As the Crow Flies

by Robin

  “Kem?”

  “I’m here.”

  I could hear him working to light a spark with flint and striker. “What happened?”

  Tension marked his voice when he finally answered. “The torch went out.”

  Another pause. “It just… went out,” I echoed doubtfully. Torches do not simply extinguish themselves.

  “Probably the wind,” came Tanris’s reasonable voice from the back.

  I felt no wind. I did feel a prickling up my neck, however. The torch flared to life and I let out the breath I’d held. I could not see Kem’s face to judge his expression, and when I looked behind, I could make out precious little of Tanris.

  “Are there any other openings?” he asked, lifting his voice for Kem’s benefit.

  “No, nothing but a few false passages, and they are short.” He set off, and the horse clopped along behind him.

  “Guess we can’t get lost then,” he laughed, but Kem didn’t laugh back.

  As we walked along the hideously narrow cave, the horses eventually settled down. At least it wasn’t raining, and as we walked we actually got warm enough to take off our coats. I kept reassuring myself by thinking about how the passage was not a box, or a city drain, or a gaol cell. Deliberately, I refused to consider the mountain of rock between me and the sky. Mostly. Instinctively, I kept lifting my hand to check the ceiling, and it was far too close, though every once in a while I had to stretch to touch the coarse stone. Then I’d encounter a cobweb and worry about spiders. The idea of spiders in a cave alarmed me much more than spiders in Duzayan’s stairway. Several times, I felt one tickling the back of my neck, but when I reached up to smack it or brush it off, I found nothing, but then I started to wonder about rats. Did rats live in mountain caves? I thought not. It would be embarrassing to start talking to the rats again at this point—but I could talk to my companions, so I did.

  The conversation I tried to strike up with Kem quickly faltered. He’d assumed a taciturn and moody silence I found not at all encouraging. Tanris at least made an effort, but then that conversation dragged, too. We had to speak with the bulk of a horse between us, and the ringing of hooves on the stone drowned out our words. The various indiscretions of the rich and famous of the empire apparently bored him. I turned to musing—silently—about the various ways I could ruin Duzayan’s life when I returned to the city. I had discarded two variations that included setting him up with women of ill repute, one that framed him for murder—only I didn’t want to have to provide a body—and was working on the possibility of treason when I became aware of a gently hummed melody. The tune was familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  “What is that song, Tanris?” I asked as it came to an end.

  “What song?”

  “The one you were just singing.”

  “I wasn’t singing anything.”

  “Fine, the one Kem was singing.”

  Kem said nothing for three or four paces. “I wasn’t singing, either.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. One of you was singing.”

  “Not me, and I didn’t hear anything,” Tanris said, and from up front Kem agreed with him.

  The only sound now was the clop of horse’s hooves and the heavy breathing of the one right behind me. “That’s not funny, you two. Who was it?”

  “I told you there were ghosts. Just keep walking.”

  As if I’d stop right there. Trapped between the horses, I couldn’t even turn around and run back the way we’d come, which I found suddenly and keenly unsettling. I definitely should have taken the position in the back. “All right, I’ll sing.” See how the ghosts liked that! I chose not to copy the melody I’d heard, and commenced on a long and fairly gruesome ballad involving a knight dying in a war, his true love, and a flock of ravens. I possess a respectable singing voice, but the acoustics in the passage left much to be desired.

  “How spritely and cheering,” Tanris remarked drily when I had finished.

  “If you don’t like it, you could always sing something yourself.”

  “Or you could choose something more… uplifting.”

  “Why don’t you stop criticizing everything I do?”

  “Why don’t you stop being such a selfish, conceited weasel?”

  “Me?” I turned around, face to face with the horse, and shouted back at Tanris. “Why you arrogant, self-absorbed, sanctimonious twit!”

  “Twit? Is that the best you can do?” he laughed.

  “You must not argue,” came Kem’s firm voice. “It is them.”

  “Don’t interrupt me in mid—”

  “Them who?”

  Tanris’s voice overrode mine, and I wanted to push his pompous nose right through the back of his head. “Augh!” The space between my horse and the wall was not big enough for me to push through, no matter how I tried, and my aggressive behavior displeased the mare. It backed up, taking me with it but getting me no closer to my goal.

  “Crow, what are you doing?”

  “Coming after you!” I shot back, getting nowhere at all. With any luck the horses would trample him.

  The already paltry light flared, wavered, and then went out altogether, leaving us in a darkness so deep, so heavy that I couldn’t move.

  The cat mewed piteously, sending shivers down my back.

  “The torch has gone out,” Kem said calmly.

  “Then light a new one!”

  “We need to make them last, and we need to remain calm.” That was easy for him to say. He hadn’t been insulted past the point of endurance. “Everything is greater in here,” he went on, apparently reading my mind—which did nothing at all to calm my apprehension. “They feed on it. On you.”

  “They?” Tanris asked. “The people that died here?”

  “Yes, the Ancestors.”

  “That’s just great,” I muttered, and petted Horse’s neck a little desperately. After a moment, I pushed myself free of the jam I’d got myself into between her and the wall. “What else do they do?”

  “It is different for everyone. It is best if we remain calm and focused, and move as quickly as we can. We save the torches for when the way becomes difficult.”

  Kem had some things to learn about lifting morale. “If that’s the case,” I challenged, adapting an air of bravado, “what are we waiting for?”

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  It was impossible to measure time in that abysmal blackness, and impossible to move very quickly. Not only did the passage twist and turn mercilessly, but the ceiling sometimes dipped down so low we had to take gear off the horses, move the stuff ahead, then go back for the animals. One at a time. Even blindfolded, the horses had a strong aversion to such close quarters. I empathized with them, especially after banging my head innumerable times, but I quickly grew impatient with their lack of cooperation. At one point, we had to stop entirely while Tanris went back for the rearmost horse when the wretched thing refused to be coaxed along with its mate. This endeavor entailed forward movement until we found a space suitably wide enough to allow Tanris to squeeze past the slightly more cooperative pack horse.

  I sat on the floor with my back propped against the wall and closed my eyes to rest them. I suggested he leave the stubborn animal. Tanris argued against the waste, prepared for a fight. After reluctant consideration, I decided that he had the right of it. Nowhere in this gods-forsaken hole could we beg, borrow, or steal another horse or the supplies it carried, and we were going to need them once we got out.

  How long since I’d had a dose of the antidote? I’d had enough practice that I could perform the procedure with my eyes closed. Why was I closing my eyes? I couldn’t see anything one way or the other. I pried one open and then the other to test the theory. I tried opening and closing them together, then paused. “Kem, does quartz run through these walls?”

  “I have seen some, yes.”

  I leaned across the passage to trace the faintly gleaming lines that appeared in front of me. “Does
it usually glow?”

  A pause. “No.”

  I scooted closer—not that it aided my vision at all—and studied the odd markings. “These are far too uniform to be quartz. It looks like writing or symbols of some sort, but it glows.”

  “Perhaps it is magic.”

  Always reassuring. Magic—and mages—were nothing but trouble. A look over my shoulder revealed the same indistinct markings on the other wall. “They go all the way around the passage except for the floor, and I think they used to go there, too.”

  “Sometimes the Ancestors make us see things. They are not real.”

  “Look at this. Can you see them?”

  The rustle of clothing betrayed his movement. “No,” he said, peering between the horse’s legs.

  “I can feel them, Kem. Scratches—carving—in the wall.” Shallow and slight, my sensitive fingertips could still make them out. I’d spent years seeking out secret panels and closures, lifting purses and jewelry from uncounted marks, and I could tell a copper sentin from a gold dural without looking. I looked up at the ceiling again, and although dimmer there, I could still make out the marks. Looking both up and down the passage revealed no other such symbols, but I got to my feet and went to my horse, only a few steps away, to peer into the darkness beyond her. When I looked back, the marks had disappeared.

  My heart turned in my chest. I had been so sure!

  “Do you have a sweetheart?” Kem asked, and I knew he was trying to distract me, trying to keep me calm.

  “Yes.” I dragged my hand along the wall as I retraced my short path.

  “Tell me about her.”

  “Her name is Tarsha. She’s a dancer that I—” I blinked. The marks had reappeared. I took a step back, and they disappeared. A step forward, and they were visible. Another step forward, and they were gone again. “You have to stand directly in front of these to see them. Come look at this.”

  Clothing rustling as he got to his feet, then eased past his horse. “Where?”

  “Right here,” I pointed.

  He crawled along until he found me, then hitched closer. “What is this?” he whispered, and his questing hand blocked out some of the symbols as he explored the cuts in the wall.

  “You’ve never seen these before?”

  “No.”

  “Never heard of them?”

  “No.”

  “You have been through here before, haven’t you?” I asked dubiously.

  He made a soft, huffing noise through his nose. “Several times. What do you think it is?”

  “Magic?” I echoed drily.

  “But what for?”

  “You know as well as I do.” Clearly he knew nothing at all. Getting to my feet, I dragged my fingers up overhead, exploring the regular markings in the irregular texture of the wall and discovering a pattern to them, a sort of rhythm.

  “Crow?”

  As I rubbed the marks, they transformed into things of beauty. The glow intensified, becoming a clean, bright white, while the writing itself shifted to a lovely emerald. Then they moved, flowing into each other and then lifting completely off the wall. What a strange kind of illusion! Astonished, fascinated, I rubbed more quickly, wiping away centuries of dust and grime.

  “Crow, stop! Something is happening!”

  As if in a dream, I turned my head, and even without the benefit of a torch I could clearly discern Kem’s face, his eyes filled with fright. The symbols drifted between us, a lovely liquid script that became more and more distinct as it gently swirled off the wall and wound around my outstretched arm.

  “Look at that, will you?” I murmured, watching in wonder.

  “Crow!” Kem grabbed hold of my tunic and pulled hard. I staggered backward, but the symbols came too. With a frightened noise, he let go and backed into the horse. The creature whinnied and danced away down the passage several paces, shaking its blindfolded head. My own horse reacted by backing up and bumping into the pack horse. Her movement barely registered. The glowing symbols settled on my tunic, clung to my pants and my boots, attached themselves to my bare hands.

  “Kem?” My voice quavered. I shook my arms but I couldn’t get rid of the things.

  He edged closer, but when he tried to brush at the symbols, his hand went right through them. There was nothing he could do but watch in horror as the figures seeped through cloth and leather. Fainter and fainter they became, until at last they found my skin.

  Then they burned with an icy heat that frayed nerve endings and sent panic pounding through my veins. Pinpricks of light pierced my clothes and radiated outward so brightly I had to close my eyes. It did not banish the light. It filled me. Sounds rushed through me, leaving me gasping. And then the images came, hundreds of them, one on top of the other, faster and faster until I could not tell one from another. Faces. Symbols. Buildings. Places. Weather, gods save me…

  But the gods weren’t there at all.

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  “Why is he glowing? What happened?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know!”

  Terror brushed prickling fingers across my cheeks.

  “Is he breathing?”

  No answer.

  “Did you even check?”

  “No.” The voice came from further away than the first. How could I hear distance? “It could be dangerous. You shouldn’t—”

  Warmth touched my neck.

  “Crow, can you hear me?”

  The question carried fear and something else. Concern. From Tanris?

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Get me a water flask and some of the blankets.”

  “We can’t stay here. We don’t even know if he—”

  “I’m not going to leave him behind.”

  The firmness of those words astonished me. I felt them as though they had physical substance, and the sensation was altogether different from the terror. It was reassuring. My head and shoulders were lifted, then moisture touched my lips. I drank greedily, suddenly aware of a terrible thirst.

  “Easy, easy now…”

  “We should go.”

  “We will, in a little while. Let him rest a bit, and then we’ll figure out what we should do.”

  The fear rose again. “We must keep moving!”

  “We have to rest at some point, it might as well be now. Whatever attacked has him, not us.”

  “And when it’s done with him?”

  “Sit down and shut up.”

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  “Someone is coming.” The awareness, the words, came out of my mouth on their own volition, the voice that spoke them hoarse and rasping. I had no idea how I knew, but the impression was as certain as the rock beneath me.

  “Crow?”

  I pushed myself upright and looked around, frowning. “Who else would I be?”

  “I don’t know.” Sitting cross-legged next to me, worry and fatigue etched Tanris’s face. The cat curled up beside him, watching me with diabolical eyes. “I don’t know much about magic. Something took you over. Do you remember?”

  Oh, boy, did I remember, and remembering sparked a throbbing headache. “I’d rather not. I need a drink.” Tanris passed me a water bottle. Not really what I’d had in mind, but better than nothing, and I was so terribly thirsty! Then the awareness pressed on me again. “I’m serious, Tanris. Someone is coming.”

  He looked at me skeptically. “How can you tell?”

  I just shook my head.

  “All right, which way?”

  I pointed back the way we’d come, and he looked over his shoulder as though he could see anything in the pitch blackness lying beyond the pool of light in which we sat. I blinked. He’d borrowed one of my witchlights. I’d forgotten all about them and could have kicked myself. He held the thing in his lap, and it gave off a fragile, comforting glow. “How long have I been out?”

  “I don’t know. We burned through one of the torches, and Kem was
getting a little anxious.” Behind Tanris, the other man watched us warily. No, he watched me warily. He feared me… “Are you up to walking, or should we wait for whoever’s coming?”

  “I don’t especially like knowing that someone I don’t know is coming up behind me.”

  “We can’t exactly hide,” he pointed out, and I scoffed.

  “Put the light away, and we can.”

  He nodded, then looked at Kem. “One of your friends finally catch up?”

  Kem shook his head. “I don’t know. I doubt it.”

  “Why?”

  “They don’t like coming through here.”

  “Imagine that,” I muttered, then lifted my voice a little. “If he takes the horses ahead, whatever noise they make won’t give us away. You and I can lay in wait.”

  “Or it’s his friend, and they’ll trap us between them. Or he’ll just take the horses and leave us here. Why don’t you go with him? I can handle this.” His eyes held mine, and the iciness they held made me shiver. He trusted me—in this instance, at any rate—and he didn’t trust Kem. If Kem betrayed us, I may very well have to kill him. But Kem was afraid of me…

  It was both an unnerving and interesting situation. “All right. Keep the light, in case you need it.”

  He nodded. “You’ve got the other one,” he said, telling me indirectly that Kem didn’t know about the third. “Be careful.”

  “You, too.” I found myself looking at him, looking into his eyes and sensing strange things I couldn’t even begin to understand. Apprehension pushed me abruptly to my feet and, I steadied myself against the wall.

  Tanris stood, too. “You going to be all right?”

  “Fine.”

  “Liar.”

  “Braggart,” I shot back, and things settled into a familiar, comfortable pattern.

  Kem rose more slowly and made his way to the front, tying the reins of my horse to the saddle of the one he led while I took up the leads of the packhorses. He didn’t notice Tanris handing me the war axe. I hefted it experimentally. Then Tanris squeezed my shoulder and went to work his way past the packhorses and into the dark. The cat leaped delicately after him. Good riddance. The witchlight winked out. I waited a moment until the disconcerting sensation that accompanied loss of vision settled, then clicked to the horses, urging them forward.