However I was certain that Gathea, at least, knew more than she had told me, and that if I were to find Garn’s daughter, it would only be through her. I turned to follow the trail she had taken, keeping close watch for the cat, since I had an idea that she might use the beast as a rearguard to make sure that I would not uncover any of her secrets.
There was no distinct trail. Still, from time to time, I found a fresh paw mark of the cat, set almost deliberately as if to lure me on. That trail did not run far along the ridge, rather almost abruptly it descended into a narrow cleft, much narrower than a valley or a dale, in the rock providing a hidden way. Then I came upon a mark which was left so flauntingly clear I began to question my own decision. Surely she whom I followed would not have left such an open guide. I reached out and pulled from a thorn-studded limb of a small bush a bit of veil—thin stuff such as I had seen lynne often use to shield her face from the full rays of the sun.
First the paw marks and then this! They must believe me an utter fool! Only the fact that I had no other trail and I could not quite believe that the Wise Woman would ally herself and her maid with Tugness’s son kept me going.
I made another discovery, that this narrow way had niches of steps set into it as if it were a stair. Old and worn, the tread very narrow, these were surely steps chiseled out of rock for a purpose. They were too regular to be any freak of nature’s building.
Earth had shifted over them in some places and on those, in clear marking, were first the prints of trail boots, then, overlaying those, the paws of the cat. Thus it was no wonder that Gathea had vanished so quickly from sight, she had dropped into this way down from the ridge.
She must have moved with speed for I did not catch sight of her ahead. Now I increased my own pace, becoming more and more sure that if I could only catch up with her I might learn enough to find lynne speedily.
The crude staircase did not descend very far, ending in a narrow way where there were two deep symbols cut in the walls, one on either side of the final step. One was a pair of upward pointing horns and the other a fantastical curving of lines which could be some runic word or sign in a language which was or must be long since dead.
I had put out my hand by chance as I reached the last step so my fingers brushed across the horns. My cry of astonishment echoed hollowly down the way ahead as I jerked back. For there had been such heat there it was as if I had tried to pluck a glowing coal from the heart of a fire’s blaze.
In fact I examined my fingertips, half expecting to see blisters rising, so intense had been that pain. I sidled on, trying to keep as far from what looked no more than barren, gray rock, as I could.
Now I did sight Gathea, for no growth cloaked this way. She was well down along it, though into shadows. Shortly after one left the end of the stairway the sides of this runway sloped inward, meeting in places for a space and then opening again in a crack which gave a small measure of light.
“Gathea!” I dared to call, even though I guessed that my summons would do no good. As it did not, for she neither looked over her shoulder nor slackened her swift pace. Nor did the cat behind her pay me any attention.
Thus I was left to follow as the stinging in my hand died away, and my determination to have a straight answer from her grew.
The way of the cut was lengthy, yet the girl ahead never shortened step. Nor was I able, even though I lengthened pace, to catch up to her. Which became another puzzle, adding more fuel to my anger. Always there was the distance between us—though she did not run and my strides were close to a trot.
There was more light ahead. I thought perhaps we were coming to the end of this hidden way. Would it bring us out at the far end of Tugness’s land, or into Garn’s dale? Either way I would have a second difficulty added to the first. Not only must I keep Gathea in sight, but I must also watch for any search parties as might be out.
Gathea and her cat were gone—into that opening. Now I did run in truth, fearing that they might vanish so completely that I could not find them if they entered open land ahead. We did face that, I discovered moments later.
I did not recognize what I saw before me as any part of Garn’s dale. Here was no spread of grass, no easy, sloping away. Instead the land was sterile of any growth, rock-paved, with spurs of tall stone standing. These latter were set, grim, unworked, solid stone, in a circle with, beyond the outermost fringe, a second inner circle of slightly shorter stones, and within that a third. They had not the finish of the pillars I had seen at the Moon Shrine, but certainly, like the carven staircase behind, this arrangement was a work of intelligent purpose, though what purpose I could not guess. It could never have been intended for any defensive fort, for there was a man-wide space left open between one stone and the next.
I plunged forward. At the same moment there leaped from among the rocks to my right a gray-white body, bowling me over so that in a moment I lay flat, the heavy forepaws of the cat planted on my breast, pinning me to the ground, while its long fangs were very near my throat. I fought against the weight, striving to get my hand to my sword hilt, even to reach my belt knife, but the beast held me helpless. Yet it did not follow up that leaping attack with any swoop of those jaws to tear out my throat.
Out of the air sounded a call, a word perhaps, but none I could understand. The cat wrinkled lips in a silent, warning snarl. Then it raised the bulk of its weight from me, though it did not back away, instead crouched as if well ready to pull me down a second time should the need arise.
I could get my hand on sword hilt now and I was already drawing blade when Gathea stepped from among the same screen of rocks where the beast had lain hidden to survey me disdainfully.
“Am I Thorg, warrior, that you hunt me?” Her voice was scornful.
“Do you think that I am hiding your Lady Iynne—to her dishonor?”
“Yes,” I returned flatly, and then added: “perhaps not for her dishonor, but for some reason of your own.”
She must have felt safe in the presence of her furred liegeman for she laughed. And, as she stood there, hand on hips, watching me, my anger passed from hot to cold, as it has always done, making me now very sure of myself and of what I must do.
“Put up your steel,” she ordered, a taunting amusement now at the corners of her mouth—wide and thin-lipped. “Be glad that you were stopped from the folly of plunging into that!” With a jerk of her chin she indicated the first circle of the standing stones.
“What harm lies there?” I remembered how the symbol on the wall had burnt my fingers, and uncertainty broke through my anger. How could one guess what dangers lay hereabout?
“You would find out soon enough—”
I thought she was trying to evade me. With a wary eye on the cat which watched me unblinkingly, I got to my feet to front her, feeling better in command of myself when I could do that.
“That,” she said brusquely, “is a trap. Come here and see for yourself.”
She reached out and caught my jerkin sleeve, drawing me with her to the north side where there was clear sight into the center of this stone wheel. In there a man sprawled out face down. He lay unmoving, but when I would have gone to him Gathea tightened her hold, and the cat slipped in between me and the rocks of the first wall, snarling.