1 s pringtime and the end of the winter rains were long overdue that year in the world lit by the Three Moons. Lingering monsoons had flooded the lowlands of the Peninsula and piled the snowdrifts high round about the Tower of the Archimage on the southern slope of Mount Brom. And on the night that the small fugitive named Shiki came, there was sleet. The lammergeier that bore him through the shrieking gale was too weary and battered to use its mental M>ice to call ahead to its fellows at the eyrie of the *u-chimage, so its arrival was a dismaying surprise. The gigantic bird had no sooner landed upon the slippery Tower roof than it collapsed and died, and the servants at the White Lady at first did not even see the burden it had borne so steadfastly southward. All parts of the great black-and-white body save the wings, tail, and head were '�-eathed in a glaze of ice. The leather cloak of Shiki, fcmch had shielded him as he crouched on the bird's back during the awful journey, was as stiff as armor and i!! but welded to the huge corpse. The fugitive himself Blood TVillium was so near death that he lacked the strength to creep out of his shelter, and he might have perished had the Archimage's voorkeepers not hastened to his rescue. They saw at once that he was a man of the Mountain Folk, of the same aboriginal Vispi race as they themselves, but by dint of his small stature obviously belonging to some unknown tribe. "I am Shiki. I have news for the White Lady," he managed to say. "A terrible thing has happened in the north country�in Tuzamen. I�I must tell her�" Before he could say more, he fell bereft of his senses, dreaming of his dead wife and two dead children. They seemed to beckon Shiki in his feverdream, urging him to join them in a golden realm of peace and warmth where sacred Black Trilliums bloomed under cloudless skies. How he longed to follow his loved ones there! To be freed at last from pain and the relentless press of duty! But he had not yet delivered his portentous message, and so he begged the phantoms to wait for him only a little while, until he fulfilled this last mission and informed the Archimage of the great danger. Even as he spoke his family seemed to drift away smiling into a bright mist. shaking their heads. And when he woke, he knew he would live. He found himself abed in a dim and cozy chamber, tucked beneath a fur coverlet and with both frostbitten hands thickly swaddled in cloth. The small lamp beside the bed was strange, giving off a bright yellow light from a kind of crystal, without any trace of flame. Freezing rain raided on the window of the room, but the place was vers warm, even though there was no hearth or brazier of coals to be seen. A subtle perfume filled the air. He struggled to sit up and saw on a table at the foot of the bed a row of golden urns, and in them bloomed magical Black Tril-lium plants like those he had seen in his dream. Standing in the shadows beyond them was a tall woman. She was cloaked and hooded in a shimmering white fabric that had fleeting blue glints like those in the ice of the great inland glaciers. Her visage was hidden and at first Shiki caught his breath in foreboding, for an aura of surpassing mystery and power seemed to emanate from her, unmanning him and setting him trembling like a terrified child. He had encountered a person having this kind of aura only once before, and he had nearly died of it. The woman threw back her hood and came to his side. Gently, she pressed him back against the pillows. "Do not be afraid," she said. The fearful aura seemed to recede then, and she appeared to be only a handsome black-haired young female�human, not of the Folk�having eves of opalescent blue with golden glints deep within, and a sweet mouth gravely smiling. His fear changed to wild anxiety. Had his voor brought him to the wrong place after all? The legendary Archimage he sought was an ancient, the protector and guardian of the Mountain Folk from the days of die Vanished Ones. But this woman looked to be scarcely thirty years ,ld� "Be at ease," she said. "From time out of mind, one \rchimage has followed another as was decreed in the beginning. I am the Archimage Haramis, the White Lady of this age, and I confess to you that I am yet a novice in -.sing the powers of my great office, which I have held for only twelve years. But tell me who you are and why you have sought me, and I will do my best to help you." 'Lady," he whispered. The words came slowly, like die fcast drops wrung from a sponge. "I asked my faithful voor 10 bring me to you because I sought justice�the righting of a terrible wrong done to me and my family and the reople of my village. But during my flight, as I came near r dving, I realized that we are not the only ones who need "� ur help. It is the whole world that does." She regarded him in silence for a long moment. Then -.<- was amazed to see tears appear in her eyes, but they not spill onto her pale cheeks. "So it is true!" she �r.ispered. "All diroughout die land there have been rumblings of unease, rumors of evil reborn among both Folk and humankind�even contention between my two beloved sisters. But I sought mundane reasons Blood Tell for the disturbances because I did not want to believe that the very balance of the world was once again threatened." "It is indeed!" he cried, starting up. "Lady, believe me! You must believe me! My own wife would not believe and she was slain, as were our children and scores of our Folk. That evil one who came forth from the Sempiternal Icecap now holds all Tuzamen in his thrall. But soon� soon�" He had a fit of coughing and could speak no more, and from frustration began to thrash about the bed like a demented thing. The Archimage lifted her hand. "Magira!" The door opened. Another female entered, came swiftly to the bedside, and regarded him with enormous green eyes. Her hair was like fine-spun platinum, with the upstanding ears adorned with sparkling red jewels. In contrast to the austere white dress of the Archimage, the newcomer was magnificently attired in gauzy but voluminous robes of a rich crimson color, and she wore a golden collar and bracelets all studded with multicolored gem-stones. She carried a crystal cup of some steaming dark liquor, and at the command of the Archimage adminis-tered it to him. His coughing eased, as did his panic. "In a moment you will feel better," the one named Magira said. "Have courage. The White Lady does not turn away those \vh< > � petition her." : Magira wiped his pallid, beslimed forehead with a soft ' cloth, and he noted with relief that her hand bore three digits like his own. It comforted him to know that thi-person was of the Folk as he was, even though she was <�: human stature, and her features more finely drawn tha: his own, and the accents of her speech odd. It was n humankind, after all, that the impending calamity had it-source. The taste of the medicinal drink was bitter, but it bot:. soothed and strengthened him. The White Lady sea1 herself on one side of the bed and Magira sat on ;:. other, and in a few minutes he relaxed and was able to tell his story: My name is Shiki [he said], and my people call themselves the Dorok. We dwell in those parts of far Tuzamen where glacial tongues of the Sempiternal Icecap thrust forth from the frozen center of the world and nearly reach the sea. Most of that land is treeless and grim, a place of windswept moors and desolate mountains. We Folk have our small settlements in deep valleys beneath the frozen crags. Geysers spout there, warming the air and soil so that trees and other vegetation may grow, and our cave-homes are simple but comfortable. Humans from the coastal setdements and the Flame-Girt Isles visit us only rarely. We also have litde contact with other tribes of the Mountain Folk, but we know that we have kin living in the highlands in many parts of the world, and like them we cherish the far-flying voor, and associate with these great birds, and ride them. (I realize now that the Lady Magira and those servants of yours who took me in must belong to an exalted branch of my race that is privileged to serve you, White Lady. And now I begin to understand why my poor departed voor Nunusio was so determined that I should bring my dire news to you ... But forgive my digression! I must get on �iun the tale itself.) 1 earned my living as a trapper of the black fedoks and j Iden worrams that live only in the highest mountains, r.d betimes I also guided human seekers of precious etals into the remote ice-free enclaves where the great i canoes mitigate the terrible cold. Over two years ago, during the autumn Dry Time, ree humans came to our village. They were not prospec- rs or traders, but said they were scholars from die south, m Raktum. They had been sent forth by Queen Regent mondri, they said, in search of a certain rare herb that - uld cure their boy-king Ledavardis of the malignant 131ooa ~U**iltiwm languor afflicting him. It was a plant alleged to grow only in the Kimilon, the remote Land of Fire and Ice that is a temperate island surrounded by glaciers, lying amidst rocks newly cooled after being belched forth from the belly of the world. The First of our village, old Zozi Twistback, told the strangers that the Kimilon lay over nine hundred leagues west, entirely encompassed by the icecap. It is inaccessible by land, and only those great birds that we Folk call voor and the humans call lammergeiers can reach the place. The journey is all but impossible because of the monstrous storms that lash the Sempiternal Icecap. No other Mountain Folk save the Dorok have ever dared to venture to the Kimilon on voorback, and we ourselves have avoided the place for nearly two hundreds. The three strangers promised an enormous reward to the Dorok guide who would take them to the Kimilon; but none would go. Not only was the e...
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