Bear it down.
Do as you will.
*****
Lark walked the cobblestone street, squinting back and forth in the mist. Her steps fell near-silent on the stones and she strained to hear any others, fearing how easily someone could creep up on her in this morass.
Not just someone.
Her uncle.
Her hands were in fists as if she still held the pot, and in some way she could feel the heat radiating along it from the stove and the boiling water. And his phantom fingers sliding under the edge of her blouse, her mother’s voice: ‘Leave your chores, girl. Show him how much you appreciate his efforts on our behalf.’
Her breath was loud in the fog, but no matter how she tried, she could not slow it. Her heart skittered like a frightened hare. She wanted to run but knew not where. Running the first time—out of the house after flinging the water, pursued by a surprisingly high-pitched shriek and her mother’s shouting—had been pure reaction. And now she was…
Where was she?
Pausing in the road, fists raised as if to punch the close-gathered fog, she tried to think. She was…
In Fellen, obviously. That was where her family lived.
Only she remembered Bahlaer, though she had never been there. It was a bigger city, a lengthy ride away, and beside that, she had never left the shelter of Fellen’s walls. She was barely old enough to leave the Zhangish part of town.
But then why did she see those streets before her? Those dark mosaics, so different from Fellen’s whitewashed or ocean-blue walls.
Was that a sound behind her?
Fear pushed her deeper into the mist. Her skirt swished around her ankles, its patched fabric a poor match for the new blouse she wore. The new blouse from her uncle. Yes, she would appreciate him. She had never asked for it, nor asked that it be taken off her. She would appreciate him with the hot bottom of the pot.
But still, she wore it—not because she had been commanded to but because it felt nice. Soft, almost silky, not like the rough clothes that were all they could afford here. She liked it. She hated that she liked it, but wore it anyway.
She wanted to go home. Wanted her sisters around her. Even now she could see her uncle in among them, though they were younger than her by a handful of years, and she winced. She should go back and pick up the pot again. Finish what she started. And if her mother raised her voice again…
That old hag would get what she deserved.
But she could not go back. She was right; this wasn’t Fellen. She had crossed the dry plainsland in fear of her uncle’s associates and now it was too dangerous to return. But surely her uncle would not bother her little sisters.
I should have cast the boiling water at his crotch. That would have sealed the deal.
She looked down at the street and recognized it now, and wondered how she could have forgotten. The cobbles were rugged and broken, a sign of the old Riverwatch district beyond the Shadowland. She had come here to hide from her uncle’s thugs, because Bahlaer belonged to the Shadow Folk and did not welcome other organizations in its territory.
She was safe. She was far away and would no longer disrupt her family with her willfulness. Surely her sisters would be quiet and meek, and her mother would have no reason to punish them. Surely her uncle had lost his interest in such things.
It was not her fault.
Something small and grey scampered past and vanished into the mist, and her heart tripped over itself.
Rian!
Rian? Who was that?
But it was the goblin, of course. Her goblin, the newt she had saved from the collapse of a Riverwatch tunnel. And there, as the mist peeled back, was an entry into those depths. A cellar opening, its door rotted and in-fallen, the cold breath of the underground wafting up from its maw.
There were footsteps behind her. Her uncle’s thugs? She had to hide.
The cold, hollow air of the cellar beckoned inward even as the darkness took her sight. And this was welcome, comforting, for she realized that she had done this for ages. Traversing the darkness with one hand on the damp stone wall, fingers finding the etchings the Shadow Folk left—their secret language that told of all the twists and turns of the underground, the traps and pitfalls, the storage rooms and safehouses.
No one could catch her down here. She was safer than she had been since the womb, before that brutal hag popped her out. A princess of the shadows, one of the nobility of the under-realm. She and her goblin could go anywhere, and no one could stop them.
Rian brushed past her leg again, and she lowered her hand to trail along his knobby spine. His tail wrapped lovingly around her wrist. He was her darling, her surrogate child, and she loved him more than she had ever loved anything.
Except her sisters. But she could not think of them now. It was not her fault.
The goblin skittered onward. She heard his hard digits on the stone, and in her mind’s eye she saw him leap and gambol among the turns of the tunnel, his tail curled like a happy cat’s, his wide eyes seeing where she could not. He was her little light in the darkness, and she missed him sorely.
Missed him? But he was right here…
And then, beneath her fingertips, the wall of the tunnel shivered. A growl, soft but deep, echoed from all around her.
Her stomach tied in a knot. Bahlaer was closer to the Rift than Fellen and felt more of the tremors that regularly rocked the Riftlands. Most did no damage, but everyone knew to keep out of the tunnels when they happened. With the goblin cities hollowed from the rock below and the warren of sewers and watercourses and cellars and bolt-holes beneath the surface streets, there was always the fear of a grand collapse.
She could not step through shadows. She had no easy way out.
She ran her hand along the wall, trying to find the etchings that would tell her of the nearest exit, but found nothing. She reached further, more frantically.
Another shiver in the tunnel. Another groan from the rocks around her. Dust sifted into her hair and made her sneeze.
Rian rubbed against her shin, his small hand reaching up to take hers. “Ys way!” he said.
Her breathing steadied. She trusted him. She let him pull her forward, one hand still on the wall for stability as she splashed through shallow water and stumbled on rocks. Another shudder and something heavy hit her shoulder, making her hiss in pain. Rian tugged insistently and she ducked and tried to pick up speed, for his sake.
Another rock splashed down at her heel. Pebbles bounced along her scalp and down the collar of her blouse. The world shook and creaked and roared suddenly, reverberating so loudly that it seemed she and Rian were trapped in the throat of a dragon, trembling with the vibration of its vocal cords, the tunnel heaving, the walls crunching with sounds like detonation.
A slab hit her across one shoulder and she screeched in the din. Stones stung her face, dust billowing everywhere. The goblin tugged again, and she pressed forward, and then—
Thunder, so loud and close that it blotted out all else. She was buffeted, battered, slammed to the floor, falling debris stinging her everywhere. Shards of wood from a support beam spattered across her cheek.
For ages, the world shook, while something pressed down on her shoulders and a welling strand of heat ran down the side of her face. She breathed stone-dust, choked, then covered her face with the sleeve of her blouse. Rian’s fingers clenched on her own.
Slowly the roar subsided. The pebbles stopped dropping. She opened her eyes to darkness, hearing nothing but the ringing in her ears.
But she could move, slightly, with care. A beam had shoved her down but become wedged at an incline, pinning only her skirt, and when she pulled away, the ragged fabric tore to the waist. Rian’s fingers squeezed hers again, and she shifted to a sitting position and tried to pull him into her lap.
But he would not come.
A needle pierced her heart, but she told herself, You’re wrong. You always think the worst, but it’s never true, is it? He didn’t go after your s
isters. Everything turned out fine.
Her fingers found the goblin’s wrist, then followed the long, thin line of his arm to the shoulder. To his pointy little face.
To the rocks that encased the rest of him.
A sob welled up in her throat, and she fought to swallow it. She could fix this. She brushed the rocks from his cheek blindly and felt his little face moving—felt the shattered bones beneath the skin, the shiver of his mewling breath against her palm. She dug at the debris and felt a fingernail snap, but that meant nothing. He was her baby and he was hurt and she would get him free. She would!
His thin fingers loosened in her grip.
She tore at the stones, dislodging some only to have others tumble down upon her. One stung hard against her scalp and she felt blood seep through her braids, felt her face twist in a snarl, but she could not stop. The support beam shifted downward with a spine-rattling thump, pushing her lower to the ground, almost flat. She bared her teeth and entertained the crazed idea of shoving it all up with her shoulder, as if she could lift the tons of stone by sheer will.
Then something pulled away a rock by her feet. A scrap of light gleamed through.
She squinted at it hopefully. Surely it was the Shadow Folk. They could help her extricate her goblin, because he was only unconscious—no, asleep. He was asleep, dreaming, and he would wake up in her arms and all would be well.
The hole in the rockfall widened into an opening broad enough for a man. A lantern came through, gripped by a dark hand.
Then a dark head with close-cropped, age-salted black hair followed. Broad shoulders. A fine tunic.
Panic curdled in her chest.
He raised his head and she saw the scalded scars across his cheek and jaw, on his neck and ear, the milk-whiteness of one eye. The ivory shine of his teeth as he bared them in a terrible, feral grin.
Her uncle crawled through into the space just large enough for two to lie flat, and the shadows deserted her.
*****
“Vaiosh ylevai,” Ilshenrir whispered, but the mist did not clear. It did retreat enough for him to know that he was right—this was a spell, a caiohene working—but why such a thing would be here, in the middle of skinchanger territory…
He shook his head and brushed back his hood, needing a full range of sight. The others had vanished when the snow drew down, and though he guessed this was some sort of illusion, he was not naïve enough to think the knowledge made him immune. Far from it. Sometimes it was easier to trap the clever than the dull.
He stepped cautiously onto the flagstone path. There were other options beside illusion, such as dimensional dislocation—which would explain how he had been severed so cleanly from the others without feeling a wisp of magic. This was not the Grey, but other realms worked the same way, and without physical contact he could be blind to the others’ presences even if only a pace apart.
That was a grim thought. It meant he could do nothing for them—and perhaps nothing for himself, if the power that had made this mist was too strong. They would wander until they died, and though their souls would go to their gods and spirits, he would stay, unable to find a beacon to guide him home.
“The province of despair,” he murmured, then pushed the thought away. He needed evidence, not dire assumptions.
Another step and a wind rose, stirring the fog into strange patterns. He breathed in and tasted salt sea air.
Ah yes, the White Isle, he thought, lips forming a bitter smile. Ahead, the fog separated like curtains before a stage, showing a glimpse of unnatural brightness. He advanced upon it, fighting his aversion—the sickly nostalgia that warned him to turn and run.
Shale pavings became bleached coral beneath his feet, flattened and polished to resemble white marble. Ahead, a half-circle balcony protruded from the dim room he was crossing, daylight washing over its coiled railing.
He stepped into the light and looked out upon the white city that stretched to the sea, its coral towers and palaces descending tier by tier to become apartments, then hovels, then the grey-green reefs that lay submerged at the very edge. Figures moved below: lesser nobles in their courtyards, commoners in the streets, raywings basking in the sun while their trainers made the rounds. The dark shapes of created slaves waded in the shoals, scrounging for fish and cast-offs.
Ilshenrir rested his hands on the railing, feeling the warmth that seeped up from the wrought coral. This was a place drawn from memory, true in every detail. Behind would be his chamber, shaded and cool: the room of the youngest ‘child’. No frills, no lavish appointments, no desperate-eyed lowborns debasing themselves at his whim. Those were for the elders, his adopted sisters and brothers. His so-called father’s heirs.
It was so distant in years that to Ilshenrir it felt like contemplating the life of a stranger. A character on a stage, dauntingly opaque. Though he knew where everything would be—the robes with their marks of rank, the tools of his profession, the few personal items he had kept—he felt nothing for them now.
A scuff behind him like a hoof on stone. His personal slave.
“I am not inclined to revisit this,” he said, and stepped through the railing as if it was nothing.
The city dissolved around him, and for two strides he walked on empty space. Then a wooden walkway materialized beneath his feet, and he sighed as the light changed its tone to springtime sun filtered through new leaves. “No, no,” he said impatiently as the trees and spires of Syllastria emerged from the mist. “This is already tiresome. Shall you show me my fall to the Wrecking Shore next?”
No answer but the whisper of leaves in the breeze.
Ilshenrir sighed again and looked around. The path he stood on was cut in to the living limb of a massive drassil, and like all drassili, it was more a tower than a tree, fifteen yards wide in the trunk and with a vast network of branches and frond-like leaves that cast dense shade to the forest floor a hundred yards below. Walkways ran in a double spiral up its bole, the steps a mix of flat-carved knots and specially grown shelf-fungus. Dangerous for the fumble-footed or those who could not fly, but merely a convenience for the airahene.
Periodically the paths came to flat-topped limbs that served as landings, at which stood huge greenwood knots that unfurled into archways at the touch of a wraith hand. They led to hollow chambers grown into the drassili, just large enough for living quarters; other dwellings hung suspended from the boughs like strange nests woven from the living wood.
Here and there Ilshenrir saw the brightly-colored airahene moving through their city, either flitting like birds or climbing with the tenacious grace of spiders. The glow of the nearby crystal spires, though paled by daylight, still gave each direction a particular ambient color.
Thirty drassili. Two spires. Eight thousand airahene and two thousand loyuhene—the refugees from Tantaelastarr and broken Anlirindallora in the Forest of Night. All that remained of Tirindai-airasanwy’s people since the push to the sea and the cursing of Haaraka.
And this certain branch, with the doorway that irised open at his glance and the shadow that approached from the hallway beyond…
He looked away. “I know this game,” he told the air, even as the soft footsteps approached. “Do you think I have not dreamt these things a thousand times in the years I have spent alone? The past is gone beyond retrieval. I will not wallow in it for your pleasure.”
With that, he turned sharply and stepped off the branch.
The empty air sounded like shale beneath his feet. Syllastria dissolved into mist.
Ilshenrir paused, awaiting the next assault. He did not bother to question. Like with torture, it was conjecture and imagination that made this torment effective. He had seen it in use often enough; caiohene could not affect minds directly, so the lords and ladies of the White Isle twisted their lessers to their will through the use of expectation and paranoia. To turn an enemy’s anger against him, to use love and fear as equal weapons…
It was the haelhene way.
Thus
Ilshenrir had learned to examine his reactions rather than their stimulus, to ignore the mask in favor of the face it hid. His life on the Isle had trained him to stand in the shallows, to feel only the most limited of emotions and perceive passion as a weakness. Whether or not that had been their intent, he could not say.
The mist thinned, and vague shapes came visible through the veil. He surveyed the area cautiously. The ground beneath him was flagstone again: the original path, running crooked along level terrain toward a dimly-seen obstruction ahead. Snow lay thin on the ground, and thinned further as it approached the blockade until it disappeared into a strip of frosted grass.
Ilshenrir focused on the shapes. Humanoid, unmoving. The retreating fog made them ghastly until they came clear, and Ilshenrir recognized his companions.
Dasira, closest to his left, huddled with her arms upraised in self-defense, the black blade in her hand somnolent, its usual fire absent. Further leftward, Arik lay on his side in wolfbeast-form, limbs lashing as if running. To the right, Lark convulsed on the ground, making weak sounds of distress, while Fiora stood rigid nearby.
Ilshenrir started to turn, sensing that this was reality and that he should awaken the others.
But his feet would not move.
“You keep walking away from my artistry,” said a voice from ahead. “I can’t have that.”
Ilshenrir squinted. The mist had drawn back enough to expose the obstruction—a dense hedge, seven feet tall with black wrought-iron gates in the middle, the bars shaped like twining vines. Perched on the hedge beside the closed gate was an unfamiliar youth, pale-skinned and cool-eyed, with fine features and swept-back hair that held an odd faded-rose tint. He sat with ankles crossed, fingers laced among the snow-cloaked branches, and seemed quite comfortable in only his dove-grey robe. The look, the demeanor reminded Ilshenrir immediately of—
No. Not an airahene. His skin was a shade too pale, his crystalline eyes a fraction too wild. Haelhene.
Which made him...
“Daenivar.”
And this a dream.
The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) Page 68