Riders and the Storm
Mayhem.
As soon as he saw the open door, our captive carnivore spared no more thought for us than a dog for the fleas on its back. Men stumbled down the stairs before us, and we were dragged through fire and smoke and corpses, knocking into each other behind the Pricolici. Luck and anger alone prevented him from turning on us.
One good look at him set people running, tumbling, screaming. Nobody wanted to be there when he passed. With a bit of fortune, they’d all run to their homes and never look back.
We crashed through the room at the bottom of the stairs, banging against what felt like every stone of every wall on our way, and burst out the main doors. I was still finding my feet when the Pricolici roared again and gave a mighty tug, knocking me and Eugen together behind him in a two-person pretzel. There were screams.
“Eugen, pull back!”
I dug my heels in and leaned back as much as I could, but it was only enough to slow the forward motion of the vicious creature. To my left, Eugen did the same, and slowed it further to almost a stop.
The crowd in front of us broke before I even got a good look at them. Most ran for dear life; only a foolhardy few took some distance and stopped again, on the edge between staying and leaving. Rareș stood his ground, and another man to his right swung a large axe and grinned.
The Pricolici made for them furiously, digging at the ground with all four black-clawed paws, but quickly realized we were holding him back. He looked at us over his shoulder, and it dawned on me that we’d forgotten all about our tactic to keep him between us. I threw myself to the ground to the right as he charged us, but he had his sights on Eugen. The Pricolici smacked into him hard enough to slam the air out of his lungs and throw him to the ground, then grabbed his leg in a rabid mouth.
I tried to raise my voice enough to cover his screams. “Don’t drop the chain! Whatever you do, don’t!”
The strain of the jaw pressing down on his boot caused audible creaks, but no blood ran out and I suspected Eugen screamed more in fear than pain. Was it the silver at work, or did the Pricolici have some clever plan only to frighten Eugen into letting him go?
I yanked the chain as hard as I could, snapping it taut and causing the creature to release his grip. He focused on me and lunged again, but this time Eugen was ready and pulled back. We had him between us, under some semblance of control, and I gloated, but only for a moment.
The axe-wielding brute was upon us, probably hoping to take advantage of the creature being nearly immobilized. He stepped up close enough that his overextended belly brushed a white, woolly elbow as he raised his arms above his head to strike down, and that was warning enough for the Pricolici. In one easy move, he unhinged his jaws and opened his mouth so wide that no earthly creature could have possibly matched it. At the same time, he grew in height. Something fleshy and sluglike retreated into the dark cavern of his throat, then he tilted his head sideways and grabbed the brave and brainless attacker by the belly in that unreasonable mouth. The Pricolici shook him once, a hard and sudden shake that snapped his spine with a loud crack, then dropped him limp to the ground where a halo of dust rose around his broken body.
I was in shock.
Perhaps we both were, but Eugen recovered first. “Stay away! For God’s sake, stay away if you’re not wearing silver! You airbrains!”
The Whisper dragged us forward again, this time stopping inches from Rareș. Everyone else had fled. Not a soul moved in sight, and the reassuring sounds of doors crashing shut and being battened came to us from the main road behind him. Nobody else would trouble the Tower for a while, at least.
“Rareș, please, get back!”
Risen to his hind feet, the Pricolici stood head and shoulders above the massive smith and sniffed down at him.
Rareș only grinned, flashing several silvery teeth I hadn’t noticed before. “That’s a mighty fine pet you have there.” His own weapon, a silver-capped hammer, still rested by his side, leaning against his leg, but he didn’t reach for it. “I’ve more silver in me than this whole town put together. My little treat for smithing for them all these years. I might even stand a chance at killing your dog.”
A long drip of drool oozed from the creature’s jaw.
“Maybe.” I relaxed my grip a little and was almost surprised when nothing happened. “But we need him. And if they see you kill him, they’ll just attack us again. Is that what you want?”
“Nay. I would have stopped them myself if I’d seen a way to do it without killing any. I’m even sorry for old Barry over there, utter stump that he was. But that’s done now. We came here for a way into the Unspoken. Is this it?”
Both he and Eugen looked at me, and for a moment I could swear the creature itself turned with a question in its eyes.
“I had considered that possibility.”
Eugen gaped at me in a shock I didn’t fully believe. “Is that why you chained us to this thing? I wish you’d talked to me about it first.”
“You put me in a pretty tough spot! When was I supposed to tell you I planned to ride him like a prized pony right into another world, specifically? Perdy needs us, and if you’ve forgotten that, I haven’t.”
The Pricolici reared, then with a mighty shake tried to throw us off like water from his fur. We held on and pulled the leashes apart even more tightly. Rareș took a large silver amulet from his leather apron and pressed it to the creature’s chest. With another, tighter shake, the beast settled down.
“I’m sorry, Eugen.” Shame at my angry outburst filled me. “I don’t even know if it will work. Would you rather take him back up, instead?”
“I can’t see how that’s feasible now. Not now that we know they want him very badly. We’d just be inviting more attacks. But letting him drag us behind him? It’s…. How did you even know?”
“I figured that if the kidnapping Dochia could take a person in, and an experienced Walker could take a person in, that meant that anyone who could cross confidently could take a person in.”
“You’re a lunatic.”
“Will it work, though?”
“It’ll work, but you’re a lunatic.”
“Kids. Stop arguing.” Rareș stared into the perfect white eyes of the alien creature and smiled, admiration obvious on his face. “I, for one, think it’s a grand plan.”
The Pricolici shuddered, his matted fur releasing the illusion of ticks and hairs and fleas that disappeared like specks of light as soon as they touched the ground. He stood quietly, but I had a sense of hidden power waiting patiently, like the big coal engine of a railway car just gearing up to start moving. He twitched a pointy white ear when Artjom and Cheșa popped out of the millhouse behind us, noticing them long before we did.
“The Tower is safe, thank the spirits. For now.” Artjom stepped up behind the creature and placed a silver ring-studded hand on his shoulder. He was now thoroughly surrounded. “Time to figure out what to do with our friend.”
I opened my mouth, but Rareș beat me to it. “Actually, we’ve already decided to release it back into the wild, so to speak.”
“The sensible choice.”
Cheșa tapped Artjom on the shoulder and pointed at the Pricolici, then brought his thumb and index finger together in a circle and pointed at the Tower.
“Yes, we could still use him. But we won’t. This was never the right choice, and we have an outstanding promise to keep. We’ll take him and find a safe place to let him—”
Rareș and I both spoke out at the same time.
“I’m going with him.”
Artjom looked from one to the other, slack-jawed and dumbfounded. “But why?”
Rareș cleared his throat and smiled, answering to the Pricolici rather than to the Master. “I’ve always wanted a look inside. That’s all you need to know.”
“And I need to find Perdy,” I said. “That’s why I came to you, to find a way in even though I’m not a proper Walker.”
Artjom shook his head. “Well, you found it. Our ferocious friend here can walk you right in, easily. Whether he’ll leave you alive at the end is a different matter.”
“And that’s another reason why I’ll be there, with my hammer.” Rareș gave it a thud to punctuate his argument.
Artjom nodded, impressed. “I’m tempted to join you.”
Cheșa again tapped him on the shoulder and signed a large circle around us all.
“You’re right, old friend. I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve that I can throw at protecting the Tower, since push has apparently come to shove.” He turned to me. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, of all people, how dangerous it is. If you must go, I can’t stop you, but at the very least, take Cheșa and Eugen.”
Eugen straightened. “What? How about we just give them the armor—”
Artjom raised a determined hand. “It’s safer in numbers. Just look at our little gathering now, around a beast that could pulverize an army off guard. The armor…I think we all know how much good it did Paul.”
Eugen paled, and the look he gave me was a little more tired than I’d have liked. Maybe there was even a little resentment in there, and I didn’t blame him. He left Mara with an unresolved quarrel. The thought of not coming back safely to her and ending their relationship like that would be enough to justify any amount of bitterness.
Rareș stepped back and stretched his arms, nervous logs of hard-worked flesh.
“Well then. How do we do this?”
I braced myself with a deep breath. “Same way we got down here, I guess. Is everyone ready?
* * *
We walked in serene procession. Eugen and I held the Whisper between us, as before, except this time it was more than happy to walk slightly ahead of us without any struggle or hurry. The chains swung like pendulums, and every now and again he turned his head this way and that, perhaps looking for the right path. A minuscule shift to the left, and we adapted to him, trusting.
Behind, Rareș and Cheșa clung to us like shadows. Cheșa was clearly comfortable in the woods as well as in silence, but even the monolithic blacksmith made surprisingly little noise strutting behind me with his hammer on his shoulder.
We’d passed under the arch, the one my mind had irrevocably named ‘the Wailing Arch’ after the loss of Paul. It was, more or less, in his footsteps we followed, though the Pricolici seemed to know a straighter path. As soon as we were under the canopy I shuddered and felt fear squeezing my heart, and the sight of a pale and trembling Eugen to my right did nothing to comfort me. He probably found just as little comfort in the sight of me.
“I have a bad feeling about this, Anna.”
“I know. But we have to do this.”
The creature’s body was so close, he no longer needed to struggle against us at all. Perhaps we were no longer struggling against him, but meekly following in what had been his plan all along. The back of my hand brushed against the thick fur of the creature as we moved, and I felt an animal warmth that I hadn’t expected to feel.
For all the things I’d read in the Warren, I still didn’t understand the most basic of things about the Whispers.
“Eugen. What exactly are Pricolici?”
He opened his mouth and hesitated, but Cheșa quickened his step to fall in line with him and gave the answer in signs I observed and analyzed hungrily. Eugen translated.
“It’s a special sort of Whisper. When people die, other Whispers come and look for the angry bits of soul left in the body. They draw them out and make Pricolici. Whether moving or still, they are made of unfinished tasks. They alter the natural order of the world.”
Cheșa wagged his finger ‘no’ and pointed at the ground.
“Sorry. Of our world. Of course, the Unspoken has a different sort of order and the Pricolici are part of it.”
I glanced at the silent intruder, and he turned a foggy crystal eye to me. I felt no anger or disgust, rather a morbid fascination. “Curious. And how do they accomplish that?”
Cheșa kept in step with us, but this time Eugen answered. “Sometimes in small things. They cause milk to go sour, or calves to be born wrong. We barely have a dozen cows in town. They harrow all our wild animals away too. Hasn’t been a bird near Whisperwood in two generations, we would have forgotten all about them if it weren’t for books and stories.”
“I had wondered.”
“Sometimes they make people angry. Angrier than they would normally be. Sometimes, when the moon goes dark, it’s because an army of Pricolici have sent their shadows to cover it.”
“Their shadows?” I thought of the good reverend then, but couldn’t muster any more anger at his fate, only resignation and grief.
Again, the Pricolici flashed me a pale glance, but this time I felt a curious pride coming through it.
“Most Whispers are masters of arts we can’t begin to dream of. These ones have the gift of leaving their bodies behind.”
“And of crossing into our world.”
“We were studying the effects of having him with us. There’s this constant tension from something that doesn’t belong with us pulling back toward where it should be. Artjom suspected we could turn that pull into power and use it to strengthen Wards, just like you can turn the wind into a mill. And he was right. Cheșa caught this one and proved it.”
“Except instead of crushing grain, you crush the people who try to leave town?”
Behind us, Cheșa snorted, but Eugen only looked down, blushing. “The barrier is for the good of everyone. It’s not meant to hurt you. When Artjom arrived in Whisperwood, from wealthy and powerful cities in the north we’d never even heard of, the town only had one Ward around it. Not a very strong one either. They wanted more. Some say because the Whispers were getting wilder by the day.”
“And others?”
“Because the people were. They say Artjom came to town already knowing so much about the stars and how we move through them. About what the world is made of. A genius. It didn’t take long to find a use for that knowledge.”
“You mean for the mayor to?”
“He ordered the extra barriers, and asked that they be impenetrable. Which is laughable. Artjom wanted his to be frightening, but harmless. We used Whisper tension to open a window into somewhere else.”
“I’d hardly call it harmless.”
“You’ve seen it, then?”
I nodded.
A little awe slipped into his voice. “That means you were, even briefly, in another reality entirely. Maybe something as foreign to us as we are to the Whispers.”
We walked on in silence after that. I did my best not to obsessively check over my shoulder to make sure Rareș and Cheșa followed, but even my pride only went so far. The Master always faced forward, stoic and unflinching. He didn’t have much facial expression, the lower half rigid by nature and the upper, I suspected, by choice. Only his eyes were bright and curious. Rareș tried on a smile every time I looked at him, and every time it was a little more strained.
Before long, the shadows deepened. Our steps hastened, our breaths quickened, and even the Pricolici vibrated by the back of my hand. At first, I touched his hide by mistake, then after a while out of curiosity. Now my hand was always near his flank out of sheer fascination that he would allow me that intimacy. What did he think of us?
Tricks of the light became delicate webs of rays so subtle, they were there before any of us noticed the transition. We were close to the border, and the thought of meeting whatever attacked Paul made my skin crawl. Some of the books in the Warren said that Whispers usually avoided one another, and that many were mortal enemies vying for the grace of their Whisper royalty. Kings, queens, politics, wars. They had it all.
I didn’t know whether the Pricolici would help or hinder us if it came to that. I thought about asking Eugen, but he was so pale, and his knuckles on the silver chain were so white, I couldn’t bring myself to.
The webs of light parted before us and seemed to peel layers off the world along with them. Each time, something changed, but I couldn’t tell what other than a slight deepening of colors and an ever-increasing thickness to the air.
Eugen’s whispers startled me out of my concentration. “I think we’re almost there. Paul said it feels unpleasant. Brace yourselves. Grab on.”
I passed my end of the leash back to Cheșa, and Eugen handed his to Rareș, giving us all a connection to our guide. We were like a stagecoach pulling four horses.
Between one web and the next, I felt it. Judging by the gasps, the others did too – a strange tug behind my navel. Where the Tides were like shock waves pushing backward through my chest, this was like being caught on a fishing hook and pulled into the water by my intestines. Uncomfortable was the least of it, but at that point the physical urge to move forward was so strong I couldn’t have turned back. The forest sped by for a few seconds, flashing brightly, then covered again in shadows, over and over. It almost felt like I stood still, and it rushed by me.
A blink later we stopped, and all the discomfort vanished. Our beastly guide sat and waited while we caught our inexplicably lost breaths.
We stood in a forest, much like our own, except of a deeper emerald, and much darker. It might have been twilight or early dawn, and it must have been near freezing.
“This is it, isn’t it? But it’s not that different.” Steam swirled out on my breath and hung in the air much longer than I’d ever seen it do so before.
Cheșa twirled his graceful fingers around, fanning them out and gathering them back again like waves, and I realized I almost understood his meaning. Not completely, but enough that I wasn’t surprised when Eugen translated his words.
“This is only the shallows. It becomes more. Trust nothing, especially nothing living.”
Thick, lush grass carpeted the clearing floor, but the sky was a uniform dark charcoal violet that gave away nothing. Cheșa and Rareș looked around, apparently deciding it was relatively safe by some arbitrary principles I couldn’t fathom, and we rested on the ground for a moment, the Whisper still quiet and calm between us.
I closed my eyes and enjoyed the hands of the chill wind against my cheeks. Broadleaf trees rustled, and something akin to crickets or cicadas purred in the distance. A flutter of wings in the canopy was followed by a predatory squeak and the crackle of branches. Everything, everywhere, moved.
The forest was alive and we’d arrived, and all I could feel was a swirl of the exhilaration that I’d been allowed to experience it, the guilt that Paul hadn’t been so lucky, and the overpowering drive to see more of what lay ahead of us, whatever that would be.