Then—dark—complete and terrible darkness—and still the power held them—
It was gone—they were lost in this—this—
“Kelsay! Kelsay!”
She was blind, she was sick, she was lost—
“Kelsay?”
She was so overcome by weariness and weakness that it required a major effort to raise her eyelids and see now that the dark was not complete. Yonan’s face with the moon streaking across it was close to hers. She was in his arm still though she lay upon stone, his hold, rock steady, bringing her up against his chest.
“Kelsay—we are out!”
The words meant nothing for a long moment of time. Part of her seemed still caught and held by that nothingness which had been. Then behind his head she saw what was certainly not the tree wall of the grove but instead what could only be a wall of stone, dappled by the moonlight shifting through holes.
She drew a deep breath and then another. On her breast was a warm pulsing and she did not need to feel for it to know that it was the gem.
“Where—where are we?” Her voice was a weak whisper.
He drew her up higher against him so she could see more. Beside him lay the sword no longer a-ripple with power but still a small beacon of light. Kelsie could see now more walls and overhead the night of moon and stars. It was plain that wherever they were it was not the copse in which they had been besieged.
“Where are we?” He echoed her question. “I do not know—save that we are away from those who nosed so closely on our trail. This was once a mighty keep, I think.” He was looking about, too, as if trying to see what had once stood complete and formidable.
“But how did we get here?” she asked quickly. It would he a long time before she would forget that passage through the Other Place where her kind went at great peril as she was now aware.
“We had a key; we used it—” His hand went out again to the hilt of his sword. “A year agone Urik found such a path when the gray ones had him at their mercy, or so they thought. The old ones had their own ways of travel which are not ours except when the choice may be certain death behind.”
10
Their new shelter had nothing of the stench of the Thas caverns, nor of the indescribable odor which had filled the copse from which they had been so strangely snatched. It was dark, save where the moon struck through rents in the walls, and very chill. So that the two of them huddled together for the sheer need of bodily warmth. Nor did they sleep, but dozed and awoke and dozed again until the gray of early morning showed them more clearly where they had come.
The walls of the place might have been laid by giants for there were great blocks fitted together with no sign of securing mortar—rather as if their weight alone, once they were in place, were enough to cement them for all time. These formidable barriers extended well up. Above was rubble less expertly laid, much of which had cascaded down into the great room where they were sheltering. By the revealing light of day Kelsie could see that they had spent the night in the center of another great star many times the width of that which Yonan had uncovered but fashioned in the same way. Between the points were symbols engraved on the pavement. One of those recalled a memory for Kelsie—of Wittle sketching a like pattern in the air.
Yonan was afoot, first going to the nearest wall and jumping until his hands caught on the rougher stone above. Then by a feat of strength he was able to pull and work himself up, sending small cascades of ancient stones sliding down in a cloud of dust.
“Where are we?” Kelsie had turned around to survey the place of the star. That had been fashioned close to the wall, hut there stretched out a large segment of space beyond. She could see no ground entrance to this room—only the walls about.
Yonan balanced, slowly turning his head from side to side, working his way around on the treacherous coating of the upper wall so that he could see at least three-quarters of what lay beyond.
“A keep… I think…” he was plainly uncertain. “But a very old and long since deserted one. There are such to be found, though usually we avoid them. But with that,” he nodded at the star in which she still stood, “I do not think that this is any trap of the Dark. Look to your jewel—does it blaze in warning?” He held onto his perilous perch with one hand and with the other sought the hilt of his sword. There was a warmth in her stone but no fire and she reported as much.
He nodded. “The power is very old here—near exhausted and—” His head swung suddenly around and she could see his body tense.
“What is it?” She had moved now to the wall directly below his perch.
He made a silencing gesture with his hand. It was plain to Kelsie that he was listening, listening and staring beyond to seek the source of whatever it was he heard.
Now she concentrated on hearing, too. There was a distant bark—but it did not have the fierce threat of a hound’s cry. Then, from the air, sounded a trilling which was far from the hoarse cries of the dark flying things which companied those of the Dark.
From Yonan’s own lips came a whistle, close in pattern to the trill. Kelsie saw the flash of rainbow wings, the light body those carried. There hung in the air before her companion one of the Qamen, the small humanoid body supported by the fast flutter of the wings. She had seen them often in the Valley and knew what was told of them, that they were capricious and short of memory—they might carry messages but could easily be turned from their task by something else new which caught their attention.
Now it landed near to Yonan, its wings only half folded, as if it would make off in an instant, peevish at being controlled even by so little as answering his signal. He whistled again, his face set in a mask of impatience.
Kelsie was as aware of the hostility of the flyer as much as if it had cried aloud denial of having to have anything to do with the two. There was a coaxing note in Yonan’s whistle and then he spoke rapidly in a series of singsong words she could not recognize.
The flamen shook its head violently, gave an upward bound which carried it out into the air and almost instantly beyond Kelsie’s range of sight. Yonan whistled twice more but it did not return.
“Not of the Valley,” there was a disappointed note in his voice. “It is one of the unsworn. Which means—” He fell silent.
“Which means what?” she demanded, when he did not continue.
“That we have come far eastward—perhaps well beyond all the trails known to the Valley people.”
“Can you still see your mountain?”
He shifted carefully about and searched the air so far above her. “That may be it. But… there are leagues now between—” He was facing at an angle to the room below.
She waited for that touch of buried compulsion which always in her answered any thought of returning to what safety this land could offer. Yes, it still rode with her even now. Without thinking she, too, turned to face in near the opposite direction from Yonan’s stance. Whatever drew her lay still ahead in the unknown.
However, when she spoke it was of more immediately practical things.
“We need food and water—” Both hunger and thirst were making themselves known now.
“Come up!” He lowered himself to his belly and reached down his hands. She gave a jump and felt fingers catch one of her wrists while her other hand missed and scrabbled at the stone until he managed to seize it also. He was stronger than he looked, this warrior of the Valley, for somehow, with very little assistance from her, he brought Kelsie up beside him on the crumbling top of the wall.