“Don’t worry about that,” said Pazel.
“I worry with reason,” said Hercól. “Thaulinin says that the way will soon grow treacherous. Besides, the air is thin, and will grow thinner as we ascend. You may feel dizzy and careless, but you cannot afford to be.”
Pazel shivered. Still ascending. He wondered how cold it would get. Then he felt a stinging blow to his cheek: Hercól had cuffed him, not at all gently.
“Even now your mind wanders!” Hercól aimed a finger at the peaks ahead. “We are going through those, Pathkendle, do you hear? Stay sharp, if you would stay alive. One careless footfall and your journey will have a pitiful conclusion.”
They marched on. Big Skip came and walked by Pazel’s side. “He’s had the same talk with all of us ‘lowlanders’ as we pop out of the spell. He didn’t have to smack you, though.”
Pazel looked at the mountains before them: huge, cold, insanely steep. “I think maybe he did, Skip. But thanks all the same.”
The path was now climbing steadily, but the mountain did not seem to grow any nearer. In the middle of a rough scramble Pazel saw Lunja stop in her tracks, staring without recognition at the world around her. It was Neeps who went to her and took her hand.
Pazel watched them furtively. She doesn’t look as though she finds him unbearable. But even as the thought came to him, Lunja took her hand from Neeps’ own, and held it strangely, as though repressing an urge to wipe it clean.
Bolutu’s release from the spell came shortly thereafter. As he recovered, Thasha hurried to Pazel’s side. “What’s the matter with you? Go walk with your sister! She’s the last one.”
“I thought she’d rather be with Cayer Vispek,” he said.
“With Vispek? Didn’t you— Oh, Pitfire, that was before your spell broke. Pazel, he spat at her. I thought he was going to hit her.”
“What?”
“Nobody knows what it was about. Hercól started forward, and Vispek shouted at him to stay out of their affairs, and stalked off ahead. Go on, will you? Make her talk to you. Once her memory breaks she won’t even remember fighting with him.”
Pazel moved carefully past Hercól and Bolutu. Cayer Vispek walked twenty feet ahead, with Prince Olik and the selk. Neda marched grim and soldier-straight. But her eyes softened a little at the sight of Pazel.
“When the spell breaks you don’t feel a thing,” he said in Mzithrini.
Neda looked at Cayer Vispek’s back, and glowered. “Speak Ormali,” she said. “I don’t want him listening.”
“What happened, Neda?” he said.
His sister drew a deep breath. “He wanted me to tell him … everything. The length of our journey, and the turns, and everything that happened after we passed through the gate. He wanted me to cheat the spell, before my memory goes. I asked him why he would wish to do such a thing. And he was furious. Of course I already knew. He is afraid. Cayer Vispek, the war hero, the sfvantskor master, is afraid of any spell that affects his thoughts.”
“So am I, if you care to know.”
Neda shot him an irritated glance. “Don’t you understand? I asked him why. Instead of simply obeying. That is not something a sfvantskor is allowed to do. I placed Uláramyth above my vow of obedience.” Neda paused, eyes straight ahead. Then she said, “I am no longer of the Faith.”
“What!”
“Pazel, don’t tell.”
“Because you blary asked him why?”
Again she was silent. “Because I don’t believe anymore,” she said at last. “In the Path of the Seraphim, in the divine blood of Kings, in persecution by devils, in the Unseen.”
Tears glittered in her eyelashes. They crunched forward over the frozen ground. “Or maybe I still believe in the Unseen,” she said, “but I don’t believe we know anything about it. Whether it’s good or evil, or distracted, or insane.”
Pazel did not know quite what Mzithrinis meant by the Unseen. But he thought of the Night Gods, setting the murder of a world as a challenge on a school exam. “My money’s on insane,” he said.
Once more she looked at him askance. “Don’t make jokes,” she said.
“I wasn’t.”
She stomped on, and he feared she was too angry to talk any longer. The path narrowed, until he could no longer walk at her side. “Neda,” he said, “is there anything you want to remember, about the … words that passed between you and Vispek? Something you want me to remind you of later on?”
Neda looked back at him, startled. “Pazel, I came out of the spell hours ago.”
For a moment Pazel was at a perfect loss. Then he saw it, and wondered that he had not before. “Your gift,” he said.
She nodded. “The door-charm worked. I did lose my memory—for a heartbeat or two. Then everything came back. It happened even faster than it used to in Babqri, when the Father put me in trance. And that’s not the worst part. I remember everything, Pazel. Every turn, every trail, and how long we spent on each, and twenty, thirty landmarks. I could draw you a map.”
“Pitfire, Neda.”
“I can’t help it. There’s no way to make it stop.”
Pazel looked at the selk ahead, and lowered his voice. “Didn’t they know about your gift? I thought Ramachni talked about it.”
“We both did. I even showed them what I could do. But they still didn’t imagine it would prove stronger than the magic of the gate.”
Pazel was shaken. “People underestimate our mother,” he said.
Neda’s hands were in fists. “I swear on her life,” she said, “that I will not be the one to betray that place. Never.”
“Oh, for Rin’s sake,” said Pazel. “You’re not going to betray anyone. Just keep your mouth shut about Uláramyth, that’s all.”
“And what if I’m captured? I might be able to withstand torture—we are trained to resist the methods of the Secret Fist—but what could I do against a spell? What if they use magic to dig the secret from my mind?”
“You tell me. What then?”
This time Neda stopped and leaned over him, the way she used to in the days when he only came up to her waist. He could not really look at her; he was facing into the sun.
“Then I’ll claim the privilege of an unbeliever,” she said, “and cut my throat.”
By midafternoon they had climbed much higher: the path behind them dwindled to a thread. For a long time they walked in the mountain’s shadow, and the air grew cold indeed. At length they joined a wider, flatter trail. Pazel could see old paving-stones poking out here and there from beneath the frozen soil. “Those are fragments of the Royal Highway,” said Thaulinin. “Travelers could once walk or ride, or even hire a carriage, from these slopes all the way to the city of Isima, and beyond it to the Weeping Glen. It was from Isima that the greatest of the Mountain Kings ruled: Urakán he was called, him for whom the tallest peak is named, and great-grandfather to Valridith the suicide. In Urakán’s day the high country bustled with merchants and peddlers and herdsman, passing from one fastness to the next.”
As they marched on, Pazel saw other hints of the glory of those lost days: a great limbless statue on a ridgetop, its boulder-sized head cracked open like an egg beside the trail; square holes that might have been the foundations of houses; rock walls enclosing barren fields—former pastures, maybe, or cemeteries.
Around one steep knoll they came suddenly upon a chasm, spanned by a stone bridge. It was a narrow crevasse; Pazel might easily have thrown a stone across it, but the bridge was less than four feet wide, and frighteningly unrailed, and the wind came in blasting gusts between the cliff walls. Here for the first time they bound themselves together with rope. Even Shilu was tied to the rest, although Valgrif crossed untethered, crouching low on his belly. Creeping over the arch, boots skidding on tiny patches of ice, Pazel felt dizziness assault him suddenly. His head was light. The wind pushed, pulled, teased. He could almost see it, snapping and coiling in the gorge …
A hand touched his shoulder. It was Cayer Vi
spek, who had been tied into the line behind him. The sfvantskor’s voice was low and calm.
“The bridge is two lines painted on solid ground. Fear not: you could walk between them in twice this wind. You have that level of control. Think of walking, nothing else.”
Pazel took a deep breath, and tried to obey. Two lines on solid ground. He stepped forward, and found to his surprise that the dizziness was almost gone. He knows what he’s doing, Pazel thought, in some matters at least.
Just beyond the bridge there stood a dense clump of pines. The selk, heavily burdened as they were, dropped their packs and began snatching up armfuls of dry, dead limbs. The rest of the party joined the effort. The limbs they tied up in bundles and strapped atop their packs, and into any spaces left over they stuffed pinecones. Brilliant, thought Pazel. We’re going to need these when we reach that shelter. But when he felt the extra weight on his back he wondered if they ever would.
Now Thaulinin set a faster pace, for the sun was low in the sky. They even ran where the trail was level. In this way they came at last to the base of the first peak, Isarak—and saw before them a disaster.
The road ahead was carved into the mountainside, its outer shoulder a cliff that fell away to terrible depths. And covering it, burying it, was snow: deep, powdery snow, in a wind-sculpted drift that followed the trail for a mile or more. Pazel thought: Impossible. We can’t go through that. We’re not blary miners, or moles.
“Sheer cliffs above and below,” said Ensyl, shielding her eyes. “We may be spending the night in that tent after all.”
Thaulinin turned and looked at her sharply. “We cannot,” he said. “The cold that is coming is too great. We need stone around us, and a fire.”
“That is not fresh snowfall,” said Hercól, raising his eyes. “It must have broken away from the summit on a warm day, and settled here.”
“Who cares where it came from?” said Big Skip. “There’s no muckin’ way we can—”
“Dig!” said Thaulinin. “Dig or perish! In an hour’s time this trail will be black!”
Straight into the white mass they dived. The snow was light, but piled to depths of twelve feet or more. They were digging a tunnel, and each time they advanced a yard it collapsed. Their new coats were tight at sleeve and collar, yet it trickled in all the same. The selk had the worst of the job, cutting the initial trail, mindful always of the savage drop-off nearby. But for everyone the labor was exhausting. The snow toppled; they scooped it away and wriggled forward. It was like an odd sort of swimming: half dog-paddle, half treading water. But how long could you do that before you grew tired and sank? Ahead, behind, above: there was nothing to see but snow—that and an occasional, stomach-churning glimpse of the distant lowlands, when they strayed close to the precipice.
Dusk fell. Pazel’s rubbed his eyes, struggling to distinguish snow from air. Ramachni and the ixchel, walking atop the drift, shouted down encouragement. But they had been doing that for ages. If they all curled up here, close together beneath the snow, would they keep one another warm? Or would they die in their sleep, frozen, fused together like an unfinished sculpture, and be found by crows in the springtime?
Even as he mused on the question he heard glad cries from the selk: they had reached the far side of the drift at last. One by one the party stumbled out, shaking snow from their clothes and hair. The sun was gone: only a dull red glow remained in the sky. Now, as he felt the knife of the wind, Pazel had his answer: they would freeze to death if they stayed here. The snow melted by the heat of their bodies had soaked them through.
“I feared as much,” said Thaulinin. “We have taken too long. The shelter is still three miles away.”
“Then let us tie ourselves together and run,” said Hercól. “Not quickly, but steadily, wherever the trail permits.”
“Locate your fire beetles,” said Thaulinin, “but I beg you: do not use them unless you feel death itself tugging at your sleeves. The heat they contain is terribly potent, but it will not last long.”
Once more they bound themselves together. Then they ran, limbs shaking, teeth chattering uncontrollably. The light dimmed further, the trail narrowed and grew steep. Bolutu slipped on a patch of ice and skidded wildly; the rope stopped him only when his torso was already over the precipice. They raised him, clapped him on the back—and shuffled on, half frozen, dogged as the chain gang they resembled.
When the way was too steep, they walked; when the light was gone they lit torches. Hercól shouted at them over the wind: “Move your fingers, wiggle your toes inside your boots! Let them seize up and they’ll snap like carrots!” Pazel felt the fire beetle in his coat, and fought the urge to put the thing into his mouth. Not yet. Somehow they kept going, right around the peak, and came at last to Isarak Tower.
It was a grander shelter than Pazel had expected: a soaring ruin two hundred feet tall, though its crown was shorn off like an old forest snag. The great doors were long gone, and snow had filled the bottom floor, but a stone staircase hugged the inner wall, and when they dragged themselves to the second floor they found it windowless and dry. By now the humans and the dlömu were so cold they could barely speak. They rushed about in the dark, swearing in many tongues, brushing the snow from the firewood. Aya Rin, please let it burn, Pazel thought, maniacally wiggling his toes.
Neda and Big Skip appeared with two more armloads of sticks: Pazel had no idea where they had come from. They mounded all the wood together, lit pinecones from the torches and nudged the cones under the pile. Hercól bent and blew. There was a glimmer, then a tongue of flame; then the dead wood roared to life. Soon everyone was crowding around the blaze, stripping off their wet clothes and putting on dry: men, women, human, ixchel, dlömu, selk. Only Cayer Vispek changed alone, far from light or warmth.
The selk passed a skin about, and they all took a sip of the smoky selk wine. For a few minutes even Pazel’s fingertips were warm. In the dimming light he looked around for his friends. Here was Thasha, still dressing: her bare legs pale and strong, her wind-chapped lips finding his own for a haphazard kiss. There were Ensyl and Myett, laughing among the embers, drying each other frantically with Hercól’s gift-cloth from Uláramyth. And Neeps? Pazel turned in a circle. His friend was nowhere in sight. He asked the others: no one knew where he had gone.
“He was acting a bit strange after we got out of the snow,” said Thasha. “Holding his hands up in front of him as we went. I thought he was afraid of his fingers breaking off.”
“Neeps!” Pazel shouted. “Speak up, mate, where are you?” Only his own voice, echoing; then a silence that chilled his blood.
And then, very faintly, a moan. Pazel froze. The sound came again: from somewhere overhead. With Thasha beside him he ran to the staircase and climbed headlong, feeling out the steps in the dark. The third floor was windowless like the first, but the voice—no, voices—were coming from higher still.
The fourth floor had a large pair of windows. Through one, the little Southern moon was shining on a snow-dusted floor; and Pazel saw fresh footprints, and clothes discarded in haste. Before the other, darker window, two figures were embracing, their voices low and urgent, their bodies a study in contrasts: tall and short, jet-black and almost-white. Unaware of the intrusion, they moved together, holding on so tightly they seemed scarcely able to breathe; and yet their limbs struggled to tighten further, as though the lack of any distance between them were still too much distance, and must somehow be overcome.
Thasha tugged Pazel away.
On the third-floor steps they sat in darkness, stunned. Neeps cried out. Thasha held Pazel’s hand, and he remembered what it felt like, when the hand was webbed, when the woman who touched you was not human but this other thing, this cousin-creature, with skin like a dolphin’s or a seal’s.
They were about to go down to the others when Lunja suddenly crashed into their midst, still fastening the buckle on her belt.
“You!” she snapped at them. “You keep him away from me
now! Do you both hear me plainly? My work is done!”
She shoved past them, a hand covering her mouth. Thasha went after her, but Pazel climbed the stairs again to find Neeps standing barefoot in the snow, his trousers pulled on hastily—by Lunja?—and his hands in fists. He was staring vacantly at the floor, and singing under his breath: a weird, wordless tune. Pazel led him to the moonlit window and raised his chin: Neeps’ eyes were solid black.
“You mucking impossible Gods-damned—”
Pazel broke off, glad that no one was there to see his own eyes stream with tears. Neeps stood insensate, like a deathsmoker, like a stump. But it was all right, all right at last. He was in nuhzat. Pazel embraced him, and smelled the sweat and grime of that endless day. There was no smell of lemons at all.
“One down,” said Thasha, gazing out through the gap in the wall, “and all those mountains still to go, by the Tree.”
“Warmer air is coming from the east,” said Thaulinin. “Winter does not yet reign supreme, last night’s cold notwithstanding.”
Pazel stepped up beside them. It was early; most of the others were just beginning to stir. He and Thasha had found Thaulinin here on the highest (remaining) floor of the tower. Warm air might be coming, but it was not here yet. The wind gnawed at any bit of Pazel’s skin it found uncovered. Beads of ice had formed in Thasha’s hair.
Thaulinin passed him a selk telescope, and showed him the slide-whistle manner of its focusing. “I saw hrathmogs at sunrise,” he said. “A great host of the creatures, marching along a lesser road there in the south. And dlömic riders along that stretch of river, farther yet. Neither of them was bound for the high country, however. And from this vantage I can see the road ahead in some dozen places. Not much of it, to be sure—a bend here, a short stretch there. I had hoped for better: when last I came this way, this tower had five more stories, and one could see all the way to the aqueduct on Mount Urakán, greatest of the Nine Peaks.”
The Night of the Swarm Page 43