by J B Cantwell
But would it?
Having used my fire magic, my untrained magic, since I'd entered the range, I hadn't been attacked. In the Wild Lands, I'd been hunted, each magical effort bringing danger closer and closer. It was a relief that, with the death of the beast who'd been tracking me, I was able to use my magic without fear once more.
To keep my mind occupied as I climbed down, I took out the long knife I'd acquired from a Lifter several weeks back. I lit the tip with flame and took aim at a chunk of rock not too far ahead. I released the power, and the stone was blasted to bits.
Feeling fearless, perhaps a danger of having ingested so much Light, I began to jog down the path, blasting at the rocks, practicing my aim. I wasn't too bad given the fact that I'd never known until recently that I could practice such a thing.
But it was careless.
My whole life had been spent hiding my magic, my bare hands the only tools I had to work with. But now, with a straight and deadly knife to practice with, my bolts of power were strong enough to slice right through a Wick with barely any effort at all.
I knew I was being stupid, blasting the rocks as I was, but I couldn't help the feeling of joy that came with the Light. I felt hopeful, empowered, even.
The path began to widen again, and the rain started to let up. The clouds still rolled violently above me, but the onslaught had lessened. Soon, it was only a fine vapor that misted down around me. I paused, and with some quick work with my hands, I dried my clothes and pack, then continued on.
I searched the skies, but I found no Wicks, no Fiends, nothing but the angry blanket of clouds that covered these lands like a lid on a pot.
Suddenly, a luminescent glow lit up the mountains far away from me.
Could it be? Had the bull sensed me and come down to meet me?
A few moments later, I had my answer. It was no bull that was gliding through the mountain valleys.
It was a fish.
Where its water was, I didn't know, but he swam through the air as if he were deep in the sea.
I looked around, searching for danger, for any sign that I should keep quiet, but I found none.
"Great fish!" I shouted as it approached. "Where are you headed?"
The fish slowed, and I found he wasn't unlike any other fish I might've seen. His eyes were trapped on each side of his head, so he couldn't very well see me. He swam up closer until his giant eye was just an arm's reach away. His glowing scales were not wet from the storm, and I imagined they must be somewhat similar to a snake's skin.
"Young girl!" his voice boomed, echoing off the great mountains that surrounded us, surprising me with its volume. "You are here for guidance, are you not?"
Guidance? Sure, I would take guidance. I would take anything the Keepers had to offer me. But this Keeper was strange and new to me.
"I just mean to go through!" I called.
"Ah," he said. He swam a little closer, and his voice quieted. "You have picked quite a time, quite an age, to simply go through," he whispered. "These ages are fraught with peril. The Shadow Mountains are no exception."
"I've seen Wicks," I said. "Nothing more."
"Then you have not been paying attention," he said. "Have you not seen the lightning? The storms that rage? These may be common for a land such as this, but what you have witnessed has been utterly fabricated by the enemy. Your enemy."
"Isn't Torin an enemy to us all?" I asked.
"Obviously, no," he said, surprising me. "There are many who benefit from his wicked endeavors, many who live here in these mountains, even."
Suddenly, the warm feeling I'd gotten from that vial of Light was gone, and I felt instead my blood growing cold.
Of course, there were enemies here. I'd been told about them before.
Enemies and friends.
But how to tell the difference? The fish himself could be a Fiend, and as his tail fins slowly swayed behind him, I became more cautious.
"So what would you have me do?" I asked. "I have no guide."
"An audience with the bull would serve you well."
"That's where I was going," I said.
"Well, you're going in the wrong direction, then. Climb aboard. I can save you time, and it is precious."
For a moment, I hesitated. Here I was being offered help by a beast I didn't know. He wasn't listed on Father's map, and this gave me pause. Finally, I made my choice.
"No," I said. "I don't know you, sir, so please don’t take offense."
The fish's eye swam before me, its diameter nearly as tall as I was.
"So be it," he said. "You must learn to make your choices, to decide for yourself who is friend and who is foe. Bree of Eagleview, choose wisely."
How does he know my name?
I shouldn’t have been surprised; all of the other Keepers I’d met had known who I was, their way of communication extending to one another, a vast network I didn’t yet understand.
The fish turned to leave, and as he swam out of sight across some other mountain valley, I wondered if I had been wrong to send him away.
No. Just like that huge bobcat Fiend in the Spoil, the fish wasn't listed on the map. And if he wasn't on there, I had no way of knowing his allegiances.
I turned and continued on down the mountain in the slow, methodical way that a human must tolerate. I didn't know my magic well enough to risk flight any longer, and so I had only my plodding boots to carry me forward into the endless night.
Hours passed, possibly days, but I didn't rest. The small amount of remaining power of the Light didn't diminish as I went, so I didn't force myself to stop. Nothing felt better than to continue onward, and the longer I walked, the better I felt about my decision with the fish. My questions were slowly building, and as I reached the valley floor, I moved even faster, eager to meet the bull and get some answers.
The valley was not as I thought it might be. It was quiet, and I didn't see or hear anything at all. I'd been scared that I would've suffered an attack with no vantage point to give me the upper hand. But none came.
I picked up the pace and began to jog in the general direction of the bull. Would his eyes glow as they had during the storm, lighting my way forward?
I was running through an old, dry riverbed, and while I was able to balance on the water-smoothed stones, I knew I was making too much noise. I moved to the side where I could move quickly without making such a racket.
During the lightest moments of the day, I kept my hands quiet, eager to let my eyes adjust. I'd once heard that cats could see in the dark, and I wondered if that were really true. There had been a tomcat in the market back home who stayed near the butcher's stall. Many days I saw him basking in the sun, licking his paws. But I'd never seen him in the dark; curfew had kept me inside most nights. I imagined him now as a stealthy hunter, the pitch-black world open to him while the rest of us slept.
Could I be like that?
I slowed down, finally stopping, eager to try. Maybe if I stayed in one place long enough, some critter or hunter or beast would unknowingly catch my attention. Maybe they wouldn't be able to see me at all.
I walked over toward a dead bush to hide behind, but when I touched it, its fibers blew up into the air like ash from a fireplace.
How long had these mountains been dark?
I settled for sitting up against a rock, only partially hidden from anyone who might be moving through the valley. I kept still and waited.
For a while, nothing happened. The land did not come to life with animals going about their business as I might've found even in the Spoil. I thought of the bush I'd brushed up against and realized there was no food for animals to survive in a place like this. I wasn't sure how long these lands had been shrouded, but the grass and shrubs were nothing but ghosts of what they’d once been.
Finally, as I was getting ready to leave, I heard a sound, and I froze.
It was a quiet sound, just the subtle noise of a moccasin on river stones. I crouched back into the rock, t
rying to remain as still as possible.
I was no cat, but I'd had my eyes open in the dark for long enough that I could see the shadow of a man gliding through the valley, a gray cloak fluttering behind him as he walked. He carried with him a wood staff, though he didn’t let it touch the stones at his feet. Where I'd made noise tripping along in the riverbed, he made almost none, though he was walking with a pronounced limp. I wondered how many times he had made this walk, how many years it had taken him to perfect his stealth.
I wondered if he was stalking me, if that was why he was so quiet. Or if he simply knew of the other dangers these mountains hid. I thought about how much noise I, myself had made in just the past couple of days. Bringing down boulders and running down mountainsides weren't exactly quiet things. Maybe the fish had even been drawn to the noise.
The man didn't stop, though I felt certain he could hear my heart beating in my chest. He kept his head up, eyes on the path before him. It almost looked like he was keeping an eye on his land, making sure nobody was trespassing.
Like I was.
I almost called out to him, but his cloak reminded me too much of a Wick's, and I stopped myself.
Maybe I would be seeing him again as well.
I sat waiting behind the crevice of rock I'd been hiding in, not moving a muscle for what felt like hours. I wanted to make sure he wouldn't come back and find me before I continued the trek toward the bull. I knew that if I were to follow him too closely, he would surely turn and attack.
You don't know if he'll attack you.
Maybe. But there were plenty of times I'd been attacked in recent months, and I hadn't forgotten the feeling of being utterly helpless.
Whether he claimed this land as his own or not, he probably knew it backward and forwards.
His path followed the direction the fish had gone in. Were they somehow related?
I had no way to know, but what I did know was that I couldn't wait any longer. The meager amount of light coming through the clouds was barely enough to see my own hands in front of me, but I was too nervous to light my fire now.
I emerged from the rock and carefully made my way forward. There was no doubt that walking along the riverbed was the easiest path to take, but I knew that the noise I would make could be suicide. I stayed on the banks and did my best to stay quiet.
Being so exposed, I wished I was high up on the mountain again, better able to hide. My avoiding the valleys had been something I'd done on this journey that had been smart. Maybe the only thing smart thing I'd done.
But now, here I was. Down in the valley like a fool.
I couldn't see the tops of the peaks from the bottom; the burned clouds shrouded them from view. But I could see where I was going much better now that my eyes had been adjusting for so long. I crept along, and after a while, I settled into the walk.
I couldn't live every moment in fear. I wouldn't get anywhere that way. And besides, I had great magical powers, even if they hadn't been honed yet. I'd killed more than one Wick with them, and I was willing to bet that I could do much, much more than that if I were pressed.
Not that I wanted to kill. Far from it.
But I would.
The air became colder, and I knew the night was coming. Soon, I would either need to stop for the night or light my hands if I wanted to move forward.
Stopping seemed like the wrong choice. But I doubted I would be able to see in the pitch black of night.
I moved more slowly for a while, trying to let my eyes adjust, but with no moon or stars to guide me, I couldn't do it. Somewhere far from this place, the sun was slipping beneath the horizon, and I had no choice but to expose my magic if I wanted to continue.
So, under cover of night, I lit my hands and held them out in front of me. If there were eyes out there, they were certainly on me now, and I felt that there must be twenty pairs, a hundred, who were watching my journey from afar.
Just be quiet.
But why? Why bother? If they knew I was here already, there was no point.
I took a deep breath and continued on with caution, but not panic. The whispers hadn’t returned, and I took comfort in the quiet.
As the night wore on, I found I'd made much better progress in the valley than I would've on the side of the mountains. It was dangerous, I was exposed, but I could move with speed. When the day came again, my stealth had improved significantly.
It was strange, this sort of energy I was carrying with me from the Light. A sort of buzzing, a restlessness, seemed to be vibrating inside me, spurring me onward. I now knew why people desired magic, desired Light. It would become addictive to some. To many.
To me?
I had enough magic inside to keep me busy for the rest of my life, or at least I assumed so. The Light had brought me strength, not unlike the way I felt after saving someone's life. Sure, it would take me some time to recover from feeding another person part of my life force, but afterward I always felt better, stronger.
This, above anything else, let me know that what I was doing was right and good. I didn't think I would feel such strength, so powerful and healing, if I were doing something wicked with my magic.
After all, I had felt nothing after the encounter with the Wicks. Not good, not bad. The resulting effect of fighting them off had been neutral. Not like saving Regan. Or saving Father. During those times, I’d felt nothing but weakness and the inability to crawl my way out from under what felt like a very heavy weight.
But when I'd rebounded, I’d found I was more powerful than ever.
In any case, I doubted the Light would last in my system for too long. Maybe I would feel this way for a day, maybe several. But only then could I make the decision of whether to risk drinking more.
I could see the bull on the mountain now, and I was guessing I had maybe two days more to walk. If I'd stayed up high, it would've been at least a week. In this way, the danger of being on the valley floor was worth it.
Until it wasn't.
I stopped, freezing, suddenly aware of a threat. It wasn't a Wick; I was sure of that. Wicks came with those evil whispers, and the valley was quiet now.
I crouched down and moved away from the path I'd been walking upon, waiting to see what, or who, was coming.
Were they hunting me?
A man appeared, the same one from before, and I sucked in my breath, surprised. My eyes had been focusing on the light my hands cast in front of me, so there was no way I could've seen him coming in the dark.
Suddenly, he was running toward me, his limp pronounced and yet so fast I barely had time to bring out my knife before he had his hands on my shoulders. My hands lit his face from below, making him look like a specter of the night. But when he opened his mouth, it was not to take a bite. Instead, he spoke urgently to me, his voice hardly louder than a whisper.
"Child," he said hoarsely, urgently. His breath betrayed rotting teeth within his mouth. I wondered when the last time was he'd spoken to another. "You must flee. He is coming."
I was so surprised by his presence that it was hard to think straight.
"Who?" I asked. "Who's coming?"
"Phalen," he said.
"I don't understand," I said. But then he gave me the command I'd heard many times before. Waking. Dreaming. It didn't seem to matter because every time the situation was dire and the message urgent.
"Run!"
Chapter 3
Phalen. I knew the name of the second son of Torin.
I didn't wait, didn't question. I couldn't have if I'd wanted to. The man grabbed onto my wrist and started dragging me in a different direction. The staff he carried was lit, though dimmer than the fire in my hands. I wanted to struggle, to break away from him, and I could have with minimal effort. But never once had the command to run steered me wrong.
We cut across the valley as fast as the light from our magic allowed. Soon, we approached the rocks, and he began leading me through a labyrinth of stone. Then, suddenly, he stopped.
/> "Put them out," he whispered, and he extinguished the light from his staff. I did as he said and stood still, waiting.
A breeze whipped through the maze we'd been running in, but it wasn’t a gentle, soft thing. Instead, it felt like a thousand tiny razors were pricking me all over my body. I looked up at the man, alarmed, but I could no longer see him. The darkness was complete.
My breath quieted, but he was having a hard time catching his. From the brief moment in the light, I'd gotten only a quick glimpse at him. His teeth were mossy and broken, his cheeks sunken. The wrinkles on his face and hands told me he was of great age.
Despite appearing to help me, though, I worried that I was making the wrong choice. He was dressed like a Wick, though his features remained. Still, I feared his intentions.
But the truth was, he was running away from someone, too. And perhaps he was too old to be doing such things as fleeing.
As the wind increased, his breathing quieted. He stood there, my arm still clenched in his frail, bony hand. He bent over me and whispered in my ear.
"Stay here."
Then, he lit his staff once more and hobbled away from me back through the labyrinth. I was glad for it, too, because I knew I didn’t want to face whoever it was who controlled that wind.
I didn’t want to face Phalen, son of Torin. Not yet. Not on my own.
The breeze, while painful, was not loud, and I could hear the man as he approached his foe.
"Brother," he called out.
Brother?
"Bevyn," the man who must've been Phalen said. "You have been hiding from me." His voice was high, higher than that of his brother's, the third son of Torin. His words pierced the night.
"I always hide from you, brother," Bevyn said. "You never bring me anything worth an audience with you."
"Then why are you here?"
"Your wind," Bevyn said. "I can't exactly sleep with it cutting into my skin. Put it away."
It was only then that I put my hand onto my arm and realized it was wet with a thousand tiny droplets of blood.
Phalen laughed.
