by Jeff Wheeler
“Go, Captain,” Maia warned against the hail of fragments. “Go!”
Rawlt choked on his words as he backed away from her and tumbled into the heap of bones and smashed breastplates. Cuts and windburn dotted his face as he turned and fled. Maia let the magic burn through her, running its course while ravaging her senses. She climbed the small mound to the waymarker and touched its rough face, learning in an instant where the next one sat. Dead branches crashed through the wood as the windstorm eased. She turned and saw the kishion in a heap, lying still. She hoped she had not injured him too much with the kystrel.
After stumbling through the wreckage, she knelt by him and watched the slow rise and fall of his breathing.
“Are you . . . ?”
The kishion struck before she could finish the thought. Pain blossomed in her ribs, and she saw his long-knife. His gray eyes met hers coldly.
“If you ever use the magic on me again, I will kill you.”
Maia’s heart lurched when she realized that rather than shoving the blade inside her, he had only pricked her with the tip. Fear seeped into her stomach and she started trembling. Glancing down, she saw blood blooming on her dress. It terrified her how close to death she was. A little more pressure on the haft of the long-knife was all it would take. There was nothing to stop it from spilling her life away. It stung.
“If you are going to kill me, kishion, do it now and get this over with.” She met his stare with a challenge of her own, but she could not repress a pained flinch.
He withdrew the long-knife and wiped her blood on his pants. “As if I needed your permission. Wait here for me. I am going to kill the two fools you let run away.”
Maia stanched the wound in her abdomen firmly with her hand. “No.”
The look in his eyes was frightening when he turned back.
“Compassion is all well and good in the tomes, girl, but if they reach the Blessing before us, we do not stand a chance getting around the Spike and back to Comoros.”
“They will die here anyway, kishion. But they are my father’s subjects. I will not murder them.”
“I am not asking you to do it, Lady Maia. I believe that is why your father paid for me.” He stepped away from her.
“No.”
He turned on her savagely. “You foolish little wretched! You cannot stop me! Do you not understand this? If they make it to the ship, we are doomed to remain here. Our kingdoms are nearly at war. I will not spend a day longer in the cursed lands than I must.”
Maia stepped forward. “It is you who does not understand, kishion. My magic is the only thing protecting us from the cursed lands.”
“Hardly.”
“You doubt it? If you sleep farther than a dozen paces from me tonight, you will not wake ever again. These woods will kill those soldiers before they reach the last waymarker. They will kill you as well, if you leave me. Now put that knife in your sheath and come with me.”
He looked uncertain, his gaze boiling with fury.
She bit her lip and wrestled with her patience. “I am here because my magic will get us through the dangers that you cannot stop. My magic has found the right path, saved us weeks of wandering through these woods. But I was raised in a castle, kishion, not in the woods. I cannot make it alone to the lost abbey, and I know that.” With her hand still pressing her wound, she held out her other hand. “Come with me. Please.”
He folded his arms angrily and stalked past her. Deep in the woodlands, the creature roared.
* * *
Eight waymarkers—eight days since landing on the shores below the Spike.
“I have never seen this kind of structure before,” the kishion said, stopping in wonder and running his gloved hand over the ivy-covered pillar. Sweat trickled down the grooves of his scars. The climb up to the peak had spent them both.
Maia sat on a wedge-shaped rock, trying to catch her breath. Her dress clung to her uncomfortably. She had folded her cloak and stuffed it along the lower strap of her pack so that it cushioned her side. Her long dark hair was knotted and tangled, and her hands had never been so filthy, the nails cracked and uneven. She felt strength in her body from the days of hard travel. Her muscles were not so sore as they had been at first, and she felt a little pride at the accomplishment of having survived the cursed lands. She pressed her hand against her lower back, stretching the muscles across her shoulders.
Looking up, she watched as the kishion explored the base of several pillars. He climbed up onto a large boulder and hopped to the top of a broken pillar. On his tiptoes, he craned his neck.
“I do not believe . . . ! I must be hungrier than I thought.”
“What is it?” Weariness sagged on her shoulders. The kystrel was heavier than usual today.
“Orchards. Rubble everywhere, but I swear I see an orchard over there. Plums and ’cots growing up here. I must be going mad with hunger.”
Foraging in the cursed woods had been difficult. They had found blackberries and chokecherries that were so sour they were hardly edible. They had not found any game animals and were forced to eat serpent as their daily meat after the dried beef spoiled.
As Maia got to her feet, the wound on her ribs throbbed with the effort. It was tender to the touch, and the flesh had been slow to heal even after she had cleaned it well at a Leering. Her legs ached from the long climb, and some of the seams on her leather boots had begun to split. Her dresses would befit a scullery girl now, not a king’s daughter. It reminded her of the rags she used to wear at Lady Shilton’s manor. The memories made her cringe and she banished them. A king’s disinherited daughter, she reminded herself. Not quite a wretched, but not much better than one.
The kishion climbed down quickly and led her through the maze of broken stone. Maia paused and brushed a moss-covered rock. The whispers came through strongly, and the kystrel tingled against her skin. She was grateful the shadowstain encroached so slowly. When she had last looked at herself in a private moment, the shadowstain had just begun to spread across her breastbone and nearly to the hollow below her throat. She remembered some of the Dochte Mandar she had seen—their entire faces painted with tattoos after years of use. For now, her bodice covered hers, but what would happen when it began webbing its pattern up her neck?
“Are you coming?” he called to her, pushing ahead toward the orchard.
Maia nodded and bunched her skirts so she could climb over the broken blocks of cut stone. Whispers flitted through her mind as she followed the kishion. This was the lost abbey, the final bastion of defense against a devastating enemy, an enemy that would destroy every living thing. The rock was blasted and chiseled. Once, there had been markings, which had been destroyed when the abbey fell. Symbols of suns and stars and round windows paned with gold. It was all broken, crushed as if some giant boot had stepped on the mountain. This is the place where death was born.
“My eyes are not deceiving me. Look at this!”
The kishion bounded ahead toward a grove of towering trees. With a coughing chuckle, he reached up and plucked a fleshy apricot from the branch of the nearest tree.
“Do not taste it,” Maia warned. She followed him to the trees, where she found another Leering. This one was smaller, only up to her knees, but the face carved on it was glowing from an inner power, as if fed by magic other than her kystrel.
“Poisoned?” he asked.
“I do not know.”
Maia knelt by the stone and touched it and felt a surge of relief. “No, it is safe to eat. The magic of this place . . . it is frightening. Look, there is another Leering. Over there too. Stones ring this orchard and make the trees flourish.” Maia looked up and saw juice already dribbling down the kishion’s chin.
“Taste it,” he said, running his arm across his mouth. “Not even the Paeizian grow fruit this sweet. I cannot believe it is still ripe.”
Maia took the fruit and bit into it. Flavor rolled across her tongue, jolting her. “I think this is the wrong season,” she sai
d after swallowing. “But you are right, they are ripe. All of them. Pluck some more. We can eat them on the way back.”
Maia and the kishion wandered the orchard, where a variety of trees and a small vegetable garden were hoarded together in one spot.
“This green one is tough and pebbled. Let’s try a knife.” The kishion slit open the fruit, revealing a thick round core the size and shape of a walnut and a greenish fruit inside. He bit into it and spat it out. “I am sure it is ripe, but the texture . . . It is not sweet at all.”
Maia gave it a taste and liked its peculiar consistency. “I like it. Gather more to eat later.”
They sat in the midst of the strange orchard and feasted on their find. Crunchy carrots and heads of cabbage along with the sweetest, tartest apples she had ever tasted. It made her forget for a moment how difficult the journey had been. She looked up at the scar-faced kishion and saw a smirk on his mouth.
“What is amusing you?”
“You have a bit of strawb’ry stuck in your teeth . . . my lady.”
She nudged herself away from him and used her tongue to try and find it. She turned back. “Is it gone?”
He started to chuckle and shook his head.
“Laughing at me does not help,” she said, pretending to scold him. She could not help but smile, though, as she worked at the tooth with her nail.
He stretched back and rested his head on his hands. “You are teasing it out. Almost got it. There you are, lass.”
Maia looked down at the speck of red on her finger. She looked over at the kishion. “I do think this is the first time I have seen you smile.”
He sobered quickly and sat up. Anger stormed across his eyes, and he stood and brushed off his pants. “What are we doing wasting our . . . come on. Let us finish your errand.”
Maia wondered what she had done or said to make him so angry. “You must not have much to smile about. I imagine not.”
He stood with feet apart, arms folded over his chest, and glared at her. “Oh, I find humor enough, Lady Maia. I do not need your pity or your sympathy. Look at you. Daughter of a king who fell in love with his wife’s lady-in-waiting. He disinherited you so that the lady-in-waiting’s brood could rule after him. Fat healthy sons. Fat lazy sons. Yet he chooses you to save his kingdom.” He snorted. “Perhaps he believes you will be killed by the Dochte Mandar in carrying out your errand. Two troubles solved in one. I may be a hireling, Maia, but I am not a fool. Save your sympathy for yourself.”
He walked away, slapping a branch away from his head as he stormed off.
His words stung her more deeply than the knife he had cut her with days ago. It was intentional. Her heart went black with anger and the kystrel flared up. She wanted to use it, to make him feel what she was feeling. Betrayal, hate, jealousy, self-pity, despair. For an instant, it tottered in her control, its power almost slipping free. She closed her eyes and swallowed, trying to keep her feelings in check. A little rumble of thunder came over the orchard.
Why did I ever love you, Father? she whispered in her mind. But there were many reasons she had accepted this path. Trying to please her father was only one of them.
Slowly, she got to her feet and followed the kishion outside the borders of the stones fencing in the lush orchard.
* * *
They spent nearly a day searching the ruins of the abbey before they found it. Each moment they wasted in the search had lessened the chance that the Blessing would wait for them across the Spike. Finally Maia approached a heavy slab on two thick pillars leading into a stone opening. A thin well of stairs descended into total blackness.
“Are you sure this is the place?” the kishion asked. He swung his pack around and pulled out a bundle of torches.
“I will not need those.” The air rising from the darkness smelled dusty. A feeling of blackness emanated from it along with the same whispers that had led her here. It was the entrance to a series of underground chambers. Every Dochte Mandar who mastered a kystrel and came to this spot to prove himself a master of the Medium had failed. Their tomes said that only a woman could survive to claim the knowledge hidden here.
“Wait for me.”
The kishion grabbed her arm and stopped her. “I am going with you.”
Maia shook her head. “You cannot.”
“I do as I please. I am your protector, if—”
“You cannot protect me from what is down there.”
“And just what is down there, Lady Maia?” he asked angrily.
“I came to speak to ghosts, kishion. Before my father drove the Dochte Mandar from his kingdom, he took the tomes holding the secrets of the order. The secrets of the kystrels. The use of the magic and its consequences. I have read and memorized many of the pages. I know what to expect and how to survive. But the magic will kill you if you follow me. This is a dead place, kishion. This is the land where death was born.”
He looked at her face, saying nothing, and turned his back to her as she descended the steps. She looked back once, watching as he started to pace, the muscles of his neck taut with tension. Then she turned to once more face the darkness below and finished the steps into it. The kystrel began to burn against her skin. Darkness faded as a mossy-green light lit the grooves carved into the walls of stone. Spiderweb patterns of intertwining sigils lit the way before her, revealing a dusty floor with footprints going in and out. She walked confidently, listening to the whispers of the place offer direction. A side tunnel beckoned her with sweet and tantalizing smells, but the whispers warned her against following them. Deeper into the maze she walked, hearing only the scuffing sound of her boots and each spent breath. It grew colder and colder.
At one junction she stopped, seeing a radiant blue light shining from a tall archway. It appeared to rise up sharply, perhaps leading back to the surface. A breeze hit her face and she smelled flowering alyssum and the calming scent of pine. The whispers stopped her as she took her first step toward the archway. The magic of that place was strong—too strong. The Dochte Mandar who had fallen for its lure had never come back. She hesitated, drawn to the mysterious path, but the whispers showed her the true path lay ahead. Maia bit her lip, tempted. What was the source of the blue light? What Leering guarded it?
The kystrel flared white-hot, burning her, and she gasped with pain. It brought her back to her senses. Hurriedly, she chose the path to the right, and left the archway behind. The kystrel cooled immediately. Another set of steps had been carved from the rock, leading deeper into the mountainside. The magic traced the patterns on the rocks continually, revealing just enough of the path ahead that she did not fear stumbling, and swallowing the path behind her in darkness so that she could not see the way back.
The path ended.
Maia felt a prickling of gooseflesh shoot up her arms as she stepped into a box-shaped room. The designs on the walls vanished, leaving them smooth and unmarked. Before her stood a set of double doors made of stone—each marked with an engraving of the kystrel. The symbols were as large as platters, a whorl of leaves and vines and seaweed. Magic thrummed in her ears. She approached the doors slowly, knowing the words that would open them. It was the dirge of the Dochte Mandar.
“Och monde elles brir,” she said in an ancient tongue.
Before she could utter the next line of the dirge, the doors opened with a rush of falling water and mist. Maia shielded her face. The room beyond was a huge underground cave. At least three underground rivers converged here and dumped down as waterfalls in various positions, causing the spume and the dampness. Glowing lichen offered just enough weak light to see.
As she entered the room, the stone doors behind swung shut with a resounding thud.
Spinning around, she saw a corpse on the floor wearing black robes marked with the sigils of the Dochte Mandar. Two more were sprawled on the other side. Horror caught in her throat, and she went back to the doors.
“Och monde elles brir!”
Nothing happened.
�
�Och cor shan arbir!”
Again, nothing. She finished the dirge, but she already knew that the doors would not open to her. Maia wrestled with feelings of hopelessness and despair as her dress and cloak swiftly became soaked with the heavy mists.
“What did I do wrong? I followed all the instructions!” She paced around the entryway, too stunned to think. Had she followed a trick path and trapped herself down here? How long would the kishion wait for her before leaving for the ship? Anxiety threatened to shake her apart and tears of panic welled behind her eyes. No, she had come too far to fail now! Water dripped down her hair and face, and she raised the cowl to cover herself. She shivered and stood still, trying to master herself again. She folded her arms tightly and breathed slowly. The roar of the waterfalls made it difficult to think.
“Come, Maia. Think!” How had these Dochte Mandar died? She bit her lip and stared at one of the robed skeletons near the door. Finding a thin sliver of courage, she approached the body and knelt beside it. She tried to sink inside herself, to banish the commotion of the water and listen for whispers from the Medium. Reaching out, she touched the frail form.
The man had died over a year ago. He was a young man from Dahomey, barely eighteen. He had thought himself strong enough with the kystrel to approach the lost abbey to find a cure for his ailing mother from the dark pool. Maia felt sick to her stomach. His provisions had only lasted a week. Tugging open his robe, she saw a kystrel fused to his chestbone.
The whispers made her light-headed, but they told her something else. This was the place she had come to find, to speak with ghosts from the past. To ask them for the information she needed to save her kingdom. The boy had not successfully invoked the summoning and had not been able to leave. The price of failure was death. She went to the next body to learn its story, dunking herself again into the froth of despair. This man was older, in his forties, when he had sought out the lost abbey. He too had failed to summon a ghost from the dead.