"Aye, unless... lady, are you resolved?"
I had the Blade, sharp enough to give us escape if all hope failed. I drew it. Faint moon-and starlight, much filtered by leaves and pine needles made it glow the silver of the lives it might have to drink.
"Now?" I asked. "There is strait payment for whose who end their lives before they exhaust every hope."
The other mage's eyes lit. "Honor to your courage, lady. I do not counsel death, but a great risk. Not far from here lies a gate. I do not know where it would take us, or even if it would work for us but..."
"Then we risk it!" I gasped. The reek of smoke grew stronger. Soon, we would have to leave the forests in any case.
The fire behind us cast a semblance of false dawn. Our shadows fled with us, silver light dancing with them, as we turned back to the clearing. To save time and our lives, if the fire spread, say, by a tree when its sap exploded, we must head for open space. I was greatly tempted to beg my companion to stop and guard me while I cast the circle that would take us back to our world, but I still feared that as much as I feared the Master of the Hunt.
The clearing stretched out before us. I headed for it. I heard only the crackle of the fire, closer now, frighteningly close. Those hunting us had ceased their cries.
"Along this path!"
Imprudent to flee across the clearing when a perfectly good way lay before us through a stand of trees into a barren spot. In its center stood two standing stones, topped with another. To each side, trees stretched out behind the stones. My vision could not pierce the darkness that lay between them.
But I could not miss the creatures, half hounds, half other, that raced toward the clearing, or the figure with its horned crown that urged them onward.
"Run for it!" The mage gave me a push. I ran, hearing him come after me.
Then they were upon us. I heard the hounds yelp and scream as he swung his rough-made club. Hot blood splashed upon my Blade, coating it to the hilt. It burnt my hand, but I forced myself to go on fighting, to force myself forward. I could hear my companion's voice chanting words of protection. His voice grew ragged, then more distant.
We were almost at the gate when he cried out in pain and fear.
Before the gate loomed the Master of the Hunt, the shadows from his horned crown falling upon us like dungeon bars. I cast the blanket-cloak from off my shoulders onto the hounds, entangling them.
The mage's blows should have been deadly, but they recoiled from the Master. At a gesture from him, as if the Master grew tired of a child's repeated attempts to play with him, the club snapped. The despair in the mage's face struck me to the heart.
Clever enough to be a mage I was, but I had bitter reason to know I was not wise. Light fell on the blood-smeared blade that had once been a sacred instrument. And at that moment, I was gifted with a revelation as keen as any granted to the very greatest of all mages.
"Your club," I gasped. "It is a creature of this world. It cannot destroy its master."
I darted forward, feinting and slashing in some parody of swordsplay. The Master's laughter hurt my ears. He evaded the Blade, then reached out and knocked me down. I went sprawling, but as I fell, I tossed the Blade.
Hilt over point, it spun in the smoky air until my ally, my... love?... snatched it and lunged forward. With the weaponscraft I lacked, he held the Master off long enough for me to reach the gate.
"Go on!" he urged me.
I planted my feet, "Not alone."
Perhaps, if he had not been weary almost unto death, he might have dodged about the Master and joined me in the shadow of the gate. But as he ran, the Master seized him and sank his fangs where neck met shoulder as if determined, could he not breed mages, he would feast upon the one in his power.
My scream matched his. I ran from the gate, beating on the Master's back, drawing his attention. The Master turned toward me. I knew a moment's bitter triumph; we would die together, mage and mage, like a ballad no one would ever sing. Then the creature shrieked and collapsed.
I saw my friend standing there, reeling, but still on his feet. Even as the Master sought to drain him, he had struck to the heart, piercing that unholy flesh with a blade that was not of his forging, not of his world; and it had proved mortal, or as mortal as anything might.
Now, my companion's blood coursed down his neck and chest. The light that pooled about him dwindled.
"Go," he whispered, and hurled the blade back to me. The black blood of the Master burned off it in flight. I caught it before it touched the trampled ground.
I ran forward then and caught him too before he fell.
"Little fool!" he murmured. "The hounds are only stunned. Let them rise, and they will seek us out. Take the gate."
"Not alone!" I tugged his arm over my shoulder, and staggered toward what might be a very dubious refuge. With every heartbeat, I could feel the warmth of his blood.
"Just one step more," I begged him. "Please." Another, then another, and then...
... we were falling through black night until a silvery light exploded about us. He crumpled against me, bearing us both down onto ground that did not reek of monsters' blood.
Behind us loomed yet another gate. Before us... ah yes, before us shone a river, crossed only by a bridge formed by a Blade like mine, only immensely longer and finer. The river shimmered with its own light. Across it, the sky lightened toward an unimaginable dawn.
We could cross, if I could bear him that far... but even as I watched, the sword bridge was withdrawn. The crossing was barred, at least to me.
I looked down at my companion's face. So pale it was, and so serene now. My eyes filled, shimmering with the light from the river. I knew what that pallor, that painlessness meant.
Not long indeed.
"Behind us," he whispered. "The fane I sought. I did not mean to enter it... quite like this." He coughed. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Drawing upon the strength that even the weakest man or woman finds at a moment of utmost trial, I drew him with me into the sanctuary.
Beyond the standing stones shimmered a pool. Beside it lay a stone as great as those that formed the gate. It gleamed as if it had been purified for some holy use.
"Bring me there..."
It looked too much like a bier for comfort, but we had the choice either of that stone or the cold ground. He slumped down onto the rock, propping himself with one hand, or he surely would have fallen full length. His reflection gleamed in the water, except for the spreading darkness from his wounds.
The silver light that yoked him with his native earth flared up like a candle end, then guttered out. In this new darkness, he still gazed at his reflection. Now it held more life than he. His blood dripped from his body down the stone. Tapers of light erupted at each end of the altarstone.
I stumbled toward the pool to fill the Cup. I set it to his mouth. At least, I could wash the blood from his face, wet his lips before he set forth on his journey, and I on mine.
"Light fails, light and life together. I would be dead at home," he murmured in quiet amazement. "I don't want this. I want..."
He let the water moisten his lips.
I set Cup and Blade aside and took his hands in mine.