by Troy Denning
"Why should I be grateful for what you have done?" Seema demanded. "I did not ask you to free me. I did not ask you to kill those men."
"You were… running," Atreus panted. He glanced back, then kicked a loose rock down the gully. The stone, too small to start a slide, bounced past Tarch harmlessly. "You must not want to be a slave."
"No one wants to be slave," Seema said, her gaze remaining fixed on the clouds above them. "That does not mean you can kill the slavers."
"They was going to sell you," Yago wheezed. His chest was heaving from the exertion, and his orange skin had paled to a sickly ivory. "They deserved to get killed."
The man who passes judgment on another also judges himself," Seema said. She tore her eyes away from the clouds and gave the ogre a hard stare. "I saw the slavers do many terrible things, but they did not kill anyone."
Atreus remained silent, stung by her disapproving tone. Until now, he had simply assumed that Seema wanted to be rescued, thinking her aversion to killing nothing more than a healers natural distaste for death. It had not occurred to him that she might regard the slaying of her captors as an evil greater than being enslaved in the first place.
When Atreus said nothing to defend him, Yago scowled and said, "A person fights for himself. A person does not let others make him a slave."
"A person does not kill," Seema hissed. "It is a terrible stain on the soul, and I will not have it done in my name."
The words struck Atreus like a blow to the chest He forgot to watch his footing and slipped on a tuft of grass, barely noticing as Yago caught him and stopped him from sliding down the slope. Though Sune did not prohibit her worshipers from fighting-especially in defense of beauty, love, or their own lives-she did regard both warmongering and unprovoked murder as terrible scars upon a worshiper's soul. To Seema, apparently, any kind of killing was an ugliness of spirit
Atreus scrambled to his feet and grasped Rishi's arm again. A few moments later they reached the clouds and entered a misty world of white air and damp rock. Seema dragged them another fifty paces up the couloir, then suddenly stopped on a large boulder. Though he was only an arm's length away, the fog made her look ghostly and ethereal
"You will not kill again," she told them all. It was neither a question nor a command, only a statement "No more deaths."
"Now is certainly not the best time… to debate this," gasped Rishi. "We must keep going, or there will undoubtedly be at least three more when we are caught…"
Seema made no move to continue up the couloir. "No," she insisted. "I must know before we carry on."
Yago growled softly, and Atreus glanced back to see his friend glaring down the gulch. It was impossible to see anything in the mist, but this was the ogre's way of making plain what he thought about taking orders from strangers, though, of course, he would do whatever Atreus wanted.
Atreus drew the sword from his belt and swung it flat against the boulder. The blade snapped with a sharp chime, and Yago groaned miserably.
"By the gods!" Rishi cried. "Have you lost your mind?"
Atreus ignored him, looked to Seema, and said, "No more deaths."
Seema looked to Yago. "And you?" she asked.
The ogre glanced at Atreus, then growled, "If Atreus wants."
"Good," she said. As she turned to Rishi, the sound of clattering stones began to echo up through the mist "Do you also promise?"
The Mar glanced toward the sound and said, "Surely it is better for Tarch to die than all of us."
Seema's eyes grew sad, and she stepped down off the boulder. "I must leave you," she said. "I am the one he is looking for, and there will be no more killing if I go to him."
"Wait" Atreus caught her by the arm, turned to Rishi, and said, "Make the promise. I can't let Seema go by herself, even if there is to be no more killing."
Rishi's eyes narrowed. "Good sir, you are a very bad liar," he said. "It is only Seema that Tarch wishes alive. He will be most happy to kill you… and Yago."
"He will try," said Atreus, "but now that Yago's here, perhaps we can subdue him without killing him. Are you sure you want to be the only one trying to kill him-or the only one left, if we fail?"
Rishi considered this a moment, grew pale, and licked his lips. He turned to Seema. "I promise."
She studied the Mar for several moments. The clattering below continued to grow louder, but it was impossible to tell how close Tarch was. Atreus had learned during his sea crossing that everything sounded different in fog, and the only thing he could see below was Yago's heavy breath swirling the vapor.
After a time, Seema nodded to Rishi and said, "I will take you at your word, but if you are lying to me…"
"I'll be responsible for him," Atreus assured her, casting a warning glance at the Mar. I'm sure he won't give me reason to regret it"
"Never! I am being most honest arid truthful," Rishi said, turning up the couloir. "Now may we please hurry?"
Seema caught the Mar by the arm and said, "Not that way."
She motioned toward the couloir's rocky wall, then looked down the slope. "Tarch," she called, "you must take shelter again. We have found a loose boulder!"
She caught Yago's eye and pointed to the boulder upon which she had been standing. The ogre grinned and passed the supply bundle to Atreus. Wrapping his gangling arms around the stone, he heaved it into the fog. The rock landed with a resounding crash and began to bound down the slope. Soon the rumble of a massive rockslide was reverberating up the couloir.
"Follow me."
Seema's voice was barely audible over the clamor of the falling rocks. She turned to the couloir wall and slipped her hands into a crevice, then scrambled up the twenty-foot cliff in a few quick moves. Atreus could not help feeling sheepish. Seema was the rescuer now. She probably knew a thousand ways to evade Tarch, and none of them involved fighting.
With the clatter of the rockslide still masking their escape, Yago boosted Rishi up, then scrambled up the wall himself. Atreus tossed the supply bundle to the ogre and brought up the rear. Soon they were crossing the face of a rocky crag. Although the outcropping was not much steeper than the couloir, it felt immeasurably more dangerous, with the mist-slickened rock dropping away into bottomless fog and nothing but white cloud at their backs.
Seema sauntered along the crag as though it were a balcony walkway, barely touching its stony face with her uphill hand. Rishi and Atreus faced the rock and inched along sideways, keeping both hands on the stone at all times. Yago turned away from the outcropping and leaned back against it, crawling along like a back-jointed spider and holding the supply bundle in one hand. It was not long before a nervous rumble began to reverberate from his chest
"Yago, do you think it would be easier if you turned around?" Atreus asked softly. "That way you can see the rock."
"I can feel the rock." Yago's deep whisper cut through the fog like a hissing wind. Fortunately, the rockslide was still clattering to a halt back in the couloir, so it seemed unlikely Tarch would hear. "If I fall, I want to see where I'm going."
Atreus sighed and reached out Knowing it would do no good to argue, he said, "Let me carry the supplies. We don't want to lose them if you fall."
Yago refused to yield the bundle. "Keep your hands on the rock!" the ogre said too loudly. "You'll fall."
"Our lives depend on our silence," Seema hissed. She stretched a hand past Rishi, then added, "I will not fall. Pass me the supplies."
Yago scowled but quietly passed the bundle forward. They continued across the outcropping and the sound of the rockslide died away behind them. A short time later, they heard Tarch in the couloir, his feet kicking stones and gravel down the gully as he climbed past They all breathed a little easier, and it was not long before they began to hear a steady roar echoing up through the fog. Guessing that this would be the waterfall he had seen that morning, Atreus began to keep a watch for the hanging glacier.
He almost didn't recognize it when they reached it The rocky crag simpl
y ended, as though they had come to the edge of the mountain itself. Seeing nothing but gray haze beyond, Atreus expected Seema to climb around the corner and continue on. Instead, she stepped down off the-outcropping and seemed to simply hover in the fog.
Rishi stopped and peered over the edge, his mouth gaping in astonishment. "What are you standing on?"
"Snow, of course. Come along." Seema reached out with her freehand and warned, "Be very careful of your footing. This glacier is more dangerous than the hillside we have been crossing. It is very steep, and you do not want to slide off the bottom. It-is a long plunge down to the swamp."
Rishi allowed her to help him down, and to Atreus they appeared to be floating in the fog. She turned and started to angle up the glacier it looked as though she were climbing the cloud into the heavens themselves.
"Be careful to step only where I step," Seema said, looking back over her shoulder. "Glaciers are full of hidden perils. It is easy to fall into a crevasse or drop into the melt water underneath,"
Yago peered over the edge of the cliff into the gray haze, then looked back to Atreus and said, "I don't see no snow. Let's go another way."
Atreus gave Yago a gentle push, "One foot at a time," he whispered, mindful of the ogre's pride. "We're going in the right direction. These are the High "Yehimals, and.Langdarma is somewhere up there."
"According to those bird scratches on your map?" sneered Yago dubiously.
Despite his doubts, the ogre gingerly lowered himself over the edge. When his foot finally touched the snow, he smiled and stepped away from the crag. In the flat light, Atreus still could not tell the snow from the fog. It looked as though even an ogre could walk on air.
Atreus lowered himself over the edge and started up the glacier after his companions. The climbing quickly grew steep and fatiguing, with Seema zigzagging back and forth so sharply that they seemed to take four steps to advance one pace uphill. Sometimes, Atreus could see her reason for swerving. From time to time they would encounter a looming tower of ice-what Seema called a serac-that seemed ready to topple over, or an abyssal crevasse so narrow and snow-choked it was almost invisible. Other times, it was more difficult to tell what she was avoiding. Here and there a small furrow marked a buried crevasse, or a faint gurgling showed only her where a snow-covered pit opened into the river of melt water beneath the glacier. She gave any rock a wide berth, for stones collected heat when the sun was out and melted treacherous holes around themselves, and she always avoided exposed ice. On such a sheer slope, even a tiny slip could mean plunging into a deep crevasse or slamming into a serac.
The steep climb aggravated Rishi's leg wound. He fell back to the end of the line, and soon Yago was hauling the Mar on his back. Atreus followed close behind Seema, carrying the supply bundle over his shoulder so her hands would be free in case she ran into trouble route-finding. After a time they came to a high ice cliff and began to traverse along the base, looking for a way around. Atreus finally caught his breath enough to start a conversation.
There hasn't been time to thank you for staying with Rishi and me."
"You and your servant were in poor health when Tarch pulled you from the river." As she spoke, Seema continued along the ice cliff, peering into the white fog ahead. "I wanted to be certain you would recover."
"Still, it was kind of you not to leave with your people," said Atreus. "At the moment, my resources are limited, but if there is anything I can do to repay you…"
Seema stopped and turned, looking up into Atreus's pouchy eyes. "If you keep your promise," she said, "that will be enough. Besides, the others were not 'my people.' They are from Gyatse and Yamdruk. I come from much higher."
The names caused Atreus's heart to leap into his throat Both places were on his map, and Yamdruk was no more than six valleys from Langdarma.
Seema started forward again, casting a wary eye on the cliff above their heads. Atreus followed along, trying to quell his growing excitement and avoid alarming his beautiful guide. Given her anger over the dead slavers, he was far from certain she would be eager to help him find Langdarma, especially if that happened to be the high place from which she came.
Atreus took a deep breath, then tried to sound casual as he asked, "If you aren't from Yamdruk or Gyatse, how did you come to be captured with their people?"
"I needed yellow man's beard," she explained. "They do not grow in my home, so I came down to search for ft."
Atreus frowned and, confused, asked, "Do you mean you have no men in your home?" Perhaps she came from some sort of devotional order that allowed only women. "Or that your men have no beards?"
"We have men! What kind of place has no men?" she laughed. It was a light, happy sound that chimed off the ice cliff and sang away into the fog. "We do not have hemlock trees, and they are where yellow man's beard grows. It is a moss good for curing black-belly fever."
"So Tarch captured you in Yamdruk?"
It was a hopeful guess. On his map, Yamdruk was closer to, Langdarma than Gyatse.
Seema grew quiet, then said, "He caught me near Yamdruk, yes. But my people do not make a habit of visiting others."
"Perhaps you will allow me to repay your kindness by going to Yamdruk and collecting some yellow man's beard for you?"
Seema glanced over her shoulder warily, then shook her head saying, "The child is long dead. Black-belly fever kills quickly, and I have been gone for weeks."
Atreus could not tell whether her tone was suspicious or sad. "I am sorry to hear that," he said.
Seema was careful not to turn around.
"Yes, so am I"
They reached the edge of the ice cliff and began to pick their way up a jumble of toppled seracs, pausing every now and then to offer Yago a steadying hand. As they climbed, the fog began to thin. The wind came up, the temperature dropped, and the glacier came alive with silver light and blue shadows. They cut holes in their extra blankets and wore them over their shoulders like tunics, but this did nothing to protect their fingers and noses from the biting cold.
At last they crested the slope and found themselves looking across a vast crinkled plain of ice, bulging with pressure ridges and furrowed with concentric rings of crevasses. Here and there, pyramids of granite jutted up through the ice in the interior, while long curving glaciers swept like spider arms down into the canyons along the edges. Scattered along the rim, scratching at a cobalt sky with pinnacles as sharp and gleaming as sword tips, were the impossibly high peaks Atreus had seen from the far side of the swamp. And there, almost directly across the ice field, were three bell-shaped spires. The Sisters of Serenity.
The crash of a tumbling serac rumbled up the glacier behind them. Atreus cast a wary took down the slope but saw only the billowing white clouds through which they had just ascended.
"Probably just an avalanche," he said.
"Just an avalanche," agreed Yago.
Rishi rolled his eyes and shook his head, and neither Atreus nor Yago looked away until Seema pointed toward a small glacier on the left.
"That leads to Gyatse. I will see you safely down to the valley, then return to my own home."
Atreus shook his head and told her, "We're not going to Gyatse."
He could feel that it was a bad time to broach the subject, but he did not want to waste any steps going in the wrong direction, especially not with the Sisters Of Serenity in plain sight and Tarch on their trail.
He pointed across the ice field toward the three mountains and said, "That is where we're going." Seema did not look as surprised as Atreus expected. "The Sisters?" she asked. "There is nothing but ice and rock there. Why would you want to go there?"
Atreus's reply was frank. "To find Langdarma."
Seema regarded him with a combination of wariness and pity, then pursed her lips and took his forearm. "What is it you are looking for in Langdarma?" she asked quietly.
A sense of profound relief filled Atreus. "Beauty," he answered. "I have been told I will become handsome there."
Seema's eyes grew glassy. "You have journeyed all this way for nothing," she said simply. "You cannot find beauty in Langdarma. It is a myth, just as is Ysdar."
She touched his heart, "It exists here," then reached up to touch his face, "not here."
Atreus caught her hand. "Don't. I know what you're doing. I've seen it all my life. You think an ugly man has no business in Langdarma." He withdrew Sune's map, unfolded it, and pointed at the valley beneath the Sisters of Serenity and said, "I know about Langdarma. There's no use lying to me, so please don't"
A clatter echoed up from me clouds below.
Rishi shifted uncomfortably on Yago's back and glanced down the glacier. "That was no avalanche!" he called.
Seema ignored him and examined Atreus's map. "Someone is lying to you, but it is not me," she said, shaking her head sadly. "You cannot go to Langdarma. It is a state of being, not a place, and no man with a murderous heart may find it. I am sorry. More sorry than you can know."
"This was given to me by Sune herself." Atreus insisted and shook the map in her face. "Who do you expect me to believe… my goddess, or you?"
Seema's gaze grew stony.
"I do not know this Sune of yours, but I do know the Yehimals. There is no Langdarma. I will take you to the Sisters of Serenity, and you will see for yourself that there is no valley there."
CHAPTER 10
A two-day crust of ice clung to Atreus's bushy eyebrows, numbing cold and so heavy it pushed his lids-down over his eyes. He was half blind with snow glare anyway, so it hardly mattered. Even with wide open eyes, the Sisters of Serenity would have looked much the same. They were three craggy white bells silhouetted against an azure sky, so high they loomed over Atreus and his companions, even miles away, standing at the precipitous brink of the vast plain of ice they had just crossed.
A hundred feet below, a snow-blanketed glacier swept away almost vertically, spilling into the broad valley that separated them from their destination. There it joined a jumbled blue cascade of ice blocks curving down from a second glacier beneath the Sisters of Serenity. The two flows became one and continued down the valley, creating yet another glacier, this one more than a mile wide and as long as a river.
