Chapter One
Hitting Bottom
People often speak about “hitting bottom.” They have no idea what they are talking about. — The Book of Brin
In the eternal silence and absolute darkness of the Abyss’s unimaginable depths, Iver heard a scream. Faint at first, it grew to a piercing wail then stopped, cut short by a loud clap. Sounds were rare in his neighborhood, light even more so. And yet he did see a dim illumination seeping into the entrance of his cave. Prior to the howl, there had been a rapid series of booms. Iver hadn’t bothered to investigate those, as he wouldn’t have been able to see anything and the effort of crawling would have been wasted.
But the cry was different. Iver was certain the voice was familiar. Someone had fallen into the Abyss—someone he knew.
With great effort, he willed himself to stand. Few things drove Iver to such ridiculous extremes as walking, but this was a special occasion. He was certain who had fallen; he recognized that voice—that scream.
Iver held out his hands, searching for the wall, then followed it around to the narrow crack that formed the entrance to his place. He refused to call it home. Home meant something else: warmth and comfort. Even at the most miserable of times, a home served as a locale with merit, possessing an appeal beyond mere shelter. His cave served only as a place to be, a spot to sit, a hole to hide in.
He couldn’t recall the last time he’d left his place. This didn’t surprise Iver, as he was finding it increasingly difficult to remember just about anything. He still knew his name—the first part, at least. There had been more, a qualifier of some sort, but he couldn’t figure out what that might have been. His life was fading, memories dissolving. The last significant event he could summon up was meeting Edvard, a Gula of Clan Erling. Iver had only been dead a short time when the man had beaten and dragged Iver to the cliff. It wasn’t until he was falling that Iver realized why the man threw him over the edge. From high above, the Gula shouted, “This is for my wife, Reanna, you fat bastard! May you forever rot.”
Iver had expected something horrifying waiting at the bottom. What he had found was nothing, which turned out to be even worse.
But now . . .
Creeping out of the cave, Iver saw a white glow coming off something on the ground not far away. At that distance, it appeared to be a bag of something, clothes perhaps. He remembered those. Drawing nearer, he saw it was a person. He shouldn’t have been surprised. The biggest event in what felt like a century had turned out to be nothing more than a casualty of some brutal combat. Some poor wretch had fallen into the depths known to all as the Abyss—the absolute bottom from which no one returned.
He moved closer and found the small frame of a woman with dark, short-cropped hair—or rather what was left of her.
I’m certain I recognized that scream.
Iver felt excitement rise for the first time in . . . well, he hadn’t a clue how long it had been. But his high hopes were dashed when Experience chastised him. Not possible. There’s no way it could be her.
The fall had left the woman crushed on the hard frost: the price of admission to the worst level of existence. Iver surmised that every bone was broken, her skull shattered. Most of her body was lost in crumpled cloth, but Iver based the diagnosis on his own experience. It had taken an eternity to pull himself together. Even now, he had no idea how successful he’d been. In the Abyss, there were no reflections.
Reaching the woman’s crumpled form, Iver realized she seemed to have fared better than he. Even so, her body was unnaturally twisted—her eyes open, alert, and still in her head. When they spotted him, both went wide. She attempted to scream again, but the only thing that came out was a wet gurgle.
“Roan,” Iver said, shocked to discover his voice worked. “It is you!”
Broken as she was, the woman struggled to inch away. Mounted on a broken neck, her head swiveled to one side.
“Roan, you’ve come back to me.”
“Nooo . . .” she managed to moan through broken teeth and pooling blood.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I’m here. We’ll get you fixed up in no time. Won’t that be nice?”
At the comment, her eyes grew wider still.
They might yet fall out.
Iver bent down and gathered Roan in his arms. Her snapped bones hung limp, feeling eerily like a bag of split firewood.
She moaned and a tear slipped down her cheek and fell to the frozen ground.
“Don’t worry, my dear.” He grinned at her. “Once you’re put back together, it’ll be like old times.”
The moment Brin’s fingers slipped off the edge of the bridge and she felt herself plunge into the Abyss, panic had taken hold. At first, her mind froze, locked by a singular idea: This can’t be happening. Then, as she fell deeper into darkness, she wondered what hitting the bottom would feel like. She hoped she would bounce but figured the effect to be more like a dropped icicle.
Will I shatter into a million pieces?
After an inexplicably long time, Brin discovered she wanted it to be over. There was no avoiding the collision, no saving herself, and the waiting threatened to drive her insane. Anticipating the impact, knowing it could come at any time was the real terror. She closed her eyes, didn’t want to see.
Get it over with already!
Then it happened. Brin touched down with all the force of having leapt from the front porch of the lodge, a whopping four steps. Landing feetfirst, the momentum pushed her torso forward. Her palms slapped the ground and prevented any real harm. Only the heel of her left hand suffered a wound—a slight abrasion from scraping the granular frost that covered the ground. It stung for a moment. She straightened and stood, staring at the frozen rock that formed the bottom of the world. Imagining herself breathing, Brin saw her exhalation created a fog, the way it always had in the depths of winter.
That wasn’t so bad, she thought, relief pouring in.
The light, however, did catch her by surprise. Pure white and without an apparent source, it illuminated the new world around her. She could see from one side of the canyon to the other. Cliffs rose, their tops disappearing into darkness. She was at the bottom of the Abyss, and nothing was there except a vast, frost-covered plain of uneven ground and miserly ripples of snow that had been blown by a long-extinct wind.
“Roan?” she called out but got no answer. Brin had seen her friend fall, so she should be close by.
Perhaps she wandered off? It would be exactly like her to go exploring, curiosity eclipsing everything else.
Wondering if anyone else had slipped over the edge the way she had, Brin looked up but saw nothing.
I hope everyone else is all right. I’m alone down here—except for Roan. I really need to find her.
Walking in no particular direction, Brin found herself in a maze of fissures, which branched off into narrow canyons that zigzagged into the dark. These gashes were no doubt the reason for the many bridges they had traversed while traveling across the Plain of Kilcorth on their way to King Mideon’s castle. The impossibly high walls were as porous as a sponge. Dark holes and caves peppered its surface: some were at ground level, others higher up and extending as far as she could see.
From time to time, Brin paused and called out for Roan. Her voice didn’t travel far. The Abyss was a quiet place, its silence broken by the harsh crackle of her feet on the frosty ground. Roan didn’t respond, so Brin picked an offshoot at random and ventured down one of the side branches. She guessed there were dozens of these tributaries, perhaps hundreds, and it could take a long while to search each one, but time was all she had now. Eventually, she would find Roan. This would be the Keeper’s quest for as long as it took, and the reward would be maintaining her sanity. Searching gave her something to do beyond wallowing in self-pity for her failure.