Directly north from where we were, the mountains were lower, save for one or two truly massive peaks that dwarfed the rest, and there were long connected ridgelines as well as one dark swathe that might be a canyon or even a slender valley. It was impossible to be sure because, while the sun fired all of the peaks, it could not reach the deeper places that yet lay in shadow.
I dragged myself away from the view and set about removing Gahltha’s burdens before checking his back and belly and salving the places that had been rubbed by the straps. Then I drank deeply, the water so icy that it made my teeth ache, and refilled the gourd bottles. Next, I washed my face and feet, despite the fact that the air was still cold, and changed my underclothes and socks.
Maruman watched me the whole time with a truculent look in his good yellow eye, tail snaking backwards and forwards. ‘I’m ready,’ I told him mildly now, after I had restored Gahltha’s burdens.
Instead of coming to me to be lifted up, the old cat turned and stalked off along the road. Taking my lead from him, I told Gahltha that I would walk. ‘Will he ever forgive me?’ I asked wearily, and felt the horse’s mind ripple with amusement, but he made no response.
Partway around the face of the next mountain, we came to a great pile of rubble fallen from the slope higher up, and as we picked our way over it, I glanced up uneasily at the overhanging earth above, worried at the thought of accidentally setting off another rock fall. Just beyond the rubble I saw that the outer edge of the road had broken away, leaving a rough-edged ledge little wider than the one we had traversed the previous day. I did not know whether to be sorry or glad when it began to slope downward, for there was too much shadow below to see precisely where it led. Late in the afternoon we had dropped low enough for me to see that what I had taken for a great dark chasm running from north to south was a flint vale. I had seen several of these on the other side of the range and I wondered if this was our immediate destination.
‘We cannot go that way,’ Darga sent in his sombre mindvoice. ‘It is tainted.’
A little chill ran over me, for this was our first sight of tainted ground, and yet I was not truly surprised. I had been expecting us to come to poisoned ground almost from the first moment I had stepped from the rift. The surprising thing was that it had taken so long. No doubt irritated by my emotions, Maruman suddenly chivvied us all to move more quickly. I had to stifle an urge to demand that the old cat tell me where we were going. In truth, I was dreading nightfall, knowing it would be very dark again and that once more we would have to spend the night on the ledge. I would not dare to sleep, I knew, and so the long cold night would creep by.
When we had come far enough for me to look down over the flint vale, I noticed that an errant beam of sunlight illuminated a green meadow in a distant ravine. But the sunlight shifted and the meadow vanished so swiftly into shadow that I wondered if I had imagined it. The sky in the east was dark and behind us the red dusk that had suffused the sky had faded, when, to my delight, I spotted the mouth of a cave just above the ledge path. It was little more than a large hole with its low roof and dank, mineral smell, but I was very grateful not to have to spend another night perched precariously on the narrow ledge that skirted the precipice. Having shelter also meant I could finally light a fire and cook something hot.
I used some of the branches I had collected to light a fire in the entrance to the cave, taking advantage of the last of the fading light, for it would be impossible to start a fire in the dark. Luckily the light, dry twigs at the ends of the branches caught quickly. Once the fire was burning, I used the whole of one of my water gourds to make a soup using the few herbs I had found the day before in the stone folds, and two of the savoury packets of travel biscuits to give it some substance, wishing I had a few proper ingredients – a potato or an onion or some mushrooms. When the soup began to bubble in its pot, the scent of it made my stomach growl so loudly that Darga tilted his head and looked askance at me. This struck me as funny, but when I laughed, the sound seemed so loud flying out over the flames into the vast dark silence of the mountains that I fell instantly silent, imagining how it would echo over the flint vale and wondering what beasts might lift their heads to wonder at the sound.
Soberly, I ate my share of the thick soup directly from the pot, regretting that I had forgotten to pack the little pouch of salt and herbs I had always carried with me on expeditions. Once again Maruman disdained his share when I offered it, and slipped away into the night, no doubt to hunt his own food, but Darga ate hungrily. I had used so much water preparing the meal, only after asking Darga if he could smell clean water nearby. Since we had passed a number of small rivulets trickling down the mountain face, not to mention the waterfall, I had not been surprised when he assured me that he could smell clean water further along the ledge path.
Now, gazing into the fire, replete and warm, I felt the same kind of contentment I always felt on expeditions. It had nothing to do with the purpose of the expedition and everything to do with all the trappings and comforts and habits of ordinary life being stripped away to reveal a bare simplicity that I always found so peaceful that I could not help but wonder why we humans accumulated so many things and habits and needs and wants to hamper and bind us in daily life.
The fire was very pleasant, but it soon began to burn down, for I did not add any more wood to it after I had cooked our meal. If I was careful, I reckoned that I would be able to get another two cookfires out of it. After that we would be without fire unless I managed to find more fuel. This was unlikely for I had noticed that there was a good deal less vegetation on the mountains than there had been the day before, in spite of the absence of taint. This was partly because much of the mountains this side of the range lacked any vegetation, their slopes being too sheer and smooth for any earth to accumulate where a seed might lodge. Given what Darga had said about the flint vale, there was likely to be even more barren terrain ahead.
I had removed the webbing and pack and the other things from Gahltha while the soup cooked, and now I got out my blanket and spread it out along the back wall of the cave, hoping that he had been able to find some lichen to nibble for his supper. There had been scant grass growing along the ledge, though there had been a good bit growing about the base of the ribbon fall, and at my insistence he had lingered there to graze for a time after the rest of us went on.
I lay down facing the fire and the entrance to the cave, dragging the pack closer to serve as my pillow. As I drew the edges of the blanket around me, Maruman came to curl against my belly. Darga remained where he was, stretched out on the other side of the dying fire, staring into it as if mesmerised. I saw Gahltha’s dark form move in the mouth of the cave and sent to ask, ‘Did Maruman tell you where we are going?’ I had shielded the thought, though the cat was asleep and snoring softly.
‘He knows where he is going,’ Gahltha sent, without much interest. ‘You should sleep.’
I agreed. But only when the glow of the embers had faded did I let go of consciousness. I dreamed I was flying over Obernewtyn in my spirit-form but when I tried to fly down to it, a barrier held me back. Then the dream changed and I was flying over the mountains. It was night, and they were glowing green. I could not tell if this was because they were tainted or because I was seeing their aura. Then I noticed a black road winding its way north and realised that if the glowing earth was tainted, the road must be clean, or at least less tainted. A hard wind began to blow, howling and skirling through gaps and hollows in the stony slopes, and gradually it came to me that I could hear someone crying out. Then I looked up and saw a dragon the colour of fire dropping towards me, talons outstretched. Its eyes were full of madness.
‘Dragon!’ I screamed, and woke.
19
I opened my mind to the smell of ash and to the dazzling radiance of sunlight flooding through the entrance of the cave. I sat up, squinting and blinking in confusion, my heart still hammering from the dream. Had it been a dream, I wondered? It was i
mpossible to tell from such a brief fragment, so I dismissed it from my mind and went outside to look for the others. Gahltha was standing just below on the ledge path, nibbling at some brown lichen growing between the stones and Darga lay stretched out at its broken edge, his brown eyes gazing down over the flint vale in a way that made me wonder if he was seeing it or some inner vision. The vale looked sharper and blacker than ever in the clear bright morning light, and now I could see mountains beyond it to the north, dim and purple with distance.
There was no sign of Maruman.
I went to wash myself and fill the gourd bottles and found that the water source Darga had sniffed out the previous night was another ribbon waterfall, albeit a very small one. It was dropping from a spring higher up the mountain into the void beside the ledge path, rather than onto it. This was fortunate or we would all have got a soaking when we went on, but it did give off a haze of droplets that had caused a slick moss to grow over the stones. Thinking of Gahltha’s hoofs, I decided to bring some gravel from the cave to spread before we tried to cross.
I got back to the cave to find Maruman had returned and was waiting impatiently, and after I had restored pack, sword, bow and quiver to Gahltha, and shouldered the remaining wood, we went on.
It was another day before the narrow remnant of the Beforetime road ended abruptly, buried under what had obviously been a huge landslide. Fortunately the rubble and cracked stone had spilled out to form a rough bridge to the nearest mountain to the north. The fall had been so long ago that the rubble was stable but it was still a difficult crossing for Gahltha. The ledge had brought us far enough east that we had passed out of sight of the tainted flint vale and through the line of high mountains that had bounded the vale to the east. When we had climbed up to the top of the low mountain I saw that it was the beginning of a long low ridgeline running directly north. Maruman set off immediately in this direction. I did not wonder that Jacob had got so far if he had travelled the same route as we were taking, for the remnant of the Beforetime roads and now the ridgeline had given us a relatively easy passage.
There was yet another line of mountains running parallel to the ridgeline in the east, high enough to block any view we might have had of the plain in that direction. Not that I felt much regret about this for I still remembered the searing vision of the endless Blacklands I had seen, years before, when I had come to the mountains with the Agyllians. Yet it struck me now that I had looked from the east of the range, and given that my view in this direction would have been somewhat blocked by the high spine of mountains running along the centre of the range, I might easily have missed seeing a city or settlement. Around mid morning I spotted a meagre stubble of grass growing in cracks on the ridge, and insisted we linger long enough for Gahltha to graze. I added that we might just as well break our own fast at the same time. Maruman grumbled about stupid funaga and greedy equines, but he did not insist we continue immediately, so I took this for acceptance.
‘Do not fear for me. I am your protector – you are not mine,’ Gahltha reproached me gently, when I rummaged in my pack for another parcel of travel food.
‘I worry for my friend,’ I said, and wrapped my arms around the stallion’s neck, feeling a welling of love for him.
Later, as we climbed up from the ridge to yet another pass, I tried to learn – without aggravating Maruman by asking specific questions – if the old cat actually knew how much longer it would take to reach the place to which he was leading us. Certainly I no longer had the slightest doubt that he was leading me to Cassandra’s key, but the old cat merely gave me a cold, knowing look and did not respond. It was frustrating and yet knowing where we were going would not shorten the journey so I schooled myself to patience. That night we camped out in the open in a hollow on the ridge. It was too windy to waste wood on a fire nor was it as cold as it had been when we had slept in the high pass.
The next day we set off before dusk and by midnight we were following a broken slope running north-east along the base of a sheer cliff. We were nearing the top of the slope when the sun rose, cold shafts of sunlight cutting through the shadows. A wave of sunlight began to flow down the peaks to the west. We turned and began to move along the side of the mountain and when night fell again we continued climbing by moonlight. It was only a fingernail moon but it cast light enough for us to go on until we came to a flat place where we could stop. It was a good hour before dawn when Maruman clawed me to wakefulness and as we set off again up the slope I wondered if I was right in feeling that there was an urgency in the old cat’s exhortations to move faster. Was it possible that Atthis had given him a time limit?
We were making directly for another high pass to the north-west, and I was soon sweating and panting hard in the thin air. I was walking to spare Gahltha and twice I insisted that we stop to rest. Hence it was night before we reached the pass. Instead of finding a long descending slope on the other side, I was startled to see a wide ridge running north, bounded by higher mountains either side. Those on the west were snow-capped and I could see pockets of snow lower down. The dim lume of the slender moon made the stone look black but when I cast a questioning look at Darga, he made no comment. We pitched camp there out of the wind at the side of the pass, and I was able to make another fire. Darga could not smell water but we had passed so many small springs that day I did not doubt we would find more water soon enough.
I had not seen any beasts or birds that night but when I got up at dawn and went a little apart from the others to relieve myself, I was startled to find myself face to face with a mountain goat. It was a big slaty blue male with a white rump and belly set off by black face markings. He had long, thick horns, oddly dainty cloven hoofs and slotted golden eyes. I greeted him but he merely emanated hostility and trotted away to a small herd of duller pelted spindly females. The male led them out of sight and I wondered at their refusal to communicate. Certainly it was harder to beastspeak wild animals than those that had spent time around humans.
I stood with the blanket wrapped around me watching the sky lighten, awed by the immensity of the silence and feeling how small and insignificant I was alongside the vastness of the mountains, and yet all the life they contained would perish if I failed in my quest. This time it was I who woke the others.
We had not got far along the ridge when I realised that the top was not merely flat, it was the remnant of another ancient road cut into the stone. Indeed it looked as if the Beforetimers had actually sheered off the top of the mountains along the ridge to make a flat road. And instead of being merely smoothed bare stone, there was a strange surface to the road, a thin black layer of some unknown material that crackled strangely under Gahltha’s hoofs. Seeing it, he had immediately insisted Maruman and I ride on his back.
We had not gone far before Darga wordlessly moved into the lead for the first time. I looked around uneasily, unable to see the blackness that often indicated tainted terrain, but my senses fizzed enough that I knew there was taint nearby. It also occurred to me that I had not seen a single bird that day, not even at dawn. Indeed, there was something in the quality of the silence that reminded me unpleasantly of the heavy, dead stillness of the Silent Vale, where I had been forced to collect poisonous whitestick as an orphan child.
Before midday I had to get down and walk. It was simply too cold to sit still atop a horse, for while the ridge had looked flat, it was in fact ascending in steps.
It was then, as I trudged on alone, that I was struck by the strangeness of walking along the remnant of a Beforetime road cut through the high mountains, and I wondered why the Beforetimers had created such a thing in an area that Jacob had called remote and sparsely populated. Was it because of the Taillard Observatory?
Late in the afternoon, we came upon a pool of water caught in a depression formed about a Beforetime pole that had been broken off at shoulder height, the top part of it lying a little distance away. Darga pronounced the water clean, ignoring the pole, but I was hesitant to drink. Mar
uman demanded irritably what was the use of having a guide if I doubted him, so finally I knelt and broke the thin crust of ice on the water and drank. When I stood up again, I went to examine the broken end of the pole. The cryptic markings upon it were similar to the markings on other such poles I had seen here and there in the Land, and some said they had always been built near Beforetime roads, though none knew what their purpose had been. One actually stood intact close to the Silent Vale. The young Herder priest who had travelled there with us had been terrified of it and had made us pray till our knees ached before he had permitted us to pass by it.
It was strange that no one had ever come across these remnants of the past, but that might be in part because the forays humans had made into the heights had all been made to the west of the range.
The sun slowly descended towards the western peaks and though it shone brightly from a cloudless sky, there was no warmth in it at that height. A brisk wind was flowing over the icy slopes to the west sending long veils of snow flying from the peaks, and we stopped barely long enough to eat and drink before Maruman bade us continue. Tired as we were, no one demurred; it was simply too cold to sit still or to lie down and sleep for hours on end. I did not think of my quest or of what I had left behind. I thought of walking. I felt as if I were on a ship, travelling and yet standing still, only this time it was my thoughts that stayed still and my body that moved.
It took us another night and day to reach the end of the ridge road and Darga kept the lead the whole time. Partway through the night he began to keep so ostentatiously to the eastern edge of the ridge that I asked if the other side was tainted. He agreed that it was and added that the high mountains running along beside us in a line were also tainted, though he could not tell how badly. He could not discern the level of taint, he explained, only that taint poisons were present. Although Darga led us, it was Maruman who had decided that we would take longer rests in the daylight hours, because our blood would freeze if we stopped for more than short periods at night.
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