A hot, quick flicker of light flashed, far back in the dark, and the smoke that bellied thick beneath the high ceiling stirred, then streamed inward, pouring between the pillars through the second chamber and the third.
As he had in his shadow vision, the Icefalcon half discerned more pillars than there should have been, a fourth and a fifth and a sixth pair, and on past into darkness.
Vair gestured to the clones. "Go," he said. "Kill all that you meet."
"I trust," said Bektis smugly, "that your Lordship is well satisfied?" His attention was on Vair, in anticipation of an accolade that, the Icefalcon reflected, he should have had more sense than to expect, and in that moment of distraction, Tir acted.
With the neat speed of a man's, the boy's hand dropped to his boot-top and the next second there was a dagger in it, a dagger with which he slashed across the back of Bektis' hand. Bektis screamed, jerked back, and the boy was free, running.
The Icefalcon was moving, too. In a single long leap he reached the child's side, seconds before Vair's left-handed fumble for his sword. The Icefalcon's sword tangled with the dark commander's blade, flung the weapon aside, and struck back the blade of the nearest clone's attack as his momentum carried him, and Tir, out of immediate danger.
Vair screamed, "Stop him! Kill him!" as the Icefalcon slapped into the wall between Hethya and Loses His Way, sword pointing outward once more.
Bektis, clutching his bleeding hand to his breast, snarled, "The room's under a Rune of Silence, fool!"
Behind the Icefalcon, Tir was sobbing, "Stop them! Please, stop them!" and struggling to push through, as if he would attack the clones himself, but none of the three warriors made a move.
"There's nothing we can do," said the Icefalcon softly. He had already caught, above the stench of smoke and rot and burning, a smell from the inner chambers of the transporter, a smell green and anomalous, that told him that all was not as Vair supposed it to be.
But he couldn't say so, could only hold Tir fast, while behind the shoving ranks of clones Vair struck Bektis a blow that knocked the old man to the floor. Swords, halberds, spears in hand, the clones shuffled through the pillars, disappearing along the lines of green light and starshine into darkness.
Tir struggled, weeping, in the Icefalcon's grip. "There's nothing we can do."
Something beyond the vestibule outside caught with a deafening roar. Heat, exhaustion, and the strangling smoke made the Icefalcon light-headed, and he saw Hethya stagger and Loses His Way catch her on his uninjured arm to keep her on her feet.
For a moment, when there was a gap in the line of clones, the Icefalcon thought Vair would order his men to take the three of them and Tir-wasteful, in his opinion, but then Vair was wasteful.
But Vair seemed to realize what that was likely to cost in terms of men and in terms of time.
"Come, Bektis," he said softly to the trembling, furious old man who lay sprawled at his feet. "They'll follow us through. They must, or die. As you must. What about it, wench?" he called to Hethya. "Will you take servicing my men above death by fire? And you, Little King, if you hurry, you'll be in time to watch me rape your mother."
Dagger in hand, Tir flung himself in soundless rage at Vair. The Icefalcon dragged him back, holding the struggling child against him as the tall man turned, laughing, toward the crystal columns, the retreating lines of light.
His white-cloaked form blended into the shambling lines of the clones, visible among them for quite some time, fading back and back into the shadows.
After a long moment Bektis pulled himself to his feet, leaning against the wall and holding his ribs, a look of loathing and defeat in his eyes. He staggered into the marching line of the clones, catching their sweaty shoulders to hold himself upright, and was gone.
"Hyena," gasped Loses His Way, his breath like a bellows in the airless heat. "Coward and pig." His eyes never left the shambling ranks, shuffling, coughing, pouring sweat and staggering now as they passed through from the vestibule and down the length of the chamber to the first pair of pillars, the second...
Tir wept silently in the Icefalcon's grip.
"But he is right, my friend," the warchief murmured. "What will you? It is follow or die."
"Well, there might be a certain amount of satisfaction in following, of course." Ingold stepped from the rear ranks of the clones-who didn't appear to notice him-and strode quickly to Tir, dropping to his knees before the boy and putting his hands on his shoulders.
"My dear Tir, thank God you're all right!" Blood covered one side of his face and a fresh wound put streaks of gore in his hair, where the whole of him wasn't nearly black with smoke and ash. "Forgive me!
I never imagined the corridor to the control chamber was booby-trapped like that."
Tir flung his arms around the wizard, clutched him desperately with his face buried in the threadbare robes.
"It's all right," said Ingold. "It really is all right. I'd never have brought you with me if..."
"I'd have thrashed the life out of any man who'd send a child into what we just came through!" protested Hethya.
"No one in the Keep will be hurt," Ingold murmured, face bent over the weeping child's head. "I promise you." He held out his hand to the Icefalcon and used his grip on the young warrior's arm to get to his feet.
"We really have got to get out of here. The Aisle's in flames. I think I can damp us a way through to the Doors, but I'm afraid we're all going to get singed."
"Vair..." sobbed Tir. "Ingold, Vair said..."
"It's all right," said the wizard again. "Vair's not anywhere near the Keep of Dare. In fact he's farther from it than ever. As a final favor to us, Zay of Tiyomis told me how to change the destination of the transporter before he... he died. And he is dead," he added, as Hethya's lips parted in surprise.
"He left behind enough of his power to operate the transporter one final time, but, as I said, it opens no longer into the Keep of Dare. That was the Icefalcon's idea," he added, and Hethya regarded the Icefalcon in surprise.
"So you've turned tricky in your old age, have you, boy-o?"
With dignity, the Icefalcon replied, "Something I overheard Vair say while I was shadow-walking made me think there was a more suitable destination for him."
"What, you've found a way for the transporter to send him straight to Hell?"
"Nearly," said the Icefalcon after a moment's reflection.
Loses His Way wiped the sweat from his stubbly brow. "Where have they gone?"
"To the crypts of what used to be the great Southern Keep of Hathyobar," said Ingold, and coughed on the smoke. "It stood on the shores of the Lake of Nychee, on the site now occupied by the Imperial Palace of Khirsrit."
"Where this lady Yori-Ezrikos dwells?" asked Hethya. "That hasn't much use for our boy Vair, never mind that he's her lawful wedded husband?"
"The very one." Ingold smiled. "I was pleased to hear that Vair is looking forward to an encounter with her because he is going to have one a great deal sooner than he looked to."
Chapter 23
There were spells of inconspicuousness a truly Wise One could place upon a man so that he might spend a day and a half in the camp of his enemies without them noticing that the person to whom they were bringing food, wrapping in blankets, sitting beside a fire-with whom they shared accounts of the game to be found on the Ice in the North: ice camels, lemmings, caribou, and once a pure white megatherium-would in any other circumstances be painted all over with messages to their Ancestors and have his bowels pulled out through his nostrils.
The Icefalcon was grateful for this circumstance. He was very, very tired of fighting.
He had no idea who the Empty Lakes People thought he was and didn't care. Nor had he any idea by what spells of illusion Ingold had guaranteed the absence of the Talking Stars People when the little party waded through fog, smoke, and steam up the dripping, hip-deep meltwaters of the collapsing gate-tunnel to the outer world again.