Gate of Ivrel (10 page)

"It is warm here," he answered, miserable on the hard stone and wishing that he had not seen her as he had seen her. She meant the letter of her offer, no more; he knew it firmly, and did not blame her. He sat by the fire, ilin and trying to remind himself so, his arms locked together until his muscles ached. Servant to this. Walking behind her. To lie unarmored next to her was harmless only so long as she meant to keep it so.

Qujal. He clenched that thought within his mind and cooled his blood with that remembrance. Qujal, and deadly. A man of honest human birth had no business to think otherwise.

He remembered Liell's urging. The sanity in the man's eyes attracted him, promised, assured him that there did exist reason somewhere. He regretted more and more that he had not listened to him. There was no longer the excuse of his well-being that kept them in Ra-leth. His fever was less. He examined his hand that her medications had treated, found it scabbed over and only a little red about the wound, the swelling abated. He was weak in the joints but he could ride. There was no further excuse for her staying, but that she wanted something of Kasedre and his mad crew, something important enough to risk both their lives.

It was intolerable. He felt sympathy for Liell, a sane man condemned to live in this nightmare. He understood that such a man might yearn for something other, would be concerned to watch another man of sense fall into the web.

"Lady." He came and knelt by the bed, disturbing her sleep. "Lady, let us be out of here."

"Go to sleep," she bade him. "There is nothing to be done tonight. The place is astir like a broken hive."

He returned to his misery by the fire, and after a time began to nod.

There was a scratching at the door. Minute as it was, it became sinister in all that silence. It would not cease. He started to wake Morgaine, but he had disturbed her once; he did not venture her patience again. He sought his sword, both frightened and self-embarrassed at his fear: it was likely only the rats.

Then he saw, slowly, the latch lift. The door began to open. It stopped against the chair. He rose to his feet, and Morgaine waked and reached for her own weapon.

"Lady," came a whisper, "it is Liell. Let me in. Quickly."

Morgaine nodded. Vanye eased the chair aside, and Liell entered as softly as possible, eased the door shut again. He was dressed in a cloak as if for traveling.

"I have provisions for you and a clear way to the stables," he said. "Come. You must come. You may not have another chance."

Vanye looked at Morgaine, shaped the beginning of a plea with his lips. She frowned and suddenly nodded. "What effect on you, Chya Liell, for this treason?"

"Loss of my head if I am caught. And loss of a hall to live in if Kasedre's clan attacks you, as I fear they will, with or without his wishing it. Come, lady, come. I will guide you from here. They are all quiet, even the guards. I put melorne in Kasedre's wine at bedside. He will not wake, and the others are not suspecting. Come."

There was no one stirring in the hall outside. They trod the stairs carefully, down and down the several turns that led them to main level. A sentry sat in a chair by the door, head sunk upon his breast. Something about the pose jarred the senses: the right hand hung at the man's side in a way that looked uncomfortable for anyone sober.

Drugged too, Vanye thought. They walked carefully past the man nonetheless, up to the very door.

Then Vanye saw the wet dark stain that dyed the whole front of the man's robe, less conspicuous on the dark fabric. Suspicion leapt up. It chilled him, that a man was killed so casually.

"Your work?" he whispered at Liell, in Morgaine's hearing. He did not know whom he warned: he only feared, and thought it well that whoever was innocent mark it now and be advised.

"Hurry," said Liell, easing open the great door. They were out in the front courtyard, where one great evergreen shaded them into darkness. "This way lie the stables. Everything is ready."

They kept to the shadows and ran. More dead men lay at the stable door. It suddenly occurred to Vanye that Liell had an easy defense against any charge of murder: that they themselves would be called the killers.

And if they refused to come, Liell would have been in diffi-

culty. He had risked greatly, unless murder were only trivial in this hall, among madmen.

He stifled in such dread thoughts. He yearned to break free of Leth's walls. The quick thrust of a familiar velvet nose in the dark, the pungency of hay and leather and horse purged his lungs of the cloying decay of Leth-hall. He had his own bay mare in hand, swung up to her back; and Morgaine thrust the dragon blade into its accustomed place on her saddle and mounted Siptah.

Then he saw Liell lead another horse out of the shadows, likewise saddled.

"I will see you safely to the end of Leth's territories," he said. "No one here questions my authority to come and go. I am here and I am not, and at the moment, I think it best I am not."

But a shadow scurried from their path as they rode at a quiet walk through the yard, a shadow double-bodied and small. A patter of feet hurried to the stones of the walk.

Liell swore. It was the twins.

"Ride now," he said. "There is no hiding it longer."

They put their heels to the horses and reached the gate. Here too were dead men, three of them. Liell sharply ordered Vanye to see to the gate, and Vanye sprang down and heaved the bar up and the gate open, throwing himself out of the way as the black horse of Liell and gray Siptah hurtled past him, bearing the two into the night.

He hurled himself to the back of the bay mare—poor pony, not the equal of those two beasts—and urged her after them with the sudden terror that death itself was stirring and waking behind them.

CHAPTER 5

The lake of Domen was ill-famed in more than the Book of Leth. The old road ran along its shore and by the bare-limbed trees that writhed against the night sky. It did not snow here: snow was rare in Korish lands, low as they were, although the forests nearest the mountains went wintry and dead. The lake reflected the stars, sluggish and mirrorlike—still, because, men said, parts of it were very deep.

They rode at a walk now. The horses' overheated breath blew puffs of steam in the dark, and the hooves made a lonely sound on the occasional stretch of stones over which the trail ran.

And about them was the forest. It had a familiar look. Of a sudden Vanye realized it for the semblance of the vale of Aenor-Pyvvn.

The presence of Stones of Power: that accounted for the twisting, the unusual barrenness in a place so rife with trees as Koriswood. It was the Gate of Koris-leth that they were near-ing. The air had a peculiar oppression, like the air before a storm.

And soon as they passed along the winding shore of the lake they saw a great pillar thrusting up out of the black waters. In the dim moonlight there seemed some engraving on it. Soon other stumps of pillars were visible as they rode farther, marking old and qujalin ruins sunk beneath the waters of the lake.

And two pillars greater than the others crowned a bald hill on the opposite shore.

Morgaine reined in, gazing at the strange and somber view of sunken city and pillars silhouetted against the stars. Even at night the air shimmered about the pillars and the brightest stars that the shimmer could not dim gleamed through that Gate as through a film of troubled water.

"We are safe from pursuit," said Liell. "Kasedre's clan fears this lakeshore."

"They seem prone to drowning," Morgaine observed. She dismounted, rubbed Siptah's cheek and dried her hand on the edge of his blanket.

Vanye slid down as they did, and caught his breath, reached for Siptah's reins and those of Liell's black horse. The two beasts would not abide each other. Exhausted, out of patience, he walked Siptah and his own bay mare to cool them and spread his own cloak over Liell's ill-tempered black in the meantime. The air was chill. They had ridden such a pace that the two greater horses were spent and his own little Mai had nearly burst her heart keeping up with them. Long after the two blooded horses were cooled and fit he was still tending to Mai, rubbing her to keep her from chill, until at last he dared let her drink the icy water and have a little grain from their stores. He was well content afterward to curl up on his cloak which he had recovered from the black, and try to sleep, shivering himself in what he feared was a recurrence of fever. He heard Liell's soft voice and that of Morgaine, discussing the business of Leth, discussing old murders or old accidents that had happened on this lakeshore.

Then Morgaine disturbed his rest, for she never parted from Changeling, and wanted it from her gear. She slipped the dragon blade's Korish-work strap over her head and hung it from her shoulder to her hip, and walked the shore a time with Liell's black figure beside hers.

Then, in the great stillness, Vanye heard the coming of distant riders. On that impulse he sprang up, flung saddle upon Siptan first: she was his first duty; and by this time Morgaine and Liell seemed to have heard, for they were coming back. Vanye pulled Siptah's girth to its proper tension and secured it, then furiously began to saddle poor Mai. The mare would die. If they were harried much farther, the little beast would go down under him. He hurt for her: the Nhi blood in him loved horses too well to use them so, though Nhi could be cruel in other ways.

Liell flung saddle to the black himself. "I still much doubt," he said, "that they will come to this shore."

"I trust distance more than luck," said Morgaine. "Do as you will, Chya Liell."

And she swung up to Siptah's back, having settled Changeling in its accustomed place at the saddle, and laid heels to the gray.

Vanye attempted to mount and follow after. Liell's hand caught his arm, pulled him off balance, so that he staggered and looked at the man in outrage.

"Do not follow her," hissed Liell. "Listen to me. She will have the soul from you before she is done, Chya. Listen to me."

"I am ilin," he protested. "I have no choice."

"What is an oath?" Liell whispered urgently, air the while Siptah's hooves grew faint upon the shingle. "She seeks the power to rain the middle lands. You do not know how great an evil you are aiding. She lies, Chya Vanye. She has lied before, to the ruin of Koris, of Baien, of the best of the clans and the death of Morij-Yla. Will you help her? Will you turn on your own? Ilin-oath says betray family, betray hearth, but not the liyo; but does it say betray your own kind? Come with me, come with me, Chya Vanye."

For an aging man, Liell had surprising power in his hand: it numbed the blood from Vanye's hand by its grip upon his elbow. The eyes were hard and glittering, close to him in the dark. The sound of pursuit was nearer.

"No," Vanye cried, ripping loose, and started to mount. Pain exploded across the base of his skull. The world turned in his vision and he had momentary view of Mai's belly passing over him as the mare bolted. She jumped him, managing to avoid him with her hooves; he scrambled up against the earthen bank, half-blind, seeking to draw his sword.

Liell was upon him then, wresting his hand from the hilt, close to overpowering him, dazed as he was; but the thought of being taken by Leth animated him to frenzy. He twisted, not even trying to defend himself, only to tear free, to reach Morgaine's side and keep his oath for his soul's sake. Mai was out of reach; the black was at hand. He sprang for that saddle and laid heels to him before he was even sure of the reins, gathering them up and settling low in the saddle from his precarious balance. Black legs flashed long in the dark, muscles reached and gathered, bounding obstacles, splashing over inlets of the lake, surging up rises of the shore.

The black at last had run all he chose to run, beyond the shore and far upon the trail: Vanye laid heel to him again, mer-

ciless in his fear. The animal gathered himself and plunged forward again.

Morgaine's pale form was ahead. At last she looked around, seeming to hear him; she whipped up Siptah, and he cried out to her in despair, urging the black to further effort.

And she held back, pulling up, weapon in hand until he had come closer.

"Vanye," she exclaimed softly as he drew alongside. "Is thee thief too? What came of Liell?"

He reached behind his head, felt a tenderness at the back of his head despite the leather coif. Dizziness assailed him, whether of the blow or of the fever, he did not know.

"Liell is no friend of yours," he said.

"Did you kill him?"

"No," he breathed, and was content to hang over the saddlebow a moment until his sight cleared. Then he urged the black into a gentle pace, Siptah keeping with him: no horses that had run all the distance from Ra-leth could overtake them now.

"Is thee much hurt?" she asked.

"No."

"What did he? Did he lift weapon against you?"

"Tried to hold me—tried to persuade me to break oath."

And the other thing he would not tell her, the urging and then the vile feeling he had had of the look in Liell's eyes, a feverish anxiousness that had wanted something of him, a touch that had twice sunk cruelly into his arm, an avarice matching the hunger in his eyes.

It was not a thing he could tell anyone: he did not know what to name it, or why he had provoked it, or what it aimed at, only that he would die before he fell into the hands of Leth, and most especially those of Liell.