Chapter 47 Rasha
Rasha
Langzu – Kluehnn’s den northeast of Bian
Long ago, in Montiyano, after it became a province of the Aqqilan Empire, there lived a famous archer known for her accuracy with the bow and arrow.
As she grew older, she entered fewer and fewer competitions, but continued to boast. When a younger archer challenged her, laying a goodly sum of money on the line, the general public sat up and took notice.
During the first challenge, attended by over five hundred people, the famous archer missed the target entirely.
“I am sick,” she said, waving away the younger man’s protests.
“Challenge me when I am feeling better.” At the next challenge, over six hundred people attended, and the famous archer arrived drunk.
She struck the stem off a pomegranate instead of the fruit itself.
“Was hitting the fruit the challenge?” she said.
“I thought we were meant to hit the stem. Challenge me when I am sober.” At the third challenge, nearly one thousand people attended, and the famous archer took aim, striking the very center of the target.
“See?” she said. “I did not make an empty boast. Pay up.” The challenger, who had hit the target each time, judged the mood of the crowd, who knew the famous archer and did not know him, and paid the sum.
Who acted more the fool? The famous archer or the challenger? Whichever you choose says more about you than it says about them.
“Mull?” I peered into the hole as the light from the lantern grew more and more faint. Of course he’d leave me here, like this. I could probably feel my way back to the tunnels where lanterns hung, but it would take me some time, at which point I might be discovered.
And then what? Kluehnn would never let me earn a godkiller blade again.
I waited for the dread, the anger. It was there, a darkness clawing at my heart, but it wasn’t quite as shattering a thought as it usually was.
I was numb, still trying to process Khatuya and Naatar.
Their coupling didn’t have to change anything between the three of us, did it? Yet I felt it already had.
“Mull?” I tried again.
Nothing. Altered had a stronger resistance to aether than any mortal, but he’d been down there for quite some time.
I could barely see light emerging from the hole now.
He’d said he would only be down there a moment, and now I had no idea where he was, how far he’d gone.
He’d seemed so confident that the contraption he’d placed over his nose and mouth would protect him.
What if it hadn’t? Even an altered would now be starting to feel the effects of aether. I remembered the way it had made my head swim, the way I’d had to work to keep my wits, the itching of my arms, that drunk feeling that everything would be fine.
I didn’t owe Mull anything. He’d always be afraid of me, he’d never understand me or what I’d been through. He had come here to search for a hidden tomb, for truths that were probably better off buried. I tapped a claw against the floor. I should leave. I should go back to the archives.
Instead, I found myself swinging my legs into the hole. I sat on the edge for a moment. Was the light growing stronger? Was he now headed back? I took a deep breath and lowered myself into the cavern.
The walls were covered with strange writing I couldn’t understand.
Mull was there, stumbling over stone as fast as he could, one hand on the wall to balance himself.
He held the lantern in a death grip, as though he knew that if he let go, he’d never find it again.
His eyes were wide, the cloth over his nose and mouth fluttering in and out with each breath.
I knew what aether sickness looked like.
I should have questioned his contraption and whether the thing still worked, or had ever worked at all.
I marched toward him and grabbed the lamp from his hands.
He flailed at me as I seized him under the arms, one of his claws scratching my cheek.
I grimaced but kept my breath held. Wouldn’t do for both of us to become addled, not right now.
My lungs aching, my leg threatening to give out with each step, I hauled him back to the hole and hoisted him out.
Quick as I could, my stomach spasming, I set the lamp up above, grabbed the sides of the hole, and pulled myself out past the first aerocline.
Cool, fresh air brushed my cheeks, the scratch on my face stinging anew.
I sucked in a deep breath, the aether still clinging to my clothes and smelling faintly of a dung fire.
Mull lay on the floor, gasping. He reached to his face with one trembling hand and tore the filter off.
“He wrote the truth. He wrote the truth down there, so much of it. There are three aeroclines – three, not two. The gods… they made a pact. The pages I read to you. It’s all there.
In that cave going down into the dark. All the way to Unterra. ”
He was speaking nonsense. It would take him at least a day to get the aether out of his system. He was supposed to be working. I’d have to make excuses for him, figure out how to hide his condition.
“Sheuan, I’m sorry. This is my fault.”
My heart dipped. Sheuan? I’d tried not to think of her, to leave her behind as she’d left me, but just the mention of her name brought it all crashing back.
The night we’d spent together, wrapped in one another’s arms. The callous way she’d left.
This wasn’t the time to question him, though.
I picked up the filter, the lantern, and my crutch.
“I can’t carry you. If you value your life, you’ve got to get on your own two feet. ”
“My head,” he muttered.
Once the dizziness completely faded, the headache would take over. I couldn’t bring myself to sympathize, not when the den would be waking up any moment. “Altered have stronger resistance. On your feet, Mull.”
For a moment I thought he would just lie there, pathetic and sad and sick. But somehow he found a reserve of strength and pushed himself to stand. “Lead the way,” he managed.
Sighing, I extended a hand. “You can lean on me, for a little way at least.”
He waved me away. “No. I can do this.”
Together, we hobbled back out of the tomb, stopping to replace the stone that had covered the tunnel. Slowly, the pain in my leg faded away as we moved toward the archives. “Who is Sheuan?”
He only moaned. I tried a different question. “Is there another way? To Unterra?”
He leaned for a moment on the wall, and then pushed away, his breathing heavy. “Yes. The writing said the tunnel we were in led to Unterra. I don’t know which twists and turns it takes, but it leads there. According to Tolemne, it was a path Irael used to take.”
So there was another way. The agreement I’d spoken of with the crow was something that could actually happen if Kluehnn agreed to it.
I turned that thought over in my mind. What if godkillers could be used to help the populace through restoration instead of merely being focused on killing gods?
I doubted that all gods would abide by an agreement to return to Unterra, but this was a start. There’d be fewer to fight.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” Mull’s voice was thick.
I reached out and seized his arm. “Not here,” I hissed. “Hold it. Get behind your screen. I’ll bring you a bowl and clean it up. But if someone else has to clean it up, Kluehnn will know.”
He swallowed.
We made it back to the archives. I found a bowl, and waited as he emptied the meager contents of his stomach.
I tossed it out the window just as the first workers began to arrive in the archives.
Gods, Mull was going to be absolutely useless today.
I was surprised I’d gotten a response from him about the path to Unterra.
I was going to have to find the herbs that would help the aether sickness pass.
They’d have most of them in the kitchens.
It wouldn’t taste great, but that wasn’t my problem.
I turned to find Khatuya standing in my way, the sick bowl still in my hands.
I didn’t know where to look or what to say, a flush rising up my chest in spite of my best efforts. “I-I shouldn’t have walked in without knocking.”
She gave an impatient little tap of her foot. She was dressed now in her robe, the godkilling dagger at her belt. “I’m not here about that. And it’s your room as well. We can talk about the knocking. Later.”
The flush colored my cheeks, made my face hot. Which meant that tryst between them hadn’t been a one-time thing.
“Kluehnn wants to see you.”
My innards turned to ice. Had someone noticed us returning from our early-morning adventure?
Had we not replaced the stone in the correct spot?
Or had someone heard us? There were so many things that could have gone wrong.
And here, in the den, there was only Kluehnn’s justice.
The aspect was responsible for the well-being of our den – the rewards and the punishments, doled out as Kluehnn saw fit.
I brushed past her, finding my footing was steady enough without the crutch. Whatever discomfort hung between us could wait. I spared a quick glance for Mull, hunched over his books. He looked miserable but alive. The herbs would have to wait as well. When Kluehnn summoned someone, you went.
Kluehnn’s aspect had already emerged from below when I went to meet it.
It waited, sitting on its haunches, the uppermost set of human arms folded over the mouth at the base of its neck.
All five of its eyes darted in my direction as I entered.
Its barbed tail swept across the stone floor.
I shut the door carefully behind me, trying to keep my hand steady.
The last time I’d been in here, Kluehnn had taken one of my horns.
He’d hurt me. I couldn’t imagine what more he’d do to me now.
“You are much improved,” he said in his low, rasping voice. “Good.”