The 13th God (The Cycle of Galand Book 8), page 32
"I have tried everything I can conceive of," Gladdic groused some time later. "None of it has so much as caused the image to flicker."
"You're still doing better than I am," Dante said. "There's hardly any nether for me to work with. And what little there is is just doing a lot of nonsense."
"I share your frustration."
"Great. So what do you want to do about it?"
"Continue our efforts. We have only just arrived here."
"And we can only spend so much time here before we need to admit to ourselves we're wasting what little time we have left. If we don't come up with something soon, either you need to figure out some other part of the swamp to look at, or we need to go back to Pholos and see if there isn't some other way to end Wessen's life."
Gladdic gave him an unreadable look, though Dante was pretty certain it was an unfavorable one, then drew more ether to the tips of his fingers.
Feeling at a loss, Dante walked down from the hillock and wandered around through the protrusions of grimstone and the lumps of iron-like rock. He checked a few of the corpses, but most were dead Blighted, who had carried nothing but the simplest of weapons, and in many cases hadn't even worn clothes. As for the rest, most of their possessions had rotted away in the rain, humidity, and heat. There was certainly nothing like an ancient scroll laying out in exquisite detail where the White Lich had originated from. He tried checking the corpses of the Blighted for connections—if the lich was still connected to his source in some way, and the Blighted were still connected to the lich somehow, then maybe they had a link to the source as well—but found none of any kind.
Dante trudged back up the hill. Gladdic was still fooling around with the blurry light that he claimed held a coherent image somewhere within it. Dante took a look into several more pieces of iron, but the scant shreds of nether inside them were no different than the ones he'd already tried out.
"We'll give it till nightfall," Dante said. "If we haven't made any progress by then, it's time to move on."
"I might not be some clever sorcerer," Blays said, "but I can't help but notice these things are completely coated in runes. Gladdic, you wouldn't happen to know what they are, would you?"
Gladdic scowled at one of the oversized lumps. "They are of the Inarian script. Though the languages differ, it is the same script the Tanarian scribes used."
"I thought the Tanarians were banned from learning to read and write."
"Indeed, so that their rulers could rewrite history as they needed. But those same rulers still needed records to be kept, and so their scribes were taught in secret, under punishment of death if they ever revealed their abilities, or taught them to anyone but their apprentices."
Blays jerked his thumb at one of the biggest slabs. "So what does it say?"
"I do not know. The Inarian language vanished centuries ago."
"Son of a bitch. Well, there goes that idea." Blays looked up. "But can you read Tanarian?"
"Yes," the old man said slowly, as if speaking to a dog. "But I have just told you the words are Inarian. They appear to me as nothing but gibberish."
"You're going to read them out loud." Blays fetched Carvahal's talisman out from under his doublet and gave it a shake. "And these things are going to tell us what you're saying."
Gladdic laughed out loud. "That is either the most clever or the most foolish idea I have ever heard. Let us see which." He cleared his throat and moved to a nearby piece of iron. He leaned over it and narrowed his eyes. "'Within these walls, hell is captured.'"
His eyes widened. The words he'd just spoken were absolutely not the Mallish the three of them typically conversed in. If anything, the staccato rhythm and stresses of the words sounded like Tanarian, though Dante had heard enough of that language to know they weren't of it, either—but maybe an older form of it, like the ancient names of Gallador and Tantonnen that Hara Canthana had tried to test them with.
"What I just read," Gladdic said. "Did it make sense to your ears as well?"
"You sounded like you have a crazy accent or something," Blays said. "But I made out every word."
Dante folded his arms. "I can't believe this might actually work."
"Damn it, I should have made you bet me on it."
The next order of business was to piece together a full inscription and not just a fragment. The pieces were incredibly heavy, to the point that many were immovable, at least without a team of oxen. Fortunately, though, many of the sections of runes appeared to be repeats of others, and Dante supposed that if it came down to it, they could figure out how the various slabs would have fit together, and then copy their runes onto a piece of parchment to get the full message.
While he contemplated this, Gladdic located one of the largest fragments with the most complete-looking text.
"Within these walls, hell is captured," he repeated slowly, reading out loud. "Break these walls, and hell will be put to you. Do not break these walls, unless you are hell-killers."
"Well, I have to say they weren't wrong about that one," Blays said.
"What was bound here was bound here by great magics," Gladdic continued. "Magics learned and created for this task and this alone. It was Gada Lain that learned them first: he traveled far, to Unadane and then to Rixhuen, and lands south of unknown name. There, he learned the binding of demons from those who had long fought them. There, he sharpened his talents until he was greater than those who taught him. In jealousy, they enslaved him, and made him to bind their demons, and this was so for many years.
"But praise to Gada Lain! Never did he forget where he was from or what he'd come to do. He laid his schemes, piece by piece, and when his schemes were made he then waited, and when the moment came he acted, and when he was free he fled from the lands south of unknown name, and when they came to capture him again, he fought them and he killed them.
"To Indara he returned, and to his disciples he taught what he had learned. The knights of the order had tried to kill the White Lich, but even their wicked weapons were too little. The last hope was Gada Lain. Again he laid his schemes, and he trained his followers, and when the moment came, to the Wound of the World they lured the White Lich.
"A fierce battle here they fought! The ground will bleed for all time with the blood shed on that day. Yet the White Lich, who had defeated all others in all corners, could not counter Gada Lain's mighty magic: into the Iron Prison he was bound, into it he was sealed, may he be held here forever. That is the story of how Gada Lain, who gave so much for this land, became its savior."
"That is where it ends." Gladdic ran his fingers over the iron surface. "The next section is not words at all. They are sigils, ethereal in nature, and related to the binding process."
"That can't be everything," Dante said. "It's nice to make this a monument to Gada Lain, it sounds like he was a fine fellow, but what happens when he dies? Wouldn't you want to leave something permanent to tell later generations how to deal with the lich if and when he escapes?"
"It might well be argued that that is just what this story does. You do not like it because the answers within it are to travel to a distant land full of demons to learn an ability that is irrelevant to us here."
"Hang on, are you sure it'd be no use? Could we imprison Nolost in the Riya Lase?"
Gladdic's eyebrows leaped upward. "It might be possible in theory. But I do not believe it would hold him for more than a handful of years before he broke loose. In any event, ten days is far too little time to learn how to make such bindings and then recreate the Riya Lase, especially one at the scale needed to contain Nolost."
Dante glanced out at the crimson swamps surrounding them and the more normal ones off in the distance. "And I suppose even if Gada Lain's lineage survived all that time, and had preserved his knowledge, they were all killed when the lich went on his rampage."
"All but surely."
"Damn. For a moment there, I thought we were about to figure this whole thing out. But the inscriptions are useless to us. We came here for nothing."
"We do not yet know that for sure. There are more runes left to be read."
Gladdic launched into a reading of the next batch. This, however, was just a story about a woman named Jeramayain, who so hated sorcerers who used their powers for evil that she'd traveled from a remote kingdom just to join the battle against the White Lich. She'd actually been able to turn him back at one point, allowing thousands of Indarans to evacuate, but she had died in the effort.
Not what they were looking for, though it did provoke Dante into promising himself that, if they were somehow able to hold off Nolost in the end, he would have to commission a great many statues, murals, and memorials to all of the people who had fought for them along the way. Alongside all the rebuilding they'd have to do. It was going to be decades before he was going to be able to rest, wasn't it? The very thought of it was exhausting.
"The ways of Gada Lain are the only reason we are still alive," Gladdic read. "But these ways are not easy; few can learn of them; it may be that only Gada Lain can master them. If the ways fail, if the ways are lost, then the day will come that we are lost with them.
"But there may be a last way. When light turns to darkness, turn darkness to light. When a star crosses the heavens, you will see the way of the enemy, and fight back as one."
"Well?" Dante said. "What's it say next?"
Gladdic shook his head. "There is no next. The section ends there, and is followed by more runes of binding."
"Then it must pick back up in the next piece of text."
It didn't: the next piece was a lengthy tale about a flotilla of canoeists who, although quite cunning and daring in their deeds, had nothing to do with the previous section. As usual, it was followed by binding-runes. There were four more tales after that, each one about a brave sorcerer or warrior who had fought against the lich.
"Within these walls, hell is captured," Gladdic said. "Break these walls, and hell will be put to you." He looked up. "The runes are repeating themselves. There is nothing else left."
Dante turned away and uttered a testy sigh. "Then there's nothing to the runes, either. That means I'm right. We're done here."
"Are we?" Blays said. "The runes told us there was another way of dealing with the lich. We're just too dim to get what they were trying to tell us. Gladdic, read that part about turning darkness to light again?"
Gladdic did so, then looked up, watching Blays.
"Assume that's not just a bunch of cryptic mystical metaphors," Blays said. "Assume it's actually telling us what to do."
"Turn darkness to light?" Dante raised his hand and stilled his mind and sifted ether down over the iron panel Gladdic had been reading from. Nothing happened. "Gladdic's already touched everything here with light."
"Then that's obviously not what it's telling us to do, is it? Try following it to the absolute letter."
"The thing about that is I have no clue what the letter is. 'When light turns to darkness, turn darkness to light'—it sounds like we have to wait until nightfall, and then shine ether around the place. And then…look for a shooting star?"
"You could do that. Or you could do a bunch of other things in the meantime in case you're wrong about what it means and don't want to waste several hours we don't have to spare."
"Fine. I'll just treat the instructions as literally as possible."
Dante pointed over the wreckage of the Riya Lase and summoned a glob of nether into the air. Next, he drew up the ether and, after a moment's thought, pushed it into the nether hard enough for the two forces to start to boil each other off. He slowly poured more ether to replace what was being consumed by the nether. Until all traces of the shadows were gone, and only light remained.
"Right." He tipped back his head. Rain pelted his face, falling from the solid gray sheet of clouds that was still hiding the sky. "So where's the star?"
"Right here." Gladdic snapped his fingers. A bolt of ether leaped from his hand and zipped across the Riya Lase. As it sped away from them, Gladdic curled his finger, causing the bolt to tumble apart into embers that soon winked out into nothing.
Leaving them standing there with nothing to show for themselves.
"Damn," Blays said, "it really felt like that was going to work. Well—"
Ether shimmered over the iron rubble. Dante glanced at Gladdic to see what he was doing, but the old man was frowning at it in confusion.
"That isn't you?" Dante said.
To answer this, Gladdic took two large steps back from the slabs and filled his hand with nether. Dante decided both of those things were a great idea. Over the Riya Lase, the ether assembled itself into the same fuzzy shape it had repeatedly shown Gladdic earlier.
This time, though, it continued to sharpen. Into something flattish but textured. Color came next: mostly shades of green, though there were blackish patches too, and it was all deep blue on its left edge. As the colors deepened, the rest of the image snapped into place, a remnant of ether twinkling near its right edge.
Blays clapped his hands. "It's a map of Tanar Atain."
"What are you talking about?" Dante said. "The geography's all wrong."
"That's because it's on its side. Look, just tip your head over."
Suspicious this was a trick to make him look stupid, Dante shot a glance at Blays before doing so. "You're right. So what do you suppose it's trying to show us?"
Blays walked closer, pointing toward the middle-right side of the map. "I'd say that bloody smear there is the Wound. And I'm going to go way out on a limb and say that sparkly spot to the right—meaning to our north—is where this place is telling us to go."
Given that the twinkle of ether still hadn't faded, Dante thought this all but had to be right. "But what are the odds this is actually a map of where the lich became the lich?"
"The runes told us this is where we'd see the way of the enemy and fight as one. That sounds kind of exactly like what we're looking for."
"I hope you're right. Because we're about to stake our lives on it."
Dante made a copy of the map while Blays shielded his work from the rain with his cloak. As soon as Dante finished, they turned and jogged away from the Riya Lase, feet splashing in the blood-red puddles, knowing that not a minute could be spared until either their task was done, or they lay dead.
19
The swamp rolled out before them. Not the unearthly blood-and-bones swamp of the Wound of the World, but the kind found everywhere else in Tanar Atain: stagnant waters, sometimes too shallow for even a canoe to navigate, sometimes deep enough to hide a swamp dragon; countless little islands dense with trees and shrubs; brambles and vines everywhere, blocking many potential pathways that had looked clear from a distance. Without a guide, it could be an atrocious labyrinth, where even with a good swift boat you might be lucky to progress a mile forward for every hour spent battling the terrain.
Under normal circumstances, then, they might not have been able to get to the marker on the map within the ten days left to them. Yet less than an hour after leaving the Riya Lase, they were—they hoped—within a few miles of their destination. For they had simply hopped back through the portal and had Wessen open another one deeper into the swamp.
None of them had ever seen the place they wanted to get to, of course, and so Dante hadn't been able to show Wessen the exact location. Meaning they could be much further away than they knew. Or, if Wessen had gotten something confused, even in the wrong part of the swamps altogether. Lots of it looked very similar, after all. They were supposed to be deep inland, if you could really call such conditions "land," but for all they knew they'd stepped out just two miles from the coast.
With that thought, Dante killed three more of the abundant flies and sent them ranging high in the sky. Within a minute, they'd gained enough elevation to see they were totally surrounded by swamp. With mountains far ahead of them, and no sign of the coast. So they were probably not insanely far from wherever they were trying to get to.
"So," Blays said. "What exactly are we looking for now?"
"I can't even guess," Dante said. "But given that there's only ever been one lich in Tanar Atain, and that there must have been many sorcerers who would have wanted to become a lich, especially once there was a monstrously evil one they needed to kill, it's either very hard to get to, very dangerous, or both."
"Or the White Lich destroyed it after he made use of it."
That thought was troubling enough that Dante nearly dropped his paddle.
"What about you, Gladdic?" Blays said. "I don't suppose you're keeping any more secrets from us? Like the secret of the ancient directions to the lich-making mill?"
"I doubt that any of the stories I have heard knew the truth," Gladdic said. "But one of them holds that the way was shown to the man who would become the lich by a ball of light that appeared to him in the deep swamps, that then led him to a cavern that held an even purer light. The one that would make him like a god."
"I hope you're right. Because if we're waiting for a talking ball of light to show up, I'd say we can do that just as easily by sitting our asses down on one of these islands rather than paddling until our arms—"
Something thumped into the bottom of the boat. Dante jerked his head about, but the waters were too murky to see much of anything. They hadn't run aground, though, so with luck, they'd just bumped into an old dead dree.
Something struck the hull again. Hard enough for him to feel it beneath him.
"Have the ziki oko found us?" Blays thrust his paddle into the water like a spear. "They must be pretty hungry now that there's nobody left to serve as dinner."
"I guess," Dante said. "But I don't remember them ever attacking a canoe—"
The thing hit them again. Hard enough to splinter the hull just in front of where Dante was sitting. Water flooded into the canoe. He pulled the nether to him, scrambling back from the hole. A pale white limb reached up through it—no, not a limb, but a creature, like a snake without any scales, though its head was eyeless, and when it opened its mouth it splayed outward like a hand, revealing a circular maw of irregular fangs glistening with black venom.
