The narrow trail spread out in front of me into a wide, flat shelf that jutted from the side of the mountain, facing roughly south. To my left, the trail continued, gratefully sloping downward toward the base of the mountain. To my right, the shelf overhung the stream that had become a river at last, roaring over tumbled rocks and surging to the south. I barely noted either of those, though, as I stared at the sight laid out in front of me.

We stood at the edge of a range of mountains that swept back to the northwest and northeast like a wall, putting us at the tip of a southern-facing bulge in the range. I’d expected those mountains to fall gently into foothills, but they simply ended, forming the northern border of a vast plain that stretched to the south as far as I could see. A strip of dark brown and gray land ran along the northern wall, glimmering and sparkling with numerous waterfalls and rivulets that splashed down from the mountains. That band ended at a narrow, light brown line that wound along the edge of the mountains, and tiny figures moving along that line suggested that it was a road of some sort.

“And I’m guessing the rest of it is the Haelendi,” I thought tiredly, gazing at the endless plain.

“That seems likely, yes, John,” Sara replied.

Beyond the road that bordered the mountains, the flat plain took on a checkerboard appearance I associated with farmland seen from an airplane. The dark green of Earth crops was nowhere to be seen, though; instead, squares of pale green, dark gold, and maroon speckled the landscape, spreading out without a pattern I could see all the way to the horizon. Shining bands of water shimmered as they wound through what I assumed were fields of some sort, occasionally spreading out into gleaming, blue lakes or ponds. Some sort of steam or smoke curled up from many of those lakes, rising in thick white pillars high into the air before being shredded by the upper winds. The whole scene was immensely pastoral, idyllic—and oddly empty in an important way.

I frowned as my gaze swept over the landscape. “Sara, isn’t this supposed to be the Menskie homeland or something?” I asked. “I don’t see anything that could be called a city, or even a village. Do you?”

“Not the way we’ve seen in the past, no, but it could just be that we don’t know what we’re looking for, John.” She appeared beside me as she spoke, staring out at the vast plain below. “We’re here in what you’d call late summer or early fall. I’m guessing that as winter sets in, most of this land is covered in snow, possibly several feet of it. Who knows how they’ve adapted to it? For all we know, their entire civilization could be built underground—although those geothermal lakes suggest that might not be the case.”

“What do you mean?”

“Those plumes that you see rising from those lakes are probably just superheated water or steam, meaning those lakes are likely heated by magma below them. If that’s the case, then this whole region is probably seismically active, and building extensive tunnel systems in places where magma is close to the surface and earthquakes happen a lot doesn’t seem like the best idea to me.”

“You’re probably right,” I sighed, plodding to the edge and sitting down near it. “I’m too tired to think about it, though.”

“Bregg said it was safe to rest now,” she reminded me. “You could probably sleep for a bit if you want.”

I looked around and found that Aeld was already out, snoring softly on a pile of rumpled, sodden furs. Bregg sat back against the rock face of the mountain behind us, his eyes closed and his arms draped across his bent knees. I sighed internally.

“Not yet, I guess. I need to make a circle around the camp, and one of us is going to have to keep watch.”

“You could ask the ancient spirits to do it for you,” Kadonsel suggested.

“What?” I asked, my foggy mind jarred by her sudden words.

“Ask the ancient ones to watch over you while you sleep. It’s a common enough request for traveling parties to make of them. After all, the biggest danger you’re likely to face is from other spirits or animals, and the ancient ones can hold back the first and warn you of the second.”

“She’s right,” Sara agreed. “An air or stone spirit could probably watch for nearby predators and warn you in return for a little energy, John.”

As I considered those things, Bregg rose with a grunt and plodded over toward me, settling down beside me just out of arm’s reach. He stared out at the scene below in silence for nearly a minute before sighing.

“Well, you made it, young hunter,” he said quietly. “You kept up.”

I wanted to say, “I told you so,” but instead, I looked away from him toward the horizon. A dozen questions swirled in my head, but all of them boiled down to a single one.

“Why?” I asked softly, not looking in his direction.

“Why what?”

“Why—everything?” I gestured back behind us. “That path, for example. Why take it? And don’t give me that shit about it being fast; we both know you kept us in the mountains as long as possible. We’re miles farther south than we would have been if we’d left the High Reaches in either direction—I can literally see the mountains ending behind us on either side. I can also see the roads down there that would have brought us here a lot faster. So…why?”

He stared out at the plateau for several seconds, and at first, I thought he wasn’t going to answer. At last, though, he took a deep breath and looked at me. “Why? That’s simple, Hemskal. I didn’t think we would make it.”

“What?” I asked him suspiciously, my hand tightening slightly around my spear. “You—you wanted us to get stuck up there?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” he snorted. “I took us on the hardest path I could think of, right down the center of the Slathsturn.”

“That sort of means ‘corridor of fury,’ John,” Sara translated.

“What the hell is that?” I asked, too tired to try and reason it out.

“A region of the High Reaches that constantly funnels storms from the Northern Ocean down to the Haelendi,” he shrugged. “What, you think that storms usually roll in that quickly or often? If they did, no one would ever travel the High Reaches.” He pointed down at the river rushing below us. “This is the headwaters of the Butanflut, the river that waters the entire northern Haelendi. It’s a natural result of the Slathsturn, the product of storms rolling through every few days, dumping snow and rain into these mountains. Most of that ends up here, which is why the valleys flood so often, and the trails are so bad.”

“And you took us that way on purpose,” I said with rising anger. “Why the fuck would you…wait. You wanted us to fail, didn’t you?”

“Not fail, no. I wanted you and the letharvis to decide that it wasn’t worth it. I thought the first couple storms would convince you both to turn back, and then, I’d take us out of the Slathsturn and to the valskab.” He grimaced. “I never imagined you’d both keep going like the First Spirits themselves were chasing you.”

“You could have gotten us all killed, Bregg,” I said slowly. “Fuck, you almost did die! Why not say something then?”

“By that point, it was too late,” he sighed. “Turning back would have made things worse. We’d have had to backtrack for days to reach a safe path out of the storms.” He grimaced. “It was a miscalculation, I admit.”

“A miscalculation,” I scoffed. “Bregg, you risked all our lives! Why the fuck would you do that?”

“Because of you, Hemskal,” he said quietly. He turned to look directly at me. “Have you wondered why I never call you ‘Freyd’?”

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“I assume it’s because you prefer to insult me,” I said icily.

“True,” he said, flashing a grin that quickly vanished. “It’s more than that, though. ‘Freyd’ has all kinds of implications that I don’t think you understand. It means that you’re a friend, someone welcome in our camp and even our valskab. It’s used to address honored but unknown travelers who come to the valskab asking for sanctuary or shelter. Basically, it’s a sign of trust—and I don’t trust you, Hemskal, despite everything you’ve done for us.”

“Why?”

“You aren’t who and what you say you are.” He glared at me. “Your story was good, but not good enough. I’m a hunter, and I’ve seen enough signs to track the truth.

“You pretended to be incompetent with the spear, but you weren’t; you ‘learned it’ too quickly. You acted like a blind fool facing the ishvarns, but you killed a stornbyor and hunted that enyarv without difficulty, something that even I would have been cautious doing. You’ve killed before, you fight well enough that I wouldn’t want to face you if I didn’t have to, and you kept up with me during this whole trip.” He snorted. “Actually, you’re in better shape than I am, and that shouldn’t be possible for a young, inexperienced hunter.

“And while I’m no letharvis, even I can tell you’re too skilled with the spirits. I’ve trained dozens of hunters how to call on the spirits to aid them in the hunt, and I know how hard it is to get them to do what you want, but you seem able to command them pretty easily. Letharvisa have to train for years to be able to bind a single land spirit, but you somehow bonded a powerful close spirit ‘on accident’?” He scoffed. “And don’t think I didn’t notice how you weren’t leaving tracks in the snow for a while. You had the ice spirits holding you up.”

“And?” I asked when he finished, keeping a puzzled and uncertain expression on my face.

He looked at me suspiciously. “And what?”

“Everything you’ve said is true, Bregg,” I told him. “It all has an explanation, though. I told you that I wasn’t an inexperienced hunter; you just assumed that I was. I never said I’d never done magic before; you just assumed I didn’t.”

“Then you did serve a letharvis,” he said with satisfaction.

“No, I didn’t. Like I said, I’ve never been part of a valskab, and Aeld, there, is the first letharvis I ever met. That doesn’t mean I haven’t done magic before, just that I’ve never gotten any training.” I laughed. “How the hell else could I have survived this long without being part of a valskab?”

“You could be one of the Tarpish,” he said quietly. “In fact, it’s the most likely scenario. You came here with that ship, tried to escape into the High Reaches, and got lost. We found you, and you happily went along to wreak revenge on the Oikithikiim.”

“I don’t even know what a ‘tarpish’ is, Bregg,” I said wearily. “And I’m too tired to try and figure it out.”

“The Tarpish are the Lost Children, the offspring of the Great Betrayers,” he said. “Trapped in the southlands, enslaved by the Oikithikiim, and broken in spirit.”

“Absurd,” the ojain snapped silently in my mind. “He’s speaking of the Redeemed Elders as if they were slaves or servants! They stay with us willingly, living in positions of honor in return for aiding the Elanjurr and providing us their wisdom!”

I shelved all that away for a moment. “So, you think that I grew up among the Oikithikiim as a slave—but know how to fight?” I scoffed. “And that they’d bring a slave that close to the homeland of the Menskallin but somehow let me escape? That I was willing to point out that line of silver in the ocean but not tell you more of what it was? Now, who’s not making any sense, Bregg? Why wouldn’t I just tell you who and what I was and ask for your help, if I were a slave?”

His face grew troubled, and he looked away. “That’s true,” he said after a few quiet moments. “Fine. You aren’t likely one of the Lost Children—but you’re more than you seem, Hemskal, and that makes you dangerous.”

“So, why let me tag along?” I asked. “Why not kick me out and send me on my way?”

“I wished to, but I don’t decide the valskab’s path,” he grimaced. “The letharvis does, and he believes you to be no danger to us.”

“But that changes if you actually return to the valskab, doesn’t it?” I asked, picking up on his intent. “If Aeld had changed his mind about heading to this place—whatever it is—and we all went back to the valskab, he wouldn’t be in charge anymore. And you think that the ones in charge there would kick me out.”

“Yes,” he replied simply. “That was my intent. By the time I realized that the letharvis wouldn’t change his mind, we’d come too far to turn back, and our path was set.” He laughed wryly. “I should have known better.”

“Why?”

He looked back at the slumbering shaman. “Aeld is young,” he said slowly. “He’s very strong as a letharvis—as strong as many elders, in fact—but he’s also far too impulsive. If any other letharvis had been guiding this hunt, they would have turned you out after the first night of shelter. They would have given you enough supplies and directions out of the High Reaches—the path isn’t hard to follow if you know what you’re looking for—but they would never have taken you with us, and they certainly wouldn’t have given you instruction. You’re an outsider, not part of the valskab—and outsiders are dangerous.”

“If I’m so dangerous to you, though, then why did I save you?” I asked. “Or Aeld? I could have cut the rope when you both fell and been free of you. For that matter, why let me stand a watch while the two of you slept? I could have killed you both easily!”

“There wasn’t any danger in you standing watch,” he said grimly. “I have my own spirits, and I have them watching you. As far as the rest…” He rubbed his face tiredly. “I admit that I no longer think you’re a danger to us, to the letharvis and me. At least, not directly.” He lifted a hand and pointed to the south.

“However, that doesn’t mean you aren’t dangerous. Ten days of travel that way on the Northern Road will take us to Aldhyor, the center of the Haelendi, the spiritual heart of our people, and the home of the rashi. When we arrive, I don’t think that they’ll believe your story any more than I do, and I don’t think that what you showed the letharvis will matter enough to them. I think they’ll cast you out, exile you from the Haelendi, and I fear that they’ll punish us for letting you near Aldhyor. No matter what you intend, I think you’re a danger to us, Hemskal, one way or the other.” He rose to his feet and looked gravely down at me.

“We’ll rest here for a day, then head down to the borderlands,” he said. “We’ll spend a night there, then start our journey the next morning. That gives you two days to decide your path, young hunter. Should you decide that it leads away from the one the letharvis has chosen—perhaps along the mountain road to the west, from there to the Western Sea, and then down the coast to the lands of the Mellungin—it might be best for us all.”

He turned and walked away, pulling out some furs of his own and laying down on them, keeping his body between me and Aeld. I turned away from him and looked back over the plateau, my thoughts spinning in my head.

The simple fact was, Bregg had a point. It might be easier for me to split off from the pair and make my own way at this point. I didn’t know how the Menskallin civilization worked, but I couldn’t believe that no one lived near all the probable farms spreading out below me. There would be people there, and while they might be no more welcoming than Bregg, they might be willing to give me a night’s shelter and directions to this Aldhyor place, which I felt fairly certain I needed to go to. I still had a sample of the silver fluid and the books I’d taken from the ship, and the heart of the Menskallin nation struck me as the most likely place to find someone who could tell me what it all meant. I wasn’t here to befriend Aeld or teach him how to get more power from spirits; I was here to figure out what that line in the Northern Ocean was, how it affected the balance, and how I could stop it.

At the same time, there was far too much about this culture that I didn’t know or understand to function well within it, and judging by what I’d seen so far, the people here didn’t have the most trusting nature. A stranger, one that wasn’t part of their valskab thing, probably wouldn’t be very welcome. I might even get attacked if I met a group more paranoid than even Bregg.

“What can you expect from the savages?” Kadonsel asked bitterly. “You’d do better to leave this land entirely. Do what the beast suggested: head west, then south to Mellung. From there, you could take a ship to Almella and join the Elanjurr as a Redeemed Elder. You’d be honored and revered, not cast out or viewed with suspicion!”

“And are these Redeemed Elders free to live however they want?” I asked wearily. “Or are they watched and monitored, their movements restricted?”

“The Elders are treasured, and like all treasures, they’re kept safe,” she replied a little defensively. “They’re allowed to live as they wish, but they can’t simply travel freely in case something were to happen to them. They’re cared for and provided with everything they desire, though!”

I didn’t bother to explain to her why that didn’t appeal to me in the slightest. I had things to do, and I couldn’t do them trapped in a prison. A gilded cage might be easier to look at, but it was still a cage. Besides, there was a decent chance I’d have to travel down there at some point anyway since it seemed the Oikies were the ones actually messing with the balance. The less I pissed off my potential guide there, the better.

“You can’t go your own way now, John, even if you wanted,” Sara spoke up. “Your body’s in no shape for it. You need to rest and eat a decent meal. You’re in a minor state of malnutrition right now, and your muscles are significantly torn and damaged. In fact, without healing, I don’t see any of the three of you moving on tomorrow morning, no matter what Bregg says.”

Sara was right, as always. I had at least a day and a half to make a decision, maybe longer. There was no point to worrying about it until the moment to choose came. I knew what my options were, and I knew the potential benefits and consequences of each of them. Besides, making a call like that while mentally exhausted and malnourished probably wasn’t the best idea. I needed sleep, although I wasn’t sure how I was going to get some.

“I can show you how to ask a spirit to watch,” Sara volunteered. “Or I can do it myself if you’re too tired. Now that I can see mortal spirits, I can keep an eye on Bregg and Aeld, and I can watch for any creatures nearby, as well.”

“Thanks, Sara,” I sighed, getting up and walking back toward the mountain face and pulling some furs from my pack. I lay down and closed my eyes, sure that sleep would be long in coming…

I was out almost the moment my head touched the furs.