“I don’t know. I haven’t asked them.”

“But … why not?”

“Perhaps because they would then ask me why the King snatched me from Earth and brought me to Thuros. And I would have to tell them.” He flinched. “You don’t understand what I was.”

I wanted to ask more, but after seeing the hollow look in his eyes, I didn’t. As we trudged on, I said, “Maybe I do understand.”

My back muscles burned as the terrain got steeper and the path harder to see. The crunch of hard-frozen snow under my boots, which at first had energized me, now tired me.

“Are you sure this is the red road?” I asked Shad.

“We have to follow the GuideBook. Even when we can’t see the road, we must believe it’s there.” He insisted the book said we needed to cross the mountain near the summit. I wasn’t sure, but Shad was so pigheaded there was no convincing him otherwise. As living things became scarce, I began to wonder if we also would disappear one by one.

I leaned forward so much that at times my head seemed only a few feet above the ground. Hot sweat dripped from my face, cutting little holes in the soft snow at my feet. Frodo traipsed on below me.

“The snow’s getting too deep for you, boy,” I said to him. “Pretty soon you’ll have a free ride in your sling.”

I heard my comrades’ heavy breathing and strained movements. No one talked now. It was one thing to stand back and admire the mountain’s majesty and contemplate the power surge of the ascent. It was another to actually climb it. Perhaps I really didn’t want to climb the mountain after all—I simply wanted to have climbed it, accomplishment without struggle.

The air that was so rich and fresh before now became thin and deadly.

“How can anyone climb such a mountain?” Victoria asked, wheezing.

“One step at a time,” Shad grunted. Victoria shot him a look he appeared to miss. At least it seemed to warm her up a little.

We hit icy mud, and traction became difficult. My feet couldn’t dig into solid ground. Malaiki slid back. I managed to catch her and get her back on solid footing. No sooner had I done this, and congratulated myself for it, than I slipped and Shad caught me. Ten minutes later Shad lost his footing, and Victoria and I helped him. That surprised me—I didn’t expect old goat-feet to ever slip. And I certainly didn’t expect to be able to help him.

We hadn’t been out of the mud long when we came to loose shale, partially covered by the windblown snow.

“It’s treacherous,” Shad said. “We need to tie ourselves together.” “Bad idea,” David said.