Tiaan and Haani kept to themselves, occasionally walking on the cramped deck, which was cold and windy. Haani was clinging now – she was shy in crowds and would not answer when people spoke to her. Tiaan understood that, though she found it confining.
On the third day, through a gap in the clouds, she glimpsed a familiar flying shape, just for a second. Was the lyrinx hunting her or was it just a coincidence? She could not think so. After that she kept to their cabin, busying herself in making a new pair of boots to replace Haani's worn-out ones. Tiaan enjoyed the work, using her artisan's skills for the first time in ages. It was helping to prepare her fingers for another job, one she planned to begin as soon as the boots were complete.
Whenever she needed a hand, Haani was there and seemed to know instinctively what to do. Tiaan appreciated that, though she would as soon have done it herself. She was so used to working alone that having to share a room made her feel uncomfortable. Besides, Haani was being helpful because she had been brought up that way. It did not mean the child liked her. Tiaan was sure she did not.
Haani never asked for anything. She hardly spoke apart from please, thank you, yes and no, and gave the briefest possible response to Tiaan's increasingly infrequent overtures. Tiaan felt guilty, but more and more she found the child a burden. Perhaps Haani realised that. When the boots were ready she said 'Thank you!' but continued wearing the old ones.
Tiaan's second job was a gift for Minis, a ring of woven silver and gold made from the precious metal in Joeyn's belt. First she formed the yellow metal, and the silver, into threads, tapping away with her little hammers for hours. She did not care how arduous the work was, or how long it took, as long as it was ready before she reached the mountain. It left less gold and silver than she would have liked, and that bothered her, for there was a long way to go. But she had to have a betrothal gift, even though every attempt to contact Minis had failed. More and more she felt that her journey was a fool's errand.
After the second day Haani grew bored, for there was nothing she could do to help with the ring. Tiaan began to teach the child her letters, using the copy of Nunar's treatise she had carried all this way. It was hard work. Haani did not see the point of reading and Tiaan discovered that as a teacher she had many inadequacies, not least of them being impatience. Haani proved to be a good listener though, picking up the language quickly. Each time she spoke the common language her accent was better and her command more fluent.
Accustomed to spending the daylight hours out of doors, the child was practically climbing the walls by the time they pulled up at the wharves of Flaha, a rambling, unattractive town built of grey timber.
Mount Tirthrax lay north of Flaha, another hundred and fifty leagues away. Tiaan had been prepared to spend what remained of the winter in Flaha, until she learned that, in this surprisingly well-populated land, it was possible to travel up the frozen rivers by iceboat if she left soon. The thaw was not far away.
'You want to go to Itsipitsi?' her informant asked. It was a good-sized town on the northern end of an extensive lake of the same name, little more than ten leagues from the great mountain. 'That's easy! There's an iceboat every third day, if the weather is good, and the winds usually blow from the south at this time of year. You can do ten leagues a day in good conditions; some days fifteen. But be prepared for a blizzard, and then you might not go anywhere for a week.' Blizzards did hit more than once, though not for long. In three weeks they were disembarking in Itsipitsi, a frontier town built of logs chinked with mud. The place was bigger than Tiaan had expected though it had a temporary look. Thousands of prospectors would appear in the thaw to pan the rivers for sapphires and zircons washed down from the mountains, but in the winter there were few people on the dismal, windblown streets.
Tiaan's gold was exhausted but she still had silver enough to outfit them for the Great Mountains. Once at Tirthrax, she would be among the Aachim of Santhenar, those who had been brought here as slaves by Rulke the Charon, thousands of years ago, in the search for the Golden Flute. That was one of the Great Tales of the Histories.
It did not bother Tiaan that she was down to a few threads of silver by the time they were equipped and provisioned. The Aachim would provide. However, she thought of Joeyn every time she went to the belt. Poor Joeyn. His memory still brought tears to her eyes.
Of course, it would take time to find the Aachim. Tirthrax was enormous. But when she neared the mountain, surely a potent node, the amplimet would light up and she could call her lover. Minis would tell her where to go. If… if he was still alive. If he wasn't, she would never find the way in. The food would run out and she would be stuck up a mountain, a week from any place where she could get more.
F IFTY – F OUR
The range could not be seen from Itsipitsi, which lay in a valley with tall pines all around; however, Tiaan had caught glimpses from the iceboat. Even from this distance the Great Mountains were immense, a snow-and-ice-clad wall stretching from the eastern horizon to the west. Towering over all was the fang of Tirthrax, the highest peak on Santhenar. Highest on any of the Three Worlds, the Histories told. The repository of Tiaan's dreams for half a year was only days away.
They left at dawn, skiing upriver on snow-covered ice. The first day was hard work, though the slope was slight. They had done no skiing since Ghysmel and were carrying an enormous quantity of dried rations, enough to do them for three weeks. Tiaan did not go hard, though she wanted to. She dared not risk injury so close to her goal. In truth, she could not wait to turn into her sleeping pouch, for since their arrival in Itsipitsi she had dreamed of her lover every night, and each time more passionately. They had not yet consummated their love, in her dreams, though his caresses had driven her to such heights of ecstasy that Tiaan could think of nothing else.
The amplimet had been dull ever since she'd left the hut of the three women, its spark visible only in darkness. Now, each night when she unwrapped it the glow was brighter; she could feel its potential growing as they approached Tirthrax. She had tried three times to reach Minis, and sensed that he was there, but could never find him.
The weather was good; after the first day they made excellent time on the ice. The mountains swelled before them, vaster and more forbidding than Tiaan's most extravagant imaginings. Rivers of striped ice thrust forth between the peaks, and when the wind turned on the third morning she heard a monumental roaring and crashing. Once the glaciers had debouched onto an ice sheet covering all Mirrilladell, but it was long gone. Now they ended at precipices a thousand spans high, over which chunks of ice the size of hills would crack off and thunder to the plain. Below each icefall lay spreading mounds that waxed and waned with the seasons.
That afternoon they began to climb. The going now became extremely hard and they had to abandon the skis, which were too heavy to carry. Four days later they camped at the tree line and made a blazing fire, their last. There would be no wood from this point on. Tirthrax towered above them, so high that they had to crane their necks to see the tip, though it was mostly wreathed in cloud.
Tiaan was in her pouch by the fire the instant she finished her stew. Tomorrow they'd be on the mountain. She clutched the amplimet to her breast, its spark throbbing like her heartbeat. She always dreamed after using it, and having it near must enhance her dreams of Minis.
Haani was asleep. Tiaan could hear her gentle snores. But for Tiaan, neither sleep nor dreams would come. She had held back from using the amplimet, not wanting to arouse false hopes. And also, she was forced to admit to herself, because she wanted to present Minis with her triumph and see his reaction. Resigned to wakefulness, however, she put on the helm and began to work the globe.