A rotten breeze wafted over Kal. Something wet and rough brushed his face. He opened his eyes to rank and matted white fur. A camel’s neck. The animal nipped at his hipsack.
Kal patted the camel and laughed. “Caught up with us, did you, girl?” He dug half a carrot from his hipsack and fed it to her. “That’s all I have, so don’t ask for—”
The wagon trembled. The camel brayed and spun in a circle.
“Take it easy,” Kal called after her. “This barely counts as an earthquake.” He sat still until the shaking stopped. Everyone else was still sleeping. Kal stood, stretched, and carefully climbed over the side of the wagon. His boots squished into goopy mud. A quick inspection showed that a mud drift had buried the back bottom half of the wagon. They would have to dig it out before they could replace the wheels.
Grayson stood, hair frizzing out like a sticky snare. “What’s to eat?”
“Mud.” Kal turned and took stock of their surroundings. Mud and more mud. No sign of the other animals. The camel nibbled on some limp desert plant. Kal searched through his grow lens but saw no sign of civilization. He had no idea where they were.
“Are you the mantic?” Grayson asked.
“I am Priestess Jazlyn, Sixth Great Lady of Tenma,” a woman answered.
Kal spun back to the wagon and regarded Grayson and the woman, who looked no more than eighteen. She was all eyes and mouth and curves and coils of the blackest hair. Still wearing her filthy white gown and diadem.
Kal shivered. The mantic had successfully purged, which meant her shadir was nearby, whether Kal could see it or not. He didn’t want the creature here, yet he’d like to ask the woman about Wilek’s rune. First and foremost, however, he needed to keep Onika and Grayson out of the woman’s sight.
“Grayson,” he said. “Get down here and help me with this mud.”
“Sure thing, Sir Kalenek.” The boy scrambled over the side.
Kal was pleased to see the priestess lie back down. He set about digging the mud drift away from the wheel. He had no shovel and had to stab the mud with his sword to loosen it, then Grayson dug it aside with his hands.
Eventually, Ulrik joined in. Jhorn climbed out and tried to help, but the soft mud made it difficult for him to move on his canes.
Inolah awoke and started work on the other side of the wagon. “Why not harness the camel and see if she can pull us out?” she asked.
“The pulling points on the harness are in the wrong places,” Jhorn said. “Mules pull from their chests. Camels pull from their shoulders and hump. I suppose I could try to rebuild it.”
“Can you help us, Priestess Jazlyn?” Ulrik asked the mantic.
“I have no evenroot,” she said. “My magic is gone until I locate more. The empress promised to take me to the evenroot mill in the Open Quarter in payment for my rescue. I have kept my side of the bargain.”
“I am sorry, Priestess,” Inolah said. “I suspect we could find some root in Nindera.”
“How far is that?” the mantic asked.
“A seven-day journey from Lâhaten,” Inolah said. “Though I cannot say how far we traveled already, or if we even went in the right direction.”
Kal suspected the torrent had carried them north and that they were closer to Jeruka than Nindera, but he kept his theory to himself. He would tell Inolah later but had no desire to help the mantic regain her power.
“If the boy mantic would share, my shadir could fly me and my eunuch home to Yobatha.”
“Me?” Grayson’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “I’m no mantic.”
“Your skin shows signs of needing to purge.”
“It’s a birth rash,” Jhorn said. “The boy takes no evenroot.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That is impossible.”
“Give me a sip from your water bag, Jhorn,” Kal said. “It’s already starting to get hot.”
Jhorn vaulted in front of the priestess, blocking her view of Grayson. He handed Kal the water bag.
Kal took his time drinking and glanced at the place Onika rested, relieved the blind woman had kept herself under the blankets so far.
“Burk isn’t helping,” Grayson said, glaring into the wagon.
Sure enough, the young thief was still asleep, curled into a ball near Priestess Jazlyn’s feet. Kal reached in and poked Burk’s backside with the point of his sword. “Get up, Burk! And, Nolah, you get back in the wagon and rest.”
“I know what I can handle and what I cannot,” she said, taking a stab with her sword.
“You speak too informally to the empress, Sir Kalenek,” Prince Ulrik said and went around to join his mother.
Kal supposed he had. He was about to apologize when Burk leapt to the wet sand beside him. The ground shifted. The wagon lurched.
“Nobody move!” Kal held his breath. He scanned the ground, looking for moving earth, but all was still.
Until the camel jogged up to them and the dirt beneath Kal’s feet crumbled.
Arms flailing, feet pedaling, he searched for anything solid. The remains of Farway flashed in his memory. They’d be buried alive!
Voices cried out as they sank. Grayson tumbled over the side of the wagon, which was now beneath Kal’s feet. They weren’t falling fast—at the speed of a walk. All around him, dirt poured, silently, deadly. The light faded as they fell deeper. He couldn’t see the others now. Nothing but dirt. It churned around him, cool and moist and heavy.
Then he stopped.
His head was uncovered; he could still see sky above. He heard the camel braying, heard Grayson yelling for help, heard someone screaming. A man.
Kal’s body was packed in strangely, arms lifted out to his sides, knees bent—one leg forward, one back, as if frozen midleap. He tried to move. Couldn’t. Panic seized him, and he strained to thrash his arms and legs. His right arm shifted. More dirt fell around it.
He paused, waited, tried to relax. A deep breath brought granules of sand into his nose and mouth. He took shorter breaths. Listened for the others.
“My legs! My legs hurt!” This from Ferro.
“I’m coming, Ferro. I see you.” Inolah.
“We must lift the wagon.” Ulrik.
“I can’t breathe!” Burk, somewhere behind Kal.
“If you can talk, you can breathe.” Jhorn.
“Qoatch?” Jazlyn yelled. “We must push the dirt away from the sides of the wagon so we can see where we are.”
“We’re in a hole, Priestess,” Jhorn said.
“Qoatch?” Jazlyn called again.
“I am here, Great Lady,” Qoatch said weakly. “I am injured.”
“There’s a tunnel,” Grayson said. “I’m going to see where it goes. Come on, camel.”
The camel brayed.
“I can’t move!” Burk yelled.
Ferro continued to scream about his legs. Inolah and Ulrik worked to free him. Jazlyn questioned Qoatch, who couldn’t feel his body at all. Kal did not hear Onika, though Rustian was growling nearby.
Kal put all his effort into his right arm. He wiggled it until more dirt fell. The dune cat hissed, and Kal felt sharp claws against his wrist. More sand fell away, freeing his right shoulder. Kal saw the wagon below and Rustian sliding toward it on his side, hind end flailing. Kal was trapped above the wagon, legs buried in dirt that sloped sharply up to the fall-in’s edge. The wagon was mostly uncovered. Jhorn and Onika were inside, as were their supplies. Kal watched Rustian glide down the drift and flop over the wagon’s side. He righted himself and stretched. In the distance, far past the fall-in, Kal could see Grayson holding a lantern, leading the camel into a tunnel. Fool boy had better take care.
A flash of dark hair on the other side of the wagon and Ulrik lifted Ferro into his arms. The boy was screaming. Inolah popped up beside them. She pulled the crumpled tent from the wagon, and they moved down the tunnel, the way Grayson had gone. Kal still could not see Jazlyn, Qoatch, or Burk.
He dug with his right arm until his right leg was free; then he dug out his left shoulder, which enabled him to free his left arm. The sand around him shifted suddenly, and he slid fast toward the wagon with a pile of sand, everything crashing in a wave over the wagon’s edge.
Jhorn cried out in dismay and brushed the dirt off Onika’s face.
“Sorry,” Kal said, recovering. “Are you both well?”
“We are fine,” Jhorn said. “Prince Ferro broke his leg.”
“Help me!” Burk yelled.
Kal looked up. Just behind where he had been, Burk was sticking out of the sand from the waist up.
“Hold still, Burk.” Kal had brought down a lot of sand with him. He didn’t want Burk to bury Onika and Jhorn completely. He did not see the mantic. “Priestess?”
“Here.” She stood near the front end. “My eunuch is pinned under the wagon. I must find evenroot to free him.”
Mantics were useless without their root. “Go look if you like,” Kal said. “But I say we pull him out now before the landslide buries him forever.”
The woman stared, as if weighing Kal’s worth. He didn’t wait for her judgment. He rooted around for the mule harnesses and the tangle of tack and dragged it away from the landslide. He needed the camel.
“Grayson!” Kal yelled into the tunnel. “Come on back!” He set about hauling supplies from the wagon in case it got buried. He found all four wheels and moved them. He lifted Onika from the wagon and helped her sit beside Inolah and her boys. He backsacked Jhorn there as well.
“See if you can make these harnesses fit the camel,” Kal told Jhorn.
A scream brought Burk down in a gust of dirt that filled the wagon. Kal waited for the dust to settle. He found Burk’s foot sticking out of the sand and yanked. The boy slid out from the mound of dirt and onto the ground.
“Argh!” Burk cried. “You hurt my ankle!”
“I’ll hurt more than that if you don’t start listening,” Kal said. “I told you to wait.”
“I couldn’t help it.”
“Get up and help me with the eunuch.” Kal glanced back to the others. “Prince Ulrik? I could use your assistance as well.”
Burk whined about his ankle and did little to help, but Kal and Ulrik managed to lift the exposed side of the wagon enough for Jazlyn to pull out her servant. His breathing was labored and shallow. When they lowered the wagon again, more dirt slid down upon them. Kal and Ulrik carried Qoatch to the others. Grayson had returned with the camel and Jhorn’s lantern in hand.
“The tunnel just keeps going,” Grayson said. “I saw a bunch of dead newts. At least twenty.”
“Letaha,” Jazlyn said. “Did you see any living?”
Grayson shook his head. “Only dead ones. Why?”
“Letaha live on evenroot. Was there any?”
“No, ma’am. Plenty of root holes, but all the tubers had been harvested.”
Kal sought Onika’s gaze. Her face was turned toward his, covered in so much dirt she looked like one of them. He walked to her and whispered, “Onika, are we to take the tunnel?”
“It is the quickest way to the sea,” she replied, her words warming him.
Good enough for Kal. He turned back toward the others. “If we can harness the camel, she can pull the wagon out of there. Then we can see where this tunnel leads.”
“The tunnel?” Ulrik cried. “We should climb back up. It’s far safer to travel on land where it might fall beneath our feet than underground where it might fall down upon our heads.”
“The wall is too soft to climb,” Kal said. “It will bury us.” He examined the ground. The tunnel was old, its walls packed and dry, yet there were fresh footsteps on the ground that were not their own. “Someone else has used this tunnel recently. There is likely a way out.”
“It leads to Jeruka,” Ulrik said. “This is one of my father’s evenroot shafts.”
“The emperor was harvesting evenroot?” Jazlyn asked.
“He wanted to keep it from Tenma,” Ulrik said.
“Give me the lantern,” Jazlyn said. “I must find some root to heal my eunuch and the boy prince. I don’t need much. Some broken tails will do.”
Ulrik took the lantern from Grayson and carried it to her side. “I’ll go with you.”
Kal watched them leave. When they were out of earshot, he said to Inolah, “He sure changes his mind quickly when that woman speaks.”
“He admires her,” Inolah said.
“One should not engage with a worshiper of demons,” Jhorn said. “If she finds her poison, do not let her use her dark magic on your son.”
“But he is in pain,” Inolah said.
“Pain will fade in time,” Jhorn said. “A soul is not so easily won back from Gâzar.”
“He cannot lose his soul when magic is forced upon him,” Onika said. “Only when he gives his soul freely can it be lost.”
“Being healed will open his mind to favor the demon magic,” Jhorn said. “It’s too risky.”
“So is death,” Onika said, “when a soul has not found the God.”
Time to change the subject. “How is that harness coming along?” Kal asked.
“See if this will fit around the camel.” Jhorn held up the two harnesses, which he had lashed together into one.
Kal used his knife to cut up the tent for padding. He tore a spare kasah into strips and lashed the harness to the folded tent to keep it from slipping. He and Ulrik removed the camel’s saddlebag and set the padding and harness over her shoulders.
“Ready to help pull, girl?” Kal asked.
The camel brayed and nipped at the harness. Kal hooked her to the wagon, but she wouldn’t pull. Kal tried getting excited, he tried begging, he tried yelling. It wasn’t until Grayson dangled a carrot before the camel’s nose that it moved.
“I thought those were gone,” Kal said.
“In her saddlebag,” the boy said.
It was hard work for the camel. Kal and Ulrik had to dig out most of the dirt before the wagon even budged. Finally it broke free from its dirt prison and scraped along the tunnel ground.
A cheer rose up even as more dirt crumbled down, but they were now able to clean out the wagon and replace the wheels. Two were on by the time Jazlyn and Ulrik returned triumphant. The priestess held what looked like a tangle of hair in her fist. These turned out to be evenroot tails that had broken off from harvested root.
She set to work grinding them while Kal and Jhorn replaced the last two wheels. They had just finished when an argument began. Inolah stood above Ferro, in front of Ulrik, Jazlyn, and Qoatch, who now stood perfectly healthy at his Great Lady’s side.
“Mother, don’t be foolish,” Ulrik said.
“Ferro is my son. I decide.”
“But she can stop the pain,” Ulrik said.
Kal shivered, his memory flashing back to the war, to the torture. They would heal his scars if he confessed all he knew. They would stop the pain.
“I am emperor now,” Ulrik told his mother. “Let the priestess help.”
“You are not emperor,” Inolah said. “Not until you have been crowned. The empress rules Rurekau until then. And I will not have my son healed with the black magic that killed his father. My decision is final.”
“I thought you to be an intelligent woman, Empress,” Jazlyn said.
“I will hear no more on this matter.” Inolah turned her back on them and crouched at Ferro’s side.
“I’ll take some healing on my ankle,” Burk said, limping toward the priestess, who murmured one word and declared him well.
Kal splinted Prince Ferro’s leg with a spare trace from the remains of the second mule harness, then he helped Jhorn, Onika, Inolah, and Ferro into the wagon. The others would go on foot to ease the burden on the camel.
“But my ankle,” Burk said.
“He can walk,” the mantic told Kal, and his resolve to hate her crumbled a bit.
Kal led the camel forward. Ulrik still held the lantern. Jhorn kept a second, smaller lantern in the wagon. The low light was just enough to see by.
Grayson walked on Kal’s left. The boy remained silent, casting fearful looks toward the mantic. Kal would have to ask the boy why he suddenly feared her.
Every few steps they passed holes or side tunnels that branched off the main route. Dead newts lay in the empty root holes. Some shafts were tall enough for Kal to stand in.
“Does evenroot truly get this big?” he asked the mantic.
“Even bigger,” she said. “Under Tenma, some root grow as high as three men and hundreds of leagues long.”
No wonder there were so many Tennish mantics.
“Yet the tunnels under my home are much like this,” Jazlyn said. “Empty. We have harvested root for centuries, and there is little left. We grow it fresh each season, but it takes much longer to grow than it does to harvest. As a result we train fewer mantics each year.”
Kal thanked the gods for that.
“Have you thought of harvesting elsewhere?” Ulrik asked.
“The other realms are unwilling to help,” the mantic said. “They fear our magic and refuse to aid us in our quest to continue the art. We once had a trade agreement with Sarikar to harvest in the scablands, but they sold their harvesting rights to Magonia. Our sisters in the south will not share root with us and waste it on unnecessary rituals. Emperor Nazer refused to discuss our harvesting Rurekan root. Now I know why.”
Kal had no response to this. He tried to mentally calculate how many days it might take them to walk to Jeruka. If they were traveling in a straight line, it might be fifty leagues, more or less. If they were going to make better time, they needed to get to the surface. There had to be a way.