by Tonke Dragt
Suddenly Piak stopped. “This isn’t going to work!” he shouted back at Tiuri. “It’d be dangerous to continue. The path is even narrower and steeper further on and it’ll be really dark soon.”
“So what should we do?” Tiuri yelled back at him.
“We have to go back,” replied Piak. “We can’t stay here; it’s too cold and exposed. There’s a small cave by the third crag. We can shelter there. It’s not the best of places, but we’ll be able to cope for a night.”
They started the walk back. Walking downhill proved to be even trickier than climbing upwards and the wind was against them now, so the blizzard was blinding. They made very slow progress, but they didn’t dare to hurry, even though it was almost completely dark by that point. It was unlikely that they could have managed to walk any faster anyway. They took it in turns to lead and had to keep stopping to help each other. Neither of them said a word, until Piak gasped, “We’re almost there! Do you remember this place?”
“I can hardly see anything,” said Tiuri. “And it all looks the same!”
They continued the descent. I can’t keep this up for much longer, thought Tiuri. I’m going to collapse. But then he recognized something. “Hey, Piak. Isn’t that the third crag?”
“Yes!” shouted Piak. “Nearly there.”
They reached their destination just in time. The cave was a very small one and the two of them could just squeeze in there, protected from the wind, but not the cold. They opened their bags and, shivering, wrapped their blankets around themselves.
“Well, then,” said Piak, “here we are. But we mustn’t fall asleep. We’d get too cold. We need to stand up and walk about once every so often, and stamp our feet. And just keep moving. How are you feeling, Tiuri?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” he replied. “All things considered.”
“Is your arm bothering you?”
“A little.”
“I bet that means a lot,” said Piak. “Wrap yourself up as well as you can. Wear your habit on top of the sheepskin and bundle yourself up in your blanket. There’s nothing we can do about it now. We just have to concentrate on getting through the night. Let’s make sure we have plenty to eat. That always helps. It’s a shame we’ve got nothing to make a fire with,” he added a while later. “But I think we’d have trouble getting a fire started in this weather, let alone keeping it going. You must be wondering what you’ve got yourself into, eh?”
“There’s no way we could have seen this weather coming though, is there?” said Tiuri, shouting to make himself heard above the noise of the storm.
“No, I’ve only once seen this kind of weather at this time of year – and that was higher up! Believe it or not, I really didn’t see this coming this morning. But later, I started to worry that it might snow, which is why I was in such a hurry. It would have been better if I’d looked for shelter for the night immediately after we crossed the glacier.”
“You weren’t to know it would get this bad,” said Tiuri.
“No, I wasn’t expecting it at all. But I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize,” Tiuri replied. “You did what you thought was right.” His teeth were chattering.
“Come on,” said Piak. “We need to keep moving. Here, let’s clap our hands. Like this.” He started clapping and chanting a song, at the top of his voice:
In the mighty mountains, in the middle of the night,
A crashing and a flashing filled my heart with fright.
What a fearful shaking!
What a dreadful sound!
The spirits of the mountain were hurling rocks around!
The wind howled about the crags and in the distance they heard the rumble of thunder or of rolling boulders. Tiuri and Piak ate some food and huddled close together, trying desperately not to fall asleep.
It was a long night. Sometimes they stood up and cautiously walked up and down along the narrow ledge outside the cave, but the cold soon drove them back to their shelter. They sat up straight and tried to stamp their feet and rubbed each other’s hands.
They kept themselves awake by telling stories. Tiuri told Piak about his adventures in the forest and at Castle Mistrinaut and, when he’d run out of things to say about that, he told Piak about Castle Tehuri, the City of Dagonaut and the king’s knights. He told Piak all of their names and described their shields and their banners.
Piak told Tiuri about the village where he was born, about the mountains and the hermit, and he sang all of the songs he knew. As the night passed, they became too tired to talk, so they sat in silence for long intervals. Sometimes, sleep got the better of them and they drowsed off, until one of them woke with a start and gave the other a shake.
But during the course of the night the wind slowly dropped and the snow stopped. And finally, finally, the pale light of dawn crested the horizon.
6 A WELCOME SIGHT
“What I could really do with now is a bowl of hot bean soup,” said Piak, as they nibbled on their hard bread. “But as there’s none available, I shall just put in an order for plenty of sunshine instead.”
Tiuri had come to admire his travelling companion’s endless optimism and determination. But when he looked at Piak, he could see that the long, hard night had taken its toll. Piak’s tanned face looked pale and grey and his lips were blue. Tiuri wondered how they were going to manage what Piak had said was the most difficult part of the journey. It had stopped snowing, but the path they had to follow was covered in snow and looked far from inviting. The sun was still low in the sky and they could feel little of its warmth. Tiuri thought it would take nothing less than a blazing fire now to drive the cold from his bones. But still, before long, he was packed and ready to go.
“How does your arm feel?” asked Piak.
“Oh, it’s much better,” Tiuri replied. He was exaggerating, but it really wasn’t quite as painful as it had been.
“Good,” said Piak. “Let’s get going. But walk slowly. It’ll be slippery underfoot.”
For the second time, they made their way along the path beside the crags. Piak was right; it certainly was slippery. It was so cold and their frozen limbs were little use when it came to scrambling over the perilous rocks. What they had been unable to see clearly the previous day now served as a constant warning: deep ravines and chasms that seemed bottomless. The landscape around them was white and black and grey: the white of the snow and ice, the black of the rocks and crags, and the greys of the skies and distant mountain slopes. For a long time, they clambered on in silence, because they didn’t have enough energy to speak. And then, after what seemed like hours, Piak announced, “This is the seventh crag. We need to climb up and onto the other side. It’s the point I wanted to reach last night. There’s a good place to shelter.”
The climb up and over the seventh crag was the hardest of all. When they finally reached the top, everything was dancing before Tiuri’s eyes and he was panting for breath. But Piak wasn’t in much better shape. Still they pressed on, down the other side and then on downhill to a place where they would be less exposed. Then they sat down and rested for a while. Tiuri realized that he no longer felt quite as cold, but it was some time before he could pay much attention to their surroundings. To their right was a snow-covered ridge and, up above it, the sky was bright and blue. They still had some way to go before they would reach that point of the journey, but Piak said once they had climbed the ridge they would be at the pass and would be able to see the Kingdom of Unauwen. Tiuri gazed at the mountain to the right of the pass, with the conical peak that he had noticed before.
“I’ve been up on top of that one,” said Piak. “But I wouldn’t much like to be up there now,” he added with a grimace. Then he stood up. “Shall we rest later in the sheltered spot I mentioned?” he suggested. “It’ll be nicer there than here.”
At the foot of the seventh crag was a cave that was much larger and deeper than the one where they’d spent the previous night. They had to scramble over piles of rocks and stone
s to reach the entrance.
“Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing, after all,” said Piak to himself.
“What?” asked Tiuri.
“That the weather was so bad and we didn’t manage to get here last night. These stones weren’t here last time I came. It’s quite possible that they fell down here last night. I wouldn’t want a stone like that to fall on my head. Would you? But wait until you see what I’ve got here!”
Piak disappeared into the darkness at the back of the cave and emerged with an armful of branches. “What do you say to that?” he said triumphantly. “My supplies! I brought them here from Filamen last month. They’re not even all that damp.”
“That’s wonderful!” said Tiuri.
“Now let’s light a fire,” said Piak. “I’m not as cold as I was this morning, but I’d like to be glowing with warmth before we set off again. And we’re going to have some toast and I’m going to heat up some food in the ashes.”
Piak was as good as his word, and by the time they set off again they were in a much better frame of mind and ready to resume their journey. The sun helped by shining more brightly, which made the last big climb almost enjoyable. By the time they reached the top, they were actually feeling warm. But, at that moment, neither of them was thinking too much about the cold or the heat. The Kingdom of Unauwen was in sight!
Tiuri gave a sigh. There, ahead of him, was his destination. He could see little more than one mountain ridge after another, vanishing into the mists, and could only guess at the flat land that lay beyond. They still had a long way to go; they had covered only half of the distance over the mountains.
“The air’s a little hazy,” said Piak. “And there’s actually a better view later on, even though we’ll be lower down. But just take a look around.”
Tiuri realized what a beautiful spot they were standing in. They were surrounded by snow-covered mountain slopes and summits, which glowed in the glorious sunlight.
“Come on,” said Piak, “I don’t want to get cold again and that’s what’s going to happen if we stay here for much longer. And we’ve got so much time to make up.”
Tiuri found the descent tricky. Up on the pass he had felt as though their difficulties were behind them, but the landscape here was still wild and barren. It was, however, much less cold, now that they could no longer feel the wind from the east. After a while, the craggy landscape around them blocked their view of the Kingdom of Unauwen.
The day grew longer and, as the sun in the west transformed the mountain tops into orange flames, Tiuri and Piak went looking for a place to sleep and found one beside a stream in a shallow valley. They were both too tired to eat much, but Piak took some time to treat Tiuri’s arm with the ointment from Menaures’s bottle. Then they lay down and fell fast asleep.
Morning came, bright and cold, but later in the day it warmed up. Piak pointed out a small, flattish peak to Tiuri and said, “That’s my lookout tower. How about climbing up there and taking a quick look? It’s not much of a detour. We’ll be passing close by.”
Tiuri didn’t want to disappoint Piak and, when he was standing up on the peak, he didn’t regret the short climb. Piak’s lookout tower offered a fine view over the land to the west, and the clear weather meant they could see a long way. They saw fields and meadows and forests, and Dangria, like a city from a fairy tale, and small dots some way beyond the city that were probably villages, and a glistening ribbon that might be the Rainbow River. It seemed like a fantastically beautiful place to Tiuri and he thought how much he’d like to be a knight-errant, so that he could constantly travel to strange and distant lands and see new sights.
“How far is it from here to the foot of the mountains?” he wondered out loud.
“Shouldn’t take us too long to get down there,” said Piak. “Maybe two and a half days. I’ve never been far beyond Filamen, and we’ll be there tomorrow evening.”
So in two and a half days’ time, I’ll have to say goodbye to Piak, thought Tiuri. He didn’t like that prospect. He was going to miss his companion. In fact, he was going to miss him more than Sir Ristridin and his company. He could be more himself with Piak and they had become good friends. And Piak’s cheerful nature kept Tiuri’s fears at bay.
“Is something wrong?” asked Piak.
“No,” said Tiuri. “Why do you ask?”
“You look so terribly serious. You’re not thinking about spending the night in Filamen, are you?”
“Why? Oh yes… No, we’d better not.”
“That’s right,” said Piak. “We need to travel without leaving any trail. We’re sure to be noticed in a place as small as Filamen. But I have another idea. An uncle and aunt of mine live up in the hills above Filamen. They’re called Taki and Ilia, and they’re both really nice. We can go there. They’ll keep our visit a secret if I ask them to. And they’ll feed us too. No one can cook like my aunt.”
Tiuri smiled. “That does sound appealing,” he said.
“Yes, and there’s no need to worry. They won’t say anything, and they live all on their own up there. Menaures knows them too. He sometimes used to visit them. So what do you think?”
“Lead the way,” said Tiuri.
“Let’s be quick about it, then,” said Piak. “Maybe we can get there before dark.”
The rest of the journey downhill went very quickly. Piak walked in front most of the way, to set the pace. Actually, it was more like falling forwards than walking, as he jumped from one rock to the next. Tiuri kept up with Piak, even though he felt a shooting pain in his arm with every step. By the afternoon, the landscape had become calmer and gentler and then they heard the tinkling of bells.
“Uncle Taki’s sheep,” said Piak.
They soon found the animals, which were grazing in a small meadow. When the sheep saw Tiuri and Piak, they ran up and started licking them.
“Hey, hey,” said Piak. “Don’t eat us!”
A man came walking from the other side of the meadow. “Well, look who’s here!” he called. “It’s our Piak!”
Piak greeted his uncle warmly and introduced him to Tiuri.
“This is my friend Martin,” he said. “We were just on our way to see you.”
Taki was a young man and he looked strong; his friendly face was just as brown as Piak’s, but his hair was so bleached by the sun that it was more like straw. He took a good look at Tiuri and Piak and said, “You must be tired. Did you have bad weather up there?”
“We did indeed,” said Piak. “Didn’t you get any of it down here?”
“No, but we saw a nasty-looking sky over the mountains to the east and we heard the rumble of shifting stones.” Taki chased the sheep away and continued, “But you can tell me all about it later. Let’s get down to the house first, boys! I tell you what, I’ll go ahead and tell Ilia to get some food on the fire.”
Piak thought that sounded like an excellent plan, but he stopped his uncle for a moment and said in a hushed voice, “One more thing, Uncle Taki. Our visit has to remain a secret. I can’t tell you why, but no one must know that we’re here.”
Taki showed no surprise. “That’s fine by me,” he said. “We have no other visitors and we lead a lonely life up here. So it’ll be easy enough to do as you ask. See you down at the house.” Then Taki strode off down a narrow track, with Piak and Tiuri following him more slowly.
“It’s about another hour’s walk from here,” said Piak.
Taki ran on ahead and soon disappeared into a pinewood and out of their sight.
It was almost dark by the time they reached Taki’s house, a wooden cabin with an adjoining barn. Light streamed from the windows and they could see the silhouette of a woman standing in the doorway. A dog came running towards them, barking, and it jumped up at Piak, wagging its tail.
“Hello, lad,” Piak said to the dog. “How are you doing?”
“Welcome, boys!” called the woman. “Come on in and make yourselves at home.”
7 TAKI AND ILIA
Piak’s aunt Ilia was small and dark-haired, with a sweet, rosy face. She kissed Piak on both cheeks and warmly greeted Tiuri.
The cabin had only one room, which was small and simple, but Tiuri had never seen a cosier home. Two candles shone on a gleaming polished table, which was laid with wooden bowls of bread, cheese and fruit, and mugs of milk. A fire was burning in the hearth and water bubbled away in the large kettle hanging above it.
Taki came in through the opposite door, which connected the cabin to the barn. “Just drop your things on the floor,” he said, “and pull off your boots. Then come with me into the barn. Your hunger will have to wait for a little longer.” He picked up the kettle from the fire and walked ahead of them.
In the barn, a half-filled tub was waiting. Taki added the contents of the kettle. “There you go,” he said, “now it should be warm enough. Get undressed and jump right in. There’s nothing quite like a warm bath.”
Tiuri and Piak did as they were told. Taki left them alone and closed the door as he left. A little later, Ilia came in and left them a couple of towels.
“I’ll take your clothes,” she said. “I can brush them down for you and hang them out for a while. Here’s something to wear in the meantime.”
After their bath, Piak bandaged Tiuri’s wound again. “It’s healing nicely now,” he said, “which is just as well, because there’s not much ointment left in Menaures’s bottle.”
When they were ready, Tiuri and Piak headed back into the house, with damp hair and red cheeks. One was dressed in a long blue shirt and the other in a pair of patched red trousers, both of which belonged to Taki. Ilia was stirring the pot above the fire. Taki was sitting at the table and he invited them to join him.
“You can start eating,” said Ilia. “But leave some room for the bean soup.”
“Aunt Ilia!” said a delighted Piak. “You’ve actually made bean soup? Just what I wanted. But we won’t start eating until you’re sitting with us.”