by Alex Bentley
It is not Slek Mydra.
It is a man of sorts. If a man were made of sticky, steaming rope and had no face, only a hole where a face should be.
The hole speaks.
“It is coming,” says the hole. “The Gravene.”
Chapter 25
The Gates of Utlath
“What?” says Casmel. “Was it Mydra?”
I can still smell and taste the dryness, the greyness of that other place.
I sit up. Casmel and Ethra are staring at me impatiently.
“Was it?” says Ethra.
“Yes.”
“Where were they?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t recognise it from our route.”
“Maybe they’ve lost our trail,” says Casmel.
“Maybe the Sceada has decided to take you up on your offer, Cass,” says Ethra.
I shake my head.
“He would not,” I say. “It is not in the nature of the Sceada. But Casmel could be right. With Syrunn gone, they would have had a harder task of following us.”
“I give thanks to Gewith if that is so,” says Casmel.
“Luck,” I say, more to myself than anything, “is a bucket with a hole.”
I notice then that the sun is creeping over the horizon, turning the sea to molten metal. Already, there are boats out there on the water, just little silhouettes. There are only a few gulls and they are mostly silent. Against the quiet, I can hear the waves and the occasional call of a fisherman as he hauls in his net. It is peaceful, calming. I let it soak into me, as bread soaks in a strengthening broth. I suspect it is the last peace I will know, that we will know, for quite some time to come. I find myself thinking of Dwynan Furral, the boy I kissed more than a year ago, behind the Jarl’s stable, during the Festival of Seros, and how his lips were soft and tasted of yellowberries. He had always spoken—when we spoke, before that kiss silenced him on all subjects—of his dream to build a boat and live the life of a simple fisherman, working the waters at Brim and along the west coast.
“We’d best get going,” says Casmel, placing a hand on my arm. “How’s the leg?”
I give it a little flex. It aches, but not nearly as much as it had before the application of last night’s poultice.
“Not too bad,” I say. “Thank you. For the balm and for coming with us to Utlath.”
He just nods, stands and begins gathering up the camp.
We are riding before the sun has freed itself of the horizon. I am back on Skep now, and Ethra is riding with Casmel. For some reason, I thought to tell Casmel that my leg wasn’t quite up to the ride and I would sit with him, but then I felt silly, said nothing and just climbed onto my own mare. We cross the Fisher Road then cut across scrubland until we are on the Coast Road, about a mile south of Leax. It is an uphill ride with a brisk wind off the Eeffenn Sea, and we do not speak for several hours. We do not speak until we see the city of Utlath, the Dead City, begin to rise, seemingly from the ground like some vast and outlandish tree ahead of us.
Its three towers come into view first, spiralled round one another, just like on the map El had shown us the morning we set off on our journey. How the city’s architects succeeded in twisting the huge, white stones from which the tower is made, I cannot imagine. Until I remember that this is a city made by Glysters, a place so drenched in the Glyst that the smallest stone chipped from its walls and drilled with a hole will cry out when it senses the presence of a Glyster.
As the city rises, smaller towers begin to join the central trinity. Some of these are twisted about one another, too. Some taper to needle-like points, some are domed, others are fatter at the top than the bottom, like mushrooms. Some have so many windows it is a wonder they do not collapse as they are more nothing than something. Some have no windows at all. There is an intricate network of walkways between towers. Trees grow from some roofs, and the walls of many of the towers are cracked and ivy-laced.
The walls loom into view next. They circle the city, but not evenly as I’d imagined. Their path is snaking, undulating and miles long. They are made of the same white blocks as the towers, but each block is colossal. Here and there, stones are missing. The gaps left behind could contain our roundhouse, or possibly even the Jarl’s squarehouse. Some stones are carved with the faces of men and women: old, young, beautiful, grotesque. There are steps zigzagging down to each carving from the crenellated top of the wall. For maintenance, I assume.
The Coast Road reaches its zenith before steeply sloping down toward the city. From here we can see the moat that surrounds the city, fed by the nearby Eeffen Sea, and we can see the Gates of Utlath.
The Gates of Utlath, closed tight, are made from the wood of trees that would have to be three-hundred-feet high and a hundred-feet wide at breast height. But the gates themselves are not what cause me to cry out—and cry out I do, unable to help myself—it is what stands at one side of the gate that has this effect. And not just on me. Casmel and Ethra both make sounds of shock and wonder.
On one side of the gate, carved into the stone, is a wolf. Its mouth is open wide, revealing ferocious teeth and a lolling tongue. Its mane is thick, and its body and limbs strain with muscle. On the other side of the gate is a woman. She is cloaked, carries a bow, nocked, anchored and ready to loose. There is a sword at her belt, and a shield and spear on her back. Her face wears an expression that could be rage or determination, or perhaps even madness. What is most extraordinary about that face is that it is mine.
“She stands at the Gates of Utlath,” I say to myself.
I remember a song by this name from my childhood. That is, I remember the title and the melody—haunting and rousing—but not all the words. In fact, I can remember only three lines:
She stands at the Gates of Utlath, her finewolf at her side
She dies at the Gates of Utlath, her finewolf at her side
And forever more and ever after, every Glyster cried.
“Alys,” says Ethra, her voice so wispy, I have to check she has not separated into skin and body. She hasn’t. “It’s you. It’s lucky we’re sat on horseback and not standing, or we would all fall down.”
“It can’t be,” I say, even though I am looking directly at my own gargantuan likeness.
“It is,” says Casmel. “It’s you. But bigger. A lot bigger.” And then he just switches his gaze back and forth between me and the statue, his mouth hanging slack.
“Straggis wasps will build a nest on your tongue if you do not close your mouth,” I say. Then, “It must be a coincidence. It must be.”
“Yes,” says Casmel. “Must be.” But he doesn’t sound convinced. “But if it isn’t… what does it mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything. It’s a coincidence. Someone who looks like me. That’s all.”
“Someone who looks like you,” says Casmel. “I mean that makes more sense than… well… this.” Again, he sounds doubtful. “She has more muscle than you, for one thing.”
He’s right. She looks powerful, this huge, stone… effigy?
I dismiss the word quickly. Effigy? Ridiculous.
And yet…
“Are they scars?” asks Ethra. “Or was the statue damaged when the Cwalee came?”
There are, indeed, scars: on the cheeks, the forehead, the temple, across the bridge of the nose, on the hands and arms. They have the look of battle scars: random.
But there are two scars which do not look like battle scars, which do not look random. These scars make me feel so dizzy I grip Skep’s reins with the tightness of a novice rider. These scars are to each of the wrists of the statue.
They are my scars.
They are the second and third scars of the Ritual of the Seven Cuts and the Seven Cups.
I take a deep breath, then another, pushing the dizziness out of my head.
There will be an explanation for all of this, I tell myself. And it will be a sensible one that makes me feel foolish, and I will laugh whenever I hear the word ‘effigy’ again.
“Let’s get this done,” I say, trying to put a note of dismissiveness in my voice. If I can convince Casmel and Ethra that this is nothing but happenstance, a statue of a woman who just happens to look like me, maybe I can begin to convince myself.
As we ride the sloping road down toward the gates of the Dead City, I deliberately keep my eyes fixed on the ground ahead of me. I do not want to see that statue, that likeness, growing as I near it. I only look at it when we are so close I am looking at it from beneath, from an angle I have never seen myself before.
“Is my nose really that big?” I ask.
“None of you is that big,” says Casmel.
“You know what I mean.”
“No, your nose is not big. It is a very dainty nose. It is the nose of a princess.”
“Don’t overcook the stew,” I say, an old Gafol turn. “We did not ask for soup.”
“Sorry,” says Casmel, grinning. “What I meant to say was your nose is perfectly adequate. It is an unremarkable nose. And certainly not as big as the nose of a colossal statue.”
“Fool,” I say and roll my eyes at him. Then I look to see if there is a way into the city.
The moat is about ten yards across, and there is a wide bridge continuing from the edge of the road to the gate. But the wall around the closed gate is solid. There are holes in the wall off to the right, about thirty yards along, but no way over the moat to take advantage of them. We could ride around the perimeter of the city, but it would take a good hour or more, with no guarantee of finding a way in.
“Didn’t the people in Leax suggest a small boat?” I say. “A coracle, perhaps?”
“No,” says Casmel, sighing. “They were very unhelpful. Perhaps, they thought it was for our own good to be so… uninstructive.”
“I’m not going back,” says Ethra. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Nobody’s thinking that,” I say. I look up at the statue of my likeness. “Then we have to climb. And that is the only thing with handholds enough.”
“I am not good with heights,” says Casmel.
“Then don’t look down,” says Ethra. “Or you can stay here.”
“That isn’t an option,” says Casmel.
We take the horses downslope toward the coast and secure them in a copse of spindly trees that look to be made more of salt than wood. If they are of a mind to wander, there is little stopping them. And they can probably be seen from the road by anyone with more than a passing interest. But we don’t have many options. Or any options, for that matter. We have to act quickly. We have no notion of how far behind us Mydra is, and there is no entertaining the notion he has headed back to Gafol to await Casmel’s promise of coin. It is true he seemed to have lost our trail, but there is no telling how quickly he might have picked it up again.
I step on the toe of my own giant boot and, finding purchase on the ‘leather’ leg-windings, begin my slow, strenuous ascent. First me, then Ethra, then Casmel.
The wind picks up from Eeffenn Sea. It comes in chill, wet gusts, shoving at us. Twice, we have to stop and hold tight until the worst of it is over. On both occasions, I hear Casmel praying to Lyfbyre, the God of the Four Winds.
I have almost reached my own vast shoulder when I hear a sharp intake of breath from Ethra. I look down and see her leaning back, her hands scrabbling at nothing. I try to reach for her.
But she is falling.
And then another gust bullies me from the east. I lose my own grip, and I am falling too.
Chapter 26
Battle Scars
Somehow I am falling faster than Ethra, or so it seems, because I pass her, as if I am eager to strike the ground first.
And then I am yanked upwards, hands gripping my shoulders.
I look up.
It is Ethra. She is carrying me. And she is flying.
Not Skin-Ethra, not billowing-sail-Ethra, but Whole-Ethra. Ethra-Ethra.
I look down and see Casmel staring up at me, his mouth hanging open for the second time this morning.
Ethra lowers me onto a walkway on top of the city wall. A moment later she returns with Casmel, whose mouth is still hanging open.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” I say. My heart is still galloping in my chest and my voice is tremulous.
“Nor did I,” says Ethra, smiling. “It’s like my skin is flying, but it is carrying the rest of me inside it.”
“And how did you carry us?” asks Casmel. “There is little muscle on you.”
“I don’t know,” says Ethra. “I just felt… strong. I think, when I am flying, I could carry you both if I wanted to. One in each hand.”
“That’s good to know,” says Casmel. “Because it might be a while before my legs are working again, and that is a lot of stairs.” He points to the steps carved into the inner wall that zigzag to the ground beneath us.
“I could carry you, if you’d like,” says Ethra.
Casmel considers it then shakes his head. “I would get used it and soon we will not be able to call upon this talent.”
“True enough,” says Ethra.
We all walk down the stairs.
While the taller buildings and towers we pass on our descent are made of the same white blocks as the city wall, the two- and thee-storey buildings which cluster around them and edge the wide streets are made of ordinary stone and timber. They have fallen into considerable disrepair, in some cases collapsing entirely. Here and there among the ruins, I see skulls and bones. On top of the heap that one building has become, a wooden doll, warped by damp, stares at me with bulging eyes. It is dark down here in the shadows of the towers and will remain so until the sun is overhead some hours from now.
I step onto the main road through the city—its stones are loose, the surface uneven and potholed—and then I notice the gates and laugh.
They are rotted and split, with fissures easily big enough for a man to walk through. They are not the imposing barrier we encountered on the other side of the wall.
“Some Glyst?” says Casmel.
“I assume so,” I say.
“I did not think a Glyst could last so long,” says Ethra.
It makes me wonder what other Glysts are out there in the world, lingering. Are there things that we think of as commonplace, which are in fact old, enduring Glysts? A certain tree or lake or mountain?
I start down the road. It leads in a straight line directly to the central towers, which I estimate to be at least two miles away. We will need to turn left at some point, head east toward the coast, but there are no such turnings yet. We are crowded in by buildings and the remnants of buildings. I get the sense—distinct and emphatic—that we are being watched from those properties that might hide someone or something. Worse, I get the sense that we are being watched from the fallen structures that couldn’t conceivably hide anything larger than a welpa.
We have been walking for some ten minutes with still no turning in sight, when Casmel stops and says in a quiet voice, a shamed voice, “I’ll go no further.”
“What?” I ask, certain that I have misheard him or that there might be some meaning to his words I am failing to grasp.
He points to a statue that appears to have fallen from the sky, crushing two wooden buildings. It looks like it might have been a woman at some stage. It is not only the fall that has rendered it difficult to identify but the fact that the white stone from which it was carved has been chiselled mercilessly so it is a featureless thing, pocked and scarred. It would be easy to believe that it is a statue of Bacotha, the God of Disease and brother of Memynd, God of Madness. But I know that is not the case. This statue, whoever it represented, has been plundered for grefa stones.
“I will get all I need here,” he says.
“What?” I say again, but I know perfectly his meaning now.
“I cannot risk death,” he says.
“I had not taken you for a coward, Casmel,” I say.
“That is because I am not a cowa
rd,” he says, face flushed with anger, jaw clenched. “You have seen that I am not a coward.”
I think of how he faced down Slek Mydra across the spedig table. I think of how he followed on foot through nef-haunted forests. I think of how he bluffed Hilder and Syrunn with an arrow aimed at his chest. And I know he is not a coward and I am being unfair. But that knowledge does not abate my anger, my sense of betrayal, and it does not keep those things from showing in my voice.
“So why have you risked so much thus far?” I demand.
“For this,” he says, pointing at the disfigured statue. “The stones.” He begins rummaging through his bag, refusing to meet my eye.
“Stones?” I say. “By which you mean ‘coin’, of course. Your beloved coin.”
“Yes, coin,” he replies, pulling a small hammer and chisel from his bag. He must have purchased them in Awlen or Leax. “But I have no love of it.”
“Gedmouth! It is all you think about. I foolishly believed you were genuine in your desire to accompany us here, to help us. What an idiot. There are scabwolves whose brains are less eaten-at than mine. And the funny thing is, you didn’t need us, not really. This far in, there are no dangers it would seem. Only the climb itself.” I point back toward the gate. “And that was an unnecessary risk. You never needed us at all. I doubt you have ever needed anyone in your entire, stupid, selfish life.”
“I was a slave,” he says. “For most of my life.”
“A slave to what?” I ask, thinking he is speaking in allusions. “A slave to money. A slave to the thrill of spedig?”
“A slave,” he says, his voice flat. He speaks the word as if he does not wish to invest it with too much meaning, as if he really doesn’t want to speak it at all. “Just a slave.” His arms hang limp, the hammer in one hand, the chisel in the other.
“What?”
“When my father came back from the Battle of Thelland, he was changed. He was a good man before he went away, a terrible one when he returned. He was afraid and weak and angry. He drank and he gambled and made a debt so large it could not be repaid. And so he was taken before the Orl, who is like your Jarl. The Orl sold him to repay the debt. He sold him, my mother, my brother and me. I was eight years old. Me and my father were sold to a farmer in a neighbouring town, a place called Tilbur. My brother, a year younger than me, was sold to a trader from Besniwehn, an island far to the north of Abegan, where there is always snow and ice. My mother was sold to a Leccan as his wife.”
