Sometime after midmorning, a cleft in the rock opened before them. “We go here,” their guide said. “Big enough inside, but lead horses …”

Andressat shivered. The dark hole looked more like a natural cave, and he had no wish to spend days or weeks wandering in the dark. But Selfer had dismounted and followed their guides, and Andressat could not—in that narrow place, with the whole troop behind him—do anything else.

Once inside and around a knob of rock, he found himself on a smooth stone trail, here wide enough for three or four horses abreast, lit with a cool blue light. Here, as in the gnome prince’s hall, the stone had been skillfully carved from the arched ceiling three times the height of a man to the floor crossed by grooves that would give purchase to the feet of horses or mules and also direct water off the trail. On this surface, they were now able to ride safely and quickly. The light was just enough to let them see the shape of the way ahead—sometimes curving, sometimes sloping a little uphill or down, but mostly straight and level. In that dimness, Andressat began to feel drowsy; his mind drifted to his own home, to the clear winter sunlight slanting across the vineyards, the long blue shadows. He did not think of the stops they must make to rest the horses, or food—the light never changed—he did not think of time.

“It is to dismount again,” one of the gnomes said briskly, with a firm tap on Andressat’s knee.

Andressat jerked awake—he felt mazed, stupid, as he swung a leg over and slid down to the stone. Ahead was a stone face with a gap much like the one they had entered. Outside was darkness.

Still dazed with sleep, Andressat followed Selfer and found they had come out on a slope that ran down before them. Mountains loomed behind them, black against a deep blue sky, lighter to the heart-side, eastward. A few stars still shone; the air was cold and smelled of snow, but gentler even so than the air of the north.

“That way—” Their guide said to Selfer. “—that way is the Valdaire road, down from the pass. The snow would have been deep there; here is only a little that will melt at sunrise.

“But—” Selfer sounded almost as dazed as Andressat felt. “But did we travel so far in just one day?”

“It was the prince’s gift: to take you the way that is not measured with paces or furlongs or leagues or any human measurement. It was but one day’s effort for you and your beasts, but without the prince’s gift … it would be many days. Four or five at least, though the way is straight enough, compared to the trade road.” A pause; Andressat was still trying to gather his scattered wits. “Not that any human will ever find it—or you remember it.”

Andressat tried to fight off the wave of sleepiness that came over him but when his mind cleared again, he knew only that they were on the southern side of the pass with the Vale of Valdaire before them, and familiar smells came to him on a southern wind. Though he tried, he could not remember exactly how many days he’d been on the road since Vérella; everything was clear until they met some gnomes …