Doroga growled in his throat, and the gargant beneath them let out a rumble that shook Tavi's teeth.
"Never mind," Tavi said, quickly. "How far is it to this great tree and back?"
Doroga guided the gargant down a long slope and pointed forward. "See for yourself."
Tavi strained to look over Doroga's broad shoulders, finally resorting to planting a foot on the broad back of the gargant bull and half-standing, with Fade steadying him by his belt.
Down a long slope of land, dappled in patches of shadow next to round, ice-covered boulders, the land fell off and down as abruptly as if some enormous hand had gouged out an inverted dome from the earth. A low ridge rose all around the precipice, which was a circle that stretched so wide in the falling snow that Tavi could not see the majority of its curve or the circle's far side. A dull, greenish light licked up at the edges of the pit from below, and as the Gargant plodded closer, Tavi could see its source.
The bottom of the pit, a great bowl gouged into the earth, was covered with a valley of trees-trees the likes of which Tavi had never seen before. They rose up, their trunks twisted and gnarled, stretching many branches each high into the air, like the reaching hands of a drowning man.
Covering the trees was the source of the light. Tavi squinted and peered, and it took his eyes a moment to sort out what he was seeing. Covering the trees was some kind of growth that gave off the faint, menacing luminescence. It seemed to cover the trees as might some kind of fungus, but rather than simply existing as a light coating of some other plant, it had grown over them in a thick, gelatinous-looking mass. As the gargant drew closer to the edge of the precipice, Tavi could see that the growth had runnels and areas that looked as though bubbles of air had been trapped beneath it, and for all the world looked like melted wax had been dripped over the surfaces of the trees, but for the desperately reaching branches high up in them, layer upon layer, until the whole resembled some fantastic, bizarre work of art. As far as he could see, in the faint light of the glowing wax, those odd trees writhed and twisted, their branches and trunks hung in festoons and swirls of the waxy growth.
At the heart of the scene stood a single, ancient tree, barren trunk lifting high, dead branches mostly worn away by time. Though there was nothing to hold to scale, Tavi thought that the spire of ancient, dead wood had to be huge.
"The Wax Forest," Tavi said, quietly. "Wow. They didn't say it was so pretty."
"Danger," Fade said, quietly. "Danger, Tavi. Fade will go."
"No," Tavi said, quickly. "I'm the one who spoke. I'm the one who has to answer the trial." He glanced at Doroga. "Right?"
Doroga looked back at Tavi and then glanced at Fade. "Too heavy," he said.
Tavi tilted his head. "What?"
"Too heavy," Doroga repeated. "His weight will break the surface of the croach. The wax. It will alert the Keepers as soon as he steps on it. Only our whelps or a small female can enter the Valley of Silence and live."
Tavi swallowed again. "Right then," he said. "It's got to be me."
Fade frowned, but fell silent.
The gargant's slow-seeming steps covered ground quickly and carried them down to the edge of the precipice. There, Tavi saw Hashat standing beside a large, pale horse, the wind tossing their white manes off to one side, the lean Marat woman with her long legs somehow a mirror of the big grey beside her. The cool winter light gleamed on the captured eagle brooches on her sword belt.
Over to one side, seated at the edge of the precipice, near a couple of lumps in the snow, was Kitai, still dressed in his rough smock, skinny legs dangling over the edge, feet idly waving. The wind pressed his hair back from the slender, stark lines of his face, and he had his eyes narrowed to slits against the drifting flakes of snow.
Tavi scowled at the other boy, and his face stung for a moment, where he had been cut the previous morning.
Doroga nodded wordlessly to Hashat and clucked to his gargant. The great beast let out a snort and rolled to a stop before lowering itself almost daintily to the ground. Doroga tossed down the saddle strap