Our second day in the pass, the road took a sharp incline that went for miles bringing us alongside gray rock capped by a snowy peak on the left, and dropped down on the right into a deep ravine dense with trees, beneath which we could hear the roar of water.

Ales wasn't so impressed by the view but rather vomited out everything he’d eaten from the night before.  He crouched low and heaved out a soup with globs of white goo in a slimy base.  Faren and Geraln stayed with him while Davod and I took the road up to what looked like the height of the current section.  Up ahead, the road dropped a little then leveled off, and there was a flat spot with an abandoned campsite on the left, tucked in a ravine between two massive rock faces that offered good shelter from the freezing wind.

Davod called back to the other three, “there’s a good spot to rest up ahead.  Come on.”

With that, Faren and Geraln helped Ales to get up and the three of them slowly made their way to where Davod and I stood.  I looked over the valley below us.  Steep inclines of rock covered in ice and snow with battered trees in the gully gave way to an expansive view of the valley beyond, a lush garden at the base of a high mountain ridge with a shimmering creek peeking its way through the trees.

“This is beautiful,” I said.

Davod smirked.  “Oasis was beautiful.”

I shook my head.  “It’s not about that.”

“That’s your problem; it is about that.  It’s always about that; it’s never not about that.  You let your foreign god tell you otherwise, and then you miss out on opportunities like her and Melyce.  Falcon watches over you, you know, whether you believe in Him or not, and life is about experiences.  If I die in this war, I don’t want to fade away thinking, I shoulda made love to that girl.  I only get one life; I’m going to enjoy it while I still have it.”

“And how does Runya feel about you having that attitude?  With other girls?”

He looked me square in the face and smiled.  “She and I, we’re not like you.  Your religion tells you your girl has to be a virgin, yeah?  Fuck that.  I don’t need to be her first, but by the gods if I put it down right I’ll be her last.  Besides, if I’m the only man she’s ever fucked, she’s always going to wonder, you know?”

“I see.”

He glanced at the other three as they crept up to where we were and continued.  “So you know, we did talk about it.  I’m going to enjoy myself with other girls, and she’s going to do the same.  If Falcon brings us back together…”

“She’s going to sleep with other girls?”

He laughed.  “No, man!”

“That’s what you said!”

“Whatever!” he slapped my shoulder hard as the other three caught up to where we were.

That evening, as the western horizon turned pink and the shadows of impending dusk approached, the road led us through a narrow passage between a rock cliff on the left and a massive ice shelf on the right.  We set up our tents in a corner between giant blocks of ice with the wind above us whistling through the cracks.

We had ten fuel pods for all of five nights which, for the blessing of dry wood the previous evening, we now had ten for four nights; that gave us two extra.  Ales wanted to use them.

Davod refused.

“It’s fucking cold, man!”

I told him myself, “it’ll get worse.  It’s best to save them…”

Faren shivered.  “I’ve never been so cold.”

Geraln tried to offer a compromise.  “Why don’t we use three tonight, then tomorrow we look for a spot with some better shelter?”

“No!” Davod commanded.  “We’ve still got a couple thousand more feet to climb up; it’ll only get colder.  We save the extras until we absolutely need them.”

“But…” Ales shivered.

“We save them,” Davod spoke forcefully.  His voice carried the assumption that he would be obeyed.

Ales was not a tall man.  He wasn’t a short man either, but facing off Davod he looked puny. Only after a good length of time, his face fell and he sucked his teeth, then looked away.

Dinner that evening was the leftover goat, which had nearly frozen by then.  Faren tried to hold his over the fuel pod for a little bit, but the rest of us were too cold and too hungry to care.

“In Carthia,” Geraln tucked his fingers between his legs, “it’s fucking warm.”

 

---

 

Our third day in the pass, the road took us up a steep rise and climbed for a good while before leveling off at a tabletop of a mountain covered in snow, and the road was cut through it.  David and I took a moment to wait for the others to catch up.

When Ales reached us, he stood still and panted for breath for a moment before wheezing out, “how… the fuck… high… are we?”

His face was red.  Faren was straining, too, but he said nothing.  Rather, he and Geraln sat down and closed their eyes while Ales clutched his knees and gazed at Davod as though there were something merciful to say.

I couldn’t see the gully before us beyond the flat top of the hill we were on, but there were no trees in sight.  All around us, we were in the center of a giant bowl with towering spires reaching into the sky.  Like a sea of ice and rock with crests of waves in every direction.  I answered him, “I’m just guessing here, but I’d say we’re standing at around fifteen-thousand feet?”

“I feel dizzy,” Faren held his hand over his forehead and closed his eyes.

“Try not to throw up,” I said.  “You need the energy.”

He looked at me with pleading eyes.

“Just think,” Davod added with a smile.  His words came out as a puff of white.  “We’ve got three more days of this!”

After a short break, we continued forward.  The sun was warm on our faces, but the air was cold and dry.  The road dropped down steep into a gully where it ended at a massive river of ice, only to continue on the other side.  We crossed over, and at the base of a cliff we found an abandoned campsite with scraps of wood with charred edges left behind.

Ales went about gathering up the leftovers.

“It’s barely noon,” Davod said to him.  “It’s too early to set up camp.”

“I’m taking this with me.”

“You gonna carry all of that?”

I decided to help.  “It’s not a lot; I think we can all carry some of it.”

Geraln set down his pack and rummaged through it, taking out a rope.  “Here.”

We climbed up and around the next rise, and after that the road dropped for several miles.  We descended down a slope as it clung to the side of a steep cliff.  The sky began to turn amber, and on the left we found ourselves overlooking a wide, flat plain covered in gravel with sparse trees and a river cutting through it.  At the end of the plain the whole thing dropped off into a waterfall, and on the other side, the mountains rose sharp.  Several small tufts of greenery were scattered about.

“This looks comfortable,” Faren said.  He was right.  The air was still cold, but not freezing as it had been higher up, and the plain had tufts of trees enough to break the wind a little.

We’d almost got all the way down when Davod stuck his hand out and stopped, his gaze fixed off to the left.

Ales protested, “what’s going…”

“Shh,” Davod silenced him.  Then, he reached behind his back for his bow and strung it slowly, keeping an eye glued on something I couldn’t see.

“I’ve got a hare,” Faren whispered.  About a hundred-sixty yards out, beside the creek was a gray-brown hare that blended with the rocks so well that I kept losing it even though it didn’t move.

Davod nocked an arrow, drew, and impaled the creature.  The poor thing jumped, then flipped over completely as the arrowhead snagged in the pebbles beside it, and thudded back down as it landed on its back.  We came up to it, and I watched as its furry little chest grasped desperately for one more breath only to grow shallower with each pull until it was gone.  Its… her tiny black eyes turned motionless as they reflected our faces.

Davod put his hand over her tiny head and muttered a silent prayer.

Faren spoke to Geraln.  “You got any more of that magic spice?  All I’ve got are some of smoked peppercorns.”

Geraln shook his head and smiled.  “Just a block of salt, man.”

I looked around.  Small patches of dmusu grew scattered amid the pebbles, with most of them crowded around the creek.  It wasn’t much, but it would do, and we set up camp.  We roasted the salted hare on a spit and pitched our tents beside the densest patch of trees we could find.  Faren passed around the happy cabbage, and we ate some trail rolls while we waited for the meat to cook.

Ales took a good drag from the orca and let the smoke ease out through his nose like a chimney.  Usually, he was jittery, flitting about his eyes and shaking his knee.  As he smoked the herb, his whole body fell still.  “Our emperor,” he spoke.  “Our beloved… long may he reign emperor… is a cunt.”

We all broke out laughing at that.  Davod took the pipe and tried to smoke from it, but couldn’t stop shaking with fits of laughter at the sentiment.

It was Faren who answered him first.  “Be careful, man,” he said with a smile.  “We don’t know if any of these guys are the Invisible Hand.”

Ales looked at myself, Geraln, and Davod in turn, squinting at each of us before laughing.

“I’m not the Invisible Hand,” I said.

Davod passed me the pipe and laughed.  “That’s definitely something the Invisible Hand would say.”

Geraln took the orca from me and pulled a good drag from it, allowing the smoke to escape through his words, “and how do we know one of you two isn’t the Invisible Hand?”

Faren nodded and put a finger to his chin, gazing at the waning blue of sky.  As cold as it was, the extra scraps of wood combined well with the two fuel pods, and the nearby trees offered a nice shade from the wind.  “Well, you country boys are fifty per-cent more likely to be the Invisible Hand than us.”

Ales scratched his head.  “Wait a minute.  There’s three of them and two of us.  Where did you get fifty from?”

Geraln answered.  “Three out of five is sixty per-cent, and two out of five is forty per-cent.”

Ales still looked confused, so I finished.  “Half of two is one, and three is one more than two.  So, three is half of two more than two.  One-half is fifty per-cent.”

Ales nodded.  His eyes searched the ground beside him as he spoke.  “Well, he’s still a cunt.”

“Alright,” Davod chuckled.  “Why don’t you share with us what cunty thing our beloved cunt emperor long may he reign cuntilly has done this time?”

Ales shot a glance at Faren, then spoke.  “So we’ve had a problem with pirates.  You know the Finger?”

Davod looked confused at his hand.

I let out a chortle and explained.  “On the coast, there’s a long spit of land that juts out into the sea for hundreds of miles.”

Ales continued.  “It’s pure mountainous rock, basically.  Nothing grows there, but there’s all these caves and inlets.”  He took the pipe from Geraln and smoked.  I could hear the crackling of flowers burn over the steady trickle of water from the creek nearby.  He then passed the pipe along and spoke through puffs of smoke.  “They hide there.  In the caves.  The whole strait between the Finger and the Tobori Islands, you can’t go through there.  You can’t fish, can’t do anything without them bothering you.”

Faren added, “and if you’ve got a girl on board, forget it.”

Ales huffed.  “Can’t let girls go out for that reason.  We sent a petitioner to Golago to ask for help.  You know that fucking cunt does?  He sends an envoy to the pirates to demand his cut, then leaves them alone.”

“Wait,” I couldn’t believe it.  “You’re saying he lets the pirates keep at it?”

Faren continued.  “The only reason the Imperial Navy is even there is to enforce the tax.  They don’t pay, of course he deals with them, then.  Otherwise, I mean…

I looked at Davod.  He nodded and spoke to me, “what a cunt!”

I nodded in affirmation, “long may he reign.”

Geraln responded.  “That’s not the cuntiest thing he’s done.”

We all turned our attention to him.  It was Davod who spoke, “do tell.”

“Last winter when I was in Heralia City for the knowledge tourney…”

Faren’s eyes perked up.  “You were at the knowledge tourney?”

“Yeah, man, listen to this bullshit.  So the old Imperial Voice in Heralia City got old, and they replaced him with this new guy.  He’s there talking to the Duke, and the Duke comes out and invites us all in.  Says he wants us all to be part of the conversation.  This guy’s there talking all this shit about how we could be making so much more of the diamond tree stones.  He’s got a plan.  He wants to basically chop down the forest, plow up all our farmland, and have us grow nothing but diamond trees.”

“You’re joking,” I said.

Davod’s jaw dropped.  “That has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

I shook my head in disbelief.  “Is he an idiot?  I mean, I know he’s a cunt, but this is just…”

“Forgive me,” Ales tilted his head to one side and raised a finger.  “Why is it a bad idea?”

Faren echoed his ignorance.  “Seriously.  You guys make a fortune from those things.  Wouldn’t you make even more?  It’s the sap, isn’t it?”

Geraln nodded, “yeah, it’s the sap.”

Davod huffed in incredulity.  “Let me go first.  Starting with plowing up all our farmland.  What are we supposed to eat?”

Geraln mocked the Voice’s tone in a sharp, nasally voice and thick Goloagi accent.  “Yar going to make soooo mach maney you can buy evan bettar food.”

“OK,” I tried to mock agreement.  “So, we already have some of the best food in the empire, but we should get rid of all the fresh fruits and vegetables, fine wines, meats and cheeses, so that we can make enough money to buy dried, preserved food from elsewhere.  Please, enlighten us on how else this would benefit us?”

Geraln shook his head and turned to the two men from the coastal village.  “How’s this.  Let’s assume it works.  It won’t, but hypothetically, let’s assume we boost production and sell more stones.  Best case scenario, we flood the market with cheap stones, which drives the price down.  We destroy everything that makes our lives comfortable in order to do twice as much work for the same money.  That, with the added benefit of losing economic diversity—because we do a lot more than just stones.  We make wines, cheeses, perfumes…”

Davod added, “Baron gives Nandi top kren for every bottle of wine she makes.  He used to sell it for profit, now he just drinks it all.”

I took the baton.  “Then there’s the reasons why it wouldn’t work.  The forest is as a whole, a living thing.  Every tree, every plant plays a role.  The diamond trees produce stones, sure, but other trees resist blight, other trees feed and shelter wild animals.  There’s fruit trees, there’s medicinal herbs, there’s the Eupin, don’t forget that, there’s so much there, and it all works together.  Squirrels to spread seeds, wolves to keep the squirrels in check.  It’s a balance.  Streants only nest in oak trees, and they eat insects.  Take the oaks away and plant only diamond trees, where will the streants go?  Without the streants, your precious diamond tree farm gets devastated by locusts.  Whoever lives there has no food because you’ve destroyed the farmland, and no money because you’ve destroyed their income.”

Geraln nodded.  “Well, the Duke, and this guy is so articulate.  He explained all of that and more.  He even offered to give a tour of the counties where it grows.”

Davod huffed.  “I’d have told him to fuck right off.”

Faren smiled at that.  “That’s why he’s the Duke, and not you.”

 

---

 

Our fourth day in the pass, we continued to follow the road as it rose sharply up the other side of the plain.  It kept that up throughout the whole morning, and we found ourselves encircling one mountain on the left, and all around us on the right the world expanded into a maze of rock and snow towering into the sky.

About maybe an hour after high noon, as we passed over a stone bridge that spanned a wide chasm cut through by a creek of meltwater.  Far below us was a lone diamond tree about my height with tall rocks rising sharply on both sides so as to cast the thing in shade for all but the highest of noons each day.  Its branches hosted tiny green leaves, defiant of the freezing wind that surrounded it.

From there, the road rose sharply for a couple more hours, and we had to take several breaks with the two coast dwellers feeling dizzy and short of breath.  I’d exerted myself enough on the climb that I didn’t mind the cold so much, but it was still tough.

As evening approached, we couldn’t find good shelter.  We walked, then kept walking in hopes of finding a cave or something, but the road kept going along a wide expanse of rock and snow.

“What about right here?” I said, looking over a vast snowbank at the top of a mound of rock with more jagged rocks in the distance all around us.

Geraln looked around, struggling for breath.  “Please… tell me… you’re joking.”

Davod looked at me with an exasperated sigh.  “Caleb, there’s nothing here for shelter.”

Ales stood and shivered.  Dusk fast approached, and the punitive wind refused to relent even for a moment.  I knelt to get a good look at the snow.  It was wind-blasted enough and had good structure.  “This is perfect.”

Ales spoke up through chattering teeth.  “We’ve got to keep going.  It may be dark before… we find a good spot, but at least… there’s hope.  Here…”

“There’s shelter all around us,” I told him.  “We just have to build it.”

Geraln pleaded with me.  “Come on… man, you see… we’re on a tabletop… mountain; there’s nothing up here… but rocks and snow.  It can’t… get any worse.”

“Look around,” I said.  “We carve up these snow banks and use that to build a shelter.  All around us.  Come, let’s start with these rocks…”

“Caleb,” Davod started.

“We build it up, like an arch on all sides.  A dome.  It’ll be warm.  I promise.”

Faren said not a word.  Rather, he doubled over, grasping at his knees and trying to breathe.

“I’ve done it before.”

Geraln peered at me close.

Ales spoke up.  “I say we keep going.”

“Me too,” Geraln added.

Faren looked at me directly.  “I’m sorry, man.”

As they turned to continue down the road, Davod stood and stared at me.  I lowered my head and took a step forward, when he held out his hand and stopped me.  “No,” he turned and spoke to the others.  “We go with Caleb’s plan.”

Geraln pleaded with him.  “You can’t… be serious!”

Davod explained.  “If Caleb says this will work, it will work.  Let’s get started.”

The other three glanced at one another.  Faren’s eyes bulged, but Ales protested.  “That’s not how this works.  It’s three against two.”

Davod answered him.  “If I need to fold up a sail or tie a fishing line, I’m asking you how it’s done.  I known this kid my whole life—If he says this is the best way to find shelter, then this is the best way.  Come on.”

Geraln nodded, then lowered his head and came back to our side.  Faren soon followed.  Ales stood alone and gazed at me.  “Can you at least… tell me how this is supposed to work?”

“We start by elevating a small section where we’re going to sleep—we can pile some flat rocks up over here and cover them with those mats.  Then we cut blocks from the snow and set them in a circle, piling one layer on top of another, on top of another.  It arches in on all sides and makes a dome.  We leave a small circle in the roof for smoke to get out, and a tunnel large enough for us to come in and out of it.  We can use this goat skin for a door to keep out the wind, and with three fuel pods it’ll be very comfortable.”

He blinked a few times, then looked at Davod again.  “We get to use three this time?”

“Tonight and tomorrow night,” he reassured him.

With that, we set about working.  We found a ledge of rock with a lower recess, and expanded that out with some other rocks we were able to roll into place.  Then, we cut blocks of snow from a nearby embankment, keeping the top of our exit tunnel at a lower level than where we’d be sleeping.  Ordinarily this would take a few hours, but between the five of us we managed to finish our construction just as dusk was making the work difficult.  I held a metal canteen in place in the center of the roof while Davod packed snow around it, then removed it leaving a perfect hole about five inches in diameter.

Inside, the first fuel pod gave off enough light for us to set out padding and roll out the mats.  It was cramped, but it was indeed warm.  Not summer day in the Tobori Islands warm, but probably the best shelter we’d had the whole trip.

Ales took a deep drag from the orca and passed it along, then asked, “alright gentlemen, knock-kneed or bowlegged?”

Davod laughed at that one.  “My man here asking the important questions!  Bowlegged.  Definitely bowlegged.”

Geraln shook his head and passed the pipe along.  “Why can’t she have normal legs?”

Faren explained.  “That’s the parameters of the question.  It’s got to be one or the other.  Knock-kneed for me.”

“Really?” Ales looked at him.  “I thought I knew you, man!”

Faren laughed.  We all gave our preferences as the distinctively sweet smell of the herb filled our tiny space.  Wind howled just outside, and the fire from the fuel pod was perfect—small enough so as to not crowd our space, yet warm enough to make the room comfortable.

Ales looked at the wall of ice behind him.  “Is this thing going to hold?”

“Of course,” I assured him.

Geraln touched his fingers to the walls and spoke, “I'm actually deeply curious as to why this works.”

Faren nodded, taking a deep drag from the orca.  “Yeah, man.  Feels like the ice should be melting all around us.”

“It does,” I explained.  “It’s cold enough outside that it refreezes as fast as it melts.  The air pockets trapped in the snow…”

Geraln nodded and gazed at the fire, “too fat or too skinny?”

“Too fat,” Davod didn’t hesitate.

Faren squinted.  “How fat are we talking about, here?”

“Too much so,” he said.  “Whatever that means in your mind.”

Faren spoke smoothly with smoke pouring out from his mouth, watching the fire through droopy eyes.  “So, like some gargantuan blob of flesh so massive she’s a girl in name only?”

We started laughing.  Ales smiled and added, “like if you let her go on top you’d get crushed?  Nah, I’m going with too skinny.”

Reminiscent images of Anyanna rubbing oil between her hands flirted with my mind.  “Too skinny,” I echoed.

Davod spoke slowly.  “Like a rail, loose flaps of skin hanging over her like a laundry line and you can see every bone.”

I laughed at that, too.  Geraln twisted his face up.  “Gods, is that what you’ve reduced this to?”

I laughed and turned to him.  “It has to be one or the other.”

He shook his head.  “Better to be fat, I’m sorry.”

We all had a good laugh and settled down.  Overhead, the small hole in the ceiling was filled with stars that waved from the heat of the fuel pod.  As I lay down ready to close my eyes and drift off, I caught a glimpse of the Wandering Star as it drifted slowly across the sky.