by Leigh, J.
Mikkal bought enough layers to add a good foot around Jathen’s frame, making him feel as if he’d been bundled back into his birth egg. He sweated more and slept deeper, all of which helped to seep the illness more quickly out of him. By the time they reached the coast a few days later, he was over the worst of it.
The homes in the northern Republic had a primmer feel, shingled in pale blues and scrolling pink latticework across the tops of wraparound porches. They reminded him of basket cakes in a bake shop. Jathen made no effort to discover the name or designation of that first coastal city, its purpose only to move them farther north.
Mikkal arranged the next stage of transport while Jathen shivered on the docks. The northern ocean didn’t smell of salt and sun, but of old seaweed and rotting fish. When Mikkal returned to say he’d chartered them a boat, Jathen was eager to be moving on but not exactly anticipating the seaward journey.
The schooner had a sleek line to it, but the vessel was not as clean or mesmerizing as the trains or the incomparable Charmed Wind.
“Rickety,” Jathen said, scanning the barnacles clinging to the hull. They looked like rotted teeth or sun-scorched boils on a weather-savaged face. “What happens if Sister decides to pull another water attack out of her armored sleeve?”
Mikkal sniggered. “Remember, my forte is water. The last thing she will try to do is dump more of it on my head.”
“Doesn’t it worry you that she’s not tried anything?”
“She’s smart, Jathen. To deduce there is something more to you, some deeper aspect than simply that you know something, is a comparatively easy conclusion to come to, given our odd destination. We aren’t heading for Tar’citadel. I haven’t taken an Artifact from you and fled. She might not know exactly what’s going on, but she knows it’s not what was expected. She’ll do what she was trained to do when uncertain about something. She will bide her time, and she will see.”
As they crossed the wobbly gangplank, Jathen whispered, “And if she sees I’m now the Artifact?”
“Killing you is no guarantee she’ll get it out of you. It’s to her benefit to let us do what we will then try to obtain it later.” Gaining the deck, the Clansman offered Jathen a hand. “If she knows that’s what we’re about, which I doubt.”
Jathen accepted the help since he was still weak from his illness. “So worst case, she’ll only try and kill me immediately after we get this thing out.” Jathen wasn’t sure if it was a sign of maturity or desensitization that he wasn’t surprised. “How nice.”
The human captain of the vessel matched his hull, with a face leathery and cragged from years on the water. “Keep in mind the ice’ll be startin’ in a few short weeks,” he told them, lifting his ugly bird-poop-stained hat. “Southerners don’ know we get frosts in the last half of the first fall month. Whatever business you got on the islands, best wrap it up ’fore then, or you’ll likely be stuck in the Solkies for the whole winter.”
The captain showed them to their cabin, and Mikkal thanked him. No more than a glorified closet below deck, the tiny room had a porthole and two swaying hammocks. Ass’shiri would have had a good laugh at Jathen’s attempts to get into the canvas bed.
Jathen snuffed the sad thought, focusing instead on the present. “So,” he asked Mikkal, “how are we going to get in touch with a Drannic before winter?” Where has the summer gone? Has it really almost been a year since Hatori invited me on a trip halfway across the world?
The Clansman stretched in his hammock, looking far too comfortable. “You recall our little walk to the standing stones in the Furōrin-Iki? There is, high in the mountains of Staerst Island, a similar set of ruins. It is all that remains of the oldest known city from before the Great Fall and the rise of our continent. As I told you before, my teacher had a friendship with a Drannic who lived in that area, among those ‘ancient bones,’ as he called them. When I was younger, in training, he allowed me the benefit of meeting the creature.”
“But if this is a Drannic from when you were young, how could he still be alive?”
There was a slight lurch as the ship began leaving the dock. The hammocks swayed, and they braced against the rough wood walls to keep from swinging into each other.
“I do not know how long Drannic live. He may still be there; he may not. But he told me it was a place of Drannic, and there would always be one near there. This is a long shot. Even if we find one, they are the keepers of the deepest secrets of the Children, but the Artifacts are creations of mortal hands. One Drannic might not have an answer.”
“Or at least not one that makes sense,” Jathen murmured, thinking of his own encounter. He couldn’t say why he kept the meeting with the hungry Drannic he’d met in Zo’den a secret. It seemed a fever dream almost, belonging to another Jathen, in another life.
They spent several weeks on the schooner, during which Jathen barely slept due to the swaying hammock and nightmares. The ride was better than the train, but still hard on his stomach.
“I just don’t understand,” he groaned, trying to chew some minty-flavored herb Mikkal had give him to help the nausea. “I could bob and fly on Charmed Wind like it was nothing, but this damn boat is making me want to heave what little I’ve eaten with every five minutes of motion.”
“Ah, the mysteries of the body and the universe,” Mikkal said. “Well, if you do lose your stomach’s contents, at least aim for the porthole.”
The discomfort made him think back to Jephue and all his whining, and despite the brave front, Jathen fell asleep to spattered tears splotching the canvas hammock.
On the final morning, the cliffs loomed. As with all the oldest off-islands, the coastline was a fortification of towering sheer rock, a direct remnant of when it had been lifted up out of the sea by the Children. Gray and craggy, the four-hundred-heads-high rock face reminded Jathen of old bark cracked apart by encroaching moss, though what at a distance seemed ornamental green was in truth thirty-head-tall pines.
A few hours later, they finally reached the gray shale monster. Then they entered the natural passage that would allow the ship to dock farther into the interior of the island. The channel was narrow, the walls of earth more claustrophobic than the rows of townhouses in the Republic.
Shipwrecks dotted the rocks at the entrance—silly fools who tried to navigate the coast in winter, the captain called them. “They think to slice through the ice floes if they go slow enough. ’Tis a death sentence,” he explained, chewing the sweet-smelling cigar Jathen had yet to see leave his mouth. “Ice’ll gut a hull like my wife cleans a salmon.”
Fitting, for the land of the Death Child.
When the cliffs eventually opened up, a gorgeous blue lake and a bustling town greeted them. Jathen took no solace in disembarking. He found he had no taste for speech, savoring instead a stale kind of emptiness. It was a flavor he couldn’t place, and so he simply named it the taste of grief. The beauty and details were squelched from the world as well, as he had no heart for observation. Everything was a half-blinded blur, sporadically broken by moments of terrified focus when he thought he saw Sister in a shadow or the curve of a tree.
If the Republic was pink, the Solkies were gray: gray water, gray earth, gray sky. If Mikkal were to close his eyes, Jathen was certain he could meld right into the landscape and flit away into nothingness. Just like everyone else in my life. Dark indigo banners flapped with cold snaps in the wind, the only decoration of that forsaken rock. The color and sound of death, they simply enhanced the gray, making the land even more muted.
While Mikkal was haggling for supplies with an open-air vendor, something broke through Jathen’s hooded melancholy. Situated in the space between two of the old wooden storefronts, a beggar sat cross-legged on the ground. Jathen crossed the street toward the huddled man in the slushy mix of dirt and snow. Pale, naked fingers in partial gloves brandished t
he near-empty bowl, waiting. A memory of Thee in the low market came to mind, when Jathen had tried to rein in her compassion.
“I don’t have anything,” Jathen whispered.
“Ah…” The male voice was muffled beneath his ragged hood. He lowered the bowl, and Jathen caught a glimpse of a scarf-wrapped chin, face, and neck. “Then why come forward?”
“I don’t know,” Jathen said, his breath a crisp cloud between them.
“Perhaps you do have something,” the man replied, shaking the bowl again. The tinny jangle of coins sounded like chimes. “You just don’t know it.”
Jathen half laughed, reminded of Hausmannith. “I think that’s the question of my life.”
“Wasn’t a question, not really.”
Jathen stared at the beggar for a time, grasping at some revelation. In the end, it slipped through his fingers, leaving him standing in the slush, feeling lost and empty. Mikkal called his name, and Jathen returned to his side.
“What were you off doing?” Mikkal asked.
“Nothing. Just a beggar that reminded me of home, oddly enough.”
“Well, please don’t wander far, Jathen. You know what is at stake.” Mikkal’s belt made a noise, a kind of alarm-like hum.
Reminiscent of the buzz his watch used to make, the sound set Jathen on edge. “What the hell is that?”
Mikkal pulled out the metal disk that looked like a rare, portable crystal reader, but the face of it had an odd shimmer, as if the display were broken or marred. Or modified, Jathen thought.
Mikkal peered at it then did something that made the noise stop. “It’s nothing.” He put the device back in his largest belt pouch, shaking his head. “Just something I forgot to turn off.”
Jathen measured the Clansman. “Mikkal, if there’s something I should know about where we’re going or what might be waiting for us, you’d best tell me.”
A cheerless smile came to Mikkal’s lips. “You’re right. It is not nothing, but it is not currently a threat and not a priority compared to what must be done for you.”
“But what is it?”
“Another one of those things you are best not knowing about unless you have to,” he said with grim humor. “Trust me, Jathen, if it becomes an issue, you will be the first to know. I promise.” He jerked his chin to the right. “It’s not even in the direction we are going.”
Taking the supplies the Gray thrust at him, Jathen glanced back before following his guide off the beaten path and into the wilderness.
The beggar was gone.
Chapter 39
They headed east.
The blinding sun greeted and then glared at them for hours each morning, leaving Jathen blinking out spots all afternoon. The uphill terrain was rough, putting even wading through the Furōrin-Iki to shame. Rocks and pebbles dug into Jathen’s feet every step he took even through the soles of his boots. He slipped and fell so many times, he began to wonder if the entire island were just a floating pile of loose pebbles held together by angry steppe plants as sharp and spiky as the rest of the land. At least the cold numbed his skin to the wounds. Even in the lingering ebb of summer, the air was thin and icy.
“Make certain to take deep breaths while you walk,” Mikkal cautioned during a brief respite. “And drink plenty.”
“Happily,” Jathen gurgled between long gulps of cold mountain spring water that was heavenly on his parched throat. He wiped his mouth. “How are you doing with your Feeding up here?”
“I’m well enough,” Mikkal replied, taking the canteen. “Not as much as I’d like, given how small most mammals are up here, but what cannot be found can be supplemented with Ability. I’m in no danger of losing any control, if that’s your concern.”
“More a fear of you not being at your best if Sister shows up,” Jathen admitted, thinking of Ass’shiri’s slower reactions when dealing with Skaniss. Such a small difference, but it may have been the line between life and death. If Ass’shiri had killed Skaniss on the street, maybe we’d not have gone to see Ishane. Jathen sighed. No matter how hard he tried, his dead friends invaded his thoughts, pulling at him with an endless tirade of what-ifs.
A bird’s hungry cackle echoed through the swaying pines, and Jathen jumped.
Mikkal frowned. “You mustn’t let the fear of an enemy, even one far more powerful than you, get the better of your self-control, Jathen.”
“I know,” he grated, furious with himself. The slope before them was perilous, curving tightly with the shape of the cliff face. It made Jathen grateful for his hatched-blood; lesser men might take one look down and be reduced to tears. “How much farther?”
“There is a town perhaps another day’s walk from here. It sits at the base of a mountain, near the top of which is our destination.”
“So we have higher yet to go. Let’s keep moving, then.”
Night, along with unmerciful cold, brought forth a spectacular dance of lights across the sky. To Jathen, it looked like stained glass that had come alive and was twirling between the stars.
“What is it?” he asked Mikkal. “Some kind of magical phenomenon?”
“Natural, actually. Aurora borealis. You can only see it up here in the north. I’m not sure what causes it. Something to do with electrical or magnetic storms in space or from the sun or some such.” The Gray shrugged. “I learned about it when I was younger, but I don’t recall exactly.”
“Funny, you didn’t strike me as one to forget.”
Mikkal chuckled. “I might be Clan, but our memories can be just as spotty as anyone’s.” He sobered, suddenly seeming sad. “We all forget certain things, in the end.”
The next afternoon, they restocked their rations in the little village, and Mikkal purchased Jathen some thermal clothing.
“Frostbite can even harm Clan,” Mikkal said, donning a fur-lined hood. “Tissue can’t regenerate if the blood flow to it halts.”
The cold itself probably takes a bite out of reaction times as well. Jathen shook his head. The Clansman was right; he was getting too paranoid. If Mikkal was slower than Sister, and if that meant the difference between life and death, then so be it. Fate had conspired to kill Jathen enough times already and failed. If he was meant to fall before the Red Follower, he could do naught about it. The past is set in stone, and the future hangs upon the thin whim of a bastard Ability I cannot begin to master.
The hike upward over the next two days was strangely therapeutic. The simple, instinctual task of climbing—picking his way over rocks and inching along to find proper hand- and footholds—was second nature. Jathen was even able to help the Clansman.
“Thank you,” the Gray told him after the second save. “Such a fall would be… unpleasant.”
“You can’t teleport to safety from midair?”
“One can,” Mikkal allowed. “But it would be tricky.”
Reaching the summit was rather anticlimactic. Flat sheets of rock peeked out like irregular stepping stones in the snow, but otherwise, it was indistinguishable from the rest of the wilderness.
“This is it?” Jathen asked.
“The most western tip of it, yes.” Mikkal took a deep breath, perhaps testing the air with his Clan sense of smell. “It’s actually rather huge. We’ll make our way inward a bit, but overall, we’ll keep to the edge.”
“I guess I just expected something… more.”
“Like the stones in the Furōrin-Iki?” Mikkal chuckled. “Those stones are old, but this place is far older. Remember, this existed for who knows how long before the world flooded.”
“I guess most of the buildings would have been washed away and destroyed down to their foundations when the continent was raised.”
“Not destroyed, buried.” Mikkal tapped his boot on one of the flat stones. “These were once rooftops.”
<
br /> “Oh.” I wonder how many bodies are still locked under my feet. Jathen shivered. And how many ghosts still roam these ruins, wondering what happened to the world Prothidian smashed to bits. He shook his head. These thoughts are going to drive me insane.
Mikkal stopped at a little mound amidst some ruins, a wall of bricks taken over by some creeping vines. As Jathen drew near, the little green tendrils inched away from him—iungo plants.
Mikkal dropped his pack then made a circular motion in the air with his gloved hand. Some snow and dirt blew away, creating a little clearing on the stone. “Now we wait. However, we will not be completely in the dark, as it were, neither literally or figuratively.” Crouching, he began to arrange a ring of smaller stones. “Any Drannic hovering nearby should come and find us, and if you’d be so gracious as to help me gather some wood, we’ll have a respectable fire to keep warm by while we wait.”
“How long?”
“A day or so, I suspect. Perhaps two or three, to be safe. As I said, it’s a large place, and Drannic are notoriously unpredictable.”
“And if no one comes?”
“We try another option. Tar’citadel?” Mikkal shrugged. “The Clan Lands? We’ll find a way to sort this, Jathen. I promise.”
Jathen leaned against the iungo-covered wall. “It just seems a little—”
When his bare cheek brushed the brick, the world disappeared in a flash of painful brilliance. In its place bloomed a vision like none Jathen had ever experienced. He experienced feelings alongside the images: panic and fear so strong they left a copper taste in his mouth. Around him was a sea of madness: humans fleeing in terror as the ground beneath them quaked. Then a sea of fire whooshed through a narrow alleyway to swallow him whole. For a moment, Jathen felt death as he struggled to breathe through burning lungs and his skin blistered. The odors of sulfur and crisping flesh filled his nostrils.