Staerstone, page 21
“You care more about that wyldretrash princess than your own kind,” Channagrin grumbled.
“The klimbers are already dead,” Andalu said. “They must have fallen in the rockfall. And if they’re not, I’ll see to it they will be. I’m sorry you lost Dendreá, but I’ve lost her too, and I didn’t even know why. You could have told me, and I’d have made things right, but you betrayed me.”
Channagrin couldn’t meet his eye. So, he admitted to himself he’d kept the secret for his own reasons.
“We’ve lost Dendreá, Hygera, Dya and Pan, Lysander and Bomini.” Andalu choked. “As you say, everyone is better off away from me.”
“Self-pity.” Channagrin shook his head.
“It’s not self-pity. I won’t let their sacrifice go to waste. I will avenge their deaths and vie for the Scepter. If Zericha is alive, by the time I’m done with her, she’ll wish she wasn’t.”
Channagrin stared at him, doubt in his dark eyes.
“Great. How are we going to get off this cliff, then?”
Without gear? By plummeting to their deaths.
“What are we going to do when the eagles return and see their nest has been crushed?” he added.
Andalu looked out at the eagles, wings spread, riding the air currents. They were turning for home.
Part III
BAERELANDS
Way
Zericha held Catiallé around the waist, taking her sister’s weight, keeping her arm over her shoulder, supporting her. She staggered but kept moving. Deeper and deeper into the dark tunnel was the only way open to them. The entrance had caved. Catiallé’s coughing grew worse, gurgling in her throat. Blood dribbled down her chin.
Time passed. The flashpack’s light had dimmed. Flecks of obsidian glittered on the jagged walls.
“Can we stop?” Catiallé begged.
“A little further,” Zericha said, coaxing her sister on. Zericha’s arms and back ached. Dried tears were stiff on her cheeks. They must find a way out of here and then find food and medicine. Catiallé panted beside her, touching the blood-crusted fabric over her wound.
Zericha.
What was that? She searched the darkness around her.
“Hello?”
“What?” Catiallé frowned.
“It was…nothing,” Zericha said. “Keep moving.”
Zericha!
Something—the Sodden?—was calling her name. The endless dark mockery of the caves was driving her insane. How much longer could she continue? Her thoughts turned to the Scepter. If Andalu survived the rockfall, they had a good chance of taking it, if she died in here.
Their belayers had been crushed, and she’d seen them cut their ropes. Guilt racked her for setting off the avalanche, but they’d tried to kill her and Catiallé. Her sister whimpered again. Whether or not Catiallé would survive this…she must.
Zericha had to hope Andalu was dead. If he got the Scepter, she would have failed her people and—even worse—failed to protect the fragile harmony of Staerstone. She squinted into the darkness, making out a human form. A small child. Oh no. She blinked hard and looked again. He was made of a thicker, more textured darkness than the gloom around him. She swallowed on a dry throat, sick with fear. He motioned that she follow.
It’s this way, come on.
“Who are you?” she said.
“Catiallé,” her sister whispered.
“Not you. The thing in the darkness,” she hissed. “Why should I trust you?” she asked the shadowy figure.
Quick.
“There’s no one there,” Catiallé said.
“Isn’t there?” Zericha whispered. “You’re not real,” she challenged. With that, it flickered.
It’s coming.
“What’s coming?”
If they died in here, no one would ever find them. The valis would go mad. She’d blame Zericha for Catiallé’s death. The shadow child reappeared, closer, its hand sizzling and crackling with electricity as it reached for her. Zericha snatched her hand away.
We should go back!
Zericha recognized that voice. It was her own, when she was younger.
Just a little further, the shadow child replied.
Hurry! It’s coming. The third voice was a woman’s—familiar, from deep in the past.
Zericha’s flashpack light winked out.
“Damn!” Ignoring the hallucinations, she half-carried Catiallé onwards, her other hand on the wall, feeling the way. Her sister’s skin was cold and her waist sticky with blood.
“I hear him,” Catiallé said, coughing. “You never told me.”
“What?”
“About him.”
“Andalu?”
“The boy,” she said. “A little brother for me, if I stay here.” She coughed again, on and on, struggling to breathe.
Stay here? Did she mean die here? “You’re not staying here.”
“This way,” she said, pulling Zericha along. “He said you never listen.”
“I’m listening.”
The sooner they got out of this tunnel the better, but the shadow child couldn’t be trusted.
“Down here,” Catiallé said, pointing to a narrow off-shoot. Zericha used her hand to feel the wall, ignoring her misgivings as she helped her sister over the rough ground, and around a corner so tight they had to squeeze through.
A vertical line of white shone in the distance—so bright it hurt Zericha’s eyes. It was a break in the stone. Daylight. It was too good to be true! “You found a way out!”
She’d find herbs and food to heal Catiallé.
Zericha pushed faster, keen to get to the light, supporting Catiallé, but her sister pulled back against her. She turned to look at her, confused. In the scant light refracting in, Catiallé was soaked with blood from the wound in her chest. Her face looked pale, half-dead, and her eyes glistened with tears.
“We can make it,” Zericha said. “Come on.”
Her sister shook her head, coughing, eyelids creasing with hurt. “You let him do it.” She pulled away and slumped against the wall, holding her chest.
“Who?” Zericha asked.
“You chose him, over me, when you saved his life.” She coughed. “Like you said I’d do with Yornan. Choose him over you. But I didn’t. You chose Andalu. You let him kill me.”
“You’re not dead! I didn’t know—”
“Not yet, but I won’t make it much further.” Catiallé held her stomach as she coughed, leaning harder against the wall, but Zericha held onto her, didn’t let her slide down it. Catiallé took a shaky breath. “I have to tell you something I’ve seen in the tapestries.”
“Just come on, now. Tell me later.”
Catiallé sunk lower. Blood bubbled from her lips.
“It’s Staercrags. He’s turning. He senses the unrest. That we’re failing. So he’s coming to put an end to it all.”
“An end…?”
“An end and a beginning. He’ll smash into Stellaeth. Destroy our planet but spread life throughout the universe. It can happen. The Cumulus Ferrata contracts like a rubber band, bringing him hurtling back.”
Zericha tried to comprehend what she was saying, but it was a lot for her tired mind. She just wanted to find safety. But Catiallé was fading, fast.
“You’re saying the meteorite will return?” Zericha asked. “How do we stop it?”
“It’s all forces, gravity, shields. The shields have failed. Taking the Scepter would restore them, or we could combine the Scepter and the composites, if it’s not too late.”
“What are you talking about? What composites?”
“I don’t know what they are.” Catiallé closed her eyes, exhausted.
Something hissed, somewhere in the cave ahead. It built to a moan, then a roar. Something was hurtling towards them. Wind or…? No. Far worse! Water. If a wall of water hit them here—
“Come on!” Zericha cried. “We have to get out of here.”
“You chose him over me,” Catiallé whispered, so weak.
The roaring wave came into view, churning towards them. Zericha wrapped her arms around Catiallé and braced for impact. It knocked them off their feet, currents pulling them away from each other, throwing Zericha against the ground, wrenching Catiallé out of her hold.
She cried her sister’s name, but it came out in bubbles, under water. She caught Catiallé’s hand, but her wet skin slid away. Why wouldn’t her sister grab onto her? She remained limp! Zericha caught hold of her hair, for a moment, digging her fingers into the spiral braid, unravelling it. The churning water tore it from her hold.
No!
Zericha would never forget the look in Catiallé’s eyes as the water pulled her away, eyelids lowered. It wasn’t panic, but resignation, hurt, for the betrayal that had led to this moment. It was goodbye. Her blonde-and-raspberry braid spiraled away into the darkness, illuminated briefly by a slash of bright light.
Zericha fought the debris-laden currents, lungs burning, clawing her way along the tunnel side, seeking her sister. Instead she found light—the gap in the stone. Her lungs burned for air as she fought towards it. As the current carried her past, she grabbed for the brightness, caught hold of a ledge, and pulled herself out into the air, sucking in a deep breath.
She squeezed out through the hole, scraping her hips and thighs. She fell onto the grass and shrugged off her backpack, finding herself in a beautiful glade. Apart from the gritty water she’d emerged from, a clear spring flowed into a small pond. A yabby watched, on a rock, on the shadowy river sand. What had just happened? She’d made it out into the air, into the light, but—she turned back to the hole, cascading with water—she’d lost her sister.
It was impossible…but, no, Catiallé had washed away! She hadn’t even tried to hold on, or to swim, but surrendered to the water.
No!
Tears flowed down her cheeks. All the plants she needed grew here: lilly-pillies, berries and nut trees, mosses and lichens on the rocks. She could have mixed medicine for her sister to sleep deeply, restore her blood, and recover from the wound.
“You would have lived here, Catiallé. Why did you give in?”
Zericha shivered, although the sun was warm. She grabbed for the sister-stone pendant on her chest, desperate to see if it still glowed, to see that Catiallé was still alive. It was gone! She’d lost it. No! Without its light she had no way of knowing if she was alive or dead. But it was her own fault for breaking the bond between them. Catiallé’s words echoed in her mind, her accusations of betrayal. And that other thing she’d said about Staercrags returning to smash the planet to dust. Without her sister there was no point to any of this. She could not continue.
Rescue
“We should try to climb.” Andalu looked up at the cliff, then at Channagrin. “Before we’re too weak with hunger.”
“Thirty feet. Vertical. No rope.” Channagrin glared back. “Great odds.”
“Got a better idea?”
He shook his head.
“We can place gear and clip in to rest, if we find placements,” Andalu said.
“Looks impossible.” Channagrin folded his arms.
“I’ll go first,” Andalu offered.
Channagrin laughed dryly. “The valis said my job was to get you back to the Plains with the Scepter.”
Andalu looked out over the Plains, so far below. He wished he was back there, now, at the stable, with Beélla. She’d encouraged him to come on this mission. Had she known Channagrin and Dendreá would be here? He turned back to Channagrin. He had to say something consoling. Make it better between them. He searched his heart for earnest words.
“I…I’m sorry I didn’t know what my parents did to Dendreá. I’m glad she had you to turn to. Thank you for being there. For making her happy.” A lump formed in his throat.
Channagrin turned to him with tortured eyes, which quickly turned to anger. What Andalu saw there made sense. Channagrin needed his fury, needed someone to be angry with, because it was a feeling he could deal with. He could take it out on Andalu. But without anger, nothing was left other than the sorrow of having lost the woman he loved. A bottomless pit of misery.
“She died on a quest to save her people,” Andalu said, quietly. “A noble death. She was brave. She’ll be honored and her family provided for.”
“No amount of honor was worth her life,” Channagrin said.
“Then why did she come?”
“We didn’t have a choice!” he cried.
He had said it before, but Andalu hadn’t understood. “You mean, you really didn’t want to come at all? You protested and they forced you?”
Channagrin looked out into the open air. His eyes widened. “Doruth help us.”
Andalu knew before he looked. The eagles were coming, heads low, wing tips upward as they shot directly toward them.
“Their eaglets were crushed,” Andalu muttered. “We are dead. Get ready to fight.”
Andalu grabbed his knife, but as the birds descended he saw just how big they were. They loomed larger, coming in fast.
His pulse raced as sharp claws closed around his arm. He slashed at the bird and it loosened its hold, but the talons ripped into his arm. He screamed.
Channagrin struck for the bird’s head, barely able to reach it, but managed to scrape under its beak. The bird shrieked and drew back, knocking Andalu away with the power of its mighty wing. He fell against his bag, breathing heavily, hoping they’d have some reprieve before the next attack, but no. He scrambled to get back up onto his feet before it was too late. Speeding towards him was the eagle’s mate, bigger and brighter, with blue streaks along its face, ready to finish him off.
Zericha couldn’t force her way back into the flooding cave. Even if it was possible, she wouldn’t survive it.
“No!” She beat her fist against the rock. Wet hair hung around her head, her eyes burned with tears. “Why would you take Catiallé?”
She sat back on her heels. She hung her head, pressing her palms into the grass. Crickets trilled on the other side of the waterhole, and birds wheeled through a blue sky. None of them had any right to continue living their lives. If Catiallé was gone, how could anything else go on?
Her loss gaped like a cavern.
“We’ve always been together, for as long as I can remember.” She stared at her empty hands.
Catiallé was her constant companion and best friend. Losing her—it could not happen.
“Please Catiallé, come back to me. Please, mountain.” Zericha closed her eyes and grabbed tufts of grass in her fists. “I’ll do anything to have her back. Abandon this quest. Smash the Scepter.”
No reply came. All she had left were regrets. If only she’d held tighter to Catiallé’s waist as the water crashed over them. If only she hadn’t been struck by an arrow. The Denizens—this was their fault. After she’d saved Andalu! Their compulsion for senseless violence would make them terrible rulers.
Catiallé’s words echoed in her mind. You chose him, over me, when you saved his life. Like you said I’d do with Yornan. Choose him over you. But I didn’t. You chose Andalu.
Saving Andalu had led to Catiallé’s death. Zericha hadn’t known they’d shoot arrows at them. If she’d known, she would have left him to suffer. To die.
All the best things about her sister flashed through her mind, her unconditional love and enduring loyalty, supporting Zericha when no one else would, accompanying her anywhere she wanted to go. Zericha had never known such guilt. She’d lied to Catiallé, made it sound safe, achievable. She’d thought it would be. But in the end it had meant her…her death. If she was dead. But she shouldn’t have lost her! It wasn’t meant to end this way. She’d been sure they could make it through this quest alive.
She looked up toward the peak, extending high above her, icy in parts, darker at the top where precious stones captured the light. How could she climb the second half of the mountain alone?
Zericha crawled to the stream and washed the blood out of her nails. A sepia memory stirred. She watched herself doing this same thing before, when her hands were as small as a child’s. Dark red blood. A lot of blood. Not Catiallé’s. A child’s. The shadow child’s.
In this vision, her mother sat by the water, cheeks running with tears. Not her stepmother, but her real mother, Marris.
Screams and the shrieking of birds disrupted Zericha’s daze. It was coming from below, over the edge of the cliff. She crawled to the precipice and looked down. Andalu and his companion crouched on a ledge below, fighting eagles. He was bleeding. There he was! The man responsible for her sister’s death.
Zericha scrambled to wrestle her bow and arrow out of her bag. With shaking hands she aimed at Andalu. If she shot him now, she would avenge Catiallé’s death. She pulled back the bow, ready to fire, but stopped. She needed to know why. Why his people killed her sister.
She hauled her rope out of her bag. She tied anchor knots around a nearby tree, then dropped the end of the rope down over the cliff, towards the murderers. Catiallé’s voice echoed in her mind.
You chose him over me. Why are you helping him now?
She wiped the mess of dirt, sweat, and tears from her face. This time she knew the answer.
“I’m not helping him. I need to find out how he could have done it. Killed you.”
After another slash toward the retreating eagles, Andalu caught movement in the corner of his eye. Mistaking it for a thin snather, he leapt away, stumbling on gravel which scattered over the ledge. As he skidded to a stop, he realized what it was: a rope!
Unable to believe his eyes, he looked up and took a moment to really believe what he was seeing. Zericha. Far above, beaten and grim, like she’d crawled out of some wet hell. But on the other end of a rope and ready to belay him—more beautiful, more fierce, than ever.
