by M. R. Forbes
Assuming I ever get away from the work. The research we are undertaking is more exciting than any water could ever be. Scholars have been theorizing about the existence of ebocite for years, but to have actually located some? Based on the samples we've taken of the bacteria that are drawn to the crystal, we may yet discover a sizable deposit.
My room is small but comfortable. All of us will be staying below ground in order to stay as close to the work as we can, but Mapheus has worked hard to make it feel like home. He had a copy of my favorite book waiting for me in my chambers, and he filled my belly with the finest meat I've ever had the pleasure of chewing.
I know this is going to be the greatest experience of my life. I know one day I'll look back on this journal in wonder at the things we've accomplished here. The discovery of ebocite will be one for the histories.
To know I'll be part of it... there are no words.
- Jeremiah
###
Eryn closed the journal and rubbed her eyes. It was a painstaking process to translate the text, both because of her unfamiliarity with the contents, and the sweeping hand of its creator. While the others had gone to sleep hours ago, she had been determined to at least finish reading the first passage, in order to arrive at some kind of understanding of the beginning and the end.
He'd been excited to go to Genesia. He said it was beautiful there.
"Eryn? You should get some sleep." Saretta slid up next to her on her knees. Wilem and Davin slept soundly on the blankets behind her.
"I know, but when I lay down..." She didn't finish the thought.
"Silas?"
Eryn nodded. "I miss him."
"Davin was telling me about him while you were outside with Wilem. It sounds like he was a great man in the end."
She fought back against her tears, unsure why she was speaking of it. Would talking about it help anything? "He was more than that to me. You can't tell anyone, but he was also my grandfather."
She didn't look that surprised. "I thought I saw a resemblance between you. Now I understand why."
"You were the head librarian in Varrow City?"
"Yes."
"Did you know Aren Rast?"
"I take it from what you've said that he was your father. No, I never knew him, not directly. We did exchange letters on occasion, in relation to our duties. I became a librarian because I had a love for knowledge. It took me a long time to discover how he was keeping knowledge from us."
"They burned down all the libraries."
Saretta looked sad, her eyes tracking to the floor. "It was only a matter of time. Elling was just a good excuse. Knowledge is power, isn't it? Power in the hands of the oppressed can only lead to rebellion. I regret the hundreds of books I burned in the furnace below the library."
"You should celebrate the ones you saved," Eryn said. "Davin brought us to the house where you kept them."
She looked back at him and smiled. "I never would have been able to do it without him."
"I never did understand, where do all the books come from?"
"The history of the Empire, the real history, is buried under our feet. When a farmer digs new ground, or a landslide washes part of the land away, that is when things are revealed. Most of the books are damaged by the elements or by time, but some are found in containers, or in dry areas where they are preserved. He has the Mediators to track down the Cursed. He has the Historians to gather the books. They take them from the finder, and bring them to the nearest library to be destroyed. It is still a mystery how they know they've been unearthed so quickly, but as you've seen the alphabet is completely different. You may be the only person in the world who can read it."
"And not very quickly at that." She shook her head. "Historians? I've never heard of them before. Are they soldiers?"
"They're worse than soldiers. Soldiers follow orders. The Historians account to no one, so long as they retrieve the books and have them burned."
"How does he know they burn them instead of keeping them?"
"General Spyne." She paused, her body quivering with a sudden cold. "I've met three of his Generals - Feng, Thorn, and Spyne. Feng was always polite. Thorn was all business. Spyne..." She closed her eyes. "I can't see him in my mind without feeling soiled."
It was clear she didn't want to speak of it, so Eryn didn't ask.
"He brought the map to you?"
"Not him. His men. I was supposed to burn it with everything else, but once I had seen the spot, once I saw how close it was to Varrow, I knew I had to see if it was real. If he was hiding things - I could understand why he would burn histories and try to erase any knowledge of the people that came before. But a place? How do you remove an entire place from the consciousness of the Empire? How do you keep it undiscovered, when it sits so near? You can see the mountains it is nestled in from here. I'll show you tomorrow. People look at those mountains and they say, 'those are the Evenhorns'. They don't realize that the symmetrical spikes are guarding one of his best kept secrets in plain sight."
Eryn was silent while she considered. She ran her hand absently across the back of the journal, tracing the scuffs and scratches that marred the protective cover. Then she smiled.
"What is it?" Saretta asked.
"Please don't take this the wrong way, but Silas died as part of freeing you, so you could lead us to the Dark. Now you're telling me the Dark is visible from miles away?"
She put her hand on Eryn's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Eryn. Perhaps you regret saving me now. Even so, the Evenhorns are large enough. You may have been searching for weeks before you discovered the exact spot."
She turned so she could look into Saretta's eyes. "I don't regret it. We saved more than four hundred people. I just wish the cost wasn't so high. Not just Silas, but the merchants, and all the prisoners the soldiers killed."
"I wish that as well."
They sat together for a few minutes. Saretta left her hand on Eryn's shoulder, and Eryn appreciated the comfort. She'd been so long without a female presence in her life, someone strong and resilient like her mother had been.
"Tell me if I am prying, but from what Davin said, your daughter, Sazi, is a loyalist?"
"She is. Don't ask me how it happened, because to be honest I don't know. Davin has always worked at the very edge of Overlord Prezi's vision, keeping a balance between outright rebellion and providing her with minor but valuable information in exchange for her ignorance. I think that she was always in awe of the Overlord's power. The palace, the guards, even the Overlord herself. Prezi is a beautiful woman, and she dresses in the richness of her station. These are the things that Sazi covets.
"I love my daughter, but she is shallow in her desires. She agreed to marry Mackle because he would make her clothing to match what the Overlord was said to be wearing." She sighed. "Don't misunderstand me. She's very intelligent, but she puts that intelligence to use manipulating people. She uses her cunning to further her own ends. It's difficult not to be able to trust your own child, but we love her too much to try to force her to not be who she is. It would only make things worse."
Eryn leaned over and pressed against Saretta, wrapping her up in a large hug. They both found comfort in the embrace. "Perhaps when he is dead, she will change her mind," Eryn whispered into her ear.
"I hope you are right, but I fear she will only cling to the next thing that will serve her best. That is the nature of her, and nothing will change it."
They broke the embrace. Saretta smiled and pointed at the blankets. "Do try to get some rest. The journey to the Dark will not be an easy one."
"I will, thank you, Saretta." Eryn put her hand on on the journal again and closed her eyes.
Amman, please don't let these losses be for nothing. That is all that I pray.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Wilem
They left three days later.
They took everything they could carry, with Davin shouldering the most load, stuffing the canvas sack he had brought and s
trapping it to his back. It left him less able to maneuver if they ran into trouble, but Wilem knew he and his wife were counting on Eryn and him to protect them.
Three days had given Eryn more time to read through Jeremiah's journal. So much of it made little sense to any of them. It was filled with numbers, calculations, and shorthand words and diagrams that they would need much more than an alphabet to decipher. What they were learning was coming in bits and pieces, fits and starts.
They had figured out who Rossum was. Either he was Jeremiah's assistant, or Jeremiah was his assistant, but they were two of a small number of 'wizards' that had come to Genesia to do research on the ebocite. What their goals were was still unclear, though Eryn had decided that they did have some kind of power at their disposal that they could use to create resonance in the crystals. It was magic, but not of the kind they controlled now. There was no mention of limits to it, no mention of sickness or blood. It was as though they had infinite ability at their fingertips.
Which gave the final entry more meaning, and made it all the more frightening.
Worse for Wilem: he was pretty sure that he was in love.
He told himself he wasn't. He tried to ignore the feelings that the sight of Eryn brought to him; feelings that had exploded in the days they'd spent together in the cave. It wasn't just the forced closeness that had done it, or the sheer hours they had spent with one another talking about their true pasts, or their shared situation as Cursed. He found Eryn truly remarkable. Her strength, her conviction, her compassion and sense of humor. She was everything he had dreamed of, and better yet, he was no longer a Mediator. He wasn't compelled to follow his laws that forbade him from marrying. Once they had a cure, once the Curse was no longer, perhaps things would be different.
Of course, he wasn't going to tell Eryn how he felt, though knowing her she had an idea of her own. Her affection for him had grown, but he knew her mind was elsewhere, and the last thing she needed was anything to steal away from the focus and determination that drove her. She saw him as a friend and companion in her fight, and he was satisfied with that.
"Where are we?" Eryn asked.
They had traveled south through the Wash, skirting the few small villages they had come across and sticking to whatever wilderness they could find. They had been forced into hiding twice by large contingents of soldiers who had been passing through, but not exploring, the area. They had no idea which way Eryn had gone, and that was a good thing.
"Thirty or so miles southwest of Varrow," Saretta said. "We have another ten to travel before we'll reach a small series of foothills. After the foothills we will come to the base of the Evenhorns. We need to skirt along the base until we reach the path that leads to the lip of the Dark."
"There's a path?" Eryn asked.
"Not in the sense of it being an easy journey. It is more of a series of inclines and climbs that is difficult but possible to traverse. It is too hard for anyone who doesn't have good reason to do it, which is why it remains mostly unexplored."
"What does the Dark look like?" Wilem asked. He still had trouble believing that it was a real place. He had heard the same stories as all children did, and while they had frightened him then, in his adulthood he had dismissed the entire thing as nothing more than fantasy.
"It's dark," Eryn said, turning her head and rolling her eyes at him. He laughed.
"You can't see into the Dark from the lip," Saretta said. "A mist hangs over the place that makes it seem as though stepping off will send you tumbling into eternity. Beneath the mist is fear and death. It is a cold place. A harsh place. And I only made it a hundred feet down."
Wilem swallowed the lump in his throat. "Right. Ten miles. We should be there tomorrow morning then."
"We can be there tonight," Eryn said, "if we don't stop to rest. This whole journey has taken far too long already. Every day we waste gives the armies in Elling a chance to cross back past the mountains, and since Andreaus never made it to Portnis with the gold, there will be little enough the rebellion can do to slow them. We'll have lost our best chance."
"Killing him will always be the best chance," Davin said.
"Maybe, but we don't know his armies will just submit once he is gone. Someone else may just be waiting to take his place. Our hope lies in convincing the people that they can have their say in an Empire that is ripe for change. Too many will be too afraid to rise up if the full might of his armies is consolidated here."
Wilem stared at Eryn, feeling his heart ready to burst with pride and affection. She had a gift of speaking, and inspiring.
"You're right," Davin said. "Yet I don't wish for us to walk into the Dark exhausted. Rushing to the edge may only rush us to our doom."
Eryn put her head down. "I know. Perhaps I am a little eager."
Davin laughed. "It's no weakness to have passion. I suggest we make camp at the base of the incline. That will put us at the Dark's door, and hopefully we can all rest without fear of soldiers finding us. I think it's unlikely they'll be looking for us there."
"As you say," Eryn said.
Wilem kept his eyes on her for a few more moments, looking away when she glanced towards him.
It was love. He was certain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Eryn
The Dark. It was real, and they were standing on the edge of the valley, looking down into the mist. There was nothing much to see from here, save for the bright sky above and the white layer of fog that settled in front of them, as far as their vision could reach. It was larger than Eryn could ever have imagined, though from where she was standing it didn't look very frightening at all.
"I understand now why no one ever ventures here," Wilem said, looking down at his scraped hands.
The climb up the rough terrain had been anything but easy, leaving each of them with an assortment of scrapes, cuts, bruises, torn clothes, and faces grimy with sweat. It had taken all morning to pick their way through jagged rock and steep inclines, with frequent stops to recover from a painful slip, or to take a minute to overcome the inevitable exhaustion of the journey.
"I'm not afraid of mist," Eryn said.
"Are you trying to convince us, or yourself?" Davin asked. He had taken the worst of the damage, his balance difficult to maintain with the large sack on his shoulders. He was slumped against the flat side of a jagged rock that punched through the earth like a giant arrow tip, wrapping his torn hands in shreds of cloth from his formerly long-sleeved tunic.
"There is no benefit to being afraid," she replied. "We have to go down there. Amman willing, we will come back up again. Is this the same spot you were in last time, Saretta?"
"Near enough."
Eryn looked back at Davin. "You're carrying the heaviest load. We'll go whenever you're ready."
"Are you sure we shouldn't leave the pack?" Saretta asked. "I think it will be safe enough up here."
Wilem walked back to where Davin was resting. "I can put a marker here, so we can find our way back, but anyone with the Curse who comes near will be able to find it."
"If any other Mediators are up here, we'll have worse problems than them taking the journals," Davin said.
"I have a better idea," Eryn said. "Davin, let's empty the sack and wrap the contents up in Wilem's cloak. That way we can carry anything we find down there."
"We'll need to bring the box I gave you also," Wilem said.
Davin slid the sack off his shoulders and opened the ties while Wilem removed his cloak. It had been decimated by the climb, and was covered in tears and stains. He removed the red clasp and tossed the cloth to Davin.
"Without the cloak to hold the ircidium clasps, I won't be able to use this without harming myself."
"If you need to use it, you won't care if it hurts," Eryn said.
They waited while Davin finished unpacking the sack, leaving it empty but for the case holding their supply of purified blood, three water skins, some salted meat, and hard bread they had brought for the journey
. He wrapped everything tightly in Wilem's cloak, and tucked it behind the arrowhead stone. Wilem joined him there, bending down and putting his hand to the cloth. Eryn could feel the energy gather in him when he marked it. She wanted him to teach her that trick.
"We're ready," Davin said. He put his hand on the hilt of Silas' sword, resting against his hip. Eryn had been reluctant to give it to him, but the weapon was far superior to regular steel.
"Let's stay close," Eryn said. "If anything comes at us, Wilem and I will try to handle it before it gets near." She lifted her hand to her mouth and kissed the ring on her index finger. Silas' ring.
Amman, protect us. Silas, look after us.
They started climbing down.
###
The decline on the inside was more gradual than the outside, making the descent easier on their bodies, but not on their minds.
They had only gone thirty or forty feet when the mists had begun to wind their way around them, tendrils of vapor that seemed to Eryn as though they were reaching out. They swirled and twisted, growing thicker and thicker the farther they went, leaving the world around them to slowly fade from view. In the beginning they could see a dozen feet ahead, to the rock and earth and grass that led the way into the valley. Before long, the Dark had left them in a sea of white so dense they could see nothing at all.
"This is where I turned around," Saretta said. Her voice was shaking with fear. Eryn reached out with her hand and found the woman's shoulder.
"I can't see anything," Wilem said from the other side. "How do we know we're going in the right direction? How do we know this blindness will end?"
They didn't know, and it was this uncertainty that threatened to turn their fear into panic.