"They do," replied Ebbitt. "But they get ever so narrow and ever so small, almost like they're not there at all."
"But Milla might be able to use them to get down farther, down to the Underfolk levels," said Tal.
"No, no, no." Ebbitt shook his head. "The water spiders spin their webs below Red Seven. All part of the plan, you see, to catch what shouldn't get past. We were once so very clever."
"Can't go up, can't go down, can't see my mother, can't go anywhere normal," said Tal as he counted each possibility on his fingers. Then he made a fist and struck it into the palm of his other hand. "There must be somewhere we can go!"
"Aenir," said Ebbitt. "I told you. It's almost time for you to get a Spiritshadow anyway, and you, we, everyone needs the Codex. The Spiritshadows won't be able to sniff you out here if you're there."
Tal thought about this for a good minute.
"It's forbidden to go to Aenir before the Day of Ascension," he pointed out.
"That's only because it's safer when all the Chosen are there together," said Ebbitt. "And it wasn't always forbidden. I've been over by myself. Several times."
Tal thought about that a bit longer. He didn't seem to have a lot of choice.
"If we go, what will happen to our bodies?" he asked finally. "We couldn't leave them here. We might be gone for weeks."
"What is Aenir?" asked Milla suddenly. "Why would we leave our bodies?"
"Aenir is the spirit world," Tal explained shortly. "It is another land, which the Chosen can enter. We leave our bodies here, and our spirits go there."
"Ah, like a dream," said Milla.
"No," said Tal. "It is real, but different. If you have the strength and a powerful Sunstone, you can take things there and bring them back. It is a place of magic. The seeds that Sunstones grow from come from Aenir. So do Spiritshadows."
"The source of Shadow," Milla whispered. "Perhaps I should see this, to report to the Crones." "We can't go unless our bodies are safe," said Tal.
"So it's pointless thinking about it."
"The Mausoleum," said Ebbitt suddenly. "A good place for bodies. Dead or alive!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Mausoleum was where Chosen were finally laid to rest. It was rare for a Chosen to die young because their lives could usually be prolonged bySun-stones, but there were always accidents, or those who had grown weary of life, or who made mistakes with the healing power of their stones.
The Mausoleum occupied the second-biggest chamber in the Castle, in the neutral levels on the southern side. It had a domed ceiling, cut from the rock and adorned with thousands of Sunstone chips to give the impression of stars. Unlike the rest of the Castle, it was not lit by anything brighter. The Mausoleum lay in perpetual twilight, under a night sky as it might be seen above the Veil.
Every single Chosen whose remains rested there occupied a lavishly decorated stone coffin, surmounted by a statue of their Spiritshadow. The vast hall was lined with row after row of fantastic statues, Spiritshadows carved in white-and-red marble, in greenstone, or in black, gold-shot granite. Many were adorned with gold and silver, or set with dull, ordinary gems like diamonds and rubies.
No capillaries of the cooling system entered the Mausoleum, so Ebbitt led them out nearby. They sneaked through the Preparing Room, which was fortunately empty of Chosen, dead or alive.
Instead of going through the huge metal gates that were covered with the names of the dead Chosen, Ebbitt pointed them through a nondescript door, into the Underfolk stonemasons' workshop.
An Underfolk sculptor working there looked at them, but Ebbitt made a sign with his hand, and the woman turned back to her steady chipping at a block of yellow-green stone. Underfolk did all the basic preparation of the statues, which were then finished by Chosen artists, who used Light rather than clumsy metal tools, not to mention their supposedly superior talents.
"Now all you have to do is find two very old coffins," whispered Ebbitt as they left the workshop and entered the Mausoleum proper, again through an unobtrusive door.
"What?" Tal whispered back. Somehow it didn't seem polite to speak normally in the Mausoleum, though there didn't appear to be anyone around to hear them. Milla kept scanning the rows, her eyes moving slowly from side to side, checking to see if anything moved.
"The north corner," suggested Ebbitt, leading the way down an aisle of coffins and statues. "The oldest. Nothing but dust inside. Not too icky. Scoop it out and settle in."
"You let bodies rot inside these stone boxes?" asked Milla with a shudder. It was the first time Tal had seen her show visible signs of disgust. "Aren't there any animals that could eat them?"
"It's just the way we do things here," said Tal. "It's different, that's all."
"Savages," Milla muttered under her breath. She longed to be out on the clean Ice again, with the cold wind blowing. It was too hot in the Castle, and too enclosed. There were always walls, even in the very big rooms like this one.
"I guess if we're going to do it, we'd better get on with it," said Tal as they came to coffins that were obviously older than the others they'd seen. The style of carved decorations was quite different from those to the south, and the stone was more worn.
Though the decorations were individual, the stone coffins all had the same basic design. The statue on top could be pushed and the lid would swivel to reveal an opening.
Tal and Milla had to try a couple before they found a statue that would move. It rumbled aside, and Tal hesitantly looked in while Milla stood by disapprovingly. There was nothing inside but what looked like a layer of old, old earth.
"Ebbitt, can you help Milla cross into Aenir before you go yourself?" asked Tal. "I think I can remember how… how Dad did it last Ascension."
"Hmmm?" Ebbitt had been staring at a particular statue, remembering the Spiritshadow and its master. They had been friends long ago, and his death was still an unexplained mystery. Ebbitt was only now realizing that this applied to many of his old, departed friends.
"Help Milla? Of course. But I'm not going with you."
"What? You have to!" Tal insisted. "I've only been to Aenir with everyone else! Without you " "I need to stay here," mumbled Ebbitt.
"Someone will have to keep watch over your bodies. Even if they are hidden in the coffins."
"I'm not sure this is the best thing to do, then," said Tal, who was having serious second thoughts. "Maybe I should try to see the Empress first. Surely she would listen -"
Ebbitt shook his head. "The Empress sees no one she does not summon. Sushin and whoever he is in league with control the Imperial Guards, and that means they control access to Her Majesty. Find the Codex, and it will lead us to Gref, and perhaps more. The Codex knows much that is hidden. I think also that you must try to get the most powerful Spiritshadow you can, Tal. You will need its help in the days ahead."
Milla looked at Ebbitt and said bluntly, "Tal was wrong. You are not a crazy old man."
"I never said crazy," protested Tal. "I said not exactly normal."
"Crazy is more accurate," replied Ebbitt. "But there are different kinds of crazy."
"Can you try to see my mother?" asked Tal anxiously. "And make sure she is looked after until I can come back and get her? And Kusi, too?"
Ebbitt nodded, and his Spiritshadow bowed its great maned head.
"I will be back, with a Spiritshadow, and the Codex," Tal vowed. "And we'll find Gref, and my father, and heal Mother, and we'll see the Empress and get Sushin dimmed an d…"
Tal's voice trailed off as he saw Ebbitt's expression. He had the look of someone who wanted to believe in something, but couldn't.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Tal climbed into the coffin and stretched out. It was cold and dark, but surprisingly comfortable. He took the Sunstone ring off his finger, and held it with the thumb and forefinger of both hands, resting it on his chest.
His shadowguard slipped over the side of the coffin and then slid in under him. Tal was surprise
d for a moment, then he realized that it wanted to go home to Aenir. He had turned thirteen and three-quarters, and it was time for Tal to release it, and bind a Spiritshadow instead.
He took a few deep breaths, closed his eyes, and began to mentally recite the Way to Aenir. As the words - which he had learned by rote without understanding their meaning rolled through his mind, red light began to spill out of his Sunstone, flowing like water across his chest and down his stomach.
Tal could feel the light spreading but he continued his silent recitation. The red light flowed over his face, and over his feet. Then orange light welled out of the Sunstone and slowly covered him, swirling through the red.
More colors followed, till all seven had flowed out and mingled. Milla watched in fascination as Tal was covered in an iridescent rainbow cocoon that glowed and shimmered. His face could only be glimpsed through the shroud of many colors, but Milla noted that he didn't move at all. Even his chest had ceased the rise and fall of breath.
"He has gone to Aenir," said Ebbitt with satisfaction. He pushed at the statue, and the coffin lid slid back. In a second, it was just another Chosen tomb, with no sign of the hibernating boy inside.
"Now I go," said Milla. "But I do not know how."
They selected another coffin, one adorned with a Spiritshadow statue in a shape that vaguely reminded Milla of a Merwin. It had a single, long horn sprouting from its forehead, though otherwise it was more like a broad-shouldered, long-armed human. Its legs were a bit like a Wreska's, with toed hooves.
Milla settled into the coffin and held her Sunstone as Tal had done. She laid her sword under her elbow. She hoped it would go with her to this Spirit World. She hoped that the Crones would also be able to find her there, in case she dreamed. But that seemed unlikely. She had never heard them speak of Aenir.
"I will speak the Way to Aenir and you must repeat it silently inside your head," said Ebbitt. "You must also concentrate on each of the seven colors at the right time. I will throw a ray from my own Sunstone to show you. Do you understand?"
"Yes," said Milla. This was another adventure worthy of Ulla Strong-Arm. These Chosen especially the ones conspiring against Tal were very dangerous, and powerful. The more she learned of their secrets, the better. She would return to the Ruin Ship not only with a Sunstone, but knowledge for the good of all the clans.
Ebbitt began to speak, and Milla concentrated on his words.
Color spread across her, but she kept her eyes open, watching for Ebbitt's color changes. She could feel the colors change in the Sunstone, and each color produced a different sensation on her skin.
It wasn't at all like going to sleep and falling into a dream, as she thought it might be. As each color passed her eyes, it changed the world a little. Ebbitt's face faded, and his Spiritshadow. They became patterns, and then blurs of light. Everything became a rainbow, so bright that Milla couldn't help blinking.
Then the colors started to separate again, and she saw other patterns. Her skin felt hot and cold at the same time, in different patches. Her toes tingled, and she felt as if she were falling, suddenly dizzy.
She could no longer hear Ebbitt's voice. For a moment she felt a stab of fear, as if without his words she might be lost between the two worlds.
Then the patches of color became sharper and sharper, solidifying into a bright blue band that filled the upper part of her vision. The light dimmed a little, but was still bright.
Milla closed her eyes. Sound suddenly hit her, a musical, happy sound, like a bone pipe played in trills.
Wind blew across her face. Milla opened her eyes. She stood upright on something soft and springy that looked a bit like long ice lichen. There were tall plants near her, larger than anything she had ever seen. Small colored animals with wings flew among the plants, making the whistling noises.
It was bright. There was a huge light in the sky, a hot, fierce light. Milla started to look up at it, but Tal was suddenly there, shielding her face with his hand.
"Don't look," he said. "That's the sun."
Milla looked at Tal instead. She recognized him, but he looked different. He was shorter and slighter, and his skin glowed with a soft luster. The Sunstone ring on his finger caught the light and surrounded his hand with tiny rainbows.
She looked at her own hands and saw that they glowed, too, and her fingers seemed longer. "Am I me?" she asked in wonder.
"You are what you are here," said Tal. "Aenir is a realm of spirit and magic, and we are part of it now, less solid. Try to jump."
He jumped himself, and went soaring up to grab a branch, easily three or four times as high as Milla. Then he moved back down, falling slowly, like a feather.
Milla flexed her knees and saw her sword lying on the ground. She picked it up, stroking the soft, long lichen on the way.
"Grass," said Tal, seeing her puzzled look. "It's good to lie on in the sun."
Milla put the sword through her belt and took a practice leap. That carried her almost into one of the big plants.
"Watch out for the trees!" laughed Tal.
"Trees," repeated Milla wonderingly. "We have a story about trees, before the Veil was made and the Ice came. I didn't think they were like this."
"This is a forest," said Tal. "Lots of trees together."
"It is good," said Milla, sniffing the wind. There was no scent of cold stone here. The only troubling thing was the light, but that was just habit. Her eyes must have changed with everything else, because she felt no need to squint.
"The only thing is," Tal said, "we should have come out at where we normally do, on the Chosen Plain. It's one of the few places that always stays the same, and we have houses and stores and so on there."
"We can walk there," said Milla, unconcerned. "But I don't know where it is," Tal confessed. "I'm lost."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Instinctively, Tal looked for his shadowguard, to ask it where the Chosen Enclave was. Once he knew that, he would be able to work out where they should go.
But as Tal turned, his shadow moved with him. Just like a natural shadow. Too much like a natural shadow, in fact. The shadowguard had never been that good at mimicking an ordinary shadow.
Tal bent down to touch it, and felt grass rather than the cool touch of Shadowflesh.
"It's gone," he said numbly. "I've got my natural shadow back."
"Good," said Milla. She was looking around, nose wrinkling. Something had disturbed her, though she couldn't quite work out what it was.
"You don't understand," said Tal, shaking his head in disbelief and sorrow. "It's been with me all my life. I knew it would go when it was time for me to get a Spiritshadow, but I thought it would wait till I was ready to let it go! It could have at least said good-bye…"
Something hissed from behind one of the trees. The warning hiss of the shadowguard. Then a small, furry, but somehow recognizable animal sprang out, jumped up on Tal's chest, licked him across the face, and then jumped away again.
Milla had her knife in her hand, ready to throw, but she hesitated. Before she could change her mind, whatever it was disappeared at high speed through the trees.
"Was that it?" she asked hesitantly. "No longer shadow?"
"They're not shadows in Aenir, not until we bind them and take them back," replied Tal, wiping his face and his eyes with his sleeve. "I guess… I guess it always liked being a Dattu because it was one here."
He shook his head a few times, as if to clear it, then looked down at his natural shadow again. He felt very alone without his shadowguard. It had saved him countless times from danger and embarrassment and difficulty. Now all he had was a useless shadow.
An almost useless shadow, he corrected himself, because he would use it as part of a trap to catch some creature of Aenir and turn it into a Spirit-shadow to take back to the Castle.
Milla was still poised in the clearing between the trees, a troubled look on her face.
"Something is happening," she said. "Listen!"
br /> Tal stood still and listened. At first, all he could hear was the wind in the branches above him. Then he heard it, too. Distant thunder, which was slowly growing closer.
"Thunder," he said. "That means lightning, too."
"Lightning?" Milla asked. "What is that?"
"Um, hard to explain," said Tal. He'd only seen it in Aenir, for lightning did not pass through the Veil on the Dark World. But it did strike the towers, and he had often heard the thunder that accompanied lightning, even inside the Castle. The lectors had also given several lessons about lightning, and how it could be mimicked with Light magic.
The Icecarls would hear thunder, too, but they wouldn't know of its connection with lightning, because they would never see it. "Lightning is kind of concentrated light that comes down from the sky. You can work out how far away the lightning is by counting the time between the flash and the sound of the thunder."
"I can't see any flash," said Milla. "There are too many trees "
She stopped in midsentence, because off in the distance a tree was slowly moving. Not just swaying from side to side, but actually walking.
Tal and Milla jumped at the same time, as a ripple spread through the grass under their feet. The closest tree shivered, and somehow stretched a little taller. One of its exposed roots flexed, and then pulled out of the ground with a popping sound.
"The trees, they walk?" asked Milla. She seemed more pleased at the notion than afraid.
"Not usually," replied Tal suspiciously, stepping back. "Though in Aenir, who knows?"
All the trees around them were uprooting themselves. They swayed and rolled, but somehow didn't fall. Tal and Milla backed away from the closest one, even though it made no threatening movements. When enough of its root system was clear, all the roots wriggled like thousands of tiny legs and the tree started slowly moving away from them.
All the trees were walking. They were heading off in every direction except toward the storm.
Walking away from the sound of thunder, which was getting closer with every passing moment.
"The trees are fleeing," said Milla. "From the thunder?"
"Maybe," said Tal. The forest had cleared out behind them, as trees shook and swayed, shedding leaves and branches in their haste to depart. "Sometimes things happen in Aenir for no reason."