“And where was she supposed to take it?” Sparrow said. “Into her cell? Because that’s where she is, you know. Alone, suffering, without even her puppy for comfort, and it’s all because of you.”
“I am fully aware of my fault in this,” Slorn said. “But Miranda has a much bigger role in things to come than she knows. A role I forced her into by bringing her here, and a role I will force her to continue by hiring you to free her on my behalf.”
Sparrow snorted. “I don’t think you can afford me.”
“Ah, but I won’t be paying you,” Slorn said, taking something from his jacket pocket. It was a fat, leather- bound notebook tied with a loop of string.
“What’s that?” Sparrow said, leaning in for a better look. “Your diary?”
“My research notes,” Slorn said, holding the book like a precious relic. “This book contains the complete record of Nivel’s and my work for the last ten years. I may not be able to afford your services, but this book should be plenty to buy the services of the woman who owns you. Every answer to every question Sara has asked me about demons over the last decade is in his book. I’m giving it to her in exchange for Miranda’s freedom, plus freedom for all her spirits.”
A sly smile spread over Sparrow’s face. “All her spirits?” he said, scratching his chin. “A clever touch, bear man.” He eyed the book, and Slorn could almost see the scales weighing the danger of freeing Miranda versus the danger of angering Sara. Sara must have won out in the end, for a moment later, Sparrow’s hand swooped in and snatched the book from Slorn’s fingers.
“The Council accepts your offer,” he said, hefting the book in his hands. “But I must say, you’ve become a very trusting bear in your old age, Heinricht. How do you know I won’t just take this and leave poor little Miranda to the mess you made for her? I mean, it’s not like you can go for a stroll to see if I kept my word.”
Slorn smiled. “It was because I knew you were following us that I risked bringing Miranda to the Shaper Mountain in the first place. Sara’s too good a judge of opportunity to abandon a spirit like Mellinor. My guess is that you have orders to take us both back to Zarin. However, breaking someone out of the Shaper Mountain is no easy feat, and since I’m not going, you might be tempted to cut your losses and just leave. With this in mind, think of that book as collateral. You’ll find a letter to Sara on the inside cover explaining that Miranda is supposed to be with you.”
Sparrow’s smile faltered, and he flipped the book open, glaring at the note scrawled across the inside cover, impossible to rip out without ruining the first half of the notes.
“You can be a very conniving bear, Heinricht,” he said, snapping the book shut with a deep sigh. “You know, of course, that this little payment is between you and Sara and won’t spare the Spiritualist the enormous debt she’ll owe the Council for her escape.”
Slorn shrugged. “Miranda is a competent woman. I trust her to handle her own obligations.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her you said so,” Sparrow said, tucking the notebook into his pocket as he walked back to the wall. “Lovely chatting with you, Heinricht.”
“You take care of Miranda, Sparrow,” Slorn said, his voice heavy with warning. “She knows things now that could save us all.”
“What, haven’t you heard?” Sparrow said, glancing over his shoulder. “The Empress is on the move. Nothing can save us now.” He pressed himself against the wall and jumped, catching the edge of the vent with one hand. “Good-bye, old bear,” he said, pulling himself expertly into the opening. “Maybe we’ll meet again someday.”
“Likely not,” Slorn said.
Sparrow laughed and folded his thin body, slipping out of the cell like smoke. Slorn watched the place where he had been for several minutes, blinking his eyes every time his focus drifted from the physical world toward the spirit. Someday, he told himself, someday he would ask Sara where she’d found Sparrow and how his spirit invisibility actually worked. It was a lie, of course. In all likelihood he would never leave this cell again. Still…
Letting the spirit sight take over again, Slorn looked down through the heart of the mountain, down to its base, the enormous shelf of rock that supported all the mountains around the Shaper peak, and then down farther still to where its roots ended at the very bottom of world. There, the stone suddenly stopped in a smooth, curved base, as smooth as the arc of the sky, but upside down. Slorn swallowed. He’d never looked so deep underground before, and it was only because the mountain was one single spirit that he could do it now.
He almost wished he hadn’t.
Slorn pressed his broad hands to the stone floor. Tiny tremors, too small for anyone who wasn’t feeling for them to notice, ran through the Shaper Mountain. They came in long, jagged scrapes, as though something far away was rubbing against the stone. Every time the stone shook, he saw a flicker of movement far, far below, a flicker of movement in the horrible, familiar shape of an enormous, clawed hand.
Slorn lifted his hands from the stone and folded them in his lap. If the hands were above as well as below, then Gredit was right. There was something terribly wrong with the world, something the Shepherdess didn’t want the spirits to see. The Shaper Mountain knew this, but it could not act because of the Shepherdess. However, Slorn was certain that, while the Teacher made all the motions of an obedient servant, not even the Shepherdess could cow such an old, stubborn spirit forever. All he had to do was wait.
With that, the problem of how to spend his imprisonment was decided. Slorn looked away from the bottom of the world and leaned back, settling against the cold stone of the mountain. When he was comfortable, he opened his mouth and, in a quiet voice, began to ask questions. He asked about the demonseeds, about the Dead Mountain, about the clawing hands. He asked about spirits, about humans, where they’d come from, why the Shepherdess had made them, why they were blind. Everything he wanted to know, he asked. No answers came, but Slorn did not stop. He would never stop until the stone replied. Nivel had told him once that he was as stubborn as a mountain. To honor her memory, to give meaning to her death, he was going to prove her right. And so he kept asking questions in the white silence until, far sooner than he expected, the cell door opened.
Miranda lay facedown on the stone floor, her eyes closed against the constant light of the mountain. It did no good. The light bled through her eyelids until even her dreams were suffused in white. She pushed herself up with a groan and stared glumly at the room that had become her world: a white box, ten feet by ten feet by ten feet, no door, no windows, nothing even to mark which wall was which. Twice a day, the wall opened and a Shaper appeared with food, but otherwise she had no outside contact, no company at all. After the stone swallowed her, she’d lost consciousness and woken up here, alone. She hadn’t seen Slorn since the meeting, but worse than that, Gin was missing. His absence bothered her more than her own imprisonment, and since he wasn’t a bound spirit, she couldn’t even feel if he was alive or dead.
After she woke up, Miranda had spent the first dozen hours of her confinement trying to break out. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. Again, the Shapers had left her rings, and though the walls of her cell were part of the mountain, they were still stone. Mellinor’s water had broken down larger walls than these, so had Durn’s boulders. But the problem wasn’t the walls; it was her spirits. No matter how she harangued them, they refused to act against the mountain, and every time she asked why, every one of them gave the same answer: They could not raise their strength against a star.
Miranda pressed her cheek against the cold stone. A week ago, she wouldn’t have bought that excuse for a second. Now, after her meeting with the mountain, she understood a little better. Stars were spirits even greater than Great Spirits, chosen and backed by the greatest spirit of them all, the one called the Shepherdess. Spiritualist oath or no, so long as the Shaper Mountain was her jailer, her spirits could do nothing to help her. Not unless she forced them. Revulsion flooded her mind at the thought. She would die here before she Enslaved any spirit, much less her own.
Of course, dying here was looking more and more like her fate. She didn’t even know how long she’d been in her cell. Two days at least, but without a window she couldn’t be sure, and the guard never answered her questions. All she had was the endless, unchanging light and the slow feeling of time crawling over her skin.
Abandoning sleep, Miranda pushed herself up with a frustrated sigh. She walked to the white wall across from where she’d been lying and began running her fingers over the smooth stone. It was a futile effort. She’d already checked the walls hundreds of times. There were no cracks, no weaknesses. Still, she kept looking. She had to keep looking, keep trying for an escape, or she would go mad.
She was standing on tiptoe, running her fingers along the corner where the ceiling met the wall, when she heard the familiar soft grinding of stone. Miranda fell back on her heels and turned just in time to see the stone of the far wall fold in on itself to create a small door. It happened instantly, the flawless stone she’d run her fingers over just a minute before curling away to reveal the stern face and tall, heavy frame of the Shaper who served as
