After hobbling the horses in an adjacent room, Tahn headed for an inner wall. There, he swept the rubble aside with his boot and sat with his back against the firm rock. Sutter sat beside him, laying his sword across his legs and exhaling tiredly.
“Is this the adventure you wanted?” Tahn whispered.
Sutter emitted a single, low chuckle. “You forget, Woodchuck, I didn’t see your grave robber.”
Tahn pulled his cloak tighter about him as the chill of night set in. “I’ll see if he can tell me how I might bury you without arousing suspicion.”
“Wouldn’t do you a bit of good, Woodchuck,” Sutter said, dousing the candle and closing his eyes. “I have the skills to dig myself up from the roots. Probably find myself a meal along the way.”
Nails fell asleep fast, leaving Tahn with the darkness. How much more comfortable he would have been knowing Mira watched nearby. He fingered the outlines of the sticks stuffed in his cloak and wondered if the others had reached Recityv yet, wondered if they had escaped the dark clouds at the north face.
His mind turned and raced with the images and events of his life just since Northsun. He huddled against the wall, staring through the empty, darkened window at the abandoned streets. So many unfamiliar things swam in his mind and in his eyes, he soon had no power to discern if he were awake or asleep, dreaming.
* * *
His feet dragged over the harsh terrain, carving shallow furrows in the dusty trail. The height of the sun put it near the meridian. Its heat fell like the yoke of a peddler’s wagon on his shoulders. No wind stirred. There was only the painfully patient smell of aging sage and earth left baking under a cruel sun. The horizon wavered with heat, blurring the dips and rises in the land.
Tahn stumbled, catching himself with his hands on the hot ground. He allowed himself to kneel and rest, raising weary, half-shut eyes to the glare of light from a pale blue sky. The firmament appeared washed and bleached and absent of clouds. Images began to turn in his vision: Pages fluttering in the wind; a woman with a child still wet from birth; seats covered with soft cushions hand-sewn with plush red fabric arranged in a series of shallow arcs facing a podium. Suddenly he felt very cold. Tahn fixed hateful eyes on the greater light.
“All your glory and still I shiver here.” He breathed and saw the plume of breath that winter air might show.
“Ah, you do understand,” a familiar voice said softly.
Tahn whipped around at the intrusion.
Behind him an elegant-looking man stood posed as though for a portrait. Heavy white robes hung in several layers from his shoulders, fastened at his throat with a silver pin, a ring with a small disk somehow fixed at its center. His hair hung in silken white strands, his hands nearly the same color.
“Understand what?” Tahn asked.
“You said you shiver here,” the man continued. “Why are you cold, Tahn, with the perspiration of heat upon your brow? Do you choose to be cold? Do you choose to be here?” The man cast vengeful eyes in a wide scan of the world around them.
Tahn followed his stare, then brought his eyes back to the smooth skin of the stranger. “I don’t know,” Tahn replied.
“How pitiful,” the man mocked. “Dutiful and ignorant. You are dangerous, Quillescent, but only to yourself.” His eyes flared with indignation. “I am done with these games, melura! Done with the feeble antics of vain men stuffed on the power I made possible for them. Nobility? Hah. It is at an end, melura, do you understand? You may live in ignorance of what they do, a blind servant to do another’s bidding, but the shadow of your ignorance freezes your blood even now. I hold the keys, melura. Your threat to me becomes more diluted every hour, every day, and with every age.”
Tahn struggled to understand what the man said. But his mind slipped and failed. His skin continued to grow cold, chills raising goose bumps as the sun rose toward its zenith. Conflicting smells of warm rocks and cold fingers combined in his nose. He fell upon the ground and tried to crawl from the man’s presence.
“Upon your belly will you go then, melura?” he chided. “Or shall I save you?” The man waved a hand and a small spark ignited in a dead tangle of sage roots. “The tinder will be spent in a moment. How shall you nourish the flame, boy?”
Tahn watched the flame gutter. Desperation seized him. He felt sure he would die if he could not build a fire against the cold that emanated from the man. Tahn stretched one hand toward the flame, the constriction of his muscles from the wintry air making him unable to even fully extend his arm.
“Will and Sky!” he screamed.
The man laughed harshly. “Again, child, I don’t think your cry has reached as high as you’d like.”
Tahn distantly heard the mocking laughter as his mind raced to the need of fueling the flame. He clutched at the rough ground, trying to pull himself forward. His fingers clawed through the dusty earth, scarcely moving him closer to the dying flame. Then a thought lit in his mind. He reached within his cloak and drew out the sticks given him by Edholm. Without hesitation, he tossed them into the small flame.
Behind him the man wailed in a triumphant laugh that shot roughly from his throat. The sound of it shimmered in the air like bright, fiery ridicule.
Tahn did not care. He watched the sticks, forgetting their hidden notes, and hoping they would catch. The bitter cold wracked his body. With brittle hands he clawed at the ground, inching closer to the fire. His limbs were turning numb, and he flapped them uselessly.
“How important they must have been,” the man said through dark laughter.
Tahn tried to shout his defense. His tongue clucked, thick and numb from the cold.
The man hunkered down before him, his breath steaming in the air, though somehow the sun still shone in all its strength. “It should leave a lasting impression with you, Quillescent.” He pointed to the scrivener’s sticks burning coldly just beyond Tahn’s grasp. “Consider it when all the secrets begin to unravel in your mind, and give you a taste of the dust you willingly race toward.” The man then picked up one of the flaming pieces of wood, the fire burning him not at all. “You are no more than this stick, no more than the contents hidden up within it.… Just as easily cast upon the flame … just as easy to burn…”
The laughter returned as the man stood. Tahn could no longer hold up his head, collapsing, chin first, into the earth. He managed to turn over and peer up, wanting to defy the man if only in a look.
The man was gone.
Instead, Tahn looked at the sun, which still seemed to beat down upon him with punishing heat though he could not feel it. The contradictions swam in his head: the ease with which he’d sacrificed the sticks entrusted to him; the familiar landscape known to him only in his dreams; and the almost recognizable shape of a cowled face he never fully saw.
* * *
The dream ended, and Tahn awoke in the darkness beside his friend and felt for the four wood sticks tucked into his cloak. They were there. He tried to regulate his breathing, slowly pushing away the images as he focused on the emptiness around him.
“Will and Sky,” he muttered, and knew he would get no sleep that night.
Tahn left Sutter sleeping and ambled through the first story of the building in search of a window facing east. Around the corner, a stair rose through shadows into the upper levels. Gossamer threads hung between the posts supporting the dust-covered stair rail. Tahn warily climbed through successive stories, the stairs ending after six flights and letting him out onto the roof.
Under a veil of starlight, Tahn could see the beauty of the hidden city. Its surface rose and fell across rooftops and streets silhouetted against the outer cliff.
Tahn faced east and started to recite the names of these stars. He knew them all like friends, friends met of necessity each morning. He couldn’t remember a time when he did not rise to see them. It was a quiet, peaceful time. Voices did not rush to fill the silence; his thoughts could run outward without interpretation, without resistance.
&n
bsp; Tahn remembered sitting on the front stoop with Balatin and Wendra and trying to describe how far the sky went, the speculation soon becoming so preposterous and cumbersome that they all laughed and turned their attention to the light-flies and songs. But there were moments, Tahn thought, when that farthest point could almost be understood, almost glimpsed. He braced himself against a gentle breeze sweeping in from the tops of the cliffs and thought involuntarily of dawn.
The thought surprised him, and he briefly suppressed it, longing to entertain the stillness of his reflection and the cold, silent stars. The subtle glimmer suddenly offered a moment of hope. He peered again into the heavens and opened his mouth to speak, but in an instant his words were lost to him. He shut his eyes, and imagined again the image of the sun, elegantly slow as it rose into the eastern sky, the gradual strengthening of the light an unassuming, wakeful promise.
For a moment, in his mind, the two images dwelt together, night and day, and Tahn thought he heard the echo of laughter from his dream.
In a panic, he flashed open his eyes and saw the stengthening light at the eastern rim of the cliff. A wave of relief stole over him. He nodded a greeting toward the dawn and descended the stair the way he’d come.
As Tahn reentered the room, Nails woke. “Find anything good to eat?” he said, with a sour morning smile.
“I thought you’d dig us some roots from the graveyard,” Tahn answered. “Aren’t the plants there especially tasty because of their human fertilizer?”
Sutter smiled. “No, that’s around the outbuilding, Woodchuck. Graveroots aren’t crisp, they’re … fleshy.”
Tahn laughed in spite of himself. “Let’s get out of here.”
In the watery light of predawn, they stepped into the street. The sound of their mounts’ hooves clopped loud against the hard stone and morning silences.
“Hello, gentlemen,” a voice greeted them as they cleared the door.
Sutter pulled his sword in a clumsy movement, his eyes trying to fix on the owner of the voice.
Tahn nocked an arrow and made a full draw, bending at the waist and swinging his bow in a full circle. He could see no one.
“Those are not necessary,” the voice said. “If I’d wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.” A man stepped from between two of the buildings. “May I ask what brings you to Stonemount?”
Tahn considered his answer as he spied the jewel-encrusted sheath of a long curved blade hanging from the man’s hip. The fellow wore brushed leather breeches and tunic, with an embroidered belt done in scarlet colors of varying hue. Gold rickrack graced the collar and cuffs of his loose white shirt. On his head he wore a tricorne hat likewise garnished with gold thread, sitting at an angle on his head. His cloak—really more of a cape—was bright red, and gave Tahn the impression that the man cared more for fashion than warmth.
“Come now,” the man insisted, “cease your careful scrutiny of my sword and answer my question.” He spoke with a merry expression on his face, as though the things he said were of no consequence at all, things charming and lightly conversational.
“I know you crossed the Lesule on the Ophal’re’Donn Bridge; I heard your shout in the Canyon of Choruses. You’re not men of the valley, or you’d never have set foot upon it. And I don’t take you for trophy hunters, because you brought no cart.” All the while the man’s face remained jolly, unconcerned.
Tahn listened intently. He relaxed his draw and dropped his aim to the ground. He started to speak when Sutter chimed in. “We’re adventurers!”
“On our way to Recityv. We’re just passing through,” Tahn amended.
“But a grand place to pass through,” Sutter added honestly.
The stranger seemed to like Sutter’s response better. “Grand, indeed,” he echoed.
“Abandoned by its residents by the looks of it. And some years ago if I’m not mistaken.” Sutter removed a waterskin from his horse and took a draught from it, then offered the stranger a pull.
“No, my young friend. But thank you all the same.”
Sutter corked the skin and refastened it to his saddle.
Tahn put away his arrow and took tentative steps forward. “May I ask what business brings you here?”
“I am an archivist and historian, good fellow,” the stranger replied with enthusiasm. “Where else should I be?”
“In a school or library?” Sutter retorted, appropriating the grin the man wore so ceaselessly.
The other’s waxen smile dipped, but only for a moment. “Fah, not so. This is my school. This is the place to find what matters.” The stranger turned a wry look on them both.
“Not for us,” Tahn corrected. “We’re on our way through.”
“Well, into the city we’ll go, then,” the stranger said. “I to record and discover, you to find your way through. And while we go, we will talk of what matters: fallen cities, long journeys, eating, drinking, aches of the body and the mind, life and breath, and new friendships … wonderful unions.”
Tahn thought he heard some second meaning to “wonderful unions,” and put another arm’s distance between himself and the stranger. “We don’t have much time to waste,” Tahn interrupted.
The man’s friendly smile finally waned. “You do if you want to leave Stonemount, my new friend.”
Sutter drew his sword again.
“Hold there,” the man exclaimed in a calm but commanding voice. “All I’m saying is that you cannot exit the way you have come. The wards in the Canyon of Choruses will prevent egress.” He indicated the deep chasm through which Tahn and Sutter had entered Stonemount. “There is but one other passage beyond these walls. And energetic as you are, you are not likely to find it alone.” His smile returned. “Come with me and all your better deeds I’ll add to my histories. Then away you’ll go to continue your adventure.”
Sutter slowly sheathed his sword. Tahn leveled his eyes at the man, realizing that he had not yet offered his name. But neither had he asked for theirs. Tahn let it lie there for the moment as they silently agreed to the man’s offer.
The city itself rose like a grand mausoleum built up over centuries for an entire people to sleep their last.
The light strengthened on the eastern rim of the cliffs that encircled the city, bathing the walls and immense towers in bluish hues. In the dawn of another day, the city felt safe, protected.
“A marvel of engineering,” the stranger was saying. “Everything you see was sculpted, erected, and fashioned by the hands of the Stonemounts. An industrious people, gifted as few in the raising of stone to art.” The man scanned the city with appreciative eyes. “It is a shame they are no more.”
“And why is that?” Tahn asked.
“Because,” he said, immediately, “it is rare to see a place so committed to the aesthetic of the entire city. Tell me, where do you come from?”
Sutter shot a guarded look at Tahn, forcing his friend to pause as he considered a response.
“Keep your secret,” the man said before Tahn could come up with a lie. “But answer me this, in your homeland is every house, shop, and stable of equal beauty despite its size? There is no revelation in answering that, is there?”
“No,” Tahn replied. “Each is as decent as its owner can afford.”
“The equality of selfishness,” the man retorted.
“No one goes without,” Tahn argued. “The land is bountiful and hard work earns each his place.”
“Then you were content with your life there,” the man pressed, his gait unflagging as he strode through the city.
“Yes,” Tahn said, anger rising in him. “I have a good life there.”
“I see, and that is why you left that place to seek adventure.” Tahn caught a glimpse of the man’s cheek and saw a wry smile drawing up his lips. Before Tahn could counter, the man went on.
“Don’t be angry. Your home, I’m sure, is very nice. But look there.” He pointed behind them to the first distant outbuilding near the barrows. “Even these are r
aised with careful splendor, wouldn’t you agree?”
The man was right. No sign existed of an underclass here. Smaller buildings at the edge of the city had been given the same care in design as the towering structures that rose near the city’s center.
Tahn raised his eyes now and saw the sun striking the immense gables and beautiful archways that joined the high buildings hundreds of strides up. In the distance they looked like flags unfurled from parapets into these man-made canyons of stone. Despite the wear of time and cracks creeping into the walls, the symmetry mesmerized him.
“Makes you wonder why they left,” the man said, following Tahn’s gaze.
“They left?” Sutter remarked, incredulous.
“It is the fodder for scholars, and theories abound. I, of course, have my own.” He paused dramatically. “I believe they found a harmony between death and life, like the circle of stone that surrounds the city. They found a way past death, past life.”
Tahn raised his brows at Sutter, as everyone did when Liefel “Smooth Hands”—the great mooch and braggart—told his incredible stories at Northsun Festival. Sutter smiled back as he ambled beside him.
“I intend to find it,” the man said so quietly that Tahn was not sure he heard him correctly. The words sounded like a secret uttered in the shadow of a dying tree.
As they walked, they fell into a comfortable silence. The heights of the surrounding buildings reminded Tahn of the narrow canyon they’d entered at the river. Deep into the rivers of sky, bridges bisected slivers of blue, arcing like limbs from tree to tree. High up, wind whistled thinly around the corners of the edifices. Occasionally, a bird took flight from the landing of a portico set high off the street. It might have struck Tahn as a lonely sound, mournful perhaps, the burring of wind across a grave marker like those encircling Stonemount. But this wind coursed through a monolithic city that was itself one immense testimony to life gone by. Regardless of the city’s vacancy, Tahn felt oddly at home.
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