The winds swirled across the mountain tops, the bitter blusters catching flakes of snow and scattering them before them. They came down off the ever white peaks, with no barriers to break them on the way down, across rocky slopes and deep drifts of snow, sweeping over two figures making the slow, perilous climb up.

Aedmorn, his dark blond hair being whipped around his face, peered up at his companion, the desert-born Ivkarha as she clambered aloft up a near vertical cliff face, the stone barren and cold to touch, yet it stopped her not as she flowed up it, her cloak being tugged first one way and then the other by errant gusts of wind.

“Are you sure that this is wise?” Aedmorn called out up to her.

Ivkarha paused in her climb, balanced effortlessly on the though of a rocky spur, looking back down at him. “It can not be much further,” she told him. “You heard what was said.”

“Yes, yes, a mysterious tower in the sky, containing all the colours of the rainbow that could be spotted upon a cold, clear winter’s morning. We have seen nothing, not even a simple hut, and we have been at this for days.”

“No need to give up yet. The mountains are vast and we have much to explore still.”

“And that is what I most fear; we could be here half a lifetime and not explore all of it.”

She laughed, the sound snatched up by the winds and carried away.

“Have some faith, my friend,” she replied and started to climb once more. Up the face she went, hauling herself up over the top, to a ledge above.

With a sigh of resignation Aedmorn started up after her, picking his way up the cliff, weaving his way along from outcrop to outcrop, all the way being dragged at by the wind.

When at last he reached the top of the climb, he found Ivkarha standing, looking back down the way they had come, towards a valley floor far below, one through which a river raged white and rapid, with thick forests growing about it. No signs of civilisation could be seen, no towns or farms or tracks.

“We are a long way from anywhere,” Ivkarha remarked, observing a few birds circling above the valley, so far away they were barely dots.

“Which makes this tower all the more unlikely,” Aedmorn pointed out. “Who would build this far away, and how?”

She grinned at him. “A little mystery is good from time to time; if we knew all where then would be the fun in finding out?”

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“I prefer finding out somewhere else than where even the goats don’t live.”

She laughed again. “Onwards,” she said. “Standing around won’t find us anything.”

Thus saying, she started off again, along the ledge they found themselves on, up a gentler slope, one littered with large boulders upon which the snow had banked up against, giving them some shelter from the worst of the wind and the snow.

With no choice but to follow, Aedmorn made after here, picking a trail between the boulders, the snow crunching beneath their feet.

The rumours of the tower in the clouds had started some time ago, in far off port city of Esselgran on cold waters of the northern seas; at first it had seemed little more than a wild tale, such as could be found in any drinking establishment. Yet as they had travelled further north, into wilder lands, where only the hardy lived, and of them very few, the tales had continued, with yet more details, such as would make it seem that there might have been some truth behind them.

Ivkarha had become greatly taken by the idea of it and had driven them on to try and find it, pushing into the far wilds where little but the animals lived, and then further still, to the great Grey Mountains of Eskvar. Long passed when others would have given up she pressed on, as supplies dwindled and the days grew colder and shorter.

Yet she persisted, and in her zeal he was dragged along with it, an not all unwitting accomplice. It was true that the mystery of the tower did call to him as well, yet he tempered it with an eye on their situation. Very soon they would have no choice but to depart, before winter set in, the long, frozen nights making survival hazardous at best.

Ivkarha strode on ahead, full of good humour and perseverance, climbing slowly upwards and along, towards a saddle between two peaks. Aedmorn could hear a faint humming coming from her as she climbed; he couldn’t help but be pulled along by such infectious cheer.

He looked up as a squall of wind came swirling down the mountains, carrying a fresh load of snow before it, rolling it down the slope. They ducked in behind one ancient, cragged boulder as it came down over them, the snow swirling around. Their they stood, waiting for the wind to pass and the snows to settle once more.

Aedmorn rested his hand upon the boulder and then frowned. He removed his hand and looked more closely at it, eyes narrowing with concentration and then widening. There were carvings upon the face of the boulder, old and weathered and barely visible, but there still, a remnant from an unknown source.

He traced his fingers along them, clearing dirt and snow from the surface, trying to get a better understanding of what they were, what they represented. They took the appearance of a line of people, though they appeared not to be human, as they were too thin and long for that, arms and legs and head, like they had been stretched out. Above them were another group of the people, and these appeared to be throwing themselves from a great height.

A little more clearing away and he found a script beneath the people, one of curves and whirls, the lettering unknown to him.

“I told you that we would find something,” Ivkarha told him as she watched him studying the carvings.

“This may have nothing to do with the tower,” he replied.

“It would be passing strange for it to be here, so far from anything and not to do so,” she responded. Then she raised her head and looked around. “Wind is dying away,” she announced. “Time to press on and find the tower.”