“De-Etienne, de-Etienne, we must stop and rest!”

Etienne halted, staring ahead to where the trading road climbed still another of the endless vertical walls in a series of laboriously cut switchbacks. The roar of the Aurang cataract was a constant buzz in his ears, even though it was out of sight far off to their left.

“We’re nearly there, Homat. I don’t want to spend another night on the road. Tell them no.”

“It does not matter, de-Etienne.” Homat gestured at the line of heavily laden porters behind them. “They say they will go not a step farther until they are given time to put on their warmest clothing.”

Etienne made a face as he checked his wrist instrumentation. The air temperature was eighty-four and holding. Despite that, several of the porters made no attempt to hide their discomfort, and two were shivering. For his part, Homat was manfully trying to hide the chills that wracked his own body.

“Very well, but tell them to be quick about it. I want to reach Turput before dark.”

“We should, we should, de-Etienne,” Homat said gratefully. He turned and relayed the information to the porters. They responded with a babble of thanks, dropping their packs with fine disregard for the contents in their rush to help one another on with heavy coats and hats.

Lyra watched with interest. It was strange to see a Mai clad in long-sleeved and long-legged attire. The cold-climate gear was made of double layered cottonlike fiber stuffed with some puffy plant material.

“In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king,” Lyra murmured.

“I don’t see how that relates to our present situation,” Etienne commented.

“In the land of the bald, the hirsute man is king.”

“That’s a lousy analogy.”

“You never did have much of a sense of humor.” She turned away from him.

The distant Skar was now only a faint silver thread lying against the western horizon. A considerable walk indeed. The fact that the air at three thousand meters was almost Earth-normal was a great comfort. Down on the Skar, they’d been forced to breathe mud. Or so their lungs had persistently told them.

The thinner air did not seem to have troubled the porters, but the drop in temperature had been affecting their performance for several days. Bundled up in their heavy clothing, they looked much more comfortable.

Etienne had to admit that he was enjoying himself. The multicolored strata they passed as they made the ascent were an unending source of wonderment. Tslamaina was an ancient world, and its entire history lay exposed within the canyon walls. He wished only that he could see across the canyon, but at the confluence of the Aurang and the Skar it was still well over a thousand kilometers wide.

At least the road had been wide and clear, with no rough places, and they’d encountered few of the vertical walls with their leg-straining switchbacks. Wind and water had turned the steep walls here to a manageable slope.

For the first time he could see the edge of the Guntali Plateau, revealed in the distance from time to time when the high clouds cleared. The uneven rocky rim rose another three thousand meters higher than Turput, sharply defining the original surface of the planet.

At this altitude the strepanong, dorril, and maiming became more than distant circling dots, their enormous soaring shapes resolving into living creatures with five- to eight-meter wingspans. The great scavengers rode the superheated air that rose from the floor of the Barshajagad and rarely scoured below the two-thousand-meter line. This according to the porters, who were nonetheless terrified of them.

They’d climbed past the last Mai village days ago and since then had seen only an occasional solitary hunting party swathed in heavy clothing. Etienne was enjoying the comparative silence.

“Billions of years,” he murmured. “That’s how long it took the rivers to cut those canyons.”

Lyra turned from her study of the porter’s cold weather gear to grin knowingly at him. “Then you’re glad We made the detour?”

He was still unwilling to grant her the small triumph. “Certainly it’s more interesting than the section of the Barshajagad we left, but I’d still prefer that we’d kept to our original itinerary.”

“Can’t give in gracefully, can you? You can’t ever let me win. Why can’t you admit when you’re wrong?”

“I will, when I am wrong.”

“Sure. You’re the stubbornest man I’ve ever met, Etienne.”

“Then why did you marry me?”

“Always the same question. Always testing, never content. One of these days I’m going to …” she turned and walked away, mumbling to herself. She always stopped before finishing that sentence, for which he was grateful. Or at least, it used to be that he was grateful. Ten years now she’d put off finishing that sentence.

Homat hurried up alongside him as they resumed their climb. “The porters pass on their gratefulness. They are still cold but it leaves their bones.”

“Should be warm enough,” Etienne snapped, unaware of the sharpness of his tone. “Took them damn near an hour to change clothes.”

“They are not used to such cold, de-Etienne.” Homat tugged at the rim of his own hood, trying to cover as much of his bald pate as possible. “Nor am I. They dressed as rapidly as they could.” He tried to see into Etienne’s eyes. “Truly, you and de-Lyra are not cold?”

The geologist wore modified lederhosen and a heavier shirt over his mesh briefs. “Not only that, Homat, I’m still on the warm side.”

Homat considered this. “Our bodies do not appear so very different, de-Etienne, and while you and de-Lyra have more fur, much of you still is bare skin, as are our bodies. I would not think that you would still be warm here.”

“Different environments induce difference adaptations, Homat.”

“Truly,” Homat confessed.

“If you’re through lording it over the natives,” Lyra said in terranglo from her position farther up the road, “maybe we can make a little progress before nightfall?”

“I wasn’t ‘lording it,’” he shot back angrily, “I was just explaining to Homat that—” but she’d already turned away from him to resume her climb. When she did that it made him mad enough to spit wood. Short of grabbing her and forcing her to listen to him, however, there was little he could do, and he didn’t want to engage in a shouting match in front of the porters. So he swallowed his anger, convinced it would go straight to the ulcer he was building in his gut, the painful cavity that had his wife’s name written all over it.

It was early evening when they finally crested the last ridge overlooking Turput. Neither of them knew what to expect. A smaller version of Kekkalong, perhaps. They were pleasantly surprised.

Neat narrow streets paved with gray flagstone ran down to the fast moving Aurang and continued on the far shore. Both banks were lined with wooden water wheels that turned steadily in the swift current. Instead of the blocky Mai architecture they’d come to associate with civilization on Tslamaina, they saw buildings designed with flowerlike domes and elegant arches. Graceful winding walls connected the main structures, and fluted slate tiles drained rainwater from the roofs. Small observation towers bloomed amid the larger edifices. Excepting the towers, nothing rose higher than three floors.

Above the town the Aurang split into a series of gentle cataracts where dim figures worked with long fish sweeps. Terraces heavy with fruit bushes stepped toward heaven. At the far end of the formation Etienne identified as a hanging valley, a wide waterfall crashed into the riverbed.

Most magical of all were the sounds made by the profusion of bells and wind chimes that inhabited every house and shop, dangled from windows and rafters and projecting beams. The tinkling and clanging and bonging were audible even above the rush of the Aurang. There were bells of metal and ceramic, of glass and clay and wood, bone bells and stone chimes.

“Isn’t it magnificent, Etienne?” Behind Lyra Homat made an impolite noise while Etienne elected to reserve judgment. Alien beauty could be deceptive.

“Very aesthetic appearance,” he grudgingly admitted. But he found it hard to resist the multicolored town after the bland whites and yellows of Mai communities. It seemed as if every building in Turput was painted a different color. The town, like the air above it, was alive with rainbows.

They started down the ridge. As they neared the town they saw one could enter from any direction without encountering an obstruction. There was a single small gate, an afterthought of wooden logs and planks. One could walk around it as easily as through it. It also offered them their first Tsla.

Lyra and Etienne were not familiar with Tsla characteristics and so could not tell how old he was, but both scientists received an impression of age. In height he stood midway between Etienne’s and Lyra’s. The resemblance between Tsla and human, and for that matter between Tsla and Mai, ended there.

His toga-and-cape attire could not conceal the fact that he was covered everywhere save on the forearms and forelegs with a short, soft brown fur. The head rested on a neck that was curved forward, giving a false impression of age. Ears were short round stubs set atop the head. The six fingers were shorter and stubbier than those of Mai or human while the eyes displayed a dewy luster.

Most prominent of all the facial features was the quarter-meter long flexible snout like that of the terran tapir. It bobbed and dipped with an independent life of its own, no doubt conveying subtleties of expression discernible only to another Tsla. Twin nostrils were visible through the fur at the tip.

It strained Etienne’s laboriously memorized Tsla to translate the Tsla’s greeting. “I am Sau, Keeper of the Gate of Hospitality.” To Etienne’s relief the Tsla switched to fluent Mai. “Word of thy coming has preceded thee. You are the visitors said to come from another world.”

Lyra nodded sagely. Her affinity for languages reached far beyond Etienne’s, and she wasn’t hesitant about trying the local dialect. “We are they, Keeper. Your gate must be of hospitality, for it protects nothing but air.”

“A conceit.” The Tsla spread both hands to the air, showing bare skin up to the elbow. “Most visitors seem to expect a gate, so one was made. Higher towns than Turput have need of real gates. We do not.”