The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [58]
No one knew, and no book Stephen could find answered the question. But they were useful, and they were pretty, which was more than could be said about most things.
They were particularly useful just now, as the path they walked was barely a kingsyard wide, bounded on the right hand by the stone of the great central subterrain of the caverns and on the left by the crevasse through which the underground river Nemeneth sought its way through stone and earth to feed deeper streams and eventually, perhaps, the Welph, which flowed in turn to the Warlock and thence to the Lier Sea at Eslen. He could hear the rushing of the Nemeneth, but it was too far below him for the witchlights to reveal.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” Zemlé asked him.
“I’m sure I’m not,” he replied. “I wasn’t ready to walk the first faneway I walked. Then I nearly died—maybe did die—just setting foot on another sedos. But Virgenya Dare wasn’t ready, either. She just did it. And I’m not going to wait until the Vhelny or whatever it is that’s stalking me has its chance.”
“Then the journal talks about the faneway?”
“Yes. I was reading an early part, when she was a girl, and the Skasloi took her into the mountains. This mountain. She felt the faneway below her. Years later she came back and walked it.”
“So she tells where it is.”
“Yes. I know where I’m going, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Is it much farther?”
He smiled. “That’s what we used to ask my father on long trips. Have you aged backward to five?”
“No. I don’t care how far it is. I’m just curious.”
“I reckon it at about half a league. It’s in another part of the mountain. Adhrekh, have you ever been this way before?”
“The cavern ends ahead, pathikh.”
“You really believe that, or is this just something else you neglected to tell me? Another test to see if I’m really Kauron’s heir?”
“It’s not a test, pathikh. We’ve never known where the faneway is.”
Stephen stopped. “It’s going to stay that way, then. Give me a pack of food and water and return to your rewn.”
“Pathikh—”
“Do it. If I even suspect you’re following me, I won’t go anywhere near the faneway. Do you understand?”
“Pathikh, this place you are going—it is old, very old, and it has been abandoned for a long time. There’s no knowing what might lurk there in the dark.”
“Stephen, he’s right,” Zemlé said. “Going alone would be foolish.”
“They’ve just admitted they need me to find the faneway. Maybe that’s all they ever needed from me. Maybe once I find it, I’m of no use to them.”
“Stephen, Sefry can’t walk faneways. Any faneways. Why would they want to know where this one is?”
That drew him to a stop. “What? I’ve never heard that.”
“It’s true,” Adhrekh said.
Stephen frowned and leafed quickly through his saint-blessed memory. No Sefry had ever joined the Church and walked a faneway; that much was true. But there was something…
“As soon have a Sefry walk a faneway as give shiveroot for the gout,” he cited.
“What?” Zemlé asked.
“From the Herbal of Phelam Haert. It’s the only thing I can think of that supports your claim. Anyway, maybe they have someone in mind to walk it other than me.”
“Who? Not Fend, obviously. Hespero? Then why did they fight him?”
You can trust the Aitivar.
Stephen blinked. Everyone was looking at him strangely.
“What did you say?” Zemlé asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You were just babbling in some other tongue.”
Stephen sighed and massaged his forehead. “Nothing,” he said. “Never mind. All right, Adhrekh. You can come.”
Adhrekh acknowledged that by bowing, and they continued the descent. As the Sefry had predicted, the roof of the cave came sloping down to meet them even as the angle of the trail sharpened and finally became stairs. The churning of the river grew louder, and eventually the stairs ended on a bed of gravel and sand at its banks.
Stephen had been trying not to think about this part, but now he was there, and he felt his breath shorten. It wasn’t how he had imagined it; it was much worse.
Upstream, where the Aitivar