by J. V. Jones
“Chedd,” she hissed, leaning forward. “Where are we going?”
Turning his head to look at her he said, “Don’t know.” His voice sounded a little weird. “I’m feeling a bit sick.”
“Look at the water,” Effie told him firmly. “Eyes ahead.”
Chedd did just that. He had stopped paddling, she realized, and was bracing himself with a hand on each gunwale. His face was green.
Waker’s father skipped a paddle stroke, allowing Waker’s right stroke to steer the boat. The craft tuned a few degrees east, and Effie saw they were no longer heading ashore. Only river lay ahead.
Almost immediately the boat began pitching. The wind was hitting at an angle, yet also the river itself seemed to be pulling in a new way. Waker and his father settled into a rhythm of quick shallow strokes, not holding their paddles too long or too deep in the water. Brown foam rushed across the surface, and the wind sent it slapping against their faces. Effie reached for her lore. The stone felt sluggish and unsteady, half asleep. Dissatisfied, she let it drop against her chest.
Another wind gust got under the boat and the bow went up. Lightning forked on the south shore. Thunder exploded right on top of them. The boat rolled and pitched, suddenly unstable on both planes. Waker called out something to his father, and Waker’s father set his paddle in the water and turned the boat due south.
Effie felt a moment of relief. Rain was coming down with force and no matter how much she bailed the water kept rising. The wind was head-on again; she could feel it flattening her cheeks. From the seat in front of her Chedd made a small noise. And then two things happened at once. A powerful gust got under the boat and Effie was knocked backward. As the bow came up so did Chedd, flinging his head and shoulders over the side. Oh no, he’s throwing up, she thought with disgust as the the boat tipped slowly toward Chedd. Waker sent his weight snapping in the opposite direction but it was too late. Effie’s bottom slid along the polished wood seat, and she hung for the briefest instant, parallel to the water, before plunging in.
The river seized her chest. It was shockingly cold and dark. A paddle whacked her chin. As she gasped in pain her lungs took in water. Where was the surface? Was she underneath the boat? Panicking, she began thrashing her arms. When she tried to move her legs her body jerked with such force it was as if the floor had been snatched from beneath her. The leg irons snapped with the jolt of a returning bowstring. Stilled by the concussion she began to sink. Now that she looked up she saw that yes, she had been under the boat. Its peapod shape was a receding darkness against the light.
She fell deeper, and began to understand that strange currents were at work. Three rivers met here. She could feel them spinning her body as they emptied her brain of thoughts.
Swoopy movements, she thought inanely, that’s what you’re supposed to do with your arms to swim.
One of the bedrolls she’d packed that morning floated past her face. Breathing, she took in more water. The boat had become a thin line and she could no longer remember why it was important. It grew dark, or perhaps she closed her eyes: the difference hardly seemed important.
It was all easy-peasey now.
Down she went into the Wolf’s maw, deep into the cold brown water. There was only one little niggle that surprised her. Who would have thought that the very thing she had avoided all her life would be down here? The seeking malevolence was moving through the water to intercept her. It was forming itself into a pike; elongating, solidifying, glittering as it conjured scales. The malevolence swam with great assuredness and growing strength. It didn’t just prowl the open spaces, it knew the dark depths as well.
It was a revelation. Inside, outside: it didn’t matter where she was, it would find her wherever she was weak.
A small quiver of fear passed through her, moving up from her feet to her head. The pike was almost upon her. She could see its pearly, razored teeth.
Suddenly she was yanked up and sideways. The pike’s jaw snapped closed. Something broke. Effie Sevrance was pulled the long distance to the surface. It felt as if she were being sucked from a tube.
Afterward she didn’t remember much of the time that followed. Waker’s jelly eyes loomed big as he worked her chest like a water pump. Waker’s father actually said things. Proper words, helpful words. Chedd Limehouse shivered and looked afraid. He was told a dozen times to Sit down and hold your place.
Effie smelled the good scent of woodsmoke and slept. Waker roused her in the night, made her drink water she did not want and felt her hands and feet. “She’s bone cold.”
She realized she must have been dreaming then, for Waker’s father actually said, “We must build a bigger fire.”
Some time later in the orange glow of firelight, Waker’s father’s face appeared above her own. He had the sneaky, pleased-to-be-himself look in his eyes as he leaned close to her ear and whispered his real name. He knew she would not remember it tomorrow.
Morning came, and even though the sun shone in her face and she was swaddled in the best and thickest blankets she could not stop shivering. Waker’s father brought her purple tea and insisted she drink though its temperature was close to scalding. It tasted like fat.
Chedd came over and knelt by her head. After looking both ways to check that no one was in earshot he told her what had happened and where they stood. “South shore of the Wolf, on land claimed by Morning Star. Last night we could see the lights of a village.”
Effie didn’t have the energy to pull herself up and look around. The sky seemed nice and blue, and she could see that some of the trees were oaks and water chestnuts waiting to bud.
“Waker pulled you from the water. You’d been gone forever and we thought . . . I thought . . . ” Chedd looked down. Tears squeezed from his eyes and he wiped them away with his shirtsleeve. “I had to hang on to the boat, Eff—I couldn’t come and get you because of these.” Rolling on his side, he brought his feet all the way up to her face so she could physically see his ankle chains. “I’m a good swimmer. I could have done it.”
She believed him.
“Anyhows. No one knew where you were. Waker was in a state, diving and coming up. Waker’s da tells him to hold on a mo’ while he thinks. Waker’s da’s face gets all white and goosey and he points to a piece of water and says, She’s down there. You should have seen Waker dive, like an otter after fish. He was down a long time, Eff. Me and his da started getting afraid. His da turned the boat and held it while I got in. Then he got in himself. And only then, when we were both sitting steady, did Waker break the surface with you.”
Chedd wanted to tell her how she looked, but she stopped him; Effie did not want to know. Realizing she would soon need to pee, she asked him to help her to her feet. Gallantly, he squatted beside her and wrapped a thick arm around her waist. As she came to standing a wave of dizziness hit her. One hand came out for Chedd, who took it like a rock. The other hand went up for her lore.
But her lore wasn’t there.
The pike had taken it.
TWENTY-ONE
Alone and Armed in the Darkness
Traggis Mole’s cronies were waiting for them when they returned from the overnight hunt. It was late afternoon and the light was deeply golden. Due to some subtle seasonal shift, the sun was perfectly aligned with the Rift in the west. Red radiance poured along the fissure, casting shadows that had no end.
Addie Gunn and Raif were dead tired. Both had stayed up late in the night hunting deer and then woke before dawn to try for more. Stillborn on the other hand had fallen asleep at sunset and stayed asleep until breakfast, when the smell of Addie roasting goat’s heart had finally roused him. He’d been lively all day, even though he was the one hauling the majority of game. A full-grown doe was balanced, yokelike, across his shoulders. An impromptu sled made from lashed willow poles that held the snagcat pelt, various cuts of snagcat meat and a partially butchered fawn, was being pulled on a leash attached to his waist. Addie carried the butchered goat and its pe
lt in a game sack slung over his shoulder, and Raif carried a mixed bag of ribs, spines, pelvises and longbones that could be boiled and scraped for meat, marrow and fat. All three of them smelled like blood, but Raif found he did not much dislike it. It reminded him of longhunts with with Da and Drey.
“At least he sent the pretty ones” was all Stillborn said as they approached the eastern ledge.
Two Maimed Men awaiting them on the rimrock were armed with thick spears of blackened and case-hardened iron. One wore an armored cloak; a half-circle of boiled and pleated leather mounted with coin-sized metal rings that had to weigh at least twenty pounds. The other man wore chainmail that had rusted around the armpits and a wool kilt over wool pants. Both men appeared whole, but Raif knew better than to be fooled by that. Everyone in the Rift was missing something, and experience had taught him that imperfections that did not immediately meet the eye were usually the worst kind.
Some instinct, perhaps fear or simple habit, made Raif stretch out a hand to read the air. The headwind was light and from the north. Updrafts rising from the Rift were fitful and without force.
Shucking off the bag of bones and letting it drop onto the green granite of the ledge, he said to Addie and Stillborn, “Take the meat. Go on ahead.”
The little cragsman shook his head and was about to tell Raif exactly what he thought of that idea when Stillborn also shook his head. A single, curt shake aimed at silencing Addie Gunn.
“Come on,” Stillborn said, somehow managing to clap Addie on the shoulder while still balancing the deer. “Lets make sure our Rift Brothers get the meat.”
Addie hesitated. He knew how important the meat was, knew also that the Maimed Men needed to see with their own eyes who had brought it. Finally he asked Raif in a whisper, “Will you be all right, lad?”
Raif stared at the man with the armored cloak as he said, “I’ll be fine. If you want to do me a favor find me arrows. Two dozen with feather fletchings.”
The cragsman nodded. “If you’re not back by midnight we’ll come looking.” Bending at the knee, he picked up Raif’s sack. It was still dripping blood.
As Addie and Stillborn walked ahead, Raif let his right hand come to rest on the crossguard of his borrowed sword. It was a small thing, but it drew the attention of Mole’s men away from Addie and Stillborn and to himself.
“You’re coming with us to see the chief,” said the man wearing the armored cloak. Now that he spoke, Raif saw he was missing front teeth. When Raif failed to move, he thrust out his spear. “Get walking.”
He thought they would lead him down to Traggis Mole’s cave but they led him up to the high cliffs instead. Ancient crumbling steps cut deep into the rock wound up through the city and out onto the headcliffs where the Maimed Men maintained their watch. The cliffs bulged above the city like wasps’ nests, round-walled and tapering, connected to each other by a series of gangplanks known as the Cloud Walk. Raif had not been up here before and he saw that the rock was older and softer than the ledgerock below. Birds had made and abandoned nests in the potholes, and dwarfed pines had grown and died, leaving skeletons that rattled in the wind.
Both men were well-accustomed to the Cloud Walk and navigated the wood-and-rope walkways with ease. Raif tried not to look down, did look down and began to sway.
“We got a spinner,” commented the armored cloak man without rancor. Neither he nor the chainmail man raised a hand to help.
Raif closed his fist around the guiderope. Two ropes suspended at waist height and a foot-wide plank of wood were all that was preventing him from crashing to the rimrock ninety feet below. Wind set the ropes swaying, and the weight of three men on the plank made the wood creak and bow. It would be easy to kill him. A near forceless movement of the hand would be all it would take. Raif tried to calm himself, but the world was tipping, and he was unsure what to do with his body to counter it.
“Walk.”
It was both an order and advice. He had been holding too long on to the rope and had begun to lean into it—into thin air. Blinking as if that could somehow help, Raif rocked his weight onto his other foot and eased his hand from the rope. Giddy nausea filled his head. It felt as if his brain had detached itself from his spinal cord and was spinning like a top in his skull. Drunkenly, he took a step forward. More spinning. Seen from above, the city on the edge of the abyss looked like a chunk of driftwood riddled with wormholes. After thinking that bit of nonsense he took another step, followed by another one. Walking.
Two more gangways, a short tunnel, and a drawbridge had to be navigated before they reached the western watch. Raif developed a technique he called “looking at the stray hair hanging down in front of my eye.” To know its name was to know how it worked. At some point during the second gangway he realized what Traggis Mole was up to. Yet the knowledge that it was the Robber Chief’s intent to throw him off guard and render him weak at the knees was strangely worthless. It didn’t make the gangways any easier.
The sun was setting by the time the two men delivered him to the stack of freestanding rock where the Maimed Men conducted their western watch and Traggis Mole stood waiting. Wind and glaciers had carved out the stack, forming a structure that protruded from the cliff wall like a thumb. The top was flat and slightly canted toward the Rift. A fine down of sugar lichen covered the rock.
As the two men withdrew they pulled on the hoist ropes, raising the drawbridge and leaving Raif and Traggis Mole alone and trapped on the stack.
The king of the city on the edge of the abyss stood with his back turned to Raif, looking south beyond his domain toward the clanholds. Dressed in a floor-length greatcloak of horsehide edged with black swan feathers, nothing of his body was visible below the neck. A bricked-in fire was burning close to the center of the stack, and the Robber Chief must have tended it recently for a stick close to his feet gave off a silky line of smoke.
“Night falls,” he said in greeting, not looking round.
The sun, no longer aligned with the Rift, sank beyond the canyonlands sending out a dying breath of red light. Raif looked down and saw the Orrl cloak reflecting the color perfectly, looked back up and saw the sun was gone.
“Right now below us Stillborn is presenting a snagcat to the Rift Brothers, claiming he brought it down with a throw spear.” Traggis Mole spun and pinned Raif with his stare. “Does he lie?”
While the Robber Chief was in motion Raif fought the desire to step back. No one he had ever met in his life moved as inhumanly fast as Traggis Mole. The chief’s wooden nose was strapped in place above his air hole and as the first dew of dusk formed his breath smoked white.
Raif said, “The blow that brought down the cat was Stillborn’s.”
“Brought down and kill are not the same,” Traggis Mole replied, whip-fast in his harsh Vorlander voice. “His credit is undue.”
“Stillborn’s blow slowed the cat. Without it mine would have gone wide.”
Traggis Mole made no reply. Minutes passed and silence stretched to the Rift and back before he called it in. “Do you know he took your gold?”
Raif blinked. For a moment he felt just as he had on the first gangway; as if the world were tipping sideways and he was unsure how to right himself within it.
The Robber Chief’s small round eyes took in all, and gave nothing back. “The fifteen men who took part in the raid on Black Hole were each given a gold rod to reward their success. Ask Stillborn where yours is.”
“I will not.” The coldness of those three words surprised Raif.
There was a blur of motion, too fast to be tracked wholly by the eye, and then Traggis Mole was standing by the bricked-in fire, his cloak swinging at his heels like a child who could not keep up. “Perhaps he assumed that riches do not interest you.”
Something in this statement seemed off-the-mark to Raif. A fraction too much space separated the words and it seemed to him that the Robber Chief was questing. Caution kept Raif silent.
Traggis Mole held the smoking
stick in his gloved hand, though Raif had no memory of him bending to pick it up. Walking a circuit of the firepit, he scraped it along the wall. “Did they tell you about the Rift wrall that walked amongst us? How many fought it and how many it killed? Did your fine friends tell you that they arrived too late and the beast had already passed? Did they also tell you that every night I stand watch here, high above my city, and look down into the Rift? And did they tell you that once you start watching it never ends?”
The Robber Chief threw the stick into the fire, where it flared bright for a moment and then was gone. “Night falls and the shadows gather, and to watch you must grow accustomed to the dark. Bide where I stand, Raif Twelve Kill—alone and armed in the darkness—and ask yourself is this a prize worth winning, or a hole without end that will suck away your life?”
Raif made a gesture with his head; he did not know what it was nor what he meant.
“You did not think you could come here and keep your intent hidden?” Traggis Mole asked, turning so that the fire lit the down-facing planes of his face. “No subtlety conceals Stillborn’s plans for you. You should ask him why he would not take the city alone, and then listen very hard to the answer. He’s a good hunter and liked as well as any man is liked in this god-spurned place. If you had not returned two days back do you think he would have challenged me?”
Rather than say anything against Stillborn Raif did not speak, but the truth lay in the shadows between them.
“Fifteen years is a long time to spend complaining.”
Raif moved his legs apart to spread his weight. Whilst Traggis Mole had been speaking he had the sense that he was standing in a fixed position above the darkness. All he could see below him was night sky. Once when he and Drey had been at the swim hole in the Wedge, Drey had wedged a board underneath a rock to use as a dive platform. Somehow it was different from diving off boulders; there was a bounce and you were suspended a couple of feet over the water. You didn’t have to step out, just down. That’s what Raif felt now, as if the jump would be easier here. A move forward was the same thing as a move down.