We turned our attention then to the scene before us. The meadows, bright with flowers, sloped slowly down from where we stood, but several miles away the land started to rise sharply again, and grass gave way first to a line of dark evergreens and then to ice. The tips of the icy peaks were touched by pink from the sun behind us.
“I hope we’re not going up those mountains,” said the king. “I’m not sure my old bones would make it.”
Ascelin laughed. “Don’t worry, Haimeric. “We’re out of the western kingdoms now and over the pass. Our road will swing around the bases of the rest of the mountains we meet.”
“Does the king of this kingdom have a telephone?” asked Joachim.
“We’re not in a kingdom,” said Ascelin. “Up here in the mountains most of the countries are very small-even smaller than Yurt-and are run by elected councils. And I’d be surprised if anyone east of the pass had a phone. They’re a little old-fashioned here.”
“Come on,” said Dominic. “Let’s get down out of the wind.”
For the next week we traveled through scenery so glorious that it would have been worth the journey by itself, and yet so over whelming that I felt exhausted from more than riding at the end of the day. I was constantly reminded that, while magic might draw on the powers that had shaped the earth, those powers were so immense that all the wizards who had ever lived could only move them very slightly.
Ascelin was right that the worst of our climbing was behind us. Our road stayed in the valleys, narrow or broad, beneath the peaks, or at worst worked its way across the grassy lower slope of a mountain. With a view that often stretched for miles in all directions, we worried less about a surprise attack. We passed a number of tiny, jade-green lakes caught in folds of the landscape, reflecting the peaks above them.
The first two nights we asked hospitality from farmers near the road. In return for a few coins, they cheerfully put us up in the haylofts in the back of their houses, warm with the breath of the cows beneath, and gave us cheese and pancakes with honey and wild strawberries for supper. At night, listening to the dull clang of bells as the cows moved below us, I began to relax for the first time since we had seen King Warin’s castle rising against the sky.
At the second farm there were two little girls in starched white aprons and tight braids, who kept creeping up to see us and then dashing away in giggling excitement. Ascelin looked after them in what I considered inexplicable melancholy until I realized that they must remind him of his own twins.
By the third day, our road joined the first of the much more heavily used roads that crossed the passes further south, carrying trade and travelers between the eastern and western kingdoms, even though the main routes to the East were still to the west of the mountains. Now there were regular inns; their rooms, though small, were scrupulously clean, and the featherbeds were nearly as soft as the ones in the Lady Claudia’s guest rooms. Cheese seemed to be featured at every meal.
The second inn had a pigeon loft. The innkeeper was a little dubious about trying to send a pigeon message any distance, especially over the high passes. He warned us darkly about the difficulties of messages that had to be transferred several times. But Joachim sent Claudia a letter, Hugo wrote his mother, and both the king and Ascelin sent letters to their wives. None of them told me what they put on the tiny rectangles which were all the pigeons could carry.
After a week in the mountains, our route began, almost imperceptibly at first, to lead us lower and away from the highest peaks. Then we rounded the base of a mountain and saw before us not another mountain but a glimpse of a distant blue plain. Ascelin, who had been striding in the lead, stopped short.
“This is as far east as I’ve ever gone,” he said. “We’re leaving the little mountain republics here, and once we reach the plain we’ll be in the eastern kingdoms.”
“Then we’ll be leaving peaceful territory,” said Hugo, “to go into a land of war.”
“Well, almost,” said Ascelin. “You have to realize that these mountains are so peaceful in part because all the restless young men go down to fight in the pay of the eastern kings.”
There was a tiny church in the bend of the road. Although from the outside it was dark and undistinguished looking, the inside blazed with candle light on luxurious silk hangings and golden reliquaries. “Both those thankful to be coming down out of the mountains,” read Joachim from his guide, “and those starting the hard and perilous climb up into them, have traditionally left a small offering here.”
But I would have been happy to stay in the mountains. As we wound down toward the distant plain, I once again began worrying about how to protect our party. I had been brought along as a wizard to do so, but so far was rather short on success. In odd moments I tried to work out new variations of spells, wondering which ones might stop an army. Back when the wizards in the west had stopped the Black Wars, I thought, they had either been much more proficient at magic than I, or else they had not had their best friends held hostage by the enemy.
As we came down the final steep slope into the eastern kingdoms, the rocky outcroppings on either hand yellow with gorse, we saw that the road ahead of us went through a massive stone gate. It was, I thought, rather useless as a gate, because there was no wall, but as a symbol of a boundary it was very dramatic. It was at least twenty feet high, and sprouting from the top were the carved stone heads of wolves.
As we approached the gate from one side I saw a dusty cloud rapidly approaching from the other. With a little quick magical probing, I discovered it was three mounted knights.
In a moment, the others saw them too. Hugo, Dominic, and Ascelin glanced at each other and drew out the swords they had bought, at what they all said were highly inflated prices, up in the mountains.
But I said, “Wait a minute,” and rode forward, shielding myself and my mare with what I hoped was a suitably strong protective spell. When the riders were thirty yards away, I acted.
I pulled out a pebble to which I had earlier attached an almost fully-completed illusion and threw it as hard as I could. It bounced under the arch of the gate and turned into a dragon.
My dragon reared up, shooting fire, though the dramatic impact was somewhat lessened when its head passed directly through the stonework of the gate. The riders pulled up hard, as well they might, desperately circling their horses as they tried to stay on. But showing surprisingly good discipline, in a few seconds they dropped back and raised their spears.
I was ready for those too. I used magic to jerk their spears in quick succession from their hands, and sent them arching harmlessly away. They reached for their swords, with a presence of mind I admired, but I bellowed, “Stop!” in a voice amplified by magic.
Dissolving my dragon into a shower of sparks, I rode slowly forward, one empty hand raised before me. They had certainly stopped. Following King Warin’s example, I tried to pierce them with my eyes, at the same time adding a few strengthening details to the spell that surrounded me.
“What do you mean, Wizard, trying to enter this kingdom with an act of undeclared war?” demanded the leader of the knights before me.
“I am not at war with anyone,” I said with dignity. “We are peaceful pilgrims. But when I saw armed men galloping to attack my party, I felt I must act at once to protect us.”
The knights looked at my cloak, embroidered with the cross, then past me to the others. “You’re armed men yourselves, in spite of your pilgrim’s tokens.”