“What would you, Witch Woman?” she demanded.
“What we have spoken of, Urseta Vat Yan—the end of what we have come to do.”
Trusla saw a forked point of tongue show and sweep over the other’s lower lip.
“You would bring down your gate—and crush my ship. So much for all your brave words of mutual understanding.”
“No.” Frost showed a patience Trusla had not expected. “We shall force the gate to close, yes. But can you loose your ship on the same signal? This is an act which, to my knowledge, has never been tried before. And this also will I tell you—those who lock the gate may not survive.”
She was facing the woman very straightly, gray eyes locked to the pupilless green. The ball of flame spun suddenly, and short tongues of flame fringed it around. Once more Trusla saw that double point of tongue show for an instant.
Then Frost’s words struck home to Trusla herself. The witch had chosen Simond to share her task—that might mean she was about to kill him! No—and no!
She discovered that she could not utter that scream of denial aloud, nor could she move to wind arms about him, hold him safe. Power held them fast to the will of those other two. Even Inquit stood silent, her cloak tightly about her as if it were a shield against forces they could feel rising now.
The green eyes appeared to flicker rather than blink. Now the woman reached upward and caught the ball, holding it to her even as Frost held her jewel.
“Such payment…” she said slowly.
Frost’s face was still serene. “Such payment—if it is asked of us—we shall give willingly. However, this, too, I must make clear to you if you choose your own path. Time has sped—you may be returning to a far different world than you left.”
“A different world, a kin-gone world,” the woman repeated slowly. “Yet if that means years will drop upon me even as the snow whirls in this barren place, still I will be… home.”
She tossed the ball from one hand to the other and the colors in it flamed so high she might have been holding a portion of sun far warmer than this country had ever seen. Then she turned partially away.
“My Power is not of your world. If you loose what you can command at the same moment, perhaps neither of us shall profit.”
“Agreed.” Frost’s voice was still calm and untroubled. “You uncase your ship first and then we shall tackle the gate.”
Still the woman hesitated—and then gave a toss of her head which sent her spark-laden hair streaming into the air.
“So be it—and how better a time than now, Witch Woman?”
Frost looked to Simond. Quietly, as they had been speaking, he had been unbuckling, unlacing, dropping to the ground the mail, the weapons of which he had always been so proud. Those who dealt with the greater Power did not bring steel to such a meeting. He stood at that moment in his fur underjerkin, even his belt knife out of its sheath.
Trusla swayed. In spite of all her efforts, she could not go to him. But he turned to face her.
“Heart’s core for me”—he spoke as if the two of them stood alone and there were none else to hear—“much have you given me. Now give me the last gift of all—your courage.”
She saw him only through a glaze of tears. Without Simond, what would she be? But what she saw in his face brought a whisper of answer which it seemed the restraining Power would allow her now:
“You have all of me—forever.”
She had to crouch there, for her legs refused to support her any longer, and she watched him go, shoulder to shoulder with Frost, who had also shed the bulk of her outergarments. They had fit Odanki’s claws and were once more climbing. There was a brilliant flash of flame and the alien was already above them, perched on the middle of the faintly defined archway.
Trusla, pain binding her as with chains, had to watch Simond, now but a small dark figure, cross that arch—move out on the other side away from her and beyond the gate boundaries. If she could only stand with him there!
Urseta Vat Yan, tossing her ball from hand to hand as one about to play some childish game, disappeared toward the far end of the archway. They could no longer see her—only the sparks of her constantly turbulent hair.
Then a hand fell on Trusla’s shoulder, and she smelled that spicy scent which clung ever to the feather cloak of the shaman.
A quill the other held swept the ice and snow before where she huddled and the girl saw, as through a window—or into a mirror. There was the thick curtain of cloud, with only visible the protruding stern of the alien ship. But that was brightly lit now, for standing on the deck was Urseta, and she hurled the ball into the air. Faint and far away Trusla caught her call. Along one side of the ship rolled the ball, and then along the other, and the ice was gone as if it were mist puffed away.
Then once more the instrument of Power returned to Urseta and she stood looking upward, even though Trusla doubted she could see the other two at the gate—certainly not any of them waiting below.
However, her voice came clearly enough, ringing in their heads.
“I cannot leave any anchorage here now. Take what is of your world and time!” The ball broke into halves, each of which became a small ball in turn. One she threw into the air with all her might, and the other she hurled with even greater force straight before her to where the other half of her ship was still imprisoned.
There was a bursting apart—sight, sound, feeling were all a part of it. Trusla heard the roll of those other two voices speaking words which had not been voiced for centuries. Through suddenly dimmed eyes she tried to see Simond, but there was descending on them something else. Faded as if its journey through the air had nearly dimmed its Power came the fireball. It struck full upon the head of Audha, who had stood forgotten among them, gripped in the dazed state which mainly held her.
Trusla had just time to see the rainbow fire compass the Sulcar girl before she heard that other sound: the roar of rock and ice, shattering under the hammer of true Power, the cliffs shuddering and scaling off great chunks.
“Simond!” She covered her face with her hands. Maybe if fortune favored her one of those great slabs would find her.
It would seem that the roaring of the broken gate would never stop. Snow half buried them, and Trusla dimly felt pain as a razor-edged splinter cut along her arm, slitting the fur and hide as if it were a knife.
The silence in the end was as overpowering in its way as had been the noise of the destruction. Somehow Trusla forced herself to look up—
Up at what? Where there had stood a wall barrier was a jumble of broken slabs, some seeming as great in size as a Sulcar ship.
Ship? Half-dazedly she tried to center her eyes on where that ship had once been caught. Did it lay crushed under this pounding, or had the woman indeed made her return?
“Lady Trusla!” Someone was tugging at her, striving to pull her free of the ice which half covered her. Bleared of eye, she looked up into the face of Audha.
There was spirit behind those eyes again, concern in the Sulcar girl’s expression. Truly what Urseta had taken she had, at that last moment, returned. Faintly Trusla was happy—faintly—for nothing mattered now that Simond was not here.
There came the sound of rushing water and she could hear calling in the distance, though that meant nothing to her now. That stream which had edged from under the gate was now a river, shearing off pieces of ice which bumped along in what seemed a strong current whirling eastward.
“Aaaaheee, ahhheee!” That cry broke through the confusion in her head. She was dimly aware of Audha digging swiftly about her, dragging her out of the mass of snow which half covered her. Not too far away Kankil was also digging, throwing a storm of snow and bits of ice into the air as she screamed over and over again that ear-piercing cry.