Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [204]
“Their companions have already made camp, lord prince,” their guide said.
“In the outer day, then,” the prince said. His companions on the dais picked up the throne—with him in it—and turned it around so he faced away from them.
“Come now,” their guide said, and led them back outside into the raw dank wind that penetrated even the thick woolen clothes Dorrin had given Andressat. He shivered. As before, he shared the young captain’s tent that night.
He woke at dawn; the camp was already astir, and Selfer gone from his pallet. Andressat hurried to ready himself for travel. All but the captain’s tent had been struck and packed; as soon as he was out, that, too, came down.
As before, Andressat was impressed by how fast and completely these soldiers cleaned up the campsite, pushing sod back into the tent-peg holes, covering over the jacks after the last had used it. Selfer, he saw, was asking the gnomes who had come out to lead them away how they wanted the fire-pit cleaned.
To his surprise, these gnomes—not the same as the day before—led them away from the arched entrance he’d used before, more westward, along a narrow trail where they could ride only single file. Half the gnomes led; the other half followed. Andressat followed Selfer, chewing on a strip of dried meat that served instead of the hot sib and porridge he’d had so often on this trip. The trail trended upward and west, into rougher country than the trade road. Andressat caught but one glimpse of it between the tall rocks that now hedged them in, a little curve of beaten earth on the slope far below.
Sometime after midmorning, a cleft in the rock opened before them. “We go here,” their guide said. “Big enough inside, but lead horses …”
Andressat shivered. The dark hole looked more like a natural cave, and he had no wish to spend days or weeks wandering in the dark. But Selfer had dismounted and followed their guides, and Andressat could not—in that narrow place, with the whole troop behind him—do anything else.
Once inside and around a knob of rock, he found himself on a smooth stone trail, here wide enough for three or four horses abreast, lit with a cool blue light. Here, as in the gnome prince’s hall, the stone had been skillfully carved from the arched ceiling three times the height of a man to the floor crossed by grooves that would give purchase to the feet of horses or mules and also direct water off the trail. On this surface, they were now able to ride safely and quickly. The light was just enough to let them see the shape of the way ahead—sometimes curving, sometimes sloping a little uphill or down, but mostly straight and level. In that dimness, Andressat began to feel drowsy; his mind drifted to his own home, to the clear winter sunlight slanting across the vineyards, the long blue shadows. He did not think of the stops they must make to rest the horses, or food—the light never changed—he did not think of time.
“It is to dismount again,” one of the gnomes said briskly, with a firm tap on Andressat’s knee.
Andressat jerked awake—he felt mazed, stupid, as he swung a leg over and slid down to the stone. Ahead was a stone face with a gap much like the one they had entered. Outside was darkness.
Still dazed with sleep, Andressat followed Selfer and found they had come out on a slope that ran down before them. Mountains loomed behind them, black against a deep blue sky, lighter to the heart-side, eastward. A few stars still shone; the air was cold and smelled of snow, but gentler even so than the air of the north.
“That way—” Their guide said to Selfer. “—that way is the Valdaire road, down from the pass. The snow would have been deep there; here is only a little that will melt at sunrise.
“But—” Selfer sounded almost as dazed as Andressat felt. “But did we travel so far in just one day?”
“It was the prince’s gift: to take you the way that is not measured with paces or furlongs or leagues or any human measurement. It was but one day’s effort for you and your beasts, but without the prince’s