People of the Talisman

VI

At the foot of the stair Lugh stopped and gave Stark one last bitter look.

“Sleep well,” he said, “while better men than you walk freezing on the Wall.”

He marched his men away and Stark looked after them, hearing the petulance in the clang of Lugh’s iron-shod boots on the stones. He could find it in his heart to pity this young man, who was going to be forced so soon to dirty his beautiful armor with blood. Then he turned and climbed the stair, and was appalled at the effort it took. Twice he had to stop and hold on to keep from falling.

Part of his faintness was from hunger. He knew that as he entered the room and saw Thanis bent over a brazier stirring something savory in a blackened pot. Balin sprawled gracefully on the bench bed that ran along one crooked wall. He sprang up to catch Stark’s arm and steady him to a seat, and Stark muttered something about food, unable to remember how long it was since he had eaten. Thanis waited on him gladly, and they did not speak until he was finished, drinking the last of his wine and feeling human again, feeling strong enough to think, and thinking, scowling into his cup.

And Balin asked, “What happened?”

“They will arm the city,” Stark said.

“Will they hold it?”

Thanis said, “Of course they’ll hold it. We still have the Wall.”

“Walls,” said Balin, “are no stronger than the men who defend them.” He asked again. “Will they hold it?”

Stark shook his head. “They’ll try. Some of them will even die gloriously. But they’re sheep, and the wolves will tear them. This is my belief.”

He rose abruptly and went to stand by the window, looking out at the ancient uneven roofs, above them to the distant towers of the King City, and then beyond to the black line of the cliffs. The cold air stirred his hair, and he shivered and said, “Balin, could they hold it if they had the talisman?”

There was a quiet, in which he could hear the wind chafing and whining at the walls outside. He pulled the curtain tight and turned, and Balin was looking at him with smoky cat eyes, his body poised like a bent bow.

“This is your city, Balin. You know. I can only guess. Could they hold it?”

Slowly and softly Balm answered, while Thanis sat stiff and still as ivory, and as pale, watching the two men.

“They are sheep, Stark. And they’re worse than that. They’re liars. And they have forgotten the knowledge that was entrusted to them. They do not remember any more how the talisman was used, nor what it called forth from beyond the Gates of Death. If they had ten talismans, they could not hold the city.”

And he added, “Why do you ask that question?”

“Because,” said Stark grimly, “I have decided to trust you with my life.” He slipped the belt from around his waist. “I’ve done what I promised. I have finished a journey for a friend—a man named Camar, who had a burden on his soul.” He saw Thanis start at the sound of that name, but Balin did not stir and his eyes never wavered from Stark’s. The silence thrummed between them. Stark’s nerves twitched and tightened, and his fingers curved around the hollow boss of the buckle.

“The talisman belongs to Kushat. But on that journey I bought a small share in it, Balin, with my blood. Both Otar and Ciaran were sure I could give it to them, and they did their best to make me. Now I say that if the city falls to Ciaran he must not get the talisman. And someone—you or I, someone, must live to use it against him.” He paused. “If there truly is a power beyond the Gates of Death…”

“For an outlander,” Balin said, “you have a strong love for Kushat.”

Stark shook his head. “Kushat may stand or fall as it will without breaking my heart. But I have a score to settle with Ciaran, and I will hale the devil out of hell to do it, if I have to.”

“Well,” said Balin, and smiled, and was suddenly relaxed and easy. “In that case our ways lie close enough together that we can walk them side by side.” Casually he laid back the covering on the couch beside him, and the thin sharp blade of a throwing knife glittered in the chill light. He picked it up and placed it in his girdle. “Oh,” he said, “and Stark, don’t be too concerned about trusting me with your life.” His fingers plucked something from the folds of his tunic and held it up—a bit of crystal, gleaming with subtle witch-fire, seeming to draw to itself all the light in the room.

Thanis cried out, “Balin..!” and then was still, her eyes as wide as moons.

“I knew Camar too,” said Balin. “He once showed me the secret of that buckle. So I have had your life in my hands since last night.”

Thanis whispered, “And you did not tell me…”

“Of course not,” said Balin. “I might have had to kill him, and I recognize the light in your eye, little sister. These things are unpleasant enough without additional fussing.” He leaned forward, placing the talisman on a low table, and then looked up at Stark.

“As you say, Kushat is my city.”

Stark said slowly, “I will be damned.” He stared at Balin, as though he were looking at a new and different man. Then he laughed and flung himself down on the couch, being careful to avoid the talisman. “Very well, comrade. How do we plan?”

“If the Wall holds and the city stands, then the plan is simple enough and Narrabhar’s high seat will be quickly emptied. But if the city falls…” Balin sipped his wine reflectively. “We here in the Quarter are more like rats than sheep, and so perhaps poverty is useful, since it has kept our teeth sharp. I think that we are the ones who must survive, Stark.” He looked at the talisman and added in a strangely awed and almost frightened voice, “We are the ones who will have to carry that beyond the Gates of Death.”

“So long as I go with you,” Stark said.

“We need you,” Balin said simply. “We are thieves by trade, killers only by accident. I myself have never drawn blood in anger. You will have to make us into fighting men.”

“If you have the will,” Stark said, “the method is not hard to teach.” He yawned.

“The will we have.”

“Good.” Stark lay back on the soft furs. “There will be very little time. What we do must be done quickly. Talk to your people, Balin, the best men. Assume that the Wall will be breached. Arrange a rallying place, and if it is possible, plan a way out of the city. We’ll need supplies, food and warm clothing, all we can carry without being burdened. And no more women and children than you can help. They’re more likely to die in the mountains than they are here, and we must be able to move fast.”

Balin had risen. He looked down at Stark and said, “Friend, I’ve been at this since I found the talisman.”

“So much the better,” Stark said, and swore. “I hate this planning in the dark. I can see clearly enough between Kushat and the Gates of Death, and after that I am in darkness. Is it possible, Balin—truly possible, that no one ever goes into that pass, even a little way, to tell us what it’s like? Even Otar didn’t say he had.”

Balin shrugged. “From time to time men have tried it, in spite of the taboo. Sometimes their bodies return to us in the spring floods. Mostly they never come back at all. The law and the legend of Ban Cruach both say that Kushat was built to guard the pass, and that only with the talisman can a man go through it and live.”

“Does the legend say,” asked Stark, “why Kushat guards the pass?”

“Didn’t Camar tell you that?”

“He said no one remembered why, except that it was a great trust.”

“And that is true. But one may guess that the power hidden beyond the pass is too great to be loosed by chance or whim, and so must be protected. In the beginning, of course, Ban Cruach gained that power for himself somehow, and used it to build his own fame in the Norlands…”

“Which Ciaran hopes to do again.” Stark nodded. “Otar has turned his brain with desire.”

“Otar,” said Balin, and shook his head. “He was always daft. He used to make speeches in the market places, the wine shops, anywhere that people would listen to him, saying that Kushat was dying and it was time we took the power beyond the Gates and made ourselves great again. He became so troublesome that Rogain chained him up a time or two, and after that he vanished.”

“He found someone to listen,” said Stark. “Is there more to the legend?”

“It is believed that the building of Kushat was part of the bargain that Ban Cruach made to get the—whatever it was he got…”

“Bargain? Bargain with whom?”

“Or with what. No one knows. It does not seem that anyone but Ban Cruach knew even then, though it is all so long ago that nothing is sure. Perhaps there never was a bargain. But this you can depend on. Regardless of what gods or devils may be waiting there, there is enough danger in the Gates of Death without them. Crevasses, ice and mist and grinding rockfalls, starvation and cold.”

“Well,” said Stark, “those things won’t stop the Lord Ciaran, so they can’t stop us. As for what else may or may not be there, I suppose we’ll find out when the time comes. Until then we may as well forget it.”

“At any rate,” said Balin, “we have the talisman. So if there is truth in the legend… Stark?”

Silence.

Thanis said, “He’s asleep.”

Balin swore a long and involved Norland oath, and then smiled wryly. “I’m not at all sure it’s entirely human, but I’m glad to have it on my side, anyway.”

“Would you really have killed him?”

“Let’s put it this way. I’d have tried.” He measured the thickness of Stark’s shoulders and shook his head. “I’m extremely relieved that I didn’t have to.”

Thanis turned again to the talisman, not going close to it but standing with her hands clasped tightly behind her back and her head bent, her eyes somber and shadowed. Suddenly she said, “I’m afraid, Balin.”

He touched her shoulder gently. “So am I. But the thing has come home and the gods have put it into our hands, and we must do what we can.”

He took the crystal reverently in his fingers and returned it to the hollow boss, closing it carefully.

Thanis had not moved, except to let her hands drop to her sides. Now she lifted them and brushed the black heavy strands of hair from her forehead, and it was an old woman’s gesture, infinitely weary.

“It’s all to be broken, isn’t it?” she said.

The one small word encompassed everything, the city, the Quarter, the street, this building, this room, these few belongings, this way of life. Balin experienced something of Stark’s personal hatred of the Mekhish bastard who would do this breaking, and he wanted very much to comfort Thanis, but it was no use lying and so he did not. He said, “For a time, I’m afraid. For a time, anyway.”

He hung the belt over the wall peg under Stark’s cloak, threw his own cloak around him and went out. The cold air struck him with the familiar winter smells of frost and smoke. The dark roofs glinted in the sunlight, lying against one another like the discarded counters of a game of hazard, and above him the great Wall rose as it had risen since his eyes first opened on the world, massive and comforting and secure. Balin went down the hollow steps, his hand touching the worn stone at his side. He moved slowly. He moved like a man with a knife in his heart.