Finally, after far too long, he realized that the tether was not pulling at him the way he had thought. There was no tug from the tether-point, but something like a pressure at his back—one he automatically leaned into as if he had spent years resisting it. A strange dual push, at once sideways-down and up-away. Once he concentrated on it, the conflicting directions began to nauseate him.
Two different connections, he thought. One toward the Guardian, and one toward...
His stomach sank. If the spirit realm was up-away, then sideways-down was the Dark.
It has its hooks in me. It has its hooks in me. It has its hooks—
Stop. Do as the Guardian said and move with its tether.
Lifting the tectonic lever, he tried to lean toward the up-and-away, and—
—rose—pushed—fell against some kind of membrane, a semi-permeable barrier that stressed against him, stretched and thinned and finally—
—slid him through, then snapped shut like a slap, leaving him on one knee in wet sand. Blinking, he lifted his head to see salt-crystals rising before him like towers, their faces glossy but pitted, bases etched by the rippling water that surrounded them.
He rose slowly, feeling nauseated, and steadied himself with the lever. Around him rose a claustrophobic forest of pillars and spikes and weirder shapes, glinting with rainbow light. Tall white spheres, half-submerged tetrahedrons, branching fractals of blue and green, crazed spiky constructions of rust-red and smoky black.
Cautiously he touched one and felt the life within it: a hive-sentience buzzing with a need to grow, to accrete its granular cohorts from the brine-thick waters and expand to its limits. Under his bare soles he felt water elementals like the one coiled around his chest, but these were clean; like couriers, they slithered over and through each other, meshing and parting as they ferried missing pieces to the collectives of salt.
He tried to touch one but it passed through his fingers like vapor.
'They are too weak,' said Vina's voice in his head, and he looked around to realize that the Guardians had disappeared. 'Normal elementals would be tangible to us even through the gap in the realms, but these appear to be diluted, or else dead.'
“They're ghosts?”
'Memories. Echoes. For an elemental, individual existence is an anomaly—something that only happens when a piece is forcibly divided from the whole. When that division ends, they fall back into the main mass and are integrated thoroughly. They have no separate soul.'
“Like skinchangers.”
'Somewhat. But where the shade of a skinchanger may remain cognizant within the whole, an elemental loses its individuality and cohesion, and reintegrates fully. Its experiences become part of the Primordial element, like a dream.'
“And the other elements...Earth, Metal. They're like that too? You 'die', you go back to the mass and forget you were ever separate?”
'Yes.'
Cob shook his head slowly. He was not one for metaphysics, but that seemed cruel. No afterlife, no soul—and yet the elemental-folk obviously had lives, like the earth-kin he had met at the wolf den, and Jeronek's ancestors, and the Muriae. Enkhaelen's wife.
Forget about that. You've got your own woman to worry about, and your kid.
He squinted into the forest of spires. “This's Crystal Valley? Center of the desert?”
'Yes.'
“How do I find Fiora?”
'Extend your senses. Seek the child.'
Cob squinted in a random direction. The light reflecting from the crystals did not sting his eyes, but it was distracting: color everywhere, toxic but beautiful. A part of him wanted to wander the labyrinth while he could, for though he could smell the chemical fumes, they didn't hurt; they weren't quite real.
But he wasn't here for that, and the sensation of water around his feet—even phantasmal—made his skin crawl. Focusing his senses down, he felt the disjunction between the spirit-earth he stood on and the real-earth on the layer below, a mere few inches that nevertheless divided the world. If he was to bridge that distance...
Brows furrowed, he pushed the tectonic lever chisel-first into the sand.
It cleaved through without resistance or sensation, as if the ground was merely an illusion. Down, down, until it touched something semi-solid: that separating membrane. He put his weight on it, and the chisel-end bit through.
Agony surged up the stone staff and into his arms, his head. He reeled back, feeling the injuries like they were to his own flesh: numb chancres like the land around Akarridi, burning abscesses, burrowing parasites, hollow cysts, and the constant sting of salt. This whole land was wounded—dying—in a way he had not felt from its outskirts.
Teeth gritted, he pushed past the deluge of pain. It was difficult to sense through the sand; all those separate grains, though shellacked together, gave him a faint idea of direction and shadows and pressure but no real view. Water might have been easier but he was loath to touch it. Even at the periphery of his senses it felt thick, subterranean, strange.
No trees grew here. No animals scuttled amongst the salt-pillars of the burning valley. Without options, he sifted through an ocean of sand, trying to find a path to follow.
Then, suddenly, there it was: fine as spider-silk, following the breach he had made between the realms and then wafting out across that tormented landscape. A soul-connection beginning in his chest and ending somewhere, distantly, at the space beneath Fiora's heart.
He remembered blessing the boar-women, and shivered. He should have known this would happen, should have been more cautious. But when he looked at that delicate thread, he could not regret it.
Fiora would be furious.
It drifted outward, further, and then down. Sand became incongruous stone. His consciousness seeped through the cracks, following the thread, and felt a weird thrum in the solid foundation like a great beast breathing. An energy, pervasive but not awake, not aware like that of Erestoia By-The-Sea.
Hlacaasteia.
And there she was: an envelope of heat and safety wrapped around the bead that ended the thread. Fiora, his lover, his future...what? He felt too young for this, even though he knew he could have been betrothed at thirteen, could legally marry within a few months.
He tried to feel the space around her and, to his relief, detected only elementals. Metal ones, dim in his spirit-perceptions but there.
And someone else, someone a bit more fleshy. Metal-blooded?
That was interesting.
Opening his eyes, he saw the path drawn through the spirit realm like a red cord. Across Crystal Valley, into the underground, to the very foot of the wraith spire. He withdrew the tectonic lever from the physical realm and the pain vanished, but not the cord.
Time to go.
*****
Fiora sat on a fallen salt-pillar, hands clasped between her knees, watching the silver folk go about their business. The one who had led her here had vanished amongst its fellows after telling her it would find someone to aid her better. She wished it had stayed, if only for company.
She didn't know what to think of this place. Above curved an irregular stalactite-encrusted ceiling, sometimes a hundred feet high and sometimes just yards; below, the floor was a flat plane of salt, fractured in places but polished elsewhere by the passage of many feet. Most of the walls were either covered in or made up of crystalline salt-growths, with more erupting from the rough patches of the floor.
The wall she watched was even stranger. It was sheeted in salt like everything else, but through it glowed a strange light, dark reddish, at times nearly black. A wraith spire—the one Dasira had said was trapped here and couldn't fly away. She didn't know how big it was, but the glow ran across the wall from end to end, then all the way up to the ceiling and down out of sight; its radiance shone through the clearer parts of the floor. It was tilted too, though the salt made it hard to tell the angle.
The Silver Ones had built houses around it, which Fiora thought was charming if peculiar. Low, box
y buildings of hewn salt stacked up like blocks against the glowing wall, they had few doors and no stairs. Instead, the Silver Ones climbed the walls with the neatness of spiders, their hands and feet attenuating to aid their grip.
Watching them made her uneasy, but she kept telling herself that they served Brancir, that they had rescued her from the Grey and bore her no malice. Their magic had allowed her to breathe here and seemed to ward away the gaseous plumes that rose from the portions of broken salt. They were friends, just keeping her safe.
Still, she kept her hands near the hilts of her swords, because there was another possibility.
Her history lessons told her that Brancir was only half of the Metal Primordial. That once there had been a greater entity which split itself apart over its conflicting desire for and fear of magic. That the covetous half had reached too high and too far, and attracted the attention of something bright and terrible. That all of the metal-mages died that day.
But not in Muria. Not among the silver folk, because Brancir hated magic.
If these are mages, they can't be Muriae. If they're not Muriae, then what—
A splotch of color and movement caught her eye, and she looked up anxiously.
There was a woman approaching. An actual woman, breasts and hips and sway and everything, not some awkward elemental facsimile. Fiora stared.
She wasn't pretty, exactly. There was a firmness to her face that bespoke temper, and a clinical indifference in her gaze—permanently unimpressed. Her dress was fine though, its color made murky by the pervasive red light but its embroidery reflecting like silver, with side-slits that showed dark leggings and high boots and a shallow neckline that showcased a torc with a ruby dangling between its ends. Her black hair was caught back in a silver-mesh net, her skin darker than the Silver Ones' affectations.
“You came through the Grey?” she called as she drew close, in a whipcrack voice that reminded Fiora of Sister Merrow's.
“Um, yes,” said Fiora, pushing to her feet—then craning her head back. The woman was as tall as Ilshenrir. “Not on purpose though. Your Muriae friends had to rescue me.”
The woman looked down at her with clear doubt. “You're a Branciran?”
“Oh no, I follow Breana.” Subtly Fiora tried to stand up straighter, pull her shoulders back, smile naturally. She knew she must look terrible; it felt like ages since she'd washed, and her hair was a snarled mess. With the group, it didn't matter, but in confronting this statuesque and imperious lady, she felt short and stocky and shabby.
“Breana...the young one,” the woman mused, then nodded slowly, eyeing Fiora from toes to top. Then her gaze drifted past her shoulder to the silver sword on her back.
“The blade,” she said. “Show it to me.”
Fiora frowned. “Why? Who are you? I'm Fiora, by the way. Thanks for asking.”
The sarcasm either slipped past the woman or she deigned to ignore it. “I am Mariss, and I believe that blade is mine.”
Surprise pushed a laugh from Fiora's mouth. “What? No, that's silly. —Oh, or are you a spokesperson for the Muriae?”
“In a way,” said Mariss. “Give it to me.” She extended her hand; the dress sleeve ended at the elbow, baring a wiry muscular forearm without vein or blemish. Her fingernails were solid silver.
Fiora stepped back, only to bang her heel against the broken salt-pillar. She was more than a bit trapped. “What do you mean, 'in a way'?”
“They told me of the sword. They know it belongs to me. Give it.”
Shaking her head, Fiora tried to edge sideways, but the woman loomed close, difficult to circumvent. “I can't. We need it. We're trying to— I don't think I can tell you this. You're connected to the Ravager, right? Or wait, did he... Um, the magic...”
Mariss frowned. “What?”
“You—“ Fiora gestured vaguely. “The folk of metal. I heard from another metal person that you're all angry with the Ravager because of magic. Aren't you?”
Bafflement showed plain on the tall woman's face, then turned contemptuous. “You know nothing of what you speak. Give me my inheritance.”
Two thoughts connected in Fiora's head. “Inheritance? You mean you're—“
A shout rose from the entry corridor, in a rasping language Fiora did not know. Mariss looked there sharply, hand still outstretched. After a moment, Fiora looked as well.
And saw the antlers.
*****
A snort resounded from the Great Wolf's den. Arik came awake in a bare moment and lifted his head as the massive bloodied muzzle emerged from the darkness.
“I scent her,” the ancient spirit growled. “Salt and sand and false light. She is in danger. We must go swiftly.”
Arik sprang to his paw-like feet, then lifted the bundle of Lark and goblin like baggage. From within the layers of clothes, Lark gave a squawk of protest, but there was no time to listen; the Great Wolf was already padding into the woods, the spectral pack bleeding from the trees to follow. Air elementals flickered into the realm around them, pulled through by Raun's will.
Girl and goblin in his arms, Arik pursued.
*****
Cob stalked forward as if daring the elementals to bar his way. Muriae, he'd thought at first; they looked much like Enkhaelen's wife, though paler. But Erosei and Dernyel at either shoulder told him otherwise.
There were three in the corridor, their silvery garments flowing oddly over and around their porcelain flesh. A month ago, he would have been awed in their presence—or infuriated by the treason he'd believed they had encouraged in his father. Now, he gestured briskly with the tectonic lever.
“Fiora—where is she?” The words came out like a gargle, and he almost regretted using the water elemental as a breathing-mask. He could see the fumes shimmering in the air though, the thin membrane of water keeping them from his eyes, his skin, his lungs. He had never expected to breathe underwater while on land, but sometimes the Guardian's skills were handy.
The silver folk retreated at the same pace that he approached them, hands raised warily; one called into the chamber beyond in a harsh tongue the Guardian did not translate.
“No need for hostility, oh Great One,” said another. “We are not your enemies.”
'Yes they are,' snarled Erosei.
Cob doubted he could trust the Guardians' judgment; there was too much difference between their opinion and his own, and the silver people seemed disinclined to attack. He focused beyond, to where he felt Fiora's presence. From what he could tell, she was well, but there was a resonance in the air and floor that constantly scattered his attention.
Not to mention the flagship ahead.
With his hooves on solid stone, he felt it like a knife in a wound. It penetrated deep into the skin of the world, its roots far longer than its reach—but he could tell by their haphazard splay that this was not purposeful. There were chasms beneath it, damp and lightless, that could swallow the titanic spire whole. As much as the clinging salts trapped it, they also prevented a quick descent.
“What are you doin' here?” he demanded of the silver folk as they parted, permitting him to pass. “This's a haelhene place.”
“And we oppose them, Guardian,” said one, falling into step beside him. Erosei fell back with a scowl to avoid being overlapped. “We study them and their workings so that we can bring them down.”
'Lies,' said Dernyel on Cob's other side. 'They are apostates. Magic-users.'
This is about elementals hating magic again? he thought. In response, images flashed behind his eyes of metallic spears rearing from mountaintops, of blinding light coursing down from the sky to immolate them and melt the peaks to slag. Glowing shapes of hot metal staggered drunkenly in the after-strike or lay fallen, radiating weirdly.
He shook the vision away. “Fine,” he told the spokes-elemental, “but y'have my friend. I want to see her.”
“Yes, of course. This way.” The silver one quickened its steps to precede.
The corridor en
ded in a flight of ragged salt blocks that curved down to the floor below. He squinted against the bloody light, gaze drawn first to the far wall and the wraith-spire trapped behind it, then to the stacked buildings, then to the many silver people emerging from them. A quick count gave him at least fifty, with more still coming.
Off to one side was a small area of fallen pillars and jagged crystal. Movement caught his eye from there: a waving arm. Fiora.
His shoulders sagged in relief. He'd feared they'd taken her prisoner, but she stood unhindered next to a taller woman, to whom she glanced anxiously. For her part, the stranger watched him with narrowed eyes.
He'd planned to hold her gaze, but the moment his foot touched the salt-block floor, the nausea surged up again. From the stone corridor he'd felt the hollow spaces that existed below and around the chamber, but now he realized they weren't hollow at all. The black water filled them, silent and cold, separated from him by naught but salt.
Stop it, he told himself. You know this is a thin place. Trust your first feeling; it's not there. That's just its shadow. The realm-barrier must be holding it back, so as long as you don't reach for it, nothing will happen.
Still, he felt sick. Every hair on his neck was up, every nerve tingling, and each sharp hoof-fall on the salt surface made him want to cringe. Such a delicate thing to keep him out of the Dark...
“Guardian,” said the strange woman as he approached. There was something familiar about her, but he was too agitated to start making assumptions—even about the metal he detected in her. Instead, he gave her a curt nod and moved to brush past, to reach Fiora.
A hand clamped on his shoulder, nails biting through layers of bark and stone. To his surprise, Cob found himself turned about, hooves scraping the salt.
“Guardian,” said the woman again. Silver runes glowed through the skin of her arm.
“What?” he replied sharply, trying to shrug her off, but it was like her fingers had taken root in his armor. Tectonic lever in that hand, he twisted it between them to push her away.
The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) Page 42
