“It’s like a crossing,” said the ale boy as Irimus lifted him to the view.
Em-emyt grunted, climbing over the barrier, then splashed into the lake. The ale boy laughed when the old soldier surfaced, for he looked like nothing more than a disembodied head bobbing along.
“Have we found the others? Do you see Batey?” The tallest in the company, Raechyl looked over the barrier for the man she loved. “Where could they be?”
Em-emyt paddled his way to the left along the edge of the bowl toward a place where the bank had been exposed. The ground was rumpled like disrupted blankets, thick with the roots of underground trees that grew in a small, silvery grove. The ale boy counted seventeen slender trunks with outspread boughs like shrug trees. When the breeze gusted, leaves like silver coils streamed out over the lake and spiraled down to glitter on its surface. Around the crooked bowl, more trees were submerged, branches straining to keep fruit-heavy foliage above the surface.
The turtles were rearing up, pawing the barrier with the stout stumps of their legs. So the passengers, three to a turtle, lifted them. The turtles’ legs flailed, but their craggy faces remained expressionless, accepting whatever was unfolding. When the turtles were released on the other side of the barrier, they splashed heavily and sank. Then their golden domes surfaced again to drift like barges with tarps thrown over their cargo.
“There goes a delicacy,” said Em-emyt as one paddled past his fat head.
Next they lifted the rafts over the barrier and climbed onto them to float across the lake. Currents swirled around them, winding toward the exits. Kar-balter suggested that they row after the turtles to the tree-grove shore, while the lake’s current tried to pull them aside and into another tunnel.
“Batey might have taken any of these passages,” said Raechyl. “How can it be that the river flowed through one gate and now it flows through another?”
“Rivers don’t move like Bel Amican trains, switching tracks and taking different routes,” mused Kar-balter.
“They do here,” said Irimus. “And I suspect that some of the sources are clearer than others.” He scanned the array of trickles, rushes, and streams spilling into the bowl from different heights, and then pointed to the central source—the wide incoming river. Bright wings danced in the arch of its mouth. “Cavebirds.”
“Food,” said Kar-balter. “See why they’re excited? Fish are jumping.”
“Can you see the colors?” the ale boy asked Nella Bye, touching her chin so she faced the ceiling’s blue and pink array.
“A little. Looks like a child’s painting.”
The ale boy remembered thinking the same thing in Auralia’s caves.
“Like the Northchildren say,” murmured Mulla Gee, “the world’s full of canvases.”
As the rafts coasted to the smooth bank, the passengers climbed off and lay down, famished and exhausted. Kar-balter pressed on toward the flowing source, eyes on the leaping fish. Some Bel Amicans followed with a net.
“It’s like we’re inside a body,” said the ale boy.
“And this is the heart,” said Irimus Rain.
“Look!” called Alysa. The tireless Bel Amican had moved through the trees and a field of jagged stone teeth to touch the smooth stone wall. “Someone was here. They’ve painted a story.”
Faint sketches illustrated a familiar sequence—a crowd of children following a giant who led them away from a rising line of mountains.
“And so our great ancestor Tammos Raak fled over the Forbidding Wall,” murmured Irimus, tracing the lines. “He set up the city of Inius Throan, but his children fought for power … here. They turned against him … here. He fled. Here he’s climbing the tallest starcrown tree. I’ve never seen this version. He’s sending a signal with a mirror or a glowstone. As if he’s calling for help from the northern mountains.”
“What’s this circle?” asked Alysa.
“I’m not sure. But it seems to be like a boat in the sky. A boat carrying ghosts.”
“Moon-spirits?” asked Raechyl.
“The boat.” Irimus stared at the picture, incredulous at this variation of a story he’d known since childhood. “The boat crashes into the starcrown trees. Tammos Raak falls. His tower topples. The earth breaks open.”
“I know where we are,” said Aronakt, gesturing to further reaches of the walls. They were lined with tremendous pillars, smooth columns crisscrossing, some as stout as marrowwood trees, others as slender as snakes. “Starcrown roots,” he said. “This story took place above us.”
“Mawrnash,” said Irimus.
“The water!” came Kar-balter’s voice from the mouth of the incoming river. “It’s clean here! And look!” All around him enormous otters swam, dove, wrestled, and blinked at him curiously.
“They’re well-fed,” laughed Em-emyt. “The birds seem healthy too. I’d say this current’s clean. We can eat these fish.”
“The birds,” mused Aronakt. “There are so many. There must be a way out and not far off.”
“Glory!” shouted Kar-balter. He had caught a heavy tree branch that had sailed into the lake. “Look at this!” He took the oar and began paddling toward shore, towing the branch.
As they drew it ashore, they marveled. Its leaves were green, and a shrillow’s nest rested in a clutch of twigs. As Kar-balter pried apart strands of the nest, eggs tumbled out. Alysa’s quick hands caught them and gathered them into a pile. “This grew above ground,” she said.
“Who will help me build a fire?” shouted Irimus. “We have what we need for a meal.”
Kar-balter burst into tears again, this time for joy.
As the Bel Amicans spread the net and cast the spear, gathering fish on the rafts, the Abascars moved about on the shoreline, gathering driftwood from the exposed banks and stacking it for kindling.
Leaning back against Nella Bye, who sat against one of the trees, the ale boy watched a fire bloom on the bank and passengers crowd around it. Ark-restor held one of the old Abascar shields upside down like a frying pan over the fire, and Alysa carefully cracked a shell. The crackle and spatter as the egg spilled across the hot metal was a pleasing sound, as was the scent of seared fish. The crowd groaned with longing and then laughed.
“I thought I’d brought everyone from slavery to starvation,” said the ale boy, his throat tightening with emotion.
“But we’ll eat tonight,” said Nella Bye. “You’ve fulfilled your promise, dear boy.”
“Not quite yet,” he said. “We’re still underground. But the air is fresher. I think we’re close.”
“Closer than you think,” said Nella Bye softly.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a break in the wall here behind us. It goes up. All the way to the surface. I can smell it.”
“How do you know? What makes you—” The ale boy’s question caught in his throat as a cool breeze that smelled of needled trees brushed his face.
“Keep quiet for now,” said Nella Bye. “Don’t interrupt them. If they discover this path, they’ll all rush up through the wall.”
The boy stood and crept up the steep slope, slipping through the stone teeth as if trying not to wake a monster. He leaned into a break in the wall, where he saw muddy footprints that had dried upon the natural stair.
I’ve found them. Batey, Petch, and the others.
Then he heard the sound—a man’s voice crying out, answered by the sound of a harsh, bitter shout. He leaned wearily against the edge of the break, closing his eyes.
And then, as the fireside crowd was entranced by the scents and sounds of their project, he quietly ventured up into the dark.
For Batey, Petch, and the five other Bel Amicans, leaf-sailing had been a thrill at first. Batey had surrendered himself to the rush, confident the others were not far behind.
But when they’d struck the narrow place, their sail slapping across the passageway and stifling the wind, his excitement had quickly collapsed. He was hungry and exhausted.
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When Petch argued that they should fold up the sails and press on, Batey tried to challenge him, saying they should wait for the others. But no one had found the strength to fight Petch’s passion to take charge.
Entering the large lake where streams flowed in and out, Petch had seen a cavebird escape through a break. He persuaded the others to follow him up the narrow crevasse.
Moments later Batey found himself fighting for consciousness. Face down in the dirt, he struggled to free his wrists from their bonds. His captor pulled off his boots and tied his ankles.
Four filthy, bare-chested mercenaries in vawn-leather trousers stalked around their victims, who were stacked like firewood. A metal rack struck a stark, ugly silhouette before the bonfire, and a man’s rib cage hung there, an array of blackened bones.
Shredders. Well, that undoes the claims that they’ve been eradicated.
He turned his head the other way and saw weapons and oars heaped in a corner, next to several Abascar hunting spears and a few of the best Bel Amican beastman wire traps. Out of habit he began to calculate their value, but he caught himself. Focus, Batey. He blinked through a trickle of blood. Ah, yes. I’ve been struck in the head.
But unlike the three Bel Amican soldiers—Gibhart, Crowcus, and Stallobo—Batey remained awake enough to notice the other prisoner. As the mercenaries prowled about, emptying pockets, stripping away garments, and casting them onto another pile of pillage, they stopped to prod a young woman with a mop of bright red hair who was begging for mercy.
Before he could see anything else, Batey felt the heel of a boot on the top of his head, and his chin was pressed into the dirt. From the white dust spilling off that boot, he could make a guess they were near Mawrnash.
The shredders conveyed that they wanted to know how the travelers had found their cave and passed their guard. They had obviously been too busy to discover the break that led down a zigzagging path to an underground river.
Shredders were known for their swift, silent slaughter of travelers and for their appetite for human flesh. They did not take prisoners or keep slaves. What did these barbarians want?
“Torch oil,” spat one voice. “Pitch. Anything that burns.”
Deathweed, Batey thought. They’re desperate for fuel to protect themselves. He fought to keep his wits, to consider how he might distract them, to keep them from finding the river and endangering Raechyl.
The pressure on his head ceased. The one with the boots leaned forward, his black braids, decorated with bits of animal bones, spilling down from a pale, scarred head. “Give us burn stuff.” He pointed to a barrel against the wall. “Barrel for give more. Hurt you not so much.”
“We’ve got nothing,” squealed Petch. “But down below. Where we came from. A river. There’s a stream of flame oil fouling it. I swear by Thesera the queen.”
That earned Petch a kick in the jaw.
“Kramming Deathweed,” said the black-braided shredder. “Six it took. By night. Six.”
Down at the end of the line, the unfamiliar woman was gasping and protesting. “We could join you,” Batey said. “Eight more to fight the Deathweed.” A boot to his jaw snapped it out of joint. I hate that, he thought, spitting out a tooth.
Hulking about like a pack of Cragavar monkeys, the shredders conferred. Did no one tell them stories when they were children? Batey wondered as the room began to spin.
Something changed. Another figure had appeared. Batey’s senses sharpened.
In the spinning room, the ale boy moved across the cave in a cloak so filthy and tattered that it seemed rather useless. He carried a dead torch, went straight to the bonfire, and stuck it into the flame’s blue center.
The mercenaries stopped talking. They watched the boy as if he were sleepwalking, glancing at one another to confirm that they all saw the same thing. Then they spread into a half circle and stalked toward him.
The boy lifted the torch in anything but a threatening manner. “I’ve an invitation,” he said, unsteady on his feet. “You’re hungry. You’re thirsty. Let these travelers go. Come down and join us. We’re catching a lot of good fish down there. And …” He paused, catching Batey’s eye. “We could help each other.”
Stupid boy, Batey wanted to say. You’ve volunteered to be the shredders’ first course.
The boy backed to the wall of the cave, keeping the torch in front of him.
“Boy, get out.” Petch had been turned over onto his back, and his beard was smoking where they had singed it with torches. “Don’t lie to them,” he roared. “You’ll make everything worse.”
“I’m not lying,” said the boy. “We’re cooking a meal down there.” When a shredder sneered some incomprehensible question, he answered, “I serve Cal-raven of New Abascar. I’m taking these folks to him.”
“Cal-raven?” gasped the woman with the fiery red hair. “I … I know him! I’m his friend! Please, take us with you!”
The boy stepped slowly along the wall. The shredders matched his steps like a pack of drooling dogs readying to pounce. He reached the corner and leaned back against the pitch barrel. The shredders closed in, laughing, unsheathing small razors for which they were famous.
The boy climbed into the barrel, aimed the torch downward, and plunged it into the oil. The shredders’ laughter turned to screams, and they dove at him.
The barrel exploded outward. A wave of heat blasted across the floor, singeing Batey’s mustache and scorching his face.
One shredder flew backward, impaled by a wooden lance from the shattering barrel. Another turned in circles, his chest on fire. One clasped a hand to his face and ran to the rope ladder. The fourth man fell with something attached to him—a boylike figure made of fire.
Batey fell asleep.
When Batey woke, the cave was almost empty.
He lay on his side, his jaw hanging slack. Next to him Petch lay chest down and crying softly. The ale boy stood over them, naked, black with soot and ash. Smoke spiraled out from him in thin lines.
“Think you’re a hero?” Petch sobbed. “Well, forget it. You were lucky. I found the way out.”
“That runaway shredder sealed the cave,” the boy answered. “He’ll bring back others, I suspect.”
The stories were true, thought Batey. The boy’s a firewalker.
“Listen,” said the boy, “do you want to come down to our feast? Or will you stay and wait for the shredders to come back?”
“We’ll come,” said the redhead.
“Unbind me, you insect,” Petch spat. “What’s wrong with you? You can’t invite a slaver to join us.”
“Mousey may be a slaver,” said the ale boy. “But if she’s telling the truth and she helped King Cal-raven, it’s his decision what should happen to her.”
The redhead—the boy had called her “Mousey”—was rummaging through the piles of pillage. She turned, lifting up a large white tunic. “Here you go, fire-boy. This should fit you just fine.”
“Helk,” rasped Batey. It was difficult to speak properly with an unhinged jaw.
Mousey knelt beside him. “Nasty bruises. Here.” She clamped her hard little hand under his jaw. He screamed as the bones went clok! and then he flexed his jaw and thanked her. Finding that his bindings had been burned through, he rose up and looked around for his boots.
“I’ve still got my vawn’s saddlebag,” said Mousey. “Shredders didn’t search it yet. I’ve got bird strips. Cheese traded from a merchant and these.” She brandished two bottles of goldenwine.
“You’re in,” said Batey.
As they began to leave, Petch wept.
Batey smiled at the boy. “I think he’s made his choice.”
The boy paused. Then he returned to the spluttering captive. “If I set you free, you must promise to forget about that ladder. If our company learns about it, they’ll give up the journey and try to get out. Shredders and worse might be waiting out there. And we’ve come so far. We’re so close to something better.”
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nbsp; Raising his voice in what sounded like a final assault against an invincible fortress, Petch roared, “You don’t even know where you’re going.”
“No,” the boy replied quietly. “I don’t. But I do know that this is the way.”
Batey shouldered the bundle of the shredders’ pillage—all that he could carry—and said, “Make him promise that he’ll keep quiet for the rest of the journey.”
Petch’s head slumped against the ground. “I promise,” he wheezed in defeat.
The return of the missing Bel Amicans to the camp transformed the survivors’ meal into a celebratory feast.
Raechyl and Batey were inseparable, and while Petch staggered down to the water to sulk and wash his wounds, the ale boy was welcomed like a hero. Everyone wanted to embrace him, but no one did. His skin tingled and stung, as it always did after the strange magic of firebearing protected him. They unfolded one of the broad ivy leaves they had used for sails, and he lay down upon it. Smoke wisped from his edges, and he looked like a sacrifice set upon an altar.
He watched Batey pick through the shredders’ plunder. “This rope they used to bind us,” said the Bel Amican, “it’s the leather they use for reins on vawns and horses. Good, strong cord. Could come in handy.”
Kar-balter rafted out to the incoming river, filled the boy’s water flask, then brought it back and anointed him, trying to cool his smoldering skin. Nella Bye clothed him in the white tunic and blue trousers that Mousey had found. They presented him with ripe, white fruit from boughs of the silver-leaf trees.
“Do you think it’s time?” Kar-balter asked him quietly. “Time to open the bottle? We don’t have to share it. It’s Abascar ale, after all.”
“We share it with our companions,” said the boy. “There are no Bel Amicans, no people of Abascar, no Gatherers or slavers here. That’s what Cal-raven would say.”
Listening at a distance, Irimus Rain smiled.
A few moments later they gathered in a circle. The sail leaves made purple tablecloths, and each person looked down at a bite of seared fish, slices of silver-leaf apples, strips of fried egg, one ripe riverbulb, and then—from Mousey’s saddlebags—a dash of nuts and seeds and crumbs of Bel Amican cheese. The uneasy glances at the red-haired woman dissolved at the sight of such treasure.