The Broken World Book One - Children of Another God (21 page)

"Let's
eat."

Talsy cut
slices of cold meat and wrapped them in bread, and he tore at it.
Curiosity filled her, but Chanter obviously was not going to
volunteer anything. She made herself a sandwich and settled down to
eat.

"What
happened?"

He glanced at
her. "I can't tell you."

"What did you
find?"

"A big
flower."

Talsy nibbled
her bread. "Why has it closed now?"

"I can't tell
you."

She sensed that
he was unhappy about avoiding her questions, for he studied his
food too hard. "Something happened to you. Why were you so tired
last night?"

"I can't tell
you."

"Mujar never
get tired."

He shot her a
quelling look, but Talsy was not giving up yet. "Tell me!"

His brows drew
together. "No. It's not for you to know."

"Why?"

"Because you're
not Mujar."

Talsy stared at
him, stunned. "Why must you have secrets?"

The Mujar shook
his head and concentrated on his food. She finished her meal in
sulky silence, shooting him angry looks.

Finally she
burst out, "At least tell me why you won't tell me."

He sighed.
"No."

"Can't you even
tell me what sort of plant it is?"

"It's called an
Ishmak plant."

"And it's
important to Mujar."

"I didn't say
that."

She snorted.
"If it wasn't, you wouldn't be trying so hard to keep secrets about
it."

He glowered at
her. "And if you weren't so nosy I wouldn't have to argue about
it."

Talsy rose and
stuffed her bedding into the bag with unnecessary vigour. "What do
you think I'm going to do, run off to the nearest city and tell
them your secrets? Do you really think I would betray you?"

"No, I know you
wouldn't." His tone softened. "It's just not something I can tell
you, and I doubt that you'd understand."

"I might."

"I can't tell
you."

"Are you
allowed to keep secrets from your clan?"

He nodded,
smiling. "Yes. You have secrets, and I don't pry."

"You're not
interested. I would tell you anything you asked."

"Okay, why were
you so desperate to leave your home?"

Talsy sighed,
knowing that he only asked to steer her off the subject, but her
curiosity seemed doomed anyway. "I wanted to escape a life of
drudgery. A Trueman girl has little to look forward to. My father
would have selected a suitable mate for me, who would have paid him
for my first child. The second I could keep, if I wished. I would
have had to care for my father until his death, then I would have
been alone, raising my children. Or I could live with a man, like
the woman in the forest, but most men don't want to be burdened
with a wife, they prefer to breed a child and raise it."

"What will your
father do now?"

She shrugged.
"He's young enough to have another child."

"In the clan it
was different. All the men looked after the women, who could bear
children to whomever they wished."

"That sounds
like a better life."

"Is that what
you're looking for?"

She nodded.
"And some adventure, to see the world."

He rose and
picked up the bag. "Well, you're certainly doing that."

Talsy hurried
after him when he strode away. Evidently he was not going to turn
into the stallion just yet. In a way, she did not mind, for it
meant that she could talk to him while they walked. She reached his
side and tried to match his strides.

"You've never
told me where we're going."

"You've never
asked."

She smiled.
"Well, I'm asking now."

"We're going to
Rashkar, to rescue a boy from King Garsh's army."

"Is that the
other Wish?"

He nodded. "His
father is the one who sent the men to rescue me from my clan's
killing field."

"How do you
know he's in Rashkar?"

"That's where
King Garsh trains his troops."

Talsy skipped a
few paces to catch up. "How will you free him?"

"I don't know.
I haven't seen what I'm up against yet."

"What happened
at the Ishmak plant?"

He smiled and
shook his head at her ploy. "I can't tell you."

They passed the
Ishmak plant's vast acreage, staying away from its edges. Herds of
animals grazed in the distance, vast moving masses of brown or
gold. The beasts also stayed away from the plant. In the afternoon,
they left its border and struck off towards the distant mountains.
By nightfall, Talsy's legs ached, and she wondered if Chanter had
made her walk as punishment for arguing about the Ishmak plant, but
discarded the notion. Mujar would not stoop to such pettiness.

The following
day, he took the form of the black stallion again, and they
galloped towards the mountains. Three days of travel brought them
to the foothills, where Chanter cantered up the steep rocky slopes
with ease. Talsy wondered if he would simply gallop up the sheer
rock face ahead, but when they reached it, he stopped. She slid off
with the bag and held her breath through the brief cold stillness
of Dolana, then Chanter stood before her again. The mountains
loomed over them, slabs of grey rock thrust up from the earth and
shaped by wind and rain. The range stretched away in either
direction like the vast stone backbone of some gigantic beast.
Chanter gazed at the tall cliffs, his nostrils flared as the bitter
wind whipped his hair. Flags of cloud flew from the snowy
pinnacles, stretched and torn by the wind.

Talsy watched
him with a frown. Had he been alone, he would have simply flown
over them, but she tethered him to the ground. Now she understood
why freedom meant so much to him. For Mujar, it was so much more
than for Truemen. Only if he left her would he be able to soar over
this stone barrier with a Mujar's freedom. To try to scale these
sheer cliffs would be impossible. There were expanses of smooth
rock that even a spider could not climb, and above that was ice.
Chanter turned and walked along the edge of the cliff, his eyes
scanning the heights. She wondered what he was looking for, and was
puzzled when he stopped before a rock face as sheer as any other
and turned to her.

"We'll cross
here."

Talsy eyed the
cliff. "How will we climb that?"

"We won't.
We're going through it."

She scanned the
rock for a tunnel, shooting him a frown.

He smiled and
pointed upwards. "See, it's not as high as the rest."

The top of the
cliff was appreciably lower than the peaks on either side of it,
but still loomed high above them, sheer and icy. She shot him
another puzzled look, and he chuckled.

"What, don't
you think I'm a demigod anymore?"

"You're going
to make a tunnel!"

He shook his
head. "Mujar don't go underground. We can't without falling foul of
Dolana, otherwise the Pits wouldn't hold us."

"Then I don't
understand."

"You'll see.
Hold your breath."

Talsy did so,
and Chanter bent and pressed his palms to the ground. As he
straightened, frigid, utter stillness clamped down. Everything
froze, the air becoming a solid pressing force against her skin,
like being trapped in ice. The manifestation of Earthpower was
stronger than ever, frightening in its intensity. She staggered and
gasped as its freezing grip released her, shivered and rubbed her
chilled skin. Chanter looked contrite and came over to share his
warmth. The tingles of Crayash soon banished the cold, and his
method of sharing it never failed to delight her.

In addition to
his closeness, he seemed to feed warmth into her as if he was a
conduit to a roaring fire. The clasp of his hands on hers soon
warmed her blood and made her tingle, but that was not solely due
to the warmth he imparted. She released him with a grateful smile,
and he faced the mountain. He controlled Dolana, but had not
wielded it yet. He studied the stone barrier with a vaguely
irritated expression, as if making a path through it was a mere
inconvenience, and a task in which he took no pleasure. The
difference between Mujar and Truemen struck her afresh. A Trueman
would have revelled in such power and used it lavishly, with great
showmanship and enjoyment, to impress others and accrue power and
wealth. Chanter, if anything, looked a little sad.

With a soft,
creaking groan, the rock tore apart. The split started high above
and descended to the ground, the stone shimmering as it parted. The
gap widened until it was about four feet broad, the sides and floor
as smooth as glass. A few feet ahead, the gap narrowed and joined
together again. Chanter picked up the bag and walked into the
fissure, Talsy close behind, resisting the urge to grab the back of
his jacket and hang on. As he proceeded, the rock parted before
him, keeping pace with his strides. She glanced back and shivered.
The stone closed silently behind, sealing as if it had never been
sundered. They walked through a narrow canyon whose sheer,
sparkling sides rose so high that the sky was a small boat-shaped
splash of blue.

Black spots and
brown stripes patterned the walls, along with glittering crystal
seams and a thousand shades of grey in swirling, abstract patterns.
The rock's cold chilled her, and she wondered if the closing walls
would crush her if she lagged behind. Although they traversed the
bottom of a deep pit, he was able to control the Dolana that must
be pressing in on him from all sides. He seemed unaffected, but he
set a fast pace, as if eager to quit the mountain's bosom.

It seemed like
many hours later when the rock ahead parted to reveal a blue sky
and tumbled, rock strewn slopes. Talsy stumbled out after the
Mujar, shivering. The seamless sweep of grey stone behind her
seemed pristine, and the ground had not even shuddered in protest.
Chanter dropped the bag and turned to take her hands until her
teeth stopped chattering, whereupon he released her with a
smile.

"Better
now?"

Talsy nodded.
"So what was the difference between that and a Pit, or a tunnel? We
were still far below the ground."

"No, we
weren't. We were within the mountain, but above the ground. The
Dolana was strong, yes, far stronger than here, for instance, but I
was walking, not pressed against the earth. Dolana can only invade
from contact. It doesn't travel through Ashmar. As a bird, I have
no Dolana in me, as a Power. It's out of my reach."

"Then how do
the Pits work?"

Chanter shook
his head. "I don't know, I've never been in one. They must be very
deep, and being that far underground would cause Dolana to be
extremely strong. Mujar are thrown in unconscious, and when they
awake surrounded by so much Earthpower, I should think they can
reach no other Power."

"Why was that
better than a tunnel?"

"A tunnel would
mean rock above me, which is far more confining. I would have had
to make a tunnel right through the mountain, and in the middle of
it the outside world would have been very far away. Too far, for my
liking."

She considered.
"Perhaps the Pits are at the end of tunnels, not just holes in the
ground."

"Yes, that
would be very dangerous."

Talsy looked
around at a grassy slope streaked with ridges of rock and strewn
with boulders amid screes of shale. At its foot, a stunted forest
struggled to grow, its trees twisted by the constant wind that blew
towards the mountains, carrying a tang of salt.

Chanter picked
up the bag and set off down the slope. Talsy followed, but the
closer she got to the dark, distorted trees, the more reluctant she
was to go on. A sense of brooding, hostile power emanated from the
dim wood, and, when the Mujar reached the first trees, she halted.
A terrible foreboding, like ice in her blood, made her shiver.

Chanter stopped
and turned to her. "You sense it? I'm surprised. I thought Truemen
were immune to this world’s sensations."

"What is
it?"

"A Kuran, a
wood guardian, dwells here. Most of them dislike your people. This
one hates Truemen more than most."

"Why?"

He shrugged.
"Truemen destroy forests. They cut the trees and use the wood, set
fire to them to make grazing lands for their beasts."

"I can't go in
there."

The Mujar
smiled. "I won't let her harm you. Come, take my hand."

Talsy forced
herself to approach him, taking his hand. The brooding hostility
lessened as Chanter led her into the shade of the first trees,
which were so short they were little more than shrubs with thick,
twisted black trunks and claw-like branches bearing a few small,
dark leaves. A mat of knotted, tangled roots was at war for what
little nourishment existed in the stony soil. Chanter picked his
way over the roots and rocks, treacherous footing for the unwary.
She clung to his hand, staying as close to him as her eyes darted
into the shadows whence the hostile presence glared.

Roots seemed to
twist beneath her feet, making her stumble, and she would have
fallen if not for Chanter's hand, yet he appeared to have no
trouble at all. The wood closed in behind them, the trees becoming
taller and less twisted. A dense canopy of contorted branches
locked together above them, shutting out all but a few sparkles of
sky. In the damp gloom, lichen patches lent splashes of green to
drab bark. Clumps of hanging moss loomed out of the dimness, making
her start.

The grey
growth's feathery touch sent shudders through her, and damp cobwebs
stuck to her face. She brushed at them, but they proved difficult
to wipe away, and were soon replaced. An eerie silence hung heavy
amongst the blighted trees and a rank, dead smell arose from the
soggy black leaves that filled the hollows between the roots. It
seemed as if the angry, brooding presence had driven everything
from the forest save the trees.