The rest of the flight to the compound passed quickly, the scenery spectacular as the mountains rose around them. They had branched away from the Columbia when it met the Snake River, then had followed the Snake for just over an hour, before the canyon began to rise on either side. It was like two edges of a jagged cut in the flesh of the world. Now, Dhin was taking them up and up, until they rose up over the rim of a ledge in the eastern cliff face—a narrow flat space that had been paved and made into a secret compound.