Fires of Azeroth

Chapter Fifteen

She was gone in the morning. There was food there, milk and bread and butter, and slices of cold meat. Written in a dab of butter on the side of the pitcher was a Kurshin symbol, the glyph that began Morgaine.

Safe,she meant. He ate, more than he had thought he could; and there was water heated for him over the coals. He bathed, and shaved… with his own razor, for his personal kit was there: they had recovered it from Mai, surely; and his bow was laid there with his armor, and other things that he had thought forever lost. He was glad-and dismayed, to think that they might have risked themselves, she and Lellin and Sezar, to recover them.

But her own weapons were still standing in the corner, and it began to trouble him that she stayed so long, unarmed. He went outside, unarmored, to see whether she was in sight: Siptah was gone too, though the harness was not.

Then a movement caught his eye, and he saw her coming back, riding down the slope, bareback on the gray horse, a strange figure in her white garments. She slid down and wrapped the tether-line over a branch, for she had been riding with only the halter. Her face had held a worried look for an instant; but she put on a different face when she looked up at him… he saw it and answered it with a faint smile, quickly shed.

"We have a little trouble from the outside this morning," she said. "They are trying us."

"Is that the way to go looking for it?" He had not meant his voice to be so sharp, but she shrugged and took no affront. The frown came back to her eyes, and they fixed beyond, back the way she had come.

He looked. Three arrhahad followed her, and a Man walked with them, a tall man in green and brown, coming from the shadow of the trees.

It was Roh.

They brought him to the front of the shelter and stopped: they laid no hand on Roh in their bringing him, but he had no weapons either. "Thank you," Morgaine told the arrha,dismissing them; but they withdrew only as far as the rocks near the shelter.

And Roh bowed, as lord visiting hall-lord, with weary irony.

"Come inside," Morgaine bade him.

Roh came, passed the curtain which Vanye held aside for him. His face was pale, unshaven-and afraid, although he tried not to show it. He did not look as if he had slept.

"Sit down," Morgaine invited him, herself settling to the mat by the brazier, and Roh did so on the opposite side, crosslegged. Vanye sank down on his heels at Morgaine's shoulder, an ilin'splace, which said what it might to Roh. Changeling,he thought uneasily, for the sword was unattended in the corner, and Morgaine unarmed: he had at least placed himself as a barrier between Roh and that.

"Chya Roh," Morgaine said softly. "Are you well?"

A muscle jerked in Roh's jaw. "Well enough."

"It took me some argument to bring you here. The arrhawere minded otherwise."

"You usually obtain what you want."

"Vanye did speak for you-and well.. None could be more persuasive with me. But counting all that-and my gratitude for your help to him, Chya Roh i Chya-are we other than enemies? Roh or Liell, you have no love for me. You hate me bitterly. That was so in Ra-koris. Are you the kind of man who can change his mind that thoroughly?"

"I hoped you would be dead."

"Ah. Truth from you. That does surprise me. And then what would you?"

"The same that I did. I would have stayed…" His eyes shifted to Vanye's and locked, and his voice changed. "I would have stayed with you and tried to reason with you. But… that is not how it came out, is it, cousin?"

"And now?" Morgaine asked.

Roh gave a haggard grin, made a loose gesture of the hands. "My situation is rather grim, is it not? Of course I offer you my service. I should be mad not to. I do not think that you have any intention of accepting; you are hearing me now to satisfy my cousin's sensibilities; and I am talking to you because I have nothing left to do."

"Because Merir and the arrhaturned a deaf ear to you last night?"

Roh blinked dazedly. "Well, you did not expect me not to try that, did you?"

"Of course not. Now what else will you try? Harm Vanye, who trusts you? Perhaps you would not; I almost believe that. But me you never loved, not in any shape you have worn. When you were Zri you betrayed your king, your clan, all those men… when you were Liell, you drowned children, and made of Leth such a plague-spot, such a sink of deprav-ity-"

Terror shot into Roh's eyes, horror. Morgaine stopped speaking, and Roh sat visibly shivering… gone, all pretense of cynicism. Vanye looked on him and hurt, and set his hand on Morgaine's shoulder, wishing her to let him be; but she did not regard it.

"You do not like it," she murmured. 'That is what Vanye said-that you had bad dreams."

"Cousin," Roh pleaded.

"I shall not call it back for you," she said. "Peace. Roh… Roh…I shall say nothing more of it. Be at peace."

Roh's hands, shaking, covered his face; he rested so a moment, white and sick, and she let him be. "Give him drink," she said. Vanye took the flask she indicated with a glance, and knelt and offered it to him. Roh took it with trembling hands, drank a little. When he was done, Vanye did not leave him, but held to his shoulder.

"Are you all right now?" Morgaine asked him. "Roh?" But he would not look at her. "I have done you more harm than I wished," she said. "Forgive me, Chya Roh."

He said nothing. She rose then, and took Changelingfrom the corner… withdrew from the shelter entirely.

Roh did not look at that, nor at anything. "I can kill him," he breathed between his teeth, and shuddered. "I can kill him. I can kill him."

For a moment it made no sense, the rambling of a madman; and then Vanye understood, and kept hold of him. "Cousin," he said in Roh's ear. "Roh. Stay with me. Stay with me."

Sanity returned after a moment Roh breathed hard and bowed his head against his knees.

"Roh, she will not do that again. She saw. She will not."

"I would be myself when I die. Can she not allow me that?"

"You will not die. I know her. I knowher. She would not."

"She will manage it. Do you think that she will ever let me at her back where you stand, or rest when I am near her? She will manage it."

The veil shadowed, went back. Morgaine stood in the doorway. "I am afraid I hear you," she said quietly. "The veils do not stop much."

"I will say it to your face," Roh said, "syllable by syllable if you did not get it clear. -Will you not return the courtesy, to me-and to him?"

Morgaine frowned, rested Changelingpoint down on the floor before her. "I will say this: that there is some good chance it will make no difference what I will and will not." She nodded vaguely westward, at the other wall. "If you want to walk through that woods and take a look at the riverside, you will find enough Shiua to make any quarrel we have among ourselves quite pointless. What I say I would say if Vanye were not involved. The kindnesses I attempt generally come to worse than my worst acts. But murder sits ill with me, and,…" She lifted Changelingslightly from the floor and rested it again. "I have not the options of fair fight that a man has; nor would I put that burden on Vanye, to deal with you in that fashion. You are right; I cannot trust you as I do him. I do not think I could ever be persuaded to that. I do not want you at my back. But we have mutual enemies out there. There is a land about us that does not deserve that plague on it… and you and I made it, did we not? You and I created that horde. Will you share in stopping it? The fortunes of war-may make it unnecessary to concern ourselves about our… differences."

Roh seemed dazed a moment… and then he set his hands on his knees and laughed bitterly. "Yes. Yes, I would do that."

"I will not ask an oath of you or take one, no great one: it would bind me to an honor I cannot afford. But if you will give your simple word, Roh-I trust youcan bind your other impulses."

"I give it," Roh said. He rose, and Vanye with him. "You will have what you want of me. All…that you want of me."

Morgaine's lips tightened. She turned and walked to the far wall and laid down Changeling,gathering up her armor. "Do not be too forward in it. There is food left, probably. Vanye, see he has what he needs."

"My weapons," Roh said.

She looked at him, scowling. "Aye, I will see to that." And she turned again and began working into her armor.

"Morgaine kri Chya."

She looked up.

"You… did not bring me from Ra-koris; I brought myself, I. You did not aim that horde at this land. I did, no other. And I will not take food or drink or shelter of you, not as matters stand. If you insist, I must; but if not-then I will take it elsewhere, and not inflict any obligation on myself or on you."

She hesitated, seeming stunned. Then she walked over and flung back the veil to the outside, waved a signal at the arrhawho waited there. Roh left, pausing to offer a bow of courtesy; Morgaine let fall the veil after him, and lingered there, leaning her head against her arm. After a moment she swore, in her own tongue, and turned away, avoiding his eyes.

"You," Vanye said into that silence, "you did as much as he would have asked of you."

She looked up at him. "But you expect more."

Vanye shook his head. "I regard you too much, liyo.You are risking your life in giving what you have. He could kill you. I do not think so, or I would not have him near you. But he is a risk; and I know how you feel. Maybe more so. He is my cousin. He brought me here alive. But… if… he is overmuch tempted, liyo,then he will lose. I know that. What is more, he does. You have done the best thing you could do."

She bit her lips until the blood left them. "He is a man, your cousin. I will give him that."

And she turned and gathered up the rest of her armor, put it on with a grimace of discomfort. "He will have his chance," she said then. "Armor and bow: little use for anything else if this is like the last time… until they reach the rock itself. We are in no small danger."

"They are prepared?"

"Some of them are well up the Silet, the tributary river to our south; the force at Narnside began moving across to our bank at dawn."

"You permit this?"

She gave a bitter laugh. "I? Permit? I fear I am not in charge here. The arrhahave permitted it, step by step, until we are nigh surrounded. Powerful they are, but their whole mind, their whole conception of the problem, is toward defense, and they will not hear me. I would have done differently, yes, but I have not been able to do anything until recently. Now it comes to the point that the only thing I can do is help them hold this place. It has never been a matter of what I would choose here."

He bent and gathered his armor from where he had left it.

They saddled the horses, not alone Siptah, but Lellin's and Sezar's, and gathered up all that they might need if it came to flight. What was in Morgaine's mind remained her own; but he reckoned in his own thoughts what she had told him, the isolation by wood and water of the area that was Nehmin, and the Shiua possessing the rivers that framed their refuge.

All the area about them was tangled and wooded, and that was a situation no Kurshin could find comfortable; there was no place to maneuver, no place to run. The horses were all but useless to them, and the hill was too low to hold.

They rode up the slope of the hill and among the twisted trees, down again by the winding trail among the rocks, so that they came out again on the meadow.

"No sight of them," Vanye muttered, looking uneasily riverward.

"Ah, they have learned a slight caution of this place. But it will not last, I fear."

She turned Siptah to the right hand, and warily they rode away from that vicinity into the woods, through brush, into an area where the trees grew very large. A path guided them… and our enemies next,Vanye thought dismally. Horses had been down it recently.

"Liyo,"he said after a space. "Where do we go? What manner of thing have you in mind?"

She shrugged, and seemed worried. "The arrhahave withdrawn. And they are not above abandoning us to the enemy. I am concerned for Lellin and Sezar. They have not reported back to me. I do not like to take their horses from where they expect to find them, but likewise I do not want to lose them."

"They are out there-toward the enemy?"

"That is where they should be. At the moment, I am concerned that the arrhaare not where they should be."

"And Roh."

"And Roh," she echoed, "though in some part I doubt he is the center of this matter. He may himself be in danger. Merir… Merir is the one who deserves watching. Honorable he may be-but thee learns, Vanye, thee learns… that the good and virtuous fight us as bitterly as those who are neither good nor virtuous… more so, perhaps-for they do so unselfishly, and bravely , . . and we must most of all beware of them. Do you not see that I am what the Shiua name me? And would a man not be entitled to resist that… for himself-most of all for what the arrhendprotects? -Forgive me. Thee knows my darker moods; I should not shed them on thee."

"I am your man, liyo."

She looked at him, surprised out of the bitterness that had been her expression.

And around the bending of the trail there stood one of the arrha,a young qhalurwoman. Silent, she stood among the branches and ferns, light in green shadow.

"Where are your fellows?" Morgaine asked of her.

The arrhalifted her arm, pointed the way that they were going.

Morgaine started Siptah forward again, slowly, for the trail wound much. Vanye looked back; the arrhastill stood there, a too-conspicuous sentinel.

Then they passed into another space where few trees grew, and in that open space there were horses; the arrhendimwere there, seated… the six who had gone out with Merir, and Roh. Roh gathered himself to his feet as they came.

"Where is Merir?" Morgaine asked.

"Off that way," Roh said, and pointed farther on. He spoke in Andurin, and looked up… shaven, washed, he looked more the dai-uyohe was, and he bore his weapons again. "No one is doing anything. Word is the Shiua are closing on us from two sides, and the old men are still back there talking. If no one moves, we will have Hetharu in our midst before evenfall."

"Come," said Morgaine, and slid down from the saddle. "We leave the horses here." She wrapped Siptah's reins about the branch, and Vanye did the same for the horse he rode and the ones he led.

None of the arrhendimhad done more than look up.

"Come," she bade them; and in a stronger voice: "Come with me."

They looked uncertain; Larrel and Kessun stood up, but the elder arrhendimwere reluctant. Finally Sharrn did so, and the six came, gathering up their weapons.

Wherever they were bound, Morgaine seemed to have been this way before; Vanye stayed at her shoulder, that Roh should not walk too near her, watching either side and sometimes looking back at the arrhendimwho trailed them on this suddenly narrower path. He was far from easy in his mind, for they were all too vulnerable to treachery, for all the power of the weapons Morgaine bore.

Gray stone confronted them through the tangle of vines and branches… lichen-spotted, much weathered, standing stones thrust up among the roots of trees, closer and closer, until the stones formed an aisle shadowed by the vast trees.

Then they had sight of a small stone dome at the end of that aisle. Arrhaguarded the entry of it, one on either side of the doorway that stood open, but there was no offer to oppose their coming.

Voices echoed within, echoes that died away at their tread within the doorway. Torches lit that small dome within; arrhasat as a mass of white on stone seats that encompassed more than half the circuit of the walls: the center of the floor was clear, and there Merir stood. Merir was the one who had been speaking and he faced them there.

One of the arrhaarose, an incredibly old qhal,withered and bent and leaning on a staff. He stepped down onto the floor where Merir stood.

"You do not belong here," that one said. "Arms have never come into this council. We ask that you go away."

Morgaine did nothing. A look of fear was on all the arrha…old ones, very old, all those gathered here.

"If we contest for power," said another, "we will all die. But there are others who hold the power we have. Leave."

"My lord Merir." Morgaine walked from the doorway to the center of the room; Vanye followed her: so did the others, taking their place before that council. His distress was acute, that she thus separated herself from the door. There were guards, arrha,bearing Gate-force, he suspected. He could not prevail against that. If it came to using her weapons she needed him close to her, where he was able to guard her back… where he was not in the way of what had taken at least one comrade of theirs. "My lords," she said, looking about her. "There are enemies advancing. What do you plan to do?"

"We do not," said the elder, "admit you to our counsel."

"Do you refuse my help?"

There was deep silence. The elder's staff rang on the floor and echoed, the slightest tap.

"My lords," she said. "If you do refuse my help, I willleave you. And if I leave you, you willfall."

Merir stepped forward half a pace. Vanye held his breath, for the old lord knew, knew utterly what she meant, the destruction of the Gate which gave them power, in her passing from this world. And surely he had told the others.

"That which you bear," said Merir, "is greater than the power of all the arrhacombined. But it was fashioned as a weapon; and that… thatis madness. It is an evil thing. It cannot be otherwise. For fifteen hundred years… we have used our power gently. To protect. To heal. You stand here, alive because of it… and tell us that if we do not bow to your demands, then you will turn that thing against us, and destroy Nehmin, and leave us naked to our enemies. But if we do as you wish-what, then? What are your terms? Let us hear them."

There was no sound or movement after.

But suddenly other footfalls whispered on the stones at the doorway.

Lellin, and Sezar.

"Grandfather," Lellin said in a hushed voice, and bowed.

"Lady… you bade me come when the enemy had completed their crossing. They have done so. They are moving this way."

A murmur ran the circuit of the room, swiftly dying, so that the tiniest movement could be heard.

"You have been out doing her bidding," Merir said.

"I told you, Grandfather, that I went to do that."

Merir shook his head slowly, lifted his face to look on Morgaine, on all of them, on the arrhendimwho had come with Morgaine, and all but Perrin lowered their eyes, unable to meet his.

"You have already begun to destroy us," Merir said. His voice was full of tears. "You offer your way… or nothing. We might have been able to defeat the Shiua, as we did the s irrindimwho came on us long ago. But now we have come to this, that armed force has entered this place, where arms never have come before, and some have faith in them."

"Lellin Erirrhen has said," the elder arrhadeclared, "that lie is hers,lord Merir. And therefore he insists on coming and going at her bidding, refusing ours."

"Else," Morgaine said in a loud voice, "the council would keep me blind and deaf. And Lellin and Sezar in their service to me have kept me from taking other action, my lords. They know what you do not. By serving me .. . they have served you."

Merir's lips made a taut line, and Lellin looked at the old lord, bowed to him very slowly, and to Morgaine… faced his grandfather again. "Of our own choice." Lellin said. "Grandfather-the arrhendimare needed. Please. Come and look. They cover the riverside like a new forest. Come and look on this thing." He cast an anguished glance about at all the arrha."Come out of your grove and see this horde. You talk of taking it into Shathan. Of peace with it… as we found with the remnant of the sirrindim.Come and look on this thing."

One more dangerous to us," said the elder, "is already here." And Gate-force flared, making the air taut as a drawn string. It shimmered about the elder.

nd it grew. One and another of the arrhabegan to bring forth that power, until the arrhendimflinched back against the wall, and the whole dome sang with it.

Liyo,"Vanye murmured, and whipped his sword from its sheath, for two of the arrhabarred the doorway, and the air between shimmered with the barrier they formed.

Cease!" Morgaine shouted.

he elder stamped the heel of his staff on the floor, a sound almost drowned in the taut air; his half-blind eyes were set rigidly. "Six of us have invoked the power. There are thirty-two. Surrender that which you bear."

Liyo-"

Morgaine slipped Changeling'sring and dropped the sword to her hip. Vanye looked about him, at the elders, at the frightened arrhendim . ..and Roh, whose face was pale, but whose hands stayed from his weapons.

Two more," said the elder. The singing in the air grew louder, numbing hearing, and Morgaine lifted her hand.

"You know what the result will be," she cried.

"We are willing to die, all of us. The passage we open here may be wide enough to work ruin on the enemies of Shathan as well. But you who do not love this land… may not be willing to become part of that. One by one we shall add to the force. We do not know how many of us will be needed before the passage is complete, but we shall discover it. You cannot leave. You can try your other weapons. If you do, we will answer you with all we have. Or you can draw that sword and complete the passage beyond any doubt: its force with ours is sufficient beyond any argument. It will drink us all up, and more besides. But surrender that weapon and we shall deal well with you. Our word is good. You have nothing to fear from us."

Gate-force keened in the air. Another joined it.

"Liyo,"Vanye said. Very small his voice sounded in that power. "Your other weapon-"

She said nothing. He dared not look at what was happening before her, but kept his eyes to the arrhendim,who were at her back and armed; and Roh, Lellin and Sezar were apart from the others, fear in their faces, but they stood with arms folded and had never moved.

"My lords!" Morgaine exclaimed suddenly. "My lord arrha!We are gaining nothing by this. Only your enemies gain."

"We have made our choice," said Merir.

"You sat here-sat here until I should become desperate enough to try to come stir you out of it. A trap of your working, lord Merir? It is a well-devised one."

"We are utterly willing," said Merir, "to perish. We are old. There are others. But there is no need of it, unless you value power more than your own life. If we add many more jewels to the web, lady Morgaine, it will be accomplished. You sense that. So do I." He held up his hand, with the jewel-case upon it. "Here is another mote of that power you hold. Perhaps this will complete it. It is that near. Shall I add it to the others?"

"Enough! Enough. I see that you are capable of doing it No more."

"Surrender the sword."

She unhooked it and grounded it point-down before her. "My lords of the arrha!Lord Merir is right… that is an evil thing. And there is only one of it, and that itself is a great evil, and subtle. You hold your power divided into many hands; whoever takes this, that one will be more powerful than all the others. Which? Who of you seeks it?"

None answered.

"You have never seen a Gate opened," Morgaine said. "You have never summoned that power entire, counting that passage dangerous. You are right. Shall I show you? Damp that which you hold: I shall show you my meaning. Let me show you whyNehmin must cease to exist. You value reason, my lords; then listen to me. I have no terms. I come not to possess Nehmin by the threat of destroying it. I come to destroy it, whether or not the enemy is stopped. I do not want any power over you."

"You are mad," said the elder.

"Let me show you. Damp the jewels. If I do not convince you, the unveiling of only a few of them while Changelingis unsheathed will be sufficient for your purposes… and mine. You do not well reckon… that I also am willing to die for what I do."

The elder stepped back, bewilderment in his look. Merir made a helpless gesture. "She says well," Merir said, "We can always die."

The force ebbed, more suddenly than it had grown, jewel after jewel winking into cover. And when it was utterly gone, Morgaine eased Changelingforth, crystal is the jewels, which were only motes that human flesh itself could obscure unharmed. Opal fire flowed along Changeling'srunes, and suffused the blade, and darkness flared at the tip of it, where the wind began. Someone cried out. Its light bathed all their faces. She moved it, and the wind grew stronger, whipping at the torches, tugging at hair and robes and howling within the dome. Vanye stepped back from her side, not even aware that he moved until he found himself near Lellin.

"Here is the passage you would form!" Morgaine shouted over the roar of the wind. "Here it is open before you. Look into it. Have you courage now to add your jewels to that? A few of them would suffice, and this whole dome will be elsewhere, with us in it. The shock of air will level all the trees hereabouts, and perhaps, as you say, take a good part of the enemy with us. Or more than that, if the force leaks through to this side of here and now. This is the power that your fathers' fathers' fathers trifled with. You do well to avoid it. But what will your children do? What, when someday someone less wise than yourselves takes it up again? What, if I surrender the sword to you, and someday one of your folk draws it? On it is written the knowledge of the Gates… and it cannot be destroyed, save by one who will carry it unsheathed within a Gate, into the Fires. Who of you wants to go in my place? For any man who loves this world, for any man who holds this weapon and has anything of virtue left in him-there is only one choice in the end-and that is to take it out of this world, outside this world, and to keep going from world to world, forever. Is not a calamity written in your legends? The same calamity fell everywhere that such power has been… and it will come again, and again. That power must have an end. Does one of you want the sword? Does one of you want to carry it under those conditions?"

She held it aloft, and the void gaped and howled. Roh was at her back; Vanye saw him, never took his eyes entirely from him. Roh's face was rigid, his eyes reflecting that opal light.

And suddenly Roh moved, fled, thrusting aside Sezar and Lellin, rushed past the arrhaguards… the two of them too dazed to react. Vanye realized his sword was still in his hand. He looked on the others, on faces pale and drawn… turned and saw Morgaine. Her arm trembled from that force which numbed body and soul. Sweat stood on her face.

"You must seal it off," she said. "Let me take this out of your world and seal the passage forever after me. Your other choice is not one that Shathan can survive. This-this-does not love living things."

"Put it away," Merir said hoarsely. "Put it away, now."

"Have you seen enough? I always questioned the wisdom that made this thing. I know the evil of it. Its maker knew And perhaps that is its only virtue: that it is shaped as what it is… it is something that you can see and know exacly as it is. There is no ambiguity here, no yes and no. This thing ought not to exist. Those delicate jewels of yours… are nothing other than this. Their beauty deludes you. Their usefulness deludes you. Someday someone will gather them together and you will know that they were all aspects of this.Look. Look at it!"

She swung it in a great arc, faster and faster, and the wind grew until it pulled at them, until the light blazed white, until the void widened and there seemed little air in the room. Cold numbed the skin, and the arrhaheld to their chairs, those standing staggered to the walls as if their own weight could not anchor them.

"Stop it!" the elder cried.

She did so, and returned it to sheath. The winds stopped; the howling died; the dark void and the blazing light went together, leaving the dome darkened, the light of the torches sucked out, only a shaft of daylight reaching them from the door. She grounded the sword, sheathed, before her.

"That is the power you hold, arrha.You have but to combine your tiny jewels into one. Did you not know that? We are armed… alike. And I make you free gift of that knowledge now-for someday one will discover it, and you will have to use them that way."

"No."

"Can you forget what I have told you?" she asked in a low voice. "Can you forget what you have seen? Can you take the sword and keep it forever sheathed, when the sirrindimrise up with cities and threaten you, when Men increase and you are few? Some evil, qhalor Man, someday… will draw it. And unlike your jewels, which will fade when the Gate is sealed, the sword is knowledge to build more such Gates."

There was deathly silence. Some of the arrhawept, their heads bowed into their hands.

"Give it up," Morgaine urged them. "Or leave Nehmin, and come my road, the passage that I must take. I have told you truth. I have shown you. And while Nehmin remains open, that truth will always gape at your feet to swallow you up. Seal up the passage; seal Nehmin and the stones lose their fire and Shathan stands… unbarriered, but living. Keep Nehmin open, and you will fall to it one day. But whatever you choose, I have no choice. I must take this sword out of the world. More than Shathan is at hazard. More than your lives. More than this world alone. The evil is as wide as all the passages that ever existed. And it is most dangerous when you think it tamed and secure. Those little stones are more evil than Changeling…because you do not see them for what they are: fragments of a Gate. Joined, they will drink you in and ruin more than your own world: they will reach to others."

The elder trembled, and looked on the others, and on Merir. Lellin wept, and Sezar, the both of them bowed to the floor; and two by two their brother arrhendimjoined them.

"We have heard truth," Merir said. "I think we have heard the truth my grandson was quicker to hear."

The elder nodded, his hands trembling so that the staff rattled against the floor. He looked at all the arrhaabout him. There was none to say otherwise.

"Do as you will," he said then to Morgaine. "Pass. We will seal Nehmin behind you."

Morgaine let go a long slow breath, and bowed her head. After a moment she gathered Changelingto her side and hooked it there, drew it to her shoulder. "We have a number of Shiua to clear from our path to Azeroth. The enemy, my lords of the arrha,is still advancing from the river. What will you do about it?"

There was long silence. "We must hold, this place and Nehmin. Nehmin is surrounded. The enemy has already taken all the area. We can speak to the arrhawho hold Nehmin itself; and within the hold of Nehmin, they can work what you ask. You may ride from here. We can give you seven days… to reach Azeroth and pass; and then we may kill the power."

"You would fall. Shathan would be utterly open to the Shiua horde."

"We fought the sirrindim,"said Merir. "The arrhendwill drive these invaders back too."

Morgaine stared at them, one after another, scanning all the company. And at last she folded her arms and looked at the floor, glanced up at Vanye. He tried to say nothing with his expression. She turned last to Merir. "Will you take my help? I would not leave you with such a gift as waits out there. Aye, Vanye and I could slip past, go another route… reach Azeroth in seven days. But what sits out there is-mine. I do not want to leave you to that."

The elder approached her slowly, leaning on his staff. He bowed, deeply, and gazed at her when he straightened, like a man looking into the Gates themselves. "There have been– many passages for you."

"Yes, elder. I am older than you."

"Much so, I suspect." The frail hand reached, touched Vanye's arm, and the dim gray eyes turned to his. "Khemeisto such an arrhen…We sorrow for both of you. For both of you." He looked at Lellin, and bowed, and to Sezar and the other arrhendim;and lastly at Merir and Morgaine once more. "You are experienced in wars. We are not. We need you. If you are willing, we need you."

"This, at least, must be on my terms. We consult together."

"We accept that," said Merir.

"You say that you can signal those who now hold Nehmin. Bid them expect us, and soon. You shall hold here, as you can; and they must hold Nehmin until we can reach them. My lord Merir-" she nodded to him to join her, and started to the door, unsteady suddenly; at her side, Vanye felt her lean against him, and took her arm, lending his strength. The sword took, of body and soul; he bad held it, and knew the pain of it "Roh," she said suddenly, distractedly. "Where is Roh?"

He had that worry on him too; there were too many things random, too much slipping their grasp.

But Roh waited outside, a huddled figure at the base of the third standing stone, arms tucked about him. He saw them coming, and rose, torment in his eyes.

"They let you go," he said. "They let you go."

"They agreed," Morgaine said, "to seal Nehmin themselves. That was their choice."

The look went stricken, dazed; they walked past, and Roh followed after.