He nodded heavily. “Aye. I swear by the Sacred Horse-hide to hold silence—unless you fall ill, Lady. Then I needs must speak.”
I nodded. “That is fair.”
Kerovan was striding impatiently back and forth as we toiled up the last reaches of the stone ramp.
Kar Garudwyn awaited us. In the last light of the sun the blue stone seemed shaded with a warm, welcoming glow. There were no wooden doors, such as I was accustomed to in the Keeps of High Hallack. Instead one entered through an arched portal somewhat larger than the many narrow ones admitting light and air. A short passage lay beyond, then a hall. It was large, with a circular floor, rising overhead to a domed ceiling. As we entered a crystal globe hung from the center of the dome flared into soft life, emitting a rosy light.
Tables, flanked by benches, filled the central portion, with a dais midpoint. A huge seat rose from it—seeming partially a throne, but clearly not one intended for humankind’s occupancy. A ramp led up to it, not stairs, as one would find in a Keep.
I frowned, suddenly arrested by something that should have been there, filling this hall, but was not—dust. I touched the surface of a table, looking at the ungrimed pinkness of my fingertip with disbelief. After so many ages, there should be dust!
The table’s surface seemed cool, smooth—not like wood, which at first sight I had thought it to be. No, this material had the color and circular veining of wood, but the slickness and glassy feel of polished stone.
“Cera!” I glanced up at Guret’s whisper. “Look at the walls!”
I walked over to join him, as he stood surveying the curving walls of the feasting hall—or so I now believed this to be. What I had thought were more veinings marking the stone surfaces were instead patterns and pictures made up of many tiny gem pebbles embedded in the surface. I touched the mosaic carefully, marveling at the intricate workmanship. A dark green stone—surely that was jade. And another one with tiny fires tracing its milky surface—opal?
My searching eyes and fingers discovered a kingdom’s ransom of agate, jade, opal, amber, and topaz, as well as other jewels studding the wall to form parts of the patterns. The scenes themselves were huge, swirling pictures of the sun, the mountain, plus what I realized after some study were very ancient runes—so old that I could barely recognize them for what they were. I could not read any of them, which saddened me. For I had a feeling, as I stood eyeing them, that they told the story of this place, if I could but understand their message.
“Cera!” Guret tugged at my arm. “M’lord Kerovan is not here!”
“Where did he go?” I had no wish to be separated from him in this beautiful—but passing strange—place.
“I did not see him leave. I turned, and he was gone.”
Hurriedly we forsook the hall to search passages. A ramp echoed overhead with the click of passing feet—hooved feet—and we took it at a run.
Kerovan moved quickly, but without undue haste, heading for the arched portal at the end of that hallway. Open archways as we passed revealed rooms empty of furnishings, dustless and silent.
The portal before us gave way to another ramp which we ascended quickly. Beyond it, the view from the southern and western windows was dizzying, naught but a clear sweep of reddened sky and purple cloud. Fortunately the lighting globes came to life at intervals along the halls, or we would have been soon in the darkness, and eyeing the unguarded floor-to-ceiling expanse of the narrow window-arches, I did not like that thought. My palms turned sweaty and itched at the unbidden fear of falling from such a height.
As we ascended one more ramp in my lord’s wake, I thought that we must be in one of the towers I had noted. A final archway met us at the top of the ramp, filled with a coruscating violet light, making me draw back instinctively. It would be death to touch that shimmering brilliance, I knew.
Kerovan put out a hand, speaking softly, words I did not know. The light grew softer, gentler, then vanished altogether. He stepped within. Taking a deep breath, I followed him.
Arched windows opened the circular room to the mountain air, making me feel a brief return of the same giddiness I had fought in the pass. Careful not to stray too close to any of those openings, I watched my lord.
The room was large, with naught but a few tables therein. Runes glowed softly on the walls, taking fire from the dying sun. A pentagram was incised on the floor; next to it, the winged globe symbol. The wind touched us here, chill with the coming of evening, making me shiver.
Kerovan stepped to the nearest table, laid hand to a book that sat at its center. I held my breath lest the volume crumble into nothingness, as I had once seen the contents of a spell-held room do in an ancient Keep, but it remained intact. My lord moved around the room, seemingly untroubled by the giddy sweep of air outside the windows, his hands rising now and again to caress a book, a scroll… a rune incised on the wall—everywhere he touched came that violet glow. I could feel Power here, stirring like some huge animal just waking from sleep.
Guret’s hand came out to clasp mine, his fingers cold.
“Kerovan”—my voice struggled to pierce that ancient silence—“who built this place? Whose things are these?”
He turned, some of the bemusement fading from his Face, to see me clearly for the first time, I thought, in hours. “You do not know?”
I was growing tired of such questions, and my voice held more than a touch of asperity, I am afraid. “No, I do not. I would be happy to be enlightened, my lord!”
He came to me, putting his hands on my shoulders, his eyes intent. “All these years, this is what I have been afraid of, all unknowing. It called to me, for it holds my heritage. I was not ready to accept that part of me, until I could accept my own humanity, Joisan. Kar Garudwyn was—and is in a way I can hardly explain, because I just know—Landisl’s citadel.”
8
Kerovan
When Joisan looked at me as we stood together in that wind-touched room, high in the tower of Kar Garudwyn, I believed I saw fear in her eyes.
“Landisl’s citadel…” she breathed, her gaze never leaving mine. “Could any Keep have stood so complete, unruined, for that long?”
“If bespelled, Joisan.” I, too, was lost in wonder at this tower room, the ancient books, the scrolls undisturbed by time, the deeply incised runes not even dust-blurred. “All would have crumbled ages since, were that not so. I think”—my gaze swept on out, to the mountains ringing in this Keep—“that perhaps this citadel is barred to any chance comer—open only to he who holds the heritage of the gryphon within him.”
“In other words, it waited for you.” Her voice caught a little in her throat, her hands reached out to touch my shoulders, gingerly, as though now, in spite of all lying behind us twain, she half feared she might be repulsed. “Power… my lord, in truth that is yours. I can feel it.”
I, too, could sense a growing surge within me, as of a storm-wracked sea. tossing and ebbing. Once, as a lad. I had swallowed a draught too heady for careless drinking. Then also had my sight blurred, crossed by only half-seen visions as it did now. Knowledge came and went. I was aware—then ignorant again—until such uncertainty made me giddy. At times was I almost another—then suddenly Kerovan again.
“I know.” Again arose that flow of knowledge that I could almost—almost—grasp, make mine. Then it was gone! I sighed, closing my eye, only to be roused as her grip on my shoulders tightened. I was shaken—
“Kerovan! No!” Joisan’s face bore tear stains, her eyes shone wide and wild. “Do not so slip away from me, not here, not now, my lord! Power—what do I care for Power, if in the gaining of it I must lose my husband? Let us get hence from this place—now!”