I laughed at that.
"A fine pet, Lur—to add to your wolves."
She walked toward the door, paused.
"What if I could love you—as I loved Dwayanu? Could make you love me as Dwayanu loved me? And more! Send the dark girl to join her people and take the ban of death from them on this side of Nanbu. Would you let things be as they are—rule with me over Karak?"
I opened the door for her.
"I told you I no longer care for power, Lur."
She walked away.
I went back to the window, drew a chair to it, and sat thinking. Suddenly from somewhere close to the citadel I heard a wolf cry. Thrice it howled, then thrice again.
"Leif!"
I jumped to my feet. Evalie was beside me. She peered at me through the veils of her hair; her clear eyes shone upon me—no longer doubting, hating, fearing. They were as they were of old.
"Evalie!"
My arms went round her; my lips found hers.
"I listened, Leif!"
"You believe, Evalie!"
She kissed me, held me tight.
"But she was right—Leif. You could not go with me again into the land of the Little People. Never, never would they understand. And I would not dwell in Karak."
"Will you go with me, Evalie—to my own land? After I have done what I must do…and if I am not destroyed in its doing?"
"I will go with you, Leif!"
And she wept awhile, and after another while she fell asleep in my arms. And I lifted her, and carried her into her chamber and covered her with the sleep silks. Nor did she awaken.
I returned to my own room. As I passed the table I picked up the locket, started to put it round my neck. I threw it back. Never would I wear that chain again, I dropped upon the bed, sword at hand. I slept.
Chapter XXIII
In Khalk'ru's Temple
Twice I awakened. The first time it was the howling of the wolves that aroused me. It was as though they were beneath my window. I listened drowsily, and sank back to sleep.
The second time I came wide awake from a troubled dream. Some sound in the chamber had roused me, of that I was sure. My hand dropped to my sword lying on the floor beside my bed. I had the feeling that there was someone in the room. I could see nothing in the green darkness that filled the chamber. I called, softly:
"Evalie! Is that you?"
There was no answer, no sound.
I sat up in the bed, even thrust a leg out to rise. And then I remembered the guards at my door, and Dara and her soldiers beyond, and I told myself that it had been only my troubled dream that had awakened me. Yet for a time I lay awake listening, sword in hand. And then the silence lulled me back to sleep.
There was a knocking upon my door, and I struggled out of that sleep. I saw that it was well after dawn. I went to the door softly so that I might not awaken Evalie. I opened it, and there with the guards was Sri. The little man had come well armed, with spear and sickle–sword and between his shoulders one of the small, surprisingly resonant talking drums. He looked at me in the friendliest fashion. I patted his hand and pointed to the curtains.
"Evalie is there, Sri. Go waken her."
He trotted past me. I gave greeting to the guards, and turned to follow Sri. He stood at the curtains, looking at me with eyes in which was now no friendliness at all. He said:
"Evalie is not there."
I stared at him, incredulously, brushed by him and into that chamber. It was empty. I crossed to the pile of silks and cushions on which Evalie had slept, touched them. There was no warmth. I went, Sri at my heels, into the next room. Dara and a half dozen of the women lay there, asleep. Evalie was not among them. I touched Dara on the shoulder. She sat up, yawning.
"Dara—the girl is gone!"
"Gone!" she stared at me as incredulously as I had at the golden pygmy. She leaped to her feet, ran to the empty room, then with me through the other chambers. There lay the soldier women, asleep, but not Evalie.
I ran back to my own room, and to its door. A bitter rage began to possess me. Swiftly, harshly, I questioned the guards. They had seen no one. None had entered; none had gone forth. The golden pygmy listened, his eyes never leaving me.
I turned toward Evalie's room. I passed the table on which I had thrown the locket. My hand fell on it, lifted it; it was curiously light…I opened it…The ring of Khalk'ru was not there! I glared at the empty locket—and like a torturing flame realization of what its emptiness and the vanishment of Evalie might signify came to me. I groaned, leaned against the table to keep from falling.
"Drum, Sri! Call your people! Bid them come quickly! There may yet be time!"
The golden pygmy hissed; his eyes became little pools of yellow fire. He could not have known all the horror of my thoughts—but he read enough. He leaped to the window, swung his drum and sent forth call upon call—peremptory, raging, vicious. At once he was answered—answered from Nansur, and then from all the river and beyond it the drums of the Little People roared out.
Would Lur hear them? She could not help but hear them…but would she heed…would their threat stop her…it would tell her that I was awake and that the Little People knew of their betrayal…and Evalie's.
God! If she did hear—was it in time to save Evalie?
"Quick, Lord!" Dara called from the curtains. The dwarf and I ran through. She pointed to the side of the wall. There, where one of the carved stones jointed another, hung a strip of silk.
"A door there, Dwayanu! That is how they took her. They went hurriedly. The cloth caught when the stone closed."
I looked for something to batter at the stone. But Dara was pressing here and there. The stone swung open. Sri darted past and into the black passage it had masked. I stumbled after him, Dara at my heels, the others following. It was a narrow passage, and not long. Its end was a solid wall of stone. And here Dara pressed again until that wall opened.
We burst into the chamber of the High–priest. The eyes of the Kraken stared at me and through me with their inscrutable malignancy. Yet it seemed to me that in them now was challenge.
All my senseless fury, all blind threshing of my rage, fell from me. A cold deliberation, an ordered purpose that had in it nothing of haste took its place…Is it too late to save Evalie?…It is not too late to destroy you, my enemy…
"Dara—get horses for us. Gather quickly as many as you can trust. Take only the strongest. Have them ready at the gate of the road to the temple…We go to end Khalk'ru. Tell them that."
I spoke to the golden pygmy.
"I do not know if I can help Evalie. But I go to put an end to Khalk'ru. Do you wait for your people—or do you go with me?"
"I go with you."
I knew where the Witch–woman dwelt in the black citadel, and it was not far away. I knew I would not find her there, but I must be sure. And she might have taken Evalie to the Lake of the Ghosts, I was thinking as I went on, past groups of silent, uneasy, perplexed and saluting soldiers. But deep in me I knew she had not. Deep within me I knew that it had been Lur who had awakened me in the night. Lur, who had stolen through the curtains to take the ring of Khalk'ru. And there was only one reason why she should have done that. No, she would not be at the Lake of the Ghosts.
Yet, if she had come into my room—why had she not slain me? Or had she meant to do this, and had my awakening and calling out to Evalie stayed her? Had she feared to go further? Or had she deliberately spared me?
I reached her rooms. She was not there. None of her women was there. The place was empty, not even soldiers on guard.