David Zindell - The Lightstone

Ymiru's sudden melancholy, which fell upon him like an ice-fog, seemed to evaporate the following morning when the Elders and many of the Ymanir again gathered in the great square to wish us farewell. He had girded himself for our journey, strapping onto his back a huge pack and taking into his hand the great borkor that had felled many of his enemies. As well, he had taken on the task of leading the thirty Ymanir guards who would escort us from Alundil; now he was all business and bluff good cheer, checking the guards' loads, calling out commands in his thundering voice. He moved about with an almost frenetic activity, with the air of a captain who is certain of victory. His new mood, that sunny morning, was that of his people. They swarmed around us, cheering and calling out encouragements.

When it came time for us to set out, they formed up on either side of us like living mountains of fur. Down one of Alundil's broad avenues, as through a valley, we passed between them as they cast sprigs of laurel at us and sang out their prayers.

We left Alundil by way of a great road leading through the valley to the south of the city. Here, along the banks of the blue Ostrand, were many fields planted with barley, rye, potatoes and other hardy crops. 1 rode on top of Altaru, leading the line of my friends on their mounts. And the Ymanir led us. With Ymiru at their head, our guard marched along with huge strides, matching the pace of our horses. For a moment, I wished that these thirty giants might accompany us all the way to Argattha where they might simply batter down its gates with their huge clubs.

Some miles outside of the city, where the farms gave way to forests and wilder country, we turned onto a side road leading east toward what seemed a break in the mountains. As Altaru carried me forward, I searched the undulations of the sharp white peaks very carefully, measuring angles and distances with my eye, trying to see with my mind's eye how the terrain into which we were journeying would unfold.

And then it came time for me to look no more. Ymiru halted our company and asked us to dismount. He brought out the same blindfolds that had covered our eyes on our passage into Alundil. Now we must wear them again, so that if by ill fete we were captured, we might tell of Alundil's existence but not the way into it.

Thus we walked blind as bats for the rest of the day. As on our approach to Alundil we each had one of the Ymanir to guide us. I had worried that the presence and the smoky smell of so many men who stood almost as high as great white bears might spook the horses. But men are men, not beasts, and the horses knew this well enough. They accepted the Ymanir as they might any people. But the Ymanir did not easily accept them. They were unused to horses, and the idea of riding an animal disturbed them deeply. As Ymiru put it, ‘The hrorse was made with four legs to flee from lions and wolves, not to bear a man's weight when his two legs have grown too tired.' It was, I thought, a strange and compassionate way to look at the world.

I worried that the horses would have a hard time crossing the mountains ahead of us.

There might be places there, on steep slopes of scree or sheer rock, where two legs

– and two hands – would be much better than four. But if Ymiru shared my concern, he showed no sign of it. Neither did he discuss the route that he intended to take out of Elivagar and into Sakai. I wondered if he might be reluctant to tell of this in front his countrymen, who didn't really need to know it. I wondered, too, if he simply wished to spare us the imagining of its terrors.

It was disquieting and uncomfortable walking along with a piece of cloth wrapped around my eyes. It would be terrible, I thought, to be truly blind. And yet, with the negation of this most vital of the senses, I became more aware of my others. The road led up a winding way through a forest into the mountains. I felt this steep gradient through the angle of my feet as I felt the air growing colder and colder with every yard higher we climbed. The wind on my face carried scents of spruce, feather fir and new- flowers that I had never smelled before. I listened to the sweet cheer-lee churr of what sounded like a bluebird and to the bellows and whistles of the elk from deeper in the woods. And then my senses drove deeper, and I dwelled on the pull of Ymiru's hand against mine and the rushing of the breath from his lips. My heart told me that he was hiding something in his great, booming heart, keeping from us some dark secret that he didn't want us to know.

We made camp that night by a little river, where it pooled just beneath a waterfall. It seemed a lovely place, with the smell of spray off the rocks and some nearby yarrow perfuming the air. All of us, I knew, longed to take off our blindfolds and look upon it. But this Ymiru would not permit. Neither would he let us gather wood for a fire or cook our meal. He assigned his countrymen these chores and others. He left only the care of the horses to us. Even a blind man, I thoughts as I patted Altaru's neck, could comb down a horse or hold a bag of oats to his eager lips.

The next day we set out early and spent most of the morn-ing climbing over a snow-steeped pass. There were turnings and twistings to our route – and risings and fallings, too. But mostly risings: we climbed beneath a bright sun into cold air that grew thinner and thinner as the mountain beneath us thrust itself up into the sky. We plowed through snowdrifts up to our thighs; in places, we slipped upon ice-glazed rocks. But Ymiru's guidance, and that of the Ymanir who had my other companions' hands, proved steady and true. That night we found shelter in yet another of the stone huts that the Ymanir had built through the high country of their land On our third day out from Alundil, we wound our way down into a; deep valley before climbing I fagged ridgeline that led to yet another pass. We crested this cleft between two mountains late in the afternoon. After making our way down through the snow past a field of scree. Ymiru found a shelf on the mountain's east slope where he called for a halt and a rest. He also called for our blindfolds to be removed.

As on our approach to Alundil, the sudden touch of the sun dazzled our eyes. It was quite a few moments before our sight returned to us. When I again managed to make out the world's forms, I saw that that a high valley lay below us. All around us were the sculpted white peaks of mountains as far as the eye could see.

We said goodbye to our escort, there on that cold mountain. Maram. who had come to appreciate the comfort of these thirty giants, did not want to see them leave. Two of them especially, Lodur and a young man named Asklin, he had befriended on our journey through Elivagar. After clasping hands with them and watching them march off with the others, he sighed and said, 'I don't understand why they can't accompany us to Argattha. They would be a great strength.'

Ymiru stood with his furry feet splayed out upon the snow. He nodded at the line of his retreating countrymen and said, 'Their numbers might prove a weakness rather than a strength. Above all else, on our way through Sakai, we must avoid being detected. If we are, it won't matter if we are thirty times thirty.'

'Besides,' Atara reminded him, 'the prophecy spoke of the seven brothers and sisters of the earth – not their thirty brothers as well.'

With the hour fallen so late, we hastened our descent down the mountain. Even so, we were forced to make camp fairly high up, barely within the shelter of the trees that blanketed the mountain's lower slopes. But at least there was no snow beneath the swaying spruces, and we found some level ground where we laid out our sleeping furs. When the wind rose later that night and it grew cold, we had a good crackling fire to warm us – as well as the thick coats that Hrothmar's daughters had made for us.