Torch grunts, but gives a small nod.
I follow his example. I have good reason to hate all Scoriats, but I like Torch. If he is prepared to put up with a Scoriat after they have killed so many skulks, I want him to know I am on the same side.
Zivan draws in air through her teeth. I can see she is thinking exactly the same as me. Her inclination is to slit this man’s throat, but she won’t do it if her son wants something else. She nods.
That makes six of us. The others: Vannis, Rannyl, Doven, Azrial, Furian, Jethran and Karith look around at each other uncomfortably. Kalyka is clearly too small to have a vote.
Koban is inscrutable. He is unconcerned at his own fate. At least, that is the way it seems to me. I watch him closely. I will always watch him closely if he stays, I decide. The image of poor Tilan as they killed him sweeps into my mind, following by the picture of my mother falling. I know the Scoriats are not to be trusted, and I won’t trust them. I feel slightly cross with myself now for voting with Torch.
There is a long pause. We are still staring at each other. Jethran and Furian look as if they are ready to carry out the sentence, whatever the rest of us might say.
But Ammeline is staring at only one person: Doven. Her eyes are full of tears and pleading. She is making Doven feel uncomfortable. He is shifting from one foot to another and he gives a swallow. He knows that he will lose her, whichever way he votes. I can see it in his eyes. He tries to look away from her, but Ammeline walks right up to him and puts one of her hands on his arm.
“Please, Doven?”
He doesn’t want to. He is moving his large head slowly from side to side. He wants this man dead.
But he is too good a person. He cannot say the words. He finally drops his head and gives a sigh. “I vote for him to stay.” He sounds tired.
Ammeline claps her hands. “Then it is settled!”
Seven against six. Are we that democratic? I don’t know. Neither do the others. The six are exchanging glances and Azrial seems about to speak. Then she catches Fimbrian’s eye and closes her mouth with a snap.
“Very well,” she agrees. “He may stay. But he may carry no weapons.” She looks over at Furian who nods and moves to search Koban. He removes a large and then a smaller knife, together with a thin piece of wire with wooden togs at the end. As he pulls this out of the man’s tunic he raises it up and shakes it slightly in Ammeline’s direction. He says nothing. He doesn’t have to. He thinks she has made a huge mistake.
I frown. I know what the wire is for. I think I may agree with Furian. This could have been a huge mistake. Now I lower my own head. Most of us who voted for him to stay are young. What do we know about the world? Or is it the older ones who know nothing, who have allowed everything to degenerate by their own aversion to change?
Koban, the Scoriat, is still showing no emotion. He turns and takes Ammeline by the hand, walking away with her to one side. They speak in low, eager whispers. I can see Ammeline’s face. It is radiant. At least somebody is happy.
So now there are fifteen of us.
I wonder how many will eventually reach Kelfor.
If any.
7.
It is only another day’s march before we find ourselves approaching the Great Chasm.
You can hear the water from a mile away. There is a small heat haze over the winding gap in the plains. It stretches from one side of the horizon right across to the other. A thin band of mist to tell us that we are nearly there.
Water! I think. Water, at last.
The argents now bring continuous supplies to us, under Rannyl’s direction. At last we are able to stop to wash our clothes and scrub most of the grime off our tunics and our bodies. We take a half day for the ablutions. In the heat, wet material dries on us in less than an hour. Kalyka becomes silly. Even I do, a little. I revel in being able to soak my scalp, feel my hair dust-free.
The respite lasts only for those few hours. Soon enough we are marching again, the luxury of being clean forgotten. We want to see this Great Chasm, we want to see what the future holds.
Ammeline and Koban have not spoken to any of us since the decision. They stick together and regard us from a distance. They are part of the group, yet separate. They don’t come close to us unless they need food or drink. Doven has been walking with a face like thunder ever since we allowed the Scoriat to join us. He looks sick. I think he is wishing he had voted the other way.
Now the two speakers of the land are at the front. Karith and her daughter are zigzagging ahead of us, trying to find some age-old signs to tell them where the crossing may lie. They are supposed to know all these things but they are looking less and less confident with each hour that passes. I don’t think they know very much at all.
Then something occurs to me. I am supposed to be something called the orthomancer, and I know absolutely nothing! What will happen if my turn ever comes, if we really do make it to Kelfor? I haven’t a clue what any of this means, and I am pretty sure I don’t have any hidden abilities. If I could shrivel people with my mind, then a whole bunch of Raths and Scoriats would already be dead. A whole big bunch.
The quondam stops suddenly, causing me to bump into her. Furian has to steady us both. He is, as usual, walking on her other side, his arm supporting hers, his strength at her disposal. She needs it; the air seems to have some difficulty in passing through to her lungs.
She touches my arm. “It is going to be up to you, Remeny. Only you. The rest of us ...” she spreads her hands to indicate in front and behind us, “... are just commodities. Expendable commodities to make sure you get inside Kelfor. When you become our orthomancer you must fight for the survival of the Inmuri, girl. Drive the Raths off Hethor, or take the Inmuri away. Promise!”
I can’t help blinking again. It is taking me all my time just to follow the group across these punishing lands. Who does she think I am? There is only one of me. And I know nothing much about anything, except working in a dome. Now I am expected to save the entire Inmuri race. It seems a bit excessive.
She must know how I feel, because her face dissolves into hundreds of alarming wrinkles. Despite my best intentions I step back a little. Her eyes bore into mine. “I know that it seems a lot, now. But you will have the power to do it. Your birthright is to be an orthomancer.”
I feel a spurt of anger. “What was my parents’ birthright? To die? To die for the timeworn? And what about the unworn? What birthright have they?”
“I may have made some mistakes,” she says. “The timeworn may have made some mistakes.”
Mistakes? Mistakes? I am speechless. I shake my head. Furian looks at the ground.
She goes on: “I come from a long line of timeworn who have done little or nothing to help our race. We were born shackled and tired and we seem to have lost our way amid such apathy. It took your mother to convince me that we had run out of time.”
My memory goes back to that very first day of all this, to the meeting in the quondam’s cobb.
I realize that my mother did have time to tell me what I needed to know. She had the evening after she had been in the cobb. The hours we had walked the ramparts of Astakarth. What had she said to me? I have to frown to remember. The southern star. The arrow to the South. The amulet. Did she, in the end, leave me enough to find my way?
She must have. Because if she didn’t then we will all die at or before Kelfor. Few of us would have the strength to make our way back to Astakarth. And what would happen to us there, in any case? Certain death. More death.
So we will all die, or I will find a way to save us.
No pressure, then.
I sigh. “Err ... Thank you. I think.” I quicken my step. I just want to find Torch. These people expect too much of me. He will expect nothing.
He is running, off to one side of the main group, his skulks spread out around him. Their snouts are down and their tails are up; they are searching for a scent of the tubers we need to survive. Both he and the skulks appear happy.
The animals are weaving from side to side and he is jogging alongside them easily, his face clear and fearless.
I run to catch up with him.
He allows me to jog alongside. His eyes are shining. I realize that he is in his element.
Then I make a mistake myself. I reach over to touch him. He rears away and a frozen whimper escapes him. He stops abruptly, and the pack of skulks scatters. Some of the animals run to him, some away from him, but the unit has been broken.
I bend over, a stitch from running making the whole thing far more painful than it should be.
“I’m sorry.”
He glances up and nods. He shrugs. Then he pulls himself to his feet and begins to run again.
It takes a few moments until the whole pack of skulks has re-formed around his slight figure.
I let them go. However much I want to be like Torch, I have my own path to follow. I keep thinking that Torch can be a friend, but he can’t. He isn’t like that. He is more like one of the skulks he runs with than a person. Only his mother can really communicate with him.
I sit down on the beaten earth to wait for the rest of the group. Torch is already far ahead, racing across the terrain, free as he has never been before. I am sad and happy at the same time as I watch his figure getting smaller and smaller.
Karith is the next person to become intractable. She is snapping at us all, and Linnith has the harassed look of a minion who has not been able to appease her mistress.
Karith’s eyes scour the slopes of the canyon. She is looking for a particular landmark. From her expression, it is eluding her. She tells us to follow at our convenience, then moves swiftly away along the canyon.
The rest of us have approached the Great Chasm. The land rises up with no sign of a catastrophic fault in front of us. We take care, however, scrambling up the sides, because Linnith has indicated that the drop on the other side is abrupt and dangerous.
When I finally inch my way to the top of the rise I gasp. The dirt has given way to solid, hard black rock. It is a ledge which overhangs a drop of at least two hundred yards. My heart gives a bound and I quickly inch back again.
There is no way we can get across that! Impossible! As soon as I look sideways along the immense crevice in the surface of Hethor I shiver. Now there is only the remains of a small river winding along the very bottom of the chasm, but the signs are all there that once it must have been a raging torrent. Some long-forgotten time ago. The black rock must have been carved, millennia past, into a tunnel which wound its way across the planet. Then the roof of the tunnel collapsed or was eroded away, leaving smooth sides which curve under the lip of the gorge.
And it is so far down! I can’t see us rappelling down that, even if we did have enough rope to do it, which we don’t.
I shake my head, confused. We can never cross this.
Linnith smiles at me. “My mother will find the way.”
I squint at the distant figure, still tracking along the edge of the chasm. “Well, she is already a quarter of a mile away. We had better follow her. Where is Torch?”
Rannyl pointed behind us. “The skulks won’t come any closer to the chasm. Not by choice.”
The pack is about a half mile away, waiting patiently for us to find a way across.
Fimbrian picks Kalyka up and pops her over his shoulders.
Azrial nods. “We should follow Karith. She will find a way for us to cross.”
There is a mutter from Fimbrian. We all turn our attention to him.
He raises his eyebrows. “What? I was just pointing out that the timeworn haven’t always been right so far. Or is that not allowed?”
Quondam Azrial turns her regal head. “Let it be, Fimbrian. You may not have lived a perfect life either.”
You couldn’t have seen a blush against Fimbrian’s skin but he has the grace to look ashamed. He gives another mumble.
“I’m sorry?” The autocratic Quondam Azrial is not going to let that pass.
“I said ‘maybe’.”
“Oh, did you? I’m surprised you even know that word. The way that you criticize everybody else, I mean.” She correctly interprets his deep breath and holds up a hand. “Please don’t interrupt me.”
Now it is my turn to giggle. They look so strange, these two old people who are measuring each other up. Now both of them glare at me.
Furian is hiding a smile, too. He picks up his carrick. “Time to move out.”
There is a moment as Azrial and Fimbrian invite each other to go first, neither of them meaning it.
Zivan pushes past both of them. Their expressions as their eyes follow her makes them remarkably similar.
Now it is Linnith who is leading us. Torch is moving parallel to us, keeping the same distance from the group.
I join Zivan. “Torch seems happy.”
She grunts.
“He is in his element with the skulks.”
She grunts again. I feel piqued. She might at least answer me sometimes.
She can hear what I am thinking. She looks down at me and treats me to a rare half smile. “He is safe with them.”
Yes. The animals won’t judge him for the strange way he perceives the world, or for the unusual whorls on his skin.
Zivan is examining our surroundings. “If we could find cover and a safe descent to the river, this wouldn’t be a bad place to live.”
My eyes widen. I can’t imagine a more inhospitable place.
She shrugs. “There is no going back to Astakarth. This is far enough away for them to leave us in peace.”
True. But ... but there is nothing here.
She is staring across the open countryside. “With the skulks, we would have enough food. It would be a hard life, but free of the Raths and ...” she eyes Koban with mistrust, “... the Scoriats.”
Koban seems to sense her eyes on him. He gives her a long, hard stare and his chin lifts slightly. Hers lifts more. They have declared war just by a tiny motion of their heads. That I must practice. I try sticking my shoulders back and my chest out like them. I don’t feel at all intimidating.
Then I think about actually eking out an existence here in the middle of nowhere. My heart sinks. I don’t want to spend the rest of my existence eating raw tubers and sitting on this hard earth, or worse, the black rock. Surely there is more to life than that?
Zivan is tossing back her hair. “It would be good to be free.”
Would it?
But it would be worse to be caught by the Raths. For sure. I realize that the future for all of us is looking dark. No wonder the quondam wants me to do this orthomancing thing she seems to think I can do.
I swallow, and drop behind Zivan. We aren’t there yet.
We walk on for about three hours, until we see the distant figure of Karith waving and jumping up and down. We break into a run. She has found whatever it was she was looking for. Even from afar we sense her elation.
As we come up, she runs up to Jethran. “I found it!”
He enfolds her in his strong arms. Like two tree trunks embracing. “I knew you would be able to do it!”
So Karith thought she might fail, too. Surprising. She always looks so supremely confident. I may not be as alone as I thought I was.
Zivan gives me a push. “Stop dawdling, Remeny! You are blocking the way.”
“I was not!”
She pushes past anyway. She hates people to get between her and the sky. I don’t think she likes me very much. I don’t think she likes anybody very much.
Then I catch sight of the quondam’s face. Her watery eyes are staring at the chasm in front of us. She doesn’t look happy to be here.
Vannis elbows me aside too, almost making me fall.
“Going to cross that, Quondam?” he asks her, his sharp eyes examining the scene in front of him with enjoyment.
I turn to check out what he is pointing at. And gasp.
The sides of the chasm are slightly narrower here, about fifty yards, it seems to me. But there is
a needle of rock which has survived in the center. A real needle, with a perforation in the rocky outcrop making up the ‘eye’. Its spike reaches up, above the height of the sides of the drop. It is about ten yards long and perhaps two feet deep, leaving twenty yards to either side. It’s a long, long way out over a canyon. I give a gulp. It is also a tremendous drop down.
Furian walks right up to the edge, speaking to Karith. She points across at the rock pinnacle in the center of the canyon. The top of it is a huge circular ring, reaching high above us. The base of the rock really is a sliver of black which dips down to the floor of the chasm, hundreds of yards below. I squint against one of the suns at the top of the annular slit which makes up the eye of the needle. Right on top I can see a small indentation. Karith is pointing to this indentation and then putting her hands together and making swinging gestures. Furian is nodding but frowning at the same time.
He is wondering how we can get a rope over the top of the ring and then back to us.
I have a bad feeling about this. Of the people here, I am the only one who has worked in the domes. And I am a lot lighter than Furian. I don’t have to be an augur to see into the near future and I definitely don’t like it. Heights don’t bother me any more ... they don’t bother any of us who have had to work in the domes. But I’m pretty sure nobody can sling a rope halfway across a bottomless chasm and secure it well enough to take my weight. My heart is doing its best to shrink. I glare out, away from the canyon. I don’t want any of them to see the annoying dampness in my eyes.
But Torch does. He has moved much closer to us with his skulks now and is standing only a few lengths away from me. He puts his head on one side, considering me. Then his eyes move from me to the huge circle of rock in the center of the canyon. Understanding sparks in them as he realizes that the way forward is through the needle. He makes as if to lift one of his hands and touch me. I ignore him. I don’t want anybody’s pity. He drops his hand again.
Furian and Karith have come to an agreement. Karith is beckoning to Jethran. She gives him some sort of instruction and he moves off, signaling to Vannis to join him. They appear to be scouring the ground for something.
Kelfor- the Orthomancers Page 13