“The work around the mountain’s gates, Magister. The work to improve our only protection against the Northmen.” Viyeki looked down at the stone flags instead of at his master and tried to find an appropriate composure.
“Ah,” said Yaarike after a long moment. “I wondered what was troubling you. I could see it behind your movements.” The High Magister pushed his chair back from the table and stood, showing his age in the deliberate way he did it. For a moment Viyeki spotted a bright flash of firelight at Yaarike’s throat, or so it seemed. Seeing the Heart of What Was Lost again, even for a brief instant, made him think of the proud moment when Yaarike had trusted him with the safety of his family treasure. But the news of Naji’s appointment had made that triumph seem hollow.
“I will walk you to the door,” the magister said. “Yes, it is time for you to go, Host Foreman. Learn to measure yourself. Excess of anything is hard to hide—joy, anger, sorrow. And when you reveal yourself, you reveal yourself to your enemies as well as your allies.”
“Yes, Master. But I still do not fully understand.”
“That may change.”
Viyeki took a deep breath. “I beg pardon, High Magister, but even if you cast me from the order, I cannot be silent. The work at the gates is by far the most important task we have. All our lives rest on it. Host Foreman Naji is not up to this challenge. He is a solid workman, but he has not the skill for such a task.”
The older man looked at him for a long time, long enough that Viyeki could feel his own heart beat more swiftly at the length of his master’s silence. It generally augured either fury or amusement, but little in between.
“I have met no finer Builder’s sensibility than yours in all my years in the order,” Yaarike finally said. “Your grasp of figures and your imagination, which has startled even me—” He broke off. “But I must take more into account than simply skill, Host Foreman. Or ambition. I must make the decisions I think best for all. And this is my decision. Do your work in the deep tunnels, and do it well. If you fear Naji’s abilities are not sufficient, all the more reason for you to prepare a final refuge for our queen and people.”
Viyeki did not speak until he felt himself in strict control once more. “If that is your desire, High Magister, of course I will do as you wish.”
“Learn to mask your feelings better, Viyeki.” Yaarike came forward and took his arm as if in companionship, though it might also have been a sign of the magister’s weakness. “In that at least you are definitely Naji’s inferior—he is as stolid as the stones he piles. Do not let your emotions blow you like the wind. And do not brood. This is not your fault, but mine. I should not have told you so soon that I wanted you as my successor.”
“You have changed your mind, then.”
“Young fool!” said Yaarike. “It was not necessary for anyone else to know it yet, and it has made you an object of interest. We must do our best to quell that interest.”
“But if you have not informed the Celebrants, how does anyone know? I saw how the others looked at me.”
Yaarike ignored the question. “From now on, you will come to me only when summoned, Viyeki. You will confine your correspondence with me to the facts of your work in the deeps. You will answer all questions about your future role in this order with polite evasion. Do you understand?”
“I do.” But still his heart was beating wildly.
His master seemed remote now. “The days ahead will be difficult and dangerous, not just for the Order of Builders but for all the Hikeda’ya. General Suno’ku is on the rise. Akhenabi will not give in, although he may make a show of doing so. The dance is barely begun, yet already disaster waits at every step, every turn. And if the mortals break down the gates, nothing else will matter anyway. We will disappear like one of those stars that lights the whole sky and then burns to a cinder and is forgotten. Now you are dismissed.”
As Viyeki turned for the doorway, Yaarike reached out and touched his sleeve. “One last thing.”
Startled by even such a small, informal contact, Viyeki stopped short. “Yes, Master?”
“I do not wish to interfere in the domain of your home, Viyeki-tza, but I strongly advise you to stop your wife from crowing to her relatives in the orders of Sacrifice and Song about your good fortune. No good will come of it. Is that clear?”
Something cold settled in the pit of his stomach. Khimabu, despite his warnings, had told her family. “Yes, Master. Very clear.”
The door swung shut. Viyeki had just enough time as he turned to compose his face into a mask of perfect placidity before he walked out past the other supplicants gathered in the high magister’s antechamber.
Porto’s days merged into what seemed an endless succession of climbing and huddling out of the wind interspersed with moments of sheer terror. He did his best not to think about his home and his wife and child, because what good would that do? He was stuck here at the end of the world, in the most foreign of foreign lands, and he had no more control over whether he would ever return to Perdruin than he did over the stars wheeling through the night sky.
He had plenty of time to watch those stars because, despite exhaustion, most nights he could not easily fall asleep, haunted by ghosts old and new. And since a few of their tunnels still lay undiscovered, the mountainside belonged to the Norns after dark; any mortal rash enough to tread in their domain, or even make himself unnecessarily visible, would usually be found dead in the morning with a single black arrow lodged in a vital spot.
But during the daytime the mortals’ greater numbers gave the Mountain Goats, as Porto’s troop dubbed itself, an advantage that they pressed as hard as they could, overwhelming the small groups of Norn bowmen they encountered on the mountain’s rocky sides—although seldom without a pitched and often deadly struggle. The fairies seemed to have run out of magical tricks, but that only meant they fought more fiercely; one of the White Foxes, already disarmed and all but dismembered, had still managed to drag a comrade of Porto’s to the ground and sink teeth into the man’s neck before any of the others could help him. Porto and the others had pulled the Norn off him and stabbed the pale creature until it stopped moving, but the man it had attacked bled to death.
Porto could not have hated the White Foxes more, their unnatural quickness, their near-identical faces, their utter refusal to surrender, but he also recognized their bravery. Outnumbered and driven to ground like badly wounded animals, they fought to the last breath for their land. He hated these things that had killed Endri, Brindur’s son, Floki, and so many others, but he also had to respect their courage.
Would I do the same, if it were my home and my wife in danger—my sweet Sida? Or little Tinio? He believed he would. He prayed that he would, but only God knew with certainty what a man would do when such a time came.
Hours became days, each day with its mountainside patrol, and virtually every patrol with its ration of sudden danger and death. Days became sennights, and the grave trenches the Northmen had dug were filled and covered over and more trenches started, but still the Nakkiga Gates held—still the mountain would not yield. The air, always cold, began to turn colder. The sleet that blew into their faces as the Mountain Goats clambered over the treacherous high slopes felt as hard and sharp as daggers.
Summer was waning and autumn was coming down across the north. The winter—the true, deadly winter that even the hardiest Rimmersmen feared—was on the way. And Porto and his fellows were trapped in its path like beetles exposed in a shattered log.
Troop Governor Ruho’o looked up from his position of supplication as though ready for execution. He held up his hands in the gesture commonly called release to the parent, something taught to children that apparently still remained even after all the training the Builders’ order gave its officers.