by Tanya Huff
Little danger, Raulin repeated to himself. Not no danger. Little danger. Great. He shuffled forward as the rope stretching back from the giant grew taut—shuffled, for if he picked up his feet he would be left for an instant precariously balanced on one leg. Inside his mittens, his hands grew clammy. His heart thumped so hard he felt sure the vibrations against his ribs would throw him off the precipice. He tried holding his breath. It didn’t help. His focus narrowed to the rope tied around Sokoji’s waist. The knot bobbed as she walked and it distracted him enough so that he could keep moving.
Gradually, he began to relax. The combination of the slow and steady pace and Sokoji’s bulk—his mind simply refused to acknowledge that the giant could fall—calmed him. Then Sokoji turned to face the mountain, her hands flat against the rock, her feet sliding sideways.
“Hey!” Raulin stopped and as Sokoji felt it through the rope she looked back over her shoulder at him. “What are you doing?”
“There is a narrow place here,” she explained. “We must pass carefully. Do as I do. The path will not become less wide than your feet are long.”
Less wide than your feet are long? What kind of a measurement is that? Raulin wondered. And he looked down.
Down.
A long way down.
He swayed. His head felt heavy, almost more than his neck could support. The world began to tilt.
Suddenly his cheek pressed hard against rock. His arms were outstretched, his fingers trying to dig into the granite. His toes attempted to root. He didn’t remember turning. He couldn’t make the world stop sliding back and forth. He needed to throw up. His pack. His heavy, heavy pack. It was out over the edge. It would pull him down. He couldn’t catch his breath. He couldn’t remember how to breathe.
“Raulin!”
Jago’s voice slapped against him.
“Take deep breaths. Slow down. Make it last. That’s it. In. And out. In. And out.”
The world began to still.
“In. And out.”
“I’m okay,” he managed. The rock near his mouth was wet with drool. His muscles felt like porridge and that weakness brought back the terror. He couldn’t stand. He wasn’t strong enough to hold his own weight. Before the world began to spin again, Raulin ground his cheek into the rough face of the mountain and drove the fear away with pain.
“I’m okay,” he repeated after a moment, and this time he was. “At least, I think this is as good as it gets.”
“Can you walk?” Sokoji asked softly.
The laugh he dredged up went beyond strained to just this side of hysteria. “If it’d get me off this mountain I’d dance.”
He heard the smile in Sokoji’s voice.
“I don’t think that will be necessary. If you could just slide your left foot. . . . Yes. Now, the right. . . .”
One sliding step at a time, they crossed into Aryalan’s valley.
Safely away from the edge, Raulin took Crystal into his arms and buried his face in her hair.
She held him tightly and whispered. “I wanted to help . . .”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Tayja said you needed to make it across on your power, not mine.”
He could still feel the fear knotting the muscles of his back. “Yeah,” he said, after a moment, “she could be right.”
* * *
Doan stayed close to the Mighty One as he stomped up into the gully. Unless they looked straight down, the tiny figures on the ledge would not be able to spot him.
At the north end, where a sheer cliff rose up two hundred feet or more, he scanned the rock closely then ran his fingers along a crack invisible to any eye but a dwarf’s. A perfectly rectangular door swung open, folding back into the mountain.
Muttering about the dust, he stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind him. His eyes were red lights in the darkness and when they’d adjusted enough he started up the stairs. The watchtower had been destroyed with the mountain, but the lower gate into the valley should still be clear. Dwarves built to last.
* * *
Even destroyed by the Wizards’ Doom, and with all its majesty hidden under snow and ice, the remains of Aryalan’s tower drew the eye. Bits and pieces of half buried buildings jutted up in the center of a perfect circle, the shore of the lake still clearly delineated by a subtle difference in the shading of the snow. From where they stood, distance blurred detail, but the sense of what had once been, the power, the evil, the beauty, was strong.
“I think we have enough light left to get to the lake,” Raulin noted, squinting west. “It’ll give us less distance to cover tomorrow and we can hit the tower still fresh.”
“Sokoji nodded. That would be best.”
“There’s not much cover down there,” Crystal pointed out, scanning the valley with her wizard-sight. She sighed and shifted her gaze to the immediate area. The shattered mountaintop had a greater air of desolation than the land below. “Still, there’s not much cover up here either. I suppose we might as well get as close as we can.”
“The air feels heavy,” Jago said quietly as they started single file down the slope. “It’s almost like we’re being watched.”
Raulin snorted, blowing a great silver cloud into the cold air. “Thank you very much, Jago.” He placed his feet carefully in the giant’s bootprints—stepping anywhere else left the brothers floundering hip-deep in snow. “All we need is to have spirits haunting this place.”
“As to that,” Sokoji’s voice floated back, sounding thoughtful but unconcerned, “who knows what happens when a wizard dies? My sisters and I spent some time considering it but reached no answer.”
“Some time?”
“Ten years and four months.”
“And came up with no answers?”
“Perhaps the Mother’s son knows, but he keeps the secrets of his people.”
Raulin twisted to look at Jago. “I don’t suppose he’s around?”
Jago shook his head. It didn’t seem necessary to mention that Lord Death hadn’t been around for a number of days. Whenever the Mother’s son was mentioned, a combination of yearning and fear sang along the link stretching between him and Crystal and as he saw no way to help, he had no desire to add to her burdens.
Behind them, the mountain rumbled.
Slowly, like puppets pulled by a single string, they turned.
A ball of snow, a hand’s span wide, smashed against Crystal’s legs.
Another followed, then another.
The rumble came not from the mountain, but from the mass of snow beginning to move down it.
Crystal’s face paled as the hint of a power she thought she should remember brushed lightly across hers. Not a wizard’s power, not quite. Then the memory slipped away in the need of the moment. Her eyes flared and she grabbed Raulin and Jago each by a hand. She could feel their trust in her and it gave her strength.
She met Sokoji’s eyes.
The giant nodded. “I can hurry when I must.”
The snow beneath their feet began to shift.
“Run,” commanded Crystal.
And so they did.
Crystal wrapped the brothers in her power and the three of them almost flew over the snow. Their feet barely touched before lifting again, the packs weighed nothing on their backs, and the wind helped carry them along. In spite of the knowledge that they raced disaster, both men felt a thrill of pleasure in the effortless speed.
Sokoji moved a little ahead, running with great bounding strides.
With a screech, the avalanche finally broke free and surged down the slope, gathering force as it roared toward them.
“Chaos,” Raulin swore, risking a glance back over his shoulder.
And Chaos it appeared to be. Boulders ground together along the front edge of the mass of moving snow, a churning wall of destruction risin
g thirty feet into the air. The screaming rumble grew in volume until it drowned out thought and reason.
They’d covered two thirds, of the distance to the wizard’s lake, nearly deafened but unharmed, and Crystal began to feel secure. Even without drawing from the barriers, she had sufficient power left to carry the three of them to flat ground where the beast behind would die of its own weight.
Then Jago stumbled and fell.
By the time she yanked him to his feet, the avalanche was upon them, dragging both brothers from her grip.
“NO!”
She whirled, fingers spread, and threw her power at the enemy.
The wave of snow and stone slammed into a wall of green.
And stopped. And fused.
The green faded.
Ears ringing in the silence, Crystal stared at the white cliff rising above her. She felt whole, complete in a way she hadn’t since Kraydak’s defeat. But how? she wondered and almost cried when the question shattered something fragile within her and the goddesses returned.
She turned as Jago gently touched her arm.
“You were whole,” he said softly. “I felt it.” That Crystal had saved them seemed of less importance than this.
“Was whole,” she agreed and swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “Was.”
The whole, added Tayja’s voice, is greater than the sum of its parts.
Not now, Tayja. The finding—then the losing—of self left a pain too deep for even those goddesses who had proven her friends to be endured.
“Come on,” Raulin slipped an arm about her and Crystal rested gratefully against his side, “just a little farther and you can sit down. You’ll feel better with a cup of tea inside you and a fire lighting the night.”
“Raulin . . .”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing.” Jago decided against explaining. He almost wished he had his brother’s calm acceptance of the world. He knew that in Raulin’s eyes Crystal had merely done what wizards do and now, like a porter who had strained something carrying too heavy a load, she needed taking care of. With one last awe-filled look at the towering pile of snow, he fell into step behind them and wished, for Crystal’s sake, it could be that easy.
Sokoji waited for them at the end of the lake. She studied Crystal’s face as the wizard approached. Satisfied with whatever it was she saw, she pointed up at the blasted peak of the Mighty One.
Against the pink granite of the mountain, almost glowing in the last of the afternoon sun, lay a great black dragon. The Doom of the ancient wizards.
Crystal’s mouth went dry and then she realized the beast was stone.
She reached out with what little power she had left and touched only rock.
The path of the avalanche began at the dragon.
She recalled the power that had brushed against her just before the mountain shook off its load of snow. When she woke Kraydak’s Doom—the dragon created in his arrogance from the body of the Mother—she had felt the same type of power.
“What is it?” Raulin asked, squinting in an attempt to make out details. At this distance he saw only black on pink.
“Aryalan’s dragon. Aryalan’s Doom.”
“Is it alive?”
“No, not for years.”
The brothers traced the swath of destruction left by the snowslide and exchanged identical glances.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.” She tore her gaze from the graceful line of limb and scale and met first Raulin’s then Jago’s worried eyes. “Whatever memory of power my presence may have triggered is gone now. There’s nothing there but stone.” She sighed and added in a small voice, “I thought someone promised me a cup of tea?”
And the marvel of the dragon was banished in making camp.
And if Crystal lay awake that night and wondered what else would be triggered by her presence, no one knew.
TWELVE
The wind had rippled the surface snow into a parody of the lake it covered and the tiny ridges were all that disturbed the unbroken expanse of white. Staring across from shore to island, the lake appeared wider than it had from up on the mountain. Jago rubbed his eyes and tried to bring the remains of the gatehouse into focus, but the entire area persisted in wavering; one moment sharp and clear, the next no more than a soft gray shadow against the white. He snapped his snow goggles down off his forehead but, although he no longer needed to squint, the scene remained unchanged.
“Crystal,” he called without turning, and felt rather than saw her step to his side. “Look toward the island and tell me what you see.”
Crystal looked out over the lake, frowned, and shook her head. Her eyes began to glow, living emeralds reflecting the morning sunlight. “I see . . .” She paused and shook her head again. “I don’t know what I see, exactly.”
“You see one of Aryalan’s remaining defenses,” Sokoji told them, moving to stand at their backs. “Do not try to puzzle it out for too long.”
“Because we can’t?” Jago asked.
“Because you’ll soon begin to think of nothing else, neither food nor sleep nor drink, and will eventually die still staring across the water.” The giant waved a hand at the snow covered ice. “Or what passes for water these days. The full effect may not be working, but I advise you not to risk it.”
Jago pointedly turned his back on both lake and tower. “Okay,” he said slowly, “if we can’t look at the island, how do we cross?”
“Why, by not looking at it.”
Raulin grinned at the implied “of course” on the end of Sokoji’s answer. “Really, Jago,” he teased, bending over the campstove where their breakfast cooked, “use your head.”
“Why not use yours? We’ll need something solid to test the ice.” Jago leaned forward and grimaced at the pale brown mass in the pot that was just beginning to bubble and steam. “And then again, we could just throw that stuff in front of us, let it harden, and we’ll have a bridge.”
“Ignoring the insult to my cooking,” Raulin sighed, “I have to agree with the sentiment. I am definitely tired of oatmeal. Even if Crystal does power out the lumps.” He raised the wooden spoon and the sticky clump on the end fell back into the pot with a loud and unappetizing splat.
Clicking her tongue, Crystal dropped a handful of snow into the pot. It turned to water as it hit and began to loosen the gluelike consistency of the porridge. “To begin with, you’ve got your proportions wrong.” She added just a little more snow water and the spoon briskly stirred the liquid in.
“Do mortals usually waste time on trivialities before going into the unknown?” Sokoji asked, her head to one side, her expression both puzzled and faintly amused as she watched the trio gathered around the campstove.
The two mortals and the wizard looked up from the porridge pot, looked at each other, had no need to look out toward the tower, and said simultaneously, “Yes.”
Sokoji nodded and sat down on the well-packed patch of snow she’d been using since the night before, her weight having sculpted it into comfortable contours. “That explains your behavior. I had always believed mortals preferred to get danger over with quickly. Perhaps some cinnamon would help.” She offered a small bag pulled from one of her many pockets.
“Help to get it over with?” Raulin asked.
“Help the porridge.”
“Oh. Right. Do you always carry cinnamon with you?”
Sokoji reviewed the recent contents of her pockets.
“No,” she said at last.
Breakfast lasted longer than the oatmeal—even improved by the cinnamon—warranted. No one offered an opinion as to why they were so strangely unwilling to start on this, the last leg of their adventure. Conversations started, stopped, restarted, and sputtered out.
“I’ll never forget,” Raulin broke into the uncomfortable silence
that had fallen after the last abortive attempt to find an acceptable topic, “the look on Crystal’s face when she picked herself out of that snowdrift.” A laugh hovered around the edges of his voice.
“When?” Crystal shifted around to face him. “After you blithely pitched me off the sleigh?”
“Yeah,” he admitted, winking, “then.”
And that began a series of reminiscences, as if this were their last evening together and the next day they would all be back in separate and safe lives.
Raulin and Jago traded banter. Raulin and Crystal traded glances almost physical in intensity. Crystal and Jago shared a quiet moment in complete accord.
We’ve redefined ourselves, Jago realized, when talk shifted away from the personal to the dwindling supply of tea. Reinforced who we are and what we mean to each other. He glanced in the direction of the tower, not attempting to keep his eyes on it when it slid out of view.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he muttered into his tea. “I don’t want to go.”
“You never wanted to go,” Raulin pointed out.
No, he hadn’t. But he couldn’t let Raulin go alone, not back in the beginning, not now—and Jago knew Raulin would go on. Not because he didn’t feel the menace radiating from the island—menace that kept Jago’s mouth dry and his stomach in knots—but because he wouldn’t let the fear it caused stop him. An admirable trait, Jago had to admit, remembering the battle his brother had fought and won on the ledge into the valley, but not one likely to allow either of them to die comfortably of old age.
By the time the last cup of tea was finally finished, the pot dried and stowed away, the sun was a pale yellow disc high in the silver sky.
“I’m better at beginnings,” Raulin admitted to Jago as they hoisted on their packs. He looked back at Crystal and then forward at the still shifting tower. “I’ve always been lousy at endings.”
“Then think of this as another beginning,” Jago told him, yanking a braid free from under the shoulder strap. “Things change, but they don’t end.”
“Oh, very profound, junior.”
