Faces of Deception

CHAPTER 10

A two-day crust of ice clung to Atreus's bushy eyebrows, numbing cold and so heavy it pushed his lids-down over his eyes. He was half blind with snow glare anyway, so it hardly mattered. Even with wide open eyes, the Sisters of Serenity would have looked much the same. They were three craggy white bells silhouetted against an azure sky, so high they loomed over Atreus and his companions, even miles away, standing at the precipitous brink of the vast plain of ice they had just crossed.

A hundred feet below, a snow-blanketed glacier swept away almost vertically, spilling into the broad valley that separated them from their destination. There it joined a jumbled blue cascade of ice blocks curving down from a second glacier beneath the Sisters of Serenity. The two flows became one and continued down the valley, creating yet another glacier, this one more than a mile wide and as long as a river.

Seema pointed at the huge glacier and said, There is your Langdarma."

Atreus stared down at the ice without responding. Unlike the smaller glaciers feeding it, this one looked almost smooth, with a long stripe of rock and gravel running down its center. The tine marked the seam between the smaller glaciers where the two edges came together full of rock and gravel torn from mountainsides. The dark stripe looked almost painted on, as if some god had thought a dirty streak just the thing to bring out the pearly crispness of the ice and snow.

After a time, Yago said, "It's not what I expected." The ogre rubbed his stubbled chin and added, "But there's beauty in it I can see that"

"Maybe, but not the kind of beauty we're looking for," said Atreus. "Sune is no fan of starkness."

He opened his map and studied the area around the Sisters of Serenity. According to the chart Langdarma lay in the broad valley directly below, but a ladder symbol beneath the three Sisters suggested the entrance might lie at the base of the middle one.

"You see?" said Seema. There is nothing but ice here."

"I am so sorry for the good sir. To come all this way, and for nothing," said Rishi. He packed a snowball and hurled it off the icy cliff. The orb fell far short of the valley and disappeared onto the glacier below. "Langdarma is only a fable after all."

"Fables are as real as mountains," Seema said, "but you must look for them in your heart"

That is certainly a small consolation to a man who has journeyed so far in such desperate hope," Rishi replied, squinting back across the ice field, scanning the white glare for the dark, distant figure that had been hounding their trail across the ice field. "At least we are fortunate in our timing. Tarch is nowhere in sight If we hurry, we can certainly circle around him and be on our way before that tailed devil realizes we have turned around."

"Yamdruk is only a day's walk from here," said Seema. "I will take you there before continuing home."

When Atreus said nothing, Rishi laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. "I will help you sneak back down the river and perhaps recover the gold, so that this journey will not ruin your fortune as well."

Atreus shook the Mar's hand off. "And perhaps Yago and I will meet an unfortunate accident" he said harshly, "leaving you with enough gold to drown a yak?"

Rishi put on a hurt face and stepped back. "I am only thinking of the good sir," he said. "I would certainly be content with any reward he might generously grant for my humble services."

"Your reward will have to wait." Atreus raised his map, shook it gently in the air, and said, "This came from Sune herself. She would not have given it to me if there is nothing here."

"This Sune is your goddess?" asked Seema.

"The goddess of love and beauty," Atreus said, nodding.

Seema's eyes lit with sudden comprehension. "Then you are a blessed man who has already found Langdarma," She told him, stepping back to look Atreus up and down, seeming to regard him in a new light. "Is it not said that the gods appear only to those who already see them? Surely, she gave you the map to show you that you have been looking in the wrong place."

"Sune?" Yago scoffed. "That fickle bitch?"

"Yago!"

"I say what I see," the ogre grumbled. "That's my duty. Likely as not she gave you the map just to get you out of the temple. You know how them celebrants were always complaining about that ugly face of yours."

"Yes." Atreus could not keep the pain out of his voice. "I do."

"Oh, by the Blood Queen! You don't have to be so touchy." Despite his words, Yago's orange face darkened to crimson. "It's not like how you look is your fault… and I'd fight with you on my left any day."

This was the highest compliment a Shield-breaker could pay. Atreus grasped his friend's huge arm.

"I know you would, Yago, and I'd be honored." Atreus glanced across the valley toward the jumbled glacier beneath the Sisters of Serenity and said, "That's why I must ask you to cross one last valley with me."

The ogre nodded. "I'd smash your head if we didn't. We've come this far, so we'd better see it through to the end."

"What?"

Seema's objection came too quickly "I mean to say, what about Tarch? He will follow us__"

Atreus turned to her with a raised brow. "Why should / that matter? There's nothing but ice and snow down there." He paused a moment, then added, "Or is…?"

"No, no… only ice and snow." Again, Seema's response came too quickly. "What else could there be? We are in the Wild Lands now. I am only afraid that the devil will force us to flee down the valley. We will be lost."

"Really?" Atreus smirked, more convinced than ever that the key to finding Langdarma lay in the glaciers below. "You are trying to protect something, but I don't think it is us."

"Perhaps the good sir should consider the evidence before his eyes!" Rishi sounded almost panicked. "Even Yago thinks your friends were only playing a trick, and it will be much safer for everyone to turn back now."

"You and Seema are free to go. You can take the gold with my blessings, if you can find it, but Yago and I will see our journey through to the end."

Atreus and Yago began to work their way along the brink of the ice field, searching for a route down onto the glacier. Rishi looked hopefully in Seema's direction, but she only shook her head and started after the two westerners. The group moved quickly. Over the past few days, Seema had used her healing magic on her companions many times, and their wounds seldom troubled them now. They soon came to a blocky ravine where a wedge of ice had been squeezed out of the rim, creating a narrow corridor that wind and day-melt had eroded into a steep but passable gully.

Seema circled around to the sunny side and led the way down a drift of wind-packed snow. The bottom of the shadowed gully was as icy as it was steep, and they had to descend half walking and half sliding. By the time they emerged from the mouth of the ravine, they were all nervous, shivering, and glad for the relative safety of the glacier's sun-softened surface.

Seema descended a few yards, kicking her heels into the wind-crusted snow to make flat, safe steps. Abruptly she stopped and warily glanced across the glacier. Motioning for the others to stay where they were, she drew her knife and dropped to her knees, then began hacking blocks out of the snow pack. A foot down, the snow suddenly grew soft and sugary. She put her knife away and continued to dig, eventually climbing into the hole and disappearing to her waist

This is very bad." Seema peered out of the hole. "It is not safe."

Atreus rolled his eyes and started down the slope. "You're only convincing me that you're trying to hide some-tiling."

"No, come and look." Seema waved him over and pointed at the icy layer in the bottom of the hole. "Do you see how it is slick below and hard on top, with a layer of soft sugar in between?"

"Yes."

"It is very dangerous on a steep slope like this," Seema said. "It is like a carpet over marbles. The whole mountainside can break loose and slide down in a big avalanche."

The thought occurred to Atreus that Seema was just finding another excuse to keep him away from the Sisters of Serenity, but he could see for himself that what she said was true. He pulled a handful of the sugary snow from the hole and let it run between his fingers, glancing over at Yago.

The ogre merely shrugged. "I told you it was dangerous when we started."

Atreus stood, facing Seema. "What can we do to protect ourselves?" he asked her.

"We can turn around."

"Aside from that," Atreus replied.

Seema sighed, then led them back into the mouth of the gully. She instructed Yago to start yelling across the valley, hoping to set off any impending avalanches with his booming voice. While the ogre bellowed, she took the supply bundle and began to unravel the long threads of a yak-hair blanket, knotting them together to create four dark strands, each twenty or thirty paces long. By the time she finished, Yago had managed to start a small slide on the opposite wall of the valley, but the snow on the glacier below remained ominously inert

Seema tied one of the long strands around her own waist and had each of her companions do the same, leaving the ends to drag in the snow. If an avalanche buried someone, the dark cord would float to the top so the others could find the victim-or so she said. They began to zigzag down the glacier, keeping themselves well spaced and crossing dangerous areas one person at a time, so there would always be three people to dig out a victim. Atreus found himself worrying less about avalanches than hidden crevasses, but Seema seemed to have an uncanny sense for avoiding such pitfalls.

They were about a quarter of the way down when Yago, bringing up the rear of the line, plunged through the wind-crusted snow and sank to his chest Unable to feel anything beneath his feet, he could not tell whether he was buried in a particularly deep snow-bank or hanging over a hidden crevasse, and he did not want to call out for fear of touching off an avalanche. He simply stretched his long arms across the snow to spread his weight and waited. Eventually, the others noticed that he was missing and returned to pull him free. After that, Atreus brought up the end of the line.

As they descended, the snow grew more-unstable. Small slabs began to break off beneath their feet and slide down the wind crust The farther they descended, the larger the slabs grew, and Atreus began to feel an avalanche was imminent He suggested having Yago yell again. Seema rejected the idea, saying the danger was no greater than before, as long as the slabs did not start coming from above. Atreus was not sure he believed her, especially when she grew even more cautious and insisted that they start crossing the entire glacier one person at a time.

They were about halfway down when Atreus heard a brief hissing noise above, then saw a raft-sized slab of snow shoot past and drop into the dark mouth of a crevasse. In the next instant, he was sprinting across the snow toward his friends, who stood waiting beneath the shelter of a rocky outcropping. There was no decision or thinking, he simply found himself running, hoping to reach safety before the avalanche swept him away.

But the roaring never came. No billowing clouds of snow swept down to swallow him up, nor did his world suddenly turn white and cold. He simply found himself standing at the outcropping with his companions, trembling and breathing hard.

"What's your hurry?" asked Yago. "He ain't that close."

"Close?" Atreus panted, hands braced on his knees. "Who?"

Yago looked up toward the narrow gap through which they had descended onto the glacier. A single dark figure was coming straight down the slope, taking long plunging steps that kicked loose huge slabs of wind-crusted snow.

Tarch!"

"He is a fool to come down like that," said Seema. "He will bring the whole slope down."

"Then perhaps we should run," Rishi offered, prodding Seema toward the glacier." The time for caution is past"

Seema did not move. "No," she said. "Now we must be more cautious than before." She turned to look at them. "Do not make the mistake of thinking Tarch is the danger. The Yehimals have claimed a hundred times more lives than he has."

"Yes, but the Yehimals are not hunting us," said Atreus. "Maybe we should hurry things along."

"You cannot hurry in these mountains. That is the fool's way." Seema pointed at the dark line of a crevasse lying perpendicular across Tarch's path and said, The tailed devil is being careless, and a thousand hazards lie before him. We will do far better to look to ourselves and let the mountain take care of our pursuer."

"I suppose you're right," said Atreus. "Well have plenty of time to worry if he catches up."

Seema nodded. "Good," she said. "We will continue as before."

She started across the glacier, choosing an angle much steeper than before. Atreus took the frozen chain from around his neck and tapped it against the rock wall, knocking the ice out of the links. Rishi quietly beseeched the gods to blind the "tailed devil" and send him plunging into a bottomless abyss and close it as promptly as possible. The Mar's supplications went unheeded. Tarch descended the glacier at a near run, twisting and turning his way through the labyrinth of crevasses, sometimes leaping narrow ones and other times trotting across snow bridges as thin as sails. His plunging steps sent a steady stream of snow slabs hissing down the slope. Several times those speeding cakes seemed destined to sweep Seema off the mountain. Atreus and his companions could only watch, afraid that a warning shout would bring the whole slope crashing down on her.

The nearer Tarch drew, the more nervous Rishi became. He began to complain bitterly about his forced promise not to kill the tailed devil, and he chastised Atreus several times for breaking his sword back in the couloir. Yago grew tired of Rishi's griping and quietly noted that no one had promised Seema anything about his safety. This was enough to quiet the Mar.

Finally, Seema reached a rocky alcove on the opposite wall, perhaps one more traverse from the bottom of the dangerous area. Even before she turned to signal, Rishi was bounding along in her footsteps, his dark avalanche cord trailing in his wake.

Above, Tarch had descended nearly half the glacier's length. Unless he met with one of the hazards Seema had spoken of, he would catch the company long before they completed the final traverse. The thought of fighting him again sent a chill down Atreus's spine. He could not forget the fear he had experienced when Tarch touched him, nor the tongue of flame that had nearly engulfed Rishi. Perhaps "tailed devil" was not an exaggeration at all. The slave master certainly had the magic of a creature from the Thousand Hells.

Atreus's thoughts were interrupted by Yago's deep voice. "I suppose you meant what you told the girl?" The ogre's gaze was fixed on Tarch. "About not killing that devil thing, I mean."

"You know I did."

"I was afraid of that" Yago glared down at Atreus with one big bloodshot eye, then shook his head, saying, "You humans and your mating games. ltd be simpler for everyone if you just claimed her."

Atreus felt the heat rise to his cheeks. "What are you talking about?"

The girl," Yago said, gesturing vaguely in Seema's direction. "She looks a good prize, from what I've seen of how humans judge."

"She is a good prize," Atreus admitted, "but you've been around people. You know we can't just wrestle a female down and expect her to start keeping the cave."

Too bad," said Yago. "She'd let you win."

Atreus rolled his eyes.

"You don't think so?" Yago asked. "She don't want us killing that devil that's after her, and if she's just trying to outrun it, we sure ain't speeding her up any. So what's she doing here, if she ain't waiting for you to claim her?"

Yago's question was a good one, though Atreus suspected the answer had less to do with him than what lay beneath the Sisters of Serenity. Trust me, Seema isn't here because she wants to wrestle me. No woman would. I'm too ugly."

Yago considered this a moment, then shrugged. "You're a good enough fighter," he said, as though that should account for more than appearance, "but I don't see why you made her that promise."

"You know why," Atreus said. "You were there."

"Oh yeah, I forgot. So a woman who won't have you doesn't let herself get caught by a slaver she won't let us kill." For an ogre, the irony in Yago's deep voice was a rare show of wit He shook his head, then added, "If someone's missing something here, it ain't me."

Yago glanced up the glacier. Three hundred paces above, Tarch was just leaping a crevasse, arms flailing and tail whipping. He landed in a billowing puff of snow and crashed through the wind crust, launching a ship-sized circle of broken slabs down the slope. Why the whole mountainside did not break free and sweep him away, Atreus did not know. Either the snow was more stable than Seema claimed, or the slave master was the luckiest devil this side of the Abyss.

Rishi reached the far side of the glacier, and Seema waved.

Yago nudged Atreus forward and said, "Go on."

Atreus shook his head. "If you break through again, you won't have a chance against Tarch.."

"But I'm the bodyguard." When this did not work, Yago growled, "Well go together,"

"And let him bury us both in an avalanche? We're better off spread out," Atreus said, shoving the ogre forward. "Now stop wasting time and go."

Reluctantly, Yago started across the slope. He could not run for fear of plunging through the wind crust, but his long strides covered ground rapidly. He was soon scurrying along the top of a serac field on the far side of the glacier, just a dozen paces from the sheltered alcove where Rishi and Seema stood waiting.

Tarch rounded a crevasse only twenty paces above, turned away, and continued straight down the slope. Atreus was so astonished that he merely stood there collecting his safe, Tarch could hardly have missed seeing him-Atreus was standing in plain sight-so the only conceivable explanation was that the slave master did not think him worthy of attacking.

Atreus charged out onto the glacier, as angry at being ignored as he was apprehensive about the coming battle. He whirled the chain over his head, filling the air with a metallic thrum. Tarch continued to angle down the glacier toward the alcove where Seema stood waiting.

"Up here!" Atreus's voice echoed across the canyon.

A snow slab broke loose beneath him and started down the slope, nearly sweeping him off his feet. Tarch continued to ignore him. Atreus pumped his knees furiously, his footsteps reverberating off the wind crust as he closed with the devil to a little more than arm's reach. They circled below a crevasse and started to pass above another one, then Tarch pulled up short, stopping so suddenly that Atreus crashed headlong into his back.

Tarch's tail lashed out, trying to sweep Atreus's feet from under him. Atreus jumped, avoiding the attack, and whipped his chain at his foe's head. He never saw the devil's foot come up, only felt the big heel sink into his stomach and double him oven He sensed himself flying backward and saw Tarch leaping after him, then felt himself crashing down on the wind crust and the slave master slamming down on top of him.

The mountain sighed, a deep silent rumble that Atreus sensed down in the hollow of his stomach. Tarch felt it too and sat up, startled, taking his weight off Atreus's chest. The devil looked up the slope.

Atreus noticed the glacier wall sliding past, remembered the crevasse below, brought his chain up and slammed it into Tarch's head. The devil roared, lashed out, and gouged at Atreus's throat A snow slab the size of an elephant caught them from above and hurled them backward through the churning air, still battling. Atreus whipped his chain up again and felt it catch around the slave master's neck. White sugar snow poured down around him, falling from above, rising from below, pouring in from all sides, Tarch clawed at Atreus's face and caught the corner of an eye.

They tumbled again. Atreus's head exploded into pain as the claw slipped free. He could not tell whether or not he had been blinded. Everything was white. A deep, breathless cold rose up to swallow him. The chain tugged at his hand, snapped his arm out full length, and strained the socket. He clenched his fist until the nails bit into his palm, felt the crushing pain of the chain tightening around his hand.

The avalanche rolled Atreus, slower, twisting his arm around behind him until he thought the chain would rip it off. He began to sting with cold and sensed the world dropping away. The chain went slack. Whether Tarch was tumbling closer or slipping free, he could not tell. Everything was cold, churning whiteness, sugary and soft.

The tumbling stopped, and Atreus had the sensation of floating. The snow cradled him, closing in around him. He remained frozen in the same awkward position, one arm twisted around behind him, dimly aware by his queasy stomach that he was sliding. He tried to pull his arm forward but found it too packed in snow to move. He tried to twist around to dig, found his body as caught as his arm. Tried to pull his hand free, could not retract his elbow. Circle his wrist, clench his fist, wiggle a single fingertip… all stuck fast, stuck fast as a beetle in amber.

The sliding sensation vanished. The snow pressed in from all sides. He felt it in his ears, against his eyes, in his nostrils, growing heavier and colder with each heartbeat His pulse began to roar, and he knew he was panicking, but panic in these helpless circumstances was a mere cruel joke. Could he flail about madly? Run blindly to his death? He could do nothing but lie motionless and stare into the unimaginable whiteness of the snow.

Funny that it should still be so white, with him buried so deep. His bones ached from being crushed, his ears rang front the pressure, his lungs burned for air. He pushed his lips apart and tried to suck in a breath through the snow, but he could not expand his ribs, could not move all those tons with only his chest

The white never vanished. The pain faded, the pressure diminished, the roar of his pulse ebbed away, the yearning for breath became a distant memory, and the white remained.

Atreus found himself standing beneath a pearly sky in a valley of white marble, facing an alabaster palace surrounded by snowy ponds filled with white lotus. At his side stood a white-caped figure with a long, translucent tail and silvery-white scales.

The form turned, and Atreus saw that it was Tarch, now with a flowing white beard and blond eyes. All the brutality had left his jagged features, and his face radiated the same serenity and contentment as did Seema's. He saluted Atreus with a clawed hand, then climbed the palace steps and disappeared through a door. Atreus was alone.

He stood before the palace, studying its asymmetric majesty. It had an ancient, guileless beauty, with a large open rotunda on one end and a square balcony room on the other. Connecting the two was a long gallery of scalloped arches and slender columns, with a Y-shaped staircase that descended down to the lower porch. The bottom story was painted in bright horizontal stripes, while the upper was decorated with swirling, ornately carved relief's. The architecture could hardly be called balanced, and no part of the building seemed to belong with the rest, yet it was the most stunning palace he had ever seen, casual and warmly unpretentious and all the more magnificent

Atreus climbed the stairs to the gallery and found himself standing in an icy wind, staring into the rotunda where a brilliant silver flame flickered in a bronze brazier.

"All is not harmony and balance." The voice was Seema's. "If you see beauty in yourself, so everyone will see it"

Still staring into the silvery fire, Atreus walked into the rotunda Now that he was inside, he could see a cowled silhouette standing behind the brazier, its identity, even its gender, masked by the brilliant glow of the flame. The figure placed its hands over the brazier and slowly spread them. The flame broadened into a shimmering silver square.

"Look."

Atreus stooped down to obey, then cried out in shock.

There was a face in the silver square, as unbalanced and misshapen as his own, with the same beetling brow and sunken eyes, the same oversized nose and twisted mouth, but this face was handsome, rugged and happy and utterly at peace with itself.

"What would you do for this?" Now the voice was Tarch's, deep and raspy and rough. "What would you give to have this face?"

Atreus looked up at the cowled figure. "Anything," was his answer. "I would give anything…my fortune, my life…"

"Wrong answer."

The figure brought its hands together and the shimmering square shrank to a single tongue of guttering flame.

"Your fortune means nothing to me, and I do not want your life."

Atreus stared at the fading flame and asked, "What then? Tell me, and you shall have it!"

The cowled figure lowered its hands and the last wisp of flame winked out, revealing the face beneath the hood.

"You know what I want" The voice remained Tarch's, but the face was Seema's. "Give it to me, and you shall have what you want"

Now the voice as well became Seema's. "Give it to me," she said, "and you shall have Langdarma."

She reached out and leaned across the brazier as though to embrace him. A sense of serenity and contentment flooded ever Atreus and he understood at last what the figure wanted from him. He stretched out his arms and stepped forward to accept the embrace, then suddenly grew dizzy and pitched forward and found himself hovering over the brazier, staring down at a single white ember still shining in the dead charcoal.

"Too late," the voice, now distant and sexless, said. "He's for the dead book now."

Atreus craned his neck around to look up beneath the hood and found himself staring into the empty stone eyes of a statue. The statue reached down, grasped the edge of the brazier, and the brazier turned into a thousand-spoked wheel, the white ember its burning hub.

"The Seraph spins the wheel round and round." The statue twirled the wheel as it spoke and the white ember became a six-pointed snow-flake, feathery and beautiful and cold, Motionless in the heart of the spinning circle. "Round and round and nobody knows where falls the dead man's soul."

Atreus's stomach became light and empty and he began to fall, whirling down toward the white crystal brilliance.