It’s hard to see out here, Afar. Stupid place is half-fog and half-mad, no telling where you’re putting your foot’ll stay that way; no lights to pierce the gloom for fear of getting a Wyrm’s eye on you; no steel or iron to hack through the undergrowth, to anchor your ropes, to cook your meals in.
I shouldn’t have come here. Should’ve stayed back home. Hell, should’ve even gone to the Sill. I heard it’s safer these days, heard they got round to regulating, to building. Jarreth said they’ve even done something about the sounds in your head, but half of Jarreth’s news comes from the voices in his head, so who’s to listen to him anyways?
I’ve got to stay calm.
There were six of us: me, Jarreth, old Hallus and young Hallus, Brisny, and Mallet – and Mallet’s mallet, for all that he treats the big clunky thing like a pet. Out for the far hills, past the swamps. “Prospectors,” it said on our papers. Prospectors for what, well, who knows? No iron. The rocks are all wrong, strange. The plants are half a mystery, besides the ones that explode when you touch steel to their stems. The wildlife… well. The wildlife is best left to Her Worship’s voyageurs and the army. They tell us it’s our own hides. But our hides are cheap and there’s riches out there. Even collector’s-tat will go for more than you can imagine right now. A little piece of Afar, right there above your giant collection of Terramac gadgets that you don’t know how to use and your Sfoll sub-horns that you’re afraid to touch and your Salamettic scrolls you can’t read because they’re invisible to people without four eyes and twelve senses.
We went farther than we’d planned. Up a hill and down a hill and we should’ve known better than to let Mallet handle the trail blazings because when we came down the hill it was the wrong hill and who knew where the right one was. We went back and then forwards and a little bit of side to side and then we were above the fog for the first time in six miserable months, looking down so far you could see the sea. Closer than we’d guessed; Afar seems to stretch itself under your boots, make you fight for every step. You could still see Threshold. Young Hallus said he thought he could see the Wyrms moving in the mires, places where the fog thickened and clotted, but he’s a liar as bad as Jarreth with twice the ego, so I didn’t listen.
We walked a while. Up, mostly. And then as we sit down to camp and take our breath back from the thieving high air, Mallet sets his stupid ass down on a bush with prickles – no, blades. Hopping, yelping idiot fell over while we were laughing at him, nearly brains himself on a rock, gets up to throw it at us, stops, stares. Doesn’t move.
Brisny prospected forty years back in Gelmorre, finding fortunes and losing them again in the same month. He knows rocks better than old Hallus knows whores, food, and whores and food. He knows what cragstone looks like. He said he’d never seen it this pure. And he’d certainly never seen it like this.
They looked like knots. Little dense spots. Small enough to fit in your palm, weighed near as much as a bar of lead.
Worth its weight in pure gold, he said. Worth its weight in gold. Share and a half for me, share for the rest of you, we all can go home and buy estates on the cheap.
I’ve got to take this.
Young Hallus and Mallet bitched – Mallet especially, said since he’d found it he’d be damned if he had to carry it – but they gave in. They knew they had the strongest backs. So they shouldered it up and hauled it on and we started back down. This time we had Jarreth marking trails, leaving scrapes and cairns and scratches. He kept doubling back to chatter and yack and he was really pissing off old Hallus (never make the cook angry, damnit) but what could you do, huh? He was the best guide we had, although maybe no guide would’ve been better. I swear he led us in circles at least twice, intentional or not.
So we walked under threat of storm and constant chatter, and we walked until both of them broke overhead, and then we walked and walked and walked until we ran out of world to walk on.
A deep valley. We hadn’t come through here, but as the crow flies, it was our fastest way out. And with lightning turning peaks into powder overhead, it was a good prospect.
It took us hours to find a sheltered spot; it would’ve been easy if any of us five knew anything about caves. Crawling around like beetles on a brick wall with rain trying to wash you down into the gutter.
No fog, though. A small relief. Old Hallus said aside from all the rain this’s the clearest line of vision he’s had since he got here three years ago. Keeps flinching at the horizon.
I’ve got to keep calm.
It was an easy walk in the morning, all the wet cooked off by the pale sun in the grey sky. Quiet, too – not the deep dead quiet in the swamps that old Hallus says you can tell the Wyrms by, but a soft touch on your ear. Nothing but the wind, a grunt, a curse, clattering stone. You can see forever down this place; it’s a short trip out and then a quick hike through the hills and we’re almost at the coastline. Easy. Easy.
Ran into trouble at midday though. Mallet got spooked and started screaming like a damned fool, babbled like a baby out of milk for ten minutes before he made sense.
Wings, he said. Wings in the sky. It’s right there, right above us. Can’t you see it? Can’t you see it?
We’ve got to run for it, and it’s too heavy. Drop it and run! Run! Run!
Words, words, and none of them much use. We reminded him of the earldoms four shares could buy and he just shook his head and wouldn’t stop, like there was a little motor in his neck. His hands shook too. Reminded me of a dog my father kept. One boot to the head too many. We lost half the day trying to argue the idiot down, and by its end we were no closer than we were when we started – only barely stopped him trying to bolt before old Hallus could get to cooking dinner.
I’ve got to get moving.
The pack weighed a ton and a half, but nobody ever said a barony was a light thing. Bounced nasty too; every footfall found a new shape for rock to take, and all of them were slippery. If I get out of this, the first thing my share goes towards is fixing my back. I don’t want to retire young and crippled.
Old Hallus was wary now. His eyes kept flitting about. His jaw was set tight. He kept adjusting his shoulder straps every two minutes. He never looked up. He didn’t want to talk about it.
We were right in the heart of the valley now. What we’d thought were plants were rocky spires, like stalagmites left caveless. Most of them didn’t even reach my knees. But that wasn’t the big news.
Cragstone. All of them. And all of it speckled with the same pure deposits we were carrying.
We camped in the center of the valley that night after a long time spent arguing over maps. Me and young Hallus were all for staying to chart the place out – who knows if we’ll find it again by chance? But now old Hallus is up for leaving. The air’s too thin to be healthy, he said, and there’s something in it that he can’t put words to that’s worse still. There’s enough money to be made here to buy Gelmorre. Split three ways, sure, but still. How can the old coot want to bail now? We’re in this together, we stay in on it together. If we split now someone’ll blab out of spite or stupidity and word will get out faster than a blast from the Terramac.
I’ve got to hold this together.
The worst breakfast I’d ever had, but it matched the day fine. Still grey, still cold. The maps were a pain to do with only one set of legs to help me, but young Hallus was pretty spry, even with the pack on. He was getting to worry me, though. Those looks… not the nervous twitches, not those. The sidelong glances whenever he thought I was busy writing. The constant fidgeting – worse than his usual. I saw him touching the big wooden mallet at his belt three times, and the last I think he knew I was looking. He might not know how to use it, but it’s a hell of a club, fire-hardened.
How were we still here? We left at noon. We walked fast, even weighted down. The exit’s down there, I could see it. But this place…stretched. It must’ve been my eyes. They weren’t used to this wide-open-view anymore. I misguessed.
Damn, who’d have ever thought I’d miss the swamps?
Night was coming in. We were still in the valley. We were still halfway there.
That grey sky is getting on my nerves.
I’ve got to be quicker.
It was a hard blow, leaving half a fortune behind. But I was still rich enough to wed Her Worship if I’d felt inclined, and with enough left over to bribe half the country to come to the ceremony.
More walking. More trudging. More back-bruising. Nothing new there.
What was new was that tickle. That little twitch you get in your brain through your shoulders, the thing that whispers to you: you’re being watched.
There was nothing here to watch me. I could see farther than anything. Miles around me.
Miles to go to the valley’s end when I started. Miles to go when I stopped to sleep. I found my bed in a broken shell of one of the spires; they seem to be hollow. Some sort of residue caked its insides. Dried, but looks like it was sticky, once upon a time. Oil? More wealth. Maybe I could buy Matagan too. Maybe I could buy the whole world.
I’ve got to get back.
This isn’t right.
I’m back at the stones. The first stones. I woke up and I took a step and I almost planted my foot in my own firepit.
I’m not going in circles. I’m not going in circles. I’m not going in circles. Something is wrong, but that’s not it. Something is wrong.
Where is it? I can see so far, there’s nothing in my way from here until the end of the valley. The end of the valley that’s always halfway away because I’m being moved.
What’s moving me?
I’m staying up tonight. No watches because what could sneak up on us, but now I’m staying up. I need to see.
I’ve got to see.
A spire broke in the night. Quiet, very quiet, but it broke. There was a thing inside it with too much wing and too little body and no eyes. It had heavy claws like a mole’s and a little mouth, and it screamed when it saw me and didn’t stop until I crushed it between my boot and the stones.
I flipped it over. Its belly was grey.
I’ve got to leave.
Grey sky overhead. How many of them are there? I can’t tell.
So many spires. How many to lay that many? I can’t tell.
How big do they get? I can’t tell.
It’s hard to see out here.
I shouldn’t have come here.