Althalus went back to his camp, gathered up his belongings and set out across the rocky meadow toward the two low, rounded hills the old man had indicated. The sun rose, climbing above the snowy peaks of Kagwher, and the night chill began to fade.
The hills were darkly forested, and there was a narrow pass between them where the ground had been trampled by the hooves of deer and bison. Althalus moved carefully, stopping to examine the game-trail for any unusual footprints. This was a very peculiar place, and it was entirely possible that unusual creatures lived here. Unusual creatures sometimes had unusual eating habits, so it was time to start being very careful.
He moved on, stopping frequently to look around and listen, but the only sounds he heard were the songs of birds and the sluggish buzzing of a few insects just starting to come awake after the chill night.
When he reached the top of the pass, he stopped again for quite a long time to look to the north, not because there was anything to see in that direction, but because there wasnt. The game-trail went on down through a narrow patch of grass toward the dead snag the crazy old man had mentioned, and then it stopped. There wasnt anything at all beyond that tree. There were no distant mountain peaks and no clouds. There was nothing but sky.
The dead snag was bone-white, and its twisted limbs seemed to reach in mute supplication to the indifferent morning sky. There was something unnerving about that, and Althalus grew even more edgy. He walked very slowly across the intervening stretch of grass, stopping quite often to bring his eyes and his spear around to look toward his rear. Hed seen nothing threatening so far, but this was a very unusual place, and he didnt want to take any chances.
When he reached the tree, he put his hand on it to brace himself and leaned out carefully to look down over the edge of what appeared to be a precipice of some kind.
There wasnt anything down there but clouds.
Althalus had been in the mountains many times before, and hed frequently been in places that were above the clouds, so looking down at the tops of them wasnt really all that unusual. But these clouds stretched off to the north with absolutely no break or occasional jutting peak for as far as he could see. The world ended right here, and there was nothing past here but clouds.
He stepped back from the tree and looked around. There were rocks lying here and there, so he lifted one that was about the size of his head, carried it back to the tree, and heaved it as far as he could out over the edge. Then he cocked his head to listen.
He listened for a long time, but he didnt hear anything. Well, he murmured this must be the place.
He stayed some distance back from the edge of the world and followed it off toward the northeast.
There were places where tumbling rock-slides had rolled down from nearby mountainsides to spill over the edge, and Althalus idly wondered if those sudden avalanches might have startled the stars. That thought struck him as funny for some reason. The notion of stars whirring off in all directions like a frightened covey of quail was somehow vastly amusing. The cold indifference of the stars sometimes irritated him.
In the late afternoon he took his sling and picked up several round stones from a dry creek-bed. There were hares and beaver-faced marmots about, and he decided that some fresh meat for supper might be an improvement over the tough strips of dried venison he carried in the pouch at his belt.
It didnt take too long. Marmots are curious animals, and they have the habit of standing up on their hind legs beside their burrows to watch passing travelers. Althalus had a good eye, and he was very skilled with his sling.
He chose a small grove of stunted pines, built a fire, and roasted his marmot on a spit. After hed eaten, he sat by his fire watching the pulsating, rainbow-colored light of Gods fire in the northern sky.
Then, purely on an impulse that came over him just after moon-rise, he left his camp and went over to the edge of the world.
The moon gently caressed the misty cloud-tops far below, setting them all aglow. Althalus had seen this before, of course, but it was different here. The moon in her nightly passage drinks all color from the land and sea and sky, but she could not drink the color from Gods fire, and the seething waves of rainbow light in the northern sky also burnished the tops of the clouds below. It seemed that they almost played there among the cloud-tops with the moons pale light encouraging the amorous advances of the rainbow fire. All bemused by the flicker and play of colored light that seemed almost to surround and enclose him, Althalus lay in the soft grass with his chin in his hands to watch the courtship of the moon and the fire of God.
And then, far back among the jagged peaks of the land of the Kagwhers, he once again heard that solitary wailing that hed heard before in Arum and again in the forest outside Nabjors camp. He swore, rose to his feet, and went back to his camp. Whatever it was out there was obviously following him.
His sleep was troubled that night. The fire of God in the northern sky and the wailing back in the forest were somehow all mixed together, and that mixing seemed to have a significance that he couldnt quite grasp, no matter how he struggled with it. It must have been along toward dawn when his dreams of fire and wailing were banished by yet another dream.
Her hair was the color of autumn, and her limbs were rounded with a perfection that made his heart ache. She was garbed in a short, archaic tunic, and her autumn hair was plaited elaborately. Her features were somehow alien in their perfect serenity. On his recent trip to the civilized lands of the south, he had viewed ancient statues, and his dream-visitors face more closely resembled the faces of yore than the faces of the people of the mundane world. Her brow was broad and straight and her nose continued the line of her forehead unbroken. Her lips were sensual, intricately curved, and as ripe as cherries. Her eyes were large and very green, and it seemed that she looked into his very soul with those eyes.
A faint smile touched those lips, and she held her hand out to him. Come, she said in a soft voice, come with me. I will care for you.
I wish I could, he found himself saying, and he cursed his tongue. I would go gladly, but its very hard to get away.
If you come with me, you will never return, she told him in her throbbing voice, for we shall walk among the stars, and fortune will never betray you more. And your days will be filled with sun and your nights with love. Come, come with me, my beloved. I will care for you. And she beckoned and turned to lead him.
And, all bemused, he followed her, and they walked out among the clouds, and the moon and the fire of God welcomed them and blessed their love.
And when he awoke, there was a sour emptiness in him, and the taste of all the world was bitter, bitter.
He continued on toward the northeast for the next several days, and he almost hoped that at some point he might see a peak or even a low-lying shadow emerging from the perpetual cloud beyond the edge of the world to prove that this was not the place where everything ended, but nothing ever emerged, and he gradually and with great reluctance was forced to concede that the sharp brink he followed was indeed the very edge of the world and that there was nothing beyond but cloudy emptiness.
The days grew shorter and the nights more chill as Althalus followed the edge of the world, and he began to look at the prospect of a very unpleasant winter looming ahead. If he didnt come to the house Ghend had described very soon, hed have to pull back, seek some kind of shelter and lay in a supply of food. He decided that the first snowflake that touched his face would send him south in search of someplace to hole up until spring. He began to keep his eyes directed toward the south in search of a break in the mountains even as he continued along the edge of the world.
The days grew shorter and the nights more chill as Althalus followed the edge of the world, and he began to look at the prospect of a very unpleasant winter looming ahead. If he didnt come to the house Ghend had described very soon, hed have to pull back, seek some kind of shelter and lay in a supply of food. He decided that the first snowflake that touched his face would send him south in search of someplace to hole up until spring. He began to keep his eyes directed toward the south in search of a break in the mountains even as he continued along the edge of the world.
Perhaps it was because his attention was divided that he didnt even see the house until he was quite close to it. The house was made of stone, which was unusual here on the frontier, where most houses were made of logs or thatched limbs. Moreover, such houses as he had seen in civilized lands had been made of limestone. This house, however, had been built of granite blocks, and granite would eat up the bronze saws which slaves used to cut limestone at a ferocious rate.
Althalus had never seen a house like this one before. The granite house at the edge of the world was enormous, bigger even than the log fort of Gosti Big Belly back in Arum or the temple of Apwos in Deika. It was so huge that it rivaled several nearby natural spires for sheer size. It wasnt until he saw windows that he finally accepted the fact that it really was a house. Natural rock formations do break off into square shapes from time to time, but a natural formation with windows? Not very likely.
It was about noon on a short, overcast late autumn day when Althalus first saw the house, and he approached it with some caution. Ghend had told him that the house was unoccupied, but Ghend had probably never been here, since Althalus was still convinced that Ghend was afraid of the house.
The silent house stood on a promontory that jutted out from the edge of the world, and the only way to approach it would be to cross the drawbridge that had been built to span the deep chasm that separated the house from the narrow plateau that lined the precipice where the world ended. If the house were indeed deserted, the owner would certainly have devised some way to raise that drawbridge before hed left. But the drawbridge was down, almost inviting entry. That didnt ring true at all, and Althalus ducked down behind a moss-covered boulder to gnaw at a fingernail and consider options.
The day was wearing on, and hed have to decide soon whether to just walk on in, or wait until night. Night was the native home of all thieves, but under these circumstances, might it not be safer to cross that bridge in the daylight? The house was unfamiliar, and if the place were indeed occupied, the people inside would be alert at night, and they would know exactly how to slip up behind him if he tried to sneak inside. Might it not be better to openly cross the bridge and even shout some kind of greeting to the unseen occupants? That might persuade them that he had no evil intent, and he was fairly sure that he could talk fast enough to keep them from immediately hurling him into the void beyond the promontory.
Well, he muttered. I guess its worth a try. If the house were indeed empty, all hed be wasting was his breath. He still had lots of that, and trying to sneak in at night might be a very good way to cut it short. A show of friendly innocence really seemed to be the best approach right now.
Acting on that, he rose to his feet, took up his spear, and walked on across the bridge, making no effort to conceal himself. If anyone were in the house watching, hed certainly see Althalus, and a casual saunter across the bridge would shout louder than words that he had no unsavory motives.
The bridge led to a massive arch, and just beyond that arch lay an open place where the ground was covered with closely fitting flat stones with weeds growing up through the cracks. Althalus braced himself and took a tighter grip on his spear. Ho! he shouted. Ho, the house! He paused, listening intently.
But there was no answer.
Is anybody here? he tried again.
The silence was oppressive.
The main door of the house was massive. Althalus poked his spear at it a few times and found it to be quite solid. Once again the warning bell sounded inside his head. If the house had been empty for as long as Ghend had suggested, the door should have completely rotted away by now. All sorts of normal rules didnt appear to be in force here. He took hold of the massive ring and pulled the heavy door open. Is anybody here? he called once more.
He waited again, but again there was no answer.
There was a broad corridor leading back into the house beyond the doorway, and there were other corridors branching off from that main one at regular intervals, and there were many doors in each corridor. The search for the book would obviously take longer than hed thought.
The light inside the house was growing dimmer, and Althalus was fairly certain that evening was rapidly descending. He was obviously running out of daylight. The first order of business now was to find a secure place to spend the night. He could begin his search of the house tomorrow.
He looked down one of the side corridors and saw a rounded wall at the far end, which hinted strongly that there might be a tower there. A tower room, he reasoned, would probably be more secure than a chamber on the ground floor, and the notion of security in this peculiar structure seemed fairly important just now.
He hurried down the hall and found a door somewhat larger than those hed previously passed. He rapped his sword-hilt against the door. Ho, in there? he called.
But of course there was no answer.
The door-latch was a bronze bar that had been designed to slip into a hole chipped deep into the stone door-frame. Althalus tapped its knob with the butt of his sword until it cleared the hole. Then he poked the point of his sword into the edge of the door, flipped the door open, and jumped back, sword and spear at the ready.
There was nobody behind that door, but there were steps leading upward.
The likelihood that these hidden steps just happened to be behind a door Althalus had just happened to notice in passing was very, very slim. The clever thief had a profound distrust of things that came about by sheer chance. Chance was almost always a trap of some kind, and if there was a trap in this house, there almost had to be a trapper.
There wasnt much daylight left, however, and Althalus didnt really want to meet whoever it was at night. He drew in a deep breath. Then he tapped the first step with the butt end of his spear to make certain that the weight of his foot wouldnt bring something heavy down on top of him. It was slow going up the stairs that way, but the careful thief methodically checked every single step before he put his foot on it. Just because ten steps had been perfectly safe, there were no guarantees that the eleventh wouldnt kill him, and the way his luck had been going lately, it was better to take some extra precautions.
He finally reached the door at the top of those hidden steps, and he decided not to rap this time. He tucked his sword under his left arm, slowly pushed the latch back until it came clear of the stone door-frame. Then he took hold of his sword again and nudged the door open with his knee.
Beyond the door there was one room, and one only. It was a large circular room, and the floor was as glossy as ice. The whole house was strange, but this particular room seemed stranger still. The walls were also polished and smooth, and they curved inward to form a dome overhead. The workmanship that had created this room was far more advanced than anything Althalus had ever seen before.