The Black Book, page 18
part #2 of The Cycle of the Scour Series
"Armed and ready, I started out, keeping an eye for anything I could eat. I'll tell you, there wasn't much for me to see!" Lod got a laugh out of this, gazing off into the distance as if he was looking sixty years into the past. "Now, I was more than twenty miles north of Toll by this point. Until then the land had been much like it is right here—dust and buttes—but I'd come to the Dunesweeps. That meant sand and dunes. Up the face, down the back. Bad snow drifts down in the hollows between dunes, but I learned how to avoid those pretty quick.
"The night felt easier than the one before. Not so unreal. Then, around two in the morning, crossing in the high spot between dunes, the ground felt funny under the snow. Almost springy. Sometimes I thought I heard it crackling. Well, I didn't much like that, so I hurried across it and started up the next dune.
"Halfway up it, I glanced behind me. And what I saw in the moonlight froze me worse than any blizzard. Spiders. Dozens of 'em. What's the biggest spider you ever seen? Size of a good coin? Surely no bigger than a ripe plum. Well, these spiders were the size of pumpkins. And that was just their bodies. Their legs were longer than yours are.
"I don't know that a grown man could have outrun them on a paved road. As for me, I was six years old, and running up a snow-covered dune. I got to the top of it and half ran, half fell down the back side, but as I started up the next dune, I knew it would be my last.
"I was still carrying my little club. If there'd been just two or three of 'em, I might have tried to make a stand. But there was forty if there was a one, so I kept running and prayed for a miracle. Instead, as I crested the dune—the nearest of the spiders not six feet behind me—I slipped and fell forward.
"Down I went! And down a cascade of snow and sand went with me. I tumbled all the way to the bottom. As soon as I came to a stop, it felt like half a dune's worth of the sand and the snow piled down on top of me.
"I dug a bit of snow away from my face so as not to suffocate. But I could still hear the spiders skittering around on top of it all. I couldn't say how long they searched for me. Felt like hours, but I know my air would've gone stale before then. But at last the skittering stopped. Had they gone back to whatever hell they call home? My head was starting to feel funny, like I might fall asleep. So I dug my way out.
"Not a spider in sight. Just moonlight and snow. I pulled myself free, brushed myself off, and carried on. But this time, I toed the snow ahead of me for springy parts. And every time I thought I saw a shadow move, or a breeze stirred a sprig of gray grass, I'd jerk my head around so hard I'd nearly break my neck. For all my worry, though, I didn't see another spider that night. And that's how that was the happiest I ever was to see the sun rise." Lod grinned at us, shaking his head.
"What happened then?" I said.
Lod shrugged. "I kept walking. Two more days, and I was in Donnal and my Long Trek was over. Isn't anything to tell about those last two days. I almost wish I had seen more troubles worth telling, now that they're behind me. Then again, maybe the spiders and the avalanche were enough of an adventure.
"Boring as the days after that were, I still remember every moment of them. Because they showed me how big the desert was. How vast the sky. How small I was within them—but that, however small I might be, I could survive, and press on."
I felt suddenly embarrassed about having complained about having to walk to Barr. Not to mention much more skittish about whether the ground beneath my feet was about to become springy and spider-filled.
"Well, we got a bucket of time and not much to fill it with," Lod said. "How about your story, Myla? Run into any troubles on your Trek? Or should I say, how many troubles befell you?"
Myla walked on for several steps before saying anything. "Another time, maybe."
"Come now. If you won't tell your story, we'll have to listen to more of Cally's bitching instead!"
I scowled and did some blushing. "Yes, please spare us, Myla. Besides, I find it interesting. We don't have rites like this where I'm from."
A strand of her hair had come loose. She undid her tie, then drew her hair back in place and secured it, taking her time with each step.
"You want to hear the story of my Long Trek? Mine was just ten years ago, not sixty, but I don't remember it as well as you do, Lod. What I do remember is the heat. My lot was for the summer. Not its gentler days, either. Right after its middle, when Barrod's rays are most punishing. The route was between Ald and Dare. It wasn't used much—some people thought it was too easy, others too hard—but I lived not far from Ald.
"In winter, you're given a cloak and a blanket. In summer, you're given a flask of water. But it isn't a big one, and while I didn't know all of the land between Ald and Dare, I knew there was no water for at least five miles from where I was. But there was a canal to the north. I could see it from Ald. It would add miles to my journey, though. I wasn't sure what to do.
"But my father had told me that when you see water, you go to it, and you drink as much as you can. So I went to the canal, and that's what I did. Good thing that I did. There was no water to the west for a very long time.
"By that time, the sun was too much to bear. I found the largest sage I could and huddled beneath it. It was still hot, but at least I had some shade. I slept, badly. It had barely cooled at all by the time the sun was going down, but there's much less time to travel by night in the summer than the winter, and after my detour to the canal, I didn't want to waste any more time.
"It's more dangerous to travel by night in the summer, too. There are no snakes or scorpions in the cold of winter."
"Give me snakes and scorpions over the spiders any day!" Lod whooped.
"You just had some bad luck. For me to not run into anything would be very good luck. I broke a branch of sage for myself, too. To sweep and prod the path ahead and scare off anything venomous I couldn't see in the dark. Aside from that, the night wasn't so bad at all. Almost pleasant. I don't remember much of the first night beyond that. Just a feeling I had, like I wasn't really alone. Like the desert was deeper than I knew, or that anyone could know.
"I remember the sunrise. I remember I could still see the mesa of Ald behind me and it felt hopeless that I would ever make it all the way to Dare. I remember thinking it was unfair that they would do something like this to their own children. I remember thinking maybe I should die, to spite them and to make them hurt.
"But almost everyone has thoughts like that, and almost no one acts on them. I was no different. I walked toward a ridge of rock, where I'd have shade until noon, at least. But I got luckier than that. I found a cave. And as I stepped inside it, I smelled something much more precious than shade: water.
"My flask was almost dry. I ventured further into the cave, until I could hardly see. Just as I was going to have to decide whether to turn back, or try to feel my way forward in pitch black, I saw the glimmer of a stream. It didn't smell poisoned, so I drank myself full and filled my flask. Then I returned closer to the cave entrance and slept.
"It felt like I'd been asleep for some time when I began to dream. In the dream I heard strange noises, like something soft being dragged over hard ground. I smelled something foul, like an eater of the dead. And I dreamed I felt a cord wrapping around my ankle.
"I woke up when it began to drag me deeper into the cave.
"I grabbed at the cord with both hands, trying to yank it away from my ankle. But what I touched wasn't a cord. And it only gripped me tighter. I pounded the limb with my fists, gouged it with my nails. I had no effect on it at all. The smell of death grew so great I gagged. The cave was little more than silhouettes. I could see its teeth, though. Since I was young, do I remember them as bigger than they were? Well, what I remember is that the teeth I saw were longer than your fingers.
"It lifted me from the ground, toward its mouth. Outside, the sun was shining. I screamed.
"Light flashed—so bright it blinded me. I was still screaming, but something else was, too. The grip on my ankle fell away, and I fell to the ground. Rattled and dazzled, I scrabbled across the cave floor, praying I was going the right way. The cavern went silent. Just as I was certain the thing would grab my ankle again, the stars faded from my eyes. But there was still light in front of me. The way out.
"I got to my feet and ran from the cave. It was midday, and the heat was scorching, but I didn't stop running until the breath was burned from my lungs, and the cave was far behind me.
"I dragged myself beneath a shrub. Had it all been a dream? Many people speak of having visions in the desert. Maybe some dark spirit of the land was tormenting me. Trying to drive me to madness, so that I would wander in wrong directions until I succumbed to the sun and fed my body to the dust. I wanted to believe this.
"But when I found some shade, and concentrated on what I'd done in the cave, the light flashed from my hands again. Somehow I'd learned how to use the ether. And that knowledge could never be unlearned."
Myla fell silent, staring at the horizon. There was no road or trail for us to follow and I wondered how we'd find our way if Lod were to suddenly drop dead.
"That's why I don't remember much else about my Trek," Myla continued. "I spent the rest of it thinking about what I'd become, and what it meant. My parents were waiting for me in Dare. When I got there, would I tell them I knew the ether, knowing it would mean I'd be sent to Bressel to be trained by the priesthood? Or would I keep it secret? Never use it? Live a normal life on the land?
"I came to Dare, climbed the trail up its mesa, and finished my Long Trek. Then I told my parents I was a sorcerer. They didn't believe me until I showed them. I was sent to Bressel five days later."
"I was just five years old when I was sent away," I said. "I don't think I really understood what it meant at the time. By the time I did start to understand, I'd been in my new life for so long that it was the life I'd known before that felt strange."
She found my gaze. "I felt it more at first. But in the end, it was the same for me, too. When I thought back to my life in Collen, it was like something that had happened to someone else."
"So what made you tell your parents? Because it was the law, and you didn't want any harm to come to them? Or because you wanted to live the life of a sorcerer?"
"The law wouldn't have mattered if no one had ever known. And I had no special yearning to be an ethermancer. But I thought some other power must have wanted me to become one. I was afraid that if I denied its design for me, it might make something terrible happen instead."
"Maybe you were right," I said. "After all, you're here right now, where some very bad things are happening. What if you were meant to help stop them?"
"Maybe," she said.
But when she turned away, I saw no conviction in her face.
~
Typically I enjoyed traveling. Many liked it for the sake of the destination, the seeing of new things and meeting of new people, and I was in favor of that too, although in my journeys with Rowe, I had also been to places I would not like to see again. But I particularly enjoyed the journey itself. It had a transitional nature to it, one where you didn't have to be bound by your normal labors and routines, allowing for reflection, perspective, that sort of thing.
But I just really didn't care for the desert.
We passed another night curled up under the blankets. It was probably too cold for scorpions and snakes and things, but I kept an eye out for them anyway. I didn't see any. The landscape really didn't seem that treacherous. Even the cold was nothing compared to the north. If anything, it was just boring, though I supposed it might be more daunting to a six-year-old out on their own. The dullness of it meant I paid it almost no attention.
That, as it turned out, was a very regrettable thing for me to do.
14
Though in reality it took us a little over three days to get to Barr, it felt like it took more like three weeks. Both the town and the mesa that hosted it were visibly smaller than Collen, at about ten thousand people and a hundred feet high, respectively. I'd been under the impression Lod wasn't especially familiar with the place, but he led us directly to the plains below the western rim of the mesa, where a cemetery rested in the gray afternoon light.
Lod stopped and set his hands on his hips. "Here are where the bodies were taken. Perhaps you two can find something here?"
"Weren't they taken months ago?" I said.
"Perhaps that's why I said 'perhaps,' now isn't it? Now get on with it, will you?" He gestured to the mesa. "After the last few days, I can practically smell the beer up there."
I had severe doubts we'd find anything, but I supposed this was what we'd been sent to do. Like the one at Collen, the graveyard was elevated from the plains, though here by just ten feet. All of the graves were marked with a mixture of wood and bricks, though in the case of the most meager graves it might be no more than two or three fingernail-sized chips of wood laid into the bricks bearing the deceased's name. The more elaborate ones were marked by whole tree trunks, mounted upright and carved with names, dates, well-wishes, scripture, and so forth, along with animals and icons of desert life.
These features and what they suggested about the people were a lot more interesting than my work, which consisted of crouching down next to a bunch of dug-up holes, poking at them first with my finger and then with the ether, and finding nothing of any use at all. Myla wasn't turning up anything, either.
It didn't help my mood to think that while I was nudging bits of old dirt around, the Black Book might have been making their attack on the necromancers. They quite possibly already had. It was strange to think that some of my friends and colleagues might be dead—or even that the entire Black Book had been wiped out, from the lowliest servants to Inquisitor Vara herself—and I wouldn't even know it.
"You're more familiar with the culture than either of us are." Myla said to Lod. "Does anything look amiss to you?"
Lod rubbed the top of his head. "You mean aside from all the dug-up bodies?"
Myla decided this was enough to call it quits on the graveyard. We made way for the road up to the top. There was no lower city here, nor food vendors on the slope. But the entrance at the top was into a nice plaza, just as in Collen. The streets were lined largely by brick row-houses, but the temples and manors tended to be built with blocks of basalt.
Not only did Lod know his way around the town, but he knew enough of the people to track down a fellow member of his institution in less than an hour. The fellow, a young man whose hair was so light it almost looked silver, asked us to wait in the back of his master's leatherworking shop, then trotted off into town. Fifteen minutes later, he returned and instructed us to head to the Red Bowl.
That sounded to me like a public house. As we headed toward it, the sun was on the brink of setting, and a cold wind rushed in from the wastelands. Reaching the pub and entering its warmth felt like a blessing. But it was the smell of hot food that truly made my heart soar. We'd eaten nothing but cold rations since leaving Collen, and the idea of stewed venison and roasted potatoes filled me with such religious awe I silently apologized to Arawn for blaspheming.
Lod, however, wasn't looking toward the bar or kitchens, but at the people seated at the long tables. A few of whom were looking at me: in Collen, there had been a fair number of Mallishers about, along with a sprinkling of Alebolgians from the southern coast and Parthians from inland. Here, though, I was the only non-Collener in the room.
A not-quite-elderly woman with her gray hair in a thick braid brushed past me to stand at Lod's shoulder. "Excuse me, old codger. Are you lost?"
Lod spun about, blinking at her. His mouth fell open in laughter. "Ora? It's been years!"
"I haven't thought about you enough to keep track." She kept a straight face as long as she could, but couldn't help smiling. "It's good to see you."
She brought us over to the end of a long table that was otherwise fully occupied by people in good cheer. The man next to me gave me a haughty look as I seated myself across from Ora, Lod settling in beside her.
The two of them chatted briefly, with Ora asking about our journey and Lod wondering if they'd see any snow soon. A maid came around to ask if we'd be having beer, dinner, both, or neither, in which case she'd be happy to toss us out. I said the fastest prayer of my life. When Lod requested both, I gasped like a drowning man pulled out of a lake.
The server delivered our first round less than a minute later. Like the ones we'd seen in the Sandpit, the mugs were glazed clay decorated with geometric designs, but the colors were different: gray clay with robin's egg blue markings.
Ora made a small twitch of her fingers toward me. "Between the company you're in, and the fact you came to see me at all, I've got a general idea why you're here. What is it I can do for you?"
"Seems the infidels have been causing trouble in the far west again," Lod said. "You'll never guess where they traced it back to."
"And we're sure their cause is a poor one?"
"Eh?"
"You know I've never bought into your 'no such thing as a good fight for Collen' nonsense. It's the ones spurred by incompetents and lunatics I'm against. I've always said we have to save our strength for the fights that truly matter."
Lod's eyelids narrowed. It was among the first times I'd seen him show any anger. "I never thought nor said we'd never see a cause that was righteous enough to fight for. I just haven't liked any of the ones I've seen so far. D'you really think the one brewing now is going to end well for us? When it's run by a bunch of grave-robbing, undead-popping—"
Ora all but threw herself across the table and kissed him.
Lod's eyes flew wide. For a second he looked ready to let this unexpected turn of events run its course, but maybe he was too stunned to act.
