Step by step they climbed further up, bumping their ice cold sandalled feet against stones in the snow, and ever so often were forced to make detours around treacherous fissures in the rock. For two days they had eaten nothing but a few green leaves. There were no leaves here. Instead, there was snow against the thirst. - "Hold back. Too cold", Aisasara mumbled. At least, the minister seemed to know her way and expressed confidence in reaching their goal.

In the afternoon they hit on a narrow trail. From there, the climb was less dangerous, but turned steeper and steeper, and finally, ascending slowly, step by step, shortly after sunset they reached the huge dark southward eye of the holy mountain.

The eye was a wide open grotto. But it was not all dark. On one side, there was - Areus noticed only now, though it must have been visible from afar - a palace fitted into the rock, a real palace, complete with three floors, carmine pillars, rows of windows, terraces and crowned with horns of consecreation. This building certainly was smaller than the Palace of Pillars in Soleway, which - as Areus knew by now - wasn't really a palace but a trading station. But here, in this icy altitude, reachable only via a dizzying rock-climbing trail, glued into the grotto, this palace appeared like an open provocation against the divine powers of nature.

Doors and windows were barred with planks, and thin smoke escaped from the roof into the cavity of the grotto.