Page 86 of Beyond the Shadowed Earth
She walked on and on. The Circle of the Dead grew no less beautiful, but its utter, desolate loneliness cut deeper and deeper until its beauty didn’t matter anymore. She wanted to collapse under one of the honey-fire trees and never get up again. But the Starlight compelled her to keep going.
She broke through the forest all at once, and came into a valley that was somehow darker than the wood had been, like the light from the stars far above couldn’t reach it. The ground was writhing with shadows. They slithered over her feet like eels, and they stank of moldering stone, of dead, rotten things.
Eda trudged through them as fast as she could, shuddering.
Is this what it would mean to be the Bearer of Souls? To command this domain, know every hill and valley, every shadow, every tree? How good it must feel, to have the power of a goddess at her fingertips. To have a place, a purpose. But how cruel of the gods, to offer her all that in exchange for a lifetime of all-consuming loneliness.
She ran, shadows screaming and flopping to get out of her way. She tread dozens of them under her feet, desperately trying to ignore the pop and squish of them, the thick darkness that splashed all the way up to her knees.
And then she was running out onto a wide desert plain. White sand glittered and flashed, a field of stars stretching endlessly before her.
One of the shadows clung to her boot. She tried to shake it off and fell to her hands and knees. Pain seared through her, and she leapt to her feet again—the sand, like the trees, was sharp. Blood ran down her legs and arms. The light from her forehead wavered.
“Bring me to the door,” Eda whispered, nearly sobbing. “Bring me to the door. Please.”
She ran on.
A silver ship sailed through the sand in front of her, and it was filled with a host of the dead. They wept and wept, scores upon scores of them. Somehow, Eda knew the ship had been sailing in circles, searching for the door. And she also knew that the dead would never be free, that way.
She ran farther, and saw a mass of silver ghosts walking together across the brutal desert. The awful slithering shadows from the valley were hanging from the ghosts’ shoulders, sinking sharp teeth into gray flesh, devouring them unawares.
And Eda knew, as she had known about the ship, that the dead did not feel. That they didn’t know the shadows were there. That they would be eaten for all eternity, unless someone showed them the way to the door.
Eda ran past them, agonized. But she couldn’t help them, not yet. Not until she found Tuer.
She ran on, through a tunnel of writhing trees and into a great empty darkness. Screams and weeping echoed around her. Chains rattled, unseen creatures hissed and roared. There were more shadows here, and they were larger, tall as men, every inch of their bodies covered with jagged silver teeth.
Groups of dead souls were huddled together, weeping and weeping, because they couldn’t find the door, couldn’t go to their rest.
In the center of the darkness stood nine shining figures: tall, fierce women, with hair in different shades of cerulean and coral and sea-foam. They circled round a mass of the dead, flaming swords in their hands, fighting back the shadows that sought to devour their charges.
All the dead of the sea, Eda knew, protected by the Billow Maidens of legend. But even they could not hold back the shadows forever. Even they would eventually fall.
And then suddenly Eda was hurtling back out onto the dark hill under brittle stars. It was the same hill, or seemed the same, but she knew it could not be, for the sound of roaring water reached her ears.
And she was not alone.
A woman stood at the brow of the hill, looking down to where the water flowed. Dark hair blew loose past strong shoulders, and bare brown feet peeked out from beneath the hem of a silver gown.
“Niren,” Eda breathed.
Her sister turned, and Eda saw her face—haggard, weighed down and aged with sorrow, with fear.
“The door is near.” Niren’s voice was hollow, expressionless. “I have been waiting for you. Come.”
And she turned and descended the hill. As Eda followed her she saw it: a dark rivermadeof those vicious shadows, a writhing mass of snapping teeth and hissing jaws.
Niren led Eda to the bank, and Eda balked. “Where are you taking me?”
“The door is in the midst of the river.”
“But we’ll be devoured.”
“There is no other way.”
“Then my journey ends here? Eaten in a river in the Circle of the Dead?”
Niren’s face went hard. “Even now you think only of yourself. This story isn’t about you, Eda Mairin-Draive. It never was. You took things that didn’t belong to you, things you were never meant to have.” She brushed cold fingers across Eda’s forehead, and the Starlight pulsed hot.“Iwould be devoured if I went into that river. But perhaps you will not. Perhaps the Starlight is enough to save you. Or perhaps you will be eaten. But if you’re too much of a coward to eventry,I’m pushing you in anyway.”
