The Immortal Words (The Grave Kingdom), стр. 11
“You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “I see you don’t want to.”
“Maybe I’ll tell you tonight,” she said. “When it’s darker. It’s just . . . it would be difficult to talk about in the daylight.”
He gave her a confused look and shrugged his acceptance.
They continued to talk as they crossed the valley, staying clear of the river. With the looming walls of mountains all around them, the latter half of the day was spent within their shade. There were more and more boulders strewn across their path as they continued onward. One had crushed a tree, and only the skeletal remains of its branches could be seen, all bleached and stiff. It would make good firewood, should they dare.
She also heard and saw several waterfalls coming from the narrow valley between the mountains. Some were thin and subtle, others more powerful. The water tasted wonderful, and they stopped frequently to fill their flasks. Her legs ached after hiking all day through the rugged terrain, but her body felt better than it had in days. The tiny scabs on her hands and face were starting to itch, meaning the skin was renewing.
When they reached the convergence of the mountains, they saw that the river had carved a path through the rocks. Huge boulders lay amidst the water. The cliffs rose steeply on each side, shadow drowning out the fading light.
Bingmei stood at the river’s edge, staring into the gorge, feeling the tug and pull of the phoenix shrine deep within.
But she felt something else tugging at her, as if a chill breeze reached out and brushed against her soul.
She sensed death waiting inside the gorge.
CHAPTER FOUR
A Blighted Tree
She gazed into the chasm. The cliff faces were ragged, and boulders littered the shallows on each side. There were no paths to take on the sides of the river. The vertical walls came right out of the teal-colored water.
“So we have to go in there?” Quion said, tugging at the straps of his pack. He looked dubious about the safety of such an undertaking.
“The shrine is somewhere within this maze. I wonder how deep the water is.”
Marching to the edge of the water, Quion inserted the meiwood staff into the shallows. The staff went just a little way before hitting stone.
“Not deep, then,” Bingmei observed. The cliff faces on each side of the narrows had areas where the rock had sloughed off, leaving sharp edges. But the patterns on the stone also revealed that the river had once been higher.
“Shall we?” Quion suggested.
Bingmei nodded and was the first to plunge her boot into the water. The water didn’t even go to her knees. She’d feared it would be cold, like melted ice, but it was surprisingly mild. Her thick travel boots were a great protection to her legs. Quion entered behind her, wincing as if in anticipation of a shock of cold, but he grinned upon finding the water more pleasant than expected. The snow leopard waited on the shore, its tail swishing.
“Come on,” Quion said to the beast. “You crossed the Death Wall. You can wet your feet.”
The two of them started to walk a little ways, and Quion kept looking back. The giant cat gave a low growl and entered the stream after them. Its silvery fur glistened when it was wet, reminding her of the way it had glowed in that grove of trees.
As they advanced through the narrows, Bingmei stumbled occasionally on the uneven rocks beneath the surface. The staff Quion gripped helped steady him. Occasionally, they reached a pocket of deeper water—the highest reached Bingmei’s waist—but most of it remained shallow. The current’s pull was gentle, although they occasionally hit eddies and whitewater stretches.
As the sun set behind them, she wondered if there would be any place for them to find shelter for the night. A cave perhaps, higher on the cliff wall? They encountered no trees in the narrows for the first part of their journey. The river twisted and turned in abrupt angles, sometimes rent by a giant boulder that had crashed down from above. But not long after sunset, one of the bends revealed a small copse of shadowed aspen, at least four or five trees growing from a bit of earth displaced by a landslide. Past the trees, they heard a waterfall and saw more plant growth on a shelf of rock that contained a few fallen timbers. Dusk had descended on them slowly, but it was getting darker quickly now.
“Maybe we should camp here for the night,” Bingmei suggested.
There was only a little strip of moist sand before the rocks, and they both found their beds to be painful and hard. Quion tried to catch some fish but was unsuccessful. They ate from their stores, sparingly, and drank enough water to fill their bellies. The snow leopard nestled atop the crown of rocks and laid its head on its paws. Music from the lapping waterfall lulled them all to sleep.
As they awoke with the dawn, a rock jabbed painfully in Bingmei’s ribs. Sleep had been tenuous, but she felt moderately rested. Quion fed some of his rations to his pet, and then they both rose and entered the river again.
They’d gone a ways before finding a huge boulder blocking the path. Water gushed around it on both sides, but the force of the current and the narrowness of the gap made it impossible to cross from either side.
At least, impossible for anyone who did not have the meiwood cricket. Bingmei and Quion made it over, with difficulty, for she had to pull Quion up with the rope,