“Here,” Gorgon says, slowing to a halt. “Just over there.”
She lowers the plank, and I wade through the few inches of stagnant water to the side of the cave, where something has washed up. It’s the water nymph who led me to Amar. Her lifeless eyes stare up at nothing.
“What has happened to her?” I ask. “Is it an illness?”
“Look closer,” Gorgon says.
I don’t want to touch her, but I do. Her skin is cold. Scales come off in my hands. They’re matted with dried blood. She has a wound—a deep red line at her neck.
“And you suspect the Winterlands creatures?” I ask.
Gorgon’s voice pulses in the cave. “This is greater than the Winterlands creatures. It is beyond my knowing.”
I close the nymph’s dull eyes so that she appears only to sleep.
“What would you have me do, Most High?” Gorgon asks.
“You’re asking me?”
“If you would lead, yes.”
If I would lead. Standing in this forsaken cave with the water nymph’s cold body so near and my friends so far, I must make a decision.
“I want to see more. I want to know. Can we travel farther?”
“As you wish.”
“You do not have to accompany me,” I say to Kartik. “I could return you to the camp first.”
“I will come,” he says. He checks the dagger in his boot.
“Most High,” Gorgon says. There is worry in her voice. “We have come this far without being detected. But I would not go farther without some protection. It might be wise to call upon your powers to aid us.”
“Agreed,” I say. “But I shall need to gift you, so that we might work our purpose together—”
“No,” Gorgon interrupts. “I would not hold the magic even for a moment.”
“I need you, Gorgon,” I say. “It requires all of us together.”
“I must not be freed,” Gorgon says. “As long as you understand this.”
“I understand,” I say. “We shall decide on an illusion and concentrate on only that one goal. Agreed?”
Kartik nods.
“Agreed,” Gorgon hisses.
I board the ship. I place one hand on Gorgon’s thick, scaly neck and the other on Kartik’s arm. The magic stretches between the three of us. I feel as if it is a wave I sit upon and I am not sucked under by it. We are united by purpose and we share the burden equally. I imagine the Viking ship we rode in the Winterlands—the tall sails, the oars. I imagine Kartik and myself as phantoms in tattered cloaks. Our hearts beat in rhythm. When I open my eyes, we have accomplished our task. Kartik and I appear as wraiths. Gorgon is like a statue, her snakes as still as marble.
“Gorgon?” I ask warily.
“I am well, Most High. You have done well.”
“We have done well,” I say, and the satisfaction is no less for sharing it. “Let’s see what the Winterlands may be hiding.”
Gorgon guides us along the river where it winds through a canyon of black rock. Gray-green brume rises from the water. It thins as we move along, and as it does, I can see more of this strange land than I’ve seen before. Ragged flags marked with red stick up from the tops of the craggy mountains. They snap in the brisk wind, and it sounds like rifles firing. Hollows have been carved into the black rock. Gorgon glides close to one. Skulls are stacked dozens high. My heart gallops faster and faster. I want to turn back, but I must know what is happening.
A school of silver fish floats upon the water, dead.
“Perhaps it is nothing,” I say, uncertain.
“Perhaps,” she hisses. “And perhaps it is something very wrong indeed. I fear some terrible magic is at work.”
A crow circles overhead, a thick black thumbprint in the sky.
“Follow it,” I say to Gorgon.
A roaring fills my ears. We’ve come to a canyon where majestic falls border us on both sides. The water churns and we are buffeted. Kartik and I hold fast to each other and to Gorgon. Sharp rocks poke above the water and I am afraid we shall be dashed upon them, but Gorgon steers us clear, and we pass safely out of the canyon and into a shallow tidal pool glazed with ice. It is littered with bones and the carcasses of small dead animals. The cold wind cannot blow away the smell of death and decay. Small fires burn around the periphery. Smoke billows from them, thick and harsh, and I feel the burn of it in the back of my throat. A mix of ash and snow drifts down. It sticks to my skin. In the distance, an arch in the cliffs yields to the black sands of the plains.