Kalbok: A walking stench.
“I’ve never heard of people riding goats,” Stephen muttered.
“I imagine there are many things you’ve never heard of,” Pale suggested.
“I’m going to vomit again,” Stephen said.
“They don’t smell that bad,” Sister Pale replied.
“I’ve no idea what you would consider foul-smelling, but I never want to meet it,” Stephen said, fighting down his urge. “Doesn’t your friend ever wash these things? Or at least comb the maggots out of their fur?”
“Wash a kalbok? What a strange idea,” Sister Pale mused. “I can hardly wait for the next thing you’ll think of to improve life for us simple mountain folk.”
“Now that you mention it, I have some ideas for improving your roads,” Stephen said.
In fact, his nausea was only by about half due to the scent of kalbok; the rest came from its gait across what even Aspar White couldn’t possibly refer to as a road. Even calling it a trail was akin to confusing a mud hut with a palace. Their route dipped and turned along the lips of gorges and up promontories that seemed to be held in place only by the roots of straggling, half-dead junipers. Even the dogs took extra care in placing each step.
“Well,” Sister Pale said, “be sure and submit your suggestions to Praifec Hespero when we see him again. As a sacritor, he has some sway in these matters.”
“I will,” Stephen said. “I’ll distract him with a detailed proposition while his men are spiking us to trees.” A sudden worry occurred. “Your friend. If Hespero is following us—”
“Pernho won’t be there when they arrive. Don’t worry about him.”
“Good.” He closed his eyes and instantly regretted it because it only made him dizzier. With a sigh, he opened them again.
“He called you something,” he said then. “Zemlé.”
“Zemlé, yes. It’s my birth name.”
“What does it mean?”
“It’s our name for Saint Cer,” she explained.
“And the tongue you were speaking?”
“Xalma, we call it.”
“I should like to learn it.”
“Why? It isn’t widely spoken. If you want to get along in the mountains, better that you learn Meel.”
“I can learn both,” Stephen said, “if you’ll teach me. It should help us pass the time.”
“Very well. Which first?”
“Your language. Xalma.”
“So. Then I know just how to start the lesson.” She touched her hand to her breastbone. “Nhen,” she said. Then she pointed to him. “Win Ash esme nhen, Ju esh voir. Pernho est voir. Ju be Pernho este abe wire…”
The lesson continued for the rest of the day as the kalboks climbed steadily higher, first through rocky pasture and then, as they crossed the snow line, into a dark evergreen forest.
Before evening the forest had given way to a desolate, ice-crusted heath where nothing grew at all, and Sister Pale’s words came muffled through her scarf.
Stephen’s paida and weather cloak were back in Demsted, and he was thankful for the ankle-length quilted robe and heavy felt jerkin Pemho had provided him. The cone-shaped hat he was less certain about—he felt he looked silly in it—but at least it kept his ears warm.
Clouds sat on them for most of the journey, but as the sun was setting, the air cleared, and Stephen peered awestruck at the giants of ice and snow marching off toward every horizon. He felt tiny and titan all at once and intensely grateful to be alive.
“What’s wrong?” Pale asked, studying his face.
Stephen didn’t understand the question until he realized that he was weeping.
“I suppose you’re used to this,” he said.
“Ah,” she replied. “Used to it, yes. But it never loses its beauty.”
“I don’t see how it could.”
“Look there,” she said, pointing back. After a moment he thought he saw movement, like a line of black ants against the white.
“Horses?” he asked.
“Hespero. With some sixty riders, I should say.”
“Will he catch us?”
“Not soon. He’ll have to stop for nightfall, just like us. And he’ll be much slower using horses.” She clapped him on the back. “Speaking of which, we’d better make camp. It’s going to get very, very cold tonight. Fortunately, I know a place.”
The place she meant turned out to be a cave, snug, dry, and very small once the two of them, her dogs, and the kalboks were inside. Pale conjured up a small fire and used it to warm some salted meat Pernho had given them, and they had that with a beverage she called barleywine that tasted something like beer. It was pretty strong stuff, and it didn’t take much before Stephen felt light-headed.
He found himself studying the woman’s features, and to his embarrassment, she caught him at it.
“I, ah, should have told you before,” Stephen said, “but I think you’re beautiful.”
Her expression didn’t change. “Do you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m the only woman for fifty leagues, and we’re sleeping unchaperoned in a cave. Imagine how flattered I am when you shower me with compliments.”
“I… no. You don’t—” He stopped and rubbed his forehead. “Look, you must think I know something about women. I don’t.”
“You don’t say.”
Stephen frowned, opened his mouth, closed it. This was going nowhere. He wasn’t even sure why he’d started it.
“How much farther do we have to go?” he asked instead.
“Two days, maybe three, depending on how much snow we find in the next pass. That’s just to the mountain. Do you know where to go once we get there?”
He shook his head. “I’m not certain. Kauron went to a place called Hadivaisel. It might be a town.”
“There’s no town at Xal Slevendy,” she said. “At least—” She broke off. “ ‘Adiwara’ is a word for Sefry. The old people say there’s a Sefry rewn there.”
“That must be it, then,” Stephen said.
“You have some idea how to find it?”
“None at all. Kauron said something about talking to an old Hadivar, but that supposes he’d already found the rewn, I guess. And that was a long time ago.”
“You’ll find it,” she said firmly. “You’re meant to.”
“But if Hespero finds us first…”
“That will be a problem,” she acknowledged. “So you’ll have to find it quickly.”
“Right,” he said without a lot of hope.
He was starting to appreciate just how big mountains could be. And he remembered the exit from the rewn in the King’s Forest. Four yards away, it had been invisible. It was going to be like searching for a raindrop in a river.
He pulled out the pages he’d copied, hoping to find a better translation. Pale watched him without comment.
Among the pages was the loose sheet he’d found; he’d nearly forgotten it. It was very old, the characters on it faded, but he recognized the same odd mixture of letters on the epistle he’d carried and understood with growing excitement that what he held was actually a key for translating it.
Of course, Hespero now had the epistle, but he ought to be able to recall—
Something suddenly shivered through him.
“What?” Pale said.
“There was something in the chapel,” he said. “I haven’t really had time to think about it. But I swear I heard a voice. And my lamp; there was a face in it.”
“In the lamp?”
“In the flame,” he said.
She looked unsurprised. “Ghosts get lost in the mountains,” she said. “The winds fetch them up into the high valleys, and they can’t get out.”
“If this was a ghost, it was an old one. It spoke a language a thousand years dead.”