“You have spoken in riddles all along,” I returned with matching sharpness. “What has happened to the Lady Iynne?”
She glanced at me over her shoulder, for she always kept a stride or so in advance, as if impatient. Around her sun-browned face there were loose tendrils of hair which had dried and now blew free, giving her a less severe and remote look.
“A gate of sorts opened.” Her reply was tense. “Oh, not into another world, like that Gate which brought us here. Rather it is a way of finding another and more powerful shrine elsewhere—in the west—for the places of power left here are largely emptied, or whatever once filled them is much enfeebled and drained. To the Moon Shrine I brought knowledge which was a key, but the lock was old, it had not been turned for perhaps hundreds of seasons. I worked the ritual—I called down the Moon—I—” She raised her free hand and laid it between her breasts. “I did this! Then I was delayed on the night when there should be an answer and your reckless lady walked in where she should have feared to set so much as the toe of her slipper. Thus she gained, and I lost—”
I thought of Lady Iynne caught in some trap—for it must seem so to her—ensorcelled in a distant place. Though how she might have been so transported I still did not understand. Fear must have caught her—it might be enough to strike her wits from her. Realizing this I turned on the girl with me.
“You knew that she was visiting the shrine, still you did not warn her!” I accused.
“Warn her? But I did! Only there are calls against which no warning will hold unless the hearer is so trained, so staunch in spirit, that he or she is armed and armored. Iynne is a woman, a maid, so she, as all of the clan folk, was and is Moon’s daughter. Moon magic rises in all women, though most deny it. Or, feeling it, do not understand that one must work with it and not against it, She has been so sheltered, so bound about by all the shall nots and do nots of a keep that she answered that call in spite of herself every time she stole away to look upon that shrine. You might have kept her in bonds, by door locks, but the quest already worked in her and her first visit there locked her in its power.”
I glanced about at that wide plain of the valley, at the hills beyond which were hidden now by mists, so that now and then a dark bit of them loomed against the sky, only to be hidden once again.
“You believe you can find her.” I did not make a question of that, for I was sure that she thought she could.
“Yes. For it is my magic that she dabbled in and—look you!”
She paused then, turning to face the north. On her out-held palm lay balanced the wand, and she stared at it with a tense concentration there was no mistaking. I looked from her fixed eyes to the wand and then I saw—
That tree branch, lying on her flattened palm where in no way she could control it by some trick of hand, began to move. It had pointed north and south, now it swung slowly but unmistakingly so that the narrow tip of the wood length indicated the misty heights westward.
“You see!” she demanded. “That which I summoned and worked so hard to gain has grown within me. It pulls me on, so that I may be truly whole as I was meant to be! Where I go—there will she be.”
I had seen her do so much, I did not doubt she believed entirely in what she said. Perhaps this was no different from the other strange things in this land—that I should follow a maid who was certain she sought high magic, and that it had the strength, not only to call her, but to take another to it.
We found no traces of any other powers within that valley, only the herds of animals which kept their distance. It took us two days to cross that expanse and each night we cleared a patch of earth for Gathea to make a safe camp with circle and star. There were no visitors out of the dark. On the second night the moon was clear, the clouds were gone. Gathea had stood then in the full light of silver glow and sang—though I could neither understand the words nor remember them after. Between us an unseen wall grew thicker. This was no place for mo, a man and a warrior; I was her companion on the trail by sufferance only.
At midmorning of the third day we entered the foothills of the heights. Now Gathea picked her way slowly with halts to allow her wand to point the way. There was no mistaking its swing, enticing us on into a broken country where the tall grass disappeared and outcrops of stone, gray, sometimes veined with dull red or a faint yellow, were more common. Though we had left the river behind us as its source lay farther north, we discovered mountain springs—or rather Gruu nosed them out, just as he hunted and we ate of his kills. I began to feel that we had traveled for seasons across land which was barren of any but animal life.
Now we discovered a valley leading back into the hills where there was more vegetation, stands of dark trees, which I thought curiously stunted and misshapen and which I did not like the look of. That night when we camped Gathea was so alive with excitement that she could not sit still. Time and time again she was on her feet, staring up that valley way, muttering to herself, slipping the wand back and forth through her fingers, as if to remind herself of what must be accomplished soon. Gruu, too, was uneasy, pacing around the fire, his eyes turned in the same direction as the girl’s, as if he searched for a possible source of trouble.
“Feel it!” Gathea threw back her head. She had not bound her hair in the tight braids again since we had left the river; now I witnessed a strange thing. Those loose tendrils about her face lifted of themselves, not blown by any breeze (here the air was heavy and weighed upon me). Perhaps it was otherwise for Gathea, as, in turn, the ends of her longer strands of hair stirred also, as if her whole body soaked up some force which then manifested itself so.
She held out the wand, and, I will swear the Blood Oath of the Flame, I saw upon its tip a star of light dance for an instant.
“Here—I am here!” She shouted as if standing before a deep gate where she had every reason to call for entrance and could not be denied.
Then—
Gathea began to run. So startled was I that, for a moment or so, I did not move. Then I caught up our two wallets, for she had dropped hers, and started after her. Gruu had bounded ahead, a silver streak, weaving a path among the trees where she had already vanished. Into the night I pounded after, though it appeared that, though I tried to keep directly on Gathea’s track, I had not chosen well. Trees’ low branches made me duck and swerve (they had not obstructed the progress of those other two). I ran into one trunk which I had not seen even a moment earlier, nearly stunning myself, and bringing a fresh ache to the old head wound.
Branches caught at me, tripped me up, struck me hard blows, until, afraid to lose Gathea in this place and never to find her again, I had out my sword, slashed and cut to clear the way as best I could.
The crash of my own passing covered any other sounds. In truth, I was afraid to stop and listen for fear I would be left so far behind I might never catch up with her.