The Girl and the Stars
“Will we find the Tainted wandering alone?” Quina hissed as they advanced along a long tunnel through faintly grey ice. “Because if they stay in a big group then what chance have we got?”
“I saw two,” Quell said. “Both on their own.”
“What do they even do?” rumbled Kao. “I mean, they’re crazed, yes? They don’t forge or scavenge or tend the fungi. Do they just wander around being mad?” He paused and his stomach chose the moment to growl. “What do they eat?”
“They eat the fungi from the ground, or better still they eat the rats that eat the fungi.”
“Raw?” Quina wrinkled her nose, though until her drop Yaz was sure the girl had never eaten a cooked meal.
“Raw.” Thurin nodded. “As for the rest, they stalk the Broken, looking for anyone they can steal without open conflict. But mostly they search the ice. Mining it. Melting it. Drinking it.”
Ahead of them the cavern they were crossing opened onto a much larger space and the roar of rushing water made itself known.
“Search for what?” Yaz asked.
“Once you’re tainted you don’t think to ask questions like that.” Thurin slowed as he approached the opening. “Theus tells them they’ll know when they find it. He tells them to mine the ice, bring it to the melting pools. Always digging, melting, drinking. The Tainted are full of demons, so it takes a strong new fiend to force its way into them. If they find one it normally ejects one of their weaker passengers. Sometimes, though, the tainted person’s mind breaks entirely and demons flood into them until they contain a multitude. We call those eidolons. Very dangerous. Even Theus can’t control those. They just wander off beneath the ice. Some say they find their way to the surface and haunt the world above.”
Thurin took them out into a space too large for Yaz to light. Before them a ravine ran through the rock, possibly an extension of the same cleft in the stone that the drying cave looked out over. Far below a hidden river churned the darkness, and reaching out to span the chasm was an ice bridge, ten yards long, a yard wide.
“Be watchful. The Tainted’s territory properly begins on the far side.” Thurin waved them to gather around him. “We used to maintain this bridge. I remember it being three times this wide.”
“We?” Quell asked.
“The Broken.” Thurin scowled.
“Is it safe?” Quina sounded worried.
“I doubt it’s stood here all these years waiting for you to cross it so it can collapse.” Thurin smiled. “Besides, if it’s going to break when one of us crosses it then it’s going to be for Kao not you. He weighs as much as the rest of us put together. We’ll send him first.”
“Hey!” Kao actually took a step back.
“You’ve got to cross sometime. Why not first?” Thurin stretched out a hand to wave Kao on.
The boy blanched but with all eyes on him his pride wouldn’t let him back down and he began a reluctant advance. Without saying anything Quell went after him, overtook him, and stepped out onto the fragile span of ice.
Yaz made to follow him but Thurin took her arm. “One at a time.”
She started to pull away but in the end surrendered to his logic rather than his strength. Instead she sent a beam of starlight lancing out across the chasm to interrogate the nearest of the dark tunnel mouths on the far side.
“Why don’t they guard it?” Quina asked.
“Why would they?” Thurin looked grim. “They want us to go in there.”
Kao crossed next, protesting that Quell stole his chance to properly test the bridge. Thurin followed. When Yaz’s turn came she focused on ignoring the drop to either side, so reminiscent of the pit. She wondered if there was ever an end to “down” in this world that she had for all her life explored almost entirely on one level. Did everywhere you might drop to have another fall waiting, another pit that might plunge you into a wholly new life if you survived the landing?
Quell’s hands received her almost possessively as she reached the end of the bridge. Thurin, beaten to her side by Quell, stepped back to encourage Petrick on. Yaz watched the boy’s awkward progress; his speed wouldn’t save him if he lost his balance. It seemed odd to her that either faction in the conflict, the Tainted or the Broken, suffered the existence of the bridge. It wouldn’t take a couple of gerants with hammers long to bring it crashing down. Perhaps in its way the bridge was a symbol of hope for both groups. The hope that they would prevail and claim what lay on the far side. Destroying the bridge would be an irrevocable act, an admission of failure, a statement that neither side seemed prepared to make.
* * *
“SO THE PLAN is just to wander around and hope that we bump into Zeen?” Quell directed the barbed question at Thurin, as if coming here had been his idea.
“I didn’t know we had a plan,” Thurin replied. “This is all madness. But we’re running from madness too.” He looked tired, as though sleep had evaded him for several nights, dark circles beneath his eyes.
“We’re going to find someone eventually,” Yaz said. “And if it’s not Zeen then we either don’t show ourselves—”
Petrick snorted. “We are carrying a light. Which we need. And the Tainted can see in the dark. They’ll see us long before we see them.” He set the point of his sword against the icy rock and rested his hands on the pommel. “I’ll tell you how this will go down. We’ll be advancing along and suddenly one or more of the Tainted will come howling at us out of the night. Others will hear them, and if we’re not out of there fast then we’ll have the whole lot on us. At that point being killed is the best we can hope for.”
“What in the hells are we doing here then?” asked Kao.
“It’s a good question.” Petrick twirled his sword on its point. “I just followed you. All I know is that Yaz wants her brother back and is scarily determined to do it. And since I just saw her turn Pome’s own personal priest-given hunter against him, she’s someone I want to stay close to. But marching straight in there is crazy. Unless Zeen happens to be the first of the Tainted to rush us we’ve got no chance.”
“So how did Thurin get rescued if this is all so impossible?” Quina asked.
“His mother, Arka, and some of the warriors spent a long time stalking Tainted through the margins, the edge of their territory where there are areas with just about enough light to see in. Eventually they got lucky and found him on his own. And they still didn’t manage to get clear without a fight.”
“We don’t have time for that . . .” Yaz felt the beginnings of despair. She was risking all their lives and the chances of success seemed slim to none.