"We're going out for some fresh air," Karal replied. "Why don't you join us? We'll go frighten the Shin'a'in into thinking what you found in the workroom turned us all into monsters." He made a hideous face and Silverfox laughed.
"Fresh air? Not a bad idea." Firesong raised his head as Karal tendered his invitation. "We aren't making much more out of these notes. Maybe a little sun will wake up my mind. Go on out, we'll catch up with you."
An'desha noticed at once that their hosts had been at work on the tunnel to the surface—the opening they had made into the side of the Tower was large and quite regular, without any debris of broken masonry to trip over. The tunnel was also wider, though no higher, and there had been some extensive work done in shoring it up since the last time he'd come through it. It was still claustrophobic, but on this trip he no longer had the feeling that the tunnel was going to collapse and trap him at any moment.
He sent a small mage-light on ahead of Karal; he couldn't see past Florian's rump, so a mage-light was hardly of much use to him. Altra had declined to come, saying that he had seen quite enough of snow, and was planning another nap in Karal's bed.
He scented the outside before he saw any indication they were nearing the entrance. Although the air below remained remarkably clean, and the scents that lingered, thanks to some small magics on his part and Firesong's, were all pleasant in nature, there was a fresh quality to the outside air that nothing below could duplicate. Some of that was due to the cold, but not all.
The other thing they could not duplicate below was the light. As he stumbled out into the late afternoon sunlight, he squinted and put out a hand to steady himself against Florian's side. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky; the great bowl of the sky itself was an intense and blinding blue, and with all of the glare reflected off the snow, there was as much light coming from below as above.
Karal stood to one side, taking in huge gulps of air, his pale face taking on more color with every breath. Florian trotted off and kicked up his heels friskily.
Seen from the outside, the Tower itself was hardly more than a snow-frosted stub of melted-looking rock protruding from a snow-covered, rolling hill; the only projection above the otherwise flat Plains at all, not prepossessing except for its size. Because they had dug a long, slanting tunnel to reach the wall of the Tower below, the entrance came out quite some distance from the remains of the Tower itself, and it was at the foot of the Tower, precisely above the point where they had broken into the walls, that the Shin'a'in had pitched their tent-village. The round felt tents, white and brown and black, made a very orderly and neat array against the snow, so neat and orderly that it looked like a model rather than a place where people were actually living and working.
"Whoof!" Firesong exclaimed from behind An'desha, as Florian frisked and gamboled in the snow with Karal laughing and throwing snowballs for him to dodge. "Very bright out here! I shouldn't wonder if you could get a worse sunburn than in high summer!"
Silverfox ducked as Karal turned and lobbed a snowball at them. Karal laughed, and the kestra'chern pelted after him, swearing vengeance, while Firesong looked on indulgently.
"So," the Adept asked quietly, while Karal and Silverfox took shelter behind facing snowbanks, and hurled missiles at each other. "What did your Avatars have to say for themselves?"
An'desha flung him a startled glance, and Firesong chuckled at his expression. "You have a certain quiet glow after you've gone visiting them," the mage told him. "It's not terribly obvious, but it's there if you know what to look for. So? What did they have to say? Anything useful?"
"Mostly that nothing has changed that much. We've successfully bought some time for ourselves and our friends, things outside the areas we protected are deteriorating quickly, and eventually even our time will run out," An'desha said, wishing his news was better.
Firesong nodded, unsurprised. "And when our time runs out, we'll get—what? A replication of the Cataclysm? After all, everything is supposedly converging here."
"Maybe. Even They don't know for sure." An'desha sighed. "If She has any idea, She's not saying anything. If you want my guess, the gods are doing what They always do—unless and until all life is threatened with catastrophe, They'll see to it we have the tools and the information to find our own solutions, then leave us alone to find them. The Avatars think the things we're finding in the Tower will help us, but—"
"'But there's no clear 'future' to see or even guess at." Firesong looked surprisingly philosophical. "I'm determined to see this as an opportunity; for once in my life there isn't a god or a spirit or the hand of fate or prophecy or anything else demanding that I trace a certain pattern on the pages of time. We're going to make our own future here, An'desha, and nothing is going to interfere with us to make it go some other god-ordained way. There's a certain satisfaction in that, you know."
"I suppose so," An'desha replied; he would have said more, but Silverfox suddenly broke off the snowball fight to peer into the north, and point.
"Look!" he exclaimed with glee, as Karal dropped his final snowball without throwing it to squint in the direction he indicated. "Gryphons! Yes! They have a carry-basket, and I think they've brought Tarrn!"
An'desha shaded his eyes and narrowed them against the glare, and finally made out four sets of flapping wings with a half-round shape beneath them. He couldn't think what else would have that particular configuration except four gryphons and a large carry-basket.
"Come on!" Silverfox crowed. "Let's go meet them!"
He set off at a run; Florian loped up and half-knelt beside Karal, who pulled himself onto the Companion's back. The two of them quickly overtook Silverfox; Firesong cast an amused glance at An'desha and indicated the others with a finger.
"Shall we trundle along behind?" he asked.
"It would only be polite," An'desha pointed out. "And besides, the Shin'a'in have cleared a perfectly fine path between here and there. It would be a shame not to use it."
They followed in Silverfox's wake, though at a more leisurely pace. By the time they arrived at the Shin'a'in tent-village, the gryphons and their passengers had already landed and been taken into one of the tents. It was easy to tell which one; there was only one that was large enough to hold four gryphons at once, and only one whose pallet of snow had been churned by gryphon claws.
Dark-clad Kal'enedral nodded as Firesong waved to them, then went about their own business. An'desha pulled the entrance flap aside, and he and the mage entered the tent, being careful to let in as little cold air as possible. It took quite a bit of time for An'desha's eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the tent after all the snow glare outside; he stayed where he was while he waited, listening to the chatter of at least half a dozen creatures all speaking at once.
He looked around as soon as he could make anything at all out; he didn't recognize any of the gryphons, but he hadn't expected to. They were all arranged at one side of the tent, and it came as no surprise to see that they were eating—or rather, gorging. Not only would they have to recover from the stress of carrying their passengers all the way from K'Leshya Vale, but they would have to recover from the stress of dealing with the cold as well.