They twittered a few commands at him, ignoring his pleas and questions except to tell him to be silent. They tied his hands behind his back with a silken cord. They put a noose of the same cord around his neck. Then they formed up and began trotting along the road to the tree, cheerfully singing a fastpaced, complex round.
Thinal followed. He had no choice, for the tether ran easily through a silver ring and would choke him if he allowed it to tighten. They ran him on a very long leash, so he must trail far behind them. Somehow that position felt designed to humiliate, as if he were something unpleasant they did not want to be associated with. Trotting along with his soiled rags flapping against his thighs, he preferred not to think about that. If he tried to catch up, then he would step on the cord and strangle himself. He feared that they would just drag him if he fell down.
Guard and captive rounded the bend and the entrance to Valdorian was straight ahead. The trunk itself was still some distance away, a rugged cliff meeting the ground in an untidy, unelvish jumble of broken rock, stretching off on either hand until it disappeared in the far distance, and leaning outward, rising to meet the roof. The road ended at a freestanding spiral staircase of red and white polished stone. The guards continued on up the steps without pause, although they stopped their singing. There was no sign of Rap, or anyone else at all.
The stair soared in an impossible spiral to vanish into an aperture in the roof. Halfway up, Thinal was gasping for breath and shaking sweat out of his eyes. He had no time to look around, for he must concentrate on the curve of the snaky cord rising steadily ahead of him. He could tell that he was falling behind when the cord no longer touched the steps. Relentlessly it grew straighter, then darkness closed in as the stairs entered a shaft. He ran harder and harder, yet slower and slower, lungs bursting, legs sheer blades of fire. He could no longer see the tether, but he felt it tighten around his neck-at first with the gentle touch of a teasing lover, then sternly, urgently, murderously; briefly it took some of his weight to haul him up the steps, until he choked and fell, battering himself on the hard edges.
Voices warbled above him like furious birds. He could see nothing. The rope jerked repeatedly, tugging at him until he managed to scramble to his feet, his throat feeling as if it had been beaten with a hammer. He resisted the pull, holding himself to a walk. The noose yanked harder and he fell again, hurting himself in a whole new set of places. Again he rose and again he refused to run; with much angry chirping, his captors acquiesced to his slower pace.
He hoped they knew that he wasn’t being stubborn, that they would not be angry with a poor weakling who could run no more. He was beyond speaking, even had they seemed inclined to listen. He plodded grimly upward around the spiral.
Gradually light filtered down the tunnel, and it emerged onto the first layer of the tree. He was vaguely aware of mossy greenery and shrubs, of dripping sounds and a scent of flowers. The ground rose gently from the cliff until blue sky showed over treetops far away. High above those the sloping underside of the next petal roofed the glade like a low cloud, but it was shiny crystal, not dark as the outside layer had been. Light reflected in a million spars of color on ribs and facets.
He had neither time nor desire to admire. His guards hurried him along a brief road, to yet another stair, this one narrower and carved into the side of the trunk. They began to climb again. How far were they going? Valdorian was two leagues high, higher by far than any mountain. He would freeze at the top of it—there would be no air to breathe!
And where was Rap?
The stair turned into the rock and again there was dark. Despite their mail, the elves moved in silence. He could not tell how far ahead of him they were except by the tightness of his noose. He fell only once on that stair, but he cracked his head hard enough to see a million stars.
Back into daylight they came again, into a dim ferny forest, and at last his captors took a break—Thinal just crumpled to the moss at the roadside. A small stream of water cascaded down the cliff, ending in a free-falling jet. One by one the elves stepped under it to drink and be soaked. They jabbered and laughed among themselves, ignoring their prisoner. When they had all finished, they called Thinal over. He heaved himself to his feet and lurched forward; he sank on his knees in the pool, lifted his face. The cold wetness ran over him and down his throat like pure bliss. It was the best thing he could ever remember.
His guards had been joined by another group—three male, three female. For a moment they all chattered together, apparently discussing a cluster of red birds singing in a nearby copse. Then the original six departed back the way they had come.
“Up!” cried a boyish voice.
Thinal leaned back until his groping fingers found the tether under him. He wrapped it in his bound hands as well as he could. When the jerk came it did not reach his neck, and the guards looked back in surprise and annoyance.
He heaved himself unsteadily to his feet, his legs wobbling with fatigue. He could not tell which of the six was the leader, so he spoke to all of them.
“Where are you taking me? Where is my friend?”
The smallest stepped forward, holding up a very shiny, very skinny, very slim dagger. Her eyes twinkled amber and pale green in the dimness, but there was no smile on her face.
“Let go that rope, imp!” she said in a piping treble. Thinal had never known himself to defy anyone before—not since that night in Orarinsagu’s house, anyway—and he knew it could not be courage that made him defiant now. It must just be sheer terror.
“Not until you answer my questions!” His voice was as shrill as the elf’s.
The guards all burst into twittering laughter, like birds. “If you do not let go of that rope,” the smallest one said, “we shall take it off your neck and put it around your ankles. Then we shall make better time.”
Thinal released the rope.
He lost track of the layers. Staircases and ramps went by in an ordeal of mindless trudging. He knew only the cramps and stitches and the bruises he gained in his falls. When he was granted a rest he fell to the ground and usually passed out. He was aware of being given water, and even food, which he could not eat. He was offered liniment for his legs; he knew vaguely that someone massaged it in for him, and more than once; his feet were tended and clad in better shoes.
Higher and higher he went, step after step after step, every one a calculated agony.
He was passed from squad to squad up the tree. The soldiers were not consciously cruel, as goblins would have been. They were not malicious like imps, or even callous like jotnar. They sympathized with his suffering, in their alien way, although they could not help but regard an imp within a sky tree as a pollution. They pitied him after their fashion, but they had been given the task of conducting this prisoner up this tree and elves were fanatical about performing duties.
Somewhere his bonds were removed, but he was never unguarded and he had no hope of escape. He obeyed and endured in sick despair.
He lost track of the days, for after a few hours’ rest he would be taken on again, in daylight or by the amber glow of lanterns. As the temperature fell, his escort provided him with warmer clothes, fine silks and light woolens. His lungs strained in the thinning air.
Mostly the way clung close to the central trunk and often followed shafts cut within it. At times, though, it veered away from the cliff, and then he traveled by spidery ladder and perilously narrow catwalks with the petal landscape spread out below him like a map: lakes and forests and fields, tiny picture-book cottages nestling among the meadows. His captors kept careful watch over him at those times, but they need not have worried. Thinal had no fear of heights. Heights were the only thing he did not fear.
Days came and went—weeks, perhaps—and the ordeal grew no easier.
He gathered from some chance remark that Rap was traveling ahead of him. Thinal had never been to Krasnegar, but the others all had, and he remembered the stairs. Rap would be managing better.