The Way Into Magic: Book Two of The Great Way (36 page)

“Right! We will all go!”

That sounded like a fine idea in theory, but Belterzhimi was not enthusiastic. He insisted that Ivy continue southward to rejoin her parents, and for once, Cazia was on his side. She never said so aloud, of course, but Ivy--Vilavivianna, actually, since it seemed right to be more formal--had a family that loved her and an important role to play among her people. Cazia had neither, really. It was one thing for Cazia to make this detour, but Ivy ought to be heading home.

Still, the princess was on her side, and Cazia tried to impress upon the commander the importance of finding out what was happening in the west. Scholars were the key to defeating The Blessing, and if they could send a message to Tempest Pass, they might be able to get the help they needed.
Magical
help.

Belterzhimi asked again about flying carts; he was very concerned about patrolling the western edge of the peninsula. Cazia suggested it was very likely there were carts and drivers in the west.
 

That sealed things for her and Kinz. For the princess, it became more complicated. Kinz quickly stopped translating, explaining that they had begun insulting each other.
 

Rule by wit, Ivy had called it, but in truth, it was mainly name-calling and condescension. Kinz began to blush furiously whenever Belterzhimi spoke at length, and Ivy’s face became pale. Cazia couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it was clear the little girl was not winning her cousin over.
 

“She has to come,” Cazia finally interrupted. They turned their faces toward her. “Your soldiers are brave, but you don’t have many of them. How many can you afford to send south with her? How many will you take to the Temple? Even with the numbers you have, two or three grunts might overwhelm you.”

The Warden did not like that. “A girl of the slouching, grasping west will have little understanding of the warriors of Indrega. We--”

Cazia held up her hand and he fell silent. His expression was just beginning to grow angry; she wanted to touch his hand to calm him, but she didn’t have the nerve.
Please don’t become an Enemy.
“I’m not one of your people. I don’t insult others to gain advantage, and I’m not trying to insult you now. I’ve seen grunts fight human soldiers. Have you?”

Belterzhimi sighed. All the anger seemed to drain out of him and he looked sad again. “Thankfully, no. We have captured refugees from the other side of the river, but I have not even seen a grunt until today.”

“I should be dead right now,” Cazia said softly. Monument sustain her, it was true. She’d taken a wild risk and had barely come out of it alive. “It was just stupid luck that I struck home against that creature. But I’ve seen them in action, and so has the princess.”
 

“They are terrifying,” Ivy said.

“Fast like grass lions, hard to kill like bears, utterly fearless, but they’re smart.”

“A few hundred of them,” Ivy added, “overran the entire city of Peradain in a single day.”
 

“Less,” Cazia said. “Even less. The point is, if you split your forces now, you will either leave the princess exposed on the rest of her journey or you will leave yourself and the rest of us exposed. I don’t want to taunt you or insult the warriors under your command. I’m just trying to give you the information you need.”

He sighed again, then slapped his thigh. “Telling me you mean to speak no insult, only truth, is one of the oldest ways to insult someone, but I believe you mean it honestly. All right. She must accompany us.”

Ivy cheered and threw her arms around her cousin’s neck, then hugged Kinz and Cazia together.
 

“But,” Belterzhimi continued, “if I am to take you, you must tell me the whole story of your journey. Hold nothing back.”

Ivy’s face lost its excitement. “Mother and Father first.”

“We are not going to your parents, and I will not wait. You will tell me the entire story or I will send you home afoot with a pair of guards, and let the danger wash you away, if chance fails you.”

Then it was time for them to leave his campfire so he could attend to other things. Ivy pulled the other girls away from the main group of soldiers into the woods. A trio of serpents lay curled around a tree, watching them, but the humans were out of earshot.
 

“Do we have to...” Kinz said.
 

“You will just have to get used to them,” Ivy said, a little more tersely than she needed to. “We are going to have to tell our story to my cousin.”
 

Cazia remembered how much she wanted to do exactly that when she was in Qorr Valley. Of course, she had been hollowed out at the time, but the whole point had been to spread the word about what they’d discovered. They’d held off because Ivy had demanded it, but they weren’t sure why. “Isn’t he exactly the sort of person who should know what we found?”

“Yes, but he will not believe us.” She sighed, glanced at the serpents, then bowed politely to them. The creatures lifted and dipped their heads in return. Cazia felt goose bumps run down her back. No matter how many times the princess assured them those creatures were allies, she couldn’t help but fear them. “And that’s risky.”
 

Kinz’s expression showed she was confused, but it suddenly became very clear to Cazia. “Because they will mock you.”

“’Mock’ is the wrong word,” Ivy said. “There is no good word for this in Peradaini. The worst thing a ruler can do is lie about the achievements, because it makes them a target for laughter. For snickering. It is like giving a knife to your enemy. I can tell the story to my mother and father and make them believe it. It would take time and effort, but I could. I do not have the same influence with Belterzhimi, and he is unlikely to give me much credit. It would be easier if we were boys, I’m afraid.”

Kinz sighed. “Even among my people, that would be true.”

“If no one believed our story, it would follow me for the rest of my life. I could never become a respectable member of the royal line, never command others, never be anything but a joke. That is why I wanted to bring the iron crown and spiked circlet back.”

“We have the Tilkilit stones,” Kinz said.

“But to use them as proof, we would have to reveal that Cazia is a scholar.”

A wizard now, actually.
“Fire and Fury. Ivy… If I have to, I—”

“We will not do that,” Ivy said. “No matter what. I refuse to take my place among my people at your expense. Either of you. Not after everything we have been through together. However, if he refuses to believe
anything
, he might order you two to be whipped.”

Cazia gritted her teeth. It was one thing to be beaten with a switch; a whip was another. It would cut her open and she would have to heal naturally, of all things. “Your cousin might suddenly find himself less handsome if he tried it.”
 

Kinz made a face. “You think he is handsome? But he is always making the tragic expression, as though making practice for future misery.”
 

Cazia wanted to say a dozen things all at once, about sadness being a sign of wisdom, deep feeling, and generosity, but her thoughts were too tangled up and it was impossible. Instead, she only blushed.
 

Both girls laughed and hugged her. It was so embarrassing! Not that it mattered. He was so much older than her and certainly married or something.
 

Not that she spent much time thinking about him. More pressing was the princess’s dilemma and Cazia’s secret. Would she sacrifice her freedom for Ivy? Obviously, yes, but if there was a way to avoid it, she would.
 

They camped right there by the road for the night. Cazia was asked to tell the story of killing the flying serpent over and over again, moving from one campfire to the next, while the soldiers listened in thoughtful silence. They would never like her, but a little bit of respect suddenly seemed possible.

The caravan was up and moving before dawn, heading back north for part of the morning, then taking a narrow road that led them north east. Unlike the Ozzhuacks’ okshim, the Indregai’s didn’t seem to mind being turned this way or that.
 

The way was steep and quickly became steeper. The road became a path, and they had to follow its winding way around lakes and boulders. The trees seemed to draw in closer with every step, and Cazia soon fought the urge to climb one just so she could look over the canopy at something farther than twenty feet away.
 

Belterzhimi said it would take six days of hard travel to reach the temple, and it did. It was a sudden change when it finally happened. They trudged around yet another curve carved into the side of a hill, and there they were, face to face with a single, lonely column of stone at the foot of the mountain, and the open-sided roof beside it. The mountainside was nothing but rough, black, treeless rock.

Ivy was at her shoulder. “I wanted to show you this, but I had hoped Mother would be with us. Do you see?”

Cazia did not see. Goherzma cracked a lash over the heads of the okshim, driving them along the edge of the clearing. He kept the beasts well away from that stone tower.
 

Many of the soldiers did the same. When Belterzhimi stalked forward and knelt beneath the stone roof, he did so alone.
 

Was that how the messages were transmitted? Perhaps there was something beneath the stone roof that carried his voice. Or, by the way he bowed his head, perhaps something like the silver mirrors that Peradaini scholars made was set into the ground.
 

Should she join him? There were messages she wanted to send, but she needed someone to show her how. Was there anyone else she could even ask for--

“Well?”

The princess looked up at her expectantly, as though expecting some sort of delight or astonishment.
 

Cazia glanced around. There was the stone column, the rough stone mountainside, the so-called temple--little more than a stone roof held aloft by carved stone posts--and Belterzhimi himself. He was still kneeling in the low grass, still holding his head bowed.
 

Cazia had no idea what the princess was on about. She strained to hear something interesting, like the commander’s voice, but she could hear nothing but the huff and blow of the Okshim and the thumping of weary soldiers dropping their packs.
 

“Inzu’s breath,” Kinz suddenly whispered. “Inzu preserve us. Inzu grant us your grace. Inzu...”

Cazia squinted up at her in astonishment. Her first thought was that the two of them were playing some sort of prank. Wasn’t that how the Indregai did things? Mockery and insults?
 

But no, that was just her paranoia. Ivy wasn’t an Enemy, and neither was Kinz, not anymore.
 

She looked back at Belterzhimi again. He had spread his hands wide, palms up, as though entreating the grass around him to grow. Was he speaking? She could hear something odd, like a deep tone blowing through a long, low horn. It was clear and wavering but so deep she almost couldn’t hear it.
 

Then, suddenly, she saw it. It appeared at first as though something was moving on the face of the mountainside, but no. It was the mountainside itself that was moving. The sound was coming from that vertical undulating crevice.
 

A mouth. It was a mouth, with actual lips, moving as though the gray-black stone was as malleable as flesh. And once she could recognize the lips, she saw the nose, the cheekbones, the brow, and the lidded eyes. Eyes that were barely open at all.
 

It was a gigantic head lying on its side, with the crown facing the west. It dwarfed the walls of the Sunrise Gate, and it seemed barely awake. It was a giant. A man made of stone. A slumbering colossus.

I should not be here.
“Monument sustain me.”

“Hah!” Ivy exclaimed. “Can you bring me to visit one of
your
gods?”

Chapter 25

As Tejohn and Javien came to the base of the Southern Barrier, they had some difficulty finding the road that would take them through Salt Pass. Javien was certain it was farther west and insisted they push forward. Tejohn wanted to backtrack before they crossed into Bendertuk territory. He had already scraped the paint off the Finstel shield he was carrying, but if they met a Bendertuk patrol, they would be fortunate if they were only robbed of everything they had.
 

Fortunately, they happened upon traveling merchants held up at a crossroads by a broken wagon wheel. Their little group was too small to be called a caravan—only a dozen wagons or so—but they did anyway. Their leader was a woman who called herself “Granny Nin.” She insisted they call her “Granny,” even though Tejohn thought she couldn’t be more than ten years older than him.
 

After Javien introduced himself, Tejohn gave his name as Ondel Ulstrik again.
 

The first thing they did was trade one of the fallen soldiers’ knives for a new coat of paint on Tejohn’s shield, along with a spot in the wagon. Granny assured them they would pass through Bendertuk territory without incident, since she had many friends and relatives on that side of the river and always did fine business there.