Chapter 25
I followed my companions along the tunnel, watching as they passed in and out of the shadows of the candles, sometimes glowing, sometimes disappearing. On and on we went, and as pressure seemed to build in my ears, as my sense of direction all but left me, I could feel us travelling deep into the mountain. How ancient was this place? How old was this stone? Surely it had seen the very dawn of time itself, had watched Skane transform into the land it was now.
And surely it would watch us fall, watch us die one by one, if I failed.
It was a constant battle in my mind, of trying to focus on the present and my circumstances in the moment while thoughts of the plague and the Ør and the red lights forced their way in.
On and on. Around corners, sometimes up, sometimes down, but always forward. The others seemed undaunted by the walk, as though they’d done this so many times before.
My hope died a little more with each step, until, at long last, light appeared ahead that wasn’t cast by a sconce. I willed my feet quicker, willed my body out of this wretched, never-ending tunnel, and finally, out I stepped.
A chorus of voices met me as I emerged from the darkness and into a vast, stone atrium. Walls stood all around us, so tall I could barely see the roof. It sloped inwards, upwards, a cathedral carved from stone. Up the walls, levels appeared to have been carved out, with balconies and rooms and terraces occupied by more people – all like my companions – than I’d ever seen in one place at one time. They all wore white, all looked identical to one another, and they all sang. Hundreds of voices melded together to create one large, enthralling voice that filled the giant room. Hundreds of lanterns made of stone hung from the balconies and walls, illuminating the room as if it were daytime. To the left, there seemed to be a sort of makeshift market, tables laid with an array of goods – meat, skins, leathers, baskets of winter berries, bones – and those gathered around appeared to be trading. It was a whole world in the centre of the mountain, a life, a culture I’d never known existed.
Against the wall opposite the tunnel from where we’d come, sat a throne, made from the largest bones I’ve ever seen. On it was another individual, on whose head sat two horns, carved from what looked like the same bone as the throne. Tied around his shoulders was a cloak of the purest, whitest fur I’d ever seen.
One of my companions motioned me forward, towards the throne, and I followed. Those nearby stopped their work to watch me pass. Everything about me, my manner of dress, of walking, my exposed face, was new. They stared, turning slowly to keep watching until I’d passed. Had they ever seen anyone like me before?
When we were before the throne, those who’d brought me kneeled in front of the man seated there. I looked around, unsure of whether or not to do the same. This was no king of mine, no ruler, and kneeling before him had implications, had meaning.
Submission.
Slowly, those who’d kneeled turned their heads to look at me, waiting.
I fought against it, delayed as long as I could. And yet, standing here in the heart of a mountain, on ground I didn’t know, with seemingly only one way in and out, which was guarded, I had little choice. Drawing in a breath, I turned my eyes to the ground, and I kneeled before the strange king on the throne of bones. In the edges of my vision, I saw the others look away from me, satisfied with my action, and I saw the king rise.
The voices in the large chamber died, trickling away into nothingness until silence reigned. I raised my eyes to the figure before me. I couldn’t see his eyes, or any other features on his face, but I knew he was staring at me.
Notes came from his mouth, and they were unlike the others. Deep and resonating and profoundly beautiful. They continued on for a minute or so, and when he stopped, there was silence again, as though he were waiting for me to respond.
“I … I only speak Agric.”
My heartbeats were all I could hear. He turned his head, turned that mysterious white face crowned with horns, and looked to my companions. The one closest to my right sang out a handful of notes, something I couldn’t understand, before he returned his attention to me.
“You have come from the south,” he said, his voice deep and strong.
I nodded.
“What do you seek from us?”
I made to rise, but the others were still on their knees. “I seek the Goddess,” I explained, stone digging into my knees. “My people are desperate. I’ve come to seek Her council.”
He lifted his head, as if understanding had dawned on him, and made a hand motion for us to rise. I stood quickly, my legs giving complaint. I didn’t know what to expect once we stood, but when he reached out a hand for me to take, I hesitated. He was a king, of sorts, that much was certain. We didn’t have kings in our villages. That sort of power led to corruption and misery, so I didn’t know how they behaved, or how I was meant to behave around them. Taking his hand felt wrong, unbalanced, in some way. Yet I took it, because I didn’t know what else to do.
There was a power in his touch. Like the lightning that came with storms in the warmer months, his touch was electric.
Turning, my hand still in his, we walked towards a long, carved staircase I hadn’t noticed until now, but one that seemed to wind up the entire length of the atrium and disappear somewhere high overhead. There was no railing on this stair, and the higher we climbed, up, up, up this strange room, the more my head began to swim. Still he held my hand, strong and steady and unrelenting. The voices below seemed to come alive again, a chorus of notes that bounced off the walls, echoed through the room and reached my ears multiple times, each more beautiful than the last. Would that I could sing like them, that I could add my voice to theirs, and hear it bounce back to me like it came from the mouth of the Goddess Herself.
As we reached the top stair, an open doorway met us, through which the cool night air blew in. It was rounded, detailed stone art carved around the edge. And when we passed through it, I found myself on a sort of balcony, overlooking the mountains below. Wind met my face, and at such a height, I was certain I could reach out and touch the stars.
As if reading my thoughts, he swept a hand up to the sky, singing a soft note. “The Goddess,” he said a moment later. “The queen of the island, the protector of our mountains. It is to Her that we have dedicated our life, our very existence. We draw breath in the mornings for Her, and at night, it is to Her that we sing our final prayers.”
I shifted from one foot to the other, moving my gaze from the king to the sky.
“She gives us life, breath, and She has power over the sky.”
“When you see the red lights, does something happen here, too?” The question leaped out, my curiosity eager to be satisfied.
He nodded. “Last time, there was an illness. We lost a hundred.”
It made sense. The curse of the red lights didn’t just hurt our villages, it hurt the whole island.
“She could stop it, perhaps, but She sees fit not to. We’ve asked, more than once, but She only speaks to those with whom She wishes to speak.”
Disappointment tore through me. The writing in the cave hadn’t promised that I could speak to Her, but I’d somehow let myself believe that it was a certainty. That somehow, despite my insignificance in Skane, she’d take pity on me and hear my cries. That my voice would matter.
“I must speak to Her,” I whispered, staring up at the constellation. “I’ve come all this way. I have to.” Help us, I would say, would pour all of my energy into. Help us fight. Help us know what to do. Don’t let them die.
She shone on, seemingly unaware of my thoughts. But I couldn’t help imagining the stars that formed Her mouth curving into a comforting, gentle smile. All will be well, it would say. If only. I couldn’t remember what it was like to feel comforted as I stood there, barely able to communicate with those around me, racing against time to save my people, but helpless to speed up my return.
The king stared at me. “No one speaks to Her,” he said after a moment, and any traces of warmth had vanished from his voice.
“I found writing, near my home. Someone has spoken to Her before. I have to. We cannot lose so many people again. It will destroy us.”
A moment of silence. “No one speaks to Her.”
I turned slowly to face him, and though unable to see his eyes, stared into his face for a long moment. “Why not?”
“It has long been our duty to protect Her from prying eyes, to shield Her from the many voices who seek Her council. We are charged with guarding Her temple, and honest as your intentions may be, we must also protect Her from you.”
I all but forgot how to breathe. “No,” I said. I tried to shake my head but it wouldn’t budge. “I will reach Her.”
What sounded like a gentle laugh came from his face. “Generation after generation has sought Her council,” he said, shaking his head. “Most don’t make it this far, but those who have were stopped. To our knowledge, none have reached Her temple, and none ever shall. You will not be an exception.”
I clenched my fists so hard the bones could have shattered. “You will not stop me reaching her,” I whispered, and then found my voice. “I’ve faced creatures far bigger than you on this journey and I’m still on my feet.”
“Courage is only admirable to the point that it collides with foolishness,” he said. “This is simply foolishness. We have guarded Her temple for hundreds of years, and if we do not want someone to reach Her, they will never reach Her.”
All traces of warmth and feelings of safety fled my body on the cold breeze. We stood still, me stunned to silence and he awaiting my response. I tried to form words, but my mind was a cauldron of boiling anger and denial. A broken word escaped my throat in a stutter, crumbling away the moment it touched the air. This was it: the end of the road that started all the way back in Neska, that started with Ivar and Father and Anneka and everything and everyone I loved. All that cold and horror and seemingly certain death to be turned away at Her doorstep.
Through the bubbling and simmering in my mind, words finally began to take shape. Words born of anger, passion and an unwillingness to let this be the end of the road. To let this be the answer. One after another, words surged up from my core, riding a wave of fury and fire so that it was all that I could do to keep it under control. I did battle with an Ør and came out alive. I survived the stormy plain after dark. I’m a child of the snow and wind, daughter of an island where the sky speaks, where red lights portend the end but we are forced into obedient silence. I had sea legs before I could fully walk and learned to love the stars when love at home was foreign. I am nothing if not a survivor and I will reach the Goddess if I do so with my dying breath.
But.
There were other words, quieter ones from another part of me that whispered, You are at their mercy. You are deep in the mountains, beside a king whose throne is carved from bones. You are vastly outnumbered. You will bend to their will.
I gave one slow nod, shaking from anger and frustration, but he didn’t move. Didn’t reply. He stood there, still staring at me through his wraps.
“I can see the fire in you,” he said presently, and while his voice was heavy with power, it was also tinged with admiration. “Something within you burns bright, but here in my kingdom, that will get you nowhere. We will not treat you as a prisoner if you do not give us a reason to do so.”
I couldn’t tell if it was an honest proposition or a subtle threat, but either way, I nodded again. I understood their might and power and my smallness in comparison. There was little I could do here, at their mercy in the mountains – little, but not nothing, and I planned to find out just what that little something might be, as soon as all eyes were no longer trained on me.
After our meeting, they took one more opportunity to show me just how far their power went.
A small part of me hoped I wasn’t being taken to a cell as I followed them across the large room and to the marketplace I’d noticed earlier. We crossed the large room and exited through a doorway, which opened on to a narrow staircase. It led deeper into the mountain and was barely lit, save for a candle that one of the guides carried before us. I stayed close behind, straining to see the steps in the near darkness, until at long last we reached the bottom, and another doorway. This one was closed, and the guide in the front knocked on it a handful of times, singing a few low notes. The one nearest to me turned and touched a finger to his mouth, again bidding me to be silent.
The door gently opened, a guard on the other side beckoning us through. She started at the sight of me, but the others quickly put her at ease through a brief, gentle song. When she was satisfied, she motioned for me to come through. As soon as I was, I shrank against the wall, wishing to be back out again.
A series of narrow tunnels that ran from somewhere outside the mountain opened up overhead, covered with a crosshatching of wooden bars that were far enough apart to let in the moonlight. In addition, there were a few lanterns placed here and there along the walls, but the large room was generally quite dim. Running along the centre were giant wooden structures, raised off the ground – enough for a person to pass under freely – forming rounded wooden shapes overhead. On the rounded structures were what could only be spider webs, and I looked in horror at the large, fox-sized spiders that rested in the corners of each one. They went on for ever, disappearing out of sight somewhere further down the room. One of the spiders moved, changing its position slightly, a disturbing, sticky noise coming from where its feet moved about on the web.
I could hardly breathe, hardly force my lungs to fill with air.
Three guards emerged from another door, singing softly to each other. They stopped and stared at me for a moment, then continued on towards the webs. Each of them carried a large wooden bucket filled with something that moved. They took them to the left side of the room and dumped the contents out in unison. Large bugs with a hundred legs that all writhed and crawled and tried to escape.
But not before the spiders caught sight of them. Slowly, with that sickening sound of stickiness, they made their way from their webs and towards their prey the floor, their too-large legs spreading out across the floor. Bile rose in my throat as I tried to push my body into the wall. Further down the room, other guards were also depositing buckets of crawling creatures, and more and more spiders were leaving their webs to congregate at the new feeding ground. Once they’d left, the guards moved to the wooden structures and began cutting down the webs with knives. Somehow, the strings didn’t stick to their gloves. They just passed over it like it was any other kind of rope, like the kind my father used on his ship.
A soft note pulled my attention away and I was beckoned back to the doorway. I hurried through it, thankful when it closed behind me.
Why? I was desperate to ask. Why are you farming spider webs?
The shadowed image of their large, bulky bodies and the sound of their feet sticking to the webs haunted me on the long walk out of the belly of the mountain.