“Find it—must find it—” He spoke hurriedly, slurring his words together. Marbon caught at her arm, showing surprising strength, for he held her quiet so, and she knew that, short of using force, she could not break free. “Nothing’s right—it is because of Zarsthor’s Bane.” He lowered his head a little, thrusting his face closer to hers. “Must find—” The recognition of a sort made his eyes fully alive.
“Not—Jartar! Who are you?” His voice was sharp, held a ring of command.
“I am Brixia,” she returned, wondering just how much his wandering sense had returned.
“Where is Jartar? Did he send you then?” His grip on her was tight and steady enough so that when he shook her, her whole body moved.
“I do not know where Jartar is,” she tried to find some words which would satisfy this lord who, by the evidence of the boy, called on a dead man. “Perhaps—” she used the same excuse his attendant had, “he is waiting outside.”
Lord Marbon considered that. “He knows, from the ancient runes—only he—I must have it! He promised that it was mine to use. I am the last of Zarsthor’s line. I must have it!” He shook her again as if he would force what he wanted out of her by such rough mishandling. Now her hand closed about the hilt of her belt knife. If it were necessary to use that for protection against a mad man—why, then she would.
But it was not only his visible madness which aroused her fears—it was something inside herself. Her head—she wanted to cry out—to wrench free of this Marbon and run and run—Because—deep in her she stood in front of a door and if that door would open—!
This was not the shrinking that the sane sometimes feel when confronted by the abnormal among their own species. Her new emotion was totally alien. She could not turn her head, break the tie between their eyes. There was a need rising in her—something she must do—and nothing else in all the world mattered but that need which compelled, which made her its prisoner. She found herself whispering:
“Zarsthor’s Bane.” That was it! What she must find—what would give true life—bring again into order all which had gone awry since the Bane came to life.
Brixia blinked once, again. The feeling was gone—the need was gone! For a moment he had ensorcelled her with his madness! Now she jerked and twisted, breaking his hold, inching away from him along the wall.
But Marbon did not try to seize upon her once more. It was rather as if, when she had broken free, she had also released him to slide back once more into that place of no knowledge. For his face suddenly smoothed, became entirely vacant. He stared at the wall, not at her. While the hand with which he had held her fell to his side.
The hole which might lead to the open beckoned her, but Brixia was afraid to go to hands and knees, leaving her back unprotected, lest he pounce upon her again. So they stood against opposite sides of the cave as she tried to determine a way of quick escape.
“Lord—” the boy’s head suddenly appeared in the hole, “all is clear without.”
Brixia burst forth, eager to share her knowledge of what might be a danger.
“Your lord is crazed.”
The boy’s face contracted with rage as he scrambled to his feet.
“You lie! He took a bad hurt at the Pass of Ungo—the same time as his foster brother was slain. His hurt and his sorrow has upset for a time his knowledge of what we do and where we go. He is not crazed!”
His lips twisted into a snarl. Brixia thought that inwardly he must agree with her, but some emotion would not let him admit it.
“He is back here—in his home,” the boy continued. “The healer said that were he in a place he knew well, his memory could return to him. He—he thinks he is on a quest. It is an old tale of his House—the story of Zarsthor’s Bane. He would gain the Bane and put all right again. It is that belief which has kept him alive.”
“It is an old legend of his line—of how Zarsthor who came to Eggarsdale crossed the brother of his lady-she was of the Old Ones—and Elder in his pride and rage made a pact with some dark power, laying upon Zarsthor and his blood after him, even onto the land he then held, a curse so that when they gained aught, they lost the more.”
“When the fighting went against him so grievously this past year, my lord came to think more and more of the Bane. And Lord Jartar, who had ever an interest in ancient stories, more so if they dealt with the Old Ones, spoke with him often. So it became fixed in my lord’s mind there was perhaps after all a true meaning in this story out of the past. Thus my lord made a pact with the Lord Jartar—who swore that he had chanced upon some secrets which might lead to the unraveling of this story of the Bane—that they would indeed search out the truth of Zarsthor and what might lie hidden in the past—
“But how does one find secrets out of the past?” In spite of herself Brixia was caught by a faint excitement. For the first time in a long march of days she was drawn to an idea which was not strictly a part of her fight to keep on living from one day’s dawn to sunset, from sunset to the next dawn.
The boy shrugged, his face held a bitter twist of mouth, a frowning pull of eyebrow toward eyebrow.
“Ask that of the Lord Jartar—or rather of his shade! He is dead, but the Bane lives in my lord’s mind. And maybe it possesses him now past the point whereby he can believe in aught else!”
Brixia bit her lip. The boy had already turned away from her. Perhaps Marbon had ensorcelled him, too after the fashion which had worked on her for those few moments when they were alone here. It could well be that in truth it was the lord’s delusion which had led them both to this ruined valley, rather than any advice from a healer.
She watched the boy take the torch from his companion, lead the man to the hole and gently force him to hands and knees, then push him towards that exit. Once set in motion Lord Marbon did not resist, but crawled on into the dark. When he had vanished the boy thrust the torch into a crack in the rock and dropped to follow.
Brixia, having no mind to remain underground if there was a way out, crept in herself, on the other’s heels.
The narrow passage was a short one, and they came out into a deeper twilight where several trees and some brush formed a curtain before the break in the ground through which they had come. They were well up on the northern slope of the dale’s guarding hills. As they squatted there, under the cover of the brush, Brixia surveyed the keep below. Faint light played in one of the tower’s slit windows—there must still be fire within. Also she was able to count five shaggy, ill-kempt ponies, the like of which outlaws rode, if they were lucky enough to be mounted at all.
“Five—” she heard the boy half whisper beside her. He, too, had wriggled forward until his shoulder nudged against hers.
“Perhaps more,” she told him with some satisfaction. “Some bands number more men than mounts.”
“We shall have to take to the hills again,” he commented bleakly. “That or into the Waste.”
In spite of herself Brixia felt something of his discouragement. She was resentful of having to think of anyone but herself, but if these two wandered on without any supplies, or any more knowledge of woodcraft than she guessed they had, they might already be counted dead men. It irked her that she was not allowed by that strange nagging, new born within her, to leave them to the fate they courted by their folly.
“Has your lord no kin to shelter him?” she asked.
“None. He—he was not always accepted among those soft-handed, lower dales people. He—has, as I said, other blood—from THEM—” Among the Dalesmen “them” so accented meant only one thing—those alien peoples who had once held all this land. “He—that was what made him what he was—what he is. You wouldn’t understand—you’ve only seen him now,” the boy’s voice was a passionate whisper, as if he feared he might not be able to keep his self control. “He was a great warrior—and he was learned, too. He knew things other Dale lords never dreamed of understanding. He could call birds to him and talk to them—I have seen him do that! And there wasn’t a horse what wouldn’t come and let him ride. He could sing a sleep spell for a wounded man. I have even seen him lay hands on a wound which was black with poison and order the flesh to heal—it did! But there was no one who could so heal him, no one!”