“I wouldn’t make my home in that,” Seri agreed, as usual, with the thought behind his words. “But that grass, and that stream—think of this for horses. It’s perfect.” She bounded down the last of the slope and ran out on the grass, only to fall on her face.
“Seri!” Aris ran after her, and tripped on the deep sand just as she had. She was up already, her expression rueful.
“Sand,” she said. “It’s not a terrace like ours at all.” Aris, face down on the sand, eyed the patch of green before him.
“And that’s not real grass, either. Sedge.”
“Oh, well, it’s got water.” Seri strode off toward the creek, and he followed her. When he caught up, she was laughing. “Water, I said! Look at this—it’s hardly a knuckle deep.”
“Soaking the sand,” Aris said. He looked all around, at the sheer walls, the almost-level floor of sand, the glisten of water that had looked like a real stream. “A very strange valley indeed.”
It was, he thought later, as they examined it in more detail, like a flattened miniature of the main canyon. Its sand floor was not as level as it had looked from above; it had miniature grassy terraces, small dunes of open sand, little sedgy bogs near quicksand, even a small cluster of trees whose triangular leaves sounded like gentle rain in the breeze. They spent the afternoon working their way up the valley; the stream deepened upstream, against their experience, and acquired a gravelly bed. To the east, a tributary valley opened, but they could see it was blocked at the upper end by a sheer cliff. The way out to the south lay, if anywhere, up a ravine garish with orange stone and odd black boulders. They pushed themselves into that climb, unwilling to spend the night in the valley, though neither could say why.
They looked back once, from a terrace about halfway up the ravine, to see the valley looking once more like a level swathe of grass. Just above the ravine, they found a sloping pine wood… and more sand.
“It’s softer than rocks to sleep on,” Aris offered, when Seri’s lip curled.
“And harder than rocks to walk on, and we do more walking than sleeping. It will take us longer to go where we need to go,” she said. But they made a pleasant camp that night anyway, enjoying the knowledge that no one—no one at all—knew exactly where they were. Their small fire crackled and spat with the fat pine-cones and resinous boughs; the water they’d brought up from the valley tasted sweet with their supper of hard bread and cheese.
“Two of the most dangerous, alone, in our valley: we should take them.”
“No. One is the healer. We need him, for the prince’s downfall.”
“Then the woman—”
“We cannot take one without the other, not without giving warning. Patience, trust the prince’s weakness, and wait. Vengeance long-delayed is all the sweeter.”
“The woman is dangerous, I tell you,” the complainer said. “There’s an uncanny stink about her, something like the old priest had. She doesn’t like the valley; she senses something—and that against our strongest protections.”
“Then we will have the prince distract her,” the leader said. “She will do us no harm if she’s busy somewhere else—or worried about something apart from our kind of danger. She is Girdish; such mortals concentrate their minds on practical matters, and dislike magery. If she senses something, let her think it is only that of other mortals, no more.”
The next day Aris led the way out of the pine grove onto an open upland; to their left, a curious conical hill of rough black rock looked like nothing either of them had ever seen. Far to the west, they could see the mountains beyond Dirgizh. Ahead, they knew, was the drop from their block of mountains—but which was the best way?
Seri pointed to the black peak. “If we climbed that we could see more.”
Aris shrugged. “It’s higher ground that way. We might find rock instead of this sand.” For the lower ground had small dunes of windblown sand, difficult to walk on.
They found the gentle slope toward the black hill much easier than the day before. Soon they were walking on rock again, rippled and curved like mudbanks in a stream. More and more of the land around them came into view. Looking back toward the upper valley and the main canyon, they could see only a jumble of red rock, cut with sharp blue shadows. The mountaintop above the stronghold stood out clearly, but not the canyons between. Southward, they began to see a lower plain beyond the mountains… and the high white cliffs of another mountain range to the east. Finally, as they walked among the jumbled black boulders of the black hill’s base, they could see an edge.
Seri cocked her head at the black hill now close above them. It looked as if it were made of a pile of loose black rocks, some room-sized and most smaller. “Do you think we can climb that, or will it be like climbing gravel?”
Aris looked south, at a distant blue shadow he thought might be more mountains very, far away. “Do we need to, now? I think we can find our way to the edge of this without it. I wonder how far that cloud or mountain is…”
Seri looked. “More than a day’s travel. In this air, more than two.” She scrambled up the steepening slope of the black hill, dislodging a shower of rough black rocks, and slid down again. “Not worth it, you’re right. I wonder what the dwarves would call this kind of rock.” She picked one up, and hit another, experimentally. The one in her hand broke, and she yelped. “It makes sharp edges,” she said, holding out her gashed hand.
“And you want me to heal it for you,” Aris said, shaking his head. “Will you ever learn to wear gloves?” He laid his hand over the gash and let his power heal it.
“Peasants don’t wear gloves,” Seri said scowling, but her eyes twinkled. She shook her hand, looked at the rock, and shrugged. “Come on—we’d better get this done today. I’ve got to work on those junior yeomen—or whatever we decide to call them—when we get back.”
They came to the edge before midday, an edge even more impressive than the drop from the mountaintop into the western canyons. Swallows rode the updraft, the wind whistling faintly in their wings, and veered away as the two came to the edge and looked out. Aris thought he had never seen anything so beautiful; a vast gulf opened before them, with nothing to bind the sight until the line where earth met sky. He knelt to peer over the edge, cautiously. A sheer drop he could not estimate, then spiked towers, then steep slopes and finally rubble flattening gradually to the glitter of a fast-moving river. He looked along the river’s path, and saw that it disappeared into sand some distance downstream. Upstream—the breath caught in his throat. Upstream he could see what this cliff must look like—its match on the far side of the river rose from the sand, all shades of red, rose, and purple, and looking eastward he saw those walls converge. But above the red rock— where only blue sky arched in their canyons—were higher cliffs of gleaming white.
He looked at Seri, whose face he thought mirrored his own astonishment. “It’s—beyond words,” she said. “I can’t imagine why the dwarves don’t live here—why it’s not full of the rockfolk.”
He started to say perhaps they didn’t know, then remembered the dwarven symbol in the stronghold’s great hall. Of course they knew. And had they abandoned this—this vast beauty of stone so strong that it sang even to mortals? “Perhaps they loved it too well to tunnel into it,” he said. “As the horsefolk leave some herds free-running.”
“Perhaps.” Seri stared awhile longer, then shook her head sharply. “Well. We’re not going to build a trail straight down this. We’d better look for a place where we can. Maybe where the water comes down…”
They worked their way east, staying close to the edge and looking over at intervals. This canyon narrowed rapidly at the bottom, while the upper levels were still far apart, and soon Aris spotted a sheer cliff with a waterfall. “That won’t work,” he said. “Even if it’s passable from above, imagine that in a storm—it would wash out any trail we built.”
They headed south and west again, crossing their own tracks, and found a place where a dry wash wrinkled t
he surface, deepening rapidly toward the edge. “It will be another cliff,” Seri predicted. But when they looked, some flaw in the rock had formed a great fissure. Broken chunks the size of buildings stepped down toward the desert below. Aris looked at it doubtfully.
“I supposed we could try—go down as far as we could—”
Seri snorted. “We shouldn’t be stupid twice in one year. We’ve already gotten into trouble—or what could have been trouble—when we used that robbers’ trail without thinking about it. We’re supposed to be Marshals—now think. If we go down, and can’t get back up—”
“I could use the mageroad,” Aris said, for the sake of argument. He enjoyed feeling more daring than Seri, rare as the chance was.
“If you slipped and cracked your head,” she said, “I couldn’t use it, and couldn’t heal you. No—let’s find some way to recognize this from below, and then figure out how to go around.”
“From Dirgizh?”
“Right. From the old caravan route they spoke of. Now let’s see…” She lay flat, her head over the edge of the cliff, and looked toward the fissure, then the stream below. “It would be nice to have a grove of trees—”
“No trees.” Aris said. He sat, his legs dangling over enough space to stack five cities cellar to tower, and looked over at the facing cliffs. Their fissure seemed to line up with a skinny spire of rock, much thinner than the Thumb, on that side. He pointed it out to Seri; her eyes narrowed.
“Yes… but from down there the line will be different. Let’s see… we can see the stream, so if you stood on this side of it—”
“We should be mapping this,” Aris said suddenly, wondering why they hadn’t thought of that. Before she could remind him that they had brought nothing to map with, he said, “I know—we can’t. But if we draw it on the stone several times, we should be able to remember it.” He rolled back from the edge, and broke some brittle sticks from one of the stiff, spiny bushes that dotted the upper plateau. They drew what they saw, until both agreed on the proportions and shapes, and could reproduce it anew.
By then it was late afternoon; they would have trouble making it back to the pine wood by dark, let alone back to the stronghold.
“No one can see us use the mageroad here,” Aris said. “Let’s do it.” Seri nodded, and he found a sand-covered stretch, back from the edge, and graved the pattern carefully with his stick. The late-afternoon wind howled up the cliff, blowing sand into the pattern even as he drew it; he had to rework the pattern with deeper grooves, and then decided to mark it out with pebbles instead. Seri wandered about at a little distance, looking alternately at the great space below and beyond, and at the curious black hill behind them.
Suddenly she stiffened, and said, “Aris!” He looked over, to see her staring back at the confusing jumble of rock near the upper end of the little valley.
“What?”
“Something moved.” She backed toward him.
“Look out!” he said sharply; she had nearly stepped on the end of the pattern he had completed with pebbles. She looked down, moved aside.
“Sorry,” she said. Her dagger was out, he noticed with some astonishment. “Aris, something’s over there—”
“Too far to bother us, if you let me finish the pattern and get us on the mageroad.”
“I don’t like it,” Seri said. Aris placed the last three pebbles, stood, and took her hand.
“Then we’ll leave. Come on, Seri, it would be stupid to wait here for whatever it is; it’s getting late, the sun will be in our eyes—”
“Oh, well.” She relaxed suddenly, and stepped carefully where he pointed. “It’s probably only one of those wildcats—”
And they were back in the great hall, where their arrival brought bustle and excitement, and a summons from Luap to tell him what they had found.
“So this is what we think, sir,” Aris said, summarizing their long report. “We need to approach from the lower end, both to locate the old caravan route east, and to find out if that water we saw is good. Then we’ll need to consult with the best stone-carvers—you know I can’t do that—and it will take at least a season of work to cut a passable trail for pack animals, and make sure it doesn’t fall. If we can go now to the Khartazh, and find out about the caravan, perhaps next summer—after the fieldwork’s done—work could start on the trail down. And the trail from here to the upper valley, and the trail out to Dirgizh, which really should come first.”
“But what about the distance overland to Fintha?” Luap asked. “Won’t you need to go all the way to Fintha to be sure that’s where it comes out?”
“We’ll go to Fintha, surely,” Aris said. “But we think the horse nomads will tell us about the eastern end of the trail—and the merchants in Dirgizh and the next town south may well know about this end. Convincing someone to try it may be difficult… but I’ve noticed the merchants show an interest in renewing that old trade.”
“With your permission,” Seri put in, “we’d like to start by going to Dirgizh, as soon as possible, and follow the old caravan route east—then turn north and see if we can find our notch.”
“How long do you think that will take?” asked the Rosemage.
“Hands of days,” Seri said. “We don’t know until we’ve gone. But it must be done sometime—”
“And then we’d go to Fintha,” Aris said. “Take our horses, and go visit the horse nomads… they liked us well enough before.”
“What you’re telling me,” Luap said, “is that it will be more than a year before we have a way for a caravan to come here—let alone before one actually comes. Two years, more like, or even three…”
The Rosemage shrugged. “When we started, remember, we didn’t know if anyone would ever discover an overland route; I think even three years sounds remarkably quick.”
“The question,” Aris said, “is whether this is worth all the effort. People will have to work on the trails instead of other things—”
“It’s worth it,” Luap and the Rosemage said together. Then she fell silent and Luap went on. “No land survives long without trade,” he said. “Especially one so limited in resources as this. If our people are to have a permanent place—for those who can’t, or don’t want to, return—then we must have trade.”
“And overland trade,” the Rosemage said, “will disturb the Finthans less than continued heavy use of the mageroad.”
“I wonder if Raheli would come?” Seri said suddenly. “I would like to see her again.” Aris noticed that Luap had stiffened, but before he could ask why, Luap relaxed.
“I doubt she’ll leave her grange for us,” he said. “But of course she would be welcome.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Luap had made the decision to meet that first caravan at the upper end of the trail from the desert. All along the way, his people had planted bannerstaves; today the narrow pennants snapped loudly in a freshening wind. Blue and white, Gird’s color and Esea’s, alternated. He himself wore the long white gown they had found so practical in the dry heat of summer, and over it a tabard of Girdish blue. He had an uneasy feeling about that, but surely they need not ape the fashion of Girdish peasants, not out here. No one wore those clothes any more; he had put on that worn pair of gray homespun trousers and rediscovered how itchy his legs felt. So he had insisted on some garment of blue, for all of them, and most had chosen the simple tabard.
His scouts had reported the approaching caravan two days before. Last night’s campfires had been at the base of the cliffs; soon they would be here. He was sweating, he realized, with more than heat. He wished he could see. Instead, he heard them first… the ring of shod hooves on stone, the echoing clamor of human voices, swearing at some unlucky mule. Then one of the youngsters waved to him, and he went to look over the edge. They were closer than he’d thought, toiling upward only a few switchbacks below, horses and men and mules all reduced to squirming odd shapes by the distance and brilliant sunlight.
One looked up at
him, a face sunburnt to red leather, eyes squinted almost shut, unrecognizable. He had hoped for Cob, who had been, as much as any of them, a friend, but he had known how much Cob loved his own grange, how little he would look forward to a long journey into strangeness. The man’s free arm waved, then he looked down again. Luap watched the slow advance. Seasons of waiting had passed faster than this; his throat felt dry, and he accepted the wineskin someone offered without really noticing it. The wine, cool and sweet, eased his throat, but the hot stone must, he thought, be crisping his toes. They would be even hotter, having climbed those sunbaked cliffs in the day’s heat.
At last, the first of the caravan reached the top, two glasses or more after he’d expected them. Too late now to reach the stronghold by dark; they would camp in the pine-wood just below. Luap walked forward to meet the first rider, and proffered the wineskin. The man’s horse stood head down, sides heaving. He was still convinced he had never seen the man before when Cob’s voice came out of that swollen, sunburnt face.
“By the Lady, Luap, you’ve chosen one impossible lair… no wonder you travel by magery!”
“Cob! I’m glad to see you!” And he was, even now, even when he half-wished the caravan had not come, that he could sever the ties with Fin Panir. Of all Gird’s quarrelsome and difficult lieutenants, Cob had been the first to shrug and accept him, and the only one whose loyalty to Gird’s luap had never wavered except at Gird’s command.
“And I, you: you could have come out to the grange, your last visit.” That loyalty had not blunted Cob’s tongue, reminiscent of Gird’s own. Now he looked Luap up and down, as Gird might have done. “Gone back to magelords’ dress, out here? That’ll do you no good with the Marshal-General, Luap.”