“Where the hell are we?” I gasped.
Mithos gazed around the grassy vale in which we stood, his eyes lingering on the steep snowcapped mountains which hemmed us in on all sides.
“I have no idea,” he said.
SCENE IV Bird Watching
“What do you mean, you have no idea?” I spluttered. “We are a few miles north of Stavis, right? Where we were a few minutes ago. I mean, we have to be.”
“No,” whispered Mithos, still gazing about him as if he were in a trance, “we’re not. I’ve never seen these mountains before.”
“I’ve never even heard of mountains close to Stavis,” added Orgos in the same awed tone. “Outside Thrusia, the nearest range is Aeloria in the northwest.”
“Home of the Diamond Empire,” said Mithos. “And if we’re there, we’ll know soon enough. There’ll be fortifications, patrols. . ”
“But Aeloria is three or four hundred miles from Stavis,” added Renthrette, breaking silence for the first time. Her surliness had melted in the face of this new and thoroughly astounding development.
“More,” said Orgos.
“So where in the name of all that’s rational are we?” I demanded irritably. They were the adventurers after all. They were supposed to know these things.
“Like I said,” Mithos replied, turning to me at last. “I have no idea.”
“Well could you think a little harder, please?” I shouted. “I mean, we were only doing, what, six or seven miles an hour? And we had been on the Vetch road for about four hours. The Black Horse is twelve miles from Stavis, so that puts us. . What? What the hell’s the matter with you lot, eh? What are you staring at?”
Mithos took a deep breath and sighed. Then he took a step toward me and said, “I don’t know the land north of Stavis as well as I might, but there are no mountains in that region.”
“Yes there bloody are!” I yelled back at him. “Look around you! Use your bloody eyes, for God’s sake! Mountains! Everywhere. Of course there are bloody mountains north of Stavis. You think they grew overnight like some kind of apocalyptic mushroom? You think maybe no one spotted them before?”
“Have you ever seen mountains on maps of this area?” he responded, cool and hard.
“So they got left off. They aren’t especially interesting mountains. The mapmakers must have just figured they’d stick to the key stuff like towns and rivers. Maybe they had to write ‘Vetch’ in big curly letters and there was no room for the bloody mountains. Maybe-”
“We aren’t on the Vetch road anymore, Will,” he said with a touch of irritation. “Use your eyes. There is no road. Something happened to us and we are somewhere else. That’s all.”
And suddenly my brain gave up and it just wasn’t worth arguing. He was right. There had to be an explanation, but he was right. We weren’t where we were supposed to be.
“This has something to do with the ambassador,” I muttered.
“Quite possibly,” said Mithos, himself again.
“If I ever see that bloke again. .” I began, but couldn’t think of anything that seemed suitable. “I’ll bet he drugged us and then drove us somewhere, dumped us and waited for us to come round. . ”
“Hundreds, maybe thousands of miles?” said Renthrette skeptically, but too confused herself to give the remark the withering disdain she would have mustered in other circumstances.
“If I’ve been unconscious,” said Orgos, “it hasn’t been for long. My beard hasn’t grown.”
“Maybe he shaved you,” I tried, lamely. Everyone ignored me and turned their eyes back to the mountains. A cold wind rippled the meadow in which we stood and, for the first time, I felt the chill of winter. Something was very badly wrong. It had been early autumn when we set out.
“So where to now?” Renthrette mused aloud.
“Shelter,” said Mithos, “and any signs of people we can track to civilization.”
“Which way?” said Orgos.
No one replied for a second, and then, with a half-shrug and no word of explanation, Mithos began walking across the valley. We followed, eventually, Renthrette remounting her horse, Orgos catching up with Mithos and striding silently along with him. I brought up the rear, in a stunned silence.
If the sun was going down, then we must be heading north. Presuming, of course, that the sun still set in the west. For all I knew, round here the sun might rise in the south, hang around for a bit and then go back the way it came. Maybe it didn’t go down at all, and would turn into the moon, or a side of beef. .
This was getting me nowhere, except perhaps on a fast horse to mental collapse. With that in mind, I chose to focus on what was, rather than what might be. In truth, I still suspected that what was was more a matter of what seemed to be, but there was clearly little point in dwelling on the distinction. My brain hinted that we’d get past the first mountain and find Vetch nestling at its foot as expected, and there would be the ambassador looking lost and hurt and saying, “Where on earth did you get to? I just turned my back for a moment and. .”
Yes, not very plausible. Less plausible, in fact, than the aggressively real brush of the long grass about my ankles or the wind that burned my ears with each frosty gust. I pulled my totally inadequate jerkin tight about me and tried to pick up the pace a little before bits of me started falling off.
After almost an hour we had made our way to one side of the valley. There we came upon a stream, frozen at the edges, but fast and clear. Crossing it brought us to an embankment of some sort, like the wall of a dam formed by the scree and rubble which fell from the mountain. After a moment’s deliberation, we scrambled up it awkwardly, sending little avalanches in our wake. Renthrette and Orgos had to virtually drag the skittish horse up the treacherous slope. I slid halfway down and took the skin off the palms of my hands trying to stop myself. The others waited silently at the top for me, showing the kind of patience that you might bestow on an imbecile child as he failed repeatedly to spell the word “moron.” By the time I got up, sweating in spite of the bitter wind, even the horse looked bored.
A few steps, however, swept this mood away. For atop the embankment was a cinder trail that wound its way through the mountains. It promised more than shelter, it promised civilization. Given that I was freezing, irritated, totally confused, and bleeding slightly from wounds too minor to get any real sympathy, that promise was as good as a hot bath, a joint of venison, and a flagon of strong ale. Well, not quite, but you take my point.
But the idea of the bath cooled rapidly as we strode along the blackened track for an hour or more with no sign of intelligent life. The road, if that was what it was, felt like it was going somewhere, but it dragged through the mountains, curling aimlessly here, doubling back around an outcrop of rock there, so that its progress was random to say the least. After a while I felt like I was riding some huge, lazy, and very confused-or possibly blind-earthworm. After a second hour, I gave up on the beer and venison, too.
The one thing we did have on the path was protection from the icy wind and, though the air was still crisp and clear, the sun brushed our upturned faces and warmed them gently. Around us the mountains loomed: great angular crags of pale russet and violet-gray, towering as hard and impassive as a gold merchant’s wife and fading into distant peaks white with snow. Of Vetch there was little hope and no sign.
After another hour, the company grew restless again. The sun had clearly begun its descent (in the west?) and we couldn’t go on walking till dark with no plan for what happened if we didn’t stroll into a cleverly concealed city around the next corner. Mithos grew even more surly than usual, and as he muttered earnestly to Orgos, they began walking a little faster. Renthrette, still mounted, trotted up to them and exchanged a few insights on our condition. Apprentice Will, man of dubious talents, tired legs and all-round miserable bastard, trudged behind and counted off all the places I would rather have been.