The Cradle of Ice (Moonfall #2)

Chapter 49

49

K ANTHE STOOD IN the hold of the Quisl . The space was windowless and dark, but Malgard let its presence be known. Its heat had turned the ship into an oven. The sulfurous stench of geysers and bubbling clay fouled the air, its reek underlaid by a coppery, sickening taste that sat on the tongue like a dead toad.

If inhaling these fumes were necessary to induce visions, then I’d rather be blind.

Still, at least that was all that penetrated the ship. The clouds of lycheens remained outside, swirling in the steamy air. Kanthe swore he could hear the soft hissing of their poisonous frills brushing the hull and deck.

He stared across at the others in the group, those who would be venturing out into Malgard. To his left, Frell whispered with Pratik. To his right, Cassta held two dark torches—as they all did. Saekl had insisted one of the Rhysians accompany them, though it was unclear whether Cassta was there to protect them or to have some stake in what might be discovered. Likewise, Llyra had ordered a trio of her men to join them. They did not look happy—then again, her men seldom did.

The last member of the party lit his torch. The sudden brightness was momentarily blinding. Rami stalked along the line, passing his flame to their torches.

“Why two torches each?” Frell asked.

“You’ll soon wish it was three, ” Rami answered. Still, the prince demonstrated, swinging one of his torches high, the other low. “Watch not just the skies around you, but also the ground at your feet. It’s the lycheens perched on rocks or hidden behind boulders that often ambush you.”

Kanthe squinted at the flames of his torch. “And the fire will hold them at bay?”

Rami scowled. “Their glowing bells are full of lifting gasses, not unlike what fills our ship’s balloon. The gasses inside the lycheens are also equally combustible. So, while the creatures thrive in the steamy heat—riding updrafts of hot air or living in scalding water—they fear the touch of a flame.”

“You’ve dealt with them before?” Pratik asked.

“Only once. As a boy, when I accompanied my father to Qazen. And we encountered only a small cloud of them at the edge of Malgard, one easily driven away.” Rami waved a torch toward the hold’s hatch. “Nothing like what we’ll face outside.”

It was because of Rami’s knowledge and experience that Frell had asked him to come along. There was no telling what other dangers or challenges awaited them, threats that the Klashean prince might best know how to handle. Rami had consulted briefly with his sister before agreeing to join them.

Aalia would remain aboard the ketch with Llyra and her men—both to keep the young woman protected and as hostage to Rami’s continued good faith.

With a sour expression, Rami reached up and used a free finger to drop the drape of a byor-ga coif over his face. “Stay covered,” he warned them. “Though a lycheen ’s frill can burn through fabric, it takes time. When possible, use your gloved fingers to peel them off. And be quick about it.”

“Can their frills damage our balloon?” Cassta asked, looking up.

“Possibly, but the lycheens notoriously avoid a ship’s gasbag. It’s believed they can smell and recognize the balloon’s lifting gasses. It’s theorized that they mistake our gasbags to be one of their own kind.”

“A gargantuan one,” Kanthe muttered. “No wonder they stay back.”

Rami cast him a withering look. “Enough questions. We go now or not at all.”

They all quickly covered their faces and slung dark lanterns across their backs.

The prince went down the line one last time, checking that leggings were tucked into boots and shirts under belts. Finally, he nodded. “Let’s proceed.”

They all crossed to a side hatch, where a thick-shouldered ruffian stood beside a steel crank. Another man held two torches of his own. At their approach, the one beside the crank grunted and started wheeling the door outward.

As soon as the hatch cracked open, a fringe of probing frills wafted and wormed inside. Rami and the other torchbearer waved flames across them and drove them back, burning several frills into charred curls.

“Be quick!” the man at the wheel hollered, cranking even faster. “I’m not holding this open longer than I have to.”

The hatch dropped quickly toward the ground. Even before it was halfway open, the group pounded across its planks, led by Rami. They waved torches overhead and jumped off the end of the door to the rocky clay.

As they crossed toward the cliffs, Kanthe breathed heavily, sucking the coif’s fabric into his mouth and spitting it out again. The air burned with each breath. The oppressive heat tried to hammer him to his knees. The stench cloyed and gagged his throat.

Kanthe held his torch aloft.

Lycheens fled from their combined flames, tucking in their frills.

Steps ahead, Frell stabbed his fiery brand into the air. One of the creatures had dropped toward his head, spinning its drape of poisonous threads. His torch struck the underside of its undulating bell.

The reaction was immediate and dramatic.

The lycheen caught the flames in its gullet, flashed brighter, then exploded.

Fiery bits flew everywhere. A few struck Kanthe. Gasping, he swatted and used the stump of his torch to knock the pieces off of him. A burn ignited at his shoulder, near his neck. He twisted, trying to identify the source.

“Hold still!” Cassta yelled. “I’ve got you.”

She rushed to his side, lifted a torch, and plucked a long frill from under the edge of his headgear and tossed it away.

Rami scolded Frell, “Be careful! Attempt to ward them off but not ignite them!”

Now he tells us.

As they forged ahead, Kanthe wondered if they shouldn’t have asked a few more questions before leaving the ship.

Or at least paid Rami more heed.

One of Llyra’s men, Rikard, flanked alongside on the left. He rounded a boulder, paying more attention to the skies than his feet. He ran into a lycheen sprawled behind the rock.

Frills exploded around him, enshrouding the man to the height of his shoulders. Tendrils smoked and writhed, burning through fabric. A few must have slithered up a trouser leg, where a hem had slipped free from its boot. Rikard bellowed in pain, flailing wildly. He dropped his torch. It landed atop the lycheen at his feet.

The creature blasted apart under him, throwing Rikard back. His clothes caught the erupting flames. Panicked, he rolled to smother them. Or maybe he was trying to escape the pain. He lost his other torch. His headgear got knocked loose.

Kanthe struggled to rush toward him, his feet slipping on the steam-slick clay.

Cassta tossed aside one of her torches and lunged at Kanthe. She grabbed his arm and yanked him back. “Too late.”

A score of lycheens fell out of the sky, dropping like a glimmering shroud over Rikard. One landed on his exposed face, muffling his scream. His body bucked and writhed within the frills’ fiery embrace.

Cassta drew Kanthe away. “We must keep going.”

The others realized the same and set off for the cliffs, chased by Rikard’s stifled cries. Kanthe kept close to Cassta, who hooked her arm around his waist, defending him with her one torch, while he waved his two.

Kanthe recognized the truth in Rami’s earlier words.

Three torches were far better than two.

As they ran, the clouds of lycheens fell back, either drawn by the prey behind them or simply deterred by their collection of flames. The waning threat allowed Kanthe and the others to reach the pile of boulders at the foot of the cliff.

Still, they didn’t slow. They squeezed and climbed their way through the rubble and reached the fractured fissure that cut into the cliff. They rushed into its welcoming darkness, shining their torches all about, pushing back the shadows, searching for any new threat. They clambered deeper until their desperate panting subsided enough for them to catch their breath.

“Hold here!” Rami called out, drawing them to a stop. “The lycheens won’t pursue us. They shun the darkness, preferring their watery lairs or open air.”

The group obeyed him.

“Smother your torches, too,” he ordered. “Leave them here. We need to conserve their fuel for the return to the ketch. We’ll continue onward with our lanterns.”

Kanthe rolled the end of his torch in the tunnel’s silt to douse its flame. The others followed suit and stacked the brands against one wall. They all pulled aside their byor-ga coifs but kept their headgear in place.

Once everyone had unslung their lanterns, Rami used his torch to light them. Afterward, he kept his torch lit and in hand.

Frell noted this with a raised brow.

“Just in case,” Rami said.

Kanthe lifted his lantern and searched down the throat of the tunnel. Cassta did the same. Sadly, she no longer needed to hook her arm around his waist. He rubbed where her hand had rested.

The remaining two of Llyra’s men stared the other way, toward the entrance. In unison, they lifted two fingers to their lips, then pointed them high, a salute to their fallen friend. The two brothers were Jester and Mead, neither of which could possibly be their given names, only monikers they had somehow earned.

“Where now?” Rami asked.

Pratik motioned ahead. “We’ll see where this leads. And pray the life we lost was not for naught.”

With those grim words, they set off into the dark depths.

A N INTERMINABLE TIME later, Frell struggled to solve the dilemma before them. They had clambered, climbed, crawled, and waded their way through the fissure, delving ever deeper—only to reach a difficult crossroad.

Frell lifted his lantern higher, as if that would offer better clarity.

Two tunnels forked ahead. They both dove downward, offering no clue to which way—if either—might lead to their buried Sleeper.

“Perhaps we should split our forces,” Pratik suggested.

“Feck that,” Mead grumbled, swiping his wet brow. He looked to his brother for agreement. “Right?”

The two were Guld’guhlian—like Llyra—only this pair had the more typical stocky bowleggedness of their people. Their noses were matching knobs of gristle from old breaks.

Jester considered his brother’s question and merely shrugged.

Kanthe, though, bolstered Mead’s position with far more vigor. “We stick together. We must.”

Frell weighed their options. Haste or caution? The wiser path forward was to proceed slowly, exploring each tunnel painstakingly and mapping their path along. Or there was Pratik’s option. Splitting up and exploring both simultaneously. It would expedite their search, but it would be riskier.

He looked around the group. They stood in torn, silt-caked clothes, all soaked to their waists. Their bodies were scraped, bruised, and bloodied. Their faces streamed with sweat. Their breath panted in the foul air.

The one who seemed least affected stepped forward.

Cassta lifted a palm. Her skin shone with perspiration, and a gash in her brow wept blood into an eye, which she wiped away with the heel of her other hand. “Hold here. Let me assess something first.”

She set off for one of the tunnels. Kanthe followed, but she waved him off. “Prince Kanthe, you reek far too much to be close to me.”

Crestfallen, Kanthe retreated to the group, sniffing at his clothes.

Frell watched her cross a fair way down one tunnel—then she stopped and raised her lantern. Basked in its glow, she lifted her face. With her eyes closed, she turned four slow circles. Afterward, she returned and did the same pirouette down the other tunnel.

When she joined them again, her face was thoughtful, her head cocked to one side. She pointed to the left tunnel. “We should go that way.”

“Why?” Kanthe asked.

“I’ve noted a slight whiff in the air. Not of damp rock or wet silt. And certainly not the ubiquitous sulfur. It has a bitter quality to it, like burnt oil. Or maybe the taint of a strange alchymical.” She gave a small shake of her head. “No matter, it strikes me as unnatural to this place.”

Frell lifted his nose, inhaling deeply. The others did the same. They shared looks, but from their confused expressions, no one else sensed the same.

“Are you sure, lass?” Jester asked. “You might just be smelling my brother. His gaseous emissions are just as unnatural to this world.”

Mead jabbed an elbow into his brother’s ribs. “Like you cast roses out your arse.”

Frell nodded to Cassta. “With no way of evaluating otherwise, we might as well follow your lead.”

“Or her nose, to be more precise,” Kanthe muttered, sniffing again at his body.

As they set off, Frell realized why Cassta—with the sharper senses of a Rhysian—had asked Kanthe to keep away from her. “You do smell ripe,” Frell told the prince as he passed.

Rami agreed. “Like a dead boar that’s been rotting in the sun.”

Kanthe shook his head and followed. “Like you all smell any better.”

As they forged ahead, the path grew ever more treacherous. The walls squeezed closer. The roof dropped in jagged shards. One tunnel was so flooded that it required swimming through it, holding their lanterns high.

Along the way, more paths diverged, requiring Cassta’s keen senses to guide them onward. Still, after a time, even Frell could smell that bitterness in the air. He also noted that the tunnels had gotten progressively colder, as if they were leaving the volatile lands of Malgard behind and entering an older, more stable region.

Pratik shivered next to him. “We can’t continue forever. Not without proper provisions and gear.”

Frell could not disagree. They had been traveling for over two bells now—though the passage of time was difficult to judge down here.

And we still must climb back out, too.

Even if they turned around now, it would be near to morning when they reached the surface.

This worry weighed on his shoulders. He wondered if they should head back up and come down better prepared. Then a shout rose from where Cassta had taken the lead, flanked by Rami and Kanthe. The three had kept moving steadily, fueled by the bottomless well of strength that only the young possessed.

“Come up here!” Kanthe called back.

Frell and Pratik headed his way, trailed by the Guld’guhlian brothers. Kanthe and the others had stopped at the top of a steep rise in the tunnel. Frell climbed up, sometimes dropping to a hand to keep going. When he reached the top, he was wheezing hard. He straightened with a sharp twinge in his lower back.

Past the rise, the tunnel dropped into a large cavern. The bottom held a small lake, which reflected their light like a mirror. As they all stared down, those waters below began to tremble, then the ground underfoot. A low rum ble spread, as if a great beast were warning them away—but it was no subterranean dragon.

“Quake,” Frell gasped out as the small tremblor subsided.

They all shared worried looks. Not just about the threat of moonfall. They were all buried far underground. If any of the tunnels should collapse, they’d be lost forever.

“We should not stay down here any longer than necessary,” Frell warned, and turned to Kanthe. “What had you so excited a moment ago?”

Kanthe frowned, searching below. “With everyone gathered now, there’s too much light. We need to shutter our lanterns.”

Curious, Frell pulled the dampers over his light. The others did the same, even Rami doused his torch. As darkness collapsed upon their group, Frell blinked several times, trying to get his eyes to adjust, but he remained blind.

“I still don’t understand,” Frell said.

“Look beyond the lake,” Kanthe whispered. “On the other side of the cave.”

He squinted—then saw it, too. A vague blue glow winked out in the darkness, waxing and waning. The light washed in waves over the still waters below.

“Something’s definitely over there,” Pratik said.

Kanthe nodded. “Must be the Sleeper.”

“Or some other threat. We’d best proceed with caution.” Frell lifted the shutters from his lantern. Despite his urging of restraint, excitement and anticipation pushed back his weariness and concern. He headed down into the cavern, leading the way. “Watch your footing. The slope is slick.”

He picked his way down, only to have Kanthe, Cassta, and Rami go sliding past him, their arms out for balance, skating smoothly down the wet rock. They reached the bottom while Frell was barely a quarter of the way down.

“Wait there!” he called to them.

Frell and Pratik took care, while the Guld’guhlian brothers slid on their backsides to join Kanthe’s group. Once together again, they rounded the edge of the lake and closed in on the area of the glow.

As they neared it, the source became clear. A huge copper egg lay half imbedded in the wall. Two curved doors were parted and lifted high, like a pair of metal wings. The light came from inside, pulsing with the regularity of a heartbeat. The bitter tang in the air grew strong, nearly stinging.

They all drew to a stop.

“It’s just like Rhaif described,” Kanthe extolled with awe.

“Not entirely,” Frell said. “According to his story of Shiya’s discovery, her copper shell had appeared to be torn open. Ruptured and burnt at the edges. As if something had gone awry with her awakening, possibly damaging her in the process. Whereas this looks intact.”

Kanthe started forward.

“Proceed with caution,” Frell warned everyone. “We don’t know what to expect if we try to waken the Sleeper buried here.”

They moved together, shoulder to shoulder. The glow grew brighter as they reached the winged doorway. Frell had to shade his eyes when that light waxed to its fullest.

Kanthe shifted ahead, reaching the threshold first—then stumbled back with a gasp. He grabbed Frell’s arm, frantic, too shocked to speak.

Worried, Frell broke free of his grasp and pushed forward. The others crowded at his shoulders. He stared at what that blue glow illuminated.

“It can’t be…” Frell moaned.

Pratik shook his head in disbelief.

The brothers swore loudly.

Ahead of them, the inside of the egg was in ruins. Glass piping had been shattered into shards across the floor, stuck in pools of dried alchymicals. Copper tanks had been dented to scrap. Even the shell’s inner walls hung crookedly.

At the back, a tall crystal cradle—like the crib where Rhaif had first spotted Shiya—lay sideways across the far wall, its lower half crushed to pieces.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

The damaged cradle was empty —and the reason lay at their feet.

Sprawled amidst the wreckage was a charred bronze body. That of a man. His head had been caved in, his limbs torn from his torso. Even his chest had been hammered deep in several spots.

“The Sleeper…” Frell gasped out with despair. “It’s been destroyed.”