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When they could see the city buildings clearly and recognize the
hexagon-cobbled streets, they waved and signaled that they were all right. The
bright balloon in the sky would draw the attention of most of the optick tubes
in the city, proving to Professor Verne that his balloon worked beyond the
technological fringe. Verne must already know that his _Nautilus_ had died.
Vailret leaned over the basket, looking down. "I guess we're giving the
balloon an even more extensive test than they wanted. Do we have any intention
of giving it back to Professor Verne?"
"I can't stop there again," Delrael said, looking into the distance as
he rubbed his _kennok_ limb. "I don't know what would happen."
"With the balloon we can return to the Ice Palace much faster." Bryl
reached out to touch Tareah's shoulder, but she shrugged him away. "That's
most important right now."
They traveled without slowing. The balloon sailed over uncounted hexes
of forest, forested-hill, grassland, and grassy-hill terrain. Drifting on the
winds, they were not bound by the same distance limitations the Rules imposed
on those traveling on foot. They rose over the craggy barrier of the Spectre
Mountains, looking down at where the derelict Outsider ship lay in ruins.
Vailret wondered if the Sitnaltans would ever do anything with it.
Air currents swirled over the mountains, but Tareah used the Water
Stone to smooth the updrafts. She appeared tired, but hardened somehow within.
Bryl curled up against the wall of the basket, snoring in exhausted sleep. He
had used his minor replenishment spell several times to refill their packs
with food and water.
Night and day passed again and again, and still they did not rest or
stop. Nothing could harm them so high in the air. The balloon's height
fluctuated noticeably from day to night, rising and falling. Day after day,
too, they could see the red-and-white sack beginning to sag as the invisible
gas leaked out of the imperfect seals of the flaps. They drifted northward,
but they also drifted downward.
The travelers all felt stiff and cramped, confined in too small a space
for too long, but they endured, thinking how much more uncomfortable it would
have been to trudge across the map for weeks, sleeping on the ground and then
crossing the rugged mountain terrain, vulnerable to whatever wandering
monsters lay in wait.
Delrael and Tareah talked together. He told her heroic stories of the
quests he had undertaken, the adventures, searching in dungeons for treasure
and monsters. Tareah, accustomed to stories of long-dead Sorcerers, was
charmed to know someone who had personally done something worthy of retelling.
Listening to Tareah's intelligent comments, Vailret forced himself to
remember that the little girl had lived a decade longer than he himself had.
Tareah continued to grow, though, alarmingly. Her arms stretched out,
and her body grew, and her facial features changed, becoming more mature but
still retaining an expression of wide-eyed wonder at the world she had never
seen. She appeared to be in her early teens, and her body filled out, making
her look like a woman instead of a girl. She complained of terrible pains in
her limbs and muscles, as if she were being twisted and pulled, forced to
catch up with her years. Delrael tried to comfort her when he could; Tareah
said it helped, which made him glow inside.
But none of them wanted to guess why Tareah was released from the spell
that had held her in the body of a child for decades.
Unless something had happened to Sardun...
Vailret hung on the rope netting that held the red-and-white balloon in
its spherical shape. Delrael scrambled on the other side, opening some of the
flaps to release the remainder of the buoyant gas, enjoying himself. He used
his _kennok_ leg with natural ease.
The balloon drifted closer to the ground, skimming over the surface of
the wide lake that now filled the haunted Transition Valley. The Barrier River
surged through the deep canyons in the mountains, rushing from the Northern
Sea along its course.
As the gas escaped, the bag crumpled, sagging inward. The basket
bounced on the ground, knocking the travelers to their knees. It rocked back
and forth as if it couldn't decide whether to take to the air again or not,
then finally came to rest where the mountain terrain met the valley on the
western side of the Barrier River. They brushed themselves off and stood on
firm earth again, stretching and blinking.
"We couldn't have navigated through those mountains, anyway. Not the
way the balloon was leaking," Vailret said. "We can walk to the Ice Palace
like we did before."
"Without Sardun attacking the weather, the trip shouldn't be too bad."
Delrael looked around and started walking.
"I, for one, would not mind stretching my legs a bit." Bryl rubbed his
knees.
Anxious to get back to her father, Tareah wouldn't let them rest. She
glanced at the northern landscape, trying to recognize the mountain peaks and
letting relief mingle with worry on her face.
They set off, abandoning the limp balloon on the cold and soggy ground
at the river's edge. At the black hex line dividing the terrain types, they
passed between the two towering ice sentries that guarded the winding road.
The wind around them was cold and whispering, making the silence seem deeper.
Moving stiffly, Tareah went forward into the ruins of the Ice Palace,
alone. Tears glistened on her cheeks. Delrael tried to speak to her, but his
throat went dry. Neither Vailret nor Bryl said anything.
The once-magnificent Palace lay tumbled in pools of motionless water
covered with a scum of ice as the sun set and the mountains cooled. Gigantic
bluish-clear bricks lay scattered like a child's building blocks. Delrael
remembered the tall shining spires, the gate, the rainbows of light
penetrating the blue ice walls. A dusting of snow brushed against the larger
blocks; other massive chunks of ice had left deep impressions in the
half-frozen mud around the foundation.
"What happened here?" Bryl finally whispered, but no one answered him.
Tareah stared, unmoving. Delrael put a hand on her thin shoulder and
stood by her at the crumbling arch of the main gate. She shuddered when he
touched her, but he did not let go. The glistening rubble reflected tinges of
orange as the afternoon neared sunset. "I have to go inside," she said.
"There's nothing left," Delrael said.
"My father's in there. Somewhere."
She stepped through the blind Palace gate, crossing the threshold. A
burst of blue light glowed around her, and a vision filled the air: the last
moments of Sardun recorded and frozen within the arch.
"Father," she said.
"It's just an illusion, a message," Vailret said. "What happened to
Sardun?"
"Tareah," said the image of the old Sentinel, clothed in his gray robes
and looking thin and withdrawn. "You will have returned by now. The _dayid_
has shown me, shown me many things."
The Sentinel's throne had melted. In the image the ceiling came down in
chunks around him, spraying slush, letting the sunlight penetrate where it had
never gone before. The warmth of the northern summer slashed at the Palace
like knives to draw cold watery blood.
"The Ice Palace cannot remain intact without the Water Stone. It cannot
resist the weather, it cannot stand the heat of the sun."
Sardun seemed to know everything Delrael, Bryl, and Vailret had done.
His voice sounded tired, and his lisp had grown heavy. "But without the Water
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