Witchlanders (30 page)

Somewhere above him, water trickled over rock. There was a frigid dampness to the caves now; it sank into Ryder's bones, made his teeth chatter. They must be near the river. Moisture seeped into the tunnels and covered the bandaged bodies with splotches of green and black mold. The burial hollows were older and more elaborate here, with intricate carvings showing remnants of bright paint, but everything seemed to be rotting away.

Behind him, Ryder could hear Skyla breathing heavily. She was trotting to keep up, but he couldn't slow down, not with Visser planning another attack. It was frustrating how many twists and turns there were, how many forks and branches they had to navigate, all leading downward and downward. Were they a quarter of the way down the mountain by now? he wondered. Halfway? It was impossible to tell. Lilla had given them clear directions, which
Ryder had carefully written on his arm in charcoal—a cross for right, a circle for left. Every time they came to a fork in the path, he licked his thumb and rubbed away a mark so they wouldn't get confused.

“I used to think the Left Hand of Aata was lucky,” Skyla said. They had reached a place where the tunnels narrowed dramatically, and Ryder had to slow his steps and hunch forward like an old man. “I thought it would be so still and quiet, like Aata when she was in her sister's tomb, listening to the whisperings of the Goddess. But I don't feel the Goddess here. Do you?”

In the narrowing space, the smell of mouse urine was almost overpowering. “Not really.”

“I hate it here.”

Ryder glanced behind him and saw how haggard Skyla looked. Her face was smeared with dust. “I know you're tired, but these tunnels can't go on forever.”

“No, I mean, I hate it
here
. I hate this coven. I don't know why I came.” Her voice shook. They'd been walking half the night, and it was clear her nerves were fraying with exhaustion. “There's something wrong with this whole place.”

Ryder turned a tight corner. “Don't look,” he warned.

They had come upon another burial hollow. The face of the person inside had been chewed down to the bone, and on its chest was a knot of writhing baby mice, still blind and hairless. Ryder pulled his reds up over his nose.

“Oh Goddess!” Skyla shouted. She wrapped her arms around his waist, and he felt her face pressing into his back. “This is what I mean! Poor Lilla is stuck down here and for what? She can't keep the catacombs all by herself. I don't understand what Sodan is thinking.”

They hurried past as quickly as they could. Mercifully, the passage soon opened up again, and after a while they came to a crossroads. The air was a little sweeter here, though Ryder still had a horrible feeling at the back of his throat, like he might start to retch at any moment.

“You were right, Ryder, you were absolutely right.” Skyla was red faced and livid, as if seeing the nest of baby mice had been the last drop of water before a dam broke. “Why do we give the witches our tithes? Why is it hardly anyone can throw the bones anymore? Did you see how many empty huts there were before the monsters came? The coven is smaller than it was. Less than it was, somehow. But no one will tell me why.”

Ryder was staring at his arm, trying to figure out if the mark he'd made was a straight line, which would mean taking the middle passage, or a cross, which would mean they should take the right-hand path.

“You know I never understood why you wanted to join the coven,” he said, somewhat impatiently. “What did you think it would be like?”

He decided that they should go straight on, and he
turned back to tell her so, but when he lifted the lamp he saw that she was holding her breath, trying not to cry.

“You'll think it's so stupid,” she said.

Ryder cursed inwardly, but he set down the lamp on a flat part of the floor and put his arms around her. He should have sent her with Lilla to be with the rest of the coven, but it was too late to think of that now.

Skyla buried her face in the shoulder of his reds and let out a sob. “I thought the people here would be like Fa. He knew. He knew there was some kind of magic running through the world's veins. He could feel it.” She stood back and wiped her eyes. “He made me feel it too. He taught me that the whole world was a holy place. That's why he loved our old farm, loved the dirt under his feet. Everything was magic to him.”

“We have to hurry, Sky,” he said gently, not knowing what else to say. He picked up the lamp. It felt lighter than when they'd started out, and it sputtered a little—there was only about a thumb of oil left in the bottom. Skyla took a deep breath and nodded.

As they descended, there were more bodies, more hollows. Many of the dead had bowls at their feet. Usually they contained nothing or perhaps a few prophecy bones, but occasionally Ryder noticed one like his grandfather's, containing a humming stone. Notions that had been forming in his mind in the chamber of Aata and Aayse began
to take shape. Without slowing down, he touched some of the carvings that swirled over the stone arch of one of the hollows.

“It's so unfair,” Skyla muttered. “Of all people to be touched by magic, I can't believe it was you.”

Ryder held out his hand to help her over a pit in the sloping stone floor. “Is that what I am?”

“If Lilla Red Bird said it, it must be true. Besides, all magic is one magic—that's what the teachings of Aata tell us. If you can sing, you can learn to throw the bones too. But by the Goddess, Ryder, if you become a great boneshaker, I am just going to have to hang myself from a high tree! How can you hear the whisperings of the Goddess—you!”

Ryder didn't know whether to laugh or be annoyed. “Listen,” he said, “I'm going to tell you a secret.” He stopped in front of a particularly beautiful hollow, so big it was almost a small room. The man inside lay on what looked like a stone bed, with four short pillars twisting up from each corner.

“That feeling you describe, the feeling that the world is somehow a holy place—of course I feel it. I'm not saying that I believe it's the Goddess whispering at me or the great God Kar singing me a lullaby, but yes, I feel it and I always have.” He wiped his sister's tearstained face with the corner of his sleeve. “I think you like to see me as some
sort of big, bossy oaf with all the sensitivity of a boulder in the middle of the road, but of course, of course, the world is crackling with miracles. Do you think I'm blind? I just don't like to talk about it as much as you do.”

“Oh,” she said sheepishly.

He laughed at how surprised she looked. “I'm not offended. I've been doing a very good imitation of a boulder in the middle of the road. I don't know why. To please her, I guess.” He knew he didn't have to say which “her” he meant.

“I talked about going to sea, but it wasn't really the sea I wanted. I wanted that vast, important thing that I guess we both felt was out there. It's just . . . now that I've caught a glimpse of it . . .” He thought back to how it felt to sing with Falpian and winced at the idea of ever singing again. “Aata's breath, if the Goddess really has given me a gift, do you think I can ask her to take it back?” He laughed at himself. “There, you know my deep, dark secrets. Do you want to know one more?”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Of course.”

“I suppose it's not so much a secret as a question, one you might ask old Sodan when you see him next.” He gestured to the alcove in front of them. “Why is there Baen writing all over these catacombs?”

Skyla looked around blankly, then back at him. “Where?”

“Right here. Everywhere.” He pointed to the curling script that snaked around the pillars in the hollow and wove in and out between the decorations on its arch. “Haven't you noticed? It's on almost every other alcove now.”

Skyla looked closer. “That's not writing. It's just some kind of . . . decoration.” She traced her finger along the curls and dots carved over the arch. “It
is
intricate. Are you saying . . . ?”

“Baen,” he said. “It's the same as on the humming stones.”

“Why would a witch have Baen writing on his tomb?”

“Maybe this isn't a witch,” he said. “Or maybe this is a different kind of witch.”

“But they're just squiggles. What is it a picture of?”

“Their writing isn't a picture of a thing. It's a picture of the sounds you make when you say the name of the thing.” He frowned. He knew what he'd just said was correct—it was one of those strange flecks of information that kept floating through his mind, little gifts from Falpian—but it didn't make any sense at all. How could you make a picture of a sound?

“I know what Mabis would have said about that,” said Skyla. “Even their writing is wrong.”

Ryder looked more closely at the bandaged body in the hollow, but the paint that had depicted its face was
blackened and worn, too much so to discern the race of the dead person. Was he a Baen? Skyla was looking too, probably wondering the same thing.

“Do you remember when we were children,” she said, “and we used to put on that Baen helmet that Fa brought from the war? I was terrified by that thing. It was like . . . all the nightmares of childhood.”

Ryder nodded as he peered into the dead face. “I expect the Baen have nightmares of us.”

Ryder?

“We'd better go,” Skyla said.

Ryder held up his hand. “Shh. Do you hear that?” For a moment he could have sworn he'd heard Falpian's voice calling out to him.

“Yes,” Skyla said. “I hear it.”

But she was referring to something else. From up ahead there came the faint banging sound of stone on stone. The voice Ryder thought he'd heard was driven out of his mind.

CHAPTER 24
THE TOMB

Ryder,
Falpian said to himself.
Ryder, come back!

For a moment it had worked—he was almost sure of it. Falpian stood shaking in the frigid water, afraid to move, trying to remember what his father had said about linking minds with his talat-sa.

He couldn't see a thing, and his boots were soaked through. Around him in the blackness there were scuttlings. Rustlings. Some Falpian attributed to spiders dragging away shards of glim—but there were other noises. And smells, too, foul smells, like the droppings of an unknown animal. Something made a sound right by his ear—the beating of small wings. He heard a little splash at his feet and stifled a cry. He was going to die here in the dark if couldn't find Ryder's mind.

Once, back home, his father had grown impatient with the tutors and singing masters and had tried to teach
Falpian and Farien himself. Falpian remembered sitting in a chair with his eyes blindfolded. Somewhere in the house his brother was hiding.

“Stretch your mind,” said his father. “Call to him.”

Scents from the kitchen wafted up the stairs. Cook was making fish stuffed with apples for dinner, Farien's favorite. Was he down there? Falpian tried to do as his father told him and stretch his mind through the rooms of their old stronghold by the sea. His mother would be upstairs with her ladies; his sisters were playing in the garden.

“He's in the servant's closet on the second floor,” Falpian said, pulling off the blindfold. Farien always used to hide there when they were boys.

His brother cursed. Farien had been in front of him all along, but Falpian hadn't been able to feel it. Their father turned away, red faced.

“You try,” Falpian said to his brother. “I'll hide now.”

“It's no use.”

“Our magic will come. Mother says—”

“We're useless. We're worse than useless.” The look in Farien's eyes was wretched.

“Father, tell him that's not true.”

But their father said nothing. Falpian saw his brother flinch when their father slammed the door, leaving them alone.

“It wasn't our fault,” Falpian called to the dark.

“Our fault,” the chamber echoed back to him.

“You should have loved us just the same.”

“Same. Same . . .”

“I hate you!”

“Hate you! Hate you . . .”

Falpian brought a hand to his lips. He was shocked by his own words, but letting them out gave him a strange feeling of relief.

Farien had grown so thin and sad near the end, like a shadow. He spent more and more time in his sailboat, going farther and farther out to sea. How Falpian wished he could speak to him one more time. And now his father would make him lose another brother, his talat-sa, before he even had a chance to know him.

Why? Why did Falpian tie himself in a knot for a father who couldn't love him?

“I'm not Farien!” he shouted. “I'm not going to waste away, pining for a kind word!” The echoes of his voice swirled around him.