The Saga of the Renunciates (99 page)

At first the road led upward between hills, steep but not yet menacing. The snowflakes had grown smaller, no longer hand-sized, but the smaller flakes came down thickly, and Magda knew this meant the snow would continue to fall. There were still a few hours of grayish daylight.

Jaelle led the way, muffled in cloak and hood, thick scarf tied over her face; Camilla came after, with two chervines broken to a tandem rein; then Cholayna, at the center, on the smallest and most-sure-footed of the mountain ponies. Magda came behind her, riding a horse and leading one of the chervines. Vanessa, mountain-wise but unfamiliar with the trail, brought up the rear.

As the trail led upward, it grew fainter and steeper. Parts of it were trodden deeply into old mud, rocks lining the path underfoot, and patches of last winter’s snow clinging beneath the thick tree-hedges that lined the road. It was very silent, even the animal’s hooves sounding muffled underfoot, and the snow continued to fall. Upward and still upward; now there were places where the trail all but disappeared between trees and rocks. The chervines did not like it, and whickered uneasily as they picked their way. After an hour’s riding—-though it seemed like more—Camilla signaled a halt, got down and took the two tethered-together pack animals off the tandem rein.

“They won’t be able to make it like this. Cholayna, you take the lead rein on this one. He’ll follow the other, she’s his mother and they’ve worked together for years. He won’t run off and get lost, but he needs a rein to follow.” She climbed back into her saddle. Her face was muffled in a scarf and heavily smeared with cream against the burning of the wind. Cholayna had the same cream on her face; it looked grotesque against the darkness of her skin, as if she were checkerboarded black and white.

When they started upward again, the path was so steep and so narrow that the chervines were lurching upward as if they were climbing steps. Magda kept feeling that she would slip backward off her horse as the animal’s quarters strained up under her saddle. She thought,
We’ll never make it
. A few minutes later, Jaelle signaled a halt. Her figure was blurred through the thickening snow, which was no longer melting as it fell but sticking to the ground, still no more than a thin white sifting; rocks and mud showed patchy black through snowy lace.

Jaelle slid to the ground, hanging the reins on the saddle; she came back, picking her way down over the rocks in the narrow space between the trail’s edge against the mountain, and the horses and pack animals. She spoke to Camilla as she edged past, and Camilla dismounted and came after her. Magda heard her say to Cholayna: “It’s too steep even for your pony. You’ll have to get down. Walk close to your horse and hold his bridle. He’ll find the way better than you can.” She steadied the older woman as she clambered out of the saddle. “Is the altitude bothering you?”

“Not yet, just a little short of breath.”

“Well, take it easy. There’s no point hurrying. There’s bad going ahead, but no danger here. Are you all right, Magda?”

Magda could feel her heart pounding with the altitude, but so far she was in no trouble. She was not so sure about Cholayna, but so far the Terran woman was keeping the pace well enough, and they were gaining height so slowly that there was time to adjust to the altitude. Her ears felt tight, and she yawned, feeling them pop.

“How are you doing, Vanessa?” Jaelle faced the younger woman at the back of the line.

“So far, so good. What are we? About halfway up?”

“Close enough. The hard going starts up there.” Jaelle pointed and Magda sighted up along the path to where a crag hung over the narrow path and, as far as she could tell, the road disappeared and dropped off to nowhere.

Vanessa surveyed it, frowning. Jaelle said, “There are steps. Broad enough and low enough, the horses and chervines can make them if the snow doesn’t get any more slippery. It’s one of the bad spots. I’m going on ahead; let my horse follow if she will, but wait till I signal if it’s all right. I want to be sure there are no nasty surprises up here, while it’s still light enough to see.” She turned and went upward along the narrow trail, half disappearing from sight as the pathway dipped; they could see her red cap bobbing along, then nothing. Camilla said tensely, “I should have gone up with her.”

“She knows what she’s doing,” Magda said. After a minute or two, Jaelle reappeared and beckoned them forward. Camilla took the lead reins of one chervine, letting her horse follow as he would; Cholayna the other. Magda dismounted, taking the reins of horse and chervine, one in either hand, until the trail grew so narrow that she was forced to go ahead, leading her horse and letting the mountain-bred chervine pick his way as he could. Once she found herself edging a tight curb, looking over a dizzy cliff into gulfs of space. The trunks of tall trees thrust up below at crazy angles on the mountainside, and she looked down into their topmost branches. She clutched the lead rein tight and was careful not to look down again.

Ahead of her, where the trail made its sharpest turn, she saw Camilla holding out her hand to Cholayna.

“Hang on. Let the horse go. She’ll find her way all right. Don’t look down. It’s a little steep here. One long step up. That’s right. Fine.” Cholayna’s legs disappeared around the corner. Camilla’s voice came, reassuring her.

“It’s a bit slippery, Margali. Careful.”

She set her boots down with extra care, scrambling for a hold; rounded the blind corner and found herself on broad, low rock steps. One of them crumbled away perilously close to a sheer drop of at least fifty feet and then vanished into blurred snowy treetops. A little dizzy, her ears ringing, she heaved herself to her feet, scrambled up another step and found herself on firm ground, her horse lunging upward after her. She came up on the broad rock plate above, where the wind of the heights tore at her hair. She struggled to re-tie her hood, hearing Cholayna’s harsh breaths close behind her. Vanessa pulled herself nimbly up beside them.

“Whew! That’s a mean one. And you say it gets worse?”

“Unless there are bad washouts, we can probably handle it,” Jaelle said, “but let’s get along. There’s not more than an hour of daylight left, and the snow’s beginning to stick. There are some places we couldn’t possibly manage in the dark.”

The upward path was less steep now, but wound close to the side of the mountain, just wide enough for a woman or a pony. Cholayna, at Camilla’s advice, walked on the inside of the trail, hugging the rock cliff and clinging to the pony’s bridle. Magda would have liked to do the same; she edged as close to the cliff as she dared and did not look down. Once she heard a
kyorebni
scream, and the great carrion-bird loomed close to them; the pony lunged with fright and Magda struggled with the rein, trying to quiet the animal, herself terrified by the huge beating wings, the evil glinting eye which looked for a moment straight into hers, and then was gone; she saw the bird careening off into the wind below her and quickly turned her head and stared at the solid rock of the cliff.

Vanessa, behind her so close that Magda could feel her body’s warmth, muttered, “What in hell was that?”

Magda said briefly, in Terran Standard, “Lammergeier. Near as makes no difference.”

They bent their heads against the wind. It was strong now, whirling the snow in stinging, biting needles. Every step now strained the muscles of Magda’s thighs painfully against the upward slope, and the snow, half an inch thick now under her boot soles, was wet enough to slip underfoot. She could hear the animals panting hard, their breath like hers, coming in white clouds against the white snow.

Upward and upward; then she heard Jaelle’s shout:

“Washout ahead. Hug the cliff and let the horses find their own way!”

Ahead, she saw Cholayna inching her way past a giant’s bite taken out of the edge of the roadway, so that the path narrowed to a few inches. Trying to steady her breathing, Magda flattened herself against the cliff and placed each footstep with extra caution, closing her eyes against the temptation to look down into the dizzying expanse of snow beneath, blotting out the valley below. She felt Vanessa’s hand on her elbow, steadying her.

“All right, Miss Lorne?”

How absurd that sounded, in these wilderness surroundings. She thought,
I’ll have to speak to her about that
, and concentrated on placing her feet with care. The chervine picked its way carefully along, shaking its antlers against the thick snow.

Her heart was thumping now.
No more than thirty-four hundred meters, that’s not all that high, I must be in worse condition than I thought. And we’re not even near the top yet
. Her world had narrowed, the precarious rocky road under her feet, the soft snorting of her horse, the soft clicking of the chervine’s hooves muffled by snow. Somewhere above them a rock rattled loose and bounced over the trail ahead and Camilla called back softly, “Careful. Look out for falling rocks along here.”

Her eyes blurred; she felt herself swaying, perilously close to the edge. No—she was not dizzy, what was she licking up? Cautiously she made her way along the cliff until she was beside Cholayna. The woman’s dark face was gray-white, and when Magda took her gloved hand, it seemed that she could hear the manic thumping of Cholayna’s heart.

“Altitude getting to you?”

“Just a little. Not—used to—heights like this.” Cholayna, too, kept her eyes averted from the drop edge; although Camilla kept looking over, with curiosity and interest, and Jaelle plodded along at the very edge in a way that sent shivering spasms through the muscles of Magda’s thighs and buttocks. Vanessa strolled along as unconcernedly as if she were on an escalator in the Terran HQ.

Magda said to Cholayna in an undertone, “I don’t care for this kind of trail myself. You don’t
have
to look over the cliff, though. Hang on here if you want to.” She felt Cholayna’s hand clutching at hers and tried to feel calm, to quiet Cholayna’s panic. “It’s safe enough. Just don’t look over the edge.”

“I keep feeling—I’ll slip and go over—” Cholayna whispered.

“I know. I get it too. It’s not much farther now,” Magda added, though she did not have the faintest idea how far it was to the top. “Just take it one step at a time. It’s wider than an ordinary staircase and that wouldn’t bother you. You’re doing fine.”

She heard the other woman sigh. “It’s all right. It got to me for a minute, that’s all. I hate being the weakest link this way.”

“Well, if it weren’t you, it would be me,” Magda said. “All right, now?” She turned her attention to her chervine, but continued to watch, unobtrusively, as Cholayna moved slowly upward through the gathering dark.

I hope we get there before it’s much darker
, she thought, gritting her teeth against the cold that made her cheekbones ache. Already she could barely see the path under her feet, though the whiteness of the snow made it easier to see where the path actually vanished. Once her foot dislodged a loose rock at the very edge of the trail and she heard it rattle down for what seemed an endless time before it was out of earshot. One step, then another, steeper one, then another and another.

She edged round another sharp switchback where the trail was almost invisible. She bumped softly into Cholayna, motionless before her.

“I can’t see the trail anymore!” the older woman gasped.

Neither could Magda, really. “Follow the horse. She can see better than you can.” But she wondered how far Jaelle thought they could go on in this dim twilight, with the wind high enough that it was coming at their faces almost horizontally, mixed with needles of sleet.

She could not really see ahead, but she could feel the animals gathered around her on a widening of the ledge, a hollowing out of the overhanging cliff into something like shelter. Vanessa came up with them and they stood gathered in a circle.

Jaelle said, “No way we can get over tonight. We have to bivouac somewhere, and this is the safest place.”

Vanessa asked, “Do we have lights with us?”

Jaelle shook her head. “No use, in this. The trail’s just too bad underfoot. We’ll have to risk snow-freeze on the ledges. In daylight, when we’re all fresh and strong, we’ll try again. Listen to that!” she added. The wind was howling down from the crags above them, and from somewhere came a long, eerie scream—the cry of a banshee. Magda shivered, remembering her only encounter with such creatures, in the Pass of Scaravel. She hoped this one was a good long way off.

Jaelle said, “Let’s get set up. No room for a proper camp, but the overhang gives us some shelter. Chervines on the outside. They’re more sure-footed than horses.”

Magda got a fire lighted to melt snow for hot drinks, though there was no space for much cooking. By the time the drinks were ready, the sleeping bags were spread in the shelter of the ledge. The cold was so fierce, snow hissing past the lantern in white streaks, that they crowded together close under piled blankets, Magda and Vanessa to either side of Cholayna. The older woman’s fingers were stiff and shaking as she took off her boots, and her feet looked pale and swollen. Vanessa took them in her lap to warm them in her hands.

Cholayna began to protest. Vanessa said, “Cholayna, I’m an old hand in the mountains and know more about feet and frostbite than you’ve ever heard of. Drink your tea.”

“I’m not thirsty. I don’t think I can swallow.”

“All the more reason. Go on, you have to. At this altitude, you have to force fluids, because the body tries to shut down peripheral systems to protect the torso, which is why your feet start to freeze. That’s right, wiggle those toes as much as you can! Your body starts to eat its own muscle tissue, you see, that means forcing fluids so your kidneys don’t shut down. That’s the first lesson in surviving high altitudes—not that this is so high, but it’s higher than you’re used to. Drink that up, and eat.” She handed Cholayna a bar of dried fruit, sticky with nuts and honey. Dutifully, Cholayna tried to eat, but Magda could see that she was too weary to chew. She took Cholayna’s ration and soaked the dried fruit in the hot tea, making it softer and easier to swallow, a trick she had learned long ago on the trail. She loaded the tea with extra sugar and gave it back to Cholayna.