“I thought you said it was being attacked.”
“It was.” When Nisha spoke, the words seemed to take a lot of effort. “There were no teeth marks. No claws. No wounds.”
“Then how—”
“It was being attacked from the inside.”
“How do you know?” asked an older Greencloak.
“Because I saw the thing attacking it,” said Nisha grimly. “I saw it moving beneath the whale’s skin.”
Abeke went very cold.
“I tried to cut it out,” Nisha continued. “But it was no use. When my knife cut through, it … it became two.”
At that, Nisha gritted her teeth and held out her hand. It had been curled into a fist at her side while she spoke, but as her fingers peeled away to reveal her palm, Abeke saw something that made her heart turn.
She heard Rollan’s breath catch in horror beside her.
In the center of Nisha’s palm was a small dark mark.
A spiral was buried in her skin.
A parasite. Behind Abeke’s eyes, she saw Conor’s outstretched arm, the horrible mark that seemed to twitch beneath his skin, stealing time and life and sanity. No. No. Not this. Not again.
Arac must have recognized it, too, because the man let out a strangled sound of fury as the parasite writhed and wound its way up Nisha’s palm and over her wrist.
“I tried to … ” The captain trailed off, swaying on her feet even though the deck was now steady. Arac was there to catch her before she could fall.
“Nisha, Nisha, stay with me,” demanded Arac as the captain shivered against him. “Where’s Gera?” he shouted, calling for the Greencloak’s medic.
The woman was already pushing her way through the gathered crowd, kneeling in front of them and tearing strips of cloth to bind around Nisha’s elbow, as if the parasite could be contained by a simple tourniquet.
“Get back,” Arac growled as the crew pressed in. Abeke didn’t realize she’d been edging forward, too, until she felt Rollan’s hand on her arm. The weight of his touch was a comfort, a sign of solidarity as much as a barricade, holding her at bay.
She watched as Gera drew a knife and pressed the tip into the captain’s forearm, skewering the dark shape that writhed beneath the surface.
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it,” said Gera. And that’s when Abeke realized that Gera didn’t know how sinister the parasites were, how infectious. The medic let out a sound of dismay as, to everyone’s horror—everyone’s horror and Abeke’s sadness—the parasite divided in two once more, half still burrowing up Nisha’s arm, the other half now snaking quickly up the medic’s blade, right for her fingers. Gera cast the knife aside before the creature could reach her hand, and Rollan kicked it over the ship’s edge and into the sea.
Abeke felt ill—how many other creatures would become infected by that squirming shadow? How quickly would the evil spread?
Blood streamed from the wound in Nisha’s arm. The dark shape beneath her skin continued upward, slower, but otherwise undeterred.
“Gera,” growled Arac. “There has to be something … ”
“It’s no use,” said the medic, shaking her head. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” breathed Nisha. “I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.”
But the words sounded hollow, the repetitions of someone slipping into a fever. How long would she last? And if—when, realized Abeke with horror—she fell victim, could she ever find her way back? If—when—they defeated Zerif and stopped the mysterious Wyrm, what would happen to those who’d already fallen? Was there hope?
Arac swept the captain into his arms and set off toward the steps down into the ship’s hold, leaving behind only a trail of seawater from Nisha’s clothes. Abeke looked down at the nearest puddle and saw a drop of blood swirling in the middle of the salty stain. She watched the red twist and spread, feeling helpless and scared and desperate to reach Stetriol, to do something instead of watch those she cared about suffer. Her body tensed. Her stomach turned.
And then Abeke felt Rollan take her hand. The two stood there, as motionless as the rest of the crew on the rocking deck.
“We have to stop this,” she whispered.
“We will,” said Rollan, his voice laced with fear, but also grim determination.
The Greencloaks stood vigil on the deck for several long minutes before Arac reemerged, looking pale. A streak of his wife’s blood stained his sleeve.
“She’s resting,” he announced distantly. He was standing there among them, but Abeke could tell that his thoughts were still belowdecks, with Nisha. “She’s strong,” he added, lower. “She’s a fighter.” He blinked a few times—focused, glared, straightened. “What are you all standing around for? Get this ship back on course!”
“Sir,” said a short, balding Greencloak as Arac turned away. “What should we do about the second whale?”
Arac looked back and shook his head.
“Cut it loose,” he grumbled. “It can’t pull the ship alone. They work in pairs. One’s no good without the other.”
THEY KEPT CONOR IN THE MIDDLE.
It was the only way to keep him from falling behind, and the only way to keep Meilin herself from falling over, since when he was at the back of the pack she kept looking over her shoulder to check on him, until she inevitably stumbled on a root or a rock. She had the scuffed palms and bruised knees to show for it.
But it was more than that.
With Conor holding the torchlight in front of her—Xanthe didn’t want it in her eyes, said it was too “red bright,” whatever that meant—Meilin could watch his movements. She kept track of when his legs began to drag, when his body began to sway. The fact was, if he wouldn’t tell them when he was tired, she’d have to do it herself. Meilin knew he was afraid of slowing them down. He murmured as much when he was curled up between Jhi and Briggan, sick with fever and fatigue. But she wasn’t going to speed up, not if it meant losing him.
Meilin would keep Conor with them, keep him Conor, for as long as she could.
For as long as she had to.
Behind her, Takoda and Kovo signed messages to one another in eerie silence. Meilin didn’t like having the ape where she couldn’t watch him, but this stretch of tunnel was narrow, and if he went ahead, his wall of black fur blocked out the light. Meanwhile, up at the front of the group, Xanthe was humming.
It was a strange tune that got picked up not only by the rock walls, but by the moss and mushrooms and the shallow pools as well, carrying through the tunnels like a gust of air. Now and then there were words in the song, words in a language Meilin didn’t know. It made her think of the creature that whispered in her dreams. She wondered if the words were muffled, as they’d seemed, or if they were another language. One as old as the rustling of leaves and the rushing of water in a stream. One as old as the world itself.
Just then, as her thoughts were lost in deciphering dreams, something reached out and brushed Meilin’s arm. She caught her breath and spun, slashing with her quarterstaff and pinning the attacker back, before she realized that it wasn’t an attacker at all, only a tendril of root that had come loose from the tunnel ceiling.
Meilin let out a shuddering breath.
“You show that tree,” said Takoda with a mock frown.
Meilin scowled back, then realized he was mimicking her. Kovo snorted. Xanthe chuckled, and even Conor managed a weak smile. Meilin blew her hair out of her eyes. Too long underground. It was making her paranoid. She lowered her quarterstaff and stepped up closer to examine the offending root.
The ropy strand was thicker than any of the ones she’d seen so far. Once, they’d been little more than thin cords that ran like cracks in the ceiling overhead. Now some roots were as thick as her wrist, others as big as her upper arm. And up close, she could see that the root—all the roots—were moving. Not quickly, but not as slowly as stars either. They moved like a body shifting in sleep, loosing fragments of earth and rock with every small twist and turn.
&n
bsp; The sound of crumbling stones was eerie, like skittering feet, and Meilin found herself wishing that Xanthe would start humming again—anything to distract from the feeling that they were not only underneath the earth, but inside a living thing. A dying thing.
Meilin shuddered and turned back to find that the group had stopped. At first she thought they were waiting for her. Then she realized, with a flicker of annoyance, they were waiting for Xanthe, who’d paused up ahead. Meilin frowned. The only thing she disliked more than not leading was not being able to lead. She hated that she didn’t know this underground world, that all she could do was follow.
Up ahead of Xanthe, the tunnel branched suddenly into two identical paths. At least, they looked identical to Meilin. She watched as the girl closed her eyes and brought her pale fingertips to the stone divide between the tunnels. What could she tell, just by touching the wall? Meilin had seen her do this a dozen times, had even tried to mimic it, pressing her hand to the rocks now and then, but she never felt anything except the cold damp of the cave.
But Xanthe must have felt something, because a moment later, her hand fell away and her pink eyes drifted open. She didn’t speak, though. Her pale face remained contorted with concentration as she tipped her head from side to side, trying to process what she’d learned.
“Well?” prompted Meilin.
“It’s strange,” said Xanthe. “But both paths lead where we are going, in the end … ” She trailed off in a way that made Meilin think there was something she wasn’t saying.
“So what’s the difference?” asked Meilin, but Xanthe didn’t answer. She was already plunging into the tunnel on the left, and the group had no choice but to follow her into the dark.
It was an easy road compared to the ones they’d taken so far, a gentle slope with weedy yellow mushrooms sprouting from the seam where the curved walls met the floor. Like many of the fungi here in Sadre, the tops glowed faintly with their own internal light, not enough to see by, just enough to stand out against the surrounding rock, the way clouds did sometimes when the moon was bright.
Xanthe led the way, not even bothering to look back. That prickle of annoyance began to rise in Meilin again at the thought of being helpless. She couldn’t cure Conor. She couldn’t find the Evertree’s roots. But then she felt Jhi’s touch, like a paw against the center of her back, and she remembered something her father had told her years before, when Meilin said she wanted to be like him, a warrior.
“What kind of warrior?” he’d asked.
“The kind that leads,” she’d answered proudly.
“Then first you will learn to be a foot soldier.”
Needless to say, Meilin had not been pleased. “But I want to be a leader,” she’d insisted, as if he’d misunderstood her answer.
“That may be,” he’d said, “but a true leader knows when to follow.”
Meilin straightened and stared at Xanthe, who walked ahead like a pale, wavering flame in the dark. Solitary.
Alone, thought Meilin.
With Phos Astos gone, Xanthe was alone. No family. No spirit animal. And yet, the girl hadn’t stopped to mourn, hadn’t hesitated. Even after she found out about Conor, she was still here, still helping. Maybe she needed this mission as much as any of them. After all, her world was in danger, too.
What they had to do was more important than either one of them, and if they were going to succeed, they would need to work together. And if that meant Meilin needed to follow instead of lead, then all right.
Besides, thought Meilin with a grim smile, Xanthe may be the one who gets us to the Wyrm in one piece, but once we’re there, I’ll be the one to defeat it.
“Hey, there’s light up ahead,” called Takoda.
Meilin blinked, dragging herself out of the bright world of memory and back into the darkened tunnel.
Jhi’s touch faded from her mind, replaced by a quickening pulse.
Takoda was right. Light was beginning to dance on the cave walls ahead, low and flickering. It was faint, so faint that the old Meilin wouldn’t have noticed it. Even if her muscles were stiff from lack of training, the weeks beneath the earth were sharpening her sight.
“I can hear water,” murmured Conor.
“Maybe there’s a village,” added Meilin, thinking how nice it would be to see new faces. To eat something that looked like food, and sleep on something that wasn’t stone. She chided herself. She’d never been a soft girl, had always been able to hold her own with the soldiers, but what she wouldn’t give right now for a bath, a bed.
“There’s no village this way,” said Xanthe, her voice tense. “The glow must be coming from stone moss and river fern … ”
“Do you hear that?” asked Takoda from just behind Meilin.
“The water?” prompted Conor.
“No,” said Takoda. “There’s something else.”
And when Meilin strained to hear over the slosh and burble, she heard it, too, though she didn’t know what it was. The skittering of loose pebbles? The shuffle of steps?
Briggan’s ears twitched, and his lips curled in warning, his wolfish blue eyes bright. Conor’s torchlight snagged on something on the wall. Meilin reached out and brushed her fingers over the damp surface. The rock was softer here, and strangely grooved. She fit her fingertips to the lines and traced their course, and then recoiled as she realized how easily her nails had fit the grooves.
The ground was getting slicker, too. When she looked down, she noticed that it was a mess of crushed yellow mushrooms, trampled underfoot. Though Conor and Xanthe had been walking ahead of her, Meilin knew they hadn’t done this damage, not alone. This was the work of dozens of feet, maybe more.
“You guys,” she murmured. “Something isn’t—”
Xanthe’s breath caught audibly in her throat. She’d nearly reached the mouth of the tunnel when she froze. When the others caught up and saw what she saw, a sickly silence settled over them.
The mouth of the cave opened into the wall of a large cavern. Spikes of rock—stalagmites and stalactites—jutted up from ground and down from ceiling, transforming the cavern into a gaping mouth with flashing rows of sharpened teeth.
But it wasn’t the illusion of a predator’s fangs that stopped them cold.
It was what waited beyond them. Because there, behind the wall of spiking teeth, were the Many.
Tens.
Hundreds.
A writhing mass of bodies, pale and wormy and marked by black pulsing spirals. As thick as rats on a sewer floor.
Conor gasped and tossed the torchlight back into the tunnel behind them as if burned, plunging them into shadow an instant before one of the creatures looked up. Its milky eyes panned across the cavern walls. Meilin’s heart pounded as its gaze brushed across them like a chill.
“Don’t move,” whispered Xanthe. The order passed back through the ranks like an echo.
Look away, thought Meilin to the creature. Look away. Look away.
But the creature was at the edge of the tangled horde, and something had caught its attention. It stared, fixated, up at them, its face blank, eyes unblinking. Meilin wished Xanthe weren’t at the front of the pack, with her skin so pale it caught every flicker of light.
Meilin’s fingers tightened on her quarterstaff.
It was a ten-foot drop from their perch at the mouth of the tunnel into the cavern’s jaws below, and Meilin could see the marks in the mud where the bodies of the Many had slipped and slid. The slope was so steep it would be almost impossible for one to climb back up. But Meilin didn’t think the Many cared about impossible. She could picture the creatures clambering toward them anyway, with their empty eyes and their mindless, tireless pursuit. Could picture them climbing over and on top of each other, turning bodies into stairs until they reached the tunnel.
Beside Meilin, Conor shuddered. It was a small, involuntary motion, but the creature below cocked its head and took a shuffling step forward. Its hand drifted up through the air, the gesture in slo
w motion, as if the limb were underwater. But as it opened its mouth, another pale form jostled it from behind.
Just like that, the spell was broken.
The creature spun on its assailant, and the two went down in a shuffling mess of limbs. No one tried to pull them apart. No one even noticed. Within moments, their bodies were swallowed up by the rest of the Many, who walked right over them as if they were rocks.
Up in the tunnel, Xanthe braved a single step backward, the others moving with her, inching away from the edge, and the flickering light, and the mass of pale limbs and teeth. Only once they’d all edged back to the discarded torch did they run.
Back past the trampled mushrooms and the claw marks on the wall, back through the winding tunnel, back to the chamber where the two paths split, and they’d chosen left.
They stood in a circle, breathless.
Meilin’s fingers ached from clutching her staff.
All the color had drained from Conor’s face, though she didn’t know if it was from fatigue or the sight of the terrible creatures with the spirals in their skin.
Kovo glared back down the tunnel, his red eyes narrowed on the dark.
Takoda had a hand on Xanthe’s shoulder. The girl’s narrow arms were wrapped around herself.
“Okay, new plan,” said Meilin, “we take the other path.”
Takoda and Conor nodded, but, if it was possible, Xanthe’s pale skin got even whiter. Her pink eyes widened.
“What’s wrong?” pressed Meilin. “You said they both lead to where we’re going.”
“They do,” said Xanthe slowly. “But that … ” she said, pointing to the left route, the one they’d chosen, the one filled with the Many, “… was the easy path.”
Meilin swallowed, and looked to the divide. The other path spiraled away into darkness.
They had no choice, but the question hung unspoken in the air, as heavy as smoke.
If the left path was supposed to be the easy one, then what could possibly be waiting for them on the right?
“LAND!”
The call went up just before noon.
The Tellun’s Pride II had been slowed by the loss of its whales but was spurred forward by a strong current and a merciful wind behind its sails.