“No.”
A single word of denial. One that I was hot to dispute.
“I—I saw her.” I stammered. “She was here, I tell you!”
“He is ensorcelled?” It was Jervon's deep voice in the night. Then came an answer from the Wisewoman.
“He could not be—not with such a safeguard as he wears.”
There was a glitter of ice blue, the band on my wrist. Of course it had not been sorcery! I had seen Joisan—she had stood with bared head, her hair clotted with earth, smears of it across her face. There had been wonder in her eyes and between us—the gryphon! I had seen her.
I must have repeated that, for Elys replied to words I did not remember uttering.
“A true sending. It was surely a true sending,”
A sending! I shook my head, tried to believe that my sight of her had been more than a willed vision. But once more logic awakened in me. I dropped down on the ground, clasped my head between my hands—then changed and held the wrist with its band flat against my forehead. I closed my eyes and tried with all the force I could summon, all the will I knew, to reach out—to touch—to see . . . Only there was no answer—nothing but the moon above and the black land below.
A hand rested on my shoulder. I strove to shake it off but the clasp clung.
“Let be!” Elys spoke with authority. “This is no land in which to open any gates. Let be—I do not think you are an utter fool!”
Did I indeed feel in that moment, even as she spoke, that something—a faint trace—a sensation that my frantic searching had touched what should not be disturbed except by fools? I could not tell—though I shivered as I might have had a breath of winter wind swept across the gully and wrapped itself about my shoulders in a lash-cut. I dropped my hand, stared hard-eyed into the dark, knowing that my chance was gone and I would have no value to Joisan should I now—as Elys had pointed out—play the fool.
Perhaps I had never before been driven so . . . unless it was when I had trailed Rogear into the Waste. The ferment within me urged me on and on during the next two days. Had I traveled alone I might neither have eaten nor slept—until I fell from the saddle of a horse ridden near to death. Still it seemed that the heights toward which we headed never drew any closer. My worst fear rode with me, that suspicion that perhaps we had chosen wrongly, that we were not heading toward my lady, but away.
Was it that constant nag of fear that brought back the dreams? I never returned in sleep to that place where the gryphon-man lay. Mostly I was in the company of those whose faces I could not clearly see, whose murmuring voices I did not understand, yet in me strained the need to both see and hear. From such dreams I awoke as weak in body as if I had run for a day, sweat heavy and sticky on my body.
I did not tell my companions of these dreams. In fact I spoke very little. Still striving to free my mind from a prison of dark thoughts, I made myself watch both of them. I asked no questions concerning their past, though such questions began to crowd my mind.
Elys was a Wisewoman, more than that—for she wore the mail of a warrior with practiced ease and I saw that a sword was as familiar to her as it was to anyone who was trained in such usage for many years. Thus she was a strange puzzle—for Wisewomen and weapons have never consorted together from all I had ever heard.
By her appearance she was not of Dalesblood; perhaps her talent therefore was the stronger. Yet her tie with Jervon was very close and easy, acceptable to both. Jervon, though he was plainly of keep-kin, had no visible taint of the Old Ones—and I did not believe he was one who bore my own curse. Together they traveled without many words between them, but I was more and more aware that theirs was so strong a bond that at times it seemed as if one could read the mind of the other.
It was Jervon who interested me the most. All Dalespeople accepted Wisewomen—after a fashion. Those are born of our own blood with a talent they enlarge by learning. A girl with such a gift apprenticed herself early to one well practiced in herb lore, in minor Power control. She was thus set apart from childhood, knowing thereafter no kin-tie, even among those of her birth family, making no marriage, rearing no child, unless she in turn took an apprentice. Her knowledge was her whole life.
A Wisewoman's arts are of healing and peace. None goes armed, none speaks of battle as Elys had made mention of skirmishes and alerts, inquiring of me how went Imgry's training of the new forces. She was two things—each opposed to the other. How could this be?
Also, how could Jervon, who lacked any pretense of talent, accept her so wholly, feeling none of the aversion that was bred into all Dalesmen—that wariness, the latent fear of the unknown raised by the constant awareness that we dwelt in a land which was not truly our own?
This alliance of theirs—my thoughts returned ever to the strangeness of it—was by Dale standards unexplainable. Jervon was neither servant nor guard, that I had learned early during this endless ride west. They were equals in spite of their differences. Could one take two such opposing people—as one would take two different metals—and forge from their uniting a third stronger, more powerful than either alone?
Jervon accepted Elys for what she was. Could anyone so accept—me, in the same fashion?
They both spoke of Joisan, not as if they wished to add to my burden, but naturally, as if she had been brought into that shared companionship of theirs. There came a time (did my face so reveal my inner struggles) that Elys broke the silence in which I rode with an abrupt comment.
“She wished for more.”
Anger touched me, and then bewilderment. More of what? Lands? Heritage? For both of us those had been swept away by the fortunes of the war. I had given her her full freedom—I held her by no promise. What then was “more"?
If this clear-eyed warrior woman could indeed reach into the turmoil of my thoughts, did she not realize that I knew Joisan was something apart, precious—something I could not bind to me. Being what I was I would ask nothing. Not all were as accepting as she—as Jervon . . .
“Men fear that which has no substance, better they should look with clear eyes, open minds,” Elys continued. “Joisan told me of your heritage, that you deemed it a dire thing you cannot escape. But have you not already faced it in part—faced and defeated it?”
“I did not defeat it, Lady,” I flared up in answer. “What I wrought was against enemies—enemies who had taken my lady to bend to their will. Nor did I alone do that thing. There was another Power that took a hand—which used me as one uses a sword. Am I then to be commended? Because I am what I am, I was only a doorway . . .”
Memory moved. Who—what—had I been at that moment when a Power that certainly I had not summoned had turned against Rogear and my mother? I had not been Kerovan then, but another—another who was greater, stronger, whole in spirit— everything I was not, as I knew when he had withdrawn, and had never been nor could hope to be.
“Be not so swift to deny,” she countered. “There are often skills that lie sleeping within one until destiny—and need—awakens and draws them forth. You think meanly of yourself and"—there was a note in her tone that brought a flush to my cheek, a hot retort to my lips though I did not so interrupt her—"perhaps you find that to so think is a protection, a ward against doing what you were born to do. One cannot stand in the end against one's fate.”
To that I made no answer seeing that if I spoke now what I deemed to be the truth she might only say again that I hid behind an excuse, as she had just accused me of doing. Nor did I find that I liked either of these two the more (for I brooded upon my conviction that they found in me perhaps not the monster the Dales would name me, but someone so poor-spirited that I was not of the breed to have honestly earned Joisan's regard). Perhaps I should have been glad of that verdict, seeing that it would afford me an added excuse to hold aloof—when and if my lady was safely found. Only, contrarily, its affect upon me now was to arouse a determination to prove that I was not less than Jervon in my ability to accept. Though the acceptance wou
ld never be mine—it was Joisan's.
On the second day the country began to change—even as desert had given way earlier to grassland—though the hills still seemed farther away. While we did not see again any such silent and thick wood as the Wereriders’ sanctuary, there were more trees. Also, we forded one good-sized river, making our way across on the remains of a stone bridge, enough of which still stood above water to give us dry footing.
Hereabouts were signs that this land had once been under cultivation, perhaps very fertile. There were fallow fields walled with stones set skillfully in place, and twice we sighted towers standing as watch points. We made no attempt to explore these, for their surroundings suggested that they had been long abandoned, and there was a fever burning, in me at least, to keep pushing on.
In midafternoon of the second day we came near a third such tower, only this was surrounded by a clump of dark trees (most of which were unseasonably bare of leaf, but with branches so matted and entwined as to form another kind of defense). The baud on my wrist warmed. I pulled back my mail sleeve to see it emitting blue sparks, visible even in the sunlight. Elys reined up, watched that tower as one looked upon a defended enemy position. She had caught her lower lip between her teeth and a frown of concentration drew her brows closer together.
“Swing out!” she ordered, emphasizing that with a gesture to her left. “Can you not also feel it?”
Perhaps because I had been for so many hours wrapped in my own thoughts, I had not been too much aware of what was round about. Now her command startled me into attention. I hunched my shoulders, tightened grip on the reins so that the mare sidled under me. It was as if an unexpected blow had struck out of the very air—one I had no means of countering.
The only words I can find to describe what chanced are that in that moment I had been attacked by a wave of pure evil. Evil is the only name for the foulness of it. Cold it was, wholly inimical to my kind of life, or at least to that part of me that could claim kinship with humanity. I sensed a subtle movement in my mind, a feeble assault, as if what had launched that blow (perhaps intending invasion) had been drained through centuries until its force was only a faint shadow of what it had once been. Something coiled out there behind the dark of the trees, the tumble of stone, something full of poison against the soul, as an adder is full of poison to discharge against living flesh.
We rode on, making a wide circle around that ill-inhabited place. However, we had not gone far (though the pressure I had felt had faded entirely away) when there came the sound of wild screeching. Coiling up from the tower, in the form of a giant serpent rearing to strike, came a spiral of birds.
Once aloft they wheeled, to fly directly at us. I saw, as they drew near, that they were of the same breed as those foul scavengers I had found at the desert oasis. Their raw red heads, armed with those murderous curved beaks, were stretched forward like spears, aimed at us.
Arriving just above us, they circled, continuing to screech, a clamor loud enough to hurt the ears. From the flock some darted down, two and three at a time, skimming just above our heads. I had flung up my arm in an intuitive gesture of protection and the band on my wrist blazed like leaping flames. Our horses went wild, screaming in pure fear, tossing their heads frantically, as if they expected that their eyes were about to be plucked out of their skulls. There was no trying to hold them. Instead we gave them their heads and they ran, directly west, until we came to cover under a stand of trees. The birds followed, settling on branches above, still shrieking what may have been dire threats in their own tongue.
However, the branches prevented them from attacking us, and they raised stronger cries of rage and frustration. We discovered, as we threaded a way among the trees, that those winged demons did not seem disposed to follow beyond the very edge of the wood.
It was our hope, though there was no path, that we were not wandering in circles as we ducked down in our saddles to avoid being brushed out of them by low-hanging branches. Such ferocity in an attack made by winged things was new to me, and I marveled that they had not scored us with beak and talon. They might well have been trained, as were falcons of the Dales schooled, to hunt on command—or else they themselves possessed both a malicious form of intelligence and a purpose in harrying us.
“I trust,” Jervon commented, throwing out an arm to ward off a branch, “that they will not be awaiting us when we reach the other side of this cover. Never had I thought birds were creatures to fear. But those—they could and would tear a man's face from his skull—given the chance.”
“Your ward is strong.” Elys spoke to me, and nodded to the wrist band. It still shone, but the fire that had awakened to life there as we had approached that tower was less brilliant. “However, what lay there was not only birds . . .” She turned her head a little to one side as if she were listening.
All I could hear were the cries of feathered attackers growing steadily fainter as we drew away. I regarded the band of the Old One's metal with the same thankfulness a warrior, pushed to a last stand, looks upon his sword. I had been very well served since chance had brought it to me.
“No,” Elys continued. “Something more than birds laired in that place. Though whether it is strong enough to leave its den and come into the open by daylight . . . Most things of the Dark use the night for their cover—unless they are masters of evil arts. That . . . force is no longer strong as it once was. But I think that we had better set as much distance between us and its lurking place as we can before we camp.”
We made a slow passage but we did win at least to the other side of the covering wood. No birds had flown above to lie in wait as we had half feared. What we discovered was something far different—a broad road, better laid than any of those in the Dales, showing only small signs of erosion at the extreme edges of the smooth surface.
The highway came up from the south, but at the very point where we emerged from among the trees, it took a sharp, curving turn to the west. On either side it had been cleared of tall growth, so that anything or anyone traveling there would proceed in clear sight—an idea I did not find very much to my present taste.
I had seen a similar highway once before. The Road of Exile, which led into the Waste not far from Ulmsdale, resembled this. It had served those Old Ones who had passed from the Dales into a place and future we knew nothing of. Never would I forget how Riwal and I had sheltered from a sudden storm in a ruin standing beside that road and the vision that had come to me that night—the march of the Old Ones, only half seen—but felt, yes—felt! That heavy sorrow, which had sent them roving, arose from their ghostly passing to touch me and turn the whole world into a place of loss and heartbreak.
Here, however, lay a brightness, which that other road had lacked. Age had lain heavy on the path of the Exiles; here abode a feeling that this highway might still be in use, that at any moment a party of warriors, a train of merchants's ponies, might come trotting into view.
Elys slipped from her saddle and Jervon gathered up the reins she released. She walked forward until the very toes of her boots touched the slight crumbling of the surface edge. There she stood for a very long moment, neither looking up nor down the way, but rather with her head bent, studying the surface itself with care, as if she sought some lost object that might lie there.
Out of curiosity I followed her, my mare treading behind me as I hauled on the reins. A moment later I, too, sighted what had caught and so held her attention.
The actual surface of the road was unbroken and smooth. However, inlaid in it were many symbols, arranged so that any who walked or rode upon it must, of necessity, tread on them in passing.
Some were undoubtedly runes, unreadable, as far as I knew, to any now living. Once more I was reminded forceably of Riwal, of how he had spent most of his life in eager search for a clue that would unlock for him the knowledge scattered in the Waste.
Among the markings of the runes were also designs that had no resemblance to writing. I saw stars of Pow
er, their five points always filled with symbols. There were also silver outlines of footprints, not only of men (or some race nearly human) but also of beasts—hoofprints, the pad marks of what must have been outsized cats, the pointed toes of birds.
These last, judging by their length, must also have been giants of their species. The prints and the star points both glistened under the sun rays as if they were inset with some burnished metal, or even with tiny gems, though there was no color other than the silver of the Moon's mirror about them.
Elys knelt, holding her hand out, palm down, over the point of one of the stars that was not too far from the edge of the pavement. She did not touch the surface of the road, merely moved her hand slowly back and forth. For some reason I could not understand, I was drawn to kneel and copy her gesture. In turn I put out my right hand.
My wrist band warmed gently, though it did not continue to blaze into fire as it had when we neared the tower of the birds. And—there came a calming, an casement of my mind and spirit. No one did actually stand now behind me with a comrade's hand laid on my shoulder. Still it seemed to me that I had this comfort, that what we had found here, sorcery as it surely was, held no terror or possible harm—might in fact work for our future good. I said as much.
Elys got lightly to her feet.
“This is indeed our way,” she said soberly. If she had felt the same touch of comfort as had come to me she did not show it in either face or voice, for she spoke as one who faces a task or a test. “This holds a power meant to protect those who travel. We have perhaps been led here without our realizing it. The Old Ones have many mysteries and secrets—it could be that we have, in some manner, been selected to be hands and feet for them—for the doing of a task. If this is the way of it then the road is their reassurance—safety for us.”
I wanted instantly to protest that I was no one's servant—either that of a Power or a lord. Though I had come at Imgry's bidding, it had been of my own choice. The belief that I might be now used by another was one I resented hotly.