Chapter Eight - Storm

The next morning brought rain.

Clouds hung thick and heavy in the sky, great raindrops falling from them that splattered heavy and loud against the cobbled roads. Órlaith watched it through the open window with dismay.

"No market trips today, I suppose," Leolin said. She'd told him the night before about the horses - he'd been upset, just as she was, but he'd seen the necessity of it as well.

Órlaith shook her head.

"I might still ask around," she said. "In the inn, maybe, and if the rain eases off I can visit some shops. But no, no markets today." The village was too small to have a permanent covered market - it was honestly more of a glorified waystation than anything else. Its main purpose was as a base for the few brave travellers who ventured out into the wilds, and most of its income came from those travellers - and from the few who returned wealthy.

Leolin nodded. "We can't travel today either, I suppose." Órlaith wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed - she wasn't sure if she was relieved or disappointed, either. On the one hand, the longer they stayed here the riskier it was. On the other hand, what if there was nothing out there for them? Or what if the City wasn't all it was said to be?

But the only way to find out would be to see for herself.

"Tomorrow, maybe," she said. "I can ask about the weather, too. I haven't been here before, I'm not sure what it's usually like." In places the caravan had visited, Órlaith knew the climate; she knew how to tell if it might rain the next day, or if clouds might give way to bright sunshine. But not here, not in this little village in the dip of a mountain pass. She knew that the mountains and the valley would affect the weather, but she had no idea how.

So she went downstairs, to the common room of the inn. It wasn't busy; only a few tables were occupied, mostly by travellers or the couple of villagers who liked to start drinking early (very early). Órlaith went straight to the innkeeper. In her experience, the innkeepers tended to know the most about what was happening in any given town. People talked to them, and talked around them. With a pint in your hand, it was easy to forget about the innkeeper behind the bar, listening to everything that was going on - sometimes for the sake of the information, sometimes just to ward off a fight.

The innkeeper glanced up as Órlaith approached. He was a tall, burly man, with a scruffy beard and bald head. He looked her over, and said nothing.

"Hello," Órlaith began. "I was wondering - do you know who'd know about the best person to sell a horse to around here?"

The innkeeper hummed.

"Depends," he said after a moment. "It's those two you came in on, to be right? And I'll suppose you don't want to be selling them to just anyone, either. The lass said you'd paid for extra for them."

Órlaith nodded, and the innkeeper hummed again.

"Right, then. You'll be after someone who looks after their animals, and does it well, I'll suppose. And someone who'll know to treat a caravan horse right, to be sure." He raised an eyebrow at Órlaith. "Ah, don't look so shocked, girl. I know a caravan horse when I see one. Might have been a while since it came along through here, but I travelled enough myself as a youth, saw your caravan plenty. So long as it is your caravan, that is. And so long as they are your horses."

"They are," Órlaith said firmly. "I didn't steal them, if that's what you're asking." She swallowed, debated whether to tell him - but he still looked suspicious. "I - the caravan is gone, now. Any of us that are left have scattered. It was burned."

The innkeeper sighed, a great whoosh of air.

"Well, that's a shame all right," he said. "As I told you, I remember plenty of times I saw it, always good people there. Heard a rumour or three, I'll admit, but hadn't quite believed it. Still, makes sense of a few other things I've been hearing lately." He shook his head. "And still, you're wanting to sell them on? How's that then?"

How much should she tell him? How easily would he guess Órlaith and Leolin's plans? Órlaith had no idea if the innkeeper might have heard a rumour about what might be out there in the wilderness. They should have thought of an excuse earlier.

"We're going into the wilderness," she said eventually, deciding to go with a little of the truth - but not too much. "I want to know what's out there - like you said, the caravan doesn't ever come here, so I don't know what's beyond this village. I always wanted to see it, just... I didn't think it would be this soon." It was all true; Órlaith had dreamt of exploring the wilderness one day, of spending some time travelling alone or perhaps with a companion or two. She'd planned to do that in a few years' time, though, maybe not even for another decade. Certainly not this soon.

The innkeeper nodded slowly. "No, you wouldn't want to be taking horses out there, sure enough. Not even caravan horses. Though, supposedly there's some group of travellers out in the wilderness somewhere with their own horses, or something like them. Travelling all the time, somehow the animals are used to it." He shrugged. "Least, that's a rumour I've heard. Most of the ones who've told me that had a few drinks too many, though."

Órlaith tilted her head to one side, curious despite knowing she needed to steer the conversation back towards her original question.

"Travellers?" she asked. "What are they like? I've never heard about anything in the wilderness."

The innkeeper snorted. "What are they like? Well, they don't exist, most likely. Easy enough for someone to think they've seen something out there, then it turns out it's a mirage or some spirit or another trying to lure you off a cliff. If someone wants to see a person out there, then that's what they'll see if they get desperate enough, never mind whether there is one or not."

Órlaith bit her lip. That... didn't exactly sound very positive, given that she and Leolin were going to be looking for something that was supposed to be a myth anyway. If they saw a mirage, would they even know?

Something else had caught her attention, though.

"A spirit?" she asked. "Do people believe in those here?"

The innkeeper shrugged, half-turning away to prod at something under the counter.

"Believe, don't believe, doesn't seem to make any difference," he said. "All anyone knows is, there's something out there in those wilds. Whatever it is, we don't tend to see it round these parts. Sticks to the wilderness, and all of us are safer that way. Still, too many stories out there to discount anything, you ask me. Too many people see the same thing, or close to it. And too far apart, as well - you'll get someone wandering in here with a story, then six months later someone shows up with the same tale. Got to be something out there causing it, whatever it is." He shook his head. "Bad to talk about it, though. Don't tend to see it round these parts, don't want to see it round these parts, and the surest way to get anything's attention is to talk about it. You asked about selling the horses - Morvi down the other end of town, she treats her animals right, keeps 'em right up til it'd be cruel to let them live on any longer. Best to speak to her about it." The rain hammering on the roof intensified, and he grimaced. "Maybe not til the rain's settled, though."

"Do you know when that will be?" Órlaith asked, pushing aside her excitement about the so-called spirits.

The innkeeper shrugged.

"Who's to say, who's to say," he said. "Could be early as this afternoon, could keep going for weeks. Way this one's been building up over the mountains, I'd say it'll be a longer one. Though I'm not a weatherwatcher, mind, just someone who's lived here most my life and got to know the patterns. There's a weatherwatcher passes through every now and again, but not right now. Spends the summer out in one of the cities earning a pretty penny forecasting for the farmlands."

Órlaith nodded. Weatherwatchers, those whose magic gave them an affinity towards understanding the currents of the weather, were in high demand in industries affected by weather changes - which was most of them, really. Farming especially, particularly if the weatherwatcher could adjust things a little as well as just predicting. That was very rare, though - mostly weatherwatchers just gave warnings, early enough to mitigate the worst of weather extremes.

"How long's a longer one, though?" she asked. "Sorry, I know you're busy."

That drew a snort from the innkeeper, and he gestured broadly at the room. "This look busy to you, girl? No, you come down here to chatter in the evenings or the lunch hour and you'd not get a word out of me. This, though, this is quiet. Gives me something to do, keeps me busy, talking to outsiders. Told you I travelled, didn't I? Whole point of that was wanting a good tale or two to tell."

Órlaith ended up spending most of the morning talking to the innkeeper - he'd been understating it when he said he had a tale or two to tell. They swapped stories of travel, compared the places they'd both been, talked about the places they'd like to visit - far-off countries, different continents, all the things that were said to be beyond the wilderness. Eventually, people began to trickle in for lunch, all of them sopping wet, and the innkeeper shooed her off with a couple of bowls of soup for herself and Leolin.

Once they'd eaten, Órlaith told Leolin what she'd learned.

"It has to be the City," she said, leaning forward and narrowly missing dipping her hair into the remnants of her soup. Leolin wordlessly slid the bowl out of the way. "The spirits, the strange things people report - it makes sense. Some of it might not be, people do get confused and see things that aren't there when they're tired or dehydrated or hungry, but so many people saying the same thing..."

"Why?" Leolin asked. "Wouldn't they just stay hidden? If they're powerful enough to hide the City itself, then why not hide when they leave it too? Why leave the City at all?"

"To keep it hidden," Órlaith said simply. "If the wilderness is just a wilderness, then eventually somebody's going to try and get through it, and succeed. But if they have people there redirecting anyone who gets too close, then it's easier to keep the City hidden. It puts people off going into the wilderness - some people, anyway. And it means that if anyone did see anything strange, then they'll just get ignored - it's just spirits or they're seeing things. Nobody would seriously believe that there might be a city there, or spellweavers. It's a perfect disguise."

Leolin nodded slowly. "That makes sense," he said. "How are we going to avoid that, then?"

Órlaith paused. She hadn't thought of that. She hadn't really thought beyond knowing that the spirits must be some kind of guard for the City, honestly.

"Show them, maybe?" she said, shrugging. "I'm not sure. But people have to find it somehow. I think we have to cross that bridge when we come to it."

"We have plenty of time to work it out, I suppose," Leolin said. "If the innkeeper is right, and the storm lasts for a while. He really said it could last for weeks?"

"Maybe. It might not, but..." Órlaith looked to the window, where the rain still battered down outside. Maybe they should close the shutters, but the rain didn't seem to be getting inside, and it wasn't cold. There was even a little ledge above the window, rain running down off it, so maybe the window was even meant to be left open in storms.

Leolin sighed. "At least we're indoors and dry."

---

Two hours later, they were no longer indoors or dry.

"I take it back," Órlaith shouted over the wind, then spluttered as she got a mouthful of rain. "I take it back, I hope I did hurt the bastard."

One day. That was all they'd wanted. One day, safe and dry, to recover from their frantic journey and get the horses settled comfortably with their new owner.

Instead, Órlaith had gone downstairs to return the bowls to the innkeeper. Just as she turned to go back up, the door had opened.

Gwydion stood there, dripping water all over the floor.

They locked eyes, just for a moment. Then Órlaith bolted.

Now here they were, struggling through a storm that had only worsened since the morning, horses left behind in the inn's stables and with barely enough supplies to last a week. If they weren't already soaked through, that was.

"We can't -" Leolin coughed, a harsh sound that rattled in his chest even over the sound of the rain. It had only been two hours of rain, and yet it already seemed to be affecting him badly. "We can't keep on like this, we have to find shelter!"

Órlaith gritted her teeth and nodded. It was easy to say, far harder to actually do.

They'd fled into the wilderness. What other choice did they have? Any other direction, and Gwydion could follow them - they didn't have time to tack up the horses, not when he had been right there in the inn. But with any luck, Gwydion wouldn't try bringing a horse into the wilderness, so he'd be stuck at the same slow pace as them. Maybe, if they were lucky, he wouldn't even bother trying to follow them whilst the rain was still pouring.

The sky flickered bright white, thunder rolling a moment after, and Leolin flinched. Órlaith bit out a curse.

This wasn't safe. Even in a normal storm, you were meant to stay inside, somewhere safe and away from trees that might fall or catch fire if they were struck by lightning, somewhere where you weren't the tallest points on an open field. The gorse scratched against her legs, only knee-high here - if another bolt struck, she and Leolin could be the fastest routes to the earth.

And this wasn't a normal storm, either. Órlaith didn't know if it was the strange weather patterns of the valley and mountains, or if it was something to do with the City, or something else entirely. But there was a terrible energy to the storm, and it throbbed in her bones with every flash of lightning or roll of thunder. Part of her was afraid, sensing that power; and part of her, more terrifying than the storm itself, wanted the power. That part of her knew it could take the power, channel it, use it for great things - or terrible things.

That part of her was wrong, because trying to channel a storm, much less a storm as unnatural as that, was a fast-track route to burning yourself out and dying. Still, the power of it tugged insistently against her awareness. She didn't know if Leolin felt the same thing, but from the look on his face every time the thunder and lightning rattled through the sky, it was reaching out for him as well.

They had to get out of the storm. But if the innkeeper had been right about how long it might last...

By the time Órlaith spotted the cave, she was shivering despite it being summer. The rain, the wind, and being soaked through had sapped all the warmth out of her. Leolin was the same, face drawn and tight, barely able to stop his teeth chattering.

They'd gotten past the rolling fields of gorse, and ended up somewhere that looked more like the mountainous region the village had lain in. And it was then that Órlaith saw it - the faintest shadow against the side of a mountain, that only resolved itself into a cave at a second glance.

"There," she rasped, and called again, louder, "There!" She pointed at the cave, and started stumbling towards it, Leolin following.

Oh, how Órlaith hoped the cave wasn't already inhabited by a bear. Or anything else.

There was no bear. At least, not that Órlaith could see - the cave was deeper than she'd thought, darkness stretching back into the belly of the mountain. But she'd gone far enough back that any animal living in the cave should have been disturbed, and nothing had leapt at her, so it was safe enough for now.

Both of them slumped against the wall of the cave, and for a few minutes both of them were shaking too badly to do anything else.

Eventually, Órlaith managed to stir herself. She knew the rules - if you were wet, cold, or both, you couldn't rest until you'd changed that. Not if you wanted to wake up again.

There was no wood to be found, nothing to burn. She drew on as little power as she could, careful to avoid pulling anything from outside herself - the storm was still taunting her, calling her. Within a few minutes, they had a little fire on the floor of the cave. Magefire didn't normally give off much heat, if any - the energy tended to go towards light. But Órlaith had pushed the energy towards heat, so it was dimmer than a real fire might be, but far warmer.

"Strip," she told Leolin, and he stared at her blankly. Órlaith flushed.

"It's to warm up," she explained hastily, ignoring the way her cheeks burned. "The wet clothes aren't going to dry if you're still wearing them, and they'll leach heat away from you. I don't know if we have any dry blankets left, but I'll look in a minute -"

"I can dry them," Leolin said, digging around in one of the packs with one hand, even as he started pulling off his outer layers.

A little while later, both of them were huddled close to the fire, wrapped in blankets that Leolin had managed to dry. It wasn't as warm as Órlaith would have liked, but neither of them were shivering any more, and it was better than before.

"I hope the map's dry," Leolin said eventually, staring into the fire.

Órlaith grimaced. "I had it wrapped up under some of the waterskins, so hopefully. If it isn't..." She shook her head. "There's not really much we can do about it, if it's wet. Try to dry it, maybe, but I don't know how well that would work. Especially if the ink's run." She brightened. "Oh, but maybe the magic from the book protected it somehow? Aneirin said - he said that the magic seemed to be preserving the book, didn't he?"

"We can find out later," Leolin said quietly. He looked and sounded exhausted. He wasn't coughing any more, at least - hopefully it had just been a reaction to the weather, rather than anything more serious. Órlaith had known a few people like that, whose lungs struggled in the cold or damp, or worse with both.

"We should look now," she disagreed, as gently as she could. "If it's wet, we might be able to salvage it if we get it out now. But if we left it til morning, then it would probably be ruined." More like it definitely would be ruined, if it didn't have any magical protection on it. Paper didn't like being wet, and nor did ink once it had dried. Órlaith had seen books recovered from floods before, in the library when she was younger. She'd watched the scholars piecing them together with painstaking care, peeling apart sodden pages only to swear when the page ripped at the slightest touch.

Leolin made a non-committal sound. Órlaith reached over and searched the pack for the map - when her fingers caught on it, she blinked.

"It's dry," she said in disbelief, pulling it out of the bag. "Completely dry."

Everything else in the bag was wet through. Nothing had escaped the storm. Except the map, which was still bone dry, just as it had been when they'd put it in the bag.

"It really was protected, then," Leolin murmured, shaking his head. "That's good."

"Rest," Órlaith told him, tucking the map away. "I'll take the first watch."

It was a sign of Leolin's exhaustion that he didn't even try to argue with her about it.

---

The next morning - well, when Leolin shook her gently awake, Órlaith wasn't even sure it was morning.

"Still storming," Leolin said, tipping his head towards the entrance of the cave. "And there's no sign of it letting up."

"At least nobody should try to follow us through this," Órlaith said, sighing. She winced as she sat up - there was a lump of rock on the floor that had been jutting into her spine all night, by the feel of it. Somehow she'd slept straight through it.

"That's what we thought before," Leolin muttered. "Still ended up with Gwydion finding us."

"If he finds us here, we'll fight," Órlaith said. "We can't try and escape through that again." She looked down at her hands. "I... whilst that storm's out there... I could do it again. What I did before."

"You feel it too?" Leolin watched her intently. "The power. How easy it would be to use, if you needed to."

"It wouldn't be easy," Órlaith said. "Or, no - it would be. But that's the dangerous part. It'd be too easy to take too much. You'd burn yourself out in seconds, nobody can contain a power like that."

"You wouldn't need to contain it, though. Only channel it," Leolin said. "And if you had a good enough reason..."

Órlaith remembered abruptly who she was dealing with.

Órlaith had grown up being warned off power like that. It came with a price, she'd been told - you couldn't have something for nothing, not in nature. Humans might give freely, but never nature. Take too much, and you'd pay back more than you had, no matter how smart or strong you thought you were.

Leolin... had he ever been told that? Growing up with magehunters, trained by them to kill. Had he ever been taught to accept when something would be too much, when power wasn't worth it?

"It would kill you," she repeated. "It's - have you ever seen a tree struck by lightning?" When Leolin nodded, she went on, "It would be like that. You as the tree, and the power as the lightning. The human body can't take that kind of power. Not even a spellweaver could handle it. You saw what happened when I pushed myself too far, and that wasn't even that much power. You can channel more if you train, yes, but there's a limit. Nature won't give you anything for free. Somebody has to pay the price."

Leolin stared at her.

"I understand," he said eventually, looking away. "Still. It would be incredible, wouldn't it? I won't do it, not now you've told me what would happen. But if you could. The things you could do."

Órlaith couldn't help but nod. The power in that storm, the power that even now nudged at the back of her mind... It could devastate cities, or it could restore barren lands. It could raze whole armies, or it could heal a plague. It could bring disaster and ruin, or it could bring healing and hope.

That was what was so seductive about it. And that was what made it so dangerous.

"We should see if we can go further into the cave," she said, deciding to change the subject. There was something about Leolin's expression that she didn't like - something hungry, despite what she'd told him. "Last night, I only went far enough to see if there were any animals, and I didn't take a light with me. There's nothing else we can do until the storm calms, so we might as well explore, if we can do it safely."

They ate sparingly - the rain had seeped into what supplies they'd managed to bring, and all of the dried non-perishables were soggy and unpleasant. They wouldn't last - but that would have to be a problem for later, when the storm settled. They had no way to find more food now.

Once they'd finished their meagre breakfast, both of them lit magelights. Órlaith wreathed the light around her hand, and after a quick glance, Leolin did the same. Then they made their way deeper into the cave.

Órlaith led the way, Leolin falling behind her once the cave narrowed too much for them to comfortably walk side-by-side. Her heart jumped a little at that - she had heard stories of cavers becoming trapped, of underground tunnels that turned too narrow to escape from. But the cave didn't narrow any further; it stayed wide enough for Órlaith to walk comfortably. At least the narrowness meant that nothing was likely to leap out at them. There was no way a bear would fit down here.

There didn't seem to be anything else there, either. Just endless stone walls.

Stone walls that, now Órlaith thought about it, were strangely smooth.

She frowned, running the palm of her free hand along the stone. Where it should have been uneven and jagged, it was flat in a way that spoke of deliberate sanding. Rock didn't get that way on its own.

Which meant there were two options. One, the more likely option, was that this tunnel had been made by the flow of water. If it had been carved a long time ago, then that was fine - but if it flooded regularly, then that could mean the cave wasn't so safe after all. Especially with how much it had been raining, and how the rain seemed set to continue.

But the second option... It was unlikely. Órlaith knew that.

Still, she couldn't shake the hope that someone had made this tunnel.

And that hope only grew stronger when she saw a faint flicker of light in front of them.

"What's that?" Leolin's voice was hushed; so was Órlaith's when she replied. It felt wrong, somehow, to break the silence of the tunnel.

"I don't know," she murmured. "But I have a feeling..."

She sped up, walking as fast as she could without stumbling - though the ground was smooth as well. The light grew brighter and brighter, until she extinguished the magelight wreathed around her hand, blinking away spots from her eyes.

Finally, she reached the end of the tunnel. It was still too bright to see what lay beyond. Órlaith barely hesitated before taking a step out of the tunnel, into the light.

And then she froze.

"Oh," Órlaith breathed.

"What?" Leolin demanded sharply, stuck behind her. "Órlaith, what is it?"

Wordlessly, Órlaith stepped aside. Leolin took one step out of the tunnel and froze, just as Órlaith had.

"Oh," he whispered. "Oh."

They were on a plateau, far above the ground below. It was big enough that a dozen or so people could have stood comfortably on it, and opposite the tunnel was a long bridge, leading away into the distance. The bridge was wide, with elegant, colourful filigree twining together to make the railings and the floor, glittering in the sunlight.

Because somehow, there was sunlight here. It was as though they'd stepped into a different world - and perhaps they had.

The bridge hung over a huge valley, lush green slopes dotted with bright flowers stretching out to either side, and a glittering blue river snaking lazily through the centre. There were no farmhouses or huts in the valley, and no sign of any animals or birds, either. Órlaith wasn't sure if it was truly as empty as it seemed, or if they were simply too high up to see anything. Distance could play tricks on the eye, after all. And she was truly more interested in what lay at the opposite end of the bridge.

Walls. Walls that somehow managed to look elegant as well as fortified, pure white walls that looked as though they could hold against any attack. Towers and spires stretching up towards the cloudless sky, bright against the stark blue. Órlaith imagined that she could see people there, looking out from balconies or going about their business, even though it was too far away to make out anything but the City itself.

"It's real," Leolin said. "We found the City."