Gotim's Arc

Chapter 4 of 7

Gotim walked until the frozen plain thinned into black rock. The trail of pits ended at a ridge, and past the ridge the ground dropped into a bowl of cracked stone. At the bottom stood a gate of scorched iron and burnt stone, wreathed in low fire. He knew it by rumor. It was a door the crown's bearer used to move between the cold world and the hot one. If he wanted leverage, he had to find it here, before the hunger arrived. He went down the slope slowly. The fire from the gate did not warm the air. Near the arch a tall black stone rose from the rubble, bound in iron chains, veined with molten light. The old runes on its faces were still lit. It was a marker — a compass the bearer had planted to fix a path home. Gotim understood at once. The stone was the bearer's tether. Break it, and the bearer would come running to save it. Take it, and he had his leverage. He set his hand on the chain. The chain burned. He held on. He pulled shadow up from his own feet and wrapped his palm until the metal cooled to iron again. Then he pulled. The chain gave a link. The stone leaned. Something moved behind him. He turned. A cloaked figure stood between him and the gate, hood empty, cloak breaking apart into low tentacles that dragged along the rock. It carried a great black sword point-down in one clawed hand. A watcher. Not the bearer. A servant the bearer had left to guard the marker. "Step away from the stone," the figure said. Its voice came from under the hood, flat and old. Gotim did not step away. "I only need one piece of it." The figure lifted the sword. Gotim spoke a word and the shadow at the base of the obelisk climbed the stone in a black sheet. He drove his hand into the sheet and closed his fist on the light inside. A shard of the marker came away in his hand, still hot, still humming. The stone above cracked from top to base. The runes died out one by one. The figure came for him. Gotim did not fight it. He turned and ran up the slope. Behind him the gate's fire dimmed as the marker failed. The watcher stopped at the ridge, bound to the ruined stone, unable to follow past it. At the top of the slope Gotim opened his hand. The shard sat on his palm, dim now, but alive. A small medallion of scales was pressed to the stone from the bearer's old work — a token of judgment, still warm. He pocketed it with the shard. He had his leverage. He also had a problem. The bearer would feel this within the hour. The hunger was still coming. Now both would race him to the same point, and he stood between them with a broken piece of their road in his hand.