Fallen (33 page)

“Yes.” Beko nodded. The others were silent, but Nomi sensed their uncertainty.

“I can't tell you any more than this,” Nomi said, “because it's all I know. But Ramus has been edgy ever since we left. Almost afraid. He must have started translating some of the parchments. What happened to Konrad is a tragedy, and I'm sad for the loss of your friend. But it shows that whatever is up there has or had knowledge no one else on Noreela possesses, or has ever possessed. Except in story.”

“I've never heard a tale like this,” Rhiana said, “and I've heard many.” Nomi sensed the Serian's interest now, buried beneath grief but still there in the lilt of her voice, the tilt of her head.

“So we bury Konrad,” Beko said. “And then we eat. And then we decide, and we all honor the decision we make.”

It's already made, Nomi thought. I can see it in their eyes; the fascination, the excitement, the thrill of adventure. They're more adventurers than I've ever been, and far more deserving to be called Voyagers.

Rhiana drew her sword.

Nomi stepped forward, took it from her gently and started digging a hole.

I'm digging to bury, she thought. But one day soon I may be digging to unearth.

NOMI HAD BEEN
right; the decision was already made. After she buried Konrad's head the Serians performed a small ceremony over his grave, and she backed away to give them privacy. Watching from afar, she realized yet again how different from them she was. They had lost a close friend, yet she was fascinated at the murder Ramus had performed.
He'll want that for me,
she thought.
If and when we meet again, he'll have some words to say to me.

The Serians conversed briefly after the burial and then rode, and for the rest of that day they journeyed in silence. She brought up the rear, never falling back too far but wanting to give them all space. Around mid-afternoon, they passed a series of streams and small pools, and Nomi untied from her saddle the rope charm Ramus had bought. She paused by a pool and weighed it in her hands, wondering what the charm breather had tied into the knot, what Ramus had told her. It felt heavier than it should, as if the knot contained much more than rope and air.

Nomi threw the charm. She gasped as it left her hand, knowing that some believed it bad luck to dispose of a gifted charm unused. But this rope had the taint of Ramus's sweat upon it, the memory of his breath, and her feelings for him had changed. Now she feared him as well.

The knotted rope struck the surface of the pond and sank. Nomi was not sad to see it go.

The mood that evening in camp was sour, and Nomi took to her tent to try to recall more of the parchment pages, but her memory was failing her. And even if she did remember, she knew that it would do her no good. She had to be content with reaching the Divide and climbing, knowing that they had the equipment to do so. Ramus and Lulah did not.

Next morning, the atmosphere was somewhat lighter, bathed in bright sunlight instead of rain. Serians were used to losing friends, she knew, because theirs was a dangerous life, whether they remained on Mancoseria or journeyed to Noreela to work for Voyagers. But she did not expect for an instant that this made their loss easier to bear. And she believed it was her silence more than anything that brought them back to her. Beko first, then Rhiana, and by the end of that first full day after Konrad's death she felt almost comfortable amongst them once more.

She thought of Ramus often. It was as if, in riding away from her, he had left many recognizable parts of himself behind, and now she was imagining a stranger on a parallel course.
Is he stronger as each day goes by?
she wondered.
If he continues translating those pages, what else will he find?
The thought was chilling, and as dusk fell she tried to shut it out and replace it with the blank, comfortable presence of campfire stories.

THEIR VOYAGE ACROSS
the Pavissia Steppes continued. They camped at night and rode during the day, passing an old settlement destroyed by fire long ago. There were no bodies, but a mile farther on they found a sculpture of bones a dozen steps high, and on the skulls making up its head sat several ravens.

Skull ravens.
Nomi had heard of them, but had never seen them. They fed on dreams and reveled in nightmares, excavating them from sleeping victims' heads by pecking holes through their skulls and eating their brains.

The birds showed no fear as Nomi and the Serians rode by.

THREE DAYS AFTER
Konrad's death, they reached the wide, unnamed river that marked the southern border of this wild place, and the uncharted regions beyond. Most of the land between here and the Great Divide did not even have a name. They camped that night beside the river, and as Rhiana told a tale and Noon cooked a meal, Nomi felt her thoughts carried away on the water. Beko and the others surmised that Ramus and Lulah were to the east of them, and perhaps even now they were camped next to this same river. Nomi sat for a long time that evening watching the waters roll by, looking out for twigs, leaves or branches that Ramus may have laid eyes on hours or days before. Between one blink and the next she spied something that caused her heart to stutter—a shape that could only have been a body. It bobbed by, carried by the strong current, arms held wide as though halfway through a swimming stroke.

At her alert, Noon ran along the bank, dived in and swam out to retrieve the corpse. They watched him pull it toward the shore, his expression unreadable, and Nomi felt a sense of dread envelop the group.

Don't let it be Ramus,
she thought. And she knew that the others were thinking something else entirely.

But it was neither Ramus nor Lulah. The body was a young man, dressed in ratty leathers, torso and face pierced in a dozen places by spears or swords. His chest was spiked with the stumps of three snapped arrows. His face and neck were heavily tattooed, and his left ear was sliced off.

He had wings. They hung limp and wet from his back, protruding through slits cut into his jacket for that purpose. They were sparsely feathered around their edges, leathery and thick elsewhere, and one of them had been slashed through to its thick, bony edge.

“I know this marauder clan,” Beko said. “Graft these onto their young when they're designated as warriors. How they grow through time, I don't know.”

“Do they really work?” Nomi asked, amazed and fascinated.

Noon stared at her and blinked slowly. “Of course not.” He gave the body back to the river and they watched it spin away into the strong central current.

They traveled upstream for several miles until they found a place where they could cross. It was a tense operation, but Pancet had been good to his word, and the horses were strong and capable. They went on immediately after crossing, even though they were all exhausted. Nomi sensed the excitement the others felt at being away from known territories, and she was starting to feel the draw of the Divide.

All the time she thought of Ramus, and she knew that he was thinking of her. It was not an idea that gave her peace.

LULAH HAD BEEN
joking, but Ramus made a charm from Konrad's fingers.

He picked off the loose flakes of stone first, then tested to see whether they would break into small pieces. They did not. They seemed strong, which was befitting their origin. Then he cut a thin thread of leather from the bottom hem of his jacket, rolled and twisted it into a thong and tied the two fingers together. He knotted it around his neck without Lulah seeing, dropping the stone fingers inside his shirt. He was not certain what Lulah would do if she knew. It was very possible that she would kill him.

Later that night, as Lulah scouted ahead, Ramus paused and cupped the stone fingers in his hands. He breathed across them, whispering the same words that had made them. Nothing changed. In a way that comforted him. The magichala that the Widow performed followed the laws of time well, and so it seemed did these words from atop the Great Divide.

Lulah remained distant. She often rode ahead to explore their route, make sure it was safe, save time if they were heading for a ravine, deep river or some other obstacle. She never found one—none that they could not pass, at least—but she used the excuse nonetheless.

Ramus would have preferred her to ride with him. He had seen in her a kindred spirit, and he sensed it there still, though swallowed by grief and a dash of pride. He would give her time, and perhaps time would wash away some of the hurt.

Riding alone gave Ramus the opportunity to speak to the Widow.

She had been on his mind for a long time. In truth, she had been a part of him ever since he met her on his first voyage, a voice in darker times and a companion when he was lonely. He was certain that she did not cast herself this way, and yet he had given her that role. She was a wise woman who acted wiser, and it seemed to Ramus that every time he saw her she was younger, though possessed of more knowledge and exploring deeper into arcane matters that few would even consider. There was no limit to her ability to believe. Most people treated magichala as a slight against whichever god or gods they worshipped, a betrayal of natural laws as opposed to a deeper understanding of them. The Widow was a purer explorer of the mind and the powers in the land than Ramus, even though she had never traveled beyond her own mountainous home. She knew Noreela deeper, appreciated its nature more fully than he ever could.

Now he could go back to her, his imagination stretching north to her mountains. He could sit in the cave that she called home, eyes burning from the scented smoke from her fire, nose stinging as the acidic fumes were drawn in, and the Widow smiled.
Tell me what you have, Ramus,
she said.

I'm not sure. Something beyond magichala. Something belonging to the potential you see in the land.

Instead of being amazed, she shook her head and sighed a tunnel through the smoke.
There's always a cause, she said. Always a source, a home, a well from which such things rise and spread. Because this land is far from ready, and we are young and innocent of our purposes here.

My purpose is to explore and be a discoverer.

Exploration?
the Widow said.
Perhaps.

Ramus whispered in his mind the words from the parchment, and the Widow's eyes went wide, the smoke from her fire slowed. But then she smiled again and the fire roared higher than ever.
Tricks in the smoke, she said. Twists in your mind. Magichala is more than roots, leaves and steam-dragon teeth, and you know that, Ramus. Riding where you are, seeking what you seek, you know that there are whole new vistas waiting to be opened in the land, and in the minds of those who live upon it. But those words... do you really think they're anything other than a hex?

“Are they?” Ramus said, blinking away sunlight or staring into the night, and Lulah remained away from him.

Perhaps it was hatred. He had seen it in her eyes that first day following Konrad's death, but it had mellowed since. So perhaps that, yes, though in a waning state.

But maybe more than anything, she was afraid.

“I won't turn you to stone,” he said to her whenever they came close enough to speak.

Lulah shook her head and rode away. “You talk in your sleep.”

TWO DAYS FOLLOWING
Konrad's death, they came across a band of marauders. Lulah rode back quickly to warn Ramus. She said there were maybe a hundred of them, some hauling wagons heavy with equipment, others riding fully armed. A few riders guided a small group of chained fodder: a race of fat, pale humans bred for food in the southern parts of the Pavissia Steppes. There was a way to skirt around them, but it involved a long, careful march, watching out all the time for marauder guards and preparing for attack at any moment.

It turned into a wearisome afternoon, mostly spent walking so that they could guide their horses along gulleys and through a heavily wooded area. Twice they saw marauder sentries miles out from their camp, and Lulah took this to be a sign that this was a war party, as likely to be attacked as to attack someone else. “So there are more out there,” she whispered in Ramus's ear.

By the time dusk fell, they had covered only fifteen miles, and they were more exhausted than they had yet been on the voyage. Ramus's head was thumping and his eyes swam with colors he did not know, and for a while he ranted and raged as Lulah gathered herbs and roots to make him medicine. Later, huddled together for warmth because they dared not light a fire, Lulah admitted that she feared he would curse her without knowing. “You were raving,” she said. “Just for a moment, but it was long enough. Words I didn't know came from your mouth, your hands drew the strange shapes in the air and I stuffed my ears with moss. Do I have to hear these words for them to change me? If they touch my skin, will that be enough to turn my blood to dust?”

Ramus told her he was not sure, though he knew the true power of those words. He hoped that the more he examined the parchments, the more he would understand.

They were almost across the Pavissia Steppes and there was a longer ride ahead of them, through places unmapped and landscapes unknown. They would navigate now via hearsay and tales passed by word of mouth from wanderer to wanderer, instead of using maps drawn and refined by Voyagers dedicated to the task. Everything that had happened up to now had been in a place of relative safety.