Or had Tir realized already that the man he thought was his stepfather and mentor was in fact only a ghost wrought by a mage's cleverness?
Tir had never seen Bektis-or at least he had been only an infant when the Court Mage had departed in disgrace from the Keep, though he had heard his name.
He would understand soon enough that something was wrong, when the man he had seen first short and pug-nosed gradually melted into another form, tall and thin with long white hair, an aristocratic, aquiline nose, and haughty dark eyes. Why take him over the pass?
"Why take him over the pass?" That was Rudy.
Gil's reply came raggedly, her words fighting the storm winds. "They have to want him for what he remembers from his ancestors. If it was just to cripple the Keep, they'd have killed him before they reached the pass and split up to get out of the Vale undetected."
"But he doesn't remember everything!" protested Rudy. "And we don't know what he does remember!
Bektis should know that."
The Icefalcon led them into the lee of a small cliff under the Hammerking's flank, where the wind was less and the snow thinner underfoot, allowing them better speed. Unseen above them the glaciers that armored the Hammerking's shoulders sent down their slow, glass river of cold.
"More important," said Gil, "Govannin should know that. Unless she figures to have Bektis put a spell of gnodyrr on Tir, to dig into what he doesn't remember consciously. That's the worst kind of black magic, and God knows what it'd do to a kid that young, but that's never stopped her before."
Rudy cursed, viciously and with every step as they scrambled up the protected trail.
By the ground's shape underfoot and the way the wind roared and shifted, the Icefalcon recognized where they were and steered the others hard to the right. To the left streams had cut gorges in the floor of the narrow, U-shaped canyon. The forty or fifty feet that separated this gash from the mountain's hip were safe enough to navigate in fine weather but perilous when visibility was poor.