She saw him land some paces away from the now inert and almost hidden body and disappear into the rubble which half concealed it from above. Quickly he appeared again, half bent over, boosting up into full sight a body weighted with mail and a short surcoat devoid of any badge. The head moved feebly, its mail coif still in place but the helm gone, and smears of blood across a white face masked it.
Nicolas steadied the body against the propping rock, then the murmur of his voice reached her. Their find must be conscious enough to understand some order, for she saw two hands in mailed mitts come out on the rock, enough to hold the man while Nicolas busied himself collecting the rope. He dropped the loop around the injured man, lifting one of his hands and then the other to pass them through the loop so that now the rope belted him just above the waist.
Nicolas's head went back as he looked up to her. "Pull—" he ordered, and the word echoed in that narrow place, "slowly."
She had already drawn the horse around, facing away from the cliff, and now she led it forward. There was a moment before the rope snapped taut. Then she slowed but still urged the beast outward and away from the spur which guarded that trap. She could see the movements of the line—at times it appeared even to slacken and then grow tight again, as if he who was being so raised could at intervals aid himself by some hand- or foothold. Yet the time before Nicolas and then that bloodied head emerged into her sight seemed very long.
The rescued man was plainly of the Prince's forces, yet he did not wear the clothing of a scout intended to fade into the foliage but rather half armor, and there was an empty sword sheath at his belt.
However, he seemed to be able to keep his feet, although Nicolas put an arm about his broad shoulders as he stumbled out.
"Here!" It was Willadene's turn to give orders, and she pointed to an open space where he might stretch out so that she could see the extent of his injuries. That he had not broken a limb from such a fall was a miracle.
Her healer's bag to hand, she poured a portion of water from the bottle Nicolas held and proceeded to wash the drying blood from the face turned up to hers. Nicolas had loosened the coif and she found a bump just above the hairline and a cut almost as if the edge of the helm had slashed there.
"Who—" His eyes opened as she dribbled into the cut some of Halwice's remedy against infection. Then his gaze narrowed. "The herb girl—"
"True, Highness," she answered with an outward show of composure. "No." She planted a hand firmly on his chest to keep him flat when he would have pulled himself up. "Let me finish."
Stripped of all his court trappings he seemed a younger man, yet still one very sure of his own abilities. But how had the Prince come alone into this wilderness? She certainly had not expected to find him here without any escort.
Nicolas had withdrawn a little, was rolling up the rope to be once more stowed away. Then he seemed surprised at something he saw and went out of her sight for a moment while Prince Lorien frowned up at her.
"They said you could trace her—the High Lady—as might a hound—" he said slowly. "Is that why you are here—she is somewhere near?" And there was a shadow not quite of fear, at least for himself, on his face but rather a rising flush of anger.
"Near, but how—and where—that must be learned."
There was a hiss and out of nowhere Ssssaaa jumped on her shoulder, nuzzling her cheek until she turned her head while the Prince watched narrow-eyed. "Beyond—" Was it her talent or something else which supplied that? She could not have taken oath on either.
Nicolas came back into sight holding—well away from his body, she noted—a sword. The brightly honed steel was darkened, smoky in color in an odd fashion, as if something not unlike a rope had been wound around it. At the sight of it the Prince sat up abruptly.
"Get rid of it, man. It is poisoned by the accursed!"
Nicolas tossed the sword from him and, when it rang against one of the rocks, it broke into shards along those smoky lines and lay like a battlefield weapon abandoned years ago.
The Prince pushed Willadene aside when she tried to prevent his getting to his feet. He was looking beyond both of them, his attention up slope where she could distinguish a wall-like formation of the stone and in it a break.
"Back." The Prince swung on the other two. "You do not know what guards here—"
"But you have met it—or him," Nicolas said calmly. "Share then what you know."
Though the Prince never took his eyes from that break in the wall, he began to talk in short sentences which had the harsh notes of battle orders. He told of finding Timous and of the broken trail the scout had left as if he had been hunted by something monstrous, of the armored figure who was faceless and carried no weapons until he had plucked out of the very air that green ribbon—
When he spoke of that Willadene gasped, and somehow she found that her hand had gone out to clutch at Nicolas as she remembered only too well that meeting with evil in the Black Tower when the Bat had lain helpless and she had done only what she could. Even now the nausea of that battle arose in her throat as she fought down the desire to vomit.
The Prince had paused at the sight of their two faces and now he asked, 'This weapon is known to you?"
Willadene felt that she could not even lose enough control to nod in answer, but Nicolas was ready with his version of that meeting.
"But that was in Kronengred—in the castle. And you say it was destroyed/ 7 he said. "How then came it here?"
"A month ago, Highness, when I brought you the news which led to your settlement with the Wolf, I found one of our border guards, a man so placed that he would have easily seen who came and went from that hole. He was dead and around his throat there was a ring of burnt flesh which had near cut his head from his body. Then I knew of no weapon which could cause such a wound—but I think that which crept upon us in the Black Tower, which hunted your scout to his death and tried to slay you, was alive. Do not poisonous snakes give birth to more than one of their kind?"
"And if we dare that gate again—" the Prince said slowly. "You have seen what it did to a sword forged by our greatest of smiths—and flesh is much less than steel."
Nicolas had a strange little smile. "If this was Ishbi in its time, then there was more than one entrance. I have been thinking—the rangers and scouts of the border pass down much which has long been forgotten elsewhere. Mistress"— he spoke now to Willadene—"there is the map."
Her hands were at an instant over the amulet in protection. "It is a fancy—" Yet even as she touched that packet she knew that it was true. She had always secretly believed it might lead to Heart-Hold. But Heart-Hold was of another time long past—
"A map?" The Prince was looking now to her. "A map showing what, Bat?"
"Perhaps another entrance to where we would go. For Ssssaaa had a hand in its finding and her will lies always with that of her master who wishes nothing more than that Kronen have peace."
Slowly Willadene displayed the leaves, standing back a little while Nicolas and the Prince spread them with care on a flat ledge of rock.
Suddenly the Prince cried out, "But that line—it is surely the Vars near its source. Last season I traveled with the border scouts of the kingdom to check our old maps, finding many of them inaccurate. But that is the Vars—to it I will swear by the Star."
"You have men on the way," Nicolas said. "We can lead a detachment thus—"
And what, Willadene thought, if they found other guardians with outre weapons to forestall them? In her heart she knew that for her there was only one entrance to Ishbi as it lay up slope from her now. But she said nothing, withdrawing within her mind to form her own plans. Mahart was ahead, and not too far. She had dealt once with the green serpents, she could do so again. A flask of the same liquid rode even now in her bag. Yes, she had her own plans as far as she could shape them.
Chapter 23
hey had Retreated from the near vicinity to those rocky spires and established a temporary camp. Willadene
made a show of checking the contents of her healer's bag, though she did not need to touch any, for all were already well set in her mind. She had done her best for the Prince, whose mail hood, loosely laced, lay back on his shoulders while a neat bandage covered the forepart of his head.
She brought out trail provisions and insisted that they eat, even though she had to fight continually against that tug within her to be done with all this and about what had drawn her here. Ssssaaa had curled herself in a dark pool on the top of a stone nearby, but the girl noted that those eyes were ever on the alert in the direction of the break in the wall. Somehow she felt entirely secure for the moment with such a guard.
The Prince and Nicolas almost seemed to forget she was there, so interested they were in the leaf maps. While Lorien had been able to locate one point of reference, so Nicolas found two more, discovered during his own scouting for outlaws.
If many of those had escaped the clean-out of their den, then they must have fled southward, for the three by the rocks seemed now to be in a deserted world. Nor had there been any sign of that armored figure the Prince had faced.
As they finished the limited store of their rations which Willadene had portioned out she saw the Prince go to stand, looking down at the shatters of his sword blade. He looked up at her as she returned the package of food to the saddlebags.
"Mistress, I know that you who deal in herb lore know many things which are strange to the rest of us. Have you any thought as to what that serpent thing might be?"
"Highness, I am but apprentice to herb lore, not born into the knowledge by blood as many are. This I know— that it is utterly evil and it answers to another's mind."
"The High Lady Saylana."
She would have assented to that but something made her hesitate. Somehow in her mind Saylana stood for the Dark, yes, but there was—what—another?
"Highness, I cannot say. But surely she meddles in this, and I would swear it was her plotting that was the seed from which this grows."
"I have watched you—you look there!" He looked up at the distant doorway in the wall.
Suddenly Willadene was impatient. "Highness, I was set upon a trail—and willingly, for what I had seen and learned of the High Lady Mahart makes me desire to help her. I believe she is in great danger."
"As a hostage?"
Willadene shook her head. "It is of another kind and one I do not understand. I only know—she is encompassed by evil."
"We shall have her forth—" She thought he sounded far too confident, when suddenly there was the chirping call from the Bat and a party of the Prince's men was upon them. Willadene pulled back, on impulse taking her bag with her, while Lorien went to meet the newcomers.
"Ssssaaa." The black-furred one landed on her shoulder. And that was like a cry for help. From the amulet arose once more that single scent which was Mahart's alone—like an appeal.
There was the guardian of the gate. One of the evil weapons might well have been vanquished—he could have another. So—she would be prepared. Her own answer rode within the top loop of her jerkin lacing. She had worked on it quietly and apart while leaving them to their play with the map. A strip torn from her undergarments had been woven as tightly as she had been able to handle it about the end of a broken branch. This she had soaked until at least half of that potent liquid she carried had been absorbed into the cloth.
There was a great deal of talk below. Two scouts had been dispatched to round up more of the Prince's men, while he and Nicolas studied the leaves. From time to time one of the waiting men was summoned to view their find in turn.
Willadene lifted her pack to her shoulder and settled it with the familiar shrug. Ssssaaa did not try for a ride but was winding sinuously among the stones ahead, and Willadene depended upon her for warning.
At least she was not riding, she thought with a small sigh of relief. Rather, she picked her way among the stones, at the best pace she dared take, up and up. The wall arose to her right—she could see clearly the dark mouth of the opening ahead and she watched it carefully for any movement.
There came a sudden shout from down below, and she did not even glance back but plunged forward, drawn by that ever-increasing need which lay ahead. Nothing moved, there was no armored guard, it was as if the gateway had been left deliberately open.
Perhaps it had, but there was no gainsaying now that compulsion which forced her ahead through its shadow, Ssssaaa weaving a way before her. And, once she was within that opening, there was only utter silence. The shouting was cut off as if some barrier behind her had been slammed shut.
Willadene grasped her stick with its well-soaked rag.
There was pavement of sorts under her, and stones rising on each side with only one way left—straight ahead.
Nicolas flung himself forward. He was fleet of foot— that was part of his training. Then his straining body struck against a solid surface with force enough to hurl him back at the men at his heels and bring them all down.
“Willadene!” Somehow he got enough air back into his lungs to shout. He struggled to his feet, but the impact of that force with which his body had met the obstruction made him unsteady.
Obstruction? He could see nothing but that dark entrance. Nor did any guardian stand there, ready to hurl him back again. But the Prince was still on his feet. His hands outstretched, he was running them back and forth through the air as if he fingered some surface. A moment later Nicolas had joined him. It was there! A wall not to be seen, not to be breached by any means they knew, as they proved during the next frantic moment, throwing rocks heavy enough that two men had to lift them, bringing up a tree from below to use as a ram like to burst the strong gate of a keep.
They could see nothing, only feel—locked out and helpless to follow.
"It seems," Nicolas said bleakly at last, "that we are now left only with your hope, Highness: that we come into this cursed place from another point."
"Cursed, double cursed." Lorien wiped sweat from his smarting cheeks with the back of his hand. "Ishbi has secrets—we have only the minds and wills of men. But"—he looked to Nicolas—"once before men cleansed this place and there are no walls before our will. We shall see what the map can do for us."
Why had she been possessed by such folly? Nicolas's hands curled into fists. In that moment if Willadene stood before him he would have had a hard time restraining himself from striking out at her. They said there was witchery in herb lore—certainly what she called her talent had brought them here. And it was witchery of an evil kind she might be facing now beyond that barrier, while there was nothing for them to do but strive to find a forgotten path which might bring them too late to what she had gone to confront.
But they rode out. Nicolas took the lead, for he knew best these forest ways, always gnawing at him within the memory of that green crawling thing in the Black Tower and the growing fear that even worse might be ahead.
Mahart cupped her hands and drank deeply of the water in the basin. It seemed not only to fill her mouth and throat but somehow seep into an inner part of her so that it washed the fear away.
She turned away from the small fountain to face the garden. It seemed as it had always been since she first had had the good fortune to stumble into it. The horse had ventured out of the corner and was grazing quietly again.
The girl forced herself back to the wall and once more began a slow circle of it, intent not on what lay within but what stood without. She stopped several times and rubbed her eyes, for there appeared strange shafts of haze between her and those stands of ferns. It was almost as if, for an instant or so, she could see the outlines of buildings, that she could be caught in some fancy of Kronengred or Bresta. But always the ferns gleamed a brilliant green again, and those flashes of other sights grew less until they disappeared.
At last she settled herself in a nest she had made on the horse blanket and handfuls of grass from near the wall, but she had been careful not to pluck too much of the plants flourishin
g in that untended garden. A need to relax, to sink into the warmth of sleep, settled on her and at last she could no longer withstand it.
Crying, crying which hurt the ear, even as might that of a brokenhearted, forsaken child. It filled the darkness, filled her with the need to answer. Mahart opened her eyes and found she was already sitting up, straining forward. That crying was no part of some dream—it was real—heart tearing.
She was on her feet, stumbling a little, as they were so bruised by going unshod and she had not yet taken time to devise footwear. But that was no matter now—only the crying.
"Where are you?" she called. "Where are you?" But not even a rustle from the ferns answered her. She had reached the lower part of the wall and scrambled over.
The lake? Could it be that others—not only those toad things—lived here and that some child had fallen into their hands? There was pain now in the desolate voice.
However, the sound drew her past the end of the pier. She looked to the lake. Its surface was untroubled and she saw no movement among the rocks there. No, it was in the other direction. Limping a little, she rounded an end of the garden wall and suddenly realized that she was now facing that place where the ferns had parted to show her a road into darkness. Mahart half expected to find them parted again. But their wall was not broken; only the crying continued.
"Where are you?" she called helplessly. She could not just plunge blindly into that jungle without any guide.
There was no weapon left to her save that length of stone she had chanced upon—and her hopes of using that effectively against any real attack were very thin.
"Your—Your Grace—" Mahart was startled by movement at the very edge of the ferns. A black blot appeared to be crawling, breaking a way through that barrier into the open. The voice was harsh, cracked, that which might come from an aged throat.
Mahart edged back until her shoulders rasped against the surface of the wall which was too high here for her to attempt to climb.