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I smiled, although it didn’t climb past my lips.
‘And,’ Cam said with a glimmer of pride, ‘you need salt for the Coldmaker, right? To keep the Charge.’
‘Good thinking,’ I said with a nod. ‘Let’s get a few.’
Shilah shrugged, and we all snapped off a handful of salt each, adding it to Cam’s supply bag. I pressed my hands to my nose afterwards, but there wasn’t any scent.
‘Salt and Abbs and revolution,’ Cam said as we started moving again, following the alder. He immediately stopped and then gestured for Shilah to lead us, giving her a respectably wide berth. ‘It should be quite the feast.’
Our next stop took place beside a tiny stream, which had carved a shallow bed into smooth rock as it cascaded endlessly into the darkness. We’d heard the rushing waters from the alder path and wound our way to its shores to fill up our waterskins. Gentle currents had brushed the endless tunnel wide, making the passage seem both frightening and serene. The waters were some of the most delicious I’d ever tasted, possibly because they’d been kept away from Sun for an eternity. We only needed to add the smallest slices of Abb to get them to cool.
The journey had already begun to thin Cam out, his voice hollow and cheeks sunken. I asked him to sleep. Begged him even. It ended up taking three direct commands to get him to agree to shut his eyes for one hour. I gave him much longer. While he snored, one foot hanging limp in the waters, Shilah and I talked of fragile things. She kept dipping one finger in the water and bringing it over my hand, letting the single droplets fall on the back of my palm. She did this until the puddle at my feet trickled its way back to the source, rarely meeting my eyes as we spoke.
We talked of meeting out in the dunes behind my barracks, when I invited her to join our family, but instead she disappeared out into the sands. She told me she used the Rope Shoes that I’d traded her for the Khatmelon quite a bit, which is something I’d always wondered. We joked about the days working with Leroi back in the Tavor tinkershop, hiding under the floor grate whenever anyone unfamiliar came knocking. We discussed at length all the plants she’d cultivated for Little Langria. About where she got the soil and seeds, and vines. About the humour of the weaver beetles that lived on her persimmons. She asked about the feather I’d scratched into the wall, and I told her about Matty and the board game we were creating; how close we’d come to finishing. About how Moussa, Matty, and I lessened the harsh tinge of the day by playing ‘whatsit’, where we made up stories to go along with the shapes of our bruises. She told me of the time she visited the Hotland Delta, having stowed away on a merchant ship. About how the High Nobles there had a certain ritual that they performed each night to pay tribute to the Crier. Each Sundown they would fold little boats out of Droughtweed and sail them along the Singe, a single Wisp floating in each hull. Shilah’s smirk was stupendous as she told me how she would wait downstream with a net to collect the boats. Over the course of a week she’d made a small fortune.
I told her what it was like with such a large family.
She told me what it was like to live alone.
We didn’t mention my father or her mother once.
Some things can live delicately in memory, but shatter when put into words.
We didn’t have much fuel left for the lantern, so I had to wake up Cam sooner than I would have liked. He whimpered at my touch, but when he grew conscious his face hardened and he sprang to his feet, grabbing our supply bags and empty basket of figs, leading us back to the path.
Finally, after more endless tunnels, the single red line led us to our escape. The sleek and spindly cave once again widened into a proper chamber, funnelling us towards an actual way out. The wooden slab was slanted so much it was nearly horizontal, and no light spilled in through the cracks on the sides, but it looked like salvation nonetheless.
Wiping the layered crust of dirt from my forehead, I debated thanking the Crier for getting us here alive – but I decided that I was only ready to open one door at a time right now.
Cam pointed to the tilted door in front of us and the buckets sitting at its base, lowering his voice. ‘Where do you think it lets out?’
‘Honestly,’ I said, matching his volume. ‘I’ve been so turned around this entire time I have no clue.’
Shilah brought the lantern over to the door, where something was written in more alder. As she scanned the lines, her lips moved and I couldn’t help but notice how full and plump they were. My focus shifted to her hair, long and tattered and matted with dirt. And her eyes, spilling over with all the sad things she’d already seen in this world.
‘Imagine if we didn’t have a lantern,’ Cam said quietly. ‘And we had to do this whole thing in the dark.’
‘We almost did,’ I said, pointing to the oil reserves, which were dangerously low.
‘Right now we’re at the edge of the Drylands, just North of Paphos,’ Shilah read. ‘Two days’ walk until the next stop on the Coldmarch. The shack is in the bottom of the three-humped valley, and will be marked by a green streak over the threshold.’ She turned to us with pinched lips, pointing to the empty buckets. ‘It says please take all the water and Cold we need. And may the Crier watch over our family.’
‘Two days.’ Cam did the sums in his head, looking into the bag of supplies. ‘No food, but plenty of water. Should we wait until night-time to leave?’
Shilah peered back into the dark chamber, the shadows flickering and ominous. ‘Not sure we’ll have until night.’
Pressing my fingers against the door, I found that it didn’t have much give. There was no latch to undo, and the hinges told me that it was set up to swing outwards.
‘We need to push together,’ I said.
Gathering ourselves, we gave the door a hard, collective shove. The pressure should have made the wood budge at least, but it was immovable.
‘Is it locked?’ Cam asked. ‘Want to try the trick with Ice in the lock again, Spout?’
I ran my fingernail around the cracks at the edges of the door, noting the gritty sand. ‘I don’t think there’s a lock. Just ten years of sand pressing down on the other side.’
‘You think we’re under a dune?’ Shilah asked, crossing her arms.
‘I took a girl to see the Drylands once,’ Cam said, looking down and scratching the back of his neck. ‘And from what I remember they’re pretty barren, but it’s possible the dunes have shifted.’
Shilah put a hand on the door, as if to ask it through touch. ‘I don’t think it would let out so close to the dunes. Maybe the Khat barred it from the other side when he found out?’
Cam put both arms on the door and shoved again, the vein in his neck showing heavily through his light skin. He started pounding on the door with his shoulder to try to get more leverage, but I quickly put a hand on his arm to stop him.
‘We have to be quiet and strong,’ I said. ‘We don’t know what’s out there.’
We all tried to push at the same time again, but the door wouldn’t budge more than a hair upwards. It was then I noticed the middle of the wood distending inwards, gently caving under all the weight.
‘Wait,’ I said, remembering myself. ‘Let me see that knife.’
Shilah reached under her dress and unstrapped the knife from her thigh. She handed over the blade and I tried not to think about the heat lingering in the metal.
Cam stared at the blade, his eyes softening.
‘In case of the Vicaress?’ she asked. ‘You still think this is a trap?’
‘No,’ I said, going to work on the door’s hinges. ‘I’m just trying to think like an Inventor.’
Leroi had taught me that when it came to tinkering, sometimes the best answer was also the simplest. The door may have been intended to open upwards, but Inventors worked with their own intentions. After a flurry of careful twisting and prising, the hinges groaned, letting me know things were about to give.
‘Get back,’ I warned, heart pounding as I gave the blade back to Shilah and reluctantly handed the Coldmaker over to Cam.
I made the final twists by hand, and the metal cracked, the horizontal door giving way under an explosion of sand. An entire dune practically spilled into the cavern and pushed me backwards. Smacking my head against the wall, everything went a hazy beige as I tumbled to the ground, instantly buried up to my waist.
Things settled, and my head throbbed as I spat the sand out of my cheeks.
Arms threaded beneath mine, helping me up and out of the slice of dune, and hoisting me through the threshold. Shilah said something by way of appreciation, but my head was still ringing too heavily to make it out.
My friends kept a steady hold of both my sides, carrying me back into the glaring Sunlight, where I shook the sand out of my ears. Indeed, we had emerged North of the city, the brown land compact and walkable. There were plenty of boulders for cover, although the air up here tasted more dead and dusty than I was used to. Once I had found my footing, I took a look back at distant Paphos, just barely able to make out the web of streets and monuments and barracks and shops and temples and walled gardens and High Noble Manors and the First Khat’s Pyramid, all built on the backs and blood of my people.
‘Come on, Inventor,’ Shilah said, gripping my elbow. ‘We should get moving. We won’t be safe until we get to that shack.’
I nodded to the city, promising I’d be back to set it free.
And then we marched North.
Chapter Five
‘Sunlash and blisters,’ Cam said, hunching over as we reached the rocky face of the next hill. ‘How many is that now, Spout?’
I paused, trying to come up with something poetic. ‘As many as the freedom songs they sing in Langria.’
Cam tried to smile, but ended up wincing, his lips crimson and blistered. He had one of Mama Jana’s sunscarves wrapped around his head, keeping his delicate yellow hair tucked away. There were other shirts in the bag, but Cam insisted on wearing a green blouse pulled over his robe, as he claimed it let in more air.
‘I like that one,’ Cam panted, covering his lips with his fingers. Sweat dripped down both his cheeks, which had begun to freckle.
I nodded, continuing to hum under my breath with each step. I finally realized that I’d been humming the Jadan’s Anthem along with each step. It was the song Moussa, Matty, and I had created in my barracks, back when my childhood was torturous, yet somehow strangely whole.
The melody was sharp and painful. I didn’t stop.
Cam took off his glasses and wiped the sweat from the lenses. His red face and struggling frame made me realize how well my people had adjusted to this harsh world. How we had been forced to adjust. My skin was dark and leathered, hardened by the strong glare of the Sun, and I was still wiry from the years of scavenging the city for tinkering supplies. Even though Cam’s people were deemed ‘Worthy’, it was the Jadans that could withstand treks under a merciless sky.
‘How long do I have to wait before the next one?’ Cam asked, wincing against the Sun.
‘Not long,’ I said.
To pass the endless monotony, we’d invented the Game of Paces. Since there were really no landmarks to judge how far we’d gone, we decided to keep track of the steps taken. There was a distinct possibility that there was nothing out here, that the shack had been swallowed by the dunes or burned down by the Khat, and that we would need an escape plan. So for fun we matched our steps to certain things in the World Cried, starting with small numbers like figs in a garden and stones in the Pyramid. By the end of the first day we had reached things like beetles in Paphos and Jadan whippings. Now, on the second day of hard walking, our numbers were so incredibly high that we had to get creative.
Water rations were tight, and since we found nothing living in the sands, our stomachs had already begun to harmonize their grumbles. The hunger hadn’t been so bad last night, as we’d all passed out at the sight of good shelter – three huge boulders that came together to make a little nook – but it was hitting hard today. Cam had taken to chewing on strips of boilweed, and Shilah had begun to spend more and more time with her hand resting on her stomach. I’d been trying to keep track of how much water we went through each stop, and judging by the diminishing weight of the skins, I knew that soon we were going to buckle against the point of no return. The Sun was laughing at us, only getting stronger the further North we walked, its rays cracking down like fiery whips. The irony was that we had as much Cold as we needed, glorious, miracle Ice, but right now I doubted we’d have enough water to make it back the way we’d come.
I think both Cam and Shilah were aware of this, but they helped keep up the pretence, smiling through the dread.
‘That’s quite a few freedom songs,’ Shilah said with a raise of her eyebrow. ‘To sing that many they must not have stopped since the Great Drought.’
I adjusted the Coldmaker again, the machine heavy and the metal edge continuing to dig into my hip. I had a feeling I’d be walking with a permanent crook if we ever made it through the March.
‘I imagine that’s true,’ I said softly.
I rubbed the sore spot on the back of my head, looking out over so much dead land and consulting the compass Mama Jana had been savvy enough to put in our supplies. We were still headed due North, but the barren sands and rocks weren’t showing any signs of letting up. As far as I could tell, this was a fool’s journey. We would surely perish, and the Coldmaker was going to be lost out in the middle of nowhere, along with any hope for the Jadan people.
‘This is brutal,’ Cam said, wiggling his toes underneath his sandals. ‘It’s like I stepped on a pile of needles, and the Sun is trying to lick my bones.’
‘Welcome to life as a Jadan runaway,’ Shilah said, unfazed and standing tall on the flattened stretch of earth. ‘Enough of this suffering and maybe you will start understanding us.’
I had to admit it was a smart idea to have the Coldmarch positioned here, since no taskmasters would ever be caught out in this nightmarish terrain for no reason. The ground near Paphos had started as compact and easy, but the March had taken us across thick dunes, unstable rock faces, and the vertical climbs of the Drylands, all in the name of secrecy. I had yet to see any bleached bones sticking up from the sands, but I doubted all of the brave Jadans who’d attempted this journey had made it through.
The only benefit of this treacherous terrain was that the land here was not even, meaning frequent patches of cool shadow in which to rest. But all the shade in the World Cried wouldn’t matter if we ran out of water.
‘I bet they’ll have groan salve at this next stop,’ I told Cam. ‘Mama Jana said this Split is a Pedlar, and Pedlars have everything. You’ll barely feel the burns tomorrow.’
Cam nodded, taking a breath before standing up again. ‘I’ll call it penance.’
‘Maybe you Nobles just aren’t worthy of the March,’ Shilah said.
‘Shilah,’ I said, shooting her a stern look. ‘Stop. Cam is family, and he saved us both. Don’t forget that.’
She looked poised to argue, but bit her bottom lip, and eventually nodded.
‘And correct me if I’m wrong,’ I continued, the timing perfect. ‘But doesn’t that look like the tip of a three-humped valley in the distance?’
Cam gave me a thankful look, his glasses still in his hand. ‘You’ll have to describe it to me. Things are a bit fuzzy at the moment.’
‘Three humps in the rocks and sand,’ I said, smiling for what felt like the first time since we’d started walking. ‘Just like the alder writing said.’
‘Shall we celebrate with Cold water all round?’ Cam asked, his whole demeanour changing in an instant, looking practically giddy. ‘We earned it.’
Before Shilah or I could answer, Cam gave a frantic nod, answering himself.
‘Why, yes, Camlish, what a delightful offer. Thank you!’ He rubbed his hands together eagerly. ‘You’re most welcome, Camlish. You’ve always had the finest taste in celebrations.’
‘Fine, but not all of it,’ Shilah warned gently, rolling her eyes. ‘It’s been ten years since the Coldmarch shut down. We don’t even know if there’s anyone down in that valley.’
I reached into the Coldmaker bag, fishing for the side pocket where I kept the Abbs. ‘Maybe not, but if this Split is still around, then it’s another person we can share—’
My wrist exploded with pain.
I snatched my hand out of the bag. The sting was too overwhelming for me to even form a shout. My throat immediately closed up. Even though my tongue was silent, I could feel my arm howling.
‘Spout,’ Cam said, frowning. ‘You okay? You cut yourself?’
I was unable to answer. The shock was still registering, pain increasing with every rapid pump of my heart. My wrist looked normal at first, but after an instant, two puncture marks began to make themselves known, my dark skin rising and bubbling from the venom.
I dropped the Coldmaker far harder than I should have, the machine giving an angry clank. The canvas lips of the bag fell open, and a baby Sobek lizard skittered from the bag. It looked up at me unafraid, its tiny red eyes glistening in the Sun. The scales around its neck puffed up, as if readying itself for another bite, although I already knew a second one couldn’t do me further harm.
I was as good as dead.
‘Oh,’ Cam spurted. ‘Oh no. That’s really small.’
I snatched my wrist up to my lips and began sucking out the venom, my heart thundering and my head clouding with fear. Run-ins with Sobeks were common, and I’d been bitten before, but always by an adult lizard. The grown ones knew only to release a bit of venom in a single bite – meaning a night of vomiting and cramps for the victim – which was bad enough.
This was far worse.
Young lizards always emptied their entire poison sacs at once, not yet knowing how to control their portions.
Sobek lizards are a nuisance.
Their babies are assassins.
My tongue began to fizz with pain at the edges.
Shilah was quick, pinning down the creature with her sandal and cutting off the back half of its tail. Normally she was reverent of all living things, so I knew hurting a Sobek would not have been an easy thing for her to do.
Cam’s face scrunched in frightened confusion as the lizard skittered away, unharmed by the loss of its tail.
‘For the medicine,’ Shilah said, her face severe. ‘They say it’s always best if you mix in some of the creature itself.’
I tried to say that it was true, that Abb had imparted that same bit of wisdom, but words were no longer possible.
Cam’s face went mad, tearing at his headscarf. ‘What do we do? How do we make medicine?’
Shilah didn’t answer, pocketing the tail and rushing to my side.
‘Alternate with me,’ she said, bringing my wrist to her lips and somehow keeping calm. ‘Five spits each. I’m right here. This isn’t going to stop us.’
I nodded, feeling the Sun’s rays pulsing with menace. The baby lizard must have crawled into the bag while we were passing through the caves, as they usually didn’t stray far from water supplies.
But why hadn’t I noticed it until now?
Perhaps this was my penance: punishment for trying to change things.
Shilah wrapped her lips around the punctures. She sucked hard, and the pressure was excruciating, like a shard of glass being driven out of my wrist. She pulled deep five times, spitting after each, rubbing her tongue on her sleeve.
I took a deep breath and went to take my turn, but the pain was too much, the wound burning like hot iron, and I flinched away.
‘Let me do it,’ Cam said, coming over and taking my wrist. He took one deep pull of the poison and then started coughing violently. ‘It’s like burning coals!’
‘Move,’ Shilah said, pushing him aside. She looked me right in the eyes as she grabbed my wrist. ‘You’re going to be okay, World Partner.’
Her words were slurred, and I knew her tongue had gone numb as well.
I nodded, but my forehead wasn’t feeling as confident. I was heating up to a dangerous degree, beads of sweat falling into my eyes and sprouting all down my infected arm.
This was the end.
Cam breathed heavily, his face lost to fear.
‘Micah,’ Shilah said, gripping harder. Her words were slurred from the poison, but her eyes were focused and sharp. ‘You’re going to be okay.’
I pointed down to the valley with a shaking hand.
Shilah nodded with understanding and went back to work extracting the poison. She reached her limit after three more pulls, her lips flooding with colour and swelling. Scooping a hand against the ground, she sprinkled a layer of sand over her tongue and then angled my arm up.
‘Kpp it elvted.’ She spat. ‘Make th bld wrk to rech the wnnd.’
‘What can I do?’ Cam asked, checking the Coldmaker bag for more lizards before tossing it over his shoulder. ‘How can I help? Tell me what to do!’
‘Kpp up,’ she said, wrenching my arm and dragging me forwards.
We sprinted all the way to the middle of the three humps of the valley, my legs shaking. The pain in my arm was so furious that it almost felt like pleasure, which I knew wasn’t a good sign. My vision was starting to swim and everything had taken on a beige hue – something that had never happened with any other Sobek bite. Hope was quickly draining with each step.
Down at the bottom of the steep valley was a stout shack huddling in shadow. Attached to the side was a small wooden stable, a beige snout poking out, dipping into a water trough.
Is that a hound? I thought, trying to pick out any red eyes through the haze. Did the Vicaress beat us here?
‘You see that?’ Shilah asked, nodding down, clarity in her voice returning. ‘I think it’s a camel.’
‘It’s alive,’ Cam said. ‘Which means someone must be home.’
Shilah grabbed my wrist and drew out three more pulls of poison and blood, but I couldn’t feel her lips this time.
‘Yrr gong to be okay,’ she said, wiping her mouth.
My legs began to buckle. I turned to Cam, pointing to the Coldmaker, thinking maybe Ice could help. I was taken aback by the sight of my arm, which was riddled with sweat. Like the boiling bubbles that ran along the top of the Singe.
Shilah pinched the skin on the back of my neck, jolting me out of the fog. ‘Stop being dramatic. You’re going to be okay. I’m not going to Langria without you. And I’m going to Langria.’
She was stronger than I thought, or maybe I was stronger, because we made it to the bottom of the valley without me falling over and passing out, the land growing more solid the deeper we traversed. I knew I needed to stay awake, to keep from death’s alleyway, or I’d be gone forever.
‘No green mark over the door,’ Cam said as we stepped in front of the shack. ‘You think this is the right shack?’
‘Are you kidding me?’ Shilah asked, pounding the door with the palm of her hand. ‘You see any other shacks around?’
I wasn’t able to peel my eyes away from the stable. The snout poked out further, revealing a beast with kind eyes, accentuated with long, thick eyelashes and knotted tufts of fur awning its forehead. The creature reminded me of a camel, but it was much smaller, the tufts at its neck lumpier. It’s head only reached my chin, and it stuck out a pink tongue playfully, wiggling it in my direction.