'So, we've wood for a fire,' Kane said. 'And if the worst befalls us we can always burrow into the snow like rabbits. I think we'll survive the night' 'One night, maybe,'
Maram said.
I took his cold hand in mine and blew on his fingertips to warm them. Then I said,
'We have to take some chances Or else well wander here, and that's the worst chance of all. Now why don't we go on while we still have the strength?'
I led forth, and Altaru and 1 broke track through the snow for the others. It was very hard work, even worse for the horses, I thought, than for us. Faggots of wood were slung across their backs, weighing them down heavily. I watched the breath steam from Altaru's nostrils as he leaned his neck forward and drove his great hooves into the snow. But he made no complaint, nor did any of the other horses. I marveled at their trust in us, marching onward at our behest into a snowy waste that seemed to have no end.
A short while later it began to snow. It was not a heavy storm, nor did it feel as if it would be a long one. But the wind caught up the downy flakes and drove them like tiny spears against us. It was hard to see, with bits of ice nearly blinding our eyes.
The snow burned my nose and found its way down my neck. It piled up beneath my boots, making the work of walking upward much harder.
And so we continued our ascent for at least an hour. We all suffered from the cold in near silence, except Maram, who made deep growling sounds in his throat as if this noise might simply drive the storm away. And then the snow lightened, a little, even as we drew near the pass. But we gained no relief, for the wind suddenly rose and grew more bitter. A cloud of snow whirled about us and tore at our flesh. I began shivering and so did the others. My face burned with the sting of the snow, and my nose felt numb and stiff. My fingers were stiff, too. I could hardly feel them, hardly keep my grip on the ice-encrusted leather of Altaru's halter. I bent forward, into the wind, driving my numbed feet into the snow mounding into drifts all around us. I could hardly see; my eyes were nearly frozen shut, and I kept blinking against the biting snow, blinking and blinking as I tried to peer through this blinding white wall ahead to make out the shrouded rock forms at the lip of the pass.
It was there, perhaps a hundred yards from our much-desired objective, that many great white shapes rose up out of the storm as if from nowhere. At first it seemed that the swirls of snow had formed themselves up into ghostly beings that haunted such high places; in truth the snowdrifts themselves seemed to come alive with a will of their own. And then, with the whinnying and stamping of the horses, I saw huge, white-furred beasts descending from the walls of rock around us. And closing iffifrom behind us, too. There were at least twenty of them, and they came for us out of the storm in utter silence, with murderous intent.
'The Frost Giants!' Maram cried out. 'Run for your lives!'
But with this new enemy encircling us, there was nowhere to run, nor did any of us have the strength for flight. The Frost Giants, if such they really were, were advancing upon us with a shocking speed. Their footing through the snow seemed sure and stolid. And they were not beasts at all, I saw, but only huge men nearly eight feet tall. Although they were entirely unclothed, their shaggy white hair was so long and thick that it covered them like gowns of fur. Their furry faces were savage, with ice-blue eyes peering out from beneath browridges as thick as slabs of granite.
There was a keen intelligence in these cold orbs, and death as well. In their hands, they each gripped huge clubs: five-foot lengths of oak shod with spiked iron. A blow from one of these would break a horse's back or crumple even plate armor. What it would do to flesh and bones was too terrible to contemplate.
'Circle!' I cried out. 'Circle the horses!'
I cried out as well, to the Frost Giants, that we were not their enemies, that we wished only to cross their land in peace. But either they didn't understand what I said or didn't care.
'Oh, my Lord!' Maram shouted. 'Oh, my Lord!'
We tried to make a wall of the houses; their deadly, kicking hooves, especially Altaru's, might deter even these terrible men. From behind them, we might take up our bows and defend ourselves with a hail of arrows. But the horses were whinnying and stamping, pulling frantically at their halters and would not cooperate. And in any case, there was no time. The Frost Giants were nearly upon us, raising up their great clubs behind their heads as easily as I might have held a chicken leg.
'Val! Val!' Maram cried out. 'Val - my fingers are frozen!'
Mine almost were. I tried to bring forth my bow and string it, but my fingers were too numb for such work. So were Atara's. I saw her behind me attempting to fit an arrow to her bowstring; but she was shivering so badly and her hands were so stiff that she couldn't quite nock it. Kane didn't even bother to try his bow. He drew his sword from its sheath, and a moment later, so did I.
I waited in the blinding snow for the Frost Giants to complete their charge. Then, I was certain, we would fight our last battle before finding one of the numerous deaths that Atara had seen two nights before in her cold, crystal sphere.
Chapter 36
It is strange that compassion can be a force powerful enough almost to stop the turning of the world. Maram, standing by my side, his frozen fingers fumbling in his pocket finally managed to draw forth his red crystal. He held it clamped between his hands, pointing it at the Frost Giants. His terrified voice wheezed in my ears, 'Val -
should I burn them?'
And then, as he remembered his vow never again to turn fire against men, his hands shook and he couldn't quite use it. His hesitation saved our lives,
'Hrold!' one of the frost Giants suddenly called out. 'Hrold now!'
The white-furred men halted twenty feet from us in a ring around us. Their spiked clubs wavered in the air.
The Frost Giant who had spoken, a vastly thick man with a broken nose and eyes the color of a frozen waterfall, pointed at Maram's crystal and said, 'It is a firestone.'
The man next to him in the circle peered through the snow at us and said, 'Are you sure, Ymiru?'
Ymiru slowly nodded his head. Then his large blue eyes squinted as they fixed on the sword that I held ready at my side. With the moment of my death at hand, Alkaladur began shimmering with a soft silver light.
'And that is sarastria,' he said. His huge, deep voice rumbled out into the pass like thunder. 'it must be sarastria.'
Sarastria. I thought Silustria. The Frost Giants spoke familiar words with a strange turning of the tongue, but I could still understand what they said.
'Little man,' Ymiru said, pointing his club at me, 'how came you to find sarastria?'
It astonished me that this savage seeming Frost Giant should know anything at all about the silver gelstei - or the firestones. I looked at him and said, 'It was acquired on a journey.'
'What kind of journey?'
I traded quick looks with Kane and Atara; I was reluctant to tell these strange men of our quest.
'Come!' Ymiru roared out, raising up his club. 'Speak now! And speak truthfully or else you and your friends will soon find death.'
I had a strange sense that I could trust this giant man - to do exactly as he said. And so I opened my cloak to show him the gold medallion that King Kiritan had placed there. I told him of the great gathering in Tria and of our vows to seek the Lightstone.
'You speak of the Galastei, yes?' Ymiru said. His eyes lit up with a sudden fire, and so did those of his companions. 'You speak of the golden cup made by the Galadin and brought down from stars? It is a marvelous substance, this gold galastei, this Stone of Light Inside it is the secret of making all other galastei - and the secret of making itself.'
He went on to say that the Lightstone was the very radiance of the One made manifest - and therefore that which moved the very stars and earth and all that occurred upon it.
'But for one entire elu, the Lightstone has been lost,' Ymiru said, losing himself in his thoughts. 'And so all hope for Ea has been lost, too.'
He paused to take a deep breath and then let it out in a cloud of steam. Then, returning to the matter at hand, he continued, 'And now, you say, you hope it will be found. You've made vows to find it But find it where? Surely not in land of the Ymanir!'
'No, not in your land,' Kane said from behind me. 'We seek only to cross it as quickly as we can.'
'So you say. But cross it towards the east? That is land of Asakai.'
At the mention of this name, the Ymaniris' hands tightened around their clubs. Their savage faces grew even more savage and pulled into masks of hate.
I didn't want to tell Ymiru that we proposed to cross Sakai and enter Argattha to seek the Lightstone. I doubted that he would believe me; even more, I feared that he would.
'Perhaps they're really of Asakai,' a young-looking man near Ymiru said. 'Perhaps they're spies returning home.'
'No, Havru,'Ymiru said. 'They come from Yrakona, I am sure. They're not Morjin's kind.'
The giant young man named Havru, whose chin pointed like a spur of rock, shook his club at us and growled out, 'It's said that Morjin's kind have the power to seem like other kind. Shouldn't we kill them to be certain?'
Across the circle, a man with a reddish tint to his fur bellowed, 'Yes, kill them! Take the galastei, and let's be done!'
Others picked up his cry as they began thumping their clubs into the snow and calling out, 'Kill them! Kill them!'
'Hrold! Hrold now!' Ymiru shouted back at them, raising up his club.
Altaru, standing to the left of me, trembled as he shook his head at the falling snow and beat his hoof downward. Any of the Ymanir attacking me, I thought, would find themselves assaulted with the four terrible clubs attached to the ends of his legs.
'Hrold, Askir!' Ymiru said again to the man with the reddish fur.
But then, across the circle from him, a one-eyed giant let loose a tremendous cry and shook his club at us. He shouted, 'If they be Morjin's men, I'll break their bones to dust!'
This so alarmed Maram that he cringed and called out to me, 'Val! It's as I said!
They mean to kill us and eat us! They really do!'
The Ymanir may have been savages, but they were still men, with the same range of feelings as had other men. Ymiru turned his face toward Maram, and I could feel in him the same quick rush of emotions that surged through many of the Ymanir: astonishment, insult horror. Then their mood shifted yet again as Ymiru's pale lips pulled back in a sad, savage smile. He pointed his club at Maram and called out to his companions: 'You may have any of the others you want. But the fat one is mine!'
'Val!'
Ymiru's smile had now been taken up by the young Havru, who said, 'But, sir, that is unfair of you. Our rations have been thin, and I'm very hungry. I could get at least ten meals from him.'
'Ten?' a sardonic man named Lodur half-shouted. 'He's fat enough for twenty, I should think.'
'Let's roast him over coals!' another man said.
'No, let's make a soup of him!'
'All right,' Havru laughed out wickedly, 'but let's save his bones for our bread.'
All at once, the twenty Ymanir fell into a long and thunderous laughter. But there was no malice in their huge voices, only a vast amusement. They were only having a joke with Maram, and with us.
'Savages!' Maram shouted at them when he realized this. His face reddened as he wiped the sweat from it. 'It's cruel sport you make.'
'Cruel?' Ymiru coughed out. 'Was it any crueler than your suggestion that we are eaters of men?'
Maram didn't know what to say to this. He looked from Ymiru to me and then back at Ymiru as he stammered out, 'Well I had heard that... ah, that is to say, the Yarkonans believe that you are killers of men and -'
'Hrold your tongue!' Ymiru said, cutting him off. 'We're certainly killers of men: any who serve the Great Beast. And any who would enter our land without our leave.'
He suddenly motioned to Askir and two other men, who walked around the outside of the circle of the Ymanir and came over to him. While we stood shivering in the driving wind, they gathered in close with each other and conferred in low, rumbling tones.
After a while, Ymiru looked at Maram and said, 'You are certainly not of Asakai. No man of Morjin's would hrold a firestone against us and fail to use it. We thank you, little fat man, for your forbearance. We wouldn't have wanted to wind up roasted on your dinner plate.'
'Ah, well,' Maram said, 'thank you for your forbearance in letting us pass through -'
'Hrold your noise!' Ymiru commanded him. His furry hand suddenly tightened around his club. 'We have forborne nothing. You have set foot upon Elivagar and cast your eyes upon this sacred land. So by our law, you must be put to death.'
Maram's hand shook as he tried to position his gelstei so as to catch what little light filtered through the snow-gray clouds. And then I laid my hand on his shoulder to steady him. I waited on the cold, windy slope, looking up at Ymiru and the grim-faced Ymanir. And so did Kane, Liljana and my other companions.
'However, these are strange times, and you are a strange people,' he went on in his slow, sad way. 'You seek that which we seek, too. Our law is our law. But there is a higher law that speaks of things beyond the commonplace. Our elders are the keepers of it. It is to them that we will take you, if you are agreeable. The Urdahir shall decide your fate.'
I looked from Maram to Atara, then at Liljana and Master Juwain. Their nearly frozen faces told me that anything was better than standing here in this killing wind. But Kane was not so eager to offer up his surrender, nor was I. And so I turned to Ymiru and asked him, 'And what if this is not agreeable to us?'
'Then,' Ymiru said, raising high his club, 'the best that we can give you is a good burial. You have my promise we won't let the bears eat you.'
I saw that it would be hopeless to fight the Ymanir or to try to escape. And it seemed that our fate, in the hands of these giants, was sweeping us along, moving us step by step closer to Argattha. And so, speaking for the others, I told Ymiru that we would accompany them to the council of their elders.
'Thank you,' Ymiru said. 'I wouldn't have wanted your blood on my borkor.'
Here he patted his club as he looked at me. Then he asked our names, which we gave, and he told us theirs.
'Very good, Sar Valashu Elahad,' he said. 'Now if you'll just throw down your weapons, we'll blindfold you and take you to a place that only the Ymanir know.'
I could hardly feel my hands' grip around the hilt of Alkaladur, but I was sure it suddenly tightened. I couldn't let anyone touch my sword. And neither did my friends want to surrender their weapons.
'Come, Sar Valashu!'
'No,' I told him. 'My apologies, but we can't do as you ask.'
All at once, twenty thick borkors raised up like trees ready to crush us to the earth.
'Hrold!' Ymiru cried out yet again. He looked at me and asked, 'How can you think to walk armed into our land?'
'How can you think to blind us?' I countered.
For a long ten beats of my heart, Ymiru stared at me as we took each other's measure. I didn't have to tell him that at least a few of his people would die if they tried to kill us. And he didn't have to tell me that these deaths, ours included, would serve only our common enemy.
'Very well,' he said to me at last. 'You may keep your weapons. But while in Elivagar, you must keep your bows unstrung and your swords sheathed. Do you agree to this?'
'Yes,' I said, looking at my friends, 'we do.'
'But, Ymiru!' Askir suddenly shouted, 'what if they -'
'Sar Valashu,' Ymiru said, cutting him off, 'if you break your word, which I have accepted in good faith, the Elders will put me to death. And then you and your companions.'
There was a keenness to this huge man's gaze that cut right to my heart. Somehow, without being told, he knew that the possibility of my causing his death in this manner would bind my hands more surely that the tightest cords.
'But about the blindfolding,' he continued, 't
here can be no argument. No one except the Ymanir can see the way toward the place we are taking you.'
In the end, we agreed on this compromise. It. was strange and disturbing to watch as they found a roll of red cloth in the pack that Havru bore and cut it up to fashion six blindfolds. Despite the hugeness of their hands, they worked quickly in the cold with an amazing dexterity. Ymiru appointed Havru to tie the blindfolds over our eyes, and this he did. He moved from Kane to Atara and Liljana, and then tied broad, red strips around Master Juwain's and Maram's heads and finally mine. As this great, furry being towered over me, I had to stand fast and steady Altaru, or else my ferocious horse would have kicked out in terror and wrath. I held my breath as the blindfold's soft fabric pulled tight over my eyes. With the world plunged into darkness, I suddenly noticed Havru's smell, which was of woodsmoke and wool and cold wind off a frozen lake.
Wise Ymiru also appointed Havru and four others to be our guides. He himself took my hand in his and began leading me up toward the pass. There was a comforting warmth and great strength in the press of his flesh against mine. I heard Maram sigh out behind me, and I could almost feel his fingers thawing in Havru's encompassing grip. Although none of us liked walking blind through the snow, the Ymanir had a friendship with this bitter substance that communicated to us through the sure, gentle pulling of hand against hand. It was remarkable, I thought, that we were led over ice and rocks, and none of us stumbled or tripped. In this way, from guide to guided, a seemingly unbreakable trust was born.
As Maram had feared, the rise toward which we climbed proved not to be the end of the pass. Ymiru, walking in front of me and leading me upward, was loath to say much about the mountains here. But he did tell us that our path would take us over a still higher rise, before descending into the difficult terrain beyond. From what he said, it was clear that we would have to spend the night at a very high elevation. But we would not have to spend it in the open. For the Ymanir, he told us, had built a hut that they used for sleeping less than a mile from where we stood.
In truth, this 'hut' turned out to be more like a fortress, as we found when we reached it a little later. Although Ymiru bade us keep our blindfolds on, the moment that we walked through the doorway of this unseen structure, I had a sense of a cold, vast, open space where the echoes of our snow-encrusted boots fell off of thick walls of stone. We were all shivering by the time the Ymanir closed the doors behind us and led us to what I took to be a sleeping area where thick wool mats were laid out in front a fire. As someone heaved on a few fresh logs, flames leaped out at us to thaw our frozen bodies. We were very glad for the heat, and gladder still for the bowls of steaming soup that our hosts ladled out into huge bowls and pressed into our hands. Their hospitality, I thought, was flawless. They gave their beds up to us, and took our boots away to be dried in front of the fire. They even served us a mulled cider that had almost as much flavor and punch as the finest Meshian beer.
The Lightstone Page 83