“You are that man,” said Hercol. “You have outlived the curse you carried.”
“I have done that,” said Vadu. “Yes. That is something. Farewell, strange friend-”
Vadu said no more. He lay still, and though Pazel knew he might be imagining it, he thought that peace stole over the counselor’s body; and Bolutu, no longer a monk of the Rinfaith but practiced in such moments nonetheless, gently closed his eyes.
The Infernal Forest
8 Modobrin 941
Thasha’s hair was half the length it had been an hour before; her locks ended in singed, black strands. Kneeling beside Pazel, she cut away the shreds of his trouser leg, and winced at what she saw. But Pazel knew he was lucky. His calf had been pierced in four places, but the broken fangs had not gone deep; the troll had meant to hold him while its claws did the killing. Still, something was wrong. The wound throbbed, and ugly green-purple blotches were rising around the broken skin. Thasha looked around helplessly. “Blary wonderful place to be without a doctor,” she said.
Pazel thought of Neeps, and cringed inside. What doctor could help him, though? In Arqual Chadfallow had cured the talking fever, but that was not a magical plague. And all the doctors of the South had obviously failed. So much horror, he thought, watching a Turach wrap wet bandages about a burned dlomic forehead.
“The trick will be to keep those holes from getting infected,” said Ensyl, studying his leg.
No, he thought, the trick was to keep moving. To keep moving, and not to let his thoughts wander anywhere he couldn’t stand to look. With that goal in mind he glanced up at the trees. There were fifty shades of green straight overhead. Tiny butterflies were descending like a fall of orange snowflakes. “This doesn’t look very infernal to me,” he said.
“No,” said Thasha, “I don’t suppose we’re there yet.”
The survivors dressed their wounds, and those of the three remaining dogs. Then they carried Vadu into the forest, and built a cairn of stones over his body, and held their breath to the count of one hundred for the dead, as their people had done for so many generations that no one could say how the custom began.
As they returned Pazel looked over the remaining soldiers. Two Turachs: an older warrior, with a scar on his forehead like an extra eyebrow; and a younger man with a sullen, boyish face. Five dlomic warriors, including a tall and capable woman who appeared to be taking charge of her comrades.
Ibjen walked knee-deep into the river, staring intently at something offshore.
“What is it, lad?” asked Cayer Vispek. But instead of answering, Ibjen suddenly dived.
He surfaced many yards away, swimming with a power no champion human swimmer could hope to match. As Pazel watched he closed on some jagged rocks at mid-river, where sticks and other debris had collected. Carefully he plucked something from the detritus, then turned and swam back to the shore.
“This is yours, Thashiziq,” he said as he emerged. On his palm rested an ornate wooden box, soaked and battered but intact.
“The box from Vasparhaven!” said Thasha, taking it. “The one the novice said came from you, Pazel. I thought for sure it was lost. But that lovely crystal-it can’t possibly have survived.”
She sprang the latch, raised the lid. Unfortunately she was quite correct: nothing but a fine dust remained of Kirishgan’s exquisite sphere. The parchment was damp, but not soaked. As the others gathered, watching, Thasha took out the little scrap and unfolded it with great care. The selk’s writing had begun to blur, but it could still be read. A sworn secret must be kept-but in like measure, a fateful meeting must be honored. Therefore in deepest trust I tell you: there is hope downriver, between the mountains and the sea.
Alyash turned away, sneering. “That’s profound, that is. I’m all a-quiver.”
“You’re a fool,” said Pazel. “He’s telling us something important. As clearly as he can without breaking an oath.”
“The message is surely important,” said Hercol, “but we cannot debate it now. Rest a little more, all of you, and see that your wounds are dressed properly. We have our own oaths to keep, and they will soon spur us onward.”
Pazel lay down with his head on a stone, watching the butterflies, trying not to think of the trolls. He closed his eyes and saw their faces, their flame-slobber, their claws. He heard Dastu say something about “Pathkendle’s nurse” and realized that Thasha was still fussing over his leg. Once again he felt a surge of annoyance with her, although he knew the response was foolish. What was he resisting, exactly? Her touch, his need for it? Whatever it was, Thasha sensed his impatience, and her fingers grew clumsy on his bandages.
Very soon Hercol called the party together. “It is best that you know the truth,” he said. “We have lost all our supplies, save the weapons we managed to swim with, and what Alyash and I carried on our backs. We have some half a dozen mul, but nothing else to eat. We have no spare clothes, no oilskins against the rain, no telescope, or rope, or compass. There are torches, and a box of matches that may dry out eventually. Among the twenty-one of us we have nine swords and two knives.”
“And one pistol,” said Alyash.
“One soaked pistol,” said Hercol. “This is what I would tell you now: we may perish in this quest. But if you are with me still, I can promise you that ours will not be a thoughtless or an empty death. We will stand together, and if need be fall together, but we will yet do all that we can to prevail.”
“But of course we’ll follow you,” said Thasha.
Hercol’s fondness for her shone in his eyes. “You are my right hand, Thasha-or perhaps I am your left. It is to others I speak.”
“As for the three of us,” said Cayer Vispek, “you need not waste your breath. The scriptures tell us that it is a blessing to discover one’s fight, to see the devil by the plain light of day, and take after him with a blade. Most are denied this; most lunge at false devils-even at their brothers. We have taken enough false lunges. I think now that you were sent to show us our true fight-even if that is a fight from which we do not return. So lead on, Tholjassan. I say again, if we did not follow you, where would we go?”
“This is no debate we need to have,” added the dlomic woman. “Any doubts we harbored, we left behind in Masalym. Even Counselor Vadu knew in his heart that you must lead. We will go forward, and if fate permits we will kill this sorcerer before it is too late.”
The other dlomic soldiers nodded. “The Otter speaks for us all,” said one.
“Otter?” said Hercol.
The dlomic woman looked slightly embarrassed. “I am Lunja, a sergeant of the Masalym Watch. My name means ‘Otter’ in the old tongue of Chaldryl. So to my men I am the Otter.”
Hercol nodded to her. “I thank you for your trust, Sergeant Lunja.” He looked at the remaining faces, one by one. His gaze fell last on Alyash, who was something of an apparition. His hair had burned off completely; his shirt was torn open, revealing his old, extensive scars, and blisters like embedded pearls graced his ears and forehead.
“What are you staring at?” said the bosun. “Yes, I’ll blary follow you. Not as if anyone here’s going to take orders from me.”
“Then prepare to march,” said Hercol, strapping Ildraquin over his shoulder. “Fulbreech is still moving away. We will rest at dusk, whether he pauses or not. But since we have crossed the Black Tongue by daylight, let us at least do as Vadu wished and use these hours well.”
He set off at an unforgiving pace, and the others, in their burned boots (and in Vispek’s case, no boots at all) struggled to keep up. They walked under the trees, out of the dense underbrush at the margin of the forest, but near enough its edge to keep the river in sight. Thasha, who carried nothing except her sword, began to help Pazel hobble along on his wounded leg. After a few minutes she gave the task to Neeps. “You’re the right height,” she said, sliding Pazel’s arm over his shoulder. Neeps flashed her an awkward smile, and so did Pazel. But when he smelled lemons he turned away, pretending th
at his leg hurt him awfully, so that neither would see the truth on his face.
An hour later Pazel felt stronger, and told Neeps he could manage on his own. The forest began to thin by midafternoon, and in time they marched out of it altogether, onto a narrow plain of low, feathery grasses, bounded on the right by jagged cliffs and the scree of old landslides, and on the left by the crumbling banks of the Ansyndra, along which grew scattered pines and cedars and the occasional oak. It was strange country, very warm and windless, and yet enclosed on all sides by those enfortressed mountains, looming over them with vast shoulders of snow. The Ansyndra became deeper, narrower, more violent and swift. They had no other guide but Ildraquin’s whispers to Hercol, but he drove them on, nearly running, saying that their quarry lay ahead, always downriver and ahead.
So the day ended, and at dusk as promised Hercol let them rest. They chose a spot with many cedars near the river. The mountain’s shadow brought swift darkness, but they had good luck with the matches and soon a fire was burning. It cheered them some and dried their boots, but its heat made their burns ache. Alyash disassembled Ott’s pistol, drying the components on a stone. Pazel gazed blearily at the little wood-and-steel mechanism. Hard to believe that it could kill a man.
Famished, the twenty-one travelers and three dogs shared half their stock of mul, which came to about a teaspoon each. Pazel was battling sleep even as he chewed. He drifted off with Thasha once more examining his leg, and a dog licking his mul-sticky fingers with equal concentration.
At dawn they were chilled and soaked with dew. Hercol had them up and marching before they were properly awake, and certainly before they could commiserate about their injuries, their fallen comrades, the lack of food, the impossibility of return. The plain widened as the river (unreachable now, sunk deep in its rocky gorge) cut longer serpentines. Hercol maintained his savage pace, cutting off any protests with a lancing stare. When they crossed a stream he ordered them to bend and drink deep, and while they did so he wrenched off his own boots and handed them without a word to Cayer Vispek. In the heat of the afternoon the scalded dog began to limp and drop behind, calling after them with a mournful yelp. Hercol turned back and lifted it over his shoulders, and carried it that way like a sack of grain. “If its foot does not improve by morning we will eat it,” he declared.
They ate the last of the mul that night, and Bolutu extracted a long thorn from the dog’s paw. Hercol would not permit a fire. “We have closed the gap,” he said. “I think the sorcerer is within five miles, and I would not lose him now.”
Just beyond their camp the land rose in a stony bluff, leaning out over the river gorge. While the others prepared to sleep, Hercol climbed the bluff with Ensyl on his shoulder. They crouched among rocks at the summit, hidden from the sight of anyone beyond, staring through small gaps. They remained there a long time, motionless.
“What are they looking at?” said Neeps finally.
Thasha got to her feet. “Let’s go find out,” she said. She and Neeps climbed the bluff and stood beside Hercol. At once they grew still, gazing beyond the rocks, transfixed.
When Neda too noticed their fascination, Pazel held out his hand. “Help me up,” he said. “We’ll go and see for ourselves.”
At that Jalantri leaped to his feet and caught Neda by the arm. “You’re not thinking, sister! You’re badly bruised and there is fighting ahead. Let him waste his strength if he will. We know better, Phoenix-Flame.”
Neda seemed at a loss for words. She looked at Jalantri’s hand on her arm until he dropped it, chastened. Then she glanced quickly at Pazel and started up the hill.
They walked in silence (so weirdly normal, climbing a hill beside his sister; they might have been back in Ormael) until Neda said, “The way of the sfvantskor is perfection.”
“Okay,” said Pazel.
“If you are distracted by the personal,” she said, “you will fail when your people most need their champion. That is certain, proven. That is why we are chaste. We turn our passions to the needs of the people, to the Grand Family. That is the Mzithrin way, and the sfvantskor must be the example.”
Pazel looked back: Jalantri was still watching them. “You don’t have to explain, Neda,” he said.
She smiled, as though amused that Pazel thought he understood. Then she said, “The dogs keep sniffing at Neeps. They look at him strangely, too.”
Pazel glanced at her, aghast. He could have kicked himself for not noticing. They’re hunting dogs, he thought. Were they trained to hunt tol-chenni? Is that what Neeps smells like to them? Fear for Neeps surged through him once more. But when they reached the hilltop, where the others were still crouched and staring, what he saw drove everything else from his mind.
A gargantuan lake spread before them, far greater than Ilvaspar, almost as large as the Gulf of Masal itself. Or was it a lake? It was almost perfectly round, and its shores were sheer, rocky cliffs. But there was no water that he could see. Instead, across the whole expanse, some twenty or thirty feet below the rim, spread a layer of dark, murky green. A flat surface, but not entirely smooth. It appeared to be composed of one round patch atop another, like overlapping lily pads choking a pond, except that these pads were all fused at the edges into one solid mass. Pazel could see no gaps at all, except very close to them, where the Ansyndra tumbled into the crater.
“Hercol says Fulbreech is down there,” said Thasha. “Inside it. Moving around.”
“But what is it?” said Neda. “A lake, covered in water-weed?”
“I think,” said Hercol, “that we are looking at the Infernal Forest.”
“That’s no forest,” said Pazel. “I mean… could it be?”
“We have seen many strange things on this side of the Nelluroq,” said Ensyl, “but that is the strangest. I do not like it. I fear it will not go well for us there.”
“Then let us rest,” said Hercol, “for Fulbreech is there below, somewhere. And Arunis must surely be with him, for who would enter such a place if not compelled?”
That night for the first time since Masalym the air stayed warm. Pazel lay down next to Thasha and held her near. The others lay all around them; a dog curled up and leaned into his back. He tried to nudge the creature but it only groaned.
Thasha’s eyes were still open. He leaned close and whispered, “What are you thinking about?”
“Marila,” she said.
He felt a tightness in his throat. He wanted to tell Thasha about Neeps, but the words would not form.
“We’re going to know their child,” said Thasha. “If we live, I mean. If we live and we win.”
A shudder flashed through his body. He pulled her tight. Then Thasha turned and pressed her lips to his ear.
“Half Bali Adron,” she said, tapping his chest.
He nodded.
“What did you find there, Pazel? In the temple, in Vasparhaven? Are you allowed to tell me?”
Pazel said nothing. He could hear the bursting of the globe, see the empty space where the woman had been, feel the stab of what he’d known was love. Such a distant memory. Such a terrifying force.
“Crystal,” he said.
“Hmm?”
“Everything there was made of crystal, Thasha. The spiders and the people and the music and the stones. And everything outside the temple’s the same, isn’t it? You want to hold it because it’s so beautiful. And you can’t, really. Not for long. It will break if you’re bad and selfish and it will break if you’re good. It snaps or it shatters, or it melts in your hand. And the more beautiful it is the less time you get to have it. And you don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”
Thasha didn’t answer. She turned her back, thoughtful, and then lay still beneath his arm. In minutes they were both asleep.
Well past midnight, he felt her guide his hand under her tattered clothing and hold it tight against her breast. So quiet when it finally happened. So unlike the way he’d dreamed. He raised his head, kissed her silently from shoulder
to ear, tasting ashes, feeling her tremble. Then he lowered his head beside her, nuzzling, and tumbled back into sleep.
But later still he woke more fully beneath her kisses, and without a word they rose, and tiptoed barefoot into the grass. They neared the river gorge, felt the breeze over the water, stepped cautiously along the rim. Beneath one of the cedars, they turned to face each other, and Pazel lowered himself onto a stone, mindful of his leg. Thasha undressed before him, and she was no more than a blue-white silhouette by the light of the little Polar Candle (the old moon had set; it was almost dawn) but at the same time she was everything that mattered, Thasha Isiq, his lover, naked and frightened and magnificent and strong. And when he carefully removed his own clothes and embraced her there was no more fear in his heart, no room for it, she was the place in the world where fear ended, and she backed into the tree and said she loved him, and her hands reached up for a sturdy branch, and for a few seconds he was inside her, just barely; she had raised herself almost out of his reach, and knowing he shouldn’t he tried to stand higher, to scramble up onto a root, rock, anything, it was like trying to mate with the tree, and then she pushed him out altogether and lowered herself to her feet and clasped him tight in her hand, frantic, hips straining against the side of his leg, she was closer than his own skin, closer than he was to himself.
The moment they fell still another sound reached their ears. The dog had followed them, and was scratching urgently with a hind foot just a few feet away. He felt her heart drum against his chest, the laughter shaking her from forehead to thighs. It was nonsense, what they said about dying of happiness. Happiness made you want to live.
They walked a bit farther along the edge of the gorge. He tried talking to her but she only murmured; she was suddenly far away and thoughtful. He was teased by the notion that they had done something dangerous, perhaps mortally so. Was it the magic inside her, Erithusme’s strange, destructive gifts? Or his, maybe: the language-spell working to decode her silence, her yearning; trying to translate her wordless needs into his own? He could not make himself care. They clasped hands, scarred palm to scarred palm. He felt that whatever befell her must happen to him as well, and already he longed to touch her again.
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