the rock wall, where the mist seemed to linger. But before he had taken another three steps, white-shrouded guards stepped out from the gates and advanced stiffly toward him, swords drawn.
"Stop where you stand!" shouted the one on the left.
Rotapan plastered himself to the rock wall. His knees knocked together and his breath came in gasps. Unbidden, stories of travelers lost on this peak, checking their maps and freezing open-eyed and standing, came racing to his mind. The coin, in his hand for the last few feet, was losing its heat even faster, and felt as though it were stuck to his palm like a searing brand.
The guards shuffled through the heavy snow and stopped a few feet away from him. "We hear you. Show yourself, slave. We have warned you about leaving the colony without our escort," said one of them, his eyes strangely vacant, his breath making no mist in the frigid air.
Rotapan could not move. But from the other side of the path came a faint sound. The Neffian crouched behind a snowbank, holding a whimpering wolf pup inside his furs. Rotapan breathed a slow sigh of relief when he realized he was not the guards' objective. At the sound of the pup's cry, they moved in on the Neffian, affording Rotapan a strange revelation. The guards' skin was as white as their stiff robes, and when he looked directly upon their faces, he could almost see the outline of everything behind them. They looked as though they were made of the same ice that covered the entire top of the mountain. They carried swords made of brilliant crystal and their words hung in the air like the sound of steel on steel.
As they came forward, the Neffian released the pup and silently bade him to stay, then broke from his cover and shot past them as they clashed their swords over his head. The slave ran in through the gates, then took to the even steeper path toward the main entrance of the slave colony, the guards following stiffly, but with amazing speed. Rotapan shrugged and