“That is the only true path,” he said. “See for yourself.” Rising to his feet, he muttered softly, then held out both hands. Purple light slowly outlined his fingers, dripped with painful slowness to the ground, where it gathered and coalesced into one of the sinuous arrow-shapes she had seen earlier. The light writhed forward, toward the center thicket, marking their path. But this time it waned quickly, fading almost before she fixed her eyes on it. Alon staggered, gasping, and had to brace himself against Monso’s shoulder. “The marker…” he muttered hoarsely. “Did you see it?”
“Yes, I saw where it pointed. I will just have to go slowly, I suppose.”
Alon shook his head, teeth clamping onto his torn lower lip as he pushed himself upright. “No,” he said. “That will not work.”
“But I cannot—”
“Yes, you can!” His eyes held hers with a fierceness he had never shown before. “I have neither time nor strength to allow you to cling to your own comforting illusions, Lady,” he rasped. “What you must needs do is break this Seeming for yourself.”
She stared at him blankly. “But I have no Power! You know that!” she protested finally, her voice shrill.
“I know that you believe that you have no Power,” he countered. “And I know also that that belief is what holds you back.”
“Just as your belief that Yachne’s spell is too powerful for you to break is holding you back?” she demanded coldly. “I never took you for a coward, Alon, until now. How dare you lead us into this trap, then blame me for not having abilities I have never possessed?” Her accusation was filled with venom that made him flinch away as though she had actually struck him.
His mouth tightened, his shoulders that had hunched before her bitter anger slowly straightened. “You possess ‘the Gift,’ as you call it, Eydryth. I have known that since the first night we met. I also saw that the truth was too frightening for you to face, so I let you hold to your mistaken belief. But now you must face the truth!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Eydryth snarled. “The heat has addled your wits!”
“No, it has not. Only your lack of belief in yourself keeps you from seeing through that illusion. Only your lack of belief in your own Power holds us prisoner. Why do you think the witch of Estcarp pursued you so single-mindedly? You have blinded yourself to the truth from fear—but now it is time to face truth—and use the Power within you!”
“No!” she choked, furious at him. “You lie!”
Blind with rage, she lurched to her feet and struck out at him, flailing, kicking, but he avoided her blows, seizing her shoulders in his hands. Whirling her around, he pulled her back against him, gripping her hard. Hands and arms that could curb Monso’s headlong rushes tightened on her flesh and bone, holding her past any ability of hers to struggle free. Eydryth gasped with the pain. “Look!” he ordered, his mouth so close to her ear that she could hear him clearly, despite the harsh rasp that served him now for a voice. “That thicket is not there! That thicket is the lie! Look well, songsmith, and see past the falsehood to the truth, which is the hillside!”
Unable to break his grip, she subsided, then stared sullenly at the pale grey vegetation. “I see only the thicket,” she muttered.
“You are not trying!” he said fiercely. “You must try! Concentrate! See the hillside!”
She fixed her eyes on the spot, feeling them throb and burn from the glare overhead. The outlines of the vegetation began to shimmer slightly—or was it her imagination?
“I cannot…” She was shaking now, feeling a different sort of fear seize her.
“You must believe! You can, I swear it by my life, you can do it!”
She focused, stared until her vision blurred, tears of pain nearly blinding her as she forced herself not to blink. See a hillside—there is a hillside, she insisted to herself. Vegetation swam before her; then there was something… something reddish showing through…
“I see…” She was forced to blink, then it was gone. She sagged back against his chest, limp with defeat. “I cannot, Alon!” she pleaded.
“You can,” he insisted, supporting her, though she could feel him trembling with weariness. “Eydryth… try humming while you look.”
She craned her neck to fix him with an incredulous glance, but he only nodded firmly. “Go on… try.”
Eydryth turned back to the tangle of shadowy vines, then began to hum, scarcely aware of what tune she had chosen.
The greyness swam before her dazzled eyes, and she blinked to clear her vision, concentrating…
As if it had always been there before her, she now saw a hill with a trail leading straight up it, narrow and precipitous between jagged boulders!
Eydryth gasped, and with the interruption of the music, the grey curtain of vines returned. “Alon!” she whispered. “I saw it!”
“Good,” he said, not at all surprised, and released her. “Your gift must be linked to music, Eydryth. When you tamed Monso, you sang. When you fooled the witch back in Es City, you were humming, were you not?”
She cast her mind back to events that now seemed years— instead of mere days—ago. “Yes, I was,” she said after a moment. “My mother’s lullaby…” She regarded him, completely bewildered. “But… Alon… how can this be? I have never heard of such a talent!”
“Neither have I,” he admitted. “But, now that I think of it, much of magic is dependent upon sounds—chants, incantations, even songs. Remember the crystal Gate? The spell to open it depended on the correct note being sung!”
She nodded, bemused. “This discovery explains… much,” she said slowly.
“At the moment, our concern must be escaping from this place and tracing Yachne,” he reminded her. Quickly, he stripped off his shirt, then used its sleeves to tie it snugly over Monso’s eyes. “If he cannot see where he is going, I do not believe the illusion will prevail for him,” he told the songsmith. “This would not work for one of us, for our minds are more complex, and thus not so easily fooled. Are you ready, my lady?”
Eydryth nodded firmly. “I am.”
“Can you see the hillside?”
She summoned music, hummed between parched lips, then nodded as the trail took shape before her eyes. “Then… after you, my lady,” Alon said, in his cracked, rasping voice. He bowed, waving her past with a courtly gesture. The contrast between his formal manner and his appearance made Eydryth shake her head. His face, with its livid weal caused by the web-rider’s slash, was blistered and seared by the heat, and his bare chest and shoulders were streaked with dust and muddy sweat. For a moment she wondered if he had gone quite mad—he certainly appeared demented.
But no, his eyes were sane. He believed in her. The least she could do was to believe in herself. Taking a deep breath, Eydryth hummed steadily, and they started up the long, rocky trail. The songsmith concentrated on filling her mind with the music. She was so intent upon her task that she did not feel the earth-tremor until it struck, making her stagger, making her gasp—
—whereupon, instantly, she was surrounded by bushes and dead vines. A thousand thorns jabbed her. Only by the grace of fortune were her eyes spared that assault.
“Concentrate!” she heard Alon’s shout from behind her.
Already she was summoning the music again, and the feel of the entangling growth was gone. She took a step forward, felt no obstruction, took another, and only then dared open her eyes. The hillside lay before her.
Eydryth slogged her way toward the top of the hill, alert for more quakes, kicking loose stones from her path, humming like an insect gone mad.
“You may stop now, and breathe,” Alon’s rasping whisper reached her. “We are beyond the illusion-thicket.”