Magnus Frostbeard's Arc

Chapter 10 of 15

Magnus knelt at the pool's edge and pointed at the low arch. The blue-grey creature watched his hand. He tapped the warm passage, then spread his arms wide, a question. Did the road reach the valley, or die in the rock? The creature only blinked. It did not understand his words, and he did not know its tongue. "Ask it plainer," Greta said. She still gripped her axe, but low now. "We don't cross a hundred miles on a shrug." Magnus drew his chart. He traced the mapped route with one finger, then held the paper out. The creature leaned close. Its gold lines brightened. It touched the ink, then shook its small head and drew back. Magnus's stomach sank. The gesture could mean the way was blocked. It could mean nothing at all. He had no way to know. He tried once more. He lifted the relic and set it on his chart. "You made this. You know the heat. Show me where it goes." The creature stared at the glowing stone. Something in its face changed. It stepped to a shelf of black rock and lifted a small object. It was a compass. Gold ringed its face, worn thin at the edges. Strange marks circled the dial. The needle was not iron but light, pale blue, and it swung on its own. The creature pressed the compass into Magnus's palm and closed his fingers over it. Then it pointed at the warm arch, then at the compass, then at the arch again. Magnus turned the compass flat. The needle spun, steadied, and pointed straight through the low arch. He shifted his feet. The needle held its line. He walked three steps toward the molten pool, and it swung to keep the arch. The thing did not seek north. It sought the heat ahead, the source, the far warm place. "It's giving us a guide," Winterchase said. She crouched beside him, her voice low. "A true one. Not a guess." Magnus looked at the creature. He touched his chest, then the compass, then the arch, and gave a slow nod of thanks. The creature clasped its hands and stepped back into the pool's red glow. The fire beast curled at its feet. It would not follow. This was as far as it walked. Magnus rose. He marked the compass on his chart, then the arch, then wrote one word beside them: TRUE. For ten chapters he had read the ice one blind turn at a time. Now the pale needle pointed the road for him. "Through the arch," he said. "We follow the needle." He stepped into the warm passage. The needle held steady ahead. But the air past the arch was not still. It moved against his face in slow, steady pulses, like something far down was breathing. The compass showed the way. It did not show what waited at the end of it.