“They will attempt to use her as a bargaining piece?”
“There are a hundred—a thousand places in this city,” the Duke continued tonelessly, “where they can keep her so no searchers of ours can find her—”
“She is no longer in the city.” Both men turned heads.
Vazul, his creature hissing loudly in his ear, came to the other side of the table and looked down at the map. His always gaunt face had now the look of skin stretched tightly over bone. “The Bat’s network is to be depended upon.”
“And the Bat?” demanded the Duke.
“Nothing as yet. But there is something else— Your Highness, the High Lady Saylana has also disappeared— and with her not only some of her ladies but also the Lady Zuta. If they left the city it was by no normal means. And the Herbmistress would speak with you—”
“I grasp at any straw—meanwhile deal as you can with the affairs of the flight of these women. Let the Herbmistress come.”
Just as age had seemed to ensnare the Lord Chancellor overnight so did Halwice’s features appear the sharper.
“Your Highness"—she did not wait to be addressed but swept into speech at once—"and you, Prince Lorien. We have come to fight more than one woman’s desire for power. There were hints of this long ago when the House of Gard was brought down here in Kronen and your own people fought a battle with mountain raiders— Remember you Ishbi, Prince?”
He was leaning forward, one clenched fist on the table before him.
“Demon spawned that was, mistress. But in the end we prevailed.”
“Did we?” she said slowly. “Or perhaps the enemy only withdrew for a space to rearm and strengthen. Prince Lorien, my craft puts those who follow it on a very narrow path between Light and Dark. Within these past few days I have learned that we face powers far stronger than any steel forged, any learned knowledge. I speak of Nona—’’
“A legend—” But the Duke’s hand flailed out and upset his wine across the map.
“Ishbi!” Now Prince Lorien’s fist slipped across the map making the wine river there run the faster. “I am of the blood who was there and others may forget—we shall not as long as we breed sons. It is the cursed—”
“Or are we?” Halwice’s voice cut through his rising one. “By what once was ruler of spirit there?”
The Prince was on his feet. “If somehow that evil beyond evil is a part of this, then, Lord Duke, your quarrel is also mine.” He hesitated and then added in a lower voice from which the hot wrath had died a little, “May the Star Rays be about your daughter, Duke, if she is captive to such.”
The Duke put his head in his hands and those hands were trembling. Mahart—she had been just a name to him not long ago, a small irritation to be endured, but of no great value. What was she now? He could not have truthfully said, save all his sly connivings and schemes were like tattered webs torn apart and of no value.
There was a stir as through the door came one of the squire messengers, but what he had to add he took to the Lord Chancellor not the distraught Duke.
Vazul unrolled a small strip of paper but he did not hold it up to his own eyes—rather to those of Ssssaaa, and within a second or two the creature’s hissing became so loud it drew all their attention, even the Duke’s.
“They have taken her out of the city.” Vazul had all the appearance of one translating his creature’s hisses.
“The Bat says, mistress"—he inclined his head a fraction toward Halwice—"that your maid insists the trail leads on. He gathers supplies and mounts to follow. There has been talk of Ishbi.”
And that final word echoed through the chamber as if it was as strong as the clamor of one of the city bells.
19
The heavy fragrance about Mahart enclosed her like a score of blankets wadded one on top of another. Even the air here seemed to hold a green shimmer as the horse plodded after that metal-encased figure who led it. The rock-walled trail they followed suddenly widened out onto what she first thought was a ledge and then saw dreamily was the first of a series of very wide steps, easy enough for the mount who carried her to descend, leading down into thick greenery.
Each step was deeply incised with a symbol and her guard-guide led the horse so that the animal walked directly over the heart of each as they went. Mahart could see now that all that greenery below was no normal trees and scrubs, rather a rank growth of ferns taller than her head even as she rode toward them.
There was no wind here, nor any sound of bird or insect. As they reached the last of those wide steps he who had brought her stepped aside. When her mount drew level with him he looped back the lead rope over the saddle horn. Nor did he even raise that helmed masked face to look at her. Instead he halted. The horse continued to plod at the same pace straight ahead.
So like a dream was all of this that Mahart felt she could demand no explanation, offer no protest. Still, she knew inwardly that she was headed now toward some peril she could not begin to imagine.
At first the wall of ferns seemed to be just that, a barrier to warn any intruder away, but as the horse approached at its slow amble those fronds, without the urging of any breeze, split apart and opened a way for them. There were, she began to notice, strange breaks among them here and there—a scrap of wall, a sharp comer. While there was no sound, the thud of her mount’s shod hooves sounded on stone, even though underfoot seemed only a green carpet of moss.
Mahart cried out. A frond to her right had appeared to bow away, and she looked for only an instant of pure horror into a face. Not one of beauty such as had been engraved on the wall, but rather one which might have been rudely hacked from the bark-scaled side of a dead tree. Then it was gone, as suddenly as she had seen it.
However, the further they advanced the more and more obvious became those signs of handiwork, the remains of very ancient structures, while the growth of ferns began to thin out.
At last they were through the final fringe of green plumes and into the open. What was spread before her was a calm-surfaced lake crowded round with ruins of the green-veined stone. The ferns had dwindled to a moss which resembled in part a vine as its tendrils crept outward over the stone yet sparingly as if that plant found little liking for the support it was forced to accept.
Centered in the lake was a massive heap of rubble—perhaps even a castle overthrown to nearly the shape of its native stone. There for the first time she saw movement. Things came out of the water, stirring it with small ripples, darting up among the stones. They moved so fast she could not, in this strangely drowsy state into which she had fallen, really distinguish them well, though she had an impression that they had four limbs and a wide blob of head, which appeared to sit on their shoulders with no rise of neck between.
In color they were nearly the shade of the stones, so that once ashore when they halted, they faded into the mound of rubble enough so that she could no longer spy them.
Her mount brought her to what once might have been a pier stretching into the lake and then halted and stood with drooping head. It gave a doleful wheezing sound and began to shiver under her, as if her weight somehow exhausted it.
Sore and stiff the girl slipped from the mount’s back and found that she must hold to the edge of its blanket in order to keep her feet, so dizzy she had become.
With a second deep sigh the horse went to its knees and she was swung off until she was brought up painfully against a fragment of wall and clung to that for support.
Now the animal lay on its side, its wheezing breath coming in great gasps. She backed away, not sure what fate was claiming it and whether she would be so taken also.
The horse’s head was down. As far as Mahart could see it no longer was breathing. She dug her nails into the scrap of rock wall, pulling herself unsteadily back from the animal she was now sure had died. Her mouth was dry with thirst. Yet she had no desire to drink where those island things swam.
Using one hand for a grip to drag her forward a step, and then an
other, Mahart started to work her way back from the edge of the lake, though she knew she could not bring herself to fight a way into the ferns.
“Light of Star,
“Path of bright.” Her tongue was so dry she could hardly shape the words. “Star of Mercy, Star Above—” Slowly she recited the Five Points. Few nowadays believed in miracles, in outward aid in time of peril. She was not Abbey bred and did not even know well any of the Great Petitions. However, in this place somehow Mahart caught and held to one memory—that of the shining light with which the Abbess had welcomed her on her pilgrimage. “Star—” she croaked hoarsely.
She tripped and fell over a portion of wall near as high as her knees, landing painfully so she could only lie where she was for a space. Flowers— Flowers—and a field—and someone to come.
The heaviness of the fern scent seemed to fall away, as, from not far from her head, there was a much sharper and cleaner scent. She looked at her hand, it was sticky red—not with blood, for the smell drew that hand to her mouth.
Lamman fruit—and ripe, though this was not the season. But she did not question that as she combed through the vine leaves and crammed the berries into her mouth, almost swallowing them whole. Her first hunger so satisfied, she looked about. Her rumble had somehow deposited her in what had once been a garden. But—Mahart shook her head dizzily—it was all wrong! Even she who had never trod farm soil or been at a harvest could see the medley of vigorous plants around her were all ripe when, by nature’s law, they should be months apart in development.
Her broken nails filled with rich soil as she grubbed for the long podlike roots of salassa, crunching their meatiness between her teeth until the juice ran down her chin. Now she could see a row of low-growing bushes not too far away, their branches bending under a wealth of plumferts all in golden ripeness. Even the Duke had never had such a feasting as this!
Mahart’s wonder grew stronger. Most of the fruit crowded in such a wealth around her at this place usually attracted both insects and birds. She saw neither. But beyond the plumferts there was a still higher jut of wall and from there came sound—
She got to her feet and went toward that. Now she could see, as she rounded the largest of the trees, that there was a hollow in a tall spire of stone. It was like a pocket and no daylight appeared to reach into it and yet it was not dark. Set into the wall well above the center of the cleft was a gleaming crystal.
Mahart went to her knees and for the first time all her terrors and fears struck her and she answered them with tears such as she would, if she could, never show her enemies.
From the bottom point of the crystal water flowed in a stream no wider than her smallest finger to fill a basin. Over the edges of that poured in turn the overflow, to soak the ground and vanish, but not in any visible stream.
Somehow she crept to that basin, bowed her head before the shining of what hung above it. Mahart had come to believe that this was a place of evil, yet within it, as a stone was within a fruit, there was good! That such could dwell together she could not believe—she could only accept.
She would not sully the flood in the basin with her muddy hands, rather strive to wash them with that which flowed over the edge until they seemed clean and she could cup them to bring water to her mouth. She drank. There were no longer any words—words were not for this place—there was only abiding peace as if soft arms gathered her in and held her close in a comfort she had never before known.
Willadene hunched against her bag and tried not to think of bowls of honied porridge, slabs of fresh bread spread thick with butter—all of them more meaningful now than the remnants of the feast in the castle. She had sparingly used the cordial, merely wetting her fingertip and touching it to her tongue. Its restorative powers she had witnessed many times over, but it did not now entirely satisfy her aching middle.
Judging by the light—and a single patch of bright sun which touched the top of a mound of debris a little farther from her improvised den, it must be midafternoon. They were now hours behind Mahart and her captors. Once more she held that rag of night rail to her nose and fastened all her will on seeking the right thread of scent.
Only she was tired and had to fight to keep her eyes open, her mind centered on what she would do. However, she was completely shocked awake when she felt rather than heard the beat of hooves, vibrating through the ground. Her only answer was to squeeze farther back into the scant covering and wait.
What she heard then was no longer just the jolt of hoof on earth and mossy stone, but a hissing. The bush before her shook as a slim body found a path between branches and leaves, and then she was looking down at what could only be Vazul’s furred companion, now raising her fore-limbs from the ground and rearing up as far as she was able to reach.
“Ssssaaa—” There was no more movement; certainly the Lord Chancellor had not made an appearance. But the creature now leaped for her, and then was almost instantly circled about her shoulder, even as she favored that choice of position with her master.
Willadene was smoothing the head which rubbed now and then against her chin when she saw the blot of black, standing out clearly in the sun, which could only be Nicolas.
He was leading three horses, two of them saddled for riders and the third weighted with a brace of pack bags. Willadene crawled out of hiding and stood up, her muscles aching from that long crouch in hiding.
Two of the horses Nicolas made fast by their reins to piles of rubble, but the third he busied himself with, loosing one of the bags, bringing out a coarse napkin which bulged with a promise that made the girl lick her lips.
So far he had not spoken, but he handed the package to her with a snapped “Eat up!” She noted that his eyes were never still and she thought he was reading all which was about them as a scribe might read a book.
She sat down on a jut of stone wall and eat she did, striving to do so in less than frantic gulps. There was also a small flagon which a sniff told her was one of Halwice’s herb teas and she took a measured sip from that.
Nicolas was on the prowl about their rough camp. Twice he went down on one knee to study what seemed to be a bare patch of ground. When he came back to her he wore that usual frown she had associated with him since their first meeting. She licked her lips and retied the package over about a third of its remains. Now was the time when she must sink herself even farther in his sight.
“I do not ride—” she said boldly and looked at the nearest of the tethered horses warily.
His frown grew the sharper and he muttered a word or so she did not really hear. Then he answered her as if he was one who had full power over her untutored body.
“You will ride! At least there is a trail which can be followed for a woodsrunner—even if you can no longer play the hound. Hold on to the saddle horn; give me the reins. We shall be greatly hindered but we shall go.”
Boost her up into the saddle he did. She felt a disquiet which almost made her dizzy—the ground looked far down and hard. Her bag he had stripped from her shoulder to fasten behind her saddle. The horse shifted weight under her and she fought to keep her balance. But she followed orders and took a firm hold of the saddle horn, her nails near biting into its surface.
Now it was Nicolas who led the way on foot. He held the reins of her horse, which luckily seemed of even temperament and willing to accept her as a burden, and, having looped his own reins on the saddle of the second mount, it fell in behind as if well trained to this form of travel, the pack pony bringing up the rear.
At first all Willadene could think of was her precarious position, but as nothing appeared to shake her loose she began to watch Nicolas. From time to time he would leave her for a moment or two.
His eyes turned ever from ground to bush, to the trunks of trees around which they wound a way which seemed to him to be as clear as a beckoning scent might be for her. At length she spoke softly.
“You are travel trained.” She had heard back at the inn of the guides upon which mer
chants had come to depend whenever they had need to turn off the main highway. “What do you read as might a scribe from what is about us?”
To her surprise and inward relief he looked up over his shoulder at her and there was a quirk of a wry sort of smile about his lips. He had discarded that half mask and so seemed in an odd way closer to those she knew.
“I read—so—” He pointed to a scuffed patch in the carpet of last year’s leaves. “This is an easy trail, for some of those we follow are city men and have no idea how one hides one’s passing. See that branch ahead—it was stupidly broken off perhaps because it raked someone’s cap awry or the like. But there is one with them who knows the open country and he leads.”
Willadene could not have told whether they were headed north or south, east or west, at this moment. Except that westward lay Kronengred and she was sure they were not headed back toward the city.
“Where do they head?”
A trace of that frown returned. “North. But if they think to take refuge in some hole of the Wolfs they are lack witted. Not only did our doughty Prince clean out the main headquarters but he left one body of men, together with such trained rangers as the Duke had not recalled, to hunt out all other lairs. And the Prince is moving again—north. His scouts are indeed well trained and track tested. Look now what I do.”
He went down on one knee where a tuft of tough grass sprouted from between the aboveground root ridges of a very tall and old tree. Delicately, he used his knife and, separating the grass, he cut about a half dozen stalks. Keeping them carefully in one hand, with the other he stroked the lump of green upstanding again. Though it was difficult for Willadene to see at this distance from her seat aloft she could guess that a trained eye might well catch the disturbance.
The fresh stems of grass he twisted and then reached well up so he near had to stand on tiptoe to touch a mass of dried bird’s nest from the previous season. Into that he tightly wove the grass—but only to one side so there was a small spot of green facing the direction ahead of them. Then he turned to her with a laugh.