“I’m glad to hear it. Not glad that it was unsettling, of course.”
A section of trail turned half-sized, a thin ridge with a broken edge. Vivian crept with one foot directly in front of the other, hands on the mountain face to support her weight. On the ground, she’d never really thought of wind as a force, but here she could feel it pushing at her, almost making her sway toward the void at her side.
Talking was the last thing on her mind, and presumably on Olvir’s, for a long stretch.
Gradually, the ground broadened, though the wind kept up. Vivian dared a glance upward: clouds were filling the once-clear sky, streaming like dark banners.
“You should know,” came Olvir’s voice, “that I was in Thyran’s mind. Lord of Justice be praised, it was brief and I don’t believe he sensed me. But I can’t be certain.”
Certainty about anything now would be unnatural and alarming,said Ulamir.
“There isn’t much we can do about it if he did, but it’s better to be informed.” Vivian considered the matter as best she could while she picked her way along. “I don’t know if there’s muchhecan do about it, if he did, except perhaps putting up better inner walls.”
“Unless the link works both ways.”
“Could he take over your body?” The heartless nature of her training prompted another question. “Could you take over his?”
“No. Or probably not. Tinival guards us against possession. I’m sure ofthat, and Gizath doesn’t let go of what’s his. Neither does Thyran, for that matter.” Vivian heard leather creak as Olvir shuddered. “There’s too much in there for me to subdue.”
A pity,said Ulamir.Not a bad work of sapping, if it could be done.
“Probably best not to try,” she said.
“With respect, Sentinel, I wouldn’t do so unless my commander or my god ordered me to. One’s leagues away by now, and the other doesn’t instruct me directly.”
“I’m only glad he protects you as well as he does. I’d rather not wake and… Never mind.” Even joking, the idea of Thyran’s clutching will behind Olvir’s kind, handsome face was too painful to think about while they walked in the night wind. “So the most either of you can do is figure out what the other one’s up to. He may not be able to do that much, since you weren’t trying any magic. Did you get any idea of his thoughts or where he was?”
“No. We didn’t share vision. I…” He swallowed audibly. “I felt what he was like, what he wanted in a very broad sense, but otherwise, no, no thoughts.”
“So the reverse wouldn’t be wonderful,” said Vivian, “but probably wouldn’t give him information he doesn’t already have. And we have a decent head start.”
“For the moment,” said Olvir as the clouds above them grew thicker.
* * *
He didn’t know how long they’d been walking when the snow started. With the sky overcast, it was harder to tell time, and the shifting schedule of the journey had played havoc with his internal sense. Olvir knew that he and Vivian had covered a fair bit of ground when the first flakes hit his face. He also knew that those flakes shouldn’t have appeared nearly so soon, not when the sky had been clear earlier.
Of course,shoulddidn’t come into Thyran’s storms.
It was a dangerous word anyhow. That had been part of Olvir’s training. Gizath, and Thyran later, had committed themselves to their paths out of the conviction that they knew the way the world should be—a goddessshouldbe above love with a mortal, a wifeshouldnever think about seeking another, a lowly scholarshouldstay far from the territory of a lord of impeccable bloodlines—and that they were justified in destroying lives when it wasn’t. Gizath’s cultists worshipped him not as the Traitor God but as the Lord of the Great Chain, the one who decreed the rightful place of every creature in the world.
For servants of Tinival, whose realm was justice, the border between their mission and Gizath’s will was often unnervingly close. Olvir suspected it was likewise for Letar’s Blades, who embodied the Dark Lady’s vengeance, though he’d never asked.
Speak of who an act harmed, Olvir’s superiors had taught him, what recourse they’d had before the knights intervened, and how it could be mended or atoned for.Shouldwas a tantrum, a blind beating at the walls of the world. At best, it identified a circumstance as abnormal and did no other good.
He did his best to remember that while he followed Vivian down narrow paths that began to grow slick with snow. Every step became its own world, a sequence of actions that took more deliberation than Olvir had put into walking during the last twenty-odd years: know the ground, test the friction, shift weight slowly forward, then repeat.
The voice of the country lad he’d been, who’d picked berries in summer and trapped rabbits in fall, kept whispering in his head, aghast:This shouldn’t be happening, this is wrong, this isn’t how seasonswork.
The storm at camp had been bad, but he hadn’t known for sure. He hadn’t been present as Thyran warped the winds until they did what he wanted, going against every aspect of their natures for that time and place. Watching the snow fall faster, feeling the wind stream icily past his face, was like looking at an arm and knowing from the angles that it was shattered in a half-dozen places.
Olvir watched Vivian instead. She was steady ahead of him, a tall, dark pillar in the middle of white chaos.
The mountain was solid to his left. To his right, the ground dropped away to nothing. The snow kept him from seeing how high they were before long, and that was probably good.
Olvir’s feet began to hurt, then stopped. His face stung, then it went numb. He didn’t mention either phenomenon. He knew what they meant, but there was nothing to do about it. He and Vivian would just have to walk until they didn’t have to, or until they couldn’t.
* * *
