The mountains emerged bit by bit from the mist like faraway specters, their massive feet still shrouded; they strode the horizon in silent and lumbering grace.  Cachi had awakened, groggy and listless, believing everything had been a long dream, but the first jounce of the cart forced him to reality.  Chuktik had saved his life—again—and he still didn’t know why.  The basajuan rode in the cart's front beside the driver, another of his kind, though far odder.  The road ahead was now arrow-straight, and plowed into the heart of the mountains ahead, heedless of the river’s twists and turns.  They now were so far from the banks Cachi wondered if they still followed its course.  Cachi pushed himself away from the sack of reddish-brown tubers and sat up.  He stretched and yawn...

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