THE
RED SEA
~ THE CYCLE OF GALAND, BOOK 1 ~
Edward W. Robertson
© 2015
ALSO BY EDWARD W. ROBERTSON
THE CYCLE OF ARAWN
The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Trilogy
THE BREAKERS SERIES
Breakers
Melt Down
Knifepoint
Reapers
Cut Off
Captives
Relapse
Blackout
REBEL STARS
Rebel
Outlaw
Traitor
OTHER FICTION
The Cutting Room
Titans
Mallon, Gask, and other lands.
The Plagued Islands.
1
Riddi gazed up the mountain, and the mountain gazed back.
The sun was high but the air was colder than midnight in the Dreaming Peaks. The trees were hard, bitter things. Sheathed in harsh, scratchy bark. Sprouting thin, sharp needles. Dribbling sap so sticky it was impossible to wash it from your hands. As if they wanted you to be as miserable as they were. The birds in the boughs cawed like they were cursing her. The mountain itself was full of gravel slopes, cracked black rock, and forests of the hateful trees. It didn't want her to be there.
The feeling was mutual.
She hiked her pack up her shoulder and moved on. Stones clacked under her feet. Three days ago, Docco had left to scout for a better route through the crags ahead. He'd been gone twice as long as he'd promised. She kept her ears open for the tweet of his whistle, but she no longer did so with any sense of hope. They had left the islands with six people. Three thousand miles later, she was the last.
She pressed harder, sweating despite the chill. With every step, the thin wooden box inside her coat brushed her stomach, reminding her why she was here. The sun slid west. To the north, the mountains were a fortress wall. They were close, though. Maybe no more than another day or two of hard walking.
And a few days after that, she would find the sorcerer.
Past the next ridge, a steep-sided valley had been scooped from the mountainside. Western crags painted the valley with shadows, but Riddi had at least an hour of sunlight left. Low shrubs studded the descent. They smelled stale, dusty. She'd been wearing boots since her unexpectedly early arrival on the mainland, but after years of sandals, they still felt large and awkward.
The slope steepened. She switchbacked down it, pebbles trickling away in tiny avalanches. Halfway to the valley floor, her path ended before a short cliff. She swore. She didn't have time to backtrack. The descent was already taking longer than she'd expected. The sun was now screened by the trees on the western heights. Another few minutes, and it would be gone completely.
She moved closer to the cliff. It was only seven or eight feet high. If she lowered herself from its lip, she'd only have to drop a few feet to the slope below. Riddi stepped up to the edge, moving her pack from her shoulder.
Her right foot slipped. She threw out her hands. Her bag flew over the edge. A sharp crack popped from the stone beneath her feet. It gave way. And she went with it.
She hit the rocks piled at the bottom of the cliff, breath rushing from her lungs. The unsteady scree slid forward, sweeping her away, pummeling her body. Dust spumed into the air. She flung out her limbs to arrest the slide.
Pain exploded in her head. A flash of light—then darkness.
* * *
A rushing noise, in and out. The sound of surf? But not surf. Not breathing. A roar in her ears. The roar of pain.
She moved to sit up. The pain spiked so badly she whited out. When the rush receded from her head, she breathed carefully, assessing. Her whole body hurt, but it was the pain in her legs that made her scream. Lying on her back, she rolled her neck forward. White feathers poked through the rips in her coat. Below that, white shards of bone poked through the tears in her trousers.
She passed out again.
Wan yellow light stretched across the valley. She'd only been out a few minutes. Her leg was broken. Bone speared through the skin. Blood soaking the leg of her pants. She shifted; pain lanced through her other leg, too. This was also broken. A wave of heat, then a wave of nausea, then a wave of pain. She lay among the rocks until these feelings receded, then reached into her coat and withdrew a pouch on a string. The egg of a shark, the cured leather was smooth and smelled of the sea.
She withdrew a pale green succulent studded with red bumps. The hern plant was so bitter she gagged, but she forced herself to swallow. Within a minute, the pain eased.
She was still bleeding. If she didn't stop it, her mission would end here. Careful not to jostle her legs, Riddi eased into a sitting position. Dust and rock chips fell from her coat. She got a knife from her belt and cut the leg of her trousers away from her bloody shin. Seeing the mess, she went faint. As bad as she'd feared. But the hern was fuzzing her mind, helping her to bind the wound without dropping into shock.
The sun was set, the bowl of the valley falling into twilight. Frozen winds hissed over the rocks. Her exposed leg felt strangely warm. It was her own fault. She should have made camp, tackled the valley in the morning, looked for the safe route rather than jumping down the ledge. She'd pressed herself too hard. And failed her father.
She'd failed the others, too. Jerr and Lassa, dead in the shipwreck. Vollo, murdered by bandits on the trek from the sandy southern coast where they'd made landfall. Su, drowned in the river they had forded south of the mountains. And Docco, who had disappeared two days ago. They'd left home knowing some of them might not return to the islands. But so long as one of them made it, no death would be in vain.
She had to move on.
Lying on her back, she laughed senselessly. The hern was making her loopy. Any more, and she might forget her wounds and try to walk, or simply lie on her back giggling until she froze to death in this hateful place.
Yet her laughter wasn't entirely drug-induced. The question in her mind—How do you climb a mountain with two broken legs?—sounded so much like one of her father's philosophical questions. For a pirate and a frequent drunk, he could be a thoughtful man.
The thought of him gave her the answer. You didn't climb a mountain with two broken legs. First, you healed them.
Riddi sat up again, taking deep breaths, trying to clear her head. She didn't have the power within herself to heal the damage. But the shells could. Using them, though, meant that she wouldn't make it home.
Was he worth it? The man beyond the mountains? Or had this mission been a march toward suicide? For a moment, although she'd never met him, she hated him.
Above, a star glimmered from the deep blue sky. She had to find the pack. She rolled on her stomach and pushed herself up for a look, trying not to scream at the pain penetrating the fog of hern. Her pack was thirty feet uphill, half buried in loose rocks. Getting to it would hurt worse than anything she'd ever felt.
Was there another way? She could shred the other leg of her pants. Tie the strips into a rope. Tie this to her boot and fling it at the pack until she was able to snag a strap with the boot's toe and drag the whole thing to her. But this was a fantasy. It would take too much time and too much strength. There was only one way out of this.
Pain shrieking in her skull, she dragged her broken body up the hill.
* * *
By the time she reached the pack, the pain was so bad she no longer knew where she was or what she had intended to do with whatever was inside the bag. She opened it, staring dumbly.
The idea returned. She was about to save herself. And guarantee she'd die within another two weeks.
She set the box on the flattest rock she could find and opened the lid. The smell of bri
ne wafted from it, along with a faint tang of ocean rot, but she was used to that. Four shells lay within. In the gloom, they were no more than indistinct lemon-sized lumps. She had the feeling she would need all four.
Riddi closed her eyes. Reached within. She found the shadows inside her and those in the shells. Dark, viscous fluid streamed from the box and into her legs. When the shadows touched her skin, they were even colder than the mountain air.
Her legs began to itch. Then to burn. Tears slid down her cheeks. With an agonizing tickle, the broken bone slipped beneath her skin. Her leg straightened. The pain faded, replaced by numbness. The stream of nether shifted to her other leg. This too itched, burned, numbed.
When it finished, there was nothing left but empty shells. She dumped these in the rocks, then tossed the box aside. It would only be dead weight.
She stood. Her legs held. She laughed softly, the only noise besides the shifting of the wind. She picked up her pack and walked carefully down the scree. Though her right leg was bare, completely exposed, it still felt warm. Once she reached flat ground, she sat and got out her fire kit and struck sparks onto the waxy length of a candlefruit.
The flame caught. She held it over her leg. The skin was marred with black streaks as vivid as paint.
Her heart caught in her throat. She had less time than she thought. There was no time to rest. Not until she found the man beyond the mountains.
With the moon peeking from the eastern ridges, she hitched up her pack and trudged across the valley floor.
* * *
One step after another. Nothing but the rocks before her and her feet beneath her. She didn't look up. The mountains had lasted longer than she'd expected. If she crossed one more ridge, thinking it was the final, only to see another before her, she thought she might sit down and not get up again.
The ground sloped down, then up. She'd wrapped her exposed leg in a blanket, but she still couldn't feel the cold on it. She checked it often to make sure her flesh wasn't freezing. The air was starting to do funny things. Usually, it was still deadly cold, but sometimes she walked into a streamer of wind that was so much warmer it reminded her of home.
She had been forcing herself not to think of the islands. In time, though, knowing she would never see them again, she let herself get lost in them. The beat of the sun and the caress of the shade. The gem-like hues of the sea in the shallows. The dolphins that swam beyond the breakers and the whales that cruised much further from shore where the water was a deep and brilliant blue. The way the purple sands of Sworl Beach changed their design every time she visited.
She had lost these things, but she could save them for the others. Or would it be better if she failed? They couldn't undo what had been done, but if they repented, the gods might still show them mercy.
The ground beneath her grew level. A cold wind struck her face, but was soon washed away by a warmer one. It carried the smell of fresh water. She frowned and lifted her eyes.
Miles away, mountains encircled a vast plain, the slopes lush and green. Below, mist rose from three lakes, each one far larger than any bay in the Plagued Islands. On the south shore of the nearest lake, a city claimed the land up to the hills. Twists of smoke rose from chimneys.
She had arrived.
2
Gallador Rift was the hub of Gaskan trade, but it possessed one small flaw: the gigantic mountain range cutting it off from the Middle Kingdoms to the south. Historically, Gallador's merchants had three options for dealing with this impasse. First, they could detour two hundred miles to the east, take the pass at Riverway, and then swing southwest toward the bustling cities of the kingdoms' interior. Very safe, but very slow.
Second, the traders could drive their wagons west to the coast, which was exactly as far away as the Riverway, and sail south to Allingham. This was the fastest but also the most expensive option. Third, they could challenge the West Dundens directly—though in addition to the snow that only vacated the passes for a month in late summer, the routes were also snarled with the corpses of those who'd challenged the mountains and failed.
None of these options were what you'd call "good." So Dante had decided to give Gallador a gift. A way to repay its people for their aid in Narashtovik's war for independence years earlier. He would bore a hole straight through the mountains, giving the Galladese merchants a fourth option that was the fastest, cheapest, and safest of all.
Like all good deeds, however, it was turning out to be a royal pain in the ass.
First, a subset of the TAGVOG, the lakelands' governing body of trade, had questioned whether the tunnel would expose them to bandits, raiders, or invasion. Once Dante convinced them how easy it would be to destroy the tunnel if need be, the argument shifted to the passage's placement. This was a strategic matter (they needed a defensible, practical location) as well as political (the entrance couldn't be too near nor too far from the holdings of the TAGVOG's major members).
As discussion raged, Dante had grown so frustrated he'd been on the verge of calling off the whole thing. Blays saved the endeavor by asking him how he would handle it if someone were proposing a new route into Narashtovik, the city where Dante ruled. Would he give them leave to stick it wherever they pleased? Or would he fuss and fidget over every tiny detail?
Unfair, for Blays to know him that well.
For the sake of his sanity, while the TAGVOG argued on, Dante trekked across the mountains to the agreed-upon site of the exit and started tunneling north toward Gallador. The work would take weeks. Surely the merchants would have made a decision by the time he neared the lakes.
Now, though, he was no more than three days away from completion. And as he worked away on the tunnel, converting the stone into mud and sluicing it away, the TAGVOG still hadn't chosen exactly where to place the tunnel mouth. If they didn't decide soon, he would.
He shunted his mind away from that line of reasoning. Other than the politicking, the job was surprisingly pleasant. He was the only one between Pocket Cove and the Wodun Mountains capable of shifting solid rock in this way, which was rewarding in its own right. And the tunnel's solitude was a welcome break from his endless responsibilities administering the Sealed Citadel of Narashtovik.
Once, he'd been hungry for that role. And, admittedly, the power and prestige that came with it. But he'd been overseeing the city for several years now. While he knew his work was important—among other things, he had freed the city (along with Gallador and others) from the Gaskan Empire—there were times when he wished he had no status at all, and was able to pursue his study of the nether in peace.
Near the blank wall of the tunnel's end, his torchstone was fading. He picked the white marble up from the smooth floor and blew it out. He could have worked in darkness, but darkness was creepy. Especially when you had a mile of mountain looming over your head. He called forth the nether and shaped it into a tame, pale light.
He glanced down the tunnel. Assured there were no horrors sneaking up on him, he turned back to the blank stone wall and delved into it with his mind, finding the nether within it, the ancient death that seemed to lurk within all things. The stone flowed away, the wall retracting, bringing the tunnel another five feet closer to the squabbling, bureaucratic, but mostly charming merchants of Gallador. Dante paused to reach further into the rock, making sure there were no cracks or faults exposed by his efforts.
"Sir?" a voice spoke in his ear. It was Stedden, the monk he'd brought with him to oversee communications and scheduling. At the moment, the man was miles away in Wending, Gallador's capital.
Dante spoke into the loon affixed to his ear like a bit of jewelry. "Yes, Stedden?"
"There's someone here to see you, sir."
"Is that someone a mole?"
"A mole?"
"You know," Dante said. "Small. Furry. Freakish nose. Likes to burrow."
"Ah, no, sir. She appears to be human."
"Then she's going to be a disappointed human, as I am currently a mile undergro
und."
"I'm aware of that," Stedden said. "But she has a message for you. She says it's from…"
"Yes, Stedden?"
"Well, sir, she claims it's from your father."
"Then she's lying."
"She says she's from the Plagued Islands. That your father's name is Larsin."
Dante's spine stiffened. "Put her on the loon. Let me speak to her."
"That's the other thing, sir. She's fallen unconscious. I tried to heal her, but there's something stopping me."
Dante scowled at the wall. He was far from drained of nether. If he left now, it would cost him hundreds of yards of work. Yet he needed the strength to help this woman. Not because it was the good thing to do.
But to find out why she was trying to deceive him—and which of his enemies she might be working with.
"I'll be back as soon as I can," he said into the loon. "Thank you for informing me."
He turned and jogged down the tunnel, his pale light floating in front of him. He had to run close to three miles before reaching the nearest side tunnel out to the mountains overlooking the lakes. His horse awaited, tethered in the shade. He rode down the switchbacks, descending through terraced slopes thick with tea bushes. The outskirts of most cities tended to be slums, but Wending's upper slopes were fancy suburbs: the sprawling lawns, orchards, and manors of the city's wealthy traders. Swooping roofs capped three-story buildings. Outside many, a forty-foot pole jutted from the center of a ring of cleared dirt. Personal churches, harkening back to the days Galladese wagons would gather to barter under poles like these set along the roads. Outsiders often considered this blasphemous, but in Gallador, trade was god.
The Red Sea Page 1