Page 32 of Sightwitch
Thank the Sleeper I did not lose my lantern. Without it, I would be lost.
Though fans of luminescent foxfire glow at each intersection, the roughly hewn tunnels beyond are darker than I ever knew possible. Even on a moonless night, there are at least stars to guide you. The Bat, the Hound, the Iris—as reliable as Thread-family. But here, there is nothing. No Firewitched sconces, nor even a basic torch.
It is so quiet I can hear my own heartbeat. I can hear my ownblood,a rushing sound that pulses and booms. At first I found it unsettling; now I find it a strange sort of comfort. The topsy-turvy world of the mountain might make no sense, but at least my body has not betrayed me.
Yet.
The only other sound is the drip-drip of the hourglass and the Rook’s pattering wings whenever he leaves his roost upon my shoulder.
Twice, I have hit cave-ins that block the way and have been forced to turn back. Thrice, the Rook has taken flight off my shoulder to sweep down some blackened hole, only to croak mere moments later in a way that says, “No passage here.”
And once, a tremor rattled through the mountain, shaking loose so much dust and scree I was certain the tunnel was collapsing around me.
But it wasn’t, and the quake passed in an instant.
I am so grateful the Rook is with me. Without him, I would be lost.
Perhaps I might even be dead.
I don’t know.
I have prodded and poked at my memories of the lower Crypts. Illusions—surely they were all illusions. It is the only way that having the Sight might allow one to pass. Seeing and recognizing that something is not really there.
Or maybe it was all real, and those beasts are simply guardians of the Crypts, ready to attack any Sister who does not belong.
When I ask the Rook—in soft whispers, for everything in this place demands quiet, he only purrs and nudges his beak against my face.
LATER — 7 hours left to find Tanzi
The mountain has changed. No more slinking tunnels but a proper passage. Square and with a familiar motif running along the walls at shoulder height.
It’s the same design sewn along the sleeves of a clear-eyed Sister’s silver tunic. It’s the same design carved along the fountain of the Supplicant’s Sorrow, on the dolmen in the Grove, and around the rim of the scrying pool too.
I’ve seen it my whole life and read thousands of Memory Records, yet I still don’t know what this motif means or where it comes from.
As I walked, I ran my fingers along the grooves etched into the stone, and so preoccupied was I by the sudden structure, the clear marks of humanity, that I didn’t notice the gradually growing roar not until I felt it trembling through the rock.
Water. A lot of it.
“Is there a river?” I asked the Rook, and he ruffled his feathers in acknowledgment.
Sure enough, 213 steps later, I reached it. The water’s churn masked all other sounds and cut straight across my path, much too violent to cross. And also much too wide.
“Blighter,” I muttered, lifting the lantern higher and squinting. Far to my right, a waterfall crashed down, bursting from a hole in the rock tens of paces above.
Behind the waterfall stood the exit. Exactly like the square-shaped hall I’d just abandoned, the path forward continued precisely where I could not go.
For half a breath, defeat settled over me. A sense of hopelessness as icy as the water misting off the river. I had taken the only path forward, and now it seemed to end.
But I gritted my teeth, fingers tightening around the lantern, and cut right. Therehadto be a way across. The Summoned Sisters came this way, didn’t they?
Probably.
Maybe.
Either way, it was my only option forward.
“Help me?” I asked the Rook as I swung my lantern left, right, searching and searching.
