Eventually, that other voice-in-his-head sent thrumming down the line from the centre of it all: “Grandma,” as he lived and breathed.
Climb up and see me, grandson. Set your feet to the great rock’s hide. You are well come, though perhaps not soon enough . . . well come, and welcome.
Rook looked up the mountain’s face, and sighed. Should’ve known, he thought, shifting his travel-blistered feet. But far as he’d come already, there really was nothing left to do now but either refuse, or obey — stand fast, shout useless imprecations at the sky, fight, flee. Or climb.
He climbed.
Not until Rook had covered two-thirds or so of the upwards-rearing crests of stone, and lay panting on a ledge barely wide enough to hold him, did he wonder why he hadn’t simply pulled one more miracle from the Book to loft him upwards, ’stead of busting his already-bloody finger-pads with hauling himself up — levitation, bilocation or chariots of fire, he hadn’t lacked for choices. Yet somehow, the very notion’d never even entered his head.
Instinctive wariness, knowing himself to be entering the domain of another hexslinger? Or had Grandma’s command to climb held occult force so subtle he’d simply been unable to sense it wrapping its geas around him?
Sudden sweat broke cold on Rook’s forehead as he clung to the mountain with both raw hands, thinking: There are reasons we stay away from each other . . . and maybe what she wants is you out here, all alone. To take what you have. How foolish must you be, how trusting —
(little king)
(husband)
Grandson: CLIMB.
Finally, everything levelled off, and Rook lay — gasping, drenched, so mortal dusty he might as well’ve been hewn from the same stones cradling him — in the shallow slope of scree that lined the inside of the mountain’s pinnacle. The sky above was reddish-purple, draining to black. His lungs felt stuffed with grit. Gulping air and smelling something he couldn’t put a name to, immediately —
. . . heat, smoke. A fire. She laid a fire.
Well, that made sense. Had to see, after all — and eat. Then came the juicy smell of cooking meat, making Rook’s days-empty stomach spasm painfully. Hunger-driven, he rolled over, huge and clumsy — got his hands braced against the pebbled slope and levered himself up, with a groan of effort.
The woman who knelt over that delicious-smelling fire wore her hair in a waist-length pair of braids, thin and fine and strong as sunbleached corn-silk. By contrast, the rest of her was shockingly thick, sturdy to the point of squatness — nose flat and cheekbones broad, her wry-set mouth so wide it seemed virtually lipless. A slant pair of coal-in-paraffin eyes, small as currants, cut sideways over to Rook.
“Grandson,” she said, voice at once a gravelly rasp and a smooth, pure tone. It took Rook a second to understand what he was hearing: “inside” and “outside” voice, blended together, to bypass their mutual lack of common language. Trusting his instincts, therefore, he closed his eyes and felt ’round for the currents of power, for once riding them rather than shaping them.
“Grandma,” he replied.
The word itself was spoken in English, by necessity. The meaning, however, went back out to her just as hers had come to him — portmanteaued inside a visceral understanding which neither needed anything as crude as mere language to clarify.
“So. I see you have not forgotten all your manners.”
“Well, I do hope not . . . ma’am.”
And this drew an actual husky laugh, straight from the belly.
Shaking her head, she got to her feet, brushing down her shawl and stamping ash off her shoes.
“Men,” she remarked. “They always hope to charm. But then, even we of the Hataalii are still steered by what the First People put between our legs.”
“I meant no insult — ”
She shrugged. “Of course not. What else can be expected? You know nothing.”
“Hey, now,” he began, flushing — but she merely gestured, curtly, for him to sit . . . and he surprised himself, by obeying. Another laugh followed, equally gruff.
“That angers you, eh?” she asked. “To be ordered, like a child? That boy you’ve roped yourself to . . .”
“He’d just shoot you, you pissed him off bad enough.”
“Oh, he might try — and fail. But why charm, when honesty is better? You barely know what you are, ‘Reverend,’ your head still stuffed with blackrobe chatter-nonsense, while your boy does not even know that much, let alone how easily I have stopped bullets before. I am elder to you both, and worth respecting for it.”
Rook gritted his teeth. “I’d’ve thought the simple fact that I’m here was evidence enough of my respect.”
“Yet you took your time in getting here, and many have suffered. I see no reason for compliments.” She paused, stirring the fire. “And where is he now, your apprentice?”