He was crazy! Perhaps there was just time to correct his error before Andor arrived—then no one would ever know. Frantic with guilt, with fingers that seemed clumsy as toes, Rap began unloading the ponies.
He had hardly started when a door creaked. He jumped, but he knew it was Andor before he could see him.
Andor thankfully slid a huge pack of supplies off his back.
“Good man! Almost ready, I see. You’re a wonder, Rap, even among northerners—and you know what people say about them. “
“No? What do they say about us?”
“Oh,” Andor said vaguely, “you know. Self-reliant, tough, dependable. That sort of thing. Now to business!” Grinning, he held up Hononin’s keys and jingled them.
How had he managed that? Rap’s heart pumped cold terror as he remembered the tales of the fisherman Kranderbad and the others. “What did you do to him? Tell me!”
“Not a thing, my lad. He’s still drinking Winterfest punch at the King’s Head. “
“He gave you the keys?”
“No. He dropped them on the floor right here, but he doesn’t know that yet. Now, what are we missing?”
Ten minutes later they unlocked the stable gate and walked out into the bailey and the deadly cold.
“Damn!” Andor said. The expedition had run into trouble already. Although the outer gates were never locked, only barred, a giant snowdrift lay across them. The postern was open, and a path through it well tramped, but the packhorses would not be able to pass that way with their burdens.
“We’ll have to unload and load up again outside,” Rap said, feeling the bite of the cold already.
“I suppose so,” Andor muttered. “Is there anyone out there to see?”
“I . . . I don’t know!”
“Use your farsight. “
“I can’t!” Rap felt a sudden panic. Was his mysterious power going to fail him now, when he had just agreed to use it? He could sense nothing-which told him how much he had already become accustomed to using his farsight without realizing. A tremor of guilt teased at his conscience again. Were the Gods about to withdraw their gift to him?
Then Andor chuckled. “Try this, then. Go outside and see what happens.”
Puzzled, Rap handed him the lead rein and stepped through the postern. A moment later he returned. “You’re right! The gate stops it—whatever it is.”
“Should have known! The castle is magic-proof.”
“Magic? I’m not a sorcerer!”
“No, lad, but your farsight is something more than mundane. Why do you suppose old Inisso built a castle, anyway? There are no armies here! Sorcerers fear only other sorcerers, so the castle wall is magic-proof. Magic’ll work inside or outside, but not through the walls . . . I’ve heard of that. I d forgotten. Well, come on! We’ll freeze to death if we don’t start moving!” With Andor following, Rap led their string down through the alleys of Krasnegar and the Gods seemed to be cheering them on. The few people they met were so far advanced in festive preparations that they did not wonder where Rap might be going with horses at that time of year. Most did not even recognize him in his new clothes, and the rest were content to call a cheerful greeting as he went by. The town gates were unlocked. Andor swung up the bar, Rap followed him out to the docks-and stopped to check for bears.
Nothing moved in the black stillness. Neither eyes nor farsight detected danger. Spring and fall were when white bears roamed the coast. Midwinter should be safe—but not necessarily.
“Can’t see anything,” Rap muttered nervously.
“Right!” Andor led the way to a boat ramp, and the insane escapade had begun.
Windless and still, the night was yet cold beyond belief. Steam from the horses rose like the smoke of bonfires. Sealed cozily inside his new furs, Rap could feel the deathly touch only on the small comers of his face that were still exposed, but the insides of his nostrils crackled. Snow crunched noisily below hoof and boot.
The half moon had banished the aurora and most of the stars. Now its ghostly light fell from a clear black sky to glitter on the ice-covered bay. The islands of the causeway were drifted over and tangled with piled floes, but the bay ice itself would be safe enough—if they could ever get to it, for its edges were a crumpled horror of tilted blocks and jagged monoliths, sharp ice and soft snow mixed in random confusion. Drifts and shadows concealed deep holes, deep enough in some cases to reach down to the water itself, with only a treacherous thin cover of new ice. For the first few minutes Rap floundered, convinced he would never find a way through such a trap, tripping and constantly sinking through surfaces that looked hard and yet were not. The horses behind him were doing no better and he could sense their terror.
“Take your time,” said Andor’s voice from the back, calmly. ”The farsight will help you.”
Rap’s right foot sank deep into soft snow. He stumbled against a crystal wall, extracted that foot and lost the other, then both, and stopped of necessity, buried up to his thighs. He was gasping with nervousness and exertion, blowing clouds of steam that glistened faint rainbow colors in the moonlight. He thought of the endless leagues before him. At this rate they would starve to death before they even reached the mainland, far less the forests.
“Wait!” Andor called as Rap struggled to free himself. “Close your eyes!”
Rap closed his eyes. He knew that there was a giant canted slab on his right, and a heap of massive blocks to his left, but of course that smooth stretch ahead was all snowdrift and the ice below sloped steeply down. His eyes had not told him that. Over there, however, the snow was thinner . . .
It seemed a long time, but it could hardly have been more than ten minutes before he had found a route through the labyrinth, out on to the smoother surfaces in the center of the bay, where the floes had not been so contorted by the tide. Then it seemed safe to mount the horses. He had mastered the technique. He did not need to close his eyes now, he could blend the two types of sight in his mind and reach out ahead. When they came to the jumble on the opposite shore, he led the string through without having to backtrack once.
“Magnificent! Rap, my lad, you’re incredible! This is going to be a joyride.”
Praise from Andor was a hot drink, sweet and warm all through Rap.
And his magic worked on land, as well. He soon developed a sense for the depth and packing of the snow—where the horses could go and where they could not. In truth there was not much snow on the ground. Krasnegar was a dry place and the snow seemed impressive only because the wind made every flake do the work of ten. Open areas were mostly swept clear, and drifts formed only in the lee of obstacles. His headache faded as his confidence grew, or perhaps that was an effect of the clear and frigid air. Their route was less direct than would have been possible in summer, but they began to advance steadily into the hills, four horses in line sending up thick clouds of steam in the moonlight, the jingle of harness blending with the crackle of the snow crust, their shadows tracking beside.
As the sun ruled Krasnegar’s sky in summer, so the moon prevailed in winter. A full moon hardly set at all, riding high around the sky, ducking but briefly below the northern horizon to hide from the transient sun. But now the moon was waning and it would fail them in time. Yet even at midwinter there would be some daylight, and a brash new confidence was telling Rap that he perhaps did not need light at all.
They took their first break in the same little valley where he had met Jalon the minstrel, many months before, although now the countryside was strangely changed by the snow and the spectral light. This far from the shore bears were unlikely, because bears ate seals in preference to people.
Rap dug out a canteen from under a grain sack on Dancer, whose body heat had kept it unfrozen.
“Careful with this,” he warned as he passed it to Andor. “It will freeze to your lips if you let it.” He felt an unworthy twinge of pride in his superior knowledge, the jotunn guiding the imp. They chewed pemmican and spilled some oats on the snow for the ponies. Rap muttered over their gashed ankles, he scraped the packed snow out of their shoes and carefully picked the icicles from their nostrils. He was almost laughing aloud with excitement, exhilarated by adventure and a sense of escape. Krasnegar had been a jail for him-he had broken out into freedom. He made a promise to himself: this journey would be the start of his manhood. If the air had not been so cold, he would have been tempted to sing.