“I’m fairly certain we’ll all be able to sleep, even in a tomb,” Aras said, smiling at me. He was tired too, though he showed it little. He took his blanket and lay down between everyone else and Inhejeriel. I lay down next to him, regretting that I had no blanket of my own to cushion the hard stone. But that discomfort was not enough to keep me awake.
Later, when the time came, Iro woke me with a touch to my shoulder and I sat up. Iro moved away to lie down. I stretched, but did not stand up. I sat where I was, cross-legged, and listened to the rain. It was falling as hard as before.
Nothing happened for a long time, except that gradually the force of the rain diminished. When I felt that enough time had passed, I woke Geras as Iro had woken me, with a touch. He woke immediately, with a hand to his weapon, as a soldier wakes. “All right,” he said, and I lay down again.
Some time later, Aras woke me. “Ryo,” he said quietly. “The skies have cleared. You may feel there is enough light to go on now.”
I stood up and went to the mouth of the tomb. Above, the round face of the Moon gazed down from a cloudless sky, amid the uncounted stars. The mountain was awash in the silvery light, gray stone almost white, black shadows stark and hard-edged where they lay across the pale stone. Dawn might not come for several hands of time, but in such a luminous night even the Lau should have no difficulty. I turned, nodding to Aras to wake the others.
-16-
We came to the highest tomb of the inGara about six handbreadths of time past dawn. The place outside the tomb was large enough for us all to stand comfortably, the stone carved away to leave a level space bordered by eight head-high pillars, set unevenly, in pairs. Each pillar had been carved with a smooth spiral that turned to the right as it rose from base to top. Two of these pillars, only a fingerwidth in diameter, framed the opening of the tomb, which been carved into a smooth rectangle. To these columns, many Ugaro had tied thin streamers of their hair, which fluttered in the morning breeze.
From this place, turning to the north and east, we could finally see Talal Sabero, neatly framed between two of the other pillars. These pillars were wider, more than a handbreadth in diameter. The sacred mountain stood a long way to the north and east, surrounded by the peaks of lesser mountains.
“Pretty good distance, looks like,” Geras said, his tone noncommittal, when I indicated the mountain and gave its name.
I nodded. “If we walked there in the land of the living, the journey would take many days. In the land of the shades, the gods may shorten the journey, if they choose.” If the gods did not choose to give us that aid, then our task might prove hopeless. But that had always been true.
“And there?” Aras asked, indicating a different mountain, much farther away, almost due east, also framed between two pillars.
“The first Ugaro tomb, carved by the first Ugaro people in the world, is there,” Etta told him. “That is a long way from inGara land, but sometimes people go there, to make a luck-offering for something important.”
Aras nodded, turning in a full circle to take in the whole view, all that was not hidden by the bulk of Talal Soka. The remaining two pillars framed the cascading waterfalls that fell from sky to earth just to one side of the pass that led from the winter country to the starlit lands. Those waterfalls fed the long lake, and they never froze entirely, even in the depths of the long winter. To the south, the immeasurable sweep of the steppe stretched out as far as the eye could see.
Iro and I and Etta each unbound our hair and cut a fingerwidth from one side. Etta bound her offering to the column to the left of the opening, Iro and I to the column on the right. Then, as Etta gently cut a strand of Inhejeriel’s hair to braid into her own, I looked at Aras, frowning, aware that I should have thought of this moment long before we came here.
“Gold or blood would be considered appropriate offerings at an important Lau temple,” he suggested.
I looked at Etta.
“Gold,” she decided. “Blood would not be right. Blood is important to the living, not to the dead. Gold is a peculiar thing to offer, but for the people of the Sun, it does not seem wrong.”
Aras took a small gold ring from his smallest finger. “I’ll offer this for both Geras and myself, if that’s acceptable, Ryo.” He added to Geras in darau, “Don’t object, Trooper; it’s my responsibility and I’m perfectly happy to meet it.”
Geras, who had drawn breath to speak, paused and then said, “Yes, my lord.”
Etta took the ring, held it up, then nodded and gave it to me. I said, relieved, “Good.” Taking the ring, I slipped it over the strand of my hair, up to the top, close to the column of stone, and knotted it there.
Then the rest of us all stepped back while Etta went into the tomb.
“We will wait,” I explained. “She will speak to the taiGara, asking for their leave to pass through their tomb into the paths of the dead. Any inGara could ask, but it is better for a singer to do it.”
“I see,” Aras said. “Do the, ah, taiGara actually answer?”
“I just bet they do,” Geras muttered.
I smiled at them both. I was apprehensive and eager both at once—the land of the shades lay only steps before us now, and what man of courage and daring would not both long to see that land and fear to be lost there? I tried not to let any of this show in my manner or my voice. “On this side of the tomb, not in a way warriors are likely to hear. On the other side, those we meet may speak to us plainly if they wish.”
Geras started to answer me, but then Etta came out again. She nodded to me, her expression solemn and yet exhilarated.
“Good,” I said. “We will go in now. Hold wrist to wrist, one to the next. Etta will go in first, and then Inhejeriel. Then Iro and Aras, then I, and Geras last. That way everyone who is not Ugaro will be holding to one of us. Any Ugaro who took this path would come to the Ugaro part of the land of the shades. I think you will all come with us, but call out if you feel you might slip away from our hold.”
I looked from Inhejeriel to Geras and then to Aras. The Lau nodded; Inhejeriel only gazed up at me, mute as ever, her eyes wide, pale as the sky of a winter dawn. But I only asked them all, “Are you ready?”
Geras took a deep breath and let it out. “Who would have thought of something like this?” he said. But he wrapped his long fingers around my wrist. I gripped his wrist in return.
Aras smiled at him. “I confess to a certain astonishment at this situation myself, Geras. Ryo, would it not be better to tie ourselves together?” But he offered one hand to me and the other to Iro.
“Rope is nothing,” I told him, taking the same wrist-to-wrist hold with him as with Geras, as Iro was doing on his other side. I went on. “A living grip holds where anything else will fail. That is what tales say.”
Inhejeriel’s silent voice whispered, Sije-Aras cannot be lost. No one of us can be lost to his sight.
“I admit I find that a most comforting thought,” Aras commented.
I was very certain everyone found that a comforting thought. I hoped it would prove true. “Etta?” I said. “Are you ready?”
“Breathe deeply and hold tight!” she said. She smiled at Inhejeriel. “How amazing it will be, to pass through the gate of the dead and see the land of the shades! May the gods be kind and permit us to go and to return!” She patted Inhejeriel’s hand with her own free hand, turned, and stepped through the high opening of the tomb into the darkness within. One by one, we all followed.
The tomb was a deep one, many times deeper than the one where we had rested. Little daylight came through the entrance and that did not reach far into the tomb, but Inhejeriel’s luminance showed us the skulls resting in their niches to either side. I saw one broken skull, the pieces laid carefully in order in that niche. There must be a tale explaining the death that had come to that person, but I did not know that tale.
Every sound came loudly to my ears. I could hear everyone breathing; my own breaths seemed loud to me. I seemed to feel stone p
ressing down above and from either side. I did not know how deeply this tomb ran back into the mountain, but it seemed to me we had been walking for a long time. But we continued to walk forward. I drew a long breath of cool air. It smelled of stone and old bone and something else, something uneasy and violent, like the air before a storm—like the scent of the air that comes before the shiral winds.
Before me, Aras stumbled. His grip tightened on my wrist, and I tightened my hold as well. I probably gripped him hard enough to bruise, but even after I realized that, I did not loosen my grip. I held Geras the same way, and heard his quiet exhalation. He brought his other hand up to hold my arm, and I drew him close beside me and stepped forward—
— the air changed. It was not like air. It was not like anything. Perhaps I could not breathe; I was not even certain whether that might be so. Darkness closed upon us, upon me, a darkness that Tarashana luminescence could not illuminate. It was not like ordinary darkness. It was not like anything. I had imagined I felt the weight of the stone surrounding us. I no longer felt that, but I did not feel open space either. I could not feel anything. I no longer felt that I held to anyone else, or that they gripped me in return. My heart had been beating fast, but now I no longer even felt that. Fear rose up, but even that was strangely distant.
Then, abruptly, moonlight poured down and the strangeness fell away. It was like that, like something withdrawing, pulling away to every side at once. I caught a breath and then another, and then breathed deeply. The air was crisp and cold. The sky spread out overhead, the stars brilliant. The Moon stood almost directly above us, close to the earth, huge and bright. The Sun was not present—he walked now in the land of the living. But the Moon poured down her light, so bright the sky near her was almost as blue as it became in the Sun’s presence, though it darkened to indigo and then black farther away. Near the Moon, radiant despite her brilliance, stood the three Dawn Sisters, one a little above the others. In the land of the living, they never shine so brightly, nor step so high into the vault of the heavens.
Heavy flakes of snow swirled gently down despite the utterly clear sky. Stark mountain peaks reared up all around us. Below us, the mountains fell away forever, gray stone streaked with snow and glittering with ice, as far as the eye could see. Where the columns of stone stood in the land of the living, they stood here as well, framing sacred places, except that here each one spiraled from left to right. Also, here, no tomb opened into the mountain between the narrow pair of columns. The tombs do not offer a path for living men to return from the land of the shades. If a living man would return, he must find another path. I had known that, but now the sheer, unbroken face of the cliff brought that awareness to me in a much starker way.
I realized I was gripping Aras and Geras far too hard. I knew that, but I could not bring myself to loosen my hold. Beyond Aras, Inhejeriel was gazing around and up, her sky-colored eyes enormous. Her eyes were dark now, almost the same indigo as the sky near the horizon, but I did not know what that color signified. Pulling away from Etta, she pressed her hand over her mouth, not as though shocked or afraid, but as though she tried by that to keep herself silent against a desire to cry out aloud with some strong emotion.
I breathed deeply and made myself slacken my hold; then, after another moment, let go, first of Geras and then of Aras. Beside me, Geras made a low sound, perhaps realizing only then that my grip had been bruisingly hard. Aras rubbed his wrists, one and then the other, without comment. His smile was wry.
“I did not hurt you?” I asked him, asked them both.
“Bruises,” Geras said, his tone brusque. “It’s nothing.” He opened and closed the fingers of that hand, making sure he could do it, also looking around at the world. “Well, this sure looks a lot like the land of the living. Except for the sky. That’s different.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Are there, uh, taiGara here?”
I glanced around. I could see nothing, but the tales say that sometimes one does not. I said, “Probably people are here, or nearby. Our people guard our tombs, whether we see them or otherwise.”
Etta said to us both, to us all, “I think some of our people are close. I hear them, but not clearly. I think they are speaking to one another, not to us.”
“Well, that sounds just fine.” Geras had set his hand on the hilt of his sword. Aras glanced at him and signed that he should not, and Geras took his hand away again, though he plainly felt uneasy.
“Our people may not readily speak to Lau, or to Ugaro who brought Lau to this place,” Iro said. “They will probably watch carefully to see what we do. Probably it is as well we have a singer among us. They should trust a singer to have good reasons for her acts.” He looked at me. “We should go while the light is good and the weather holds. I know of no better way than to choose our direction as best we can and see where our effort brings us.” He added, “If you approve, Ryo.”
He was right about all these things. I nodded. “I agree. Iro, you may lead the way, if you wish. Inhejeriel, stay close to Etta. Let us all stay close together.”
Iro nodded, turned, and began to make his way down the slope, through the snow, toward Talal Sabero.
We walked for some time. It seemed a long time, but I could not tell how long. The Moon hardly shifted her place in the sky; the stars also held their places; the Sun did not rise. Perhaps no time passed. We made our way down and down. There was no path. We walked along ridges and made our way down cliffs where the stone was broken enough to provide places to set our feet, but by anything I could tell, we did not come nearer to the roots of the mountain.
Then, all at once, everything was different. We had been making our way downward along a ridge, but now we were walking steeply uphill through a narrow gap where cliffs came down on both sides, with a fiercely cold wind pouring through that gap and rushing against our faces. Beside me, Inhejeriel stumbled and nearly fell. I caught her arm to steady her. Iro began to turn, but I called to him, “Go on! Stop when we come to a more sheltered place.” I picked Inhejeriel up in my arms and walked on. Without any suggestion from me, Geras moved in front of me, taking the brunt of the bitter wind. A moment later, Aras did the same. Both of them walked with their heads bowed against the cold, but their bodies broke the force of the wind a little.
After some time, I could not tell how long, the gap opened up, and we came out into a broad ledge. Before us, the stone fell away to open air. Clouds drifted below us, bright where the moonlight poured through them, shaded with lavender in the shadow of the mountain. Lesser mountains rose up through the clouds, their peaks sharp-edged and jagged. The cold was still sharp, but seemed less without the narrow gap channeling the wind into such ferocity. We stood now much higher than before; much higher than when we had first come through the tomb. I looked up, half expecting to see the stars near enough to touch. But as high as this place might be, the sky was still far above.
Everyone had paused, looking around. But now Aras asked, “Can we possibly get out of this wind for a little time?” Alone of all of us, he was not studying the sky or the mountains. His gaze was on Inhejeriel. She was trembling with cold or weariness. Her eyes had paled to white-lavender, like the shadowed clouds. I said, “We will certainly find a sheltered place where we can rest.”
“There,” Iro said, nodding the side, to a place where the faces of the cliffs would provide shelter.
I nodded, and we all walked that way. But before we crossed the whole width of the ledge, the mountain seemed to lean away from us, and we suddenly walked through a narrow valley. The land here was green with young grasses, snow lying only here and there, in small patches. To one side, a small waterfall cascaded down from the heights, becoming a slower, wider stream where it cut through the valley. Flowers bloomed along the stream, the kind with flat clusters of white flowers. The air was quiet here, and much warmer.
We had all halted in surprise. I started to speak, but Iro held up a hand to check me. I waited while he turned slowly
from one side to the other, his head raised, taking in the shape of the land, the shapes of the mountains that rose up around this sheltered valley. Then he came back to me. “Ryo,” he said quietly. “I know this place. We are much closer to Talal Sabero, but in the land of the living, there is no path a man can take from here that will lead to the sacred mountain. A goat might climb the cliff that stands at the head of this valley, but not a man.”
I nodded. “We will rest here,” I decided. “Everyone is tired, and this place is comfortable. When we come to this impassible cliff, perhaps the land will shift beneath us again in a helpful manner.” If the land did not shift, I had no idea what we should do. But we had said we wished to rest in a sheltered place, and now we were here. We needed to come to Talal Sabero, and we were closer. I thought the gods would be kind when we came to a cliff a man could not climb. I thought it better to trust that than to backtrack.
I swung my pack to the ground and took out waterskins and sticks of travel food. “Drink enough,” I told Aras, handing him one of the waterskins. “If the gods are kind and shorten our path, then we will have enough water, and if not, we cannot possibly have enough, so do not hesitate.”
He was smiling, his expression wry. “A warrior’s philosophy. You’re probably right, but—” he stopped. Wolves were singing, not far away. Their voices rose into the sky, high and wild and beautiful.
“Wolves are not dangerous to us,” I reminded the Lau.
“I’m sure you’re right,” Aras said.
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