Authors: Dennis L. McKiernan
“Oh?” said Alos.
Aiko glanced at Arin and nodded in agreement. “The path at the boulders is hidden, as is the temple.”
“Exactly so,” said Arin. “Too, this new path may have a charm upon it.”
Delon touched the amulet at his neck. “Let us go see.”
* * *
“If it has a charm upon it,” said Delon, looking at the narrow trail, “it’s not one of invisibility.”
“Perhaps it’s a ward of some kind,” said Ferret, standing at Delon’s side. “Perhaps one that is not meant for us, but for foes of the temple instead—the Fists of Rakka, for one.”
“You mean it hides the path from them and only them, or perhaps turns them aside?”
Ferret looked at Delon and nodded. “Aye. That or the like…if charms can do such things.”
All eyes turned to Arin, but she shrugged. “Were I a Mage, mayhap I could say yea or nay.”
“This is what the ‘
âlim
meant,” said Aiko, gesturing leftward at the other way, “when he said that not all paths are what they seem. He was warning us away from the obvious.”
“That is my belief as well,” said Arin.
Alos cocked a skeptical eyebrow but remained silent.
Egil looked at the others and then at the sun, now poised on the rim of the world. “Let’s not waste the daylight.”
As they returned to the camels, Arin said, “I shall lead the descent.”
Both Egil and Aiko protested, especially the Ryodoan, saying that if danger came, a warrior should take the brunt.
But Arin was adamant. “This path has a charm upon it, one we do not know, and among this band only I can
“But, love—” Egil began, yet, with an upflung hand, Arin stopped his words.
“Once we are down within the labyrinth, where I ween the way is wider, then Aiko or thou canst lead. But as we descend along the charmed way, ’tis mine to do.”
Egil glanced at Aiko, and she blew out a long breath, then stiffly said, “As you will, Dara. As you will.”
Swiftly they laded the camels, and amid
hronks
of protest mounted up and got all the animals to their feet. Each towing a beast, they moved toward the precipice,
Arin in the lead, Aiko immediately after, then Egil, Alos, and Ferret, with Delon bringing up the rear. They paused on the verge and looked out over the endless canyons plunging deep into the crimson stone.
Delon sighed and said, “Of all our philosophies, why is it only I who believe we are about to step into Hèl?”
In the lead, Arin urged her camel forward and started down within.
A
s the waning half moon above fled before the oncoming sun, down the path Arin and her comrades edged, stone rising sheer on the right and falling sheer on the left, the way narrow and steep. Alos took one look down leftward at the precipitous drop, and, moaning, quickly turned his face to the stone on the right and closed his eyes tightly, whimpers leaking from his lips, the old man praying for Garlon to guide his camel true.
Egil, too, was somewhat daunted by the height, for, like Alos, he was a man of the sea and no climber of stone. And though he was raised on a steep-sided fjord, it was nothing like this. So he gritted his teeth and for the most stared straight ahead and trusted to the camel’s sure feet.
Aiko, however, was unfazed by the drop, for her training in Ryodo had included many a vertical climb. But even though the fall held no fear for her, still Aiko was distressed, for her tiger was greatly unsettled and Dara Arin rode ahead; if danger came upon them, she and not Aiko would meet it first.
In the lead, the drop into the depths held no meaning for Arin, only the faint ribbon ahead, for she concentrated fully on the pathway downward in her attempt to
Near the rear of the procession, Ferret leaned over and looked at the ruddy stone falling sheer below. Then she glanced back at Delon to see him staring downward, too. “Are you not afraid?” she called. “It’s quite high, you know.”
Delon smiled. “No, luv. In my youth in the Gûnarring, my father and I often scaled such steeps, though not in a bloody red Hèl like this. —But I say, what about you?”
“I walked the rope before I was nine,” she replied, “and
flew the trapeze as well. Heights are to be respected, not feared.”
“Aren’t you afraid your camel will bolt?”
At Delon’s question, Alos moaned and clapped his hands over his ears.
“Animals have more sense than to do such,” replied Ferret. “At least in the
cirque
it was so.”
“
Cirque?
You were in a
cirque,
luv? You’ll have to tell me of it.”
Ferret took a deep breath and then let it out. Except for the story about Old Nom, Ferai had told none of the others aught of her past, not even Delon. She looked down into the depths below and then back at the bard to find him yet looking at her, awaiting a reply. “Someday, perhaps,” she called out to him, then turned and faced front once more.
Someday, perhaps, someday.
Down they went and down, twisting and turning into the depths of bloodred rock, the angled way sometimes shallow, sometimes steep, but always narrow and ever clinging to vertical ripples frozen forever on the face of perpendicular stone. Along this slant they rode for nearly six miles, the path arcing ’round meandering curves and angling past sharp bends, until at last they came to the enshadowed floor of the jagged canyon below, where crimson walls rose some fifteen hundred feet straight up to a ragged slash of sky. Here in the depths they could no longer see where they had begun high on the rim above, for it was lost beyond uncounted crooks and twists and turns in the pathway behind.
Though fairly level, the canyon floor was no more than ten paces wide, with schist and scree and shattered rock strewn throughout and piles of rubble ramping up against the vertical walls. All was barren stone—no soil, no plants, no life whatsoever could be seen—and a raw drift of air whispered through the chasm, like voices murmuring on the very edge of perception. And here the world was scarlet-drenched, as if the very rock itself had been drowned in blood. Even the shadows seemed to take on a crimson hue.
“Adon,” breathed Delon, “but it
is
a vision of Hèl.”
Two paths stood before them, twisting away left and right.
“Which way?” asked Aiko, looking to Arin, as did they all.
The Dylvana stared at the canyon floor. “The rightward path has a faint glow.”
Aiko touched her chest. “Peril lies that way as well, Dara.”
Arin shrugged. “Nevertheless—”
“Perhaps we ought to turn back,” interjected Alos.
Arin looked at the old man. “Nay, Alos. Herein we should find the cursed keeper of faith in the maze.”
“But we don’t even know if this is the right maze,” quavered the oldster.
Egil canted his head. “Come, helmsman, of the two we’ve encountered this seems the best bet.”
Alos glanced at Aiko only to meet an impassive gaze. He lowered his eye and nodded.
Rightward they turned, now Aiko and Egil able to ride alongside Arin: Aiko to the left; Egil to the right. Following behind came the three pack camels on their tethers, and then after came Alos, Delon, and Ferret, each of the trio also towing a camel.
“Which way is north?” asked Ferret. “We’ve twisted and turned so much that I’m all at sea. And down here I can’t even tell.”
Alos grunted and pointed to the fore and left even as Delon pointed back and to the right. Delon shook his head and burst out in laughter, but Alos growled and said, “Look, I’m a helmsman so I ought to know which way north lies.”
But Delon pointed to the red canyon walls high above. “See the angle of the sun? Well, not the sun itself, but the shadows, instead. It’s yet early morn, and so they fall from east to west. And given their slant, that puts north off to our right. We are headed southwesterly.”
As his camel plodded forward, Alos looked long at the rim above, then shook his head in resignation.
“Don’t feel bad, old man,” said Delon. “I was raised in the mountains, while you were raised at sea. And when
we are on the waters again, ’tis you will know and I who will not.”
They held this direction for less than a furlong as the canyon bent back on itself. Twisting and turning, within a mile they came to a junction, where three slots lay before them. Again Arin chose the right-hand way, and zigging and zagging, veering and wrenching, through the labyrinth they fared, at times the way wide, at other times narrow where they could go but single file—and through these slots Aiko took the lead with Egil next after. And time after time they came to junctions: two-way, three-way, four-way splits, some narrow, some wide, some but cracks, some paths smooth, others rough, some choked with shattered debris. At these breaches, Arin would gaze at the choices before her and spy out the glimmering way, and onward they would fare.
Midmorning came and then midday, the sun directly overhead, pressing back the crimson shadows, replacing them with a bright red glare. Yet they paused not for a midday meal but ate as they moved ahead, for they did not want to camp in these canyons at night, hoping to reach the temple instead—wherever it might lie. At times they rode, at other times walked, giving the camels some respite, but always they pushed forward.
“I don’t think we’re on the right road at all,” puffed Alos, during one of these strolls. “We’d better turn back, get out from these blasted canyons with their pressing walls.”
“Why’s that, old man?” asked Delon.
Alos fixed his white eye on the bard. “Surely we’d’ve reached it by now if this were the way. I think we’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere. Either that, or the temple isn’t even in this place at all.”
Ferret shook her head. “Look about you, Alos. The stone is crimson, as shown on Old Nom’s card. And the ‘
âlim
said this is where we’d find it. As to the wrong turn, have faith in Dara Arin. Think on this, too: it is a great treasure we are after: a pure, translucent pale jade egg…the size of a melon. Surely we can sell it for an enormous sum, even if we have to carve it up. There’s a buyer out there somewhere: a Dragon, a Mage, a collector, someone
who will make all this worthwhile. We’ll be set for life. No more hunger, no more wanting, no more having to—” Ferret glanced at Delon and abruptly stopped talking.
They walked in silence for a while, and at last Delon said, “Luv, as much as I cherish the good life—fine wines, delectable foods, pleasures for all the senses—we aren’t after this thing for reward. It isn’t a treasure we seek. Instead it’s a token of power whose doom we hope to entirely set aside.”
Ferret looked over at him, but what she was thinking did not appear in her eyes.
Ahead, Arin called for them to mount up again, and onward they rode through chasms of bloodred stone.
The midday sun passed beyond the rims above, though now and then as the canyons twisted and turned they could see it in the west. Midafternoon came, and then late day, and all about them scarlet shadows mustered once more as the angle of light shifted with the sinking of the sun. Finally there was a short twilight down in the canyons below and darkness fell in the land of red stone, and still there was no sign of a temple.
* * *
A narrow slash of glimmering stars emerged overhead with the onset of night, and Arin reined her camel to a halt, the others stopping as well. The Dylvana turned in her saddle and said to all: “The time has come for us to decide: shall we push on, or instead make camp? Have ye any preference?”
Egil said, “I think we need rest the camels. They’ve had little ease all day, nor aught to eat or drink since yester.”
Aiko reached down and tapped her mount on its ribs. “Fear not for the camels, Egil One-Eye, for they can go long without either food or drink.” She gestured ahead along the canyon. “Fear instead for us; with every step forward our danger has grown.”
In the glint of starlight, Arin nodded, but Egil raised an eyebrow. “Your tiger?”
Aiko inclined her head.
“I think we should go back,” said Alos. “This ‘
âlim
of yours has led us into a trap.”
Aiko grunted yet did not gainsay his words, but Arin
said, “I think not, Alos, for Aiko’s tiger found no untoward peril in him.”
“That’s because the peril’s out here,” retorted Alos.
“That I do not deny,” said Arin.
“Why don’t we just set up camp in a place we can easily defend?” suggested Ferret, touching the bandoliers of daggers crisscrossing her breast.
From the bowels of the labyrinth there came a long, ghastly howl, the echoes slapping back and forth across the canyon walls.
The camels flinched at this sound, yet held their ground for it was distant still. But Alos groaned and cowered down in his saddle.
“Adon, but that was much louder than before,” said Delon.
“We are closer to whatever it is,” said Arin.
“We are closer to peril,” said Aiko.
“Since it seems to come out only at night, I think Ferret has the right idea,” said Egil. “We should make camp in an easily defended place.”
“There is that narrow canyon a furlong or so back,” suggested Arin.
* * *
They set up camp in a box canyon, more of a fissure than aught else, for it extended into the crimson rock less than a hundred feet.
“This is good,” said Egil, surveying the site.
“Good?” muttered Alos. “This stone crack?”
“Aye,” replied the Fjordlander. “They can only come at us from one direction.”
“They?” quavered Alos.
“They. The foe. Whether one or many,” replied Egil.
“Like the thing that howls,” added Ferret.
“Eep!”
squealed Alos, and he huddled down against the stone wall behind.
* * *
That night they stood ward in overlapping shifts: Aiko and Alos, Alos and Delon, Delon and Ferret, Ferret and Egil, Egil and Arin, Arin and Aiko. Again there came in the middle of the night another prolonged howl, seeming
louder than before, jerking sleepers awake, weapons springing to hand, yet nought came at them from the darkness.