He went in this fashion for three days, and one thing happened to him while he traversed the summit of the Cruachan Ridge.
He had reached the third cairn on the ridge when a mist descended. Aware of the insecurity of the path in various places ahead, and noting that his beast was already prone to stumble on the loose, lichen-stained rock, he halted. The wind had dropped, and the silence made a peculiar ringing noise in his ears. It was comfortless and alien up there, impassable when the snow came, as were the lower valleys. He understood the Moidart's haste.
He found the cairn to be the tumbled ruins of an old fourfaced tower constructed of a grey rock quite different from that beneath his feet. Three walls remained, and part of a ceiling. It had no windows. He could not guess its intended purpose, or why it was not built of native stone. It stood enigmatically among its own rubble, an eroded stub, and he wondered at the effort needed to transport its stones to such a height.
Inside, there were signs that other travellers of the Cruachan had been overtaken by the mist: several long-dead fires: the bare bones of small animals.
He tethered his horse, which had begun to shiver; fed it; and threw a light blanket over its hindquarters against the chill. He kindled a small fire and prepared a meal, then sat down to wait out the mist, taking up the eastern gourd and composing to its eery metallic tones a chanted lament. The mist coiled around him, sent cold, probing fingers into his meagre shelter. His words fell into the silence like stones into the absolute abyss:
'Strong visions: I have strong visions of this place in the empty times… Far below there are wavering pines… I left the mowan elphin woods to fulminate on ancient headlands, dipping slowly into the glasen seas of evening… On the devastated peaks of hills we ease the barrenness into our thin bones like a foot into a tight shoe… The narrative of this place: other than the smashed arris of the ridge there are only sad winds and silences… I lay on the cairn one more rock… I am possessed by Time…'
He put the instrument away from him, disturbed by the echoes of his own voice. His horse shifted its feet uneasily 5 The mist wove subtle shapes, caught by a sudden faint breath of wind.
'tegeus-Cromis, tegeus-Cromis,'said a reedy voice close at hand.
He leapt to his feet, the baan spitting and flickering in his left hand, the nameless sword greasing out of its dull sheath, his stance canny and murderous.
'There is a message for you.'
He could see nothing. There was nothing but the mist. The horse skittered and plunged, snorting. The forceblade fizzed in the damp atmosphere.
'Come out!'he shouted, and the Cruachan echoed out! out! out!
'There is a message,'repeated the voice.
He put his back against a worn wall and moved his head in a careful semi-circle, on the hunt. His breath came harsh. The fire blazed up red in the grey, unquiet vapours.
Perched on the rubble before him, its wicked head and bent neck underlit by the flames, was a bearded vulture -one of the huge, predatory lammergeyers of the lower slopes. In that gloom, it resembled a hunchbacked and spiteful old man. It spread and cupped a broad wing, fanning the fire, to preen its underfeathers. There was a strange sheen to its plumage; it caught the light in a way feathers do not.
It turned a small crimson eye on him. 'The message is as follows,'it said. Unlimbering both wings, it flapped noisily across the ruined room in its own wind, to perch on the wall by his head. His horse sidestepped nervously, tried to pull free from its tether, eyes white and rolling at the dark, powerful wings.
Cromis stood back warily, raised his sword. The lammergeyers were strong, and said by the herders to Monar to prefer children to lambs.
'If you will allow me:
'tegeus-Cromis of Viriconium, which I take to be yourself, since you tally broadly with the description given, should go at once to the tower of Cellur.'Here, it flexed its cruel claws on the cold grey stone, cocked its head, ruffled its feathers. 'Which he will find on the Girvan Bay in the South, a little East of Lendalfoot. Further -'
Cromis felt unreaclass="underline" the mist curled, the lammergeyer spoke, and he was fascinated. On Cruachan Ridge he might have been out of Time, lost: but was much concerned with the essential nature of things, and he kept his sword raised. He would have queried the bird, but it went on:
'-Further, he is advised to let nothing hinder that journey, however pressing it may seem: for things hang in a fine balance, and more is at stahe than the fate of a minor empire.
'This comes from Cellur of Girvan. That is the message.'
Who Cellur of Girvan might be, or what intelligence he might have that overshadowed the fall of Viriconium (or, indeed, how he had taught a vultaure to recognise a man he never could have met), Cromis did not know. He waited his time, and touched the neck of his horse to calm it.
'Should you feel you must follow another course, I am instructed to emphasise the urgency of the matter, and to stay with you until such time as you decide to make the journey to Lendalfoot and Girvan. At intervals, I shall repeat the message, in case it should become obscured by circumstance.
'Meanwhile, there may be questions you wish to ask. I have been provided with an excellent vocabulary.'
With a taloned foot, it scratched the feathers behind it head, and seemed to pay no more attention to him. He sheathed his sword, seeing no 'threat. His beast had quietened, so he walked back to the fire. The lammergeyer followed. He looked into its glittering eyes.
'What are you?'he asked.
'I am a Messenger of Cellur.'
'Who is he?'
'I have not been instructed in the description of him.'
'What is his purpose?'
'I have not been instructed in the description of that.'
'What is the exact nature of the threat perceived by him?'
'He fears the geteit chemosit.'
The mist did not lift that day or that night. Though Cromis spent much of this time questioning the bird, he learned little; 'its answers were evasive arid he could get nothing more from it than that unpleasant name.
The morning came grey and overcast, windy and sodden and damp. The sister-ridges of the Cruachan stretched away East and West like the ribs of a gigantic animal. They left the third cairn together, the bird wheeling and gyring high above him on the termagant air currents of the mountains, or coming to perch on the arch of his saddle. lie was forced to warn it against the latter, for it upset the horse.
When the sun broke through, he saw that it was a bird of metaclass="underline" every feather, from the long, tapering pinions of 'the a great wide wings to the down on its hunched shoulders, had been stamped or beaten from wafer-thin iridium. It gleamed, 'and a very faint humming came from it. He grew used to it, and found that it could talk on many diverse subjects.
On his fifth day out of the Pastel City, he came in sight of Duirinish and the Rust Desert.
He came down the steep Lagach Fell to the source of the River Minfolin in High Leedale, a loamy valley two thousand feet up in the hills. He drank from the small, stone-ringed spring, listening to the whisper of the wind in the tall reed-grasses, then sought the crooked track from the valley down the slopes of Mam Sodhail to the city. The Minfolin chattered beside him as he went, growing stronger as it rushed over falls and rapids.