The First Binding, page 93
Clarity returned to the beast and its muscles tensed.
No.
Its mouth parted and silver-white fangs flashed through the gap. The Nagh wouldn’t dive after her this time. It would coil and spring, taking Laki and her grandmother in one clean swallow. The yellow eyes hardened, going a deeper gold that reminded me once again of Koli.
The Nagh shifted.
I screamed, gripped both hands to the stake, and plunged. Radi reached me and added his weight to the blow. Together, the wood drove into the creature’s left eye, drawing blood.
It writhed and took us with it. Radi and I refused to release our grips. We held on, knowing that if we fell from our new height, we wouldn’t recover in time to spare us from the serpent should it have the clarity to finish the job.
It sank to the ground and raced forward, dragging us through the snow. Upward—faster. It pulled us up the mountain. Stone and ice battered us. My cloak tore. My robes were not spared, suffering small gashes that let through more water than before. Some of the ice slid down my clothing and froze me in ways I hadn’t known possible.
All through it, I winced and endured. I screamed when forced to. I prayed, to Brahm, to the Sithre, to Radhivahn—to anyone who would listen to me.
Fingers aching and too cold to hold on any longer, I finally let go and fell away from the creature. I tumbled fast and hard along the snowscape. Radi rolled into me, his body sending another wave of pain through me.
We were far closer to the top of the mountain. Hundreds of feet short of it. The serpent still hissed in pain, coiling itself around the narrow peak and screaming its anguish to heaven itself. The mountain here was more of stone and unsteady ice than the rest of it. Loose frozen rocks rested everywhere.
I tried to shake myself clear, unable to move much at all beside my head. It lolled to one side, almost lifelessly. My vision blurred and the world grew distant.
Whiteness intensified.
The cold seeped past a place I didn’t know it could go—far beyond the depths of me, now coming for me myself. It came for the fire inside me. It came for my hopes. My ambitions. For the piece of me that thought about what I’d do when I returned to the Ashram. The piece and the promise of tomorrow. It was talking to me now.
And telling me I would die.
The serpent’s motions disrupted more of the mountain, sending it sliding farther down as snow and loose stone slipped out from under us. We now rested two-thirds of the way from the top. Through the shallow ice I could feel the various rocks beneath me.
I spotted something sticking out from the frost.
Stone. Mortared together like it had come from a building. Nearly a solid wall of it that could have weighed a ton or two. A wall that could have come from a tower.
The Crow’s Nest.
If I’d had the strength to laugh, I would have.
The Nagh slithered from the peak, coming toward us, its tongue flickering and leaving no doubt as to what came next. It would end us now.
I thought of the wall. Of Rishi Ibrahm. Of the bindings I never learned. I knew the words of course. They had slipped my mind and memories over the years and hardships I’d endured. But the words were always there, like part of a story that couldn’t be forgotten.
I remembered the first binding Mahrab had showed me.
I remembered the story about Brahm the Wanderer. A story about a candle, cloak, and cane. And the binding that came in it. A lesson from my old and first teacher.
How did it go?
Closer came the Nagh. Closer still.
It moved slowly, head twitching toward the side where I’d pierced its eye. Red ichor weeped from the wound and trailed along the snow. Its mouth opened and a low long rasp filled the air.
I laughed and almost tore the back of my throat. Something seized me. A madness like the one that had taken the Nagh. A dark and terrible laugh then that brought Radi back around to stare at me like I was the monster now, not the serpent.
I understood it now. And there was little else to do but die if I didn’t try my hand at a binding. I knew the cost. I knew the principles. And I knew what I had to do.
I slipped into the folds, reaching out toward the mountain peak, envisioning the cap coming into my hand. I envisioned pulling it down and the rest of the mountain to follow.
Every fold I could manage now held that image. The mountain would fall. It would fall by my hand. It fell. Had fallen. It fell by my hand!
As above. So below. Tak. And. Roh.
I screamed, a wordless cry before I found the words to speak. “As above. So below! I bid you fall, all ice and snow, to bring down the mountain, and crush the serpent below. As above. So below. I bind you stone. Tak. And. Roh!” My voice shook the world, and this time, I felt the lining of my throat give way.
And the world continued to shake.
But nothing happened.
The mountain remained firm—standing still. Unshaken. Untoppled.
Radi closed his eyes, muttering something to himself.
I held the folds in my mind. I understood the binding. I knew it. A linear binding that fixed on one point above me to one below. Top to bottom. I could do it. I would.
A look at Radi’s paling face told me I had to.
The serpent came closer.
My folds faltered and everything slipped away from me. I had never truly touched the mountain in my mind.
I had failed.
I scrambled for the stones beneath me. Taking one up and letting out another empty roar. No sound, just the rock tumbling through the air to strike the serpent.
It did nothing to stop its approach.
Radi prayed harder now.
I joined him but kept the words to myself. All the while, I repeated the binding in mind.
It didn’t take.
Another stone throw. Desperate now. I took what little energy I had to throw one after another, uncaring what the cost would be to me. I was dead anyway.
Another. And again then.
“Fall, damn you. Fall!” My cry took the last of my voice. The next stone sailed over the serpent’s head and struck the mountain.
The world rumbled back. The peak shuddered. A noise like thunder in a cavern filled the air and deafened me.
Ice and boulders slipped. The stone and snowcap crumbled. The shelf of frost holding it all in place fell to dust and rolled into a wave.
Then snow and stone rushed toward us.
And then the mountain fell.
Whiteness.
Cold.
The death-heavy weight of a closing casket came to bury us.
EIGHTY-FIVE
THE MOUNTAIN LOW
I remembered the color of snow and brightness but my world was black. Something shook me. I resisted the call of my name.
“Ari.” It sounded a world away and in as much pain as I felt. “Ari.” A whisper. Then a shake.
I resisted and lingered before the doors of death.
“Ari.” Hands pressed to my face. More grabbed hold somewhere that brought my robes tight around my chest, collar, and my back. I moved, but not by my will.
An all-too-sharp heat washed over me and nearly burned, prickling my skin and bringing a soft pink to the insides of my eyelids.
I had no breath left to even groan, but I finally fluttered my eyes open. It was dark now and a fire burned before me, bringing a new brightness to my sight I had to shy away from. My heart raced at seeing the violent red flames, but when I looked again, I saw they contained just as much orange and yellow. The smoke burned black and gray.
It spoke to me almost the way the Nagh-lokh had. I watched it, each and every tendril lapping at the air for something—anything that would feed and fan it to keep it alive. In that moment, I understood a simple piece of that fire and its want. I watched it until I could do so no longer, listening to its snaps and crackles.
I sighed, letting myself slump against the person at my side. Darkness enveloped me again. But this time, there were no doors to greet me.
* * *
The fire’s warmth kept me from going past a heavy sleep, and while I rested, I heard voices speak around me.
“I heard him, Tinker. I promise you. I was there, don’t ever say I wasn’t. If you tell this tale, you’ll tell it truly. I heard him speak it. I saw him. Ari called down the mountain. He worked a binding. And he buried the Nagh-lokh.”
Another voice then. “God Above. He killed Him?” The grandmother’s voice.
“He studies at the Ashram. What else could it have been?” Laki, by the sound of it.
“I was there. Right by him. He screamed for it to fall. He bid it to. Bound it. He made it fall. When we get out of this frozen hellish hateful place, I’ll write a song for it. I’ll tell it in every damnable tavern in the Empire. Watch me.”
I didn’t have the strength to smile, but a part of me enjoyed the thought of it.
It wasn’t the truth of course.
What had really happened?
Well, it’s simple. The entire encounter with the Nagh-lokh had shifted the mountain more than the snow and stone could handle. Every thrash and crash. The impacts of its head striking the ground.
And the stones?
Well, they did what any stones will do to an unstable mountain already waiting to tip and tumble. My screams added to the instability.
And so, by my words, the mountain fell.
It seemed a good enough lie to let be for the moment.
I slept, wondering if Radi would make good on his tale.
* * *
Time passed, though I had no measure of it. Daylight washed over me in a paler softer light than that of the fire. Radi helped me to my feet, having somehow found my staff. I leaned on it as he and Pathar led me down from where they’d taken refuge along a part of the mountain spared the avalanche.
When they brought me to the scene, I understood the last piece of how we’d survived and what had really happened.
The Nagh-lokh, an old god, lay at the foot of the mountain. Its body rested partially on the ground and partially in the river. What remained of the serpent’s skull lay a dozen feet from us. A wall of stone sat over it, crushing the jaws and fangs and bones inside it. Its scales only knew one color now, no longer the shimmering pearlescent white.
Only the color of blood.
The body twitched and Radi and Pathar let out a steady stream of cursing that rattled me.
Brains half dashed out, the Nagh-lokh still moved, but with none of its earlier fervor.
I stood there, watching the part of its face that still held one good eye. It blinked, slowly, then the pupils shifted like they had before.
Like when they had recognized me.
I stared as it lost all trace of bright burning gold like from Koli’s eyes. Now, I saw a softer yellow—something tired and quickly growing gray—clouded.
Two words came to mind: I’m sorry. But they didn’t come from me.
I spoke them back to the creature, unsure if Radi or Pathar heard me. “I’m sorry, too.”
A last rush of air passed through the serpent’s lips before it went off to where I thought I’d been—the doors of death.
It stopped moving then.
And an old god died.
I stared with a hollowness at the wall from the Crow’s Nest. I thought of the binding that had sent it falling toward me before Rishi Ibrahm vanished it away. Far over the mountains to one of the villages beyond the crests we could see.
I could almost picture him laughing when he heard of this, if he believed a single word.
And I wondered what he would think when he learned I’d performed a binding. Even if it was a lie.
The last of my strength left me again and I dreamed of what I would say to my teacher. I thought of all that I could say to finally make him teach me.
Because I would never again be turned away from the bindings. Ever.
When I returned to the Ashram. I would learn. No matter the cost.
EIGHTY-SIX
SONGS AND SURVIVORS
I drifted in and out of sleep, finding myself in the confines of a wooden frame. Pathar’s wagon. The bed was nothing really remarkable: a stitched cover holding stuffed softness I couldn’t figure out. The materials didn’t matter much, though. For now, it felt richer and more comforting than anything I could dream of. Never mind the bundles and sacks shifting and shaking beside me. Or the cramped nature of the place.
Laki’s grandmother occupied one corner of the wagon compartment. Laki sat beside her, watching me. Both women noticed me staring and leaned forward to bid me to rest.
While I wanted to, now that I had woken, questions raced through my mind. “Are you two all right?” Simple, unnecessary, but as often as not after surviving near death, our first instinct is to ask after others who had suffered alongside us.
Both women pointedly ignored the question, turning it back on me.
“Everything hurts, and I can’t feel myself at the same time. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.” I managed a shaky smile, then turned to my next thought. “How did you two—” A series of heavy coughs stole the words from me, leaving me unable to speak until I found my breath again. “How did you escape the avalanche?”
“We’re no strangers to those. They happen often enough in Ampur.” Laki’s grandmother sounded like she was discussing something as common as the rising sun. “Sometimes the villagers try to make them happen after a few seasons before the snows get too heavy—too thick—and have more stones ready to fall. It keeps them small and safer.”
Safer. I wasn’t sure that was the word I’d use to describe how it felt to be drowned by an ocean of snow. Though it didn’t answer my question, and Laki’s grandmother must have seen that on my face, because she addressed the matter next.
“We kept moving while you battled the Nagh-lokh. Once everything started shaking harder, Laki and I headed down the mountain as much as we did away. We crossed the river to the other side just before everything came down. It didn’t spare us, but it saved us.” The old woman winced and rubbed parts of her body.
I envisioned the likely scenario. The avalanche would have broken across the mountain base and sent a weaker wave into and across the river. The blowback from that would still be enough to throw an old woman to the ground. Her only saving grace was the soft cushion of snow.
“And Pathar?” I asked, wondering how the tinker had survived.
“Smart enough to stay well far away from you and your madness, boy!” His voice warbled as it passed through the closed doors of the wagon. “Clearly left you deaf. You’re shouting loud enough to bring about another fall.”
I hadn’t realized that, but it became apparent as my throat remembered the recent aches from when I’d screamed on the mountaintop. I rubbed my neck, but it did nothing to ease the pain.
“Here.” Laki passed me a skin that warmed my palms the second I touched it. “It’s not hot anymore, but it should help. Nahne made a needle-chir and lemon tea. It’s for when people get coughs and bad throats up here.”
I thanked her, and gave more silent thanks for the fact the drink hadn’t gone completely cold. My hands shook as I freed the stopper and put the tip to my mouth. The first sip came as bitter as a thing could be and the lemon did little to temper the needle-tea’s harshness. Even a scant bit of sugar would have gone a long way. Something else sent a new heat to my throat that wasn’t from the drink’s temperature. Ginger?
I knew the answer a second later when my insides burned for a moment before finally soothing.
“Sip on it. Don’t guzzle.” The old woman’s words came clipped but lacked sternness. More the tone of a grandmother idly reminding a child for the dozenth time not to play with the sharp stick for fear of putting out their own eye.
I did as she instructed as we rode on, thinking about what Laki’s grandmother had said earlier. She’d watched me battle the serpent. Battle. To them, I’d actually fought the beast in a manner that fit the old stories. Never mind the truth that I’d been scared, driven by a mix of panic and something else too far buried in the minds of men to know what I was doing.
But to them, they saw someone who’d slain the Nagh-lokh, and who was I to argue their truth? That’s the nature of the thing. Truths often are what we make them, and never mind the reality that might be, because each of us remembers what we wish for things to have been.
We are, in the end, the greatest liars to ourselves and sometimes others.
And history?
Does it remember scared Ari futilely fighting an ancient river monster—a god? No. It remembers me for bringing down a mountain with but a word and slaying something old as time. It remembers a long and courageous battle.
History doesn’t remember the truth. It remembers what we tell it to. What we tell ourselves long and hard enough. Eventually, that’s all people will ever come to know unless the people there speak up—speak out. And that is one of the hardest things to do.
At that moment, though, I wanted very much to know what they saw from their perspective. So I asked them as I took another swig of the lemon-chir tea.
“I saw you come down and try to chase the Nagh.” Laki leaned forward, beaming, her eyes wide like she couldn’t wait to tell me. “You and your friend stabbed it in the eye and held on as it tried to shake you.” Breathless now from how fast she spoke, but Laki still went on.
“I saw you both hang from it as it dragged you up the mountain. Then I lost you—your cloak and robes hiding you in the storm, but we heard your echoes even through the worst of it. I heard you call to the mountain. I heard you tell it to fall. And then…” She stopped and chewed over her next words. “And then I heard everything echo back your scream and the mountain fell.”
And that’s what people would remember me for. That truth. Laki’s truth.
That is the shape of stories and how they come to be. They all have little truths within them that are the roots of what we all come to hear and know and retell, time and time again. There is truth to all tales, myths, and fables. And they all spawn from a dream, a child’s wish, a want for something more—greater. And sometimes luck.
