He stumbled into the first of the waters. It was nothing more than a shallow, marshy pool, but it was water, and icy cold, and so delicious that, in spite of the cold he lay there where he'd fallen, gulping great draughts of it until he was bloated with its goodness. For a long period of lights and darks—Du was bright, but surprisingly distant—he waded, swam, skirted lakes, streams, bogs where delicious green brothers grew, until he began to notice that the tall brothers were increasing in size to assume, as he entered a great congregation and lost himself in darkness, sizes beyond his wildest imaginings.
The cold was becoming dangerous. Even when he found a sheltered spot and built a roaring fire he could not warm himself all the way through. So he moved, ran, walked, waded, pushed his way through drifts of snow, with Du a weak source in the sky and the cold always with him. He could not believe that he would see the Enemy there, for it was too cold, the snows too deep, the darkness among the tall brothers too complete.
Chapter Four
A howling wind carried a cold unlike any cold Duwan had ever felt. Once, in youthful curiosity, he'd climbed out of the valley during the time of the long dark to find a world of crusted white. Then the barrens had been covered to a depth equal to more than his height in snow, and there was a still, quiet cold that gradually seeped into one's cells, but even that cold could not compare with the cold of the wind there among the tall brothers. And snow came with the wind, and there was no softness in the snow. It stung his face. It irritated his eyes so that he had difficulty seeing. The wind was so powerful that it blew him, hard, against a tall brother and the shock of the impact brought to him a sense of growing urgency. The depth of the new snow sapped his energy. He sank to his knees, had to lift his feet high, had to struggle for each brief passage from tall brother to tall brother. The storm had dimmed the day, so that he had no sense of time. He was only beginning to comprehend that time had a different shape in this land of many tall brothers, far from his native valley. In the valley, time was measured by that lovely period when Du circled around the valley and gave light. The long dark, when Du left the valley, was merely a period of endurance, with time, itself, of little import. He knew only that the time of darkness was long, but bearable, made bearable by the constant output of the hot springs, a warmth so effective that snow melted as it fell to become a mist of dew that gave life to the valley even in the absence of Du. Now time was measured by short periods of light and periods of intense darkness longer than the periods of light and each dark seemed to become more deadly, for the cold intensified and seemed capable of attacking even the flames of his night fires. The cold seemed to impregnate the fallen, dry branches of the tall brothers, so that he had to use extravagant amounts of his carefully stored tinder to start the smallest twigs burning, and then they popped and cracked and smoked and burned only reluctantly.
The winds blew for days, and the snow continued until he was, at times, struggling through drifts up to his chest. His very skin ached. His blood seemed to move in his veins at a slowed pace. The necessary intake of snow for water allowed the cold to invade the core of his body, so that it seemed to seep outward as well as inward. For food there was only the dry, brittle, acidy needles of the tall brothers and, occasionally, dry fodder—if he had the fortune to find a spot where winds had cleared the snow enough to allow him to dig down to ground level.
By the time the storm ended his southward progress amounted to no more than an arrow's flight each day and he was keeping himself in motion only with the expenditure of all his will, and the memories of Alning, his father, his mother, and his duty to the Drinkers of the Valley. From a sky washed clean by the storm Du gave him strength. He opened his multiple layers of clothing and let the life-giving rays do battle with the frigid air, and the net gain was negligible. One could not live in such cold. The cold froze small limbs on the tall brothers so that, in the stillness, broken only by Duwan's panting, the sharp crack of rupturing cells came, crisp and clear, echoing off the wall of tall brothers. After a night of pain, when the cold seemed to turn to fire in his body, he struggled onward and paused, knowing not hope but astonishment, as the tall brothers ceased and a wide, level clearing lay ahead of him, so extensive that the tall brothers on the far side were dwarfed. He hoped that the clearing would make for easier travel, but there the soft, new snow was just as deep, and he came to realize that he was crossing a frozen lake, had just enough capacity for thought left to be awed by the sheer mass of water that lay under the snow and ice.
The winds came again when he was only halfway across, roaring down from the northwest with a suddenness that numbed him. Into the stillness came a distant mutter. The mutter became a roar and, looking over his shoulder, he saw a roiling mass of dark clouds springing up from the horizon, moving so swiftly that he could only stand and watch in fear as the storm approached with astounding speed.
The winds took him directly in the face, seemed to lance his skin. Then came stinging sleet and snow so that he had to cover his eyes. He turned his back to the winds and let them help push him forward, toward the distant line of tall brothers where there would be some protection from the icy wind.
By the time he reached the shelter of the tall brothers he was gasping in the cold air, feeling it chill his lungs. His clothing was covered with snow. Ice had frozen on his frondlike eyelashes and in the tendrils of his nostrils. His breath crystallized as he exhaled and became a miniature snowstorm that sometimes interfered with his vision. With his last resources of strength he made his way deeper among the tall brothers, too spent to notice that on the southern side of the frozen lake the tall brothers were different.
When he fell, he lay there on the snow for long moments, his hands and feet making small, useless motions. He felt peace begin to come to his troubled spirit, felt a warmth begin to creep upward from his toes, thanked Du for it, then, in panic, he sat up, pushed himself to his feet, remembering his father's warnings that to rest in that cold was to die. Overhead, the limbs of the tall brothers formed a solid canopy, and he could see accumulated snow there. Underfoot the snow seemed less deep. He found a sheltered spot behind a deadfall and began to dig down through the snow, found frozen earth. Fire. He had to have fire. He needed food badly, but his most immediate concern was fire, for that lack of feeling, that false warmth, was still in his extremities. He dug frantically, found cold-soaked limbs, broke away twigs, saw that his tinder supply was desperately low.
His first attempt was a failure. His fire rocks sparked, the tinder smoked, he blew it into a tiny flame, but the twigs, moisture laden and frozen, sizzled and the tinder was gone and there was no fire. He had tinder for no more than two to three more fires. He began to search for drier twigs and, hearing a soft plop, turned his head to see a newly fallen dead limb lying atop the snow. Another limb, with dry, brittle twigs, fell nearby. "Thank you, brother," he said aloud, although he knew that he was neither heard nor understood by the tall brother.
This time the fire smoked, blazed, and, as dead limbs continued to fall around him, blessed heat began to soak into his almost frozen feet and hands, and darkness was upon him. He gathered wood by the flickering light of the fire and tried the needles of one of the tall brothers. The taste was different, not at all unappetizing. He ate sparingly, found dead limbs to hold up his small night covering, basked in the heat of the fire, and was asleep without realizing it.