I felt Gahltha’s surprise echo my own when Maruman impatiently bade him enter the ravine, and decided that the old cat was being almost as miserly with the information he gave the horse as with me. No doubt this was because he knew that Gahltha would answer any question I put to him. Unlike Maruman, the horse did not have a secretive nature, but neither did he have my hunger to know things. Maruman had bidden him follow the stream and he did so without feeling the need to ask why and where it would bring us.

As he stepped into the stream and entered the rift, I felt the cold shadow of the mountain enfold me like a heavy, damp cloak.

Chapter 18

18

We had not gone far along the rift before it began to narrow. Drawing up my legs to stop them being scraped against the edges, I bade Gahltha stop. I removed my boots and tucked my socks into them, pushing them under one of the straps around his belly, then I got the sandals out of my pack. The boots were waterproofed but that would not last long if I had to wade along a creek bed in them, and it would take a long time to dry them out. Clambering awkwardly over the pack, I slid down over Gahltha’s rump and landed with an impact that jarred my bones. The water was icy cold, but quite shallow. At first my feet ached, but when they grew accustomed to the water I welcomed the exertion of walking because it warmed me.

After we had been moving along the rift for an hour, it suddenly switched back on itself, cutting sharply eastward, and then after a short time it turned west again. The turns were very tight and the last was so cramped that Gahltha was forced to rise up on his hind legs to manoeuvre himself around it. Maruman clung like a burr to the pack, reconfirming my certainty that the Agyllians had strengthened him. I marvelled that Gahltha was not emanating fear or even anxiety, given that it would be very difficult for him to turn around now, if the rift ended suddenly. Evidently his faith in Maruman, or in the oldOnes who had laid upon him the task of protecting me, remained steadfast.

I wished I could feel as sanguine.

To my surprise, Darga sent, ‘Elspethlnnle, the oldOnes saved your life so that you might do what no other can. They saved you, as they saved us, not for ourselves but that we may serve their purposes. What does it matter where they send us, for without them, we would all be dead now.’