Mirron's next scream was lost in the roar of water over rock echoing from the walls that surrounded her; getting closer and closer. Behind her in the bow of the front boat, Jhered had one hand clamped around her waist while his other, like Mirron's, gripped the ropes running along the inside of the gunwale.
She'd tried keeping her head as low as she could but something inside her made her look ahead at what was coming. She didn't know why. Once they had dropped below the tunnel mouth, the darkness had closed in so completely that she knew they would never emerge. They'd plummeted, or so it had felt, into the bowels of the earth. The sides of the boat had shuddered and rumbled. She had caught the odd snatch of a shout and felt the vibrations of the fending poles against walls she could not see.
But slowly, slowly, the world had resolved into looming shadows and grasping, stabbing rock spikes. They had hurtled along the river course at a speed she could sense but didn't want to. The energy trails in the water were fleet beneath them and the knowledge took her breath away. She had been unable to stop the scream when the faint energy of vegetation on the wet rock faces gave dreadful light to her journey.
In front of her, the river bucked and frothed, splashing high up the walls no more than her body's length from the boats at any time.
Above, the tunnel roof was lower than Jhered's height and she could imagine the Exchequer having to crouch low to avoid losing his head. The rock was smoothed where the water ran day by day but above the flow the face was jagged and uneven.
She shrieked and ducked hard. A rock spear lurched out of the roof as they turned a hard left and dove further into the depths of the mountain. Her vision blurred. Water frothed and splashed across her face. Jhered grabbed her harder.
The boat bucked wildly. Harban banged his fender into the left wall to jog them past an eddy that would otherwise drag them onto a razor-sharp face just above the gunwale. Mirron's heart thrashed in her chest. Her stomach turned and she was sick. Again. She needed Ossacer to settle her body but he was a long, long way away, safe in Estorr. And she needed Arducius to tell her the risk was worthwhile.
But as fast as she tried to concentrate on those she loved, another jolt and ripple in the flimsy floor beneath her legs brought her back to her hideous reality. Her ears were full of the roar of water, and her mind with the scattered energies of her shivering body. She felt the fenders rattling against the roof again. They slewed left and sheared past a rock protruding from the river, bleak and menacing.
The timbre of the water changed. The echoing of the river seemed to dull. There was a faint glow growing. Her heart leapt. Surely they were coming to the end. How long they had been travelling she couldn't gauge. Not long but forever. The fenders thudded again into the left hand wall and drove them right. The biting water dragged them down and spat them up. The boat bounced along the surface twice and, quite without warning, the rock ceiling was gone.
So was the river below.
Mirron's scream was joined by those of Jhered and Harkov. For a fleeting moment, the boat hung in the air. And then it fell. Mirron's stomach flipped. There was light around her but she couldn't focus. There was the feeling of great space but she couldn't tell why. The moment was less than the beat of her heart but it hung in the void of her mind.
The boat slapped down onto water once more. Wash fled away to either side and they rocked and settled. It was a while before Mirron realised they were on flat calm and had stopped moving. She sat down hard in the bottom of the boat and let the relief flood over her. Jhered leaned forward and kissed her cheek. The Karku were laughing. The soldiers in the stern were silent.
'Did you enjoy that?' asked Harban. 'The ride of your life?'
'It seemed to last for the whole of it,' said Jhered.
Mirron had a sudden thought and turned to look back the way they had come. Sounds and images were crowding her mind now she was able to think again. They were in an immense cavern. About twenty yards behind, water tumbled from a hole in the wall about five feet from the surface of the lake on which they sat. The Karku had shipped the fenders and dragged out the oars. Already, they were moving away.
As she watched, she sensed a growing presence in the tunnel. A mass of chaotic energy. The second boat punched out of the hole. The cavern echoed with the shouts of Ascendancy guard who ducked reflexively. The Karku steersmen sat still and calm, their fenders high above their heads. Mirron followed the boat as it fell to the water. The occupants sagged much as she had done, the Karku reaching for the oars to move them away and onwards.
'Are you all right, Mirron?' asked Jhered.
'Sort of,' she replied.
Mirron tried to take it all in. The light came from two sources. A greenish, pulsing luminescence from the lichen that covered the rock everywhere she looked, even up to the roof fifty or sixty feet above her. It reflected the light from a host of lanterns set on what she assumed was an island at the centre of the lake.
Now she looked more closely, she could see pathways etched into the cavern's walls and began to understand where the rest of the guard would be travelling. There were other rivers emptying into the lake. Some almost level with its surface, others from so high they reminded her of Genastro Falls in Westfallen. She smiled at the memory. There were other Karku here too. Other boats rowing to and from the island which was some hundreds of yards from them and to which they were steering.
'How big is it?' asked Jhered.
'The lake is three miles across at its broadest. We have entered in the narrows,' said Harban. 'Beyond the island the lake goes on and on it will seem. It's why we call it in your language, the Eternal Water. The first who came here thought it genuinely endless.' Harban pointed around the walls. 'Every settlement in Kark has its path here, whether by boat or on foot. Many join together well before they reach here of course or the roof would look like a sponge.' He laughed at his own joke.
'I think I'd have preferred to walk,' said Mirron.
They rowed quickly across the calm lake and beached on the island, the other boats crunching in by them soon after. The party of Estoreans jumped gratefully to the shore where they stood and looked at one another as if unable to believe they had all survived the trip. Harban was talking to someone and a crowd was gathering. Mirron didn't like the tension she could feel on the air. So many glances cast at them and then at the paths and openings all around them in the vast cavern. She knew what they were thinking. Many gaps to plug. Only one Ascendant. Should Gorian and the dead reach here, they had precious little defence.
The island was curious. It was covered in fine sand and was almost completely flat. At its edges had been built wooden jetties and at its centre, a single stone building had been raised. It looked ancient. It wasn't painted, unlike so much of the building they had seen in the village. On closer inspection, though, its faces were covered in inscriptions. Not a single scrap of rock was free of the language she assumed was Karku and that looked like so much meaningless squiggle.
They were all drawn to it. The building was about five times her height and very broad at its base, covering easily a hundred yards on a side. It was a pyramid of five steps crowned with a single central block on which burned a bright yellow fire. Light flickered from within and she could hear low murmuring.
'No closer,' warned Harban. 'It is forbidden.'
'What is it?' asked Mirron.
'It is the passage from child to maturity,' said Harban. 'What do you mean?' asked Jhered. He was squinting up at the inscribed walls.
Harban exchanged a few words with the Katku who appeared to be guarding or administering the building. They were dressed in plain grey trousers and shirts over which they wore fur waistcoats tied with leather. All had shaven heads and feet and wore a dark stone makeup on their faces. It occurred to Mirron that they must be freezing. There was no warmth in the cavern. The water was ice cold and there was a chill breeze circulating.
Eventually, Harban waved them towards him and he'walked away back in the direction of the boats. He was smiling.
'It seems you are most blessed. Further even than I dared assume, even accepting the reasons for your presence here.'
'Why?' asked Harkov.
'Because I am allowed to tell you the reason for this place and the ceremony that you can hear but cannot see.' His expression changed, his eyes glistened. 'It will also explain what it is that Gorian wants to take from here.
Every Karku must take this journey to achieve maturity and be assumed into their tribe.'
'Every Karku comes here?' Mirron looked around. 'It must be strange.'
'Not so,' said Harban. 'They are schooled for it at an early age. There is so much they must learn in so few years. And that is in addition to the knowledge they need just to live in our dangerous land. Too many who do not listen are never found.'
Harban stopped speaking for a while and his face bore an expression of such tragedy that Mirron felt tears coming to her own eyes. Whatever it was, it was personal.
'What is it? What's wrong?' she asked.
'No matter. It is a tale for another day. Perhaps.'
'Tell us about the journey,' said Harkov. 'Where does it begin?'
Harban nodded his thanks.
'At the child's home village. When they are ready, when they have passed thirteen years under the lords of the sky and the light, they must walk inside the mountain and learn the dark for the first time.'
'Or in your case, float down the rapids,' said Mirron.
'Oh no. They walk alone into the mouth of the mountain and are delivered from it into the Eternal Water. Only those with solely dry paths here may walk and they are few and dangerous as your people will testify.'
Mirron looked back to the cascade and screwed up her face. 'They can't do that, Harban. No offence, of course. But they would be killed, wouldn't they?'
Harban smiled. 'To you of course, it must seem a crime to force them to swim the darkness, or walk the narrows. But there are ways. And a single child alone can seek holds on rock that five in a boat can never see. We are one with the mountain. We are born to understand it and in return it provides for us. Not just minerals, but the paths of survival.'
'But some are hurt, surely,' said Jhered.
Harban nodded. Sorrow crossed his
face. 'And when one is not yet
ready or worthy, the mountain reclaims them. But they must try.' 'A rite of passage,' said Mirron. 'We have nothing like this.' Harban shrugged. 'You are not Karku.'
'When they reach here, they come to the shrine and speak the inscriptions of Inthen-Gor.' He was pointing at the markings on the building. 'All of them.'
'Presumably pacing r
ound the pyramid and reading as they rise up its levels,' said Harkov, nodding.
'They may refresh themselves by doing so but to be granted onward travel to their maturity, they must recite them all from memory within the shrine.'
'All
of them?' Every eye was on the building. 'How can they possibly remember them all?'
Harban laughed. 'We do not just teach them how to hold on to smooth rock when they grow. All their language and learning is here. The inscriptions are what guide all our lives. They bring to us all that we see, hear, touch, smell and taste.'
'And there is someone to listen to them, I presume,' said Jhered. 'Check accuracy.'
'There is no higher office in Kark.'
'What happens if they get it wrong?' asked Mirron.
'Then they walk the walls until they are confident once more,' said Harban. 'It is not uncommon. The ceremony is long and difficult. Children are nervous.'
'I'll bet they are,' said Jhered. 'So what would happen if a child rebelled, refused to come here?'
'It can never be,' said Harban, voice quiet. 'Not to walk the path breaks the circle between Karku and mountain. On the walls the inscriptions tell that the mountains would shiver and fall and all Karku would be lost in fire from the earth and the sky. Wind would scour our land to desert and everything we were would become dust.'
Jhered spoke into the awed silence that fell amongst the Estoreans. 'You can see how your words and your beliefs have touched us all. And we are honoured beyond mere speech that you have chosen to bring us here and tell us what you have. But I remain confused. What is it that Gorian can take from here that is so catastrophic?'
'The words a child speaks give strength to the mountain. They feed it. But spoken words are nothing if no one stands to hear and accept them. Gorian wants the Gor-Karkulas. People you would call guardians, I think. They are the guardians of our scriptures and the Heart of the Mountain. They are those blessed with senses beyond those of normal Karku.' Mirron watched Harban's face. It took on the look of a man recalling a warm memory. 'There are six. Young, energetic. At the height of their mental powers with memories so sharp no errant syllable of scripture would escape them. If the Karku had names for gods, these six would bear those names while they guarded our faith, history and destiny.'