“I cannot think what we may do,” replied Theido. “But you are right. We cannot charge them with lances or meet them toe to toe as we are often wont to do. I will defer to Myrmior’s counsel yet a little longer.”

“Lords, you flatter me. I have no secrets here, and I freely tell what I know so that you will know just how perilous is our position. It is very grave for us, my brave friends. I do not see a weakness that we may exploit; they have countered all our tricks this time.”

He looked again at the map, head bent down, eyes red-rimmed from sleepless nights of studying and pondering the movements of the foe as reported to him by the assembled commanders.

“How far are we from this river?” he said, stabbing his finger at the map.

“Let me see,” said Theido. “That is but a branch of the Arvin which lies two or three leagues away to the west. It is not so large as it appears on the map, I assure you.”

“Nevertheless, I have found a plan which may gain us but a little more time.” Myrmior smiled triumphantly. “A very subtle plan.”

THIRTY-NINE

THE COLD WIND whipping off the sharp snags of rock stung Quentin’s face, and the howl deafened him as it ravaged the bare peaks and screamed down into endless empty places. He kept his cloak turned up to cover his ears and wished that he had brought warmer clothing. Though only four days had passed since they had reached the higher elevations of the Fiskills, it now seemed ages since he had felt the warmth of the sun and seen the green of summer-filled hills. In every direction, wherever he turned his eyes, he saw the same thing: an infinite vista of jagged gray and white peaks jutting sharply against a pale blue sky.

Each day was much the same: cold and windy without respite. At night they camped under a star-filled sky on ledges, in crevices and fissures out of the wind, but the rock was cold and hard. In the morning they awoke to the harsh, white light of a sun that shed no warmth upon the day-unless by chance they happened to find a spot hidden from the wind where they could stop and eat a bite before continuing. Then Quentin would feel a brief bit of warmth seep into him, tingling on his skin like dancing fire.

But those respites were rare and never long enough; for Durwin, sinking more and more into silence and a dour mood, pushed a merciless pace along the crag-bound trails. The party, at first so full of good will and high spirits, now dragged along dolefully, each one lost to himself and his own thoughts, their faces as gray and cheerless as the bare rock around them.

Quentin’s thoughts turned toward Theido and Ronsard and the battles he imagined they were waging far away. More than once he wished he could be there beside them, instead of floundering here, lost in a world of dull rock and white light and severe blue skies-as often as not clouded with gray wispy clouds which shredded themselves on the tor and spilled a damp, chill drizzle to thoroughly quench any spark of hope that they would see the end of their seemingly endless journey.

At night he lay awake and watched the dread star bend its fearful beams through the thin air of the high altitudes. It now filled its quadrant with light and was the brightest object in the sky at night, save the moon itself. Quentin even began to believe that the star would grow and grow to consume the heavens and the earth, that it would eventually touch the world and set off the conflagration which would prepare the earth for the new age. These thoughts, and others like them, filled Quentin with a sense of hopelessness he had never known before. And as the search among the high rocks continued day after day, he began to think that doom was certain and that it was already too late to forestall the inevitable.

One morning Quentin was shaken out of his gloomy reverie by Toli, who had gone ahead to check on the trail, which threatened to narrow beyond the ability of horses to maintain their footing.

He heard a shout, looked up and saw Toli, red-faced with excitement and the exertion of running, flying down the rock-strewn path.

“Beautiful” Toli shouted when he was within range. “Come and see it! A valley…” He puffed breathlessly. “It is wonderful. Come!”

Instantly Durwin’s face lit. “So it is! I believe we have found it at last!”

But Durwin was already toiling up the path behind Toli, who sprang lightly as a mountain goat over the flat slabs of rock pointing and waving ecstatically.

Quentin turned to look at Inchkeith. “Well, a fair sight would be welcome to these burning eyes, I would reckon,” said the hunched armorer. “Even if it be not our journey’s end.”

“Then by all means let us view this sight!” replied Quentin sarcastically. “I would see what could cause such fulsome praise from the ever-quiet Toli.”

Inchkeith turned, ignoring Quentin’s comment, and began scuttling over the rock, barely keeping Toli, now disappearing over the crest, in sight. Quentin marveled at the deformed armorer’s strength and agility; for in spite of his misshapen body and hobbling gait, Inchkeith somehow managed to grapple his way along the most unnerving passages.

Quentin glumly fell in and began trudging up the steep path, a narrow cut in the rock formed by a rivulet which carried away the spring melt. By the time he neared the top, none of the others were to be seen. He reached the summit and walked a few paces down the opposite slope before he thought to raise his eyes.

The sight before him so stunned Quentin, he sat down.

Across a vast and limitless gulf of silver mist he saw an enormous bowl rimmed round with snowy peaks like white teeth. And the bowl, with gently curving sides, was a scintillating mountain green, all soft and mossy, the color of emeralds when struck by the sunlight. Carving through the center of the beautiful valley in graceful, sweeping undulation ran a river gleaming like molten silver, filling a basin at the near end to form a lake shaped like a spearhead. The lake was deepest blue crystal and reflected the white-capped peaks rimming the fathomless blue sky above.

All this Quentin took in moments later. In his first rapturous gaze all he saw was the awesome splendor of the towering, frothing, magnificent falls which fed the river and formed the lake. “It is the Falls of Shennydd Vellyn,” Durwin told him later, “the Falls of the Skylord’s Mirror. The lake is the mirror, of course, and Sky lord is another name among the Ariga for-”

“Whist Orren. I know,” said Quentin in a voice lost in wonder. “I have heard of Shennydd Vellyn. But I never thought…”

“Yes,” said Toli quietly, as if he feared to break some spell of enchantment, “it is hard to believe that such beauty still exists in the world of men.”

“Harder still to believe that beyond these forsaken mountains men are fighting and dying,” said Inchkeith strangely. Of the three he seemed least affected by the sight before him.

All that was to come later; now, Quentin was overcome by the most dramatic vision of natural beauty he had ever seen. The falls plunged in three great leaps as they poured from some hidden spring in the mountainside. This was the source of the silvery mist which floated over all like gossamer and charged the thin air with shimmering radiance as if rainbows hovered ever within reach.

Looking down upon it, Quentin could well believe that the Ariga had once sat where he sat and had seen it as he was seeing it. In that instant he felt as if the immense barrier of time separating him from that happy time when the Ariga had walked the earth had been rolled aside. Inexplicably, the constant longing for a glimpse of that vanished time was suddenly stilled within his breast. Here it was at last-that which remained from of old unchanged.

The next thing Quentin knew he was running down the precipitous grade toward the crystal lake, laughing and shouting with joy.