Part 5 (1/2)

The fire danced high, its light touching now on this face among our company, now that. For there had been a gathering of all those of authority, both small and large, within the Valley. The Lady Dahaun and Lord Ethutur of the Green People, Lord Kyllan and Lord Hervon from over-mountain, he who led the Renthans, and Verlong, the winged, also the chief of the Lizard men. And together with them had come their chief warriors, spreading fan-wise back into a dark where the flame light did not reach. Among the first rank sat Uruk, his ax across his knees, with never one hand nor the other far from it.

Between her fingers, the Lady Dahaun held that figure of clay and hair and rag which had drawn Crytha from our protection to the Thas. And the eyes in that company fastened on what she held.

”It would seem,” Ethutur broke the small silence which had lain for a s.p.a.ce on us, ”that our protection is not as secure as we believed it. For such a thing could not have come into this place otherwise.”

I clasped my hands tightly before me. My right palm itched; the fingers kept cramping as if they would hold something. In me a hunger gnawed, a hunger I must fight with all my strength. For I had done as I had sworn. Ice Tongue lay where I had dropped it on the heights above and I would have no regrets-no regrets!

”This,” the Lady Dahaun balanced the ugly talisman on one palm, ”was not fas.h.i.+oned beyond our walls, but within them.”

At that saying, our uneasy glances swept from face to face around our circle.

Would she tell us now that among us was a traitor? Yet how could that be? Who had enough strength of the Dark Power to pa.s.s the barriers so often renewed and set to our defense?

”The clay,” she continued, ”is of the brookside; this hair is from the head of Crytha, as is this also hers.” She flicked with one finger tip the rag twisted around the image.

”Who-” Lord Kyllan's hand was on his sword hilt. His face, young-seeming as it was, was grim and set as if he looked ahead to some battle wherein he might go down to defeat.

”Crytha.” Her answer came so quietly that it took me two or three breaths of time to understand. And then I would have protested, but before me was Lord Hervon.

”Why, Lady, would she fas.h.i.+on a trap in which to entangle herself? This is not sense, but folly!”

”She did not fas.h.i.+on it, my lord, not knowingly. But this maiden of your house has more talent within her than we realized. Untrained, the Power can harm as well as aid. She had drawn upon what lies within her eagerly, as a man drinks at a pool of clear water when thirst torments him, foreseeing no evil in her acts since all she desired was for good. She is a born healer of great promise. But no talent is single in one, and where Power opens the door and there are no safeguards, then there can creep in that which we fear most.

”Those safeguards we have set to make invulnerable this Valley work against physical invasion. But some subtle brain has devised a way of reaching out along a level of mind which is not guarded, which cannot be detected, except by the training which those of the Talent use as their s.h.i.+elds.”

”Such a questing thought will not trouble us who are so s.h.i.+elded. But it can influence-and without their knowledge or understanding-those who have not such s.h.i.+elds. Fear not, now that this evil has so revealed itself it cannot use her again as a tool in its hand. Uruk”-she spoke directly to him-”who holds the Thas within his hand?”

He did not answer at once. And when he did, he spoke musingly as if he himself faced some riddle.

”Lady, you say I am but legend in this new world of yours. I lived in another time and a different Escore. My enemy there was Targi. The Thas paid him some lieges.h.i.+p-enough to let him use their burrows for my prison. But Targi- ” He shook his head slowly now. ”I have not sniffed out any of his mischief since I was freed. If he lives-” He slapped his hand flat down upon the head of the ax.

”I would know it! We are too bound in enmity for me not to do so.”

”Targi was slain in Emnin.” The words came from my lips, but they were not mine.

I saw all those in the company turn their eyes, startled, toward me. ”It was the Lost Battle.” That which was not Yonan continued. ”Lost for the Banners of Eft, for the Fellows.h.i.+p of HaHarc. Yet the Shadow was also driven back; no side could claim victory on that day.”

My sword hand flew to my lips, covering them. I was shaken by this sudden arousal of that other. And was well aware that those on either side of me withdrew a little as if I were revealed as an unclean enemy. Yet I had thrown away Ice Tongue-I was Yonan!

I saw that Ethutur regarded me with a frown. His lips moved as if he would speak, but the Lady Dahaun checked him with a gesture. Then she raised her hand and traced in the air certain symbols. As green fire they blazed, and then the green became blue. While it seemed to me that I whirled giddily across the fire between us, that all which was me hung in midair, naked and defenseless before those signs of her witchery.

”Who are you?” I saw her lips move to shape the words, but they sounded very faint and far away. Some mighty chasm now stretched between us.

I struggled. Yonan-I was Yonan! But I heard my own voice answer in the same thin and faded tone of far distance.

”Tolar-Tolar of Ice Tongue.”

”And what would you here, Tolar?” came her second question.

”The past must be erased, the evil geas broken.”

”And this is your will, Tolar?”

”I have no will in this. It is a geas which has been laid upon me, that my failure be redressed and time rewoven.”

I-or that substance which was part of me-no longer hung before the Lady of Green Silences. Rather I was back once more in my own body. But I no longer sat among the people of Hervon. Rather, I had moved into the open, so that the breath of the flame nearly scorched my boots. I knew, bitterly, that he whom I had fought so hard to destroy was now fully awake within me. I had no longer a place here, but must be about some strange and terrifying quest which held little contact with the world I had always known.

”I must return.” My lips felt stiff. In spite of the heat of the fire I was chilled, as I had been when I had hacked open the ice pillar of the Thas to free Uruk. And in me at that moment there arose the conviction that I went to death itself, yet I could not prevail otherwise against the compulsion which moved me.

Uruk arose. ”This hosting is mine, also. For though the craft of Targi prevented my fighting aforetime, it shall not now. Lady”-once more he saluted Dahaun with the ax-”we go into the dark; think of us with fair wis.h.i.+ng, for our path will be very strange and the dangers along it such as few men have ever experienced.”

”Boy-” I was aware Lord Hervon was beside me, his hand grasping my sword arm.

There was a growing pain in my right hand, a pain which would never leave me until once more I clasped Ice Tongue and carried through what that uncanny sword, and this stranger within me, wished. ”Yonan-what will you do?”

I sensed concern in his tone. And that part of me which was still the youth he knew gathered a measure of courage from his thought of me. But so small a part of my person was now Yonan it might have been that a stranger spoke those words.

”My Lord.” I gave him full courtesy; to me he now seemed as far away as our voices had earlier sounded. ”I go where I must go, do what must be done. For I am what Ice Tongue has made me, and it I shall serve until once more comes the end. Perhaps this time”-small hope struggled within me-”the end will be a better one.” Yet memory overclouded that hope, as I knew again the sharp pains of my wounded body as I had dragged myself to that place into which I might fling the sword, lest evil find it and turn it to a still greater danger.

His hand fell from my arm. While that company moved out and back, leaving a path into the dark, away from the cheer of the fire. Down that steadily darkening way I walked, and shoulder to shoulder with me, Uruk. While within me something was stricken and began to die. When it was truly dead I would be a man without hope, with only the geas left to move me on.

Though it was dark my hands and feet seemed to find for themselves the way to climb the cliffs. And I went upward with greater speed and ease than I had ever gone before. Dimly I heard the movements of Uruk to my right. I felt no comfort in his company, he was too much a part of this thing which held me prisoner-which was killing Yonan as surely as if it tore open his breast to slit his heart.

When we reached the top of that way I saw the light and it drew me. The sword I had discarded had a torchlike hilt. I stooped and picked up the belt, buckling it once more about me. Then I fingered the grip, to find it warm, not chill as normal crystal.

For the first time since we had left the fire, Uruk spoke. He did not make a question of that word, it was rather as if he affirmed a resolve.

”HaHarc.”

”HaHarc,” I echoed in agreement. As yet that stranger (he whom they called Tolar) was not in full control of my mind, only of my will and body. I did not have his memories-except in fleeting, time-broken pictures. But when Uruk had uttered that name, then I knew it for our goal.

But we were not to reach those near-forgotten ruins unchallenged. For, as we made our way down the opposite wall of the mountain encirclement, my skin seemed to p.r.i.c.kle between my shoulders; I found myself sniffing the air. listening.

Evil was abroad in the night-and the menace it exuded was strong enough to awake every instinct of caution. I could not throw away my life, rather must I live for the veiled purpose to be demanded of me.

It seemed that my hearing was keener, that I had other and new senses which brought me strong intimations of danger waiting below. And in the moment there flashed into my mind words-a thought not my own- ”Those of the Shadow move-”

But I had none of the Talent; how could I have caught this warning? No, Yonan had no Talent, but what did I know of the gifts and strengths of Tolar?

A rising puff of wind carried to us a thick stench. Not Thas, no-Gray Ones.

Those runners on evil roads who were neither man nor beast, but the worst of each wedded into one. I paused in my descent to listen.

A faint scratching at the rock-not directly below but farther to my right. I peered down into a well of blackness. Then I saw the pallid blink of eyes which had a vile radiance of their own as they were raised to mine.

”Move to the left.” Once more that mental message came clearly. ”There is a ledge. I already stand upon it.”