‘Are you sure your name is Liljana Ashvaran?’
I had rarely heard such peevishness in his voice – or pride. And then, as the sun pushed a little higher above the mountain’s notch and flared even brighter, a sick look befell Master Juwain’s face. I saw it drain the color from his skin, and so did Liljana.
‘Well?’ she said to him. ‘What is it?’
And Master Juwain, who honored truth above almost all else, said, ‘There is a small chance I may have rendered the lines inexactly. But it doesn’t matter.’
‘Oh, doesn’t it? Why not, then?’
‘The lines may have been:
If stayed by puzzlement or pride
Let sacred serpent be your guide.
He cleared his throat as he looked at Liljana, and said, ‘To my order, of course, the sacred serpent and the Kundala are one and the same.’
‘But what if the verses’ maker knew the deeper way of things?’ Liljana asked him. ‘What if his sacred serpent was instead Ouroboros?’
‘Impossible!’ Master Juwain called out.
Now the sun had risen like a red knot of fire almost entirely above the notch. We could not look upon its blazing brilliance.
‘Impossible!’ Master Juwain said again.
He turned around toward the mountain behind us. Although the dawn was lightening it seemed to me to be growing only darker, for our hope of finding our way was quickly evaporating before the fury of the sun.
And then I heard Master Juwain whisper the words that Alphanderry had sung to us on a magical night:
The dazzling heights light deep desire;
Within the heart, a deeper fire.
The road toward heavens’ starry crown
Goes ever up but always down.
‘Back!’ Master Juwain suddenly cried out. He pointed at the mouth of the tunnel and the snow of the mountain around it. The sun’s fiery rays had set the whole of it to glowing. ‘Back, now, before it’s too late!’
He turned his horse to lead him into the tunnel. And Maram shouted, ‘Are you mad? It’s black as night in there! I’m not going back inside unless we find a way to relight the torches!’
I reached out and snatched the reins of his horse from his hand, and followed after Master Juwain. Atara grabbed Maram’s empty hand to pull him after us. Then, quickly, came Liljana, Estrella and Daj. Kane, as usual, guarded our rear.
And so we went back into the tunnel. The moment we set foot within, it came alive. The glassy walls glowed, changed color to a translucent white and then poured forth a milky light. It was more than enough with which to see. There were few features, however, to catch the eye. The tunnel’s floor seemed the same cut-stone road that we had trod before. The air was cold, and lay heavy about us as we pushed on through this long scoop through the earth.
‘Val, I feel sick!’ Maram said to me. ‘My head is spinning, as if I’d drunk too much wine.’
I felt as he did, and so did the others, although they did not complain of it. But there seemed nothing to do except to follow Master Juwain deeper into the cold air of this mysterious tunnel.
And then the air around us was suddenly no longer cold. The walls and ceiling seemed to pulse unnervingly, even if the light they shed was steady and clean. I looked back behind me to reassure Maram that everything would be all right. But even as I opened my mouth to speak to him, his form wavered and dissolved into a spray of tiny lights before coalescing and solidifying again.
‘Oh, Lord!’ Maram called out as he stared at me in amazement. ‘Oh, Lord – let us leave this place as quickly as we can before we all evanesce and there’s nothing left of us forever!’
Just then Altaru let loose a long, bone-chilling whinny. He shook his great head, struck stone with his hoof hard enough to send up sparks and then reared up and beat the air with his hooves. He nearly brained Master Juwain, and it was all I could do to hold onto his reins.
‘Lo, friend!’ I called to him as I stroked his neck. ‘Lo, now!’
The other horses, too, began either to whinny or nicker in disquiet. And Kane called to me: ‘Let’s tie blindfolds around them as we did when we crossed the Ymanir’s bridge over the gorge!’
And as he said, it was done. With our dread working at us like a hot acid, it did not take us long to cut some strips from a bolt of cloth and bind them over the horses’ eyes.
After that, we moved on even more quickly. I tried not to look at Master Juwain’s flickering form, nor that of Maram or the pulsing, hollowed-out walls of the tunnel. I pulled at Altaru’s reins and concentrated on the rhythm of his hooves beating against stone. I tried to ignore those moments when this rhythm broke and my horse’s great hooves seemed to beat against nothing more than air. I did not want to listen to Maram’s complaint that he could find no sign of the bones that littered the tunnel near its entrance. For I had eyes, now, only for its exit. As this circle of light grew larger and brighter, we all broke into a run. Master Juwain was the first of us to breach the tunnel’s mouth and step outside. I followed after him a moment later. And I cried out in awe and delight. The serpent, it seemed, had indeed swallowed its own tail. For spread out below us was not the rugged terrain and long road by which we had originally entered the tunnel but a beautiful green valley. And somewhere, perhaps near its center along the blue river below us, there must stand a collection of old stone buildings that would be the Brotherhood’s ancient school.
For a long while, however, we stood on a mantle of ground near the tunnel’s mouth looking in vain for this fabled school. Kane set out along the heights to our left to see what he could see, while Master Juwain picked his way along the rocks to our right. They returned to report that they could descry no sign of the school, or indeed, of any human habitation.
‘Perhaps,’ Master Juwain said, pointing at the folded, forested terrain below us, ‘the school is hidden. The lay of the land might conceal it.’
‘Then let us find a better vantage to look for it,’ Kane said.
‘As long as that vantage lies lower and not higher,’ Maram said. ‘It’s damn cold on these heights.’
We began making our way down the rugged slope into the valley. We found a line of clear patches through the trees that might or might not have been part of an ancient path. After an hour, we came out around the curve of a great swell of ground, and we gathered on a long, clear ridge that afforded an excellent view of almost the entire valley. All we could see were trees and empty meadows and the river’s bright blue gleam.
‘Perhaps your Rhymes misled us after all,’ Maram complained to Master Juwain.
Master Juwain’s jaws tightened as he readied a response to Maram’s incessant faithlessness. And then, from below us, through the trees, there came the faint sound of someone singing. I could make out a pleasant melody but none of the words. Although it seemed unlikely that an enemy would cheerfully alert us, Kane and I drew our swords even so.
A few moments later, a small, old man worked his way up the path into view. He wore plain, undyed woolens and leaned upon a shepherd’s crook as if it were a walking staff. I saw that he had the wheat-colored skin and almond eyes of the Sung. Long, thick white hair framed his wrinkled face. Despite his obvious age, he moved with the liveliness of a much younger man.
‘Greetings, strangers!’ he called to us in a rich, melodious voice. ‘You