is we can’t stay here long or we’ll die from poisoned fumes, and we can’t go across because contact might kill us.”
“We do not be needing to walk on water.” Sonfei’s eyes flashed white, and unseen winds lifted him off his feet. “I will be back.” He was off before anyone could stop him.
“Let him,” Haidee sighed. “He’s very bad at following orders, anyway.”
“Somebody went through all this trouble to construct these traps,” Arjun said. “What is it they’re keeping here that’s so important they would kill to protect it?”
“My father kept this a secret from Her Holiness,” Lord Vanya said quietly. “Maybe he knows something we don’t.”
“You’re hiding something else,” Lisette told him.
“What?”
“Your lower lip juts out when you’re keeping something back. I think it’s adorable.”
Vanya, who was doing exactly that, glared. “I saw some of the corpses as we were entering the shrine. Some of their clothes resembled those that my father’s soldiers wear.”
I recalled the state of some of the corpses, half-hidden by the sand. Lord Arrenley’s soldier had worn similar colors in the Citadel, before I’d struck him with—
No. Stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it, stop thinking about—
“What was the book you were reading, the first time we met?” Lan asked calmly.
“What?”
“The book you were reading, when I first saw you at Old Wallof’s bookstore. What was it called?”
“The Queen and Her Hunter. Eric the Huntsman and Queen Rahne.” She knew. She knew what I was thinking somehow, and she was helping me keep my sanity. I felt my heartbeat slowing down as I focused. “He was poaching deer—that’s an animal with four legs—in her forests, and he chanced to see her riding with her lady’s maids. It was love at first sight.”
“How appropriate, then. I was hunting through books when I looked up and saw you.”
“I wish I’d told you who I was from the very start.” I still hadn’t completely forgiven myself for lying, for the fallout that came after.
She planted the tiniest of kisses on my mouth. “That’s in the past. And I can’t deny that I don’t regret everything that happened afterward.”
Sonfei soon returned, looking triumphant. “There is an ending to the endless river,” he informed us. “It is perhaps over a mile out, nearer two, before you can find dry ground by the giant’s face.”
“By the what, now?” Arjun asked.
“A giant’s face, carved into one of the walls. I look at it as proof that we be following the right path.”
“I don’t really want to know why there’s a giant’s face sculpted into an underground cave wall,” Lisette said.
“Let’s worry about that once we get there.” Arjun scowled. “How do we get across? I’m not a Windshifter or a Skyrider.”
“Perhaps we can squeeze the poison out?” One of the Liangzhu, Pai, asked, her eyes glowing amber. Terra patterns burrowed into the quicksilver, but kept constantly sliding away from the liquid, like it was too slippery to find a firmer grip. “The poison is too bonded to this peculiar liquid. It would take hours to separate.”
“Ice?” I wondered.
“No,” Lan decided. “Freezing this whole river would tire you and Haidee out too quickly.”
“It is a good thing, then, that I am here with you,” Sonfei said. “I shall carry you all across.”
“All of us?” Arjun asked skeptically.
“Perhaps not all,” he conceded. “I am strong, but I have limits.”
“I can carry maybe two others,” I said.
“As can I,” Haidee spoke up. “Though it will be rough going.”
Sonfei was an adept-enough Skyrider that he could lift Vanya, Lisette, and his two clanmates easily into the air. I was able to do the same with Lan while Haidee took Arjun, and then we divided Noelle’s weight between us. I’d never had to carry anyone else this way before; pulling Lan back into the Brevity when she’d fallen off the ship, when the devil whale had been stalking us, was the first time I’d ever made the attempt. But Lan smiled at me as I lifted her up, trusting even now.
“I wanted to sweep you off your feet,” she whispered. “Not the other way around.”
I yearned to kiss her, but I didn’t want to distract myself, especially since I was starting to feel the strain. “Time enough for that later,” I whispered back.
Slowly, we pushed ourselves through the air above the flowing quicksilver river. Sonfei had promised no more than a couple of miles’ work, but when you’re carrying your bodyweight plus someone else’s, two miles felt like forever. My strength was waning, but I only tightened my grip around Lan and Noelle—I would fall in first before I would ever drop them. Even now Lan was still at work, using her aether-gate to draw as much of the exhaustion out of me as she could.
“This is hard work,” Haidee grunted. Arjun had his arm around her waist; I knew he trusted her as much as Lan did me, but the look of terror on his face wasn’t going away.
“Draw closer to me if you can,” Lan said, “and I’ll see what I can do to ease the pressure. The same goes for you, Sonfei.”
“My thanks, milady,” the man said. “And perhaps you would also extend your healing to Lord Vanya, who be looking close to a heart attack.”
“I’m not!” The lordling was adamant, though his insistence didn’t bring much color back to his face.
It was when we were rounding a bend that we finally caught sight of the giant’s face that Sonfei had told us about. It was horrific. The image of a woman’s face glared back at us, grotesque snakes frozen mid-writhe, spiraling out around her face as if they were living hair. The mouth was open far too wide to be natural, and sharp teeth jutted out from the opening.
“I’m assuming this is Inanna,” Noelle said. “A chthonic depiction of her, at the least.”
A sinister rumbling echoed through the cave, growing louder by the minute. “That doesn’t bode well,” Sonfei muttered. “Let us pick up our pace, ladies.”
The s
ounds grew louder, and it was Lisette who first spotted the projectiles from above. “Move!” she shrieked at us.
Arjun didn’t have time to grab his Howler; eyes glowing red, he simply pushed up at the incoming projectiles with both hands. A wall of intense blue fire burned through the arrows heading our way, the high heat enough to turn them into ashes before they could reach us. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” he yelled, “but we better move faster!”
My breath left me in pained gasps as I struggled to push us quicker, harder. I could see the dry bank looming in front of us, a sign that we were almost at this strange river’s end. Lan said nothing, though the warmth I could feel coming from her hands increased, forcing strength back into my arms. Sonfei was grunting hard, the winds around him yanking his passengers forward several feet at a time in short, quick bursts. Haidee’s face mirrored my own exhaustion, while Arjun scanned the space above us again, bracing for another assault.
The next wave came when we were almost at the end, our strength nearly gone. With an inhuman roar, Sonfei pushed out with one massive arm, throwing his clanmates onto the safety of solid ground. With another yell, he drew back the other, prepared to do the same with Lisette and Vanya.
More sharp projectiles hurtled down toward us. Arjun blanketed the empty space above us with a fresh wall of blue flames, but this time a few snuck past his defenses. Sonfei cried out in pain as one pierced through his hand, his concentration broken long enough for him to falter, the winds around him giving out.
I grabbed him as he toppled past me, almost from instinct, and the additional weight made me scream in agony and sent us dangerously close to the quicksilver’s surface. I heard another cry of pain as Haidee caught Lisette, struggling valiantly to keep her up, but neither of us were quick enough to catch Vanya, who fell right into the river.
“No!” Lisette lunged down, her hands plunging into the liquid, at the spot where he’d disappeared. Haidee groaned, but managed to keep her aloft as the other girl continued to dig frantically until, with a shout of victory, she found the lordling’s arm and fished him out.
Sonfei had recovered; pulling free of my grasp and gritting his teeth against the pain, he flung both Lisette and Vanya onto the bank, where the other Liangzhu caught them. He dove and landed beside them with a grunt, hand wrapped around his other wrist where a five-inch arrow lay embedded at the center of his palm.