by Troy Denning
The mountain sighed, a deep silent rumble that Atreus sensed down in the hollow of his stomach. Tarch felt it too and sat up, startled, taking his weight off Atreus's chest. The devil looked up the slope.
Atreus noticed the glacier wall sliding past, remembered the crevasse below, brought his chain up and slammed it into Tarch's head. The devil roared, lashed out, and gouged at Atreus's throat A snow slab the size of an elephant caught them from above and hurled them backward through the churning air, still battling. Atreus whipped his chain up again and felt it catch around the slave master's neck. White sugar snow poured down around him, falling from above, rising from below, pouring in from all sides, Tarch clawed at Atreus's face and caught the corner of an eye.
They tumbled again. Atreus's head exploded into pain as the claw slipped free. He could not tell whether or not he had been blinded. Everything was white. A deep, breathless cold rose up to swallow him. The chain tugged at his hand, snapped his arm out full length, and strained the socket. He clenched his fist until the nails bit into his palm, felt the crushing pain of the chain tightening around his hand.
The avalanche rolled Atreus, slower, twisting his arm around behind him until he thought the chain would rip it off. He began to sting with cold and sensed the world dropping away. The chain went slack. Whether Tarch was tumbling closer or slipping free, he could not tell. Everything was cold, churning whiteness, sugary and soft.
The tumbling stopped, and Atreus had the sensation of floating. The snow cradled him, closing in around him. He remained frozen in the same awkward position, one arm twisted around behind him, dimly aware by his queasy stomach that he was sliding. He tried to pull his arm forward but found it too packed in snow to move. He tried to twist around to dig, found his body as caught as his arm. Tried to pull his hand free, could not retract his elbow. Circle his wrist, clench his fist, wiggle a single fingertip… all stuck fast, stuck fast as a beetle in amber.
The sliding sensation vanished. The snow pressed in from all sides. He felt it in his ears, against his eyes, in his nostrils, growing heavier and colder with each heartbeat His pulse began to roar, and he knew he was panicking, but panic in these helpless circumstances was a mere cruel joke. Could he flail about madly? Run blindly to his death? He could do nothing but lie motionless and stare into the unimaginable whiteness of the snow.
Funny that it should still be so white, with him buried so deep. His bones ached from being crushed, his ears rang front the pressure, his lungs burned for air. He pushed his lips apart and tried to suck in a breath through the snow, but he could not expand his ribs, could not move all those tons with only his chest
The white never vanished. The pain faded, the pressure diminished, the roar of his pulse ebbed away, the yearning for breath became a distant memory, and the white remained.
Atreus found himself standing beneath a pearly sky in a valley of white marble, facing an alabaster palace surrounded by snowy ponds filled with white lotus. At his side stood a white-caped figure with a long, translucent tail and silvery-white scales.
The form turned, and Atreus saw that it was Tarch, now with a flowing white beard and blond eyes. All the brutality had left his jagged features, and his face radiated the same serenity and contentment as did Seema's. He saluted Atreus with a clawed hand, then climbed the palace steps and disappeared through a door. Atreus was alone.
He stood before the palace, studying its asymmetric majesty. It had an ancient, guileless beauty, with a large open rotunda on one end and a square balcony room on the other. Connecting the two was a long gallery of scalloped arches and slender columns, with a Y-shaped staircase that descended down to the lower porch. The bottom story was painted in bright horizontal stripes, while the upper was decorated with swirling, ornately carved relief's. The architecture could hardly be called balanced, and no part of the building seemed to belong with the rest, yet it was the most stunning palace he had ever seen, casual and warmly unpretentious and all the more magnificent
Atreus climbed the stairs to the gallery and found himself standing in an icy wind, staring into the rotunda where a brilliant silver flame flickered in a bronze brazier.
"All is not harmony and balance." The voice was Seema's. "If you see beauty in yourself, so everyone will see it"
Still staring into the silvery fire, Atreus walked into the rotunda Now that he was inside, he could see a cowled silhouette standing behind the brazier, its identity, even its gender, masked by the brilliant glow of the flame. The figure placed its hands over the brazier and slowly spread them. The flame broadened into a shimmering silver square.
"Look."
Atreus stooped down to obey, then cried out in shock.
There was a face in the silver square, as unbalanced and misshapen as his own, with the same beetling brow and sunken eyes, the same oversized nose and twisted mouth, but this face was handsome, rugged and happy and utterly at peace with itself.
"What would you do for this?" Now the voice was Tarch's, deep and raspy and rough. "What would you give to have this face?"
Atreus looked up at the cowled figure. "Anything," was his answer. "I would give anything…my fortune, my life…"
"Wrong answer."
The figure brought its hands together and the shimmering square shrank to a single tongue of guttering flame.
"Your fortune means nothing to me, and I do not want your life."
Atreus stared at the fading flame and asked, "What then? Tell me, and you shall have it!"
The cowled figure lowered its hands and the last wisp of flame winked out, revealing the face beneath the hood.
"You know what I want" The voice remained Tarch's, but the face was Seema's. "Give it to me, and you shall have what you want"
Now the voice as well became Seema's. "Give it to me," she said, "and you shall have Langdarma."
She reached out and leaned across the brazier as though to embrace him. A sense of serenity and contentment flooded ever Atreus and he understood at last what the figure wanted from him. He stretched out his arms and stepped forward to accept the embrace, then suddenly grew dizzy and pitched forward and found himself hovering over the brazier, staring down at a single white ember still shining in the dead charcoal.
"Too late," the voice, now distant and sexless, said. "He's for the dead book now."
Atreus craned his neck around to look up beneath the hood and found himself staring into the empty stone eyes of a statue. The statue reached down, grasped the edge of the brazier, and the brazier turned into a thousand-spoked wheel, the white ember its burning hub.
"The Seraph spins the wheel round and round." The statue twirled the wheel as it spoke and the white ember became a six-pointed snow-flake, feathery and beautiful and cold, Motionless in the heart of the spinning circle. "Round and round and nobody knows where falls the dead man's soul."
Atreus's stomach became light and empty and he began to fall, whirling down toward the white crystal brilliance.
CHAPTER 11
The fall took… how long? To Atreus, it seemed the mere flash of an instant and the endless drag of forever. Beneath him rose the thousand-spoked wheel, still spinning, as vast and as flat as a dead calm sea. The feathery snow-flake in the center hovered motionless, growing neither larger nor smaller, but growing more brilliant with each passing moment The long plummet made his stomach qualmish and hollow, and the brightening snow-flake filled his eyes with a cold, scratchy ache. The chill air whipped past his face, tickling his flesh, drawing the heat from his body. His joints stiffened and his bones grew as heavy as ice. He plunged toward the frigid oblivion of the dead, banded by the glare of that feathery, six-pointed star.
An eternity later, the snow-flake melted into a dark-hearted halo. Something pressed itself against Atreus's frozen lips. His numb flesh sensed only the weight, not the touch. Warm air swirled down through his throat and flooded his lungs. His pulse boomed to life. Blood rushed in his ears. The halo grew dim, and he saw Seema's smooth cheek pressed
close, her brown eyes staring down at him, her dark hair making a tent around their faces. Her soft lips were pressed against his and her mouth was working, her hot breath mingling with his. A sense of joyous wonder welled up inside him, and something more primal stirred lower down. He reached up, twined his fingers into her silky hair, and returned the kiss.
Seema pulled away, her brow arching in surprise.
Atreus took his hand out of Seema's hair, dimly aware that he had made a terrible mistake. "I, uh… I thought…" he trailed off, fearing he would only make matters worse. "I didn't mean to-"
"It certainly felt like you meant to!" Seema's cheeks darkened, then she laughed lightly and called over her shoulder, "Have no fear for your friend. He only lured me down here to steal a kiss."
"Not at all!" said Atreus, mortified and struggling to identify where "here" was. "We were in Langdarma-"
"You have seen Langdarma?" Seema gasped.
"Yes," Atreus said, thankful to talk about anything but the kiss. "It is… white… and beautiful…and we were inside a…"
The image faded even as he tried to describe it. He recalled only the peace, the feeling of falling, and a handsome face in a shimmering mirror. He closed his eyes, frying to recreate the memory through sheer will, but it was lost, wiped away when he kissed Seema.
Seema clasped his forearm. "You cannot describe Langdarma," she told him, her voice warm and understanding. "Is bliss not different for everyone?"
"I… I don't know," Atreus answered, still confused by his surroundings.
He seemed to be lying in the bottom of a small white well, with Seema crammed in beside him. About six feet above her, Rishi and Yago were kneeling atop the wall, silhouetted against a brilliant blue sky, furiously dragging armfuls of snow away from the edge.
As soon as Atreus remembered the snow, comprehension came crashing in like the avalanche itself. He tried to sit up and found he could not He remained entombed in snow from the waist down, one arm still twisted around beneath him. The air in the bottom of the hole was shadowy and frigid, and the pressure on his legs made his muscles ache.
Atreus was seized by the over whelming fear that the pits walls were about to come crashing down. He began to claw madly at the snow, trying to dig out his waist so he could sit up and pull his arm free.
"Yago! Get me out of here!"
Atreus had hardly closed his mouth before the ogre's long arms stretched down to pluck Seema out of the hole. She cried out in surprise, but Yago paid her no attention and set her aside without apology. He lowered his legs over the edge and planted one immense foot on each side of Atreus's chest, then squeezed down into the hole and grabbed Mm under his arms.
Yago began to pull, slowly and steadily, but the snow held fast. Atreus felt as though he would be torn in two. The ogre twisted him back and forth ever so slightly, and there was a loud slurping sound. The pressure on Atreus's legs vanished, and he began to rise, until the chain tightened around his buried hand, bringing him to an abrupt halt
"Wait!" Atreus commanded.
Yago stopped pulling, and Seema leaned over the pit, peering down over the ogre's shoulder.
"Did he hurt you?" she asked. "Dragging a person out of. an avalanche is not a good way to rescue him."
"No, I'm fine," said Atreus. "It's Tarch."
"Tarch?" echoed Rishi. That tailed devil is still alive?"
"I don't know," Atreus said, "but if he is, he might be buried under me. I still have the chain, and it was wrapped around his neck when the avalanche started."
"And you are not thinking you should let go?" Rishi asked, incredulous.
Atreus glanced up at Seema and said, "I'm willing, but the decision isn't mine. We all promised not to kill Tarch."
"Tarch started the avalanche," said Yago. "I don't see why we have to dig him out"
"Because if we don't, it will cost Seema her magic…right?" Atreus glanced at the healer, hoping she would correct him.
Instead, she nodded and said, "We must do what we can for him, and not only because failing to do so will harm my magic. It would injure all our souls."
"That particular peril I am most happy to brave," said Rishi. "Whereas no good at all can come of freeing an angry devil like Tarch."
"Had Tarch not pulled you from the river, you would be frozen or drowned. You would not be here to say such things," countered Seema. "It is not for you to turn the wheel of life."
"But I am not turning it," Rishi said, addressing his argument to Atreus. "Tarch did this to himself. We are only turning the wheel if we save him."
Seema's counter was swift and confident "To let someone die when you can save him is the same as killing him… and to kill is to turn the wheel."
"What's so wrong with mat?" Yago demanded. "Seems to me wheels is made for turning."
"We are not made to turn them. Not the wheel of life," said Seema. "It is not for us to kill"
Yago scowled. "Been killing all my life. Can't live without killing." He held up his thick fingers and began to tick them off, saying, "Ell to eat to earn my pay, and 'specially to keep stuff from killing me."
Seema listened to the ogre's confession with an expression of horror, then turned to Atreus and said, "We have no time to argue; You promised not to kill, so the only question is whether you are a man of his word."
"If I weren't, would I have said anything in the first place?"
Atreus did not understand Seema's reluctance to let Tarch die. To him, there was a big difference between taking the life of an innocent victim and killing in self-defense, but he held his word as sacred as Seema did life. He looked up at Yago and said, "A promise is a promise."
1 didn't promise to save him!" the ogre grumbled. Nevertheless, he let Atreus back down. "If this ain't the dumbest thing since Orna tried to milk a beehive!"
Rishi exhaled in frustration, then took the cooking pot and began to scoop out the edges of the pit "We are going to need a bigger hole."
"With plenty of room for a fight," added Yago.
White Atreus lay in the snow clinging to the chain, Yago and Rishi spent the next two hours grumbling as they excavated a huge hole around him. Once the pit grew large enough for the sun to shine into, he began to warm up. By the time they had dug down to the end of the chain, he was feeling strong enough to fight.
As matters turned out, there was no need. They found nothing at the other end of the chain but more snow. Atreus took his turn with the cooking pot and dug down another two feet to a solid crust of ice. After he had cleared a circle as wide as he was tall, Seema shook her head.
"It is hopeless to keep digging." She sounded disappointed, though hardly sorrowful. Tarch could be anywhere. Come out of there."
"Yes, it is time we gave up the search." Rishi did not bother to disguise his eagerness. "After spending all this time buried beneath so many tons of snow, Tarch has certainly met his death by now."
"Nothing is ever certain, Rishi," said Atreus, tossing the cooking pot up. "Tarch strikes me as a tot harder to kill than you think."
"All the more reason to leave him down there," said Yago, extending an arm to Atreus.
After being pulled from the hole, Atreus was astonished to find how far he had been swept Just a few hundred paces away stood the jumbled icefall leading up to the Sisters of Serenity. The valley around him lay buried beneath untold acres of avalanche run out: mountainous piles of compacted snow, with slabs of wind crust jutting up at all angles. The little glacier behind them had been scraped clean down to its shimmering silver surface, and its crevasses were now filled with milky bands of sugar snow.
Seema passed Atreus a bowl filled with one of her elixirs. She spoke a few words of magic, and the potion Began to steam.
"Drink it quickly. It will help renew your vigor."
Atreus quaffed the contents down and felt some of his strength return, but the effect was hardly as noticeable as before. He washed the bowl out with snow and tried not to show his disappointment, but Seema was t
oo perceptive to be fooled.
Tarch's loss has affected my magic?" she asked.
"A little, perhaps. But I do feel better."
Seema's face fell.
"I'm sorry," said Atreus. "I wasn't trying to kill him."
"It is not your fault," Seema reassured him She touched his arm, and Atreus's thoughts flashed to the warmth of her lips against his. "You were very brave to try to subdue such a dangerous foe and not resort to killing. It is my own anger that has caused my magic to grow weak. In truth, I am as happy as Rishi and Yago that we did not find the devil. This has stained my soul as darkly as a death."
Atreus glanced at the sun, then said, "We still have a few hours of light Perhaps if we found him-"
That is most unlikely," Seema interrupted, waving her hand at the surrounding acres of avalanche run out. There is no telling where Tarch is buried. We found you only by following the cord tied around your waist"
Atreus could not help feeling relieved. Tarch did not strike him as the type to repay a kind act with gratitude, and the last thing he wanted was to try subduing the tailed devil again.
"Next time, well have to give a cord to Tarch," mocked Yago. The ogre rolled the bowl and cooking pot into the supply bundle, then slung it over his shoulder and turned toward the icefall. "No use worrying about it now. We got places to go, sights to see."
Seema frowned. "Atreus has been through a terrible experience," she said. "He needs food and rest"
"I'll rest better up there." Atreus looked up toward the shadowy cliffs beneath the Sisters of Serenity and said, "I couldn't possibly eat"
Now that he was so close to his goal, he could not bear the thought of stopping. His stomach was full of butterflies, his head spinning in anticipation. Whatever they found beneath the Sisters, it would not be what he expected. He had seen enough already to realize that Langdarma was not the verdant paradise he had imagined. He felt more confident than ever that they would find the Fountain of Infinite Grace. Sune had not sent him across half the world for nothing. He remembered that much from his avalanche dream.
