The train rolled through a shallow valley whose sides curved mildly up. Sheep grazed its grasses. Beside the tracks, a considerable river surged and roiled, the color of clear tea.
The train was mostly ore cars, full of reddish earth and stone, but behind the engine was a single coach, such as might take bachelor miners to town for the weekend. This, however, was Threeday.
There was no long plume of coal smoke trailing behind, snowing acid soot, for this train rode an electrified track. Thus the coach wore a pair of cupolas, with seats for those who wished to watch. Coyn Carrmak sat absorbing the scenery. Behind the train, the late sun lowered in the rounded notch that was the valley. Ahead, the ground disappeared into a much sharper, deeper notch—the fjord.
They rolled into it, and the grade steepened. To the side, the valley walls had become emerald green scarps, with dark wedges and strips of trees. The stream no longer flowed. It leaped, foamed, plunged toward the hydroelectric plant, dropping far more steeply than the tracks. Afternoon was left behind, replaced by false evening born of shadow, the shadow of the walls themselves.
A few miles ahead and a thousand feet lower, Carrmak could see larger water, Deep Fjord, with its harbor and nitrates plant.
And unless something had gone wrong, a ship from The Archipelago that would carry him and his forty troopers to Linnasteth, unarmed. Their weapons there would be their minds and tongues.