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Ellery shivered, at the cold and at the idea that someone knew they were coming—or was it that the someone was coming for them? Whichever it was, they couldn’t stay here. They had to move along the path and find what might be on the other side, or inside, this mountain.
Nara grunted as he tried to lift her up. The wall of the tunnel sloped inwards, pushing her forward, and so it was difficult to get her up into a sitting position and stay there. He didn’t want to release his sword as he doubted he could get it to light up again if he did. He couldn’t feel any magic inside him, nor flowing through the sword. As he squatted back down and put his hand to Nara’s shoulder to stop her sliding again, he remembered feeling her magic flow through him that time she had healed him, in the few days they’d had together at the end of his last life.
Could their experiences in each life build up over time? Could they impact on the next life and the one after? But then, how many lives had they lived, and how many times had he lost her? This was the first time he had realised that his memories were not quite what he remembered. What else was he misremembering? What else was not quite right? Had Nara called him Ellery before and he had not remembered?
“Captain’s man,” she murmured.
“Who is?” he asked, leaning in closer, trying to work out how he could lift her back up.
“Manning.” Her eyes were bright in the silver light, clear as though she knew what she was saying. Then her eyes closed again, and her head slumped forward.
None of it was as it should be. It was suddenly as though it didn’t matter what had come between their first life and this one. Except that so much had occurred, so many creatures. They had loved each other, understood each other.
“Come on,” he whispered, putting his arm around her to lift her into an awkward lean against the wall. He leaned his back into her, holding one arm, and then leaned forward. She fell over his back again and, despite her lack of response, she closed her arm around his neck. He jostled her into the position she had been in before and put an arm around her legs to hold her in place.
He moved quickly, hoping she would not slip and that her narrow sword was protected in the thick sheath so that it wouldn’t poke her as he hurried along the tunnel. The silver light played differently from the surface of the rock than Nara’s light did.
There was no echo, no sound of his feet across the hard surface despite the stumbling he did in his hurry and under the weight of Nara’s limp body. Ahead of them, a golden glow marked another opening, and the light of his sword went out. He stopped as the silhouette of a woman appeared. The soft, golden light behind her reminded him of the fire tree, only not as warming.
“Come,” she said, waving them forward.
Ellery shook his head and waited.
“I can help,” she said, her voice soft and low, although clear.
He reluctantly walked the last of the dark tunnel and stepped into the soft light of a whole new world.
The woman was older than he’d expected once he could see her face. Her long, thick dress reminded him of something he couldn’t place from long ago. Her hair was worn in a similar fashion to Marina’s—a low bun to the side of her head, loose as though tied in a hurry, and then the hair fell down from it as though it were a low ponytail and the bun was a knot on the way down.
She wore no jewellery, and he looked for a necklace that might speak of something else. She went to say something further as her eyes locked on his—dark amber eyes, almost as beautiful as Nara’s golden ones—but she closed her mouth and stopped.
“She is sick,” he blurted, feeling a certainty that he could trust this woman, that Nara had led them here for a reason even if she didn’t know what that was.
The woman nodded slowly, then held out her hands to him as though he would put Nara into them. He wondered then why he hadn’t carried her like that, but he had needed to see where they were going.
“Please,” the woman said, pointing across the space to some furs on a raised platform.
Ellery walked into the space, finding the chill of the tunnel lifted. He moved across to where she indicated and sat his sword down. The woman raced forward to help him lower Nara from his back and onto the bed. She ran her hands over Nara’s forehead, brushing her hair back, and Nara looked just as flushed.
“Mother?” Nara murmured, reaching for the woman’s hand.
“Hush now, dear,” the woman returned, just as soft and calm.
Ellery wondered at the connection, at how any of those they came across were connected. Had this woman been looking for them?
“They are coming.” he murmured, although he wondered where the words had come from. He glanced back towards the entrance to the warm space, and there was nothing but darkness beyond. Nara had been so certain.
“Here?”
Ellery shrugged. He had no idea what Nara’s words had meant. But he trusted them all the same. If she said something was coming, it was.
The woman stepped back, and he sheathed his sword, relieved at the loss of weight as he sat on the edge of the platform. He could feel the stone beneath the furs, but it wasn’t cold. He put his hand to Nara’s face, and she put hers over it quickly. Her eyes flew open, and she looked beyond him for a moment.
“Captain Ellery?” she asked again.
“Right here, my Sunshine. I’m right here.”
“My Haven,” she sighed, and her eyes closed again.
“How long has she been like this?” the woman asked.
“Since we arrived, I think,” he said, not taking his eyes from Nara’s face.
“You are not from here?” the woman asked, surprised.
“Is there anyone here?” Ellery asked.
The woman nodded and then shook her head. “Not like there was.”
“Out there?” he asked, pointing back along the tunnel.
She nodded, although her focus appeared to be on Nara.
He pulled at the thick, heavy coat, opening it up and allowing the air to move around her. “Do you have water?” Ellery had been so sure the woman would help, and yet she wasn’t moving.
“The snow melts,” she said, moving over to the wall and a roughly carved wooden pail.
Wood, he thought as he watched her reach into it and pull out a similarly carved and coloured wooden cup. Perhaps they hadn’t seen enough of this world yet, but again there were plant materials here yet no plants.
He turned back to the furs that Nara rested on and was taken by the dark colours—more golden, honey-coloured fur rather than the stark white of the creatures he had seen so far. Any creature a different colour to the snow would stand out. And would not survive against the creatures they had found.
“How long have you been here?” he asked as he took the offered cup. Holding Nara’s head up a little from the furs, he poured it into her mouth. A little went in; the rest trickled away down her cheeks.
The woman looked to the swords on his back as she spoke. “All my life.”
“In this cave?”
She nodded.
“Alone?”
“I had family,” she said quietly. “Where did you come from?”
“Far,” he said.
“Beyond the snow?”
He nodded slowly, but he had no idea where they were to be able to explain where they might have been in relation to it. He doubted at times that they even returned to the same world. Or that the world was the same as it had been the last time they had lived. Although he had covered much of it in his last life, searching for Nara.
“Have you seen anyone else?” she asked, something a little more desperate in her tone.
“Nothing but large white creatures with tusks.”
“Lattice weavers,” she murmured, nodding slowly. “They have increased in number recently.”
“Is there something larger than the ones we saw?”
“Larger?” she asked, her brow creasing. She took the cup from his hand and returned to the pail.
“Where did that come from?” he asked.
“The water?”
“The container holding the water.”
She shrugged as though she had never thought about it. He wondered who her family might have been or how long they had been gone. She appeared older than he was, older than he and Nara both. Perhaps this woman could be old enough to be a mother to them. If either of their mothers had survived. But she appeared healthy and strong, despite living away from the world. Much healthier and fitter than his own mother had been in the end, and he had felt like a boy when she had died.
“She touched one of those creatures, a weaver.”
“No one touches them.” The woman’s voice was harsh, as though he were a boy making up stories. “They would take your head or arm first. But they tire easily, despite working in packs. Once they have you surrounded, they can easily overcome you...” She looked him over, her gaze finding his swords again. “Or maybe not. If they don’t kill you quickly, you can outrun them.”
“They burrowed up to us, but we weren’t sure of the distance.”
“They do well underground. That is why they are called lattice weavers; they burrow through the ground, creating a network of tunnels that then collapse in on themselves. The earth is soft beneath the ice.”
“It isn’t frozen?” he asked. He might have seen them push through it, revealing the dark earth, but like the rest of the world they had seen so far, it seemed unnatural. Nara moaned something and turned her head. “Can they make you ill?”
“No, they make you dead. And there are many of them.”
“What do they eat?” Ellery asked.
“People,” the woman returned sharply.
But if people could outrun them, then the lattice weavers couldn’t just survive on those. “Where did the furs come from?” he asked.
“Where did you come from?” the woman shot at him.
“Far away,” he repeated just as firmly, and Nara sat up with a jolt.
“Hello!” she said brightly, with an odd grin. Her face appeared even brighter, beads of sweat clinging to her hairline.
“Sunshine,” Ellery whispered, reaching for her. But as he closed his arms around her, she put her hands to his chest.
“Captain,” she said as though admonishing him, “please, you must keep your distance. What will my husband think?”
“Husband?” he asked as the woman appeared beside him with a damp cloth. He wondered if she had dunked it in the water or something else.
“Of course, your lord...” Nara’s face scrunched in confusion, as though she were unsure of the name.
“Orman?” he asked, a shiver of fear passing through him. Did she think she was in a different life? Could she have lived a different life where they married, and Lord Orman was something very different to the man he remembered?
“No, silly,” she said, swatting at his shoulder as though he was a child. “El... Ell... Ellery. No, no, that isn’t right either.”
“Millard,” the woman standing too close to him muttered.
“Yes,” Nara said, turning to her. “No,” she then said with a sigh. “I am Millard, a Millard, Lady Millard? Or was that my mother?”
“How do you know this man?” the woman asked, pointing to Ellery as though he might have stolen her from somewhere.
Ellery wanted to put himself between Nara and this woman in case she tried to take her away.
“He is...” Nara started confidently, but as she looked back to him, she slowly raised her hand to his face. Her fingers traced over where a scar might have been if he had kept them, from the Mer scratching his face in the last life just before he found her again. And then they fell to his beard. “You need another trim,” she whispered. “I am glad you are not old.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “We were meant to grow old together.”
He pulled her into his arms, and she sobbed against his chest. He wanted to hold her close and never let her go, but she was still warm beneath the shirt she wore. He wondered how many layers were keeping the warmth against her skin.
“You still love me, don’t you, Haven?”
“Of course, my Sunshine. Always.”
“I have not seen this before,” the woman said.
“Is there someone who might have?”
She shook her head as she walked across the large open space. Nara still rested against Ellery’s chest, and he looked up to the tall ceiling that narrowed into darkness above them. When he looked back, the woman stood with a knife, the handle made of what appeared to be the tusk of one of the animals they had encountered, a weaver. The blade was narrow and sharp.
“We need to get her clothes off. We need to cool her down or this, whatever it might be, will kill her.”