Obsidian and Stars (Ivory and Bone #2)(46)

The route Morsk and Seeri found is longer to the top but much less steep a climb. As I follow Morsk up, using my hands only at intervals, I think how much Pek would’ve preferred this way up with the dog. Maybe Kol could have made it up without falling.

I push that thought from my mind. I can’t look back. Only ahead.

At the top Lees runs to us, but Noni shrinks back, standing against a wall of rock that pushes even higher above our heads. She eyes Morsk. “Who are these people?” she asks me.

Certainly Pek has spoken to her since he reached the top with Black Dog. Certainly Lees has told her she can trust each of us.

Or maybe not. Maybe she told her to trust all but one.

“It’s all right,” I say. “They came to help us.” I feel Seeri and Pek beside me—I feel them flinch as I say that Noni can trust even Morsk.

And something about their reactions makes me flinch, too. I don’t want to admit it, but their doubts are making me doubt, too. Could they be right? Could it be that I’ve been foolish to trust Morsk, just because my brother did?

But if Morsk was hoping to help the Bosha find us, why would he have carried Kol to the top of this cliff?

“You can trust all of them to help you,” I say, trying to believe my own words.

“And what about them?” Noni asks. She lifts her hand to point to the other end of the lake.

I don’t need to turn my head to know who’s there. I knew they would come. As soon as Lees let out her cry, I knew.

I turn, and there they are. Dora and Anki. Standing in the very place I stood when Lees called out my name.





EIGHTEEN


I usher everyone back from the ledge, hoping we haven’t been spotted yet.

“Why are they here?” Lees asks, her hand rising to her mouth. The look of fear on her face tells me she already knows.

“We need to stay ahead of them.” I don’t offer any more of an answer, and Lees doesn’t ask. “Where’s the cave you’re so excited about?”

Standing here on this shelf of rock—a flat plateau that stretches only twenty paces before a higher cliff springs up behind it—I see no openings in the walls. Rivulets of water crisscross the stone—offshoots of the stream that feeds the falls—but these all meander through grooves they’ve dug in the rock, dropping over the edge or snaking into crags. But nowhere do I see an opening we could walk through.

Then Lees sits down on the stone we all stand on, and slides her feet into what I thought was a depression in the rock.

And disappears.

Running to the place she just stood, I see what I couldn’t see before. What I’d thought was a depression is actually the entrance to an underground cavern. Looking through the opening, I can see Lees standing on the floor of the cave below.

“How big is it in there?” I ask. “Will we all fit?”

“Twice as many would fit,” Lees calls back. She climbs halfway out again, clinging to a few protruding nobs of stone that serve as toeholds, lifting her head and shoulders out of the hole. Her smile beams.

“Good work,” I say. “We’re coming down.”

The opening is narrow, requiring some twisting and turning, but Seeri and Noni get through with little trouble. Morsk and Pek still stand over Kol, who is stretched out on the stone in the exact place Morsk set him down. I squat beside him. His eyes are closed as if he’s sleeping. He doesn’t stir. My heart sinks in my chest.

“What if I lifted his feet and Morsk lifted his shoulders?” I say. “Pek, you could go down first. Maybe you and Seeri could help take his weight from us—together we should be able to set him on the floor of the cave without letting him fall.”

Pek’s eyes scan Morsk’s face. Distrust hardens his mouth and jaw, but he nods. “Be careful with him, Mya,” he says. At first I think he means Kol—be careful lifting him—but then I realize he means Morsk. As he drops down into the hole in the rock, he throws one more watchful glance back at him.

“Don’t worry,” Morsk says, “I won’t let him fall.”

Kol never opens his eyes as we transfer him through the opening into the cave. I’m the last to go through after Morsk, climbing down out of a windy world bright with sun, into a still, dim space.

I don’t know what I had imagined, but I never imagined this. I stand in a small room with curved walls of rounded rock, as if it had been carved to serve as a drinking cup for the Divine. The ceiling is high enough that we can all stand at our full heights—even Morsk. The floor is pitted and pocked, carved by water that runs down the walls and trickles into several small waterways that flow farther underground, disappearing into the dark. It’s cold down here. On the surface, I’d thought my clothes were nearly dry. The hides had shed most of the water, and they’d warmed so much in the sun. But here, in this damp, dark place, my clothes feel chilled and wet against my skin.

“Well, we’re hidden. That’s certain,” I say. My voice, not even a whisper, but a breath of a whisper, fills the room and reverberates around me. I take a tentative step downhill, following the flow of water deeper into the ground. “How far have you followed it?” I ask Noni and Lees. “Do you know where it goes?”

“Not to the end. It narrows into a passageway you have to crawl through. Lees and I went all the way down to a tight corner, and even followed it around the turn. It leads to another space a lot like this one—one lit by a sinkhole that opens to the surface. As you crawl along you can hear water, like the creek might be running right overhead,” Noni says.