“I will not discuss this with you,” Astarra said tersely.
“Don’t fancy killing time?” Raythen asked, with a hint of mockery. “I suppose you can just talk about how much you distrust Shiver all evening if you need to.”
“My reasons are my own,” Astarra said.
“I always follow my instincts,” he told her, deciding to change tack, be more direct. “And right now, they’re warning me more about you than about our raggedy deep elf. That’s quite something.”
“And perhaps mine are the same,” Astarra snapped, finally looking at him. “You think you are so much cleverer than those around you, Dunwarr, but your imagined intelligence is nothing but low cunning. You took the silver only after cajoling from the facilitator. You’ve spoken multiple times of the fact that you have no desire to return to Thelgrim, despite it being the city of your birth. Why is that? Why do you hate, or fear, a place that was once your home and remains the seat of your people? What are you going back to?”
Raythen refused to bite. Astarra had hit upon a flurry of hidden wounds with her words, and he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing it. He bit his tongue.
“Why have the gates of Thelgrim been closed?” she asked, clearly intending to take over the role of questioner. He glowered at her, doing his best to keep his cool.
“If I knew that, I could have collected my full payment in Skellig’s and never left its sordid delights,” Raythen said. “And if all goes according to plan, you’ll never have to know why I left the city in the first place.”
“As long as it doesn’t interfere with our task, it doesn’t concern me,” Astarra said. “That’s a form of thinking you would do well to embrace.”
“If you’re planning what I think you’re planning, I’m going to stop you,” Raythen said. “At least until I’m back at Skellig’s with another few pouches of silver.”
“And just what am I planning?” Astarra asked.
Raythen smiled at her without warmth, knowing that she was still trying to draw him. He wasn’t going to let this escalate any further, not with accusations that could break the group apart before they had even reached the mountains. It wasn’t the time for that, not yet.
“I suppose I’ll have to wait and see,” he said, leaning back against his pack and drawing up the hood of his cloak.
•••
On the tenth day, Shiver sighted the Dunwarrs. They were too distant for Raythen and Astarra to see at first, but by the early evening they were all able to pick out the glimmer of the lowering sun, painting the far-off, snow-capped peaks a soft pink.
The road took them north, past Blind Muir and the township of Fallowhearth, where they spent one uncomfortable night in a grubby little tavern. The brooding woodland that overlooked the town was left behind as the hills grew ever steeper and craggier. On the eighteenth day they sighted a watchtower overlooking the road from a rocky mount. Part of its upper walls had collapsed, lending it a crooked air. Black-winged hookbeaks flocked from its deserted parapets, their cawing sounding mournfully over the rolling moorland.
“That marks the northern border of Upper Forthyn,” Raythen said, as they passed beneath the cyclopean sentinel. “We’re beyond the baronies now.”
They’d barely gone past the tower when Shiver came to an abrupt halt. Astarra, as usual, was in front and either didn’t notice or didn’t care, but Raythen nearly walked into the back of the elf.
“Have you seen something?” he demanded, moving round so he was in front of Shiver. In the past two weeks he’d found himself growing more and more reliant on the elf’s wickedly sharp senses, envious every time he thought of just how much he could achieve in his own line of work if he had those sorts of abilities.
Shiver didn’t reply. Raythen quickly realized that the elf was not, in fact, detecting some distant threat or presence, but appeared to be in a trance.
“Astarra,” Raythen called carefully. The human finally came to a halt and turned back.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded.
Rather than answer, Raythen slowly raised a hand and clicked his fingers in front of Shiver’s face. The elf didn’t react. He was staring blankly into the middle distance.
“He’s frozen up,” Raythen said, as Astarra doubled back to join them. “He just stopped in the middle of the road.”
There was a soft rattling sound. Raythen frowned and looked down. He realized that Shiver’s hand had started to shake, disturbing the manacles clamped around his slender wrists.
The shaking grew worse, spreading across his whole body. The elf’s eyes fluttered, and he began to emit a low groan. A sense of foreboding gripped Raythen – he hadn’t seen anything quite like this before, though it reeked of unnatural magics to him. Slowly, not wanting to trigger any sudden reaction, he grasped the haft of his axe.
With a crack like thunder, power exploded around the deep elf’s body. He lunged, both Astarra and Raythen throwing themselves back instinctively. Pale energy blazed in Shiver’s eyes and around his wrists, pulling him taut and rooting him to the spot, arms outstretched. Through a surge of panic, Raythen realized that the light had coalesced as ghostly chains, connecting the manacles at his wrists and throat and wrapping tight around his body, binding him in place.
Shiver screamed. The noise was hideous, primal, a wail that spoke only of loss and devastation. Astarra had her staff up, an arcane word on her lips. Raythen snatched her wrist roughly.
“Wait,” he shouted over the sound of Shiver’s anguish.
Astarra snatched herself free, but stopped her incantation, the spell unfinished.
Shiver’s scream died. The power began to fade as rapidly as it had appeared, the chains binding him disappearing. He stood, shaking once more, seemingly even more frail and gaunt than before.
“What, in the name of Fortuna, was that?” Raythen asked aloud. Slowly, he let go of the axe in his belt.
The words seemed to snap Shiver from his trance. His eyes refocused, and the shaking stopped.
“What dark sorceries did you just unleash, elf?” Astarra demanded. Light was still pulsing from her staff.
“It was… a dream,” Shiver said, slowly and carefully, as though unsure of himself. He clasped his hands before him, his expression grave as he took in the roadway, the tower, the mountains beyond it, as though he was only just seeing them for the first time.
“You were awake,” Raythen said.
“They come whether I’m asleep or not,” Shiver said, his tone growing uncomfortable as he appeared to understand what had happened. He looked down and grasped the key hanging at his waist, seemingly checking it was still there.
“Was it a vision?” Astarra demanded. “A prophecy?”
“No,” Shiver said. “The opposite. A memory.”
He pushed past them both. Raythen didn’t try to stop him – it was the first hint of anger he’d gotten from the elf since they’d met. He found it as disturbing as the waking vision that had gripped him. Not for the first time, the dwarf wondered just what he’d gotten himself in to. Glib rogues, thieves, devious merchants and collectors of stolen goods were the sorts of individuals he knew, the ones he was comfortable dealing with. Astarra and Shiver were, in their own arcane ways, very different to his usual company, and he didn’t like it one bit.
Without looking back, Shiver began to walk down the road, calling out as he went.
“Come. Night is not far off, and this is no place to stop.”
Chapter Three
“You will unlock the gate,” she said, her voice like poisoned honey in his ear. “You will unlock the gate, and kill them all for me. Am I clear?”
Shiver said nothing. The pain redoubled, searing into his wrists and his neck, making his back arch as he fought against it.
“Open the gate,” snarled the voice. “Open it as you have opened a hundred be
fore. You know you will, so why delay and prolong your suffering?”
Shiver tried to fight it, as he had done every time, but he could not. It wasn’t just the pain, though it felt as though it was searing his very body. It was her claws, digging into his mind, forcing him to obey. Right now, he could no more resist her than a puppet could resist its strings.
With trembling fingers, he raised the key.
“Shiver!”
He opened his eyes, and realized they hadn’t actually been closed. Raythen was looking at him.
“Thought we’d lost you again,” he said, smiling without any warmth.
“I’m fine,” Shiver said, wishing he meant it.
He’d almost slipped again. He’d seen that memory before, lived through it more times than he could count. It was returning with increasing frequency though, and had been ever since setting out from Frostgate. He didn’t know yet whether that was a good thing or not. All he was sure of was that he was on the path that had been set for him.
He began to walk, thankful of the fact that Astarra was well ahead on the road and didn’t seem to have noticed how he had come to a halt. He knew that losing control the way he had the first time had done nothing to help his standing with either of his companions. In truth he didn’t care what they thought, but he feared Astarra. Her anger, her drive, seemed absolute.
“So what’s the deal?” Raythen asked, walking alongside him. “With these memories? I mean, we’ve all got them, so why the magical song and dance?”
“I don’t have them,” Shiver corrected. He had no desire to engage the dwarf in conversation. Ever since setting out, the thief had been probing at both of his companions, searching out their strengths and weaknesses, alternating between them. Shiver had known his type before. He didn’t intend to make the mistake of becoming friends with him, and he certainly didn’t intend to share the shrouded nature of his past. So much was still hidden from him, memories stolen away by the dark mistress he had served. Raythen didn’t deserve to know about any of that.
“You know, I searched out where you were sleeping once,” Raythen said. “Found you curled up in the roots of a silverbark, the night before we left Blind Muir behind.
Shiver looked sharply down at the dwarf as he continued.
“You were speaking. I thought you were awake at first, but you were talking in your sleep. That, or it was another kind of trance. It was all in elvish, but I understood a few words…”
The dwarf trailed off, clearly baiting Shiver into asking what he’d said. He wondered if Raythen really spoke any of the elven tongues, or if he was just trying to bluff a reaction out of Shiver. He suspected the latter.
“You shouldn’t have found me,” Shiver said. “Seeking me out after dark can prove… dangerous.”
“Well, that’s not exactly encouraging.”
“It isn’t supposed to be.”
The dwarf lapsed into silence, much to Shiver’s relief. He tried to forget about the memories of the last few days, mentally repeating one of the well-worn mantras that helped anchor him in the moment. It would struggle to stave off his waking visions, but it at least calmed his mind in between the periods when they struck. Atali nametha ren. The path is the purpose. Nameth hatala. The path goes on.
The path did go on. The Dunwarrs towered above them now, a hundred jagged peaks resplendent in the afternoon sun. The road had carried them up into the foothills, to the very feet of the mountains. Shiver could feel the lightness in his lungs and the coldness in the air, defying the strength of the sun – they were high above the baronies now, Upper Forthyn at their backs, the sprawling moorlands lost to a purple haze. Their destination was close. According to Raythen’s estimations earlier that morning, they would be at the gates of Thelgrim before nightfall. When Astarra had pointed out to him that the gates themselves were likely still shut, he’d looked at her as though she were an idiot, before chuckling.
“Don’t worry, there are other routes in besides the big doors. That’s what you brought me along for, isn’t it? I know of a hidden port right by the gates.”
They carried on in silence for a while, before the dwarf spoke up again.
“What are the locks for?” he asked. If Shiver had cared for human mannerisms, he suspected he would have sighed aloud. He said nothing, continuing to trudge along the path.
“I don’t mean to pry,” the dwarf went on. “But you must understand my professional interest. I’ve had a lot of experience with locks and keys. I don’t often find people with locks that don’t guard anything, or keys that fit them all.”
“How do you know it fits them all?” Shiver asked. “You have only seen me unlock one.”
“But getting the runestone from Thelgrim will see you with two more,” Raythen said. “Which means they come with their own keys, you have to find their keys separately, or you’re carrying a big ring of keys under those rags and keeping them all very, very silent. Or the one key you’ve got fits them all.”
“Any one of those could be true,” Shiver pointed out.
“But only one can be the most likely,” Raythen replied.
“You ask too many questions, Dunwarr,” Shiver said. He was doing his best to remain detached from the conversation, wary of playing the dwarf’s game, not wishing to give in to negative emotions. Raythen was testing him, he knew, looking to see if there was anger beneath his reserve.
There was.
“Knowing when to ask, and when not to, is an important skill,” Raythen said.
Shiver realized that Astarra had halted up ahead. She was standing on the edge of a pile of boulders, heaped beside the road, gazing off into the distance. Shiver and Raythen joined her. He saw immediately what she was looking at.
Their destination was in sight. A narrow valley lay stretched out before them, its sides like sloped walls of rugged stone. At its far end the sunlight glimmered, caught by bands of steel. Shiver picked out the vast gates, set into the mountainside of a great peak that seemed to rise to the very heavens themselves.
“How good it is to be home again,” Raythen said with obvious, dark sarcasm.
Shiver’s eyes didn’t linger for long on the distant gates. He was drawn to the valley beneath. There were people there, hundreds, if not thousands. He could see the wisps of smoke from campfires and the shapes of tents and shelters, humped irregularly on either side of the roadway.
“Are those people down there?” Raythen asked, squinting and raising a hand to shield his good eye.
“Yes,” Shiver answered, feeling an upwelling of sorrow he sought to swiftly suppress. Now was not the time for either anger, or sorrow. “More refugees.”
“They must have been gathering there ever since the gates were closed,” Astarra said from up on the rock. “The Dunwarr have abandoned them.”
“They should count themselves lucky,” Shiver heard Raythen mutter under his breath.
“I hope you know a way in that they don’t,” Astarra said to the dwarf.
“Well let’s go and find out, shall we?” Raythen said.
•••
The path led them down into the valley, in amongst the people crowded there. The makeshift encampment washed over Astarra as she led the way. Dirty, disparate refugees filled the space between the cobbled roadway and the valley sides, huddled in small groups and extended families. The muddy wagons and carts that they had hauled across Terrinoth had been transformed into makeshift shelters, canvas coverings rigged up as tents and pallets turned into lean-tos. The mountain air was clear no more, thick now with the smell of cooking and woodsmoke, animal dung and unwashed bodies. The murmur of conversation melded with the crying of children and the lowing of tuskers and oxen, filling the craggy space with the sounds of a people dispossessed and abandoned.
The sorry enclave filled Astarra with equal parts determination and anger. They needed leadership. She c
ould see it in the lost, fearful gazes that followed her as she moved between the ragged shelters and stalled carts. They needed someone to challenge the injustice that had left them stranded here. If they had someone with power – her power – they would not be allowed to whither of starvation and exposure. She would not have allowed any of this to happen.
This was the reason she had to continue down the path she had chosen, the night she had abandoned Greyhaven. The place was cloistered in every sense of the word. She still remembered the fury of her tutors and the dire words of Master Veta, one of the university’s Lords Regent, who had tried to reason with her the night she had almost killed Master Loach.
“There is far more to the Verto Magica than markings and stones,” the orc had warned her. “You cannot master runecraft without knowing that. You will never reach your true potential if you leave behind the learning within these walls.”
Well, she had left it behind, along with all the hidebound myopia of that august institution. Already she was so much further forward than she would have been if she had stayed at the university. She had mastered three different shards and was learning more every day. She had great power already, the sort that could make a real difference and could stop suffering like this.
She just needed a little more.
She approached the gates, trying not to let the others see how she marveled at their size. She had heard tales of the Dunwarrs and Thelgrim, of course, but she had never seen either, never been this far north. It thrilled her. There were so many parts of Terrinoth yet to be explored, so many secrets to be uncovered and new abilities to master. And always, there were the runestones, the secret to her future. If she could claim the stone they’d been sent to retrieve, even just for a short while, what secrets could it teach her? The possibilities were tantalizing. They made even her current company acceptable.
The Gates of Thelgrim Page 4
