It was cold.
Cold wasn't a very descriptive term, however. Freezing would have been better, or arctic, or brutal, but they all described the biting, knife-like cold of the coastal plains of Ungardt.
Tarrin and Jesmind loped to the east, leaving the city of Dusgaard behind during the dead of night, with only the light of the Skybands and the Red Moon to light their way, the colors casting stranges shadows on the crusted snow that was piled a span or more on the ground. The snow did little to slow them down, for Tarrin's height made a span of snow a pittance, and Jesmind followed in the trail he broke in the frozen snow. His feet, submerged in the snow most of the time, felt comparitavely warm compared to what he felt against his skin. Winters were cold in Ungardt, and coming out at night, the temperature was as far below the freezing point of water as it was above the freezing point in the midday desert. Biting cold sank its teeth into both of them, but it found that it could not gain purchase. Neither was properly dressed for the intense cold, but their Were-cat natures defended them from frostbite. Their regenerative abilities prevented their flesh from freezing by expending energy to keep them warm, and that would protect them for a short while. For Tarrin, it was a bit more. His strong connection to the Weave allowed its energy to flow through him just as if he were a strand, something that required no effort or energy on his part, and that energy produced heat. The same heat he had Transmuted his body to protect against now warded off the arctic chill, keeping him at a comfortable temperature.
It would have to protect them, because they couldn't stop. Ungardt weren't paranoid, but if they knew Tarrin was there, they would slow them down. Not over challenging them, but over hospitality. Hospitality was serious business to the Ungardt, and if any of the clan caught him out on his own, they'd invite him into their lodges, and Tarrin would be foreced to accept. If he snubbed them, it could cause an incident between his family and the offended family… and in Ungardt, such spats often led to bloodshed. The Ungardt did not have the same strictures about fighting among themselves as the Selani had, and Ungardt fought with each other with greater enthusiasm than they did with outsiders. Ungardt considered a fight with another Ungardt as a fight worthy of their talents. Tarrin had to get them out of the populated areas before dawn, then the sun's return brought the temperate up to that which the Ungardt would find more acceptable to outside activity. The other reason was because he didn't want anyone to know where he was. If an Ungardt saw him, they'd spread the word, and it wouldn't take that long to get back to his enemies. He didn't want to give anyone any help in tracking him down. So Tarrin led Jesmind on a murderous pace, knowing that they had to get off the coastal plain and up into the foothills as quickly as they could.
It took them quite a while to get off the coastal plain. Ungardt was the largest kingdom in the West, but it was also the least populated, and the vast majority of that population was hugged up against the sea. There were occasional villages scattered along the rolling hills off the coastal plain, but one could go for days travelling between them. The other concentration of Ungardt was to the far east of the kingdom, in the Frozen Mountains and the rugged foothills abutting them on the west edge, where Ungardt miners and craftsmen were concentrated to mine the vast deposits of iron and coal out of the glacier-covered mountains and rugged foothills, and craft it into tools, weapons, or large ingots of pure iron for sale to other kingdoms. There were huge complexes up in the mountains where the Ungardt used their precious blast furnaces to melt the iron down into stock and ingots, using the coal they mined from the foothills to fuel their furnaces. The technology of the blast furnace was relatively new, the Ungardt only having it for a about fifty years or so, and it was the cause of the infamous Iron War between Wikuna and Ungardt. The Wikuni had refused to sell the plans for a blast furnace to the Ungardt, trying to maintain a stranglehold on their trade in cast-iron goods, so one enterprising Ungardt noble emptied out his entire strongroom to buy a Wikuni agent and have the man steal the plans for the device. The crazy idea actually worked, and a year later the Ungardt noble had in his greedy little hands the plans for constructing a blast furnace. The Wikuni took great offense to this, and made the eternal mistake of blaming the king of Ungardt and the entire kingdom rather than just the offending noble. Malor Eram, king at that time, declared war on Ungardt. The Ungardt were actually happy over it, ready to put the arrogant Wikuni in their place, and began a two year war. The Ungardt were not fools. They knew that the clippers and frigates of the Wikuni gave them superiority at sea, so they took their longship up into the pack ice of the arctic reaches of the northern area of the kingdom and left them there, beyond the reach of the Wikuni, whose ships were not designed to deal with ice-laden seas. Then they pulled back from the coastal plain and allowed the Wikuni to occupy Ungardt soil, because they wanted them where they could get their hands on them. But Jorg Skullsplitter, king of the clans at that time, didn't attack them immediately. He let them build up as much as they desired that first year, and then winter set in. The Wikuni learned quickly and to their eternal regret that no one invades Ungardt in the winter, and no one can defeat the Ungardt who fight in the winter. The Ungardt fully understood and expected, and were both used to and prepared for, the fury of the northern winter. The Wikuni knew what to expect in the Ungardt winter, but even they underestimated the depths of the cold of the winter, a cold so intense that the Wikuni, even in their fur, didn't want to venture more than two steps from their fires. Jorg let them freeze to death for a couple of months, then his warriors boiled out of the foothills like a wave crashing on the beach and easily overwhelmed the Wikuni defenders. They even captured their clippers and frigates, which were stripped of their gunpowder, cannons, and then set at the heads of the fjords to fire on Wikuni vessels from atop unreachable fjordheads as they passed. Malor Eram sent an even larger force in the spring, but they were shocked when the Ungardt, sailing Wikuni vessels, began ambushing them on the open seas and captureing or sinking their troop transports at an alarming rate. The Wikuni were forced to use convoys to protect their vulnerable transports, but that only minimized the destruction. The Ungardt would sweep down on those convoys, sink as many troop transports as they could, which weren't heavily armed to give more space to carrying soldiers, then they would run away. The Wikuni learned that the Ungardt were their equals on the seas when they had Wikuni vessels under them. These slashing tactics had a devastating effect, and the numbers of troops that landed on Ungardt soil were overrun by hordes of berzerk Ungardt warriors, unafraid of their muskets and cannons. They held the Wikuni off the whole spring and summer, then again pulled back into the foothills as winter approached, daring the Wikuni into trying to occupy their land in the teeth of winter again.
After two years, Malor Eram realized that there was no way he could win a war against the Ungardt when they were on Ungardt soil and in Ungardt waters. They had land trade routes back into Draconia and Daltochan, which were landlocked nations that were immune to Wikuni threats to prevent them from trading with them. That, and the sudden drastic decrease in the amount of iron they received in export made them realize that the Ungardt were more important to them as a trading partner than they were as an enemy. The Ungardt were the door through which Dal and Ungardt iron flowed into Wikuna, and the war closed that door. Malor offered peace, which Jorg accepted with the condition that the stolen technology that had started the war was now official Ungardt property, and they'd do their own smelting and refining. That nearly set Malor back on the warpath, for the Wikuni made a fortune buying raw ore at cheap prices, smelting and refining it, then selling the refined iron at a hefty profit, but he could not refuse. And so, there was peace again, the Ungardt suddenly began making money smelting and refining both their ore and the Dal ore, and sold it to Wikuna at a much higher price. It was a war that the Wikuni had lost, the only one they had ever lost, and it bit deeply into the purses of the noble houses of Wikuna. So deeply that Malor Eram mysteriously died that winter, and was succeeded by Ethram Eram, who was Damon Eram's grandfather.
The Iron War was probably what made Wikuna what it was today. They were almost paranoid over their technology falling into the hands of other nations, unwilling to share it with the rest of the world becaue of the financial gains that having it brought to them. But the problem was that technologies that would make them much more money by releasing them were also witheld, such as their ingenious water and sewage systems. They could make a fortune if they sent out their plumbers and pipe-making artisans out into the world and offered to build their water systems in the larger cities of the West, and the entire world for that matter, but they would not, jealously holding onto what they perceived as their technological edge.
That would change, though. Keritanima showed that she was much more progressive than the kings who had held the throne before her. She would introduce Wikuni advances to the West, and everyone would benefit from it.
They ran on through the night, along a road that led eastwards through a series of smaller and smaller villages, villages that showed the peculiarities of Ungardt architecture. They used slate-roofed houses whose roofs were steeply sloped, the crown of the roof often three stories off the ground for a one story house, and they were built like that to make the heavy snow that fell during the winter slide off the rooftops. If that much snow settled on top of a house, its weight would collapse the roof. So Ungardt roofs were high, sharp, and heavily reinforced, to bear the additional weight they were forced to accept during the winter months. Some buildings in the cities and some of the larger buldings in the villages had flat roofs that were made of stone, but there was also a door leading onto it so people could get easily onto the roof and sweep the snow off of it before it got too heavy for the roof to take. But those roofs were usually literally armored, heavily buttressed to withstand great amounts of heavy snow, so the chore of going up and sweeping them off wasn't something that had be done after every snowstorm. And in the summer, such buildings provided something of an extra private space where the owners of the building could go and enjoy the brief warmth of the summer sun. The flat roofs turned into temporary gardens and courtyards during the summer.
By morning, they were at the edge of the foothills, passing through a village just beginning to stir in the darkness. Morning came very late that far north, so far north that the Skybands dominated the entire southern sky, so far north that the sun only came up for a few hours on Midwinter Day. The Ungardt would rise well before sunrise and stay up well past sunset, using the light of the Skybands and the moons to navigate the night. And that far north, the Skybands cast a great deal of light down on the land, more than enough for Tarrin to see as clearly as if it were day, and more than enough for a human to easily be able to move around. It was never truly dark on Sennadar unless the clouds blocked the night sky, and the larger the Skybands were in the sky, the more light they shed down upon the land. As far north as they were, they were a constant lantern in the night, turning darkness into a dim pre-dawn kind of light that by which anyone could easily see.
They moved well past the village, and finally stopped in a stand of thick fir trees that helped break the biting wind. Jesmind swept snow off a log and flopped down, panting and breaking some frozen sweat out of the hair of her red eyebrows, but Tarrin showed no signs that he was winded from the long, heavy run. He simply wove a dome of warmth around their small clearing in the middle of the fir grove, then swept all the snow out of it before it melted and turned everything soggy. Jesmind gasped when all the snow suddenly picked up and flew out of the clearing, then she laughed as Tarrin seated himself cross-legged on the ground, wrapping his long tail around his legs to keep it out of the way. "Nice," she said, looking around, then shaking her head while her paws scrubbed through the unruly mane of her hair. "What do we do now?"
"Rest," he answered in a distant tone, taking the metal bracers off his wrists and putting them in his lap, then summoning his black-bladed sword out of the elsewhere and setting it in his lap with them.. "Go find us something to eat. I have something to do."
"What?"
"Make you a weapon," he told her, then he closed his eyes and put his paws over the bracers.
"No, what do you want to eat?"
"It doesn't matter, and you won't find any problems finding something," he answered. "Caribou are migrating through this area right now."
"Is that what I'm smelling?"
He nodded.
"Then it shouldn't be too hard to run one down," she agreed, standing up. "They're all over the place."
"Just don't let youself be seen. Ungardt hunters are out doing the same thing right now."
"You're insulting me, my mate," she teased. "Before I go out there, do you think you could make me something a little warmer?" she asked, picking at her thin shirt. "This doesn't do much about the wind."
He opened his eyes and absently Conjured her a heavy fur-lined jacket of sorts with sleeves that ended at her elbows and a deep hood to hide her colorful hair, with white fur at the collar and cuffs and hanging down to her thighs. The fur on her arms and legs would keep them warm, and the pads on her feet were thick enough to defend her against the cold of the ground. The only parts of her she needed to protect against the cold were the parts with no fur.
Jesmind pulled it on over her head, then waved her paw in front of her face. "This thing may be too hot," she complained.
"You're hot from the run," he told her.
"Don't you need something?"
"Cold doesn't bother me, Jesmind," he told her distantly, eyes closed again. "The Weave is keeping me warm. Now go on. When I'm done, I'm going to be starving."
"What are you going to do?"
"You'll see when you get back."
"You're getting too secretive," she complained as she pulled up her hood to hide her flame-colored hair, a color that would attract every eye to her within a league out in the white snow, then she bounded off into the snow and quickly disappeared, her white coat blending with the snow perfectly.
What he was doing stretched his powers of Sorcery to their limit. The Cat's Claws were powerful magical devices, and they would be perfect for his mate. He had no real need for them, because he had a weapon against which the Demons could not defend, and his magic made him their equal. But Jesmind had no protection from them, and what was worse, no weapon to harm them. He intended to change that. He focused all of his power on the Cat's Claws, and then reached deeply into High Sorcery, causing his entire body to limn over into Magelight, then have it condense down and form the concave four-pointed star that marked a sui'kun using his maximum power. He turned his full, true power against the bracers in his lap, his magic and his awareness sinking down into the black steel of their substance, deeper and deeper, until he was at a point where the tiniest bits of their substance were made aware to him. It was at this level that he unleashed his power, weaving flows of such microscopic smallness that it would have boggled the mind of nearly any other Sorcerer, manipulating the very core of the substance of which the bracers were made. He had to go very slowly and very carefully, for the substance of the bracers also housed the weaves that gave the Cat's Claws their power, and he could not disrupt that magic. Magic of that kind was strong, but it was also very delicate and very carefully designed. If he interfered with the way the weaves worked with one another, they would break down and destroy themselves, and render the items powerless. So he moved with painstaking care, Transmuting the metal of the Cat's Claws piece by tiny piece, moving methodically through them a section at a time, changing the metal very carefully around the weaves without disturbing them. It was exhausting work, and the effort of it was very quickly and very steadily draining him of his energy.
It took nearly two hours, but when he was done, almost in a swoon from the effort it had cost him, he was very pleased with the results. The metal of the Cat's Claws had been Transmuted into the exact same kind of metal of which his sword was made, that same strangely light, almost indestructible alloy that was not natural to his world, because all of the metals of which its alloy had been made did not exist on Sennadar. Though it was a creation of native magic, he could sense that the metal of the Cat's Claws were now harmful to a Demon, able to breach their invulnerability and strike them true injury. Though created by native magic, the result was a substance that still had no native existence in his world, and as such still constituted a weapon not of his world where it concerned a Demonic opponent. Just as the Ironwood of his staff had been raised in Sennadar and still had the power to harm a Demon, so this metal, created in his world, still had the power to do a Demon injury. He had used his own sword as a guide in how that metal was arrayed at its basest level, an organization of the tiniest of all pieces of solid matter, all of which did not exist in the natural order of his world. He saw that it was this alloy's properties that gave the sword its incredible edge and hardness, a toughness inconceivable to modern metallurgists, a metal so strong that it would take magic to make it bend or even break. The sword had been created by some strange alien magic, shaped into the form of a sword and given an edge that narrowed down to a single line of those tiniest bits of matter that made up its substance, quite literally because that was the only way it was going to be done. No smith's hammer could shape this metal, because it required a heat so intense that no smith could survive the temperatues required to melt the metal. The metal would not even melt in a volcano, it was that strong. He remembered when it had gotten red-hot in the desert after his battle with Spyder, how he'd been afraid to pick it up because he feared the blade would bend. Now he knew that it had never been in such danger. Though the metal did become red-hot, it would have been just as strong as it was now. The sword itself was curiously non-magical, but the properties of the metal and the need to shape it with magic, a magic that allowed the maker to give it as sharp an edge as could possibly be given to the weapon, made it as good as one.
Quite by accident, he realized that since he did have such an understanding of that metal now, he could conceivably Create it. But it was an unnatural substance, and as such it meant that the attempt would be exceptionally demanding, if he could do it all. But that was something to explore at a later date. One did not experiment with Druidic magic.
Completely drained, almost shaking with exhaustion, and suddenly absolutely ravenous, Tarrin leaned over his legs and gave himself a few minutes to recover. Jesmind wasn't back yet, and that was odd. He had no idea how much time had passed, but he knew it had been some good amount. Jesmind was too good a hunter not to have caught something by now. Tarrin put on the Cat's Claws and made sure they still functioned properly by extending the blades. With no sound, the metal reshaped itself, flowing down over the backs of his paws and extending out over his fingers, the edges of the blades lighter in shade than the black of the metal, an indication that they had reshaped themselves to form an edge just as lethal as the one on his sword. Nodding in satisfaction, he returned the blades and took off the two metal bracers.
Jesmind's scent blew in on a faint breeze that penetrated the fir grove, as well as the smell of blood and a large hooved animal. A moment later, she came into view, carrying an animal that had to weigh three times more than she did, but having very little trouble handling its bulk. She carried it into the clearing and threw it to the ground, wiping at a large bloodstain that interrupted the white of both her coat and the fur on her right arm. "Here you go," she said. "It doesn't smell all that appealing, though."
"It's something to eat," he said. "I don't feel like eating it raw, though. Let's get a fire going."
They did so quickly, putting a good fire down in a stone-ringed pit. Tarrin was too tired to use Sorcery for anything but lighting the fire, and in a very short time, they had large chunks of the caribou roasting on sticks over the fire. Jesmind leaned up against him, and he put an arm around her, taking in her scent and enjoying her closeness, but her scent was agitated, and her weary sigh told him she was still worried. It was only natural for her to be so, just as he was almost sick with worry for Jasana. But they were doing something about it, and that was the only reason he could bear it.
"It, would be nice if Jasana were here," she said in a small voice. "We've never once had a picnic together, do you know that? We never seemed to have had much time at all to be together."
She put her head against his shoulder and stared woodenly into the fire as he held her a little closer. "You can't give in to it, Jesmind," he told her. "We're doing something about it. Every time you feel this way, tell yourself that. We're on our way to get her back, and we will get her back. I need you to be strong, love. When the time comes, it's your strength that's going to get Jasana out."
"What about you?"
"I'm going to be making sure nobody tries to stop you," he told her. Then he remembered what he'd been doing. "Here, I want you to take these," he said, picking the Cat's Claws up from the ground, where they were laying by his sword.
"Aren't these those magic bracers Jenna made for you?"
He nodded. "I changed them a little so they can harm Demons. They will come after us, Jesmind. Val probably has them searching for us now, and when they find us, they're going to attack us in waves. My sword and staff can harm them, but now you have a weapon to use too."
"How can we fight so many?"
"We don't have to," he said. "There is a Ward that can stop them. We just have to survive long enough for me to raise that Ward, then I can kill them whenever I please."
"I guess that works," she said, holding up the two metal guards. "How do these work?"
"Put them on," he said, and she did so. She jumped a little when the black metal contracted around her lower forearm, then she laughed as she put the other one on. The black metal really stood out against her snowy fur. "All you have to do is want the blades to come out."
"That's all?"
"That's all. It does take a little effort, so you have to think hard about it. Go ahead and try."
Jesmind's brow furrowed in concentration as she held her paws out before her, and it took only a second for the bracers to react to her mental command. The metal flowed down over the backs of her paws with dazzling speed, then flowed out and set into the five span-long talons that extended past her fingertips. "That's all there is to it," he said with a smile. "With a little practice, you can make the blades longer or shorter, or only make one or two of them extend. You have complete control over them. They're sharper than razors, they won't break, and you don't have to worry about hurting yourself. They're enchanted so that they'll never cut their owner. If you tried to stab yourself with them, the metal would just retract when it touched your skin. They won't hurt you, even if you try to make them hurt you. I almost forgot, you can make them unbind themselves from your paws if you want to pick something up. They'll stick out over your knuckles when you do it, like four little swordblades."
"What about the one on my thumb?"
"It retracts when you unbind them by itself. It would be at an odd angle if it stayed out."
"I guess that makes sense," she said, turning her paws over and looking at her palms, seeing the ten magical claws extending over her fingers. "They really look intimidating," she mused.
"They should be. You can cut steel with them."
"They're that sharp?"
He nodded. "Given how strong you are, you could tear them through a solid block of steel. The edge lets them do it, but it's your strength that makes it happen. The metal's unbreakable and it covers the backs of your paws, so they double as pretty effective shields. If you ever find yourself needing to defend yourself, use the bracers, or curl up your fingers and use the claws."
She nodded. "Well, I hope I never have to use them," she said as she retracted the blades, then she reached down and picked up his sword. She handed it to him, and he absently sheathed it and put it back in the elsewhere.
"I hope so too, but let's be realistic," he said as he touched the roasting meat with a finger. It was almost ready, which was a good thing, because his stomach was demanding food. He almost couldn't wait any longer.
"I intend to stick these in that Demon woman's eyes," she told him hotly, holding up her paws, though it was the bracer blades she obviously meant. "I guess I should be glad you gave them to me. Now I can pay her back for hurting me and stealing our daughter."
"That's the spirit," he told her with a heavy smile. "Now then, these are done. Let's eat."
The meal was hot and filling, and Tarrin managed to denude a good amount of the carcass with repaeted trips to it to reload the roasting stick before his appetite was satisfied. Between him and Jesmind, they managed to clean off all the good parts of the caribou and left little behind to serve as a later meal. Both had been running hard and used up alot of energy, and their Were natures didn't entirely depend on the All for its energy. It wasn't the first time he'd eaten like that, eaten five times more than his stomach could possibly hold, for his stomach was emtpying itself out even as he filled it. They fought briefly over the liver, always a choice part for a carnivore, and ended up splitting it.
Tarrin felt re-energized after the meal, was up and moving around spryly as Jesmind lounged a bit by the warm fire. "What now, my mate?" she asked.
"I'm not sure," he said, Conjuring a very detailed and fully accurate map of Ungardt and the tundra to the east of the Frozen Mountains. "We have forty-one days to get there, and we have to make sure we arrive in exactly forty-one days," he reminded her, sitting by her and putting the map on the ground. "We're right here," he said, pointing just to the right of a dot that represented Dusgaard. "There's only small villages of my clan and Clan Vjolgir east of us, but then it gets populated again when you get to the Frozen Mountains," he added, sliding his finger towards the right on the map, to where several symbols rested that represented mines and mine camps.
"What's out there?" she asked.
"Iron mines," he replied. "The Frozen Mountains are stained red from all the iron in them. It's the same in Daltochan, but they have other metals, like silver, tin, gold, lead, Mithril, and copper down there. There only seems to be iron in the Frozen Mountains. Ungardt makes half its money off the mines and the smelting camps. The other half comes from trade."
"I didn't know the Ungardt were so heavily into mining," she mused.
"We didn't used to be, but the Dals showed us how much iron we have," he shrugged. "In fact, we have alot of Dals at our mines. They're better at mining than we are, and they'll go where the mining pays the most."
"If you want to find a Dal, dig a hole," Jesmind chuckled, quoting an old saying.
"Mining's one of the very few things they can do up in their mountains," Tarrin told her. "So it only stands to reason that they'd be very good at it. Ungardt are too big and unruly to be good miners," he admitted. "There are alot of Ungardt there, but the Dals do alot of the mining with the more patient Ungardt, and the Ungardt usually work on refining the ore they bring out."
"What did you call it? Smelting?"
He nodded. "They mine coal from the hills just west of the mountains and use it in the smelting foundries up there," he told her. "That means we can do it cheap, so we can sell our refined iron cheaper than anyone but the Dals. And when the Dal iron gets imported out of Daltochan, it makes the price for Dal iron at ports about the same as ours."
"Ah, so there's no competetion with Daltochan," she noted.
"Not really. They mine alot more than we do, and there's never a shortage of people wanting to buy iron."
She looked at the map. "How long is it going to take us to get to the mountains?"
"About six or seven days," he said. "It's the crossing the mountains that's going to be tricky. There's bound to be heavy snow up there, and I may have to use magic to get us through the passes. And it won't be a direct route. We have to follow the passes," he said, snaking his finger up and down the map in the mountains, following a narrow, treacherous path, "and we'll be spending as much time travelling north, south and west as we will east. I have no idea how long that's going to take, but I'm guessing that it's going to take us at least twenty days. But it's after we come out on the other side that's up in the air. We can't go slow when we get out on the tundra, so we might be forced to wait in the mountains until it's time to move down onto the tundra."
"It's too open, isn't it?"
"It's flat as a board and there's not a tree between the mountains and the polar ice," he nodded. "It defines open. They'll see us coming from days away, and we'll be in the most danger when we come out onto the tundra plain. We very well may have to fight our way to Gora Umadar."
"How long will it take?"
"If nothing gets in our way, we could reach Gora Umadar in three days from the pass leading down out of the mountain," he said, pointing to the pass that was almost directly southwest of the black triangle representing the place where they were holding Jasana. "But I expect plenty of things to get in our way, so I'm giving us five days to get there. That means we have to be at the mouth of the pass here in thirty-six days," he said, pointing to the pass again. "If we're early, we hunker down and wait. If we're late, then we rush right out onto the plain and get a bit more direct in clearing a path to Gora Umadar," he said with an aggressive snort.
"What kind of weather will we face?"
"Not much but snow out here," he answered. "There's going to be some fierce storms up in the mountains, and there's nothing to stop the wind out on the tundra, so I'll bet that it's pretty strong out there."
"That doesn't sound too bad," she said with a neutral expression, examining the map. "As long as we don't mess around, we should reach the pass opening with time to spare," she surmised.
"I'd rather not," he said with a slight frown. "I'll go stir crazy if I have to sit in one place and wait. As long as we're moving, I feel like we're getting somewhere. But as soon as we stop, I'll get impatient, and I can't let that distract me. We absolutely have to get there on Gods' Day. Not a day sooner or a day later, and we have to arrange it so we reach the pyramid itself as close to the first hour after noon as we can possibly arrange it."
"Why then?"
"According to Phandebrass' charts, the conjunction is going to happen a little after noon on Gods' Day," he said. "Phandebrass got a book of charts from the library that had all the information in it that I needed, but he wisely wrote all sorts of helpful notes in the margins for me. He figured out what time it would be in Gora Umadar when it happened, and added that for me in his notes. I'm glad he did. It's different times in different parts of the world at one time, because the sun isn't in the same place in the sky for the whole planet."
"Mother explained that to me once. It sounds weird."
"The planet is round," he said, drawing a circle in the dirt by the fire. "The sun doesn't move, we move around it, but since the planet is round, only one side of it faces the sun at any one time." He drew a smaller circle representing the sun. "Dawn and dusk are nothing but us sitting on the border between day and night, and noon is when we're directly facing the sun." He drew lines from his representation of the sun to the planet, lines to its edges and its center. "We reckon time by sunrise and sunset, so that makes the time different for different parts of the world. As far as I can tell, the conjunction will line up over Suld at exactly noon. Since we're going to be so far east of Suld, it's going to make it later in the day for us when that happens. Phandebrass figured that out. Hold on," he said, taking out the book and leafing to the page with the diagram of the conjunction on it, a page he'd marked by folding its corner. "Here it is. It'll be one hour and seven minutes after noon, time local to Gora Umadar," he told her. "The entire key for us is to get inside the pyramid and confront Val as close to that time as we can possibly make it," he told her. "With the conjunction so close, it's going ot make him desperate enough to bow to my demand to release you and Jasana before I give him the staff. After you two start out, I'll stall, telling him I won't give it to him until after you've cleared the enemy army. A dragon is going to land outside the pyramid and pick you up after you get out. When he clears the army with you, I'm hoping that the conjunction will be about to start, and that should be about when the Elder Gods are going to transport in the army to attack Val's forces. That's the signal they'll be waiting on to do it. That's when I'm going to try to make my escape, when Val is distracted by the appearance of the Elder Gods and the army."
"It seems awfully dicey, love," she frowned.
"We're dealing with a god here, Jesmind," he sighed. "It's the only way it's going to happen. We can't fight him and we can't trick him. The only thing we can do is make him beat himself. Val may be a god, but he was once mortal, and somehow I get the feeling that alot of his human personality is still in him, like impatience. We have to use that against him, or it won't work."
"Isn't what you're trying to do tricking him?"
"No. I'm trying to hold his attention, first off of you and Jasana, then off of the fact that the Elder Gods just Teleported in an army to attack his forces. There's a big difference."
"If you say so," she said uncertainly. "That's all you need me to do? Take Jasana out of the place where they're holding her?"
He nodded.
"Why me? Wouldn't Allia have been better? I've seen her run, my mate. She's faster than me." "Jasana will obey you without question," he told her. "That's going to be very important, Jesmind. If she resists or disobeys because I don't go with you, she may cause a fatal delay in getting her out. I can't risk that. When you tell her to shut up and go, she'll do it without argument." He looked at her. "Besides, she's our daughter, Jesmind. It's our duty to get her back, and it's only right that we're the first people she sees."
She gave him a warm yet fierce smile. "You're right. I wouldn't have felt right sending someone else to get back our daughter for me."
"I know. And I feel more comfortable with you being with me. At least you understand me, my mate. You can sense what I'm thinking, and that's going to help us when the time comes to get our daughter back. You'll pick up on things nobody else would notice, not even Val himself."
"I hope so," she nodded, then she yawned and stretched. "I'm getting sleepy," she admitted. "Let's make a tent or something and get some sleep. I get the feeling that we're going to be on the move quite a bit tonight."
"You'll have to put it aside for now, my mate," he told her. "You can take a short nap, but we'll be starting out again in just a while. It's dangerous to travel at night because of the cold, even for us. We have to use all the daylight we possibly can. The only reason we stopped now was because we spent most of the night running, and we both needed some rest."
"If we need to use the daylight, then let's go," she said, standing up. "The food refreshed me, and I won't get sleepy if we're running. I can save that for tonight."
Tarrin folded up the map and put it in the book, then sent the book into the elsewhere. "You're right," he agreed, rising to his feet gracefully. "We're wasting daylight."
"Then let's go."
"Yes. Let's go."
They travelled through the gentle rolling foothills of western and central Ungardt without incident, and without being spotted by the locals. Two experienced Were-cats were not about to be spotted by anyone that they didn't want to see them. Tarrin didn't doubt that they found their tracks and puzzled over them, since they were so unique, but not one Ungardt spotted Tarrin and Jesmind as they ran at a steady pace towards the mountains. They would run well into the night, until it got so cold that it forced them to stop, usually indicated by when sweat began freezing to their skin. The cold wouldn't hurt Jesmind for short periods of time, but if she exhausted her regenerative abilities, she would become vulnerable, so Tarrin always made sure they stopped well before that became a possibility.
Again Tarrin paused to wonder why he still sweated whenever he physically exerted himself, even though the heat could no longer affect him. Perhaps it was a ingrained biological function that would occur whether he truly needed to do it or not.
By day, they moved swiftly yet carefully, not letting the Ungardt see them. When they did stop for the night, they chose secluded places easily concealed, built small fires and relying on Tarrin's Sorcery for their warmth. They hunted caribou mostly, felling the beasts often as they crossed paths with migrating herds, eating at the site of the kill and moving on to leave the remains to the wolves, foxes, and other scavengers prowling the snow-choked hills.
Every night, Tarrin would go out to where he could see the stars and study them and the moons for hours on end, often at the cost of sleep, carefully studying their movements and checking them against the book that Phandebrass had given him. He spent whole nights watching the moons rise and fall, becoming intimately familiar with how fast each one moved, trying to learn how to gauge how much time would elapse between where a moon was and where he wanted it to be. He knew that his ability to gauge that time without using any kind of timing device was going to be critical to the timing of his plan, so he needed to become quite adept at it very quickly.
But as each day passed, there were changes in them. Jesmind began to get more and more impatient, wanting to go longer and longer each day and waking up earlier and earlier. She'd started out very accommodating to him, but as the time passed and the days restored a sense of familiarity between them she began to get more and more hostile. It wasn't because she was doubting him, it was because she was anxious and worried, and Tarrin was the only means available for her to vent her building frustration and impatience, feelings that only grew stronger as more days passed without her daughter with her, and the days leading up to getting her back dwindled steadily in number. Tarrin ignored or endured those spats of anger from her, concentrating almost inhumanly on his study of the skies, his attempt to master judging time by the distance the moons travelled.
Tarrin's focus on the skies only seemed to aggravate her more, but he also grew more and more distant from her. The time was getting closer and closer for him to get back his daughter, and his every thought began to center obsessively on that, on the moment when he saw his daughter and Jesmind spirited her out of the pyramid and to safety. But he didn't go over it in his mind, knowing that Val may pick up on what he was trying to do. Without the ability to think through it, it only left thoughts of getting it done, and thoughts of getting there.
He allowed them to move faster and faster, realizing that unless he took some serious precautions, they were never going to make it to the pyramid. Val would catch them on the open tundra, and they'd be killed there. So he let Jesmind push him faster and faster, trying to reach the edge of the mountains, where they could hide easily, so he could stop and attend to the problem of getting them there without Val sending his entire army after him to stop him from reaching the pyramid, to kill him and take his amulet.
Because they were pushing, they reached the eastern edge of the Frozen Mountains in five days. The mountains appeared on the horizon after a steady snow one brisk morning, jagged points of reddish rock capped with white snowy peaks thrusting out of the foothills ahead, high, steep, and very daunting. The mountains were extrememly rugged and incredibly high, some of the highest mountains on all of Sennadar, towering upwards of twenty thousand spans up into the sky.
Jesmind looked at them with trepidation when they stopped for a brief rest. "We have to cross those?" she demanded.
"There are passes," he said. "They're on the map."
"How can you be sure about that map?"
"It's a map Conjured by Druidic magic, woman," he told her. "That makes it absolutely correct. The land doesn't lie." He retrieved the book and took out the map, checking it. "That's this peak right here," he said, pointing to the highest of the peaks they could see, then pointing to it as she came over and looked at the map with him. "That means that the pass we need to find is about twelve longspans south. We'll have to take it at night."
"Why? Miners?"
He nodded. "They use that pass quite a bit. See, look at all these mining sites on the map. It has a road through it. That'll make the going a little easier, but it's going to make it harder to sneak by the Ungardt."
"They won't notice two cats, my mate," she told him calmly. "We can shapeshift and hide until they pass."
"Good point. I forgot your amulet won't let you lose your clothes."
"It's about to come in handy," she said. "Though I wouldn't mind showing you a little something," she teased, swishing her tail at him sensually.
"As cold as it is, I may only see goosebumps," he drawled in reply, which made her laugh.
The humor was a good sign, he realized as they started south. She'd not been very friendly the last few days, combative and hostile, but maybe seeing the mountains reminded her that they were in fact making progress. It was hard to make jokes or laugh when both of them knew that Jasana was being held prisoner, with that crushing weight over them, but Jesmind was at least trying. Maybe five days of waspish comments and flat looks at him had run its course.
It didn't take them long to go twenty longspans, but the clouds above began to thicken and darken as they moved. He could smell snow in the air, and that concerned him. He'd be hard pressed to keep them moving if a blizzard slammed into the mountains while they were in them, where snow piled up by the span and could bury a house in a matter of days. All the time they'd gained could be lost if they got snowed down, forcing him to resort to using powerful magic, like an Elemental, to get them over. That kind of display left a mark in the Weave, and he didn't doubt that Val would sense it instantly. Despite being in a void, he was still a god, and he wasn't going to take any chances. Spyder said he would get more and more powerful the closer they got to him, and at this distance he didn't want to take any risks at all.
They needed to hurry before. Now they needed to race the weather to avoid getting trapped.
Tarrin picked up the pace, a pace that Jesmind could easily maintain as they ran up into a division between two of the reddish, mighty mountains, quickly coming across a rutted road just before reaching a large stand of fir trees. The trail was steep, and the road was forced to follow slight ridges in the side of the foothill, zig-zagging its way up through the small wood towards the pass. The two Were-cats simply went straight up the hill, moving with speed and grace, ghosting through the trees and easily avoiding a large caravan of wagons trundling its way down the hill, towards a small village visible from breaks in the trees at the foothill's base. They paused as the tail end of it went by, skulking down behind a rather large fir tree, as armed men on horseback escorted the wagons both ahead, behind, and with pairs flanking every wagon.
"Why the armed escort?" Jesmind asked in the silent manner of the Cat.
"Goblinoids," he answered. "There aren't many of them left up here, but they do wander up from Daltochan and the Petal Lakes sometimes, trying to catch the mining camps off guard."
"I don't smell any. Why the concern?"
"Humans think there's an enemy behind every tree," he shrugged. "Then again, that's a healthy attitude," he added absently.
"Don't backslide on me now, my mate. I'm starting to like you again."
"Well, you're always the first enemy I keep my eye on, love," he teased lightly. "You're more dangerous than most of the others."
She elbowed him in the ribs, then she set off as the last pair of mercenaries disappeared around a bend in the road.
They moved up into the pass itself quickly after leaving the caravan behind, rising up a thousand spans into the mountains very quickly, leaving the stand of trees and becoming exposed to a howling wind that funnelled up through the pass, screaming into them from behind. The wind was raw and very cold, and it carried on it the definite smell of snow. The two Were-cats had to shift into cat form and hide from parties of Ungardt several times as they climbed higher up into the pass, which was a narrow gorge cleaved between two towering peaks, but at least the floor of the gorge was relatively flat and easy to travel, and its edges held many large rocks and boulders which gave their small cat forms plenty of places to hide when it was needful.
The pass crested and looked down on a small plateau of sorts surrounded by rising snow-capped peaks, a bowl in the mountains which held a rather large mining town in its center. Black smoke rose up from the short, stout chimeys of several connected buildings in the center of town, with smaller high-roofed buildings surrounding them.
"What are those buildings in the middle?" Jesmind asked, shouting over the whistling wind, which made hearing difficult.
"I'd think they were a foundry, but it's too deep in the mountains," he shouted in reply. "They'd have to cart the coal up here. It's probably just a really big smithy. They probably go through alot of picks and shovels and things like that, and it'd be easier for them to make them here than try to cart them up the road from the village."
"Probably. Which way do we go?"
Tarrin looked around the bowl, and pointed to the northwest. "The map says there's a narrow pass there that leads into a series of interconnecting valleys," he answered. "We'll follow those valleys all the way across."
"I certainly wouldn't want to have to go up and down!" she shouted over a particularly loud howl of wind. "It wouldn't be very fun!"
"It would take forever!" he called in reply. "Well, let's not just stand around up here where anyone can-"
He cut himself short when something peculiar in the howling of the wind caught his attention. It was higher pitched than the wind, and it only lasted a moment. He turned just in time to see a large winged form diving at them from behind, using the tailwind to build up immense speed. It was a huge creature, some twelve spans tall and with feathered wings and a vulture's head, but it also had a vaguely humanoid body, like a twisted Wikuni, a bipedal frame with heavy elements of a vulture, including a vulture's feet and tail. It was carrying a huge polearm, like a glaive but with a wicked triple hook on the backside of the single-edged blade, and that polearm was levelled at them like a lance wielded by a charging Knight.
Immediately, Tarrin knew what it was. He'd fought them before. They were called vrock, and they were Demons.
The first had found them. Tarrin laid back his ears and realized that he had to kill this one before it could report their position back to the others.
Pushing Jesmind aside, Tarrin squared himself and set to deal with the flying charge. The vrock, seeing that it was discovered, shrieked in fury, the sound Tarrin had heard, and levelled that polearm right at Tarrin's heart. Tarrin knew Demons, and he knew that the first thing the Demon was going to try was Teleporting right before it reached him and appearing behind him, where the full force of its flying charge would impale him on its deadly polearm. Teleporting behind someone seemed to be their favorite trick. Reaching out and putting his will against the Weave, Tarrin pulled it away from the vrock, isolating it from the magic of the Weave, and thereby cutting it off from the source of its Demonic powers. Tarrin couldn't directly affect a Demon, but he could strip them of their powers.
The Demon sensed it immediately, and its dark eyes turned flat with hate as it pulled in its wings and descended. Tarrin could see that it would pull out just before reaching the ground and attack head-on. It swooped down and its wings opened, pulling it up level and bringing it right at the pair of Were-cats faster than any horse could possibly run. With a scream of triumph, the vrock adjusted its aim to impale the Were-cat through the middle, and the Were-cat did not try to get out of the way.
Timing was everything in a situation like this, and the endless hours of training with someone with Allia's inhuman speed finally paid off. In an absolute blur, Tarrin twisted aside at the last instant, the tip of its polearm just barely grazing the edge of his vest as he spun out of the way, and a viper-like paw lashed out like a whip and struck the top of the polearm as it passed, even as the Were-cat ducked under a wing moving with enough speed to decapitate him if it had struck.
He didn't strike it very hard, but he struck it hard enough. The downward strike on the polearm changed the vrock's trajectory in the air, dipping it down in a course that would plow it into the ground. The Demon opened its wings when it realized that it was now flying towards the ground, but it did not react fast enough. With a frightened squeal, the Demon slammed into the ground, digging a two span deep trench in the rocky ground with its beak, then it struck a rock it could not move and was catapulted over it. It rolled and tumbled on the rocky ground for about fifty longspans, as Tarrin and Jesmind raced behind it with weapons readied. Not even a crash like that would do more than temporarily stun the Demon, since it could not be harmed by the ground, but the impact and the physics at work in such an impact would still serve a vital purpose. Such an impact would stun the creature, possibly give it a concussion, as its brain rattled around in its skull like a clapper in a ringing bell.
There were ways to get around a Demon's invulnerability.
The thing rolled to a stop on its belly some three hundred spans away from where it had initially struck, and it never got a chance to so much as rise up on all fours and shake its head. Both the Were-cats were on it instantly. Jesmind jumped on its back and drove all ten metal talons of the Cat's Claws into its back, pinning it down. It squealed in sudden pain as the wounds registered to it, but that squeal died abruptly when Tarrin's black metal sword took off its head. The head bounced a little off the ground, then rolled to a stop a bit away upside-down, its eyes still glowering in abject hatred.
"Get off of it!" Tarrin barked in command, but Jesmind was already jumping free. She knew what was going to happen. The body immediately began decomposing, melting it a horridly smelling, sizzling, acidic black ichor that started burning its way into the rocky ground.
"How do I clean these?" she asked, holding up the smoking talons of the Cat's Claws, smeared with Demon blood.
"Just wipe them off on the ground," he told her as he did the same with his sword. "The blood doesn't seem to harm the metal, but I don't like taking any chances."
She drove them into the ground a few times to clean them, then retracted the blades and came over. Tarrin had just finished cleaning his sword, but he wasn't expecting what she did next. Jesmind hauled off and punched him in the jaw, felling him to the ground. Tarrin glared up at her as soon as the stars cleared-she didn't pull that punch, which would have taken the jaw clean off a human-but she glared down at him just as hotly, shaking her fist at him. "Don't you ever do that again!" she shouted at him. "It nearly skewered you!"
"When you fight Demons, you have to take chances," he told her bluntly as he regained his feet, rubbing his jaw. "We can fight about this later. Right now, we have to get as far away from this thing as we can. There may be others up there looking for us, and this one might have told them where we are before attacked."
She glared even more at him, promising him with her eyes that this was far from over, but she didn't argue. Tarrin picked up his sword and started off towards the north, to skirt the camp and reach the pass on the far side, and Jesmind followed silently.
They moved very quickly, but both of them kept scanning the skies like rabbits in an open field watching for a hungry hawk. Vrock weren't the most dangerous of the Demons, but they could fly, and they could tell the other Demons where they were. The Demon's ability to Teleport anywhere they wanted to go meant that the entirety of Val's Demonic host could fall on them at any moment, so keeping hidden from the searchers was an absolute priority. They moved up into the pass, which opened into a narrow, uneven valley that had a frozen stream flowing down the middle of it and stands of scrubby pine and fir trees to each side of the stream They moved into the trees and stopped for a while, keeping watch on the clouding skies above, looking for any more large winged figures.
After about a half an hour, when no others appeared, he realized that the Demon had attacked them without reporting in first, or at least he hoped so. But he wasn't about to take any chances. He realized that this close to Val's armies, moving around during the daytime was going to be dangerous, and moving at night may be the better option. Despite the intense cold that would face them, they would be harder to spot from the air if they did their travelling at night, when the darkness would make it easier for them to hide.
Tarrin knelt down and took out the map, studying it as Jesmind continued to watch the sky from the edge of the trees. The series of interconnecting valleys was the easiest way through the mountains, and would put them closest to their destination, but it wasn't the only way. Not far from here, according to the map, there was a cave that went under a mountain and opened in a treacherous ravine on the far side. It would take days to where the cave let out by foot, and it may throw off any vrock that were looking for them. Actually, it was a faster way to go, but the map showed that the cave opened to a thousand span cliff with a hundred spans separating it from the other side. That ravine was in the base of a valley that connected to one that was along his chosen route. He pondered that for a moment. He'd have to use magic to get them across the ravine, a calculated risk, but the day or so of being underground and the sudden change of position would make it hard for the Demons to find him if indeed that one did manage to send word of their positions back to the others.
And it would cut two days off their trip through the mountains.
Tarrin checked the book. They had thirty-thirty-six days left before Gods' Day. He estimated that it would take them ten to twelve days to cross the mountains, and the seven to nine days he'd given to get to the mountains actually only took five. He'd have to stop to find a way to keep the Demons from finding them, which may take a few days… perhaps doing that up in that cave would kill two problems with one arrow. They'd be out of sight, away from the Demons, and if he did find a way to hide them from the Demons, it would keep them out of their hair the rest of the way across. He did not want to have to duck behind a rock every time he thought he saw a shadow in the sky. If he had to do that, they'd be slowed to a crawl in a place where being in the wrong place at the right time could strand them until spring.
As if to reinforce that, snow began to fall on them, dropping flakes on his book of charts, causing him to quickly sweep them off with a muttered curse and put the book safely away.
That cave seemed to be the best option. It would be a grueling path-he'd explored a few caves back home, and they involved a great deal of climbing up and down-but the gain they'd make by taking that route and the safety that it would offer to them would more than make up for the arduous nature of the journey through it.
Tarrin crept up to the edge of the wood carefully and knelt in the snow beside Jesmind, who was looking up into the sky carefully. "Anything?" he whispered.
"Nothing yet," she answered. "What was that thing?"
"They're called vrocks," he answered. "We're lucky we killed it so fast. They're usually very nasty."
"Just about any Demon is very nasty, love," she grinned. "At least we know these magical claws you gave me work on them. They went into its back easier than a pole through water."
"Sorry if I scared you, but I have experience fighting these things," he told her. "They've got powerful magic, but they're also very smart and most of them are seasoned fighters. You have to attack them unconventionally, because they'll expect just about everything else."
"Just warn me next time!" she huffed. "I nearly had a heart attack when it went by you! I thought it cut you in half!"
"I did what I had to do to kill it and kill it quickly," he told her. "You don't get easy kills against Demons most of the time. Even without their magic, they're very formidable."
"They didn't seem so formidable on the grounds," she scoffed. "From what I heard, the humans and Wikuni had their way with them."
"They were dealing with some of the best fighters in the world, Jesmind, and they were heavily outnumbered," he said bluntly. "Once their magic and their invulnerability was taken away from them, they found themselves in a serious bind because they were facing humans and Wikuni that were just as formidable as they were, and facing a lot of them. The humans and Wikuni there were crack veterans, and the only Demons that could really fight back were the cambisi. And they killed nearly three times their number before they went down," he reminded her. "And if it hadn't have been for the Legions, they would have lost alot more," he added. "They're experts in large formation fighting, and they served as an anchor for everyone else."
"I'll take your word for it," she said in a low tone. "How long do we wait?"
"We'll be here until dark," he told her. "The map shows that there's a cave not far from here that leads under one of the mountains and lets out on the other side. It'll save us some time if we take it, and we'll be alot harder to find if we use it. We're going to pause there a while so I can figure out some way to keep the Demons from finding us, then we'll be on our way again."
"I don't think I'm going to argue about that," she nodded. "If we have to crawl through the snow the whole way, we'll get to the other side sometime next year."
"A little time invested now is going to save us a whole lot later," he affirmed.
They retreated into the grove, and spent the rest of the day fearfully scanning the skies as the snow piled up around them. The dark clouds dumped nearly two spans of snow on the ground as they waited for dark, and the storm seemed to intensify as the day went on, the winds becoming stronger, the air colder, and the snow heavier as sunset approached. By the time the dark clouds above did start dimming with the setting sun, they were in the teeth of a full-blown blizzard, with howling winds that bent the trees and driving snow that reduced the visibility to almost nothing.
"How are we going to find our way in this?" Jesmind demanded as they ventured out to the edge of the grove as the light around them became very murky.
Tarrin took hold of his amulet and chanted one of the spells that Camara Tal had taught him, a priest spell that would lock in on a certain location and guide him to it unerringly. He felt that strange surge of power rush through the Weave and into him, then release through him into the real world. Immediately, he knew that the cave entrance was seven longspans away, a thousand spans higher than his current position, and it was almost due east of them. The spell also showed him the easiest way to get there, telling him that he would have to go northeast around a peak and approach the cave entrance from the north.
"I can find it now," he told her. "Come on, let's get there before we're buried."
The going was very difficult. The snow was deep, and the wind caused deep drifts to form. He could barely see five spans in front of him, and he often had to plow through the snow to give his shorter mate a path to follow. The fierce wind was like a knife cutting into them, so cold that even he could feel it, and he paused to Conjure heavy fur coats for them to wear, tying them tightly at the waist to keep the wind from tearing them off of their backs. The coats got the wind off of them, but its force made them exert their inhuman strength to keep from being blown off course by it as Tarrin led them around the peak and towards the mouth of the cave. The wind was an ally to him, however, and he knew it. The stiff wind would even keep a Demon from flying, keeping the skies clear of them while they made their dash to the safety of the cave.
That seven direct longspans of distance turned out to be nearly fifteen lonspans of travel, and it was such slow going that it took them most of the night. The cold was getting to Jesmind, and she staggered along behind him, her teeth chattering as her effort was exhausting her regenerative ability. They stopped frequently to rest behind anything that served as shelter from the wind, but things improved greatly when they finally got around the peak, and the peaks mass served as a partial break to the wind. It still swirled and howled around them, but it was a wind that had been forced to turn up the small box-end valley in which the cave mouth was located, so it didn't have half of the raging force that it had had in the main valley. Once they reached the box canyon, they moved with more speed and confidence, and though the snow was even deeper, coming up to Tarrin's waist in some places, he had little trouble bulling a path through it in which his mate could follow.
Just before sunrise, as the main force of the savage snowstorm seemed to be abating, they finally reached the cave mouth… at least horizontally. The cave mouth was set thirty spans up a sheer rock face, a hole in the red rock wall of the mountainside, and it was a small hole. In a way, it reminded him of the hole that Sarraya had made for him in the side of the Cloud Spire, the hole that let him get into the lava tube that led up to the top and into the city. This one was considerably larger than that one, but it was still going to be quite an acrobatic display of flexibility to climb up there and squeeze in while hanging thirty spans off the ground.
"That's it?" Jesmind demanded as she pulled down the hood of the fur coat he'd Conjured. "I'm going to lose all my clothes and half my fur trying to get in that!"
"It's bigger than it looks," he told her as he pulled off his coat and handed it to her. "We'll have to take off the coats and throw them in in front of us, but we should make it." He put his claws in the stone and started up. "I'll go first. Let me get in, then come up. Make sure you take your coat off first and throw them in to me when you get there."
"Why not leave them here?" she asked. "We won't need them in the caves."
"Because I don't want to leave anything behind they can use to find us," he said calmly as he scrabbled up the icy stone.
The opening truly was bigger than it looked, and to his delight, it immediately opened into a rather large irregular chamber whose ceiling was populated by quite a few hibernating bats. The interior was murky, even to his eyes, as the minimal light that got through the clouds above only had one small hole to filter into the chamber. Tarrin wriggled in quite easily and dropped down to the floor of the chamber, layered rather unpleasantly with bat droppings that felt were disgustingly squishy under his feet. He waited under the opening until the two coats flew into the chamber, him catching them before they fell into that unpleasant mess on the floor, and Jesmind slithered in effortlessly head first and dropped down to the floor.
"Ewwww!" she complained, picking up a foot and putting it back down. "Tell me that I'm not standing in what I think I'm standing in!"
Tarrin pointed up, and Jesmind followed his eyes. Then she glowered at the eerie carpet of brown furry bats coating the ceiling. "I don't think I'm ever going to groom my feet again!" she said with a queasy look.
"Then they'll be crusty and smelly," he said absently, reaching within, through the Cat, and touching his Druidic power. A small ball of faint glowing light appeared over his outstretched paw, and he held it up and surveyed the room. "There's the opening that leads down into the mountain," he said, pointing at a small, roughly triangular opening on the far side of the chamber, which was only about two spans high.
"It's pretty narrow in there," she frowned, bending down and looking across the chamber. "I hope we don't have to crawl the whole way."
"Have you ever explored a cave?"
"Not really, why?"
"Because we just might have to crawl the whole way," he said. "Cave tunnels can be any size or shape."
"You're making this trip better and better," she said acidly as she padded over towards the opening. "First you freeze my tail off, now you want me to be an earthworm."
"Hold on, we have to deal with the light situation," he called.
"Why not use that?"
"Because I have to work to keep it going," he said. "I have a better idea."
His idea was two little balls of light that were created by Sorcery, not Druidic magic. He wove the very simple spells, some of the very first spells that Initiates learned, and set them in a way so that they couldn't unravel when he stopped concentrating on them. The flows would pull against each other in a delicate knot of sorts, and that would keep the spells going for quite a while after he stopped maintaining them. Since they were such simple spells, he figured that they would last for six or seven hours before the flows of Fire and Air finally worked themselves free of one another and disrupted the spell. It was the trick that the Sha'Kar had taught him, a trick that he'd been very hard on himself for not figuring out on his own. Tarrin cleverly set one over each of their heads, hovering just over and between the tips of their ears, so its light didn't shine right in their eyes, and they would also serve a vital purpose in warning them when their heads were getting too close to the ceiling. The lights would go up into the ceiling and wink out when they were very close to it, and the sudden darkness was a warning they were about to bang their heads.
"Cute," Jesmind said, trying to look up to see the ball of light, which only dipped back with her head as she moved it. It would stay firmly where it was set in relation to her body, just over and between her two white-furred ears, illuminating everything around her without a part of her body getting in its way. It did create two dim spots to each side of her head, shadows from her ears, but the ball of light was so close to them that it diffused light into those shadows well before it reached the walls. The white fur of her ears served to reflect the light as well, much better than his black ones, which made the area of light surrounding Jesmind much brighter than the one surrounding him.
"Now that we have that fixed," he said, rolling the fur coat into a bundle and tying it onto his back, a possible cushion should he rise up and into a ceiling, "let's go find a clean place to rest a while, then we'll set out."
They moved just beyond the constricting tunnel and found something suitable. It was a slightly wider section of tunnel that was straight and with a rather flat floor, but still with a ceiling only about four spans off the floor. They spread the fur coats on the hard stone and rested for a short time, then started out.
The passage through the caves was much warmer than travelling the mountains above, but that lack of cold was countered by the sheer effort of travelling like that. True to his observation about caves, the tunnel they followed was almost whimsical in its dimensions. Sometimes it would be dozens of spans wide and high, almost like chambers, sometimes it was so narrow and small they would have had to literally wriggle through bending zig-zags on their bellies had they not had the advantage of being able to shapeshift into a much smaller form. In fact, in no less than four places they encountered that first morning, they were forced to shift into cat form to wriggle through tiny holes, which would have stopped any other spelunker that hadn't brought a pick and a shovel with him. The floor was rarely even, with shelves or fissures in it, higher on one side of the passage than the other, making footing a serious business for both of them. They occasionally had to climb up or down sheer rock faces, cliffs underground, vertical shafts that sometimes twisted and turned like the deranged machinations of some insane Wikuni plumber's most feverish fantasies. Tarrin could swear that one particular strange loop in the tunnel was almost like a thread inside the stone of the mountain tying itself into a knot. It went up, then down, then up, then down, and slid from side to side as it did so, giving it the illusion that it turned back on itself, like the floor of the passage actually rested right on the other side of the ceiling over their heads. Though the tunnel rose and fell in turns, the down parts were longer than the up, and Tarrin realized that they were descending deeper and deeper into the mountain's core. Stalagtites and stalagmites were everywhere, posing a very real hazard to their heads, and the caves were surprisingly wet, with water dripping from the ceilings or oozing from the walls. There were patches of actual mud in some places, and there was part of the tunnel where they were forced to swim along a narrow channel, a flooded part of the passage. It was a swim through water as cold as ice, and left both of them soggy and with chattering teeth when they got to the dry tunnel on the other side of the fifty spans of submerged passage.
"T-This was a b-b-bloody b-b-bad id-d-d-dea," Jesmind said, her teeth clicking as she hugged her arms to her sides.
"That wasn't very pleasant," he agreed with a shiver, then he used Sorcery to strip the water off of them, then warmed them with a gentle weave of Fire and Air, warming the air around them. "But at least we didn't have to go totally under the water."
"Oh, that's a relief," she snapped shortly, then she sighed as the warmth of his spell started seeping into her cold skin. "You're a handy fellow to have around," she smiled as she closed her eyes and enjoyed the warmth.
"Thank you. Someday I aspire to be more than your slave."
"Don't count on it," she winked.
Though the effort was exhausting, neither of them wanted to stop. They both seemed not willing to stop until they got so deeply into the mountain that neither the Demons nor the blizzard could find any way to reach them. They continued on, steadily descending deeper and deeper, and Tarrin noticed that the properties of the tunnel were changing. The narrow areas were becoming further and further apart, and the tunnel grew noticably wider and the grade of the passage less severe as they got deeper inside the mountain. Almost like the caves in the heart of the mountain were older, and had more time for the water to dissolve away the rock and make them bigger. That made the going much easier and faster, almost like they were walking through a carved passage than a natural tunnel.
It was about then that he noticed the peculiarities of a deep underground passage. It was pitch black, which was normal for such a place, but the air and the rock almost seemed to swallow the light. The little dim lights he made only illuminated a very small area around them, but their night-sighted eyes let them penetrate deeply into the gloom beyond that light, but even that wasn't a tremendous distance. Tarrin found the idea of having the range of his vision impaired extremely irritating, and not a little unsettling. He was a creature heavily grounded in his senses, and a limitation on one of those senses made him jumpy and nervous. The air, though fresh, still had a strange stagnant quality to it. It did move and it was fresh, but it moved in and out of caves that all had the same musty smell, making the air heavy with dull scents that were hard to make out, since the same scents had been drifting around down here for years. Smells of rock and dust and dirt, and also strange plant-like smells like mold, lichen, and fungus. Rare, strange plants that could survive in a world without light. And sound was very curious. They moved quietly, as was only their habit, but ever whisper of sound they made echoed and re-echoed up and down the passage, and the sound of dripping water carried down the passages for longspans. A loud noise would carry for a long way and echo for a long time, and if there was anything down there with them, it wouldn't take it long to find them if they made alot of noise. The sound was trapped, bouncing endlessly off the walls, and he realized that a sound could linger down here in these tunnels for days after the maker of the sound was long gone. Since there was no light, he figured that anything that lived down here that was carnivorous hunted by sound. That was another good reason to be as quiet as possible, though the simple fact that every sound they made lingered around them so long it made both of them unsettled was reason enough.
They travelled for quite a while, and Tarrin realized that being under the ground was going to make it hard for him to track time. He was never very good at keeping time, because of the nature of the Cat, and being robbed of the stars and moons and sun to serve as reference points, he would quickly lose count of the days. And knowing how many days he had to go was very important. When he thought that it was pretty close to sunset, he pulled up when they entered a huge chamber that had the sound of running water in it, like a bubbling brook, though wherever the water was, it was beyond the illumating range of the little balls of light. "We should camp a while," he told her lowly, looking at the cave that he could see. It was a large chamber, with an irregular dome-like roof that was about thirty spans off the floor, the chamber roughly circular in shape. The water turned out to be a small underground river that flowed from north to south through the chamber, with their passage extending on towards the northeast, a decline hiding the passage and letting them see nothing but its ceiling almost as soon as it left the chamber.
"This is as good a place as any," she said in a quiet tone, almost a whisper. "At least we have water."
He had no idea how long they stayed there, because he couldn't easily tell time down in the cave. He Conjured wood for a fire and a roasted goose off some hapless inn's serving table, and then both of them immediately went to sleep. They were both very tired, and though he'd been a bit worried about not posting a guard, he realized that there really wasn't anything down there that could hurt them. He did raise a Ward that kept out everything but air before he went to sleep. He was confident that there was nothing down here, but he wasn't going to take any chances.
He had no idea how long they slept, but when both of them were awake, they ate breakfast without conversation and then set out again. The going was easier and easier as the passage continued to enlarge and become easier to travel as it descended, almost like a grand gallery with a ceiling higher than they could see and a flat floor that almost seemed like a road. It rose and fell, but he could tell that it still predominately went down.
They travelled some time before a strange sound reached both of them. It was extremely faint, barely audible, but the nature of the tunnels carried the sound to them. After pausing to filter out the echoes in his mind, he realized that it was a faint hissing sound, like what he remembered the volcano on Sha'Kari sounded like in the cauldera. But it was a slightly different sound, and he could distinctly hear moving water as well. And bubbling, like a kettle of boiling water, or maybe an area of very gentle rapids in a small stream.
"Sounds like water," Jesmind whispered, peering into the gloom ahead. She could only see about a hundred spans ahead, just as he could, but the reflex to try was automatic.
"I think it is," he answered in the manner of the Cat, a means of communication that was completely silent, and would not interfere with his ability to hear. "Let's go see where it is."
"Let's be careful," she said. "I think I've caught whiffs of some kind of animal in the air. This air is too damn thick and laden with other smells for me to be too sure, though."
He nodded, bringing his staff out of the elsewhere. The passage was more than large enough for him to wield it.
They padded along carefully for a surprisingly long distance, as he realized that the tunnel was funnelling the sound to them from a great distance away. The air began to move, to blow very gently in their faces, and it carried the smell of water with it, along with the tang of minerals, and the air seemed both humid and strangely warm. Curious now, both of them picked up their pace just a little bit, confident that the air blowing in their faces would bring the scent of an enemy to them before the enemy knew they were there. The air kept getting warmer and warmer, until it was almost unpleasantly so, and it grew veritably sticky with humidity, so much so that Jesmind took off the fur-lined shirt he'd Conjured for her. The passage descended again, but now there was a very faint, ruddy light at its end.
Tarrin stopped, remembering the last time he'd seen a ruddy red light at the base of a descending passage. "What's the matter?" Jesmind asked in the manner of the Cat.
"That might be an underground volcano," he told her. "Something has to be making that light. It might be lava."
"Well, let's keep going," she said. "If it gets too hot for me, I'll stop, alright?"
"Alright," he nodded, and they started down again, more cautiously this time.
They padded down to the end of the descent, as the air got hot, but not dangerously so. Tarrin did smell some sulfur and other minerals that he remembered smelling in the volcano, but it wasn't nearly strong enough to be dangerous. They reached a bend in the passage and peeked around it, and Jesmind laughed audibly when they saw what was on the other side.
It was an absolutely massive opening, a great chamber of empty space at the very heart of the mountain itself. The light wasn't from lava, it was from some kind of strange luminescent fungus or growth that was literally covering all the ceiling and walls, but not the floor. It was a huge circular chamber with an arching domed roof, the top of it more than two hundred longspans from the floor, cast in the strange red light of the luminescent material covering its walls and ceiling. The floor of the chamber was surprisingly flat, but there were multiple rimmed pits in it that were filled with water or dark, thick mud, and both water and mud laid in thin pools in depressions on the wide floor, all of which had tendrils of thin steam rising up from them. The air was hot, sticky, and he realized that the mineral smells were coming from the water itself. The hissing and moving sounds they'd heard were coming from the water, from the hissing of the water and mud that boiled to the sounds of the bubbling water churning in its stone pools, like large kettles on a stove.
It was a hot spring! A hot spring in the middle of the mountain's heart!
"Incredible!" Jesmind said in wonder, looking around. "It's a hot spring!"
"Let's be careful," he said. "Sometimes hot springs erupt into geysers. It won't hurt me, but I think you may not like having boiling water sprayed all over you."
They waited where they were for a while, then carefully circumnavigated the chamber around the walls, wary of any trembling in the floor or rushing sound that would herald an eruption. But none happened. They reached the far side of the chamber, where a wide tunnel led up, and somehow Tarrin sensed that this hot spring was at the bottom of the cave system, that it would be up now instead of down.
"I kind of like it here," Jesmind said. "I've never seen a place so exotic."
"It may be dangerous."
"Well, do your magic thing and find out if it is or not," she said. "I'm tired and I'd like to rest a while, and this place looks pretty good."
Glancing at her irritably, Tarrin knelt and put a paw on the floor, then sent flows of Earth down into the stone. He didn't like using magic as they got close to Val, but what he was doing was very gentle, very passive, and required very little energy. He sent his weave deep into the ground, seeking out the source of the hot spring, and once he found it, he inspected what he found there. The stream that they'd seen before dropped down close to a pocket of magma, which heated it and caused it to rise up here. It was very steady and consistent, and he sensed no erratic motion of water or steam that would cause a geyser. The springs here were very stable.
He told her so, which made her almost squeal in delight. "Let's find one that won't boil the meat off me!" she announced, rushing back into the chamber like a little girl with a new doll.
"What?"
"I want to take a bath!" she called after him.
Take a bath? Then he realized what she meant. A hot bath always was relaxing but a bath where the water would never cool off was a rather attractive concept.
Tarrin looked around. The place was a bit warm and a little muggy, but it had its own light, plenty of water, and it was in the absolute center of the mountain. He couldn't get any safer than this. This would be a perfect place to stop so he could figure out how to keep the Demons off of them… and he had to admit, the idea of bathing in one of those hot springs was rather attractive.
By the time he'd made that choice, Jesmind had already shrugged out of her shirt, and was in the process of shedding her trousers. He was about to warn her not to do that, but she got them off, tossed them aside negligently, then stepped down into one of the pools of water. Tarrin rushed over to where she was in concern, afraid that she'd just stepped into a boiling cauldron that would boil the meat off her bones, and saw with some relief that she had chosen a wide pool of water that was so clear that it did not in any way hinder his view under its surface. It didn't bubble, meaning it wasn't boiling, and the water seeped up from several small cracks in the bottom of the pool. It was also rather shallow, and when Jesmind seated herself in it with a look of dreamy contentment on her face, her head just crested the salt-crusted rim of the pool. The steam that wafted up from the pool shifted when she blew out her breath, then she opened her eyes and gave him a warm, inviting smile.
"Now this is my idea of resting after getting down here," she said languidly, stretching in the water. " Please tell me that this is a good place for us to stop so you can do whatever it is you wanted to do to hide us from the Demons."
"It crossed my mind," he said, squatting down beside her, wrapping his tail around his ankles.
"I could spend half of forever in here," she sighed in utter contentment, then she reached up and grabbed the end of his tail. She tugged on it lightly, grinning at him. "You need a bath, my mate," she told him, tugging a little more firmly.
"Let me put up Wards at the entrances, and I'll be happy to join you, Jesmind," he told her. "Let's make sure we're safe before we drop our guard, alright?"
"Well, alright," she acceded thoughtfully. "Just don't take too long."
"I'll do my best," he said, standing up. "Jesmind."
"Sorry," she said, letting go of his tail.
Tarrin moved off to raise the Wards, silently thankful that Jesmind had found something with which to distract herself. She wasn't as hostile as she'd been before, but he was thankful for anything that distracted his mate from Jasana's abduction, even if it was for a little while. After all the heavy travelling they'd done, taking a few days off here to give him time to devise a means for them to return to the surface without the Demons finding them, time Jesmind would spend languishing around in a place that would keep her from getting restless, was a good thing. It was good for her, and he would enjoy spending the time with her, a last respite from harsh reality before they had to rejoin it, a chance to be together in peace and quiet for a day or two. Though both of them thought of nothing but Jasana and the fact that she was taken from them, they both could use a day or two to recover, to deal with those feelings as a mated pair instead of as individuals, a chance for them to talk, and prepare themselves for the harsh ordeal to come. He knew that when they came out of the cave and were again out in the mountains, there would be little time for rest, little chance to be as comfortable and content as they would be here. It would be a very hard journey, and this place would let them get ready to face the bitter cold and the snow and the treacherous trek across the mountains and over the tundra, until they finally stood before the black pyramid of Gora Umadar and got their daughter back.
It was their last chance to rest before the end of their journey.
To: Title EoF