“I don’t care,” Halas whispered back. “I just want to go home.”
“Then let’s go home.”
Desmond moved to pick up Aeon’s body, but Halas stopped him. “It is better if we leave him here.”
“What? Halas, no, we cannot. Aeon was our friend.”
“And he is the guardian now. It is better for his spirit, if his body remains in the caverns. He will be stronger.”
“What?”
Halas had had another vision, this one very brief. He only remembered bits and pieces of it. This time, the thing had taken Aeon’s form. He told Halas, on no uncertain terms, what he thought of him. He said that Aeon’s spirit would more than serve. He said, “Go to Hell,” and threw Halas right back into the Temple to die.
What Halas knew of spirits, he’d learned from Conroy. Ghosts haunted the areas they’d died or were buried. They were more powerful when close to their bodies, as if the tether that held them to this plane of existence was stronger there. Halas thought this was as good a final resting place as any, for a time. He clasped the boy’s hand. Aeon had a lot to do.
One day, Halas thought, I’m going to get you out of this. I’ll find a way to free you, Aeon. If Raazoi could not destroy the Temple by bringing the whole ocean down upon it, then I don’t know what will. This place does not need a guardian. I’ll see to it that you rest in peace. I swear it.
“Come on,” he said aloud. “Let’s go.”
Halas could still see; evidently the thing had not been able to reclaim what few gifts he’d given Halas. The scales felt perfectly at home over his eyes. He wondered if they would come anywhere, or if they were specific to Orhill. Did it matter? As he led Desmond and Elivain steadily topside, Halas explained everything. He found he knew little. What was the thing that called itself a servant of Equilibrium? Halas didn’t know, and neither Des nor Elivain had much to say on the subject.
They came to the final staircase. Sunlight peaked at them from up above. “I hate to be a bother,” Elivain said dryly, “but would one of you like to go find my pack? It’s cold up there.”
Halas smiled, and said he would go. Desmond tried to follow, but Halas made him sit. Halas felt like being alone. He went up the stairs, felt the scales pour away, and went outside.
Chapter Fifteen
Four Went In, Three Came Out
He walked slowly to the bodies of the soldiers. When Halas arrived, there were already a few scavenger birds there, picking and tearing through the mail at the bodies. Halas kicked at one and screamed, and the birds took flight. They stopped a few foot-lengths away, waiting to resume their meal, beady black eyes watching this newcomer with irritation.
He ignored them. He looked around the site. There was where Aeon and Elivain had been. There was where Halas had lost his grip on his sword. He saw the severed bonds where Desmond had cut Elivain loose, and then Aeon’s a ways past that. He kicked these lamely aside and approached the bodies again. A different sort of blade glinted up through the horror, one with a silvery sheen. Halas picked it up; it was Aeon’s weapon. He found a belt and scabbard that fit him and strapped it on, cleaning the blade and sheathing it at his left hip. He saw Elivain’s pack then, pinned beneath a body. Halas took the man by his chainmail and heaved, rolling him over against a second corpse. The soldier’s eyes stared up at him, and Halas could not bear it. He flung himself away and retched once, then twice. Nothing came up but for a thin line of bile. It made Halas realize that he hadn’t had anything to eat in almost a day. He and Des had only eaten twice during their journey through the caverns.
When he knelt by the body again he avoided looking at it. Halas grabbed the pack and quickly retreated to the mouth of the Orhill Caverns. It was not at the base of the hill as he’d previously thought, but nestled in a bowl, which explained the deep snow. Across the tundra was only a light layer of the stuff, but in here, it had filled, compacted, and tumbled in over the sides. At one end was a hole, the door leading to Orhill Caverns. Between that and Halas was a thin trail of ash. “All that remains of Gilshenn Sidoor,” Halas whispered to no one.
The hill was steeper than he remembered it, and after a minute of massaging his leg, he was able to keep his feet as he skidded down. He gathered the ashes in his left hand. Like everything else in this blasted wasteland, they were cold. Halas threw them into the wind, scattering them partway across the frozen tundra and partway into the tunnels.
With that done, Halas went to find his friends. “Perhaps you should come up anyway,” he said to Elivain. “I don’t wish to dress you.” Elivain frowned, clutching the bag across his chest.
“I suppose. Dammit.”
Halas led them up, out of Orhill and into the snow. Elivain quickly rummaged through his things and dressed.
Halas hunkered down and looked back at the door, at the caverns. A wan smile played across his lips as he remembered Gilshenn shouting at the Deyrey Baaish. He did not know why he smiled, but it felt appropriate.
His back and knees cracked as he stood up, and he started at the sudden sound. After that, the only noises were those of his feet crunching on the grass and the birds, cawing and pecking behind him. He did not turn back.
He limped a ways from the site of battle and sat down. Desmond and Elivain followed. They’d policed Aeon’s pack and Elivain’s weapons. “The sun is going down,” Elivain whispered. “We’ll have to make camp soon.” He was looking through the bags, taking inventory of what few provisions they had left. “But there are more soldiers back there that must be dealt with.”
Fresh dread came upon Halas. He hadn’t even thought of that.
“Can’t we just leave? They will not come looking for their companions for some time now, I expect.”
“Here we are!” Elivain interrupted, producing a small bottle from the pack. He squirted salve into his palm. “Desmond, give me your hands.”
Halas continued. “If we walk through the night, we would be able to put many miles between us and them.”
“No, that won’t do,” Elivain said as he treated Desmond’s burns. “You both look fit to drop, and I’m not far behind. I don’t want to spend the next two weeks wondering if we’re about to be set upon or not. No, best to deal with this problem now.” He moved to Halas, and put the stuff over the cuts on his face. It stung. He wished they’d been able to bring whatever Tormod had used for healing. That stuff worked wonders. Halas knew magic had to be involved somehow. It must have been a potion. How else could something heal so quickly?
Elivain hefted his spear and stood up, pointing with the shaft. “The Stoneacre Crags are that way. You should reach them before dark. Make camp there. In the morning, cross. Aeon and I marked the route we took with strips of clothing. I…”
“Wait, no. You’re not doing this alone. You said it yourself, you’re in bad shape.”
“I will be fine.” He smiled. “I am more than capable of reason. Do not worry. But if I do not return by sundown tomorrow, make haste for Bakunin. Do not come looking for me.”
With that, he was off.
The Stoneacre Crags were a series of cliffs and drops, each one more dangerous than the last. Halas looked at Desmond. “Can you climb?” he asked, indicating his hands. “We may have to,” he added.
Desmond nodded.
The morning sun poked a few timid fingers through the cloud cover, glittering harshly off the snow, but Halas could see the flags Elivain had made. They waved proudly from their places in the drifts. “Just follow the flags,” Desmond whispered to himself. Halas nodded. They had slept easily enough, but even now Halas felt on the verge of exhaustion.
The first few jumps were easy enough, just a simple matter of stepping over cracks and hopping across small openings in the ground, but the cracks and openings seemed to become steep drops and gaping maws as the two friends moved along. It became more and more difficult to cross each gap. The crags themselves became wider and the spaces between narrower. Everything was slick. Halas looked over his shoulde
r at Desmond, half expecting to see Elivain, a black speck in the distance.
My friend, he’d said. Halas heard it over and over again in his head.
My friend.
My friend.
Were he and Elivain friends? Certainly they’d been through much together. But had they been in it together, really together, or had they merely been involved in the same situations? It was hard to decide. He remembered a similar chain of thought he’d once had about Aeon, and felt tears coming on. He wiped them clean; it would not do for them to freeze.
The next jump was ten foot-lengths below them. Halas saw that they would have to jump to a low ledge barely jutting out from the cliff, and climb to the top. “There’s picks,” Desmond noticed aloud. “To grab on to. They really thought this through, didn’t they?” He smiled.
Halas saw the picks, embedded to the hilts in the cliff face.
They rested for a time, then took off their gloves and shoved them into their pockets. Halas rubbed his bare (and already cold) hands together before making the jump. He cleared the gap easily, taking hold of the picks. His feet slipped and went over the edge, and he cried out in surprise. For a brief moment, he thought that he was going to fall. His hands would slip, the picks would come free, and he would fall.
But he was not afraid. Instead, Halas gritted his teeth and snarled. He would not die out here in the cold. Nothing would make him angrier than that.
Desmond started, but there was nothing he could do. Quickly, Halas jammed his feet deeply into the snow of the ledge, pressing himself to the cold blue ice that was the cliff wall, clinging tightly to the frozen picks. Relief washed over him, and he muttered a prayer to whatever gods were listening, thanking them, for the hilts weren’t slippery. He allowed the grim smile to play at his lips; under other circumstances, some would have considered such a thing blasphemous.
Halas felt that he’d been through enough to be allowed to blaspheme every now and then. “Come across!” he finally said.
“Get off the ledge!” Desmond shouted back. Though they were only about five or six foot-lengths from each other, both felt that shouting was necessary. “Climb up to the top. I will have more room to jump, and if I slip, you can catch me.”
He thought nervously for a moment before adding, “You better catch me.”
But Halas did not need to catch him. Desmond leapt the chasm, caught the picks, and scrambled up the cliff just as easy as can be. If Des felt any pain in his burned hands, he refused to show it. He climbed up almost as easily as Halas had.
It took the better part of the day to cross over, but things were immediately easier once they had. The ground leveled out almost immediately. At the head of the crags, they stood at the mouth of a dark cave, sloping into blackness below. The walls and floor were of blue ice. Halas realized that this had been the entrance to the Orhill Caverns.
“How did you fail to see that?” Desmond asked. He was laughing. Halas laughed too.
It really was hard to miss.
They’d managed to survive the Stoneacre Crags, and made camp far away from the edges. There was no wood for a fire, so they wished for one high and bright, and had a not so rich meal of spódhla.
And they waited.
Halas wondered if Elivain was still alive. He and Desmond decided without words to wait as long as they had to.
But he did return. Just under a day after he’d left, they heard him calling. The sun set, but Halas had faith in the man. He expertly navigated the crags, passing them and arriving at the camp in but a few hours. It was still dark. Halas noticed that his chin sagged. There was a cut on his cheek that had not been there before. He immediately set to work kindling a small fire with strips of wood and bark from his pack.
“Are you all right?” Halas asked stupidly.
“Perfectly fine, just a few hits heavier than I would have expected. I’m glad to see you made it across. I…” he paused, “regretted leaving you both the moment I did; this is a dangerous place. Forgive me, Halas Duer. Forgive me, Desmond Mallon. I would beg for both of your pardons.”
Halas and Des glanced nervously at each other, each one wondering the same thing: Does he jest? And then: What happened to him out there?
But he was serious. Elivain knelt down and bowed his head. Desmond coughed into his hand. “We forgive you, Elivain,” Halas said. Their friend—for he was a friend, Halas had finally decided—looked up with a smile on his face. A smile that was off, somehow.
“Thank you. I’d like to rest now, if neither of you have any objections.”
They didn’t, and he did. Elivain slept for nearly a full day. Desmond and Halas tried to keep the fire alive, but vegetation was sparse and there were no trees. Eventually, they let it die. Halas thought that was only too appropriate. “We should sleep as well,” he whispered.
Desmond nodded his agreement. He stood up, crossed the campsite, and laid a hand on Elivain’s side. The man looked dead to the world, lying as he was. Desmond went back to Halas. “Just making sure. Rest?”
They laid with Elivain and slept.
Halas woke sometime in the night. Elivain was up, naked to the waist, tending to a wound on his arm. Halas sat up and hissed at the sight of it. The wound was large and raw, the skin around it blue. “What happened?” Halas asked.
“Small token of their appreciation. I will live.”
From somewhere in his bag he produced a needle and thread, and began hooking it through the cut, holding the thread with his teeth when necessary. Halas looked away. Beside him, Desmond groaned. “Must you do that here?”
Elivain shrugged. The effort of it caused him to hiss in pain and nearly drop the thread. Halas hurried to his side and held his arm. Elivain raised his brow in thanks. Halas wanted to say something, but was again lost for words. He remembered someone saying it was important for a wounded man to speak, so his mind could be kept occupied. Halas didn’t know where he’d heard that. Perhaps the Blade, but it didn’t matter. It felt like truth, so he talked. “What happened to you? When Des and I fell.”
There was a pause before Elivain’s reply. “The prince grieved. We thought you both to be dead. He wanted to try and climb the tunnel, but I thought better of it. I’m sorry.”
“You made the right choice,” said Desmond. “Following us would only have endangered Aeon and risked the mission.”
“He didn’t give a hoot about the mission. You know how stubborn he can be. We argued it for hours. I don’t know how I did it, but I found reason in him, and we pressed on. For three days we crossed the tundra. The dire wolf pack returned to us on the first night. I saw one, a great wolf the size of three. Thankfully they left us alone. The next morning we found an arctic bear, starved to the point of madness. Aeon and I slew the thing. Again we argued; he wanted to eat it, but I felt it could be diseased. Animals that size do not tend to starve without reason, especially when game is so abundant. I think the boy knew that, but he fought. Every step of the way, he fought me.” Elivain shook his head and put a hand on his chin. “He was very difficult.”
Halas offered a small smile. Once again, it was the truth. Aeon was nothing if not opinionated. Strong-willed to some and brick-headed to others, depending on whose side you were on. Elivain continued. “The crags took us near two days. It was no coincidence that the witch’s men fell upon us where they did, I think. I’ve often felt that you’ve been gifted with divine aid, and this was no different. I do not buy into this Equilibrium nonsense. This is not the work of some lowly servant. This is the doing of the gods. Someone watches over you, Halas, wouldn’t you say?”
Halas didn’t know what to think. He helped Elivain stitch the cut, dress, and then they were off.
The trees slowly filtered their way back into the environment. Elivain stoically led the way, trudging through the deep snow, sometimes pulling himself along with his hands. He’d given his snowshoes to Halas, and Desmond had taken Aeon’s. They wore them with embarrassment, but they wore them.
Ele
ven days had passed since the Temple, and gradually Elivain’s softness and kindness wore off. Halas figured the shock of what they’d accomplished had done it, and he found he had to laugh. They were around a campfire in the dead of night when he did. Halas saw the whole scene clearly; he’d been pleased to discover that he still had the scales. He’d been practicing, and could nearly form them at will. It distracted him from the shame of having broken his father’s sword, and his disturbing thoughts of Cailin. Elivain sat across the fire, his knees drawn up across his chest, poking at the base of the coals with a twig. Desmond lay on his side with his head propped against his fist. Their bottles, recently filled with snow, rested against the wall of stones Elivain had built to keep them from rolling into the fire while their contents melted.
“What is it?” Elivain asked.
“It’s just—we saved Aelborough. We killed Raazoi, protected the Temple, and prevented the Ifrinn from returning. The four of us. We aren’t exactly the grandest of heroes, eh Des?” He started laughing again, and laughed until there was a stitch in his side. Desmond joined in. Even Elivain smiled.
The laughter slowed to a stop, and Halas remembered Aeon, how noble the boy had looked in passing. He had been a dear friend to Halas, and now he was dead, and stranded. He’d saved the Temple, hadn’t he? It was done. The Temple of Immortals was buried beneath an ocean, but still there were some who thought a need for protection. Protection from what? No one was going to find that place, ever again. Aeon deserved to rest.
Halas knew it was possible to exorcise a spirit and allow it to pass on; Conroy had performed the ritual several times himself. He would learn how, and come back.
Halas would find no true rest until he knew that his friend could do the same.
One morning, Halas awoke to the sound of a dog barking. He sat up in his bedroll and glanced at Desmond, who was similarly awake, disheveled and wild looking. Halas smiled.
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