Dennis McKiernan - Into the fire

But when they returned to the camp and then walked to the ford, they discovered the river had risen even more, and the crossing was wider than ever.

"It has not crested as yet," growled Bekki.

"Maybe it never will," replied Tip, looking at the glum sky above.

Although it did not rain the following day, still the waters rose even farther, encroaching up the bank and toward the campsite. And in their ride downstream they found no narrow place.

"If this keeps up," said Tip, "we'll never get to the gwynthyme."

"Tomorrow it is a raft we begin crafting," said Bekki.

"Have you ever made one?" asked Tip.

Bekki shook his head and said, "Nay, I have not. Even so, how hard can it be?"

Using nought but Bekki's small handaxe, it took all day to fell three trees nigh the riverbank and trim away the branches.

"At this rate, Bekki, we'll be a week or so just building a float."

Glumly, Bekki nodded.

Tip sighed. "Mayhap instead of waiting a week we ought to set out for the Kaagor Ferry on the morrow. Oh my, that will add nigh another month of travel just to get to the gwynthyme. It's a good thing we included time for unexpected delay, for delay this certainly is. Even so, with another wait, we could miss the golden days of the mint altogether." He got to his feet and took up his bow and quiver and said, "I think I'll go check on the ford again."

Bekki caught up his war hammer and shield. "I will go with you."

As they approached the flooded crossing, Tip frowned. "I say, Bekki, has the water receded? I seem to recall it was past that boulder, but now it doesn't quite reach it."

Bekki stepped down to the water's edge and peered at the distant far side. Then, casting about, he took up a rock the size of his fist and set it down at the brink of the water. "There. In the morning we shall know."

"Unless someone moved the rock in the night, the river is receding," said Tip, smiling.

In the wan morning light the river flowed past, the water a good two yards down the shallow bank from the stone.

Bekki nodded. "Aye. The Argon has waxed and now wanes."

"How soon do you gauge we can cross?" asked Tipperton.

Bekki shrugged. "Let us lay another stone down and see where it stands tomorrow, and then we can judge."

As Bekki carried another rock to the river's edge, Tip looked up the shoreline toward where the logs lay. "Are we going to continue on the raft?"

Bekki's hand strayed to the small axe at his belt. "Let us wait and see."

Tip grinned but remained silent.

On the eighth morning after arriving at the unnamed ford, Tip and Bekki crossed over, the slow-moving water belly high on the ponies. Yet no steed was swept from its feet, much to Bekki's relief.

As they rode away from the northern bank, Tip looked back across the river. "Making a raft, how hard can it be? Mighty hard, if you want my opinion."

"Especially with nought but a handaxe," growled Bekki.

Up and out from the river valley they rode, up through the river border forest and toward the Grimwalls glimpsed now and then through the woodland, the mighty range towering in the distance, their peaks snowcapped.

And still the days were glum and chill, the sun weak, as if autumn had come, even though it was but early August.

"Do you think there's dust yet in the sky, Bekki, shielding us from Adon's warmth?"

"The air is always sharp nigh the Grimwall, Tipperton, though it seems more so these days."

Onward they rode, and toward evening it began to rain down in the foothills where they were, though high in the mountains snow fell instead.

A sevenday after crossing the ford they came to a large lake embraced in the arms of the mountains. Its waters were cloudy blue and wide; its distant shore fetched up against a steep rise in the land some thirty miles afar.

"Nordlake," grunted Bekki, his breath blowing white in the chill air.

"Home of the Vattenvidunder, eh?" said Tip, peering at the broad expanse.

Bekki merely snorted.

"All right," said Tip, "where is this set of cliffs holding the gwynthyme?"

Bekki pointed. Past the far side of the lake and up the slope of land, a stone massif on a mountain flank rose sheer. Vertical it was, and tall, and topped by a broad ledge, or so Bekki had said. Beyond the ledge the mountain rose again "Two or three days yon, if indeed it is gwyn-thyme growing in the crevices."

"Lor', Bekki, we're not going to have to climb up that, are we?"

Bekki laughed. "Nay, Tipperton. The face of that great bluff is more than a mile high, a mile or so up to the shelf above, where we will set camp among the wide stretch of aspens. A trail leads upward the ponies can manage, and that is how we will get there. Nay, we will not climb up that sheer face, but dangle downward instead, hanging on ropes and rock-nails."

A mile? A mile high? Even from this distance Tip could tell that the face they would be on was straight up and down. His stomach squinched and his heart thudded deep in his chest, and he wondered if he could force himself to dangle on nought but a spindly rope down that vertical stone.

Onward they rode, and that night they camped beside the waters of Nordlake.

Under a glum sky the next morning, when filling the waterskins Bekki said, "Huah, the lake was clearer some years back when last I saw it, but cloudy now."

"Perhaps the dust fell here, too," said Tip.

"Aye, that must be it."

On they rode and on, following the shoreline of the great lake, the mountains ahead seeming to draw no closer. Once again they spent a night along the shore.

The next day they rode in among the foothills north of the lake, the vertical massif in the distance ahead seeming to grow taller, its stone grey and brown, the grey matching the grey of the sky above.

As they topped a hill, Tip halted his pony and peered long and finally called to Bekki, "I say, isn't that something pale yellow way high? Or is it tan stone instead?"

Bekki stopped his steed and shaded his eyes and finally said, "Yellow, I ween."

"Flowers, do you think? Gwynthyme blossoms?"

Bekki shrugged.

"Oh, I do hope so," said Tip, "for if it is, then there's a great crop up there."

Bekki grunted and replied, "Pray to Elwydd it is gwynthyme and not yellow oxeye daisies."

That evening they camped at the foot of the trail leading toward the top of the mile-high cliff. The length of the perpendicular bluff itself ran to the east for perhaps ten miles and towered into the sky; sheer it was, with long vertical ripples running down the drop of the stone face, now glowing bloodred in the setting sun.

Tip peered at the vast expanse and shuddered, but whether from fear of what was to come or from the chill air, he could not say.

It was raining the next morning as they twisted and turned up the narrow trail, Bekki riding in the lead, two pack ponies trailing, then Tipperton came after on his steed with two pack ponies following him as well. At times they dismounted and took to foot to give the ponies a breather, and at other times they stopped altogether, giving all a rest. But soon they would continue onward, climbing the steep, winding trail; and the higher they gained, the sheerer the drop to the right, and the closer to the left fared Tip, his heart racing at the thought of the fall but a pace or so away.

Yet at last nigh the noontide, the rain stopped just as they came to the top of the bluff and into an aspen woodland, the green leaves trembling and dripping water in the drift of cold air sliding down from the white mountain slopes far above, where more snow had fallen instead of rain.

"Let us ride onward," said Bekki, "five miles or so, to the midpoint atop the massif, to my campsite of old. Then we will look for the golden flowers."

"All right," said Tip, his breath coming easy now that he was surrounded by trees on all sides.