“Yes, for only one of courage could do so. You are ready? I have given you such protection as I know.”
“I am ready.”
I waited until she poured within the cup a blend of liquids from two of her bottles. Then I stepped within the star while she lit the candles. As they burned brightly, I heard her croon the Summons. But her voice was very faint and far away, as if she were not almost within arm’s-length but across a dale ridge.
But my eyes were on the interior of the cup where the liquid began to bubble. A mist from it filled my nostrils, though I did not turn my head aside. The mist drifted away and the liquid was a still mirror.
It was as if I were suspended in air, perhaps on wings. Below me was the spiral of the pillars. The curve of it wound around and around to a center heart.
And in that heart were people. They stood so still—unbreathing. Not people then, but images, so finely wrought they seemed alive. They, too, were in a spiral, one very near the heart, the others curling outward. And the last in that line—
Elyn!
As I recognized him, something knew me, or at least that I spied upon it. Not anger, no, rather contempt, amusement, scorn that so small and weak a thing as I would trouble it. Yet it was also—
I exerted my will, was back again among the steadily burning candles.
“You saw him?”
“Yes. Also I know where to find him. And that must be done swiftly.”
“Steel—weapons—will not save him.”
“Be sure I know that. Yet before she has never taken one tied to such as me. She has grown sure of herself, very sure, and that may work against her.”
Two things only, and small, but in my favor. Certainly no missing lord of Coomb Frome had before been sought by a Wise Woman blood-tied to him. Yet the time was so short. If Elyn stayed too long in that web he would be as those others, an image, not a man.
“There is a way privately from this Keep?” I asked.
“Yes. You would go at once?”
“I have no choice.”
She gave me things from her own store, two amulets, herbs. Then she took me by a hidden way between the walls, made for escape should the tower be besieged.
And she had her own serving maid bring a horse. Thus I rode out at dawning, armed and mounted, pulled by the thin thread my far-seeing had spun. How far I must go I had no idea, so that I kept the horse to the best pace I could since time was now my enemy. I slipped past patrols, mainly by using the craft of a Wise Woman to distort their sight of me. At last I was in the wild country beyond which was a maze of sharp-cut ravines and thick brush, so that I had to dismount many times and find a way by breaking or sword-slashing a path.
After one such bout of labor I stood, my hand on the saddle horn, resting before I pulled up again on the blowing horse. Then I knew I was being followed.
That such brush might conceal outlaws I was aware. Or even those from the Keep, mystified by their lord’s seeming return and new disappearance, come to track me. Any interference might be fatal to Elyn.
At least in such broken country I could find cover from which to watch my back trail and decide what to do. Sword in hand, I urged my horse within a screen of brush so thick that even autumn loss of leaves did not make it transparent. There I waited.
Whoever came was a master at woodcraft. And I thought of how my brother had ridden with those who struck hard behind enemy lines. But he who advanced so silent-footed, whom I might not have seen had he not inadvertently startled a bird, was Jervon.
Jervon, whom I had in the main forgotten since I had arrived at the Keep. But why? He should be making his own plans to join his lord.
I stepped from behind my screen.
“What do you on this road, swordsman?”
“Road?” His face was shadowed by his helm but I saw his eyebrows tilt upward. So did he look when he was amused. Though amusement had not come often during the days we had been together. “I would not call this wilderness a road, but perchance my eyes have been deceived. As for what I do here, well, did I not earlier say that one does not ride alone when company is offered—not in these days?”
“You cannot go with me!” My voice was a little high as I answered. For I sensed the stubbornness in him. And the road I followed was to such a battle as perhaps he could not imagine, and in which he would be enemy instead of friend.
“Very well. Ride on, my lady—” He agreed so readily that my anger sparked.
“And have you trail behind? I tell you, Jervon, this is no place for you. What I do is the art of the Wise Women. And I must also face a curse of the Old Ones—one strong enough still to man-slay.” I owed him the truth, for in no other way might I convince him that I was right.
But his expression did not change. “Have I not known this, or much of it, from the beginning? Go to war with your spells, but this is still debatable ground and there are human wolves as well as those strange menaces you have better knowledge of. What if you are attacked with steel and bolt before you reach your goal, or while you must keep your mind and strength for your sorcery?”
“You owe me no oath service. In fact you already have a lord. Seek him out as if your duty.”
“No oath did I give you, Lady Elys. But I took oath to myself. I stand at your back while you ride this way. And do not look to cast some spell on me to bring my will to naught. The Dame at the Keep gave me this.”
He reached within the throat of his mail shirt and drew forth a pendant of moon-silver wrought into a looped cross, and I knew he was right. Unless I expended on him strength I would need later, I could not overcome the protection that carried. But it was a shield for him where we went. Though I wondered at the Dame sending after me anyone unlearned in any Wise Craft.
“So be it,” I surrendered. “But this I lay upon you—if you feel aught—any compulsion—say so at once. There are spells to turn friends into enemies and open gates to great peril.”
“That I agree to.”
Thus I did not ride alone for the rest of the day. And at nightfall, which came early at that season, we halted on a ridge top where there were two great spires of rock standing. Between them we dismounted.
“You know where you go?” Jervon had traveled in silence most of the afternoon. Were it not for the sound of his passage behind me from time to time, I might well have forgotten I had a trail companion.
“I am drawn.” Though I did not explain farther. Now I was too much aware of something in this country before us, a troubling, an uneasiness, as if something which usually slumbered deep now stirred. And I was well aware, that learned as I was, I certainly could not provide an equal match for such as the Old Ones.
“Are we yet near or far?” he asked.
“Near—we must be near.” For so I read that troubling. “Which means—you must remain here.”
“Remember what I said.” His hand was on the loop cross. “I follow where you lead.”
“But in this country you need not fear any human,” I began, then read in his eyes that no word of mine would move him. Short of attacking him with sword, or spell, I had no chance at staying him. Though I wondered at his stubbornness, for which I could see no reason.
“You face a peril you cannot understand.” I put into that warning all the force I could muster. “We deal now not with those who fight with steel and strength of arm, but with other weapons you cannot dream of—”
“Lady, since I saw what the weapons of the Hounds did to Dorn, I keep an open mind concerning all and any arms.” Again there seemed to be a quirk of humor in his speech. “Also, since that day I have been, in a sense, living on time not mine, since by rights I should have died with those I loved and who made up my world. Thus I do not wager my life—for that I feel I no longer own. And there is in me a great desire to see how you wage war with these unheard-of strengths and unknown arms you speak of so knowingly. If we are close—let us to the battlefield then!”