‘Tomorrow we will reach an impassable tract,’ Daneel told them. ‘The magicians will need to cater for us there.’
‘How will we do that?’ Master Celios asked.
‘By getting us across,’ Daneel said, affronted at the question.
‘It will not be a problem,’ Balten stated confidently. ‘Whatever the obstacle we meet, we will overcome it.’
‘I like your enthusiasm,’ Daneel said. ‘I like your tobacco better, but your enthusiasm is not so bad, either. Speaking of tobacco?’ and he looked at Balten eagerly,promptingthe Circle magiciantopull the last scraps of his Fiskian best from his pocket. The men were all soon smoking from his shared pipe, filling the hut with their pungent smoke.
‘Master Celios,’ Samuel said a little later, slipping in beside the oldSeer. The others wereoccupied withthe cooking and the smells of their dinner were finally starting to overcome the dreadful Fiskian odour that had saturated the air. ‘I want to ask you about our friend, Sir Ferse.’
‘Ah, so you know our little secret then, do you?’ the man said, looking somewhat calmer than usual.
‘I do. He is the Emperor of Turia, somehow reborn into the body of another.’
‘No one knows but you and me. He made me swear never to reveal the truth and I will not…and neither should you.’ And he tapped Samuel roughlyon the chest with the tip of his bony finger.
‘Of course, but I need to know…howdid you do it?’
The old Master nodded smugly, looking very pleased with himself. ‘I cannot rightly say. My visions were strong and insistent at that time. I followed them, almost bereft of my senses, gathering ointments and spells and lotions.’
‘Black magic?’ Samuel asked hesitantly.
‘Hells bells, no!’ Celios declared with disgust at the mention. ‘The ointments were to prepare and preserve the new body. I had to keep the host alive but immobile while I readied everything. Poor Sir Ferse. He didn’t suffer, but I don’t think he would have found the experience comfortable at all. The spells I used were nothing special, just some simple magics to calm his mind and keep him comfortable. I can’t say I did anything particularly special. I think it was all the little things together that lured the Emperor’s spirit at just the right time. Oh, and I had to surround the host with personal effects and clippings from the Emperor-his hair, some nail clippings, flecks of skin. I had no idea if it would work, or even if it did work-for when the spells had endedandI finally unbound Sir Ferse,he awoke ranting and furious. He ran off to call the guards and I cowered in my room-but he didn’t return for several days. He seemed confused and irrational at that point, and so I explained to him what had happened. As the weeks passed, more and more of the Emperor’s characteristics became apparent andthose ofSir Ferse receded.’
‘But can you do it again? Can anyone be reborn like that?’
‘Oh, no! I sincerely doubt it. I feel something very special about the Emperor, something unusual in his spirit. I have never felt it in anyone else. You are special, too, Samuel, or should I sayunusual, but your spirit is black and a mystery to me. You have served your purpose, for you did kill the Emperor as you were destined, and now he has been reborn for a greater purpose. The man he was before was great above all, but now he has returned from death, he has renewed his fate. I don’t know what he will do after this point, but I feel it will be great.’
‘You have had a vision?’
‘Not about this, no, but I don’t need visions to dictate my feelings.’
‘Do you believe that the Koian woman was also reborn?’
‘She is an enigma, like you, Samuel. But I doubt it. I think rather the Koians are a primitive people, steeped in superstitions. Sensing she was different from the common folk, they picked her out from the crowds, but she is merely a girl, made savage by a life of absurd practices and isolation.’
‘Yes. She is strange, stubborn and bad-tempered. I don’t know how they put up with her.’
‘Good. Good,’ he said, musing. ‘I would like you to find out even more about her.’
‘Do you think there may be something she is hiding?’
‘I doubt she knows anything useful at all, the poor dumb creature.’
‘She said she could hear the voices of her people.’
‘More likely she has been driven to paranoia. Still, I would like you to learn what you can. Speak to her more. Try to break through to her.’
‘Very well,’ Samuel said, and he crept off to lie by the wall, hoping to sleep as deeply as he could before the next gruelling day.
The precipice was a long,jagged scar in the snow that dropped down into the rocky depths, where a tempestuous river frothed and surged, full of ice. It was thirty paces wide at least andspannedthe narrow valley entirely, leaving no alternative than to cross it or begin climbing the sheer,black stone faces on either side.
‘How do you usually cross this way?’ Ambassador Canyon asked.
‘No one crosses in this season and no one has had any reason to for many years-not since the pass at Ghant was opened up,’ Daneel replied. ‘There was once a narrow bridge, but it had already fallen into disrepair before I was born. I am guessing it now lies down there.’ And he pointed down the treacherous gap.
‘If you haven’t ever been this way, how do you know where we are going?’ Sir Ferse asked.
‘The old folk described the way to me. We have good memories for such things.’
‘So how will we pass?’ Eric asked.
‘I will leave that up to you. Whatever you decide, you must be quick,’ Daneel told them. ‘We cannot stand idle in this weather and we have far to go before nightfall. If we are caught out in a storm, it may be our last mistake.’ He had lost all his merriment and seemed to be eyeing the blustering winds with concern.
Samuel looked at Eric expectantly.
‘Why look at me?’ Eric asked indignantly.
‘My power is difficult to control. I can’t do anything.’
‘What good is a magic that you can’t control?’
‘Hush!’ Samuel declared, for the last thing he wanted was for everyone to know his weakness, but Eric scowled back at him darkly.
The group was quiet, sensing thefrictionbetween the two of them.
A burst of magic then caused Samuel to turn about, just as a thunderous crack sounded from the mountain walls above, and the rest of the group in turn looked around. Balten had cast a spell up against the cliff face and it was clawing into the rock with ferocious vigour. The stone cracked and boomed as his spell laboured, echoing all through the valley.
‘Is that safe?’ Sir Ferse asked, as pebbles and fragments came bouncing down not far from their feet, but everyone was too fixated on the heights to answer.
Balten kept one hand held up, fine-tuning his spell with delicate gestures of his fingers, locked in fine concentration as he read and adjusted his magic. With one last sudden bang, a slab of black rock peeled itself from the cliff face. Several of the onlookers gasped.It looked for a moment like the great mass of stone was falling, but Balten was in control all the while. Only a few pebbles and slivers of stone came bouncing down the rock face, while the slab hovered in the air, carried by magic. He lowered the stone, which was as thick as he was tall, and slowly laid it gently across the precipice. When he was done, the solid length of rock spanned the gap comfortably, with sufficient length to spare at each end. The whole party could have walked across abreast, but the stone did look smooth and slippery, so Samuel thought just sneaking across the middle one at a time would be a much more sensible alternative.
Balten skipped up onto the makeshift bridge and walked across quite leisurely. He hopped off at the other side and waited with his arms folded as well as he could in his bulky leather coat.
The others look to each other for assurance and it was Eric who crossed next. One by one, they went over.
When it was Samuel’s turn to cross, he did find the stone was as slippery as he suspected and he kept his knees slightly bent. Sn
ow had already begun to pile up upon it, making it all the worse. Sir Ferse hadtaken a peep over the side as he crossed, intrigued by the rushing river below, but Samuel had no wish to see such things. Horse crossed last, dragging the sled up onto the rock and pulling it over with barely a pause. He seemed to take every obstacle in his stride.
‘Should we leave it here?’ Eric asked. ‘The Paatin could use it to cross.’
‘I doubt they will find this way,’ Daneel responded, ‘and such desert-men would perish quickly in this cold-even quicker than all of you, I would guess. The weather will be getting much harsher yet and no army will be passing this way until the summer thaw. It is too early to speak yet, but I feel we have slipped through just in time.’
So they left the great slab lying across the chasm like a fallen obelisk and continued on their way along the pass.
Itwas a rare afternoon of clear sky. As they continued,the sun fellbehind the peaks. The temperature was dropping quickly, but Daneel seemed unsure of where they would be staying. He eyed the slopes and crags warily until ‘this way!’ he called and led them toa piece of level groundbeneatha tiny overhang.
‘We camp here,’ he stated and began unloading the sled before Horse had even pulled it to a halt.
The spot he had chosen was well away from the cliffs and seemed safe from any rock fall; itwas also sheltered from the wind. Horse andDaneeldug away at the snow with a couple of pot lids, until they reached the bare rocks and then laid out a length of thick canvas. Daneel drew some rods and ropes from the sled and wassoonconstructing a couple of tents, hammering great iron pegs into the stone and affixing the ropes as tightly as he could.
‘There is room enough for four of us in each. The magicians will need to take turns warming the air, however you can. Otherwise, sleep tightly together. Make sure you see to your toiletry needs now. If you have to get up in the night and you venture outside the tent, that will probably be the last we will see of you.’
They did as told and divided themselves into two groups. Balten went with the Koians into one tent while the Order magicians and Sir Ferse went into the other. It was bitterly cold and no one bothered to take off anything but their outermost coat.
Master Celios soon had their air warmed up, but the driving wind outside constantly worked to chill them again. The tent thrashed and flapped during the night as the wind picked up into a howling gale. It was a miserable night and Samuel only slept because he was so exhausted. The only decent thing about the whole night was their meal. It was only dried meats, warmed in their pans with magic, but Samuel was so hungry that each bite felt like the most delectable of feasts passing down his gullet.
Four more days and nights they continued like that, at times pushing through snow up to their hips. Daneel led them always onwards, shouting encouragement and making jokes when he could. He led them across the mountains on a zigzagging path that sometimes seemed to have them backtracking on themselves or spending hours just to move within a stone’s throw of where they had started, due to the rocks and drops and dangers in their way.
Balten regularly warmed the common folk, ensuring none of their fingers or toes succumbed to the frost, while the magicians took care of themselves. Only poor Samuel trudged on without aid, as he dared not risk using the Argum Stone. He felt miserable, freezing in his gloves and boots and he guessed it was only pure luck that his feet did not freeze solid and break off altogether. At the end of each day,he rubbed and counted his toes, blowing on them with his warm breath until some vestige of feeling returned.
It seemed as if the days had become a dream-a patchwork of unsteady steps and intermittent rests and huddling away from the elements-but the moment came when Samuel realised that the sun was warm upon his face, and a tiny gurgle beside him made him turn his head to see. The water was barely a trickle, running out from beneath the ice, but it had carried away the snow in places and bare dark earth was visible. He looked at the mountainsides around him and,in patches,the rocks and earth lay bare of ice and snow. He turned to Daneel and he felt his mouth quivering towards the purple-lipped guide. His face was too cold to move, as if frozen shut and he pulled his gloved hand from a deep pocket and shook a finger at the snowless patches.
‘Yes, Samuel,’ Daneel said. ‘We have come down far. We may even be having dinner indoors tonight if we make good time.’
The words were like heaven to him and Samuel shuffled forward with renewed vigour, wishing the others would hurry along.
They rounded a pinnacle-like monolith of stone andsawa valley of trees laid out below them, stretching far down the mountainside. A flat plateau lay below that, complete with a long,ear-shaped lake. Even though more snow-covered peaks and mountains surrounded the valley, just the sight of flat ground was cause for celebration. The party clambered down the side of a hillside made of slippery shale, each piece warm to the touch from the sun’s embrace. At first, they were worried that their steep descent would cause an avalanche of stones, but that was soon forgotten as they each gained speed and ended up running the final few metres into the treeline. Horse had left the sled behind at Daneel’s instruction, and he carried with him only the light bags that they would need from here. It was only the Koian woman who came cautiously down the slope, worried she might tumble.
They were immediately hit by a blanket of warm air that was locked amongst the trees and they began stripping off their coats and gloves with enthusiasm, abandoning them upon the ground.
Daneel soon led them to a stream than ran brisk and clean from the earthy soil, spilling down amongst the trees,and they refilled their water bags. ‘We haven’t quite followed the route I was intending, but we’ve reached the valley anyway.’
Samuel squatted down and cupped the water into his hands. It was freezing, but he lapped it up and gulped it down until his stomach was tingling with the cold. Standing, he rubbed his stubbled face with his sleeve. ‘I hope I never see a mountain again,’ he said.
‘I’ll wager you will regret those words once we have been in the desert for a week or two,’ Balten said.
Horse came and stood beside Samuel, putting his hand on his shoulder. ‘By the way,’ he said and a little pebble dropped from his palm to land with aplonkbeside Samuel’s foot. ‘That’s three.’
‘When did you get that?’ Samuel asked, quickly patting at his pockets, which all proved empty of any stones. ‘I had forgotten we were even still playing.’
‘The game continues until it is finished. I must say that was easy,’ Horse replied smugly. ‘I am a little disappointed.’
Samuel picked up the stone and examined it closely, scraping off the flecks of earth. It seemed to be the same little rock they had begun with, so he had to concede that the Koian warrior was the victor. ‘Very well. You win. But what was it I was supposed to learn?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Horse replied, ‘but it did give me some amusement and it shut you up for a while. That is reason enough.’
Samuel felt somewhat annoyed. ‘How about you have a turn?’
Horse nodded solemnly and took the pebble from Samuel’s upturned palm. ‘A good idea. But I know this game well. To win, you will only have to retrieve it once.’
Samuel had already begun thinking of ways to trick the slippery Koian. ‘I agree. Shall we begin?’
‘Yes,’ Horse said and immediately threw the stone as far as he could to land with a plop in the middle of the stream. ‘Good luck,’ he said to Samuel and began at once away.
Samuel was speechless, while the others were sniggering to themselves as they continued walking past him.
‘Cheer up!’ the Emperor said, and gave him a heavy slap on the back.
The lot of them looked as rough and dishevelled as city beggars. Horse stood straight and strong and still had some semblance of nobility, despite his bearded face,and the Koian woman was too well hidden in her hood and scarves to be seen, but they could all have done with a hot wash and some soap. Even the Emperor had lost much of his regal manner and app
eared more of a woodsman that a monarch.
‘When can we expect to find a settlement?’ Balten then asked of their guide.
‘Down beside the lake. We will need to push hard, but we will make it after dark. The locals should be accommodating and I doubt the Paatin would have bothered to find their way here just yet. We are still deep within the mountains, although the way will be simpler from here. As long as we have some coin to spare, we should be able to get a roof over our heads tonight.’
The thought had them all powering on, striding ever downwards. Often they lost sight of the valley amongst the trees, oritdropped behind some rise while they rounded a forested bend, but finally they found themselves on flat ground that Samuel almost thought he would kiss.
The small village of Callerdum sat on the edge of Green Lake (which was actually quite clear, despite its name). There was a small Imperial presence in the town and they were quite nervous of any impending Paatin foray, especially since hearing the news that the towns in the lowlands had been overcome in the weeks before. They probably had little to worry about, for the time being at least, as the Paatin seemed only intent on taking settlements that fell between them and the heart of the Empire.
Still, the people were worried. Even here, they had heard the fate of some towns that had failed to surrender: they had been utterly destroyed. Vast numbers of villages and settlements had surrendered upon sight of any Paatin coming their way. Rumourhad itthat one small village had even surrendered themselves to what they thought was a Paatin emissary,butwho turned out to be only a travelling vagrant, filthy from his days on the road.
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