Chapter 11
The weather was warming, finally, and Henry trudged happily through calf-high partially melted snow without complaint. He and Cedric were nearly at the end of their walkabout, heading east once more now that the season was recognizably spring. It had taken awhile for the weather near the western mountain range to catch up with the calendar.
Following his introduction to the salt mines, Henry and Cedric had worked alongside the miners near the western coast for a number of weeks, as autumn turned to winter and the journeymen were eventually needed elsewhere. They turned slightly to the south, and Cedric showed him the mining settlements that abutted the tall, imposing cliffs of the impassable mountains that made up Mythesti's southern border. As they moved from place to place throughout the winter, Henry felt truly useful at last. Though he now understood how valuable salt was, and he knew that his work with the salt miners was useful and productive for his kingdom, it wasn't until Henry was working with the metal and gem miners near the mountains that he truly felt like he was making a difference. Henry was drawn to the more tangible riches in a way that he couldn't quite put into words.
During the cold, quiet winter months, the young journeymen used their magical gifts to help the miners determine which mines were tapped out and where to dig new shafts. They also helped to find weaknesses in the rock and stone, allowing the miners to shore up the tunnels with wooden beams to prevent cave-ins and accidents. And when winter turned to spring, the young men found themselves in the western mountain range, still working with miners but also happy to be heading back home, to Master Rylan.
Henry thought to himself as he walked that despite his initial doubts about working with Cedric for the better part of a year, he'd truly learned a lot from his mentor during their walkabout. The older journeyman, though difficult to work with at times, really had tried hard to teach Henry new ways to use his apprentice spells, as well as a few more powerful spells he'd never had access to before passing his test. His staff was carved with new runes for each of those new spells, something Henry took pride in. He smiled.
"What are you smiling about?" Cedric asked, looking over from where he trudged alongside the prince.
"Nothing in particular," Henry answered, still smiling. "I was just thinking about everything I've done and learned while I've been wandering around the kingdom."
"Ah. So you're smiling because you haven't passed out from magic overuse in a couple of months," Cedric teased. "That is a good thing to learn."
"That's not nice!" Henry protested, striking out to hit Cedric playfully in the arm. A look of surprise crossed his mentor's face, and then Cedric was suddenly on the ground looking up at the clear, blue spring sky. The prince laughed and reached down to offer his mentor a hand up.
"Don't move!"
Henry froze, compelled by the frightened sound in Cedric's voice. "What's wrong?"
"The ground isn't stable here," Cedric told him, "and I don't want it to give way and take us both down. Reach out your powers and see for yourself."
Again, Henry did as he was told, closing his eyes and looking at the ground around them. He and Cedric were on a trail that led down from the mountains, and the prince could sense that the trail was more packed snow than actual rock. With the warmer spring weather, the snow all around them was starting to melt, and the trail where he and Cedric were standing was starting to melt too.
"What do I do?" he asked, relying on his mentor's expertise. The familiar knot of panic was starting to form in his stomach, fear that he'd do something wrong, and that either of them - or both of them - would pay the ultimate price for his failure.
"Where is the solid ground?" Cedric asked.
Henry knew that Cedric could find out the answer to his question himself, but figured there was a reason he was asking Henry, so he closed his eyes again and concentrated, looking for solid rock under the snow... somewhere.
"This whole area is nothing but packed snow," Henry all but sobbed. He could also sense how quickly the snow was eroding underneath them. "There is nothing solid anywhere around here."
Cedric took a deep breath, and Henry could see the tension in his body relax. How can he relax at a time like this? Henry thought to himself.
"Okay, this is what we're going to do," the older boy stated, his voice sounding confident in Henry's ears. "I can sense solid ground below us. We're going to have to reach it."
"It's nearly twenty feet down! We'll kill ourselves if we jump," Henry protested.
"We're not going to jump, Henry, relax. We'll use rope."
"We don't have that much rope, and what about the mules?"
Cedric sighed. "We're running out of time, Henry," he pointed out. "If we do nothing, the ground is going to fall out from underneath us. Pull the rope out of the mules' packs, and slap them to get them moving. They'll find their own way down... or they won't."
Straightening slowly, Henry moved to the pack animals and found the rope. "Won't they potentially start an avalanche if I get the mules going?" he called over his shoulder as he tied the two pieces of rope together and looked around for something to anchor an end to.
"Possibly," Cedric conceded, "but again, we don't have much choice."
Finding nothing solid to anchor their rope to, Henry decided to bury a loop of rope in the snow nearby, hoping and trusting that the snow would anchor them long enough so that the trip down to the next level wouldn't kill them.
"This rope isn't going to be nearly long enough," Henry stated as he worked.
"You're going to have to make it longer," Cedric told him, matter of fact.
"What? How?"
"Same spell as always," his mentor told him with a bitter laugh. "Rope is made from plant fibres, so make them grow."
"But rope isn't alive," Henry pointed out unnecessarily. "How can something not alive grow?"
"Same as always," Cedric said again. "You just need to alter the spell, to make it do what you want. You'd best hurry."
Henry tried to push down the knot of panic, which had crawled out of his stomach and into his throat. He muttered the incredibly familiar words to the spell he'd cast so often that Henry felt he could do it in his sleep, but he had difficulty adapting the spell to make the dead plant fibre grow. He tried again, and again the spell failed to do what he wanted. The panic grew until Henry started to feel dizzy. Hands shaking, he started to cast the spell again.
The ground under their feet started to groan, the snow creaking in an alarming way. Henry's eyes widened, and he swatted the mules to get them moving. The beasts, sensing the danger, trotted off quickly, the packed snow starting to crack under the abuse of their hooves.
"Henry!" Cedric called, the snow under his outstretched hand crumbling away. "We're out of time!"
Gulping, choking on his panic, Henry wrapped the rope around his arm and dove for Cedric. He grabbed the other mage around the waist and practically yelled the words of the spell. He could hear Cedric saying the same words, and he hoped that one of them would be successful. The packed snow they were on gave way with a crack, and they were falling.
The ground was coming toward them much faster than Henry was happy with, and he found he couldn't do anything to slow or halt their fall, not even whisper the words to the simplest spell. Snow was falling around them, the chunks of the previous pathway leading the way to the rapidly approaching earth. Henry fought down a scream, knowing they were going to hit the ground... hard.
The rope in his hand writhed as Cedric's spell finally did what Henry hadn't been able to. Henry couldn't see it lengthening, but it felt alive where it was wrapped around his arm, and he took a relieved breath. That breath was jerked out of him at the same time as it felt that his arm was going to be pulled from its socket. There'd been some increase in the length of the rope, but not enough, and they'd just reached the end of it.
Swinging from their momentum, Henry tried desperately to keep his hold on Cedric
. With one arm above his head supporting their combined weight, it hurt so very much, and Henry desperately wanted to let go of both the rope and his mentor. He was only twelve after all, not yet possessing the full strength he'd grow into, and Cedric was seventeen, and much larger than he was.
"I can't hold on any longer," Henry gasped in pain. "I just... can't."
With those words, Henry's grip on Cedric slipped, and he watched in horror as his mentor fell away from him. Without Cedric's weight pulling on him, Henry felt immediate relief on his shoulder, but that relief was short lived. With another loud groan and a crack of breaking snow, the rope holding Henry gave way and he followed his mentor to the ground.
Hitting the snow covered ground hard enough to knock all the breath from his body, Henry fought to get oxygen into his lungs. He was riddled with pain, and heard a groan that echoed his feelings, but Henry wasn't certain if the sound had escaped from him or from Cedric, who was laying a short distance away. They were both alive, but Henry knew nothing more than that.
"Henry," Cedric gasped. "The snow."
Henry looked up, and sure enough, the place where they'd been standing a short while ago was gone, but the snow from the area around and above that spot was still in place... and crumbling. They were about to witness an avalanche, from the unfortunate location of right underneath it.
Henry reacted without thinking, without asking for advice like he usually would. Thrusting his hand down through the snow, the prince fought to touch the rock beneath to strengthen his abilities via contact. Casting a spell without pausing, Henry drew rock and dirt up from ground and shaped it into a dome above them. He felt their shelter shudder when the snow hit it, but he was able to hold the dome until the feel of snow thudding into the rock and dirt stopped.
"Are you okay?" Henry asked, letting the shield fall back into the earth beneath them. He tried to sit up, but fell back when his arm gave way beneath his weight. He didn't think it was broken, but it hurt a bit too much to be certain. Cedric's answer was just a groan, and Henry rolled over instead of trying to sit up a second time.
Crawling toward his mentor, Henry quickly realized that no, his arm was not broken, but it was at least sprained. He used his undamaged arm to help pull himself forward, Henry wasn't sure what to expect when he finally reached Cedric's side. He was almost afraid to look.
Cedric's face was bruised, likely from a combination of the fall and the snow that had pummelled him before Henry had raised the shield. His eyes were closed and squinted together, and his breathing was shallow, leading Henry to suspect that Cedric was in pain, but not yet unconscious.
"Is anything broken?" he asked the older boy.
"I don't know," was the reply, "but I certainly hurt."
"We need shelter until we can get ourselves sorted out," Henry stated. He looked around, wondering if the mules were around. "I'll see what I can do, while you rest here."
Making true on his words, Henry managed to haul himself up and put together a functional shelter. He couldn't see the mules anywhere, but between his magic and the abundance of snow at his feet, blocking the wind wasn't difficult at all.
"We don't have any blankets or food," he pointed out after helping Cedric get more comfortable. "Maybe the mules will find us, but I'm thinking that it's more likely that we'll be a little cold and hungry until tomorrow."
Cedric just grunted. "We'll survive."