Part 9 (1/2)

”The man you called Hargoth, the priest-king of the Towers. He knew me. He was waiting. That's why we were being watched.”

”You will get little good from that,” said Amnir, and turned to the man-at-arms. ”See that he's put into the wagon. Now. And guarded well.”

”Guarded against what?” asked Stark. ”The People of the Towers? Can you guard against magicians? Or the Thyrans. Perhaps they'd prefer to sell us to the Citadel themselves, without sharing the profits. Or the Lords Protector. Suppose they see no reason to pay you the price you've been rolling under your tongue ever since Kazimni talked to you in Izvand. Suppose they send their Northhounds to hunt us all down.” Stark laughed, a small unpleasant sound. ”Or are you perhaps beginning, in spite of yourself, to think that there may be something in the wise woman's prophecy? If that's it, hurry, Amnir! See if you can outrun fate.”

Amnir's eyelids flickered uneasily. He said something Stark could not hear, probably a curse, and rode away, kicking his beast with unnecessary viciousness.

Stark was put into the wagon and bound with even more care than usual. He lay staring up at the tilt of the rough canvas above him, hearing again the Corn King's words. The star-roads are open. We have waited through the long night and now it is morning.

Old Sun's pale gleaming had long since vanished from the canvas when the wagon was wheeled into place for the night. Stark lay still, feeling a curious and quite unfounded antic.i.p.ation. He listened to the sounds of Amnir's men making camp. He listened to the fretting of the wind at the canvas. He listened to the beating of his own heart. And he waited.

I have seen it in the Winter Dreaming. I have seen it in the entrails of the Spring Child. Our guide has come- The noises of the camp died away. The men had eaten and wrapped themselves for sleep, all but the sentries. There seemed to be more of them than usual, from the number of pacing feet. From time to time one of the guards looked in through the flap, making sure that the prisoner was still safely bound.

Time went by.

Perhaps I was wrong, Stark thought. Perhaps nothing at all will happen.

He had no clear idea what he was waiting for. A sudden attack, the swift rush of footsteps, shouts, cries- The watchers sent out by the Corn King had had no difficulty keeping up with the slow-moving wagons, and the People of the Towers ought to be able to come up with the train at some time during the night.

And suppose they did come; suppose they did attack, Amnir's men were disciplined and well armed. They were on guard. Could the People of the Towers overcome them? What weapons did they have? How well did they fight?

If they were truly great magicians, they would have more subtle ways of gaining their ends. But were they, truly?

He did not know. And he began at length to think that he would never know.

The cold, he thought, was more penetrating than usual. It pinched his face. He worried about frostbite and tried to burrow his nose deeper into his sleeping furs, one side at a time. The moisture of his own breath froze upon the furs, upon his flesh and hair. His lungs hurt. He grew drowsy, and he could picture himself asleep and freezing gradually into a statue with a s.h.i.+ning glaze of ice over him like gla.s.s.

He was afraid.

He fought his bonds. He did not break free, but he generated enough heat to melt some of the frost that had gathered around him.

It froze again, and now he could hear the cold.

It sang. Each crystal of ice had a voice, tiny and thin.

It tinkled and crackled, faintly, sweetly, like distant music heard across hills when the wind blows.

It chimed, and the chiming spoke elfinly of sleep and peace. Peace, and an end of striving.

All living things must come to that at last.

Surrender to sleep and peace.

Stark was still fighting feebly against that temptation when the back flap of the wagon-tilt opened and a narrow person came lithely in over the tailgate. Moving swiftly, he slashed Stark's wrists and ankles free. He hauled him up, amazingly strong for all his narrowness, and forced a draught of some dark liquid down Stark's throat.

”Come,” he said. ”Quickly.”

The face, masked in plain gray without markings, swam in the gloom, unreal. Stark pawed his way forward, and the draught he had drunk took sudden fire within him. He half climbed, half fell out of the wagon. The strong arm of the gray man steadied him.

Inside the circle of wagons the tiny h.o.a.rded fires guttered behind their windbreaks, dying. Bodies, animal and human, lay about, motionless under a s.h.i.+ning coat of frost that shone pale in the starlight. The sentries lay where they had fallen, awkward things like dummies with uplifted arms and stiffly contracted legs.

Stark articulated one word. ”Gerrith.”

The gray man pointed and urged him on.

The Corn King stood on a small eminence beyond the camp. Behind him, a number of lesser priests were s.p.a.ced along the line of a wide semicircle. It was as if they formed a drawn bow, with the Corn King at the tip of the arrow. They were all quite motionless, their masked faces bent upon the camp. Stark's guide took good care not to pa.s.s in front of that silent bow and arrow. He led Stark off to one side. The deadly cold relaxed its grip.

Stark said again, ”Gerrith.”

The gray man turned toward the camp. Two figures came stumbling from the wagons, one narrow and masked and supporting the other, clad in furs. When they came closer Stark saw a thick swinging braid of hair and knew that the fur-clad one was Gerrith.

He exhaled a breath of relief that steamed on the icy air. Then he said, ”Where are the others?”

The gray man did not answer. Stark grasped him by one thin sinewy shoulder and shook him. ”Where are the others?”

The Corn King's voice spoke behind him. The semicircle was broken; the work of the arrow done.

”We have no need of them,” the Corn King said. ”The Sun Woman I have use for. The others are worthless.”

”Nevertheless,” said Stark quietly, ”I will have them. Now. And safe. Also, we will need arms.”

Hargoth hesitated, his eyes catching a glint of starlight so the holes in his mask gleamed eerily. Then he shrugged and sent four of his people running back to the wagons.

”It will do no harm,” he said, ”nor any good, either. Your friends will die later on, and less kindly, that is all.”

Stark looked toward the camp and at the still figures, on the ground. ”What did you do to them?”

”I sent the Holy Breath of the G.o.ddess upon them.” He made a sign in the air. ”My Lady Cold. She will give them sleep, and the everlasting peace.”

So that was the end of Amnir and his energetic greed. Stark found it difficult to feel much pity for him. The men-at-arms were doing a dangerous job for their living, but he felt little sympathy for them, either. His wrists and ankles bore the scars of their hospitality.

Hargoth indicated a long, low ridge, a fold in the plain. ”My folk have made camp beyond. There is fire. We have food and drink. Come.”

Stark shook his head. ”Not until I see our comrades,”

They stood, in the biting air, until Halk and Breca and the brothers had been brought, together with weapons borrowed from the dead. Then they followed the Corn King toward the ridge.

”There is food in those wagons,” said Halk. He walked crookedly, having been bound for many days. Some of the strength had gone out of him, but he was as belligerent as ever, perhaps worse because he was conscious of his weakness. ”Are you going to leave it all there for whatever beasts there are in this wilderness?”

”We do not need it,” said Hargoth. ”And we are not thieves. Whatever is in the wagons belongs to the Thyrans.”

”Then why not us?”

”You were no part of their bargain with the trader.”

Stark steadied Gerrith over a stretch of bare rock. ”You said that word had come to you from the high north. Who sent that word?”