Basil, with a huge grin on his face and joy in his heart, pushed his way through the open gate and waved and shouted at his companions. Sandun and Olef came running up to greet him. His dog ran up and barked twice and then nuzzled his legs. Sir Ako and the rest of the expedition stood around their camp, waiting and ready for a fight.
“Basil Vono, my old friend, I have never been happier to see anyone in my entire life.” Sandun shook his hand. Olef came and kissed him on his cheek. “But what is this? Who are these?” Sandun asked as the Piksies came out of the revealed door. The Piksie soldiers stood with their weapons drawn, protecting the porters, who dropped the bags one by one in a line by the cliff face. After bowing to Basil, most returned inside. Lastly, Ruthal came out, blinking in the sunlight and holding his tablet and chalk and his old dictionary.
Although four of the guards stayed outside, the great door began to shut. Slowly the crack closed and then vanished.
Everyone crowded around Basil as he told the whole history of his journey through the city of the Piksies. When Ruthal heard their repeated use of the word Piksie, he frowned and said, “Dinmos. Dinmos!”
Basil tried to use the word, but Piksie kept slipping out as he described what he had seen.
When he got to the Ekmon’s gifts, he drew the knife out. They all looked at it, remarking over its workmanship and testing its edge.
Ruthal wrote emphatically on his slate board: “stone cut.”
He then gently took the knife from Basil’s hand and went over to a rock lying half buried in the ground. He pressed the knife blade firmly against the rock and slowly, the knife blade moved down and cut the rock into two pieces.
Everyone stood and stared with their mouths hanging open. Ruthal looked around at them and started to laugh. He laughed till tears streamed down his face, and soon everyone had to join in.
Basil used the knife to cut at the rock. He thought it was like cutting a piece of hard cheese. You applied a firm pressure, and the rock just parted. There seemed to be an odd sparking coming from the blade in the cut. He passed the knife to the others.
When Damar tried to wiggle the knife back and forth, Ruthal animatedly objected. Shaking his head, he wrote, “Only down,” and circled it twice.
“Perhaps it is brittle and only has strength in one direction,” Sir Ako proposed. “Swordsmiths can make wonder stone into a blade that holds an edge fine enough to cut hair, but if you strike the flat of the blade on an anvil, it shatters like glass.”
Now Basil drew out the sword; it was a medium-length blade, similar to the swords of the Piksie guards, straight but sharpened only on one edge. It had an odd notch near the tip.
Ruthal wrote, “copper cut.” He pointed to the dagger in Olef’s belt. She drew her dagger and Basil tried shaving a piece of the pommel off. Again, the strange sparking, an odd hum, and the Piksie sword cut through the metal pommel like peeling an apple.
Realizing the value of what he had been given, Basil felt very uncomfortable with the two Piksie gifts. Taking the sheath off the belt, he put the Piksie sword into it and handed it to Sandun, saying, “I don’t ever use swords, and as leader of the expedition, I want you to have this. I’ll keep the knife, though I imagine it’s useless for skinning.”
Sandun tried to refuse, but Basil would not budge. Sandun protested that Basil had given away his farseer glass and that the Piksie king had given him the gifts. Basil stood firm.
“I’m giving it to you, Sandun,” Basil said. “It was given to me and I’m giving it to you.”
Basil took Sandun’s farseer in exchange, but all of them knew that the “copper cutter” could be sold at the Seopolis market for the price of a small town, if they ever returned to Seopolis with the blade intact.
Relieved at the return of his friend and thrilled at the gift of the Piksie sword, Sandun formally drew the sword out. Holding it aloft, he said “I name this sword ‘Skathris,’ which comes from the ancient language of Pella.”
Sir Ako nodded. “That’s an odd weapon you have. I’ll have to train you so you can use it properly.”
Basil introduced Ruthal to Sandun and explained that he had difficulty in communications. Sandun and Ruthal sat down together in a shadow close to the cliff-door. Soon they were engaged in a dialog as the chalk dust blew about them. Basil and Kagne sat close by, watching intently and offering suggestions. The others went to inspect the packs, which indeed contained food.
Sandun asked about the sword and dagger, “How made?”
Ruthal wrote, “stone singer.” Seeing Sandun’s incomprehension, he continued and wrote, “piksie magic.” Then he laughed at his own joke and erased the words.
Sandun next asked about the stone giants. Ruthal looked up at the first giant, pointed at its face, and wrote, “old ekmon.” Then he wrote, “stone singer” followed by, “40 years.” Then he pointed at the sun in the sky and wrote, “187 years.”
Sandun wrote, “Why?”
But Ruthal could not explain; he spent fifteen minutes poring through his dictionary and finally came up with the words: “lake temple.”
The sun was dipping behind the western hills, and one of the Piksie soldiers came up and said something to Ruthal, who then nodded his head.
Using the chalk and some halting words, Ruthal explained that if they returned from Serica, they should stop by this place and that he would like to join them on their road back to Kelten. Sandun agreed at once but then wrote, “Why?”
“Kelten, ancient home – many songs – beautiful sea – beautiful river.” Ruthal then wrote, “see before die”
He looked at Sandun with such an expression of longing that Sandun himself felt the stirring of homesickness in his soul. It was as though Sandun was sitting in Ruthal’s clothing, gazing at a man who came from the mythical land of the blue ocean with its mighty surf and the quiet rivers that flowed peacefully through the great valley, only to return to his own shoes and realize that he was that man. His home was like a dream to other people, just as Serica was a dreamland for the people of Kelten.
“We will come back this way. Look for us next summer or the summer after.”
With that, Ruthal got up. They shook hands, and everyone came to bid the old Piksie farewell. Basil picked Ruthal up off the ground and hugged him. “A-Shosh-ee, Ruthal,” he said. “Till we meet again, with Sho’Ash’s blessing.”
The Piksie guards somehow got the attention of the others on the inside, and the gate opened again, very slowly.
Ruthal was about to go inside the stone door when a look of panic crossed his face. He hurriedly got down on his hands and knees and wrote, “dead city ghosts danger” on his tablet.
He showed this to Basil and Sandun and pointed east. With this ominous warning, he vanished inside the door, which then closed shut, leaving them alone before the gate.
The next morning, while they were rearranging their packs with the new food they had been given, they heard the sound of cow bells, as though they were back at Lake Tricon. Soon, five wooly goats appeared with empty packs slung across their backs. One Piksie, leading the rams, bowed to them and then vanished up the canyon from whence he had come.
Basil and Sandun did not doubt that this was the doing of Ruthal, and everyone was filled with gratitude toward the Piksies.
“I can die happy, now that I have lived long enough to see a Piksie giving me gifts,” Kagne said.
Everyone knew what he meant. In the children’s stories that the Keltens told, the Piksies usually took things and then disappeared into the wilderness, waving the items over their heads, chortling with laughter.
They loaded all the food onto the goats, who proved to be very docile creatures. No one in Kelten had used goats as beasts of burden for many years. Goats could not carry as much as mules, and their wool made them unsuited for the warm summer months in the great valley. However, within a few days, every
one had come to appreciate the woolly animals’ gentle nature.
Sandun thought that since the goats were always following the expedition and not going out of sight to graze for days at a time, he would take off their bells. Also, it was impossible to imagine they were traveling secretly with a band of musical mountain goats following along behind. But when he took off their bells, the goats stood there with such mournful expressions in their eyes that he relented and put them back on. They brightened up immediately, and after a day Sandun simply didn’t hear the tonking sound of the bells.
The expedition now set out north and west, hugging the northern side of the valley, looking for the path that would take them up and out of the valley of the giants. As they expected, the line of stone giants reached into the lake in the middle of the valley. Three giants were partially submerged and a fourth was almost completely underwater. They had been keeping count of the giants and had reached thirty-nine.
“I bet there are forty of these,” said Kagne. “The old man said forty.”
“He wrote that and then wrote 187 years,” Sandun corrected him.
“Maybe they built one every year for forty years? If you had several oversized stone cutters like Basil’s Piksie knife, I wager you could make a new giant every year.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Sandun replied.
Kagne smiled; it wasn’t often that he came up with a theory that Sandun hadn’t already thought of.
“And what do you suppose 187 years means?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s been that long since the start of the giant project or perhaps its end.” Kagne offered this suggestion, but further speculation was useless.
They found the trail out of the valley and followed it up to the high meadows. The snows had all melted, as it was now the middle of summer. When he wrote the log that evening, Sandun was surprised to discover that the expedition had been on the road for five months. Snow would start falling in another four months or perhaps sooner. How far had they come? Basil and Kagne were the best judges of distance traveled; they would argue over half-mile estimates at the end of most days. The expedition seemed to be inching its way along the map, but progress was steady.
The trail was becoming easier to follow. Farrel claimed this part of the trail had been used as recently as fifty years ago. Damar disagreed and put it closer to a century. Still, every time they found another trail marker, it lifted their spirits. They weren’t lost in the vast Tiralas; they were following a trail heading east, to Serica.
For several days, the trail took them up and down over some ridges that ran north to south. Finally, the route headed due south up a steep-sided canyon with a swift-rushing stream in the middle. When they reached the top, they found they were on gently rolling land with thick forests and curiously regular grassy fields between the bands of trees.
Then they discovered tree stumps in some of the fields. Unmistakable evidence of human activity, but from long ago.
At this point, Sandun did take the bells off the rams, and it was a silent and watchful group that traveled along the edge of the fields.
The sky, which had started clear in the morning, was now overcast and threatening rain. The only sound was the wind through the needles of the pine trees. When they halted for lunch, Sandun took out Jon of Stenston’s map and noted that they were likely near another of the curious marks.
“I hope it is not the city of the dead that Ruthal warned us against,” Basil said as he looked over Sandun’s shoulder at the map.
“Long-abandoned fields, no sight or smell of people living; whatever made you think we might be coming near to a dead city?”
“I can read the signs as well as any man, and I say no one has lived here for a hundred years.”
They were following the remains of an old road through another stand of trees. The road straightened out, and now they could see a gray lake ahead. Exiting the forest, they found the lake to be quite large; the road bent southward, staying close to the shore.
They passed to the right of several ruined houses partially concealed in some trees. As they reached the top of a low hill, they could see the length of the lake and, close to the foot of the hill, the remains of a ruined city.
They all sank low to the ground, and the scouts looked in all directions. Basil handed the farseer glass to Sandun after he had used it for several minutes. “Nothing human lives down there,” he said.
The town’s wooden buildings had all been destroyed by fire, leaving only remains. The larger stone structures were surrounded by piles of rubble. Sandun could barely make out traces of soot on some of the stone walls that were still standing.
Sandun had seen burned castles before, and fire had laid waste to the eastern half of Huripolis three years past, but the magnitude of this destruction left him feeling depressed. So much effort undone. So many lives and stories cut short. A few cities had reportedly been destroyed in the lands of the Archipelago over recorded history, usually the work of earthquakes or floods, but the temple did its best to keep the destruction of war to a minimum. Kelten, Issedon, and Fiodroch had captured each other’s towns and even cities upon occasion, but rarely had any towns been leveled.
He did not doubt that something terrible had happened here; this was no natural disaster. Most likely the town had been destroyed and all the inhabitants either killed or carried away as slaves. They all felt the same: no one wanted to go near the ruins. So they skirted wide around the town, staying close to the forest edge. In one field they saw human skulls protruding from the soil. Perhaps a group of townsfolk had been gathered here by the unknown assailants and executed. None of the expedition wanted to find out more.
By the evening, they were a mile south of the last buildings of the ruined town. Little was said by the fire that night save for speculation as to the identity of the attackers and the people who’d once lived here.
After midnight, Sandun woke to the howling of a dog. Basil’s dog never howled and yet now it was howling, a low, mournful wail, a long call into the silent night. The fire had gone out, but to the north, a faint glow came from the ruined city. Sir Ako was up and looking through his glass at the town. A wave of fear swept over Sandun. “What do you see? What do you see?”
Sir Ako’s voice was choked and strained. “The dead walk. Ghosts are coming out from the ruined city.”
Hundreds of pale, faintly blue translucent shapes were bearing down on them. The land before them seemed to glow as they passed over it.
“Get the fire going, for the love of Sho’Ash,” Sandun spoke in a daze. But as he watched the ghosts advance upon them, there was nothing but grunting and curses behind him. The coals were as cold as stone, and no spark would catch on the tinder. Now the ghosts were halfway across the empty field. Each was in the shape of a person, some short, some tall. Although they moved, they seemed to be drifting like wisps of glowing fog.
“We must flee!” cried Wiyat.
“No,” Sandun said in what seemed to him a quavering voice. “No ghost in Kelten ever harmed a person who stood their ground.”
“So certain, are you?” Sir Ako said. “We aren’t in Kelten anymore.”
“I’m certain.”
Ever since Ruthal’s hasty parting words, Sandun had been thinking about what they should do if they did encounter the city of the dead. There were a number of haunted houses in Kelten, and people in Seopolis commonly reported seeing a ghost wandering the execution grounds south of the city. But while the ghosts had often been terrifying, people had only been injured when they panicked and ran away in blind fear.
Now that he was staring with his own eyes at an army of ghosts, fear and panic threatened to rise over his mind and send him screaming away into the black forest behind them. But the coldly rational part of his mind refused to surrender. He put down his fear and walked out from the camp to meet the dead head on. Kagne joined him. Sandun lo
oked at him; his face was lit by the pale-blue light.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Kagne said.
Sandun was too anxious to respond. Instead he found himself repeating under his breath the credo of the Archive: “The greatest minds have passed away. The greatest kings are buried in tombs. We preserve the memory of the past so that their efforts shall not be wasted.”
Now the ghosts were almost upon them. He could see they were in pain, some screaming soundlessly, others twisting and jerking as if they were suffering their death agonies over and over. Some had no heads. Many seemed to be burning.
Behind Sandun, Basil was comforting his dog, and Sir Ako was going from scout to scout, telling them to be brave.
The first ghost came right to Sandun. It stared right through him with no recognition, no hint of comprehension in its eyes.
Although he could have stepped aside, he put his hands out and quietly said, “Begone.”
The sensation of touching the ghost was unlike any Sandun had ever felt before. His hands felt as if they were touching something and then nothing, and so fast was the transition it was almost beyond his ability to understand. And the ghost vanished.
Kagne put his hands out to ward off a ghost, and it vanished as well.
Seeing this drastic result, Sir Ako and Basil came over and stood beside them. One by one, the others stood up and came over, standing shoulder to shoulder, holding out their right hands, silently rebuking the unquiet spirits.
Sandun couldn’t say how long they stood there. He didn’t feel tired, no one talked, and the ghosts came on and on by the thousand only to vanish without sound on the hands of the living.
At the end, there were simply no more ghosts on the field. The night was old, but no sign of the sun was on the eastern horizon.
The Burning Tower Page 14
