Chapter Seventeen
Sherwin’s
Stubbornness
The opening in the stone wall to their left revealed a rocky platform leading to what the map marked as “Bridge over the Ravine”. In reality, there were as many as eight different suspended stony paths across the fathomless depth. The bottom of the Ravine was impossible to see. A little below the bridges, white fog and cloudy wisps filled the space. A soft, scarcely perceptible humming filled the air. Rafen knew this was not his Spirit Awareness tricking him because Sherwin mentioned it the moment they arrived.
“Yeh’d go through this hummin’ place?” he said sharply. “It’ll drive yer mad. Not that yer need it.”
When Rafen turned abruptly at Sherwin’s words, Sherwin was not behind him. Francisco was staring with wonder at the place where he had been. Sherwin was already five steps ahead, following the path away from the Ravine. He had a recognizable saddlebag on his cloaked back. The one with the extra strap contained their food. Sherwin looked back at Rafen fixedly, with that same unreadable stare Alakil had given Rafen in his dream.
“Don’t be a fool, Sherwin,” Rafen said. He was horrified to hear a tremor in his voice.
Sherwin narrowed his eyes and turned his back on Rafen. He continued trudging steadily away from the Ravine.
“SHERWIN, COME BACK!” Rafen roared.
Sherwin didn’t so much as flinch.
The scent of their pursuers was becoming stronger. Rafen could even hear the clattering of a Naztwai on the rocks somewhere above.
“I’ll catch him up,” Rafen said, preparing to transform.
“Please, no,” Francisco said. “Do not leave me. Adelphia said—”
“I don’t care what Adelphia says,” Rafen said through his teeth. “Besides, we need the food.”
Something insane in him was actually glad Sherwin had taken the food. He had wondered if Sherwin was planning something like this, and he knew Francisco would have reminded him of Adelphia’s advice regarding their company if Sherwin left them. As it was, Francisco couldn’t really say anything now. There was nothing to eat in this part of the Mountains besides snow. The nimble mountain goats and wolverines kept too high up on the rocks, and if Rafen used kesmal to catch them, it would attract unwanted attention. They had to follow Sherwin.
“Come with me, Francisco,” Rafen said, pulling Trinity’s halter before dropping to the ground as a Wolf.
When they rounded the corner, Sherwin had vanished. Resuming his normal form, Rafen used his Sight to discover whether Sherwin was around the next rocky bend. He was even further ahead than that, running at his fastest speed. It was kesmalic.
Rafen gritted his teeth, but his anger was checked by the murmuring of spirits in his mind. They were once again flying straight for his mouth, his nose, his eyes, their voices rising to screams as they neared his face. He gripped the rocky wall next to him convulsively.
“You are not well at the moment,” Francisco said. “You had a seizure before we left home. You have not been sleeping.”
“I’m fine,” Rafen said.
His hands were slick with sweat. The spirits in his vision had even gained color around their edges.
Transforming into a wolf once more, he resumed his headlong run. Francisco urged Trinity into a gallop behind him. Rafen’s mind drifted back to Etana. He could see her before him now: her perfectly carved, ivory face framed by the red-gold hair; her blue eyes sparkling as she saw him. She was laughing, and she hadn’t been that happy in a while. She was holding a child with hair as black and curly as his own, so like his dead mother’s. The child’s tiny hand played with the phoenix heartstring around her neck.
He did not want Etana to follow them. He did not want her to come to this place and face the Den Nyolam.
*
Halfway through the afternoon, Rafen had felt a seizure coming on. He had been forced to switch places with Francisco and ride on the horse instead. Francisco had protested that Rafen really shouldn’t ride while having a seizure. Rafen would have none of it.
“We’ll waste time,” he had said, his muscles already tightening
painfully.
When Rafen woke, all his limbs aching and his head spinning, he found they had at last caught up with Sherwin. Leading the horse, Francisco was walking very quickly to keep up with Sherwin, who now clutched the saddlebag in his arms and was barely refraining from running.
“Sherwin, please,” Francisco implored. “I am terrified to go against the word of two Run—”
“Yer can’t believe Raf actually saw Fritz,” Sherwin said, turning his head to look at Rafen.
Rafen rode at a leisurely pace, his eyes half closed so that Sherwin wouldn’t see he was listening. If Sherwin was not aware Rafen was awake, Rafen might be able to slip down from Trinity and steal the saddlebag back before he had a chance to run.
“Look at ’im,” Sherwin said scornfully. “He’s in a trance most of the time. Didn’ yer see him ’ave a seizure in the saddle before?”
“Did I not steady him?” Francisco said. “Sherwin, the Mountains make him ill. But you must not think—”
“Franny, ’e’s goin’ mad,” Sherwin said bitterly. “He’s so up ’imself ’e doesn’ even realize it. I’m the one who’s got to lead us now.”
“Adelphia said to trust him, even when we thought he was wrong.”
“Do I look like I ruddy well care what she said?” Sherwin burst out.
Rafen had the horrible feeling Sherwin was talking far too loudly for this part of the Mountains. The rocky walls around them were black and towering, leaning over the three of them and hemming them in. The snow had stopped falling. They were following a stone path covered with a rubbery kind of lichen that gave off a putrid odor. Thin smoke smelling of brimstone and coal wafted around them. No breezes stirred, and there was no sign of life. The rocks in places were stained as if something had been blasted against them by fire.
The spirits wrapped themselves around Rafen’s torso, arms, and neck as he rode, and he felt dizzy and stupidly faint. His idea of wrestling the saddlebag off Sherwin seemed ridiculous suddenly.
Why are we going this way? he asked himself.
“There was a parchment,” he told Francisco in an infuriatingly hoarse voice. The smoke in the air made his mouth dry. “Did I show you?”
“I saw it,” Francisco said.
“How long have we been going this way?”
Sherwin looked back smugly, as if Rafen was acting precisely the way he had expected.
“Half a day,” Francisco said, looking up at him blackly. “You must have something to eat and drink, Rafen.”
“If we can get the bag back,” Rafen said, watching Sherwin approach a large, black archway.
Their surroundings were becoming unbearably warm, and Sherwin had removed his balaclava and gloves. Francisco flinched as a wave of heat met them, and he slowly began to remove his cloak.
“We have to go back,” Rafen said, even though the spirits that were suffocating him were telling him this was the wrong thing to say. Nazt had never been more pleased. The rushing noise in Rafen’s ears was its laughter. He moved a hand up to his phoenix feather, the air resisting him.
“I know, Rafen,” Francisco said. “If only Sherwin did not have the food pack, I would turn and leave him where he is standing.”
His muscles screaming, Rafen slid down from Trinity, despite the whispering and buzzing in his head. Sherwin had passed through the rocky black archway. He toiled on in the smoke, nearly invisible to Francisco and Rafen. Lunging out of Francisco’s sight, his left arm warm, Rafen made to snatch the saddlebag from Sherwin. Sherwin dodged so quickly Rafen couldn’t figure out where he was.
“Rafen? What are you doing? I cannot see you!” Francisco called.
Rafen whipped his sword from his hilt, whirling around again, unleashing a spurt of flame. Sherwin wasn’t behind him either. When Rafen turned, something cold hit him in the head. Forcing himself to abso
rb his own kesmal, Rafen fought the darkness descending on him. Whatever had struck him was far more powerful than Demus’ attacks. For a moment, his sight cleared, and then the same thing hit him once more. He fell before he could do a thing, his mind screaming while everything turned black.
*
Rafen regained consciousness slowly, his head whirling.
“Rafen!” Francisco was shouting in his ear. “Wake up and stop him for Zion’s sake!”
He shook Rafen violently. Rafen swayed and tried to pull himself upright in the saddle. Francisco must have heaved him back up on Trinity. He was coughing uncontrollably now, the air around them thick and sulfurous. Nazt had been speaking to Rafen again, and this time he had been listening intently.
Now he jerked himself awake to find spirits winding themselves around his head so that he couldn’t see. He pulled at his face, expecting to feel a film coming away with his fingers, but his hands went through the spirits. He shook his head to clear it, and slowly, stubbornly, they parted to reveal the path had come to a dead end. A sharp drop, wreathed in putrid smoke, gaped to the right of the path. A black figure stood erect within the haze. Sherwin was facing Trinity, with the saddlebag strapped to his back. He looked as determined as a martyr about to be burned alive as he prepared to climb down the rocky wall leading into the pit.
“Sherwin, do not do it!”
Francisco darted toward Sherwin and grabbed the front of his shirt, trying to jerk him forward, away from the drop.
“Let go, you fool!” Sherwin roared in such a well-articulated voice that Rafen thought momentarily he was someone else altogether.
Grappling with Francisco, Sherwin threw him back onto the dusty ground. Francisco leapt up again and hurled himself toward Sherwin. Sherwin seized Francisco’s shoulders and turned sideways, wrestling with him on the edge of the drop. Rafen’s head was swimming. One of them was going to fall… The spirits flitted before his eyes, trying to block out the drama before him. It wasn’t really important, after all. The most important thing was maintaining the Connection, being spiritually alert to the will of Nazt, so that true progress might be attained.
I wonder if this is what the Lashki feels.
Something snapped within him. Rafen’s phoenix feather became hot inside his shirt, indicative of the Lashki’s nearness. Their pursuers had been gaining on them while they had been taking this fruitless trip.
He threw himself down from Trinity and landed on the ground, his knees buckling. Little lights popped before his eyes as he crawled toward the two struggling figures. The kesmal that had rendered him unconscious was still making him weak. His own flame was sluggish in his body.
Sherwin had the upper hand. He shoved Francisco against the jagged crags to the left of the drop. Francisco jumped forward again as Sherwin was crouching to climb down into the pit. He snatched Sherwin’s collar and wrenched him forward to safety. When Francisco released him, Sherwin crashed down onto the stones of the path, spread-eagled.
Rolling onto his back, his face grazed from where the stones had cut him, Sherwin sprang to his feet and lunged toward Francisco, who was on the edge of the path near the pit. Francisco’s face had gone pale green, and his mouth was hanging open. For some reason, he couldn’t move from where he was standing, even though his heels were hanging over the edge. Sherwin hurtled toward him…
Rafen regained his feet. “Move, Franny!” he shouted hoarsely, at last feeling his arm, then his body grow warm.
He transformed, shot forward, and made a turn, knocking Francisco sideways into the crags. As he did so, his paw struck an embedded stone and he fell, landing on the ground at the edge, his usual self again. Sherwin, who was still running, tripped over Rafen and flew forward, his body bending gracefully like a diver’s. He disappeared into the smoke that filled the pit. Rafen saw deformed spirits rush up to catch him.
There was no scream.
Chapter Eighteen
The
Den Nyolam
Even though the world was completely silent, Rafen’s ears were ringing. He lay by the edge of the path, the faces of spirits appearing below him, beckoning. Rafen could feel their phantom hands caressing him, tugging at him, freezing his muscles…
With a huge effort, he rolled away from the edge, pulling himself into a sitting position, his head reeling.
“He’s gone,” Francisco said.
Rafen gripped his knees and waited for Etana to fall from the sky and drag him back up to the light. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Sherwin had stood by him through Erasmus’ death, through the massacre in New Isles, through Elizabeth’s death, through the burning of a great city. Sherwin, who had been unfailingly loyal and who had saved him from a meaningless life as an animal once, had vanished in a cloud of spirits.
“Rafen,” Francisco urged tearfully. He shook Rafen’s shoulder.
Perhaps ten minutes away, the clattering talons of Naztwai echoed unceasingly. A Tarhian voice rang out. If Rafen squinted, he could see three Ashurite philosophers, easily identified by their tall, angular builds, picking their way across the sharp, rocky walls that surrounded the stone path in the distance. The phoenix feather was burning against his sweaty chest, and he made no move to pull it away. He deserved its heat.
“I’m going to find him,” Rafen said numbly. “He’s not really gone.” Then he paused. “Did you seem him hit me with kesmal before?”
A million doubts were rising in his mind. He couldn’t voice them.
“No,” Francisco said. “When you went to get the saddlebag from him, there was too much smoke. He said you hit your head on a rock.”
“It was kesmal,” Rafen said. “I felt it.” He shook himself. He wouldn’t believe it of Sherwin, even though he knew the truth. “It must have been an enemy.”
“Rafen, we have to get out of here,” Francisco said. “Where the path ends behind me there are some rocks that perhaps we can climb across.”
Trinity was snorting nervously and showing the whites of his eyes.
“You go,” Rafen said. “I’m finding Sherwin.”
“Do you not remember what Adelphia said?” Francisco said
shrilly.
Rafen shook his head, rose, and retrieved Fritz’s parchment from his own cloak. He passed it to Francisco.
“Leaving Sherwin in that blizzard just about killed me,” he said. “What’s down there is ten times worse. I’m not going to die. Keep this letter. Go, find your way, and set Trinity loose. Get out of here.”
“Please,” Francisco said. “I lost my mother. I am not going to lose my brother.”
Rafen took his brother’s shoulders and tried to speak rationally, even though he felt like he was losing his mind. “You must listen. I’m not going to die. I won’t. I am the Runi… I must do this.”
Then he turned so that his back faced the drop, squatted, and slowly lowered one leg over the edge. Already, he could feel an irresistible pulling on his reluctant body.
His eyes blurred with tears, Francisco removed Trinity’s harness and saddle and gave his rump a ringing slap. Then he stood on the platform before the pit, his dirty face watching Rafen, like the last undying light from a purer world.
The noise of Naztwai in the distance sent shivers rushing through Rafen. He looked at his brother one last time, knowing Francisco would never leave until he had vanished from view. He lowered his other leg and let go of the edge. As he had expected, the spirits cushioned his fall, actually providing a physical contradiction to the force of gravity. Their smoky, mutilated faces surrounded him as they lowered him and began to sweep him across the ground toward a low, hazy opening in a dome of rock. Desperately, Rafen struggled against their grip, wrenching transparent arms and hands off his body, rolling out of their grasp, and crashing onto the merciless cracked ground below them. Now that he was nearing the cave they were issuing from, the spirits were becoming more and more solid.
Clutching his phoenix feather and focusing on the mental image of Zion, he
crawled across the ground toward the dome. As he moved, he began thinking of Fritz again, wildly pulling at the consciousness he had grown familiar with.
Come! Come now!
A million pictures exploded into being in his mind. He saw Fritz even clearer than before on a slope of the Mountains with a small army of two thousand men. The faces of his men were alight as they stared at their leader. Then he saw Fritz passing through the very path where the rocky black archway had been, his sword drawn and blazing with brilliant kesmal.
Fritz!
Rafen redoubled his efforts. All his muscles tightened and his body became dangerously warm. The ring on his finger seared.
Returning to reality again, he gasped, almost blacking out. He had nearly drained his strength before he had even found Sherwin.
The tide of spirits hung above him, trying to snatch him up again by his arms. He scrabbled for grip on rocks and stones to prevent himself being taken again. Slipping under the low arching entrance into the wide cavern, Rafen stared at the darkened expanse before him.
The occasional spirit floated in and out of sight. The cavern consisted of dull brown rock smoked black. Higher up, a rampart without sentries twisted around the walls.
Rafen paused once he had reached the center of the cavern. Despite the appearance of its low entrance outside, the ceiling was so high it was rendered invisible. He turned around once, his eyes roving the shadows.
“Sherwin?” he whispered. Then he said more loudly to the leering spirits around him, “D lii ramii morono keri.”
At his words, they vanished instantly. Flame burst into view around him, and Rafen smiled grimly. They were using his own weapon against him. He placed his hand on his phoenix feather. The same grotesque spirits from outside had surrounded him, although they had taken on physical, biped form. Twisted faces with black, beetle eyes glowered at him. Spears towered above their owners, and arrows were nocked into bows and pointed at him. Black armor, both transparent and incredibly solid, gleamed on their flickering bodies. Some were lean and wiry with sunken eyes, oblong heads like potatoes, and talons extending from gnarled hands. Others were heavily built with broad shoulders and batlike wings fanning from their spiked backs. Among the mutilated faces, Rafen glimpsed some like men, with scraggly, dreadlocked hair on their heads, which were deformed by lumpy growths.
The Fourth Runi (The Fledgling Account Book 4) Page 17