The Spirit War (16 page)

M
iranda stomped five steps across her cell, hit the stone bars, turned on her heel, and stomped five steps back to the wall. She slapped her hand against the smooth, featureless stone before turning around to start all over again. Five steps, slap. Five steps, slap. Miranda gritted her teeth. The endless stomping was stupid, a waste of time and energy, and yet she could not stop. If she didn’t do something with all the rage inside her, she would explode.

Across the hall, Gin shoved his nose through the stone bars of his cell, orange eyes narrowed to slits against the constant white glow that seeped from the mountain’s stone. “Do it,” he snarled. “It’s past time for patience.”

Miranda shook her head and glanced at Slorn. He was sitting as he had been since they’d arrived, cross-legged at the center of his cell. His dark bear eyes were closed against the whiteness, his breathing was deep, and his face was slack, as though he were asleep. It was his ears that gave him away. They stood taut on his head, shifting to follow every sound Miranda made.

He’d been like this since the Guildmaster had locked them in here two days ago, completely silent, no matter how many questions
she asked. It was his silence that made her angrier than anything else. She’d followed him here like a little dog, licking up every bit of information he’d thrown her, but now that he’d landed her in prison, he wouldn’t even talk to her. Just thinking about it made her shake with fury, but as much as she wanted to follow Gin’s urging, Miranda held back. It wasn’t the bars that kept her in. Gin could have broken them, she was sure, or any of her spirits could have, for the Shapers had not taken her rings. Once she was free, she was pretty sure that she could find her way out of the mountain if it came to that, but she didn’t try to leave. She couldn’t. Angry as she was, she’d followed Slorn to this mountain to help right whatever was going wrong with the world. Now that they were finally here, she wasn’t about to give up and leave just because things weren’t going like she wanted. Of course, that didn’t mean she was going to forgive Slorn for clamming up on her when she needed him most.

Across the hall, Gin pressed his nose against the stone bars, his tail lashing across the wall behind him. Miranda shook her head again, more firmly this time. Gin snorted and looked away, grumbling to himself. Miranda just took a deep breath and went back to her stomping. It might not help anything, but at least it gave her something to do. So she walked, watching her worn boots slap against the glowing white stone, five steps forward and five steps back.

She was still going two hours later when Slorn finally spoke.

“He’s coming,” Slorn said.

Miranda nearly tripped over her own feet. “What?”

On the other side of the stone lattice, Slorn was getting up. Gin was on his feet as well, his quivering nose pressed against the stone bars. Miranda ran to the edge of her own cell. They’d gotten their food an hour ago, so it couldn’t be time yet for the guard to return. But if she strained she could hear the distant sound of footsteps. One person, coming this way.

Miranda pushed away from the bars and started waking her rings, stirring each spirit. Mellinor was already awake when she touched him. He waited at the bottom of her consciousness, a deep, quiet pool, ready if needed. Gin was pacing in his long cell, his patterns shifting in tight swirls. He kept his head down and his teeth bared, ready to jump the second Miranda gave the signal. Only Slorn was calm. He stood at the door to his cell, arms folded behind him, waiting patiently as the steps came closer.

By the time the footsteps reached them, Miranda was ready. She clung to the barred door, rings flashing, but when the person came around the corner, she blinked in surprise. She’d expected another guard, but it was the Guildmaster himself who walked into view.

He wore a silk robe even finer than the one he’d worn the first time Miranda saw him. He did not look Slorn in the eye when he stopped in front of the bear-headed man’s cell, but his voice was the essence of calm as he addressed them, opening the cells with a wave of his hand.

“The Teacher will see you now.”

And with that, the Guildmaster turned on his heel and marched back the way he’d come. Slorn stepped out of his cell, falling into pace behind the old man. A moment later, Miranda did the same. Gin brought up the rear, stalking along with his head down and his ears flat, growling deep in his throat.

When they’d first entered the mountain, the Guildmaster had taken them down to their cells through a maze of white glowing tunnels. This time, he led them up, following a wide, inclined tunnel that seemed to curve in on itself in a tightening spiral. He did not speak. Neither did Slorn. Miranda had several things she would have liked to say, but she kept her mouth shut as well. After all, it wasn’t like she was going to get an answer.

After ten minutes of climbing, the curving tunnel ended at a wide, circular platform. Miranda looked around, confused. It
looked like a dead end, but even as she started to bring this point to the Guildmaster’s attention, the high ceiling slid away with a soft scrape, revealing a long tunnel up through the mountain. Forgetting her dignity for a moment, Miranda gaped openly at the enormous hole that had suddenly appeared above her. It seemed to go up forever, a curved tunnel of pure, glowing white stretching as far as she could see.

She was still gawking when she heard Gin take a hissing breath. A second later, the floor began to vibrate under her boots, and then it started to lift. Miranda gasped and flung out her arms for balance, but it was Slorn who caught her hand and kept her from falling. The bear-headed man held her eyes just long enough for a small, subtle wink before letting her go as the stone platform under their feet rose smoothly into the glowing tunnel. The platform picked up speed as they went, moving faster and faster until Miranda could feel gravity pulling on her bones. Then, as quietly as it had started, the platform slowed. A new, stronger light flashed overhead as a door opened in the side of the tunnel as their platform slid to a gentle stop before the largest, most beautiful hall Miranda had ever seen.

The sheer size of it took her breath away. The hall stretched out forever, larger than the Spirit Court’s hearing chamber, larger than the throne room at Mellinor, larger than the cave below the Council, larger, in fact, than any room she’d ever seen. The stone was the same glowing white as the lower levels, but where it had been smooth down below, here the rock was carved in subtle patterns that played with the stone’s light. Fat pillars dozens of feet across sprouted like trees from the polished floor at regular intervals, rising up to meet the arc of the carved ceiling high, high overhead. The walls curved as well, following the natural slope of the mountain. There were several large doors leading to smaller halls that branched into unseen rooms, but the largest of all was at the other
end of the hall, directly across from where they stood. There, a great door pierced the wall of the mountain itself, opening out onto a large, circular balcony that looked down on the sleeping mountains, their snow-covered peaks glittering in the light of the full moon.

Miranda caught her breath. Locked in the mountain, she hadn’t even realized it was night. She also hadn’t realized that the moving platform had taken them so high. They must be close to the mountain’s peak.

The Guildmaster stepped off the platform and into the hall, walking briskly across the carved, glowing stone. Miranda pulled her coat tight around her shoulders and followed. The hall was nearly empty, but those few Shapers who were milling between the great stone pillars stopped to stare as the Guildmaster led his prisoners past them and through the middle of the great, white hall.

Miranda stole glances at Slorn as they walked, but the bear-headed Shaper’s face was carefully neutral. Still, the Guildmaster was far ahead, and she decided to risk it.

“What is this place?” she whispered, careful not to look at him.

“The Hall of the Shapers,” Slorn answered, just as quietly. His muffled voice sounded almost wistful.

Before Miranda could ask what that was, the Guildmaster stopped. They were standing directly in the center of the hall, between the moving platform that had brought them up here and the balcony door. The hall’s center was marked with a circle of raised stone carved in looping patterns that made Miranda’s head swim. The Guildmaster stepped into the circle and motioned for them to do the same. When they were all inside, the Guildmaster stepped out again.

“I don’t know why the Teacher bothers,” he said. “I only hope you do not disappoint him, Heinricht.”

Though he hid it well, Miranda could hear the lingering
resentment in the Guildmaster’s voice, and she got the feeling he wasn’t used to being excluded from whatever was about to happen. Slorn, however, looked almost relieved.

“I am already outcast and imprisoned,” he said. “What more can he do?”

The Guildmaster’s face darkened. “Do not take these things lightly. The Teacher’s decision is final, but even he is not without mercy.” The old man leaned in, dropping his voice. “For once in your life, Heinricht, bow your stubborn head and ask the Teacher’s forgiveness. Let me welcome my son home once again.”

Slorn met the Guildmaster’s gaze. “I will do what I have to, father. Just as I always have.”

Miranda’s eyebrows shot up, but before she could comment, the Guildmaster made a sharp gesture and the floor below their feet began to move. She scrambled for balance as the entire circle of stone began to rise upward, taking them with it. She caught one last glimpse of the Guildmaster as the old man’s face fell, collapsing from anger to a look of deep sadness. Then he was gone, hidden by the rim of the rising stone pillar.

She turned to Slorn. “Father?”

“Yes,” Slorn said.

She gave him a look of disbelief. “Your own father locked you up?”

“He is Guildmaster first,” Slorn said. “There will be those among the Shapers who will say he is being too lenient with me, letting me see the Teacher. I am an oath breaker, after all. Shapers are sworn to the Mountain for life, but we ran when Nivel became a demonseed. It doesn’t matter that they would have killed her if we stayed; we both broke our oath as Shapers.”

Miranda folded her arms across her chest. “You could have told me.”

“I could have,” Slorn said. “I could have told you a lot of things,
but anything I told you in the cell I would also have told the Teacher.”

“What do you mean?” Miranda said. “There was no one there but us.”

“This is the Shaper Mountain,” Slorn said. “It is always listening.”

Miranda frowned. “Who is the Teacher, then?”

“You’ll know when you see him,” Slorn said.

Miranda bit her lip. She was getting pretty sick of these half answers, but Slorn would say nothing more. In the end, all she could do was watch in silence as the stone above them lifted away, and the rising pillar vanished into the hall’s ceiling with a soft scrape.

They were in another vertical tunnel. Glowing stone surrounded them on all sides, filling the air with cold, white light. The pillar of stone under their feet seemed to have no end. It rose slowly, pushing them farther and farther up into the mountain. Miranda arched her neck, trying to see where they were going, but she saw nothing except the endless white. Still, things were changing. The air was growing colder and thinner, the light brighter.

Just as Miranda was starting to feel light-headed, the platform began to slow. Stone scraped overhead and the white walls of the tunnel fell away, leaving them standing in a brilliant white glare. Miranda covered her face, blinking furiously. Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the brilliance, and she saw that they were standing in another enormous, white chamber.

It was smaller than the Hall of the Shapers below, but there were no pillars here, no supports of any kind. Just a perfect circle of stone, white and brilliant as the morning sun on fresh snow, and nothing else.

“There’s no one here,” Miranda whispered. “I thought you said we were going to see the Teacher.”

“Just wait,” Slorn said. “He likes to make an entrance.”

Miranda didn’t see how. The white chamber had no doors save
for the stone platform they were standing on. But as she opened her mouth to ask Slorn what he meant, the light went out.

She gasped and nearly fell into Gin. For a heartbeat, the chamber was pitch black. And then, as suddenly as it had vanished, light returned, and everything changed.

Color flooded the walls, a wave of brilliant green, brown, and blue that washed over the stone, leaving mountains, forests, and sky in its wake. The floor underfoot came alive with pinks and yellows, blues, whites, and soft greens, all flowing together in a wash before separating out into thousands of flowers. Suddenly, they were standing in a high mountain field. A stream sprung to life a few feet from Gin’s tail, bouncing merrily down a bed of smooth white stones. Mountains loomed in the distance, their peaks taller than any Miranda had ever seen. Clouds drifted across the perfectly blue sky overhead, and the bright sunlight turned her hair fiery red, but when she held her hands up to the light, there was no warmth in it. The rushing stream threw off no spray and, despite the waving flowers under her feet, she could still feel the cold stone through the soles of her boots.

She looked at Slorn for some explanation, but he was staring across the valley at the mountains beyond. Or, rather, at the one mountain that rose above all others. Almost half again as tall as the next tallest peak, the Shaper Mountain stood before them in all its majesty. Its summit scraped the clear blue sky like a white knife. Its snowy slope was the same as Miranda had seen from Knife’s Pass, but there was no sign of the windows and balconies of the Shapers, nor was there any sign of Knife’s Pass itself. The road should have been directly below them, but it wasn’t. The ravine and the bridge were also missing, leaving the smaller mountains whole and uncut all the way to the Shaper Mountain’s feet. The little mountains were dotted with high mountain meadows just like the one they stood in, little verdant patches, peaceful and blooming in the golden sunlight.