"How do we get across?"

"Magic," he answered, putting his arm around her waist. "Don't wriggle."

"I'm all yours, love," she said lightly, putting her arms around his neck.

After scanning the skies to make sure nothing could see them, Tarrin set about the task of getting across. It was a simple matter to weave a bridge of Air across, but it angled down, and the bridge had no friction to give the Were-cat traction. He ended up having to slide down his ramp carefully, and activated his belt just before jumping over onto the snow. The snow took his weight completely, and he didn't leave so much as a clawmark in the snow. But unlike the water, the rough surface of the water gave the pads on his feet good traction. Jesmind's foot sank into the snow, and she quickly pulled it out. "Oops, I forgot to turn it on," she admitted, then set her foot down again, this time having it tread solidly on the surface of the snow. Jesmind took off the roll of her coat and cloak, put on the coat, then pulled the cloak on over her shoulders over it. The wind whipped it around her body, but she made no real notice of it. "Put on your cloak," she ordered. "When we're not hiding behind the Illusion, they'll still make us hard to spot against the snow."

Tarrin nodded, pulling out the cloak and putting it on. Jesmind winced as she looked around. "It's really bright," she said, shielding her eyes from the sun. The sunlight was reflecting off the unbroken surface of the snow, creating a blinding glare.

Tarrin Conjured two of the crystalline visors the Selani wore and handed Jesmind one of them. "These will cut down on the glare," he told her, fixing his over his eyes, causing the world to be stained with shades of dark violet. It did help reduce the blinding light reaching his eyes.

"Handy," Jesmind said, putting hers on and looking around as Tarrin knelt down and took out the map.

"We go that way," he said, pointing south after studying it a moment.

"How long to get to the tundra?"

"I'm really not sure," he frowned. "Maybe fifteen days. But we have to do it in twelve."

"Why twelve?"

"So we can stop to rest before hitting the tundra, and I can figure out how long it's going to take us to make it to Gora Umadar."

"Oh. Are you ready?"

"Hold on. I don't want to have to stop every half hour to check the map. Let me get a good sense of it."

"Take your time, my mate," she assued him, settling the visor on her face a little better. "This thing isn't going to sit very well without ears," she grunted.

"I must have sized it wrong," he said, standing up and pressing his paws to the sides of it. He set his will against the Weave and sent flows of Earth into it, causing the crystal from which it was made to retract. He fitted it to her face, sot he bride of her nose and the ridges of bone just over where human ears would have been would support the visor on her face, then extended the tips so they just slightly wrapped around. That was how he'd fit his, and he'd found that it was both comfortable and made it very hard for the visor to come off. It would even stay on in a fight. "Just remember to pull it up before you try to pull it away from your eyes," he warned.

"That's much better," she said with a thankful smile.

Tarrin finished studying his map, then put it and the book away. "Let's get moving," he announced, activatingthe Illusion that would hide him on the open snow.

"That is so weird," Jesmind laughed as she activated her own, and the two figures of the Were-cats disappeared behind projections of white snow.

They moved surprisingly fast in their new mode of travel. Being able to run on top of the snow both allowed them to treat it like unobstructed ground and prevented any trail from being left behind. Alot of the time Tarrin expected to take in the mountains was plowing through deep snow, and that too had been removed as a hindrance. Tarrin led with Jesmind following, and since she was so close, she followed the slight distortion the edges of the Illusion created, giving her a visible reference point that would be much harder to see if one was further away. The Illusion wasn't perfect, but it was still enough to hide them from scanning eyes.

That first day, no less than six vrock soared over their heads. Every time they saw one of them, they immiedately stopped and knelt, spreading out their cloaks to widen out the distortion effect and make it less noticable, and waited for the Demon to pass over them. They didn't see them-or at least he didn't think they did-and they were poignant reminders that they were being hunted.

Their presence was proof to him that it had been as he expected. Val knew what he was doing, knew the plan he'd given to the others, and had set out his Demons in the mountains to catch him before he got the pyramid on his own terms. If Tarrin could reach Gora Umadar, Val would be forced to bargain. If Val could catch him before he got there, his bargaining position would be severely hamstrung. Without the immediacy of the Conjunction to give Tarrin weight, he wouldn't be able to demand Jasana's release.

That gave Tarrin a rather grim satisfaction. Tarrin's plan seemed logical, if a bit dicey in some parts, but that was only consistent with his rather unique approach to plans. Find something that seemed good and go with it before it was entirely thought out, which often forced him to go by the seat of his pants once he ran out of plan and still found problem in front of him. It seemed that Val had bought it, had swallowed it hook, line, and sinker… or it seemed that way. Whether it seemed that way or not, all Tarrin needed was for Val to believe that long enough for Tarrin to get to him on Gods' Day. If he could do that, then it didn't matter what Val thought or believed or planned. Tarrin would have the advantage, and it was an advantage that, if played right, he would not lose.

Not even Val would, in his wildest dreams, expect Tarrin to do what he was intending to do. It was crazy, and it was just slightly dangerous, but it would get Jasana and Jesmind out alive, because he could guarantee that Val's attention would not be fixated on them. And after all, that was all that mattered.

Sometimes crazy works.

Though the vrock were looking for them, Tarrin's magical belts seemed to conceal the two Were-cats from their notice, and so they were able to move very quickly. They went on very late into the night, found small caves to rest in, then set out again well before sunrise. It was bitterly cold during those nighttime hours, so cold that Tarrin had to put on his heavy coat, but the cold did not slow them down. The exertion of running kept them warm when that heat was trapped in by the heavy coats they wore. Tarrin paused less and less frequently to check the map, as its contours slowly set themselves into his memory to the point where he had the whole thing memorized, but those stops were for more than just checking the map. They were also chances to take a short break and get a little food or water, so they continued even after the need for the main excuse for them was taken away.

The first serious attempt to find them came on that second day. A penetrating wave of power swept over them, another searching sweep by Val, which caused Tarrin to instantly stop and kneel down to hide his movement. But this time it stopped when it touched Tarrin, stopped for a heart-seizing amount of time, as if it could sense something beneath the powerful non-detection his amulet provided. But it could not breach the amulet's protection, so it moved on after a moment

"What's the matter?"

"Val just tried to find me," he answered. "He almost did."

"Can we do anything about that?"

He shook his head. "Nothing. So we just go on."

Jesmind looked decidedly nervous. "Alright," she said uncertainly.

That established a pattern of activity that lasted for ten days. Tarrin and Jesmind would move swiftly over the snow, stopping only when a vrock appeared in the skies over them, Val's searching magic swept over them, or they needed a short break. The probes against the power of his amulet became stronger and stronger, as if Val knew there was something there, but just couldn't find any evidence to prove it. They also saw a party of Trolls, trudging along the far side of one of the interconnecting valleys, their large frames plowing a path through the snow. They didn't slow down when they saw them, for they were too far away, and the light snow that was falling would make it even that much harder for the distant monsters to make out the very subtle visual evidence that they weren't alone in the pass. The weather didn't entirely cooperate during those ten days, going from sunshine to light snow mostly, but there were two rather strong snowstorms that rolled through and buried the land in another six spans of snow. The first happened when they were asleep, but the second struck late in the afternoon of the seventh day, and it was when it hit when one of the strange peculiarities of the water-walking power of the belts became evident. They could move in the snowstorm, but if they stopped in any one place long enough for snow to fall around their feet and cover them, it was as if they'd been set down into stone. They made that mistake, stopping as Tarrin checked the map, and when he went to move again, he found his left foot stuck under the snow. It had taken shapeshifting to get clear of it, but when he shapeshifted, the belt was put into the elsewhere, and its magic was removed from him and he sank deeply into the newly fallen snow. Jesmind had to pick him up and literally toss him into the air, so he could shapeshift freely, then reactivate the belt before his feet hit the snow.