Elys had been far too right. That wood was ominously silent. Not a leaf stirred, no branch swayed. The growth was rooted like a dark green trap, set to swallow up a reckless venturer at its own time and in its own way. Behind it, now cutting off the setting sun, bulked that dark line of heights. Perhaps they stood guard on the very end of the world. One could believe any weird fancy here.
I was too restless to sit still for long. Twice I sought the small rise where I had found Elys, ever watching the wood. Only the horses moved within the oddly marked square of pasture. When I looked back over my shoulder I saw that Jervon had taken out a whetstone, was using it on his sword balde, though he continually glanced up and around with a keen measuring look such as a scout would use in unknown and perhaps dangerous territory.
Elys remained by the fire. Her back was straight, her head up, but I could see even from my perch that her eyes were closed, and still she had the attitude of one listening intensely. It was said that the Wisewomen at times were able to detach a part of their inner sense, send it questing in search of what could not be seen, felt, or heard—by the body.
Where was Kerovan? Who had he gone to deal with inside that silent wood? Why had he been welcomed within and I refused entrance? Had he arranged a meeting with one who did sentry duty there?
I was so impatient for some news of him that I could have raged in my frustration. The sun was gone, the sky was beginning to dim—though bright colors still spanned the sky with broad bands of brilliant hue.
Twilight always came to the Waste as a time of brooding evil, or so I had found it in the past. The shadows of these trees lengthened across the open meadow, crept and crawled toward us. Even as there had been in that thick mist that enclosed the ruin where I had met with my present companions, so here now grew the feeling that something—or things—used those shadows for sinister purposes, and that a threat of peril hung here.
Yet the last thing I could have done—a thing I could not force myself to think of doing—was to get to horse and ride away. Slowly, with heavy feet and a feeling of growing chill within me, I left the rise to return to the fireside. As I went I shook my head against those irrational fears—but I was not able to so rid my mind’s sensing of that brooding, watching something . . .
Jervon had put aside his stone, sheathed his sword. The world was all the more quiet when the scraping of his whetstone ceased. He came to Elys, dropped on his knees behind her. His hands went out to rest, one on each of her shoulders.
I saw her quiver at his touch, as if he had drawn her back out of some trance. Her eyes opened, yet she did not turn her head toward him.
“There is trouble?” he asked softly. I was on my feet again, looking at once to the wood.
Her eyes, though they now opened, remained blank. She did not focus on anything before her. At last one of her hands arose to close about his where it lay on her right shoulder. Again she shivered.
“If I only knew more.” Her cry held passion, even a note of despair. “Yes, there is something—something wrong—wrong—or else so different from us that there is no understanding it!”
Startled, I wheeled to look at that wood, for I thought only of it. Was Kerovan returning, perhaps accompanied by whoever dwelt here? But surely Kerovan, for all that strangeness in him since he had summoned Power (in spite of himself when he fronted Rogear and the rest), was not so unhuman as to be what Elys apparently now sensed.
“Who comes from the wood?” I demanded of her, all my fears aroused.
“Not the wood.” There was still enough of the lingering after-sunset light to see clearly what she did. She pulled out of Jervon’s hold, set both hands palm down on the earth where there was a patch bare of grass, leaving only the naked soil. There she leaned forward, her weight upon her arms and hands, while there was very strong about her that air of listening, of a need for concentration.
So tense she was that I found myself also kneeling, watching her hands against the earth as if one could expect a sudden upheaval of the soil there.
“Under”—she spoke so softly that I barely caught her whisper—“under . . .” I was sure I saw her hands whiten across the knuckles as if she exerted her full strength to hold down a force under the ground that was struggling with a matching effort to win free.
Then she threw herself backward and away, scrambled to her knees, seizing upon Jervon’s arm to drag him with her.
“Up—and back!” That was no half-whisper, rather close to a shout of warning.
I also scrambled backwards, at the same time heard a maddened squealing from the horses. They were racing, their eyes wild, kicking out at each other, milling around within that square marked by the wands.
While the ground—! The ground itself was trembling, shaking and rolling under my feet, the earth shifting as if it were as light and fluid as water, Jervon had drawn steel, so had Elys. Swords ready, the two crowded back from the spot where they had been a moment earlier.
The flames of the fire flared as wildly as the horses moved, spitting sparks into the air while the brands upon which they fed shifted this way and that.
I saw the earth rise like a wave, hurtling outward, striving, it would seem, to sweep us from our feet. Jervon and Elys were on one side of that surge, I on the other. I could not keep my balance as the wave sent me wavering from side to side. Now there was a second peril. Between me and my companions the soil spun around and around like batter stirred by a giant spoon. As it so spun the circle of that whirlpool reached farther and farther out gulping down first the fire, then the unknown’s saddlebags, then one of the poles—that with the tuft of grey-white fur—breaking so the unseen barrier that had confined the horses.
It was then I turned and ran, but not quick or far enough. One of the horses had found the opening and raced straight at me. I threw myself to one side, toppled and fell. The earth curled about me in an instant, trapping my legs, flowing waist high, engulfing my flailing arms. I sank as into quicksand, soil filling the mouth I opened to scream, forcing itself into eyes I tried to blink shut. I had but a single half-conscious moment to draw a deep breath and try to hold it, as the ground took me down into darkness.
Choking, I fought again for air. I could not move and my fear was such that I cannot now remember much of what followed, mercifully perhaps. Then—I could once more breathe freely! My smarting eyes teared, striving to clear themselves of the earth clotted on my lashes. I could see nothing but deep dark—and a sharp fear lashed at me—was I blind!
No—it was not completely dark. There was a glow—very faint—against my breast. I tried to raise my arms to brush away the burden holding me flat on my back and discovered that, twist and struggle though I might, my wrists and ankles were secured in some fashion.
However, those welling tears had cleared my eyes enough so that, with the aid of the faint glow. I discovered I was no longer encased in the earth. Rather I lay in an open space—though plainly I was still a prisoner.
The glow—with a great effort I raised my head and saw that it spread from the globe of the gryphon, which nursed a small core of faded radiance.
“Elys! Jervon!” I spat out earth and called. My only answer was a dull echo. Once more I fought against whatever held me, and, by twisting my hands as hard as I could, I became aware that each wrist was ringed by bonds to keep me firmly captive.
Captive. Then that action of the earth, which had been in force to engulf our camp, was a trap! And any trap in the Waste meant—
I fought the fear that followed like a sword thrust of ice cold. The Waste harbored life we could not even begin to imagine—what had taken me?
For some moments I lost control, flopping about as best I might, striving in sheer terror to tear apart what held me. My wrists burned from the chafing of the loops about them, earth cascaded from me in powdery puffs, until I began to cough and strangle, and so was forced to lie quiet.