Ever (17 page)

KEZI

S
OMETIMES I HAVE TO
crouch to continue down the stairs. Sometimes the tunnel ceiling is so high that I can't see it, not even when I raise my branch, which glows steadily. The air is cool and wet and sad. I feel I am breathing in and out sadness.

The steps are uneven. I slide my palm along the wall for balance. Keeping from falling takes most of my concentration, which may be why this realization is so slow to come: I don't know how long I've been in the tunnel. Down here there is no difference between day and night. I won't be able to count the days until my sacrifice.

But I must! I stop. My time is so precious. I have to
know how much is left.

Even if I lose my chance at immortality?

Maybe. I can't think in this gloom. Carefully, I turn and try to climb back, but I can't lift my foot. It will not obey me.

Down is possible, if not easy. Up is impossible.

I begin to count the steps as a way of keeping time. Slow and cautious as each one is, five steps may fill a minute. Ten steps. Twenty-five. One hundred. Six hundred. Two hours, more or less.

One thousand steps. My legs ache. I'm hungry and thirsty again. The stairs never end. I sink down to rest but drag myself to my feet immediately. While I'm idle, there is no way to mark the time. I try to picture the blue sky, Olus's face, my home in Hyte. But the images belong to the upper air.

Two thousand steps. Above, night must have fallen. My twenty-fifth day is over. Admat, or any god who is listening, let me reach Wadir. Let me find Admat. Let me return to light and Olus.

OLUS

F
IVE FEET.

Four feet.

I shriek, “Stop!” and stop pacing.

For a moment I'm bewildered, not sure what I've been doing. The water has risen to my thighs. It's night again. I've passed what I believe is Kezi's twenty-fifth day down here.

I lift Kudiya to make one more attempt at carrying him out. We fall and land splashing. His eyes are all whites. I prop him up so his head will stay above the water as long as possible. I begin to climb alone.

It is easier than I expect. I think the well has tipped, giving me a slope, not a vertical. Betraying Kudiya and Kezi makes everything possible.

After I emerge I will go straight to Enshi Rock and join the gods who sleep away the millennia. I won't see Ke
zi's sacrifice or tell her good-bye or say I didn't love her enough.

I am weeping, pitying her and me.

Mostly me.

I pause, feeling supremely foolish. She'll die and Kudiya will die. I'll lose her and sleep out my own life because of fear.

I drop back down, a vertical fall again. Kudiya may die, and so may Kezi. I may sleep away eternity. But I'll stay with him until he takes his last breath.

His head is tilted back, floating as though no body were attached. I hold him up.

If I had something in addition to my knife . . . I look at the rising water where the balled-up spiderwebbing—

I grab a clump. The webbing is still sticky. I spread the mass across the fingers of my right hand. I grip a rock and can hold on despite the wet.

Am I now stuck to the rock? No. I'm able to let go. I plaster spider glue across my palms and fingers and on the undersides of my feet. It adheres even in the water. I drape Kudiya over my shoulder, where he hangs limp.

I can climb! The spider glue never fails. Soon I'll feel my winds again.

We've risen about eight feet. Above, the night sky has
grown from a coin to plate.

I hear a rumble, like thunder, but this thunder is in the ground.

Hannu!

The rocks tremble.

I climb frantically. We have only a few yards to go.

The rocks dance in place.

I find new handholds, new footholds. We're almost there.

The rumble grows. The rocks slide sideways. But we're out. My strong wind lifts us above the heaving earth.

Now I have to find someone who can save Kudiya or make his dying comfortable. I command my swift wind to take us to the nearby hamlet.

But Kudiya evaporates from my arms. The ground continues to buck, then levels. The well is gone, replaced by a rock-filled basin. Next to the basin is a rubble of wood and thatch, a collapsed hut. On the ground between the two, Puru appears.

KEZI

T
HE LIGHT CHANGES
so gradually that I fail to notice Puru's branch dimming and the tunnel brightening.

Three thousand steps. I lose my balance and tumble the final three, landing on my side. My fall is cushioned somehow. Still, I've made a lively arrival among the dead.

I sneeze. Gray feathers billow around me. When I stand, they're ankle deep, like ghostly fallen leaves. I brush them off and am relieved that touching them hasn't made any sprout from my skin. Puru's branch lies next to my foot, no longer glowing. I pick it up, but the light doesn't return. It's just a branch. I drop it.

By my reckoning, I was in the tunnel for ten hours. Twenty-four full days more until my sacrifice. I begin to count off seconds. One-and-two-and . . .

The chilly air stinks of decay. Glistening lava bubbles
drift overhead from left to right under a rock ceiling.

Twelve-and-thirteen-and . . .

The bubbles give out a muddy light. I turn in a circle but can see only a few yards into the gloom.

Twenty-six-twenty-seven . . .

When I complete my circle, the stairway is gone. I spin around, expecting to see it somewhere, maybe gliding away from me. But it's vanished.

I was unable to climb anyway. I swallow across my parched throat.

Thirty-two-thirty-three . . .

I will search for Admat while ignoring thirst and hunger. If I find him, I will do as he wishes.

If I don't find him, I will pluck a feather from a warki. First I must meet a warki.

Forty-five-forty-six . . .

“Argenbblahemme.” The voice is in the middle range, neither high nor low. A creature shuffles toward me. I suppose it is a warki. It holds a clay goblet.

The warki is no skeleton. It's plump as an ostrich, with feathers but without wings.

“Kloddaffflunghwhi.”

“I seek a god called Admat, although he may have another name here.”

“Plijjaffinminn.”

The warki's feathers are short and gray, like those that blanket the ground. Stripped of them, it might look human. I can't tell whether it's male or female. Its feet may be webbed, taloned, or toed. They're hidden in the carpet of feathers.

It edges closer, holding the goblet out to me.

Puru says I should pluck a feather. But the feather may whisk me away, and I want to look for Admat.

I see the warki's eyes under its feathered eyebrows and between its tiny feathery lashes. Even the skin on its face is downy. It has utterly human brown eyes. Their expression is bewildered and pleading, although its mouth smiles.

The eyes awaken my pity. “How did you die? When?”

“Opoijmb.” It pushes the goblet under my nose.

The liquid is violet colored. It may have an aroma, but I can't tell through the stinking air. The beverage looks poisonous, and Puru said I mustn't drink. Still, I'm so thirsty that I'm tempted. I reach out and pull my arm back—and realize I've stopped counting seconds. Losing count is worse than the tunnel, worse than the sad air or the chill or the smell.

“Phndosxvtghy?”

Blinking away tears, I go around the warki and follow the floating lava bubbles. I hope they'll lead me away from the volcano and farther into Wadir. The feathers on the ground
shish-shish
as I pass. The warki with the goblet
shish-shish
es behind me.

My stomach rumbles. I see more warkis ahead, dining at a long rickety table. A narrow brook of sparkling violet liquid separates me from them. I try to jump across, but I slip on the feathers and land with my face inches above the stream. If I put out my tongue, I can catch the spray and relieve my thirst. What harm could a few drops do?