Faces of Deception

CHAPTER 13

In the purple afternoon shadows, the band of dark granite looked hollow and empty, like a giant fissure splitting the cliff down the center. Atreus could imagine following the crevice through to the other side of the mountain, or down into the stony roots of the Sisters of Serenity themselves. As delirious as he was, Atreus could imagine a lot of things, such as the husky form behind them, appearing and disappearing as it twined its way across the boulder-strewn glacier below. The figure was holding its ribs and limping, and it kept pitching forward onto its hands and knees. Every now and then it glanced around behind itself, searching for a tail it no longer had, and sometimes it looked up to check the progress of Atreus and his companions.

Atreus tried to point and found his arm pinned against Yago's chest. He groaned as the effort brought him back into his pain-racked body. Until now, he had passed the trip across the glacier a pleasant distance above himself, somewhere outside the seared and hideous form in Yago's arms, a spirit connected to his body by only a thin strand of memory. Time itself had ebbed and flowed, swirling past in slow eddies as his companions scrambled up the icefall, then rushing ahead madly as they crossed the snowy flats. Atreus had floated along, vaguely aware that Seema had promised to take them to Langdarma and wondering how she could offer such a thing. She herself had called it a myth, and he could not believe she would deceive him. Not about something so important

Seema reached the clef ting and stopped directly across from the dark band of granite. With the sun hidden behind the middle Sister, this part of the glacier was a sheet of hard ice, so she had to stand in the tracks they had made that morning. Rishi stopped a pace below her, both feet planted comfortably in one of Yago's frozen footprints, and Yago stopped behind the Mar. Atreus found himself looking back down into the basin. Their pursuer had vanished again, leaving Atreus to wonder whether he had been imagining the dark figure all along.

"This isn't Langdarma," said Yago. The ogre leaned past Rishi and peered down into the frigid blue murk of the clef ting. "We been here before."

"You searched, but you did not examine," said Seema. "This is the way to Langdarma. Rishi and I will go first. Then you can pass Atreus down to us."

The healer lowered herself into the clef ting, dropping onto the first of the boulders wedged between the cliff and the glacier wall. Rishi followed, and Yago stepped to the brink of the chasm. As the ogre turned to straddle the edge, Atreus glimpsed a dark figure below, angling up the slope along the course of their frozen tracks. The form was hazy and indistinct, no more than a darker blue in the indigo shadow of the mountain, but it looked solid enough to set Atreus's heart pounding.

Look!

The word echoed around inside Atreus's mind, but could not quite find his lips. He had a little more luck trying to point. As Yago bent down to lower him into the clef ting, his arm came free of the ogre's grasp and swung toward the dark figure. A surge of anguish rushed through his body, but he kept his hand raised.

"Don't worry," Yago said. "They know what'll happen if they drop you."

Atreus forced himself to keep pointing as he heard an agonized groan escape his lips.

"I do not think it is us he fears," said Rishi. "Is he not pointing down the slope?"

Atreus sighed in relief and let his arm drop. Yago scowled and passed him into the waiting arms of Seema and Rishi, then turned to look down toward the glacier.

"He must've seen our friend back there," said Yago. Tarch is coming up fast now."

Atreus nearly choked on his astonishment. If his companions knew about Tarch, what were they doing here? They would be trapped in the clef ting, with no room to flee and even less to maneuver.

"We must hurry," said Seema. Leaving Atreus to Rishi's care, she squatted at the edge of the boulder, then jumped down to the next one, landing as lightly as a feather. "Come along."

Yago lowered himself into the clef ting, took Atreus from Rishi, and descended to the bottom of the trench in two quick hops. Seema and Rishi followed close behind, and soon Atreus's companions were standing together in the bottom of abyss. The murk was thick and frozen, as dense as resin and as cold as death. Atreus started to shiver and felt, absurdly, a ring of goose bumps surrounding his burns. A fiery nettling sank deep into his bones. His broken leg began to throb, and he sensed himself slipping away, aware of his pain yet apart from it.

Yago said something about losing him, and Rishi began to worry about Tarch catching them in the trench. Seema spoke to them both in calm assurance and took their hands, leading the way to the dark band of granite. Atreus's perceptions must have grown hazy and unreliable, for it seemed to him that she simply pressed herself against the face of the cliff and melted inside.

Yago and Rishi followed and gasped, and Atreus's stomach floated up toward his chest, as though he were falling. Seema walked ahead and became the only thing visible in the darkness. Yago and Rishi followed, and the falling sensation continued.

After a time, a golden wheel appeared far below their feet, its scarlet spokes slowing revolving around the glimmering six-pointed star of a snow-flake. As they traveled deeper into the murk, the wheel stayed beneath them, growing larger with each step. The snow-flake began to pulse. As it grew larger, it became apparent that the different triangles inside its star were pulsing randomly, flashing first sapphire, then emerald, ruby, diamond… all the colors of the gems.

Seema continued to walk, and the falling sensation persisted. The wheel grew ever larger, its golden rim spreading outward until it became large enough to encircle them all. The scarlet spokes ceased their spinning, and Atreus grew dizzy, as though he were twirling around. The snow-flake seemed to dissolve, to become nothing but pulsing arrows, each pointing down a different spoke of the wheel.

The wheel became as the basin beneath the Sisters of Serenity. The scarlet spokes grew as long and wide as roads, each pointing off toward a different corner of the compass, and the pulsing triangles became the size of ship decks.

At last Seema stopped walking, and the triangles rejoined, becoming a snow-flake as large as the glacier basin. The wheel's golden rim disappeared somewhere over the horizon, and the scarlet spokes vanished. The dizziness and the falling sensation faded. The air grew tepid and moist, and Atreus stopped shivering. Seema turned toward one of the snow-flake's distant points and spoke a few words in the archaic tongue of her people.

A blue light appeared above the point. Yago and Rishi cried out as their knees buckled. A warm wind began to whip past, and though there was no sensation of movement, the light slowly began to expand, becoming a tiny blue square. What little sense of time Atreus still had vanished completely. They seemed to stand there forever watching the square grow larger, the breeze whipping through their hair, and the musty smell of a cave growing ever stronger in their nostrils. When the square had expanded to the size of a man and they found themselves standing before a shining blue portal, it seemed that only an instant had passed.

Again Seema took the hands of Yago and Rishi. "You will see many strange things," she told them. "Do not release my hand, or you will be lost."

Seema stepped through the portal. The blue light began to swirl and eddy around her, and her movements grew smooth and slow. Rishi gulped down a deep breath and followed, but Yago stopped at the door and stared wide into the whirling radiance.

Seema said something that did not pass the portal, then opened her mouth wide and drew in a deep breath. A moment later, she exhaled, sending little eddies of current swirling away from her face. She smiled and pulled the ogre's hand. Yago took a deep breath and allowed himself to be drawn forward. As they passed through the door, Atreus felt liquid pressure all around him. The watery warmth made his burns itch, and he watched from somewhere outside himself as his mouth opened to groan. His heart began to pound in fear, but the strange fluid that rushed down into his lungs could not have been water. Instead of coughing or choking, he merely moaned. It was a strange, gurgling sound that reminded him of the chortling call of flying cranes.

They seemed to be in some sort of strange underwater labyrinth made of undulating weeds and rocky ledges, with no surface that Atreus could see. Seema started forward, leading the way across the sandy bottom as though she had walked the maze a thousand times. Atreus did not even try to keep track of their route. The agony caused by the warm water more than bridged the gap between his body and spirit. He could think of nothing but his anguish, so it was enough for him that they seemed to be heading uphill.

After a time, they climbed high enough that they began to see the crests of the maze walls looming above their heads. There were fish up there, swimming back and forth and gobbling each other up as only fish can do, but none of them ever seemed to drift down into the corridors of the watery labyrinth. Atreus thought this strange, until Yago finally broke the surface and emerged into the scorching hot air.

Atreus's body erupted into such anguish that he could no longer tell whether he was above it or in it. He simply opened his mouth and let out a bellow that sent the air-swimming fish wiggling off into the distant corners of the atmosphere. After that, he lost all track of his surroundings. He barely noticed the pools of burning water in which Seema cooled his wounds, or the billowing thunderclouds that rolled along the floor and stabbed up into the darkness with bolts of lightning, or the constant tolling of the wind chimes in the still hot air. All these, Atreus dismissed as fever delirium, so when they stepped through a dark portal and found themselves standing on a rocky ledge two miles above the floor of a broad, verdant basin, his first thought was that he was still hallucinating.

A gentle drizzle was wafting down from a mottled blue sky that might have been ice as easily as clouds. The first shadows of purple twilight were stealing down the sheer faces of the basin's granite walls. Here and there, a tongue of blue ice hung high on a cliff, creeping out from beneath the edges of the blotchy sky to send a long horsetail waterfall cascading toward the valley floor. The silvery ribbons turned to mist after a thousand feet or so, vanishing into the empty air long before they reached the slopes at the base of the cliffs.

The slopes themselves were mottled in deep woods and emerald meadows, flecked with thatch-roofed hamlets and crude stock sheds. A glistening web of narrow streams spilled down into the center of the valley, where a broad clear river meandered through several miles of neat green barley fields, disappearing over the edge of the basin into a deep, vast valley beyond.

"Welcome to my home," Seema said, at last releasing the hands of her companions. "Welcome to Langdarma."

This was too much for Atreus. Too weary and pained to rejoice, he simply allowed himself to believe what he saw, to accept the truth of Seema's words and not consider their implications, to embrace the lushness and the warmth of the place and not question whether it was real or hallucination.

He experienced a strange calm then, a peace that flowed up and through him, connecting him to the beauty below in some enigmatic way he could never understand. He felt himself return to his anguished body. His pain washed over him like running water, sank into his flesh like the bright warmth of the sun and filled his chest like salty sea air. This time he did not fight it. He embraced his agony as a part of himself, welcomed it as the scream of life still raging strong inside him, and then he felt the fear leave. His body released its hold on his spirit, now confident that he would not allow the pain to chase him away, and he saw the clouds of oblivion rise up to carry him into the world of numbness and rest.

Later, Atreus's slumber was invaded by a male voice much too dulcet to belong to his companions. For a time, he dreamed that he was back in the Church of Beauty, listening to a perfectly pitched tenor sing the goddess's praises. Never had he heard such a pure sound, untainted by the slightest tinge of coarseness or the faintest hint of hollowness. It was as lyrical as silk and smooth as a poem, and Atreus felt blessed just to hear it in a dream.

As Atreus grew aware of the bitter reek of a butter lamp, he began to realize he was not dreaming. The voice was real, coming from someplace down beyond his feet. Seema was answering, apprehensive and apologetic, her own sweet voice sounding twittery and flutey by comparison. As Atreus struggled to wakefulness, his pain began to return, though not as terrible as before. He could feel a piece of chiffon covering the burns on his upper body, and Seema's warm hand was smearing a watery ointment over his raw and naked legs.

An embarrassing thought flashed through Atreus's mind, snapping him instantly to full consciousness. His eyes popped open, and he found himself staring at the ceiling planks of a small stone hut. He was lying on a straw-covered pallet, with a flickering butter lamp resting on a rough-hewn table beside him. The room was remarkably warm, at least compared to the snow caves in which they had been sleeping the last few nights, and he could hear a fire crackling in a hearth somewhere nearby.

Atreus raised his head and glanced down the length of his body, discovering that his worst fears were true. He lay hideously naked from the waist down, with his scorched flesh and broken leg, crooked hips and ugly ogre-like loins fully exposed. Nor did he have any illusions about who had removed the remnants of his trousers, as Seema was rubbing her ointment onto a burn higher on his thigh than any female hand had ever touched before. He found himself suddenly thankful for his pain. It was probably the only thing that saved him from an even greater embarrassment.

Seema turned to look at him and said softly, "You are awake." If his grotesque nakedness caused her any discomfort, she did not show it. "I hope it is not because I am hurting you."

Atreus shook his head and started to say, "I heard a…" He did not want to call what he had heard a mere voice. He shook his head, then finally said, "I guess it was a song. I must have been dreaming."

"It was not a song, or a dream," said a male voice, the same dulcet voice that Atreus had heard earlier. "Though I thank you for thinking so."

A milky-skinned man with a slender build and the appearance of youthful vigor stepped into view. Wearing nothing but a white cotton sarong draped around his hips, he was dressed almost as immodestly as Atreus, though he was immeasurably more handsome, with cascading silver hair and piercing silver eyes that riveted the observer in place. Nor were his stunning good looks the most striking thing about him, for a huge pair of feathery white wings arched up behind his shoulders, creating a sort of pearly halo that followed him wherever he went

Atreus let his head drop back to the pallet, convinced that he was looking at one of Sune's divine seraphs.

"I must be dead."

"Do not say such things!" said Seema. She stood and stared at Atreus as though he had uttered a blasphemy. "Not in front of the sannyasi!"

"Atreus is not to blame. He is only speaking what he believes to be so," said the sannyasi, who motioned Seema not to be angry, then came to the sleeping pallet and lowered his hand as though to touch Atreus's sloping forehead. "May I?"

Atreus nodded, and the sannyasi placed a milky palm on his brow. At first, it felt cool and soothing. Then Atreus's scorched flesh began to sting again. His broken leg started to throb, and the throbbing worked its way up his leg into his hip. The tingling in his burns seeped deep down through his muscles into his blood and turned his veins into channels of boiling fire, and the searing heat began to rush up through his body toward the sannyasi's hand.

All of Atreus's pain reached his neck at once, filling him with such a fiery agony that he thought his throat would open like a boiled sausage. He screamed and thrashed at the sides of his pallet and reached up to tear the hand from his brow.

The sannyasi's palm remained in place, holding Atreus down as firmly as it did gently, and even all of Atreus's anguish-borne strength could not tear the milky hand from his brow. For a moment, his head hurt as it had never hurt before. His ears ached with the roar of a thousand thunderclaps, his nostrils burned with lava, and his eyes felt like they were melting. His brains boiled inside his skull, and his ears roared with the hiss of escaping steam, then the pain vanished, evaporating through the thick bone of his brow.

Without being aware that he had closed them, Atreus opened his eyes and found himself looking up at the sannyasi. Now, the milky face looked as old as the mountains themselves. His lips were drawn tight and his brow was furrowed, and Atreus saw in his expression all the pain that had been drawn from his own body.

Before Atreus could thank the sannyasi, Yago and Rishi rushed through the door, the ogre's broad shoulders tearing out the door jambs and a fair section of stone wall. As soon as they saw the white-winged figure standing over Atreus, their mouths fell open in astonishment Rishi stopped to stare in gape-mouthed wonder. Yago crossed the floor in a single thundering step and grabbed a feathery wing.

"What you doing?" he said. The ogre drew himself up to his full height, knocking two ceiling planks out of the roof, and tried to pull the sannyasi off the floor.

He might as well have tried to lift a mountain. The sannyasi remained firmly planted on the rough-hewn planks, and nothing, not so much as a wing feather, yielded to the ogre's strength.

Yago scowled, then responded as ogres do to unexplained things, by trying to smash it with his fist.

The blow would have caved in the head of any man, but the sannyasi did not even flinch. Yago howled in pain and clutched the offending hand. Rishi's eyes grew wide and round, and he rushed from the room making occult signs and jabbering in Maran.

Atreus scowled at his friend. "Yago!" he shouted. "what are you doing?"

"Me?" the ogre boomed. The way you screamed, I thought he was tearing your guts out."

The Sannyasi turned to Yago. "Do not be angry with your son," he said. "He was in terrible pain."

Yago looked horrified. "Son?"

The Sannyasi motioned at Atreus and said, "Your son Atreus. He will recover soon." Oblivious to the insult he had just inflicted on the ogre, the Sannyasi turned to Seema. "Now you see what comes with strangers. You have brought violence and anger into our midst"

"It's not Seema's fault," Atreus said, propping himself up "She was only trying to save-"

"Of course," interrupted the Sannyasi, "but it is not permitted to bring strangers into Langdarma."

Atreus's jaw fell, and he wondered if he remained in the grip of his fever delirium. Certainly, the Sannyasi looked more like a hallucination than a real being, and refused to believe that Seema had lied to him about Langdarma being a myth.

After a moment, Seema said in a quiet voice. I had no choice but to bring them. They were in terrible danger, and to leave them behind would have been murder."

The Sannyasi considered this, then reluctantly nodded "If that is true, letting them die would have been a terrible stain on your soul, but you are still to blame." His white wings began to flutter ever so slightly. He gestured at Atreus and Yago and said, "This is what comes of visiting the outside world. You cannot escape its taint"

Seema lifted her chin. "Would my soul have been any less tainted had 1 not tried to save Jalil?" she asked.

The Sannyasi's milky face grew sad. "Even here," he replied, "death is the inevitable consequence of life."

"Jalil was a child!" Seema protested, shaking her head. "His time should not have come for many years."

"And you know this how?"

"By the pain in my heart"

"Ahh… then your heart has misled you." The Sannyasi's pure voice grew sterner as he continued, "It is not for you to say who will live any more than it is for you to say who will die. You left the valley to find a cure, and Jalil died anyway. The wisdom of a healer lies in knowing what can be changed and what cannot. To claim more is to usurp the powers of the Serene Ones."

Seema's expression grew apprehensive. "That was not my intention," she said.

"But that was the result," the Sannyasi said, then took Seema's shoulders and pulled her close, folding her inside his wings. "Seema Indrani, your vanity has cast a shadow on your soul and brought anger and violence into Langdarma. Your magic has become a burden you can no longer bear. I free you of it"

When the Sannyasi opened his wings, Seema looked weary and dejected. Without raising her gaze, she nodded and stepped back.

"As you will have it, Sannyasi," she said.

"No!" Atreus exclaimed, sitting up and facing the Sannyasi. "She did nothing wrong. You can't punish Seema for saving us."

The Sannyasi gently pushed Atreus back down and said, "I am not punishing her. Until Seema lifts the shadow on her soul, her magic is only a trap. It will poison her thoughts with vanity and folly, and she will bring more wickedness down on us all." The Sannyasi turned to Seema will watch over Atreus and his companions during their stay in Langdarma. If they do no harm and come to none themselves, your magic will return."

Seema bowed her head.

"Your wisdom shines like the sky, Sannyasi."

The Sannyasi smiled benignly, turned to Atreus, and said, "You and your friends may rest in Langdarma until you are well enough to travel. I ask only that you observe our customs, and that you speak no angry words inside Langdarma."

Atreus nodded.

The Sannyasi folded his wings tightly behind his shoulders. This will be difficult for you, but I know you will try." His silver eyes softened. He leaned down to touch Atreus's shoulders and continued, "And I am sorry for the grief you will feel after you leave."

"What grief?" Yago demanded from the corner.

"You will be tormented by the memory of paradise," the Sannyasi answered, continuing to look at Atreus. "There is nothing I can do to ease this burden."

"I wouldn't want you to," said Atreus. "Better to have the memory than nothing at all."

"You will come to think differently." The Sannyasi shook his head sadly, then laid his milky palm over Atreus's eyes. Now sleep. You must rest if you are to heal."

Atreus could not have disobeyed if he wanted to. Even before the sentence was finished, the Sannyasi's dulcet voice had lulled him into a dreamless trance. Atreus's eyelids fell, his breathing slowed, and he sank into a deep, vitalizing slumber.

Atreus passed the next three days on that same sleeping pallet, staring up at the plank ceiling or gazing out through the window at an unchanging panorama of looming cliffs and forested hills. Every morning he was awakened by the sound of groaning yaks and clanging bells as the herders drove their beasts out to pasture, and every evening he was lulled to sleep by laughing voices as they returned. During the day, he occasionally heard someone talking out in the street, though his window faced the wrong way for him to see who they were. Seema came five times a day to feed him and change his bandages. Though she often lingered longer than necessary, Atreus found it difficult to make conversation, feeling at once guilty about her sacrifices on his behalf and angry with her for deceiving him about Langdarma's existence.

At Atreus's insistence, Yago and Rishi spent most of their time touring the wonders of the valley, returning each evening so weary they barely had the energy to describe their adventures. The explorations seemed to take a heavy toll on Yago especially, as Langdarma's customary fare of grains, legumes, and yak cheese were poor substitutes for charred meat and sour mead. Although the ogre could easily have supplemented his diet with a few rabbits or deer, he observed his promise to the Sannyasi and refrained from hunting anything more lively than blackberries. Rishi also seemed to honor the hospitality of their hosts, if only because the people of Langdarma lived very simply and had nothing to steal.

On the fourth day, Atreus was strong enough to move out onto a small wooden balcony overlooking the tiny hamlet where Seema made her home. From his chair, he could look out across the stone huts down to the meadows where the villagers grazed their yaks and the terraced slopes where they grew their peas and beans. A small gully curled around below the terraces, marking the boundary between the village lands and the forested slope that led down to the stone-walled fields in the basin's fertile bottomland.

Late in the afternoon, Atreus was staring out across the fields, trying to imagine where he might find the Fountain of Infinite Grace, when Seema came out and sat beside him. She was carrying no food or bandages, and her manner was unusually reserved. For a long time she simply sat there and followed his gaze across the valley until he grew — nervous and began to imagine she had somehow sensed what he was searching for.

When she finally spoke, it was without looking at him.

"Truly it is a miracle how just sitting and gazing out at Langdarma can heal one's soul. I was hoping it might also heal what has come between us."

The comment itself did not surprise Atreus nearly so much as his reaction to it. He suddenly felt bitter and resentful, and he heard himself say, "That is a strange thing hear from someone who tried to convince me Langdarma does not exist"

Seema recoiled from the acid in his voice, and said, "Did you not promise the Sannyasi you would speak no angry words here?"

Atreus felt another rush of anger well up inside him but managed to bite his tongue and say nothing until it passed.

"I'm sorry," he said finally, "that's true, but you did tell me that Langdarma was only a myth."

Seema's golden cheeks darkened to a tarnished bronze.

"Yes, I lied to you. I had hoped by now you would understand why."

"I understand." Despite his promise to the Sannyasi, Atreus could not keep the bitterness out of his voice. He touched a finger to his hideous cheek and said, "I have understood my whole life. My mistake was in thinking you were different than people elsewhere."

Seema looked at her hands. "I do not know how people are elsewhere," she said, "but I did not lie to you because of how you look."

" Don't insult me," Atreus told her, then waved his hand at the lush forest below. "Everything is beautiful in Langdarma, and I am ugly. I know why you didn't want me here."

Now Seema's voice took on an angry edge. "That is not so. You saw the Sannyasi's anger for yourself."

Atreus shrugged and said, "What's the difference? Whether you found me too ugly or simply knew the Sannyasi would, the result was the same."

"You are not ugly. It is only that you do not belong here. The Sannyasi's concern is for your welfare and Langdarma's."

Atreus rolled his eyes and looked toward a swarm of scarlet butterflies dancing among the white blossoms of a plum tree.

Seema stood and came to his chair. "If you were ugly," she asked, "would I do this?"

Taking Atreus's cheeks in her hands, she leaned down and pressed her lips to his, and this time she was not trying to breathe for him. There was nothing friendly or modest in the kiss. Her mouth was warm and liquid and charged with ardor, and Atreus began to feel stirrings he had only dreamed of. His hands rose of their own accord and grasped her shoulders, drawing her down onto his lap. She did not resist. He pulled her close, mashing her body close to his, feeling her wonderful softness against his lumpy brawn, so lost in passion that when he heard a sudden peculiar hissing sound, he did not even recognize it as his own voice. Seema cried out and jumped out of the chair.

"Your burns!" she cried, staring down at his bandaged thighs.

Atreus blushed, realizing there was more to notice in his lap than burns. Seema paid no attention to his embarrassment. She pulled the bandages back, then winced at his torn and oozing scabs.

"We should continue this later," she said, kissing Atreus on the cheek. "The Sannyasi would be most displeased if I interfered with your recovery."

"You won't," Atreus said. His sour mood of a few minutes earlier had vanished, vanquished by the giddy astonishment Seema's kiss had stirred within his breast. "And even if you do, I don't particularly care what the Sannyasi thinks."

Seema's jaw started to drop in shock, then she smiled. "I do." She wagged a finger at Atreus and drew her chair closer, adding, "There will be plenty of time later for Devotions."

"Devotions?"

Now it was Seema who blushed. "You know…"

But Atreus did not know, having learned as a young man that any sort of amorous advance would send a woman scurrying for the safety of her father's counting room.

Seema took his hand, drawing Atreus's thoughts back to the balcony. "Perhaps it is better to wait anyway. It seems a lifetime since Tarch pulled you onto the slave barge, but it has been less than a ten-day. In truth, I hardly know you."

"What do you want to know?"

Seema thought for a moment, then said, "Why you are so angry with yourself."

"Angry? I don't believe I am."

Seema nodded and said, "You are. I see it in this 'ugliness' you talk about. Why would you call yourself such names if you were not angry with yourself?"

Atreus scowled. "Perhaps because that is what I learned from others."

"Ah… so you are angry because you do not look the way they think you should, and so you cross the world, hoping that this penance will put you at peace with yourself."

"Not exactly," Atreus said, unsure as to whether or not she was mocking him. "I came to find Langdarma."

"Because someone told you it would make you handsome." Seema smiled, faced him, and tapped his chest. "And it will, if you let it."

"I know, I know… beauty comes from within," Atreus said. "But to tell you the truth, I'm hoping for something more external."

He gazed directly into Seema's brown eyes, quietly praying that she would say something about the Fountain of Infinite Grace. Instead, she only touched her fingers to his cheek.

"I am afraid you will have to look inside first. Until you change the way you look at yourself, nothing in Langdarma will change how others see you."

"Really?" Atreus started to ask her about the Fountain, then recalled how she had deceived him about Langdarma's existence and felt his eyes grow hard. Not wanting her to see that he knew she was lying, he withdrew his hand from hers and looked away. "Then I have just crossed half the world for nothing."

"No, not for nothing," said Seema. "Inside every ugliness lies a greater beauty. Before you leave, I will make you understand this. I promise."

Not trusting himself to make a civil answer, Atreus merely grunted.

"Perhaps I should prepare you something to eat," Seema said, standing. "Your hunger is making you cross."

As she turned to go, the door downstairs banged open. "Atreus!" Yago's deep voice reverberated up through the house.

"Out here," Atreus called, his heart jumping at the ogre's excitement "On the balcony… with Seema."

He emphasized these last two words as a warning. The last thing he wanted was for Yago to burst through the door and blurt out that they had finally found the Fountain of Infinite Grace. If Seema was not willing to tell him about it, he suspected the Sannyasi would take a dim view of them knowing its location.

Yago came pounding up the stairs so hard that he shook the entire hut, stomping across Atreus's room toward the balcony. Seema met him at the door, her eyes wide with alarm, her hand raised to stop him.

"Stay inside," she warned, "or you will tear my poor balcony off my house."

Yago dropped to his hands and knees, then thrust his head and shoulders out through the door.

Before the ogre could speak, Atreus said, "Yago, calm down. I'm sure your news can wait until you gather your thoughts."

"A moment, yes, but perhaps not longer," panted Rishi. The Mar squeezed past the ogre. "We have just come from Phari, where there is most disturbing news."

"Phari?" Atreus asked.

"A hamlet on the other side of the basin," explained Seema. "What is wrong in Phari?"

"Tarch!" boomed Yago.

Seema's face paled to sickly yellow. "That is not possible!" she said. "He could not follow us through the Passing."

"He did," insisted Yago. "A man's daughter is missing."

Seema frowned. "You saw Tarch take her?" she asked.

"No, thank the Forgotten Ones," answered Rishi. "She did not come home last night. They were searching for her when we arrived."

Seema took a moment to gather her wits, then asked, "What did you tell them?"

"Tell them?" echoed Rishi. That we had not seen the girl. Then we left. They kept looking at Yago and his big teeth and saying absurd things about the yeti, and I could see at once there was no use trying to reason with them."

"You said nothing about Tarch?" Seema asked.

Yago shook his head. They were edgy enough without us starting rumors about scaly devils," he explained.

Seema closed her eyes in relief. "You were right to hold your tongues," she said. "I am sure this has nothing to do with Tarch."

"How?" Atreus asked, perched on the edge of his chair. "How do you know that?"

Seema said, "Even if he could have tracked us into the mountain-which he could not do-he does not know the Passing magic. He would be trapped inside forever."

"All the same, Tarch has a nasty way of surprising us," said Atreus. He stood, biting back a hiss of pain as his mending leg objected. "We'd better go have a look."

"There is no need." Seema pushed Atreus into his chair and added, "Even if there was, you are in no condition to go anywhere."

"But Tarch-"

"Could not have followed us," Seema insisted. There was just enough doubt in her voice to make Atreus wonder whom she was trying to convince. "Even in Langdarma, we have the normal sorts of tragedy. Children drown or hit their heads or get lost just like anyplace else, and you will only add to the family's anguish with senseless talk of devils."