The Way Into Darkness: Book Three of The Great Way Page 3

  Tejohn waved his hand toward the floor. “The flooding bowls.”

  “Yes. Let me ask you another question: Where does the wind through the Sweeps come from?”

  Tejohn was startled by the sudden change of topic. “The wind in the Sweeps?”

  “We are still discussing the same subject, trust me, Tyr Treygar.” Tejohn had let his expression betray his thoughts, but the old man seemed pleased by it. “The Sweeps’ wind. So constant. So unchanging. Where does it come from? And why does it smell so sour?”

  Tejohn was at a loss. “The same place any wind comes from, I would guess, my tyr, but it must first pass through the narrow gap near Tempest Pass, and the valley of the Sweeps form a natural funnel...”

  Tejohn let his voice trail off. The old man was smiling and shaking his head. “Your precious Italgas were not the only clan who could keep a secret! I tell you this: there are more portals in this world than just the one that opens every generation at your Peradaini Festival!”

  Tejohn took an involuntary step backward. Tyr Twofin laughed at him. “You don’t believe me? My own people have climbed the western mountains and seen it for themselves. There is a bright yellow disk in the sky, and from it pours sour air like beer from a broken cask. The Sweeps wind.”

  “That’s an astonishing claim,” Tejohn said, trying to keep his voice neutral.

  The old tyr seemed amused. “To a lowlander, maybe. To those of use who rule in the upper wilds—the true descendants of the ancient sorcerer-kings—it is a lesson for babes to learn at their mother’s knee. Come. I must show you something else while the sun is at just the right mark.”

  Tyr Twofin led him onto the balcony. The wood creaked beneath their weight, but neither the old man nor his two nervous guards paid any mind to that.

  They stood at the top of a great black cliff, with nothing below them but air and, some distance below, a mountain lake. Tejohn thought he would have to stack four Scholars’ Towers one atop the other to reach from the green waters below to the level of the balcony. The lake itself was long and narrow, the way many bodies of water that filled the spaces between the peaks could be.

  The sun was low; dusk would have already fallen if not for the notch in the peaks to the west that let slantward light shine directly onto them. The sky above was a dark twilight blue, and storm clouds blew through the southern part of the sky.

  Tejohn had to admit that it was beautiful. If he had been tyr of this holdfast, he would spend his days out here under the sky.

  “Now,” Tyr Twofin said. “You can learn how we got our name.” He waved a green pennant over the edge of the balcony--Tejohn could have tipped him over the edge in an instant if he’d been willing to take the fall with him. Someone far below struck a deep, hollow drum.

  Gow-ummm. Gow-ummm. Gow-ummm.

  The greenish water suddenly parted as something white broke the surface. It was long and narrow--a hump. It was the hump of a gigantic serpent moving across the top of the water. Its fins were pale white. A second hump appeared. Tejohn could make out a massive shape below the surface. Goose bumps ran down his back. It was as big as the eels that hunted the shores near Rivershelf, but this was a completely different beast altogether.

  As the double humps moved through the water, Tyr Twofin spoke, his tone almost triumphant. “Tell me, do you think a beast so large could survive in such a small body of water?”

  Tejohn had to admit that it didn’t seem likely. The serpent seemed almost as long as the lake itself. “That would depend on what you feed it, my tyr.”

  “Pshaw,” the old man said. “We’re a poor folk in the upper wilds. We can’t afford to keep pets.”

  A flash of red caught Tejohn’s eye. He glanced along the cliff face to the north.

  Some distance away and below them, dangling above the water by a rope, was a dreadfully still human figure in a red robe.

  Tyr Twofin followed his gaze. “You asked me not to torture him, so I will not. Still, he’s a Finstel priest with secret knowledge of scholarly matters. A spy. He has received the treatment all spies receive.”

  Javien. Tejohn stared down at the figure. He seemed so small at this distance. Of course, if Tejohn had never been cured of his nearsightedness, he wouldn’t even have noticed him there. No one but his jailers would have known what happened to him.

  Song knew, but for once, it didn’t seem like enough. When Tejohn had seen small children infected with The Blessing, Javien had stepped forward to do what had to be done. Great Way, why did this have to be his reward?

  “But never mind that,” the old tyr said, and for a moment Tejohn was nearly overwhelmed with the urge to grab hold of the man and leap. Whether they hit the water or the rocks, it would at least be quick. “Do you see?”

  Tejohn glanced at the two guards and suffered a moment of doubt. Both seemed poised to act, and his legs were still painful and weak. Could he act quickly enough?

  “Do you see?”

  Tejohn stepped to the rail and gazed down at the spot Tyr Twofin pointed toward. It was directly below them on the nearest part of the cliff wall but beneath the water.

  A beam from the setting sun found a gap in the western range, and a shaft of light shone through the greenish waters. “There!” Tyr Twofin called, pointing vigorously.

  Below them Tejohn could see something yellow and liquid within the lake water, lit by the brief shaft of light. It almost seemed to glow.

  There was a portal down in the water below, and he was looking at it almost edge-on.

  The serpent suddenly leaped from the water, stretching up the side of the cliff. Its head looked nothing like the spade-shaped skulls of the eels in the oceans. This beast had a long, narrow snout almost like the beak of a bird, and its mouth was ringed with stubby tentacles.

  It caught hold of Javien’s corpse and tore it from the gibbet where he hung. At the same time it sank back with its prize, a second serpent appeared. This one was too late to snatch a meal, so it sank silently beneath the waves.

  No, there was no chance those creatures lived in that lake. Tyr Twofin would have to empty the countryside of accused spies and assassins to feed them. The beasts were coming from someplace else.

  “You see, Tyr Treygar, the portal in Peradain is a trifling thing. It flickers in and out once a generation. Out of all the portals in this world, it is the least powerful. There are others that change constantly, or that never flicker or change at all. Why do you think there are saltwater streams in these mountains?”

  “It never occurred to me to question it, my tyr.”

  “Hmf. If only the serpents below could give Gifts instead of simply a family name. Still, you see what this means, don’t you?”

  Tejohn had a vague idea of what Twofin was leading him toward, but he did not believe it. “I’m not sure I do.” I’m not sure I want to.

  “Where do you think the Evening People come from when they step through that portal?” the old man said, his smile almost a leer. “Some island off Indrega? Some mountain refuge beyond the Northern Barrier? Some other continent on the far side of the sea, where the people of Kal-Maddum can not go? Of course not! If they were out there somewhere, they would have come here. Never mind the dangers out on the seas! They have made carts that can travel high above the waves, high above the peaks! Do you doubt that they could have landed on these shores decades ago and begun to conquer?”

  “If they had a will to conquer, my tyr, they might have.”

  Tyr Twofin waved that objection off. “All things conquer. All things grow and devour and take, when they can. Your Italga masters prove that. No, my tyr, the Evening People do not visit us between Festivals, because they do not live in the mountains or across the seas. They live in another realm entirely. Different oceans. Different lands. Even, I suspect, different skies.”

  The man is mad. But Tejohn didn’t really believe that. Yes, this was the man who had accused Amlian Italga of running a covert war on her own empire, but everything he said ab
out portals and flying carts and sea water flowing out of the mountains made a sick kind of sense.

  Tejohn moved to the rail and stared down into the lake below. He’d visited the waterfront lands with the prince. He’d heard the great beasts of the sea that made deep water so forbidding, and he’d seen the numerous statues and paintings the Waterlands peoples made of the dangers they faced: monstrous eels, sea giants, formless blobs with clutching tentacles... None had looked like the needle-faced serpents with the ice-white scales that swam in the Twofins’ mountain lake.

  Were those beasts of the sea native to the waters of Kal-Maddum, or had they come here through other portals humans would never see because they were sunk below the depths? Perhaps there were several portals strewn around the edge of the continent. Perhaps the beasts were fighting for control of their territory just as the humans and the grunts were.

  What’s more, perhaps there was a portal somewhere hidden in the northwest where the ruhgrit had come from, and the gigantic spiders that Cimfulin Italga had vanquished and were never seen again. And the dragons of ancient times.

  Perhaps even humans themselves had--

  “No,” Tejohn said aloud. He wasn’t an invader here. He couldn’t be. These lands belonged to his people. He had every right to fight for them.

  “You can try to deny it if you like,” Tyr Twofin said, misreading Tejohn’s response, “but it’s true: our realm is connected to other realms. And this lake below us, filled with salted water, is like the little bowl on the footstool in my hall.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “Hah!” The old man’s sneer had turned nasty. “You think Ellifer Italga had power? You haven’t begun to see power. The lake below us rests hundreds of feet above the height of our shoreline, and I believe it is connected to an entire ocean in a distant realm. Thanks to the mining scholars my brother has provided me, I will flood the lowlands entirely, from the Sweeps to the Bay of Stones, from the tip of the Durdric mountains to the hills of Indrega. Every enemy of the Twofin clan, grunt and human, will be washed away until nothing but the upper wilds remains.”

  Chapter 3

  There must have been something in Cazia’s expression that stopped the princess short, because she immediately apologized.

  “I should not have taunted you about your gods not being real,” Ivy said. “It is not your fault, I know. It is just that whenever we bring the subject up, you always roll your eyes like Kelvijinian was just a fairy tale.”

  Cazia wasn’t all that concerned about an apology. She glanced back at the mountainside, which was so steep, it was almost a cliff. Those black stones formed a face, one so colossal she hadn’t recognized it at first.

  But there it was, looking as if it had been carved from the mountainside. It was lying on its side, its sleepy, half-closed eyes blinking slowly as though it desperately needed a nap. Beside that was the bulbous nose, then the tall, narrow crevice that formed its mouth. Its stony lips moved slightly as it spoke to Ivy’s cousin, Belterzhimi, as he knelt before it.

  This was Kelvijinian. This was the god of the Indregai people and of other heretics as well, a thing Cazia had been taught was little more than a fairy tale or a demon. Cazia tried to find a scale that would do justice to its true size; it was bigger than any manmade thing she had ever seen. If the Scholars’ Tower had been laid on its side, it would be smaller than this. If Belterzhimi had been sucked into the huge crevice that served as its mouth, he would have been like a grain of rice.

  Cazia’s knees felt weak and goose bumps ran the length of her body. She had communed with her own gods in the temple, but they’d never inspired pure animal terror. “That’s the face of your god?”

  “It is.”

  “Where’s its body?”

  “We are standing on him. All the dry land in the world is the body. That is why we venerate him and show our gratitude for the bounty he brings. That is also how he delivers messages for us, when it pleases him.”

  “Have you...” Kinz paused as though she didn’t want to finish that question, but she did anyway. “Have you ever seen him make to stand up?”

  Cazia reeled at the idea of a gigantic stone man looming over them, but Ivy only laughed. “He is standing up. Every mountain is the body, standing up.”

  The memory of the three of them tunneling up the side of the Southern Barrier came back to Cazia quite suddenly. “Does it...he, I mean. Does he mind digging and, you know...?”

  Ivy shrugged. “The Durdric think he does. That is why they kill anyone they find carrying metal. When our kings asked about it, Kelvijinian said he could not feel mining or tilling and was pleased to share the bounty. He has not opened the ground beneath us and swallowed us whole, no? Clearly, the Durdric religious ban on mining or using metal is something they made up. Wait, you are thinking about the tunnel?”

  “Shh! Yes, obviously.”

  “I never asked about, you know, spells.” This last word was not said aloud, only mouthed. Still, even that was too much for Cazia’s comfort.

  She looked over at the face again. Every time she glanced away and glanced back again, she was surprised anew by the size of the thing. “Will I be allowed to speak with him?”

  Ivy shrugged again. “That is for my cousin to decide.” For a moment, she looked uncomfortable. “Er, for appearances, you might have to wait a bit. The faithful will certainly go before you.”

  Later, Goherzma went through the camp to ask everyone, high and low, whether they wanted an audience with Kelvijinian. He did not approach Cazia and Kinz--in fact, he did not even look in their direction as he walked from place to place.

  Belterzhimi stayed in the temple until well past sundown. Ivy explained that while she had been in her father’s presence when Kelvijinian had announced the last alarm, she had never seen one as it was created. She was as curious about it as the others.

  “How does your god make the alarm?” Kinz asked.

  “The face emerges from the rock and soil much the way a swimmer emerges from the waters of a lake.”

  Creepy. But of course, Cazia didn’t say that aloud.

  They laid out woolen blankets on the wet meadow grass and ate a stew made from dried boq and summer berries collected from the nearby bushes. The clouds blew away late in the afternoon, and the sun came out. Cazia found herself staring at Kelvijinian, at the way the sunlight shimmered on the wet stone, and wished she could do so from even farther away.

  The Indregai serpents kept a greater distance than usual from the humans, arranging themselves at the easternmost part of the clearing in a line, almost like pickets.

  “They do that,” Ivy offered. “The serpents do not worship Kelvijinian--at least, not in any way we understand--but they do keep to the east, guarding the road to the temple. I think it is an honorable thing.”

  Cazia laid out her bedroll that night with an uneasy feeling. Kelvijinian could open the ground beneath her, couldn’t he? He could swallow her up while she slept; she might die without waking. Of course, she was sleeping in a camp full of Indregai soldiers who were openly hostile to anyone from Peradain, including one who was friends with an Ergoll princess. That she hadn’t been murdered in her sleep already was practically a miracle.

  Kelvijinian. Today, she had seen the face of Kelvijinian. Grateful am I to be permitted to travel The Way.

  In the morning, the huge head was still there. An eerie sense of the deep strangeness of the universe ran along Cazia’s skin like goose prickles, and then, as the morning passed, the whole thing began to lose its mystery. All through the second day, people streamed away from the camp and knelt in the temple to implore the god for one favor or another. As an Ergoll princess, Ivy was first, naturally, having gone to her audience and returned before the other two girls woke.

  “I sent a message to my parents, of course, and asked for a good harvest and aid against our enemies. The usual things.”

  Cazia wondered once again if the ground would open beneath her. “Does he a
id you against your enemies?”

  “Father says yes but Mother and Uncle say not really. He does not drop landslides on top of Peradaini troops, if that is what you are wondering. I am not sure what he does, and I am not sure anyone would be glad to tell me the answer.”

  They spent their whole morning doing nothing but chores and resting their feet. Ivy and Kinz helped Cazia clean her clothes--apparently, she was not keeping them white enough, and the soldiers were whispering. Scrubbing them with water taken from streams wasn’t enough to satisfy Indregai aesthetics; Ivy gave her a leather pouch with a yellowish powder inside that, when wet, cleaned her robes astonishingly well. Cazia wished she’d known about this when she’d lived in the palace.

  Then she got a change of bandage, an approving clap on the shoulder from the doctor treating her, and words of encouragement from the other girls.

  Late in the morning, Belterzhimi came to visit them. He was, as before, tale, pale, and impeccably dressed. He’d put on the formal white robe that showed he was a warden. With a flourish, he made a show of thanking Cazia for returning Ivy safely to her people. Cazia was surprised; why he was thanking her now, after so many days of travel together? Then he produced a tiny green jewel from a pocket in his sleeve and offered it as a token of his gratitude.

  Cazia’s whole body flushed, but Ivy moved slightly behind her cousin’s shoulder where he could not see her but Cazia could. The princess scowled.

  That was pretty clear; Ivy did not want her to accept the gift. Cazia blinked and looked down at the ground so Belterzhimi would not realize that the princess disapproved. Her thoughts swirled with all the possible reasons Ivy might not want her to accept, some mortifying, some terrifying. What to do?

  The answer turned out to be easy: trust her little sister. She refused the little jewel as graciously as she could manage three times, after which Belterzhimi seemed to feel compelled to give up. He bowed his head with formality, then stalked away, clearly annoyed.