My commander had her walnuts arranged in neat rows close to the fire. “It helps to roast them. It softens the hard shell. I’ve known you to be a poor hunter, but a gatherer too?”
That earned a few chuckles from Rovid.
I shot him a sidelong glance. “Let me know when you move on from picking fucking berries.”
“Least I can eat what I gathered,” he said, flicking another blackberry into his mouth.
Lysa refused to join in on the banter, instead opting to keep pressing me about the weather.
“If it’s changed that much,” she said, “will the book still be buried? And regardless, how will you know where it is? You can’t possibly remember.”
When Rovid wasn’t looking, I snatched a handful of his fruit, then winked at Lysa.
She frowned. “Astul, I’m serious.”
I sighed. “You worry too much, you know that? I left markers behind. We’ll be coming upon them soon. It’d be better if you slept instead of asking questions. You’ll end up fatigued while on the saddle, pass out, fall off, conk your head, then what? You’ll forever be known as Lysa the Slobbering Conjurer.”
“You think I’m being annoying, don’t you?”
“Knowledge,” Vayle said, putting a hand on Lysa’s knee, “is different than thought, dear. Rest.”
Lysa furrowed her brows, considered Vayle for a moment, then blew air through her nostrils. Fatigue makes an asshole out of us all. Thankfully, Miss Bad Temper stretched out and laid her head down on folded hands. Within minutes, her fingers twitched as dreams took her on an adventure.
“That looks quite comfy,” Rovid said, pushing himself away from the fire to make room for his sprawled-out limbs. “If only I had a pillow.”
“Plenty of wool packed for you in one of the satchels,” I said. “Bunch it up, and voilà. You’ve a pillow.”
He sighed deeply. “If only I had someone to fetch me those wools…”
“You’re a lazy ass.”
“And you’re an unfriendly one. Good night.”
Vayle reached for one of her walnuts. She rolled it between her fingers, gave it a slight crack off a rock. Apparently dissatisfied, she returned it beside the fire.
“I assume,” she said, “now that your daughter is sleeping, you’ll confess the truth.”
Rovid was lying in such a position that I could see one half of his face, which meant I could see one eye. It had been closed, but now it snapped open, attentive.
“Daughter? Truly, Vayle? You won’t ever let it go, will you?”
“When you stop treating her as such, then I will quit referring to your relationship as such. I do not urge that, though. I think it’s… respectable. Honorable. But treating her like a child is not.”
I could’ve played this game all morning long, but I had sleep to get.
“Fine,” I said. “Maybe I am keeping her in the dark about certain things. It’s for her own good. She needs belief right now. She needs hope. And confessing that I don’t have a goddamn fucking clue of where we are doesn’t exactly breed hope, does it?”
Now Rovid had turned over, and both his eyes were open.
Vayle pulled her knees in close to her chest. “We can retrace our steps and start over.”
“It’s not that. We’re on the right path. I remember this creek. It was frozen over four months ago. And we passed a tree yesterday with some old cloth tied around its trunk, a marker I’d made. But things here are different than I remember them. Look at the sky. Looks like it’s—”
“Ashy,” Vayle said.
I nodded. “Yeah, ashy. Remember that forest fire in the Green Fields years ago? The smoke was so thick and black, it grayed out the sky for hundreds of miles. Looks like that. Except I never had a piece of ash fall from the heavens during that blaze.” I held a finger up. “Caught a speck yesterday. Thought it was snow.”
“So did I,” Vayle said. “Several, in fact. We’re supposedly two days from where you buried the book. We should continue pressing forward. The land is beginning to ascend now. We could be at the foot of the mountain, where a summer warmth may have melted much of the snow.”
I flicked a berry into the air, caught it in my other hand. “That’s a lot of snow to melt in four months. And it’s not warm here by any means. Not cold, not warm. About as average as you can possibly get.”
“Amortis is different than what we know.”
Rovid cleared his throat. “Not that different. I mean, there aren’t any weather patterns to speak of, no, and when a man’s head gets chopped off, his soul floats about until it finds another body, but four months for a mountain of snow to melt? That doesn’t seem right. Granted, most of my focus in Amortis while I was a reaper was in a relatively small section near the Prim, but…”
“We still have two days to go,” Vayle said. “If Astul remembers this creek being frozen, then there couldn’t have been much snow on the ground. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have known the creek had existed at all. The foot of a mountain thaws rapidly.”
My eyes watered as I yawned. “Vayle’s right. If we don’t see snow tomorrow, we can begin to worry. Or we can rejoice, because a lack of winter’s piss and vomit to trudge through means we’ll reach our destination within a day.”
“Ice and snow,” Rovid said. “Which is the piss, and which is the vomit? And where’s the shit? Is Old Man Winter constipated? Can’t squeeze a few turds out between his cheeks?” Rovid cackled like a witch, then acted like he was coughing as neither Vayle nor I found the knee-slapping humor in his joke.
“The shit,” I said, “is an avalanche. Best pray we don’t encounter that.”
“Avalanche means there’s snow,” Rovid pointed out. “Which I’ll take over the weird and unexplainable every day of my life.”
I lay back and looked into the sky of ash. Weird and unexplainable indeed.
After a couple hours of sleep, it was back on the saddle. We’d filled our skins with fresh water from the creek, which proved a fortunate decision, because about four hours later, sweat dripped from our brows and chins and lips and fingers and from about everywhere sweat can possibly drip.
Instead of climbing up, up, up, into the bosom of a snowy mountain, our horses trotted across flat expanses of baked dirt and smoldering earth. The ground resembled the burnt crust of a blackened pie. Steam billowed up from deep pits whose rims would occasionally flare.
I looked from east to west and north to south for the mountain ridge whose crater hid the book. There was no mountain here. No markers that I’d left behind. Nothing but the sloshing of molten lava deep inside the pits.
Actually, there was something else. While Vayle was arguing with Rovid and Rovid was bitching at me and Lysa was freaking the fuck out because this shit was opposite of snow and ice, a couple small figures bounced up and down in the distance. Then a couple more, and a few others. Soon, there were about twenty or so riding our way.
“Hmm,” Vayle said, ebon blade already withdrawn, “it appears they are mounted upon boars.”
“Thanks for the commentary, Commander. I don’t much care what they’re riding in on.”
“They don’t look like Wardens,” Lysa noted. “Some of them aren’t even armed.”
“Boars aren’t quick,” Rovid said. “We could outrun them.”
“They could be helpful,” Vayle said. “If they point us in the direction of the mountain…”
Rovid was clutching to the reins of his horse, sidling back toward the stirrups. “That’s a big if.”
Vayle had been convinced we made a wrong turn. But you don’t suddenly go from the foot of a mountain to a stretch of pockmarked, lava-filled pits in half a day’s ride. Something was clearly wrong. And depending on the disposition of our pursuants, it could get a whole lot worse.
“Mount up,” I ordered. “We’re leaving.” I turned, blinked and clicked my tongue. “Never mind. I guess we’re staying.”
I’d hoped that would placate the three ladies who pointed black-tippe
d spears at my chest. But they pushed their weapons closer, a bandanna wrapped tight around their mouths, dusty yellow eyes the shape of slits.
There were six others. A mixture of men and women, split off in groups of two behind Rovid, Vayle and Lysa. Eight boars stood obediently behind our unwelcome visitors, ivory tusks none too inviting.
“Er,” I stuttered, “I think we’re lost. We’re looking for a mountain.”
One of the women pulled down her bandanna, revealing cracked lips and sooty flesh. “Thur are-a no-a mounteens in Fragment Eeeet.”
Huh. Well, what do you know? We had made a wrong turn.
Chapter 8
“It’s itchy,” Lysa complained, raking her bound wrists into the brittle soil behind her.
“Be thankful it’s not rope,” I said. “That shit’ll rub the skin right off your wrists.”
Well, actually, it was rope that tied our hands together, but not the sort I was used to. This stuff was thin, lightweight and looked like grass and silk had been woven together. Felt like something you use to keep an honest man honest, rather than a dangerous one subdued.
I could break out of this, I thought. Of course, I wasn’t going to. I’d probably get about three feet before a spear went surging through my rib cage. Our captors — the ones who’d flanked us and those who arrived a few minutes later, from the other direction — were huddled in a group, voices hush. Ideally they weren’t discussing ways in which to escort soul from body, but… well, things weren’t exactly looking promising.
After some time, one of them approached us. Same gal who’d told us we were in Fragment Eight. Or, as she called it, Fragment Eeeet. She had matted red hair soiled with what looked like ash. She fit a finger snug inside the edge of her bandanna and pushed it down below her chin.
“You are deeffereent,” she said, waving a finger between Rovid, Vayle and me. “Why?”
Hmm. I wondered if these people were perhaps religious fanatics. I could conjure up a story about how the gods had chosen us to be stewards of the realms, and I’d prove it to them by showing them how I could slip right back into the living realm. Would they fall for that?
Probably not. Thanks to my commander.
“We’re not from here,” Vayle said.
“Actually,” I explained, “we’re not even dead. Funny thing there, huh?” I laughed uneasily. The woman blinked. “It’s a really long story.”
The other bandit-looking vagrants were standing behind the red-haired woman now, listening in.
“Eento thee peets,” the woman said. “We don’t have room for-a more-a preesoners.”
“Wait,” I said. “We’re after a book. I stole it from a god. Actually” — I nodded toward Rovid — “he stole it. I just… didn’t give it back. That may sound—”
The woman tilted her head sideways, as if intrigued. “Hmm. Wha’ kind-a book?”
“I suppose ‘big’ probably wouldn’t satisfy your question, would it?”
She straightened herself, crossed her arms.
Figuring I probably shouldn’t be tempting my luck with someone who seemed to have few reservations about tossing my sorry ass in a pit of magma, I hurried for a better explanation.
“Its pages are old and wrinkled and gray. Its binding is tattered and worn. And if you pick it up, it feels like you’re lifting the world.”
The woman rubbed her lips, deep thought whisking her away.
“Elimori will want to see him,” said one of the bandits.
The woman pointed at me with her chin. “Do you-a have a skeel?”
“I’ve killed kings, burned kingdoms, eviscerated lords, made conjurers go poof into the night. So, yes, I have a skill for making people disappear.”
“We’re assassins,” Vayle put in.
Rovid coughed. “I am not. I’m a mere—” He likely suddenly realized the next few words would determine whether he’d continue on in Amortis as a man who could cross between realms, or one destined to forever remain here. A mere farmer or villager or whatever he intended on claiming probably wasn’t a skill to these people, and when you have nothing to contribute, your captors have no reason to bring you along.
“You’re a mere wha’?” the woman asked.
“I used to be a reaper.” Rovid’s head fell, perhaps out of embarrassment. “I didn’t choose to be. It’s not like that. Understand—”
The woman turned to her bandits. “Reaper?” she whispered.
The guys in gals with bandannas over their mouths shrugged.
“Wha’ do you reap?” the woman asked.
“Lives,” Vayle answered for him, before he could fuck himself over any further.
“And,” Rovid said with earnest, “I’m loyal. Quite loyal. Very much so, in fact.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “To whom?”
Gods, Rovid. Shut the fuck up.
“Er. Well. To—”
The woman waved him into silence. She pointed at Lysa. “And you?”
With a voice that matched her emotionless face, Lysa said, “I’m a conjurer.”
For the first time, I saw the woman’s gapped teeth. And her gums. And her tongue slithering out between her lips as she smiled like a rapist who’d just learned where her soon-to-be victim lives.
It was a smile that unhinged Lysa, if only slightly. She wore her stone mask well, but even the strongest stone can crack. She swallowed, hard, clenched her teeth.
“Cut ’um loose,” the woman said. “Leemal, show our guests wha’ will happen eef they roon.”
The apparent Limal — greasy-haired lad with sleeves chopped off from his shirt and a second bandanna tied around his forearm — stepped forward. He shuffled a long-shafted spear through his hand, gripping it tight around the middle.
A silver pin soared through the air, thrown from the hand of his commanding officer, or whatever she was.
It rose about fifty feet and traveled twice as far before it began to drop. Limal had his spear cocked, weight heavy on his back foot. As the silver pin lost its momentum, spear man transferred all his weight to his front foot and followed through with the chuck of his weapon. The next noise we all heard, assuming no deafs were among us, was the tink of a silver pin being smashed into by the iron tip of a spear.
The woman faced me. She looked prouder than Limal.
“I think we get it,” I said. “Now that we’ve acquainted ourselves, how about a name, hmm?” I extended her a hand to shake. “Astul, but you can call me Shepherd.”
She regarded my hand as a foreign entity, letting it hang there until I retracted it. “I weel call-a you Astul. You may address me as Nikka. And the rest of your friends?”
“Vayle,” said my commander.
“Rovid.”
We were all waiting on Lysa to answer. She did not. So I elbowed her and said in a playful manner, “Tell the woman your name, okay?”
Lysa rubbed her newly freed wrists, edging along the indentations made from the rope. “My name is my own.”
I fully expected, and it would have been entirely warranted, for Nikka to come over and slap the callowness right from Lysa’s mouth. But the dingy, red-haired woman approached not to incite violence, but rather to have a little chitchat with Miss Immaturity.
“Are you peerfect, or impeerfect?” Nikka asked.
Lysa held her eyes for a moment. “Perfect,” she said, turning her head.
“There ees much value in a peerfect conjurer.”
“I’m not a commodity.”
“No,” Nikka agreed. “You’re a weapon.” She backed away, retreating among her bandits. “You’ll ride your own horses. Eet’s a two-day ride, and we weel not stop unteel we arrive.”
“Where,” I asked, “exactly are we going?”
“You wanted you’re book,” Nikka said, climbing onto the saddle of her boar, “yees?”
“Yes.”
“We have eet.”
For some reason, I had a grave feeling that the “we” she spoke of did not include only her an
d these twenty-some bandits. Also, what the piss was a perfect conjurer? Lysa had some questions to answer.
A Dream
The twinge, again. More discernible this time, but no more painful.
The boars in the distance were there again, but he seemed uninterested in this. The appearance of Nikka gave him pause. He idled the memory for a while, sharpening the focus of her face and the peculiar markings on her neck.
I asked if she was a danger.
He said no.
I asked if he was who I thought he was.
“Would the truth allay your concerns, or vex them?” he asked. And then, a simple, “Yes.”
Strange that I felt entirely welcoming of his presence, given I had come here on behalf of a goddess who claimed he would sniff me out and end my existence if he had the chance.
He laughed, then, as that thought came to pass. And he said the god of life does not end his own creations. He wishes them to succeed, and succeed — he told me — I would.
Chapter 9
Riding boars is not enjoyable, especially when you don’t have proper-fitting saddles. Nikka had said the four of us could ride the horses we’d brought from the Hole, but here’s the thing: they were from the Hole. The living realm. You know, the place where living things need water and food to live. And as it turns out, Fragment Eight is devoid of water — save what Nikka termed “intelligently placed” springs near villages, mostly for mercantile purposes — and sure there’s some game to hunt, but a horse will go die of thirst long before it dies of hunger.
So the four of us, along with Nikka and her bandits’ help, rounded up some boars who apparently had been domesticated in Fragment Eight for a few hundred years.
Boars smell like shit, because what do you know — they often roll around in their own shit. Also, they snort and make disgusting noises constantly, and their gait is about as smooth as a boulder rolling down the sheer face of a cliff.
“This,” I said to Lysa, riding up beside her, “is the most miserable landscape I’ve ever been through.” Eight hours into our travels looked no different than five seconds in, save magma spewing up from one of the pits. That was different. And frightening.
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