Amlarad instructs me – 'dig deeper'.
There is a presence in the air since he pulled me from my snowbound tomb. I catch him looking at me sidelong with his steady grey eyes, as though trying to unravel a story. Then I am compelled to look at him, and he shifts quickly away, busying himself with bow or knife or wood.
I offered to find a local guide from amongst the ice-men, so that he could return south. But he will not have that. I try to fathom his reasons … 'dig deeper' is all he will reply. I ask him forthright … and all I get is a long mute look into the far distance. How can I make choices for us both if I do not know what nestles in his mind ?
For the seriousness of the storm weighs on me, heavier than the snow itself. I know how close I came to death. It awakens me to greater caution – for him at least, who is not bound to this journey and could return to safety.
Should I order him to return? Would it be safer so; for the accomplishment of my Lord Steward's aims? A leader must be prepared to risk all for the fulfilment of orders. There is an disquieting murmur in me – there may come a time when the harshness of the land forces me to choose between this man and my duty. If so – for the first time – I do not know my clear answer. And I am uneasy. I push down the uncertainty – I push on. I do not have the luxury.
Within me I sense something new, like unto a seed. I run the fingers of my thoughts over it's casing, warm, smooth, like an acorn in a pocket. But whatever is curled within its hard shell is unknown to me.
Who is he, that can hand someone out of the clutches of death? Call them out by name? We dance around each other, I with my questions, he with his. Trying to dig deeper, in our precarious wilderness, without causing the growing avalanche to fall.
