He chose a small grove of stunted pines, built a fire, and roasted his marmot on a spit. After he’d eaten, he sat by his fire watching the pulsating, rainbow-colored light of God’s 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 God’s 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 moon’s 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 he’d heard before in Arum and again in the forest outside Nabjor’s 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 couldn’t 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-visitor’s 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 it’s 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 didn’t come to the house Ghend had described very soon, he’d 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 didn’t 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 wasn’t 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 he’d left. But the drawbridge was down, almost inviting entry. That didn’t 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 he’d 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 it’s worth a try.’ If the house were indeed empty, all he’d 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, he’d 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 didn’t appear to be in force here. He took hold of the massive ring and pulled the heavy door open. ‘Is anybody