I saw in my mind the mountains that lay between the winter country and the starlit lands tearing their roots from the earth. Sometimes the border between two lands will change; the pressure of war can force that kind of change as the people of one country take land in another, or it can happen in other ways. That had happened sometimes between the winter country and the summer country. But a river is only a river, even if it sometimes flows in odd directions, over hilltops or across cliffs that would constrain a normal river. Great mountains are something else. I had never imagined the mountains shifting their place. Now I saw how that would be: the earth shattering, cracking open in great rents all the way down to the land of the shades.
Iro said, horror in his voice, “The tombs of our people would be destroyed.”
He had spoken that thought a heartbeat before I could. That idea was terrible enough, but even worse than that might happen if the mountains tore themselves free of the earth. All the protected valleys that lay between the roots of the mountains, so important for our herds, would be destroyed. Should the mountains tear free of the earth and walk, the steppe itself must surely be torn asunder for a long distance to the south. How many of our people and our herds would be caught in such a cataclysm?
I felt as though I could not breathe for the terror of what might happen if we failed to stop the Saa’arii—if Inhejeriel failed to stop them—I knew very strongly and clearly that we had to help her, we could not fail her—
Then Aras said, very sharply, for him, “Tal-Inhejeriel! Cease at once! Everyone is already trying to help you. If you have never learned a decent restraint before, I can hardly think well of your teachers, but I trust you will take instruction on this point now.”
The terrible images of broken mountains and rending earth lifted, and with those images, much of the horror that had struck into my heart. I understood—I had not understood it before—that Inhejeriel had turned her sorcery upon us, and Aras had stopped her.
I set my hand on the hilt of my knife.
“Easy,” Geras ordered, grabbing my arm. He shook his head at Iro, who had also set a hand to his knife. “You youngsters get a grip—you young men,” he corrected himself, switching from darau to taksu. “Both of you, wait. The woman is very afraid.” He shook his head, frustrated, asking me in darau, “What is the phrase, Ryo? Oh, right.” He went on in taksu again. “I do not set any fault, much fault, against her, with all this here and her people under that shadow there. We need her to defeat our enemies, you know that! And we need her to go back!” He finished in darau, firmly. “Of course she shouldn’t have tried anything like that, but what do you expect? She’s a sorcerer. You youngsters just settle down and let Lord Gaur handle her.”
The problem had ended. Aras had ended it. Geras was not wrong, though I could hardly believe even a Lau would feel such tolerance for what Inhejeriel had tried to do. I reluctantly took my hand from my knife. Iro did not like to follow my example, anyone could see that, but Etta nudged him and after a moment he did the same, folding his arms over his chest and scowling.
Aras was ignoring us all. He was saying to Inhejeriel, “You do not have to make the Ugaro more afraid so that they will fight for the victory. You may be certain they will not tamely sit down and accept defeat. None of us came here only to flinch from the first sight of our enemy, as you should realize. An apology would be in order.”
I am sorry—I am sorry, Inhejeriel said, to Aras first, but then she turned to the rest of us. She looked earnestly at Iro, perhaps because she knew by means of her sorcery that he was the most deeply offended. I am sorry, I beg your forgiveness, please do not be angry. I am so frightened—no, do not be angry, it is true, it is only true. The images were of things that might happen, everything might happen that way, but I should not have tried to frighten you by that means. Please, I will not do it again, I will try not to give offense. Please, please do not be angry.
Iro and I exchanged a glance. Then Iro said to Inhejeriel, “You have lived near Ugaro long enough to know better. Do not do that again. I do not forgive the offense, but I will set it in the past ... this time.” He turned his back on her and stalked away, along the ridge, sure-footed as though he were cousin to the white leopard rather than the wolf.
“Stay close to me,” I told Inhejeriel. “Do not go near Iro.” I gestured for everyone else to go in front of me.
Aras smiled at me as he walked past me, and touched my arm. “You’re very tolerant, Ryo.”
I shrugged. “Everything Geras said was true. And I trust you will not let her do anything wrong. And ...” I paused, not wanting to put my other thought into words.
“And everything might indeed happen exactly as she showed us? Yes, it might, though I doubt the mountains are very easy to shift, and as far as that goes, the Saa’arii would have to drive you Ugaro out of the high north before they could even attempt to force the border south. They’d probably find that fairly difficult.”
Obviously the Saa’arii could strike against my people with a kind of sorcery we did not know how to counter. If that had not been so, we would not be here now. But now I remembered that they probably feared our singers. If it came to a war between our peoples, they should fear our singers.
“It won’t come to that,” Aras said. “I don’t intend that we should fail here.”
“Should I find this comforting?” I asked drily and he laughed and walked past me, Geras at his back, both of them walking fast to come up with Iro and Etta, who had not waited. I followed, beckoning to Inhejeriel to stay close to me.
The ledge we followed turned around a broken angle of stone and went up again, much more steeply. We followed the ledge and then a ridge that ran in almost the right direction, up again, then down a little. Sometimes Talal Sabero lay directly before us, with the ugly smear of the shadow tide between, and sometimes our path shifted so that we walked a different way. I preferred the times when I did not have to look at that emptiness. I am certain everyone preferred those times.
I could not judge how long we walked. The Moon still had not shifted from her place at the apex of the heavens, or very little. The stars, when I looked as carefully as I could, did not seem to have walked any distance through the measures of their accustomed paths. Weariness dragged at me. After some measureless time, I lifted Inhejeriel and set her on my shoulders, which is an easier way to carry a small person than in one’s arms.
Finally, some time after that, I found that Iro had halted and everyone had gathered together, studying the way we had to go. We had come to a place where cliffs closed in before us and to one side, breaking the force of the wind, while empty air lay to the other side. Snow lay deeply all along the base of the cliffs.
“We must go up,” Iro said to me.
I nodded. He was right; we must either go up or back the way we had come. Certainly the cliff before us did not seem impassable, but neither did the climb seem easy.
Geras tilted his head back to look up the long and perilous distance. He said, his tone disgusted, “You’d think if the gods wanted to be helpful, they could do a bit better than this! Who’s got the rope?”
Iro said curtly, not looking at anyone, “The rope is in my pack.”
I thought that at some moment, I would have to tell him to set his temper aside. Of course he had reason to be angry; we all did; and weariness will harden anyone's temper. But allies should not indulge in that kind of temper with one another when the enemy approaches. I said merely, “Then you may make the climb, and everyone else will follow when you have secured the rope at the top of the cliff.”
He looked at me. Then he took a breath, bowed his head, and, his manner now much more reserved, set down his pack so that he could find the rope. Perhaps I would not have to speak to him after all.
He made the climb with methodical care, testing every hold before he trusted it, never showing a moment of the carelessness that besets many young men. There was absolutely nothing in his actions that I could justly criticize. I wo
uld not have expected anything else.
Beside me, Aras murmured, “I have to admit, Ryo, he does remind me of another serious young Ugaro warrior I’ve met.”
I sighed. After a moment I answered, “Yes, Etta said so as well. I was never so serious.”
“You absolutely were. You still are.” He was smiling, not looking at me. I had to laugh, and he added, “Not quite all the time, I grant. You’ve relaxed a good deal, or in ordinary circumstances you have. All right, he’s up, and ... yes, here comes the rope. Very good. Who goes up next?”
I said, “Etta will make the ascent next, and then Inhejeriel. Then we will send up the packs. Then Geras, then you, and then I will come last.”
My sister turned to say something to me. Then her eyes widened, and she pointed past me. Above us Iro called out urgently, furiously. I spun, my sword already in my hand though I did not remember drawing it. The deep cough of the tiger, angry at having his ambush ruined before he could strike, echoed from cliff face to cliff face, so that at first I could not tell where he crouched. I could not see the tiger, no one could see him, but Etta was pointing to a place along the face of the cliff where the pads of one great foot had come down half in the snow. Only then did I see the tiger’s shadow, which poured across snow and stone, immense and terrifying. Snow whirled through the air, driven before a sudden hard wind. It was as though the tiger had brought the storm with him, or as though he were half a storm himself. Perhaps he was. The single track showed me a tiger far bigger than any tiger in the land of the living—twice as big, three times—bigger than that.
All this, I saw in less than a heartbeat of time. Though I could not spare much attention, I was aware that Etta had grabbed the belt of Inhejeriel’s coat and thrown her upward, then set a hand below her knee and shoved her up again. Even now, Inhejeriel did not cry out aloud. Everyone else was shouting or screaming, but the Tarashana woman was silent. Aras bent, offering Etta his hands, fingers laced together.
Then I did not know what else happened there, because the tiger eased forward a step and another step—I saw another partial track appear, and knew he was close enough to leap. Snow blew into my face, confusing my vision. I unfocused my gaze, looking past and through the snow for any sign that would tell me when the tiger moved.
This was the worst place imaginable to face a tiger, even if he had been a living beast rather than an immense and terrifying shade. Cliffs to two sides, a sheer drop to one side, the tiger between us and any possible retreat—I could not imagine any good ending. I shouted and stamped, slashing with my sword, making a show, but I already knew the effort was hopeless, and was certain of that when the tiger gave a deep, raking snarl. I heard the soft pad of his foot on the stone, though I saw nothing. Our packs lay at the foot of the cliff, ready to be pulled up; I seized one of those and flung it at the place I knew the tiger crouched. Some great unseen foot struck the pack out of the air, sending it tumbling away and out into the air. I threw another pack, shouting, with the same result.
Geras said, not to me, “Get up the gods-hated cliff!”
Aras answered, his tone perfectly reasonable, “Yes, but I can’t, you know. If I turn my back now, I expect the tiger will stop hesitating. I realize we haven’t shields, but if you can think of anything better than forming up into a line, I’m open to suggestions.” He raised his voice. “Back up a step, Ryo, and we’ll form a line.”
It was not even a bad suggestion, if the tiger had been a living beast. This tiger was something other than a tiger, something more than a tiger. His shadow wavered, enormous, fraying at the edges into snow and wind. From the sounds, I knew someone still climbed. Maybe both Inhejeriel and my sister still clung to the rope, exposed and helpless.
“Aras, climb,” I snapped, “Geras and I will slow the tiger. Do not argue with me! Listen to Iro, he will get you to Talal Sabero—”
“Ryo! Get in line,” Aras said forcefully, cutting me off.
“Gods save us from the gods-hated stupidity of gods-hated high nobles,” Geras snapped, and ran forward, shouting and waving his sword, not wildly, but deliberately, to draw the tiger’s attention. He would injure the beast if he could, but obviously that was not his greatest concern.
I knew at once I should have done that myself, but it would have been completely disgraceful to waste the chance Geras gave us. I did not wait to see what happened; I knew what must happen. I turned, sheathing my sword as I moved, closed my hands on Aras’ hips, and flung him up the cliff. He twisted, grabbed the rope, and went up, not arguing, and I followed. Behind us, there was no outcry, no sound of a struggle. The struggle would have been very brief. I might have heard the sounds of a dead man dragged across stone; I was not certain. I did not turn to see.
I climbed as fast as I could, careless of the ice, using the rope more than the stone. Twice I slipped, once badly, so that I would have fallen if not for that rope. I came up to Aras. He was pulling himself upward, but more slowly. I climbed past him, the rope wrapped around my wrist lest I should lose my hold. I did not slip, and in a moment found a good grip. I said curtly, “Put your foot on my shoulder.”
Aras did as I asked, not speaking, and that gave him the boost he needed to come in reach of Iro’s hands. Iro pulled him up and over the edge, and a moment later reached down again for me. I reached up, nearly slipping, but we caught each other, wrist to wrist, and he pulled me up as he had Aras. I got my knee on the edge of the cliff and twisted around at once, though I knew the tiger must have gone or Iro would not have turned his attention to helping Aras or me. I looked anyway. There was nothing to see. A little blood, not much. A scraped place in the snow. Nothing else.
After a moment, Iro said, “Someone will need to go down and send up the packs. I will do that.”
“I will do it,” I snapped. There were only two packs now. We had lost half our supplies. That was my doing. And Geras was gone. I could not bear to look at Aras.
“He died bravely,” Iro said, as one says when there is no other comfort. “He was a courageous and honorable man.”
Aras drew a breath. Then he turned to Inhejeriel and said, “He was not lost to the black tide. I realize that might make his situation different. But perhaps ...”
That caught my attention. I had not thought of anything of the kind. Inhejeriel stood huddled in her coat. She was not looking down toward the place the tiger had gone, but up, toward the still-distant peaks of Talal Sabero. She flinched a little when Aras spoke to her, as though startled to be addressed, but then met his gaze. She said, Once a man’s star has taken him up, it is wrong to ask the world to remember him. But if the shadow of the black tide took him, then yes. The shadow is close, and it falls through all the layers of the world, and it is greedy. It reaches out to take everything it can. But I do not know whether he fell into the shadow of the tide or into the place your people should go or—or somewhere else, a different place.
“But it is possible.”
Perhaps, perhaps it may be so. I will try. Tell me his name, show him to me in your mind, and I will remember him, I will give his name to the stars, I will ask that he be remembered to the world.
“Geras Lan Karenasen,” Aras said, his voice very quiet. “Thank you. Even if you cannot do it, I would appreciate the attempt.”
I had not known his full name. I had never even wondered. He had been a good troop leader, a man who took every responsibility seriously, a man everyone respected. He had been kind to an Ugaro warrior captive among his people, even when nothing had required such kindness. He had been married to a woman named Aedani; he had three children—at least three. That was what I knew. He must have had other family, but I knew nothing of them. This seemed strange and uncomfortable to me now. I could never know an Ugaro man so well and yet know so little of him.
I said, “I will go down and send up the packs. Iro, watch carefully. Everyone, please watch carefully.”
“Yes,” Iro said, not arguing.
After so much fear had driven us u
p the cliff, going down again was a trivial task. The tiger did not return. He had no reason to return, now. I went down and tied each pack in turn to the rope, waited for these to be drawn upward, then climbed up again myself. Then we went on.
-18-
Once we were past the cliff, the ridge broadened, running at an easy angle almost directly toward Talal Sabero. Also toward the disturbing shadow of the dark tide, which seemed much lower and closer now, engulfing some of the sky and some of the stone. Everything around that shadow of emptiness seemed distorted. It seemed to me like the absence of the world itself. If a man stood at the very edge of the world and looked out, then the darkness in front of him, where there was nothing at all, might be like that.
I was tired and disheartened and thinking many disquieting thoughts.
“I don’t think so, Ryo,” Aras said. “Our scholars believe there is no edge, not in the way a person would understand the term.”
“That may be so,” I said. I was not very interested in the arguments of Lau scholars.
Etta, walking close to us, asked, “How could there be no edge to the world? Nothing mortal goes on forever.”
“I truly have no idea. It’s not a subject I’ve ever considered deeply.” Aras was breathing deeply and slowly; tired with the long effort of the climb. I thought he had spoken at all because he wanted to think of something besides his own weariness. Of the two packs we still possessed, Iro had taken the heavier and Aras the lighter, so that I could carry Inhejeriel. But the lighter pack was enough of a burden for a Lau.
Inhejeriel was tired too. She had not complained—she never complained—but she could not have kept on, not past the cliff. I carried her like a child, on my back, with her arms around my neck. We had come much higher by this time, far too high for meadows or any comfortable places to rest. I felt that Inhejeriel could not go much farther, even if she were carried. She was shivering continually, and sometimes her arms loosened around my shoulders so that if I had not caught her arms, she might have fallen. Everyone was very weary, thought it was impossible to tell how many hands of time might have passed. Perhaps days had passed; as the Moon and the stars were not following their accustomed paths in the sky, I could not judge. When we came to a place where the surrounding cliffs provided decent shelter from the wind, I called out to Iro. He turned at once, nodding, dropping his pack.
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