And it would have been slow beyond endurance.
Their fastest route to Estar, if they walked, lay southwest down the barren and almost waterless coast of the Sponge Sea, then due west across the Marbin Erg to Veda – or, to be accurate, the ruins of Veda – then north along the Salt Road.
'That's if we walk,' said Hearst. 'But I favour the sea.'
'And maybe it favours you,' said Blackwood. 'But there's no way west from the Sponge Sea to the Central Ocean.'
'We wouldn't go that way,' said Hearst. 'Returning to our canoe, we'd go the other way. We'd sail out through Seagate, then travel along the coast all the way to Skua. The sea has its dangers – but I'd rather contend with storms off the Bitterwater Coast than with monsters from the Swarms on the Salt Road.'
In the end, Hearst won.
They would go by sea.
That night, Blackwood dreamt of Loosehead Robert, the mad revolutionary who, according to the children's stories of Estar, came to grief when he was caught in a cave in the hills. Blackwood's dream became a tangled nightmare in which hooks, claws and devouring spiders tore apart Robert's body.
In the dream, Robert bled. Not blood, but long words: stochastic, phenomenological, epistemological. In the dream, of course, the words had the full glory of their High Speech avatars: jonmarakaralarajodo, ena-konazavnetzyltrakolii, zeq-telejenzeq. Bleeding, Robert fled down the hill, with the hooks, claws and spiders rampaging after him on a glissando of blue milk.
At first it seemed he would escape. And then:
The hill itself began to move.
'No!' screamed Blackwood.
And woke himself with his scream.
He blinked at dawnlight, at the lava-dark barrens, at his two startled companions.
'Bad dreams?' said Hearst. i was chased by a hill,' said Blackwood.
'You're lucky it wasn't a mountain,' said Hearst, carelessly. i don't think mountains can move,' said Blackwood. 'Not even in dreams.'
'Oh, there's no reason why mountains shouldn't move,' said Miphon. if someone's careless enough to use a death-stone near a mountain – anything might happen.'
'Why didn't the mountains move at Ep Pass, then?' said Blackwood.
'They may well have done,' said Miphon. 'We didn't stay around very long to watch and see, did we? Heenmor would have been able to ward them off with the death-stone if they attacked him, of course.'
'And we could do the same?' said Blackwood.
'We wouldn't need to,' said Miphon. i could control the mind of a mountain just as I control the mind of a rock.'
'Then,' said Blackwood, 'why not – '
As he explained what he had in mind, the other two looked at him, at first with patronising amusement, and then, realising he was truly serious, with disbelief, and then, realising it might actually work, with joyous elation.
'We can do it!' shouted Hearst in a battlefield voice.
'Or get ourselves killed,' said Miphon, with a note of caution. 'Nothing could be that easy!'
'Let's see,' said Blackwood. 'Let's try.'
The nearest mountain was five leagues distant. They trekked to the mountain, then climbed its slopes, which rose three thousand paces into the sky. Miphon used the death-stone, while Hearst and Blackwood huddled in the tiny circle of safety surrounding him.
The mountain came to life.
The ground lurched under them, then rolled sideways. The sun staggered. Miphon struggled for control. The mind of the mountain was fierce, strong, turbulent. Breaking loose from stasis, the mountain went raging across the barren land. The horizon bucked and tilted.
At last, Miphon brought the monster under control. i have it!' he gasped. T have it!'
'Then don't lose it!' said Hearst, badly shaken.
T won't,' said Miphon. 'It's settling down now.'
'Yes, well, let's hope it doesn't start sneezing or something,' said Hearst.
'And don't let it roll over to scratch its back!' said Blackwood.
'And -'
'Trust me,' said Miphon.
And, having no option, they did.
The ride was far from comfortable. The mountain, even though it was under control, moved in stumbling staggering lurches which kept the sun and the far horizons swaying. Blackwood was soon physically sick, so sick that he swore he'd vomited up yesterday's breakfast; the other two felt indisputably nauseous.
After a while, it became very tedious. There was nothing to do but sit and watch the landscape passing by. Miphon worked on the mountain's mind until it believed it was keeping its heading of its own volition: after that, even he had very little to do.
From that height, everything seemed small and insignificant; instead of making the travellers seem powerful, this made them feel disconnected from the landscape. It was disconcerting, after tramping so many hundred leagues on foot, to discover that there was a way to traverse enormous distances almost without effort.
Riding the clumsy, ponderous mountain, at first they covered over a hundred leagues a day. However, on the third day the mountain slowed, and on the fourth day it halted, deep in the Marabin Erg. is it tired?' said Hearst.
Miphon listened to the mind of the mountain, which raged against resuming stasis.
'No,' said Miphon. it would move if it could. Come close to me: I'm going to use the death-stone again.'
Hearst and Blackwood moved into the circle of safety. Miphon took the death-stone and held it. He waited for it to kick in his hand like a beating heart. But nothing happened. The death-stone felt like any smooth stone egg.
'Why are you waiting?' said Hearst.
Miphon snouted out the spell that should make the death-stone work. But nothing happened.
'Give it to me,' said Hearst. 'Let me try.'
Miphon handed it over. Hearst tried, with no success. it doesn't work!' said Hearst.
Surrounding them in all directions was the desert of the Marabin Erg. They were unlikely to survive a march across the open desert. They did not have enough water, for one thing.
'Maybe the death-stone needs time to recover,' said Miphon.
'Oh,' said Hearst, thinking about it.
They actually had very little experience of death-stones. Heenmor had used one once near Castle Vaunting, then again, months later, at Ep Pass, later still making unknown experiments with it at Stronghold Handfast. Elkor Alish had used a death-stone on escaping from the green bottle, and again, weeks later, to destroy an army defending Runcorn against his ragtag forces recruited in the hills of Dybra and Chorst. Hearst had used that death-stone long afterwards, to destroy the eastern defences of Androlmarphos, and Garash had activated another in the Castle of Controlling Power.
That was more or less the sum total of the knowledge they had to draw on. They did not know of anyone else trying to use a death-stone twice in the course of a few days. If the death-stone needed to rest, they had no way of telling how long it might have to rest for.
'We could try and walk,' said Blackwood.
'Through the Marabin Erg?' said Miphon.
'If we walk, we fail,' said Hearst. 'We'd never reach Estar in time, quite apart from the chance of dying of thirst. We have to stay with the mountain and hope we'll be able to use the death-stone again soon.'
'If we'd gone into the Dry Pit we might have been able to get more than one,' said Miphon.
'Yes,' said Hearst. 'And we might have got killed in the process, too. Come on.'
'Where are you going?'
'There! Look, a big watercourse, about a league from the mountainfoot. It's dry, but perhaps we'll find water if we dig.'
In the event, they didn't.
However, on the fifth day after they had last successfully used the death-stone, Miphon held it in his hand and felt it kick like a living heart. He used it. The mountain, animated again, continued on its way, stopping once, on command, at an oasis where they drew water.