“Drgnan!” Jasper said. “It is wonderful to see you! Even translucently!”
But the ghostly Drgnan Pghlik did not seem aware of Jasper. It simply turned and started pacing away up the mountain.
“It’s his astral form!” said Jasper, delighted. “He sent his astral form to guide us the last few miles.”
They scurried after the specter.
“Lily,” whispered Katie. “Do you realize what this means? You were right all along! Tlmp is the mountain with the pine forest—and we’re on it!”
Lily nodded. “Yeah,” she said, feeling a little better.*
“She’s right, Lily,” said Jasper, scrambling over a boulder. “If it hadn’t been for you, we’d be hours away. He never would have found us.”
“Can we throw stuff through him?” asked Katie. “I mean, safely?”
No one answered her; and soon, they were all too exhausted with the climb to speak. The ghostly figure led them along paths through the night. In some places, there were secret stairs that had been carved into the rock. He drifted forward on narrow rims of stone.
It grew colder. Very cold. Incredibly cold. Their breath came out in puffs.
Drgnan Pghlik walked without turning, seemingly without ever noticing their presence.
He led them through hollows of granite. They walked past cairns—piles of stones heaped on the top of cliffs. They passed old carvings: fanged faces, dancing gods.
A mist closed thickly around them. They were in the clouds. All they could see was Drgnan’s glow. They shined their flashlights up and down the narrow path. Though they could not see the impossible drop to one side of them, they could hear it. They could feel it in the booming wind.
Lily thought she had never been so tired. She tried to concentrate on every step—not on how far they had left to go or how far they had come. One foot in front of another.
Her back hurt. Her head was sore. She was getting a throat-ache. Her hands were numb.
Jasper skipped along as if nothing was difficult for him, as if the air weren’t condensing on them all as frost.
Through the night they climbed. It was a dark night, a night of haze and cold.
At around four o’clock, the mists began to clear.
They were climbing a long ridge of stone on all fours. Lily did not want the light to rise too quickly. She knew that she would see sheer drop-offs on either side of them. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to see how far she would fall if she slipped.
Snow blew across her face. She wiped it away, blowing her frozen bangs out of her eyes.
“Drgnan!” she heard Jasper call. “Drgnan? Where are you going?”
With the dawn, the specter was flickering out.
Drgnan Pghlik’s astral form turned once, his forlorn face finally beseeching them for help. Then he disappeared.
“Drgnan! You can’t leave us like this!” said Jasper. “Which way? Which way?”
Katie and Lily looked on in horror. But Jasper’s friend was gone.
With the dawn, a great wind arose. A huge fan of snow swept across them and dissipated.
“Look!” said Katie. “Look!”