Despite the ease of the early trail, the reaver’s tunnel was not free of damage. In places, bits of ceiling had caved in, leaving rocks and rubble on the tunnel floor. In another spot, the earth had cracked wide open. The fissure was but four feet wide but seemed to drop away endlessly below Iome as her mount jumped over.
Still, such was the skill of the reaver’s workmanship that the tunnel held, for the most part.
Reavers are used to earthquakes, Gaborn realized. They must know how to cope with them as well as we do with the wind and rain.
But other acts of nature could not be so easily avoided. In places water had seeped through the rocks above, and over the ages had formed stalagmites and stalactites. The reavers had cleared these away just four days past as they marched through the tunnel. But in some places water would spill down the walls, forming shallow streams and icy pools, and ultimately these would find some crevasse to seep into. Such crevasses widened over time, and cut away the floor.
After a dozen miles, the caves began to warm. The ice fans disappeared, and quite suddenly the cave was filled with a dense, cool fog.
The horses slowed to a walk, and despite the fact that Gaborn could not sense any immediate danger, his heart beat faster. Until now, the view had been clear before them, and Gaborn hadn’t feared that they would meet a reaver. At least, if they had met one, he’d have been able to see it. But now, the light thrown by his opal pin failed him, and he could hardly see his hand in front of his face.
The whole party was forced to dismount, and Gaborn walked for a bit in the fog, his skittish horse pulling at the reins with nearly each step.
He thought back to a conversation that he had had while Averan finished taking her endowments.
Gaborn’s Days had asked, “Your Highness, I beg you to take me with you. At least let me ride part of the way.”
Gaborn felt annoyed by the request from the historian. “You ask much of me, and never once have you given anything in return. You say that the Days are forbidden to become involved in political intrigues, that you are merely observers of the affairs of men, servants beholden to no one but the Time Lords. Yet I ask you one last time to become involved. Help me. Bid your Days around the world to warn the people: tell them to set sail north or south for the isles of the sea. If we do not defeat the reavers at Carris, there may be no other refuge.”
To Gaborn it seemed a small request, one that could easily be fulfilled. Each Days had given an endowment of wit to another, who then granted his own endowment in return, so that the two Days shared one joint memory.
The Days that stood before Gaborn acted as the “witness” for the “twins,” scrutinizing Gaborn’s every word and deed. His twin acted as a scribe, and lived a retired life on an island in the cold seas north of Orwynne, where she wrote the chronicles of Gaborn’s life.
Thus, with all of the scribes living together, they formed a vast network. In theory, the Days could do as Gaborn asked. They could warn every lord in every realm of the impending doom.
“This would violate our political neutrality,” the Days answered Gaborn.
“Not if you warn all men equally,” Gaborn said. “I don’t ask you to favor any one nation above another. Warn all men. Help me save any man who will save himself.”
For the first time in his life, Gaborn saw a Days flinch and seriously consider a request for help. By the Days’s own law, if a prince, though he be but a child, should fall into a pool and begin to drown, the Days was not allowed to offer a hand.
“You understand,” his Days answered after a moment, “that whether you want it or not, there would be political repercussions. Kings and queens would flee their own lands, or send their children into exile. Nations would tumble, populaces shift. Wars would erupt as men struggled for control of the islands in the north.”
“At least some would live,” Gaborn said. “At least in the northern wastes, they’d stand a chance against the reavers.”
Iome’s Days, a young girl who was new to the task, looked to Gaborn’s Days and said, “We should take the request to the council.”
“You would risk a schism!” Gaborn’s Days objected.
“And you would risk the fate of mankind!” Iome’s Days shouted back.
The two glared at each other, and Gaborn’s heart pounded. Never had he seen two Days argue.
Gaborn’s Days abruptly went to his horse and rode off in a fit of rage. Iome’s Days said to Gaborn, “Your Highness, I will do what I can to honor your request.”
“Thank you,” Gaborn said. He reached out and squeezed her hand.
The girl looked at Gaborn’s Days’s fleeing back and shook her head sadly. “Old ones like him, they forget what it is like to love, to have family and friends. Their only love is watching, and their only friends are their twins.”
“In this council of yours,” Gaborn asked, “will you stand much chance against others like him?”
The girl shook her head. “I don’t know. We serve the Time Lords. We keep the chronicles. But what will we chronicle if all men die? The advance of the reavers, the slow cooling of the sun, the end of all things? I think we have reached a time when we must take action, but if we do, we must all take it together.”
So Gaborn walked in the fog, and sought with his Earth Sight to pierce the gloom.
“The fog won’t last long,” Averan assured everyone. “There’s a larger passage ahead, a shaft going up, where hot air from the Underworld meets the cold air of the mountains.”
“Gaborn,” Iome asked, “is there danger ahead? Do you sense reavers?”
“Yes,” Gaborn said trying not to sound too ominous, “I sense danger, but not for many miles.”
He wondered at that. If the reavers were planning to set an ambush, what better place could they have to spring an attack than here in this dank fog?
Gaborn asked Averan, “You warned me yesterday about the dangers here. What are we likely to find ahead?”
Averan shook her head, as if clearing her thoughts. “Mainly there are reavers,” Averan said. “Lots of them. But there are other dangers—deep canyons that reavers could climb, but maybe men could not. And there are other animals down here....”
“With our endowments,” Gaborn said, “I don’t think we need to worry about animals.”
Averan seemed to think for a moment, and then let out an exasperated sigh. “This...isn’t what I remember. A week ago, the roof of this tunnel was choked with vines, and the floors were thick with vermin. That’s what the Waymaker remembered. But now the reavers have cleared the trail and smoothed the way. So I don’t know exactly what we’ll find on the road. And I’m not sure what roads we might have to follow. There are lots of tunnels near the Unbounded Warren, and there are paths that even the reavers fear to tread. If we’re to get past the reavers, we’ll need to take some of the less-used tunnels, the dangerous ones. I think we’ll have to sneak in.”
“You say we’ll meet reavers,” Gaborn asked. “Will there be guards?”
Averan thought for a moment. “I told you: the reavers you fought, they weren’t warriors. They were farmers and tunnelers, butchers and...just common reavers. Few of them knew how to fight. Sure, they carried knight gigs and blades, but they didn’t know how to use them. If there are guards ahead,” Averan continued, “I can tell you what to watch for. Reavers like to burrow underground when they hunt. They’ll be on the road, with dirt covering them, hidden so well that you won’t even notice a bump. Nothing may show except for one or two philia, lying above the surface.”
“I’ve always wondered,” Binnesman said, “can they see us when they’re underground?”
“No,” Averan said. “Like I told you, they don’t see like we do. They only sense shapes from their life-glow, from the lightning in their bodies.”