The Fall

by Garth Nix

  But by then it had become a normal shadow again, and Tal was sound asleep.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Milla woke Tal up what seemed like only an hour or two later, though his Sunstone said seven hours had passed. She didn't say anything, but just dumped a pile of heavy furs on his stomach, which hurt.

  Obviously the furs were meant for him to wear. His Sunstone could be used to keep him warm, but after it had gone dark the night before, Tal didn't want to draw any power from it unless he had to.

  The furs came in three distinct sets. Tal had to experiment with them for a while before he worked out that the light, waist-length one with hanging ribbons went on first, then the leggings, which tied to the ribbons, then the knee-length coat that went over everything. Even after trying it a few different ways, Tal wasn't entirely sure that the outer coat wasn't on backward. Not that the Icecarls seemed to care very much about how their clothes were worn.

  They were very scruffy compared to the Chosen, Tal thought. He was only wearing the furs because he didn't have a full-strength Sunstone.

  Milla came back while Tal was struggling with the thick Selski-skin gauntlets. She sniffed and helped him tie them onto his sleeves, so they would be ready to wear and could not be dropped or lost.

  "We must be prepared to leave as soon as the Afterguards report a break in the Living Sea," the Icecarl girl said coldly. "Come on."

  Tal followed her, his shadowguard dutifully remaining behind him like a normal shadow. It had even expanded to match his increased size. He felt weird under all the fur. It was like suddenly becoming very fat, for he was at least half a stretch wider than he used to be.

  Even so, the broad Selski-skin belt he wore seemed to have been made for someone twice that size again. It kept slipping down, though he'd drawn it through the bone buckle as tightly as he could. Obviously it was Milla's idea of a joke. She didn't want him to be comfortable.

  The ship was strangely still when Tal climbed out into the bright light of the Sunstone high above on the mast. At first he couldn't work out why, as he narrowed his eyes against the light. Then he saw that the ship wasn't moving. The sails were furled, and huge anchor ropes led over the stern and off into the darkness of the ice.

  The wind still howled through the rigging and cut at Tal's face. He pulled out the bone face mask Milla had given him and slipped it on. It didn't fit properly, with one eyehole too far to one side to see through clearly. Tal fiddled around with it for a while before giving up and slipping on his gauntlets. His fingernails were already turning blue.

  Milla went to the side and easily climbed over, disappearing from view. Tal followed clumsily, hitching at his belt. He hoped she hadn't just jumped down to the ice, because the deck was at least eight stretches high. She might be able to jump down that far, but he knew he couldn't.

  She hadn't jumped. There was a ladder, another backbone of some kind, this time made with quite long side-bones or ribs. Tal climbed down after her, much more slowly than he normally would.

  There were quite a few Icecarls already on the ice. Eight were returning from a hunting expedition, dragging a huge cube of bloody meat behind them. It was enormous, and Tal couldn't imagine what it had been carved out of. A Selski, perhaps.

  Another Icecarl was holding the reins of the lead Wreska in a string of six, harnessed to the cart-thing Tal now knew was called a sleigh. The Icecarl had to be Jorntil, who the Crone had said would prepare the animals for them. As they approached, he touched his clenched fist to the hand that held the reins, in a fairly casual salute.

  Milla responded by clapping her clenched fists together hard enough to make Tal wince. He raised his Sunstone and let out a small light, and it was Jorntil's turn to wince and look away.

  "Sorry," said Tal quickly. "I was trying to be"

  "Get in the sleigh!" hissed Milla. But Jorntil only blinked, laughed, and fed the lead Wreska something that looked like the Selski meat Tal had eaten aboard the ship. That made Tal realize he hadn't eaten breakfast, or whatever these strange people ate when they woke up.

  Tal didn't want to ask Milla about it and give her another chance to show off that she was tougher than he was. Instead he climbed aboard the sleigh. It rocked as he pulled himself up, and Tal was surprised by how lightly constructed it was. Most of it was made of very thin bones woven together, and the whole contraption creaked as he shifted his weight. It didn't seem strong enough to carry him, let alone the two of them.

  To make matters worse, the part Tal was standing in didn't seem all that well connected to the two long, bladelike skates underneath. It was like a baby's bouncing basket, Tal thought, peering down. The two skates were solidly joined at the front and rear. The woven bone box he was in was precariously balanced between these supports, held up by six or seven wide bands of Selski skin. These springs would absorb the shock of hitting small bumps and holes, at the cost of bouncing around.

  There were two spears and a whip in a long scabbard on the outside of the sleigh. For a moment, Tal thought about grabbing one and throwing it at Milla, and had a daydream about making his escape. But he couldn't drive the Wreska, and even with the shadowguard to point the way, he knew nothing about crossing the Living Sea.

  The triple cut on his wrist burned as he thought of this, but Tal hardly noticed. There were enough good reasons to put up with Milla for the moment. Later he would find a way to get rid of her.

  Milla jumped in, and the whole thing bounced even more. Tal, unprepared, fell against her, and she pushed him off.

  "Hang on," she said scornfully. She pulled a long whip out of a scabbard on the outside of the sleigh and with a practiced flick cracked it out to one side, sending ice crystals flying. The Wreska stirred in their traces and blew out their noses, sending jets of powdery snow all around.

  Milla cracked the whip to one side again and then, in a fluid movement, sent it out over the lead Wreska's head. As it cracked, the Wreska snorted even louder, and the sleigh gave a sudden lurch.

  "Eeeyyy-aarrr-haaaah!" screamed Milla, nearly deafening Tal. The Wreska responded by lurching forward, their shaggy legs and sharp three-toed hooves driving against the ice. The sleigh rocked and picked up speed.

  "This is fun!" said Tal, startled by how quickly the sleigh was moving. They were moving across the ice faster than he could run, almost as fast as he slid down the laundry slide back in the Castle.

  "It is not fun,"

  scowled Milla. "It is only a means of travel. We are on a serious quest. There is no time for fun."

  Tal didn't answer. Despite what Milla said, riding in the sleigh was fun. But the most important thing was that he was heading back to the Castle. He had been diverted from his own quest, but it wasn't over. He would get a Sunstone, and become a full-fledged Chosen. He would do it for his father, mother, Gref, and Kusi.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  All too soon, the sleigh left the circle of light cast by the Icecarl's great Sunstone. Once again Tal felt the fear of darkness, and his hand crept to the newly mended chain around his neck. But there were two of the pale green moth-lamps on the sleigh, and the Wreskas' antlers, as the spiky branches on their heads were called, also glowed with faint luminescence.

  Milla noticed Tal reach for his Sunstone, and he saw her smile. Slowly, he forced himself to let go of the chain. He didn't want to let her know he was afraid.

  They drove on in silence for an hour or more, and Tal soon found that Milla was at least partly right. He found the speed of the sleigh exciting at first, but after a while, standing up as it bounced and swayed over the lumpy ice made his knees sore, and his fingers were aching from holding onto the side.

  Not being able to see properly where they were going also made him nervous, though Milla did not seem concerned. Either she could see a lot better than he could in the dim light of the lanterns, or the Wreska could, and she trusted them.

  After another hour, Tal was nearly fainting from weariness. He had slumped down, no longer trying to match
Milla's upright stance. His shadowguard was the only thing propping him up, though it didn't dare do too much, since it had been told to behave like a natural shadow in order to placate the Icecarls.

  "Will we stop soon?" Tal asked finally, when his weariness overcame his pride.

  "Yes," said Milla. "We have nearly come to the Living Sea, by my reckoning. We should see the Selski - yes, there is the glow."

  She pointed, at the same time hauling back on the reins to slow the Wreska down. Tal looked where she indicated. At first he couldn't see anything, but as they drew closer, he saw that the ice slanted gently down in front of them. Off in the distance and a little below them, there was a dull glow that seemed to cover all the horizon ahead.

  "What is that light?" he asked.

  "Kalakoi," said Milla, making a circle with her thumb and forefinger. "They are small… things… about so big, that grow on the Selski. They glow and bring moths and the Slepenish that the Selski eat. But the Kalakoi also eat the Selski, when they grow old and do not scrape enough of them off."

  "um, what are the Slurpernesh?" It grated on Tal that as a Chosen he had to ask these questions of a natural, but it was important to know.

  "Sleep-en-ish," corrected Milla. "They go in front of the Selski always. They swarm in uncountable numbers, more even than the Selski. The Slepenish come up through the ice, and if the Selski do not eat them, they go back through it into the water below. Some say that these survivors change into something else in the deep water and birth new Slepenish. I do not know if this is true."

  "What do they look like?" asked Tal nervously. He didn't like the sound of things that bore through the ice in uncountable numbers.

  "Like the string of a harp, but you never see just one," said Milla. She seemed to struggle with her desire to treat Tal like dirt and an equal desire to show off her knowledge. Showing off won.

  "They roil together, more in a single paced square than snowflakes in a storm. They are not dangerous, but when they first come through the ice they weaken it. That is why we never cross between the different hordes of the Living Sea, but only in the temporary gaps. There is always open water where Selski and Slepenish first meet."

  Tal was silent for a while, digesting this information. The sleigh continued more slowly, heading down the slope in the ice. The glow grew brighter. Tal watched it nervously, understanding more about what the Icecarls meant when they called the Selski migration path the Living Sea. Certainly the light of their passage seemed to fill all the world ahead.

  Suddenly, Milla pulled hard on the reins and called out the names of the two leaders, "Tarah! Rall!"

  The Wreska came to a sliding, ice-shard-scattering halt. Milla pulled a spear out of the scabbard, choosing the one with the largest head, a wickedly pointed piece of bone as wide and long as Tal's arm.

  `,What is it?" asked Tal as he pulled out his Sunstone and raised it. All he could see was the glow in the distance. But as the Wreska stopped snorting, he heard a dull rumble as well, a sound like many distant drums. Low, loud, and continuous.

  "Rogue Selski," snapped Milla. She jumped down onto the ice and lifted her face mask to see better.

  "Broken off from the horde. We have to push it back in."

  Tal peered into the distance. There was something there, dark upon the ice. He'd taken it for a small hillock or mound of some kind. Now he realized it was moving. Heading toward them.

  "That's a Selski?" he asked in amazement. It had to be a hundred stretches long and twenty high. It was almost as big as the Icecarl's ship, a great, hulking black mass covered in glowing spots that made a pattern like the star-filled night above the Veil.

  It was lifting itself up on its huge forelegs or foreflippers and then leaping and sliding forward. It was close enough now for Tal to hear the ice crack and shatter every time it came down. The sleigh shivered under his feet.

  "Can't we just leave it alone?"

  "No," said Milla. "Rogues are a danger to the ship and other Clans. It must be turned back to the horde."

  "You won't be able to do anything to it with that." Tal nodded at her spear. The girl was even madder than he thought. Nothing could possibly turn that huge monster!

  "A full harpoon would be better," Milla agreed, in the same sort of tone a Chosen performer might use to describe an Achievement that was not quite worthy of the Indigo Ray of Extreme Approval.

  She drew her knife another sharpened, curved bone and added, "I will have to climb up between leaps and blind it in the left eye. That will make it turn aside."

  "No!" Tal exclaimed. He couldn't get back to the Castle without Milla. She might be a dangerous lunatic, but he couldn't afford to lose her, at least not yet. "What about our quest? That has to be more important, doesn't it?"

  Milla hesitated. For the first time, Tal saw her as a girl his own age. She looked like his friends at the Lectorium when they were asked a question they couldn't answer. Then the familiar control came back, and her face settled into its stern pattern.

  "You are… correct," said Milla with obvious reluctance. She returned knife and spear to their scabbards, lowered her face mask, and jumped back on the sleigh. "The Quest is of the first importance. The Foreguard will take care of the rogue."

  Tal breathed a sigh of relief and slipped his Sunstone back under his furs. Milla whipped the Wreska up again, and the sleigh moved off, turning a little to pass behind the rogue Selski.

  "You do not need to be afraid," Milla said as they came closer. She had seen Tal shiver as ice chips blew across them from the Selski's strange leaping progress. "The Selski never turn back. They will change direction to one side, but never back."

  A bit like an Icecarl,

  Tal thought. He peered at Milla through the amber eyepieces of his mask. She was obviously very brave. Climbing that Selski would have meant her own death for certain, but Tal knew she would have done it if he hadn't given her a good reason not to. He was reluctant to admit it, but he couldn't think of many Chosen who would die for their Order. Of course, they lived in a much more civilized way…

  Milla was prepared to change direction when she had to, Tal thought. And the danger of the Selski was over.

  Or was it? As the sleigh continued on, Tal noticed that the continuous drumming sound was getting louder much, much louder. And the glow that filed the ice and sky was brighter and closer.

  Tal could see more huge shapes, too, leaping and sliding. Lots and lots of them. He was just about to say something when Milla suddenly cracked her whip and shouted. The Wreska broke into an even faster gait.

  The sleigh picked up speed. Tal stared at the ice in front of them, willing it to be clearer than it was. To his left he could see a solid wall of Selski traveling away from them. To his right, there was a enormous mass of Selski sliding and leaping toward them, an almost solid wall of strangely glowing flesh, preceded by a rolling wave of ice and snow.

  The drumming sound was now a bass roar that drowned all other sounds.

  They had begun to cross the Living Sea of the Selski, but it didn't look like the right place or the right time to Tal. The onrushing Selski were too close, and the gap between the two parts of the horde was closing.

  "We must take shelter at the rock!" Milla screamed, her words fighting against the noise of the Selski. She pointed to a dark mass ahead that Tal had thought was another Selski. He hadn't noticed that it wasn't moving.

  He didn't think they could make it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The rock that thrust up through the ice was only as tall as the Selski themselves and not much broader than three of them abreast. Known as the Seventy-second Splitter to the Icecarls, it was just big enough to make the Selski pass to either side rather than try to jump over it.

  The sleigh pulled into the shelter of the rock just as the leading Selski crashed down behind them, closing the gap. Tal stared back in shock, barely able to believe that they'd made it. Ice chips from the Selski's landing showered over him and into his open
mouth.

  Tal kept looking as the ice melted on his tongue. Huge bodies leaped and crashed, but somehow missed one another. Beyond the light of the sleigh lamps, Tal could only see the luminous patterns of the Kalikoi on the huge animals, a weaving tapestry of light that jumped and moved.

  The creatures did not make any noise themselves, or if they did, it was lost in the crash and roar of so many thousands of them rising and falling upon the ice.

  "What do we do now?" Tal asked finally. He had to shout close to Milla's ear.

  "Climb the Splitter and look out for another gap!" Milla shouted back. She jumped down from the sleigh and started to check the Wreska's legs and their three-toed hooves, looking for strains or damage.

  Tal sat down in the sleigh, pulled his hood as tight as it would go, and with his fingers on the outside, pushed the fur into his ears. Not that it helped much. The noise of the Selski's strange leaping movement vibrated through the sleigh and every bone in his body.

  After ten minutes of trying to rest, Tal realized that fur stuffed into his ears didn't work. So he did what any of the Chosen would do in such a situation. He looked down at his shadowguard and said, "Shadowguard, shadowguard, shield me from sound."

  The shadowguard, which was pale in the lantern light, merely twitched its copy of Tal's head in a slight sideways motion. Tal thought it hadn't heard him because of the Selski noise, so he repeated his instruction more loudly. Still nothing happened.

  He was just about to shout at it, when Milla jumped back into the sleigh. Seeing Tal crouched down looking at his shadowguard, she growled and reached for her knife.

  "No shadow magic!" she shouted. "You were told!"

  The shadowguard didn't move. It might as well have been a natural shadow. Tal straightened up and pulled out the bits of hood that were stuck in his ears. He didn't say anything, but Milla slowly relaxed, letting her hand drift away from her knife.

  "There is a gap coming!" she shouted. "We must be ready."