The Way to Babylon

by Paul Kearney

  They paused to look around, the air fighting to press them down on to the snow and ice of the ridge. They were almost a third of the way up. Another five or six thousand feet and they would be on the level of the peaks.

  ‘Work ahead,’ Ratagan said, peering at the summit above. ‘A long, weary way.’

  ‘We must do it before nightfall,’ Bicker said crisply. ‘The other side of the ridge is in the lee of the wind, and we will be able to make camp there.’

  ‘And burn snow for our fire, maybe,’ the big man retorted.

  Bicker laughed. ‘The Stone-folk put enough faggots in our packs to give us a few hours’ warmth, so do not despair entirely.’

  Ratagan brightened. ‘There is that. There is also the thought that I have a jar of their ale stowed away somewhere, which is bound to improve our outlook.’

  ‘What it is to think ahead,’ said Bicker. And he gestured them onwards again.

  They laboured up the southern face of the ridge, as the day waned and a gale-bitten night loomed at them. The snow they trod became a bright luminescence as the sky darkened, clouds piling around the heads of the mountains. By the time they reached the top, it was almost wholly dark, and the wind was screaming around their heads, slamming into the southern side of the ridge like a wall. They scrambled over the knife-edge that was the summit and half-tumbled down the other side, their linking ropes pulling them down together. Isay and Ratagan anchored them like two rocks, their ironshod feet sinking deep into snow and ice, and the wind lessened as the bulk of the summit cut it off. They could see nothing in the gloom except the dark shapes of each other, sprawled, panting, in the snow. There was snow in the air, too. It whirled in eddies of wind and began to speckle them in the dusk. Bicker shrugged off his rope first and lurched to his feet. ‘We need better shelter than this. Come on!’

  They followed him, cursing, the snow building on their eyelashes and cutting down visibility to yards. The thickening snowstorm forced them to halt again after a few minutes. Massive, monolithic rocks rose to their left, and the company wormed their way through them, finding at last a space big enough to accommodate them all. Riven sank to his haunches, for there was not room enough for them to stretch their legs. The wind shrilled about the tops of the sheltering stones. Ratagan was already struggling to dig the tinderbox out of his pack, whilst Bicker and Isay were tossing chunks of wood out of theirs. Riven and Jinneth joined them, but it was a shivering half-hour before Ratagan could get the tinder to catch and had warded the feeble flame well enough to kindle their meagre supply of wood. The rising flames conjured their faces out of the snow-woven darkness, easing the cramp that was settling into Riven’s confined limbs.

  ‘How long can we keep it going?’ he asked Ratagan, shouting to be heard above the wind.

  The big man grimaced. ‘Not long enough. We can have a decent blaze for a couple of hours, not more, or a small one for twice that. But we need warmth. I’ll keep it high and see if the snow abates.’

  They huddled together in the coruscating firelight, with the snow powdering their shoulders and the storm shrieking above. It would be a long night, even longer once the fire died.

  One by one they fumbled their hide sleeping bags out of their packs and shared them. There was not room enough to clamber inside, so they draped them about their knees and shoulders and crept so close to the fire that they could smell the fur on the bags singeing.

  Riven dozed, becoming used to the lost circulation in his cramped limbs. He dreamed, vaguely, his mind’s eye whirling with images of Giants and Dwarves, underground halls and high-walled cities. So much, so many pictures, and all of it he knew and recognised. But there was more, he realised: another chapter, perhaps, or a face which had yet to be seen. His dreams made him uneasy, and he swam out of sleep into the red gloom of the dying fire and the coldness of unmelting snow on his face. It was still dark, and the wind sounded as relentless as ever. He felt a moment of hate for the weather, the mountains, for everything that had conspired to bring him here.

  Life’s a bitch.

  He looked at his companions. They were asleep, even Isay. Bicker had volunteered to take first watch, but was crunched up with his eyes closed next to Ratagan, a frown marking his thin face as if, even in sleep, he was aware that he was failing in his duty. He was clearly exhausted. They had depended on him from the moment they had entered the mountains. It was for Bicker to lead, Isay to fight and Ratagan to make them laugh. Riven and Jinneth had been set aside for other purposes.

  What a story it would make, if I could ever tell it.

  It would not be easy to take these people, who had been his characters and who had become his friends, and make them into characters again.

  But perhaps he would not be called upon to make up any more stories.

  The fire died at last, guttering down into chill darkness, and the snow settled on the rest of the company as they dozed underneath the thick hide bags the Dwarves had given them. Slowly but surely the cold seeped into them, and Riven watched their shapes twitch and shiver in sleep, felt Jinneth push closer to him for warmth. He could not sleep himself. There was a jangling feeling that something had yet to happen. He had felt it before, prior to encountering Jinneth and her mercenaries, but now it was sharper, more precise. The closer he drew to the Red Mountain, the more keenly aware he was of... things. As though he were already stepping out of this world and becoming its author once more. The thought grieved him. He had roots here now, some running as deep as, or deeper than, any he had in the world where he belonged. He was not sure if he was prepared to sever them so easily, to wake from the dream. For if a man loves to dream more than remain awake, why should he open his eyes?

  And he smiled at his own absurdity.

  Bicker woke at some time during the night. Riven heard him swearing and cursing himself. Then he shook each of the company awake and and asked them their names to check that they had not slipped into hypothermia in the dark, fireless hours. Ratagan swore at him and told him to go jump off the mountain and leave him to sleep. Only Jinneth seemed slow to answer, as if confused, and the dark man spent some time checking that she was fully conscious. It was only when she roused herself and told him to leave her alone in much the same tones as Ratagan that he left her, his teeth shining in a grin.

  The snow had stopped falling. Riven could feel its weight on his shoulders and knees, pressing the bag down on him. The space where the fire had been was a blank whiteness, but he was not cold. It seemed as if the snow were insulating him. Only his face was chill, and he rubbed feeling back into his nose and cheeks for some minutes. His eyes were like orbs of frozen glass set in his skull, and he blinked his stiff eyelids furiously. There was a blueness about the air above that heralded the approach of dawn. Bicker was already out of the shelter of the stones and scanning the way ahead for the day. The last day. Sgurr Dearg was very close.

  They hauled themselves out from under the combined weight of snow and their sodden sleeping bags, having to dig for their packs. Riven was shivering uncontrollably as he crammed the wet bag into his pack. Around them, the dark shapes of the high mountains began to become clearer as the light strengthened, moving from blue to grey. They packed in silence, except for mutterings against the cold and hisses of breath that plumed in the frigid air. Riven felt as though the ice had insinuated its way into his brain; he was torpid and dull. Ratagan’s sudden cry of triumph roused him from his stupor. The big man was holding up an earthenware jar and levering the seal from its neck with feverish care. Then he offered it round.

  ‘I had an idea this might do us good at some point.’

  Dwarven ale. Riven took two generous swallows and the stuff warmed his throat and ignited a glow in his stomach a second later. His shivering ceased. He stood and watched the slow seep of pale light in the east that was the dawning sun, the ice in his mind melting away. He returned Ratagan’s grin and Bicker’s wry look, nodded at Isay, who looked incredibly young with his lengthening crew cut and cold-pi
nched face. And he studied Jinneth until she cocked an eyebrow at him and drank from the jar. He knew it was the last morning he would ever see with these people, and while the thought grieved him, he knew also that it had to be, that the best things are better not savoured too long. Jenny had shown him that, but Madra had made him believe it. That was something this world had given him. It was enough, perhaps. Perhaps. He felt like a child hauled away from a toyshop window. There had been no time, no chance to stop and stare. Now all there was to see were the mountains, where it had begun. This story’s Teller had a sense of fitness, at least.

  When they had squared away their belongings and wolfed down some cold food, they relashed their crampons and started out again into the grey morning, following Bicker’s lead. Even though Riven now knew the way ahead better than he.

  THEY WERE ON a level with the high peaks and they could now look the Greshorns in the eye. Range after range twisted and arched away, and blue gaps appeared in the clouds as they crunched forward. There was actually sunshine to light their way, making the snow blaze. The mountains were vast, barren, sharp as spears. Riven felt he had entered a different kingdom, a place where the affairs of men were irrelevant and ignored. He was as insignificant as a beetle. But that was not true. There was something in him that had the potential to dwarf even these mountains.

  Their path forward became uncomfortably exposed: a jagged ridge of adjoining peaks that rose and fell like a breaker hitting a beach. The pace slowed, and once more they roped themselves together, using their axes as walking sticks. There were places where great buttresses of stone thrust up out of the ridge to form minor peaks, and these they had to climb, one by one, someone—usually Bicker—belaying from the top. Riven could not bring himself to contemplate that task.

  The sky cleared farther and the wind dropped somewhat. They began to sweat in their heavy clothes, their palms becoming slick inside the thick mittens. There was no sound except the scrape of the snow, their own breathing and a far soughing of air through the teeth of the mountains.

  In the middle of the day, they halted to rest and eat, breaking out bread and fruit and dried meat, slugging at their canteens and then stuffing them full of snow. Riven’s eyes were full of the dazzle of the snow, and he kept them slitted against its glare. His lips were cracked and split and he had to lick them into mobility.

  They set off again. The Dwarves had reckoned on the journey to the Staer taking them a day and a half, but they were making slower progress than they had planned. They were tired, even Isay, and it was as much as they could do to keep lurching forward, with Bicker leading them like a recalcitrant shadow. The Red Mountain was not only higher here than on Skye, it was also higher in relation to its fellows, its pinnacle towering above the rest of the range, whereas in Riven’s world it was not the highest of the Cuillins. Its outline remained the same, however, as familiar to him as Jinneth’s profile.

  The afternoon wore round quickly. It was almost with a start that Riven realised the sky was darkening. The air was calm, with hardly a breath moving, but snow had started to drift down in a silent curtain.

  They stopped and stared at what was before them. They had come to a vast curve in the mountain, the peak arching up savagely to their left and a huge expanse of smooth ice cupped within its maw, stretching out as wide and unbroken as a white lake, tilted down towards the northern flanks of the traverse at a sharp angle.

  ‘We have a choice,’ Bicker said into the quiet that had enfolded them. ‘We can scale the peak or cross the ice field. But either way the mountain must be reached tonight. We cannot stop any more. There is nothing to burn, this high, and we would be hard put to it to last out another night up here.’ He did not mention what they would do after the mountain had been reached, how they would find a way back to the Jhaar.

  ‘The ice field,’ Riven said abruptly. ‘It’s getting too dark to climb.’

  ‘My thought also,’ Bicker said.

  They were still roped together, and shuffled off the rock of the mountain and on to the face of the ice like a procession of blind men. The field’s tilt was some thirty degrees, and they leaned into it with their axes, digging into the ice with their fanged feet, kicking every step home. The field loomed off below into an unknown distance down the flank of the mountain.

  Riven’s ears were full of the rasp of his own breath, the crunch and scrape of his feet, the cracking of his joints as they ached to do his will. The falling snow clamped all other noise down, muffled what he could hear of the others. The quiet was almost surreal, even the ever-present sound of the air currents in the peaks inaudible.

  There was the crack of ice breaking upslope, loud as a gunshot in the gathering twilight. Shards and pieces of the stuff tumbled down towards the company in a small avalanche, and they paused, breath misting the air in front of their eyes. Riven looked at Bicker questioningly and saw that the dark man’s face had gone as pale as paper.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Keep moving! Don’t stop!’ And the rope at Riven’s waist tugged him on again. He glared upslope but could see nothing there except the blankness of smooth ice. Cursing, he did as he was told.

  Then the ice beneath his feet exploded.

  He glimpsed something grey and snake-like launching itself out of the ice like a blunt-headed missile, and then it hit him in the chest and he was catapulted away, blasted from the slope. He somersaulted and came down hard on the ice once more, hearing it creak under him. The rope at his waist was biting into his flesh like a wire, and he screamed. There were shouts in the air around him. He swung like a trapped fly, and felt his rope sing with strain. Desperately, he scraped at the ice with his axe, trying to halt his mad jerking. He looked up to see a huge stone-grey column looming over him, and a screech rent the air, hurting his ears.

  ‘Ice worm!’ Ratagan’s voice yelled.

  He heard Bicker shriek, saw the creature hurtle at him and knock him sprawling, and then the dark man was loose and was sliding down the ice field. Riven’s rope tore at his waist and the shock clashed his teeth together. He tasted blood in his mouth, and then was torn free of his hold once more, and the ice was sliding away under him. He was caught again with a jerk that sent lights and darkness spangling before his eyes, and then was swinging there by the rope with Bicker’s weight suspended below him. Isay. Isay and Ratagan must be supporting them.

  There was another screech, like that of a large bird of prey, and he heard the hiss and crack of weapons, the splinter of ice. They were fighting above.

  He struggled round to face the slope and swung the axe into it as hard as he could. It had been thonged to his wrist, or he would have lost it. He kicked his feet in and grunted with the effort to anchor himself. But then the awful limp weight that was pulling on him lessened, and he looked down between his legs to see Bicker climbing upslope with his eyes glittering.

  ‘Cut the rope!’ the dark man hissed, and Riven severed it unquestioningly with the axe. They were free of each other.

  Something massive crashed into the ice, making the entire area shake and groan. ‘It dives!’ Isay shouted up above. They climbed to meet him and found the ice churned into a maze of broken blocks and splinters. Ratagan, Isay and Jinneth were crouched in its midst with wild eyes, their ice axes at the ready.

  ‘It’ll be back. It’ll come again,’ Bicker croaked. ‘We must get off the ice, get on to stone. We have no chance here.’

  But there was a sudden fountain of rime and ice among them, and the thing was towering before them again, mouth agape. It was as thick as an old beech tree, with a crested dragon’s head and eyes like green fires. It reared up to twice Ratagan’s height, and then turned to regard Riven.

  Isay leapt forward and sank his ice axe into it with a cry. The thing screamed, and whipped back and forth like a pinned worm. The Myrcan was smashed aside, his rope pulling Jinneth with him and yanking Ratagan to his knees. Then the worm plummeted down on Isay, and the great jaws closed about his
leg.

  ‘No!’ Riven shouted, lurching forward with his axe upraised. The worm lifted Isay into the air and shook him like a dog shaking a rat, the connecting rope lifting up a screaming Jinneth also. Riven swung his axe, and the rope severed, letting her tumble to the ice. The worm discarded Isay, flinging him off into the falling snow. They heard the ice twenty yards away shatter as he struck it.

  Ratagan surged forward, bellowing with fury. His axe scored a long crimson line about the worm’s trunk, and it reared backwards, hissing with anger and pain. It stabbed down at him, but he flung himself aside, scrabbling through the broken ice, and the beast’s head missed him by a foot. The body followed it, and Riven realised it was tunnelling down into the ice at unbelievable speed. Even as he watched, the tapering tail disappeared down the hole it had created. It was gone.

  They stood immobile, gasping for breath for perhaps a second, and then Bicker grabbed Riven’s arm. ‘Take the woman—make for the safety of stone. We will hold it here.’

  ‘Isay—’ Riven said brokenly.

  ‘Go! We will see to him. You must go now!’

  Riven wanted to weep. He seized Jinneth’s arm and dragged her away, but he had not gone ten feet when there was the sound of splintering ice and the worm erupted into the air beside him, knocking him aside. The green eyes bore down on him and he raised his axe feebly, but then Ratagan’s great bulk had collided bodily with the creature and his axe had been buried up to the shaft in its body. Riven thought the scream it uttered would burst his ears. It writhed backwards, slithering away across the ice whilst Ratagan stood like a blood-smeared giant over Riven and Jinneth. They heard him laugh, a laugh as free and unforced as any Riven had ever heard him utter.

  ‘Come on then, you damned worm! Try Dwarf-forged steel once more. Try the thews of Ratagan and see how you like it!’