They marched from the Dry Pit without delay, carrying the death-stone with them. Their triumph was shortlived; they were acutely aware of the immense distances they had to cover.
By now, the Swarms would already have spread most of the distance up the western coast of Argan. Nobody would say for certain how fast the Swarms would move, but the travellers knew that the distance from Drangsturm to the Dry Pit was roughly equivalent to the distance from Drangsturm to the land of Estar.
If the Skull of the Deep South had sent the Swarms north as fast as they could go, then there was probably no hope whatsoever of the travellers cutting them off at the southern border of Estar. On the other hand, if the Swarms had stopped to kill out each human community they came across, there was still some hope.
A faint hope.
That day, they marched due west from the Dry Pit, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and its unknown and half-known dangers. They camped that evening beside a marginal trickle of water, which – like the dates and hardtack they shared between them – was sweet luxury.
That 'evening, they began to argue over which route to take. Having at least half-expected to die in the Dry Pit, they had never really talked it out before.
Estar lay north-west, but a direct journey, north-west as the eagle flies, would have meant crossing the Shackle Mountains, dragon country near the Araconch Waters, the Broken Lands, the Spine Mountains and the Ironband Mountains. Such an expedition was out of the question – they would have needed maps, guides, food, pack animals and cold-weather clothing for the mountain crossings.
And it would have been slow beyond endurance.
Their fastest route to Estar, if they walked, lay southwest down the barren and almost waterless coast of the Sponge Sea, then due west across the Marbin Erg to Veda – or, to be accurate, the ruins of Veda – then north along the Salt Road.
'That's if we walk,' said Hearst. 'But I favour the sea.'
'And maybe it favours you,' said Blackwood. 'But there's no way west from the Sponge Sea to the Central Ocean.'
'We wouldn't go that way,' said Hearst. 'Returning to our canoe, we'd go the other way. We'd sail out through Seagate, then travel along the coast all the way to Skua. The sea has its dangers – but I'd rather contend with storms off the Bitterwater Coast than with monsters from the Swarms on the Salt Road.'
In the end, Hearst won.
They would go by sea.
That night, Blackwood dreamt of Loosehead Robert, the mad revolutionary who, according to the children's stories of Estar, came to grief when he was caught in a cave in the hills. Blackwood's dream became a tangled nightmare in which hooks, claws and devouring spiders tore apart Robert's body.
In the dream, Robert bled. Not blood, but long words: stochastic, phenomenological, epistemological. In the dream, of course, the words had the full glory of their High Speech avatars: jonmarakaralarajodo, ena-konazavnetzyltrakolii, zeq-telejenzeq. Bleeding, Robert fled down the hill, with the hooks, claws and spiders rampaging after him on a glissando of blue milk.
At first it seemed he would escape. And then:
The hill itself began to move.
'No!' screamed Blackwood.
And woke himself with his scream.
He blinked at dawnlight, at the lava-dark barrens, at his two startled companions.
'Bad dreams?' said Hearst. i was chased by a hill,' said Blackwood.
'You're lucky it wasn't a mountain,' said Hearst, carelessly. i don't think mountains can move,' said Blackwood. 'Not even in dreams.'
'Oh, there's no reason why mountains shouldn't move,' said Miphon. if someone's careless enough to use a death-stone near a mountain – anything might happen.'
'Why didn't the mountains move at Ep Pass, then?' said Blackwood.
'They may well have done,' said Miphon. 'We didn't stay around very long to watch and see, did we? Heenmor would have been able to ward them off with the death-stone if they attacked him, of course.'
'And we could do the same?' said Blackwood.
'We wouldn't need to,' said Miphon. i could control the mind of a mountain just as I control the mind of a rock.'
'Then,' said Blackwood, 'why not – '
As he explained what he had in mind, the other two looked at him, at first with patronising amusement, and then, realising he was truly serious, with disbelief, and then, realising it might actually work, with joyous elation.
'We can do it!' shouted Hearst in a battlefield voice.
'Or get ourselves killed,' said Miphon, with a note of caution. 'Nothing could be that easy!'
'Let's see,' said Blackwood. 'Let's try.'
The nearest mountain was five leagues distant. They trekked to the mountain, then climbed its slopes, which rose three thousand paces into the sky. Miphon used the death-stone, while Hearst and Blackwood huddled in the tiny circle of safety surrounding him.
The mountain came to life.
The ground lurched under them, then rolled sideways. The sun staggered. Miphon struggled for control. The mind of the mountain was fierce, strong, turbulent. Breaking loose from stasis, the mountain went raging across the barren land. The horizon bucked and tilted.
At last, Miphon brought the monster under control. i have it!' he gasped. T have it!'
'Then don't lose it!' said Hearst, badly shaken.
T won't,' said Miphon. 'It's settling down now.'
'Yes, well, let's hope it doesn't start sneezing or something,' said Hearst.
'And don't let it roll over to scratch its back!' said Blackwood.
'And -'
'Trust me,' said Miphon.
And, having no option, they did.
The ride was far from comfortable. The mountain, even though it was under control, moved in stumbling staggering lurches which kept the sun and the far horizons swaying. Blackwood was soon physically sick, so sick that he swore he'd vomited up yesterday's breakfast; the other two felt indisputably nauseous.
After a while, it became very tedious. There was nothing to do but sit and watch the landscape passing by. Miphon worked on the mountain's mind until it believed it was keeping its heading of its own volition: after that, even he had very little to do.
From that height, everything seemed small and insignificant; instead of making the travellers seem powerful, this made them feel disconnected from the landscape. It was disconcerting, after tramping so many hundred leagues on foot, to discover that there was a way to traverse enormous distances almost without effort.
Riding the clumsy, ponderous mountain, at first they covered over a hundred leagues a day. However, on the third day the mountain slowed, and on the fourth day it halted, deep in the Marabin Erg. is it tired?' said Hearst.
Miphon listened to the mind of the mountain, which raged against resuming stasis.
'No,' said Miphon. it would move if it could. Come close to me: I'm going to use the death-stone again.'
Hearst and Blackwood moved into the circle of safety. Miphon took the death-stone and held it. He waited for it to kick in his hand like a beating heart. But nothing happened. The death-stone felt like any smooth stone egg.
'Why are you waiting?' said Hearst.
Miphon snouted out the spell that should make the death-stone work. But nothing happened.
'Give it to me,' said Hearst. 'Let me try.'
Miphon handed it over. Hearst tried, with no success. it doesn't work!' said Hearst.
Surrounding them in all directions was the desert of the Marabin Erg. They were unlikely to survive a march across the open desert. They did not have enough water, for one thing.
'Maybe the death-stone needs time to recover,' said Miphon.
'Oh,' said Hearst, thinking about it.
They actually had very little experience of death-stones. Heenmor had used one once near Castle Vaunting, then again, months later, at Ep Pass, later still making unknown experiments with it at Stronghold Handfast. Elkor Alish had used a death-stone on escaping from the green bottle, and again, weeks later, to destroy an army defending Runcorn against his ragtag forces recruited in the hills of Dybra and Chorst. Hearst had used that death-stone long afterwards, to destroy the eastern defences of Androlmarphos, and Garash had activated another in the Castle of Controlling Power.
That was more or less the sum total of the knowledge they had to draw on. They did not know of anyone else trying to use a death-stone twice in the course of a few days. If the death-stone needed to rest, they had no way of telling how long it might have to rest for.
'We could try and walk,' said Blackwood.
'Through the Marabin Erg?' said Miphon.
'If we walk, we fail,' said Hearst. 'We'd never reach Estar in time, quite apart from the chance of dying of thirst. We have to stay with the mountain and hope we'll be able to use the death-stone again soon.'
'If we'd gone into the Dry Pit we might have been able to get more than one,' said Miphon.
'Yes,' said Hearst. 'And we might have got killed in the process, too. Come on.'
'Where are you going?'
'There! Look, a big watercourse, about a league from the mountainfoot. It's dry, but perhaps we'll find water if we dig.'
In the event, they didn't.
However, on the fifth day after they had last successfully used the death-stone, Miphon held it in his hand and felt it kick like a living heart. He used it. The mountain, animated again, continued on its way, stopping once, on command, at an oasis where they drew water.
As the mountain lumbered forward, dust and sand rose up behind them in boiling clouds of amber-umber; they paid no heed to the devastation left in their wake, but scanned the horizons far ahead, watching for the first sign of the Swarms.
On reaching the Harvest Plains, they saw the Swarms moving, not in great armies but in small scattered groups, a dozen here, a dozen there. They kept watch for the Neversh, knowing they had no defence against any Neversh attacking from the sky. Miphon said the creatures of the Swarms had no intelligence to speak of, relying instead on commands from the Skull of the Deep South, but Hearst was not sure whether to trust that.
On the evening of the second day, they passed south 520 of Selzirk, and saw the Neversh wheeling in their legions above the distant city. Miphon insisted that they give it a wide berth: there was no way they could save Selzirk.
As the towers and walls of Selzirk receded in the distance, Hearst thought of Farfalla, and what might have been – in a different world, a better world. Strangely, he found his memories of his visit to Selzirk were distant, unclear, fading. He was – or so he thought – preparing himself for the end of the world.
The next day, lumbering north-west across the Harvest Plains, leaving a trail of dust and torn earth behind it, the mountain slowed. On the fourth day they reached the shore, and, as the mountain's strength failed, Miphon took it into the sea. It hated the water, which would have killed a mere walking rock outright. Miphon forced the mountain out to sea for a league. Then it halted, its top forming a small island in the Central Ocean.
'We'll have to hug the shore when we go north,' said Miphon. 'Otherwise we'll be walking underwater.'
The day of waiting was hard. They were battered by the cold rains and the biting winds of the beginning of winter. They spent most of their time huddled together for warmth, except when they were fishing; they ate fish raw, having no wood for fires.
Then the wait ended.
Miphon used the death-stone again.
The mountain, liberated in the sea, thrashed in agony as the water tried to destroy it. The travellers were almost flung overboard. Fighting desperately, Miphon forced the mountain to shore. Only half its height reached the shore: the rest was left in the sea, destroyed by the water.
As their journey continued, their mountain smashed its way along the coastline. They went past Runcorn, and saw the Swarms circling above that beleaguered city. They went trampling down the Salt Road, crushing underfoot keflos, stalkers, granderglaws, glarz and other creatures. They were nearing Estar.
But the mountain's power ebbed before they got there. Knowing they must not halt on the Salt Road -the Swarms would attack them if they did – Miphon forced it into the sea. This time, it fought harder than before, knowing how the water would scald it. But he mastered its will, and finally, sweating, exhausted, drained, brought it to a halt in the ocean.
'Our next move,' said Miphon, 'will take us to Estar.'
There, they would confront the Swarms. And win.
Or lose, and die, and fail – and bring the world down to disaster with them.