"You will?" Ryn said to the unkempt Ahalayan.

"Yeah," drawled the stranger. "I'll take you to the mountain. If you can pay me."

A patron at the neighbouring table guffawed, then leaned over. "Word to the wise: you don't wanna go with this guy. Trust me. He's bad news."

"Hey, shut up Yong!" the stranger said. "Mind your own kufeing business! I don't piss in your lantern when you're out hawking ponchos, do I?!"

"Why is he bad news?" Ryn asked the interjector, ignoring the stranger for the moment.

"A while back Shen set out with three Tesereset-climbers, a week later he comes back by himself. Their family and friends were distraught, but the regulators couldn't find no evidence he'd actually done anything, so Shen went free. Nobody else will climb with him after that, though. He probably robbed the climbers and pushed them into a ravine."

"You take that back, you two-bit piece of mountain-cochobo poodoo!" the stranger shouted and jumped on the man, throwing wild and inaccurate punches.

"Oi!" yelled the barman from the back of the tavern. "I told you, Shen! No fighting!" He came round the bar and strode towards the scuffling men, now rolling around on the floor. "That's the third time this week! You're outta here!"

The second man tried to crawl away from his assailant after pushing him off, but Shen found one of his legs and bit it. The man howled.

Ryn helped the barman pull Shen off the interjector. The man threw a few more punches at someone, missed everyone, and ended up being forg-marched to the door by the barman, who kicked it open and threw Shen through as the interjector cried "Crazy son of a sleemo! He bit me! He actually bit me!"

"Sorry 'bout that," said the bartender as he walked back across the room to resume his post. "He gets like that sometimes. I'll ban him from drinking here for a few days to teach him a lesson."

"See what I mean?" said the interjector, brushing himself down. "Bad news. Man's basically feral. Not been the same since that failed expedition—and with good reason, too."

The companions looked at each other over their table. Ryn made eye contact with Nuthea.

Fortunately, Shen was still outside the pub when they got there.

Unfortunately, he was in the middle of urinating against the door.

"Ugh!" said Ryn as wee splashed over his trouser leg. "Ugh!" he said as he got a glimpse. He averted his eyes.

"Put it away, please, Master Shen!" said Quel, covering Riss's eyes with a hand. "There are ladies present!"

"Wha'?" Ryn heard Shen say. "Oh, right, yeh…"

After a moment Ryn risked a look, and was relieved to see that Shen had hidden his indignity once more.

"Wha'd'ya want?" Shen said. "Come to rub my face in my failures some more, hey? Come to finish the job, hey?" He put up his fists.

"On the contrary," said Nuthea."

"We'd like you to guide us to Mount Tesereset," said Ryn.

The man looked at him lopsidedly for a moment, swaying ever so slightly where he stood. His opponent must have gotten in a blow or two of his own because a big blue bruise was blooming around one of his eyes and he had a fat lip.

"Wha'?" said the man. "You still want me to take you?"

"Yes," said Ryn.

"Even after you heard what happened on my last trip?"

"Yes."

"Even after I got in that fight?"

"Yes."

"Even after I pissed on you?"

"…yes."

"Haha! Fortune smiles on old Shen once again!" Shen raised his fists to the sky in triumph, exposing himself again because he hadn't buttoned up his breeches properly underneath his knitted poncho.

Nuthea squealed and covered her and Riss's eyes.

"Please," said Ryn, "you're still not decent!"

Shen collapsed on the ground.

Ryn knelt down at once, alarmed.

Though the man's eyes were closed, to Ryn's relief he was still breathing. He began to snore like a train going through a tunnel. His mouth hung open, a thin line of drool starting to work its way through the man's white stubble, joining the blood from his fat lip.

"At least we've found a guide," said Ryn.

As Shen was now banned for a week from the pub where they had met him, they carried him to a different, slightly more expensive inn nearer the centre of Alkul and put him up there for the night instead, purchasing a separate couple of rooms for themselves as well with locks on their doors.

Shen groaned from a terrible hangover in the morning, but remembered enough of the previous evening's events to come down to breakfast in the inn's common room—eventually—and ask them if they really still wanted him to take them to Mount Tesereset.

When they replied that they did, and when Quel had forced him to eat some eggs and drink some coffee to sober up some more, Shen took them shopping.

"You'll be needing a lotta gear," he explained as they left the inn, "for the climb, but also for the hike to get there: pickaxes, a ladder, crampons, couple a tents, a lotta rope. And them clothes. You'll freeze to death up there if you stay dressed like that. You're going to need much warmer clothes."

They had talked about this the night before while Shen slept off his raksi, and held some more quick hushed councils now behind his back: They would buy just enough equipment to conceal the fact that they would be using their elemental magic to climb the mountain and avoid arousing the guide's suspicions, without going over the top or spending more than they needed to.

All the same, money was really no object, due to Nuthea's copious supply. She even reluctantly conceded that the cold-weather garments they had taken on board in Manolia at the outset of their quest would not be sufficient for the conditions they would be facing here and that they needed to purchase some more.

Thankfully, every other other building in Alkul seemed to be a shop. Quel was right that the town's economy was based around mountain-climbing.

They bought their new clothes first: thick brown coats and gloves made of yak-hide with white fur-lined hoods and sleeves. Ryn and Quel would be able to protect them against the cold too, but they only had so much mana between them and if they weren't dressed for the part then their new guide would ask awkward questions.

Shen for his own part was at first content to wear his faded knitted poncho and hat, claiming that they were enough to protect him, but when Nuthea first opened her purse in front of him his eyes bulged. After that he took them straight to a particular merchant right at the centre of the town and demanded that they buy bright, brand-new versions of the once rainbow-coloured garments that had been hanging off of him.

"No harm done," Nuthea said while Shen was in the shop's changing room, which they had persuaded him to use instead of getting changed in front of them. "We might as well keep ourselves in his good graces."

They bought a couple of tents, the mountain-climbing gear that Shen had recommended and some food supplies. Obviously they would need food, and Ryn and Quel would need more than normal to fuel the continual use of their powers while they climbed the mountain, so they bought a huge amount of it. Shen had to make do with the explanation that the party members had voracious appetites when they loaded themselves up with an inordinate amount of waybread, salted beef strips and rice cakes.

Ryn took the opportunity to browse the wares of a blacksmith, but neither of the swords he found there looked any better or stronger than his current weapon, the straight Manolian blade he had been issued in Orma, so he stuck with that for now.

Once they had completed their shopping, they set out for the mountain.

They got some quizzical looks from the locals as they departed by the north-east route out of the city onto the hiking trail that apparently led to Tesereset, but when the onlookers saw Shen their frowns btoke into knowing looks and they shook their heads in resigned disapproval.

"Never mind them," Nuthea whispered to Shen. "Just take us where we want to go and you will be reimbursed handsomely."

Shen merely grunted, then burped. He was perhaps not yet quite entirely completely sober, Ryn realised.

It soon became clear why they needed a guide. The path to the mountain was steep from the start, leading up into treacherous, rocky hills that marked the boundary of the Ahalayan mountain range. At first they could make out the well-worn path that wended its way through them over the grey rock, but after less than a day's hike they were walking on snow and it became hidden.

A vicious gale blew up, cutting into Ryn's face, the only part of him left exposed by his new cold-weather clothes, and for once he found himself wishing they had Sagar with them to divert the wind with his air projection. The gale whipped the snow into a blizzard, and the very ground at their feet became obscured by a wall of white, let alone the distant trail that marked the way through the hills.

Nonetheless, Shen pressed on unperturbed at the front of their pack, occasionally calling out to the party not to lag behind. Ryn drew his coat tighter around himself and, teeth chattering, limbs complaining, plodded after him. He wished he could use his own elemental powers now, if nothing else to keep himself warm, but that would give the game away to Shen, so he controlled his urges to light himself on fire and followed the Ahalayan guide.

The problem was, Ryn wasn't always entirely convinced that Shen knew where he was going either. From time to time the Ahalayan would stop at a place where the path forked or it wasn't immediately clear what route to take over the snow to get closer to Tesereset. He would stand frozen in place for a few moments, with his head cocked to one side, contemplating. Eventually he would make a not-very-reassuring "Mmmmmmm," noise and then set out again, and the companions would follow once more.

Once, when Shen stopped for a few minutes at the base of one of the mountains that completely obscured Teserest from their sight, his longest pause yet, Ryn couldn't help asking, "Do you really know where you're going?"

"Wha'?" Shen said, looking round with a startled expression as though he had forgotten the companions were there. "'course I know where I'm going, whippersnapper! Old Shen has walked this route many times before!"

The old mountain-guide then immediately set off to the right around the base of the particular mountain that currently towered over them, leaving Ryn to wonder if he might just easily have gone left.

Maybe it doesn't matter either way, he tried to reassure himself as he followed after.

More gusts and gales blew up and died down, bringing and dispelling more blizzards, but Ryn and the companions kept their eyes trained on Shen, steering towards him like an odd, slightly wobbly rainbow-coloured guiding light in the sea of snow.

Towards the end of their first day of hiking, as dusk was beginning to fall, after another particularly long pause, Shen announced "We'll stop here and make camp for the night."

"Really?" said Ryn. "Here?" Though his thighs and calves ached awfully from all the walking, it seemed an odd place to stop. "We're right on the top of a ridge. Aren't we exposed here? Won't the wind blow us off?"

"Yes, here," snapped Shen, unslinging his pack and taking out some metal poles which extended by clever design. "Better exposed and pushed off

to fall a little way onto snow, than stuck at the bottom of the ridge when an avalanche dislodges and getting buried under it. Idiot," Ryn thought he heard the man add under his breath.

"What was that?"

"I said 'Idiot," Shen clarified.

Ryn blinked at the man's shamelessness. But after a wry look from Nuthea he let the insult go. They still needed the man at this point, after all.

They pitched their tents—one for Nuthea, Elrann and Riss, and one for Ryn, Quel, and Shen—atop the ridge, and stuffed them as full as they could with the blankets that Shen had made them buy before setting out, their protection against the night's cold. There was no question of lighting a fire up here in the snow, not while Shen was still here to see Ryn use his fire powers anyway, so for dinner they hunkered down and chewed some strips of salt beef.

The man seemed in reasonably good spirits as they ate, and sober enough, though Ryn was surprised that he didn't appear more sober, his movements still slightly wobbly and his speech slightly slurred. And he showed absolutely zero interest in precisely why they were seeking to scale Tesereset–which was good. So they just chatted aimlessly about the day's hike, and how cold it was, and how far they had left to go, and Shen joined in occasionally, including to explain that they had about two more days' hiking left to go before they reached the base of the mountain proper.

"So, Shen…" Ryn ventured cautiously when the conversation lulled.

"Whut?" snapped Shen. Instantly his whole countenance fell, and his weathered, white-bearded face broke into a frown. He had guessed Ryn's question. "I don't want ta talk about that, whippersnapper. You leave me alone about that."

The old guide shuffled a few paces away from the group on his backside, pulled his rainbiow-poncho tighter around him, and not-very-subtly took a small metal flask from somewhere about his person and took a deep swig from it, staring off into the distance.

Ah, thought Ryn. That solves the sobriety mystery.

He exchanged an awkward look with Nuthea.

"Best not to pry…" Nuthea mouthed at him, and Ryn nodded.

Once in the night Ryn thought he heard someone crying, though it was only a scrap of sound in the depths of the dark that could equally well have been a dream, and he soon fell back asleep.

After three days of hiking, just as Shen had said, they reached the foot of Tesereset.

Of course they had seen the mountain before. It had been visible from all the way back in Alkul—but only its white peak, dominating the horizon as a far-off, unattainable goal. And it had remained more or less in view as they had hiked, obscured by blizzards or other mountains or night for hours at a time but then revealed again by space and calm and light–but no single step they took had seemed to take them any closer to it, and it had remained an unimaginably distant destination. Ryn had begun to feel like they would never get to it.

Then, all of a sudden, after laboriously crossing a snow-filled gully, when the latest blizzard to assault them had calmed, they found themselves looking up at the monolith from its base.

Now the impossible objective became climbing this mountain, rather than merely getting to it. But they had a plan for that.

Ryn turned to their old, semi-drunken guide who was looking up at the mountain too with a half-smile on his face, like he was regarding an old friend.

"Thank you, Shen," he said. "We couldn't have made it here without you."

"s'not a problem," Shen mumbled. "I suggest we camp here for the night, then start the climb tomorrow."

"Oh, don't worry about us," said Nuthea. "You've done what we asked you to do. We will tackle the mountain by ourselves."

"Wha'?" Shen said, looking at them open-mouthed.

"Yes," said Ryn. "Don't you remember that was what we agreed back in Alkul? That you would just guide us to the mountain?" He supposed that the old man might not remember, given his oft-inebriated state…

Shen scratched his head a moment. "Well yeah, come to think of it, you did just say that you wanted me to take you to the mountain, but I thought you were just talking nonsense to be honest. But you can't really mean what you said? There's no way you can seriously be planning on trying to climb Teserest by yourselves, without a guide?"

"That's exactly what we're planning," said Nuthea. "And what we're going to do. Thank you for bringing us this far, Shen. I will pay you for your services now, and we will make our way back to Alkul once we have returned from our ascent. It should be much easier coming back than it was getting here." She fished in her fur-lined coat and brought out her purse.

Shen's eyes glittered, but then he shook his head and said "Wait! No way. No fear; no fear. I'm not letting you do this!"

"Why not?" said Quel. "It's what you agreed to."

"Yeah," said Shen, "but can't you see what's gonna happen here? You're gonna try to climb Tesereset by yourselves, and probably die trying, as is most likely without a guide, and then Old Shen's going to go back to Alkul with a load of your cash, and everyone's going to think that I've killed you, too! And it definitely won't be my fault, this time! This was meant to be the job that helped me get more work again! Not the one that secured my reputation as a murderer once and for all! There's no way I'm letting you go up Tesereset by yourselves! It's madness! It's suicide!"

"I assure you that we will be quite alright," said Nuthea. "Anyway, it is our business what we do here. You have fulfilled your end of the agreed bargain, so nothing further is required of you."

An idea came to Ryn. "That's right. And who says we want to climb all the way up the mountain? Don't worry about us. We'll be alright."

A medley of expressions passed over Shen's wrinkled face. He had clearly never encountered a situation like this before. After a while he said, "Well, you are a very odd traveling party… I've taken some weirdo groups up the mountain in my time, to be sure, but…three Dokanese, a young Surian girl and an Umbarian—you are an odd bunch. Your business about what you do here is your business, I sp'ose… But you're wrong about it being easier to come back than to get here."

"We just go down instead of up, right?" said Elrann.

"Sure, but it's just as difficult a trek in the snow, and you're just as liable to get lost…" He clicked his tongue, appearing to reach some kind of decision. "Alright, how's about this: I take my one-man tent and camp here, and you lot can go up it a bit and do whatever weird poodoo it is that you want to do on it—whatever strange Oneist rite or birdwatching party or whatever—and then when you're done, you come back down and meet me here again, and Old Shen will guide you back to Alkul. How does that sound? That way you get to stay alive, and I get to keep recovering my reputation."

Ryn looked briefly at the others.

Nuthea shrugged.

"Alright," she said. "It's a deal. Though don't expect us to come back quickly. We may be gone a good few days."

"Fair enough—as long as you do come back. And don't go too far. What is it you want to do up there, anyway?"

"That is our business," Ryn said, borrowing a line from Nuthea.

Shen scowled. "Well, just do me a favour, alright whippersnapper? Take care of yourselves and don't go too far up the mountain. Tesereset's not to be attempted without help. If you get to a slope that's too steep to climb safely, please just stop."

Ryn regarded Shen for a moment in surprise. As the old man had issued his admonition his voice and expression had become free of slur and slack for a moment, deadly serious.

"Don't worry," he said, "we will."

"Yeah," said Elrann, "trust us, we have as much intention of staying alive as you, if not more."

That seemed to pacify him, so with that they set off up the mountain.