The Mountain Queen

Chapter Eight: Beside the River

Mile by mile, the jagged land of ever-climbing spires fell away behind us, pushed swiftly into memory by the pistoning strength of the horses' legs.  Wild crags soared above us on either side, as we wound our way with unthinkable speed along the narrow path.  Cressock had spoken of the hidden dangers of this land, but whatever they were, we thundered past them unheeding, recklessly certain of our own sufficiency.  In any case, it was difficult to believe that in this splintered world of rock there lurked anything more dangerous than Felvin.

That night we made camp by the roadside, and Felvin built a roaring fire, as if daring the terrors of the night to find us.  Cressock and his cousin had not exchanged a word all day, and the rest of us had followed their example.  Now, as the echo of the horses' hooves died in our ears, succeeded only by the cracking of the fire and the cool whisper of the wind, the silence became oppressive.  I glanced at my brothers, but there would be no help from that quarter.  Shamus, like Father, tended to disdain words, and Brody regarded them with mild bemusement, like an oddly-shaped tool whose use he could not guess.

I turned to Cressock, who was gazing into the fire, coiled up in his own thoughts.  It seemed a shame—almost an impertinence—to disturb him, but my restlessness won out over my shyness, and I spoke.

"How far is this valley?"

He turned to me quickly, as if startled; then his face relaxed into a smile of recognition.  It seemed he had truly forgotten my presence—but the sting of that was tempered by his obvious gladness to see me.

"Can you read a map?"

I nodded.  I had seen maps only in books, and had never used one for any practical purpose.  Still, the idea seemed simple enough.

Cressock spun around from his perch by the fire, and cleared a patch of ground with a wide sweep of his arm.  His fingers danced across the surrounding soil, picking up rocks and pine cones and fragments of firewood.  With uncanny swiftness, as if executing a well-rehearsed routine, he laid the debris piece by piece across the cleared ground, forming crags and paths and rivers, building a picture of exceptional clarity.  As he made the world, he spoke.

"This is the northern lip of the Chasm.  This fork is the peak of Scavilus.  Our bridge terminated here, at its base, and the tavern we half-ruined is just north of there—north and a little west."

Every detail was perfectly vivid to me—in word, in memory, and on the map before me.  I felt like a god looking down on my own life.

"We've been sticking to a well-worn northern route—what we call the Wideway, though it's only wide to mountain-born eyes.  If we kept on straight, we'd make Castle Dryman in a day or two—but the valley we seek is far off to the northwest.  Our fastest route is by the Riverway, which veers west as it follows the Cold River up into the higher mountains.  The river pours down from the very valley we're bound for—or close to it, anyhow."

Something had been troubling me, and this was my chance to set my mind clear.  "Is that the river that carried you to us?"

He smiled.  "As it happens, it is."

"How does it cross the Chasm?  If it plunged in, it would never come out."

Cressock looked at me with quiet pleasure.  "A very wise question.  But the answer is a strange one.  The river, I'm told, has its own bridge.  A bridge of stone, a little below the lip of the canyon, but far above its bottom.  A few miles north of the Chasm, the river plunges underground.  From there it sluices out over its bridge, which is concave, like a drainage pipe.  On the southern side, the water disappears into the canyon wall, and then it bubbles up again a few miles further on, into the bed of the river you call home."  He shrugged.  "Bear in mind, I know this only by hearsay.  I was quite dead when I crossed the river's bridge."