Falk had imagined that as soon as they reached the mountains they would have reached Es Toch; he had not realized they would have to clamber over the roof-tree of a continent. Range behind range the mountains rose; day after day the two crept upward into the world of the heights, and still their goal lay farther up and farther on to the southwest. Among the forests and torrents and the cloud-conversant slopes of snow and granite there was every now and then a little camp or village along the way. Often they could not avoid these as there was but one path to take. They rode past on their mules, the Prince’s princely gift at their going, and were not hindered. Estrel said that the mountain people, living here on the doorstep of the Shing, were a wary lot who would neither molest nor welcome a stranger, and were best left alone. Camping was a cold business, in April in the mountains, and the once they stopped at a village was a welcome relief. It was a tiny place, four wooden houses by a noisy stream in a canyon shadowed by great storm-wreathed peaks; but it had a name, Besdio, and Estrel had stayed there once years ago, she told him, when she had been a girl.
What do You think about Three Hainish Novels (2014)?
