Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [196]
“I think so, too,” Amrita said firmly. “It is never wise to refuse a true gift of the gods. Moirin… do your gods often speak to you?”
“No.” I searched for words, and found there weren’t any big enough. All I could do was clear my throat. “No, my lady. Not like this.”
She smiled a little. “Still, you are quite special to them, I think. I knew it the moment I saw you protecting that girl in the street. You were shaking with fever and you could barely sit up straight in the saddle, but you were not going to let those men harm her. And as sick as you were, you still looked like you’d stepped out of an ancient tale from when gods and goddesses roamed the earth.”
It made me smile, too. “You are very kind, my lady.”
Amrita laid one hand on Bao’s shoulder and leaned in to kiss my cheek. “And you are very frightened, dear one. But you are stronger than you know. You will be strong enough to face Jagrati, I am sure of it.”
I prayed she was right.
All of us slept uneasily that night, the camp on high alert, ringed about with anxious sentries. Bao positioned himself before the flap of the tent and passed the night in a restless doze. Twice, there were shouts in the night that brought him to his feet, his staff at the ready, while I reached desperately for the twilight, flinging it around myself and Amrita. But they were false alarms sounded by our uneasy guards.
There was no attack. Kurugiri, it seemed, had gone on the defensive.
The next day, we passed through the meadow where we had held our parley. As a precaution, Hasan Dar sent a company of scouts ahead to sweep through the spruce copse where our ambush had hidden, but it was empty. We filed past the Sleeping Calf Rock and began to ascend higher into the mountains, the air growing thinner and colder, pockets of snow in the windswept crags.
I breathed the Breath of Embers Glowing to warm myself, and the Breath of Earth’s Pulse to center myself, letting my awareness expand as we navigated the narrow paths. I didn’t sense anyone ahead of us, but I wasn’t certain.
That night, we made camp on an arid plateau where the ground was so hard it took all the men’s strength to pound the tent-pegs in place. Amrita was shivering in the cold, her teeth chattering. Although she didn’t utter a word of complaint, she was unused to such hardship. Beneath thick woolen blankets, I did my best to warm her while Bao slept stretched before the tent-flap.
On the following day, we reached the base of Kurugiri.
The mountain seemed taller and more foreboding than I remembered, jutting into the icy blue sky. The southern face of it was sheer; indeed, only the eastern face with its complicated labyrinth was scalable. We worked our way toward it, feeling the shadow of Kurugiri looming over us. From this perspective, the fortress itself wasn’t even visible, but every one of us knew it was there.
Dusk was falling by the time we passed the hanging cauldron of petition on its endless chain and reached the entrance to the maze, shadows slanting over the fissured slope. There must have been almost a dozen potential paths emerging from the maze, but Bao went unerringly toward the fifth one we encountered.
“Here.” He pointed to a faint mark etched into the stone, as high as a man could reach, then pushed up his right sleeve. The same intricate symbol of curlicues and strokes was tattooed above the crook of his elbow, beginning the zig-zag path. “See?”
Hasan Dar nodded. “We’ll have to camp here as best we can,” he said. “Set out at dawn. You’re sure it can be climbed in a day?”
Bao leaned on his staff. “I’m sure it can be done, yes. Whether or not we can do it is another matter. Depends on what we find in there.”
“I am sure of it,” Amrita said in a decisive tone, shivering. “Anything to get out of this cold!”
It made the guards smile, which I daresay was her intention; and it was the last cause anyone had to smile, for it was a truly miserable night. Due to the rocky terrain, we were unable to erect the tents and