"Which is why I didn't do it.  There was no way I could see to do it - not until you showed up.  Get some intelligence on the inner workings of the castle, find some weak points, maybe figure a way to isolate Blackvayne in a situation to my advantage," he said, then trailed off.  "I think you've got it in one.  If I killed him, there'd be another mountain to climb, this one taller and steeper and colder than the last, and a mountain after that, and after that.  Assuming that I didn't come back one day and find that they'd made me a real exile, or find some way to do me in.  Or maybe I'm just paranoid and they're desperate.  They are hoping that I'll do the miracle and they won't have to worry about it anymore, and I'd kill him and be a hero, and they'd give me a pony and a pretty girl and a house made of gingerbread.  Or maybe there's a traitor, or something else I don't know anything about."<br/><br/>He winced a little when she said they were alike.  "No reason to be mean, Vara.  Just when I was starting to like more than looking at your ass when you ran.  But, in the end, isn't the best way one of can die is in service to our higher cause?  That's what we're for, whomever we work for."<br/><br/>The land was getting rocky, the trees were getting strange.  Their back was black and it oozed a thick, reddish sap that glistened like fresh blood.  The trees were evergreens, though their trunks twisted in curls that weren't natural, and the boughs were covered with a heavy layer of frost.  They were gaining elevation quickly, hills rising up on either side, soon to become mountains.<br/><br/>"We get to the other side of Iron Cross Pass and there's a valley.  It used to be a city, it's a wasteland, but there is this old, I dunno, tower?  Something like that, I don't know what it was used for, but it's on a ridge above the worst of the destruction.  It's made of concrete and protected from the atomic spirits, though.  There's food and water inside that I put there against a rainy day, and this feels like rain to me."