Maklin could not dispute his injury. In truth, even gentle riding pained him, though he tried his best to conceal it from the others. So he took the journal pages that Sandun had written and copies of their maps and rode away with Norris, and Eki, and the cavalry from Sirosfeld.
Several young men, all from Kagne’s village, volunteered to go with the expedition, but Sandun, after discussion with Sir Ako and Basil and Kagne, turned them down. As far as anyone knew, the mountains were empty of human life; ghosts and other monsters of legend were, it was hoped, exceptionally rare. The expedition would not succeed in reaching Serica by force of arms. Instead, more people meant more mouths to feed.
Sandun strongly considered sending all the scouts and Sir Ako back, releasing them from their service to the Archives, but he hesitated to make that decision for several reasons: if the path were lost, they might need to explore multiple routes, and they might need to cut down trees to make a temporary shelter. Twelve men going into the Tiralas seemed safer than three. The true reason—that he had grown fond of Sir Ako and the scouts—he held in his heart. After the battle, they had become a band of brothers.
Basil was anxious to start heading up the path as soon as it was discovered. He counted the days till winter, when the Tiralas would become death’s hunting ground. By his reckoning, they still had enough time to make the passage, but every day was precious. And so, packed and with somber hearts, they headed up into the Tirala Mountains.
The Tiralas were feared in Kelten. In stories and legends, they were haunted mountains, the end of civilization, a desolate wasteland of high, wind-blasted plateaus surrounded by ever-taller peaks covered in snows that did not melt and occupied by monsters the likes of which were not to be found anywhere else in the world. Now that they had reached the Tiralas, the mountains inspired dread in Sandun, and during his brave talk with Maklin, his words rang hollow to his ears. He felt an air of unreality as he and Maklin argued. In his heart, he wanted to go back to Tebispoli instead of going up and east, and he suspected that Maklin felt the same.
As they rode slowly up the long canyon, Sandun thought about the nature of his feelings for the scouts. He did not know them well, not like he knew Basil or Kagne, but they had risked their lives when they could have run. They were alive because all of them had fought together, faced their fears and outrageous odds, and come out on the other side. It was, he concluded, a unique bond among men. As he searched his feelings, he realized that now he would risk his life for them, and he felt they would risk their lives for him, though he could not explain why.
The scouts treated him differently—not like one of them exactly, but almost. Now they joked with him and beat him at cards. In their unofficial hierarchy, he now ranked just behind Sir Ako, taking the place of Sergeant Torn.
Basil and Olef became close in the days after the battle. Basil didn’t talk about it, but sometimes Basil’s dog came over and sat beside Sandun for an hour when Basil and Olef were not to be seen.
While they played cards, the other scouts made subtle comments about her affair with Basil to Olef, using hunting analogies that were unfamiliar to Sandun. Olef responded in equally arcane language, apparently telling them that she was going to do what she was going to do. All this was said while talking about deer and antelopes and wolves. As it didn’t seem like anyone was going to resort to knives, Sandun stopped worrying about the matter.
Likely as a result of Sergeant Torn’s death, Sir Ako became much more open about his life to Sandun. He was by rank and by birth far above everyone else on the expedition. Military tradition and custom placed a strong barrier between officers and their men. It was necessary, explained Sir Ako, because sometimes you had to order them to die. However, Sandun was not under his command and, as the king’s agent, Sandun was somewhat outside the normal social ranking as well. Sir Ako began to treat Sandun like a confidant and advisor. And as a teacher as well—Sandun had a great deal of knowledge about history and the acts of the noble families. The history of the last hundred years in Kelten was very complicated, what with the civil war and the nearly successful conquest of Fiodroch, and while Sir Ako knew the broad outlines, he was eager to learn more.
As the third son of an earl, with both older brothers of sound mind and body, Sir Ako was not expected to inherit the earldom, and so his education of “high politics” was half that of his brothers. He could have gone into the priesthood, but he had always been big for his age, and the life of a warrior had appealed to him. His life story, such as it was, was interesting to Sandun, as men like him rarely entered the histories. It was odd that, although Sir Ako, being a knight, was highly ranked in Kelten society, however among the people he knew well, his status was low, and he felt this keenly. In the company of his father or older brother, he was insignificant, little better than a servant. Among the great lords, his opinion counted for nothing. He was just a knight, and there were at least fifteen thousand of them in Kelten. By contrast, there were just a shade less than a hundred earls and only five marks and but four dukes, each one of whom commanded the respect of the king. Sandun sensed that Sir Ako wasn’t escaping just his wife’s disdain.
For Sandun, life over the last decade had been very comfortable. Among the people he spent his time with, he held a high status: a Master at the Archives was a fine position. His mother had lived to see his elevation to that rank, and she’d been so happy she cried through much of the ceremony.
It was curious to see how different Sir Ako’s perception of his own life was compared to Sandun’s impression of what his life should have been like. Sandun thought Sir Ako was like a man who was surrounded by rare and wonderful books that his friends and relations could read but which were forbidden to him.
Sandun wondered if Sir Ako had ever had any real friends except for Sergeant Torn. Being the son of an earl, he ranked above all the other knights of his age. As a military commander, his men had to be kept at a distance. As for the nobility, Sandun thought only one other earl or duke had a third legitimate son around Sir Ako’s age, and he lived in the north near Thalapolis. For his part, Sandun liked Sir Ako.
Basil looked at the world with the eyes of a hawk, though he said little. His observations were profound, but his speculations beyond the natural world were rare. And Kagne had become so sensitive to the land that he talked about it as though it was alive, as though it talked back to him. Sandun admired the man Kagne had become, but he did not understand him. By contrast, though Sir Ako did not have a great mind, he had a determined one, and he had a thirst for learning, especially for the history of wars and battles.
Kagne was the obvious person to handle the mules now that Maklin had departed. Kagne had long experience leading pack trains and skill with animals. For their part, the mules seemed to take special pleasure in coming up behind Kagne and braying at him. All told, it was a very different group that rode up into the Tirala Mountains on that late spring day, compared to the group that set out from Tebispoli three months earlier.
Trail markers like the one that they found at the start of the path were rare, likely due to the passage of hundreds of years. Only one more pile was discovered as they wended their way up through a canyon filled with dry bushes.
When Archives Expedition finally reached the top of the pass, a frozen wind blew snow in their faces, and Sandun could see little of the land ahead, only tall peaks rising high above the clouds in the distance. With his cloak wrapped around his face to keep the ice from biting, he kept his head down. Using the pale sun as their guide, they headed due east and hoped.
By the late afternoon, the sun had warmed up the land enough to force the cold winds above their heads. The snow was not more than a few inches deep, and countless tufts of dry grass could be seen covering the undulating path. Every mile or so they passed a large boulder and on the western side, sheltered from the wind, there were usually several thorn bushes. Where the snow had blown clear, antelope scat could
be found. Occasional animal skulls peered at them with empty eyes.
They camped beside these large rocks and burned grasses and dried bushes for their fire. Basil returned from his hunt with one fat white-haired rabbit. “Little game,” he said, “but unwary.” After sunset, the wind died away. Walking away from the camp to gather dry grass, Sandun felt the stars’ presence more keenly than ever before. Away from the fire, the stars were bright and seemed to fill the sky like a growing host.
In the past, Pellian legends said the sky was like a flat plate held up by two giant trees that grew from the tops of the tallest mountains at either end of the earth. But for more than a century, it had been known that the earth was a perfect sphere. In the college of astronomy in Tebispoli, Sandun had seen the latest models of the stars marked out on hemispheres of clear glass. The astronomers now claimed that the stars were fixed to a number of vast spheres that completely surrounded the earth and each other.
The invention of the farseer glass some fifteen years ago rattled the astronomers. Before Sandun left, there was talk in the The Frog on Rock—the Tebispoli tavern he frequented—about stupendous discoveries made with the very newest and largest farseers. Master Obis, a casual friend of Sandun, had told him late one evening, a year before, that he had observed faint dots of light orbiting around Dyus, the second-brightest planet. The man had clearly drunk too many glasses of beer, and Sandun dismissed his talk as confused rambling. But now he wondered, as he stood in the freezing wind and looked into the vast black sky, how many stars were there? Were there more stars that man could see? And if so, why?
Over the next five days, the expedition traveled east, as the highest peaks of the Tiralas rose in front of them. Were it not for the map, Sandun would have given up the journey and turned back. The mountains they faced were so tall and so steep, so covered with thick masses of ice and snow at their base, that to look at them caused a dizzy fear, as if one’s mind rebelled against the sight. No man could climb over such high, sheer mountains.
But the map urged them on, and as they advanced closer, what appeared from a distance to be a solid wall of colossal rocks was revealed to be several overlapping ranges, one in front of the other. And strangely, there was a somewhat flat valley that snaked its way between these ridges. They rode into this valley, staring up from side to side as the cliffs mounted higher and higher above them, yet the way forward was easy, laughably easy.
It was like seeing a terrifying shape, say a dragon, that loomed out of the darkness and yet, as you forced yourself to draw closer, it suddenly became clear that it was just an old tree and some shadows behind it. Sandun began to laugh in relief, and hope sang in his heart. Some of the other scouts laughed as well, but only for a little while. The mountains loomed above them and occasionally, as the afternoon sun warmed the upper snow fields, avalanches would careen down the mountain slopes. All of them were afraid of avalanches, but walking in the middle of the valley was scant comfort; giant boulders, which had certainly rolled down from the rocky ridges, were strewn across the valley floor.
In the evening, a freezing wind blew down the valley, carrying bits of snow with it. They had to build a windbreak out of broken stones before they could attempt a fire. Fortunately, a great quantity of bone-white dry wood lay along the edges of the valley, close beside small, icy streams.
“I can’t believe this valley,” Sandun said to Kagne as they were riding the next morning. Everyone was bundled up, as they were in deep shadow even though the sun shone on the horns of sheer rock far above them.
“I mistrust it as well. It seems more like a dried-out riverbed than a true mountain valley. Where are the bushes, the mountain junipers? This is sand and rock and quick-growing grass. I fear what may come down on us. A flood? An avalanche of boulders?” Kagne was unusually dour this morning. None of them had slept well the previous night with the wind whipping the fire about as they huddled as close as they could for warmth.
Basil pointed to a pile of stones at the edge of a thick grove of tall pine trees. “Another trail mark. We are still on the path.”
Sandun was cheered by the stone marker. If a trail mark could survive nearly three hundred years, it was also true that whatever floods had carved this channel had not returned.
All that day, the valley gradually narrowed and climbed more steeply upward. The rocks were harder to avoid, and often the horses had to be led by hand up and over large outcroppings of man-sized boulders.
Again in the evening, the freezing wind blew down on them. The noise it made as it rushed past the huge rocks was eerie, like great water organs playing tuneless songs in the lonely night.
“It sounds like the march of the dead,” said Olef. Everyone looked at her as she huddled against Basil, wrapped in a patched woolen blanket. “In my village, once or twice a year a strong wind would blow from the south, and a low moaning sound would be heard, different from the wind. The old folks would shake their heads and say, ‘The dead are marching, coming to claim one of their own.’ And we would all go inside and bar the doors and wait out the night, tending the fire.”
Sandun wanted to ask if more people died when the south wind blew, but he kept his words to himself. People always died; if the village was large enough, someone would die every fortnight. In Seopolis, there were burials every single day. In any event, with the wind sounding like demons on the loose and their fire streaming sparks into the darkness, it was hard not to believe that on some nights the dead really did march.
The next day, clouds wreathed the summits of the hills. Judging from the clouds’ gray, faded look, it was likely snowing higher up.
The horses were hungry, as there was very little grass for them to eat. And even the mules were having trouble getting over the rocks. The mountain slopes were not as steep as they had been, but that was small comfort as the snows pushed down into the valley. It seemed that soon they would be blocked by thick snows or impassible rock ridges, or both.
Sandun wondered if they had set out too early. If they became blocked by deep snows, could they afford to wait for the snows to melt? When he mentioned this to Basil, the hunter shook his head.
“We have no time. We made just sixteen miles the previous day, and only a bit more the day before. Already this is the end of Pentamon; midsummer is less than thirty days off.”
After midday, the valley turned, and now they found themselves at the bottom of a bowl. All around them, except the way they had come, was a ring of great snowy fields set between tall black spires of stone. The bowl was shrouded with gray clouds, and snow drifted down around them. There were no signs of any stone piles and no obvious path to take, and though some snow fields reached up to nearly vertical ridgelines, they seemed impossibly steep to climb.
Sandun called a halt. If they were going to get through this, scouting would be required.
The rest of the day, they chopped down two dozen small trees and made a primitive lean-to shelter. The snow where they camped was not deep and under it, the horses found grass from last summer. They ate it, but it was not very nourishing. In the late afternoon, the clouds broke up, and the sun shone down on the valley.
“This place is fine in the sunlight. On a bright day, it would likely be dazzling with the light reflecting off the fields from side to side,” said Sir Ako.
Looking back the way they’d come, they could see that they were already higher than some of the mountains west of them. Very distant in the clear air, there were hints of white far, far to the west.
“Look, are those the Kelten Alps?” said Wiyat, whose long brown hair was being blown around his face by the swirling winds.
None could say for certain; perhaps the white was just clouds or perhaps that was the last view of Kelten that they would have for many months.
Sandun took out his farseer glass and examined the slopes around the camp. Basil and Sir Ako did the same with their devices. They compared notes
after dinner, as the light faded from the skies.
The bowl due east of them looked less steep than the others, but Basil thought that there was a sharp ridge directly behind it and therefore a steep chasm between. The bowl to the north rose higher, but no one could see any indication of a mountain or anything beyond it. Going south was clearly impossible unless they could fly. The three of them stared at the map, but it was no help. North was the only reasonable choice.
The next day, Sandun, Basil, and Kagne tied ropes to each other and, using branches cut down for walking sticks, they struggled up the north slope. The day was again cloudy, but the snowfall was just a dusting of flakes. The snow on the ground was very deep in places, and when they got too close to the pine trees, they sometimes fell into pits that were difficult to escape from.
They returned exhausted around noon, and Sir Ako, Padan, and Jon followed up the path and then broke new ground through the snow, heading up the bowl toward the ridge.
They came back in the late afternoon, frozen from melting snow, their clothing soaked when it wasn’t stiff with ice. A blazing fire helped to revive them, but two of Padan’s fingers refused to warm up, and Basil thought it might be frostbite. He had Padan soak his hand in lukewarm water—a trick he had learned from an old hunter in the Modrokora.
The next morning, three more scouts went out; they returned at noon, defeated by the steep slope. Sandun, Basil, and Kagne again went out, carefully wrapped, with new sticks carved with shovel-like blades at one end. When they reached the farthest point in the beaten path, Sandun was amazed at how far they had come. It seemed like just a hundred feet was all that remained till they reached the top.
Those last hundred feet were much more difficult than any of them had imagined. Every ten feet it seemed a gap opened up in the snow underneath them, as the snow was draped like a sheet over an irregular rock field. More icy crusts fell down on top of them, and always the swirling winds blew fresh flakes into their faces. The three men changed places throughout the afternoon with Sandun in the lead first, then Basil, then Kagne, and then Sandun once more.
The Burning Tower Page 10
