The northern mountains stood like a wall of pitch-black stone. A cold wind howled down through the pass, carrying the damp chill and a tang of rust. Alan and Shadow climbed along the spine of rock, boots grinding through loose shards and dust. The fire pouch lay flat against his chest, its heat steady, showing no sign of cooling. Every fifty steps, Alan reached to feel the strap, checking its tension to be sure no warmth bled out. Shadow kept close; her wound was bound down hard, her stride short but steady.
Before they entered the range, they stopped beneath a north-facing escarpment. Alan drew a half-arc of salt, leaving a palm-wide gap for a door. He drove bone pins into the wet soil to fix the edge of the line. Shadow used the "three-point nail" method to close both ends into a barbed hook. Twice the wind slipped, cautious, through the gap without lifting dust—proof the spot was safe for the moment. On the ground, Alan replotted their route: go east first to avoid the valley floor, then follow the mountainside north.
Mist welled from the seams of stone like water seeping from under rock. It touched the ground first, then slowly rose. Shadow took a long breath; her voice came out faint. "Shut your mouth and watch the wind, not the fog," Alan said softly. He pressed the pouch half a finger lower beneath his sternum and cinched the strap. The heat eased, like a stifled breath. The mist kept climbing—knee, then waist.
The first sound came off the right-hand ridge, like iron drawn across stone. Not an animal—the rhythm was too regular.
Next, two soft clinks from the left-hand valley: "dang, dang." Shadow glanced at Alan; he shook his head—human, but not their own. The tracker from last night had caught up. They did not fall back, and they did not break the line. They chose to wait.
With the mist a foot above their boots, the world went muffled. The scraping on the right cut off, replaced by light, measured steps—three, a pause, and one testing step, as if sizing the door. Alan passed Shadow the pry bar and held the gap himself. He tapped his chest with a fingertip; the pouch answered with a faint warmth. The fire was still "awake." He took his hand away. Shadow gripped the bar, its shaft skimming the ground, waiting for a foot to cross the ward.
The second sound came from straight ahead: a human voice, very low, as if whispering at his ear—"Alan, over here." Shadow's shoulder twitched—that was her own voice.
"Echo wraith," Alan said, tightening his grip on the blade. "Do not answer."
It didn't stop. It shifted breath and took the captain's tone: "Form up. Back to camp." Then the medic's: "Let go. Sleep a while." It tried every opening it could steal.
Alan shut it out. He thickened the inner rim of the door by half a finger and added three points to Shadow's side. As the fog rolled down around them, the footsteps outside began to drift away. The man was in no hurry. He knew the gate's rules, and the fog's. He was waiting for the echo wraith to tear the ward first. Suddenly a syrup-sweet reek drifted from the wind gap, like rotten fruit. Alan acted at once, dusting the outer edge with his driest salt; the white powder struck the sweetness and burst, holding the stench outside the door.
The mist climbed to their chests and every sound crowded close. The wraith's "human voices" clung to the line like someone breathing against the door. It switched to a child's voice: "I'm back, two knocks… two knocks…"
Shadow's hands clenched until her knuckles went white. Alan whispered, "Keep the beat." She obeyed, tapping her thigh—two beats, pause—two beats, pause. The pouch at Alan's chest thumped in time; it had heard.
Footsteps approached again, this time from the right oblique. A thin figure stood on the rock-spine above, holding a slender staff. A faint blue gleam pulsed at its tip like a dying ember. Alan marked him as the same man. He didn't twitch or look up. He knew the man carried an igniter; in a fog tide, it hit harder. The wind at the door suddenly "dropped," as if a slab of air had been sucked away. At once, Alan crushed the pouch under his ribs, the chest-strap cinched so tight he could scarcely breathe.
When the cold flame thrust in, it was only a flicker. Alan didn't stop it; he let it slide down the spine of his blade to the ground, skimming the inner rim of salt. The grains spumed and burst into a puff of white vapor. The cold flame drank the salt mist, its pull shearing half an inch aside to catch the syrup-stink outside. A shadow-beast, drawn by the scent, slammed the base of the rod. The man tried to yank it back and failed, stumbling half a step. His foot carved a deep gouge outside the line. Alan noted the print: heavy forefoot, toes splayed outward.
Denied its "emotional mouth," the echo wraith pressed harder. It dropped the familiar voices and copied Shadow's fresh, ragged breathing. Her rhythm broke. Alan set his palm to the back of her neck, pressing in four steady beats, forcing her breath into measure. The fire pouch felt the steadiness and stilled. Out in the fog, the silhouette seemed to study them; the blue light rose a hair, then sank again.
The first true breach opened at the door's lower left. Wet vapor back-flowed through a crack in the rock, soaking the salt into a shadow. A beast's forepaw stepped into the "shadow," nearly getting bitten by the line. Shadow snapped a low shout and cut across with the pry bar, jamming the paw at the claws. At the same instant, Alan drove a bone pin straight into the edge of the wet patch, "nailing" the soft salt back to the hard rim. The beast jerked away in pain; the salt brightened to white. The mouth of the door held whole again.
The fog thinned all at once; their window widened. Alan grabbed it, carving a "false line" a foot outside the door with his knife's pommel. The echo wraith moved its voices there at once and called, "Open."
The shadow-beast lunged to it and was shoved a half-step back by the salt's bite. The real inner ring caught a breath of calm. "Off-beat," Alan murmured. The beast changed tactic—left to slip, right to drive—bleeding pressure with counters. Three passes later, the door had yielded less than half a finger.
The blue light flared a third time, not from ahead but from above and to the side. Alan didn't lift the blade; he half-crouched right, letting the beam graze his shoulder and scorch the ceiling. The burn kissed his ear; he smelled his own flesh. He didn't cry out. He flicked his driest pinch of salt into the tail of the light. The salt popped; the wraith's "voice" slid off-key.
The fog tide crested—sky falling, weight grinding down—until even the fire's heat was pressed flat. Alan's sight grayed to near-blindness. In that almost "sightless" state, he followed rule alone: one hand never left the fire, the blade stood firm in earth, the salt lay trimmed along the edge. Shadow held the right-hand corner alone and never crossed the mark. Outside, footsteps tested the door twice and chose not to force it. The man knew that to rush the gate at the fog's peak was to fling it wide for the beasts. He opened distance. The blue glow died out.
A moment later, the mist began to ebb. Layers of sound separated again. The shadow-beasts, driven by cold, backed off; the wraith's timbre turned hollow, and no borrowed voice could touch the heart. Alan used the falling fog to lay the final course of salt and thumb the three-point nails tight on Shadow's side. A white half-ring remained at the threshold, like a thin moon. He didn't look up, only set the blade back into the dirt and kept his breathing steady.
When the fog dropped to their knees, the man on the ridge moved. He didn't try the door again. He withdrew north, his stride even, leaving no sign of a glance back. Only when Alan knew he was gone did he loosen the pouch by half a finger. The flame within gave a small, answering skip. He ignored it and kept his palm on the cloth.
Shadow cocked her head toward him. "Your ear is bleeding."
Alan touched it; blood smeared his hand. "I can still hear," he said softly.
They failed to break out and held the ground another half-hour. Only when the wind fully swung did they pull the pins and rise. Halfway along the slope, Shadow asked, "Why didn't he press harder?"
Looking to the northern sky, Alan said, "He's waiting for cleaner ground. The mountain's choke points will do half his work."
Shadow nodded, held her tongue, then asked, "Why did the echo wraith miss?"
"We never named it," Alan said.
Toward dusk, they found a fissure beneath a fallen wall, just wide enough for two to sit shoulder to shoulder. Alan set the lines; Shadow went to find dry sand. When she returned, two shards of salt crystal lay in her palm like glass splinters. Alan took them, slid half into his pouch, and used the other half as a "nail." He cinched the fire tight again; the heat lay flat against bone like stone pressed to earth.
Watching him bind the strap, Shadow asked, "Is it still making sound?"
Alan shook his head. "No. It's waiting for me to start."
The night grew colder. A low hum rolled through the valley, like old ducts trembling. Shadow leaned against the rock, silent. Alan watched the door, palm sweating against the pouch, the strap gone stiff with salt. He did not sleep, and he did not let the fire "get comfortable." When the fire is uncomfortable, it makes less noise. Near midnight, a hard wind rose; mist churned along the valley floor; a warped echo rolled far and died farther.
At the edge of dawn, the flame shivered—not with heat, but with a voice. Alan tried to smother it, but the sound came clear from inside the bone: "I'm hungry." He didn't answer, didn't react. He counted four beats, and four more. The voice faded—"Later." After that, the fire kept its silence. Shadow turned over in sleep and didn't wake. The wind shifted from the northern mouth; the sky began to pale.
At first light they moved out, keeping to the mountainside and skirting the valley bottom. They had gone not two hundred steps when Alan stopped. A trail of small footprints marked the ground—outward-turned toes, short stride, uneven spacing; beside every third step, two white specks. Shadow saw the pair of dots and whispered, "Two knocks."
Alan did not stop, angling for higher stone. He only said to Shadow, "Add one rule for today—when you meet 'two knocks,' keep quiet and leave a channel."
The wind bit harder, the mountain's shade grew darker. Shadow asked, "Do you still listen to it?"
"No," Alan said.
"What if it saves you?"
"Don't give it the chance," he said, never turning. She nodded and quickened her pace by half a beat. The pouch lay tight to his chest, no warmth bleeding out. He sorted the day's laws in his head:
One, in fog do not look—listen to wind alone.
Two, do not answer echoes—hold your own rhythm.
Three, no one outside the door comes in.
Four, when you meet "two knocks," leave a way open—do not strike.
They moved along the mountainside to the north. The wind stretched their shadows long; gray peeled from under their feet in layers with each gust. The fire sat quiet in his chest, saying nothing. No one knew whether it kept silence—or kept memory. Ahead, the ridge sharpened like a blade's spine. Beyond it waited the next wind, and the next night.