seymoure | "Heart of the Crown" Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Above the Clouds

The group followed their new scout for an hour before anyone approached him to talk about where they were going.

They knew he spoke, but he had not addressed anyone in the party at any time during the walk.

It fell to Slip to talk to Smiga.

“So, how far is it till we get to the cave?” the small man asked in his most conversational tone.

“Till we get there,” was the answer, with no intonation whatsoever.

“Soon?” Slip pried, fearing he had not been understood.

“What is soon? Death can be soon, but hope not,” came the answer without a hint of internal irony.

“Have you been to this cave before?” Cela ventured.

“When was small,” the scurrying thing said, “but know the way.”

That ended all talking for another hour.

Then Smiga stopped walking and looked at them.

“Cliffs,” he informed them.

Indeed it appeared that all the land that had been swaying beneath them was about to give way. An end line, as straight as though it had been cut by a butcher’s knife, loomed ahead.

Beyond that severe rift in the landscape there was nothing to see.

When Sandor walked to the edge he looked down, and past a drop that should measure old growth trees’ height, was a dense bank of clouds.

Nothing was visible beneath that sheet of white.

Now and then, beneath a few of the darker clouds, lightning was slightly visible. But all the coverlet of the world below was so far away it was hard to see anything but a slight spark.

The members of the party looked from one to the other in perplexity.

Slip moved to Smiga and looked deep into his cat-like eyes.

“What do we do now?”

With only the slightest hint of something going inside his head, Smiga smiled.

“Now,” he said, “we jump.”

A stunned silence followed.

“Now we jump,” Smiga repeated, this time with a bit more emphasis.

“I don’t think so,” Sandor said, pulling the child/bundle a bit closer to his chest.

“Only way to get to the cave,” Smiga explained, as if talking to children.

Slip smirked.

“You go fir . . .” he began.

Smiga was silently dropping like a stone into the cloudbank below.

If Slip’s mouth hadn’t already been open to speak, it would have dropped in absolute amazement.

A blue spark jumped between Cela of Tar’s fingers.

Hawk gritted his teeth and squinted his eyes.

Sandor held the blue bundle out and looked at it with an emotional discomfort that was palpable.

The wind whistled past them all.