Songsmith

8

It was a perilous journey they made by the light of the waning moon, stumbling and skidding over frozen, frost-rimed ground. As they ascended the mountainside, their way grew rougher, more broken, until they were picking a path between rocks and boulders streaked with glistening trails of ice. Eydryth led the way, her strides quick and impatient despite the poor footing. She gasped when a stone turned beneath her heel; only her companion’s quick grasp on her arm saved her from a precipitous fall. “Slowly,” he cautioned.

“But the moon’s light will soon be gone…”

“True, but if by moonset we are all resting at the bottom of yon gorge with broken necks, it will matter but little to us whether it shines or not.” Monso snorted, as if in agreement. “Perhaps we should stop,” Alon suggested, surveying the rugged path before them. “We could wait for daylight.”

“No,” she replied. “Without the moon’s glow to guide us, we will never find that beacon. It does not shine by the sun’s light, I am certain of that. Can you see in the dark?” she asked, remembering that her mother had always been able to do so, claiming that the ability was held by many with the kinship of Power.

“Not as well as Monso,” he said. “But perhaps better than you can.”

“Then you lead.”

Slowly, he edged past her on the narrow ledge. “Hook your fingers in my belt,” he instructed.

Eydryth obeyed. “Hurry, Alon!”

As they went on, an overhanging thrust of rock darkened their path even further. The songsmith clung to her companion’s belt, prepared to follow blindly, but she heard the Adept mutter beneath his breath; then light shone from his right hand, each finger outlined in the white-violet glow. Spreading his fingers, he held them palm-down, so the light illuminated the path beneath their feet.

How long can he maintain that? she wondered worriedly. Will keeping such a spell going draw so much energy from him that he cannot complete our climb? Should we stop and try again on the morrow? The moon will rise again…

She nearly voiced her concerns aloud, but then she shook her head and remained silent. Eydryth could not explain the urgency building within her, but it drove her across the mountain’s flank with grim purpose. The high-pitched notes reverberated inside her head with a siren summons, making chills not born of the cold trace themselves down her spine. Alon, by his own admission, could not hear them.

But it was clear that Monso could. The Keplian pricked his ears and turned his head with each uncanny repetition.

The songsmith narrowed her eyes, using her gryphon-headed staff to test each step before trusting her full weight to the treacherous path. Slowly, the travelers picked their way across the loose rocks of the final slope. Finally, gasping and shivering, they halted, staring up at their destination. It was close, but to attain the ledge from whence the glow emanated, they would have to scramble up a trail so steep that it made the songsmith’s head swim to contemplate it.

“How can we climb that?” she asked, despairingly.

“Monso can,” Alon said after a moment. “Grab hold of the stirrup; use it to steady yourself.” He took up position on the other side of the Keplian. “Ready?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied, her mouth dry from fear and anticipation.

“Monso, hup!” Alon cried, and the black surged forward, scrambling, powerful hindquarters thrusting, steel-shod fore-hooves clawing a purchase in the crusted, frozen earth. Eydryth launched herself beside the Keplian, endeavoring not to drag the creature off balance. Using her quarterstaff, she pulled herself up, the frigid air tearing her throat with each sobbing breath.

With a final gasp and heave, the three travelers were over the side of the ledge.

The feeble moonlight shone down full upon a huge sheet of crystal embedded in the mountainside. Eydryth stared at it, so exhausted that she could do naught but gasp, the air stabbing her lungs. She leaned against Monso’s heaving side, feeling her knees buckle. Finally her legs steadied; only then was she able to walk over to gaze into the reflective surface.

“What is it?” she whispered, feeling a strange reluctance to speak aloud.

“A thing of Power,” Alon said, coming up behind her, his voice equally quiet. Their own outlines swam before them, eerily limned by the moonglow. “For some reason we have been summoned here… by what power or agency I cannot guess.”

“The moon is so bright on the crystal,” Eydryth breathed, “that surely this thing is of the Light.”

“I believe so,” her companion agreed. “But often Light and Dark are balanced precariously in this world… and many things of the Light have their Dark shadows.”

“What do you—,” the songsmith began, only to break off as a cloud eclipsed the moon, and their own reflections dissolved like snowflakes encountering water. But the crystal surface did not stay blank; rather, it glowed darkly, as though a fire made from shadows had been kindled within it. Shapes slowly coalesced into recognizability… a large, rocky cave, its walls sheeted with water that glinted dully in the light of a single torch that smoldered sullenly.

“What… what are we seeing?” Eydryth cried.

“I cannot be sure,” Alon said, “but I think this… mirror… is actually a Gate, one of those that lead to other places— perhaps even other worlds. We are seeing what lies on the other side of this Gate, I believe.”

The songsmith caught her breath sharply, for even as Alon finished speaking, a figure shuffled into view, leaning on a short walking staff, and stood silhouetted against the dark mouth of the cave. At first they could make out nothing except that it was alive, and human, for the light was so wan and its clothing so shapeless and drab that age or features—even its sex—were impossible to discern.

It stopped; then they heard its voice, low and commanding, causing the first torch to flare into life and causing another to ignite with a reluctant sputter.

Eydryth squinted against the sudden light. In a moment her eyes adjusted and she could see again. The newcomer was a woman, clothed in a tattered grey hooded robe. Her features were shadowed by her hood, but from the appearance of her hands, and the presence of the walking staff, the songsmith thought she must be well past middle years. But she moved spryly enough as she bustled around the cave, humming tunelessly as she set out candles, then traced a design upon the stony floor with a wand she produced from her sleeve.

The lines she drew glowed blue as they formed a distinct shape. “A pentagram,” Eydryth breathed, recognizing the age-old symbol that was prerequisite to a spell of summoning. “Is she a witch of Estcarp?”

“She wears no jewel,” Alon pointed out, “but the color of her Power is correct. The witches deal in theurgy, the harnessing of will, faith and emotion to work their magic. Blue is the color of theurgy.”

The woman stared at her pentagram, gave a satisfied nod, then raised a hand. The dark candles she had placed at the points of the star-shape burst into flame. She stepped out of her watchers’ line of vision for a moment, but soon returned, carrying a net that writhed as the creature tangled within struggled vainly to escape, uttering small, piercing shrieks of fear.

Beside her, Alon stiffened with horrified recognition. “A Flannan!” he whispered.

Eydryth had heard of the small creatures that could take on the guise of either bird or small, winged mannikin. In Arvon and High Hallack they were naught more than legend, but the people of Estcarp told of how they had been seen in Escore near Dahaun’s Valley of the Green Silences.

Flannan made flighty, unreliable allies, due to their capricious nature, but never had they been allied with the Dark. Snapping out a few short words that made Alon draw in his breath with a hiss, the woman thrust her hand into the net bag. Then the witch (for so Eydryth now thought of her) withdrew the small creature, clutching the Flannan by the scruff of its scrawny neck. It was not in its bird-form… its body bore arms and legs in addition to the wings that trailed limply down its back. The creature halted its struggles and now dangled bonelessly from the woman’s hand, either drugged or bespelled into calmness.

The songsmith watched in shock as the witch reached into a sheath at her belt and withdrew a black-hilted athame. “No!” Eydryth whispered, in an agony of helplessness. She grasped Alon’s arm, her fingers digging in painfully as the woman brought the blade up to the Flannan’s throat, and, with a quick, ruthless thrust, pricked it deeply. Red flowed in a steady stream.

Eydryth had seen death dealt before, but always in clean and open battle—never like this. She pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle a cry, as the witch, chanting softly, began to encircle the pentagram, dribbling the weakly spasming Flannan’s blood onto the stone floor of the cave.

As the blood of the dying creature congealed upon the cold rock, the blue light darkened, taking on a sickly purplish tinge. The yellow flames atop the dark candles blackened, until they were the same color as the wax. As she neared the end of her obscene task, grasping the limp and now plainly dead mannikin, the witch’s chanting grew louder.

“What is she doing?” Eydryth whispered, fighting the urge to cower, hands over her ears, to shut out the sound. The witch’s chanting was growing physically painful to hear.

“Some kind of summoning,” Alon replied in a strained whisper. Eydryth glanced at his face in the moonlight and saw that he looked as sickened as she felt. “And a powerful one. She is invoking the Name of one of the most deadly of the Dark Adepts.”

Circle complete, the witch’s voice rose still higher as she gestured with her wand, raising her arms so high that her sleeves fell back from her flabby flesh and bony wrists. A blackish purple mist coiled upward out of the circle, hiding the pentagram from their view.

With a last, high-pitched cry of triumph, a sound that made Eydryth gasp and clap her hands over her ears, the witch fell silent. For long moments she stood poised; then she began to laugh delightedly. The skin at the back of the girl’s neck crawled as though leeches had fastened there.

Within the smoky confines of the circle, trapped by the protective boundaries of the pentagram, something now moved, at first slowly, then thrashing wildly in frantic struggles. A deep male voice cried out in fear, then cursed foully.

Flashes of Power crackled within the boundary cast by the circle-spell. Power that bore the dark purple hue of the Shadow. With a low, crooning sound, the witch stretched out her arms toward the circle, and the lines of Power arced toward her, encircled her wrists, then flowed up her arms, writhing like serpents formed from the essence of the Darkness. They crossed the witch’s breast, met over her heart, then pulsed, as though pumping their substance into her body. She gasped, transfixed with pain or pleasure, it was impossible to tell which.

But there was no doubt about the reaction of that dimly seen figure trapped within the circle. The man screamed in agony, as those lines of Power pulsed, feeding themselves into the witch. The prisoner’s shriek rose higher and higher—

—abruptly, there was silence. The lines of Power disappeared into the witch’s body, and slowly the mist faded away.

Eydryth saw that a man now stood within the pentagram, a tall man with a haughty, handsome face that bore the unmistakable stamp of the Old Race. He could have been Alon’s father, or older brother, for the resemblance between them was strong. The stranger was wearing a hunter’s or forester’s garb… short cloak, leather jerkin, brown breeches and high, soft boots. An ornate jeweled dagger hung at his belt, and a more businesslike short sword rode his hip.

As the last wisps of mist vanished, he stared at the woman who fronted him in the darkened cave with horrified realization distorting his well-cut features.

“My Power—,” he began in a choked voice.

“Is now mine, Lord Dinzil!” the witch crowed exultantly.

“But… why?” he asked dazedly.

The woman’s features were still shadowed from Eydryth’s view, but her voice bore a cruel smile. “You are a male, and for a male to have sorcerous abilities is a thing against nature.” Her head lifted proudly. “Women are the only rightful vessels of Power. I lost most of mine, many years ago, but now…” She flexed her fingers and purple light outlined them for a moment. “… what I lost, I have regained… aye, all that, and more… more!”

“Dinzil!” Alon whispered softly. “I should have known… ”

“Who is he?” Eydryth asked, glancing up at him.

Her companion shook his head. “Later.”

Suddenly the Dark Adept gave a low moan of distress and staggered. He put one hand to his head, then pulled it away with a cry of dismay, the fingers splayed widely. Eydryth could clearly make out the prominent veining and mottled skin of the elderly. As she watched, they crooked suddenly with the painful joint-rheum suffered by the aged. The Adept’s features took on years as dry bread soaks up broth. Lines scored his cheeks; silver frosted his black hair. “My Power…” the sorcerer whispered, “my Power…”

“Was all that was keeping you young, I fear, my lord,” the witch told him calmly. “Now that it is gone, your years will come upon you… and those years are many, are they not?”

Dinzil did not answer her. Shudders racked his tall body, and with each spasm he seemed to shrink and wither apace. His hair grew white and sparse, wisping around a face that now resembled aged parchment crumpled by a careless hand. Then his lips parted in a gasp of agony and teeth cascaded out, rattling down onto the stone at his feet. Dinzil held out a now-withered claw to the witch, and they heard a voice, no longer strong and resonant, but shrill and breathless emerge from his near-toothless mouth. “I would curse you if I still could, witchwoman… curse you with my last breath.”

The witch laughed.

“Ah, yes,” the ancient man that had been Dinzil, the Dark Adept, wheezed, “laugh while you may, witchwoman. But even if my ill wishes have no teeth left to rend you, still you will find yourself cursed. The Left-Hand Path is a most demanding one. The Dark levies a heavy price on the spirits of its servants. You will realize before you die exactly what you have called into yourself, and therein lies my curse. May it fall soon!”

“ You are the one who should worry about death, my lord,” the witch mocked him. She raised a hand to push back her hood a little, and they saw that it had changed, was now firm-fleshed and slender. A lock of hair escaped from beneath the loosened hood, and that hair was now sable, as Dinzil’s had been.

With a careless wave the witch caused the candles to snuff out; then she indicated the cave mouth. “And now, our business is done, my lord. You are no longer welcome here, so may I suggest that you take your leave? You will find the land without this cave to be a familiar one, I daresay… though the inhabitants hereabouts have little reason to love you, I believe.”

With a courage and dignity that Eydryth had to admire, Dark Adept or no, Dinzil drew himself up as straight as he might, then tottered feebly toward the entrance. “Here, you will doubtless need this, grandsire,” the witch said mockingly, handing him the walking staff that had been hers. For a moment Eydryth thought that he would fling the stick at his tormentor, but he did not speak or look back.

The witch quickly eradicated the traces of her spell with her wand; then she picked up a pack from the corner and slung it over her shoulder. “And now,” she muttered, “to essay that mirror.”

She turned to face her watchers, and for the first time they were able to discern her features clearly. Eydryth saw that she was plainly of the Old Race, a woman of early middle years, with strong, boldly marked features that were too thin and driven to hold any beauty.

Just then the songsmith heard Alon’s soft gasp of recognition. “Yachne!” he whispered. “How—why—”

Eydryth’s mouth dropped open. The Wise Woman who had taught him his first magic! Was it indeed she on the other side of this arcane mirror-portal, engaged in a Dark rite? She remembered Alon’s face as he’d spoken of her, remembered his words: “But I never wanted to be a dagger for her honing.”

The woman walked toward them, raised her wand, then muttered a few words. A purple glow awoke within the depths of the crystal mirror, painting her features with a sickly light. As she stared into her side of the crystal, her eyes abruptly widened. For the first time, she was aware of her watchers.

“Who—,” she began; then she broke off, her gaze holding Alon’s. “Why, it is my young charge, all grown up,” she said after a moment, then smiled in a fashion that made Eydryth put hand to the hilt of the sword resting within her quarter-staff.

“Young Alon, well-met, well-met indeed! I was planning to seek you out, though perhaps not so soon. There are others I must visit first, before I will be ready to take on one who apprenticed with Hilarion.”

“You know—” Alon broke off even before Eydryth could nudge him to silence. Power this woman might have, knowledge, also, no doubt, but they did not need to give her aught that she did not already know.

“Oh, I know… I know much, my fine young Adept. Much more than I did even a half-hour ago, as you no doubt witnessed. How did you happen by, Alon? Chance? That seems unlikely. Well, perhaps you were drawn by my spelling. After all, Power does call to Power, does it not?”

Alon remained silent, and the witch, for the first time, turned her attention to Eydryth. “And who is your fair companion, Alon? Your bride? Or is she something less… formal, perhaps? Your leman?”

The songsmith had heard battle-taunts before, and did not allow her face to change at Yachne’s insult, but Alon stepped forward with an angry imprecation. “No, Alon,” Eydryth said, softly, catching his arm, “that’s what she wants.”

“Perceptive girl,” the witch said, amused. There was a wild glitter in her eyes that Eydryth thought was not wholly due to the purple glow from her side of the crystal. The younger woman swallowed, suddenly more frightened than she had been all night. “And what symbol it is that you bear on that staff of yours?” Yachne asked, her eyes narrowing with speculation. A moment later, she gave a shout of laughter. “Oh, very good! Very good indeed! The gryphon-lord! Landisl’s vessel, Kerovan himself, gave that to you, did he not? Perhaps… yes, I shall visit him next!”

“Visit him for what?” Eydryth demanded, mostly to stall for time, for she had a sick feeling that she already knew whereof the witch spoke.

“I must visit them all, my dear,” Yachne said, in a mock-confiding tone. “All the abominations, all the unnatural creatures that possess Power without any right to it. Males!” She spat. “They hold my sisters in bondage, subject to their disgusting lusts, their violence and greed. There are enough males with undeserved Power to make me the most powerful sorceress this world has ever seen. Lord Kerovan, that disgusting half-blooded monster, shall indeed be next…”

A face appeared before them, one that Eydryth knew well, black-haired, with amber eyes that were slitted of pupil, like unto a goat’s. “And also his son, Firdun.” The image in the crystal altered to that of Eydryth’s foster-brother. “He is young, but they told me that he will be one of the Seven, so he must be taken care of…”

“Who is ‘they’? And what are ‘the Seven’?” Alon broke in, sharply, but Yachne ignored him. Her eyes were half-closed as she dreamily regarded the images she was conjuring. “And of course I must not forget Simon Tregarth, and his unnatural whelps…” Three strongly marked faces, one older, the next two so alike in age and feature they could only be brothers, appeared in turn.

“And then you, my dear young Alon, I am afraid that you must be next…” Alon’s own features glimmered before them. “I will be quick, my dear, so fear not. You will not suffer, that I promise. And if you wish, I shall let you remain alive, so you can be with your young lady, here.” She smiled at him gently. “Perhaps you could take up farming, since you will no longer be fitted for a life as a sorcerer!”

“You’re mad,” Alon said softly, and, for the first time since they had met, Eydryth heard fear in his voice.

“Certainly not!” she glared at him, shaken out of her reverie. “I have thought it through most carefully. The strongest of the abominations is Hilarion himself, and I shall need all of your combined Power before I can best him.”

A last image formed on the crystal surface, that of a man who was still barely past youth in feature, but whose eyes bore the wisdom—much of it sad—of ages past.

“Yachne,” Alon said, and Eydryth could tell that he was fighting to keep his voice even, “where did you learn that spell? When I knew you—before—you did not possess such abilities.”

She smiled at him. “My abilities were not something you could measure, my dear. But you have the right of it… I did not know this spell until they taught it to me.”

“Who?” he prodded.

But abruptly her urge to confide vanished, and she shook her head, her eyes as bright and cunning as those of a rasti run mad. “No, I think not, young Alon. That you must discover for yourself—if you dare. And now—” Her hand moved quickly over the surface of the crystal, and she chanted softly beneath her breath. “—I bid you farewell…”

As the last syllable left her lips, she strode toward them. Eydryth gasped with terror. Fighting she knew, either with fists or steel, but Yachne was something far outside her experience, and instinct made her recoil. She ducked behind Alon, despising herself for such cowardice but unable to control her reaction.

When she dared to look again, expecting to find the witch before them on the ledge, there was only the view of the empty stone cave. “But… where did she go?” she asked, in blank astonishment. “I thought she would step through and be here.”

“She activated her side of the crystal,” Alon said absently, standing before the mirrored surface and studying it, head tilted to one side. “She went through it, to somewhere else. Probably to seek out this Kerovan she spoke of.”

“Kerovan! No… oh, no!” Eydryth buried her face in her hands, trying by force of will to control her panic. Finally she was able to raise her head and say, tersely, “Do you remember my telling you of the lord and lady who raised me after my mother vanished and my father was mind-blasted? That was Lord Kerovan and his lady, Joisan! Alon, we must stop Yachne!”

“If she has all of Dinzil’s abilities, she will make a formidable opponent,” he said bleakly.

“Who is—or, rather, was—this Dinzil?”

“The strongest of the Dark Adepts from the days when Escore lay under the lash of the Shadow,” he told her. “He kidnapped and nearly seduced Kaththea, my foster-mother, when she was but a maid. Seduced her, not in body, but in mind, so she turned from her family, and the Light, to the Darkness. It was only by the courage of her brother, Kemoc, who dared to enter the Dark Tower and seek her out, that she was saved. Dinzil disappeared after his forces were defeated. We always suspected that he had passed through some Gate of his own devising.”

“Until Yachne summoned him.”

“Yes. This Kerovan, he is a sorcerer also?”

“Kerovan has, in the past, wielded the magic of the ancient gryphon-lord, Landisl,” Eydryth said. “But he cannot rely upon Landisl’s Power. He has abilities of his own, true, but whether they would prove enough to best one like Yachne…” She shuddered. “She is mad, Alon.”

“Yes.”

“If we cannot stop her, we must at least warn Kerovan of his danger!”

“I agree,” Alon said. “But for us to essay this Gate will take some doing. I have never opened one before.”

“Did Hilarion teach you to do so?”

“He taught me the principles involved. But he warned me against such an action, reminding me of the time that he opened a Gate, entered another world, then found himself trapped and enslaved for thousands of our years.”

Eydryth remembered that Alon had mentioned such before, and bit her lip. “But to be able to step from one place to another—one land to another, in a single heartbeat—we must chance it! We have no hope of catching her, else.”

“I know,” he said heavily. “Let me study how this can be accomplished, while you pack our gear and prepare as hearty as a meal as possible. Using the Power drains the energy… food will offset that loss by a small measure.”

Eydryth nodded, and, in the grey light of predawn, went to do as he bade. She found that she was too upset to have much appetite, but forced herself to eat, not knowing when they would have the chance again. Alon chewed and swallowed mechanically, never taking his eyes from the portal, occasionally muttering snatches of arcane words beneath his breath, as if trying them out.

“Eydryth,” he said, as the sun’s rising flushed the snowcapped peaks that towered above them to the east with crimson, “lend me that talisman you bear, please.”

“Talisman…” she repeated uncertainly; then, following his gaze, she drew her gryphon-hilted sword with its two bits of quan-iron embedded for eyes. “Here.”

“There are ways and ways to open Gates,” the young Adept said, “but since this one is made of crystal, I believe that it may be activated by sound. Crystals give off musical notes when struck.” So saying, he tapped the center of the mirrored surface with the gryphon’s head. A clear, ringing tone filled the air—a note holding some of the same eerieness as the faintly heard sound that had awakened the songsmith last night.

“Mmmmmmm…” Alon sang, trying, without notable success, to match that tone. Not only was his voice too deep, his sense of pitch and key were far off the mark. He frowned, then turned to his companion. “My lady, can you sing that note?”

“It is high,” she said, consideringly, “and I am an alto. But perhaps… Strike it again, please.”

He did so, and Eydryth raised her voice. She fell far short of her goal. “I have not sung in days,” she said, “but perhaps if I warm up…”

“Try,” he urged.

The songsmith attempted several scales, and then, in a few minutes, when her throat improved, sang several songs to exercise her range. Alon grinned as she finished with “The One-Spell Wizard.”

“Let us hope that I have more than one spell to my name,” he said dryly.

“Strike the crystal again,” the bard ordered, and when he did so, her voice soared up, matching the note perfectly.

As Eydryth’s voice hung in the air, the crystal glowed violet, bathing Alon’s face and hands in its light. Something flashed outward from its surface, and he exclaimed with surprise to find himself holding a perfectly formed crystal, clear on one end, amethyst on the other. And yet, Eydryth realized with amazement, as she let the sound die away, the surface of the mirror remained unmarred!

“What is it?” she asked, as he examined the mirror’s gift, holding it up to the sunlight so that it made prisms across his features.

“Our key for unlocking this Gate,” he said. “I only hope it works. Monso!” he called, and the Keplian, snorting warily, came over to him.

Alon reached out and caught the creature’s long, thick forelock, then quickly began twisting and twining the horsehair around the crystal to anchor it against the stallion’s forehead. “What are you doing?” Eydryth asked curiously.

“I won’t leave Monso behind,” he said. “We will need him, if we are to catch up with Yachne, who is traveling afoot.”

Finally he was done, and the mirror’s gift rested within a little bag twined from horsehair that hung between Monso’s eyes. Alon then swung up into the saddle, offering a hand to the songsmith. He still held her quarterstaff in his right hand.

“When I sound the note,” he instructed, “you must sing it, holding it as long as possible—no matter what you may see or feel, do not, I entreat you, stop, or all our lives may be forfeit!”

“I understand,” she said steadily.

Urging Monso forward with his legs, Alon reached out toward the mirror. But the Keplian shied back from the strange surface, snorting. “Easy, easy lad,” he soothed the beast. “I know that this is passing strange, but you must stand steady while I strike!”

Twice more did Alon urge the stallion forward, only to have him shy away at the last moment. “Monso!” Alon commanded, a commanding ring to his voice. “Get hup!”

The half-bred took a final reluctant step forward, to stand so close to the crystal surface that his breath misted across it like a cloud. Alon struck the surface with the gryphon’s head, and Eydryth matched the tone and held it—

—held it—

—then saw before her the mirror’s surface change, glow, as it became misty… translucent. “Go!” yelled Alon, bending down and slapping the stallion’s neck hard.

With a startled grunt the Keplian surged forward, his sudden leap nearly unseating Eydryth. Almost her voice faltered, but she forced herself not to waver.

Before her the Keplian’s forehooves disappeared into the amethyst smoke, then his muzzle, neck, shoulders… Eydryth closed her eyes as the mist struck her face, bringing with it a vast dizziness and disorientation.

But she held the note steady, despite it all, and a moment later felt beneath her the shock of Monso’s hooves striking solid rock.

They were in the witch’s cavern.

With a sobbing breath, the songsmith finally relinquished the crystal’s note, and gazed around her in despair. “Where are we? I thought we would go where Yachne went!”

Alon turned Monso, careful of the surrounding stone walls, to gaze at the mirror within the cavern. “To do that, we must go through that mirror,” he said, sounding so exhausted that Eydryth wondered how he managed to sit upright upon the Keplian.

“Then let us go!” she urged.

He shook his head grimly. “At the moment, I do not believe that would be the wisest course,” he said quietly.

“Whyever not?” she demanded, wanting to shake him in her impatience to warn her foster-father of his danger. “We must save Kerovan! We can’t afford to waste time!”

“Do not forget that she is walking, while we will be riding,” he reminded her. “And after such a major feat of sorcery as opening not one, but two Gates, I feel sure that Yachne must needs rest for today.” Alon sighed wearily. “But, my lady, those are not my two most pressing reasons for wanting to wait.”

“Then what are they?”

“This is the first,” Alon said, and, dropping Monso’s reins, made a pass through the air with the quarter staff and muttered beneath his breath. He was using, Eydryth thought, the same words as Yachne had voiced.

Obediently the mirror came to life, glowing with a sickly blackish-purple radiance that made Eydryth turn her head awaywith a cry of dismay. “This mirror represents the Dark-side of the moon-crystal we leaped through. For us to use it to get to Arvon may be exceedingly dangerous.”

“To our spirits,” the songsmith agreed, through stiff lips. Seeing that eerie phosphorescent glow, she could well believe that he spoke truth.

“Even so.”

“But Alon, we will have to risk it! Arvon is hundreds of leagues away, across the sea! We could never track Yachne in time, otherwise!”

“You may have the right of it,” he agreed. “But do not forget that there is a second reason not to go immediately…”

“Which is?” she asked, conscious suddenly of a great tiredness in her own body. It seemed all she could do to hold on to Alon’s belt.

“I will show you.” He reined Monso around and walked the Keplian out of the mouth of the cave, down a rocky trail, until they rounded a bend and stood upon a mountainside.

The sun was rising against the eastern horizon, with no mountains to block its rays. Alon indicated the surrounding countryside. “We are in Escore, my lady. If I am not mistaken, where we sit is not more than a half-day’s ride from the Valley of the Green Silences.”

“Dahaun’s Valley!” Eydryth said, remembering their discussion with Nolar and Duratan. “The place of healing!”

“Yes. I have known about that Valley since I was a youth, of course, but I could not reveal my knowledge of such without giving myself away to you,” he said ruefully. “So I made shift to ‘discover’ that scroll in Nolar’s study.”

“When all the time you knew!” she said, giving him a mock glare. “But is it true? Can the Lady Dahaun heal my father?”

“I cannot be sure. On one edge of the Valley lies a place of healing. There are pools of a red mud there that can overcome any injury or sickness. Death, if a victim can but reach that spot, has no power there. Whether Dahaun’s red mud will work on an injury of the mind…” He shrugged. “I know not.”

“But Kerovan… Yachne…” She made a helpless gesture. “She will destroy him if we do not stop her!”

“Are you prepared to give up your quest, sacrifice your father’s chance to be healed in order to save this Lord Kerovan?”

Eydryth stared bleakly out over the rolling green hills of Escore, feeling as though her heart had been ruthlessly seized by unseen hands and was being pulled apart within her breast. Blessed Gunnora, what shall I do? I cannot choose between one and the other! I cannot! Amber Lady, help me!