Snowcastles & Icetowers

by Duncan McGeary

  “I feel a storm coming,” he lied, explaining that the people of the High Plateau could always feel a change in the weather. “We had better hurry off this exposed path.”

  Mara looked at him, suspicious of the sudden urgency in his voice, once again eyeing his bruises and obviously feeling that her grandfather was committing them to a dangerous partnership. But she followed Greylock without a word, for she too felt exposed on the high mountain trail.

  Carrell Redfrock was at that moment angrily dismissing the two soldiers who had come back to report their failure. He made a mental note to find a proper punishment for them, but most of his rage had already dissipated. His Familiar, the black crow that the people of the High Plateau foolishly believed was a simple pet, had related what had happened minutes ago. Unfortunately, the Familiar had not stayed to see if Greylock was able to save the old man. But the Steward knew Greylock’s climbing abilities well, and did not doubt he would succeed in retrieving the stranger.

  Redfrock could not help but wonder at the coincidence that had placed two Underworlders on the Gateway at the same moment that Prince Greylock descended. Only he knew how unlikely that was, for Greylock was wrong when he believed himself the only person of the High Plateau capable of going down from Godshome. The Steward Redfrock had made the trip several times long ago, in his search of methods to overthrow the Tyrant. He had come back with his Familiar—and the knowledge of powerful allies in the Underworld.

  Redfrock berated himself for not considering the Gateway as an escape route for Prince Greylock. The youth had made his opinions well known. But the Steward had not believed Greylock would have the courage to face demons. Now, he had two reasons for making sure that his rival was dead. As long as the prince was alive he was a threat to the Steward’s plans. But even more important, Greylock was now a threat to his Master.

  It had been made clear to Redfrock that no one was to discover the true location of the Gateway, and for this reason the Steward had encouraged the superstitions of the mountain people. Now Greylock was very close to the truth, without realizing it. There was only one thing to do: he must send a party after Greylock. The youth must never discover the true entrance to Gateway, and the easiest way to accomplish this was to remove him from the Tiers of Existence.

  He called back the two disgraced soldiers, who entered the room chastened and servile. “Gather a company of two dozen men, and go after Prince Greylock. I want him dead, and I do not want you to come back until that has been done. I do not care if you have to cross half of the Underworld—I want him dead!”

  The two soldiers blanched, but immediately saluted and started to leave.

  “No, wait!” he changed his mind rapidly. “I think I will have to lead this expedition myself. The Tyrant is already regretting his action. If Greylock should ever return, the Tyrant might even welcome him. I must be sure that never happens. Now go! We shall leave in the morning. One of you tell the Lady Silverfrost that I wish to have dinner with her tonight.”

  One of the soldiers hesitated, and the Steward demanded, “Well? What is it?”

  “The Lady Silverfrost has already received your invitation, Steward. She … refuses to come.” “She refuses to eat dinner with me?” Redfrock was incredulous. “I must believe that you did not ask her properly. Now go back and ask her again. Tell her it is my wish that she come to dinner— tonight!”

  After the two soldiers had left hastily, the Steward smiled and turned, crooking a finger at the crow, which was perched on a dead trunk of a tree installed in the corner of his icetower. The Castle-Steward had the smallest of the High Plateau’s Icemelts, but Redfrock did not mind. He had never cared for greenery, and he shuddered at the thought of descending into the Underworld again. He had no power over the denizens of the Underworld and he always felt vulnerable in its humid growth.

  The crow jumped onto his shoulder and he began absently feeding it meaty scraps. Carrell Redfrock appeared slender and frail, and almost as old as the Tyrant—and he cultivated this image. For beneath his scarlet robes, the Steward was wiry and strong, and far from old. His carefully thinned white hair was swept back from his forehead, displaying his bushy white eyebrows and craggy features.

  He maneuvered the crow to his gauntleted right hand. “Tell our friend in the BorderKeep that I am coming down from Godshome. If I do not contact him again, he should watch for a stranger with a lock of gray hair. He is to agree to everything this stranger asks. Is that understood?”

  The black eyes of the crow seemed to stare back for a moment, and then the bird rose with the Steward’s hand and launched itself noisily through the window of the icetower, where it was quickly lost in the night.

  Chapter Two

  Greylock concealed from his new partners the fear he felt when the trio began to descend into the bright sunlight of the Underworld. It would not do for them to see that he was frightened of mere legends and superstition. They had already laughed heartily at his descriptions of grotesque ghouls, just as he had laughed at the horrible beings they had imagined lay in wait for them on Godshome.

  Despite his own skepticism, and their reassurances, Greylock kept a wary eye open for demons, and his hands never strayed far from the Glyden hilt of his knife. He doubted, however, that any of his people would follow him this far down the mountain, even under the Steward Redfrock’s dire threats. At least he was safe from that!

  Greylock noticed that the wizard’s covetous eyes rarely strayed from the gleaming Glyden for very long, and he even wondered briefly if he would be able to trust the old man not to club him on the head when he wasn’t looking. He began to suspect that there was more than greed in Moag’s looks of longing.

  Little by little Greylock discarded most of his thick mountain garments, until he was left with a thin robe—and he was still sweating heavily beneath that light cloth. His new partners remained heavily bundled well into—what seemed to Greylock, at least—the hot and steaming foothills. The sharp claws of his Talons hung loosely from the hide straps tied to his wrists, to be taken up in his grip whenever the trail became too rough and the Underworlders needed his help to get by the sudden gaps.

  This became less and less necessary as the trail finally broadened near the bottom of the pass, and their progress speeded. He began to watch for any sign of the rubble and rusted iron that might indicate the ruins of Gateway’s giant portals. He thought it unlikely that there was a gate at all—only a figurative closure from the Underworld, never opened until now. But he had doubts.

  It was difficult to believe, for instance, that the narrow and treacherous trail they were now traversing, so long unused, opened near the upper reaches of the pass into a wide, magnificent roadway. It was this road, with its mammoth stones and intricate patterns, that had succeeded in raising doubt in Greylock’s mind, and had kept him from discounting the ancient legends entirely. It was this remnant of the Gateway that the Gatekeepers were pledged to protect and maintain. Yet the road led nowhere, ending in the desolate snows of Godshome. Everyone knew that the Third Holy Tier contained nothing but the falling snows and howling winds of nature, and none had ever returned to tell of “gods.” Greylock’s mistake had been to say aloud that the passage of time had distorted the true meaning of Gateway, and it was this heresy that had finally given the Steward Redfrock the opportunity to disgrace Greylock in the eyes of the Tyrant. But if he could prove he was right, and that there was more to Gateway than this unused pathway, then his uncle would have to take him back, and allow him to wed Silverfrost.

  The boundary between the mountains and the Underworld was clear, at least to Greylock. The ground seemed somehow tainted to him. It seemed as if he were stepping from a robust and cruel land to a sickly and even crueler land. Something within him, something that had never before been touched, was offended by the light loam earth, and he hesitated before he stepped onto it. The first few steps brought a violent shudder; a strange revulsion at the feel of the brown dirt beneath his feet. Greylock follo
wed the wizard and the girl only because they appeared to be unaffected by it. Indeed, they didn’t even seem to notice that this land was different, decaying.

  Greylock could see layer upon layer of the emerald green valleys, and rounded foothills seemingly perched on top of each other, wreathed in swirling mists. The light appeared to grow dim, as if the sun had suddenly gone behind a cloud. Yet when Greylock glanced up, the shimmering globe of the sun still filled the sky. The heat grew even more intense, despite the darkness, and the unfamiliar itching discomfort of his sweat made him miserable. He was irritated when the other two travelers moaned their appreciation of the heat.

  On a stone ledge overlooking a river that ribboned back and forth down the last of the steep slopes, Moag warned Greylock of the dangerous lands they were now entering. The wizard explained how the two had fallen on hard times in the Twilight Dells.

  “I depend on the patronage of rulers and landowners,” he said. “I do their bidding with my magic and they reward me with their Glyden. But in this land there are no rulers, no rich men. Each house is a stronghold for a small clan, and they jealously guard their own worthless territories, though each valley is small, poor, and infertile. I do not understand why they have not left this country long ago. This earth will yield no more!”

  Old man Moag shuddered. “I have not eaten well or slept well since I entered this accursed land! We will find no armies among the Wyrrs. We must go beyond the Twilight Dells, beyond even the BorderKeep—to the glorious fiefdoms of Trold, my homeland! Let us travel as fast as we can through this country, for only death lies in its valleys.”

  Greylock realized that what the old man had just said explained his own uneasiness at entering this new country. But how had he known that the land was ill? It looked no different than any other land, the little he had seen of the Underworld.

  Yet he did not raise this perplexing question, to his later regret, for he never suspected that it would concern him. Instead, he was much more interested in what he thought the wizard had just revealed. Greylock believed he had detected in the old man’s words the real motivations for his greed—more, perhaps, than Moag may have wished. He eyed the mage’s tattered garments doubtfully. “If the Kings of Trold would pay you in Glyden, then why did you not stay in Trold and earn their reward?”

  “It is their Glyden, not mine,” the wizard growled, his tone indicating that he did not like these prying questions. “The Glyden is never mine—it is the wages of a servant, and I do not wish to be a servant any longer.”

  “But if you are a magician, why do you not just summon the wealth you wish?”

  “There are two things a wizard cannot conjure, and those are money and food. Nor may he conjure up anything for just himself. And he must be paid in Glyden for his services; only then is his magic released, to serve that person. Yet at the end of his service, he must give it all back! That is why the wizard is always under the domination of others; why he must always serve the rich.”

  So this was the reason for the wizard’s single- minded obsession with Glyden! Greylock could see that the whole arrangement had obviously soured the old man, and it seemed Moag would be willing to travel anywhere and do anything to possess his own Glyden—for Glyden meant freedom.

  “If only Mara and I had our own wealth!” the old man wailed. “A simple trade and we would be free. I would never have to serve another stranger again.”

  Mara, as usual, had the last word. “Of course, it never occurs to Grandfather that he might earn Glyden by some honest labor—say with his hands!”

  Greylock soon learned that crossing this land of hills and sudden dales would not be easy. It was more a maze than a road, he thought, for they could not just cross any valley they wished, moving in a straight line that might reasonably have brought them to an end of the land. Instead they were forced to follow a winding course; halfway down one valley, only to retreat and move at right angles, and so on in an incomprehensible way, until Greylock was at last hopelessly lost, and dependent on the wizard completely to guide them out of this nightmare land.

  Moag had apparently learned from bitter experience which valleys would prove friendly, or at least safe, and which were dangerous. “If I had not already traveled through this land,” the old man said darkly, “it would take us a very long time to cross. But even now we must be careful. If we turn into the wrong valley we could be set upon and beaten. Or perhaps even killed. We must hurry to set our camp in a safe place, for it is in the dark hours that the Wyrrs truly have power we need fear.”

  So far the mage must be choosing correctly, Greylock thought, for they had yet to see any of the inhabitants of this land of constant evening, friendly or unfriendly.

  “Where are they, old man? Hiding?”

  “They are actually more frightened of us than we are of them,” Moag explained. “Some great ill has crossed this land, setting neighbor against neighbor. Though each valley alone can afford only a poor existence, they never leave their own valleys as far as I know. I gathered from my inquiries at the BorderKeep that, just a few years ago, surviving such a trip as we are now on would have been unthinkable. But it seems that the natural human spirit is reasserting itself, and time is wearing away their fear. The Wyrrs are not as murderous as they once were, though there are still pockets “

  “Why are they afraid?” Greylock asked, somehow moved by the plight of the Wyrrs.

  “They do not say. I believe their crime was so dire that, whatever it was, they will never tell. Sometimes they seem to be watching, as if they are waiting for somebody. Perhaps that is why they no longer murder every stranger who steps into the Twilight Dells.”

  The three visitors moved carefully through valley after valley, each one seeming more silent and eerie than the last. Soon Greylock had the disquieting sense of being watched—but Moag hushed him quickly when he mentioned this.

  “Put away your Talons, Prince Greylock. They look too much like a weapon. We do not want to provoke the Wyrrs.”

  “Are we not to fight if we are attacked?” “Perhaps not. You must let me decide. Only if our lives are in danger will you need to fight. They may just wish to taunt us.”

  “But how will you know?” Greylock had already decided he would fight.

  “I may not!” the wizard answered cryptically and would not explain his answer. The old man’s hunched back bobbed up and down in front of Greylock’s eyes, forbidding any more questions.

  Greylock compared what the old man had just told him to the legends in his own land about the Underworld, and was startled to see the similarities. Indeed, it did seem as if each “demon” was caged, only to strike out in murderous anger at interlopers. Despite the danger, Greylock almost wished that some of the strange natives of this land would show themselves. If what the old man had heard was true, it was no wonder that no one had emerged from the Underworld before—and that no one had dared to visit it!

  Their torturous route began to seem to Greylock like one of the games of his childhood, when he and his friend Slimspear had explored the hundreds of caverns which served as a kind of highway beneath the snows of the glacier. There they had tried to lose each other by cunning turns. Now the trick was to find a path through adjacent valleys that were safe. Often the wizard would stop and frown and remain unmoving for long minutes of concentration, while Greylock would wait impatiently. Greylock began to suspect that the old man was also lost, but since he had long ago lost his own way, and had only Moag to guide him safely out of the puzzle, he said nothing.

  Occasionally they could see the roofs of the Wyrrs’ crude dwellings at the ends of the valleys, but Moag was careful not to wander too close to the interiors, and they remained unmolested that first day. The old wizard actually seemed to cheer up as they made camp in one of the few empty dells, near the ruins of an old shack, with its gray wood hanging over them, decaying and moldy.

  Before daylight had completely left the valley, Greylock caught Mara staring at him surreptitiously wi
th a wondering look. She turned away quickly at his scowl. For some reason, Greylock was irritated by the girl’s constant scrutiny. “Well?” he demanded. “What is it now?”

  To his surprise, she answered him. “Your hair “

  “What about my hair? I have had this gray lock of hair since my fifth year of existence on the Second Tier.” Greylock realized with some surprise that it was the first time he had had to explain his distinction since those first years, when he had gotten into fight after fight to defend his wounded honor. The other children had called him an “old man,” he remembered, and had teased him with the question of how soon he would ascend to the First Tier. He wondered why it should bother him now. He had long ago proven that he was a match for any man.

  “I’m sorry, Prince Greylock. I did not mean to comment, but your hair did not seem so gray when we met you on the mountain trail. It seems to have spread over your scalp. Perhaps the light of the fire is misleading.”

  Moag turned from his tending of the fire and looked at his partner with some interest for the first time in many miles. “Mara is right, Prince Greylock. Your hair has become more gray since we first met you. Look for yourself!”

  With that invitation, the fire behind Moag’s back leaped toward the tree limbs high above, and by this magical light Greylock was able to catch a reflection of himself in the wide blade and glowing red handle of his knife. He saw that the lock of gray hair that had always marked him had spread, so that most of the matt of curls which fell over his forehead had turned gray. He was dismayed by the change, for the hair on his head had not changed in color for many years.

  “It appears that this land has wrought a change,” Moag mused. “Perhaps there have been changes inside of you as well, Prince Greylock.”