The Way Into Magic: Book Two of The Great Way (6 page)

Cazia wasn’t sure which girl she should be more annoyed with. Actually, yes, she was. The oceans teemed with monsters; everyone knew that.
 

Kinz stepped toward her. “Stop scowling, Scowler. I have something that will make you feel better.” She held up a bag that Cazia recognized immediately.
 

“You still have them!” She peered down as Kinz fumbled with the leather strip holding it shut. Great Way, she’d completely forgotten about the bag of stones.
 

“That is not all I got,” Kinz said. “I made to follow that particular warrior across the bridge for one reason.” She opened the pouch. Inside was the blue translation stone that Cazia had made so long ago.
 

“You didn’t!” A flush of relief washed through her. Hers. That magic was hers.
 

Kinz smiled in a crooked way Cazia had never seen from her before. “I did.”
 

Cazia wanted to reach into the pouch to grab it, but there were four anti-magic stones inside. And, she suddenly realized, they were touching the translation stone. “Did the black stones drain the spell from it?”
 

Kinz’s smile faltered. She took the blue gem from the pouch, saying only “Tingles” as her fingertips brushed the other stones. Translation stone in her fist, she turned to Ivy.
 

The princess said something in her native language. Ergoll, she’d called it. Whatever she said, it was short and guttural, like trying to get someone’s attention with a mouthful of pebbles. Cazia didn’t think it was the same language she had spoken at the edge of the ruined Indregai camp. Kinz seemed pleased. “Thank you.”
 

Cazia accepted the gem and slipped it into her pocket. It felt absurdly good to have something of her own. Sure, she could have made another with a bit of effort and the right sort of mineral, but those minerals were hard to find and the spell was exhausting. Why should she have to? The gem would have been worth a small fortune back in Peradain—before, of course--but the Tilkilit didn’t even know what they’d had.
 

Ivy turned toward the east just as a heavy bank of fog topped the hill to the east and rolled over them. The slow, rhythmic crash of the surf was louder in the wet air. “You can’t mean to drag us there,” Cazia said. “We have no food, no shelter, and an actual army hunting us. Do either of you know how long it will take to find a way over the mountains? Because I don’t. We have to escape the valley with what we know. We have to bring these stones back with us.”
 

Cazia pointed toward the pouch in Kinz’s hand, and she tucked it into her belt.
 

Her pleas could not sway the other two, no matter what she said. She was tempted to threaten to leave them, but she couldn’t bear the thought that they’d call her bluff. She’d been so horrible to Ivy after she’d gone hollow, she was not sure where they stood. The princess had
said
she wanted to put that behind them, but if Cazia pushed too hard, she might make an Enemy of the girl. Of both of them—it had been Kinz who looked after Ivy in the water, after all.

So they set out eastward without packs or supplies, their boots squishing in the mossy mud. Once on the move, they were quiet by mutual unspoken agreement, climbing uphill in the mists. The sun was a bright white spot against the bright white sky, and they followed it through the morning. The fog was awful; they could have seen farther with torches on a moonlit night. Cazia knew that somewhere to the north, the lake would be flowing into the ocean, but she was glad not to be near it.
 

She wondered, though, at the way Ivy and Kinz calmly approached the water. Were imperial shores the only ones troubled by sea giants and other monsters? It was possible that Ivy’s ocean god--Boskole, or whatever she called it--kept the eastern side of the Indrega Peninsula safe, but only if it were real, and Cazia wasn’t ready to accept that. As for Kinz, well, Cazia had underestimated her before, but she seemed to have been created to be underestimated. Maybe she really did understand the dangers. Maybe she was just brave.

As the morning grew late, the fog finally thinned again, and the other girls picked up the pace. Cazia followed, trying to convince herself the others knew what they were doing and that this would be a safe detour. She’d only seen the ocean once in her life, after all, and that from a distance. Maybe the Ergoll and Poalo peoples took family picnics on the beach.

They finally topped another hill. The fog had burned away more than expected, and they could see a fair distance.
 

The ocean rolled and surged just at the foot of the hill. She could have reached the beach in two hundred paces, maybe three. From there, it would have been another fifty before the water touched her feet. The waves crashed and rolled in toward the shore, over and over, in an endless assault.
 

On the right, to the south, was a jagged ridge of rocks that ran out into the water. It must have been the end of the Northern Barrier, battered down by the endless waves. The ridge was slick black stone and made nearly vertical cliffs, except in the places the waters had worn an overhang.
 

To the left was another ridge and smattering of black stones, but these were more sparse and didn’t extend as far from shore. Many of them stood like irregular towers amid the crashing waves. Both ridges served to narrow the bay and blunt the force of the surging ocean.
 

That first time Cazia had seen the ocean, she had stood within a tower at Rivershelf and watched the waters churn. Three great eels had battled a great hulking thing that floated just below the waves. The battle had been terrifying, even at a distance, and the sounds that echoed through the city had chilled her blood. The stones of Rivershelf’s waterfront had been awash in red and black fluids, which servants had collected at terrible personal risk. Two had been snatched from dry land by a tentacle that had dragged them down into the sea while she watched.
 

Monsters. The ocean was full of monsters, and human beings did not even dare to approach it, except in a few select places like Rivershelf or the Bay of Stones, where the shallows stretched far from the shore.

Here, though, she saw nothing. Her brother--and how the memory of him pained her--had said they’d seen a rare sight that day in Rivershelf, but she’d never really believed him. She had always suspected that that sort of massive combat was a daily sight. Yet here they were, looking over the churning waters with no idea what might lie beneath.
 

“That is unexpected,” Kinz said. They turned southward to follow her gaze.

Low against the cliff wall, right at the edge of the beach, was a squat stone tower. It was the same color as the black ridge behind it, and Cazia was embarrassed not to have noticed it herself. Still, there it was just the same, with a conical roof and short, wide windows.
 

“We should go back,” Cazia said.
 

“It is too late,” Ivy said. “The way we are standing out on this hill, they are sure to have seen us.”
 

Then we should run,
Cazia wanted to say. Kinz spoke first. “Assuming anyone is there. Does it not look abandoned to you?”
 

It did. Cazia had to admit that it did.
 

Ivy turned toward her. “Big sister,” she said, with surprising warmth, “I know how you feel about the ocean--I know how the Peradaini people feel--but we have risked so much to search for answers, have we not?”
 

“We have our answers,” Cazia said quietly.
 

“Not all of them,” Ivy said. She glanced back at the tower. “This seems like it could be important, does it not?”
 

“Yes,” Cazia answered. “Little sister, you’re right. It might be important. But we have learned so much that needs to be shared with your people and mine. And yours, too,” she said to Kinz.
 

“I am glad you made to include me,” the older girl said with a sardonic smile.
 

“Sorry. Listen, it is not just about the Tilkilit, the eagles, and the portal. It is those stones.” She pointed to the pouch Kinz was wearing. “I can’t carry them but you two can. They could change the way magic is done. They could turn the war against the grunts in our favor.”

“In your favor,” Kinz said. “For your empire.”
 

“Monument sustain me,” Cazia spat, because she didn’t want to wish the girl Fire-taken. “Would you take the grunts over the Peradaini people?”
 

“I will
take
neither,” Kinz answered, bringing her open hand down like a chopping ax. “I want them to destroy each other so I can make again my clan and live like free people.”

Goose bumps ran down Cazia’s back and her face grew warm. “You’re talking about women and children, too. You’re talking about lives lost while we dawdle. With these stones, our scholars could save lives.”
 

Kinz glared. She pushed her dark hair out of her face--she needed to re-braid it, but Fire take the idea that Cazia would touch that oily mess. Let Ivy do it, if they were going to ally against her.
 

Then the older girl turned away and marched across the slope of the hill toward the tower.

Cazia lunged forward and caught Ivy’s elbow. “Little sister,” she said, half afraid the younger girl would object. “Let her go ahead. She’s got the only weapon, such as it is. And she’s...” Cazia wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence.
She dislikes me because of things I didn’t do and had no control over. It’s not fair.
 

“Cazia,” the princess said, her tone annoyingly patient. “Kinz has buried the family. She has seen the family killed by Peradaini soldiers because they objected to the size of the tribute—taxes, I meant to say. Do not argue; I will call them taxes while talking with you. However, you should understand that whatever Peradaini kings say, the herding clans of the Sweeps consider themselves free people. If you do not want her to treat you like an enemy, do not treat her as though you have the same desires. She is not a subject to either of us.”
 

“I don’t have subjects,” Cazia snapped. “I’m not a princess.”
 

“You would be if you had been born among my people,” Ivy answered placidly. “She knows this.”

Cazia glanced across the hill at Kinz’s retreating form. “She signed on as our servant. She was revealed to be a spy. She asked to remain a servant but--”

“She is not a servant,” Ivy said.
 

“She swore an oath—”

“I would not take a Peradaini-style servant into this kind of danger. Kinz is our companion. Please understand:
I must do this
. It would be blasphemy if I did not ‘dawdle’ here. When we are done, we will take your stones back over the mountains. Now we must catch up to her.”
 

Ivy turned her back on Cazia and ran after Kinz, her boots making squashing noises on the mossy hillside. Cazia reluctantly followed, feeling terribly alone.

Chapter 4

Kinz marched in the lead, moving across the slope with as much care as if she was walking at the edge of a precipice. Ivy was close behind. Cazia followed even more slowly. The loose, mossy stones were slick; if she fell and sprained her ankle, here within sight of the ocean...

He skin prickled at the thought of being dragged beneath those icy waves, breath bubbling out of her. She looked out at the water and saw nothing dangerous there. The churning, roiling ocean appeared to be mindless and uninhabited. The black, stony beach showed no signs of sea giant footprints or nests. But Great Way, did it have to be so loud?
 

The squat stone tower did not appear damaged--there were no holes in the roof, no collapsed stonework, not even a rotted wooden spar--but it still gave off an undeniable sense of abandonment. As they came closer to the structure, they discovered that there were more structures behind it: a second, smaller tower, a shiny black pier that protruded out into the waves, a pit filled with water, and a blockhouse at the base of the cliff.
 

There were no burning lamps visible inside, no discarded cloths, no stacks of baskets by the entrance. High seas had washed the stony beach up against the bottom of the doorway. It was as if the towers had been shaped from the rock by the wind and sea and still waited for their first occupants.
 

Kinz stood a respectful distance from the tower door and shouted a greeting. Then she did it a second and third time. No one expected an answer and none came. She advanced toward the door and pressed against it.
 

Cazia was sure it would be barred or at least stuck, but it swung open easily. Kinz and Ivy disappeared into the structure.
 

That left Cazia alone. On a beach. She ran down the last part of the slope toward the door, half convinced that the wet crunch of her tread on the moss-covered gravel would draw the attention of something horrifying in the water.