Chapter 5
Beyond the Red Gate, the night was utterly still.
Artair paused for a moment, breathing in the cold air.
He hadn’t stood on these stones in five years, not since they had brought him to the Golden Tower, and that had been a bright day, full of cheery sunshine that had made the misery in his heart all the worse.
In front of him now was the whole world, with no gates holding him back.
He thought he’d never been more frightened in his life, not even when Chessun’s throat had been opened by an arrow while he held his friend’s shoulders.
He took a few steps down the mountain path, pausing to adjust the unfamiliar weight of the long bow on his back.
Before leaving the Golden Tower, he had crept into the places that had previously been forbidden to him: the armoury, the rooms of the monks charged with watching the Sleepless, the Abbot’s quarters.
From the latter, he had taken all the coin he could find, loading the money into a sturdy looking pack he’d found in Brother Benzin’s closet.
He had no idea what he would find on the road to Prideful Leap, but he knew he would need coin to survive.
He’d taken some food from the stores too, although it had made him wary.
It was said that the monsters of the Jih Forest could smell such things from leagues away, and would hunt you down for it.
The path that wound down the mountain was well maintained by the Brothers and Sisters, and despite the darkness of the night, the stones under his feet seemed to drink up what little starlight there was, making it easy enough to follow.
Eventually, the tops of the trees came up to meet him and the path curled away towards the north, towards Addersport, and the dark maw of the forest awaited him to the south.
A single step into the darkness was all it would take, and he would be in the realm of the monsters.
Unhelpfully, he remembered the scent of wild beast that had accompanied Mother Maura’s magic, a scent that summoned thoughts of teeth and claws.
Here and now, in this moment, I am safe, I am alive , he told himself. The Other that lurks within me is contained.
He retrieved the small travel lamp from his pack—another item scavenged from Brother Benzin’s rooms—and lit it.
Part of him insisted that carrying a light was a fast way to get found and eaten by a monster, but the thought of blundering around in the dark, groping like a blind man towards a broken ankle or a snapped neck, caused a rising panic that even his mantra couldn’t banish.
No, he would have to walk in the light, at least until the sun rose.
‘Here and now, in this moment, I am safe.’
Artair stepped off the path and into the Jih Forest. The trees rose up all around him, ancient and tall, the light of the oil lamp seeping into the deep creases of their bark, falling softly on the bulbous shapes of fungus that clustered on trunks and under branches.
There was a rich green scent that almost made him feel dizzy, and he had the sudden thought that the ground underneath him was dense with life—this was a living place, a world that existed and thrived without the need of human presence or thought.
There could be dozens of eyes watching me right now , he thought, and I would have no idea.
Still, there was a map to follow, and a job to do.
He pulled the piece of parchment Maura had given him from his pack and held it up to the lamp.
In his previous life, he had been good at reading and understanding maps—all his people had been.
Moving around the landscape had been an integral part of their lives, until…
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Here and now, in this moment, I am safe. The Other is contained.
And that was a small mercy, he thought, as he put the map away and headed deeper into the Jih Forest. It was late, and he was already exhausted, yet sleep felt a thousand leagues away.
Elver opened her eyes onto a thick blanket of near-dark.
The greyish light that filtered through the small window of her hut told her that it wasn’t quite dawn, yet something—some noise or movement—had woken her up.
She lay for a moment in her kartesh-fur blankets, the familiar shapes of her belongings crowded around her in the cramped space: the collection of chipped cups and bowls, the chair she had made from a wooden crate that had been left on the road, the sword she had taken off the traveller.
Had it been a noise that had woken her up? Or something more subtle?
She lifted her head, and there it was: a golden, flickering light that moved across her window, painting the back of the hut in glitter, before vanishing again.
She knew what that was.
Outside the hut, the night sky was fat with stars even as the horizon to the east pinked at the edges.
The lake was as still as a mirror, although there were no stars reflected in it: instead, the flat surface was as black as ink, a darkness that looked like a hole in the world, and within it, a long golden shape twisted and curled in on itself.
‘I’m here,’ said Elver.
The Queen of Serpents glided through the water towards the girl, her long narrow head breaking the surface of the water without causing a single ripple. She turned her head and opened her jaws. Row upon row of serrated golden fangs glittered wetly.
Child.
Elver waited. It wasn’t that unusual for the Queen of Serpents to visit her, but a visit before the sun had risen suggested some flavour of urgency that was.
There is a trespasser in the forest, child.
‘The traveller?’ Elver cursed herself silently.
She shouldn’t have trusted the slowjorn to take the woman to the road.
She should have taken her herself, regardless of how uncomfortable she found human company.
Or, better yet, she should have just killed her and left her carcass for her jih friends.
‘I’m sorry, I thought I’d dealt with her.
I can find her again, and this time I’ll make sure she’s gone. ’
No , said the Queen of Serpents. This is a new face, and he has thievery in his heart and a bow on his back. Blood will be spilled in the dawn light, child.
‘If that’s what you want.’ Elver thought of her knife, and then the sword.
The great golden serpent rose up further out of the lake. Her head was adorned with whiskers and horns as fine as glass, glowing with their own inner light.
I made you and I brought you here to be the guardian of my for est, poison child , she said. If something is taken from here, I expect you to retrieve it. Do you understand?
‘I… yeah. I understand.’ Although she didn’t, not really. ‘Do you mean if something is taken out of the Jih Forest I have to… leave? And go after it?’
When you fell into my domain, and I pierced your flesh with my teeth, I tasted a little of your destiny, child. And it has finally arrived for you.
‘My destiny? What are you talking about?’ Elver took a step forward. The sun had crested over the eastern portion of the forest, turning the tops of the trees silver and orange. ‘I can’t leave the forest. This is my home.’
If this thief steals from the forest, you will retrieve what was stolen. And bring it back before the next egg-moon. That is your task, poison child.
‘You’re a god .’ Elver wouldn’t normally be so blunt with the Queen of Serpents, but the thought of leaving the Jih Forest, of venturing into human territory, was pushing her feelings to the surface. ‘Why do you need me to do this?’
The glistening coils of the god’s body tensed and swirled under the black water. She was becoming irate.
You expect me to scurry after a human like a beggar? To drag myself landwards on some errand?
‘Fine.’ Elver pushed a hand through her white hair, making it stand up on end, then shrugged.
‘That’s fine. I’ll find this intruder before he leaves, and I’ll make sure he’s in no fit state to steal from us again.
I’ll just get to him before he’s gone, and then I won’t have to leave the forest. Where is he heading? Do you know?’
The Queen of Serpents didn’t answer immediately. In the lake, the long coils of her body turned and slid through the water silently, and Elver imagined her reaching out across the forest, touching each body of water with her mind as she searched.
He is heading towards the keltraxia nests in the south , she said eventually. The thief is close to taking what he wants, Elver.
‘Then I’ll go now.’ Elver turned her back on the serpent, already calculating how long it would take her to reach the nests—too long, she thought, and that wasn’t good. ‘I’ll stop him.’ The face of the traveller rose in her mind. ‘Permanently,’ she added.
One more thing, child. Elver glanced over her shoulder to see the Queen of Serpents watching her closely. Beware of the Faceless One. His priests will not tolerate our kind, out in the wider world.