“Not so, Hylle.” Her voice was low, but it carried above the hissing of the monster and the crooning that kept it at bay. “Not even with your blood can you summon—”
“Tell me not what I may do!” he cried. “I am Hylle, Master—“
Yaal shook her head. “Only because of our lack of caution did you become Master. Your day is done, Hylle.”
She did not turn her head to look to Ysmay, but she held out her right hand.
“Let the serpent come,” she ordered.
Ysmay, as if she understood perfectly what was to be done, raised her own hand. She felt the circlet come alive. It streaked across her flesh to leap through the air, fall into Yaal’s palm, move so swiftly that it was a blur, to encircle Yaal’s wrist.
Hylle started forward as if to prevent the transfer. But he was too late.
“Now.” Yaal held up her hand. The serpent, though in a hoop, was not inert. Its head swayed and its eyes glowed with yellow fire.
But that final word was no name, only a roaring and a tumult in the room, which made Ysmay cry out and cover her tormented ears.
The cup on the table began to whirl in a mad dance. Hylle, with a cry, tried to catch it. The knife fell from his grasp and leaped into the air, where it dangled enticingly as he strove to lay hand upon it, seeming to forget all else.
It bobbed and dangled, always just a fraction beyond his reach. As he scrambled after it Ysmay saw there were no longer any flashes of blue fire, and that the crooning sounds had a note of triumph.
The flying goblet brought Hylle well away from the table, close to where those shattered pillars had stood. Then he seemed to awake from whatever spell had held him. He whirled about, crouched like a swordsman about to leap at an enemy.
“No!” he cried out defiantly. He threw out an arm as if to brush aside the cup and came soft-footed, with so deadly a look that Ysmay shrank back, toward the two tables. This time he did not try to reach those instruments of evil. Instead his hands clutched at the lumps of unworked amber.
“Yet—yet—” he screamed. Holding the amber, he ran for the stairs. None tried to stop him. Instead Yaal went to the table of evil. There stood the cup as if it had never risen. The knife lay beside it.
Yaal gazed, her serpent-girdled hand extended. The head of the creature still swayed from side to side. It was as if she now memorized something of vast importance. Then, as if she had come to a decision, she turned again.
There was less sound. Ysmay looked around. The grille of light was dimming. And the monster had withdrawn, snuffling and hissing, to the head of the stair. Yaal joined her fellow prisoner.
“Let be. His mind is closed. There can be only one end, as we should have known long ago.”
He dropped his hand from his lips and nodded. “He made the choice, abide by it now he shall!”
But Yaal wore a look of faint perplexity. She glanced right and then left.
“There is something else,” she said slowly. “Do you not feel it, Broc?”
He lifted his head as if to a wind and his nostrils expanded to breathe the air.
“It is she!” For the first time he looked at Ysmay as if she were a presence.
Now Yaal eyed her also.
“She is no creature of his, she has worn the serpent. This is another power. Hylle deals in death, or life-in-death. This is a power of life. What charm do you hold, girl?”
Ysmay answered by holding out her hand so that Gunnora’s amulet might be seen. Yaal studied it for a moment and then nodded.
“It has been long and long again since that device has been seen at Quayth. The protection of Rathonna—Yes, to add to what he had, Hylle would want that indeed.”
The girl found her tongue. “But he did not take it from me when he could have.”
Yaal shook her head. “Such a thing of power must come only as a gift. Taken by force it will turn against its user. One does not deal lightly with Rathonna.”
“I do not know the name. This is an amulet of Gunnora.”
“What is a name?” Yaal asked. “Certain powers have always been known and given different names by different peoples. I recognize that as coming from Rathonna. Of old she did not turn her face from us, but was willing to lend her aid when the need arose. If Hylle thought to use Her—”
Broc interrupted. “You know Hylle, he would think himself above any threat of reprisal, or else scheme how he could turn it to his own advantage. As he schemes now. Yaal—as he schemes now!”
“The stars have come full turn, and the serpent is ready to strike. I do not think Hylle either schemes nor stirs his great pot to any purpose this night. Now is the hour for us to make an end.”
Together they walked toward the stairhead, Ysmay trailing them. She would not stay alone in this haunted place.
The monster hissed. It had flattened its body to the floor and its red eyes were fixed on them. Broc made a pass of hand through the air and between his fingers he now held a sword.
No light reflected from any steel. The blade had no cutting edge, but was ruddy brown and carved as if from wood. However, seeing it, the monster slunk away. It hissed and spat, retreating steadily. Thus they came down to Hylle’s workshop, where noxious fumes were heavy.
In the center was a fire in a stone-lined pit. From a crossbar over the fire hung a giant pot into which Hylle was flinging handfuls of objects from a nearby bench. As he filled the pot so he chanted, paying no attention to those who came.
“Are his wits turned?” Broc asked. “Surely he must know that this will not work again.”
“Oh, but it will!” Yaal held up her arm. The yellow eyes of the snake glowed, grew larger, larger, became a single orb, a sun hanging in the dark room. The monster gave a bubbling scream.
It raced across the floor—not toward the three by the stair, but for its master. At the same time the amulet flamed in Ysmay’s hand. The color it gave off was green, and its light rippled and lapped across the floor, speeding to the pit.
The green flood boiled over the lip but did not douse the flames, merely set them leaping higher. Now they were green flames.
Ysmay heard the break in Hylle’s chant. He screamed as the monster reached him. They writhed together, tottered and fell forward, still entwined, into the bubbling pot.
Instantly the orb was gone, the green flames died. In the pot a liquid seethed quietly just below the rim, and there was no way of seeing below the surface.
Dawn and a new day. Ysmay leaned against the outer wall of the star tower. It was hard to believe that she could breathe the fresh winter air after the fumes of the tower and its stench of evil. That she had survived the night past was a miracle. For the moment she was content with that alone.
Then Yaal’s hand was on her arm and they were three in the courtyard with the gray sky above them.
“It is changed, sad changed,” Yaal said. “This is not Quayth as it should be.”
“It can be changed again,” Broc said briskly. “That which ate its heart is gone. And we have the future—”
What of Ysmay? She was not Lady of Quayth, nor had ever been. Would she now ride to Uppsdale, even less than she had been before?
“I was Hylle’s wife,” she said slowly. “It was by my own choice that I came to Quayth—though I knew not what he was—yet I took this path without protest.”
“And so were the saving of us all.” Broc looked at her. His face with its resemblance to Hylle moved her in a way she did not understand. No—he was not Hylle, rather what an untried girl once thought Hylle might be. “Nor were you Hylle’s wife,” he continued, “nor his creature—if you had been, you could not have worn the serpent, or stood with us this night.”
“Say not Hylle’s wife, but rather Rathonna’s daughter!” Yaal’s voice had almost the tone of an order. “Many and strange are the weavings of fortune. We are of an old people, we of Quayth, and we have learning which has given us powers the ignorant grant to godlings. Yet we are also of human kind in many ways. That is why we can have such as Hylle among us. They are of our own brood. Hylle wanted to master certain powers it was not right to meddle with—”