Troy Denning - Faces of Deception

This is the best you can do, Goddess?" He dropped the shredded map into the snow. "You expect me to desert Yago to be beautiful inside?"

The sun vanished behind the looming mountain, once again plunging Atreus into the frozen shadows of the clef ting.

"You're what?" growled Yago. The ogre stood shoulder-deep in his trench, glaring up at Atreus in slack-jawed disbelief.

"I'm going home," Atreus replied, squatting down to help his friend out of the hole. It was less than an hour after his revelation in the sun, and already the bottom of the clef ting was as cold as night "Come on."

Yago did not take the offered hand. "Already?" the ogre asked.

Atreus shrugged. "Seema was right," he said. "Langdarma is a myth."

The ogre eyed Atreus warily.

"They've been telling you that since Edenvale. Why believe them now?"

Atreus gestured at the icy wall behind them and said, "The glacier. If Langdarma ever existed, it's gone now."

Yago shook his head. "You said yourself there was a trick to it," he reminded Atreus. The ogre stooped down and returned to his digging, his voice becoming hollow and tinny. This isn't like you, giving up so easy."

"Don't!" Atreus leaped into the trench, grabbed the ogre's arm, and said, "Do you want me to say it? You were right Sune never meant to make me handsome. She just wanted me out of her church."

Yago frowned, pondering Atreus's words, then grew sad and covered his friend's shoulder with his big hand. "Well pay a visit to that fickle sow's temple when we get back," he promised, "and teach her a thing or two about making promises she don't keep."

"You'd do that for me, I know, but this thing's ugly enough," Atreus said, pointing at his own face. "I don't want it known as the face that started a war."

Yago sighed and boosted Atreus up to the lowest of the boulders above their heads, then they clambered out of the clef ting. Even in the shadow of the middle Sister's looming cliffs, the air was much warmer than down in the chasm. This did little to cheer Atreus, who merely motioned for fee others to follow and started down the slope. The glacier below was still blinding white with the sun's afternoon reflection. With any luck, they could cross it and be well past the icefall before the evening shadows came.

Seema quickly caught up to him. "What did you find?" she asked.

"What you said I would," replied Atreus. "Nothing."

She frowned and said, "I said that you would find Langdarma inside. Did you not say you had after the avalanche?"

"I said a lot of things," Atreus replied. "I was half dead."

Seema shook her head. "No," she said. "I saw ft in your eyes. You had seen it"

"Is it there now?" Atreus stopped and glared down at her and pressed, "Do you still see it?"

"No," Seema said as she backed away, her face growing pale. "I see only that you are angry with me."

The sight of Seema's alarm shamed Atreus. Her kindness had lulled him into forgetting that he was a monster, that on his face any sign of ire took on the appearance of a mortal threat He willed his face to relax and started down the slope again.

"I am angry, yes, but not with you," he said gently. "Without you, I would have gotten myself and my friends killed a dozen times. My anger is with my goddess and with myself for being fool enough to believe her."

"There is no reason to be angry with either," said Seema "You have seen Langdarma. If you look inside, you will find it again."

"I'm not interested in what's inside." Atreus could not keep the bitterness out of his voice. "I came to change what is on the outside."

Seema shook her head sadly and said, "You have forgotten everything."

"What have I forgotten? That I must change inside before I can change outside? I have heard that a thousand times, but I am done playing Sune's fool. I'll always have this face… no matter how I feel about it."

"That is true," said Seema.

"It is not what Sune promised. She deceived me."

Seema fell silent and looked away. They reached the bottom of the slope, stepped out onto the sunny part of the glacier, and began to wind their way through a labyrinth of boulders and crevasses toward the icefall. With the full sun beating down on their backs, the four companions soon grew so hot that they removed their cloaks and made poor Yago carry them in the supply bundle. The glare was unbearable. Even squinting, it made their eyes burn and sent daggers of pain shooting through their heads.

After a time, Seema returned to walk at Atreus's side. "It is not always cruel, you know," she told him.

"What isn't?"

"Deceiving," Seema answered. "Sometimes it is done for a person's own good."

This wasn't Sune didn't have to send me across the world to prove I would always be ugly. I was pretty sure of that already."

"Perhaps that is not why she sent you," suggested Seema. "Perhaps she sent you to learn that you are not ugly."

Atreus glared down at her. Thanks for trying," he said, "but I'm done with fables… and you're only making things worse.

Seema's head snapped away as though struck, and Atreus instantly regretted his words. He had not intended to hurt the healer's feelings, and he was not quite sure how he had. Most of the time, people were relieved to hear him acknowledge his hideous-ness. It freed them of the uncomfortable burden of pretending to find him attractive. Seema, on the other hand, had reacted as though he had called her ugly. Atreus thought the matter over a while longer, then shrugged. Perhaps she had just seen something particularly unpleasant in his face.

Seema did not speak again until they reached the edge of the icefall, where the little glacier filled the air with groans and crackles as it spilled down to the main valley.

The afternoon can be a treacherous time to descend the fall," she said. "We could just as easily wait until morning, if you want to have a last look around the basin."

"Oh no, there is nothing to be gained by that," said Rishi. When the others frowned at his outburst, he cringed and added, "I mean to say, are we not running low on food? It will be difficult enough to retrace our steps with the little we have."

"There's always you," suggested Yago.

Rishi's eyes widened, and then he showed his teeth in an uneasy grin. "You are making a joke," Rishi said hopefully. "Very funny."

The ogre looked toward Atreus, his brow furrowed as though confused, and asked, "What's he mean?"

Rishi paled and began to back away, and Seema regarded the ogre with a look previously reserved only for Tarch. Atreus chuckled, the only one to realize that Yago was still mocking the little Mar.

"Relax, Rishi, we'll be back in the Five Kingdoms long before Yago gets that hungry."

Atreus studied the avalanche run out at the base of the icefall. There was no longer a cloud of vapor hanging over its surface, and he could see an icy, funnel-shaped hole where Tarch had melted his way out of the snow. The sooner we get down from here, the better," Atreus added. "I fear I've put us at risk already."

Atreus pointed down at Tarch's escape hole.

Seema gasped and Rishi moaned. Yago simply removed Atreus's chain from the supply bundle and passed it forward. They spent a few minutes searching for their foe in the maze of seracs and crevasses below and finally gave up. Seema led them over to the edge of the glacier and started to pick a direct route down, reasoning that since they had not seen the tailed devil yet, he must be following their old trail up the middle of the icefall.

A day in the sun had made slush of much of the ice. Although it was easy to kick steps in the steep sections, their feet were soon numb from the wet cold. They began to stumble and slip, even on relatively steady footing. Once, they nearly lost Yago when he slid fifty paces and slammed into a serac, toppling it over in the opposite direction. Both Rishi and Atreus had close calls when the stash gave way beneath their boots and sent them gliding toward deep crevasses. As frightening as these mishaps were, none of them were as unnerving as the all-too-frequent boom of a falling ice block. Several times, they felt the glacier jump with the impact of a nearby monolith, and once they were showered with ice chips from behind. It did not take long before they began to worry less about Tarch than thawing seracs.