In the morning, Derrek Rowan flew us up the tunnel we’d bored through solid rock. The spell he used was simple enough – two words of the celestial tongue, and the blood it took to fuel them – and he taught it to me in the process of performing it. I looked forward to trying the spell out for myself, but I quite enjoyed the experience of being flown.
In the air above the hole where we’d spent the last day, we could see why we’d been unable to make use of the grapple. The hole, itself, was about ten feet wide and eighty feet deep. Surrounding that hole, though, was a circle of blasted bare rock, molten slick just like the walls of the tunnel, stretching out at least twenty feet in every direction.
We hovered in the air for a few heartbeats, rotating to take in the icy peaks and valleys of the mountains north of the dwarven holds. I was embarrassed to admit that I didn’t even know their proper names. Then Derrek drifted down, depositing us on the hard, slick surface of the blast crater.
“I wish you’d thought of that while we were falling,” I said, less than half joking.
He laughed and let me go.
“Me, too!”
I was unspeakably happy to be out from underground. I am no more claustrophobic than most of my people, and I had lived well enough in the mines of Liddarn for more than a year, but that hole had been something else altogether. I don’t think that I would have maintained my composure for much longer.
The Great Ice Wall had been visible while we flew. Back on the ground it seemed to fade into a distant bank of clouds. I wished that I could still see it. As terrified as I had been of the climb, itself, I had been … not looking forward to, not that, but invested in the notion of departing the sao`ashan Holy Empire by the same route as my ancient ancestors. I had not been emotionally prepared for the shortcut, any more than I had been logistically prepared.
“Let’s get out of the wind,” said Derrek, “and I’ll try to find our prince.”
We found a rock formation where we could sit out of the direct sun and wind, and Derrek extracted a carefully wrapped bundle from his wizard’s chest. Inside were five smaller bundles, two of which Derrek unwrapped and laid delicately on the ground at his knees. The effigies were crude, but I had no trouble recognizing them as Elana and Rennin.
I kept my ears sharp and my head on a swivel, but I couldn’t stop myself from watching him work. To my disappointment, though, there was nothing really to see. He held one figure, then the other, muttering to himself as he turned each one over and over in his hands.
I still had my own statuette that he had given me as we left Liddarn. Over the last year, especially on idle days in the Holy Empire, I had spent countless hours going over the miniscule characters carved into that figure, trying to decipher their meaning and purpose. I had initially concluded that they were an idiosyncratic shorthand, or perhaps – given his fascination with Illustria and the earliest wizards, such as Arcmedus der Allan – extremely old. I wondered now if they weren’t actually the celestial dialect of the Holy Empire.
After only a quarter of an hour, he sighed and re-wrapped the Elana and Rennin figures in their cloths.
“They are still descending the Great Ice Wall,” he said. “I think they will emerge this afternoon, but I can’t say exactly where or when.”
I nodded.
“Can you make a good enough guess that it’s worth finding a closer place to make camp?”
He shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Unless we want to go back down the hole, which was well insulated and probably safe from whatever monsters roam this icy hell, this is probably our best bet.”
I nodded agreement.
“If you’ll forgive me,” I said, “I’d rather up here than down there.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said. “Let me do one more thing, then we’ll raise a tent and make lunch.”
“Do what you need to do,” I said.
To my surprise, then, he unwrapped a third figure: Veralar’s. Again, he turned the figure over and over in his hands, murmuring to himself. This time, though, he drew his knife from his belt – that straight blade with its unusual chisel-point that I now recognized as the style of the Holy Empire – and nicked his palm, dripping blood and power into the figure as he enunciated the next words of power more loudly and clearly. To no avail, it seemed: he made a disgusted sound and shook his head, then returned the figure to its individual cloth, then retied the whole bundle.
“Veralar has taken a new name,” he said. “I know she lives, and that she’s somewhere to the south of us, but that’s all I can say at this distance.”
He sighed.
“I just hope she doesn’t wander too far in the time it takes us to make our way to Vencar City.”
His face had closed off, again, but by now I had travelled with him long enough to recognize that as a sign of distress. It was not, I could now see, the same inscrutable face that he wore when playing politics with Elana or Rennin, or when he was testing or teasing me, or the one he wore when he was dealing with the sao`ashan. This was colder, harder. He had worn it to face the Prince of the White Steppes and when the Usurper’s soldiers had attacked So’renner. I wanted to reach out to him, to offer comfort, but I did not think that was what he wanted in that moment.
In the Holy Lands, we had sheltered together in his tent, because it was large enough for the whole party. Here, now, we used mine. The two of us and our packs made for a tight fit, but that was better for conserving heat. With nothing, really, to do except wait for Elana and Rennin to finish their descent and emerge into the world, we spent the rest of the morning just that: conserving heat.
The forced idleness was for the best. My falling spell had not drained me the way Derrek’s freecasting had drained him, but the spell had never been meant to be used that way, and what should have been a simple casting that left one with plenty of energy to continue fleeing had left me fairly wrecked. The full day’s hike before I’d cast it hadn’t helped, nor had holding on to the spell when Derrek got creative. I could only imagine how he felt, given how close to overdrawn he’d been just yesterday morning. Not as bad as I’d have guessed, given all the magic he’d done this morning, but … still.
The forced idleness was also maddening. While in motion – hiking or politicking or working on puzzle boxes or even worrying how we would escape a subterranean ice cavern – I could keep my mind on task. Here, now, everything that I had been ignoring began to come to the surface.
We were back in the mortal world, now. Our quest was successful: Rennin carried the Blade of Xadaer. Every step we took, now, brought us closer to Elana’s throne… but first there would be a war. But the Prophet of Enhyl had not been confident that Elana’s succession would benefit the world, and the dragons who had guarded the Eastern Veil had been confident that it would not. I loved Elana, but I had joined her war more out of desperation for a journeyman’s quest than any concern for Vencar. In retrospect, it had been a wildly impulsive decision.
I was so lonely. It had been almost a year since I’d seen another elven face, heard my own language spoken by anyone but myself and Derrek Rowan. It had been almost a year since I had seen Rrii`aa. Did she think of me often? Did she worry? Had she given me up for dead?
I did not have to be so lonely. Someone who clearly wanted my attention and affection lay beside me at that very moment.
I had not meant to seduce him. I certainly had not meant to do such a good job of it, nor to grow attached, myself, nor to be so hurt when his secrets came out. Now that I had forgiven him, I wanted to take the lust and affection that he offered. I knew he still kept secrets, but I had also never pressed him on them like I had promised. And, though I suspected he had guessed it, I still had a great and terrible secret of my own. Having made such a thing of his secrets, I could not bring myself to reach out to him until I had confessed mine.
I had already missed countless opportunities in the house of Vol Mak Khan: long days alone with him while Elana and Rennin negotiated with the Prince of the White Steppes; late nights in our improvised laboratories, while our companions lost themselves in each other. And were we not utterly alone, now? There would not likely be a better time before the quest was completed. The words boiled in my guts, yearning to escape. But they caught in my throat and I could not push them out.
So I lay beside him and yearned, and mocked myself for doing so.
The confines of my tent were tight enough that we had to leave it for lunch. I retrieved dry rations for us while Derrek checked his poppets again. This time, he only packed away four, leaving Elana out and at hand.
“They have emerged into the world,” he said, his voice soft with relief.
I let out a sigh of relief, as well, and made a quick and silent prayer of thanks to the gods and ancestors.
“It looks like they’re making camp,” he went on, “and plan to move south in the morning. Do you want to try to find them tonight, or to meet them on the move tomorrow?”
I gave it a moment’s thought.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “They probably have enough food for another day or two, and we’ll both be better off with another day of rest.”
We built a fire to make ourselves tea, then retreated to the tent, where we stayed until morning, only leaving to make dinner or find the corner we’d designated as the latrine.
The next day was even brighter and windier. Derrek took the lead, the poppet of Elana tucked inside his coat. I walked at his side, picking out our path through the desolate rocks.
We were far, far above the tree line. Here and there, bits of grass or shrub emerged from the cracks. Patches of hardy lichens clung where they could. The sky was a shade of bright, crystal blue that I didn’t even know existed in the mortal world. The air was thin and dry and sharp, and we had to stop frequently to rest.
“The White Steppes were higher than this,” I heaved as we stopped for lunch. “Much higher. Why is it so much harder to breathe here?”
Derrek took a few deep breaths before answering.
“I don’t think that the air thins in the heights of the Holy Lands or the Lightning Plains the way it does in the mortal world,” he said. “I had forgotten.”
I took a moment to try to wrap my head around that.
“That makes no fucking sense,” I told him.
He laughed weakly.
We were moving slowly, but we had already taken most of two days to acclimate. Elana and Rennin had not, and were moving more slowly, still. We were able to intercept them late that same day.
They had already stopped to make camp. If we had not seen them on the horizon when we did, we would have stopped, too. As it was, we spent most of an hour hiking into the swiftly setting sun to arrive just as their tea kettle was singing.
“Hello the camp,” Derrek called, his voice dry and hoarse from the sharp mountain air.
The prince and her consort leaped to their feet, Rennin drawing the Blade of Xadaer, then fumbling it – almost dropping it – in shock.
“You’re alive?” he croaked.
Elana didn’t even have words. She just let out a girlish squeal and rushed us, wrapping me in a full-body hug. I returned the embrace, smiling.
“We’re alive,” I said.
Rennin approached more slowly, carefully sheathing his sword. He hesitated for just a moment, then reached out his hand. Derrek took it in a Georgi handshake, then pulled Rennin in for a full embrace.
It was nearly dark, so we raised my tent before trading our stories over tea and a dinner of hot savory porridge provided from the stores sequestered in my wizard’s chest. Derrek and I shared our story first – the fall and the underground cavern, the day spent waiting for them to descend the Great Ice Wall and the day hiking to meet them. All in all, except for the miracle of our survival, there wasn’t much to it.
“We thought you were dead,” Elana began. “As powerful as either or both of you are, it never occurred to us that it was possible to survive a fall off the face of the world.”
She shook her head. Rennin took her hand.
“They laughed as you fell,” Elana went on. “At least … the one did. Inladat, the White Prince’s companion. Rennin wanted to avenge you, but the two of us against four giants … there was nothing we could do. We had to let them go, and they just … laughed as they left.”
Tears welled in Elana’s eyes, and Rennin took over the tale.
“It was too late to start the descent that day,” he said. “Though we thought about it. We might have done it if we’d realized how little we’d need the climbing gear. You and the rhu xian all said that there was no traffic between them and us, but … there’s a trail the whole way down. It was rough, at points, but not ‘unused for three thousand years’ rough. Just snow, ice, and a bit of rockfall. There weren’t even any monsters.”
“Camping on the wall was terrifying,” Elana cut in, “for all that. There was a trail, but nowhere wide enough to set our tent, so we had to bundle into a crevasse we found in the afternoon.”
“We didn’t have to use the climbing gear for much,” Rennin went on, “but we did use it to secure ourselves for the night.”
He shuddered.
“I’ve slept worse than that, but I’m not eager to do it again.”
Elana grimaced and nodded.
“I dreamed about falling all night,” she said. “The trail was a little rougher the second day, but it was also wider. We had picked out what we thought was the River Venn from the top of the cliff, and have done our best to keep our bearings as we lost the view despite all the switchbacks. Since we didn’t find you at the bottom, we decided that we must have come out further west than we had hoped.”
Derrek nodded.
“The Venn headwaters are south and east of here,” he said. “Khanaarre and I came west to find you, but not very far, all things considered.”
The Vencari nodded back, and Rennin finished their story.
“We’ve been struggling to breathe since we left the Wall,” he said. “So we’ve been moving very slowly. We were searching for your bodies, and the supplies you carry, when you came on us.”
“We are very glad you’re not dead,” Elana said, her mouth twisting into an ironic smile. “And not just because you have all the food in your magic boxes.”
We all laughed, and finished our dinner in a companionable silence.
We were about to pack in when Elana asked, “Do either of you have any way to contact the wizards of the court? To let them know that we are alive, and have the Blade, and that we are on our way back?”
Derrek considered.
“If I had someone to contact in the court,” he said, “then I could worm my way around the wards. But I don’t know any of your wizards well enough.”
I considered, as well.
“I know some of the court wizards well enough,” I said, “but I don’t know that I could make the reach, or that they would recognize my call if I could.”
I hesitated, then shrugged.
“But I think, working together, we could reach the god who dwells in the mines. I know enough of his names.”
Derrek nodded slowly.
“Yes,” he said after a moment. “Yes, that would work.”
“Shall we do it now,” I asked, “or wait until morning?”
He shrugged.
“No time like the present,” he said. Was it my imagination, or was there something to his voice? He turned to Elana: “This may take a while. There’s no need for you to stay up. We’ll wake you if there’s anything that can’t wait until morning. Please don’t disturb us.”
She nodded.
“Thank you,” she said.
My tent wasn’t big enough to wrangle Derrek’s wizard’s chest, so we had to extract the boxed crystal ball out in the open, then maneuver ourselves into the tent, closing first the chest and then the tent flap behind us. The tent was cold and dark and cramped. The roof brushed the tops of our heads. We were out of the wind, but we were also away from the fire. The fire cast a light on the canvas sidewall, filling the air with a tint of beige, but not enough light to see more than the faintest silhouette. I doubted that Derrek could see even that much.
We sat cross-legged, knee-to-knee, a blanket over each of our shoulders and another over our feet and laps, and we set the still-boxed crystal sphere between us. We took deep, slow breaths, until we stopped shivering.
“It’s your crystal ball,” I said quietly. “How do you want to begin?”
“I’ll unveil the crystal and activate it. That may take a few minutes. When I look to you, speak the mine-god’s names. Repeat them as often as it takes. He’ll appear in your mind’s eye, first, and then in the air between us if he deigns to answer.”
I nodded.
“Whenever you’re ready,” I said.
He nodded, clapped his hands together several times and took a few more deep breaths.
“Okay,” he said, and gently extracted the sphere from its box. He held it briefly one-handed as he closed the lid and then set the stone down gently on the top of the box in a shallow divot clearly intended for that purpose.
The tourmalated quartz glowed faintly blue-black, casting Derrek’s face in an uncanny and unflattering light. After a moment, the light began to flicker and scintillate, and his eyes rose to meet mine. I nodded, and began to chant.
“Urassarrain,” I murmured. “Lord of Liddarn, ghost of the mine, molten-eyed, iron-toothed…”
Over and over I spoke his names, a slow litany. I gave his epithets in the earth-spirit tongue that he had taught me. Every time I came back to “Urassarrain”, I said it just a little bit louder. I held his mask-like face in my mind: bulbous cheeks and narrow molten eyes, too-wide grin and big iron teeth. The sphere glowed brighter with every iteration. Scintillating blue-black gave way to bright white punctuated with pulsing rays of violet.
Then, suddenly, the air between us shimmered with an image. The god’s uncanny but familiar face emerged from ropes of wiry iron-colored hair; his too-long neck and an alien four-armed torso atop a vast and coiled serpentine body.
*Daughter of Esthraal,* murmured the familiar, inhuman voice. *Do you know how the seasons have passed since you left me?*
The scent of hot iron and burning stone filled the tent.
“Most of a year,” I said, “unless time has escaped me beyond the veil.”
*Most of a year,* he agreed. *And still you live, and still you travel with this Great Wizard.*
Urassarrain’s attention shifted to Derrek.
*I see you, wizard,* he said. *But I am less certain that you live. What have you become?*
“More and less than mortal,” Derrek replied. “But I have not forgotten the ox I promised you.”
Urassarrain laughed.
*And I have not given up your secrets. Now, tell me, you strange and wily creatures, why have you summoned me so far from my home?*
“We wish to convey to the wizards of Elana’s court that we live, and that we have the Blade of Xadaer, and that we are high in the northern mountains, and that we are coming home as fast as we can.”
*Perhaps I can,* the god began, his tone teasing and coy. Then the image of him stiffened, and his voice dripped of panic: *The other one comes! Flee, friends!*
And he vanished, his image gone, and no trace of him lingered.
I barely had time to grasp what he meant when a new face appeared in the air between us: lean and sharp and pale, with murderous dark eyes and long, straight, silken black hair. He radiated darkness the way Derrek radiated light, and when he spoke his voice was low and smooth and snide.
“Derrek,” he said. “I see you’ve returned to the world. What happened to your hair? And is this the elf?”
He was beautiful, I had to give him that, and when he turned his attention on me, it was like a strong hand on my throat. I could not move. I could barely breathe. My protective Black Mask himation was wrapped around my shoulders, but I couldn’t force the words of power past his grip to fight him off.
“Oh, fuck off,” Derrek said, severing the connection. The light from the sphere vanished, and Aemillian’s projection – it had to be him; who else, what else could it be – vanished with it.
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