This playing with minds! No wonder my clansmen had fought shy of the ways of the Wise Women, much as they had depended upon the fruits of such delving into the unknown. I wanted no more at that moment than an opponent I could see, one with a sword in his fist, ready to do battle in a way which was open and of my own world.
I was not even sure that where we were now pent was in the world I knew at all. Certainly we had been snatched here in a way that suggested travel through a space not meant for those of my species. Even if we conquered the flames by whatever sorcery Gathea could summon—what then? If we were not in our own place—or time?
She opened her eyes to stare straight at me. “You hinder!” she accused. “You withhold unbelief! Oh!” She made a fist with one hand and pounded it against the hot rock of the floor on which she had hunkered as if that were spring cooled. “If I but had one who was fitted to this task! You—you fight me with your belief in the wrong things!”
Her emotion passed into the cat. He lifted his heavy head well up for the first time to snarl at me.
I was stung by her words. She owed me a little. I had kept her from answering to the false Dians, had I not? Once more I felt for the cup and raised it, hoping that I could again sniff that cool rich air which had served and saved me. There was nothing there now. Gathea looked at what I held and her eyes narrowed. There came a faint change in her expression; she might have been looking at some object she could put to better usage.
“If you only knew more—”
“Tell me, then!” To my sight those flames which sprouted from the fire wall were moving closer.
Gathea raised her hand to push back the hair plastered against her forehead.
“What you ask is impossible. You cannot compress years of learning into a few words here and now!”
Then she gave a jerk as a flame tongue nearly licked her hand and I saw the shadow of fear arise in her eyes.
“We may not even have time for a few words,” I pointed out grimly.
“Those who have the Power,” she answered hastily, “are said to be able to transfer objects from one plane of existence to the next. They look into the thing and see its innermost self. For each thing, born or made, was once only a thought, therefore it remains partly a thought. That thought being the substance we on the plane can see, does exit elsewhere in another form. A mistress of the Mysteries can seek out such a thought, reduce the object once more to its beginnings. This is what we are taught—”
“You have seen it done?”
Slowly Gathea shook her head. “It would take one who knew much to see the innermost heart of a thing and so use it.”
“But you have said that if I knew more,” I persisted, “you could help us. What should I know?”
She shook her head again slowly. “We do not know the innermost being of the force that sought to entrap us. And—”
“This—” I pointed to the flames again flaring inward at us. I was sure that the circling walls were coming closer—”is fire. Fire is born of fuel—wood—some liquids which burn fast if a striker spark ignites them. What is then the innermost part of fire—that which it feeds upon?”
In this fire I could see no sign of either wood or a trough for the oil we used for long-lamps.
“That which it feeds upon—” Gathea repeated thoughtfully after me. Then an expression of excitement began to grow on her thin face. “Yes, it could be that the food for the fire exists elsewhere.”
A statement which did not seem helpful to me, but which appeared to awaken new life and purpose in her.
“Come.” She reached upward, holding out her hand to me. “The cup—have you a measure of water to pour into that?”
“A very little.”
“It must do. I cannot do this thing, for the cup is yours. Only you can evoke the power it exerts. Pour water into it—hold it steady. Then link hand with me. Perhaps Gruu also can give us of his strength, since his own bespelling is broken. Do this—it may be our only chance! For my power cannot rise alone.”
I allowed a trickle of water to moisten the bottom of the cup, hardly enough to be seen. Holding it in a grip tight enough to cramp my fingers, I sat on my heels, my left hand firm clasped in hers.
“Now, close your eyes. There is a fire, it is burning—from wood—just as it would on a keep hearth. There is water, a spring of water and it is rising, rising. See this! You must see it!”
There was urgency, force in her words. Yet when I closed my eyes, my mind rebelled, I could not build such a picture. When I tried it was a pale thing which winked out of mind as the lack in me allowed it to vanish.
Somewhere a voice was to be heard—but far off, sounding in such need that I strained to hear better. No, it was the fire picture not the voice—not anything but a fire burning in the pocket of a forest clearing. A fire, laid on wood as might be in any hunter’s camp—a fire!
Something built within me, a strength of will which I had never known I possessed. It was as if the force of the water and the fire had themselves transformed their substance, and all the energy which both held now filled me. My weak and fluttering picture of the fire firmed, I could hold it longer. There were the rocks of a basin into which the water of a spring flowed. Fire and water—ancient enemies!
That fire, that basin of water, became the world. Nothing lay beyond them, no action mattered save that I hold them in mind’s eye as steady and clear as I could. Fire— and water!
Into me continued to flow that strength which made clear my sight, which now allowed me not only to visualize the fire, the stream from the basin, but enabled me to use that stream, to draw the water higher and higher in the basin. No, it was a full well of water, very deep. The water which filled it to the brim overflowed—toward the fire!
The fire flared, was gone. I held firmly to my thought-picture. It was there! And once more it was. The water had fallen away as I had concentrated on the fire. No, up water, up—over—down—I saw the rise of it like a wide sea wave, issuing forth from the mouth of the well, splashing, flowing heavier. Again, when my picture wavered, there was a renewal of the other strength so that I could catch and hold.
Down poured the water, it lapped at the wood, then engulfed it. The flames sputtered, fled to far ends of the brands which were its food; the water advanced upon those also. There was a last flicker of my picture as if the fire I watched knew its force was failing. Only I held, and the water flowed on in full flood. There were no flames left. I released the flood. It was gone. But had it, for a moment, mirrored a head crowned with horns? I could not be sure. I opened my eyes. The head was there, shining on the side of my cup. For the rest it was dark, we were no longer surrounded by the blistering heat of that wall.
I blinked and blinked again. The only source of light came from the dim glow of the head on the goblet, and that was slowly fading. If there had not been the firm stone under me I would have thought we had been whirled out of life itself. As the interior of the tower had been so was this blackness thick enough to swallow one, pressing against the body with a stifling hold. I heard a sigh from the dark and knew it came from Gathea.
“It—it worked!” I found my tongue. “The fire is gone. But we are not yet back—or is this still the tower?”
Somehow I did not believe that. There was an otherness which was like the Dark, pressing in. Now that we had lost the fire which had held my mind, I realized that one step could not mean a journey. Out of the thick black came Gathea’s voice to awaken my unease yet further.
“We are still trapped,” she said. “This is not of our time or place. . . . And—”
What she might have added I will never know for at that moment the darkness changed. There was no oval of light piercing it—rather we were being sucked, pulled through it at such a speed as to nearly tear my breath from me, so I gasped and fought to fill my lungs. My hold on Gathea’s hand was vise tight. At that instant I feared more than anything that we be separated, each whirled to a different fate.