Rain Wilds Chronicles (197 page)

Tats had been startled when Thymara tapped on his door to waken him. If she hadn't
come, it was likely he would have slept longer. But he rose and went down with her to enjoy a hot
cup of fragrant tea and a round of ship's biscuit with jam. Odd, how such simple foods seemed so
good after a time without them. Midway through breakfast, Thymara had set down her cup and tilted
her head. “Do you hear anything from Fente?”

Tats closed his eyes and reached out toward his feisty little queen. He'd opened
them again almost immediately. “Still flying, I think. I wonder how far they are going. Whatever
she's doing, she's intent on it and wants no distractions.” He cocked his head at her. “Has Sintara
spoken to you?”

“Not directly. She seldom does when she's away. But I felt something, a thrill of
excitement. I wish I knew what was happening.”

“I'm almost afraid to know,” Tats admitted. “The way they rushed out of here was
frightening. So much anger in the air.”

“And Rapskal became so strange,” Thymara added shyly.

Tats gave her a look. “He's my friend still,” he said. “Don't think you can't speak
of him to me. I think he has spent more time in the memory stone than any of us, and it's beginning
to show. When he returns, I think it's time we sat him down and talked with him about it.”

“I fear it may be too late for that. He's so sincere in his belief that this is how
Elderlings are meant to live, immersed in the memories of those who have gone before us.”

“Perhaps he is.” Tats had drained the last of his tea and looked reluctantly at the
few uncoiled leaves in the bottom of his cup. “But I won't give him up without trying.”

“Nor I,” she admitted, and she'd smiled at him. “Tats,” she had added frankly, “you
are just a good person. My father once told me that about you. ‘Solid to the core,' he said. I see
what he meant.”

Her words flustered him more than any declaration of love could have done. He felt
his face heat with a rare blush. “Come. Let's get down to the well and see what is to be done
there.”

He had not been too surprised to see that Leftrin and Carson were already at the
well site and discussing methods of reaching the silver. Carson had been pragmatic. “It doesn't look
like there's much left blocking the way. Send someone down with an axe, and a hook and line. If the
blockage won't come up, chop at it until it goes down.”

“Send who?” Leftrin had demanded, as if no one would be foolish enough to go.
“That's deeper than any of the previous jams. It's going to be cold down there and pitch-black.”

“I'd never go down into that black hole,” Thymara had muttered. She'd shuddered.

And Tats was almost certain that was the reason why he'd stepped forward, saying, “I
can do it.”

They had sent him down with a hatchet and a line and a ship's lantern. Leftrin
himself had fastened the harness they rigged for him, and the captain hadn't said a word of protest
when Hennesey had checked all his knots. “Better once too often than once not enough,” he muttered,
and Tats had felt his belly go cold. The descent had taken an eternity; allowing his body to dangle
freely from the line had been the hardest part. He'd listened to the sounds of the heavy timber and
the pulley rigged to it as they took his weight and he began his creaking descent. They lowered him
slowly, and the lantern in his left hand showed him almost smooth black walls; the worked stone that
composed it fit almost seamlessly together. His right hand gripped the line that held him, and he
could not seem to let go, even though he knew it was securely fastened to his harness.

The voices of his friends receded to anxious birdcalls in the distance. The circle
of light over head became smaller, and the sounds of the straining line louder. The harness dug into
him. And down and yet down he went.

When he came to the wedged timbers, the circle of light overhead had become a well
of stars. It made no sense to him. He shouted up at them that he had reached the blockage. He gave
his weight to it, standing on the heavy plank, and felt the line that held him go loose, and then
abruptly tighten again. He felt like a puppet, suspended weightlessly on the plank. “A little
slack!” he shouted up at them, and heard their distant voices arguing. Then they complied and he
stood, balancing on the blockage. He lowered his lantern to rest it on the plank.

They'd sent him down with an extra piece of line tied to his harness. His first task
was to unfasten it. It was surprisingly difficult to do, for his hands quickly chilled. Once he had
it freed, it took a surprising amount of courage before he could bring himself to kneel and then
reach down to wrap the line around the timber he stood on. It was a hefty piece of wood, as big
around as his waist and just slightly longer than the well shaft was wide. He knotted the line with
the knot that Hennesey had insisted he use, and then tested it, pulling with all this strength. It
held.

Then he moved on his knees to the higher end of the timber, took out the hatchet
looped to his hip, and began to chop. The vibration traveled, at first just an interesting
phenomenon, and then an annoying buzz in his knees. The wood was dry and hard and lodged as tightly
as a cork in a bottle neck. He wished he had a heavier tool with a longer handle, even as he
realized the hazards of trying to stand and chop something under his feet. He spent a good part of
the morning chopping away the final barrier in the well. He had to pause to warm his hands under his
arms and rub the numbness from his knees. Only his Elderling tunic kept the cold at bay. The tips of
his ears and his nose burned with cold.

Eventually, the timber under his feet began to give small groans. Even though he had
known the harness stood ready to take his weight, he had roared in terror when the beam suddenly
gave way beneath his feet. The short end of it fell away into the darkness. The larger piece fell
and swung wildly, the knotted line singing with its weight. He dangled next to it and only slightly
above it. He clung to the lines with both hands, knowing a moment of shame when he realized he had
dropped his hatchet in his terror. A heartbeat later he was being hauled up so swiftly that he could
not even brace his feet on the wall to steady himself.

He was dragged over the lip of the well so enthusiastically that it took the skin
off his shins. Big Eider picked him up in a rib-crushing hug of pure relief that he was safe. But
Thymara was the next to seize him in an embrace, and he counted his moment of terror a fair price
for feeling her hold him so close and hearing her whisper, “Sweet Sa, thanks be. Oh, Tats, I thought
you were gone forever when I heard you shout!”

“No. Just startled, that's all.” He spoke over her head, his arms still around her.
She was so warm under his chilled hands. “The way is cleared once we haul up that last piece of
timber. We can go after the Silver now.”

Hennesey and Tillamon had just arrived to trade shifts with Big Eider. It startled
Tats to realize that a full shift had passed since Hennesey had sent him down the shaft. The mate
dropped easily to his knees and peered down the well. “That's even deeper than I thought it was.
First thing is to haul up that old beam and then get the bucket out of the way.” He got up slowly
with a wry grin. “Time to go fishing, boys.”

L
eftrin took the first fruitless turn at
the “fishing.” It was arm-wearying, shoulder-wrenching work. Hennesey had rigged a line through the
same pulley that had supported Tats. On the end of it was not only a heavy hook, but a necklace made
of flame jewels. Malta had brought it and all but begged them to use it to light their way to the
well's bottom. Wrapped a few feet above the hook, the gleaming metal and sparkling stones gave off
their own light as he attempted to guide the hook down. The illumination did not spread far. Leftrin
lay on his belly, one hand on the line, and tried to guide the hook toward what they guessed was the
handle of the bucket as he peered down into the well. It was far deeper than Tats had descended. Too
deep, Leftrin had decided, to risk sending a person down.

When his back began to ache unbearably and his eyes to water and blur, he gave the
task over to Nortel and stood up slowly. His gaze traveled around the circle of watchers. The
keepers and some of his crew watched anxiously. At a distance behind them, as if their misery were
too great to bear any company, were the king and the queen of the Elderlings.

Malta sat on a crate that Reyn had carried there for her, her baby in her arms. Her
eyes were fixed on the crumbled wall that surrounded the well. Her Elderling robes gleamed in the
sun, and a golden scarf swathed her head. Spring sunlight glittered on the fine scaling of her
perfect features.
Dignity,
he thought as he looked at her. Dignity, no
matter what. Reyn stood beside her, tall and grave, and the three together were like a sculpture of
royalty.

Or misery, when one looked at their faces. The child was crying, a thin breathless
wailing that made Leftrin want to cover his ears or run away. Neither parent seemed to hear it
anymore. Malta did not rock Phron or murmur comforting words. She endured, as did her mate. They
waited in a silence beyond words, their desperate hope as thin and sharp as a knife blade. The well
would yield Silver and somehow one of the dragons could tell them how to use it to heal the baby.
The child wailed on and on, a sound that peeled calm from Leftrin's mind.
Soon
it will stop. It will be exhausted,
he thought to himself.
Or
dead
was the darker thought that came to him. The child was so emaciated now that Leftrin did
not want to look at him. Scales were slipping from his grayish skin; his small tuft of pale hair was
dry and bristly on his head. The captain knew that if the well yielded Silver, the parents would
risk touching Phron with it. They had no other course. For a long moment, he tried to imagine what
they must feel, but he could not. Or perhaps dared not.

“Leftrin.”

She spoke his name breathlessly, and the weakness in her voice jerked his eyes to
her. Alise appeared at the bend of a narrow street, walking slowly toward them as if the weight of
her Elderling cloak were almost too heavy to bear. “What is wrong with her?” Tats muttered, and
Harrikin quietly replied, “She looks drunk. Or drugged.”

Leftrin spared a moment to shoot them a warning look, and then hastened toward
Alise.

“She looks very sick,” Sylve suggested.

Leftrin broke into a run with Sedric and Sylve not far behind him. Up close, Alise
looked more haggard than Leftrin had ever seen her. Her face was slack and heavy, and his heart sank
as he gathered her into his embrace. She sagged against him.

“I found nothing.” She spoke the words loud and clear, but there was little life in
her voice. She leaned into him and looked past his shoulder at Malta. Her voice had the quaver of an
old, old woman. “My dear, I tried and I tried. Everywhere. I have spent the night listening to
stone, touching anywhere that I thought they might have stored it. I feel I have lived a hundred
lives since last I spoke to you. Many things I have learned, but of how pure Silver might be used to
heal, of how to touch Silver and not die, I have found nothing.”

Alise swayed in Leftrin's arms, and he tightened his embrace to keep her from
falling. “Alise, I thought you had gone apart to take some rest! How could you risk yourself so? We
are not Elderlings, to fearlessly touch the stones!”

“How could I not?” she asked him faintly. “How could I not?” She laughed brokenly.
“The music, Leftrin. There was music, in one place, and dancing. I wanted to forget what I came for
and just dance. Then I thought of you and I wished you were with me . . .” Her voice
trailed away.

He tipped her face up to look into her eyes. “Alise?” he begged. “Alise?” Her gaze
shifted to meet his. She was still there. A bit of life came back into her face. Sedric hovered
nearby, with Sylve at his side. He knew they wanted to help, but he could not surrender her to them.
He suddenly saw them as Elderlings, impossibly different from himself and the woman he held in his
arms. He spoke hoarsely by her ear. “Why did you do it? It's dangerous. You know it is! Regardless
of what Rapskal may say or the others do, we know what memory stone can do to us. Many of the Rain
Wild folk have drowned in memories. Perhaps Elderlings can use such stones without threat, but
we
cannot. I know you wish to know all about the city, but touching the stone
is something you must leave to the others. What could make you do such a foolish thing?”

“It wasn't for the city,” she said. He felt her pull herself together. She stood on
her own now, but chose not to leave the circle of his arms. “Leftrin. It's about the baby, little
Phron. And Bellin's babies, never born. About—” She paused and took a long breath, then plunged into
it. “About your baby that I would want to bear someday. You heard what Mercor has told us. If we
live near the dragons and the Elderlings, then we will change also. Skelly will change. Our children
will continue to be born changed, and for those of us not Elderlings with dragons, they will die
young. As we will. If there is another way, we have to discover it, my dear. No matter the
cost.”

Her words drenched and drowned him like a flash flood. He hugged her close to him,
his mind whirling with possibilities that had never seemed quite real to him before. “I'll clear the
well,” he promised her. “I'll get that bucket up and out of the way. It's as much as I can say for
certain, but I'll do it.”

“It's the missing piece,” she said into his chest. “Of that I am certain. Silver is
what is needed. You will be restoring full magic to the Elderlings.”