Around the fifth time Wyll Helper regaled the other youngsters with his harrowing story, his father sent him to the village healer—who was also his mother. He sent him away as much to focus the attention of the remaining youth as to be cared for. Karl shook his head as Jeanna Doughty left the mine shaft’s cavernous entrance carrying young Wyll on her back. He swore he could still hear echoes of Wyll’s voice recounting how Dahn and Xahn had fainted near crystals in the witch’s mansion, how he and Karl had made a treacherous twilight journey through the mines from a secret entrance in the mansion known only to the witch and her closest advisors, and of course, of the death of Ekatern herself. He had left out a lot of the story, Karl realized. The Dashman wasn’t certain if Wyll was being judicious about what to share or if he simply didn’t remember. Given the young man’s proclivity for talking, Karl assumed it was the latter.
The Dashman sighed heavily. He found an empty basin in the miner’s gear near the entrance to the main shaft, filled it from a tub nearby that seemed to be filled with water dripping from the stalactites above. Carrying the bowl in one hand and a piece of cloth that resembled a towel in the other, he went into a small alcove that didn’t have direct sight to the cavern. There he stripped to the waist and began to wash off nearly two-day’s dirt from his face, neck, chest, and arms. The water was quite cold as he poured it over his head and torso, but he felt much better as he dried himself off. Once he’d put on a semi-clean shirt he kept in his pack—not significantly different from the shirt he’d been wearing—he began to feel reinvigorated. Despite being at least one night behind on sleep. He toweled furiously at his hair and beard. Karl didn’t want any wetness on his head where he was going that night.
As he wandered into the main cavern, he nodded in approval of what they’d all accomplished. Since Karl had known the real purpose of the feast at the mansion and the wagons of food stored in the mines, his approach to storing the carts had been quite different than the mayor’s original suggestions, but Daevy hadn’t seemed to mind. In fact, he’d done everything exactly as Karl had suggested: the carts had been pushed into crannies out of sight, placed every hundred paces along the shaft—even deep within the mountain—and covered with heavy, dust-laden tarps, so they looked more like boulders than wagons.
The cavern was still filled with young men. A few of them had accompanied Jeanna and Wyll down to the village, but most had stayed to make sure their tasks were properly completed. Now, Daevy was gathering them all together in a circle and organizing groups to return safety in the dark. The Father—as Karl’s people referred to the largest moon—was full tonight and offered good lighting, but a couple of the boys in each group would have either crystal or flame torches to ward off the stray leopard or bear that wondered the mountain passes this time of year. One group would stay back with the carts as guards. It appeared the mayor was remaining with that group.
Satisfied that everything was as it should be, Karl, put his old, smelly shirt over the top of his new one for added warmth. When everyone’s attention was on Daevy, Karl walked calmly and quietly out of the mine. He looked back for an instant as he left the semicircle of light that fell upon the road from the entrance and saw that the mayor—still instructing the youngsters—was watching him. The Dashman couldn’t tell if there were curiosity, concern, or anger in Daevy’s eyes.
----------------------------------------
The horseback ride down the mountain pass toward Hylan was uneventful until the two women reached the bottom where the road widened and became smoother. Gabriella was glad for the respite. Her body needed to recover. She shook her head as she rode on the horse behind Ginsook, wondering how the poor woman remained upright, much less kept watch as she guided the animal—frothy with sweat and equally exhausted—down the rough passage. The Hahnin woman appeared to be an expert with the reins and a good friend to the horse. Gabby had known many horses over the long years of her life—several of whom had been close companions—but few as brave and bold as this one. She absently let her left hand rub the beast’s flank as she watched carefully for a particular outcropping of blue rock.
“Saram nahohpnidah,” Ginsook whispered over her shoulder, not taking her eyes from the road. Gabby knew exactly what she was saying, but oftentimes she had found it prudent to hide her talents from others. So, she waited until Ginsook translated in broken Glishtongue: “Someone is coming.” Before the Hahnin woman had spotted the shadowy figure, Gabby’s ears had picked up the sound of someone ascending the pass. She patted Ginsook on the shoulder reassuringly and slipped easily from horseback to the road. The dark woman made her way past the horse and held up one hand to let Ginsook know to move slowly. The stranger was a man, of that Gabriella was certain. And there was something familiar about his gait.
“Karl?” she quietly asked the night air, her breath making bright clouds in the cold moonlit air.
“M’Randa?” the shadowy man’s whispered voice sounded genuinely surprised.
“Gabriella today,” she told him with a smile in her voice. “I assume you’re here to spring the trap we set those many years ago.”
The shadow man nodded. “That horse looks terrified. The woman too. What happened?”
“Nothing good. But that is a story for later.” She pointed to the outcropping of rock that shone a dim blue in the bright moonlight. “Let’s get off the road. She has a baby riding on her back.” Karl looked surprised but nodded and led the way into a side passage that was invisible from the road. Gabby bade Ginsook follow him and the Hahnin woman directed the horse to do so without question. Within a few moments, the group was at the bottom of a very tall, thin crevasse, just wide enough for the horse to walk through slowly. The light from the great moon was blocked here and pathway was shadowed in inky blackness. Karl pulled a palm-sized pouch from his pack and peeled back the covering. A dim white light spilled out of the bag, sufficiently illuminating the small passage without being overly bright.
“Did you wash your hair right before coming?” Gabriella asked quietly, reaching out and plucking a small piece of ice from Karl’s head.
“I didn’t have much time,” the Dashman complained, swatting away her hand.
“You’re exhausted and it’s making you sloppy. You’ll catch a chill and then you won’t be able to help anyone. Next time, use a real towel,” the dark woman chided him. Karl merely grunted in response. “Was it you or me that discovered this path?” Gabby whispered in Karl’s ear.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Me,” Karl told her, softly. “I fell into it from above and nearly broke my neck.”
“That’s right,” the dark woman said with a smile. “I pulled you out.”
“Yes, yes, you’re very strong and I was an idiot,” the Dashman grumbled.
“Agreed. But a very brave idiot. As I recall, you wanted this done to protect your family from assassins. I don’t think you had demonspawn in mind.”
Karl grunted, squinting at the walls around them. “If I can find the damned keystones, then it should work for them, as well. Though Ekatern told me it wouldn’t hold them back for long.” He glanced at the woman over his shoulder. “How close are they?”
Gabby grimaced. She walked back to the horse, reached around the Hahnin woman with one hand and pulled a leather strap off the pommel of the saddle. Her shoulder dropped quickly to one side as she made her way back to Karl. The strap was obviously attached to something very heavy, but the dark woman swung it easily over her head and threw it at Karl’s feet. The object was quite large and landed with a spongy wet thud, splashing some dark liquid across the rock wall. Karl pointed his light at it. Only decades of training kept him from screaming and recoiling at the severed gnal head staring blankly back at him, bathed in its own gore.
“Too close,” Gabby said softly.
“Himmelsark,” Karl whispered, unconsciously invoking the Dash name of the Vessel as he covered his mouth and nose to block out the stench of the thing.
“Indeed,” said the dark woman. “I wish we had the Vessel’s help on this. But, no matter what the navi tells you in chapel, we are on our own, Karl.” Gabby took a deep breath. “For now, at least.”
Karl blinked away tears from the smell and the shock. His mind was reeling. This was the head of one creature! One! He had seen hundreds of them in the blue crystal. He forced his gaze away from the gruesome sight and as he did, he saw a mark in the stone wall, imperceptible if he hadn’t known exactly what to look for.”
“Found them,” he croaked. Shaking his head to clear it, Karl reached out to the wall and removed two hand-sized rocks leaving two small, dark holes. They looked like black eyes in the near darkness. Not unlike the black eyes of the death thing at his feet. Karl reached into each hole and retried the ends of two heavy ropes. He wrapped one rope around his right hand until it was tight and handed the other to the dark woman who did the same. It had taken them a lot of effort and weeks of work to find two keystone boulders in the North Pass, tie these ropes to them, then drill holes and snake the ropes through solid rock into this small passage.
“Now, we see if this works,” Gabby said quietly.
“Yes,” said Karl, nodding grimly. “Now, we see if this works”
----------------------------------------
“You know, maybe the strangest part about all of these adventures,” Wyll said for what seemed to Jeanna like the five or six hundredth time, “was the floating purple ink.”
“Wait!” Jeanna shouted, halting abruptly and glancing back at the mayor’s son perched on her back. “That’s new! You never mentioned that before.”
Wyll looked genuinely surprised. “Really? Strange. It’s like the most interesting thing of all.” He scrunched up his freckled nose. “How’d I miss that?”
“Never mind,” said Jeanna, hoisting her passenger up a bit and resuming walking down North Pass Road. The village was in sight, and she was very much looking forward to dropping Wyll off at his mother’s house and heading to the pub. “What about the floating purple ink?”
“You see,” Wyll started as he did every tale he’d told so far, “after the old white-haired lady…”
“Myria,” Jeanna said.
“What?”
“You told me her name is Myria.”
“Oh, right. Myria. After Myria came in and announced that the crystal witch had died…”
“Ekatern,” Jeanna corrected.
Wyll sighed heavily. “After Myria told us that Ekatern had died, she suddenly got all concerned about the Feast of the Vessel. Said something about the witch—I mean, Ekatern—handling all the details but now Myria would have to. She took off like a nocked arrow and came back with a big book. I mean it was huge. I remember she put it on a table near me and opened it up looking through page after page. I couldn’t make heads nor tails of what was writ there, but I could see all sorts of colored inks. Reds and greens and blues and even some normal black colors. All of a sudden, she stops flipping through pages and lands on this leaf with purple ink. Then she starts rooting around in her pouches and pockets like she’s forgotten or lost something until she pulls out a purple crystal. I never heard of a purple crystal before, have you?”
Leanna shook her head. “No, I haven’t. But I’ve been told there are natural crystals and — What did they call them? —constructed crystals. I think that’s right. Them what are made up of other crystals kind of crushed up together.”
“That actually makes sense,” Wyll said, as if he were impressed. “This purple one looked a bit like the lenses in my dad’s eyeglasses. Bit larger, though. Maybe the size of my hand. She—Myria—held this lens over the leaf with the purple ink and looked through it. When she did, the ink sort of lifted off the page, like purple smoke and drifted around that lens. And I swear, I swear, I heard my dad’s voice when it did. Sounded just like when he shouts orders at me.”
“That is very odd,” Jeanna agreed. “Why do you think she did that?”
“Don’t know,” Wyll admitted with a shrug. “All I know is she looked at Karl and told him to get the food cart and take me down to the mines. And she said to make sure all the carts were stored safely away so no one can find them who ain’t looking for them. That’s when she and Jayn took us to the entrance to the mines. They are right inside that house, did I tell you? Inside!”
“Yes,” said Jeanna, wearily. “You’ve said that a few times.” She looked back at him and said, “We’re here.” She stopped directly at the front door to the mayor’s large, stone house.
“Whoa,” Wyll breathed. “That was fast! I swear we just left the mines!”
Jeanna just smiled weakly. She was about to tell him that it hadn’t seemed fast to her, when the front door opened and the village healer, Hyacinth Helper, came out. The healer was dressed in traditional embroidered white robes of her profession with a wreath of tiny dried blue flowers in her hair. Unlike her husband, Hyacinth was tall and thin, with a kind face framed by flaming red hair, like Wyll’s.
“Some boys came by earlier to say you were on your way,” the mayor’s wife said in a pleasant soprano voice.
“I went slowly so as not to jostle the young man about too much,” Jeanna told her.
“And I appreciate that very much. Wyll, can you walk on your good foot?” Wyll nodded. “Alright, let’s get you inside and put a poultice on your ankle.”
Wyll hopped down from Jeanna’s back and the instant his good foot hit the ground he held up his boots. “Look, Ma! I saved them.”
“Next time,” his mother chided gently, cupping his chin in one hand, “save yourself first, then save your boots.”
There was a sudden rumble from the mountain, like thunder, though the night was clear. It grew to a resounding boom that lingered on and continued to increase in volume. Jeanna, Hyacinth, and Wyll all looked gravely at one another: everyone in the village knew that sound.
“Avalanche!” Jeanna shouted. Without hesitation, she scooped Wyll up with one arm and swept up the healer in the other, drawing them both across the threshold in a heartbeat. She slammed the front door with one foot, still holding onto the others. The large young woman pulled them down to the floor behind a large, overstuffed leather couch, awaiting the inevitable pelting of rocks and boulders that must be coming.
Jeanna only hoped the mayor’s stone house could withstand the crushing landslide.