The Stars Askew (36 page)

Onward they marched, climbing ever higher until the wan light of dawn claimed the eastern sky. Armand was happy that the pains in his back and legs had much improved. The walking apparently helped settle them down. The snow was still patchy here, but ahead, Armand spied the pass that led farther into the mountains. There it might lay thicker, though he hoped the weather would warm once more and melt it away. It was strange that something so clean and beautiful could invoke such dread.

He had been in the Etolian range several times as a child. His father had taken him to visit the ruins of the ancient villas, destroyed during the war between Aya and Alerion. Armand's father had been an amateur archaeologist, and they had scoured the remnants, sifting through the debris between shattered and crumbling walls, occasionally uncovering fragments of ancient machinery, tiny and complex latticework from mechanical apparatuses whose function had long ago been lost. Those days seemed so far away now, from another life.

To the north lay the Site, the wastelands in the Keos Pass. To the east and south the Etolian range gave way to the foothills surrounding Caeli-Amur. Directly east, somewhere in the rocky crags, stood the Needles, spikes of rock jutting from the earth, some close together, others standing like lone sentries. Perched on their tops were the Eyries of the Augurers.

Armand considered this for a moment, and an exciting new possibility flashed before him. House officiates had sometimes made the pilgrimage to the Eyries, where they would enter the Augurers' Embrace and see the future. They saw flashes of coming events. They glimpsed the birth of children and deaths of parents. They discovered conspiracies set into motion by best friends and sudden acts of generosity by enemies. They perceived horrific assassination attempts and secret and torrid affairs. They foresaw the answers to questions that had not yet been asked. They saw themselves grown old and wise or bent and broken. When they returned, the officiates could set that knowledge to work in their favor. Yet stories abounded about the darker consequences of the embrace. Some were driven mad by the knowledge. Others felt their ambitions leach from them.

If Armand could reach the Augurers, he would be able to experience the Embrace himself. His visions of the future might prove a decisive weapon when he returned to Varenis. All it required was to buy the Augurers' favor.

But the thought of the vast and craggy peaks ahead drove fear into his heart—it was a mad plan that could lead to their deaths. Where, then, were they headed?

Armand glanced at Irik and stopped. The man's face was a sickly green, his eyes a noxious yellow. He had been in the infirmary for a reason.

“It's time to rest,” said Armand.

“When we reach the pass.” Irik looked up at the gap between the mountains.

Armand nodded. “If you need to stop, you must tell me. We can't have you collapsing.”

Irik didn't reply. Perhaps he hadn't the strength.

When they entered the pass, Irik crumpled to the ground. They rested a moment, and Armand searched through their bags again. The barbarians had packed dried dinner paste in little packets. He passed one of the pouches to Irik. “Eat.”

Irik shook his head.

“Eat, or I'll make you eat the way an adult does a child. You're an oppositionist, after all,” said Armand.

Irik grinned weakly and took the pouch, forced a few mouthfuls down. Armand scooped the paste out and ate ravenously. The sun's rays struck them, and though it didn't give them much heat, it cheered them up a little. Then Armand stood up and looked back toward the valley. In the distance, the camp was visible, a series of tiny dots near to the horizon.

“How did you get here, Irik?” said Armand, as much to himself as to the other man.

Irik took a deep breath. His voice was contemplative and quiet. “My father worked in the Directorate—a petty bureaucrat, never likely to rise too high. It's a burden, you know, living a life of middling privilege while all around you are injustices. My early life was one of ease. I attended the best gymnasium, an entire building near the Plaza of the Sun. The elite of Varenis, they worship wealth. For them, greed is good. It is an ideology that colors their entire worldview. They literally don't see the poor, don't see injustice. For them, everyone is responsible for their position in life. They talk of investment and return. I saw that above me, and I couldn't live that life. It repelled me—the hypocrisy, the self-centeredness.”

Armand realized now why Irik was cultured and kind, not like one of the rough worker-seditionists of Caeli-Amur. “So, you had better tell me why we're heading east, don't you think?”

Irik crossed his arms against the cold. “As a child, I dreamed of the ancient lands. Regularly I ran to the Directorate's library and spent hours poring over the classical maps. I loved to see the blank spaces surrounding Teeming Cities, and wondered what might exist there. But also I loved to imagine visiting the Augurers in their rocky spires. Several of the maps showed ancient roads cutting through these mountains to the Needles in the west. They must pass somewhere around here. We simply have to find the roads. It's the only way we can escape. The barbarians will be caught, you realize.”

“Yes, I know.” Armand looked out at the spectacular mountains surrounding them, their peaks of ice and rock, the wisps of clouds that moved quickly above them. This plan to cross the mountains relied on one essential thing: that the snows hold off. Should a strong winter storm fall upon them, they would surely be lost. Armand's eyes roved down to the forested slopes and the valley below. Armand took a sharp breath. Farther down the valley, four figures marched toward them. Too big to be humans, tridents held in one hand, the figures moved with rapid certainty.

He looked down at the ill man, then back at the figures. For a moment he thought he saw a fifth, smaller figure, moving in front of a copse of gold-leafed trees.

“How far behind are they?” Irik asked.

“We should get moving,” said Armand. He felt stiff and cold when he stood. He pressed his inner arm against his stomach and held it there like a bottle of hot water. He couldn't bear to tell Irik about it.

*   *   *

Later in the afternoon, Armand and Irik crossed the ice-cold and fast-flowing river in the hope that it would throw off their pursuers. At other times, they doubled back along their trail and took another path. Perhaps these tactics helped, for they did not see the Cyclopses again. But as evening came, they again reached a pass that afforded a survey of the valley behind. Between the now-sparse copses of trees, Armand spied the Cyclopses. The creatures were closer still. He despaired, for if the brutes caught up, they would have no chance against them.

They camped that night among the pine trees. So far they had been blessed. It had not snowed again, though the night was dreadfully cold. The two of them huddled together in the warmth. Armand wrapped his arms around the other man, felt his hot and shallow breath on his skin. This man should rightly be his enemy, yet here they were, the two of them, each other's only support. The thought of Irik's death filled Armand with a deep-felt grief that settled in his stomach like a stone.

The next day they kept a lookout for the mountain goats that wandered along the mountain tracks. Armand managed to bring one down with an arrow. He killed the struggling thing with the wooden spike, but the affair was messy and distressing. Irik helped as much as he could, but he seemed sicker and weaker than before. He found it difficult to hold his food down, though he continued uncomplainingly. They cut meat from the goat and placed it in the empty pouches that had held the scavenged paste. When they continued, Armand wondered if they'd live to regret leaving the bulk of the goat behind.

The pass narrowed, and they followed a mountain goat track. Patches of snow lay in the shaded areas. Armand briefly looked back from a craggy lookout to the base of the track. The Cyclopses were closer still, but now there were only three instead of four. Anxiety rushed through Armand. Was the fourth somewhere close? He looked across at Irik's wan and sickly face. The oppositionist would not last much longer at this pace.

Later in the day they spied a snow leopard perched on a rock face of one of the mountains. Its wonderfully long and thick tail hung like a rope from the ledge. Its gray-blue stripes would camouflage it when the snow set in. The majestic creature looked down at them with intelligent sky-blue eyes.

“When we find the roads, we'll continue on to the Needles,” Armand said. “I mean to go to the Augurers, to foresee the future.”

“They say foreseeing is the most elusive of things,” said Irik. “No one knows the truth of it. It's a cipher no one can unravel. What could you seek to learn?”

“I must return to Varenis. There are things that must be done.” Armand weighed his next words carefully. “You should come with me. It will be a difficult road that leads through the wastelands of the Keos Pass, but I will protect you.”

“No one can protect anyone in Varenis,” said Irik. “It's not that kind of city. I will go to Caeli-Amur to join the seditionists.”

Armand held Irik closer, felt the man's warmth. “You know the seditionists have no future.”

“We don't fight only for a future,” said Irik. “We fight also for the present, because one must. If you see injustice in the world and you don't act, what are you? You're already dead.”

“But stability, principles, honor, and respect—these are the things that bring peace and happiness,” said Armand. “Everyone should know their place.”

“Did these principles bring you peace and happiness?” Irik challenged Armand.

“You can be quite a brat, you know.” Armand clenched his teeth. The man was infuriating.

“And you're quite the pompous arse,” Irik spat out.

For a moment there was silence. Irik elbowed Armand in the ribs, and in an instant the two of them broke out giggling. Armand wondered how long it had been since he'd laughed.

“This is the closest to happiness I've felt,” said Armand.

“In the ice, under a rough blanket with a mortal enemy—
that's
the closest you've come to happiness?” said Irik. “I'll remember to stay away from you, then.”

Again they laughed, and the laughter seemed to feed on itself until Armand said, “Stop it. My stomach hurts.”

When they had calmed down, Irik said. “It must just be my fever, but your arm seems unusually warm.”

“It's your imagination,” lied Armand.

Soon afterward, Irik broke into a feverish shudder. His teeth chattered, yet he was sweaty and shaking. Armand wrapped his arms around the oppositionist until they both fell asleep under the silent trees.

The next day, the terrain became rough and rugged. High in the mountains, the fast-flowing streams cut through stony plains, and the going became tough. Snow capped the peaks around them, but the plain itself was like some strange desert, great round pebbles smoothed by some unknown process, as if they marched on an ancient riverbed.

Several times Irik fell; each time it took greater effort for him to get back on his feet. Sweat poured from the man; his face was gaunt, drained; his fever ravaged him.

At midday, when they stopped to rest, Irik lay on his back, his bag beside him. He looked up at Armand. “Go on without me.”

“Never.” Armand sat beside the man, put his hand on the other man's chest. “The Cyclopses will find you, and if they don't kill you, they'll return you to the camp.”

“Armand, I thank you for your kindnesses. I never expected to live long, in any case. An oppositionist rarely does.”

Armand threw his bag to the ground. “No!”

“Go. Go on.”

Armand collapsed on his back beside Irik. Above them the sky was cobalt blue, vast. He felt he might cry. Sitting up, he picked up the bow and looked at it for a moment. It was primitive, but the barbarians had fashioned it well. He nocked an arrow. “I'll wait with you, then.”

“Then you'll die too,” said Irik. “There's no way you can fight one Cyclops, let alone four.”

“Maybe I can cut them down with the bow.”

“They have slingshots. They're trained. Are you?”

Armand looked back up at the sky. He spied a spear-bird circling far above. Even at its height, it was an ominous sight.
Oh no,
he thought. The spear-bird had seen them and would enter its death spiral before too long, the terrifying gyre he'd seen often in the hills around Caeli-Amur, as the birds picked off lone sheep or wild horses. The worst thing was to try to run, for then the spear-birds would break from their death spiral and glide at terrifying speed, leading with their razor-sharp beaks—deadly spikes on which to impale their prey.

Armand glanced at Irik, began to look up again, but then saw, perhaps a mile away, three Cyclops coming over the stony plane toward them. One had broken into a run and was now ahead of the others. They had seen Armand and Irik and would not let them escape now.

Irik smiled weakly at Armand. “I'm a bit better now. I'll be ready in a moment.”

“It's too late for running.” Armand gestured to the spear-bird above.

Irik looked up, stared at the bird impassively. “So it is.”

At that moment the spear-bird entered its death spiral. Armand watched in wonder as the bird circled high above, making elongated, elliptical movements. But the bird was not in quite the right location. Its gyre was slightly askew.

“It's not us! It's not coming for us!” Armand yelled.

The spear-bird came down, winding faster and faster, a terrifying flight, its leathery wings like those of the gliders that hung over Caeli-Amur. In that instant the first Cyclops, who was far ahead of the others, stopped, looked up, and, realizing the danger he was in, pulled his slingshot from his belt.

“Now,” said Armand. “Let's go!”