Peter had stirred that morning half-collapsed against the wall of the hut, a crick in his neck and an ache in his back, to an acoustic blend of laughter and birdsong. Yawning, he'd rubbed the sleep from his eyes and taken a gander out the window, where, no more than a stone's throw away, their ill-tempered host was teaching Ethos how to thresh the grains she'd dried. The sky had been mostly cloudy, darker to the west, promising rain.
That first glimpse of the day had stuck with him. He couldn't have explained how he knew, but something had changed in the atmosphere, something had shifted without him, and his suspicions only intensified when he joined them on the grass. There were circles under their eyes. There was insincerity on their lips. Peter gladly assumed a role of ignorance in the face of it, loath to reap the consequences of indiscretion, so he kept his mouth shut and listened to their offbeat banter as they threw down seed for the birds. He tried to convince himself of paranoia.
But then— evidence.
It happened when Kacha defected from the group to chase off a crow with her broom. A solid hit drove it away, she cursing after it, shaking her fist, but Ethos, who by nature would have been likely to chide her, stood by and said nothing, eyes turned away. Peter pretended not to notice.
They set out in chase of the westward breeze. The hours on foot were largely painless, harried by on-again, off-again showers. Ethos lent Kacha his back when she asked for it. Comfortably roosted atop his bedroll, she slung her wiry arms around his neck, and from time to time, when she thought it was safe, she'd rest her head on his shoulder and smile.
The countryside eventually fell behind them, giving way to the higher elevation of Redbeard's Backbone. Great boulders governed the slanted, windy brae, most of them swallowed by skins of moss, and Peter couldn't help but feel like they were oddly situated, scattered about, as if they'd dropped right out of the sky.
They stood together on the crest of a hill and stared out at the shrunken landscape beneath them, appraising how far they'd come. Peter was first to look away, to study the twin peaks looming ahead; the laughing summits, Kacha had called them.
Out of periphery, he heard her say, "It's been a long time since I was up here."
Peter glanced at her. "Are we getting close?"
Feet dangling, Kacha indicated a primitive set of cairns ahead. Ethos pivoted for her. "See those there," she said, squinting somewhat. "It's just beyond that rise, between the summits."
They wordlessly resumed their approach of it, slowed by the incline. Ethos peered at Kacha when she propped her chin on him. "Will you be okay getting back on your own?"
"Fool," she grumbled. "Who do you think you're talking to?"
He smirked a little, deliberate. "A grand old girl who puts up a tough front."
"Trout. I should've finished you off in the river."
"You don't mean that."
She was mirroring his airy disposition, albeit unintentionally. He had that effect. It gave her the look of a different woman. A gentler, younger woman. But she scowled as soon she realized it, at about the same time that his grin started spreading. She snapped, "Quit that leering."
"Why? You were making a pretty smile."
She settled against him. "Fool."
Peter must have been glowering or something, because Ethos turned to him then, in mid-laugh, and promptly cringed in surprise at whatever it was his face was doing. "Oh," he said, uncertain. "You have a pretty smile, too, Peter."
Kacha snorted. "That's not the compliment you think it is."
Peter picked up the pace and muttered, "You're daft, the both of you."
The sun slipped out from behind the clouds as they entered the narrows. The air of the pass was much thicker than that of the open country, sticky and humid. The rocks were saturated. Ripe shafts of daylight lanced into the darkness from above, exposing a footpath that, even to Peter's untrained eye, likely predated the Old War.
Peter spotted the corpses before Ethos did. They littered the deeper grounds, still wearing scraps of the clothes they'd worn in life, strewn here and there like the curious boulders of the brae. One such boulder had followed them in, precariously balanced atop the ravine like an unfinished game of shoot-the-moon; it cast them in its swollen shadow as they ambled beneath it amongst the dead.
A massive stone barbican filled the path beyond, dusted by snow. Portions of its wooden hoardings were still intact, but the fortification as a whole had, at some point, buckled beneath the bully of its own ancient weight. Light winked at them through a contorted portcullis, inaccessible to all but the most hardened of ramblers.
Privately awed, Peter asked, "What is this place?"
His voice bounced back and forth between the dripping, gleaming walls. Kacha's grip on Ethos tightened. "This pass once led to Wyndemere, Karna's very first capital city," she said. "It was more like a village, really, but the times were different back then."
"What happened to it?"
"War." Kacha indicated the rightward end of the derelict structure. The wall there had crumbled apart, permitting passage. Ethos started for it, eyes low on the bones. "It's unsteady footing ahead," she said, maybe to tear his attention away. "Watch your step as you go over."
Peter followed them. "I can't believe these people were left here to rot."
"This is where it all ended," Kacha said. "Over 400 years ago. It's where the last tono warriors rallied together and seized Wyndemere from Hans and his men."
"Not much of a win if they died out anyway."
She glanced. "War is never a desirable course of action to a struggling people, be they savage or seaborne," she said. "The First War, the Old War, the Founder's Stand… whatever you want to call it… the carnage was inconceivable. The proof of that is what you see here."
Ethos clambered over the tumbledown wall. He inserted, "The tono would have shared the soil if they were so set against violence."
"How cute," Kacha teased. "You think they were fighting over land."
"That's how Peter said it happened. He said the colonists were turned away starving."
Peter took a breath at the ridge. His dark-skinned comrades were waiting on the other side, bathed in sunshine. "Aye, the tono didn't want anything to do with offworlders," he said. "They met Redbeard at the shore and told him he wasn't welcome."
Kacha smirked up at him. "Where did you learn that?"
"I read it in a book."
"Ah," she said. "Then it must be true. Fool."
"Everyone and their mother knows the story." A sneaky stone suddenly moved underfoot, rolling Peter's ankle, and his legs were helpful enough to pitch out. The rugged landslip clattered, he with it, to where Ethos stood with a helping hand. Peter scowled and took it, flushed from a blend of pain and embarrassment. He batted the decay from his clothes and said, "Thanks."
"Fool," Kacha cackled. "I told you it was unsteady."
Ethos turned, surveying the brightness at the end of the ravine. There was something off about the way he was standing. "It's close," he said. "You're not hurt, are you?"
It took a couple seconds for Peter to realize that he was being spoken to. "No," he answered. "How do you know we're close?"
"The wind is louder here."
Indeed. There was great force to the glare just ahead of them, a vast sort of sound, like the sigh of a colossus. So they braved on together, blinded and deafened, until, all at once, the light, the noise, the apprehension— all of it ceased.
Incomprehensible emptiness awaited them. Peter's first wild thought was that a hungry god must have reached right down between the mountains and spooned himself a great helping of earth, but the comical notion was instantly shattered by a hot rush of panic. The sheer scale of it all was too staggering to indulge in jokes. Kacha had plainly said the numbers, but seeing the Throat in person was a different matter entirely.
Ethos seemed to share the sentiment. His wide, itinerant eyes were clearly struggling to grasp the gravity of their next endeavor. Kacha was like a crotchety, quarrelsome limb on his back. "The grave of Wyndemere welcomes you," she said. "Say hello, dear fool."
Ethos continued to stare. "Hello."
"This isn't a village," Peter said. "This is a hole."
Kacha didn't offer an explanation to that end. "Your path is there," she said, pointing. "It will lead you into the midlands."
The path, as she'd called it, was an outrageously narrow slope. It hugged the inner curve of the chasm and spiraled impossibly downward to where even the sun couldn't reach. The shrewd clouds returned, painting it bottomless.
Peter nervously adjusted the strap of his supply bag. To Ethos, he muttered, "Tell me again why this is a good idea."
"It's a shortcut."
"If something horrible happens down there, don't expect me to risk my life for you."
Ethos helped Kacha to the ground. He let her hold his hand while she limbered her knees, and then, rather soberly, he asked, "Do you have enough water?"
"Fool," she retorted. "Give me my stick."
He felt for it, eyes low. "Thanks for everything."
"Don't thank me." She impatiently snatched the cudgel from him, pulling a face. "I'll consider the debt paid if you bring me something delicious from your travels," she said. "Return empty-handed and I'll fatten myself on woodling soup."
He smiled for her. "Can't have that."
His expression subtly softened hers. Her wordless request for him to kneel was met, as expected, with polite compliance. "King of fools," she called him. "If gods were the listening sort, I'd pray for your safety." She turned an unexpected glare on Peter. "Are you just going to stand there, beanstalk?"
Peter reminded himself not to step back, lest he freefall over the edge. "What?"
"Kneel. I refuse to say this with you looming over me."
He sullenly yielded. "I don't loom."
Kacha faced them, a scowl on her lips. For a time, she merely looked between them, frowning to some measure. "Steel yourselves," she said. "Be brave, even if you're not. Hit first, hit hard, and do what needs doing." She gripped them each by a shoulder. "Make me proud."
So unlike her, he wanted to say, but then, he didn't really know her. Kacha embraced them, held them close like something dear, and it was a silent testament to how truly astonishing it was that such a simple thing could so easily lessen a world of troubles. Peter was fully aware that his inclusion had been bred out of courtesy, but it didn't bother him as much as he thought it would. After all, he couldn't recall the last time his own mother had made such a gesture toward him. He could hardly imagine it. With that awareness in mind, he abided the modest comfort and tried his best to be unobtrusive, to grant them the privacy they would have doubtless preferred.
But the end came too soon for Ethos. He abruptly swept Kacha up from the ground, ignoring her squawk of resistance. "I'm glad we met you," he said. "You're a great sort of person, secretly kind and full of fun dreams."
Feet kicking, she snarled, "Put me down!"
"And your hair does exciting things when it's windy."
"I'll roast you alive! I'll grind you up! I'll feed you to the birds!"
Ethos smilingly let her go. "But you're so little."
She kicked him in the shin, still cursing.
Half-laughing, half-wincing, a glance at Peter stopped him short. Rather than balk again, he curtly raised his eyebrows. "Seriously, what?" he asked. "Why do you keep making that face?"
"There's nothing wrong with my face."
"I wouldn't have said anything if it looked normal."
Peter dared another look at the Throat. He rubbed the back of his neck, deterred. "We should get a move on before I think better of it," he said. "We're losing daylight."
"Are you scared?"
Peter glared back at him. "No."
He grinned. "It's okay to be scared, Peter."
"I'm not scared," he said. "I just don't want to spend the night in some hole in the ground because you couldn't say goodbye to your grandmother."
"She's not my grandmother." He'd said it with conviction, but the possibility seemed to startle him some. Ethos looked at Kacha and, just to be sure, he asked, "You're not, are you?"
"No," she replied. "Did you want me to be?"
Peter ignored them and searched the abyss. Far as he could tell, the highest section of the shelf was some distance south, well from their reach. "Oi, I'm not seeing an access anywhere," he said. "How are we supposed to get down from here?"
Kacha knelt with him, sharing the view. She gave him a cheerful clap on the back. "You'll have to lower yourselves to the tier below," she said. "A beanstalk like you can suffer the drop."
Peter had to crop his head out to see it. The laughable ledge was an insult to footpaths the world around. Dejectedly, he said, "I've seen bigger windowsills."
"It opens up farther down." The last had come from Ethos. He'd removed his gear and lain forward on Peter's other side, one ear turned to the wind. "Do either of you hear water?"
"The underbelly carries a current from the Backbone clearspring," Kacha said. "It flows through a grotto to the midland runoff, so don't be shy about getting wet." Briefly, she fell silent. "You'll notice a fort in the mountainside out there. Its doors are open to drifters, but you'd be wise to avoid it."
Peter asked, "Why's that?"
"It's home to a wretched old goose I once knew," she answered, drily, meeting his eyes. "She's a highborn sightress, sells information to the council. Whitestar dirt." Her dark, steady gaze abruptly slid past him, and something changed in her voice. "What?"
Ethos had risen to an elbow, but whatever expression she'd seen was gone. He smiled, sly. "Your wretched old goose sounds useful."
"She'd sooner die than betray her kinsmen."
"I don't necessarily need her to speak."
"Ethos." The serious use of his name was an effective one. Kacha waited until he'd more or less ceased his indecorous smiling. "I don't want you anywhere near that woman unless you've lost a foot or something," she warned. "She has family in high places."
Naturally, her threat had the opposite effect. "It's like you're tempting me."
Peter casually leaned forward, enough to insert himself in between them. To Ethos, he said, "I'd rather not deal with a spitfire witch who's nastier than the one we have."
Kacha flicked at his earlobe. "Beanstalk."
Ethos rolled over, flopping a shoulder. "Fine, fine. I'll resist."
But his eyes said otherwise, locked on the clouds. Peter nudged him. "Don't just say 'fine' like you always do. You'll end up alone if you only see to the future when it's present."
He grinned again. "That's sort of deep, Peter."
"Then take it to heart like."
Ethos let his head dangle backward over the pit. The greedy breeze sucked at his hair. "The ledge," he said, grudgingly. "Think you can reach it?"
Peter flung a pebble into the crater. "Aye, I can reach it."
"I'll pull up a vine if you think it'll help."
"Aye, it'll help."
"Alright." It took two tries for him to rise from the earth. He yawned and retreated back toward the barbican. "I ought to anchor it," he said. "Hang tight."
Peter searched the ground for another rock. "Be quick about it."
Kacha was absent of the crafty amusement she so easily came by. When the sound of footsteps had gone, she leaned into Peter and quietly said, "Don't you dare let him near that fort."
"Keep your voice down. He's leeward."
"Fool. I was whispering."
"Aye, but his senses are keen."
Peter wasn't looking at her, but he could feel the weight of her eyes. He defied the impulse to meet them until she lightly touched the side of his face. "You're troubled," she noticed. "These worry lines will settle in and make a happy home for themselves."
"You must've worried a lot in your time." But Peter lacked the motivation to pour much fire on the insult. He looked away. "It's strange, is all, being gone from Nahga like this," he admitted. "The days feel different out here. Longer, I guess. I've been thinking a lot."
"You're nervous about where you're headed."
"Hard not to be."
Kacha made a sound like she understood. "Don't let Ethos dictate how to get there," she said. "It's not too late to make changes. If there's anyone in the world right now who can persuade him to live and let live, it's probably you. Take charge."
"It'd be easier for me to knock him out and dump his body in the woods somewhere."
"You'd be gone already if that were an option."
"I was being facetious."
She didn't retort. She was examining the pass when he glanced, exposing all the bends of her face that tended to hide behind her hair. Had she heard something? "He's missing some parts, I think," she murmured. "He smiles too much."
"Don't let it bother you. It makes him feel better."
That made her look at him again. She wore a delicate frown, somewhat refined and unbefitting of her wildling ways. "How do you know that?"
Peter shrugged, rattled by her sudden interest. "Smiling's easy, Kacha," he replied. "Something's bouncing around in his head, some demon living topside. He'd prefer to pretend it's not there."
The light in her eyes dimmed. "Has he ever confided in you?"
"He's not the sharing sort." Sunshine returned, only to vanish. Peter squinted up at the tyrannical clouds. "I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me a little, but I get it."
Kacha salvaged a grimy arrowhead from the ground. She turned it about to catch the dull daylight, head atilt. All she murmured: "Restraint is a great skill to have."
He found another rock and tossed it after the others. "If you say so."
"I do." She tucked the tarnished relic away, somewhere in her clothes. "But being in the dark is also a great way to get hurt, Peter," she said, and she sent him a meaningful, sidelong look. "Give him space, but not so much that you do yourself a disservice. Be careful."
He tried to grin. "This is an unsettling side of you."
"Fool," she scoffed. "Don't be fresh."
Peter patted her knee, felt how small and how fragile she was. "I'm just a guide," he said. "The only dangers I ought to be worrying about are the ones we'll meet on the road."
Kacha covered his hand with hers. "Guide or not, you should still have an idea of exactly what it is that you're traveling with."
—the crow, the storm, the bugs, the bones—
An abrasive noise intervened: dead weight being dragged over dirt. It was after a frozen moment or two that Ethos finally emerged from the shadows, looking at first glance like he'd made off with the tail of a serpent. But they were vines, Peter saw, what must have been hundreds, alive and slithering from an unseen root source. Ethos paused while he was still a ways off, adjusted his grip, and rolled himself clockwise over their stalks, twisting them into a single coil. It was a surprising little whirl of movement, so swift that a moment was needed for Peter's eyes to make sense of it.
Ethos continued toward them, slowing as he caught their expressions. Something was in his mouth, wedged between his teeth and his cheek. Slowly, he chewed it. "Weird," he said, brow furrowed. "Why are you holding hands?"
Kacha didn't miss a beat. "I was consoling him," she pretended to grieve. "How cruel, letting him see you in the arms of another beanstalk."
"I get that you're making some sort of a joke."
Peter asked, "What are you eating?"
Ethos worked a hand into the moving coil of shoots, eyes high as he groped around. He snapped something free from within and held it triumphantly between them. "Grapes," he said. "The green ones are my favorite."
"Those are all grapevines?"
"More or less." Ethos popped the grape in his mouth and resumed his arduous approach. "It'll hold us," he promised. "I was careful."
Kacha and Peter made space for him to feed the vine into the Throat, at which point a helpful little root crept out to anchor his rearmost ankle in place, blending with filthy, sunbaked skin. It was a slow process, the feed, like the treebine needed to be gently persuaded in any given direction. Ethos was very quiet throughout.
After several minutes, Kacha asked, "Is it very tiring?"
But Ethos didn't answer, nor muster a glance. He wasn't ignoring her, Peter knew, and Kacha must have thought the same, because she didn't ask again. She quietly watched him concentrate and waited until he'd finished.
Once he had, she repeated herself.
Ethos wiggled his ankle free. "It's a little hard to control," he said, as he stooped to retrieve his dropped belongings. "I've never done anything so intricate."
Peter eyed his impressive handiwork. "You don't need a break, do you?"
"No." Ethos turned his attention to Kacha. She was standing by, smiling gently. "This is goodbye," he admitted, with a smile to match. "Let's do it again, sometime."
Oh, how she smirked and scowled. "I'd like that."
Peter checked his gear before setting out. Most of the vines had ceased to move, but some of the smaller filaments were grasping at his fingers. Straining, he lowered himself down and griped, "If I die, tell Lena it's all her fault for making me chase after you."
Ethos pouted down at him. "But she's in the wrong direction."
Peter did what he could to conceal the tremor in his arms. "Wrong direction," he echoed, more to himself than to Ethos. "Be serious for once. Curse all and the rest."
Kacha said something then, but the wind's voice was louder. Ethos turned from the brink. After a moment, Peter heard him reply, "I'll consider it."
Peter's toes brushed the ledge. Standing there, facing the pit, he clutched the vine like the lifeline it was and breathed an oath, invoking every last shred of will to prevent himself from scrambling back to the pass. A gentle breeze ran by, and there was nothing in creation more terrifying. It was hard enough to remain upright, rolled ankle notwithstanding.
Beside him now, Ethos whistled at the scope. He was eating grapes again. "So big."
Peter glared sidelong. "What did she say up there?"
"What did who say up where?"
He seethed, "Uppish sprat."
Ethos just grinned at him. He suddenly flapped a giant grape leaf in Peter's face. "Check it out," he said, and he grinned even further. "I'm your biggest fan. Geddit?"
Peter might have laughed if he hadn't been so afraid of it wafting him over the edge.
Ethos took pity. The grin softened and spread to his eyes. "I guess you don't like heights," he said, without slight. "Let's get past this first part before we start on questions, okay?"
Peter couldn't find the strength to argue with him. "Fine."
"Good." Ethos cheerfully held up a cluster. "Grape?"