Chapter 27
Three guards walked with me across the large room, heading for the tunnel by which we’d entered. I hesitated once to turn and take in this strange and beautiful place, this home to a people I’d never known existed until now. The king was watching me from his throne. I met his gaze for a long moment, the distance between us seeming to melt away. Nothing else existed but that wretched king, leaning back comfortably on a throne made from bones. That spark of anger evolved into a flame, but I fought to control it. Rage would do me no good here.
Perhaps I should have bowed, or offered some graceful nod in parting, but I simply turned away. This man deserved no respect, so no respect he would receive.
The tunnel closed around us. My guard – I’d heard him called Sejer – walked behind me, while the other two walked in front. I let my steps slow, fighting the urge to turn and run back, to demand access to the Goddess. My slow steps made Sejer walk closer to me, so close I could hear his breathing.
No, that wasn’t breathing. Was he whispering?
I tilted my head just enough to hear better.
“Stay close.”
My eyebrows furrowed, but I nodded. Where else did I have to go? There were three guards and me in a tunnel barely wide enough for me to extend my arms. My options were slim.
“Follow my lead.”
This time my steps faltered as I turned to look at him, which caught the attention of the other guards.
“Keep walking,” Sejer hissed loudly, pushing me forward. I got the sense it was only a display of power. One of the other guards tugged on my shoulder until I was walking forward again.
What was Sejer trying to do? And, more importantly, had I just messed it up?
I continued at my same slow pace as before, thoughts racing. Did he have some sort of plan, about which I knew nothing? The uncertainty gnawed at me, made worse with each step.
The path wound up and down. The air around us felt thick with unease and worry, and the voice telling me to hurry home with help was no longer a whisper in the back of my mind, but a roaring in my ears. It was too much, almost: the rush to get home, the disappointment of being turned away from the Goddess and the not knowing how to reach Her. Time was my greatest enemy, more so than the king or the giants, yet it was not one that I could outsmart or face in a fight.
When at last we left the tunnel, cold air lashed at my skin. A handful of other snow people stood outside, all holding those strange crossbows hung with spider thread. I took a step back at the sight of them, alarmed, and bumped into Sejer. He didn’t move away.
And neither did we. I expected us all to turn and head down the mountain, but for a long moment, no one budged. The two others who had escorted me out looked around, seemingly just as confused as I was.
Then, in a flash of movement that was over before I’d fully registered it, two crossbows shot white thread at the guards, ensnaring their hands and arms. They fell to the ground and writhed about, but the thread held fast. Their shouts fell on the deaf ears of the mountains.
“Hurry,” Sejer said, and I rushed to follow him, despite my blind confusion. Was he helping me escape? Why?
We ran up the pathway, past the tunnel entrance to a part of the mountain I’d never seen. The path grew narrower and narrower, until there couldn’t have been more than a metre or so between the face of rock and the chasm on the other side. It was a struggle to breathe, to keep my eyes forward and avoid the temptation to look at the death that waited below, but I fought against the urge. Looking down might mean losing my balance, and losing my balance would make the bone caster’s prediction about my death come to be.
And that just couldn’t happen.
I tailed Sejer up the path, until so long had passed that I couldn’t wait any longer. “Where are we going?” I asked breathlessly. His own breathing was calm, even, as though he’d been standing still for the past hour.
He paused and tilted his head, listening. When he seemed satisfied that we were alone, he said, “There’s another way to Her temple. It’s dangerous, filled with ancient guards put in place lifetimes ago to protect Her. I can’t tell how to get past most of them, because I’ve never done it, but I can tell you that in the first room there must be no light. I’m sending you with a candle, but you cannot use it until you leave that room.”
My head spun. Dizziness gripped me so intensely I vaguely feared falling over the edge of the ravine. Rooms? Lights? Ancient guards? What was down there? “I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head.
“You will,” he promised. As he spoke, he stopped walking and moved perilously close to the edge of the pathway. Peering over the edge, he pointed. “There. You’ll have to jump, but it’s the only way. The jōt can’t access it and nothing else knows it’s there.”
Jump.
I backed away until my body hit the rock wall. He turned to face me.
“It’s the only way,” he assured me. “Either you jump, or you go home, and even that might be difficult if the king finds out about those guards.”
“Why did they have to be tied?” I asked, eager to speak of anything but jumping over the edge of the cliff.
“Things are changing here,” he said. “There’s a divide happening that the king seems unaware of. He’s led us for so long and he is loyal to the Goddess to a fault, but many are straying. Many don’t want to stay or don’t agree with his ways. It’s spreading through our numbers like fire. I found a few who would help get you away, but those other two are still loyal to the king.”
“What will happen to you when they tell the king?”
He stayed silent.
“If I reach Her,” I said, then corrected, “when I reach Her, come with me. Come back to the coast and fight with us. Stand up to more than just your king.”
He looked around us, at the mountains that made me feel small, and the stars that made me feel smaller. He took in a long breath of the night air before turning back to me. “If you reach Her, Ósa,” he said, “and if my king spares me, then I will fight with you.”
A surge of happiness and spark of rebellion awoke within me, and I smiled. Somehow, it made the thought of jumping over the cliff seem just a little bit less frightening. I approached the edge slowly and peered over, finding, to my relief, that it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. There was a small ledge a few metres down that led into another tunnel. If I missed the ledge, I’d fall into the oblivion beyond, but if I was careful…
“I’ve done it before,” Sejer offered brightly. “It’s not as terrible as it looks.”
“It looks terrible,” I said, adjusting my clothing and brushing hair out of my face.
Holding Sejer’s hand for support, I gently lowered myself until I was sitting on the ledge, my feet dangling in empty space. The cold air in my lungs helped at least a little to counteract the nausea rising in my stomach.
“Take this,” Sejer said, tucking a candle into the pocket of my cloak, along with a flint and a knife – the one Móri had sent with me. “Remember what I said.”
“Don’t light it until I leave the first room,” I repeated.
Sounds of shouting echoed up the mountain. Sejer stiffened. “Go now,” he said, gently patting my shoulder. “Hurry. If they catch you a second time, the only way you’ll enter Her temple will be dead.”
My muscles tensed at the thought. “Thank you, for everything,” I said quickly, looking into his wrapped face. The movement made me dizzy, sitting so close to the edge, but I wanted him to see my sincerity.
“You are welcome,” he said, and it sounded like he was smiling. “Now. Jump.”
I took in a long breath and stared at the ledge. It was now or never. For a brief second, just as I’d done in the giants’ den, I let Ivar’s face hang in my vision, his dark blue eyes and tawny hair comforting my terrified mind. It was almost as if he were here, readying to jump with me. With him, nothing seemed quite so awful. With him, the sun seemed to shine a little bit brighter.
I’d never thought it before, never really opened up my heart and mind to the idea, but suddenly, sitting there on the edge of the cliff in the frozen mountain air, a surge of yearning and want hit me like the tide. I want him to kiss me, I thought, a sob just barely hidden beneath my surface. Kiss me like the world is ablaze around us and we’re all that’s left. It was a foolish thought to have at such a time, but at long last, it was a relief to entertain it. If we still drew breath when all this was over, I’d make sure that he knew.
“Hurry,” Sejer whispered behind me.
Breathing in once more to steady myself, I pushed off from the ledge.
I’d jumped out of trees before or off low cliffs into the snow, but that was nothing compared to this. My stomach seemed to come loose from my body, racking me with a sort of intense but fleeting sickness as I plunged through darkness – and then my feet hit the rock below. I landed hard, stumbling forward as my arms pinwheeled through the air. I was perilously close to the edge, to the abyss of nothing, but I fought to anchor my feet to the ground, to find my balance just like I’d had to do a hundred times before on my father’s boat.
When all of the movement and dizziness stopped, I caught my breath and turned to look up. Sejer was watching me from above.
“Well done!” came the sharp whisper.
“Thank you!” I clasped my hands together in a show of gratitude.
He nodded and turned to leave, then whirled back. “Ósa!” he said quickly. “In the second room, silence.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, but he had gone.
Silence.
It didn’t make sense right now, but perhaps in the moment it would. I made a mental note of it and entered the darkness of the tunnel.
Very quickly, it became so complete that I might as well have had my eyes closed at midnight. He’d warned me to use no light in the room, but he hadn’t said anything about the tunnel. Was this the room? I suspected not, as it was open to the air where I’d entered, which could invite natural light during the day.
Carefully, I struck the flint and lit the candle, keeping my hand cupped around the flame. The tunnel was very narrow, the stone walls close around me, but a few metres ahead, it changed. The pathway gave way to stairs that descended into darkness. It was the only way to go, so I took them.
Down, down, down. Hundreds upon hundreds of stairs led me down into the mountain, so far I wondered how I could breathe. Every time I thought I could see the end, they continued onwards. I slipped once, my heel just missing the edge of the step where it had crumbled off, and I fell backwards until I was sitting. My back and thighs stung where they’d struck the rock, but I didn’t cry out. I didn’t know what might hear me in the depths of the mountain, and the silence all around me was enough to choke out any sounds I might have released.
I rose, gingerly finding my footing again, and pressed on. At the bottom of the staircase was a wooden door. It was so old, layered with dust and cobwebs and clearly never used – or rarely. It also bore a crude locking system similar to the one we used back home: two curved holders on either side of the door, in which rested a sturdy board. Someone attempting to open it from the other side would have to push against the board, and by the looks of it, they’d have to be stronger than the average person. Certainly stronger than I was.
Jōt, I suspected. The door was too short for them to get through, but something told me that this was the line between territories.
I lifted the board and laid it quietly to one side of the door, then cracked it open. Just as I was about to go through, I suddenly remember Sejer’s words – and blew out the candle. Sudden panic claimed me as the realization struck that I was far underground, in foreign tunnels that harboured something a locked door kept out, in absolute darkness. I reached forward, utterly blind and shaking, but it met with only empty air.
I moved into the cavernous, frigid room. Room didn’t feel like the right word, though it was so dark that it must have been enclosed. I could feel the size sprawling out around me, and I kept my steps slow and steady, my blindness making it difficult to proceed. I lifted my free hand to my face and was met with only more darkness. Here, there was absolutely no light. It wasn’t like those nights with no moon or stars when somehow the snow still seemed to glow. The complete blackness seemed to affect my other senses, even the tiniest of sounds reaching my ears like a roar. My footfalls bounced around me, making it sound like I wasn’t the only one in the room. They multiplied and grew fainter and fainter until they disappeared, and others took their place.
Hair rose on my arms beneath my layers as I hurried to whatever lay ahead.
Coldness.
An intense chill caressed my right arm and I stopped. If there was no light in here, there were no windows or pathways leading outside, which meant that there shouldn’t be any sort of air movement. Yet this kind of cold was unmistakable. Frightened, I opened my mouth to say something, but stopped myself. If there was something in here, the last thing I wanted was to alert it to my presence. What kind of thing lives in darkness, in the belly of a mountain?
I began to count the steps as I walked, entirely blind to space and direction. At twenty steps since I started counting, another coldness brushed the back of my neck. A faint gasp lodged in my throat, and my hand tightened around the extinguished candle. Everything in my body was telling me to scream. Something was in here, something frozen and dark and old.
A faint sound reached my ears. It was vague, weak, as if it had come from far away. It wasn’t a whisper, and it wasn’t a laugh. I didn’t seem to have the words to describe it, like it simply didn’t exist in my language. The longer I focused on it, as it faded in and out of my senses, I almost managed to convince myself that I was hearing thoughts. Hearing the mind of someone I couldn’t see. And while they weren’t defined words, they seemed to leave an impression.
Darkness.
Death.
Cold.
A distinct sense of doom settled into my very being, and in that moment, I would have given anything to simply curl up on the floor and close my eyes, waiting for it to be over. I pulled away from the coldness, but the sensation was unrelenting. Terror sparked to life within me, soon transforming itself into a blazing inferno of blind fear and trepidation. Breathing was a struggle, my steps were painful. Loneliness so heavy, so real and crushing, seemed to course through my veins. I wanted to run. Wanted to scream and cry to release the pain in my heart, but I was forced to carry on. One foot in front of the other. I continued counting the steps, breathing in and out to ignore another wave of chill that passed over my whole body.
At one hundred and seventy-eight, I reached a wall, bumping into it gently. Running a hand along the stone, I walked back and forth until I came to another door. This one also had a board, though on the inside. I lifted it quietly, moved it to one side, and slipped through. I collapsed to the ground, panting as if I’d spent the past ten minutes suffocating. I couldn’t understand what I’d just been through, what sort of cold things had been brushing against my skin, tormenting my mind. I could only lie there, catching my breath and shaking, until I was calm enough to light the candle once more.
The flame offered little comfort.
I wound through a shadowed labyrinth. I moved as quickly as I dared through such unfamiliar territory, urged on by my desire to be out of the bowels of the mountains, but too afraid to run into the arms of another unseen terror. Now and then I convinced myself I heard sounds, but I saw nothing. In the dim light, shadows rolled across stalagmites and dank archways. The water – for it wasn’t frozen – and the warm air didn’t sit right with me. My body had already adjusted for the winter, having left the warmer months long behind me. Such an atmosphere felt out of place, unsettling.
Before me sprawled a cavernous tunnel, or perhaps it was another room, unevenly formed, but so long I could only see a metre or so in front of me at a time. The light from my candle barely penetrated such utter darkness. I made to walk forward, to continue this bizarre and frightful journey to the Goddess, but the sound of my footsteps made me stop.
Silence.
Sejer’s words came back to me. I was alone in the room, or at least so it seemed from the emptiness haunting the limited visibility I had. Yet there had been a sort of desperation in his words for me to be quiet. He’d meant it, with everything he had.
I walked forward, but slowly. My footsteps were achingly careful, but wholly silent. My ears couldn’t pick up even the slightest patter on the ground, and each successful step was a relief. Quiet. I repeated the word to myself over and over again, careful to make each step as silent as the last one. If Sejer’s words and my experience in that first dark room were any indication, I was certainly not alone in this room.