“I said,” Salvor repeated, putting a hand on Geret’s chest and shoving him onto his bottom in the snow, “stay here. You can’t see worth Folly and I don’t want you falling off the cliff.”
He stood and examined the snow near him, seeing where Geret’s horse had stood, before it wandered away, where…two sets of tracks had dismounted.
He whirled to Geret. “You brought Sanych out here? Where is she?”
Geret shook his head, holding snow against his eyes. “I don’t know.”
Salvor drew his sword; his eyes read the snow. He saw Sanych’s feet turn and flee, yet not be pursued. He tracked her as she encountered another pair of prints, appearing out of thin air.
She fell here. He traced the edges of her body print with his fingers, finding crystallized drops of blood under the fresh snow. He saw where she’d stumbled away, and his eyes widened.
“Sanych!” He got to his feet, hurrying toward the cliff’s edge.
A blazing beam of light radiated up from below.
“I’m right here, Salvor,” Sanych panted, her voice faint. “You don’t have to shout.”
Salvor looked down in amazement, seeing Sanych clinging to a rung of stone a short distance below his boots. Her other arm dangled uselessly. One of her feet rested on a lower rung, while the other was braced against the top few inches of a great column of stone.
“It was about to get a lot harder,” she said, nodding toward the hoodoo’s rough point, which didn’t rise quite as high as the cliff face. “I hadn’t quite worked up the courage to try my latest theory. Can you help me up?” She wiped her grimy, bloody brow against her forearm.
“Can you hold on a moment longer? I’ve got Geret and my horse; we’ll figure something out.”
“Geret? He’s all right?” Sanych asked, hope lighting her words.
“He’s half-blind, but his arms work fine. Don’t move; I’ll be right back.”
~~~
Sanych heard Salvor lead Geret and the horse to the edge of the cliff, explaining to Geret what needed to be done.
“You do realize I can barely see, right?” Geret said.
“Don’t need you to see her, just grab her. The horse will pull you up.”
“And why am I risking my neck—no offense, Sanych—when you have a perfectly good pair of eyes?”
“You got knocked on the head pretty hard, didn’t you? I have to see when and where to lead the horse. I don’t care to let you lead him off the cliff.”
“Anytime,” Sanych said, her voice faint with exhaustion.
“Sorry. Coming down now,” Geret said. He clung to the rope, his foot in a loop, and Salvor backed the horse up until the prince was even with Sanych.
“Folly,” Geret muttered. “Sanych, I can’t see much; you’ll have to guide me.”
She saw he was squinting, and a pang of guilt shot through her. “Reach out to the wall with your right hand,” she instructed. Geret blindly pawed at the stone. “Here,” she added, illuminating the stone rung with a brilliant glow.
“Ah, thanks. That, I can see.” Geret reached out and hung on. Sanych lowered her leg from the hoodoo rung and reached her toe out toward the loop of rope, standing on Geret’s foot.
“I can’t reach out to you,” she said, gritting her teeth against the throb in her shoulder. “My right shoulder’s out of its socket.”
“Just jump toward me; I’ll catch you.”
“You’re sure? You can barely see me!” Her voice trembled, and she glanced down at the long drop beneath them. If she fell from this height, she’d probably tumble all the way down the cliff and land in the river below.
Geret smiled. “I’d never let you fall, Sanych.”
Too late, she thought. Though she had blinded him, he was still willing to risk himself to save her. Does that count for anything? I want it to.
She lit herself up, hoping Geret could see her better, then squeezed her eyes shut and lunged away from the rungs, unable to keep a small cry of fear from escaping her mouth. Geret’s arms closed around her in a warm vise, and his free leg wrapped behind her knees. Her cheek slammed into his chest, and she cried out in pain as he jostled her shoulder.
“Sorry; can’t seem to keep from hurting you, can I?” he murmured above her ear.
“Everyone all right?” Salvor called.
“Yes, I have her,” Geret responded. The rope began to pull them up.
“I’m sorry too,” Sanych whispered.
“For what, falling over a cliff?”
“No; for blinding you. Oolat has some kind of shadow shield. I didn’t realize it until too late. I’m so sorry,” she repeated.
Geret was silent so long, she feared he was angry at her. “Well,” he finally said as they neared the cliff’s edge, “I know you didn’t blind me on purpose.”
Her head snapped up, and she was stricken with the guilty realization that she’d fantasized several times about doing just that. Now that she’d truly injured him, however, she realized how abhorrent the idea was. “I’d never do that!”
“Do what?” Salvor asked, kneeling and reaching a hand out to them.
“Leap off a cliff again because I forgot to look where I was going,” she muttered, and Geret barked a laugh.
The men eased Sanych onto the cliff’s edge, and Salvor helped Geret scramble up. While Geret held her shoulders firmly on the ground, Salvor gently straightened her arm out to the side.
“Just do it,” she muttered, wincing in anticipation.
Almost before she’d finished speaking, Salvor jerked on her arm. There was an audible click as her shoulder slid into its socket, prompting her to give a yell that subsided into a relieved sigh. As Salvor used a strip from his cloak to fashion a sling for her, she told them what Oolat had done with Meena.
Salvor looked at the river below. “She could be miles downstream by now,” he said.
“Then we’d better hurry,” Geret replied.
As Salvor brought the horse over, Sanych scooped up a small pebble and held it on one palm. Wrinkling her brow in concentration, she wrapped it in a layer of light.
It winked out of existence, appearing instantaneously on her other palm. She gasped, a broad grin plastering itself across her dirty, blood-streaked face. She clenched the pebble tightly: her secret weapon. As soon as she had a few moments to herself, she knew what she’d be practicing next.
~~~
Sanych rode in front of Geret on Salvor’s horse while the nobleman walked beside them back toward the camp area. Sanych kept her magic glowing in the palm of her uninjured arm. The snow kept falling.
Voices hailed them from ahead. Sanych raised her good hand and Salvor readied his sword. Then Ruel, Rhona, Ahm and several of his Scions rode into view among the fir trees.
“Bloody scales,” Ahm called, “we thought we’d lost all of you!”
Rhona, attempting to ride a horse by herself, reined in next to Geret and Sanych. “Are you two all right? What happened?” she murmured, seeing Sanych’s numerous injuries.
Geret looked unseeingly ahead. “We’ll make it.”
Rhona frowned and reached out to caress his cheek, but he flinched away from the unexpected contact. Sanych jerked her gaze away from the couple, and it fell on Ruel. His flat stare mirrored her own.
Ahm’s glad smile lessened as he realized Meena wasn’t with them. “Where—where is Meena? Has Oolat—”
“He didn’t kill her; that’s impossible,” Sanych replied, looking back to Ahm. “He just ripped the key out of her chest and threw her off the cliff.”
The Scions exclaimed in fear and horror.
“Then it has all been for naught,” said Ahm, shaken. “He will retrieve the Dire Tome. We must begin to warn the Shanallese; the realm isn’t safe for anyone any longer. Quickly—” he began, turning to his Scions.
“Wait!” Sanych exclaimed. “Meena had a plan; she said ‘Oolat will take’ something. She didn’t get to finish, but I think she meant the key!”
“What?” Ahm
said, turning back to her. “Why would she want the cult to have the key?”
“I don’t know. I suggest we ask Meena herself. If I know Meena at all, and I do,” Sanych insisted, “this war’s not over yet.”
Ahm looked at the worried faces of his cell members. Then he nodded. “All right,” he said, “we’ll see what Meena’s plan is. The trail to the village is clear; Oolat collected his Dzur i'Oth and vanished a while ago.”
Sanych nodded, unsurprised. “We need to find her as soon as possible,” she said. “She’ll take a while to recover from the cold.”
Ahm turned, murmuring to one of the riders. The man raised his hands to his mouth and spoke a few words, then let fly a pure white dove that wasn’t fully opaque. It arrowed up through the trees and vanished from sight.
“The Scions that survived the battle at the village will begin searching the river as soon as they get that message,” Ahm replied. “Let’s get you mounted, Salvor, and we’ll go help them look.”
But by the time they’d ridden back through the upper Scion camp, down the steep rocky pass and through Shadewater to the banks of the Emerald, Meena had already been found.
“They’re bringing her back now,” someone hailed, pointing through the obscuring snowflakes.
A Scion flew over the river’s choppy surface, his broad turquoise wings glowing through the falling snow. His arms carried a limp figure.
Geret dismounted and gently lifted Sanych from the saddle. With her arm still in its sling, she made her way to the front of the gathering crowd, wincing at every jostle, her body afire with dozens of scrapes and bruises.
She didn’t care if anyone came with her. Only Meena mattered right now.
The winged Scion reached the shore and landed near a copse of trees, carrying Meena toward a blanket other Scions had spread beneath one of them. As he let his wings dissipate, Ahm and several other Scions approached, carrying more blankets. A different Scion began to shape the trees’ branches into a sheltering roof.
“No!” Sanych burst forward. “Stop! Don’t cover her!”
The Scion who held Meena stopped in surprise. “Why not?”
“Her magic doesn’t work that way,” Sanych said. “She needs cold air to trigger her awakening after she’s been affected by cold water.”
“What an odd magical effect,” a female Scion commented.
“Just clear the snow and put her down. Back away. And let her be.”
“Surely one blanket won’t hurt her,” Ahm suggested, his hands placating.
She turned to him, forging her pain into anger. “Meena needs that key back; we all do. There’s no way she’s not going after the man who took it. But I guarantee you this: if you delay her any more than absolutely necessary before the key’s recovery,” Sanych pointed to the blanket in Ahm’s hands, “she’ll rip your head off and stuff it up your arse at her earliest convenience!”
Ahm blinked, taken aback. A small silence ensued.
“Now please,” Sanych added in a milder tone, “put her down.”
Ahm nodded. A few Scions melted a patch of snow, revealing bent green shoots, and the winged Scion laid her down. Ahm waved the blanket-bearers away. Sanych stepped to Meena’s side, and her face crumpled at the sight of the damage done to her friend’s body. Meena’s chest had been shattered; her shredded shirt was streaked pink with blood.
Sanych knelt by Meena’s side, brushing short red locks off Meena’s forehead. “I know you’d want me to be strong right now,” she whispered to the still body, tears beginning to course down her cheeks. “But I can’t. Oolat’s taken the key, and you’re lying here with a h-hole…” She paused, overcome, and closed her eyes tightly, blocking out the grisly damage before her.
“It’s all my fault,” she murmured. “This magic, it’s too much for me. I made a fool of myself with Geret. I don’t know if I can fight my own darkness and still do what needs to be done. I need your help, please. I don’t want to lose myself.”
Sanych bowed her head and wept. Her exhaustion, self-pity, guilt and pain overwhelmed her. The waiting Scions didn’t interfere.
A while later, Sanych felt a hand on her ankle, and a burst of healing shot through her. The sudden absence of pain left her euphoric, even dizzy, and she fell forward onto her hands and knees, her arm sliding out of its makeshift sling.
“Stars and darkness,” Meena groused, sitting up. The Scions began murmuring happily and approaching the two of them.
“Meena,” Ahm said, kneeling by her side and offering her a water skin, “Sanych said you had a plan.”
“I used to have one,” Meena clarified.
Sanych’s stomach turned over.
The Shanallar took a swig, then passed the skin to Sanych, who also drank. “I knew Oolat had come for the key. I wanted to make him take me to the Dragon Temple. My best chance was taking him in his own lair, before he could use the key. Now,” she shook her head in frustration, “he’s got the key, but I’m stuck out here.”
Sanych took a step back, her stomach sinking. “He was showing me his power,” she murmured, eyes wide. “If I hadn’t been there, he would have taken you.”
“What’s done is done,” Meena said, as Ahm helped her stand. “Our time is short, though. I need to get that book, and I need Sanych to help me destroy it. But,” she sighed, “attacking against the full power of the Tome…” she trailed off, gritting her teeth in frustration.
“I have an idea.”
Everyone looked at Ahm.
He hesitated, looking at Sanych. “But,” he added, “it’s extreme.”
“Extreme?” Meena rounded on him, hands on her hips, fire in her eyes. “Extreme? What isn’t extreme right now? Dzur i’Oth has taken the key, and they’re about to retrieve the Dire Tome and unleash it on Shanal, and then the world, in every way they see fit! I need to steal back the book and sing its destruction at the Green Dragon, and I can’t do that without Sanych’s magic, so you tell me, Ahm, how extreme can it be?”
Sanych looked at Meena, then at Ahm. “Whatever it is,” she said, “I’ll do it.”
Ahm met her eyes and nodded. “Then we must go to Sosta’s castle. We have some magic to do.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
In the cloudy dimness of night, horses bearing members of Ahm’s and Sosta’s cells thundered into the outer yard of Sosta’s castle, which blended into the sheer, fern-covered slope as if it had grown there naturally. The protective spells that hid the castle from the world rippled to allow the riders and their mounts access. The snow had stopped, and the air was bitterly cold.
Sosta dismounted, handing her reins to a stable boy. “Sanych, I’ll help Ahm prepare the chamber for the ritual. You and your companions are welcome to wait in the main hall within. Eat, rest, relax. We’ll come get you when we’re ready.”
As the group gathered around platters of food fetched by members of Sosta’s cell, Sanych grabbed a roll of bread, shooting Geret a look of relief edged with guilt. She knew she should be focused on the ritual that Ahm was preparing to perform on her, but she had something else on her mind. She stepped back out into the yard with a glint of determination in her eyes.
~~~
“I don’t care how quietly you accuse me,” Rhona whispered, glaring. “Don’t do it in front of them.”
Ruel jerked his head toward the outer door. Rhona grimaced and led the way out to the empty yard, where she whirled on her cousin.
“How dare you!” she hissed.
He raised his chin. “I made my point and you know it.”
“You scuttled your point by bringing it up!” she said, stepping so close that their noses nearly brushed. “You respect your captain, on land or sea.”
He snorted. “The Rules of Order don’t apply on land, Rhona.”
“Don’t you cite the Rules to me.” Rhona clipped, turning away.
“Forgetting your own limitations? All that steamy trysting must have addled your mind,” he sneered. “I bet you let him do it dirt
walker style, too.”
Rhona’s spine went stiff, and she turned to him, eyes wide with fiery anger. “Ruel Menihuna, mark my words. When we get back to the Southern Sea, I will find the most rat-infested, leaky, rotting hulk of a garbage scow, and I’ll make you its captain’s whipping boy.”
Far from being intimidated, Ruel barked a laugh. “That captain will be you, Rhona, if I ever open my mouth to the Prime.”
Rhona’s shoulders slumped, and she was quiet for a moment. “At least I’ll get to beat you.”
“What in the grog-filled bladders of the gods possessed you, wench?” he asked, true curiosity in his voice.
Rhona shrugged and shook her head, and Ruel raised his eyebrows. “Nothing’s turning out like it should,” she whispered, feeling desperately alone in the dark and the cold of the dirtwalkers’ world.
“That’s what makes the Lays of the Worthy so poignant.”
Rhona frowned and looked over at her cousin. “I fail to see what’s heroic about this situation,” she said, though a small smile lifted the corner of her mouth in acceptance of his compliment.
Ruel put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “You’ve come all this way of your own accord to help Meena and Geret with this book-destroying plan because you felt your Age Quest wasn’t fully completed. You bested six of your mother’s finest captains and sailed for weeks through new and treacherous waters, stealing all the maps you needed, dealing with hurricanes and storms, raiding Aldib for Kemsil’s Circuit and trouncing Swordfish with one hand tied behind your back!” He smirked, pride in his captain’s accomplishments written across his face. “If that’s not heroic, I don’t know what is.”
Rhona scowled and began to speak, but Ruel wasn’t looking at her. “Gods above!” he exclaimed. “You’ve done all that, and then you treat yourself like flotsam. And for a dirtwalker.”
“You’re oversensitive, Ruel,” Rhona said, her voice gentle. “Your mother was a dirtwalker.”
“This isn’t about me! It’s about you, and how you’re letting him treat you. He’s tugging you about like a fish on a line.”
Rhona wasn’t sure if he meant Geret or Salvor. But in spite of her lapse with Salvor, or perhaps because of it, she began to see that Ruel had a point: she had been wandering far from Clan ways, and despite her love for Geret, even she was starting to notice. “You may have a point, Ruel. Salvor’s not Clan any more than Geret is, and I haven’t been—” she began, but broke off at a small sound nearby. Frowning, she looked into the dimness near the stables.
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