Jahl also shook her head, almost in disappointment. ‘Do not pretend that knowledge is neutral. It can be dangerous.’
‘And ignorance isn’t?’
Dancer cocked a brow – that almost sounded like a good point.
Jahl lowered her gaze, as if considering, then raised her head, chin out-thrust. ‘I know where the throne lies,’ she announced. ‘But I choose not to tell you.’ She tilted her head speculatively, eyeing Kellanved. ‘What will you do now, seeker?’
The mage blew out a breath, tapped his walking stick on the stone floor. ‘Oh, blunder about searching for it. Be a terrible pest. Knock things over. Cause all sorts of problems and upset and generally make things worse than they need be as I meddle everywhere in everything. And everyone will blame you for it all.’
The grandmother who looked like a girl threw back her head and barked a laugh. ‘In other words, be an ass until you have your way.’ She shook her head anew, almost in wonder. ‘Very well.’ She rose, but stiffly, as an ancient, groaning and rubbing her legs. Seeing them eyeing her, she shrugged, ‘Memories. This way.’ She led them back to the entrance.
Outside, they once more pushed through the howling winds. The girl wore nothing more than a leather vest and tattered hide skirts tied about her emaciated waist by a belt of woven cord. Dancer offered her his hide wrap. She blinked, surprised by the gesture, appeared about to say something, but reconsidered, lowering her gaze. Frowning, she continued walking.
Eventually they came to a coastline of bare black rock, wet with spray from a frigid-looking iron-grey sea. By this time Dancer’s face, hands and feet were numb and he hugged himself beneath his hide wrap, shivering uncontrollably. The girl gestured across the water to the darker jutting spur of a small island. ‘There. On that hilltop rests the throne. Once we could walk to it. But over the centuries the waters have risen. Soon it will lie beyond the reach of all, submerged.’
Kellanved’s greying brows climbed very high indeed. ‘Oh dear. Just how do we get to it?’
Jahl ’Parth shrugged. ‘That is not my concern.’
‘Can’t you just do your Shadow thing?’ Dancer suggested. ‘Walk us out?’
The mage grimaced a negative. ‘This is Tellann we are in now.’
Jahl ’Parth moved to go, but paused, and turned back. She took a breath. ‘You do not seem the usual sort who come here seeking the throne. Take my advice: do not go. None who have gone have ever come back.’
Kellanved bowed to her. ‘My thanks. But it looks as though we shan’t be going in any case.’
Dancer saw the girl’s gaze flick down to the shore; then she turned away to disappear amid the fat swirling flakes of blowing snow.
‘I don’t know about you,’ Dancer stuttered to Kellanved, ‘but I’m not going to last much longer.’
‘Agreed,’ the mage sighed. ‘Thwarted once again.’
‘Perhaps not,’ Dancer offered. Wincing, he opened his thick hide wrap to clamber down among the wet black rocks where the waves washed and sprayed. A short time later he called Kellanved down to him.
When the mage arrived, using his walking stick to help him balance on the slick icy rocks, Dancer motioned to what he’d found: a small boat of wood and hides. Kellanved sniffed.
‘I am not going out in that.’
Dancer dropped his extended arm. ‘Fine. Back to Nap.’
Kellanved looked at the thick clouds above them and flapped a hand. ‘Oh, very well. If I must.’
Dancer struggled to push the boat into the water. ‘Looks as if we have to.’
Within, he found two hand-carved paddles. He motioned Kellanved to the bow, and the spindly mage crouched down awkwardly. Dancer pushed off and crouched at the stern, paddling. ‘Use the other paddle,’ he told Kellanved.
The mage waved his hands. ‘I don’t know how.’
Dancer snarled curses under his breath and dug into the waves with even more power. Fortunately, they were not too high, though the water was so frigid the spray seemed to burn when it touched him. His hands became frozen blocks on the wood of the paddle. ‘They’re not making this easy,’ he grumbled.
‘We’re closing,’ Kellanved announced.
Dancer nodded, concentrating on powering them forward. The hide boat was taking on water and his legs were numb from resting in the icy wash.
A dark cliff-wall of wet rock emerged from the blowing snow. He peered right and left, searching for a place to land. ‘Which way?’ he mumbled, his lips and face frozen.
Kellanved pointed the walking stick right and he turned the boat that way. They rounded what appeared to be a tall headland, which descended to a bare rocky slope. The boat was now sluggish with water and Dancer drove it straight in to land. They struck submerged rocks and Kellanved was pitched forward into the waves; Dancer leapt for the shore.
He bruised himself on the rocks and turned to search for Kellanved. He saw the mage floating face down in the surf and staggered through waist-high icy water to reach him. Grasping the fellow’s sodden jacket, he dragged him like a wet rat out of the waves and laid him on the bare, scraped-smooth stone slope, then sat and hugged himself, shivering savagely, and felt the pull of a dreamy exhaustion.
Yet he knew that to fall unconscious now would mean death, and so he shook Kellanved, yelling, ‘We have to keep going!’ Or something like that, as his lips were completely numb.
The mage’s walking stick emerged to point, shaking, up the slope. Dancer squinted and just made out a darker shadow ahead – a cave mouth in the rising cliff face?
He took hold of a squelching Kellanved once more and half dragged, half pushed him upward. They fell into the cave and Dancer blinked, frowning, as he felt something smothering him. It took a moment for him to recognize warmth; with that realization he could fight off unconsciousness no longer and he allowed himself to slip down into oblivion.
He awoke with a start and peered about; it was still the pewter grey of a snowstorm without, and he couldn’t tell if it was night or day. Kellanved still lay asleep amid a litter of dry branches and leaves. Dancer flexed his fingers – he was warm. The heat seemed to be coming from the very rock of the walls and the floor beneath them. He threw off his hide wrap and was amused to see actual steam rise from his sodden sleeves.
He shook Kellanved. ‘Well, at least we won’t freeze to death.’
The seeming ancient peered up blearily, grumbled, ‘Cold comfort, that.’
Dancer ran a hand through his short hair, then rose and began searching the cave. ‘It leads to a tunnel,’ he announced. ‘Damned dark.’
The mage appeared, a dry torch in hand. ‘Try this.’
Dancer gaped at the thing. ‘You weren’t carrying that, were you?’
‘No. I was lying on it.’
‘Oh.’ He crouched down, gathered together a bunch of the dry twigs and leaves, pulled out the tiny flint and steel he always carried, and set to work.
In a short time he had the torch lit and he rose, adjusted his weapon-baldrics and belts, and offered Kellanved a nod. The mage tapped his walking stick to his shoulder and pursed his lips, answering the nod; then they started down the tunnel.
The passage was very rough; they clambered over uneven jutting rocks and ducked through narrow throats of stone. Along the way Dancer noticed that the natural walls had been widened here and there to allow easy passage, but the gouging and scraping was not smooth. It was as if a harder stone had been used rather than a metal tool.
After quite a long time Dancer saw a weak flickering glow ahead: more torch-light, in fact. Wary, he drew his best throwing blade and switched the torch he carried to his off hand. He went first, crouched, blade held behind his back.
The tunnel opened on to a wider natural chamber, or cavern. Multiple torches lit it, their sooty smoke rising to a distant ceiling hidden in darkness. Kellanved slipped in beside him and the dark-skinned mage’s breath caught.