As if she had left him no choice Marbon’s intent gaze dropped to the stone. Animation was once more gone from his features, his face appeared drawn and wasted—near as old as had been the countenance of Zarsthor in that other world. He, too, might have fought some age long battle of mind and spirit—his eyes alone seemed alive.
Brixia hesitated. Dwed had no friend or liege tie with her. Would a call shaped by her thought reach him, be strong enough to halt his march into those shadows which enclosed the Last Gate of all? But if Marbon did such calling, could she not in turn fortify him in some way—her will alone perhaps giving him additional strength?
“Call!” she ordered once more. At the same time she summoned all she knew of concentration and aimed her will, not at the motionless, scarcely breathing body, but into the heart of the stone she held now near touching his breast.
“Call Dwed!”
Perhaps Marbon did—silently. Was it the stone which drew Brixia then into a state of being which no voice might reach? She—or a part of her holding her strong will and innermost spirit—was engulfed, swept on—not back into that place of mists from which she had brought the altered Bane. No, this was darker, more threatening, cold, dreary—a place of despair.
“Dwed!” Now she herself shaped that name in her thought, not with her lips. And it seemed to her the soundless thought rang like an imperative shout.
Down—Brixia had a sensation of sinking further and further into this dead world. There was a swirl of dusky green light about her but it did nothing to make her less apprehensive.
“Dwed!” Not her thought-call this time. But when she caught it she hastened to echo it. Before her stretched a line of deeper green, a cord along which the color played now light, now dark, rhythmically. The other end of that cord remained hidden. To see with the mind’s eyes, Brixia had heard of that but had never really believed it could be done.
“Dwed!”
The cord snapped taut. There was a need to save—to draw—But no one could lay hand on this. For where there was no physical body, neither did a hand exist.
Within herself Brixia fumbled, strove to master this new sense this awareness she had not known any could have—which she did not understand.
“Dwed!” Again that call in the other’s voice—or thought.
Though the cord remained taut, there was no more movement in it. There must be a way! In the past Brixia had known times when she had driven her body to a point where flesh, bone, and blood had been exhausted close to death. Now—she must so drive this other part of her. This was like using a new tool or weapon, for which she had no training—only desperation and great need.
“Dwed!” That was her call this time. And it seemed as if the name itself wove about the cord, thickened and strengthened it. Out flowed the wave of another force, not hers. For a moment Brixia flinched from uniting with that. Then, knowing that only together might come victory, she surrendered.
Draw—draw back the cord, guide so Dwed’s return! Be not only an anchorage holding him still to life, but prepare for him a road of escape.
The cord—in her vivid mental picture that was beginning to change. Small leaves of green-gold as brilliant as precious metal broke forth along it. Now it was a vine—Grow, pull—this way was life!
Thought closed about the vine in a grip as tight as willing hands might have. Draw—
“Dwed!”
Leaf by leaf the vine was moving, coming back and back. Pull!
“Dwed!”
The vine was gone—the cold, the dark broke like a bubble shattered from within. She was in the light once more, back in time and place. Dwed lay still in Marbon’s arms. The boy’s face was very pale, the green light of the stone gave it an overcast like that of the touch of death.
“Dwed!” Marbon’s hand cupped the boy’s chin, raising his head.
There was a flutter of eyelashes. Dwed’s lips parted in a slow sigh. Slowly the eyelids lifted. But the eyes were blank, unfocused.
“Cold—” he whispered faintly. A shudder shook his limp body. “So very cold—”
Brixia’s hands shook as she still cupped the stone. On impulse, and because she felt she had hardly any strength left in her now to continue to hold it, she placed the Bane on Dwed’s breast, brought up his flaccid hands to rub between her own. His flesh was clammy and chill.
“Dwed—” Marbon called his name loudly as the boy’s eyes once more closed. “Do not leave us, Dwed!”
Again the boy sighed. His head turned a little on his lord’s arm so that his face was half hidden.
“Dwed!” the name was now a cry of fear.
“He sleeps—he has not gone.” Brixia fell back rather than moved away. “Truly he is with you again.”
With you, she thought. Not with us. What part had she now in their lives?
“Only by your grace and favor, Wise Woman.” Marbon settled the boy gently on the floor.
She had seen this man’s face vacant, enraged, absorbed by the obsession of his quest. But now he looked very different somehow. She could not read the meaning behind his eyes. She was too tired, too drained in mind and body.
“I—am—no—Wise-woman—” She spoke slowly cut of the overwhelming ache of that tiredness. Uta pressed against her, purring, rubbing her head along Brixia’s arm in one of her most meaningful caresses.
The girl half put out her hand for the Bane, but she never completed that action. Instead a wave of darkness arose and swept her away.
Flowers around her, she lay in a scented nest of blossoms. Others hung from the branches which curtained her around. She could see only the pearl white of their petals, the carved perfection of them. Among them wound vines brightly green. Brixia thought drowsily that the rustling she heard was the whisper of flower and vine together.
Louder grew that whispering—and with it a murmur like the sweet plucking of lute strings. The flowers, the vines, sang:
Only jingling rhymes—no polished songsmith’s lay.
The flowers swung to it, the vine leaves whispered and waved. Languidly Brixia closed her eyes, content to rest in this fragrant bed which was so far from labor, fear and pain. But through the song, the lute’s murmur, a voice called imperiously:
“Brixia!”
“Brixia!”
Once more she opened her eyes. This was not her place of peace and flowers. She lay under the open sky. Under her, as her hands moved aimlessly, at her sides, was the softness of grass cut and heaped to make a bed. She was not alone. To her right Lord Marbon sat cross-legged, to her left was Dwed still white faced. Uta arose from by her feet, stretched and yawned.
Brixia frowned. Certainly she had not been here—no, rather in that domed place of the lake city—when last she remembered.
“You—did you sing that song?” she asked slowly, looking once more to Marbon.
“No.” He shook his head. With his lips shaping such a smile she thought she could understand, seeing also that which dwelt in his eyes, softened his features, that tie which had led Dwed to follow and serve his stricken lord—even to the edge of death. If this man offered friendship it was a gift worth the taking.