They exchanged icy stares for a moment; then she turned briskly and walked from the room.
Soren followed, closing the door behind. They confronted each other at the center of the lobby, their expressions shadowed by the yellow lamplight.
“Overseer, I beg you to control yourself,” he whispered heatedly.
“Who are you to speak to me thus?” she snapped, making no pretense at confidentiality. “You should have brought him straight to Ekendoré the instant you saw the Yrsten Medallion—exiled or not!”
“I do not claim to be without flaw regarding my choices. But as Supreme Raén I cannot ignore our ancient traditions. And I knew the day had come to seek the Broken Lor’yentré—an opportunity no honorable Raén could refuse. Nor could I fail to help a fellow Raén when no one else would. I make no apology for that decision, regardless of the outcome. As for Caleb Stenger—”
“He is the most to blame in all this,” she interrupted.
A brief silence passed as Soren gathered his words. “Tenlar will guide and protect her, my lady. And she is quite a capable woman herself.”
“Capable of what, Soren? Of controlling the greatest power this world has ever known? Of defending herself against the Bringer of Evil? A curse on you for sending her on the most perilous quest in the history of Ada!”
He shook his head slowly. “I deemed it the safer journey.”
“Then you are as blind to the danger as that man was,” she said, pointing at the door.
“Yes, blind. None of us foresaw the danger at Graxmoar. Or at Gebi. Damn me as you please, Overseer. Perhaps I deserve it. But do not damn Caleb Stenger for the love of his child.”
A drop fell from her lashes, glinting in the lamplight. “And do not damn me for the love of mine,” she uttered flatly. After a glance of pure fury at the closed door, she turned and vanished down the stairs.
Soren watched her leave, then reentered the room. The others had sat down again, Caleb’s face a curious mixture of indignation and fear.
“You heard?” Soren asked as he resumed his seat.
“Unfortunately. I suppose I’ll be arrested shortly.”
The old man pursed his lips, considering his reply. “I don’t think so—it would serve no purpose now. She’s a woman of strong emotions, but seldom bases her decisions upon them.” He shrugged a bit. “Yet—”
“It might be a good idea to keep out of her way for a while,” Caleb finished.
Soren glanced at Rewba, and they both nodded.
5
Crooked Pass
Never make the mistake of believing nature is your friend.
It doesn’t care about you in the slightest.
- Soren, 17
th
Master Raén of Ada
TENLAR LED
the way, his pant legs dusted with snow as he rode the runners of his sled. Telai followed, her bloodshot eyes focused on the trail, hoping to distract herself from her loneliness. The last time she saw Caleb, standing near his ship to watch her fade from his sight, seemed so long ago it felt like a dream.
At times it took all her will to resist her fears. Had Caleb and Soren reached Ekendoré? Or had they been waylaid by the Hodyn? It nearly drove her mad floundering on some wild search hundreds of miles away, not knowing whether they were dead or alive.
Soren had insisted that she and Tenlar take two teams as well as their own lasers. Not only did the urgency of their mission warrant them, but a second sled insured against disaster. She loathed the thought of using Caleb’s strange weapons, a symbol of violence if there ever was one. But the Supreme Raén of Ada tolerated no protest in this matter.
At his suggestion she had hidden Rennor’s disc in one of her boots, and she had spent every evening since trying to learn its secrets. Yet she saw no clearer vision than before, nothing that indicated where Heradnora was or what she was doing.
The rugged mountains of the Iéndrai spanned the northern horizon, their peaks veiled in winter clouds. Directly ahead, a narrow cleft twisted its way between snow-laden walls: Crooked Pass. As they stopped for a short rest, Telai cast a worried glance in its direction. The thick white caps dangling atop the cliffs had buried countless people in past years, their fates unknown until the spring thaw revealed their mangled corpses.
The dogs, a thickly furred breed from Enilií with large paws and heavily muscled shoulders, lay panting in the snow. Telai pulled her hood back to get a better view, and strands of hair escaping her braid tangled in the wind whistling down the gorge.
“Dangerous?”
Tenlar nodded. “No one travels this way during winter if they have a choice. Be sure the short spade we gave you is well secured and easy to find. We should be careful to keep the dogs quiet, too. Give them each a full ration before we enter the pass.”
“What! Even a barking dog can set one off?”
“It’s rare, I’ll admit. This bright sunshine is the larger threat. But why take chances?”
They fed the dogs and ate a quick meal, then started for the pass. They crossed the timberline within a few hours, the wind howling between the steep walls that rose ever higher and closer on either side. They spent half the time turning their faces away from the dangerous gale. Tenlar’s fear about the dogs proved needless; they were too busy toiling through the deep snow and against the stiff wind to waste energy barking. Yet the massive cliffs overhead looked almost entirely made of thick, featureless snow, brilliant in the sunshine, ready to plunge into the depths at the slightest disturbance. The walls drew together less than a half mile apart in some places, offering little or no escape should the worst happen.
By afternoon their noses and cheeks were beginning to suffer from frostbite. A constant flow of tears blurred their vision, and the frigid air sapped heat so fast Telai felt it in her bones. The dogs, their gray flanks coated with the frozen mist of their own breath, plodded slower and slower over drifts the drivers could barely see in the blowing snow.
They sought shelter for a while, in the lee of a massive boulder to their right near the top of a long slope. They crouched against the stone and put their hands to their faces, trying to breathe in life and warmth. Their stiffened jaws made for slow and clumsy speech; any food they tried to eat was like iron, so difficult to chew it was hardly worth it.
The thought of going out into that wind again was especially discouraging. The moment they forced themselves up, however, Tenlar dropped to the snow, pulling Telai with him.
He pointed to the north. She peeked around the boulder and saw six or seven dark forms silhouetted against the relentless white. Plumes of snow flew forward at their approach. At first she wondered if a group of travelers had gotten stranded somehow, but one look at Tenlar told her otherwise. If they were Hodyn, how had they escaped the vigilance of Enilií?
One of the dogs saw the approaching men and began howling. Tenlar jumped to silence the animal, but it was too late. One by one the other dogs took up the chorus, and the Hodyn stopped short. Tenlar swore and released the dog, staring at Telai.
The enemy caught sight of them and fanned out for the attack, drawing their swords. Telai and Tenlar reached in their coats for the weapons they had hoped to never use on this journey. But there was no choice. One Hodyn escaping to report would doom Ada’s last hope.
The Master Raén leaped from cover with a shout. The dogs yelped and growled, straining against their harnesses to join the attack as the Hodyn bore down upon them. There was no need. In scant seconds the grimly effective technology of another world split three men in half with one sweeping pass. Two more caught the edge of it, and screamed in horror as the wind splattered blood into a fine mist from their severed arms. The last one used his comrades as a shield and headed for the shelter of the boulder, but Telai was ready for him.
She grimaced and squeezed the trigger. There was a loud pop like a melon bursting, and the soldier’s skull flew backwards in a pink spray.
The snow beneath the struggling forms of the survivors slowly darkened. Telai crouched trembling by the rock, dropping the laser to the snow as if it were diseased. The thought of such power in enemy hands terrified her. If one laser could cause this much butchery, what fate lay in store for them at Ekendoré?
The confrontation was over so fast, the impact of it so strong, they failed to notice a growing hiss in their ears. Then one of the sled dogs broke free at last, and was in such a frenzy over the attack that it snapped at Tenlar’s leg. Due to his thick clothing it did no harm, but it surprised him, and he spun around.
He stared overhead. Telai copied him. A massive white cloud was descending, blotting out the cliff. It looked so incredibly soft.
“Run, run!” Tenlar bellowed, and floundered toward the sleds, Telai close behind. In a panic they fought to set their teams right again, for the dogs had tangled their harnesses in their excitement.
The hiss deepened to a rumble. Telai finished first, her team less tangled, and ran to help Tenlar.
“No, no!” he cried, shoving her away. “Leave it!
Your
sled!”
They lunged back, and together leaped onto the runners. “Run!” she shrieked, forgetting the proper command. The dogs needed no urging, however, and she almost lost her grip as they sprang into motion.
A shout sounded behind her, and she looked back. Tenlar was being dragged through the snow, one hand locked around the end of the runner where it curved upward. She tried to bend down and reach him, but the dogs were frantic in their speed. He vanished within seconds, and one glance overhead froze her heart.
“
Tenlar!
”
Telai brought her arms up across her face. The avalanche slammed into her from behind and tossed her, head over heels, like flotsam on a tempest-torn sea. The force of it was merciless, suffocating, carrying her farther and farther, until she thought it would never stop.
At last she slowed and came to a jarring halt. She was completely buried, how deep she could not guess. She could scarcely breathe, and her entire body felt like it was covered in bruises. Terror engulfed her. But she fought to master it, and in time realized the snow packed around her was light and porous. Diffused sunlight shone above her head. She was close to the surface.
She started digging feverishly, then slowed as common sense prevailed. Frantic movements would only exhaust her limited supply of air. She worked methodically, digging a little, then moving the snow to either side. Her sight adjusted to the darkness, and the patch of light grew stronger, a beacon of hope.
Her arms ached, her head spun from lack of air, forcing her to rest more often. She knew she was close to passing out, to falling asleep for the very last time. It took all her strength of mind to keep from surrendering to wild impatience, from clawing madly and releasing her fear in a scream.
A thick layer of snow fell on her face, and when she shook it off the sky shone bright in her eyes. She rested again, taking in deep breaths of blessed air. Then she struggled out of her snowy tomb, caked from head to foot.
The light blinded her at first. Yet once she got used to it there was nothing to see, only a vast, unbroken slope right up to a point high on the eastern wall of the pass. The tall boulder was nowhere in sight. If the avalanche had caught her even a few seconds earlier, she never would have seen daylight again.
With a wrenching blow she realized Tenlar’s fate. She fell to the snow and pounded it over and over with her fists. It flew away like chaff. She could not accept that his life had ended so quickly, so needlessly. Long minutes passed as she crouched in the bitter wind, Ada suddenly a land of desolation, all its magnificence and beauty gone. She longed for a companion—anyone—to rescue her from the vast, oppressive loneliness.
But there was no one, and if she was to survive, she needed to act soon. The struggle in the snow and the lack of air had drenched her body with sweat, and she shuddered with the first stages of hypothermia.
Telai forced herself up, tottering in the gale. It was vital that she find her team, or at least her sled, by nightfall. She dug in the area from which she had emerged, lowering her head into each hole in an attempt to hear whines or faint movements. The sun crept toward the high western wall of Crooked Pass, and the short winter day began to decline. Everything she needed was on that sled: food, clothing, even a small supply of firewood for an emergency. But her laser lay buried beneath a hill of snow.
At last her persistence revealed a narrow leather strap looping above the surface. She pulled and dug, dug and pulled, and out came the snow-plastered head of a dog. With a few yelps and whines he struggled free; his efforts helped the others wriggle out, and one by one they all emerged, freezing cold and none too healthy, but alive.
The sled was another matter. The combined strength of Telai and the dogs, all weakened, could not free it from the packed snow, forcing her to cut the harnesses. In the meantime the day was waning fast, and she feared none of them would survive the bitter night.
But the effort returned some warmth to her body, and the dogs, loyal and well trained, never left her. They sat close, screening her a little, licking and biting the snow and ice from their fur and between their toes. Telai inspected them all. For the most part she found only welts and scrapes from their tumble with the sled; yet one dog limped heavily, and growled and nipped at her when she pressed against his haunch. As the sun turned the snow a pink pastel the animals settled down, indifferent to the catastrophe they had survived, and dug their usual burrows for the long night ahead.
All except Slink, that is, her team’s leader. He sat alert, ears erect, sniffing the air. Perhaps he had scented more Hodyn, but nothing she saw held any threat.
Though the wind had dropped, it still whistled about her in brief, swirling gusts. She trudged wearily to the half-buried sled to rig some sort of shelter, but the persistent Slink distracted her. Still alert and restless, he whined anxiously, attention fixed upon the darkening slope.