Troy Denning - Faces of Deception

"We were just observing the same thing," said Rishi. "Strange how it hangs over the debris of yesterday's avalanche, is it not?"

"It is too cold for a ground fog," added Seema. "It can only have something to do with Tarch."

Atreus recalled the tongue of flame the slave master had used on the barge. "Could he be melting his way out of the avalanche?"

No one answered, and Atreus knew they were all thinking the same thing. The basin beneath the Sisters of Serenity was both small and a dead end. If Tarch caught them there escape would be impossible.

Finally, Yago turned to Seema. "At least you don't have to feel guilty about him being dead," he half joked.

Seema shook her head. "We do not know that he is alive," she said. "Who can say what happens to a devil's body when he dies? Perhaps it burns up."

"Well?" Atreus asked Rishi. "You've traveled the slave road before."

Rishi shrugged. "In my experience, the devils from beyond never die," he said heavily, "only those who cross them."

Atreus stared down at the avalanche run out, recalling how swiftly his utter helplessness had been transformed into unconsciousness. He faced Seema and said, "Even if Tarch survived, he hasn't melted his way out yet There may still be time for you and Rishi to reach the other side of the valley."

"And you?" she asked.

Atreus looked back toward the barren cliffs beneath the Sisters, then shook his head. "I've come too far," he said. "if Tarch kills me, he kills me, but I'm not leaving."

"Then I will stay, too." Seema smiled, then added, "Do you think I am the kind of girl you can kiss and send away?"

Atreus felt the heat rise to his cheeks. He turned away before the blush could further mottle his blotchy complexion, disguising the maneuver by drawing Sune's map from within his cloak and pretending to study features he already knew by heart According to the chart the little basin before him was a hanging meadow at the upper end of Langdarma, surrounded on three sides by the sheer cliffs of the Sisters of Serenity. In the back of the basin, almost directly beneath the peak of the middle Sister, was the ladder symbol, leading to a narrow switchback trail that was the only route into the meadow from the surrounding mountains.

As far as Atreus could see, the only semblance between the map and the area before him were the sheer cliffs and the general shape of the basin. The meadow, of course, was buried under the small glacier that spilled down the icefall, and the main valley of Langdarma was supposed to start about where the avalanche run out lay. It occurred to Atreus that perhaps Langdarma had been scoured away by glaciers hundreds of years before, but he quickly chased the thought from his mind. Surely, a goddess could not be guilty of such a terrible mistake.

Atreus pointed across the valley toward the base of the middle Sister. There, the glacier sloped up to a dark line that marked the chasm where the ice pulled away from the mountain. "That is where we need to go."

Seema arched her delicate eyebrows. The clef ting?" She snatched the map from Atreus's hands, studied it warily, and said, "What are we to do there?"

Atreus shrugged. "I don't know." he said. "Look around… see what we find. None of this is what I expected."

Atreus's confusion seemed to relieve Seema. She returned his map, and they gathered their things and set off. Although the glacier was relatively flat across most of the basin, they had to wind their way through a labyrinth of newly opened crevasses and listing boulders, all the while watching their back trail for Tarch. The short journey seemed to take forever, and by the time they reached the head of the glacier, Atreus could no longer bear Seema's slow, deliberate pace. He slipped past Yago and Rishi and would have taken the lead himself had Seema not increased her own pace and left him panting for breath. When they finally reached the clef ting, he collapsed gasping on the steep slope, his arms draped over the brink of the chasm and his eyes staring down into its frigid depths.

He saw nothing but a rubble-choked fissure fifty feet deep, crammed with drifting snow and jagged boulders fallen from the soaring cliffs above. He continued to stare, panting for breath, trying to see paradise in the debris below. Seema sat on the brink beside him and rested her hand on his shoulder. Atreus's heart grew as heavy as stone. The healer's touch was the only hint of Langdarma to be found in this basin.

"I am sorry," she said.

Atreus felt himself starting to sink into despair, but shook his head against the feeling and stood. "No," he said, "there is no need for sorrow. This is the place. I just have to look harder."

He removed the map from his cloak and craned his neck to look up, trying locate himself in relation to the summit of the middle Sister. It was a futile task, as it was impossible to see the top of any peak from so close to its bottom. Atreus did notice a band of dark granite that he recalled being almost directly below the pinnacle. He began to work his way along the brink of the clef ting, glancing back and forth between the map and the cliff face. Seema followed along, struggling to peer over his shoulder and see what he was looking for.

Rishi and Yago clambered up the slope behind them and peered down into the clef ting. The ogre grunted derisively.

"You call that beautiful? Give me a good cave any day."

Atreus ignored him and stopped when he came to the dark granite a dozen paces later. The clef ting here was narrow and drifted over, so it was impossible to tell where the glacier ended and the chasm began. Atreus put his map away, then dropped to his hands and knees and began to dig away the wind-packed snow. An exhausting half-hour later, he finally located the edge of the glacier and started to tunnel down into the clef ting.

Yago kneeled beside him and began to rip jagged blocks of snow from the hole. "What's the plan?" the ogre asked. To dig our way into Langdarma?"

"If we have to," answered Atreus. "There's supposed to be a trail somewhere winder here. If we can find it-"

A hole suddenly opened under Yago's hands. He bellowed and tumbled forward, flailing has arms in an effort to catch himself, but the drift collapsed beneath his weight and fell into the clef ting, carrying the ogre along with it

Atreus started to plummet after his friend but was saved when Rishi caught hold of his collar. For an instant, no one reacted, stunned by the reminder of just how quickly disaster could come in the Yehimals.

An angry voice bellowed out of the clef ting, "What are… you waiting for?" Yago sounded as though he were having trouble breathing. "If you think this is fun… think again!"

Atreus clawed his way back to the chasm brink and peered over the edge. Like the rest of the clef ting, this part was choked with boulders, many wedged at various heights down the fissure. Twenty-five feet below, the bottom lay bidden under the heaped remnants of the collapsed snowdrift. It took a few moments to find Yago's head protruding out of the snow in the shadow of a huge rock. The rest of the ogre remained completely buried. He was working his chin back and forth, trying to scrape himself out of the snow, but it would dearly be a long time before he could dig himself free.

"Are you hurt?" Seema called.

"Hurt? Of course not!" he said indignantly. The ogre began to chin the snow more furiously. Like most proud Shield-breaker warriors, Yago considered pain a sign of weakness. "I'm just stock!"

"Stop whining, or well leave you there!" called Atreus, relieved.

"Whining?" Yago boomed. "Who's whining?"

"Who do you think?"

Atreus took a moment to pick a route, swung his legs over the brink of the chasm, and dropped eight feet down to the first snow-capped boulder. When his boots slipped on the landing, he simply jumped to the next one, then bounced down to a third and dropped into the soft snow a few paces from his friend's head.