“That will not protect you,” snarled the Guardian. He strode forward with Envy, Greed, Hate, and Pride growling and drooling around his feet. He reached out, and his hands fastened on the Belt like claws.
His eyes glowed with triumph, then suddenly widened, burning, burning like pits of fire. Staring into them, fixed in terror, Lief seemed to see a thousand pictures leaping in the flames.
But the Belt was icy cold.
The Guardian’s mouth gaped in a shriek of agony. And the monsters — the monsters were capering around him, throwing up their heads and howling, straining at their leads, trying to get away from him.
Lief staggered. He was released. The spell was broken. The Guardian fell to his knees, throwing back his head, still clinging to the Belt as though he could not let go. Envy, Greed, Hate, and Pride turned on him in a frenzy, their jaws frothing, their terrible teeth ripping and tearing at him, shredding his robe to ribbons, slicing into the shrivelled grey flesh beneath.
And then, with a thrill of horror, Lief saw what the robe had hidden. Saw the four great, oozing lumps on the Guardian’s chest. Saw the pulsing, fleshy cords that arose from them, twisting and snaking through his sleeves and on to the swollen necks of the savage, attacking beasts. The Guardian had called Hate, Greed, Envy, and Pride his pets, but they were part of him. Vile growths from his own body.
“Release me!” screamed the Guardian. “They are eating me alive! Cut the cords! Oh, I beg you!”
Lief’s sword was in his hand. Shuddering, his ears ringing with the shrieks of the man and the roars of the beasts, with his companions’ shouts of horror, he swung at the lashing ropes of flesh, slicing them through.
Yellow-green liquid gushed from the wounds. The cords writhed, their cut ends flopping horribly to the ground. The monsters swayed, then fell. For an instant they lay twitching. Then they were still.
The Guardian’s fingers loosened. His withering face turned up to Lief’s. In the red eyes, the fires were dying.
“The diamond,” he croaked. “Take it! It is with her. Where she lies. The stream …”
He crumpled and fell backward. Lief, Jasmine, and Barda turned and ran.
Neridah lay face up in the stream, the slow water drifting over her unseeing eyes, her hair billowing over the rock on which she had hit her head. In the open palm of her cold, cold hand lay a great diamond.
“It seems that the Guardian did not kill her,” Jasmine murmured, wondering. “It was just ill fortune that she tripped while she was crossing the stream. Ill fortune that she hit her head and drowned.”
Realizing what she had said, she glanced at Lief and bit her lip. “I am sorry,” she muttered. “If I had had my way, no doubt we would be lying here, or somewhere like it, ourselves. The curse — is strong.”
“Strong enough for the Guardian to know that he did not have to fear theft,” Barda said grimly. “The diamond could be relied upon to act before the thief escaped the valley.”
“Take care!” cried Jasmine, as Lief reached into the water.
But Lief shook his head. “We have nothing to fear,” he said. The Belt grew hot at his waist as he lifted the great gem, dripping, from the water.
Mist swirled about him, filled with shadows, filled with whispers, as he took off the Belt and laid it on the ground. The six gems glowed on their steel medallions. The last medallion waited to be filled.
Lief pressed the great diamond down. With a tiny click, it slid into place. Into the place where it belonged. The Belt was complete.
There was a moment’s breathless silence. Then the whispering began again. Louder now. Louder. The mist billowed, clumping into columns and spirals, rising from the ground and writhing upward through the trees, as though it was alive. And as it rose, figures were left blinking in the clear air. Men, women, and children looked in bewildered joy at their warming hands, at their slowly coloring robes, and at each other.
Then there was a great crack, a shattering, like the sound of breaking glass. In an instant, the valley was flooded with color and blinding light.
And when Lief, Barda, and Jasmine looked again there were people by the hundreds, by the thousands, rejoicing among the trees, under the blue sky. They were no longer grey, drifting, hollow-faced, but rich with color, warmth, and life.
Most were tall and slender, with long, smooth faces, their dark eyes shining beneath slanting eyebrows. Black, silky hair hung down their backs, the deep sleeves of their robes swept the ground. Staring at them in wonder, hardly able to accept the evidence of his own eyes, Lief remembered the Guardian’s words.
The first of my subjects, the largest number, came to me in a great wind, the pride that had caused their fall still fresh within them …
And then he knew. These were the lost people of Tora.
The companions walked through the crowd, and everywhere hands were held out to them. But now the hands were open, filled with life and thanks.
The people of Tora had wandered in the Valley of the Lost for as long as Lief had been alive, yet they had not grown old, or changed. Old, middle-aged, and young, they remained just as they had been that day when they broke their vow. Lief, Barda, and Jasmine moved among them, hearing over and over the story of their fall.
The magic of the tunnel had protected Tora from evil for so long that the Torans had come to think they had grown perfect, as their city was perfect, and that any decision they made would be the right one. When the message from Endon came, they considered it as they considered everything: without passion, without hate, without anger. But also without warmth, without love, without pity.
“The decision did not seem a betrayal of trust,” murmured a young man who held the hand of a small child. “It seemed sensible, and just. For to us, the king was a stranger. Even the Torans who went to Del with Adin, and those who went afterwards, had long ago become part of the Del palace life. They had ceased to be a bridge between our cities.”
“But in our pride we forgot the magic on which our power was based,” sighed an old woman, tall and straight in her scarlet robe. “The ancient vow, with the curse it embraced, was still as strong as it ever was. We did not count on that, for we looked forward, but never backward in those days. We have learned better since.”
The companions walked back through the trees to the palace clearing, the crowd following silently. As they approached the clearing Lief was haunted by the feeling that he was dreaming. At any moment he might wake. At any moment he might see the palace, gleaming like a jewel, and the Guardian, red eyes staring, beckoning through swirling mist.
But the palace had gone, as if it had never been. In its place was a small wooden hut. Flowers and wild grass grew around it, and standing at its door was a bearded man wearing a coarse gown, tied at the waist with a knotted cord. His sad eyes met Lief’s. They were very familiar.
Perched on his arm was a black bird. Sitting on his hand was a small, grey bundle of fur.
Before Lief could say a word, Jasmine was running forward with a cry of joy. Then Kree was flying towards her, and Filli was leaping, chattering, to meet her. They had come down from the cliff edge the moment the mist had lifted. They had waited with their new friend patiently. But now that they saw Jasmine, they would not wait a moment longer.
Together once again, the companions moved to the stranger’s side.
“You are the hermit — the hermit in the pictures on the rug,” Lief said.
The man nodded.