A Song of Sea and Flame by Ryan Carriere

Author:Ryan Carriere [Ryan Carriere]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ryan Carriere
Published: 2023-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

81

Deadman's Pass

“T here it is,” Ku-aya pointed ahead.

Sephonei gasped when she saw it. Taking her first look at the enormous black mountains, Sephonei realized the name didn’t do the place justice. The wall of rock stretched up well beyond the clouds and dropped almost vertically to the black ground below.

Each mountain extended to either side as far as the eye could see.

The only way through was Deadman’s Pass, a narrow gap cut through the mountain. The higher up the mountain, the narrower the gap became. If they continued flying at the same height, they wouldn’t fit through the Pass.

Ku-aya, realizing this at the same time as Sephonei, tightened her grip around Sephonei’s waist as she pointed down below, “Down there… the gap is easily wide enough for us to fly through. But we need to slow down, yaa… that blanket o’ fog down there is thicker than ole Toothless May’s stew down at the Greasy Gullet in the Commons.”

Sephonei’s stomach curdled at hearing the name. She hadn’t ever eaten at the Greasy Gullet, but she had heard enough horror stories from merchants to know never to eat there. Eating at the Greasy Gullet, according to her sources, meant one of two things: either you had an iron stomach, or you didn’t know any better and had accidentally stumbled in there thinking you were in for a treat, when in fact, you were in for a long night of suffering.

Toothless May ran the joint, if you could call throwing whatever she could get her hands on into one enormous cauldron, cooking it up, and serving it to her unlucky customers “running a business”. Her leathered berries, even though dry, were much more appetizing than anything at Toothless May’s.

As Sephonei guided Pery down towards the wider section of the opening, the uneasy feeling in her stomach only worsened—and it had nothing to do with the Greasy Gullet.

“Slow down, Pery, and take us a little lower,” Sephonei instructed.

As they descended, Abil, who sat behind Ku-aya, after a few adjustments of his eye scope attachment, said, “Stop bein’ so cautious. It looks like it’s clear ‘cept for the fog... I say we just fly through it. The faster we get through Deadman’s Pass, the better.”

Ku-aya, disagreeing with Abil, wrapped her arms tighter around Sephonei as they hit turbulence and instructed Sephonei, “Take us lower. I want to know what’s down there before rushin’ straight through.”

After several scary bumps and almost losing Ku-aya to one of them, Sephonei glanced around her, trying to guess at the time of day. Since they had left Con Ong and headed east, it had become increasingly dark and dreary, and not just because of nightfall. In this place, everything sucked at the light hungrily, suppressing and muting it to an almost non-existent state of nothingness. What wasn’t blackness was a dull, overcast gray, and Sephonei noticed that even her companions’ auras were dulled. “Everythin’ is so dark here… Is this the Land of Darkness?”

Ku-aya shook her head. “No, but we're getting close.

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