“It’s real gold, I bit one,” said the fisherman’s brother.
“That’s the face of His Supremacy Magad the Fifth you just gnashed,” said Dastu coldly. “You understand? He’s our Emperor, our King.”
The fisherman’s son laughed. “King of the tol-chenni. King of the monkeys, the beasts!” He hooted and beat his chest. His uncle laughed, but his father scowled at him, embarrassed. Pazel looked at the wrinkled, wind-chapped creature. Was he, like Ibjen’s father, just old enough to recall the days before the plague?
Soon all the chilly passengers were ashore. Hercol placed the twentieth coin in the man’s palm, then smiled and added another fistful. “Ask them not to speak of us to strangers, Pazel,” he said. “There is still a chance we might be pursued.”
The family waved goodbye, delight beginning to show on their faces as they realized there was no trick.
“Come,” urged Hercol. “We have gained a few miles on Arunis, I think. Let us gain a few more.”
He started at once up the gray, wind-sculpted beach. As the others straggled after him, Pazel heard a shout from the old fisherman. He turned: the mizrald was splashing up to him.
“You will go down the Ansyndra, and across the burn? What you call Black Tongue?”
“Well, yes,” said Pazel. “There’s no other way, is there?”
The mizrald shook his head. “No other way. No other way except with wings.”
“Wings would be dandy,” said Pazel.
The fisherman nodded solemnly.
“Well,” said Pazel, “goodbye.”
“You go at night, eh? Only at night across the burn. Darkly, quietly: that’s how it’s done. Tell your friends. Because by daylight-no, no.”
“No?”
The mizrald drew his finger across his throat. “No, no and no.”
He stared at Pazel with concern, and looked as though he wished to say more. Then (as his family howled in protest) he pulled the youth down and planted a kiss upon his forehead. Then he turned and pushed his boat offshore.
Stunned, Pazel hurried after the others. They were trudging west along the rim of the lake, toward the spot the mizralds had said was the only way down. Pazel could hear a rushing of water, and the now very familiar slushing roar of a waterfall. He ran, catching up with Neeps and Thasha. Neeps was gazing back across the lake.
“How are we supposed to return?” he said. “The fisherwoman herself said they almost never come down here. And half the time there’s no shore to walk along, just blary cliffs. How are we supposed to get back?”
“There must be trails through the mountains,” said Pazel, trying to sound as though he believed it. “Hercol and Olik must have thought about it, mate. Don’t worry.”
Thasha’s gaze swept darkly over the peaks. “They thought about it, all right,” she said.
Their destination, as it happened, was similar to the Chalice of the Mai: a river outlet above a sharp descent. But then Pazel swayed and stepped back, dizzied by what he saw. Where the Mai had begun as no more than a stream, this was a thrashing watercourse, descending almost vertically within a deep, twisting crack down the mountainside. In many spots the water vanished under boulders; in others it surged forth in a chaos of white spray. There were outright cliffs beneath them too, where the river became falls. And very close to the river, bolted fast to the rock, was a heavy iron ladder. It descended some forty feet and met up with a wet, steep trail that snaked back and forth down the mountain to another ladder, which in turn met another trail, and so on for some distance. Even by moonlight Pazel could see how far and fast the Ansyndra descended, falls beneath falls beneath falls…
“The ladders will take us only so far,” Vadu was explaining. “There, at that widest shelf, you can see where the Black Tongue begins.”
Pazel could not see it, in fact, for the men were all crowding hazardously for a view. Quickly he told the others what the mizrald had said.
“By night alone,” mused Hercol. “Prince Olik too had heard rumors to that effect.”
“Nonsense,” said Vadu. “Day or night makes no difference. Look there: you will see what does.”
This time Pazel managed to catch a glimpse. Far down the black ridge a faint light shone. Something was burning, with flames that danced and guttered in the wind, throwing sparks into the night. Then all at once it was gone. Utter darkness wrapped the slopes again.
“A fumarole,” said Vadu, “a tunnel into the depths, formed as the lava cooled. The gases that erupt from those horrid pipes are flammable, and sudden in their emergence. But something worse dwells in them: the flame-trolls. Idlers who never leave the Upper City will tell you that they are mere legends, but we who carry the Plazic Blades know better. They are real, and deadly. When they emerge, no living thing can cross the Tongue.”
“And when is that, Counselor?” asked Myett, from Big Skip’s shoulder.
“When they hear footsteps on their roof,” he said. “Or loud voices, possibly. Many parts of the Tongue are but a hollow crust.”
“How did ye learn so much about the place?” asked Alyash.
Vadu gave him a rather hostile glance.
“The answer to that can wait,” said Cayer Vispek. “The crossing cannot, if we are to go by night as Pathkendle says.”
“I tell you silence is all that matters,” said Vadu.
Nonetheless they began the descent without delay. It was not the longest leg of their journey but certainly the most terrifying. Some of the ladders shifted on the rusted iron pins that held them to the cliffs; one had been reduced to a single bolt and three wooden splints. The rungs were corroded, and bit into their hands. But to Pazel the spaces between the ladders were worse: slick ledges, barely flat enough to balance on even when motionless, too narrow for crawling (which would have been far safer than walking upright) and devoid of any handholds whatsoever.
Only the ixchel were at ease, and even they crouched low when the wind surged suddenly. Pazel, at home on masts and rigging, had to fight down panic at every turn. They crept down the cliffs, barely speaking. The four hunting dogs, slung in harnesses on the backs of the Masalym soldiers, held absolutely still. One particularly long ladder spanned a pair of rocks jutting well out from the cliff, so that for a good seventy feet there was no cliff to see or touch, just rung after iron rung, lost in the clawing wind.
How many more? thought Pazel desperately, after the eighth or ninth descent. He glimpsed his sister in the moonlight and was amazed at her poise. The other sfvantskors were the same, and so was Hercoclass="underline" masterfully aware. Did such awareness free one from terror or increase it, he wondered, when each step might be your last?
At last, after fourteen ladders, they reached a broad, rocky shelf. Pazel was shaking, and feared he might be sick. But the air was warm: they had dropped right out of the icy wastes of Ilvaspar, and into a gentler place. But there was also a strange, biting smell that for some reason made Pazel think of rats.
It was very dark. He moved away from the ladders and at once bumped into Neda-and Neeps. The small boy was holding his sister, rigid with indignation, in a tight embrace.
“Is all right,” said Neda, squirming, her Arquali rougher than usual. “Let go now! You do same for me, same situation.”
Neeps did not seem able to let go. Pazel touched his shoulder; he started, and abruptly dropped his arms. There was mud on his face but he did not seem aware of it.
“I should be dead,” he whispered, staring at Pazel. “I mucking fell, mate. On that path with the ice underfoot, that terrible spot. Your sister caught me by the belt and dragged me back. She could have fallen herself. I should be dead.”
Neda looked at Pazel. Switching tongues, she said, “Your friend is in shock. But when he’s able to listen, tell him I’ll break his arms if he tries to grab me again.”