Hinterland g-2

by James Clemens

  “Equally blind,” Dart mumbled.

  From the shadows that moved over her features, he had only unsettled her further.

  She stepped away. “I should return to my room. I need to collect my cloak and prepare my bag.”

  “Wait-” he blurted out before he could stop it.

  She glanced to him.

  He struggled for some way to make up for his poor manner. He didn’t want matters to end this way. “I-I wanted to ask you something else. Something’s that been troubling me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s about your creature-Pupp, isn’t it?”

  Brant noted her turn slightly to the left, where Pupp must be roaming.

  “I mentioned this to the regent, and I didn’t know if he told you. My stone-I can see Pupp if it touches him, and I sense him if he draws near, a warming in the stone that can turn fiery if he’s very close. Not like the skull, but still mightily hot.”

  She nodded. “I heard. That’s how you found the room where Pyllor attacked me.”

  Her eyes found his, no longer shamed but more grateful and open. Under her immediate gaze, he struggled to find his tongue and failed.

  She finally broke contact and explained, “Your stone must be ripe with wild Grace. If strong enough, any Grace-blood or otherwise-can draw Pupp fully into this world for a short time.” After a moment, she gestured toward his hand. “Could I see your stone? I never did get a good look at it.”

  With a nod, he tugged the cord to pull the stone free from his shirt. She leaned closer to examine it.

  Brant caught the scent of her hair and noted the curve of her neck as she cocked her head to study the rock. He suddenly found himself warming all over. He wanted to step away, but at the same time to step closer. Trapped between, he stood very still, as if he were being hunted.

  “It’s beautiful,” Dart said, fingering the stone. “I hadn’t realized. The way it catches every bit of light.”

  He felt the gentle tugs on the cord around his neck as she turned the stone in her fingers. It all but unmoored him.

  Then underfoot, a slight tremble reverberated through the ship’s planks. They both took a step back and glanced to the windows. The flippercraft turned inland and passed over the first of the black cliffs that shot straight out of the churning white waves and treacherous currents.

  “We’ve crossed into the Eighth Land,” Dart whispered.

  As the flippercraft angled higher and the sun cleared the seas to the east, the entire land suddenly ignited, awash in morning light. Past the climb of the Nine Pools, the highlands awaited, framed in green peaks, thick with mists that glowed as pink as the clamshells of Farallon’s Ruby Pool.

  But as the sun rose, it revealed a disturbing sight farther up in the highlands. A black pall mingled with the mist.

  Dart noted it, too. “Smoke…”

  With a growing sense of unease, Tylar stood on the captain’s deck, sharing a rail with Rogger and Krevan. “Still no word from any of the ravens we sent?”

  “Not one’s returned,” Rogger said.

  They had sent four birds flying with each bell as the flippercraft crossed into the Eighth Land. They bore messages toward Saysh Mal, announcing their arrival, inviting welcome and tidings. Tylar had ordered their craft slowed when smoke was noted rising into the skies.

  Smudge smoke, Krevan had assessed with his more experienced eye. It did not churn and writhe with the breath of fresh flame. The pall here seeped from an old fire, one still smoldering in ember.

  “What about the raven we dispatched to Farallon?”

  Rogger shook his head, then shrugged. “No surprise with that one. When I stopped at the Nine Pools during my pilgrimage, Farallon was lost to his own dreamsmoke, wallowing in a torpid state from inhaling too deeply on his water pipes, bubbling with the dried and burnt petals of the realm’s water lotus. You could burn his palm-thatched castillion down around his ears, and he’d still not move. His household had been little better.”

  Krevan pointed to the mountainous peaks with their vertiginous cliffs draped in greenery. The cloud forests still lay hidden in the valleys beyond, blanketed behind mist and smoke. “We should continue forward. We waste the day’s light. I’d prefer to be there before night falls.”

  Tylar agreed and motioned for the captain to stoke the alchemies and gain the height necessary to climb from the Nine Pools into the highlands. The flippercraft rose with the barest shudder. Two massive peaks stood as sentinels before them, framing the gateway into the forests of Saysh Mal.

  They had no choice but to trespass.

  The flippercraft circled out and back, gaining the height to push over the falls, but just barely. The ship sailed forward between the towering peaks, fording the waterfalls from a distance close enough for spray to sparkle the flippercraft’s glass Eye.

  Then they climbed higher yet, following a twisting concourse that switched up between jagged peaks until at last the squeeze of the mountains released them. A vast valley opened ahead, a gulf of mist cupped by green peaks. A few taller sentinels of the forest poked through the clouds and patches of open jungle shone brilliantly, like emeralds half-buried in snow.

  But all was plainly not well.

  Except for a few green pockets, the entire western edge of the valley floor lay exposed like a charred scar. Rising heat held back the morning mists, revealing the devastation. The forest had burnt to embers, leaving black trunks sticking out of the burnt ground like planted spears, a fiery palisade between Saysh Mal and the hinterlands that stretched out from the border there.

  “What happened?” Lorr asked.

  The tracker led in Brant and Dart. Brant wore a grim expression.

  “Has there ever been a fire like this before in Saysh Mal?” Tylar asked.

  “No. The Huntress controls root, leaf, and loam, protecting any ravaging fires from spreading. The only time I’ve seen such wild burns is in some of the lowland jungles of the hinterland. But never up in the highlands.”

  “Until now,” Rogger murmured.

  “Could she still be raving?” Brant asked. “Could a simple fire have been started by lightning, and in her madness, she did not stanch it but let it burn?”

  Tylar looked to the thief for answers. Rogger was the one of them who had most recently visited this land, when he stole the skull.

  His eyes held a worried glint as he rubbed the scraggly beard under his chin. “Eylan,” he mumbled and flashed Tylar a significant glance. “You saw her state when Brant broke the seersong’s grip on her. Her mind all but tore apart in the struggle. Taking the skull and hauling my arse out of there may not have been the wisest theft.”

  Krevan made a grumble that clearly agreed with Rogger. But he kept any further accusations to himself.

  Rogger continued. “Seersong is like a worm that takes root in a body rich in Grace. Look how it persists in the bones of Keorn, well after his death. Once embedded deeply enough, like with Eylan, or long enough, like with Keorn, the song becomes irretrievably entangled in mind and flesh.”

  “And when you took the skull…” Tylar said, beginning to sense the depth of the error.

  “Are you familiar with tanglebriar?” Rogger asked.

  Tylar frowned. There was no need to answer. Everyone knew about tanglebriar, the thorny and stubborn growth that could be found everywhere throughout the Nine Lands. It proved almost impossible to kill, even with fire.

  “Tanglebriar,” Rogger said, “is like any pernicious weed in a garden. You rip it free, only to have it grow back wilder. But tanglebriar is even more insidious. You tear off what’s above the soil, and its roots respond by digging deeper, spreading wider, bursting forth more robust than the original thorny stalk.”

  “And you think seersong might be like tanglebriar?”

  “If it fully gets its roots in you.” Rogger turned to the fire. “Taking the skull might have been like ripping tanglebriar. Whatever had already been planted in the Huntress over the year
s may have responded in kind. Driven deep, spread wider, bursting forth with an even more ravening madness.”

  “Mad enough to let her own realm burn?” Tylar asked.

  Rogger just stared toward the devastation. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  Tylar’s eyes drifted away from the charred forest and turned to the tallest sentinel of it. Its crown of leaves caught the morning light and glowed with green fire. An ancient pompbonga-kee. The oldest of all the forest-and home to the Huntress.

  No matter the risk, they would have to venture down there.

  They needed answers from this realm. If they were to follow the footsteps of Keorn back into the hinter, they would need to start in the lands here, where his tracks ended. Additionally, Brant said a chronicler from the school in Saysh Mal possessed a map of the neighboring hinterlands, centuries old and sketchy at best, but better than having no guide at all.

  But most important of all, Tylar had another reason to point his arm toward the castillion rising above the mists. He preferred not to enter the forbidden hinterlands with a ravening god at his back.

  Obeying his silent command, the ship smoothly banked out over the wide jungle, turning its stern toward the smolder, and aimed for the tallest tree in the forest. With the dying fire behind them, the spread of cloud forest appeared like a vast emerald lake, swept by fog, untouched. And as the sun climbed above the horizon, the mists thinned, slowly revealing the breadth of canopy and the fervent vitality of the steaming and damp jungle beneath. It was a pristine world, beyond man and god. Seeing it like this, Tylar wondered how it even could burn-and who would be coldhearted enough to let it.

  Brant joined him. “In the shadow of the Huntress’s castillion, a large bowled meadow lies open to the sky. It should be wide enough to land the flippercraft.”

  Tylar nodded across the deck. “Inform Captain Horas. Help guide him to the spot.”

  As the boy left, Tylar turned to discover that others had gathered here, the remainder of their party, drawn by their approach into Saysh Mal.

  Krevan’s woman, Calla, had entered and stood at her leader’s shoulder, staring out toward the spread of misty jungle. Though she still wore the gray cloak of her guild, she had shed her ash for this voyage, a rare sign of trust. Tylar had been surprised to find her skin as pale as milk, softening her considerably, until you looked into her eyes. They remained as hard as agates and as sharp as the daggers at her wrists. She may have washed her face, but she was still a Flagger at heart.

  Filling the doorway was the last member of their party, the loam-giant Malthumalbaen. Tylar had spent the previous morning talking to the man. While the giant’s tongue might be thick and coarse, there was a quick wit about him-though perhaps tinged a bit more darkly by his brother’s passing. Still, a certain easy companionship developed between them, a balm for Tylar’s own misgivings. Perhaps sensing this, the giant had filled the emptiness with tales of his brother’s exploits, mostly involved with the bottomless pit that was his brother’s belly.

  With everyone gathered, Tylar spoke to the group. “Once we land, we’ll leave the mekanicals stoked high in case a hurried departure is necessary. Krevan and I will inspect the state of the immediate area. The rest will remain with the ship.”

  Malthumalbaen spoke from the doorway. “Mayhap I should go with. A strong arm may serve where a quick sword fails.”

  Tylar bowed his head at the offer. “I would prefer that strong arm guard the ship and those inside.”

  Other objections were voiced Tylar held up his hand and dismissed each in turn. “Lorr, I know your skills at tracking, but even in the best of moods, the Huntress has forbidden the Grace-bred from her lands. Calla, your gray cloak is no match to our shadowcloaks. And Dart, I will be bringing more than just Rivenscryr.” He patted his belt, where a diamond-pommeled sword was sheathed, a shadowknight’s blade. “And I have a tiny repostilary of your blood should it prove necessary to anoint the Godsword.”

  He turned to Rogger.

  The thief held up his own hand. “I’m fine with staying inside the flippercraft.”

  “Keep the skull hidden,” Tylar said.

  “What skull?”

  Tylar rolled his eyes and swung back forward. The ship sailed over the treetops, skimming mists. He stepped over to join Captain Horas and Brant.

  “The Grove lies below the castillion. On its east side. See the shadow cast by the rising sun?” Brant pointed to the marker. “That’s where we want to go.”

  As the pilot corrected their glide, Tylar’s gaze followed where the shadow pointed, farther off to the west. The blaze of the morning sun stretched across the valley to ignite two of the tallest peaks in the western range, pinnacles so steep that even the creeping vines could not scale them. The bare rock, rich in salts and crystals, captured the sun’s rays and ignited with fire.

  Brant noted where he looked. “The Forge,” he said. “The two peaks are named the Hammer and the Anvil.”

  “With the fire between,” Tylar said.

  “They flare at sunrise and at sunset,” Brant mumbled, plainly drawn into old memories. “In the forests near the Forge-that is where the rogue god burnt to ash.”

  Tylar tried to spy the spot, but the ship rolled back around, putting the Forge astern.

  It took another quarter bell to reach the ancient pompbonga-kee. The mists below remained thick, gathered close around the leafy crown of the forest. The tree’s shadow stretched across the white shroud.

  Brant spoke in low whispers to the captain.

  Horas was not so quiet. “And you’re sure there is an open glade below? We’ll be dropping in blind.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “The boy’s right,” Rogger said, sneaking up behind them in his soft boots. “A great big empty hollow full of weeds and low scrub bushes.”

  Brant glanced to him, pained. “Last I saw it, the hollow of the Grove was a rolling meadow of green grasses and flowers.”

  Tylar cut in. “Either way, it is the only open space within a hundred reaches of the castillion.”

  Both Rogger and Brant nodded.

  “Then take us down, Captain Horas. Right through the tip of the tree’s shadow.”

  By now, everyone had gathered to the rails on either side of the pilot’s spar. Captain Horas called orders to his four-man crew, the additional hand gained in Broken Cay. The pilot worked wheel and pedals, deftly adjusting the aeroskimmers to float them over the shadow, and slowly they sank into the mists.

  Sunlight lost its sharp glare, then grew ever dimmer. It was as if they were descending into a twilight sea. Still, the water in the mists captured enough of the surface brilliance to bathe the ship in a suffusing glow. Around them, shadowy giants appeared ahead and to both sides.

  “The Graces,” Brant announced. “The giant pompbonga-kee that make up the Grove.”

  The captain shied from these ghostly behemoths, blindly feeling for the glade’s center.

  Finally, the potbellied keel of the flippercraft dropped below the cloud layer. There was little time to react or call out further orders. The ground rose quickly, appearing suddenly.

  The pilot hauled on the wheel to raise the aeroskimmers high. They did not want to break any of the control paddles. The Eye fell toward the field below.

  Tylar captured only a harried glimpse of the hollow. Cloaked in mist and shadowed by the height of the giant sentinels, the Grove remained in a perpetual gloom. All he managed to see was a strange bristling across the slopes of the bowl. Then the Eye slammed into the ground with a teeth-jarring bump, burying the view in tall grasses.

  Tylar heard a slight crackling as they hit, like the snap of branches, but there was no pop of plank or loud crack of broken paddle. Everyone was silent for a long moment, as if unsure they were still among the living and afraid to ruin the illusion.

  Then Captain Horas barked an order, readying his crew to check the state of the flippercraft.

  Tylar forced his fingers to loos
en their grip on the railing.

  They’d made it.

  Krevan caught his eye. “We should not tarry. Our arrival will not go unnoted for long. The quicker we’re out and lost in shadow, the better we’ll know what we face.”

  As a group, they vacated the captain’s deck and retreated to the rear. Krevan crossed to the side hatch and began unscrewing the latch. Faces sought portholes. Tylar joined them.

  He pressed his forehead against the frame of one of the tiny windows. The mist seemed to have been sucked down with their passage. There was nothing to see beyond a swirling murk.

  Frowning, he returned to Krevan, who shouldered the hatch open and flipped down the small ladder. It struck the ground with a rattle, then settled.

  They listened for a long breath. The world beyond lay quiet. No trill of birdsong. Not even a buzz and whir of winged nits and natterings. Had their landing hushed the realm?

  “Ready?” Krevan asked, pulling up the hood of his cloak.

  Tylar nodded.

  The pirate leader climbed down and jumped lightly to the ground. Tylar followed, hesitated a moment, recalling how Keorn had been burned by his trespass. Then he also stepped down and joined Krevan.

  As he landed with his left foot, a sharp complaint rose from his knee. He hopped off it and tottered a step.

  “Are you all right?” Krevan asked.

  “A stone,” he muttered, covering the twinge.

  The ache slowly subsided in a couple of steps, as it had over the past two days. While normally he would have dismissed the cramp as merely some turn of his knee, the pang here was doggedly familiar, echoing back to when the same knee had once been frozen and cobbled from a poorly healed break.

  It was disconcerting.

  He opened and closed his fist. His little finger, still wrapped, was slowly on the mend. Maybe a bit crooked, but it would leave no lasting weakness.

  As the ache faded in his leg, he pushed back these misgivings for another time and faced the flippercraft. “Keep guard on the door,” he called quietly to Malthumalbaen, who stood at the threshold.