It fitted perfectly, as if some long-ago smith had made it for her measure. Once on, it didn’t feel so heavy, either. She lit the last branch—now she had light enough to leave, and that was it. Facing the open sections, she spoke the word of closing and watched as they snapped shut again. She’d be back. There was more here to be discovered. She hurried up the stairs as her branch burned low. Was it possible, her curiosity suggested, that the commands would work in some of the bedrooms as well? Were there other secrets she might have overlooked?
She soon found there were. Mayrin had taught her other commands, and these opened what must have once been clothes closets in several of the rooms. She gasped over the wealth of silks and velvets exposed to her. From the sizes and other indications, she guessed there had been a lord and lady of the keep. There looked also to have been babies.
For the remainder of that day, she trotted from wall to wall all over the keep trying her commands. Even the kitchen yielded up cupboards of pots, pans, crockery, and other minor items. Eleeri retired to bed, her head whirling with delight. From being a beggar in someone else’s keep, she now felt true ownership for the first time. It was as if the keep itself had let her in.
Early the next morning she was back down the stairs again with torches. She circled the walls, trying each of the words she knew in turn. One opened a small door to stables she had not known were there. By the afternoon, she was exhausted with her work. She retired to the great hall with a charcoal stick and a large piece of white bark. There she attempted to make a plan of the keep. As she drew, she marveled. Why had it taken her so long to explore? It was as if she had felt herself an invader. That by remaining in the hall alone she would not anger those who had once owned this place.
In some ways she understood her own actions. It had been the canyon with its runes and strange mist. She had felt that to trespass too greatly would be to see them all driven forth. But now that they had lived here for a time, she felt a gradual welcome begin to close about her. As if she was known now, recognized and accepted. The keep was hers: she would accept its gifts, its shelter, the comfort offered by the strong walls and runes at the gates.
For the next weeks she was busy going over her newfound keepdom. She began sleeping upstairs in the bedroom that must have belonged to lord and lady. The kitchen shone with burnished pots and pans hung on the walls. From cupboards now open to her searching eyes, she retrieved tapestries, hanging them with much labor and cursing. It puzzled her that the cupboards appeared to have protected their contents so well. It occurred to her to experiment with fresh meat placed inside the closet in a bedroom. The attempt explained much to her; the meat remained fresh for weeks. After some trial and error, she found that the more often the cupboard was open, the more swiftly the meat would decay. A spell? It had to be. Some magic to preserve from time whatever was placed within. Good. The cupboards she did not need would do well to keep her food against the summer heat.
Meanwhile, the Keplians had not been idle. Hylan had taken to quiet visits into the lands his dam had once known. From there he had returned with news gleaned from his kind. The last visit, Tharna had traveled beside him. Now she came in search of Eleeri.
*Kin-sister, there is news, nor do I like what I have heard.*
The woman stood up to stroke the soft nose. She waited. Tharna would speak in her own good time.
*In the center of our lands there rises an old shadow. Evil lairs once more in the Dark Tower. My people fear it, obey it, yet still do they fall to its hunger. It is possible it is the reason the Gray Ones hunt us far harder than ever before. More and more Keplian fall to them also.*
Eleeri had known of that. The Keplians had always been small in numbers, the fault of the treatment meted out to orphaned foals by the stallions who killed so casually and the mares who refused to aid the helpless. Now she listened to Tharna and Hylan as they told of foals and birth-weakened mares taken almost under the noses of herd stallions. Even of young bachelor males pulled down by many Gray Ones working together.
*They are run mad. They kill and kill until all our lands will be empty.* Hylan’s breath hissed in. *They even attack the rasti. But they lose doubly in that. The rasti are not such as should be trifled with. Many died—on both sides.*
The woman smiled broadly. “It is well said that when evil ones fall out, good may profit. Let us hope they slaughter each other until none remain.”
*Unlikely,* the stallion commented. *They say in our lands that that which dwells in the tower spoke to them harshly, saying that if they war again, he will punish both sides.*
Eleeri glanced up. “That won’t get it far. Rasti care nothing for threats. If the Gray Ones attack them, they will fight.”
Tharna nodded. *But the wolf ones do care. They fear that which is in the Dark Tower. They will not again attack without word. I fear that it may be your friends who are to be prey next. There was some talk of a gathering of the pack, that they might hunt out far toward the edges of their territory.*
Eleeri gazed out from under the trees where they were standing. Her mind was suddenly made up: she would ride to speak of this to those of the lake keep.
*That is well, kin-sister. But ride wary.*
That the woman was more than prepared to do. The sturdy dun was saddled and Keplians mind-sent affection as she rode past them. The runes flared at her passage. Impelled by an impulse, she leaned over as she passed, fingers tracing the main runes of guard. A word came into her mind then as if gifted to her. By now she had learned not to speak such aloud, but in her mind she stored it against need.
As she rode from her hold, she thought about the runes. From what she now knew of the land, the gift of power was common. Even those who had little were taught to use what they had. All homes, keeps, strongholds, were warded, the Valley of the Green Silences most strongly of all. It was an ability native to the people here.
Her mind turned to the Gray Ones. Unpleasant creatures that they were. They and the Keplians had been enemies from time out of mind. It seemed that the attempts to control them, perhaps to draw power from them, was driving them mad. The tower might demand they cease to fight; the dweller there would not wish his meager resources wasted casually in a war he did not approve, and one moreover which killed his own side only. But he wasn’t having much luck there, Eleeri thought. That suited her. Friends profited when enemies fell out, Far Traveler had been fond of saying. If the Gray Ones continued to irritate the rasti, too, it would be useful.
She shivered. A rasti pack-ground was no place to be. They looked rather like weasels to her—weasels grown to three feet in length, with wonderful fur. And like weasels sometimes would in the depths of a hard winter, rasti hunted in packs.
They had no true intelligence, but they had an animal cunning all their own. Nor, if their territory was invaded, did they seem to care how many of their own kind died, so long as the intruders were expelled. The dead were food, their own dead or the invaders. She shivered, thrusting the thought from her mind.
She rode steadily downstream and along the lake edge. That night as she slept, she dreamed as she had not done in many months. A dark-haired man looked at her with a wistful hope. He had aged beyond the boy of the small painted picture. But she knew him . . . Romar, twin to Mayrin. His face twisted in his efforts to reach her, to speak, perhaps to warn.
Then strength visibly drained from him and his face went slack. She leaned forward; her eyes studied him. He was thin, pale of skin, as one who had been indoors too long. But resolution still showed in the firm set of jaw, the folded lips. In her sleep, slender fingers slid to her throat, there to twine about the Keplian pendant. She strained to see more clearly. Warmth rose from that which she clasped.