“You—who are you?” The demand was so sharp that it rang in my head as loudly as if the words had been shouted in my ears, deafening my mind for an instant the way my ears could be dulled.
“Kaththea,” I answered with the truth before I thought. “Kemoc—is that you?” and a part of me wanted yes, a part of me feared it. For, I thought, to have the burden for his safety laid on me once more was more than I could bear.
I was not answered now in words, rather did I seem to look, as through a window, into a room with rock walls, gloomy and dark. There was a stone bowl set on a pedestal. In that bowl blazed a handful of coals, giving limited light to that portion of the chamber immediately about it. Standing in that light was a woman. She wore the riding dress of the Old Race, breeches and jerkin of dark, dull green, and her hair was braided and netted tight to her head. At first I could not see her face: it was turned from me as she looked down into the fire. Then she turned around as if she could look through that window at me.
I saw her eyes widen, but her surprise could be no greater than mine.
“Jaelithe!”
My mother! But how—where? Years lay between our last meeting, when she had ridden forth to seek my father, vanished apparently from the sea. She had searched for him by a trail of magic in which all three of us had played a part, the first time we had been drawn into a formal use of our gift.
Time had not touched her; she was the same then as now, though I was a woman and not the girl child. But I saw that she was not confused by the change, but knew me.
“Kaththea!” She took a step toward me, away from the brazier, lifted her hands as if across that strange space between us we might touch fingers. Then her face took on an urgent expression and she asked quickly: “Where are you?”
“I do not know. I came through a gate—”
She made a gesture with her raised hand as if to wave away unimportant things. “Yes. But now describe where you are!”
I did so, making as short a tale as I could. When I was done she gave a sigh which might be half of relief. “So much it is to the good; we are in the same world at least. But now—you searched with thought for us?”
“No, I did not know you were here.” And I went on to tell her what I must do.
“An adept who wrought a gate kept prisoner!” She looked thoughtful. “It would seem, my daughter, that you have stumbled by chance on that which may save us all. And your plan of using the girl, that is well reasoned. But that you need help from outside is also true. And we shall see what can be done. Simon,” she called with her mind, “come quickly!” Then she turned her full attention to me again. “Let me see this girl through your eyes—the room as well. . . .”
And I did for her what I would not do for Hilarion; I surrendered my will so that her mind linked fast to mine and I knew she viewed all I saw. I turned my head slowly from side to side for her benefit.
“Are these Kolder?” I asked.
“No. But there is a likeness. I think that this world was once close to the Kolder and something of their Power spread to the other. But that is of no consequence now. I know where lies the entrance to the burrow in which you are. We shall come to you with what speed we can. Until then, unless you are in great need, do not link. But if this Zandur would work on you, as he has upon Hilarion, link at once.”
“Ayllia?”
“You have read rightly that she may be your key to freedom. But again we cannot use her as yet, not if we are to have time. Above all, the adept is necessary. He knows the gate; it was of his creation and will answer him. If we are ever to return to Estcarp we must have that gate!”
Suddenly she smiled. “Time seems to have run more swiftly for you, my daughter, than it has for us. Also, I appear to have borne one who is as I wished for, a child of my spirit as well as my body. Take you care, Kaththea, not to throw away now, by some chance, that which will work to save us all. Now I will break link, but you shall be in mind and if you have need, call at once!”
The window into that place of stone was gone. And I was left to wonder—how had my mother and father come here? For she had spoken to him as if he were some distance from her but no world away. Had he stumbled on another gate into this world, she following him thereafter? If so, it would seem that portal had been closed to their return.
That led me back to Hilarion. The gate he created must answer to him, my mother had said. Then we must free him in order to win back. But time—was time our friend or enemy? I fumbled in my cloak and drew out the packet of food I had taken from the gray men’s supplies. It was a square of some dark brown substance which crumbled as I pinched it. I smelled the scrap I held in my fingers: a strange odor, not pleasant, not unpleasant. But it was the only sustenance I had to hand and I was hungry. I crunched it between my teeth. It was very dry and gritty, as if made of the ashy dust which covered the surface of this world. But I drank from one of the containers and swallowed it somehow. There was now only the need to wait, and waiting can be very hard.
But I could think and speculate. Time, my mother had said, ran less swiftly in this land than it had for us. It was true that in the mind picture she seemed no older than she had when she had ridden forth on that quest for my father. But then we three had been children not yet started upon our life paths. Now I felt immeasurably older than I had at that hour.
It would seem that she and my father, having once reached this world, were imprisoned for lack of a gate. So her eagerness concerning Hilarion. But if they dared to come to this pit, could they not also be sucked into the same net? It was in me to call a warning by mind link—until I remembered that she had spoken of knowing this place in which I was captive. If she did, then surely she also knew of the perils it had to offer.
XIII
I finished the food and drank sparingly. About me the pillars still blazed, the silvery strands continued to veil the adept’s prison. Perhaps he slept.
But suddenly I caught slight movement on the dais where Ayllia lay. They had apparently put no bonds on her, no visible ones. Now she was rousing from whatever state of consciousness had held her for so long. She sat up slowly, turning her head, her eyes open. As I watched her closely I thought she did not seem wholly aware of her surroundings, but was still gripped in a daze, as she had been during our journey to the tower city.
She did not get to her feet, but rather began to crawl along the step on which she had lain. I watched the gray man on duty. He sat inert before his board, as if he could see nothing but the lights on the screen.
Ayllia reached the corner of the step, rounded that, began to crawl at a sluggish pace down the far side. In a moment or two she would be out of my sight. And perhaps out of reach when I needed her. I sent a thought command to halt. But if it touched her mind there was no answer. Now she was out of my sight on the far side of the dais.
Then I noted that one of the silver tendrils about the pillar stirred, enough to touch the one next to it to the right, and that to the next, and the next, before those, too, were hidden from my observation. That movement carried with it a suggestion of surreptitiousness, as if it must be hidden from any watcher. I could not remember whether there had been any movement of the tendrils before Ayllia’s apparent waking, or if it had begun only when she moved. Was Hilarion putting into practice what I had earlier attempted, contacting the barbarian girl’s mind and setting her under his orders to try a rescue attempt?
Two sides of the dais were hidden from me. The third I faced, where Ayllia had lain, and the fourth I could also see. But any advance along that would be in plain sight of the gray man. And he could hardly fail to notice if she passed directly before him.