“He is dead,” she said without emotion. “One Jamil of Lord Tugness’s meiny. He followed me—as Thorg has also done—because he was hungry for a woman and he deemed me fit prey. Once within those circles he came not out again. I think some madness struck him, for he ran about and about until he fell and then he died.”
How much of that tale could I believe? No man raised hand against one with the Wise learning. But then Zabina had also hinted that Gathea had been sought by the Lord’s own heir. She must have seen my doubt for she added:
“You know not Lord Tugness and his ways. Among those who ride for his House are oath-breakers and worse. They—” She shook her head. “I do not think, nor does Zabina, that the Bards were wise when they allowed the Gate to hide so much of our past. It would seem to me that something of our own evil crept through to flower here. If so, Jamil learned that there are forces even he could not front.”
Again I did not doubt that she spoke the truth as she saw it. The thing which had been that dead man’s intent was a monstrous act which no sane man could have conceived. As for the Gate—I, too, had wondered if a new life without certain memories had been altogether wise. I questioned that the more now after hearing her story.
“What killed him?”
“Power,” she answered somberly. “This was a place of such power as we cannot understand. Gruu here can tread those ways.” Her hand dropped to fondle the ears of the cat. “I have seen other living things cross it without concern. But for my life’s sake, and for the sake of that inner part of me which is more important than the life of my body, I would not venture in there. Do you not feel it at all?”
Since she watched me, and I needed to recover from the fiasco of my capture by Gruu, I moved closer to the stones, stretching out my hand. Perhaps there was no invisible wall there, but I was ready to discover one. There was not, but my flesh began to tingle as I neared the outer circle. Not only that, but there arose within me a feeling of sudden danger, that I must leap forward into that circle which was the only safe shelter from an ominous shadow I could not put name to.
So forceful became that drawing that once more I was jerked to a stop by Gathea’s grasp, by the cat pushing against my knees making me stumble backward. I felt my anger stiffen into a chill of sheer fear. For that pull upon me, until the two who were with me urged me back, was such a compulsion that I wanted to fight them, free myself, fly into the safety of the circle—
“Not safety—never there!” Could she read my mind or had some experiment of her own made her understand what moved me?
I was well back now, away from the influence of the stones, free—and very much shaken.
“Iynne!” I could think only what might have happened had she come this way. There lay only one body in the center of that monstrous trap but now that I stared more closely, I saw that Jamil did not rest alone. There were bones there, gray-white in the day’s light, which was beginning to fade. I do not know how many might have been before him, but there was enough evidence that what abided there still held its captives.
“She was never here.” Gathea loosened her hold on me. “As I told you, she was drawn by another magic—”
I pointed to her wallet. “You have her hidden, you take her food. Does she hide from Thorg, or have you witched her with your ways so she would become like you?”
“Like me? You ask that, warrior, as if you find me less than a keep lady with her imprisoned mind, her soft body, her willingness to be driven to the marriage market as an ewe is driven to be sold to the highest bidder!” She flashed back. “No, perhaps in your soft little lady there lies a spark of the talent so overladen by years of being a keep daughter that she never realized what slumbered within until she found a place of power and that hidden part of her stirred to life, awakened from a lifetime of sleep. I do not hide Iynne and steal away to give her food and comfort. She has gone—but I cannot tell you where, though I shall try to find her. For what she discovered was wasted on her.” Now there was some of the same scorn she had shown me coloring her tone. “I—I would have known how to weave, and bind and tie. I was not there when the life of the shrine returned. She was taken when I was meant to be the one!” Now there was anger, as cold as my own, in her voice. “She took my birthright and what she will make of it, being who and what she is, that I cannot guess. I go now not to rescue your little lady, warrior, but that I may repair the damage her curiosity has caused!”
“Where?”
“Where?” she repeated, her chin lifted. “There—” Now she swung out one arm, pointed west. “I follow no trail such as you would understand. My guide lies here.” She touched her forehead between the eyes. “And here.” And this time that pointing finger dropped to her breast. “It may be that I have not the power I hoped for, still I can try—one can always try.”
“You believe this,” I answered slowly, “that Iynne blundered into ensorcellment and was taken, that you may be able to find her. After seeing that,” I motioned to the stone trap, “how can I say that anything may or may not be true in this country? But if there is a chance to find my lady and you can act as guide, then do I go also.”
She frowned at me. “This is woman’s power,” she said slowly. “I doubt that you can follow where I may lead.”
I shook my head. “I know not one power from another. I do know that it is laid on me as a debt of honor that I go where there may be a chance to aid Iynne. I think that your Wise Woman knew this of me,” I continued. “She may have thought to mislead me with her hints of Thorg, but she gave me this,” I motioned to the wallet I, too, bore, “and she did not warn me away from what I intended.”
Gathea smiled with a certain stretch of lips. I disliked that more each time I saw it.
“There is one thing Zabina understands, that many times it is useless to argue when a mind is closed. Doubtless she read that yours was—tightly.”
“As is yours, perhaps?”
Her frown grew sterner. “You guess too much.” She turned. “If you will push into such peril as you cannot begin to dream, kinless one, then come. Night is not far away and in this land it is best to find shelter.”
She started on, without another glance at me, skirting carefully about the edge of the circles, across a country which was rough going. For here had been many slides of stone, some running nearly to touch the standing pillars. Those we scrambled over (for I was close on her heels) with care, lest some tumble of them carry us out into the influence of the trap.
The cat went ahead, much to my relief, for I did not trust him, no matter how he served my companion. We had passed that ominous set of circles, were in the rock-covered country beyond, before we found him waiting for us under an overhanging ledge at the edge of wilderness country where a few splotches of green showed, but which was mostly rocks and upstarting ridges in a chaotic mixture of broken stone.
There was no wood for a fire. Nor would I have wanted to light one in this wilderness, drawing to us— what? Garn’s men, or things far more dangerous even than that lord in his rage? The sun seemed to linger, as if favoring us enough to allow me at least to mark every approach to the shelter Gruu had discovered. The big cat had vanished into that wilderness of rock, intent, I was sure, on hunting. Gathea and I ate sparingly of the food we carried and drank only scant mouthfuls of water. I had seen no trace of any stream in the land ahead, unless one of those splotches of growth a goodly distance away marked some spring or rain-catch basin.
We did not talk, though there were questions enough I would have liked to have asked. However she turned a shut face upon me, making it plain that her thoughts were elsewhere, so that for stubbornness of will I would not break the silence which lay between us.