The specter wavered. Its cry thrust agony into Alemar's temples.
"Poseth!"Elenya cried.
"Poseth, lama ti Poseth!"the twins shouted in unison.
The wight exploded, splintering into shards of blue radiance. The psychic impact pounded the twins into the dirt. Each flicker of blue flame sped up as it went, circling the others, somersaulting, broadcasting the ecstasy of release. A hundred souls grown small from centuries of captivity and domination expanded to their full glory. For a moment, it was daylight.
But the dread did not leave.
Weak with exhaustion beyond the physical, Alemar and Elenya raised onto their elbows, but their relief was smothered. Another wight floated out of the vault's interior, its azure fire dwarfing that of its predecessor, the malevolence of its spell mocking the earlier failure.
But it held back, unable to prematurely calm the psychic chaos caused by the twins' counterattack, shrinking from the odor of exorcism. It laid the heaviness on the bones of its prey, draining all but the strength to remain awake, and waited.
Alemar heard hoofbeats.
The phantom acted abruptly. It roused, flowing foglike down the surface of the cairn to reassemble at the base, not ten feet from where the twins lay. There it hesitated a moment, reluctant to leave the source of its power. It proceeded forward gradually, opening its noncorporeal lips and uttering a strident, potent call of invitation.
The hands and knees of the twins responded, grudgingly, closing the gap.
A single rider and his oeikani galloped forward into the faint, early dawn illumination. The wight reared, facing the newcomer.
"Haiii-yahhh!" the rider shouted, drawing his scimitar. The wight opened its arms and grew until it was as tall and as wide as the mount, the glitter of its eyes betokening its hunger.
The man flung himself from the oeikani at the last moment, landing so suddenly and with such poor preparation that he knocked himself out. The oeikani passed through the wight and collapsed, its momentum tumbling it over three times. The creature keened with joy, the blue of its shape momentarily deepening.
As it turned back toward its human victims, ten more Zyraii rode into the site, beasts flecked with foam. Fear immediately contorted their faces. They shrank back. Lonal thundered between them on an exhausted buck.
"Dismount! Surround them!" he yelled.
They obeyed instantly, two men automatically rounding up the animals, which warbled their nervousness and would have scattered if not prevented. The wight screamed at them, but although knees shook, the tribesmen remained upright, keeping just outside the markers of the circle. They drew scimitars.
"Forget the steel! Get torches!" Lonal cried.
The wight held its ground, evaluating its opponents, while the men holding the oeikani retrieved resin-soaked shafts of bound sage from the saddlebags and threw them to the others. Alemar and Elenya stirred. Another ghostly scream shook the initiative out of their attempt. The specter advanced.
Lonal lit his torch. Rapidly the others followed suit.
The wight bellowed, fading as the light blared, becoming little more than a blue tinge on the walls of the mound. The Zyraii held the torches above their heads, the pallor of their faces revealed.
The creature began to whirl its arms in circles, spinning until it lost all human configuration. Currents of air rose, a whirlwind with a blue, stationary core. The siren call increased. The twins moaned. The tribesmen fought back the urge to step into the circle and had difficulty keeping their eyes open. One of them fell down.
A gust doused the torches.
Angrily the wight flowed outward in order to envelop Alemar and Elenya. Lonal lit his torch again with one stroke of the flint and flung it straight at the thing. The flame snuffed out, but the advance was halted. The wight screeched and spat blue tendrils at Lonal.
Lonal shuddered as if arrows of ice had pierced him. By now, most of his men had relit their brands. They waved them again, causing the wight to retreat toward its mound. It coalesced once again into human outlines. For a moment it almost possessed a true visage, that of an ancient, weary man, but other countenances coruscated within and upon the first, reflections of the souls held inside.
It glared at the men, hatred fervent. It hissed at their torches, and at the increasing light in the east. The men were grim, but they waited resolutely.
Ten interminable moments later, the wight retreated, slimelike, up the surface of the vault. It disappeared inside, drawing the stone cover back over the opening.
When they were sure it wouldn't return, the men sank to their knees. Three times they touched their foreheads to the ground toward the point where the sun would soon rise. The oeikani ceased to struggle against the grip on their reins. Murmured prayers came from many lips.
Alemar lay still, awake but unwilling to move. He ached. It humbled him to think how little his physical resistance had accomplished. Elenya groaned, not completely aware of her surroundings even now, struggling to stay conscious out of terror of falling asleep while still in that place.
Lonal and his Po-no-pha did not attempt to enter the circle until after the orb of Achird had risen above the line of the hills, and direct light hit the mound at last. The piled stones lost a little of their sinister aspect, though the sensation of dread continued to permeate the vicinity. By that time, Alemar had risen to a sitting position, and Elenya lay comfortably. The man who had leaped from his oeikani woke up.
At Lonal's terse command, only two of his men and he himself entered the unholy ground. They gripped their bruised comrade and each of the Cilendri by the armpits and dragged them past the marker stones as quickly as feasible.
"You do us honor, Kulam," Lonal told the recovering Zyraii. Kulam stared about uncertainly.
"Is it gone?" he whispered.
Lonal nodded. "The power of God proved more than it could defy. But it was a close thing." He filled in the man quickly, but did not elaborate. None of them cared to stay in the area any longer than necessary. The twins stood, shaky but on their own power. He ordered them onto the backs of two oeikani. They hung on to the Zyraii riders as if frightened of the height. Kulam glanced once at his dead animal and pursed his lips. Then he climbed behind one of his fellows.
"You will be compensated," Lonal told Kulam, and glared at the twins. "I know some people who will be glad to see that you receive two oeikani for your one."
IX
They were petite, but firm and well-proportioned, light pink nipples untouched by motherhood.
Keron blinked, not really sure that he had opened his eyes. The sensation of relief had awakened him. Lerina was leaning over him. One of her hands held an abalone shell between his legs, the other directed his penis toward the shell while his bladder emptied.
He tried to rise, but his body was a statue. Even the most insignificant muscle failed him.
"Relax," Lerina said.
He did. Vague memories told him this was not the first time she had tended him so. In fact, by now it seemed natural.
"You're really awake," she said, shaking him perfunctorily. She lifted the shell away.
"I think so," he murmured.
"Your fever broke a few hours ago."
"How long has it been?"
"Three days."
She rose and left momentarily to dump the urine. He glanced around. The cave had lost its uninhabited aspect. His mattress was a large blanket stretched across the smooth sand at the rear of the chamber, a gentle bed laid down by once-a-year extreme high tides. Along the tunnel to the outside, niches and natural stone shelves had been filled with small items such as blankets, flasks, and in one instance, a book. A basket of considerable size stood against a wall next to his clothing, his weapons and belt in a neat pile atop the garments. There was a depression in the sand next to him.