The Red Sea (22 page)

"Her armada sailed forth. A score of ships bearing two thousand men. The Dresh fought back, but as usual, they were divided. One after another, each town fell. But the invasion had a hell of a time with the Tauren, along with the Kandeans. During the fighting, infrastructure was destroyed. Including the small shaden farms both groups had managed to cultivate across generations. Meanwhile, the conquerers set up their forts. Soon, they all developed ronone. And they began to need shells, too."

"Oh hell," Blays said.

Niles gave him a grim look. "See where this is going, do you?"

"In this case, I hope I'm much dumber than I think. Please, go on."

"Well, it wasn't long before the shaden dwindled. At first, Freda's conquerers had the locals collecting them, but as they returned with fewer and fewer shells, the Mallish started harvesting them instead. Soon, there weren't enough to go around. Bet you can guess who got the cure and who got nothing.

"Some of the Mallish chose to sail back to Bressel. They died to a man. The Dresh fared little better. Between the invasion, the poxes brought by the Mallish, and the ronone, almost every native islander died. The few that didn't became servants, or married into the Mallish. Within a generation, their entire people had vanished. And the Mallish invaders were trapped here to live atop the graves of those they'd slaughtered.

"A year after the first expedition, Queen Freda sent a second mission to learn what had happened. The stranded soldiers warned the newcomers away. Told them that plagues cursed whoever traveled here. Trade ceased. Over time, the Mallish survivors became the Dresh. Adopted their clothes, their ways, their harvesting, even what remained of their speech. And we made lying into a virtue. Because that was the only way to hide the horror of what we'd done."

With his story complete, Niles took a deep breath, eyes downcast.

"This is all very extraordinary," Dante said. "But I'm not sure what it has to do with us."

"Winden told you what the Dreamers are up to, didn't she?"

"They travel into the Mists. To rescue the dead who have been condemned as liars by Kaval."

Niles smiled with half his mouth. "That's the story we tell the rixen. Truth is, the Dreamers don't go into the Mists to rescue our people. They travel there to beg forgiveness from the islanders we killed. We believe that, when every single Dresh has forgiven us, they'll teach us how to lift the curse of the ronone."

Dante drew back his head. "The Dreamers have been working on that for hundreds of years, haven't they? We know virtually nothing about this place. How do you expect us to do what your people can't?"

"I don't. The dead wouldn't give a damn and a half about you. I'm telling you this so you understand what you're walking into. The people you want to speak to? They see us as mass murderers. It'll be harder to pry anything out of them than it is to talk the bones out of a live fish."

"I'm sensing a problem beyond the whole angry ghosts issue," Blays said. "According to what you said, the Dresh suffered the ronone, too. So assuming we can get any of them to talk, why do you think they'll know anything about the cure?"

"Because as recently as two or three hundred years before the Mallish arrived, the Dresh sailed freely, without the need for shaden. I don't know what caused them to lose their cure. But that's what we're traveling to ask, isn't it?"

Dante frowned heavily. "If it's that simple, why didn't the afflicted Dresh go and ask
their
ancestors how to lift the ronone?"

Niles lifted his eyebrows a fraction of an inch. "The Dresh's ability to travel into the Mists was very limited. It's said that it was like trying to speak underwater, or to swim in mud. Our Harvesters worked for years to refine the plant until we were able to send the Dreamers all the way in."

"And in almost five hundred years, it's never occurred to
your
people to ask the older Dresh?"

He laughed. "They'd never tell us that. If we knew how to cure ourselves, we could escape here. And leave our crimes behind."

"It sounds like we'll have no chance of convincing them to spill their secret."

"Don't be too sure," Winden said. "The dead, they don't think like we do. And you're rixen. You won't carry the same stain we do. They might be willing to bargain."

"They're dead," Blays said. "What would they want from us? A fresh delivery of worms?"

"We won't know that until we're inside. And through the Pastlands."

"And those are?"

"They take several forms. They may be a cherished memory. Or a wish made real. This place, it seems to be intended to hold the dead fast. Some spend decades there before moving on to the Mist. Others never leave it."

"Come to think of it, I've been there," Blays said. "So maybe I can show the rest of you the way out."

"Everyone goes into the Pastlands alone. It will be up to each of us to navigate through."

"Rougher than it sounds," Niles said. "Once you're there, you forget everything. If you try to remember, it can come back to you, but if you're too far gone, you may not want it to." He stood, brushing sand from his seat. "But this can wait until we're closer to ready."

"How long will it take us to find and speak to the dead?" Dante said.

"There's no telling. Time's funny on the other side. But I can't see it taking less than a few days."

Before hiking up to the temple where Niles had been sick—which he had accomplished, Dante now knew, simply by not eating any shaden, and letting the ronone advance—Dante wrote two letters. The first was to Olivander. He had acted as steward of the Sealed Citadel before Dante had been ready to take his place as the head of the Council. In the letter, Dante warned him that he would need to reassume that role for the foreseeable future.

The second was to Nak. Nak was the least powerful member of the Council—there were several monks of far lesser title who could command the nether with more fluency—but his limits with the shadows had pushed him to excel as a scholar.

And if Dante couldn't find his own way off of the island, he'd need every bit of Nak's talent to come up with other answers.

Benny had brought the longboat back to the
Sword of the South
, so Dante borrowed flags from Niles and waved the rowboat back in. Captain Naran himself accompanied the small crew.

He came ashore and looked Dante up and down. "I'm pleased to see you've stepped back from death's door."

"It's only a temporary reprieve," Dante said. "I've got a sickness called ronone. You pick it up by staying here too long, so you should wrap up your business and cast off as soon as possible."

"You mean to stay, then?"

"I mean to find a permanent cure. Which may be a fool's errand, but I happen to be an expert fool. Could you return in one month?"

Naran's eyes moved up and to the right. "I'll have to adjust our schedule. But this will be no problem. And Blays?"

"He'll be staying as well."

Naran's voice dropped. "So he's sick, too?"

"Only in the head. I have one other request." He held out the letters. "These need to be delivered to Narashtovik. The Sealed Citadel."

"That's a little bit out of our way. By approximately a quarter of the world."

"It isn't
that
far. Just find someone you trust. Please. My city depends on it."

Naran inserted the letters into the inner pocket of his shiny-buttoned jacket. "You have good relations with the norren, yes?"

Dante chuckled. "As far as that's possible. I'm a member of one of the clans, believe it or not."

"A small number of norren have established commerce in Bressel. My understanding is they return to their homeland regularly. I'll see if I can convince one of them to deliver your letters."

Dante thanked him and shook hands. Naran returned to the longboat. Dante watched the crew row across the impossibly clear waters of the bay.

He rejoined the three others and began the trek to the heights. Near the ocean, the air was perfectly nice as long as you stuck to the shade, but as soon as Dante got moving, he was sweating buckets. It felt much better than the cold sweats he'd had during his fever, however, and he kept up easily. They reached the temple by late afternoon. Dante now understood why it looked so old, so worn: the people who'd built it had died long ago. Their Mallish replacements hadn't had any idea how to craft such structures. Instead, they worked with bamboo, wood, woven grass.

During Dante's meeting with Naran, Winden had visited the Basket, acquiring one of the orange flowers the Dreamers used to sink close enough to death to walk in the afterworld. She found a shady spot outside the temple, planted the flower, and harvested it into a full-grown bush. Orange petals bloomed in profusion.

"We can go now," she said. "Or wait until morning. It's up to you."

Dante rubbed his upper lip. It had been an extremely long day. He hadn't entirely recovered from his illness, let alone had time to process the story Niles had told, which seemed to be the key to understanding the whole of Kandean society—possibly the entire island. He was sorely tempted to eat a giant meal and take a long rest.

But the thought of the dark spots growing inside him, lurking within him forever, filled him with a hot and prickly dread.

"We'll go now," he said. "There's nothing to gain by waiting."

"Except a clear idea of what the hell we're getting ourselves into," Blays muttered. "Then again, maybe it's better not to know."

"Very well." Niles reached out and plucked a flower.

"You're coming with us?" Dante said.

"Someone will need to help you navigate the Mists. They can be very deceptive. It's as easy to get lost in them as it is in the Pastlands."

"But I thought the Dresh hated your kind."

"I'll keep myself away from them." Amusement twinkled in his eyes. "Besides, you don't like me any better than they do, do you? So if I'm there, your shared enmity will give you guys something to bond over."

Winden plucked three more flowers, handing one to Dante and another to Blays. They entered the temple and spread blankets and grass-stuffed mattresses across the floor.

"The flower," Winden said. "It will taste very bitter. But eat it all. And when it comes, don't fight it."

"That's all?" Dante said. "No rituals?"

"You might wish to lie down. Unless you are unhappy with the shape of your head, and think it would be improved by a fall."

"And we're all going under? What if this winds up taking days? We'll die of thirst."

"We've arranged for Stav to check in on us. He's the only one we can trust. Are you ready?"

Dante lay back and chewed his flower, releasing a taste as bitter as poison. He swallowed it down as fast as he could. Finished, he lay back on his blankets. He thought he could feel a warmness creeping up from his belly, but it was too faint to be sure.

"How will we find each other?" Blays' voice had a ringing quality to it. "Once we're through to the Mists?"

Winden shuffled on her mattress. "We're entering the Dream together. This means we'll enter the Mists together, too."

Dante thought he should ask more, but there didn't seem to be any point. Niles had said they'd forget everything in the Pastlands. Nothing he learned now would be useful until they were through to the Mists.

A breeze blew through the many windows of the temple wall. It was cooling, but within a minute, Dante couldn't seem to feel it at all. His body felt odd, as if the border between it and his blankets was indistinct, permeable.

Motion caught his eye. The vaulted ceiling was pulling away from him. Or maybe the temple was growing? No: he was sinking into the floor, he could feel the momentum in his guts. He reached out to grab at the ground, but he wasn't sure his arms were moving. The ceiling went higher and higher. Darkness encircled him.

He sank into the Dream. And saw his father.

Larsin Galand galloped through the grass, turf spraying from the hooves of his horse. Clean yellow sunlight slashed through the branches of the forest. Dante could feel the thunder of the hoofbeats through his soles. The beast looked mad—eyes huge and black, lips flecked with froth—but his father was grinning, and so Dante felt no fear.

The horse skidded to a stop. His father vaulted from the saddle, bending his knees as he landed. "There you are. I told you not to run off."

Guilt flushed Dante's face. "I didn't go far."

"You would have been mighty unhappy with yourself if you'd missed me. Mount up. We're going for a ride."

His father slung himself back into the saddle and helped Dante up behind him. In a blink, the horse was galloping. Dante hung on tight, jostling up and down. Branches ripped past them, but not a single one touched his father. Dante loosened his grip and laughed. He'd never gone so fast in his life.

The trees ceased. Just ahead, the land ceased in a cliff. Green hills and black rocks stood hundreds of feet below. Dante's breath caught. His father dismounted and walked right up to the edge of the cliff. Dante didn't want to get so close, but he did anyway, and he was okay.

"Do you see how big it is?" His father pointed to the ridges on the far horizon. "And when you cross this plain, and stand on those heights way over there, there's another view just like this. So it goes around the world."

"How big is the world?"

"No one knows. That's the beauty of it. And that's what I needed you to see. Tomorrow, I'm going on a journey south. I'll take a boat. I could be gone a long time, because there's so much to explore. But I will come home."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to earn our fortune. But I'm going to bring something else back, too." He beamed. "Your mother."

"You're going to find Mom? But I thought she was dead!"

"We all did. There was a mistake. It turns out she'd just gone very far away. That means I'm going to have to travel just as far to find her. But don't be scared, okay?"

"I'm not."

His father examined him. "You aren't, are you? That's good. Because if I'm gone too long, I'll need you to come find me. You can never stop searching, okay? As long as you keep looking, you'll find me. I promise."

"I'll find you," Dante said. "Even if it takes me until I'm as old as you are."

Larsin laughed and ruffled his hair. "You'll never be as old as I am. Every year you get older, I get older, too. Now come on. We've a long ride ahead of us."

They turned around and galloped back through the forest. The horse seemed to be able to run forever. Dante felt as light as the wind. His dad was going to find his mom. And if he took too long, he wanted Dante to find him. Pride rose in him like a marble pillar.

Night came on fast, like they were riding into the darkness. Dante fought to stay awake, to be there on the horse with his father, headed off on the start of something great together. But before he knew it, he was asleep.

He woke on a cot in a small, unfamiliar room. The floorboards were cold. He dressed and walked out into a close, tidy house with books on the shelves and inkwells on the table. He walked out onto a cobbled porch shaded by an overhang. The full moon hung in the sky, pale white against the washed-out blue morning.

A man walked in from the side. He handed Dante a cup of yeasty smallbeer. "You're awake! My name is Tod. Your father's left you in my care while he's away."

The man wore a gray robe and his hair was cut close on the sides. Every other monk Dante had met had been haughty, grumpy, or strict, but Tod was kindly and quick to laugh, even when Dante couldn't remember yesterday's lesson. These occupied the afternoons—Tod wanted him to become wise and smart before his father returned.

Every morning, Dante walked out to the porch. The full moon hung in the air like a stone tossed upward and suspended at the height of its arc. Every morning, Tod brought him breakfast with a cup of smallbeer. And every morning, after Dante ate his sausage and tomatoes, he went out and explored.

The house was alone in the woods and he could walk for miles and never see a soul. Birds swooped from the branches, following him as he ran down the dewy trails. Mist flowed down from the hills, vanishing as quickly as his breath on a cold window pane.

One morning early in his stay—he thought it was his third day there, though it could have been his fifth, or maybe a week—he headed north, running and running until his lungs gave out. He stopped, folding his hands behind his head. The birds had gone quiet. Leaves crackled ahead. He froze. Were there bears in this wood? Or was it the wolves he'd heard howling at night? He cast about himself and picked up a damp branch fallen by the trail.

Something pale moved through the trees. Dante gripped his staff. Not twenty feet away, a stag stepped onto the trail, its fur as white as high clouds. Its antlers spanned the path. Its blue eyes locked on Dante. Steam trickled from its nostrils. It lowered its head and pulled at the grass. A minute later, it turned and walked back into the woods.

Every morning, he searched for the stag, but he never saw it again. His travels brought him many other wonders instead: owls, yellow-eyed and patient; baby rabbits like tufts of mobile fur; deer and mice; a waterfall, and the pond below it; the fish within it and the dragonflies above it.

Back at the house, Tod led him through the
Account of the Events at Nine's Crossing
, then the three-part story of the
Fabriosic
, then the
Compleat History of the Kingdom of Eritropolis
. Every day, Dante felt a little wiser. A little more capable of making his own way in the world. He couldn't remember why he was doing so much reading—or even, come to think of it, how he'd come to the cottage in the forest—but he knew he liked it very much. He felt destined for something great. He wasn't sure he wanted more than he already had, though. When he went exploring, pushing past the brush and into the tall grass of a clearing, he felt as though he might be happy here forever.

One morning, he walked out onto the porch. The moon hung like a stone. Tod came to give him his smallbeer and his sausage and tomatoes. Finished, Dante walked toward the pond beneath the waterfall, his favorite place. There, the stream poured down the cliff, battering the deep end of the pool. Rainbows flitted through the haze. He walked to the shallow side where moss swayed on the rocks, stopping to pick up a twig. As he moved on, he poked at the dragonfly larvae clinging to the weeds where the stream fed out of the pond. Halfway around, a snake slithered away, startling him so badly he laughed.

In time, as always, he came to the right side of the falls, where the cave hid behind the sheets of water. As always, he stopped there. He wanted to go inside, but he had no source of light. Besides, the rocks were slippery, and with the water gushing down on his head, he might fall into the pool. Tod was much too far away to hear him.

He turned to go, rocks clacking under his feet. Something was trying to swim up from the deep places of his mind. He stopped and waited, letting it come. He was supposed to keep exploring, wasn't he? To keep searching. He didn't know why; that part didn't seem to want to come back. He only knew that it was important.

He lowered himself to his knees and crawled forward. Stones shifted under his weight, grinding against each other. After a few feet, they turned mossy. The knees of his pants soaked through. Mist clung to his eyelashes. It was very cold. He could feel the thunder of the water in the hollow of his chest. Droplets began to strike his face. The curtain of water was right in front of him, so whitely churned he couldn't see through to the other side. He closed his eyes, held his breath, and scrambled forward.

Ice cold water drenched him to his bones, battering him, threatening to knock him off the rocks and into the depths. He felt his way forward. The curtain fell behind him. He wiped his eyes. The cave opened before him.

It was cool and smelled musty, but in a clean way. A soft glow emanated from the back, revealing a cavern thirty feet deep. Was there a hole out to the other side? He picked his way across the pebbles and sticks lining the floor.

Eight feet ahead, a shadow moved along the floor. Goosebumps swept his skin. But there was no animal there. Just a patch of darkness, swirling within itself and holding position. A gathering of shadows. They moved like water or fire or a school of fish. The way they flocked and flowed, they reminded him of something, but he couldn't say what. He stepped back, heart bumping. The shadows retreated. But rather than feeling relieved by their withdrawal, he felt sad.

He stepped forward. The shadows advanced. He reached out and so did they. His fingers touched darkness. It felt right.

Another memory broke the plane of his consciousness, bobbing up like a piece of wood dislodged from the rocks it had been trapped beneath.

His father was gone. And had been for a very long time.

He ran back to the house. Tod was sweeping the porch. Dust motes swirled through shafts of sunlight.

Seeing him dripping water everywhere, Tod's cheeks pursed in a frown. "What happened to you? Get thirsty and decide to drink the whole creek?"

"How long has my dad been gone?" Dante said.

The monk stopped and leaned on his broom. "I'm not sure. No more than a week or two."

"It feels like it's been months."

"It hasn't been that long, has it?"

"Think of all the books I've read since then. It must have taken weeks. I'm worried."

The monk resumed sweeping. "Well, I think you should forget about it. We're about to start
The Book of the Soaring Vale
. You'll like that one. Plenty of adventure."

"I think I was supposed to find him."

"Give it a few more days. If he hasn't shown up by week's end, then we'll see what we can do."

Dante wanted to argue, but the monk's smile was so kindly he acquiesced. And Tod was right:
The Book of the Soaring Vale
was so wonderful he felt he could get lost in it for years. Yet every evening, when the sun stole away and they folded up the book, Dante reminded himself of what he had to do.

Week's end arrived. That morning, as Dante accepted his cup, he looked Tod in the eye. "I have to find my father."

Tod licked his lips. "That could be dangerous. It would be a shame if you went out and got hurt or lost, and he returned and you were nowhere to be found."

"He told me I had to search for him. I can't let him down."

"Very well. I won't try to stop you."

"Will you help me?" Dante said. "I don't even know where he went."

"Larsin went to the west," Tod said. "But wolves prowl that way. You'll never get past them."

"I have to try!"

The monk snapped his fingers. "I've just remembered. He left a sword for you. It's in a chest in the basement—but the chest is locked."

"Where's the key?"

"Oh, it's hidden somewhere. You'll have to find it."

"If my dad wanted me to have the sword, why would he hide the key?"

Tod blinked. "Well, of course he didn't hide it. I meant to say it was lost. But you can find it, can't you? Or else you'll never be able to search for him."

"Then I better get started."

Dante put on his boots and a cloak and found a tall, straight branch that Tod helped him cut into a walking staff. Thinking his father had dropped the key on the way to the west, Dante headed down the path that way, checking the trail and the grass to either side. By day's end, he'd found nothing.

The next morning, he tried the north. Then the east. Then the south, which was a quiet meadow he'd never found anything special in and rarely visited. He came back to the house and searched the grounds around it.

"It's no use," he said. "I could search for years and never find it."

"But the key is bright gold. When you're close, it will shine like the sun. All you have to do is keep looking."

The encouragement lifted Dante's spirits. That day, he hunted for so long that twilight was upon him before he knew it. Eyes glittered from the shadows. A wolf howled from so close that his bladder tried to let go. He dashed back to the house as fast as he could, looking over his shoulder all the way.

"You were out late," Tod said. "You missed all our reading." He held up the leatherbound copy of
The Book of the Soaring Vale.
"To make up for it, we'll have to start first thing tomorrow."

Chagrined, Dante went to bed. Yet try as he might, he couldn't fall asleep. Shadows played on the ceiling. Why had he been out so late? He'd been looking for something, hadn't he? He punched his pillow and rolled on his side. Well, if it was that important, he'd remember it in the morning.

The howl of a wolf pierced the shutters. He sat straight up in bed. The key! He'd been traipsing around all day, yet somehow, he'd forgotten to look for it. Which meant he'd forgotten to look for his father. Heart racing, he went to his desk, hunting for a quill and parchment. He couldn't trust his memory. He had to write it down before it could be lost again.

His desk had parchment, but no quills or ink. He went to Tod's desk in the main room. Again, there was parchment, but nothing to write with. Dante pulled the drawers open a second time, as if to force the inkwells to reappear, but the desk stubbornly remained empty.

He backed away from the desk. The table by the fireplace was vacant. But he didn't need ink, did he? He rushed to the hearth, meaning to grab charcoal and scrawl his message with that, but the fireplace had been swept so clean he could have eaten off it. He ran to the door to go outside and get some dirt to smear on his wall, but the door was locked. He banged his shoulder into it until he cried out with pain.

"Tod!" he called. "Tod, I need something to write with!"

No matter how hard he yelled, the monk's door stayed closed. Dante bashed his small fist against it. Hand aching, he staggered back and sat on the floor. Tears washed down his cheeks.