I kept my moan silent and merely said, “Fine. I’m ready.”
He stared hard at the mountains ahead of us as I drew next to him. All was still except for our breathing. He raised his hands very slowly, exhaled loudly, and brought his arms down. There was the sickening lurch in my stomach and I closed my eyes. I felt the ground change beneath my feet, opened my eyes again, looked around, and almost fell.
We were on a steep slope and I was facing down. Loiosh shrieked and dived into my cloak as I fought to recover my balance. After flailing around for a while I did so.
The air was cool here, and very biting. Behind us was an incredible expanse of green. All around us were mountains, hard and rocky. I managed to sit without losing my balance. Then, using my backpack as a pillow, I lay on my back on the slope, waiting for the nausea to pass.
After a few minutes, Morrolan said, “We’re about as close as we can get.”
I said, “What does that mean?”
“As you approach Greymist Valley, sorcery becomes more difficult. From the time you reach the Deathgate, it is impossible.”
I said, “Why is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you certain it’s true, or is it just rumor?”
“I’m certain. I was at the top of the falls with Zerika, holding off some local brigands while she made her descent. If I could have used sorcery, I would have.”
I said, “Brigands?”
“Yes.”
“Charming.”
“I don’t see any at the moment.”
“Great. Well, if they return, they may recognize you and leave us alone.”
“None of those will return.”
“I see.”
“There are far fewer now than during the Interregnum, Vlad. I wouldn’t worry. Those were wilder times.”
I said, “Do you miss them?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
I continued looking around and noticed a few jhereg circling in the distance. I said, “Loiosh, did you see the jhereg? “
He said, “I saw them.” He was still hiding inside my cloak.
“What’s the matter, chum?”
“Boss, did you see them?”
I looked up at them again but couldn’t figure out the problem until one of them landed on a cliff far above us. Then, suddenly, the scale made sense.
“By the Phoenix, Loiosh! Those things are bigger than I am.”
“I know.”
“I don’t believe it. Look at them!”
“No.”
I stood up slowly, put my pack on, and nodded to Morrolan. We continued up the slope for another couple of hours, then it leveled off. The view was magnificent, but Loiosh couldn’t appreciate it. From time to time, the giant jhereg would come close enough to us to give me the creeps, so I couldn’t blame him. After another hour or so, we came to a wide, fast stream coming from up a slope we didn’t take.
Morrolan turned with the stream, and in a couple more hours it had become a small river. By dark it was a big river, and we found a place to make our last camp.
As we were settling in for the night, I said, “Morrolan, does this river have a name?”
He said, “Blood River.”
I said, “Thought so,” and drifted off to sleep.
After walking for an hour or so the next morning, we had followed it to Deathgate Falls.
I suppose I would have composed a chant if I’d had time, but I’m not very good at that. No chance for it now, though. Loiosh lent me strength, which I poured into the enchantment, creating more tension. The rhythm became stronger, and the candle suddenly flared before me.
Scary.
I concentrated on it, turning the flare into a shower of sparks, which exploded into a globe of flickering nothing. I brought it together again, surrounding the candle flame with a rainbow nimbus. I didn’t have to ask Loiosh to pick up and control it; I wanted him to and he did.
My breathing stilled; I felt my eyes narrow. I was relaxed, easy and part of things, no longer on the edge. This was a stage and it would pass, but I could use it while it lasted. Now was the time to forge the connection between source and destination, to establish the path along which reality would bend.
The knife quivered, saying, “Start here.” All right, fine. Start there and do what? I looked from knife to rune and back. I reached forward with my right hand, forefinger extended, and traced a line. I repeated the process. And again.
I kept it up, always going from knife to rune. After a while there was a line of flame connecting them.
It felt right. I raised my eyes. The landscape still wavered, as if I were surrounded by unreality, ready to close in on me. That could be pretty frightening, if I let it.
Deathgate Falls has an exact geographical location; therefore, so do the Paths of the Dead, only they don’t. Don’t ask me to explain that because I can’t. I know that somewhere in the Ash Mountains is a very high cleft called Greymist Valley. There is a possibly legendary assassin named Mario Greymist who was named after the place, for the number of people he sent there.
To this valley are brought the corpses of any Dragaeran deemed important (and rich) enough for someone to make the arrangements. The Blood River flows into the valley, and over a waterfall, and that is the end of the matter as far as the living are concerned.
The height of the waterfall has been reported by those undead who have returned from the Paths. The reports say it is a mere fifty feet, that it is a thousand feet, and any number of distances in between. Your guess is as good as mine, and I mean that.
No one has ever come to the foot of the falls by any route except the cliff, though many, especially Hawks and Athyra, have tried. For all intents and purposes, the foot of the falls isn’t in the same world as the lip. Volumes have been written in the debate over whether this was set up by the gods, or whether it is a naturally occurring phenomenon. To show how futile it is, several of the gods have participated in the debate on various sides.
Those few who leave the Paths of the Dead (undead such as Sethra, and the Empress Zerika who got a special dispensation) do not leave by means of the falls. Instead they report finding themselves walking out through a long cave they can never find later, or waking up at the foot of the Ash Mountains, or lost in the Forbidden Forest, or even walking along the seacoast a thousand miles away.
It isn’t supposed to make sense, I suppose.
I stood next to the lip of the waterfall and looked out at an orangish horizon interrupted by the occasional jutting of rocky peaks. Below me grey fogs swirled and rose, obscuring the bottom hundreds of feet below. The din of the falls made talking all but impossible. The Blood River somehow turned white on its thundering way down.
I stepped back from the brink. Morrolan, next to me, did the same at almost the same instant. We walked away from it. The sound dropped off rapidly, and, just as quickly, the river widened and slowed, until only fifty feet from the falls it seemed like you could wade in it, and we could hear ourselves breathe.
This did not seem normal, but I saw no reason to ask about it.
Morrolan was glancing around him, an odd look on his face. I would have said wistful if I could have believed it of him. I noticed him staring at a pedestal set back about twenty feet from the water. I came up next to him, expecting, I guess, to see the name of some dead guy, and to ask Morrolan if it was a relative. Instead, I saw a stylized dzur head.
I looked a question at Morrolan: He pointed back toward the river, where I noticed a flat spot. “It is here where the remains of those of the House of the Dzur are sent onto the river to go over the falls.”
“Splash,” I said. “But at least they’re dead already. I doubt it bothers them.”
He nodded and continued to stare at the pedestal. I said, trying to sound casual, “Know any Dzurlords who’ve come this way?”
“Sethra,” he said.
I blinked. “I thought she was a Dragon.”
Morrolan shrugged and turned away, and we continued walking away from the falls. We came upon another flat spot against the river, which was starting to curve now, and I saw a stylized chreotha, then later a hawk, then a dragon. Morrolan paused there for some moments, and I backed up and gave him room for whatever he was feeling. His hand was white where he gripped the staff that contained some form of the soul of his cousin, in some condition or another.