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(16) Ikov approached the rock formation. The climb over would be short, but the edge over which he would climb was sharp. He bent down and looked under it: the way was clear and the sandy floor smooth. He crawled under and emerged again into the light from the setting sun. He found himself between the walls of the gorge as he expected, but neither Armadyl nor the army was there. He feared he had stumbled into an illusion. He listened for the voices of his troops, but he heard nothing within the gorge. He noticed only the growing shadows as the sun began to sink behind the southern wall. He crawled back under the rock formation, but it made no difference. He was alone in the gorge. He returned to the main path and walked toward the west, keeping away from the wall in shadow.

(17) In minutes the shadow had shrouded the whole floor of the gorge. He looked at the darkened ground. It was not simply dark. It glowed with a dull, red light, as did every place in shadow. He studied it and could see through it: every surface in shadow had become red and transparent; he looked through the ground and saw beneath him strange creatures, demons of every shape, watching him, waiting to feast upon him. Terror struck him. He looked up to see the last arc of the sun set behind wall of rock. As shadow enveloped him, he saw the demons leap upon toward him from below, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the glare of the sun's last light reflected upon a face of rock on the northern wall. He threw himself at the reflected light, and just as he had stepped through shadow minutes before, he fell through the lighted rock and into another cove, slamming into a warm body crouched against the wall.

(18) "Ikov!" he heard. It was the man thrown into the gorge the day before. He grabbed Ikov, clinging to his leather armor. "Help me," he whispered. Ikov heard singing, loud and fast singing. It was his army. The gorge was dark. They were close, just beyond the opening of the cove. He stood up, lifting the man with him. "NO! I don't want to move!"

(19) "We have to move," said Ikov, gently, "Walk with me." Placing his arm around the man's shoulder, they walked slowly toward the entrance of the cove, and the sound of singing. They turned the corner, and no army was there; the sound of singing had ceased. Immediately Ikov saw the gleam of moonlight upon a surface to his left; he pulled the man with him and threw them both into the rock. They fell through it and onto the main path, right next to their army. Right away two soldiers lifted them up and dragged them into the midst of the troops.

(20) Ikov was set down before Armadyl. The army was arranged in a number of concentric circles; soldiers locked arms with their neighbors, all facing inward; they were singing and dancing in step, moving in circles. Armadyl stood in the center with Ikov. Armadyl explained: "The gorge is a trap; spirits lead astray anyone whose mind is idle for more than a few moments. Once drawn into an unstable space, one becomes a victim for demons beyond the world. We've already lost about twenty soldiers. I have them singing and dancing together like this in order to keep them distracted and together. We can wait for any who might escape like you did, and then we can run west - slow enough to make it out, fast enough to keep anyone from wandering; we should make it out of the gorge before sunset tomorrow."

(21) Ikov pulled himself up on one knee, still dazed. "Unstable spaces?" he asked. "Watch," said Armadyl. He drew an X in the sand. Pointing to the upper quadrant it formed, he said, "Worlds are being and light." Moving his talon to the right quadrant, he said, "When we depart from being and follow only thoughts, we find a realm of only the empty light of thought, void of the things of worlds." He pointed again to the upper quadrant; moving his talon down to the left quadrant, he said, "When we leave the light, we enter lonely places, hidden by the spirits and magics of the world." Pointing at the remaining quadrant, he said, "That is where the demons hunt. This gorge leads through many lonely places to the demons, through places which last only as long as the demons sustain them. Through this gorge the demon of the mountain entered the world, and through it he fled. We have to find the spirit which has opened the way."

(22) Soon Armadyl ordered the troops to run. They remained arm in arm or holding hands, and they sang as much as they could manage. Those who were too exhausted or who had escaped from the demons were carried on the backs of others. They ran through the night and through the following day. Just before sunset they emerged once again into the cold wind and kept running until they reached the shelter of the hills. Armadyl chose a defensible location, and there they pitched camp. They ate from their rations, and but for the watchmen they slept deeply.

(23) After one more day of rest, Armadyl announced to the troops, "We have rations to last us another month. Ikov and I must return to the coast to deal with the spirit haunting that miserable land. You must stay here. There is wood and water in the hills, and no enemies who will threaten us yet. Remain here and rest while we are away. Do not lose hope." Then Armadyl and Ikov left them and walked east, back along the beach. They stopped to sleep for only very short intervals and ate little. They endured again the wind and the cold. After about ten days they arrived at the eastern end of the ridge, and the totem of black, volcanic glass they had seen after leaving their camp within the mountain.

(24) Ikov looked at the demonic figure and followed its somber gaze across the sandy plain to the ridge and the alternative paths which it had presented to the army weeks before: the beach to the north and the gorge to the south. Ikov turned back to the figure and sat down to study it. Armadyl stood several paces away and watched. Ikov sat before the toppled pillar for some hours, feeling for the spirit present there. It was a quiet spirit; it communicated no more than the gaze of the glassy eyes, looking upon the beach and gorge.

(25) At last, Ikov spoke. "No," he said to the spirit, "I won't accept the choice you give me." He stood up; he walked up to the statue and placed his hand upon it - but his hand passed through it. Sensing no danger, he threw himself into the pillar and tumbled a few feet onto a sandy floor in the cave beyond. He knew he had not passed through a portal but only a play of shadow and light. He looked around. The cavern was small, not as tall as he was, so that he could not stand up. It was as wide as the statue was long and about half as deep. Around him were pools of still, black liquid, reflective on their surface like quicksilver. The back wall of the cavern was covered in a mosaic of tiny tiles of black, volcanic glass; the mosaic created the illusion of the demonic figure seen from the outside. Ikov turned to the front of the cavern. Above him he saw the wide entrance, as wide as the illusion outside. Beneath, nestled within a small aclove, he saw a source of light. Set upon a carved rock was a crystal, about the size of his fist; it was hollow and glowing white. He grasped it. It felt fragile in his hand. The spirit of the crystal did not speak to him. He smashed the crystal against the rock. It shattered, and the light was gone.

(26) Ikov climbed out of the cavern. Armadyl simply nodded his approval. He said, "Now we can fly across this land." Armadyl lifted up the exhausted Ikov and took flight. Within a day they had rejoined their army and were sooned prepared to explore the hill country. They had overcome the spirit of the coast after only one month.

Part 7: Hills

(1) Within a few days of their return, Armadyl and Ikov set out with their company to explore the hill country. It was still the middle of winter, but there the army had plentiful access to cold, running streams of water and the shelter of the wooded hills. Their rations of dried meat and bread were low. They walked west, and within a few days they spotted smoke on the horizon and soon found a walled village built upon a hill. The villagers welcomed them and provided them with food and wool. After dinner together, the army withdrew from the small village to pitch camp outside its walls, while Armadyl and Ikov remained to speak with the village leaders.

(2) They identified themselves as Fremennik, hunters and mariners from the coasts west of the ice-capped mountains. Decades before some of them had migrated east over the mountains and had established a few villages upon the thick sheets of ice extending into the northern sea and half a dozen more among the hills. Others had continued along the northern coast, but nothing had been heard from them for several years; anyone who went to contact those Fremennik never returned. For those who had not continued to the coast, their journey had been met with disappointment, for neither the glacial plains nor the hill country provided ample fish or game, and the Fremennik were loathe to journey inland and leave the sea. Instead they longed to return to the west.

(3) But for the Fremennik in the hills their way was blocked, as well as their communication with the villages upon the glacial plains. One of their seers who had journeyed with them from the west had gone mad and moved into the mountains. Long before he had been ousted from among the seers in the west but was welcomed by the pioneers traveling east. After settling with them he lived a lonesome life, often wandering into the mountains and remaining there for days at a time. When the elders discussed returning to the west, he always objected and counseled that they stay in the east. Finally, a few years before, once the Fremennik of all the villages among the hills and on the glacial plains were determined to return to their ancient home, he fled into the mountains for good.

(4) There he haunted the mountain pass, killing anyone who attempted to traverse it. Occasionally he came down from the mountains and struck down anyone he found outside his village in the night. He also appeared in the dreams of the villagers, hooded and cloaked, carrying a large, green, flat, and rectangular blade, which he dragged upon the earth behind him. For years the Fremennik lived in fear, cut off from their brethren in the east, those upon the glacial plains to the northwest, and their ancient homeland in the west. But their seers had foretold that a hero would come to lead them through the mountains, and they hoped that they had found their heroes in Armadyl and Ikov.

(5) Armadyl and Ikov told them of the awful fate of the Fremennik who went east, and then of their whole journey from the Kharidian. They faced in the hill country the last spirit Tumeken had sent them to quell; they promised the Fremennik that after cleansing the land they would lead them to their homeland in the west. Then Armadyl and Ikov returned to their camp to sleep.

(6) On the next day, the Fremennik elders ordered the villagers to pack their belongings for the journey west. They built wagons to carry supplies and dispatched messengers to the other villages so that they could also prepare to leave. When the villagers were ready, Armadyl, Ikov, and their company marched to the next village, with the Fremennik pioneers in tow. For two weeks, they gathered together the Fremennik with their wagons, and they set out all together toward the mountain pass between the hill country and the glacial plains. Spring would soon arrive in the lands to the south, but not for months more in the far north.

(7) One day on the march, Ikov spoke to Armadyl, "Every night I see the seer from the mountains. He appears just as the Fremennik described: hooded and cloaked, and dragging behind him a large, green blade. It seems like an illusion: He stands fifty paces away, always just outside our camp, but when I walk toward him he remains fifty paces away. Sometimes he comes closer to me, but I cannot move any closer to him. He appears in my dreams too, and I hear that the soldiers and Fremennik have also seen him in their dreams in the last days." Ikov paused. "He seeks to discourage us. I can feel a spirit in him which has settled across the hill country and in his mountain, a bitter and envious spirit that would make the Fremennik suffer forever in the barren hills. I have seen the cave where he lives, where I will have to enter alone to slay him." Armadyl nodded in understanding.

(8) A day later, when they were very close to the mountain pass, Armadyl stopped the train of soldiers and pioneers behind him. He spoke thus: "To the south I can see a hill, and upon its top, even in the bitterest cold of winter, grows a bush of roses, unseasonally in bloom. Take heart, all of you, from this omen. For you soldiers, your long journey has come almost to its end; Tumeken's command to bring justice to these lands is almost fulfilled. For you Fremennik, a new life with your kin lies ahead of you where you will again enjoy plenty and peace. Today we will pitch our camp before the base of the mountain, and tomorrow we will cross through the pass. We will leave early, hours before the dawn, so that we might bid Ikov farewell at the cave of the seer and make it through the pass before the evening tomorrow. There we will wait for Ikov to return to us victorious."

(9) Ikov slept deeply that night. By then the seer stood only a few paces from him in his dreams, silently; but Ikov was not moved by fear. He woke with the rest of the company early in the morning, long before dawn. Armadyl and the army escorted him to the side of the mountain south of the pass. There he beheld hidden in shadow a massive hole in the wall of rock, perfectly circular, revealing a tunnel of the same shape and size leading gently downward beneath the range of mountains and into impenetrable darkness. It belonged to an enormous wyrm in ages past.

(10) *kov took leave of his god and his troops, and without torch or lantern walked into the pitch darkness of the tunnel. He would not need a light, for the path was perfectly smooth; no obstacles lay in his way. He walked in the darkness for hours, feeling for the spirit living there; he felt its bitterness and its hate and its presence a long way off. The light of day made no difference in the tunnel; its entrance lay hidden in shadow; Ikov could only see a speck of light when he turned to look behind him.