by Teresa Rook
She gives me a sharp look but doesn't argue, instead becoming interested in the dirt under her fingernails. We are silent for a while, but she's starting to grow on me. I talk to make her talk. “Is it possible to cross?” I don't have to point to the chasm. It's the only feature of note here. The only barrier. The only challenge.
She nods. “But why would you want to?”
“I was on my way to Ventrin,” I murmur.
“What?”
“The Dead City, the old witch place. It’s dangerous these days, but…”
“You don't have to tell me.”
“You've been there?”
“I was born there.”
My mouth pops open. “You're a witch!”
She laughs. “Because I come from a Dead City? Hah. You Chirals keep assuming that the only ones who benefited from the witches were the witches themselves. My tribe thrived in Ventrin.”
I frown, embarrassed of my enthusiasm. Where did that come from? “You’re too young to remember any of that. And I'm not a Chiral.”
She tilts her head. “Then what are you?”
“I'm a farmer.”
“That doesn't tell me anything.”
“From Barnab. Barnab Farms?” She's shaking her head. “In the southwest. We produce most of the food for Salis.”
“But you're not a Chiral,” she drones.
“Definitely not. The Chirals have been extorting my people my entire life, and now that we need their help, they've told us to go fuck ourselves. My people are all going to starve because the Chirals are hoarding our food for themselves.”
“And you're out here during this crisis because…?”
I shake my head, embarrassed of my association with Ennis and Riksher. “It doesn't matter anymore.”
“Fine.” She stretches, then walks away. I stare out over the plateau, the restlessness in me expanding. Ventrin is still there, eternal and unmoving. The Dead City snakes along the base of the mountain, most of the tallest spires built up its side. The mountain itself is at least five times tallest than the city’s tallest structure, a massive natural obstacle only braved by the most enterprising of smugglers.
I bite my lip, wondering what malady the runes will have caused on this Dead City. The thought of another cloudless lightning storm makes the hair on my arms stand on end. I hope Ennis is alright. Will he heave gained his strength back after the lightning strike? Or has it caused permanent damage on the inside?
Will I see him in Ventrin? Will I ever see Riksher and Ennis again?
I shiver with the thought of being permanently on opposing sides. I wrap my arms tight around myself and gaze over the chasm at the city. The trains are what’s most important.
#####
I've been with Arahna and Cahrdre for more than a month now, and while my leg isn’t truly healed, I can get by on it. The horse is going to go rancid soon, and staying would mean taking a larger cut from their supplies.
I go to find Arahna, to thank her for everything she's done for me. She's in one of the caves, digging through its jars. She picks them up one by one, peers inside, and calmly returns them to the pile. Cahrdre was telling the truth. There is nothing left.
She must have noticed my approach, but she just continues her ritual. My throat closes at the sight of her assurance. Her ability not to panic when faced with certain starvation. “I'm going to bring you food,” I blurt.
She doesn't look at me. “Can we get a bay next time? Pintos are a tad chewy.” My queasiness must be evident in my silence, because she cranes her neck to judge my face. “Peace, girl,” she says. “I'm only joking.”
“Okay. But I'm not. I'm going to bring you food from Niroek.”
“And how are you going to manage that?”
I take a deep breath. These people had a better life in Ventrin, under the witches. They will be on my side. “I'm going to get the trains running again.”
Her stillness changes, goes from indulgent to shocked. Skeptical. Wary. “How?”
I hesitate, searching to the answer for a question I haven’t asked myself yet. One step at a time. “I'm going to track down the witches, and I'm going to make them help me.” How and with what, a small voice asks inside my head. I bat it away and straighten my shoulders.
“There are no witches anymore,” Arahna says, a familiar and reflexive refrain.
“There are, though.” She listens politely to what happened in the storehouse at Barnab, her face inscrutable. When I'm done, she purses her lips.
“And if you could find these witches,” she says, “what makes you think they would help a Chiral?”
I bristle. “I'm not a Chiral.”
“Yet you travel on a Chiral steed.” At my look of surprise, she gestures to a corner of the cave, too dark for me to see. “Your horse’s tack. You are of Tribe Chiral.”
“I’m not. I traveled with some Chirals for a while, and the horse was theirs. That’s all. I’m Tribe Barnab.”
Arahna grunts.
“I want to help the witches. You don't think they want their trains back?”
“I think they want their mothers and brothers and friends back,” she says. “You want their trains.”
“Well, there's nothing I can do about their mothers, brothers, and friends. That was before my time.”
She's already shaking her head. “So you think you have nothing to answer for? You want to bring back only what's useful to you and ignore the rest?”
“Look, you don't have to help me. I'm not asking anything from you.”
“Of course you are. Why else are we having this conversation?”
“Maybe I just want…just for you to know I’m on your side!”
“Oh, girl.” She clicks her tongue and shakes her head. “I don’t care whose side you’re on. The war is over.”
“So that’s it? You accept that this is your life? Cahrdre’s life?”
“It’s a better life than many have.”
“And when your jars run out?”
I expect this to rile her further, but she barely bats an eye. “Then they run out.”
“What will you do?”
“I’m an old woman. Cahrdre isn’t a child anymore. She’ll finally get her choice.”
I stare at her. That’s her plan? Let Cahrdre face starvation and see if she fights it?
Arahna sighs and gestures for me to have a seat. We each settle on a box. “There’s only so much you can do to fight what’s inside someone. If Cahrdre’s insides are empty, nothing I can do will fill them up.”
I shake my head. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about heritage. About the things we pass down. When you were in that pit, before you lifted yourself out, did you notice anything down there with you?”
My throat tightens. “Other than my horse?”
She smiles thinly. “Other than that.”
I think back, but I was hurt and afraid. The pain and confusion drowned out any observations I might have made. “No.”
“When you leave,” she says, “you should try to look down one of those vents.”
“Why? What will I find?”
But she rises from her box and goes back to counting her empty jars. I slip out into the day. I guess that was good-bye.
twenty-five
“Cahrdre.”
She turns to me with a frown. It’s early morning and Arahna still sleeps in her cave. If we go now, maybe Cahrdre can be back before she wakes up. “What?”
“Can you take me down to the steam vents?”
She scrunches her nose. “Ready to leave, are you?”
I roll my shoulders and take a deep breath. “Ready enough. I’ve spent too long here.”
She shakes her head and huffs. “You’re going to be disappointed. There’s nothing in Ventrin.”
“When was the last time you were there?”
“Never, that I can remember.”
I tilt my head. “So how can you be so sure?”
She exhales, a low chuckle that doesn’t seem amused. “Different choices would have been made, if they could have been.”
I roll my eyes. “What’s with you two? You’re so cryptic suddenly.”
“You talked to Arahna about this?” Her voice has a sharper pitch to it. “About Ventrin?”
“Kind of. She didn’t say much.”
She picks at the hem of her sleeve. “Did she say why we left?”
I hesitate. “No, but she said I should look into the steam vents.”
Cahrdre glances at me, then away. She stares up at the spires of Ventrin in the distance. I try to read her face, but she keeps it turned away from me. What is this strange indecision? What’s down there?
“I’ll take you,” she finally says. “But I have a condition.”
“Which is?”
“You can’t come back. I’ll take you to the edge of the vents, and you can go to Ventrin. But after that, you stay away. You don’t come back here.”
I’m a little hurt. I hadn’t had plans to return, but I’ve spent more time here than anywhere other than Barnab. Arahna has been kind to me, and I’ve developed a morbid fondness for Cahrdre. It might have been nice to visit them. I get a sudden image of me riding to their little plateau on a train brimming with fruit, of Arahna lighting up with gratitude as we refill her jars. An impossible vision, because even if I get the trains working again, no tracks lead out here.
“Why?” She doesn’t respond. “Cahrdre, why can’t I come back?”
“Because I don’t want you checking up on us.”
I narrow my eyes. Then I understand.
She doesn’t want me to be another string tying her here. She’s been waiting for Arahna to die. If she adds me to the list of people who want her to stay, she’ll have to wait a whole lot longer.
I swallow a lump in my throat. “Okay,” I say. “I’ll never come back here.”
She nods tersely. The sooner she’s satisfied, the sooner she’ll help me leave, and the sooner I can fix the trains. The sooner I can find a way to save her.
Arahna is old, but she’s got some time left in her. Cahrdre won’t leave before she does. I’ll be back here with a solution to this problem before either of them are gone.
#####
The path down is steep and narrow. It doubles back on itself five times before it reaches the bottom, a long way for an old woman to drag my unconscious body. Cahrdre picks her way expertly down it, slow steps made quick by consistency. She knows exactly where to step. I often stumble trying to keep up, in no small part because of the distraction of the steam vents.
Their mist meets us halfway down, billowing to my height and higher as we descend. They breathe hot, wet air against my body, a pulse button to the humid warmth I've marinated in for weeks. It startles me every time, that rush of air released with a scream. I look to Cahrdre for guidance, wondering at her calm, but she grew up in this. She'd probably find silence confining.
I expect a clear track to open before us at the bottom, a well-worn path between the vents that goes unseen from above. Cahrdre seems to see it. She moves forward with determination, never stopping to look left or right or consider the implications of each step. She moves assuredly over an invisible trail, and I follow close enough to reach out and touch her.
At first, we seem to be making no progress. The vents, some pits and some wide, arcing gashes, lead us in circles, at times almost spitting us out right back at the base of the cliff. But Cahrdre always finds another turn to take, and I follow her even when I can no longer think to do so. The heat and the sounds turn my mind to murk, and I follow like a puppet whose strings are wound around Cahrdre’s neck. I struggle to keep my legs from turning to jelly beneath me, and the condensation runs down my cheeks like tears. This place has sapped me of all strength. It’s all I can do to keep walking.
Cahrdre stops so suddenly that I walk right into her. I apologize hastily and try to shake my head clear. “What’s wrong?”
“You wanted to see inside the vents.”
My eyes slide to the gash in the ground by our feet. “Why here?”
“Steam is thinner in this one. You can see to the bottom without going down. Unless you want to go back down?”
I shake my head and try to tamp down my apprehension. Arahna wanted me to see this. I crouch and lean my face over the edge of the rock. This hole is wider than most of the others, and the steam comes from a crack in the very center. The edges have a little visibility.
The warm air rushes against my face in a terrifying memory. There, on the stone at the bottom, white against black.
I turn away from the edge and rest my forehead against the ground as my head and my stomach swim.
Bones.
“I was supposed to be with them,” Cahrdre says calmly. “Arahna kidnapped me just before, and hid with me on the plateau. But everyone else. My parents, our tribe.” She gestures downwards. “This was the choice they made, when Ventrin fell and they had nothing left. They knew the desert wouldn’t provide for us. They knew the drought would only get worse.”
So this is why she wants this. It’s not just her. It’s something she’s trying to fulfill. “But you and Arahna survived.”
She curls her lip. “Just two of us. And barely. If we’d all tried to stay, we all would have died.”
“But Arahna hid you, and once they died, there was enough for two.”
She takes me by the arm and pulls me to my feet. I wipe the back of my wrist across my face. “Is that right?” she asks. “Is that fair?”
I think I’m crying again, but with the humidity, I can’t say for sure. My cheeks are wet and clammy, but so is the rest of my body. I try to be strong for Cahrdre, to focus on the present even as my mind swirls with anger and guilt and questions. “Does it matter if it’s fair? It happened.”
This was the wrong thing to say. She drops my arm and steps back. “Let’s go,” she says. “We’re almost out.”
This is the Chirals’ legacy: an entire tribe who chose to disappear rather than trust their new leaders to provide for them. It hurts me to admit, but they were probably right. The Chirals wouldn’t have saved them. The Chirals can’t save anyone.
If they hadn’t tried to fix what wasn’t broken, these vents would not be full of bones.
When Ventrin appears again after many hours obscured by the steam, it startles me. The steam hid the city even as it grew closer, and now that the vents have finally begun to thin, I see it looming before us, tall and wide and with its own plumes rising up. Instead of bright and airy, they're dark and dense. There's no smoke smell from here, not with the vents filling the air with underground sulfur and blasting away everything else. But it’s unmistakably fire.
Riksher and Ennis are already there. Their assault on Ventrin is underway.
“What will you do now?” I ask once the vents are few enough for me to navigate the rest of the way on my own.
She shrugs. “Get lost here, maybe.”
“You'd be killing Arahna.”
She wrinkles her nose. “And that is what keeps me prisoner. I don't want to stay here. I want to go.” Longing is plain in her voice. Her sincerity, and vulnerability, gives me the chills. “Remember, you promised you wouldn’t return.”
“You'll be okay,” I say awkwardly. I want her to go back to the plateau so her choices down here won’t be on me. I can’t take any more bad choices on me.
But she isn't ready yet. She turns her forlorn gaze on me, where it hardens. I tense when she grabs my hands, her fingers like stone.
“I know you're like me,” she whispers. “I know it.”
She releases me, and I stumble backwards, struggling to keep my balance with my bum leg. She drops her gaze to the dust bursting along the ground, at the mercy of the air currents that swell around the vents.
“I’m going to go now,” I say. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
She smiles, kind of, a twitch at the corner of her downturned mouth that rem
inds me of my mother. A pang of homesickness hits me, and I turn away from the girl.
No goodbyes. Just footsteps and an iron-willed refusal to look back at the little girl whose feet haven't moved, haven't made a sound. I close my eyes to help me swallow something hard and round, and it drags itself down my throat, guilt and shame and the desire to stay, to fix.
Ventrin burns bright ahead of me. This is a fire I can put out.
twenty-six
The black rock smooths out as I approach the city, a shiny base that slopes gently up into the mountain. There’s a massive stone wall around the Dead City, but many of its buildings are visible over the top of it, built onto the mountain’s base. The whole city looks like it’s trying to crawl up the mountain, like a wave washing against a rocky shore. Most of the buildings are low-hanging, presumably homes, but parts of the city look more like a castle, with grand spires and sharp angles. The wall itself is fit for a fortress.
The smoke is still present, but it hasn’t turned into the raging fire I expected. It’s not a pleasant smell, but it’s not choking. The smoke is thin enough that it rises and mixes with the clouds instead of fogging up the ground around me.
I walk along that outer wall, smooth and winding, trying to find a way through. It stretches from the northern edge of the city to the southern, bulging out around the development sprawled in the shadow of the mountain. The metal portcullis holds fast, and the stone wall is high, much higher than the ones in Salis and Yural. How did Riksher and Ennis get in?
There are various smooth archways in the wall, but they’ve all been filled in with dirt and rubble. I set a hand against the doorway, the stone stacked differently to create a stable arch. I imagine people riding through them with the carts or on horseback. Why would a city need so many entrances?
My mouth pops open and I look down. I’m standing on a set of train tracks. I’ve found them.
At what point did the witches decide holing themselves up was more important than getting their trains in and out? Defense more important than connection?
The portcullis, heavy with runes, is the only way in. I return to it and stand in front, trying to ignore the pulsing of my heart. Get in, get in, before they light up the trains. Why did you take so long with Arahna, Darga? Why did you get so distracted? Ventrin burns on the other side of this wall, the smell of it acrid in my mouth, and I berate myself over and over again. Wasn’t this the only plan I had?