“Your ring, Dhalvad.” Dhal looked up to find l’Tamorlee holding out his hand.
Though he disliked the thought of being an unwitting host to a mysterious crystal, neither did he like the thought of giving up his ring. It had belonged to his father. Also, it was responsible for bringing him to Val-hrodhur and he suspected he could not return to his own world without it.
He let his hand drop to his side, fingers closing into a fist. No one was going to take his ring! Danner nudged him gently and, with his eyes, silently bade Dhal to give the ring over.
Ignoring him, Dhal turned sideways off the cushioned mat and stood up. “The ring is mine,” he said, taking a step back from the platform.
“No one has said that it is not,” 1’Tamorlee stated firmly.
Dhal saw Thura glance behind him and he cursed silently. For a moment he had forgotten the two Ni-lach guards. He heard their naked footsteps approach. He stepped to the side, turning so he could see the two guards. “I wish to return to my own world now,” he said quickly, “to think about what you have said.”
“No,” 1’Tamorlee said, rising. “You must stay and speak to the Tamorlee. Please, give me your ring. I promise that it shall be returned to you.”
“Give it to him, child,” Thura prompted. “Did you not come to us for help? We can’t help unless you allow it.” Something in the old one’s voice made Dhal want to trust her. Even the eyes of 1’Tamorlee seemed softer, reassuring. Almost… almost he gave the ring over.
But he had hesitated too long. The two guards moved in. As a hand fell on his shoulder, he dropped and spun around, all thought of obeying l’Tamorlee erased in that single touch. His ringed fist drove into the stomach of the first guard. The Ni doubled up and fell as Dhal leaped away from the platform to face the second guard. In one fluid motion the guard’s right hand reached back over his shoulder and from his chest harness he drew a sword—a sword such as Dhal had never seen, with a blade of glaring, white light.
As the guard swung the sword at Dhal, 1’Tamorlee yelled at him to stop, but by that time Dhal had ducked the first swing and had bolted for the door. He reached the other side of the room five steps ahead of the guard. As he flung the door open, he saw out of the corner of his eye a flash of light coming at him. Instinctively he raised his left arm to deflect the blow, at the same time lunging through the doorway. A stab of fire laced through his left shoulder and he cried aloud.
Dhal turned as the guard came through the door. Whipping his knife from its hidden leg sheath, he went to his knees as the Ni guard overran him. Pushing up quickly, he caught the guard off balance, heaving him up and over onto the floor. Danner, l’Tamorlee and the other guard came running through the door.
Dhal lifted his knife. “Stay back! I’m leaving!” He did not wait for an answer, but started backing away. While the Ni guard heaved to his feet and groped for his sword of light, Dhal turned and ran.
Bursting through the main doors, he headed for a nearby copse of trees. He turned once to look behind. L’Tamorlee, Danner, and one of the guards stood in front of the building watching him. L’Tamorlee’s hand was on the guard’s shoulder, as if restraining him.
Breathing hard, his shoulder a fiery torment, Dhal stopped to look at his wound. Fearing to use his healing powers lest he tire himself and have no energy to use the ring, he settled for numbing his back and shoulder muscles. Then he raised the fire ring. He had had enough of l’Tamorlee and the strange Ni who lived in Val-hrodhur. He was going back to his own world—if he could.
As the swirling colors flowed before his eyes, he pictured Haradan and the cellar where he had left his friends. He concentrated as he never had before. There was a sudden clearing of the colors as blue-black shadows formed into shapes. He saw the glitter of firelight, then felt a momentary lurching sensation.
A gasp of surprise came from Poco. “Look, it’s Dhal!”
Haradan moved out of the shadows. “Dhalvad, how did you get in here?” he demanded, dropping down beside him. “Where have you been? We’ve been worried.”
“He appeared,” Poco said, her voice shaking slightly. “He just appeared. I was sitting there near the fire, wondering if Screech was having any luck in finding him and then—then he just appeared. There was a strange flicker of light and then he was sitting there. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Poco was looking at him with wide eyes. Slowly she approached and put a hand to his shoulder as if to reassure herself that he was really there. Dhal flinched at her touch, then renewed pain flooded through him and he felt himself falling. Hands caught him and lowered him to the floor.
“Damn! He’s been hurt,” Haradan snapped. “Build up that fire, girl! We need light! Efan, go get some water. Lay quiet, Dhal. Let me see what’s wrong.”
“… so I decided not to take the chance. When l’Tamorlee demanded I give him the ring, I broke away. That’s when the Ni guard attacked me with his sword. His first stroke missed. His second didn’t. After I reached the hall, the guard overran me and I managed to knock him down, then I escaped. When I was safe in the woods above the building, I used the ring to come back.”
Dhal looked from one face to the next. Ssaal-lr had returned from his search and had heard all but the beginning of the story. His yellow eyes were close lidded as he looked at Dhal. Dhal wondered what he was thinking.
For a moment or two all were silent, then everyone started talking at once. “Wait!” Haradan said, raising his voice. “If we’re going to make any sense out of this, let’s ask our questions one at a time, please.”
Haradan then turned to Dhal. “Do you feel up to answering some questions, Dhal, or would you like to rest a while?”
“Ask. I’ll try to answer.”
For more than two hours they talked. Dhal answered their questions as best he could and had some of his own to ask, the most important concerning his physical presence in both worlds. His leave-taking had gone unnoticed in the semi-darkness of the cellar. Everyone had believed that he had simply slipped out to attend to personal needs, and only when he failed to return did they become worried. It proved to him that the transfer to the other world had been complete.
Finally, swallowing nervously, Efan asked about the loca-tion of Val-hrodhur. “Do you think it’s in the mountains north of Port Bhalvar?”
“I don’t know, Efan,” Dhal answered. “When I spoke of Port Bhalvar and the Sarissa, the Ni-lach didn’t seem to know where or who I was talking about. I don’t believe they could live so close to Port Bhalvar and not know of its existence.”
“But the Mountains of the Lost are wild and uncharted,” Efan argued. “Could it be that the people you met live in some secluded valley where they guard the Ni-lach treasure?”
“Treasure?”
Efan frowned. “My father heard stories about it.”
Dhal shook his head. “I saw no treasure, not unless you consider the crystal itself a treasure, but what one would do with such a large stone is beyond comprehension. Personally, I don’t think I’d like to tamper with it. There was something eerie about that whole place, almost unreal.”
“But it was real,” Haradan said quietly, “because illusions and dreams do not physically harm. Dhal, I think it would be best if you let me have your ring for the time being, lest you be drawn back to that world and hurt again.”
Dhal looked down at the ring. He did not want to give it up. Haradan saw his hesitation. “For twenty-four years your ring was in my keeping, Dhal. Trust me still?”
Looking at the ring one last time, Dhal slipped it from his finger. He watched as Haradan placed it in a small leather pouch at his belt.
Two days later Haradan and Dhal decided it was time to leave. Having determined that their boat was lost to them, they had finally chosen the overland route through the Mountains of the Lost to Janchee, where they hoped to find transportation to Port Sulta. Efan, Poco, Gi, and Ssaal-lr all agreed that it was the only way left open.
Chapter 19
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THE NEXT MORNING POCO AND EFAN LEFT TO GET SUPPLIES FOR the trip. Poco was sure that by going up and around the search pattern set by the Port Guard that day they would have no trouble reaching the docks. Dhal hoped she was right.
Dhal had come to like Pocalina-fel-Jamba very much, her brisk manner, her teasing ways. He had met few women while living in the Deep and was at a loss for comparison; still, he thought she would outshine most women her age. Poco was lively and self-confident, yet shy and modest. Though she was one woman among three men, she did not ask to be treated as other than one of them. Dhal spoke of his feelings to Haradan.
“It had to happen eventually,” Haradan said, smiling.
“What had to happen?”
“Man, woman—what we were talking about earlier this fall.”
Startled, Dhal sat quietly, staring at the shaft of daylight that filtered down the cellar steps. Did he really love Poco? Did it matter if he did? Soon they would be gone from Port
Bhalvar and Poco would go back to her singing. They would never meet again. If what he felt for Pocalina-fel-Jamba was love, it was a thing that could not be.
Efan and Poco returned before nightfall, carrying leather pouches filled with dried foods. The boy looked tired, and Dhal wondered if he might not have changed his mind about going with them. Donar sar Frenzel had offered Efan a place in his household, so Dhal was surprised when Efan had announced that he still wanted to go with them, no matter their destination.
Over the days they had spent together in the cellar, Dhal had noticed that Efan had become extremely quiet and had taken to pacing restlessly. Though the boy used the excuse of exercising his legs, Dhal felt it was more than that. Something was bothering Efan, but until he felt like talking it out there was nothing any of them could do to help.
“Any trouble?” Haradan asked, as he helped relieve Poco of her burden.
“No, everything went fine,” she said. “We even have a map of the old trail through the mountains. Donar sar Frenzel gave it to Efan before he left.”
Haradan and Dhal exchanged quick glances. Could they trust Efan’s friend with their planned route to Janchee? Was it too late to change their plans?
By the time darkness had fallen, they were ready to go. Slinging a waterpouch over her shoulder, Poco led the way up out of the cellar. She was to accompany them to the old north gate, then Ssaal-lr would guide them as far as the fishing village of Canna, near the foothills of the mountains. Beyond that they would be on their own.
They reached the old gate in half an hour. There was no passing of the Port Guard there. Long abandoned for an easier route to the northwest, the stone roadway was all but buried in bush, vine, and weeds. The heavy gate tilted outward under the leverage of the roots of a fast-growing cara tree.
In the murky twilight the gates looked like the swollen eyes of an old man, once proud but now grown fearful in his loss of strength and youth. A portion of the gate had cracked at the bottom. Poco pushed a section of boards to the side and slipped through a V-shaped opening. One by one, the others followed.
A short distance beyond the gate the trees grew tall once more, and clingor vines running tree to tree formed a canopy overhead. Looking down the black tunnel that was all that was visible of the old north road, Dhal felt a flicker of uneasiness. And he was not the only nervous one: Efan was looking back at the old gates as if they were his last link with civilization.
Dhal turned to find Poco standing beside him.“Changing your mind?” she asked softly.
He knew what she meant. “No, it’s too late for that. Had we remained with the boat we probably would have been picked up before we left the harbor. By going overland we should put an end to the hunt. There’s no reason for the Sarissa to continue their search now. We have nothing they want and I can’t see them chasing us for revenge alone.”
“It should take you no longer than a week to reach the foothills,” she said, slipping the shoulder pouch off. “Trust Screech and you should have no trouble finding the old trail through the mountains.”
“Poco, I want to thank you for all you’ve done for us.”
“You are entirely welcome, Dhal.”
There was something else he wanted to say but the words became tangled in his mind. “I want to… it’s been…” Damn, he thought, get it out! “Poco, I’m going to miss your singing… and I’m going to miss you.”
It was getting darker by the minute. Poco’s face was so shadowed that Dhal could not see her eyes, but suddenly there was a flash of white teeth and he heard a low chuckle. “I wondered if you’d ever get around to that.” Her lips brushed his cheek, but when he reached for her, she stepped back. “Take care, Dhal, and know that you always have a friend in Port Bhalvar.”
She moved to stand before Ssaal-lr. “You know the wildlands better than most, Screech, but be careful. I want you returning in one piece.”
Ssaal-lr answered with a soft coughing sound, which Poco imitated. Then, like a cloud shadow, she was gone.
Silently Dhal turned and followed Haradan, wishing there was some way to stay in Port Bhalvar and, at the same time, wondering if he had made a mistake in not asking Poco to come with them to Letsia. But would she have come? Would she have given up all she had known to trek through the mountains with almost strangers? And to what end? To mate with a Ni who might be as much despised and unwanted in Port Sulta as he was in Annaroth? To resume life as a chalk artist in Port Sulta?
“You were wise in your choice, Pocalina-fel-Jamba,” Dhal said softly into the night air. “May the next man you meet have more to offer you than I.”
After the first night, they traveled by day through farmlands abandoned since the growing season had ended and the harvesting was done. On the morning of their eighth day, they took a small roadway heading northeast toward the coast.
Dhal looked down at the cloth sling he wore over his shoulder. Gi-arobi lay asleep inside, tired after walking all morning beside Dhal.
The wound he had received while visiting Val-hrodhur was no more. A few minutes of self-healing, after he had regained his strength, had erased all sign of the burn made by the light sword.
Efan walked ahead of Dhal, Haradan behind. Ssaal-lr was some distance ahead, cutting at obstructing vines and routing his companions around such obstacles as fallen trees and bogs, where a man could sink out of sight in a matter of seconds. That morning they had entered a section of the flatlands where moisture was squeezed out of the ground by each step.
Efan’s pace—though he tried his best—slowed them down. The muscles in his legs were growing stronger by the day but it would be weeks, perhaps months, before he would regain full strength. Dhal saw Efan misstep and was close enough to catch his arm to prevent a fall. “Want to stop?” he asked.
Efan nodded. “Can we?”
“I don’t know why not. I’ll go ahead and ask Ssaal-lr to find us a place to stop where the ground is dry.”
During the days they had spent in the cellar and on the road, Dhal had pushed himself to learn more of the derkat’s form of speech. Already he could read a good many of Ssaal-lr’s hand signs if the derkat made them slowly. Suddenly Haradan’s voice came from behind them. “Keep walking and don’t do anything when I drop out of line.”
“Something wrong?”
“I think we’re being followed. Twice I’ve seen something moving down our backtrail, but it was too far away to see it clearly. Go ahead, catch up with Ssaal-lr and find cover off the trail.”
Dhal looked back through the trees behind them. “What if it’s a draak? You may need help.”
“Don’t worry. If I need help, I’ll yell.”
“Do you think it could be the Port Guard?” Efan asked, a worried frown creasing his forehead.
“We’ll know soon enough. Go on, both of you. I’ll catch up.”
Dhal hurried ahead to alert Ssaal-lr to the possibility of hunters on their trail. Gi-arobi woke up and poked his head out of the sling as Dhal whistled to get Ssaal
-lr’s attention. “Why running, Dhal?” he asked, peering along the trail as if a gensvolf might pounce on them at any moment.
“Haradan thinks we’re being followed. He’s gone to check.”
Ahead of them Ssaal-lr had stopped and was waiting. Dhal had finished explaining their situation by the time Efan approached, breathing hard. With a jerk of his head, Ssaal-lr indicated that they should follow him uptrail. He directed them off the path where, crouched down behind a fallen aban tree, they waited.
The wait was not long. Ssaal-lr’s ears pricked forward. Rising slowly, he peered through the tangle of vines before them. Before Dhal could ask him what he saw, he made his coughing sound and took several gliding steps out and around the foot of the tree. Gi, who was almost invisible in the undergrowth, was only a few steps behind the derkat and it was he who announced Haradan’s coming—with Poco.
Dhal’s heart jumped at the sound of Poco’s name and, though his mind was seething with a hundred questions concerning her sudden appearance, he could not keep from smiling. Then he saw her and his smile disappeared.
She looked exhausted. Her face was streaked with dirt and sweat, her hair was uncombed, and her eyelids were puffy from lack of sleep. Her arms and hands were marred with scratches and dried blood. Her tunic was torn.
With an arm around her waist, Haradan led her up the trail. “We’ve got trouble,” he announced. “We are being followed.”
“By who?” Efan demanded quickly.
Poco shook her head. “I’m not sure who’s leading them. Let me rest and I’ll tell you what I know.” Sitting down right where she was, she continued. “After you left that night I went back to the cellar. I was tired and decided to stay there rather than go to my place. In the morning I got up early and was about ready to leave for the park when I heard voices. They were arguing. Thinking about you and the Port Guard, I went to find out what was going on. After leaving the cellar, I walked down the path above Old Street
Where The Ni-Lach Page 17