Erij nodded understanding, then slipped from cover, seeking other shadows, Vanye quick to follow. They came not directly up the road to the gate, but up under the walls, and in their shadow, to the gate itself.
It was graven with runes upon its metal pillars, but the gate was iron and wood, like the door of many an ordinary fortress; and when Erij drew Changeling and touched its black field to the joining of the doors the air sang with the groan of metals. The doors parted their joinings, and the pillars too, and stone rumbled, loosed from its supports. Dust choked them, and when it cleared a mass of rubble partly blocked the entry.
Erij gazed but a moment at the destruction he had wrought, then clambered over the rubble and sought the echoing inside of the place, which burned with light no fires supplied.
Vanye hurried through, asweat with dread, snatched up a sizable rock in the process, and as Erij started to look back at him, smashed it to Erij’s helmeted skull. It was not enough. Erij fell, but still retained half-senses and heaved up with the blade.
Vanye saw it coming, twisted to evade the shimmer, kicked Erij’s arm so that it wrung from him a cry of pain, and the sword fell.
He snatched it up then, gazed down on his brother, whose face was contorted with fury and fear. Erij cursed him, deliberately and with thought, such that it chilled his blood.
He took the sheath from Erij, who did not resist him; and upon an impulse to pity for Erij, he cast down Erij’s own longsword.
Arrows flew.
He heard their loosing even before he whirled and knew they had come from the stairs, but Changeling in his warding hand made an easy path to elsewhere for the arrows, and they both remained unharmed. He knew the sword’s properties, had seen Morgaine wield it, and knew its uses in ways Erij did not. Erij would as likely have taken an arrow as not.
And perhaps Erij understood that fact, or understood at the least that continuing their private dispute could be fatal to them both: Erij gathered up the longsword with but a glowering promise in his eyes, and rose, following as Vanye began to lead the way.
Killing a man from behind was an easy matter, even were he in mail; but Erij needed more hands than one: he risked everything on it.
And quickly he dismissed the threat of Erij from his mind, overwhelmed by the alien place. Breath almost failed him when he considered the size of the hall, the multitude of doors and stairs. Morgaine had sent him here ignorant, and there was nothing to do but probe every hall, every hiding place, until he either found what he was seeking or his enemies found his back.
Save that, held straight before them, Changeling gave forth a brighter glow, and when lifted, sent a coursing of impulses through the dragon-hilt, such that it seemed to live.
Carefully, Erij treading in his wake, he took the stairs to the level above.
They found a hall very like the one below, save that at its end there was a metal door, of that shining metal very like the pillars of the Witchfires. Changeling began to emit a sound, a bone-piercing hum that made his fingers ache; it grew stronger as he neared it. He ran toward that gate, figuring speed their best defense against a rally from Hjemurn: and froze, startled, as that vast door lightly parted to welcome him.
And startled more by the sight of gleaming metal and light that stretched away into distance, glowing with colors and humming with the power of the fires themselves. Changeling throbbed, his arm growing numb from holding it.
The field directed at its own source of power would effect the ruin of all the Gates.
The pulsing of conflicting powers reached up his arm into his brain, and he did not know whether the blade’s wailing was in the air or in his own outraged senses.
He lifted it, expecting death, found instead that it did not much worsen, save when he angled it right. Then the pain increased.
“Vanye,” Erij shouted at him, catching his shoulder. He saw stark fear on his brother’s face.
“This is the way,” Vanye said to him. “Stay here, guard my back.” But Erij did not. He knew his brother’s presence close behind him as he entered that hall.
He understood now: it greatly disagreed with Morgaine’s careful nature, to have expected him to carry out so important a thing with so few instructions. There had been no need: the sword itself guided them, by its impulses of sound and pain. After a time of walking down that glowing corridor of qujalin works, the sound wiped out other senses until nothing but vision was left.
And in that vision stood an old man, hairless and wrinkled and robed in gray, who held out hands to them and mouthed silent words, pleading. Blood marred his aged face.
Vanye lifted the sword, threatening with that dreadful point, but the vision would not yield, barring their path with his very life.
Thiye, some sense told him: Thiye Thiye’s-son, lord of Hjemur.
All at once the old man fell, clawing at the air, and there was an arrow in the robes at his back, and the red blood spreading.
A figure stood clear of the hall behind, gray and green, the young lord of Chya, lowering his bow. With sudden, breathless haste, Roh started toward them, slinging his strung bow to his back.
Vanye sought Changeling’s sheath at once, hope surging in him. The sudden silence in the air as that point found its proper haven was overwhelming: his abused ears could hardly hear Roh’s voice. He felt Roh’s eager hands grasp his arms, distant even from that sensation.
“Vanye, cousin,” Roh cried, ignoring the threat of his blood-enemy Erij who stood beside, sword in hand. “Cousin, Thiye—Liell—they are at odds. Morgaine escaped them both, but—”
“Is she alive?” Vanye demanded.
“Alive, aye, well alive. She has the hold, Vanye. She means to destroy it. Come, come, clear this place. It will tumble down stone from stone. Hurry.”
“Where is she?”
Roh’s eyes gestured up, toward the stairs. “Barricaded up there, with her weapons in her possession again, and willing to kill anyone who comes within range. Vanye, do not try to reach her. She is mad. She will kill you too. You cannot reason with her.”
“Liell?”
“Dead. They are all dead, and most of Thiye’s servants are fled. You are free of your oath, Vanye. You are free. Escape this place. There is no need of your dying.”
Roh’s fingers tugged at him, his dark eyes full of agony; but of a sudden Vanye broke the hold and began to run toward the stairs upward. Then he looked back. Roh hesitated, then began to run in the other direction, vanishing quickly toward the safety of the downward stairs, a wraith in green. Erij cast a look in either direction, as if torn between, then raced toward the ascending stairs, longsword in hand, pointed it at Vanye, his eyes wild.
“Thiye is dead,” Erij said. “He is dead. Your oath to the witch is done. Now stop her.”
The fact of it hit him like a hammer blow: he stared helplessly at Erij, owning the justice of his claim, trying to think where his obligation truly lay. Then he shook off everything and suspended thought: his duty to either one lay in reaching Morgaine with all possible speed.
He turned and ran, taking the steps two at a time, until he came up, breathless, into yet another hall like the one below.
And confronted Morgaine, as Roh had warned him, hale and well and facing them both with the deadly black weapon secure in her hand.
“Liyo!” he cried, flung up his empty hand as if that alone could ward off harm, and with the other cast Changeling at her feet.
“No!” Erij cried in fury, but bit off further protest as Morgaine smoothly gathered the sheathed blade up, yet keeping the black weapon trained upon them. Then she lowered it.
“Vanye,” said Morgaine. “Well met.”
And she joined them, and began to descend the stairs from which they had come, carefully, trusting Vanye at her back; of a sudden he surmised what she sought thus cautiously.
“Thiye is dead
,” he said.
Her gray eyes cast back an unexpected look of agony. “Your doing?”
“No. Roh’s.”
“Not Roh’s,” she said. “Thiye freed me—that being his only hope of defeating Liell and keeping his life. He gave me this slim chance. I would have saved his life if I could. Is Roh down there?”
“He ran,” said Vanye, “saying you meant to destroy this place.” Horrid suspicion came over him. “It was not Roh, was it?”
“No,” said Morgaine. “Roh died at Ivrel, in your place.”
And she raced them down the stairs, pausing only to be careful at the turning, and came into that dread hall of qujalin design.
It was empty, save for Thiye’s sprawled corpse in a widening pool of blood.
Morgaine ran, her footsteps echoing upon the floor, and Vanye followed, knowing that Erij was still with them, and little caring at the time. Anger seethed in him for Liell’s mocking treachery with him; and dread was in him too for what Morgaine might intend with these strange powers.
She reached the very end of the hall, where there rose a vast double pillar of lights, and her hand abandoned the sword upon the counter an instant, while she wove a sure, practiced pattern among the lights. Noise thundered from the walls, voices gibbered ghostlike in unknown languages. Lights flared up and down the pillars, and began to pulse in increasing agitation.
She made it all cease, as quick as a move of her hand, and leaned against the counter, head bowed, like one who had suffered some mortal blow.
Then she turned and lifted her head, her eyes fixed earnestly on Vanye’s.
“You and your brother must quit this place as quickly as you can,” she said. “Liell spoke the truth in one thing: it will be destroyed. The machine is locked in such a way I cannot free it, and Ra-hjemur will be rubble in the time a rider could reach Ivrel. You are free of your oath. You have paid it all. Good-bye.”
And with that she brushed past him and walked quickly down the long aisle alone, headed for the stairs.
“Liyo!” he cried, stopping her. “Where are you going?”
“He has locked the Gate open on a place of his choosing, and I am going after him. I have not much time: he has a good start on me, and surely he has allowed only what he thinks enough time for himself. But he is timid, this Liell: I am hoping that he has given himself too much grace, too much margin.”
And with that she turned again, and began to walk and more quickly, and at last to run.
Vanye started forward a pace. “Brother,” Erij reminded him. He stopped. She vanished down the stairs.
When the last sound of her footsteps was gone he turned again, of necessity, to face the anger in his brother’s face. He went down upon the chill floor and pressed his forehead to it, making the obeisance his oath made due Erij.
“Your humility is a little late,” said Erij. “Get up. I like to see your eyes when you answer questions.”
He did so.
“Did she tell the truth?” Erij asked then.
“Yes,” said Vanye. “I think it was the truth. Or if you doubt it, at least doubt it from a day’s-ride distance from here. If you see it still standing after that, then it was not the truth.”
“What is this of Gates?”
“I do not know,” he said, “only that sometimes there is another side to the Witchfires and sometimes not, and that once she goes, she will be nowhere we can reach. I am sorry. It was not a thing she explained clearly. But she will not be back. Ivrel is a Gate that will close when this place dies, and after that there will be no more Witchfires, no more Thiyes, no more magics in the world.”
He looked around him at the place, for that complexity was like the living insides of some great beast, though its veins were conduits of lights and its heart and pulse glowed and faded slowly.
“If you do not want to die, Erij,” he said, “I suggest we take her advice and be as far from here as possible when it happens.”
• • •
The horses were where they had left them, patiently waiting in the gray dawn, cropping the sparse grass as if there were nothing unusual in the day. Vanye checked the girths and heaved himself up, and Erij did the same. They rode the open and faster road this time, pausing for a view of the great cube of Ra-hjemur, which looked, with its breached gate, like a creature with a mortal wound.
Then they set out together for Morija.
“There is no more lord of Hjemur,” said Vanye at last. “You and Baien are all the clan-lords left of any stature at all. It is within your reach to gain the High Kingship without Hjemurn magics after all, and perhaps that will be better for human folk.”
“Baien’s lord is old,” said Erij, “and has a daughter. I do not think that he will want a war to cloud his old age and ruin his land. I will perhaps be able to make an alliance with him. And Chya Roh left no heirs. His people will be less trouble to us. Pyvvn’s lady is Chya, and with Chya in Koris in our hands, Pyvvn will submit.” Erij sounded almost cheerful, counting his prospects and reckoning lightly of a few wars.
But Vanye gazed to the road ahead, where it wound out of sight and into view again toward the south, hoping earnestly to see her, seeing her in his mind, at least, as she had ridden that evening out of Aenor-Pyvvn’s Gate.
“You are not listening,” Erij accused.
“Aye,” he said, blinking and breaking the spell, and looking again toward Erij.
And ever and again after that, he saw Erij look curiously at him. There was a growing sourness on Erij’s face, as if whatever alliance there had been to make them brothers this dawn in Ra-hjemur was fast shredding asunder. He held out little hope for his peace as he saw that sullen estimation grow more and more grim.
“There is none of the high-clan blood in Morija left, but us,” said Erij that noon, when the sun was almost warm, and they rode still knee to knee.
Oh Heaven, Vanye thought, looking out upon the sunlight and the hills with regret, now it comes; for he had long since come to the conclusion he was sure would occur to Erij: that, enemies as they were, Erij was mad to flaunt a high-clan prisoner in Morija. Without Ra-hjemur from which to rule, he had not power enough to bear a taint of dishonor—or a rival. Politics and ambitions would swarm about a bastard Chya like flies to honey. Such conclusions as Erij had no doubt reached were dishonorable, better meditated in the dark of night than in such a fair day.
“Bastard that you are,” said Erij, “you could make yourself a threat to me, if you were minded to do so. There is no lord in Chya. It comes to me, bastard brother, that you are heir to Chya, if you were to claim it, and that no lord can be claimed as ilin.”
“I have not laid any claim to Chya,” said Vanye. “I do not think I could, and I do not intend to.”
“They had rather own you than me, I do not doubt it at all,” said Erij. “And you are still the most dangerous man to me in all of Andur-Kursh, so long as you live.”
“I am not,” said Vanye, “because I regard my oath. But you do not regard your own honor enough to trust mine.”
“You did not regard your oath in Ra-hjemur.”
“You were not in danger from Morgaine. I did not have to.”
Erij gazed long at him, then reached across. “Give me your hand,” he said, and Vanye, puzzling, yielded it to his left-handed handclasp. His brother pressed it in almost friendly fashion.
“Leave,” said Erij. “If I hear of you after this I will hunt you down . . . or if you come to Morija. I will set Claim on you and let you work off that year you owe me. But I do not think you will come to Morija.”
And he gestured with a nod to the road ahead.
“If she will have you—go.”
Vanye stared at him, then gripped his brother’s strong, dry hand the more tightly before he broke the clasp.
Then he set heels to the horse, dismissing from his mind eve
ry thought that he was weaponless and that Morgaine would have opened a wide lead on them during the morning.
He would gain that distance back. He would find her. He realized much later to his grief that he had not even looked back once at his brother, that he had severed that tangled tie without half the pain he thought it must have cost Erij to let him go.
In that loosing, he thought, Erij had paid for everything; he wished that he had spoken some word of thanks.
Erij would have sneered at it.
• • •
He did not find her on the road. In the second day, he cut off the track the two had used, and took the one on which Liell had come from Ivrel, the one he thought Morgaine would surely choose. Ivrel was close and there was no more time left for stopping, though he was aching from the ride and the horse’s breath came in great gasps, such that he must dismount and half pull the beast up the steeper places of the trail. The delay tormented him and he began to fear that he had lost the way, that he would lose her once for all.
And yet, finally, finally, when he came out upon the height, there stood Ivrel’s great side to be seen, and the barren shoulder of the mountain where the Gate would be. He urged the black to what speed the horse could bear and climbed, sometimes losing sight of his goal, sometimes finding it again, until he entered the forest of twisted pines and lost it altogether.
In the snow were footprints, the old ones of many men, and some of animals, and some of those not good to imagine what had made them; but now and again he could sort out new ones.
Roh-Liell-Zri, upon the black mare, most likely, and Morgaine upon his trail.
Breath hung frozen in the sunlight, and air cut the lungs. He had at last to walk the horse, out of mercy, and scanned the black sickly pines about him, remembering all too keenly that he had no weapons at all, and a horse too weary for headlong fight.
Then through those pines he caught a glimmer of movement, a white movement amid the blaze of sun on snow, and he whipped up his horse and made what speed he could on the trail.