My mouth drops open.
I walk down the short gallery. I can’t believe my eyes as I move into a main tunnel, which crosses this short one at right angles.
There are hundreds of trees in a huge cavernous space. They are all glowing, just as if they were on fire. They are simply stunning.
“Ruby, merigold, honey and fire.” Furian’s voice is full of wonder as he follows me. He touches the crystalline trunk of the nearest tree. “Now I know why the ancient timeworn thought they were a gift of the gods. I have never seen such an intense mix of color. It is ... I ... I have no words. I am glad I have survived to see them.”
“This is Kelfor?” Ammeline’s face is bathed in warmth, reflected in the light from the Forest of Flame. Her voice, too, is full of reverence.
“No.” Linnith’s voice sounds strange, as if it comes from a long way away. “No. The Forest of Flame is the entrance to Kelfor. Only the entrance.”
We begin to walk past the trees. There is no choice as to direction; this vast tunnel terminates only some fifty yards to our right, but appears to continue endlessly to our left. We turn left.
Trees crisscross our path, light our way, batter our senses with their scintillating light. We step past them, around them, over them, under them. The red and orange and yellow lights incandesce. They are blinding. I think I have found heaven. There can be no more magnificent place in existence.
But I haven’t seen Kelfor yet.
It takes us all that day and part of the next to make our way along the immense vaulted tunnel. Some of the trunks are twice as wide as I am tall. When they lie blocking our path it takes time to climb over them. When we rest, we forage around for broken branches. Many of these seem to be cut horizontally across in sections which are remarkably uniform in size. They make wonderful seats, each covered with all the vibrant colors of the forest, including a sort of deep violet shade which only highlights the reds and oranges. They are surprisingly comfortable, too. Wherever we stop, we leave little circles of stools, a testimony of our passing. They are only tiny marks of a transient species. Otherwise, we leave not one scratch, not one dent in the infinite stillness of these wonderful monuments of nature.
I think that no man could possibly invent anything so sublime. Try as they might, there could be no works of art that could rival this majesty. Beside these trees my own life is visible for what it is: a tiny agglomeration of living cells that will wither and crumble into dust in an insignificant fraction of time. These steadfast columns must have been standing here for hundreds of thousands of years, custodians of the universe itself. The whole forest, once, must have been green, alive, breathing. Now it has been transformed into such an assault on the senses that it leaves me reeling. Even after a full day and night here, I can hardly bring myself to blink. I continually have the sensation that if I close my eyes, it will all disappear. After weeks of desert drabness the richness and intensity is overwhelming. We – all of us – walk as if we are in a dream.
Ammeline has been quiet for some time. When she does speak, her voice is low. “We will never get out of here!”
I am surprised. I have been lost in contemplation of the Forest of Flame, and my first thought is: Who would want to?
But I don’t have a Scoriat boyfriend waiting for me above this magical underground world. There is nobody to drag my thoughts back to the surface.
I touch the amulet which is hanging from my neck under my tunic. I cannot believe we are trapped here. Not after the care that was taken to enable us to find this place. I am sure that the ancients had a plan. And I don’t think it involves dying of starvation in the Forest of Flame.
“We will make it out again, Ammeline.” I try to infuse my voice with certainty.
She turns on me. “Just what would you know?” she hisses. “What suddenly made you our savior?”
I take a step back. Her venom is unexpected. “I ... I have a feeling.”
“Oh? A feeling, eh? A feeling! So everything is perfectly all right, is it? None of us need worry because Remeny has a feeling! Great!” She marches ahead, leaving me staring at her rigid back.
Furian touches my arm. “Don’t worry, Remeny. She is ... not herself.”
He is her father. He is entitled to his opinion. Actually, I think she is acting just like she usually does. She is full of smiles if everything is going her way. She sours quite quickly if she is thwarted. It is strange how her face can change from attractive and pouty to spoilt and pouty. I smile back and mutter something. I can’t bring myself to agree with Furian. He looks away, slightly embarrassed.
Vannis gives a laugh. “You’ll never be able to bring your Scoriat here, Ammeline,” he taunts.
She swivels on one foot and stalks up to him, making his eyes bug out in surprise. “Leave. Me. Alone.”
His eyes snap with distaste. “No. You don’t deserve it. Your oh-so-handsome Scoriat is probably a spy; you are just too stupid to realize it.”
“He is so not a spy! You are as short-sighted and narrow-minded as my grandmother! Stop being so biased against them.”
“Biased?” He bursts out laughing. “They have been trying to kill us.”
“Well, that isn’t their fault, is it? They didn’t ask to be born that way, did they? They can’t help it if their genes were modified, can they? You talk as if they’d had some conscious say in the matter.”
His eyebrows are knotted together in confusion. “But they are Scoriats! They work for the Raths.”
“So what? Koban has his own mind. He has proved it!” Tears spring into her eyes. She includes all of us now in her gaze. “He has proved it! He has saved all of our lives. You should have let him come!”
Zivan, who has overheard, steps forward. “You are right about one thing. Scoriats have no choice. And that is wrong. But that doesn’t mean we can trust Koban. We do not know what he was ordered to do. But we do know that ... until now ... no Scoriat has managed to disobey his Rath masters.”
Ammeline has been listening with some disgust. “Your own son is a Scoriat!”
She shouldn’t have said that. Zivan has a knife at her neck within two seconds. “Take that back!”
Furian shakes his head. He moves quietly between them and pulls the knife out of Zivan’s hands. Her eyes are unrepentant, but she manages to mutter an apology before striding away. I see her hands still shaking.
Furian gives Ammeline a small shake. “Stop it! You know perfectly well that Torch is not a Scoriat. That comment was uncalled for.”
“He nearly was.”
“Nearly can be a world away. You should apologize.”
“I won’t. She is the one who should apologize. She pulled a knife on me. On me, a timeworn!”
Zivan’s lip has curled. I can’t blame her. I walk in her direction, hoping to show support, but her expression keeps me at a distance. Now is not the right time.
Furian has whispered some sharp comments in Ammeline’s ear. She is reluctant, but eventually stops murmuring and walks on. Vannis follows, whistling between his teeth in a way guaranteed to irritate her. Furian brings up the rear.
Doven helps Linnith over the next petrified trunk. He balances on the sharp bark and extends one hand back for me. After passing Kalyka up, I allow him to drag me to the top of the trunk. His eyes are still looking wistfully in Ammeline’s direction, but they are concerned too. He has realized that his goddess has feet of clay.
“She was allowed to do as she liked,” he says sadly. “She ought to have been made to work.”
That picture makes me laugh. “Yes. A few days in the dome would certainly have worn off that princess veneer.”
Doven frowns. “Remeny, why were you in the dome? If you are a timeworn, shouldn’t you have been protected?”
Something in my heart catches. This is a very old story. It has been told to me, many times, but it is one I have never had to retell before. I swallow.
“M-my father worked in the mines. My mother told me that he had a very good job. He was in cha
rge of classifying the stones. He was able to tell their size and purity just at a glance, she used to say.
“My mother was allowed to stay in the village. She used to visit the other karths, to talk to the children about Hethor, about its geography and about its legends. After she had me, she would take me with her. I would listen to the old stories all day as she moved from one group to another. The whole village liked her. She was respected by timeworn and unworn alike.
“Then, one day, there was a landslide in the mine. The Raths were furious. There was a vein of good stones close to the rock, and they were scared that the area would become unstable.”
I take a deep breath. My skin has gone cold as I recite the story my mother has repeated to me so many times. My stomach flutters with past fears as I speak. “—B-But there were hundreds of Inmuri buried under the rock. My father could hear them. He knew that many were still alive.
“He waited until the change of shift, when the Raths and their Scoriats were distracted, then he placed explosives in the right places.”
Doven has been listening intently. Now he is nodding. He has heard this part of the story; he knows how it will end. “That was your father?” he says. “He was a great hero.”
I smile. “He saved a hundred and seventy-two men and boys that day.”
Doven chews at his lip. “He ... he didn’t survive?”
“No. He was hung in front of the men he saved. The explosion buried the diamond vein and made the whole area unstable. The Raths lost a lot of money.”
I make my voice as calm as I can. “The next day they came for my mother and I and put us in Istak Dome. I was nine.”
Doven stares at me. “You were put in the dome at nine?”
I incline my head.
“That is young.”
“A little. Not much. Most Inmuri are chosen for the mine at eleven. Some at ten, if they are tall.”
“But you ... you are not.”
“No.”
“How did you ...”
“Survive? My mother. She held me up to the struts, pushed me over the dividers, kept me from falling. Until I grew larger and stronger. Until I could fend for myself.”
His eyes soften. “I am sorry, Remeny.”
“He did what he had to do. I am glad he saw the men freed before they hung him.”
“You and your mother never saw him?”
I shake my head. “He was cut down by one of my uncles. He never knew about us being sent to the domes.”
Ammeline is standing some way in front of us. “Are you lot coming or not?”
I shake my head. There are too many memories jostling for freedom inside there, where I normally keep them firmly locked away. I blink once or twice. People like me should have learned not to cry.
I leap down from the trunk. A small hand slips into mine. Kalyka is waiting for me. She pulls me down so that I can hear what she says.
“My grandfather was one of the ones he saved,” she tells me. “Every year, on the anniversary of his death, my family lights a candle for him.”
My treacherous eyes have become damp, after all. “I’m glad, Kally.”
“He was born timeworn, but he died unworn. That is what my grandfather used to say of him. It was the biggest compliment he could give.”
I bury my face in her hair as I pick her up and hug her. “I never even knew what the difference was. My mother never mentioned the timeworn to me after that.”
“Because you are both. You are the start of something stronger.”
I have to laugh. It all sounds very far-fetched.
Linnith is staring at me. “I didn’t know that story.” She looks over my shoulder, toward Furian. “Why didn’t the other timeworn do something about it?”
I am not sure if she is asking me or Furian. I shrug. “I suppose they couldn’t. Nobody can go against the Raths, can they?”
She sighs. “True.” But her eyes are worried. I can see she thinks they should have tried. Like I do.
Since the quondam died, it doesn’t matter to me so much. My bitterness is fading. It was all a long time ago. My mother was not timeworn herself. Perhaps she resented the way the timeworn stepped back as we were put into the domes. If so, she said nothing to me. I remember her sweet strength as she took care of me. She protected me from the Raths and their Scoriats. She found medicines for me when she had to. She found enough food and water for me to grow strong.
I realize how much she did for me.
Too late to tell her.
I don’t even mind the tear which slips down my cheek now. It is for her. One full, perfectly formed tear. She deserves it. And many more I no longer have inside me.
We walk on for all that day too. The tunnel, already immense, seems to be widening out even more, if that is possible. We sleep – fitfully – in the shadow of one of the largest upright trees we have seen. It is so big that all eight of us can sit side by side propped against the crystal bark and still look sideways at each other. The vibrant trunk soars above us until it is lost into the vaulting roof, maybe a few hundred yards overhead.
I lie, looking at that view, for long minutes before I manage to sleep. We never lit a candle to my father. How strange that he should be remembered that way by the people he saved, but not by his wife and daughter. I wonder why my mother never wanted to celebrate either his life or his death. She told me many times the story of his death, but it was told flatly. She put nothing of herself in the intonation. I couldn’t tell you if she approved or disapproved of his actions. He was a hero to many, perhaps not to her. Maybe, to her, he broke his marriage vows and abandoned his family to slavery.
I suppose the other timeworn must have been angry with him. He got himself killed before he could pass the orthomancer lore on to me. He didn’t fulfil his sacred trust.
I close my eyes. All I can think of now is how very hard it must have been for my mother to struggle on, and how little support I was to her. I can remember many days, but mostly I remember thinking about myself. I don’t think I ever contemplated helping her.
Perhaps children don’t. Perhaps they are meant to be so wrapped up in their own little worlds that nothing else enters. Was I normal? Or unfeeling? I don’t know. I do know that thinking about it makes me very uncomfortable. And alone.
I breathe in deeply. Then I open my eyes and force them to take in the beauty all around me. The soaring magnificence of the trees, the brilliance of their colors, the truly timeless wonder which surrounds us.
My anxiety slowly drains out into the surrounding air. I relax at last. My eyes close. I sleep.
Far above, in the starlight chill of the Hethor night, Graven has just managed to cross the Great Chasm. He has had to walk for many hundreds of miles to find a point where he could navigate this massive cleft in the land, but finally his dogged persistence has paid off.
There is now no obstacle between him and the girl. He is hungry again, but his physique is such that he can survive for long periods between meals.
He knows himself to be a Rath-made abomination. But he is unstoppable. They bred the need for blood into him. He was reared to track his quarry to the death. His or the quarry’s. There is no other possible outcome. To do that, the obsession must be strong. Graven cannot help himself. He wouldn’t want to. He is truly alive now. Alone in the desert he has come into his own. He was freed from the Rath domination some days ago. Now he is only concerned with his individual needs. Which are compulsive. They overpower any other will he might have had. He must go on until he finds the girl or dies. That is what was bred into him. That is what he will do.
The Raths wanted a new type of soldier, one who could be used effectively on planets of varying masses. They decided some years ago to expand their operations off-world. Their calculations concluded that the gravity on any planets useful to them for mining purposes would lie between that of Hethor and that of Maraz, which has about twice as much. So their soldiers must be able to operate on both planets. The Scoriats work well
on Hethor, but not on Maraz. The Vessans work well on Maraz, but not on Hethor. The need for a new model has always been obvious.
In addition, the Scoriats have been showing increasing signs of docility – not a trait to be desired in an army. They perform well as administrators, not so well as soldiers. Changes were necessary.
This new model – the Thrall – has one huge innovation. Rath genes themselves have been incorporated to provide the edge of ruthlessness missing from the Scoriats. The Raths do not regard any race except themselves as worthy of notice. The rest of the universe consists of metals for their delectation, and lower animals, to be used and bred up appropriately.
But Graven is the prototype of his race. He was never meant to wander the planet. Even though he is twice as strong as any other being on Hethor, this places him in danger.
There is no one following him. The Raths have put a silence notice over his escape. There is no Scoriat that can catch him, anyway. They know that he will track the girl until he kills her ... or she him. Since the latter is impossible, they assume that their specimen will simply die of inanition some time shortly after. Graven has been written off. The Raths are already continuing their trials with other specimens. A setback. Unfortunate. Not the end of the program. Modifications have been made. The Thralls must be strong ... but never strong enough to attack a Rath.
Graven, striding along the Karstik desert, has no idea of any of this. He is happy. The scent is now stronger. She is closer by. His journey is nearly over. His teeth are aching. They need her soft bones to assuage those pangs. His mouth waters at the thought. He moves even faster. His level of anticipation is almost at a maximum.
15.
We walk for around three hours the following morning before we become aware that we are nearing our final destination. There are fewer trees now, but those that we do pass are also bigger. The ceiling of the tunnel has risen sharply, too, so that it is opening out. We can no longer see it in some places.
We are not speaking very much. Our surroundings have hushed us. The others seem as aware as I am that we are about to witness something absolutely extraordinary. We are walking more quickly. Even Vannis has lost his habitual attitude of boredom. He is carrying Kalyka. I eye him sideways as we walk. Perhaps all of us have changed. It has been a long journey.
Kelfor- the Orthomancers Page 24