70. On Thin Ice (Adranaya)¶
Summoning the will to climb felt like being dragged through a river upside-down. The forest floor was slick with pine needles, and Adra’s feet kept slipping as she forced her leaden legs to rise and fall, again and again and again. Icy gusts clawed through every gap in her sweat-soaked clothing.
And with each cold breath of wind, another whisper slid into her mind. They lapped against her consciousness, not quite wordless, but a bit too quiet to make out.
The sun dropped below the horizon, blanketing the mountain in shadow. Drifts of old snow lay mounded against the tree trunks, their crust blue in the fading light. The new moon gave scant light. It was so dark that they almost stepped on the bodies.
In a modest space between the trees, the family who had occupied the cabin lay piled together like discarded towels, pale and bloodless. They were lightly dressed—the Grandchildren had surprised them. Ragged holes gaped where the ghouls had sucked out the soft parts, leaving only skin and bones.
Vaye retched and Gadarien turned away, his hands clutching his hair, but Adra stared. This family had done nothing wrong. They had bothered no one, sought no glory, played no part in the struggles of dynasties wrestling for power. All they had wanted was a little peace. Yet their lives had been wiped away like a speck of mud off someone’s boot. “It’s always them,” Adra whispered.
“What?” Vaye said.
“The powerful fight each other to get more power. They never have enough. But it’s normal people who pay the price.” She finally tore her eyes away from the corpses and levelled her gaze at Vaye. “Anyone who wants power that badly shouldn’t be allowed to have it.”
Vaye stared back in silence, a spark of guilt in her carnelian eyes. “Why did you really take the page, Vaye?” Adra said. Her voice was calm, but the whispers chased each other around her mind, their meaning as buried and menacing as the ruins of Irkeset. “You said Yobaza didn’t deserve to have it, but you could have said that about anything in there. Out of all those priceless artifacts, you chose that one. Why?”
“I...” Vaye started, then shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“I think maybe you do,” Adra said quietly, and she could see from Vaye’s face that her words had struck home. She turned back to the bodies. “We have to bury them,” she said. “We owe them that much.”
“We will,” Gadarien said. “On the way back down.”
You won’t make it back down, whispered the voice. She jumped. It was the first intelligible phrase the voice had conveyed in some time. Gadarien raised his eyebrows, sensing Adra’s jolt of alarm, but Adra shook her head and continued up the hill.
They marched by starlight, stopping only once to rest and eat. The trees thinned, then gave out entirely, leaving only ice and gravel. Adra’s shoulders felt like rock themselves, locked tight with tension. She wondered if the Grandchildren had been permanently scared off by Vaye’s display of power or if they were merely awaiting another opportunity.
The sky finally began to lighten as they approached the Tine, the landscape slowly resolving into shades of gray and silver. The air was crystalline, the faint glitter of the stars gradually being snuffed out by the brighter glow of the horizon.
Just as you will be, the voice whispered. Adra shook it off. Her whole life, she’d been plagued by negative thoughts, suggestions that maybe the world would be better off without her, that she was taking up space that someone else deserved, that things would never get better. But ever since the Gyre spell, those dark thoughts had felt more tangible, heavier and closer. And after Vaye had used the Gyre to speak to Grandmother, the thoughts had started manifesting as a literal voice, and not even one she recognized. Earlier in her life, Adra would have found the hallucinations fascinating. But she’d have to deal with them later, if there was a later.
They crested a final rise and, at last, beheld the Tine. A frozen lake spread out below like a huge glass table. The ice was glowing from within, its color fading from a bright cyan to a deep cerulean around the edges, oddly reminiscent of the Foucanta. Across the expanse, the back slope of the peak rose high overhead, silhouetted by the emerging dawn. The ice flowed smoothly over cliffs on either side of the peak, creating a crisp horizon to the east. The rest of the lake was bordered by steep walls, as though something had long ago crashed into the mountain.
Silently, they descended the ridge and walked out onto the ice. A low, spectral creaking echoed off the rocks. Clouds had begun to roll in overhead, reflecting the growing light from the horizon. Bubbles trapped in the ice refracted the blue glow like pearls. Adra was terrified of falling through, but her fear turned to awe as they reached the center and found the source of the light.
Beneath the surface, a ring of desiccated bodies hung suspended, glowing like the moon. Empty eye sockets stared up at the sky. The withered corpses all faced inward, their skeletal hands still clasped together. Below the first circle hung another ring, and another, and another, descending down as far as she could see, a cyclone of bodies frozen in mid-flight.
“Grandmother’s tits,” Vaye whispered.
“What is this?” said Gadarien, his normally-sonorous voice crinkled with awe.
Adra didn’t say what she was thinking. But here were The Ilahin, frozen in their act of holy sacrifice, just as legend described them. She wondered if Gadarien was having a similar thought, The Ilahin replaced with the Deucanta of his faith. As for Vaye, there was no telling what she believed.
And no telling what she’s willing to do, came the inevitable whisper.
Vaye paced around the ice, kneeling periodically and squinting at something only she could see, surveying the geometry of the flowspring. “It’s strongest at the edge of the circle,” she said, returning to the center. “Remember, we’ll have to absorb as much flow as we can, to choke it off downstream. That will starve the Vorkyrda and force her to open herself. When she does, we flood her all at once, before she can close herself off.” She left out the thing they all wanted to forget: that they would be the dam.
They set their packs down on the ice, waiting for the sky to lighten. Gadarien and Vaye meditated, but Adra was restless. She walked to the edge and looked out. The ice cascaded over the lip of the crater on either side of the peak, hanging down in long, pale beards. Far away, in the valley where the battle was to take place, she thought she could discern two faint patches of yellow light.
She returned to the circle and sat, closing her eyes and sighing. Despite the anxiety, it felt good just to rest her body for a few moments. The sky was heavy with clouds, but the wind had calmed, a light snow beginning to filter down. She could feel the power below the ice pulsating through her. Her veins and fingernails were glowing, and when she glanced up, the same uncanny glow permeated Vaye and Gadarien. They looked like statues, their features illuminated by the pale blue light.
They meditated as the sky brightened, each of them winding inward toward their centers. Currents of emotion cascaded through their minds, flickers of apprehension and desire, anger and fear.
She’ll sacrifice anything to get what she wants., the voice said, coming through as clear as thought. Even you. Adranaya opened her eyes in alarm, certain the others had heard, but they were deep in their own meditations. A chill washed over her, one that had little to do with the cold. She wanted to speak, but the inertia of what they were doing locked her into silence.
The snowfall grew heavier, tiny grains turning into fat, wet flakes, darkening the sky even as the dawn lightened it. Finally, a sliver of sun broke the horizon, spilling reddish light across the ice. Vaye brushed the snow off her legs and stood. “It’s time,” she said. Adra shook out her limbs, trying to scatter her worries. If her mind was going to break like her aunt’s had, then it was going to break, and there was little she could do to stop it. But first, she would see this thing through.
They backed away from each other until they were equidistant, standing directly above the circle of corpses. Vaye and Gadarien became floating, disembodied heads and hands, illuminating the snowflakes as they fell. The rest of them were obscured, fading into muted gray shapes.
Vaye began an Anashic chant, the melody lacquered with generations of tragedy. Adra had never heard Vaye sing before. The Anashi’s voice was rich and full, lovely and dark as it reverberated off the crater walls. Adra closed her eyes and breathed deep, the fresh scent of pines filling her nostrils. She felt like she was floating away, receding from the world like a snowflake in reverse.
Sudden sunlight washed across her face. The chanting filled her awareness, sounding oddly close, the acoustics of the crater playing weird games with her perception. Vaye’s voice sounded different, too, like a much older woman somehow.
In the depths of her mind, Adra touched down on the Balance Point as though reaching the bottom of a pool. The chanting ended abruptly and she opened her eyes. The glow of Vaye’s sclera cut through the falling snow, looking a bit like the moon.
The Anashi lifted her arms wide, and they opened their minds to the Tine.
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