There would be no difficulty in finding a crevasse suitable for a trap. They were everywhere, waiting innocently for an unwary foot above. It did surprise him a little that Blue Child had let her warriors be drawn off by a promise of mammoth, mirages being what they were in this land. Still, he had been hungry enough to go hunting a putative lemming, from time to time.
Two turnings to the left in pitchy gloom, the pattern of lichen and fungus familiar on the wall beside him.
Frost here-turn aside. A trick of shadow concealing the doorway, then up steps, endless and spiraling, the smell of dust and death and rotting plants rising around him like the slow heat of a stove.
Blue fox fire outlined doorways and turnings, then vanished. Nearly on top of him something screamed in the ragged voice of a puma, what felt like claws raking his face. The Icefalcon's sword was in his hand and he was cutting, a checked stroke to avoid damaging the blade on the wall...
And of course it met nothing. There was the puma scream again, claws ripping his sleeve. He felt them catch and pull, felt the seep of hot blood underneath, but there was no cold-the sleeve hadn't been torn.
If it wasn't exactly an illusion, he thought, forcing himself to walk on, it was meant for the same purpose, to get him to run and lose himself in the labyrinth. The demons, too, took strength from the magic of the Keep.
The thing screamed in his ear for another dozen yards, then let him alone. He heard it scream again, muffled by distance and by turnings; heard a man's shriek of terror and the thunder of running feet. Fool.
"What happened?" gasped Hethya when he came into the chamber of Silence. He put up his hand to his face, and his fingers came away bloodied.
"Demons. I need Hethya to help me, Scarface. The warriors of Vair are hunting for Ingold everywhere on this level." Time enough later to tell the boy Vair had found the transporter. "Is there some safer place where you can hide?"
Tir nodded. "There's a room above this one, on the fourth level. You can't see the door. You have to count steps. Fifteen from the last corner before the wall. You can't see the door from inside, either."
"Will you be well there?" Hethya asked worriedly, as if, thought the Icefalcon, Tir hadn't thought the matter out before speaking.
Tir nodded. "I'll be fine."
"You won't be afraid?"
"No.
"And what did you think the boy would say?" whispered the Icefalcon as they ascended a stone thread of stair to the level above.
"Yes, I'lI be terrified? Of course he will be afraid." He watched while Tir counted careful steps and then pushed at the black stone of the wall. The wall yielded nothing. The Icefalcon paced off fourteen of his own long strides and tested the wall. As with Ingold's body, his hand seemed enveloped in shadow-it was indeed difficult to see anything in the dim lamplight-and he stepped through into a close-smelling blackness.
He reached back immediately and drew the others in, Hethya holding up the lamp. A ribbon of water ran down the wall into a basin, and where the water came out, lichen and fungus and the ubiquitous vines choked the ancient spigot. The whole room was foul with leathery leaves.
The Icefalcon thrust his sword into every vine and clump of toadstools, paced off the confines of the room, then cut the dead vines away, clearing a space for a fire and at the same time making something to burn.
He was very tired now and though food had made him sick before, he felt the need of it desperately, muscles aching and all his flesh deathly cold. His hair had come unbraided from the he snatchings of demons, hanging down his back in a cloak the hue of moonlight and getting in his way every time he turned his head.
He kindled a little fire and laid down two sticks of vine to show where the door was on the inside. "We'll be back," he said.
Tir looked hopelessly tiny and hopelessly young. "I'm not afraid."
The Icefalcon kindled the vine-stem torch. "You may be the only one in the Keep to be saying that. Sleep if you can."
Though the dreams in this place, he thought, were not something that he would wish upon a friend, or on a friend's son.
"They've found the transporter," he said to Hethya as they descended again. "Loses His Way has a plan, he says, to keep Vair from getting more men, but the Keep will need to be warned, if we can devise it."
In the corridors of the second level a clone crawled along on his hands and knees, bawling out names at the top of his lungs. Elsewhere footsteps raced by them, ghostly and bodiless but fleet with the speed of panic, and the Icefalcon thought he heard the tearing intake of breath.
The Keep was alive.
"I never thought that it would be like this," whispered Hethya, hurrying at his side. "Never."
"And what did you think it would be like?"
"Like home, mostly." Hethya shook her head. "Only musty, empty. They can't have stayed here all that long, it's so... so tidy. I don't know if you've been to Prandhays Keep, me lanky friend, but it's a fair warren, worse than Renweth, at least what I saw of Renweth. Fat chance I'll ever have of them invitin' me back when this is over, and small blame to 'em. Mother..."
She hesitated, her breath indrawn, then let it go. The Icefalcon touched her arm, holding her back.
Something moved in the corridor ahead, near the rectangle of wavering light that marked where the Aisle would be.
His sword was already in his hand. He scanned the walls quickly, looking for another door, a way to get behind whatever lay ahead of them.
A voice whispered, "Icefalcon."
Loses His Way. He felt Hethya's breath come in for reply-they'd doused the torch some way back-and he squeezed her arm, hard. There was more than one in the corridor.
From another shadow, the same voice breathed, "It's all right." There was no mistaking the voice of Loses His Way.
"By the Corn-Woman's hair-sticks, man, we have no time!"
The voice-the same voice as the first two-spoke from yet another shadow, and they all stepped forward at once, outlined against the flickering reflections of the torchlight in the Aisle. Cold passed through the Icefalcon like the onset of mortal sickness.
He made himself step forward, say, "I'm here."
Beside him, Hethya whispered, "Dear God in heaven," and he heard the rustle of the mammoth-wool coat she wore as she made a sign to avert evil.
But evil had already come-and gone. There were four of him. Them.
No. My enemy, no.
The process of shredding, of peeling the flesh from the screaming bones, remade as well as made. All four of Loses Their Way had their teeth once more, and none bore the bruises of Vair's beating.
He looked different, with neither hair nor beard, the broad face far younger, the strong chin and generous mouth odd and prominent. The Icefalcon wondered if the scar he'd given Loses His Way at the Place of the Sugar Maples was gone.
The words of Tir came back to him: That's where they put the needles in... And Ingold: The power is self-aligning...
Who knew what he had learned from watching Bektis in the chamber before Hethya rescued him or what Tir had told him of what he had seen?
His people being lured into danger, his daughter dishonored by Bektis' illusion...
O my enemy, no.
They had divided his clothing among them, like the sons of a man who has died. One wore his boots, another his shirt of wolfhide, another his leggings, under a makeshift assortment of garments stripped from the corpses in the vat-room, the commissariat where clothing and weapons were stored. One of them carried all four spiritbags, still bound at his belt.
They were all armed, too.
Hethya's eyes were wide, suddenly filled with tears. "O my friend," she said softly.
Loses His Way-one Loses His Way-shook his head: "Woman, we have no friends among the people of the Real World but our kin." He spoke slowly, laboriously putting together the words with wits divided and dulled, and his voice was sad. "This my enemy"-he put a heavy arm around the Icefalcon's shoulders, hugged him hard-"he is dear to me as a son, but he is my enemy. My kin would kill him the moment they saw him."