FOURTEEN: The Roads to Baxendala

i) In by the back door

Though April was near, the snow remained deep and moist. The two men fought it gamely, but were compelled to take frequent rests.

"Must be getting old," Turran grumbled, glancing up the long, steep slope yet to be climbed.

Valther said nothing, just made sure moisture hadn't reached his sword. He seldom spoke even now.

"Almost there," Turran said. "That bluff up there ... That's the one that looked like a man's face." The last time they had been in the Gap it had been summer and they had been hurrying to their fates in Escalon. Nothing looked familiar now.

Valther stared uphill, remaining statue-still till a bitter gust reached him. "Better camp," he muttered.

"Uhm." Turran had spotted a likely overhang. It would yield relief from the wind while they hunted a usable cave. Though those were reportedly numerous, they had become harder to find near Maisak.

"Think they've spotted us yet?" Turran asked after they made the overhang.

Valther shrugged. He didn't care. He would feel nothing till they had come face to face with Mist.

"That looks like one," said Turran, indicating a spot of darkness up the north slope. "Let's go."

Valther hoisted his pack and started off.

They had little firewood left. Turran used the minimum to heat their supper, then extinguished the blaze. They would wrap in their blankets and crowd one another for warmth. The mouth of the cave was small and inconveniently located anyway. The smoke didn't want to leave.

During the night Turran shivered so hard that when he rose he had cramps.

Valther didn't notice the chill.

For breakfast they had jerky warmed by their body heats, washed down with snow melted the same way.

Afterward, Valther said, "Time to begin."

"Is she here?" Turran asked.

Valther's eyes glazed. For a moment he stared into distances unseen, then shrugged. "I don't know. The aura's there, but not strong."

Turran was surprised his brother showed that much spirit. He seemed genuinely eager for the coming confrontation.

Turran was not. He saw no way they could best the mistress of Shinsan. Surprise was a tool that could be used against anyone, but how did one surprise a power so perceptive it could detect an enemy's heartbeat a hundred miles away?

But the attempt had to be made. Even in full expectation of death. It was a matter of conscience. They had betrayed those who had trusted them. Just trying would help even the balance.

"Ready?"

Valther nodded.

From his purse Turran took a small jewel the Monitor had given him. He set it on the cave floor. They joined hands, stared into the talisman. Turran chanted in liturgical Escalonian, of which he understood not a word.

In a moment he felt little monkey-tugs at the fringes of his soul. There was a sudden, painless wrench, as of roots pulling away, then his awareness floated free.

The sensing was nothing like that of the body. He did not "see" objects, yet knew the location and shape and function of everything about him.

Valther hadn't shed his clay. He was too distracted by obsessions that Turran could now trace. Valther lay trapped in a sort of in-between, and would remain there till Turran freed him or pulled him back to the mundane plane.

Just as well, Turran reflected. Valther might have gone haring direct to Maisak, to see Mist, and so have given them away.

There was no sense of time on that level. Turran had to concentrate to make events follow one another in temporal parade. He saw why the Monitor had told him not to use the stone unless he had to. He could get lost on this side, and forget his body, which would perish of neglect.

This was how most ghosts had come into being, the Monitor had told him.

While Turran had had no training in this sorcery, the wizardries of his family had taught him discipline. He began his task.

He floated the slopes between their hiding place and the bluff which masked Maisak. He felt no cold, nor any pressure from the wind.

He discovered he could sense not only the realities obvious to corporeal senses, he could look around, beneath, and within things, and it was with this faculty that he searched for entrances to the caverns honeycomb­ing the mountains. Many came clear. Most had been sealed. Those that had not, he probed deeply. He found the one he was hunting.

Just in time. His attachment to his body was attenuating. His will and concentration were suffering moments of vagary.'

As he reentered his body, he learned another danger of the magic.

Feeling returned. All the aches and pains of a hard march, more intense for having gone unfelt for a time. And his senses suddenly seemed severely limited. What a temptation there was to withdraw...

He reached out and brought his brother back.

Turran's eyes opened. Their hands parted.

Valther had less trouble recovering. "Did you find it?" he asked.

Turran nodded. "I don't want to try that again."

"Bad?"

"Just the coming back."

"Let's go." Valther was ebullient.

Turran rose stiffly, got his gear together. "We'll need the torches. It's long..."

Valther shrugged, drew his sword, ran his thumb along its edge. He didn't care about the in-betweens, just the destination.

"What I wouldn't give for a bath," Turran grumbled as he hoisted his pack. "I'll lead."

It was snowing again. That was their fault. The past several months they had used their weather magic to confine winter's worst to the high country.

The cave mouth was a half-mile from their hiding place, naturally but cunningly hidden. He had a hard time locating it. It had to be dug out. It was barely large enough to accept a man's body. He sent Valther in, pushed their packs through, slithered in himself.

"I've got a feeling," he told Valther as they prepared the torches, "that we'd better hurry. My memory's getting hazy."

But speed was impossible. The subterranean journey was long and tortuous and in places they had to dig to enlarge passages for crawling. Once they climbed twenty feet up a vertical face. Another time they had to cross a pit whose Stygian deeps concealed a bottom unguessably far below. At a point where several caverns intersected they found skeletons still arrayed in war gear of Hammad al Nakir. Though they pushed hard, they couldn't make the journey in one day. They paused for sleep, then continued.

They knew they were close when they reached caverns where the walls had been regularized by tools. Those would be passages worked during the wars, when the Captal's fortress had had to have space for thousands of soldiers.

Then they came on a large "chamber occupied by Kaveliners who supported the Captal's pretender. Those who were awake were bored. Their conversation orbited round women and a desire to be elsewhere. Nobody challenged the brothers as they passed through.

"That was the worst," Turran said afterward. "Now we take a side tunnel to the Captal's laboratories and get into his private ways."

Valther nodded, caressed the hilt of his sword.

It was strange, Turran thought, that their coming hadn't been sensed or forseen. But, then, their weak plan had been predicated on inattention by the enemy.

In the laboratories, in a dark and misty chamber they recognized as one where transfers were made, they encountered trouble.

It came in the form of an owl-faced creature guarding the transfer pentagrams. He was asleep when they spotted him, but wakened as they tried slipping past. They had to silence him.

"Have to hurry now," Turran said. The thing's disappearance would raise an alarm.

Because they followed secret stairs they reached the Captal's chambers before they encountered second trouble. And this came as a total surprise.