Now in my mind a command rang sharp and clear—
"Slay!"
I turned on my small square of path. Tsali had not followed me into this place—no, he lingered just beyond the great arch.
"Slay!"
One step I took and then a second; the pain in my burning hands could only be cooled by blood—blood running down the blade I held. I had only to strike and that blood would burst forth, to quench the fire which so bitterly punished me for my presumption in invading a shrine not now open to me. "Slay!"
And at that moment Tsali was gone, rather one of the lean flanked Gray Ones crouched in his place, his wolfs muzzle raised as he gave the call for the pack.
"Slay!"
I was being tricked again. This much I realized as I tottered forward. Then I took a last step, but I fought more valiantly for my mind.
"I pay no blood, Ninutra," I said and tasted the salt of my own blood from my bitten lip. "I deal not in death, but in life!"
As if those words had been a key turned gratingly in some lock long since near rusted into immobility, they brought me freedom. I held the sword and saw the blisters of burns arising on my flesh until the torment was more almost than I could bear—but only almost.
"No blood of mind-friend do I shed, Ninutra!"
There was another long moment of utter silence. Was I even able to communicate with that Power which had once been strong here? Or had its essence long since withdrawn, leaving only a residue of what might have formed the baser part of it?
Then—I was free of any pressure. In my hands the hilt of the sword cooled. I did not turn my head to look, but I was certain that that shadow-misted thing I had seen in my own vision was watching me, that I was being weighed one way and then another. I sensed even a very faint surprise, the first trace of emotion which had ruffled the spreading pool of oblique communication in which I was caught.
There was no Gray One at the gate—Tsali stood there, looking back the way we had come, his whole body as tense as one who expected to meet the shock of a battle charge the next moment.
Now I could join him. And I believed that I knew what alarmed him—those who had traced us dared to follow even here. Though in spite of that recent order which I had defied, I still did not believe this was any stronghold of a Dark One.
I glanced at my hands. Those welts of blisters had vanished, and with them the pain. But I still held the sword. In this much had the Presence in this shrine left me armed.
We stood together, Lizard man and girl; Tsali with the rocks he had earlier hunted brought forth from his belt pouch and ready to fling, I with Ninutra's sword. And so they came upon us, but not up the path marked by the stele—rather from the wood itself. As they bounded into the open, the birds of Ninutra screeched and dived at their heads. I saw blood run from a wound which just missed the left eye of the foremost of that stinking band.
Tsali let fly with his rocks. One of the Gray Ones flopped earthward, a great hole in his forehead. Another howled and pawed at his shoulder. But I raised the sword. From its tip there shot a lash of fire as brilliant as any laid by an energy whip. And the Gray Ones pushed back.
Their force parted to let through another, two others.
One was hooded and masked, carrying in hands with unnaturally long nails a whip which he aimed (the lash skillfully snaking out) to entrap my wrist. But I slashed down with the sword and that thing was sliced cleanly through.
His companion laughed, a sound which seemed to infuriate the Gray Ones, for they snarled at her as might dogs who knew her to be their mistress but also hated her.
"So, Handmaiden of one who has long since withdrawn," Laidan spoke aloud. And I knew that, in using her voice, she sought subtly to insult me, perhaps so trick me into some foolish act. "Did you at last remember and come running—to find the Power you sought gone? Did you not recall more—that the Lady of Fire was the first to open her own gate and go elsewhere—?"
I was a little startled. Somehow I had thought of Ninutra (for no reason I could understand) to be one of the Great Ones, yes, but a sorcerer. Adepts had been both women and men. If the inner had served Ninutra in the far past, I did not remember as much as Laidan thought.
"Ninutra is gone," Laidan repeated. "Too many years has her gate been closed. Do you think your thin voice can reach between scattered worlds, and even if it did, she would answer? They said of her then that she walked her own way and had none she cherished greatly."
I did not try to answer her jeers. Something had answered, or I would not hold the Shadow Sword. Something had reached me when I had stood within that place of multicolored sands. But whether that was only faint lingering of Ninutra's power still able to, in a little, answer those who knew how to call it—who could say?
And was it that same indefinable something which now put words in my mouth to answer Laidan? I do not know, but I answered without conscious thought.
"You have come seeking me, Laidan. Now you have found me. Let us pledge that this lies between the two of us alone—"
For a moment I thought she would not agree. Still that twisted smile which was a grimace held about her lips.
"Very little sister," her voice rang with bitter mockery, "do you presume to challenge me?"
"If you wish."
Her smile grew the wider. "Very well." She snapped her fingers and the Gray Ones drew back. But their hot eyes were on us, and I knew well that her hold over them was a thing perhaps I could not count upon continuing for long.
From within her misty clothing she brought forth that black rod she had used in her sorcery, while I took firm grip on the sword. She had never once looked at it, nor seemed to mark that I held any weapon. A small suspicion fluttered in my mind—was it that Laidan actually did not see what I had?
She pointed the tip of her weapon at me breast-high. I saw her lips shape words I did not hear but rather felt, vibrating through my whole body as a wrenching pain. I tightened my hold on the sword. Once more that began to warm within my grasp. Slowly I swung it back and forth in the air before me, as if by such a pitiful act I could ward off the maledictions she hurled at me.
It seemed that I could even see those words she did not speak aloud, that they turned into vicious darts seeping through the air to center on my body. Yet the blade of the sword began to glow an even brighter red as once more I must subdue the pain of my flesh where my fingers tightened upon it.
Then I saw Laidan start; her eyes go wide; her gaze follow the swinging of the sword blade, as if for the first time she had seen it.
"No!" She threw her wand as a trained warrior might loose a small spear.
I saw that fly through the air. And, in some odd way, time ceased to exist for a few heartbeats. So that instead of flying at normal speed, it appeared rather to hang transfixed in the air well within my reach. I brought down the blade of the Shadow Sword, fighting the torment that movement caused me, so that it struck full upon the black wand.
Laidan screamed, higher and more terribly than any of the birds of Ninutra. The wand splintered into pieces, shattering into only small needles which hit the ground between us. And from each of these there burst a small black flame and a puff of noxious odor. But Laidan writhed, her body twisting as if she were gripped by great hands which strove to wring her about.
I heard the Gray Ones howl, saw them run madly away. Two blundered into the path marked by the stele and stumbled, falling forward, crawling feebly on, and then lying still.
But Laidan jerked and twisted and screamed—