by Andre Norton
"It is true. There is a door here and – " She lay now on her back and looked up at the surface of the wall where those particles appeared to move together and outline to form shapes of their own. "There is here an illusion set. But, by the Third Ring, 0 Sotrath, to Thee thanks of heart and mind! By this Third Ring of Thine we can see!"
She began to hum, so faint a sound that it was hardly as loud as the clatter of Toggor's claws on the rock. Farree once more felt the power of that singing.
The glittering bits waxed brighter – taking on the rainbow hues of the ring itself, now red, now blue, now green, now yellow – or a swirling mixture of them all together. But as they gathered to make lines and curves on the surface of the wall, Lord-One Krip sent a thrusting thought.
"They are aboard the flitter – and it is rising in this direction!"
That warning from below was as sharply clear as if it had been shouted aloud. Yet the Lady Maelen did not move, nor was there a falter in the low sound which issued from her lips. More and more did the pattern clear on the door in the rainbow sparks of light. And that light now outlined the portal itself. It promised an opening of a size to let the three of them enter abreast.
Now the noise of the flitter was loud enough to drown out the sound of her song even though he lay beside her as flat as he could push his body. He did not turn his head to watch the enemy – not yet – for the wonder of that design of lights held him entranced.
"They come."
The second quick warning was not needed, for the drone of the flitter rolled above the cliff and echoed and reechoed from the rocks thereabout. Now Farree did lever himself up and face about in time to see the forward, upward sweep of the craft. It might well be that the two of them had already been sighted and were easy game for those on board. He waited, shrinking inside, for the flash of a laser beam to cut out at them.
The light of the third ring was a mist growing ever stronger. Perhaps in that they were not as good targets as Farree feared. He was aware of movement beside him, of the Lady Maelen getting to her knees and then her feet, still facing the closed door in the cliff as if she had all the time in the world to deduce its secret and need fear no interruption in that task.
He scrambled up in turn, his back now to her and the door, facing outward. Small as he was, he could not protect her whole body with his, but he would do the best he could.
The flitter was heading straight for them, as if it meant to crash against the cliff and crush the both of them. But at the last possible moment it swerved in an almost perpendicular climb that carried it up to the mountaintop beyond.
Surely they had been sighted! Farree could not understand why they had not been cut down, at least with a stunner. Perhaps those thought to let Maelen open the way for them and then take them.
He glanced back at the woman: Her arms spread wide, she was touching with the tips of her fingers this and then that of the circling patterns of color her singing had brought forth. But there was no answer. At last her mind send, as strong as Lord-One Krip's warning, rang out.
"Come! This is Thassa sealed and in this body it will not answer to me. Come!"
He sprinted up the road which had been such a laborious climb for the other two and faced the doorway between Maelen and the stones. She set her own hands upon the backs of his and moved them from place to place in a swinging pattern. At that moment Farree had little hope that Maelen's suggestion would bring any success. He turned his head upward as far as he might to see where the flitter had vanished in that last upward swoop.
The sound of the craft still echoed loudly in his ears, and he could only hear at intervals the hum of song that Maelen still wrought to open the door.
Back and forth Lord-One Krip's hands moved under her control. Then —at last – there was a grating. The sound of stone scraping stone – of something long held moving again. A crack appeared, not as the thin line the ring outlined but as a darker space. Forward moved that layer of wall and Maelen pulled Lord-One Krip to the right side, Farree taking three steps to their one to join them. Outward it moved but not far, as if the disuse of centuries had so frozen it that there could be no real release. But there was an area of dark. The Lady Maelen, dropping her hold on her companion, squeezed through it, Krip following closely on her heels, and after them Farree.
His hump scraped the stone in spite of his turning sidewise and the pain of it made him gasp and stumble. Then he was in the dark where only a pale radiance of the ring reached in from the outer world.
Maelen had swung about, and Lord-One Krip reached out a long arm and jerked Farree to stand beside him as the hum broke into words – a chant which sealed the entrance to this place of darkness, leaving them in a lightless place of age-old stone.
Then there was the gleam of light again. Far softer, and more limited as to reach, then the radiance without. However, they could soon see after a fashion by the small globe balanced on the Lady Maelen's palm. Farree felt a clutch on his breeches and reached down to scoop up Toggor.
The Lady Maelen tossed the globe of light and Lord-One Krip caught it deftly. She was breathing in small, fast gasps as if she had been running, and there were beads of sweat trickling down her face like tears.
Lord-One Krip held out the globe and swept it from side to side, but all they could see were rock walls shading off into clouding shadow and a dark opening before them where perhaps the road they followed continued on into the heart of the mountain.
"They may have a distort with them," Lord-One Krip said. "If so, it will not take them long to – "
"Ah, but we shall not wait!" There was purpose and power in her answer, even though she stumbled when she took a step forward. Farree caught one of her dangling hands, set it upon his shoulder in spite of the ache of his hump, and stood ready to be her support. To his satisfaction she accepted his aid, and he felt her lean against him as they moved on, Lord-One Krip with the globe of light going ahead.
Perhaps it was because the third ring's beam did not reach here, or because that which had been awakened by its gleam had been only on the outer door, but here there were no glittering bits on the walls to add to that limited light. The stone, though it showed the marks of tools here and there, was otherwise bare.
Their road ran straight for a space and then began an upward slope. At first the incline was not enough to cause them any difficulty as to footing. Even as he climbed, taking what he could of Maelen's weight, Farree was listening.
If those hunting them did have a distort, they could open this way as easily as an innkeeper could slash open a melon.
Then a sweep ahead with stunner or laser would bring the three all into Guild hands. He was glad of that upward slope for that very reason.
As they went that became more pronounced. Until Lord-One Krip, crowding against the right-hand wall, lit pockets chiseled there, meant surely for fingergrips. Farree steered the Lady Maelen until she laced fingers in the nearest. He could no longer support her and climb, as he had to stretch nearly tiptoe to set his hand in any of the holds, for these were hacked nearly shoulder-height for Thassa.
Their retreat slowed nearly to the same crawl which had sent him up the outer road. The Lady Maelen, nearly drained of strength by her singing, shifted from one hold to the next with obvious difficulty, though she made no complaint. Finally Lord-One Krip stopped short and said: "Take this and the lead, Farree. I will see to Maelen."
He obediently crowded past the other two, obliged to hold to them before he could accept the globe and use his other hand for the wall. Steeper still grew the road. So far they moved in a silence broken only by the sound of heavy breathing or the faint swish of some article of clothing against the wall.
Toggor climbed to Farree's shoulder and extended all eyestalks, staring ahead as if he could either pierce the dark so or was trying to. It was a chitter from him that brought Farree to a stop. The smux saw or scented something ahead.
"Stay!" For the first time he took it upon himself to order t
hose two who had commanded his life since they had met in the Limits. "There is something ahead." It was Lord-One Krip's strength the Lady Maelen needed now, and not his lesser aid.
Farree pulled himself forward at the same slow speed with which he had climbed the road without, expecting any moment to see the way before him once more walled, and he wondered if the Lady Maelen could sing again an open door.
What the limited light of the globe showed him moments later was a stair leading up. Only down the side of this trickled moisture which had stained the stone with encrustations and given life to some strange and ominous-looking growths pallidly yellow and dankly gray in the globe light. There was movement in one such growth as the light fell across it. A thing of thin spotted wings flew up nearly in Farree's face.
"There is a stair," he called behind. "But it is wet here, and the footing may be even worse—there is water. ..."
"We come," was the only answer Lord-One Krip made. Farree realized that, in truth, they had no choice but to go forward.
He waited by the foot of that stair and only when the other two reached him did he take the first step, grimacing with disgust as his fingers found the next handgrip half full of a growth which gave forth a putrid smell as he could not help but crush it.
So they went, slow step by step. Luckily the treads were wide and gave them room to stop now and again for a breather. There seemed to be no end to that upward climb. However, after a space the seepage ceased and they were free of the fetid growths and those slimy things which lived among them, eyeless hunters of the dark.
Again it was Toggor who gave warning of a change in their road, chittering in Farree's ear. He passed a warning to the other two. It had seemed to him that the Lady Maelen, instead of gaining strength as she was aided along, was slowly failing even more. Now here was a major test for them all.
A crevice rent the road before them, leaving only a small space where the three huddled together as they looked ahead. There provision had been made for travelers but it was not one which Farree wanted to try.
Reaching out into the dark, in the center of the way, was a span just wide enough for one person at a time to walk. That stretched into a dark where the globe, no matter how far Parree tried to reach with it, did not show them a far side.
He had taken command of their going since the climb began, but dare he lead them over that narrow strip of rock above a chasm? He was not sure. Yet neither could he give the Lady Maelen any help – it must be he to go first.
Already he felt top-heavy and weak of leg. Could he better crawl than try to shamble at his usual pace across? He fumbled with the globe and then plucked Toggor from his position on the hunched shoulder. Tucking the globe into me front of his shirt, Farree placed the smux beside it, giving one clear order. He felt the movement of the foreclaws against his skin and knew that the smux had grasped the ball of light, would hold it with all the safety Parree was able to devise.
Dropping to all fours, the hunchback ventured out on that bridge. He arose again to a sitting position, his feet stuck far out on either side, his fingers gripping the stone with a grasp which scraped his skin painfully. So he pulled himself along with nothing but the very muffled light to show mere inches before him.
As it had in his trip up the sunken road, time seemed to reach forever. There was no end to his scraping advance. His hands were cut and sore, his body ached from the stretching he must do. Yet there was something stirring far back in his mind. Not a feeling that he had done such a journey before – not a distinct memory – but rather that there was a far better way of accomplishing such a journey if he could only remember how. That blocked recall was something which weighed him down now when it was most necessary that he keep a clear mind.
There was an end to the bridge at last. He edged forward, wiping his bleeding hands against his shirt, to make a scrambling half-fall onto a wide space which was indeed the lip of the rift and seemed, solid before him.
He ripped the globe out of his shirt with a speed that brought Toggor with it. The smux dropped to the stone while Farree used the globe, getting to his feet and walking a bit forward, hardly daring to believe there was this solid flooring beneath his feet.
He did not go far, but swung around and did which it took all his strength of will to accomplish, squatted once more to make a return journey, with the light again at the fore of his shirt – Toggor ordered to keep it so as he himself lurched, handhold by handhold, out into the open on the narrow span.
He met them near halfway across. Lady Maelen seated and hitching herself along in the same position he had chosen, Lord-One Krip behind to steady her. Now Farree was forced to go backwards, so offering them what light he could and holding fast only to his contact with Toggor, urging the smux to give all possible assistance with the light.
Chapter 16.
Even the third ring's spectacular radiance did not reach this far down into the gloom. They had gone through the mountain upward, across that dangerous open of bridge, to come out upon, another ledge perch. The bulk of a second peak overtopped them so they were deep in the shadows here. They made the full round of the ledge and found only one place where there seemed to be a promise for descent, though that way was by a narrowed thread of footpath nearly as daunting as the bridge they had mastered in the caverns behind.
What lay in the dark depths of the rift into which they might descend they had no idea. Had they indeed come to the end of any road of escape? Lord-One Krip took up the fading globe of light and made for that dubious path to explore the possibility of their getting into the depths.
Lady Maelen sat with her back against the wall, her eyes closed as if she had not yet recovered the strength she had expended in the opening of the door. Farree prowled up and down the perch they shared in a vain attempt to forget his back. Something, perhaps it was his journey across the bridge, had started in his hump, not only the fierce ache which he felt all through his body, but also an intolerable itching, so that he wished to shuck off his shirt and score his own flesh with his broken nails. He could not sit still and endure this.
Toggor clacked claws across the stone and bent all eyestalks to survey the path ahead. When Farree passed near him he gave one of his flying leaps and caught hold of the hunchback's arm, climbing quickly to his shoulder.
Farree could no longer see even the faint gleam of the globe on the path. Either that roadway had taken a turn – or perhaps the light had at last failed and Lord-One Krip was feeling his way step by step down the slope. To remain where they were if the pursuit was up behind them was folly. To be caught on that perilous way was perhaps even more, yet the uneasiness which filled Farree made him consider that the less of dangers.
"Lady"—he approached Maelen—"can you walk or descend?"
She turned her head slowly and eyed him as if he had recalled her from some long journey.
"They come?"
He attempted to send a probe back through the roadway of the mountain but picked up nothing – not even the deadening defense which marked those wearing their protection against mind send.
"I read nothing. But the longer we stay here – "
"Yes." Even her voice sounded as if it came out of the dregs of fatigue. "I will try."
He lingered beside her as she crept to the head of that narrow downward path. She did not attempt to get to her feet. Farree leaned forward to catch, as tightly as he could, a hold upon her belt.
So linked, they made their way after the vanished Krip at a slow pace, with frequent halts. Farree kept one hand locked upon her belt and the other feeling for handholds along the walls. To his great thankfulness he discovered that there were such, perhaps chiseled by the same makers who had left the similar aids within the inner passages.
The strain on his shoulders brought the fiery pain back again but it was better than just to sit or stand waiting – for what he had no idea.
They came to a place where the trail they crept along doubled back upon itself in a risky curve a
round which they crept or scraped a painful way. It was there that disaster struck.
The Lady Maelen must have trusted a loose stone for anchorage. She cried out and slid toward the edge. Farree braced himself, not knowing whether he could hold or not. She was kicking her legs, striving to find some purchase as he anchored himself desperately. His left fingers were deep in one of the handholds – those of his right hand laced to her belt. However, he had to stand and take the strain of the increasing weight of her body, made worse by her frenzied attempts to find a hold for herself.
The pain across his twisted shoulders was so intense he might have been caught in the full beam of a flamer, unable to help himself, unable to hold her long.
There was a sensation of being torn in two—of agony. He felt as if the skin over his hump had parted. Still he held. And, through what seemed to be his blood drumming in his ears, he heard a cry.
"All right – I have her."
He was clamped into the linkage he had set himself. To free his fingers from the hold on her belt was more than he could do at that moment. There was liquid running down his back, spattering into a pool between his legs. He could not let go even if he would.
Then the weight which was the Lady Maelen no longer pulled him sidewise. Other fingers plucked at his fingers on her belt, prying them loose one by one. He had fallen to all fours when that strain had gone. Now he toppled forward, to lie face down, his shirt wet through, though there was no longer pain in his back.
He was hardly aware when there was a grip on his hand which now dangled over the edge of the path. The night air bit with a chill tooth at his back through what seemed to be rents in his shirt. But before he lapsed into semiconsciousness he felt a hold on first his wrist and then the upper part of his arm, drawing him away from the rim of the depths. For a moment he fought that, but the strength had gone out of him and he had to loose his hold to that grip and the sideward pull.
Then he was down from the path, on a surface which might be another ledge or at least was much wider than the way he had taken with the Lady Maelen. That pain which had centered so in his hump was gone – instead there was a furious itching. He twisted out of the hold upon him and got to his knees, stretching backward with both arms to claw at the burden on his shoulder. At first he thought it was the shirt which tore beneath his raking nails and then he knew it was skin, thin tatters of skin!