Fire consumed her. Reason abandoned. All that remained, was the desire to be touched.
Kora felt his fingertips on her elbows. Morvan lifted her arms, giving her breath back. Such a gentle touch. And yet, so sure. Mimm came seeping in, washing over everything. The kisses. Hands on her waist. The two phantasms merged, until it was Morvan’s hands on her, but just as Morvan’s lips were about to reach hers, some unseen inexplicable force kept them apart. It was infuriating. As hard as she tried to force her lips to his, they just wouldn’t reach. She had to settle for staring into those eyes.
Those eyes.
Deep and reassuring. Pools of warmth and comfort. Wait, something else. He looked down at her hands and arms. Mottled purple skin. Grotesque. Inhuman. Morvan stared at her in terror.
Out of nowhere, a nightingale alit upon his shoulder. It sang a high, sweet song that seemed to ripple the image, like a pebble tossed into still waters. The ripples grew until the entire vision shook away…
Away.
Here.
Kora’s eyes popped open, and she focused on the sunlit pine needles above. The high, sweet song wasn’t a nightingale. The notes drifted over from behind her. She shot up to a sitting position. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She had been so tired. Gram still slept at her side, but Morvan and Landor were gone. Calandoe sat cross-legged with Landor’s shield lying flat on his lap. He spun a small, wooden top on the shield’s surface. The trill came from the boy, though not from his mouth.
“What are you doing?” It came out more accusatorial than she intended.
Without losing focus on his top, he said simply, “Keeping lookout.”
“Where are your brothers?”
The high, sweet music stopped.
Calandoe pointed to a copse of firs. “Over there.”
She couldn’t see them, but now that he had pointed it out, she could hear distant, hushed voices coming from that direction. It sounded like arguing. “What are they doing?”
“Fighting. They do that a lot.”
“What was that noise you were making?”
“What noise? I was quiet.”
“There was a sound coming from you. Like a… a bird singing. Were you… were you using Magesty?” She remembered Morvan deferring to the boy last night, when it came to recognizing the flowers within her.
“You can hear Magesty? Interesting.”
She suspected it for years. Of course she did. Gram had hinted at it. She had heard the approach of those things at her house. But to hear someone come out and say it outright, even a little boy, was startling. “Can you hear Magesty?”
“No. But I get buzzings. In my head. Father says they’re harder to understand. So I have to practice a lot. But if I practice, the buzzings are better than any other way of finding things. Did you start to hear things when you touched the dormu-lilies?”
“No, I could hear things before.”
“You could?” The boy looked at her with interest. “If you can hear Magesty, can you keep watch? I want to go back to sleep.”
The poor boy looked exhausted. She wondered whether he had slept at all. “Of course. But please tell me, what Magestics were you doing?”
He rolled up in his bedroll before answering. “I was trying to feel for things. That’s all. Anyone can do that if they’re taught right.” Calandoe got a nervous look on his face, and then added, without much conviction, “I’m allowed to tell you that because you can hear it. When I look for something specific, I have to really concentrate.” As an afterthought he reached into his pocket and tossed her a small vial. “Here’s that sparkly stuff. For your fingernails.”
She sat in silence under the big pine as the boy shut his eyes. As much as she strained to hear, she couldn’t make out the words of Morvan and Landor. After a few minutes more of a hushed fight, Morvan pushed through the firs. Those dimples. “You’re up.”
“I took over watch from Calandoe.”
Morvan knelt right in front of her. Kora thought she detected a trace of conflict in his eyes before he shook it away. “My brother and I have been discussing what to do next. We think it’s probably best to escort you on your quest to the White Owl Wood. Instead of bringing you back to Chrais.”
Gram popped up onto one elbow. Her cheek looked surprisingly well considering the blow she took. “Milord, the wisdom of Asar guides you. Your instinct was to go to Chrais. The White Owl Wood… understand this was the ramblings of a puppeteer. A rather… unbalanced puppeteer.” Gram had beamed the night before when Morvan spoke of bringing them back to Chrais. No doubt she dreamed all night of the comforts of the Laverium palace. “I beg you, put it to a vote.”
Morvan looked from Gram to Kora, “Well, you should certainly have a say. Is this something you would insist on?”
Arriving in Chrais with the Prince! Images of royal receptions and doting servants danced through her head.
Images banished by resolve. Her father demanded she seek out Orison. That same man conjured up her quest with nothing to gain but his own personal peril.
“Yes. There was wisdom in this seer. In truth, I’m relieved you’ve allowed me to make this decision. You are volunteering for a path that places you and your brothers in peril. For me. Thank you.”
Morvan smiled, reached forward, and took her hand in his. “Don’t thank me. Your safety should come before mine.”
That burning.
Gram muttered, staring out in a daze, “A pox on that old man, should he reveal himself a fraud.”
Landor came striding out of the trees and glowered down on them, “Have you told them?”
“Yes,” Morvan said, “we discussed it.”
“There’s nothing left to discuss, is there brother? It is done. We ride for Glain, and the gods protect us,” and with that he marched off in the direction of the horses.
* * * *
After days of pushing their mounts to exhaustion, evening through morning, and only resting at midday, Glain neared. They rode mostly in silence, and each time they stopped for the briefest of rests everyone was so exhausted they barely spoke a word before curling up into their bedrolls. Kora couldn’t wait to eat a properly prepared meal and to sleep somewhere other than the hard ground.
They approached around the eastern edge of Copper Lake and lead their horses by foot up a steep ridge to the mountain pass that led to Glain. They could hear the place much sooner than they could see it. The sound of crashing falls filled the narrow crevice that the Copper River had been carving in the rocks for millennia. As impressive as the roar of the water was, Kora’s first view of Glain trumped it. The ancient city was built directly into the side of the mountain in a series of majestic tiers. Dozens of waterfalls rushed throughout the façade, directed by a labyrinth of brilliantly carved sluices originating at the very peak of the city. The web of channels ultimately converged into a single rushing waterfall at Glain’s base. Framed by these roaring corridors of water, the face of the city was a catacomb of archways and windows, balconies and balustrades, stone bridges and stairways, carved right into the rock.
An architectural marvel, Glain’s main town square rested upon a massive stone platform that bridged the river at the base of the waterfall. It gave the illusion that the waterfalls simply disappeared into the earth only to emerge at the forefront of the town. Ingeniously built over the water, dozens of squat columns supported the town square.
“By the gods,” Kora gasped as she looked at Gram. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
“I’ve always dreamed of seeing it,” Gram answered, beaming. “Glain. The place where past and present meet. Only a hundred years ago, the struggling Harkman House was mining here when they discovered this ancient pass that seemed to run right into a massive heap of stone rubble. After years of digging, the family cleared the rock and discovered the pass wound through a narrow crevice in the Breakers, leading to these worn, but undisturbed, halls.”
“Nobody knew about it?” Kora marveled.
This time, Morvan spoke, “We knew of it. Historical texts claimed that The City of Falls had crumbled during a great shifting of the earth during The Falling Doom. They spoke of a race of expert stonemasons who preferred to live peacefully under the protection of their great mountain. The Harkman’s discovery added a new chapter to those texts. Nobody knows now what happened to those peaceful stoneworkers, only that they’re gone. Within decades, the Harkmans were crafting and exporting impressive amounts of metalware unrivaled anywhere in the land.”
Gram added, “Most claim it is the superior ore, but some argue it is the Magesty-tinged waters rushing through its halls.”
Morvan cut back in, “Whatever the reason, they’re able to charge considerable sums for their goods, particularly their suits of armor. All the wealthiest noble houses of Anduir use Glainian mail, including us. It’s sturdier and lighter than normal armor, and the Harkmans charge four to five times market value. In one generation they went from a besieged house in decline to one of the richest and most powerful families in Anduir.”
A formidable-looking iron gate that spanned the crevice path from mountain wall to river’s edge blocked passage. A voice called down from the cliff face above them.
“State your name and business!”
Kora looked up at the guard post, almost invisible in the rocks above. She suddenly felt very vulnerable.
“I am Morvan Laverium, son of Endall Laverium, head of the First Noble Seat of Chrais. These are my brothers, Landor and Calandoe, and we seek the comfort of your stone halls.”
Three or four more sets of eyes, peering through full helms, peeked over the parapet. Their looks bespoke an entertaining mix of wonder and skepticism. Kora imagined it wasn’t every day a prince of Anduir arrived unannounced on their watch.
The guards hurried to escort them through the gate and attend to their mounts. Landor barked at Kora and Gram to take anything of value, including their weapons, off Meg before she was led away.
They were escorted into a great central courtyard where the mist of the lowest central waterfall wet their cheeks and hair. Several children splashed and played in a nearby pool. It was nice to hear children’s laughter, Kora realized. A dozen merchant wagons unloaded goods in the peristyle on the other side of the gate and business seemed to be brisk.
Only minutes passed before a throng of guards emerged from one of the archways that led into the mountainside. They reminded Kora of the soldiers at Lonely Fort. Upright. Serious. A family crest depicting a hammer and anvil, sewed into the right breast of their tunics, made Kora consider the life of a soldier. Ever vigilant. Hardened. Hearts encrusted in stone.
In the middle of the entourage walked a stocky man with a thick, bushy, black moustache. Pitch black and devoid of gray, Kora wondered if the mustache denoted youth or dye. One could never be sure. She quickly realized that with the roar of the waters, she had to be standing very close to be able to hear anyone talking. Morvan and the Glanian leader exchanged a few words before the man bowed slightly. He glanced at Kora and Gram at one point, but Morvan appeared to wave them off without looking in their direction.
Black mustache opened his arms enthusiastically, pointing out different landmarks, excited to be sharing his magnificent mountain home with the Laveriums, but Kora could sense unease in some of the others in the entourage.
It wasn’t until they were led into the mountainside, and to a vast dining hall, that the noise of the waters subsided, and Kora could hear anyone talking. The Glanian leader with the mustache, Neddal Harkman, head of the family, explained with great pride that Glain is much larger than it appears at first glance. Only about half of it is currently occupied, with new visitors arriving every day seeking the opportunities of the inchoate but burgeoning economy. Once settled in the great dining hall, Kora finally had a chance to inspect some of the stonework up close. Stone floors, walls, ceilings – complicated and intricate runes and images decorated all. The quality and detail astonished her, and she couldn’t help but wonder how long it had taken for the original occupants to carve it.
A stone sluice, edged on one side by a waist-high wall, ran along one wall of the great hall. Fast flowing waters sloshed from the far end of the room to the near. Now and then a barrel or two bobbed and bumped through the room, presumably destined for the busy square outside.
Kora eagerly devoured a plate of salmon, beans, and bread, while the Laveriums and Harkman discussed the progress of some trade agreement, when it first floated out of the depths of the ancient halls.
Music.
Although she hesitated to think of it as such. It was more of a low moan resonating in her heart. A distant dirge of longing and despair, occasionally interrupted by sharp anguished tones. It wasn’t easy to hear, and the room had to be quiet for her to concentrate enough to pick it up, but it was there. She looked at Calandoe, but if he was aware of the music he didn’t let on. He raised a hand and asked for seconds.
Then she realized it. The music was being carried into the room by the water. She was sure of it. As the water sloshed and lapped at the sides of the channel, the dirge increased in volume ever so slightly.
The dinner was mercifully brief. Clearly, the Laveriums’ focus waned. Exhaustion, and a yearning to benefit from the rest of a well-protected bed, engulfed them all. The Harkman family clearly believed Kora and Gram to be servants. Only Morvan’s request allowed them to eat in the great hall with the nobles. Only his insistence granted them a bedroom furnished for Glain’s most important guests, adjacent to the Laveriums’ room.
Kora marveled at her room. Colorful tapestries woven with images of green mountains decorated the soaring vaulted ceilings. Narrow apertures, steering fresh night air into the room, punctured one side of the ceiling. Gram removed her boots and breathed contentedly, while Kora removed the dead priest’s purse necklace from her pocket. She emptied the contents in her hand.
Four gold coins. Surprisingly thin. Carved with the image of an owl and a swan on one side, and an intricate rune centered with a tiny diamond on the other. She had studied them every night of their trip, hidden from the others. She crossed to Gram and held out one of the coins while Gram slipped into the vast mesa of a bed.
“What is that?”
“The priest had them. I’ve never seen anything like them. Have you?”
Gram studied it before shaking her head. “No.”
“Keep that one,” Kora said, “in case you ever need it.”
Gram leaned forward and kissed her gently on the forehead. “You’re a sweet child. Get some sleep.”
As Gram’s head lowered to her pillow, Kora whispered, “The water here, it carries music.”
“A conversation fit for morning.” The curtness of the answer betrayed Gram’s exhaustion. Nothing would stand between her and this bed fit for kings.
“It’s faint. But I hear it. It’s very sad.”
“Life is sad. Maybe the water is exhausted. Maybe the water has travelled very far and demands a good night’s sleep. Maybe the music sounds sweet in the morning, eh? Close your eyes and rest, Booba.”
But she couldn’t.
She closed her eyes, but no sleep came.
The most painful music she had ever heard, it hurt her in a way she couldn’t express. Once she heard Gram’s breathing slow down, she climbed out of bed and pulled her hood over her head. Her instincts told her to take her lute.
She opened the door a crack and peeked out. Two guards whispered to one another outside the Laveriums’ door. Nobody bothered with the servants. Why would they? Kora slipped out and around the corner. Following the waters’ sound would be simple enough. She followed it to a small courtyard open to the night sky. The place encircled a wide pool that captured the river water and allowed it to rest still for a brief time before it drained out and rejoined one of the falls. The bass tones of despair increased in volume as she approached the pool.
A woman sat at the edge of the pool. A fine, silk robe adorned with cerulean butterflies concealed her lithe form. Her hair was pinned back in a braid with a bejeweled hairpin in the shape of a doe, and a crystal chalice dangled between two elegant fingers. “Evening.”
“Good evening.” Kora replied.
“Meeting a lucky young man here? Or simply can’t sleep?”
“Can’t sleep.”
The woman nodded and looked up at the night sky. Clouds concealed the Father, but the Son cast the woman’s face in an amber glow.
Kora sat at the other side of the pool and ran her fingers over the ancient runes carved into the stone lip. “What lovely stonework.”
“Are you new to Glain?”
“Yes.”
“I am too,” the woman confided, leaning forward, “and I love it here.”
“You do?”
“I came from Fire Hollow. For years I’ve suffered from scarlet lung. Then, as soon as I arrived here, it cleared up. It’s the mountain air. Like me, you’ll find it salubrious.” Kora assumed that meant good. She presumed the woman a noble. Her face powder very subtle. The woman dipped her chalice into the pool and drank.
Screeeeech.
She heard it.
Barely.
Music.
No. Not music. A sound. Sharp. Quick. A protest.
Pain. Not what Kora considered music at all.
Then she saw it. In the pool. Did something move?
“Good evening,” the woman with the hairpin said, as she rose.
“Good evening.” Kora watched her disappear under a stone archway. The Father emerged from behind the clouds and bathed the pool in silver.
She definitely saw it. Something in the water. Not in the water really. More like the water itself taking shape. Swirling. Lolling. Right below her. It didn’t matter that she could barely see it. She could hear it. Its plaintive moan now a singular voice carved out of the distant droning chorus.
“What is it?” Kora whispered, “Who are you?”
The only reply was a hollow chord of despair.
She couldn’t help but picture a starving child, and her response bubbled out of her. She sang in the soft, soothing voice she remembered her father using to put her to sleep. She gently strummed the strings of her lute.
Come little rabbit, into the glow,
Warm you’ll find it, hum diddy-ho,
Venture out, brave little hare,
Home awaits, ne’er you care,
Hush, hush, into the fold,
Alls the cure, dare to be bold,
Hum diddy-hi, hum diddy-ho,
Come little rabbit, into the glow,
Warm you’ll find it, hum diddy-ho.
The pace quickened. The pitch rose. Chords of hope leapt out of the suddenly swirling and dancing waters. With it, Kora’s spirits soared. Her music had awakened something. She couldn’t help but smile as she dared to accelerate the tempo. She and the water symbiotically fed off one another. A duet of encouragement arose.
The water responded by… leaving?
The thing and its music pushed out of the pool and upstream, and Kora momentarily wondered why she had driven it away. But then it stopped. This spirit wasn’t leaving.
It was leading.
It was beckoning. A siren’s song. Sad and desperate, and Kora followed. Of course she did.
Through a tunnel and into the depths of Glain she pursued. She passed several residents out on evening business. None paid her any mind. The channel turned and intersected other streams, forcing her over small stone bridges. She made her way up incredibly steep steps as the spirit danced and jumped up a waterfall.
Finally, it led her to a gated archway, the portal to a massive underground chamber. Beyond the gate, the floor of the chamber was carved into a honeycomb of interlocking square pools. Each pool had its own anvil and other metalworking gear nearby: hammers, reamers, and clamps. Crates and barrels lined the outer walls. Wheelbarrows crammed another area. Shadows cloaked most of the hall. A dimly lit lantern hung from a hook over a raised area at the far end of the chamber. Kora saw two men sitting around a small barrel under the lantern. They stirred the contents of the barrel and talked softly, but that’s not what Kora listened to.
The chorus of low moans rose loudest here. Kora could hear dozens of dull voices crying, contributing to the song of woe. The spirit she had awakened, that led her here, now sang a song filled with fury. It churned in the water outside the gate but didn’t enter the room.
One of the men dropped something into the barrel and it steamed an ocher mist. They picked up the small barrel together and trudged it to the edge of the water.
“Hold tight!” one of the men barked at the other. “It’s our hides if we drop this.”
They poured a thick, golden liquid into the water. One of the men used a wooden spatula to scrape the last remnants of the golden ooze out of the barrel and into the water. Kora stepped back, careful to keep to the shadows.
Slowly, as the golden stuff dispersed through the chamber and made its way from pool to pool, the chorus muted. The dirge dulled. The desire to do anything but soak in the ocher liquid drained out of the room. Kora could hear it, and so she could feel it. The droning hum of the liquid was oh-so-sweet and comforting. It called to her. The waters invited her to wallow and feel nothing. If this was how she felt, she could only imagine the effect it had on the spirits.
On cue, the spirit she had awakened stopped churning. Its song tapered down to a contented hum. It swam obediently through the gate and into the room, drawn to one of the metalworking pools.
“No! Come back!” Kora whispered and reached out. But it was pointless. The spirit was gone, back into the morass.
Kora’s blood boiled as an unexpected fury overtook her. It was everything she could do not to scream out at the men in outrage.
The men carried the empty barrel up to the raised area as they chatted in tones too low to hear. Once the barrel was capped and pushed aside, they grabbed the lantern and exited through another gate at the far end of the raised area. After locking the gate, their voices disappeared down the hall, followed by the glow of the lantern.
After waiting a few more minutes in the dark, Kora tried the gate. Locked. She expected as much. The idea that there might be consequences to what she was about to do briefly crossed her mind, but she didn’t care. Her responsibility was clear.
She tightened one of the strings on her lute.
And she played.
This was no gentle lullaby. She played with fervor. Angry at first, but as she let loose, it quickly transformed into a song of encouragement. Of empowerment.
The waters stirred. A twinkle of light blinked.
She played with intention as she concentrated on the waters of the room. Her joyous play swelled into defiance. Her breathing quickened.
The waters swirled and rolled. Like phosphorous, shapes in the water began to glow in the dark of the room. Dozens of forms outlined in a sunrise orange darted through the dark, sluggish waters. The symphonic swell of the music in the waters heralded a great awakening. Horn blasts echoed from shimmering figure to shimmering figure. “Awake! Awake!” She imagined the blasts warning. Slowly, the glowing figures converged closer and closer to her. They huddled in a great mass before her, as if waiting. Their music spewed forth, frenetic yet confused.
She stopped playing and spoke, “Go! Fly from this place! It is poisoned!” But as soon as she stopped playing, their horn blasts began to ebb, and they slowly drifted back into the room.
“No!”
Kora resumed her playing. She backed a few steps away from the iron gate and the swirling spirits followed. “That’s it… Come…”
She quickened her pace now, letting the glow of the spirits guide her through the tunnels. She didn’t know where to go, only to get away from the room, from the golden poison. At the first intersection she decided to go upstream, hoping that she could get up and above the poisoned water. From the dust and quiet, she guessed she had entered an uninhabited section of the city. She climbed a flight of stairs as she played, higher and higher. The music of the spirits transformed into a song of release and glee. Trumpets blared in her ears. Somewhere in the middle of her climb she realized she had stopped leading them. They were now leading her, and she gladly followed. Sweat stung her eyes, and her strumming arm burned, but the joy and the power of the music trumped all.
The spirits led her over a bridge that crossed right in front of a waterfall. Puddles made the footing precarious. The edge of the bridge away from the falls sprouted narrow pillars carved in the shape of water nixies with arms reaching up over their heads, pointing to the sky. Kora wondered how many people ever walked this deep into the mountain. She stopped playing her lute when she walked over the misty bridge, but it didn’t matter. The spirits were free.
Further in and further up she climbed and climbed.
Finally, they emerged out of a crack in the earth into the crisp, night air. The river came from on high and split here. Most of it flowed into the crack in the earth, into Glain, but some tumbled down the mountainside. The path she followed ran alongside the stream and descended into a valley within the mountains.
Otter-like, the glowing shapes splashed and dipped, leapt and dove in the waters of the stream. Now outside, the glow of the spirits ebbed and disappeared, but she could still hear them. Kora took a deep breath and her entire body buzzed with energy. She dipped one hand into the cold water of the river. A spirit approached and brushed her hand, and she knew from its song that it was the spirit that had first led her.
“Good-bye, my friend,” she said, swelling with pride.
She listened to the music of the water spirits for a moment more before descending back into the mountain. On her way back, she wisely watched her step. Without the glowing spirits, the way was plunged in darkness and as the excitement of the escape waned, exhaustion took its place. It took her a long time to find her way back to the pool in the courtyard. She stopped to enjoy the quiet of the place. For the first time since she walked into this mountain, her mind enjoyed a respite.
Clink!
Something tumbled into the pool, carried in by the water. A helmet.
A deep crimson strip curled its way into the pool.
Clackety, clackety, clack, clack.
That music.