by K. Ferrin
Over the next several hours, it happened again and again, and she quickly became convinced she was being followed by someone or something. The idea that it might be Mercer coming along after all flashed through her mind, and truth be told, she fervently wished it were true. She was so tired of being alone. But this was her journey and hers alone, and she knew Mercer would be unnecessary baggage if, in the end, reversing the curse would erase her existence.
Making a decision, she stopped as if to rest. She dropped the pack at her feet and lay down, leaning her back against a warm stone. She narrowed her eyes to thin slits, hoping it would look like she was sleeping, and stared down the hill toward where she thought she’d last seen movement. Despite staying that way for over an hour, she didn’t see anything move. If she was being followed, they were being crafty about it.
She climbed to her feet and continued on, senses straining for any hint of what might be out there. Other than Mercer, only two people knew where she was headed. The man at the Registrary, who she seriously doubted ever left the Registrary, and, she had to assume, Fariss. The things she had read about him—in particular his fascination with the sirené—made her skin crawl. He had shown only mild curiosity about her so far, but his fascination with storing magic and his interest in changelings left her with a deep feeling of unease. It seemed unlikely that a glance from Alyssum would be enough to prompt him to follow her all the way out here. But if he’d managed to learn something more about her, if he’d somehow discovered what she was… Her mind danced away from the thought. Worrying about it now would not change the situation she was currently in.
As the sun began to set, she searched for a safe place to stay the night. The mountainside was horribly exposed, with little besides the large boulders offering any cover, and the feeling of being followed left her scared. She was helpless when her body was sleeping or resetting or doing whatever it did during the night. No natural predator was a danger to her, but this was the Colli Terra. Any number of warlocks might be lurking up here. Maybe one of the Forsaken had made it this far after all, following her magical trail all these miles. And despite how unlikely it might be, Fariss was still a possibility—and potentially the most terrifying option of all.
She walked on through the setting of the sun and well into the night, hoping the darkness would allow her to slip into a hiding place without being seen. She passed several boulders before choosing one, then clambered clumsily up its sides and settled herself on the top. Perhaps a pursuer would make enough noise trying to climb the boulder that it would wake her up.
Not that they’d have to climb. Who knew what manner of creature lived here? Already she had encountered huge dragonflies, fish with mouths full of dagger teeth, and the Forsaken, who had stalked them in the barrens and apparently consumed magic. She had no idea what was out here or what sorts of powers the inhabitants might have. For all she knew, they could see as well in the dark as she could in the daylight and had wings as silent as an owl.
She awoke with the sun, confused and terrified, but unharmed and with her tiny campsite undisturbed. She had been so paranoid about what was following her that she had gone so far as to draw an image of her campsite in the grimoire the night before so that she could check for signs that it had been disturbed. But everything was exactly as she had left it. She scanned the landscape around her. It was as empty as she had described it as being the day before. If whatever was out there had approached her while she slept, it had left no sign she could detect.
For the first few hours of her hike, there was no sign of her follower, and she wondered if it had abandoned its pursuit. But as the sun approached midday, she once again began seeing flashes of movement. She even heard breathing just behind her and beside her, much like they’d experienced in the barrens. It terrified her to think the Forsaken were here, too. Despite her fears, no matter how fast she spun about, she saw nothing.
“You are paranoid,” she said, her voice loud in the relative silence of the mountainside. But she could not shake the feeling she was being watched or the warm, moist sensation of breath hitting the back of her neck.
By mid-afternoon, her nervousness and the walk were taking their toll. Her legs were weak, and her knees threatened to give way with every other step. She told herself it wasn’t real, but it felt real enough to her. She could see her hands trembling when she held them out in front of her. Did Grag make her this way intentionally, or was it a holdover from her memories of being Evelyn? She didn’t know, so she cursed both of them roundly as she walked.
It was early evening by the time she crested the mountain. She dropped her pack to the ground, willing her legs to carry her the last quarter mile up the curving shoulder. At the top she found a small lake nestled at the base of a crumbling circle of rock. It looked as if the upper-most ring of the mountain had crumbled away under the pressure of time. The pale green water glistened in the sun, but there was no cave in sight. She realized she’d never asked if Grag lived in the caves or near the caves. She had no idea if she was looking for a cavern or a cabin or even if it were this far up on the mountain. Mercer had said she wouldn’t miss it, but there was nothing up here. Perhaps the weather had worn away a cabin, or a rock fall had collapsed the cave. Maybe she’d walked right past it without even realizing.
She thought back over the day but couldn’t remember anything that even hinted at a cave or some sort of structure. She wandered around the top of the mountain looking for some indication that something had once been here, but there was nothing. After an exhausting search, which included ridiculously peeking beneath rocks and clamoring to the top of the crumbling peak to peer over every side of the mountain, she collapsed at the edge of the lake and gave in to the grief that had been threatening her since she’d crested the summit only to find it empty of signs of habitation.
The one thing she hadn’t allowed herself to consider had come to pass. She’d come all this way for nothing. She had no idea what to do next or where to go.
She swiped up a handful of rocks and tossed them into the lake. They plopped onto the surface and, incredibly, lingered there for the space of several seconds before slowly sinking. Ling stood and looked at the water more closely. To her surprise, it was packed with small, translucent creatures floating weightless in the liquid.
She’d heard of things like this from people in Middelhaern. Jellies, they were called. Soft bodied with long, dangling tentacles that were poisonous enough to kill a person if touched. She’d never seen one—they lived in the salty waters of the sea, not the murky waters of the Arnhem or Lisse Rivers. She moved closer, wondering if they were magic or mundane and whether it would make any difference to her. She squatted at the edge of the water to discover that even the shallows were filled to the brim with the translucent floating bodies. She reached out and touched one of the creatures.
Pain shot through her finger, and she yanked it back in surprise. It stung, but nothing more. She reached out and touched it again, this time keeping her finger on the squishy creature despite the pain. She nudged it out of the way and dunked her entire hand into the water.
It hurt plenty, but she found she could withstand it. Nothing worse came of it than a thin tendril of red where a tentacle touched her, and that faded within seconds once she pulled her hand back. She looked up, scanning the surface of the lake, impressed at how many of them seemed to live here. There were so many that she couldn’t fathom how they found food. And with that, a bell went off in her mind.
They weren’t here naturally. They’d been put here. The perfect security system to guard a front door. She stood up and waded in, pushing the jellies out of her way the best she could as she went, trying not to squish or destroy any of them.
The pain was incredible, and her flesh burned like it was on fire, but she pushed on. She swam to the center of the small lake and ducked under the surface, opening her eyes to scan the bottom as excitement thrilled through her.
At first she saw nothing. But then the
teeming creatures shifted, and she spotted a sliver of blackness down near the bottom of the pond, suggesting a cave of some sort. She dove, kicking strongly, swimming for that dark crack. Please, she thought as she pushed toward that narrow gap. Please!
The jellies continued down to the very bottom of the lake, packed so thickly she felt like she was swimming through those gelatinous bodies rather than through water, but they disappeared as she squeezed through the opening at the bottom of the pond. To her surprise the water vanished as well, though she’d gone through no barrier she could detect.
She stood on a wide beach of fine gray sand. The walls of the cave were black and rough and stretched far up over her head. She could see the cave clearly; there were thousands of thin, glowing strands of something she couldn’t identify hanging from the ceiling, lighting the cavern with a soft yellow glow.
She moved to the nearest wall and rubbed one finger gently along it. Bringing her finger to her mouth, she tasted it. Salt. Different from the salt she’d had at home, but definitely salt. The Salt Caves—she’d found them. She looked around, taking it all in.
Despite their roughness, the walls were carved with the same looping whorls she’d seen painted on the boats in the harbor of Malach, as well as on the Courser. She felt a jolt of excitement. Those symbols meant magic.
The walls narrowed to a small doorway toward the back of the cave. It, too, was covered in symbols, and she felt a moment’s fear that it would refuse to open, and she would be turned back just when she was so close. But the door swung open at her touch, moving with the smoothness of freshly oiled hinges. Whatever the symbols were for, it wasn’t keeping the door locked and closed.
A long hallway stretched from the open door, lit by a small channel of white light running through a narrow groove in the top of the cave. She followed the light, the soft gray sand of the floor muffling her footsteps so effectively she couldn’t even hear the grains shifting beneath her weight. Ling had always had an affinity for quiet, but quiet usually contained the sounds of life. Even the quiet of the Colli Terra had been interrupted by the soft sounds of her and Mercer’s movements. Here, the silence was so complete that she wondered if she’d suddenly lost the ability to hear.
She walked on, trying not to think about the oddness of her surroundings. The cave was warm and dry, a gentle heat radiating up through the sand. She came to a branch in the path she had been following. The ground shifted to hard stone off to the left, the warm gray sand continuing ahead and to the right.
She went left and came to a large chamber with an enormous hearth running along one entire side. As she approached, the fire came to life, spilling heat and light into the already warm room. Tapestries covered the walls, the remains of a table moldered in the center of the space, and a stove made of stone blocks, now tumbled and half buried in the sand, huddled toward the left side of the hearth.
She paced the entire length and width of the room, but there was nothing more. She studied each of the tapestries in turn, finding nothing unusual about any of them. She lifted each of them from the wall to peer behind. Several disintegrated soundlessly at her touch, leaving large gaps of discolored stone in their absence, but they revealed nothing of whoever had lived in these caverns, when they had left, where they had gone, or what they had done while they’d lived here.
She moved back down the stone path and continued forward on the soft gray sand to what appeared to be a bedchamber. It contained broken bookshelves, a hollowed stone platform filled with the warm sand—a bed, she presumed—and, in the corner, a soft fall of water. It fell steadily into a deep pool below.
The fall of water didn’t splash like it should. Ling watched the flow for several breaths before snapping her fingers. She watched them move, felt them snap, but no noise made it to her ears.
She shivered and stepped further into the room. A breath of wind swept in from behind her, lifting her hair from her shoulders and pelting the backs of her legs with bits of sand, and with it came the only sounds she could hear. Vague, whispering voices came with the wind, loud enough to hear but not enough to understand. Ropes of air trailed along her arms, her neck, her belly, like inquiring fingers, and she stiffened in fear. If she’d triggered some defensive magic, she was in trouble. She had no idea how to combat such a thing.
The voices lingered, and the feeling of hands on her body remained, but they were gently curious, not forceful or aggressive. She moved cautiously further into the room. The voices muttered grumpily but took no further action. She wandered through the room, searching, finding nothing but dust.
“What do you want?”
She heard the voice as loud as if she had said the words herself. It sounded oddly flat in the enforced silence. She spun about, but as was happening far too frequently of late, she didn’t see anyone.
“Go away.” It sounded farther away now, and she tried to follow it. “You don’t belong here.”
“Who are you?” She felt her mouth move, her lips shaping the words, but heard nothing. She ran headlong along passageways, trying to catch up. But the voice was always a step ahead of her. She found more rooms, but they were all empty of any indication that they had ever been used. At one point, she wandered into an old herbarium. The shelves that lined the walls from floor to ceiling were still littered with all manner of vessel—none of which contained anything other than dust. An enormous mortar and pestle lay on its side, broken, amongst the remains of a thick wooden table blackened with age and use. She could smell the spicy scent of the herbs that had once been held here.
Ling lost track of the time as she wandered from room to room, chased phantom voices, and dealt with probing ghostly hands. She tried to talk to the voices, but they never answered her. They only asked more of the same questions and told her she shouldn’t be here. She searched, increasingly desperate, but there was nothing to be found. She retraced her steps, trailing her hands along the stone walls, searching for any crack or waft of wind that might mean a cavern she’d missed or a hiding place for some bit of magic or a book, but the caverns were empty of any hint of its previous resident or of any way to break the curse that haunted her.
Finally, after an eternity, she walked back to the bedchamber and threw herself onto the soft, warm sand that filled it. She had no idea where to go next. She stared at the black roughness of the ceiling and cried silently and without tears.
CHAPTER SEVEN
In the dark stillness of the cave, time had no meaning. The sun rose and fell in distant places, but it was as meaningless to her as a storm across the sea was to an ant in the desert.
She had failed. Grag was not here and had left no hint of where he’d gone. The Registrary had lost track of him. She had no idea how far he’d have to travel for that to happen. Or maybe, as the man at the Registrary had said, he was dead. In the end it didn’t matter. Whatever his fate, it meant the same end for her. A half a life where she looked human and felt human, but wasn’t human at all.
Her parents would grow old and die while Evelyn collected dust in the attic of a cabin. Eventually Witch, too, would die if she hadn’t already, but Evelyn would linger on until the house crumbled around her. In the fullness of time, Evelyn would be swallowed by the earth itself, forgotten by everyone who had ever known her, no more than a story told to sleepy kids by tired parents anxious to seek their own beds.
But Ling would remember. Witch’s cabin would turn to dust, and Evelyn’s spelled remains would sink beneath the earth, but Ling would live on. Mountains would rise and fall, oceans would swell and shrivel to dryness, and still she would remember. She would move through time eternal, always fleeing the possibility of discovery, and always haunted by the face that stared out at her from every mirror.
She imagined every person she’d ever met growing old and dying. What would Rudy look like with gray hair and wrinkles around his eyes? She wondered if, in some other universe, she and Shera would still be friends in their old age. She imagined epochs passing in the world abo
ve. Imagined she could hear the earth groaning as it shifted and moved through time. She sought the release of sleep, but whatever spells imbued this place with light, warmth, and silence also seemed to neutralize her need to reset. She lay there, her guts in a shambles, respite always out of her reach.
She had no idea how long she stayed like that, and a significant portion of her didn’t care. But a small and very persistent part of her did. It began pushing against her malaise, telling her to get up, to try again. There must be some other way, it said. She resisted, and for a long while she lingered in an odd twilight. But in the end that cursed voice won out.
So she climbed to her feet and passed once more through the dim halls of the cave, squeezed out the crack into the pool, and swam for the surface. The jellies bumped her gently, their touch soft, but their poison agonizing. She paused to study them. They were curious creatures—so transparent she could see their inner workings, and soft and forgiving despite their ability to inflict such intense pain. Arms dangled from their globular bodies, waving gently in the water. They were strangely beautiful in their simplicity.
A flash of brilliant light caught her eye, and she looked up toward the surface of the pond, hanging motionless in the thick water, hair splayed about her in a fan. She could find no indication of what had caused the flash of light, and her mind immediately jumped to the sensation of being followed that had haunted her as she’d hiked up to this place, and she suddenly had to reach the open air.
She kicked her legs, shoving through the mass of soft bodies as she frantically rushed toward the surface. Her head banged into something above her, and instantly she was swallowed in darkness. It was so abrupt, it took her the space of several breaths to orient herself. Her hands brushed against something solid to either side. She looked down and for an instant could see the bottom of the pool. Then that, too, went dark.
