by D. H. Dunn
Somehow, Nima dug inside herself and found the strength to run.
She lowered her head as each bone in her body tried to betray her and bring her down. She ignored the pain just as she ignored the rage inside her, fury that wanted to scream in anger as she charged Tanira.
She had one look at Drew through the shield he and Upala were maintaining, the pain and fatigue so clear in his eyes.
Then she lowered her head and connected, her head and shoulder slamming into Tanira’s back. The blue particles surrounding the woman compressed and likely protected her from injury, but Nima’s speed and mass were enough to send the pair toppling to the ground, sliding across the slick stone surface and into the narrow cold entryway.
Nima scrambled to her feet as Tanira did the same, the woman having her back to the outside world, Varesta’s cold snows swirling around her. Somewhere below, the blood from Val’s body lay Tanira had left it, just as she had intended to leave Nima here on the summit.
Her legs trembling, Nima placed her feet wide across the stone hallway, blocking Tanira’s access back into the inside of the room and Drew.
“You will not hurt another person I love!” Nima shouted, dropping down as one knee buckled. She put her hand on the cold stone to steady herself, there was no strength left to stand upright. “You’ll have to kill me before I let you.”
Tanira stood right in the doorway to the temple, the blue sword in one hand and the swinging chain in the other.
“I do not have to kill you, Nima,” she said, bringing the silver ball in an arc toward her. “You are already dead.”
The ball’s crystal-covered surface impacted with Nima’s chest, sending her flying back into the room as if a yak had kicked her.
She landed hard, sliding a few feet across the stone before stopping. Her vision teared with pain and she looked up to see Tanira step outside, back onto the cold snows of Mount Varesta.
The gold disk at her belt glowed brightly and Nima heard what sounded like the crack of thunder. In a flash of golden light, the entrance was simply gone. Only featureless stone remained where the opening back to Varesta had been.
Nima managed to pull herself back into a sitting position, the pain in her chest pulsing, but slowing somewhat. In the corner, she could see Drew and Upala both slumped over, breathing, but she could not tell how badly they had been hurt.
Her grandfather’s stories never ended like this.
In all, the only one of them that seemed unscathed was Lhamu. They were now all sealed into some strange building on the top of a mountain, wounded and without food, but at least she had saved the baby.
Nima slumped back onto the ground, letting her exhaustion overcome her pain and take her away into darkness.
Drew ran his hand up and down the stone surface, knowing doing so was useless. He had done so a dozen times already, as had Nima and Upala. There was nothing. Nothing but featureless stone, no different than the walls to the left and right of where the entrance to the Hero’s temple used to be.
Nima sat on the floor right next to him, leaning against what had been open space until the agent of the Line’s magic had changed it, erased it somehow.
Tanira, Nima had said her name was, though she would talk little more about it.
Nima held a small child in her arms, an infant with a slightly scaled green face and a bright-white crystal growing out of its forehead. Lhamu, she had called it, a Sherpa name Drew had heard a few times back in Nepal. Like Tanira, Nima had not wanted to go into detail about the child, saying only that she was not ready to discuss what had happened to her.
Next to Nima, Upala stood looking defeated, and it was hard for Drew to disagree. Both of their injuries from their fight with Tanira had healed, but the fact that this Rakhum woman, this agent of Garantika’s Line had so easily held them at bay was hard to process.
If not for Nima, they would both likely be dead. As dead as Sinar, whose corpse still lay on the ground just yards away. As dead as Merin likely was, slain or lost somewhere in this temple.
He put his hand on the stone, hoping it might give him strength.
“If nothing else, we owe you our lives, little sister.” They were just words, small words that died quickly in the dim orange light of the temple’s entrance, but words he needed to say.
Nima looked up from Lhamu, a faint smile on her lips. In her eyes he could see the pain she was working to process, she had lost someone. It was a look he had never wanted to see on her face.
“I would still be in the snow out there,” she said. “I should have known you would come, big brother. Somehow.”
Upala put one hand on Nima’s shoulder, taking a moment to smile at the sleeping infant.
“I am honored I could meet you again, Nima.” The musical notes of her voice no longer raised waves of passion within him, but Drew still found her tone soothing. “Though, I wish the events were different.”
“So do I,” Nima said, her smile fading. Her eyes seemed to be looking at something a thousand miles away.
Or someone.
“Tanira will use the portal out there to return to Aroha Darad,” Upala said. “Armed with the Hero’s armor and sword, she will be able to break the seals. Release the Dragons. Just as Garantika and his Line have planned for generations. All because of how Kater and I treated the Rakhum. Now all the Manad Vhan will suffer the Return.”
Drew pounded his fist against the wall.
“Listen dammit,” he said, turning to face them. “No, that is not happening. We’re not done, this is not the end. We’ve come too far, and there’s too much at stake. There’s got to be a way out of here.”
“If you cannot climb out of a crevasse,” Nima said as she stood, “you might as well look for the bottom.”
Drew snapped his fingers. “Exactly. There could be another exit. Upala, there’s a whole bunch of corridors back there. Where do they lead?”
Upala looked at him, arms folding. “What makes you think I know?”
“You studied this place, right? Merin said you were obsessed with Sirapothi and the Hero. Orami Feram, this is his temple, right? His tomb.”
Upala shook her head.
“I was obsessed with the Hero because he knew how to get to Sirapothi, the land without Death. I never cared about his sword or armor, his temple. That was all Kater, he was the expert. All I know of the temple is its vast size, it is said to be like a labyrinth under the mountain. These tunnels could lead for days or weeks. We could become lost and never find our way out.”
“What you are saying,” Nima said. “Is that we’re trapped in an endless maze with no food and no way out, and none of us have any idea what way we should go?”
Upala sighed her answer.
Drew pounded the wall a second time, the sound of his hand striking the stone echoing down into the darkened halls.
The echo repeated and then grew louder, a soft, familiar laughter now joining it from the dark.
They each stared into the shadows of the passage as a figure slowly emerged, still laughing. Drew’s jaw dropped open at the sight of the wiry beard, the wry grin, and the face he never thought he would see again.
“Well then,” Kater said. “I guess it is a good thing I am here.”
Book Three: Dragons of Everest
Chapter 1
Tanira dropped to her knees, the cold mountain air of Ish Selot rushing in and filling her tortured lungs.
Her trembling hands dropped the blink tube into the snow, her body heaving and gasping for breath. Her vision blurred as she searched for the object in the dark, panic coming to her in waves.
Without it, her mission would fail. Yet Tanira had walked this knife’s edge a hundred times since becoming the End of the Line, always one mistake away from a failure that would doom her people.
The small metal tube was another of the artifacts she had stolen from the Manad Vhan beast Kater, the tiny device miraculously replicated the short-distance teleportation magic of the Yeti.
> Unfortunately, each jump also consumed all the air in her lungs.
She had no energy to curse and no time to be tired. Ignoring the white spots that danced across her vision in the dark morning of the peak, she fished her gloved hands through the cold snow until she found the metal tube.
Struggling to a half-standing position, with one knee still in the snow, she angled the tube upward and peered through the dark. There was supposed to be another spot higher on the mountain, if she could just locate it.
Her vision swam around her in a fog of fatigue and precipitation, the dim light of the clouded moon doing little to illuminate her goal.
Her hand shook again, fouling the aim of the tube. She grabbed her wrist with her other hand, trying to steady it. She could hear the crystals jangling around in their thin metal cage.
How many do I have left? How many more do I need?
She couldn’t even remember loading the device hours before as she had begun her ascent. Since then, there had been too many jumps, too much time spent heaving into the cold.
As if to scorn her, Ish Selot sent a fresh burst of wind down its slopes, blowing more ice and powder into her face. She shivered, struggling to keep her grasp on the tube and her posture steady in the snow.
She dropped the tube again, her trembling fingers failing her. Tanira pounded the snow in frustration, icy white flakes flying into her eyes.
The heavy, metal clamps on her left shoulder were just more useless weight. The armor of the Hero was sufficient to ward off attacks, but it offered nothing against the mountain’s frigid temperature. She had powered the armor off after just one jump, the climbs and blink jumps were enough without adding the drain the armor put on her stamina.
The Line did not care, and the Line had led her here, back to her home world. Left behind were Nima, Sessgrenimath and the small Caenolan child that had given her access to the Hero’s temple and her portal to return.
Nima’s face, hurt and betrayed, flashed in her mind for a moment before she pushed it away, covering it with snow much as the mountain threatened to cover her.
Her body ached to rest. Her mind yearned to sleep. She ignored them both, for her needs as well as the Line. If her eyes closed, they would bring even worse visions. The dead faces of the Rakhum guards she had killed. The hundreds of Thartark that likely drowned after she woke Sessgrenimath.
Val, who had tried to help her. Be her friend.
Pounding her fist into the snow, she dug out the blink tube again, this time gripping it with a strength she worried might bend the metal. With a cry of anger, she pushed her legs back into a standing position.
The Line only moved in one direction, there was no going back. Several jumps above, her destination waited for her. The next step in her mission.
The Vault of the Thread. After millennia Tanira was about to undo the work of Orami Feram, the hero of the Manad Vhan. By her hand and her actions, the great Dragons would again pierce the skies with their power. They would deliver the vengeance of Tanira’s people upon their oppressors. They would deliver justice.
He would be waiting up there as well, the next companion to join her. The Alms of the Line. The keeper of the secrets that had been withheld from her.
What might he look like? Does he have food?
Her stomach clenched at the thought of sustenance, her body having long since burned through the cache of supplies that had been waiting for her at the base of Ish Selot.
Her hand still trembling, she aimed the tube at a ledge several hundred steps farther up the mountain. There it would be even colder, the snow even deeper. She took a deep breath, keeping the mantra of the Line in her thoughts like a rope she could cling to.
Guard the Line. Honor the Line. Trust the Line.
The night was long, and there were many more jumps to do.
Tanira was being pulled up. She had a memory of reaching the front of the Vault and of collapsing in the snow. It might have been minutes, or days ago.
The arm that pulled her to her feet was strong, connected to a young man who looked just as sturdy. His olive cheeks were ruddy from the cold as he smiled at her, his dark hair blowing under his knit cap. He wore a heavy, woolen cloak with brown fur to match the fur on his gloves and boots. He looked her in the eye, unlike her father he was tall enough to do so.
She opened her mouth to speak, then tumbled as her knees gave out before she could. The man’s arms quickly caught her, holding her upright.
“Be at ease,” he said, raising his voice above the ever-howling wind. “I am the Alms of the Line. I am here for you.”
Tanira allowed herself to be held in a standing position by the Alms, her vision still swimming in and out. Her chest heaved a little less, a small relief. Working through her blurred sight, she tried to see past the whiteness that surrounded her, but little detail came.
“Alms.” The title fell from her mouth like a dying bird, the wind ripping away any strength her voice might have. “You have a name?”
“I was Reylor, before my title.”
He moved, and she moved with him, allowing him to lead her toward a darker blur against the white, a squat brown shape that was slowly revealed to be a tent. Reylor lowered her, gently ducking her head inside the flap.
She knelt, her trembling slowing to the point where she became aware of it. The bite of the wind was gone, but the gnawing of the cold remained, little knives that felt like they were peeling away the skin of her toes and fingers.
Reylor’s face peeked into the one-person tent. Tanira couldn’t tell how long he had been gone. He had a small package of wrapped paper in his hands, which he opened to reveal half-crushed crackers of baked wheat paste. Just like her father used to bring her after their long days training.
She grabbed the food from his wooly gloves, the first piece of the brittle substance in her mouth before she even looked up to nod thanks.
Reylor smiled again, his other hand holding a small, leather canteen.
“I am here for you,” he repeated. “I know little of your journey to get here, but I was told to bring supplies and await your arrival. You are here, just as the Line assured me.”
Tanira chewed the cracker and swallowed, feeling as if dry rocks were going down her throat. She coughed, taking a long drink from the canteen. The water inside was partially frozen, a slush that triggered a second coughing fit. Small pieces of cracker flew from her mouth, landing on Reylor’s face.
“Sorry,” she said, embarrassed. The food in her stomach seemed to be punching her insides. She took another drink from the canteen, slower now.
“It is no concern, End of the Line,” Reylor said, pulling off his wool cap and brushing the crumbs from his face. His forehead now visible, she could see the he bore the mark of the Line, but it was carved into his flesh rather than tattooed like herself and her father.
“Call me Tanira,” she said, taking another slow bite. She nodded at his mark. “I have not seen the mark of the Line administered like that.” She swallowed, the second bite going down more smoothly. The combat inside her stomach began to settle.
“I carved it myself.” A tone of pride entered his voice. “I was not born into the Line, I had to convince them to allow me into the order.”
Laying back and straightening her legs, Tanira propped herself onto one elbow as she continued to nibble at the cracker, her ravenous hunger departing like a cloud in the wind.
Carved it himself? Joined the Line? She did not know such a thing was possible. How could he have even known of the Line’s existence?
Her eyes drooped as she pondered the question. Her father had told her much of the Line’s history. It was a closed society that lived underneath the normal lives of Rakhum in both Nalam Wast and Rogek Shad. Guard the Line, after all. The whole point was to keep it secret.
She felt a hand on her shoulder, giving her a slight shake. Her eyes opened slowly, feeling as if they had been glued shut. Had I fallen asleep?
“You must open the Va
ult,” Reylor said. “Release the Thread. That is why we are here.”
Tanira made a half-hearted attempt to move her legs, then laid her head down on the hard surface of the tent floor.
“I need to wait, to rest.”
“The Line cannot wait,” Reylor said. “You have rested, now we must open the Vault.” His hand touched her shoulder a second time. Her eyes caught the movement, so similar to a memory. Green hands instead of gloved, scaled fingers reaching for her blades.
Tanira whipped her hand across her chest, grabbing Reylor’s by the wrist and locking her fingers around it. Feeling a wellspring of anger inside her, she tapped that energy and leaped out of the tent, half-dragging the larger Reylor with her as she did so.
She stood in the snow, one hand on the hilt of the Hero’s sword while the other kept Reylor’s wrist in front of her. She glared at him, as he looked back at her with little expression on his face. He was no longer smiling, now simply looking at her as if he planned to patiently wait her emotions out.
“You are weary,” he said, spoken as if he were commenting on the weather. “It is understandable, yet the Line cannot wait. There are other agents farther along our path, their actions timed with ours. You know this.”
“I know this,” Tanira repeated, still holding his wrist but loosening the grip. He was larger than her, but he showed no evidence of combat training. His stance was loose, his breathing calm. His other arm hung by his side, gloved hand dangling uselessly. He made no effort to resist her.
She released her grip on his hand, as well as on the hilt of the Hero’s sword. Reylor rubbed his wrist for a moment. He made no effort to direct her to the entrance to the Vault, but her vision had cleared and the sun had risen.
The entrance to the Vault was nowhere in sight.
She looked around the relatively flat surface Reylor had camped on, the supposed location of the Vault of the Thread. Like everywhere else on Ish Selot though, she saw only snow and ice. The small plain went on for about a hundred steps in any direction, and then ended in a wall of snow and ice that faced the rising sun. In all other directions, there were merely drops of various distances, all of them certainly fatal.
