Then a nudge from Mendaen, and she peered into the late afternoon sun. Another set of riders crested a hillside in that direction.
Atan scrambled down the hill and waited until most of the group were gathered around.
She turned her gaze to Mendaen. “They have to be searching for us.”
He nodded. “They’ll be coming back this way soon. Looking for our tracks. And they’ll stay in sight of one another as much as they can.”
Lilah groaned. “This is bad.”
“What we expected, though,” Sin murmured.
“At least we had three days.”
“One, really,” someone in the back retorted.
Lilah grimaced, but it was no more than the truth. The sleety rain had come in hard, much too cold and dangerous to travel in, and so they’d spent more time holed up in makeshift caves than actually traveling. And the travel had been slow because of all the mud and puddles. Ugh! And this morning, when they set out, the remaining puddles had been covered over with a thin film of ice.
“Come on,” Hinder said. “We’re cutting north and east. Now. We can talk as we go.”
“We’ll leave tracks,” Arlas pointed out.
“Can’t be helped. But we’ll be on rock soon. So north and east, and when we reach Terrace Rock, we’ll go straight west. That’ll put them off our trail for a bit.”
No one spoke. They used what strength they had remaining to keep up with the leaders. Merewen listened and watched, trying to grasp the quick exchanges, the ways people expressed themselves through words, through tone, through gestures, and how sometimes all three were at variance in the same person. Lilah and Atan did not seem to mind her listening. Atan would ask, “What do you think is meant by...” And Lilah would try to explain.
Mostly, it appeared, there was some emotion the speaker wished to hide.
Merewen also observed the variations in the slanting striations forming the hills, and the wildly different types of stone. The sky was ever-changing now, as if weather was rediscovering itself. It was not home, like Shendoral, but it was interesting.
She felt magic stirring, sometimes in dizzying whirls that she sensed in some inward way that was not sight, hearing, taste, touch, or smell. Sometimes she felt it in subtle traces as she walked. At a distance pooled great, heavy quagmires of badness, and they weighed on her spirit, as did the friction between some of those around her. She did not know how to solve that last one—she wanted to run when someone was unkind, or felt hurt—but Atan, she’d discovered, sometimes could mend at least the surface hurt with a word or a gesture.
Lilah worried about her brother at home, and about her ability to keep up here. If only the nasties would get close enough so she could fell them with the last of her Lure! Only she didn’t know if she’d gotten those petals stuffed back into their bag in time. What if the Lure had completely lost their virtue after all those uses? Euw, she didn’t want to find out the hard way!
Sana was busy composing a ballad about their hardships, complete with internal rhymes in the old wanderer mode. The world she’d known had changed forever, but as long as there was music, life was good—despite the cold, and the hunger, and dirt, and the ever-present threat of discovery by the Norsundrians. Her unswerving desire was to go to a music academy, and become a bard or a theater musician. As she walked, she sang under her breath, her gaze on the mud and slush ahead of her ragged shoes, but her mind soaring on a current of song through images from ancient ballads.
Rip and Hannla were also composing a song about their hardships, but this one wasn’t meant to last beyond the next time they camped long enough to share a song. Pompous, stiff, and very, very silly, it was meant to make them all laugh.
Mendaen worried. He was sick with anxiousness, knowing from the sight of those well-trained riders that this new commander was far more competent than the previous one, who couldn’t prevent his men from scattering at will, and Mendaen feared that his friends wouldn’t last in a fight past three breaths. He didn’t know whether he ought to die first or last. Gripping, regripping the dagger he’d taken from his dead father’s hands, he kept watching Hinder for signals.
Hinder and Sin knew these hills, but only in a general sense. Each time they stopped, one or two of the five morvende scouted ahead for the next segment of trail. They had one fallback—but it would be risky. If they were wrong, it might mean an entire geliath sealed for at least a generation, maybe forever. And exile for them.
Pouldi was hungry. Oh, for some grub!
Arlas stole worried looks at Julian, who was stumbling, though not a peep did she make. Honor, she kept telling herself. Act with honor. If we die, we die with honor. Our names won’t die. That’s what Irza says, and she knows. She’s the one who remembers everything Mama used to say.
The sisters were too tired to sketch one another, but at least they had one portrait each, to rest in the family archives—if the sketches and the archives survived—to the glory of the Ianth family.
Fear, tiredness, resentment, hunger, cold, sometimes panic-sparked giggles, and sometimes panic sparked short, hissing arguments.
The one who stayed quiet was Irza, who kept watching the morvende. Once her mother had dressed for a ball on the eve of the war, but there’d been no sign of fear or threat in the capital, no hint of trouble in her mother’s exquisite grooming and straight back. Last, she’d put on the ancient coronet, rude and misshapen gold, that came out so seldom, and it had ruined the beauty of her handmade dress, a froth of white and silver and peach silk blossoms.
Why wear that ugly thing? Irza had asked. It ruins your gown.
I know, Mama had said. It is not the thing itself that we treasure, but what it means. Everyone who looks upon it will be reminded that the Ianth family has been in Sartor for thousands of years, with illustrious members in Sword, Pen and Star. Remember the symbols, my child, because they are the magic of the aristocracy, and without this magic you cannot hold power.
Irza did not have the least interest in going into damp, dark old morvende caves. She did not believe the wondrous stories about mysterious caves full of singing gemstones, each more precious and rare than the last. She thought the whole idea of the morvende culture repellent, but they did carry tremendous prestige. They were a part of Sartor’s history, and somehow they managed to have enormous power, though as yet she didn’t see how.
But she knew this much: the tradition was, any sunsiders the morvende brought into the geliaths were forever honored, in Sartor—even out in the world. And she was determined that she was going to find out those accesses, even if she had to sneak. Oh, she’d never, ever, ever use them—if they all lived—but to let it be known that she was one of the blessed...
And so they endured three long days of steady tramping in horrible weather, over rough terrain, their supplies more scant with each meal.
But they had no experience, so time was against them.
Once there was a close call, when Lilah’s laugh had rung echoing up grate slabs of old granite, but the echoes led the Norsundrians wrong just long enough for Sin to hear their pursuit, and Hinder found a chasm in which to hide the group for the night.
They spent the next half a day crouched in one place, quiet as the stone around them, while at intervals pebbles skittered down, a dry and stinging rain on their heads and shoulders, indicating the night-long search.
But at last Mendaen reported early one morning, “They’ve closed in round us. By noon they’ll have us.”
Four white heads turned Hinder’s way. He nodded. Sin also nodded. And so did the younger three: a pact agreed to.
Hinder said, “We’ve tried not just to go northwest toward Eidervaen, but to be within range of our geliath accesses. Well, we’re by one now. Just over the next ridge.”
He looked at tired little Julian and the other grimy, exhausted faces, and he couldn’t regret the decision. The morvende had all agreed, though they knew the rules: they were to check ahead before bringing Sunsiders down
underground. It was the first rule. But the emergency (they all agreed) was greater.
Mendaen was pale, almost greenish, with relief, and Hinder felt a wash of sympathy. Even if he ended up exiled sunside forever, it would not be so bad if he could save his friends. “Come on,” he said.
They ran.
And so it was they topped a steep cliff just as Kessler and his riders entered the narrow rocky defile below.
Kessler reined in when the little rocks fell on them, and looked up. Atan and her group looked down.
Kessler and his people were tired, too, for they’d had less rest than the kids had. He lifted a hand to ward the low winter sun that had just topped the southeastern mountains, and surveyed the little group. He saw a black-clad child with ruddy hair, and recognized his Landis. Except who was the tall one next to her with the long brown braids and filthy riding clothes? The morning sun on her face illuminated every feature, including the eyes shaped so much like his, and it glinted on the ring she wore on one grubby hand.
As he compassed the fact that he had been wrong from the outset, and that this one was the Landis, Atan recognized those blue eyes, that black hair. Here was the villain who had threatened her early on their journey, and had grabbed Lilah—and a glance at poor Lilah, who looked as if she’d been stabbed, proved her right.
Kessler said, “You’ve nowhere to run.”
“I know,” Atan said, and as she wiped a wind-stirred strand of dirty hair from her face, she glanced covertly behind her, at where Hinder was gesticulating violently from the lee of an outcropping of rock, where the Norsundrians couldn’t see him, as Sin and two others struggled with some precariously balanced big stones.
Stall them, Atan guessed.
“Go away and leave us alone,” she called.
The Norsundrians laughed and settled back to watch the show.
“Or what?” one of them called, causing a guffaw down their line. “You’ll cry us to death?”
Hinder and Sin belly-crawled up and grabbed the youngest kids. They began hauling them backward, as Hannla blocked them from view by walking along the ridge, wailing and shaking her fists.
“Go away! Go away!” Atan shrilled, causing more laughter. “Leave us alone! We never did anything to you!”
Brick and all the Poisoners joined in, howling and bellowing threats and pleadings, as the Norsundrians richly enjoyed protracting the kids’ fear.
One by one the kids vanished, until only the teens were left.
“Now,” Hinder hissed from behind.
Atan’s heartbeat thumped in her ears. During her days in the forest, she’d been catching up on kids’ slang and gestures. Keeping her gaze on Kessler’s watching face she lifted a hand, put her thumb to her nose, and wiggled her fingers skyward.
Then she turned and ran.
From below came the clatter of horses’ hooves as the Norsundrians started up the gulley in pursuit.
Atan and the last of her friends scrambled down the back of the ridge in a welter of rubble. Following Hinder, they ducked around some big slabs, and into the darkness beyond.
The morvende did something to some precariously balanced boulders, which teetered, toppled, cracked, clattered, and bounced down the hillside, bringing a train of smaller rocks with them, which in their turn skirled up a popping, spinning cascade of pebbles. By the time the Norsundrians reached the far side of the ridge, they discovered an avalanche, which sent up a choking cloud of dust. Their quarry had vanished, apparently beneath it.
SIX
The world had vanished.
Atan stretched out her hands in the darkness. Coughs, sneezes, and muffled cries sounded around her, followed by whimpers of fear, hisses of excitement, shuffling, and blind steps echoing weirdly. The younger children pressed close to one another.
Atan whispered, “Julian?” and a quiet sigh escaped her when a small, cold hand slid into hers.
Then the little hand was tugged away, and Irza whispered, “Julian, stay by me. I’ll keep you safe. Your cousin has important things to do.”
Hinder’s voice rose, joyful and clear, “We’re home!”
The morvende lived in this darkness? Atan bit her lip. She would be grateful for the rescue. She had to hide her dismay.
Then Sin said, more quietly, “Not yet. Take hands. We still have a ways to go.”
Hinder couldn’t wait. He ran ahead down the tunnel, right hand out, talons trailing along the wall that guided him downward, distinctive carvings warning him of twists and turns as well as naming byways.
When he came out of the access tunnel, the blue-white glowglobes, and the smells of old stone and pure water made him shiver with longing and familiarity. Though he loved life sunside, now that he was here, the old remembered smells and the beautiful diffused light hurt inside, making him feel that he’d been gone forever.
The soft sough of the wind through the great cavern and the dark tunnels sounded of emptiness, as if it had been a long time since anyone had come this way.
He ran across the floor of the cavern, scarcely heeding the ancient paintings glowing down at him from the high walls, or the old gray of aged clay smoothing the smaller tunnel walls. He’d ruined an access for a generation or two, but at least it wasn’t one that people depended on. The carving that had named the access had felt very old, untouched; he wondered when it had last been used.
At the far end lay the dark pool he sought. Sunsiders might have hesitated before that blackness, but he plunged into the warm water, concentrating on his family, and when he came up gasping, glad to be rid of his coating of mud and dust, he found a ring of people waiting.
His attention homed straight to the oldest, a man with long hair braided in the leaf pattern. “Hinder, welcome home.”
“Grandfather Lonender,” Hinder said in their own tongue, holding out his dripping hands as he sloshed out of the pool. His grandfather clasped him in a damp hug, and Hinder smiled, then sobered as he stepped back. “I have brought sunsiders down. We were chased by Norsundrians, and with us is Atan Landis, daughter of the last king and queen.”
The gathered circle exclaimed in soft voices at this news.
“Where are they?”
“Below the fireflower access,” Hinder said. “I left Sin with them.”
Lonender clasped Hinder on the shoulders reassuringly. “Well then, we must welcome them.”
Not just relief but joy brightened Hinder’s heart. He would not be exiled from his family, or his home—but more important, his judgment had been deemed good.
“Are we far?” Hinder asked.
“Not at all,” Lonender said, smiling. “No need to transfer there and greet our guests dripping wet. We will proceed as we are.”
Hinder agreed, hiding his impatience. He wanted to find and greet his mother, yet he felt he should accompany his grandfather.
Lonender saw Hinder’s glance toward the inward access, and said, “We will bring them here and prepare a feast. Rejoin us when you have seen your family.”
Hinder flashed a happy grin, then raced across the rocky ground, his feet slapping the cool stone. How familiar that was! He dashed up to the dwellings shared by his mother and her sister, to meet them on the rockway down.
“Hinder!” He’d forgotten how musical his mother’s voice was. Joy was tempered with guilt—he knew she’d be disappointed that he’d never settled down to be a chamber-singer, and she would try to hide it.
“I’m back, with news,” he declared, when everyone had exchanged hugs and kisses.
“Sin?” asked Aunt Adel, as she brushed back Hinder’s damp hair.
“She’s with the sunsiders we brought.”
His mother’s amber eyes narrowed, but she smiled and caressed his forehead and cheek with her fingertips.
They smiled at one another again, and he followed them back up to the pretty caves he’d been born in. How small they seemed! But they were snug, and he still loved the bright shades of green that his mother and aunt had chosen for r
ugs and pillows.
“You were right to have me go sunside in Shendoral, for the binding magic over the rest of the land was still strong,” he said. “Here’s why I did not come back. I found others my age living in the forest, rescued by a mage called Savar...”
They listened quietly as he told the story. But as he talked, he watched their faces. Aunt Adel listened with her eyes narrowed, looking so very much like Sin. His mother smiled wistfully, and at the end, when Aunt Adel excused herself to get him some rice cake and pressed cider, his mother murmured, “So you have not quenched the sun-thirst?”
He shook his head.
She pulled him up against her in a warm, understanding hug. “We are all human,” she said, quoting the old, old proverb. “And humans were born under sky and stars.”
o0o
The line of kids following Sin was startled when a soft-footed group of white-haired people appeared. Some were grownups, a thing many had not seen for a very long time, discounting those sinister figures on horseback. Most of Atan’s little band fell back in doubt and apprehension.
“Welcome,” a woman said in Sartoran. Her voice was clear, a singer’s voice, Sana recognized with an inward shiver of joy. “Come and eat, and drink, and rest. There will be time to talk as well.”
Irza stared around. The cave really wasn’t as awful as she’d supposed—not at all like those they’d been forced to hide in, with fungus all over, and rubble, and spider webs, or stinky animal nests. The air smelled clean and fresh, and she heard the hush of steady wind and the running chuckle of water. Light came from somewhere, though she could not find the source; it almost seemed to be part of the air.
As they walked along a series of accesses, reaching at last a big cavern, an involuntary “Oh!” escaped her when she saw the stylized paintings along the walls. Intricate weavings of bird shapes, painted many colors and edged with the rich glow of gold, fascinated not just Irza, but all those who responded to beauty.