Tavi took one look at the thirty odd feet between him and the ground below, then reached a hand up, fumbling at Fade's pack. He jerked the flap open and grabbed the first thing his fingers could reach, though all the squirming made him twist and spin on the rope. He squinted up as best he could and then flung it at the Marat above him.
Kitai let out a yelp and jerked back in a dodge. A hunk of cheese smacked into the stone beside the Marat's head, clung for a moment, then dropped and fell toward the wax-covered ground below.
Kitai blinked at the cheese and then at Tavi, his face twisting into a scowl. Doroga hadn't stopped lowering the rope, and so the cut the Marat had begun had already descended out of his reach. Kitai steadied himself against the cliff face, then reached out with his knife and began slicing at the rope again. "Foolish, Aleran. Kinder if you fell, broke a leg, and had to turn back rather than be devoured by the Keepers."
Tavi scrambled in the pack and found cloth wrapped around several biscuits. He grabbed the first and hurled it at Kitai. "So I could be eaten by your people instead?"
Kitai scowled, not deterred this time. A biscuit bounced off his outstretched arm. "We would at least not eat you alive."
"Stop that'" Tavi shouted He threw another biscuit, to no effect A thick strand of the braided rope parted with a whining snap, and Tavi's heart lurched as the rope spun and swung from side to side He glanced below him Another twenty feet to ground He'd never be able to fall that far without hurting himself, possibly too badly to continue
Another strand parted, and Tavi swayed wildly back and forth, his heart hammering high in his throat
Arms and legs shaking with excitement, Tavi took one last glance down (fifteen feet, or a little more?) He slipped his foot out of the loop at the bottom of the grey rope, and as quickly as he could, he slipped down the rope, gripping with his hands, and letting his legs swing below him He reached the loop and with a gulp grasped onto it, letting his legs swing out far beneath him
The rope parted with a snap Tavi plummeted
Between Doroga lowering the rope from above and the few feet he had gained by letting himself farther down the rope, the fall might have been little more than ten feet Not much higher than the roof of the stables, and he had jumped from there several times-always into mounds of hay, true, but he had made the jump without fear He tried to remember to keep his legs loose, to fall, roll if he possibly could
The fall seemed to take forever, and when Tavi landed it was a shock to his ankles, knees, thighs, hips, back, all in rapid succession as he tumbled to the earth He landed on one side, arms flailing wildly out and slapping down with him, and his breath exploded out from him in a rush He lay for a moment without moving, dimly aware that he was on the ground, still clutching the loop in the end of the rope in his fist
He regained his breath in a few moments, becoming aware of a couple of incongruous facts as he did First, there was no snow, down here in the chasm Of course, he had seen no snow from above, but the significance of it hadn't quite registered on him until he reached the ground It was warm Humid Nearly stifling He sat up, slowly, pushing himself up with his hands
The ground beneath him, or rather, the greenly luminous wax beneath his fingers felt pleasantly warm, and he let them rest against it for a moment, letting his chilled fingers recover from the cold wind that had frozen them on the way down from the top of the cliff His ankles stung as though being prickled by thousands of tiny needles, but the sensation faded after a moment, leaving them feeling merely uncomfortable and sore
Tavi gathered himself to his feet, the pack shifting about uncomfortably on his back, and squinted at his surroundings.
What was beautiful from high above was, once among it, disorienting and a little disturbing. The waxy growth, the croach, grew right up to the stone walls of the chasm and stopped there, but for one place he could see, where it had crept up the walls, evidently to engulf a lone and scraggly tree trying to grow from a crack in the stone. The luminous glow made shadows fall weirdly, with one engulfed tree casting several ghostly weak shadows on the glowing floor of the forest. Beneath the croach, the shadowy outlines of the trees themselves reminded Tavi uncomfortably of bones beneath flesh.
Tavi heard a scrabble on the wall and turned in time to see Kitai drop the last dozen feet to the floor of the forest, landing soundlessly, absorbing the shock of landing on both feet and on his arms, crouching for a moment on all fours, pale hair and opalescent eyes wild and greenish in the quiet light of the croach. His gaze darted left and right, wary, and his head tilted to one side, listening, focused on the lambent forest before him.
Tavi's temper flared, fear and pain quickly becoming an outraged anger that made arms shake with the sudden need to avenge himself. He rose and stalked silently toward Kitai. Tavi tapped the Marat on the shoulder, and when Kitai turned toward him, he balled up his fist and drove it into the other boy's ribs as hard as he could.
Kitai flinched, but didn't move quickly enough to evade the blow. Tavi pressed his advantage, jerking the Marat's arm away from his flank and punching him again in the same spot, as hard as he could. Kitai fumbled for his knife, and Tavi shoved him away as hard as he could, sending the other boy sprawling onto the glowing surface of the croach.
Kitai turned his opalescent eyes toward Tavi and pushed himself up with his hands. "Aleran," he snarled, "my sire's generosity is wasted on you. If you want a Trial of Blood, then-"
Kitai stopped abruptly, his eyes going wide.
Tavi, prepared to defend himself, blinked at the sudden change in the Marat. Gooseflesh rippled up his arms. Silent, he followed the Marat's gaze down-to his own feet.
Some of the oozing green light of the croach seemed to have spilled onto Tavi's boots. He frowned and peered closer. No. When he had landed, one of his heels must have driven into the croach and broken its surface like a crust of drying mud over a still-wet furrow. Whatever that glowing goo was
within the wax, it had splashed droplets onto the leather. The droplets gJowed, pale and green.
Tavi frowned and shook them off. He looked up to find Kitai still staring at him, eyes wide, his mouth open.
"What?" Tavi asked. "What is it?"
"Foolish Aleran," Kitai hissed. "You have broken the croach. The Keepers will come."
Tavi felt a chill roll over him. He swallowed. "Well I wouldn't have fallen if someone hadn't cut my rope."
"I'm not that stupid," Kitai retorted. His eyes moved past Tavi, flicking among the trees. "The croach beneath the ropes is very thick. That's why we chose there to enter. I once saw someone fall nearly six times the height of a man without breaking it."
Tavi licked his lips. "Oh," he said. He looked down at the forest's glowing floor. "Why did I break through it, then?"
Kitai glanced at him and then paced over to the spot where Tavi had landed, crouching down beside it. He touched the glowing fluid with his fingertips. "It's thinner, here. I don't understand. It's never been like this."
Tavi said, "Looks like they were expecting company."
Kitai turned to him, his eyes wide, body tense. "They knew where we were coming in. And now they know that we're here." The Marat boy's eyes flicked left and right, and he took several steps sideways, toward Tavi, his back to the stone of the wall.
Tavi backed toward the wall as well, emulating Kitai, and almost tripped on an incongruous lump in the smooth surface of the croach. Tavi glanced down and then leaned over, peering at it.
The lump was not large: perhaps the size of a chicken. It rose from the otherwise smooth floor of the forest in a hemisphere of greenish light with something dark at its core. Tavi leaned closer, peering at the shadowed lump.
It stirred and moved. Tavi hopped back from it, his breath catching in his throat.
"That," he gasped. "That's a crow. There's a crow in there. And it's alive."
"Yes, Aleran," Kitai said with scarcely veiled impatience. "The crows are sometimes foolish. They come down and peck at the croach, and the Keepers come for them and entomb them." Kitai cast his eyes to one side, where several other lumps, quite a bit larger, lay only a dozen long strides from the ropes at the base of the cliff. "They can live for days. Being eaten by the croach."
Tavi shuddered, a cold sensation crawling down his spine like a runnel of melting snow. "You mean. If these Keepers get one of us..."
"A Marat can live for weeks buried in the croach, Aleran."
Tavi felt sick. "You don't rescue them?"
Kitai flashed him a look, his eyes hard, cool. Then, in a few silent strides, paced over to the crow. He drew his knife, reached down, and slashed the blade over the surface of the lump. With a swift, curt motion, he reached down for the crow's neck and drew it from the clinging goo of the croach.
Parts of the bird peeled and sloughed away, like meat from a roast that had been cooked to tender perfection in a carefully tended oven. It let out a rasping sound, but its beak never attempted to close. Its eyes blinked once and then went glassy.
"That takes only hours," Kitai said and dropped the remains back near the slit in the wax. "Do you see, Aleran?"
Tavi stared at the ground, sickened. "I... I see."
Kitai grimaced at him. He turned and started pacing away, following the wall of stone again. "We must move. The Keepers will come to investigate the break you made and put the rest of the crow back. We should not be here when they arrive."
"No," Tavi whispered. "I guess we sh-"
In the trees, Tavi saw something move.
It was indistinct at first. Just a lump in the wax on the trunk of the tree. But it shuddered and twitched with life. Tavi thought for a moment that a piece of the croach had broken from the tree trunk and would fall to earth. It had a lumpy shape and coursed with the same luminous green fluid as the rest of the wax. But as the Aleran boy watched, legs writhed free of the lump's sides. Something like a head emerged from a shell-like coating of the croach, pale eyes round and huge. All in all, eight knobby, many-jointed legs stretched free of the thing's body, and then, with a quiet, horrible grace, it paced down the trunk of the tree and across the floor of the forest to the break in the surface of the croach, where greenish glowing fluid bubbled and seethed like blood in an open wound.
A wax spider. A Keeper of Silence. Silent and strange and the size of a large dog. Tavi stared at it, his heart pounding in his chest, and felt his eyes widening.
He shot a glance to Kitai, who had also frozen and was staring at the
Keeper. The creature bent down and spread wide a set of smooth mandibles at the base of its head. It scooped up pieces of the crow and using its foremost set of legs, tucked them back into the open wound in the croach. Then it hovered over the slash, several of its legs working back and forth over it in swift, methodical movements, sealing the wax closed over the carcass.
Tavi shot a glance back at Kitai, who motioned to Tavi and then covered his own mouth with his hand, a clear command to be silent. Tavi nodded and turned toward Kitai. The Marat's eyes widened in alarm, and he held up his hands, palms out, to tell Tavi to stop.
Tavi froze.
Behind him, the quiet rustle of the Keeper's limbs over the wax had come to a halt. From the corner of his eye, Tavi could just see it gather all its limbs beneath it again, bobbing up and down in restless agitation. It began to emit a series of high pitched chirrups, not quite like a bird's voice, or anything else Tavi had ever heard. The sound made shivers slither down the length of his body.
After a moment, the Keeper appeared to go back to its work. Kitai turned toward Tavi, his motions very, very slow, graceful. He gestured toward Tavi with his hand, every movement smooth and circular and rolling, exaggerated. Then he turned and began to walk away, silent and slow, his steps flowing almost as though in a dance.
Tavi swallowed and turned to follow Kitai, struggling to emulate the Marat boy's steps. Kitai walked before him, close to the stone wall of the chasm, and Tavi followed until they were several dozen yards away from the Keeper. Tavi felt its presence behind him, bizarre and unworldly, disturbing as the legs of a fly prickling along the nape of his neck. When they were out of its sight, he felt himself relaxing and moving closer to Kitai out of reflex- as different as the other boy might be, he was more familiar, more friendly than that buglike creature entombing the crow within the glowing wax.
Kitai looked back over his shoulder at Tavi and then past him, eyes wide. There was something in them-tightly controlled terror, Tavi thought. He thought that Kitai looked a bit relieved to see Tavi standing so close to him, and the two boys exchanged a silent nod of acknowledgment to one another. Tavi felt the understanding between them without words needing to be said: truce.
Kitai let out a breath, slowly. "You must be quiet," he said, whispering. "And move smoothly. They see sudden motions."
Tavi swallowed and whispered, "We're safe if we're still?"
Kitai's face grew a shade paler. He shook his head, giving the gesture a circular accent to smooth it out. "They've found even those who were still. I've seen it."
Tavi frowned. "They must have some other way of seeing. Smell, hearing, something."
Kitai rolled his head in the negative again. "I don't know. We do not stay where they are to learn of them." He looked around and shivered. "We must be careful. It called. Others will come to search. They will be slow for now. But the Keepers will come."
Tavi nodded and had to swallow and force himself to make the gesture slowly, not in nervous jerks. "What should we do?"
Kitai nodded toward the ancient tree rising from the center of the forest. "We continue the trial, Aleran."
"Uh. Maybe we shouldn't."
"I will continue, Aleran. If you are too afraid to go on, then stay." His lips curled in a mischievous sneer. "It is what I would expect of a child."
"I am not a child,'' Tavi hissed furiously. "I'm older than you. What are you, twelve years old? Thirteen?"
Kitai narrowed his eyes. "Fifteen," he hissed.