Rachel Aaron - The Spirit War

Miranda slumped down. “I feel so ignorant,” she muttered. “You’d think I’d have at least heard more than a passing mention of something so important.” A tremor of reproach went through her before she could stop it, and deep in her mind she felt her rings twinge.

“Don’t blame your spirits,” Slorn said. “Nothing talks about the Shepherdess unless they have to. It took me decades to piece what little I have together, and even I don’t know for certain. All I have are theories. Suppositions based on years of asking too many questions, as your dog would say. It may be that the Shaper Mountain can do nothing and this journey is little more than a waste of time.”

“But we have to try,” Miranda said.

“Yes,” Slorn said quietly. “We have to try.” He leaned back, looking up at the snow-covered slope they’d been following all day. “If we keep this pace we’ll make Knife’s Pass by sunset. From there it’s a straight shot to the Shaper Mountain. We’ll reach the gate by noon tomorrow, weather permitting. After that, there’s no turning back.”

Miranda laughed. “There’s been no turning back for a while now. Remember, I was the one who asked to come along.”

“I have not forgotten,” Slorn said, standing up. “Let’s go. We have more miles to cover than we can make if we dawdle.”

Miranda took his offered hand, and he helped her to her feet. They had almost everything together by the time Gin returned with a scrawny mountain goat in his jaws.

It was late when they reached Knife’s Pass and Miranda was too tried to look at anything besides her bedroll. When she woke at dawn, Gin was still sleeping, his body curved to shelter her from the icy winds. She smiled and packed her blankets, and then, stepping softly so she wouldn’t wake the ghosthound, she tiptoed to Slorn’s wagon. As always, Slorn was already awake. He was sitting on the fold-out steps, staring up at the clear morning sky. There were two steaming mugs of tea on the step beside him, one half empty, the other full. Miranda took the full one.

“How much farther?” she said, blowing on the steaming liquid.

Slorn looked at her with an incredulous expression and pointed north. Miranda’s eyes followed his gesture and she nearly dropped her tea. The sheltered pass they were camped in wasn’t a pass at all, or at least not a natural one. It was a road cut between the mountains, running due north in a perfectly straight line between two sheer cliffs, and at the end of that road stood the largest mountain Miranda had ever seen. It was impossibly tall, soaring above the surrounding mountains like a spire. Its steep sides were snowbound and blinding white in the morning sunlight, but the mountain’s peak was too sheer and tall even for snow. It loomed far, far overhead, naked and gray-white, a porcelain knife set against the pale sky.

“That’s the Shaper Mountain?” Miranda said when she could speak again. “How does anyone live on a slope like that?”

“Not on,” Slorn answered. “In.”

Miranda frowned and looked again, squinting against the glare. Sure enough, the tiny dark spaces beneath snowy overhangs that she had first taken to be shadows were now clearly windows. There were balconies as well, each placed so elegantly along the mountain’s natural cliffs that Miranda would never have spotted them if not for the faint glimmer of the icy railings. Panes of glass flashed between the snow banks, and at the end of the pass she could just make out the unnaturally straight edge of what looked like a door set deep in the mountain’s base.

“The upper body of the mountain is given over to the Shapers for their work,” Slorn said. “In return for its protection, leadership, and instruction, the Shapers serve the mountain and work in its name.”

Miranda shivered. “And what kind of work does a mountain need done?”

“All kinds,” Slorn said with a toothy smile. “Though only the Great Teacher understands how it all fits together.”

“Great Teacher?”

“You’ll see soon enough,” Slorn said, standing up. “Let’s get moving. We have far to go.”

Miranda looked back at the mountain. It didn’t seem that far away. But she obeyed and walked back across the camp to wake up Gin. The hound was already up and waiting when she reached him, his orange eyes narrow and guarded as he watched Slorn’s wagon pack itself. He answered her “good morning” with a gruff snort, and though Miranda tried several times as they packed their camp, that was all the comment the hound would make.

Though the mountain looked like it was only a few miles away, the distance was deceptive. Knife’s Pass was an endless corridor between the lesser peaks, a straight, flat slab of rock large enough to march a legion down walled in by two featureless stone walls. Ahead, the Shaper Mountain rose over everything else, filling the end of the pass, but no matter how fast they ran along the smooth road, it never seemed to come any closer.

The sun was high overhead when the end of the road finally came into sight. Gin was panting hard, his feet swollen after running full out for miles on the hard stone. Slorn slowed the pace, and Miranda started to thank him on Gin’s behalf when she realized that Slorn had not slowed for them.

Just before the towering spire of the Shaper Mountain took over everything, the mountains fell away. The ground simply stopped, leaving an enormous gap of empty air between them and the Shaper Mountain. As they got closer, Miranda saw that it was a canyon. The divide cut between the rest of the mountains and the Shaper’s peak like a sword stroke. At the very bottom, a deep blue, freezing cold river glittered in the noon sun, but it was so far away that Miranda couldn’t even hear the sound of the water, only the endless wind howling between the cliffs.

The road, however, did not stop. A bridge of arching stone just wide enough for two carts running side by side spanned the enormous divide, linking Knife’s Pass to the mountain on the other side. The bridge was all one piece, a great length of curved rock that sprouted like a branch at one end from the stone under their feet and on the other from the roots of the Shaper Mountain itself. There were no railings, nothing to save a careless traveler from plummeting into the ravine, but the bridge itself was free of ice, and Slorn’s wagon stepped onto it without hesitation.

With a nervous swallow, Miranda followed, leaning with Gin into the wind that threatened to toss them both into the canyon below. She was so focused on not falling that she didn’t notice Slorn had stopped until she was past him. She turned around, nudging Gin back until they were pressed against the wagon.

“What’s wrong?” she shouted over the wind.

Slorn looked down at her from his seated position on the wagon’s roof, his small bear ears blown flat by the wind. “Things might get a little tense in the mountain,” he said. “No matter what happens, I need you to stay calm and follow my lead.”

Gin began to growl. “What do you mean ‘tense’?”

“You’ll see soon enough,” Slorn said, starting his wagon forward again. “Just stay with me and everything will be fine.”

Gin snorted, sending a poof of white vapor into the air that was instantly snatched by the wind. “If he thinks we’re just going to roll over—”

“Gin!” Miranda said sharply.

The hound shut his mouth, and Miranda pushed him forward. She didn’t like this any more than he did, but they’d come too far to stop now. All she could do was press herself flat against the ghosthound’s back and follow Slorn’s wagon across the final half of the ravine.

The bridge ended at a sheer wall in the mountain’s side, the smooth stone road butting up against an unnaturally straight, unnaturally square cliff. The wind here was stronger than ever, buffeting them against the cliff face. Miranda kept low on Gin’s back, her eyes darting up the mountain for another path, but there was nothing, just the bridge and cliff. She was about to ask Slorn where to go next when a loud crack sounded over the wind. More cracks followed until the ravine sounded like a breaking glacier, and then, all at once, the cliff opened.