Chapter 19.2: Snowfields

Rounding the hall, Minkus and Jinkke ascended the stairs and stepped out past the iron grate and into the Priory’s central chamber. Suddenly unaware of his sister, Minkus drifted off his path to gaze once more at the gleaming tower of light and spiraling tablets at the room’s center. He stood still as he stared up at the objects caught in that magical gravity, marvelling at the movement of so much world history right before him. For a moment he too felt locked in its orbit.

“Are you staring at that thing again, Biggie?” Penny asked from somewhere nearby. He barely heard her. “Wake up, buddy. It’s the same giant, magic, light thing it’s been since we got here.”

He shook his head and turned to his friend. “Oh, hello Penny.” Before he was aware of himself, his conversation with Jinkke came buzzing back to mind, and he felt his cheeks grow warm. For just a moment, he couldn’t make eye contact with her.

“Oh hello yourself,” she mimicked. The woman rolled her eyes but still smirked at him. It felt normal enough to him. “You get wrapped up in that thing every time you come through this room, but it’s always—”

Ventyr stepped up behind Penny, placing a hand on her shoulder. Both of them looked at the sylvari.

Though Ventyr held Minkus’ gaze, the asura was suddenly aware of the others there too: Jinkke, Skixx, and Scholar Yissa. All were packed, their bags scattered across the floor and waiting to be picked up for departure; each was dressed ruggedly and warmly, prepared to head back into the elements for another few days of travel; and every eye was locked on Ventyr, his hand still on the human’s shoulder.

“It’s time we were going,” he said plainly, aimed at everyone and no one. “You’ve all heard Magister Makkay’s recommendation regarding our course and time of departure, and we are nearly past that recommended window. If we aren’t to risk traveling after dark, we must be on our way.”

“You heard the Sergeant,” Yissa chimed in, clapping her hands as she popped out from behind him. Her coat clasped shut and her pack strapped on tightly, she spun around and began toward the towering main doors far off down the entry hall. “Let’s be off. We have a world to see and discoveries to make!”

As Penny leaned down to grab the strap of her smartpack, she shook her head. “Oh please, let’s,” she muttered.

One by one, the members of the ever expanding party hoisted their belongings and followed the excitable scholar.

As he walked back down the pristine granite cavern they’d entered days before, Minkus was captivated yet again. Yes, the majesty of that vaulted ceiling was awe-inspiring, buttressed at regular intervals and illuminated by blazing globes of magical energy, but Minkus found his attention falling much longer on the score of scholars, explorers, and novices scattered about long rows of shelves, pouring over books and scrolls of unknown topic and age. There were hundreds of volumes just in this hallway alone, representing more history and more expeditions into the farthest reaches of Tyria than Minkus could imagine. Since they’d arrived, he’d heard many bits of conversation between Priory members when they didn’t know he was listening. They compared notes on ancient lore and discoveries they’d made on adventures into crypts, castles, ruins, and mines. He understood only the smallest parts of any of it, but that didn’t really matter to him. It was the exploration into the world and its hidden corners that perked his big ears, and here he was passing through the huge entry hall with ears once more turned to hear any further exchanges between the educated and world-wise members of this intriguing order.

Minkus was hardly aware that any time or distance had passed when he was suddenly hit with the chill of the outside air drifting into the open doorway of the Priory just ahead of them.

Penny groaned. “This is the third time I’ve had to walk this gods-awful hallway today.”

Minkus shrugged. “I don’t know, Penny,” he said, still a step behind her. “I think it’s a nice hall. Big and grand and historic. There are— there are so many stories here, true stories, of the world’s most important people and places.”

She looked back at him over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow. “Right, Biggie, all those things. But it’s long as hell. Who needs a hall this long just to get outside?”

“I don’t mind it,” he said, catching up beside her. “Maybe I’ll come back and see it again. Someday.”

Penny looked down, meeting his grin with one of her own, sardonic though it was. “Hell, Biggie, maybe you’ll join these grave-robbing bookworms. Maybe you’ll be king of the bookworms, explore all of Tyria, and spend half your days walking up and down this long-ass hallway talking about ghosts and ghouls and wizards in magic towers.”

He sighed, satisfied at the thought. “That would be very exciting.” Penny shook her head at him and put a hand on his shoulder as they passed out of the doors.

Before Minkus knew it, the party had made their way down the cliffs and through the deep ravine they’d passed over days before.

They were now coming up and out its southern end, and the climb was surprisingly wearisome. The incline was seemingly shallow but long, uneven, and deeply snowpacked. Each step took effort, particularly for the asura, who regularly found themselves waist-deep in snow, and icy patches amid the sporadic boulder fields periodically caught them unaware, bringing a helpless traveler or two to their knees. More than once, Minkus had to pass his rejuvenation to a worn and hurting comrade, though he made no effort to make that known. As long as his friends were helped, did it matter how it happened?

Challenges or not, though, Minkus couldn’t overlook the beauty of a world draped end to end in that pristine, unbroken sheet white. Rolling gently over knoll, hill, and boulder, the snow was radiant. The sun made its way across a clear sky, casting the shadows of distant peaks and nearer trees that contrasted sharply against the glistening crystals of ice that twinkled atop near-blinding snowfields. Those shadows slid across the landscape, signaling the passage of time in a muted silence that was only occasionally broken by the screech of a falcon or the low bellows of a pack of arctodus. By and large the landscape was wild, barren, and spotless, and Minkus took it in for hours, squinting at times to see all of that he could.

“Alchemy,” Skixx groaned from behind him. “How much farther is our destination? By my estimates Bouldermouth shouldn’t be this far out.”

Minkus noticed Ventyr and Yissa exchange a glance at the front of the column. “It is. It should be ahead, over that rise,” Ventyr called back over his shoulder. “If Magister Makkay was right, we should find a dolyak ranch first. A mile or two beyond that is the village.”

Minkus wasn’t sure, but it seemed to him their sylvari leader had grown louder than usual. His pace seemed quicker as well. For several hours, he’d pressed forcefully through the snow with Yissa at his side, her upturned braids bouncing with each step, almost in sync with the exposed boughs of Ventyr’s head. He seemed increasingly driven and particularly talkative, not just with Yissa, but with whoever happened to accompany him at the front of the group.

“It is nearing dusk,” Ventyr went on, “so we may have to stop at the ranch for the night, if they’ll have us. Tomorrow, then, we can continue to Bouldermouth for your business, Skixx. The landscape should open up beyond the ranch.”

“Hear that, Moptop?” Penny asked. For the last mile or two, she’d been walking alongside the other asura, both of them behind Minkus. “You can finally get those metal secrets out of your head. Relieved?” Minkus could hear that self-satisfied playfulness in her voice. It brought a grin to his face.

“I’ll be relieved,” Skixx groaned again, “when—” He suddenly grunted, and everyone turned to see him disappear in a plume of snow.

“Alchemy!” he yelled, clawing his way back up to the surface and brushing snow off his head. “If that happens once more, I swear—” He trailed off as Penny burst into laughter beside him. “And what,” Skixx demanded, “is so funny?”

“Oh, nothing,” Penny snorted, crossing her arms and staring down at him. “You’ve just said that three times now, and I still haven’t heard what you plan to do. I’m dying to know how you’re going to get back at the snow.”

He sniffed loudly, standing up and brushing himself clean as everyone continued on. “I suggest you wait and see what I do— to the snow.”

Penny snickered again, walking on. “Oh, ease up, Moptop. It’s just a joke.”

Minkus turned, starting on again in the channel carved out by Ventyr, Yissa, and Jinkke ahead of him, but a sudden rumble stopped him. For a moment he stood, nothing but his eyes moving.

There was another shudder, a ripple in the ground, as if a living tide swept by beneath the surface.

“Did anyone else feel that?” Penny called. Minkus looked back down the incline to see the woman in much the same position he was.

A few yards ahead of him, Jinkke replied, “If by that, you mean the sudden seismic activity, yes, I felt it too.”

“As did I,” Ventyr agreed from farther on up atop the rise.

Another rumble stilled them all once more, beginning with the sylvari and rippling from one person to the next down the slope. Minkus spun as it passed, watching it swell beneath Penny and finally Skixx, where the movement ended and the earth began to simply shake.

Wild eyed, Skixx tried to step toward the rest of the party, but in the time it took him to take that first step, the earth thrust up from beneath him, heaving stone and earth and snow into the air and showering it back to the surrounding snowfields. Somewhere in the midst of the fountain of debris was Skixx, tossed in the air and smashed back into snow, lost amid powdery explosions that rippled from the epicenter of the blast.