I shook her, feeling the limp heaviness of her body, then, frantic when she did not rouse, slapped stingingly at her cheek. “Wake, my lady!”
Guret, whom I had outdistanced, came panting into the courtyard. “What happened?”
“She appears to be asleep, but I cannot wake her!”
Guret paled. “Is she hurt? Bleeding?”
“No.” I looked up at him, my lady’s head heavy against my arm. “There is the smell of sorcery about this.”
“Nidu?”
“Perhaps…” I looked over at the amulet. “Hand me that,” I said, beckoning at it.
When he did so, I took it in one hand, shutting my eyes to deepen my concentration. Gunnora, I thought. Amber Lady, hear me please. I know I am a male, but I ask your help for Joisan… Holding the carven sheaf of wheat in my palm, I pressed the talisman to my lady’s forehead, striving to reach her, call her.
Joisan… wake, please. By the Amber Lady, I summon you…Joisan… you cannot leave me… Joisan…
I continued to shut out all else, trying to picture my call sinking through the amulet into my lady’s mind, holding the image of her waking safe and whole. Joisan… dear heart, come back!
Suddenly her deep, regular breaths changed, sharpened into a startled gasp! I opened my eyes to see her looking up at me. “Kerovan? What chances—
I held her close as she trembled, clutching her as though something might arise from the stone flooring beneath us to take her from me. It seemed that all the strength of my arms was not enough to shield her. “Joisan! What happened? You were lying on the floor, with your amulet flung from you as though you took it off by choice…”
“I did.” Her voice was muffled against my chest but I was not about to loosen my grip. “When I looked out upon the mountain peak to where Car Re Dogan stood, I knew suddenly that Sylvya was trying to reach me—and that something was stopping her. So I took off my amulet.”
“Sylvya?” I questioned.
“The Other who has shared her story with me these past few months… she who once lived in Car Re Dogan. Oh, Kerovan, I at last discovered the end of her tale, and it was so dreadful—” Her words choked off in muffled sobs.
“Tell me,” I commanded, believing that sharing her distress might lessen her anguish.
9
Joisan
Kerovan’s voice was gentle, but his words were no request, rather a command. I knew as I gazed into his eyes, their amber darkened with concern, that it was time to part with at least one of my secrets. I sighed. “It was while you were gone that I began to dream. And in that dreaming I was no longer Joisan, but another, named Sylvya…”
So I continued, telling him of the sendings that had come to me, gradually revealing the story of Sylvya and her half brother Maleron, the Adept. Finally I reached the part of the tale that had begun today, in this courtyard facing the shrouded ruins of what must be Car Re Dogan. “I carried our gleanings into here, thinking only about kindling a fire for cooking; then, while I was standing over there, near the stone bowl, facing the arches, I could feel her, calling me. Never had our contact been so demanding, so real. I put the food down, and walked over to the opening…” turned my head to look at the arched emptiness cut into the blue stone. “I stood there, before it, knowing that Sylvya was out there, somewhere. That she needed to tell me something. But she couldn’t reach through—there was a wall between us. Then I felt a warmth on my breast, only to see my amulet glow, as though warding off the Shadow.”
Kerovan shook his head, as though he already realized what my next words must be. “Yes,” I admitted, “I took off the amulet, tossed it from me.”
His protesting “Joisan!” rang out at the same moment as Guret’s “Cera!”
“Don’t you understand—I had to know!” I cried. “Sylvya and her fate are important to me—to us. Somehow this is so.”
Kerovan made a brief, dismissive gesture. “Once done is done. What happened then?”
“I was back inside Sylvya’s body, seeing with her eyes, knowing I had just confronted Maleron with that terrible accusation of being Shadowed. He tried to deny that he had taken the Left-Hand Path—I think perhaps even he was not truly aware of just how many steps he had traveled down that route. But Sylvya defied him, telling him that he was the one who had meddled with spells to stop even Time itself, and thus had brought harm to the valley she loved…” I looked directly into Kerovan’s eyes. “This valley, my lord. The one and same.”
“What did Maleron do?”
“He naysaid his sister, accused her of being the one who was trafficking with the Shadow; then, when she would not retreat, would not take back her words, he became more and more enraged. Finally, Sylvya challenged him to prove himself untainted. Grabbing him by the wrist, she dragged him out of the room, taking him secretly down the ancient stone-chiseled road leading to the lowlands to the north, down the mountainside on the other side of that peak which is twin to this one we have claimed.”
I took a deep breath, my mouth dry from talking. Guret passed me a cup of the crystal liquid from the fountain, and he and my lord waited wordlessly while I drank. “Thank you, Guret. Ironically enough, this was Sylvya’s challenge—” I shook the last drops of water from the drinking vessel so they spattered onto the floor. “Water, running water. Most Shadowed Ones cannot cross it. Sylvya led Maleron to a tiny stream, skipped across it, and, once on the other side, dared him to follow.
“He tried. But as soon as his foot left the bank, he staggered back, sickened. Then, when he realized that his sister had indeed proved her point, won her challenge, his anger knew no bounding. He spoke words—words the like of which Arvon has not heard for long and long—mercifully. These words opened a Gate, and through that Gate came hunters and hounds, like unto none our world has known before. Maleron mounted himself on a steed spawned surely in some hellish otherworld, giving the order to loose those hounds.
“Sylvya panicked. The brook could not delay them indefinitely—sooner or later there would be a crossing place for them. She ran, that ghastly hunt racing after her.”
My eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Kerovan! That was long and long and long ago… and she has been running ever since.”
His horror of such a fate filled his eyes. “How could such a thing happen?”
“It was Sylvya’s doing. As she ran, she called out in desperation to Neave, begging the forces of Things As They Must Be to prevent the evil her brother had become from ever catching her. And those forces heard. Sylvya, Maleron—the entire hunt, quarry, hounds, and huntsmen alike—were transformed, shifted outside the bindings of Time as we know it. Sylvya could not be caught, but neither could she ever be free.
“Thus every night, at the same hour, that terrible hunt comes thundering up the ancient road, into the ruins of Car Re Dogan. They are part and parcel of no world, rather trapped in an endless existence somewhere between. But even their half presence is deadly.”
“Aye,” said Guret, with a quick, indrawn breath. “Any who stands in that path then must be drawn in and destroyed. As Jerwin was.”
I nodded at him.
“So that is the true nature of That Which Runs the Ridges in the night,” Kerovan said. “Poor Sylvya. To be trapped ever thus is a thing beyond any horror I have yet encountered…”
My hands knotted and unknotted the leathern thong holding Gunnora’s amulet. “I was shown all this for some reason,” I said. “There must be a way to free her!”