Carol Berg - Son of Avonar

To my surprise, I endured the next few hours quite readily. We returned to our missed turning with no sign of the Dulcé, but by that time I had to stop for other reasons. One blistered heel was raw, my ankles were wobbly, and my neck felt as if someone had hung me from a meat hook. “This isn’t a place I’d choose to spend a night,” I said, “but my feet will not move another step.”

We unsaddled the horses, pulled out our blankets, and shared some bits of cheese. The horses whuffled softly as the Prince gave them each a handful of oats from our emergency stores. “I’ll take these two and go a little farther down the passage,” he said.

“Please stay close,” I said. “Proprieties are long past.”

“As you wish.” His voice was clear and comforting in the darkness.

It never came morning, of course. The absolute blackness was only relieved when D’Natheil spoke his word of magic. With his other hand he passed me a hard biscuit. “We must hurry,” he said. Even with no light to reveal the strain on his face, I could have felt the tension in him. “I don’t think our pursuers slept.”

I hadn’t slept much either. The stone passage was hard and cold, and my tangled thoughts and worries would not stop spinning and permit any decent rest. We were off in moments, on a tedious repetition of the previous day’s journey. After two hours we stopped to rest and drink. Fortune was with us, for if we hadn’t stopped in just that place, the sound of the horses’ hooves might have masked the faint moaning. We heard it at the same time, and D’Natheil strengthened his light so we could see into the side passage.

Baglos lay in a crumpled heap at the base of a sizable step down from the main passageway. The Prince jumped down and knelt beside him, listening for breath, examining the Dulcé‘s limbs. Soon he rolled the Dulcé to his back, revealing a bloody scrape on his forehead. “Seems he’s only knocked his head a bit.”

I tossed the Prince a wineskin and a rag to clean the injury, and then clambered down beside him. No sooner had I knelt beside Baglos and dribbled a little wine on his lips than his dark eyes popped open, darting quickly from my face to that of the Prince.

“What have you done to yourself, Dulcé?” said D’Natheil.

I poured a little wine on the rag and began sponging the wound.

“Ah, my lord…” Baglos snatched the cloth from me, pressing it to his head as he pushed himself up to sitting. “Please, woman, I can take care of this. I am good for little else, it seems, but causing delay.”

“We feared you were lost,” said the Prince.

“I… was feeling ill. The incident of the morning in the river, the long climb in the heat. Ah, my lord, I was shamed and I could not—Well, I wished to maintain some dignity before you. So I held back until I had recovered, believing there would be no divided way until we emerged from the tunnel. I assumed I could follow your light, but I could not catch up with you no matter how fast I traveled. I came dizzy once more and thought to myself that I ought to wait until I had more sense about me before proceeding. But like the fool I am, I stumbled down this step…

“You’re fortunate that it wasn’t one of the pits we’ve seen in some of these side passages,” said D’Natheil. “And we’re fortunate also,” he added, before the Dulcé could reply.

“Bless you, my lord. You should leave me. I’ve caused nothing but difficulty.”

“I don’t think the Heir can proceed without his Guide.” D’Natheil displayed remarkable patience. “You will fulfill your mission, Dulcé.”

Baglos bowed his head, but not before I noted that his expression was quite at odds with his demeanor. His shame and apology sounded quite sincere, but he was not at all flustered. His almond-shaped eyes were sharp, and his face filled with determination and sorrow. I had always considered the Dulcé a simple, shallow man who wore his feelings and beliefs quite openly, one whose oddly constrained intelligence obscured nothing but a good heart. Yet in that moment his expression carried such conflicting stories that I began to think that perhaps he was more complex than he seemed. Though determined to continue this journey, he was afraid of its ending.

Well, so was I, I thought, as I watched the Prince help Baglos to his feet and boost him over the tall step in the rock. More so by the day. How could a man change so rapidly as D’Natheil? I could no more envision the Prince striking Baglos as he had once done than I could imagine myself embracing Evard.

Polestar was nowhere to be found. The Prince tried to summon him as he had the previous day, but after a quarter of an hour with no sign of the beast, we dared wait no longer. He insisted that Baglos ride the chestnut. Baglos protested, vowing unending humiliation. After what I’d seen of his private feelings, I wondered at his true sentiments.

Two more hours of slow progress and I felt a slight movement in the dead air. I lifted my face and hurried my steps. In a few moments more, the Prince allowed his light to die, and ten steps later we stood on the southern doorstep of Mount Kassarain, inhaling cool, thin air. We laughed and made jests about adventurers who feared caves or made wrong turns or stumbled off steps. Pursuit and uncertain destiny were momentarily forgotten in our delight at being in the open.

We stood high on the mountainside, overlooking a lush meadow of rocks and flowers, laced with tumbling streams, a green gem set into the harsh framework of the mountains. At the meadow’s eastern end the streams converged into fretting rapids that vanished into a bottomless, blue-white vista of gentle forested hillsides. To the west a faint track traversed a grassy slope and led deeper into the heart of the rugged peaks. But on every other side the grass yielded to boulder-strewn slopes and barren cliffs that offered no passage. We let the horses graze for a while.

Soon, D’Natheil was ready to press on. Urgency and excitement burned in his eyes as he peered into the west. “It’s there, ahead of us. I feel it.”

I climbed onto Firethorn. Baglos mounted the chestnut behind D’Natheil. The path led us from our high perch down through the flowered meadow, where blue, yellow and white blooms stood higher than the horses’ knees, and then across the velvet slope that funneled us into a narrow, grass-floored valley. Though easy and pleasant at first, the valley trail quickly became so steep and rocky it was difficult to pick out a good path.

Banners of wind-driven snow flew from the highest mountaintops, filmy white trailers against the intense blue of the sky. The air grew colder and thinner. By early afternoon the cold wind gusting in our faces made it impossible to distinguish the swirling banners from the clouds gathering over the icy peaks.

Another hour and D’Natheil halted in front of a short wall of massive boulders that stretched the width of the gorge. “We’ll have to leave the horses,” he said. “A foot trail hugs the wall on the right, but the beasts won’t be able to manage it.”

I didn’t ask him how he knew. His movements and words were abrupt, and I found myself looking over my shoulder, expecting to see our empty-eyed pursuers bearing down on us. If Baglos and I didn’t hurry, the Prince would go on without us. I dismounted, pulled my cloak tight about me, and made sure the journal was in my pocket.

“What should we carry with us, my lord?” asked Baglos. He, too, was anxious.

“Don’t burden yourself heavily, Dulcé. Food and drink for a day. I don’t think it will be a concern beyond that.”

The Prince rubbed Sunlight’s head and spoke to him softly. When I declared myself ready and Baglos had shouldered a small pack, D’Natheil slapped the horse’s rump and the beast trotted back the way we’d come, Firethorn close behind. “They’ll go back to the grass and wait for you,” said D’Natheil.