The pavement was knee high, its edge cut square, but worn by the elements. Although white like the monoliths, it wasn’t made of snowy quartz, but a denser rock. A series of tremendous pie-shaped wedges had been neatly joined to form the mile-wide disk. Gingerly she climbed onto the platform. The flow of cold air she’d felt aloft was discernible at ground level too. Air temperature atop the platform was noticeably colder than the usual chilly feel of the valley.
On closer inspection, the stone wasn’t unmarked after all. The surface was covered with carved lines. Weathering had softened them, but their intricate patterns of curlicues and flowing curves was still visible.
Her journey to the center of the platform took a while, and the farther she went, the more isolated she felt. The mass of featureless, flat stone seemed to steal her sense of direction and distance. When she checked her position relative to her sleeping griffon, she realized she’d been walking in a circle. She sought one of the radial joints between the wedge-shaped slabs and used it as a guide to the center.
Sounds of whispering came to her ears, and she stopped immediately. In a silent land infested with ghosts, every noise was significant. Unfortunately, the sounds were too faint for her to understand, so she resumed her trek.
The center of the great disk was marked by nothing more than the simple confluence of all the joints, but as she drew near it, the voices became louder and more distinct. She kept going but slowly, turning her head left and right, alert for she knew not what. When her foot touched the center point, the voices instantly became comprehensible. They were nothing more than mundane conversations-about fresh water, clean clothing, the health of the Speaker.
Kerian was amazed. She wasn’t hearing ghosts, but the voices of her own people as they advanced across the wasteland! Whether by magic or the strange effect of the valley’s shape, voices from many miles away were reaching her with perfect clarity. By shifting her position slightly, she could bring even individual conversations into focus. But however much she tried, she couldn’t locate Gilthas’s voice in the welter.
“Gilthas, can you hear me?” She stopped, frustrated.
Instantly the muddle of conversations died. Hard on this silence came ten thousand variations of “who said that?” Not only could Kerian hear them, but they could hear her! The peculiar effect worked both ways.
She demanded quiet. When the amazed chatter died, she identified herself and called for her husband again.
Hamaramis answered, “The Speaker sleeps, lady. Where are you? We can’t see you.”
She told him, provoking another cacophony of questions. She shouted them to silence again.
“Is It safe for us to proceed there?” Hamaramis asked.
“It seems so. Just continue north-northeast, and you can’t miss it.”
She seated herself at the center of the disk. As her people advanced, she spoke to Hamaramis and Taranath as easily a if they were standing beside her. When Gilthas awoke, she regaled him with the tale of her discovery. By midafternoon the first riders appeared beyond the distant edge. They cam to her on foot; their horses liked the cold, white pavement n more than Eagle Eye had.
“Welcome to the navel of the world,” she hailed Taranath. The warriors laughed, but her old comrade in arms frowned.
“Are you well?” he asked.
“As well as ever, Taran.” She grimaced. “Actually, my legs have cramped. Give me a hand.”
Pulling her upright, he exclaimed, “You’re cold as ice!”
She put a hand to her face, but felt nothing untoward. Yet her legs had stiffened and her arms were bloodlessly pale, her fingernails blue. She and the others returned quickly to the pavement’s edge. Jumping off the stone to land on the grass, Kerian felt as though she were entering a steam bath, such as the plainsmen enjoyed. After a few hours on the great platform, the cool air of Inath-Wakenti felt positively hot.
Taranath offered her a flask from his belt. She pulled the stopper, recoiling at the sharp odor. The flask contained
The Khurish beverage was distilled from the fermented juice of the corpse cactus, so called because its fleshy, pale blue fronds resembled the limp hands of the dead. The flavor was unbelievably bitter, almost metallic, but the liquid flooded Kerian’s veins with heat.
When she’d caught her breath again, she ordered everyone kept off the platform. “It finally occurs to me (thank
Taranath swallowed
“We’re surrounded, remember?” she said. “Despite the Speaker’s hopes, the ghosts in this valley are not our friends.”
The only thing worse than pursuing Faeterus across the eerie valley was traveling with him. Favaronas was accustomed to Robien’s swift step.
