SONG of EMBER

30

A PRETTY SWORD

PART II

🙜

As they wandered into dimmer, pokier halls, Ember found himself having to check the map more frequently. He wished he could understand each name and notation, but some were blurred and most were words he did not understand. He concluded on his own that this part of the mountain had also housed people at one time, perhaps common folk (for the streets were narrow and the dwellings small). The bones, if there were any, had rotted away in the damp conditions, leaving only rusting metal from weapons or articles of clothing. Whatever magic preserved the tapestries in previous halls seemed to have been foiled here by time and decay.

A more aggressive battle had taken place in this location, or at the very least there were more signs that the inhabitants had braced themselves for trouble. A few loose piles of shattered stone and the occasional piece of furniture or misplaced statue rose up in their way, and Ky often took hold of his hand as they climbed over the more perilous barricades. Ordinarily he would have insisted on doing it himself, but he was far too weary and famished to care.

After an eternity of walking through sludge and rubble, the cramped quarters slowly broadened and the lights above them changed in both shape and hue, casting shafts of dusty luminance upon the slippery stone below. Trickles of water seeped from cracks in the walls and dripped from the ceiling, and where the light fell grew small gardens of moss. Ky lost no time in cramming formidable amounts of the slimy foliage into her mouth.

Ember paused to refill their mutual flask at one of these strange waterfalls, and was too hungry to argue when Ky offered him a fistful of limp vegetation.

He accepted it with a wince and gagged down one slippery mouthful at a time, waiting a moment after each swallow until the urge to retch had passed. It tasted like all the worst parts of a badly made stew without even the advantage of being piping hot—but it did fill his stomach and quiet his shakes.

She turned briefly to grin at him. Flecks of green were stuck between her teeth, and he noted that her ill-temper had subsided considerably after eating.

"Content?" Ember asked wryly, stifling a belch.

Ky's tongue flicked across her teeth.

"For now," she said, imitating his reply from before, complete with a lofted chin.

He managed a weak smile and gulped back another spell of nausea.

❧

Weird echoes rattled around the narrow halls, accompanying their footsteps on the gritty path. Some were rhythmic, like dripping water, and others sporadic and therefore alarming…

Once or twice he thought he heard rocks sliding underfoot, but each time he turned around he could see nothing that moved. Ky seldom glanced back, but she did often pause and cock her head to one side during moments of relative silence; try as he might, Ember could never hear whatever she did. He soberly reflected that it would be easy for someone who knew these halls to lurk unseen behind heaps of stone and makeshift ramparts.

But that was not the worst of it.

Every so often he caught an unfamiliar scent that was neither Ky nor anything else he had smelled in the mountain or the surrounding woodlands. It was not floral, though it did have a pitchy tinge, like peeled tree bark. There was another, less pleasant layer to the scent, which brought back memories of the village tannery. Faint, but noticeable. At first he dismissed it, but the wafting aroma was always preceded by a rare backward glance on Ky's part as that dreamlike glaze inevitably settled over her eyes again.

Ember fell into a habit of scuffing his foot on the gritty stone or clearing his throat sharply whenever she fell into these strange lapses. It rousted her well enough, but she cast him dark sidelong glances which he found disquieting.

The stench itself woke a dread fear within him. He felt as if a repressed memory were struggling to resurface, a terrifying childhood encounter, a bad dream… or maybe it was simply instinct.

Thud.

Ember stopped walking.

Beside him, Ky made a small coughing sound.

The crashing, distant echoes had become monotonous, but as they turned a corner in the street, he heard a distinct impact… and felt the vibrations through the bottoms of his shoes.

Boom.

He glanced at the sirena, who shook herself and hissed very quietly.

Thud.

By silent agreement, they continued much more slowly.

Boom.

Thud.

Boom.

Thud.

The reverberations grew louder and louder until Ember's teeth rattled inside his head. He recognized it now: it was a door opening and closing. Over and over and over…

At last they reached a side corridor that had been blocked off by fallen stone.

Boom.

A puddle in the middle of the street rippled under the impact. No lights illuminated the stray path. Ky hummed a warning, but Ember could not stifle his curiosity. He snatched the stone-light from his belt and mounted the rubble, scrabbling hand over hand until he could see over the top. The golden glow did little to warm the damp ruins, but he extended his arm out over empty space, careful not to drop the stone, and squinted into the darkness.

Thud.

A dense shape slammed against the debris, almost too far away for the light of the stone to reach it. Utter blackness lay beyond, like a starless, moonless sky in the dead of night. The door—which was as tall and broad as the hall itself—had collided with broken stone and now swung shivering in the opposite direction.

Boom.

A flicker of light ran the length of the door before winking out of existence. The latch clicked and the door swung open only to meet once more with the rubble, as it must have for untold centuries under Sisters Mountain.

Thud.

Afflicted by a strong unease that he did not understand, Ember shuddered and slid his way back down the pile. Ky was waiting for him at the bottom. They walked on in silence, his mind wandering aimlessly. Unspeakable loneliness crept over him, leeching away all other thoughts and emotions. Ky spoke his language, but that was where their similarities ended. Magic mocked them at every turn, subtle but wild, a language as foreign to him as Ky's siren tongue.

What would he do if she turned on him? Abandoned him?

And what if he did make it out alive? What then?

Would he still be in his right mind?

How could he know for sure?

Don't think of it. Don't think of it, Ember, or you will go mad.

❧

Ember rubbed his chin, awkwardly shifting in place with his back to Ky.

They had encountered a smallish downpour of water between two barricades, where the cracked stone formed a shallow basin. A single ray of light fell over the ruins, and this place felt somehow sacred despite its violent origins. It offered them the illusion of shelter and safety. The siren now stood beneath the dirty water, sending little splashes across the muddy paving stones and turning Ember quite red in the face. He could still see her clothes from this angle, draped carelessly over a piece of jagged rubble.

She had offered to let him bathe first if he wished, but Ember had no such desire, so there he stood, listening to her hum a blithe tune and doing everything in his power not to be swayed by it. The cheeriness of her voice and the stark bleakness of their surroundings was jarring at first, but after a few minutes he noticed that the basin no longer appeared so grey: bits of color popped out at him where he had not seen color before, and the sound of pattering water and dank echoes seemed rather pleasant.

He meandered over to the craggy wall, wishing with all his might that a strong red wine, a loaf of bread, and a block of cheese would snap into existence at his fingertips.

"Magic," he cursed under his breath. "Do something useful for once, eh?"

But the magic which lingered in those hollow halls did nothing of the sort.

Rubble had been mounded against the stone, the rocks fused together by decay and moss. He dug more green slime out of the cracks with his fingernails and mindlessly chewed the bitter plants, making pained expressions at the wall. It was then that he noticed the scratches.

Narrow furrows trenched the decaying stone, like the claws of a smallish bear, and he saw that a large swath of moss had been torn away from the wall not long ago. New moss of a lighter green had begun to fill in the gaps. If not for the obvious marks he might not have thought anything of it.

Ember trailed his muddy fingers over the wall, frowning. The breadth and depth of those marks ruled out a man, unless it was a horribly deformed man…

He spread his hand across it, and then dug his own fingernails along the scratches.

The width is about right, he admitted, bewildered.

Could it be an animal?

Ember stole a glance over his shoulder at Ky, who was fastening up the laces of her jerkin, claws glimmering wet in the ray of light. His thoughts turned at once to her sister—that waterfall of crimson hair, the arrogant, sultry smirk.

Surely not…

He glanced one last time at the gouged stone; whatever it was had come this way before them. No, something was living under the mountain, and it had been there only a few days prior.

The back of his neck crawled and he scratched at it, trying not to imagine what sort of creature might be brutish enough to make those marks, resourceful enough to survive on moss, and strong enough to endure hundreds—if not thousands—of years undisturbed by the outside world.

It may not be the redheaded sirena from his dreams, but he had the haunting suspicion that he already knew the answer. The implications were alarming and he refused to entertain the idea. Whatever it was, Ember had no wish to encounter such a beast, and resolved to move more quickly than before.

"Let's be off," he urged, stomping through puddles and beckoning to Ky.

She stood beside the stream of water, letting it pool in her hands and taking long draughts now and then. Her soft face was upturned and the bright light glimmered off the droplets that clung to her skin and hair, her paleness striking against the black recesses of the corridor.

"Ky!" called Ember. "Let's go."

His enchantment faded as she turned to him with a sour look.

Ember hesitated; after all, she had waited for him.

But Ky sullenly shook the droplets from her fingertips and ran her hands through her thick mess of hair, pattering across the wet stone to the pile of rubble.

"I am coming."

There was a certain high-strung air about her, from the nervous quickness of her movements to the pallor of her face. Despite her protests, she had no wish to be left alone in the mountain. Not even the running water held enough charm for her to abandon him, even for a few minutes.

He took a moment to unsling his spear.

It would make clambering over the rubble heaps more challenging, but he would much rather be prepared and look like a clumsy fool than be foolishly caught unawares.