The Ashen Levels

by C F Welburn

  “More gratuitously, he chopped off their heads with his hoe.” They looked back at the stooped skeleton, scraping in the frozen dirt. Suddenly any comical aspect of the tree-headed man had gone.

  “Marg gave him an apt punishment it seems,” Balagir surmised.

  “And the forests?” Kiela asked.

  The lych shrugged. “You’d have to ask him that.”

  Clearing his throat, Balagir broached the subject.

  “I’ll have my head when my forests cover Ythinar,” Planter said, somewhat hollowly.

  “It's used as a flower vase, I believe. Or so the nursery rhyme goes. Never let it be said that the askaba lack a sense of irony.”

  “I may lack ears, but I can hear you well enough.”

  “Then hear our proposal,” Balagir announced. “Show me the chest, and I’ll accept an oath to return your head.”

  The lych shifted uneasily.

  “You think this wise? His first victim was in a cradle.”

  “Still, it was a long time ago. And leaving without the chest is not an option. This askaba, you sure she’s dead?”

  “Certain. Askaba are strange ones, but they lack my curse—or your blessing, for that matter. Sisken is their leader now, and, if my reckoning is exact, eight others have led in the interim. Still, I’d not expect Sisken to gladly grant it.”

  “Upsetting the askaba can be no worse than having this morbid forest spread much further.”

  “Be it on you,” Jerikin said, stepping aside.

  “How do I know you’ll honour your word?” Planter asked.

  “You know what happens to an ashen who breaks an oath? I’ve no leeway for treachery.”

  Huir Greenfingers stood for a long time in silence, nodding as if he recalled something.

  “Marg is gone?” he queried at last.

  “Quite gone.”

  He re-shouldered his bag and straightened with a creak.

  “Follow me,” he concluded, and lurched off as the skull fruits twisted to follow his every step.

  They had not walked far when Planter turned aside, making the skulls swivel.

  “Down here,” he instructed, descending with surprising confidence for one with no eyes. There, at the bottom of a ravine in the day’s waning light, sat a chest. Like everything else, it rested on a pile of bones. “Here I must leave you.”

  “You’ll not stay?”

  “I’ve no interest in what lies within, and you’ve already delayed me long enough.”

  “You no longer need plant.”

  “I’ll reserve my judgement. Do not return empty handed.” Without further ado, he creaked off to fade between the white trunks.

  Balagir examined the ordinary chest and offered the key to Garill, who paled and shook his head. Ginike negated with a bubbling sound from his nose, Kiela also swiftly declined, and Jerikin merely explained that if it killed him, he would but pass into one of those who looked on.

  Balagir grinned and withdrew the mask.

  “Don’t say I did not offer.”

  Using the mask, he saw that the key could be turned to the left or the right. The former revealed a nasty surprise, as the chest sprouted garrulous limbs, lurched, snapped, slobbered, and finally ripped his arm from the socket as crudely as a beggar ate poached fowl. To the right revealed glory—or at least not death—for the chest was empty. He reached within and found the bottom to be an illusion, his hand penetrating to grasp a rung. He descended the ladder into a grey world whose walls were fluted with skeletal roots. When he reached the bottom and ascertained that it was no trap, he retrieved the grey bundle that awaited him there. Upon exiting, the chest slammed shut. Only when it began to sink into the ground and he began to suffocate did he realise that Era was trapped within and being dragged away from him, sundering their bond as brutally as one whose heart is plucked from their chest.

  He doffed the mask, gasping and blinking at the circle of staring faces. Then, to the astonishment of all, he truly opened the lock, bade Era wait with the others, and descended without hesitation. The real experience was every bit as surreal as the augury; the underground world tangled in the lifeless roots. As before, he reached the base and approached the object he had seen. A fold of grey cloth, fine as gossamer, and within, the fruit of his labours. He frowned down at the key, identical in every detail to the one he had just used. Shaking his head, he ascended the ladder once more, and no sooner had he stepped foot into the forest than the chest closed and sank, pulled down by white limbs to be swallowed by the ground. Era danced nearby, mocking the ground as though she too recalled its sinister intent. Almost in the same instant, certainly before any questions could be posed, he felt his belt tremble as smoke filtered from the earth into the disc. Garill also glanced down at his own belt, grinning that, despite his failures, he too had benefitted. Maybe somewhere, far away across the sea, a certain jaegir looked down at his belt and sighed in relief. Then came the questions.

  “Recognise this?” Balagir asked, proffering the key. Garill’s eyes bulged, and he pulled away, lest Balagir thrust it upon him once more.

  “But how can this be, you’ve…”

  “Completed the oath, yes.” Balagir twisted the key with one hand and plucked at his moustaches with the other. “The ashen who gave you the key, he never mentioned anything like this?”

  “Nothing of the sort. And where are the great fortunes it promised?” he grumbled, his gratitude having been rather ephemeral.

  “I think this great fortune is drip fed rather than guzzled.” He was greeted by a wall of frowns and forced to expand. “We’ve completed the oath and got a new key and been rewarded. We have no burden upon us. What we do have is an opportunity to perpetuate the smoke.”

  “You mean give someone else the oath?”

  “It seems plain. The key must be passed on, and in the course of things, we will receive more smoke once the task is done.”

  “So, you think the ashen who gave Garill the key has just received smoke?”

  He shrugged. “I see no other reason he would charge someone with the task.”

  Garill shook his head. “But the chest is gone. What good would the key do?”

  “Then we will tell the next ashen the same. Seek the word of the Planter, for as he revealed, we are not the first he has shown the way.”

  “Nor, perhaps, are we the first he has charged with fetching his skull,” Kiela mused.

  “But what has Planter—Huir—to do with the chest?” It was the lych that spoke now. “He was many things, but in the end, was just a man. I see no reason why his punishment should be linked to an ashen puzzle. Nor the askaba for that matter.”

  “Maybe we should ask this Sisken that,” Balagir said, dropping the key in his pouch. “It seems our paths are crossing for a purpose. If I must fetch this skull, then I’ll get some answers whilst I’m there.”

  “You’ve clearly not had dealings with the askaba,” Jerikin said wryly. “For all their professed wisdom, they seldom speak straight. Advisers to the Dunns they may be, but they speak in circles and keep their agendas guarded. Alchemists, scientists, counsellors, mages; call them what you will, I would not expect any explanation for their motives.”

  “Since their motives apparently involve the ashen, they have revealed themselves. I’ll ask my questions, and one way or another, Sisken will answer.”

  The lych smiled austerely, shaking his head but saying no more.

  They had to spend one more night in the macabre forest, but the following day saw them reach its borders. The skulls paid them no heed, twisting to mark Planter’s grim progress. A few miles after the last of the white trees, they spilled out from the eaves onto the wide trail they had left so many days before. The southern backdrop of white mountains was painted across the wide horizon, a distance vast and dizzying after the confines of the forests.

  “The Spine,” Jerikin announced. “There lies Iylleth, and beyond, Iceval.” The name caught his ear. The piper’s challenge Gorj and
company had been heading towards to wreak malice. Balagir considered asking how they were to pass, but shied away from whatever hardships lay ahead. For now, he was appeased just to be out in the open. The flat, windy plain that lay between them and the mountains would give them another day’s ride to contemplate it.

  But all of that had to wait. For hovering there, just on the whisper of the wind’s breath, was that wistful sound; the tune that made the head snap and ears take note as the nose might the scent of a cooked meal. They shared knowing glances and kicked their horses into action. Jerikin paused a moment, sighed, and followed as though they were children chasing after a prize.

  The piper’s bovine face, disquieting and emotionless as it may be, was nevertheless familiar and alluring. They had the lych wait beyond the circle of light with the horses, and one by one they invested what they had earned. Balagir went last and sank down in a whirl of black and red, shimmering like the lava of destroyed islands.

  XVI

  SHADOW OF THE ICE PALACE

  The first thing Balagir noticed in his reinvigorated state was the talisman gleaming softly from his muddy soles. With the sound of Gorj’s eggshell head still fresh in his mind, he postponed a trial until prudently in the open. He would also do so in privacy to avoid any ridicule.

  The hub was still empty come dawn, which suited them fine. Meeting ashen in these parts had become a perilous thing, and they were glad to be alone. Balagir marked it a good place to return if he ever located Huir’s murderous head. Since no one had a name for it, he dubbed it Planter hub and consigned the bearings to his mind.

  Jerikin awaited once they had stepped from the fire’s light.

  “I trust you spent a warm night?”

  “You must have anticipated these drawbacks accompanying ashen,” Kiela remarked.

  “Well, at least I’ve a well-rested body to leap into if something attacked me in the night.”

  He seemed to find it humorous—a joke only a lych could make—but the thought was a disturbing one. Maybe the horses would have absorbed him, Balagir mused, but despite his earlier threat about worms, he was not entirely sure of the rules the lych’s curse adhered to.

  “I’ve always wondered what it’s like at your hubs.”

  The trail was easy, and as they rode, Balagir took the opportunity to investigate.

  “You don’t even hear the music?” he asked, once the horses had fallen into formation.

  “I hear the wind. I hear Ginike’s wheezing nose. I don’t hear your… piper.”

  “But you know of him.”

  “I’ve been around long enough. You’re not the first ashen I’ve had dealings with.”

  “Have you ever met a content one?”

  “Define content.”

  Balagir shrugged. “One that knew who he was?”

  The lych frowned, but slowly understood. “Difficult to say. I think not.”

  “Any that had children?” Kiela asked.

  “Ashen cannot reproduce,” the lych said matter-of-factly, albeit blunter than Gorj’s club.

  A silence descended. Infertility was one thing, but futility was quite another. What could they hope to achieve if the clock was always reset, the slate wiped clean, the book burnt, and all lessons learnt forgotten. He let the thought sink like a dead hand in a black sludge. Such a notion would overshadow the day as it was without forcing it gruesomely into the cruel light.

  Balagir’s opportunity to test his boots came before too long. They had travelled most of the morn across the windswept plains when they reached a river rushing white with the mountain’s ice. Whilst they stopped to water horses, he strolled beyond the ridge. Bracing himself, he tentatively jumped into the air. He felt a thrust carrying him twice as high as such modest effort should have. He smiled like a child with, well, new shoes, and prepared to test them further. This time he used reckless force and soared upwards to a height where he could see all the world about him, including his own small shadow on the ground and his companions stooped at the river with their backs to him.

  He came down as gracelessly as a fledgling chick forced from the nest, his ankle twisting out from under him.

  Kiela came rushing over at the commotion to find him writhing on the ground, clutching his foot.

  “What happened?”

  “Slipped,” he managed through gritted teeth. Only when she had gone did he attempt to put any weight on it, wincing at the sharp pain. He would have to refine his alighting if he were to put any faith in the boots. For now, he opted to walk, or rather limp, and was glad his horse would disguise his hobble.

  The blustery afternoon whipped and snapped on, the stony path hugging the river’s fluorescent course as though it feared to stray too far and become lost. At times they rode in a line, hunkered down in dark deliberations, and at others abreast and spoke by whim.

  “What should we call ourselves?” Balagir asked in an attempt to break the bleak mood that seemed to have smothered them since dawn.

  “What do you mean?” Kiela asked.

  “We’re a company, are we not? Shouldn’t we have a name?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve never travelled with anyone long enough to consider such things.”

  “We’re hardly a company,” Ginike whistled. “I mean, he’s a lych for a start. What use is he going to be to us where the fire’s concerned?”

  “How about the forlorn foursome,” Jerikin offered, clearly not caring less about his exclusion. Ginike either snarled or smirked; his twisted jaw leaving it open to interpretation.

  “Four happens to be the perfect number for a company,” Balagir reflected aloud, recalling Igmar and his tenacity to not let a good thing die. Nevertheless, that was the end of the conversation, and the present company prevailed, nameless as stray dogs.

  Ere gloaming could cloak the lands, the shadow of the mountains themselves loomed long, and the road assumed a decidedly calf-straining gait.

  “What might we find up there?” Balagir asked solemnly of the lych, no longer able to ignore the peaks that dominated the horizon.

  “Snow,” Jerikin said helpfully. “Oh. And largatyn.”

  “Splendid.”

  “You’ve had dealings with them before?”

  “Of a sort.”

  “Well, be at ease. These have nothing to do with their estranged northern kin. Up in Iylleth, they share many customs of men, as well as a few eccentricities of their own, of course.”

  “You make eccentric sound foreboding.”

  “Their eagerness to trade has tempered their tempers, though not calmed them completely.”

  Balagir nodded but thought to reserve judgement. He had seen what a lizard lord was capable of and had reservations about entering an entire city of them.

  That meeting was delayed however, for, as summits do, one concealed another until it felt they were moving up a staircase so large they could not see it in its entirety. That night they spent in a cave, whose fire-blackened stones told of forgotten refugees. As Balagir sat second watch, the first flurries of snow floated past the entrance. When they left at dawn, they had to scrape the drifts aside to allow passage.

  The horses began to struggle as the day wore on. Though the trail was well trodden, it was more suited to the six-legged ghot’s nimble step. For a time, the blizzard ravaged them, turning companions into unreachable grey shapes; the mountain the only audible voice. Balagir felt he had never been so close to the firmament.

  Fortuitously the winds abated and, as the trail levelled out, the first handmade structures came into view—a mixture of chiselled rock and jagged, majestic nature.

  “Behold the ice palace of Iylleth,” Jerikin informed melodramatically. Balagir had to admit, Drak was much more theatrical since his body had become possessed. He supposed living for time beyond count could decay a soul into apathetic despondency, or else amuse itself with flamboyant flair and sardonic observation. The lych, to ward his boredom, had opted for the latter.

  “You’ve been here bef
ore?”

  “Several times. You’ve nothing to fear—though twice I was here as a largatyn, so I suppose we must discount those occasions.”

  A stone tower lined the road, and two thickly armoured largatyn emerged. Despite Jerkin’s assurances, there was a tension in the air; ashen, it seemed, were treated with suspicion in wider circles than Balagir had realised. They were granted passage, albeit without the hand-rubbing glee with which traders were welcomed.

  They continued for some distance along the trail, when Balagir chanced to turn and spy the two guards trailing them.

  “I thought you said we’d be welcomed,” he said gruffly.

  “Weren’t we?” the lych asked.

  “Then why are we being followed?” Jerikin looked about and then stiffly carried on walking.

  “You think it’s a trap?” Balagir asked.

  All certainty had gone from the lych’s voice when he agreed that: “Something’s not right.”

  “If this is how they treat their guests—” Garill began, but stopped short as two more guards appeared ahead, their long spears glinting like icicles in the sun.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Jerikin asked when they were ushered to a halt. “Since when could one not enter Iylleth unmolested?”

  “Since Zyrath ordained it,” the guard answered bluntly. “State your business.”

  “We’re passing through. Our business is our own,” Balagir contested.

  The largatyn’s ugly face creased. “Do I sense defiance? I’ll ask once more: where are you bound in such haste?”

  “The other side of the mountain.” Balagir’s answer would have sounded sarcastic whether intended or not, and its flippancy irritated the guards.

  “You’ll come with us.”

  “Are we under arrest?”

  “Not yet. We must restrain you for a time; then you’ll be free to continue.”

  “I’d rather be free now.” The guard’s hiss put an end to any further discussion. The lych shook his head in warning. Attacking the palace guards on its doorstep would bring an abrupt and final end to their exploits.