I had always known I was different. They had told me early that my mother could not bear to look upon me and thus I had been sent to the very edge of my father’s holdings to be fostered. There I had had but two friends—Riwal, for whom the Waste and its secrets were a lodestone, the attraction of which he never tried to deny, and Jago, a crippled man-at-arms who had taught me the ways of war—and later died treacherously at the hands of his enemies who were also mine, those enemies I faced in time I and fought.
No! Even at that battle with the Dark I had not been Kerovan of Ulmsdale; instead I had been filled by another personality, one who was out of another place (or else another time), filled I with great force, one who used me as I myself would draw a j sword. Save, when that presence withdrew, its will accomplished, j it took with it that part of Kerovan that had warmth, a love of I life, a belief in himself. Now I was empty, and only with the i going of Elys and Jervon (having witnessed the strong bond between them) did I realize how empty.
My fingers sought the wrist band of the Old Ones, as one of the Dames of Norsdale might tell her prayer hoops. Only I repeated no prayers, for though as any rational person I acknowledged there were Powers beyond the comprehension of my kind, still I called upon none such. The truth was I knew not which to call. Or whether any such would still concern themselves with a husk of a man who was lost inside his empty self as much as he would be lost in the world which was theirs.
To linger on here was no answer. Nor did I altogether believe Elys’s assurance that this was the road I must take to some unknown confrontation with the future. However, it had its safeguards, and was a means to reach the heights. I mounted the mare that had been Joisan’s, fastened the lead rope of the pack pony to my saddle horn, and at last rode on.
“The sun awoke silvery glints from the patterns laid in the stone. Those varied ever (though there were always the many foot, paw, and hoof tracks cutting sometimes even across symbols). I noted that all those prints pointed in the same direction—forward, none returned—as if all traffic here lay in one direction only—toward the mountains. Just one more mystery to add to all the others.
I kept the mare to a walk. For about me, as I rode, there clung the feeling that I was not alone (perhaps that had been allayed yesterday when I did have human comrades), and neither did I believe that I passed unobserved. So I found myself watching the prints far more than the way before me. In the sunlight they did not change as they had in the night, when it appeared that invisible feet fitted and left their outlines.
This close watch on the pavement caused a feeling of detachment in my mind, induced a dreamy acceptance of all lying about me. When I suddenly realized that, I knew a pinch of fear. Was I being so ensorcelled by some long-laid spell?
Deliberately I turned the mare to the edge of the road, urged her to step off onto the turf. Unexpectedly she tossed her head, fought me, mouthing the bit angrily, planting her hooves and refusing to go. Was it the firmer footing of the pavement she wanted? Or was she under the guidance of another, even though I held her reins? Perhaps the sorcery I suspected already had her enthralled.
Even for me it no longer seemed strange that I should close my eyes for an instant now and then, and feel (when I was not looking on the emptiness around me) that I was riding in company, though none of those I sensed appeared aware of me in turn. Or, if they were, my presence meant nothing to them as they had urgent and pressing affairs elsewhere.
That feeling of urgency came to possess me also. The first slow pace I had set the mare became a trot without my conscious urging. She held her head high, her tail switched from side to side, as if she were a parade mount, proud among her kind. The pack pony crowded up on my left until he paced abreast of us.
Though we certainly traveled more swiftly than before we had taken the road, those dark heights to the west were very slow in drawing closer. It was as if they in turn retreated before our advance.
Nor did I sight any more ruins such as the towers. This part of the Waste might have always been forsaken wilderness had not the road traversed it. At intervals there were those ovals such as we had used for a campsite. Each had its basin of water, a good stand of grass inviting a traveler to rest. I drew into one at nooning, allowed the mare and the pony to graze, ate my journey cake washed down with water. Then I simply sat, no longer thinking, just accepting that this is what must be.
Lord Imgry, the Dales, the Wereriders, even Elys and Jervon, faded and diminished in my memory. I spun the band about my wrist. Holding that, I summoned up (first with an effort, and then with a fast burst of clear inner sight) my vision of Joisan. So vivid was that, I felt she actually stood somewhere ahead, waiting for me, a serious, questioning look on her face—the same expression I had seen there so many times during our last days together in Norsdalc.
“Joisan! Joisan!” I awoke to the fact that I was calling her name over and over as my fingers slipped around that band.
Within me . . . No! I was not just a husk of a man after all! The dream that had held me most of the morning shattered at that new force astir within. I saw again the churned earth and Jervon digging in it; I watched a cup fill itself to the brim and my lady’s face show mistily, surrounded by the heavy dark but still with the blazing gryphon in her hand. Hurriedly now I reclaimed the mare and the pony, swung into the saddle. There was a purpose in all this, as Elys had suspected. I might see only the beginning of it at the moment, but there would be more later and . . .
What more that might be, or how I was so important a part of it, I did not yet understand. Yet the urgency now fastened full upon me and my thoughts no longer drifted. Rather did I make a speedy return to what once I had been—a scout of the Dales’ force, marking not patterns upon the road, rather the country through which it ran. For the first time I saw that indeed my morning’s ride had brought me well ahead. There lay foothills not too far beyond—forming the fringes of the heights.
On those hills were odd outcroppings, which did not look to be natural in such places. I had thought this part of the land held no ruins, but I saw them now—and so many that I might be approaching the remains of a town as large as one of our own port cities.
The sun, however, was well westward, when I came close enough to see those tumbled walls clearly. Above them, on a tongue of higher ground licking to the east, stood towers, more walls—plainly a keep. It was of course a site such as any builder would choose for a place of defense. So perhaps there had been those also among the Old Ones who had not found life so safe that they could neglect such positions of prudent safety.
As I drew rein to gaze upward, make sure that the keep was indeed a ruin (and not perhaps one hiding such a peril as that tower around whose territory we had so carefully ridden), I caught a brilliant flash from the top of a broken wall a little below the tower itself. I raised my hand as a shade for my eyes and felt growing warmth about my wrist.
The band burned. For a moment or two I thought I had actually seen a small tongue of flame leap from its surface.
Now I dropped hand to sword hilt, even though I well knew that whatever might lie in wait there might be impervious to any steel, even that forged from Waste metal itself.
At that moment there sounded an ear-punishing squall. Out of the brush that rimmed the flat land between the road and the rise on which stood the keep, a tawny, brown-yellow body flashed in great ground-covering bounds, heading for me. Behind it came a second.
Very faint and far away, nearly drowned by the animals’ challenge. I thought I also heard a shout. My sword was out. The creatures coming for me moved fast—like arrows of gold shooting through the tall grass. My pack pony snorted and jerked back on the lead rope. However, the mare showed no fear, though she sidled around to face head-on those who came.