Troy Denning - Faces of Deception

As matters turned out, there was no need. They found nothing at the other end of the chain but more snow. Atreus took his turn with the cooking pot and dug down another two feet to a solid crust of ice. After he had cleared a circle as wide as he was tall, Seema shook her head.

"It is hopeless to keep digging." She sounded disappointed, though hardly sorrowful. Tarch could be anywhere. Come out of there."

"Yes, it is time we gave up the search." Rishi did not bother to disguise his eagerness. "After spending all this time buried beneath so many tons of snow, Tarch has certainly met his death by now."

"Nothing is ever certain, Rishi," said Atreus, tossing the cooking pot up. "Tarch strikes me as a tot harder to kill than you think."

"All the more reason to leave him down there," said Yago, extending an arm to Atreus.

After being pulled from the hole, Atreus was astonished to find how far he had been swept Just a few hundred paces away stood the jumbled icefall leading up to the Sisters of Serenity. The valley around him lay buried beneath untold acres of avalanche run out: mountainous piles of compacted snow, with slabs of wind crust jutting up at all angles. The little glacier behind them had been scraped clean down to its shimmering silver surface, and its crevasses were now filled with milky bands of sugar snow.

Seema passed Atreus a bowl filled with one of her elixirs. She spoke a few words of magic, and the potion Began to steam.

"Drink it quickly. It will help renew your vigor."

Atreus quaffed the contents down and felt some of his strength return, but the effect was hardly as noticeable as before. He washed the bowl out with snow and tried not to show his disappointment, but Seema was too perceptive to be fooled.

Tarch's loss has affected my magic?" she asked.

"A little, perhaps. But I do feel better."

Seema's face fell.

"I'm sorry," said Atreus. "I wasn't trying to kill him."

"It is not your fault," Seema reassured him She touched his arm, and Atreus's thoughts flashed to the warmth of her lips against his. "You were very brave to try to subdue such a dangerous foe and not resort to killing. It is my own anger that has caused my magic to grow weak. In truth, I am as happy as Rishi and Yago that we did not find the devil. This has stained my soul as darkly as a death."

Atreus glanced at the sun, then said, "We still have a few hours of light Perhaps if we found him-"

That is most unlikely," Seema interrupted, waving her hand at the surrounding acres of avalanche run out. There is no telling where Tarch is buried. We found you only by following the cord tied around your waist"

Atreus could not help feeling relieved. Tarch did not strike him as the type to repay a kind act with gratitude, and the last thing he wanted was to try subduing the tailed devil again.

"Next time, well have to give a cord to Tarch," mocked Yago. The ogre rolled the bowl and cooking pot into the supply bundle, then slung it over his shoulder and turned toward the icefall. "No use worrying about it now. We got places to go, sights to see."

Seema frowned. "Atreus has been through a terrible experience," she said. "He needs food and rest"

"I'll rest better up there." Atreus looked up toward the shadowy cliffs beneath the Sisters of Serenity and said, "I couldn't possibly eat"

Now that he was so close to his goal, he could not bear the thought of stopping. His stomach was full of butterflies, his head spinning in anticipation. Whatever they found beneath the Sisters, it would not be what he expected. He had seen enough already to realize that Langdarma was not the verdant paradise he had imagined. He felt more confident than ever that they would find the Fountain of Infinite Grace. Sune had not sent him across half the world for nothing. He remembered that much from his avalanche dream.

They spent the rest of the afternoon working their way around the looming Seracs and gaping crevasses of the long icefall. Seema picked their route with extra care, at times using her dagger to chip footholds on steep or particularly slick sections. Unlike any of the glaciers they had crossed so far, this one seemed to be moving perceptibly. There was an almost constant trembling beneath their feet, and at times the crevasses actually appeared to open and close before their eyes. Once, Yago was nearly crushed when a serac crashed down between him and Rishi, and another time they waited for one to topple over and fill a crevasse they were trying to cross.

By the time they crested the fall, the sun was sinking behind the three Sisters, streaking the sky with golden veins. Seema hurried across the shadowy snow toward the edge of the glacier, leaving Atreus little opportunity to study the vale he had come so far to visit From what he could see, the basin was filled with ice, as was every valley in the high Yehimals, and shaped like a ceramic bowl gone bad on the throwing wheel. On three sides, a dark semicircle of cliffs soared up to form the separate peaks of the Sisters of Serenity. On the fourth side, the icefall they had just ascended tumbled down into the great valley below. In that stark Yehimal way, the dale was as beautiful as any he had ever seen, but there was no sign of the Fountain of Infinite Grace or of any water not already frozen.

They reached the gentle ridge of rocks that marked the edge of the glacier, and Atreus had no more time to ponder the vale. After several nights on the snow together, they no longer needed Seema's direction to perform their chores. While Yago set to work digging a snow cave, Rishi scurried along the mountainside, scouring the rocky crags for dwarf pines and snapping off dried stems to supplement their meager supply of dried yak dung. Seema busied herself lighting the butter lamps and preparing the food. Atreus retraced their steps, filling in their tracks. After dark, the wind would cover everything with a light dusting of snow and render their trail utterly invisible. Given the avalanche, he was no longer sure that such precautions were necessary, but he took them anyway. Until he knew for certain what had happened to Tarch, it would be safer to assume that the devil was still out there.

By the time Atreus returned to camp, the sun had vanished behind the Sisters and the sky had turned to purple velvet They ate a twilight dinner of lukewarm barley soup, then climbed into the snow cave and arranged themselves on the thin mattress of pine boughs. The little den was surprisingly warm. Despite Yago's thunderous snoring, the others quickly drifted into a slumber.

Atreus was too anxious to sleep. He spent the first part of the night wide awake, keeping the vent hole clear of blowing snow and worrying that Langdarma might be the myth everyone claimed. The second part he spent listening to the glaciers rumble, convincing himself he would find the valley in the morning, if he just looked carefully enough. Sune was every bit as fickle and flighty as Yago claimed, bat she was not cruel, nor given to abusing her faithful worshipers. Sometime before dawn, Atreus's racing mind finally yielded to his weariness, and he drifted off into an unsettled sleep.

When morning finally came, he woke to find himself alone, the snow cave dimly illuminated by the pale blue rays spilling through the ventilation hole. He pulled on his cloak and crawled out through the entrance tunnel, emerging into a world of golden dawn. The sun was just peeking up from behind the glacier they had descended the previous day, painting the snow-blanketed heights of the Sisters of Serenity in brilliant hues of orange and yellow. Yago and the others stood a few paces away, peering over the icefall. Atreus joined them and found himself looking down at a puff of blue mist hanging over the avalanche run out

"That's a funny looking cloud," he said.