The eyebrows came down like a drawbridge, and huge rotten teeth tried to chew the lower lip. In its disembodied state, the head found this difficult, which only made it angrier.
“How did you?…Well, never mind. Something harder, then.”
“We guessed correctly,” said Mirnían. “Now tell us!”
“There are three of you. Three riddles. Each of you answers one. Here’s the next:
My place is high perched apart from all favor
To watch all the workings of this worrisome world.
Well covered and cloaked in midnight’s dark color,
I sing all the songs my bright cousins dread.”
Voran’s skin prickled. That was not an accidental riddle.
Mirnían scoffed. “It’s raven, you overgrown cabbage.”
The giant head opened its mouth wide and tried to bite Mirnían.
“The third!” commanded Leshaya. The head smiled daggers at the wolf.
“I’m hopefully well held, lest I harass all my neighbors,
For fierce am I found, oft forcing my way blindly.
I borrow much beauty of all that’s about me,
A shimmer and shine amidst the world’s show,
Yet I terrify the toughest amidst my great temper.
Having beheld the beginning of all this world’s bounty,
I sing its great song on all sides of the world,
Yet sit happily in stillness, in silence of mind.”
Voran was stumped. Mirnían’s face fell. Leshaya remained tense.
“That’s not funny, Buyan.” She growled, deep in her throat. The giant head laughed. There was no mistaking the malice in that laugh. Voran’s skin crawled all over his body.
“He will not help us,” said Leshaya. “We must choose a path on our own.”
“Why do I have the nagging sense that you are going to suggest we go straight?” asked Mirnían.
“Because it’s the only possible way,” said Voran. “Unless you have something else to say, Leshaya?”
“Why can we not turn back?” asked Mirnían.
“There is no way back,” said Voran. He did not look back, but he knew that he would find no trace of the mist-covered lake they had just crossed.
“And we can afford the risk of the path leading to our death?” Mirnían nearly shrieked.
The head snored.
“Do you fear death, Mirnían?” asked Voran.
Mirnían screwed up his eyes and pursed his lips. “Voran, you will rue this day.” He shouldered his pack with a grunt and walked past the head to the silvery path leading to the horizon. The head snored on. Voran followed.
That entire day, and the next, Mirnían refused to speak to Voran. Leshaya was not much for conversation, either. She spent most of every day hunting. Sometimes she would be gone for hours. Voran’s loneliness ate at him.
Soon the trees became smaller and rarer, until they gave way to shrubs and carpets of grass. Everything was bright green from constant moisture, even this late in the year. Their road led into a narrow dale, both walls of which sloped sharply upward and ended with three jagged peaks directly ahead. A narrow pass was barely visible between two of the teeth. The ascent did not look strenuous, but it was late evening by the time they reached the foot of the slope, so they stopped for the night. The rain picked up again by midnight, and with no shelter of trees anywhere for miles, the night was miserable.
In such weather, even Leshaya seemed uncomfortable. Halfway through the night, she crawled toward Voran and lay at his side. He fit himself against her belly. Her warmth suffused his aching joints, banishing much of the cold to the edges of his hands and feet and nose.
“Leshaya,” Voran whispered, unable to sleep. “There is something I don’t understand about the Lows. When I first hunted the stag, I had no trouble entering through the invisible doorway. I did not even realize I was in the Lows until it was too late. But in order to leave the Lows, the Pilgrim and I had to cross paths with the white stag. The Pilgrim called the stag a “bearer”. Why did we not just find another doorway out of the Lows?”
Her words slurred in the haze of the state preceding sleep.
“There are doorways, and there are bearers. Doorways work only in one direction. If you enter, you cannot leave the same way. If you leave, you cannot enter the same way. Bearers, like the white stage, are two-sided doorways, so to speak. They can bear anyone in or out, but only if they are on opposite sides.”
“Seems strange, does it not? Why are there such restrictions placed on the Lows?”
Leshaya panted. It took Voran a moment to realize she was laughing at him. “If you do not yet realize the peril of entering the Lows of Aer, I am sure there will be ample opportunity to find out. Silly cub.”
