itself might be stronger than the walls of Shaikar’s innermost hell, but the detection spells at the gate aren’t exactly foolproof.” Though I wasn’t so sanguine I could figure how to fox them well enough to sneak a mage through before Ruslan hunted us down and burned me to ash.
I squeezed between two close-set pines and stopped short. The granite slab beneath my feet ended in thin air. Beyond, the slope dropped away in broken cliffs to the heavily forested floor of the canyon. Tatters of mist trailed off treetops in a sinuous line that marked the course of the river hidden beneath their boughs. The western side of Garnet’s great U-shaped trench held no cliffs, but the slope was wickedly steep nonetheless. Red fir and bristlebark pines crowded the lower slopes, thinning out and disappearing some thousand feet below the serrated ridges of the peaks that stretched to meet the brightening sky.
“Where do we go once we get down?” Kiran sounded daunted.
I unlaced my pack and pulled out harnesses and rope. “We’ll ford the river, then climb out the canyon to the cirque below Bearjaw Peak.” I pointed to a hulking mountain with a host of spires sticking up from its north ridge like crooked fangs. “On Bearjaw’s north ridge, see the little notch between the two largest spires? That’s what we’re aiming for.”
Kiran’s gaze followed my finger. “That looks, um.” He paused, and I could see him rejecting all the words like impossible and insane. He finally settled on “Steep.”
“The climb to the notch isn’t as bad as it seems.” Hidden behind a buttress was a protected rock chimney with plentiful, solid holds, a climb even a novice like Kiran should be able to manage with the occasional assist. Khalmet willing, we’d make the cirque tonight, then ascend to the notch early the following morning while the avalanche danger was lowest. “I’ve never met anyone else who knew Bearjaw has a viable route. When Ruslan asks, he’ll hear about the easier unnamed passes down south of the trail. If Khalmet favors us, he’ll assume we’ve headed for one of those, and send his searchers that way.”
Not something I intended to count on, though. I scanned the canyon as I worked, searching for any telltale glints from a spyglass. Ruslan’s searchers shouldn’t have reached the depths of the canyon yet, but Pello could’ve, with his head start. Hopefully he’d stuck to the trail, which switchbacked down a slope far to the south, but if he hadn’t...I sighed, and dropped my clutch of pitons back into my pack. Far slower and more difficult to use natural anchors like trees to set the rappels, but I didn’t dare leave a trail of metal pitons, not to mention the noise of hammering them into rock.
Kiran put on his harness and began uncoiling the rope. I caught another glimpse of the healed skin of his hands. Far as I could tell, not a trace of the ragged-edged cuts remained.
“What kind of mages are you and Ruslan, anyway?” I didn’t know what the different types of mages called themselves, but streetside storytellers had long ago come up with a bunch of nicknames loosely based on the materials mages used to fuel their spells. Wind mages, earth mages, metal mages, crystal mages, song mages...the list was endless, and gods knew I was no expert. But for one of the major types, maybe I could sift enough truth from tavern stories to give me an independent idea of what I was dealing with.
“What?” His hands slackened on the hemp coils.
“How do you raise power?” In Ninavel, you knew right off by the style of sigils on a mage’s clothes. Without that obvious clue, I was lost.
Kiran lowered his head and attacked the rope again. “I was trained to use forces that exist deep within the earth.”
Earth mage or sand mage, maybe. Only middling powerful, if you believed the stories—and without the horrific reputation of the strongest mages. Yet even a middling powerful mage was dangerous beyond any enemy I’d faced before. My stomach set to jumping all over again. “And Ruslan?”
Kiran’s mouth thinned. “He is the same.”
“But stronger and more experienced,” I said, sourly. At least I hadn’t made an enemy of a bone mage, or worse—a blood mage. I hid a shudder, remembering the contemptuous malice I’d seen in the smile of that cold-eyed bastard on Eranya Street.
“Yes.” Kiran gave a vicious yank on his harness belt knot. “I’m ready.”
I stepped into my own harness,