And then, the past wrenched free and he gasped, even as he heard the rest of the party cry out in triumph. Brittle, frigid wind slammed into his face and he sucked it in sharply and opened his eyes. The death grip on his arms and shoulders relaxed.
They stood on an outcropping of stone carved into the shape of the prow of a ship, stairs descending the sides of the mountain on either side, the steps barely visible through the drifts of heavy snow and layers of ice. Two stone statues—Alvritshai in robes and regal poses, arms stretched out and down in benediction toward the remnants of a huge city on the hills below—stood at the height of the stairs.
Colin tried to gather his feet beneath him, to support himself, but he had no strength left. He collapsed to his knees, the frigid air burning into his lungs. It stung, felt as if it were slicing through his chest, his heart, but he breathed it in deeply, using the sensation to push away the last remnants of the past and anchor himself in the present. He sobbed, felt tears burning cold against his cheeks and at the corners of his eyes.
“We’re here,”he gasped.“We made it.”He sucked in one more deep breath,then murmured,“Welcome to the White Wastes,” before the present overwhelmed him and he sagged forward into unconsciousness.
COLIN WOKE TO WARMTH. He gasped and jerked upright, tendrils of a nightmare pulling away from his mind like tentacles, retreating back into the depths of the darkness. He groaned and settled back down, aches coursing up and down his entire body.Without moving,he surveyed the firelight dancing with shadows on the stone ceiling overhead and the wall at his side. The fire crackled, out of sight, but he heard nothing else. No movement, no voices. He breathed in the scent of the fire’s cedar smoke, the lingering sizzle of fat from some animal cooked over flame, and beneath all of that the sharp taint of cold.
“The city,” he whispered to himself. “We’ve made camp in Taeraenfall.”
“We have.”
Colin flinched away from the voice, regretted the motion as a muscle in his neck spasmed. He rubbed at it with one free hand as he turned and glared at Aeren. “I didn’t think anyone was here.”
Aeren smiled.“I’m the only one at the moment.The others are out hunting, or trying to find more wood for the fire. The White Wastes are well named. Nearly everything is covered in foot upon foot of snow. There are few trees, mostly firs and cedars, but there is game—snow hare and squirrel, some fowl, lynx and bobcat.”
“And wolves.”
Aeren nodded at the warning in Colin’s voice. “We’ve heard the wolves, but for now they are keeping their distance.”
Colin grunted and swung his legs off the raised platform they’d used as a pallet. He moved slowly, then began massaging his legs and shoulders. “How long have we been here?”
“Two days. When you collapsed at the top of the stairs above the city, we nearly made camp there. But it was too exposed, and no one wanted to risk taking you back inside the shelter of the halls.We spent the next day descending to the city and searching for a suitable place to make camp. When you didn’t recover the following day, we began hunting.”
“I can smell something roasted.”
Aeren rose and rounded the fire, set in the center of the floor and surrounded by stone pillaged from the ruins. He dug in a pack and produced a grease-stained cloth.
Colin’s stomach growled as Aeren made his way to his side, uncovering half of some type of bird, the skin charred black and crackling. “We saved you some,” the lord said, handing it over.
Colin didn’t hesitate. He ripped a wing from one side and bit into the meat. “Cold,” he said as he chewed, “but I don’t think I’ve tasted anything as good.”
“Boreaus does have a talent with cook fires.”
Aeren watched Colin intently as he ate, his brow furrowed. Tension prickled along Colin’s shoulders, but he ignored it until he’d picked the bones of the fowl clean. He sucked the grease from his fingers, then leaned back against the wall with a sigh. His entire body still ached, but the pain had receded.
He caught Aeren’s gaze, held it. “What do you want to ask?”
Aeren considered for a moment, then: “What happened back in the halls, in the mountain?”
Colin wasn’t certain how much he should tell him; Aeren—and Eraeth—could do nothing to help him. But he’d known them a long time. They were the only family he had left, the only people who cared for him. They deserved an answer.
He sighed again, looked toward the fire. “When I came through the halls before, I caught echoes of what had happened, what Cortaemall had done to Gaurraenan and his House. I thought at the time that I was merely seeing events as they transpired in the past, that the emotions of the time had scarred the stone of the mountain in some way and because of the Lifeblood I could see those scars.”
“But that’s not what is happening,” Aeren said when he paused.
Colin smiled grimly, gave a dark chuckle. “No. I don’t think so anymore.”
“Then what is it? It was obviously worse this time. And it was more than what you could see or sense. You were being affected by it. At points while we were dragging you out of the hall you appeared almost . . .” he groped for a word, settled reluctantly on, “ . . . transparent. Eraeth said that he nearly lost his grip on you, not because he wasn’t holding tight enough, but because you simply weren’t there.”
“Because I wasn’t there.”
Aeren’s eyebrows rose.
Colin stood in frustration, began moving about the room, working strength back into his muscles as he talked. “I originally thought that the events of the past were somehow intruding on the present, but after what happened this time, I think it’s the reverse. I think that somehow— between my use of the Lifeblood and the atrocity of what Cortaemall’s men did to Gaurraenan’s House—somehow I was being drawn back to those events, forced back there, rather than me using the power of the Well to take myself back as I did at the Escarpment. It was like a massive current, pulling me back to that time. And I know I was there, because the people of that time—Gaurraenan and his wife—they both saw me. They did not know who I was, but they saw me, reacted to me. For brief moments, I was there. Or part of me was, enough that the effort to keep myself here, in the present, and the current trying to draw me back were beginning to tear me apart. If you hadn’t dragged me from the hall, I don’t think I would have survived. I would have ended up back in the time of Gaurraenan and Cortaemall, more than likely would have been killed during the massacre, since they would have had no idea who or what I was.”
Aeren shook his head.“You cannot die,remember? You may have been drawn back to that time, but you would not have died.”
Colin thought of the knife he’d created and wondered. “If I had been drawn back there and survived, I’m not certain I could have come back on my own. I may have been trapped there, forced to live through the past five hundred years or more.” He shuddered and halted, his hands held out to the warmth of the fire. He suddenly felt cold.
“You may have to face that yet,” Aeren said quietly. When Colin glanced up with a frown,he added,“We’ll have to return through the hall again eventually, to get back to the southern side.”
Colin grimaced.“I was trying not to think about that.I’ll deal with that when the time comes.”
Aeren nodded as if he’d expected that response, then glanced down to the fire himself, still frowning.
Colin abruptly straightened. “There’s something else. Something more than what happened to me within the mountain that’s bothering you.”
Aeren hesitated, then reached for two of their heavy jackets, handing one to Colin before shrugging into his own. He motioned Colin toward the entrance to the room, then followed him.
Colin felt the bite of the cold even through his jacket as he ascended the short stair he found beyond, the warmth of the fire vanishing as he rounded a corner. He emerged onto a roof, the building the group had chosen for shelter near the edge of the city. The mountains rose to the south
, the massive stone steps that led to the ledge and the entrance to Gaurraenan’s halls half obscured by blowing snow, even though the sky overhead was a clear, vivid blue. Colin spun where he stood,Aeren moving away from him as he took in the undulating rooftops of Taeraenfall stretching out on all sides, their flat tops dusted with snow and thick with ice. Evidence of the ravages of time were everywhere, nearly two-thirds of the roofs collapsed, a few of the buildings merely piles of rubble covered with a deep layer of snow. The streets between were heavily drifted. But there were still details in the stonework that stood out—peaked arches stretching over some intersections, finely etched lintels and windowsills, a richly decorated balcony.
Farther to the north, rising above the city at the top of a hill, lay the mansion that Gaurraenan had built using the stone quarried from the mountain as he dug out his tunnel. Some of the exterior walls—built low for aesthetic reasons, not for defense—had crumbled, but the manse itself appeared mostly intact from this distance. Wind blew sheets of loose snow across the vista, but Colin could see the hills as they descended to the plain he knew lay beyond. A wasteland of snow and ice now. If the day had been calmer, he knew he would have been able to see the nearest of the glacial ice packs that were grinding steadily southward. Eventually, they would reach Taeraenfall, and then the city—and nearly all evidence of the Alvritshai’s northern empire—would be destroyed.
He stepped up to Aeren’s side at the edge of the rooftop, blinking at the glare of the sun on the mostly white landscape, his exposed skin already raw from the gusts and chill.
“All of the Alvritshai know of their origins here in the north,” Aeren said, raising his voice to be heard. “We tell our children stories of our time here, although most of them now come across as legends, rather than histories. But I was an acolyte in the Order. I’ve read many of the Scripts, know many details that those outside of the Order do not. I know enough of the history of the Alvritshai to know that that is not natural.” Aeren pointed toward the far distance, northwest of their position.
At first, Colin saw nothing, but the wind came from that direction and made it difficult to see, cutting inside the hood of his jacket. He brought one hand up to shield his face and eyes—
And saw what Aeren must be talking about. He felt his entire body stiffen, his breath caught in his throat. He struggled against the paralysis for a moment, then exhaled harshly, his lungs burning with cold as he sucked in another lungful of air and stepped close to the edge of the roof.
Far to the northwest, lights danced across the frigid wastes. Like the sheets of snow being picked up and blown across the city, the blue-and-green light wavered and drifted across the landscape, rippling and coruscating into deep purples and lighter greens nearly verging on yellow. And like the flames of the fire in the room below, or the mists on the southern side of the mountain, the colors rose and curled, licking toward the sky before fading into nothing.
Colin watched for a long moment, Aeren standing silently behind him. Then he said, “They’re like the aurora borealis, the lights you can sometimes see in the night sky here in the north.”
“Aielan’s Nightdance, yes.” Aeren took a step forward. “Except this is not part of the night sky. This is on the ground.”
“Have you been watching it the last few days? What have you seen?”
Aeren shrugged.“Nothing extraordinary.It moves across the landscape, both day and night. Sometimes it fades into nothing and for hours the horizon is clear. Other times it has appeared in multiple locations. It’s only come to within an hour’s walk of the edge of the city, but none of us have risked investigating it in person.”
“No.” Colin shook his head. Even watching the mysterious lights from this distance, he could feel the back of his neck and shoulders prickling. The lights reminded him of the coruscating colors he could see in the occumaen when he slowed time, and remembered vividly how deadly that rippling phenomenon had been to those who were caught in it. Moiran had barely escaped, with Colin’s help. Most of her entourage had not been so lucky.
He shuddered and turned toward Aeren. “Without a closer look, I can’t be certain . . . but I think it has to do with the Wells again. It’s like the occumaen and the storms on the dwarren plains. We should keep our distance.”
“Does it mean that whatever is happening to the sarenavriell has gotten worse?”
“I don’t know. These lights could have been here before, and they could have been worse.There’s no way to tell.But I don’t like it. We need to find the Well as soon as possible. Something is happening, and if it isn’t the Wells. . . .” He let the thought trail off. If it wasn’t the Wells causing the disturbances, then he didn’t know what it could be.
“We can leave as soon as the others return, if you’ve recovered enough to travel,” Aeren said.
Colin shivered as a stronger gust of wind cut through his jacket and touched his skin.“I can manage.Right now,let’s get off of this roof and out of the cold.”
They left the city behind without stopping, skirting the manse and entering the low hills beyond,Vaeren taking the lead and setting a harsh pace. A day later, they emerged from the forest onto a flat that had once been grassland but was now tundra, the grasses sparse, the frozen earth reduced to bare stone in places, the harsh wind keeping it nearly free of snowfall.
Colin raised his hands to shield his eyes from the worst of the wind as the rest of the party pulled out additional clothing to wrap around exposed skin. To the west, the strange sheets of pulsating light that Aeren had shown him from the rooftop in Taeraenfall danced across the flatland, angling north, but still too close for comfort. He slowed time for a moment, to see what the lights looked like, but they didn’t appear any different. Perhaps larger, their influence spread out farther, but nothing else significant. Even at this distance he could feel the weight of the power behind them, could catch a taste of the Well, as well as a scent of the dwarren’s Confluence.
He’d turned his attention toward the north, where he could see the ominous ice wall of the glaciers—a lighter, ephemeral blue than the washed-out color of the sky near the horizon—when he felt someone grip his arm.
He thought it would be Aeren, was surprised to find Siobhaen staring at him, concern etching her face.
“You . . . faded,” she said. “Flickered.”
He smiled in reassurance. “I’m fine. I was checking on the lights, trying to see what they were like with time slowed. It wasn’t what happened back in Gaurraenan’s halls.”
Siobhaen’s shoulders relaxed and she nodded, stepping away. Colin caught Aeren watching from a distance and shrugged.
A moment later, Vaeren stepped forward. “How far away are we? Where exactly are we headed?” His voice was muffled by the heavy scarf wrapped around his face.
“You can see the glaciers on the horizon, but they’re deceptively distant. We’ll be there in approximately two or three days, depending.”
“Depending on what?” Vaeren asked suspiciously.
“Depending on whether we run into any trouble, such as wolves, or those strange lights, or a storm.” Colin shrugged. “After that, it will likely be another day or so until we reach the Well.”
“I don’t understand how the Well could have been so close to where we used to live and be mostly unknown to us,” Siobhaen asked. “We only found references to it in the Scripts. There was no mention of it in the folklore of the time, except in passing. How could it have remained hidden from us? Why wouldn’t we have used its power back then?”
“You’re assuming that the Well itself contained the Lifeblood back then. It didn’t. This is one of the Wells that Walter and the Wraiths reawakened recently. In fact, I think this is the Well that the acolyte Benedine found in his research, that he located for Lord Khalaek.”
“How do you know that?”Vaeren asked,tightness in his voice at the mention of his previous lord.
“I saw the rough map that Benedine passed on to Khalaek’s aide. Even though
I couldn’t read the writing at the time, I remember the details of the topography.”
“But you said that Khalaek refused to give Walter the information at the Escarpment. How did Walter fi nd out about the Well?”
“Does it matter? He found it, and awakened it.” He glared off into the distance, thinking about Walter and the knife wrapped in chain mail in his satchel. “Be careful,” he finally said. “And keep your eyes out for game. There are rabbits and such on the tundra, but they are few and far between. If you get a shot, take it.”
Then he grabbed his staff and led them onto the flat.
They halted that evening in the lee of a stand of rock, what had once been a watchtower at the corner of two intersecting roads. Heavy cobbles could still be seen, but the continual upheaval of the lands as water froze and thawed over the seasons had buckled and broken many of them, the cracks fi lled with brown grass. Throughout the night, they heard the howls of distant wolves.
The wind died the following day, the snow it carried settling back to the ground.The sky was cloudless,a vivid wintry blue. Both the Flame and Aeren’s Phalanx spread out, searching for game as they moved, but Colin retained the lead, Vaeren close behind him. They were forced to stop early, the shimmering lights that the Alvritshai had begun to call iriaem—ghost lights—skating across the distance between them and the glaciers.The huge wall of ice now filled the horizon, stretching away on either side, even though Colin knew that it was still at least half a day distant. He frowned at it nonetheless, and at Aeren’s questioning look said, “It’s closer than it was thirty years ago.”
The wolves returned that night, close enough that Petraen removed his pipe and began to play, tentatively at first, then louder, as if in competition with the howls from the darkness. Boreaus built up the fire, even though they hadn’t brought much wood from the forest with them; no one halted him. Colin watched the iriaem in the distance, the hackles on his neck prickling, his hands closing on the haft of his staff, even as the group broke out in uneasy laughter behind him. He massaged the wood, felt the intricate grain beneath his palm and fingers, felt the life-force inside, but the wolves didn’t approach, and the lights that danced on the fl atland never drew near. The rest of the party settled down, the Phalanx taking the watch tonight.
Leaves of Flame Page 13