by Tammy Salyer
“I have no choice. I have to risk it.”
Agatha’s eyes fell on the dead man again. “There may be another way,” she said quietly.
“What? Please tell me.”
The Minothian hesitated, looking toward to doorway expectantly. Then continued: “There’s a tunnel, of a sort, to the Minoth Valley Gate—an underground river. It flows out of the northern mountains and dives underground just before reaching Minoth. Eight wells between here and the gate provide all Minothians access to the water. I have heard it’s large enough to carry a person.”
Symvalline listened closely, trying to imagine what Agatha was implying. “You’re suggesting I escape Minoth through this underground waterway?”
“Yes. It flows swiftly, perhaps swiftly enough that if you held your breath between wells, you could replenish it at each of them.”
“Has it been done?”
“Oh no. No common Minothian could do it. But your kind, those who protect Verities, are different. Perhaps you could. It would be faster than going by foot. And you would be impossible to detect.”
The prospect was terrifying, but Agatha was right. Symvalline could drown, but she could not die from drowning. Her body would simply “sleep” until it was revived or destroyed. And she could stay conscious without breath much longer than normal. Perhaps it was the chance she needed if she had the courage to take it.
“How can I get to the river?”
Agatha looked again at the doorway. “I, we, are to take Kaneas Toranzu to the burial barrows until his family is told of his fate. We can take you as well.”
“We?” A tiny note of dread was playing in her heart. She didn’t wish to drag any more innocents into her troubles.
“Widin and I—we are the keepers of the dead rolls, our punishment for betraying the Everlight’s will. He’s outside with the dray to take this poor one to the barrows. We can hide you both beneath the shroud that conceals the dead from others’ sight. The barrows are near the Cosmoculous Tower, and the river flows under its base. There’s a well cistern inside that will give you access.”
Symvalline was distracted for a moment by the mention of the Cosmoculous Tower, and her mind turned to the strange tower drawn over and over in the margins of the journal she’d found. Collecting herself quickly, she asked, “Are you…are you sure Widin will help?”
“He is old, his wife moved into the shadows several years ago. And I believe his heart wishes to join her.” Her head drooped and her skin tone blanched to a somber brown-gray as she said this. Symvalline wondered if the man she spoke of was the only one who wished to join his departed family.
Quickly, she weighed the risk against the chance of escape and decided there was really no question—except one. “Why would you put yourself in harm’s way to help me, Agatha? They will punish you even more if they catch you.”
Agatha gave a bitter laugh. “What more could be taken from me? I only ask one thing of you, Vinnric. If I help you get out of Minoth, you help me avoid capture, at least as far as the River Thallorn. I can get you to the labyrinth, and through it. When we reach the other side, I never want to step foot inside these mountains again.”
“You know the way through the labyrinth?”
“Yes, I used to deliver supplies between the gates. It’s how I was able to smuggle Tulla out, and I can do the same with you.”
Symvalline drew a long breath. “Agatha, I promise I will help you in any way I can. But I can do very little. I am a foreigner, hunted, as you say, and without allies except for you.”
“And the Zhallahs.”
Her comment surprised Symvalline. “But I thought they were your enemy.”
“Are they?” the Minothian said, her tone unreadable.
Whatever Agatha knew or suspected, time was too short for Symvalline to ask. She said, “I’ll do anything I can to get you free of Minoth.”
After a quick nod, Agatha went out to speak to her cohort and get the cart to transport the dead. Symvalline carried a stool to the bookshelves and again sought a map of the labyrinth, but found nothing. As she waited for Agatha, anxiously, she let the practical reality of her plans begin to seep in. She’d refused to look at them when there was no other choice, but Agatha’s help had given her one. Her chances of making it through the labyrinth, alone and on foot, a search party in pursuit, without her klinkí stones, all the while trying to read a map, were almost zero. But though desperation had driven her this far, perhaps cooperation would take her the rest of the way.
Crumb, you will not be captive for long, even if I have to slay Tuzhazu. Though I’ll gladly do that anyway.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Widin peered at her through wrinkled eyelids that sagged so heavily she was surprised he could see. His eyebrows were unusually long and their edges dangled nearly to his cheekbones. His long ears were equally stretched, giving him the look of a wax sculpture that was in the process of melting. Symvalline had plenty of time to get a good look at him as he examined her with all the focus of an alchemist mixing ingredients that might very well explode in his face.
Unsure what had passed between him and Agatha, Symvalline began, “I’m—”
“No, no need. We’ll help you,” he cut in, then spun back around abruptly and fetched the handcart she was intended to hide within.
She looked to Agatha with questions in her eyes, and the woman said, “He’s agreed to help. You don’t need to worry about him.”
The old man reentered, pushing a wide, tall-sided cart. His chest beneath his black robes was sunken, and he was hunched forward like a letter C. Symvalline was astonished he’d been given the laborious task of transporting the dead, but then, punishments for breaking taboos weren’t meant to be easy, she supposed.
In moments, she and the unfortunate soldier lay side by side under a shroud. Being pushed along stone floors in a wooden cart wasn’t a smooth ride. But it didn’t need to be for the dead. Symvalline felt each bounce and bump as Agatha and Widin drew her through Everlight Hall, but she gritted her teeth and endured. She’d have willingly suffered a hundred times rougher treatment if it would have meant they’d make the trip faster. She felt every moment tick past slower than eternity.
Twice, her coconspirators stopped the cart and spoke to others to request assistance in bringing it down sets of stairs. The suffering Symvalline felt with each jolting stairstep was nothing compared to the fear that she would be found.
By some miracle, she was not discovered. When she felt the warmth of their daystar beam down onto the dark shroud, she began to breathe just a bit easier. After some time, where the jouncing of the cart grew worse as whatever path they were leading her down grew rougher, they finally stopped.
There was a moment of stillness to let Symvalline’s anxious anticipation breed anew, then a gentle tug on the shroud.
“It’s okay,” Agatha whispered. “We’ve reached the barrows. You can let go.”
She hadn’t realized she was clutching the shroud around her face in a death grip and forced her fingers to relax. Agatha peeled it back, and Symvalline was hit with a sharp breeze of cooler air. She sat up and looked around.
They were northeast of Everlight Hall inside a steep-walled ravine. The mountain it led into formed a natural barrier to Minoth Valley. The wind blowing into the ravine was harsh and biting, and made a haunting sound as it flurried into a simple granite post and lintel entryway leading directly into a dark cave beside the cart.
This must be the barrows. It was clear now to Symvalline why the Minothians kept their dead here. The way the cold mountain wind was directed into the ravine and then into the maw of the sepulcher would preserve bodies far longer than most places. It was a place of the dead, and it felt like it.
As she stepped clear of the cart, she noted that Widin had walked back down the path to the mouth of the ravine.
“He’s keeping an eye out to make sure we’re alone,” Agatha said, then pointed farther up the canyon. “At the end, not to
o far, you’ll find a narrow path. Follow the right branch, not the left. The left will take you deeper into the mountains. It’s easy to miss, so you must watch for it closely. It’s forbidden for any Minothian to go near Cosmoculous Tower, but this path will lead you straight to its northern base. Almost no one knows about it, so you shouldn’t see anyone.”
“Where is the well?”
“It’s inside and runs under the main floor. There are guards at the main entrance, but I don’t know how many. You’ll have to get past them somehow. They won’t be ready for you, though. As I said, the tower is forbidden, and few would want to visit anyway. The Everlight has warned all Minothians of the danger of being near the Cosmoculous crystal. The power it draws from the Cosmos is too immense. Only the Archons can withstand it.”
This was more information than she’d previously had about the crystal and its tower that were drawn in the journal, and she wished she had time to ask more about it. What did it do? How? But time was too short to indulge her curiosities.
Agatha took the shroud from Symvalline’s shoulders, and the cold air bit into her harder. “Remember,” the Minothian said, “once you enter the well, you will pass six more before the final one.”
“Just to be clear, there are eight total,” Symvalline asked.
“Yes. And if you miss the eighth one, you’ll pass under the labyrinth and down below the Tyrn Mountains. I don’t know what would become of you then.” Agatha gave a small shrug. “But the waters do eventually reach the River Thallorn.”
“How long will it take you to get to the maze and meet me?”
Agatha looked to the sky. “We have four hours to dusk. I’ll be there soon afterward, but it will be dark. If you can, remain in the well until I get there.”
They discussed the last details of their plan briefly. If Symvalline was successful in freeing Isemay from the Minoth Valley gatehouse, they would not be able to continue directly into the maze. The furor from both her and Isemay’s escape would certainly be something to contend with, and sentries may look more closely at the maze. They would have to hide until the Equifulcrum, when every Minothian would be assembled outside Everlight Hall to witness the event and the anticipated shifting of Mithlí into her next vessel, Tuzhazu. With the populace distracted, and most importantly, Tuzhazu busy, Agatha and Symvalline and Isemay would depart. Widin did not wish to leave, citing his age as enough reason to finish his days in Minoth, so the three women would be on their own from there, using Agatha’s role as a dead collector and an urzidae-drawn wagon as their concealment. The taboo against seeing the dead or associating with those who did apparently was so strong that Agatha seemed sure they would be unaccosted.
Symvalline pulled her pack from the cart, retrieved only the pouch containing her sleeping powder, and handed the rest to Agatha. She didn’t need its weight pulling her to the bottom of the river, and most of its contents, particularly the book, would be ruined in this short, dangerous trip. “Can you take this, too?”
Wordlessly, Agatha shouldered the bag. The two women silently looked at each other. Though silent, however, the moment still carried voices. The voices of their missing daughters, crying for their mothers, for protection, for a comforting embrace to shield them from the dangers the world held. Symvalline yearned to hold Crumb, and she could see Agatha’s yearning for her own little Tulla. Since neither of them could reach their children, she stepped forward and hugged Agatha instead. At first, the woman stiffened, but then she let herself be held. She seemed unable to return the embrace, but she did not resist it. Symvalline let her go.
“It’s too late for my child,” Agatha said. “But not for yours. Hurry.”
Symvalline nodded, took a deep breath, and turned up the ravine.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Traveling by starpath well was the closest thing to what Ulfric imagined that flashing moment between living and dying would be like—rushing amid both light and dark, propelled through a dimensional rift in the Cosmos that was never made for such weak things as flesh and bone. Though there was no pain, he felt himself—or rather, he felt Urgo—being torn apart and remade anew in the space of what was simultaneously the length of a heartbeat and the length of eternity. Nothing about the sensation was mild, but at least it wasn’t lasting. Having done it before, he knew to grit his incorporeal teeth and wait it out. He only hoped Urgo and Yggo would be no worse for wear by the end.
The starpath opened and shoved the two creatures and their unlikely passenger into an early morning sky—somewhere. The bruhawks, born for flight, regained their wings within moments and easily captured a rush of mountain wind blowing from their north. Ulfric sensed only the slightest jolt of what might have been confusion in his winged copilot, but that was all. The bruhawks were more resilient to the harshness of star travel than he could have guessed, and he thanked the unexpected twist of luck for having found such a hardy companion in this mad wystic peril.
Ulfric needed only one look at the sky and its three moons to know this realm: Arc Rheunos. By all the fates and their fickle furies, he had somehow been transported to the very realm Symvalline and Isemay were last known to be in.
He flashed back to the Citadel Suprima. His oldest companion’s final moments, offering herself in sacrifice for the Knights’ freedom, then Balavad desecrating her body and spirit, making her into a thing, a tool for his dark schemes. Ulfric decided it had to have been Eisa who’d opened the starpath and sent the Knights to freedom—or at least, she’d sent them away from Balavad and Vinnr. He’d seen it with his own, or Urgo’s, eyes. What her last thoughts had been before she’d totally succumbed to Balavad’s mutilation, Ulfric couldn’t guess. He wasn’t sure he’d want to know.
But he was here, so that had to mean the rest of the Knights were too.
Down to the earth, Urgo. We must find Safran, Stave, and Mallich. They can’t be far.
As one, the hawks spiraled downward until they could make out the valley floor in perfect detail, down to the fish in the river flowing through it and the moss-covered rocks along its bank.
Tell Yggo to split up and each of us take one side of the river.
Urgo gave a melodious call, and the birds parted. They began to sweep downstream, but already Ulfric was feeling apprehensive. His friends had been wearing the blue and white tunics of the Knights Corporealis uniform, and given their size, neither Mallich or Thorvíl could easily blend in with such a pastoral valley that was full of little but knee-high grasses and small shrubs. No trees grew close by and only a few large boulders graced the expanse, at least to the south side of the river. Safran was smaller than the two men, but even so, there was little on the valley floor that could conceal any of them. To the south, a curious forest that seemed to be made of stone pillars rose to heights that grazed the horizon. He hoped he found the Knights before having to search there, as that landscape would be far more difficult to penetrate, even with Urgo’s keen eyes.
Yggo, who’d taken the northern riverbank, let out a warning cry, and Urgo banked in that direction. Along the flank of the mountain range rising in the north, Ulfric saw a massive gate leading into the mouth of a deep ravine. A tower rose from each side, and steep cliff walls led into a mountain range that crawled into the distance as far as sight went. Figures, still small at this distance, were emerging from the base of one of the towers. Some were mounted, some seemed to be…flying?
We should stay out of sight for now, he told Urgo.
The hawks complied and swiftly shifted their flight upward, rising so steeply that it seemed to Ulfric they intended to alight on the nearest moon, a sea-blue orb midway in size between the three. It loomed so large that it actually appeared close enough to touch, and the quick ascent toward it was so disorienting that Ulfric wanted to close his incorporeal eyes and get his bearings. But, of course, if he forced his eyes closed, it would be Urgo’s eyes in reality, and he needed to be able to see what was happening on the valley floor.
Without needing dire
ction, the bruhawks rose high enough that if they were visible at all, they’d look like mere specks to anyone near the ground. They began circling over the valley like vultures as they awaited the incoming Arc Rheunosians.
It didn’t take long until they were close enough to make out a party of four mounted people and three aloft. Ulfric was astounded and fascinated by the Arc Rheunosians’ physical adaptation—wings!—and in the back of his mind, he promised himself that he’d learn more about them someday. Soon they reached the riverbank.
The Rheunosians spread out, clearly searching for something. But it was obvious what they were searching for, wasn’t it? Him, or whoever had come through the starpath.
None seemed to notice Urgo and Yggo, and the bruhawks maintained their close watch as the search party scoured the area. At this height, Ulfric couldn’t hear the Arc Rheunosians, but he could see they were having no more luck finding his compatriots than he had.
What could have happened to the Knights? Were they in another realm? Had he not seen what had happened at the citadel in Dyrrakium correctly, and they hadn’t been absorbed by the starpath beam? Was he the only one who’d escaped Vinnr?
If so, that meant only he and Symvalline remained as Knights Corporealis, protectors of Vaka Aster’s vessel. And that meant, too, that they had failed Vaka Aster and Vinnr.
He shoved those thoughts aside. If any Knight still lived, then the Order hadn’t yet failed. And he could not grieve for Safran, Stave, and Mallich, not without being certain they were dead. The only ones he could grieve were Mylla and now Eisa. For she was truly no longer a servant of Vaka Aster, and in the state he’d left her in, she was far worse than dead.
Urgo, we need to find somewhere concealed to rest. I must try to reach Symvalline through the Mentalios.
The bruhawks circled toward the mountains, familiar turf for them. Their species in Vinnr came from the northern Morn Mountains in the midst of the Howling Weald originally, and most still lived on those distant, unreachable aeries. Though Yggo and Urgo had been with the Knights for at least two hundred turns, he sensed a current of expectation in Urgo’s mind, a feeling of coming home.
