Bon Amba

 The path down the mountainside was as treacherous as Garret could imagine; there was a large amount of loose scree that regularly slipped underfoot and rattled off, pulled by gravity to the steppe below, and the path was little more than a goat-trail with large sections that needed to either jumped over or skirted around on tiptoe.  In an hour they’d barely progressed a kilometre and he suspected that they were barely a hundred metres lower than the cave they’d started off from.

His pack was weighing heavily on his shoulders but he stubbornly refused to think about it.  If he did he’d have to set it down and sort out what he really wanted to keep and that would upset Samara as she would resent the delay, think he should throw it all away, and then start shouting when he inevitably decided he wanted to keep all of it.  So he flexed his back muscled and gritted his teeth and trudged on after the other two.

Efimov was in the middle and seemed least bothered by the whole ordeal.  Garret found himself puzzling over that a little: they were headed to Blinton where the people had apparently disliked Efimov enough to want him dead and he didn’t seem too concerned.  Granted, he’d rotted their eyes out of their heads, which could be seen as making a point, but even so… Garret had been hounded by people before and hurt by names such a ghoul and graverobber (what, exactly, was the point at which grave robbery turned into archaeology and became respectable, after all?) and he doubted that he’d be as sanguine as Efimov seemingly was.

“What is Bon Amba?” said Samara suddenly.  She had apparently found a stretch of path clear of scree and long enough to consider talking instead of breathing heavily and wondering how to get past the next obstacle.

“Is magic system,” said Efimov easily.  “Rock ahead is rotten, watch footing please.”

Samara halted and stared at the path in front of them.  “Where?” she said after a moment.  She sounded as though she was getting angry again, but wasn’t quite there yet, and her shoulders were hunched up just a little.  Garret took the opportunity to set his pack down and sit on it.

“Slightly to your left,” said Efimov.  He edged forward a little and pointed so that his arm stretched past Samara and she could see the slightly darker patch of rock he was indicating.

“That?”  She shrugged and drew a dagger from her belt.  Kneeling down she reached forward and poked the rock experimentally.  “Nothing wrong with — oh shiiii—“

With a crack and a dull rumble the end of the path splintered into fist-sized rocks and cascaded down the mountainside, bouncing and throwing up clouds of yellowish dust.

“Not careful enough,” said Efimov.

Samara rounded on him, the dagger raised in the air above his head and the muscles of her biceps and triceps standing out like thick cords.  Her eyes were wide with anger and her lips had pulled back to reveal cat-like canines and sharp, flesh-tearing teeth.  Musk rose on the thin, cold air and Garret got off his pack and crouched behind it.

“Be keeping calm, please,” said Efimov as though she were pointing out a particularly nice area of scenery.  “Path is still crumbling.  You should come this way please.”

Garret peeked out from behind his pack and saw Samara hesitating, her arm jerking as she fought the urge to launch herself at Efimov and stab him to death.  When she lunged he was certain that she’d lost the internal battle and ducked back behind his pack, waiting for the screams and the spatter of hot blood.

There was a crash and another cloud of yellowish-brown dust surged over him, stinging his eyes and filling his mouth with an earthy-bitter taste.  He spat, trying to clear it and rubbed at his eyes though that made the stinging worse as the grit seemed to work its way further in.  It took him a good few minutes to finally be able to see again, and then, to his surprise, he found Samara disentangling herself from Efimov, the dagger dropped on the path behind him, and him helping her away from the new end of their path down the mountain, which was now a vertical drop.

“Thanks,” said Samara curtly.  Garret was well aware that that was as grateful as she got, and Efimov nodded as though not expecting even that.  There was a moment of silence and then, clearly forcing herself to speak, Samara said, “That could have been tricky… uh, more tricky to handle if you’d not spotted it.”  Her mouth clamped shut and her lips started turning white with the pressure she was applying.

“Bon Amba,” said Efimov.  He picked her dagger up and returned it to her; she refused to break her tight-lipped silence as she put it away.  “Is different kind of magic; not taught at Bogbones or Atul schools.”

“They teach every kind of magic at Bogbones,” said Samara.  Her cheeks reddened though as though she’d not meant to speak.

“No,” said Efimov.  “I do not believe all kinds of magics are yet known, so that is not possible.  And Bon Amba is not taught anywhere.  Is learned from studying the residues, is left-over magic from some other time.  Bon Amba will show you where the connections are missing or where they can be made.  But is dangerous, some of those connections were broken for the reason, and who knows what reason is any more?”

“Bon Amba makes connections?” asked Garret.  Efimov’s accent wasn’t usually a problem for him, but he didn’t feel like he was understanding what he was saying about this.

“No.  Bon Amba reveals connections.  People with magic can then use it to change those connections.”

“Could you have used it on the path?”

Efimov looked directly at him and Garret felt like a particularly stupid student in front of the teacher.

“I did,” said Efimov gently.  “That is how I was able to warn Samara.  I think you mean to ask, could I have used magic to stop the path disintegrating, after I used Bon Amba to find the problem?”

“Yes,” said Garret.  It sounded like what he should have asked, he thought.

“Yes,” said Efimov.  “If there had been more time.  But now the path is gone and there is nothing to connect.  We must find another way down.”