The Road turned its last corner just as I realized I was
finding it difficult to breathe. Even the White Swarm can only help so much.
And we were well above the altitude of many living things, as the rocks and
snow and ice around us told. The land of canyons topped out in a
horseshoe-shaped snowfield that ringed the top of the watershed. In nicer
climes, I could have imagined it filled with flowers. The Road straightened out
and crossed it, climbing right for that caldera that the Shuni called the Cup
of Gods.
Which
wasn’t much to look at, really. Just a depression within a broken-into circle
of cliffs that marked the base of the even-higher pair of peaks that came
together there.
Well, not a
circle, exactly. “Hey, Nogilian,” I said. “I thought –”
“Yes,” came
the affirmation beside me. “It is not as it should be. It is not as it was.”
We rode
closer. A caldera, Elmy, is the ragged circle torn in the earth by volcanic
eruption. It usually tops mountains, though they can form in other places. It
may have a gap on the downhill side, as this one did, where lava once flowed
out. It should not have a sharper, clearer, tapered cut on the uphill side where there is no
water to carve it. Ever.
“Something
has happened here,” Nogilian said. “The Guardian Vah Yonise once brought me to
this place. The pass could not be reached then. These cliffs have changed.”
I hesitated
to voice my thoughts. It seemed too incredible. We crossed the broad snowfield.
“The fire
of a Black Orchid’s interstellar drive,” I said as we went, “Cuts straight
through rock even from high orbit.”
I glanced
over to see Nogilian’s eyes seeking my own. “There were such ships battling
around Thaeron,” he said. “Ten years ago, while my world was falling. Some fled
in haste.”
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