Chapter 46 Mullayne
Mullayne
Langzu – the den northeast of Bian, Tolemne’s Tomb
Aqqila once existed simply as a country, though it stretched long fingers out in trade.
When the neighboring country, Montiyano, sought to change the terms of trade, Aqqila declined to negotiate.
Montiyano attempted to assassinate Aqqila’s queen, which led directly to a year-long war and Montiyano’s conquest. Aqqila’s queen married a prince from Isegin, and a subsequent series of skirmishes and further political alliances led to the spread of Aqqila’s influence – as far east as the western edges of Albanore.
Like all empires, the Aqqilan Empire eventually toppled, though it prospered for over six hundred years.
Mull had said the whole thing with the sort of bravado he imagined Jeeoon would have done.
You don’t have to wonder. Wait here. But as soon as the first aerocline closed over his head, he could hear his pulse pounding in his ears.
The sensation of the aether moving through fur was so much more unnerving than it had been with just the sparse hairs of his arms.
The filters had all slowly failed as they’d walked Tolemne’s Path, as the aether had grown thicker.
Not that he felt it was something he needed to mention to Rasha.
She didn’t like him. He knew how she saw him – some scion of a rich family, feckless, falling into the den and its secret places by accident rather than any real design.
This, at least, she couldn’t say was an accident. This was by design – the design of his filter, more specifically. And yes, they’d failed before, but he was simply dipping below the first aerocline for only a moment, and he’d actually tested it under these sorts of circumstances.
Sweat beaded in the small of his back and he scratched at the tickling sensation. His tunic stuck there. It seemed no matter what he told his mind, what soothing rationalizations he made, his body had different ideas.
The cavern here was small, so he could barely stand up straight, and there was a tunnel branching off from it, leading into the darkness.
“Mull?” Rasha’s voice traveled to his ears, muffled.
“I’m fine. Give me a moment.” He lifted the lantern to the walls.
These ones were covered in even more etchings.
All the practice he’d had with Old Albanoran, reading those pages to Rasha, came in handy now.
He didn’t have to write the phrases down, cross-reference them with his books or mark words for further consideration. The translations came easier.
There are three aeroclines before Unterra. The closer one gets to Unterra, the lighter one gets, until everything shifts.
He remembered the way their hair had lifted past the third aerocline, though he wasn’t sure if any lightness he’d felt was real or just a figment of his aether-addled mind. He ran his hand along to another carving.
The gods are each strongest in one of four abilities, though only the shapeshifters can truly shift. Past that, there are the makers, the changers, and the augmenters.
And another.
The consumption of Numinar syrup staves off aether sickness and can improve one’s own abilities. This allowed us descendants to move along the path to Unterra.
He felt drunk on this information, all of it whirling in his mind like flecks of gold in a cup.
Along these tunnels is another path to Unterra, which Irael used to frequent.
Another path? In Langzu? He couldn’t know if the way was still open; it had been ages since the Shattering, since Tolemne must have carved these words into the wall.
I cannot survive up here. I must go back.
His breathing quickened. Did Tolemne go back? All the way back to Unterra? There was writing farther down the wall, farther down the tunnel. When he lifted the lantern, he couldn’t see the end of it. He followed it, and then stopped, a phrase jumping out to him.
He knew that phrase. He’d seen it written on one of the pages he’d read to Rasha.
Barexi was struck by the mortal Taminus, so much so that he fell in love with her.
And below it, a similar phrase.
Barexi was struck by the mortal Taminus, so much so that he decided to teach her.
He wasn’t sure what it meant.
“Mull?” Rasha’s voice, so faint he could barely hear it. How far had he wandered? He looked back the way he’d come and couldn’t see the hole he’d entered through, or even the cavern he’d entered into. Only more tunnel.
I don’t think they’re all dead. The elder gods. I think some have escaped.
Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t quite be sure what. Suddenly, all he could think about was Imeah, wandering off into the dark. Alone.
He never should have left her. He should have gone with her, no matter what she’d said of the truth. The only truth that mattered was that he loved her and she loved him, and everything since that moment had felt like some shade of reality, a tree reflected on a pond.
If he followed this path, would he find her?
He reached to scratch his back and stumbled, nearly fell. Caught himself on the wall, his hand pressed to the stone. Took a deep breath. And froze.
No wonder he’d been thinking of Imeah. He could nearly taste the scent of her floral perfume on the back of his tongue, infused in the soap she used to wash her long black hair.
“Darling,” she would have said to him, her lips pressed into a mocking pout, “have you thought about the conditions you’ve been keeping that filter under? ”
Pressed against his sweating skin, folded in half, pulled and pushed every which way.
He lifted his hand to his face. The rubber was flush against his skin. But as his fingers explored, he found the hole. Small, but there, a tiny puncture in the cloth just above the seal.
He’d been breathing in aether and walking farther into the deep. He tried to slow his breathing, his pulse racing. The more aether he took in, the worse it would be. He needed to calm himself, to go straight back up to Rasha.
His gaze caught on the carving he was touching.
The elder gods made a blood promise to one another long ago, when the mortals first began to kill the Numinars.
It linked them to one another, so that if any one of them revealed the truth, they all would die.
And then they bound the rest of the living gods.
Now they call them corestones, but they are not stones.
They are seeds.
He traced the edges of the words, fingers following each curve and line. The last line of the last word trailed down, past his line of sight. He knelt, found the bottom of it, his heart pounding.
Something was wedged into the end of that word. He closed his fingers around it, his head swimming. Without knowing exactly why, he pulled.
The thing came free, and he held it in front of the lamp, Imeah’s scent thick in his nostrils.
It wasn’t a chisel, or even the end of one.
It was a claw.