Maybe Lord Tesseract Vidarian Rulorat is not so noble as he wants everyone to believe.
“She makes you angry,” Ariadel offered, rescuing him from repeating things he didn't want to voice. He realized she was trying to understand, had striven to accept the existence of something she had always been told-by people she trusted-was impossible.
Vidarian nodded. And now that they were discussing the goddess riding in his brain-“Thalnarra,” he said, sweating again as he forced his voice to a controlled tone. “You and Endera knew about the Starhunter. Why hide it from everyone else? From Ariadel, from me?”
Altair clicked his beak in disapproval, a sound like bone cracking that made the horses jump again as it echoed. But Thalnarra's voice was nonchalant. // Mysteries and layers of the priestesshood, you'll have to ask Endera, not me. Gryphons have known of the Starhunter since she was locked behind the gate. //
“But gryphons mistrust humans with a great deal of knowledge,” Ariadel argued, and the bitterness in her voice refuted any reply before it could be spoken. Thalnarra gave none.
They descended the cave trail in silence, the gryphons’ spheres of light racing forward and back to light their way.
Hours were difficult to count down here, as they had been above, and the slow spirals of the trail added to the hypnotic lull. Vidarian would have walked directly into the sudden wall that loomed up in front of them, his thoughts far from his body, were it not for Arikaree's rough squawk of warning.
This set of stone doors, like the walls around them, were sandstone, the slate having been left behind long ago. The gryphons’ colored lights cast everything in a dull orange hue, but the rock itself was a dull yellow, thick with dust that obscured the detailed carvings that covered every inch of the doors’ surface. But the sinuous path that they described could be little else.
“A dragon's spine,” Ariadel said, reaching out to brush dust from the door. It gave way in a powdery flutter that made her cough, baring an intricately carved scale like that of a giant fish.
The rubies and sapphires had been humming in Vidarian's mind, and as he brought them from their pouches at his waist, they flared so brightly that he nearly dropped them. Ariadel shielded her eyes beside him, and he squinted as he raised them to the doors.
He drew his hands back as if burned when a shudder rippled through the stone, but it came from the doors only, and so, after a quick look back at the gryphons for agreement, he touched the stones together again. A triangle of energy loomed up before his senses: earth from the doors, earth from all around them, fire and water from the rubies and sapphires. “It needs air,” he realized, and reached for the crystal whistle at his neck-
// Fool, you'll kill us all, using that down here, // Altair hissed, and Vidarian tried to mask how the gryphon's warning stung. He dropped his hand, and Altair added his own energy to the pattern on the door.
That's four, but you need one more… the Starhunter whispered. Vidarian's stomach dropped-
And the doors opened.
They stood and watched the opening, breathless, but in spite of the infusion of magic needed to open the passage, there was no revelation beyond the threshold-only another trail, this one leading upward. The horses didn't balk this time, and seemed only too pleased to begin climbing rather than descending.
The path up to the surface was shallow and broad; the spiraling path beyond the spine must have brought them down from much of what they'd climbed over the past many days. At long last, they stepped into sunlight- not the bone-rattling cold of the everstorm, but long-missed sunlight, streaming down from a vaulting blue sky. Trees, vivid green and lush, lined the edges of the clearing at the cave's entrance. Pockets of snow dotted the ground and the trees, giving evidence that they hadn't entirely escaped the weather, but for now, at least, the sky was clear.
They waited until everyone had emerged from the cave to attack.
Feluhim screamed-no gentle warning, this, but a shriek of total herbivore terror that rattled Vidarian to his bones. Wolves-creatures he had read of but never seen-poured out of the forest from all sides of the clearing, lunging toward them.
Thalnarra and Altair loosed battle cries in answer to the horses’ screams of fear, and leaped over them, taking to the air just long enough to flare their wings and dive upon the wolves. Arikaree, no raptor, reached out with his senses, an arm of water so strong and pure that it stunned Vidarian to see-and then he plunged it into the nearest wolf, extinguishing the flame at its heart without so much as slowing down. The wolf dropped, dead, and its companions wailed in grief and fury.
The wolves split immediately into groups, most harrowing the two gryphons that reared and slashed, while pairs of them darted in toward the horses and humans. Vidarian's sword sang from its sheath, marking a deadly arc in the air that gave them pause, and as he fed it with his mind, it incandesced, a flowing flame that rushed hungrily for their life-energies. Behind Ariadel, Ruby moved to draw her sword also, and managed it, though not without a grunt of pain.
A strange whisper, wordless or incoherent, a language Vidarian couldn't understand, rippled through the wolves, and he shook his head, sure it was an illusion.
Oh, how interesting, the Starhunter observed, and in his mind she was casually eating while they battled for their lives, something that filled his head with the scent of melted butter. They weren't like this when I was here before.
He snarled at her, in thought only, but fear and curiosity beneath it made him wonder what part of this could be new to a goddess. And what were these things?
The more they whispered, the more he thought he could almost understand them, and even as another wolf leapt into his blade, only to be impaled at the shoulder, words with their lunges came clear: Ours, ours! Ours, curseyou. Curseyou! Ariadel lifted her hands beside him, and the next wolf that leapt up to take advantage of his bound sword cried out in agony as its fur burst into flame.
One of the verali had collapsed under a pile of wolves and lay thrashing on the ground, but at least ten dead wolves joined it in repose, and suddenly the rest decided with one mind to abandon the fight. They turned and fled into the woods, yelping, howling, their minds whispering those strange mad epithets.
Abruptly all was silent in the clearing, save for their labored breath. The fallen verali was now quite thoroughly dead and still.
Thalnarra lowered her great head to scrape blood from her beak on a patch of snow. She left a vivid red smear across the slush, and when she lifted her head again to look at Vidarian her beak glittered wet-black. // I don't like to kill them. // In the hearth-warmth of her voice was a thread of guilt and unhappiness like fouled meat. // They're thinking creatures, intelligent, // she said, giving an agitated shake of her neck-feathers.
// But they wouldn't listen, // Altair said, a deep sadness in his voice that cut like ice. // Our languages have drifted. //
“You know what these are?” Vidarian said, moving to one of the wolves to clean his blade on its pelt, then thinking better of it and using snow instead.
// Sightwolves, // Thalnarra said, lifting her head to look back at the cliff that loomed behind them, and the Windsmouth beyond it. // We're on the other side now. //
Though exhausted to the bone from the trek through the mountains followed by the sightwolf onslaught, they couldn't bear to sleep in the clearing, littered as it was with blood. Aided by the gryphons’ massive claws, they were able to dig a trench for the dead wolves and lone verali, then trek into the forest. According to Ilisia's maps, these woods formed an arc around the edge of the mountains, and at their far side was a stone outpost, centuries old, but it should be strong enough to house the horses and verali for a few days.
The horses, smelling wolf, first refused to enter the forest, and had to be persuaded by growls from the impatient gryphons. There had been little meat through the snowy mountains, and Vidarian knew that Thalnarra would have far preferred to eat the beasts than herd them, but he'd convinced her that they were needed for the return journey. He found his eyes lingering on the gryphons’ beaks and claws with renewed respect; it was one thing to realize in the abstract what they were capable of, and another entirely to have its evidence now burned into his memory.
Their shadowed trek beneath the trees-ancient, brooding conifers of a type he'd never seen before-was an insensate exhaustion blur punctuated by flashes of eyes in the dark. Some of these, he was sure, were figments of the imagination, anxiety-constructs-but some, he was equally sure, were not.
The forest's shadows had deepened toward true night when they finally emerged from the other side. A cool wind brought the scent of fresh water to their noses, and the blue twilight spilling across verdant hills rolling before them had a strange, tranquil loveliness. The hills flattened in the southern distance into a great plain, while the mountains curved to the west, ending distantly in what appeared to be coastal cliffs. And here at the edge of the forest, to their great relief, was the promised outpost: a small house of stacked stone, much neglected, and a sounder stone barn. With so many trees nearby it was odd that the barn wasn't made of wood, but they didn't question the small blessing: if it had been, it would certainly have deteriorated beyond use long before their arrival.
Even the gryphons’ steps were faltering by the time they unloaded the verali. They arranged themselves in front of the stone barn to sleep while Vidarian, Ariadel, and Ruby unrolled their bedding in the space between. The night forest behind them was alive with the howls and yelps of a wild place's survival dance, and as sleep took them, Vidarian tried to remind himself that nothing here could be foolish enough to attack a sleeping gryphon.
In the morning, Ariadel didn't rise with the sun as she had every day that Vidarian had known her-brief though that time might be. Vidarian rose quietly, trying not to wake her, and found his way to the nearby river for the first morning wash he'd had in some time that hadn't involved snow. The water was cold, but restored him to full wakefulness, along with awareness of a number of stretched and sore muscles.
Ruby had risen before him, and crouched beside a fire she'd made by the river, tending a kettle. She was scrutinizing the metal pot so intently that she jumped when Vidarian laid a hand on her shoulder.
A flash of irritation followed her embarrassment at having been surprised, and she answered the question in his eyes hotly. “The temperature has to be precise,” she said.
“Your exclusive kava?” he said. “Better not let any tyros such as myself near it.”
“It's really no fault of mine that you have a peasant's palate,” she huffed.
“I'm just glad to see you're feeling better,” he replied. Sincerity was one of the few ways to defuse her ire.
Ruby eyed him, but stretched the arm closest to her injury, showing a greater range of movement than she'd had a few days ago. His comment had the desired effect: it mollified her enough to share the kava. He coaxed a few fat fish out of the river with water magic and cooked them with fire while she brewed the bark-be damned if this whole Tesseract business wasn't going to have some silver lining-and they made a very decent camp breakfast of it.
When Ariadel didn't rise by the time the gryphons returned from their morning hunt-nearly too fat to fly, Altair accused the other two; they'd taken two medium-sized deer-Vidarian started to worry, and went to rouse her.
The kitten, which had ridden for most of the journey in its more portable spider form, slept curled across her neck, as if huddled there for warmth. But when Vidarian moved to touch Ariadel's shoulder, he was taken aback by the worried intelligence in the creature's very awake and alert eyes. It knows, the Starhunter said softly. She'd been silent since the wolf attack, and seemed strangely thoughtful now. My creatures know things.
Ariadel's face and hands were both pale, and Vidarian rejected his immediate fear, but it refused to subside entirely. He'd seen this kind of pallor before, in his childhood….
It's what's inside her, the Starhunter whispered, warring against itself. Wind meets hammer!
Vidarian's stomach dropped. “No…” he whispered. But his new senses showed her accusation to be true. If he closed his eyes, her dominant fire nature rose up before him-but beneath it, in her blood, twined the energies of her parents: implacable earth and volatile wind, now turned against each other. He realized, with an echo of the terrible fear that had haunted his childhood, how the visiting priestess had known with a single look the nature of the disease that took his brothers.
Ask her, the Starhunter insisted, with a callous titter, if she has any brothers or sisters.
But he knew the answer.