By the time they reached the high rim, his ribs ached and his vision blurred. He caught sight of the lake below, water half-glowing with the snow-light, and on his next step he nearly went down the slippery rock.
Jago got one arm, Banichi the other, and if that was not humiliation enough, they set him down on that rock, and dropped down themselves to reconnoiter— Their keener night-vision. One forgot that, one tended to forget that, in the safe hallways of the Bu-javid, in the corridors of the ship—but they saw what he could not, out here, and so did their enemy, and he was, comparatively speaking, blind.
More, he had just come over that ridge silhouetted against the sky, and risked all three of them.
He was utterly embarrassed, resolved to be smarter than that.
Come, Banichi signed, and he got up, not escaping Jago’s hand under his elbow, keeping him low, and they started the descent, down at an angle toward the lake.
Long climb down. The trail down was plain, even to his eyes, wending down a rocky, little-grown slope, where old fumaroles made spires and provided cover for ambush. It was not a comfortable place to be, but the trampled trail led them, and they kept to it.
On to lower ground, and a ridge which might have marked an earlier lakeshore—along that, then, and down again.
“Traveling fast,” Jago commented, “with a clear trail in front of them.”
Damn, Bren thought. He hoped the boy knew he was followed.
Cajeiri could have no idea by what, could not have an inkling of the worse danger tracking him; and the three of them, alone, were fewer than they needed against what they might run into, he was well sure of it. Cenedi was likely calling for reinforcements from Malguri, which might come straight across the lake—to reach a road meant going clear down to the township and around, and there was no way to come from Malguri Fortress except overland, by mecheiti, no way to reach the north road, that between the Haidamar and the northern airport, except to come over by water, or clear around the lake, as they had done, a journey of hours.
He hoped for boats. That was the likeliest. And the most help.
But none showed. The vast lake was snow-veiled, icy around its rim, and placid below them. And if they were very lucky, neither Caiti’s men nor Murini’s lot had a clue they were being tracked by a third force.
His side hurt. Calisthenics on the ship was no substitute. He gained a coppery taste in his mouth, as if he were bleeding inside.
And now the ancient beach played out in a rock slide, and the track descended again, on a tumble of rock.
The footholds Banichi and Jago took were increasingly too far apart for him as his side seized up. He put hands down and clambered and outright slipped in spots, determined to keep up.
Ripped a hole in his trousers and nearly broke his neck making one step, but he kept the pace, down and down, and at the last, he let himself slide and relied on Jago to catch him.
She set him rightwise about on the path and immediately headed after Banichi.
Way out of breath by now. It was a mad, a reckless speed, by his lights, but it was what they had to do. His legs felt like rubber, his left side was afire, and now lights began to dance in his eyes, step after step. He wasn’t seeing where he was going, now, he was just following, keeping up, sweating as if it were a summer’s day— His foot skidded into a brushy hole and his reach after balance snagged his sleeve on a branch.
He went down, hard, hit the rocks and thought that was all the damage. Then he began to skid, slipping helplessly over an edge, impact onto a slope, and a rock-studded slide all the way to the bottom, leg wrenched, head banged, stars exploding in his eyes, and a keen pain in ribs and elbows—thank God for good boots, which let him get his feet again, and for heavy tread, which let him stay there and negotiate his way to level ground.
Not, however, up again.
Banichi and Jago were up above, stopped for him, facing the need to leave the trail, all to go down and recover a fool.
Go on, he waved them furiously. Go on!
Banichi did that. Jago hesitated half a step. He waved her off, and then started moving himself, reprised his jog along the lower, flatter shelf he’d reached, and with a glance up, he saw Jago departing at a run, on Banichi’s track.
They had to. Right set of priorities. The boy was in danger. The fool paidhi had a sore ankle, nothing broken, and the fool paidhi could run, by what might amount to a shorter route. The old caldera reached a point of ancient blowout at the north end, a place where the rim was virtually level with the lake, and the ground grew flatter, and, dammit, he had a map, if he was lucky and the station’s web of satellites included this end of the continentc damned right there should be a map of the place, and the road.
He leaned for breath against a rock, hauled out the locator from his zipped pocket, turned it on, and waited while it went through a small search. Satellite, damned right. Several satellites up there.
And a map, a magical, detailed map. The lake.
His position, with the haunted island out there mid-lake and invisible in the snowfall. He clicked out on the zoom.
And saw the road from the remote hamlet of Cadienein-ori to the Haidamar, the same road that, skirting Cadienein-ori, crossed the hills to Cie. The road made a slow sweep close to the lake, right up ahead, and topography showed a low spot. If Murini and his lot were going to intersect the immediate pursuit, it was going to be there. If Murini, who might be on that bus, was going to get personally involved, it would be there.
He left the unit on, not knowing all its functions, but knowing Banichi and Jago had the same item in their possession, and that they had that map and were going to draw the same conclusion as he did. There was a small depot or some sort of building up there in that low spot. The map gave no indication what it was, just a square. Possibly it was a fueling station, maybe belonging to the Haidamar.
But it was a place, and people who were meeting a search party indicated a place to rendezvous, and worse, far worse, a boy who was running for his life might mistake a place for a refuge.
The land got steeper, directly after that small square: the topology showed a sheer rise, right where the ancient eruption had blasted through a wall of sheer rock and all sorts of geologic mayhem had gone on—sheer cliffs, and rough land, after that. He and the dowager had ridden the uplands, from Malguri, once years ago, and the dowager had said, had she not, that there was only one approach to the lake from Malguri, and that was her boat dock?
Did the boy know, did he possibly know, that there was no way out from where he had gone except the north road? That there was no beach to let him around to safety, only sheer cliffs? Could the boy even have any idea that it was Malguri land, just beyond that sheer wall?
He hurt. But he ran, all the same. He dared not trust the immediate-area function on the pocket com. What he had just reasoned out, he was well sure Banichi and Jago damned well knew, and everybody else in the world knew. They were coming to the bag-end of the course, the place where everything stopped.
16
The shore itself, a flat, treacherous strand, lumpy with rocks, offered no sure ground under the snow. Water lapped up against the icy edge, ice in the shallows along shore, in some places under a film of newly-fallen snow, that gave warning it was water only where the slight surge lapped up through the ice like lacework.
Bren stayed away from that, skirted it at the fastest pace he could make—had to stop now and again to double over and catch his breath, and then reprised the effort, run and run and run, with no idea how far ahead of him Banichi and Jago might be, or whether the dowager and Cenedi had made contact with Malguri, or asked for help, or what.
He passed signs of habitation—the regular geometries of an orchard situated in the blowout gap, and that might be the reason for the box on the map, the indication of structure. That might be all it was. And hope so. Hope that the boy had not gone to any definite Place that would give his pursuers any help finding him.