In the Earth Abides the Flame (52 page)

There was no path to be found, but they discovered the next best thing. Up ahead the slope flattened out, as though they had reached the ridgetop. Here a few hardy plants braved the wind and the fog, bordering numerous sad tarns. It was a gloomy place, but at least there was no danger of them falling to their deaths. Along the ridgetop they searched, looking for any kind of shelter. Eventually, on the edge of night, they came across a rocky outcrop that offered some shelter from the wind. There, in the lee of the rock, they made a cold, cheerless and uncomfortable camp.

Leith awoke from the briefest of sleeps with a crick in his neck, the legacy of ill-placed rocks.

Unable to light a fire, the travellers had huddled close together for warmth, but Leith's back was as cold as if Druin had shoved snow down his cloak. They had a miserable breakfast together in the misty morning, then made ready to travel.

'Doesn't the sun ever shine here?' the Haufuth complained.

'Seems like we've wandered back into the land of Mist by mistake,' Kurr said.

'Have we?' Alarm registered in Leith's voice.

'No.' Tua laughed. 'We don't have mountains like this at home. And there the mist is warmer, friendlier somehow. I don't know how to read these clouds at all.'

'Nevertheless, we must find a way forward - or back,' Wiusago said, wandering over with his pack on his shoulders. 'Another night of this will do us serious harm.'

'Last night did me serious harm,' said Leith, half-jokingly. 'My back aches with the cold.'

Kurr looked at him with concern in his eyes. 'Then let's get moving. A brisk walk will do you the world of good.'

'We'll go back to the right and find the path,' said Prince Wiusago confidently. 'We'll be off this mountain in no time. Beyond that - well, we'll see.'

They started back in the direction from which they'd come, or as near to it as they could judge. Within a few minutes, however, they realised their error, coming out above a sheer drop into the swirling mist. Whichever right-handed way they took led them nowhere but to bluffs, ravines or cliffs. In this fashion most of the morning passed by, and it approached the middle of the day when they stood once more by the rocky outcrop.

'I can't understand it,' Leith heard Wiusago mutter. 'I would have staked my life on us having come up the ridge from the left. But where is the path? How did we get up here?'

Te Tuahangata scratched his head, then nodded in agreement. 'It is a puzzle beyond my wits to solve. I was born to the Mist, and I too cannot see how we turned completely around last evening; yet turn around we must have, for all the ways to our right are wrong.'

'Then we must go left,' Kurr said. 'We were lost before; I can't see how even finding the path will make us found.'

In an unspoken agreement, the travellers refused to eat lunch by the outcrop. They took a quick bite to eat as they struck out to their left. In a moment they were ascending the ridge: higher and higher it took them, deep into the heart of the cloud. Like drunken sots they staggered through the mist, each one clinging to the next, making little headway but at least keeping safe. Finally, Wiusago turned to the others and called a halt.

'We can climb no further,' he said, his boots scrunching through a late-lying snow patch as he walked back to where the group had gathered. 'We are at a mountain top. Every direction is down.'

'A mountain top? It didn't seem that steep!' Leith was puzzled.

'We have wound our way up. But now I am not at all sure how to get us down.' Wiusago motioned them to follow him to a pile of fractured rock, where he bade them look around. To their left a knife-edged ridge sloped sharply downwards into the mist: it would take the skill of a mountain goat to avoid falling if they took that path. Ahead the way was not quite so steep, but the rock was broken into a scree slope, rocky rubble falling away into unguess-able depths. Back the way they had come, off to their right, the rock seemed more solid. However, none of them would submit to returning to that cruel outcrop. Behind them lay a shelf a few yards wide, beyond which the ground dropped away in the sheerest cliff.

Hal made his way to the front of the group. For the first time in weeks Leith took a really good look at his older brother, and was shocked at what he saw. The effort of keeping up with these fit, experienced mountain men of the south had drained him more than Leith could have imagined. His cheeks were dreadfully hollow, his eyes were set back in his head, and he rubbed the back of one knee as he spoke.

How; much more of this can he take? Why have none of the others commented on his state?

'Achtal wants us to try the scree slope,' the cripple told them. He breathed with some difficulty. 'He says in his experience such slopes do not usually lead to cliffs or dead ends.

They need a flat base to sustain the weight of the rock above.'

'But how do we get down?' Kurr asked. The others could read the statement in his eyes: it would be foolish to try to climb down a slope at once so steep and so unstable.

Hal had the answer ready. 'Achtal will show us. He says that with care we should all be able to descend in safety.' The Bhrudwan interrupted, speaking in his own tongue. Hal spoke for him: 'He adds that running a scree slope is one of the most exciting challenges a man can face.

We should count it a privilege to be measured against something like this.' Beside Hal, the Bhrudwan smiled. He had never been seen to smile: it certainly improved the look of him.

'He can show us,' the Haufuth said doubtfully. 'I hope he remembers that not all of us are the physical specimen he is.'

'He remembers,' Hal replied, with just a hint of hardness in his voice. 'He says he would not suggest anything that involved serious risk to his master.'

The Haufuth gave way. Venturing a few yards on to the slope, Achtal demonstrated the scree-running technique, while Hal interpreted. '"Don't run straight down, or you will build up too much speed and fall. Zig-zag across the slope and back, like this. Stay in areas of rocks of similar size: larger rocks are slower to move, and will trip you if you strike a field of them suddenly. Keep your eyes open and look ahead. Don't worry about dislodging small stones.

The slope will slide down with you a little way, that is normal. But if you set a large rock rolling, call out a warning to those below you. That is the greatest danger. Keep your speed down; walk if you must. But once you are used to it you can run fast, like this".' And with that Achtal was off into the mist in a few huge bounds.

A moment later he reappeared, battling hard to ascend the unstable slope. His expression was a question: will you try it?

'I see no other alternative,' Prince Wiusago advised them.

It was without doubt the most frightening, the most exhilarating thing Leith had ever done. To make himself take the first step down that exceedingly steep slope took everything he had; and still that would not have been enough, if it had not been for the sight of Hal struggling down the slope, gracelessly but successfully. The first minute or so was very bad: it felt like he was continually losing his balance, falling forward. Suddenly, however, he mastered it and was away. The slope roared past him as he took larger and larger strides, cutting down at an increasingly steep angle. Small stones lodged in his boots, but he gave them no heed.

Flashing past Hal and Achtal, he let go a cry of sheerest joy and gave himself completely to the slope.

The mist thinned as he sprinted across and down the scree, well ahead of the others. To his left, still a way down, surrounded by mist but temporarily open to his view, he could make out a basin, with a small blue lake set like a diamond in a ring. A breeze ruffled the water. He caught a glimpse of a wooded island in the centre of the lake, then he turned away to the right, into another patch of fog. Down and down he went, leaving the others far behind, unable to think of anything but the freedom, the pleasure, the passion of his feet on the slope, the cold wind in his hair. His pack felt weightless on his back. Another glimpse to the left. Already he was level with the lake. If he had wanted he could have made his way to it, but he did not want. The lake drained into a small stream, which flowed through a spout to the top of a cliff, then dropped down out of sight, no doubt as a waterfall, into a further patch of mist. Out of his eye's corner he caught a glint of light, as though the sun reflected from a rope or filament stretched across the spout. The moment's inattention cost him a stumble. He had blundered into a patch of large rocks, but nothing was going to interfere with his run down the mountain, and he regained his balance without effort. Now the lake was gone, well behind him, up and to the left, and he plunged into heavy mist once more. But only for a minute or so. Then, without warning or transition, he came out into blue sky, and came to a stop in wonder.

The view spread before him hammered at his senses. He had imagined he might be nearly at the bottom of the slope, but he was wrong. It stretched down below him for at least another thousand feet - and at the bottom was not the valley floor, but further mist. How high was he?

How high had they been on the mountain top? He cast his gaze further, and saw a tangled knot of mountain ranges snaking away in confusion to all points of the compass. Wooded on their lower slopes, they stretched upwards to snow-tipped peaks that flamed in the midday sun. Cloud-carpets flowed down the valleys like wide, slow rivers. In the few gaps afforded by the mist, Leith could make out silver streams and deep green forests. It was an altogether wild land, a land to assault the mind with its size, steepness and majesty.

Then Leith saw the castle.

In the valley opposite, surrounded by sheer mountains, a hillock raised itself just above the clouds that matted the forest floor. On the hillock stood a white-walled castle. Though it was two, perhaps three miles away, Leith could see every detail. Bright flags snapped in the breeze, flying above many slender turreted towers; themselves raised upon inner and outer walls, in which were set great gates; window after window, wall after wall, bastion upon rampart, battlement surmounting bulwark. It spoke of power, of grandeur, of stateliness. It was altogether lovely, the most beautiful thing shaped by human hands Leith had ever seen. If it had been shaped by human hands. Leith quite forgot the scree slope.

He still stood there when the others came upon him. Wordlessly, he indicated the object of his gaze. One by one the Arkhimm were transfixed by the sight below them.

For a long time no one dared name what they saw. They had searched for it in increasing desperation, and had found it at the moment when they were completely lost. It was the castle of legend, the place to where young children who died were taken, the place that appeared to mortal eyes only once in a hundred years.

Finally, Phemanderac spoke for them all.

'Kantara,' he breathed, in a voice choked with awe.

KANTARA STOOD BEFORE THEM, a newly revealed pearl sparkling in the summer sun; then, from behind them, a cold wind brought with it swirling mist, hiding the castle from their sight like a conjuring trick. At once the spell holding the Arkhimm broke and they began to descend the scree slope once more. But they were not free of Kantara's allure.

Leith pelted down the slope for all he was worth. But no matter how fast he ran, the descending mist stayed just ahead. Once or twice he thought he caught a glimpse of the castle, but whenever he steadied to make sure, the mist drew across him as though mocking his desire. The slope lessened, and he came down into forested areas; in another moment he was in the valley mist, where the scree came to an end in a boulder field above a lively stream.

There he waited for the others, breathing hard. The descent, including the pause to gaze at the white castle, had taken less than fifteen minutes.

Picking their way down the little stream took about half an hour. 'What a fine place this would be if the sun shone on it,' Prince Wiusago said as he clambered over impossibly large rocks.

'Not as fine a place as the one we go to,' responded Phemanderac.

'I suppose there is no doubt?' Kurr put in. 'About the castle, I mean. It is Kantara, isn't it?'

'If it is not, then we can ask them for directions,' Wiusago said.

'But from what little I have heard about Nemohaim, the upper Neume valley is virtually uninhabited. It must be Kantara.'

'Where is the upper Neume valley?' asked Leith, momentarily confused. 'I thought we were looking for the Almucantaran Mountains.'

'We were, but we appear to have stumbled upon them rather by accident,' said Prince Wiusago. 'Although I daresay most rivers in Astraea come from the mountains, so by simply travelling upriver we were bound to find them. The River Neume springs from the same source, but flows southeast, away from us, before turning north to find the sea near Bewray.

The legend says that Kantara can be found in the Vale of Neume.'

They came to a flat, open place on the valley floor. Here they rested for a while amidst signs of a recent forest fire; though, with the amount of rain this valley obviously received, it was hard to imagine fire taking hold. But scarred trees and blackened, stubby grass told their own testimony.

'Do we try to reach the castle today?' Wiusago asked Te Tuahangata as they lay back on the damp grass. 'We have about three hours of daylight remaining, and perhaps two miles to go.'

'The people in the castle must have some access to the valley,' Tua replied carefully, 'which means there will more than likely be a path. If we give ourselves an hour or so to find it, we could be at the gates before dark. If we don't find it, we should make camp somewhere sheltered and hidden.'

'I don't know, though,' the Haufuth said, yawning. 'It may not have been much for you, but coming down that shingle slide has worn me out.'

'Six months ago you wouldn't have been able to do it at all,' remarked Kurr. 'Be thankful you made it, at least.'

'I'm merely saying we should make camp here and get a good sleep. Then tomorrow we can search for this castle with enthusiasm.'