She looked over the balcony again, her mouth curving in what might have been a smile in better days. I need wings, she thought. My guards are too much afraid of Brynat to molest me here; while I stay in this room, they will stay outside in that hallway, and swear to him that I am inside here. I should have managed these things better; I should have spent my childhood in a room with one of the secret passages. I can think of a dozen ways to get out of the castle— but I have to get out of this room first, and I can’t think of a way to do that.
A faint glimmer of light wavering beneath her showed her that, on a lower floor and some rooms away, Allira moved in the Royal Suite. She thought, despairingly, Storn should have wakened Allira. There is the old hidden way from the Royal Suite, down into the cliff people’s village. Allira could simply wait till Brynat was sleeping, and slip away…
Mad schemes spun in her mind. She had access to her sister; the guards would follow her to the doors of the Royal Suite but not follow her inside; could she manage to get in there and find the old entrance to the passage? At what hour could they be safe from Brynat’s intrusion? Could she count on Allira to trick him, drug him, even hold him in talk or in sensual play while she, Melitta, slipped past?
I dare not depend on Allira, she thought with something like despair. She would not betray me, but she would not have courage to help me, or risk angering Brynat, either.
If I went down to her rooms, with the gurads following me—how long could I count on being alone with her before they summoned Brynat, or grew suspicious when I did not return? And if I vanished from her rooms—they would tear her to pieces, to find out what way I had gone, and I would be pursued before the sun was well up. That’s no help.
But the thought persisted. It might very well be her only chance. It was, of course, to risk everything on one throw; if Brynat returned while she was with Allira, something might rouse his suspicions and she would be consigned to securer custody. For all she knew, her guards had orders to report to Brynat if she and her sister spoke together for more than a few minutes.
But if no one knew I was with Allira?
How could she get to Allira’s room unseen?
The old Darkovans had mastered the secrets of such things. The magic electrical net which protected Storn’s trance was only one of the powers with which Melitta was familiar—but none of them were of use to her now. There were magical cloaks which threw a veil of illusion around the wearer and let them walk unseen, by bending the light, but if Storn had ever owned one, Melitta did not know where it was, or how to use it. She could slip up to the Sunrise Tower, if she could get there, and pull the magical bird plumage over her head, and fly out and away from the castle—but only in illusion. What she saw would be real enough—Storn, she knew, had watched the battle that way—but her body would lie in trance in the Tower, and sooner or later, she would be drawn back to it. That was not the kind of escape which would do any good. I need wings, she thought again. If I could fly right off this balcony and down into that same Royal Suite where Brynat has taken Allira…
She stopped in mid-thought, grimly. She had no wings. Thinking about them was no good. But she had two sturdy arms, two sturdy legs, ten strong fingers and she had been trained since childhood in rock climbing.
She went to the edge of the balcony, fantasies and plans vanishing in a cold, realistic assessment of the problem. She could not fly down to the Royal Suite. But, with strength, caution, and good luck, it was remotely possible that she could climb down to it.
She leaned over, fighting a sudden surge of dizziness. A hundred feet of rough, sheared stone fell away into a chasm below. But the castle wall was not sheer, not smooth. Centuries ago, it had been built of rough stone, the very bones of the mountain, hewn in great lumps and cemented into place with ancient tools which would have blunted too swiftly if the stone had had to be smoothed. A wealth of window ledges, archer’s slits, balconies, outside stairways and projections lumped and ridged the gray sides of the old castle.
When I was a child, she thought, Storn and I used to climb everywhere. I was whipped once for frightening our nurse out of her senses by climbing to a third-level balcony and making faces at her from the arbor. I taught Edric to climb on the balconies down lower. I’ve never climbed this high—I was afraid of falling. But this part of the castle should be as climbable as the lower part.
She knew that if she fell she would be broken on the crags far below. But why should I fall from two hundred feet in the air, if I could manage not to fall from fifteen feet?
You never thought about that because it wouldn’t have mattered if you did fall from fifteen feet, her common sense told her, but she hushed the voice, packed up the thought into a tiny box, shoved it into the back of her mind and left it there. And suppose I do get killed, she told herself defiantly. Edric didn’t mind risking being killed in the siege, or if he did mind, he risked it anyway. I took bow and arrow myself, and I could have been shot or knifed down on the ramparts. If I was willing to die then, in the hope of defending Storn Heights, then why should I hesitate to take the same sort of risk now? If I get killed, I get killed, and at least I won’t have to worry about Brynat’s rabble lining up to take turns raping me.
It wasn’t exactly a comforting thought, but she decided that she could make it do for the moment. She hesitated only a moment, her hands on the railing. Off went the fur-lined gloves; she thrust them deep into the pockets of Edric’s breeches. She buttoned the cloak back and tied it into the smallest possible compass at her waist, hoping it would not catch on a projection of stone. Finally she slipped off her boots, standing shivering on the stone balcony, and tied them together by their laces round her neck. If the thongs caught on a stone she might strangle, but without boots she would be helpless in the snow, and her trained weather sense told her that the snow could not be very long delayed. Then, without giving herself time to think she swung herself up and over the edge of the balcony, sat there for a moment taking the exact bearings of the room and balcony she wanted—forty feet below her and almost a hundred feet away to the left—and slipped down, lodging her stockinged feet in a crevice of the stone, finding a handhold to spread-eagle herself against the rough wall.
The crevices between the stone seemed smaller than when she had climbed about on them as a child, and she had to move by feel on the cold stone. Her feet ached with the cold before she had moved five yards, and she felt first one, then another of her nails split back and break as she clutched the dark, rough stone. The moonlight was pale and fitful, and twice a white streak that she took for a crevice in the paleness turned out to be a crumbling, evil-smelling bird-dropping. But Melitta clung like a limpet to each crevice, never moving more than one hand or one foot until she was securely anchored, in some new hold.
Evanda be praised, she thought grimly, that I’m strong and tough from riding! If I were a girl to sit over my sewing, I’d drop off in two yards! Even strong as she was, she felt every muscle trembling with cold and tension. She felt, also, that in the pale moonlight, she must be clearly visible against the side of the castle, a target for an arrow from any sentry who happened to look up on his rounds. Once she froze, whimpering as a small light and a fragment of voice, blown on the wind, came round the corner, and she knew one of Brynat’s soldiers on some business below passed beneath her. Melitta shut her eyes and prayed he would not look up. He did not; he went on singing drunkenly and, almost exactly beneath her, a hundred feet below, and on the narrow path between the castle and the cliffs, opened the fly of his breeches and urinated into the abyss. She held herself taut, trembling against hysterical laughter. After what seemed an hour he stooped, picked up his lantern, shrugged his clothes into place and stumbled on his way again. Melitta thought she had forgotten how to breathe, but she managed it again, and forced her taut fingers, gripping at a stone, to move again toward the lighted balcony below.
Inch by slow inch—a finger, a toe, a cold yard at a time—the girl crept like an ant down the wa
ll. Once, her heart flipped over and stopped as a pebble encrusted in cement broke away under her fingers, and she heard it slide away and ricochet off a projection beneath her, rebound with what sounded like gunfire off the rocks below, and finally clatter into the darkness. Every muscle tight, she held her breath for minutes, sure that the sound would bring soldiers running, but when she opened her eyes again, the castle still lay bathed in the empty light of the setting moons and she still clung to the wall in her comforting solitude.
The moonlight had dimmed considerably past the shoulder of the mountains, and thick mists were beginning to rise below, when at last her feet touched the stone of the balcony and she let go and slid, dropped down on the stone railing, and crouched there, just breathing in deep gasps of relief. When she could move again, she slipped her hands into her gloves, her feet into the fur-lined boots, and wrapped herself tightly in the cloak, grabbing it tight to lessen her shivering.
The first hurdle was passed. But now she must get inside and attract Allira’s attention without running the risk that Brynat would see. She had come too far to be stopped now!
She crept like a small shaking ghost across the stone balcony and pressed her face against the veined colored glass, joined with strips of metal, which closed the double doors of the balcony. The doors were bolted inside and lined with heavy thick curtains of tapestry, and Melitta had a sudden hysterical picture of herself perched out there like a bird for days, uselessly rapping like a bird at the glass, unheard, until somebody looked up and saw her there.
She also feared that it might be Brynat who drew aside those curtains and looked straight out into her eyes.
She tried to force herself to approach the window, but the picture of Brynat’s fierce face was so compelling that she literally could not make herself raise her hand. She knew he was behind that tapestry. She sank down, nerveless and shaking, and waited, her mind spinning.
Storn, Storn, you came to me before, help me now! Brother, brother! Gods of the mountains, what shall I do? She begged and commanded her weak limbs to move, but she kept on crouching there, frozen and motionless, for what seemed like hours. Finally, slowly, her frozen body and brain began to work again, and she began to think.
When we were children, Allira and I could reach one another’s minds like this. Not always and not often, but if one of us was in danger the other would know; when the wild bird pack had her cut off on the island, I knew and I brought help. She was fourteen then, and I was only eight. I cannot have lost that power, or Storn could not have reached me tonight. But if all my mind is giving off is fear, Allira wouldn’t know if she did hear me; she’d think it was just part of her own panic.
She had had almost no training. Storn, being blind and thus debarred from the usual pursuits of men of his caste, had explored the old telepathic ways. But to his brother and sisters, these had been dreams, fantasies, games and tricks—pleasant perhaps for pastime, but not worthy of serious study. There was too much else that was real and present and necessary to the moment. Melitta spent a moment berating herself for not spending more time with Storn learning about the old speech of mind to mind, but common sense came to her rescue. She reminded herself of the old proverb, Foresight could make wise men of Durraman’s donkeys! She might as well blame herself for Allira’s not having been married to a strong husband with eighty fighting men to defend them.
She put her hand out to rap on the glass sharply, and again the clear picture of Brynat looking out into the storm came to her; it was so instant and compelling that she physically shrank back and pressed herself against the railing, folding herself up into her cloak. It was just in time; a browned hand drew the tapestry aside, and Brynat’s scarred visage turned from side to side, trying to penetrate the darkness.
Melitta shrank against the railing and tried to make herself invisible. After a minute that seemed endless, Brynat turned away and the lamp went out. The tapestry dropped back into place. Melitta dropped, gasping, to the stones, and lay there trying not to breathe.
Time dragged. The moon set, and the shivering girl grew colder and colder. After hours, so long that she began to wonder if the sun would come up and find her there, a thin fine rain began to fall, and this spurred her; she realized that whatever she risked, she must be gone by sunrise; she must be somewhere that she could lie hidden by day. Even if she must chip the glass of the doors and cut Brynat’s throat while he slept, she must make some move!
As she poised her muscles for action, a faint light glimmered again between the tapestries. Melitta gathered herself to spring against the bolts; then a fine hand moved through the gap, the bolt shuddered in the wood and her sister Allira, wrapped in a long woolen shift, her hair disheveled, thrust the door outward and, her eyes great and staring, looked straight into Melitta’s face.
Melitta raised a hand to her mouth, frightened of Allira’s nerves and a sudden outcry, but Allira only clasped her hands to her heart with a gasp of relief. She whispered, “I knew you were there, and I couldn’t believe—Melitta, how did you come here?”
Melitta replied only with a jerk of her head toward the rocks and a whispered “No time now! Brynat—”
“Asleep,” Allira said laconically, “He sleeps with one eye, like a cat, but just now—never mind that. Melitta—are you armed?”
“Not with a weapon I could kill him with, without outcry,” Melitta said flatly. “And you’d still have his men to deal with, and they would be worse.” Watching Allira flinch, she knew that her sister had already considered and rejected that escape.
“The secret passage through the old cliff-town; have any of Brynat’s men discovered it?”
“No—Melitta, you cannot go that way; you’ll be lost in the caves, you’d die in the mountains if you ever found your way out—and where would you go?”
“Carthon,” Melitta said briefly, “wherever that is. I don’t suppose you know?”
“I know only that it’s a city beyond the passes, which was great in the days of the Seven Domains. Melitta, are you really going to dare this?”
“It’s this or die here,” Melitta said bluntly. “You seem able to stand it here, though—”
“I don’t want to die.”
Allira was almost sobbing and Melitta hushed her roughly. It was not Allira’s fault that she was so timid. Perhaps even such protection as Brynat could give seemed better than a desperate trek through strange crags, passes and mountains. Maybe I ought to be like that too, Melitta thought, maybe that’s a woman’s proper attitude, but I suppose there’s something wrong with me—and I’m glad. I’d rather die taking the chance of doing something to help Storn.
But the brief moment of censure for her sister passed. After all, Allira had already faced, or so it seemed to Allira herself, the worst that could happen to her; what more had she to fear? By escaping now, she would only lose the life she had saved at such cost.
“You must go, then, before sunrise,” Ailira said with quick resolution. “Quick, while Brynat sleeps and before the guards come in”—a brief flicker of something like her old smile—“as they do each night, to make sure I have not killed him while he sleeps.”
The wind blew briefly into the room and was barred out again as the two girls slipped inside. Brynat lay sprawled and ugly in the great bed, breathing stertorously. After one blazing look of hate, Melitta averted her eyes, creeping past him silently, holding her breath and trying not to think, as if her very hate might wake their enemy. She breathed more freely when they were in the ornate reception room of the suite, but her hands were still clenched with tension and terror.
There were the carven chests, the hangings and the strange beasts around the elaborate false fireplace. She pressed the hilt of the marble sword there and the stone slid away, revealing the old stair. She clutched Allira’s hands, wanting to say something but falling silent in desperation. She went forward. Whatever happened, she was safe or dead.
Allira might somehow summon up the courage to come—but the esc
aping, Melitta knew with a practical grimness, was only the beginning. She had a long way to go, and she could not encumber herself with anyone who did not share her own desperate resolve; at this point, even if Allira had begged to come with her, she would have refused.
She said briefly, “The guards outside my room think I’m still in there. Try anything you can to keep them from finding out how I’ve gone. You saw nothing; you heard nothing.”
Allira clutched at her, a frightened hug and kiss. “Shall I—shall I get you Brynat’s knife? He would search me for it, but when he didn’t find it, he’d only think he lost it.”
Melitta nodded, a tardy spasm of admiration for her frightened sister touching her. She stood frozen, not daring to move, as Allira crept back into the bedroom, and then returned with a long, unsheathed knife in her hand. Allira thrust it into the top of Melitta’s boot. Allira had something else in her hand, wadded together in a torn linen coif. Melitta glanced hastily at the soggy mess; it was a torn half-loaf of bread, some cut slices of roast meat, and a large double handful of sticky sweets. Uncritically, she wrapped it up again and put it into her deepest pocket.
“Thank you, Lira. It will keep me going for a day or two, and if I don’t find any help by then, it’s no use anyhow. I must go; it will be light in three hours.” She dared not frame a goodbye in words; it would have loosened the floodgates of her fear. “Give me your gold chain, unless you think Brynat will miss it; I can hide it in a pocket and the links will pass current, though it’s not as good as a copper one would have been.”