The Unfinished Song - Book 6: Blood (6 page)

“I was going to give you a trial,” Vio said. “You just lost that right. Now you are a hostage.”

Zumo’s eyes bugged. “Let me guess. My sister holds your wife captive.”

Vio released the boy. Perhaps it was more of a shove. Zumo landed hard on his hands and knees, but he scrambled to his feet.

“That’s right,” said Vio. “In Orange Canyon tribelands. I am going to Cliffedge now to ask them nicely to return her. A hundred septs of men are going to ask with me. And anything they do to her, I will do to you, below the walls of Cliffedge, where all can hear your screams.”

“That…will start a war,” Zumo said carefully.

“I’ve been known to do that once or twice.”

“They won’t trade her for me.”

Vio stepped close enough that he could feel Zumo’s shallow pants of fright. Vio took Zumo’s hand and drew a circle around his wrist.

“Did your father ever mention that we used to torture people for the Bone Whistler? I will start by cutting off your left hand, right along here. I will send them that. If they delay, I will make the next cut at the elbow. I will keep going until
they mucking return my wife!”

He shouted the last words in sudden rage that made Zumo throw up his free arm and cringe.

“Uncle Vio.” Zumo quavered but squared his shoulders. “They
won’t
trade her for me. My mother puts no more stock in me becoming War Chief than you. There’s someone else who is far more of a threat to your position here.”

“Who?”

“You know him quite well, I think.”

Vio cussed.

“If you are useless as a hostage, I may as well kill you right now.”

“Don’t you think I know that? So why would I lie about this when it puts my life more at risk? When I heard that Aunt Vessia planned to travel to the Hidden Forest, I knew she would be in danger from my sister and her Orange Canyon allies. That is why I kept Aunt Vessia here. Yes, it was by force, but it was to protect her. I tried to tell her that, but she wouldn’t believe me.”

“Did you tell her who you were trying to protect her from?”

“No.”

“Why not, if you were so keen to have her believe you? Or better yet, why not come to me, and let me protect my own wife from this danger?”

“Because it was my
sister
.”

Vio snorted.

“Let me come with you to Cliffedge,” Zumo dared. “Not as your hostage, but as the leader of septs of Morvae. The two of us, in a show of unity, both asking for the return of the White Lady from outtribers.”

“It is not a bad plan,” Vio admitted grudgingly. “Very well, nephew. You may ride by my side rather than tied up dragging behind my horse. But understand this. Though you may look and act the part of a War Leader to all the rest, between us, we both know the truth. You are still my hostage. If anything happens to Vessia, you will be the first to pay her deathdebt. You will not be the last.”

The exhausting journey through the phantasmagorical underworld threatened to be too much for her. She was hungry, thirsty, and queasy from the foul magic hiding in the dark. Dindi was keenly aware of the pity of the Aelfae, which in Kia’s case, strengthened to open contempt. None of the Aelfae had paused to eat, and they drank the stale cave water without apparent distress.

Umbral helped Dindi, although that was a mixed blessing. His own magic amplified the knots of darkness they kept passing in the off-passages of the cave, places where the air turned to poison that made them all, even the Aelfae, cough and choke. Umbral could not help that his own magic echoed the evil that had been awakened in the caves.

She learned that Umbral had not shared her visions of the Aelfae. He did not know their
names, though he faked his role as ‘Xerpen’ so smoothly that even Dindi could have sworn he had known them all for centuries. During rests, she whispered their names to him. Their silent guide with flowers in her hair was Mrigana, the Aelfae who had helped Dindi shield herself from the light of the others. It was funny that the Aelfae could hurt her with too much light, and Umbral hurt her with too much dark. Too bad she couldn’t use a ‘shield,’ such as the one Mrigana had woven to protect her from the Aelfae’s Chromas, to protect herself from Umbral’s Penumbra. Unfortunately, Mrigana’s deft spell, accomplished without even a
tama
, just a few fingers dancing in the air, was well beyond anything Dindi knew how to do.

Finally, real sunlight poured through a hole high in one of the chimneys they were climbing like a ladder. Mrigana said it wasn’t the egress they would be using, but it meant they were close to the floor door of the House of the Great Loom. At the top of the chimney, they all took one last rest.

Umbral touched Dindi’s arm.

“I need to know if you are on my side, Dindi. I know, after everything I have done to you, that it’s a great deal to ask. I give you my word of honor—if you will aide me in this, I will not only spare your life, but I will dedicate whatever remains of mine to seeing that no one else ever tries to hurt you.
But if you betray me…. If you help the Bone Whistler….” He shook his head. “Will you help me kill our common enemy?”

Dindi took a deep breath. Kill the Bone Whistler? Vio the Maze Zavaedi and Vessia the White Lady, the two most powerful Zavaedies in Faearth, had tried that and failed. How could she and Umbral possibly succeed?

How could they possibly not try?

She put her hand on his. “But the Aelfae I will not help you kill—unless they attack first, giving us no choice.”

Now Umbral hesitated. She knew he thought the Aelfae were almost as dangerous to Faearth as the Bone Whistler. At last, he nodded.

“Agreed. I will not expect you to raise a weapon against your faery kin.”

She noticed he didn’t promise
he
wouldn’t raise a weapon against them. Still, this alliance was more than she had ever dreamed would be possible back when Umbral had her tied to a Deathsworn stone with his dagger over her throat.

“I so pledge on my honor and the honor of my clan and tribe and ancestors,” she said.

“I so pledge,” said Umbral.

Umbral inhaled fresh air.
We must be near the top
. After working their way up through another rough chimney, jagged and pitch-black, except for the luminance of the Aelfae themselves, the climbers emerged into a much smoother cavern. Instead of a natural cave, this area had been deliberately hollowed out of the stone. The round room led to a twisting spiral lined with steps of slate. Though steep and narrow (they still had to go single file), this path was far easier to navigate than the raw caverns below. He told the dark-haired Aelfae, who had guided them until now, that he would take the lead. She accepted this as if it were natural.

The stone stairwell must have been fashioned by Aelfae. Not only was it palpably ancient,
but Umbral knew of no human tools which could have dug so deeply and cleanly into the solid rock of the mountain. A breeze from above promised the exit was near.

However, the breeze, it turned out, had entered through a window of sorts, a yawn in the stone that was clearly not a viable door. The crack did allow Umbral to peek outside. The sky was still dark, though not with deep night, just the lesser gloom of predawn. The snowy mountains in the range already glowed subtly, preparing to burst into pink and white in the full sun, but for now they remained silvery with mist.

Strange shapes swung between the window and the distant mountains. Odd silhouettes. He frowned, trying to make sense of the pendulous shapes. Too mobile to be rock, too solid to be birds, swinging like loom weights….

They were cages
.

The mountain did not taper at the top. Instead, it jutted out like a chin, forming an outcrop over the cliff. From this outcrop hung a dozen huge cages suspended on thick ropes. Each cage held a dozen human wretches.

Umbral, in his guise as Xerpen, was at the head of the climbers. Dindi arrived next. Umbral pointed out the hole in the rock, toward the cages, with a finger over his lips. She gasped, horror reflected in her beautiful face, but she heeded his warning to keep silent. He left the window behind, following the steps ever up. He listened for chatter in the stairwell, but none of the Aelfae commented on the cages as they passed the window. Grimly, he kept climbing.

Finally, Umbral arrived at another set of steps.
These too, had been formed by slabs of slate, but they were worn smooth, as if they saw much more use than the deeper stair. The corridor was wider here, almost a room. He waited until Dindi and all the Aelfae ascended the stairs and pooled around him expectantly.

“We are nearly there,” he said confidently, though this was just a guess. “You will stay here while I scout ahead.”

They nodded, unquestioning. They trusted Xerpen. Only Dindi looked worried, but the Aelfae paid no attention to her. He ascended the last flight of steps with no echo of footsteps behind him.

Correction…there
was
one set of footsteps behind him.

“Dindi, I asked you to stay…” he began, turning around.

Instead of Dindi, he faced the dark-haired Aelfae. What was her name? Dindi had told him…

“Mrigana,” he said, trying to hide his annoyance.

She held up a bow. “I brought this—it’s Gwidan’s bow—the original Singing Bow. You’ll need it.”

“Thank you.” He wasn’t sure he trusted an Aelfae weapon. “I already have a bow and quiver.”

“Your bow is not strong enough to give your arrow the reach it will need. Your arrow will not bring down your prey either. You should use mine. I’ve found it to be effective in these cases.”

She handed him the bow and one arrow.

He took both, to appease her, still trying to think of some pretext to send her away.

“It would be better if you waited with the others. There might be humans above, and I should speak to them first.”

Her lips quirked. “It’s not the humans I fear, Umbral.”

Umbral froze.

He realized for the first time that he could not sense her aura at all. The shield around her was even more profound than the spell protecting Dindi. Not only had he not seen it, he had not even seen that he not seen it. Only now that she had spoken his real name did a tiny crack appear in that veil. He could not see her Chromas, but he sensed the weight of power around her. The immensity of it overwhelmed him.

“You will have only one shot,” Mrigana said smoothly. “If you miss, the other Aelfae will capture you. If you are lucky, Xerpen will kill you. If you are unlucky, he’ll do worse.”

“You are not fooled by the Obsidian Mask.” His mouth was dry.

“I
made
the Obsidian Mask.”

“Mercy…” he breathed. He fell to his knees, dumbstruck by his blindness.  “My Lady, forgive me. I did not recognize you.”

“That was the idea, Umbral. The others, of course, must never know… until I come for them, of course.” She grinned, not quite pleasantly. “Oh,
do
stand up.”

He obeyed, though it felt wrong to do anything but grovel in her presence.

“But how were you in the cocoon with the others for two generations…?”

“I wasn’t.
Mere slight of hand. I’m an accomplished liar.”

She winked.

Death is winking at me
.

Her playfulness was less reassuring than bone chilling.

“With my power of artifice I wove the Obsidian Mask you wear. The mask still weaves its illusion around you, but remember, for every weapon of mine, they have the mirror.”

He nodded. She meant the Looking Bowl, the mirror that revealed the truth behind all illusions. He could still hardly believe he stood in the presence of Lady Death. She had looked quite different the first time he had been ushered into her presence. He had never dreamed the Black Lady was an Aelfae, but, of course, it made sense—what else could she be but an immortal?

“Surely you have more power than all of them,” he said slowly, while inside, his thoughts flapped wildly like a flock of spooked birds. Dindi, the lost Vaedi, was barely two dozen steps away from Lady Death. Dindi, whom he had been commanded to kill and had instead spared. Would Lady Death punish him when she discovered what he had done, or, rather,
failed
to do? Did she already know?

She shook her head, mercurially somber. “You’ve seen the growing World Penumbra. The moon will eat the sun in three days, and Xerpen plans to make use of it, to turn my own power against me. Near him, I am myself eclipsed. My power wanes the closer we go to his stronghold.”

“Then killing Xerpen is our first priority?”

“Yes.”

Umbral bowed his head to hide his relief. He’d made the right choice to make an alliance with the Vaedi to kill Xerpen. Surely his Lady would agree. So why did his heart thunder like a boy afraid of a beating from a crazy, drunk uncle?

“I am an eye for humanity in the heart of the Aelfae,” Mrigana said. “But until now, I have been a blind eye. Xerpen, whose powers rival my own, has a spy on Obsidian Mountain. I have not dared visit my followers there in too many moons. But… we
have
met before, haven’t we?”