“But what is it?” I said. What sort of talisman would be hidden in such a remote place?
“I can’t tell you that,” he said. “I’m sorry. The emperor has ordered me to secrecy.”
“Mara knows.”
“Of course.” River sighed. “Mara should have been first in line for the title of Royal Explorer when I won it three years ago. He has resented me ever since.”
“Why was Mara passed over?”
“Because I was better,” River said simply. “Because he makes mistakes. The emperor doesn’t much trouble himself over loss of life, but Mara’s mistakes added up to something even he couldn’t ignore. The man doesn’t think, and people die because of it. I’ve seen it myself—I lost two assistants because of him. One fell from a rope he neglected to secure, and the other was swept away while we forded a river—all because Mara ordered her to swim after a scroll he dropped.”
An image of Mara’s wolfish smile flashed through my mind. I felt cold imagining my sister traveling with a man like that. “None of this explains why Lusha would agree to help him.”
“Mara comes from a very wealthy family. He has more gold than most of the nobility. I’m sure he was convincing.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You don’t know Lusha at all if you think she would be motivated by gold. It doesn’t matter to her.”
“You’re right. I don’t know your sister.” River shrugged. “But I do know that even the noblest souls can be swayed by material considerations.”
“And you?” I crossed my arms.
He smiled. “I have many motivations.”
I gave him a long look. In the morning light, I could see the faint dusting of freckles across his nose, making him look even younger than last night. What sort of man was he, I wondered, that he had accomplished so much already? Conquered so many dangers?
River held my gaze, the smile hovering around his mouth. He seemed to be scrutinizing me in turn. Whatever conclusion he was forming, though, was impossible to decipher.
A dark thought occurred to me. “What will you do if you catch Mara?” I said. “Take off his clothes and leave him tied to a tree?”
River stared, then burst out laughing.
“That’s an unappealing thought,” he said. “The first part, anyway. What made you think of it?”
“It’s a story I heard,” I said. “People say that’s what you did to a man who betrayed you.”
“People say a lot of things about me. I didn’t take the man’s clothes. I only took his cloak.”
I stared at him. “Is there a difference?”
“I suppose not,” he said, in an absent tone that sent another shiver down my back. What was I doing, speaking to River Shara this way? Last night, I had felt strangely at ease in his presence. And I still did, in a way—but now it was as if there was a second version of him, overlaying the first like shadow. I wasn’t sure which was real and which was air.
“I’m sorry,” I said, after a small silence. “Lusha made you a promise, and she broke it.”
He waved a hand. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
“All the same, if there’s anything I can do—”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
I stopped. His strange eyes glinted in the sunlight.
“What do you mean?”
“I must get to Raksha, and quickly,” he said. “It won’t be long until the snows arrive, and this is not a mission that can be put off for another year. To have any real chance of success, I need a guide, a skilled one. I have it on good authority that Lusha isn’t the only one who knows the way.”
It took me a moment to process what he was saying. “I—”
“Ah—Norbu,” River’s gaze slid past me. I turned, and found a very tall, very skinny man approaching along the path. He was perhaps fifty, and dignified in a tired, worn-out way, as if he had not merely aged but weathered, like a rock face subjected to too many storms. His hair was almost entirely white, with only a few black strands here and there, and he wore an old sheepskin chuba, which, while not cut in the mountain style, was at least a recognizably practical piece of clothing.
The man bowed to me. It was an odd thing to do, given the disapproval on his face, but he managed it. I knew I didn’t look at all deferential in the presence of the Royal Explorer, standing there with my arms crossed, frowning at River, in the stained chuba I usually wore to my lessons with Chirri.
“Kamzin, this is Norbu,” River said. “My personal shaman, and one of the greatest in the Three Cities. Norbu, this is the Kamzin I told you about.”
Norbu’s disapproval faded slightly, and he nodded to me. I didn’t nod back—I was still looking at River. Who was the Kamzin he had told Norbu about? The drunken Kamzin, who had embarrassed herself in front of the entire village? The Kamzin known only as Insia’s other daughter? The Kamzin who had, with River’s help, rescued her best friend from almost certain death?
“Dyonpo, the village shaman has been uncooperative,” Norbu said. “No matter what I offer, she refuses to part with any of her healing herbs.”
I snorted. “Chirri is always uncooperative. And she only trades with people she knows.”
They both looked at me, Norbu with a sort of confused surprise, as if a dragon had spoken, River with a smile.
“Norbu,” he said, “it sounds like Kamzin is offering to assist. You can leave this matter to her.”
“What? I didn’t—”
But before I could get another word out, River seized my arm and began pulling me along the path. “That’s enough talking. We have a lot to do.”
“We?”
“I’m putting you in charge of the supplies,” he said. “That was Mara’s job—he was hopeless at it, so don’t be too concerned about my expectations.”
“River—”
“And I’d like you to speak to the herdsman about borrowing another yak. I don’t like the looks of the one your father offered. The way it stares at me, it’s as if it’s plotting something. I don’t travel with plotters. Thieves, liars, cheats, that’s all right, but I can’t stand plotters. What else?” He snapped his fingers. “Oh yes. I’ll need you to hire two stout-hearted villagers to assist us at camp.”
“But, I—wait. Two? You’d need at least four, for—”
“No. Two. I travel light. That goes for supplies and assistants. Finally, see if you can find me a good ice ax. I lost mine.”
I stared at him. An ice ax was one of the most important—and personal—things in an explorer’s pack. My mother’s had been beautiful—intricately carved, its bone handle grooved from the pressure of her fingers, and the blade narrowed from years of sharpening. “You lost your—”