The Exalting

by Dan Allen

Dana felt a hand on her opposite shoulder and flinched.

  “Dana.”

  It was Kaia.

  “It’s time to go.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s first night of winter, Dana. You don’t want to miss the party.”

  A party? Spending all night staying up with the other acolytes feasting and dancing, sharing stories . . . spending time with Ryke. She didn’t want to miss it. But the rangers were counting on her. Lives would depend on those greeders.

  “I should probably stay with the ani—”

  “Dana, you’ve done all you can.”

  That’s not true. Dana no longer tried to fight the thought. I could take the bloodstone and become the ka. On occasion, Dana hated herself for even having the thought. But at times like this, it just seemed pointless to question the growing temptation.

  “They’ll all still be asleep when you get back,” Kaia said.

  It was true. Greeders were notoriously late sleepers.

  Kaia slipped an arm through Dana’s and moved her toward the exit. She was low on will anyway and didn’t want to spend what she had left avoiding fun.

  Together they stepped out of the infirmary into flutters of drifting snow flakes. Then Dana shook her arm loose and tucked her hands in her pockets. In the falling snow, lanterns in the street glowed like the full moons behind the clouds.

  Why can’t it always be like this?

  She wanted peace. She wanted everything to be right. But so had Vetas-ka. He had wanted peace. He had come to save Shoul Falls from a war so long ago.

  I’m not like Vetas-ka.

  “Everyone says you are.” Mirris leaned against the piled stone wall of the infirmary, her arms crossed. “Vetas-ka wasn’t afraid to stand up for what he believed in. You’re no different.”

  “Stay out of my head.”

  Kaia motioned with her hand. “Mirris, that’s enough.”

  Dana stopped in the street. “And what if I am? What if the city chooses me, because they see stubbornness enough to put up with it all? They see hope in me, Mirris. Why can’t you see it?”

  Mirris continued walking. “That’s all you see. You’re blind to everything else.”

  “What’s she talking about?” Dana said.

  Kaia shrugged.

  Mirris’s angry pace took her into the darkness ahead of them, leaving Dana alone with Kaia.

  “She’s untrusting,” Kaia said as they stepped through the back gate of the city.

  “Yeah. I noticed.”

  “It’s her best quality,” Kaia added.

  “Probably.” Dana trudged in Kaia’s footsteps as the dark pine forest devoured the sky and surroundings, leaving all to shadow.

  “Not everyone is out to get you, Dana,” Kaia reminded.

  “Oh sure, just—” Dana froze. There were no animals nearby. That could mean only one thing. Dana grabbed Kaia and crouched down.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Ambush.” Dana’s heart raced a hundred leagues an hour. Movement stirred in the trees on all sides. Footsteps came crashing through the brush.

  Dana reached out, but any animal capable of protecting her had long since fled. By the sound of it, dozens of people were headed for her.

  Dana had vowed not to ever allow this to happen. How had her enemies gotten so close without anyone noticing?

  The figures in the forest took vague shapes as they neared. “Kaia, run.”

  “Stand up, silly.”

  “What?”

  A chorus of voices rang out together. “Joyous birthday to Dana, may her next year shine bright. Celebrate her beginning of the rest of her life!”

  Dana buried her face in her hands. “Oh, you guys. I thought I was going to die!” She pointed at Mirris. “You got me all worked up on purpose so I didn’t notice anything.”

  Ryke was laughing so hard he could barely get a breath in. “Do you realize how hard it is to sneak up on you?”

  Dana turned to Kaia. “Were you in on this?”

  Kaia turned up her palms.

  “So, there’s no such thing as first winter night festival, is there?”

  Mirris gave her a congratulatory slap on the back. “There is now!”

  Ryke put his arm around Dana. “The kazen are off on some meditation on the holy mountain. We have the sanctum to ourselves.”

  It was far too good to be true. But Dana didn’t care. She grabbed onto Ryke’s arm to prevent him letting go and looped her arm through Kaia’s. She wasn’t going to let her friends out of her sight again.

  Behind its leather flap doors, the sanctum was chilly, though furs, fire, and steaming mugs brought enough warmth to keep the group singing and laughing at stories until Kaia sent the younger acolytes to bed.

  Once she returned, Mazen, another alchemy acolyte with a shaved head and oversized muscles, suggested a trip to the hot room.

  Dana’s eyes widened. “There’s a hot room—besides the sacred one?”

  “Yeah, but the kazen don’t let us use it,” Mirris said.

  Well that was no longer a problem.

  After filling waterskins from a chamber off the main river, the entire company of teenage acolytes—numbering fifteen, as far as Dana could tell—walked hunched over along a narrow passage, past an old supply room, then climbed down through a narrow hole and spread out in a steamy, low-ceilinged, sand-floored chamber, setting a few glow candles in the soft sand to light the room.

  Soothing heat warmed Dana’s back as it rose through the soft sand. Her eyes drifted shut. More acolytes piled into the room until almost everyone’s arm or stomach was being used as a pillow.

  “It would be hot enough in here anyway,” Mirris complained, “even if there weren’t so many people. Hey—who farted!”

  The group moaned and whined, pushing away from the corner of the room where the foul had been committed. Once the air had cleared, the room fell into a still silence.

  “So, what did everyone do today?” Dana asked.

  “Besides plan your surprise party?” laughed a girl named Kees. She was a few years younger than Dana and drew plenty of attention with her early spreading sifa and perfect face. She was an alchemy acolyte as well, but apparently only used her gift to sense elements, checking drinking water or testing alchemical recipes formulated by other acolytes.

  “How did you know it was my birthday? I didn’t even remember.”

  Mirris lifted her head. “People’s moods change when they get close to their birthday. They get more philosophical. They get more hopeful. It’s not that hard to notice if you know what to look for.”

  “And you got the exact day, just by guessing?”

  “No, I—it’s a trade secret.”

  “She touched you while you were sleeping and dragged it out of you,” said Kaia.

  Dana rolled her eyes. What else would she expect? She couldn’t begrudge them that. But it did make her wonder what else they had dragged out of her.

  Dana reached out, her hand touching Ryke’s side. He made a sound like a sneeze and wiggled away. Dana reached out again, confused by his reaction.

  He gasped and caught her hand, holding it back.

  “Are you ticklish? Guys, Ryke’s ticklish!”

  “No!”

  A dangerous assault commenced in the low-ceilinged chamber as people tried to tickle Ryke and found the task much harder than they had expected.

  “He’s too fast. Just give up.”

  “I got this,” Dana said. “I’ll just wait until he’s not expecting it.”

  “You already got me twice.”

  “It is so hot in here.” Mirris stripped off her long-sleeved shirt. Dana couldn’t begrudge her that. It was too dark to be immodest, and she still had on her tie-top. Within minutes everyone had followed. The waterskins were passed around, and Dana drank eagerly. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she had become. She rolled onto her stomach and lay feeling more content than she ever had, until Mazen and Timmet, a warlock with far less interest i
n his gift than in pranks, took pains to flick drops of cold water at anyone who looked too comfortable.

  A cold drop hit Dana in the small of her back. “That actually feels good.”

  Then a rush of cold water spilled onto her back, and Dana squealed as she rolled over, intent on catching the culprits. But she sat up too fast and hit her head on the ceiling. “Ow!”

  That set the whole group laughing raucously.

  “Don’t lose your cool, Dana,” Timmet teased.

  “Funny.”

  The comment immediately brought to her mind the mechanodron Dana had left in the limestone cave, capable of regulating the temperature of a person in a room such as this. Wait a minute.

  Dana rubbed her sore forehead and tried to find Kaia’s long-legged shape. “Hey Kaia, how often do the kazen do these meditation trips?”

  “Huh?”

  “When was the last time they all left together?”

  “Um . . .” she exchanged a glance with Ryke. “I don’t . . . well, this is the first I remember.”

  “So, all the kazen head up the sacred mountain, leaving us to any sort of mischief we want, and we just completely fall for it?”

  Kaia sat up. “What are you talking about?”

  “Why all of them at once? Why not take turns meditating?” Dana said. She knew the answer. It could only be because none of them trusted the others enough to allow it. And they couldn’t risk getting someone like Dana involved.

  Ryke sat up near Dana. “What if they went out to look for the bloodstone?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But it could be anywhere,” Mirris noted.

  “No,” Ryke said. “The bloodstone is in water, so it has to be somewhere along the line of the limestone formation. They can stick to a single contour.”

  “And it’s pulsing,” Kaia said. “They can just check any of the caves with pools. If they go too far the pulses will be going out instead of in.”

  Dana’s throat clenched. They’re going to find it. No wonder they weren’t worried when I showed up without it.

  Dana could have slapped herself. It was idiotic. They would track the bloodstone’s pulses until they triangulated its position. She should have thought of that. Perhaps it was the exhaustion and sleep deprivation.

  It was going to be easy to find—and she thought she had the perfect hiding place. What was worse, they would find the mechanodron as well.

  Dana drew a hand to her mouth. Not only would they know that she had made it, but they could simply add fuel sap and watch it work. They would figure out what it was for and that she had intended to take the bloodstone.

  That would not be good.

  Then a worse thought struck her.

  They could use it. They could take the stone to the chamber and use the mechanodron. Anyone could become the ka—even Korren.

  And what if one of them had sold out to Vetas-ka?

  Without a word, Dana grabbed her shirt and climbed over confused bodies, making her way to the exit.

  “Where is she going?”

  Dana stopped as she reached up to lift herself out of the hot room. “You all knew Sindaren. He died trying to take the stone to my grandfather because he didn’t dare leave it in Shoul Falls.”

  “What’s your point, Dana?” Kaia said.

  “Do you think we should just lie around here and let his sacrifice go to waste?”

  Ryke moved first. “She’s right. We cannot trust the kazen if Sindaren did not. He was an enchanter.”

  “You can’t be serious? Going out in the cold at night?”

  Dana didn’t recognize the voice. But it didn’t matter who said it. Everyone was thinking it. “I don’t need everyone,” Dana said. “I just need Ryke and Mirris.”

  Kaia put an arm out, holding Mirris in place. “She’s too young.”

  “I am not,” Mirris said.

  Mirris likely wasn’t half the enchanter that Remira was. But at least she could detect if the kazen tried to manipulate their thoughts.

  “Can you carry something heavy while you run?” Dana asked.

  Mirris seemed to be staring at her from the shadows. “I’m stronger than I look.”

  She probably was, Dana had to admit. Mirris was shorter, but her build was somewhat athletic.

  “What about the rest of us?” Mazen asked.

  “Can you create some kind of distraction, something that would draw the kazen back to the city?”

  Timmet laughed and pointed a thumb at Mazen. “You are asking an alchemist if he can create a distraction?”

  “Good. I am counting on it,” Dana said. “Let’s go.”

  Dana pulled on her shirt while she navigated back to the commons, the entire group of acolytes following her. She grabbed her coat which was hung by the fire and borrowed Kaia’s gloves. Ryke came in from the opposite way, staff in hand, as Mirris came in stomping her feet into her boots.

  “Where is it hidden?” Ryke asked.

  “About three miles north,” Dana said. “Is there any way to approach without being seen?”

  “Follow me.”

  Ryke lead the way to the north exit, one that was far more convenient for accessing the city than the back-way Dana had first come through.

  “What if they left a sentry?” Mirris said.

  “Then I knock them out,” Ryke said plainly.

  “You would attack your own kazen?” Mirris asked.

  “I don’t have time to sort friend and foe,” Ryke said as he raced alongside Dana. “If one of them is trying to steal the bloodstone, then we have to stop them all.”

  “They aren’t going to leave a sentry,” Dana said. “They don’t trust each other a lot more than they don’t trust us. If they had wanted to leave a sentry, they would have left us a babysitter.”

  “Here goes.” Ryke raised his staff and burst out the camouflaged door.

  There was no one waiting.

  “Told you.”

  “We’ll take the ridge to the first summit.” Ryke pointed up the mountain. “It’s all clear on the south slope—no bushwhacking through trees. There is a sandy wash in the next canyon. We can run down the sand full speed until we hit the limestone layer—the wash can’t really be seen from below. We’ll have cover right up until the last few hundred yards.”

  Dana surveyed the mountainous scene. It was luck that the falling snow wasn’t yet sticking. The ground was still clear.

  “Then let’s go.”

  Dana was a little surprised that Ryke was so strong on the climb, and even more surprised that Mirris kept up, apparently determined not to fall behind Ryke’s punishing pace.

  They climbed just below the ridge on the south side so their silhouettes would not be visible. Coming near the top of the ridge, the lights of city below glowed in the distance—but far brighter than she had expected.

  “It’s on fire!” Ryke pointed with his staff. “Some building is completely ablaze.”

  This had to be Mazen’s distraction.

  “That should bring them back,” Mirris said, leaning over to catch her breath.

  “On then,” Dana urged. “Only one and a half more miles.”

  “Only?” Mirris moaned.

  “It’s not as steep on the ridge,” Ryke noted. “Let’s pick up the pace.”

  But on the ridge, there was already a first downy layer of slippery snow.

  Dana kept busy trying not to twist an ankle. Sister moon was barely bright enough to show the uneven edges of loose stones under the growing blanket of white. Dana’s hands and nose were cold, but the sheer exertion kept her core warm.

  Near the end of the traverse, the way narrowed. Cliffs grew on either side until there was only one way forward: straight down.

  Mirris gawked at the steep chute. “That?”

  “The middle of the wash is sand. You can run full speed. The sand absorbs the impact.”

  “You’ve done this before?” Mirris asked.

  “Oh, yeah. It’s great.” Ryke took off ru
nning down the mountain. His steps grew to massive leaps.

  “Watch out for rocks,” Dana said. She ran ahead, picking up speed at a dangerous rate, until her feet found the narrow rivulet of coarse sand in the center of the canyon vee. Her boots sank several inches with each great bound.

  Racing down a sacred mountain at night—at least she couldn’t complain about lack of adventure. Although she felt like screaming from the sheer terror of it.

  The slope lessened slightly as the wash came to a rocky outcropping. Dana spotted the cliff edge and swerved to one side, barely able to keep up with her pinwheeling legs as she rapidly ran out of room. The valley stretched out in front of her, and for one glorious moment she was sure she was headed over the edge. But two quick steps up the steep side-slope burned the last of her momentum.

  Heart pounding, Dana looked back. Mirris had swerved to the other side and was standing near Ryke. Far above was the top of the wash. Dana had just come down the better part of a half mile in a minute plus.

  “Whoa.” She scampered back to where Mirris and Ryke stood.

  “Okay, now where is the stone?” Mirris said, her voice quiet.

  “This way . . . I think.” Dana said quietly. “Do you sense anyone else?”

  Mirris shook her head.

  “Okay. Follow me.” She stepped down the rocky slope, picking her way on a traverse, away from the trickle of a waterfall that carried snow runoff over the edge of a thirty-foot drop. Dana tried desperately to avoid that deadly direct descent. Roots and brush made for tenuous handholds as she came level with the limestone layer.

  Anxiously, Dana reached out, trying to sense the animals in the region, without making them aware of her own growing fear. It was a delicate balance. Each creature had its own threshold. And if Ritsen was out there, he might notice a suddenly anxious animal. It was what Dana was trying to do—see if any of them were being influenced.

  To be safe, she stopped trying to sense the animals. She needed a strong will to survive. Without it, she might simply elect the easier option: falling.

  As the rock descent grew steeper, Dana had to face the rock and feel for footholds. Finally, she looked down to find the next hold and realized she had reached the bottom.

  Ryke jumped the last six feet and took Mirris’s hand as she leapt to the solid soil. Both took a tumble as Mirris’s feet hit a slick patch of snow.