III
“No!” Eirran screamed—and discovered she could only whisper. Panting from the effort it took, she turned and looked at the others. The men all gazed at the statue. They seemed almost as affected as the Falconers. One by one, they moved stiffly, as if under the direction of a will not their own, toward the spot where Yareth waited his turn to start along the road toward the monstrous stone form.
Dimly, she understood that she must not—must not—look back again, must not, in spite of all her longing, gaze at the hypnotic sight that had ensorcelled her husband and the men who rode with him, and the children—
The children!
She scarcely dared move, lest the power of the Great Falcon twist her head around, force her gaze to meet that of the terrible stone eyes. Sooner or later, she knew, she would be able to resist no further. Then she, too, would take the first step along the road that led she knew not where.
The children were standing together, grouped behind Mouse who was holding the Jewel and staring into it.
“Mouse—”
The little girl's concentration wavered. She glanced up at her mother. And in that moment, somewhere inside her the thing snapped that had been keeping Eirran from looking at the Great Falcon. She turned, irrevocably its captive now, and, stumbling, took her place in line behind Loric.
A sound filled her ears, one she had not been aware of as long as she had avoided looking directly at it. A kind of drumming echoed the pulsating red glow coming from the maw of the enormous statue. Weldyn had reached the steps and had already climbed halfway up. In perfect harmony with the music, he took another unhurried step, and then another. Those waiting their turn swayed in time to the rhythm.
Brroom-DOOOM, sang the drums, an immense throbbing heartbeat. Brroom-DOOOM.
Another sound, a jarring antiphony to the drum. She tried to shake it off, blot it out, but it persisted, as shrill and irritating as insect-drone.
Brroom-DOOOM. Weldyn set foot on the feather-steps. He reached the beak. He paused a moment, outlined against the red glow. Then, proudly, he stepped forward, and disappeared. The glow blazed high. A wisp of oily black smoke and the faint scent of scorched feathers drifted out onto the air.
Brroom-DOOOM. Yareth started on the road to the Great Falcon's temple. His face was as exalted as Weldyn's had been. He bore his left hand before him, fist clenched, as if an invisible falcon, Newbold's ghost, rode there. He took one step. Then another. Brroom-DOOOM.
Suddenly, Eirran realized what the irritating noise was. It was coming from the children, from Mouse and her companions.
No. It was coming from the Jewel.
Don't they realize what a distraction they are causing, she thought. If I had the time to spare, I would turn and see what they were doing. And make them stop.
Brroom-DOOOM. Yareth had reached the foot of the stairs. The Great Falcon had grown eager now, greedy to share its secrets with those who longed to receive them. Hirl was next behind Yareth, passing through the gate, and Dunnis had just taken his first step upon the dark stone road outside the circle. Behind him Ranal and Loric crowded close, as if each was impatient and fearful that the other would be allowed to go before him. If she had had the strength, Eirran would have pushed ahead of both men. But threaded through the insistence of the drumbeat was the mysterious sense of the orderliness of their passage. This one now, that one later, you last of all, and so she must force herself to wait her turn.
Brroom-DOOOM. Step by step, gracefully, Yareth ascended the steps. Hirl was nearly at the foot of the stairs. Ranal went through the gate. Loric set his feet upon the road.
A tremulous thrill went through Eirran. In a moment, just a moment, she, too would be following the path, in the slow and solemn dance toward the place where every mystery life has to offer would be unraveled. The music of the drum swelled up in her, emptying her of everything she had once known, filling her with the rapture of what now dangled enticingly, just barely out of her grasp… .
The whining insect-drone rose, almost drowning out the deep, soul-stirring throb of the drums. With all her will, Eirran tried to close it off, tried to ignore it, wished it away. But the sound lifted higher, becoming a clear, pure note as if from the throat of a singing crystal. Higher and higher it soared, and louder and louder throbbed the Brroom-DOOOM of the Great Falcon's heartbeat. The warring sounds fought in Eirran's head. She wanted to put her hands over her ears, but she was not allowed to move. Yareth was so close. In another moment, with another step he would be standing upon, the great beak where Weldyn had stood before being admitted to the inmost mysteries of the temple.
The booming of the drum and the song of the crystal rose unbearably high, unbearably loud, unbearably strong—
—and the world shattered into oblivion.
IV
Eirran came to herself slowly. She discovered she was lying on the ground at the edge of the clearing. With a great effort, she turned her head. It threatened to splinter and fall into a dozen pieces. Yareth was lying nearby, limbs composed, face white. And still, so still.
“Yareth—”
Dunnis lifted her and set a water skin to her lips. “He lives yet. He was closest to the—I guess you'd call it an explosion, when the temple was destroyed.”
“But what— How—”
“Drink first. Questions later.”
Obediently, she drank a little water. Then, with help, she sat up. Dunnis's arms trembled; he appeared shaky and none too well himself. The other three likewise bore stunned expressions.
They look, she thought, like I feel.
“The children—”
“They are well.” Dunnis managed a ghastly parody of a smile. “I don't know why. But they are almost untouched by what happened to the rest of us. They are tired, that's all. It is a mystery.”
“Yareth. I must go to him.” She groped her way on hands and knees across the space that separated them. His chest rose and fell with his breathing, but so lightly it would have been easy to have overlooked the movement. She put her hand on his forehead. It was cold. “My love.” She kissed his cheeks, his eyelids, his mouth. It may have been her imagination, but it seemed that a little color began to come back into his face and his breathing became stronger.
“Mama?”
Still intent on Yareth, she answered absently. “Yes, Mouse?”
“I broke it.”
She looked up then. Her daughter knelt on the ground beside her—her daughter. Not Mouse, not a fledgling Witch, but Jenys. Her face was puckered, her eyes had deep smudges under them, and she looked on the verge of tears. She held the silver chain the Jewel had hung from. But the Jewel itself had vanished. Nothing was left but the setting, and that was cracked and blasted as if it had been blackened by an immense fire.
“You broke it? Oh, Jenys.” She took her child into her arms, rocking her softly and whispering into her hair. “My poor baby.”
Star was at Jenys's side, and behind her the other children stood watching. They looked as weary and wrung-out as Jenys. For once, in spite of what they had all just gone through, Lisper didn't have her thumb in her mouth. The children moved closer, and Jenys pulled herself from her mother's arms and joined them. They all took each other's hands.
Jenys vanished, and Mouse stood in her place. “We stopped it, Mama. All of us. Even though the Jewel got broken when we did it.” She looked at the other little girls. “I'm sorry I cried. I shouldn't have.”
Eirran regarded the six Witch-children, deeply puzzled by Mouse's words. They had no meaning for her. Finding nothing to say, she merely nodded her head. Then she left them to each other and returned to tending her stricken husband.
V
“I don't think she understood,” Mouse said.
“How can she?” Cricket said. “I barely understand it myself, and I helped do it.”
The children wandered along the edges of the dark temple. All the columns were half-melted, their carved finials mere blobs of cooling stone, and the
large birds that marked the entrance to the inner circle had been so mutilated by the force of the destruction that they were scarcely recognizable for what they had once been. But it was in the center of the circle that the full force of what they had done was most visible.
The great statue had virtually been obliterated. Nothing remained above the level of a standing man's head. What little was left—the carved legs and the stairway that had emerged from some subterranean hiding place—bore great rifts and scorch marks. It looked as if the next breeze would tumble it to join the scattered rubble that littered the paved area. A faint wisp of smoke still issued from the depths of the ruin, where it had fallen in on itself. Were it not for that, the place would have looked like it had been abandoned for centuries. All it needed was a kind veiling of ivy or other creeping vine, to soften the outlines of the devastation that had been visited upon it.
“I saw it right away,” Bird said. “Oh, those sick, nasty colors all over everywhere, from everything inside and out. The eyes were the worst.”
“Yes, I know. And when that beak opened and they lit up—”
Bird turned to Flame. “But all the eyes were glowing from the first, all red and black, even the ones on the little birds on top of the pillars. And the eggs—oh, they pulsed in time with the drum. There were red and black flashes of light everywhere, and a dreadful sick green, too. The colors made me want to throw up.”
“Do you still see them?” Flame frowned, as if trying to see as well.
“No, they're gone. There's nothing left.”
“This place was evil,” Star said soberly. “It was completely of the Shadow. It had your Mama and your Papa, Mouse. And the other men, too. I could feel it push when it took Weldyn. I think it would have gotten stronger with each one it swallowed, and it would have been strong enough to get us, too, by the time it had finished.”
“I never knew anybody could do the thing we did,” Mouse said. She looked at the piece of scorched silver that had once held a Witch Jewel. “And I still don't know how we did it.”
“It wath the Power. We uthed it. Or maybe it uthed uth.”
“That's more likely,” Star said.
Mouse bit her lip. “I hope we don't get in trouble for ruining the Jewel.”
“We'll just have to tell the Guardian what happened, and hope she forgives us.”
“And I hope my Papa is going to be all right.”
Bird looked at Eirran working over Yareth. “Yes, he will be fine. I can see him getting stronger.by the minute.”
“That's good,” Mouse said, relieved. “Now .we can go home.”
“I suppose you've finally made up your mind, then, about what you're going to do once we get there.”
Mouse stared at Star. “How did you know?”
Star smiled. “You taught us all how to hear, remember? This has been on your mind ever since your Mama and Papa found us in Alizon Castle.”
“I'm going to miss them terribly. Even Rangin. He can't have many years left in him, you know. Papa's had him, oh, since before I was born. And Newbold.”
Her sisters moved close, holding her hands, patting her. “Yes, it is very sad,” Cricket said. “Even more for your parents than it was for my Mama and Papa. They had my brother, and the new baby, but you're the only child Eirran and Yareth had.”
“When we can travel again,” Mouse said, “I'm going to ride with Mama one day and Papa the next. And I'm going to put off telling them I won't be going back with them, as long as I can.”
Fifteen
I
Despite the children's assurance that the evil was dead forever, no one could bear the thought of lingering at this spot. Overcoming their weariness and the lingering shock of their brush with the evil falcon-temple, Eirran and the four men managed to carry Yareth away from the area. With the help of the children, they set up a hasty, makeshift camp. Then, hoping no beast such as they had met the previous day would find their scent and devour them while they slept, Eirran lay down beside Yareth and closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, Yareth was awake and moving about the camp. He looked thinner, somehow—as if the light would show his bones if he stood between her and the sun. She sat up abruptly, wanting to go to him and hold him in her arms. But something in his demeanor stopped her.
Things between us stand on a sword's point, she thought. He might blame me for everything. The thought made her stomach turn over. She swallowed hard. If I hadn't been away from home, tending to the hurts that worthless Rofan caused, I might have turned the Witch away from the door and none of this would have happened.
But perhaps not. Mouse has become a Witch in miniature since I last saw her in Blagden. That's very plain to me at last, now that my head is clear enough to understand what has happened. But Yareth didn't see her as I did, didn't hear her telling me how she and the other Witch-children had stopped the evil that threatened to engulf us all. And still being child enough to mourn because the Jewel had gotten destroyed in the doing.
She is gone. I have lost her. And have I lost my husband as well?
A shadow fell over her. She looked up; he was standing there, gazing at her with an unreadable expression on his face. “Can you ride?” he said.
“Yes.”
“We must get out of these mountains, before we come upon another place like the last.”
And be unable to fight, because our sole weapon is now blunted, Eirran thought. “Yes,” she said aloud. “I agree. The sooner out of this terrible place, the better.”
A muscle worked in the side of his jaw. “We have a spare horse now. Ranal, you ride that one and lead yours.”
Ranal nodded. “In another day, we can load what spare goods we have on my animal, and ride easier ourselves.”
“I want to ride with you, Papa,” Mouse said.
“Up you go, then.”
“I'll ride with you, Eirran,” Star said.
All that day they pressed as hard as human and horse flesh would allow. There was none of the usual banter among them. The others seemed to have caught Yareth's mood—or, perhaps, they were all still recovering from the aftereffects of their near brush with the Shadow.
Eirran's mood was no lighter, and her stomach no easier until well past midday. It seemed to her that the mountains gradually grew less wild as they traveled, and that the forest became somehow friendlier as they descended into the foothills. The tall, stark trees gave way to more familiar oaks and a smaller variety of evergreens. Their shed needles made a carpet that gave off a refreshing fragrance as the horses trod it underfoot. Here and there a drift of grayish-green mistletoe clung to an oak branch. Eirran's nerves calmed, her stomach settled a little, and she breathed easier here. So, it seemed to her, did the others. If only Yareth would talk to her. But he had wrapped himself in his Falconer's pride, and when he was like that she knew better than to try to reach him. He would have to come out of it on his own. She didn't want to think about what his thoughts and feelings would be when he finally did.
Late in the afternoon they stumbled on what looked to be an old path, now disused and overgrown. But a path meant people and people meant habitation. Suddenly, Eirran longed for a roof over her head, and a hot meal cooked properly, in a fireplace. And hot water. She ran her hand through her hair. She must look dreadful. No wonder Yareth was avoiding her.
Eventually the path led to a house—but such a ramshackle structure, the very sight of it made Eirran smile in spite of herself. There was such an air of absentmindedness, almost of frivolity, about it that she was charmed. The dwelling had evidently started out as a single, all-purpose room, the way most houses were built. But at various times, judging by the differences in workmanship between one section and another, the original structure seemed to have been built onto at random, apparently as the owner needed more space, and with little regard as to what had been built on before. Oddly shaped rooms branched off in several directions; often, a new addition was of a different height than its predecessor, a
nd the various roofs weren't even of the same materials twice in succession. Here was a slate shingle roof; next to it, thatch. Next to that, wood shakes. But the place seemed in remarkably good repair, considering how long it must have been since it was lived in, if one judged by the weeds choking the garden. One of the shutters had come loose, but the others were still sensibly shut, blocking out the elements until the owner—who, Eirran thought, must surely be as eccentric as his dwelling-place—came back to reclaim his home.
Dunnis looked at the house, and traces of his good humor began to reappear. His mouth twitched with amusement. “Well, surely nobody will mind if we borrow this, er, unusual building for a while. I'm sure all of us would be glad for a bit of rest.”
“Do you suppose there is still furniture inside?” Loric seemed as taken by the structure as Eirran was.
“Perhaps a cupboard bed. Or several,” Dunnis amended. “But I wouldn't count on finding any mattresses.”
“It will do for tonight,” Yareth said brusquely. “Hirl, you see to the horses while the rest of us search the house and surrounding area. I am weary of surprises.”
Once they had untied the stiff leather thongs securing the front door latch to a peg hammered into the outside wall and had gone inside, Eirran found the dwelling's interior no less bewildering than its exterior. Many of the fireplaces were stopped up and unusable, but eventually she found a clear one in a room at the end of a twisted passageway. She tied a bundle of twigs to a stick and made a makeshift broom to sweep the rough stone hearth. Then, while Ranal gathered wood and built a fire, she industriously proceeded to sweep the rest of the house. The broken shutter had let an incredible mess of leaves, dirt, and other debris sift through the rooms. While she worked, the children, released from the tedium of travel with adults too distracted to entertain them, ran squealing through the house, involved in a boisterous game full of rules recognizable to no one but themselves.