“Yes,” Sura said.

On the first clear day of the tepid spring the villagers filed in silence to a low hill a mile from the village. After months in the fug of the teepees Erwal took deep breaths of the cold, fresh air, and felt the blood stir within her. She looked around with renewed interest. It was a still, windless day; above her the lakes and rivers of Home shone like threads in a carpet. The ruddy light of the Sun was almost cheerful, and frosty snow crackled beneath her feet. She tried to imagine what it must have been like in the days before she was born, when the Sun was yellow and so hot that, even in spring, you could discard your furs and leggings and run like a child in some huge teepee.

At the top of the hill orange flowers were struggling to blossom through the permafrost. The villagers gathered in a rough circle around the flowers; some clasped their hands before them, others dropped their heads so their chins rested on their shirts of fur. Damen stepped into the middle of the circle. “We’re here for those who died in the winter.” His voice was flat and lifeless. Without ceremony he intoned a list of names.

“…Borst, husband of Sura. Brought down by fluid in the lungs. A girl, daughter of Borst and Sura; the frost attacked her flesh in the blizzards…”

Numbly Erwal counted the names. Twenty-two in all, mostly children. She glanced around the silent group; there were surely no more than a hundred souls left. Already, she knew, the outer portions of the village had been abandoned, so that their homes were encircled by silent, ruined teepees.

There were hardly any old people left, it struck her suddenly. In fact, she and Damen were the old people now. Who would be the last to go? she wondered morbidly. Some child, crying over the cooling bodies of its parents?

At that moment her resolution crystallized. With or without Damen, she had to leave this place.

Damen finished his list. After a brief, gloomy silence, the group broke up and returned to the teepees.

Twenty-five adults decided to commit to Erwal’s plan. With their children, thirty-seven people would travel with her.

They gathered at the edge of the village. The split families and parting friends found little to say in the way of farewells. Erwal, with the assistance of Sura, made final adjustments to the harness around the neck of Sand, the one mummy-cow they were to take. To the harness was attached a broad pallet piled with furs, blankets and cow-tree buds. The rest of the expedition, spare clothes heaped on their bodies, looked on in subdued silence.

“I don’t know what to say.”

Erwal turned. Damen, thick arms folded, stood watching her. “Damen, don’t even try.”

He frowned. “Pride’s an odd thing,” he mused. “I should know. I’ve been proud, and stubborn. Pride can make it hard to admit you’re wrong, no matter how misguided you come to realize—”

Erwal laughed, not unkindly. “I should swallow my pride, admit my mistake, should I?”

He looked hurt. “Erwal, you could die out there.”

“But I believe we’d die here.” She touched his arm, ruffling the mat of thick black hair which grew there. “This expedition needs you—”

“But I need you.”

It was as if the Sun had broken through cloud. Struggling to keep her voice steady, Erwal said, “You’ve picked the damnedest time to say such a thing.”

“I’m sorry.”

Deliberately, with a sense of pain, she turned her head from him. “It’s time to go.”

“Where?”

“You know where. To the north. The way Teal described. A journey of a few days, following his markers and directions, to the Eight Rooms.”

He snorted. “Following the babble of a mummy-cow and a madman?”

“Damen, don’t spoil this.” She studied him, desperate to hold on to these final traces of warmth. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Erwal; we’ve been over all of this before, haven’t we?”

“A hundred times.” She smiled.

“…I wish you well.”

She hugged him, feeling the rough fur of his shirt under her bare forearms. “And I you, love.”

“I won’t see you again.”

“…Perhaps if I find what I’m looking for I’ll be able to return for you.”

He held her away, his face hard. “Sure you will.”

With that, they parted.

With gentle encouragement the mummy-cow began its lumbering motion, the laden pallet scoring tracks into the hard ground. Erwal walked arm in arm with Sura. She turned back until the village was out of sight; for long after she was gone, she suspected, the dark bulk of Damen would be stationed at the edge of the village, hoping for her return.

A short, round-faced man called Arke walked with Erwal. “This winter,” he said, “I lifted the body of my wife out of the teepee and into the snow. I had to wait for the thaw before I could bury her in the cow-tree stand. I barely know what you’re talking about with your stories of stars and ships, Erwal, but I know this. If I’d stayed at home I’d surely have died. At least with you I’ll die trying to find a way out. And,” he finished doubtfully, “you never know; we might even succeed.”

Many of her fellow travelers, Erwal suspected, had been motivated to come by much the same mixture of desperation and doubt; and yet they had come. And, as they walked, Erwal sensed a mood of optimism generated by the very fact of their motion, that they were doing something.

But winter came early in the north.

The winds hit them first, so that the children, wailing, were forced to stumble along clinging to the fur of the cow, who sang them simple songs. Then snow followed, and the march became a grim haul across a featureless plain punctuated by nights huddled in a single, shivering mound under a layer of blankets.

Erwal had memorized the list of directions which Teal had given to the village, and she was as sure as she could be that she was not leading her party astray. But on the more difficult days she was constantly aware that she was hardly equipped to serve as the leader of such an ambitious expedition; and when they entered the mouth of yet another blizzard she found tears leaking from her freezing eyes, and she wondered if she was guiding these people to their deaths.

Then, one day, Sura came pushing through the snow drifts. She grinned, excited, holding up a faded rag. Erwal, tired and bemused, pushed snow-speckled hair from her eyes and took the object from the girl. It was a strip of mummy-cow hide. Roughly cut and uncured, the strip had been frozen before it had a chance to rot; and it was tied with a double knot.

“Teal,” Sura said. “This is one of his markers, isn’t it? I found it tied to a dead cow-tree, just over that ridge.”

Erwal stared at the battered little artifact. “Yes, it’s Teal’s. Call the others and tell them.”

The find of the marker was treated as a great triumph, and the travelers drank Sand’s milk with an air of celebration. They approached Erwal and touched her arms and shoulders, congratulating her. Erwal felt oddly distanced from all this. After all, they had only confirmed that they were on Teal’s path — a path which, as Damen had repeatedly pointed out, might lead only to madness or death.

But she kept such thoughts to herself and did her best to join in the celebrations.

After a rest, they struggled on into the teeth of the wind, making headway as best they could.

They made a makeshift camp in the heart of another blizzard. They burrowed together in the snow, faces buried in their furs.

In the dim morning light Erwal was shaken awake. Thick with sleep and unwilling to leave her warm nest she slowly opened her eyes. Sura was bending over her, her cheeks flushed under spots of frostbite. “Erwal, we’re there!”

“What?”

“The Eight Rooms! It’s just as Teal described. Come on!”