Seventeen #2
his seeming indifference to the fate of the nest and his family. Did jair’oa live so much in the moment that nothing fazed
them?
I didn’t know what to say to Meeka’s question. Fortunately, Halek was there. “Well,” the Fatechaser began, “it depends. Has
something made you feel happiness or joy before? Have you ever been excited about something?”
“Meeka has been happy,” the jair’oa said. “Meeka is happy when Meeka finds treasures in buried city. Meeka happy when Meeka
makes something new, or fixes broken things. Meeka is excited when Meeka uses magic. All make Meeka happy.”
Halek nodded. “Being sad is the opposite of that feeling,” he explained.
“It’s the absence of joy or happiness. It can make you feel hollow, or empty.
It makes you want to cry, which is what humans do when they’re sad.
Sometimes, it makes you feel like nothing is right in the world, and you just want to curl up and be alone for a while.
Sometimes it makes you order the strongest d’wevryn ale they have, drink yourself into a stupor, and wake up in an alley behind the tavern with your coins missing and all your clothes gone.
” He gave a half-painful grimace. “That one probably isn’t applicable here, though. ”
“Meeka not understand last example.” The jair’oa twitched his nose. “But Meeka does feel . . . sad.” He looked at the pile
of dead grubs again, folding his ears back. “Meeka not know what to do now. How will Meeka survive World Scar lands with no
magic?”
“The same way any of us survive,” Kysa said. “By staying together and depending on each other. A lone warrior is vulnerable,
but if they have their brothers and sisters around them, they are much harder to defeat.”
Meeka blinked. “Brothers and sisters steal Meeka’s food and kick Meeka when sleep,” he said, curling his whiskers in distaste.
“And break Meeka’s things. Not fight for Meeka, either.”
“But we will,” Raithe said quietly.
I nodded. “That’s right—we all have to stick together to make it through the World Scar,” I told the jair’oa. “We’ll protect
you, even if you don’t have any magic.”
He shook his head. “Meeka remember why Meeka is here,” he said.
“Not forget yet. Was sent to help human Fateless get goddess loom. Meeka’s magic strong—stronger than other jair’oa.
Rememberers know, that is why they told Meeka to go with human creatures.
But if Meeka has no magic, Meeka cannot do anything.
” He looked at the pile of grubs and curled his whiskers.
“Meeka is like dead star grub. No magic. Good for nothing now.”
“Meeka . . .”
He started gathering up the pile of grubs, not putting them back into his satchel, but holding them in his arms. He moved
quickly, and in a few seconds, all the larvae had been scooped up.
“What are you doing, mouse?” Halek wanted to know.
“Meeka take grubs outside. Bury them.” His muzzle wrinkled in distaste. “Before grubs start melting. Turn slimy.”
“Meeka, wait,” I said as he took a hop toward the tent flaps. “Don’t go yet. It’s peak Demon Hour.”
He twitched an oversize ear at me. “Demon Hour not bother Meeka,” he said, and hopped through the flaps.
The jair’oa’s tail tuft vanished through the cloth, and I sighed. “I hope he’ll be all right.”
Beside me, Raithe smiled. “Sometimes it is the very small who are the best at surviving,” he said, with the briefest of glances
at me. “Insects, rodents, and dust sparrows will still be here when the rest of us have all faded away. I suspect he is stronger
than any of us realize.”
We reached the foot of the peaks just as Namaia was beginning to set.
Gazing up at the imposing mountain range, I shivered.
The jagged cliffs rose straight into the air and were as sharp and black as obsidian.
Pointed spines towered over us, the edges shiny and serrated, looking like you would slice yourself open if you brushed up against them.
The entire mountain range virtually bristled with menace, radiating hostility.
If I hadn’t had to be here, just seeing those peaks would’ve made me turn around and march back through the endless desert.
Overhead, the sky had changed, the eye-burning blue-white replaced with ominous black and green clouds. I had seen clouds
only a few times in my life; rain in Kovass was almost unheard of. Years could pass without a single drop falling from the
sky, and when rain did fall, it brought the whole city to a standstill, as everyone stopped whatever they were doing to witness
it.
These clouds, swirling sluggishly over the jagged peaks, looked as unnatural and threatening as the rest of the landscape.
They looked tainted, poisonous, as if any rain that fell from them would burn your skin the moment it hit.
“Well, this isn’t very welcoming, is it?” Halek craned his neck back, staring up at the peaks. “The Deathless couldn’t have
made it any clearer if they had put up signs saying ‘Enter and Die’ or ‘Turn Back Before It’s Too Late.’” He grinned. “Of
course, that only makes me infinitely more curious about what’s in there.”
“Don’t be too eager, Fatechaser,” Raithe warned. “There were thirteen original Deathless, and you’ve already seen the horrors
a single Deathless can bring to bear.” He waved a hand at the looming peaks. “Imagine what thirteen, working together for
the first and last time in history, could create.”
“Hm, that is a very good and terrifying point, iylvahn,” Halek conceded. “However, since we have to get to the World Scar
anyway, I choose to be excited about new adventures. It will keep me from being paralyzed with dread until the horrors actually
start coming for me.”
Meeka, who had been curled up on my shoulder, raised his head, whiskers twitching. “Air smells funny,” he said. “Like rotten things.”
“Oh, and the mouse is already smelling dead things. That’s lovely.”
“Not dead things.” Meeka shook his head. “Rotten things.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Is different.” Meeka pinned his ears back. “Meeka cannot explain it. Air smells rotten, but not like death.”
“It’s sulfur,” Raithe said. He gazed up the peaks, narrowing his eyes. “Or brimstone. I can catch traces of it on the wind.”
“Yes,” Kysa murmured. “That means travel is about to get much harder.”
“Why?” I asked.
Halek grimaced at me. “Because if there’s sulfur, there’s normally . . . Well, ever been to the lands of the magma walkers,
Sparrow?”
“You know I haven’t.” I frowned at him. “Before I met you and Raithe, I’d never left Kovass.”
“Ah, well. I won’t spoil it for you, then.”
We urged the beetles forward, and the open dunes were replaced with claustrophobic gullies of black.
As we passed the first jagged spine, I glanced at it and saw myself and Ratuk reflected in the dark, glassy surface, a distorted version of reality.
A shiver crawled up my back, making the hairs on my neck stand up.
We were walking into a place the Deathless had created themselves, a place where they’d intended that nothing would survive.
What would we face beyond these shards? What horrors would we encounter?
As if a terrifying spider demon, an undead jackal army, and the soul of my mentor bound into a rotting abomination weren’t horrific enough.
Overhead, the clouds swirled. I glanced up and saw a flicker of sickly green lightning as an ominous rumble filled the air,
making me shiver.
Halek also cast a worried look at the sky, wrinkling his nose at the threatening clouds. “So, ominous weather patterns aside,
where is this temple, exactly?” he wondered. “Normally, temples are easy enough to spot, presuming the Deathless didn’t bury
it or use magic to hide it from outsiders, like a certain city in the middle of a labyrinth.”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Raithe said. “The queen said the temple is in the center of the World Scar, and right now we’re just
at the border.”
“Ah, yes. The scab around the wound, I guess you could say.” Halek grinned, and I tried not to think too hard about that description.
A hot wind blew through the canyon, tugging at my hood, and he coughed. “Oh, and that must be the delightful smell Meeka was
talking about.”
I took a breath, and nearly coughed myself. The air smelled . . . rotten, just like the jair’oa had said. I remembered a time
when I had found a wild bird nest in the rafters of the guild, with two speckled eggs nestled inside. Unfortunately, they
must’ve been duds, because when I picked one up, the fragile shell had immediately burst open, spilling a foul yellow liquid
over my hands. It had smelled very much like the air did right now.
“That is definitely sulfur,” Kysa said, ignoring the coughing Fatechaser behind her. “We must be getting close.”
“Close?” Halek made an exaggerated retching noise and sat up. “Close to what?”
As if on cue, we reached the edge of a cliff, the land dropping away before us, and the reason this place was called the World
Scar became abundantly clear.
A sullen black-and-red landscape stretched before us, like an open wound on the surface of the world. Jagged obsidian spikes
rose from lakes of bubbling magma, the glowing pools covering the entire floor of the valley. There were no roads, no bridges,
no safe paths across the scarred landscape; just the obsidian spikes and broken chunks of rock lying half submerged in the
lava. The air was tinged with smoke, and white clouds of steam vented from cracks in the stones, curling into the persistent
haze. Even from where we stood, I could feel the heat radiating from the valley.
Far, far in the distance, perched on what seemed like a ridiculously thin spire rising out of the lava, a looming black temple
waited, silhouetted against the haze.
“Oh, is that all that’s out here,” Halek remarked. “A scary-looking temple in the middle of a lava-filled wasteland. Why did
the Deathless think this was going to be difficult?”
No one laughed. I drew in a slow breath, the air scratching my throat as it went down. It tasted of smoke and ash. “How are