Well, duh, Cazia wanted to say. Of course she could be in a story about heartbreak. She was the most beautiful girl Cazia had ever seen, no matter how dirty she got.
Before she could say anything, Ivy asked, “Were you chased by boys?” with unashamed glee.
At this, Kinz became uncomfortable. “Boys, yes. And men, too. It was not like in the stories. It was not always very nice. The women in our clan made to protect me sometimes. Too many times. Of course, all of those people are dead now.”
Kinz glanced at Cazia as though expecting her to say something hateful or horrible, although of course she would never. But Cazia felt she ought to say something kind or comforting. Her mind was blank.
Ivy took hold of the older girl’s hand and held it tightly. “Tell us about them.”
She did. She spoke for many long hours, and she shed many tears.
Eventually, it was Cazia’s turn. She did not think at all about what she might say, and let the truth spill out. She told them about living as a hostage in the king’s court, about the father she never saw and the friends she was never parted from. She talked about the kindness of the royal family and the petty cruelties from everyone else. She did her best to minimize the frustration and loneliness and talked more than she’d intended about the first Italga queen, the one her father had killed. It was supposed to have been an accident, but no one cared. She’d died before Cazia had been born, obviously, but it seemed that nothing rekindled the palace folk’s love for her more readily than the sight of Cazia there within the walls. Then she changed the subject so she could talk about the food she stole from the kitchens.
It seemed that she had gone on longer than the others, until she suddenly ran out of words. She was describing the old scholars who toiled endlessly in the Scholars’ Tower, and then there was nothing else to say. Darkness had fallen outside and her throat was dry. If only she’d had a chance to create some water for them.
But her magic was still barely a tingle. There was nothing to do but sleep. The other girls looked at her; she looked back, uncertain what to say. I murdered my brother. She wasn’t the only one enduring grief.
On the morning Peradain had fallen to the grunts, one of the people she’d fled with--the Scholar Administrator, Doctor Warpoole--had looked back at the city and lamented at the loss of music, theater... Great Way, the writing that was lost. Such a rare, precious skill. The tower was full of maps. Had they been lost when the city burned?
It made her sad and sick to realize that so much had been wasted. On the same day, everyone that had come to live in the city with Ivy had been lost. The members of her royal family that tutored her and cared for her, plus all their servants and relations.
And shortly after, Kinz and her brother had lost everyone they knew, leaving them to wander alone in the Sweeps.
All lost. All orphans. They stared at her so strangely, and she knew she was staring back. She’d been so self-righteous with Kinz back in the tower on the beach, and it had felt so good. It had felt like strength.
Cazia felt tears welling up and so she lay down on the stony floor and covered the lightstone with the edge of her skirt. Yes, it would prevent the light from shining out of their ventilation hole, but it would also hide her tears. Scholars should not weep.
They woke hungry and parched. Cazia’s magic had mostly returned; she created a depression in an empty part of their chamber and filled it with water. They took turns easing their thirst, lapping at it like cats. She encouraged them to drink as much as they could, because their smoked fish was already half gone.
Then the tunneling. The higher they went, the more loose the material they moved through. The tunnel seemed slightly less stable with every few feet. Finally, about midday, the thing Cazia had feared finally happened. As she finished a spell, the mountain around her collapsed suddenly. They fell outward, thankfully, exposing all three girls to a blinding shaft of daylight, but it was the noise that was most alarming. The minor avalanche made the entire tunnel vibrate. She’d come out into a rift in the mountainside.
There was an immediate shriek from just out of sight, and Cazia scrambled backward as the shadow of one of the huge birds passed over the end of the tunnel. “Move! Move!” she whispered, driving the other girls deeper into the tunnel with her heels.
Something heavy struck the tunnel ahead, collapsing it further. A wedge-shaped rock broke free of the tunnel roof, and Cazia had to curl herself very small to avoid it. She scraped her forehead on the tunnel floor and thanked Fire for passing her by.
Crouching in the darkness, Cazia peered over the stone that had nearly crushed her skull at the daylight visible ahead. A plume of dust obscured her view, but she quickly realized she didn’t need to see. The dust swirled as the eagles beat their wings near the opening, screeching and swooping toward the rift.
Had they seen her? If they dropped a stone or one of those gigantic tree trunks, the tunnel might collapse, crushing or suffocating all three of them. Gooseflesh prickled on Cazia’s back as she realized the sight of motes churning through the air might be the very last thing she saw in her life.
It didn’t happen. The eagles moved away, taking their noise and commotion with them. Something had them agitated, but Cazia couldn’t imagine what it could be… Unless they assumed her tunneling was one of the gigantic Tilkilit worms trying to catch them by surprise.
Of course, if she had taken hold of the translation stone in her pocket, she would have known what they were saying, but to do that she would have had to shift the piles of dirt and small stones on her, creating another small dust cloud. She was curious, yes, but not so curious she was willing to risk catching their attention again.
It took some time, but the eagles eventually moved far enough away that their cries were barely audible. Cazia counted to a thousand, then shook the dirt and stone from her hair and clothes. They retreated to the little chamber where they’d passed the night, and Ivy took the lightstone from her pocket.
“I’m sorry,” Cazia said. She hadn’t planned to apologize, but it came out of her anyway. “I couldn’t feel that rift in the mountain.”
Kinz tried to wipe dirt from her forehead with her dirty hand. Cazia realized she was drenched with fear sweat. “They seemed mildly annoyed.” Her deadpan tone made Cazia and Ivy laugh a little despite themselves.
“It might happen again,” Cazia said. “I can’t always tell how much rock there is when I cast a spell. And that collapse might bring more eagles.”
“Or the Tilkilit,” Ivy said.
None of them liked the thought of that, but if their enemies met, they might occupy each other long enough for Cazia to...what? What could she do against three giant eagles or a full squad of warriors? Even now that she had become a wizard--the first sane wizard in history, as far as she knew--she didn’t have enough control of her magic to defeat that many enemies at once.
“Can we double back?” Ivy asked. “Can we head westward up the cliff face, away from the rift?”
They had to. Cazia led them back up the tunnel, and, near the top, she cast her spell directly to the south. They couldn’t do a switchback like a mountain trail, because the tunnel floor might collapse, but she could cut deeper into the rock and slowly angle back toward the cliff face and the fresh air it allowed them.
Cazia had learned the spell miners use to break rocks, but she had not learned the skills they needed to break rocks safely.
She led them in a curving section of tunnel, making it very steep, until she came once again to the cliff face. The air shaft she dug and the daylight it showed her were more than welcome, but the sound of beating wings that came directly after made her blood run cold.
She began to make the air vents on an upward angle, and that pleased them all. Cool, fresh air flowed down the hole toward them, and the girls paused at each new one to take a break from the dust-choked air.
One good thing about digging the tunnel so steep was that gravity helped tumble the broken rock from the p
ath ahead. The down side was that Cazia had pebbles and grit in her hair and down her neck. Ivy was right. Tunneling up the mountainside was awful.
Finally, in the late afternoon she reached the peak.
“It can not be,” Kinz said from behind her. “We could not have made to reached the top so soon.”
“But it is,” Cazia insisted. “I can feel the edge of the stone above us, and on all sides, too.”
They glanced back down the steep slope, lit only by the dim daylight entering through the air holes. Could they have reached the top after only two slow days of digging?
“Maybe the ground is higher on this side of the mountains,” Ivy said. “The peaks are the same, obviously, but--”
“The ground is higher,” Kinz said. “And the peaks are a little lower in the east as we make near the sea--”
Cazia felt a sudden clutch of fear when she realized she had been moving eastward. What if she caused an avalanche that swept them all into the ocean?
“But still, I do not think we are there. Not yet.”
“I would be surprised, too,” Ivy said. “But why not break open the southern face so we can see?”
Cazia took a deep breath and began the spell, taking care to break only a small portion of the stone. It fell away, revealing a little space of air, and then another sheer stone cliff.
Of course. She had led them up one of the false peaks that stood beside the cliff. “Monument sustain me.” She cleared a slightly larger gap so she could get a better view, and leaned forward. The gap was only about six feet across, but it was about thirty five feet straight down to where the two stone walls met.
The cliff face opposite her rose straight up. That couldn’t be the top of the Northern Barrier, could it? To the east, partly hidden by fog, was another peak, even steeper and higher than the one she’d climbed. To the west was a jutting rock that blocked her view of everything beyond.
Kinz and Ivy squeezed into the space beside her. “We will have to backtrack,” Ivy said, sighing.
“Song knows I’m in not mood to cover the same ground yet again. I have a better idea.” Cazia cast the Eleventh Gift twice more, first widening the space where they were all crowded together, then to open a space in the stone opposite. She didn’t like the noise and dust the falling stone made, but there was no other choice.
After that, she was quiet a moment, considering the changes she would have to make to the Sixth Gift to make it do what she wanted. Yes, that should work. She cast it.
A broad flat pink stone appeared, bridging the gap. Cazia leaned out and put her weight on it. It wobbled a bit, but it wasn’t too bad. Not too bad at all. She started across.
“I should go first,” Ivy said. “I’m lightest, and... Without you, none of us can get away.”
A bank of fog blew through the gap, and Cazia was almost glad to see it. More stones fell from somewhere; she could hear the sound of them striking bottom echoing in the cleft.
“I have to cross to continue the tunnel. I’ll be fine, if you’ll watch the sky for me.”
Cazia started across, a little unnerved to hear stones still bouncing down the mountainside. The fog would hide her from the eagles above, she was sure, but she could tell those sounds were coming from too far away to be caused by her tunnels. Were the eagles perched just above, ready to swoop down on her as soon as the thin fog cleared?
More noises from falling stones, but this time, they made Cazia’s hair stand on end. Before she even realized she was in trouble, she slipped her hand into her pocket and touched the translation stones.
“Advance!” she heard, in that distinctive high Tilkilit voice. “Hunt! Capture! Ward!”
She glanced westward toward the top of the overhanging rock. Perched high above, barely visible in the blowing fog, was a Tilkilit warrior. It pointed its spear at her.
Chapter 12
Instinctively, Cazia began the Tenth Gift, but of course she had no iron darts, not anymore. She broke that spell and began the Eleventh as soon as she realized her mistake.
Too slow. There was no way she could get the spell off quickly enough.
Maybe it would miss.
The Tilkilit warrior above reached into the pouch at its belt, drew back its arm, and then threw. There was no place to dodge. Cazia flinched, but kept her spell going. Too late.
Kinz stepped onto the bridge, her pointed stick held above her head. She swung, and was rewarded with the sharp crack of wood on stone. “I hit it!” she exclaimed, her eyes wide with surprise.
The Tilkilit on the rock above stood in apparent confusion for a moment, then reached into its pouch again. Two more appeared above the crest of the overhang.
The Eleventh Gift finished. Cazia directed it toward the base of the overhanging rock. It was some twenty or twenty five away--farther than she had ever attempted before, but she had stretched her will to the limits.
It worked. The stone crumbled and fell away, causing the overhanging boulder to shift. The movement seemed so small, but all three Tilkilit warriors lost their balance. The first one, another stone in hand, clicked loudly. She didn’t need a translation stone to recognize its fear.
The stone continued to shift. It slowly rolled outward and, alarmingly, toward the makeshift bridge Cazia had created. The Tilkilit warriors were unable to cling to the rock, and they slid down its face. Cazia and Kinz could see them, coming closer and closer, as they slipped and tumbled down the side of the rock, then under it.
It’s going to crush us, Cazia thought, her throat going tight. She seemed frozen in place.
But no. It shifted to the side and wedged against the spire they’d just climbed. It was only when the boulder became still again that she realized how loud it had been when it fell.
“Maybe they were alone,” Kinz said, her eyes still wide.
“They shouted Advance before they fell,” Cazia said, “so there are more close by. We have to...” She looked around. They had to what? What could she do? Continue her tunnel? The Tilkilit were born in tunnels. She did not want to face them underground.
Kinz searched the sky above them. As the fog blew around the rocks, they caught glimpses of blue sky. There were no predators in sight, but they could only see a sliver of what was above them.
Ivy crawled out onto the little bridge. “That was quite a swing.”
“Thank you,” Kinz answered. “On long treks, the only fun kids could make was to swat spitflies with our little spears.” She looked guiltily at Cazia. “I was not very good at that game.”
It was amazing how different things could be when their lives were in danger. “Today, you were. Now we need to figure out how we’re going to--”
Ivy leaped from the little stone bridge onto the side of the tumbled boulder. Cazia would have cried out if she’d had the chance to catch her breath.
But the little princess did not fall the way the Tilkilit had. She landed in the narrow wedge where the boulder met the spire behind them, and she began to climb. The overturned rock was nearly vertical there, but the spire had enough crevices that the girl could climb the gap between them. Actually, she made it look almost easy.
Kinz sighed in resignation and jumped after her, the older girl’s weight making the stone bridge slide back slightly at the force of her leap. Cazia let out a tiny meep of fear, but Kinz also landed neatly in the space Ivy had just climbed out of. In fact, there was an odd little stone shelf out there, not even four feet away.
Cazia stood, feeling suddenly very wobbly. It was one thing to dig through the rock, but jumping across an open gap with nothing but stone and corpses and the weapons those corpses carried below her...
Of course, she had to try the leap herself. Ivy and Kinz had both done it, and if she was too afraid, she would have had to call them both back down. Cazia was not brave; she just didn’t want to feel humiliated. After Kinz had climbed well above the little shelf, Cazia leaped for it.
Her foot landed perfectly but her chest hit the rock much too hard
, and she almost bounced right back out of the wedge. Only her panicked grip on the stones saved her life.
She’d jumped too hard, put too much effort into it. Did the Evening People have a spell for people who overdo everything? She needed one. She needed something to teach her restraint.
A few loose rocks tumbled onto her head, getting tangled in her hair. “Sorry,” Kinz whispered from above, but Cazia didn’t care. She’d already spent days in the tunnel; her head was practically caked with dirt and tiny stones. What bothered her was that Kinz was struggling, just a bit, to keep up with Ivy.
Cazia began to climb after them. Ivy had managed it readily, but she was still a child. Kinz, who had worked out of doors her whole life, had to struggle to make the climb.
But Cazia had grown up studying in the tower, learning the hand motions and mental images needed to cast a spell, learning to read and write, learning all sorts of things, really. Yes, she had spent the last few months outside, climbing and walking and running, too, when she had to. And she’d eaten almost the whole time.
But she still had a bit of a belly. She had muscles now, more than ever before, but she also had a fair bit of flesh over them. She climbed, stepping from one knobby piece of stone to the next, praying for Monument to give her arms and legs the strength she needed.
She never felt so close to death in her life, not even when she’d found an arrow sticking out of a canteen in her backpack.
When she finally reached the top of the stone, she saw that the other girls were lying flat on their bellies. She crawled toward them, staying as low as possible. Where were the eagles? Surely they could see the white and gray of the girls’ hiking skirts against the dark rock. They must have been as alluring as a piece of sweetcake on an untended windowsill.
She craned her neck looking around but couldn’t see anything but fog and stone. She did hear the cry of one of the eagles. They were still to the west, flapping near the cliff face. Surely they weren’t still harassing that Tilkilit lookout beneath the overhang, not after three days.
The Way Into Magic: Book Two of The Great Way Page 13
