“The Sisters!� Vandien’s voice was muffled. He had pulled his hood up as far as it would go and held it mostly closed across his lower face. Ki looked up.
They loomed ahead over the trail. Soon the wagon would pass directly under them. As Vandien had said, they were no longer the two embracing women they had appeared several days ago from far down the mountainside. Now they were a slight outcropping of shiny black stone towering high over Ki’s head. The snow reached nearly to the base of them. A chill not of cold swept Ki as she looked up at them. They brooded above her, perfect in their endurance and vigilance, guarding their pass eternally. Watchfulness—that was the emotion they conjured in Ki now. None of the beauty and love she had glimpsed below shivered through her. She dreaded passing under their close scrutiny. She sensed the lightness of Vandien’s anxiety to be past them, to be going down the other side of the pass.
Ki started her team again. They had gone but a handful of paces before both horses stumbled. They recovered swiftly, but only by stepping high to get their front hooves onto a hidden ledge before them. Ki watched in some surprise as the grays struggled onto the higher ground, where the snow was shallower. The harness creaked with the unusual strain of having the team on a higher level than the wagon. Then the wheels hit with a jolt, jamming against the hidden ridge of ice under the snow. The team jerked back, nearly snapping the harness. Vandien clutched at the seat and Ki with a surprised yell.
“Why didn’t you warn me this part of the trail was uneven?� she snarled at him as she held in the confused team.
“In summer, the trail through this pass is smooth and flat as a causeway. I’ve no idea what we’ve struck.�
They looked at one another for a moment, then both climbed cautiously down from the wagon and waded forward through the snow. Ki bent down to sweep and dig snow away from before the wheels. Ice. Solid ice, a ridge of it, rose in the trail. Ki frowned down at it and scanned the cliff face above them, looking for some sign of a runoff that would explain the ice. There was none. But Vandien cursed from the other side of the team.
“Snow serpent!� He spat sourly. “It must have come up from the other side of the pass, then doubled back for some reason. Probably for the express purpose of leaving this ridge here to block us. The gods spit upon my destiny.�
Ki did not answer. She considered the obstacle. Even under the snow that had masked it, it was impressive. The step up the grays had taken was as high as Ki’s knee. The horses shifted uncomfortably in the harness that dragged back and down at them.
“We shall have to somehow chop a ramp in it, so the grays can pull the wagon up onto it.�
“And down the other side with a jolt!� Vandien added savagely. “This is the track of a big serpent, Ki. It has ruined the trail ahead of us. This rise of ice here is only the beginning. If it has slithered back and forth across the trail, we can look forward to humping up and down from here to the other side of the mountains. And if it has traveled straight, you will find that it has left a ridge of ice on one side of the trail or the other. Do you fancy riding along with one set of wheels perched up on that ridge while the other side of the wagon sticks and jerks in the deep snow?�
Ki did not reply. She waded back through the snow to the wagon to fetch the horses’ blankets and her firewood hatchet. Even her stubbornness had to recognize the ridiculously small tool she had to use for such a job. This would take time.
She unhooked the team from the wagon, leaving their harness on them. She took their blankets and her own worn ones and spread them over the horses. Best not to leave them standing in this cold unblanketed after they had worked and steamed all morning. A measure of grain bought the team’s patience. Vandien watched Ki in disbelief. Ki walked ahead of her team for a few paces until she suddenly stepped off into snow that rose to her hips. The team watched her curiously as she wallowed and fought her way back up onto the ridge. “And a ramp down,� she said drily.
“You’re mad. You’re absolutely mad, woman. You still think to force this wagon through? There, she nods! I call the gods to witness that she nods!�
Ki ignored him. She moved back, hatchet in hand, and began to kick and stomp the loose snow away from the front of the wheels. On the box, Vandien was speaking softly in a tongue she did not recognize, but the flavor of the curses still came through. She paused to admire his fluency and then went on doggedly with her task.
The hatchet bit into the ice, but not deeply. The size of the chips made Ki at first despair, and then increase her speed. She heard Vandien climb off the wagon. She ventured a look at him. He glared at her ferociously, and then bent over to begin sweeping snow and ice away. They did not discuss the arrangement, but tacitly began to take turns with the hatchet. Ki chopped with it for a while, then passed it to Vandien while she cleared her chips away. While she waited for him to pass it back, she scanned the chill blue skies.
The sun was overhead when Ki hooked the team to the wagon again. The ramps they had cut were steep. The team hunched down and all but crawled on their knees as they tried to get the tall wheels started up the incline. Ki was at their heads, tugging and encouraging. Vandien went around to the rear of the wagon to add his puny strength to that of the grays. The team pulled, eyes rolling, nostils flaring, heaving against the harness. Then Ki halted them, petting and gentling them down, and had them try again. She had lost count of their efforts when, suddenly, incredibly, the wagon moved forward. She didn’t dare let them relax, but urged them on swiftly, building up momentum so that the rear wheels stuck for only a second before they, too, came sliding and turning up the ramp. Ki halted the blowing team.
“We’re up!� she called. She ran to the back of the wagon to be sure it was safely up on the ridge. Vandien stood in the deep snow they had just emerged from. His arms were folded on his chest. He looked triumphant and challenging. Behind him in the snow were three sacks of salt and the remaining load of grain sacks. Ki spun, unbelieving, to stare at the back of her empty wagon. Now she understood why the last effort had seemed so easy.
“My freight!� she hissed, advancing on him.
“Would be better off in your pocket. Why risk your life for this masquerade? I left two sacks of grain in the bottom of the wagon, and the firewood. It should be enough to get us through the pass. Alive.� Vandien’s dark eyes met her angry ones squarely. Ki saw a glint of humor vying with the challenge in them. She tried to keep her eyes from flickering back to her wagon. Vandien fought a grin, lost the battle.
“It’s still there. If I had wanted to steal it, I could have done so long ago. And I certainly wouldn’t be telling you about it now. I’ve told you before, I am not by nature a thief. But go check it, if you wish. I shan’t be offended.�
Still Ki looked at him. Damn the man!
“I’ve no objections to pretensions until they endanger a life. And when it is my life they endanger, then I become a man of action.� He cocked his head at her, raising his eyebrows appealingly. Ki met his look without a smile.
“Put one more sack of grain back in. When it comes to my team, I like a large measure of safety. Shorting them would be another way to endanger your life.� She turned on her heel.
She was already at work chipping out a down ramp when Vandien came forward again. The still-blanketed horses watched the Humans who had gouged a steep ramp in the ice. They both turned wary eyes up to the sky frequently. Vandien scowled at the passage of the sun, but Ki looked cautiously grateful for the emptiness she found overhead.
When at last the ramp was ready, Ki led the team down in just a few steps. She set the brake on the wagon, and Vandien on the seat fought to keep it on as the wagon lurched and skidded down the ramp. The snow beyond the ridge was deep, and the team floundered frantically ahead to keep from
being run down by the wagon. Ki winced at the beating her team and wagon were taking. Safely down, she halted the horses to make a brief check of the wheels and axles. It was difficult to see much; the snow rose nearly to the bottom of the wagon.
Ki took the blankets off the team, and she and Vandien remounted the wagon. She shook the reins. The shadows of the team were blue on the snow. They leaned into the harness without spirit, and the wagon began to scrape forward again. With a lifting of heart, Ki found that a slight breeze stirred against her face. She prayed it was the wind rising again. She preferred heaped and drifted snow to a single Harpy sliding down the sky.
For a time, all went well. The team hugged the cliff face, where the snow seemed shallowest. By the edge of the trail the snow was heaped high, a wall that blocked Ki’s view of the drop-off. Mercifully, it cut the wind as well.
They drew closer to the Sisters, until at last the wagon was creeping past them. Ki craned her neck back, looking up at them. The cliff was too vertical and the sun was in her eyes. She could not see the top of the Sisters’ heads, let alone the top of the cliff. At a lower level, she could look up at the stone the Sisters were made from. Shiny and black, it took no reflections of light from the snow. Its smooth glisten reminded Ki of a finely polished piece of wood. She felt she could look into the depths of that shining stone.
The reins jerked in her hands, brought her mind back to her driving. Sigurd half-reared, bringing Sigmund to a forced halt. Sigurd was crowded back in the harness, his hindquarters cramped almost against the wagon. Ki looked across to Vandien. His mouth was folded tightly. He seemed to be making an effort not to speak. Ki dropped down off the wagon again to wade forward through the snow. But she did not sink as she had expected. Instead, she found herself standing nearly on a level with the bed of the wagon. What she had taken to be a higher drift of snow by the edge of the trail was actually an overlay of snow on a ridge of ice. She walked along it to where it swayed suddenly in front of Sigurd. Ki looked ahead. The ridge dominated the center of the trail now. It had channeled her team closer and closer to the cliff face, until now there was no longer a wide enough trail for the wagon to pass.
“The serpent,� Vandien began instructively, “evidently traveled down the outer edge of the path this far. But at this point, for reasons unknown to us, he decided to make his way down the center of the trail instead. If I stand on the seat�— which he proceeded to do—“I can see that the hump of ice the serpent created by his passage now extends down the center of this trail as far as my eyes can see. Which isn’t far, in this fading light. One could note, in passing, that the area left to either side of the hump of ice is too narrow for a wagon. A wagon cannot get through this pass now. But a man, or a woman, on horseback could. As someone said to someone else, some days ago.“
“Shut up!� Ki said with savage fury. The horses jerked in surprise at the venom in her voice. She kept her back to Vandien and the team and looked wordlessly down the ruined trail. She stood on a giant hummock of ice that, as Vandien had said, writhed down the center of the trail. The wind wandered past her, stirring her garments slightly as it went. She wondered if it would rise enough to keep a Harpy out of the sky.
“A rising wind may sweep even more snow upon us,� Vandien said, as if he could read her thoughts. “The skies may be clear, but the wind will lift snow from higher areas to deposit it on us.�
“Shut up,� Ki repeated, but with less energy. Suddenly, she was tired, weariness clogging her brain. The shadows loomed ever darker, the Sisters more awesome. She looked at the drooping heads of her horses. She could ask no more of them today.
“Make camp,� Ki conceded. In the night, she would think of something. Right now, they all needed rest. She tromped back to the wagon, tugged at the horses’ blankets. Vandien remained seated on them. He looked down at her with eyes that were bleak in his white face.
“Ki,� he said softly, almost pleadingly. “We cannot camp here. We are in the shadow of the Sisters. Even pausing this long invites their displeasure. Every loremaster on the other side of the mountains has tales about this place. I told you the legends. I swear to you they are true. To stay here means death for us all.�
“Only if we freeze to death, or if an unblanketed horse takes a chill and a cough. That’s probably how folks die here— they talk themselves to death.�
“Ki.� Vandien was shaking with earnestness and cold. He held his arms tight to his sides. Ki wondered if he was resisting the cold or an urge to slap her. I ask you one more time…“
“The wagon goes through,� Ki cut in harshly. She saw his eyes widen, watched his facial muscles tighten. She pulled hard on the horse blankets, suddenly furious with him. She raised her flaring eyes to his just as his clenched fist fell from the sky. The blue lightning hit her. From far away, she heard Vandien’s fading voice: “What becomes of a sentinel when the need to guard is gone? What happens to a watchdog when the family moves away but leaves it chained in its kennel? Some would die of loneliness, and some would break their bonds and go their own ways. But one that knew only its watching, one that came of a line bred for eons to guard, one whose only consciousness was of the need to protect the gate—one such as that might remain, might go on guarding for centuries, long after the folk it guarded had passed into other times. Such a one might stay on. Or such a two.�
Vandien’s voice faded to a far-off apologetic murmur. Deep waters closed over Ki. She sank. The deep warm waters, full of familiar horrors, swirled about her. She knew these ugly memories well; it was like a grisly homecoming. Ki glided. She had dreamed these dreams before. She knew it. In some other time and place she had been trapped here. But now she knew how to escape. She only had to open her eyes. Just open her eyes. But her head hurt, and she was dizzy, and it seemed to Ki that her eyes were already open. She fell deeper into blackness, into timeless dark. And in the darkness she found her closed eyes, and at last wrenched them open…
Ki awoke to blackness. It was not yet time to rise. The rest of the house slept still. She lay quiet in her bed, staring with relief at the small patch of stars her open window framed. She shifted on her damp bedding and reluctantly explored the dreams that had sent her into such a sweat. They were senseless fragments now, dreams of terror and guilt. Nils had been watching her. She could not see him, but she had felt his eyes, felt his hands trying to force her back. She had thrown him off and run away from him, past black-flapping curtains. She ran down a long, dark corridor that led through a series of doors, slamming the doors behind her as she ran. Then she passed through the last door and slammed it, and she was suddenly again at the foot of the Harpies’ cliff.
Once again she climbed the cliff, though Cora clung tightly to her legs, weeping and begging her not to do so. Ki kicked her loose, to watch her bounce and break down the rock face. Ki laughed aloud at the sight and her laugh was a Harpy’s whistle. She reached the aerie, saw again the fire, the bursting eggs. But from the eggs flowed, not unborn Harpies, but Sven and Rissa and Lars, in curled miniature form, wet with blood and fluids. Ki was too horrified to touch the cold, wet little bodies. They squirmed in the liquids and shell fragments and expired before her with small, gasping cries. Ki had killed them all. The mother Harpy appeared, to sit on a ledge above Ki and weep, in Ki’s voice, for their passing. Ki tried to cry out that she was sorry, so sorry, but from her throat came only the whistling laughter. And through it all she heard Nils’s footsteps and heavy breathing as he searched for her in the dark passageway. He did not find her. When Ki had felt him getting closer, when she had heard him opening the final door, she awakened herself. In her awakening she took a sorry little triumph.
Ki rose from her bed, drawing on clothes haphazardly, scuffing her bare feet into her worn boots. A fierceness burned inside her. A premo
nition weighted her, refused to be denied. The old man was danger, mortal danger to Ki. The sooner she was away from him, the better. She moved about the room, gathering her clothes and small possessions. She dumped them on the rumpled bed, bundled them together. Haftor was right. She had to go now. Not knowing what drove her, unable to find a basis for her presentiment of danger, she made her preparations.
She slipped down the darkened hallway. She passed the ceremonial bedroom where she had slept the night of the Rite. From within came the querulous sounds of the old man mumbling in his sleep. Ki bared her teeth to his sounds in the darkness. She gained the common room and left it, shutting the heavy door softly behind her.
The barn was in darkness. Ki barked her shins on something made of wood, stumbled, and went on. In the dark she climbed her wagon, entered the cuddy. She found the nub of a candle beside her tinder box on its shelf. She dumped her bundle on the sleeping platform to strike her light. With movements that were both frantic and deliberate, she began to set her cuddy to rights. She moved dust, shook blankets out, opened drawers and crocks and bins to see what supplies were still good. There were no weevils in her meal, but her tea herbs were dried to flavorless crumbs. Ki discarded them. There was no meat nor dried roots, no salt fish, no honey, no lard, no cheese… Ki’s heart quailed as she mentally listed what she had not. Her head began to ache, her ears to hum. With an almost physical wrench, she shook off her fears and indecision. She was going. She would manage, somehow.
The cuddy seen to as best she could, Ki moved on. The harness had stiffened from the months of disuse. Ki oiled it heavily. Another dollop of grease for each wheel. A check of pins and axles. A fierce joy welled up in Ki at how swiftly she completed each well-remembered chore. She tried to frame words in her mind to make a farewell to Cora. Her affection for the old woman had not dimmed; but Ki could no longer condone her revival of the Harpy customs. She hoped that Cora would understand, and that Haftor would be as good as his word about supplying her with fresh provisions.
Harpy's Flight Page 17