by Jon Kiln
He also supposed that the valley was safe until Caffrey or Berengar came to it looking to recover some broken piece of an ancient artifact or kill one another trying. The Captain wondered if bandits from farther north had not discovered this place as they harassed broken border towns for scraps.
The people spoke behind their hands as Berengar’s party passed, but they showed no sign of ill-intent or hostility.
The trees broke into slight foothills and Berengar stared up at the structures carved directly into the rock face high above them. There were enough windows, openings, and structures to constitute a small city, but he saw no motion. As the lakes proved larger than they first appeared, these raised structures were far higher when seen from underneath. Whatever ladders had once led to them had been pulled up or removed.
Berengar admired the sight before him. “Faithcore had quite the fascination with carving out high things.”
Nisero followed his gaze upwards, and let out a soft whistle in appreciation. “I don’t believe King Faithcore is supposed to have built this place. I think he just came here to worship.”
Berengar shook his head still staring upward. “The gods see all the face of the world, as I understand, Lieutenant. Faithcore could have worshiped anywhere, but he came to this high place.”
“Indeed. How could one pass up going where the gods shed their tears when seeking to play upon their emotions and sympathies?”
“I do not trust a man that behaves like he has something to prove, whether he is trying to prove it to the gods or other men. See if you can beseech us a ladder,” Berengar ordered Belsh, who was gazing in awe at the towering structure.
“Captain, look.” Belsh pointed at some movement above that had caught his eye.
“I see it. Everyone, be alert. Lieutenant, back the main body of our campaign off in the event that whoever is up there might start throwing things.”
Nisero passed the order to the group as Berengar watched the men above in one of the distant openings in the high temple. He couldn’t get a clear count and supposed it did not matter from this distance.
“Should we back off too, Captain?” Nisero asked.
“No need. The three of us make a small target for any falling stone.”
Belsh’s horse stamped its hooves skittishly as it sensed the boy’s nervousness. “You think they will throw stones?”
“Perhaps we should stand farther apart then,” Nisero said, slightly worried himself.
“Even if they do throw stones,” Berengar said, “surely they must be out of practice by now. We will be fine.”
Something fell from the opening and Berengar felt a wave of fear. He saw Belsh and Nisero on each side of him recoil, but then he realized it was an unraveling rope.
“Hold firm,” he said.
The rope came to its end hardly one span between the swinging knot and the ground. This rope had been carefully measured and tied off.
Another object fell free next to the rope and echoed out with the sound of clacking wood as it unfurled. Berengar realized it was a rope ladder with hard rungs tied between. Looking at the distance, he was hoping that they were coming down instead of inviting him up.
The ladder reached the ground, stopping a span short as the rope had. As it swung, he tried to determine what type of wood had been used for the rungs and what thickness before he considered climbing. After a moment, he realized they were arm and leg bones tied into thick bundles.
“Because one bone alone might not be strong enough for the job.” Berengar whispered.
Nisero tilted his head. “What, sir?”
“I think it is time we back off, too.”
They pulled up on their reins and walked the horses backward. The animals tried to turn their heads and bodies about, but the three of them kept the animals’ noses forward.
Three men slid down the rope from the height of the temple instead of using the bone ladder.
Berengar stepped down from his horse and place his hand on the hilt of his sword. The other two stepped down as well.
The men with long, gray beards dropped off the rope one by one. Their wrists and ankles were tied together by long sections of cord. They wore plain, flowing robes. Berengar thought they might be concealing weapons. As they untied the cords, the Captain surmised they had used the cords to slide down the rope to avoid the friction on their skin. He had no explanation for a ladder that long made of bone—at least no explanation that he liked.
The men stepped forward from the ladder and rope toward the Captain. Berengar drew his sword and held it at the ready. Nisero drew his broadsword and Belsh a dagger. The Captain heard blades draw behind him in a deadly chorus and song he found too familiar.
“Stand ready,” Berengar commanded.
The three bearded men bowed to their faces on the ground, and the man in the middle muttered in a language that Berengar did not recognize.
Berengar frowned and sighed in frustration. “Bring a scholar up to identify this tongue, and then go about seeing if anyone we have can speak it.”
Belsh leaned in to the Captain and whispered the foreign phrasing in perfect mimic of what they had just heard. The boy then said, “I serve by remembering what is said to me and repeating it. I’ll check with the scholars.”
As Belsh ran back, the man on the ground spoke another string of syllables that meant nothing to the Captain. “I don’t understand you. Stay where you are and wait, please.”
The man spoke again and Berengar held up his empty palm to him, shaking his head.
Nisero watched the men warily. “What do we do here, if we have no way to communicate with these people? Draw pictures?”
“I’ll just be happy if they refrain from eating us and using our bones to make a longer ladder. We can check with the people in the valley for a language we might be able to translate.”
Belsh returned with the bearded scholar who had survived the mission below Faithcore Castle. Berengar hoped he could get him through this encounter alive as well.
“You?” Berengar raised one eyebrow at him.
The scholar stepped closer to the Captain and spoke softly. “If the boy got the words correct, they speak an ancient dialect that is largely used in spells and blessings in some of the temples that worship earth and water spirits. I am familiar with it.”
“What did the first phrase mean then?” Nisero had moved nearer the Captain to hear the conversation. “The one Belsh repeated to you.”
“We shall wait while you send the boy to get the thinker with the narrow beard.”
Nisero blinked and looked back at the men lying prone on the ground. “That is quite specific.”
“If it is a spell or blessing, I don’t understand it,” Berengar said to the scholar.
“I think it is literal. They knew you were sending the boy to get me to translate.”
“Do you know these people already?” Nisero questioned him.
“Of course not. I’ve never been here in my life. I did not even know it would really exist until we laid eyes upon it.”
Berengar sheathed his sword and looked past the men at the bone ladder. “We have our thinker with the narrow beard, so speak.”
The scholar translated. His syllables were broken and uneven.
Once the scholar finished, the man in the middle rose slowly on his knees while the other two stayed on their faces. He spoke slowly. The syllables went on for a while.
The scholar translated while the man on his knees continued to talk. “After the dark lord took the first piece and tried to harm you, but failed, he came here seeking the second. We protected it from him, so now it shall be yours. We have waited for your arrival for generations, ever since the great king left the piece with us. We have seen you coming. We have watched all the paths your life might take until the gods drove you down this one to meet us here. We had faith you would come, captain. We have expected you since before you were born.”
Captain Berengar stared for a moment after everyon
e went silent, before turning his attention on the scholar. “When you translated my statement earlier, did you tell them I was a captain?”
“No, sir.”
Berengar cut his eyes sharply back at the men on the ground. “Ask them why their ladder is made of bone.”
Chapter 8: From the Corner of the Eye
“We are not cannibals,” the scholar translated.
Berengar looked to Nisero.
The younger man shrugged and said, “That sounds like something a cannibal might say.”
Berengar sighed and shook his head.
The man on his knees spoke for several syllables and the scholar commenced translating. “We waste nothing. When one of our brothers from past generations has fallen in this world to take his place among the stars, we waste nothing of his body. We use the bones for ladders and tools. We used the corrupt flesh to return to the ground below to feed the trees among the tears of the gods.”
Berengar spoke directly to the mysterious man. “Is Lord Caffrey the dark lord and enemy that you speak of who came here before us?”
Before the scholar could translate, the man repeated “Caffrey” and continued to speak.
“Caffrey,” the scholar said. “Yes, he was here before you, but he left with a false piece of the Eye. We saved the true corner for you.”
Berengar narrowed his eyes. “Are you translating that correctly?”
The scholar let out an audible huff before saying, “I am the leading expert in the kingdom on this language. I am certain in my translations, Captain.”
“Then, I am the one failing here because I do not understand what those references mean,” the Captain said. “Are those sayings or parables of some sort?”
“That I do not know, sir. They are not any I have heard and I am well-versed.”
Berengar asked as the scholar translated for him. “How long ago was Lord Caffrey here? How many men did he have with him?”
“He was here nearly a year ago. He had the blue corner from below the stronghold of the great king. He had a few dozen warriors, but he left with the false piece. We still have the true corner to give to you, Captain. Come up and take it. You, your lieutenant, the boy, and your narrow bearded thinker.”
“What makes you think I am going to climb up into your stronghold without my warriors?”
“Because we saw you do so many times with the Corner of the Eye. There is no other likely path now.”
“Where did Lord Caffrey go after he left here with the false piece?”
“Once a person has a Corner of the Eye, as the dark lord did upon leaving the stronghold of the great king ahead of you,” the scholar translated, “then we can no longer see his paths. Caffrey saw your arrival in the chamber because he had the piece. That was how he set the trap that ended half your paths in death. We are pleased that the gods afforded you a path into continued life. Once you have the corner destined for you, Captain, your enemy will no longer be able to see your paths either.”
“This piece of the Artifact,” Berengar said, “it allows you to see the future?”
After the translation, the man in the middle spoke with the men on the ground. They raised their faces from the floor and exchanged quiet words.
“What are they saying?” Nisero asked.
The scholar shook his head. “They are arguing how to explain the paths to us. There seems to be a disagreement about grammar or verb conjugation. They are discussing singular and plural.”
“As in many futures?” Berengar was incredulous. “Possible futures?”
The scholar shrugged. The men continued to argue. By the time the man in the middle directed his comments back at Berengar, all three of the men were standing.
“The gods lay many paths before us, but we only know the one we follow. Even then, we do not understand all our steps. We catch glimpses of other ways through regrets, dreams, and wishes. We see other paths through promises broken and opportunities lost. The gods see all of these paths clearly and the Eye serves to show us what the gods see. With all four pieces of the Eye reassembled, a man can jump between paths selecting the ones he wishes and destroying the ones he does not. The great king broke the Eye and hid the corners out of sorrow for the paths he had destroyed. Caffrey now has one corner. You will soon have another. There are two more.”
Berengar still needed clarification. “So it allows one to see the future or possible futures?”
The men started arguing again.
“They do not seem to like that question, Captain,” observed Nisero.
“I do not like any of this,” Berengar admitted.
The man reengaged Berengar sooner this time. “Not all paths have equal weight. Some are wider than others. Some are so narrow and remote that trying to take them causes them to snap. There are things along these thin paths—fantastic things—which tempt lesser men who do not have the spirit to handle the power of the Eye. Knowing something is possible does not open the door wide or make the road easy. Even without the Eye, people see possibilities and fail to achieve them. With the Eye, you can see them all and fail as well.”
“Can we destroy the corner to keep Caffrey from assembling the Artifact and unleashing its full power?”
“If it could have been broken entirely,” the scholar translated, “the great king would have done so. All things are possible for the man that has all the pieces. All things are possible, but not all things are beneficial. All paths are before you, but not all paths will stand under the weight and the more weight a path has, the stronger its pull will be in the same way we are pulled toward the ground. We cannot see the paths of one that holds a piece of the Eye, so what is possible for the man that holds them all is only for him to see. That man needs to be you and not dark lord Caffrey. It is time for you to climb where the great king came before you to claim your destiny, captain.”
“Perhaps I could stay down here and you could bring the piece to me,” Berengar put forward.
“All the paths lead to you climbing up with your three companions,” the man said through the scholar. “The weight of this path is too heavy for you to break free of its pull. We have already seen it.”
The men turned and went to the ladder as if the matter were closed.
Berengar looked to Nisero. “Tell the men to wait here. Stoleck is in charge. The rest of you are coming with me.”
“Are you sure you want to accept a destiny presented to you from men that make ladders from bones?”
“You think they are the next trap laid by Caffrey?” Berengar asked him in return.
Nisero looked up at the three men climbing the bone ladder. “All they have to do is cut the ladder free and we would be pulled by our destiny back to the ground. Caffrey could be up there now waiting to watch us fall.”
“We are charged with retrieving the Great Artifact for the King,” Berengar declared. “This is the path to that. Let’s fulfill our destiny if for no other reason than the King has ordered it.”
“As you wish, sir.”
Nisero went to give the instructions to the soldiers and then the four of them climbed.
“I’m afraid,” the scholar said looking up.
“Of heights?” Berengar asked. “If I could leave you behind on the ground, I would. Of all people, I need you most in order to translate.”
“Not of heights. In this case, I fear what might be atop those heights.”
Berengar nodded. “That is a healthy fear, but one we must get past because our quest demands it.”
The weight of the group stabilized the ladder some, but each step and pull by any of the seven men climbing would twist or shake the ropes. Berengar was not a slight man and each placement of a boot would crackle and strain the bony rungs. The Captain kept reminding himself not to look down. A whimper from Belsh below him told Berengar that the boy had taken a peek back toward the ground.
As Berengar reached the top, he expected to feel the ladder give or to look into the face of Caffrey himself. Instead, the me
n pulled the Captain up onto the solid floor inside the carved stone temple. More men, bearded and dressed like the first trio, bowed before him.
As the others stepped up, the man who had spoken before did so again. Berengar looked to the scholar. “He says we should follow him,” the scholar said.
The maze of passages through the temple back into the mountain was more confusing than Faithcore Castle. Lanterns hung from hooks on the walls that appeared suspiciously like carved bone. As he looked closer, the Captain thought they might be skulls with more holes carved into them to show light from the fires inside. Berengar found himself thinking about Solag and her fascination with bones.
“If I die here,” he muttered, “I have only myself to blame.”
They reached an opening to a chamber shaped like a teardrop. The interior was largely barren except for another empty pedestal. It looked very much like the chamber in which Caffrey had set his first trap, except dry.
The scholar let out a choked sound from his throat. “I’m not going in there.”
Berengar stopped to face him. “Are you translating something I need to know, scholar, or is this an original thought?”
The scholar stood firm. “One of my favorite parables, Captain, is that mad men repeat the same mistakes expecting victory where they have always found defeat before.”
“We should bring this man with us on more of our adventures,” Nisero said.
The bearded priest of the high temples waved an arm inside and spoke in a long string of words. Silence followed and Berengar turned his attention on the scholar who stared forward in wide-eyed shock with skin more pale than usual.
“Are you going to fall unconscious, thin bearded thinker?” Berengar asked. “Because if so, this discussion is going to grow very difficult without you.”
The scholar swallowed. “I am winded from the long climb and I am afraid, sir. I’m sorry. I’m not used to facing death so casually in my line of work. I read and study old lives and old deaths.”