by Garth Nix
"If Sharrakor can get into the whirlwind, so can we," said Milla.
Zicka's tongue flickered in and out in agitation.
"No," he said. "The flesh would be stripped from your bones. It is not possible to enter unless the Old Khamsoul allows you. It would not grant that permission if Sharrakor is already there. It never allows more than one being to consult with it at any time."
"There must be some way," Tal protested.
"A Shield Maiden thinks of all things possible and expected, then does the impossible and unexpected," said Odris unexpectedly from above their heads. "I know a way into the heart of the Old Khamsoul."
"Odris knows a way," repeated Adras smugly. "How?" asked Tal and Milla at the same time. "It's a whirlwind," said Odris. "You don't fly into a whirlwind. You get above it and fly down through the eye."
"But the Old Khamsoul is no ordinary whirlwind," cautioned Zicka. "It reaches up to the very margin of the world, high above the clouds. How could you fly above the whirlwind?"
Odris sniffed.
"We can fly higher than anything, if we feel like it," she said. "Up and up and up, and then… a dive straight down through the eye."
"I have climbed high mountains," said Yazeq. "With height comes cold, and there is little air to breathe. You Storm Shepherds may fly high, but your companions would die."
"No we wouldn't," said Milla. "We could make globes of air with green light and warm ourselves with our Sunstones."
"I do not have a Sunstone," said Malen quietly.
"You may use mine," said Ebbitt. He slipped off the Sunstone he wore in a silver ring and held it out to Malen. "I am afraid that I cannot come with you any farther, children."
Malen protested, and Tal started to say something, but Ebbitt dropped the ring in Malen's lap and held up his hand to Tal.
"I am very old and very tired," he said firmly. "And I would undoubtedly lose my false teeth if I went diving into whirlwinds, and with them any dignity I have left. I have almost every confidence in your ability to deal with Sharrakor without my help."
"You don't have false teeth," said Tal.
"That is totally irrelevant," answered Ebbitt. "Now I am going to go to sleep. Good luck."
With that, the old Chosen curled up on one of the thicker rugs and closed his eyes. Tal half expected to see his maned cat slink in and curl up next to him.
Milla and Malen both slowly clapped their fists and then made a sign the others didn't know, crossing their palms one above the other and then gesturing out toward Ebbitt.
"What was that for?" asked Tal.
"He prepares to go to the Ice, in his own way," said Milla. "We honor him."
"He's just tired, that's all," insisted Tal. "Just tired. He's not going to die. Crow, you know him. He's just tired."
"Yes," agreed Crow, but Tal did not know who he was agreeing with. The Freefolk boy did not meet his eyes.
Tal looked back out at the entrance to the roro. He could remember so many times he had gone to Ebbitt, seeking help and advice, or simply to hide away from trouble. It was Ebbitt he had gone to when his father had disappeared, when he had to find a Sunstone…
But he could not let himself grieve now. Ebbitt might have decided to die, but that didn't mean he would.
"Look after my great-uncle, please, Zicka," he said, looking back at Milla, Malen, and Crow. "Perhaps… perhaps he will be better in the morning. When we return."
He tried to say the last three words with the confidence of an Emperor, but it did not come out as well as he would have liked. There was an unspoken if hanging in the air instead of that when.
If we return…
"We'd better plan how we are actually going to do this," said Tal. "Adras, Odris, are you prepared to risk yourselves flying into the eye of the whirlwind?"
"Yes," said Odris. She nudged Adras and he repeated her answer.
"Will we be able to take a boat of light through?"
"No," said Odris. "But we could take it above the eye, then I can carry two if we're just dropping straight down."
The Storm Shepherd's answer chilled the air for a moment as they all visualized dropping straight down the eye of a whirlwind, a whirlwind that rose higher than any mountain.
"We will have the added advantage of surprise," said Milla. "We will be able to strike at Sharrakor before he even suspects we are there. If we manage to actually drop on him--"
A lizard poked its head in and babbled something before she could continue.
"The Old Khamsoul is indeed in the Hrykan Desert," said Zicka. "Two days' march away for one of us."
"A few hours' flying," said Milla. "We could be there by the time the sun falls. What is that time called?"
"Dusk," replied Tal.
"A good time to attack," replied Milla with satisfaction.
"We will surprise Sharrakor and I will cut his throat with the Talon."
Zicka and Yazeq exchanged a look. Yazeq's tongue flickered sideways.
"Please excuse me," said the older lizard. "There is something I must attend to."
"If we're going to get there by nightfall I'd better give Malen some lessons on how to use Ebbitt's…
her
Sunstone," said Tal. "Then I guess we'd better make some globes of air. Though… I don't suppose there's any point in waiting until early in the morning, and attacking at dawn?"
"Waiting feeds fear," said Milla. "Courage comes with deeds."
"Let's get it over and done with," added Crow. "Yes," agreed Malen. "The longer we wait, the more the Veil weakens."
Adras and Odris nodded their agreement, huge heads of cloud bobbing up and down.
"The Kurshken wish you good fortune," said Zicka. "And success."
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
They came out of the roro an hour later, blinking in the sunshine. All had globes of green light around their heads, and Malen kept flinching slightly as warmth flowed in waves out of the Sunstone on her finger and onto her skin.
Tal was surprised to see hundreds of Kurshken massed in the field in front of them. As they emerged, the lizards gave a deep-throated cry and waved their bows in the air.
"What is this?" asked Milla as four Kurshken advanced bearing an ornately carved stone box between them. They knelt before her and offered her the box.
"We are returning something," said Zicka. "Please open the box, Milla."
Milla lifted off the lid and handed it to some more Kurshken who rushed forward. Her hand hovered above the box, an expression of surprise and wonder fleeting across her face before it was suppressed, as she tried to suppress all signs of emotion.
"What is it?" asked Tal, craning his neck.
Milla didn't answer, but she reached in and pulled out a small, shining nail of Violet crystal, the twin to the one she already wore. Milla slipped it on to the forefinger of her right hand and felt the band constrict and become secure.
"The other Talon of Danir," whispered Malen in awe.
"One Danir gave to Ramellan," said Yazeq. "The other she gave into our care. Now we give it back to her daughter's-daughter's-daughter, unto the fortieth generation."
"It is a good omen," declared Milla, holding her hands up in the air so that both Talons caught the sun, glittering violet and gold. "Now we go to slay Sharrakor!"
The Kurshken shouted and drummed their paws, sending water splashing up around them in bold fountains. Milla and Tal led the way down an avenue between splashing and shouting Kurshken, out to the field where they had landed, and where a space was being kept for the re-creation of the flying boat of light.
"Are you sure you can make it by yourself?" whispered Milla as Tal raised his hand and focused on his Sunstone.
Tal nodded and began to work. Soon the keel of the boat began to shimmer on the water, and ribs curved up and out. Planks of yellow started to weave between the ribs and blue traces arched up into the sky, where they were grabbed by the waiting Storm Shepherds.
"Let's go," said Tal, without look
ing around. He had to keep most of his attention on the boat and his Sunstone.
When everyone was in, Tal changed the focus of the Keystone's power to lift the entire boat up as well as keep it together. With a lurch, the boat rose straight up into the sky, before the Storm Shepherds were able to drag the traces taut and apply some horizontal force.
Down below, the Kurshken kept splashing and drumming long after the four heroes, the flying boat, and the Storm Shepherds had disappeared from sight. Then they began the process of evacuating Kurshken Corner, to various boltholes and refuges, for they were rational creatures and believed in hedging their bets. They were also lizards of their word, and they carried Ebbitt with them.
It was a long climb to the highest reaches of the atmosphere, to get above the whirlwind that either was or cloaked the Old Khamsoul. It grew colder quickly, but their Sunstones warmed them, and though the air grew thin, they were sustained by their green globes. Tal did worry that they would not last, but he forgot about it as they continued to climb higher and higher and they saw new and strange sights.
First they saw the world curve away beneath them, truly round. Then they broke through cloud, and entered another world again, one where the ground beneath them was white and puffy and constantly changing. They rose above great bluffs of sculptured cloud, and then through long wisps of white that could hardly be called clouds at all.
Wind buffeted them mercilessly at some altitudes, only to die away completely as they continued to rise. In any case, the Storm Shepherds could work the wind to some degree, and change both its direction and force. Any wind they could not master they rose above, or passed aside.
Milla saw the Old Khamsoul first and pointed. From far away it looked like a solid spire of stone, reaching up to the heavens through a permanent and very wide hole in the cloud layer, a great circle that declared a no-man's-land around the whirlwind.
Pass here at your peril, the space seemed to say.
Cross the line and be eaten by the spinning wind.
"We are so high, and yet it stretches higher still," said Milla. "And down in its heart lies Sharrakor and our destiny."
Her eyes were shining. Tal watched her, catching glimpses in between focusing on his Sunstone. Truly she was the War-Chief going into battle. He knew there was no such light in his eyes. He just felt scared. Scared that he would die and scared that they would fail. That Sharrakor would kill them and go on to raise his army, return to the Dark World, and finish what he had started.
"Soon!" shouted Odris. "Higher, Tal! Higher!"
"Milla, Crow," said Tal, trying to keep his voice as matter-of-fact as he could. "Blue light into the keel, please. Malen, you just keep yourself warm."
Milla and Crow turned back from the bow where they had both been looking at the Old Khamsoul. They summoned blue light from their Sunstones, sending it pouring into the keel. Tal reinforced it with Violet, and the flying boat shot up sharply, easily keeping pace with the Storm Shepherds' own climb.
"Is it getting warmer?" Malen asked suddenly. "Or am I getting better with my Sunstone?"
Keeping warm with his Sunstone was now so automatic for Tal that he had to concentrate to see how much warmth he was drawing from the stone. He was surprised to find that he wasn't using it at all, though he certainly had been lower down.
"It gets warmer for a while up this high," shouted Odris. "But it will get colder again. We still have a long way to go."
They climbed in silence for an hour or more then, and once again Tal began to be concerned about the green globes. Theoretically the green glow could contain days' worth of air, but they were rarely used for more than an hour or two. If one of them failed now, it would be impossible to do anything. There had to be air around to compress it into the globe in the first place.
They were close to the Old Khamsoul now, the bare patch in the clouds far below them. They were near enough to see that the whirlwind was not made of dark cloud, but solid particles so that it appeared not gray, but black as night upon the Ice. The whirlwind was made visible by dust and rocks and whatever else it had snatched up, all spinning furiously, far faster than the flying boat or even the Storm Shepherds at their swiftest. Anything that it sucked in would be instantly destroyed. Flesh would be torn from bone, all moisture sucked from a magical cloud. Death would be instantaneous, for human or Storm Shepherd.
The whirlwind was broad at the top, Tal was relieved to see. But then it drew in closer and closer, funneling air down to what looked like a very narrow tube near the ground. Tal could only trust that the eye would be wide enough down there for them to get through without being ripped apart.
"Higher!" shouted Odris and once again the Sunstones shone brighter and the flying boat lurched up.
"We're higher than the whirlwind!" announced Malen, who was looking over the side.
"We need to get quite a lot higher," said Tal, who had only just realized what they would have to do. "Because when we dissolve the boat, the Storm Shepherds will have to swoop down and catch us before we get blown off track and sucked into… into that."
He pointed over the side, and everyone snatched a brief look at the churning vortex of darkness.
"Ready!" shouted Odris as the boat passed the very center of the whirlwind, the top of the vortex about five hundred stretches below. She and Adras kept the tension on the traces so that the wind could not blow the boat off station.
"This is it, then," said Tal. His throat was so dry the words came out in a deep Kurshkenlike croak. His heart was hammering so fast it felt like it was shifting position inside his chest.
"Tal, Milla," said Crow suddenly as they all took deep breaths, "if anything… if I don't survive… remember the Underfolk. Remember our freedom."
"I swear it," said Milla. Even her voice sounded strained and strange.
"I will remember," Tal whispered. "Everyone ready? Odris? Adras?"
"Yes!" came the answer, from Freefolk, Icecarls, and Storm Shepherds.
"Go!" shouted Tal.
He fired a burst of Violet that dissolved the boat of light around them, and suddenly they were falling, falling much too quickly toward the vortex, as the Storm Shepherds spun around and hurled themselves down as fast as they had ever flown.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
As Tal fell he grew strangely calm. He had fallen before, in darkness and cold, on another world. That had been the beginning of everything, in a way, and now maybe this was the end. Whichever way it went, it was the end. Maybe Adras wouldn't catch him and he would plummet to his death, or the wind would take him out of the eye, into the reach of the whirling destruction of the Old Khamsoul, or Sharrakor would laugh and slay him in an instant. But he would have done his best. His father would be proud, he knew, and his mother. And not just his parents. He had done many good and great things, just like the Sword Thanes of Icecarl legend, in the songs that always ended with them being brought home dead. After they had defeated the enemy, of course. So he had to defeat Sharrakor…
Milla fell with thoughts of what was going to happen next. She had no doubt Odris would catch her, Odris being able to fly faster than anything could fall. Sharrakor was Milla's concern. He had surprised her in the Chamber of the Veil, with an attack she could not counter. What if he had more tricks, more secret weapons? What tactics could she employ, other than the surprise of falling from the sky?
Crow fell silently, his thoughts, as always, of the long struggle to free his people. Fashnek was no more, but the Hall of Nightmares still stood. The Chosen would be defeated by the Icecarls, and he trusted the Icecarls to stand by their word. But the greater danger to the Underfolk was themselves. They had been held in servitude so long that it would be hard for them to come out of it. But there were Freefolk to help them, provided that Sharrakor did not win and kill everyone. Perhaps, he thought, what the Underfolk needed most of all was something--or someone--to believe in. So they knew that an Underfolk could be the equal of any Chosen…
Malen fell wit
h the mental discipline of a Crone. She emptied her mind of all thoughts, and simply acted as a recorder. This was an experience all the Crones would wish to share, and she only regretted that she could not reach the others to share it immediately. But if she survived, many would want to walk in her memories, to see Aenir, and to fall forty thousand stretches down the eye of a whirlwind…
The next thought all four of them had was overwhelming relief as strong cloud arms closed around their waists. They were still falling, but under control, Adras holding Tal under one arm and Crow under the other, Odris with Milla and Malen clutched close to her chest.
The roar of the air rushing past and the constant din of the whirlwind made it impossible to talk as they fell, even if they had wanted to. Every now and then someone would gasp as they looked below and it seemed as if the eye had narrowed too much for them to get through, but a few seconds later they would find that it was all an illusion. The eye did narrow, but it was always at least a hundred stretches wide, which looked like nothing from very high above.
They were falling for so long that it was a surprise when they suddenly saw the rocky spire that was the heart of the Old Khamsoul, and the desert ground below it. Tal's calm disappeared in an instant, to be replaced by panic. The top of the spire was flat, but it was no larger than the deck of an ice-ship, and they had to land on it.
That landing space grew closer with awful rapidity. Tal saw a bright shape upon it, a shining blot impossible to make out, but he knew it was Sharrakor. The blot grew larger and sharper, and became a dragon, a dragon that shone like a mirror in what little sunlight came down the vortex from above.
All four of them screamed in the last second, joining with the booming shouts of the Storm Shepherds. Tal screamed in a mixture of fear and anger, Milla screamed a war cry, Crow screamed for his people, and Malen didn't even know she was screaming.
They hit the rocky surface of the spire harder than expected. Tal fell over, rolled once, thought of the edge, and stopped. Milla landed on her feet, both Talons already extended, whips of light dancing from her hands. Crow landed well, too, and had his Sunstone in his hand. Malen smacked her knee and doubled into a ball to clutch at it, but it did not stop her from beginning the Prayer to Asteyr, her voice and gaze directed straight at the dragon who reared up at the other end of the spire.
