Powers (24 page)

Self-flagellation was simpler. They’d come across and dodged plenty of thorn-bushes if she felt the need.

She bent down, a reminder of how much taller she was than him, and kissed him on the forehead.

That scared him, probably scared him more than if she’d pulled a gun on him. He didn’t remember what a kiss from Kali meant, but it couldn’t be good.

But she wasn’t Kali, not really. He
did
remember what the kiss of the mountain winds meant. Frostbite. Hypothermia. Death.

Kiss the ice goddess and die. Men who survived could be maimed for life, scarred cheeks and ragged ears, missing fingers, toes, even whole hands or feet.

She pulled away from him, dropped his hand, and turned to pick up her shotgun from where it lay next to the tree. Turned back and drew interlocking triangles in the air with her free hand. The Seal.

That way, he pointed, going by the sandalwood “smell” rather than the Seal’s own buzz.

It felt closer, enough that he thought, he
hoped
to think, they’d reach it in another couple of days of trudging. That was going by the way the feel of its distance had changed as they walked, extrapolating. The weakening had a different feel than distance, not one he could explain even to himself, but he could tell. It almost came down to the pitch of a harp-string as the harper tightened its peg. The buzzing in Albert’s teeth changed pitch as the Seal weakened, as the crack widened and lengthened across that ancient iron, he could
see
it in his mind.

Anyway, the distance they’d already covered was greater than the distance that remained. Whatever that meant. Simple distance didn’t
mean
that much, to feet on the ground and headed across the grain of the land.

He knew he could be twenty feet from the Seal and not be able to touch it. That depended on what guards Mother had set on it. She wouldn’t leave something important to chance. He knew her better than that.

The way led generally downward, but not continually so. First a slow slope through dense forest, then faster slope with scrub cherry, hawthorn bush with its wicked two-inch spikes, ravine and rocks and a tangle of briars—looked like raspberries but not fruit season—then slippery moss and a creek of algae-greased stones tipping underfoot, trying to spill him. Climb out again, skirt a tangle of fallen rotting tree-trunks that looked like windstorm blow-down or a giant’s game of jackstraws, climb down to another wider creek with a wade and more leeches looking for lunch and another climb—they’d have an easier path if they headed just about any way but the one they followed, the one his sense of the Seal told him to follow.

That would be Mother at work. She knows where we had to come from, where we’ll be trying to go. She hid the Seal wherever reaching it would be hardest. As soon as she knew Legion had dragged me into this, she grabbed the Seal and moved it and planned her new defenses and told me to leave it be. I can just see her bending over a map and drawing the straight lines she knew I’d have to take and cackling like an evil witch out of fable at the thought of us taking this route or that between the gate and the Seal.

And then offering that rail line as bait, an easier way, level and clear and headed in the right direction. If Mother offers an “easier way”—

Mel is right. “That bitch” would fit just fine.

Across another ridge, down into another ravine, larger still, he could probably call it a valley and not be wrong. He hated this uphill and downhill, it played hell with his hip, with his calf and thigh muscles. He could walk for miles in the city or on level ground, but rough land just took it right out of him. Mother knew that. He wondered what she had planned for further on, once she’d worn her victims down.

A swamp, maybe, worse than a river or lake because you can’t take a boat. Assuming you could find a boat, steal a boat, in lands where no one lives. The ocean, maybe, hiding the Seal on an island far offshore in treacherous waters filled with sharks. Whatever.

I’ve never been worth a damn in boats. I need to set my anvil on solid ground.

She
knows
I can’t swim.

Can Mel?

They topped another ridge, looked down through trees over a steeper slope still. One he didn’t want to have to climb down. Sharp rocks and loose soil and slippery moss and a tangle of brush.

At the bottom, a river. Naturally.

Not a
big
river, as rivers go, no Lower Rhine or Mississippi, but a couple-hundred yards of flat water and serious current, he could see ripples from the rocks and gauge that from here. He saw buoys marking a channel, throwing their own wakes on the water. Which meant boats.

Of course they’d use boats. Rivers meant easier, safer access in a land where building roads was dangerous and difficult.

He looked down again, trying to sort out the bottom of the slope in his head. From this distance and angle, it looked like it dropped to bare gray rock and then steepened into dark water. They stood on the outside edge of a bend, where the current struck head-on and had eaten right down to bedrock.

No floodplain, no landing.

Choosing this route, choosing the sandalwood rather than the buzzing, led them to a dead end. He still could “smell” the sandalwood, on the far side of the water.

Which side are you on?

This looks like the best choice we have,
Mel wrote.

Albert looked down at her “best choice.” The slope of bare gray rock and tangled brush looked a little less steep than some of the routes they’d studied, steeper than others. None of it looked good to him. He wasn’t a rock climber. And his hip hurt. And that river looked
cold.
It looked . . . sinister—dark gray-green with milky eddies and boils like something that flowed straight and gritty with rock-flour from a glacier, although some of that was reflecting the gray sky overhead. He was pretty sure they were about to get wet from above as well as below.

The major difference he could see, between this particular bit of canyon edge and the half mile upstream or down they’d scouted, was it had a couple of possible places to stand on the way down and a little pocket of grass and trees and dirt at the bottom reaching to the river’s edge. The rest of the stone face fell straight into water and looked like it headed down from there to a considerable depth.

Mother had laid out her plans well, aiming the shortest distance between two points right over a river
gorge
rather than just a valley. Jumbled hard dark stone, basalt looked like, and tangled blow-down timber blocked them at either end of this section. Going around
that
would take them a mile or more back into the forest, rough going if possible at all, and wouldn’t guarantee a better view at the end of it.

Of course, they could have followed the railroad. Which meant following Mother’s script. He didn’t find that attractive. It probably led to a choke-point of some kind, army garrison or whatever, and Major Trouble.

He shrugged. Mel was the mountain goddess. He had to assume that she knew climbing. He scribbled his foremost thought on his pad and poked it under her nose.
I’ve told you I can’t swim?

She responded with a visible snort.

They could actually talk, if they had to. If they shouted directly in each other’s ears. Jotting notes still came out ahead. She flipped her notebook back to the all-purpose page, getting rather wrinkled and smudged by now.

Pack.

He shrugged out of it and set it in front of her. He hadn’t poked around inside of it—that would be like searching her underwear drawer—and didn’t know what other miracles she could draw from the depths. A helicopter? Or, both more compact and more true to her heritage, a magic carpet? But if it held infinite resources, they wouldn’t have run out of food.

Rope. She pulled out the hank of parachute cord they’d already used, no new revelations. It wasn’t long enough to reach the bottom of the gorge, but those knobs and ledges below them started to fit together in his mind. Drop down to
that
one, use it as an anchor to the next, then to the next.

Yes, she knew what she was doing. At least that far.

If the rope is as strong as she said it is. If it doesn’t rub on a sharp outcrop and chafe through. If. If. If.

And if I trust her not to drop me headfirst on the rocks. She wants me dead. Blood pays for blood.

Insha’Allah.

Which he did
not
write down. She’d told him to lay off the cultural references.

She was scribbling.
Tie on. Walk down. Stop on
that
ledge and untie.
She pointed. He nodded.
I’ll keep tension on the rope. Don’t fall—this will hold your weight but it won’t take impact loads.

That
reassured him a hell of a lot.

He looped the rope around his chest this time, wanting the pull higher on his body, as she anchored herself to a tree with the other end of the line. He tucked his cane inside the loop to have both hands free. Then, backing up step by step, he edged out on the bare gray stone and worked downward. He
could
walk down, back down, using the brace of the rope to keep his feet off at an angle to his body. The slope started at maybe forty-five degrees, the limit of what he could walk on without the rope but it got steeper below.

I’ll stand out like a cardinal in full ceremonial regalia in a whorehouse if a boat comes along the river right now.

That thought hurried him along, as well as the reminder from his hip that this wasn’t any more fun than walking. Worse, even. It moved from a throbbing ache to a jab of fire each time he took his weight on that side. Something about the angles, maybe.

He reached the ledge. He knew there had to be a lot more rope left, but he assumed that she knew what she was doing. If she didn’t, they were fucked anyway. He untied, trying not to think about her just pulling up the rope and walking away to leave him to starve and die of thirst in the middle of the rock face . . .

Well, I can always just step out and roll down to the bottom and splatter all over the rocks or fall in the river and drown. Faster, either way.

But she said she’d tried the falling on rocks thing, and it didn’t work. Can gods drown?

She’d pulled the rope up, all right, but it was coming down again with the pack. Which kinda sorta implied that she was going to follow it.

I’m not sure that makes me feel any better. She’s been acting funny today. As much as I can tell with somebody I’ve known for less than two weeks now.

As if time was any sort of reliable measure, with Legion buggering around in it.

He untied the pack and watched the line snaking back up across the rock face. She was coming down then, moving about three times as fast as he had across the rocky slope. He understood why she’d had him stop well short of the length of the rope. Less than half the length, to be more precise. Because she was using it doubled, slung around the tree at the top, so she could pull it down after. Clever woman.

Or maybe it’s such a common move in climbing that she didn’t even think about it. An automatic part of analyzing a slope, like me looking at a fire in the forge.

She was standing behind him on the small ledge with brush and one scrawny weather-beaten tree. Listening to her winds, and yelling “Down!” loud enough for him to hear and emphasizing it with a push that could have shoved him off the ledge if she’d half tried. He tucked and froze behind thin shrubbery as she sprawled flat behind the tree. Reaching out, she pulled the pack in behind her.

A boat nosed out from the bend upstream. More a barge than a boat in shape, river cargo rather than open water. Broad and flat black hull and orange deck with big white tarp-covered rectangular blocks stacked high and tight by the boom and mast. A winch at the bow, a red wheelhouse and black stack in the stern. Sooty diesel smoke billowed from the stack. The cargo was, most likely, lumber from the prison camps. He watched as the barge slewed sideways with the current against the engines, a skidding turn that carried it wide around the horseshoe bend but safely inside the buoys.

A
lot
of current. River must be pinched here, chewing on the rocky gorge. To have any control in the rudder and engines, the boat had to push faster. Albert knew
that
much about boats. Maintain steerageway. The pilot or captain must be having fun, adrenaline rush of speed and danger even in that flat-bottomed tub.

It vanished around the bend downstream a lot faster than he would have thought possible and left Albert staring at its wake foaming green over the rocks on either shore. How the hell were they going to cross that?

I can’t swim. Mother
knows
I can’t swim.

She set this up on purpose. The love-hate meter is swinging pretty strong over to hate.

At least everyone on board would have been concentrating on the river and rocks, with no time to spare on searching rock ledges for random passing gods. Mel pulled herself up by the twisted spruce, not the kind of bounce he’d expect of her, and listened to her winds again. And nodded.

He tied on to the rope again, walked down the stone face again, found another ledge much like the first. Pack down, Mel down, repeat, repeat. He landed on the small flat—almost a beach behind an eddy, scrubby shrubs and some stunted trees tangled with driftwood cast up. A couple of empty beer bottles in the river’s discards, with labels he couldn’t read even where they hadn’t been worn away or soaked off. Looked like beer bottles, anyway.

Pack down. Mel down. She vanished behind a clump of scrub, wilderness toilet, and Albert spent his privacy emptying his own bladder off in the other direction of their tiny rock-bound world. That need had been growing more and more urgent the more he thought about crossing the river.