The woods spanned fewer miles than the farmland. Before long, the trees became sparser, and the screen of branches ahead of them thinned. “We must be getting close to the cliff,” Ronan said tiredly, breaking the silence for the first time in hours. He glanced at the sky, at the clouds that had nearly reached them. “Hopefully.”
For a while, they walked uphill, weaving between saplings whose leaves danced at their passage, and at the top of the rise, they emerged from the trees.
And there it was, rising from the land ahead of them. A rough wall of stone, terminal and stoic, as impassable as the unforgiving sea.
Ronan’s mouth fell open at the sight of it, and even Áed let out a little stunned breath.
“Áed,” Ronan said quietly. “We can’t climb that.”
Áed nodded. “I know, mate. Don’t worry, we aren’t going to.” Scaling the cliffs had never been part of Áed’s plan, and he’d been dreaming about this journey for enough years to have considered the possibilities. “Remember Ninian’s stories?”
Ronan pressed his lips together and looked away, but he replied with a quick nod.
The mention of Ninian scraped knives across Áed’s heart, but he made himself continue. “The White City and the Maze used to be one city.” He took a few steps toward the cliff. “So what does that tell you?”
“I don’t know.”
“It means that once upon a time, people had to be able get from one part to another.” He began walking along the bottom of the cliff. “There’s a way, mate. We just need to find it.”
✽ ✽ ✽
The clouds at their backs seemed to have paused over the Maze, but the air had gotten heavy and still in anticipation of the storm’s arrival. Áed and Ronan stumbled along the base of the cliffs, unsure what they were looking for but determined to find it.
Wind picked up as time ground on, and leaves began blowing from the trees to dance skyward as the air met the cliff. The sky, hazy above them, was turning a faint silver-green as the impending storm filtered away the sunlight’s last warmth. Áed’s feet met the earth with increasing weariness, but he had his goal in mind and would not be deterred from it; he paused only when Ronan stopped breathlessly, and then he encouraged the boy onward.
The face of the cliff was changing as they moved, becoming rougher and pocked with minerals, and in places, lichens affixed themselves to the rock. Ivies and creepers trailed down the stone, sometimes obscuring the cliff entirely, and Áed gave one of the vines an experimental tug. The plant released its hold and came falling down; they wouldn’t be of any use for climbing if it did come to that.
Suddenly, Áed had an idea, and immediately, he kicked himself for not having had it sooner. “Ronan,” he instructed, “Brush away the ivy.” As Ronan obeyed, Áed began clearing aside the swaying creepers. Behind the green leaves was nothing but rock, but Áed broke into a jog along the cliff with one hand pulling the ivy away as he went. Fine tendrils snatched at his fingers, but he kept moving.
He skidded to a stop, took a few steps backward, and yanked away the ivy. Ronan caught up behind him, and when he saw what Áed had found, he gasped.
Áed licked his lips and squinted into the cave. It smelled damp, like forest things and wet stone, and a breeze whispered through the air. The mouth of the cave was tall enough to accommodate them, but the inside was dark as a tomb.
“Áed, look.” Ronan pushed away more trailing ivy and pointed at the edge of the rock. Around the straight edges of the opening, carvings settled into the rock. Pointed, spiraling knots, endless and deliberate, crept upward, framing the doorway. The strange light of the storm filled them with shadows, and they seemed to move in the corner of Áed’s eyes.
“This has to be it, ceann beag,” Áed said. He’d expected to feel jubilant, or at least grimly triumphant, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. “Wait here a moment.”
Carefully, with hands outstretched, he felt his way forward. The light from the doorway scarcely carried beyond the entrance, but he could tell from the echoes of his breathing that the chamber was large. His foot hit something on the ground and he tripped, but his hands met stone before he fell.
“Áed?” Ronan’s voice came uncertainly from the entrance.
“I’m fine,” Áed called back, feeling around him. “I found stairs.”
He heard Ronan’s footsteps tentatively enter the cave.
“That’s it, mate,” Áed said. “Follow my voice. Over here—ah, there you are.” He found Ronan’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I’m going to go first, okay? Stay close.”
Ronan shivered under his touch. “It’s so dark.”
“I know.” Áed didn’t think Ronan would want him to try to break the darkness, and Áed definitely didn’t want to either. The ember in his chest was very awake, and it scared him.
They moved up the damp stairs cautiously, careful of where they trusted their weight. Moss made the stone, untended for who knew how many hundreds of years, as slippery as oil, and if the hewn steps had ever had railings, they’d long since rotted away. As the two moved higher, Áed kept a hand on Ronan, all too aware of the invisible distance below them.
As they climbed higher, faint light began to permeate from somewhere above. It grew stronger as they approached it, and they moved faster once they could see. “Almost there,” Áed murmured. “We’re so close, mate.”
Wind began to twirl through the chamber, wind that smelled fresh and stormy, and when Áed and Ronan crossed the last step, their feet fell on scruffy grass poking up between cracked paving stones.
The stairs, obscured by the grass, disappeared into the ground behind them. The edge of the cliff, which overlooked the farms, the Maze, and the vast Sea that spread to the horizon, plunged downward not twenty paces from where they emerged, and Áed stood for a moment, catching his breath. It appeared as if they were eye-level with the storm’s rolling thunderheads, and beneath it all, their old city looked almost beautiful in the deadly light. “Look, Ronan,” Áed said softly. “You can see the docks.”
Ronan’s eyes caught the storm and appeared earth-gray as he squinted across the expanse. “I can’t find home.”
Áed bit his lip and searched as well, but the crumbling flat was indistinguishable from anything around it. “Me neither,” he murmured, and turned away. It didn’t matter anymore. “Come on. We’re going to get caught in the storm.”
The landscape atop the cliffs was hilly and speckled with white-trunked trees, but it didn’t take the two long to crest a rise and slow their steps. They stopped at the peak of a gentle knoll, cracked pavers barely intact between silvery birches, and looked toward their grail.
The White City sparkled under the storm-filtered sun, the color of bleached bones. Straight-backed buildings crowned the hills in both directions, boundless and magnificent.
“A thiarcais,” Ronan said softly, and had Áed been able to form a thought, he would have said the same. There were the rising turrets, as if plucked from a story, there were the glittering windows. There were the sturdy, sloping roofs and the clean streets, and as Áed stared, he was sure that he saw security, warmth, and a future embedded like chips of mica in the walls.