by Andre Norton
Kadiya was too tired to sleep and she had to fight against gloomy thoughts of what might lie ahead. Had the Sindona not failed at the doorway below, she would not have such active doubts. Having all her life believed in the supreme Power of the Vanished Ones, to accept any limits for them was to shake all her confidence.
The girl wished that they might have tried to reach Haramis again. Here in the very mountains where her sister had chosen to establish her new home surely there would not have been the barriers they had met in the mires below. But the ban against any use of sorcery held for their own protection.
At length her weariness wore out all her inner questioning and doubts, and she slept without any dreams to trouble her.
The sky was barely the gray of dawn when she awoke within their cramped camp. The form on her right had stirred and was sitting upright. And against the sky at the edge of their crevice perch Kadiya could see the silhouette of two helmed heads, Sindona already alert and at watch.
“King’s Daughter—” It was the merest thread of mind touch, then a clawed paw-hand touched her gently. Tostlet.
“There is trouble?” Kadiya shook the last of the sleep from her mind, aware now of something else—that the sword hilt against her arm was a spot of growing warmth.
“There is—a secret …” That last word was tentative, as if the Hassitti healer was not quite sure.
“Where?”
“Beneath us.”
Tostlet had pushed and pulled away the flooring of the nest, the powdered stuff which had coated the stone when they had cleared the coarse tangled mass. Now her claws scratched faintly on the stone. Kadiya could not see, she could only guess what the Hassitti did in the abiding gloom. But she put out her own hand, felt claws close about it to bear her fingers downward.
There was stone, but also something else. Surely the smoothness of metal! And it was tightly affixed to the stone, set level with the rock. With Tostlet’s guidance the girl traced an angle, what might be the corner of a larger piece.
As she had leaned forward to answer the Hassitti’s pull the amulet on her breast came to golden life, swung out over that portion of the rock under them.
“Kadiya!”
Lamaril’s mind touch. She could always easily recognize it.
“There is something here. It is of Power.”
Those about them stirred; the mind touch must have awakened them all into action. Some drew aside as the Sindona leader joined Kadiya.
By the glow of the amulet she saw his hand held out over that spot palm down.
“Power.” He echoed her own conviction. “Let us learn more of this.”
There was not much room in which to work, but those around them drew back as far as they could. The dusty deposit encrusting the rocks gave forth a faint unpleasant odor as they scratched it up but it was not that of the plague warning.
With their hands and the use of some of the brittle bits of wood, they scraped clear a space to discover something which was indeed metal. As the daylight advanced they could see more detail than the amulet light had shown. What they had uncovered was a grating inset in the rock. The narrow open strips which made up most of it formed a frame clogged with dust. There was no sign of any method of lifting it; the metal seemingly had been fused to the rock about the edges.
“It is of the sleepers’ prison.” Lamaril settled back on his heels.
“It is also guarded,” Tostlet commented. “Noble One, this is a mighty guard—from the ancient days.”
“Indeed. Yet it may serve us. The find is good—”
What more he might have said was swallowed by a thrust of warning which overrode all other mind speech.
“Someone comes from below!”
The chain of Kadiya’s amulet moved as her talisman swung to the left, pointing now toward the outer edge of the crevice. Kadiya tensed. Her eyes were for her sword since she was too far from that vantage place and there were too many crowded in between to see what was happening. The sword had come alive, there was no dull withdrawal in the orbs on the pommel now.
There was a scuttling sound as Jagun dropped from above into the back of the nest crevice.
“Skritek above gather on both sides!”
They were trapped in part by the narrow cliff in which they had camped. The Sindona moved back along the way which had brought them here. Their rods swept beams of light downward across the debris of the nest while the Uisgu fell back to the walls of the cliff to give the others full room, dart blowers in hand. The Hassitti took position among the mire people. Kadiya, perforce, had to do likewise for the moment, the large bodies of the Sindona choking the chimney descent.
She was studying the cliffs on either side. The rock widened out so that this cut was wedge shaped and they were in the narrowest portion. Lammergeier were huge birds, able to bear riders—she had seen Haramis so mounted. So the downsweep into this deserted nest was certainly large enough to admit the smaller voors.
Fire was the most effective weapon against those deadly raiders. But to fire this nest mass would be to also condemn themselves to roasting. The stuff was too dried and brittle to keep flames from roaring up quickly.
In the gray sky flapped wide black wings—certainly voor. What had drawn them here? The cold air of the heights was surely not to their taste—they must somehow be under the control of the follower of Varm. Not only the voor cruised the sky above; a waft of air down the cliff brought the stench of Skritek. The Dark-led party must have discovered this cliff and spread out to come upon them both from below and above.
There was a roar from overhead followed by a rock bounding from the top of the cliff against which Kadiya and a good part of their company sheltered. It struck the opposite side and rebounded straight at them! It hit again, near enough to Kadiya to make her cringe. The Uisgu closest to that point threw himself to one side quickly enough to escape.
That was but the beginning of the bombardment intended to either crush them where they stood or drive them down into the chimney. They were surely in a trap. A voor planed down. Then it twisted and screamed. The Oddlings might be under dire attack of a new kind but they were not so fearful as not to be ready. The creature was falling, turning over and over, and as it crashed into the mass of the ancient nest, Kadiya saw two darts in its body—recognized them for those envenomed thorns Smail had fashioned during their questing.
The rocks continued to fall. There came a scream which resounded through Kadiya’s head. One of their beleaguered company had been struck down.
The voor they could sight weaving back and forth overhead did not try a second attack. But there was no end to the rocks sent to pin them in, if not crush them. Nor was there, that Kadiya could see, a way to reach the attackers on the crest above. Jagun had climbed there earlier, and descended to bring his warning. But to try a second ascent was to face rolling rocks at too great a risk.
They would be safer below. Kadiya mind-touched and those lining the walls began to obey her, moving slowly to the opening down which they must climb.
Now she tried mind touch with Lamaril. What did he and the Sindona face below?
For a moment or two it was as if she looked through his eyes. Skritek were striving to reach the ledge before the curtained door, only to be picked off by rod flashes. Yet still they came, and now she could hear their yammering cries even over the crash of the rock bombardment.
The mind touch snapped as if there had never been such a link. Lamaril? But if he had fallen how had the enemy reached him? She had seen no Skritek get past the edge. Kadiya struggled with all the force she could summon to link again, only to meet a forbidding curtain. Lalan—she pictured the woman in her mind, strove to hold that picture. Dark wiped it out, closed down.
Dead! Were they both dead? She could not believe that—she dared not.
Salin had Power, the Hassitti dreamer had Power of a sort, but now her sword might be their only defense. She must not let the others make that climb down, perhaps into the waiting t
alons of the Skritek.
At her command—though Jagun and Smail stood firm against her until she shook the sword before them and they gave back at the sight of those open glowing eyes—the Oddlings and Hassitti drew back to let her go first.
She needed both hands for the descent, but she must also have the sword at ready. Kadiya set the blade between her teeth, gripping it as tightly with her jaws as she could. The weapon was growing ever hotter and it fretted the corners of her lips. She held on grimly, putting her mind on the handholds and footholds which would take her below.
Kadiya was into the chimney halfway down, when the Power force reached her. It came like the surge of a monsoon-mad river. She clung to the holds, fighting for the strength to keep from falling.
That punishing force changed from a surge to a steady pressure. Continuing down was like lowering oneself into a vast pool of energy which she expected any moment to flatten her against the rock as crushingly as one of the stones the attackers had been flinging.
That pressure made each movement a struggle. The sword between her lips grew more and more like a coal of well-nourished fire. Still, stubbornly Kadiya fought on. Though when she did at last reach firm footing, she clung for a moment or two to her last hold, the Power force so strong now she wondered if she could long stand before it.
With that a-play Kadiya knew better than to again try communication with those she sought. Power might flood along any path of communication, know and seek her out. The sword—Shakily she put up one hand and freed the sword from the grip of her aching jaws. Power attracts Power … But there was no way she could control the output of either the sword or the blazing amulet on her breast.
The girl turned away from the wall and edged toward the open. The weight of the force out there was intense. Surely that must signal that the Sindona were still alive, fighting—or were they prisoners of the same pressure she felt?
Now she could look out upon the ledge. The backs of Sindona who were erect, at least still alive, faced her. She had to twist a little, without venturing out of the shadow of the fissure which hid the chimney climb, to see Lamaril.
He was positioned a fraction ahead of the others, his rod agleam. Facing him was that other, the one she had seen in the sanctuary. Cloaking him was a strange shimmer as if he did not wear armor but rather a force flowing from within his body. His head was unhelmed, and his face plain to see.
There was a smile on his lips. His eyes held small center cores of red. There was no hint of the ravages of the plague about him. Rather he stood with the confidence of one totally in command of himself.
Mind speech—she was sure they were using mind speech, they stood so still in that confrontation. Kadiya wet her sore lips with her tongue tip. Dared she try to pick up what they said? Or would that move somehow disturb the scales—attract attention in the wrong way?
She could not just wait on results. She must know. This had been her battle from the first. These others had taken it on, but she was not to be denied her part in it. The mires were threatened by that shimmer-clad stranger—befouled as even Orogastus had not done. Kadiya reached, seeking the level on which the enemies spoke.
“… there was said this day would come, fool. Your spells broke in the end—I stand here proof of that!”
“But not by you were they broken, Ragar That Was. There was meddling in the mountains, but that meddler is no longer to be called upon. You summoned him, did you not, Ragar?”
“How clever of you, Lamaril. You seem to have become more astute while you lolled about in that paradise of yours all these many seasons. Yes, the one named Orogastus could be touched, even by a sleeping mind. Dreams are very powerful—and dreams a sleeper can use. He could not be controlled, of course—our bounds would not allow open contact—but we fed into his mind that there was a secret hereabouts which was worth the seeking. And he was a most curious little meddler in what he did not understand.”
“Except he did not bring your full release. Rather his action set the pattern for others, Ragar.”
“One needs only a door unlocked, Lamaril. Which now moves me to action—behind you is that which I locked and now would open. He who sent me is not one to practice patience and he has waited overlong.”
“The sleepers sleep,” Lamaril returned calmly. “You shall not disturb them, Ragar.”
One side of Ragar’s mouth moved in a way which made his smile a cruel grin. “Shall not? Such words to me?”
With a flash of brilliant fire he swung his own rod point out. The flames were dark, the red of drying blood, with no honesty of real fire about them.
They met a golden wall raised by the Sindona’s weapons. There was dark smoke and the red flames bored in, darted in flashes from place to place. Twice red fire bore back the gold, only to have the barrier straighten. Kadiya reeled under the backlash of the Power. But somehow that which beat inwardly in Lamaril reached her as well. The Sindona held—but they could not raise a counterattack. Into the other weapon Ragar had poured a raving hatred which was energy in itself—a fuel supplying ever more force. Ancient bitter rage which had been honed through countless seasons, meant to be used when the opportunity arose.
There was even a low keening from that meeting of flame against flame, like that given by some beast not to be robbed of its prey.
Then—a thrust of the flame, a flicker of gold. The flame hit through the gold barrier to the wall of the cliff behind Lamaril. The Sindona on the Captain’s left buckled at the knees—Nuers fell forward.
Ragar screamed his triumph. The dark flame clung to the wall. Even though the golden light flashed back, shutting off its source, it remained to crawl back and forth across the stone.
“Not yet, Ragar, not yet.” There was Oathgrimness in that. Nuers did not move. The rod he had dropped, had snapped and lay as might a dead branch.
“Soon, soon, Lamaril—very soon!” There was a heady confidence in that, like a blow in itself.
24
The light wall of the Sindona continued to hold. The crawling flame on the rock remained alive as well, though there was no sign of the door. A scream shattered the drive of flame energy.
A voor swept down at those on the ledge. It was the largest of the species Kadiya had ever seen and it swooped straight at Lamaril. Without thinking the girl raised her sword, setting the eyes on a line with that diving death.
From the great eye on the pommel shot a finger-wide beam which caught the head of the bird of prey. The voor uttered no more cries but twisted in the air to fall as heavily as a stone.
Into the battle of red flame and gold light hurtled the plummeting body. There followed a flash of brilliant fire, strong enough to blind Kadiya for the moment. Then she heard a cry of triumph, not mind sent but uttered aloud. The line of golden light had broken, the red flame licked out avidly at Lamaril.
Again Kadiya, without thought, turned the sword against the attack. This time there was no answer. Lamaril had gone to his knees and the light of his rod dimmed. That attacking fire flared high beyond him, straight for the hidden door.
“Out—away and out!”
The cry rang in her mind. Kadiya held the sword in both hands. Her bringing down of the voor had caused this, broken through the Sindona defense. She could see them only through tearing eyes, for the burst of fire still half blinded her.
If that door opened now—if those within came through—Lamaril and his people would be caught between two attacks, crushed.…
She pulled farther back. There was only one slim chance, so slim that she could not count on any success. Still, she knew she must take it.
Kadiya turned her head. Crowded tightly behind her were the Hassitti and the Oddlings, some of them still clinging to the walls of the chimney because there was no room to move out below.
Did the rocks still crash down up there? Perhaps that which she must seek would be entirely buried—yet there was a chance, a chance.…
“Jagun.” She sighted the hunter among those pa
cked so tightly behind her. “I must go back—”
The others picked that up quickly. She heard murmurs, the chittering of the Hassitti.
“If there is another way into the place of the sleepers, we must use it and attack!”
They were moving in the chimney, reclimbing, to clear the way. She saw Jagun swing to a newly vacated spot and reach for a handhold. Kadiya squeezed through—Salin and two more of the Uisgu, the Hassitti somehow giving her room. Once more she took the sword in her jaws, withstood the heat which held in it, rising to a greater level with every passing moment. So she climbed.
Those who had proceeded her were once more plastered against the walls of the crevice. The hail of stones had stopped, but there were piles of them across the stretch of the nest. And surely there must be lookouts above to make sure their quarry did not venture here again.
What she sought lay in the open, plain to the eyes of any watchers above. Yet she had no choice. Kadiya took the sword by its blade and surveyed that broken mass before her desperately. The grid—it must lie … there!
Something pressed against her from behind, and she heard a loud, impatient chittering. The Hassitti had followed her up. She nearly fell as the first of them shoved past her.
Kadiya tried to warn it out of the open with her other hand, but it had fallen onto its belly and was skittering out into the nest makings, burrowing into the pile of stuff they had swept aside earlier to uncover the grid. There was a rise of dust, the scent of the ancient foulness of long dried droppings.
Stones? Kadiya’s upward glance searched the edge of those cliffs. No sight as yet of any Skritek on guard.
She went to her own hands and knees and then even lower, crawling, wriggling as had the Hassitti out toward the grid. The dust whirled about her. She dared not cough, for once more she held the sword between her teeth. Always she listened for Skritek yells of triumph, the sound of falling stones.