“It’s a new trick,” he confessed. “Seems like the more Black I use, the more tricks I can do.”
She frowned and he realised that they were once again at the limits of their ability to communicate. Either that or she was being deliberately obtuse, still clinging to her secrets behind a veil of incomprehension. He had secrets of his own, of course. He hadn’t told her or the others about the egg in his pack or the newly filled vial he had attached to the chain about his neck alongside the one containing Blue heart-blood. But he doubted his small subterfuge would alter their chances of survival, whereas her knowledge was certain to be of vital importance.
“Trance with me,” he said, taking the wallet from his jacket and extracting a vial of Blue. He held it up before her eyes, tilting it to and fro so it caught a glimmer from the red glow of the cylinder. “Trance with me and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Kriz looked away, her face taking on a familiar mix of reluctance and refusal.
“Gonna have to happen sometime.” Clay returned the vial to the wallet. “You know that, right?”
She didn’t reply but he sensed she caught his meaning, in the tone if not the words. She kept her gaze averted for a moment longer then abruptly stood, gesturing for him to follow suit. “There,” she said, pointing at something far off in the gloom. At first Clay could see only the jagged grey outline of the mountains beyond the forest, then saw she was pointing at something above the peaks: a thin pale line ascending into the black void. Some trick of the faux-sunlight must have concealed it when they scaled the cliff, but now it stood revealed as the distant glow caught its edge.
“Another shaft,” Clay realised aloud. He turned to Kriz and laughed. “That’s where you’re taking us? Why didn’t you say so?”
He began to give her an appreciative pat on the shoulder but she stepped back, features tense now. Her expression was harder than ever to read, fearful certainly, but also some guilt there in her eyes. It left him with the distinct impression that whatever awaited them at this new shaft, it wasn’t a way out. “We . . .” Kriz began, speaking slowly and forming the words with care, “trance . . . there.”
“And what’s there?” he pressed, putting a hard insistence into his voice.
Kriz turned and resumed her seat, face set and unyielding as she muttered a soft response he knew would be her last word of the evening, “Father.”
? ? ?
They saw no Greens as they made their way through the forest, nor any of the tell-tale marks the beasts were apt to leave on tree-trunks to mark their territory. But that didn’t mean the forest was void of life. Small birds moved in darting flocks about the tree-tops whilst larger creatures lived in the trees themselves. Clay soon recognised them as belonging to the same species as the Black’s part-eaten prey back at the cave. They were small monkey-like creatures with dark fur, stunted legs and long arms which they used to swing from branch to branch. They tended to make a righteous din upon sighting their party, screeching and hooting as they gathered into a protective huddle. Larger specimens, presumably the males, would be more active, bouncing on tree-branches as they bared an impressive set of teeth. One even threw twigs at them as they passed beneath the tree, screeching out a challenge.
“You ever see the like?” Clay asked Sigoral, ducking as the twig sailed over his head.
“I saw monkeys aplenty in Dalcia,” the Corvantine replied, raising his carbine and using the spy-glass-sight to gain a closer look at the still-screaming creature. “Much the same size, though their heads were smaller and eyes bigger.”
“Could bag a few,” Loriabeth suggested, hefting her repeating rifle. “Some fresh meat certainly wouldn’t go amiss.”
“No!” Kriz moved to stand in front of her, then switched her stern visage to each of them in turn. “Leave . . . be. Not food.”
“Alright, cuz,” Clay warned his cousin as she started to bridle. “Reckon we got grub enough to last us to the shaft.”
If Kriz didn’t see the monkeys as food, it was not a sentiment shared by the local population of Blacks. They saw the first one a few hours into their trek, a male by Clay’s reckoning given the breadth of its wing-span, which was much broader than the female Loriabeth had killed at the cliff. They watched the Black glide above the trees with something dangling from its claws, something that wriggled and screeched as it was borne towards the grey peaks beyond the forest.
“Might explain why there’s no Greens here,” Clay said. “Blacks won’t tolerate the competition.”
“Let’s hope they tolerate us,” Loriabeth said. “Leastways long enough to get where we’re going.”
Kriz led them on for another two days, eventually calling a halt when the forest began to give way to rocky hills. The mountains were looming ever larger ahead, as was the relentlessly inviting sight of the shaft. Clay could sense the impatience in Sigoral and Loriabeth, the growing desire to be gone from this place of wonder and ever-present danger. He shared their hunger for escape, but found his appetite for answers even more pressing. It was what they came for, after all. He had followed the vision gifted by the White’s blood in the hope that the spire might harbour some hope of defeating the beast’s design. Instead, he had uncovered a maddening and complex enigma, one Kriz apparently felt no compulsion to unravel for his benefit, at least not yet.
He watched her scan the hills up ahead then straighten as she caught sight of something. A grin broke over her face and she began to run, scaling the rock-strewn incline with impressive agility and speed that left the three of them struggling to keep up. When Clay eventually caught up he found her standing before a plinth sitting alongside a huge boulder.
“Looks like she found us another treasure trove to raid,” Loriabeth said, mopping her sweat-covered brow with a kerchief.
“I ain’t too sure about that,” Clay said, seeing the conflicting emotions play over Kriz’s face as she regarded the plinth’s crystal. Her grin had been replaced by a wide-eyed anticipation that abruptly turned to a grimace of trepidation. Clay moved to her side and nodded at the boulder. “Worried what you’ll find in there, huh?” he asked.
She glanced at him, apparently understanding enough of his words to reply with a nod.
“Don’t be,” he said, putting a hand on her arm and hefting his carbine. “You got us backing you.”