“Ulger, I don’t need to remind you to stay clear.” Ronyl’s voice was stern. “No heroics.”
The ulgeroi chorus was indignant, and Munayair grinned. Specks of brightness, they darted away over the red cliff.
Pich rose with much groaning and grinding. A few heavy steps took her to an entrance. “I will search as well.” Her voice was slow, ponderous. “Many thanks, Lady Moon.” She bowed, then trudged away.
Time passed in ponderous drips, like molasses falling from a spoon. Munayair finished the glyphs on the vine and looked up. Her neck was stiff. She wiped away sweat with her sleeve, then fetched the chelka energizing spell again from her pocket. “Anything?”
“No.” Khuson said. “Is it time for my plan? If I ran really fast—”
“I hope they catch you,” Anjita said sweetly.
“Wait.” His voice brightened. “The chelka are tapping something. I’m rusty, but I think … Yes. They want us to know—wow, our maker is pretty. So pretty, in fact—”
A chorus of groans drowned him out, allowing Munayair a moment to hide her red cheeks. She knew Bast was watching her again, but she dared not look at him until Ronyl’s sensible voice rang out. “Since our time is short, perhaps we should concentrate on the task at hand.”
Gritting her teeth, Munayair activated the spell. More energy flowed out of her, gathered in a glowing ball, and shot into the vine. The strain was growing dangerous. Her heart labored in her chest, her fingertips were growing numb. She had never energized this many chelka at one time before. Striving to hide her exhaustion, she held one end of the vine to Bast. He took it warily, glancing up at the cliff towering overhead.
“Hold tight,” she warned, touching the familiar spell on her thumb.
“It’s not long enough to reach that high,” he said. “So what are—”
Before he could finish, glyphs along the length of the vine flashed to life. Fast as a striking snake it shot toward the cliff face. When it touched the rock it began slithering upward, driving tendrils into crevices, dragging them both up with it. Bast shrieked when his feet left the ground, clinging to the vine with both hands and legs, eyes squeezed shut. They rose into the air, the red cliff face rushing by.
Munayair didn’t have much time to think about him. She struggled herself to hold on with aching limbs while keeping her mind from the increasing fall beneath them. Visions rose unbidden in her mind. The vine’s energy giving out halfway. Plummeting like a stone to smash into the unforgiving ground below. Her gorge rose as she strove to keep her eyes up among the clouds, murmuring nonsensical encouragement to the vine in her hands. Sometimes she wished she could invent a chelka that would rise into the air like Hadad, but chelka could no more fly than speak. They had to remain grounded to the earth.
As they climbed higher and higher, the wind whispered through their clothes. Peaks of red rock reached like gentle hands to gather them in. Finally, the vine wriggled over the edge and hauled them onto a flat shelf of rock between two winding canyons. Once their feet were firmly planted on solid ground, Munayair touched the spell again and the chelka relaxed, light fading. A simple vine once more. With some difficulty, she pried it from Bast’s grip. He collapsed, cradling his head. “I need a drink,” he groaned.
Although she was anxious to move, Munayair was grateful for the pause. Her heart was racing and her limbs trembled, partly from exhaustion and partly from her own giddy fear of heights. Once she could stand without the world wavering around her, she wound the vine over her shoulders and held out a hand. “Come on.”
Bast took it reluctantly and she hauled him to his feet. Luckily his hands shook so much, they disguised the trembling of her own. Hand in hand they began to search. Peering down into the canyons plunging below their feet, listening for the others to make a discovery or for the chelka to signal. The top of the cliff was nowhere near as flat as it had looked from below. Steep and slippery with sand, a misstep would end in a tumble to the canyon floor hundreds of spans below. Munayair kept one hand on the chelka spell, and the other tight around Bast’s fingers.
Clouds raced westward under Sorath’s eye. Wind rattled the pungent evergreen bushes growing around wind-scoured hollows in the rock. Munayair’s mouth felt gritty. Anjita and Khuson were arguing in their ears, and the chatter of the ulgeroi melded into an impenetrable chorus. The world wavered around her. The hot red stones around them looked as comfortable and inviting as a feather mattress. She was so tired. Everything felt so distant, she almost jumped when Bast spoke. “You don’t have any, do you?”
“What?” She wiped hair out of her eyes.
“Tharra, girl, tharra.” Bast’s eyes were bright and glassy, and a sheen of sweat rose on his forehead. Alarm built in her gut. He wasn’t only skittish and on edge—he looked desperate, manic even. “The little devil, sauce, whatever.”
“No. Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he growled. “Why wouldn’t I be? Patched up better’n new.”
She hesitated on the brink of speaking, knowing what they said could be heard by everyone. What good could she do anyway? Unaraq’s judgment of humans was wrong. It wasn’t possible for someone like Bast—someone like her—to change. As soon as he had the opportunity, he would drink as much tharra as he could hold. And he would turn back to the mages if he thought he could save himself, too. Unlike Anjita, she could not blame him, not when she was just as guilty and just as flawed.
Bast grabbed her. His eyes were wide and his fingers spasmed around her wrist. “I won’t tell anyone. Just a sip.” The mark burned hot, and he yanked his hand back with a hiss.
She sighed. “I don’t have tharra, Bast. I doubt there’s any here the ulger won’t have drunk.”
“Please.” A sob. “I need it, okay? I need it.” He clung to her sleeve, trembling.
Gently, she grabbed his arms to steady him. He shook and his face was bone-white. Together, they got him to a seated position, where he hunched with legs jiggling. Voices chattered in their ears. She barely heard them anymore, focused instead on the thin whining of wind among the canyons.
“Bet he’s got a stash—bloody khuttoch.” He wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I know when someone’s hiding something. I’m not an idiot.”
She crouched, waiting for the rap of wood on stone. If there was one creature in all the world she could trust, it was Tel. He had never failed her or made her feel unworthy, not once.
“I used to be the best of those men.” Bast’s head dangled towards his chest, and he spoke as if to himself. Munayair said nothing. “I know it’s not much, but it’s true.” He clenched his trembling hands into fists, pounded them into his legs. “I was carrying one of their amulets, a prototype. The warding failed and I was caught in the backlash. A freak accident, they said. It helped them develop the working model.”
Silently, she took in his sightless eye and dragging leg as if seeing them for the first time.
“I’m worse than useless now,” he muttered. “You should have let the khuttoch kill me.”
She held out a hand. “Hush a moment.”
They held their breath, and then the sound came again. Tapping rang through the twisting corridors. Enemy found. Enemy. Enemy.
Bast sat forward, breath rasping. “They found it? What are they saying?”
“Hush!” She closed her eyes, the better to listen. As expected, the report continued.
One of us. One of us. One of us.
Munayair frowned as she repeated the message aloud for Bast’s benefit. “What do they mean?”
A nervous chuckle escaped Bast. “Do their heads ever go wonky?”
“I’d better go check Tel’s glyphs.” Munayair rose. She looked down at Bast’s grey face and said, “Why don’t you sit there? I’ll—”
He grabbed her again. “Don’t leave me!”
“On your feet, then.”
With much huffing, they got him upright. As the vine chelka lowered them down into red-tinted gloom, silence descended apart from t
he arguments echoing in their minds. Burdened by their combined weight, the vine’s charge ran out a few spans above the canyon floor. They dropped jarringly, but even Bast was too afraid to cry out. Munayair dropped the vine, knowing she was too exhausted to recharge it. She touched the spell to activate her chelka call and held it in her hand. Clinging to each other, they followed the sound of tapping.
The canyon twisted this way and that with no rhyme or reason. The stones resembled waves, frozen or petrified, caught in the very act of movement. The wild and serrated face of life itself. It was wide enough to walk abreast at times and narrow enough they had to edge around sharp-edged stone breakers at others. The gritty floor munched at their boots. They caught the occasional glimpse of blue sky. The stones leaned in, red striated with purple shadows so brilliant they hurt the eyes.
Chelka appeared and flowed around them like a river of stars. Each one looked to Munayair, and she smiled. They swarmed around her feet, leading the way towards the steady tapping. She followed, keeping one hand on the wall. The chelka moved quickly, untiring, but Munayair was soon panting and wiping sweat from her eyes. Even inside the cave, it was humid.
She glanced at Bast. He lurched along with hands wrapped over burly forearms, unseeing eye straining around the next bend. His face was grey and his eyes darted, but at least he had stopped begging for tharra. Something was wrong, and no matter what he said, she was sure it wasn’t simply a lack of alcohol.
Before long they rounded a corner and found a crowd of chelka waiting. As soon as she appeared, they gathered around. Tel stood at the forefront, looking at her with tiny face alight as if to say, We did well, right? Crouching, she tucked away the chelka call and let them rustle at her clothes and hair. Tel grabbed her sleeve and swung on it, turning his face when she ran a finger over his glyphs. They were undamaged, still commanding Replicate and Seek. When she rose, she had to steady herself against the wall as her vision went white around the edges.
“Where’s this enemy, then?” She smiled at Tel clinging to her sleeve. He vaulted to the ground and ran off, the rest following in a wave.
Then they stopped, milling. She paused, fingers curling around a sharp point of rock, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Waves of red stone, shadows like vivid bruises. A rare beam of white light pierced to the canyon floor, dust motes fluttering like moths.
“Munayair? Munayair! Five gods, answer me!” Someone was shouting her name.
She glanced around, realized the voice was in her head, and replied quietly. “Jita? What is it?”
“Something’s wrong,” Anjita snapped. “We lost contact with Pich on the west side. You need to get out of there.”
Munayair rolled her eyes. “You’re so dramatic, Jita. Not everyone wants to talk every minute of the day. We’re on the west side and—”
She tried to gesture, and her arm halted. She realized her sleeve was caught on another sharp stone. She shifted around to free herself and found her leg pinned between two rocks. The stone under her fingers shifted, so slowly. Bast swallowed a gasp behind her.
A huge stone skull rose between her and the light.
Chapter 44: Thunder and Stone
“Pich!” she cried. “What happened? Are you all right?”
Slowly, the huge head swung around. Tar-like ooze dripped from empty eye sockets, but Munayair could feel Pich watching her. Her heart thundered. The stony grip on her leg was beginning to ache. She was caught between two bones, and they were tightening. Knife-like teeth ground together a handspan from her face. She reached to free her sleeve, snagged on Pich’s ribs, but her arm was caught by a stony claw.
“What’s happening?” Anjita demanded. “You found her?”
Munayair’s voice shook. “Yes,” she said, “But she’s not in a talking mood. I need help.”
“I’m on my way,” Khuson said, icy calm.
His voice relaxed her a little. She pulled against her sleeve and felt the fabric give. Slowly, she turned to Bast, waiting white-faced and shaking. “Run. I’ll be right behind you.”
“What are you doing?” Bast squeaked, clutching the front of his tunic.
“I’ll be fine.” She faced the drooling eye sockets. “Go!”
She didn’t watch to see if he obeyed. More firmly, she tugged against her sleeve. Tel led the chelka swarming up Pich’s bones and jamming her joints as they had done to Asavari’s rock chelka. Pich moved slowly and deliberately, grinding them to dust. She was in no hurry, and she had no forehead glyph for them to target.
Ronyl spoke. “Moony, stay calm.”
“I am calm,” Munayair said over the thunder of her own heartbeat. Then, automatically: “Don’t call me that.”
With one last, frantic yank, the cloth parted and Munayair hastily reached for her sleeve. The voluminous fabric tangled, mocking her attempts to explore inside. Just as she felt the coolness of the cage on her fingertips, a heavy claw landed on her arm, forcing her back against the wall. A petrified wave ground against her spine and she cried out. The cage splattered, instantly absorbed by the thirsty ground.
Tears pricked her eyes as she made out her faithful chelka swarming over the stone spirit, flung in every direction but bravely holding her back. But they could not hold out forever. Even now, the light of their glyphs flickered as the kinetic energy that powered them began to run out.
Sparks whipped around the corner, mental and physical voices overlapping. “Protect the lady!” Engge cried.
“Hold it back—”
“Do not let her touch you, ulger!” Ronyl ordered.
“You’re not alone.” Dashjin clung to her collar. “We’ll see you safe, Lady Moon.”
The ulger began to swirl around Pich’s head, humming low and soft. She faltered, and the pressure on Munayair’s back eased. She gasped and pulled, extricating her arm bit by bit.
Is Bast safe? she asked, but no one answered. Then she realized she had spoken in her mind, to Avlingai. She couldn’t remember how to speak aloud. Avlingai, answer me, gods and spirits curse you!
“Just another moment,” Dashjin whispered. “Don’t worry, we’re professionals.”
At that moment, Pich’s heavy head dropped. No time to even gasp before it hit Munayair’s chest, driving the air from her lungs. Her legs gave and they fell together, slow and ponderous and unstoppable as a landslide. Razor teeth sliced her forehead. She cried out, crushed under stone.
“Naya!” Anjita screamed. “Khuson, where are you?”
Dashjin tugged on Munayair’s collar, panting. She scrabbled in the dust, reaching for spells. Her faithful chelka dove into Pich’s eye sockets, sawed at bones, broke themselves on teeth and claws.
But nothing was enough.
A furious screech rang through the canyon, echoing into overlapping patterns. Lightning flashed and rocks blew from the canyon wall, showering the ones below. Munayair dragged her gaze up to see wings flaring in the clouds. Above the narrow canyon, lightning flashed around a familiar, birdlike shape. He was magnificent, she realized.
Weak cheers rose from the ulgeroi. “Lord Thunderer!”
“No!” Ronyl cried. “Hadad, you have to stay back! If she touches you, we are all lost!”
Heedless of anything but his prey, Hadad plummeted. Outlined in lightning, eyes blazing and claws outstretched, straight as an arrow he dove. To pass through the narrow canyon, he folded his wings and landed in a spray of dust and sparks. His beak clacked. “Face me, demon!” he cried, eyes glowing as more and more sparks cracked around him. Pich didn’t even turn, pressing ever more inexorably onto Munayair. Black ooze dribbled from her eyes, and her mouth moved as if she were saying something none of them could hear.
For the proud thunder spirit, being ignored was too much to take. He darted forward fast as a striking snake, electricity humming around him like a nimbus. Bolts of lightning sizzled through the canyon, blasting at spirits, rock walls, and human alike. Crying out as they fell, ulger flickered and struggled in the dust.
&n
bsp; Munayair’s heart stuttered in her chest. The muscles in her jaw and fingers clenched uncontrollably as white-hot fire flooded through her. “Please stop, Lord Hadad!” she cried with the last of her air.
But she might as well have saved her breath. Gathering himself, Hadad leaped for the stone spirit’s back with a flash of lightning and a boom of thunder. Without turning, Pich’s whip-like tail caught him mid-rush. He folded midair, crashing into one rocky spire, then another. He hit the ground in a cloud of dust and lay unmoving, a heap of feathers. Sparks flared once and then no more. Glyphlight flickered on the foreheads of the remaining chelka, kinetic energy running out. The ulger fluttered around Pich’s head.
Munayair realized she was going to die.
No air entered her crushed lungs. Lights danced across her vision, and sounds touched her ears without any meaning. Her body was ice apart from the searing heat in her forehead. As she resigned herself to oblivion, a new sensation roused her curiosity. The rhythmic sound of a drum. She blinked and tried to make sense of what she was seeing.
A dark shape stepped over her, flickering light illuminating a scruffy face and burly arms. His jaw was firm, but there were tears in his eyes. Pich stirred. Lifted her head. The pressure on Munayair’s chest eased, and she sucked in air.
“What are—” she gasped, eyes refusing to focus. “I told you to go!”
Bast cast a beseeching glance with his good eye over his shoulder at her. He held no weapon, only the drum and mellet that he carried on his belt. Grunting, he tore open the front of his tunic to reveal a livid scar over his heart, shiny red glyphmarks like a cattle brand. Spell backlash. The glyphs a match to the amulets in Munayair’s pocket. The ulger gasped and scattered in every direction.
Her eyes blurred and prickled. “Spirits, no,” she said.
“How did that get past the barrier?” Dashjin hissed.
Bast held the drum and began a rollicking beat with the mellet, backing away. Pich’s head came up and she turned ponderously to follow his movements. Moment by moment, her weight disappeared off Munayair.
Ink Adept Page 43