"I ain't camping near this hole," one of the young guards said.
Nods around.
"We could still go back to Dur Follin," said another.
Baras cleared his throat. "No, we can't. And what happened here happened long ago. There's nothing to fear. Let's move, men. Nix, we go. Egil. Now."
When they returned to the caravan, they found Rakon standing near the carriage, looking up at the sky, muttering as if he could speak to wind. When he saw them approach, he made a sharp, dismissive gesture with one hand and turned to face them, hands on his hips.
"What was it?" he asked.
"Holes, my lord," Baras answered.
"Holes?"
The guards around Egil and Nix muttered.
"Unusual holes," Egil said. "Dug by something. With the bones of many old kills near them."
Rakon stared at them, his thin face unreadable. He checked the sky a final time, looked to the west, at the fading light. "We press on a bit more today. Into the cut so we're out of the wind."
With that, he vanished into the carriage.
As the wagon and carriage started to move, Egil sidled up to Nix.
"I'm disquieted by those bones."
"First 'dilatory' and now 'disquieted'? My priest has been replaced by a scholar."
"The bones weren't that old."
"I know," Nix said.
"I think if we don't get clear of this soon, we're going to die here. All of us."
Nix nodded. "We can't go anywhere unless we slip the spellworm. We're in it, Egil. Us and them."
Egil looked at the darkness creeping into the sky, infecting the air. "No one has ever gotten through the Wastes that I've heard."
"Fatalism ill suits you. Recall that you and I have done many things most said couldn't be done. We'll add traversing the Wastes to that list."
"Well enough," Egil finally conceded. "Nix, you see the way Rakon's been watching the sky? He's watching more than the Mages' Moon. There's more afoot here."
"Agreed," Nix said.
Before descending into the cut, the guards took a moment to take torches from the supply wagon and fire them. Nix declined to take one. Instead, he rifled through his satchel until he found what he sought: a fist-sized black globe of polished volcanic glass scribed with the symbol of a closed eye.
"Another gewgaw," Egil said.
"Indeed." Nix held the globe in his palm, spoke a word in the Language of Creation to awaken the magic, and poked the scribed eye with his forefinger. It opened as if alive, squinted at him in anger.
"Come on," Nix said, and poked it again, harder. "Come on."
That did it. The eye closed tightly for a moment, as if charging itself, then opened, emitting a glow as bright as a lantern. The guards looked on with wonder. Baras came over, looked at the globe, looked at Nix, and walked away.
"We could have used that a number of times previous," Egil said. "Where'd you get it?"
"Where else?" Nix said, shining the light around at the red, cracked walls. "The Low Bazaar."
Egil's eyeroll was audible in his tone. "Not a servant of Kerfallen the Grey Mage again?"
"No," Nix said. "I learned my lesson there. This came from a Narascene fortune teller. A pretty one, too."
Egil eyed the bauble skeptically. "Well, if it explodes, at least we'll know who to blame."
" Whom," Nix corrected, and couldn't resist a jibe. "Now leave me alone and go be disquieted or dilatory or something."
CHAPTER NINE
The caravan descended into the cut, leaving even the fading light of sunset behind. The torchlight flickered on the cracked walls of reddish stone that rose to either side and hemmed them in. The meager light provided by the torches and Nix's magic crystal put tall shadows on the wall, but did only a little to dispel the black. The darkness in the cut seemed to have weight, growing heavier as they descended, a blanket of ink that threatened to blot them out.
"Like walking into Hell," Egil said, his voice bouncing loudly off the walls.
"At least we're out of the wind," said one of the guards.
The steep slope carried them down a hundred paces or so to the bottom, where the cut flattened and widened. Boulders and piles of scree flanked the road, but the way ahead looked clear.
A sliver of sky was visible above, through the gash of cut, and the dying light of the day colored it the purple of an old bruise. Looking up, Nix glimpsed a flock of creatures they'd seen earlier, the roiling, spinning cloud of them black against the purple sky. They looked about as big as ducks and flew with the jerky changes of direction typical of bats.
"There," he said, pointing, but they were already gone.
Tense hands went to blade hilts.
"What?" Baras asked, looking around in alarm. "What?"
"That flock of creatures," Nix said. "I just saw them above."
Baras opened his mouth to speak but before he did a high-pitched, uncanny shriek sounded from above. The sound spooked the mounts and those pulling the wagon reared, jolting the cart and spilling two bags of grain. The guards jerked blades from scabbards.
"Crossbows, you dolts," Baras hissed, unslinging his crossbow and readying a quarrel.
While the other guards sheathed blades and readied quarrels, Egil filled his fists with the hafts of his hammers. Nix drew his falchion and shined the light from his magic eye up the irregular face of the cliff. Cracks lined it, veins in the earth.
Another shriek sounded from above, inhuman and savage, but this time from the other side of the cut. The pitch of it put Nix's hairs on end. He thought of the holes they'd found, the heap of bones. He spun around, aiming the crystal eye's beam at the top of the cut. For a moment he thought he caught a flash of movement, but couldn't be sure.
It occurred to him of a sudden that the crystal would make him an easy target from a foe above, so he covered it with his palm and hid under his cloak. The etching of the scribed eye squirmed irritably against his grip. He poked it in the eye with his thumb.
"What in the Pits was that?" Jyme said softly. He scanned the top of the cut behind the aim of his crossbow.
"I thought I saw something move up there," one of the young guards said, pointing up to the right. "Over there."
"Calm heads, men," Baras said, backing toward Rakon's carriage. "No one saw anything moving. You're imagining things."
Rakon's head emerged from the carriage window. "Baras?"
The moment Nix saw Rakon, a sharp pain rooted behind his eye and for a fleeting moment he had an overpowering impulse to charge the carriage, slay the eunuch and the driver, and flee with Rusilla and Merelda. The impulse was so strong that he actually took a step toward the carriage.
Of course, the thought and the step agitated the spellworm, sent vomit up his throat and caused his chest to ache. He groaned, staggered a step. Egil's hand closed on his bicep, steadied him.
"You all right?" Egil whispered.
Nix shook his head. "No. They're trying to do something to me."
"Who? The sisters?"
Nix nodded.
"Rakon," Egil called, apparently intent on confronting the sorcerer about his sister.
"No!" Nix hissed. "No, leave it. Leave it."
Rakon looked at Egil, eyebrows raised, but Baras stepped between them.
"Did you hear that sound just now, my lord?" Baras asked.
Rakon looked up at the slit of dark sky visible between the cliff walls.
"The wind, maybe," he said. "Or an animal."
For a moment, Baras said nothing, then, "Probably we should camp soon, my lord. The light is soon to fail entirely. We should set up before that."
"Find a spot of your choosing, Baras."
"Very good, my lord."
Once more Rakon disappeared into the carriage and they started moving. The caravan traveled only a short distance more, everyone wary and with weapons to hand, before Baras called a halt for the night. The shriek did not recur, though the tension lingered.