by Nix, Garth
The feeling intensified as they rose higher and Elinor wanted to cross her legs, but that was too difficult in the cramped cockpit. She also wished she hadn’t drunk Terciel’s cup of tea as well as her own.
The paperwing suddenly bucked and dropped twenty or thirty feet, sending Elinor’s stomach into her throat. She forgot about needing to go to the toilet as the craft rocked again and rose as suddenly as it had fallen, and tilted down on its left wing, making Elinor clutch at the sides.
Mirelle whistled urgently, and the craft stabilized.
“Air currents around the mountains,” she shouted. “Always tricky. But we’ll be landing soon. Tizanael is descending. We’ll see how she goes and land once they’re down safe. Be ready to fight.”
“What?” asked Elinor. She looked over the side of the paperwing, trying to see enemies.
“In case,” shouted Mirelle. “I can’t see anything, but best to be cautious.”
The paperwing angled down. Elinor half drew and then replaced one of her throwing knives, loosening it in the scabbard. She could draw and throw in an instant, from her sitting position. Which given the way her legs were feeling, would be likely, Elinor thought. She hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.
They flew lower, down toward a saddle between two mountains, a long flat stretch of snow several hundred feet below the icy peaks to either side. Tizanael’s paperwing was ahead and below them. It flew past the ridge of the saddle, turned into the wind, and came back to land near the southern edge, on a flat area the size of a cricket pitch, nestled between outthrust grey-green rocks, only the tops capped with snow and ice.
“All well,” said Mirelle. She whistled and drew marks on the mirror, turned much more sharply than Tizanael had done, and they rocketed down, far too fast as far as Elinor was concerned. Mirelle whistled again, the wind against them intensified, and the paperwing reared back on its tail to slow down, before leveling out to make a very gentle landing, hardly sliding over the snow at all.
Tizanael and Terciel were already out of their paperwing, standing and stretching in knee-deep snow. Terciel waved, but Tizanael turned away and clambered through the snow toward the nearest pile of upthrust rocks, disappearing behind it.
Mirelle hopped out of the aircraft, apparently none the worse for being cramped up for hours, and helped Elinor out. She needed it, and would have fallen into the snow without Mirelle’s assistance.
“How come your legs are all right?” asked Elinor.
“Practice and small exercises,” said Mirelle quietly, taking out her sword and buckling it on, before grabbing her pack, bow and quiver. “Speak softly. Sound travels a long way here. Get your pack and bow.”
“Uh, I need to go—”
“Get your things first,” said Mirelle sternly.
Elinor stretched quickly, grabbed her pack, attached the quiver to the side, and swung it to her back before grabbing her bow. Mirelle reached over and undid the lid of the quiver, flipping it back.
“Only fasten that if there’s rain, or moisture in the air,” she said. “You might need an arrow in a hurry. Go where Tizanael went, throw snow over whatever you have to do.”
Elinor nodded, and hurried off to the rocks.
When she came back out, Mirelle’s paperwing was moving, with no one in it. The paperwing slid along the snow for twenty or thirty feet before launching into the air. A few seconds later it was followed by Tizanael’s paperwing.
The two aircraft climbed steadily before turning to the north and speeding away, up into the clear blue sky. Elinor watched them go with a sinking feeling in her stomach. She hadn’t thought about what would come after chaining Kerrigor, but had half thought it would include climbing back in the paperwings and flying off to the Glacier, a comforting daydream, particularly if you didn’t think about what had to be done before that could happen.
“Mirelle has gone ahead to scout the way,” said Terciel quietly, coming up next to her. “Tizanael would like you to carry the chain from here, to be ready. She is going to leave the chest. Are you all right?”
“Yes,” said Elinor. “How is your foot and arm?”
“Good,” said Terciel immediately. “Well, not exactly good. But serviceable. Come on.”
She followed him, stepping in his sunken footprints in the snow, over to where Tizanael crouched on a low flat-topped rock. Her bell bandolier was carefully laid out on another rock a dozen paces away. She had opened the chest. Elinor could smell the faint stench of hot metal, the same smell she had caught back at Coldhallow, though less intense. She wrinkled her nose and tried to ignore it.
Tizanael held out a pair of gauntlets. Elinor slipped them on. They were made out of some dull, off-white metal cloth and reached almost to her elbows. Charter marks moved in the coarse weave, a great sea of roiling marks, thousands and thousands of them. Elinor gulped, reminded unpleasantly how dangerous the chain must be, if the gauntlets were laden with such an array of protective spells.
“The chain is in a bag of the same material as the gauntlets. It offers some measure of protection,” said Tizanael. “It has a simple flap that can be secured with a ribbon. Don the gloves and take the bag, take a look at the chain. Do not touch it, not until you have to use it.”
“Do I throw it or something?” asked Elinor as she took up the gloves. She felt the touch of the Charter as she slid them on, a warm buzz of recognition. “I mean, how exactly do I use the chain?”
“We will hold Kerrigor in place with the bells, in whatever body he is wearing,” said Tizanael. “The chain has a loop on one end. You need simply drop the loop over his head, and keep hold of the free end. That is very important. You must hold it until we have fastened the chain in Death. At that point it will disappear from your hands. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said Elinor. “I drop the loop of the chain over Kerrigor’s head and hold on until the chain disappears.”
“Once you carry the chain, you must not come any closer than four paces to Terciel or myself, we had better say six to be safe,” said Tizanael. “The resonance with the bells may wake it untimely. When we do use the bells, the chain will definitely wake and it will want to be used and will become unruly. You will feel its eagerness in your mind, and must maintain control.”
“Uh, right,” replied Elinor doubtfully. “How do I do that?”
“Speak to it,” said Tizanael. “As if it were an unruly child, or a dog. But your words must be backed by the full concentration of your will.”
“I can do that,” said Elinor. She thought of the younger girls in the chorus in The Court of the Sad Prince, who alternately supported the Fool or Roger Cardamom in their duel. There was always one or two of them she had to bark commands at, and wrangle back into doing what they were told.
“Also, from this point on, we must all cast no Charter Magic, unless we are under attack. The Dead and others can sense it from afar.”
Elinor nodded.
“Good luck,” said Tizanael. She surprised Elinor by resting her hands on her shoulders for a moment, squeezing lightly. “And thank you.”
Tizanael stepped off the stone and went to retrieve her bells.
Elinor looked down into the open chest, bent over, and picked up the bag. It was warm to the touch, even through the gauntlets. Elinor hesitated as Charter marks flared on glove fingertips and the bag, and the stench of Free Magic grew stronger. But only for a moment. Moving swiftly, she lifted the bag and slung the strap over her shoulder, adjusting the backpack’s straps so it sat more easily. The bag hung over the poniard on her right side, so she slid it more to the front, loosened the ribbon, and peeked inside.
The chain looked surprisingly flimsy, not much more than a chunkier version of the kind someone might wear as jewelry. The links were black iron, but strangely joined together by golden flowers, which it took Elinor a moment to recognize were daisies. There was an intense density of Charter marks on the golden flowers, and none at all on the iron links. When Elinor looked away, the
afterimage of red fire within the iron links persisted in her version.
She closed the flap and tied the ribbon in a bow, shifting the bag so it rode on the outside of her poniard, so that it provided her with some extra separation from the chain inside.
Terciel and Tizanael were waiting about ten yards ahead, on the downslope. Beyond them there were tracks in the snow where Mirelle had gone before them.
“Remember, cast no Charter Magic,” said Tizanael quietly. Her words carried easily across to Elinor in the still, crisp air. “Don’t get too close, and remember to stay quiet.”
She turned and stumped off through the snow. Terciel smiled at Elinor, and followed Tizanael. Elinor let him go ahead, listening to the crunch of his boots breaking the snow crust, wanting to run after him and take his hand, to be close, to feel the comfort of his hand wrapped around her own. But her hand was gloved in metal cloth now, and she felt the presence of the chain. She knew she could not get close. Elinor waited, and did not follow until Terciel was more than a dozen paces away.
She walked in his footsteps, and despite the good boots, the extra goose fat, and two pairs of socks, her feet were cold, and growing colder.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The snow cover began to thin as they descended, and Mirelle found a track that initially wound its way through spotty snow over rocky ground before continuing on through waist-high, windswept heather, which seemed to go on for miles. But after another hour of slow descent through the heather, Mirelle gestured for them to stop. She came back to talk quietly to Tizanael and Terciel, gesturing for Elinor to come close enough to hear.
“There is a path down into the head of the ravine a little ways on. Elinor, have you been watching our back?”
“Um, no,” said Elinor. “No one told me I should.”
“Stop and look back and listen every thirty or forty paces or so. You are our rear guard. Be aware you are the last in line. We had best cut heather here for our beds, before we descend into the ravine.”
Elinor opened her mouth to say something, but Mirelle was already quietly padding up the track, bow in hand, with an arrow held vertically alongside the bow. Terciel and Tizanael walked ahead a little, and started to cut the heather, lying it down to be tied into bunches. She knew there was a groundsheet in her pack, and she had a furred cape, so wasn’t sure why the heather gathering was necessary, but she started cutting her own.
Mirelle returned when Elinor had several large bunches and helped her tie the heather with leather thongs she took from her own pack, before gathering more for herself. She also answered Elinor’s unspoken question.
“The ground is so cold it will leach the heat out of you, so we’ll put down a layer of heather to sleep on,” she explained, loading the tightly wrapped bunches of heather on top of Elinor’s pack so they towered up well behind her head. Elinor noticed the Clayr was careful to stay on the side away from the chain in its bag. “It’s going to be a very cold night in general, down a ravine, on a clear night, without a fire. Though we’re lucky we’re already seeing signs of spring. Ready?”
“Yes,” agreed Elinor. Mirelle dropped her own pack, tied her bunches of heather on, and swung it back up, all very swiftly, before loping ahead. She did not stop to talk to Tizanael and Terciel, merely waving them on as she passed.
The ravine was a rocky scar that split the mountainside. Up here it was shallow, and narrow, but looking down along it, Elinor saw it ran for miles, growing deeper and wider. She could see the forest two thousand feet or more below, a vast green swath on both sides of the ravine. Maybe nine or ten miles away the green became a swirl of greyish-white. Low cloud, or as Elinor suddenly realized, the summoned fog of Kerrigor.
She stared for a few seconds longer, thinking about what lay ahead, then followed Terciel out of the heather, across the rocky ground to a depression that must mark the beginning of the way down into the ravine. Mirelle was already disappearing into it, only the high stack of heather on her pack visible for a moment.
The rocky track down into the ravine was uneven, very steep and narrow, with a long fall to the icy stream below. It also got much darker, very quickly, so Elinor had to really concentrate on where she put her feet and on her balance. She was grateful for the wire-walking Ham had taught her, in a disused Coldhallow barn, with a rope stretched from front to back. She also noticed that Mirelle had somehow managed to overtake Tizanael on the narrow path and was ahead again. The old Abhorsen was moving slowly, so that Terciel often had to stop and wait, and then Elinor had to as well, to maintain the distance. She was all too aware of the chain in the bag at her side.
By the time they reached the bottom, where a deep stream rushed along too fast for much ice to form, it was as if night had come, though Elinor could see the sky was still light high above. The ravine here was perhaps fifty feet wide, but they were down three or four hundred feet.
It was also already colder, at least on Elinor’s exposed face, and the gauntlets, while they might protect her from Free Magic, did little to ward off the cold. The rest of her was sweaty and hot under armor and fur-lined cape, but she knew that wouldn’t last.
Mirelle led them on a little farther, to an expansive hollow carved into the side of the gorge, almost a cave. It didn’t go very far back, but it was sheltered overhead, had a sandy floor, and was big enough that Elinor could make her bed of heather on one side and the others some dozen feet away. Terciel smiled at her as they all set about making camp, such as it was, but it was already so dark it was almost impossible to see him.
The Clayr ranger lit a small metal oil lamp she took from her pack, using a clockwork firestarter and a pinch of tinder rather than a spell, and set it far back in the cavern. It shed very little light and could not be seen from the outside. Next to it she dug a narrow trench in the sand, using a metal mug. Coming over to Elinor, she leaned in close to explain the lamp marked where they should go to the toilet, the trench dug for that purpose. The lamp would also provide a point of reference in the dark.
“You, Terciel, and I will take four-hour watches,” she said very quietly, handing Elinor a cheese and pickle sandwich out of a package carefully wrapped in waxed cloth by the kitchen Sendings. “Terciel will take the first, you the second, and I the third. Tizanael needs to sleep, though she denies it. She accepts I command this part of our journey and will do as she is told.”
“What do I have to do on watch?” asked Elinor anxiously. She also kept her voice as low as she could, but their whispers in the dark still felt loud. It was all too easy in this darkness to imagine enemies already creeping in on them, even this whispering enough to obscure the sound of their stealthy approach. Also she didn’t have a watch or a clock or anything. “And how will I know when it’s time to wake you up?”
“I will wake at each watch change, to oversee the change,” whispered Mirelle. “All you have to do is stay awake, keep quiet, and listen. If you hear anything, come over and wake me, without making noise. You see where the lamp is? Put it to your left at a right angle and take twelve steps. I do not sleep deeply in the wild.”
“I can do that,” muttered Elinor.
“I will help you arrange your bed,” said Mirelle softly. “It is a pity we could not carry more heather to cover ourselves as well, but lay it out so. You have your groundsheet? Put it over the heather and weigh the corners with these stones. Your pack will make a pillow of sorts. Lie on your back and keep your weapons on, your boots, too. We are effectively in enemy territory. Yes, I know it is uncomfortable, but you will have rest, if not sleep.”
“The bag with the chain is warm,” said Elinor. “And sometimes I think I can smell that awful stench, the hot metal . . .”
“I do, too, from time to time,” said Mirelle. “Keep the strap over your shoulder, but put the bag out as far as it will go to one side. Do not be tempted by the warmth, and do not open it. Free magic will draw some of our enemies as much as the hint of Charter Magic. Sorcerers, tempted to test their strength
, hoping to overcome a rival or a Free Magic entity and take their power for themselves.”
“I see,” said Elinor, her whisper so quiet Mirelle leaned even closer.
“Are you all right?” asked Mirelle, clasping Elinor’s shoulder, an encouraging contact. “It is strange for you, I know, and unusual in that we must keep our distance. If not for the chain and the bells, we would be best huddled together for warmth. I am sorry you must be alone.”
“Me, too,” said Elinor. “When do we go on? At dawn again?”
“No,” said Mirelle. “Later in the morning. We need to wait for light to reach the depths, it is too dangerous to follow the path in the dark. It will be a long night. Finish your food, and rest. And Terciel asked me to tell you he will be thinking of you, just over there.”
“Oh,” said Elinor. She smiled, a small smile, and glanced over to where she knew Terciel and Tizanael were, though she couldn’t see them. “Tell him I will think of him also. When I’m not being too frightened to think.”
“You are not that frightened,” said Mirelle decisively. “Only the right amount, I would say. Enough to be careful, not so much you cannot do what must be done. Do not be slow to wake me later, if you feel the need. Better to be woken for something that turns out to be nothing than not to be woken at all.”
She gave Elinor’s shoulder a final pat, and went to her own bed. Elinor could now only just make out the shape of her, if she turned her head to look out the corner of her eye. Otherwise it was completely dark, save for the faint glow from the lamp well back in the cave.
Moving by feel, she lay back on her bed, the heather crunching under her at first, before it was broken enough to be quiet. She pulled her cape together and hood forward and thought she would never go to sleep, despite feeling very tired.
Some time later, she jerked up with a start, her hand going to the hilt of her upper throwing knife. A whispered voice near her made her fingers relax, the panicked drive to draw the weapon fading away.
