fragments. Here are there, steam vents offered relief from the frigid air and the bleak landscape, their pockets of lush greenery scattered like so many oases over upon the mountain.
"Look ahead-I see a rising mist, honored Schreefa. Perhaps there is warm spring there." Saelin pointed to a low-hanging white cloud just ahead of them. "In any case, we are losing the light. Perhaps camping would be preferable to this current misery?"
"Yes, I believe there might be a warm spring over there. There used to be one on the caravan road, I recall. Perhaps I can be warmed, after all." She gave Rotapan another boot toward the rising steam, much to Saelin's relief. "We camp for the night. Rotapan, you will climb the mountain, make the arrangements for the army, and return to us here."
"What? Am I not just as weary as you? You would send me up there alone?" whimpered Rotapan.
Giving him a grimace and no more, Riolla entered the small but dense jungle that had grown up around the warm spring. Huge arrow-shaped leaves dripped condensation off their pointed tips and the warm spring filled the thick air with a soothing gurgle.
"Your archenemy has no more power than you right now. I have it on the best authority that she'll see you. Saelin will go with you as your bodyguard. Stop whining, Rotapan," she admonished, giving the crestfallen Saelin a signal to find some food. "Drufalden's spies have surely told her we are here. Their eyes are everywhere. Do you forget whom I represent? I'm sure if you explain that the Raptor himself has interest in this, she will listen. Here, take this."
She handed him the coin the Raptor had given her. Rotapan looked at the gold piece with keen interest, then dropped it into his deep pocket. She picked a spotted orchid bloom from a low-hanging limb and put it in her hair as Saelin summoned his last bit of patience, bent a short tree, and cut down its hand of ripe miniature bananas for her.
818 Teri McLaren
Rotapan curled his mouth into a silent, bitter sneer as he turned toward the trail up to the summit, up to the ice-ridden castle, Saelin close behind him, Riolla's whispered instructions fresh in his ears. High above, at the mist-shrouded summit of the old volcano, Rotapan thought he saw a dark whirlwind stirring the snow into a blizzard.
"Do not harm the young man. Do not touch him, do not let him be touched by any of your Rimscalla guards," said the Raptor.
Drufalden's pale, almost colorless, eyes followed the shadowy figure as it paced back and forth in her darkened chambers. She studied the sway of the crimson cloak as it brushed over the polished floors, never quite touching them. The click of the Raptor's heels echoed through the carved ice hallways and played against the stone archways like music over water.
Here, inside the mountain, she had always been safe, never really believing this man, if he were man, existed. But here was the Raptor, just as Riolla had said so long ago. Just as her mother had spoken of in her raving madness, before dying in the coldest dungeon in Almaaz. Drufalden wondered how he had moved past her guards; his cloak showed no evidence of travel, or of the snow that locked her land. And just as Riolla had said, he had demanded near darkness and that every reflective surface in the room be covered. And Drufalden could not, no matter how hard she tried, see his face. The hood concealed every feature, and his voice seemed to come from the air around her ears instead of from under that dark red hood.
It had been a long time since a man with any power had stood in her presence. It was… enticing. How refreshing and invigorating it was to have a new mystery, a new territory to… explore. Drufalden smiled alluringly into the shadows.