They patrolled the rim at last, close against the mountains’ flank, found a stairway, narrow and slippery-looking. It descended at first through the rim of the plateau, the rock forming walls that rapidly rose above their heads, the steps steep and thin, forcing them to move in single file, wary of tumbling, for their boots overlapped the stairs. Then it turned abruptly to the left, leaving the declivity so that they climbed with open air on their right hands and the prospect of falling to the coppery grass far below. Whatever feet normally trod the lithic ladder were not human, for the descent between each step was more than a man would take, rendering the climb all the more treacherous, and rapidly causing their calves and thighs to ache. Down and down it went, traversing to right and left in a zigzag pattern, with no places where they might halt to rest save the steps themselves, so that they clambered without respite as a hot, dry wind buffeted their feces, carrying a sweet, cloying odor redolent of rotting fruit.

  Kedryn found Drul’s glaive an encumbrance, for it was too long to sheath and heavier than his own blade, and he was forced to carry it rested on his shoulder, transferring its weight each time the stairway turned for fear it would unbalance him and send him spinning to the ground below.

  That goal seemed no closer when he glanced up to see the wall of the plateau looming above than when they had commenced their descent, and he wondered if the deceptive perspectives tricked his eyes, or if the physical laws he understood no longer applied, allowing the stairway to descend without ending, condemning them to clamber its length forever. He gave up any attempt to calculate how much longer they must remain on the treacherous ladder and concentrated solely on the way ahead, trusting that eventually they would reach the plain below.

  Finally they did, the stairway devolving on the coppery grass, the wall above them blocking out sight of the mountains so that only the reddish orange sky and bilious cliff were visible. They halted there, panting and easing muscles wearied by the descent, slumping against the unnaturally smooth stone as they drank from their canteens and nibbled on the provisions brought from the satchels they carried.

  Before them, the plain appeared absolutely flat, the river invisible now, and the expanse of ocher grass interrupted only by the curious trees. It felt as though they had spent the better part of a day climbing down from the plateau, but the green sun still stood overhead, seemingly fixed at its zenith: it occurred to Kedryn that time was a meaningless concept here in the netherworld.

  “Well,” BrannocNremarked with a somewhat forced cheerfulness, staring at the near-featureless landscape, “we have passed by Drul and crossed the lake; we have penetrated the fog of limbo and descended a stairway I dread climbing; which direction do we take now?”

  “I am not sure,” answered Kedryn.

  “Does the talisman not tell you?” asked Tepshen.

  Kedryn set a hand upon the stone, but it only tingled against his palm, offering that reassurance that Wynett still lived but no other guidance- He shook his head.

  “Hattim’s shade said Taziel occupies a cave in a place of fire,” the kyo said, thoughtfully.

  “That seems of little help here,” Brannoc gestured at the flat terrain. “Unless the cave exists in this wall.”

  He patted the yellow stone against which he rested, but Kedryn made a negative gesture, saying, “I do not believe it can be so close. Darr spoke of the netherworld as though it were a series of overlapping territories: I suspect the cave lies farther into this strange land.”

  ‘There are mountains of fire in my country,” Tepshen offered. “The priests say they are the portals of hell, and to enter is to forfeit life. Others say they are holes into the heart of the world, which burns eternally. They are great peaks that spit fire and brimstone, and great clouds hang above them.”

  “There was cloud along the horizon,” Kedryn said. “If that purple stuff was cloud.”

  “It wore the delineaments of cloud,” nodded Brannoc, “if not the color.” He grinned, tugging a handful of copper grass loose. “But what does bear the color of normality here?”

  “Nothing,” Kedryn answered, glancing up, “but ahead is as good a direction as any, so let us go that way.”

  The others agreed and they prepared to leave, repacking their satchels. Kedryn unlatched his scabbard and used his swordbelt to fashion a carrying sling for Drul’s blade that allowed him to stow the glaive across his back, where the weight was less cumbersome, the hilt projecting above his left shoulder. He settled the sword as comfortably as was possible and began to trudge in what he chose to call a northward direction. No tracks showed in the grass, which was tough and springy beneath their boots, giving off a slightly acrid scent as it was crushed that combined with the fruity odor of the breeze to increase the sense of abnormality permeating the landscape. The huge viridescent disk remained unmoving overhead, a seemingly static beacon that allowed them to fix their direction and they marched until the trees took clear shape ahead.

  Close to, the growths were even stranger than they had seemed from the vantage point of the plateau. Hie trunks were waxy, pale as diseased flesh, and each one was surrounded by a series of absolutely horizontal branches commencing at precisely the same distance from the ground, approximately twice the height of a tall man. They grew in rings of six, alternating their positions on the perpendicular trunks so that each succeeding layer stood above the gaps left by its predecessor. The leaves grew in dense bunches at the tips of each branch, long and thin and straight as knife blades, unmoving in the breeze even though a metallic rustling emanated from each cluster. Each tree was equally distanced from its neighbor, and they thrust from the plain in groups of six, forming circles.

  “I do not like them,” Brannoc said nervously as they approached the first stand. “There is something threatening about them.”

  Kedryn halted, staring at the odd growths.

  “Six and six and six,” murmured Tepshen, pointing. “Six branches in a circle and six trees also in a circle, as if they were planted thus.”

  Kedryn saw that the kyo was right: their way was crossed by six rings of six trees, beyond them more, all weirdly regular, a barrier across their path. The obvious direction was to pass between the closest group, the clusters being each so wide that to detour around them would take some time. Nonetheless, he shared Brannoc’s antipathy, for it seemed the trees waited, anticipating their arrival. He studied them, attempting to define exactly what quality it was that afforded that sense of menace. The trees, however, gave no clue and finally he took a step closer, motioning the others back. Nothing happened and he walked closer still. It seemed then that the trees moved, a faint rippling stirring the trunks, the branches wavering as though seen through Jheat haze. Guided more by instinct than any conscious warning>he threw himself back, rolling as he landed to put more distance between his body and the leprous timber.

  Where he had stood blue leaves quivered in the ocher grass, driven deep as arrowheads, their edges exuding an oily, cyanic liquid that steamed faintly in the reddish light. He ran back farther still as the boughfs of the nearest trees trembled visibly and turned toward/him, fluid as tentacles, their leaves bristling now, flying like darts to thud into the ground closer to his position. /

  “Back!” he shouted/ and he turned, running, as a volley of leaves whistled through the air, thrown by the whiplash motion of the branches.

  It seemed there was a limit to their range, for the movement ceased as he reached his comrades and the trees stood still again, tall and unmoving.

  “I think,” he remarked ruefully, “that we must regard everything here as dangerous.”

  “A sound policy,” Tepshen nodded.

  “And a longer march,” muttered Brannoc, eyeing the waxen trunks resentfully.

  They turned to what they defined as the east and proceeded to walk along the line of the trees, maintaining a respectful distance from the lethal blue leaves. The first row of six circles ended, revealing further plantations beyond, spreading back over the plain so that their detour became a wide-circling trek around the hostile forest.

  The sun had not yet shifted as they reached the limit of the timber rings and skirted warily around the stands, finally leaving them behind. Further clusters showed ahead and they realized that their way to the horizon would be far from straight. Kedryn touched the talisman, seeking that reassurance that Wynett lived as he wondered how long it would take to reach her. That he might not, he refused to contemplate, even though the plain stretched out before him without sign of end, the line of purple cloud seeming an infinite distance away, farther now that he traversed a flat terrain than when he had studied it from the plateau.

  The immobility of the green disk allowed for no judgment of time save that inherent in muscles and bellies. There was no indication of twilight nor any hint that the sun might set and it was when his hunger grew too avid to ignore and his legs began to ache afresh with the effort of walking that Kedryn called a halt. Tepshen and Brannoc agreed readily enough and they dropped their satchels on the ocher sward midway between two of the leprous copses. The air was warm so there was no call for a fire, and they spread their blankets, eating cold venison and the dwindling supply of journeycakes provided by Rycol. It was agreed that a watch should be kept and Kedryn take the first turn. He squatted on the grass, Drul’s sword at his side as his companions drew their blankets over their heads to shut out the unrelenting light, and studied the landscape. That rapidly became a boring pursuit, for it was unchanging, monotonously regular. The grass and the sky were so similar in coloration that the horizon appeared oppressively dose. There were no clouds save the band of purple and when he looked back toward the mountains he saw only a vague yellowish blur, overhung by the unmoving green sun. The wind blew steadily from the north, but seemed not to touch either the grass or the trees, for neither growths moved. Indeed, nothing moved. There were no signs of insect or animal life, the creatures they had marked along the riverbank too far away to see, and no birds flew in the vermilion sky. The only sounds were those made by Tepshen and Brannoc, or the rustle of his own clothing as he shifted position. It was a place, a vista, to leech the senses of reason, and it filled him with a deep loathing.

  How long he sat he did not know, but in time he realized that the purple cloud seemed to have drawn closer. The effect was to suggest an impingement of the horizon, as if the sky itself closed down upon him, and he rose to his feet, staring at the rack. It had, indeed, moved, for it now covered a greater area of the sky, no longer banding the horizon but extending toward him to fill perhaps a quarter of the heavens. Its movement grew steadily more visible as he watched, the forward edge advancing remorselessly, like a massive storm front driven by howling winds. On and on it came, until it was overhead and he stood in shadow, craning his head back to watch it loom above hinand possess the remainder of the heavens. Abruptly the landVas dark. Not the obfuscation of natural night, in which stars imd moon provide sufficient illumination for keen eyes to see/ but a total blackness that denied all vision effectively as a blindfold. He turned to study the weird advance, seeing the/blurred outlines of the mountains swallowed, the viridesceiyt sun disappear, and found himself blind.

  For a moment panic gripped him, memories of the darkness that had fallen when Borsus’s sword took his sight returning, then he clutched the talisman and found the solace of calm in its touch. His racing heart slowed and he realized that he had panted in his fear, hearing his own breathing regulate. He lowered himself to the ground, reaching about until he located the glaive, settling the blade across his knees and only then releasing his grip on Kyrie’s stone.

  Pale blue light shone forth, wan in that all-encompassing occultation, but immeasurably reassuring, for it showed him the slumbering forms of his comrades and, perhaps more important still, told him that the Lady’s power was with him yet, even in this outer region of Ashar’s domain. He could not see beyond the limitation of the radiance, but even that small benefit was welcome when the alternative was total absence of sight, and he sat listening for sounds in the darkness.

  None came and his eyes grew heavy, his chin dropping to his chest. He shook himself, not sure what might happen if he fell asleep, but at last acknowledging that he could no longer remain awake and prodding Tepshen.

  The kyo was instantly alert, rising with sword part-drawn to stare about as he realized that darkness had fallen. Kedryn explained the advance of the cloud and Tepshen paced beyond the aura of the talisman, fading almost instantly as though swallowed whole by the unnatural night. He returned moments later to announce that nothing was visible save the blue glow of the stone.

  Kedryn stretched on his own blanket, the talisman hanging outside his tunic, and saw that the radiance persisted.

  “Sleep,” Tepshen advised. “If the light fades I shall wake you.”

  Kedryn nodded and fell instantly asleep.

  He woke to find Brannoc settled cross-legged a little distance away, staring at the sky with a quizzical expression. The world was once again a confusion of red and orange, the heavens livid as heated metal, the grass a burning copper, the sun again hanging massive and green to their rear.

  “Tepshen told me what you saw,” announced the half-breed wonderingly, “and a little while ago the cloud rolled back northward. This is a very strange place, Kedryn.”

  “Aye.” Kedryn grinned, cheered by the return of light, even of so odd a hue, and climbed to his feet.

  Tepshen woke moments later and stretched, yawning, offering no comment on their surroundings. It seemed to Kedryn that the easterner’s natural pragmatism allowed him to accept more easily their circumstances, for he set to rummaging in his satchel as if they woke on some Tamurin meadow after spending a night beside the trail. His apparently casual acceptance of their situation was comforting, communicating to the others so that they, too, brought out provisions and settled to eating breakfast as though commencing a normal day.

  They began to march again, holding to a steady pace, detouring when fresh stands of the dangerous trees appeared, but always returning to their northward course, the line of purple cloud enlarging as they moved inexorably closer. They halted when hunger indicated and then walked on, halting again when the cloud once more rolled toward them, judging the duration of the “day” to be somewhat longer than that of the world outside, perhaps the length of midsummer’s day. The temperature was unvarying and the wind continued to blow from the north, the odor of rotted fruit growing stronger.

  After four days of the march they saw the river and the first of the creatures.

  The stands of leprous timber had fallen away behind them, while ahead stretched the band of carmine that marked the watercourse. It wound in a great arc across their path, red as blood and glistening with an oily sheen. The creatures, a group of six, stood along the bank, watching their approach. They were the size of carthorses, their bodies segmented like an insect’s, prompting Kedryn to think of giant ants. The bulbous hindpart extended four angular legs, twig-thin, to the ground, while a narrower section slanted upward, two heavier limbs that ended in serrated pincers thrusting out. The heads were oval, armored like the other parts of the body with celadonite chitin, three round bulges of the same color suggesting eyes, below which opened a circular orifice surrounded by thin hairy growths. They turned to face the oncoming men, the crimson surrounding their mouth parts implying they found sustenance in the red river.

  “Are they hostile, I wonder?” mused Kedryn.

  “If so, we are likely lost.” Tepshen indicated the groups farther down the bank, to left and right. All had ceased their activity and were turned toward the visitors, immobile as statues.

  “We cannot avoid them,” Brannoc remarked, fingering the hilt of his saber. “Nor can we run from them.”

  “Then let us approach,” Kedryn decided.

  He began to walk toward the insectile beings, who remained still, the only movement the slow rotation of their eyes as they studied him. Tepshen and Brannoc came behind, ready to fight should that prove necessary.

  Kedryn halted scant paces before die closest of the things, looking up at the smooth head. It lowered as though examining him, then the fronds abouts its mouth became agitated, throwing droplets of crimson all around. Immediately a high-pitched cluttering sound, almost beyond the range of human hearing, rang out and the six creatures facing them, and those farther along the bank, began to snap their pincers. Kedryn reached for the hilt of the glaive slung across his back, prepared to sell his life dearly as he could.

  Instead of attack, however, the creature he faced ducked its upper body, the limbs thrusting out and down until they touched the ground. The head drew level with Kedryn’s and the cluttering sound softened.

  “Does it abase itself?” murmured Brannoc, amazement in his voice.

  Kedryn stood his ground, staring at the blank bulges of the eyes and slowly released his grip on the sword. The creature extended a tentative limb. Kedryn heard Tepshen’s sharp intake of breath and said, “Do not attack! I do not believe it offers harm.”

  He held himself still as the pincered limb came close to his face, reaching out to touch the hilt of the glaive. The pincers closed about the hilt and chittering sound rose again. Then the thing let go the sword and dropped its limb once more to the ground, fixing Kedryn with its unfathomable stare.

  “We would cross the river,” he said, pointing to the crimson flood.

  The creature rose to its full height, the ovoid head swung jerkily round, following his gesture, then turned to loom above him again. The fronds about the mouth quivered, the chittering dropping several octaves to come within an acoustic range more comprehensible to his ears.

  It was a while before he understood that it spoke, the words slow and awkward.

  “The sword,” it said, the sibilants drawn out, the consonants slurred. ‘The bearer of the sword.”

  “Aye.” He touched the hilt again. “And I would cross the river. ”