That touched on Count Hamnet s professional expertise. "Oh, yes," he said without a moment's hesitation. "It's not just the narrow gate they'll have to pass through. How will they keep a host of men and beasts fed?"
"Nobody can raise enough to keep a host fed till you get down into the Empire, where crops will grow," Ulric agreed. "The Bizogots would be a lot more trouble than they are if they were hosts instead of bands—and they're trouble enough as is."
"Really? I never would have noticed." Count Hamnet's voice was dry. When Ulric laughed this time, it was with him, not at him. Hamnet thought so, anyhow.
Closer and closer together came the two cliffs that marked the edges of the Glacier. Once upon a time, within the memory of chroniclers and bards though certainly not within that of living men, the Glacier had had only a southern edge. Would it really keep melting till the Gap was a broad highway—till, perhaps, there was no Glacier at all, only bare ground? Ham-net Thyssen tried to imagine that, tried and felt himself failing. Even somewhat diminished as it was, the Glacier still seemed to him a natural and all but inevitable part of the world.
As those tall cliffs of ice drew closer, they also towered higher into the sky. Count Hamnet was not a nervous man, or not a man who showed his nerves, but his voice wobbled a little when he asked Trasamund, "Are there ever avalanches up here?" He couldn't imagine how many tons of ice might come thundering down on him.
"I'm sure there are—there must be," the Bizogot jarl answered. "I've never been in one, though." He chuckled. "If I ever was, I’d be too flat to talk to you now."
"Er, yes," Hamnet said. That marched too well with what he was thinking.
And then, the next morning, he couldn't see the edges of the ice at all. He couldn't see anything. Mist shrouded the campsite. It was cold and gray and thick, thicker than he’d ever known mist to be down in the Raumsdalian Empire. The air he inhaled felt soggy. When he exhaled, he added his own fog to that which swirled around him.
"Which way is north?" he asked. His voice sounded strangely muffled.
"North?" Ulric Skakki said from not far away—but Count Hamnet couldn't see him. "In this, I have trouble being sure of up and down."
That would have been funny if it didn't hold so much truth. The air above, the air all around—the same shade of gray everywhere. It was like being in the middle of a wet sheep's wool. And when Hamnet Thyssen looked down, he could barely see his own boots.
"I ran into this myself the last time I came north," Trasamund said from somewhere in the fog. "I was stuck for two or three days, because I couldn't tell which end was up. Of course, I didn't have a shaman with me, and now we've got two."
"I know a spell for finding north," Audun Gilli said. "An iron needle floating in a cup of water will show you the way."
"What does he say?" Liv asked from farther away. Count Hamnet translated for her. When he finished, she said, "I know this spell. A Raumsdalian trader showed it to me. It may work down in your country, but not so well up here. He said it lied more and more the farther north he went."
"That's so, by God—I've seen it, too," Trasamund agreed, also in the Bizogot tongue.
Inevitably, Audun Gilli asked what they said. With a mental sigh, Hamnet translated for him, too. The wizard let out an indignant sniff. "How can a spell that works well in one place not work in another? The idea is ridiculous."
Trasamund, of course, understood Raumsdalian. "It may be ridiculous, but it's true. If you go the way you think north is, you'll smack your nose into the Glacier instead of heading on up into the Gap."
"I don't believe it," Audun said.
"Fine," Trasamund told him. "Don't believe it. Work your magic. Go the way you think is north. But watch out for your nose." He laughed. Audun Gilli sniffed more indignantly than ever. Laughing still, Trasamund went on, "Go ahead. Try your spell. We'll come along. Why not? We'll be going somewhere, even if it's in the wrong direction."
Hamnet Thyssen hadn't known a needle would float on water. But Audun was right—the thin one he used did. And it pointed steadily in a direction he insisted was north. Off the travelers went, moving slowly through the impenetrable fog, calling to one another again and again to keep from getting separated.
When the ground under the horses' hooves grew muckier than ever, Hamnet began to suspect Trasamund knew what he was talking about. Wetter ground meant more meltwater, and more meltwater meant they were getting closer to the Glacier. The mist did thin a little as the day wore along, and a swirl of breeze showed the great cliff of ice dead ahead and seeming unimaginably tall.
"You see?" Trasamund sounded as if he would tear Audun Gilli's head off if the wizard denied seeing.
But Audun didn't. "I see," he said sadly. He sounded chastened.
"We went more west than north, did we not?" Eyvind Torfinn said.
"Plainly." Audun Gilli sounded more chastened yet. "But we should have gone north." Was he staring at the needle as if wondering why it betrayed him? He was only a dim outline to Hamnet Thyssen, but the nobleman knew he would have stared at the needle that way.
Eyvind Torfinn, by contrast, sounded cheerful. "If we know the needle points somewhere close to west instead of north, then if we go in the direction the needle says is somewhere closer to east than north, we'll really be heading toward the true north after all, won't we?"
A considerable silence followed, from both Audun Gilli and Trasamund. When Audun said, "By God, your Splendor, I think we will," he seemed amazed.
Trasamund's laugh might almost have blown the fog away by itself. "By God, your Splendor, you've worked a magic to make any shaman jealous!" he boomed. "You've made a liar tell the truth in spite of himself! Well done!"
"What do they say?" Liv asked plaintively. She was the only traveler who knew no Raumsdalian. Count Hamnet translated for her. "Ah," she said when he finished. "The old man is clever."
She forgot Earl Eyvind was fluent in the Bizogot language. "I am not as old as all that, wise woman," he said in her tongue, "or at least I hope I am not."
Hamnet Thyssen couldn't see her turn red, either, but he would have bet she was blushing. "I crave your pardon," she said in a small voice.
"Come on—let's get going," Trasamund told Audun Gilli. "Your precious needle can lie as much as it pleases. You will tease the truth out of it even so."
"Maybe I will. I really think I will." Audun seemed astonished but happy. "A wizard ought to travel about with a charmed needle, and compare what it calls north to what the sky shows at a great many places. Once a chart was made, anyone would be able to use the needle anywhere and have it tell him the truth."
"That sounds like a good idea," the Bizogot jarl said. "It sounds like a good idea for somebody with all the time in the world. As much as I would like to have so much time, I don't—and neither do you."
Audun took the hint. He murmured the charm over the needle once more, perhaps to encourage it. Then he began to ride. "This way," he called. He was dimly visible through the thinning mist, but hearing him did help the others follow.
And Eyvind Torfinn's notion worked. Hamnet Thyssen saw no logical reason why it shouldn't, but plenty of things went wrong even when he saw no reason why they should.
IX
Oh," Liv whispered, looking first to one side, then to the other. She shook her head in awe and wonder. "Oh," she said again.
Hamnet Thyssen couldn't have put it better himself. They were passing through the narrowest part of the Gap. The ground between the two titanic ice mountains was soggy, almost saturated, with meltwater. The horses had to pick their way through the mud as carefully as they could. That meant their riders had to pay close attention to what they were doing—except they couldn't, because the spectacle to either side was too magnificent.