Turning back to her guest, the Lady said, “Take off your mount’s saddle and bridle, Alon. Monso will be fine, here, will you not, my beauty?” She reached a slender hand toward the creature’s forehead, then her eyes widened. “What is this?” she exclaimed.
Alon’s fingers began separating the long strands of Monso’s forelock. “The crystal I braided into his forelock, so we could open the Gate,” he said. “I forgot all about it in our haste to reach you. But… but it has changed! What—?” he broke off in wonder as his questing fingers worked the amethyst-shaded crystal free of the Keplian’s long forelock. “Look!” he cried, holding it out for all of them to see.
Instead of a netting of black horsehair, the shard from the mirror now lay encased in a delicate webbing of purest silver. “It must have transmuted when we leaped through,” Alon whispered.
Dahaun put out a hand, but stopped short of actually laying finger to the crystal. “It is a powerful talisman,” she said. Turning to her lord, she pulled free the silver cord that laced the top of his green tunic. Threading the cord through the net of silver, she formed a pendant from it. This she placed solemnly over Alon’s head, so it hung down beneath the neck of his tunic. “Keep it always, and may it protect you from all manner of evil,” she said quietly.
Then the Lady of the Green Silences turned back to the Keplian. “Leave Monso here,” she repeated. “He will be fine.” The black snorted, then bobbed his head up and down, exactly as if nodding agreement.
Quickly, Alon freed the stallion to graze, then the travelers followed their host and hostess into the dwelling.
Within, screens made of living vines or woven of feathers made rooms, and the floor was carpeted with soft living moss. Light filtered greenly through the roof and walls, making the interior pleasantly restful. When Alon would have launched immediately into their story, Dahaun stayed his words with a swift gesture. “Your story will wait a few minutes more,” she said, waving Eydryth toward one alcove, while Kyllan took the young Adept’s arm and steered him toward another. “You have been on the road for long and long, and need to rest, if only for a short while. Besides, we must summon the scouts to hear your tale firsthand, if they must needs carry it to others.”
Alon nodded, albeit a bit reluctantly.
Eydryth followed the Lady into a room containing two pools, one holding water tinged red with mud, the other filled with clear water. Now that she was actually here, lack of sleep and food made her so weary she stumbled as she walked. Dahaun indicated the red-colored pool, and said, “This one first, Lady Eydryth.”
Stripping off her travel-grimed clothes, the songsmith sank gratefully into the warm pool. Dahaun gathered up her stained breeches, tunic, and jerkin, promising to see that they were cleaned for use on the morrow, then left the girl to her bath. The red-tinged water was blissfully hot, and its touch revived her so completely that she felt all weariness and hunger vanishing. This pool, she thought, must share the restorative and healing abilities of the red mud pools Alon had spoken of earlier today.
Finishing off with a thorough rinse in the clear pool, she then donned the clothes her hostess had left, soft tunics, breeches and boots like unto the ones Dahaun and Kyllan wore.
When the girl emerged, feeling vastly more energetic, it was to find Alon, garbed like herself, sitting with a man of Dahaun’s race, Ethutur, talking quietly. The Lord of the Green Silences also possessed the shape-shifting ability, though not as much as Dahaun. Two small, ivory horns rose from his forehead, nearly hidden by the loose curls of his ever-changing-hued hair.
No sooner had the songsmith been introduced and seated herself upon one of the moss-grown hummocks that served as cushions on the floor than the Lady herself returned. Dahaun was accompanied by two tall children who were carrying platters of food and drink, and by two men who wore the battered boots and light mail of couriers or scouts. One of the men was a giant who towered above the other.
Kyllan introduced the two men as the Valley’s scouts, Yonan and Urik. Yonan was of middle height, and evidently descended from some Sulcar ancestor, if Eydryth guessed aright. The giant was Urik.
The boy and girl (they appeared to be perhaps five years younger than the songsmith herself) Kyllan identified as his and Dahaun’s twin children. Elona, the girl, had inherited something of her mother’s shape-changing ability, for whenever Eydryth gazed upon her, her features gradually took on subtle shifts of shape, and her hair and eyes seemed to darken and lighten, though not to the extent that Dahaun’s did. Keris, the boy, resembled his father, and his features did not change. Nor did he have the horns of the Green Men.
Dahaun waved at the crisply baked rounds of thin bread, wedges of cheese and an assortment of fruits and early vegetables. “Can you eat as you talk?”
Alon was already reaching for a piece of fruit. “If we cannot, we will take turns,” he said. “I met this wandering songsmith while I was racing Monso in a village called Rylon Corners…”
He continued telling about how he had met Eydryth, while the minstrel busied herself with the food. Then, when he came to the reason for her quest, he nodded to his companion, and she quickly explained about her search for a means to heal her father. “Alon wondered whether the red mud that is to be found within this Valley might not help,” she concluded, giving the Lady an inquiring glance.
Dahaun’s ever-shifting features were grave as she considered the girl’s query. “I do not know,” she said softly, “whether the mud will heal ills of the mind and spirit as well as those of the body. Never has it been so tested. But you are welcome to take some with you and try.”
“Thank you, Lady.”
“But Eydryth’s quest is but the half of it,” Alon said, after swallowing a last bite of food. “Last night, she was awakened by a strange noise that I could not hear…”
He continued, telling the strange tale of their journey to the ancient mirror-Gate, and of Yachne and her Power-stealing spell.
Kyllan’s expression darkened when he heard the identity of the ancient sorcerer the witch had bested. “Dinzil!” he exclaimed. “I thought that one forever gone, or dead.”
“Which he may well be, by now,” Alon said, then he proceeded to tell Tregarth of the threat to all males possessing Power. “She called us things against nature, abominations,” he finished, finally. “Yachne intends to make herself the most powerful sorceress the world has ever known.”
“Where could she have come from?” Dahaun wondered aloud.
“From some of the things she said, I believe that she was once a witch of Estcarp,” Eydryth said, and Alon nodded agreement. “One of the ones whose Power was broken when she made herself a vessel to channel the magic during the Turning.”
“When she had the raising of you, did she ever refer to being a witch?” Kyllan asked Alon.
The younger man shook his head. “She was certainly a Wise Woman, but I would have sworn she had not the ability to perform such a summoning as we witnessed,” he said thoughtfully. “Opening a Gate is, as I discovered for myself today, no easy task. The Yachne that I knew before could scry, and sense the presence of the Shadow, and heal, using herbs and such. Minor magics, at best. She was no sorceress.”
“Where did she learn that spell, then?” Eydryth mused. “She said that someone had taught it to her… but who?”
“Perhaps she lied, and actually uncovered it in some musty old scroll in Lormt,” Alon speculated, then he sighed. “But however she learned it, it makes little difference. The danger to us is real.”
“I will contact Kaththea and Kemoc immediately,” Kyllan said. “And tomorrow morn my lady wife will release her messenger birds to carry the news across the mountains to my father, Simon, at Etsford.”
“If only I had the Power,” Eydryth murmured softly. “Then I might be able to warn Kerovan tonight.”