Crossing the Great Mountains into Unauwen is a physical passage and a test of purpose: Tiuri reaches the realm he has been travelling toward, only to discover that the summit is halfway, not the end, of the crossing. With Piak guiding him through shifting mist and exposed mountain paths, the pass marks a change of country without ending the danger or the work ahead.

The Pass as a Threshold

Before the crossing, Tiuri and Piak wait at a sheltered stone for the visibility to improve. The Green Ledge is more exposed to wind and weather, so they eat bread while the mist moves across the landscape. After about half an hour the sun appears, pale but clear enough for them to set out. The pause is practical, but it also makes the mountain crossing a passage governed by conditions they cannot control: they must wait for the landscape to open before they can choose their way through it.

At the Green Ledge, two paths are visible, but Piak rejects both. One ends; the other goes in the right direction, yet their own route is one a pursuer will not find. The choice makes the crossing more than a matter of following a marked trail. Tiuri depends on Piak’s knowledge to move through the mountains while avoiding pursuit, and the safe route is precisely the one that cannot be read from the obvious alternatives.

The Summit and the Unfinished Journey

As the sun strengthens, the final climb becomes easier. At the top, Tiuri and Piak look into Unauwen. Tiuri sees ridge after ridge fading into haze and can only guess at the lowland beyond them. The view gives him the first sight of his destination, but corrects any expectation that arrival is close: they have crossed only half the distance over the mountains.

Snow-covered slopes and peaks shine around them in the sun, yet the beauty of the height does not make the descent easy. Tiuri had felt at the pass that the difficulties were behind him; instead, the terrain remains harsh and wild. It is less cold because the east wind no longer reaches them, but the mountain slopes soon hide what little of Unauwen they could see. The crossing therefore offers no single, triumphant arrival. The land is glimpsed, lost from view, and still has to be reached by continuing onward.

Entry into Unauwen

After passing the mountain pass, Tiuri realizes that he is now in Unauwen. Taki confirms it, while acknowledging that some people say the Great Mountain Range belongs to no ruler. He considers Unauwen his king. The exchange gives the threshold a political dimension: the pass separates territories, but the mountains themselves are not universally understood as belonging to either side. Tiuri’s entry is clear to him and to Taki, even as sovereignty over the range remains disputed.

The Crossing and Tiuri’s Trial

The passage recalls the discipline expected of a future knight in Dagonaut. Before their knighting, candidates must fast for twenty-four hours and keep an entire night’s vigil in a small chapel outside the city walls. Their swords lie before the altar; dressed in white, they reflect on their task and commit themselves to loyalty, honesty, helpfulness, and the struggle for what is good. They must neither sleep nor speak, and are collected by other knights at seven in the morning. Against that formal test, Tiuri’s mountain journey becomes another kind of trial: not a ceremony, but a sequence of choices and hardships undertaken in service of his promise.

Later, King Dagonaut explains that Tiuri has fulfilled his mission and kept his promise to the knight Edwinem. Had Tiuri refused the request for help, he would have been knighted in the ordinary way; by accepting it, he showed that he was already a knight in conduct. The king then performs the formal accolade. The mountain crossing does not itself complete Tiuri’s journey or confer that status, but it belongs to the chain of actions that makes the king’s judgment possible: Tiuri enters Unauwen still far from his goal, and continues the mission that will prove what the ceremony is meant to recognize.