Chapter 39 Mullayne
Mullayne
Langzu – the den northeast of Bian
There is a joke in Cressima that goes something like this: “How do you get people to attend the funeral of their least favorite aunt? You tell them they are not allowed to go.” People are somehow always willing to go places they are warned off for their own good.
Every time a realm is restored, goods and people continue to move through the barrier for around five years, after which the restored realm stops trade and communication with the unrestored world.
The barrier becomes a silent place. Yet there are those who are too curious to leave these things alone.
They go into the barrier. They never come back.
So what happens to them? Are they imprisoned for not respecting the wishes of the realm?
Are they killed? Does the barrier swallow them before they even get to the other side?
These are the questions that haunt scholars in the dead of night.
Mull eyed the godkiller robe on the floor as he considered his options. Rasha had left in a rush, clearly upset by what he’d said. He hadn’t quite intended to upset her, but he couldn’t deny it had worked to his advantage. She’d forgotten her robe, and he was here, in the archives, alone.
If she’d gone for a walk, she might not return for a while.
The other converts would finish eating soon.
So he didn’t have long to think things over.
If he took her robe, there was a good possibility she’d return before he made it back.
But that didn’t necessarily mean she’d catch him with it.
If she’d forgotten the robe, she could have also forgotten where exactly she’d left it, and he could sneak it back into her possession without anyone being the wiser.
Perhaps he was overestimating his abilities, though. He had to be more cautious than he’d once been.
But he wasn’t likely to find a better opportunity to go deeper into the den. Yes, he was learning things from these discarded pages, but the reason he’d come here was to find the tomb of Tolemne’s family, and he couldn’t do that while he was working in the archives and reading pages for Rasha.
He had to take this chance.
Glancing about to make sure he was alone, he leaned over and seized the robe.
Rasha was taller than he was, and, even in his altered form, sturdier.
He felt a bit like a child trying on his parents’ clothes.
The hem nearly brushed the floor; he had to tie the sash tight to keep the robe from hanging around his body like a shapeless blanket.
On the fortunate side, it covered his convert’s tunic completely.
He made sure the crate of pages was back where they’d found it, all remnants of the makeshift meal they’d shared cleaned up, the cushions returned to their places.
He seized a lantern from the entrance of the archives as he left and hurried into the tunnels.
The last carving he’d seen was deep down, near a fork.
He had to double-check one of Tolemne’s engravings to remember the correct path to take, but then he was back at the spot again, breathless.
Each convert he’d encountered had only bowed their head as he’d passed, barely even looking at his face.
At least being altered afforded him the privilege of passing as a godkiller.
Small favors. He’d only just begun translating this carving from old Albanoran.
He lifted the lamp, mouthing the words to himself.
The beginning was a reiteration of what he’d seen on Tolemne’s Path before the whole thing had collapsed on him. Trust only what was written in stone.
A thrill moved through him; he felt the fur on his arms rise, a strange sensation that only slightly resembled the feeling he got when his hairs had prickled.
This body was stronger but still unfamiliar.
He wondered when it would stop being so, when all the memories of his old body would feel stranger than this one.
The reiteration was further confirmation that these carvings had been made by Tolemne, that he’d made them after returning to the surface, that they led to the tomb of his family.
The gods have on occasion played with time, accomplishing such miracles as bringing someone back to life or turning an adult back into a child. It’s a difficult feat, which is why it is so seldom mentioned in our histories.
Played with time? If they had manipulated the histories of living people, Mull wondered what else they might have done.
He thought of the books, the way he’d never heard of those missing pages he was reading to Rasha.
Could they, perhaps, change the books? He ran a hand along the lower lines of the text.
Take the left tunnel, one hundred twenty steps.
He obeyed. No one else walked these passages; all the sounds he heard traveled down to him from above. The way forward was silent and dark.
He found the next carving exactly where it was supposed to be. He lifted his lantern to peer at it and sucked in a breath. Two phrases stood out to him immediately: my lineage and gods.
It took him a little while to decipher the rest, though he’d been getting quicker at this. I can trace my lineage back to the gods, to Barexi’s dalliance with a scholar. There is a god’s blood in my veins and I wish I could rip them out. I asked them for help and they denied me.
All except one. But it didn’t say that. That part would be on the next carving. That was how the stories always went. All the gods denied Tolemne. Except one. Kluehnn. And Tolemne initiated the god pact with him, the one all mortals abided by.
The last part of the engraving gave him his directions: Down, down, keep going down.
Rasha might be returning to the archives soon.
But he couldn’t turn back now, not yet. He was getting close to something, he was sure of it.
He followed the tunnel, past trickles of water flowing over the walls, past the hint of some bioluminescent moss.
He must be getting close to the first aerocline this deep.
He lifted the lantern, careful of his steps.
The spare filter was always tucked close to his skin, with him at all times. He’d use it if he had to.
Just as he’d braced himself for this possibility, he ran into a wall.
He placed a hand on the stone. This was the way Tolemne’s words had sent him.
Why would they send him to a dead end? He felt the rock, wondering if he was missing something, a sick feeling rising in his throat.
All this for nothing? His dead friends, his alteration, the confines of the den.
Wait.
It wasn’t quite a wall. His lantern outlined the edges of a large, flat stone. He felt around the perimeter and found a crack. Air sifted through this space, the slightest breeze against his hand. He brought the lantern close, peering into the gap.
There was something there. A room behind this rock.
The tomb? Someone had blocked the way. The edges of the stone were rough beneath his palms as he wedged his fingers into the crack, as he pulled.
He thought he almost felt it move. But almost was not what he needed right now.
He stared at his hands, disgusted. He’d hoped to find a reason to use his new strength, some way to glean some more slivers of gratitude for this transformation. Pointless.
He needed help.
His relationship with Rasha had smoothed over the days they’d spent together, the times they’d broken into the crates and read the discarded pages.
Silences between them felt almost companionable.
But he remembered the disgust in her voice when he spoke of his ability to not care, to hold only a vague sense of devotion.
She’d told him a little, haltingly, of how she’d come to the den.
She’d been hungry, a child, with no one to care for her.
He should have been thinking of that when he’d spoken so carelessly.
Their realms of experience were so vastly different.
Mull’s father had been from the Sim clan, and that was the closest Mull had ever come to any sort of hardship.
A brief moment in time, after the execution of Sheuan’s father, before his father had married into the Reisun clan.
Mull hadn’t even been born yet. And even that hardship was worlds away from Rasha’s experience.
That hardship meant perhaps not being able to afford the latest fashions, rather than lacking food and shelter.
Would he have become devout if he’d been in her position? Without anywhere else to turn? He liked to think he would have come up with another way. He’d always found other ways. But then he wouldn’t have had any of the resources he’d always had access to.
He found himself floundering in this thought as he climbed back toward the archives.
Was who he was, everything he’d accomplished, truly just an accident of his birth?
No, that couldn’t be right. Look at his brother.
Kiang had so little curiosity in his bones, so little desire to break free from the path their parents had set for him.
It made him feel a little better. So… at least he wasn’t Kiang? Gods below, was this what he’d fallen to? Comparing himself to his brother so he could feel the slightest bit smug? No wonder Kiang always found him insufferable.
He’d turned into the tunnel toward the archives, nearly at his destination, when a godkiller approached from the opposite direction.
He was lithe, patterned with small patches of scales, a brown tail undulating behind him.
A bandage was wrapped around one hand, the scrape of claw marks marring the eye on his leather breastplate.
A violet glow emanated from the dagger at his side.
Mull swept his gaze to the floor, quickly.
Panic squeezed his heart. He shouldn’t have been afraid. He had the hood up and low over his face; he’d prepared for exactly this situation. That was why he’d worn the robe.
But he didn’t have a dagger. That should be fine, right? They couldn’t always wear their daggers. Surely at some point the blade needed sharpening, or the hilt needed a new wrapping.
The scaled altered glanced at him and then away as they drew closer. Mull had to stop the instinct to bow, to move away. He had to get back into the archives and hope that Rasha hadn’t returned yet.
A hand shot out, blocking his way.
He ran into it before he could stop himself, and cursed his lack of dexterity. Would a godkiller have been so caught out?
The scaled man was peering at his face. “I don’t think I know you.”
“I’m new,” Mull tried, doing his best to sound gruff. “Transfer from another den.”
The godkiller nearly pulled his hand away, but then glanced down. His gaze fixed on the old stain, a faint blotch a hand’s span below the sash.
“That’s not your robe. That’s Rasha’s.” The hand tightened around the collar of Mull’s robe. Brown eyes met his, the pupils slitted. “And you are no godkiller.”