Bayaz swept the ruined foundations with his hard green eyes. 'There was a strong fortress here. It marked the western limits of the Empire, before pioneers crossed the pass and settled the valleys on the far side.' The place was nothing more now than a home for stinging weeds and scratching brambles. The Magus clambered from the cart and squatted down, stretching out his back and working his legs, grimacing all the while. He still looked old and ill, but a great deal of both flesh and colour had returned to his face since they left Aulcus behind. 'Here ends my rest,' he sighed. 'This cart has served us well, and the beasts too, but the pass will be too steep for horses.'

Jezal saw the track now, switching back and forth as it climbed, a faint line through the piles of wild grass and steep rock, lost over a ridge high above. 'It looks a long way.'

Bayaz snorted. 'But the first ascent of many we will make today, and there will be many more beyond them. We will be a week at least in the mountains, my boy, if all goes well.' Jezal hardly dared ask what might happen if things went badly. 'We must travel light. We have a long, steep road to follow. Water and all the food we have left. Warm clothes, for it will be bitter cold among the peaks.'

'The birth of spring is perhaps not the best time to cross a mountain range,' observed Longfoot under his breath.

Bayaz looked sharply sideways. 'Some would say the best time to cross an obstacle is when one finds oneself on the wrong side of it! Or do you suggest we wait for summer?' The Navigator chose, wisely in Jezal's opinion, not to reply. 'The pass is well-sheltered in the main, the weather should be far from our most pressing worry. We will need ropes, though. The road was good, in the Old Time, if narrow, but that was long ago. It might have been washed away in places, or tumbled into deep valleys, who knows? We may have some tough climbing ahead of us.'

'I can hardly wait,' muttered Jezal.

'Then there is this.' The Magus pulled one of the nearly empty fodder sacks open, pushed the hay out of the way with his bony hands. The box they had taken from the House of the Maker lay in its bottom, a block of darkness among the pale, dry grass.