Soul-bound: that was ilinoath, and he had strained the terms between them. Morgaines loyalty lay elsewhere, to a thing he did not understand or want to know: wars of qujal, that had ruined kingdoms and toppled kings and made the name of Morgaine kri Chya a curse in the lands of men.
She sought Gates, the witchfires that were passage between world and world, and sealed them after her, one and another and another. His world had changed, he had been born and grown to manhood between two beats of her heart, between two Gate-spanning strides of that gray horse. The day that he had given her his oath, a part of him had died, that sense of the commonplace that let ordinary men live, blind and numb to what terrible things passed about them. He belonged to Morgaine. He could not stay behind. For a strangers sake he had riven what peace had grown between them, and she would not bear it. It was that way with Morgaine, that he be with her entirely or be numbered among her enemies.
The trees cut off all view; for a wild moment of terror he thought that in this wilderness he had lost her. She rode against time, time that divided her from Roh; from Gates, that could become a fearful weapon in skilled hands. She would not be stayed longer than flesh must restnot for an hour, an instant. She had forced them through flood and against storm to bring them this farall in the obsessive fear that Roh might be before them at the Master Gate, that ruled the other Gates of this sad landwhen they had not even known beyond doubt that Roh had come this way.
Now she did know.
Jhiruns arms clenched about him as they slid on the down-slope. The pony crashed into them with bruising force, and the gelding struggled up another ridge and gained the paved road, the pony laboring to keep the pace.
And there to his relief he saw Morgaine. She had paused, a dim, pale figure on the road beneath the arch of barren trees. He raked the gelding with the spurs and rode to close the gap, reckless in their speed over the uncertain trail.
Morgaine gazed into the shadows, and when he had reined in by her, she simply turned Siptahs head and rode, sedately, on her way down the road, giving him her shoulder. He had expected nothing else; she owed him nothing.
He rode, his face hot with anger, conscious of Jhiruns witness. Jhiruns arms were clenched about him, her head against his back. At last he realized how strained was her hold upon him, and he touched her tightly locked hands. We are on safe ground now, he said. You can let go.
She was shivering. He felt it. We are going to Shiuan, she said.
Aye, he said. It seems that we are.
Thunder rolled overhead, making the horses skittish, and rain began to patter among the sparse leaves. The road lay in low places for a time, where the horses waded gingerly in shallow water. Eventually they passed out of the shadow of the trees and the overcast sun showed them a wide expanse where the road was the highest point and only landmark. Rain-pocked pools and sickly grasses stretched to left and right. In places the water overflowed the road, a fetid sheet of stagnant green, where dead brush had stopped the cleansing current.
Jhirun, said Morgaine out of a long silence. What is this land named?
Hiuaj, said Jhirun. All the south is Hiuaj.
Can men still live here?
Some do, said Jhirun.
Why do we not see them?
There was long silence. I do not know, Jhirun said in a subdued voice. Perhaps they are afraid. Also it is near Hnoth, and they will be moving to higher ground.
Hnoth.
It floods here, Jhirun said, hardly audible. Vanye could not see her face. He felt the touch of her fingers on the cantle of the saddle, the shift of her grip, sensed how little she liked to be questioned by Morgaine.
Shiuan, Vanye said. What of that place?
A wide land. They grow grain there, and there are great holds.
Well-defended, then.
They are powerful lords, and rich.
Then it is well, said Morgaine, that we have you with us, is it not, Jhirun Elas-daughter? You do know this land after all.
No, Jhirun insisted at once. No, lady. I can only tell you the things I have heard.
How far does this marsh extend?
Jhiruns fingers touched Vanyes back, as if seeking help. It grows, she said. The land shrinks. I remember the Shiua coming into Hiuaj. I think now it must be days across.
The Shiua do not come now?
I am not sure the road is open, Jhirun said. They do not come. But marshlanders trade with them.
Morgaine considered that, her gray eyes thoughtful and not entirely pleased. And in all their long riding she had no word save to Jhirun.
By noon they had reached a place where trees grew green at a little distance from the road. The storm had blown over, giving them only a sprinkling of rain as it went, to spend its violence elsewhere. They drew off to rest briefly, on the margin where the current had made a bank at the side of the causeway, and where the grass grew lush and green, a rare spot of beauty in the stagnant desolation about them. The watery sun struggled in vain to pierce the haze, and a small moon was almost invisible in the sky.
They let the horses graze and rest, and Morgaine parcelled out the last of their food, giving Jhirun a third share. But Jhirun took what she was given and drew away from them as far as the narrow strip of grass permitted; she sat gazing out across the marsh, preferring that dismal view, it seemed, and solitude.
And still Morgaine had spoken no word. Vanye ate, sitting cross-legged on the bank beside her, finally having decided within himself that it was not anger that kept her silent now: Morgaine was given to such periods when she was lost in her own thoughts. Something weighed upon her mind, in which he thought he was far from welcome.
She, Morgaine said suddenly, startling him, softly though she spoke, was surely desperate to come this road alone. For fear of drowning, says she; Vanye, does it occur to thee to wonder why out of all the years of her life, she suddenly set out, with nothing in preparation?
Roh can be persuasive, he said.
The man is not Roh.
Aye, he said, disturbed in that lapse, avoiding her eyes.
And she speaks what we can understand, albeit the accent is thick. I would I knew whence she comes, Vanye. She surely did not have her birth from the earth and the fog yesterday noon.
I think, he said, gazing off in the direction Jhirun stared, ahead, where the forest closed in again, great trees overshadowing the road, I think her folk are surely in that hold we passed, and Heaven grant they stay there.
They may be looking for her.
And we, he said, may come into trouble on her account, or what is more likelyshe will meet it on ours. Liyo, I ask you earnestly, send her awaynow, while she is near enough home she can find her way back.
We are not taking her against her will.
I suppose that we are not, he agreed, not happily. But we are on a track they cannot mistake.
The horses do confine us to the roadway, she said, and this land has shown us one fellow-traveller, and not a breath of others. It occurs to me, Roh being ahead of us, it would be simple for folk hereabouts to choose some place of meeting to their advantage. I do think I saw a shadow move this morning, before you came down the trail.
Cold settled about himand self-anger; he remembered his reckless ride, how she had turned her back to him and stayed silent when he had joined her. He had taken it for rebuff. Your sight was clearer than mine, he said. I was blind to it.