11. The Golden Inkstone Steps
Astra suffers a tragic loss and finds herself on the run again...
Escape from Ice Mountain marks the start of an epic fantasy, one where a middle-aged fish-out-of-water librarian (and necromancer!) navigates love, betrayal, and the complexities of power as she struggles to embrace her destiny and uncover the mysteries of her own origins. Yes, there are dragons too! And also magical dogs. It’s gonna be awesome!
Previously: Astra’s entire world collapsed…
There was a long, dreadful moment of calm that followed the stilling of the rocks. Astra leaned forward, pressing her head against the wall, soaking in the cool, empty, lifeless feel of it. A hand dropped to her arm, holding it tight in a broad, firm grip.
“Are you unharmed, Sorcerer?” the soldier asked. Astra nodded, trying to push him away. There were a few cracked and broken moon stones scattered across the floor, throwing out weak light, but the luminescent minerals that had been trapped in the rock for untold millennia had gone dark. Surprisingly, the tunnel was not closed off completely, but it was hard to see the way back through the massive pile of rubble, with only a few broken moonstones to giving dim light.
Bodies were everywhere; mostly, it seemed, Yosoi, although of few of the rangers and the soldiers were just as crushed and broken, half buried under massive stones. Others had been hacked apart in battle. In her weakened state, Astra was unable to turn away from their ongoing deaths, souls screaming for revenge or a loved one, the silvery strands whipping about their bodies, trying to cling and claw their way back into the corpses which once held them. Blood soaked into the ground, tying unwilling souls to their deathbeds for eternity, and they screamed even harder for release. Astra gasped for air, hands flat against the empty, deathless rock behind her. The soldier wrapped an arm over her shoulder but did not try to move her. He stood, angled with his short sword in his other hand, clearly braced for battle if anyone was left alive thought to try.
“Trazkhor!” Astra called out as best she could with her lungs burning. She felt like she had indeed drowned with the long dead sea creatures. The air was thick and heavy in her lungs.
“Here, Astra! I'm back over here.” He called out from the large stones behind them, which Astra figured out quickly was really the “front” of the tunnel, the direction back to the courtroom. “I'm uninjured, but I will have to crawl to you. Are you hurt?” His voice betrayed his worry.
“No. No, I'm…not well. But unhurt. The soldier protected me from the rocks.”
Her brother snorted. “I know which one,” he grumbled in the darkness.
“Trazkhor? Ashtrakur?” Zochur stumbled into view. They were bloodied and unsteady, but their eyes blazed fiercely in the dark, their sword still held firm.
“Here! I’m here, Zee!” Astra called out like a child, moving forward to fall out of the soldier's arms and into Zochur's familiar embrace.
“By Jaga's teeth, I thought we were all dead, child. Oh, my dear child,” Zochur said, hugging Astra to them, whispering into her ear. “I fear for you, using such magic.”
“I had no choice,” Astra gasped out in great gulps.
“I know,” Zochur said, their voice resigned. “I know.” They looked up at the soldier, who was now behind Astra. “You will thank him for protecting my sister.”
“I promise!” Astra nodded, refusing to cry.
“Sibling nuns!” The voice of the lead ranger called out. “The sibling superior was hurt!”
There was scrambling as Astra, the soldier, and Zochur followed the voice. The carnage as they moved forward was terrible, and Astra tried not to look, focusing instead on not falling down. The soldier kept to her side, neatly lifting her over one rock. They found the lead ranger crouched over Naboch, General Hiloh leaning back against the wall near them and holding his side. Astra's soldier sped over to him. As far as Astra could tell, they were the last ones of their delegation alive. She stood behind Zochur, who got down on their knees. Naboch appeared to have been run through with a sword, and while she was awake, she was obviously in too much pain to be fully lucid.
The ranger and Zochur tried to stop the bleeding, but Astra could only stand watching the silver dust escaping from Naboch's body, lightly floating away, called by the winds of Mamum. Astra put her hand on Zochur's shoulder. When the nun looked at her, Astra shook her head. Zochur's hands dropped away, but the grief-stricken nun remained there, on their knees, head bowed.
“Ashtrakur?” Naboch said, stirring against the arms of the crying ranger who held her. Astra got down next to her.
“I am here, Mother Naboch.”
“Not your mother,” Naboch laughed, or a mockery of it, blood spraying from her mouth.
“Did I not give you enough grief as a child?” Astra smiled, warding off her own tears.
“The dragon—” Naboch stopped, shook her head, and started again. “The dragon was red, Aztrazu.” Naboch was calling her by her arrival name, or trying to. She had never done that before, not in all the time Astra had been at the monastery.
“The dragon?” She thought of the fire dragon, which was definitely not red. She had never even heard of red dragons. No one had. In all her readings over the years, there had never been mention of even one—white, pink, brown, black, green, and the rare purple, but never red.
“The one…the one…brought you here,” Naboch said in a gasp.
“Your dragon, she means your dragon, Ashtrakur!” Traz said from where he had climbed over a stone to get to them.
“Red?” Astra looked down at Naboch in confusion. In her mind’s eye, the dragon that had brought her to Ice Mountain was black—but she realized she could be wrong, since she had only saw it at night, and in shadow.
“Go to Firestate, Ashtrakur. The red dragon. Find her.” Naboch grabbed her hand and the silver dust swirled up from her and wrapped around their joined hands. Astra saw in Naboch’s distant, fading memories a fiery red dragon, huge in the sky, reflecting silver and gold off its scales as it swooped in for a landing up in the compound at the very top of Ice Mountain, where the retreat caves were carved. Like a dream, as the dust of Naboch's soul drifted away, Astra saw the dragon lay its precious cargo on the ground.
“The Grail,” she whispered, watching in awe as the nun who was like a mother to her died in peaceful silence, no screams or regret, no fear, no clinging to her deathbed, simply dust becoming one with the universe. There was nothing left to hear, or speak, or exist.
“Naboch had transcended,” Astra said hoarsely. The ranger holding Naboch weeped openly, his head tilted up in despair and grief.
The temple dogs slunk out of the shadows and circled Naboch once, then sat on each side of Astra, nearly dwarfing her.
The lead ranger, who was the only other ranger left, slowly and lifted up Naboch's bloodied smock to cover her face. Astra looked over at Traz, who was staring at Naboch with tears streaked down his cheeks.
“I am sorry for your loss. But, we cannot stay here. Either we must go back out, or further in.” General Hiloh, supported by Astra’s soldier, walked over. Astra nodded, then translated for the others, her breath still short. She honestly was not sure she could walk. It was as if touching so much death had completely drained her own soul of energy.
The ranger stood, her dark brown skin barely reflecting the dull lights of the broken moonstones littered around them. “My charge is the protection of Qordashi. With the death of the sibling superior, I must return to my station.” She gave them all a low bow, then turned to crawl her way through the rocks back to the courtroom and almost certain death. The other ranger gently laid Naboch on the ground with a soft, broken prayer and then followed.
The rest of them stayed where they were in silence, Astra tilting to lean against one of the dogs who, surprisingly, let her. She did not even have the strength to be scared of it. There were no sounds of fighting, though, so at least the rangers had made it out of the courtroom. Maybe. There was no way to be sure, and no way to know what was beyond the wreckage of the broken tunnel.
“Where does this go?” Beautiful Soldier asked, motioning towards the back of the tunnel, which was dark but intact.
Astra waited for someone to answer, then realized she was the only one who understood him, and also the only one who knew the answer. “It leads to many tunnels. I only know a few, but one goes to the Cavern of the Sunken Lake. There is a little used exit out of the side of the mountain, there, far and away from the monastery.”
“What are you telling him?” Traz asked, his voice laced with suspicion.
“About the Sunken Lake, down below.”
Traz started. “We don't tell outsiders that, Astra!” He hissed.
Astra waved her hand around and nearly hit a temple dog. She yanked her hand back, eying the beast carefully. “Like it matters? Do you think the monastery itself is even standing?”
Traz looked shaken at that, glancing over to where the rangers had gone.
“The Yosoi are ransacking it; that is what they do,” Zochur said as they rose to their feet and sheathed the sword in the belt they had somehow found time to secure around their waist. They looked down at the body of Naboch. “All this for a myth, a story we tell children about gods and monsters.”
Astra took a deep breath, trying to center herself, before opening her mouth to explain. One of the dogs looked at her and snarled, a soft noise and a curl of lip, before leaning down, rubbing its muzzle under her chin. It was a sensation unlike any she had ever had before, to feel it against her skin, cool and sweet like water fresh from a spring well, pushing the dust of the dead out of her heart and mind.
“Oh.” She pulled away and stared at it, for the first time truly seeing the deep glimmer of light within its eyes. “Who are you?” She asked, raising a hand to rub its neck, a sense of peace and purity flowing up from where she touched it. The black collar that rested there held a dark ruby in a setting with the mark of Mamum on the back. The other dog, when Astra looked, wore a deep green emerald, and the mark on the back of the setting was Jaga.
“Astra?” Traz said, his voice soft and uncertain.
Astra looked up to see him, Zochur, General Hiloh and Beautiful Soldier staring at her.
“Oh. I just…they…I'm sorry, what did you say?” She shook her head to clear it and stood up, the dogs crowding closer. Zochur eyed them with suspicion.
General Hiloh, still clutching his side, waved toward the back of the tunnel. “I am asking if you will lead us to that entrance. We must escape this place.”
“Escape Ice Mountain?” Astra blinked at him, the words failing to register in her mind. It was home. There was no reason to escape it. Except…there was. The thoughts battled in her mind.
He nodded. “Even if the grail was there, it will surely have been stolen by now, and neither the Yosoi nor the snow dragons will let anyone leave alive, if they can help it.”
“Escape?” She repeated. “To go…where?” She rubbed her temples.
“I would rarely trust any Am-Ayat soldier but if he is saying we need to flee, I agree with him,” Traz said, wiping his face of tear streaks.
“But where, Trazkhor? The snow dragons attacked us! They have probably killed your fire dragon and anyone fool enough to flee!”
“Anywhere but here, Astra!” Traz snapped back.
Astra tried to reply but stopped, feeling herself going dizzy again. The soldier moved quickly to her side to steady her.
“Get you dusty paws off her,” Traz growled at him.
“Whatever he is saying, tell him that I will not stand idly by while he lets you fall down,” the soldier snapped.
Astra pushed him away and glared at Traz. “He is just trying to help.”
“Oh. And that's why you are blushing?” Traz drawled, displeased.
“Children,” Zochur grumbled, rubbing at their temples. “What did the general say?” They focused on Astra.
“That we need to go to one of the back entrances,” Astra said, stopping before she could explain what he really meant. There was nothing to explain.
Zochur nodded. “He thinks we should escape. I agree. He is not wrong.” They glanced at the mostly blocked passage to the courtroom.
“Zochur!” Astra cried out in surprise.
“We will do no one any good wading out into a fight we will lose. But if we go up, and not down, we can come out past the retreats.”
“The Golden Inkstone Steps are forbidden!” Traz said.
“For someone who ran away five years ago, you care too much about what is and is not allowed!” Astra hissed.
“If we go up, we have no way of escape. We will be stuck on this mountain and get slaughtered,” Traz countered, and Astra had to admit it was a valid point.
“The tunnel to the Caverns of the Sunken Lake will put us out too close to Buqoai for my comfort. The climb up will be steep but in the end, safer. There are many remote caves in the compound that we can hide in, and the Yosoi will not be able to breathe at that height for long. They won't waste time and air going from cave to cave, especially when they figure out that they are empty of valuables to loot,” Zochur pointed out.
“Jaga guards that tunnel,” Traz said. “Going up is a bad idea.” He crossed his arms. Astra glared at him, uncertain why he was being so stubborn about what was their best option.
“Someone,” General Hiloh intoned severely, looking directly at Astra, “Must explain to me what is being argued here.”
Astra did as asked, and there was more bickering, but Zochur was right and they all knew it. In the end, Traz, who should have not even known the Golden Inkstone Steps existed at all, given his low rank when he ran away, took the lead. Astra and her soldier followed, with Zochur helping General Hiloh behind them. As they went along, Zochur and Hiloh fell behind, going slowly due to age and injury, leaning on each other every step of the way, but clearly unwilling to stop completely.
The temple dogs threaded through their group, never touching anyone and sometimes disappearing in the dark behind them, but always returning to nudge at Astra as if to let her know they were there.
“They are humongous beasts,” the soldier said as they trudged along, eyeing them warily. The tunnel was steep and marked only irregularly by moon stones, their magic weak and thready so deep in the mountain and so rarely maintained.
“None bigger, that I have known.”
“I had heard stories of temple dogs, but never believed them. I hear they have no souls.”
Astra thought of Ruby rubbing under her chin earlier, the profoundly deep and simple darkness of the dog's soul easing her burden. “They do, but…different souls. Not the same as ours.”
“Is their magic is strong as yours?”
“My magic is not very strong.”
“You shook a mountain, and killed our enemies.” He said it with finality. “I don't think our highest wizard could do half as much as you, sorcerer.”
Astra paused, realizing that he did not understand the source of her magic, that he was unaware he was walking next to a crypt-keeper of the dead, that he did not know she heard the screams of the recently deceased in the tunnel who had begged her to stay, to help them, to free them from their deathbeds. He did not know that she had traveled through time to ask the trapped spirits of the sea creatures for help, giving them a taste of her own magic to bribe their help, promising freedom in exchange for power. That her physical weakness had not come from fear or hysteria, but from brushing so close to the hem of Death's smock.
She straightened her own dirty, bloody, defiled smock. “You would be wrong.”
“Stop bothering her,” Traz said over his shoulder. Despite the fact that the soldier could not understand the words, he clearly understood Traz’s intention and glowered at the back of his head.
The Golden Inkstone Steps were, essentially, the back entrance to the retreat compound, a way for superiors and their entourages to travel directly rather than meandering through and over all the buildings of the monastery. There were other tunnels leading to it, but the Yosoi must not have discovered them, at least not yet, and Astra took comfort in that.
NEXT: The Dragon’s Grail
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