by Jen Williams
Wydrin laughed, putting Frostling away.
‘I’m not entirely sure that we were in mortal danger there, although you certainly have an impressive sword. Where did you steal it from?’
The girl scowled.
‘It’s mine. Well, it’s my dad’s, so it’ll be mine eventually.’ She drew herself up to her full height. ‘It is a royal sword.’
‘Varnie, we can’t stay here.’ Sebastian came forward, having divested himself of the remaining crabs. ‘This place isn’t safe. These creatures are the least of it.’
The girl shook her head firmly, sending her long hair flying.
‘I came all the way here, and I’m not going back until I know what happened to the king.’
‘Kid, you can’t go around believing in fairy stories,’ said Wydrin. ‘There’s no great secret here. Just some miserable caves and a lot of aggravated wildlife. Believe me, I’ve explored more holes in the ground than you’d want to know about, and do you know what’s always at the bottom of them?’ Wydrin shrugged. ‘Dirt, dust, and the footprints of whoever plundered it before you.’
‘I thought you would understand! You’re adventurers, sell-swords, scoundrels . . .’
‘Now, hold on,’ said Sebastian, looking faintly offended.
‘You should be as curious as I am,’ continued Varnie. With some difficulty she put her straight-bladed sword back in the sheath that was slung across her narrow chest. ‘Don’t you want to know what’s down there? There could be treasure. King Vestra was my ancestor, and if any of his things are still there, they are mine.’ She lowered her voice, and her tone took on an edge of pleading. ‘If there’s treasure, I will give you a share of it, as my loyal subjects.’
Wydrin snorted, but the girl carried on.
‘Look, I even found the queen’s chamber. It’s down a sharp drop that’s too far for me, but you could make it easily. I just want to go and look at it, and then we can go back. I promise.’
Wydrin sighed and put her hands on her hips. Sebastian shrugged, and retrieved the lamp from the floor.
‘Doesn’t it worry you?’ asked Wydrin. ‘That this place is supposed to be cursed?’
The girl raised her chin slightly, planting her feet in the black sand.
‘I have a king’s sword, and the blood of kings in my veins. I’m not afraid of anything.’
‘By the Graces . . . Is it far then, this chamber?’
It took them only a few moments to find the drop that Varnie spoke of. Sebastian’s lamp illuminated very little of the room beyond, although they could see the ground, littered with broken shells. It looked to be about six feet down. Sebastian peered into the gloom, and sighed.
‘Shall I go first then?’
He crouched until he was sitting on the edge, then turned and slowly lowered himself down. He landed with a crunch.
‘It smells even worse down here. Can you pass the lamp?’
Wydrin leant over the edge and carefully handed him the light.
‘Why is this so important to you, Varnie?’
The girl looked up, distracted. She was eager to see what the lamp would reveal.
‘I’m just curious.’
Wydrin raised an eyebrow.
‘Just curious? This is a dark and dangerous prank to pull in the name of curiosity, kid. Your family will be worried sick.’
‘No one else . . . no one else cares about this stuff. I’m sick of being treated like we don’t matter. At home, my mum repairs fishing nets until her fingers bleed, and my brother just sits in the tavern all day brooding. But we have the sword, and if the stories are true . . .’ In the dark Varnie was little more than a shape, but Wydrin could see how she lowered her head. ‘And I suppose you never did anything your parents didn’t want you to do when you were my age?’
Wydrin grimaced as the sound of Sebastian’s laughter drifted up from below. She pushed her boot towards the edge so that a small cascade of pebbles fell over the side.
‘I’ll have you know I was . . . relatively well behaved. Do you want to get down there or what?’
Awkwardly, the girl shuffled forward and with Wydrin holding on to her shoulders, she lowered herself down far enough for Sebastian to grab her and ease her down the rest of the way. Wydrin followed, scrambling down the rocky drop easily enough.
‘A quick look around,’ said Sebastian, picking up the lamp again. ‘And then we’re out of here.’
The chamber was much bigger than Wydrin had originally thought. Their small light sent a pale glow up walls carved from shining black rock, and the ceiling was lost to them. Here and there lay pools of stagnant sea water, and in the distance . . . faint blue and green lights.
‘There it is!’ cried Varnie, and in an instant she was off, running straight into the dark.
‘Wait!’ cried Wydrin. ‘You’ll break your bloody neck!’
She and Sebastian ran after the girl, taking care to look where they were putting their feet. The irregular light of the lamp swung wildly, sending shadows leaping everywhere. For the first time, Wydrin felt a stab of genuine unease. If there was something down here, they would never see it in time.
‘Varnie, where are you?’ Wydrin found she had drawn her dagger without realising it. ‘You better answer me right now, kid, or I will . . .’
‘Wydrin, look.’
Sebastian was pointing at the cavern floor. Beneath their feet, the grey debris of shell and sand had been replaced with bones; bleached yellow and white, they covered every inch of the floor. Wydrin could see the fine filigree bones of fish and birds, even a few big lizards, with teeth like rows of serrated knives. And skulls. Lots and lots of human skulls.
‘Oh great.’
They heard Varnie cry out from just ahead of them. She was kneeling on the floor amongst the bones and the muck, her hands full of round, marble-like stones. There was a big heap of them where she knelt all green and blue, glass-like and shining. Next to Sebastian’s lamp they seemed to glow with an eerie light of their own.
‘Is this King Vestra’s treasure?’ the girl asked, holding them up eagerly. ‘These must be jewels of some sort. Emeralds or sapphires or something.’
Wydrin reached down and picked one up, turning it over in her fingers. Up close, the surface was pitted and scratched, the substance murkier than glass. She took a deep breath, and forced a smile.
‘Afraid not, Varnie. There’s a type of lizard that lives in damp places, you see. My mother used to call them Fie-Lizards, and they can give you a serious nip if you aren’t careful. They eat by shovelling mud into their mouths and filtering it through their stomachs. The grit and the sand that gets left inside eventually gets pressed down into these.’ She held the bauble up to the light and it shone. ‘Fie-pearls. Eventually the lizard dies, its bones rot, and this is left behind. There are places that will buy them off you to make cheap jewellery, but they’re not treasure, not by anyone’s definition. Sorry, kid.’
The girl looked down at the fie-pearls in her hands. ‘These have all been in lizards’ guts?’ Abruptly she dropped them back on to the ground.
‘It’s easy to see where the stories about the lights have come from,’ said Sebastian. ‘And it’s also pretty clear that we aren’t the first people to come down here.’
Varnie looked up and, for the first time, seemed to notice all the bones around her. She stood hurriedly, one hand on her sword hilt.
‘I still want to look around,’ she said. ‘I’ve come this far.’
They searched the rest of the cavernous chamber rather more carefully, but much to Varnie’s obvious disappointment, they found no treasure, no crowns, no ancient lost swords, and no throne made of bones. Eventually Wydrin called a halt.
‘There’s nothing here, kid. You can’t say we haven’t had a good poke around.’
‘But the bones . . .’
‘Probably just looters chasing after the same stories as you,’ said Sebastian, his voice soft. ‘They came here and got lost. A bad place to die, down
here in the dark.’
‘Yes, which is why we’re leaving now, no more arguments,’ said Wydrin, crossing her arms over her chest. ‘Right, Varnie?’
The girl looked for a moment as though she might argue again, but then she lowered her head.
‘I s’pose so.’
They made their way back towards the portion of wall they’d climbed down. Wydrin briefly rested a hand on Varnie’s shoulder.
‘Don’t take it too hard, kid. These sorts of stories, about monsters hidden away beneath the earth, they’re never true. And it’s probably better that they’re not, right? You’ve got a good head on your shoulders though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if . . .’
There was a thunderous crash, and all at once the ground beneath Wydrin’s feet shuddered and seemed to drop away. She heard Varnie scream – a single high-pitched note – and the cavern was full of lights: green and white and blue. Wydrin had a moment to register the sound of Sebastian drawing his sword before she hit a wall of freezing-cold water. She gasped, trying to draw air into her suddenly frozen chest, then she was under, the water closing over her head like a shroud.
Wydrin twisted, trying to get a sense of where she was. She had apparently fallen into a pool that had just opened up in the cavern. Above her she could see shimmering lights, and something that could have been Sebastian, standing at the lip of the pool, but the sea-water was stinging her eyes and already it was difficult to hold her breath.
Ye gods and little fishes.
Wydrin kicked for the surface, knowing full well that the longer she stayed in such cold water the less strength she would have to drag herself out, but she was wearing heavy leathers with two daggers on her belt, and the water did not want to let her go. She reached up, wondering why Sebastian wasn’t lowering his sword or his belt for her to grab on to, when suddenly something took hold of her foot and she was dragged down into the dark.
Panicking, Wydrin turned around in the water, trying to get a look at what had taken hold of her. There was something grey down there: a sinuous shape made of shadows and murderous intent.
A shark.
Unable to stop herself, Wydrin cried out, losing the mouthful of air she had been holding and replacing it with bitter sea water. The shark had a hold of her boot somehow, and was swimming down into the dark with powerful thrusts. It looked to be a good five feet long, the grey skin of its sleek body dappled with darker grey stripes.
The light was going fast. Wydrin drew Ashes and lashed out with the blade, but she couldn’t quite reach the shark. Instead she slashed at her own boot, cutting at the piece of leather closest to the shark’s lethal snout. Her vision was turning black at the edges now, her chest a growing furnace of pain. One lucky cut and abruptly she was free. Without stopping to think she kicked desperately away, no longer sure which way was up. She didn’t feel cold anymore, which in itself seemed to be a bad sign.
And then out of the dark two more sinuous shadows were wheeling towards her, twins to the shark that had caught hold of her boot. They were moving fast, so much faster than Wydrin could manage, and she knew with a sudden terrible clarity that she would die down there.
She looked up, determined at least to see light for the last time, but before she could make out anything solid the first shark hit her, barrelling painfully hard into her chest and pushing . . . no teeth, just its blunt head and a terrible pressure. Wydrin flailed, her hands slipping over its strange, rough skin. It nosed her harder, pushing relentlessly and forcing her up. There was, she realised, more light; she could see the animal’s eye, round and black and full of sorrow.
What is happening?
She hit the surface of the water with so much force her upper half flopped awkwardly on to the floor of the cavern. Her lungs roared with pain and she gasped desperately, knowing she would never get enough air: it was too late, too late.
Child of the salt. A woman’s voice in her head, cutting through the pain. It was warm and cold at the same time, a voice like water flowing over ancient stones. Daughter of the sea. You head towards a darker tide, and it is not time for you to join us yet. You will see us again.
‘Wydrin? Wydrin, are you all right?’
She turned on to her side and coughed up cold sea water. The pain in her chest was lessening already, and when she opened her eyes she could see Sebastian’s face looking down at her, creased with worry.
‘Did you see them?’ she croaked.
‘See what?’ Sebastian frowned. ‘Listen, Wydrin, we have to get out of here, this whole place is unstable. Can you walk?’
Varnie was kneeling next to the big knight, her face grey with shock. She suddenly looked a lot younger than the girl who had gone running off into the dark.
‘It was like the ground swallowed you up,’ she said.
Wydrin grimaced and, leaning on Sebastian for support, dragged herself to her feet.
‘It was the sea, kid,’ she said. ‘The sea swallowed me up. Come on, let’s move.’
Later, Wydrin would remember very little of the journey back to the coast. At some point in the dark tunnels she passed out, and Sebastian carried her the rest of the way over his shoulder, Varnie walking in front with their lamp held in both hands. What she did remember was sitting on the miserable little beach with Sebastian’s cloak wrapped around her, while a small fire burnt oily flames. It was late afternoon, and the sky was overcast. She couldn’t stop shivering.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Varnie again. The girl was sat on the opposite side of the fire with her knees tucked under her chin. She had taken the sword belt off and it lay next to her on the sand. ‘I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.’
‘Hey, I’m fine.’ Wydrin smiled. In truth she had a stinking headache and her throat was raw, but the girl’s brother would soon be coming with the boat. A hot bath – several hot baths – a bottle of mead and then she would be fine. ‘You know, Varnie, being a princess is all well and good – I imagine there are banquets in your honour and fancy dresses and it’s true that people have to listen to you if you’re royalty – but being an adventurer isn’t a bad option either. You can do what you like, when you like, and best of all, you don’t need anyone to tell you whether you are one or not. You just go and do it.’ She paused – it was painful to talk for any length of time. She slipped a hand inside her pocket and pulled out one of the fie-pearls – it was a green one – and passed it to the girl. ‘Also, if you’re going to be an adventurer, you’ve got to learn to fill your pockets while you’re looting. It’s not much, but it’s a start.’
The girl looked up at her, a fragile smile on her face. She turned the fie-pearl over in her fingers.
‘Although,’ continued Wydrin, ‘you’ll probably want to give that a bit of a wash first.’
Varnie nodded and scrambled off to where the sea met the sand. She crouched there, letting the seawater run over her hands.
‘So, what was that all about?’ asked Sebastian in a low voice. He was carefully heating a battered tin cup over the fire, but now he was looking at Wydrin with a shrewd expression on his face. ‘Everything was shaking down there, weird lights all over the place, and then you just jumped back out of the water as if something threw you out.’
Wydrin shrugged.
‘I don’t know about ancient kings or “women of strange aspect”, but there was something in those caves, Sebastian. And it was capricious, just like the sea.’ She paused, remembering the shadowed, lethal shapes that had knifed through the water towards her, and the pure certainty of her own death. Then that warm and cold voice, making a different choice at the very last moment.
‘I’d say you had a lucky escape then,’ said Sebastian. He briefly rested a hand on her arm. ‘I am glad. Ours would have been a very short partnership otherwise.’
Wydrin smiled faintly. The Graces had told her that they would see her again; she rather hoped not. She had had more than enough of monsters in the dark. She gratefully took the tea that Sebastian had brewed, thinking again of
the three sharks; deadly, sorrowful. Beautiful. ‘Buggered if I know what it was all about. Hey, you know I was talking about getting a tattoo . . .?’
Keep reading for an exclusive extract from Jen Williams’s upcoming book
Out February 2015
1
It was Siano’s turn to walk the sky-chain.
She touched the tips of her fingers to the pitted rock of the cliff face behind her, taking satisfaction in its familiar solidity. Below her the tiny province of Apua crowded within its crevasse, the stacked red bricks of the monasteries fighting for space, and on the far side, the twin to the cliff she now perched on sat like a thick bank of storm cloud. Between the two cliffs hung the greatest of the sky-chains; the sky-chain for the Walk of Accuracy.
The chain itself was a wonder, each link a foot wide, and made of gold. Or at least, that was what Father Tallow said, although personally, Siano suspected the gold was only a covering and, underneath, the chain was made of something a little more reassuring. It stretched away from her and dwindled to a fine golden line high above even the tallest of the monasteries, until it met the far wall. Beneath it, Apua was teeming with people going about their daily lives, but you could be sure that there would always be a few pairs of eyes looking up, because you never knew when someone might attempt to walk a sky-chain. You never knew when someone might fall.
Siano had walked all three chains more times than she could count.
She stepped out from the small platform built into the rock and placed her foot on the first great link, testing its strength, feeling the soft thrum as the wind pushed against it, and the slower, more gentle rocking underneath that. She had taken her boots off and her bare foot looked warm and brown against the sun-bright gold.
‘Are you going to take all day, Siano?’ came a voice from behind her. She glanced back to see Leena grinning at her, nervous energy making her step from foot to foot. She was another of Father Tallow’s pupils, but she had yet to walk a single sky-chain or take a single life. Siano pitied her.
