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The ocean passage took three days. Gaunt was surprised by the speed of it, but with Northwing recovered and nothing but the weather to block them, progress was swift. Even while Northwing slept, they had a lucky air current. Sometimes they passed ships, but for the most part this was a lonely sea. Gaunt found little to observe in the steel-gray ocean below, so she spent considerable time within the Scroll, helping anyone who wished to struggle with the language of the Bladed Isles.

One day Bone appeared to her there. “We’ve arrived. You’d best bring the
Chart
.”

It was late morning.
Al-Saqr
flew near a fractured ceiling of clouds pierced by spears of light. Oblong ingots of sun blazed upon a blue-green sea.

Ahead lay snowy mountains. It was as though the land, having finally risen above the sea, was eager to reach the clouds without any further ado. Rocky summits and cliffs and crags wore variegated coverings of snow. Sometimes the snow pooled like lakes; other times it followed cracks in the rocks like rivers. Purple-gray clouds drifted above the peaks, the only sign of movement upon the coast. Farther inland, a knot of even taller mountains reared beneath a gray-black storm.

Bone, Katta, Snow Pine, Flint, Haytham, Northwing, and Haboob were all silent. That was remarkable in itself.

Gaunt opened the
Chart of Tomorrows
.

“If this is accurate,” she said, “that’s probably the coast of Spydbanen. Those big mountains there must be the Trollfangs, the range near the town of Jotuncrown.”

“Personally I think they’re all big mountains,” Bone said.

“We’d best turn southwest. Spydbanen is full of obstacles. On the map it looks like a mountain range with a thin skin of coastline.”

“There’s evil,” Katta announced.

The mystic might not have been able to see everyone else’s stares, but he noted the silence. “Ahead, in our direction of travel, is a large gathering of negative karma. Maybe a bit to the left. If Gaunt wishes to turn us away from that spot, I would consider it a wise precaution.”

“Negative karma’s not all that’s there,” Snow Pine said. “Look.”

Gaunt looked, though in a sense she didn’t need to. The flickers of lightning appearing ahead were dazzling enough to be noticed inside the ger. Gaunt counted, and when thunder boomed she estimated the source to be eight miles away. When her vision cleared, an afterimage lingered like jagged, thin rivers of light.

Flint said, “I must say! I am fascinated by this landscape, its violent cartography, its coursing energies, and its potential for destroying us!”

Snow Pine said, “Fascination, hell. We need cover, fast. Otherwise we’ll be covered by lightning. Those strokes are all emanating from the mountains. But they’re reaching out every time. Toward us.”

Katta said, “It might be pertinent to note that I can see each of the bolts with exquisite clarity.”

“Now I’m scared,” Bone said.

Northwing said, “Snow Pine has the right idea. I’m cajoling the wind to blow us southwest, but if we want to be safe, we must descend.”

“I’d hoped to land in a city,” Haytham said mournfully, “a place with inns, baths, bazaars. Nevertheless I’ve begun the descent.”

“Actually,” the efrit Haboob began, “I’ve begun the descent. And you’re welcome—”

Lightning strokes lit the sky to the northwest. Thunder cracked a few seconds later.

A terrifying night commenced.

From sunset to midnight, Haytham and Northwing guided them away from the mad lightning as the others labored to steer them safely through the mountains. At last the bolts diminished and receded, and the ger was once again safe after a fashion, though a frigid wind whistled all around.

“I do not know where we are,” Haytham said.

“At least,” Katta said, “I perceive no evil.”

Northwing said, “With the lightning where it is, I think we’re still headed southwest. We may not need to land after all. Though it might be a good idea.”

“Not like this, my friend,” Haytham said. “Not in the dark.”

Gaunt looked down upon a moonlit sheen, broken by lines of waves. “I think we’re somewhere over water. We may have reached the archipelago of little islands in the middle of these lands. The Splintrevej. I doubt there’d be good places to land there. But past these is the biggest island, Svardmark. There they have nations, towns, farmland.”

“And lightning-wielders?” Bone said.

“Not that I’ve heard.”

They rested as they could, though whenever Gaunt shut her eyes she was startled out of sleep by a dream of falling. Bone squeezed her hand each time; still, it was all she could do simply to doze.

Dawn found them entering another region of mountains. Northwing had circles under bloodshot eyes. “We need to land,” Gaunt told them all by way of good morning. “Northwing can’t go on like this.”

“No,” Northwing muttered, “Northwing can’t. But there is no good place.”

“Then let go,” Katta said. “You’ve done much.”

“Those mountains look close . . .” Northwing murmured.

Gaunt tried to listen, but another voice tugged at her ears. Impossibly, it seemed to be coming from the wind outside. She leaned against the felt, straining to hear.

Mother
 . . .

“Gaunt? Persimmon?” Bone was beside her. “What’s wrong?”

“Do you not hear?”

“No.”

Mother . . . Mother . . .

“It’s Innocence, Imago. I hear him somehow. Perhaps the power he carries is letting him reach out to us. Innocence, it’s me! We’re looking for you. We’ll be there soon. Do you hear me?”

The only response was a blast of wind.

Northwing shouted, “They found us! Whoever attacked in Spydbanen, this is their wind. They’re going to slam us against those mountains.”

Gaunt yelled, “Haboob, we need altitude!”

“Descend, Haboob! Altitude, Haboob!” the efrit scoffed. “Mortals. You creatures simply don’t live long enough to justify all this changing of your minds—”

“Heat, O Haboob!” Haytham yelled. “In the All-One’s name, heat! We need lift!”

“Yes, O imperious, regal, resplendent—”

“Not enough!” Gaunt said.

“Do we throw things out?” Bone asked, checking that his loot from Amberhorn was still in his pockets.

“Yes!” Haytham said. “There are fiery equations that govern the behavior of balloons. At the moment, lightness equals survival. Toss everything that isn’t essential. Food! Weapons!”

“Thieves?” said Gaunt as she threw a crate of vegetables out the front of the ger.

“Poets?” Bone answered, tossing a huge soup kettle.

“Stop flirting, you two,” Snow Pine said. She threw a pot and pan, narrowly missing Bone’s head.

A bolt of blue lightning shattered the morning, turning the interior of the ger into an azure shadow play. Somehow the discharge of energy had the audacity to look cold. Ordinary daylight returned, but thunder rent the air and shook the balloon, and even the efrit twisted violently as the ger careened and the humans fell.

“The scroll—” Snow Pine called out.

“I have it,” Katta said.

“How?” she said, sounding amazed.

“I heard it rustling and rolling,” Katta said, returning it to her. “It is a lightweight thing, and I anticipated such a moment.”

“Thank you,” Snow Pine said.

“Not enough!” Haytham was saying. “Is there anything more to throw?”

“No . . .” Bone said.

Gaunt could almost see him thinking,
I’ve lived a long life, and sometimes a man sacrifices himself that his family, his friends, might live. If these fiery equations need to be writ upon human flesh, let it be mine
. Bone loved his own skin, but he loved her more. Gaunt looked around frantically for anything left to throw that wasn’t a human being. She refused to accept any such calculation; let them all be smashed against a mountain before they sacrificed each other. But self-sacrifice was just the kind of flamboyant gesture her husband might try . . . once.

Then, “Lightweight,” Snow Pine said, and spun the scroll in her hands. “Listen! Who needs to pilot this vessel?”

“I would raise my hand,” Haytham said, fingers flickering a discreet distance over the sigils of the brazier, “but I am otherwise occupied.”

There was a pause. “Should I spare breath, then,” Northwing asked, “declaring that my will is helping keep us among the living? When lack of that breath may bring disaster?”

The next eruption of lightning was not quite as close, but there were two of them. The ger rocked like a boat.

“I understand!” Gaunt said, laughing. “Why didn’t I see it? The scroll!”

“Yes!” said Snow Pine. “An army could vanish into it, and it would get no heavier. Some of us can disappear for a while, making the balloon rise. All right, then! Liron and I will go! If we don’t lift enough, more should follow!” Flint took Snow Pine’s hand, the one that held the scroll, and he vanished.

At the same moment lightning hit the canopy.

In the blazing concussion, the felt and bamboo that shielded Snow Pine from the elements was disintegrated. In the bloody light of sunset she fell through the gap, still clutching the scroll. Gaunt screamed and lunged after her.

She failed to catch her, and lost her own balance.

As she tumbled from the balloon, Gaunt saw Snow Pine vanish into the scroll, which fell near Gaunt’s own path of descent.
Of course
, she thought.
And it’s my salvation too, if I can only reach it
.

She tried twisting in the air, and her fingers inched closer as the mountain rock raced toward her.

Suddenly a blast of wind snatched the scroll away from her, whipping it like a stick caught by a hunting hound. It rushed away toward the northeast. Toward Spydbanen.

An icy slope rose up to meet her.

CHAPTER 5

HUGINN

“Tell me your name.”

A madman on a horse had appeared out of nowhere, leapt off, and proceeded to seize Innocence where he lay in his comfortable spot upon the windy grassland. Innocence had just wanted to rest for a little, while he gathered his strength. He was sure he would rise again soon. The terrible cold of his aimless stumble across the plain had ended, and now a warm, peaceful feeling had come over him. All would be well except for the crazy horseman, who kept asking—

“Tell me your name!”

“Innocence . . .”

“What?”

“Innocence . . . Gaunt . . .”

“Speak up! Tell me your name!”

The man was a balding, red-bearded, stout man in a heavy robe of blue wool. Innocence could tell he was balding because he’d removed his thick cap and was stuffing Innocence’s head into it.

“Innocence.” He felt he should be saying “Askelad” to preserve his anonymity, but it was hard to feel concern about anything, least of all his identity. He wished the boorish Kantening would leave him alone. Instead the man was wrapping a blanket around him. It was red, woven with pictures of horses.

“Drink this.” A flask was shoved against his nose. It smelled of brandy.

“I don’t . . . don’t feel like . . .”

“I don’t give a fart! Drink it!”

It tasted of brandy too. And maybe moss. He no longer felt so comfortable. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t articulate it.

“What’s your name?” The man was stuffing some kind of bread in his mouth. This time Innocence didn’t argue.

“Innocence.”

“You’re the best-named person I’ve ever met, Innocence. How the hell did you come to be out here, dressed for indoors? Never mind. Drink more.”

“Glg. I . . . I was escaping . . .”

“I smell a good story. Never mind. You’re going for a horse ride.”

The man was stronger than he looked. Innocence found himself flopped upon his stomach onto the man’s steed, which looked like a shaggy brown pony, so thick with fur Innocence wondered if it was part sheep. Innocence giggled. The horse whinnied.

“What’s funny?” the man demanded as he tied Innocence to the horse. “You think dying of exposure is funny?”

“No, sir . . .”

“You will live to be mocked, boy, I promise you that. I will change your name and send you back in time and put you in a saga. But you will be mocked, sure as they call me Huginn Sharpspear. What is your name?”

“Innocence.” The name Huginn Sharpspear was somehow familiar, but Innocence couldn’t place it.

“You’ll be a little less innocent now. Here we go.”

The ride was bumpy, and the conviction grew in Innocence that Huginn Sharpspear was deliberately seeking the roughest ground, trying to jar all the comfort out of Innocence. He complained, and Huginn responded that he was going slowly and carefully. The man was clearly a born liar.

Every so often, if Innocence grew quiet, Huginn stopped this unseemly haste and demanded yet again to know Innocence’s name, or the names of his parents, or his homeland, or his trade.

“Assistant tavernkeeper? The Pickled Rat?” Huginn laughed. “I know that place! They threw me out for singing too loud! Almost there, tavern boy, and then there’ll be more brandy for you.” Huginn made it sound like a threat.

Mooing, snorting, the smell of manure—they’d reached a farm. “Sturla’s Steading,” Huginn said as he unbound Innocence and hauled him off the horse. “Before Sturla, my father, came, it was nothing but difficult soil and a cold river. Now it’s difficult soil, a cold river, and a farm.” After verifying the lad could walk, albeit in a wobbly fashion, Huginn led him into a large house composed of stone, wood, and sod, carved from the side of a low, grassy hill. Windows with real glass gleamed from the thatch, and three chimneys peeked from the grass, spewing smoke. Huginn was bellowing orders and a number of men, women, and children rushed this way and that as Innocence was led into a long hall festooned with hanging fish and meats, with a hearth in its midst.

Huginn set him down near the hearth. A straw-haired woman with a strong physique, weathered face, and piercing blue eyes brought him broth. After he managed to get it down, the couple got Innocence to remove his wet clothes and put on new ones. Then came blankets and more broth, and sweet rye bread, and a bowl of something like thick, milky, soup but with honey on top. He still didn’t want to eat, but the woman kept fussing at him.