“Ayllia!” With mind call I pulled her and she came stumbling down to me. I need not so summon that other; he was already running for the arch, free as he had not been for untold centuries. In his hand was the wand, which he used as a pointer, aiming with it to send those serpents of fire hither and thither behind us. Whether they attacked Zandur and his men I could not see, for the stifling smoke was a yellow fog to set one coughing, with streaming eyes, but they did build behind us a formidable rear guard.
Hilarion looked at me and I read in his eyes something of what he felt in his moment of triumph. With his free hand he gestured us on toward the opening through the big screen; there was an alert wariness about him which told me that we were far from rid of what Zandur might summon.
On the other side of the screen we met the first of these ranks of the gray men, in their hands fire tubes such as I had seen used by those who cut their way into the transports. I drew upon the tripled power within me and built a hallucination. It was hastily constructed, unfinished, but for the moment it served. Ayllia, by my side, took on the appearance of Zandur. Seeing him with us, the gray men did not loose their fire, but fell back to give us an open passage, down which we fled.
We came to a plate in the floor beneath the balcony and huddled on this at Hilarion’s gesture. Once we were upon it, it rose under us, taking us to the higher level. None too soon, for the gray men had taken heart, or learned the deception, and were firing at where we had been only seconds earlier. As those fiery trails whipped back and forth under the rising plate, I saw smoke float out from behind the screen and heard the clamor of that storm Hilarion’s freeing had induced.
“Well done, sorceress,” For the first time he spoke. “But we are not free yet. Do not think that Zandur is one as easily handled as this girl you have so aptly used.”
“I do not underrate any enemy,” I told him. “But help comes—”
“So!” It appeared that with that I had startled him. “Then you did not come through the gate—you two—alone?”
“I am not alone.” I made him an answer, but more than that I did not say. Hilarion was a key now as Ayllia had been the key earlier, and I did not trust him. Only with my mother and father to stand with me would I dare to set any demands on him . . . for the old question stirred and dwelt ever at the back of my mind: some of the adepts, many, had turned to the Shadow. Was Hilarion even faintly so tainted, though he might not have been wholly of the dark? I had believed in and trusted Dinzil, who had in turn seemed one with the Valley people, been accepted as friend by them. And yet he had proved in the end to be one with the enemy. So it would seem there were those on the other side of our war who could take on the semblance of light while they were truly of those choosing to walk in the great dark.
A common danger can make temporary allies of unfriends and this might be true here. Suppose Hilarion did return us through the gate he had created, enter with us into Escore, and then prove to be such a one as those there had to fear? No, we must be ever on our guard until we knew—and how could we learn?
XIV
We faced now what seemed a solid wall, and I remembered how that had parted when I had been drawn here and closed behind me. How could we force our way out when this must be controlled by Zandur’s machines, and we had not even the fire shooting weapons of his followers? It would not take them long to reach where we stood, and then we might be crisped to ashes with no escape.
But Hilarion had no doubts. He approached the wall, though I noticed how he moved stiffly, as if long imprisonment in the pillar had frozen his body. But even if his muscles obeyed him slowly, he had every confidence in his Power. As Ayllia had done he used the wand in a swordsman’s move, laying its tip against that portion of the wall where we could see a fine line of division.
And I felt, though I did not add to it, the surge of will which emanated from him at that moment. From the tip of the wand leaped a blue spark which fastened to that line, sped down and up, running along it. There was a trembling through the floor on which we stood. Then the portal gave, very grudgingly, affording us only a narrow slit of passage. I pushed Ayllia through and followed myself, to have Hilarion bring up the rear.
We were in the dark passage through which I had groped with such care nights—days—earlier. In the narrow strip of light from the door I saw Hilarion aim the wand once more at the portal. Again blue light moved, and, as falteringly as it had opened, the door began to close. When a slit only the width of a finger remained, I saw a flash of blue, this time not aimed at the opening but along the floor, rising to run in the same fashion overhead.
“I do not believe they can force that too soon.” There was satisfaction in his voice, but something else, such a spacing of words and slurring of them as I have heard in the voices of men who have been pushed very close to the edge of endurance in both body and spirit.
“Kaththea?” he called. I could not see him in the dark.
“I am here.” I answered swiftly for it seemed to me that this was a call for either reassurance or aid. It astonished me greatly—unless the battle he had waged for his freedom, and incidently ours, had truly exhausted him.
“We . . . must . . . reach . . . the . . . surface—” The hesitation, the slurring were stronger. And I could now hear heaving breath, a rasping as a man might make after he had just climbed a steep rise at his best speed. I put out my hand, touched firm, warm flesh, and felt my fingers taken into a grasp which was not strong, but which held. Straightaway I sensed a draining from me into him.
“No!” I would have broken that hold but, weak as it seemed to be, there was no loosing of my fingers.
“Yes, and yes!” There was more energy in his denial. “My little sorceress, we are not yet out of this pit, and perhaps our first skirmish was the least of those to be faced. I must have what you can give me, as I do not think you could carry me if you would. Nor do you know the pitfalls herein as I do; remember I have been an unwilling part of them. I have been too many ages pent within that prison to be as able on my feet, or as fast as a master swordsman. You will give me what I need, if you truly wish to be free of Zandur.”
“But the machines—the fires—” I drew upon what had happened in the chamber to add to my stubborn resistance.
“No worse hit than they have been many times before. There are fast methods of repair, and Zandur will have already put those into action. Remember, this place was made to wage war, such a war as I do not believe you have dreamed of, my lady sorceress. For it is not a war those of our blood have ever seen. This place has many defenses and most of them shall now be turned on us, as speedily as Zandur can make the repairs to activate them. So give me of your strength and let us hurry.”
Then I, recalling that long descent which I had made, wondered if we could reclimb it. Ayllia came willingly enough, but as at first, she must be led. I did not try to control her mind again.
“Let him have what he now needs,” my mother’s thought rang in my head. “Feed, and we shall feed you! He speaks the truth: time now marches, heavily armed, against us all!”
So I let my hand remain in his grasp as we went on down that dark way, and felt the energy flow out, to be soaked up by him as a sponge soaks up water. But into me came what Jaelithe and Simon released to my aid, so that I was not drained as I might well have been. Again I wondered whether, had that not been so, Hilarion would have indeed plundered me, and then what he would have done with Ayllia and myself. My distrust of him grew the stronger.