She turned to him and he saw the resolve in her face. "We must go up this path. If it is our fate to die by the snowcat, then we shall surely die; but I do not believe our death is up there." She reached out to grip his arm. "You have sworn to be my paxman. You have followed me thus far, do not lose heart now, Daffyd!"
He breathed a sigh to steady himself and regain his composure. "As you command, my lady," he replied, staring directly into her eyes. "I will go and get our packs, but take my sword while I am gone in case you are wrong about this." He handed her his sword and retraced his way to their camp. She smiled to herself and returned to watching the snowcat. If the snowcat was not friendly and chose to attack, the sword would be as a twig against a storm.
Daffyd returned shortly and received his sword back. Neither Hollin nor the snowcat had moved from their respective positions since he had left. They shouldered their packs and, with a feeling akin to dismay, Daffyd boosted Hollin up onto the ledge and hauled himself up behind her. Before them a narrow but unmistakable trail led up towards the waiting snowcat. Putting aside his qualms, Daffyd followed his leige-lady.
The climb was arduous and dizzying as they climbed the face of the cliff after the snowcat. Very quickly they began to notice that the animal would wait seated until they were quite close, then rise and continue a little further up the trail. Daffyd forbore to look back down as they ascended higher and higher. Though the day was cool, a heavy sweat covered him before they had gone very far.
Hollin seemed distant and absorbed as she led the way. The snowcat no longer worried her, and she found and followed its path with little difficulty. She was somewhat disconcerted when suddenly she found that the snowcat had disappeared from sight. However, when they finally surmounted the crest of the cliff she saw the reason. Standing at the top of the cliff, they could see that it sloped gradually back for several hundred yards before abruptly rising to form the base of the pinnacles that in turn became the tops of the enveloping mountains. The ground before them was rough with rocks and there was no sign of tree or shrub. The faintest indication of a trail led, twisting and turning, to a narrow cleft between two of the mountain peaks. Sitting at the entrance to this pass was the snowcat.
Daffyd, who had stopped to catch his breath, stood leaning against one of the larger boulders near the cliff's edge. To his way of thinking, their position had gone from reckless to self-destructive. Far below them, down a path he could no longer see, was the relative safety of the valley floor. From this cliff top the only exits were the serrated peaks of the mountains or the trail that led directly to the snowcat. Daffyd had no doubts that the crack between the mountains led directly to the snowcat's lair. He swallowed his futile advice as the duchess prepared to lead them into the beast's jaws, contenting himself with readjusting the weight of his pack and unloosening the scabbard of his sword.
Without hesitation, Hollin started after the snowcat. As they reached the half-way point across the expanse of the cliff-top, the snowcat patiently rose and vanished down the passage between the rock-walls. Fully expecting the snowcat to pounce on them as they came to the opening, Daffyd was astounded when nothing happened. Looking into it, he discovered that the opening was indeed a passage between the mountains. Only wide enough for the two of them to walk comfortably abreast, the pass seemed to lead straight through, directly into the heart of the mountain. The sheer walls of the pass were faintly damp with condensation that sunlight never evaporated and their height was daunting. The sky was nothing but a pale blue ribbon and the dimness of perpetual shadow filled the passage with gloom. Daffyd realized that the sun would only be able to peep directly into this crack for a few minutes each day, and only when exactly aligned overhead in the sky. An indistinct grey form was all that either of them could discern of the snowcat, far along the passage. Looking down at her ring for encouragement, Hollin stepped into the gloom of the pass and Daffyd came in beside her.
Their footsteps were preternaturally loud, echoing off the rock walls as they walked along. Even their breathing seemed to echo around them. The floor of the pass was surprisingly smooth and free of debris. There was a progressive downward slant to their path, so that the sky continued to recede from them overhead. The walls remained regular, with no ledges, handholds or potential ambush sites.
They had walked for the better part of an hour before they saw the end of the passage. Ahead of them loomed another wall of solid rock, touching the sky with the two walls abutting it. At the base of the cross wall was a black hole. As they approached, they saw that it was a post and lintel doorway of stone not dressed by nature. Curious, they examined it for carvings but found nothing. Beyond its doorstep was blackness. And there was no sign of the snowcat.
Hollin stepped boldly through this doorway before Daffyd could restrain her, and stubbed her foot.
"Come back!" Daffyd cried, his voice loud and unfamiliar as it bounced against the stone walls.
Gingerly, Hollin stepped back out. "I think that there are stairs in there," she said abashedly.
"Let me make a light and we will find out." Nerves and concern for the duchess' impetuous behavior made him irritable.
Hollin nodded contritely and watched without comment as Daffyd unslung his pack and busied himself within it. He emptied the contents and hunted through them. Shaking his head dejectedly, he looked up at her. "I am afraid that we shall have to go back or stumble forwards in the dark. I thought I brought something to make a torch with." He sat back on his heels.
Thoughtfully she regarded the myriad items that lay piled at her feet. "There is a way that I can create the light we need, but to do so I shall need to rest for a while and have something to eat." Her eyes engaged his speculatively. "I can conjure an arcane flame to be our lamp."
His jaw did not drop, but his look clearly bespoke the thought that she should have mentioned this solution before he unloaded his entire pack. Wordlessly he began to repack.
Crouching before him and offering the canteen and some dried fruit and pine nuts from her pack, Hollin explained. "I don't do much with my arcane abilities. Unlike your lord and lady, I was never formally trained. House Gifts are inherited and then unlocked when a person becomes the head of a Great House. I believe that the Gifts of the Minor Houses are more similar to the arcane attributes studied and exercised by the Scholastium in Dacara. The Gifts of the Great Houses are more directly channeled from vaster powers. Langstraad's House Gift is fire. House Gifts are rarely used because they can be very difficult to control and direct. Anyway, I can conjure fire and I should be able to control it, but it does take concentration."
She paused, realizing that nervousness was making her more garrulous than usual. Before her, Daffyd ceased packing and was listening attentively to her explanation. "Is it dangerous? For you, I mean?" he asked uneasily.
"No, not really. There is always a risk when tapping into the House Gifts, but in this case the risk is minimal. It's just that I haven't used my Gift in a long while, and I need time to rest and prepare myself."
He sat thinking of what she had said, and then ventured a question. "If the Gift's are inherited, does that mean that all members of the Great and Minor Houses have the Gifts?"
"They have the potential for the Gifts. Theoretically the potential is latent in all direct members of the Houses but the Gift only becomes active when the ruling member is keyed, and that occurs only after the passing of the former power wielder."
"So only one person at a time can use the House Gift?"
"As far as I know, yes." She smiled at him. "It's good that you come from a House where arcane potentials are not overly feared or venerated."
"Arcane matters do not bother me overmuch; however, the size of the claws on that snowcat do bother me a good deal," he admitted.
"Do not trouble yourself about the snowcat!" She tried to reassure him. "I cannot rationally explain it, but I know that the snowcat means us no harm. Continue trusting me in this venture as I have trusted you to bring us
safely through the mountains." She reached out and he took her hand in his. Voicelessly they affirmed their bond of trust, and Daffyd helped her to rise to her feet.
While he put his pack on his back and readjusted the saddlebags over his shoulder, Hollin stood very still with her hands at her sides. Her stance was relaxed and balanced, her breathing deep and regular. Closing her eyes, she raised her hands and cupped them together at waist height. Her breathing remained even, but the faintest of lines creased her forehead and Daffyd stepped back in alarm as flames erupted from her cupped hands.
Opening her eyes, Hollin smiled at Daffyd over the flames. "Follow me. I will lead the way, but do not come too close to the fire. It will not burn me, but it is real fire and can do you injury." She turned and walked through the doorway with Daffyd close on her heels. In the flickering light they saw before them a steep stairway that led up into black shadows. With an eager step, Hollin started to climb.
Soon they were in a world whose confines consisted of their own dancing pool of light. Above them was darkness, and darkness followed closely at their heels. The stairs ended only to be replaced by a long corridor that slanted upwards. They followed the corridor until it ended and another flight of stairs began. The way led in only one direction: up. On they climbed in the subterranean night with only their own footfalls and laboured breathing to listen to. They stopped twice to rest and drink from the water bag, Daffyd holding it for Hollin while she drank. After the second stop, time became elusive and impossible to measure. Forward motion became their only objective.
They had almost reached the end of their energy when Daffyd, whose eyes were less subjected to the brightness of the flames, noticed that there was a lessening of the blackness ahead of them. Quietly, he drew Hollin's attention to this observance, but her eyes were still too dazzled to see the change. As they reached the top of the flight of stairs upon which they were trudging, they both saw the darkness giving way to light at the far end of yet another long corridor. With their ebbing vitality, they struggled wearily forward and were rewarded with a shaft of brilliant light cascading down the stairway they reached.
Giving a sigh of mingled satisfaction and exhaustion, Hollin sank to the floor at the foot of the stairs and extinguished the fire she had born. Daffyd crouched beside her, noting the pallor of her face and the dark smudges lying beneath her eyes. He put his fingers to her wrist and felt the light, thready pulse.
"I just need a bit of rest, that's all," she told him.
"Can you make it up this last stairwell?"
In answer she reached out her hand and he pulled her to her feet. As she started up the steps, she stumbled and only Daffyd's quick reflexes, putting an arm around her waist, kept her from being pitched to her knees. Without saying anything further she proceeded to climb the remaining stairs with Daffyd's support.
As they neared the top of the stairway, the light grew so bright that they needed to stop several times to allow their eyes to adjust. Stepping out of the stairwell, they were momentarily blinded by the intensity of the light and forced to stand with hands shading their eyes until they could bear it. Slowly they let their hands fall, and stood in wonder at where the dark tunnel had led them. All about them was white with blue shadows. They were in an enormous ice-cavern, apparently so high up upon the mountains that the sun shown through to illuminate its interior. Fantastic shapes carved in the icy surface by pressure and the action of melting and refreezing surrounded them. Looking about, they saw that the tunnel had deposited them near the middle of the length of the cavern and that, though the wall to their left was solid, there was an opening in the wall to the right which led into another cavern.
Daffyd directed Hollin's attention to the opening in the wall. "If we are to go on, there lies our path," he said.
Hollin nodded. "First I must rest. We did not begin to follow the snowcat until near mid-day yesterday and the brightness of the light in here would indicate early morning. Could we have walked all night in the tunnel and not noticed the passing of time?"
"I confess, my lady, I do not know for how long we have traveled. It might be a matter of hours or an entire day. I am also weary but my body does not seem to be much in need of food or sleep."
"Well, I need to sit for a while and eat something. It is probably the use of my Gift that has fatigued me. I should be ready to go on in a little while." So saying, she retreated to the top of the stairs so as to avoid sitting on the chilling floor of the cavern. "Do you see any snowcat tracks?"
Daffyd, walking the length and breadth of the cavern, called back, "No, there are no signs of it or anything else." He returned to her and shared some of the dried meat and a handful of nuts that she had taken from her pack.
They sat for the better part of an hour, recuperating from their long, dark climb. After a while, Hollin announced that she was feeling better and was ready to go on. Hoisting their packs onto their backs they stood up and headed for the next cave in the ice.
Soon they found that, as the climb in darkness had been a series of stairs and inclined tunnels, so their journey in light was through a series of caverns carved out of ice. The sun grew stronger and the changing light within the caverns reflected this fact. Far from uniform in size, each cave was uniquely different. Some were tremendously high with smooth, glassy floors that were slippery and hard to walk upon. Other caves were long and low, or had floors from which a forest of stalagmites rose, forcing them to take a circuitous route across the cave. One cave was a smooth, serpentine bore as if an enormous snake had carved it out in ages past. The amount of snow and ice that made the roofs of these caves could be detected as thicker or thinner by the dimming or brightening of the light within the individual cave. The caves seemed endless, each one opening onto the next, but since there was always but one opening and one exit, the way was unmistakable.
The sunlight began to change gradually until the darkening of the caverns betokened the coming of night. They looked in vain for some comfortable place to spend the hours of darkness. In the end they sat down beside each other in the lee of a great stalagmite and wrapped their bedrolls as many warm garments as possible about them, sitting on the remainder. There was nothing with which to build a fire, so they ate cold provisions and resorted to Daffyd's near empty flask for a little false warmth before trying to sleep.
The cold woke them up intermittently throughout the long, comfortless night. The moon rose late, filling their cave with a cold, milky light that turned all shadows into strange menacing shapes. Morning was a relief from the night, though neither of them felt refreshed. Eating quickly, they were on their way as soon as they could force cold cramped muscles to stand and walk.
The day went much as the previous one. The hardship of the march was beginning to exhaust all of their resources; only Hollin's certainty and her will kept them moving. The wonder of the caves had given over to a sense of frustration as one cave only gave way to another. Their eyes grew tired from the continual glare and the chill had settled into the marrow of their bones. When the gradual dimming of light heralded another night within these beautiful but lifeless halls, they were reaching the final limits of their strength. It was with a shared look of disbelief that they saw at the end of a long vaulted tunnel, not the continuing whiteness of yet another cave, but a glimpse of the sky gone lavender with the advent of evening.
In a state of trepidation, they walked through the portal of the last ice cave and found themselves, literally, on top of the world. At their feet a narrow but smoothly paved road led down and across a high ridge to where a cluster of buildings seemed to hang on the side of a mountain. All around the city, the mountains fell away in folds for thousands of feet, until they disappeared in the grayness of distance and night. The fading light coloured the buildings in soft shades of peach and gold and pale blue, and the points of light that began to appear in the windows were more like stars than lamps. A smile of elation appeared on Hollin's face. Straightening her back, she set off down the road
towards the city with Daffyd close beside her.
Chapter 12
Approaching the city, Daffyd was struck by its impossible location and the total silence that enveloped it. It hung on the edge of a mountain which dropped steeply away, so that the buildings looked as if they should slide down into the gloom at any moment; yet they stayed perched where they were, defying the laws of gravity. The exterior surfaces of the buildings were plain whitewashed walls, pierced by deep windows, with roofs made of blue glazed tiles. No creature was visible on the road and they found themselves passing through an archway into the city itself with no one to welcome or to warn them off. Daffyd placed a wary hand on the pommel of his sword, though the duchess strode heedlessly ahead into the twilight. Soft light spilled out of many of the windows illuminating their way, but no sounds except their own footsteps were to be heard.
A glimpse of movement brought them to a mutual halt as they spied a figure in a long, grey robe coming towards them. A hood was thrown forward, sending the face into deep shadow, and Daffyd's hand gripped his sword a little more securely. The duchess' voice, hailing the city's inhabitant, seemed to startle the figure from some private reverie. Stopping, the figure lifted back the hood and a man's solemn face regarded them in puzzlement.
"Good sir," Hollin said more softly, "We have traveled many miles in search of a man whom we believe to be dwelling within your city. Can you direct us to someone who can perhaps tell us if he whom we seek is here?"
The man looked confused and then bowed, motioning them to follow him. As they trailed after their guide through the rapidly darkening streets, they saw other figures, garbed in similar robes, walking singly or in pairs without speaking. The street they followed remained fairly level, with the buildings to either side being either one or two stories in height. They came to a juncture in the street where flights of stairs the same width as the street connected the parallel streets of the city. Their guide led them upwards, crossing two more streets before he turned and led them back in the direction of the main gateway. At last he halted in front of a doorway and rapped softly on the wooden door. When no one seemed to answer his knock, their guide opened the door himself, and pantomimed for them to enter.
Hearts in Cups Page 19