It was a perilous journey they made by the light of the waning moon, stumbling and skidding over frozen, frost-rimed ground. As they ascended the mountainside, their way grew rougher, more broken, until they were picking a path between rocks and boulders streaked with glistening trails of ice. Lydryth led the way, her strides quick and impatient despite the poor footing. She gasped when a stone turned beneath her heel; only her companion’s quick grasp on her arm saved her from a precipitous fall. “Slowly,” he cautioned. “But the moon’s light will soon be gone...”
“True, but if by moonset we are all resting at the bottom of yon gorge with broken necks, it will matter but little to us whether it shines or not.” Monso snorted, as if in agreement. “Perhaps we should stop,” Alon suggested, surveying the rugged path before them. “We could wait for daylight.”
“No,” she replied. “Without the moon’s glow to guide us, we will never find that beacon. It does not shine by the sun’s light, I am certain of that. Can you see in the dark?” she asked, remembering that her mother had always been able to do so, claiming that the ability was held by many with the kinship of Power.
“Not as well as Monso,” he said. “But perhaps better than you can.”
“Then you lead.”
Slowly, he edged past her on the narrow ledge. “Hook your fingers in my belt,” he instructed.
Lydryth obeyed. “Hurry, Alon!”
As they went on, an overhanging thrust of rock darkened their path even further. The songsmith clung to her companion’s belt, prepared to follow blindly, but she heard the Adept mutter beneath his breath; then light shone from his right hand, each finger outlined in the white-violet glow. Spreading his fingers, he held them palm-down, so the light illuminated the path beneath their feet.
How long can he maintain that? she wondered worriedly. Will keeping such a spell going draw so much energy from him that he cannot complete our climb? Should we stop and try again on the morrow? The moon will rise again...
She nearly voiced her concerns aloud, but then she shook her head and remained silent. Lydryth could not explain the urgency building within her, but it drove her across the mountain’s flank with grim purpose. The high-pitched notes reverberated inside her head with a siren summons, making chills not born of the cold trace themselves down her spine. Alon, by his own admission, could not hear them.
But it was clear that Monso could. The Keplian pricked his ears and turned his head with each uncanny repetition.
The songsmith narrowed her eyes, using her gryphon-headed staff to test each step before trusting her full weight to the treacherous path. Slowly, the travelers picked their way r across the loose rocks of the final slope. Finally, gasping and shivering, they halted, staring up at their destination. It was close, but to attain the ledge from whence the glow emanated, they would have to scramble up a trail so steep that it made the songsmith’s head swim to contemplate it.
“How can we climb that?” she asked, despairingly.
“Monso can,” Alon said after a moment. “Grab hold of the stirrup; use it to steady yourself.” He took up position on the other side of the Keplian. “Ready?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied, her mouth dry from fear and anticipation.
“Monso, hup!” Alon cried, and the black surged forward, scrambling, powerful hindquarters thrusting, steel-shod forehooves clawing a purchase in the crusted, frozen earth. Lydryth launched herself beside the Keplian, endeavoring not to drag the creature off balance. Using her quarterstaff, she pulled herself up, the frigid air tearing her throat with each sobbing breath.
With a final gasp and heave, the three travelers were over the side of the ledge.
The feeble moonlight shone down full upon a huge sheet of crystal embedded in the mountainside. Lydryth stared at it, so exhausted that she could do naught but gasp, the air stabbing her lungs. She leaned against Monso’s heaving side, feeling her knees buckle. Finally her legs steadied; only then was she able to walk over to gaze into the reflective surface.
“What is it?” she whispered, feeling a strange reluctance to speak aloud.
“A thing of Power,” Alon said, coming up behind her, his voice equally quiet. Their own outlines swam before them, eerily limned by the moonglow. “For some reason we have been summoned here ... by what power or agency I cannot guess.”
“The moon is so bright on the crystal,” Lydryth breathed, “that surely this thing is of the Light.”
“I believe so,” her companion agreed. “But often Light and Dark are balanced precariously in this world ... and many things of the Light have their Dark shadows.”
“What do you-,” the songsmith began, only to break off as a cloud eclipsed the moon, and their own reflections dissolved like snowflakes encountering water. But the crystal surface did not stay blank; rather, it glowed darkly, as though a fire made from shadows had been kindled within it. Shapes slowly coalesced into recognizability ... a large, rocky cave, its walls sheeted with water that glinted dully in the light of a single torch that smoldered sullenly.
“What... what are we seeing?” Lydryth cried.
“I cannot be sure,” Alon said, “but I think this ... mirror ... is actually a Gate, one of those that lead to other places- perhaps even other worlds. We are seeing what lies on the other side of this Gate, I believe.”
The songsmith caught her breath sharply, for even as Alon finished speaking, a figure shuffled into view, leaning on a short walking staff, and stood silhouetted against the dark mouth of the cave. At first they could make out nothing except that it was alive, and human, for the light was so wan and its clothing so shapeless and drab that age or features-even its sex-were impossible to discern.
It stopped; then they heard its voice, low and commanding, causing the first torch to flare into life and causing another to ignite with a reluctant sputter.
Lydryth squinted against the sudden light. In a moment her eyes adjusted and she could see again. The newcomer was a woman, clothed in a tattered grey hooded robe. Her features were shadowed by her hood, but from the appearance of her hands, and the presence of the walking staff, the songsmith thought she must be well past middle years. But she moved spryly enough as she bustled around the cave, humming tunelessly as she set out candles, then traced a design upon the stony floor with a wand she produced from her sleeve.
The lines she drew glowed blue as they formed a distinct shape. “A pentagram,” Lydryth breathed, recognizing the age-old symbol that was prerequisite to a spell of summoning. “Is she a witch of Estcarp?”
“She wears no jewel,” Alon pointed out, “but the color of her Power is correct. The witches deal in theurgy, the harnessing of will, faith and emotion to work their magic. Blue is the color of theurgy.”
The woman stared at her pentagram, gave a satisfied nod, then raised a hand. The dark candles she had placed at the points of the star-shape burst into flame. She stepped out of her watchers’ line of vision for a moment, but soon returned, carrying a net that writhed as the creature tangled within struggled vainly to escape, uttering small, piercing shrieks of fear.
Beside her, Alon stiffened with horrified recognition. “A Flannan!” he whispered.
Lydryth had heard of the small creatures that could take on the guise of either bird or small, winged mannikin. In Arvon and High Hallack they were naught more than legend, but the people of Estcarp told of how they had been seen in Escore near Dahaun’s Valley of the Green Silences.
Flannan made flighty, unreliable allies, due to their capricious nature, but never had they been allied with the Dark. Snapping out a few short words that made Alon draw in his breath with a hiss, the woman thrust her hand into the net bag. Then the witch (for so Lydryth now thought other) withdrew the small creature, clutching the Flannan by the scruff of its scrawny neck. It was not in its bird-form ... its body bore arms and legs in addition to the wings that trailed limply down its back. The creature halted its struggles and now dangled bonelessly from the woman’s hand, either drugged or bespelled into calmness.
The songsmith watched in shock as the witch reached into a sheath at her belt and withdrew a black-hilted athame. “No!” Lydryth whispered, in an agony of helplessness. She grasped Alon’s arm, her fingers digging in painfully as the woman brought the blade up to the Flannan’s throat, and, with a quick, ruthless thrust, pricked it deeply. Red flowed in a steady stream.
Lydryth had seen death dealt before, but always in clean and open battle-never like this. She pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle a cry, as the witch, chanting softly, began to encircle the pentagram, dribbling the weakly spasming Flannan’s blood onto the stone floor of the cave.
As the blood of the dying creature congealed upon the cold rock, the blue light darkened, taking on a sickly purplish tinge. The yellow flames atop the dark candles blackened, until they were the same color as the wax. As she neared the end of her obscene task, grasping the limp and now plainly dead mannikin, the witch’s chanting grew louder.
“What is she doing?” Lydryth whispered, fighting the urge to cower, hands over her ears, to shut out the sound. The witch’s chanting was growing physically painful to hear.
“Some kind of summoning,” Alon replied in a strained whisper. Lydryth glanced at his face in the moonlight and saw that he looked as sickened as she felt. “And a powerful one. She is invoking the Name of one of the most deadly of the Dark Adepts.”
Circle complete, the witch’s voice rose still higher as she gestured with her wand, raising her arms so high that her sleeves fell back from her flabby flesh and bony wrists. A blackish purple mist coiled upward out of the circle, hiding the pentagram from their view.
With a last, high-pitched cry of triumph, a sound that made Lydryth gasp and clap her hands over her ears, the witch fell silent. For long moments she stood poised; then she began to laugh delightedly. The skin at the back of the girl’s neck crawled as though leeches had fastened there.
Within the smoky confines of the circle, trapped by the protective boundaries of the pentagram, something now moved, at first slowly, then thrashing wildly in frantic struggles. A deep male voice cried out in fear, then cursed foully.
Flashes of Power crackled within the boundary cast by the circle-spell. Power that bore the dark purple hue of the Shadow. With a low, crooning sound, the witch stretched out her arms toward the circle, and the lines of Power arced toward her, encircled her wrists, then flowed up her arms, writhing like serpents formed from the essence of the Darkness. They crossed the witch’s breast, met over her heart, then pulsed, as though pumping their substance into her body. She gasped, transfixed with pain or pleasure, it was impossible to tell which.
But there was no doubt about the reaction of that dimly seen figure trapped within the circle. The man screamed in agony, as those lines of Power pulsed, feeding themselves into the witch. The prisoner’s shriek rose higher and higher-abruptly, there was silence. The lines of Power disappeared into the witch’s body, and slowly the mist faded away.
Lydryth saw that a man now stood within the pentagram, a tall man with a haughty, handsome face that bore the unmistakable stamp of the Old Race. He could have been Alon’s father, or older brother, for the resemblance between them was strong. The stranger was wearing a hunter’s or forester’s garb ... short cloak, leather jerkin, brown breeches and high, soft boots. An ornate jeweled dagger hung at his belt, and a more businesslike short sword rode his hip.
As the last wisps of mist vanished, he stared at the woman who fronted him in the darkened cave with horrified realization distorting his well-cut features.
“My Power-,” he began in a choked voice.
“Is now mine, Lord Dinzil!” the witch crowed exultantly.
“But ... why?” he asked dazedly.
The woman’s features were still shadowed from Lydryth’s view, but her voice bore a cruel smile. “You are a male, and for a male to have sorcerous abilities is a thing against nature.” Her head lifted proudly. “Women are the only rightful vessels of Power. I lost most of mine, many years ago, but now ...” She flexed her fingers and purple light outlined them for a moment. “... what I lost, I have regained ... aye, all that, and more ... more!” -
“Dinzil!” Alon whispered softly. “I should have known...”
“Who is he?” Lydryth asked, glancing up at him.
Her companion shook his head. “Later.”
Suddenly the Dark Adept gave a low moan of distress and staggered. He put one hand to his head, then pulled it away with a cry of dismay, the fingers splayed widely. Lydryth could clearly make out the prominent veining and mottled skin of the elderly. As she watched, they crooked suddenly with the painful joint-rheum suffered by the aged. The Adept’s features took on years as dry bread soaks up broth. Lines scored his cheeks; silver frosted his black hair. “My Power ... ,” the sorcerer whispered, “my Power ...”
“Was all that was keeping you young, I fear, my lord,” the witch told him calmly. “Now that it is gone, your years will come upon you ... and those years are many, are they not?”
Dinzil did not answer her. Shudders racked his tall body, and with each spasm he seemed to shrink and wither apace. His hair grew white and sparse, wisping around a face that now resembled aged parchment crumpled by a careless hand. Then his lips parted in a gasp of agony and teeth cascaded out, rattling down onto the stone at his feet. Dinzil held out a now-withered claw to the witch, and they heard a voice, no longer strong and resonant, but shrill and breathless emerge from his near-toothless mouth. “I would curse you if I still could, witchwoman ... curse you with my last breath.”
The witch laughed.
“Ah, yes,” the ancient man that had been Dinzil, the Dark Adept, wheezed, “laugh while you may, witchwoman. But even if my ill wishes have no teeth left to rend you, still you will find yourself cursed. The Left-Hand Path is a most demanding one. The Dark levies a heavy price on the spirits of its servants. You will realize before you die exactly what you have called into yourself, and therein lies my curse. May it fall soon!”
“ You are the one who should worry about death, my lord,” the witch mocked him. She raised a hand to push back her hood a little, and they saw that it had changed, was now firm-fleshed and slender. A lock of hair escaped from beneath the loosened hood, and that hair was now sable, as Dinzil’s had been.
With a careless wave the witch caused the candles to snuff out; then she indicated the cave mouth. “And now, our business is done, my lord. You are no longer welcome here, so may I suggest that you take your leave? You will find the land without this cave to be a familiar one, I daresay... though the inhabitants hereabouts have little reason to love you, I believe.”
With a courage and dignity that Lydryth had to admire, Dark Adept or no, Dinzil drew himself up as straight as he might, then tottered feebly toward the entrance. “Here, you will doubtless need this, grandsire,” the witch said mockingly, handing him the walking staff that had been hers. For a moment Lydryth thought that he would fling the stick at his tormentor, but he did not speak or look back.
The witch quickly eradicated the traces of her spell with her wand; then she picked up a pack from the comer and slung it over her shoulder. “And now,” she muttered, “to essay that mirror.”
She turned to face her watchers, and for the first time they were able to discern her features clearly. Lydryth saw that she was plainly of the Old Race, a woman of early middle years, with strong, boldly marked features that were too thin and driven to hold any beauty.
Just then the songsmith heard Alon’s soft gasp of recognition. “Yachne!” he whispered. “How-why-“
Lydryth’s mouth dropped open. The Wise Woman who had taught him his first magic! Was it indeed she on the other side of this arcane mirror-portal, engaged in a Dark rite? She remembered Alon’s face as he’d spoken of her, remembered his words: “But I never wanted to be a dagger for her honing.”
The woman walked toward them, raised her wand, then muttered a few words. A purple glow awoke within the depths of the crystal mirror, painting her features with a sickly light. As she stared into her side of the crystal, her eyes abruptly widened. For the first time, she was aware of her watchers.
“Who-,” she began; then she broke off, her gaze holding Alon’s. “Why, it is my young charge, all grown up,” she said after a moment, then smiled in a fashion that made Lydryth put hand to the hilt of the sword resting within her quarterstaff.
“Young Alon, well-met, well-met indeed! I was planning to seek you out, though perhaps not so soon. There are others I must visit first, before I will be ready to take on one who apprenticed with Hilarion.”
“You know-“ Alon broke off even before Lydryth could nudge him to silence. Power this woman might have, knowledge, also, no doubt, but they did not need to give her aught that she did not already know.
“Oh, I know... I know much, my fine young Adept. Much more than I did even a half-hour ago, as you no doubt witnessed. How did you happen by, Alon? Chance? That seems unlikely. Well, perhaps you were drawn by my spelling. After all, Power does call to Power, does it not?”
Alon remained silent, and the witch, for the first time, turned her attention to Lydryth. “And who is your fair companion, Alon? Your bride? Or is she something less... formal, perhaps? Your leman?”
The songsmith had heard battle-taunts before, and did not allow her face to change at Yachne’s insult, but Alon stepped forward with an angry imprecation.
“No, Alon,” Lydryth said, softly, catching his arm, “that’s what she wants.”
“Perceptive girl,” the witch said, amused. There was a wild glitter in her eyes that Lydryth thought was not wholly due to the purple glow from her side of the crystal. The younger woman swallowed, suddenly more frightened than she had been all night.
“And what symbol it is that you bear on that staff of yours?” Yachne asked, her eyes narrowing with speculation. A moment later, she gave a shout of laughter. “Oh, very good! Very good indeed! The gryphon-lord! Landisl’s vessel, Kerovan himself, gave that to you, did he not? Perhaps ... yes, I shall visit him next!”
“Visit him for what?” Lydryth demanded, mostly to stall for time, for she had a sick feeling that she already knew whereof the witch spoke.
“I must visit them all, my dear,” Yachne said, in a mock-confiding tone. “All the abominations, all the unnatural creatures that possess Power without any right to it. Males!” She spat. “They hold my sisters in bondage, subject to their disgusting lusts, their violence and greed. There are enough males with undeserved Power to make me the most powerful sorceress this world has ever seen. Lord Kerovan, that disgusting half-blooded monster, shall indeed be next...”
A face appeared before them, one that Lydryth knew well, black-haired, with amber eyes that were slitted of pupil, like unto a goat’s. “And also his son, Firdun.” The image in the crystal altered to that of Lydryth’s foster-brother. “He is young, but they told me that he will be one of the Seven, so he must be taken care of...”
“Who is ‘they’? And what are ‘the Seven’?” Alon broke in, sharply, but Yachne ignored him. Her eyes were half-closed as she dreamily regarded the images she was conjuring. “And of course I must not forget Simon Tregarth, and his unnatural whelps...” Three strongly marked faces, one older, the next two so alike in age and feature they could only be brothers, appeared in turn.
“And then you, my dear young Alon, I am afraid that you must be next...” Alon’s own features glimmered before them. “I will be quick, my dear, so fear not. You will not suffer, that I promise. And if you wish, I shall let you remain alive, so you can be with your young lady, here.” She smiled at him gently. “Perhaps you could take up farming, since you will no longer be fitted for a life as a sorcerer!”
“You’re mad,” Alon said softly, and, for the first time since they had met, Lydryth heard fear in his voice.
“Certainly not!” she glared at him, shaken out of her reverie. “I have thought it through most carefully. The strongest of the abominations is Hilarion himself, and I shall need all of your combined Power before I can best him.”
A last image formed on the crystal surface, that of a man who was still barely past youth in feature, but whose eyes bore the wisdom-much of it sad-of ages past.
“Yachne,” Alon said, and Lydryth could tell that he was fighting to keep his voice even, “where did you learn that spell? When I knew you-before-you did not possess such abilities.”
She smiled at him. “My abilities were not something you could measure, my dear. But you have the right of it... I did not know this spell until they taught it to me.”
“Who?” he prodded.
But abruptly her urge to confide vanished, and she shook her head, her eyes as bright and cunning as those of a rasti run mad. “No, I think not, young Alon. That you must discover for yourself-if you dare. And now-“ Her hand moved quickly over the surface of the crystal, and she chanted softly beneath her breath. “-I bid you farewell...”
As the last syllable left her lips, she strode toward them. Lydryth gasped with terror. Fighting she knew, either with fists or steel, but Yachne was something far outside her experience, and instinct made her recoil. She ducked behind Alon, despising herself for such cowardice but unable to control her reaction.
When she dared to look again, expecting to find the witch before them on the ledge, there was only the view of the empty stone cave. “But... where did she go?” she asked, in blank astonishment. “I thought she would step through and be here.”
“She activated her side of the crystal,” Alon said absently, standing before the mirrored surface and studying it, head tilted to one side. “She went through it, to somewhere else. Probably to seek out this Kerovan she spoke of.”
“Kerovan! No ... oh, no!” Lydryth buried her face in her hands, trying by force of will to control her panic. Finally she was able to raise her head and say, tersely, “Do you remember my telling you of the lord and lady who raised me after my mother vanished and my father was mind-blasted? That was Lord Kerovan and his lady, Joisan! Alon, we must stop Yachne!”
“If she has all of Dinzil’s abilities, she will make a formidable opponent,” he said bleakly.
“Who is-or, rather, was-this Dinzil?”
“The strongest of the Dark Adepts from the days when Escore lay under the lash of the Shadow,” he told her. “He kidnapped and nearly seduced Kaththea, my foster-mother, when she was but a maid. Seduced her, not in body, but in mind, so she turned from her family, and the Light, to the Darkness. It was only by the courage of her brother, Kemoc, who dared to enter the Dark Tower and seek her out, that she was saved. Dinzil disappeared after his forces were defeated. We always suspected that he had passed through some Gate of his own devising.”
“Until Yachne summoned him.”
“Yes. This Kerovan, he is a sorcerer also?”
“Kerovan has, in the past, wielded the magic of the ancient gryphon-lord, Landisi,” Lydryth said. “But he cannot rely upon Landisl’s Power. He has abilities of his own, true, but whether they would prove enough to best one like Yachne...” She shuddered. “She is mad, Alon.”
“Yes.”
“If we cannot stop her, we must at least warn Kerovan of his danger!”
“I agree,” Alon said. “But for us to essay this Gate will take some doing. I have never opened one before.”
“Did Hilarion teach you to do so?”
“He taught me the principles involved. But he warned me against such an action, reminding me of the time that he opened a Gate, entered another world, then found himself trapped and enslaved for thousands of our years.”
Lydryth remembered that Alon had mentioned such before, and bit her lip. “But to be able to step from one place to another-one land to another, in a single heartbeat-we must chance it! We have no hope of catching her, else.”
“I know,” he said heavily. “Let me study how this can be accomplished, while you pack our gear and prepare as hearty as a meal as possible. Using the Power drains the energy ... food will offset that loss by a small measure.”
Lydryth nodded, and, in the grey light of predawn, went to do as he bade. She found that she was too upset to have much appetite, but forced herself to eat, not knowing when they would have the chance again. Alon chewed and swallowed mechanically, never taking his eyes from the portal, occasionally muttering snatches of arcane words beneath his breath, as if trying them out.
“Lydryth,” he said, as the sun’s rising flushed the snowcapped peaks that towered above them to the east with crimson, “lend me that talisman you bear, please.”
“Talisman ... ,” she repeated uncertainly; then, following his gaze, she drew her gryphon-hiked sword with its two bits of quan-iron embedded for eyes. “Here.”
“There are ways and ways to open Gates,” the young Adept said, “but since this one is made of crystal, I believe that it may be activated by sound. Crystals give off musical notes when struck.” So saying, he tapped the center of the mirrored surface with the gryphon’s head. A clear, ringing tone filled the air-a note holding some of the same eerieness as the faintly heard sound that had awakened the songsmith last night.
“Mmmmmmm ... ,” Alon sang, trying, without notable success, to match that tone. Not only was his voice too deep, his sense of pitch and key were far off the mark. He frowned, then turned to his companion. “My lady, can you sing that note?”
“It is high,” she said, consideringly, “and I am an alto. But perhaps ... Strike it again, please.”
He did so, and Lydryth raised her voice. She fell far short. of her goal. “I have not sung in days,” she said, “but perhaps if I warm up ...”
“Try,” he urged.
The songsmith attempted several scales, and then, in a few minutes, when her throat improved, sang several songs to exercise her range. Alon grinned as she finished with “The One-Spell Wizard.”
“Let us hope that I have more than one spell to my name,” he said dryly.
“Strike the crystal again,” the bard ordered, and when he did so, her voice soared up, matching the note perfectly.
As Lydryth’s voice hung in the air, the crystal glowed violet, bathing Alon’s face and hands in its light. Something flashed outward from its surface, and he exclaimed with surprise to find himself holding a perfectly formed crystal, clear on one end, amethyst on the other. And yet, Lydryth realized with amazement, as she let the sound die away, the surface of the mirror remained unmarred!
“What is it?” she asked, as he examined the mirror’s gift, holding it up to the sunlight so that it made prisms across his features.
“Our key for unlocking this Gate,” he said. “I only hope it works. Monso!” he called, and the Keplian, snorting warily, came over to him.
Alon reached out and caught the creature’s long, thick forelock, then quickly began twisting and twining the horsehair around the crystal to anchor it against the stallion’s forehead. “What are you doing?” Lydryth asked curiously.
“I won’t leave Monso behind,” he said. “We will need him, if we are to catch up with Yachne, who is traveling afoot.”
Finally he was done, and the mirror’s gift rested within a little bag twined from horsehair that hung between Monso’s eyes. Alon then swung up into the saddle, offering a hand to the songsmith. He still held her quarterstaff in his right hand.
“When I sound the note,” he instructed, “you must sing it, holding it as long as possible-no matter what you may see or feel, do not, I entreat you, stop, or all our lives may be forfeit!”
“I understand,” she said steadily.
Urging Monso forward with his legs, Alon reached out toward the mirror. But the Keplian shied back from the strange surface, snorting. “Easy, easy lad,” he soothed the beast. “I know that this is passing strange, but you must stand steady while I strike!”
Twice more did Alon urge the stallion forward, only to have him shy away at the last moment. “Monso!” Alon commanded, a commanding ring to his voice. “Get hup!”
The half-bred took a final reluctant step forward, to stand so close to the crystal surface that his breath misted across it like a cloud. Alon struck the surface with the gryphon’s head, and Lydryth matched the tone and held it-
held it-
then saw before her the mirror’s surface change, glow, as it became misty ... translucent. “Go!” yelled Alon, bending down and slapping the stallion’s neck hard.
With a startled grunt the Keplian surged forward, his sudden leap nearly unseating Lydryth. Almost her voice faltered, but she forced herself not to waver.
Before her the Keplian’s forehooves disappeared into the amethyst smoke, then his muzzle, neck, shoulders... Lydryth closed her eyes as the mist struck her face, bringing with it a vast dizziness and disorientation.
But she held the note steady, despite it all, and a moment later felt beneath her the shock of Monso’s hooves striking solid rock.
They were in the witch’s cavern.
With a sobbing breath, the songsmith finally relinquished the crystal’s note, and gazed around her in despair. “Where are we? I thought we would go where Yachne went!”
Alon turned Monso, careful of the surrounding stone walls, to gaze at the mirror within the cavern. “To do that, we must go through that mirror,” he said, sounding so exhausted that Lydryth wondered how he managed to sit upright upon the Keplian.
“Then let us go!” she urged.
He shook his head grimly. “At the moment, I do not believe that would be the wisest course,” he said quietly.
“Whyever not?” she demanded, wanting to shake him in her impatience to warn her foster-father of his danger. “We must save Kerovan! We can’t afford to waste time!”
“Do not forget that she is walking, while we will be riding,” he reminded her. “And after such a major feat of sorcery as opening not one, but two Gates, I feel sure that Yachne must needs rest for today.” Alon sighed wearily. “But, my lady, those are not my two most pressing reasons for wanting to wait.”
“Then what are they?”
“This is the first,” Alon said, and, dropping Monso’s reins, made a pass through the air with the quarterstaff and muttered beneath his breath. He was using, Lydryth thought, the same words as Yachne had voiced.
Obediently the mirror came to life, glowing with a sickly blackish-purple radiance that made Lydryth turn her head away with a cry of dismay. “This mirror represents the Darkside of the moon-crystal we leaped through. For us to use it to get to Arvon may be exceedingly dangerous.”
“To our spirits,” the songsmith agreed, through stiff lips. Seeing that eerie phosphorescent glow, she could well believe that he spoke truth. “Even so.”
“But Alon, we will have to risk it! Arvon is hundreds of leagues away, across the sea! We could never track Yachne in time, otherwise!”
“You may have the right of it,” he agreed. “But do not forget that there is a second reason not to go immediately...”
“Which is?” she asked, conscious suddenly of a great tiredness in her own body. It seemed all she could do to hold on to Alon’s belt.
“I will show you.” He reined Monso around and walked the Keplian out of the mouth of the cave, down a rocky trail, until they rounded a bend and stood upon a mountainside.
The sun was rising against the eastern horizon, with no mountains to block its rays. Alon indicated the surrounding countryside. “We are in Escore, my lady. If I am not mistaken, where we sit is not more than a half-day’s ride from the Valley of the Green Silences.”
“Dahaun’s Valley!” Lydryth said, remembering their discussion with Nolar and Duratan. “The place of healing!”
“Yes. I have known about that Valley since I was a youth, of course, but I could not reveal my knowledge of such without giving myself away to you,” he said ruefully. “So I made shift to ‘discover’ that scroll in Nolar’s study.”
“When all the time you knew!” she said, giving him a mock glare. “But is it true? Can the Lady Dahaun heal my father?”
“I cannot be sure. On one edge of the Valley lies a place of healing. There are pools of a red mud there that can overcome any injury or sickness. Death, if a victim can but reach that spot, has no power there. Whether Dahaun’s red mud will work on an injury of the mind ...” He shrugged. “I know not.”
“But Kerovan ... Yachne...” She made a helpless gesture. “She will destroy him if we do not stop her!”
“Are you prepared to give up your quest, sacrifice your father’s chance to be healed in order to save this Lord Kerovan?”
Lydryth stared bleakly out over the rolling green hills of
Escore, feeling as though her heart had been ruthlessly seized by unseen hands and was being pulled apart within her breast. Blessed Gunnora, what shall I do? I cannot choose between one and the other! I cannot! Amber Lady, help me!
“I cannot choose between them,” Lydryth said numbly. She gave him a despairing glance. “No one could make such a choice!”
“No one should have to,” Alon agreed. “And I believe that there exists a way to save both of them. If we can reach the Valley of the Green Silences today, we can collect some of Dahaun’s healing mud to carry with us, then go back through the gate tomorrow. With Monso’s speed, we should be able to catch Yachne before she can harm your Kerovan.”
“We do not know how much of Arvon she may have to cross before she reaches Kar Garudwyn,” Lydryth said.
“She may not have to travel there,” Alon warned. “I think it more likely that she will seek out a place of the Shadow and work a summoning spell to draw him to her, as she did with Dinzil.”
“Arvon has many such places,” Lydryth whispered. “It is a gamble, Alon. If we are wrong, Kerovan’s life may well be forfeit, and Yachne may well have such Power as to be nigh invincible.”
“It is a gamble, yes,” he agreed. “But I cannot leave Escore without warning my people. They are in terrible danger, too, never forget.”
“Will the valley dwellers be able to carry the message to those the witch plans to harm?”
“Yes. Dahaun has birds that she trains to bear messages to Es City and all the different places in Escore, in case of any troubling in the land. Also, Kyllan is mind-linked with his brother, Kemoc, and his sister, Kaththea, and so may be able to warn them that way.”
Lydryth straightened, feeling the muscles in her back and neck ache with the movement. “Let us go, then. We have no time to lose.”
Alon nudged Monso with his heels and the Keplian began picking his way down the mountain slope. It was fortunate that the Gate on this side of the mountain range had deposited them far lower in the craggy heights than the one they had leaped through in Estcarp. Before they had gone a mile, they struck on a winding game trail that led downward to rolling hills. As they traveled, the songsmith kept a sharp lookout for any trace of Dinzil, but the suddenly aged sorcerer was nowhere to be seen.
Their last descent was a particularly precipitous scramble down a steep and muddy path, and, when they had negotiated it safely, Alon drew rein to allow Monso to breathe. Lydryth gazed around her, seeing no sign of anything living save a herd of pronghorns grazing on the spring turf of the next hillside. “What do you think happened to Dinzil?” she asked.
Alon hooked a leg up over the pommel of the saddle and turned sideways so he could regard her. “I do not believe that one such as Dinzil could face living as an ordinary man. If he truly was bereft of all his power, then I would wager that he lies now at the bottom of some cliff, free from his weak and aged body.”
The songsmith nodded. “You are probably-“
She broke off with a startled cry, ducking as something black suddenly dived at them from the sky above. The creature gave a piercing scream as it glided by, turning toward them again, and Lydryth recognized the white V on its breast. “Steel Talon!” she cried. “He found us!”
Alon held out his arm, bracing himself, and, with another screech, the bird landed on that improvised perch. The Adept winced as the creature’s talons dug into the leather of his sleeve. The falcon regarded each of the humans, first with one golden eye, then, cocking its head, with the other. Steel Talon cried out again, his wickedly hooked bill seeming suddenly far too close to Lydryth’s eyes.
“We forgot him,” she said, guiltily. “He is angry with us.”
“I did not forget him,” Alon said, as much to the falcon as to her. “I knew he would find us. He has been with me long enough so that he can sense my mind, even though I am not a Falconer. Those warriors can truly communicate mind-to-mind with their birds, but it does not require close contact for the bird simply to sense my whereabouts.”
Lydryth spoke to the falcon as though the bird could understand her. “Winged warrior,” she said, “I am sorry that we did not offer you the chance to travel through the Gate with us. But it was not a comfortable journey, I assure you. Doubtless flying over those mountains was much more to your liking.”
“If he wishes to accompany us tomorrow, he will have to go through the Gate with us,” Alon said. “He could not possibly follow us across two continents and an ocean-to the other side of the world.”
“How can we manage to carry him?” she asked, dubiously eyeing the falcon’s rending beak and sharp talons.
“With difficulty, I am sure,” Alon said. “I will strive to communicate the problem to him tonight, with Dahaun to help me. She can mind-speak nearly any creature’.”
As he finished speaking, the falcon stretched out his wings, and, with a quick motion of his arm, Alon helped him launch himself skyward. Monso’s breathing had slowed and calmed, so they set off again. Steel Talon wheeled in the sky above them, flying so high at times that he seemed naught but a pinprick of black against the blueness.
The slopes before them now were grassy and gently rolling, so Alon put the Keplian into a steady canter. They were headed due north, Lydryth realized, judging their direction from the position of the sun. She relaxed into the stallion’s gait, balancing easily on those powerful haunches, feeling the rhythmic push and glide beneath her. Before long the steady motion had lulled her into a near-doze.
Finally, they struck on a dirt road, well-traveled by the looks of it. “Not far to go now,” Alon said, and she straightened. “I am going to let him run a little,” he warned. “So hold on!” He loosened the rein and Monso immediately surged into a full gallop-and then the Keplian, with a snort, fought to get a free head; his strides came faster and faster yet!
“Easy ... easy, Monso ...,” Alon said, but the horse only increased speed again.
“Can you hold him?” she cried, alarmed, only to have her words whipped away by the wind of their passage.
Lydryth clung to her companion’s belt, resting her head against Alon’s back and half-closing her eyes as the landscape flashed by them so fast it made her dizzy. This was the first time she had ridden Monso at a run in daylight, and the half-bred’s speed both excited and frightened her. She could feel Alon’s back muscles bunch against her cheek as he struggled to regain full control. He spoke softly to the beast, all the while striving with every bit of horsemanship he possessed to keep the Keplian from breaking loose and running totally free.
Finally, the creature’s pace slackened slightly, and Alon again had full mastery. He turned his head slightly. “Are you still with me, lady songsmith?”
“Yes,” Lydryth managed to gasp. “But when he goes like that... I cannot help but be frightened.”
“You think I am not?” he retorted. “There is a wildness in his nature at such times that harkens back to the demon- creature that foaled him...” He was panting himself with the effort to control the Keplian. “He sensed our urgency, also.”
The Keplian’s mad run had brought them a far distance, for the mountains now were only craggy silhouettes behind them. Before them lay a land where green fields sprouted their crops and tidy farmsteads lay scattered. Lydryth had thought Escore a very empty land in comparison to Arvon, and the sight of those farms reassured her. She remembered Alon’s saying that the two lands had once been one. That much have been long and long ago, indeed, she thought. Her mind reeled at the idea of so many, many years.
The road led them toward two craggy ridges that did not quite meet, forming a narrow pass in their midst. Alon slowed Monso still more, until they were traveling at a slow, collected canter.
As the travelers reached the shadowing heights of the pass, Lydryth saw symbols etched deep into the ocher rockface of each flanking cliff. Several of those incised markings were close enough to runes from the Old Tongue that she recognized them. One of them she whispered softly as they passed it, feeling relief and sense of peace steal over her, for it was a powerful ward against the Dark.
“Euythayan ... ,” she breathed.
“Yes,” Alon said, barely turning his head to make reply. “Until the day that Dinzil betrayed the Valley by stealing away Kaththea, none of the People of the Green Silences thought that any harm could befall them here. It was a blow to them to discover that their protections could be broken.”
“Dinzil must have been a powerful Adept indeed,” Lydryth said, troubled exceedingly by this revelation.
“He was,” Alon said, and then, evidently guessing her thoughts, he added, “And now Yachne, if she has his Power, might also be able to overcome the Valley’s wards.”
As they went on, the crags dropped away, and so did the road. Then they rounded a gentle downward curve, and Lydryth found herself looking out across a vast valley.
It was so green! Lush with grass and flowers, shaded by great trees, it seemed a dream of beauty that called out to her weary spirit, as though she had come to a second home. The sight of the Valley of the Green Silences seemed to relieve and ease the songsmith’s weary, anxious spirit, even as a healer’s balm may ease a wound. Lydryth found herself running snatches of notes and words through her mind, in hopes that she could someday capture some of the loveliness of this place in a song.
Dwellings dotted the Valley, though they could not be termed “houses,” for they grew out of the earth itself, their circular walls being formed of tree trunks or flowering bushes. Their peaked roofs were thatched with vivid blue-green feathers. As the travelers cantered slowly down the road, people came out of the houses. Many waved to Alon, and he returned their greeting, but he did not draw rein until they had reached the largest of the dwellings. As Monso halted, the doorway, which was curtained by flowering vines, moved aside, and a man came out, followed a moment later by a woman. Lord Kyllan and Lady Dahaun, Lydryth thought.
Both wore soft tunics and breeches of a spring green, with belts and wristlets of pale gold studded with blue-green gems. Kyllan was tall and broad-shouldered, with the air of one who has ridden to arms many times. In that way he reminded Lydryth of her father, Jervon; he had the same air of one who is accustomed to command. Physically, though, he was plainly of the Old Race, though his jaw was wider and his mouth held more than a touch of humor about it. Lydryth recalled that his father, Simon Tregarth, was reportedly an outlander, who had come from some distant world through one of the legendary Gates.
As the Lady of the Green Silences stepped forward, the girl’s eyes widened in surprise. She gazed at her, blinked, then frankly stared. Never had she seen her like before!
Tall and slender, she seemed as graceful as a willow in her green tunic. Lydryth’s eyes fastened on her face. Her hair was as pale gold as the metal other wristlet... no, it was the color of new-smelted copper... no, it was as black as Lydryth’s own ... no, no, it was the green of the new spring leaves...
The harder the songsmith stared, the more the woman’s coloring and features seemed to blur and change. She was many women ... and all of them beautiful.
“Alon!” Dahaun exclaimed, stretching forth both her hands in warm and gracious greeting. “Oh, well-come indeed! You have returned to us!”
“Greetings, Lady ... Kyllan,” the Adept said. “I but wish that my visit were simply a visit, but, in truth, I come in haste, on a matter of great urgency.” He turned in the saddle to give the songsmith a steadying grip as she slid off the Keplian, then swung down himself. Catching the minstrel’s hand, he drew her forward. “But first, Dahaun, I must present my companion, the Lady Songsmith Lydryth.”
With a gracious yet courtly air, the Lady inclined her head and reached to take the girl’s hand in both of hers. “Be welcome to our home, Lydryth,” she said warmly. “This is my lord, Kyllan.” As the Lady of the Green Silences touched the girl’s hand, her features steadied, until her face was oval, her eyes grey, her hair black. She now was as plainly of the Old Race as was her lord, Kyllan.
“Good fortune to your home, Lady Dahaun, now and evermore,” Lydryth said, altering the traditional greeting a trifle. In no wise could one call this bower of living trees and vines a house.
The Lady released her guest’s hand, and her features again took on that uncanny shifting, as her lord, Kyllan, also stepped forward to greet the songsmith. Then Tregarth turned back to Alon, who was standing with Monso’s rein over his arm. He smiled with a touch of ruefulness. “If that were an ordinary mount you hold, Alon, I would offer to tend him for you, but perhaps that would not be wise of me.”
Alon grinned. “My foster-mother has told me that you have no reason to love Keplians, having once almost been undone by one of Monso’s breed. I will tend him myself.”
Dahaun (once more her hair was as green as her garb) smiled mischievously at her lord. “Do not forget what a great gift the Keplian brought you that day so long ago, my lord. Had it not been for him, we two might never have met!”
He inclined his head. “For which I give heartfelt thanks every day, my lady. Still, I have often thought that there must be easier ways for a man to first encounter his future bride than to have nearly every bone in his body smashed by a demon-horse!”
Turning back to her guest, the Lady said, “Take off your mount’s saddle and bridle, Alon. Monso will be fine, here, will you not, my beauty?” She reached a slender hand toward the creature’s forehead, then her eyes widened. “What is this?” she exclaimed.
Alon’s fingers began separating the long strands of Monso’s forelock. “The crystal I braided into his forelock, so we could open the Gate,” he said. “I forgot all about it in our haste to reach you. But... but it has changed! What-?” he broke off in wonder as his questing fingers worked the amethyst-shaded crystal free of the Keplian’s long forelock. “Look!” he cried, holding it out for all of them to see.
Instead of a netting of black horsehair, the shard from the mirror now lay encased in a delicate webbing of purest silver. “It must have transmuted when we leaped through,” Alon whispered.
Dahaun put out a hand, but stopped short of actually laying finger to the crystal. “It is a powerful talisman,” she said. Turning to her lord, she pulled free the silver cord that laced the top of his green tunic. Threading the cord through the net of silver, she formed a pendant from it. This she placed solemnly over Alon’s head, so it hung down beneath the neck of his tunic. “Keep it always, and may it protect you from all manner of evil,” she said quietly.
Then the Lady of the Green Silences turned back to the Keplian. “Leave Monso here,” she repeated. “He will be fine.” The black snorted, then bobbed his head up and down, exactly as if nodding agreement.
Quickly, Alon freed the stallion to graze, then the travelers followed their host and hostess into the dwelling.
Within, screens made of living vines or woven of feathers made rooms, and the floor was carpeted with soft living moss. Light filtered greenly through the roof and walls, making the interior pleasantly restful. When Alon would have launched immediately into their story, Dahaun stayed his words with a swift gesture. “Your story will wait a few minutes more,” she said, waving Lydryth toward one alcove, while Kyllan took the young Adept’s arm and steered him toward another. “You have been on the road for long and long, and need to rest, if only for a short while. Besides, we must summon the scouts to hear your tale firsthand, if they must needs carry it to others.”
Alon nodded, albeit a bit reluctantly.
Lydryth followed the Lady into a room containing two pools, one holding water tinged red with mud, the other filled with clear water. Now that she was actually here, lack of sleep and food made her so weary she stumbled as she walked. Dahaun indicated the red-colored pool, and said, “This one first, Lady Lydryth.”
Stripping off her travel-grimed clothes, the songsmith sank gratefully into the warm pool. Dahaun gathered up her stained breeches, tunic, and jerkin, promising to see that they were cleaned for use on the morrow, then left the girl to her bath. The red-tinged water was blissfully hot, and its touch revived her so completely that she felt all weariness and hunger vanishing. This pool, she thought, must share the restorative and healing abilities of the red mud pools Alon had spoken of earlier today.
Finishing off with a thorough rinse in the clear pool, she then donned the clothes her hostess had left, soft tunics, breeches and boots like unto the ones Dahaun and Kyllan wore.
When the girl emerged, feeling vastly more energetic, it was to find Alon, garbed like herself, sitting with a man of Dahaun’s race, Ethutur, talking quietly. The Lord of the Green Silences also possessed the shape-shifting ability, though not as much as Dahaun. Two small, ivory horns rose from his forehead, nearly hidden by the loose curls of his ever- changing-hued hair.
No sooner had the songsmith been introduced and seated herself upon one of the moss-grown hummocks that served as cushions on the floor than the Lady herself returned. Dahaun was accompanied by two tall children who were carrying platters of food and drink, and by two men who wore the battered boots and light mail of couriers or scouts. One of the men was a giant who towered above the other.
Kyllan introduced the two men as the Valley’s scouts, Yonan and Urik. Yonan was of middle height, and evidently descended from some Sulcar ancestor, if Lydryth guessed aright. The giant was Urik.
The boy and girl (they appeared to be perhaps five years younger than the songsmith herself) Kyllan identified as his and Dahaun’s twin children. Elona, the girl, had inherited something of her mother’s shape-changing ability, for whenever Lydryth gazed upon her, her features gradually took on subtle shifts of shape, and her hair and eyes seemed to darken and lighten, though not to the extent that Dahauh’s did. Keris, the boy, resembled his father, and his features did not change. Nor did he have the horns of the Green Men.
Dahaun waved at the crisply baked rounds of thin bread, wedges of cheese and an assortment of fruits and early vegetables. “Can you eat as you talk?”
Alon was already reaching for a piece of fruit. “If we cannot, we will take turns,” he said. “I met this wandering songsmith while I was racing Monso in a village called Rylon Comers...”
He continued telling about how he had met Lydryth, while the minstrel busied herself with the food. Then, when he came to the reason for her quest, he nodded to his companion, and she quickly explained about her search for a means to heal her father. “Alon wondered whether the red mud that is to be found within this Valley might not help,” she concluded, giving the Lady an inquiring glance.
Dahaun’s ever-shifting features were grave as she considered the girl’s query. “I do not know,” she said softly, “whether the mud will heal ills of the mind and spirit as well as those of the body. Never has it been so tested. But you are welcome to take some with you and try.”
“Thank you. Lady.”
“But Lydryth’s quest is but the half of it,” Alon said, after swallowing a last bite of food. “Last night, she was awakened by a strange noise that I could not hear...” He continued, telling the strange tale of their journey to the ancient mirror-Gate, and of Yachne and her Power-stealing spell.
Kyllan’s expression darkened when he heard the identity of the ancient sorcerer the witch had bested. “Dinzil!” he exclaimed. “I thought that one forever gone, or dead.”
“Which he may well be, by now,” Alon said, then he proceeded to tell Tregarth of the threat to all males possessing Power. “She called us things against nature, abominations,” he finished, finally. “Yachne intends to make herself the most powerful sorceress the world has ever known.”
“Where could she have come from?” Dahaun wondered aloud.
“From some of the things she said, I believe that she was once a witch of Estcarp,” Lydryth said, and Alon nodded agreement. “One of the ones whose Power was broken when she made herself a vessel to channel the magic during the Turning.”
“When she had the raising of you, did she ever refer to being a witch?” Kyllan asked Alon.
The younger man shook his head. “She was certainly a Wise Woman, but I would have sworn she had not the ability to perform such a summoning as we witnessed,” he said thoughtfully. “Opening a Gate is, as I discovered for myself today, no easy task. The Yachne that I knew before could scry, and sense the presence of the Shadow, and heal, using herbs and such. Minor magics, at best. She was no sorceress.”
“Where did she learn that spell, then?” Lydryth mused. “She said that someone had taught it to her... but who?”
“Perhaps she lied, and actually uncovered it in some musty old scroll in Lormt,” Alon speculated, then he sighed. “But however she learned it, it makes little difference. The danger to us is real.”
“I will contact Kaththea and Kemoc immediately,” Kyllan said. “And tomorrow mom my lady wife will release her messenger birds to carry the news across the mountains to my father, Simon, at Etsford.”
“If only I had the Power,” Lydryth murmured softly. “Then I might be able to warn Kerovan tonight.”
“Tomorrow will be soon enough,” Dahaun reassured her. “It is nearly sunset already... it will be dawn before you know it.”
Lydryth nodded, knowing the Lady of the Green Silences strove only to comfort her, but she was restless. The restorative effects of the red pool had worked only too well... She was too full of energy to sleep. Rising, she went outside, seeing Monso grazing on the lush grass, and Steel Talon perched in a tree not far from the stallion. A few minutes later, Alon followed her out, carrying both their swordbelts. “Time for my lesson,” he reminded her.
Lydryth was only too glad to have something to take up her thoughts, and together they practiced his one lunge and parry. Adding to Alon’s small store of knowledge, the songsmith then demonstrated a backhand parry, and they practiced that. Before they were done, Kyllan came out to tell them that Yonan and Urik had just set off, to ride with the warning to the settlement of the Old Race who had lived in Karsten before the Homing that had turned them into refugees. But now the former Karstenians were firmly established in this new-and, at the same time, ancient-land.
His news given, Tregarth lingered, observing the lesson. “You are a good teacher,” Kyllan said to the bard when she and her student had parted, each to regain lost breath. “He has definitely mastered that lunge.”
“Unfortunately, that is the only move I have mastered,” Alon said ruefully, wiping sweat from his brow. “But one is better than none, I suppose.”
Handing her sword to Kyllan, Lydryth encouraged Tregarth to coach her student. The older man readily did so, proving an able swordsman-probably, Lydryth thought, the equal of Jervon before his accident.
As if in response to her thought of her father and his plight, Dahaun appeared through the gathering dusk, holding out to the songsmith a small wood box that appeared to be sealed with wax or resin. This she put into Lydryth’s hands. “Some of the healing mud,” she said. “Be careful not to break the seal until you are ready to use it.”
Clutching it, Lydryth ran trembling fingers over the top of the box. Could this really be the means to heal Jervon? “Lady,” she said, her voice nigh to breaking, “I thank you... I am so grateful...”
“We are the ones who are in your debt,” Dahaun assured her. “I only pray that the mud will work. You must smooth it over his brow and scalp, and allow it to dry before chipping it free.”
“I will do so,” the girl replied. “And thank you again, my lady.”
Dahaun smiled at her. “It is I who owe you for the warning that may have saved my lord,” she said. “Be very sure that we shall guard against this Yachne and her foul spells. Power rightfully belongs to whomever possesses it and wields it responsibly. It is not for her to say yea or nay as to who may work magic.”
Lydryth nodded solemn agreement.
They left the Valley in the predawn darkness, with saddlebags replenished from Dahaun’s larder. Monso snorted eagerly, seeming anxious to be on the way again, and they made a speedy return to Yachne’s cave, arriving by midmorning.
“Do you remember how she opened the Gate?” Lydryth asked, as they dismounted outside the entrance. Steel Talon glided down from a nearby hillock to perch on the stallion’s saddlebow. “Do you remember what she chanted?”
“I listened carefully,” Alon replied, frowning, then he shrugged, as if unsure of his memory. “And last night I made notes of what I recalled and studied them. We can only hope that my efforts will serve. We cannot know until we make the attempt.”
Once within the confines of the cavern, he drew forth a short wand from one of the saddlebags. “Elder,” he said, holding it up for his companion’s inspection. “Used for the darker and more powerful spells.”
Quickly, he began sketching another pentagram on the floor of the cavern, in much the same manner as Yachne had. “But you are not going to summon anyone!” Lydryth protested.
“True, but I must follow the ritual exactly as she did. I-know not what element will open the Gate,” he told her. “She did no spell of opening, such as I did, only spoke the final words to the dark mirror. Therefore something in her spell to undo Dinzil must have awakened the Gate, tapped its power, then left it waiting to function.”
Quickly, he set out candles Dahaun had supplied, lit them with a wave of his hand. “What will you use for blood?” the songsmith asked fearfully.
“My own,” he said.
“But doing so may weaken you too much!” she protested. “Use mine, Alon.”
Stubbornly, he shook his head. “I cannot use another living creature’s blood to work spells. If I needs must work Dark spells, then I will work them as cleanly as I can... lest the very working blacken my spirit beyond redemption.”
“Alon, do not be a fool! You need your strength to open that Gate! If you use my blood you will be taking from me only what I freely offer! That will not stain you!”
“No,” he maintained, and she could glimpse the stubborn gleam in his eyes. “My own blood will I use, and no other.”
Lydryth did not argue further, only drew her knife and deeply nicked her own wrist, then held it out to him. “Here.”
He gave her an angry glare, but she shook-her arm at him so that red spattered the rocky floor around them. “Don’t waste it!”
Without further argument, he seized her wrist in his hands and began to chant softly, allowing the trickling blood to form an enclosing circle. Before many heartbeats had passed, Lydryth began to feel weak from the steady draining, but she forced herself to mask her dizziness. When they were about two-thirds of the way around the circle, though, she stumbled. In answer Alon’s fingers clamped hard over the slash, and he muttered softly under his breath. The bleeding slowed and stopped.
“Go and bandage that,” he ordered, “then get Steel Talon and Monso ready to go. Don’t speak to me again until the spell is complete ... I will need full concentration.” Then, drawing his own belt knife, he nicked his own wrist deeply and set to completing the circle of blood.
As he finished, his chant grew louder... Slowly, inexorably, the candles began to darken. The words Alon was mouthing now made Lydryth’s head spin. She wanted to cover her ears, just as she had before, hearing Yachne. The Adept’s own lips twisted as he spoke, as though the words he pronounced tasted of bile.
The very air within the cavern grew as dark as the candles, curdling with foulness, murky with unseen shapes. Horrors seemed to gibber from the shadows, but every time Lydryth turned to look, there was nothing there. Resolutely, she forced herself to ignore them, and Alon, also.
Quickly she checked the fastenings of Monso’s saddlebags, fastened her quarterstaff into place beneath the stirrup on the horse’s off side; then she spread her cloak on the stony floor. “It is time. Steel Talon,” she said to the falcon still perched atop the pommel of the saddle.
With a harsh screech, the bird glided down and stood upon the cloak. Lydryth gathered up the edges, folding them up around the bird, thus protecting her flesh from those raking talons, that sharp beak. With the swathed falcon in her arms, she straightened up, turning to regard the Adept, only to see Alon, his head thrown back, a dark shadow half-obscuring his features, voice a last, loud call that she recognized from Yachne’s attempt.
The sound of that terrifying summons coming from her companion’s throat was enough to send the girl stumbling back against Monso’s side. The Keplian rolled his eyes, trembling violently.
Slowly, the deep, shadow-shot purple expanse of the dark mirror glowed foully to life. Their Gate was open.
Alon turned to regard his accomplishment with a look of such revulsion stamped across his features that Lydryth cried out in dismay. Then he staggered over into the corner of the cave and was thoroughly sick, heaving as though he could physically expel from his spirit the stain that Yachne’s incantation had left there. Finally, shaking, his features as waxy as the candles he had used (candles, Lydryth noted with part of her mind, that were now as pitchy black as they had been white before), he straightened, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
He spat one final time, then, obviously holding himself erect by force of will, walked over to Monso and mounted. Grimly, he held out his hand for the bundle that was Steel Talon, and, when the songsmith handed it to him, he hugged the falcon’s shrouded form against his chest.
“Can you get up?” he asked. He smiled a shaky, apologetic smile. “I seem to be short of hands to aid you, at the moment.”
“As long at Monso doesn’t kick, I can,” she said.
“No, he would not kick you,” he assured her.
Stepping behind the stallion, the songsmith patted his rump. “Easy, boy.” Then she backed away a few paces and came forward again at a run to vault neatly up over the Keplian’s rump into her accustomed position behind Alon.
“Very nice,” Alon said, admiration lightening the sick weariness that tinged his voice. “That is a feat I never learned.”
“Obred, the Kioga herd-master, taught me,” she said absently.
“And now for Arvon ... I hope,” he whispered. “Hold tight.”
He urged the Keplian forward.
With a squeal, of fear, the stallion plunged beneath them, back humping in protest. Alon shouted a harsh order, heels thumping against the creature’s sides. Still the horse resisted, shaking his head and snorting with terror. The smell of his fear-sweat was rank in Lydryth’s nostrils.
“Get up\” Alon shouted, then followed the order with a curse that made Lydryth gasp. His heels rammed his mount’s sides again, even as he slashed the reins savagely across the black’s neck, whipping him hard.
With a suddenness that sent Lydryth’s head snapping painfully back, Monso launched himself at the Gate.
Their first such crossing had been disturbing enough, but this one was agony. A great shadow seemed to envelop them, and they hung suspended in a darkness so profound that Lydryth feared she had been blinded by it. Her spirit quailed before the sense of evil, of wrongness that this Gate held. She found that her mouth was open as she tried desperately to scream, but no sound emerged. It was like the worst of nightmares, where the dreamer struggles vainly to awaken-except that she knew this was no dream.
How long that passage took-minutes, years, centuries- she could not tell. But at last she heard Monso’s hooves strike hard ground with a thump, even as the world reappeared around them.
In the west, the sun was setting-and it had been well before noon in Escore! Lydryth stared around her, noting the colors and varieties of vegetation, the shapes of the distant mountains, then sniffed the air. “We did it,” she said, softly. “This is Arvon.”
“Good,” Alon said, grim with exhaustion. He halted Monso, then slipped off him, murmuring apologies for having whipped him. “I am sorry, son,” he whispered, then stooped to lay Lydryth’s cloak on the ground. Steel Talon shook himself free, then flew to the branch of a nearby oak, screeching an ear-piercing protest against such a form of travel.
Numb, the songsmith slipped off the Keplian’s back, then stood trembling, watching Alon repentantly stroke his horse. Monso shoved his nose against him with a soft nicker.
“That was terrible,” Lydryth whispered, when her voice was once more under her control-barely. “I could never do that again ... never.”
“Nor could I,” Alon agreed, soberly. His face was set in new, harsh lines, making him appear far older, far harder than he had only yesterday. “If it weren’t for Yachne, we would never have had to take such a desperate route. When I catch up to her, she will pay for this.”
“Will we able to capture her? And, if we do, is there some way she can be stripped of that terrible spell?” Lydryth asked, shivering as she remembered the witch’s power.
“If there is, I don’t know it,” Alon said grimly. A cold, hating glint awakened in his eyes, disturbing Lydryth profoundly. His voice rang out suddenly with the strength of one taking a sacred vow. “But worry not. After I find her, I swear to every god that is and ever was that she will present no further threat to anyone!”
Lydryth stared at him in horror. “Surely you do not mean ... ,” she began, only to have him nod, his mouth naught but a grim slash.
“Oh, but I do,” he said softly, in a cold voice so cruel that the songsmith backed away a step. “When I find her, I intend to kill her.” He slanted a warning look at his companion. “And don’t even think about trying to stop me. Lady Songsmith.”
They passed no farmsteads, no villages, saw no distant lights. Herds of pronghorns and deer stared at them curiously, not particularly alarmed at their presence. “Man is not a predator they know,” Alon observed. “We are indeed far from any villages or farmsteads. How far do you think we are from Kar Garudwyn?”
“Four days’ ride-perhaps more-but that is only a guess,” she replied. “If my reckoning is correct, we should strike the edge of Bluemantle lands late tomorrow or early the next day. Then we will make better time, traveling the roads.”
“Perhaps we should not go to Kar Garudwyn immediately. Perhaps we should seek Yachne first,” he suggested.
Lydryth shifted position, trying unsuccessfully to ease the sore muscles in her thighs and buttocks and sighed deeply. “No,” she said, after a moment’s consideration. “We must go to Kar Garudwyn first.”
“Why?” he challenged. “Yachne is the threat. The sooner I deal with her, the sooner your foster-father will be safe.”
Lydryth repressed a shudder as she remembered precisely how her companion proposed to “deal” with the renegade witch. But she forced herself to mask her feelings as she responded, evenly, “Because if we can but reach Kar Garudwyn, there is a Place of Power nearby, where Kerovan can seek refuge. It is called the Setting Up of the Kings. From what I know of the workings of magic, if Kerovan went there, Yachne’s summoning spell could not pull him away; he would be protected.”
“If it is a place of great Power, that could be true,” Alon conceded reluctantly.
“Also,” the songsmith added, “after Kerovan is safe, we would then have help in our search for Yachne.”
“What kind of help?” he asked, skeptically.
“My foster-sister, Hyana, could probably scry out the witch’s whereabouts. Then Joisan and Sylvya would ride with us to seek her. All of them are Wise Women to be reckoned with.”
Alon’s only reply was a noncommittal grunt. Lydryth bit her lip, concerned about him. This surly, brooding man seemed not at all the companion she had been coming to regard as a friend during the past six days. Can it be only six days? she wondered, dazedly. It seems as though I have known him forever...
They halted for the night only when it grew so dark (the moon would not rise until long after midnight) that even Monso and Alon were having difficulty picking a path, and Lydryth had been riding blind for a long time. They camped in a meadow that was surrounded on three sides by forest some distance away. Tall growths of tangled wild rosebushes shielded them from the brisk northern breeze, their blossoming fragrance pervading the air, heady and sweet,
By the time they had unpacked and tended the Keplian, the travelers were almost too tired to eat, themselves. Hastily they swallowed a cold meal, since Lydryth advised against lighting a fire. “It would be best not to flaunt our presence,” she cautioned Alon as they spread out their bedrolls.
“Why?” Alon said. “We have seen no sign of anyone but ourselves. Every land has its brigands, but would outlaws roam so far from homesteads and villages?”
“I know not,” she said quietly. “My concern lies with the possible presence of other ... dangers. Arvon, like Escore, holds perils for the unwary.” She glanced cautiously around her. “Perhaps we should stand watches.”
“Monso will warn if anyone comes,” Alon pointed out. “If we are to make good time on the morrow, we will need a full night’s sleep.” Lydryth agreed, knowing that any animal’s senses were far superior to her own.
But even though she was weary, snuggled warmly in her cloak and blankets, slumber eluded the songsmith, chased away by her uneasy thoughts, and questions that only time would answer. Will Dahaun ‘s red mud cure my father? Will we reach Kerovan in time to warn him? Will our warning be enough to save him, or will Yachne be able to summon him to her no matter where he may be. or how we try to protect him?
And lastly, and most worrisome of all: Alon is changing before my eyes. He is suspicious and morose ... not himself.
Why? And, more importantly, what can I do to halt what is happening?
Her eyelids were finally growing heavy. With a sigh, Lydryth let them close...
She awakened with a start when Monso snorted loudly. It seemed that sleep had only claimed her for a moment, but the waning moon had risen, shedding a pallid light over the meadow. Lydryth lay in her blankets, every sense alert, listening. Monso snorted again. Last year’s dead grass and bushes crackled as he pawed restlessly.
The songsmith turned her head on her arm, moving slowly, as if she still slept, but her eyes were open, scanning the distant woods, the field surrounding them. In the darkness, nothing moved. Nothing ... for many heartbeats, nothing...
Then, at the comer of her vision, something flickered. Alarmed now, Lydryth sat up, straining her eyes in the dim moonlight. Many faintly glowing shapes were drifting toward their campsite, borne on the night breeze. The songsmith reached for her companion’s shoulder, nudged it. “Alon!” she whispered.
He awoke with a start, then sat up. “What... what is it?”
“Rouse you! Danger!”
As he rubbed blearily at his eyes, still groggy with sleep, Lydryth threw aside her blanket, pulled on her boots, then picked up the quarterstaff that lay beside her. With one swift movement, her sword was in her hand. She stood poised and ready.
Once more she attempted to discern what those wafting shapes were. They glowed a sickly greenish color against the distant blackness of the forest, a green shot through with streaks of pale purple. Lydryth had seen slime growths on the walls of caves glow eerily in just the same way. What could these floating creatures be?
Monso suddenly sounded a stallion’s shrill battle-challenge, teeth bared to snap, forelegs ready to strike. The Keplian’s nostrils flared widely; then he snorted again, as though he scented something noxious. Lydryth hastily fastened a leadshank to the stallion’s halter, then tied him to a scrubby tree beside their packs.
By the time she finished, Alon was on his feet-boots on, sword out and ready. As they stood together, his shoulder brushed Lydryth’s; for a moment she fought the urge to lean against him, take his hand. Human comfort seemed very desirable in the face of the strange creatures bobbing ever closer to them. “What is it?” he whispered.
Lydryth pointed to those faintly luminous wind-riding shapes. “Look over there. Five ... six ... ten ... at least a dozen of them, perhaps more.”
“A dozen of what?” he demanded.
She shrugged, knowing he could see her clearly in the moonlight, even though his face was naught but a dim blur to her own eyes. “I cannot be sure ... but I believe they may be web-riders.”
He gave her a quick, incredulous glance. “But they are only tales ... legends! I have traveled the length and breadth of Escore, and never have I heard of them as anything but stories to terrify children when told before a roaring fire in midwinter!”
“In Arvon, like Escore, many old tales prove to have all too-real substance,” she reminded him. “And if they are indeed web-riders ... we may not live to see the mom, Alon.”
Just then the minstrel caught a faint whiff of an odor that made her nose wrinkle. Rank it was, as though their visitors were long-dead and decayed. “Whatever they are, their smell tells me they come from the Left, not the Right-Hand Path.”
Alon sniffed, too. Lydryth saw the white blur his hand made as he traced a glowing sign in the air. With a muttered curse, he jerked his fingers back, as if they had been burned. “You have the right of it,” he agreed. “There is no doubt that they mean us harm.”
“Could Yachne have sent them?”
“Possible. It is also possible that they are denizens of this land. Perhaps they are the reason that no one lives here.”
The thought made Lydryth shudder as she watched those distant shapes drifting closer ... closer. “Can you see them clearly?” she whispered to Alon.
“They appear to be greenish-white creatures riding atop those purple filaments,” he said, his voice hardly more than a breath against her ear. “They are perhaps two handspans in width, with long, many-jointed legs...”
“Like spiders?”
“More like some ugly cross between a spider and a crab,” he said. “They seem half-transparent, as though they are so light that they wove those webs, then cast them adrift on the night breeze and leaped upon them to ride them here.” He shuddered in his turn. “They are fanged, and have pincers, or claws. I would wager that they are poisonous, like spiders.”
“You have just described a web-rider,” she said grimly.
“I know.”
Lydryth glanced around her, wondering whether they should make a stand here, or try to run. Her breath caught in her throat, and her fingers clamped onto Alon’s forearm with a force that made him gasp. “More of them ... many more ... ,” she whispered. “We are surrounded!”
As the fell creatures bobbed closer, Lydryth could make out what Alon had described. Their eyes gleamed tiny and reddish in the faint moonlight. Their pincers and fangs dripped with venom. Could they be intelligent? There was no way to know. One thing was certain ... they were at a grave disadvantage trying to fight in the darkness. “Can you summon light?” she asked the Adept. “Enough so I can see to use my sword?”
“I can,” he said, and made several gestures. A wan violet light flickered unevenly over the tramped-down grass marking their campsite. “But I do not believe that swordplay is the best way to fight them.”
“Then what is?” she countered, edging around him until they stood back-to-back, her sword in her hand. By now the web-riders were so close that some of them were little more than a sword-length from the perimeter of their campsite. The creatures seemed to be at the mercy of the breeze, with little ability to direct their floating webs. That is one small thing in our favor, Lydryth thought.
“I may be able to-,” Alon began; then he broke off as Monso screamed again and lunged toward the circling invaders, The lead-shank parted with a snap. “No, Monso!” Alon shouted, dashing up to catch the Keplian’s halter. But the stallion reared violently, pulling his master clean off his feet, then, with a toss of his head, flung Alon down. Lydryth heard him land with a thud, heard him gasping, trying to regain the breath that had been driven from his lungs.
The songsmith started after the black half-bred as he plunged at the web-riders, shrieking his battle cry. A flashing forehoof struck, sending one of their attackers fluttering to the ground. Monso pounced like a cat, trampling the downed web-rider into the short turf.
Lydryth managed to grab Monso’s halter, then halt him. She was surprised at his sudden docility, but the reason for it soon became clear. As he took a step backward, the stallion nearly fell when his right foreleg buckled beneath him. The songsmith glanced down at the leg, but the light was too dim for her to see clearly. Bending down, she ran an expert hand down the slim, sinewed length, discovering a rapidly swelling area above the knee. It was hot and throbbing. “Alon!” she cried. “He’s been stung or bitten!”
The Adept was already hobbling toward them, still wheezing. He flung himself down beside the Keplian. “We’ll have to get a poultice on it immediately, to draw out the poison,” Lydryth gasped. “I have herbs and bandages in my-“
Alon shook his head, halting her words. “Just hold them off for a moment,” he ordered. Lydryth straightened, her sword at the ready. The web-riders ringed them now, but none had crossed into the light Alon had summoned. The songsmith kept one eye on them, while stealing glances at her companion as he grasped the stallion’s leg in both hands, all the while muttering under his breath. Violet light shimmered from between his fingers.
Catching a flash of motion in the comer of her eye, the bard whirled, raising sword into guard position. She was barely in time to duck and parry as a glowing shape swooped down at her head. Seen this close, the web-rider appeared more crab than insect as its pincers snapped viciously, barely a handspan from her eyes.
Repelled, she slashed upward, her sword catching the creature in its midsection, slicing it in two. It made a shrill noise that hurt her ears as the blade clove its body. Even as she winced back from that eerie sound, a glowing greenish ichor sprayed outward from the dying thing, sending a spray of droplets spattering across her right hand.
Lydryth screamed with pain as the web-rider’s “blood” seared her hand. Her skin felt as though she had been doused with liquid fire. Clamping her teeth onto her lip, she quickly caught up her blanket and wiped the noxious slime off her flesh, but the ichor still burned fiercely; her vision blurred with the pain of it.
Swallowing, she forced herself to flex her fingers, pick up her dropped sword. Perhaps some virtue emanated from the quan-iron in its gryphon’s-head hilt, for, as she touched it, the pain eased a little, though she still had to stifle a groan every time she moved her fingers.
The web-riders were now closing in on every side as the breeze picked up. Lydryth caught up the blanket, wrapped it around her left hand and forearm, using it as makeshift shield to buffet the drifting creatures away.
With her right hand, she wove intricate patterns with the point and edge other sword, parrying and thrusting, trying to watch everywhere at once. Even as she strove, she recognized that her efforts could not save them for long; sooner or later an attacker would swoop at her from behind her back, and she would find herself stung or bitten.
For long moments Lydryth held them off, moving with a precision that she had never employed against a human opponent. Suddenly she sensed something behind her, nearly brushing her hair!
Stifling a shriek, she whirled, only to see Alon behind her, his hand sweeping in a blow aimed at her head. She ducked, wondering if he had gone mad, but a second later, with a muffled curse, he grabbed her shoulder, holding her steady, then knocked a web-rider off her head with his bare hand. Lydryth shrank back as he struck it to the earth with the songsmith’s quarterstaff. Quickly he pounded the staff’s steelshod butt into the center of the creature’s back. The web-rider squealed, convulsed and died. “We have to get away!” the songsmith shouted, pointing to the east. “Into the woods, where the wind cannot carry them! How is Monso? Can he move?”
“I drew the poison out,” he gasped, “but he’ll need-“ He broke off as he batted away another of their attackers.
“But can we get away?”
“We don’t have to run,” he promised grimly. “Just hold them off until I get my wand...”
Quickly he upended the saddlebag, spilling its contents, then grabbed the branch of elder. Extending it before him, he began to hum, then thread the fingers of his free hand through the air, as though combing it, or gathering up something invisible. The breeze against Lydryth’s face intensified, tossing her hair into her eyes, plucking at the loose sleeves other shirt.
Even as he continued those gathering motions with one hand, Alon began to make circling motions in the air with the wand. The wind picked up, now blowing so hard that Lydryth staggered, then braced herself against it. Something long and dark lashed her face, stinging her eyes, and for a terror-stricken moment she thought one of the web-riders had landed there, but her attacker proved to be naught but Monso’s tail. She brushed the clinging horsehair aside, realizing that the sudden gale must be Alon’s doing. Blinking, she looked about her for the web-riders.
With that first gust, the noxious creatures had been blown away from their intended prey. Lydryth sighed with relief and lowered her sword, painfully loosing her swollen fingers from their tight clench about its hilt, holding it now with her left hand.
As the minstrel watched, fascinated, Alon began to make circling motions with the tip of the wand, just as if he were stirring soup. The wind began to swirl around the massed web-riders, blowing them against each other. Each glowing shape was caught up by that tiny maelstrom, caught past all escaping. Within moments their attackers resembled a small, sickly greenish cyclone.
“Good!” Lydryth raised her voice to be heard above the wind. “How far away can you be from that thing and still keep them so prisoned?” She wondered whether she could find some way to cut them down while they were helpless. Cold iron seemed to work against them... but the throbbing of her hand was a warning against close-quarters sword-wielding.
If we can get far enough away before his power over the web-riders fails, then we can surround ourselves with trees and a protective circle, so no menace can come at us again this night, she thought. Then she remembered the Keplian’s injured leg. Monso could not carry them; they would be limited to the distance they could make afoot.
“I have other plans for these vermin,” Alon told her, in a voice that was cold and even with suppressed rage. So saying, he closed his eyes, concentrating. After a moment, sweat sheened his forehead. The whirlwind with its spinning, squeaking inhabitants seemed to glow even brighter-
and then, without warning, exploded into flame!
Even though she had been considering ways to kill the evil things herself, Lydryth bit back a cry of protest. Kill them, yes, but to bum them alive-!
For many heartbeats the trapped creatures struggled against the inferno that was consuming them, shrilling protests in high-pitched hisses and cries. Then, just when the songsmith thought she could stand the sounds no more, and must run gibbering away into the night, silence fell. Of their attackers, there remained naught but ash drifting on the soft breeze.
Lydryth clenched her teeth as the pain other wounded hand reawakened, but it was not the pain that made her stomach turn over queasily. In the waning moonlight, she had caught a glimpse of Alon’s face as he contemplated his victory.
The Adept was smiling.
It took the travelers until the first faint flush of dawn to tend each other’s wounds (Alon had a livid welt along the side of his jaw where the venom from one of the creatures had sprayed). After poulticing and binding up each other’s wounds, they turned their attention to the Keplian. The stallion’s leg showed only a slight swelling now, but Alon worked again at drawing out any remaining vestiges of poison. r
The stallion could not be ridden until the swelling was completely gone, but Alon decided that he would be able to carry their packs.
Finally, when all their tasks were over, Lydryth sat on her bedroll, regarding the pearl-touched sky with a listless indifference. She knew that she should climb to her feet and set off across those meadows again, but her body cried out for respite. She felt that she could not have been more wearied if she had walked every step from Escore to Arvon without halting.
“We ought to go,” she murmured to Alon, who was sitting beside her, slumped over with his elbows resting on his drawnup knees, head bowed with an exhaustion like unto her own.
He managed to raise his head, stared at her with dark-ringed eyes. “Monso needs a few hours to recover from any lingering effects of that creature’s venom,” he said. “And neither of us will get far afoot without rest. Sleep, Lydryth. I intend to.”
Feeling like a traitor-What if Yachne is even now closing in on Kerovan?-Lydryth nevertheless realized that her companion had the right of it. She nodded at him, then tumbled over onto her blankets, pulled an edge other battered cloak across her and knew no more.
Alon’s nudge roused her midmorn, and, with a groan, she rolled over and sat up groggily. A bath, she thought longingly. If only we had Dahaun’s red pools hereabouts. Her nostrils wrinkled at the smell of food, simmering in a pot over a small, nearly smokeless fire.
“Here,” the Adept said, extending a cup filled with thick, hot gruel that was flavored with dried fruit. “Try this. You need to eat.”
“I cannot...,” she protested, feeling her stomach lurch. “I don’t feel as though I could ever eat again.”
He gave her a level glance. “Food will aid your body in overcoming the effects of the web-rider’s poison,” he said. “If you do not eat, you’ll be too weak to walk, and, remember, Monso goes unburdened today, save for our packs.” The cup moved toward her again. “Try ... please.”
Dubiously, she took the thick stuff, sipped cautiously. As soon as she had downed the first few swallows, the churning in her middle quieted. The world around her seemed to solidify, brighten; a measure of strength returned to her limbs.
When it was time to go, she was able to stand and walk unassisted. As the travelers set out. Steel Talon swooped toward them, alighting on a nearby branch. The falcon screamed excitedly, flapping his wings with agitation. Alon stopped to stare at the bird intently. “What was he trying to tell you?” Lydryth asked, when he began walking again.
“I cannot be sure,” he said. “Contact between us is tenuous at best. But he believes that his quest may be coming to an end. He feels that soon he may be able to join his master.”
Lydryth glanced over her shoulder at the bird, seeing him wing upward into the skies. “Poor Steel Talon ...”
Alon’s expression was grim. “We cannot help him. Best we concentrate on helping ourselves and those who are depending upon us.” They walked throughout the rest of the morning, trying to keep a steady, swift pace, chewing hunks of journeybread for their nooning without halting, then slogging determinedly into the afternoon. Lydryth thought longingly of the swiftness with which the Keplian had borne them as she forced herself to keep up with the others. Every muscle in her body seemed to be sprained or bruised.
Alon was quiet again, brooding, and she did not like the look in his eyes when she happened to meet them. His thoughts, she could tell, were far from lightsome. Something was growing in him, some darkness of spirit that she feared.
In the early afternoon they climbed a long, sloping hill, then halted on its summit to breathe and scan the countryside before them. The hill sloped downward to a raw gorge of boulder-strewn, earth-colored land that seemed to be filled with a faint haze, despite the sun’s brightness overhead. The rift extended as far in either direction as the songsmith could see. “Our path lies straight across yon gorge,” she said, eyeing it dubiously. “But I like not the looks of it.”
“Kar Garudwyn lies in that direction?” he asked, pointing. “Yes. But that looks like very rough ground. Do you think we should turn aside, find a way around it?”
“Finding a way around would take us many extra hours of walking.” Alon pointed out the truth. “The entire stretch is no more than half a mile wide. Despite its raw look, the ground appears solid. If we take it slowly over those rocks, there should be no danger.”
Leading Monso, he started off down the hill. Lydryth followed, growing ever more repelled by this strange, narrow floor to this small divide. For a moment she wanted to shout to Alon not to venture onto this ground, but she forced herself to silence, remembering the urgency of their journey.
It will not take more than a half-hour to cross, she judged, eyeing the land before them, trying to find comfort in her thought. Alon has the right of it... finding a way around would delay us by half a day or more...
Ahead of her, Alon stepped from the green verge of grass onto that churned earth. He waved at her. “It is solid. Come ahead!”
The songsmith nerved herself to step over that border. She took a few strides, then gasped as a section of ground that had seemed perfectly steady turned abruptly, twisting her ankle. She barely saved herself from a fall by quick use of her staff. Hobbling forward, she felt another chunk of earth turn beneath her heel. “Alon!” she cried. “Wait!”
He stumbled, nearly falling, catching himself on Monso’s ragged mane, then halted and stood staring about him, his expression one of bewilderment and growing unease. Lydryth limped up to join him; then she, in turn, regarded the landscape surrounding them.
The green hillsides had vanished. Now the rock-strewn gorge seemed to stretch before them-and behind them-into infinity. Overhead, the sun had vanished, but a brassy, glaring sky made the land about them shimmer with heat. There was no living vegetation. Rather, dead trees seemed to have been cast down like a child’s jackstraws, and the underbrush was withered to a spectral ashy grey. Shadowy vines looped and coiled, snaking across the broken, churned ground. They were not living, for they bore no hint of green, rather resembled long-dead serpents.
As they stood there, a tremor rippled through the soil beneath their feet, making them both cry out and clutch at Monso, who threw up his head and whinnied with terror. A long crevice opened in the rocky ground, even as they watched. Finally the shaking quieted and their feet were once more planted on steady footing.
“Alon ...” Lydryth’s words died on her lips, and she could only stand mute, knowing her fear must be written upon her features.
He nodded, shoulders sagging heavily. “I have been a fool. If only I weren’t so tired I could have sensed it...” His mouth tightened grimly. “The entire place ... ensorcelled. This is Yachne’s doing. Her trap. And I marched us straight into it.”
‘Where are we, then?” Lydryth asked, forcing her voice to remain steady. With one part of her mind she wanted to scream at Alon, curse him roundly for leading them into this trap, but what good would that do? With an effort that made her jaw muscles ache, she kept a tight rein on her tongue.
“I am not entirely sure,” he said softly, and the bitterness in his voice told the songsmith that he was cursing himself far more vehemently than she could ever have done.
“Are we still in Arvon, do you think?” She gazed about them, seeing the eerily lit sky, the ravaged landscape stretching onward without discernible horizons. Fear surged within her. “Or did we come through some kind of Gate when we stepped into this blighted land?”
“I do not think so,” he said, absently fingering the crystal talisman Dahaun had placed about his neck, as though touching it would help him think. “I believe rather that we are still within the confines of that mysterious gorge we entered only a few moments ago.”
“But how can that be? There is no sun... and no horizon. We cannot see the hillsides that should surround us.”
“I know. But much of what we are seeing in this place is illusion,” he said. “Many of the false images I can dismiss by summoning true sight.” He pointed at a jagged boulder in their path. A ghostly grey vine with shadow-colored blossoms crawled up it like a viper. “That, for instance. The reality is not a boulder, but a gaping crevice in the earth, half-covered in dead vines.”
Lydryth stared at it, knowing that if she had continued onward, unwarned, she would have fallen over the edge. She licked dry lips. “Illusion ... Can you break the spell, Alon?”
He gave a heartfelt sigh, leaning tiredly back against the Keplian’s shoulder. “That I cannot,” he said, sounding as if the admission cost him dearly. “Yachne’s magic is too strong.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. She had not expected him to admit defeat without even a trial. “How can you know unless you try?”
Bleak despair shadowed his face. “I know,” he insisted quietly. “This is too powerful for me.”
The songsmith opened her mouth to argue further, but after a moment she sighed softly and remained silent. The spell is not only one of illusion, she realized. It is also one of hopelessness. She could feel it affecting her, too ... gnawing at the edges of her will, her determination, like a rasti chewing through a corncrib floor.
And without belief and faith, power is nothing, she thought, remembering snippets of magical lore that she had learned from her mother and Joisan. Unless Alon believes that he can undo this ensorcellment, he cannot succeed.
“Then what must we do?” she asked, trying not to let her fear show. “We must cross the gorge,” he replied. “Yachne cannot have bespelled the entire width of Arvon. If we can find the true path through the illusion, we will emerge from it into the reality. But it will not be easy.” He shook his head, his uncertainty plain to read. “There are traps within traps here for the unwary. If we take a false step, we will surely be lost.”
“But you can see past the falseness to the truth, can’t you, Alon?” she asked. The panic that she had been holding back ever since they had walked blindly into this place was growing. What if they were trapped here, past all escape?
“The simpler, less complex illusions, yes. But Yachne’s power is now ... formidable.” His mouth tightened grimly. “Simple illusion is an easy spell, but what surrounds us is far from simple ... it is so detailed, so many-layered. Here there are illusions within illusions!”
“I understand ...,” she whispered. Catching a movement in the comer other eye, she whirled around, but, as before, all was still... as still as death. Even so, the songsmith could not rid herself of the conviction that, just out of her sight, something had spied, then skittered giggling from one hiding place to another. From somewhere she heard a faint whine, and a gust of hot air brushed her cheek.
The ghost of a wind? she wondered, putting out a wetted finger. As if reading her thoughts, Alon nodded. “Illusion,” he said flatly. “This spell is not only complex, it is affecting more than just our vision. We will not only see what is not there, we will hear and feel it, also.”
Having grown up with the simple illusions that Elys had sometimes conjured to amuse her child, Lydryth was taken aback. Most Seeming-spells could not stand up to investigation by touch; attempting to verify the reality of an illusion by laying hand to it was usually the surest way to make it dissolve. The songsmith shuddered. “We must indeed be cautious.”
He nodded absently, gazing around them. “And there is one more thing,” he added heavily. “My instincts tell me that this spell has somehow altered even time itself... or our perception of it, at least.”
“How so?”
“It is seeming to draw time out, slow it down. Crossing this gorge will take us long enough-if we even make it-“ His mouth twisted. “But however long it takes us, it will seem even longer.”
“But...” Lydryth pressed her fingers against her left side, feeling her heartbeat, reassuring in its steady rhythm. “But my heart is beating, I am breathing ... I feel no different!”
“ You are not different. Lady, not physically. Illusion works within the mind, though its effects can be very real-seeming indeed.” Alon glanced around them at the desolation of this violated, denuded land. “Somewhere around us lies the true path, masked by illusion, and that is what we must seek.”
“And the finding of that path will be no easy task,” Lydryth finished with what she believed to be the truth. He nodded.
“But you can find it...,” she said urgently, searching for reassurance in his grim expression-and not finding it. “You have the true sight!”
“I do,” he agreed. “But constant use of the true sight is wearing... more wearying than fighting a score of annsmen. I only hope that my sight does not wane as I tire.”
“I will do whatever I can to aid you,” Lydryth promised. “We had better get started before another of those earthtremors comes.” She turned away, then gave him a sideways glance. “Or are they, too, illusion?”
“The ones we experienced before were real,” Alon told her levelly. “If one of us were to fall into one of those crevasses as they open ... death would be equally real.” Only his eyes betrayed what he was feeling-a fear as great as her own.
Lydryth swallowed, resolutely fighting down the terror that wanted to possess her, make her run screaming in any direction, heedless of danger. “I understand. Now ... which way? With no sun to guide us, all trails seem the same.”
“There,” Alon said, pointing to a opening between two towering reddish spires. “Walk directly behind me, and do not step off the path I hold to.”
He handed Monso’s lead to her, then turned to go. Suddenly he halted. “May I carry your staff?” he asked. “The quan-iron in the gryphon’s-head may aid in warning against a false step.”
Wordlessly, she handed him the quarterstaff, saw him reverse it in his hand so that the gryphon’s-head pointed downward, toward the ground before him. He began walking.
Lydryth followed him, eyes on the ground, stepping in the same places his feet had rested. She kept Monso snubbed close on a short rein, forcing the Keplian to walk beside her. Fortunately the stallion’s injury served to slow his naturally long strides.
Even this extreme caution did not completely save her from mishaps. The raw, rock-studded earth beneath her feet was littered with stones that seemed almost to nudge their way beneath her toes or heels so that they could then slip treacherously out from underfoot, or turn sharply, wrenching her ankles. The dead, greyed vegetation proved another hindrance, snagging her toes, slowing and tripping her no matter how carefully she stepped. Lydryth nearly fell several times. Once only her hold on Monso’s lead saved her from a headlong plunge down a short, precipitous cliff.
Soon the songsmith was hobbling in earnest, wincing with every step. Her eyes ached from the hot, brassy glare overhead; she blinked them only when they began to sting unbearably, afraid that closing them even for an instant would cause her to miss the true path.
Even with his true sight, Alon fared little better. His riding boots were not intended for prolonged walking, even without the hindrance of a bespelled land that seemed determined to thwart every forward step. Soon he, too, was limping.
The young Adept alternated between picking out the path a few stumbling steps ahead, then halting for endless moments to scan the torn, churned vista before them, using the quarterstaff to sweep the ground before his boots.
Several times he muttered softly, extending a hand, and Lydryth saw dark violet light flare from his fingertips, coalesce into a slender arrow of brightness, then wind its way along the ground before him, vanishing ten or fifteen paces farther on. If he can thus mark the true path for us, then we will be able to escape this maze, she thought with relief.
But soon she realized that using his Power to indicate their direction was wearing dangerously upon her companion. Each time he called up the violet arrows of light, the lines around Alon’s eyes and mouth deepened, the skin over his cheekbones grew tighter, until he seemed naught but a gaunt, greyed shadow of the man Lydryth had known. Sweat made runnels in the dust on his face; his thin shirt clung to his back, dark and soaked.
The songsmith fought back a surge of pity, reminding herself coldly that it was he who had led them into this peril in the first place. With a small, distant portion of her mind she was shocked by her own callousness, but she angrily hardened her heart as she placed one foot before the other, over and over again.
Onward they toiled, their pitifully slow progress made even more halting by their frequent stops while Alon determined the correct route. Overhead the sickly-hued sky never changed; heat pressed down on them like a muffling blanket. Thirst soon became a torment.
The travelers had three water flasks between them, hardly enough to last them even one day’s hard journey, considering that Monso must needs share their supply. The only water they had encountered within Yachne’s blighted land lay in muddy, scummed pools of such rankness that no creature could safely drink from them, or from springs that bubbled hot from the bowels of the earth, emitting eye- and throat-searing fumes.
After a time that went unmeasured except by Lydryth’s increasing thirst, pain from her wrenched ankles, and general misery from the will-sapping spell lying over the ensorcelled land, Alon halted. “Rest awhile ... ,” he rasped. “Water ...”
Slowly his knees folded and he sank to the ground, where he sat unmoving, shoulders bowed, head hanging with exhaustion.
The songsmith halted, too, then took out their packs of food and water flasks. She held out the container to Alon, who stared at it, his eyes so reddened and dulled with weariness that he seemed scarcely aware of what it was. “Here,” she said, steadying it as she removed the stopper. “Water. Drink, Alon.”
Catching the scent of water, the Keplian whickered softly, nostrils flaring. The Adept looked down at the flask, then took a deep breath, awareness returning to his gaze. He shook his head, then handed the water back to Lydryth with the ghost of a courtly flourish in the gesture. “You first, my lady,” he said, in that harsh, barely understandable whisper.
Unable to summon breath or wit to argue with him, she did as he bade, feeling the stale, warm liquid trickle down her throat like the finest of chilled wine from a High Lord’s table. Running her tongue over cracked Ups to catch the last drops, she handed the flask to her companion.
But still Alon did not drink.
“Here, fellow ...,” he said, tugging the Keplian’s lead so the stallion stood nearly atop him. “You must be thirsty, too...”
Retrieving his leather jerkin, he spread it over his crossed knees so as to make a hollow. Then the Adept cautiously tipped half of the contents of the flask into the makeshift pail. Monso gulped the scant amount noisily. Only after the stallion had licked up all of the moisture did Alon raise the flask to his lips and drink sparingly.
The Adept shook the last drops from the now-empty flask into the jerkin for the stallion; then he crumbled journeybread for the Keplian to lip up from the garment’s battered surface. Plainly forcing himself, Alon broke off pieces of journeybread, trying not to open his cracked and bloodied mouth any wider than necessary to eat. Grimly, he chewed and swallowed the morsels. But when he held out a chunk to the songsmith, she shook her head. “I cannot. The journeybread is too dry.”
“Some fruit, then,” he said, locating the packet Dahaun had packed for them. “You need the strength, Lydryth.”
Too tired to argue, she mouthed and swallowed the overwhelming sweetness of the dried pulp. Eating did little to restore her blighted spirits, but slowly a measure of strength returned to her weary body.
She watched in dull surprise as Alon unstoppered their second flask and poured another generous measure for the horse. When Lydryth made a small, protesting movement, he shook his head. “I have traveled on short rations before. Rationing too severely does more harm than good, my lady. We are better off drinking now, attempting to keep our strength up while a measure of it still remains, rather than saving most of the water until we are too weak to go on.”
Remembering that her father had once told her something of the same thing, the minstrel nodded, accepted the second flask, then drank. “But only if you take more, too,” she said, handing it to her fellow-traveler. At her insistence, he took several more swallows, then stoppered the remainder carefully.
“How far have we come?” she whispered, trying not to move her parched Ups more than necessary to make her voice heard. “How much farther to the end of this place?”
He shrugged grimly. “We have come farther than Yachne would ever have suspected we could,” he said. “Of that I am sure. The way out should lie just over that hill.” He pointed. Lydryth saw that his hand was shaking, despite his effort to steady it.
“What hill?” she whispered.
“You cannot see it?”
“Of course not.” Old anger made her tone sharper than she had intended. “I see only a thicket of dead bushes laced with thorny vines, all of it so interwoven it might as well be a hanging in the great hall of a keep.”
Alon gazed at her speculatively. “The thicket is illusion.”
“I will take your word for it.” The asperity was still there in her voice, though Lydryth was not sure precisely why she felt so nettled with him. Was it the witch’s spell that was causing her to feel such frustration and hopelessness? Or her anger at Alon for leading them into this trap of Yachne’s? She did not know. At his steady, measuring glance, her mouth tightened defiantly and she looked away, studying the vegetation that Alon insisted was not really there.
“Will we feel the vines and thorns?” she whispered, eyeing the sharp, greyish brambles apprehensively. “Or is this illusion one that confuses only the eye?”
“I fear that it is one of the more tangible ones,” he said. “Monso I can blindfold and lead, but you ...” He shook his head.
“If I try and make my way through that, I will be flayed alive ...,” she muttered, staring at the vicious thorns. “Perhaps if my eyes were covered, also ...” She trailed off with an inquiring glance.
Grimly, he shook his head again. “For you, the illusion is the reality. Whether you see it or not will make but little difference. As long as the false is real within your own mind, you will feel the results.”
“Can we go around?” she glanced at both sides of the thicket.
“Hardly. There”-he pointed to the left of the thicket-“is a scattering of large boulders, crowded so close that a dog would be hard-pressed to thread a way between them, much less something of Monso’s size. And there”-he indicated the right-“is one of the steaming pools. Can you not smell it?”
Lydryth’s nostrils twitched, then wrinkled. She could definitely detect the noxious fumes that proclaimed the reality of his assertion.
“Is that the only way we can go?” Panic clutched at her mind. Perhaps if she muffled her face and hands with pieces of blanket, and moved very slowly, she could avoid serious injury...
“That is the only true path,” he said. “See for yourself.” Rising to his feet, he muttered softly, then held out both hands. Purple light slowly outlined his fingers, dripped with painful slowness to the ground, where it gathered and coalesced into one of the sinuous arrow-shapes she had seen earlier. The light writhed forward, toward the center thicket, marking their path. But this time it waned quickly, fading almost before she fixed her eyes on it. Alon staggered, gasping, and had to brace himself against Monso’s shoulder. “The marker ... ,” he muttered hoarsely. “Did you see it?”
“Yes, I saw where it pointed. I will just have to go slowly, I suppose.”
Alon shook his head, teeth clamping onto his torn lower lip as he pushed himself upright. “No,” he said. “That will not work.”
“But I cannot-“
“Yes, you can!” His eyes held hers with a fierceness he had never shown before. “I have neither time nor strength to allow you to cling to your own comforting illusions, Lady,” he rasped. “What you must needs do is break this Seeming for yourself.”
She stared at him blankly. “But I have no Power! You know that!” she protested finally, her voice shrill.
“I know that you believe that you have no Power,” he countered. “And I know also that that belief is what holds you back.”
“Just as your belief that Yachne’s spell is too powerful for you to break is holding you back?” she demanded coldly. “I never took you for a coward, Alon, until now. How dare you lead us into this trap, then blame me for not having abilities I have never possessed?” Her accusation was filled with venom that made him flinch away as though she had actually struck him.
His mouth tightened, his shoulders that had hunched before her bitter anger slowly straightened. “You possess ‘the Gift,’ as you call it, Lydryth. I have known that since the first night we met. I also saw that the truth was too frightening for you to face, so I let you hold to your mistaken belief. But now you must face the truth!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lydryth snarled. “The heat has addled your wits!”
“No, it has not. Only your lack of belief in yourself keeps you from seeing through that illusion. Only your lack of belief in your own Power holds us prisoner. Why do you think the witch of Estcarp pursued you so single-mindedly? You have blinded yourself to the truth from fear-but now it is time to face truth-and use the Power within you!”
“No!” she choked, furious at him. “You lie!”
Blind with rage, she lurched to her feet and struck out at him, flailing, kicking, but he avoided her blows, seizing her shoulders in his hands. Whirling her around, he pulled her back against him, gripping her hard. Hands and arms that could curb Monso’s headlong rushes tightened on her flesh and bone, holding her past any ability others to struggle free. Lydryth gasped with the pain. “Look!” he ordered, his mouth so close to her ear that she could hear him clearly, despite the harsh rasp that served him now for a voice. “That thicket is not there! That thicket is the lie! Look well, songsmith, and see past the falsehood to the truth, which is the hillside!”
Unable to break his grip, she subsided, then stared sullenly at the pale grey vegetation. “I see only the thicket,” she muttered.
“You are not trying!” he said fiercely. “You must try! Concentrate! See the hillside!”
She fixed her eyes on the spot, feeling them throb and burn from the glare overhead. The outlines of the vegetation began to shimmer slightly-or was it her imagination?
“I cannot...” She was shaking now, feeling a different sort of fear seize her.
“You must believe! You can, I swear it by my life, you can do it!”
She focused, stared until her vision blurred, tears of pain nearly blinding her as she forced herself not to blink. See a hillside-there is a hillside, she insisted to herself. Vegetation swam before her; then there was something ... something reddish showing through...
“I see ...” She was forced to blink, then it was gone. She sagged back against his chest, limp with defeat. “I cannot, Alon!” she pleaded.
“You can,” he insisted, supporting her, though she could feel him trembling with weariness. “Lydryth ... try humming while you look.”
She craned her neck to fix him with an incredulous glance, but he only nodded firmly. “Go on ... try.”
Lydryth turned back to the tangle of shadowy vines, then began to hum, scarcely aware of what tune she had chosen. The greyness swam before her dazzled eyes, and she blinked to clear her vision, concentrating...
As if it had always been there before her, she now saw a hill with a trail leading straight up it, narrow and precipitous between jagged boulders!
Lydryth gasped, and with the interruption of the music, the grey curtain of vines returned. “Alon!” she whispered. “I saw it!”
“Good,” he said, not at all surprised, and released her. “Your gift must be linked to music, Lydryth. When you tamed Monso, you sang. When you fooled the witch back in Es City, you were humming, were you not?”
She cast her mind back to events that now seemed years- instead of mere days-ago. “Yes, I was,” she said after a moment. “My mother’s lullaby ...” She regarded him, completely bewildered. “But... Alon ... how can this be? I have never heard of such a talent!”
“Neither have I,” he admitted. “But, now that I think of it. much of magic is dependent upon sounds-chants, incantations, even songs. Remember the crystal Gate? The spell to open it depended on the correct note being sung!”
She nodded, bemused. “This discovery explains ... much,” she said slowly.
“At the moment, our concern must be escaping from this place and tracing Yachne,” he reminded her. Quickly, he stripped off his shirt, then used its sleeves to tie it snugly over Monso’s eyes. “If he cannot see where he is going, I do not believe the illusion will prevail for him,” he told the songsmith. “This would not work for one of us, for our minds are more complex, and thus not so easily fooled. Are you ready, my lady?”
Lydryth nodded firmly. “I am.”
“Can you see the hillside?”
She summoned music, hummed between parched lips, then nodded as the trail took shape before her eyes. “Then... after you, my lady,” Alon said, in his cracked, rasping voice. He bowed, waving her past with a courtly gesture. The contrast between his formal manner and his appearance made Lydryth shake her head. His face, with its livid weal caused by the web-rider’s slash, was blistered and seared by the heat, and his bare chest and shoulders were streaked with dust and muddy sweat. For a moment she wondered if he had gone quite mad-he certainly appeared demented.
But no, his eyes were sane. He believed in her. The least she could do was to believe in herself. Taking a deep breath, Lydryth hummed steadily, and they started up the long, rocky trail. The songsmith concentrated on filling her mind with the music. She was so intent upon her task that she did not feel the earth-tremor until it struck, making her stagger, making her gasp-
whereupon, instantly, she was surrounded by bushes and dead vines. A thousand thorns jabbed her. Only by the grace of fortune were her eyes spared that assault.
“Concentrate!” she heard Alon’s shout from behind her.
Already she was summoning the music again, and the feel of the entangling growth was gone. She took a step forward, felt no obstruction, took another, and only then dared open her eyes. The hillside lay before her.
Lydryth slogged her way toward the top of the hill, alert for more quakes, kicking loose stones from her path, humming like an insect gone mad.
“You may stop now, and breathe,” Alon’s rasping whisper reached her. “We are beyond the illusion-thicket.”
The songsmith halted, regarding her arms with a silent thanksgiving to Gunnora that she had not panicked. Dozens of small pinpricks oozed a single droplet of scarlet apiece. Cautiously, she explored her grimy face with even dirtier fingertips, discovering several more stabs.
“For an illusion,” she said to Alon as he came up beside her, “that was all too real.” She held out her arm.
He nodded grimly. “At least we are past. You have learned a valuable lesson today, Lady. When one is working any kind of spell or counterspell, it can be disaster to let one’s concentration break. The first year or so as an apprentice is spent learning to focus and not to be distracted. You had to master that lesson in the space of minutes.”
“Be assured it is a lessoning I shall not soon forget.”
He stepped up beside her, and together they made their way to the crest of the hillside. As weary as they were, it took them a long time, and they were gasping when they reached it. There they halted, gazing down at what now lay before them.
A short walk beyond, the blighted land ended abruptly in a chasm so deep and so black that Lydryth could not discern any bottom to it. A wall of thick grey mist seemed to rise out of the opening, roiling and drifting as though blown by a wind, though she could feel none. The mist extended before them, as high as she could see in each direction, blocking their sight of what, if anything, lay beyond.
They had reached the end of their road... they could go no farther.
Tears of despair filled the songsmith’s eyes, and she sank weakly to her knees, pressing both hands to her broken lips. Sobs shook her, wrenched her shoulders. To have come all this way, only to have it end thus. To have come all this way for nothing!
Alon sighed, dropping to sit beside her. His bare shoulders bowed forward as he buried his face in his hands, obviously as shaken as she.
“We shall have to go back,” Lydryth whispered, after a while. It was either that or die right here, and she wasn’t... quite ... ready to die. “Perhaps there is another way...”
He shook his head, then, with an effort that was palpable, straightened his shoulders. Retrieving his shirt from Monso’s head, he pulled it on, buttoning it with none-too-steady fingers. “We cannot,” he said. “Our way out lies there.” He pointed across the chasm. “That mist hides the real Arvon. We must find some way to cross over the chasm ... to bridge that gap.”
Lydryth stared at him, certain that he was now completely bereft of his wits. “But... how?”
“We must make a bridge.”
“There is no way! We have nothing to build with-even if a bridge could span that void, which I do not for one moment believe!”
“It is the only way out,” he maintained stubbornly. “Arvon-the real Arvon-is there.” He pointed. “I can sense it. By the Sword Arm of Karthen the Fair, I can smell it! Cannot you?”
She gave him a sideways glance, then, as he regarded her steadily, ventured a sniff. “I smell ... ,” she whispered. “I smell flowers! And water! Is that another illusion?”
“No,” he said. “It is real. The other hillside is there. We must cross the chasm to reach it, Lydryth. We must make a bridge.”
“Out of what? We have nothing!”
He did not answer, only unfastened the last water flask from Monso’s saddle. “Drink,” he said, holding it and the packet of food out to her. “And eat. Force yourself. You will need all your strength for what is about to come.”
Bewildered, she did as he bade. Scenting the water, Monso whickered pleadingly, but this time the Adept shook his head at the stallion. “I am sorry, old son,” he said, giving the Keplian a comforting pat, “but if we succeed, your thirst will be eased very quickly.”
“And if we fail?” asked Lydryth, giving him a sidelong glance. She could not imagine what he had in mind.
“If we fail,” he said grimly, “then neither thirst nor hunger will torture us for much longer, so the result will be the same.”
After they had eaten and drunk, emptying the third and last flask between them, they made their way down the raw rock of the hillside, then walked the short distance to the edge of the drop. Making sure both feet were planted as securely as possible, Lydryth took hold of Monso’s right stirrup and leaned forward, gazing downward.
Sheer red rock for as far down as she could see, disappearing finally into the swirling grey mist.
Alon picked up a stone, held it suspended over the gorge, then released it. It fell... and fell...
... and fell. They never heard it strike bottom.
Lydryth stared at the wall of mist before them. It was perhaps two of Monso’s lengths distant. “You believe that if we can plunge into that mist, we shall be released from the spell and back in the real Arvon,” she said finally.
Alon nodded.
“How shall we cross the gap?” she asked, keeping her voice level, as though they were discussing a problem with a solution, rather than quick and certain death.
“We must make a bridge,” he repeated.
“Using what?”
“Ourselves,” he said flatly. “Our Power. My blood. Your music.”
She gazed at him wide-eyed. “You are mad,” she whispered.
Alon shook his head at her warningly. “You have already learned the value of belief, Lydryth. You will need all of it you can summon. Do not let doubt intrude. I am sane, never doubt it. This”-he waved at the abyss-“is our way out. On the other side lies the Arvon we left.”
She caught again that faint scent of flowers. Monso sniffed the air; then the Keplian’s nostrils widened and he nickered, pawing. “He smells the water,” Alon said.
Lydryth bit her lip, then took a deep breath. What choice, after all, did she have? “Very well,” she said quietly. “I believe. [ How shall we do it?” !
He gave her a quick, approving nod. “We will need to combine our Power,” he said. “Create a Seeming of our own. One of the ones so strong that it has solidity, substance. It will not be easy,” he finished, warningly. “But it can be done.”
“I am ready,” she said resolutely. “Tell me what to do.”
“In the first place, you must concentrate,” he told her. “If the earth trembles this time, you must not let it disturb you, do you understand?”
She nodded.
The Adept took his knife out of its sheath, handed it to her. “When I nod, you must cut,” he said, tapping his wrist. “Cut deeply enough so that the blood flows freely, but not so deep that we cannot staunch the wound later.” Lydryth hesitated, then took the knife he held out. “I would do it myself,” Alon said, with a note of apology, “but we must link hands for this. Whatever happens, do not let go.”
“I understand,” she said, studying the blue veins running along the inside of his forearm, planning the best place to do as he bade. “Then what?”
“You must sing. You will feel the Power leaving you, joining with the blood to create the bridge. Use your music to strengthen your Power-and our bridge. Sing, and stop for nothing! As soon as the bridge is solid, you must send Monso across, then lead me. I will have my eyes closed, holding the spell in my mind’s eye, and I will not be able to see what I-we-have wrought.”
He gazed at her intently. “If Gunnora smiles upon us, by the time I next see you, we will be back in Arvon.”
Lydryth touched the symbol of the Amber Lady that she wore upon her neck. Then, quickly, she checked that all their supplies were securely lashed to Monso’s saddle. “We are ready,” she told Alon.
Solemnly, he unbuttoned his left sleeve, rolled it up so his arm was bared. The he held out both hands to her. Lydryth grasped his right hand tightly with her left, then raised the knife.
Alon closed his eyes, took several deep breaths, then nodded. “First, the music,” he muttered.
Lydryth began to hum softly... Choosing a tune nearly at random, she was taken aback to realize it was “Hathor’s Ghost Stallion,” the melody she had been singing when first they had met. As she began to sing the words, his fingers squeezed hers. “Now,” he whispered.
Bracing herself, Lydryth brought the knife up to the flesh of his wrist. It would be far easier to cut myself, she thought, forcing herself to keep singing. Amber Lady, aid me! Do not let me hurt him! Let us escape from this place, I beg of You!
Touching the blade to skin, she resolutely drew it across and down. A tiny trickle of red followed, and she forced herself to cut deeper... deeper. The trickle strengthened, began to drip ... then flow.
The songsmith had spilled blood before, but never like this. She felt darkness creeping up on the edges of her vision, and only the hard grasp on her fingers kept her from fainting or being sick. Still, she sang, never missing a note.
Alon began to mutter hoarsely, chanting in a language she did not recognize, as blood splashed on the edge of the abyss. Lydryth was conscious of a sudden pull upon her inner strength. Alon’s blood was only the outward sign of what was happening here. There was a draining, a flow from her to him, that made her almost falter. Summoning all her will, her determination, she stood firm, singing, and watched the abyss.
From that steady drip of scarlet, something was growing. Lydryth’s eyes widened as she saw something taking shape ... a bridge! An actual curved span, shadowy, but gaining substance! It was red ... as red as blood, pulsing to the beat of both their hearts ... and with each beat, it gained substance.
Alon’s face was pale now, beneath his tan, but his chanting grew louder. Blood spattered, Lydryth was singing loudly now, forcing the words to ring out true and strong, forcing herself to believe in what she was seeing.
The bridge shimmered scarlet in the light, stretching across the chasm, into the grey mist. Careful not to loose her grip on Alon’s hand, the songsmith raised her foot, touched it to the bridge. It was solid-it took her weight. But will it hold the stallion’s?
“Come on, Monso,” she sang, incorporating the order into one of the verses. One-handed, she grasped the Keplian’s rein and pulled him so he fronted that span. She tugged at his lead, indicating she wanted him to cross. “Go on, boy!” she sang, her voice ringing out in a musical command. “Go!”
The stallion pawed at the bridge, obviously dubious, but the scent of water, and the solid feel of Alon’s creation beneath his questing hoof, convinced him. With a snort, the half-bred plunged forward. His hooves clattered on the bridge, as he surged up onto it, then disappeared into the mist. A last flick of his black tail, then he was gone.
Did he fall? Lydryth wondered, but resolutely forced herself not to even consider that possibility. She guided Alon to step onto the span, nerving herself to place both feet on that crimson surface. Together, they edged along, the Adept chanting, Lydryth singing.
A moment later, the most wonderful music she had ever heard reached the songsmith’s ears, even above the sound of her own singing. It was the sound of a horse drinking, great, gulping slurps of water. “Thank you. Amber Lady!” Lydryth sang, careful not to look down. She pulled Alon faster, as they made a crablike progress.
They were slightly more than halfway across when Lydryth felt the Adept stagger. Casting an anxious glance at him, she saw that his face was grey. His eyes rolled back in his head; showing only the whites. Knees buckling, he swayed. The shining crimson surface beneath their feet began to quiver.
Lydryth slung her free arm around Alon’s waist, holding him against her. The bridge shivered, fading. Resolutely squeezing her own eyes shut, Lydryth lunged forward, leaping into the mist, dragging Alon with her.
A heartbeat later she felt herself falling ... falling...
For what seemed endless seconds, Lydryth fell through the swirling greyness. A scream welled in her throat, trying to burst from her lips. But before any sound could emerge, she struck solid ground, landing so hard that the breath rushed from her lungs. She pitched over, rolling, the rich smell of growing turf filling her nostrils.
When the world finally stopped its dizzying spin, Lydryth found herself staring dazedly at a blue sky dotted with white clouds. The sun shone just past its zenith. Raising her head weakly, she saw Monso regarding her, ears pricked, muzzle still dripping water from the stream flowing past his hooves.
Someone groaned.
The pain in that sound brought her up onto hands and knees. “Alon?”
The Adept was lying behind her, on the hillside. His eyes were closed; the sound of his name did not rouse him. Bright scarlet splashed the green grass by his side, soaking into the ground. That sight made the songsmith scuttle forward to seize his wrist, squeezing hard to stop the blood flow.
Finally, it halted. Lydryth sat back on her heels, her scarlet-streaked hands shaking as she tried to summon the strength to do what she could to aid him. Alon still lay unconscious, so pale his skin was greyish and his lips blue. Despite the warmth of the sun, he was shivering beneath the thin fabric of his once-white linen shirt, now a rusty brown from drying blood.
Blankets... liquids... Healcraft that Joisan had taught her came slowly to mind. Pushing herself up onto legs that trembled at first from her own weakness, she walked slowly over to the Keplian and led him back to the Adept’s side Untying their packs, she then unsaddled the stallion, turning him loose to roll and graze, trusting that he would stay near his master.
Wrapping Alon snugly in both their cloaks, she gathered wood to build a small fire, then fetched water from the stream to heat. While she was waiting for the pot to simmer, she unpacked the small bag of simples Joisan had assembled for her so long ago. Snippets of lore gained from her fostermother came back to her as the sometimes sweet, sometimes sharp scents of the powdered herbs made her nostrils twitch.
A restorative ... verbena! A tea made with verbena ...
Scenting the distinctive sharp, lemony scent, she opened the proper bag, dropping the dried leaves into the pot. When the tisane was ready, she strained it, then, propping Alon’s head on her knee, urged him to drink. His eyelids fluttered, and he roused enough to swallow the tea, but he did not regain consciousness. His shivering eased, though, and for that the songsmith was grateful.
Before tackling the wound on his wrist, she drank a cup of the brew herself. The songsmith felt as emptied as if she had been awake and without food for days. Such weariness was normal after use of the Power, she knew that. The thought sparked a bittersweet memory.
I worked magic, she thought, scarcely able to believe it. Even though it had happened only a short while ago, the memory was already raveling and faded, as if it had happened to another person, not the Lydryth of here-and-now. She sighed, shaking her head as she visualized again that hillside thorn-walled by illusion, and how she had sung the falseness away to discover the truth beneath. Did I truly do that? Or was it Alon ‘s magic affecting me somehow? Is it possible that I truly do hold my own kind of Power?
There were no certain answers to her questions, and no time to ponder them. Kneeling beside the fast-running water, Lydryth washed her face and hands, scrubbing her fingertips and nails with white sand from the stream bottom. Joisan maintained that keeping wounds clean was fully as important as using the proper herbs and spells for their treatment.
After washing the oozing slash with boiled water, into which she had dissolved generous pinches of saffron and yarrow, to promote healing, she frowned as she studied the extent of the cut. It needed stitching, such as she had seen her fostermother do. But here in the wilds of Arvon, she had no needle, no boiled thread.
Lydryth considered simply bandaging the wound, but it was so deep that she thought it would take very little movement to reopen it and start the bleeding afresh. And in Alon’s present condition, any further blood loss would be dangerous-quite possibly fatal.
As she hesitated, her eye was caught by Dahaun’s small, sealed box containing the red mud from the Valley of the Green Silences. No! she thought, biting her lip. An idea had come to her, but it was not one she cared to contemplate. Dahaun said not to open the box! That mud is for Jervon-his last chance to be healed!
She glared down at Alon with sudden animosity. I will not use Jervon’s cure to heal you. I will NOT! Anger waxed hot within her. One small portion other mind argued that her fury was irrational, but she was too angry to listen to it.
“No!” she whispered fiercely. “Jervon is my father! You are nothing to me, nothing, do you hear?”
Her wrath had become a fire within her, raging out of control. It would serve you right if I went on without you. after you plunged us into such a morass of sorcery! she thought savagely. I ought to leave you here-leave you to die!
The young man stirred restlessly, as though even unconscious he sensed her sudden ire. Lydryth felt half-drunk with rage, with hate. For a moment her hand twitched toward her dagger; then she rose and walked straight away, not looking back.
Picking up her pack, she shouldered it, then started up the hillside. Monso whickered, pawing the ground anxiously, but she ignored the stallion. Furious, shaking, she remembered how they had escaped from Yachne’s illusion-land. She hated Alon for what he had forced her to discover about herself. I don’t want Power! she thought, incensed. It carries too much danger, too much risk! He had no right to do what he did!
Without warning, a blackness swooped out of the sky, heading straight for her eyes. A shrill scream rent the air. Lydryth ducked as it winged by her, its tailfeathers brushing the top of her head.
As she straightened up, the creature flung itself at her again, clawed talons nearly raking her face. The songsmith stumbled back, losing her footing on the hillside, then sat down so hard that lights flashed behind her eyes and a roaring filled her ears. Blinking, she stared wide-eyed at her surroundings. The creature that had swooped at her alighted on a dead tree nearby. It was a falcon, and, as she stared at it, it screamed again.
“Steel Talon!” Lydryth exclaimed, then, suddenly uncertain and shaken, she put a hand to her head. What was I doing? Abandoning Alon? Leaving him to die?
Incredulous horror filled her as she recalled the events of the past few minutes. If it had not been for Steel Talon, she might not have returned to her senses. What is wrong with me? she wondered. She remembered Alon’s cruel smile as he had watched the web-riders bum to death. Why are we behaving so? What is happening to us? Confused, fighting down panic, she ran back down the hillside to where Alon lay. Steel Talon alighted on the cantle of the saddle, where he perched, regarding her curiously as the songsmith applied the edge other knife to the seal on the box. Moments later, she had it open, revealing the rich, red mud. Scooping up a generous dollop, she spread it thickly across the wound. Quickly she closed the container tightly, then used a stub of candle to reseal the box with wax, hoping fervently that it would serve, and that the healing substance within would retain its potency.
Within moments after the red mud was patted into place on his wrist, the lines of pain on Alon’s countenance smoothed out. His muscles relaxed, and he appeared to fall into a deep, natural sleep. With slow, careful movements, she managed to ease off his blood-soaked shirt, then wet a cloth with hot water and used it to cleanse as much of the dried dirt and caked blood from his face, arms and chest as possible.
By the time she was finished, the sun had warmed and dried him. Though still pale, his color was better. Tucking the cloaks up snugly beneath his chin, she sat back on her heels and had another cup of tea. Then, while she chewed on a piece of journeybread, she crumbled another piece into water to make a sort of porridge. Glancing up at Steel Talon, she spoke aloud, finding her own voice strange and harsh in her ears. “After losing so much blood he really needs fresh meat, Winged One. Can you find something?”
The falcon gave a soft, piercing cry, then, in a blur of blackness, launched himself upward, winging off over the hill. By the time Lydryth had washed her patient’s tunic, then managed to gently ease him into his clean shirt, the falcon sailed into view again. Steel Talon circled low over her, something clutched in his talons-something that he dropped, so it landed half a dozen paces away.
Rising, Lydryth went over to find a small burrower. Picking the limp creature up by its long ears, she called out, “Thank you. Steel Talon!”
After skinning the animal, then chopping the meat as fine as the heavy blade of her dagger would allow, she dropped the sticky handfuls into the pot. While she waited for the thick broth to cook, she busied herself tending the Keplian’s leg.
Encouraged to find the swelling down and the wound almost completely closed, Lydryth left the pot to simmer and took her pack around the curve of the hillside, following the stream until she found a shallow pool. There she stripped and washed; her breath caught in her throat at the chill of the water, but being clean again refreshed her. Her own blood-streaked shirt and breeches she soaked to remove the stains, then scrubbed with sand and stretched over a bush in the sunlight. Pulling on clean clothing, Lydryth went back to Alon.
The broth was ready. Cooling it with a little water, she managed to rouse Alon enough to get him to swallow it. She drank a cup of the hearty-though tasteless-brew herself, wishing she had thought to season it with thyme or sage.
Then, knowing that she could do nothing more to aid Alon, and by now so weary that the hillside blurred around her, reminding her of Yachne’s spell-land, Lydryth lifted a comer of the cloak and crawled under it, fitting herself against Alon’s warmth, careful not to jar his injured arm. Just for a few minutes, she thought. I’ll just doze for ...
Monso’s moist, hot breath in her face woke her hours later. The Keplian was nosing her hair, snuffling eagerly at the sack of grain she was using for a pillow. Rubbing her eyes and yawning until she thought her jaw would split in two, the songsmith sat up, seeing that the sun lay far to the west.
After feeding the stallion, Lydryth put a hand on Alon’s forehead to check for fever. His skin was slightly overwarm, but his color was good. The red mud, she noted, was nearly dried out. Dahaun had warned her to let it dry and harden until it cracked, before stripping it away. The songsmith wound a length of bandage around her patient’s wrist to hold it in place.
After heating the broth again, she prepared to feed the Adept as before, but this time, when she touched him, Alon’s grey eyes opened. Though clouded by bewilderment, he seemed lucid enough. “How do you feel?” she asked him. “We are ... back?” he whispered hoarsely.
She nodded. “The bridge-spell worked.”
“Yachne?”
“There has been no sign of her or of any further spells,” she told him. “Steel Talon and Monso would have given warning, I believe. After tending you, I was so weary that I could not stay awake.”
He tried to push himself up on his elbows, but she forestalled him with a hand on his chest. “Softly, Alon. You are still weak. You lost a great deal of blood.”
The Adept subsided for the moment, but the expression on his face told Lydryth that he would not accept her edict for long. “We cannot linger here,” he said, his voice strengthening a bit. “We must take up the search again.”
“It will do us little good to find Yachne if you are too weak to face her,” she countered. “Even if I possess a tiny measure of the Power myself, I am no match for a sorceress with her ability.”
His mouth tightened grimly. “I am by no means sure that I can face her with any chance of winning,” he admitted. “That spell she wove to trap us ... I could not equal that.”
“But her Power is stolen,” the songsmith pointed out. “Mayhap her knowledge is lacking, even if her ability is not. Here...,” she urged, dipping into the pot over the fire, “take some more soup. It will strengthen you.” Carefully she helped him sit up, then put the cup into his hands. The thick liquid sloshed; his hands were trembling. Silently the songsmith helped him steady the container. He sipped, cautiously at first, then with more assurance.
It took all of Alon’s strength to drink the soup and nibble halfheartedly at a few bits of dried fruit. He was plainly dismayed at his own weakness. “How is Monso?” he asked.
“The wound is closed. He seems nearly well.”
“He has always healed quickly,” the Adept said. His voice took on a bitter note. “Would that I could do likewise!”
“You must give yourself time to recover,” Lydryth said. “I was exhausted from the spell you worked, and I had only to back you.” She shook her head. “Nor did I lose the amount of blood you did. You need rest, and food.”
“What I need,” he said curtly, “is to find Yachne, so that I may repay her for the trials she has caused us! But by now she could be anywhere!”
Steel Talon squawked suddenly, sharply, plainly demanding attention. Alon turned to regard the bird intently, as the two obviously shared some wordless communication. As he “listened,” the Adept’s taut shoulders abruptly relaxed. “What is it?” Lydryth demanded.
“If I understand Steel Talon aright, he is telling me that the one we followed through the Gate is perhaps a half-day’s journey ahead of us, no more-and that she is not hurrying.” His mouth twisted sardonically. “Which should not surprise me. After working the spell that created that massive illusionland, it is no wonder the witch is wearied!” He gazed thoughtfully up at the falcon. “There is something more... something clouded by anger that I cannot understand clearly. Steel Talon feels great anger toward Yachne.”
“Because she is the cause of your troubles here in Arvon?” Lydryth guessed aloud.
“Steel Talon does not feel that strongly for me,” Alon said. “It was Jon that he loved. Falconers and their birds are bound together by ties of great loyalty and affection.”
“But you have companied together for a long time,” she countered. “Steel Talon has affection for you, I can tell. When I told him that you needed fresh meat to regain your strength, he returned with some as swiftly as he could.”
“Perhaps ...,” he said, his voice ending with a sigh.
“You are wearied,” she told him. “Lie back and rest.”
He turned to regard the sun, hovering only a handspan over the distant hills. Crimson and yellow splashed the western clouds. “I can rest atop Monso. He can bear my weight, I believe, if we do no more than walk.”
Lydryth opened her mouth to protest, but halted as he shook his head. “I know what you are about to say, but I will not be able to rest while we are so close to Yachne’s bespelled ground. What if somehow we became entrapped there again?”
Lydryth glanced back uneasily at that faintly shimmering, raw-cut gorge. “Could that happen?”
“I know not. The spell she used was beyond my ability ... I cannot judge. I only know that I will rest better on Monso’s back, going away from this place, than I ever could so near to it.”
The songsmith sighed and gave in. Truth to tell, now that Alon had brought up the possibility that the spell-land might ensnare them again, she would not be able to relax near it, either. “Very well,” she said. “I will lead Monso, and we will walk-but only for an hour or so, understand?”
He nodded. “I can sleep on horseback. I have done it before.”
Leaning on Lydryth for support, he managed to walk the short distance to the streamside, where he laved his hands and face with the chill water, afterward drinking deeply. Then, while Lydryth saddled the Keplian and repacked their supplies, Alon swallowed another measure of the strengthening tisane.
When they were ready to start, Lydryth led the Keplian to a position downhill from the Adept. With her aid, he was able to place foot to stirrup, then clamber into the saddle, grunting with the effort. When he settled into place, she saw that his teeth were fastened in his lower lip, and sweat beaded his forehead.
Clumsily, favoring his injured arm, he drew his cloak around him, and they started off, the setting sun at their backs.
Fortunately, their path lay across gently rolling meadows, and Lydryth could see well enough to continue until full dark, thus putting several hillsides between them and Yachne’s trap. When she reached the crest of the third such hillside, she halted, breathing a bit heavily, but feeling her spirits lift to be moving once again in the direction of their goal. She refused to let herself contemplate what might lie at the end of the search.
Looking up at Alon in the growing darkness, she saw that his eyes were closed, and he was slumped in the saddle, dozing. If only I could go on a little farther before halting, she thought, glancing back at the faint line of reddish-orange that still marked the western sky. Monso, like all horses, has good night vision and will not need much guidance. If only I had the Power to see in the dark as Alon can!
An instant later that idly framed thought brought her up short. But I do have the Power! Perhaps I can use it even as he does!
Taking a quick drink from her flask to ease the dryness of her throat after walking, she opened her eyes wide, imagining herself seeing in the dark; then, softly, she began to hum.
To her left... there, that was a bush. As Lydryth concentrated, its outlines sharpened. And there... that was a small gully gouged by the hard spring rains. Over to her right was an ancient limb, its bare branches seeming skeletal in the uncanny vision she was acquiring.
Picking up Monso’s lead once again, humming steadily, the songsmith went on.
By midnight she was stumbling with weariness, and her throat was too raw to produce any more sound. She had discovered, however, that simply holding the melody firmly in mind, hearing it within the confines of her own head, sufficed to allow her to use this small magic she now owned.
However, there was a price. By the Amber Lady, there was a grim tax levied on anyone who would use magic. For the first time Lydryth truly understood, understood in every muscle, every sinew, why Joisan and Elys and Alon and Hyana always emerged from spell-casting sessions shaking with weariness and ravenously hungry. Several times she had halted to chew handfuls of dried fruit.
Finally, when she was beginning to weave with exhaustion and clutch Monso’s scraggly mane to stay upright, the songsmith had to halt. Her legs folded beneath her without her leave; she sank down on the grass.
She must have dozed there for several minutes, but finally she was roused by Monso’s nosing the back of her neck. Stiff muscles screamed silent protest as she hoisted herself wearily to her feet. Alon was still a-horse, though he lay slumped across Monso’s neck.
When she tried to loosen his hands, she found them locked in a death-grip on the Keplian’s mane. She had to pry his fingers up, one by one.
Then she tugged at his body until he toppled toward her. She groaned aloud as she caught his limp weight. Though not much taller than she was, he weighed more. Struggling, she managed to ease him to the ground unharmed. Hastily wrapping him in his cloak, she left him to sleep. Food and water could wait. It was all she could do to pull Monso’s saddle off, so the Keplian could graze.
Then, rolling herself in her own cloak, Lydryth stretched out on the ground, and knew no more.
She awoke some time later to the sound of Monso snorting and pawing nervously. The night was far spent; the thinnest sliver of moon shed a faint light. By tomorrow it will be moondark, she thought absently, pushing herself up on one elbow, wondering what had awakened her from such a profound slumber. Her answer came quickly-Monso. The half-bred stood nearby, not grazing, clearly agitated and on sentry-go.
“What is it, fellow?” she asked softly.
For reply the Keplian snorted so loudly that she jumped-a noisy houuffp. of expelled breath.
The songsmith summoned night-sight, mentally running a melody through her mind, and clearly saw Monso, spilled ink against the softer blackness of the spring night. He was staring northward, neck arched, ears pricked so far forward they nearly touched at the tips, his ebony tail flung straight up. He snorted again, then, without warning, screamed-the ringing challenge of one stallion to another.
An answer came out of the distance-a slurred, hissing call that sounded like no creature she had ever encountered!
Thoroughly alarmed, the songsmith scrambled free of her cloak, hand reaching for her staff. When she drew her sword, the bared steel glimmered faintly in the wan light of the dying moon.
Alon mumbled something in his sleep, but did not awaken. Lydryth considered trying to rouse him, but, remembering his weakness, decided to let him sleep, if possible. Perhaps Monso’s challenge had been voiced at the leader of a band of wild horses. Such were known to roam Arvon in its remoter parts. Distance or rock formations could have distorted the sound, made it seem so eerie.
But, as she gained her feet and stared northward, that faint hope vanished. Three mounted figures were trotting toward them. The songsmith’s heart contracted within her.
Quickly she found Alon’s lead-shank, then tethered the Keplian to a stout bush. There were no trees nearby, but she thought the fastening would hold him for a lunge or two. If their callers came in peace-Please, by Your blessing. Amber Lady, let them not mean us harm!-she did not want a stallion battle on her hands.
As their visitors approached, she strained to make out details. The one in the center was tall, and bestrode a huge black. Seeing the flash of red from the creature’s eyes, Lydryth realized that the beast was a full-blooded Keplian. Any small hope she had held that their nocturnal callers came with friendly intentions now vanished.
The two beasts flanking the Keplian seemed, at first glance, to be light grey or white horses. But as they came closer, she saw that they were not like any creatures she had ever seen,
Their heads were long and narrow, as were their necks, bodies and legs. Instead of a true horse’s short hair, they seemed to gleam faintly, as though their skins were not only smooth, but also scaled! Glimpses of sharp, curving teeth were revealed as their riders reined them down to a walk some distance away. Lydryth saw that they did not have hooves, but clawed talons, much like the falcon’s.
Like some kind of unnatural cross between horses and lizards, she thought. Like those beasts Sylvya told me of, the ones that Maleron and his hunters bestrode, when they rode as That Which Runs the Ridges ...
The two armsmen wore black armor, and their faces were overshadowed by their helms, so the songsmith could make out no features.
But the central rider, the one mounted on the Keplian, wore brightly burnished chain mail and a dark red surcoat over it, worked with a crest. The songsmith stared at that device, certain that she had seen its like before, somewhere ... a snake-or, rather, the bare skull of a snake-crowned, with dark rays of Power emanating from it...
Where had she seen such a crest? Lydryth’s mind spun frantically, searching, scrabbling through memory. She had been with Jervon ... yes, he had been there, and that same device had been carved ... yes, carved ... into a gatepost! She had it now! It had been a gatepost at Garth Howell, the school where those with the Power came to learn to use their magic!
The memory surged into Lydryth’s mind with such force that she gasped. She remembered the day she and her father had gone to the place to inquire about the Seeing Stone. The abbot, a thin, dark man with pale, ascetic features had courteously given them directions to reach the farseeing Place of Power. But before they had ridden forth, a young lay sister had drawn them aside, then whispered a few hasty words of warning. “Beware the Stone.” Lydryth could hear again that hoarse young voice in her mind. “It gives true sight, but it exacts a terrible price for it!”
And behind the girl’s head had been the gatepost, and upon it, graven deep into the granite, the same design that now faced her. The inhabitants of Arvon feared the school as a place where Power-wielders gathered, much as they feared the Grey Towers of the Wereriders. The place did not give open allegiance to the Left-Hand Path, but, over the years, there had been tales ...
Lydryth’s hand itched to raise her sword, but she forced herself to stand motionless as the riders halted before her. The one mounted on the Keplian unhelmed, and she saw, with her augmented vision, that he was well-favored-even handsome, with a strong jaw and regular features. “Fair can befoul,” she remembered Sylvya telling her. “My brother Maleron was handsome...”
And so was Dinzil, Lydryth suddenly remembered. She kept her head up, her sword pointed down, but her knees were bent, her body poised to assume fighting stance. The songsmith held her silence, forcing the newcomer to speak first.
He leaned on the pommel of his saddle, his eyes holding hers. “Fair meeting, minstrel,” he said, his tones cultured and deliberately mild. “You and your companion are traveling through our lands.”
Garth Howell’s lands, she thought, but did not reveal that she had recognized the device on his surcoat. Since it did not appear on any of the publicly displayed banners flown from the towers, she assumed that this sigil was intended to remain secret. “If we have trespassed, sir, I beg forgiveness. It was done in ignorance,” she replied, keeping her voice smooth and courteous. “We are bound for Redmantle lands and beyond.”
“Few travelers pass this way,” he said, and with her increased night vision she discerned the raking glance he gave her, the still-slumbering Adept, and Monso. “Our dominions lie rather off the known paths. How did you come to be here?”
He is baiting me, she thought, but kept her voice civil and noncommittal. “We have been traveling for days,” she said, speaking perfect truth but deliberately twisting the meaning. “Most recently we traversed a great Waste lying to the west of these foothills, after which we found ourselves here.”
Her inquisitor could not conceal a start of surprise. His eyes narrowed in unbelief... and well he might be skeptical. No one that Lydryth had ever heard of before could claim to have crossed the noxious Waste that lay to the far west of Arvon. She smiled at him tentatively, wondering all the while why he and his men-at-arms (Are they indeed of humankind? she found herself thinking. Their hands seem oddly shaped...) had come here.
“Indeed,” he said softly. “That is extraordinary hearing.”
Monso rumbled a deep challenge, and the leader’s mount raised its head. The creature was too well schooled to reply, but its eyes gleamed red. “And that is an extraordinary stallion you have been riding,” the newcomer continued, with barely a pause.
“No more so than your own,” Lydryth countered pleasantly.
He smiled; that stretch of lip and flash of teeth, instead of making him seem more human, made him seem far less. “My mount is of the pure blood, yours is ... something different. A cross that I would have considered impossible.”
“Obviously not,” she pointed out, “since he stands before you.” He chuckled, and the sound made the songsmith’s skin crawl, as though slimy hands had fingered her naked flesh. One of the outriders made a chortling sound, and she thought she glimpsed sharpened rows of teeth within his mouth. Or was there a muzzle beneath that helm? She could not be sure...
“Excellent!” the Dark leader announced. “You are a most extraordinary-and amusing-creature yourself, my lady. Not to mention passing fair.” He swept her a bow from his saddle.
“Thank you, sir,” she managed through stiff lips. Her fear of this Dark Adept-for so she now believed him to be-was growing, making the assumed lightness of their discourse more and more difficult for her to maintain. “May I ask a boon, please?”
“Of course!” He appeared delighted, and the aura of wrongness surrounding him intensified with each passing moment,
“May we traverse your demesnes, just long enough to reach the road? Again, I offer my deepest apologies for our inadvertent blunder.”
“ ‘Our’ ?” he said, then deliberately, as if noticing for the first time, looked down at Alon, who lay huddled and still. “You have a companion! One that shares your bed, perhaps, as well as your road?”
Ignoring Lydryth’s tight-lipped headshake, he went on, in tones of mock-grief, “Alas, it seems I have a rival... oh, my heart lies in ruins, songsmith,” he said, gauntleted hand pressed to the breast of his surcoat, where that disturbing design was growing ever more distinct. Pearly light brightened the east now; sunrise was not far off. Lydryth wondered distractedly whether these creatures could stand to encounter the light of day-many Shadowed beings could not-but neither the leader nor his outriders seemed worried by dawn’s nearness.
The Dark Adept looked down at Alon’s wan, pinched features beneath his tumbled, none-too-clean hair, then sighed deeply. “I must say, my lady songsmith, that I fail to comprehend your taste. You could do better, I am certain.”
Anger surged up in Lydryth, growing hotter by the moment, and with a toss of her head she abandoned this ridiculous facade of flirtation, this mockery of courtly conversation. “You did not answer my question, sir,” she said bluntly.
“What question, fair lady?”
“About whether we have permission to cross your domain.”
“That is correct, I did not.” The Dark One studied her intently. “Remiss of me. My answer is thus. You will accompany me back to our stronghold to speak with the Lord Abbot, who is the one you must entreat. I am certain that he will grant your request to traverse our lands.”
“And how far away is your stronghold?” she demanded.
“Barely a full day’s ride,” he replied lightly. “Such a small delay will not trouble you overmuch, will it, my lady?”
Lydryth felt anger building, until it pulsed behind her eyes, hot and vital. She recognized that strength of Will, that resolve, that gathering for what it was-Power. The songsmith did not allow herself to think about the abilities of the Adept she faced, his probable mastery of magic. Instead she merely smiled grimly. “I am afraid that it would be a great inconvenience. I regret that I must decline your kind invitation, sir.”
His handsome face hardened, and he laid hand to the hilt of his sword, then drew it smoothly. “And I am afraid that I must insist.”
She laughed outright, saw him start with surprise. “Then, sir, I must resist!” she cried, deliberately rhyming him. An idea was surging through her mind like Monso at full gallop, an idea built on generations of tradition-and on the Power she could feel herself becoming a vessel to hold. Lyrics and melody crowded her mind, pouring in without conscious thought.
“With that?” Recovering, he smiled grimly and pointed at her sword.
“No...,” Lydryth said, then slowly, deliberately, sheathed the blade. Picking up her hand-harp case, she took out the instrument, struck a ringing chord that seemed to swell and resound in the air, until it was nearly deafening. “With this!”
The Power filled her as she began to strum, then sing:
Would you then offend me, sir?
I’ll stand on minstrel’s right:
May your bright blade blind you,
That you see not where it falls,
May your heartthrob fill your ears
That you hear not succor’s call.
May every briar bind you,
And fling you to your knees,
May a loose-willed wench deny you,
When you would seek her ease.
She saw the two unhuman outriders surreptitiously edge their mounts away from their overlord, watched his open consternation as her satire-filled with the Power she could feel emanating from her, thrumming forth from her harp-dominated the air. Ancient lore had it that one who offended a bard could be ill-wished, cursed, even unto death.
Lydryth poured into her song all her rage, all her frustration, all her anger at Yachne. The witch is probably behind this, she thought, feeling the words emerge from her mouth so poisoned that they might have been dipped in venom. The forces of the Dark want to delay us, which will aid her. Well, we shall see about that!
Her mind working fast, she fingered the harp in ringing chords, wishing for a fleeting moment that she had thought to put her finger picks on. The quan-iron strings stung her fingers. More words fell into place as she hastily composed the second verse of the satire. A rapid strum, then she continued, her voice rising with every note:
Then would you draw sword on me?
Why sir, so let this be!
Now let the moon-mad guide you
Down illusion’s wandering ways,
Now let you outlive your children,
In an eternity of days:
Let cowardice o’er take you
When you would be most brave;
And let your rotted body lie
In an unremembered grave!
The Keplian squealed, frightened, in response to a cruel jab from a spaded bit. The outriders backed their mounts away from their leader. Guttural, gobbling sounds broken with hisses emerged from the misshapen mouths the songsmith could glimpse beneath the creatures’ helmets. Lydryth had never heard their language before, but, even so, she could not mistake the fear in their voices.
The Dark Adept’s features writhed in pain and fear. Lydryth’s fingers plucked the strings other harp, sending forth the music, and her anger, directed straight at him. She knew beyond legend, beyond knowledge, beyond instinct ... she knew in her bones that her words held Truth as well as Power. Her curse would come to pass. She was singing the Dark Adept’s fate, sealing it with her own magic.
“Let your rotted body lie in an unremembered grave!” She flung the last line at him again, seeing it strike with the force of an actual blow. With a wordless snarl, the leader spun his mount on its haunches and spurred it back in the direction they had come. The two outriders followed, but slower, staying well away from their master’s vicinity-as though they feared that the fate Lydryth had cursed him with might fall upon them, too, if they ventured too close.
Just as the flaming edge of the sun glimmered over the nearest hill, they vanished into the forested slope, heading north.
Lydryth stared after them, savoring her victory. She felt strong, triumphant, burning as though a fire of angry hatred blazed within her. As she remembered the Dark Adept’s expression, and the fate she had called down upon him, the songsmith threw back her head and laughed-laughed long and loud ... laughed until she had no breath left, and needs must gasp after it. Some small comer other mind was shrieking at her that it was wrong to so exult in the downfall of another-even a Dark One-but she ignored that prickle of conscience.
“Let your rotted body lie in an unremembered grave,” Lydryth whispered, smiling a death’s-head grin as the dawnlight crept across her face.
As Lydryth’s laughter finally faded away into small wheezes of savage merriment, a voice reached her ears: “Well done, songsmith.”
She whirled around, to find Alon sitting up, regarding her steadily. “How long have you been awake?” she demanded, feeling some of yesterday’s anger at him surface again.
“Long enough,” he made reply, “to see that you needed no aid in defeating that one.” He nodded in the direction of the vanished Dark Adept. “Congratulations.”
She scowled at him furiously. “Small help you were! I thought you too weak to even sit up without aid, else I would have tried to awaken you, so you could have dealt with our visitor.” The rush of Power was ebbing, emptying her, leaving her body so weak that she was suddenly forced to sit down before she toppled over. Her head ached fiercely... her flesh seemed to shrivel on her bones.
Alon shrugged carelessly. “You did not need me. And now perhaps you will believe that you possess more than a touch of Power.” He smiled without humor. “I would never have thought of using a satire. Those things will come to pass for him, you know,” he said, slanting a curious glance at her, as if asking whether she minded.
The songsmith tossed her head. “I know they will,” she said, then smiled, feeling a rush of satisfaction. Her own exultation at the defeat of the Dark One again struck her as wrong, shadowed, but she easily pushed that small, nagging prickle of conscience aside. “Now what?” she asked.
He dragged over the saddlebag containing their provisions. “First we eat and drink, then we depart,” he said simply. “We must be gone from here as swiftly as may be. There may be more where he came from.”
After they finished eating, Lydryth checked his wound. Beneath the scrap of bandage, the mud was hardened and cracking loose, so she chipped it away with a ragged fingernail. Where the gaping slash had been, there was naught but a thin, white scar. She stared at it wonderingly. If only it can work such wonders on my father! Her hope was shaken, though, when she remembered that she had broken the seal on Dahaun’s box.
Monso’s wound was much improved, and his master again chanted a healing-spell over it, while rubbing it with a paste he produced from his supplies. When Lydryth would have taken her accustomed place at the Keplian’s head, the Adept pointed to the stirrup. “Today you ride,” he said. “Such magic as you worked demands a cruel toll from the body. I will walk.”
She studied his features, still pale beneath the weathering caused by their days in the sun. “You are not strong enough yet,” she said, knowing she spoke truth.
“I slept most of yesterday,” he reminded her. “Where you barely rested at all. Up you go,” he ordered, pointing to the saddle.
Lydryth hesitated, but then, feeling her own weakness, she placed foot to stirrup. Alon steadied her as she slowly swung up onto the Keplian’s back, stifling a grunt of pain as sore muscles protested.
It seemed odd to sit in the middle of Monso’s back, rather than on his rump. The half-bred shifted restlessly, rolling an eye back at her; then his ears flattened. She tensed as she felt the coiled strength in his hindquarters and shoulders. The Keplian snorted, pawing angrily.
“Am I the first person to bestride him other than you?” she asked, suppressing a catch in her voice. Memory of those, terrifying rides when Monso had bolted made her swallow.
The Adept nodded. ‘Keep your legs loose on his sides,” he warned, reminding her curtly of what she already knew from her years of experience while riding with the Kioga, helping them break horses. “If you are tense, he will feel your unease.” Quietly, he soothed his horse.
The songsmith nodded, forcing herself to relax in the saddle. Gradually, the hump in the Keplian’s back eased. Alon started forward, leading the half-bred. Moments later. Steel Talon swooped by, screeching a hoarse greeting.
Within an hour, the lack of sleep and the previous day’s exertions told on Lydryth; she fell into a light doze in the saddle, her body automatically swaying to the rhythm of Monso’s walk.
She awoke with a gasp and a jerk when the black half-bred abruptly halted, flinging his head up as though he had been unexpectedly jabbed by the bit. Startled, Lydryth sat up, blinking, then rubbed sleep out of her gritty eyes. Her mouth was dry, filled with a taste that made her grimace. Hunger gnawed her vitals. By the look of the sun, it was well past noon.
Ahead of them stretched a road, the first such they had seen. Lydryth glanced down at Alon, saw him leaning heavily against Monso’s shoulder, as though that support were the only thing keeping him up.
The bard swallowed, attempting to force words from the dry well that was now her throat. “Alon?” she croaked. “What chances? Are you hurt?” He shook his head, but made no move to straighten up. Lydryth slid down out of the saddle, catching him by the arm and peering into his face. He was sweating and pale. “What happened?” she asked worriedly.
“Twisted my foot,” he muttered. “Need a moment...”
“You have walked too far,” she said, taking down the water flask and lifting it to her lips, first rinsing the vileness from her mouth, then drinking thirstily. She handed it to him, watched him drink, then said, “You ride now. I’ll walk.”
“No,” he said, sealing the flask. His tone brooked no opposition. “Climb back on. I can walk.”
“Walk?” She let her scorn at the idea fill her voice. “Oh, of a certainty! And run, too, no doubt! Don’t be a fool!”
His grey eyes hardened until they appeared as light and flat as pebbles in a streambed. “I told you, I will walk.” He jerked his head at the Keplian’s empty saddle. “Climb back up. Now.”
“You cannot order me,” she stated, her voice cold and soft. “You will be an even greater fool if you attempt that.”
The Adept flushed angrily. “Watch your tongue, songsmith. It is wagging too freely.”
“What I say and where I go-and how I reach my destination”-her own anger was growing, and she clenched both fists-“are my concern, not yours!”
His mouth tightened to a grim slash, and around him the air seemed to shiver and glow. Fear touched the bard, and she took a hasty step backward before she could stop herself.
Alon opened his mouth to say something-and, from his expression, it was no pleasantry-but his words were never uttered. Without warning, Steel Talon screamed shrilly; then Monso thrust his big black head against his master’s chest, nearly knocking him over. The Adept swore as his injured foot gave way beneath him. He barely managed to stay on his feet. By the time he had recovered his balance, Lydryth had regained control of her temper.
Pointing down at the Keplian’s leg, she said, “He is nearly healed. If we go slowly, there is no reason we both cannot ride.” Her companion hesitated. She watched as he tried unobtrusively to rest his weight on his right foot, then repressed a wince. Finally, Alon nodded. “Very well,” he snapped.
Limping, he went over to the stallion and climbed up; then, reluctantly, he turned in the saddle to offer a hand to the songsmith. Pointedly, she ignored his grudging offer of aid, managing instead to swing up behind him unassisted.
Scowling blackly, Alon signaled Monso forward, and the Keplian walked steadily toward the road. But when they reached that earthen track, Alon turned the stallion’s head southeast. Lydryth nudged him. “Kar Garudwyn lies that way,” she said urgently, pointing due east, to their left.
He ignored her.
Urgently, the songsmith tugged at his arm, “You are heading the wrong way!”
Stubbornly, he shook his head.
“Alon!” She struck him lightly on the shoulder. “Halt!”
His voice, when it finally came, was little more than a sullen growl. “No.”
“Alon, we must go due east, not this way! What do you hope to gain by this?”
Finally he signaled the Keplian to stop, then turned to look at her. “Yachne’s death,” he said flatly. “The sorceress is that way,” he added, pointing southeast.
“But... but...,” she stammered with indignation, feeling an anger that was being rapidly quenched by fear. He truly means to do it! “We have already decided that it would be best to go straight to Kar Garudwyn. We cannot turn aside from our path! Kerovan, remember? We must save Kerovan!”
“When Yachne is dead, she will prove no threat to anyone on this world,” he said, and there was a vicious undertone to his voice that made Lydryth’s breath catch in her throat. “Steel Talon tells me that she has headed this way, and is still little more than a half-day’s journey ahead of us.”
“I am not going!” Lydryth cried. “I will go on alone to warn Kerovan!”
“Go then,” he snarled, “and take my curse!”
Fury surged hot within her, but something in Alon’s eyes as he stared at her made her swallow and remain silent. She shifted her weight so she could slide down the near side of Monso’s rump. “I’ll go,” she whispered.
Steel Talon suddenly plunged out of the air, screaming shrilly. Monso shied. If the Keplian had leaped to the right, Lydryth would have been left hanging in midair, her destination the green meadow grass. But instead Monso moved to his left, dropping and lunging so that the songsmith found herself again in the middle of his rump.
Instinctively, she grabbed Alon around the waist, just as the stallion plunged forward with a heart-stopping buck. “No!” Alon yelled, struggling to regain control. The Adept’s legs closed on the stallion’s sides, trying to drive the half-bred forward, so his head would come up. He bent over, hands squeezing and releasing on the reins, trying to dislodge the bit from the Keplian’s teeth-
and succeeded only too well. Grunting, Monso flung his head up. His heavy stallion’s crest with its crowning bristle of mane struck his rider full in the face. The Adept sagged, limp. He would have fallen were it not for Lydryth’s enclosing arms.
Even the smallest crowhop would have unseated his riders by then, but Monso had apparently abandoned his efforts to rid himself of his passengers. Instead, the Keplian’s strides began to lengthen. He broke into a swift canter, and then he was galloping.
Lydryth managed to grab the pommel of the saddle with both hands, then heaved herself up and over the cantle, until she was jammed into the seat with Alon. Groping for the reins, she snatched them from the Adept’s lax fingers, and, peering past his shoulder, began sawing at the stallion’s mouth.
Monso ignored her efforts. He was running now, moving with those long, swift strides that marked his fastest pace. “Monso!” she shouted into the whipping wind. Lydryth’s surroundings blurred as tears filled her eyes. “Easy, boy! Ho, now!” One black ear turned back to catch her words, but there was no other reaction.
They were heading east now, in the direction of Kar Garudwyn, flashing down the soft-packed road with the headlong rush of a forest fire. Alon’s weight swayed dangerously in the saddle, and the songsmith stiffened her arms to keep him from pitching headlong onto the verge. At the speed they were now traveling, such a fall could have been fatal.
Wedged into the saddle as she was, Lydryth herself was in little danger of falling, for Monso ran straight and leveled-out, his strides so smooth that very little motion was perceived by his rider. But as for control over the Keplian... she had none. The stallion might as well have had a halter on his head instead of a bridle, for all the attention he paid to the bit or her attempts to slow him.
Lydryth felt light-headed from fear. Monso was moving so fast that time itself seemed blurred. Had the Keplian been running for minutes? Hours? There was no way to know.
Summoning up all her strength, she attempted to sing soothingly, as she had done that day at the horse fair. But her words were blown away by the wind of their passage. Grimly, she tried putting pressure on only one rein, hoping she could so direct the Keplian into a slowly diminishing circle, but, again, her efforts were useless.
Alon stirred before her, then moaned, beginning to struggle feebly as consciousness returned. “Hold still!” Lydryth screamed in his ear. “Don’t move, or we’ll both fall!”
She knew he must have heard her, because, moments later, his hands closed over hers on the reins. Together they fought to slow Monso-still to no avail.
There was something ahead of them ... to the left, off the road. A strange shape, like that of a giant, grey-stemmed mushroom with a spring-green cap, set on the crest of a hill. A black streak winged past them, stooping out of the air, and she heard Steel Talon’s shrill shriek. Monso abruptly veered off the road, and, if anything, increased his pace as he headed up the hill toward the crest.
Lydryth closed her eyes, offering up a silent plea to Gunnora that the racing Keplian would not encounter a burrower’s hole or a stoat’s den-or the sunken remains of a fence-at this insane speed.
The steepness of the hillside did not slow the Keplian.
Monso was now moving so swiftly that Lydryth felt as though she were astride Steel Talon, flying, rather than riding a land-bound creature.
As they reached the top of the hill, Lydryth blinked, and suddenly the mushroom-shape before them sprang into clear view; it was a circular grove of mammoth trees with pale-grey trunks, topped with feathery green boughs that sprouted only from their uppermost heights. Monso slowed to a gallop as he began moving around the perimeter of the huge grove.
The trees stood so symmetrically in a circle that their planting must have been the work of some hand, not nature’s happenstance. A loud, rasping sound now reached the songsmith’s ears, and she realized that Monso was finally winded, his breath rasping like iron filings. White foam curded his neck.
“Can you stop him now?” she shouted into Alon’s ear.
“I’m trying,” came his grim reply.
But the Keplian galloped on, around the narrow trunks that almost formed a natural barrier, so close together did they grow. They were on the eastern side of the hill now, following the curve of the grove.
Lydryth glanced down at the thick green grass beneath them. “Should we jump?”
“You jump,” Alon ordered, leaning back against the reins, his shoulders working. “But I stay with-“
He broke off as Steel Talon again flew past them, screaming his piercing cry. Immediately Monso planted his forehooves in the turf, tucked his hindquarters beneath him, and skidded to a halt. Both riders were thrown forward, slamming into him and each other with bruising force.
Alon began to curse the stallion, then, in a frenzy of anger, lashed the black’s neck with the end of his reins. Lydryth was shocked by the savagery in his voice, the vicious snap of his blows against the sweating black hide.
Steel Talon screamed again.
Their mount lunged forward in a huge leap, bucking like a demon-horse possessed. Lydryth clung grimly through one leap-two-then felt herself slipping as the Keplian sunfished, flinging his hind legs up and out behind her head, then twisting in midair like a serpent writhing with a broken back.
The bard felt the wind other own passage as she was hurled into the air. Following instinct learned from years of training horses with the Kioga, she curled into a ball, ducking her head to protect it. Monso was bellowing with fury, and she had one final moment to hope that he did not land on her during one of his frenzied leaps.
As she struck the ground, Lydryth managed to roll, absorbing most of the impact on the soft turf. Even so, she gasped, feeling as though a giant hand had wrung her chest and back.
Dazedly, she raised her head, saw Alon grimly clinging to the madly plunging stallion, but it was plain that the Adept was losing his battle. Blood was running freely from his nostrils; he had abandoned pride and was gripping the pommel of the saddle with one hand, even as he fought stubbornly to pull Monso’s head up and drive the horse forward.
As she lay there, struggling to catch her breath, Lydryth felt a strange warmth tingling along her left arm. Fearing the worst, she turned her head, but her fingers curled at her command, there was no bleeding or break. The bard saw that Monso’s buck had thrown her almost within the only opening in the giant circular grove of uncanny trees. Her left arm lay within the opening-and from it, a sensation was spreading.
Warmth ... comfort... healing ... light. It was all those things, and more. Much more. The light crept within her, spreading, filling her with peace, driving out the anger, the wrongness that had frightened her during the past days when she had felt it trying to possess her. The sensation of being healed of a dark sickness of the spirit was so compelling that she stared at her arm, transfixed, forgetting Alon, forgetting the battle between mount and master raging still behind her.
Cautiously, she levered herself up on her hands. Her head still spun from the fall, her ears rang with weakness, but the urge to drive out the Darkness that had been growing within her drove her onward. Lydryth crawled slowly, not halting until her entire body lay within the entrance to this strange place.
Light and warmth enveloped her, soothing body and spirit. Understanding grew as it did so, knowledge of what had been happening to her, the reason that both she and Alon had been reacting so strangely. Ever since they had jumped through that Dark Gate, a malignant Shadow had grown within them, a darkness of spirit that was now being driven out by the light and life of this hallowed Place of Power.
Healing ... it was healing her, body and spirit.
After a time... she had no idea how long, though later she realized it could not have been more than a minute or two ... Lydryth sighed, then levered herself up. Strength returned to her-not the black strength of raging hate and anger that had empowered her before, but a quiet healing strength that this Place of Power had bestowed upon her, a gift beyond price.
Her bruises had stopped aching, she felt renewed ... refreshed.
Gazing back through the entrance, she was just in time to see Monso rear up. His front legs slashed the air as he towered like some ancient elemental horse-spirit, his eyes crimson with savage fury, strings of reddish foam dripping from his open mouth. Then, in a frenzy of rage, the stallion flung himself over backward. Helplessly Lydryth crouched, hands pressed against her mouth, certain that Alon would be killed.
But, at the last possible moment, the Adept leaped free of the saddle, landing halfway between the bard and his erstwhile steed. Monso rolled over and struggled to his feet, head hanging low, breathing in agonized gasps.
Slowly his master sat up. “Alon!” Lydryth cried, but he stared at her blankly, without recognition. Fresh horror filled her as she realized that Alon’s grey eyes had gone a strange, dead silver.
As she flung herself toward him, he shook off her grasping arm, ignoring her, then climbed to his feet and headed back for the stallion, his expression a silent curse that boded no good for his hapless mount. Purple lightning-Purple is the color of the Shadow, Lydryth remembered with a sick feeling of horror-began to crackle from between his splayed fingers.
Lydryth realized that he meant to kill the Keplian. The Shadow that had been growing within her had possessed him completely. And no wonder, she realized, as she stumbled after him, he not only went through the Dark Gate, he worked the black spell that caused it to open! That essence of the Shadow that was growing within me has affected him even more strongly. When he worked that Dark magic, Alon took the Shadow into himself, as surely as if he poisoned himself by eating rancid or rotting meat!
“Run, Monso!” Lydryth screamed. She made a futile grab for the Adept, just as a bolt of purple flamed from Alon’s fingers. It licked out, but the Keplian shied violently and it missed him. The stallion, obviously confused, the habit of obedience conflicting with his sudden fear of the master that he loved, backed slowly away. Alon stalked toward him, his bloody face dark with fury, eyes cold and sharp as argent blades. Both hands came up, fingers crooked, for another attempt.
Lydryth hit the Adept in the small of his back with her shoulder, driving him forward and down. Purple lightning crackled, snaking along the ground, leaving a blackened trail in the thick turf.
Alon rolled over, cursing aloud now. Seeing his face, the songsmith knew that now it was she who was in great danger. I have to get him into the Place of Power, she thought. Mayhap it can heal him, too!
Gritting her teeth, hating herself for what she was about to do, she clenched her fist and slammed it into his jaw, even as he struggled to regain his feet.
The Adept went down again, stunned, and she hastily grabbed his foot, began dragging him toward that haven of healing and light. “Please, Amber Lady,” she whispered through dry lips. “Please, let him be-“
Alon’s other foot, booted and heavy, smashed hard against her forearm, numbing it instantly. Lydryth cried out, dropping his leg, unable to hold on. He was already rolling away from her, coming up, turning to run-run away from the Place of Power. Fear was graven into every line of his features. It’s the Shadow within him...” she thought. It will not give him up!
“Alon, no!” she cried, bolting after him. He had nearly reached the heaving, spraddle-legged Keplian when she caught him, shoving him aside with a hard thrust of her good arm. He spun, fell, then was up again, moving with a quickness that bespoke desperation.
But already the songsmith’s fingers had closed on her quarterstaff, which was fastened along the Keplian’s side. She jerked it free with a frantic tug. “Alon...,” she gasped, trying to hold his eyes with her own, reach beyond the Darkness that had engulfed him, “you ... have to come ... with me.”
He did not answer, only backed away. Purple light sparked from his hands, and she knew that he could kill her-kill her easily. “Don’t-“ she pleaded. “Remember Jonthal...”
He blinked, confused, and for a moment his eyes were his own dark grey again. But then they hardened, brightened, and the bard knew that she had lost him.
With a sudden leap he was on her, kicking the staff. Her still-numbed fingers could not hold it, and it flew spinning from her hand. Alon’s left fist slammed into her head, near her ear, just as the fingers of his right hand dug into her throat.
Red flashes went off behind her eyes, but she reacted as Jervon had trained her, going with her attacker’s motion, giving way, using his superior strength against him. Lydryth let herself fall, rolling onto her back, spine curved, at the same moment bringing her knees up. They slammed hard into Alon’s midsection, and she heard the breath go out of him in a great wheeze.
Quickly, she shoved him over, then swung her small, callused fist into his jaw. Once... twice... His eyes glazed over, and she saw the light go out of them. He sagged, barely conscious.
Breathing now as hard as Monso, she grabbed his arms, dragged them over his head, then began tugging him back toward the entrance. Halfway there, she glanced behind her, marking the gap in the tree trunks-and that proved her undoing.
Alon suddenly came to life again, twisting in her grasp, wrenching himself away. As he spun, one leg kicked out, cutting both feet out from under her.
Lydryth went down, landing hard; then he was up and away, running haltingly, not toward Monso, now, but west, back the way they had come. The songsmith’s nailing hand closed on her quarterstaff, and, before she could even complete the idea in her mind, she was up on one knee, her good arm drawn back to its fullest extent. Her shoulder protested as she hurled the bronze-shod length after the limping man.
The gryphon-headed staff whirled through the air, low and parallel to the ground, to strike hard against Alon’s booted legs. The Adept went down again, and this time he lay unmoving.
Sobs nearly overcame her for a second-Amber Lady, what have I done? Then the bard was up and running. If I’ve killed him...
Lydryth reached Alon’s side. Dropping to her knees, she cautiously rolled him over. The man’s face was a hideous mask of bruised flesh and bloody scratches, but his chest was moving. Lydryth touched fingers to his throat, felt the throb of the pulse there. She drew breath into her aching lungs; then tears again coursed down her face-but this time they were of relief.
Quickly, before Alon could regain consciousness, the songsmith began dragging him again toward the entrance, halting only when he lay completely within the gap in the trees. She sagged to her knees beside him, fingers gripping his cold hand, hardly daring to hope. For the first time, she glanced past the trunks of the entrance, to see what lay inside this tree- barriered enclosure.
The circular expanse of ground within was covered with soft turf, sprinkled liberally with wildflowers. Scarlet and indigo, amber and pale yellow, violet and dusky rose... never had she seen such a profusion. In the middle of them were tumbled rocks, and in the sudden silence of this Place, Lydryth could distinctly hear the bubbling of a spring.
Water... The thought made her tremble with sudden thirst. Water to drink, water to wash Alon’s wounds ... water for Monso ...
Moving unsteadily, she made her way over to the Keplian, pulled off his saddle, then emptied all their water flasks, slinging them over her shoulder. With stumbling, eager strides she reentered the Place of Power. The heady scents of the wildflowers rose up around her like incense as she trod that many-hued carpet.
The spring welled into a hollow in the middle of the largest boulder. Lydryth rolled up her sleeves as she knelt on the edge of a sun-warmed boulder, looking down.
Clear, cold, seeming to gleam with an inner Light, the water from the spring bubbled up. She held out her hands, dipped them gratefully into the coldness, then cupped them, brought forth a sparkling handful, sipped.
The water coursed down her throat like a cool blessing. Lydryth drank her fill, then laved her face, her hands, washing away sweat and dirt, feeling more renewed with each passing moment. The pain from her bruises and strained muscles vanished.
Gazing around her, marveling at the effect of that water, the songsmith wondered yet again just what manner of place this was. Obviously a Place of Power ... Then, suddenly, the knowledge surfaced in her mind, recalled from tales heard long ago.
The Fane of Neave.
It was said to lie in the northwestern portion of this ancient land. Dark sorcery could not enter the Fane, could not exist within it. Small wonder that that inner darkness that had been growing within her had utterly disappeared once she crossed the border of this place. Neave ... Neave was one of the Oldest Ones. Neave was all things natural, and good, and fruitful.
Even now, when couples were wed in Arvon, they drank a toast, each in turn, invoking Neave with their bridal cup, asking Neave to bless their union, make it devoted and fruitful.
The Fane of Neave. It had to be.
“Thank you, O Neave,” Lydryth breathed, her voice soft and earnest. “Thank you...”
A sense of peace, quiet benediction, filled her. After a moment she bent to her task again, refilling the water flasks with the springwater.
Carrying them, she went back to the entrance, her step once more swift and assured. Glancing down at Alon as she passed, she saw that he still lay unmoving, but the lines of pain and fear had smoothed out on his bruised, battered countenance. He seemed now to be in a natural sleep.
Once outside the Fane, she whistled softly, then saw the Keplian some distance away, cropping desultorily at the grass. Lydryth walked over to Monso, checked first his wound, and was relieved to discover that he had not reopened it, fortune be praised. Scenting the water, he nudged her, rumbling low in his throat.
She dared not let him drink much so soon after running so hard, but she gave the stallion several carefully rationed sips from Neave’s spring, using their small cooking pot. The thirsty creature lapped the cool liquid with his huge, pale-pink tongue, reminding her for all the world of a cat. Wetting down a comer of her cloak, she swiped and rinsed the sweat from the sable hide until the salty stiffness was gone.
By the time she had finished, Monso had begun to graze, tearing hungrily at the grass. Relieved that Neave’s spring had worked its restorative effect again, and that the Keplian no longer was on the verge of foundering with exhaustion, she went back to the Adept.
Sitting down cross-legged beside him, she carefully lifted his head into her lap, then wiped his face and hands. At the touch of that cool water, she saw the bruises and swellings visibly lessen, until they seemed only shadows of the original injuries.
Then, steadying his head against her thigh, she held the flask to his lips, urging him softly to drink. Alon sipped a little, swallowed, sipped again. He sighed deeply as the last lines of pain smoothed away from his face; then, a moment later, he opened his eyes. Lydryth offered a silent invocation of thanks, for his eyes were his own again, dark grey, gentle, and, at the moment, bewildered.
“What happened?” he whispered.
She touched finger to his lips, cautioning him to be quiet.
“In a moment,” she promised. “Drink some more, Alon. You must be very thirsty.”
He sighed, nodding, never taking his eyes from her face as he drank again, this time deeply. “We are in a safe place,” Lydryth told him, when he finished. “A Place of Power. Monso ran away ... do you remember?”
Alon turned his head, and his eyes left hers to fasten on the Keplian, hungrily cropping grass. “He is fine,” she reassured him. “I will give him more to drink in a little while. The water from this spring is very restoring. How do you feel?”
“Well... now. But I cannot remember how I came here. I remember walking an endless dead land ... and you singing ... and a bridge of blood. I remember a Dark One ... that you vanquished. Or was I dreaming?” he whispered uncertainly.
“No dream,” she replied, simply.
He turned his head as it lay pillowed in her lap, seeing the entrance to the Fane, the wildflower sward, the boulders surrounding the spring. “Where are we?” he whispered, finally.
“The Fane of Neave,” she replied. “Or so I believe.”
“A Place of Power ... ,” he said.
“Yes. How do you feel now?” she asked again.
“Well,” he replied. “The pain is gone. I feel as though I may have been ... ill. Was I sick?” he asked, almost childlike in his bemusement.
“Yes. But you are well now,” she assured him. “We are safe here.”
“I have been... cleansed,” he said after a moment, as if just realizing it. His eyes held hers intently for a long moment. “So have we both,” he added.
“Yes. Nothing of the Shadow can exist here. This is a protected place.”
“The past days...” He put out a hand, grasped hers tightly, urgently, and Lydryth watched memory flood back. “I was ... sick. Poisoned by the Shadow. I said things...” He halted, nearly choking, his eyes widening with alarm. “Lydryth ... I was planning to ... to kill Yachne!”
“I know,” she said, gently. “But you were not yourself. Nor was I myself, when I drove away that Dark One.”
“I could never harm her,” he went on dully. “She raised me ... cared for me. If she bore me no affection, that still does not lessen the debt I owe her for that. And remembering that I had planned to kill her makes me-“ He broke off, and the songsmith could see more memories surface. The Adept drew a hard, sharp breath. “Lydryth-! I tried to kill Monso!”
“You did not harm him,” she made swift reply.
He sat up with a lurch, his eyes wide with horror. She saw him begin to shake, as though with an ague. “But the Amber Lady, Lydryth, it all comes back... I did my best to kill you!”
“I am fine,” she said, smiling, but she could not meet his gaze, suddenly afraid of the intensity she knew would be there. “As you can plainly see. Alon ...” She swallowed, her throat tight. “Alon, you were not yourself. Neither of us remained untouched, but you- Working that spell to open the Dark Gate meant that you were more affected than I. If it were not for the Fane, we would both have been lost to ourselves.”
His hands came up, closed on her shoulders with a grip that made her gasp. “Lydryth ... look at me. Look at me.” He waited, and after a moment she managed to raise her eyes to his, color rising hot into her cheeks at what she read there. “If anything happened to you ...” He struggled for words, his voice grown thick and unsteady. “I would not... could not ... without you ... there is nothing ...” He drew a deep, ragged breath. “Nothing, do you understand?”
She could summon no words of her own, could only stare at him, wide-eyed, feeling his breath touch her face, so close were they now.
Was it Alon who first leaned forward? Was it she? Or had they both moved at the same moment? Lydryth was never sure. She only knew that his hands had moved from her shoulders to gently cup her face; she only knew that their mouths met.
It was a gentle, tentative caress, a mere brushing of lips. Even though she had almost no experience at this herself, the songsmith realized immediately, instinctively, that Alon was no more lessoned in such matters than she-and found that knowledge pleased her, though why, she could not have told.
After a moment, he drew away, eyes searching her face, his fingers softly, hesitantly tracing her cheekbones, threading through the tumbled curls over her temples, pushing them back from her eyes. Lydryth struggled to speak, but Alon shook his head sternly, his fingers brushing her lips, halting any words.
Rising to his feet, he reached out a hand. As if spellbound (though this was a different magic from any she had yet encountered, if no less strong) she reached up, laid her fingers in his. He pulled her up to her feet, then into his arms, holding her tightly.
There was nothing tentative about this second kiss. Lydryth clung to him, shaken, as new feelings, desires, awoke within her, making her face honestly for the first time the knowledge that had been growing inside her ever since they had met. Until now she had pushed away her own longings, refused to acknowledge them, buried them as deeply as she could. But that was over now. Now there could be no denying, no going back ... nor did she wish to.
Finally, he drew away slightly, stared down at her wordlessly. Lydryth rested her forehead against his shoulder, leaning against him as he stroked her tangled hair. The silence stretched between them, until finally he broke it. “Oh, my,” she heard him whisper. She smiled, shaking her head, repressing a sudden urge to laugh.
“Is that all you can think of to say?” she murmured, gently mocking.
“I can think of a thousand things to say,” he told her, his lips moving against her temple, her cheekbone. “But what I cannot decide is which of them to say first.” He chuckled softly. “Perhaps you should start.”
She shook her head, smiling slightly, wistfully. “I cannot. There is too much to say.” Lydryth raised her head, gazed at him, then laid her cheek against his, feeling the faint prickle of unshaven cheek against the softness of her own skin. “To even make a good beginning at saying what I want to say to you, would require the rest of the day ... at least.”
“You may have the day. I will take the night,” he said, his tone still light, but the grey eyes held such intensity that her breath caught in her throat. Her heart was pounding so hard she wondered whether he could hear it. Confused, yet feeling such joy as she had never known, Lydryth glanced away from him, then froze.
The sun was already far to the west. The night that he spoke of would be here only too soon. Memory of the reason they were here rushed back, filling her, and, when Alon followed her gaze, she saw the same realization in his eyes.
“I wish ... ,” she said slowly. “Oh, Alon ... I wish! But, my dear heart ... we cannot linger here. Kerovan’s life depends upon us.”
His expression hardened; then he nodded. “Yachne must be stopped. I will think of a way to restrain her without harming her. Right now”-his glance turned tender for one final moment-“I feel strong enough to accomplish anything.”
He sighed; then his arms tightened around her, and she returned the embrace. Then, slowly, formally, they both stepped back a pace, deliberately leaving the words unsaid, the caresses unmade.
As she heard a grunt from behind her, Lydryth glanced over her shoulder to see Monso, legs flailing the air as the stallion rolled. Alon went over to his mount, felt his chest and shoulders, then examined the healing wound on his leg.
“He can have water, now,” he said, then, catching the Keplian’s rein, led him toward the entrance, heading for the spring.
But as they neared that gap in the trees marking the entrance to the Fane, the half-bred halted, eyes rolling wildly, then backed away, ears flattened.
“What ails him?” Alon demanded, staring at the frightened creature. “Cannot beasts enter this place?”
Lydryth glanced inside the Fane, saw Steel Talon sitting perched on one of the rocks. “I think I know,” she said. “Steel Talon can enter this place because he is a natural creature. Monso is a half-bred, created by sorcery, and no natural being. Nothing of the Shadow can exist within the Fane of Neave, which is where I believe we are.”
“And Monso is part ... part demon-horse,” Alon said slowly. “But... how then did he know where to bring us, so that we could be cleansed ... healed?”
“I do not know,” Lydryth said, with equal gravity. She glanced thoughtfully at the falcon. “Unless Steel Talon told him ...”
They both fell silent, remembering the way the falcon’s cries had seemingly triggered the Keplian’s actions. Finally, Alon shook his head. “Even if poor Monso cannot enter this Fane,” he said, “surely he can drink from the water?”
“He can,” she assured him. “I gave him some earlier.” Once again they rigged a makeshift trough from Alon’s jerkin; then, flask by flask, the Adept allowed the horse to drink, slowly letting him swallow his fill.
Finally, the Keplian’s thirst was satisfied. Alon fed him a measure of grain, and while he munched, both humans ministered to him, brushing him until the black coat shone once more in the red-tinged light of the westering sun.
Steel Talon winged over to sit on the cantle of the saddle, and, as he worked, Alon glanced frequently at the falcon, as if the bird were reporting to him. Having seen him do such before, Lydryth was not surprised to see Alon’s expression darken with concern. “What is it?” she asked softly.
“Steel Talon has seen the witch. She is still heading southeast, toward a place that my winged friend thinks of as ‘the dead place, the sick trees place, the Power-cage place,’ which I take to mean that Yachne has discovered a place that is the opposite of this one.” He nodded at the Fane. “It is my guess that she will use this evil place to focus her magic as she seeks to entrap Kerovan.”
“How far away?”
“Several hours from here, on foot.” He stared east, obviously thinking hard. “How far away is Kar Garudwyn, by your best estimate?”
Lydryth considered. “I believe that Kar Garudwyn lies perhaps twenty leagues distant,” she said, pointing east. “That is, if I correctly remember the legends of where the Fane lies, in relation to Redmantle lands. My home is just beyond their boundaries.”
He stepped forward, caught her hands in his. “Carrying double, Monso would have no chance to make that distance tonight, Lydryth. And someone must go after Yachne.”
She gazed at him, her breath catching in her throat. ‘What... what are you suggesting?”
“We split up.” His voice was low, urgent. “I will go after Yachne, afoot. I am young, and Neave’s spring did its work well. My leg is healed. Steel Talon can lead me to the sorceress-I will do my best to catch her before she can harness the Power of that Shadowed place.”
“And I?” she asked, feeling fear catch in her throat like a harsh crust of bread. “What would you have me do?”
He drew a deep breath. “Lydryth ... you must ride Monso to Kar Garudwyn. You alone know the way ... your family will listen to you, where they would distrust a stranger.”
The songsmith stared past Alon’s shoulder at the grazing stallion, placid enough now. She shivered. To ride the demonhorse alone, across leagues of countryside, racing wildly through a moonless night? What if Monso threw her, or turned against her? She remembered that terrifying speed, and her mouth went dry. “Alon ... I do not think I can,” she whispered.
He grabbed her shoulders, shaking her until she tore her eyes from the stallion and stared back up at him. “You must,” he said. “There is naught else to be done, Lydryth! You must take Monso, and ride as if all the Shadows of this earth were on your trail-which may well be the case. But it is the only way to warn Kerovan in time!”
She bit her lip, then took a deep breath, nodding. “Help me saddle him,” she said.