By afternoon, the river had gone somewhere Rowan could hear but could no longer see.
The path climbed above it through a fold of the hillside. On the old account, this was a bend. Under his boots it became a long rising traverse, a descent into wet ground, and another climb around a shoulder of rock. Twice he stopped to find where the protection had gone. The first time it lay beneath the path. The second, it continued straight through the shoulder while the path carried him well above it.
He let the moonlight fade from his hand before taking the steepest part. There were places where he needed his fingers for the ground.
At the top, he put down his pack and looked back. A gap between the trees showed the white reach he had left that morning. He had spent most of the afternoon gaining a position from which he could still see it.
The maintained road over the pass took five days to Glenndan. He had packed for ten by the river, with enough left over to make an inconvenient choice. Looking down the slope, he was glad he had. Thane’s request would take time even where the walking was good, and so far the walking had been good only in portions.
He drew the shoulder and the rising path, leaving the protection broken where it passed through rock he could not examine.
Below him, the river struck something large enough to send a dull beat through the hillside. Rowan listened until it came again. He drew a small mark beside the shoulder and wrote that the pressure could be felt from above. Then he put the book away and lifted his pack.
The first shelter stood farther from the water than the account suggested. He found the uphill approach by a shallow cut in a mossed stone. The low building occupied a dry bench beneath a wall of rock, its roof weighted with flat stones and split wood stacked under the eaves.
Rowan laid his hand against the doorpost. The protection answered through the stone behind the shelter, firm enough to use, with a smaller connection gathered around the threshold. He followed it only far enough to be sure the sleeping place remained within held ground.
Inside were a hearth, two sleeping platforms, and a table built into the wall. Someone had swept. A brush with a badly fitted replacement handle leaned beside the door; Rowan moved it away from the hearth and set down his pack.
The shelter book recorded a roof check and a complaint about smoke, followed by one word in another hand: Cleared. Rowan made a small fire and watched it draw. The smoke went where it should.
While water heated, he cleared leaves from the drainage cut behind the shelter, then returned with cold fingers and mud on one knee.
He ate oats and dried meat from the pan while his socks steamed beside the hearth. With the river’s noise held at a distance, he could hear the spoon against iron, a buckle laid on the table, and paper shifting as he opened his book.
Before the light failed, he corrected the shelter’s approach. The old drawing would send a late traveler downhill toward the river.
When he finished, he laid the notebook beside his folded cloak. There was room on the table for another person’s things. Out of habit, he moved his pan to leave the space clear.
He watched the last flame settle into the wood, then went to bed.
The second day began with cold boots and a pale sky visible between the trees.
Rowan ate before leaving. He brought in dry wood to replace what he had used, wrote his departure in the shelter book, and added a direction for finding the approach from the lower path. Outside, he tightened his pack and stood a moment with his hand against the post. The shelter’s working held as it had the evening before.
Farther down, the path descended through earth and root to rock worn smooth beneath continuous spray. At the last level ground, Rowan secured his straps, wrapped the notebook, and drew the pack close to his shoulders.
The ledge ahead was wide enough for a person but narrowed beneath an overhang. Hoof marks ended above it, where another track climbed toward a higher spur. Rowan followed that route only far enough to see that a loaded animal could avoid the ledge at the cost of a long detour. He marked the junction and the last place an animal could turn safely.
He crossed on foot, one hand against the slope while the river broke white beneath him. At the overhang he turned sideways and eased the pack past, freeing his cloak from the stone without looking down.
Beyond the bend, the shelf widened. Rowan stopped to loosen his shoulders and looked back. A fit person could pass. Someone with a hurt leg would need help; a stretcher would require another route. He wrote that down before following the line.
The anchor stood below the shelf, reached by a short descent with a handhold cut into the rock. Rowan left his pack above and went down carefully. He could feel the working before he touched it, a fine resistance crossing the river’s heavier movement. With ash rubbed into his palm and the change brought up behind his eyes, the connection became visible.
Beyond it, darkness gathered in a cleft above the water.
He studied the place without reaching toward it. The cleft would look sheltered in bad weather. From the path, a traveler might see somewhere to sit out of the spray.
Back at his pack, he drew the narrowing and marked the cleft: Outside the protected approach.
The day carried him through two more descents and a long stretch beneath trees where the river was hidden again. He found an old diversion leading to a shallow hollow, but the path had sunk into water and the branches above it showed where a slip had taken part of the bank. Rather than force a way through, he climbed back to the junction and took the higher ground.
By the time he reached a place to stop, the sun had moved behind the ridge.
The records showed a resting place beneath a broad rock. The rock remained, though a young tree had grown across one side of the approach. Rowan found dry, protected ground beneath it and made his camp without fire. He ate bread and cheese while watching the trees below, then spread the day’s drawings across a flat outcropping. The path, river, and protection followed three different courses; he drew them together until the useful light was gone.
He wrapped the pages, put them beneath his head, and slept with his boots beside him. Rain woke him before dawn, running along the edge of the sheltering ground.
On the third morning, the lower approach lay under new runoff. Rowan packed, added the higher approach to his drawing, and left as the rain eased. He returned the way he had come. It cost him little to find that way in daylight. It could cost someone else considerably more after dark.
Toward midday, a tributary cut a narrow ravine through the bank. Across it, the path resumed at almost the same height, joined by a raised timber deck. Rowan stopped beneath the roof over its winding gear. A rope ran through a pulley above the deck, and a covered counterweight hung beside the nearer support. The far end had been raised clear of the water. The instructions beside the handle were brief enough to assume prior knowledge. Rowan read them twice, then checked the wet rope, greased fittings, and supports. Leaves covered one far bearing surface beyond his reach.
He lowered the bridge slowly. The counterweight rose, and the far end reached its ledge with a dull knock, one corner still a little high. He secured the winding gear, then tested the first boards. The deck held. Rowan crossed without his pack and found a branch lodged beneath the far bearing. Once he cleared it and the leaves, the deck settled the remaining finger’s width. He checked the second control rope and catch before returning for his things.
Fresh marks on the rail showed where something wider than a person had rubbed the wood. An unloaded pack animal could cross, if it reached the bridge. Rowan doubted many did. After carrying his pack over, he tested the protection as he moved the deck. The near connection tightened while the far side held, keeping both approaches covered.
He drew the winding gear, bearings and approaches, leaving the course beneath the ravine open. Then he raised the bridge from the far side and watched the counterweight settle.
The crossing needed a more frequent place on someone’s route. Rowan noted it and shouldered his pack.
The fourth day took him farther from the river than any of the accounts had led him to expect. The path climbed through older trees, splitting around roots and fallen limbs until Rowan had to return to the last sure turn. The protected course had gone uphill.
He found it with moonlight held across his fingers, gathering beside a root before passing deeper into the slope. Higher up, an old stone stood where the trees thinned. Its weathered sigil answered soundly, with a connection continuing into the forest.
He followed to the other side of the ridge, where a shallow basin lay full of fern and tangled growth. The line crossed its upper edge and passed out of reach, carrying the same cool, yielding quality he had noticed on the first day. Rowan sat on a root and drew the ridge, marking the readings on either side. From here, he could see how the ground folded beyond the stone. He shifted the pack against his knee and looked down into the hollow.
He considered going down. Finding his way through the fern and back to the river approach would take the rest of the afternoon. The connection answered steadily. He ate on the root overlooking the hollow, then turned back. It could be walked another day.
Rain had softened the descent. At one root his boot slid, and he caught the trunk beside it. Mud pressed into the ash on his palm; his fingers had begun to cramp. For the next stretch, he used only ordinary sight.
By evening he had regained the lower path and found a timber shelter. He tied its loose shutter with spare cord, ate more than intended, and worked the stiffness from his fingers beside the hearth. His ridge drawing needed correcting: the basin was too close to the river and the slope too shallow. On the new page he added the root that had caught him, a landmark another traveler might recognize.
On the fifth morning, sun reached the trunks while the ground remained cold. Rowan passed an old charcoal site and a clearing of covered timber, both absent from his account. Protection enclosed the work area, anchored beneath an elder bush.
An inland path was broad enough for a loaded animal. He followed it to a junction: one route climbed toward the maintained road, the other returned to the river near the ravine. His shoulders loosened under the pack. For a while he could walk without choosing every footfall.
Several hours brought him back to the timber stack with two usable approaches and a reason a crew might choose each. By calmer water that afternoon, he put the drawings in order.
Darkness gathered in a hollow beyond the protection; the river carried a broader movement his moonlight touched without readily holding. He let his sight return to the ordinary water. That night, on a dry shelf above the bank, he made a fire and cooked the last of his meat. Several days remained, and he had begun to feel them in his feet.
On the sixth day, Rowan found a path that had been worked recently.
Fern had been cut back, a stone step reset, and a branch laid across the unstable lower way to direct travelers uphill. Someone had already made the ordinary passage safer.
He followed the higher path beneath firs to another inland junction.
The working divided there. Its inland course carried the same cool movement. Though the ridge hid the basin, he could now place it relative to this branch.
He drew the river, rise and direction of the pull. He had enough to ask someone a useful question.
While he worked, wood smoke reached him from the inland path. He closed the notebook and followed it.
The building stood in a clearing small enough that its roof remained beneath the branches. A thin stream crossed the far edge, passing under a short bridge. Beside the door were two bundles of cut fern and a spade with fresh soil on its blade. A green cloak hung beneath the eaves.
“Coming in,” Rowan called.
A voice answered from inside. “Mind the step. It’s loose.”
He tested it before putting his weight down. The outer stone shifted slightly.
Inside, a warden stood beside the hearth with a spoon in her hand. Her sleeves were rolled above the wrists, and mud had dried along one forearm. She looked at his pack, then the wrapped pages. “Which way have you come?”
“Cresting Pass. Down by the river.”
“The whole way?”
“So far.”
She glanced toward the door. “There’s water behind the building. Supper will be ready before you’ve finished washing.”
Rowan set down his pack. “I can put something into it.”
“You can bring in wood. Dry stack, under the far eave.”
He brought in wood, then washed behind the shelter. The cold water found a split beside his thumbnail that he had stopped noticing.
When he returned, she had set a second bowl on the table. “Avel,” she said, offering her clean hand. Rowan gave her his name and sat.
They ate beans, onion, smoked meat, and bread. For a while neither spoke. Then the warmth reached Rowan, and he realized how hungry he was.
Avel pushed the bread closer. “Going to Glenndan?”
“Thane’s expecting me.”
“New posting?”
Rowan nodded. “He asked for an account of the river approach.”
“That explains the paper. Most people come by the road.”
“I’ve noticed why.”
She looked at the mud on his boots and gave a small smile. “You’ll notice a few more times before you’re there.”
After they had eaten, Rowan brought out the notebook. Avel moved the bread and wiped the place where her bowl had stood.
Rowan opened the drawing of the morning’s junction. “Is this your path?”
“One of them.”
“How far does it go inland?”
“To the upper hollow, then round the ridge. There are two ways down. I work the nearer one.”
He turned back to the page he had made on the fourth day. She drew the book toward her.
“That’s above the hollow.”
“You know the stone?”
“Yes. I come to it from the other side.” She looked between the two drawings. “You went up from the river?”
“Then came back down.”
“That’s a long afternoon.”
“It was.”
Her finger stopped beside the root he had drawn at the descent. “That one’s still holding, then.”
“It held me.”
She studied the slope more closely before looking at him. “May I see where you found the lower path again?”
Rowan untied the packet.
He laid out the sheets. Avel found the raised crossing and drew it closer.
“That’s useful. People say the bridge takes a horse, and forget to say what comes before it.”
She turned to the view showing the raised deck. “You’ve given both positions.”
“They answered differently.”
“They do.” She looked up. “Could you see the joining?”
“Only parts of it. Enough to draw those. Not enough to close the course.”
“I can usually hear when the near side takes the strain. The far side is harder from the gear.”
Rowan considered that. “Hear it through the timber?”
“Through the working. The timber tells me whether I ought to be standing on it.”
He smiled and moved his bowl farther from the drawings.
She returned to the inland branch. “This one is quiet.”
“It has a water edge.”
“To you?”
“That’s how it meets my moonlight.”
“I know it by the way it settles after rain. I’ve worked this side path since I first came down from the ridge.”
“Do you know where it joins the river course?”
“Here.”
She pointed to the junction he had examined that morning.
“And higher up?”
Her hand stopped over the page.
Rowan set the first drawing beside the one from the basin’s upper edge. “I found the same influence here and here. I haven’t followed what lies between.”
For a while, he let her look. Outside, wind moved through the firs. A branch scraped against the wall.
“Turn that one round,” she said.
He did.
She traced the rise behind the lower junction. “I’ve always come through here. I check the stone, take the hollow, and return by the lower way.”
“How much of the river do you reach?”
“The junction. Unless somebody needs a hand farther down.”
Avel looked across the pages again. “I wouldn’t have put these beside one another.”
“They may still be separate connections.”
“Yes. But now I know where to stand to ask.” She drew the fourth-day sheet closer, careful of its damp corner. “Leave this out a moment. I want to look at it again.”
Rowan sat back.
She rested her hand beside the drawing of the inland ridge. “Will you let me copy these three before you go?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I can take them round the hollow and bring him an answer from the other side.”
Rowan reached for a clean sheet. She rose to put more wood on the fire, then checked the pot.
“There’s another bowl if you want it.”
He looked at the drawings spread across the table. Tomorrow’s ground still needed walking. The lower reaches remained uncertain, and he would have to decide how much more time to give the branches before making for Glenndan.
“I would,” he said.
She filled his bowl. Rowan moved the papers clear, and this time he ate while the food was hot.