Carol Berg - Son of Avonar

Once I rounded the corner, the rumbling that had grown louder at each step of the ascent became a roar, and even the fearsome aspect of the ledge path faded into insignificance when I beheld the source of the noise. At the end of the gorge was a towering cliff of red and gray, the granite base of the ice pinnacles that stretched as far as I could see in every direction, so close that I felt I could reach out and grab a handful of snow from each one of them. From a seam in the cliff sprang a waterfall that dived in thundering splendor to the valley floor so far below us that the river was but a narrow ribbon. The afternoon sun sparkled on the spray that wreathed the falls, bridging the end of the gorge with a perfect double rainbow.

D’Natheil was stopped a few paces ahead of me. “It has to be there, does it not?”

“I believe so,” I said. His words eerily reflected my own thoughts. No J’Ettanne could have resisted the call of such beauty.

“Perhaps I was sent just for this. I’ve never seen the like.” Behind his wonder echoed such lonely sadness as would soften stone.

“Demon-spirited beast! Black-hearted wretch!” The cries came from behind us. Baglos stood just on our side of the overhang, looking back through the treacherous corner and waving his hands. Polestar was nowhere to be seen.

“Baglos, what’s happened?” I called.

“The wicked son of a Zhid is most likely halfway back to Yennet.” The Dulcé trudged up the steep path toward us. “The turning at the boulder was fearsome. I dismounted so as to walk, and the beast shied. Pulled the reins right out of my hand. Oh, my lord prince, what an incompetent fool they have sent you as Guide.”

I could not disagree. One look at the long, steep track that lay in front of us told how near impossible was our position. Even if D’Natheil or I were to take Baglos up to ride double, almost all of our food was on its way to Yennet. Right into the arms of the Zhid. Everything… “Baglos, was the journal still in your pack?”

The Dulcé looked as if he were going to be sick.

“Most unfortunate,” said D’Natheil.

“More than unfortunate,” I said. “I can remember the clues and the map, but what if there’s more we need from it? What if we’ve made the wrong interpretation and must begin again?” The stupid, clumsy fool.

“I know only one way to get it back quickly,” said D’Natheil.

Sorcery, of course. Calling Polestar back to us. “I can’t tell you to take such a risk.”

“The journal must not fall into the hands of those behind us. Even if by some chance what I do doesn’t bring them down on us, they would eventually decipher it. It might tell them what we would not.”

Baglos was silent and anxious through all of this, clutching his hands to his breast, his dark eyes flicking from the Prince to me.

As he had on the hillside next to the ruined castle, D’Natheil closed his eyes, made a small movement of his fingers, and whispered the horse’s name. Then he sat down on the trail to wait, drinking from his waterskin and dangling his feet over the stomach-churning drop to the rift floor. I was more comfortable close by the cliff wall and was too unsettled to sit down anyway.

Before very long, the black horse emerged sedately from the shadowed overhang, as if sauntering from the pasture into the stable for his evening oats. As we mounted up to be on our way, D’Natheil’s shoulders sagged.

“Are you well?” I asked.

He shook his head, leaning on the horse for a moment before wearily pulling himself into the saddle. “We’re being followed again.”

Though D’Natheil laid no word of reproach on him, Baglos said very little. He rode stiffly, eyes forward, his volatile emotions for once held close.

As the afternoon sun baked the weeping cliff wall, it was difficult to recall our shivering of the morning. The ascent seemed painfully slow, especially now the enemy was on our trail again.

Late in the afternoon we came to the waterfall, the last steep ascent leveling off into a wide shelf that extended to the very brink of the thundering cascade. I slumped down in the shade, reveling in the cold spray. Baglos, his black hair and beard dusted with the droplets, shouted to be heard above the roar. “What now? Have we come the wrong way? I see no further path.”

“It must be that way,” said D’Natheil, pointing to a rocky chute that led to the cliff tops far above us. The chute was even steeper than the last bit we had just done and was slick with the spray of the falls. In no wise could the horses negotiate it. It would be treacherous enough for human hands and feet.

“Should not the next clue point our way?” asked Baglos. When the wall births the flood, it is wiser to be the rabbit than the fish or the goat. “What could it mean? It seems to fit—at least the part about the wall birthing the flood.”

“I see no choice of directions here,” said D’Natheil. “The divided way must be above us, where we would have the opportunity to cross the river like a fish, or climb again like a goat, or take some other way. The ‘rabbit” way, whatever that is.“

I could not imagine the J’Ettanne using the path up that steep chute. They would have wanted the fortress approaches secure, yes. Secret, yes. Secluded, yes. But not impossible. Examination of the shelf revealed no evidence of a bridge to the other side of the gorge, where there looked to be easier ways up.

Baglos was already fussing about the packs and mumbling to himself about what we would need to carry, and what must be left behind with the horses, and was it not ironic that so soon after bringing on danger by recalling Polestar, we must abandon the beasts and send them back down the path. When he pulled out the journal, I snatched it from his small hand and stuffed it in my pocket. I would not risk losing it again.

Discouraged, I sat by the wall munching a piece of dry bread. D’Natheil sat beside me, his gaze following an eagle that soared on the warm updrafts over the falls. “Perhaps it’s time I went on alone,” he said quietly.

“Don’t you dare—”

“Foolish, I know, to think you’d allow it. You’d throw your horse at me before riding him down that hill, wouldn’t you?”

The nicker of amusement in the Prince’s face rapidly doused my indignation. “Exactly right.”

“I most sincerely do not like dragging you into this… whatever it is that will happen. And not because you are female or incompetent. On the contrary”—his eyes traced the lines of my face—“I think this world would lose much of its richness if you were not a part of it.” He reddened a little and shifted his gaze back to the waterfall.

“Thank you,” I said. A stupid, priggish response, but I could think of none other. I should laugh and dismiss it by teasing him—and teasing myself even more. Only a few weeks had passed since I was trying to decide how to be rid of him. Only days since I had admitted that anything about him sparked feelings beyond annoyance or pity. He changed so rapidly, as if every day the previous day’s persona was sloughed off like an unwanted skin to reveal a new character and manner.

As we sat there, D’Natheil in embarrassment and I in confusion, a rock-mouse scurried from some unseen crevice near the edge of the falls and picked up a crumb that had fallen from my bread. When I shifted my leg to let it come closer, it skittered off to the brink of the falls and disappeared into the spray. I berated myself for my clumsy movement, sure the tiny creature had been swept away in its hasty flight, but in moments it was back, damp but undaunted, searching for another treasure to add to its horde.

“Where did you come from?” I said, as it scuttered back the way it had come. Curious, I crawled toward the curtain of water.