her?'
Yago's question was a good one, though Atreus suspected the answer had less to do with him than what lay beneath the Sisters of Serenity. Trust me, Seema isn't here because she wants to wrestle me. No woman would. I'm too ugly.'
Yago considered this a moment, then shrugged. 'You're a good enough fighter,' he said, as though that should account for more than appearance, 'but I don't see why you made her that promise.'
'You know why,' Atreus said. 'You were there.'
'Oh yeah, I forgot. So a woman who won't have you doesn't let herself get caught by a slaver she won't let us kill.' For an ogre, the irony in Yago's deep voice was a rare show of wit He shook his head, then added, 'If someone's missing something here, it ain't me.'
Yago glanced up the glacier. Three hundred paces above, Tarch was just leaping a crevasse, arms flailing and tail whipping. He landed in a billowing puff of snow and crashed through the wind crust, launching a ship-sized circle of broken slabs down the slope. Why the whole mountainside did not break free and sweep him away, Atreus did not know. Either the snow was more stable than Seema claimed, or the slave master was the luckiest devil this side of the Abyss.
Rishi reached the far side of the glacier, and Seema waved.
Yago nudged Atreus forward and said, 'Go on.'
Atreus shook his head. 'If you break through again, you won't have a chance against Tarch..'
'But I'm the bodyguard.' When this did not work, Yago growled, 'Well go together,'
'And let him bury us both in an avalanche? We're better off spread out,' Atreus said, shoving the ogre forward. 'Now stop wasting time and go.'
Reluctantly, Yago started across the slope. He could not run for fear of plunging through the wind crust, but his long strides covered ground rapidly. He was soon scurrying along the top of a serac field on the far side of the glacier, just a dozen paces from the sheltered alcove where Rishi and Seema stood waiting.
Tarch rounded a crevasse only twenty paces above, turned away, and continued straight down the slope. Atreus was so astonished that he merely stood there collecting his safe, Tarch could hardly have missed seeing him-Atreus was standing in plain sight-so the only conceivable explanation was that the slave master did not think him worthy of attacking.
Atreus charged out onto the glacier, as angry at being ignored as he was apprehensive about the coming battle. He whirled the chain over his head, filling the air with a metallic thrum. Tarch continued to angle down the glacier toward the alcove where Seema stood waiting.
'Up here!' Atreus's voice echoed across the canyon.
A snow slab broke loose beneath him and started down the slope, nearly sweeping him off his feet. Tarch continued to ignore him. Atreus pumped his knees furiously, his footsteps reverberating off the wind crust as he closed with the devil to a little more than arm's reach. They circled below a crevasse and started to pass above another one, then Tarch pulled up short, stopping so suddenly that Atreus crashed headlong into his back.
Tarch's tail lashed out, trying to sweep Atreus's feet from under him. Atreus jumped, avoiding the attack, and whipped his chain at his foe's head. He never saw the devil's foot come up, only felt the big heel sink into his stomach and double him oven He sensed himself flying backward and saw Tarch leaping after him, then felt himself crashing down on the wind crust and the slave master slamming down on top of him.
The mountain sighed, a deep silent rumble that Atreus sensed down in the hollow of his stomach. Tarch felt it too and sat up, startled, taking his weight off Atreus's chest. The devil looked up the slope.
Atreus noticed the glacier wall sliding past, remembered the crevasse below, brought his chain up and slammed it into Tarch's head. The devil roared, lashed out, and gouged at Atreus's throat A snow slab the size of an elephant caught them from above and hurled them backward through the churning air, still battling. Atreus whipped his chain up again and felt it catch around the slave master's neck. White sugar snow poured down around him, falling from above, rising from below, pouring in from all sides, Tarch clawed at Atreus's face and caught the corner of an eye.
They tumbled again. Atreus's head exploded into pain as the claw slipped free. He could not tell whether or not he had been blinded. Everything was white. A deep, breathless cold rose up to swallow him. The chain tugged at his hand, snapped his arm out full length, and strained the socket. He clenched his fist until the nails bit into his palm, felt the crushing pain of the chain tightening around his hand.
The avalanche rolled Atreus, slower, twisting his arm around behind him until he thought the chain would rip it off. He began to sting with cold and sensed the world dropping away. The chain went slack. Whether Tarch was tumbling closer or slipping free, he could not tell. Everything was cold, churning whiteness, sugary and soft.
The tumbling stopped, and Atreus had the sensation of floating. The snow cradled him, closing in around him. He remained frozen in the same awkward position, one arm twisted around behind him, dimly aware by his queasy stomach that he was sliding. He tried to pull his arm forward but found it too packed in snow to move. He tried to twist around to dig, found his body as caught as his arm. Tried to pull his hand free, could not retract his elbow. Circle his wrist, clench his fist, wiggle a single fingertip… all stuck fast, stuck fast as a beetle in amber.
The sliding sensation vanished. The snow pressed in from all sides. He felt it in his ears, against his eyes, in his nostrils, growing heavier and colder with each heartbeat His pulse began to roar, and he knew he was panicking, but panic in these helpless circumstances was a mere cruel joke. Could he flail about madly? Run blindly to his death? He could do nothing but lie motionless and stare into the unimaginable whiteness of the snow.
Funny that it should still be so white, with him buried so deep. His bones ached from being crushed, his ears rang front the pressure, his lungs burned for air. He pushed his lips apart and tried to suck in a breath through the snow, but he could not expand his ribs, could not move all those tons with only his chest
The white never vanished. The pain faded, the pressure diminished, the roar of his pulse ebbed away, the yearning for breath became a distant memory, and the white remained.
Atreus found himself standing beneath a pearly sky in a valley of white marble, facing an alabaster palace surrounded by snowy ponds filled with white lotus. At his side stood a white-caped figure with a long, translucent tail and silvery-white scales.
The form turned, and Atreus saw that it was Tarch, now with a flowing white beard and blond eyes. All the brutality had left his jagged features, and his face radiated the same serenity and contentment as did Seema's. He saluted Atreus with a clawed hand, then climbed the palace steps and disappeared through a door. Atreus was alone.
He stood before the palace, studying its asymmetric majesty. It had an ancient, guileless beauty, with a large open rotunda on one end and a square balcony room on the other. Connecting the two was a long gallery of scalloped arches and slender columns, with a Y-shaped staircase that descended down to the lower porch. The bottom story was painted in bright horizontal stripes, while the upper was decorated with swirling, ornately carved relief's. The architecture could hardly be called balanced, and no part of the building seemed to belong with the rest, yet it was the most stunning palace he had ever seen, casual and warmly unpretentious and all the more magnificent
Atreus climbed the stairs to the gallery and found himself standing in an icy wind, staring into the rotunda where a brilliant silver flame flickered in a bronze brazier.
'All is not harmony and balance.' The voice was Seema's. 'If you see beauty in yourself, so everyone will see it'
Still staring into the silvery fire, Atreus walked into the rotunda Now that he was inside, he could see a cowled silhouette standing behind the brazier, its identity, even its gender, masked by the brilliant glow of the flame. The figure placed its hands over the brazier and slowly spread them. The flame broadened into a shimmering silver square.
'Look.'
Atreus stooped down to obey, then cried out in shock.
There was a face in the silver square, as unbalanced and misshapen as his own, with the same beetling brow and sunken eyes, the same oversized nose and twisted mouth, but this face was handsome, rugged and happy and utterly at peace with itself.
'What would you do for this?' Now the voice was Tarch's, deep and raspy and rough. 'What would you give
